Hip to be Mom

Too big

May 012012

The other day, I was rummaging through my closet full of old business suits looking for something that Raine could wear to her public speaking class. Back when I was a slave at Corporate Tower, I used to be 1.5 times the size that I am now.

My work days revolved mostly around meetings. I was juggling multiple projects and sitting on multiple steering committees, all of which involved long meetings and sometimes even web conferencing from ActConferencing.com with business associates in other parts of the world.

Oftentimes, our meetings would spill into lunch. Big heavy lunches at classy restaurants. At least they gave us something to look forward to after hours of being holed up in the conference room. Having a boss with a taste for fine cuisine is great but not for my waistline.

I never exercised because there just weren’t enough hours in a day. Weekends and those few precious hours after work were totally dedicated to my 3 kids. As a result, my suit sizes went up, up and away. I don’t think I was ever fat, just flabby in all the wrong places.

Well, I tried on some of my old business suits the other day and they’re all too big for me now. And that, I believe, is a good thing.

1. Either someone’s playing tricks with my eyelids or the weather is truly, madly, incredibly hot because in the afternoon, my eyelids just seem to go flooop.

2. Discovered a new Vietnamese restaurant and we’ve been there twice this past week. Vietnamese food reminds me of lazy college weekends in Cali. That’s where I first discovered beef ball noodle soup could taste so good.

3. Someone please remind me to avoid the mall on weekends. Weekends are rudeness magnified at the mall. Somehow one thing or another would make me head out there and then I end up kicking myself!

4. After a 2 weekend break from the kitchen, our bakery was back into action. We made 2 pound cakes for Skye’s recess. Just for fun, I decided to funky this one up with some strawberry puree. Actually it’s not half bad, just a little more cracked than usual but still very moist.

Carlo Fellini Celeste – Black/Gold

This long evening clutch with a flower beaded pattern spells class all on its own. I love the retro look and feel of the clasp and the unusual shape of the purse.

Nina Handbags MIKKI-M – Tangerine Multi

If you know me, you know I love funky colors and this floral sequin envelope-shaped bag would definitely light up my ~~day~~ night.

Carlo Fellini Eleanor – Silver

A very unusual pleated crossed pattern evening bag that I would have no problems being seen with .

Mother’s Day is just about 2 weeks away. Still stumped for a Mother’s Day gift idea? How ’bout one of these evening clutches?

I’m constantly amazed at the people I’ve met on my travels. I mean, you would think the nicest folks are the ones you would meet on a mom forum or somewhere within your realm but I’ve met some of the most interesting and nicest people while traveling alone.

Once I was in line behind a guy at the information counter at LAX. As you may know, LA Airport is massive and getting from one terminal to another is like trying to navigate a whole city and when you have a flight to catch, the last thing you want is to lose your way and miss your flight.

So happened the guy in front of me was asking directions to the same terminal I was. I overheard the lady at the desk giving him directions and when he turned around, I mentioned I was headed there too and he suggested we should try to find our way there together.

I had a crazy heavy backpack on me at the time. My check-in luggage was overweight on my earlier flight and I’d had to offload some of my stuff to my carry-on backpack.

As we walked, I could feel he was giving my backpack a boost from behind so it would be less heavy on me. And when we reached a point where we weren’t sure if we should keep going or take the escalator up, he made me wait while he went upstairs to scout around. What a nice guy!

He was headed to Peru for a 2-week trekking thingy that he’d been planning for months and I was flying to the opposite side of the planet. We parted ways soon afterwards. Strange how you meet someone for just a few minutes, talk like you’ve known each other your entire lives and then you go your separate ways and you never see each other again.

Has this ever happened to you?

The weekend felt like 4 days instead of 2. I basically closed down my weekend bakery, told my neighbor sweetly that I was too busy to check out that new industrial rubber hose she wanted to rave to me about, grabbed the lovelies and we absconded to the mall. Where we unashamedly camped out for, I don’t know, maybe 2 hours, maybe a whole day, I don’t remember, it’s all a blur to me now .

Did someone ask, hey, what do all you boring city folks do for fun? Y’all cooped up in a concrete jungle, ranting about the traffic all day. Indeed! Just so happens the fashion shows are in town, y’all and that is rare bit of excitement for us!

This year, the crowds were relatively smaller, not that we’re complaining, no no no. We practically owned the front row seats. I think there was like a fashion show every hour on the hour or something like that. I don’t worry about the little details. My lovelies take care of those. I just pay for the food. Fashion chasers have such sweet fun !

Letting in some fresh air

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Apr 232012

One of our neighbors has just had his yard redone. Doncha just love it when your neighbors are remodeling and there’s work crews going up and down with their wheel barrows and push reel mowers and you have to keep all your windows shut tight to keep the dust and noise out?

Well, the good news is that it looks like work has finally been completed and we can throw our windows open again and let in some fresh air. At least the annoyance level is down one notch. Sometimes it’s the little things that get to you, isn’t it?