Cupcakes. They’re awesome, right?
Right!
And that’s why gourmet cupcake shops are popping up all over the place, even in a down economy.
I must confess, however, that we have several right here in my city and I’ve never been to any of them.
But last week when I was presented with an opportunity to order something, on the house, from Red Envelope, a retailer I happen to really like, can you guess what I selected?
I recently received and read a review copy of Laughing at Wall Street by Chris Camillo. I was intrigued by the subtitle of the book, “How I Beat the Pros at Investing (by Reading Tabloids, Shopping at the Mall, and Connecting on Facebook) and How You Can, Too”
I’m a sucker for “rags to riches” and “ordinary Joe makes a million bucks” stories and found Laughing at Wall Street fascinating.
Basically, Camillo, who is not stockbroker, financial analyst, or hedge fund manager, shares his secrets for identifying trends in everyday life via Facebook, at the mall and by talking to people. Camillo also covers his methods for researching these trends and using the information to make investments in things before the big timers on Wall Street catch on.
So, I took my daughter with me to see Duran Duran a few nights ago. Though she’s eleven and had no idea who they are, she was still excited at the prospect of going to a concert for the first time.
We got dressed in hip, understated shades of black and gray while my husband and son were at Cub Scouts and headed across the bridge to Clearwater. While driving, I couldn’t help but think of how many other times, back in my youth, where I’d been with friends in a car on the way to a concert; blaring the music of the night, speeding, drinking and behaving like dogs let off a chain. We were very irresponsible *nods solemnly*
This, on the other hand, is soooo very tame, I thought, as we talked about school, cheerleading and the boy my daughter has a crush on. If there was ever any doubt before, I am most definitely a mom now.
We pulled into the venue and though I planned on valet parking I’d apparently forgotten during the wild and crazy ride there to get cash. I sighed inwardly as the valet guy informed me the ATM was out of order and pulled away. We ended up circling the totally full parking lots 8,000 times looking for a non-existent parking space until I finally settled on a solidly illegal spot in front of some dumpsters while praying to the parking gods that I wouldn’t get towed.
We got our complimentary tickets from the Will Call window, graciously provided by Duran Social, and headed inside. I looked around and it occurred to me that my daughter would probably be one of the only kids there and this was confirmed by the kindly senior citizen taking tickets at the door.
I turned to her once we were inside and said “Prepare to be surrounded by a lot of people wayyyy older than you.”
We finally found our awesome seats, which were in the 14th row from the stage, dead center. Unfortunately, because we were held up with the parking debacle, we missed Neon Trees, which I knew my daughter would enjoy. No matter, though, because after sitting in said awesome seats for about 20 minutes, the lights came down, the smoke machines started spewing and HOLY CRAP!!! THERE THEY WERE!!! THE BAND I CRUSHED ON SO HARD WHEN I WAS 14!!!
We stood up from our cushy, velvety seats and I instantly started taking terrible pictures and video with my iPhone. I just couldn’t help myself because 14 rows away from me was ¡¡¡JOHN TAYLOR!!! whom I still regard as one of the hottest men in music.
Singer Simon Le Bon charmed the crowd with some between-song chatter and let me tell you…the man can still belt them out. For someone who had throat problems earlier in the month, he sounded fantastic. He’s also he’s still got those masterful lead singer moves that shout I’M A SEXY ROCKSTAR! OH YEAH! OH YEAH!
They played old faves like Planet Earth, Careless Memories and Hungry Like the Wolf, interspersed with newer hits like Ordinary World and peppered the whole show with some solid new material.
Just before they played Hungry Like the Wolf, John Taylor made a remark to the crowd about seeing a lot of lions and tigers AND COUGARS in the audience and though that line was probably artfully crafted to acknowledge that the crowd was mostly women 40 and up, the audience still responded gleefully, as did I, because when John Taylor talks, I’m listening. Also swooning a little.
While watching drunk, sweaty gen-Xers doing the bootygrind trio thing (MY EYES!! Please poke them out!!!) and a couple that, much to my daughter’s extreme 11 year old irritation, wouldn’t stop making out for the duration of the show, it occurred to me that this was still SO MUCH BETTER than when I saw Duran Duran at a mammoth stadium show in 10th grade.
In all, they played about 12-14 songs, which just long enough for me and my up-at-6:30am-every-damn-day-self. For the encore, in which they played Wild Boys and the beloved Rio, John Taylor ditched his boxy white 80′s jacket and looked scorching in a black wifebeater and black pants. Unfortunately, my phone had died and I couldn’t take a picture. *sadface*
Nonetheless, it was a super fabulous show and I’m SO glad I went. My daughter and I both had a great time.
Below is my tiny, tiny video which is tiny, tiny because in my videotaping excitement, I forgot to turn the phone sideways. Durrrr. I recommend clicking the little icon with the four arrows so you can see it full-screen.
My son is 6 years old and while he is exceedingly bright (no, really, he is) he was a late talker (like Einstein) and when he did speak, it was hard to understand him because he had issues with numerous sounds. After three years of speech therapy in the public school system, his speech is much, much more clear but…it could be better.
