When I am away from home for work, I’ve noticed that I fall into the same routines and rituals each time, regardless of what city I’m in.

1. Indulge in a bath.

Actual Instagram shot of my feet (creepy?)

I don’t have time for them at home, plus our tub doesn’t seem to… keep all the water inside (it slowly drains out). Filling a giant tub with hot water and some suds, and cracking open a great book on my Kindle is one of my top travel rituals when staying at a hotel for work.

2. Order room service. Honestly sometimes after a long travel day, or after working an event all day, I just don’t feel like going out for food. I LOVE room service. And I pretty much always get carded for whatever drink I order, since I’m usually in PJ pants and my college hoodie. Haha!

3. Buy a People Magazine for the flight. This is my travel KEY. I love People, but don’t splurge on it normally. For traveling though, it helps pass the time. And I love the Puzzler!

4. Find all the great drinks either at the hotel, or nearby. For example – this Garden of Eden Gimlet seen below:

Available only at bin480 in San Francisco

This is quite possibly my most favorite drink EVER. It’s made with Charbay Green Tea Vodka, basil and fresh lime juice. I’m dying to recreate it at home! I order it every time I am in San Francisco.

5. Bring my travel pillow. You know one of those donut looking ones you can buy at the airport? Yeah – it took me about 3 months of straight traveling almost every week or so to finally cave in and buy one. Totally worth it on long flights!

6. And last, but certainly not least, watch any and all Law and Order: SVU marathons.

I just HAVE to watch when it’s on!

Do you have any rituals when traveling?

I’m also sharing this recipe as part of the 20SB Recipe Index!

Ingredients
- 8 baking potatoes, washed
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 sticks salted butter
- 1 cup bacon crumbles
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup Cheddar or Jack cheese (or a mix of both), plus more for topping
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 2 teaspoons seasoned salt (I didn’t have, so I used creole seasoning)
- 3 green onions, sliced
- Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Place the potatoes on a baking sheet. Rub them with the canola oil and bake for 45 minutes, making sure they’re sufficiently cooked through. (The skin should feel a little crispy.)

3. Slice the butter into pats. Place in a large mixing bowl and add the bacon bits and sour cream. Remove the potatoes from the oven. Lower the heat to 300 degrees F.

4. With a sharp knife, cut each potato in half lengthwise. Scrape out the insides into the mixing bowl, being careful not to tear the shell. Leave a small rim of potato intact for support. Lay the hollowed out potato shells on a baking sheet.

5. Smash the potatoes into the butter, bacon and sour cream. Add the cheese, milk, seasoned salt, green onions and black pepper to taste and mix together well. (IMPORTANT: If you plan to freeze the twice-baked potatoes, do NOT add the green onions.)

6. Fill the potato shells with the filling. I like to fill the shells so they look abundant and heaping. Top each potato with a little more grated cheese and pop ‘em in the oven until the potato is warmed through, 15 to 20 minutes.

Try not to die of happiness as you’re cramming these into your facehole. And maybe counteract all the delicious, fatty calories with a salad or something!

Learning about the Wii U… and Sadie’ photobombing.

Two awesome guys came to our house loaded with food and other goodies for everyone, and explained all the fun features of the Wii U, and then we got down to business! I mean gaming!

We played a whole bunch of Nintendo Land games, including my two favorites Luigi’s Ghost Mansion and Mario Chase. Luigi’s Ghost Mansion is hysterical. The player holding the game pad is the ghost, and all other players (up to four) are trying to find the ghost with flashlights before it finds them. Only the ghost can see in the room though, everyone else is in the dark! It’s so funny watching the other players try to run around with flashlights trying to find you (as the ghost) and you know where they are while they are clueless! And in  Mario Chase, everyone chases Mario through a maze of a world and tries to tackle him before time is up. Everyone was yelling and cracking up while playing both games. They’re super competitive! (Also, if you haven’t played Animal Crossing Sweet Day, that shizz is hilarious.)

Oh the excitement!

