In Which Amy Lectures

I have a rant for today. You can skip it if you like. This news story started me on it this morning: Mother cuts off 61 year old son's allowance. It got me thinking about how people put off marriage longer and longer these days. About 20 somethings who think their 20s are for playing around and getting drunk and they'll get serious once they hit 30 and then they hit 30 and can't stay married because their spouse wants them to actually be a grown up. About all the teenagers who are less responsible than I expect an eight year old to be.

Helicopter parenting, that's what's doing this. We have parents who can't let go and want to solve their kids' every problem and they end up raising kids who can't solve any problems at all, kids who are perpetually kids because they've never been given any responsibility.

Pain and responsibility make grown ups. That's basically all their is to it. Stress matures us. If we spend all our time making sure our children are never stressed, never in pain, they won't grow up. You'll find yourself having to do "tough love" on a 39 year old child who still thinks you owe them some kind of support.

Cutting the apron strings is not an abrupt action, or it shouldn't be anyway. Apron strings should be slowly left to fray and tear until all you have left is the last thread. If you desperately repair and rebuild every tear, there will come a day when you have to slash your child away from you and that wound will bleed you dry.

Sarah recently went on a handcart trek with our church youth group. She left the day of her twelfth birthday when she was still emotionally very much an eleven year old. She came back a full teenager. She stood there in front of me last Saturday night, covered in red dust, her hair barely combed, tired, but poised. She grew so much and it hit me within the first five minutes of our conversation. We could have spared her pain by keeping her home or insisting that we went with her to hold her hand and ease her through the experience. She would still be eleven then no matter what the calendar says.

Pain is growth. Imagine how shallow you would be if you had never experienced stress or hard times. Do you want your child to be that?

Murphy's Law, the pantyhose corrollary

Murphy's Law, as everyone knows, dictates that anything that can go wrong will. A bit of a pessimistic statement, but since I'm a bit of a pessimist, I find Murphy's Law active in my life quite often.

There is a little known corollary to this law that basically rules my life. The Pantyhose Corollary states: If you buy pantyhose you hate, itchy, too small, too big, etc. they will last until Armageddon. If you buy pantyhose you love, smooth, fit perfect, look lovely, etc. they will get a run/hole/massive snag within the first two hours of you putting them on thus rendering them completely useless for a second wearing. This is why women complain all the time about nylons. The good ones do exist. We just never get to wear them long enough to remember that they exist.

I have stopped wearing pantyhose because I really didn't want to spend $20 a month replacing them every week or wear yucky ones. (I only wear skirts on Sundays.) I thought this would negate this law. Not so. Murphy found other ways to apply this one to my daily life.

For example: I was given a 2 cup plastic measuring cup as part of a set in a wedding gift. It was inaccurate and didn't have 1/3 cup markings. I hated it. I stuck it out because it did actually hold liquid and managed to be somewhat useful even if it didn’t quite measure right. Being as how it was somewhat flexible plastic and I don't own a dishwasher to wear off the markings, it lasted like a tank. Waiting until it wore out to replace it, like any good little Scrooge should do, was not making me happy, so I bought a new 2 cup measuring cup. I bought a Pyrex one so it would stack with my 1 cup measuring cup and I knew it measures accurately and should last well. HA!

I dropped it 2 weeks after I bought it and it shattered all over my kitchen floor. I have yet to buy a new one because I'll buy the same thing and I do not want to clean up glass this week.

If I hate something it will be part of my life forever. If I like it, I have to appreciate it quickly because it will last as long as the cookies in the cookie jar. (Which is also new and I like, so I expect someone to drop it before February.)

Murphy: teaching practicality and acceptance to housewives since 2000BC.

My Protege

I have a few talents. Things I've worked hard to improve on in my life. I can take pretty good photographs. I make a mean chocolate chip cookie. I can ignore housework like nobody's business. However, the talent that bemuses my husband the most is my ability to stack dishes in a dish drainer.

He and I both grew up in homes without a dishwasher. (Ok, my parents got one when I was a teenager, but that still counts as doing dishes many years without.) You would think he would understand the usefulness of such a skill. Nope. He teases me about my leaning tower of dishes and the pots and pans that bump the bottom of the cabinet (my cabinets sit about two inches lower than average.)

