Silence!

You may have noticed I haven't been here in a while. There are multiple reasons for this:

1. I'm totally nesting, so the majority of my free time is going towards cleaning and rearranging and generally panicking about the state of disarray of my house, my life, the world, etc.



2. I'm incredibly busy working on my business and trying to get my role as automated as possible so I'm not struggling to keep up while caring for a newborn.



3. I'm exhausted from working 8 hours a day and commuting for 3 hours a day. That's a lot of hours. I'm swollen up like a balloon and walking around like Grimace by the time I get home.



4. The topic I was discussing was totally bumming me out. I know, I brought it up, and I still think it's important, but I just couldn't handle anymore stress and glumness. I'm not in the mood to feel glum right now.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you know that I'm OK, just... preoccupied. As I'm sure you can imagine.

I did find a really great blog recently that touches on some of the stuff I was talking about here: Self Made Chick. Especially this post entitled How I Dug Myself Out of the Lowest Pits in my Life. I completely agree with everything she says there and personally have done the exact same things that she has done. So if my last few posts were interesting to you, I really recommend going over and checking out her stuff. It's totally worth your time.

So I'll be back. Eventually. Once my 800 task to-do list has been completed. (Which includes washing the walls. I don't think I've ever washed a wall. Ever. I'm in over my head here you guys.)

Purse Fight

When I was about 12 years old, I got into a purse fight with my friend, Liz. A purse fight was a fight where we hit each other in the faces with our purses, so it's about what it sounds like it would be. We frequently got into purse fights among my group of friends because we were mature enough (or wanted to be mature enough) to carry purses filled with Bonne Bell Lip Smackers and elaborately folded secret notes, but we were immature enough to think one of the best uses for our purses was smacking each other in the faces.

But this one purse fight was particularly nasty. I don't know what started it. One of us probably threatened to tell some boy that the other one had a crush on him and it ended in blood, tears, broken glasses and the Principal's office. Well, the Vice Principal's office. I don't believe the principal of my Middle School was either there or doing anything at all ever.

However, after about a half an hour of hysterics and face slapping, we decided not to tell on each other and it was over and we were besties all over again.

See, when you find a strong group of friends while adrift in the horrors of middle school, you work together no matter how pissed off you are at them at any given time. You gotta hold the line. Because there's a whole slew of hyena girls out there ready to pick you off when you get separated from one another.

My point is, I'm so fucking glad I'm not a girl between the ages of 11 and 14. And it scares the crap out of my that my daughter is a girl between the ages of 11 and 14. All I can hope is that she finds a strong group of friends for herself who won't get her in trouble with the vice principal for breaking their glasses during a purse fight.

Sorry about your glasses, Liz.

Chin up, Miss M. There are other good kids out there looking for real friends, too.

Baby Stuff!

Last time I was pregnant, AOL was basically how I kept in touch with other pregnant ladies and mommies.

Side note: Every time I went into the AOL pregnancy chatroom some creeper would IM me about creepy pregnant lady fetish stuff. Every time. I'm so glad the internet is less like the wild west these days!

So I've been looking at baby gear and have been particularly interested in all the stuff out there for babywearing these days. I had a baby carrier with my daughter but there are all sorts of cool things out there now: slings and pouches and god knows what else. Beyond just babywearing gear, I can't believe how much STUFF there is out there for natural baby-rearing these days. When I was nursing my daughter, there was basically me and a baby and a crappy breast pump. Now there's special breastfeeding blankets and pillows and all sorts of junk (and I totally need one of those fancy Medela bags).

Was this stuff out there before? Because I went to Babies R' Us back in '99 and all that and I don't remember seeing any of THIS. Is the country just more accepting of natural parenting than it was when my daughter was born? Even with nursing, I was mostly treated like I was weird for breastfeeding my daughter and didn't get any support really from anyone other than, of course, the La Leche League.

In any event, I'm glad to know that at least I can find internet people who won't look at me like I have three heads for going the natural, organic route. Though I suppose they won't actually be looking at me, since they're on the internet...

(Final note, I'm so trying to convince my husband to at least try out cloth diapers. I know, I'm crazy, right?)

Hey guys!

I'm pregnant! There! Secret #2 is revealed! I am 14 weeks along and due in July.

So there's yet another reason why I need to scrimp and save. Babies. They cost money. They also cost time, as in time off of work where you don't get paid (at least in this country that is the case).

Everything is going along just fine. I've been giving myself shots of Lovenox, which is a blood thinner, for about a month now. I have a genetic blood clotting disorder called Factor V Leiden, so that is why I am doing that. It's not a big deal and we don't even know that there would be complications if I didn't take the shots, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I was super nauseous for about 2 months, but that's better now. Mostly I'm just tired. And thirsty. I've never drank so much water in my life and I am a BIG water drinker who has always gotten her 8 glasses a day.

