Hip to be Mom» Events & special occasions

Sunday Shopping – Valentine’s Day gifts for the tech-toting teen or woman

Clairity — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:55:35 +0000

Be&D Turnlock Flap Ipad Case – Canvas (Lemongrass)
Love, love, love this color and design.

Budd Leather Small Lizard Calf Cell Phone Wristlet
Very cute and practical. Perfect for the pink lover.

cinda b eTablet Cover (Roundabout Red)
Very striking colors.

Lodis Vegas SmartPhone Case (Vegas Lime)
This is my absolute favorite. Thinking of getting one for my new iPhone 4S.

Lodis Siren E-Reader Envelope (Siren Ruby)
Fits the Kindle, Kobo, nook, Sony Reader and select other e-readers and tablets. Doubles as a sleek envelope clutch too.

For a limited time only, save on cases for iPad, Kindle and Kindle Fire.

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Sunday Shopping: Valentine’s Day gift ideas for moms and daughters – Bags of hearts

Clairity — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:04:51 +0000

Like I always say, one can never have too many bags. Unless we were born with 8 arms, we simply cannot do without bags. The more, the merrier!

Make Love Not Trash Handbag Fly Away Tote (Natural)
Vaguely reminiscent of Anya Hindmarch’s “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” but this one says so much more.

Miquelrius Backpack Agatha Ruiz de la Prada Knapsack (Heart Heart Pin)
The one many tweens would be happy to have hanging off their backs.

Ashley M Handbag Marilyn Monroe Large Heart Bag with Chain Straps (Red)
For the vintage lover in all of us.

If you need more gift ideas for Valentine’s, check out this space.

Vegetarian never looked this glam

Clairity — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:40:47 +0000

From as far back as I can remember, the first day of Chinese New Year has always been a vegetarian day for us. The whole idea of going vegetarian is to start the new year by abstaining from killing/harming any living beings in accordance with the 5 Precepts of the Buddha’s teachings.

My grandmother would be up at the crack of dawn to prepare a big (and I mean, huge) bowl of a mixed vegetable and mushroom stirfry. This is the staple dish eaten over rice every single year, even now, and also a regular dish on other vegetarian days of the year.

My kids never really liked this dish. But they’ve been very good about it and have been eating it year in, year out without complaints. Until this year, that is.

Recently, I replicated Chili’s classic nachos at home and it was such a hit that my girls have been calling for an encore. So this year in lieu of that veggie stirfry my girls so dread, we had homemade nachos which are as colorful and glam as disney hotels?

The good thing about making these nachos at home is that we can have, like Skye happily announces, unlimited lettuce, salsa and sour cream unlike at the restaurant where we have to split hairs over the small portions of toppings. Their nacho slices are considerably larger than ours so we have to make a little go a long way.

For my nachos, I use cheddar and mozzarella but you can pretty much use any cheese you like. Bake till lightly golden, and top with sour cream, shredded lettuce and homemade salsa.

So so delicious and so so glamorous you barely even notice it’s vegetarian. I mean, look at this, there’s just no way!

Not your regular reunion dinner

Clairity — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:22:42 +0000

Okay, so our reunion dinner is done for another year… and just in case you’re wondering what we ate, well, I’ll let the picture do the talking.

Scrumptiously moist roast turkey with brown gravy, roasted carrots and potatoes, a simple salad of lettuce and mandarins and red wine

Simple and refreshingly different. Our ancestors are no doubt frowning down on our bold deviation from tradition going, where the heck is the food with auspicious names y’all? With all due respect, somewhere along the line, someone must’ve been born with a non-conformist chromosome!

Long story short, my girls loved our Christmas turkey so much they got me to go out the week after Christmas to grab another frozen turkey for the reunion. Which is a very simple affair as there’s just us chickens at our dining table at home.

For the next 15 days, we’ll be avoiding Chinese restaurants like the plague, unless we get invited out and someone else is footing the bill. A girl friend of mine started this tradition and I must say it’s a darned good one. If you can have Chinese on any given day of the year, why pay double or triple to eat half the regular portion of the same, probably poorer quality food with souped-up auspicious names? Makes no sense.

On that note, here’s to good food, good health and a fantastic year of the water dragon .

Sunday Shopping: Valentine’s Day gift ideas – heart-shaped fashion accessories

Clairity — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:21:58 +0000

Valentine’s Day is just a couple of weeks away. It would be nice to give the ones we love a little gift of love. I know when my kids were younger, they often looked forward to getting a little something, no matter how little. And even mothers and grandmothers appreciate a gift from the heart, if for nothing else, just for the fun of it.

Fossil Jewelry Heart Wrist Wrap (Silver)

This would make a great gift. I love how funky it is, and with an adjustable wrist length too so it’ll fit any size wrist. It even has the key to my heart .

Dillon Rogers Jewelry Love With Heart Bracelet – Medium (Bubble Gum)

I love leather accessories so you can definitely count me in on this one. Suited to teens whom I’ve noticed are really into multiple bracelets.

Bling by Wilkening Jewelry Couture Heart Earrings (Silver)

More for the discerning woman, this one! Very classy and can be worn with practically any outfit.

You can check out more of my Valentine’s Day gift ideas for him and her here.

The red post

Clairity — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:14:54 +0000

The traffic jam this morning was exceptionally horrendous. Aren’t they always? Yes but not nearly as bad unless some vehicle has broken down in the middle of the road and needs rv repair pronto. My usually short commute took me a full half hour.

This is the Chinese New Year rush, folks! There’s less than a week and counting before we enter the Year of the Dragon.

I guess I have it easy. Folks rush out to buy new clothes. We don’t. No big deal, we’re shopping practically all year and our last shipment from Macy’s and Forever21 arrived over Christmas.

Folks decorate their homes with lots of red. We don’t. Being a karma believer, I am less than inclined to believe that putting up red ornaments, red lanterns and lucky plants, and eating food with lucky names is going to change anything. If that’s all it takes to attract wealth, we’d be a worldful of raving billionaires, right? Oh well, to each his own.

Folks rush back to their hometowns. We stay put. There’s no way we’re making a road trip during the holiday season. We’re just happy to own the roads when everyone and their cat leaves the city.

I do, however, buy mandarin oranges which we love to eat, and some cookies for the odd guests who show up. Lesson learnt: I don’t buy a lot of cookies because they end up sitting there for months afterwards. I bought 4 crates of mandarin oranges this year, and that’s it, I’m done.

Yeah, I know, we’re different and we’re boring. But that’s just us!