The other favorite was Sing Party. Now, I don’t sing in public – EVER. But I had a great time watching Dave and our other friends sing their hearts out and try to match the amazing dance moves on the screen.

Dave busting a move. Or something.

The only downside of the Wii U is that it does not come with the MotionPlus adapters, which is a little annoying considering some of the games in Nintendo Land require it to play. You can get them for pretty cheap, but still.

A few weeks after my Wii U party, I got the awesome surprise of LEGO City: Undercover at my doorstep.

I am now addicted to this game. First I had to learn how to drive, because I could not steer these little LEGO cars around AT ALL, but I’m getting better at it and having so much fun! Poor Dave has barely been able to play his video games because I’m playing this ALL THE TIME.

The Wii U has become my favorite gaming system. It’s so interactive, and the game pad makes it so much more fun!

Yay Wii U party!!

*The Disclaimer – I received the Wii U, games, and food and other items for my party as a gift from Nintendo and Brand About Town because for some reason or another, they seem to like me. All of the opinions written here are my own.

(Party photos courtesy of Brand About Town and Nintendo. LEGO City: Undercover image source here.)

Doron Weber’s son Damon was born with a congenital heart defect, which was corrected as an infant. Since then, he’s led a relatively normal life, despite a slower growth than the teenage friends he surrounds himself with. Actually, let’s rephrase. This kid led an extraordinary life regardless of his limitations. He landed a bit acting part on Deadwood, had tons of friends, was a great mentor and brother to his two younger siblings, and was all in all a positive kid, despite all.

Sadly, things start to go downhill for Damon after the weeks of 9/11 -

Damon has developed a serious and poorly understood medical condition that may require a heart transplant for survival. His body is leaking protein, and drastic moves must be made—quickly.

Doron’s memoir of his eldest son’s slow demise is a hard one to read. The good moments and medical bounce backs make you high, and the lows… they kick you right back down again. Some parents may not be able to read this book, to be honest. I really enjoyed the book though, partly due to Weber’s writing style and ease in which he describes his son’s medical condition and treatments, but without making the book feel like you need a medical dictionary next to you to understand what he’s talking about. The book is also interspersed with blurbs from Damon’s blog, which even with glaring grammatical errors, text message type spelling and littering of curse words add another dimension to the story. It’s one thing for the parent to tell the story of their child, but a completely different experience hearing it from the child themselves. Or in this case, teenager with a major zest for life, who unfortunately does not have all the time he deserves.

It’s also hard to stomach the political drama and inadequacies of the health system that the Weber’s dealt with. They were insanely fortunate to have a great network of doctors and experts at their fingertips, but in the end, it really didn’t help as much as it could have, or ultimately should have.

All in all a great read – just keep the Kleenex nearby.
Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book for free in return for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

However – it was a lot of fun. We had a ton of people over in our backyard, and thankfully the weather held up otherwise we would have postponed the party to another day. With almost 40 people invited, there was no way everyone would be in our house!

The theme was Little Miss Sunshine. You know, those little books we all had when we were little?

Why that for a 1st birthday party theme? Why not! Sadie isn’t in to anything in particular, unless you count her obsession with stuffed animals as something, and shes always a happy, smiley little girl, so that’s what I went with. Let’s also use the term “theme” loosely, because beyond a matching color scheme, I didn’t really do anything else around the book or character.

The invitation:

I always have grand plans to make an invitation with Tiny Prints or one of those websites, but the prices make me sick. I went with Etsy seller Made With Love instead and ordered a digital file of the invitation, which my BFF Allison printed for me at a super reasonable price. And the seller Jessica is super easy to work with – I’d order from her again in a heartbeat!

We decorated the yard with yellow and orange streamers, matching balloons and tablecloths, and that was pretty much the extent of the theme haha. My sister-in-law Adrienne was amazing and made up a bunch of trays of food for us, and we barbecued everything else.

I did create two things (the night before the party, and the morning of, with the help of my friend Tanja!)

Sadie’s month to month photo wall

Amazing to see how she’s changed over the year! Sniff, sniff.

