on my front porch swing

not an advertisement for Palmolive

2007-12-11T20:39:00.000-08:00

At 1:34pm today, I loaded my dishwasher for the first time in nearly 2 months. No, 60 days of dishes were not teetering precariously on every surface of my kitchen (there isn't that much surface and I don't have that many dishes). Rather, I've been hand-washing every plate, glass, spoon, dried-pancake-batter-covered mixing bowl, milk-encrusted sippy cup, caked-on lasagna pan and any other utensil that has been handled by my family of four for what feels like an eternity.

My conservative estimate (my husband is the exaggerator of this pair) is that for the last half-year, our dishes have had some level of soap residue left on them after a cycle through the dishwasher. I'd become so accustomed to this reality that it wasn't until John commented at dinner several nights in a row that his meal had the faint taste of fresh lemons that I recognized it was probably time to take action.

In typical fashion, the item "Get dishwasher fixed" fell down and down my to-do list. Crossing that task off the list eluded me long enough for our garbage disposal to stop working as well. Recognizing that we could be throwing down some serious cash for two new appliances, I decided a better option might be to renew our home warranty. Even with the yearly fee and the service charge for each claim, that option it would still be cheaper than two new appliances.

During the month it took for me to finally complete the task of calling about the home warranty, I had completed the first several of the Stages You Go Through When Washing Dishes By Hand:

Stage 1: Mild Annoyance -- "This is annoying to be washing all our dishes by hand, but it's only for a few days. I can handle this. Lots of people don't have dishwashers."

Stage 2: Finding Inner Peace -- "OK, so this is lasting longer than a few days. I'm just going to try to enjoy this time standing in front of the sink. It can be time for me. Time for thinking and reflecting and pondering the things of life."

Stage 3 (directly on the heels of Stage 2): Denial -- "Dishes? What dishes? I don't see any dishes."

Stage 4: Take Out -- "Honey, can you pick up something for dinner on the way home? And make sure they give you paper plates. And spoons. And cups."

So I get our home warranty renewed and can barely contain my excitement when Rosemary (my agent) tells me the warranty takes affect at midnight tonight, so I can make a claim the next day if I want to.

"Fantastic."

"So, is there anything wrong in your house right now?"

"Ummm, no. Not that I know of." (Worried that if I tell her my dishwasher and my disposal are not working she somehow will not be able to renew the warranty. I realize lying is wrong people, but cut me some slack.)

"Well, good. Just one last thing I need to tell you...there is a 30-day waiting period for rust and corrosion. So, if you do make a claim and it's determined that the problem is due to rust or corrosion, the maintenance will not be covered under the warranty."

"Oh. OK." (Crap.)

Figuring that with my luck, it would be determined that both my dishwasher and disposal were not working due to rust or corrosion, I decided to play it safe and wait the 30 days. This was not an easy decision, but I wanted to bypass the reality of Murphy's Law being played out in this situation.

During the second 30 days, I worked my way through more Stages than I would've ever thought possible.

Stage 5: Water Conservation -- "Think of all the water we're saving!"

Stage 6: Glass Conservation -- "How many glasses did you use today? You're gonna reuse that glass aren't you?"

Stage 7: Dish Acrobatics -- "Look at that pile of clean dishes!" (I amazed myself at my newly-developed ability to stack dishes for optimum drying time.)

Stage 8: Dishpan Hands -- "Where's my hand lotion? I can't find my hand lotion!" (Truthfully, my hands have aged 20 years in the past 8 weeks.)

Which brings us to today. The Appliance Doctor braved the treacherous (or not) 1/4 inch of ice to show up at my doorstep and save me from washing one more dish by hand. In less than 5 minutes, he showed me the reason for my dishwashing troubles -- an elastic ponytail holder and what looked to be a mangled plastic straw. I've been washing dishes by hand for 60 days because of an ELASTIC PONYTAIL HOLDER?!?

My frustration was short-lived because I was about knocked flat on my feet by the horrendous smell coming from the dishwasher. It smelled like a dead cat.

"What is that awful stench?"

(The 'Doctor' with a cheekful of chew) "Oh that's stagnant water. It's probably been sitting in there since the last time you ran your dishwasher. That's nothin'. I've seen stagnant water that's turned black. Do you have any white vinegar?"

"All I have is cider vinegar."

"That'll do."(He pours an entire bottle of cider vinegar into the dishwasher and starts it back up.)

My dishes now smell like they were licked clean by a dead cat that fell into a tub of vinegar...but at least I didn't have to wash them by hand.

hand cramps

2007-11-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

I just finished handwriting 22 letters to mail out to our best customers at the store. (We have more than 22 customers that are "best"...we're e-mailing the other 38 people because we didn't have postal addresses for them.) I thought a handwritten note might stand out better. John's position was that I should type them out, sign my name and be done with them. My response was, "How many handwritten notes have you received from a retail store? Zero. That's right. I want these to make an impression."

Hours later and now I can barely move my right hand. And I'm thankful we only had 22 postal addresses.

The things I do to sell shoes.

I realized this morning after rereading this post that it might sound like I wished I had gone with John's position. Not the case. I was just feeling sarcastic last night after all that. It is interesting to me how far away our society has moved from writing things with our own hand. I mean, people used to write with a quill and ink (I'm sure some still do) and I can't sit down for longer than 20 minutes and write a letter with pen and ink. It's just so much easier to type an email, or a document and make copies. I set a "goal" for myself early in 2007 that I would write a letter to someone every month. I have yet to do that. Maybe I'll revisit it in 2008. Or maybe I'll decide to handwrite all our Christmas letters. On second thought, maybe not.

I also realized after opening up this post again that some of you with less-than-clean minds might get a laugh at the title of this post. I was going to change it to prevent any derogatory comments, but I've decided to let it remain. Please keep any potty-mouth comments to yourself.

bang up job

2007-11-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

I feel as if I've been waiting forever to grow my hair out, so I could get it cut and achieve the look I have wanted for awhile. Now, I realize forever may seem like a gross overstatement when my hair is still short after growing it out, but it's all relative here people. I love the girl who cuts my hair -- Amber has an amazing ability to do exactly what I want.

I spent at least 20 minutes attempting a self-portrait to no avail. I blame it on bad lighting inside my house. So then I stepped outside and Margot asked if she could take a picture of me. Her shot ended up being my favorite. I like the angle and off-centeredness. Should I be embarassed that at 3 she takes better photos than me?

And here's a closer-up shot -- a rare occurrence for me because I don't like being on this side of the camera.

habitat turns 2

2007-11-01T12:44:00.001-07:00

(photo credit to Hannah. This photo was taken one month before Habitat opened. The shoes are the Farylrobin Tetra and to this day, they are one of my favorites.)

Two years ago today my husband and I opened this. It has been an unpredictable ride to say the least. There have been times I've wondered if we've gone completely insane. Saturdays I've wished my husband could just stay home and have a weekend with our family. Moments of asking myself if chasing your dreams is really worth so much work (and then some more work).

Yet, there have been many more times I've been in awe of the generosity and support of our friends and family. Saturdays I've met and interacted with customers who love our store and get what we're trying to do. And lots of moments of knowing that I'd rather have chased a dream -- no matter how difficult -- than to have never known what would be on the other side of the pursuit.

Here's to many more years of schlepping shoes.

picking out pumquinns

2007-10-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

For the second night in a row, my husband has fallen asleep before my daughter. I didn't realize taking a vacation would be so tiring. I thought I'd take advantage of some time to myself (if Margot doesn't come downstairs 12 more times that is) to blog. Recently, I've been experiencing some serious mommy guilt about how few photos I've taken of my kids in the past year. I haven't allowed myself to look through family photo albums of Margot's first year (I've wanted to see how much Vance and Margot resemble one another as babies) because I know I would be so ashamed at how few photos I have taken of Vance's first year that I might not get out of bed for a week. So, last night I wrote out my to do list for today:

1. Call and reschedule Margot's dentist appointment
2. Confirm reservations for John's 30th birthday party
3. TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR CHILDREN

This morning we went out on the front porch to do some sidewalk chalk and I grabbed the camera. Honestly though I felt like I was forcing it. Trying to get some amazing photo of Vance while he was doing laps around my car to make up for the last 12 months. Fortunately, Nana called and asked if we wanted to meet her to pick out some pumpkins.

Vance picking out his:

This picture cracks me up...it's like the pumpkin just told him a joke.

Margot kept asking me, "Mom, when are we going to pick out our pumquinns?

A good haul (Margot is pulling the wagon. I think she would've pulled Vance all the way back to our house if we would've let her.):

our little ballerina

2007-08-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Margot had her first dance class today. It's called "Creative Movement" -- a ballet class for 3-5-year-olds. It's pretty much all Margot has talked about for the past month. On a daily basis she has told us, and anyone who would listen, "I'm going to Miss Lilly's ballet class" (Miss Lilly is Angelina Ballerina's ballet teacher, so naturally Margot assumed her teacher's name would be Miss Lilly). In order to avoid last minute rushing around (which always seems to be the case for me when trying to get two small children loaded up in the car with all their paraphrenalia AND we're trying to get somewhere on time), I dressed Margot in her little outfit early...like 2 hours early. It was almost too much for Margot to take, she kept saying, "I'm ready to go to ballet," or "Mom, when are we going to ballet." Then, when we arrived at the studio, we found out the class actually started an hour later than I thought. This about killed Margot. She could not understand why we were leaving after all the build-up to it. A quick lunch across the street and then we returned to find 4 other girls her age waiting patiently to start.

I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to watch her, but thankfully they allowed us to peek in through one of the windows to their room. It is probably one of the most adorable things I've ever seen (more photos on flickr, just click on photo above). Little girls dressed from head to toe in pink, dancing around with big smiles on their faces. Absolutely precious.

fly infestation

2007-08-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

I can't stand flies. In fact, I loathe them. Anytime I see a fly around my house, I promptly find a magazine, roll it up and kill it. However, a few days ago I got lax in my job as Fly Patrol and chose to wait it out. I mean, flies only have a 24-hour life cycle, right? I was tired of chasing them, so I decided to let the one or two flies buzzing around live out the remainder of their short lives and die on their own. This was where I went wrong.

Tuesday afternoon while walking from our front living room to our kitchen, I noticed several flies sitting on the window in our dining room. I started to count them and when I got to 7, I thought, "What is going on?" I then glanced into the kitchen and saw 4 more flies on the window in there, and then turned back into the living room to see 5 more flies on one of the windows in there. By this point, my blood was boiling so much is was about to shoot out of my veins and through my skin.

I went on a rampage and spent the next 15 or so minutes killing 19 flies. I had mercy on 3 flies that I ended up shooing out the door and then killed 8 more later that evening. I was only mildly comforted by my success at elimination all the flies (I could see at least) because I knew the reality was that some fly had laid a nest of a zillion eggs and that this party was long from over. I came home from work the next evening to find John swatting at flies. He said he'd already killed at least 15 (which means maybe 5 because he tends to exaggerate...and even he admits he's not good at killing flies). I killed 8 more that night. One was still buzzing about, but I'd nearly thrown my elbow out going after his siblings, so I decided to get him in the morning.

Today, I've killed at least 10 more; I'm starting to lose count. I just googled "fly infestation" and believe that our house has been taken over by bottle flies (also called greenbottle, bluebottle or blow flies), which are noted for their "metallic blue or green coloration." The good news? -- "Blowflies are scavengers who deposit their eggs on decaying meat, fish, garbage, fecal matter and dead animals." Now all I have to do is find and eliminate this source of decay. Fantastic. The really good news? -- "Complete development (from egg to adult) can require as little as 10 days or as much as 3 weeks." So I only have to deal with this for 3 more weeks. Stupendous! Too bad my husband will have to commit me long before then.

Actually, one good thing that has come out of all this is I found one interesting piece of advice on how to keep flies from entering your home:
"Many people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. No one yet knows how or why it works, but there is speculation that it has something to do with the way the moving water refracts light."

If anyone tries it, let me know if it works for you. In the meantime, pray for my sanity.

vrm: one year

2007-08-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

**Short rant -- Let me just say for the record that I actually put this post together earlier this week, only to find out after an hour of putting this "ode to Vance" together that blogger was down and I wouldn't be able to post it. And even though I just found out today that my husband has already posted these photos on his blog, I don't care. I'm posting this damn thing anyway. OK, done ranting. On to better things...

On Sunday, Master Vance turned 1! When I take a moment to stop and think about it, I get a little choked up to realize the first year of his life is already over. Even though I'm home with him and Margot most days, I still don't know where this past year has gone. I'm not sure if it's because I have two kids, or because I'm a small business owner. I'm sure it's some combination of the two.

You always hear about how things are different with the second child. "Oh, they're the second child...," then fill in the blank. With the first child you don't know what you're doing so you hem and haw over every little thing; with the second child you are more laid back and don't have time to hem and haw. With the first child you take advantage of every moment to talk with them, stimulate them with new toys, and observe every (small) thing they do; with the second child you do your best to keep the first one from making their life miserable, and you're lucky if you notice the first time they roll over, crawl, say "mama", or walk. With the first child you record every milestone (and, well just every day) in their baby book with notes AND photos; with the second child you can't find the baby book and even if you could you won't remember what day they actually did start crawling.

I'm sure a year ago I thought most of those things wouldn't be true for me, but the reality is they are. During Vance's first months, I would regularly catch myself wondering when was the last time I took a few moments to just look at him. Or, I'd feel bad that I didn't have any time with just him -- to play with him, talk to him, and just watch him -- like I did when Margot was a baby. As the months passed by, when he achieved some milestone, I kept saying to myself, "I need to write that down so I can record it in his baby book later." But somehow, I couldn't even find (make) the time to stop what I was doing, find a pen, and get it written on the calendar. (Truthfully, I never did with Margot either, so at least Vance isn't getting the short end of the stick there. Neither one of my kids will know when important milestones happened in their life.)

As the months rolled on, I began to adjust to life with two little ones, lightened up on myself a little bit, and just tried to take a step back every once and awhile and take it all in. There are many days I feel like I'm just trying to hold it all together while I try to get all the responsibilities of the day done. But there are also days when I don't feel buried by all the responsibilities and can enjoy Margot and Vance for who they are, and how our lives have been shaped by them.

Vance's personality is starting to come out and I'm really excited to see who he is going to be. How he's going to be different from (and similar to) his sister, and what characteristics of John and I he will have. One thing I know right now: he is SWEET. His face, his demeanor, his hugs. Complete sweetness. One thing I'm afraid of: he's going to use that sweetness (and those eyes...OH MY GOODNESS, those eyes) to his advantage the rest of his life to get into -- and out of -- trouble.

Vance, you're dad was convinced when we found out Margot was a girl that we were destined to have all girls (however many that would be). I'm glad he was wrong because I can't imagine life without you. You cause my heart to melt when you flash that smile of yours. Your giggle makes life seem easy. Keep the smiles and giggles coming.

in the nick of time

2007-06-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

Two blog posts in one day? What is the catalyst for such an event?

I finally figured out how to post a photo to my blog header. See above for proof.

It doesn't matter that the title looks lame. It doesn't matter that I don't have any photoshop skills to speak of to make a better looking header. It doesn't even matter that I don't like this picture any more. All that matters is I finally figured out how to do it. Thank you to random blogger, Ryanne, for making a screencast that was easy to follow.

And it's just in the nick of time because yesterday I was discussing with my husband how I was considering moving over to wordpress.com, just so I could upload a photo to my header easily. I may still move, but I can put it off for a little longer now.

the pelvic educator

2007-06-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

A friend called me up this afternoon and said she needed a "kid fix" and wanted to know if I'd like to go to a coffee shop and have some time to myself tonight. What? Are you kidding? Are you sure? Um...YES. So while John went for his weekly pummeling on the basketball court, I had the pleasure of sitting at a Barnes & Noble for ONE WHOLE HOUR. BY MYSELF. Just me and my chai from LatteLand (I like their chai better...and I like to support a locally-owned coffee shop. Yes, I support locally-owned bookstores too, but none of them are open this late on a weeknight). This happens so rarely in my life that I almost suffered from decision paralysis of how to spend my hour. Do I take the new book I recently started? Do I peruse the shelves for a new book that peaks my interest? Do I search out a comfy chair in which to take a nap? I finally decided to pick up a copy of my new favorite magazine and just enjoy reading from cover to cover. It was awesome.

While at B&N, I noticed two things that I thought were slightly ridiculous:
1. A magazine entitled Girlfriend Getaways. Now, I'm all for getaways with your girlfriends. In fact, one of my dearest friends and I have talked frequently about trying to get a trip planned for sometime this year for several of our close girlfriends. However, I am not convinced there needs to be an entire magazine devoted to this endeavor. My prediction: it folds after 3 issues.

2. 2008 planners and calendars are already for sale. In case the folks at B&N didn't notice, we haven't even reached the halfway point of 2007 yet. Seriously, who already needs to know what day June 12th falls on? I can barely get my act together to make plans for next week, much less next year. Although maybe if John and I actually put a vacation on the calendar that far in advance, we might actually take one.

