Heaven on Aisle 2

Heavenly Burb Mom Moment #1: Starbucks and wide open aisles at Target.

A few minutes after this picture was taken I checked out and headed for the Target parking lot on 2499. I had noticed a lady following me, but didn’t think anything of it until she said this:

What is your baby drinking?

What?

Ma’am, what is your baby drinking?

Oh, I get the kid’s size soy milk at Starbucks for him. Starbucks is one of the few places I can get milk for him that he can drink.

Oh! I thought he was having coffee…

Next time I am answering, “full caf, vanilla latte, soy, with a shot of Red Bull”…

Two New Discoveries in One Outing

I love it when one new discovery leads to another new discovery.  First, let me say that I love books.  I have stacks and stacks and stacks of them.  Many I’ve never read [and maybe never will].  But I love the look of them, the smell of them, and the ideas that are inside of them.  The perfect date night with my husband is dinner out and a trip to the book store.

Now I’m a big fan of Barnes and Noble, especially in Denton.  They have everything I could ever want when it comes to books.  And the people?  Well, let me just say that Thom Anderson is the nicest Community Relations Manager I’ve ever met.  [Love B&N in Highland Village, too!]

But I also love smaller bookstores and when I discovered The Book Carriage in Roanoke, I was thrilled.  It’s quaint.  It’s charming.  It’s small.  Which means they don’t have everything that I might want, but it also means I am more easily exposed to new things that I might never have found in a big box store.

I happened into The Book Carriage last week and saw a book I’d heard about on NPR [love NPR--great way to absorb information!].  Here’s that story:

What happens when a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian get together to write a picture book about faith?  [No, this is not a joke!]

The answer is that the women find that their intention–to show the commonalities between their faiths–is quickly overshadowed by their misperceptions, prejudices, stereotyped views of each other and their religions.

The picture book project was abandoned.  In it’s place was born a ‘Faith Club’.  The women met weekly to try to understand each other and their beliefs.  A tall order considering the inflammatory nature of differences in religious beliefs.

The women taped their conversations and journaled about them.  From the meetings, the tapes, and the writings came The Faith Club [Ballentine, 2006].

I heard these women speak on the radio and was immediately drawn in by their openness.  They discussed the difficult subject matter in an honest way.  Now, I am new to Texas [11 months now], and one of the first things I noticed was the very dominant Christian view, and the very overt way faith is expressed here.  To be honest, it intimidated me.  I came from Northern California where views and beliefs are far more diverse and they are expressed much less overtly as a whole.  It has taken a while to adjust to that part of life here in North Texas.

The different beliefs represented by the Faith Club women– Rayna Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner–and their desire to seek understanding and see how we are all the same instead of how we are all different was really appealing to me and reinforced the values my husband and I work to instill in our kids [ages 6-16].   We want them to have a global view.  We want them not to be tolerant of others’ views, but to respect them and seek their own understanding from what they are exposed to.  The Faith Club, to me, is an opportunity to expand our knowledge and understanding of our fellow humans.

So, besides the simple fact that The Book Carriage is an awesome, new indy bookstore, it is also a place to discover new books which can lead to new conversations and understanding of our world and the people in it.

Misa Ramirez, a former middle and high school teacher, is the author of the Lola Cruz mystery series: Living the Vida Lola (January ’09) and Hasta la Vista, Lola! (2010) from St. Martin’s Press Minotaur. Her writing has been in Woman’s World Magazine and Romance Writers Report, and she has a children’s book published. Visit her web sites: http://misaramirez.com ; http://chasingheroes.com ; http://parentadvocatesforargyleschools.edublogs.org/

Teacher Appreciation Week Gifts ASAP!

Here are a few suggestions that can cross “Gifts for teacher” right off your to-do list.  I tried to find things that were a little unique, reasonably priced and convenient so it can be picked up in conjunction with other errands…

Here is what I found:

Teacher gifts are sometimes hard to find…

You don’t want to spend too much, but you want something nice.

You don’t want to get something that he/she will have 28 of by the end of the week, but you want something that he/she will like.

I added the items priced at $20 because I often find myself buying something for the teacher from the class.

Happy Teacher Gift Shopping!

Target Comes to The Colony and Allen

Have you ever been in a brand new store on the day it opens? Everything is shiny and new. Products and aisles are perfectly placed and the employees are smiling and happy to help you find anything you need.

Combine that feeling with being in your happy place and you’ll know exactly how I felt this week when The Colony finally got its very own Super Target.

Where else can you hand your child $1 and let them “treasure hunt” in the dollar bins? And the produce? All those colorful fruits and veggies perfectly laid out just beckoning you to taste them.

You can check out the weekly ad here, there are lots of sales in honor of all the new store openings. In addition to the store in The Colony, they’ve also opened one in Allen and 25 other locations.

Measuring Up

I know I say it all the time, but I really, truly love spending every day with Reese . He is just plain so much fun to be around! We get to take advantage of those mundane-moments-turn-silly!

The other day we ran to WalMart for a few groceries. Reese has two favorite parts of WallyWorld…the bakery department where he can get a fresh mini-french loaf…and the produce department.

As we stroll through, he picks the type of apples he wants, checks for bruises, & bags them carefully. Lately, though, he wants to weigh everything!

So we’ve taken the time to practice reading the scale. Which is made a bit more complicated because there are two sets of numbers…black for lbs and red for kg…and it makes it a tad confusing for Reese. He’s getting better at reading something that is “less than 1 lb”, and understanding that even though Mommy says it’s a “half-pound” and the scale is sitting on the number “8″ (for 8/16ths) it’s one in the same. Confusing stuff, eh?

Then sometimes he gets a wild hair and wants to weigh everything in the cart! On this particular day we had plenty of time, so I let him go to town.

We thought we had discovered some false packaging…the tater tots said the bag was “2 lbs”, but the scale only read “1 lb”. WHAAAAAT? I checked it, Reese checked it, I checked it again.

Then a light bulb went off. We took the tots off the scale, and sure enough, the scale wasn’t calibrated properly and the little arm was behind the zero!

So we had a big discussion about how important it is when you measure to make sure you start at zero!

And then, since we still had time, Reese wanted to weigh things we weren’t going to buy! I had him guess the weight of this cabbage before he put it on the scale. The last thing he did was try to weigh his head, but he could only get his chin on the scale before I thought twice about that

Cool Burb Find! – BALLMANIA

I found a super fun gift while shopping today at Celebrations & Invitations:

It is BALLMANIA which is a lip gloss with SPF-20. They are $6.50 each. I bought several for gifts and will end up keeping at least one for myself. When I got home I noticed that Celebrations & Invitations sent them home in these cute little bags:

Corn on the Candles?

Looking for some last-minute Thanksgiving decor?

How about these?

We found these at Garden Gate (940. 387-8863) in Denton. They are a unique addition to any table and they’ll fit right in with your lovely spread. In fact, how about right between the greenbean casserole and the mashed potatoes?

Fabulous Finds at Francesca’s

Scarves $18-28 each

Lip Glosses $5.5o each

Hand Towels $15

Gal Pal’s Retro Ice Bags $14 each

Affordable Extravagence at Extravaganza

Travel Mugs $23.99

Water Bottles $19.99

In addition, you can find many custom wood-lasered frames in various sizes to decorate your mantle or your bedroom wall. Here are 2 of our favorites:

Wooden Lasered 2′ by 3′ Large Frame $60.00

Wooden Lasered 1′ by 2′ Medium Frame $32.99

Finally, we couldn’t help but giggle when we came across these fun party napkins. Maybe it’s just a mom thing?

Fun Party Napkins $4.99-5.99