So says Ethan as we headed out on our road trip to visit Grandma and Pop last week.  Most of the time we visit the grandparents the whole famdamily road trips which means Daddy drives.  (What is the deal with that anyway, why do the mens always feel the need to drive?)  But this time it was just me and the kids which is a whole different experience altogether than when Daddy takes us on a road trip.

For example, when Daddy comes along we are all up at the crack of dawn and we are in a hurried frenzy to get on the road as soon as possible so that we can get where we are going as soon as possible so that we can fall asleep on the sofa when we get there at noon.;)

Road trips with Mommy start when we damn well please, we lounge about eating breakfast in the morning, checking email, doing some laundry.  We are in no hurry whatsoever and if we get on the road by noon, so be it.  For Daddy, the day is half over at noon so this would be a NO GO.

When we road trip with Daddy, we DO NOT STOP.  The only officially sanctioned stops are to get gas, to go potty, and the occasional luxury of stopping at In N Out Burger.  Now of course if we can combine all those things in one stop all the better, God forbid we have to stop several times, THE HORROR!

With Mommy, we might run an errand before hitting the road, we might stop by and see Daddy at work before hitting the road, we might stop at Krispie Kreme’s just because we can, we might stop at Starbucks to stretch our legs and let the little lady scoot all over the floor (she makes an excellent floor cleaner, better than any Swiffer).  We are really in no hurry. We meander and might get there by nightfall.

My husband and I are so completely different on so many levels… he is hurry up and get there which means that sometimes he misses out on what is actually happening in life.  I am into meandering and enjoying life, I am easily distracted, which means that sometimes I am late for things or unable to keep commitments.  I don’t think that one way is better than the other, but I do think that we balance each other out.  He reminds me to keep my focus, I remind him to stop and enjoy the journey. I think we were both attracted to the opposite qualities in each other… I knew I needed a little order to my life and he knew he needed a little chaos.;)

I can’t wait to see how our kids turn out, which side of the hurry up and wait or lollygag about spectrum they will fall.  I would love it if they could fall somewhere in the middle, like I have any control of that whatsoever.;)

Regardless, I agree with Ethan… life on the road really does ROCK.

This is how my daughter is getting around these days:

It slays me.

Ethan had about 4 weeks of summer camp and they did a lot of art projects.  We were looking through his folder of stuff and he said his favorite one was the Jackson Polyp.  I’ve never heard of Jackson Polyp, have you?;)

When I was planning my own wedding way back in the day, I was writing about it on the Wedding Channel. It was my dirty little secret, the whole message board scene, my ‘pretend’ internet friends.;)  Well now that I am firmly entrenched in the wedding jewelry business, I decided to revisit the wedding channel and see if I could dig up my old stories and low and behold I FOUND THEM!  Here was my first post over there, don’t laugh too hard.

How CD met her Prince
We originally met at work, believe it or not, he was my boss. He was attached (married), and I was attached (engaged), and neither one of us thought much about the other, except come to think of it, he used to follow me around a lot at work, hmmmm… So we worked together for about a year then our project ended and I started a new one. He was no longer my direct boss, but he was my coach at work. A coach is the person that you can call and complain to that you aren’t getting treated right and they give you advice, he gave me advice all right, oh that comes later… So, we kept in touch through e-mail and every once in a while he would come visit my new project. As my boss and coach, he supported me at work in tough situations, and I was very attracted to that, a man who was supportive and taking care of me… ahhhhh. I have always been a strong, independent woman, don’t tell me what to do… so this feeling was weird, but nice!

In the meantime, I was having fun planning the wedding, you know to the OTHER guy, yet having this overwhelming feeling that the doors were closing. There would be no more boys, for the rest of my life! The planning was great fun, but I was feeling trapped, and also attracted to every other male who crossed my path, baggage handlers, pilots, busboys, the list goes on. I was also having fun e-mailing and occasionally seeing Prince. I was thinking to myself, how healthy I am that I can be engaged and still flirt shamelessly with Prince, I was soooo put together, NOT. So, I went to see a counselor, smartest thing I ever did. She told me that I had to concentrate on the guy I was going to marry, and flirting with baggage handlers and princes only complicated matters. I came to the realization that I didn’t WANT to concentrate on him and called the whole thing off.

