A quick blog...

Well in an effort to have a small family day today (Sunday) before I needed to work, all of us decided to go spend my gift certificate at Target from the Raffle early this week ( I won $30 certificate). Well we decided to go over the hill to the Target on Blossom hill road. I picked up a new Nintendo DS game called Hotel Dusk: Room 215. Neat mystery game that uses the DS like a book..neat concept - couldn't resist. But that actually wasn't what I wanted to share.

After picking up the game, we decided to cruise the mall to tire the little one out and I wasn't ready to go home yet. :) We found a Borders...I figured hey..let's go in. As we walked around a book caught my eye. I had to share it. It's c alled In the Company of a Courtesan: A novel. It sounded intriguing. Here was the description:

Renaissance Italy enchants in Dunant's delicious second historical (after The Birth of Venus), as a wily dwarf Bucino Teodoldo recounts fantastic escapades with his mistress, celebrated courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini. Escaping the 1527 sacking of Rome with just the clothes on their backs (and a few swallowed jewels in their bellies), Fiammetta and Bucino seek refuge in Venice. Starved, stinking, her beauty destroyed, Fiammetta despairs—but through cunning, will, Bucino's indefatigable loyalty and the magic of a mysterious blind healer called La Draga, she eventually recovers. Aided by a former adversary, who now needs her as much as she needs him, Fiammetta finds a wealthy patron to establish her in her familiar glory. Through Bucino's sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued narration, Dunant crafts a vivid vision of Venetian life: the weave of politics and religion; the layers of class; the rituals, intrigue, superstitions and betrayals. Dunant's characters—the steely courtesan whose glimpse of true love nearly brings her to ruin; the shrewd and passionate dwarf who turns his abnormalities into triumph; and the healer whose mysterious powers and secrets leave an indelible mark on the duo—are irresistible throughout their shifting fortunes. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I put this on my amazon wishlist. I nearly croaked at the $14.95 on the stands..but Amazon has it offered by online sellers for $6.45. Am intrigued.

I've become an Access geek??? What the...???

Well I just read an interesting newsletter that had originally been marked as Junk. I subscribed earlier last year to become a Palm OS developer and thus got the tools to mess around with. It's free..soo why not? Something good to learn, right? Well I knew that Palm Source (makers of the Palm OS) had been bought by a company called Access. This newsletter I got this week said the following:

Last October (2006), ACCESS announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, Inc., had begun the process of changing its name to ACCESS. As part of that process, ACCESS is renaming all products that originally had Palm-based names. The first product to be renamed is Palm OS, which is now known as Garnet OS.

So now I am scratching my head. What the (you enter your favorite phrase here). I am curious as to how they think this is a good idea? Palm I thought was a revered name..but I guess now with the hardware and software split, hardware gets to keep the name and software doesn't???? I guess that's how businesses work, right??

I don't know..maybe this will be a good thing as they can branch it out more..give it a look that they don't think will fly with Palm users might or might not be ok with under the Palm name??? Who knows. Anyway...I am still struggling to get the stupid examples to even build and run on my machine. I am sure I've done something wrong. *sigh*. I may have finally found the tutorials that I am looking for a while back but haven't gotten around to trying it again. We'll see.

Anyway...I shall get off my soap box now. Just was surprised.

Dora & the Journey to the Purple Planet

I totally forgot to blog about this! Irene got her first PS2 game! For Christmas, she received from her great-Aunt and Uncle the game called Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet. She LOVES it. She got the controls down the first day after playing the Earth section. After that it took her about a week to complete all the planets and send her friends home.

She now asks for playing that more than watching TV (which I'll take any day). I highly recommend it to those looking to get a game system. This game also is available for the Gamecube and subsequently the Wii (in case you're looking for longevity that way). The reviews up on Amazon reflected that kids around 3-4 had large amounts of play time with it while those on the older end of the range (6 or so) got bored with quickly.

Once you've played all the levels the child can go back to any of the planets that he/she likes at any point. Irene currently likes the "Red Planet". She's got a big fascination with Robots lately for some reason, so anything with Robots (be it Dr. Who, Scooby Doo, or Dora) is her type of thing.

We saw Doodlebops!

