A beach is a beach by any other temperature (Monterey Trip - Part Two: 17 Mile Drive and Carmel)

Day two of our Monterey trip began with a late wake-up. Whoooah! Daisy slept 12 hours. We were floored. Well, actually, we stayed very nicely tucked up in our bed, thankyouverymuch, but we were very surprised. We haven't been in bed at 8am in a loooong time. Good timing Missy!

Since we had those free passes to the aquarium, we did head over there again. But first, we wanted breakfast and figured we'd stroll the adjacent Cannery Row until we hit the first restaurant serving eggs and bacon. We're big breakfast fans and we love trying new places when we're away.

And so we strolled.

And we strolled.

And we reached the end of Cannery Row.

No breakfast.

That's right. You read me correctly. Not a single one of all those yummy Cannery Row restaurants was serving breakfast. Given the number of other families who seemed to be coming to the same befuddled conclusion, its a major issue and missed opportunity by these establishments. Wow.

So, we ended up in a little bakery right across the street, that advertised "Breakfast Sandwiches" in their window. Turns out, it was a major SCORE. The sandwiches were delicious and you can see Daisy enjoying them on her blog here.

Still, miffed about the breakfast issue.

After the aquarium, Daisy took a well-deserved 90 minute nap back at the hotel room, while we took a break from chasing her around. Then, rested and ready-to-go again, we got in the car to "do" 17-Mile Drive.

Unfortunately, the weather was as gray as gray could be and so photos came out dreary to say the least. With a little bit of tweaky-tweaky here and there, however, these became my favorites:









Out the other side, we were in Carmel by the Sea, where we promptly hit the nearest bakery for cookies and coffee. The sunshine also decided to peek through as we walked up and down Ocean Avenue, the main shopping drag.











Oh, and there was this cool boot and shoe store. All the footwear was hand-embroidered with the most beautiful colors. I wouldn't wear any of it but the store sure looked great.





And then, despite the ever-looming marine-layer, twas to the beach we went. Daisy had been pointing at the ocean and white stuff from the car all afternoon, screaming "BEACH! BEACH!" and so we could not disappoint. Although, neither did she. She had the time of her life on the sand with her toys, although she got a little too close to the water at one point and they got washed-out to sea. You can blame Mama for paying more attention to her camera than the tide and Daddy for being engrossed in Daisy-play.








After getting wet and shivvering herself half-to-death, we wrapped her up in one of Mumma's sweaters (because, being great parents, we'd forgotten a towel) and shipped her back to the car where, thankfully, I had remembered a change of clothes.





The next morning we did find breakfast here



And so ended our quick getaway to the bay. Fun times.

The Great Weight-Loss Shame-Off

I am dieting again. (Pause to allow you to groan.)
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This time I've added a twist, however. I'm competing to my finish line (15lbs) with fellow blogger, Jess, of Dude and Sweetie.

Rules are as follows:

1. Picture of ourselves on the scale this week, on our blogs, at our starting weight
2. Goal is 15lbs
3. We're giving ourselves until the end of October
4. On November 1, we take another pic of ourselves on the scale and determine who is the winner. 
5. Person closest to 15lbs wins, unless we lose more. Basically, most loss wins.
6. Loser is subjected to a grungy, early-morning (or late night), no-make-up, no-hairdo, no touch-up, potentially double-chinned photo, at the time, place and location of our husbands' choice, which will be posted on our blog to shame us.

 So, shamefully, here I am.

I love that there is a "Caution" sticker between my feet. Exactly.

Yes, the last time I subjected you to my weekly weigh-ins, I had achieved 147lbs. So shame on me already for putting 5lbs back on.

And because I'm a little bit of a masochist, I plan to post my weigh-in photo every Tuesday, not just on November 1.

HOORAY FOR MARINE LAYER! (Monterey Trip - Part One: Aquarium)

At least when it came to our body temperature. While it was sweltering in the triple digits in Sacraghetto, Hubby and I took a road trip with Miss Daisy, out to the coast. Unfortunately, the gray skies didn't do much for my photos but oh well, guess I didn't have to deal with shadows!

I also give a big HOORAY for savings for this weekend. Not only did I manage to use up all my American Express rewards points to score a $308 savings on our hotel suite but we also scored free passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It just happened that I posted our destination on Facebook and one of my mommy friends, who moved to the Monterey area last year, asked us if we would like to use her season passes while we were there. WOULD WE!? Of course! Are you kidding me?

