October 2009 - Page 5 of 5 - Angry Julie Monday

My Love for Converse

October 6, 2009

I’m trying to clean up around the house right now. Part of my daily cleaning ritual, is putting the shoes away. For three people, we have way too many pairs of shoes. Ok, I admit it, I love shoes. I keep the excess shoes in our garage. Our house is small, so we have a rack in there. I counted at least four pairs of Converse on the shelf.

I really love my lo-top Chuck Taylors. I keep buying the black ones over and over again. They are very practical for me. I usually wear boot-leg jeans so Converse are the perfect casual shoe to go with them. When I want to dress up my jeans, I wear ballet flats or something. But most of the time, I wear Converse.

I’ve been coveting these for awhile now. Everytime I go to Kohl’s, I see them on display. But I won’t buy them, because I keep trying to justify the color. I’m a matchy-matchy person and would have to pair them with something solid like black. They are almost the color of my blog template, maybe that’s why I love them so much.

I tried checked on the Kohl’s website, but they aren’t there. Sigh…

Maybe if I had a coupon or something, I would get them. My birthday is next month, hmmm….size 9 people in women’s…

Filed Under: Just Julie 8 Comments

Happy October…A Few Days Late

October 6, 2009

Today is the 6th of October. It is finally starting to cool down here in Southern California. For the past two days, Angry Toddler has worn jeans. That’s a big jump for Mr. OCD. He transitioned easy. Now that the fall leaves are starting to change and a certain chill is in the air, I’m thinking about some fall decorations. I have a tote of stuff in my garage, that I’m going to have to pull out. That is, if Angry Husband has our tall ladder available.

I’m going to attempt something new in the next few weeks. I have a cookbook put together by my crazy aunt with family recipes. I’m going to try to go through them and pick some out. I will make the recipe at home, and umm test it on my family first. Then I will do a little post about it.

Meanwhile, check out these goodies I found online. They are all about Halloween.

Halloween Pancake Molds from Williams-Sonoma

Castle Bundt Pan from Sur La Table

Pumpkin Cookie Cutter Set from Crate and Barrel

*Photos from Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table, and Crate and Barrel, and MomDot.

Filed Under: Holidays, In The Home 4 Comments

OC Children’s Book Festival

October 5, 2009

I met up with my mom and Angry Toddler today at the Orange County Children’s Book Festival. My parents watch Angry Toddler on Sunday, and she was looking for something to do. I suggested the Book Festival since it was something different and local.

I didn’t realize how many people would be attending the event. It was crazy. My mom told me that she circled around for about thirty minutes before she found a parking spot. I eventually met up with her and Angry Toddler.

We checked out some trains. Angry Toddler is used to playing with his Thomas Trains, but I don’t think he’s seen mechanical trains. He was pretty impressed with them, and how big they were. We then started to look around. I found my friend, Debbie and her husband from Dippin’ Dots. I introduced my mom to them and we had some dots, of course. My mom had never had Dippin’ Dots, she was intrigued.

We then walked around some more. We headed towards the bounce house, Angry Toddler bounced. We listened to the girls who do the voices for The Wonder Pets read and sing. Angry Toddler got a tattoo. What a tattoo? He got an airbrushed tattoo of a skull with a snake. That’s how we roll.

We walked some more. We checked out some fabulous books and of course their authors. Angry Toddler got a skateboard book. He’s still talking about it.

And then it was time to leave. We spent about two hours there, and then I carried Angry Toddler to the car. Geez, the kid is getting heavy. It’s not fun to carry a 45-pound kid a mile to the car.

My mom said that he took a two hour nap when they got home.

Filed Under: Orange County, Parenting 2 Comments

Cleaning Out The Fridge

October 4, 2009

Yesterday, Angry Husband pulled out some ground meat from the freezer and put it in the refrigerator to thaw out. We were going to make spaghetti for dinner. Angry Toddler was spending the night at my parents and we were just going to chill at home.

We got settled last night after I came home from work, and after he decompressed after a long day with the Angry Toddler. He pulled out the meat from the fridge and opened the package. He immediately said, “come here, you need to smell this, I don’t think it’s good.” So I dragged myself to the kitchen. You would think it was far, but really it was five feet away. I agreed with him. We looked at the packaging and could not find a date/timeline on the meat. We decided to pull out another package from the freezer, and another, and another. I think we pulled out five packages of ground meat. We had stuff dated from June and July, and then there were the random dates like good until Thursday. Umm, which Thursday? Last Thursday? Thursday in May?

We pulled out the trash bag and dumped it all in there. He then pulled out a package of chicken. He says, “Julie, chicken thighs, really?” Heck, I don’t know why I bought chicken thighs. I’m random sometimes.

But with all this bad meat, we were faced with a problem. You see, we live in a homeowner’s association. The kind of association that drives around in golf carts stalking you for violations. One of the rules is no visible trash cans. With the way the entrance to our backyard is located, we have to keep our trash cans located in our garage. Just imagine the smell of bad meat in our garage. Our trash guy doesn’t come till Thursday.

All of the sudden, I swear I got one of those cartoon lightbulbs over my head. I opened the garage. Angry Husband asked what I was doing. I was problem solving.

