the world isn't fair

During my sophomore year of college, my good friend Deanne was an RA in the same dorm, and on the same floor that we lived in during our freshman year. One of her residents was a girl named Heather, and I liked her instantly! We all did a lot together and she almost joined the same sorority as I was in, but instead, the DGs got her. One of the first things I think of when I think of Heather is that over the summer, she and I would use AIM to talk to each other, back when you had to actually log into AOL, and her screen name was "EatChowChow." Don't ask.

We eventually lost touch, but through the magic of MySpace, found each other. A few years ago Heather got married, and soon after that, pregnant. Her daughter Maddie was born three months premature, and struggled to make it out of the NICU. But she did, and was one of the cutest, happiest babies I've ever seen. I got to follow Maddie's journey through Heather's website and it made me smile.

On Monday, Maddie was admitted to the hospital with trouble breathing, which wasn't altogether alarming considering she had struggled with her breathing througout her 1 1/2 year life. When I logged onto Twitter this morning, I had a "tweet" that announced Maddie's passing last night. I immediately felt a wave of sadness pass over me and started crying.

No one in this world deserves to go through what I can only imagine Heather, and her husband Mike, are going through at this very moment. It's just not fair.

Heather was very active with the March of Dimes, and if you are at all affected by this story, perhaps making a donation in Maddie's name might make it hurt a little less.

wine + women = fun!

Two days after I returned home from Kansas City, I hopped in my Beetle and drove up the coast to San Luis Obispo for a Women & Wine weekend with my mom and our friend Becky and

Kathy.

For those of you who don't know me, from Kindergarten through 4th grade, I lived in Reno, Nevada. While there, my mom and Kathy became friends ... we think when they volunteered to lead our Brownie troop. For awhile, Kathy even babysat my sisters and I when my mom returned to work. Becky and I did a lot together ... even after we moved to Chico she and I would go stay with each other for a week in the summer. We kept in touch through letters ... the handwritten kind as I didn't know what email was until I was in college. I was in Becky's wedding (9 years ago!) however, as we each became busy with day-to-day life, our communication lacked. But thanks to the miracle known as Facebook, we reconnected and decided we needed to all get together ... and wine it was!

Day 1: Pismo Beach
We all arrived at the SLO Embassy Suites around 12 noon and honestly, it felt like no time had passed. We decided to head to the Splash Cafe in Pismo for lunch and yes, I had the clam chowder. The fog had not quite lifted, but we had fun anyway (that's my mom and I).

Day 1: San Luis Obispo

After lunch we decided to head back to SLO because none of us had spent much time there. I have been to Pismo and Paso Robles quite a few times, but had never really walked around SLO. It was a very cute town, which reminded me of Chico (but Chico is better!) and I did some shopping and as an added bonus was able to check another California Mission off my list. Above is a picture of the SLO Mission and a statue of Father Serra outside.

We also stopped by the Madonna Inn, in hopes of surprising a family friend, Brett Noble, who now bartends there. For those of you not familiar with the Madonna Inn, it is located just off the 101 freeway and is a novelty hotel known for it's themed rooms. It's been there since the 1950s. While we didn't find Brett, we did find the hotel dining room which was very gaudy and creepy. We also decided that unless we could book the cave room, it wasn't worth staying there.

Day 1: Tobin James
That night, we were able to attend a James Gang (aka Wine Club) dinner at Tobin James (thank you Adam!). Oh my god ... you haven't lived until you've gone to one of these. Tobin James brands itself as a "Cowboy Winery" ... and they have more wines than you can imagine. For the party, they had four tents set up around the property, in addition to the main tasting room, cellar, and outdoor performance area. Each area had a wine bar where you could taste whatever you wanted and a variety of food stations. Some of the standouts - Ahi tuna with wontons, grilled tri tip, gumbo, chocolate fountain, Firestone Walker beer, and gourmet marshmellows. We all drank and ate to our heart's content ... my mom and I even bought a case of sparking wine. Oh, and there was dancing - four bands to be exact - throughout. I will post pictures of my sweet moves once my mom sends them to me.

The next morning, after enjoying the Suites free breakfast, we headed up to Paso Robles to meet up with our Cloud Climbers Jeep tour guide, Randy. You may remember that I have toured the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez wine country with this tour group so when I found out they now had service in Paso Robles, I was in. For $100, Cloud Climbers takes you to four wineries, provides you with a picnic lunch, gives you a free wine class, and takes you off-roading! I highly recommend them!

