What's in the bag?

Handbag Thursday [hānd'bāg' thûrz'dā]
-noun
1. A Canal Street knockoff of Jodifur's Shoe Friday.
2. A lame attempt at regular blog fodder by invoking my own accessorized day o' the week.
3. A frivolous little feature that allows me to talk about handbags every week. What's not to love about that?
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They* say one should blog for oneself first and foremost. And as the majority of us bloggers know, just because you blog and pour your heart and soul into your wee space, it most certainly does not mean the audience will come, much less read all those precious letters you just painstakingly pecked out. Heh. This means, that it is imperative to actually enjoy what you are doing on your blog. Astounding, I know.

As I mentioned last week, I am establishing a Handbag Thursday, my own little accessorized day o' the week. I see now why Jodifur is doing Shoe Friday - for no reason other than it is fun. I would like to give her a hearty thank you to her for encouraging me to plug forward with my Canal Street knockoff, Handbag Thursday. She was even gracious enough to provide this week's handbag.

This week was hectic and I got a lot of things done around the house and even in the yard (3 hours, one pile of branches and 7 bags of lawn refuse. And that is just the front yard, which is still not done. *groan*) (Oh and thank you February! I apologize for smiting your name.)

So while I could not write much this week, I really looked forward to Thursday and doing a silly post about handbags.

The Seatbelt Handbag, Made Entirely of Seatbelts


Again, thanks goes out to Jodi and her green little heart for providing this week's handbag. Al Gore would be proud.

*Who is this "they"? Why do "they" just not identify themselves, already. Damned cowards.

I go school, too, Mama??

Today's title is brought to you courtesy of Anjali and as a Special!Bonus! it comes Preposition Free (Dude - she's only 19 months old, cut her some grammatical slack, yo.)

Yes. Oh yes, I knew this was coming. I knew it..... yet still... my heart squished a little when I had to tell her, "Oh, sweetie, not yet." She began to cry, but I quickly countered with "But, we are going to the library for singing!! and reading books!!! Do you want to go to the library with me??" Oh sure, that quelled her tears, but then, Arun declared that he, too, would like to go to the library with us. Folks, that sound you hear? That would be the muffled roar of me Not Winning.

Anyway.

Tomorrow, we are ditching Comcast in lieu of ATT U-verse. The siren call of the ability to record FOUR television programs simultaneously was simply too much for us to bear. Today, I need to make a list of the shows that we watch so that I can set them up on the new DVR tomorrow. As I am in need of lame-ish blog fodder anyway, I thought I would just list them here - feel free to mock, point or commiserate.

Please Note, Parent Police: Our kids do NOT watch all of the kid shows - we just keep them on hand for requests. For example, they are only watching Diego and Kailan these days. Besides, I would be lying if I claimed Jack's Big Music show was for them, anyhows. Also, I realize this list includes shows not currently in season, I just keep them there year-round.

Cagey's DVR List

How I Met Your Mother
Antiques Roadshow
Chuck
New Adventures of Old Christine
The Office
30 Rock
Rules of Engagement
Ugly Betty
Dollhouse (Not totally sold on this yet, but Joss Whedon deserves a long leash, no?)
Real Housewives of New York City
Big Love
Flight of the Conchords
Amazing Race 14
Mad Men
Oprah Winfrey
PBS American Experience
House Hunters International
ER (haven't watched this for years, but added it for the whole Final Season aura it has going on)
Real Time with Bill Maher
Seinfeld
Frasier
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Go, Diego, Go!
Ni Hao, Kai-lan (this chick is da bomb! I thought Arun's head was going to explode when he learned the Chinese word for "dinosaur")
Blue's Clues
Sesame Street (the kids do NOT like this show, but I think it is against the law to not record SESAME STREET, right?)
Jack's Big Music Show
Max & Ruby
Upside Down Show
Dora the Explorer
Showbiz Show with David Spade (is this show EVER coming back??)
True Blood
Entourage
Little Britain, USA

Good grief, we sure watch a fucking lot of television. *sigh*

What's in the bag?

