Triangle Mamas

Do you have a Will?

By Ilina

Forget the whole shebang about seeing a man about a horse. You need to saddle up and go see a woman about a will. Do you have a will? You know, that legal document that bequeaths all your assets when you die. That thing you should have done, signed, copied, and put in the safe deposit box nine years ago. No will yet? Really? So much for the whole sound mind bit.

 

Let me drag out my soapbox for a moment. Pardon me while I slip off these heels so I can climb up.

 

Trust me. You're going to want to hear this rant.

 

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Finish reading Ilina's rant and other fabulous posts at her blog Dirt & Noise. When Ilina's not ranting on her blog, she's serving up mini rants and other humorous witticisms on Twitter.

Bargain Hunting with the Durham Rescue Mission

By Abby

I have a little secret and I'm not sure I should share. If I share, all you local peeps just might start shopping there too and then I'll have to compete with you for all the good stuff.

All the good stuff, you say. Where?

At Rescued Treasures, the Durham Rescue Mission thrift shoppe -- located on US-70/Glenwood Avenue near Brier Creek.

It's here you can find all sorts of awesome deals. I brought home a whole bag of Linus clothing for only $10. It included some pretty nice pants (some still with tags) for $2 each. Right now, Linus is rocking a pair of Gap jammies that I got for -- $2. That's right, most kids clothes are only $2 each.

You can't beat that price anywhere.

Not even at Goodwill, where kid's clothes are $2.25 each.

But even better than prices that beat Goodwill is that unlike GCF, the Rescue Mission's clothes are sorted by SIZE. It's so easy to find a bargain.

My mom even scored a Peg Perego Pliko stroller for $15. She's gonna clean it up, repair the seat fabric, and then pass it on to my expectant sister-in-law, Kate.

And the furniture. I haven't even mentioned the furniture. I have my eye on a desk, if only I can find a way to get it home AND convince my husband that despite it's imperfections, $25 is NOT too much to pay. We'll see.

The other great score I made at the Rescue Mission -- my mom's Christmas present.

But you'll have to wait until Thursday for that one. Stay tuned.

Almost forgot -- While you're there don't forget to donate all your unwanted, gently used household goods and clothing. You can just drive on up, let them unload the car, and walk away with a tax write-off receipt. Easy-peasy.

 

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This is an original Triangle Mamas post. Abby blogs about local finds, shopping steals, and much more at My Sweet Babboo. You can also find her on Twitter when she's not moving laundry around.

Just a Cheesy Girl in Love With the Hillsborough Cheese Company - RTP

By Ilina

 

If there's one thing in my life that's telling and appropriate, it's that I married a man from Wisconsin. America's Dairyland! Home of the Mars Cheese Castle! I love me some cheese. There's one ad that is more truthful than all others - the one that proclaims cheese makes everything better.

 

I got to take a little field trip to the Hillsborough Cheese Company. It was quite an honor because this is not a factory kind of place where the general public can don a hair net and wander in. The boutique creamery operates on a small family farm where Cindy, cheese maker extraordinaire, grew up. Considering I've only been to the kind of boutique where you try on silken dresses that run up your credit card bill, I had no idea what to expect. On a rainy gray day I showed up in my galoshes, having been warned to wear something with rubber soles that could get goopy. The small creamery where all the hands on labor is done is quite refreshing in this age of factory grade rubber that passes as cheese. Don't even get me started on the stuff labeled "cheese product."

 

I got to actually go to work and get my hands dirty whipping up a batch of jalapeno chevre. It was a tactile pleasure to get in there mixing up the grated bits of pickled jalapeno and black pepper. The green flecked snowball that was the end result tasted magnificent. I used it in sweet potato quesadillas that night and polished off the rest on some simple wheat crackers.I also bought some of the aged sweet ash. It was a marvel to see the little round glob of cheese in all its stages and then bite into the finished product. I served the sweet ash to guests outside by our patio fireplace one night. We had a simple fireside nosh of cheese, Italian bread, and grapes. I was up and down refilling drinks and opening wine so I didn't even get to enjoy my sweet ash! Damn my share the wealth spirit.

