We’ve been busy busy busy around here and I haven’t felt much like writing. I’ve sat down to write a post once or twice but the words just don’t feel right so I walk away and never come back to it. The words still don’t feel right today but I’ve decided that I am going to force myself to sit down and actually post something.
How were your holidays? Ours were great. Filled with family and fun and presents.
Then a week long vaca at the Happiest Place on Earth and when I say that I mean it. It is our favorite place on earth. Which is why we spent five straight days at Disneyland and California Adventure.
It is good to be home though. I never thought nine hours of laundry followed by two hours of washing cars would actually feel good but it does in a masochistic sort of way.
There were many happy memories made this week but one that sticks out as so so special is our Build-a-Bear experience. Evangeline received a gift card for B.A.B. over Christmas so I put it aside to use at Downtown Disney because they have an awesome two story B.A.B. and I wanted to check it out. I wasn’t so excited about the regular ‘ole bears and bunnies downstairs and it was packed like a can of sardines in there so we trekked on upstairs where they had Build-a-Dino. An ecstatic Eva picked out a Pteranodon just like on the show “Dinosaur Train” and named it Tiny.
I have never seen her more excited about shopping. She had her arms full of clothes and accessories for her little dino. I wish I had taken a picture. We had to pry half of it out of her hands of course.
It was just a truly delightful experience to see my little one so happy and about something that I thoroughly approve of. I don’t like her to watch too much TV but Dinosaur Train is a great new show on PBS which also touches a bit on adoption.
Now that the holidays and vacation are over I can get back to school and start working on my goals for this year. One of which is losing the 5 pounds that I gained during all the glutinous festivities.
*And no none of these business are paying me to write great things about them. I wish they were….but they’re not.
I’m reading this book for one of my classes called “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. I won’t get into too much about what the book is about except to to say that globalization has leveled the playing field among countries so that the world is now indeed flat instead of round like we once thought it was.
What I wanted to share with you are all the amazing abilities of Google that I never knew about before!
1. Want to know what’s for dinner, just google three ingredients in your fridge and see what pops up.
2. Go here to see pretty much every service under the sun that Google offers.
3. Did you know you can translate something whether it be a simple phrase, a whole document, or an entire webpage?
4. If you download the Google toolbar you can add what services you are most interested in like a translator button that also allows you to just hover your mouse over any word on a web-page and it will translate the word for you right there. My favorites are the dictionary, facebook feed, and Craigslist button.
5. Oh ya and let’s not forget about Google scholar where you can view entire books right there on your internet browser. Go ahead and try it, go to google scholar type in a book or an article title and see if it comes up. They’re not all there yet but I hear it’s just a matter of time. I tried it with The Five Love Languages and there it was!
How long has this been going on for? Have I really been sleeping through it, am I the only clueless one left or what? When did Google become my very own FREE personal assistant?
I swear I am not getting anything from Google for writing this, I just think it is really awesome.
In one of my mommy tips from a while ago I wrote about having an impromptu picnic with your little one. That is exactly what we did today. Of course I am beyond blessed to have a huge park right outside my front door. So we grabbed a blanket, some snacks, and a camera.
Disclaimer…My hair is hideous today and I have NO makeup on but Eva looks adorable and I like how you can see the clouds in my sunglasses. (p.s.. she is pretending to take a picture.)
The sky was full of fluffy white clouds.
Heaven is…blue skies and a good book.
Boo!
That’s what Eva yells every time she sees me get out her bathing suite because she knows what is coming. Here is my little fishy in action this past weekend. I love the ones where she is mid air.
Can you see what a little performer she is?
I am a saver and a procrastinator with ADD. You know what that means for my inbox? It means that I have 1200 messages in Outlook. Yep 1200. One two double zero.
When I saw this number last night I screamed at myself…”How did I get here!?”
This is how. Every morning I have about 30 new emails most of which are junk. My procrastination means that I only click on 1 or 2 interesting ones and leave the rest for later. My ADD is the reason that it takes me all morning to respond or do whatever it is I need to do with those 2 emails. But it is the saver/hoarder in me that is why those 2 emails along with the 30 others never get deleted. This goes on day after day until now I have 1200 mostly useless emails just rotting away in my inbox.
BUT, if I ever want to go back and read about the free financial seminar that was offered at my bank 2 years ago it’s there. Or the cartoon of Garfield drinking a cup of coffee in his pajamas that’s there too. What if I need to reread the email my sister sent out 3 years ago planning our annual tamale making day? How about who was going to be on the Oprah show the week of 4/16/2008. It’s there….somewhere.
I don’t even want to think about how high that pile would be if this was actual mail.
(If you’re like me you can probably benefit from xobni which my husband made me download last night and is a HUGE help.)
I came across this story today and it caught me attention. “Risk of child abuse rises when potty training.” When I was working with at risk families this was one subject that we always stressed to parents. Please Please Please have realistic expectations when potty training. Otherwise it can get ugly quickly.
Sorry that’s it for today…gotta get back to watching the Michael Jackson Memorial and a very very tired toddler who was up at 5:30 a.m. 
For some Random Tuesday Genius head over to TheUnMom
