part time jewish mama

if you don't have one-go out and get one.

i went to my client steffi's house the other day and checkie the sweet little breakfast tray she put together for me. darn she's cute! 

steffi (with 2 f's she always says) is always asking how i am feeling. she looks deep into my eyes tilting her head forward and to the side and gives me the, "kendra, are you working too hard, you taking breaks?" question with a side of mom look (you know the look) that really says "i will see right through you so tell me the truth". I always spend about 3 minutes assuring her that i am busy and crazy but yes i am taking breaks and it's all good. i have quickly learned the "it's all good" answer doesn't really fly with a jewish mama either. i woulda never made it through the teen years in steffi's house.

when i saw this tray of food (one i was sure would be sitting right on the edge of her kitchen counter) i smiled. "steffi, you know you don't have to do all this", to which she swats the air with her hand and answers, "oh, if i don't feed you who will??" I smile and remind her i am in my 30's and i really will eat. i promise. i eat. i thank her and make myself a little plate. 

without fail, after our meeting steffi shoves a prepared bag full of extra's in my hand -i guess for the 20 minute drive back to my showroom. i have to say it's nice to be fussed over...part time.

say my name, say my name....

yesterday i went to go pick up my suburban from the body shop (yep, the body shop-that's a whole different post about 17 year old drivers we will save for a rainy day...) and when i went in i had the loveliest reception from the guy at one of the desks.

it was really nice. you're walking in getting ready to write that $500 deductible check so already you're rollin' in not super excited right?

so, the guy has a huge smile and from his seat at his desk bellows out, "hey, you're kendra right?" without waiting for me to answer he exclaims, "you're on our short list for baby names", and proudly points to a girl at the next desk over.
girl smiles and points to her baby bump which basically just looked like maybe she had a large thanksgiving dinner the night before-i mean seriously, am i the only one that looked like the grinch with a round low slung belly when i was pregnant?

pregnant me (minus the fur and i wore clothing-most days)

up she jumps and comes to the front desk and with a slight roll of the eyes proceeds to tell me that how after i dropped my car off the week prior all she has heard about is, 'how nice that kendra girl was and wouldn't that be a great baby name for them?!'  she leaned in close to me and said, "that was after he commented on how he liked how you had your hair and how maybe i should try the bobby pinned bangs on my hair. i reminded him i have done that before and he never liked it." with another eye roll and a fairly impressive sigh she said, "yep, we may have a little crush here, i will have to see what the real story is later, i will get to the bottom of it. anyway, so how do you like your name kendra?"

uh....i stammered. i'm sure my eyes were humongous. i was actually unsure how to answer. is she annoyed that her husband may have a crush on the girl with the jacked up suburban bumper or was she cool and they had that sort of 'i will call your ass out in front of strangers' playful relationship?

i went with the latter and as i glanced past her to see her husband (yep, still smiling pretty darn huge back there at his desk) i gave her a yes??? i realize it was more of a question. i wasn't sure if she wanted me to answer yes or no. you don't mess with preggo chicks. you just don't. i know the capabilities of a hormonal soon to be momma annoyed at her husband. i mean, it's HIS fault she is in the condition she is in in the first place!
im with you girl!!!!

anyway, her face softened and she smiled. phew! she started to tell me how she has literally spent the last 3 or 4 days saying my name and rhyming it with every possibility to ensure her little kendra could never be made fun of on the playground.
hmmmm...interesting and only slightly uncomfortable.
i looked around the office and every person was looking up at me. honestly, they were probably thinking, 'who in the heck is this kendra girl we have all had to help pregnant co-worker girl rhyme crap with all week?!"
i think as much as smiling daddy to be liked me everyone else just wanted me to pick up my new sparkly suburban and drive safely off into the future.

momma to be then asked me if i had ever been made fun of for my name. i told her never and that i genuinely liked my name. i did decide to leave out the information that there is a dumb shit playboy bunny and pretty begrimed looking porn star with my name only because the timing just didn't feel right.
i stand by that choice.

