God Bless You Commander… May you rest in Peace
Many of you may be familiar with Commander Salamander, the sweet punk shop where we flocked circa 1990 to purchase our Manic Panic in order to dye our hair wildly offensive colors. Well, sadly they are closing and I for one am heartbroken. When I was mearly 15, Lee and I went on a semi date to the Commander, purchased some hair dye and saw The Murmers play live. I still have my signed Murmers album and a fondness for Manic Panic.
And so it was with a heavy heart this week that I purchased my last bottle of dye and did what any other grief stricken punk would do.
I gave Zoe the sweetest purple highlights ever to hit the preschool scene.
Enjoy.
A Fantastic and Soggy Halloween
Another halloween has come and gone with not much fanfare. Zoe had her first class party and I got to meet all the little hellions she calls friends.
We spent halloween proper hanging with the former Connecticut Crew, now awesomely closer in Pennsylvania. It got quite rainy towards the end of the looting but much candy was collected and a good time was had by all.
Zoe had all of her girly dreams come true as she spent the weekend wrapping herself in the girliest of fabrics and being carried around, waited on hand and foot by her loving cousins.
Highlights of pictures
Zoe as a fairy princess in school parade. She marched, I cried.
The Spock kid- awesome
The kid with the tiny costume- super awesome
Family super fun
A soaking wet princess
Guess who’s back? Shady’s back.
Yeah, eminem. I still love you.
So a big apology for all of you who were actually reading the blog when I abruptly took my summer hiatus. But I am back and recommitted.
I feel the need to discuss swine flu because that seems to be all the rage these days. Maybe it’s because I work in a doctor’s office but everyone I meet is either sick or thinks they are sick. So basically the world has turned in to me. Great. But we have given ourselves over to herd immunization and I hope the government knows what the fuck they are doing.
Enough of that.
What are we up to? For those of you who follow the house saga, Lee is multitasking, working on remodeling the back porch into my little office and getting the fireplace ready for winter. He cleaned the chimney, stripped the brick and now is laying a slate hearth.
What did I slack on? I wanted to blog about our trip to Florida for my birthday. The short story. It was awesome. See pics. I promised my blogging buddy and a strong supporter/sasser of my blog (Kevin) I would blog about our camping trip. I did not. So again have opted to included pics.
Beans started preschool in September. She is quite a sassmaster (we have no idea where she gets it) but she is always hilarious. Her favorite thing in the “whole wide world”– dressing up in whatever she can find.
So hopefully I will continue the blogging because I am a constant source of brilliant thought yearning to be shared with the world.
And now the summer pics wrap up…..
Mother’s Day Recap 2009
Mother’s day has finally officially ended so here are the highlights:
woke up late, latte waiting
received scrabble board of love
packed up car, drove to harrisonburg
small tour of past residences topped off with two ice cream cones chocolate and vanilla
continued down the highway to green valley book fair
headed back home, quick jaunt up 81 to have dinner at sonic
oh sweet sonic how I love your limeade. also ordered: two cheeseburgers, corndog, cheddar poppers, lemon slush, snickers blast
greatest day ever. makes being a mother all worthwhile. god bless you hallmark and all your made up holiday propaganda.
today mother’s day continued at the spa where four generations mani-pedied in a lovely celebration of ladying and whatnot
I have attempted to impress you (kevin) with some links to all this lovely. if you do not find these to your liking please let me know so i can continue to strive towards blogging excellence.
Zoe Bean Cobain?
Bean first made its debut during a free for all naming session when Bean ala Francis Bean Cobain was put on the table only semi-joking due to my never ending love for the late great Kurt
Has this love spawned a small glimmer of Kurt to live on?
cha-ching
Captain Beans is a child of many loves, one of the coolest being vintage toys Lee and I have scored thrift store finds here and there, but today we finally hit paydirt. Zoe and I went to a craigslist listing today that was offering up old, collectible toys. There were many strawberry shortcake miniatures which Zoe finds delightful. The woman told us she had been doing some online research and that she would sell the dolls for $2 each. It seemed a little excessive to me so I let Zoe pick out 15 dolls. Honestly I was not even really looking at the ones she left behind. When we got home I couldn’t remember some of their cute little names so I went to look online. Here are some of the dolls we brought home.
I honestly can’t believe people pay these prices for these things but it is still pretty crazy that Beans is now playing with little plastic dolls that are worth more than our wedding rings!
So obviously we went back and bought the rest of the lot and now are sitting on a mound of strawberry gold but here is the question at hand…
Lee says sell now. Children of the late 70s will only want this stuff for so long before the nostalgia craving is lost to middle age fussiness. Plus the majority of parents born in the mid to late seventies have children in the under six set, which is who would want these things.
I say wait because (although the prior logic is sound) I feel that the economic downturn does not lend itself to the highest market value and they are currently bring daily pleasure to the Bean, who picked them out and loves them.
If you would like to weigh in with an opinion, please feel free. And if you are a huge fan and long to own a collection of classic dolls we will sell the whole lot for $1000.
it always starts with my ass
Well here is an interesting chain of events that has led to a lovely discovery.
It all started when I tried on a new pair of pants in a dressing room on Friday. I caught a glimpse of what is lovingly known as my winter ass. You know the one, the flabby ass that hasn’t seen the light of day in six months and makes you want to run to the nearest plastic surgeon to have it removed because the thought of toning it yourself is completely unmanageable. Anyway that ass made me promise myself that every free moment I now have will be scheduled with a walk up and down the very steep hills of the neighborhood in order to rectify this tragic situation.
