Weekend Highlight.

Wine tasting with friends!

That's Random.

I've been of legal drinking age for 10 years and had never open/tried to open a bottle of wine. I've drank the "mom juice" before but I was always intimidated by the act of removing the cork. Last week I was making dinner and it called for some white wine. I called my mom to see if she had any errands to run and she said "no, why?" and I told her I wanted her to stop by and open a bottle of wine for me. She offered to have my dad come over to do it and I realized that is just silly. She recommended I look online - brilliant! I watched a video on youtube and opened my first bottle of wine and I used one of the old school kind of openers, not the "easy" openers. I was pretty proud of myself. ;)

Next goal: opening a champagne bottle

Majority Rules.

I will not be creating a different blog just for Stella & Dot. I also will not post more than twice in a week. Balance is good.

Today I signed up officially with Stella & Dot. I have to say its pretty fun going shopping for my samples but its hard to decide which to choose. I think I'll figure it out though. :)

I was blown away that I had my first sale today! A prior co-worker of mine ordered the Sofia Pearl Bib Necklace, get yours here: http://tinyurl.com/6yuu4my

If you want to shop or buy anything, you can do so my going through my page: www.stelladot.com/alyssawagner

You can also follow me on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Alyssa-Wagner-Independent-Stylist-for-Stella-Dot/223919377625828

My launch party is on July 2. Have I mentioned how excited I am?!

Strawberry Picking at Gizdich Ranch.

We had a fun morning with my sister and the girls. We headed over to Gizdich Ranch and got our pickin' on! The girls were really good about picking their berries and would ask "is this one good?" (good means they are red, not white or green). Charlie picked probably 3 berries and I picked the rest. All in all, it was a fun and different (oh, and cheap!) way to spend the morning.

After we picked berries, we quickly browsed the antique store. I wish it wasn't quick but they had some non-kid friendly items and I knew I couldn't trust Charlie in there. Then we headed towards the bakery where the girls had some of their famous apple juice. And before we left, we had to squeeze in some play time at their little play area in the back. I'm looking forward to apple picking in the fall!

Poll Time.

I posted a few days ago about how I'm joining Stella & Dot. I know I'll want to blog about that experience as well as blog about new products, etc. I might blog once a week about Stella & Dot so my question to my readers is whether or not to create a separate blog for that or keep it on this blog. Please answer the poll on the right hand side. Thanks :)

Stuck in a Rut.

I want to blog and lately I've actually had some time to blog at night but nothing is coming to me. I don't know why but I feel like I have nothing to blog about. I'm hoping that me putting this out there will somehow make the universe prove me wrong and the weird, random crap that used to happen to me will happen again. Or I might continue to blog about boring stuff. :) There is always Mr. Charlie but I don't want this blog to be a 100% "mommy blog." I want it to be a well rounded blog if you know what I mean. I don't want to blog for the sake of blogging. Ugh, I sound like such a loser.

Loving Thy Neighbor.

I recently became better friends with one of our neighbors. I met her in early summer of 2009 after I had posted some garage cabinets on freecycle. They happened to live on the next street over in our neighborhood. I didn't talk to the couple much when they came to my door because I was in my first trimester and very sleepy and not in the mood to chat so Rob "handled" the freecycle transaction. Months later I ran into the wife in the park and started talking about kids, etc. since my bump was more pronounced. We would run into them from time to time and they were always very nice. After I had Charlie and when she was very pregnant with her son I told Rob I wanted to buy her something for the baby and ask them over for dinner. Rob told me that would be very weird because we didn't really know them. I was a little bummed and not confident enough to say "who cares!" so I let it go. I would later see her in the park with her newborn and older daughter and we'd chat a bit more about babies, shared hospital stories (we delivered at the same hospital) and c-section stories (we were both c-section mamas). I knew I liked her and thought she was very sweet, funny, etc. Its been tough meeting friends in our neighborhood because Rob and I are a bit younger than most families and I'd say the average kid age would be about 8 or 10. So I was excited to meet someone who I felt I clicked with but I wasn't sure where to take it from there. Long story short, this woman and I recently created a "mom's group" in our neighborhood and we've been spending more time together (at least once a week) and I'm loving having someone in our hood to hang out with.

After thinking about my new buddy, I started to think about neighbors in my prior residences. Growing up, I'd say my family didn't always "click" with neighbors. I'm not saying there was drama - we'd just exchange pleasantries and thats as far as it went for the most part. Well, speaking of drama, I DID one time bring a dead possom to my neighbor's doorstep once for them to see it. I got a pair of pliers from  my dad's tool area and grabbed the dead possom by the tail and laid it on their doorstep and rang the doorbell to show it off to them (it was very large). I got in a little bit of trouble for that. Oh and I did toilet paper their house once and when the mom told me she was going to tell my mom I told her "she already knows we're doing this" - I'm sure that didn't help the neighbor relationship. By the way, my mom really did know we were going to do that. Mom, that might not have won you some good neighbor points, but you were a pretty cool mom I must say!

Then after college, I got a myspace message from someone telling me he lives above me in our complex and asked me over for some Persian tea sometime. Stalker!

Then Rob and I moved in together in our townhouse where we finally met some "normal" people. One couple were boyfriend/girlfriend and we'd go over for drinks and dinner and vise versa. One time we drove by and there was a moving truck so we stopped to chat and we found out they broke up so there went that friendship. Then a couple moved in literally right across from us. They were engaged, fun and we really liked them. One day I saw the guy outside BBQ-ing and asked "so how's married life?" and he said "I wouldn't know." I said "shut up!" (laughed) and he basically told me they called off the wedding and his ex-fiancee moved back to San Diego and he was moving to Texas.

So I'm happy to say my/our losing streak with neighbors seems to be gone.

We're Losing This Battle.

Stella & Dot.

I'm loving my time home with Charlie and not missing the corporate world (yet). :) I know someday I'll most likely go back but I'm enjoying my time for now.

I co-hosted a Stella & Dot jewelry party a couple of weeks ago and fell in love with their jewelry. I loved it so much that I'm signing up to be a Stylist! I'm super excited. I thought this would be something fun to do part time (probably after Charlie is sleeping), get some girl time in, wear some fun jewelry and make a little money while doing it!

Here are some of my favorite pieces:

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to come to my launch party or have your own trunk show, please let me know! Not local but would like information on ordering some jewelry? Just ask and I'll send you the details!