He’s never received one-on-one speech therapy because with one therapist and a lot of kids who need help, doing speech therapy in a group is the only way to see all of them every week. Given those circumstances, his progress has been more than satisfactory. But given his age, I really want to see quicker progress. I don’t want him to be known as the kid who talks funny—children can be cruel even in first grade.
I was recently approached by the folks at Speech Buddies to see if I would be interested in trying out their product. Since Speech Buddies is a product that helps kids with speech disorders and I have a child with more than one speech impediment, I immediately said yes.
The Speech Buddy tools are plastic instruments that are placed in the mouth and enable children to pronounce the correct sound immediately by training proper tongue placement. Correct pronunciation with Speech Buddy leads to correct pronunciation without Speech Buddy. The kit comes with five instruments that help kids with the five most common problem sounds: R. L CH, SH, S
When the Speech Buddies kit arrived in a tidy metal case, I was excited to try it out. I waited for a day when we had time and quiet and after reading the instructions, I started working with my son using the S tool.
After going over the process with him and explaining that he needed to lightly touch the target point on the instrument with his tongue while saying the words I asked him to say, we got started. I put the instrument in it’s proper position (this was easy thanks to little guides that help it rest in the center of his two front teeth).
He was fidgety and at first it was hard to keep the instrument in place but after a minute, he settled down and lo and behold, he started correctly saying the words I asked him to say.
We did about 20 words and then I removed the instrument and asked him to try and put his tongue where he had it with the S instrument in his mouth. With gentle reminding, he was able to say almost all the S words correctly.
We then moved on to the R instrument and had the same success.
I’ve continued working with him using Speech Buddies and reminding him when we’re not using Speech Buddies to put his tongue in the proper spot and I’m really impressed at his progress. At this point, he knows where to put his tongue to say his problem sounds of S and R correctly and we’re working on breaking a lifelong habit of incorrect positioning.
I can honestly say that using Speech Buddies has sped up this process enormously and has truly helped him to understand where his tongue needs to go. When I hear him saying his R’s and S’s correctly, which he does much of the time, I know we are almost there and feel confident that this will be his last year in speech therapy.
You can order Speech Buddies directly from their web site and you don’t have to buy the whole kit. You can just order the instruments for the sounds you want to work on with your child.
Speech Buddies has kindly provided me with a discount code for IzzyMom readers—to receive a $15 discount off any order, please use code “sb70285“
Last Thursday, I drove to Orlando, which is about an hour north of me. I knew while I was there I’d be going to Seaworld, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove on a sponsored press junket but that’s all I really knew. Honestly, I figured we’d ride the rides, see the animals and do all the things you normally do on such a trip.
I was wrong.
We did do those things but even more so, I spent time getting an education…
Without knowing all the facts, it’s easy to assume that a place like Seaworld keeps all these cool animals, makes them entertain us and gets rich off of them.
The fact is, Seaworld does some wonderful things for animals—one of them being treating injured animals from the wild.
Thousands of manatees, dolphins, seabirds, turtles and more are brought to Seaworld each year and they use their own resources and incredibly knowledgeable staff to nurse them back to health and then release them back into their habitat.
If they’re injured in such a way that they can’t be returned to the wild, they sometimes stay at Seaworld or are placed somewhere in which they can continue to live as normal a life as possible.
Seaworld does this because they have the staff and facilities available but also because, from my observations, they truly do care about animals.
I also learned about the training methods they use for all their animals.
I’m one of those people who likes the idea of cooking more than I like the actual execution of it, which is to say…I do it somewhat begrudgingly. My husband, who I suspect is just happy to have something to eat, insists that I’m actually not a bad cook and everything I cook is awesome. God bless him for his ability to embellish…
The fact is I’m not a fancy foodie type AT ALL—I enjoy occasionally straying over to Thai or Indian but primarily, I like comfort foods, casseroles, sandwiches and things that are not terribly time consuming to prepare.
Enter Potluck Favorites, a recipe bookazine that recently appeared in the grocery line. I’d looked at it and was intrigued by the variety of yummy comfort foods so when I was offered a review copy of the same, I of course said “Yes, please” because I already knew it had some recipes in which I was interested.
As someone who has taken very few trips with their children and none of any note, I found Pins on a Map to be thoroughly engaging.
Author David Boesch’s detailed retelling of how his family (children ages 7, 10 and 13), meticulously planned and executed their yearlong travel odyssey was not only inspiring and envy-inducing but also very informative.
Boesch and his wife considered things that would never have occurred to me and their respect for safety and travel rules is something that I will always keep in mind if we ever manage to get off this limestone rock.
I appreciated the personal and sometimes humorous feeling of the book and as a mom, even with our limited travel experiences, I could relate to all the ups and downs of parenting on the go. These details made this book much more interesting and compelling than some generic, impersonal guide of family travel do’s and don’ts.
Most of all, however, I loved how a yearlong travel adventure across 6 continents and 17 countries changed the perspectives of the entire family.
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