The Mamahood

That's SO Wrong

Okay, I'm big into spas and happy to experiment with some pretty out-there treatments, but these really, really creep me out. Would you dare to try any of them?

Maybe I Shouldn't Organize...

You'd be amazed at the kinds of things we need to pull together to get this whole China expedition off the ground. For instance, in an effort to control the types of people who enter the country leading up to the Olympics, China had us clear some new hurdles that weren't there a few years ago.

For instance, we needed to provide a copy of a bank statement and letters from our employers indicating our salary and saying that they know we're traveling to China on certain dates. Since I'm self-employed, that presented a bit of a challenge (though thankfully, one of my clients was happy to do the deed for me). And since we're traveling with a former Chinese citizen, we needed to provide her old Chinese passport as well.

Which leads to the subject of this post. Imagine what might happen if you discover, at 11:30 p.m. the night before the information is due, that the old Chinese passport isn't in the safe, as you expected. Imagine the level of stress when after two hours of combing through files and large piles and baskets of papers you still fail to track down that little red booklet. And imagine climbing into bed at 3:30 after hunting under couch cushions, through boxes of photos, and checking that safe for the 10th time hoping you missed it the first 9 times—wondering how you're going to break the news to your daughter that no, she's not going with you to China to get her mei-mei.

Then imagine how many times you wanted to kick yourself when you woke up the next morning at 6:30, dragged yourself into your home office and decided to thumb through a little file box you'd bought but thought you hadn't used—and discovered that the passport has been sitting in an appropriately named "Important Papers" folder all this time.

That would be me this morning.

Being Creative

If you want to know who comes up with creative how-to projects for sites like Kodak Gallery's Idea Center, you've come to the right place. I love coming up with creative projects—even if I never make a single one. I can't lay claim to all of the ideas here, but quite a few of them are mine.

Bumper Crop

Our backyard is more concrete jungle than green acres: We basically have a 1-foot by 12-foot patch of dirt along one fence and the rest of our postage stamp-sized yard is filled with pool, garage and concrete. But we've managed to pack greenery into every square inch of our dirt: we have lilies and a rose bush, several pepper plants, lots of mint and hibiscus (no matter how hard we try to prune back), clematis and a hydrangea bush. But we wanted more...so we filled huge metal tubs with dirt, and put in some lettuce, basil, tomatoes and strawberries. If nothing else, I thought it'd be fun for my daughter to see how fruits and vegetables grow, and the girl does love to water.

We've managed to reap a little bit of what we sowed already. Our strawberry plants have yielded two strawberries. I can't tell you how they tasted, but since my daughter won't share them, I'm assuming they're pretty tasty. And today we had the first fresh pesto of the season, and the first salad made exclusively from lettuce in our garden. I have to say, if you have land (or if you have a spare metal tub), grow some lettuce. We tried a few different varieties of lettuce (the only one I can remember is the arugula), and there's absolutely no contest—the homegrown lettuce tastes infinitely better than even our fancy organic greens. And given that four tiny plants cost about the same amount as a package of organic greens—and we look to be able to fill a salad bowl every few days from our 12 plants, it's pretty easy on the wallet as well.

How hard is it with two?

Okay, all you moms out there...I'm starting to freak out about how to handle a 4-year-old and a 16-month-old and still maintain my sanity. Because my husband tends to work odd schedules, there are times when I'm on total bedtime duty, total morning duty, etc. And I'm trying to figure out how I'll get two kids into bed simultaneously. Anything you wish you'd known beforehand that you feel like sharing? Feel free to share your wisdom in the comments.

Sneaking in the Good Stuff

I'm lucky that my daughter's a pretty good eater. She's willing to try new things, and has some pretty exotic food preferences (hello, sushi!). But her diet still balances out to a little too much EasyMac, and a little too little broccoli for my taste.

So this week, I've been secretly spiking some of her favorites with a little extra goodness. Tonight it's spinach pureed into tomato sauce—tomorrow I'm adding pureed broccoli (stems only) into her EasyMac. We'll see if she (or my husband) notices the difference. Consider this the Folgers crystals bait and switch. But without the fancy restaurant.

A Tale of Two Companies

As my regular blog readers know, over the past several months I've had major problems with two essential pieces of equipment: my laptop and my dishwasher. Both are around the same age. On both, I'd paid extra for extended warranties. But the treatment I received at the hands of the companies couldn't be more different.

