All about the fine prints....

Since I have a hard time buying shoes in this country in regular stores I started shopping online.


My first try was a success. So I decided to do it again but this time I got reminded that I shouldn't rush into buying until I read the full description of the item I bought.

This is the shoe I chose for my daughter. Moving away from the pink or purple.

When I took the shoe out of the box the little white plug on the side surprised me but I thought hmm ventilation. Then my daughter put the shoe on and that is then I thought a- who is the moron who design that shoe, b- Dam I need to read description more carefully c- how am I going to fix this before school tomorrow without a drama....
Why you may wonder because according to the description of this lovely shoe:
" Not only does it look adorable, it sounds adorable, too. Its super-soft leather upper is embellished by scalloped trim and flower appliqués. Its cushy footbed is outfitted with a fun squeaker: She'll be over the moon every time she takes a step."
The thing they forget to mention is yes my little girl loves the squeaker whereas I can't stand it anylonger and she has had the shoe for 1 minute!!!!! A stealth commando intervention is in order tonight and the squeaker will no longer be!

I am still completely baffled by the stupidity of the designer this sound is the most annoying sound in the world. It is a dog toy on which you step every time you are walking! I am sure that the designer of that shoe won the price of the most annoying item. I thought light shoes were bad!

But the squeaker is no more. It lasted a whole 2 hours before I unplugged the damm thing and threw it in the trash. My little girl will be disappointed tomorrow but I'm sure her teacher will be delighted.
The joy of shopping online!

Gotta post

Arghhh it has been sooo long since my last post and so much happened since then that I don't know how to tackle it. I decided to get back in the groove by posting a short post on the current thoughts.
1- What is wrong with the weather??? I mean it is great and all to be able to walk around in shorts and tank top in mid january but I'm running the half marathon in Carlsbad in 13 days and I don't do well when it is hot!!!!
2- Speaking of the Carlsbad half I'm slightly anxious since I didn't run as much during the holiday break. Not because I was lazy but because I had a bronchitis and a start of a stomach flu!!! I ran twice since I got back on wednesday evening a 3 mile run with Jess on Friday which went very well. Then the next day saturday, I attempted a longer run on Saturday. That was an absolute catastrophie since I gave up at mile 1.5! I just could not run. Probably a combination of the Santa Ana winds, my body not being used to run at 76F when it got used to run at 30F , maybe some jetlag ;) So I am shooting for an easy 20 min on the treadmill tomorrow, a 4-5 miles on tuesday a 5-6 on thursday and a longer run next week end 7-10. Then two easy 3-4 miler during the week. Then we will see, at least I can say I did what I could, I don't feel like I slaked off so be it!
3- On a totally different subject, the low interest rate for mortgage threw us in a whirlpool of thoughts and ideas. One of which is to refinance our current house. It is really nice but also we know that we won't stay there forever unless something bad happens we are ready to move out in the next 5 years. The other is to look at other options in the same neighborhood. We have a house in sight so we will see what happens.
4- Lastly I don't know what happened over the holiday probably our constant activity and the good but somewhat lighter food from my mom but I dropped 2-3lbs. We will see if I can keep it off and maybe drop a little more.
5- Last but not least I delivered Jessica's flowers. From the compliments I believe that I came through. I am very very glad that I was able to bring my personal touch to this beautiful wedding. I am also very thankful for Jessica to take up an offer from someone she barely knew. This is something that I waited for for a while. I will post in more details on the day leading to the wedding with pictures and all.

Hmmm food

So this monday I finally went to Trader Joes and stocked up in yummy healthy food for the last 10 days before leaving for France.
So as usual I roughly mapped out my week's menu. Gnocchis, Soup with meat balls, Ahi tuna, filet mignons....
Yesterday my neighbour treated me really treated me for an early birthday dinner to her favorite restaurant and boy was I happy that she had such good taste. So she invited me to the "Market Del Mar" it was absolutely delicious.
So of course today when I tried to put together my dinner I was still under the spell of those great cooks. So here I am with the following ingredients: Ahi tuna (for sure), asparagus or brocolini, israeli couscous also known as pearl couscous and the decision to make do I go mediterranean or do I go asian. Jessica suggested mediterranean and boy am I happy because it was really really good.
So I decided to dice some tomatoes, with some red onion, put that in a oven dish, with some olive oil, crushed garlic, rosemary and some balsamic vinegar.
I cooked this in the over at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes.
In the mean time I put the ahi tuna to marinate with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic.
Cooked the pearl couscous per package instruction.
On mine I added some basil at the end.