i hope they choose my name. i am honored that i left that good of an impression in the 5 minutes it took to drop off my car the week prior that i would even be on mr. dad's short list. i guess it pays to always try to be pleasant huh??
my name has been good to me over the years, i can't recall ever wishing i had been named anything else, even through the whole farrah fawcett craze and that's huge- check out those feathers!
kinda makes you wish your name was farrah huh?

hat up!

occasionally i will make proclamations on certain days. there is no rhyme or reason- why should there be?!

there has been boy band dance day, talk like a valley girl day, so naturally there should be hat day.

ok, not really a hat but how does one resist?

nope- that dude behind us isnt wearing a hat- thats his hair. yeah! love him! oh, and 

that is an eiffel tower coming up outta my head- in case ya wondered!

wear your hat(s) today!!!

lately i'm a fizzler-i own that

it's actually quite bad. aloha friday rolls around and i'm your girl!

i'm excited, i'm makin' week-end plans, gonna get stuff done and then all the sudden it happens. i fizzle.

i don't know what it is but when i wake up saturday i make my coffee and then i sit down to sort of think about all the things i am planning (actually it's my escape i'm planning) whether it's tackling a closet clean out, baking a new recipe, or here's a huge "fizzle fast kendra plan"-taking a hike. all these things sound so darn great on friday but let's face it everything sounds good on aloha friday.

you could be like, "yo kp, wanna hike 6 miles, hit the dentist office, go renew our licences down at the DMV then maybe end the day with cleaning out that drawer in your kitchen where you try to stuff as much crap as you can into it?" and in the midst of my aloha friday dance i would say, "uh, hecks yeah, yeah, yeah, i'm so down. i mean shoot, let's wake up at 4am, run a few miles and drink a nasty green shake while we are at it?" (i actually love green shakes at this point but not the ones with kale-or garlic, i actually had one with garlic-gag.)

sigh.

things just sound GREAT on friday. but, then saturday rolls out her cushy little non schedule bearing day-she shows me a cute little blonde girl on my sofa looking all morning cute and sends me over to snuggle. saturday also reminds me of how great the invention of yoga pants are and that i can just leave them on all day long, ya know, if i really want to and i don't even have to actually go to class. (shhhhhh). saturday also takes me to my kitchen and shows me how clean it is and says, "i mean, you can mess it up if you wanna but you'll just have to clean it (this part isn't true coz saturday knows shane cleans- not me- but i admire her selling tactics nonetheless) and then saturday sends me to my room and literally, get this, literally places my kindle in my lap. saturday then reminds me of my completely rad vanilla/amber bubble bath and sends me on in to marinate in my tub. 

 look at him stealing my spot!!

pretty soon all my inhibitions are gone. pretty soon its 4pm. pretty soon i realize i have wasted my day. on me.

she's a pushy girl that saturday but i loves a girl that knows what she I want.......

hanging succulent garden

a few weeks ago i decided i was gonna give a wall garden a try. i had been viewing them in hotels, magazines and reading all kinds of diy's on them.

 i have been a lover of succulents for quite sometime and last year i had a whole bunch of them planted in my front and back yard. recently we had another yard overhaul and had a professional service come in and do all kinds of pretty work which included yep! more succulents!

i had planned for this project to take all day and to get all kinds of dirty, surprisingly it only took about 1/2 the day but not surprisingly i did get really really dirty.

here is what you need:

-1"x4" pieces of wood. these will be your box.

-wood screws to ensure your box will be strong enough

-plywood or alder for back of the box

-outdoor varathane that is water resistantchicken wire,

-chicken wire

-cactus soil

-molding. this can be whatever size you'd like and will be the pretty around the box edge.

