A Few of My Favorite Things: UberFood San Diego

There was a point a few weeks ago where I Instgrammed out a picture of the current state of my refrigerator:

I believe my comment on the image was something to the effect of "I feel like a college student. All I have in my fridge is a little milk and some beer left over from a party." I didn't do it for any sympathy, more because I actually found it a little funny. 

A few days later, I Instagrammed out a picture of my dinner... a toasty bowl of Top Ramen.

I believe my comment on this image was something to the effect of "Continuing with the college-esque food theme going on in my house... being a working single mom is a lot like being in college at times..." Once again, I was just looking for the irony in my situation. Alas, someone was paying attention. Not being able to stand my lack of available, pre-made, good tasting and good for me food, the nice people at uberfood offered to deliver dinner the next week. 

uberfood is a new, farm to table food delivery service in San Diego. They bring healthy meals to families like mine and they do a great job at finding the sweet spot between sophisticated and kid-friendly meals. They delivered a free-range roasted chicken with grilled vegetables, aged cheddar mac and cheese, and an organic salad to my office so I could take it home with me. It was a substantial amount of food and the quality actually blew my expectations. It was the best food I’ve ever had from a recycled plastic container. 

Also, I think they were much happier with the next food pic I Instagrammed. :)

You can find their menu at www.uberfoodSD.com. They deliver to La Jolla, Carmel Valley, and Del Mar Monday through Thursday.

*Disclosure: uberfood delivered this yummy meal free of charge. Opinions and pictures are my own. 

Things You May Find in Your Parents Garage...

Thanksgiving weekend. If you were at your parents house, you may have seen old friends, revisited old stories, and then searched around for all your old things. It's been 20 years since I graduated, my things have long since been moved to the garage... So I braved the depths in search of year books and memorabilia. And what I found was quite hilarious and oddly horrifying....

Moral of the story? Your tape collection from Jr. High and Vintage toys are both, equally, scary as hell. Especially cross-dressing headless Ken dolls and Milli Vanilli. 

#MakeUpMonday: Once You Go M.A.C....

I'm not faithful to one make-up brand. I flit, I float, I fly around Sephora and Ulta trying new things and going where my eye takes me. But recently I've found myself going back to an old favorite - M.A.C.

I've never truly given up M.A.C. products, but they haven't really been top of my list over the past few years. A few weeks ago a particularly good sales woman cornered me at the counter at Nordstrom and sold me two new products that I'm currently OBSESSED with: Kohl eye liner in Orpheus and Fluideline eye liner gel in Stares and Speculation.

Yes. I know they are very similar in color. Both are black/gold/bronzy. I love the smoothness of the pencil and the color is fabulous for day or night. The pencil is more defined, and I do feel the eye liner gel is too light to be a liner, so I've been using it as a smudgy shadow. Just using my finger to rub it onto my lids creates an amazing, light smoked eye looked. Not too overly smoky, but just enough for daytime wear or casual evening wear. Use them together and BAM! You have a fabulous, easy, black-tie optional look. 

Head's Up: These are limited edition colors and already selling out. So put this on your "self gifting" list for the holidays and get to your local M.A.C store or counter STAT. 

A Ghost of a Post {repost for Halloween!}

This post was originally posted December 13, 2005 as "The Ghost of Xmas Past" But since it's Halloween week, I thought it was a good story to resurrect from the blog grave yard to give you a little shiver... Enjoy!

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Last week, the cold that had been desperately trying to take over my body since my return from the Orient finally won the battle over the Airborne vitamin fizzy things. My voice went, my throat was swollen and I had a hack that you wouldn't believe. I actually burned a sick day last week and stayed home and just laid around all day. I think it was just what the Dr. ordered, because by the weekend I felt much better.

Saturday morning about 3 AM I was hit with a coughing fit that forced me out of my warm cocoon of blankets into the kitchen to find some robotussin. As I walked into the living room, half asleep and without my glasses on, I noticed that the TV was on, no sound ‚ just picture. It was playing some black and white program, which cast an eerie glow over the living room.