Well, Irene made it to her first concert ever... :) We went to see Doodlebops. The one draw back: it was a 1pm show. Now for those of you that aren't aware, I will explain. Irene still takes naps (most of the time). So we were a bit nervous about the fact that the concert was right when her nap was supposed to be. Attempting to find a way to get her to sleep in the car was not a certain one. Momma thought: oh! well we'll tire her out by running a couple of errands to the store etc and then come home and then having her ride her bike around! Right??? yeah...umm..right. Believe it or not we did do that..but when we went to get in the car..she still didn't nap *sigh*. Momma napped..but Irene didn't (btw: Dadda drove in case you were wondering).

We get there and find that there is a sharks game, a Scientology convention, Doodlebops and a Volleyball competition going on all at the same time. Momma started getting very nervous and biting poor Dadda's head off. But he got smart!!! "Here, I'll drop you and Irene off. Go find the seats and get her settled. I will find a parking spot and meet you there." Momma, seeing logic in this, pulled Irene out of the car and headed towards the San Jose Civic Auditorium.

We got close and Irene began to freak out at all the people. Momma didn't flinch. She picked up Irene, settled her on the hip and took her inside. We found (naturally) more people. Irene squirmed down and had an amazed look on her face. Kids were everywhere. Suddenly, Irene zeros in on one thing - the flashy wavy wand with a flag on top. Who was Momma to argue? one toy right? How much could it be? (I know...you're saying you poor sap..what are you thinking???). Anyway $20 later for the one wand we make it through the main doors on the main floor. Irene walks through with absolute wonder and a little bit of "freaked out" running across her face. Mickey Mouse club house music was playing and Bus Driver Bob was on the stage entertaining the kids for a bit. She stopped dead in her tracks looking at the sea of people. The fear that Momma had dreaded was beginning to appear. Momma bends down and attempts to distract her. Nothin' doin' . She's in partial freaked out mode now..not willing to move anywhere. Then she spots other children going up to find seats. She decides she wants a seat too. Momma is pleased - we're making progress :)

To the amazement of all, Momma and Irene make it to their seats and Irene is showing serious excitement at this point. Freak out is gone and she is happy - wand in hand (I'll try to get a pic for you). Dadda arrives soon after. The last part of the puzzle was her buddie Brooke (from school). The two of them couldn't stop talking about the Doodlebops all week! Short version: Brooke's parents thought they were supposed to be at HP Pavillion when in reality, it was at San Jose Civic Auditorium. They made it about 5 minutes after the show started. We were so pleased. :D

The show was nice, simple, and fun. The girls were absolutely thrilled. Momma took Irene to the front to try to dance, but there were so may "bodies" that Momma couldn't cope and we stopped at the outskirts. Irene of course got very very upset and it was now an hour later than nap time would have started. So the two started to join together. Needless to say, we decided to stay in our seats from then on. Brooke's mom took the picks because Momma was lame and forgot her camera :p. So when I get links to post, I will do so.

So how about that for a nice long post??? :P

I learned something new...

Well I learned something. Awhile ago I switched to Google as my home page. It's all wonderfully customized. In doing more customization tonight, I realized that Google has an RSS reader called Google Reader. It's quite cool. I was able to add stuff here on blogspot and others on 360.yahoo.com. Both read quite well and I added the reader gadget to my home page on google too... :) It's quite neat. Anyway..the new thing I learned tonight...had to share.

*cough cough* *sneeze* blowing away the dust

My god...it's been forever since I posted!!! Last time was Thanksgiving!! *sigh* Well it's going to be a short one today because as some folks know, when time crunch occurs everyone seems to wig out and want to stress others out with it. My latest you ask? Let's try having somone upstairs looking for me and says he can't find me only to let managers know this without even trying to oh..let's say send an email first. *ripping hair out*

Anyway nuf said for the moment. Just had to get that out. Busy as all snot over here. Almost as insane as when we try to ship everything all at once..early..oh..wait..isn't that what we're doing??? *rolling eyes*. We need some emoticons here

My little one has moved on from diapers and pull-ups *snuffle*

Well...I supposed it had to happen sometime. I say it with mixed emotions in all honesty because Irene is growing so fast. She chose her own panties from Disney store and we worked throughout the entire Thanksgiving break to teach her that she should not go in potty in her pants anymore.

Wednesday: *rolling eyes* I truly began to question the sanity of the idea of potty training.

Thursday: break. Thanksgiving day was not the day I was going to tackle this. Back to pull-ups

Friday: Back in panties. 2 poopies - but went pee pee on the potty regularly.

Saturday: 2 pee pees - but went poopy on the potty regularly

Sunday: She got the idea! But we were setting timers this entire time to make sure we'd get her to go every 30 - 40 minutes. Needless to say we were expecting the worst on Monday.

