Busy as a Bee
Things around here have been pretty busy this last week, and it doesn’t look like it will slow down anytime soon. My class is going full-force now with my first group assignment and individual assignment due Monday. Graduate school requires lots of reading! The hubby was out of town last week making for a stressful week of single-parenting, and wouldn’t you know it that I came down with fever and sore throat that was just miserable. I ended up having to take two days off work and just lay around and feel awful. NOT! I ended up going to work with a 100.6 degree temperature and jacking myself up on extra-strength Tylenol and throat lozenges just to make it through the day. At night I took it a little easier letting the kids have whatever they wanted for supper. Finn chose a “Finn sandwich,” aka ham, pepperoni and cheese, hold the bread. Caden chose cookies! I felt so horrible I figured that one night of milk and cookies for supper wouldn’t ruin him for life.
I’m on the mend now, though, and on to the next thing. I’ll be traveling all next week for work, and in my free time on the trip I’ll be researching the effectiveness of using PowerPoint in elementary schools and piecing together a draft of my research proposal for class (which is due the Monday after I get back). Whew! Take a deep breath.
In the midst of all this I edited a 185-page book about Elvis. It was an opportunity that came to me through the professor of the editing course I am taking. In the end, It was a good experience for me both in giving me practical editing experience and something to spice-up my resume. It also paid a little which never hurts. Personally, I found it very fulfilling. The author is 67-years-old and is very excited about the book and seemed very appreciative of my edits and the suggestions I showed him. I felt so warm inside over helping him that I felt bad taking his money. At the same time, I stayed up late about three nights in a row reading it and spent two nights collating edits, so a little compensation for the time sacrificed was nice.
And in the back of mind is the Countdown to Disney. We’re just six weeks or so away from taking an extended weekend vacation to the Magical World of Disney. I can’t wait!!!
Restaurant Review: Five Guys
We ate at a new restaurant this weekend:Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. Two locations opened recently where we live. In fact, the one where we ate was having its grand opening that day.
The short of it: good burger, crispy bacon, and tasty fries. Cost $17 for a family of 4 (my two little ones shared a hot dog) which is a good price for the quality of food. Caution to those with peanut allergies, though. They have peanuts in bowls for you to snack while you wait and, they cook in peanut oil. No peanut shells on the floor though.
The long of it: It was my idea to eat at Five Guys, but as I got close to the door I had second thoughts because I saw the box of peanuts. Yeah, BOX of peanuts. Their “decor” includes boxes of peanuts and large 50 lb. bags of potatoes. Since my 2-year-old is supposedly allergic to peanuts, the presence of lots and lots of peanuts made me nervous. There’s also large signs declaring, “We cook in peanut oil.” My son has eaten food cooked in peanut oil before with no reaction, and since his pediatrician has said peanut oil is fine we decided to stay.
A couple of notes about ordering: If you order a bacon cheeseburger, as I did at first, the sandwich comes with two meat patties. In fact all of the menu items without the word “little” in front of them come with double patties. The nice order-taker informed me of this, and I was so glad she did because one patty was certainly plenty. I ordered the kids a dog to split and told her we needed four drinks, at which point she informed me that kids drinks were free! Get out?!? Kids drinks free?!? HOW AWESOME IS THAT? We’ll definitely go back for that reason alone.
The one downside is limited menu. You definitely have to be in the mood for a burger and fries because that’s all they have. Well, they have a hot dog if you order off the kids menu. Point being, it’s not a good place to go if he wants a burger and you want a salad. At Five Guys, it’s burgers and fries all around!
No Cold Meds for Babies
The FDA is now “strongly recommending” that over-the-counter cough medicines not be given to children under the age of 2.
“These medicines, which treat symptoms and not the underlying condition, have not been shown to be safe or effective in children under 2.”
My pediatrician has been saying this for years and always discouraged me from using anything other than plain Tylenol with my little ones. His emphasis wasn’t on the potential side effects but more that they don’t work and can actually prolong an illness by preventing the body from fighting it. It’s a tough temptation to give your child something to make them feel better when they feel so miserable and just cry or want to be held all the time. But our roles as parents can’t always to make it all better but rather to help them get through it — with time, plain Tylenol and plenty of liquids, just what the Dr. ordered.
