Odds and Ends

Happy Presidents’ Day, everybody! Let us all take a moment to remember Calvin Coolidge.

Okay! Now! This is as good a day as any to share a few items of interest with you. First off, MY LATEST DARE.

In this dare, the hilarious Kathy Bouska and I got to be rollerskating waitresses for a day. And this was the real deal, y’all. We were trained by the manager, outfitted in cutesy retro costumes, and sent out on the floor to wait on real, live customers.

And the first thing I did was spill a drink all over one of them. TOTALLY NOT KIDDING. It was one of my most embarrassing moments, ever.

The second thing I did, upon greeting our first table of customers at the door, was say “Well hello, my good men. Would you care for a table?” Those are the exact words that came out of my mouth. Unplanned.

Clearly, I have never worked in a restaurant before.

Anyway, the resulting video is one of my absolute favorites and it’s worth watching. Here you go:

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

I write periodically for Wishing Well, the blog for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, here in Nashville. This month, I wrote a post I really love, containing 10 winter activities to keep your kids happy. And this isn’t a typical Top Ten list filled with a bunch of wishy washy, obvious ideas. These are tried and tested things I’ve done to occupy my kids during the most boring months of the year- January and February. We are definitely at that point where we’re all SO OVER WINTER and cold weather, and for many of us, school is out today- I can’t think of a better time than now to put this post to good use.

Next up is another set of videos. HLN recently debuted a daily newscast aimed specifically at PARENTS. Isn’t that awesome? It’s on HLN each day at 12pm EST, it’s hosted by Kyra Phillips (who truly is one of the nicest, most genuine TV people I’ve ever met), and I’m one of the parent contributors on the show. I was on last Monday- Here are the segments:

Two reasons why this was really fun– I got to do the segments at a studio here in Nashville, while the kids were at school. YAY. Second, I didn’t have to talk about politics! Last year, whenever I made a television appearance about the presidential election, I was so nervous that I’d get my facts wrong or say the wrong thing on live television. As it turned out, that was a great trial by fire , becauseas a result, talking about things like oversharing online or Kate Upton’s Sports Illustrated cover are SOOOO EASY by comparison.

And finally, a nod to this:

Peter Pan, one of our favorite family movies, is out of the Disney vault and on Blu-Ray and DVD– and this edition includes a storybook app that you can download on your iPad or iPhone. Love it!

 

Image via Steve A. Johnson/Flickr