Packed to the gills in clothing and undies in the backpack along with everything else, we trudged to school to find that the schedule was expected to be relaxed. The assistant that usually helps with the younger kids to use the potty and deal with diapers got an amazing shock when she came back to work. Every child that had been in diapers (5 of us from what i understand), all came wear big kid undies that day. Boy was that a shock!

Monday evening I went to pick up Irene fully expecting to have a bundle of ickey poopy undies to have to deal with. Much to my surprise and with each day so far, Irene has been telling the teachers that she needs to use the potty. *dancing happy feet* !!! I am so thrilled.

I must admit though that this continues to show how quickly Irene is growing and how quickly she will no longer need me. *snuffle* *sniff* I know it is silly to say that, because she will always need me (if the # of times I call my mom in a day is any indication), but there is just something sweet to watch and when it is gone, all you have are the memories. Oh well...such is life...and it will move on.

Nice thing: bills go down on the # of diapers and pull-ups we buy on a weekly basis. So much for needing 3T - 4T pull-ups that I bought. :) Anyway, so now we're down to diapers at night and pull-ups at nap. Once this is dealt with it will be amazing. Not sure when it will be, but we'll see.

I am CodeGear!

Well,
Borland (where I worked) finally decided to make a decision *gasp*. DevCo /DTG/Developement Tools Group is now a wholly owned subsidiary. We basically write a big fat check to Borland at the end of the year and otherwise go in our own direction.

I am CodeGear! Hear me roar! More as I understand things better

Holy twin bed MOMMA!!!!

Well, I have to say that we have never had such a wonderful time as we have getting Irene into a twin bed. Yes...I said twin bed. :) She's been in a toddler bed since January of this year. That one was a battle convincing her that sleeping in her toddler bed was ok.

We had taken a different tact this time and decided to "discuss" the matter with her earlier on in the week. Dadda took up the conversation first:

Monday:
Dadda: "So..Irene...would you like to get into a big girl's bed?
Irene: "Suuurrrreee."
Dadda: "Ok. Momma and Dadda will get something setup next weekend."

Wednesday:
Momma: "So..sweetie, Dadda said you'd like to get into a big girl's bed. Would you like that?"
Irene: blank look
Momma: would you like Princess'? or Buzz? or Tinkerboo on your new bed?
Irene: TINKERBOO!!!
Momma: "OK, love. Momma will see what I can find"

Thursday:
Momma: "Ready for a girl's bed?"
Irene: "NO!!!"
Momma: "um..okkay..we'll talk about this later."

Momma decides to take to the winds and stop off at Kmart and see if I could find Tinkerboo. My GOD! I hit the jack pot. I not only found the flannel sheets, I found a comforter and dustruffle. If I get the guts up on the $$$ I'll go back and get the valance for it too..but $15 each and I need 4 to make it worthwhile started to make me feel just a bit unhappy. :(

I stop off at home and "display" the tinkerboo treasure right at the front door. I run back to work totally excited and dancing for the afternoon.

Irene gets home and see Tinkerboo. The immediate "ooooo..it's beeeuuutiiiiffuuuull !!!" came out. Dadda pipes up with "So, Irene. Would you like to get your big girl's bed set up?"

Irene: "NOO!!"
Momma and Dadda look at each other and Dadda says: " ok sweetie. we'll wait. "

We get past dinner and things are calm. Irene goes and discovers her sheets again. She looks at me. I said to her, "You want to pull your sheets out?" Irene's eyes brightened. I figured she'd go out to the living room and pull her sheets out. She instead takes it in her bedroom. Thinking nothing of it, I go to clean up dinner.

Suddenly I get a holler from Marcus of "ummm sweetheart. You might want to see this."
I rush into her room and nearly fall over laughing. She has stripped her toddler bed down to the mattress pad and is trying with all her might to get her new tinkerboo sheets on her bed. Marcus and I look at each other and sigh. We ask again "Sweetheart, do you want your new sheets?"

Her eyes brightened and nods. We end up on Friday night at 7:30 (1/2 before bedtime) setting up the big girls bed. Unfortunately, after trying to wash the sheets out, the smell was so bad still that we opted not to use the new flannel sheets. Ended up taking those back to Kmart today after 2 washings. The smell was that of someone having dunked the sheets in petrol..it was awful. nothing but the sheets were affected. :(

The rest of her bed, came out wonderfully. Needless to say, she didn't want to leave the bedroom much less the house today *sigh*. The bed is adorable and it works really well with her butterfly/flower garden room. :) Will try post a pic or two as soon as I pull them off the camera.

