Day 2: The Peppermint Mocha Spectrum

I was very anti-Starbucks for a very long time.  I wanted my beans to come from a local independent coffee shop.  There is a coffee house on Hillsborough Street that I spent a lot of time in during those college and post college years.  I can still smell the place and when I go home, a lot of the same customers are sitting in their same seats.  My husband always got a drink card, sometimes two, in his stocking for his morning iced King latte.

Then we moved away from Raleigh.  While we were anti-Starbucks, we were coffee addicts. Guess what was right near our house? I mean really, guess what is right near anywhere? Actually, there were two of them-one on each end of the block. Starbucks had to become our new favorite. Either that or brew at home.

Starbucks must have a drink formula.  I can order a skinny vanilla latte in any Starbucks anywhere and it tastes exactly the same. At other places the quality of the drink depended on anything from who was working the espresso machine to what time of day you ordered your drink.

What I love about Starbucks is that every year they bust out the holiday drinks:
Gingerbread, Eggnog, and my liquid crack: PEPPERMINT MOCHA.

You can smell it when you walk in the shop with its pretty colors and mugs.  They play music that must do something to make you want to order a pricey drink. You know the sound of the chocolate pump, the frothing milk, the espresso being packed for the brew-tamping for the baristas out there reading this.  Then they give you this chocolate peppermint delight in a beautiful paper cup that is bad for the environment but has a wonderful quote or holiday design and message on it.

I could easily drink three of those divine drinks a day during the holidays.  They remind me of dipping peppermint sticks in hot chocolate. Only they are better than candy canes melting away in microwaved Swiss Miss.  They are thick and evenly smooth as only a Starbucks employee has been trained to serve you.  The problem?  They aren't helpful to the twenty-five pounds and counting I have lost since I started running again.

Peppermint Mochas, like other things in my life these days, come on a spectrum.

At one end: You have a tall (12oz) nonfat peppermint mocha without any whipped cream.  This is 250 calories, which is still a bit much.  At the other end: a VENTI (20oz) whole milk peppermint mocha smothered with whipped cream and little chocolate shavings.  Close your eyes if you don't want to know, but it's 520 calories.  I can visualize every anorexic I've ever known running out the Starbucks pretty glass door right now screaming she gained half a pound just inhaling the air.

So, what to do other than order one of their herbal teas? Pick and choose off their spectrum!  Mess around with your size, your milk, and skip the whipped cream whenever possible. Decide if you want to eat less that day to allow your holiday treat.

My children and I just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together.  One of the best descriptions in the book is Charlie eating his birthday chocolate bar.  That is all he gets for his birthday-one chocolate bar.  First, he stares at it for a few days and doesn't touch it.  THEN he peels back one corner and nibbles on the chocolate bit by bit. He only takes enough chocolate each day to let the flavor cover his tongue.  He makes that birthday chocolate last a month.  My children have no clue how good they have it sometimes I swear.

I believe in the "Charlie Approach" when you buy the full blown Peppermint Mocha. Go for a ten mile training run, then order the 520 calorie baby.  Sip on it all day long-and then eat some carrot sticks for dinner.


The season comes just once a year, right?

Day 1: The Advent Calendar

Advent is my favorite liturgical season. Epiphany?  Well, moms of little kids can't think hard enough to have one. Lent is painful and sad-as it should be.  Pentecost is my second favorite as I speak three languages.  Ordinary time?  Ordinary time? Honestly-what the hell is that?  Therefore, Advent belongs to me!

I said it last year, Advent is the time of year when we wait for a miracle to come save us. I am always in need of a miracle. Save me from my lack of organization.  Save me from the inability to keep my mouth shut.  Save me from struggling with a daughter I have spent the last five years working on-and now she doesn't need me quite as much as she did. That's what I wanted, right?

Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas. The Advent calendars I have seen start on December first and go through the 25th.  I love this time of year so much I had a "Christmas in July" wedding shower where everyone brought gifts for the holiday season. The Christmas Frances was one I bought a cute little calendar at Hallmark and we opened a window every morning to read the story of Luke.  I'm sure it was more for me than her.  Some of those calendars come with a little chocolate inside, but I would be way too afraid I would just eat all twenty five on the first morning.  Either that or with three kids, who gets the chocolate each day?  I'm not organized enough to keep up with who ate the day before. So no chocolate calendars here.

Advent is happy waiting-literally, like a child on Christmas Eve. It's active waiting.  Not the solemn suffering reflecting of Lent.  This is why December nearly kills us with the parties, the parades, the cookie baking, the card opening, and the shopping.  We are keeping busy for the big event.

Mr. Rogers used to sing a song called, "Let's think of something to do while we're waiting."  I loved that song and TRY to use it with my kids.  The most important line to me is to find "Something to do that's specific to you." Everyone has a special way to wait.

What am I going to do while I'm waiting?  What's specific to me?  I'm going to blog while I wait-25 days of Advent Quacks. Last year I joked that there should be a "Page a page a day" calendar. Now there kind of is!

I hope you enjoy it!  And if you don't mind-spread the word.  If I'm going to make this commitment I want readers.

The Christmas Tree

I wrote this for Share Our Voices.  Enjoy!

Something I forgot to say

It seemed like throughout the whole movie, Daniel Radcliffe always ended up in his boxers. Well, those of us that saw Equus, no big deal.....

My Deathly Hallows Part I Opinion

I waited a week, and I am now posting my Deathly Hallows review.  If you have not gone yet or you could care less, skip this post. I give you permission to apparate on over to another blog.

A "Page" point for the masses: the only movie to ever follow a book to the "T" is Rosemary's Baby-that was a horror novel about a woman pregnant with the devil's son.  Grow up and know that not every little detail can be put into a movie!  I know my details just like anyone else. Oliver Wood should have been pulled out of charms in movie one.  Hermione's Yule Ball dress was periwinkle blue, not pink like in movie four, and I was in labor when I saw that.  I know a little more about the screenwriting process than I did a year ago, and these writers do all they can to be true to a novel and not con-volute the screen. Although we all have our favorite parts WE would have included if WE had written the script, WE need to give the writers some respect.

I went opening night, although sadly as the working mom of three little ones, the midnight show wasn't going to happen. :0(  BUT I got to see the movie with a British friend!  When she bought our tickets, she told me she had "Sorted it out."  If we got there early we wouldn't be too behind in the "queue."  We were both wearing our Gryffindor scarves and of course I had on my hand knitted, custome ordered just for me, Weasley sweater.  We were there an hour early and the theater was packed, but we still had awesome seats! One of these days I'm going to get her to say "Are you taking the mickey?"

The best part about opening night is that all the crazies are there and you are just as crazy as they are. Several are dressed up. Everyone claps at the right scene, shrieks for the right scene, and cries, yes I said cries, during the right scene.  We even tend to do it a little early because we know what is coming next.  When Dobby the elf gave his speech, people were sobbing before Bella even lifted her dagger.  The audience seemed to be satisfied with where they left the film.  Now Voldemort and Harry both have what they need to face each other and we know that.

Now, my personal opinions on the actual film:

People who follow my blog know that as a general rule I despise romantic comedies.  But I did begrudgingly watch Notting Hill.  I was hating every minute of it until "Spike" walks in the flat and announces, "just going to the kitchen to get some food, then I'm going to tell you a story that will make your balls shrink to the size of raisins."  I have never, and I mean never, laughed so hard during anything that was fluff. Rhys Ifans stole that movie from Julia and Hugh.  I mean he filched it good.

Eleven years later, his scenes in Deathly Hallows were some of the best and most memorable.  I could easily see how Xenophilius Lovegood raised Luna (as a single parent since she was nine, by the way). How badly do girls want to believe the crap their fathers teach them? Not only did he steal the wedding scene before the bad guys showed up, but he was also able to pull off a father's love by selling out the trio because he adored his Luna. Kuddos Rhys! (Screenplay/novel side note-Xeno did not have strabismus in the movie, and as a mother of a child with strabismus, it would not have bothered me if they hadn't written it out).

