Please, Please, Please Vote To Send Me To Tobago
Jan 12 2009

So I’m not really sure how the winner will be selected or how much the independent voting counts but in case you missed it, I entered a contest to win a $5,000 trip to Tobago.  I mentioned things like steel pan drums, blue water, cabana boys, foot massages, and 4 bedrooms in my contest entry post that was exactly 350 words long.  I NEED this vacation like a fish needs water and to have it for free (well there’s no such thing as a free lunch — so almost free) would be blissful.

So if you could be so kind as to click this link: http://blog.homeaway.com/node/42 and hit the Vote button, I would be ever so grateful…well as grateful as any gal can be to people she might or might not know who vote for her to win something fabulous based on a blog entry. 

When you hit the Vote button it will bring you back to my blog and show you the original entry.  At the top of the browser, you will be asked to enter your email address in order to vote.  Of course HomeAway, the sponsor of this competition, wants to make sure the voters are legit!  Voting is open until January 15, 2009 I think.

UPDATE: You should get a confirmation email with a link you HAVE to click in order to confirm the vote.  If you don’t get it, please check your junk/spam folder and if you still don’t find it, please email Victor at Victor at vwang@homeaway.com and let him know.  I know this is a lot of steps…too bad this isn’t for a $20,000 vacation so that all of you could come with me! 🙂

THANK YOU from the bottom of my weary brain and heart that both long to sit under a palapa listening to the sound of the ocean and tropical birds, while sipping the perfect pina colada. 😎

Calgon Take Me Away
Dec 28 2008

Yes, I need a getaway (click this link if you want to learn how to enter the contest yourself) and here’s my entry to win a dream vacation valued up to $5,000 from Home Away in exactly 350 words: 

Actually, Calgon can’t help me now.  The day job, after hours job, two kids, husband, a house, financial crisis, etc. have taken their toll.  And the 1970’s Enjoli perfume commercial (click on the YouTube link to see a beautiful, perfectly figured, exceptionally tall, blonde woman who wears 3 outfits in one day strutting her stuff!) that glorified women bringing home the bacon, frying it up in a pan, doing laundry, and never letting you forget you’re a man is a bunch of bull corn.  Yes, I said bologna bull corn.  Hitting her man on the head with the frying pan is much more realistic! 

So yes, I need a getaway to a warm, sunny, seaside location where I can sit under a palapa sipping margaritas, pina coladas, cosmopolitans, Mexican Martinis, oh heck why not some straight up tequila shots!  Somewhere (with a beach view) that I can wake up the next day not hung over (hey, this is a dream vacation, right?) with svelte cabana boys (ssshhh, don’t tell my husband) waiting on me hand and foot…especially foot.  I’m a sucker for a good foot massage… 

So you might be asking yourself where is this location that I can blow $5,000?  Is it in Mexico, in Asia, South America, in Europe, or even on this planet?  Well my first choice of Tahiti apparently does not yet exist in the Home Away network, or I’m not capable of using the search feature correctly…which is quite possible.  So I had to settle for Cuba.  Just kidding! 

But seriously, I’ll take Tobago because there were far too many options for Hawaii for my currently stuffy allergy and/or cold ridden head to process.  I’ve been to Tobago on a work related trip many years ago.  The water was the bluest I had ever seen and the steel pan drums were the steeliest I had ever heard.  So check out Jacaranda house (click to see the property). It has 4 bedrooms (for the cabana boys and my girlfriends), 3 bathrooms, and rents for $2,086 to $3,129 per week.  Ahhh, I can smell the coconut rum already…

Nacho The Party Puppy!
Dec 14 2008

Now for a post on the lighter side of life.  I’m sure my reflective/transformational posts might be too heavy for some readers.  Lord knows when I re-read them, they remind me of my roller coaster ride called life.  Did I mention roller coaster rides make me sick? 🙂

So now for something fun!  This post is about a book about Nacho, a dog who apparently likes to party.  Two people I know (Janet Mitchell and Bonnie Caver) are friends with the writer (Emma J. Virjan) and gave me a copy of the book.  It’s such a fun read and both my kids enjoy reading it.  They think it’s funny that this puppy has a party in a tub, in a box, and eats hot dogs.  It’s a flip book with colorful pictures and cute sayings.