In my half awake state, I thought I saw Jason sitting on the couch, but when I called his name and walked closer I realized there wasn't anyone there. I also remembered that Jason and I went to bed at the same time the night before. And we had turned the TV off.

It was at that point that I freaked out and ran back into the bedroom, woke-up Jason to go into the living room, turn off the TV and fetch me my Robo as I hid in bed with the covers over my head. You see, I believe in ghosts 100%. We used to live with one, and it freaked the shit out of me every night, and I vowed to never live in a haunted house again.

Yes, this is the point where you start laughing at me. But I'm telling the truth. When Jason and I were first engaged (and for the first 2 years of being married) we lived in this adorable duplex in Solana Beach. This house was owned by a very creative and handy couple that bought the place for about half of what it was worth. It was salmon pink with teal trim on the outside and had the best blue tile counters and a bathroom floor of beach rocks accented with little blue tiles that looked like an ocean wave. We loved this house and we loved our landlords. They even built us a front yard so we could get a dog... But after a few months in the house we started noticing things..

On more than one occasion I would be asleep in bed in the morning while Jason went out surfing. Laying there in that morning deep sleep, I would feel Jay's side of the bed dip and creek like someone looking for a warm cuddle after a chilly dip in the ocean. Only I would roll over, and Jason wouldn't be there. No one would be ther. Other times I would get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, and standing in the kitchen I would SWEAR TO GOD that someone was standing behind me. Little things that I would brush off as being half asleep or plain paranoia. Only Jason and I were both experiencing these situations - without telling each other about them.

I was also having these vivid dreams about things happening to me and having detailed conversations with people. Then one night my dead great grandmother came to me in my dream with a message.. and that was enough to prompt me to finally 'fess up to Jason. And you can imagine my shock and horror when he admitted that he felt the same strange sensations and was having similar experiences. We took a deep breath and uttered the word "ghost."

As time went on, we slept with a light on but accepted our spirit friend. The ghost became our "party story" you know, the story that gets retold to new people and rehashed by old friends at every get together. It became our "thing." We were the couple that was living with the ghost! How cool! We had a fun story and everyone loved to hear it over and over.

One night we had a bunch of people over for a party at our little place. At the end of the night someone brought up the ghost and we started to tell the story when one of our friends interrupted us...

"I didn't know if I should say anything to you guys. But yea, you have a ghost and her name is Julie."

We all just stared at him as went on to explain how he has this 6th sense type thing. It's not something he really talks about because, lets face it, people wont always believe you. But ghosts try to talk to him, and ours had a message for us. She wanted us to know that she wasn't going to hurt us, she was more there to help us and protect us. Apparently the ghost understood she freaked the shit out of us, and she was sorry about that, but she liked us. She wasn't going to interfere with our day-to-day lives, but she would send us messages if she felt they were important.

OHMYFUCKINGGOD.

The next day we finally built up the nerve to say something to our landlord. He was out watering the cacti in the succulent garden out front when after a conversation about the trashcans we casually asked him if anyone has ever died in the house. Our landlord stopped gardening and turned to us and said, " Oh. Yea, didn't we tell you guys that before? So, huh. You guys felt the ghost?"

At this point Jason and I simultaneously got the chills even though it was the middle of the summer.

So the story was that they got the house very cheap because yes, someone had committed suicide in the back unit (their unit, we lived in the front unit) and the house was on the market for about 5 years because NO ONE wanted a house where someone hung themselves in their front closet. The seller was SO motivated to get rid of the property in the legal binding mortgage documents it states that at any time during the duration of them owning the home they deemed necessary, the mortgage co. will pay for an exorcism in the house. But our landlords never really deemed it necessary.

