Hoochie Coochie Man

Just a little blues for your Sunday morning. Last night Chris went to City Stages for the Buddy Guy concert. Here’s a video clip:

Hoochie Coochie Man .

I admit, the only reason I know who Buddy Guy is would be because I’m married to my husband. Otherwise I’m sure my blues knowledge would be limited to BB King, since I’ve been to his restaurant in Memphis and, you know, he played with U2.

Goodbye Girl

We said goodbye to Allie today. With the craziness of our move and not knowing what is going to be happening in the next few months we couldn’t really take her with us to Texas, especially since we will be staying with my mom for a bit until we get settled in a new place. She is now living with a terrific family with three girls (a teenager and 9 year old twins), a male dog that’s about the same size as Allie, and an acre/fenced in yard. I think she traded up. Big time. Chris is going to miss her terribly, but she’s better off at her new home.

Goodbye girl!

Garage Sale

Today and tomorrow we are having a big garage sale and getting rid of a bunch of stuff we don’t want to move to Texas. It was quite a task to go through the entire house and pull everything together. Especially with Daphne attached to my side. I need a break!!

A few items (like my Medela Pump In Style, our deck furniture and grill) went directly up on Craigslist instead of into the garage sale pile. I was really surprised at the amount of stuff on Craigslist lately. This time last year I was stalking Craigslist looking for a solid wood, vintage dresser to use in Daphne’s room. Couldn’t find anything. This year there is easily 3 to 4 times more items on the Bham Craigslist furniture section. Must be the economy. The only thing we sold that I will really miss is our Weber gas grill. After it was picked up, Chris and I looked at each other and said, “What are we going to eat for the next two weeks?” Easily 75% of what we eat for dinner in the spring, summer and fall is cooked on the grill. A new grill will be one of the first things we get once we are settled.

Like I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is garage sale part 2 and we are also possibly giving Allie away to a great family. Sunday is house cleaning in preparation for meeting a realtor and whatever Chris wants to do since it will be his first Father’s Day. I’m exhausted. Daphne is just sucking the life out of me lately. I know it’s just normal 9 month old clingy stuff, but it couldn’t come at a worse time. And she doesn’t want to be in the Ergo, BabyHawk, Hotsling or her stroller. Daphne still wants to be able to have her freedom and jump and crawl, she just wants me to be right at her side. Luckily she is napping now and I think I might go join her, while I have the chance.

New Top

A few posts back I detailed my problems finding a few casual tops. While we were at Belk I saw an embroidered peasant top and thought it looked really cute on the hanger, but would end up looking like a potato sack on me. But in true What Not To Wear fashion, I tried it on anyway. I mean, you never know, right? Here’s the top, but I bought it in black with white embroidery:

Once I got home I tried it on and told Chris to tell me the truth, “Does this make me look like a grandma getting ready for a cruise to Mexico?” He laughed (because he thinks it’s funny I’m always so descriptive) and told me, “No, you just look like you are from Texas, and it’s very flattering.” So I asked a follow-up question, “You mean like I’m getting ready to go out for margaritas?” Yes. Good, so I didn’t have to go back to Belk and return it. Today I wore it with a denim skirt and black sandals to Daphne’s Dr. appt. The shoulders were already falling down on me a bit, so I used some Hollywood Tape to stick the top edge of the sleeve to my bra strap. What I didn’t think about was wearing a really wide, stretchy neckline and carrying a grabby 9 month old. Perhaps I need to think about wearing a tank underneath the top, otherwise I’ll need figure out how to Hollywood Tape the entire neckline. I can’t be flashing everyone and unfortunately all Daphne wanted to do was pull on it. Since I’m probably a foot shorter than the model above (ok, probably not a foot) it looks more like an off the shoulder top and the neckline is a whole lot lower. I still like it though.

Little Peanut

We had Daphne’s 9 month Dr. appt today, which actually was more like her 9.5 month appt. She’s still a little peanut at just under 17 lbs and 27 inches long, which works out to 19th and 47th percentiles respectively. There was a 7 month old girl in the waiting room that I swear was 30 lbs (ok, that’s an exaggeration, but she had to be over 20 lbs). She could have kicked Daphne’s butt. She was like a sumo wrestler with a pink bow. Definitely future playground bully material.

Everything else went fine. She’s progressing normally. The Dr. didn’t think it would be long before she was walking. Yeah, still not ready for that. Still has no teeth and no signs of teeth. I guess they are all going to come in at once. Daphne, as usual, was quite the charmer in the waiting room. The receptionist is also named Daphne and today was her 40th birthday. So Daphne got to wish Daphne a happy birthday. By then Daphne was ready to get the heck outta there so we headed home for a nap.

Singing Along

I realized a few things today while out shopping with Daphne. First off, you know you are getting old when all the stores are playing music you really enjoyed as a teenager. Not instrumental versions or muzak, the actual songs and they are considered retro now.