My kids love this book and it could make for a great stocking stuffer or Christmas gift!

I Wanna Write A Blog Post, But I’ll Settle For A Haiku
Nov 12 2008

And I wanna be a cowboy too, but given my crazy self-inflicted schedule of two, three, four, five (yes each kid, the husband, and the house are also job-like at times), I can’t seem to find the time to get all those deep and meaningful posts written.  So, I’ll have to settle for a haiku and hope I win a MacBook Air.  Copyblogger is running a contest where the person who writes the winning Haiku on twitter will win a MacBook Air.  The second and third prizes look interesting too, but winning the MacBook Air will impress my husband more than the Epson printer I just wrote about. 🙂  

Not being one who writes haiku’s often (i.e., probably not since 5th grade), I had to rely on these examples from the Copyblogger post:

“Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. It consists of 17 syllables broken up into three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively.

Here are two quick examples found on Twitter Search with the tag #haiku:

Been up way too long / Need about a week’s more sleep / Might not be enough

~ @MFlanders

The furnace is fixed / breath invisible again / how much is the bill?

~ @badboc

Got it? Obviously, the more clever, comedic, or compelling your haiku, the better your chances of winning.”

So here’s my haiku:

Working day and night / To change the world for parents / One diaper a day

I was going to write at the end ‘one diaper an hour’ but since it’s late and my brain isn’t at 100%, I wasn’t sure if ‘hour’ would be read as one syllable or two depending on what city/state/country the judges were from.  So I changed it to ‘a day’ to avoid any controversy.  Plus it can be a stinky (wish you could change that diaper more often) experience in a a start-up/small business/Internet endeavor so I figured if the diaper shoe fits…

Halloween Costume Craziness
Oct 24 2008

We’re just a week away from Halloween and last weekend we got around to thinking about costumes.  Our son has been telling us for months he wants to be Luke Skywalker but when he walked into a Party City store last Saturday, he decided he wanted to be a Stormtrooper.  I think he might have mentioned it once before and I think I said ‘aren’t those the bad buys?‘ and he said ‘Mom, there are good stormtroopers and bad ones and the one I want to be is a good one.‘  I said ‘Really? Well I guess that’s OK then.’ 

So it was chaos at Party City and they were out of his costume.  Our daughter decided she wants to be a princess.  Where she gets that I don’t know because I’m pretty far from the princess type (or shall I say dress-up-like-a-princess type 🙂 ).  I was a tomboy.  I never had any interest in Barbie Dolls growing up so I’m guessing she’s probably going to go all sugar and spice and everything nice on me!  They had a costume she liked, but the bag was broken and I asked the gal who worked there if it had everything and she said it did…well of course it didn’t.  It was missing the tiara.  She gave me another one which had a tiara but it was taped (yes scotch taped!) together because it was broken.  I was annoyed they would actually try to sell that to some unsuspecting soul, and we left. 

We came home and did a search on Amazon but couldn’t find what we liked at the price we thought reasonable.  So much to the dismay of our kids, we had to put off the costume finding one more day.  They did have some cute stuff on Amazon and if you are still looking, you can shop for costumes (linked to Amazon) or Halloween music (linked to Amazon).  If you use those links to buy something, a few cents (literally) will go into my Amazon account and some time in the next decade there will be enough in there for them to actually pay me for promoting their Halloween stuff for them! 

So my husband took our son to another Party City while I stayed home with our daughter who decided to throw up a few times after going to Maker Faire last Sunday, and they found a Star Wars Clone Trooper costume he liked and a different princess costume for our daughter.  She liked the costume.  So all was well in the household for at least a few hours and she didn’t throw up again. 

The End!

A Mexican Vacation
Aug 4 2008

We are visiting family in Mexico which means posting has been and will be light for the next week or so. I’ve seen some interesting things during our visit to do posts about later ranging from tamale stands to gorgeous flowers to street peddlers to laughing kids.  Our flight was thankfully uneventful and so far our trip has been really nice.