The Little Miss Sunshine book, and a book I made of all the blog posts I wrote for each of Sadie’s monthly updates.

For the book, I just printed out all the blog posts using FireShot and stuck them in some sheet protectors, binding the whole thing with ribbon and throwing in some fancy scrapbooking paper and letting from my scrapbooking days.

And of course, here is the birthday girl herself!

What a diva!

She LOVES those sunglasses, a gift from Tanja and Ryan.

And a collage of photos!

Sadie’s cake came from Sugar Rush, a local bakery. (The owners/bakers were featured on Cupcake Wars!) Let’s not discuss how I was getting majorly teary-eyed while everyone was singing “Happy Birthday” to my baby toddler. EMO-TIONAL.

The main cake was chocolate and vanilla layered cake, with cannoli cream filling (mmmmmm) and whip cream frosting. It was amazing. Sadie had her own little smash cake, and at first she was a little cautious and weary, but by the end, she was totally into the chocolate.

Wait, what? I can put my first right in there? Are you sure Mom?

Ohhh… this is good…

Do I have something on my face?

CHOCOLATE HANDS!

Needless to say I had to dunk my child in the tub after her fun with the cake. I also had a super cute birthday hat made for Sadie from Etsy seller Sunshine Daydream Creations… and in my crazed state during the party, forgot to put it on her until much later in the day. FAIL. But here are some cute iPhone pictures of her with the hat.

Tried to get one good picture of the three of us without her pacifier… sadly this was the best, and neither of us are looking at the camera! Haha.

Happy family!

While for me, it was a very overwhelming, hectic day, it was a great party for my little girl. She had a blast, and fell asleep in my arms by 7pm! (She also only had one nap, so that probably helped.) Now her 2nd birthday? That’ll be a very, VERY small affair.

All the photos from her birthday (until my camera died) are here.

I had my two remaining wisdom teeth removed on Friday. The other two I had removed about four years ago, in the midst of a crazy work schedule with a ton of traveling, and an immense amount of pain. AND the sadist oral surgeon I went to didn’t use laughing gas or anesthesia, JUST NOVOCAINE.

Kill me me now. (I mean then.)

I am HORRIBLE with pain. The worst. I cry when I get a shot (well, before I went through childbirth at least. Now it all seems kind of lame in comparison). So needless to say, back then, the wisdom teeth removal process was a horrific one.

Fast forward to now, when I have to have the other two removed. This time at least I wasn’t in pain, since I decided to do it proactively instead of when I was reeling from the pain. AND my new best friend of an oral surgeon offered me anesthesia!

BFF FOR LIFE!!!!

Anydrugs, I went in on Friday and spent most of the day in a lovely post-anesthesia haze. (Minus the random bouts of nausea.) However… half of my chin and bottom lip are numb. And they’re still numb today, four days later.

Apparently my bottom wisdom tooth was like, the textbook definition of the worst impacted wisdom tooth you can have. All other wisdom teeth either look up to it in reverence, or cower before it in feat. And to top it off, my tooth’s roots were super long, and wrapped around my nerve like pincers. The doctor showed me the tooth too, but I was in such a drug daze post-surgery that I barely remember it, except for the fact that it was a looooooong tooth.

So now, because of the trauma to my nerve, I can’t feel the right side of my chin and bottom lip. It’s been very weird to eat, drink, or basically try to do anything with my mouth on that side. Trying to give Sadie a kiss? Is hilarious. Eating anything on the right side? Forget about it. Attempting to put on lip gloss this morning? HAHAHAHA. I’m surprised it didn’t wind up all over my face. But not to worry, I’m on a steroid regimine to jump start the feeling back into my face, and I’m happy to say its working. But you know what sucks? Having to deal with your chin feeling super itchy, because your nerve endings are tingling (or something), and not being able to relieve it because SCRATCHING DOES NOTHING since you CAN’T FEEL YOUR CHIN!!!!!!

GAHHHH!

(Oral surgery problems.)

(At least it’s not permanent!)

Have any oral surgery woes?

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