I used to be one of those closeted TV watchers, the kind of person who felt ashamed of the sheer number of hours I spent enjoying my favorite shows. Now I feel very much the opposite way: I love TV. It's my main source of entertainment and something my husband and I get to enjoy together after the kids go to bed. Sure, I'm addicted to certain shows, but we've had a DVR for years now and that means we… Read More

In the Mandajuice family tradition of "he gets the outside, I get the inside," my husband has taken on the task of decorating the house for Halloween. Now if it were up to me, we'd have smiley ghosts and adorable-yet-creepy spiders and lots and lots of glitter embellishing our front porch. It would be young-kid-friendly and cutesy, not scary.

But a deal is a deal and apparently, when I agreed to let Dave have free reign of the… Read More

When we bought this house, I was so happy about it that I neglected to think twice about how much I'd have to work to keep it clean. In the weeks after we made our offer, but before we moved in, those weeks when I was still feeling overwhelmed trying to keep our little apartment clean, I started to freak out about cleaning a four-bedroom home. History had shown me that no matter how hard I tried, I'd just never… Read More

Admittedly, I was one of the two million plus people who immediately googled that Feist song after seeing the IPod Nano commercial for the first time. Of course now I can't get it out of my head and even the kids are singing along with me. I particularly like this line:

"Old teenage hopes are alive at your door, left you with nothing, but they want some more."

I've spent the last few days… Read More

We headed straight for the library today after school. It's been over a month since our last visit and our books were seriously overdue. When my life and my schedule are on track, we hit the library at least once a week to make sure we have something new to read every night before bed. It's actually one of the more selfish "good mother" things I do since I can't stand to re-read the same books over and over again. … Read More

Ever since we bought the house, I've been spending a lot of time at IKEA. We were fortunate to live ten minutes away from IKEA back in California and even more fortunate that within weeks of moving here, IKEA opened their latest megastore right here in Portland. We've already been there more times than I can count. Here's why it's my favoritest place on earth (well, right there next to Target):

1. The Prices. IKEA is cheap. There's no… Read More