& then Instagram was all “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT DRESS?” so I thought I’d let you in on a dirty little secret:

dress:  JC Penney’s, $45 (& that was full price!)
necklace: Banana Republic outlet
shoes: mint green pumps, J. Crew

These heels might be some of my favorites & they were a steal for $20 at a J. Crew warehouse sale back in 2010 & it was pretty Shining-worthy of me to predict how trendy mint would become.  The unfortunate part is that they are a) hella uncomfortable for long periods of time & b) likely to get stuck in the slats of a wood deck during a baby shower while I’m holding a mimosa.

Total wear-with-caution label needed.

Don’t be mad, but I honestly don’t remember how we met.  I don’t remember whether it was a comment on a blog or Twitter or a message board, but I do know it was friendship-at-first-site. (Get it?  Site!)

I have sat down to your words & life for the past two years, feeling like we might as well be sharing a cup of coffee together over the kitchen table.  That’s what your writing does & why you are so talented - you take the joyful & the ugly in life & turn it into something we all feel & relate to as a friend.  Remember that first morning of Blissdom where we sat cross-legged on the beds & talked so long that we almost missed breakfast & the opening speaker?  It was like reading your blog, but in real life with real words.  Funny.  Honest.  Self-depracating in the most humble way.

What’s happening isn’t something you dreamed or asked for, but you are handling it with such a strong grace that I am honored to be your friend.

You are reminding mommas of our love & devotion to our babies.

You are reminding us of our job as protectors, as champions, & the momma bear we all have within.

You are facing the war on women head-on, whether you realize it or not, by challenging our ideas on the right to choose, the right to life, the right to receive compassionate care.

& you’re doing it the most unassuming, graceful way…like always.

Thanks for being you, friend.

follow diana’s journey here

It was a hard morning, saying goodbye to our pup of sixteen years with a final scratch of the ears, knowing she was peaceful.

The Momma & I stood together outside the vet’s office, tears flowing freely in our sadness, & we wondered how to go on with our day & walk away from her. How we could pretend everything was normal, knowing that final goodbyes had just been said as an act of human selflessness, to let Missy go out of love?

It seemed natural to make a right out of the vet office towards our neighborhood Starbucks, where we ducked out of the drizzling rain & ordered our favorite blend.

Sitting at a small cafe table near the back, The Momma & I clicked our coffee cups to Missy & laughed about our sweetest memories of that little dog. Like the time we had to hose her out from under the deck with water or when she carried her pups in on Christmas morning by the scruff of their necks or how the vet thanked us that morning for giving her such a wonderful life.

The tears fell over our coffee cups, but they were tears of happiness, knowing we did the best we could over sixteen years.

So rather than a card with a scribbled note or a batch of brownies for the mourning, we shared our hearts over steaming cups & gave thanks for the little life that made such a big difference.

To our Missy & our family & the love we shared for sixteen years.

So that you may honor someone you love & pay tribute to joy in your life, I’m giving away one $100 gift card to Starbucks. That purchases roughly 25 grande lattes, which should make for a great girl’s morning out or keep you properly caffeinated for several months unless you have a serious addiction.

To be entered for a chance to win, simply tell me this: How do you pay tribute to those you love & the memories you share?

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This sweepstakes is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from March 15th to April 1st 2012.

Be sure to visit the Promotions & Prizes page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ stories and find more chances to win!

You loved Tribute Blend so much, Starbucks brought it back. But, only for a limited time. Tribute Blend is a spicy, full-bodied blend with dark cherry notes, featuring four of our highest quality beans aged Sumatra, sun-dried Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea and Colombia beans.

Raise a cup once more to the limited-time return of Starbucks Tribute Blend. It’s still just for you, and still because of you. Available for a limited time in whole bean and Starbucks VIA.

That goes under the blog “Lazy Girl Problems.”

That’s Morgan in one of the thousands of bathrooms at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.  She’s not paying attention to me because a) she’s known me for 3 years & expects weird behavior or b) she’s also a blogger & understands weird behavior.

Huge bathroom, right?  Plenty o’ stalls but I still had beef with them.  See, Morgan is a short gal by tall girl standards & her head hits the top of the stall door.  This was my view:

Nope, I’m not standing on my toes.

It created an awkward moment or five after I used the facilities & had to scoot my shapewear back up over my rear.  & by “scoot,” I mean wiggled back & forth in a chicken dance until I was out of breath & my underwear was shoved up my ass, but my shapewear was on & up under my boobs so I just called it a success.  A panting, sweaty success.

That everyone got to witness as the top of my head bobbed around over the door & I looked like a drunk fish on the line.

Trout, anyone?

I agree with her. 

I am absolutely a fan of books being made into movies, which may sound traitorous coming from a book nerd like myself.  But I’ve always had this wild imagination & love seeing the scenes I play over in my head come to life, breathing words into the screen.

Sometimes?  It is done beautifully.  Like Gone With the Wind & Vivienne Leigh, who epitomizes Scarlet O’Hara down to her pinky toes.  Or a few of the Harry Potter movies, where you almost stand up & yell “Expelliamus!” with him.  But then, there’s the Twilight movies.