This movie flowed together much better than some of the others. The Ministry of Magic scenes were incredible and really well done.  Those adults had to work hard to imitate the actions of Ron, Harry, and Hermione. We also got a dose of  Dolores Umbridge who in some ways is far more evil than Voldemort.  Loved it!  I also loved the shadow puppet sequence used to tell The Tale of the Three Brothers.  I wasn't as excited about the Godric's Hollow scenes.  It might have been bad editing, but they did not explain how Harry ended up in his old bedroom and that Grindelwald was related the Bathilda Bagshot-but that may be coming in part II.

My biggest fear was this: could the trio hold the movie on their own for the chunk of limbo in the forest? Since the actors have been at this for ten years now, they most certainly did.  I have my doubts that unsupervised teenagers would have only danced in the tent, but whatever.  We need some suspended disbelief. And the Snatchers and all of the their sexual innuendos toward Hermione-are we trying to compete with another film series?

One warning-reading something isn't always as scary as watching it on the big screen.  Nagini scared me silly this go round and we met her in Goblet of Fire.  She gets a lot of air time in this film and I can't wait for Neville to chop her head off.  Voldemort could get his own episode of Fatal Attractions on Animal Planet.


The one thing I would have liked to see was Harry and Dudley shake hands.  Again, I'm not the writer and who knows what is coming later?




July 15th-please come soon!  Maybe I'll wear black like a dementor because I'll be so depressed the whole thing finally is over.

A Lego challenge

Let me just say that I have grown significantly in the birthday party department.  Not much has happened in the cooking and the cleaning areas of my life, but I think I have the birthday party mastered.  I would definitely be teased in a Jennifer Weiner novel.  Connecticut will do that to you.

My son opened all his presents when we got home.  The problem with an evening party is that you can't open all the presents and then say, "OK sweets, let's go get ready for bed."  Well, maybe June Clever could, but I couldn't. So by 8:30 I had had enough of Iron Man and dragged my child upstairs kicking and screaming. 

He was up at six playing with all the new toys, and I came into the kitchen just in time to see him hold up a Lego kit.  When I say "No, you are still in your pajamas, you haven't had breakfast, I need to make your lunch, and then we have to load the car for school, so wait and do that with Daddy tonight," he blinks at me but doesn't say anything.

Two minutes later I hear the tinkle of little Lego blocks falling all over my kitchen floor and he starts spreading them out in an attempt to make a truck just like the one in the picture. The other two are up now and screaming for breakfast and clothes-we need those things for school.

Count to ten Page, breathe Page, you can't have a margarita at six am, Page......I smiled and turned around.

"Honey, I promise I will help you with the Lego kit if you put it all away now and get ready for school."  He found a Tupperware container and we made sure every single block was up.  Then we put it up very high away from little brothers and got ready for another day driven by a Lego promise.

I mean, they are only blocks.  How hard could it be?

I don't remember my own brother having a lot to do with them.  I know my nephew adored them. They were created in Denmark.  The Little Mermaid and Legos-that is about all I know about the Danish.  I need to learn more-I'll get on it.

We came home around four and spread them out on the kitchen table.  All Legos are little.  But little doesn't always mean little.  Some are small, some are tiny, some are teeny, and some are lilliputian.  No wonder everyone steps on them. What does a vacuum cleaner suck up more of-Legos or Barbie shoes?  That is the question.

After about twenty minutes of my child crying over the picture and his blocks looking more like a wall than a truck, I told him to get the instruction book.  If you have never done a Lego kit before, I have to tell you the instruction booklet is designed for idiots like me.  First, it is VISUAL.  All pictures and very few words-starting with how to sort your Legos into groups that are tiny or lilliputian.  THEN you go through your booklet number by number and they show you which block to put where. You don't move to the next page until you are done with the one you are on.

