Is This What They Mean....

When they say the housing market has turned upside down....

Of course in some places it's not completely upside down - just a little bent out of shape

Postcards From The Edge …. Of The World

We just got back from a Disney cruise. It was our second and it won’t be our last. As someone who always loved to travel I used to look at people who went on cruises with a befuddled lack of understanding. In fact I even recall saying (rather pompously I’m sure) that being on a cruise ship must be kind of like getting stuck in a crowded cheap hotel. Then I had Liam. Travelling with the pre-school set is just a whole other experience and in my book cruising stacks up very favorably against all the other options. No trying to keep a 5 year old quiet and still for hours in a plane or a car. No having to deal with luggage with only one hand because you need the other one in contact with the child at all times. Just 24/7 kid-friendly food and entertainment and the knowledge that no matter what your child does some kid has been sure to have done it there before so you don’t have to die a thousand deaths of guilt and embarrassment. Everyone on this trip “gets it” when it comes to kids which just lowers the stress factor enormously. The fact that Disney Cruise Line actually also does a great job of making sure there is a good range of adult food and entertainment is just a bonus as far as I’m concerned.

Liam and Goofy - Not quite captain material

We sailed to the Bahamas and a hot topic of conversation on the journey to Port Canaveral to board the Dream was who would be “driving” the ship. Liam considered all the Disney characters finding reasons why or why not they would make a good captain. When he came to Goofy he got rejected because he was too… well….goofy. Liam was convinced he would drive us over the waterfall. This concern was repeated numerous times and it wasn’t until the third day of our trip that I worked out what he meant. We were looking out at the horizon as the ship left the dock and we could see another cruise ship that had been docked next to us and had left about half an hour earlier. It was sailing toward the horizon. “Look  Mom” Liam cried. “They’re going to go over the waterfall.”
Sometimes we forget that the world looks different through the eyes of a child…..

Good Things Come In Small Packages

In today’s super-security conscious world flying has become a choice of carting checked baggage with you even for an overnight business trip (and paying for the privilege of checking it now on most US airlines) or looking less than your most polished self at your destination because you couldn’t fit all your essentials in to one little plastic “baggie” in your carry on.

There’s a few things that help. Pre-moistened facial wipes are a great alternative to liquid make-up remover and cleansers and don’t have to be put with your liquids and a lot of products are now available in those cute little travel sizes. Checkout the website 3floz.com for some fun (but not cheap) kits to try or search “travel size” on Sephora to see if your favorite products come in travel packaging. (The roll on perfume pens you can get here are a god send.)

But for the product you already have and just want to take with you in a small bottle get yourself a couple of GoToobs by Humangear. Someone who travels really put some design thought into these cute squishy little numbers. They have a wide neck – so it’s easy to get the product in, a flip lid that doesn’t leak in your bag, come in a range of colors and have a window on the neck to make sure you don’t use your shampoo to clean your face, have a suction cup so you can stick them to the shower wall for easy use and best of all – they are squishy, so you can easily get the product out right down to the very last drop.

No well stock plastic baggie should be without them!

Humangear GoToob 1.25 Ounce Travel Bottle,Lime Green,Small (1.25 oz)

Humangear GoToob 3 Ounce (3 pack) Travel Bottle, Clear/Blue/Green, Large (3 oz)

Two Little Words

I recently read a book, the premise of which has stayed with me. I turn to it whenever I am feeling low, disappointed, dispirited or sad. It is about a lawyer who, finding his life to be unsatisfactory on many levels, picked up his pen and began to write thank you notes - to anyone and everyone. In the act of committing to writing a personal thank you note to someone different every day for a year, he came to realize that he did have an awful lot to be thankful for and the life that had seemed so wanting somehow changed to become all that he could have wished it to be.

They say if you can’t change your circumstances, change your attitude. Maybe that’s all it takes. It certainly isn’t a bad resolution to be more thankful for all the wonderful things in life, and even for the very wonder of being alive. The timing seems right too as the national zeitgeist has become fraught with despondency of late. I know how much I love to receive a handwritten note among all the unwanted credit card offers, coupons, flyers, catalogs and bills that crowd my inbox every day. The same goes for a personal email. The ratio of emails generated by computers to those written by real people in my inbox is becoming alarmingly high. And the joy is even greater when the note – however it arrives – is written with the sole purpose of someone saying thank you. Two little words, but how much they can say.