On the way to and from the bookstore, I began listening to a book on tape. I'm pretty sure I've listened to a book on tape one other time in my life. I think it was on a road trip with John to Oklahoma and I'm pretty sure we turned it off after 15 minutes. Too much concentrating for me. However, when I saw Stiff the other day in the library, I quickly nabbed it. It's a book about cadavers, which I have been terribly fascinated with since my days on the cadaver team during my sophomore year in college. I saw this title in the Dusty Bookshelf (my favorite used bookshop) several years ago and immediately wanted to read it. I can't remember why I didn't purchase it that day, but I'm sure it had something to do with promising myself (or my husband) that I would not buy any more books until I read the pile of unread books that was growing taller than my nightstand. Anyway, it doesn't matter because I think I'm enjoying the book so much more listening to it.

For example, the author was talking about the history of physicians practicing surgical techniques and medical examinations on cadavers when she mentioned the pelvic educator. It used to be that residents had to practice pelvic examinations on patients that were under anesthesia for other reasons (i.e. surgery), but now they have women who volunteer to receive examinations and then provide feedback. The author comments that she thinks this qualifies them for sainthood. I trust that they are not volunteers, but get paid a damn fine wage.

two shoes for two minutes of your time

2007-06-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

The super-fun and hip folks at farylrobin are giving away 5 pairs of shoes to five lucky women who complete their survey. So, stop what you're doing right now and go try to win yourself a new pair of shoes.

If you're wondering whether you want to take TWO WHOLE MINUTES to try and win a pair of shoes -- YOU DO. Who doesn't want to win a new pair of shoes? Any shoes for that matter, but DEFINITELY a pair of Farylrobins. They are easily my favorite brand of womens shoes we sell at Habitat Shoe Store, and that's saying a lot because I love all our brands. So if the opinion of a shoe store owner is not enough to convince you then check out their new spring/summer collection at the link above. I trust you will find several pairs of shoes you wouldn't mind receiving for free...or might even be willing to buy. If that's the case, I know where you can get a pair or two (or three, or four, or five or six).

Hurry though, you must respond by June 15th.

first attempt

2007-06-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here's Margot in my first attempt at sewing clothing with a pattern (or sewing clothing without a pattern). I was inspired by Amy; she's made two outfits and a skirt from this pattern. After finding out it was a Sewing Patterns for Dummies pattern, I decided it might be a good place to start since I would definitely fall into the sewing dummy category. The pattern is Simplicity 4206. It was fairly easy, but I did feel like the directions left out a few important details. Here are some things I learned or would suggest:

- Definitely make the shirt longer; probably 1-1.5 inches longer. Amy mentioned this too, but I didn't feel comfortable just making it longer since I'd never sewn from a pattern before. This would be a fairly simple change that I will make if I try this pattern again. I will probably also take an inch or two off each side of the shirt as it seems pretty wide to me. This might be a little more difficult as I'm not sure how taking in the shirt would affect attaching the sleeves.

- I thought the most difficult part was the pockets, which I would not have guessed when I began. Pockets seem easy enough -- it's just a square you sew on, right? Well, it's not that simple. With all that folding over of fabric to get the finished look, the fabric starts to get thick at the corners, which then makes it difficult to sew on without looking all wonky. After attaching the first one, I looked up how to attach pockets in this trusty companion (a book I picked up because so many different craft bloggers recommended it) and it talked about the need to miter corners to reduce bulk. Funny that the Sewing Patterns for Dummies directions didn't mention anything about the need to reduce bulk or mitering corners. I think they decided to conveniently skip that stuff because mitering doesn't sound like something that falls into the dummy category. They don't tell you though that by following their over-simplified directions, it will be close to impossible to make your finished pocket look good.

- My next least favorite part was the casings for the elastic for the neckline, sleeves and waistline. All that folding over, and ironing, and pinning (sometimes) of 1/4" of fabric. Man, that stuff is for the birds. I can't believe I don't have more burn marks on my fingers.

- Linen is harder to work with than cotton. It doesn't iron up as easily (which makes all those casings and hemming that much harder) and it's more stretchy (which can mean problems if you pull your fabric too taught b/c it gets all out-of-shape).

- Making this outfit gave me a much greater appreciation for clothes in general and how much work goes into sewing something together. I realize the folks that sew clothing in factories have amazing machinery and can sew a lot faster than I can, but I still couldn't help but wonder at the details on most of my clothing that is much more difficult than the casings for elastic that were giving me fits at times.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the finished product (especially at the fact that I finished this in 1 week!). I love the fabric -- an Amy Butler print from her newest line and some linen that I thought matched perfectly. I would definitely recommend this pattern to even the most novice sewer. Up next: the super-simple smock dress (says Hannah). We'll see.

great "weekend"...finally

2007-05-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Let's just get it out of the way...it's been nearly 4 months since my last post. Not a surprise to anyone, least of all myself. Moving on...

Memorial Day weekend was most assuredly my favorite weekend in a long time. Why? Because John and I (and the kids of course) had an actual WEEKEND. For the past year-and-a-half, we haven't known what a weekend is. That's what happens when you own a small business that's open six days a week. So, while the rest of the country was lavishly enjoying their 3-day weekend, we were just excited for two days off. In a row. Together.

Sunday we decided to do something different and took the kids to Science City at Union Station. I'm not sure if Margot's favorite part was watching a turtle swim back and forth in a tank or getting her hand stamped when we entered. She was so excited to have a stamp ON HER HAND. I turned to John and said, "We could probably turn around and go home right now and she'd be good for the rest of the day."

We found out that Science City is really for older kids, but it was good to get out and do something different. That night we went back to Union Station to hear the KC Symphony play an outdoor concert and watch an amazing fireworks show. Margot wasn't a big fan of the fireworks, which could be a problem since her birthday is on the Fourth of July.

Monday evening we got to hang with some friends at the park. Two words: BUBBLE GUN. (More photos when flickr stops getting a massage.)

Thanks Huffmans. We got to get ourselves one of those. Maybe if we use it every night before bedtime, our daughter will actually fall asleep before 11pm.

Another highlight of the weekend: time in front of the sewing machine. I got inspired by Amy and decided to try my hand at an outfit for Margot. I've never followed a pattern for clothing before, so this was a big step for me. I finished the top tonight and hope to get the pants done in the next few days. Although honestly, that would be shocking.

And the main reason I celebrated this weekend: MARGOT WENT POTTY IN THE POTTY CHAIR. FOUR TIMES. BY HERSELF. HALLELUJAH. I got one word for ya...CHOCOLATE. Prior to Monday, there was much sitting and reading and singing and talking while Margot sat on the potty chair (and I sat next to her). There was very little peeing though. None to be exact. But the moment she heard that she could have a piece of chocolate if she went in the potty chair, she found a reason to make it happen.

All in all, not a bad weekend. A great one, actually. Now we just need to get someone hired so we can have weekends more often than the three or four times a year a national holiday falls on a Monday.

vegas, part 1

2007-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:00

So last week was the first of two trips to Vegas this month for John and I to shop for shoes for Fall/Winter 07. Although the current winter has really just gotten fully underway here in beautiful Kansas (let's be real - we're FREEZING OUR ARSES OFF here), it's already time to shop for shoes for next winter. The trip was challenging to say the least. It was our first time to have one of our children with us, which we knew would make things more difficult...and would make things take longer than usual...and would make us more tired than we usually are. All of that I was prepared for. What I wasn't prepared for was to be greeted by this on the 7th floor of the Venetian Hotel (the WSA trade show is in several locations, one of them being the Venetian):

"I'm sorry Ma'am. No kids allowed."

"We called before we came and got approval to bring him because he's a nursing infant under the age of one. They told us we just needed to sign a release of liability form."

"Can I see your form?"

"Well, I don't have one. When we checked in at registration no one said anything to us about needing a form."

"Then I'll need you to go to the 34th floor and get a signed form before I can admit you on this floor."

So Vance and I trekked up to the 34th floor while John went to an appointment with Camper. When I got there, I received some disturbing news from the woman in charge of this particular section of the show.

The long and short of it -- I was told that no children under 16 were allowed in the show and that the rule was printed on all the promotional material for the show. She didn't seem to care that I'd talked with someone at the 1-800 number who told me all I had to do was sign a release of liability form. She said there was no release of liability form, that whoever we talked with was mistaken and that she would lose her job if she allowed me to take my child into the show.

I asked her (nicely, of course) if she and the people in charge of the WSA show cared about small businesses. She responded, "Of course we do, small businesses are the backbone of this show." I proceeded to tell her that my husband and I owned a small shoe store, that we were the only buyers, and that we didn't travel all the way to Vegas with our 5-month-old son to be told that we weren't going to be able to attend the show. After about 10 minutes of going back-and-forth, I think she realized that I was not going to just quietly leave and that we were going to need to find a solution to our "problem." In the end, her staff found out that one of the exhibitors didn't show up, so they offered to give us a key to the room to use as a homebase: one of us could stay with our child while the other went to appointments with vendors and then we could switch off. It was far from ideal, but it appeared it was the only option they were going to give us. It pretty much defeated the entire purpose of our coming together -- to view the lines together, to get feedback from one another, to bounce ideas off one another and to be able to make decisions TOGETHER -- but we realized if we were going to get anything done on this trip we were going to have to make the best of it. The upside: Vance got to take naps on a bed instead of in a baby carrier on my back, which did make for a more peaceful trip under the circumstances.

Other things we learned from mishaps on this trip:
1. Waking up at 4:15am is not early enough for a 6:20am flight out of KCI. John and I have already flown twice recently with Vance and have thoroughly enjoyed the preboarding luxury given to parents of small children. Not this morning though as I think we were the last people on the plane. The upside: the flight was only half full, so even though we had to squeeze Vance and his car seat down the teeny-tiny aisle of the plane, we all got to sit together.

2. Going through airport security with young children -- specifically a baby -- is REALLY fun. I'm talking serious fun people. Not only do you get to perform all the typical exercises of airport security routine: making sure you remembered to remove the nail file from your purse, observing the 3-1-1 rule for liquids (for those of you who have not recently flown and are not up-to-speed on airline regulations all your liquids that are carried on board must now be 3 ounces or less in 1 bag that is 1 quart or less in size, and removing your shoes, but you also get the privilege of removing your adorable, sleeping (remember it's 6am) babe from it's car seat and sending both seat and stroller through the tiny X-ray machine while at the same time trying to perform the aforementioned rituals all in under 1 minute so as to KEEP THE LINE MOVING PLEASE. After getting Vance snuggled back in his car seat, I was feeling pretty good about how smoothly the airport screening had gone. While putting my shoes back on, I was jolted out of my smug reverie by a slight crash. I spun around to find that my son's car seat had fallen off the stroller WITH HIM IN IT. The upside: he wasn't hurt, only slightly disoriented. We hadn't even boarded the plane and this trip was already off to an exciting start.

3. Use caution when getting into an unfamiliar shower in a hotel or you could slip and fall on your arse. The upside: it made for some much-needed laughter after the day we'd had..."I'm sorry sir, you won't be able to bring that wheelchair into the show. No children under 16 are allowed and no adults under the age of 30 in a wheelchair."

4. When nursing your son, don't stand up too quickly to answer the door of the hotel room or you might pop a button off your dress that would make it difficult to walk around the rest of the day and people not to stare at parts of your body you don't want them staring at. The upside: suites in the Venetian Hotel come equipped with several amenities. My particular favorite this day: a sewing kit.

I'll share the trends for fall/winter 2007 in another post. Stay tuned for Vegas, Part 2 next week.

local news

2007-01-16T01:30:00.000-08:00

Does anyone agree with me that the local news is horrible? Tonight, after watching the Golden Globes and before I located the remote, I caught two small segments of "news" that pretty much sums up what the local stations think is newsworthy around here. I don't think I've ever watched a full half hour segment of the local news, so I'm certainly no expert, but from the few moments I've seen here and there I'm convinced that every news story comes from two main topics: crime and the weather.

The first several stories of tonight all had to do with some type of crime or tragedy, or a tragic crime -- two young boys who had been kidnapped, a teenage girl who had been hit by a truck, another young girl who was an accomplice to a murder. All these stories were shared in the first two minutes. I don't understand why the people who decide what stories get on the local news think that the people of Kansas City want to hear about this stuff. It seems to be all about sensationalism to me and I'm repulsed by it. Why can't they find some positive stories to talk about? There must be hundreds of people all over KC who do great things for other people every day. I want to hear those stories.

And then the pendulum swung to the other side of the coin of horrible journalism. Just before turning off the TV, we saw a clip about the ice and sleet that have been falling on KC the past few days. They actually showed a woman scraping ice off her car and flashed her name on the screen with the title "Ice Scraper" underneath it. WHAT?!? Is this for real? What idiot approved giving this unsuspecting woman the title of "Ice Scraper?" Is catching a woman on video scraping ice off her car seriously newsworthy? "Oh my goodnes John, will you look at that. That woman is scraping ice off of her car. That's fascinating. How does she do it?" C'mon people.

So is it just KC, or is the local news this bad in every city?

the best week of 2007...already?

2007-01-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

This was probably one of the best weeks I've had in a long time. Nothing mind-blowing happened, but just lots of little things that added up to a great week.

Monday, I worked all day at the store -- something I haven't done in a long time. But this guy had not had two days off in a row (except for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day) for a very long time. We're talking months. Fortunately, Vance is not eating as frequently, so I'm able to work a full day if John brings him to the store for one feeding. Now, most people might not think starting off the week with a full day of work would be a start to a great week. Well, it is for me because when I work on stuff for the store it's either during the kids naptime (when they nap at the same time), or at night after they've gone to bed. The weeks I have to work on stuff several nights in a row are the weeks I dislike owning our own business. It's not that I dislike working on stuff for the business, it's that I dislike mostly having to do it in the "free time" I have apart from the kids, which means I don't get to do other things I want to like read (books, magazines or blogs), knit, sew, and other stuff that's relaxing. So, having a full day at the store to work on all the things I have to do at home normally, is a GREAT start to the week for me. Plus, the added bonus is my husband gets a day to hang with the kids and enjoy their hugs, smiles and giggles. The only bummer part about Monday is what I missed. Right after we sat down to dinner, John said, "So, Vance rolled over today." Of course he did. I've been coaxing him for weeks to roll over, I should not be surprised that he chose the day I was out of the house to do this for the first time. Oh well, he did it again after dinner.

Wednesday, I went out for coffee with Hannah. Again, this may not sound like an event to boast of a stellar week, but I can't even remember the last time I went out for coffee with a friend...without my children in tow. It was wonderful. Hannah and I talked for three hours I think and it honestly felt like 45 minutes. We closed down LatteLand (they were very nice not to kick us out, but we got the hint when we noticed lights flickering out). We talked about our respective stints of living and travelling abroad and how we would both like to get back to Europe again some day whether to travel or to live for some time. I thoroughly enjoyed learning new things about Hannah. This may sound cheesy, but ideas were sparked in me from that conversation that had been dormant for some time. It was good for my soul.

And Friday. Oh Friday. Our amazing friends, Jeff and Sarah, offered to watch our kiddos so we could have a date night. A what? A date night? What's that? (Basically from this post you're learning that I don't get out much). On our way out the door, Jeff demanded he take a picture of us (see, even he knew what a momentous occasion this was):

and then said, "If you're home before midnight, I'll be disappointed." My response was, "Jeff, if we're not home by midnight, you need to call the police because something is very wrong." OK, I didn't really say that, but I figured he was going to be disappointed. So, we ate the most delectable meal at 1924 Main -- arguably the best restaurant in Kansas City. Their menu changes every week of the year and you an choose the prie fixe option for a 3-course meal of a starter, main course and dessert.

John chose:
Black mussels with chorizo, smoked fennel, orange segments and basil aioli
Grilled swordfish with brandade potatoes, oyster mushrooms and manila cream butter
Chocolate espresso pot de creme with biscotti and port soaked cherries

I chose:
Herbed goat cheese ravioli with braised lamb broth and crispy fennel
Grilled strip steak with blue cheese potatoes, balsamic marinated portabellas and cabernet sauce
the pot de creme as well.

Is your mouth watering yet? John and I kept saying, "It has to be wrong to be enjoying a meal this much." If I were to ever win the lottery (which I don't play so I'll probably never win), I think the thing that might change most about my life is that I would eat out at nice restaurant A LOT MORE. I love eating out at restaurants with chefs who know how to prepare food. Added bonus: the couple that owns the place are the nicest people AND they're our neighbors.

After dinner, we checked out the newly renovated President Hotel (to scout out the grounds for a stay sometime in the future?) and then went around the corner to JP's wine bar and coffeehouse because we couldn't go home yet. I was daring and tried an after dinner coffee drink which had Grey Goose vodka, Godiva chocolate and something else. Very disappointing. Too strong (the alcohol, not the coffee) and just all-around not what I was hoping. So, I asked our waiter if he could just bring me a Chai instead. I know...boring, but hey, it's what I wanted. And let me tell you, it was probably the best Chai I ever tasted. Not to mention, it was HUGE. The mug it came it was the size of a bucket. I drank the whole thing, so I definitely got my $3.50 worth.

