The Great Kate Debate

After cleaning out my accessories closet (and getting rid of 5 old purses and 10 pairs of shoes!) I decided that I really needed a new handbag.

It's hard to find a good handbag. Almost impossible, really, because you don't know if you love a bag until you carry it for a while. I got rid of several bags that I initially liked, but they just didn't cut the mustard when toting them around on a daily basis.

A friend of mine (Calina) buys one really nice bag every year. She explained that you have to figure out your cost per use. If you carry a bag everyday for a year, and your bag costs $365, that's only a dollar a day!

You just can't fight that logic.

I like a tote style bag, and no one does a better tote than Kate Spade. I found a couple of styles I liked online, but I am hesitant to pull the trigger on anything. If I'm shelling out a decent dollar amount, I want to hold, feel and smell the bags first.

Luckily, I live 20 minutes away from a Kate Spade outlet. I drove up there today on a recon mission. They didn't have any of the styles I was interested in, but I did confirm that every bag in the store had a nice look, feel, and quality. So if I order something online now, I'm pretty sure it's going to work out. But what to order?

The peacock patent leather carry-all?

The snapdragon shopper?

The classic black tote?

Is spending a few hundred dollars on a purse an obscene, lunatic purchase? Or a wise investment?

Jump Planet

When the weather outside is crappy and your kids are driving you crazy, there's only one place to go- Jump Planet.

Located in Bothell's Canyon Park area, Jump Planet is a huge warehouse type room filled with enormous inflatable jumpy things like this:


Kids can be as loud as they want (all the better to drown out the non-stop radio Disney music over the PA system), and they can hurl their little bodies onto air-filled surfaces to their hearts content.

Moms and Dads can hang out in the seating area and read a book in peace. For only $6 a kid, it's a bargain. Adults can jump too, although the kids make it look really easy. A few times up this giant slide ladder, and I'm ready for a nap. But the kids can climb it all day long.


I think some parents come here with their kid just to get in a workout.

Colin and Lucy will jump until they are sweaty and red. And then they jump some more. And then I can take them home and they go to bed nice and easy. Jump Planet is the best!

I am full of holiday spirit

I like to complain about making treat bags for school functions or parties, but the truth is, I enjoy assembling them and trying to fill them with the coolest stuff.

For Colin's 3rd grade Valentine's party I knew I didn't want to be one of those parents that just taped a single piece of crappy candy to a card - I had to pass out really COOL treats to this group of kids that I don't know and will probably never meet.

But with 25 treat bags to fill, the cost can really add up. This is why I'm so thankful to live near a Dollar Update store.

Dollar Update is a dollar store, of course, but not your typical dingy, unkempt, bins o' crap kind of place. The crap at Dollar Update is nicely organized in a large, well lit store with employees I'm not kind of afraid of. They have tons of stuff in every department, and shopping there is a fun treasure hunt. It's a great place to get party supplies.

My purchases



Proper gift bag making requires neatly sorted piles


The finished project


Colin came home with a crumpled paper bag full of little single candies taped to cards. He was happy to report that my valentines were the best in the class. I felt victorious.

And isn't that what Valentine's Day is all about?

Birthday Girl

I wrote a few months ago about how expensive Hello Kitty clothes are, and how I was not going to buy Lucy a $60 dress like this:

Luckily I hit that 75% off sale I was hoping for before her birthday this weekend:


Her birthday party at the bowling alley had a great turnout. It made for a LOT of chaos and several spazzed out kids.

Here's the birthday girl after a couple of hours of bowling and partying hard.


It isn't everyday your littlest one turns four years old.

And it isn't everyday that so many of your friends drive up to Lynnwood for her birthday party. I have THE most awesome friends in the whole world!

Best Phad Thai in Seattle, part 1

I was doing a random search on Yelp for Salumi, the deli in Pioneer Square owned by Mario Batali's family (reviews of Salumi are overall favorable, but quite a mix of negative, fyi). Someday I'll get down there and see what all the fuss is about.

This search randomly led me to a link about the best phad thai in Seattle. According to many, many Yelp reviewers, the best phad thai in Seattle is from May, a restaurant in Wallingford. I knew I had to check it out.

It comes to your table like this (the noodles are wrapped under the banana leaves):



The server mixes it by hand according to your spiciness preferences:



Finished product:


The verdict? Really, really good. Using real tamarind is always key to a good phad thai. If you ever eat at a place that subs ketchup, you'll know what I mean.

