Some Cutey Pies took home the Sugar Pies! Pumpkins, that is...

It was another packed house Friday night at our 3rd Annual Pumpkin Party! By the time Jennifer Ackerman's beautiful singing began at 6:30, the room was already filled with grown-ups and kids playing and eating sandwiches and downing four dozen pumpkin cupcakes by Celeste Cooper, a.k.a The Cake Ladies. Ruby loved having kindergarten classmates at "her store;" Zoe Quinn & Ruby created a new pumpkin display involving hay scattered in piles on the carpet. After the cupcakes & candy corn, kids got to choose a sugar pie pumpkin to take home, each bedecked with a recipe for pumpkin bread.

Thanks to all of you who made it to the party! Mary and I had a great time seeing you and hope you all had a great time. I'll post photos as soon as I can get mine downloaded. And keep an eye out for the next party announcement, another Mama's Night Out in November. Just in time for kicking off the holiday season...champagne & massages anyone?

Rockridge Street Fair was a total hit!

Today was my first time as a vendor at a street fair, and believe me, I have a new respect for those people! Ruby's Garden had a booth at the Temescal Street Fair last summer but I was out of town so Mary and Robbie did the set up for that one. Fair vendors make it look simple, because by the time you get there to have fun at the street fair, the stressful part is over!

I had done what I thought was plenty of planning, but setting up this morning I was still totally flustered. I had sketched a floor plan of our 10'x10' space and decided what to sell from the shop, what prices to sell them at, and what furniture to display them on. I had packed most of the merchandise and supplies and made signage the night before. We met at the shop this morning at 8am so we could be all unloaded by 10am and setup by the time the fair started at 11am. Mary, Judy and I loaded up the stuff in all three of our cars, found our assigned spot, unloaded most of the things and parked. Then I was really thrown for a loop: I had planned for our booth to be back to back with another vendor but it was apparent that we were a single row of vendors which would mean we'd need to greet people from two sides, or that there'd be two fronts. Besides, I was seeing all sorts of things I'd forgotten such as Ruby's Garden front door signs that would read from far away, more pricing signage, a work table just for sales supplies, and balloons. Cue sound effect: thought processes coming to screeching halt. I stared at our piles of unloaded mess for about half an hour while Mary went back to the shop two more times getting what I'd forgotten. Suddenly it was 10:40, I had to finish unloading my car and park it off the street.

The bad news is that setup brought out my inner grouch (this is what stressed-out + feeling dumb for not doing everything perfectly looks like on me). The good news is that we were setup (enough) just in time for the fair to start and it ended up being a great day for us. We told hundreds of people about our shop, gave out about 200 postcards ($10 off coupons + invitations to our Pumpkin Patch Party this Friday 10/3), and even raised a little cash so I can buy more new fall merchandise! We also saw tons of friends and customers since Rockridge is so near to our shop. Ruby had a great time playing with Quinn and Tess, daughters of Elizabeth Falkner of Mariposa Baby, and Fiona, Judy's daughter. She ended up with a decorated cupcake (cute but eaten immediately) and a decorated pumpkin (cute but no longer edible).

Besides the lessons learned, I'm so glad we did this street fair, even though it was SO much work. I'm also glad to finally be off my feet after about 12 hours from start to finish. Maybe next year I'll actually leave the booth and walk the fair!

Welcome to the Party that is Facebook

Have you joined Facebook yet? It's useless to resist it. It's pretty awesome in a "the world is getting smaller" way.

I didn't know anything about it until I was invited to join by my high school reunion committee (anyone else 38 this year?). Other old acquaintances were equally deer-in-headlights about it, so I knew I was not the last to the party, though some seemed like they'd been at that party for awhile and I wasn't sure it was my kind of party: "You've been poked!"--huh?? That's not usual party behavior. So I hung out on the edges for awhile until some more people I knew got there. Like Jane Goodall, I was studying FB behavior: What are we all doing here?

It all made sense to me when I saw that someone I 1) really like who I'd lost touch with and 2) was truly glad to reconnect with was in the list of "online friends" in the bottom corner. We chatted back and forth and laughed out loud. So I'm getting to know who of my friends is usually "at the party" and who's is there in the wee hours of the night like I am. I'm also realizing that not everyone you'll see, i.e. friends of friends, falls into those two categories, and that's okay. You don't have to talk to everyone at the party, and it's pretty organic who you end up talking to anyway: you overhear an interesting snippet of conversation and you put in your two cents. Well Facebook shows you all the snippets at once, and you choose which you want to jump in on (politics? faith? reality tv?). Once the frenzy of friend-finding is calmed down, you can get to the party and get comfortable, knowing you'll get to talk to whoever you want. Or not--and just find out what everyone is up to (status updates: "Mae Chan Frey is...blogging about facebook at work instead of ordering new merchandise.). Either way, consider yourself *invited* to the strange and wonderful party that is Facebook, and if you decide to come, I will be your Facebook Friend.

What do you think of Facebook? Friend or foe? leave comments...

Back from New York--where do I begin?

I "heart" NY, for real. I could hang out there for weeks, since there are seriously about ten awesome things going on in Manhattan at any given moment. I could hardly decide what I wanted to do with my two free days there! NY Fashion Week, 9/11 memorial, San Genarro Little Italy Festival were all going on while I was there.