I can see why he's so fascinated with my stacking skills, because the man can not stack at all. He sticks the tall plates in the middle of the drainer and the big bowls in front of the small bowls and can't figure out why nothing wants to stack for him. In other things he's got great spatial perception; he just doesn't use it when standing over a sink of hot soapy water.

Lately, my stacking skillz have been allowed to rest because I have passed the dishes torch onto my oldest. I'm only doing a couple of batches of dishes a week and it's heavenly. Most of the time, she does a decent job. Every once in a while she tries to have her water too cold and we end up with greasy dishes, but other than that, she's not bad.

One area she's managing to excel: stacking. Her dish drainer sculptures make my heart proud. The other day I went to get a dish and almost took a picture. She had carefully stacked a pot on the backing racks, extended them out over the edge of the drainer, and set something else on the other end, perfectly balanced.

She has learned well, my Grasshopper.

Motivation

Steve and I are both trying to lose weight. We both have the same amount to lose and of course, he's doing better at it with a total of 15lbs to my 5lbs. I think it has to do with motivation.

When we first decided to try again at this, Steve came up with a whole series of motivation rewards for himself every 10lbs along with a reward at 25 and another at goal. He knew what would get him to work on the weight loss and it really does. When he's faced with food choices, I can see the wheels in his head turning, remembering the motivation. It's very cool to see him work hard at this.

Not that it helps me any. I have no will power and aparently my motivation reward is not good enough. I only picked one for a goal reward. It's not very motivating. The problem is it's too far off and doesn't feel close enough to reality. I guess I need to choose something to motivate me, but the only rewards I want that are non food related are also too hard to accomplish. things like a lunch out by myself somewhere, new clothes. Things that are totally dependent on the situation we are in at the time. I still don't think they would motivate me like Steve's do him.

Honestly, I want to lose weight. I do. it just feels so unreal though. I've been struggling with this weight for five years and I've gotten nowhere with it. I exercise regularly and it doesn't do anything. I watch what I eat, doesn't do anything. I just feel stuck. I've been tested for hypothyroid before and came up negative. I have all the same symptoms I did then, so I doubt the results would be different. Somedays I just feel like I will always be this size. Always have the awful fat rolls on my stomach and the butt that's way too big for one person. I do know I'm fat. There's just not a lot more I can do about it right now.

Anyway, I didn't start off to write a downer post. it's just something that's been preying on my mind lately. I just wish I could lose weight like Steve. He tends to yo-yo, but at least his yo-yo goes down half the time. Mine just goes up.

Write More Please

When I write I say things I don't say outloud. These conversations I have with my blog are not conversations I usually have with anyone else, so I guess you could say you can see in my head a bit when you read these entries. I don't very often have anything intresting to say. I'm not funny or terribly clever and I definitely won't ever get the views that Finslippy gets (google her. she's good).

But I'm not doing this for the views.

It's like thinking outloud. You know, how when you are shopping in the grocery store and you are standing there looking at the soups and the woman next to you starts talking. "ok. so where did they hide the cream of mushrooms . . . not there . . . I hate it when they move stuff around . . . ok . . . found it . . . man, prices are going up . . . now I need . . . rice . . . ." and then she wanders off pushing her cart and you look to see if her clothes all match and that she's not sporting a Blanche DuBois-like vague look, following behind to be sure she doesn't say something about depending on the kindness of strangers. Yeah. That was probably me.

And that's what I find facinating about blogs, not the whole crazy woman at Walmart thing, but the thinking outloud thing. Blogging weakens that filter we have on our brains, the one that keeps things in that should be said. Which is how I'm managing to get the point of my entry here. All this is to say: Steve, please write in yours more. I love reading your thinking.

If you haven't read his blog, the link is to the right. He says things in ways I never would have thought to say them. He also says things that we never say face to face, even though we often stay up an extra hour just talking after we've turned out the light at night. There are things that are easier to type to a blank page than say outloud, so that's how we say them. But these are things I want to know. So blog, would ya?

Oh and it's good writing practice, Mr. Songwriter. ;)

Old Traditions

Today I will can green beans. For some, that might seem like a pointless exercise, especially in a world with canned green beans at the grocery store that go on sale periodically. It's a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of heat but I do it.