First up: Sears. When the dishwasher failed to work, I called their customer service. And discovered it would be two weeks before anyone could come to look at the darned thing. I asked if I could be filled in at any point if there was a cancellation. I called every day to see if someone could come out and help. The customer service people were by turns indifferent and rude. The guys at the store suggested I buy a new dishwasher (to replace one that was less than two years old). I found the e-mail addresses and mailing addresses for Sears executives, and sent out letters expressing my concerns about their lack of service. I never heard back. When the repairman finally came on the appointed day, he didn't even have any parts for the dishwasher (because he was a washing machine guy who'd been filling in for the dishwasher people for the past few weeks, and despite his requests, his bosses hadn't given him parts). Because the appointment wasn't put in with our warranty, he nearly walked out without looking at it, because I refused to pay for the service. Total grade: F.

Next up: Apple. I've been having problems with my laptop, nearly from the get-go. So far, the battery has been replaced twice, and the hard drive crashed a month back. The customer service people were all super nice, walked me through a few attempts to set things right, then set up appointments, always for the next day. At the store's Genius bar, the people took me seriously. Repairs were made within a few days. And this week, I escalated it to the executive level, because I was so frustrated with my computer: The fan was going on a lot, and I was having some real issues with slowness again. A few hours after sending an e-mail to Steve Jobs' address, I received a call from Mark in executive customer service. After a little phone tag, he called back after hours, and spent a half hour talking to me about my computer and what I needed to do to get it working right. (Turns out, I didn't have enough RAM to support the Leopard operating system.) Mark even suggested going to a cheaper place to buy the RAM and installing it myself, but since I wasn't too keen to take a look at my computer's innards, he arranged that I'd have the Genius bar install my RAM and waived the service fee. It was taken care of in less than an hour. While I wish the Geniuses had suggested the upgrade earlier, all in all, a fine example of their customer service. Total grade: A-

For the Birds

Our latest arrival is impending, so our family has kicked the house revival into high gear (since you know I won't have time to go through a mountain of paperwork with a toddler and preschooler underfoot). And of course, we have to create a nest where our little one can get cozy. After much internal debate (including our older daughter's insistence that we should decorate the younger daughter's room with her crush's photos), we're going for a bird theme. The room will be sky blue with clouds painted on it, and we're decking the walls with a big tree decal and painted birdhouses. Originally, I had planned to lovingly make a quilt for her bed, but reality has sunk in...since I managed to create one single square in the past six months, I think we're purchasing the cute (and yes, probably vastly overpriced) bird bedding from Pottery Barn Kids (so far, we've picked up the crib sheet and blanket, but still need the quilt and the pillowcase). Beyond the crib, we're getting a storage desk that can double as a changing table for now, and a tall dresser. I hope she'll like it!

Customer Service Jedi Mind Tricks

Consider me the Obi Wan of managing customer service...I'm generally able to confuse the poor stormtroopers customer service reps into giving me what I want. But even I learned a thing or two from this article on Consumerist, which should make you a Force to be reckoned with.

Disaster

Today, my computer decided to "Sad Mac." Right after I downloaded all the Christmas pictures to my computer. So I lost not only photos that are irreplaceable, but I also lost several key interviews and a draft for a story I'm working on, many songs I downloaded from iTunes and didn't bother to stick on my iPod and a big project for a client that is mostly replaceable (though I lost several days' worth of work).

I've watched that Sex and the City where Carrie's laptop craps out multiple times. I bought the new Leopard OS so I could "Time Machine" my computer and easily back up. And just the other day, the computer prompted me to back up, as I hadn't in several days. So I really have no one to blame but myself. And those darned people at Apple, who apparently sold me a lemon. (My dear husband's computer, which is a hand-me-down iBook G4 that used to be my "business computer," runs infinitely better, faster and with fewer bugs than my much newer MacBook.) Tomorrow, I'll be praying that the computer gods at the local Mac store can retrieve my info and find my hard drive. And I'll be hoping that regardless of how much they salvage, they take pity on me and my Sad Mac, which is barely a year old and has already been in the shop 3 times for issues, and put us both out of our misery. I'm a great customer. I deserve better than this Sad Mac.