But better than the delectable meal and fabulous Chai was the fact that I had nearly four, uninterrupted hours ALONE with my husband to talk about anything but the store. It was the perfect end to a great week. Now, if I can just take time to do things like this every week, 2007 will be a banner year.

mkm 2.5

2007-01-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Margot,
You turned two-and-a-half today. Thirty months old. I've wanted to write you a letter every month on your "birthdate" (an idea I got from another mommy-blogger), but for more reasons than I care to admit, I've never succeeded in accomplishing that goal. Well, it's 2007 and times are a changin' (hopefully).

This past month has been a super-fun one with you. Your new thing is dancing and you do it all the time. Sometime in November we watched Center Stage and ever since then, all you want to do is dance. Prior to seeing the movie, you loved music and would jump up-and-down when listening to Coldplay or Death Cab for Cutie or any number of the other bands your father has in rotation in our stereo. But this movie was a definite turning point. Now, it's all about being a ballerina. After the first viewing, you studied the photos on the back of the DVD case and then proceeded to imitate the poses you saw in the photos. During the second viewing, you spent most of the movie hopping around trying to mimic what they were doing on screen. For the next two weeks, immediately after you woke up (and every hour after that) you would say, "I wanna dance" and would ask us to turn on the music. You would dance around the living room like a ballerina, placing your arms carefully in position, up on your "tippy toes", alternating between a look of intense concentration and a beaming smile. Aside from our parental bias, I think others would agree that you look pretty darn good for a two-year-old...sorry, two-AND-A-HALF-year old. Your father and I had so much fun watching your dance routines that when I saw a pink tutu at our favorite children's clothing store, I knew that's what we would be giving you for Christmas. You also received a pink leotard and tights for Christmas and spent most of Christmas day dancing around the house in the complete get-up. I think you've worn it at least once every day since Christmas and whenever anyone asks you what you got for Christmas, you exclaim with a big grin on your face, "I got a tutu. It's pink."

Other than dancing, you are very into your little brother. You love to hug him and kiss him and very much wish you could pick him up and throw him over your shoulder to burp him and can't quite seem to understand why we won't let you. And although we tell you at least 10 times a day to not lean all your weight on Vance, you haven't quite grasped that concept yet. But honestly, I'd rather have to keep reminding you not to smother him than for you to ignore him and be totally uninterested in him. When you wake up in the morning, or from a nap, one of the first things you say is, "Where's Vance?" You're also very protective of him, and have burst into tears and protested several times this past month when you see someone you don't know saying "hi" to him or holding him. People have reacted quite strangely to this, but we know it's just your way of watching out for your little brother.

When you're not playing with Vance, you can usually be found playing in your room. This is a new development, just in the last week or so. I think it's because you've figured out how to turn on the CD player yourself and can now listen to your "Margot" CD over and over and over. You seem to be really enjoy having some time to yourself up there and I must admit it's been refreshing for me. But today when you were playing up there by yourself, I got a little sad because I realized this is just the beginning of what is sure to be many years of you wanting to differentiate yourself from me. My mind was flashing forward to your teenage years when you'll be listening to different music (that I also can't stand) in your room and wanting nothing to do with me. I know our job as parents is to raise you to become your own person and to pursue your own dreams and I certainly want you to do that, but today I got a small glimpse of how hard that is going to be at times. So for now, I'm going to enjoy the times you ask me to turn the music on so you can dance, and for the times that you turn it on yourself, don't be surprised if I sneak in your room to just watch you play.

I love you,
--Mama

oh boy!...comments

2007-01-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

I had no idea posting about a college football game would provoke more comments on my blog than any other post to date. Wow, maybe I need to change my focus...

thirty-and-a-half

2007-01-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

Two days ago I turned thirty-and-a-half. Do you remember the days when half-birthdays were a big deal?

"How old are you?"

"I'm 7 and a half."

Somehow, 30 and a half just doesn't have the same ring to it. I think the main reason I still acknowledge my half-birthday is because it is also my stepdad's birthday. I'm sure some people might think it's silly to acknowledge half-birthdays and I can understand that. If you celebrate a half-birthday, why not a quarter-birthday? Or an eighth-birthday? It could get a little ridiculous. I do know a family who celebrates half-birthdays with their kids. They don't throw a party for them, but rather take the day as an opportunity for some special one-on-one time with their kids. I absolutely LOVE birthdays, and have felt for some time that everyone should get a birthWEEK to celebrate. I could get into this half-birthday celebration concept.

Speaking of half-birthdays...Margot turned 2 1/2 today, but more about that in another post.

oh boy-se state!

2007-01-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

(that may be the cheesiest blog post title ever)
Did anyone else see the Fiesta Bowl tonight? WOW. Probably one of the best college football games I've ever seen. Seriously. Before tonight, I had never heard of Jared Zabransky, but if you'd seen me cheering for him in the final seconds of regulation when he completed a pass on fourth-and-18 for a touchdown to send the game into overtime, you might've mistaken me for his mother...or a Boise State fan at the very least.

I wanted to share my excitement with someone (my husband went to bed early to recover from the New Year's Eve party we attended), so I called my friend, Jeff. It ended up that he was asleep too (recovering from the same party). He sounded so confused that I would be calling him at 11:30pm to celebrate the outcome of a college football game, so I told him "goodnight" and decided to just share my joy with the anonymous blogworld instead. If you saw the game, you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, you can read the story here.

So, Boise State is now 13-0. The only other undefeated team is Ohio State, but unfortunately these two teams won't have a chance to go head-to-head for the National Title because of the messed-up BCS bowl system. I won't go there though because I don't have an opinion about it.

Happy New Year!

hog dressing, moonshine and odd ball knitting

2006-12-11T21:21:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly 5 months since my last post (Kerry, it must be the day to resurrect old blogs...what a funny coincidence). It's not like I haven't thought about posting for the past 5 months. I've thought about it a lot, I just haven't really been motivated to do anything about it. Part of my lack of motivation may have something to do with the fact that I had a baby in August. Here he is at one month of age with his sister.

His stats:
Vance Randolph
August 19
12:46am
7 lbs., 13 oz.
19 1/2 in.
Darn cute.

Now, I realize there are many moms out there who have babies and continue blogging without missing a day. Seeing as how I missed MANY days before I had a second child, it's not surprising to me that I missed a few after he was born. The days just kept clicking by and I kept thinking, "I need to get back to blogging and tell the blogworld about Vance." And then I would realize I didn't have any photos on my computer to show him off. So another day would pass, and another, and another and I just never got up the energy to get a photo from John's computer onto my computer so I could post about Vance and then move on with my blog life. I know that sounds completely lame, but it's the truth. It doesn't take much to throw me off track with this whole blogging thing.

Lately, however, I've been thinking about blogging a lot more. Maybe it's because I'm finally adapting to being a mom of two, or because I'm not as sleep-deprived. Maybe it's because I need to think about something other than my kids and the store. Maybe I've been missing this outlet to express myself, process things, or just share funny stories. Or, maybe the pull of this interesting thing called the blogworld is just too much to resist. I don't know what it is and I don't know how long I'm back for, but today, I'm here.

Why today? Well, let me tell you. Tonight I was searching for a knitting book to get my sister for Christmas (she's 17 and I thought it would be cool to introduce her to knitting) and came across Odd Ball Knitting. Then I glanced below the photo of the book to find the Best Value promotion. You know, where it says, "Buy Odd Ball Knitting and get this other book at an additional 5% off Amazon.com's everyday low price." This was the other book. I'm not exactly sure how Amazon paired these two books together, but I don't care. It was worth a good laugh to me.

self portrait tuesday -- my life as a...

2006-07-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

...cowgirl.

This is my first pair of cowboy boots and I love them! They're a 30th birthday present to myself (purchased with money given to me by my family...thanks family!). I've been wanting a pair of Lucchese boots since John bought his at Allens Boots in Austin, TX nearly a year and a half ago. It was our first time to Austin and we both fell in love with the town. When we lived in Lawrence, people would tell us all the time that if we loved Lawrence, then we would really love Austin. We couldn't resist the pull forever. Even though we were only there for two days and had a 6-month old with us (and thus did not get to experience any of the live music scene), we saw enough to fall in love with the town. Actually, we spent much of the time throwing around the idea of moving to Austin and opening a shoe store there (we knew at that time that we were definitely pursuing the shoe store, we just didn't know where yet). But, Austin has plenty of hip boutiques (shoe stores included) and Kansas City doesn't, so in the end we decided there was probably more of a need in KC.

I'm sure owning these cowboy boots is the closest thing I'll ever get to being a cowgirl (which I realize is not close at all), but one of my secret lifelong dreams has been to move to a ranch and own horses. I love horses. Or maybe I should say I like horses. Saying I love horses makes me feel like I should collect horse figurines, or subscribe to a magazine about horses, or at least have taken riding lessons when I was younger. None of that applies to me, so maybe I'm only allowed to say I like horses, but either way, I think one day I'd like to own one or two.

I haven't spent massive amounts of time around horses by any means. The extent of my experience with taking care of and riding horses is a handful of days spent with my friend Erin at her family's ranch. I'm sure those few days 15 years ago have provided me little to no concept of what is actually involved with owning and caring for horses, but who cares about that. It's a dream, and thus I don't feel the need to burden it with all those realities. Maybe one day in the distant future when Habitat is doing well and we've opened multiple stores and we can pay someone else to run the daily operations of the business, my husband, daughter, child #2 and I can move out of the "city" and experience those realities of country life firsthand. Right now, it sounds pretty appealing. Who knows if it will in ten years? I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

Incidentally, although this is my first time participating in the self portrait challenge, I have wanted to for the better part of a year. When I first found out about it, I was intrigued by the concept, but not quite ready to post photos of myself every week. I really like photography, but I like being on this side of the camera...not in front of it. Then, when I'd actually be ready to try a shot, John would have the camera at the store taking photos for the all-consuming website. Or, I'd not resonate with the challenge for that month. Or, I'd think about it on Thursday, but not Tuesday. I suppose the stars just aligned rightly today...who knows if they ever will again.

a much-needed afternoon off

2006-07-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

My amazing mother gave me a massage for Mother's Day and I finally got around to using it yesterday because I felt like I could take an afternoon off of work at the store and not spend the rest of the week overwhelmed at all the work I'd have waiting for me next Tuesday when I returned. Now I realize you don't need an entire afternoon for a 1-hour massage, but for me to fully enjoy the experience, I need several hours on either side of the massage to relax and just enjoy some time to myself. And to insure that I would take said several hours, I scheduled the massage in Lawrence -- a nice, 45-minute drive away to my favorite town that we don't live in anymore. The massage was great, although not quite the same when you're 8 months pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the massage therapist just isn't able to get to places as well when you have to lay on your side almost the entire time.

Yet, it was still relaxing and I actually experienced a few hours free of pain in my lower back afterward, which was especially nice. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Mass St. going to all my favorite shops -- the Dusty Bookshelf, the Yarn Barn and Sarah's Fabrics -- places I loved to linger in when we lived in Lawrence, but I don't get the opportunity very often anymore.

I went into the Dusty Bookshelf looking for three books specifically. I found one of them and four others (of course) that I just had to pick up (hey, I did leave two others behind that I really wanted). The one I found that I had been looking for was Anna Karenina; a classic, and my dear friend Sarah's favorite book. The other four I couldn't resist taking with me were: The Devil in the White City (actually another recommendation of Sarah's), Five Quarters of the Orange, The Known World and Life of the Beloved (all just ones that sounded good). The only question now is which one to begin?

I found plenty of yummy yarn and amazing fabric at the other two stores (as usual), but resisted the temptation to purchase any of it. Not that I needed to at Sarah's because I still have a gift certificate that John gave me for my birthday last year (I know, I know, it's ridiculous). Rather than make a rash decision and end up with a pile of great fabric, but not know what to use it for, I wanted to take advantage of plenty of time by myself to walk around and survey all the fabrics. Then, I plan to use the next couple of days to decide which projects I want to pursue next and go back this coming week and burn through that gift certificate. Maybe, just maybe they'll even be having a sale at Sarah's since Thursday is the Annual Sidewalk Sale in Lawrence. It's a must-see event, if you've never been. We're talking crazy shoppers here people. The first year we lived in Lawrence and I went to the sale, I was blown away by how many people were crowded on Mas St. at 7 in the morning. I think I spent most of the day at Sunflower Bike Shop (another totally fun store) listening to a guy perched at the top of a ladder say things like, "We have Sunflower T-shirts for $5...it's cheaper than doing laundry." I found out later that they guy doesn't even work for Sunflower, he's just a friend of the owners who comes up every year to sit atop his ladder and yell funny things through a megaphone at customers wrestling for a deal.

I'm planning on going this year (my 5th time), so if anyone in KC is interested in scavenging the racks with me, I'd love to be the one to initiate you to this rare, but wonderful experience.

spoiled aspirations

2006-07-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

So I had great aspirations tonight to completely (or at least slightly) change the look of my blog. You know, add that photo of my front porch swing that I've been intending to do for a year. I figure it's long overdue. Although that may be true, what's also true is that I HAVE NO IDEA how to add a photo, change the font, change the size of the font, pretty much anything that has to do with html. But for some reason I decide that tonight of all nights, when I have a zillion other things I could (and should) be doing, I am going to figure it out by myself.

Well, an hour and a half later...no dice. I still don't understand which part of the template I need to change, or frankly where to even look in the template to change what I want to change. I have a hard time believing I'm the only person for which this stuff is not intuitive. I've tried searching the help section of blogger, but to no avail. I'm sure it's there somewhere...listed under some weird code, not something that makes sense like, "How to add a photo to your header." I've tried so many changes in the last 90 minutes, none of which have done anything remotely noticeable to my blog. I've decided to pack it in for the night as I'm afraid if I keep at it I will either end up erasing my entire blog or my husband will have to commit me to a mental hospital. Plus, since tomorrow is First Friday and we're having a HUGE Sidewalk Sale at the store (in the words of our friend Jeff, a "big ol' shut yo mouth" Sidewalk Sale) and it's sure to be a complete three-ring circus, I'd better get some sleep or my 32-week pregnant body is never going to make it until 11pm tomorrow night. If you live in KC, then stop by Habitat and take advantage of some sweet deals on even sweeter shoes. And if you don't live in KC, you can see what you're missing on our brand spankin' new website (which we are only currently telling limited people about while we make sure all the bugs are worked out).

birthday week

2006-07-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

We've been celebrating a lot around here lately. Two days ago (July 2nd), I left my roaring twenties and entered a new decade of life. I think my husband has reminded me at least thirty times in the past few days that I am now 30 (he's a year and four months behind me). Several people have asked me, "So, how are doing with turning 30?" I'm doing just fine with it thank you. Actually, I'm excited about entering my thirties. I'm not sure why, I just am. Sure 30 sounds a lot older than being in your twenties, but I don't feel any older than I did two days ago, two weeks ago, two years ago (well, maybe two years ago since that's when I became a parent and that will age anybody). I'm not sure I'll ever feel my age again. I have a friend who's turning 40 this year and she says she still feels like she's in college.

Turning 30 is certainly an excuse to have a big party and that's just what my friend, Hannah, and I did (she turned 30 three days before me). We had a pig roast. It was awesome. I'm not normally one for viewing up close the animal that I'm about to ingest, but I will say it was the best pork I've ever eaten. It was so tender I can see why slow roasting produces the best kind of meat. Here's a photo of the carcass:

Now that's a good looking pig, but I think the one Hannah included on our invitation might be easier on the eyes. You can view it here. Hannah designed them herself and then we printed them on her gocco (I use the term, we, lightly as she really did all the printing...I basically watched her because I'm afraid of that contraption). Hannah loves that gocco thingamajig and is into all things stencil-like nowadays, so it's best to just get out of her way and let her create her masterpieces.

Between the 86 pounds of pork and the 10 dozen chocolate cupcakes (and the many delicious side dishes people brought), I think everyone went home content...including Margot and Collette (Hannah's daughter):

Margot had to take a break from scarfing down her cupcake and decided to just hold it for a minute or two...against her dress of course, what better place?

The other celebration this week (today actually) was for Margot's 2nd birthday. Two years ago today, John and I watched fireworks from our hospital room window holding our new daughter. Leave it to Margot Kay to be born on the Fourth of July. It's hard to believe two years has passed since that day. Happy Birthday beautiful girl. I'm sure you will grow up thinking all those fireworks are for you (once we actually make it to a fireworks extravaganza on the 4th) and really, what's wrong with that?

Here's Margot consuming her birthday (cup)cake:

Yes, she's eating a chocolate cupcake leftover from my birthday party. Let's just say we overshot our estimate of how many cupcakes we needed by about 5 dozen. Trust me, they're too yummy to let go to waste and she doesn't look like she minds, does she?

odds and ends

2006-06-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

[Blogger was acting up yesterday, so this post is a day late.]
Last night while my husband was having his face melted at the Sam Roberts Band concert in Lawrence, I spent the evening describing shoes for our website that we're hoping to launch next week. Antiqued leather with bronze stud detailing...padded footbed...rubber outsole with textured grip...don't even try to resist buying this shoe...you know, typical stuff. After working on it all day yesterday while I was at the store (and John had the day off...do we see a pattern here?), and then another couple of hours at home, my eyes grew so tired from looking at the computer screen I finally just nodded off (OK, OK...in fairness to John, he's spent many more hours working on this website than I have so he deserved a night out with the boys).