Growing up, my parents always grew a huge garden with double rows of every vegetable you could think of. There would be a huge patch of squash and watermelon, six rows of carrots, a couple of rows of red potatoes, beets, radishes, many rows of corn, peas, and of course green beans. I think my mother is really partial to green beans. She's never said so, but anyone who grows six fourty foot rows of green beans and spends three weeks canning them really has to like them more than the average individual.

Yes, six. Well, growing up that's what we had. One year we grew four double rows of beans. Huge long walls of green that seemed to last forever when you were crawling on your knees trying desperately to get to the end of the weeding before Price is Right was over and a sunburn developed on the back of your neck. Or when you were slowly digging through the vines, bucket in hand partly wanting to search only halfheartedly for the beans but doing a decent job anyway to avoid the embarrassment of Mom or Dad picking behind you and pointing out all the ones you missed. The year we grew so many we sold them to an open market and my parents used the money to help pay for a new tv for the family. Hard work earns you something was apparently the lesson we were supposed to learn from that. I think I mostly just learned to hate picking beans.

But not eating them. Mom always grows Blue Lake pole beans. Somehow these are just better and that's why I'm canning beans today. They are worth the time. Besides there's a sense of accomplishment that you can only feel as you look at rows of green beans lined up on a towel on your kitchen counter. My husband provides for our family, but this is one way I can tangibly contribute to the household. This is my part. Food for the winter, work that is given for the good of the family in the same way my grandmother gave. I do it not for traditions sake, but because the contribution still makes sense.

I'm almost caught up

with the century. We now have a car with a CD player, a DVD player in the house, DSL internet, and the new addition, a cell phone.

Yes, folks, I have survived these last three decades without a cell phone. My 62 year old mother had a cell phone before me. That's how unhip I am. I know. It was difficult. I can hear your heart breaking for me from here. The sympathy is apreciated.

Of course, my lack of portable leash was my own decision. Those things are really quite expensive. Why, I could have been paying as much for an ear leech as I pay for my DSL. And since I never actually get up from my DSL and go anywhere, it really seemed a bit pointless to pay for it.

Until I discovered the pay per use system. I know that minutes are technically cheaper when you pay for them in chunks, but since I never use them in chunks, it's a bit of overkill. It's like buying the five pound bag of salad at Costco and only eating a pound before it goes bad. Cheaper in theory; expensive in practice. I've been wanting a pay-as-you-go phone for awhile and i've been researching and waiting for a plan that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. So I invested in a T-Mobile phone.

So now when I go visit friends in August, I don't have to be a phone mooch to call my sweetie at home. I'll have my own minutes to use. I feel so almost up to date.

2000 here I come.

Analgesic Bandaids

You know, you don't have to buy special ones to get this. All bandaids have analgesic properties, but only in users under the age of ten.

Last night Joshua hurt his foot. Steve gave him a bandaid and Joshua went off happily to bed, content in the knowlege that his scrape would no longer hurt just because there was a bandaid on it.

This morning Joshua is up and roming the house for an hour with no problems at all. Then suddenly, he starts hopping on one foot and moaning. He had just noticed his bandaid had fallen off over night. He hopped to Steve to show him the sore, which Steve declared healed enough to go without a bandaid. Joshua argued with his dad about that; Joshua's main point: it still hurt. Of course, it didn't hurt before he noticed the bandaid was missing and technically the bandaid wouldn't help that anyway. Joshua didn't think his dad was using logic at all. Steve distracted him with a minor biology lesson and Joshua left content, if not completely satisfied . . . but not hopping.

Makes me wish bandaids were still magic for me, too.

In Bloom

We have a mature catalpa tree in our front yard. I don't know if I've mentioned this tree before, but I do love it. The house I grew up in also had one of these trees so I have that nostolgic connection besides the fact that it's just a beautiful tree. I was once told that catalpas are native to a more southern zone and were imported here. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, mostly because of the flowers.

You see the catalpa is a flowering tree. In our zone, the only native trees that flower grow fruit and stay somewhat small. They are ornamentals and look lovely in the yard. The caltalpa on the other hand grows 40 ft tall and produces no fruit. It also is one of the first trees to lose it's leaves in the fall and one of the last to grow them in the spring. All the leaves will fall in the same day, and if it's a normal fall, they don't even have time to change color. They just all drop at the first hard frost. But back to the subject at hand. Imagine a 40ft tree covered in clusters of white flowers. They have a soft, sweet scent that drifts under the canopy on warm afternoons. The flowers are my favorite part of the catalpa. They make me want to grab a blanket and lay out under the tree for a nap. (not something I actually ever get time to do, I just want to.)