Oh, and there is Secret #3 that has also been revealed:

My family bakery, Ob La Da, has won the Local Hero Award for the Local Food Artisan category in Edible South Shore magazine. Yay! It's great to be recognized, but it's even better when it's your customers recognizing you. The Local Heroes awards are voted on by the readers of the magazine. You like us, you really, really like us! Thanks everyone!

We'll be in Edible South Shore magazine's Spring issue, so I'll be sure to share it with you once they release it. :)

Happy New Year!

The holidays are over and its back to the grind now.

One of my big surprises that I couldn't talk about at the end of last year was that my family is taking a trip to Disney World! This was my daughter's Christmas surprise, so we had to keep it under wraps until Christmas morning. We put a bunch of balloons into a box and they (sort of) popped out when she opened it and there were a bunch of maps of Disney World at the bottom of the box. She was pretty darn excited!

So, given that we are embarking on an expensive vacation, my mind has been on cutting costs, generating revenue and saving, saving, saving! So you can expect to see me talking about that a bit in the coming months.

My first bit of cost cutting I did the other day was to make my own caramel frappuccino. I have a soft spot for Starbucks like I'm Britney Spears, y'all. Being a baker, I generally have whipping cream and caramel sauce in my house. I also went through this phase a couple years ago where I was attempting to make my own sodas using sugar free Torani syrups. I can't really explain what that was about...

Anyway, So I mixed together about two shots of Kevin's coffee, a shot of sugar free caramel syrup and a whole bunch of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze (almond milk is the best! All almond milk, all the time!). Then I threw that into the blender with a bunch of ice plus about a teaspoon of my salted caramel syrup.

Voila! Caramel Frappuccino! Then I whipped up some whipped cream and topped it all off with a drizzle of caramel syrup. I didn't do the math, but I know for sure that I saved money by making it myself and I saved calories by making it with almond milk, which I prefer anyway.

I generally am not a big believer in cutting minor costs. I don't think it's worth the time or effort it takes. That is time and effort that could be better spent making more money, laying on the couch and watching reruns of Angel or playing with my daughter's new pottery wheel.* But if I can spend 5 extra minutes blending up a drink that is superior (fresh roasted coffee, homemade caramel sauce, almond milk) to the drink I would otherwise be spending about $5 on? It seems like a fair exchange to me.

I'm thinking about making my other favorite takeout addiction next: falafel!

*My ultimate goal is to make lots of money so I can spend the majority of my time being a lazy dilettante. Don't judge! It would be a hell of a lot more fun than some creepy puritanical life of work and suffering.

And yet again...

I've fallen out of touch with my dear blog. It's been busy still, and there is soooo much going on that I can't talk about yet. At least not publicly on my blog. And it's so entirely mind encompassing that I can't think of anything to write about. :)

But today is the first day of winter, which means that everything is winding down to take a rest before another year begins in March. I don't really believe in New Years resolutions, but I do believe this is a good time of the year for taking stock of where you are and where you are going. So I plan on taking a New Years Inventory instead of making resolutions.

Ultimatums never work anyway, in any place in your life. You know the saying, "Man plans, God laughs." In my experience, making an ultimatum to yourself or someone else is just asking for the Universe to say "oh really?"

So this year, screw all those plans and reflect on this past year. What worked? What didn't? And think about why you kept doing something that wasn't working. And maybe that's enough. Or maybe you can go further and start focusing on the stuff that works and pull away from the stuff that doesn't.

Don't just say, I'm going on Weight Watchers or I need to quit smoking. Both of these are fine things to do, but if you don't think about the underlying reasons for your bad habits you are trying to break, you will never be able to really change.

Well, I'll be back in a couple weeks and the secret news should start eeking out around that time. Until then, just remember: the only thing worse than failure is regret.

Long time, no write

It's been a while since I've updated. This month has been full of activity, so that's why I haven't been writing much. Here's a wrap up:

The Ob La Da store is now open! We're now in Renaissance Cooking at 808 Washington Street (Route 53), Pembroke, MA. We've been in there since the beginning of the month and it's been great so far! Lots of people have stopped by to visit us and buy some goodies. :)

We launched a new line of pies, which should be making their way to our etsy store soon. Through Thanksgiving we will have pumpkin and french apple pie and at the end of this week we'll be announcing some more flavors for the holiday season (as well as some holiday cupcake flavors too).

This past weekend was the Plymouth Thanksgiving Celebration and we were going to take part in the New England Food Festival and the Harvest Market. Unfortunately, our town issued a boil order and we had to dispose of all the stuff we had made in the day before, so that knocked us out of the running for the New England Food Festival. However, we were able to pick up the pieces and get ourselves together for the Harvest Market yesterday, which was wonderful! Tons of people and lots of great music!

So as you can see, I'm keeping busy over here! Now that this month is over, I should have more time to write my blog. And do something other than work and sleep. LOL!

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.