-lots of succulent pups

1"x4" wood strips

here is what i love about shane.
i told him how i was gonna try to make these boxes and he built the frames for me ahead of time. this may of been because he didnt want to see me with a nail gun in hand.
hmmm.....he's such a bro.

here is the box with the back on. i made a large box and a smaller box. 

they are about 24"x30" and 16"x20". 

i also have another larger frame built which i will work on soon so i have a nice display large enough to fill the side of my garage wall over my fountain.

remember when i said that if you didn't have a hawaiian you should go out and get one? i stand by that.

use regular nails and wood screws as well. if you want to paint your box now is the time to do so and you will coat it with varathane once the paint is dry.

i chose to leave my garden box looking natural. 

after your box is made and the back is attached you will spray it with the varathane. be sure and get all the corners, sides and the back. you will want to do 2-4 coats of this to keep the wood from rotting over time.

because the boxes have to lay flat for 4-10 weeks (or until they take root) we decided to make a few at one time. i did buy some succulents but you can also trim pups off any of your existing succulents and just let them dry for a day or two so the end will callus over. you just want to leave (in the very least) 1/4" stem to bury into the soil.

succulent pups drying out on a plate

be careful for friendly cute yard animals that think you brought them treats.

once your varathane is dry (about 30 min. to 1 hour) you can fill the box with your soil

next you will stretch the chicken wire over the box and staple it on. cut the excess wire off.

add your decorative trim molding.

look how baddass i am with that staple gun!

now is the fun part. 

designing! 

i decided to run a zig zag through the larger of my boxes with the pinkish succulents. you will want to leave some room for the succulents to grow and spread so don't fill every wire opening.

finished large box

finished smaller box.

now is the really hard part.

waiting for them to take root so you can hang up your garden and enjoy.

while they are laying flat you will want to water the boxes every 7-10 days. 

we are going to hang our boxes on the wall with hooks to make it easier to take down and water. after you take them down to water be sure and leave them flat for a few days to firm back up before hanging again.

once my succulent boxes are ready to hang i will update you and post some pictures- i can't wait!

remember that thirty threads hoo-ha?

i finished thirty threads quite some time ago. on my own i decided to keep it going for a few more weeks beyond the thirty days without the posts just kind of my own lil experiment. oh no silly people, i shopped, but continued to mix in stuff that hasn't left my dresser drawers or closet in years.

like friday- this skirt hadn't been worn in at least a year or so but i love it so i could never get rid of it. truth be told its kinda funky coz you are suppose to wear it off the hips but that makes me feel dumpy and strangely shaped- i guess mostly what i feel is i'm not in my twenties anymore so i have no biz-ness wearing low slung anything.....

i realized that i gotta do a summer version of thirty threads mainly because i have been asked and you know i like to give the people what they want.
i'm kidding. truthfully it reminds me to wear what i have, reinvent new outfits and to get creative by shopping in my very own (pretty full) closet. plus, i usually end up looking much better than i normally would have because i am being cognisant of what i got goin' on before i walk out the door. know what i mean?

i actually think the summer version may even be way easier than the last one. i'm gonna try to not wear things from my last thirty threads (try-no pinky promises here) just to keep it creative and harder for me. plus, since we are going on a few vacays this summer and a couple of long week-ends this will be awesome on my wallet.

thirty threads changed the way i get dressed and the way i look at what i already have. i suggest it to every girl i know and because i'm generous-to every girl i don't know.

so i'm thinking of starting maybe beginning of july-now, who wants to join me? it can be like a group fit challenge but i don't make anyone work out and we can eat whatever we want? ya in???

heeellllo-im talkin' to you!!!

about a month or so ago i did something so strange that i can't stop thinking about it so naturally i will share....

here i was driving home from work feeling kinda overwhelmed with a huge staging install and all kinds of other things on my mind. 
i think to myself, "oh, i'll call my grandma, that will cheer me right up". 

 i imagined my grandma at home in a tiny (i mean tiny) little country town in montana sitting in her chair with the remote in her lap watching baseball. 
i reached for my phone and brought it up towards my face to dial. my stomach flip flopped. my grandma has been gone for 7 months. 
i started sobbing in a way i haven't in quite sometime-about 7 months to be exact. 
the cars behind me started honking and i was literally frozen. 
so i did what anyone would do. i pulled over and called my mom.

through my tears i told my mom what i had done and asked her if i was crazy (okay, okay, i was having a very dramatic moment) "why would i have forgotten, why would i have picked up the phone to talk to her when i know she isn't there?" and ya know what mom said?? just the right thing that's what. 
mom said, "she is there, she is there with you right now. she is talking to you so just talk back."