My other favorite was the ricotta. Banish any thoughts of grocery store ricotta you have. This is nothing like it. I have been dreaming about fresh ricotta since we returned from Italy. In July. I had it every morning for breakfast and have searched all over for a decent stand in until our budget takes us back to Sorrento. Well, folks I found it! The Hillsborough Cheese Company's ricotta is simply divine. It's creamy and rich without being grainy or leaving remnants of a weird after taste like the whole milk stuff sold in the super market. This ricotta, my friends, is the real deal. My sons clamored for it as an after school snack, and I had no choice but to share the wealth. Needless to say, it was devoured in minutes. Next time I shall buy two containers and stash one for myself. And no more sharing for this girl!

 

I am a devotee of the Hillsborough Cheese Company. It stands for all thing values I embrace - local, fresh, good food made with passion, zest, and flavor. Cindy, the cheesemaker, is so knowledgable and humble. She makes a superb product and is driven by quality, not images of grandeur. I'll be making a special trip to some farmers markets a good hike away from me to buy up some Hillsborough Cheese Company Cheese. But I can't promise it will even make it home.

Here's where you too can relish the flavor:

South Estes Farmers Market in Chapel Hill
Eno River Farmer's Market in Hillsborough
Weaver Street Markets (in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro)
A Southern Season in Chapel Hill
Western Wake Farmer's Market in Cary
Saxapahaw Farmers Market in Saxapahaw

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You can find Ilina talking food, politics, and everything in between on her blog Dirt & Noise. You can also catch her in snippets on Twitter.

Giveaway: Burn the Floor - Raleigh

Are you often on Twitter talking about #SYTYCD? How about #DWS? If you know that those hashtags stand for 'So You Think You Can Dance' and 'Dancing with the Stars', then this giveaway is for you.

And, even if you don't watch those shows, seeing a LIVE performance right here in Raleigh is sure to spark your interest. Who knows-- maybe next week it will be you who's tweeting all about ballroom dancing.

Burn the Floor, a ballroom dancing spectacular, is coming to Raleigh Memorial Auditorium from November 30 to December 5th. This is your chance to see the Cha-Cha, the Tango, and the Jive performed by professionals who have spent their lives training to be the best.

This is so not your wedding, where the Chicken Dance got the most enthusiastic response. It's also not your college fraternity formal where a few couples swayed back and forth until the kegs arrived. This is REAL dancing -- ballroom dancing.

See for yourself.

Amazing, isn't it?

Lucky for you, Triangle Mamas is giving away TWO pairs of tickets (that means TWO winners) to the November 30th show. All you have to do to enter is share one dancing memory. It can be embarassing, sweet, or simple.

Mine? Well, there was that college fraternity formal where my partner and I were attempting this dance but instead ended up kicking the chandelier loose. Yep, and that was before the kegs arrived.

So what's your dancing memory?

Additional entries (one entry per bullet item):

• Tweet about the contest, being sure to include @trianglemamas in your tweet. (Come back here and leave us a comment with a link to your tweet.)
• Subscribe to Triangle Mamas via RSS through whatever reader you prefer. (Leave us a comment telling us you've subscribed.)

That's it. Contest is open until midnight Friday, November 26th. Winners (because there will be TWO) will be informed via email (so don't forget to provide us with it) and they'll have 24 hours to get back to us.

Good luck!

Hey, even if you don't win, you can still go. Here's where you can purchase tickets (with a reduced price for the 30th and 1st shows). It's going to be an amazing show!

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The fine print -- Triangle Mamas was provided with two tickets to see the show for ourselves as well as the two pairs for the giveaway. We rarely do giveaways, but we thought this was a great LOCAL experience allowing us to say thank you to our readers. This contest is obviously open only to those who can be in attendance November 30th in Raleigh.

