Wanna free NICE bag?

I found out about this from Witchypoo and am always up for a new bag. Who isn't???

So while my poor hubby is dead asleep on the couch, I am passing this onto you.

Handbag Planet is launching their new website and they're giving away 24 bags in 24 hours to celebrate. Just click here and you're in!

The bags are pretty nice too.

With love from Moi.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

I love ya,
Tomorrow.
You're only a DAY AWAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!

Shave legs et al - Check
Wash hair - Check
Buy special stuff for dinner - Check
Buy his favorite beer - Dang, I knew there was something I forgot. Will correct this on the morrow.
Go to sleep early tonight - Checked as soon as this is posted.

Y'all unnerstan if you don't hear from me tomorrow, right?

Not the sharpest tool in the shed

Hubby: Honey! We're going to see the Hoover Dam this weekend!

Me: That's the one from the Beavis & Butthead movie, right?

Hubby: Um, yeah. (weird look comes over his face and there is a slight shake of his head)

Me: Yeah. Of all the millions of interesting facts about the Hoover Dam, that's the one I remember.


What can I say... I just have more pressing issues competing for grey matter than Hoover and his Dams :-P

Saturday night on the couch.

My last weekend of the single mama drama. WHEW. Praise the Universe and everybody in it. I have survived this far, surely I can go a few more days until the LOVE of my LIFE gets back into my lonely arms on Tuesday to be squished for hours and hours and hours. I will show the Angel the TRUE meaning of clingy.

She misses him too. She just lights up when she hears Skype ringing and sees him on the screen :)

On another note, I seem to have got the whole step-mommy thing down! Yes, I am a step-mama too... and apparently not of the beautiful but evil with poisoned apple persuasion. My step-daughter has spent both weekends with us, even though her dad isn't here... by her own choice. I guess I can't be doing too badly a job if she wants to hang out with me all weekend long, twice. Although I'm sure the Angel does get some credit... and the absence of a certain pesky younger brother that you don't have to share the computer with. But it has been cool. Becoming a mama myself has made the step-part muuuuch easier and more fun.

And Saturday night finds me curled on the couch, cup of tea in hand, my book and cat on my lap. I have been trying to read this book since my Mom gave it to me back home in July. Which really is not an accurate reflection of how good it is. It really is good. I have had so many moments of ''Yes, this is True'' reading it. Which just cause me to put it down and get lost in my own thoughts as I ponder the deep, real wisdom that is The Seat of the Soul. Anybody else read it?

Martha or Maxine??

I got this in an email so I get nada credit for it. Made me giggle a bit, and I am always happy to share a good giggle :)


Are you Martha or Maxine?



Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of an ice cream cone to prevent ice cream drips.

Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake! You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it, anyway!




To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix. Keeps in the pantry for up to a year.




When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

Go to the bakery! Hell, they'll even decorate it for you!




If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant 'fix-me-up.'

If you over-salt a dish while you are cooking, that's too bad. Please recite with me the real woman's motto: 'I made it, you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes!'




Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.

Celery? Never heard of it!





Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.

The Mrs. Smith frozen pie directions do not include brushing egg whites over the crust, so I don't.




Cure for headaches: take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

Take a lime, mix it with tequila, chill and drink! All your pains go away!





If you have a problem opening jars, try using latex dish washing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.

Go ask that very cute neighbor if he can open it for you.





Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.

Leftover wine??????????? HELLO!!!!!!!





Soooo... which one are you??? 3 guesses as to who I am!

Oh so very very very loooong day

Hubby has been in the US o' A for the last week. He's still there. He's gonna be there all this week too.

I have been here. A.L.O.N.E.

This single mom stuff is very very (badword) hard.

Tash, and Bella, hats off to you ladies. And in case you forget, tell your parents how much you LOVE and APPRECIATE the HELP and SUPPORT that they give you. Because, trust me, not having ANY SUPPORT, is NOT EASY.

I am too tired to think straight, and have had to correct too many typos in the last 5 lines.

Oh Happy Day!

You guys and gals ROCK! I opened my email this morning and Whoop Ti Whooop!! Comments out the wazoo! So I started singing and dancing with the Angel and playing this.

