Anouchka Talks

 Merry Christmas, mammajammas.  Once again, I haven't been keeping up with writing...or any sort of self-enrichment beyond the grind of working my ass off in our home "gym" to maintain this mediocre bod.  If you must know, I haven't spoken to you in awhile because I have been quite busy drinking and watching Netflix homeschooling. I like to call it, homey-schooling,  because our little School for Gifted Youngsters is far more ghetto than all of the beautiful, keepin'-it-tight-full-time-blogging-and-homeschooling-seven-children hos on the internet would have you believe their lives really are.  You know who they are; their hair still looks great and they're always on time and you hate them even though you KNOW they frontin'.  They think that "lol" is a word and, even though you're far more intelligent than they are, they are still making quadruple your family's income despite the combined myriad of degrees you share with your spouse. Sta...

I like passing judgment.  In fact, I have even been called judgmental on more than one occasion.  It used to bother me, but now I embrace it.  Call me judgmental all you want, just know that I am very openly judging you. Today, however, I am judging a movie: Disney's most recent live-action remake. After some debate with myself, I finally decided to take Jammy to see this movie without first previewing it.  Let me say this: Best. Decision. Ever. Not only did she love it... I LOVED IT!!!   Getting to experience this with my little girl -who is just a smidge younger than I was when the original animated version came out- was nothing short of magical. In a way, I was able to relive that moment of my childhood through my daughter. Remember how much I loved the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast ?  Yeah.  Same with this one. Most of my feelings can be summed up right here , by Lincee at i hate green beans .  She reall...

Well it has certainly been awhile since I last graced your presence, eh?  A lot has been going on in my personal and professional life.  I won't bore you with all of the details, but suffice it to say that I am very busy and important.  Let's talk espionage... ...or not, because that has nothing to do with it. It seems that 2018 ended without much of a bang in my household.  Don't get me wrong, it was a great year!  We celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, went to Disney World, ate at a few fancy restaurants, et cetera. Yes, et cetera.  (You want more, look up the month-by-month.) However I still owe you for new things in December.  Honestly, I didn't keep track much.  I was too busy enjoying the holidays the way we were are meant to enjoy them! The first new thing to enter my stratosphere in December was Mrs. Meyer's Orange Clove Dish Soap . Try to hearken all the way back to November (would have been December when I repo...

Happy Holla-days, y'all! I hope you had a meaningful Thanksgiving last month, and are on your way to an even better Christmas and a  próspero año .  I don't know what you celebrate, but I hope you enjoy it. Last month brought a few new experiences to the Anouchka household.  To start, back in October, I was summoned for jury duty .  What an interesting -and mind-numbing- experience!  I was to report to the city's courthouse on the Monday morning following the Thanksgiving weekend, convinced that I was going to be asked to determine whether an eccentric old man was Santa Claus, as he claimed to be .  As it turned out, there were two cases being tried at that time: one civil, one criminal.  I was among the pool of thirty jurors for the criminal case. About two years ago, Habibi served on a jury for a criminal case.  Prior to my report date, I had questioned him about the process and what to expect.  I had some kind of idea as to how the ...

It snowed in my town this morning.  It was a beautiful, slightly dangerous, and incredibly inconvenient sort of snow that peaked during the morning commute, but it was gorgeous from the comfort of my warm, cozy living room.  Once the morning warmed up a bit (and the heaviest of the snow ceased to fall), the kids and I went out for a snowy romp in our backyard.  They were so eager to wear their secondhand snow pants, and break in their brand new boots.  Jammy had been asking me all summer long when she was going to get to build a snowman, so we were ready for this weather.  In the bustle to get everyone all bundled up to go play in the snow, I forgot to grab their little snow shovel and sled to play with, but they didn't need them. They were too busy making snow angels, tasting the snow, and sliding -sans sled- down the little hill behind our home.  Who needs a sled when you have a perfectly good butt?  #trailertrashtoboggan We didn't last long becau...

Hey hey hey, y’all!   Mama’s back!   I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the past two guest posts from B.   They were a little more personal for me, since I could somewhat relive my family’s 2018 trip to Disney World, but I believe they are helpful for anyone planning a Disney trip.   Since most of my readers are moms, parents, or (at the very least) kids at heart, I wager that at least some of you will be able to take advantage of B’s veteran tips.   They’re boss. Now that I’m back, I once again have some catching up to do on my monthly “New In 2018” posting.   I last left you with reviews of my June experiences so, since we are already nearing the end of September (!), I figured I’d dump July, August, and September into one monster post.   Admittedly, I have been quite a bit less mindful of these new experiences since Jammy started school again and my month off work ended, but I shall make no more excuses.   So here it is… New in 2018 – J...

Behold, nerds!  Here is the follow-up -Part Two- of my sister's informative guest post, B Knows Disney .  Enjoy! PART TWO (For Part One, click here .) 7. If you’re considering having a Character Dining experience with small children, plan it at least two days into the trip. This is one I hadn’t even really considered, and learned by experience, kind of the hard way. While I’ll fully admit to being awkward and creeped out around characters, doing a Character Breakfast is totally part of the Disney experience, and with Jammy and Ribbers, I was so so so excited about seeing them interact with the REAL princesses at our breakfast on Day 2 of the trip at Akershus, the banquet hall at the Norway pavilion at Epcot. We’d be greeted by Belle, then be visited during our meal by a few different princesses (in our case it wound up being Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White). What I hadn’t anticipated: Jammy did NOT warm up to the “face” characters very well. (Nothing wrong w...

Several months ago, I promised y'all a guest post from my sister B. Basically, she is a wizard when it comes to Disney trip planning...so much so, that she actually has a job doing just that. On purpose. For real. It's like a hobby for her. In her spare time (read: in addition to her full-time job and other extracurricular activities), she is a Disney Travel Agent. It is thanks to her diligent planning and my parents' generous funding that my rag-tag family got to experience the magic of Disney. I had been to both World and Land, but not for decades. It was the first time for Habibi and the kids and let me say this: watching them was my favorite part. Even someone as stoic as Habibi couldn't remain impassive when Winnie the Pooh came to our lunch table for a hug. Magic. But a trip like this takes planning. A ton of it. And maybe that's not your thing. Lord knows that planning the details of a Disney trip while handling life with two tiny people is n...