No doubt this is a clever title

I love Gwen Stefani. I think she's very creative (understatement and paging Captain Obvious). One thing though, I loathe the name of her clothing/accessories line L.A.M.B. This is an acronym for 4 of her favorite words: love, angel, music and baby. It's just so twee, so excruciatingly precious; it makes me want to throw up cotton candy into my glittered pink toilet that plays lullabies when you flush it. In every other aspect I think she's awesome. I don't even mind that she named her son Kingston. I kind of like it, and I have issues with names, big issues. So, I propose a switch-up. She should call her brand B.L.A.M or B.A.L.M, except B.A.L.M. includes the phrase "baby angel" which stirs up all that cotton candy in the pits of my stomach. 

If I had a brand that was named an acronym with 4 of my favorite words it would be called S.H.I.T.: shenanigans, hullabaloo, itsy and totalitarianism. I would sell guns, or sparkly flip-flops, not sure. It would be good until my "fans" demanded a switch-up and I would have to go by H.I.T.S and sell baseballs and single tapes from the '90's, or T.I.S.H, but then I would go out of business. Remember what I said about names?

So my advice to Gwen is to stay away from the beautiful sparkly unicorns and sweet baby sheep. It's not a good place to go. 

Pizza and the suburbs

Am I the only woman in America that doesn't want to see the Sex and the City movie? Going with a group of friends sounds like fun but I look forward to the friends and not so much the movie. I feel like I'm supposed to be excited, like it's my duty to drool over this movie and count the minutes until its release. The truth is, I've never been a fan of Sex and the City. I find it a TV version of the magazines that tell me, page by page, that I'm a fat, short, unmotivated, bland, pimpled troll who needs prettier toe nail polish and a boyfriend with a six pack who wants to put things in my butt. I'm not down for a night on the town in a pink tutu, killer blister-creating stilettos and 8 rounds of pomegranate pineapple sake cucumber cosmotinis. This will surprise nobody because you all know that's not my thing. Let's get together and order a pizza, drink some wine or beer and catch up. After you see the movie call me and tell me which one of them dies, I am kind of curious about that.

"Made in China" needs to matter

I work in the footwear industry and most of our shoes are made in China. We don’t currently have a factory base in Chengdu, where the earthquake struck on May 12th but a quick Google search revealed there are about 2000 shoe factories in that area, along with factories and plants that crank out your cars, apparel, furniture, house wares and even your food. I know there is some level of apathy regarding the economic juggernaut that China has become. We tend to view these industries with complacent disregard because it’s easier for us to just go buy that cheap shirt/dresser/rug/drill/cereal/flip-flop/car and not have to think of its origins. The truth is there is a very human side to these industries. I work with a lot of Chinese people, we communicate via email every day and occasionally over the phone. They work hard, really hard. I’m not going into much depth to explain these people’s work habits to you. What you need to understand is how much they impact your lives and how much they need your help right now.

I won’t post pictures of the destruction, of the collapsed school buildings or the wailing mothers grieving next to their children’s bodies. What I am going to do is ask you to think about the items that are surrounding you right now. Your shoes were made in China; I’m pretty sure about that. Some of your clothes were made there as well. Most of the things on your desk are from China. The chair you’re sitting in: made in China. Your keyboard? Chinese in origin. Your phone, pen, stapler, water bottle, scissors, tape dispenser, purse, mouse pad, bulletin board, filing cabinet, carpet, etc…all made in China.

So let’s get to the point here. Please donate money to help the people who supply you with your “stuff” every day. You can donate here. You can also search online for any organization that can help the victims of the earthquake and make a donation. I’m not partial to one charity over another; I just think these people work very hard to supply us with the things on which we depend. The least we can do is help them in a time of need.

26 reasons I'm a nerd

I love letters. I know it sounds weird but I’m fascinated by each varied member of the wonderful English alphabet. I sound like an overly enthusiastic teacher spewing cockamamie phrases like “math is fun” and other absurdities but I can’t help it. Maybe I should’ve been a teacher. Nonsense, I despise children (except yours, your child is wonderful). Anyway, to me, each letter has a personality and interacts with the other letters. For instance, T belongs in front of S but somehow got shafted and now has to be after S and S is always boasting and pushing T around. T is male, and S is female. So S is really full of herself and T is too nice to say anything and lets S treat him poorly. It’s tragic really, the constant struggle between the two.
A, B, C and D are a Greek system of sorts and band together against the other letters. In the alphabet world these 4 are the “popular crowd” and make fun of the less socially accepted letters like the weirdo Q and O the fat guy. M and W are dating. It’s cute. Nobody ever expected these two to hook up, they’re total opposites.
Y is elusive, a bit of a recluse. X sits in the back of class and doesn’t raise his hand very much.
Before you label me a complete geek think of your own little oddities. Maybe you relate more to numbers, maybe you can’t go up a set of stairs without counting them, perhaps you pretend you host a cooking show while you prepare dinner or maybe you talk to yourself in the car or in the shower. I think we all have ways to occupy our minds during the downtime. What’s something you do that I might think is weird?

Good news of the day

I just got an email that our wedding invitation made it into a design book, very cool!
Whitney and Jonathan Speir at Brown Sugar Design did such a great job reading my mind. They were also unflinchingly patient with my indecisiveness as well as my mother. The invitations, place cards and table numbers were one of my favorite things about the wedding. Some other great things were the tequila bar, my shoes and marrying Dan, of course.
Click here to see some more details about the book and the many beautiful creations from Brown Sugar Design.

The "Battle" of Puebla

I’ll tell you the truth about this little “holiday” you’re all celebrating. In 1862 the French came to a small town called Puebla in central Mexico ready to fight. The textbooks will tell you the Mexicans cleaned up, kicked butt, regulated, whooped ass and other such victorious sayings. This was especially significant to the Mexicans because they were the underdogs, far outnumbered by those wily Frenchmen. In reality it was just a battle of the moustaches. Who had the best facial hair? The French with their up-curled, escargot stained wisps or the Mexicans with their straight wiry mops? Obviously you are drinking Corona and Tequila today because the Mexicans’ moustaches reigned supreme. The French took one look at the rag-tag group of Mexicans ready to strike; they sized up the glorious array of menacing mouth brows and ran like hell yelling “sacrebleu” and some other stuff in French.
It’s not common for somebody to tell you what really happened that day. Tecate, Corona and every Mexican restaurant in town are hoping you and your wallet will show up and celebrate the outcome of a viciously fought battle. I’m sorry to disappoint you but I hope you enjoy your tacos tonight knowing the truth. You’re welcome

I LOVE these

If you love sweet and salty you'll love these sea salt caramels from Fran's. I also just saw that Hagen Dazs has cloned the idea into an ice cream. Holy cellulite am I in for a treat or what?!

This side up

We're moving next weekend. My sister says when you die and go to hell you just move from one place to another. I totally buy it. I think there's probably a time in hell when you're in Hallmark trying to pick a card but you have to pee really really bad. Wait, is that just my nightmare? Oh, never mind.


Anyhoo, I made this sign to tape onto the boxes containing breakables:

What do you think? Effective, no? I think it gets the point across. Plus I won't have to write on the box with a Sharpie. There's something about a fine point Sharpie that just doesn't work on a big cardboard box and I'm not about to go buy a big fat smelly marker just for one move. Do you think I've thought about this too much? I wonder if I can just print my sign onto sticker paper. But wait, what's cheaper, a big marker or a package of sticker paper? Oh no, I've thought myself into a dilemma.