Oh yeah, you are probably wondering about his situation… Well, he separated and then divorced based on the fact that things weren’t gong well in his marriage, hadn’t been for a long time, they had established some really bad habits, and couldn’t break through them. He also realized that he was attracted to me and wanted to see me all the time. We both recognized that we were catalysts for each other’s break ups. I am also a firm believer that we had to go through other stuff before we could be together.

So, we started seeing each other… a lot. It didn’t help that we lived across the country from each other. Whenever we got together it was this totally romantic escapade. He was wonderful, handsome, sweet, kind, attentive, listened and remembered stuff that I said. And, I was myself around him, he knew every flaw and still was attracted to me!!! I couldn’t wait to see him and eventually ended up moving to his city, which caused me major stress as you may imagine… Moving to be with a boy, away from family and friends, no idea where it was going, ughhhhhh! We both remember one defining moment when I was lying in his arms and he told me he could take care of me, I just melted at that moment. I had never trusted anyone to take care of me before, and I trusted Prince and wanted nothing more than to have him take care of me… where was ‘I am woman hear me roar’???

So, we ended up getting engaged, save that story for another installment, and we will live happily ever after. I can’t wait to be his wife, and he can’t wait to be my husband. Our relationship has its bumps, we both bring our own designer baggage to the table, but we are working through stuff with trust, respect and determination to get it right. Ooooh, now I am sentimental and must go snuggle with him…

Ah, young love.

AND if you do read my blog, here is a special discount code just for the three of you!  CDMVIP can be used until the end of the month to get an additional 10% off everything on the site INCLUDING THE CLEARANCE ITEMS!

I wasn’t kidding about having a sale.;)  I spent all weekend cleaning out my inventories and marking stuff down.  Go check it out for some amazing discounts from 40-60% off!  Here is the link to get to the goodies.  For those 3 people who read my blog, have at it until we go public!

I haven’t been actively pursuing new stores to be in since having the baby, the focus has been on the website and on the bride.  But every once in a while I will be out and about with Miss Scarlett and we will stumble into a store that seems like it would be a perfect fit for our jewelry.  That is exactly what happened with Daisy’s on Park.  The website isn’t the best, but the store is amazing, 1347 Park Street in Alameda.  We wandered in and they have the most amazing things.  Barbara the owner has fabulous taste and I could drop a whole lot of cash in her store.  She carries beautiful gift items, candles, tchotchkes (yiddish for trinket, small toy or knickknack according to the knowledgable folks at Wikipedia).

Remember back when we were kids and there was nothing like the internet?  Can you imagine having to actually look something up in a BOOK?!  Or if you can, imagine having to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE to go to the library to figure stuff out.  I am so old.;)

Back to Daisy’s… it is a great store.  They carry handbags, bedding, furniture, candles, stationary, candelabras, oh and yes, jewelry.  We are talking about doing a trunk show in September when the kiddos go back to school and the moms have some more time to breath.  Anyway, I am excited that we stumbled upon Daisy’s and I wanted to share!

Not to get anyone all hyped up or anything, but I am going to start really narrowing down the inventory and selling everything that I currently have on hand at crazy discounted pricing.  I carry too much inventory, I need to only carry bridal plus one or two collections at a time.  It is too daunting to carry all the styles and designs that I offer.  My thoughts were always, carry a big selection so that jewelry crazed ladies like myself will have a lot to choose from.  But what happens is that I need to carry the stones to make a specific pair of earrings and then when I run out of the stones and still have the earrings on the website I have to scramble to get them from my suppliers when someone orders them again.  And these gem guys are no walk in the park, there are maybe 2 that I trust will send me exactly what I ask for, the other guys will almost always switch it up and send a lesser quality stone.  So gems aren’t really something I like to mail order, I like to see them which means I have to wait to buy the gems until my suppliers come to Northern California, or until I go to Tuscon for the gem show or LA or NY to see my suppliers.