And so my Friday is off to a wonderful start. Thanks folks :)

PLUS!! The sun is all shining and pretty too. *cue the birds singing*

Have a Fabulous Day!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Firstly, thanks Tash for the inspiration for this post :)

So what make me happy:

Comments on my blog (hint hint)
Chocolate chip cookies
Big, warm mugs of tea
Laughing and playing with the Angel
Laughing and playing with Hubby
Flowers (hint hint hon)
A video call with my parents
Hearing from my brother
Successfully cooking a tasty meal that Hubby and I genuinely enjoy
A cant-put-down book
Night time snuggles
Catching Pretty Woman on TV
Movies with a happy ending
A good gossipy phone call with my girlfriends (whom I miss sooooo much)
Knowing that I am where I am supposed to be.


P.S. Nan, this is for you :)

In Tallinn Today

The leaves are changing colour. The bright green of summer is turning into a blend of gold, bronze, red, and orange.

Gone are the light and lazy cotton t-shirts. Heavy coats, wool sweaters, knitted scarves, warm gloves now cocoon their hurried wearers. The wind is brisk and biting.

Sunset is earlier than it was yesterday. Sunrise is later.

The smell of fast approaching winter is in the air.

Peekaboo!

And now for something completely different.

I'm willing to bet that most of you won't have a clue who Apache Indian is. To begin with, he's not Native American, he's the other kind of Indian, you know the ones who eat spicy stuff, and have funny accents, and are either IT experts or doctors.

Or in this case, reggae singers.

Yes, I know. The thought of an Indian reggae singer is a little strange.

But nonetheless, he is. And he has had a couple hits like this and this. Well, they were big hits in Trinidad at any rate. Tash, I am SURE you remember boogieing to these at Coconuts or Base or Life ;-)

Last night hubby, being a huge dancehall and reggae fan (another reason he married a Caribbean chick, Moi) came across something very very different from Apache.

And it really struck something in me. If you liked Shanti / Ashtangi by Madonna, you will probably like this too.


And there's your Friday Entertainment from me :)

Peace and love

I haven't come up with anything of my own today, but I did find this to share.

Enjoy!

Because YOU make my day :)

My fantastically fabulous friends Nan and Tash, whom some of you know, are all about sharing the love. They gave me this:



I sat here, drinking water from the angel's sippy cup because I am too lazy / tired to go get my own, and thought about the bloggy folks that make my day too.

Then I had to go season some chicken for dinner, kiss a boo boo, play with Mr. Elephant, research a new stroller online because the one I bought is total crud, dance the Angel down for her nap.

Sidenote 1: The Quinny Zapp is an overpriced and oversized umbrella stroller. Don't be fooled. Don't waste your money. Anyone wanna buy a almost-never-used one?

Sidenote 2: I 'm kinda jealous of ye who can just put your babies down and they go to sleep. I love dancing / swinging / rocking her to sleep, but sometimes my back... she is getting heavy. Its just a phase.

But back to the important stuff: You, You and YOU!! I give this award to You.

Because YOU make my day :) Everybody that spends their precious time reading my brain-farts. You make me feel special and loved. And you help me feel less lonely. And you make me laugh. And you inspire me. And you help me to challenge myself. And you let me be me.

And I am grateful grateful grateful.

So thank you for coming to see me. And thank you for sharing with me.

You totally make my day, everyday :)

Who makes your day? Pass it on and let them know.

A tale of 2 mamas

My mom and I had a fairly typical relationship growing up. She, the experienced older woman, would tell me what to do, and I, the all-knowing teenager, would do the opposite. She was generally right. I generally got caught. And the times I didn't get caught, I think she and my dad just pretended... or ignored.

Things didn't change much when I entered my 20's. I was still all-knowing, and desperate to be out from under her wings. She was still being my mom.

Needless to say, there were some, ahem, differences of opinion, in our household.

But then I moved away. And got engaged. And got married. And got pregnant. And had a baby.

The day I came home from the hospital, she helped me get undressed, much like she did when I was a baby. Walking was difficult, as it can be after some 7+ pounds of small human explodes from your lady bits. So she walked for me. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, laundry, grocery shopping in a place that doesn't label anything in English, walking the baby... everything that needed to be done. So that I could sleep, and heal.