My favorite online sites for electronic communications are Jacqui Lawson where you find magical e-cards that entertain their recipients for hours and Paperless Post for some very classy electronic stationary.  Expressionery and American Stationery provide a wide range of customized stationery and check out Tiny Prints and Shutterfly if you want to make use of your personal photos in your stationery. Or pick up a pen and write it on a post-it. Beautiful stationery is the icing on the cake – but in this endeavor I think it’s very much the thought that counts.

The Solution To The Greek Debt Crisis

Constance Contagious

I’m Constance Contagious
How do you do?
Come sit here by me and I’ll give you the flu.

Would you care for the measles?
I happen to think
That the spots look quite nice in the right shade of pink.

They’d really go well
With your polka dot sox.
If the measles don’t suit would you like chicken pox?

Don’t believe what you’ve heard,
You won’t break out in bumps
Unless I mistakenly give you the mumps.

You look a touch pale
Are you sure you’re quite well?
I suspect that your glands are beginning to swell.

Your forehead feels hot
Is your temperature high?
Do your eyes itch like mine did when I had pink eye?

Do you have other symptoms
You’d like me to note?
A pain in your neck? Well, I just had strep throat.

You’re leaving already?
It was nice to meet you.
I’m Constance Contagious, how do you do?

Let Me Get This Right, My Brother’s A Dog?

I recently received one of those emails that leave your heart in your mouth. A dear friend told me about how, some months earlier, her beloved - and previously docile - border collie had attacked her infant son, biting him on the face so severely that she had to rush him to the emergency room. Fast forward to the end of the story and all is well – her son bears no permanent injury and only the faintest of scars beneath his eye and she has found a wonderful alternative home for her pet and this weekend will hand the dog over after extracting a promise from the family that they will return her if things ever don’t work out. M remains, however, wracked by grief, guilt and distress about the whole situation and, as she puts it, is “scarred for life.”

Any friend would have her heart strings tugged to hear of such an ordeal. It was particularly sad for me because I have had my own share of struggles integrating my “blended” family (I have one son, two dogs and two cats) and, as their weekly groomer at the time, M played a key role in helping me keep it all together when I wasn't sure I could.

M with Aspen and Mardi

Having seen all the challenges I faced once Liam was born M was well aware of what to expect once her own son arrived and, as an animal professional, she was as well equipped as anyone could be to manage those challenges. And still it went sour.

The general perception is that kids and dogs go together and there is a long list of positive factors associated with teaching children the responsibility of caring for an animal. But in my experience it is a rocky road when the dogs came before the kids.

Just Do It

Ready to go.....

My life is peppered with what I call Nike moments. You know the slogan. Just Do It. I often end up giving myself that advice to combat the kind of latent paralysis that I experience in the face of something I don’t want to do. Laundry. Changing light bulbs. Giving the animals their monthly flea and tick treatments. Exercise.

Ah exercise! It’s my daily Just Do It moment. I have the phrase written out and taped to my computer monitor and I know what it is there for. I wish I were one of those people that consider exercise a gift that they give themselves. Intellectually I get it and yes I really do feel that sense of accomplishment when I have ticked it off the list for the day. But for me it’s something that I mostly do because of the very negative effects of not doing it. An obligation. Another chore. At some point in the aging process you change from going to the gym because you feel like it to going to the gym Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6 whether you feel like it or not because the gal in the mirror is telling you to get there and to get there fast!

I’ve tried the gym membership since I became a Mom – but it hasn’t stuck. Work demands means that it never sits well to be off exercising during business hours and taking the time away from being with my son isn’t appealing either. I feel I get little enough time with him as it is. So for me exercise required a more creative response that allowed me to exercise and be with Liam at the same time. That's a level of multi-tasking that takes some thought. 

Orthaheel Sale at Sole Provisions

When I’m in Florida I live in flip flops. We have hard floors all through the house and as I’ve grown older and my feet have started to look more and more like my mother’s (sorry Mom, but why did you have to throw your feet troubles in with all the wonderful things that I inherited from you) I’ve found I can’t go barefoot without getting very uncomfortable very quickly. And even when I’m out running errands, doing the shopping or going to the beach, flip flops are just a sunshine state go-to.

It’s hard to argue that they make a great fashion statement – but they are getting better and now there are options that provide great comfort and a little bit of style.  For around the house my top pick is the Sanuk yoga mat flip flops ($28). I also own a pair of Fit Flops, which are great when you’re doing some serious walking – but I find them a bit “clunky” for day to day use. 