Domino Effect
Gas prices are higher which has made food costs go up which has caused my daycare/preschool to raise their prices too. <Sigh>
My daycare/preschool tuition has gone up and up and up every year since I put my oldest son there nearly five years ago. Even the registration fee went up $10 last year, from $50 to $60. What about the registration process caused a $10 (20 percent) increase all of the sudden?
If my children weren’t “settled” there and the program wasn’t so good the rising cost is enough to drive me away. Fortunately, for my pocketbook at least, my oldest son will be starting kindergarten next year. The $3 a week increase in tuition for my 2-year-old will probably not be felt because of the $140 a week decrease when my oldest starts public school.
Now at Target: Global Bazaar 2008
This year’s Global Bazaar is now on Target shelves. I once heard this described as a Pier One store inside of a Target, so if you like Pier One check it out. You can download coupons for $5 off a $50 purchase or $10 off a $75 purchase too. Other blog posts about it here, here, here, and here.
I haven’t had a chance to peruse the whole collection yet but I’ll do that soon and report back on what I like (or don’t like).
New Sheryl Crow
Just saw this new Sheryl Crow video on the VH1 countdown.
Her new album “Detours” comes out Feb. 5. The song on the video — “Love is Free” — is pretty upbeat and fun, kinda reminds me of “Soak up the Sun.” Here’s what Sheryl has to say on her own site about the song:
“The song ‘Love is Free’ is inspired by New Orleans. What struck me about it is the stoicism of the New Orleans people, they are very spiritually based. You can see it in their eyes that they aren’t going to give up, they are going to rebuild.”
You can hear “Love is Free” and another release from Detours, “Shine Over Babylon” on Sheryl’s site. A video for “Lullaby for Wyatt” is on the site too, but I wasn’t as impressed with it. The album is rumored to be her best since Tuesday Night Music Club and deal with her engagement and then break-up with Lance Armstrong, her adoption of baby Wyatt, her battle with cancer, etc.
My hubby always said her best songs came after life struggles, hard times, etc. We’ll see come Feb. 5.
What’s in a Name?
Have you ever experienced baby-name regret to the point where you’d try to change your baby’s name? I recall having doubts about our name choice for my second son, Caden, as soon as we picked it and all the way up to and immediately after the hospital representative typed his birth certificate and social security number application. I particularly doubted his middle name, Aaron, which I picked in the hospital, from a name book, as the birth certificate lady was coming down the hall. Talk about pressured! But once we decided and began calling him his name, it fit. We don’t use middle name all that often, anyhow, and end up calling him “KK” as the first-name-middle-name combo that signals he’s in trouble.
With my first, I never had any doubts, although many around me did. In fact, I spent the last 3-4 months of my pregnancy trying to convince family (and some friends) that it was a fine name. He was actually named about four years before he was conceived. His name is after a character in the movie “Great Expectations” (starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow). Hawke’s character is named “Finn,” short for Finnegan. My husband (then boyfriend) said at the time that if we ever had a son he wanted to name him Finnegan and call him “Finn.” I have to admit I wasn’t sold right away. But it grew on me and four years later when we were pregnant and found out it was a boy, there was never any doubt or discussion about his name — from us anyway. My family didn’t like it at first. They said Finnegan was too much like Phenergan, the anti-nausea medicine. But once he was born and they met little Finn, they said the name was perfect and that it suited him well. To this day we get lots of positive comments on his name, probably because it’s so different.
Names are a big deal though. I remember a girl in high school who didn’t want her full name read at graduation, per the school’s tradition, because she hated her first name so much. I had been in school with her six years and didn’t know until then that Beth’s real name was actually Olivia.
We tried to set our boys up with options so if at some point in life they don’t like their name or a version thereof they have a few choices. Finn, for example, can go by Finn, Finnegan, Charles (his middle name), F.C. (his initials), Finney, Finn-Finn, Chuck, Chaz, Charlie …. Caden can shorten to Cade or he could use Aaron, “KK,” or “Caden A” as my mom likes to call him.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” — Juliet in William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Paige Davis is Back
I saw in TV Guide this week that Paige Davis is returning to TLC’s Trading Spaces. This is the show where two couples redecorate a room in each other’s house. Davis was the original host but left two years ago and the show went to a new host-less format that apparently didn’t work. So they’re bringing Davis back, along with some of the original designers, to give the former No. 1 show a boost. Supposed to start Jan. 26. Be interesting to see if it can be as good as it was the first time.