Open letter to the City of Raleigh

Dear Parking Gods of the City of Raleigh,

Last week, I went shopping in downtown Raleigh. It's something I used not to think twice about - going downtown to eat or shop. That has now changed.

I understand the need to increase revenue in the city. Everyone is hurting for money, and that includes Raleigh. I get that. When every single 2 hour parking spot in downtown Raleigh disappeared and was replaced by meters, I only groaned a little bit.

On this particular rainy morning, I parallel parked on Martin Street. It was raining. I left the baby in the car, ran to the meter, and fed it all of my spare change. I had over an hour running on the meter. I ran back to the car, sat and waited for the store to open, and then went in to do my shopping.

Being the first customer of the day, I had to wait a little bit for the shop owner to process my transaction. I watched the clock, and knew that the meter might be about to run out. However, I was almost done, had the baby with me, and it was pouring down rain.

Ten minutes later, I got back to my car and found a ticket. The parking person was two cars up from mine; he had just left the ticket for me. I didn't argue with him. I'll pay the ticket. I was over my meter by five minutes. I understand that.

So, dear City of Raleigh, you will get your $20 because I didn't drag my infant back out into the pouring rain to feed the meter another nickel. What you will also get here though, is someone who is reconsidering renewing her membership to Marbles because of parking. You get someone who won't pop downtown to pick something up from Square Rabbit on a whim anymore. You get someone who won't choose to eat in a restaurant downtown when she can go to North Hills and park easily for free.

As I was driving away, I counted FIVE parking people writing tickets. In the rain. FIVE. And I wondered how much it cost to pay those people, and surely there was some sort of balance between wasting money on an army of ticket writers and bringing in $20 parking ticket fees.

There are so many things I think you get right, dear City of Raleigh. This, however, is definitely not one of them. If you don't work downtown, it's already hard enough to figure out where to park to begin with. Now, you've put predatory parking vultures out on the street to give tickets the second the meter expires.

Sure, it's fair. I'm not saying that I should have let my meter run out. But is it encouraging me to come back downtown anytime soon? 

Absolutely not.

Sincerely,

One peeved Mama

 

This is an original Triangle Mamas post. You can find Marty blogging the 30 Days of Truth over at Don't Take the Repeats. Her more random thoughts and favorite Etsy finds pop up on Tumblr, and she chit chats on Twitter and Facebook. 

Friday Round-up

As I sit here downing Halloween candy, I can't help but wonder where the week has gone. (Likely the same place as the Whoppers. I swore I still had two left in that pack.)

It seems the weeks run together and that early start on holiday shopping I swore I was going to have has vanished with the Fall leaves.

It's Friday again and here it is -- our ninth week of rounding up the best from all the Triangle Mamas. This week was marked by a Congressional election, an additional temperature drop that sent me scurrying for my scarves, and the start to NaBloPoMo. Many of the Triangle Mamas are taking advantage of a 30 Days of Truth meme to boost their publishing rate up to the daily mark while others are feeling a slump in their bloginess since real life is keeping them busy.

That's the case with Andrea over at Lil Kid Things. She's busy trying the fit the entire contents of her house into boxes in preparation for a move to a new place at the end of the month. The transition is causing her a bit of inner turmoil.

Meanwhile, Susie, over at At Home with Me, is breaking her year long bloggy silence by jumping in the deep end. She's participating in the 30 Days of Truth and getting honest about her flaws in Something I Hate about Myself.

Ilina of Dirt & Noise, on the other hand, is not about to remain silent. She's made her opinions heard loud and clear by casting her ballot. Did you make sure to have your voice heard?

Sue from Motherhood & Me has been been quiet, but she was sure to draw a winner for her Scandanavian Child giveaway. Did you enter? Maybe you're the big winner.

Nikki from a small song may not think she's preparing for Baby #2's arrival, but it seems to me that she's doing her best to mentally be ready. She's wondering if the new baby's arrival will change her as radically as her eldest Abby's birth. No matter what, she knows something good this way comes.