This was the first morning that the plan was set into motion. I walked up and down some hills pushing 50 lbs of toddler and stroller as I cursed every minute of it and the poor genetics that have made this my reality. After about five minutes I decided that I was thirsty and that perhaps I should detour this exercise walk to a Starbucks walk and grab a latte. But I considered that if this ass melting adventure is supposed to be a daily occurrence that it would become quite pricey to include my $4.25 beverage of choice, so I opted to swing by Harris Teeter and save a little dough. As I walked the aisles of the store searching out an acceptable substitute I found that they have an automated latte machine that is $2.00 per drink. Now I questioned the quality of this beverage but I decided for two dollars I was willing to give it a try. ANd the verdict is: I am hooked. This is a good fucking drink people! It is fresh tasting, nice balance of bitter to sweet and customizable to your desires.
Now if you do not have a Harris Teeter near you or your store has not put in an automated latte maker then I don’t know what to tell you, you are pretty much shit outta luck. But for those of you local Teeter goers I encourage you to give it a try. As an added bonus you avoid all the snarky Starbucks employees and the haughty customers that breathe heavily as they wait in line behind a non experienced goer that needs to be corrected on the order of calling a drink and what a mochachinno is, etc. As a double added bonus Harris Teeter also has free cookies at the door of which I enjoyed two.
So for those of you who are still think about my ass, the sum up of that category is:
time spent walking: 30 minutes
calories consumed: probably 500 or so
So in summation I would have been better of staying at home and doing five sit ups or so. But I have discovered a delicious beverage so I enjoy a small victory.
As the Bean ages, so must we all
March 20th 2009 the illustrious bean turned three. This post is dedicated to the celebration of this historic event.
Zoe celebrated many birthdays this year.
1. On her day of birthdaying proper she was wined and dined (with no actual wine) at Sweet Water Tavern where the specialty is an award winning flourless chocolate waffle served hot, crispy on the outside gooey on the inside and topped with vanilla ice cream. Bean was decked out in funky style, rocking a handmade pinnafore, tutu and vintage pearls.
2. Sunday, Beans hosts a ladies tea party where six of her girliest friends had a sweet morning of tea, cake, and fun. She chooses a sweet light pink frock, lightly embroidered in silver threading by European designer Shilav. Her hair is pincurled and pulled back with a subtle barrette. It was a beautiful afternoon full of girly giggles as they practice for years of luncheons to come.
3. The following Sunday we gather all the family together for an afternoon of delicious food and of course more cake and ice cream. The bean brings back the star pinnafore but pairs it this time with a pink bubble skirt. She later changes into a Zutano fleece dress paired with a fun flowery shirt underneath. She continues to wear this outfit for the next three days as she indulges in her newly acquired loot.
And of course, as has become the standard on this blog, here is the photog accompaniment to the aforementioned parties.
A throne fit for a king
I struggled with the topic of our next update. Seeing as Zoe just turned three, I could be filling pages with all of those cutenesses. But in the end I feel that it is of greater importance that I share a joy that was created long before Zoe turned three. Our bathroom project has been a favorite story among our loved ones. For those of you who haven’t heard here is the timeline:
July 07- Alli and Lee purchase house. House has very crappy bathroom (no pun intended) and is leaking into dining room.
Aug 07- Alli and Zoe continue to live in rental while Lee demos said bathroom.
Sept 07- Everyone moves into house but alas, bathroom is empty. Lee slaves away replacing all the plumbing through the whole house and doing crazy hard work that I can’t explain well enough to do it justice.
Sept-Nov 07- The family bathe outside in a makeshift shower under the backporch and use toilet that is only accessible through outdoor steps to basement.
Thanksgiving Day 07- Lee powers through some very long days and nights and brings the shower tiles high enough that the family enjoys their first indoor shower in the new house.
March 08- The bathroom is as complete as it can be since we are still waiting for our trim kits to arrive.
This is where I lose track of time but essentially the trim kits arrive from American Standard and apparently the standard in America is pretty crappy because they suck. So we return everything which means Lee has to pull out all the brand new plumbing and replace it with some sweet Grohe action which in the end pleased us immensely.
We are still working on hanging the glass enclosure around the shower but we haven’t hit the lottery yet so we will save that for another day.
Zoe is desperately wanting me to come read her a story so I must oblige but I will surely add more pics of the even better looking bathroom and new fixtures as these pictures are a bit old. Pleased to be allowing them to keep you satisfied until further notice.
All in all it was well worth the wait and it is a pleasure to do business in.
We invite you all to visit our bathroom kingdom at your leisure.
A Sunday full of Wood and Bubbles
If I am to be updating with comings and goings of High Street I would be remiss to not mention Lee’s wood. Keep reading, this will not be at all inappropriate. For you see I love fires and Lee loves chopping wood and thus another beautiful joining of souls as Lee has dedicated his winter to providing free wood for the family. So initially the free wood was being collected via craigslist from all over the virginia suburbs until we finally saved enough money to have our nasty dead tree cut down from the backyard. This is the pictorial of said cutting and splitting and stacking. Consequently the girls were left to their own devises and a bubbly frolic ensued. And please note all of today’s pictures are marred by a piece of shit stuck to my fucking camera lens. But I am not super bitter about it so its all good.
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- Check out crazy guy in the tree
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- Future Site of Bad Ass Treehouse
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- Lee has big wood
Pied a Terre y Legumes 