Oh, dear God, the Twilight movies.  I refuse to be ashamed for my love of Edward Cullen & how I want to have R. Patz’s vampire babies, or that time I might have asked Doug to pretend to be a vampire while we were having maritals.  But they are done just…horribly.  Kristen Stewart kinda sucks at being awkward, which is weird because she is so innately awkward.  It’s like this awkward girl trying to awkwardly pretend to be awkward & it just fails all over the place.  & then there are the telepathic wherewolves, which are already a stretch when you’re devouring the books like any normal twelve-year-old girl, but to see them on screen?

Let’s just say I burst out laughing.  All out, gut-busting hooted until Laura & I were burrying our faces in our handbags.

So let’s just hope that The Hunger Games appeases my wild imagination.

 & once you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy in record time, pick up Veronica Roth’s Divergent.  TRUST ME ON THIS.

’tis the season, my friends.  THE SEASON OF TACKY SWEATER PARTIES.

Starting in 2008 with my girlfriends from the-message-board-that-shall-not-be-named (Lord Boardamort? ::snort::), I host a Tacky Sweater/Cookie Exchange party at my house one night in December.  We call dibs on appetizers, I supply the Two Buck Chuck, & the house is lit with twinkle lights & laughter.  My sweater is pink with a fur collar, but that probably does not suprise you at this point.

The first year, it was so unseasonably warm that we threw open the windows & turned on the air conditioning.  Girls from Charlotte & Wilmington came & we uncorked numerous bottles of wine & laughed at how Pami mixed up baking powder with baking soda.  (note? the two are NOT the same)  Girls wore feather boas & for an entire year, I cleaned up green & red tinsel from Lacey & Amanda’s “belts.”

The next year brought typical December weather, so we turned on the fireplace & enjoyed feeling baby kicks inside big bellies as we dove into a homemade cake.

For year three, Harrison was our two-month-old guest of honor & he donned the ugliest velvet baby Santa suit I could dig up.  It was cooler that year, but both the fireplace & my postpartum hormones roared, so Harry & I were stripped to a tank top & onesie by 7pm.

Last year?  I am so sorry, my friends, for skipping last year.  It hurt me to do it but after such a loaded year & with my old office making so many demands at Christmas, I was in over my head.  Throughout the year, we mourned the absense of the sweater party & the 5,000 calories we all ingest that night, although it did make New Year’s resolutions a little easier to start on.

This year?  I vowed we would have a party.  Then life took over & a house went on the market & Sunday, December 4th appeared with no date set, no invitations delivered.  Until my friend texted me that we should have a wine & cookie night, just for the girls.  BOOM.  Sweater party was in action again!  This one?  It’s going to be much more low-key.  We’ll be starting a little earlier & there will probably be less craziness because we are all a wee bit older, but I cannot wait for a Girls Night Christmas celebration.

(they didnt ask me to provide a recipe, but these are so yummy & what I always make that I could not help myself!)

 Cake Chews, compliments of The Momma

Crust
1 box yellow Duncan Hines cake mix
1 stick butter (softened)
1 egg
*mix all three ingredients with wooden spoon & press into bottom of 9×13 pan (ungreased)

Topping
1 lb confectioner’s (aka powdered) sugar
8 0z cream cheese
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
*beat ingredients until creamy & pour over crust

Bake at 325 F for one hour.  They take 4-5 hours to cool completely.  Serve room temperature in small squares.

Remember to check out Duncan Hines’ website www.duncanhines.com to find some great recipes for your holiday get-together! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.

Not because the thoughts aren’t there.  They are there, spilling over madly because this blog is the capture of life & oh, life is being lived right now.

The up & down & GO GO GO! of life where I am sitting in conference rooms at 8:30am & shoving a sandwich in at my desk, prepping for the afternoon’s conference call.  A new assignment that has me flattered & overwhelmed, determined to show the boss that yes! I can do this!  The texting of insurance cards & jotting down ideas & making sure we have all the ingredients for dinner & no, Harrison, you cannot have a cookie for dinner.

The epic meltdown occurs & I’m standing there at the end of the day, shoes kicked off & button-down blouse still on & stirring boiling pasta.  I look at him & close my eyes, taking deep breaths & trying out that 1-2-3 magic but on myself.  He is maddeningly two & woke up this morning on a mission to test all the limits.  A piece of me wants to throw up my hands in frustration, but I look back down at him & all I can do is wrap him up in my arms.

He’s here tonight.  My friend Beth is not so lucky as her little boy Keegan went to Heaven today.  Keegan, not three weeks older than my own little boy.

I am undone.  Completely raw for the day in my stocking feet & a little boy who does not understand why his momma is hugging him instead of using the usual exasperated tones at dinnertime.

I put him in bed & pull the red & aqua cover to his chin & I think that I cannot handle Chicka Chicka Boom Boom one more time, but then I remember the momma’s who never got to read it, or who won’t get to read it.  I wonder if it would be silly to ask God to maybe read Keegan Chicka Chicka Boom Boom one night, just to let him know we’re thinking of his momma’s heart?  & so I pick up that board book, starting to show signs of wear after only a few months because it is loved so.

