Dear Old Navy

Dear Old Navy,

Halloween is my favorite holiday and every year, I take my kids to Old Navy and let them pick out a new $5 Halloween shirt that I wash every night and they wear it almost (if not every) day the whole month of October.  However, this year, you did not carry "Girls" Halloween shirts.  You carried Women, Men, Boys, Baby Boy and Baby Girl items, wonderful warm Halloween costumes and even Halloween pajamas but nothing for girls sizes 5-16.  I gladly bought my sons their Halloween t-shirts and even a pair of orange with white ghost pajama pants for me but there was nothing for my eight year old girl.

Instead, I ended up at Hannah Andersson and paid $32 dollars (each) for matching darling Halloween shirts for my girls.  Instead of paying $10 for cute shirts, I paid (gulp) $64.  

Old Navy, I love you and have a great regular relationship with you.  Your jeans fit my sons perfectly.  I live in your lounge pants.  My husband wore one of your sweaters (which I purchased on a whim for $10) for our very expensive family photo last year.  

So, while I am not breaking up with you, I am having a "define the relationship" chat expressing that you are not fulfilling all of my needs and expectations.  Please reconsider bringing back Old Navy Halloween shirts in girls sizes.  My daughter and my wallet would appreciate it.  Thank you.  (And, keep up all of the other great things you are doing.  I'll see you again in July when we buy our annual 4th of July flag shirts.)  

Sincerely,

Janice

Blue and Aluminum

Dentist husband and I have been having conversations about a tile backsplash for our kitchen. We have been in our house for six years and we still haven't been able to agree on what we want for the backsplash. We need one in a big way and come what may, by December we will have one.

In an unrelated discussion, we were talking about what our favorite crayon color in the crayon box was when we were in elementary school. (This is a yearly discussion since this topic comes up in some form every year at the start of the school year. It is a question asked by at least one of my kid's teachers every year when they fill out the "Getting to Know You" forms.)

My favorite color? Midnight blue. His? The metallic colors--particularly silver.

This made us both laugh, since that is our exact back splash argument. I want blue and he wants scaled aluminum--like what was on the "The Spirit of St. Louis".

Last night we agreed to combine both into the tile backsplash. Why? Take a look at our house.

My daughter's bedroom

Our guest bathroom--notice the sink faucet.

The ceilings in our front room and our chandelier.

The sofas in our Great Room with our Emeco chairs around them. (This was taken just before our annual Film Festival. I normally don't have my kitchen chairs in my Great Room but my kitchen is right next to my Great room, so the blue and silver are all interconnected.)

My kitchen table and chairs with the words Joy, Peace and Love in blue.

So next week, I am meeting with a tile man to try and best incorporate blue and silver into a tile backsplash. FYI: All of my kitchen appliances are stainless steel.

So, based on the crayon color discussion, since my husband nor my color preferences haven't changed since elementary school, my 5 year old will have a house full of orange, my 8 year old will have a house full of bright pink and my 10 year old will have a house full of black.

Two "must do" things when on the Balboa Peninsula

Get a frozen banana dipped in chocolate or Balboa bar at the Fun Zone

Eat at the Crab Cooker

Beach Life

Seven days in California and not one visit to an amusement park of any kind. Just seven glorious days at the beach.

First and Last Day in Newport

This is a picture one of our first days on the Balboa Peninsula.

This was taken the last day with my freshman year in college roommate and her husband.

Notice there is no change in skin color.

You can go on a vacation, spend every day at the beach for seven straight days and not only not get a sunburn but also not even get a tan line.

"Enough said", said the Melanoma skin cancer survivor.

Kindergarten Aged Boys Don't Need to Match Right?

Case in point

All of toothsome #3's shorts blew holes in them a few weeks ago. I immediately went to Hannah Andersson and was thrilled to see that they had their shorts on sale. I ordered him four new pairs that were available in his size. I didn't really even look at the colors, etc. because the price was right and it was Hannah Andersson.

Well, they have all arrived and NONE of them match any of his existing t-shirts. Most (OK, all) of his shirts are hand me downs from his older brother and older cousins and I just assumed that out of the stack of shirts (he honestly has something like 25 t-shirts in his size right now) he owns, we could find at least one match for each pair of shorts. No such luck.

How bad of a mother will I look like if I send him to Kindergarten with clothes that don't match? What if I pin a sign on his shirt that says, "The shorts are new. I am not a homeless child. My mom has the receipts at home."

He doesn't care, so I should be fine with it right?

MIA

Sorry folks, but I have been and will continue to be missing in action until September. Like most mothers with young children in a traditional school schedule, the end of August is crazy, busy. Some highlights of my last few weeks:

--Going down to BYU and helping my niece find an apartment to live in the Fall. Running to my nephew, who is also down there in school and taking them to dinner.

--Having family in town and thus going to Lagoon twice in one week. We had gone for toothsome #1's birthday, then my sister came into town and announced they were going and so we joined them. I am like amusements parks, so both times, we had a good time.

--The one Sunday we will be at church in August, I substituted as Primary chorister, led the singing in Sacrament meeting and my daughter and I sang a duet as the musical number.

--Getting my car CD player fixed, which translates to four hours at the car dealership.

--Getting my family, my car and my house ready for an upcoming trip to California. For you thieves out there, we have people staying at our house while we gone, and an alarm system and a neighbor with a Rottweiler dog, so go somewhere else.