I don't know how I would have gotten through it without her and kept my sanity intact.

Needless to say, our relationship has changed.

I don't know if all mother-daughter relationships go through a change after the daughter herself becomes a mom. But I don't see how it can't. All of a sudden you become aware of a whole new perspective. And you begin to understand. And you are sorry for things that you said or did.

Today is my mom's birthday :) Her only wish was to hold her grand-daughter again. I wish she could have too, so I could go pee take the pictures I forgot to take when we were home in July. But we made do with the webcam. Its not perfect, but its all we have for now.

Happy Birthday Mom!! Wish you were here.

Brilliance, genius and excessive boasting

You will have to forgive me for this, but I just HAD to.

The angel is the smartest baby ever ever ever on the planet. I'm her mama, so I get to say that.

You get to say it about your babies too, of course.

But this is my blog.

So I shall say it again. She is the smartest, most genius, excessively gifted with extreme intelligence blah blah blah...

She learnt to say Milk! Well, sign, not actually say out loud. She's only 9 months. but still. I have been showing her the sign for milk when we nurse for about 3 weeks now, and today she started doing it too.

And then the heavens opened and angelic voices with a pretty beam of sunlight came down.

In case you give a hoot, the sign for milk is a fist that you open and close like you're milking a cow. Or so it looks to me.

And that's my story for today.

I got pissed off cuz hubby doesn't have boobs

And we wonder why they say women are impossible to please????

Not that I really want him to have boobs per se. I don't think that look would particularly suit him.

It was more of me wishing I could remove mine, just for a little while, and maybe give them to someone else, albeit temporarily.

I wish that for one night, just one night, I could sleep, all night long, without them being sucked on, tweaked, kicked, grabbed, squeezed... a jillion times.

Sigh.

Mmmmmmmmmm, shrimp

If you love shrimp even half as much as I do, then this recipe is for you. Super easy, super quick (like 10 minutes), SUPER YUM. And you can make it as spicy as you want. Being half-indian, I like to feel steam coming outta me ears, and hubby likes it hot too... that's why he married me, of course.

You're gonna need:
4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic cuz vampires will come if you don't use garlic and you may not have a wooden stake handy.
1 tbsp crushed ginger. This really is not a lot of ginger, and the supermarket makes you buy this HUGE root, so you end up with lots left over. So unless you use ginger regularly, you will have to make this again.. several times... to use your ginger and not waste it. Because there are starving children in Africa.
2 lbs of big shrimp, cleaned. They say this should feed 8, but hubby and I ate it all by ourselves. I bought the frozen shrimp with the tails still attached cuz I like to suck them.
1/3 cup finely chopped chive that I can't think of anything to say about.
1 cup tomato sauce, ditto
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce, or wha-ch-ch-ch-ch sauce as we call it
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp rum. I used red, cuz I hate white rum. No true trini drinks white rum. Royal Oak or 1919 is the best. Pour another glass for yourself as well.
Coke or Diet coke
Ice
1 tsp Monosodium glutamate (msg). I didn't use this. I hear its really bad for you, and have no idea how to translate it into Estonian anyway.
Black pepper
1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsps of water
Hot pepper. They say that this is optional. But it isn't really. I can't imagine this without pepper.

Now you gotta:
Mix the rum in the glass with the coke and ice, but not too strong cuz you will be playing with knives and fire. Take a drink. Think about the beach.
Heat the oil in a pot or wok if you have fancy chinese cooking stuff. I used a pot.
Stir fry the garlic and ginger for a few seconds; add the shrimp and cook on a high heat for 3-4 minutes until they turn pink.
Add chive, tomato sauce, wha-ch-ch-ch-ch sauce, salt, sugar, 2 tbsps of rum, msg if you want, pepper and cornflour.
Cook until the sauce thickens (about 5 minutes).
Relax and finish your rum and coke.

You can serve it with rice. I like Jasmine rice and Basmati rice, but I guess any other rice will be fine too.

Enjoy!



By the way, the recipe is called Chow Har Lok as per the Trini Naps cookbook.