Handbag Thursday [hānd'bāg' thûrz'dā]
-noun
1. A Canal Street knockoff of Jodifur's Shoe Friday.
2. A lame attempt at regular blog fodder by invoking my own accessorized day o' the week.
3. A frivolous little feature that allows me to talk about handbags every week. What's not to love about that?
-------------------------------------------------

I find that it is vital to have at least one handbag for each of the ten types of social occasion:
Very Formal, Not So Formal, Just a Teensy Bit Formal, Informal But Not That Informal, Every Day, Every Other Day, Day Travel, Night Travel, Theater, and Fling. - Miss Piggy

A few weeks back, I asked Jodifur to do a Handbag Sunday that could bookend her lovely little Shoe Friday gig. She called me a lazy whore and told me to do it myself. Well, maybe she did not put it precisely in that way. I forget because I was drunk. Or something.

Actually, come to think of it I seem to remember her being very positively generous about the whole thing. Anyway..... without further ado, I present Handbag Thursday. Because I am nothing if not a brazen copycat.


I decided to use this purse as the inaugural Handbag Thursday. I bought it at a little boutique in Marblehead MA for about $40 in 2004. I still love this purse and when I am done with the whole toting of toys and tissues*, I hope little purses are back in style so I can use it again. It has been a great purse and very sturdy - this thing has traveled all over the country and has taken a beating, yet is still in great condition. I think it is a valuable lesson in that a nice, durable handbag does not have to be an inordinately expensive one. Although, not that there is anything necessarily wrong with an expensive handbag. Gulp.

____________________________________

And...........there you have it. Handbag Thursday! Not every post will be long like this one. Also, I am certainly open to posting snaps of your own handbags - just email me (cagey333ATgmailDOTcom) if you would like to be included.

I would like to extend a special thank-you to Jodi for giving me this idea and granting her gracious permission for the knock-off. It is obvious she is having much fun with her Shoe Friday, I suspect I will have as much fun with my own little accessorized day o' the week.

*Believe it or not, I do not carry a diaper bag and have not for well over a year now - I have a Fleurville Re-Run Micropod which usually hangs out in the car.

How does a dinosaur use the toilet?

Now that is a book I would like to see. Arun and Anjali have entered the Jurassic Era of childhood whereby they are completely in love with all things dinosaur. We are well-versed in the ways that dinosaurs consume their victuals and the subtle techniques they use in saying goodnight. I am very much interested in how they use the toilet as Elmo's technique for relief of the bowels and such is not cutting it around here. Perhaps, Edwina could help a mommyblogger out - she bakes chocolate chip cookies, surely she knows how to use the toilet all lady-like, too?

Lately, for those of us in Kansas City, February has been a spiteful little bitch while toying with our meteorological emotions. Last week, I was wearing shorts, trimming my shrubs and trees after drooling throughout the lawn and garden section in Lowe's. Now? I am shivering in a coat and fighting a chest cold. Bah.

Tomorrow, I am launching a silly feature - Handbag Thursday. And yes, it is totally a Canal St. version of Jodifur's Shoe Friday. I will explain what went down between Jodi and I in tomorrow's post. Ah, the suspense! No? Oh.

The Queen of the Free Bees Giveaway!
These random numbers were brought to you by Random.org (aka Blame Them, Not Me):
Commenter#3 Dee has won the Build-A-Bear certificate!
Commenter #2 MB has won the Rookie Mom's Handbook!

Please email me your snail mail address to cagey333(AT)gmail(DOT)com

How far west can you travel before you are heading east?

Nearly 2 years ago, our dishwasher had a tiny leak that really pissed off our wood flooring. We had the offended flooring ripped out and lived with sub-flooring thereafter. While it was just a small section near our sink, it was unsightly. Then, last fall, our downstairs toilet began leaking. While I fixed the leak, I managed to break the mechanism inside. It turns out, this mechanism was pretty important in the grand scheme of flushing, which as you can imagine, it sort of important to the entire function and purpose of a toilet. Ahem. So, we have not had a downstairs toilet for awhile now. Which was not too bad because we are blessed with two additional toilets upstairs. However, it did mean that when folks came to visit they got a peek into the mayhem germinating in our rooms upstairs. Yikes o' rama. Finally, as all of this has been going, our back deck has slowly been coming apart at the seams. Literally. Last year, I had no desire to plant anything back there or even spend time back there because it was a constant reminder that the damned thing was slowly rotting away before our eyes. So, we hung out in the front yard like ostriches.

Last week, in one fell swoop, I got all of that fixed. New floor, new toilet innards (and seat!) and new deck stain.