--Dance has started up again for toothsome #2

--Having a quick visit with my Aunt and cousin, who were visiting from California.

--Getting my kids ready with clothes, supplies and emotional tools (I have a very reluctant Kindergartner starting) for school.

So, anyway, good stuff but things are busy. So, again, I will be MIA for a while but if your life is like mine, you probably aren't checking blogs that often anyway.

Book Blogging Babes

Back in May of last year, my friend Tiffany started an on-line book club that her friend, The Motherboard then named, "Book Blogging Babes." The basic idea is that we would all read the same book (where ever in the country we were living) and post our review of the book on-line at our common web-site. We were all really good about it for about eight months and then we all kind of fizzled out.

Well, with school starting in a few weeks, I have felt motivated to try and revive it. The book I have chosen for the month of September is "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins.

Here is what the web-site Goodreads has to say about it:

One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Dickens, Collins' friend and mentor. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall readers today.

The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems desperate to share a dark secret. The next day Hartright, engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, tells his pupils about the strange events of the previous evening. Determined to learn all they can about the mysterious woman in white, the three soon find themselves drawn into a chilling vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue.

Masterfully constructed, The Woman in White is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction: Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant "Napoleon of Crime."

I will be posting my review of the book on the Book Blogging Babes site on September 30th. If you feel so inclined, feel free to read the book and post your review there as well.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life." - W. Somerset Maugham

Day In Heber, UT

We decided to have a family day up in Heber, UT. Dentist husband keeps his airplane up there.

He took the kids on "touch and go" rides.

I stayed in the hanger and do what I always do. :)

Later, we took our kids to our favorite local restaurant up there--Tarahumara.

On the way home, we stopped at the Veterans Memorial. The kids saw it in the airplane and wanted to see it on the ground. Thank you soldiers.

Great day trip.

Book Tag

Book Tag

Alright, one of my favorite ex-roommates tagged me. We both are now married to dentists, read a ton and just try to survive our crazy lives as mothers with kids. I am pretty sure she makes more dinners than I do but besides that, our lives are pretty parallel.

This one is an easy one...

1. Collect the book that you have most handy.
2. Turn to page 161.
3. Find the 5th complete sentence.
4. Cite the sentence on your blog.
5. Pass it on to 5 other bloggers.

My book is Rocket Men by Craig Nelson. It is about the Apollo 11 Moon landing. I bought it for my Dad for his birthday but I wanted to read it before I give it to him. I made the mistake of bringing it into the bath with me one night and now the pages are a little puffy but I don't think my dad will mind.

"Still, privately, Kennedy would continue to ask, "Can't you fellows invent some other race here on earth that will do some good?" and commented about getting a man on the Moon, "The cost, that's what gets me."

Now I'm tagging:

Melinda (because I adore her and thank her monthly for founding the wonderful book club I am in)

Diane (because I talk to her daily and have known her since Kindergarten)

Tiff (because I wish I had her ability with color and decorating)

Liz (because she has excellent taste in books and I think she is me just living in Boston)

and Gabriela (because she just survived a 30 hour flying ordeal back to Brazil and she motivates me to get on the treadmill daily)

Have fun!

Soapboxing--Not about Politics this time

Many of you know that I love the website Goodreads. I love how I can keep track of the books I read, read my friend's reviews, etc. When a person types in a book, the website automatically shows your friend's reviews of the book, if they have read it.

Recently, I typed in the book "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" by Dr. Laura. All of my friends gave it one or two stars. I am fine with people liking or not liking a book, but it got me wondering why they would all give it such a low opinion. I read the book and while fortunately, it didn't change my life dramatically, it did remind me of the need to take care of my husband. There is nothing "radical" in this book. The book is just a good reminder that as woman, we need to be appreciative and nice to our husbands. This isn't radical stuff. The following is the review I wrote about the book after having just read it:

"As a woman who is raising sons and married to a man, I am thrilled there are books like this that defend nice treatment of men. Men are attacked in society daily and we have just become accustomed to it--often not even seeing it when it is right in front of us. I often look at awe at the unkind treatment I see wives give to their husbands but at the same time, complain about the same treatment given to their sons by their daughter-in-laws. I can freely state that at times, I have been less than an ideal wife to my husband and I appreciated the reminder this book gave me."

I wonder, again, why this book has been so trashed by woman. Has feminism taken us so far as to be unkind, uncaring and unthoughtful of our husbands? Isn't that what feminism was fighting for, for themselves--caring, kind, thoughtful treatment by men? Have woman turned into the men they didn't like and rallied against?

If so, I am scared for my boys. On TV recently, I noticed how many TV shows portray the men as idiots, while the woman are portrayed as put together, come in and give reason and a calm voice to a marriage. I know in my own personal life that is not true. My husband and I are both reasonable, thoughtful and intelligent people. We take care of each other and look out for each other's needs, often at some sacrifice for our own needs.

We both sacrifice for our children and try to be a good example to them of what a good marriage can be like. We don't do it perfectly, but we work hard at it.

As a woman I would ask that we be nice to our husbands and be an example to our sons and daughters. And, let us teach our daughters to be nice to all of the men in their lives--their brothers, their fathers, their boyfriends, their male peers, etc. And, of course visa versa for our sons as well. But that said, the men get constant reminders of that--look around and you will see. Look around again and start noticing, no one is speaking to the girls about this subject. Instead they are told the opposite. Emasculating our men can only harm all of us.