We took our first overnight trip away from the kids since they were born!  My wonderful sister-in-law and brother-in-law were kind enough to watch them while we took a two day escape to San Miguel de Allende for the weekend!  It’s so great to have family with older kids who like to play and watch our kids. 🙂

So in the meantime, here’s a picture from San Miguel for your viewing pleasure:

A Dream You Have Will Come True
Jul 30 2008

Photo by Sandy Blanchard
Yes, the title of this post is yet another fortune cookie fortune that I got at lunch at P. F. Chang’s yesterday.   And yes that means my brain is too tired from working two jobs, taking care of kids, and pretending to be a being a good wife to come up with my own titles. 

I will eventually get around to my next post on the painful great lessons learned about Search Engine Optimization, but  in the meantime you can go back and read my What They Don’t Tell You About SEO posts Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 to get you primed and ready for Part 4!

So back to the fortune cookie title ‘A dream you have will come true.’  I’m wondering what dream it might be referring to?  Does it mean night dreams or day dreams?  Does it mean it will come true if I play the Lucky Numbers 3, 56, 32, 38, 25, and 42 that appear under the fortune?  Or does it imply that if I learn how to properly say the word “Peach” (i.e., tao-zi) noted on the back of the cookie in Chinese that it will come true? 

Then I started wondering if I even have dreams that I want to come true?  Being an avid dreamer at night, I often wish for dreamless, deep sleeps since I dream about work, life, kids, etc. while I sleep.  I don’t have scary dreams, just boring, mundane, every day life dreams where sometimes I happen to come up with some solutions to problems but that mostly leave me wishing for more sleep when I wake up! 

So if a dream is a wish and a wish is a dream, I wish for some nights of dreamless, uninterrupted-by-kids sleep.  Oh and I also dream that I will be able to change the world by helping others discover their potential to change the world!

How about you? What is your dream?

Movie Fun for the Whole Family
Jul 18 2008

Now for a fabulous movie-related guest post by Film.com’s mom blogger, Sue Harvey!

Movie Fun for the Whole Family: Trust Mom on Film, and Your Instincts

Mary Poppins photo from film.com credit to Walt Disney
The best piece of advice my husband and I received before the birth of our first child was fairly simple; trust your instincts. Now, this advice was given in the context of when to pick up a crying baby, but we have found it to be just as effective and useful in many other aspects of parenting as well. While plenty of studies, guidelines and groups exist that are ready and willing to tell parents how to raise their children, I believe nothing trumps parental responsibility, engagement and instinct. That said, I’d like to offer a little more advice – advice about movies suitable for families with small children. 

I have been a movie lover far longer than I have been a parent, and many of the films my Mom shared with me when I was a child are the same films my children and I enjoy watching together today. The movies that never fail to entertain us all are musicals. The range of topics within the genre is practically limitless, and some of  the musicals that have been hits with my children from the time they were about three years old thru the present (they are now aged 12, 10 and six) include Mary Poppins (it’s “practically perfect in every way!”), Singin’ in the Rain  (it’s funny, has great dancing, fun songs and memorable characters), An American in Paris (remarkable choreography, amazing music, visually arresting, ‘s wonderful!), Brigadoon (mysterious, magical, beautiful), The Pirates of Penzance (silly story with catchy, quick lyrics, Kevin Kline as the Pirate King and Linda Ronstadt as Mabel), Annie Get Your Gun (delightful, fun, and featuring Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (funny, good music, great choreography), and On the Town  (what better way to introduce your kids to Frank Sinatra?). 

I quickly realized that even they didn’t understand the story upon the first viewing, they generally enjoyed the songs, costumes, dancing and characters enough to want to watch them again, and again, and again. Each of these pictures provides not only good clean fun, exposure to remarkable talent and craftsmanship, but also a cultural education from which they can only benefit. 

Possibly a more obvious choice for family films would be animated features, particularly those produced by Walt Disney’s Studios and, increasingly, Pixar. I own copies of and have seen many of these films more times than I care to recall, as have my children. They, too, are part of our cultural heritage and I would argue that a childhood devoid of  The Aristocats, 101 Dalmations, the Disney Princess lineup, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 (personal favorites of my tribe), Finding Nemo, among others, would leave a gaping hole in one’s cultural education.

