Sorry for the Out of Order Pictures

I was cleaning out my closet the other night when I came across this dress. I made it in 1996 to wear to a banquet. (Can't you tell it's 1996 by the white hose and permed hair? That wasn't even the year I permed my hair 5 times in 12 months!) At any rate, I found it in the closet and put it on - gasp! It still fit! I paraded into the bedroom where Dean and the boys were, and Dean says, "Did you just buy that dress?" Shock and awe, people, shock and awe. The dress still fits and apparently looks like something I just bought! So that started my sewing itch again.

Does anybody sew? It's an itch you get to make something, and it's kept me up past midnight sometimes to try and finish something. I took lessons at the sewing store (Miss Brenda, so there Mad Cow!) when I was in the 7th grade and made a fabulous pair of khaki pants with a waistband and zipper, thank you very much. I proudly wore them to school, and unfortunately had to ride home with my good friend Winston from school that day. In 1979, riding home with Winston meant jumping in the back of the pickup truck. Well, as soon as I threw my leg over the tailgate, RRRRIIIIIPPPPP! Goodbye beautiful pants. Apparently the zipper was fabulous but the rear seam was lacking.

At any rate, I've made lots of clothes for myself over the years, all still hanging in my closet collecting dust because you just can't throw away something you made, and nobody at the Goodwill wants your unfinished seam edges. I've also made a shirt for Drew and boxers for Lucas. (Now that left sleeve wasn't REALLY that much longer than the other, he just stretched it out.) So luckily, I still had fabric and notions for a pink skirt that I bought 2 or 3 years ago (when the itch leaves, it's gone for quite a while), but the boys have to be right up under me, you know, so they needed projects too. So I pulled out the books to let them look (I used to belong to a sewing club that sent patterns every month - that's how addicted I was). Lucas settled on a teddy bear and Drew wants gloves for some reason. I'll post pictures of the bear as he comes along and also the gloves ("if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" - also 1996 I think.)

Anyway, I finished the pink skirt in time to wear it to dinner tonight, so that itch was successfully scratched. And in this economy, sewing your own clothes is going to be as valuable as growing your own vegetables. I wonder if Michelle Obama can sew?

Serious Baby Questions - I Mean Really Serious

Another wonderful baby conversation in the car with the boys. I have no recollection how it started. If the Mad Cow lets up a little I'll add it in later:

Lucas (6): Mom, can babies ever die on the day they're born?
Mom (41): Yeah, they can.
Drew (12): Of course. Babies can die BEFORE they're born. (the tone here is DUH!)
L: How does that happen?
D: Lots of things: not enough to eat, too much alcohol...
L: Are you ALWAYS asleep when the baby comes out?
D: What??? You're NEVER asleep when the baby comes out!
M: Yes, SOMEtimes they have to put you to sleep.
L: When?
M: Well, if they have to (do I say it? what else can I say?) cut the baby out of your stomach really fast.
L: I thought they ALWAYS cut the baby out of your stomach. (No, that's not the usual way.) So why would they have to do it really fast?
D: Like I said, if the baby's sick because of too much alcohol or not enough food!
Who taught him this stuff?

The next day Lucas asked if my belly button flipped inside out as he got bigger, and also if Drew was in there at the same time as he was. Other questions have included why boobs don't go away after the baby's grown up (oh, sweetheart, they may not go away, but they sure get closer to the ground!).

Another Favorite Song

This has apparently been around a few months but I just heard it this morning – GOOD STUFF!!! That’s all I have to say about that.

The Lonely Diners

So we decided to eat out Friday night at a nice restaurant in the area (we'd had our Waffle House fix earlier in the week). The kids showered and we all gussied up a bit. Then things went downhill. It started with the reservation:
"Can I get a reservation for 4 at 7 PM tonight?"
"NO! We're not open at 4!"
"No, it's for 4 PEOPLE, at 7 PM."
"Oh, sure. You said 4? At 7:10?"
"No, 7 PM."
"OK."

Then we arrive...to a completely empty parking lot. The waiter (henceforth known as W) indicates he knew who we were when we drove up (being the only reservation of the night, apparently). He takes our drink order - would we like sodas, tea, water...? Dean orders a cocktail.
"Uh, sir, we don't sell alcohol. They should have told you when you made the reservation." HUH???? There's a bar right in the front! Dean decides to run down the street and get a bottle of wine. While he's gone, the kids ask for a Dr. Pepper and root beer. The waiter squenches up his face, "I'm sorry, we don't have root beer OR Dr. Pepper."

Dean comes back with wine and W proceeds to get the wine opener stuck in the cork. He makes small talk while glancing nervously at the bottle, then excuses himself to the kitchen. While he's gone, fruit flies swarm our table and we all take turns slapping at them. He returns with the wine poured out into a decanter - guess they dug the cork out with a knife. He leaves us with 2 cloudy wine glasses which Dean cleans with his napkin.