i'm sure this was a typical hollyweird scene. 
here i am, in traffic at hollywood and highland, 4 choppers above me (some idiot in a tow truck decided to give the cops a 3 hour chase) im sobbing but trying really hard to hide it from the guy next to me in the truck who is looking at me with concerned eyes wondering why i am bawling. 
car behind me is annoyed that i'm not paying attention and a toothless woman is asking me for money on my passenger side window- she see's my tear stained face and looks at me like i'm crazy and backs away from my car.
 i look crazy to the toothless homeless lady. 
cute. 

i got home where my entire family was watching the jerk-off that had every policeman from l.a. to glendale following him on t.v. and shane sees my face and does that thing he does.
 its kinda like a puffer fish-he gets all big and his face gives a "what happened and whose heads comin off?" look. 
i tell him the stupid stupid thing i did. 
he says, "oh honey, you just forgot. that's so sad, c'mere you need a 5 second hug". 
as he wraps himself around me i start to cry and smile at the same time.

i think of my grandma and all the times since her passing that i have said to my mom that i wish she would show me something that told me she was around me. 
i just can't take that she is gone and that's it. i just love her too much for her to be gone.

my mom always answered that maybe i needed to look harder. today i sit here and think of all the little things that i have seen that told me she was around me. 
its like i'm just now opening my eyes and getting it. 

check out the top left-see the O?

 

this is a photo from the day i left my grandma olsen's home in culbertson montana.
 i knew that it would be the last time in her home- a home i had spent weeks at every summer as a child and i suspected it would be my last time in culbertson, montana all together. 
it was so hard to drive away that day and as i drove the 5 hour trek to the airport i was marveling at the beauty and trying to soak up everything i could (and probably crying of course) from the slow moves of the country life. 
i looked out my drivers window and i saw an "o" in the sky in the form of an -i don't even know what!- it's not a cloud like the other clouds but it's a definite "o". 
i had to keep looking because i couldn't believe the absolute perfection of this "o". 
how could that NOT be a sign? 
how could that NOT be from my gramma?

okay okay i hear ya-do you hear me talking back?

keep talking-i will listen......

gramma vera olsen

december 12, 1917-october 21, 2011
isn't she sweet?

glen ivy hot springs-its a yearly stop

a few weeks ago (mothers day week-end to be exact) julie, erin and i went to glen ivy spa in corona.

we try to get here every year when julie comes. its straight up the place to be. but im sure you know that.

i dont take as many photos as i actually want to coz it kills my spa buzz to hafta be makin sure i catch it all.

i have a great "jazzerhour at the pool" video that was really hilarious but as i played it back i was like, 'oh, wow, youre actually half in a bush taking this you creeper". so, i wont share but just know that it was fun-ny!!!

outside the spa-check out the zen circle (yep, that's my official name)

we came home to this. sweet family.

palm to the springs

i love me some p.s.

i wont torture you with a complete play by play of julie and i but i will slam you in the face with all my photos-just know its more of a love tap really.

sorry in advance.

back at the condo

i do realize that the photos are never as good as when you see the actual place in person. i get that this is somewhat like watching someones vacation videos -

but the indian canyons were too cool not to make you go through the painful process.

we hiked in 99 degrees-in sub par shoes-we are woman-see us sweat

Downtown to lunch a little

we both decided our nails and toes had way too much canyon grubby on them so we decided to get a pedi/mani before hitting the road back to l.a.

lookit these 2 old girls nodding off in the pedi chair.....

we didn't stay here but it had me at aloha...naturally...

oh, and p.s. (no not p.s. as in palm springs but p.s. as in p.s.) i am going to p.s. again this week-end-hecks to the yeaaaaah!

what my phone saw this week

sometimes i just think, "wow, do i even take a photo of that coz it's just odd". but i do. then i share.

where jay-z shops

i hope he has the key to that lock. i can imagine this is gonna get old in about 12 more minutes.

my foil turtle, swan and palm tree. from maile.

taught julie the sock bun. next day she got a call-the old t.v. show dynasty is having a reunion and would like to see her hair for a major starring role.

julie trying to win the cali lotto so she can stay forever. she did win-but $17 wont get you far...

ummmmm.....yes. this is real.

she is braver than i