RT @storpappa: Yesterday was the anniversary of my 1st date w/ @beautygirlsmom ; E ticket ride everyday
Granuaile steak and the grill
Granuaile asks every day “When is Daddy going to start cooking steak tonight?” This is hardly a child who knows her Daddy is retired on disability and her Mom going back to school to supplement our changes in lifestyle – especially the upcoming loss off the wonderful health insurance we have had for 13 years through Microsoft.
She just knows five things about dinner:
Steak or anything else grilled means more play time outside
Pizza means Daddy is trying to set the house on fire AGAIN
Pasta means Daddy cooks on the stove (okay, it means Mommy cooks on the stove, but she lets Daddy stir the pasta so he doesn’t set the house on fire AGAIN)
Swooshee (or Sushi, for those of you who have yet to purchase your Rosetta Stone – Learn to Speak “Granuaile” version) is eaten on the living room floor
And the doorbell means the deliveryman is here so Daddy doesn’t set the house on fire AGAIN
How awesome to be a little kid again?
I need 100 comments on my skir…
I need 100 comments on my skirt post http://tinyurl.com/24um3tf & I’ll get skirt $$! What’s in it for you? Chance at a $20 Starbucks card!
Slipping out of the Mom Jeans and Looking for a Mom Skirt
I am not a skirt/dress person. My view of the fashion kingdom has always been to keep a supply of easy to put on, no muss, no fuss articles of clothing that I could grab, slide on, and run out in.
Enter the husband. Thanks to my summer tummy tuck, he seems to think I’m looking pretty good, and women who look pretty good have a whole different level of fashion expectations. He’s like to see me in some casual skirts or dresses to wear this winter while he thinks I have nothing better to do than sit and have him admire the new figure. Thats his view on the world. Now for the reality.
I need skirts and dresses that are casual, comfortable, not frumpy, and give me a more polished look. I don’t want anything sleeveless, because I freeze. I’m not a huge fan of stockings, because, again, I freeze, so ideally, I’d like to do tights. And just what kind of shoes am I supposed to wear? I don’t like boots with short skirts, and you can’t really do heels well with tights. What time is my appointment to be on What Not To Wear?
In doing extensive skirt/dress research, I did find a few things.
Don’t wear baggy – No kidding? Did I lose 150 pounds and go through all this surgery to wear baggy? I think not.
Pleats Please? – Ummm, no, you big fat arse. I may have lost all that weight, but I still carry about 30 pounds too much, and pleats and gathers on a skirt just add poundage. Unless you’ve been on the Lara Flynn Boyle diet lately, skip them entirely. So now I know what I looked like all summer long – enormous, wearing pencil skirts day after day.
Remember the big fat arse comment? – Yeah, I’m talking to me. No light colors on the bottom – especially if you are wearing dark on top. Dark on the bottom in slimming; light on the bottom gives you bubble butt. Nobody looks good in bubble butt.
The length of your skirt should not be determined by how desperately you want to look like Tina Turner. Face it, sister, you don’t look like Tina Turner. The woman is smokin’ in her almost 70 year old skin, and she can rock the mini skirt. The worse your legs look, the longer your skirt should be. That means I should only wear skirts with a cathedral train. At least that’s how I interpret this rule.
So which skirts will look okay on me?
A-Line seems to be the skirt for everyone – even my big old butt. They are fitted at the top, but then they get a bit wider as they go down, to accommodate those areas of my body that have not had the benefit of the work of the fabulous Dr. Veitia.
Wrap skirts are another style that seems like it would flatter every figure. Are there winter wrap skirts? And what shoes do you wear with them?
Straight skirts, now that I don’t have that hanging tummy, seem like they might work as well, but I’ve seen longer straight skirts. I don’t think it’s a look I can carry, and I always think bag lady when I see them. Seriously.
I still have kind of wide hips, but I’m not sure I know the difference between a pencil skirt and a straight skirt. Anyone want to enlighten me?
I like the look of a flared skirt, but for some reason, I just always think they’re either for MUCH younger people or dancers.
So, who wants in on the skirt discussion? Help a sister out, will you?
Via Napoli – A Gastric Bypass Restaurant Review
On our first night in Orlando, some of the Moms from the Walt Disney World Moms Panel had decided to do a quick meet up at Via Napoli. It was all 2009 Moms, and we figured with all the events of the weekend that were planned, it would be one of the few times we’d get a chance to catch up with each other.
As you know if you’ve ever made reservations for a large party at Walt Disney World, they do not guarantee you will be seated at the same table. In our case, they gave us 4 tables, but they separated the tables so that there were 2 tables pushed together, a space, then another 2 tables pushed together. This made for 2 very distinct parties at dinner, even though we were all one group. It was virtually impossible for those of us at one table to co-mingle with those people seated at the other table, even though they were right next to each other.