I repeat: Holy twin bed, MOOOMMMAAAA!!!!

PS: she's not cried or argued once about going to bed this entire weekend.

A wonderful dinner

Well I have to say that La Fondue is one of the best places to go to celebrate. Regardless of whether you're celebrating life, birthday, anniversary or just another day. To all of you who made dinner last night such a treat, Thank You.

You will always make my life full of spice and enjoyment.

Other things in life

Well, now that the Halloween post is complete we can go on to other things. Well, I've been working on the cross-stitch piece. For those that don't remember, I've been stitching a butterfly switchplate for Irene's room. I am about 1/2 way through and have learned a load about stuff about what not to do when it comes to working on them. Ex? never do the cutting to remove the holes where the switch & the screws go until *after* you're finished stitching. It's been challenging. :)

Am trying to decide if I am going to do a couple more huck towels after this or if I will start in the big one I want to work on or to continue work on Repunzel for a while. We'll see. Crochet has been calling my name lately and I have a lace piece that isn't finished yet. Thank god I keep maps to know where I left off. :)

With the weather change comes fires in the fire place, Thanksgiving and Christmas, The Nutcracker. It brings with it all things cozy and the enjoyment of cooking, baking and making things for people. We'll be home this Thanksgiving. It's looking to be small so far and then going to my parent's place for Christmas this year.

So all in all, hopefully this will be a calm holiday season (yeah..right..what planet am I on????). :)

Halloween - there and back again quick???

Well, we've moved on through Halloween, and our story is short and sweet. :) The story? The conversation went on like this:

Momma: Sweetheart, ready to go trick or treat?
Irene: NO Trick or Treat!!!

This conversation went on, over and over for about a week prior to halloween. The day of? The same. We even went so far as to take her next door to try it out. My god, you'd think we were killing the poor kid!

Thus the end result: 1 house, 1 candy and all done. She didn't even want to hand out candy or go to the door! She was ALL DONE with halloween. :)


Welll...better luck next year!

Birthday Tidings and Events

Well, my birthday has come and gone and the day was WONDERFUL! I had so many well wishers it was amazing! The most amusing of the day: My mother forgot that it was my birthday - she remembers everything else in the world so something has to give in this push and pull of life. :) Needless to say I was amused when she figured it out.

Another event! My little one had her first field trip that day! I decided to take a 1/2 day off to go and be a driver/care giver if I could. Turns out I took 4 children, including my own plus one of the pre-school teachers. IT WAS SOOOO much FUN!!! We went to Gizdich Ranch on the outskirts of Watsonville. I had never been there and had only heard about it recently. There were a total of 24 kids. It was amazing how these teachers were able to get the children to respond to them and listen. They sat through a 30-45 minute tour of the area and got to pick out pumpkins at the end. Needless to say, Irene wants to take her pumpkin everywhere these days. This morning she asked if we could open it so she could see the seeds. :)

Anyway I took 2 boys and 2 girls and it was GREAT to listen to them chatter and talk about things. Irene I think was in shock to have other kids in the car with her and so was quiet through out most of the trip. Needless to say it was fun and funny and a great way to spend my birthday.

I ended up picking up 3 pies + syrup + jam + teas. I had way too much fun. I got a Very Berry, Apple, and pumpkin pies. The Apple and pumpkin had just come out of the oven and they were amazing. I had quite the time picking up stuff there at that ranch. By the end of it though, Irene was in pieces and tired. She didn't want to eat while we were at the ranch but chowed the entire way home. We got all the kids back to school and I figured Irene would crash.

Guess WHAT! She skipped her nap all together *sigh*. She was in a good mood right up till about the last 10 minutes while trying to get ready for bed. It was a crying fest until we had a story and then she crashed in bed. Her little face was so tired looking I was amazed she didn't just crash on the couch long before 7:30.

Anyway, it was a wonderful evening. I even got a new video game (Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2). Irene *loves* watching us play now. So I'll have to play some more tonight *rolling eyes* gee..you can seem me fighting that one, can't you ;-)

Cross-Stitch update

Well, I thought I would post a quick one before I leave for the night. I am making excellent progress with the switch plate now. I have also learned something else about them. Turns out that if you were to buy switch plate items (without a pattern) they come with this Vinyl Weave "fabric" to cross-stitch on. The "fabric" I guess is what is safe to stitch on if you should ever have a spark on the switch it won't catch it on fire (at least not due to using this stuff I guess). So now I might be on a Switch plate craze after I finish my huck-towel craze.