So we hooked up with Sarah (thank you, you lifesaver you) as soon as we got into town on Friday afternoon and were able to then use her passes that afternoon and again on Saturday morning. This, as it turns out, was a critical component in the overall success of our weekend because, instead of having to cram everything into one mega aquarium visit, we were able to break our tour into two toddler-sized chunks.

And did Miss Daisy like the aquarium? Did she EVER. (Apologies for the blurries - you know how dark it can be in an aquarium and sometimes there just isn't a camera setting to cover that.)



















Oh, hey, look, I was there too! Hubby took the camera on Day #2...



FISHIES, FISHIES EVERYWHERE BUT NOT A ONE TO EAT...





Aside from lots of fishies and other colorful aquatics, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is quite a stunning piece of architecture too. When you're not in the dark exhibits, the light in some places is just gorgeous. Unfortunately, chasing after a 17 month old doesn't offer a lot of opportunities to find the optimal camera setting, hence these are as good as I got...







In part two, we do 17 Mile Drive, Carmel by the Sea, and the beach. Stay tuned...

To see all the pics from our trip, just click here.

Legends in a Sacramento lunchbox

A little thing I didn't tell anyone - Hubby included - is that I recently nominated him for a special feature in a local parenting magazine, Kidaround. The editor, who I am connected to on Facebook via a mutual acquaintance, was calling for wives and moms to nominate their huzzies for the annual "Hot and Cool Dads" issue.

Of course, Hubby made it. Because, as we all know, he IS hot and cool and because I ever-so-eloquently promoted the heck out of him in my nomination email. (See article for what I wrote, almost verbatim. It's all true. Lucky me, huh?)

A local photographer came by the house a week or two ago to take his pic and he is featured on page 14, right below Sacramento's version of Eminem. (No contest there, in my opinion.)

By some funny coinkydink that illustrates just how small of a town Sacramento is, a fellow local mommy-blogger-photographer, Kim from "Yep, they are all mine", nominated her husband, Todd, who was featured a commendable three times in the mag. Further cow-town coinkidinkiness is that Kim is one of Hubby's sisters' good friends.

I mean, like, SERIOUSLY!? How awesome are we? We are legends in our own lunchbox around here lately. I'm integrating into Hollywood's teen vamp scene, Hubby has been featured as smokin' hot in a local mag, and we're "connected" to other local celebrities.

I can barely stand the excitement.

See the full issue of Kidaround magazine here. If you're local, you can pick up the magazine for free at many Sacramento retail establishments. And yes, we will sign it if you ask.

Wannabe

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you've no doubt been witness to my recent exultations about my newest twitter followers, @ErnestoRiley and @_erinheatherton. The first is a pseudonym for Matt Davis, who plays Alaric Salzman on The Vampire Diaries. The second is an actress and Victoria's Secret model, who presumably found me via Ernesto. (Find me at @MsRantyPants)

Despite being 35 and seriously too old for such things, I am unabashed to admit that I am quite giddy about being followed by two celebs. I mean, putting this in context: I'm a suburban working mom living in (groan) Sacraghetto; this is about as exciting as it gets these days. Long gone are my semi-glamorous stints on teen celebrity magazines in London and Los Angeles or managing special events in the OC. I'm all growed-up and responsible now, folks. (Gag.)

But yet, here I am with a direct line into the world of teen tv shows (and a VAMPIRE show at that!) via my twitter feed. Now, when I write something they SEE IT. That's right. People who are people (or vampires) and who know other people who are people (and maybe also vampires), are reading my daily drivel. It's just a little intoxicating. And paralyzing. I mean, surely they will eventually realize that my life is about as interesting and compelling as watching a dog shit in the park, and they will promptly unfollow me or, worse still, block me entirely, thus cutting me off from future notoriety in celeb circles. How does Hubby and me singing and dancing in the aisle of Trader Joe's to starve-off a toddler tantrum, compete with sucking fake blood out of a super hot dude or chick? I mean, it just doesn't.