The Lego kits teach SKILLS.  We had to slow down and go step by step. We had to follow directions or create more work for ourselves. We didn't move on until we were done with one piece, and if you make a mistake with your blocks sometimes you have to take a lot of other pieces off to correct it.

The only problem with Lego projects is the dishes can easily go undone while you are putting together a hundred microscopic blocks.  The two year old was watching us and singing the theme song from "Bob the Builder," but my daughter disappeared into the playroom.  I don't know what she did up there but I didn't hear anything crash. AND dear parents of the world out there reading this, I just love it when we do all the grunt work on a project.  After an hour of block sticking, our child puts on the decal stickers and the tires, then says "Look at the truck I made!"  Yeah, it is about them anyway, right?

The Lego kit is done and there are no spare blocks to be had in the house. Are we ready for another project or a trip to the Lego museum? No, not really.

But now I know how to follow directions.

A shark, a jaguar, and a cobra walk into a bar....

I have a really hard time keeping all three of them quiet in the car.

End of post see you next week.

Ha!

I am capable of tuning them out, but I get in these moods where they should learn not to act like total savages just in case one day they meet someone famous. It could happen....

Yes, we listen to CDs, books on tape, and when traveling long distances, we bust out the DVD player. I know how to google and read the blogs of more competent mothers.

BUT- I wanted to know what would happen if no technology was available to me-call me a sadist. I thought about I spy, and then I trashed that idea because of a joke I heard in middle school about two dogs. I also thought about keeping a list of all the different trucks and cars we could find, but I would have to keep track and I was trying to drive. Hmmmm-what to do?

Eureka! I remembered the 20 questions game.  The "answerer" comes up with something and you have twenty yes/no questions  to deduce what it is.  My kids got into the game and ask really good questions when I am the answerer. The glitch is when it is their turn to come up with something, they are a little on the predictable side.

A good ten minutes is spent going over who gets to go first.  This drives me crazy. Does it really matter who gets to go first? Apparently it does. Once we have killed time with that, we start the game and the answer is always an animal-that is the way we play it.

My daughter is in Disney Channel mode.  So we know before she says, "I'm thinking of an animal..." that it is a platypus, and his name is Perry.  Now God bless Disney for all they do, but my daughter thinks a platypus is green and lives in the tri-state area. So when her incredibly technical by the book little brother tells her, "no, the duck billed platypus is brown and is native to Australia, just like the Wiggles." All freaking hell breaks loose.

Then it is her brother's turn.  He picks one of three animals every time.

1) Sometimes, it's a cobra...

K: I'm thinking of an animal.
Me: Is it a reptile? (I know it is a reptile.)
K: Yes.
F: Does it have a shell?
K: No
Me: (thinking, do I drag this out or yell out the answer?) Is it cold blooded?
K: Yes!
Me: Is it ______________________?(Someone's name and it isn't nice so I won't repeat it here.)
K: (confused) Mom, she isn't reptile. (that he knows of)
F: Does it have sharp teeth?
K: No
Me: Does it live in India?
K: Yes!
Me: A cobra?
K: YESSSSSS! Mom you are so smart!

2) Sometimes he picks a shark....

K: I'm thinking of animal and it lives in the OCEAN!
F: Nemo!
K: No Frances, think of a dangerous ANIMAL!
Me: Is it in Nemo?
K: YES!
Me: Does it have teeth?
K: YES!
F: Does it bite?
K: YES!
Me and Frances: A shark?
K: YES-how did you guess?

3) If it isn't a shark or a cobra, it's a jaguar...

K: I'm thinking of an animal
Frances: Does it live in the jungle?
K: Yes!
Me: Does it have fur?
K: Yes!
F: Does it belong to Diego?
K: Yes!
Me: Does it have spots?
K: Yes!
Frances and Page: A jaguar!!!!
K: You two are amazing!  How do you know so much?
Me: Oh you know, living with Daddy, intelligence rubs off.
K: Wow Mom.

I know, wow.....

Maybe I should dig around for the DVD player, but this is just too much fun.