As my loyal readers may recall, I have a  Bar Mitzvah coming up. Well, my son has the Bar Mitzvah. I'm just paying for it. The ceremony is to be held on a private beach during a cruise.  I am planning great swag bags for my guests who are family and best friends. The swag bags are going along very well and I am starting to obsess over making them fabulous.


So for the next few weeks, bear with me as I discuss these bags which are taking over my house at this point.


A note to my sister who sometimes reads my blog...If you want to be surprised, please stop reading right now. If you want to give your opinion, please do. Everyone else who is not going on the cruise, please chime in with any suggestions and keep checking back as I post other items in the bags

First of all, the bag...

This style bag won out. It is lightweight and cute. I purchased the logo on Etsy. This logo is only on the bags and on the notes that I sent out to the travelers with information. The pirate logo seemed too tough for the bags which will be carried by ladies. The pirate logo is going to be on almost everything else that we give away during the trip.

I wanted  some beach stuff in the swag bag. My guests range in age from 3 to almost 80, so I had to be very generic. Everyone can and should use is Sunscreen, so I put some in this heavy plastic case. It is not waterproof but water resistant and you could throw your seapass/room ticket/boarding pass thing and a few bucks in there.    

What do you think? What else can I put in there that someone would really want on the beach?  I'm sort of stumped. Is is good as is?

I'll post more swag tomorrow! 

Going through the baby photos...

     Generally when one throws a Bar Mitzvah party for her child, there is a slide show to prepare. At some parties, there is a slide show of the guest of honor at various ages with family and friends which plays in the background.  At other Bar Mitzvahs, the parents stop the party all together, turn down the lights and show a long chronological montage of the Bar mitzvah boy from birth to present day. 
     My preference is to have it playing as background art because who really wants to watch 15 minutes of photos from the life of a 13 year old other than the parents and grandparents of said child? This is what I did at my first son's party. This was an easy way to do it as I did not have to edit the photos to songs or cut out any photos. The slide show played during the party and honored my son without boring anyone to death. 
     For my youngest son's upcoming big event, we are going on a family cruise, so unless I can convince Royal Caribbean to play photos of my son on the close circuit televisions in every single one of the 2730 cabins on the ship, I'm not doing a slide show.  This is quite a burden lifted as I have 11,000 photos on my trusty mac and hundreds more in albums and boxes from the pre-digital camera age.
     That being said, I made a personalized photo album from Shutterfly featuring about 20 photos of my son at various ages.  It is a hard cover bound book. I  kept the pages around the photos white and will bring it on the trip and let everyone sign it with well wishes for him. 

     My blog is supposed to be anonymous but no one would recognize this guy today. He is almost as tall as me and his blond hair is now curly and brown.

   The big challenge was narrowing it down to around 20 photos of my son. It was like  Sophie's choice. Especially when it came to Halloween costume photos. Infant in a dog suit (in). Superman with muscles (out). 7 year old elvis complete with white jumpsuit and wig (in of course!).  I got so frustrated last week that I just gave up. How can I pack 13 years of cuteness into one little album.

  

     I promised myself that I would cross this off of my list this weekend so I hunkered down and finished it. My husband was mad that I did not give him final approval before I ordered it but I saw a tear in his eye when I showed him the proof online.

    One down, 7000 more things to do before the big day. Wish me luck that I will get it all done without needing to color out my gray more than once before the trip!

Fiats and Fun in Florida....

Hey fellow Boca Girls! (once a Boca Girl, always a Boca Girl right?). From May 9th-12th, an Italian themed celebration is taking place at the Fountain's Center on Camino and Powerline.

The Event will showcase some awesome Fiats (If I did not have to bus around every kid in my neighborhood, I'd drive one). One of the Fiats is custom painted by Miami artist Abstrk and there will also be a Chrome Fiat 500 Abarth Model on display.

There will also be a pop-up Pizza Cafe sponsored by Lavazza Italian Coffee with free samples! Other festivities include a sing along movie night to MAMMA MIA and some mother's days events

Go to www.Fountainscenter.com for more info.

Living in Miami is always an adventure...

One of the best (and sometimes the worst) things about living in Miami is that it often feels like you are living in another country. 

