Ugly Betty's Purse

I absolutely love this new show Ugly Betty. It's very well-written and entertaining, and the main character Betty is so adorable, you can't help but fall in love with her. Even though she's supposed to be a style-challenged geek, the purse she carries on the show is super cute, and super affordable too. It's the Lucky Brand Jeans Large Patchwork Mailbag. Made of 100% leather, the purse matches well with most fall clothing. A basic black sweater and jeans outfit could be easily jazzed up with the addition of this bag. Plus, the design and the O-ring details are very similar in style to the famous Isabella Fiore Carina hobos, but for only a fraction of the price. The Lucky Patchwork Mailbag is $148, and is available at Macy's.


Ugly Betty episode image via Ugly Betty Blog

Dhoom 2 Trailer: Flashy, but What's the Plot?

I was waiting for quite some time to see the trailer of Dhoom 2, the movie Aishwarya Rai was ordered to lose 10 lbs. for over the summer. Aish is already so skinny, I really don't know what this obsession is with movie directors making thin actresses become even more thin, but whatever. She looks good, but none of these actors really look Indian anymore. I actually liked seeing the old Bollywood actresses like Sridevi, dance with a little junk in the trunk and big bellies in ghagra cholies, but now, everyone is so buffed. Take a look at Bipasha Basu in the movie trailer, she looks just like Angelina Jolie's character "Lara Croft" from Tomb Raider. The only thing I wish this trailer would tell me is what the heck this movie is all about. Images of Aish dancing in skimpy clothes, Hrthik doing some high tech train jumping and computer work, and Abhishek flying on a jet ski across dry land (yeah, that's right, he's flying on it!) is not really helping me. And Bipasha Basu dressed up like Lara Croft? I'm still trying to figure that one out. But the trailer is pretty flashy and action packed, so enjoy!





UPDATE: I got a little free time today and acted like a total loser. I listened to this video clip closely about three times to see if there were any clues as to what this movie is all about. It is well known amongst the Bollywood circle that the producers are trying to keep the plot a secret. From the clip, it seems this film is about a diamond heist, and all of the main characters are invovled somehow. Whatever the job is, the characters seem to be taking alot of breaks in between to do their obligatory song and dance routines. It seems like they mixed the story line from Mission Impossible with the 60's classic Beach Party. This is all pure speculation though, once the film has been released, we'll get a better clue as to which Hollywood film was plagiarized to create Dhoom 2. We all know originality has never been Bollywood's strong point.

The Healthiest Fast Food Nugget

I resort to feeding my kids nuggets and fries from fast food chains more often that I would like to admit. It's just so convenient when you're out, and you can't beat getting a quick meal for three kids for under $5 bucks. Three orders of nuggets and a Biggie fries, our local Wendy's drive-thru person knows our "usual" by heart now.

The kids and I have always been partial to Wendy's nuggets. Out of all the top three fast food chains, (Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's), Wendy's has the best tasting nuggets. Plus, they are so soft, even a 7-month-old can eat them when torn into little pieces by a watchful parent.

The latest news is that our favorite nuggets and fries are also the healthiest. Wendy's nuggets and kid size fries now have Zero Grams Transfat, and are cooked in non-hydrogenated oil. So now, not only do I feel less guilty about giving my kids Wendy's, I can even indulge in some myself!

Sunday Night Creep Show

Last night, my husband did me a favor and took the kids out to McDonald's for dinner. They have a Play Palace there where they can easily kill an hour or two. I stayed behind to "winterize" the closets. For me, winterizing means going through the entire inventory of the children's clothes, packing away spring/summer clothes in underbed storage boxes, and putting sweaters and warm clothes in their drawers instead. Basically, I'm getting the home ready for winter, and making it difficult for my son to dress himself in shorts and an Aloha Bob shirt when it's 40 degrees outside. I also use this chance to collect old, or too small clothing to donate to goodwill. We have a great service here provided by the Vietnam Vets group that actually picks up your used and unwanted items from your front porch. All you have to do is schedule a pickup and they come to your house and take it away. You don't even need to wake up early or be home for it, you can just leave it outside, and away it goes. And they don't just take away clothes, they take anything, even old toys, shoes, linens, and small items of furniture. This service is perfect for moms who have lots of kids and find it difficult to leave the home to run errands.

I had actually started this project last week, but it was taking some time because I could only devote a couple minutes each day out of our normal routine to work on it. Finally last night, I asked my husband to take the kids out so I could just finish the job in peace, especially when it came time to collecting old toys for goodwill. The kids kept taking all the toys out and remembering "oh, I like this, don't give this away." The husband left with the crew at around 8:30 pm and was going to be back by 10ish. For the first time in ages, I was all alone in the house!