& my heart, showing signs of wear because it has loved so.

So yes, life is spilling over & I am left breathless & awkward in it’s path.

Thank you for your sweet congratulations yesterday!  You sure know how to make a girl blush & I’m just so sorry I haven’t been able to respond personally to everyone.

Thank you for following me over there, reading my words, & still hanging out with me here.  I told the folks on Babble that my readers e-friends were the best & funniest & most loyal that you could ever find, & HOT DAMN, did y’all prove me right.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for sticking up for me & basically delivering the most epic troll beat-down I have seen in years.  You basically rolled in the STFU Truck while I was supporting a buddy of mine’s shop opening, & I appreciate you stepping in my absence.

(Also?  Thank you for keeping it classy & letting her look like the fool.)

As you may have seen on the Twitters, I discovered that the hurtful words were coming from a woman I previously thought as a friend.  I suppose I could spin it into a TRUST NOBODY! conspiracy theory about meeting friends on the interwebs, but the truth of it all is that no matter what parenting choices you make, someone will disagree.  Breast versus bottle, BabyWise vs Attachment Parenting, working mom versus stay at home mom.  We’ve all seen the battles but we never suspect our friends having cruel thoughts about us, always hidden behind a smile or sweet Facebook note. 

So my thoughts on the whole situation boil down to friendship, not parenting – as someone’s friend, you have the responsibility of protecting their heart.  Plain & simple.  If you think there is an outrageous wrong happening, then by all means speak up!  But do it TO THEIR FACE, with honesty out on the table.  If you must hide your thoughts behind anonymity & gossip, then it is probably not worth speaking.  & if you feel that negatively towards a “friend?”   You disagree so strongly with them?  It probably means the friendship ain’t worth it, so you cut your losses & find someone that you love unconditionally.

The good news is that in these days, most “friendships” can be desolved by defriending on Facebook. ::snort::

By the way, did I say THANK YOU enough for all the awesomeness yesterday?

Real friends dress up in cocktail dresses & fascinators, then go buy hot dogs on the streets of New York City.

The silence is deafening & I begin to resent the silence, to grow weary of it & imagine that He must grow weary of my pleas.  My heart puts conditional love on an unconditional promise & I wonder, have I been wrong all along?

oh, ye of little faith.

& then news comes, the kind of wonderful news that moves mountains & shakes the soul & I hear God whisper, “See?”  & after all these years, I know.  I know that my prayers did not fall upon deaf ears, that I did not plead in vain, & that miracles do happen.  I let the tears & thankfulness fall free.

Back when I first started planning Harrison’s second birthday party (you know, the day after his first birthday party), there was nothing greater in his heart than Curious George.  Of course, Lightning McQueen & Simba came later, but the little curious monkey was our go-to for entertainment in both books & film for many months.  So it only made sense for Curious George to be the inspiration for his birthday party.  Red & yellow with splashes of aqua, mostly digging on monkeys & bananas rather than actually splashing George’s face everywhere.

Last year, I spent hours in the kitchen hand-making dips & pies when the Pillsbury sugar cookies were the first to disappear off the table.  This year, I decided to cater to the toddlers by ordering $5.00 pizzas from Little Caesar’s & filling a bowl with goldfish.  Harrison’s smallest guests sipped on watered-down apple juice while the parents enjoyed water.  & of course, I did the ever-popular pigs n’ blankets – best part of the story was when I asked a grocery store worker where he kept his “little weiners.”  That was awkward.

Cupcake toppers from the Etsy seller, ClassyAndSimple.  As Harrison’s best gal has a serious peanut allergy, the cupcakes needed to be made from home.  I mixed up a box yellow cake, then The Momma helped decorate them with cream cheese icing & sugar sprinkles.  There is something wonderfully old school about homemade baked goods at a party, you know?

I’ve got a thing for paper lanterns.  They just give a little “pop” to the decor, so we hung them from tree branches.

A lot of the details were handmade, either by me or people with far more talent.  Like Erika from Bird E. Studios, who made the gorgeous pennant that will now go in Harry’s room.  I made the rag wreath at night while we watched Mad Men & Vampire Diaries (I have a rather eclectic taste in entertainment), & sewed the poms to a red tablecloth on Thursday evening, along with whipping up the red checked backdrop for our “photo booth.”

This is a typical family photo with a two-year-old.

I purchased six yards of cotton gingham cloth, on sale for $1.97 per yard, then cut it in half & stitched the two halves together.  I didn’t worry about hemming on the edges, but did fold over the top with a quick stitch to fit a rod or ribbon through that would hold it to the fence.

Harrison had a WONDERFUL time & was a fantastic host.   Did I mention that he did not want to wear a shirt?  Within thirty minutes of the party starting, Harry was shirtless & his friend Holden was dancing on the table.  So basically, the party was amazing.

p.s. be sure to take a favor before you leave!