Miami is a true melting pot. It is not just Cuban (as many people think), there are also tons of Central and South Americans, Caribbean people and lots of Russians along with immigrants from all around the world. Driving is often a big old party, especially in the winter when the Canadians and American snowbirds head down to warm up.

I love that I can go to my local supermarket and try to figure out what languages the other shoppers are speaking. I love the accents.  I also love the restaurants.

Last night my husband and I tried a new-to-us restaurant in Coral Gables, which is a city within Miami-Dade County. It was called Aromas del Peru.  It was a little Peruvian restaurant. Peruvian food is different from Spanish or Mexican food that you might be familiar with. All Miamians, including us, know enough Spanish to order food in restaurants but we were a little confused because we don't really  know Peruvian food so the experience was like being on a mini-vacation for us.  Our waiter spoke no english so we sort of asked him to bring us what he thought we would like. A risk? Yes. Fun? Yes

We started with  a  causa. A causa is like a potato knish with filling. The filling we had was crab. It was beautiful and delicious.

The waiter then brought us a huge dish of cerviche. It has shrimp and other fish. It also had some type of beans, sweet potato and corn. It was absolutely heavenly. 

After that, we were full but the waiter then brought out a seafood only paella. It was amazing.  

He then brought us some type of torte with dulce de leche and apricots.

This place was amazing. Yum Yum. Yesterday was one of those days where feeling like you're living in a foreign country is a good thing! 

Spring cleaning....

As many of you know, I have a very successful  eBay consignment business. I have no trouble selling high end and other desirable brands, but I have ahard time selling good old regular mall brands for any type of profit. The amount that stuff like Gap and J.Crew clothes sell for is just not worth the time or effort. Luckily, I just came across this cool site called Like Twice and I'm cleaning out my closet right now.

They send you a bag or a pre-paid sticker and you mail them your unwanted clothes like Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, etc and they mail you a check. You probably won't get rich, but something is better than nothing right? They also sell gently used clothing so if you need some well-priced spring stuff to fill your closet back up, you may find something good! 

Don't you love the feeling when you purge out your closet? I do. Here is the link to their site like twice

Maybe we should be a little goofier...

Yesterday as I was pulling out the the supermarket, I saw a cute little old man get into his very expensive and nice Mercedes Convertible and put on a pair of giant novelty sunglasses.  He had a big smile on his face as he peeled out onto the street.

I had to laugh. He looked absurd. If I was related to him, I probably would have been embarrassed. He looked certifiably insane. A crazy person. 

I looked about the parking lot and everyone had a smile on their face. They were laughing with him. He was spreading joy.  Perhaps I need to be a little sillier as I age. Anyone with me? 

I said Yes to something...

As you might recall, I've been having trouble saying "No" lately. I'm just easy that way. It is bad. I'm overwhelmed with mom/wife/ebaying stuff to do and I've agreed to do some lawyer work. On top of that, I have a Bar Mitzvah to host next month. I'm frazzled. 

Last week, I was invited to attend the Principal of the year dinner and dance for Miami-Dade County. I agreed to go but was dreading it. I drove myself to the event (even though the other mom's were carpooling together) so that I could dash out if it was horrendous. When I got there, it was really nice. It was at a fancy ballroom. There was flattering lighting.  The was alcohol! There were pretty centerpieces. It was way more glam that I expected an educational event to be.

The program started and the anticipation for the awards was slowly built up. It was a huge honor that they had made it this far. By the time they announced the winner, I was all nervous for my principal!   We did not win. I wanted to throw my plate of chicken at the stage. I know now what it must be like when your people don't win the academy award and you  have to sit through the rest of the awards with a fake smile on your face.

It was fun. I'm glad that I went. My principal should have won but but there is always next year!

The funny part of the night came when they served dinner. Funny or Gross actually. The dinner was held a Jungle Island. Jungle Island is a bird zoo that used to be called Parrot Jungle.  The ballroom is a separate area and rivals any nice hotel ballroom but right next door are a million birds including my favorite, a parrot that rides a bike across a tightrope.

When they served the chicken, it was perfectly parrot sized. One of the PTA girls said "enjoy your parrot" and we all decided to just eat the rolls out of the bread basket.  Maybe they should serve fish next year!

                                          Hope this bike is really fast! Go Polly Go!