Riot Ranch - "My Year of Fabulous" plus a whole lot more

The sweater knows all

My mom brought a pink sweater back from her trip to Ireland for me. It’s interesting because when I looked at it I realized that it didn’t really resemble anything in my wardrobe these days. For the last year, I’ve been making all my style choices with bohemian/California Casual/hippie in mind, so my daily wardrobe is comprised of casual, Earth-tone, peasant blouses and boots, etc. Not pink sweaters. That’s more American Classic territory. But I love the pink sweater and…

Random

A pop culture attack

Has this ever happened to you? You’re talking to someone, having a completely normal conversation, when a movie, song or video is brought up that you haven’t seen/heard etc. Let’s use Chinatown for an example, even though, just for the record, I’ve seen it. Person: You know that famous scene in Chinatown — She’s my sister/She’s my mother.” Me: Actually, I’ve never seen Chinatown. Person: Wait. YOU’VE NEVER SEEN CHINATOWN? You’ve never, ever seen Chinatown? (CALLING) She’s never seen Chinatown! OMG,…

Family, Random

How to enjoy being naked

Depending on what circles you travel in, certain topics tend to pop up when you’re in a group setting. Sometimes it sports, sometimes it politics. When we lived in Maine everyone talked about the weather. When we lived in Los Angeles it was all showbusiness, mixed in with a little restaurant talk and new exercise trends. And now that we’re in Northern California, all the topics fall under the category of living naturally. If the group is in a negative…

Family, Kids, Random

Water — It’s not just for celebrities anymore!

I’ve never been a big water drinker. Ever. I just never really got the point of the whole water thing when there are so many other flavored beverages in the world that are so yummy. Water just seemed to be a water-down version of coffee, beer, soda, or soda’s pretend healthy friend, iced tea. But the other day, when I was lying in bed reading an interview with Jennifer Aniston, (In my defense, it was the only thing upstairs to…

Fashion

Book writing be hard

I really thought I’d be finished writing my fashion book by now. It seemed like a good idea to publish it right around the beginning of January to catch the wave of moms that have New Years Resolutions to look and feel good in 2015. But somewhere in December during all the Christmas mayhem I realized that in no way could I achieve this goal. I also realized there were many goals I couldn’t achieve in December. Goals like getting my Christmas card…

Farm

A step in the right chicken diaper direction

I laid low with the whole chicken diaper experiment for several days, trying to lure Lacy back into the house. I emptied my head of all chicken diaper thoughts to make the environment appear safe for Lacy. I asked Bill and the kids to empty their heads of all chicken diaper thoughts. (Turns out none of them were thinking about putting a diaper on a chicken at all.) Then, sure enough, after a couple of days, Lacy strolled into our…

Random

Goals I’m NOT going to make in 2015

I’ve always been a very goal-oriented person. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve made lists of dreams, practical and not so practical, that I’ve been hell-bent on accomplishing. I think it all started because I was a very short child — really short — like in school we always had to line up tallest to shortest and I didn’t even have to measure myself against anyone to know where I stood — at the very, very back of the…

Farm

The chicken diaper

When you have a hobby people tend to give you gifts based on that hobby. I’ve never had this happen to me before because I don’t think I’ve ever had a well-defined hobby. When I was a kid I used to get Holly Hobbie dolls, but that was really based on my name, not because of a love I had for playing with floppy cloth dolls. (I didn’t.) And of course, whenever I’ve been pregnant I’ve gotten a lot of baby-themed…