Of course, my giddiness is completely nerdworthy. Deep down, like all 35-going-on-14 year olds, I harbor some thoroughly ridiculous notion that my tweets will be sooooooooo witty that they will connect me with talent agents in Hollywood who will make me famous. God knows exactly what for because I've turned out to be a jack of all trades and master of none in this life but, you know, this is my fantasy notion, I get to skim over the inconvenient details. And, it is without a doubt that, in this dream reality of mine, I will hob-nob with hot men who play vampires (I'm following @iansomerholder but I'm guessing he's busy because he hasn't joined the *rush* to follow me yet) and hide my face from TMZ as I duck out of some unmarked private club at 3am.

Ahem. Yes, Quite.

Alright, we all know I go to bed at 10pm. Like I said: inconvenient truths.

Undoubtedly, it is likely that Matt and Erin will read this blog (because I post links on twitter) and block me by morning.

In other news...


I have been finding a lot of other really cool mommies-who-blog-and-take-great-photos blogs. Apparently I am neither unique or trailblazing (there goes those twitter followers for sure this time). It seems there are almost literally millions of talented mommy writers and photographers who, through the powers of Social Networking, have become quite infamous in their own right. And yes, I'm sure late to the party on this one too.

As I find these cool sites, I'm adding them to my blogroll on the right but I will endeavor to talk about one or two of them on an occasional basis here. I like finding other great blogs through existing blogs I like and maybe you will too.

One of the new blogs I found is Dude and Sweetie. Jess, the writer of D&S, started following me on twitter too after I followed her (as you do... everyone who blogs Facebooks and tweets) and commented on one of my tweets about my burgeoning waistline. (Oh, there, that's it. Supermodel unfollowed me for sure.) Aaaanyway, she said she needed to lose some pounds also and so we sparred back and forth re: a possible competition, held accountable by our respective blogs, to lose 15lbs. We got stuck on the "stakes" and now she is sick and probably eating mashed potato with lots of butter to drown her sorrows, so we're on hold right now. Or maybe she wasn't serious? Hmmm... well.... anyway, I was. I love a little competition. So, if you do have any ideas about the stakes for winner or loser, please comment. Fun and funny and motivating would be my criteria.

Jess did suggest bare-ass photos on our blogs but, I think, maybe not. One of these days I may take my suburban mom status to the next level and join the PTA or something and I can just see some snotty-nosed soccer mom parading those photos around at a PTA meeting, to get me voted off. Plus, if Matt and Erin are still with me (and GOD FORBID Ian has become a fan too) that will definitely be the nail in my twitter coffin.

Daisys' Sacramento: Haggin Oaks Park

This weekend's Mummy-and-Daisy jaunt was to a park in Rancho Cordova, not far from where we live. Despite not having a stellar reputation as a residential city, RC has a surprising number of large and lovely parks. It also has a great location, hugging the American River and several miles of it's bike trails, but that's another adventure for another time.



It was on the awesome new blog I found, Sacramento Sidetracks, that I learned about the Petting Barn and Steam Train at Haggin Oaks Park. The Barn is open throughout the summer on weekends and certain weekdays and is run by a local Girl Guide troupe. The Steam Train rides are part of the Sacramento Valley Live Steamers Railroad Museum.



Sadly, the trains only run on certain weekends and this wasn't one of them, so we contented ourselves with petting donkeys and bunnies, being frightened by jumping froggies and gobbling turkeys, and getting eyed-up by a very wiley looking goose.















And then, after almost drowning in the lake and being hit in the head by a flying baseball, we head back to the car, via a couple of side-trips to grab, throw, and eat some dirt. This was, after all, a park visit and wouldn't have been complete without it.






You can see all the pics by clicking here.

Or, to learn more about Daisy's "fun" weekend, click here.

A Photo A Day - The colors of childhood

Since becoming more serious about this whole photography thing, I find myself noticing more visual details in my everyday life. It's amazing how, all of a sudden, you go from looking at a pile of boring-ole dishes, to framing it from the camera's eye, analyzing light, color, and contrast. You know, it actually makes ordinary life that much more interesting. I'm loving every minute of it!

Which is how I came to stop myself in the middle of doing dishes this afternoon to grab my camera and shoot these fun, colorful shots. Kids' stuff is so full of color. I can't imagine the day when my life goes back to boring adult shades again. Although, of course, I'll probably get a few more dishes done. ;o)

Fun Friday Find

Me love happy summer songs.

Bug Necrophilia

Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up.