This last week, we had a wind storm. It blew down full clusters of blossoms from my tree. The next day, I gathered up the stems and brought them into the house and placed them in a pint jar on my table, a large bush of white brightening the room. That evening when the house was quiet and the room was lit with two lamps, the scent of the blooms filled the room, a promise that summer was just beginning.

They Grow in Spurts

Sarah participated in a talent contest on Tuesday night. She loves this competition because it's basically her only chance to sing for a crowd. She spent two months working on her number and then came down with a cough a week before the show. It gave her a scratch throat and that high E that she was already having difficulty reaching suddenly became almost impossible. She did well though. She didn't place, but she performed well and really wowed the crowd. How can you not be wowed when you hear a 10 year old belt out "Defiying Gravity" from Wicked? Ok, so maybe if you are a judge and tend to be overly enthusiasic about 7 year olds playing simple songs on the violin, but otherwise, really, how can you not be impressed?

It struck me that night as she was getting ready how old she is. She's been in my life for more than a decade. Just recently, she's started really caring about making sure her lip stays waxed and she plucked her own eyebrows. I'm sure that soon she'll want to shave her legs and I'm not ready for that. (She inherited her father's dark body hair.) She wore her new lavendar skirt and white sweater with her silver sandals. She looked so pretty and grown up as she sat and visited with her grandma, leaning in with one leg crossed over the other.

Last week, she wasn't that old. I swear she wasn't. They don't grow gradually, flowing from one age to the next in a coniuous process. They jump and hop in their ages just like they jump through life, moving along in spurts so one minute they are small and the next they are entering junior high.

I don't normally get wistful about my kids growing. I know I've said that before and I mean it. I rejoice in their getting older and growing as human beings. However, Tuesday night my heart couldn't help hurting for that little girl I used to have.

She still will fly at you to give you a hug and that little girl thing I hope never leaves her.

Out of Commission

It's been a while since I posted because Spring flu hit our house. It took out all the kids for a week, and the onset of symptoms was only staggered by a day or so, which means that I had five kids sick at once. I've never had that happen before and usually my kids are pretty healthy. I think they've each been on antibiotics maybe twice in their lives. Needless to say, this was not a set of circumstances I was prepared for. The kids are back at school but the house is trashed and I'm now sick from the same thing.

But that's not what I wanted to blog about. Friday, I had to keep all three of my school kids home. Sarah had to go to school sick on Thursday because it was the day of the major social studies fair, the culmination of months of work and not something she could make up later. She gave her class presentation that day, because she knew she would miss the next day. So Friday, she missed seeing all the presentations. She was sad about that. Joshua, however, was completely heartbroken. A real, live children's author was visiting his school that morning and in the afternoon his class was hosting a Mothers' Tea complete with a play for entertainment. Rilla, being in kindergarten, still just thinks every school day is special.

So in an effort to cheer up my children, we hosted our own Mother's Tea. I spent all morning baking and we did enough different things that everyone got to help with one thing. We made bread in the bread maker, muffins, three kinds of cookie, and weiner wraps (bite sized.) There was also apple slices and carrot sticks and special punch (koolaid with sherbert melted into it) because there was supposed to be special punch at the second grade Mothers' Tea.

We set the table with a nice table cloth and my china, including the tea cups and saucers. They all ate pretty decently although I have to admit the carrots and apples were very much neglected and Matty only ate the muffins (he's a muffin freak.) I got a kick out of the fact that I actually owned a punch bowl for my punch (hey, Mom, you wanna use it for some weddings? lol!) and I had a use for all my pretty dishes. No one spilled anything and no one fought. All in all, it was a good day.

I'm posting this so I have proof that once in a while, I can be a fun mom. Here's a pic of our party minus the bread and weiner wraps.

And for only $100 donation I can get the DVD of tonight's program

At least once every six weeks, my father in law asks me if I watch a TV show that he watches. It's usually a different one than he mentioned last time. For a normal family, this would be a nice question and show that he is interested in what his daughter in law likes. For us, this shows an amazing lack of perception and retention of facts. You see, every time he asks I give him the same answer: no I don't watch that show. We don't get network television. We only get PBS and this has been the case for seven years. At first I'm sure many of you think, "oh well, your memory goes when you are older." Since he's not even 55 yet, I actually give him a different excuse.

