I’ve heard a few people lamenting about the possibility of a rainy Halloween.
Yeah, that would be a bummer. You know what else would be a bummer? If we get 10 1/2 feet of water in our house like we did after Hurricane Irene and have to move out again for 3 months.
Agh. We are stressing about Hurricane Sandy.
So we bought 50 sandbags. We drove two hours to get our hands on a generator. We bought tons of bottled water and batteries. We moved all our best candy to the top shelves.
What else could we do?!
We thought and thought and then realized we better be in costume.
Can you tell what we are?
Because we went to a Halloween party and people thought Rick was a…
1. pilgrim
2. scarecrow
3. candy corn.
WTF? He’s the Man with Yellow Hat. Don’t these people read to their children? In their defense, that yellow hat is a little too floppy and a bit pilgrimesque.
And I am obviously dressed as a sexy monkey.
In all seriousness, if you ever want to be really hot and not look at all alluring, I can totally loan you this Curious George costume.
I mean, once the storm is over. Because right now we are hoping Sandy is not going to mess with a monkey and man in a yellow hat.
I really have been feeling some anger towards candy corn this season and I don’t like it.
Because they are delicious. And if you don’t believe my commitment to this candy, just know that I once took the time to write an entire post about them. Or maybe I just couldn’t think of anything else to write about that day. But whatever. The point is – it’s a good candy that doesn’t deserve to be mocked.
So imagine my outrage when I went to a little kids show at my public library this week and the entertainer (let’s call her Rosana Banana)) starts singing this song, “I Don’t Like Candy Corn.” Here’s a sample of it on YouTube.
Now by the time Rosana Banana finishes this song, there are a few kids who dare to wimper, “I like candy corn.”
I said nothing and I regret it. I mean, if you aren’t going to speak up and defend one of your favorite candies then when are you going to speak up?!
I think I was a little distracted because the Trader Joe’s near me just expanded and decided to get rid of their coffee samples. They used to have a little table where you could pour a dixie cup worth of coffee and add some creamer and have yourself a little tasty treat.
Now it’s gone. Just gone. With no warning or anything. I never even had time to prepare myself. Apparently, it wasn’t paying off in coffee sales. But you know what Trader Joe - it was paying off in happiness. That little shot glass worth of coffee made for a more delightful trip to your store and I am tempted to start some kind of letter writing campaign to bring it back.
And you know when I say, “letter writing campaign,” I mean emails or text messages or maybe just psychic vibes.
So as you can see, due to my potential community organizing efforts on the Trader Joe’s front, I missed my opportunity to defend the beauty of candy corn.
I vow to never let it happen again.
Now Dots. Such a lame candy. Make fun of them all you want.
When I was first approached by Nevella to check out their sweeteners, I have to be honest, I read the email really quickly and thought Nutella was contacting me.
And of course, I was like, “Hell yeah!” Who doesn’t want some chocolatey Nutella love for free?!
And then once the sweeteners (Monk Fruit, Stevia and Sucralose) arrived at my door, I was like, “Ohhhh, I get it!” Luckily, I love me some taste tests so I was totally on board.
I decided the best way to check out these zero calorie and zero carbohydrate sweeteners was to try them in my coffee. But of course, with four kids, I didn’t have time to do this experiment until 8 at night so I will probably be up until 2 in the morning doing the P90X thanks to all the caffeine I just drank. I wonder if I should re-watch that Presidential foreign policy debate to bring me down.
My 8-year-old daughter generously volunteered to try the drinks. She once told told me that her babysitter Kira let her drink ice coffee when she was 4 (fantastic!) but I figured it might not be great to give my 2nd grader a caffeine jolt before tucking her in. As usual, my parenting skills are top notch.
So I set up my taste test…
How professional does that look?! Is staging taste tests a job because I’ll throw that skill on my LinkedIn profile right now.
The Monk Fruit(derived from an Asian fruit) and the Stevia(extracted form the Stevia plant that grows mainly in South America) were both pretty good. But the Sucralose(which is the main ingredient used in Splenda® brand products) was my favorite. It’s like almost 600 times sweeter than sugar (for real, it’s on their website) and one squirt made my coffee super sweet and yummy.
Mostly I liked the size of all three because you can throw one of these portable bottles in your bag and you always have it. You know, if you can find it in the bottom of your purse with the half eaten granola bar and hardened blue play-doh.
And also, when you get a chance send me some chocolate hazelnut spread. Because a girl can’t live on sweeteners alone.
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I took the Sweetness To Go Challenge using Nevella To Go. Take the Sweetness To Go Challenge yourself and click here to get your $1 off coupon!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Nevella. The opinions and text are all mine.
This weekend was sort of typical. You know, we went out to dinner on Saturday night and when we got back to our car, there were two guys hanging out outside a car right next to us.
It seemed a little odd because it was 11:30 at night in a dark abandoned parking lot. But I was like, hey, they are probably discussing their Stella & Dot business. I mean, the holiday line did just come out.
And then as we got into our car, you know the gold minivan with the big elementary school magnet on it but not the family decals on the back window because my god, those make me so crazy although I’m not sure why, we glanced into the car next to us.
And two people were having sex inside.
Okay.
I can’t really figure out why – in this near empty parking lot – they were right next to us. Because frankly, if I was going to have sex in a vehicle with undarkened windows while my two friends loitered nearby, I probably wouldn’t park right next to someone else.
Of course, I don’t have a lot of sex in cars so maybe I don’t know the etiquette.
As soon as we got in our car, I immediately locked the doors. Because you know how often a couple having sex in a car, jumps out of it and then tries to hijack a minivan.
Actually, if someone tried to hijack my minivan, I would so let them have it. I’d be like, “Hey, just give me one second to grab my iPod and the orange plastic flute in the backseat because my 2-year-old son is obsessed with it and then the rest of this dream mobile is yours. If I was feeling extra nice, I’d let them know that despite the fact that we just pulled 3 DVD’s out of the DVD player, one still seems to be stuck in there. Oh and there are ring pops in the glove compartment if they’re hungry.
And if they had robbers’ remorse (which who wouldn’t after stealing a minivan with cheese nips grounded into the carpet), I’d tell them not to bother trying to return it by pressing “Home” on the GPS because I already programmed it with the address of the PTO President who’s desperately looking for more volunteers for the school fair so good luck getting away without committing to running the spin art room.
But you know what? That couple in the car (aka hooker and a guy who pays for hookers) never got out and hijacked us.
Maybe they were waiting for a car with a family sticker.
P.S. If you have a family sticker, please don’t be mad at me. Now that’s I’ve made fun of them, I predict that I have approximately 43 days until I get one myself.
Every few weeks I have the following conversation with some well meaning person…
“I saw your husband with the twins the other day at fill-in-the-blank class,” he or she begins.
“Oh. That–”
“Oh my gosh. He’s so cute with them!”
“Yeah except –”
“He so hands on!”
“I know but–”
“In fact he was playing with a bunch of the children in the class. He’s like the pied piper!”
“Right but–”
“You’re so lucky he’s so amazing with the kids.”
And finally I get to finish my sentence.
“I know. But that’s not my husband. That’s MY DAD.”
“Oh. (silence) Well, he’s really good with the kids!”
People please stop thinking I’m married to my dad. It wigs me out plus I have a great husband who is my age! Okay, 10 months older but you can hardly tell. Sigh…
Catherine Zeta-Jones must have the same problem with her dad Michael Douglas.
Addendum:
My friend Smeredith suggested I buy this for my dad…
kelcey kintner
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