We actually ended up living there for about 2 more years. And in the end it was the lack of space and new drunken neighbors that backed into Jason's car when it was PARKED ACROSS THE STREET that prompted us to move. Julie was true to her "word" (??) and really stopped bugging us. But I never did feel 100% comfortable being alone in that house. Jason and I have often had the argument about what would we do if we came across this great house, great location and great price, but SURPRISE! Someone died here! I said that there is NO WAY IN HELL I would pay a dime for a house that might possibly be haunted spirits that refuse to admit they are dead. Personally, I think this is a fantastic reason to buy a brand new house. No one else has ever shit in the toilets and you know no one ever kicked the bucket while watching TV in the living room. Perfect! Jason, on the other hand, thinks "distressed realty" is a great way to score a great deal on a house.

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Looking back, I can't believe we lived in that house as long as we did. Thankfully, neither of our two THREE houses since have had skeletons in the closet...

Happy Halloween!

5th Annual Kawasaki Disease Foundation Gala

It's that time of year again. The time where I bring out the horrific photo of my sick baby boy and beg for money and support... And yes, I am going to retell the story. And yes, I hopefully will make you cry... and donate some money... 

My baby boy was 9 months old.

Sweet, little Lucas had just celebrated his first Thanksgiving, was starting to pull himself to a standing position and was about to celebrate his first Christmas. One evening, we took him to Balboa Park, to what used to be called "Christmas on the Prado" to see the lights. He was all bundled up and tucked in tight to his stroller when our friend looked down at him and said "Wow, I never realize how red his cute little lips were!" I stared at him, wondering why we had never noticed this before.

Jason and I were only 9 months into this parenting thing. Maybe the baby was cold? Maybe he ate something he shouldn't have? Thoughts raced through our minds. The next day our sweet boy had his very first fever. We called the nurse line and doled out the proper dosage of infant Motrin and gave him a lukewarm bath. Our normally happy baby was crying and sleeping and visibly uncomfortable.

The next day the fever continued on. His lips grew redder and his eyes were a little bloodshot. Monday came with an early visit to our pediatrician. She made note that this looks "something like Kawasaki Disease" - but told us not to worry.. that was a very rare illness. She told me not to Google it and freak myself out. She put him on antibiotics and sent him in for a chest Xray to rule out pneumonia. 

This was before smartphones - with my day spent at doctors and caring for my sick, little baby, I actually didn't Google Kawasaki Disease...but when he was admitted to Rady Children's Hospital the next day, I wish I had.

Kawasaki Disease is the NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF ACQUIRED HEART DISEASE IN CHILDREN. And going on 9 years later, doctors and scientists STILL don't know exactly what causes it. 

This is where I tell you how LUCKY we were that we walked into Rady Children's Hospital and almost right into Dr. Jane Burns, one of the top KD doctors in the country. Why was that so lucky? Because at the time, many pediatricians weren't trained to recognize and treat KD, and far too many parents were losing their kids to this disease. Our doctors diagnosed the disease in time for a successful treatment.

I use the term "at the time" loosely as well. KD's NUMBER ONE challenge is that doctors still don't recognize it in time and most people still haven't heard about it. But thanks to the work that the Kawasaki Disease Foundation has been doing, people are starting to learn about it. Thanks to actress Sarah Chalke for her influence to have the disease featured on Grey's Anatomy and thanks to Gary Busey for his influence, people are beginning to know more about the signs, what to look for and what questions to ask their doctors. 

This year I sat with my little man, now 9 years later, as he once again had vials of blood drawn and hours of EKGs and tests. Once again I felt that tightening of my heart as the doctors reviewed the findings and examined him. Would they find something this year? Could heart damage appear at this point? 

Once again we were lucky.

9 years later the worst illness or injury the kid has had since is his (currently) fractured wrist. And while with all the new changes to our life, I wasn't able to help as much as I would have liked, I am once again reaching out to my friends and family to help support this foundation during it's annual fundraiser. 

Saturday, November 9th is the 5th Annual "To Save a Child's Heart" Kawasaki Disease Foundation Gala.

While the gala is actually sold out this year, I would love to be able to offer a sizeable contribution in Lucas' name.

Can you help? Anything from $5 up will help make a difference to kids and their little hearts world across the county.

This kid, thanks you.