He can't remember this because we are weird. What family in America actually chooses to go without television? Who can't stand around the water cooler and maintain their side of a Survivor or American Idol conversation, if only to say they would rather discuss CSI? A family usually either chooses to not own a tv at all on moral grounds or they have it all. We don't fit in either category. We just sort of fell into our situation.

When we moved to this town seven years ago, we quickly discovered that getting tv reception was difficult. I know, the average adult would have already called the cable company and never actually discovered this one, but money was tight and we were going to forgo cable for awhile in an effort to actually pay some more pressing bills. Yes, it was weird, but we had just graduated from college and we were in our "responsible adults" phase. We could, however, get reception from the PBS station, so Sarah watched Sesame Street and Barney and we talked about getting cable in a year when finances were better.

A strange thing happened though. We learned to love PBS. I mean love it. We really enjoy Nova; we look forward to American Experience; I'm upset if I miss an episode of This Old House. We make jokes about slimline white telephones and candle light suppers. PBS is fun. No there's not always something we want to watch on tv, but that's when we turn it off or watch a movie. (We do have a Netflix subscription.) There's enough good stuff on and most of it is stuff we really learn from. (Don't bring up hydrogen fuel, because we can talk your ear off about that.) Educational TV doesn't stop with 10 year olds. And suddenly it's seven years later and we still only talk about getting cable or dish as a "someday" thing.

A few years ago, we were visiting Steve's parents. The house was relatively quiet on a Sunday afternoon, so I turned on the tv just to see what was on. I flipped through six channels and settled on PBS. That's when I knew I was well and truly corrupted. I'm sure there is hope for me, but in the meantime, I'm saving $30 a month and learning an awful lot about roof repair.

This Is Why I Will Never Be Nominated Mother of the Year

So. I'm going to have eight eight year olds invade my house tomorrow. Ok, seven will invade and one will already be here. And yes, he won't be eight until the next day. Let's stop quibbling over details, shall we? Anyway. Planned a birthday party. Ok, I got emotionally blackmailed and pushed into a birthday party. Joshua will someday be the World's Best Salesman. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. He doesn't stop. I'm lucky I didn't get talked into letting him invite the whole class. You can all be happy for me that he was ok with seven friends because if not, I would have the entire class over here tomorrow afternoon. He's that good.

I"m in total denial about this party. I have not planned any activities. I have not even bought the birthday cake mix. I may just break down and buy a cake. I never buy cakes. I hate store cakes. So nasty! Mine may not look all that great but at least it's worth eating. This is how crazy I am right now. I'm thinking I should buy a ball of some kind. Or maybe water balloons. burlap sacks? rope and duct tape? Valium? These things go through my mind only when I'm thinking about the party, the rest of the time I try to forget I'm doing this. I'm not one of those mothers who lives to do THE BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!!1!!1! I love my kids. I love that they have birthdays and we always have at least two family parties and make a big deal out of them the whole day. We buy them fun gifts, like this year the boy is getting a new bike. However, that many kids gathered together, high on sugar and hyped up from the idea of a party totally stresses me out.

The ignore the party technique worked just fine until last night. Last night when my husband called to confirm a time for a project he had commited to help with three weeks ago. When do they need him? Exactly the same time as the party. Eight eight year olds and just me. Oh and four other children of my own. Don't you wish you were me?

Seven Minutes in Heaven

This morning when the alarm went off, I hit the snooze button.  I tend to avoid doing that.   The snooze only gives me seven more minutes, but this morning I wanted that seven minutes.   I wanted to snuggle up against my husband as he slept away, oblivious to the alarm.  I love how warm and cozy my bed feels when I'm supposed to be getting up.  It's that little bit of childhood comfort coming back to me for a few minutes.  I can snuggle down under my down comforter and rest my head against Steve's shoulder, give myself just a few more minutes of safety and joy.  Heaven my way.  

Slow Learner

I got a Pottery Barn Teen catalog in the mail the other day. Lots of fun, bright colors and patterns. (BTW, polka dots are back in.) Steve was looking over my shoulder while I flipped through it. I stopped for a moment on the page for this lounge set. "I want that!" he said, stabbing the page. That would be awesome in the family room. (The one we don't have yet.) I looked again at the prices and said, "If you want to spend that much on a couch, I could find a really nice one for that."