Day 2: Whalebone

Whalebone is a small, family-owned winery with a very interesting story which you can look up on your own. The winery takes its name from the large whale fossil found on its property. The nice thing about Paso Robles is that it is still a "friendly" wine region and we were lucky enough to have the owner of the winery, Janalyn, pour for us and her dog Tiffany (pictured above) entertain us. In addition to their fabulous wine - I was especially taken with the Bob Wine - they also grilled up some delicious tri tip for us.

Day 2: Opolo

Our next stop was Opolo, which I had visited last spring and really enjoyed. This time around their wines were still great, but because it was the Zinfandel Festival the tasting room was overly-crowded and they weren't serving up any free, homemade sausage. Our pourer was a volunteer and while he was very nice, he was so overwhelmed and not knowledgeable about the product. Example - I asked for a Riesling and in return, got a taste of something red. Hmmm ...

Day 2: Calcareous
Our driver recommended that we taste and eat our lunch at Calcareous Vineyard. When we arrived at the tasting room, we understood why. It is perched high atop a hill overlooking all of Paso Robles and the tasting room is almost full encased in glass. Once again the people were amazing and while the owner didn't pour for us, she was right next to us. My favorite was the Twisted Sister Zin (two of the owners are sisters) and I bought a bottle for myself and for one of my sisters. We also ate our lunch here and while it was chilly, the view was gorgeous and the food was delicious.

Day 2: Jan Kris

For our last stop, our driver took us Jan Kris which is a winery that has existed for some time, but recently got new owners. He admitted that their reds were "horrible," but that they had at least sparking wines to taste. The sparking wines were good - one was peach, one raspberry, and one almond. Because I do not like the Wilson Creek almond champagne that is so popular in Temecula, I was fairly certain I wouldn't care for their almond champagne, and I was right. The peach was very good though. The reds were in fact hard to stomach, which is perhaps why they were selling a case of Zin for only $50!

Day 2: Adelaida

After our tour was over we had Randy drop us back off at Adelaida - where the mustard was blooming like crazy! I am a member of Adelaida and there were having a members-only reception which we thought we would join. As always, the people at Adelaida were very friendly (Dominic!) and we tried a wide selection of wine paired with delicious appetizers. My mom befriended the house cat Sylvia and even found her a new petting perch.

After Adelaida we cut through to the coast and walked around Morro Bay and the famous Morro Rock before returning to our hotel - which was hosting a large gala in the atrium, much to our dismay so we headed back into SLO where we had a nice dinner at Creekside Brewing Company. The food was great and the location is pretty, sitting right on the creek - we all had beer as I think we had our fair share of win!. The next morning after breakfast we decided to head our separate ways as a large storm was approaching. Wouldn't you know it that I had a beautiful, sunny drive home the entire way (with no traffic!) and even stopped at the Kate Spade Outlet in Camarillo.

A perfect end to a perfect weekend ...

fame becomes me!

Last weekend I went on a Women & Wine Weekend to Paso Robles with some friends and my mom. A full post will be up soon, but for now ... check out some media coverage featuring well, me!!!

http://blog.plushpuffs.com/2009/03/25/plush-puffs-at-tobin-james-zinfest/#more-79

going to kansas city, kansas city here i come!

Last week, I returned to Kansas City for six days to attend the NCMPR National Conference. Regular readers will remember me going there for our summer board meeting in June, and being pleasantly surprised by what the city had to offer. This time around, I wasn't able to get out as much ... they work us hard during the conference ... but did manage to take a few shots. Surprisingly, the weather was in the 70s until the day I left!

Kansas City is home to the national World War I Monument. I visited it last summer, in the daylight, but this time around had a view of it from my room at the Westin Crown Center. The eternal flame was so pretty at night!

My friend Melinda, the President, had a view of the Hallmark Plaza from her penthouse suite. Each night they had ice skating and a fountain show, featuring the Hallmark theme music from their commercials.

One of the traditions we have at NCMPR is taking our districts out for a group dinner one night. FYI - there are 7 geographic districts in NCMPR, mine happens to be District 6. I partnered with District 3 and we hauled 65 of our attendees to Arthur Bryant's considered by many to be the best BBQ in Kansas City. It is located in the historic 18th & Vine District and while the ambiance isn't anything to write home about, the BBQ was SOOO good!!!

I don't have pictures of myself chowing down, but here is my colleague Cris from Fresno chowing down on ribs, pork, brisket, homemade coleslaw, baked beans, and french fries. And as if that wasn't enough, we finished the night off with HUGE pieces of apple pie.