Over at Adventuroo, Mel is worrying about raising gentlemen. She's worried that etiquette and role models won't be enough. What do you think it takes to turn boys into gentlemen?

Erin over at Tales from a Marketing Mama used the 30 Days of Truth to admit her own personal goofiness. She's the kind of girl who's willing to hitch her pants up to her neck if it will emit a laugh. This is, Erin admits, one of the things she loves about herself.

A little girl who's willing to hand out lots of compliments but share none of her candy? That's Pippi. Cyndi is sharing a story of her second child over at My Convertible Life.

While Marty, over at Don't Take the Repeats, is busy thinking about renewal and new life with her son's baptism approaching, she's still struggling with letting go of an old hurt. She's not yet ready to forgive in her Day 4 post from the 30 Days of Truth.

And, since I've been struggling with blog topics for My Sweet Babboo as of late, I too decided to try the 30 Days of Truth. Like Marty, I'm struggling to forgive except I'm not just holding out forgiveness from one person but a whole group of people. It's been ten years, will I ever let it go?

 

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Hey, while you're here, don't forget to read this week's Triangle Mamas posts. Both Cyndi and Andrea shared stories.

I Voted

When Pippi and I walked into our polling place yesterday, I had to laugh. And not because Pippi was wearing plastic princess heels (which she was) or because all the little old ladies in the room were so sweet to her and her weather-inappropriate footwear (which they were). 

I chuckled because of the particular neighbor I recognized sitting at the table working through her ballot. She's a great friend and I love her -- and she's a Republican.

I know, I know -- even liberal ladies like myself have a few conservative friends in the closet. In truth, she and I probably agree on a number of issues, but we tend to live on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Still, I was happy to see her at the polls. Although I can't really talk politics with this friend because she gets me all worked up and preachy, I still respect her right to vote for the candidates she believes in, even though our ballots probably cancelled each other out in most races.

The reason? Because she's paying attention. She was sitting at the table with her ballot and the newspaper's voter guide, reading through the candidates' information to make her selections. She's not voting straight-ticket out of blind allegiance or (worse) simply not voting but complaining about the way things are -- she's listening to the facts, weighing the debates and making informed choices.

Sure, I wish I could bring her over to my side on more issues -- particularly given the way some of the races turned out. And yes, I'll probably dodge any political debates with her in the near future. 

But I'm still glad she was there to vote. And I trust that all those women who fought so hard for the two of us to have the right to disagree on a ballot would be proud.

An original Triangle Mamas post. Cyndi writes about all sorts of things, including her political soapboxes, at My Convertible Life and @convertiblelife. 

I am THAT Mom

by Andrea

A letter to my pre-child self.

Dear Self,

Right now you are neck deep in issues that are really important to you. Things like where you will order takeout from tonight (5-Star) and if those shorts are too short (they are). You probably got stressed out at work and yelled at your boss. You do that a lot. It’s cool though because he probably yelled at you first and you will one day realize that your sucky job as a member of a really super-dysfunctional office family will provide you with the fondest memories of your career.

At any rate, you’re stressed and you see these moms who talk and talk and talk about their kids and their lives and you think LAWD don’t ever let me be THAT mom. Don’t EVER let me wear mom jeans and seriously? If I even think of leaving the house with chipped toenails just go ahead and put my head in the oven.

I hate to break it to you, but…

You are SO that mom. You will SOOOO be that mom! Hahaha! And you don’t even know it!!!

I suppose it’s for the best because you might think twice about skipping that pill if you knew that you would still be carrying an extra 20lbs 2 years post-partum. Or that you would never truly have an unfiltered night’s sleep again free from the stresses of keeping another human alive. You might have thought differently about the endless cleaning and planning and eating. I mean you have to feed those little suckers. All day!

You might have judged your mom self if you saw the afternoon spent at the Post Office snapping at a squirmy toddler while trying to seal a package with one hand and pay with the other. You might have scoffed at the fact that the child was not completely silent and post office appropriate.