"I don't want really nice. I want comfortable and relaxed. I like that one."

"but it's so expensive. I could make it cheaper. Really, all I would have to do is . . . " and I detailed the process of building the lounging couch.

Aparently, I learned nothing from the Evil Skirt episode.

Shoe Torture

The other day I was discussing with my baby sister (who's 24. you never get over being the baby. Of course, I tend to think of her as the baby more now that I have a baby of my own that I would dearly love to stay my baby forever.) where was I? oh yes. Talking. We were discussing me buying shoes. Well, I was discussing. Ranting more like it. I was off on my favorite rant about how no one carries W in cute styles anymore. 10 years ago I could walk into a Payless, find a cute shoe and then find it in W. not now. There are about four W in each size. One basic pump, One ugly loafer (think nursing shoe,) One basic running shoe, and one truly horrendous sandal. The cute ones? the trendy ones that all the teenagers are buying? no wide. In fact, the straps on the sandals are getting tighter. I swear they are.

My sister listens politely for about 3 seconds (you think she might have heard this before?) and says, "well why don' t you just buy a bigger size? Just keep going up until it fits." Which I find out is what she does.

And suddenly, I'm faced with the horrible thought that this is why I can't find inexpensive, wide shoes. Because everyone else does this. And they don't care that the foot bed is too long and the toe of the shoe sticks out farther than it should, so you look like you are a little girl wearing your mother's clown shoes.

I care. Which is why I don't have very many shoes in my closet. There's always a trade off, isnt' there?

something different for me

I don't usually do this. This being put out quotes on my blog. I believe that inspiration is very personal. Something is inspiring to me and makes me think because of the particular place I am in my life. The things I'm struggling with, trying to change, to make better determine what inspires me and I can't pull inspiration from something that doesn't speak to that place. I'm sure other people can. I can't. If I'm not in the right place, often these "inspirational quotes" sound trite and pompous to me.

But today I was in the right place to hear a song for the first time. Sister Hazel, whom I don't normally listen to. This morning, the cd player held a single song burned to CD and it played over twice as I drove to and from the pool. I'll only post the pre-chorus and chorus:

Pre-chorus:
Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard
A word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough
Of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in¡­

Chorus:
If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind...

My mind has been changed just enough recently that I could hear the wisdom in the words. I could hear and say, yes, that works, and yet still see that I have more changing to do. The changes I have made have been good. It has been a struggle to keep going until the results came. But they are coming now and I want more of the good stuff in my life. Changing your mind doesn't happen in a moment. The life epiphany doesn't change you. It helps you see that change is needed. Changing happens over weeks and months. And so I'm changing. Little changes. Step by step. It's a good path.

For the Love of a Skirt: a comedy of errors

Once upon a time there was a skirt. She stood in the store window tempting the passers by. She was a magic skirt. She could make women stop in their tracks and lose the ability to speak and become single minded in the persuit of her.

I was enchanted by that skirt. I thought about her often and thought of how I couldn't have her because mean old Ann Taylor wanted $100 for her and I can't spend that much on one skirt, even if it's the most fabulous skirt ever made. So I decided to copy it and make myself a skirt exactly like her.

It's at this point that I began to realize that the Beautiful Skirt was evil. You would have thought that I would have had some idea before this, what with the enchantment of a one track mind and imposed covetousness, but no. I missed it. Yes, Beautiful Skirt was angry that I would attempt to copy her fabulousness, especially with cheap JoAnn's fabric. (ok, it was expensive fabric for JoAnn's , but that's not saying much.) I made a trip to JoAnn's to buy the fabric. I was also buying fabric for a skirt for my daughter and I found a cute print for a second skirt for myself. The first indication of the curse that was on this project was when I had finally chosen everything, I looked at the clock and I had to leave my mother with an armload of fabric because I had to leave right that minute or my kids would be home from school before I got there. She bought the fabric for my daughter's skirt but I had to go back to get the fabric for Beautiful Skirt's Imposter.

I went back and of course I forgot my 40% off coupon, thus costing myself $6.

