Good News of the Week

So far this week I've received two pieces of good news that I'll be writing about more later.

1. I will be the August Muse on Skirt.com. This means that my blog will be featured on the front page every day with a little note that identifies me as the "muse." Oh the pressure of writing something entertaining and/or informative every day or at least every other day. But oh the exhilaration!

2. I will be on the Nuestra Palabra radio show next Tuesday night on KPFT, 90/1, to promote The Bodega Cookbook. SO listen in!

That's all. Gotta run, but I will write more later.

Can You See My Man Breasts Through This Shirt?

There’s nothing like a four year old little boy to bring you back down to earth. I’ve lost around 30+ lbs in the last seven months, but obviously that is not enough weight. I still have a long way to go and I know this. But this past weekend I got another good reminder that I need to hit the gym harder.

My four year old son got inside the back of my nightgown and was looking up at my back. “Mommy!” he exclaimed, “You’ve got man breasts on your back!”

Lovely! I need to go throw up all my chips and salsa now and oh yeah, can I have one of those machines that Lucy had on "I Love Lucy?" The one she got inside of that got real hot and helped her lose weight. Do you think that will make my man breasts melt away? **Sigh!**

All right already! I'll go to Memorial Park tomorrow to walk off my man breasts.

Salmonella or Dirty Butts?

Poor Mexico! Now they are going and picking on them for one tainted jalapeño they found. First it was the poor tomato farmers who got the shaft and now it's the Mexican jalapeño growers. "Ya ni saben ni que!" as my mom would have said.

If you ask me I think it's just plain dirty hands. My mom told me something that was burned into my brain when I was a little girl.

"No te comas eso sin lavarlo primero! Los hombres que tocan las frutas y los vegetales se rascan la cola cochina y luego los tocan sin lavarse las manos."

Translation: "Don't eat that fruit (or vegetable) without washing it first. The men that handle them scratch their dirty butts and then they touch the fruit," she said.

I had this picture in my mind of all these men scratching their butts and then passing the fruits and vegetables. I tell you! It was burned into my brain. So I will NEVER eat anything without washing it first.

I was having this conversation with my awesome mother-in-law today and she totally agreed. She said that she always washes her fruits and vegetables, even with soap sometimes.

We came to the same conclusion. Someone somewhere didn't wash their hands and they passed on some nasty germs that caused salmonella poisoning.

Lesson? Wash all your fruits and vegetables really well before you eat them and beware of dirty butt hands.

Adventures at Club Libby Lu and Modeling Gig

A couple of weekend ago my husband Rey took his three kids out for a day with dad. His eldest daughter was visiting from New Orleans. I was so surprised when I called to see how things were going and he said that he'd taken my daughter (age 7) to a place called Club Libby Lu and that she was having her hair done. Shock!

My husband doesn't believe in her painting her fingernails or doing any of those things that little girls do that makes them grow up too fast. And frankly, I agree with him. I think little girls grow up way too fast today with the media, dolls that look like pouty teenagers, etc. But he thought that he would make an exception this once and I think he was really glad he did, to see the excitement on her face that I'm sure was priceless.

My step-daughter took some fabulous pictures of her, including a couple of close-ups of her face, but I'm reluctant to post them here because I still get nervous about posting pics of my kids very often.

My little girl has been on cloud nine lately with that adventure (she's begging me to go back) and then her unexpected day of fame. (more like a week) My co-worker handles a uniform store account and they needed some Hispanic models. She asked me if I was interested in having my daughter model some of the uniforms.

So I took my daughter in and she ended up modeling a blouse and a uniform dress. One of her photos was on the cover and the other was on the inside. I told a bunch of my friends about it and asked them to look out for the ad, but what was really cool was when friends who I didn't tell
saw her and recognized her. The ad was an insert in the newspaper to subscribers, in the mail in our shared mail program and directly mailed to some specific addresses. So people all over the city saw her. It dropped over two weeks so she was seen in some areas last week and then again the following week.

If You Were Looking for Me

If you come looking for me and don't find me go look for me here. I'm going to be blogging a little more on skirt! in the near future. Nothing definite yet, but I'll let y'all know when I know more too. Come by to visit me there!

And if you still haven't ordered a Bodega Cookbook, to support a great non-profit cause, and to make my wonderful recipe for pork in tomatillo sauce, you suck. OK, not really, you don't suck, but you don't love me and you don't love urban living. Go to the Bodega Cookbook website now and order your copy of this great cookbook! There are some wonderful recipes in there, besides mine, like Carrot Thai soup. YUM!

Order Your Bodega Party in a Box Today

Throw a tasting party for recipes from your neighborhood store! Here is how you can order your own Bodega Cookbook. Order one today! Best of all, you can try my recipe for Pork in Tomatillo sauce!

The Bodega Cookbook is Here!

The Bodega Cookbook Published by Neighbors Project.

Available for orders online this week.

