Cambodian Awesomeness

When you get married and have a kid your opportunities for adventure are limited.  Well, there is adventure but it is along the lines of explosive poop and book shelf climbing.  Jason and I don't really get a lot of chances to travel. Don't get me wrong, we love little Henry to pieces and wouldn't trade him for three months in Europe. Now, 4 months, maybe. Anyway, the point of all this rambling is to say that it is important for us to have people we can live vicariously through.  People like our friend Jenn.  She gets to traipse all over the world.  She then comes home and brings us gifts and tells us about all of her adventures. In the last year she has been to Ethiopia, The Netherlands and Cambodia (and probably somewhere else I am forgetting).  Like I said, she always brings us cool gifts but on this last trip to Cambodia she brought us the coolest stuff ever.  So cool, I had to share.

She got this sweet little apron for me.  It is made by Cambodian Women though an NGO that uses sewing as a way of training and empowering women, you can check out their website here.  It is cute and the proceeds go a neat cause. The photo is a little blurry, sorry.

This is also extremely practical.  I wear aprons all the time.  I know it is totally June Cleaver to rock an apron.  Since I have been staying at home more, I have made a point to get dress each day.  I realize this sounds comical but it is really easy to spend the entire day in your pajamas when  you have no where to go.  It occurred to me that if I didn't start getting dressed, Henry's memory of me was going to be in sweat pants.  Also, getting dressed makes me feel better about myself and life in general.  This is where the apron comes into play.  Once I've gotten dressed the last thing I want to do is get dirty cooking and cleaning. And so, wearing an apron has became part of my daily routine.  I don't greet Jason at the door in high heels and pearls when he gets off from work.  We aren't living in a total time warp.


Then she got Henry this adorable elephant tunic.



And lastly, she got me this totally awesome wallet made from recycled rice bags.  She knows I have been trying to lower my environmental impact and she thought this would be right up my alley. She was right. I love it and I needed a new wallet.  Oh, and did I mention how cool it looks?



My favorite part in the little tag on the inside. They didn't quite get the translation right, which makes it even more amazing.



And, in close, I would like to say that it is important to have friends who travel.  Not just for awesome loot but because it makes you look cool.  I love saying things like "Oh my friend picked this up while she was Cambodia."  It makes me look like my friends are well traveled and sophisticated. Which, they are.  It also helps me to remember that there is a great big world out there.  When you are in the middle of dealing the mounds of dirty diapers and stinky dogs it nice to remember that there is life beyond your daily routine.