BevMo 5 Cent Wine Sale!

There are two things that get me excited: Wine and Sales. Put the two together and it's like Christmas morning!

Now, before I continue, I classify wine in a few different ways... I love wine, and I LOVE a super delicious bottle, but it's rare that I buy them. I am more of a "cheap wine connoisseur" and I do believe that good wine, unlike good jeans, doesn't have to cost and arm and a leg. My general classification is as such:

REALLY NICE bottles: 
On our racks and not drunk until a certain date. Saved for special occasions or when I want to impress someone.

GOOD Bottles: 
Good to bring over for casual dinners at friends houses.  

Wednesday Night/2nd - 3rd bottle in a dinner party Bottles:
The bottle you bring out for a Wednesday night pasta dinner or when it's Girls Night In and you are all in sweats. Or after you are 2 bottles into a NICE or GOOD bottle at a dinner party and no one can taste the difference anymore.

I shop the BevMo 5 cent sale for the latter; Good finds that are above my normal Wednesday night wine before the sale, but party in my tummy, during. But if you are like me, you walk into BevMo and get distracted... {so many choices... what about.. oh, shiny light...} So I've put together a quick list of my fave finds for the current sale going on now through March 20th. Keep in mind, I'm no where near an expert, but found this brands to be good for the money.

HipMamaB's BevMo 5 cent Sale Picks:

 Cupcake Brut Rose Pinot Noir

88 PTS WILFRED WONG. Impressive effort and a great deal from France, the lively, yet gentle Cupcake Brut Rose is fresh with open-knit, strawberry flavors; ripe and roundish in the aftertaste.

$12.99 (2nd bottle .5 cents)

 Zynthesis Zinfandel '09

91 PTS WILFRED WONG. Hypnotizingly delicious, the black-fruited '09 Zynthesis Old Vine Zinfandel packs the palate with enticing and lasting richness; long finish.

$16.99 (2nd bottle .5 cents!)

 Gina Chardonnay '09

88 PTS WILFRED WONG. A classic Napa Valley Chardonnay, the ripe and rounded '09 Gina Chardonnay offers layered textures and flavors of apples and cream; smooth in the finish

$14.99 (2nd bottle .5 cents!)

 Irony Chardonnay '09

87 PTS WILFRED WONG. Easy-to-enjoy, the soft-spoken, ripe-fruited '09 Irony Chardonnay simply drinks well; give this one a nice chill and simply sip away; great as a "chill" down cocktail wine.

$15.99 (2nd bottle .5 cents!)

 Main Street Chardonnay '08

87 PTS WINE SPECTATOR. The '08 Main Street Chardonnay has an elegant style, with delicate peach and melon flavors that are pure, medium-weight and intense without being heavy.

$12.99 (2nd bottle .5 cents!)

So head on out and stock-up! Carpe Vino!

Germ-a-nation

When Lucas was about 13 months old we took him for a BBQ with friends at La Jolla Shores. Being the young toddler he was, he was big into his exploring phase, and when he came upon a cigarette butt (something he'd never seen before) he promptly stuck it in his mouth and ate it. 

He then vomited. We thought he learned his lesson.

About 6 years later at his 7th birthday party, Lucas noticed headless clear gummy bears stuck to the dirty, bird poop ridden hood of a garbage pan. While the details about WHY he did what he did are unclear, my son picked one off and ate it. 

Things one wouldn't think they would have to say to their 7-year old "You ate something stuck to the top of a GARBAGE CAN?!"

I mean it wasn't like there wasn't all kinds of junk food purchased and prepared (and clean!) for him to eat within the 5ft radius of of the gummy bear trash can. He had root-beer floats, chips, gatorade, gourmet cookies, specialty cupcakes and BAGS of M&M's at his disposal. But no. He ate trash can gummy bears.

While some mother's may worry about their child getting sick or contracting some horrible disease, the fear that kept circulating through my mind was "Great. He's THAT kid. You know, the one that eats a live goldfish on a dare."

Fabulous.

He's lucky he's so cute and charming. 

How Twitter Killed My Oscar Party

I LOVE the Academy Awards. LOVE. Normally, I start planning my viewing weeks in advance... quirky menu, Best Picture Nomination themed decor, boas and tiaras.... One year I even made fondant gold star cupcakes to go with "golden age of movies" theme. The main part of the menu is always the same though: Pizza and Champagne. 

Why pizza and champagne you ask? Well, WHY NOT?

It was actually a tradition from my youth. My mom would order pizza and pop some bubbly (for her) and we would sit and watch the endless parade of sparkling dresses. When I moved away Oscar night meant talking for hours on the phone with my mom over the dresses...have I mentioned that I LOVE the Oscars?

