Travel Tips - Merry Early Christmas! ;)

Anyone who knows me knows that I pack waaaay too much for trips.  While I have gotten better about this, we now have a kid with another on the way and no matter how economical I am, we are constantly packing more that my hubby and I can schlepp around the airport.  As a result, we almost always need Smart Cartes to lug all of our stuff up to the airline counter.  So the tip of the day?  Scout around for an abandoned cart one before forking over your credit card!  After our first couple of trips, we realized that most people never return their carts to the proper corrals.  Here's a photo of an abandoned cart that I snapped as we waiting in line to go back to Chicago this past Christmas:

You might be asking yourself, is finding an abandoned cart really worth the $5 or so that you would save?  Each person is different and it all depends on that person.  Maybe the convenience is worth just giving over the money.  Our family took 4.5 trips this year, and doing this has saved us between $54-$45 this year.  As we're a single income family at the moment, every penny saved counts.  So for us, the few extra minutes it takes to look around for a cart are worth it.

The other tip that I just learned is one that I have not tried, but I pass onto you, Readers, with high hopes.  When we returned from our annual Christmas trip to Chicago this year, we didn't have our gate opener handy and so had SuperShuttle drop us off at our gate instead of in front of our condo.  One of our neighbors saw my husband hauling our luggage to our condo and inquired as to what was going on.  Hubster explained about SuperShuttle and the neighbor told us the following:  Apparently for years he worked as a driver for Prime Time Shuttle.  Our neighbor told us for future trips to find a hotel with a parking lot to park at and have the shuttle pick us up from the hotel.  Apparently, shuttle services have different rates for home pick up vs. hotel pick up and the hotel pick up rates are cheaper.  Like I said, we haven't tried this yet and so don't know how significant the savings are or if it's even worth the extra step of parking at a hotel, but I pass on this nugget to you, Internet Audience.  If anyone tries this, please let me know how it works out for you!  

Book Review Part Deux: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Yesterday I promised to review my two favorite books that I read in 2013.  The second book that I really loved this year is Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?:

This was one of my favorite books of 2013 for multiple reasons.  First and foremost, it made me laugh out loud.  Intellectually, I know that Mindy Kaling must be extremely talented and funny based on her career trajectory.  At the same time, I conflate her ditzy television characters with Mindy the television writer.  Bad Bettina.  You should know better than that.  The book is genuinely funny and interspersed with surprising insight on relationships, friendships, her own flaws, etc.

I also liked this book because there are two kinds of stories I always love to hear:  "How did you meet?" stories from married couples who've been together for ages, and "How did you become successful in Hollywood?" stories.  The latter always intrigues me because rarely is anyone ever "discovered" or given that magical mentor who drops the person into the dream job.  What I often here are stories of hard work, minor successes and failures, combined with luck and coincidence and eventually success.  In such a competitive, unpredictable field, it's comforting to know there isn't one prescribed path to get to that bit of "success".  It's also nice to know concrete examples of failures even when you know logically everyone fails.  =)

Finally, the stories in this book touch on some of Kaling's experiences as a first generation Indian American.  Most of her television writing rarely touches on the fact that she's an Indian American.  In a lot of ways, Kaling is doing for Indian Americans what Bill Cosby did for African Americans--that is creating characters that are primarily human beings who HAPPEN to be Indian (or in Bill Cosby's case, African American).  I watched The Mindy Project's PaleyFest panel, and felt seriously annoyed when an Indian woman asked Kaling how being Indian affected her writing (or something to that vein).  It seemed to me that Kaling struggled with the question and sort of pointed to the Diwali episode of The Office, but ultimately responded by saying that her being Indian wasn't the point of the show.  Ultimately I felt like the woman who asked the question failed to understand that the role of Indians in the public consciousness of America was evolving from the hilariously ignorant and unintentionally funny immigrant to being a multi-dimensional person not solely defined by their ethnic heritage.  All of that being said however, every ethnic group that goes through being the first generation in America goes through their own unique set of experiences.  Reading Kaling's experiences and seeing the parallels in my own experiences lent this book a very special charm.  However, even in this autobiographical book, once again the "Indian" experiences are limited and Kaling's talents as a writer for the mainstream really shines. 

