Monday, June 23, 2008

Contest of the Day

The Daily Grind of a WAHM is giving away the Slide by Go Gaga. This is an awesome diaper bag...check it out! http://workathomemom.typepad.com/the_daily_grind_of_a_work/2008/06/go-gaga-or-go-home.html

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What Lies Within the Mirror is giving away a candle in honor of the opening of her store. You can find out more here: http://rarereflection.com/2008/06/05/candle-contest.aspx

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This is a great contest hosted by The Secret is in the Sauce. They're giving away a Bounce House!! Eeee! Here's the link: http://thesecretisinthesauce.blogspot.com/2008/06/six-weeks-of-summer.html

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The fabulous blog Oh, hey What's up? is giving away 5 magazine subscriptions to one lucky person! Check it out:
http://corrinrenee.com/2008/06/24/giveaway-5-magazine-subscriptions-to-one-winner/

Monday, June 16, 2008

10 Days is My Limit




We've been able to Skype with our kids every 2 days since we got here (Skype is video and voice communication over the internet). I think it's really helped them not miss us to be able to see and hear us still. They're staying with their grandparents who proudly allow them to be slackers...a.k.a. TV and candy. I think it's great, that was always the best part of HAVING grandparents when I was a kid.


So, today I reached my limit...up until today I'd enjoyed the break from my kids, but now I'm relishing the thought of interacting with them again. Ten days is my point, as a mom, when I start missing their daily cuteness. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but I also understand how good it can be (for me & them) for us to have time apart.


One odd thing about this trip was the rash. The water here smells really minerally and something in it reacted with my skin. The bed would make me itch at night, luckily I'd brought my own blanket and that kept the rash at bay. BUT, daily shower was killer and it took me a couple of days to figure this one out. Cortisone cream and I have become really good friends.


Here's a couple more yummy meal pictures.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Au Natural Cleanse

Do you want to know what I love the most about overseas travel? The great cleanse it gives my digestive system. Nothing is more magical than all that time on the porcelain. Ironically enough, this time my system started to malfunction on the days when we ate American-like food.

KFC is huge here and it's actually pretty tasty. Their iced coffee sundae is yummy. The best thing I've eaten so far today was mutton wrapped in pita that was very reminiscient of a french dip.

I'm hoping my system will hold it together enough for me to continue to enjoy my meals.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Me & Anthony Bourdain




Of all the places I've been (Nicaragua, Turkey, Thailand, China), China is the ONLY place I've been where the food has always agreed with me. I think the fact that our friends are always looking out for superb places for their own meals may be a part of that.

The title mentioning Bourdain is a funny concidence. I happened to see the end of an episode of "No Reservations" last week where he was in an Asian country, eating meats and veggies out of a boiling pot of spicy and mild liquids. He also mentioned this peppercorn type thing in the dish that would turn your mouth numb. Lo and behold, a place called Hot Pot here serves just such a thing. Me being the high junkie that I am tried said ill-advised peppercorn. It was...interesting...in a numbing way that I'll never try again.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the mushrooms here are so tasty and so varied. The mushroom in America is boring and looked down upon and here it's often a prominent ingredient.

The foods we dumped into the hot pot pictured above were mushrooms, broccoli, quail eggs and rolls of beef. I'm not sure greedily licking your chopsticks is kosher here, but it's nigh on impossible for me not to!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Of Beds and Muslim meals

We're here, in western China. We had a great 15 1/2 hour flight from Atlanta to Shangai...no first class, but it wasn't that full so we had an empty seat between us.

The Eastern China Air flight from Shangai to Yinchuan was interesting. At that point I was so tired that my olifactory senses were on Spidey sense and everything smelled disgusting. Totally reminded me of that first trimester. Riddle me this, why in the world do they serve a meal on there labled "Muslim"???

In Colorado there's a Matteress store called "Mattress Firm", I'd consider that false advertising. The mattress's here feel like they've taken a board and softened it slightly. Then they sell it as a mattress.

I have to remind myself (this has been a small theme for me this year) that we were never promised a good night sleep every night. It's not a need it's a want and since I'm really greedy with my sleep, this has been a good lesson for me to learn.

The fact that our friends here have the only Starbucks coffee in their house this side of China, that can make up for a whole host of comforts lost. Stay tuned for all the excitement and pushy natives that you can handle!

Sunday, June 08, 2008

My Aching Tokhes (Yiddish for Butt)

Raise your hand if you think a 15 hour plane trip will help my lower back pain...you, in the back, put your hand down!

Not quite sure what I did to it: compressed vertebrae, weak back muscles, jumping on a trampoline, wrenched muscles...something.

Anyhoo, not really looking forward to all those hours on our way to China. If you pray, pray for my back. And (spoiled baby that I am) pray that we can go in first class so it's not so back on my back.

To all my readers, I'll be in China until the 18th of this month. Not sure if they'll let me blog from there, but if so you'll be hearing from me.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Ya Call THIS Glamorous?!

Occasionally one of our friends will comment on how great and fancy it must be to fly for free anytime we want. Now, I won't complain at all about flying for free, but it's anything but fancy or easy.
We have to fly standby, all the time, no matter what. That means that we only get on if there's not a seat taken, sometimes we don't know that until we're out there waiting for a flight. We usually try to find flights that have at least 8 seats not taken, just to be safe.
A case in point would be Monday. We flew from Denver to Alanta at midnight Sunday, so that we would be sure to be there for the first flight to Nashville Monday morning. The first FOUR flights to Nashville ended up full which was something we couldn't have know before we got there. That meant we spent 10 hours at the airport waiting for a flight without having much sleep. Not fun, let me tell you.
Good practice for the kids though for those overseas trips.
Interesting sidenote: Apparently when your body is severly lacking in sleep it gets really, really hungry.