However, I would also suggest that allowing a child to watch any of these films unsupervised, particularly for the first time, would be a mistake. In case you haven’t seen them yourselves or have forgotten, most of these features involve at least one dead parent and mortal danger for the heroine or hero. This is the stuff of nightmares and phobias – not to mention many tears. These may be classics, but they can also be scary. 

If you seek the kind of video fare I fondly refer to as the Electronic Babysitter the pickings are rich. PBS produces numerous shows, many of which are available on video in addition to their daily programming, which are not only educational and suitable for even the youngest viewers; they are often tolerable for adults, as well. 

We are our children’s first and primary teachers. I firmly believe that if we introduce our children to the best we have to offer, be it films, books, food, music or personal habits, they will naturally develop a taste for quality. Deciding what “high quality” means to your family is where instinct, judgment and responsibility come into play. While it can be helpful to consider movies ratings, the only one really qualified to decide what is right for your children and your family is you. So, if you don’t have time to pre-screen a film, talk to the clerk at your local video store or your friends or family, or check out a title on line. But remember, just because the company marketing a film declares it to be “fun for the whole family”, doesn’t make it so anymore than a picture without a rating (as most of the above mentioned musical are) is “inappropriate”; trust me. Or better yet, trust your instincts. 

Sue “Mom on Film” Harvey is a mother of three who shares her passion for film with family-friendly movie recommendations on Film.com, a free online entertainment service on Movies, TV, DVDs, celebrity news and more.

Blog Transition Time Period And Fortune Cookies
Jun 19 2008

Now that I took a day job, I’ve been wondering what I should post about.  Should I post about my new job or other stuff?  It also takes time to write meaningful posts and time is harder to come by now.  My new job has a lot to do with helping entrepreneurs or I should say it will once I get past the administrative day-to-day stuff of getting up to speed.

So in the meantime until I figure it all out, I’ve thought about posting about the fortune cookies I get when I go to Chinese restaurants or other restaurants who for some reason hand out fortune cookies. 

Hey, the last time I blogged about fortune cookies, I almost got mentioned in the New York Times!  It started with Comments and Fortune Cookies, went on to Those Darn Fortune Cookies, and ended up with Portuguese Fortune Cookies.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was having lunch with one of my business advisors at a Chinese restaurant in this place in Austin called Davenport village, and I got the following fortune:

“You can’t ride in all directions at one time.”

We both thought it was appropriate considering what was going on in my life.  Of course, I then thought to myself ‘well all directions isn’t the same as two three directions’ and ‘there’s no point in going no direction.’ 🙂

So here I go (the multi-tasker that I am) attempting to go one direction with a few detours here and there along the way…

Kung Fu Panda – A Fun Kid Movie
Jun 8 2008

We took our kids to see Kung Fu Panda today and it was a lot of fun.  Our son enjoyed it more than our daughter.  Because it wasn’t Dora the Explorer or Go-Diego-Go on the big screen, she just wanted to walk around but overall she did a good job of sitting on our laps. 

We saw it over lunch at the Alamo Drafthouse.  We love the Alamo Drafthouse because you can order food and eat it while watching the movie.  It’s sort of like an indoor drive-in theatre!

It’s a cute movie about a Kung-Fu loving Panda who by a sequence of events gets the chance to be the Kung Fu champion he’s always dreamed of being.  He’s not very good so the master has to get creative on ways to teach him how to learn his innate kung fu talents naturally. 

I guess in the real world you could think of a very out of shape, clumsy guy who dreams of being a world famous boxer and then all of a sudden gets the chance to be the heavy weight champion of the world.  The coach only has a few days to get him trained and into shape to fight the biggest, meanest boxer in the world.

Both feats are unlikely to happen but when you put it in a cartoon, everything becomes much more plausible. 🙂

Summer Memories
Jun 1 2008

I was just tagged by Carole at Alias Tex for a meme called Summer Memories.   I was going to work on a longer post today but a sick kid took up most of our time this evening.  She’s sleeping now so hopefully she’ll feel better in the morning. 

This is a light and fun meme that was pretty quick for me to write-up.  A few of Carole’s memories were some of my favorites too.

What are your top five summer favorites?  It can be memories, places to go, things to do, sights, smells, whatever. . . . What says “summer” to you?