Then? An amazing thing happened. I began clearing clutter from the yard and rearranging pots. I bought new seat covers for the chairs, a new cover for the grill. I pittered around the garage a bit. I cleaned out my car - even taking out the the kids' carseats and confronting The Nasty lurking underneath. I also did a myriad of other tasks that have been lingering on my Honey Do list for ages. I am feeling inspired to tackle even more tasks.

Obviously, the long-neglected broken items were a vast metaphor for other things going on in my life. Regardless, I am excited about finally getting a grip and getting some things done around here. I am tired of living amongst heaps of Things To Do. I am excited to finally get things cleared out. It will take awhile, but our neighborhood garage sale looms in April - an attainable goal.

Whoa. I am so ready to take on life again. It had best watch its back.


Reminder! Don't forget to enter the giveaways going on at my review site: Queen of the Free Bees. I am giving away a copy of the Rookie Mom's Handbook and a $25 gift certificate to Build-A-Bear. The deadline for leaving a comment is Midnight, February 14th.

Is that your final answer?

Slumdog Millionaire Synopsis
A: Gutwrenching
B: Heartbreaking
C: Inspiring
D: All of the above

Slumdog Millionaire was one of those movies that takes you on one helluva rollercoaster ride of emotions. Did it help or make it worse that I have ridden over the infamous Kala Pul in Karachi? (Kala Pul is named after a bridge in Karachi, which connects, and simultaneously separates, the affluent parts of the city and the lower income areas.) Probably both - I watched much of Slumdog Millionaire with a mix of dread and anticipation of what was to come - I hate to talk about it too much for fear of spoiling, but there were not many surprises here. In particular, I knew what was going to happen the entire time the kids were in the "orphanage" because I had already heard similar stories. The sole advantage to knowing was I could at least look away from the screen when needed. *sigh*

I also saw Gran Torino over the weekend, which as I twittered, left me "with a tangible hankering for an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. a cigarette, and some vinyl seats." Really, this was a great film and must-see for any Clint Eastwood fan - some of diaglogue with the teenaged protagnist ("Toad") was forced and weak and the actor himself was not strong enough for the character, but the overall story arc and writing made up for it.

Wow. In the past 4 months, I have seen more movies in the theatre than I have seen in easily 4 years, if not more. The lovely thing about the Ridiculous TV is that I no longer feel compelled to fork over my precious dimes n' nickels to sit in freezing, darkened theatres with noisy strangers as they munch on their nasty smelling popcorn and answer non-essential phone calls (yes, the smell of popcorn smells like poo to me. No joke.) However, the sad part about the Ridiculous TV is that I must wait for movies to make it to DVD. I am tired of being Behind the Times, so I have been sucking it up and going to the movies. Also, I love watching the Oscars and would like to watch them this year actually have a frockin' clue as to what the awards are going for. Speaking of moviews, I am SO excited that Arun can sit through movies now - I love animation and am excited about us going to movies together. Smelly popcorn notwithstanding, of course.

Okay. I have some housekeeping to do regarding my review site: Queen of the Free Bees. Last year, I decided that I was going to get Needy n' Greedy by offering myself up for Free Stuff. However, I quickly realized I am way too lazy to write reviews for Free Stuff so I neglected to actually request the Free Stuff. Yes, lazy. That is me. I feel horrible about it because I did receive a free book last fall - The Rookie Mom's Handbook. Please read my review of this lovely little gem and enter a comment to enter my giveaway for a copy of it.

Also, I recently received a Hugs for You Monkey from the folks at Build A Bear. Read my review and enter a comment there to enter my giveaway for a $25 gift certificate to Build a Bear.

Why do the fish not all die when lightning strikes the ocean?

I suspect Dr. Sears has never written about this particular hazard of co-sleeping:

At times, your husband will lose his grip on reality and cave irrevocably to your child's demands. When this happens, you will find yourself sleeping with a big frocking fish tucked in under the covers between you and your child. The most common breed of fish found in these situations is a rainbow trout, but there have been a few undocumented cases of catfish observed co-sleeping in the family bed.

Exhibit A: Big Frocking Fish

Notice the leering child, brimming with unabashed conquest and greed.

Alien Invasion

Not So Average Jane and her husband, waiting anxiously for the Monsters vs. Aliens trailer during the Super Bowl.

A Mouse in the House

I promise we do feed her. That is, if we are in the mood. And only if she is really, really good. Otherwise, yes, we do leave to forage for her damned self.