We place our orders, enjoy delicious salads, and proceed to wait an hour for the entrees. Lucas asks at one point, "Why are we whispering?" to which I reply, "When you're not saying nice things you should whisper so they don't hear you." Somewhere around 8 PM the chef comes out to say hello and explain the liquor license issue, and also tells us about his struggles in this market, etc. We empathize with his plight and appreciate his plans for the future - things will be great! (I hope he doesn't notice me swatting gnats out of my face.) Then we wait another 10 minutes for W to come back with the squenched up face and tell Dean, "I'm sorry, but they just told me we're out of mushrooms....I can go up to the store and get some but it'll take a few minutes." WHAAAAA???

Finally dinner comes, and other than Dean's entree being cold and mushroomless (other than THAT Mrs. Lincoln...), everything's delicious. Drew declares his the best gumbo he's ever tasted (even better than the white chili?!). The chef does one more drive-by then takes off, and W finally brings a bill about 30 minutes later. And never comes back....ever. Dean has to get up and KNOCK on the kitchen door to pay the bill. (We'd really like to leave now...please?) Then we walk out of the empty dining room to the empty parking lot and go home.

At least W didn't ask us to turn off the lights and lock up on our way out.

God Bless the GBS!

We had a very gung-ho babysitter (GBS) the past 2 days. She told Drew how much she loved cooking and he told her about the upcoming cooking camp he's signed up for, and they decided to look up a recipe, buy the ingredients, and cook it up the next day. He suggested gumbo - he wanted to cook that on the Boy Scout camping trip, but we'd dissuaded him from that. I mean, it's GUMBO...it requires a ROUX...do you know how Dean slaves over his ROUX to get it just right? It's hours of standing and stirring and that's before you even put all the SEAFOOD in! (You can see here I was thinking about how much this shopping trip would cost and would it be edible afterwards.)

Well, I forgot to ban the gumbo when I left for work this morning, so when I walk in this afternoon, the house smells like bacon and onions. I mean, it's not bad, just different. They're so proud of the "gumbo," which GBS prefers to call "white chili." She found the recipe on FoodNetwork.com and it looked pretty easy, so off they went to buy potatoes, frozen shrimp (you need a microscope), bacon, onions, canned clams, and half-and-half. GBS says Drew did most of the work; she just chopped onions and supervised. They even cooked rice!

So I had it for dinner......it was pretty good! I did have to pick out pieces of bacon to bite off the meat and lay the fat aside, because they didn't cook it very much and there was quite a bit of fat left. And I'm really worried about how many calories I ate because the main ingredient was half-and-half, and it really was WHITE soup! And I asked Drew what the stringy greenish things were - leeks? - and he told me those were the clams.....huh???? I did find a few sea monkeys, er...I mean shrimplings, in my bowl, but it was mostly potatoes.

So overall, it was tasty if a bit unhealthy, I didn't have to cook it, Drew was proud of it, and I haven't run to the bathroom yet with cramps, so I deem it a success. Thanks, GBS!

The Newest Thing!

So who knows about geocaching? We do now - it's become an obsession. We spent a weekend in Auburn with "GeoJester65" and "Funkygirl" who taught us all about it. We came right home and found our first cache right around the corner. I mean, look at all the loot in that thing! Of course, you only take one thing if you leave one thing of equal value. And then there are microcaches which are tiny metal pill containers dangling from tree limbs, poles, etc. So fun!

So now I realize that the couple with the baby wandering around the empty lot down the road last year were actually NOT homeless drug addicts looking for the next hit, but geocachers who got interrupted and tried not to give up the location to the "muggles." I myself am probably mistaken for a vagrant, especially when the boys and I are wandering aimlessly behind businesses poking at rocks and bushes and looking over our shoulders. So far the police have not been called, but just give it a little time...

P.S. Go to www.Geocaching.com to check it out - it's free but you need a GPS or you can download an app to your phone ($9.99).

Final Thoughts

Amy, I agree with you about the screaming. What really bugs me about it is the way he sticks his tongue out when he does it. The notes are beautiful, always perfect, but why does the tongue have to come out of the mouth? Now, I said always perfect, but that awful song that Kara cowrote sounded really off. I thought Kris sounded a little off on that one too, so maybe she wrote the wrong notes - HA! There was too much up and down and all over the place with it.

Yes, Mad World is the most beautiful song - we googled it and found a version where the guy made a video with school kids forming pictures shot from the roof of a school. I thought Kris's first 2 songs were fantastic. I beg to differ with Simon on the 2nd one - I thought he totally made that his own with new chords and there were strings in the background that made it fancier.

And for the first time, I didn't vote because I think both of them are fantastic. In other news, did anyone watch Glee? I guess that's taking the time slot - it was HI-larious! The cheerleader coach is the best.