Although we have been working our tails off to get this website up and running, we decided we could afford to take the weekend off to travel to Oklahoma City to visit some friends of ours before they moved to Budapest for the summer. It's the first time since the store opened back in November that we've left it in the hands of someone else and it felt great. We almost didn't remember what it felt like to have two days off in a row together. Anyway, we had a great visit with our friends. I mean, what could be better than cooking hot dogs over a fire pit in 90 degree weather? Margot had a great time playing with their kids -- especially Jed. We think she has a crush on him (he's the one in the middle).

One thing I love about road trips is all the concentrated time John and I have to talk. Oh wait, I remember, John doesn't talk when he's in "his zone." This used to irritate me. What else are road trips good for if not for talking, talking and more talking? Such a great opportunity to find out new things about each other, or dream up new dreams, or share old memories. Not with my husband. I'm lucky if I can get him to answer a question with more than a nod and a grunt. So, I've learned that road trips give me a chance to start a new novel, flip through magazines, or start a new knitting project (all of which I thoroughly enjoy so it's easy to deal with the lack of conversation). During the five hour drive down and back I read a book about toilet training (no Jane Austen novel, but I've been feeling like I need to get some knowledge in this area), flipped through the latest domino mag and started a new knitting project. It's a long scarf with a cool triangular pattern that I saw the last time I was at Urban Arts + Crafts. Here's what I've done so far:

Not a lot, but it's a start. I'm still very new to knitting, so trying a new pattern means I usually have to teach myself new skill (this book has been very helpful in teaching myself to knit; clear instructions and a funny read). This time I had to learn a new way of increasing and decreasing. I'm planning on giving this to one of my relatives for Christmas. Yes it's only June and Christmas is more than 6 months away, but I know if I don't start now my annual dream of making handmade gifts will remain just that. I figured I'd give myself more than the 3 1/2 weeks in December and actually give myself a fighting chance.

the first day of summer

2006-06-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Even though the calendar doesn't say the first day of summer has arrived, it has for us. Yesterday, Margot and I went to the pool for the first time this summer. I was wondering how she would react since a couple of weeks ago when Collette and Eliot brought over their kiddie pool, Margot wanted nothing to do with it. She just watched them splash around from the safety of our deck.

After I had gotten over the trauma of baring my pregnant body enveloped in a swimsuit to the world for the first time (I never went swimming when I was pregnant with Margot), we made our way to the pool. I asked Margot if she wanted to go into the water with Mommy to which she replied, "No, no, no , no," while flapping her arms wildly (this has been a typical response of Margot's lately as I think she has officially entered the "I-want-to-do-it-by-myself" stage). So, I just waded into the pool myself. It's one of those zero-depth entry pools (I don't know the official term), which ended up being perfect for Margot.

She spent the first 15 minutes dancing around the deck, watching young boys throw a water football back and forth.

Eventually she decided that it looked like Mommy was having fun splashing her feet in the water, so she tried it herself.

She would walk in, splash around, and walk back out. Walk farther in, splash around, watch the big kids swimming around, walk back out. She repeated this routine over and over for the next 30 minutes until she had waded in until the water was all the way up to her chin! (I didn't get a photo of that though)

I was so proud of her. Or maybe relieved is a better description. I mean it's not like I would have not been proud if she had decided she wanted nothing to do with the pool, but I probably would've been a little disappointed. I was also proud of myself. Typically I don't have the kind of patience it takes to watch an almost 2-year-old wade in and out of a pool for 30 minutes. Somehow though when it's your child, you enjoy standing in 4 inches of water with the hot sun blaring down on you, watching your child explore new territory.

chug...chug...chug

2006-05-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

I had my (almost) 27-week prenatal check-up today, which meant the dreaded glucose test. It's 10am and I've had nothing to eat for breakfast even though I worked out at 8am and am pregnant. Not a good combination. The nurse hands me a straw and a bottle that has a faint resemblance to pop, but is really solid sugar with a few drops of liquid. I'm about to ask her for a spoon when she says,

"Make note of the time. You need to drink the entire bottle within 5 minutes and then start the timer."

Probably not a big deal for most women, but a formidable task for me. Why? Because I know what happened the last time I did the glucose test two years ago. I don't drink pop (and didn't then either), so sucking down 24 ounces (OK...maybe 8) of carbonated glucose is not appealing to me. My first run at it, I ended up sipping it so slowly that I literally had to chug almost the entire 8 ounces in the last 30 seconds. I'm sure I looked like I was taking shots in a bar, not taking a simple prenatal test in a waiting room.

This go-round, I was determined to pace myself better. Four minutes in, I was sure I was doing so well, but when I glanced at the bottle, I realized I still had half of the bottle remaining. The other women there probably thought the nurse had somehow mistakenly given me motor oil by the look of sheer terror on my face at the task ahead of me. I wasted the next 30 seconds peering around the waiting room trying to ascertain where the cameras were located that were trained on me to make sure I finished the drink within 5 minutes. Growing more frightened by the second that the nurse was going to burst through the door and start shouting at my to finish or I'd have to do it all over again, I chugged the remaining 4 ounces, slammed the bottle down on the table and quickly started the timer. Now all I needed was some coffee to go with my sugar.

a month old meme

2006-05-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

My friend, Stephanie, tagged me for a meme back in late April. It's now a month later and the meme is old news, but I desperately need to cross this off the to-do list in my head, so I can be at peace again.

Five minutes to yourself: Sitting on my porch swing and listening to the wind rustle the leaves in the trees.

Five bucks to spend right now: I'd say a magazine, but I feel like all I've been doing lately is reading magazines. So, I'll say a new (to me) and used book from the Dusty Bookshelf in Lawrence. Something from John Steinbeck or Anne Lamott.

Five items you could part with in your house, right now, that you hadn't thought of already:
- Our couch and sofa (although we can't afford new ones right now, so then we'd have to get some nice floor pillows)
- the bread machine (a hand-me-down given to us more than 2 years ago that I have yet to use)
- mismatched sheet and pillowcase sets
- the ever-growing pile of college T-shirts in the basement (I keep trying to convince myself that I'm going to make a T-shirt quilt out of them to keep the memories with less bulk...yeah right)
- the large sack of gift bags hidden in the guest room closet (I really don't like gift bags...I think wrapped presents are so much more attractive, but feel like I can't justify spending money on fun wrapping paper when I could recycle all those wedding and baby gift bags I've received over the years).

Five items you absolutely, positively could not part with in your house:
- photographs (this is on everyone's list I'm sure...I mean seriously, who doesn't like looking through old photographs?)
- old journals (falls in line with the photographs)
- Margot's stuffed lamb (it may be dirty, but she goes everywhere with it and it smells like her)
- laptop (too many things that are only saved on it)
- Heather Smith-Jones painting John gave me as a present for my birthday AND giving birth to Margot
Five words you love: eclair, grandiose, edamame, splendid (not trying to steal this one from you Stephanie...use it all the time), Mommy (when said by Margot).

Five folks I'm tagging: Hannah, Kerry, Julie, Sarah, and Beth (if you don't like being tagged, I won't be offended).

long overdue

2006-04-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind on a lot of things right now (one of them being actually getting around to posting all the blog entries that are floating around in my head), but I'm easing my anxiety with "better late than never." This past Tuesday (April 25th), I finally put together my planner from Paper Source. Part of the reason I had put it off so long was I couldn't find the PVA glue I bought when I made my planner last year and I didn't feel like spending $7 on another jar that was going to get misplaced since I only use it once a year. Sure I could've borrowed some from Hannah who works at Paper Source, but that would've meant actually remembering to ask her to borrow her jar. I found my jar when John and I cleaned out the basement last Friday night (isn't our life exciting?) in the one box I had a feeling it was in but had not seen since we moved back in June. I had sort of resigned myself to the fact that this mysterious box had probably been lost in the move, but didn't understand how it really could've been lost. I mean really, where would it have gone to during a 45-minute drive? Misplaced seemed a more likely solution, but honestly there are not too many places to misplace a box that size in our house. Anyway, the box has been recovered and it's a good thing. Not just because I relocated the coveted jar of PVA glue, but also because I found the checkbook from my previous job and I figure it would be a good thing if I returned that to them. So, my plain, manilla-colored planner has gotten a facelift. When I showed it to John he said, "Good thing you've still got 8 more months in the year to enjoy it."

Part of the reason I'm so behind on blog-posting is because I've spent countless hours downloading ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE photos from the night of the fashion show to our flickr account so I could share with the blogworld what consumed much of my time at the end of March/beginning of April. John and I felt it went pretty well for our first fashion show. We learned A LOT. Like that we will most likely never have another fashion show AT the store. Initially we thought it would be cool to have it in the space...well, because the space is cool. And it gets people in the store. And we thought it might be nice for people to be able to purchase merchandise after the show that they had just seen modeled. Well, it ended up being more work than we bargained for -- moving all the fixtures and product out of the store to make room for the runway, chairs, tables, Vespas (Vespa was one of the three major sponsors we had and they loaned us three retro Vespas for the evening to display). There was no way we were going to be able to bring all the fixtures and re-merchandise all the product that night with all those people milling about. So, it worked out to have it at the store space this time, but next time we will definitely hold it somewhere else. Here's a teaser to whet your appetite, go here to see a short slideshow of the other photos (not all 123...I narrowed it down to the top 50):

The superb photography is courtesy of Becca Spears. She was just experimenting during the fashion show for us as a favor, but the lighting was not the best for photos. If you're in the market for a wedding or portrait photographer, look her up.

All of the shoes and most of the clothing and accessories are from Habitat. You can view the product up close on our flickr account (our website will be up and running in May!). The beautiful silk dresses were designed by Jocelyn Himes and are for sale at her store, Nui Kai, which is around the corner from Habitat. Chadwick, who owns Shuttlecocks (also around the corner) loaned us the men's raincoat and his styling skills for the evening. Many of the female models were showcasing jewelry designs from our friend Kari Heybrock (her husband was also one of the models). And the models looked amazing because of the skills of Amber, Becky and Kimberly from the salon next door to our store called The Darling Room. If you live in KC, you definitely need to schedule an appointment with one of those fabulous girls! A big THANK YOU to all our friends who modeled and helped make it all work behind-the-scenes. We seriously could not have done it without the expertise, input and hard work of all of you.

If we did anything right with the fashion show it was making it a benefit for "Let's Make a Movie" -- an awesome afterschool program for youth in the urban core of Kansas City that our friend David founded. Check them out.

OK, all my other overdue posts will have to wait...it's about time I go to bed, it's 2am.

stupid parenting decision #73

2006-04-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

To the faithful few who still check here occasionally to see if anything new is going on -- I apologize for my absence...and for the fact that you've had to stare at a photo of me for over a month now. I have high hopes of being a more consistent blogger, I just haven't had the energy for it lately. My husband told me today that he still checks my blog everyday thinking that maybe I will have finally posted a new entry. To at least give him something new to look at when he visits here...

Today when I put Margot down for her afternoon nap, I chose to not remove the four crayons she was gripping for dear life out of her hands. Mostly because I didn't want to her to get all riled up and upset and then not go to sleep. The thought did cross my mind that when I returned to get her up after her nap that there was the possibility crayon marks would be on the wall, but I figured the chances were slim to none since she seemed pretty tired. I assumed she would fall asleep holding them and she would eventually just let go of them. Oh Kristen, are you really that naive?

When I heard Margot talking to herself (the first sign that she's awake), I decided to go right up and get her up so as not to give her any time to see the crayons and use them. Oh, but I can quickly run to the basement and change over the load of laundry so I don't have to do it with Margot in a few minutes. Well, a few minutes was all Margot needed. Here's what I found when I walked into her room...Margot's latest canvas:

I wasn't upset at all. How could I be? I was the one who sent her to bed with crayons. Presented with the same circumstances, I'm sure I would've done the same thing. Honestly, all I could do was stand there and and try to stifle my laughter (plus, I've been enlightened to Washable Crayola crayons, so I was pretty sure the sheet would be as good as new after a load of laundry). Kids, you gotta love them.

Margot's been good for a lot of laughs lately. For the past three days, she's been carrying around her Easter basket filled with plastic eggs. She calls them bubbles. After about the twentieth time of trying to teach her to call them eggs, I gave up and started calling them bubbles too. Each morning she wakes up I think, "She's probably forgotten about the eggs," but every morning after we come downstairs she starts saying, "bubbles, bubbles" and walks around the house looking for her basket. At least she's finally realized that carrying the twelve plastic eggs in the basket is really is OK. The first day I gave her the basket, she tried continuously to wrap her tiny hands around four of the eggs and carry them around. Of course she kept dropping them, and then would get frustrated when they would split in two after hitting the ground. If I tried to help her pick them up, she'd get more agitated because she wanted to do it herself (yes, her independence is already coming out), but couldn't ever pick up all four eggs by herself. I started tucking one egg in each hand and one in the crook of each elbow, which seemed to help her carry them around a little bit longer. Eventually she set aside her independence long enough to let me show her the usefulness of the basket. Life is good now. Hey, maybe she's figured out that putting all your eggs in one basket isn't so bad after all (oh, that was bad).

i love short hair

2006-02-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

I am reminded anew why I like short hair...it takes about 2 1/2 minutes to dry. Gotta love that.

It's a week late and most people that read this blog have already seen my new hair, but I said I'd post a photo of myself, so here it is:

I think this is the first time I've used the self-timer on my camera, which is probably why Margot looks so surprised in the shot...I kept grabbing her very quickly to get situated before it went off.

This is definitely the most hair I've cut off at one time. I was sort of jealous of Amber for getting to grab my ponytail and just cut right through it. I almost stopped her in the middle and asked her if I could finish because it seemed like so much fun.

day one in vegas

2006-02-27T21:47:00.000-08:00

Consecutive hours awake: 22

Steps taken: 3,827

Shoes purchased: 0

Trips to the bathroom: 3 (can we say dehydration?)

Meals consumed by 11pm: 1 (really half of one...John and I split a cheeseburger and fries at 10:30am as a snack because we were so hungry and ended up not eating again for 12 hours)

Needless to say, the pregnant lady was extremely grumpy when told the wait for dinner was going to be 45 minutes...and then was ferociously grumpy when it ended up being over an hour.

We've already returned from our four-day buying trip to Las Vegas, but I'm just now getting around to posting anything because I had zero energy to blog, check my email, or pretty much do anything else during our time there.

Shopping for shoes for four days straight may sound glamorous, but let me tell you, it's not. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to pick out shoes (and apparel and accessories), but the pace we keep at trade shows is exhausting. I can tell myself all I want beforehand that we're going to stop for meals at normal times, we're going to take breaks to sit and relax and take in the surroundings, we're going to drink water, but everytime (or at least the two times we've been) we've gotten caught up in the pace that everyone else keeps (well, not everyone...many of the reps we know stay out and party until the wee hours of the morning, which we have neither the desire or the energy to do).

[Side note -- The two standard questions EVERY rep asked us:
1) Where are you staying?
2) What did you do last night?

"The Hilton Garden Inn" (because my aunt gets us an amazing deal) and "went to bed" aren't exactly answers that launch you into some interesting conversation. Add that to the initial question that new reps ask us, "Where are you from?" and they think we're the most boring people on Earth. Seriously, when people find out we're from Kansas City, their demeanor changes instantly. You can tell their thinking, "Kansas City? Do people out there even care about fashion? Doesn't everyone dress the same in the Midwest?" It's enough to make you want to flip them the bird and walk right out of their booth.]

When John and I return from trade shows everyone asks us if we had fun. Fun is not the word I would use to describe those trips. "Was the trip productive?" might be a better choice. Yes, it is fun to see fashion trends six months ahead of time...and it is fun to purchase them for our store. But, it's also stressful: Are we choosing the right shoes? Did we order too many? Did we order enough? Are we going to be eating the cost of those snakeskin mid-boots or are they going to fly out the door? We like these shoes, but will folks in Kansas City like them? And more importantly will they buy them? Ultimately you have to get over that worry or you would be paralyzed and never make a decision. Making mistakes is all part of the journey.

Honestly, the shows would be a lot more fun if they weren't in Las Vegas. I can't stand the place. I want to leave before I even get there. The constant sound of slot machines. The photos of nearly-naked women EVERYWHERE. The traffic. If you've ever been to Las Vegas, you know what I mean. And if you haven't, take my advice and DON'T EVER GO. I am begging John that before our next round of shows in six months we figure out if our vendors go to shows in L.A., New York, or Chicago. Someplace that I don't feel like I need a shower every ten minutes.

So as you can tell I'm glad to be back. Mostly because I didn't think I could be away from this adorable face for another minute:

A HUGE THANK YOU to my mom and stepdad who took care of Margot for FOUR WHOLE DAYS! And also to our dear friend Sarah who slept at our house while we were gone so Margot could sleep in her own bed and we wouldn't have to go through a week of therapy like we did the last time Margot spent the night away from home.