Rick couldn't miss school (plus he hates New York--freak!) so Ruby and I flew out on our own. My mom flew up the next morning and I led us all from our hotel near JFK, in Queens, onto the A train to explore Brooklyn's Park Slope. For some reason, my 72 year old arthritic mother and my 5 year old daughter were not prepared to walk for 6 hours straight, as all New Yorkers are accustomed to. So I dragged them through Prospect Park and into Park Slope like it was a death march until finally I gave up and got them to the lucious Italian bistro I found for us to eat dinner. Ruby fell asleep on my lap on the A train home, while my mom slept beside us. It was a like I had two little kids.

The next day we took the subway to Manhattan but I toned it down a bit. First we had an amazing Chinatown brunch (jook, my favorite comfort food) at Big Wong, then we strolled San Genarro eating gelato and we caught the Cannoli Eating Contest (simultaneously fascinating and repulsive). A few more blocks and we were at the Museum of Children and the Arts which was kid heaven. This is how I ditched my two "kids;" frankly, this plan was genius. My mom watched Ruby run around at the kid art place so I could run around SoHo without anyone needing bathroom breaks every ten minutes. I went to the MoMA store, Pylones, Kate's Paperie, Purl Soho and lots more in the two hours of rain before going back to play at the Childrens' Museum. Ruby chose famous soup dumplings in Chinatown for dinner before returning to the hotel to wait for my sister to fly in from Maine. It was so great to see her, and for the next few nights we had four of us girls sharing one hotel room, like a long sleepover according to Ruby.

We had to go to Queens to experience the California "sour yogurt" phenomenon which was just right on the 87degree (HOT) day. Karen said it was a highlight of the day, and she's quite a foodie.

I felt so lucky to have this wonderful family trip and get to share it with my little Ruby girl. I was feeling the separation of her starting kindergarten, but the trip was a bonding experience reminding me she's still always going to be my daughter.

Mamas know how to party

Mama's Night Out, Fri August 1, 7:30-10pm: Oh yeah, the mamas got their groove on Friday night! We had about 70 women come to our party Friday night and it was a beautiful cacophony of love and friendship. David at The Wine Mine helped Mary choose some sparkling wines for sipping with the margarita cupcakes baked by The Cake Ladies. Good music, good food & drink, and great shopping! Some early-arrival fall lines were cleared out that very night, helped by the 20% store-wide event-only discount. We sprung for free massages by our new favorite massage therapist, which were such a hit, we paid Flo for an extra hour. What can I say? We had a blast and you shouldn't miss the next one, November 7th. Stay tuned, i.e. join our email list, for details.

Cake Ladies cupcakes now for sale at Ruby's Garden

Now The Cake Ladies has a retail outlet for their cupcakes--Ruby's Garden! The flavors this week are Classic Vanilla cake/Vanilla icing and Vegan Gingersnap Cookies & Cream. Cake lady Celeste Cooper is taking orders for August so email her to get on her schedule now. Check out her Yelp page and all her fabulous reviews.

Why I love watching Kimora

Alright, let me break it down. Kimora Lee Simmons is a momma tiger who is also running a successful fashion empire. She is a total diva, I mean ridiculous, but she loves those little girls and does her best to do right by them. She's Asian (Japanese mother, African American father)--how many Asian American women do we get to know on tv? She's not super-bright, but she seems to know it so she thinks on her feet and has staff members that somehow keep managing to come thru. She whips out this sassy attitude but it's smoke and mirrors because she's actually a goofball.

So, in short, she's pretty much just like me (only a multi-multi-millionaire).

4th of July is July 4th. Always.

Another working mom mind-blip. Our dear friends Scott & Evelyn throw their annual 4th of July barbecue where I get to catch up with some of my favorite people every year. In mommy-mode, I say of course we'll go! Meanwhile, in shop-owner mode, I'm asked, are we open on 4th of July? Of course we're open!

Whoops. Did you know that there's only one 4th of July 2008? And I can only be in one place at a time? Luckily my business partner Mary graciously allowed me to abandon her at the shop while I stole a couple of hours with my friends and family. And it turns out the neighborhood was pretty much a ghost town and we closed as soon as I got back. So did I run back to my barbecue? Nope. I stayed at work and enjoyed the quiet of getting to work uninterrupted. Lucious.

Cake Ladies Cupcakes rock

We had a good crowd in the shop yesterday for Cake Ladies cupcake tasting! Celeste Cooper brought her A-game, with nearly 20 different flavors for us to try including vegan, gluten-free, and of course, classic varieties. Vegan Cookies and Cream was the clear crowd favorite, although I love the lemon-lemon-lemon best (lemon cake/lemon curd/ lemon frosting). The orders are rolling in, so contact Celeste right away to get on her schedule (book a week ahead minimum): celeste@cakeladies.com. Check out her Yelp page to see what others are saying about her goodies.

Stay tuned for the next fun Ruby's Garden event in the house!

Summer is kicking my ass

1) I got all teary-eyed on the last day of preschool. I was dropping my daughter off in her classroom and her little cubby was all cleaned out, her artwork in a bag to take home for the last time. Holy crap, I'm in a Hallmark commercial. "My little girl is so grown up--she's now a kindergartener, pretty soon she'll be graduating high school..." sniff, sniff
2) Two weeks later and I can't wait for school to start again. I knew I didn't want to keep her in childcare all summer, but I didn't quite put it together that it'd mean I'd have to work twice as much in half the time! Classic "why can't I have it all" working mom-itis.

Can anyone else relate to this?