Now I have this dream well actually I have several here are two of them:
1- Open a little cafe for lunch with a restricted menu like 2 hot dishes and some salads and quiches
2- the other would be to buy an old house and to fix it up most of it myself as much as possible. Actually my father in law bought this beautiful little house and I would love to restaure it.

Just do it!

For those of you who wonder how I keep motivated.
I said a while while back that I would run a half marathon before I'm 35! That was 7 years ago. In the last year a lot of little events played a key role in my motivation first there was this doctor who simply stated that I was the perfect candidate for a Nike add, he basically said just shut up about it and just DO IT. It made me realize it was very true I was so scared of failing of not being able to run 13 miles that I didn't even try.
Then Jessica started training for the La Jolla half marathon and moreover I started going to the gym with her and that's where our friendship started, not over lunch some place but at the gym or running outside both of us listening to our tunes.
The last thing was reading a journal that I wrote 7 years ago about how I would like to run the Carlsbad half marathon.
So here I am training for the Carlsbad half marathon, however I decided to start training 20 weeks before the race itself because I want to keep it up even when the race is over. Trust me it isn't always easy to motivate to go for a 10 miles run when the kids are asleep and that a nap would be very welcome, but just thinking that Jessica will go for her run and that I said I would run at least 8 miles that day is enough motivation for me to put my sneakers and go.

Lazy lazy

I don't remember the last time my fridge was so empty of anything worse in turning into a dinner that we had to go out every night. Well here it is since wednesday I have eaten out every single night. Wednesday we picked up sushi from sushi Ota, on thursday we took the kids to Sammy's woodfired pizza, Friday it was mexican at la Puerta for Jessica's bachelorette party and finally yesterday we tried a new Italian restaurant in Cardiff.
All this because I was not feeling well last sunday after my run thus not inspired to put together the weeks menu. I was also under the delusion that I would have time after work to hope in Trader Joes and buy the rest of my food ahahahah.
Today however today I need to make the time to go to Trader Joes to fill up my fridge of goodies for the week.
Besides that friday night was a blast, my first bachelorette party and also the first time going out to clubs with girls. Eventhough I didn't drink it was fun. The only draw back were the sleezy men. I made it back home at midnight and was promply woken up by the kiddos at 7:30 the next day.
Saturday was mellow, bagels, kids haircut, ran into Roadrunner sport to find some jogging pants for Bryan then back home. I was planning a mellow bike ride since I am supposed to run 10 miles today, instead I went my neighbour Eric and we went for a short 8 miles bike ride but really really steep. But I made it up.
Bryan then for his run and when he came back I was soooo hungry thus the restaurant.
After that I am ashamed to admit that we put the kids to bed at 8pm and I went to bed shortly after at 9pm and slept like a baby until 7am!
This morning we have the swimming lesson adventure I hope Maia isn't going to cry too much, then lunch, grocery shopping, running for a long time and dinner at some friends.

Desert

My fridge is really empty of all ingredients to prepare a reasonnable dinner of course I am starving.
So dinner will be sushi from Sushi Ota yummy but I have to pull together the shread of energy that I have left in my body and drive down to PB.
Besides that I have been feeling really exhausted lately. I don't know if the fact that I'm leaving on vacation in 2 weeks, the exercize regiment I have kept for the past 4 month or the fact that I'm getting sick and go to bed too late but whatever it is is leaving me pretty exhausted.
Maybe I just need to eat! So I'm off to go pickup my sushi.

A little crazy...

Why do I promise the kids a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting on a monday nigh? Probably because I did promise one yesterday evening and my post run nausea kept me in no mood of cooking.
So when I got home tonight things were a little more crazy than usual. So here I am cleaning the kitchen, then starting the kids dinner and making a vanilla cake from scratch. Making the cake itself is nothing it is just the mess, the kids crying and asking for attention that is a little tough to handle. I didn't make the frosting. Since cake in France don't have frosting I never had to learn and never quite had the time. I will try very soon.
So although I cleaned my kitchen thoroughly yesterday morning it only lasted for about 2 hours and is back to a really dirty state which bugs the heck out of me.

This week's menu is going to be interesting since my trip to Von's yesterday wasn't inspired at all and I didn't even make it to the produce section! ahahah and of course I won't have time to hit the store this week so I'll make do...
We will probably have some fish one night, some pasta probably with roasted onions and porciutto, some tamales from Trader Joes, we will go out or go pick up some sushi and finally we will either have potstickers, raviolis or pirogis with a salad here and there and that will bring us to Saturday when I will go to Trader Joes for my weekly grocery trip
Tomorrow will be interval training which I will probably do in the evening since I have a parent teacher conference for Maia.
To end this random post we need to buy the kids christmas gift since we will be celebrating our christmas next friday and things need to get to the house before then.