Friday Favorites

Here come the favorites, and then I'm off to bed early...I STILL haven't shaken being a little sick. Yuck. Anyway, here goes:

1. NEW PILLOWS -- I got mine from Linens n Things, where I don't usually shop, but Kristen D. let me know about this FANTASTIC sale they were having a couple of weeks ago and I got four fabulously plump pillows for $16...for the math flunkies out there, that's an amazing $4 a pillow. These pillows are so great, I'm actually sleeping better at night. My last pillows were so flat and sad, I had to stuff old blankets in the decorative pillow shams to fill them out, and I was down to one or two positions that would suffice to prevent a serious back or neck ache in the morning. Pathetic. So my friends, the moral of the story is that if you are in dire need of new pillows, don't wait! Go to the store and pamper yourself. It's totally worth the money (even more so if they're on sale, but even still if they're not). You deserve a fresh, thick, fluffy pillow upon which to lay your head at night! Even my dreams have improved :) (not really - HA! But maybe I should call up these people and offer to do an info-mercial for them cause I'm really on a roll).

2. FRESCO'S -- here's the food for this week's Friday Favorites. Michael worked here last summer to see what waitering would be like (neither of us had ever served in this capacity before) and to make some extra cash. Let me tell you guys - their fajita meat (especially the steak) is out of this world. If you like Mexican food, you've gotta try this place. It's on 377 by Harvest Church. I've known about it for a long time, but me and my mom had plans to eat there tonight that fell through, and so now the craving is fresh on my mind. I'm not a huge Mexican food fan - I like it fine, but I like other stuff better (um, hello? Chinese and Italian!) - but this place is great. It's noisy and colorful and on Friday nights it's super crowded, so keep all that in mind if you plan on going. But the food is amazing. And if you like guacamole, they prepare it for you table side when you order it, and you get to choose the ingredients to make it as mild or spicy as you want. Very cool. Specific items I suggest: their fajita steak quesadillas or cheese enchiladas with fajita meat on top, and definitely the table side guac I mentioned before. Oh goodness, it's a good thing their doors close in like 10 minutes...

3. PARKS -- totally random, yes. But I took Benito to the park today (because the weather was unbelievably wonderful) and met some other people there with their kiddos, and I thought, what a cool idea someone had when the asphault began taking over. You can enjoy a little nature and pleasing scenery, as well as wear your kid out on the slides, stairs and swings so he'll be ready to take an amazingly long afternoon nap. You can also get some exercise so you feel healthy, plus feel like a super mom because you did something healthy and fun with your kiddo other than watching Sesame Street and eating goldfish crackers (which we pretty much do once a day everyday no matter what anyway). And how cool that social boundaries are so easily broken down and trust is so easily formed among moms and their children, so they can talk, compare notes, and roll around in the wood chips together (the kids, not the moms). Only at a park (or the mall playscape, or sometimes church...). And finally, I feel a little less like we've totally paved the earth and doomed it to self-destruct through all its environmental problems when I'm surrounded by trees, green grass, and massive plastic playgrounds. Some great parks I recommend: Chisolm Park, the park off of Glenview by the string of apartments close to the Rufe Snow exit, and the park/walking trail that's a full mile around off of Starnes behind 377 and Harvest Church called Capp Smith Park (always forget the specific name of the middle one). All great for different reasons and all hold great promise to entertain, enrich and engage our munchkins :)