I started the night by making myself dinner. I had Cup O' Noodles soup and a salad. Easy. It reminded me of college times when a cool meal was never easier than boiling some water and pouring it into sodium-laden ramen noodles in a styrofoam cup. Then I watched Desperate Housewives while I winterized the closets. When it was over, I channel surfed to find something else to watch (I'm not into that Brothers and Sisters show) and lo and behold where did my remote land me but VH1, where they had Hal Spark getting scared shitless in a haunted sanatorium! The show is called the Celebrity Paranormal Project, and it stars a group of five new B-list celebrities every week. It's very much like that show Fear they used to have on MTV a while ago starring random teenagers, but this time, with the addition of the famous celebrities, it's even better. It perfectly blends my love of the celeb life with my fascination with the paranormal, it's like watching E! and that show Most Haunted on the Travel Channel all at once.

photo VH1.

So the point is, five celebrities have to spend an entire night in a building deemed haunted. When I turned it on, Hal Sparks (of Talk Soup fame) was all alone on the fifth floor of the building and he suddenly sees a shadow of a little boy whizz by. And I saw it too! I've got DVR (it's kind of like Tivo) and I rewinded and replayed the clip in slow motion and damn, there was a little black shadow of a child! This wasn't magic, it was really there. Then later, Donna D'Errico, who had earlier said at base camp,"I'm not scared of the dark," is petrified and crying when a ghost of a doctor appears before here (it's captured on camera, it's really there in front of her!) and she is told she has to walk towards it to the stairs behind the ghost to get out of the building. She did, but cried the entire time. (I would too.)

By this time, I had lost all interest in winterizing the closets, I kept peeking at the doorway to make sure there was no ghost there and wishing my husband and kids would come home soon. Why did I have to watch a scary tv show when I was home all alone anyway? You'd think I would've changed the channel by now, but no, I'm a sucker for punishment, and I watched it through to the end. Hal Sparks got possessed by a spirit and drew pictures of a bloody hanging, Hal Sparks get pushed down the stairs by a ghost while a screaming Jenna Morasco is running for her life, Hal Sparks leads a seance to help the ghosts move to the next plane. It was clear by the end of the show, the ghosts had a thing for Hal Sparks, yet the one actor who wished he could get some ghost action on (and yet, not one ghost touched) was Gary Busey. Apparently, Gary has had three near-death experiences and thought if anyone was going to be able to communicate with the dead, it would be him, but no, the ghosts wanted Hal Sparks.

In all, the show is really great. I managed to survive it and am really looking forward to next weeks episode. Next week, a new cast of stars will spend a night in an abandoned haunted building that used to be an asylum for the criminally insane. The ghosts aren't just insane, they are criminally insane. One of the stars along for the spookfest is Tracey Bingham, I can't wait to watch her get scared. She was such a snob on Surreal Life.

By the time the show ended, the kids came back from McDonalds and were telling me about how much fun they had and how they got to eat ice cream sundaes. I was so happy to see them, I decided to save the rest of the winterizing for tomorrow. I obviously got seriously distracted by the creep show, but in hindsight, it was a good distraction. That's all I need sometimes, a little time to myself freaking myself out to remember what I value most in this world, my kids. I've been feeling really burned out lately, and was unwantedly taking it out on the kids by snapping at them for the littlest things. I've been feeling so guilty about it that I feel sometimes, that the only thing the kids are going to remember about me from this age is that mommy was tired and yelled all the time and was always doing laundry or dishes. I really do want to kick back and relax with the kids, I wish I could sit down and play with them, but there is just so much to do just to keep the house running. Honestly though, I think alot of the pressure is coming from me. I tend to put unnecessary demands on myself, and from time to time I need to remind myself to chill out and just calm down. The world won't end if the towels don't get washed today or if we order pizza for dinner two nights in a row. I guess, I just needed a rest for a couple of hours, and I needed to see that Spark that would turn me into "fun mom" again. I asked the husband if he could make the McDonald's thing a weekly occurrence, since it helped me recharge so much, to which he responded with a bewildred look and a "umm.....okay?" but I told him I was just kidding. Once a month will do just fine.

Random Conversation of the Day

Remember when you were young and you thought all those people on your favorite TV shows actually lived inside the television? Well, this is the latest "Kids Say the Darndest Things" episode from my house. It happened while the kids were watching Blues Clues today.

R: "I want Joe from Blues Clues to come over to my house and play with me."

Me: "Okay, I'll call Nickelodeon and find out how we can do that."

R: "No, let's just break the TV screen and pull him out of there. Come on, let's do it."

Me: "I think your Dad would get mad if we broke the TV. Let's call Joe on the phone first and see if he can come here in his car."

R: "Okay."

Then I changed the channel and he forgot about it. For now.

photo source

Posh Gets Massively Stressed as a Mom

Posh has recently talked about how "massivley stressed" out she gets juggling a career as a fashion icon and a mommy to her three kids. She often feels she has no time to herself. She says the key to helping her keep it all together is multi-tasking.