It's quite an amazing process, but it's definitely harder to stitch on because the vinyl doesn't give like regular Aida or linen cloth.

Just had to share my tidbit on that. When I get more of the piece done, I'll post it here to show what it looks like. Because the other pieces were gifts, I couldn't show mid-process what the product might look like ;).

Off to pick up the little one!

She's discovered Little Ensteins....

Well..my little one has discovered the wonders of The Little Ensteins. *rolling eyes*. She's got momma and dadda doing the "pat pat pat" on the knees and making squeezing with patting to the shoulders to help Rocket (yes..that's it's name) get between tight spaces. So if you're looking for birthday ideas, this is one as we have nothing Little Einsteins yet (only what we get off of cable with the DVR).

just had to share

Inspired by Music

The Immortal Bell

Ringing of the bell this night, a sign of dread to come.

Continues tolling out the time, a sign to flee for some.

Daylight slinks away in haste, as midnight undertakes

Darkness creeps on silent wing, the shadows are awake.

Undead return to mortal haunt, staggering lifeless things.

Floating ghosts move and jaunt, without the use of wings.

Doors remain closed and locked, against the fear of death.

Mortals huddle, close to sleep, shivering with frosted breath.

Candles flicker with the wind, bringing with it fear.

Signs are brought in hope of light, reflecting like a mirror.

Join the bells in immortal song.

While sleeping souls wake ere time long.

Respond ye well, the bell that tolls.

And save ye all, immortal souls.

(c) 2006 SE

Harvest Festival things to do...

Just a quick post, but another outting I needed to share that might interesting to look at

MSN Travel, posted this. It caught my eye because of the pumpkin pic but the ideas were interesting. Had to share.

enjoy

Pumpkin eating :)

Well, it's that time of the year where Pumpkin is popular. So (heaven forbid) I have to go searching for recipes. :) I therefore I went to my favorite web site for food. :)

Cooking Light :)

Have a look at this.

Enjoy! Time for bed now!

Found some neat web sites

so I found a couple of web sites that seem quite useful for those of us with children (see previous post if you're interested in what sparked this).

http://www.santacruzparent.com/

and

http://mbparent.com

Ran across these while watching a commercial in the middle of Mythbusters. :) I *have not* perused these sites much other than to say "oooo pretty colors". But they looked like they had good things in it. Enjoy

What a Weekend!!!`

Well, Saturday was quite amazing. Our little princess of "I must watch my movie a million times" actually didn't want TV on Saturday! Talk about being in shock. I found her instead knee deep in all her toys in her room when I went to bring her food. We had a wonderful day by going to the Farmer's Market, where she was happy to walk around rather than ride in the stroller. *gasp*. We had bought a portable potty for Irene and she used it! Will wonders never cease?? The afternoon wasn't as interesting..but still...it was fun and filled with family and friends.

Sunday, we went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Talk about a wonderful day! The day was gorgeous...warm without a jacket but not hot. It was clear and sunny and not very crowded. We parked on the warf and walked down to Boardwalk central. This was her second time going to the boardwalk itself. The first time, she only made it 1/2 way through before she was tired and ready to go home. Needless to say she didn't ride anything. This time we came a bit earlier (around 11am) and brought lunch with us etc(we've found much better success doing things this way lately). She road the carousel (I had to look up the spelling of this!), the Cave Train, and a ride specifically made for tots - a whale ride that was just the right size. She rode on that one all by herself! I got pics and a movie. :) will post later. She was so excited though, she didn't go to sleep till nearly 2:30 this afternoon. Fortunately she slept 1.5 hours still *sighing in relief* and woke up happy for the most part.

We've decided we need to do this more often. She's so happy and enjoys stuff. I am thinking another visit to the zoo or to Happy Hollow is in order. In August she was so cranky that I thought it wasn't time (as in she was too young), but I really think it had to do with the time we arrived. We didn't get there till lunch time(12pm or later if I remember correctly). We need to be at places by no later than 10:30 - 11am in order for Irene to not be cranky I think. Just too close to nap time. Anyway other suggestions of outting would be useful (also thinking about monterey bay aquarium too). :)

Needless to say this weekend has been WONDERFUL and I just had to share while it was still in my mind.

oh! Getting farther in the new cross-stitch piece. Using the smaller needle is MUCH better. Thank god for supplies. :)

That's all for now!