Long story short (too late you say) massive discounts coming up on current inventory items, smaller selection of items available AND hopefully happier customers when we don’t have delays because we have to scramble to find the stones we need in the right quality!

If I was really ‘on top of things,’ I would be looking ahead to the spring/summer maybe even fall 2009 color trends for new jewelry pieces.  But here is where I must admit that I have fallen quite short of ‘on top of things’ for a good long time now.  Some would credit my lack of organizational skills, or my amazing ability to procrastinate.  I choose to credit my 13 month old daughter, easy scapegoat that she is.  WHATEVER the reason, I am clearly NOT ‘on top of things’ therefore I will just look ahead to fall of 2008 for color inspiration.

Here is what the lovely people at Pantone (not the people at panetone which is a lovely italian bread/cake thing that my mother craves over the holidays) have to say about fall 2008:

‘Best described as a season of change, fall ’08 is defined by rich, elegant hues that offer a vibrant selection. New York’s fashion designers emphasize cooler blues, greens and purples in the top five tones used in their collections, followed by variations of warm red, orange and yellow.’

Here is the front of their color report:

Puuuuuuurty puuuuuuurple.  And here is where you can download the full report for yourself:  Pantone Fashion Color Report Fall 2008

At least I am not ‘underneath things’ although that would be the perfect way to describe laundry day.;)

Ethan has always been VERY opinionated about the shoes he wears.  Me no get.  Welllllll… maybe he comes by it naturally.  Anyway, I am looking for some back to school shoes for him that don’t break the bank and will stand up to IMMENSE AMOUNTS of playstructure (when did we stop calling them playgrounds?) activity and I remembered a story about taking him shoe shopping back in the day, way back when he was 4;).

We were making our way through the mall not really looking for anything, we were on browse. The kid is opinionated. He tells me he doesn’t like any of the BCBG dresses that are 70% off. Then we hit the Nordstrom shoe floor, he finds a shoe size thingee and proceeds to ‘get badguys’ (the poor shoe salesmen). I manage to shield one from incoming fire long enough to ask for an 8.5 in a lace up granny boot and the longtime coveted Frye villager. I couldn’t find any peep toes or platform loafers I had been longing for.  We try these on and he proclaims he doesn’t like the Frye’s, clearly he is just being a pill, who would not like these babies?

We then head up to kid’s shoes. I spy crocs, I want him to try them on… I pick out lovely shades of army green, navy and beige… he picks out fuchsia, kelly green and purple. He likes the shoes, but decides he wants the fuchsia. I am doing my best dance about But these match my jacket! But these are the color of your shirt! But these are camouflage turtle hunting shoes! The whole time he is resisting and I pretend not to care thinking that if I don’t care he will come around, he is resisting the hard sell. I spy a young cute sales woman and enlist her help, he immediately starts making eyes with her… but he isn’t having any of her ‘I like the green ones’ business.

At this point I am like whatever, if he wants to wear fuchsia shoes, WHATEVER! And I decide to pull out the last of my tricks. ‘I think power rangers wear shoes this green color.’ And he says, ‘MOM.  That’s not going to work on me.’ The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Not going to WORK on him?! The boy is FOUR, how does he know I am trying to WORK him. These things are SUPPOSED to WORK on him at FOUR. I’m not supposed to worry about him realizing I am trying to WORK him till much later I am sure.  I am speechless. He gets up to go check out the fishtank for the 18th time and brings back a pair of silver crocs. We have reached a compromise, I quickly pay for them and we get out of there.

Wouldn’t you know, my mother loved this story, Ethan is so much like me. Obstinate, opinionated and not wanting to do something simply because I want him to.  THE NERVE!;)