Code Name Verity - Chewed Me Up, Spit Me Out, and Left Me Begging for More

As 2013 has just finished and a lot of "Best of the Year" lists are out, I thought I'd spend the next two days reviewing my two favorite reads from 2013.  My hands down favorite book that I read this year was Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity:

Now for me, reviewing this book is particularly challenging.  I firmly believe going into this story knowing nothing about it is the best way to experience this particular narrative.  I stumbled across this book as one of five NPR recommendations from some book list.  I saved the list to a file I have for books to eventually read, and at some point requested it from my library.  As a result, I actually went into this book knowing almost nothing about it.  Once the story hit its stride, I was hooked.  This is the first book I've ever read that I started re-reading immediately upon finishing it.  (BTW, such was the allure of this book that I was in Kauai when I finished it.  Not even HAWAII broke the stranglehold this tale had over me.)  I know this is going to be one of those rare books that will draw me back to it for another read year after year.  So, that all being said, I'll give you the bare bones about it, and then say no more.  Hopefully my secretive exaltation of the book is enough.  The story is about the friendship between two girls, Maddie and Queenie, and how their lives intersect and intertwine as they each do their part during WWII.  That's it.  That's all I'm going to tell you.  To reveal anything more is like giving you the best chocolate bar in the world with a nasty bite taken out of it by a hobo with mouth sores.  Of course, you could search the internet and get a more comprehensive review but in doing so, you'd rob yourself of that full, rich, hobo-less candy bar.  It might even turn you off to find out such things as this is marketed as a "Young Adult" book.  But don't be fooled.  That's far too simplistic a label for such a rich tapestry that Elizabeth Wein weaves.  So take a leap of faith, dear readers, clear your weekend calendar, and cozy down for a marathon reading session!  And let me know what you think.  ;)

An Elf on the Shelf Steal of a Deal!

Now, a little disclaimer before I go on to the rest of my post.  Within the last couple of years, I've become vaguely aware of this newer Christmas Tradition of the Elf on the Shelf.

The marketing-wary skeptic in me resists the adoption of a tradition that "The Man" has sold me.  Ideally, as a mom with a young family, I'd like to have traditions that come up organically and even accidentally.  On some level, the Elf on the Shelf tradition is the antithesis of this as something that has been packaged up and sold to me, pre-made.  Yet, as I sort of balk at this, I also know that I'd like to have my kids grow up with the magic of the idea of Santa Claus.  My parents never indulged in Santa, and while I never spilled the beans as a kid to my contemporaries, I always wished that at least for a little while I could have believed in Santa.  For this reason, if the Elf on the Shelf can add to that magic and in addition, give my kids a ubiquitous experience that they can share with their future friends, then I shall set aside my idealized views on how traditions "should" come about, and buy into this tradition.  (Though I think I may make up a new story about why the Elf is hanging around as opposed to being some kind of magical tattle-tale.)  

That said, while shopping a couple of days ago, I found a Steal of a Deal on the Elf on the Shelf!  Now, my son is only 18 months old. so buying this now and saving it for next year or the year after works perfectly for me.  Anyway, my local Target has a *lot* of Christmas merchandise on clearance.  Among the piles and piles of stuff, I found 3 Elf on the Shelf sets all marked down from $29.95 to $8.98, a deal that I couldn't resist: 

Even if you already have the boxed set, it could be a great present for someone next year or even a sort of thinking-outside-of-the-box present to an expectant mom for her baby shower who may want to do this activity with her kid.  Lots of luck to anyone who's interested!  Hope you find your own Steal of a Deal! 

A Quick Intro!

Hello Blogging World!

I'm thrilled to join the blogging world and to tell you a little about myself.  I'm Bettina, a thirty-::cough, cough:: year old daughter, sister, wife, television producer, assistant editor, mother, cat-lover, book worm, organizing nut, deal-seeking, environmentalist that is now staking out my little corner of the internet.  By day, I'm usually working on some television show and have been fortunate to work on some awesome shows including Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, The Event, Hell's Kitchen, and Grimm.  By night, I'm mother to a wonderful little boy named L. (for the purposes of this blog) with another kiddo on the way.  I'm also one of the luckiest women in the world to be married to my best friend, I. 

As I'm between television projects until after my baby is born, I've decided to do a little blogging about the things that I'm passionate about: organizing, cooking/baking, environment saving ideas, thrift store shopping, book and movie reviews, publishing interviews with people in "The Biz" to provide mentoring advice, money saving ideas, and pretty much anything that pops into my head.  So hop on board!  I'm excited to embark on this exciting new adventure, and I hope that you readers get something out of this too!  Happy New Year, everyone!