Biggest drawback was the price. $14 for a lunch entree is way over my normal budget. This restaurant has a great lunch and happy hour menu with lots of dishes at lower prices, but knowing that everyone is coming for the phad thai, they capitalize on that and don't put it on the specials menu. Which is a pisser. I'd be much more inclined to bus over there for lunch on a regular basis if it were about $7 instead.

My lunch mate, Calina, and I decided that a quest for the real best phad thai in Seattle was in order. Our next stop will be Thai Tom on University Way.

If you know any Seattle area phad thai that should be included on our mission, please feel free to share.

Totally Tubular

When my buddy, Rose, mentioned that she wanted to go snow tubing at Snoqualmie Pass this weekend, I knew I had to horn in on the fun.

We had never been tubing before (for people that live in the Seattle area, we're sadly lacking in lots of Seattle-area experiences) but figured that the morning of Super Bowl Sunday was a good time to give it a try. It was a good call and there were only a handful of people there at 9am.

The almost empty tubing area


Riding a super fast inner tube down a hill is really fun. For about two seconds. Then the ride is over and you have to drag your tube over to the rope tow to get back up the hill. The rope tow is super slow but it's really easy to be clumsy and miss the hooks going by. Also your feet sink into the snow pack and you have to walk like Frankenstein the whole time.

I thought I knew my kids pretty well. I guessed that Colin would be afraid of riding down the hill (he's not much of a thrill seeker) and once he got a little wet and cold he'd start complaining and want to go home. I guessed that Lucy would be a maniac and want to ride over and over again shrieking loudly in glee each time.

But the opposite turned out to be true. Colin was the one zooming up and down the hill as fast as he could, and Lucy was the one that started crying after two runs. We had to take her to the lodge for hot cocoa and then take turns tubing after that.

Colin tubing

Lucy tubing

Tubing was fun and completely exhausting. I'm sure we'll go back again next season, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for end of season clearance waterproof winter clothes. I have a feeling tubing is a lot more fun if you are wearing clothes that stay dry....

Riding the bus really sucks

I've been commuting to and from work largely by bus for over ten years now. I have come to the following conclusion: Taking the bus sucks.

People on the bus suck for these reasons:

They talk loudly on their cell phones- A regular lady that often catches the same bus home with me is ALWAYS on her frickin' cell phone. She obviously doesn't care that we all have to hear about her friends, various illnesses in the family, or her keen social insights. I've learned to let her get on the bus first and then sit on the opposite end from her, but I still hate her.


They board a bus that they know damn well will fill up with passengers and sit in an aisle seat- Why? Why in the hell do people not scoot their big asses over? It's just common courtesy. And you totally know they do it on purpose in the hopes that no one will want to ask them to get up, or hurdle themselves over their legs into the empty window seat. I really hope there's a special Hell for these people.

They put their big, stupid bag in the empty seat next to them and pretend they don't see you walking down the aisle looking for a seat- Just like their loser counterparts listed above, they know people will look elsewhere first before asking them to move their bag out of the way. Look, Mr. Large Attache Case, I know you are only pretending to be asleep. Move your damn bag over! This is just one more jerk technique to get the entire double seat to themselves for the whole way home.

They think the bus is an extension of their own homes- I sat across from a woman today that did her whole make-up routine sitting in her bus seat. Foundation, powder, eye liner, mascara. All of it. Is the bus your bathroom? No, it is not.

People on the bus smell bad- Heavy perfumes, bad b.o., rank-breathed mouth breathers, farters and a myriad of other unpleasant odors. I've sat next to all of them.

And if the people on the bus weren't bad enough, the whole bus service operation pretty much bites. The park n rides are so packed full of cars that you have to walk a mile after you park, the buses rarely run on time, and they run at intervals incompatible with most people's actual work hours. Don't most people get off work at 5:00? Yes, they do. Running your bus at 4:30 is stupid. Not running the next one until 5:30 is totally asinine.

Unfortunately, I'll be stuck riding the bus for the foreseeable future. As irritating as it is, it's cheaper than driving. Somedays I do enjoy a quiet, comfortable bus ride where I can read, watch a movie or zone out in peace. I think my enjoyment of those bus rides are what make me really hate the freaks mentioned above.