"whatever you do in word or deed"

2006-02-18T14:25:00.000-08:00

Who knew that interpretive juggling was a God-given talent? My friend Carey sent this to me and I couldn't keep it to myself (be sure to watch it long enough to see the music change tempo). John, here's a new item to add to your "Kind of Like Resulutions:2006."

happy heart day

2006-02-15T19:45:00.000-08:00

This is not a belated Valentine's Day wish (I'm not really into the day), but an announcement that I'm pregnant. Yesterday we heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time. Even the second time around, it's an amazing experience. Of course, John beat me to the punch getting the news out. He usually does...just call me snail blogger.

note to inattentive self

2006-02-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

Next time you are pulling the humidifier out for the winter months, check to make sure it contains a filter. Otherwise you will spend 45 minutes scraping lime scale off the inside of the apparatus. Worse, you will spend at least another 45 minutes wondering what kind of mold allergy or horrible disease your daughter might now suffer from because of your inattention.

The mystery of why I have had to refill our humidifier every other night versus filling Margot's every two weeks has been solved.

a new "doo"

2006-02-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

So I've been growing my hair out since Margot was born. I don't think I ever really made a conscious decision to do it...it was more just something that happened. When you have a baby to take care of, styling your hair falls way down on the priority list. I'm sure it returns for most women, it just hasn't for me. I've liked being able to pull my hair back in a pony tail anytime I feel like it (which is almost all the time). After 19 months of motherhood though, I'm tired of my hairdoo...or lack of one I should say. It's time for a change and I'm thinking a dramatic one.

My appointment with Amber is February 18 (she owns the salon next door to Habitat. It's called The Darling Room and it is just that -- darling.), so I don't have very much time to make a decision about the new style. I've been thinking about going short...not only because I'm thinking about a dramatic change, but because I love short hair. It's fun, it's easy to dry, it's easy to style and I think I just look better with short hair. The only bummer part about short hair is that ponytails are not an option. And I've gotten pretty used to my ponytail in the last year.

So, short hair...both Amber and my friend, Stephanie, mentioned Sienna Miller's new doo when I told them I was considering going short. Before Googling her name, I didn't know who Sienna Miller was. I'm not trying to look like any famous celeb, I just want a new hairstyle. Anyway, Stephanie sent me these two photos (sorry for the tinyness...I coudn't figure out how to enlarge), so I thought I'd put the decision out there in blogland for any opinions (please be nice).

I like this look. And I've had my hair this short before, so it's not like it's the unknown for me. My only concern (this is always my concern with short hair on me) is that my hair is dark brown and I feel like the only way I can prevent looking like a boy is to get highlights too to give my hair some texture. I'm not sure I have the patience (or the funds) to acquire highlights right now. And I also feel like I have to wear earrings and jewelry a lot more when I have short hair to prevent the whole boy look-alike conundrum.

So, any opinions about this doo, or other suggestions to consider?

(Here's the most recent photo I have of myself [from June] for your comparison.)

WANTED: yummy cinnamon roll recipe

2006-02-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

For some reason I've been making a lot of chili lately. I'm sure it makes sense to many...it's winter and any kind of hot soup or stew (or chili) sounds good. Only it hasn't been that cold of a winter here (which is a little diconcerting) and chili has never been my go-to warm-up meal before. I honestly don't know if I've ever made chili before this winter (in the past I've just eaten the surplus that my mom brings me). Honestly, I think my friend, Sarah, is to blame. She's mentioned several times to me lately that she makes chili every week and I think it's just sounded good to me lately. The quandary I'm now in because of the abundant chili-making is that I am craving some gooey cinnamon rolls to eat with my chili. A craving I'm pretty sure was nurtured in the early days of my schooling when the cafeteria always seemed to have cinnamon rolls on the same day as chili.

So, I'm on the hunt for a yummy cinnamon roll recipe. Thus far I've made due with Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in the tube (or whatever that thing is called), but since each roll has like 500 calories and 15 grams of fat, I think I've actually felt my arteries clogging up as I've consumed them. My other option has been purchasing freshly made cinnamon rolls from Wild Oats, but they're over $2 a pop and I just can't keep that up or it may turn into a very expensive addiction.

I'm pretty sure my friend, Kerry, has an amazing cinnamon roll recipe, but I keep forgetting to ask her for it. Plus, I figure there are so many variations on the cinnamon roll, one recipe couldn't be enough.

i'm back

2006-01-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, I've decided to re-enter the blogworld. Basically, I'm tired of being harassed by my "friend", Jeff, who has been consistently leaving me judgemental comments on my last blog post (check it out if you want to see what kind of a friend he is). At first, I was a little intimidated by starting to blog again. I mean, what would I say in my first post back? It certainly would need to be funny...and entertaining since I've been away for so long. People would want humor. They would want to laugh. Well, since my loving husband stole my idea for my first post back in the blogworld, I gave up trying to come up with a humorous post. I would just write about what's been going on. I mean, that's what people really care about, right? No one cares if you're funny (shut up Jeff). They just want to know about me...and Margot of course. Well, here's some tidbits about me...and John...and Margot from this past weekend. I'll try to be better about this blog thing in 2006. Happy New Year.

This past weekend John and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. We actually got to celebrate twice. Our real anniversary was last Thursday and since Chris Thile and Mike Marshall (two of the best mandolin players in the world I hear) were in town, we decided we couldn't pass it up. I don't know much about playing the mandolin (OK, I don't know anything about playing the mandolin), but I do know that these guys are good. I spent most of the evening wondering how it was physically possible for a person's fingers to move that fast (and furthermore how a person's brain could remember all those notes to play that fast).

But the real celebration was to come Saturday night when we dropped Margot off at my parents for 24 hours! We spent the night at a hotel on the Plaza (the same hotel we stayed at the first night we were married) and pretended we were out of town for ONE WHOLE DAY. I wondered if we would know what to do with ourselves with an entire evening and day in our home city to do whatever our hearts desired.

The evening was awesome. We ate the most superb meal at Cafe Sebastienne in the Kemper Art Museum. We'd eaten brunch here once before, but I did not remember it being this good. We started off with spinach and ricotta gnocchi in a braised duck ragu. It was amazing. It's definitely one of the top ten things I've ever eaten. I followed that with grilled lamb chops with butter-roasted new potatoes in a roasted garlic-lamb reduction. John had the coffee-encrusted beef tenderloin on sweet potato gratin with caramelized onion sauce. Both were magnificent. We finished the meal off with flourless chocolate cake topped with fresh raspberries and cream. My mouth is watering just thinking about this meal. For those of you who live in KC, you need to put Cafe Sebastienne on your short list of restaurants to check out.

A movie was next on the "do whatever our hearts desire" list. This may not sound exciting to many of you, but since neither John nor I could remember the last movie we had seen in a theater, it was exciting for us. The winner: Walk the Line. For not knowing much (really anything) about Johnny Cash, I enjoyed it. It was difficult to witness (just a small portion I'm sure) of what he put his wife and children through. When the movie drew to a close, I found myself wondering what had happened with Vivian and the girls. Was she able to forgive him? Did he ever ask for her forgiveness? At the same time, I appreciated the redemptive nature of his relationship with June. It would be easy to make all kinds of judgements about their relationship, but I don't think anyone could argue that June was used in his life to help bring about redemption for him.

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast at reVerse (I wish I'd discovered earlier that they had great french toast) and then walked around the Plaza for several hours shopping at stores we normally visit and some we rarely do. Around 2pm, I must admit, we found ourselves running out of steam. I don't know if we just didn't know what else to do, if we missed Margot, or if we were craving our usual Sunday nap, but if eating a late lunch hadn't been an option at the time, I might have suggested that we cut the day short and go pick up Margot early.

Well, that ended up happening anyway. During lunch (eating out three meals in a row in your own city is a weird thing by the way), we received a phone call from my mom. Margot was crying hysterically b/c she had fallen out of her crib. Our "pretend day out of town" ended abruptly, but we weren't too disappointed b/c I think we were both secretly thankful that we now had an excuse to pick Margot up early.

The only downfall of the 24-hour day away? -- the subsequent several days of adjustment it has meant for Margot. Our daughter is amazing and I am VERY thankful for her sleeping habits (she sleeps until 8:30 almost every morning, she typically goes to bed without a peep, she says "bye-bye" in the most adorable way when you tell her goodnight). I definitely have no right to complain about Margot's sleeping habits. The only sleeping quirk of Margot's that can occasionally be difficult is she cannot stand to sleep anywhere but her own bed. And she especially dislikes the crib at my parents' house. She screams and screams and screams when my mom puts her in it, which is traumatic enough for my mom, but can also cause enough trauma for Margot in one night that for the following week she thinks we are going to leave her and continues the screaming pattern at home, even in her own crib. To complicate matters, since Margot got mad enough this time at my mom's and figured out how to crawl out of the crib (well, she crawled out one time, fell out the next), she is now able to crawl out of her crib at home. This is not a good thing. Not only because she could hurt herself on the launch from her crib to the floor, but also because she could mess herself up falling down the steep flight of stairs in our old home.

For the past three nights, John and I have tried to get creative with getting Margot to sleep while at the same time planning ahead for her protection should she choose to scale the crib walls again. In the meantime, we're trying to make the big decision of, "Do we transfer her to a toddler bed now, or do we just wait a little longer and trust the crib-jumping will pass?"

Oh the questions that parents must answer. This is serious stuff people.

And since I missed posting photos of Margot at Christmas, here are two shots of her trying to be the conductor of a train that is supposed to be a pull toy. She's not the best driver.

open for business

2005-11-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

The Grand Opening party for Habitat Shoe Store was this past Friday, but we officially opened our doors on Tuesday (Nov. 1st), so we could have a few days of helping customers under our belts before the November First Friday when potentially hundreds of people could be in the store. Well, the first week of business for Habitat has far exceeded any expectations John and I had. We really didn't have a lot of expectations for the first week because we hadn't done veyr much advertising. We sent out a postcard announcing our opening and were fortunate to have an article in the paper on Thursday (which brought in a surprising amount of people!), but other than that the only way people would know about us would be hearing about us by word-of-mouth, or walking by the store.

It has been such a fun week! It's so exciting to see a dream we've been pursuing for a long time finally realized! Frequently this past week when walking around the store, I caught myself wondering if I was still living in a dream. It's definitely hard to believe that the store is finally open, and yet at the same time, John and I feel like we've been selling shoes for awhile now. We constantly talk about what shoes people are and are not buying and how we've been surprised at the hottest sellers so far (I know it's only been 5 days, but it's still fun to talk about). When I'm not at the store I call John to find out what shoes he's sold that day and to whom.

Now, I know I've said this several times already, but honestly, there is no way we could've done this without the help of our friends and family. Our friends have watched Margot more hours than I could count, cooked dinners for us, cleaned our store bathrooms (that had been severely abused by construction workers!), wielded dangerous machinery to turn our John Malcovich-sized door to the back storage room into one we could step through without bending ourselves in half, unpacked many, many boxes of shoes, designed our grand opening postcard, put furniture and fixtures together, installed our point-of-sale system, created window displays and many other things I'm forgetting at the moment. Not to mention all the help we received on Friday night when we had hundreds of customers in the store.

Friday night was completely insane. I really wanted to have one of our friends who was helping greet count the number of people who came in the store that night, but I totally spaced asking anyone. I'm horrible at estimating things like that, but I'd say it was at least 300 people. My husband and his brother think it was closer to 500, but since the McClain family is known to exaggerate, I'm cutting that number in half and throwing in a few extra for good measure. However many people were there, it was a lot. Although I didn't get to hear people's reactions when they were entering and leaving the store (since I was busy running back and forth retrieving shoes and ringing up customers - yeah!), our friends who were helping greet customers told us what they heard after we closed. Here are a few of my favorites:

"Have you been to the new shoe store? It's like the shoes are art."

And the woman who gasped enthusiastically after getting just one foot in the door, "Ohhh myyy...now THIS is the most happenin' place down here!"

So enough words, here are some photos of Habitat...

The space went from this (taken shortly after the October First Friday):

To this (taken one week before the store opened):

To this (taken the night before the Grand Opening party):

The front of Habitat:

The wall of shoe art:

Where customers can hang out:

The clothing section (with super cool denim rack designed by Carl from Kojo in Lawrence):

And where we ring people up (the absolutely ADORABLE baby shoes distract from the brown paper which must remain on the windows so people walking outside cannot see all the shoe inventory stashed behind that divider that still needs to be painted):

So enough bragging about our new "baby". Stop by and see us when you get a chance. For those of you who can't stop by, we'll (hopefully) have the website up very soon! Thanks again to all of you who helped make this happen for us!

ticking off the to-do list

2005-10-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

If I were really dedicated to journaling, I would write an entry every night recording what went on that day in the preparation for the opening of Habitat, so that in a year, three years, five years, John and I could look back and laugh about how much we didn't know, how many mistakes we made, the small things we got frustrated about, and how much fun we had doing it all. I do like to journal, but I'm not dedicated to it. Or maybe I just prefer not to cut any further into the minimal hours of sleep I'm getting already.

It's only 11:30pm though and John and I have decided we're done working for the night. My bedtime for the past 3 weeks has averaged 1am, so I figure I can spare a few moments of journaling tonight.

We checked in our first shipment of shoes tonight -- what a thrilling feeling! The lucky vendor who was checked in first? J Shoes. Mostly because they were the boxes filling up the back room (all the rest are currently in the middle of the store) and we needed to get them out of boxes and onto the storage shelves to make room for more shoes. Checking in the shoes was awesome (made things seem real in a whole new way); learning how to check in shoes was not awesome. Being the anal person I am, I felt like I needed to familiarize myself with how the POS (point of sale) software worked on my own (read: I'm the lame person who actually attempts to read how-to guides) rather than letting John show me what he'd learned so far. Well, after an hour of just trying to figure out where the sample/practice database was on the hard drive, I said, "Forget it (not that nicely)...we have work to do." John gave me a quick tutorial and we made quick work of the J Shoes inventory. As if anyone who reads this blog hasn't already gathered this, but we are going to be selling some stinkin' cool shoes! Every box I opened I said, "Oh my, I have to get these shoes!" I'm warning you now -- don't come to Habitat unless you plan on walking out with a new pair of shoes. You will not be able to resist.

Today we also ordered the FLOR carpet tiles to make the lounge area and the trying-on-shoes area more comfortable. Last night I was talking about how we needed to order them the next day in order to get them in time for the opening and my friend, Katie, mentioned that she had seen a store around the corner from Habitat that sold the tiled. John decided to check it out before we ordered them online, and I could kiss him for taking the initiative with that because he scored us an amazing deal! Plus, we get to support a fellow retailer in the Crossroads.

I also mailed out the second round of 300 grand opening invitations that our friend, Hannah, designed. I'll tell you, tracking down addresses is no small job (I feel like I'm getting married all over again). The invitations should be in people's mailboxes by Wednesday or Thursday...only one week before the grand opening event, but it's the best we could do. So if you're reading this and it's Thursday and you haven't received your card yet, don't feel left out. It means I didn't have your address b/c trust me, I sent an invitation to every person we know (and many we don't).

Well, that's enough boring details of my to-do list today. If you were looking for a laugh and didn't find it here, then check this out (probably only funny if you know these two).

fabulous friends & fabulous fridays

2005-10-15T01:01:00.000-07:00

Even though this is a belated update to last week's First Friday, I still wanted to share that John and I felt it was a huge success. The street team models were fabulous and very well-received from the people passing by. We passed out over 1,000 (probably about 1250) sliers and got 181 people to sign-up on our mailing list. Obviously that is shy of the lofty 500 person goal I mentioned we set. Our less-crazy-and-more-realistic-goal was to get 10-15% of the people we passed out fliers to to sign-up, so we definitely surpassed that goal. We could not have done it without the support and help of so many of our friends. Whether you stood in a window for 5 hours, braved the cold to pass out fliers, stapled posters to poles, or chatted with perspective customers, we want you to know we appreciate you. This was one big step forward to our dream being realized. Only three weeks until the big night of our grand opening, so rest up and get ready to do it even bigger next time! Thanks to Hannah for taking photos (click on view a slideshow to see them all) of the event since John and I did not remember to take photos.

Below are the second round of sneak peak photos. These are farylrobin -- very unique and pleasing to the eye. This is the line most tempting for me to want one of each style.

Bisque -- Can velvet look any better than this?

Tetra -- I love the inspiration from men's ties.

Tickle -- metallics are starting to take on a more muted tone.

Charla -- Wedges are going to be around for awhile ladies.

Pesky -- I love the Victorian look of this boot.

Myria -- I mean honestly, does it get any better than this?

We received our Fornarina order this week, so more sneak peaks to come.

death cab for MY cutie

2005-10-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

So tonight on our way back from Nebraska Furniture Mart (yes, at 7pm on a Friday night we decided there is no place we'd rather be than a big-box furniture store...we fully admit we are lame), Margot began her cry-whine-moan routine that John and I have noticed has become normal behavior for her lately.

"Why does she do this everytime we get in the car now?"

"I don't know. Let's see if some music will calm her down."

"What's in the CD player?"

"Death Cab. Maybe if we turn the volume up loud enough we won't be able to hear her whine."

As soon as the music began, Margot turned her head out the window and became eerily quiet.

10 minutes later...