We all placed our orders at the same time – some people ordered pasta dishes, some ordered pizzas to share, and salads and appetizers were ordered. Then food began coming out in all sorts of weird sequence. We got our fried calamari appetizer at the same time that the folks at the other table got their salad. We also ordered salad, but our salad was delivered to the other table, and because it was assumed it came with the meal, the other table enjoyed the salad. Eventually, a salad was brought to our table, at the same time that some (but not all) of the pasta dishes began to arrive. Finally, when everyone was finished eating – except for those of us that ordered pizza – we started asking about the pizza. Eventually, it was brought to the table, but by then, the meal had already gone into it’s second hour, and the part of our party that had already eaten was ready to head out to get some sleep for their big race the next morning. This was definitely not a meal conducive to enjoyable conversation, nor did it allow us all to eat together.
Okay, so how’s the food?
The fried calamari, as it was on my first visit, is delicious. You’ll know if you’ve had gastric bypass surgery that some calamari can be overcooked to the point that you can’t swallow it, but this is not the case here. The calamari is delicately breaded, fried to a crisp outside, not chewy inside perfection, and served with a very good (not great, but very good) marinara sauce in which you can dip these delicious morsels.
The salad is good, not overly dressed, but again, nothing special. If you want the family style salad, it adds $4 per person to your bill, but it does make a nice complement to the pizza.
And the pizza! That’s what you’ll come here for, after all! You will find other pasta dishes, but if you want a true taste of Italy, it is here, in the pizza.
The wood fired pizza ovens are a sight to behold, and you might want to run in even if you don’t have a reservation just to view them – they are wonderful! But they pale in comparison to the expertly prepared, authentically Italian pizza that comes from them.
The pizza margherita, which we ordered specifically for the kids, has a thin crust, not chewy and dense, so it makes it a very easy crust for many gastric bypass patients to enjoy. The sauce is so fresh, it absolutely pops – you can smell the tomatoes almost as if you were chopping them at home yourself. The mozzarella cheese isn’t shredded, so each bite offers a nice mouthful of fresh mozzarella. And the added bonus of fresh basil just makes this one of the best pizzas I’ve had since I was in Naples (Italy, not Florida). To paraphrase Paula Deen, this pizza is so good, it will make you want to slap your Mama Mia!
The other pizza we tried was the Pizza Piccante. I worried a little about this pizza, because sausage can be a tough item to get into a gastrically altered tummy, but this was perfect! It wasn’t terribly fatty, and I found no hard, gristly pieces in the sausage. It was spicy, but not too spicy, and in small enough chunks that it didn’t overpower the freshness of the other ingredients. The broccoli rabe on top of the pizza was well cooked, although I think I would have liked to see a little less of the bitter green on top of the pizza. It was a delicious addition, but the bottoms of the stalks are a bit denser and were not as tender to eat, so more than a bite of them on the pizza made it hard for me to enjoy. I’d recommend the pizza whole heartedly, but for the gastric bypass patient, I’d ask them to go light on the broccoli rabe.
Overall, this is an excellent dining option if you are going just for the food. There is plenty for you to eat whether or not you’ve had surgery, and everything is fresh and delicious.
However, I just can’t see my family going here on many Walt Disney World vacations. It eats up way too much time during a theme park day, and having our meal with friends end up so scattered and disjointed didn’t make for an enjoyable evening.
This place gets an A+ for food, but definitely takes a hit on service with a D.
Don’t forget – check out my friend Suzannah’s blog on Via Napoli to get another opinion!
http://zannaland.com/via-napoli-revisted-more-than-just-pizza/
Twitter Updates for 2010-10-10
- Prayers before the game – probably praying grass stains come out of the gold skirts! http://twitpic.com/2vzw0s http://twitpic.com/2vzw5s #
- @BethChoisez Congratulations and a very happy anniversary my friend! in reply to BethChoisez #
- What's that you say? You haven't gotten your Girl Scout Nuts, Candy or magazines? What are you waiting for? Send a msg to see what we have! #
- @MPdiane sounds more like a wise woman than a wimp! (yep, I put mine on, too!) in reply to MPdiane #
- RT @ChefBigFatPanda: Retweet this Panda site http://www.BigFatPanda.com & be entered for a free cooks Apron! Ends in 24 hours! #
- @MPdiane Me neither! Let's head to WDW and stay in the Rock of Love bus with @PackerKay in reply to MPdiane #
- Catching up on Chopped and thinking the Beehive in Boston must have awesome food because they have one obnoxious chef! #
- @PackerKay I'm watching them put chocolate raisins with quail and escarole – ewww! in reply to PackerKay #