Soon after Jason and I got married I started the Oscar Party tradition amongst our group of friends. Young and child-free Jason and I had seen all the movies, and I ALWAYS won the Oscar pool. We would get together that one Sunday afternoon and drink champagne and eat pizza and giggle and make up the porn version of the movies name... good times. Good times.

Then one year I had this great idea to "Live Blog" the walk-in part. Yes little bloggy friends, before Twitter we live blogged. That year our friends were hosting the annual P&C bash, and it took me a good 30 minutes to get onto their 2005 wireless network. And let's not even mention the snarky comments from the non-blogger friends.

As the years and number of kids increased, the parties became harder and harder. We were lucky to see one of the (non-cartoon) nominated movies and needed to head home to get the kids in bed before the Best Picture was even announced. As life with kids is...things got harder and a lot less fun. 

And then came Twitter...my savior or my IRL social life downfall? Now I can sit on my couch, in my sweats with my whole own bottle of champagne and share my snark/admiration/exclaimtion/love/OHHHS!/Ahhhs! with the world via my little iPhone. No decorations or proper underwear needed - It's just me and my Twitterverse. 

But I will admit - I miss my pizza and champagne partners. I miss the real life, real-time excitement of the Oscar pool. And while I love my tweeple, I also miss my friends. 

So damn you Twitter for ruining my Oscar party.

But - don't worry, I will still be tweeting away on Sunday. 

That's Not My Name

Zoe was born via a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks. I was huge and miserable and scaring my doctor with my elevated blood pressure. If I had gone into labor with my BP as high as it had been, there is no way they would let me attempt the VBAC that I longed for. That Halloween night, Jason dressed up as a OB (a C-Section OB, natch, in a lab coat over golf clothes) and on the next day, November 1st, our little Zoe entered the world screaming her head off and weighing in at 4lbs 15.5 oz...and she continued to scream for the next 4-5 months.

In a PPD haze, trying to laugh and not just sob, I used to joke to my 3 1/2 year old Lucas that Zoe cried all the time because she had "pickles in her pants." Which ended up in a song that sounded a lot like "Mary Had a Little Lamb," which lead to Zoe's nickname of "Pickles" or the "Pickle Princess."

 Something to note about Zoe - she's pretty willful. She does things when and how she wants to do them. Yes, life is going to be VERY hard for us in about 10 years. We know this. She didn't walk until 18 months, but when she did she got up and walked across the house. It's not that she couldn't do it, it was just that she didn't really see the need before then. When she started talking she quickly started calling people what SHE thought they should be called. Her nanny was not Michele, but "Honey" and Lucas quickly became "Ugga." The best part is that she knew everyone's real names. Ask her who Ugga was and she would simply reply "My brother, Lucas." Much to Lucas' dismay, the nickname Ugga stuck. It wasn't until he started playing rugby a few months ago that he embraced his nickname and even expanded on it, liking to be called "Ugga the Rugga."

Even as Zoe insists on calling people by her appointed nicknames, she never has liked hers. Often times she will respond with an angry "I'm not a pickle, I'm a Zoe!" Which, because I'm SO that mother, makes me want to call her "Pickle" 20 times over. The other night I was tucking her into bed, and as I turned on her half-moon night light and turned off the big light, I whispered "Good Night my Pickle..." to which my little sweet baby girl princess responded back with:

"GET IT STRAIGHT! I'm NOT a pickle!"

I gotsta' keep on moving...

So yes, the shoemakers children have no shoes. 

In the past two months, I've written more blog posts than in the past year. But as you see, none of them for this site. A few of the posts I've written have even been front and center on major industry web sites, but of course, those are the ones that I can't really take credit - only a paycheck - for. Pretty much I'm a writing machine these days... alas, none of them are posted here.. on my little shoeless baby blog.

You never write! You never visit! When did my blog turn into a Jewish mother?

But yes, it's true. I don't. 

This working from home with kids running around this is really way more difficult that it looks. It's almost near impossible to write coherent sentences with the theme song from the latest Barbie movie blasting in the background. Have you ever tried to answer emails while dishing out juice boxes and snacks every 10 minutes? Many days I find it even impossible to form multiple sentences that flow together. My ADD becomes very apparent when I'm talking to someone and in the process of telling them a story, I interrupt myself to tell them something else that I just thought of and didn't want to forget to tell them. 

But yes. The Blog. No Shoes. Jewish Mother. Blah.

So yea. 

How've you been?