Second, my father used to sing along to whatever music was playing in a store and that used to embarrass the heck outta me. I can vividly remember being on the escalator in Bloomingdales at the Valley View shopping center in Dallas, TX, sometime in the late 80’s and my father is SINGING along to “Rag Doll” by Aerosmith. But he didn’t quite know all the lyrics (hell, I don’t even know how he knew the song to begin with) so it came out, “Rag doll, duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh.” Want to hear something really scary. I. Do. The. Same. Thing. But at least now I have an excuse. I’m just singing to my little girl. Yeah, that’s it. The other day at Publix I found myself singing along to Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House. And today while at Belk “King of Pain” by The Police started to play. Now, “King of Pain” is in a three way tie with “With Or Without You” by U2 and “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel as my all time favorite songs. So I just HAD to sing along. I was just getting to the “I have stood here before inside the pouring rain…” part when I noticed an employee looking my direction and smiling. Then I looked down at Daphne and sang “With the world turning circles…” in more of a baby talk voice. BUSTED.

No Luck

Hopefully I’m not the only woman out there who is ready for the empire waist/babydoll top trend to die. Any extra fabric or gathering at the waist just makes me look pregnant. And I don’t think I’m alone. I’ve seen many women in similar tops and thought they were pregnant. Nope, just an unfortunate shirt.

Today I was scouring the mall for outfits to wear to Chicago later this month. I wanted some bermuda length shorts and some cute but casual tops. I actually had no problem finding shorts. I bought three pairs, and a black skirt. Go Jenny!! I tried on a million tops and nothing looked right. Normally I have the opposite problem… easy to find tops, but impossible to find bottoms I like. I’m going to blame breastfeeding. I have no idea how extended breastfeeders do it. I’m so ready to be back to my normal size. So, so, so, so, so ready.

Anyway, I even tried on stuff that I wouldn’t normally pick out. Which works for people on What Not To Wear, but not so much for me. And to help matters, Daphne was fussy the whole time we were at the mall. I didn’t bring my Ergo or BabyHawk, just the stroller, and Daphne wanted to be held the whole time. I should have just left, but I made the effort to drive all the way over to Hoover and wanted to get some shopping done. Later we met Chris at our favorite cheapie Mexican place for Happy Hour, and after a margarita I was ready to hit the mall again, this time without Daphne. Still didn’t find anything, but I did go to Sephora and bought a LORAC Croc palette. So freaking pretty:

Why have I never tried a LORAC shadow or blush before? Really nice!! The blush is super pigmented and the shadows are gorgeous. I’ve been wearing LORAC Lip Polish in Kiss for a few years, but never gave the rest of the line a second look. I used to be a major makeup junkie, but since having Daphne I admit I very rarely put on a full face of makeup. Why bother when it’s usually just Daph & I at home. I do love playing with makeup though. I’ll probably be wearing a basic Old Navy v-neck t-shirt in Chicago, but my eyes will look fierce!

Spoonflower

I saw Spoonflower’s site featured on decor8 today. Awesome idea!!! It’s still in beta and not completely open to the public yet, but it allows you to print your own custom fabric. So the next time I need nursery bedding and can’t find a pattern I like, I’ll just design my own fabric and sew it myself.

Good Deals

Just a few good deals on baby stuff to pass along:

Attached to Baby Spring Cleaning Sale. Lots of carriers on sale, including BabyHawk and some solarveil/water slings.

MamaBargains.com, kind of like Woot, but for baby stuff.

Janie and Jack’s Season Finale sale starts tomorrow, but some SF prices are already online.

Swim Diaper

I bought Daphne her first cloth diaper today. Actually it’s a swim diaper (Bummis Cloth Swimmis), we are starting out small. Eventually I might branch out and buy a small stash of regular cloth diapers and see how they work for us. I figured we’d be getting in a lot of swimming in Texas and might as well buy a diaper that’s reusable, instead of packs of disposable swim diapers. I can’t wait to try it on her. (Something else that’s cool… I looked up a few shops near my mom’s house that sell cloth diapers and babywearing stuff. How fun will it be to walk into a store and touch an item instead of only being able to view online?!)

I was thinking about how we will have more opportunities to swim in Houston, and that if I had not lived in Alabama I might be excited about being closer to the beach. Now that I’ve seen the white sandy beaches and pretty green water in the Alabama and Florida gulf coasts, Galveston looks pretty nasty. I make it a point to never swim in murky, muddy water (And yes, that would be because I’m afraid of sharks/fish/marine life, and I realize that’s crazy and have made peace with my dysfunction. And I don’t swim in lakes because of the final scene of Friday the 13th, and because fish might touch me, or snakes). I might be confined to swimming pools in TX.