Orthaheel Allegre

But my above-all favorites are Orthaheels. I’ve got more mileage out of my black Allegre Orthaeels than any other pair of shoes I’ve ever owned.

Orthaheel Porto

You can buy all of the above at Amazon or Zappo’s but Sole Provisions are running a sale on Orthaheel with the Allegre model discounted from $69/95 to $54.95 with free shipping. I’m going to give the new Porto sandal  a try and see if has the same heavenly effect on my feet.

The Curse of the Compliment

I recently had a meeting with a client that I hadn’t seen in a little over a year. These meetings usually involve several people, some of whom I have met before, some of whom are new. When you do a lot of these it’s hard to remember all the names and faces and more than once I have put my foot it in by brightly saying “It’s nice to meet you” as I greet someone who then points out that we’ve met before – maybe more than once!

I hate to appear rude and make people feel uncomfortable so while I work on a) having a better memory and b) keeping better records of my meetings so I can review them before I make return visits, I’ve learned to use more noncommittal phrases such as “So nice to see you” or “So glad you could join us today” instead of referring in any way to whether or not I’ve met them before. Not only is it good business to make people feel that they are important enough for you to remember them – it’s just good manners. And the purpose of manners is to make everyone feel more comfortable.

Which brings me to the subject of this post! In this meeting a woman walked in a little later than four of her male colleagues who were already seated around the conference table. And as I stood to shake her hand and introduce myself she made it perfectly clear that we had met before by saying “Hi. We met when you visited last year. But you’ve lost a lot of weight since then.”

Every eye in the room now turned to look at me.....

Packing Cubes

I have to do a lot of business travel and often enough it is the kind of multi-stop trips that have you packing and unpacking every night as you make your way to a different hotel in a different city.

When you’re young business travel is fun. It’s one of those things that tell you’re progressing in your career and it usually involves flying on planes, staying in hotels and eating in restaurants – all of which can be enjoyable, especially if you haven’t done a lot of it. As you get older – business travel tends to lose its appeal. At some point you’ve done enough of it to notice that flying is generally boring, stressful or uncomfortable (and sometimes all three), hotels are noisy, and nice restaurant meals are not as frequent on these trips as are calorie-laden fast food options that are eaten while running from one appointment to the next. Still – a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do and if your job involves travel there are multiple strategies you can use to make the process less of a grind. One of my favorites is to use packing cubes.

Packing well for business trips has many aspects to it – but my best tip for staying organized is to use several packing cubes inside your suitcase. There are a range of brands out there – I personally find the Eagle Creek ones to be well up to the task of repeated trips. I use a half cube or quarter cube for my “casual” items that I don’t worry about getting wrinkled (underwear, exercise gear, pantyhose, my sleep t-shirt) and the pack-it folders for my actual business clothes. The advantage of the pack-it folders is that they have this board that you use to fold your clothes as you pack them so that everything folds down to being the same size, takes up less space in your bag, and doesn’t get as wrinkled (depending on what you packed you may still have to do some ironing but it certainly reduces the amount.)

I use the packing cubes and folders even for overnight trips because it actually makes packing easier and keeps everything in better condition in your bag but they really come into play on those multi-night trips. There I pack just one or two day’s outfits into each folder – which means I only have to unpack my “casual” cube and that day’s folder in any given hotel and everything else can stay undisturbed in my bag.  It really works well. Makes you think about what you are going to wear each day in advance – so no chance for “wardrobe stress” while on the road and means you are dealing with less unpacking and packing as you go, which for me also adds up to less chance of leaving something behind. And I hate to admit how much more often I do that as I get older and more forgetful……!

Tooth Fairy Facts and Fantasies

It's gone!

Liam lost his first tooth last week. As the kind of person who plans Halloween parties in March and shops for Christmas decorations in August, there are few childhood development stages that I have not been fully prepared for and eagerly awaiting – but this one caught me completely off guard. Losing teeth? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was getting teeth?? Memories of new chompers being tested out quite inappropriately during feeding were still fresh in my mind....


I was so surprised when he first told me that his tooth was loose that I texted my pediatrician to ask what was up. He told me it was a little early (Liam is five and a half) but not unprecedented – seems I was just asleep at the wheel on this one. Within a couple of days it was out. Gone in the night. Literally. We never did find it and I can only surmise that it was swallowed.