But when you sneezed, you would not have heard Wesss You, Mama.

And I promise, you are NOT going to want to miss that.

Love,
Your Postpartum Self

P.S. Dump the guy. You’re gonna do waaaay better than him.

This is a cross-post from Lil-Kid-Things where Andrea blogs about life, love and the pursuit of sleep. You can also catch her on Twitter and Facebook!

Friday Roundup 8

Happy Halloween, y'all. It's Friday Roundup time again here at Triangle Mamas. Let's see what the ladies have been up to this week.

Melissa has a great summary of her Momcomm series thus far. I'm particularly excited about the post on plug-ins, but all of them have been helpful.  

Ilina is participating in the Avon Walk again this year. She could use your support in her efforts to raise money for breast cancer research. 

Erin and Marty are both gearing up to do the 30 Days of Truth challenge on their blogs. It's a great way to tackle National Blog Posting Month in November. How about playing along?

Sue is tackling weight loss through a Nutrisystem program. We are hoping she already knows that she is beautiful, and wish her luck in reaching her health goals.

Andrea's impending move is coming together, and she is declaring her new livingroom a toy-free zone. What? A room just for grown ups? I have heard of this in far away lands . . .

Cyndi is sharing a recipe for the most purple risotto ever created. It sounds delish, and I'm eager to try it out on my family. Even if it looks like Barney had some evil hand it making it.

Abby has another post detailing her decorating genius. Seriously. I wish she would just come over and play Extreme Makeover at my house. Click on over to see how her son's room has evolved from office to nursery to toddler bedroom. It's adorable.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend full of candy and boos!

Run! It's better than a bake sale.

by Ilina

Back in the day we sold homemade brownies and layer cakes to raise money for our schools. The pineapple upsidedown cakes went for the highest bid. That was back when we had cake walks at school carnivals. Nowadays in a strange twist we can't bring homemade goodies to school anymore. I guess it's the schoolyard scare of razor blades in apples. I'm thinking no one would have ever been hurt from razor blades in apples anyway because those apples would have been hurled at the houses who gave them out instead of candy. As much as I hate to compromise my food standards, I don't hand out pretzels and raisins on Halloween. Hey, I don't need some teens who are too old to trick or treat anyway come TP my house or pee in my mailbox. It's been known to happen, folks. But I digress...

Well, it seems that even the PTA is channeling Michelle Obama and getting their bodily gears in motion. The Wake County PTA is hosting its annual Healthy Lifestyles 5K on Sunday, November 21, 2010. I'm glad it's called a Healthy Lifestyles run instead of a "fun run." Now that's an oxymoron in my book. I'm all for getting a move on, but my feet were made for walking. About all the running I do is run out of breath.

The cool thing is that this run is for grown ups and kids. There are several age categories, including under 10 and over 60. I'm a big fan of being active with my sons, and if we can raise PTA funds while we're chugging along, all the better! I'll be racing with my family and I'm pretty sure I can handle the pace of my sons' seven and five year old legs. The 5K won't kill me, but the whining might.

 

The Deets:

Race Begins: 3:30 at Wake Med Soccer Park, Cary (Pick up race packets 12:30-3:00.)

 

*** RUN, WALK or VOLUNTEER ***

(I'll be in the WALK camp.)

Join your school's Healthy Lifestyles 5K team and help win Healthy Lifestyles funding. Of course, feel free to join Wiley's team to give my sons' school some props.  Schools with the most registered participants win stuff! And bragging rights! Check out last year's results, and let's top(ple) 'em!

To register and for more race details, go to: www.pta5k.org IMPORTANT: During the on-line registration procedure, be sure to choose your school (or Wiley...ahem) in the drop-down box entitled “Affiliate."

Early Bird Registration by 11/8/10 to get a race T-shirt.

Questions? Please contact: Annette Sheppard at 608-0441 or [email protected]

See you on the track to a healthy lifestyle! Or at a bakery.