She said: “Being a mother’s taught me not to waste time faffing about in the
closet every morning. You learn how to get things done quicker, and often you do
them just as well.”

Posh, whose sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz are aged
seven, four and one, added: “Nowadays, I multitask, planning outfits while I’m
doing something else — getting ready for bed or taking a bath.

“Even
though I love getting dressed up, there’s always the risk of baby sick down my
front. That’s why I live in jeans and T-shirts.”

I think the fact that she even gets to relax and take a bath, and daydream about all the outfits she's going to wear disqualifies her from complaining about being stressed out as a mom. Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to believe that someone who has access to nannies and whose "work out of the home" job involves dressing up in haute couture and looking pretty could feel so stressed. Ask someone who is spending all day with kids what stress is. I don't call dreaming about what outfit you are going to wear next while relaxing in a nice hot bubble bath multi-tasking. Nope. Multi-tasking is trying to cook dinner while preventing your kids from climbing onto the stove and trying to take a peek at what's cooking, or making a giant mess in the family room so you have more than just the kitchen to clean when you are done. Multi-tasking is breastfeeding twins at the same time while putting your son down for a nap. And finally, multi-tasking is trying to post a blog entry while one kid is pulling your hair and sitting on top of your shoulders, and simultaneously yelling at your other two kids, who are screaming and fighting with each other over who gets to crank call people on your cell phone. I'd be more than happy to trade places with Posh for a day, even if it's just to take that bath. Alone and in silence.

I also find it hard to believe Posh lives in jeans and t-shirts. She has said this before in several articles as well, but everytime she's out, she's dressed like a society woman with some really expensive handbag dripping from her arm. (That bag, by the way, is the Marc Jacobs Leopard Chain Link Satchel, available by special order only.) Perhaps she does so at home, after she gets out of her bath and takes all the time she needs to get ready while a nanny watches her kids.

photo source: Just Jared

Mystery of the Twins Solved

I know this post is backdated, but that's because I started the attempt of writing this post last Friday. It's Sunday night right now and the kids and I are being plagued by The Cold That Will Never End. It started out as a flu, cleared up, and then came back as a sinus infection that turned me into The Resident Green Booger Wiper of the house. Now the kids are at that point where it's getting better (and clearer) but they are constantly needing a tissue to wipe their runny noses. I was doing it for them in the beginning but after a while, I just handed each of them a Kleenex box and let them learn the art of nose wiping by themselves (hey, I had to wipe my own nose too). We've gone through about two bottles of Children's Dimetapp Cold and Allergy in the past two weeks (I take this medicine as well) and needless to say, the cold has zapped me of any creative thought, so I thought I'd give you all an update on a dilemma I had mentioned over the summer.

After two years of wondering whether my twin daughters are identical or fraternal, I finally have the answer. They are IDENTICAL TWINS.

I had originally planned to have their DNA tested through Genetree's Twin Zygosity testing service, but when the kit arrived in the mail, it was impossible to get a DNA sample from either twin. The kit required that I swab the inside cheek of each baby, three times, place the cotton swabs in color coded envelopes and mail them back to the company for testing, along with a check for approximately $200. The girls refused to let me poke the inside of their cheeks with a cotton swab, not even once, not even while they were sleeping. After a couple of days of futile attempts, they developed so much hatred for that kit that they threw it away in their diaper pail. So after that episode, I gave up and decided I'd try to find out when they were 12 years old and more able to cooperate with me.

Time passed and I had completely forgotten about finding out the zygosity until one of my friends reminded me to check with the hospital where they were born. She's an OBGYN and said the hospital's pathology department should have that information on file, and should be able to provide me with the information I was seeking for FREE.

So I called the hospital and couldn't believe I waited this long to get the information they had on file for two years. When the pathologist told me that the tests done on the placenta revealed the girls were identical twins, with 100% accuracy, I was shocked. I was prepared to find out they were fraternal, because the twins look so different to me, but the doctor confirmed they are 100% identical. It's such an odd feeling. Perhaps it's my trained eye, or perhaps I just wanted to make sure I would never mix up their identities, but I can clearly see the difference in their eyes, face shape, and height. They look like two different individuals to me. Now that I have found out they are identical twins, it's difficult for me to start seeing how they are similar to each other after I have spent the past two years noticing all their differences. And apparently, my son and I were the only ones on the planet who thought they were fraternal twins (my son could always tell them apart, it was some kind of sibling magic). I told my neighbor the other day about the news, "Guess what, the girls are identical twins," and she responded with, "I could have told you that." It's like the "Big Duh News of the Day" to everyone who hears it.

It's really neat though, looking at them now. Identical twins don't run in my family, this is the first time something like this has ever happened. I remember when I first found out I was pregnant with twins, I was terrified I wouldn't be able to handle them, plus looking after my son (he was work enough). My uncle told me an old saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle, you'll be able to manage just fine," and somehow, I did. But at the time, I was convinced God had me confused with someone else!