"Do you find it interesting that she hasn't made a peep since we put in this CD?"

"Our daughter is a rockstar."

If you'd liked to view a slideshow of the rockstar dancing to Plans in her pjs go here (click on view as a slide show and move the scale to 1 second for the best effect). I'm sure no one else will appreciate the show as much as I do, but it was fun to learn how to do this on flickr. Here's one of the few clear snapshots of how the rockstar has started to welcome the day in the morning:

sneak peak

2005-10-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I've become a once-a-week blogger. It's not because the novelty has worn off for me (although I did wonder if that would happen), but because Habitat trumps blogging right now and I don't have enough brain power left at 1am to pull together a coherent thought.

This has been a fun week for John and I because we've started receiving shipments of product. It's so exciting to open up the boxes of shoes, belts and T-shirts (so far) that will soon be lining the shelves at Habitat (and hopefully flying off of the shelves!). Thankfully, we received some shoes in time for the October First Friday tomorrow night (I wrote about First Fridays here if you're curious about what they are), so we'll have members of the Habitat Street Team modeling shoes at the store for people to get a sneak peak before our opening in November. Plus, many of our friends have volunteered to pass out handbills to get the word out and encourage people to sign-up on our mailing list. We've heard estimates that 3,000-4,000 people visit the Crossroads on First Fridays, so our goal is to get 500 people signed up on the mailing list tomorrow night! It's a lofty goal (12-17% of the potential crowd), but what's the point of setting a goal that is easy to reach?

For those of you who won't be able to come tomorrow night, here's a sneak peak for you of some of the shoes the Street Team will be modeling (please forgive the unappealing background of my kitchen counter...I didn't have time to give a lot of thought to layout). All of these are from P.F. Flyers -- the most casual brand we will be carrying. They've been around for many, many years and have recently come back to the forefront in the marketplace with their updated styles of shoes they've been selling for a long time.

The Grounder Lo in distressed brown leather and light blue leather:
The Number 5 in cream leather and tan suede:
The Center Hi in black canvas and navy leather:
Center Hi Limited Edition in eggplant(?) and hot pink, complete with art:

P.F. Flyers sent us all these shoes for free for promotional use for First Friday, which John and I thought was pretty cool (and we think the Street Team members will too). I'll take pictures of the other shoes that will be modeled tomorrow night, so there's more sneak peaks to come.

the race is on

2005-09-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

Last night John and I had the pleasure of sitting around a card table in the currently cavernous space that will soon be Habitat Shoe Store with five close friends (John & Christina, David & Hannah, and Stephanie) for a brainstorming session. We invited these specific friends because they each have an eye for design, intensely creative minds, and are just all around cool people. We talked about the layout of the store, the first place a customer's eye is going to fall when they enter the store, inspiration for window displays, how to create a fitting room without solid walls and many, many other things. It was interesting to hear what kinds of things are important to people. My favorite recommendation that I would have never thought of was that we needed to have a three-way mirror in the fitting room because "you know when you try on a pair of jeans, they can look good from this angle, but then you turn around and you realize they don't look good from that angle." That thought would have never crossed my mind; although I assure you the mirror will be IN the fitting room because I can't stand it when the only mirror is outside the fitting room and you have to model what you are trying on to everyone else in the fitting area. So, if you're shy about prancing around in your potential new digs in front of complete strangers then come to Habitat. We'll insure you have complete privacy...and a three-way mirror for all angles viewing.

So after the brainstorming session, John and I came home, looked at each other and realized that we have A LOT of work to do in one month. I sometimes have a hard time believing that a space that is completely empty right now (with the exception of some floor sealant cans and drop cloths) will be completely full of shoes, jeans, T-shirts, belts, handbags and more IN ONE MONTH. I'm sure our friends who were there tonight were thinking, "Oh, it's so sweet that John and Kristen are so excited about the store...but they are so naive to think they can open in one month." If I were them, I would've been thinking that; but if they did, none of them showed it or voiced it. For that, I'm thankful. I'm thankful to all our friends because for the past year each one of them has been so supportive of us -- including the times when we questioned whether Habitat was ever going to happen. They have encouraged us at every turn. When we do open the doors of Habitat, it will be because of the support of our friends (and our family too, of course). So, if any of our friends are reading this, thank you.

the view from the 4th row

2005-09-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

A BIG THANK YOU to my brother-in-law, Reese, for taking me to the Coldplay concert last night (his date wasn't able to make it because her flight was delayed from Florida due to the hurricane). We sat in the fourth row, just off center. It was AMAZING. Too good for words. More later because I'm already late for work, but here are two of my favorite photos I was able to snap.

my superhero husband

2005-09-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

And because that last post was so wordy (that's what happens when you don't post for almost 2 weeks), I thought I'd share some photos from the previous weekend when we took a trip to Oklahoma City to visit some friends. Weekends with the Helker family are always refreshing for us and hanging with the Helker kids gives John an excuse to act like a kid again (like you need an excuse for that). The Helker kids having a good time with Margot:

Evan, Jed, Margot and Hannah.

John living out his superhero dreams:

My favorite quote of the weekend: "This mask smells like dirty feet!"

John's interesting interpretation of an army general's artillery:

And finally, Margot modelling John's new favorite hairstyle for her (with her friend J.D. who also seems to like that look):

new house dilemma #12

2005-09-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

So I've stumbled on the key to finding motivation to clean your home -- get a job where you have to recite a housecleaning script up to 15 times a day. There's only so many times you can say..."for example, we start at the top and catch the cobwebs around the corners of the ceilings"...and not think about how many cobwebs have been spun in your own home. This past weekend, John and I cleaned the entire house. It doesn't look like it though because we also ended up with several new pieces of furniture we were given by a close family member. I use the term given loosely. We've refused receipt of this furniture at least six times over the past three years. The excuses have ranged from, "it's not really our style" to "we don't have room for it", depending on what mood we were in, but one thing was for sure -- we weren't going to take the furniture. Well, at least I thought that was for sure. Friday afternoon, I came home to a room full of furniture -- the same furniture I distinctlly remember turning down six times. A moment of weakness coinciding with pressure from aforementioned family member moving in two weeks? Maybe. John and I facing the reality that we won't be in a position to purchase new furniture for awhile? Also a good possibility. Whatever the reason, it did solve New House Dilemma #12: Not Able To Get Full Box Spring Up Narrow Staircase.

We've tried to solve this dilemma several times without success. We've pushed, pulled, shoved, cussed, all-while-putting-several-new-holes-in-the-walls attempting to get the full box spring up the staircase. We even resorted to swiping a split box spring that someone had put at the end of their driveway for the trash to pick up, only to get it up the staircase and realize it was a QUEEN split box spring. We were so glad to have *any* box spring in our guest room, we convinced ourselves that our guests would find the pyramid bed an interesting adventure...or at least a conversation piece. It's probably for the best that no guests had the chance to test the stacked bed. We've replaced the certainly unstable makeshift bed with two sturdy twin beds (Clark and Kerry: when you visit you'll get to experience what it was like for married couples during the Dick Van Dyke era).

And if cleaning the whole house and rearranging several pieces of furniture was not enough, I also decided this would be a good weekend to switch out my spring/summer and fall/winter wardrobes. This is always a humbling process because I realize that my semi-frequent squawking about "how I don't have any clothes" or "I have nothing fun to wear" are unfounded and stupid. A long time ago I told myself that I was going to live by the rule that everytime I purchased something new I was going to get rid of something old. That rule never took hold in my life. I justify it by saying that I just give a bunch of things away at the end of every season to make up for all the things I bought that season and that it probably works out evenly. Yeah right. Lately I've been contemplating trying a similar giving principle that an acquaintance shared with me -- she removes one item from her house every day in an effort to pare down. How long would it take you to give away everything in your home if you lived by that principle? Maybe I'll try it and let you know.

a suntan without the damaging effects of the sun...and no, i'm not talking about sunless tanners here people

2005-09-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

So, I was reminded again this past holiday weekend that my husband and I RARELY go out of town on holiday weekends. I'm not sure if it's because both our families live in town, so we don't use holiday weekends to travel to visit them, or if we just don't think ahead and make plans to go out of town. Whatever the reason, we found ourselves at home again this past weekend. Since all of our friends were out of town, we decided to make good use of our time and paint our dining room. We've been contemplating this job for at least a month, but have not been able to proceed because of the textured ceiling. It's a popcorn texture complete with glitter specks that John absolutely despises (I actually didn't mind them much because that's the kind of ceilings I grew up with). Well, last weekend, John, his dad, and his brother scraped the popcorn texture off, so we had no excuses not to paint this weekend.

I've been considering the color scheme for about two months; I found the idea in the premier issue of this magazine and ever since have been trying to decide if it could work in our dining room. Prepare yourself...it's pretty different. The horizontal shot (complete with fuzzy Margot):

And the vertical shot, so you can get a better look at the pink ceiling.

No, you don't need adjust the color on your screen...the ceiling is pink, above the chair rail is orange and below the chair rail is a light gray. We're not quite sure what we think. It's definitely pretty close to the photo in the magazine, but we think the orange is too bright...too bold...to orange. We bought 2 other test oranges before committing to this one (because we were pretty sure and didn't want to buy ANOTHER tester). The first orange (Osage Orange) was too bright/intense...it looked like a highlighter. The second orange (Kumquat) looked like a pale, rusty brown on the swatch, but was also a bright orange on the wall. We thought a darker orange (Marquis Orange) might tone down the brightness. I think we were wrong. We ended up with a bright, BOLD orange. Honestly, we don't have the energy to even think about repainting it now being that we spent two entire days priming, taping, painting trim and walls -- all while trying to keep Margot out of the room. We're going to see how we feel about it in a week or two. In the meantime, if you want to appear as if you have a great tan (or sunburn, depending on how you look at it), come over to our house for dinner.

Side note: We forgot to take a before photo, but for those of you who want to envision where we came from, picture brown trim, cream above the chair rail and red wallpaper with pineapples below the chair rail. Definitely not our style.

one step closer...

2005-09-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight John and I hung these up in the windows of our store.

It was pretty exciting. They were printed by a super cool gentleman named Brady at Hammerpress (who's shop is just around the corner from ours). I'm not sure why I haven't posted about this yet, but about a month ago, we decided on the location for Habitat. It's 1800 Baltimore, in the Crossroads Art District -- a fun, up-and-coming area (at least we think) between downtown KC and the Midtown & Plaza areas. Tonight was the "First Friday" of the month, when the local art galleries stay open until 10pm. First Fridays draw about 3,000-4,000 people from all over KC; they will most certainly be our busiest nights of the year. Several months ago (before we realized how long it can take to get a small business started) we thought we would be open by the First Friday in September. Even though we weren't open for business tonight, it was fun to be one step closer tonight and to start getting the word out about Habitat.

working girl

2005-09-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

So, I've been at my new job for six weeks now. I answer phones at a call center for a housecleaning service. People call in; I tell them about our services; figure up a quote for their home and (hopefully) get them to schedule a cleaning. After doing this approximately 100 times so far, I have memorized the script. I don't think this is any major accomplishment...I would think after reading through anything 100 times, you would have it memorized.

My favorite part of my job: going through the script with an accent. The service I work for has several offices in Canada, so we frequently speak with Canadians. Oftentimes I won't realize I'm speaking with an accent until I'm halfway through the script. This isn't a new thing for me; I've noticed before that when I'm around people who are speaking English with accent, I start emulating their speech. I'm not saying I imitate accents well, it's just something I subconciously do.

My least favorite part of my job: people who get mad at me because they don't like the price I quote them. You wouldn't believe how angry some people can get when they want their house cleaned, but they don't want to pay the price you quote them. Come on people, I didn't make up the prices, I'm just quoting them for you -- don't kill the messenger.

One interesting thing I've learned at this job: complete strangers will tell you a lot more than you wanted to know about their lives when they can't see who they're talking to.

One of the most important things I will take away from this job: to be especially nice to anyone I talk with on the phone in any kind of service industry job...and you should too. Trust me, anyone you're talking to on the phone for a company has already talked to several mean people that day, so make their day a little bit brighter by being cordial and patient.

viva las vegas

2005-08-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

So my husband left for Las Vegas today for another trade show...actually three trade shows -- Magic, Pool and Project. He left me behind this time because someone has to make some money to pay the bills around here. Other than the fact that I would love another opportunity to spend thousands of dollars on shoes in just a few hours (and clothes and handbags this time too...can you imagine the damage I could do?), I'm just fine that I'm not in Vegas right now. I don't like Vegas. Actually, I despise Vegas. My favorite part about Vegas (and favorite here means the ONLY thing I liked about Vegas) was the three minute respite from THE CONSTANT NOISE I experienced in front of the Bellagio fountains. I don't care if you think I'm cheesy, those fountains are amazing. We were fortunate to view them during "Ave Maria" (I think...if it wasn't that, it was some beautiful operetic-like song). For those three minutes, I really did forget that I was in Vegas. My least favorite part about Vegas -- the incessant ringing of slot machines. You can't get away from them; they're even in the airport. I have never wanted a pair of headphones so badly in my life. My second least favorite part about Las Vegas - their state slogan..."what happens here, stays here." Enough said.

I had huge plans for the next three evenings (after Margot went to bed of course) while John is out of town. I was going to start a new knitting project. Spend time with my friend, Julie, who just moved around the corner from us. Clean the house. Pain the trim in the dining room. Well, I don't think any of those plans are going to be realized because as if right now I am laid up in bed with a bad back. All day I have been unable to stand in a full, upright position. I basically look like an 80-year-old woman with an unfortunate curve in her spine (actually, my grandmother is 82 and she looks better than I do). I'm currently experiencing relatively little pain (as compared to the rest of the day), which I attribute to the fact that my back is numb from the two ice packs I've been laying on for two hours. I think it's too much to hope that I would be healed by the morning, but if I don't get a little relief, and some subsequent freedom of movement, I'm going to be feeding Margot breakfast in bed tomorrow morning. Breakfast in HER bed, that is, since I won't be able to lift her out of it.

new friends in blogland

2005-08-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I found out last night that my friend, Kerry, has thrown her hat in the blogring (of course my "tagging" her with the idiosyncrasies meme was the major catalyst...Kerry wouldn't miss a chance to share her quirks with the world!). I'm especially excited that Kerry decided to start a blog because she and her husband just moved two hours away from us. Living close to them again was definitely one of the highlights of moving back to KC for us, but a blog is the next best thing of having her down the street, right? If you want to get to know Kerry and view some of the amazing handmade things she makes, check this out.

idiosyncrasies

2005-08-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

I must apologize to Hannah for taking so long to realize she had tagged me for the idiosyncrasies meme (I have no idea what the word "meme" means, but despite that I've gathered it's somthing I'm supposed to respond to). As you've probably noticed, my posting lately as been intermittent (at best) and likewise, so has my blog reading. My excuse? -- that pesky think called work. It's definitely put a dent in the time (and energy) I have to be on the internet, which is probably not all that bad of a thing since I was beginning to think I was spending too much time in front of a computer.

So, I've been thinking about my idiosyncrasies and here's what I've come up with (it was more difficult than I thought it would be):

1. I read magazines cover to cover.
Every single page...including the ads. I even read articles that I have no interest in. I first noticed this when we had a subscription to Outside and I would find myself reading articles about a man who decided he wanted to live with bears instead of people or a man who would host dinner parties for his friends to have them sample the exotic meals he would create out of wild animals that people don't normally eat (like tortoises and ostriches). I think there's something inside me that feels like I cannot say, "I read this month's issue of ______ (insert magazine title here)," unless I actually read the WHOLE thing. Who's asking me if I read the entire magazine? No one. But that doesn't matter now does it?

2. I alphabetize my CDs.
Which used to be a bigger deal than it is now, since I never rotate the CDs in my car. I don't need to rotate them because I will listen to a CD eight times in a row without ever thinking about changing it and my case holds 24 CDs and by the time I've actually listened to all 24 CDs a year has passed and I'm ready to hear Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection" another eight times. The only way a CD ever gets changed in my car is if John takes my car for the day.

3. I can often be seen standing with one foot resting in the crook of my other knee.
Yes, this makes me look like a stork, but I'm most comfortable that way.

4. I have at least 3 (and I've had up to 6) half gallon containers of Edys ice cream in my freezer at all times.
This is to insure that I won't have to miss my nightly cup of ice cream. Not a bowl, not even a mug, but a cup. It doesn't matter if it's a blazing hot summer night or a cold, harsh winter evening, I must have my ice cream.

I hesitated to list this final one, but I couldn't think of any more myself. When I asked John what he thought my idiosyncrasies were, he responded VERY quickly with this (which makes me think he sees it more as a character flaw than an idiosyncrasy):

5. I disclaim everything.

I read a lot of blogs, but I don't know many people that read mine (that have blogs of their own), so I'll tag Stephanie, Laura and Lindsay (who do have blogs) and also my friends Sarah*, Kerry (who don't currently have blogs) with the hope that this will serve as a catalyst for at least one of those two ladies to join the fun.