After dinner, we attempted to walk off our meal with a visit to the Power & Light District, which was located near our hotel. It's fairly new, stil not 100% complete, but has quite a few fun shops and restaurants, including the Maker's Mark Bourbon House. It is attached to the Sprint Center, which hosted a portion of the NCAA basketball tournament, and the College Basketball Experience.

All in all, it was a tiring trip (above is a picture of the NCMPR board), but I did attend some fabulous sessions and even led one of my own (go me!). I don't think I will go back to KC anytime soon, but am glad to have experienced yet another part of the country. I was definitely happy to return home to California ... with her many mountains and green trees!

sister sister

When I was 13, my sisters gave me a coffee table book entitled Sisters for my birthday. The book was popular at the time and included portraits and short stories about various sets of sisters, some famous, some not. The aim of the book was to demonstrate the ties that bind sisters together no matter how different you are. I still have the book - it collects dust on a shelf in my upstairs hallway. I haven't given the book a lot of thought until recently when some setbacks helped prove the bonds between my two sisters and I.

Over the long President's Day weekend, my sisters and I decided to meet up in San Francisco for a night to see Tainted Love, an 80s cover band that has been a northern California staple for nearly a decade. We drove into the city on Saturday afternoon, saw the show that night, and then walked around a rainy San Francisco on Sunday. Around 4pm, my sisters dropped me off at the Powell Street BART station so that I could head to SFO to catch my flight home, while they took off for Sacramento in the pouring rain.

As I waited for my train, I checked my flight and it was on time. I listened to my iPod during the 30 minute ride to SFO and then made my way to the Southwest terminal. As I stood in line, I noticed that everyone at the self-service check-in was being helped by an agent, which didn't strike me as a good thing. I checked my flight status on my phone and instead of an "On-time - 7:05pm" departure, was greeted with "Delayed - n/a." For those of you that travel, you know that while delayed is not good, delayed with no estimated departure is REALLY not good.

I asked the guy next to me if he knew what was going on and he said that because of the wind, storm, and fog, SFO was shut down to all incoming and outgoing flights and wasn't expected to open until after midnight, and at that point, most likely not all flights would take off that night, including ours. At this point, I was pissed. I was starting to come down with a cold as a result of me walking around in the rain all day only 5 days after battling the flu, and the thought of sitting in an airport for 7 + hours was not cool. So what did I do??? I called my sisters and without even having to ask they offered to drive back to SFO and pick me up.

Mind you, my sisters were already in Fairfield, which on a good day is 45 minutes from SFO. But this wasn't a good day. It was literally pouring rain and the wind was so bad, you couldn't see because the rain was blowing every direction. The Bay Bridge had a mandatory 35 mph speed limit and water was everywhere. By the time my sisters made it to me, it was almost 7pm. We then turned around and started our journey back to Sacramento at a snail's-pace. I treated them to McDonalds ... which then set us back even further as apparently the city of Vacaville doesn't believe in signage and it took us a good 20 minutes to get back on 80. We didn't pull in to Sacramento until 9pm, and then Lindsay still had another 1.5 hour drive back to Chico, which ended up being 2 hours in the rain ... and then had to get up and go to work in the morning as her company doesn't believe in celebrating President's Day.

Fast forward to the next weekend when my sister Molly and her boyfriend drove down to LA for 4 nights so we could visit Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, and just relax. On Saturday, we all drove to my dad's new house in Pasadena and then around 3pm, they headed for home as did I. After sitting in traffic all day I made it back to the South Bay to run some errands. I was looking forward to running my errands, and then spending a relaxing night at home. God had other plans.

As I was waiting in line at Best Buy, my sister texted me telling me that Zach's engine died about 30 minutes past the Grapevine. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of driving up the 5 to northern California, let me paint a picture for you ... a dark, empty, barren canvas ... that's the 5. So here they are, stuck literally in the middle of nowhere waiting for some tow truck guy to come from Kettleman City ... why it is called a city is beyond me. After much discussion, we decided to have them towed back to the Valencia Auto Mall, stay at my dad's for the night, and then buy a new car the next morning. Although I didn't relish the prospect, I dashed home, threw some clothes in a bag, and made my way north to rescue them. Of course, I sat in solid traffic from LAX through the Sepulveda pass. By the time we got back to my dad's and ate dinner, it was past midnight. I got the uncomfortable couch and then we woke up early the next morning to return back to the Nissan dealership so Zach could begin the car buying process, which as you know, isn't quick and easy.