Here are 5 nice things I think of when I think of summer:

• visiting my cousins in Ohio
• visiting my grandparents in Sri Lanka
• lightening bugs and the sounds of crickets and cicadas during a clear star-filled night
• swimming at a beach or a pool
• sleeping in late in the morning knowing I had no big responsibilities.  Of course sleeping in with no cares in the world disappeared after graduating from college and became the stuff of fairy tales after the kids arrived. 🙂

Now being in Texas there are also a couple of downsides to summer:

• the often unbearable heat! Hot days and hot/sticky/humid nights
• mosquitos that want to eat you (well me) alive and other weird bugs like June bugs

I’m not going to tag anyone specifically for this meme, but if you feel like playing along, leave your top summer fancies in the comments below or in a blog post of your own!

Have a great summer everyone!

Alltop Keeps Growing!
May 28 2008

I mentioned before that my blog is listed on Alltop Moms.  Well now thanks to Guy Kawasaki, I’m listed in Alltop Startups and for a brief time I was listed in Alltop Twitterati.  I guess I took too long to write this blog post, because I’m no longer listed in Twitterati.  Maybe I can earn my way back into Guy’s good graces (unless they changed the criteria for being listed there) and find another spot on Alltop in exchange for another blog post about the amazing and ever so ubiquitous Alltop concept! 😉

He also added an Alltop Adoption page so for those of you interested in people who write about adoption, adopting kids, their adopted kids, and other people’s adopted kids, check it out!

The Tooth Fairy Came To Visit
May 22 2008

Our 5 ½ year old son just lost his first tooth yesterday and the tooth fairy paid a visit to our house last night for the very first time.  He lost it at school and had it haphazardly carefully wrapped up in a paper napkin when I picked him up.

He was so excited to tell me about it!  He held the mangled paper napkin and kept fussing with it in the car.  We came inside and I opened the napkin and it wasn’t there!  I was probably more upset than him and asked him if he thought he dropped it at school and he assured me he hadn’t.  I kept asking him a million questions and he said it was probably in the car.  I was nervous that it wouldn’t be there and I would have to deal with a very upset 5 year old (and huge feelings of mom-guilt), but he climbed into the door and he looked around his booster seat and he found it.  Talk about breathing a million sighs of relief!

He didn’t want to tell his dad (who was out of town) about it until we picked him up at the airport last night.  And even then he wanted to keep the tooth at the house until we got back from the airport.

It was a very exciting milestone in our house! Not being sure what the going rate for the tooth fairy was, I put the question out on twitter and got some great replies:

We ended up giving him 4 quarters which he seemed very happy with.  He put them in his piggy bank right away.  I asked him if he wanted to buy something with it or save it and he said ‘save it’ which made me happy.  I’m not sure what he’s saving it for though.

His other bottom tooth is loose, so I’m guessing it will fall out soon.  I’m not sure how long it takes for all the baby teeth to fall out, but he could make quite a bit from the tooth fairy by then. 😀

7 Years of Marriage
Mar 31 2008

Today is our 7 year wedding anniversary.  It’s been 7 years full of great memories, can’t-stand-you tender moments, tears, laughs, sleep deprivation, two wonderful kids, career changes, life changes, great travels, fights, hugs, great conversation, and love.

Happy Anniversary dear hubby!  Here’s to 7 more years of good luck, interesting adventures, good health, surviving parenthood, and happiness as we travel this journey of life together! 😀

It’s Leap Day! It’s Leap Day!
Feb 29 2008

Given that I’ve been busy fundraising (i.e., pulling my hair out!) and haven’t had much time to come up with any interesting new blog posts, I thought I’d do a post on Leap Day.  February 29 only comes around every 4 years so here’s an off the cuff poem about Leap Day to brighten your day, make you smile, or at least make you scrunch your forehead…

Leap Day, Leap Day where did you come from?
Leap Day, Leap Day where is your home?
You arrive every 4 years and soon you are gone.
You remind some of us of lizards or frogs
And others of leaping antelopes, hogs or dogs
But some of us wonder why the heck don’t we have the day off!
                                 Aruni Gunasegaram, February 29, 2008 11:45 a.m. CST

Happy Leap Day everyone!  May the extra day bring you one special day closer to achieving your 2008 goals. 🙂