You see, we live near a park. A park that is policed daily by the HOA people in their golf carts. I promptly deposited our bag of bad meat in the trash can at the park, and ran back into my house. They clean the trash cans every day at the park. Can you imagine the smell that the meat would make in my garage? I passed a lady walking her dog on the way back. She was probably wondering why this barefoot girl was wandering in the park in her pajama bottoms in the dark. I didn’t make eye contact.

We have a new rule that we came up with. When we buy meat now, we are going to write the date that we bought the meat on the package with a Sharpie. It will be easier to keep track of it then.

Filed Under: Just Julie 12 Comments

Hulu…My Online TV Lover

October 3, 2009

Angry Husband and I decided to cut down our cable bill earlier in the summer. Which means we got rid of one of our DVR’s. Yes, we had his and her DVR’s. Our living room TV DVR was filled with shows from The History Channel and Science Fiction stuff. I prefer the likes of Gossip Girl and Greek.

Now that we have one DVR, something had to give. We seemed to have overlapping TV shows issues. Angry Husband ranted the other night about Melrose Place. He said that my shows were taking over his DVR. Yea, whatever…

But since I’m a computer addict. I decided that I would try and watch as many shows as I could on the Internet. That’s the awesome thing about the Internet. You can watch TV on there now. Several of my friends who do not have cable TV watch their shows on the net.

I’ve found that Hulu is an awesome place to watch TV shows. They have a ton of the brand new shows on there too. You can watch some full episodes on the networks websites too, but I find that they seem to lock up with all the advertising. I know that Hulu has advertising too, but it rarely locks up my computer.

I love that Hulu has all kinds of information on their website about their company. But really, what is Hulu?

From their site:

Founded in March 2007, Hulu is operated independently by a dedicated management team with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Beijing. NBC Universal, News Corp., The Walt Disney Company, Providence Equity Partners and the Hulu team share in the ownership stake of the company.

Hulu’s mission is to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it. As we pursue this mission, we aspire to create a service that users, advertisers, and content owners unabashedly love.

Hulu is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites — anytime in the U.S. For more details on Hulu’s service, check out the Hulu product tour.

Filed Under: Just Julie 3 Comments

Show Us Your Life-Baby Gear

October 2, 2009

Kelly’s Korner is doing a tribute to baby gear today. Angry Toddler is almost four and a half now, so he’s not quite a baby anymore. But it hasn’t been that long since he was a baby. I definitely remember my haves and have-nots.

I will start with my must-haves:

The Swing:

We had the 2005 version of the Fisher-Price Papasan Swing. Angry Toddler had reflux so he took many naps in his swing. We used it daily until he was about six months old. He then got way too heavy, and we heard this awful noise when it was swinging. I sold the swing on Craig’s List as soon as he grew out of it.

The Exersaucer:

We had the 2005 version of the Graco Baby Einstein Discover & Play Activity Center. I’m not going to lie about this one. I admit that we plopped him in the exersaucer, so that we could get things done. He loved watching videos. I liked taking a shower. It worked for us.

Pack N Play:

We used this in our bedroom when Angry Toddler was first born. We were paranoid as first time parents of a premature reflux-y kid. But then, the kid started snoring, like loud. We moved him to his crib after that. We used the pack-n-play portion all the time though, especially at my parent’s house. Angry Toddler climbed out of the pack-n-play at about eighteen months old. It was a very sad day. We had one similar to this, Graco Pack N Play. Except it was green.

My Have-Nots

Stroller System-Have Not, Stroller Frame-Haves:

We had the whole stroller system with the matchy-matchy infant seat and stroller. It was a pain to assemble. I could never get the infant seat to click in right. If I had to do it all over again, I would buy the simple stroller frame, that you can just use with the infant car seat. Angry Toddler was only in the infant seat for four months. This stroller frame would have been much easier.

Baby Bjorn:

Angry Toddler hated the Bjorn. He fussed and cried every time he was in it. And to make matters worse, he had relux. Nothing better than puking baby in Bjorn. It wasn’t pretty. Plus Angry Husband refused to Bjorn-it. If I had to do it all over again, I would totally use one of those wrap-thingys.

Bouncer:

Useless. Seriously he didn’t bounce. We just used the swing. He loved the swing.

Wipes Warmer:

Common sense. We received one as a gift. I probably even registered for it. Don’t judge. I was a first time mom. I registered for everything, and listened to no one. Thankfully, we thought about it before we used it. It got returned.

Bottle Warmer:

Angry Toddler liked his formula cold and/or lukewarm. He was a very easy baby to feed. We just had to make/mix the formula and pop it into a bottle.

You are probably thinking, why is Angry Julie doing a post about baby stuff. There are tons of first-time moms reading blogs, looking for advice and information. I was one of those. I read all the reviews on the products I was registering for. I spent so much time online, my head hurt. I talked to my friends, I stalked people at the baby stores, but eventually I learned.

I thought I would participate in this little carnival to share my personal opinions of what worked for us. What worked for me, might not work for everyone though. So it’s just my opinion.

Filed Under: Parenting 4 Comments