*Update: Well, that didn't take long. This afternoon I found out that Sarah has finally decided to enter the blogosphere...she has a "team blog" with one of my other friends, Jeff. Check out their drivel here.

lucky girl

2005-08-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

...on two accounts. The first: I got to spend three full days (and I do mean FULL) at the World Shoe Association trade show. Before we left, John informed me that the show was in three different convention halls and there were over 4,000 vendors being showcased. Thankfully, John had done quite a bit of research before we left and had already made appointments with eight or nine vendors. Honestly, I could kiss him for being so prepared. We were able to get SO MUCH done since we already had those appointments booked and it was a lot less overwhelming than I think it could have been had we just chosen to walk around and see what was out there. We did that too, but we would have been sunk if that's all we had planned on doing. We did find some other cool vendors by walking around and through word of mouth, so we'll probably be adding some of them to our original line-up. I know you're all curious to know exactly what kinds of shoes we're going to be carrying at habitat. We'll, it looks like you're a lukcy girl (or lucky boy) too, because I'm going to give you a sneak preview of some of the lines we've already ordered from:

1. faryl robin -- very unique shoes. In their words, "we design footwear so that you can look great at work and then make your way to a party and turn heads there." Faryl started the company (about 5 years ago I think) and is also the designer (not to mention a wife and a mother). She actually helped us pick out our shoes for next spring/summer. I truly appreciated her honest and forthright opinion. I never once felt like she was trying to "sell" us on her brand, but was really interested in helping us choose the right does for us at this time (being a start-up and not knowing our clientele yet). She's a woman who understands the importance of good working relationships and realizes it's in her best interest for us to be successful. Pesky one of my favorite boots we picked out of the whole show (in smooth, chocolate brown though)...I love the Victorian feel of these.

2. fornarina -- sexy in an "embrace your inner rockstar" kind of way. We spent the most time in this suite (some vendors had booths in a large convention hall, others had their lines displayed in suites in the Venentian hotel)...I just couldn't get enough of their shoes. I had a very difficult time narrowing it down to 16(!) different styles for spring/summer. There were just too many great ones to choose from. Their website is currently being overhauled, so I can't show you any examples of what we purchased for fall, but trust me, you'll want a pair. Even their current website page that's counting down to the new launch is cool.

3. j shoes -- a perfect mix of styles you would recognize, but with an artistic flair. Prior to the show, this was the vendor I was most excited to see in person because I've been salivating over their styles online for so long. It's VERY difficult to choose my favorite out of all the ones we bought (every design is amazing), but I'm going to go with the portobello for men and the suay for women (or the quartz...or the marion...I told you they were amazing).

4. medium -- shoes for the culturally creative. John and I both own a pair of the alchemist and guys will be able to get their own lux pair (in kelp) come October. Ladies, you'll have to wait a little longer. Medium has decided to manufacture women's styles (not just men's shoes in smaller sizes), so those will be available in February.

5. camper -- a name you probably already recognize. I can't find any of the shoes we ordered on their website...when I do, I'll post 'em.

6. gola -- soccer inspired sport shoes in both "easy-on-the-eyes" and "not-so-easy-on-the-eyes" color combos (we stuck mostly with the former to start off with). For men: the chase and the coyote; for women: the harrier and the couture.

Well, that should keep you busy for awhile. I'll post some of the other lines we're considering in the next few days. Feel free to leave feedback (but only if it's positive). No seriously, all comments are welcome.

And why I'm a lucky girl on the second account...because all I've been doing for the past three days is flipping through Lucky and other fashion magazines. One thing I realized at the trade show was that I'm really not *that* into fashion. I mean, I like to buy clothes and shoes as much as the next girl, but 1) I don't like to spend a lot of money on clothes, 2) I NEVER look at fashion magazines, and 3) in light of #1 & #2, I don't know anything about designers or what's *HOT*. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I flipped through a fashion mag, but, it looks like we'll be getting a subscription to at least one soon. Why? Well, I figure if we're going to actually sell cool shoes, we need to know about them: how to wear them, what to wear them with and who's wearing them. All stuff that I never really thought about before this weekend, but I picked up pretty quickly after talking to just a few shoe vendors. They were throwing around terms like peep toe, boho, kitten heel and names like Marc Jacobs and Lindsey Lohan. So, aren't I a lucky girl because I get to read fashion mags as part of my job? It's a tough life, but someone's got to do it.

talking pennies

2005-08-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

We made it through the first day of our first shoe trade show -- what a FUN DAY! So much packed into one day, and we have two more to go! There's too much to tell and I'm not sure I could even articulate anything from the trade show yet, so I'll just share some highlights from the flight:

1. My favorite quote came from a middle-aged women sitting behind me:

"My sister and I are convinced that our mother speaks to us through pennies. Like just last night, we went out to dinner, and we saw two pennies on the ground when we got out of the car -- one for each of us."

My head snapped in John's direction and I quickly gave him the "What did she just say?" look. We obviously were the only ones confused because the women next to her replied, "Oh, and do you beleive if the penny is heads up she's telling you 'yes' and if it's tails up she's telling you 'no'?"

2. My favorite photo: (well, my favorite picture in my mind, that's the only memory I will have of it because John and I forgot our camera. I know, I know, how could we forget our camera on a trip to Las Vegas. Trust me, I DON'T KNOW.)

An elderly man outfitted in light blue-and-white houndstooth polyester pants, a navy cotton blazer tipped in white piping covering a white butterfly collar shirt and the largest glasses I've ever seen with his head tipped back, sleeping with his mouth open. It honestly was the most precious sight. Although I must admit, when my eyes first found him I thought he was dead. I was much relieved when I saw his chest moving with his breath.

off to sin city

2005-08-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided I must get over this idea that I have to post a photo with every entry. Honestly, it's too exhausting (especially right now when I'm doing good to getting around to blogging) and I'm tired of not posting at all just because I don't have a photo to complement the writing. No more esxcuses.

I have NO IDEA WHY I AM STILL AWAKE. John and I leave tomorrow for the World Shoe Association trade show in Las Vegas (to say I'm excited about it is a gross understatement...not Las Vegas, but the shoes, THE SHOES), so I should be asleep right now. I sat down at 11:30pm with my (almost) nightly cup of ice cream to *quickly* catch up on some blog reading. Then I was going to iron some clothes, gather my knitting supplies (I've had a strong urge this week to pick up knitting again) and pack all my stuff to prevent the typical "rushing-around-so-as-not-to-be-late-to-the-airport" routine that plagues me the one time of year that I fly. But alas, I am here posting to my blog because I don't want to let down all my readers (all five of them) with the lack of activity here lately. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will most definitely be rushing around tomorrow morning (well, actually this morning) while John sits in the car wondering if my twelfth exit from the house will indeed be the final one. And although wearing wrinkled skirts is much less bothersome to me now than it was two hours ago, I figure I better get some sleep. Otherwise I won't have any energy to walk around the three (!) conventions halls filled with more shoes than I've ever seen in my life. Oh, who am I kidding...sleep, or no sleep, I'll ALWAYS be able to shop for shoes.

back tack goodness

2005-07-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

This post is LONG overdue as I received my back tack goodies more than two weeks ago, but have been delayed in posting about the package I received, because I got two new part-time jobs (more on that in another post). But alas, I am back and don't plan on taking any more lengthy, unintentional breaks like that again.

So without further ado, here's a look at the wonderful presents I received from my back-tacker, butterfrog (her alias). This is a shot of the entire array of gifts she sent (minus the ADORABLE sock monkey she made for Margot's 1st birthday - how sweet is that? She even made my daughter a gift! You can see a photo of it here)!

I think Miss Butterfrog is my new best friend. She made me a knitting needle case (which I have been wanting to make for myself since January), a spool roll and a bird pincushion.
Here's a close-up of the spool roll and pincushion:

As if this wasn't enough, she included a PILE of other fun treasures. A mini Oriental-inspired pouch with two petite bird pins hiding inside and a generous pile of great buttons:

She also included some leftover ribbon, ric rac and lace, three beautiful magnets, some new knitting needles (yea!), a needle guage, and two packages of stitch markers!

This was quite a haul! I am especially appreciative because I am new to knitting and have not yet acquired many of these items, which seem to be pretty basic to successful knitting.

And last but not least, I received some new tea! Sadly, I have not tried it yet, but I plan to sit down with a cup one evening this week after work.

Thank you Butterfrog for making my week so special! You are so generous. I truly look forward to using all of these wonderful gifts you sent (Margot loves her sock monkey! I'll take a photo of her carrying it around as soon as I can get one).

my 1 year old daughter has stronger abs than i do

2005-07-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

Margot's friend Simon invited her to a play date today at Crown Center. It's basically a mall with an outdoor pavillion where they show movies in the summer and have ice skating in the winter. There's this great fountain in the pavillion that kids are always running around in (even though there are signs posted that say, "Please Don't Play in the Fountain"). Margot would only enter the cascade of water if I was holding onto her hands (which any mother would've done anyway right since wet bricks are very slippery)...she actually spent most of her time practicing her saunter on the outskirts of the fountain.

I'm still getting used to the fact that my daughter looks like an orangutan when she walks right now -- arms always flying overhead.

A shot of her running away from the water:

The funniest part of the day was definitely lunchtime when Margot sat for a full twenty minutes like this:

Look at those thighs (which makes this move all the more amazing..the shear strength it must take to hold those things up for so long)! Friends have always joked that Margot has abs of steel. After she learned to sit up on her own, Margot's standard sitting position was with her legs 3 inches off the ground, twirling her feet continuously. The girl is either destined to be a Pilates instructor, a dancer or a swimmer.

Margot with Simon (still in the Pilates position):

And one more photo of Margot on another outing this week. Monday evening we went to the newly remodeled Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library. It's fantastic. Modern furnishings everywhere -- even in the kids section! John has already begun shaping Margot's taste in good design, so I wasn't surprised when she spent 10 minutes pushing one of the child-sized modern chairs around the kids area (design is great, but durability is a must as well).

(I apologize to the handful of you who read both John's and my blog and already saw this photo over there. We'll try to offer a better variety of shots in the future.)

just call me "sew sista"

2005-07-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, that was really bad...sorry, I had a difficult time thinking of a creative title for this post. I'm pretty sure it's finally safe to post photos of what I made for the back-tack swap, since Bertha should've received her package in the mail today. This is what I created with the materials Superneedle sent me.

I know you may find this hard to believe (probably not), but this was the first sewing I've done since the 8th grade. I was extremely pleased with the finished product since it actually looks like what I was intending to make. I used this tutorial for the pouch and I "winged" the tote from one I had on hand. The came up with the design -- very simple, which is my style. The pouch is my favorite...probably because it was the first thing I made and it was my first attempt at a zipper.

Close-up of pouch:
Lining of pouch:
I hope the recipient likes her gift (if you don't Bertha, please don't tell me in a comment or I think my spirit might be crushed) and doesn't feel cheated that she had an amateur like me as her back-tack buddy.

birthday day o' fun

2005-07-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

My friend Julie always plans one full day of activities for her husband's birthday which she calls the "day o' fun." I actually remembered to take photos of my 29th birthday day o' fun and now that I've finally figured out how to post several photos in one post (thanks to Hannah telling me about blogger images!), I can share them with you in the actual order of occurence. *Note: This is the absolute longest post ever...I'm having WAY TOO MUCH fun with this multiple photo posting.

I woke up on my birthday for the second time that morning (see here if you're confused) craving french toast. I really wanted to go to Milton's (my favorite breakfast place in Lawrence), but now that we live in KC I decided it probably wasn't realistic for us to drive there just to satisfy my cravings (even though it was my birthday). A chain restaurant was definitely out, so I jumped on the internet to search for a hole-in-the-wall place that served cheap french toast. Ruby's Dagwoods was the winner -- both in 2001 for Best Cheap Eats and July 2, 2005 for Kristen's 29th birthday breakfast. As if the Best Cheap Eats award was not enough to convince me, this is what we encountered when we pulled into the parking lot. Who would not want to eat their birthday breakfast here?

Although I don't smoke, and typically dislike eating in smoking establishments, this sign seemed to endear me even more to the place.

Ruby's was awesome. Immediately after entering I knew the waitress would know everyone's name in the place. I almost felt like we shouldn't be there since we weren't regulars, but she quickly embraced us as if we were her own children.

Our menu?
For the birthday girl:
- a big tall glass of orange juice (served in a melamine "frosted" glass)
- two pieces of thick french toast (on Texas toast of course)
- a side of hashbrowns

For John:
- same as me (sans hashbrowns)
- two eggs over-easy
- a cup of black coffe (the worst he said he'd tasted in years...he's a coffee snob now that he's run a coffeeshop for the past 3 years)

For Margot:
- one piece of wheat toast soaked in a LARGE amount of butter (I could actually hear her young arteries clogging).

We didn't enjoy any of the menu items listed on the sign outside...

...nope, no tenderloins for me before noon (although I do think John could eat chicken fried steak at 9am if he really put his mind to it). However, I think Margot came very close to bringing on a heart attack in an elderly man that walked by our table to say hi to her. Currently Margot is not particularly fond of older men...or men with facial hair. This gentleman fit both categories and so there was no escaping her typical response -- explosive cry with frightened look. At that point we decided it was time for the check.

It was then home for a nap for Margot (yes, already). We put Margot down and after thirty minutes of quiet, a nap started to sound pretty good to John and I (remember: 4am). Just as our heads sunk into the pillow, little miss angel decided she had had enough beauty sleep. So we headed off to the Reading Reptile, a children's bookstore I have been wanting to check out for awhile (check out their "about us" page...not what you'd expect from owners of a children's bookstore).

This is my new favorite place. It's easy to see why they won an award for excellence in children's bookselling (you can see photos of the store here). Scattered around the store are lots of large paper mache replicas of characters popularized in children's books. In the back of the store is a stage (complete with velvet curtain!) where they have storytime and show movies. Also in the back is a huge section that looks to be dedicated to crafts. They have every children's book you would ever want and much, much more (whole sections dedicated to weather, the human body, environment and on and on). Although Margot didn't look at any books, she kept busy petting the cat...

...and playing with this...

She just loves these bead contraptions. On the way home I found a much smaller version at a garage sale -- the best $0.25 I ever spent I tell ya.

Then it was on to "Tea at 3" at Gail's. It was so nice to have time with just girlfriends and no children to chase around. My dear friend Sarah made these to-die-for truffles.

I know, I know it's not fair to tease, but I had to share. The evening ended with dinner at Osteria Il Centro (that's my shadow at the bottom)...

...and a relaxing walk around the Plaza. We were planning on catching a movie, but didn't think we'd make it through one due to our (very) early morning.

I absolutely LOVE celebrating birthdays...especially my own. But honestly, after having my daughter I figured the days of fun birthdays for me were over. Not true. This was definitely a day o' fun!

happy birthday to me

2005-07-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

i love mommy tee
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Today was my 29th birthday. My last year before "the thirties." I'm ready. The other day I heard that "30 is the new 20"...I'm not sure I know exactly what that means, but I do know I don't want to be 20 again.

Outside of the fact that Margot woke up at 4:34am and we couldn't get her back to sleep for more than an hour, my birthday day was splendid (I think she just wanted me to be awake for as many birthday hours as possible)! I recorded the day with my camera, but that post will have to wait until tomorrow because it's already very late and 4:34am was a long time ago.

Here's one of my favorite photos from today. This little beauty is the reason I spent the evening of my 28th birthday uncomfortable. The next day I would realize that my discomfort was because I was having contractions. And the next day, Margot entered our lives.

a new habitat

2005-07-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

first friday group shot
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

**Note: This photo has nothing to do with this post, but I thought I would throw it in because I'm a big fan of photos with posts. It's a shot from our First Friday outing tonight with a group of our friends (the galleries in the KC art district stay open late the first Friday of the month for new show openings).

For the last 3 years and 1 month I've been working with college students in the fabulous town of Lawrence, KS and yesterday was my last official day of work. It was also my husband's last day of work -- he has been managing a bookstore, coffeeshop and art gallery (also in Lawrence) -- so now we're both officially unemployed. Why have we both left our jobs and moved from Lawrence to Kansas City? To begin a new adventure in small business ownership. John has been investigating and planning since September and in the next few months we're looking to open a fun (and hopefully very hip) shoe boutique. I'm sure I'll be writing much more about this adventure in the coming months. In the meantime I will be looking for a part-time job (for that silly, little thing called a mortgage). I just want to work someplace fun (who doesn't) where I wouldn't be tempted to spend all my wages on the store's wares (like here...bad news); someplace that will fuel my creative juices (like here or here, which would also most likely be bad news, but at least it would be in the name of creativity). So, if you've got any suggestions for me, bring 'em on.

nature photo thursday

2005-06-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

mordecai
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Last Wednesday morning, John and I were both in the kitchen at the same time fixing breakfast (unusual for us on a weekday). As my gaze drifted out the window, I hear him say, "Who put the fake bird on our deck?" A moment later we both see the fake bird turn its head. I rushed to get the camera so I could get a photo of this seeming rarity, but unfortunately the photo is a touch hazy (I took it through the window because I was afraid if I went outside, the bird would fly away).

Two days later I heard John recounting the story to a friend and found out he named the bird Mordecai.

"You named a bird you're never going to see again?"

"Actually, I've already seen him three more times. This is his territory."