Tonight was the second night in my two-night Composition photography class, the night where we all share our homework with the other students and teachers. Wasn't too impressed with this class, overall... maybe it's the teacher (scattered), maybe it was her lesson plan (lacking interactivity) but, anyway, I did learn some stuff, just not a complete loss.

One of the students in the class was a 60-something guy who is a convert to digital photography from film. Ironically, he's in a digital photography class but he pretty much treats his digital camera as if it isn't digital. He never connects it to his computer, has no idea how to attach digital photos to an email, and the idea of post-editing in Photoshop or Lightroom just blows his mind. Such is his technical ineptitude that he shared his digitally taken photos as a stack of 5x7 prints that he printed by connecting his memory card directly to his home HP printer. Overall, he was a real distraction in the class, constantly interrupting to yap about some piece of random information or off-hand terminology that had nothing to do with the subject at hand but was aimed to demonstrate his own *knowledge* of photographic techniques.

However, he went from plain annoying to plain weird this evening, as he shared his "homework". I place homework in quotations here because he actually didn't do it, he just went back through pictures he took in the past and brought them in - all 200 or so of them and most of them of his golden retriever through various stages of puppy-hood: doggie's feet, doggie's nose, doggie sleeping, doggie swimming, doggie playing ball, doggie eating... you get the picture and I am digressing.

Aaaaanyway, the reason for this post is because, in amongst the snooze-worthy doggie photos, were some truly awesome macro photos of bugs and insects. Super close-up pics of wolf spiders and bees and praying mantises (manti?), with amazing close-up details of beady eyes and furry legs. I don't like bugs but I have to say I couldn't take my eyes off these shots, they were so cool. So, we got to talking about how the heck he managed to capture these creatures with so much crystal clarity. I mean, bees fly, spiders dart, and praying mantis heads tend to turn around in circles and all of them don't particularly respond well to having a 100mm camera lens shoved in their general direction. Yet, there was not a single motion blur, not a little out-of-focus hair. Given that this guy is an amateur and not an award-winning photographer from National Geographic, we all wanted to know:  how the heck did he do it?


The answer was that the bugs were not alive. Fair enough you say, the dude it taking pics of random dead bugs. Ahhhhhhhhh but you're missing the vital, creepy detail, folks: these were not randomly expired creatures. The guy was zapping them with his electronic bug swatter, killing them dead, and them posing them optimally on leaves, in flower petals etc... and then taking his sweet time to get the perfect shot, with the perfect "still life" model. That's right, he was killing the creatures for the sole purpose of taking pictures of them.

Jeez. Some folks have way to much time on their hands, don't they? And, also, of course, WTF!?

Reaping those rewards, baby!

Today I booked our Labor Day weekend getaway to Monterey. Daisy is a big fan of fishies and so we want to take her to the aquarium. Plus, as you probably all know by now, I need out of dodge... bad.

If you follow this blog or my Facebook posts regularly, you also know how *not fond* I am of paying thousands of dollars for a weekend break in the U.S. I generally think it's a colossal waste of money, especially when you realize you could go away for an all-inclusive weekend to Mexico or the Caribbean for almost the same amount of money. It irks me no end to see those dollars disappear out of my account for what amounts to a hectic to-and-fro break to somewhere where there are still Home Depots, Dennys, and Starbucks lining every freeway. When I say "vacation" I mean "get me the hell out of this country and to somewhere completely new and different". Nuff said.

Which is why I was ever-so proud of myself for realizing that I had 41,000 American Express Rewards Points I could use to offset the cost of our two-night break. (And please, nobody do the calculations - I don't need or want to know how much I had to spend to get those. You'll spoil my buzz.)

41,000 points got me a $308 discount toward our hotel in Pacific Grove. Albeit, it's a HoJo but we're only going for two nights and needed a 2-bedroom suite for our own sanity (you fellow parents know what I'm taking about here - whispering in bed to your husband at 8pm on vacation is a real downer.)

Anyway, it took the sting out of the whole local break thing.


Next stop is my 103,000 Virgin Atlantic Frequent Flyer Miles, which are set to expire in the next month if I don't get off my lazy butt and book a trip back to Blighty next year. It took me 15 years of back-and-forth transatlantic flying to earn those suckers and I'll be damned if I'm going to let them float off into the sunset, unused. Stay tuned for the grand British vacation plans for 2011!