It’s finally here! My copy of the Bodega Cookbook! It was so exciting to open up the package today and to see the bright colors of the cookbook. Kudos to the designer Summer Powell, who did an excellent job. A very cool detail was that they used one of my photos of the Matamoros Meat Market fridge in the cover design.

The recipe that I contributed is my mother’s family recipe for pork in tomatillo sauce. They also included a picture of my pot boiling the tomatillos on my stove top, next to my recipe. All my ingredients came from the Matamoros Meat Market on Irvington. (Also a great place for barbacoa on Saturday and Sunday morning.)

Along with the cookbook they sent eight invitations for a Bodega party, flags for decorations and a re-usable shopping bag. Very cool! You will be able to order the bodega party in a box starting this week, probably on Monday. I’ll post the link then.

The purpose of the Bodega Cookbook is the Neighborhood Project Organization’s way of “inspiring and training members of the urban generation to connect with their neighbors through projects that improve the neighborhood for everyone."

This cookbook inspires urban dwellers to go out and shop in their neighborhood stores. So support the cause. Order a cookbook and cook up something using ingredients from your corner store. Also, The Bodega Party in a Box funds the Food & Liquor project, which helps get more fresh produce into local corner and liquor stores.

I'll be doing some things to promote the cookbook in the community, including speaking about it on the Nuestra Palabra radio show on KPFT. I'll let y'all know when that happens.

How exciting! My first contribution to a published book!! Yay!

Updated Badge & Crazy Nightmare

I updated the link on the Good Mom/Bad Mom badge to the right of my blog because I've once again been featured on the Good Mom/Bad Mom Chronicle Blog by Jenny, the Bloggess. She highlighted my blog entry about using the tissue toilet seat covers to blot an oily face. Awesome!

Okay, how crazy am I? Last night I had a crazy nightmare that I got kidnapped by a couple pretending to be EMTs and they somehow talked me into getting into their ambulance. They whisked me off and then the woman started poking at my belly. She said she was going to steal my lap band! These psychos had kidnapped me to kill me and take my lap band.

I told her, "But you're already skinny!"

"I know! But I want to be skinnier!" she answered.

She warned me not to resist or try to escape or I was going to be covered in hot painful blisters.

When I tried to open the door to jump out she pulled out a hot poker and burned my arm! It was a crazy dream.

Finally they got me to a locker room turned operation room and were planning to take out my lap band, but I tried to outsmart them to give Rey, my husband, enough time to come and rescue me. That's all I remember or I woke up. Crazy? Probably.

When I told Rey about it this morning he said, "That's all?"

He said it sounded more like a comedy than a nightmare.

I'm Not Dead!

That's kind of a morbid headline, especially since I just went by the cemetery to check on my mom and sister's tombstones today. Weird, huh??

Anyway, I have been totally here just SO BUSY with work and life and everything else in between. We had our district convention in Cypress last weekend and we were super busy.

Here's a photo Rey took of me smiling too big. You can even see my back molars. Or as one of my sisters has said to me, "my crazy smile." You be the judge. Do I look a little batty?

My step-daughter is also visiting from New Orleans/Metairie so we've been trying to do some stuff with her. Wednesday we took her downtown to see Discovery Green, then we took her to Cabo for dinner.

While we were at Discovery Green we saw a really interesting exercise class going on. The guy was playing some Indian sounding music so we started to sway to the music. But the best part was watching my two crazy kids just dance to the music, like no one was watching. It was great to see how un-shy (is that a word?) and uninhibited they are. They rock!

So there we all were dancing around to the music on the sidewalk as people passed us by. Me, my step-daughter, and both the little ones. There was a whole group of people coming from the Microsoft convention and cutting through the park. We heard all these different languages being spoken as they walked by. And the people would smile at us as we danced around. I loved it and I was so proud of my kids in that moment. I wanted to hold that moment and save the feeling in a bottle.

Enough Said!

By: Anne Taintor

This is what will be on my next business card holder, just a different design. I have to go to bed now. I have to wake up early. I'm having a meeting with the sales team tomorrow.

I'm The Opposite of Green, Whatever That Is

I bought these great Get Green grocery bags to use for shopping and I always forget to use them. I'm not very "green." One day I'll remember to take my bags with me.

Today I went grocery shopping and forgot them again. On top of that I got in the wrong line. I was distracted by the kids and I kept trying to think of what I was forgetting. I'm halfway through my groceries when the cashier informs me that I'm in the Express lane. How in the heck did that happen? I never do that! I was so embarrassed! I'm sure the people behind me in line were all talking about me and stuff.

Then to really make things even better my daughter goes and picks up the groceries of the woman behind me.

"Hey! Why are you buying this?" she asked holding up some random grocery item that I knew wasn't mine.

"Uh, that's not ours," I said.

"Those are my groceries," said the skinny lady in line behind us on the cell phone.

My daughter put down the items embarassed and I probably embarassed her more. I'm a terrible mom too. And I'm not green either.

OK. My Blackberry is giving me issues. I'm thinking I may I need a new one. What do y'all think of the Curve?