If John's gone for any amount of time now, I can usually find him in the backyard with his neck craned, searching the trees for his new feathered friend. He's infatuated with that bird.

housewarming gift

2005-06-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

candle from Stephanie
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Here's what was inside the red package. The box said, "The friendship circle is an enduring symbol throughout the world. This one is inspired by an ancient Mayan ritual in which tribes would gather to celebrate peace and togetherness." Sounds good to me.

Thanks Stephanie for brightening my day and our home and for being the coolest blogger I've met thus far. Maybe someday we can actually meet in person (hopefully long before Sydney and Margot are old enough to attend the Girls Rock Camp).

i love the color red...

2005-06-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

red envelope package
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

...especially when I receive red packages! Last Saturday our new postman Tony (well, new to us; he's been on this route for 7 years or something like that...very nice guy) delivered a box and this red box from red ENVELOPE is what was inside (I've admired items from their site before, but never actually received anything from them, so I was super excited!). This package was from Stephanie -- my new favorite friend I recently met in the blogworld. She linked to my blog from a comment I left on someone else's blog, left me a comment, I then visited her blog and left five comments in one evening because I felt like every entry was something else we had in common (definitely unusual for me). When she found out we moved into a new house she asked if I would mind sending her our address so she could send us a housewarming present. What? Of course I'll send you my address if you want to send me a gift. How cool is that? It definitely ranks up their as one of the most thoughtful things anyone has done for me. So do you want to see what was inside? Next blog entry for that (I still haven't figured out how to post more than one photo in a post...help me Hannah, please).

nature photo thursday

2005-06-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

green moth
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

It seems that several of the blogs I read regularly now are participating in self portrait tuesday (you can see what this is all about here, here, here and here). Well, I'm not quite ready to post a photo of myself every Tuesday (mostly because I prefer being on this side of the camera and I don't think I'll actually remember to take one every week), but I have been thinking about doing a different kind of photo day. So, since it's Thursday (as good a day as any I suppose) and my husband isn't home from work yet and I'm actually posting to my blog rather than reading everyone else's , I thought I would post this photo of a green moth I took the last week we lived in our old home. I have never seen a moth like this (if all moths looked like this I don't think I'd be annoyed with them) and was very taken with it when I noticed it outside our front door. I'm just glad it didn't fly away before I had a chance to find our camera amidst all the packed boxes.

daddy mac

2005-06-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

me and my daddy
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

I'm not sure how I stayed up until 4:30am cleaning out my email inbox and searching for ideas to give my husband for my upcoming birthday (I don't mind telling you it's July 2nd because birthdays are my favorite) and did not post this photo for Father's Day. I suppose I just ran out of time. So, it's one day late, but Happy Father's Day John. Margot is so lucky to have you for a daddy.

Margot is actually wearing one of John's Father's Day presents...it's a black onesie with "ROCKSTAR" printed in a heavy metal-type font. My husband has always wanted to be a rockstar, but is beginning to realize it ain't gonna happen. So now his dream is for Margot to be a rockstar. He's already planning for her to go here.

Other than grooming her for rockstardom, we also read to her a lot. But don't let this photo fool you...recently, she has taken up the habit of eating board books. I continually remind Margot that, "We READ the book, we don't EAT the book." At which point she usually responds by looking at me as if I should know that she's just trying to get her daily intake of fiber. Enjoy your snack honey.

the whole family

2005-06-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

mcclain family at joseph wedding
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

[**Note: If you're wondering what all these pictures are all about, scroll down to the miss southern belle post and work back to here.]Margot is definitely the cutest of the three of us, but here's a family shot all the same. I hesitated to include this one because for some reason I feel weird posting a picture of myself on my blog, but obviously I didn't feel too weird or I wouldn't have done it. This is the last photo from this event, I promise.

standing alone

2005-06-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

wanting to walk at joseph wedding
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Am I done indulging? Not quite. This shot includes the sandals and fan program I mentioned before.

don't you just want to eat those cheeks?

2005-06-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

margot standing at joseph wedding
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

almost a smile

2005-06-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

joseph wedding half smile
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

did someone call me?

2005-06-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

joseph wedding huh
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

contemplation

2005-06-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

joseph wedding contemplation
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

I love that Margot looks like she is having some seriously deep thought.

more southern belle goodness

2005-06-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

joseph wedding side smile
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

How could any self-respecting mother who thinks her daughter is absolutely beautiful be expected to choose one out of all these pictures? Well, even if you expect me to, I can't, so you're gettin' the whole lot of 'em. Indulge me. I'll have to post them all separately though, which totally stinks but I have yet to figure out how to post several photos in one post (I realize this is totally annoying and loses the flow that would come from viewing them in one post, but trust me, it's more annoying for me that I haven't figured this technology out yet).

miss southern belle

2005-06-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

classic margot at joseph wedding
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

This photo is too sweet -- I almost can't stand it (thanks Hannah for sending this and the others to me). John, Margot and I went to a wedding at an old farmstead outside of Wichita, KS this past weekend and I decided that it was the perfect event for this adorable seersucker dress (with matching hat and sandals). The programs were even printed on fans (such a fantastic idea), which was a perfect addition to Margot's outfit (photos to come in subsequent post). I realize I'm biased, but it's photos like this that make me seriously consider exploiting my daughter's good looks as a model for some baby product. Can you blame me?

the name of this blog

2005-06-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

porch swing side shot horizontal
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Here is a photo of my new front porch swing. It was the inspiration for the name of this blog, which I chose for two reasons:
1) I am very excited to have a front porch swing for the first time in my life and
2) I figured this blog would be a place for me to share my thoughts, contemplate life, be with good friends, brag about my daughter...all things I expect to do on my real front porch swing and here, my cyber porch swing.

More photos of our new home will be forthcoming...once I figure out how to post more than one picture in a post that is, which honestly could be awhile, so don't hold your breath.

back tack goodies

2005-06-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

back tack goodies
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

This is the amazing pile of goodies I received from my back tack buddy this past week. Here's an excerpt from the note they included to describe the fabric:
"The striped linen is 18th century mattress ticking bought in an antiques market in Bologna, Italy. The beige canvas is 'toile bache', which is used by Hermes to make summer bags. This also comes from Italy, but not a market. The brown ribbon is also vintage."

OK, how cool is that? I don't feel worthy to receive fabric which I'm sure has such a storied history. It's been crazy around here unpacking and getting settled in our new home, so I haven't had much time to think about what I'm going to do with all this wonderful stuff. I'm hoping to dedicate some time to it this weekend. Thanks back-tack buddy for such great inspiration!

a week of firsts

2005-06-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

I think I've developed a twitch from not being able to post to my blog or do my daily readings of blogs for the past week. So much has happened and there's so much to tell, but I only have time for a quick post.

Last week was a week of firsts for us:
1. We moved into our first house (well, our first stand-alone house, our previous house was a townhome).
2. I received my first package at our new home -- my back tack swap package filled with super cool fabric and other goodies (photo of the fab stuff to come).
3. Margot took her first steps on her own. She took two of them and then fell down but was smiling to whole time!

Posting will still be sketchy until Monday (when we finally get high speed internet hooked up), but I will be back with lots of new photos to share!

second batch of postcards

2005-05-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

second batch of postcards
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

I finally got around to posting the second batch of postcards I received in the postcard swap (you can see & read about the first batch here and learn more about the postcard swap here). The top two were actually the first two postcards I received, but I couldn't find them when I took the picture of the first bunch. The cards are from (clockwise from top left) are a fabulous collage from Hanna (love the thread in the bird's beak), Marieke, Sandra (this one is all fabric...I was surprised the post actually mailed it -- very fun!) and Melissa. There were about 40 other people who participated in the swap. If you're interested in viewing all the postcards I didn't receive :(, you can find them here. Thanks again Myra for hosting this swap!

birds flying at light speed

2005-05-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

I found out about a new artist, Amy Ruppel, about a month ago on a blog (I can't remember exactly which one it was right now, but Kelly over at buzzville posted about two of Amy's pieces she recently acquired). I am infatuated with her stuff. I signed up right away to receive updates about her next art sale. Well, I received an e-mail a few days ago alerting me to a sale she was having today at 11am pacific time (1pm my time). Bad news for me...the sale sort of slipped my mind because my husband was leaving today for a 4-day trip to Colorado. After he left (~3:30pm) I checked my e-mail and was reminded of the sale. I went straight to her website only to find out that 40 of the 41 paintings were already sold! -- in less than 3 hours! Isn't that crazy! It looks like her work is a hot commodity. I may have missed out this time, but I will definitely be making Amy's next sale an appointment on my calendar. Go check out her work here.

middle of the night musings

2005-05-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

It's now 5:48am, and I've been awake now since 1:30am...when my daughter woke up screaming. She didn't fall back asleep quickly, so I went in to check on her. I thought I'd just give her pacifier back to her and she would fall right back to sleep; she didn't want her pacifier, she wanted to nurse (she hasn't done that in the middle of the night for a long time). Thirty minutes later, Margot was asleep...and I was wide awake. I knew lying back down was pretty much pointless at this point, but I thought I'd at least try to go back to sleep. That lasted about five minutes before I got up and decided to write down some of the ideas I had for tag lines for the shoe store (my husband and I are getting ready to open up a shoe boutique in Kansas City in a few months...i'll be sharing much more about that in the future). After I recorded all those ideas, I remembered that I wanted to figure out how to put a sidebar on my blog for all the blogs I read regularly. Well, if you're reading this, you can see that I haven't figured it out yet. I don't know anything about html and even though there are directions on blogspot, I have yet to figure out how to do it. So after giving up on the blogroll (for now), I decided to catch up on my blog reading and (of course) I found several new ones that I'll now want to read regularly: lisa in san francisco, her sister stephanie in portland (they have quite the crafty family...their mom also has a blog) and kath in australia. Check them out when you get a chance.

the ol' Survivor switcharoo

2005-05-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

Can someone give me the number to a CBS executive? I want to ask them why they chose to air the 2-hour season finale of Survivor on a Sunday night, when the show usually airs on Thursday nights. How many other uninformed Survivor fans turned on the television at 7pm (central time) tonight, anxious to view the crowning of the winner of Survivor Palau, only to see the beginning of the 2-hour season finale of CSI? Yes, I admit it, I'm a fan of Survivor. No, I'm not addicted to Survivor. I've only watched two seasons all the way through (Australia and the current season), but if you're a Survivor fan, then you understand how frustrated I was to find out that I had missed the outcome. I realize there may not be many others like myself who missed the finale because most fans probably saw the commercials announcing that the finale would air on Sunday, but I didn't see those commercials because I don't watch television (I have a strong dislike for TV because I think it's a waste of time, but Survivor is the one hour of TV in which I indulge). One would think that I would've found out during last week's episode that the finale was on a different night, but I don't remember hearing anything about that (and I think I would've caught that).

I've already found out who was voted the sole survivor (thanks to the internet), but I don't think I'll have resolution until I see the finale. So, if anyone has a copy of the show, I'll pay big money for it (OK, maybe not big money, but you will be my new best friend).

my latest pet peeve

2005-05-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've realized that I have a new pet peeve. When people hear that we are moving the first week of June, their first question is always, "Have you started packing yet?" I'm so tired of being asked that question now I don't even try to come up with some proper excuse as to why we haven't started packing (as if I should need one), I just say, "No." Really people, do you care if I've started packing? Wouldn't you rather hear about our new house? Or why we're moving? This packing question bothers me on two levels: 1) it means I'm constantly reminded of something I need to do, but have not. It compares with around the time of college graduation when everyone is asking you, "So, do you have a job?" and you are constantly reminded that you don't have a job, which of course means you must be a loser and that there's no hope for your future even with this official piece of paper that says you're now educated, and 2) it makes me feel like I've missed out on some moving etiquette...as if it's so obvious that we should be completely packed by now or that we must have been sick the day they went over the timeline of packing a house in 6th grade.

The truth is, I'm not lazy or behind in my packing, I just don't feel like looking at packed boxes for the next three weeks. So, I figure I'll start packing a week before we move and then I'll only have to think about it for a week (and of course all the weeks that the stuff remains in boxes on the new premises). I'm probably naive to think we can pack our entire house in one week (with my husband going away for four days for a bachelor party weekend getaway in Estes Park three days prior to our moving day), but I've decided I would much rather be stressed for one week of crazy-mad packing versus three weeks of lolly-gagging packing.

P.S. Another one of those questions that gets really old, really fast is the "How are you feeling?" while you are pregnant. The pure frequency of that question cancels out the good intentions that are behind it. It's nice to feel loved, but honestly, this pregnant woman grew extremely weary of that question. For the sake of pregnant women, and people that will soon be moving, please come up with a more creative question.

why i get to celebrate mom's day

2005-05-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

IMG_1180
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers who are reading this (probably not many seeing as how only my husband and a few other people even know I have a blog)! This little cutie is why I got to celebrate Mother's Day for the first time this year. I got a relaxing 1 hour massage and then we ate at our favorite Lawrence restaurant -- Free State Brewery. Then mommy and Margot hung out for the evening while daddy went to the Shins concert (wait, I thought we were celebrating Mother's Day?). It doesn't matter, that face makes it all worth it! Margot turned 10 months old this past week. She's ready to start walking, but mommy is just getting used to the idea of her crawling (and the constant chasing her around the has commenced).

first batch of postcards

2005-05-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

postcard swap first batch
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

Here are 6 of the 8 postcards I've received so far from the postcard swap -- they put my postcards to shame. I cannot find the first two postcards I received, but I am determined, so I'll post a photo of them later. I've been skipping to the mailbox all week in anticipation of receiving fun mail (rather than all those credit card offers). It's been so fun to see what other people made. It just confirms what all my blog reading lately has revealed -- there are a lot of creative people out there. These postcards are from (left to right, top row then bottom row): Super K, Myra, Snowbear, Amanda, Christy and Holly. Check them out.

my first swap

2005-05-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

postcard swap photo
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

I'm finally getting around to posting a photo of one of the postcards I made for the postcard swap (hosted by Myra). The postcards had to be postmarked by last Saturday, April 30th, so I spent most of last Friday evening and Saturday morning working furiously to finish mine in time. I dyed paper towels (a new endeavor) and then collaged them over a word collage (all the places that I was sending my postcards to) -- an idea I got from this magazine. They didn't turn out exactly like I had hoped, but that's mostly because I ran out of time. For my first attempt of doing something crafty in a long time, I was pleased.

BOB stroller

2005-04-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

BOB stroller
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

My jogging stroller came in the mail today! I can't wait to try this puppy out. I've been wanting one of these for awhile, but typical for me, I've spent the past few weeks researching them to find the best one for the best deal. I purchased this one from here and saved $80!

I used to run several times a week...before I got pregnant. I've been trying to get back to running lately, which has been challenging for several reasons: 1) I haven't been running for over a year so the enjoyment and exhilaration I got from it before seem to have eluded me thus far, 2) I have lacked the motivation to get up early and go running before my husband goes to work, so he can watch Margot and 3) until fairly recently the weather has not been nice enough to run in...I hate running in the cold (OK, it's been warming up for 2 months now, but it sounded good). I seem to think that spending a considerable amount of money on a jogging stroller will somehow help me overcome these challenges. Let's just hope it doesn't sit in the garage and collect dust.

bel canto

2005-04-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

bel canto
Originally uploaded by kmmcclain.

I finished this book today. I read it in about 5 days; I couldn't put it down. It's the first time (in a long time) that I've read a novel straight through without getting distracted and picking up another book. That's especially easy for me because my husband works here and I can check out any book I want. Since I'm in the store several times a week, I'm always finding new books I want to read...which is why I'm typically reading about 7 or 8 books at a time. Maybe I like starting books more than I like finishing them. Don't get me wrong, I finish them. I have to finish them. Even if the book totally stinks, I feel like I must plow through it or the book will taunt me until I do. I think it's an addiction. I even do it with magazines. I read them from cover to cover -- even the articles that don't interest me. I know, it's absurd.

Anyway, the circumstances of the story are thought-provoking; it would definitely be a good choice for a book club discussion. If I had one, it would be on my list.

the catalyst

2005-04-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

Back-tack small button
Originally uploaded by back-tack.

Here's the swap that served as the catalyst for me entering the blogosphere.

under the wire

2005-04-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

When I first heard about blogs two months ago my first thought was, "Why would anyone want to read about the lives of people they don't know?" I decided to check out my friend Hannah's blog...two hours later I was still reading. I learned some new things about my friend AND the fascination behind blogs (or at least one of them) -- links. I visited at least 10 other blogs in those two hours and embarked on a journey in a new wonderful world. My husband has been trying to convince me to start a blog for about a month (he's been at it for awhile now). I have resisted for two reasons: 1) I don't feel like I have anything to share that other people will be interested in reading and 2) I enjoy lurking on other people's blogs too much to spend time keeping up with my own. Even though those two things still hold true, I have decided to throw my hat in the ring. Why? Mostly because I've been observing all these cool swaps (of crafty creations and handmade items) taking place on blogs I visit daily and well, I'm tired of just observing. A requirement to participate in this one is that you have a blog. So, here I am...getting my blog started and signing up for the swap before registration ends at midnight (all while my husband laughs in the background).