Finally, at 2pm, Zach drove us to lunch in his new Nissan Rogue and by 3pm, we were all back on the road. I didn't get home until late, didn't accomplish any of my errands, and was literally exhausted. They made it home safely ... much to the excitement of their five cats :)

Neither of these experiences were "fun," nor were they something we expected to have to do. They made us cranky, tired, and frustrated, but through it all, we still managed to laugh ... and that's what I think a sister is. Someone who will come rescue you while stranded, no matter what time of the day or night. No matter how tired. No matter what the weather ... and still laugh with you.

So if my sisters and I were ever asked to be included in the next Sisters coffee table book, our picture would be us, eating McDonalds in a 2000 Honda CR-V, with wet, frizzy hair, while singing along with my iPod 80s playlist. It might not seem as pretty as the picture of Christy Turlington and her two sisters, but it is to me.

sick leave

I haven't been blogging for awhile as I was fairly certain I was going to die from a nasty bout with the flu. I had it, it went away, and then it got mad at me for not taking good care of myself, and came back even stronger the second time. This time, I am taking very good care of myself ... mainly in preparation for my upcoming weekend ... seeing Tainted Love in San Francisco with my sisters ... three of my absolute favorite things in the world all combined into one.

So for now, this Facebook-esque questionnaire will have to suffice ...

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I am named "after" Andrea Sterjne Goodman, mother of Carrie "The Girl" Stjerne. Andy is a pretty good namesake, she's creative, loyal, loving, pretty ... and silly!

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? This weekend when sick, I was so frustrated!

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?If you like the handwriting of a seventh-grade girl writing a love letter to the JV quarterback, then yes, yes I do.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Roast beef or prosciutto.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? No, but I want them SOOOOO bad. For now, I entertain myself with Jack and Kate.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes, but maily because I give good presents to my friends.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM? What's sarcasm?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I would actually rather skydive ... bungee jumping seems brutal on the body, very jerky.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Granola.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? The only tie shoes I wear are my tennies and no, I do not.

12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Mint chocolate chip :) But it has to be green, not white ice cream.

13. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Sadly, whether or not they have a wedding ring on. And by "they" I mean guys.

14. RED OR PINK? Red all the way!

15. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I see the world in black and white.

16. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My mom and sisters because they seem so far away ... and Sade-Doggy-Dogg. She was a good dog ;)

17. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST? Haven't really thought about it ...

18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? I am wearing brown ballet flats with brown Banana Republic pants.

19. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Dwight Yoakam on the iPod!

20. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Pennzoil Yellow.

21. FAVORITE SMELLS? Coconut and vanilla. And babies ... when they are clean and in their jammies.

22. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Felicia.

23. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? No one sent it to me, but my sister Lindsay posted it, so no, no I do not.

24. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? TROJAN FOOTBALL BABY!

25. HAIR COLOR? I just had it highlighted tonight, so it's technically brown, but has a lot of blonde added in.

26. EYE COLOR? Hazel.

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No, reading glasses.

28. FAVORITE FOODS? Thai.

29. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Hmm, neither. I like realistic endings.

30. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Seen it before, but Once.

31. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Brown and beige striped sweater.

32. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer.

33. HUGS OR KISSES? Kisses all the way!

34. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Not applicable.

35. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?Again, not applicable.

36. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? The Tsarina's Daughter. Historical book about Russia's Romanov family.

37. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Niners.

38. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Without a Trace.

39. FAVORITE SOUND(S)? Summer afternoon wind blowing through pine trees, and being asleep in a tent, and hearing a boat come across the water in the early morning.

40. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Rolling Stones.

41. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Thailand.

42. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I can talk in a Scottish accent.

43. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Sacramento (Sutter Memorial), California

44. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Your mom's.

enough memories to last a lifetime

Last week, I thought a bit about what I could do for Baby Kate that would be special and something I could continue add to as she gets older. I though of savings bonds, a bead-by-bead pearl necklace, and then it came to me. I shopped around and found this personalized, adorable memory box from Aimee J creations and decided to fill it with cards that I will give her every year on her birthday. The cards will be filled with advice, memories, stories of her parents as people, etc. Neither she nor her parents will be able to read the cards until she is 16 ... they will have to be collected in her box until that time.

I did write her one card already and am allowing Shaun and Felicia to read it as it details what the purpose of the box is, but after that, it will be like a sort-of girly time capsule. I am going to drop it off tonight on the doorstep as a suprise. I hope it goes over well, I hope she loves it, and I hope I remember to write her a card every July :)