The Evil Skirt expanded her curse to all my projects as I prepared to sew. I washed the fabric that could be washed. Then I tried to cut out Sarah's skirt. Tried. The fabric had shrunk and I no longer had enough no matter what I tried. I slipped into denial as I manuvered printed tissue all over the fabric. There had to be some way. Oh, Beautiful Skirt was evil. Sarah's skirt was supposed to be her Easter present and, me being me, I had started this project with less than a week to go. I gave up on the first piece of fabric and had to make an evening run to JoAnn's to buy a second piece. I chose to get what I thought would be just enough to finish cutting out the skirt if I used the first piece as well. I brought that home and washed it. Then I discovered that I had bought the wrong color of lavendar linen. oh yes, I did. Luckily I slipped under the curse by managing to squeeze the whole skirt onto the second piece. The curse on that skirt was mostly broken at that point, but Evil Skirt wasn't done with me yet.

So I went to cut out my other two skirts. The lovely Imposter and the kicky print. I didn't have enough fabric for the contrast fabric on the Imposter. yes. Another trip to JoAnn's. Did I mention that JoAnn's is a 15-20 minute drive from my house? I went to cut out the kicky print. a cute tropical red and white print that was supposed to be made into a slightly longer than knee length number with inverted pleats all the way around with a lining to add body. Only I didn't have enough fabric. This time I was six inches short. There is no way to adjust the pattern. I'll have to use a different one, so there will be no fashionable, kicky inverted pleat skirt for me.

I persevered through the bramble forest, my mind focused on achieving the castle and wearing a fantastic skirt to the ball. Evil Skirt pushed onward with her curse. Causing much ripping of seams as I made more mistakes on one piece than I have made since I was twelve, including the oh so fun ripping of a seam at least two yards long. But I did it. I broke through the curse at one thirty Sunday morning. The skirt was done.

I proudly wore it on Sunday, a visual display of my victory over evil.


The moral of this story is of course, if you see the perfect skirt in the window of a store, do not attempt to sew a copy. Just buy the darn thing and save yourself the torture.

A big Thank You

first, thanks everyone for your well wishes. I had a fantastic birthday. I spent a wonderful day with a good friend and a wonderful evening with the man I love. I had hugs and kisses from my children and phone calls from loved ones. It couldn't have been more perfect.

I know as an adult it's very easy for birthdays to be just another day and I firmly believe that everyone should have at least one day a year that celebrates how wonderful you are as a person, even if you aren't turning six.

I stopped wishing other people would make my birthday special for me a long time ago. Instead I celebrate myself and invite everyone to celebrate with me. Who could read my mind anyway? No one knows what I want unless I say what I want, so now I make my own plans. Steve is wonderful and enjoys helping me celebrate. I think my friends make a bigger deal out of my day because I'm making a big deal out of it. It's my birthday. It's my day. Yes, I'm turning 32 and that means I'm getting older, but I'm still here. I exist. I have a good life. That life is worth celebrating. It's very easy for me to get caught up in the daily grind, the little things that chip away at the good stuff. For one day I make it a special point focus on the good.

And it was a good day. thank you for helping me with that.

So You Do What To Your Face?

Last night Steve and I were sitting on the couch talking and playing around. He has very loose skin on his face and loves to mush it around. He mushed it all together in the center and said something goofy. I laughed and said, "no, you say 'hello, my name is chubby'." He said "what?"

"Chubby. you know, the Chubby stories."

He gave me a very blank look.

"you don't know the chubby stories."

"no."

and my world view was rocked just a bit.

Steve and I didn't know each other growing up but we lived 45 miles apart. There was definite communications between our towns. He knows about Orange you glad I didn't say bananna, pinching on St. Patrick day, noogies, the proper response for "and now you know!" All the standard playground jokes. How could he not know Chubby? Chubby was part of growing up. There were four stories of the adventures of the little Chubby which must be told with your hands at the side of your face squishing it all in, a very goofy way to tell a story, which is why it's so funny to an eight year old. You don't even laugh at the story, mostly because it's pretty dumb, it's the way the person telling the story looks. Chubby is about as un PC as you can get and if I hadn't heard them growing up I would probably be slightly miffed hearing them for the first time now.

Instead, I tried to tell my husband the Chubby stories last night (complete with actions) and I was laughing too hard to get it out.

Ah Chubby . . . . sigh. good times. good times. tell me the rest of you know Chubby.