Wednesday already???

Cripes, I'm getting old fast. I swear time flies by before I know it. 2005? August? WEDNESDAY??? It's a good thing I've already got the grumpy old lady's soul inside this almost-middle-aged body. Old age? BRING IT ON BABY I'm ready.

My major accomplishment for the week was cleaning out the tiny drawer in my bedside table and one small junk drawer in the bedroom. Somehow these two SMALL dimensions yielded enough crap to fill an entire yellow trash bag. I went back to trying to reclaim my closets and realized I have more clothes than a woman could POSSIBLY wear in a year. Plus they all suck. OK I have a few nice pieces, but the rest is crap. crap crap crap. I started more yellow trash bags for donations, ebay and trash. I went into Joey's room and realized the child has 47 t-shirts. FOURTY-SEVEN T-SHIRTS. I think he wears about 7 of them. This resulted in more piles of crap, more yellow trash bags and now my nice little "hey let's organize a tiny area of space to make my living area more peaceful" has resulted in my bedroom (my oasis from the clutter of life) now resembles the drop-off spot at the local Goodwill. nice.

OH, I knit my fingers to the bone before the wedding and EVEN made a gauge and everything and the one-skein wonder turned out beautifully, but fit my daughter not me. I think I was measuring the wrong part of my shoulders so now I went out and bought MORE yarn and am working on one for mommacita. I'm planning on wearing it (this one WILL fit me dammit) this Friday night. Jeff's having his 20 year high school reunion this weekend but isn't going. BUT his friends talked him into having a party on Friday night at his house for all of their old gang to get together. I got a babysitter lined up (my cousin--the BEST) for the whole night, so I can get a bit tipsy and not worry about getting a ride home. I want to wear the one-skein wonder over a black tank top I think. DAMMIT it's hard to decide what to wear to look better than the old girlfriends but not look like I'm TRYING to look better than them. Petty? yes. Shallow? yes. Do I care? NO.

Last rant for the day...does anyone else HATE IT when your kids start NOTICING things like YELLOW lights and RED lights and SPEED LIMITS??? I'm a totally safe mother, don't get your knickers in a knot here people, but OCCASIONALLY I may be a titch over the official speed limit. Yesterday we had to get Beth to the dr's by 9am as I thought the walk-in period went till 9:30, called just to make sure, and it was 8:50 and we were about 12 minutes away. She had tummy problems that I wanted to make sure wasn't an appendix (she just has to be like her momma and go poo more often so MORE veggies and such). ANYWAY, momma was hitting the speed pretty hard and went through a yellow/red/orange light on the way (looking to make sure no one was starting early through the intersection, don't worry) and I had the damn speed police in the backseat. Beth: "MOOOOO-OOOOMMMMMMM, that speed limit sign said 35, and you are going more than that." Joey: "MOOOOOOO-OOOOOMMMMMMM, my teachers say you're supposed to slow down for yellow lights." cripes.

Actually the last time I was pulled over for 45 in a 35, my HELPFUL children were pointing out to the police officer that mom was going faster down the hill before he saw us. When he asked if I knew why I was pulled over, the kids said "MOM was going number 50 and the sign said 35!" The cop actually laughed as I rolled my eyes and very nicely gave a warning.

too tired to post, here's some pics

Will and Raegan are married, we had a BLAST, perfect wedding, perfect weekend, good friends, good family, GREAT TIME!!

Do we clean up good or WHAT???


Uncle Will and my kids


Aunt Raegan and my daughter Beth. FYI--Raegan's dress was a size ZERO and had to be taken in. Doesn't that make you wanna barf??? How is someone that beautiful this nice, kind, thoughtful and just cute as heck? I still wanna barf. size zero. pisses me off. The smallest wedding dress I got into was a size 6 and that was LONG LONG ago in a galaxy FAR FAR away.


My mom escorted down the aisle by my brother (do I have the cutest brothers or WHAT? FUNNIEST part of the day, I go to drop off Beth for her hair appointment and pick up my mom from her hair-do appt at the local day spa/salon in Salina, KS. My mother is a pretty mellow chic appearance-wise. The lady doing her hair was a bit flamboyant. She really wanted to give mom a fancy do. Mom just wanted a bit of a pouf to her short hair. I guess she talked her into "moderate lift" instead of going all out. I walked in, saw mom with hair to the ceiling...I swear I don't know how she had such big hair when she doesn't even HAVE that much hair. Once I got her in the car, I laughed until I almost cried. It was a great look, just not on my mom. I had flashbacks to Steel Magnolias where Dolly Partin gave the big bee-hive doo's. A little brushing and a lot of hairspray later, here was the moderately lifted hair doo of the mother of the groom. Looking lovely I think!


Beth hanging out backstage with the other bridesmaids.


After their hairdo's and makeup treatments, she got to ride in the limo with the girls over to the church. It was the coolest thing for the new Aunt Raegan to include Beth with all her college friends.


The flower girl and ring bearer take a break after the wedding. These kids are Raegan's niece and nephew and were a RIOT. The ring bearer did his thing once his mom (matron of honor) grabbed his hand and took him down the aisle. The flower girl (2 1/2 yrs old) was trying to run up the aisle the whole time the other groomsmen and bridesmaids were walking. When she finally got to go, she dumped the rose petals on the ground and would NOT go until every last one was picked up and put back in her basket. Then she was so excited she went running down the aisle and bumped into a few pews like a pinball going bump, across to the other side, bump and all at a dead run. TOO CUTE!!

Ah, young love...

Well, baby brother is getting married this weekend. Mallied. Married? Mallied! Married? MALLIED! God, do we EVER outgrow Sixteen Candles quotes? *sigh* ANYWAY, "Uncle Will" is marrying "Aunt Raegan" this Saturday and so I get to go to a BIG ASS GERMAN CATHOLIC WEDDING PARTY!!!! woo freaking HOO I love those things, ESPECIALLY when one of my bro's is the groom! (Though I have myself dabbled in the fine art of weddings, I had not so much fun the first times, I'd much rather party at a bro's wedding, too bad I've only got 2 brothers!) Let's give the quick version...my mom's the 3rd youngest of 11 kids and dad's the 3rd oldest of 14 kids (Grandma actually had 2 more babies, but one was stillborn and one died of the croup --now we think it could have been a c.f. baby). Those kids all had babies and their babies had babies and we all LOVE each other and have a BLAST when we get together. Will's marrying a SWEET girl who I LOVE LOVE LOVE and I guess he does too, which is good. She is ALSO a good ol' Kansas Catholic girl from a big ass family. Chicken dance, polka-ing, two steppin, swing dancing with cousins, I can't wait! The only thing better is if my honey could go. He's on vacation still with his boys and offered to cut it short, but I thought NAW, go have your boy-time and I'd rather gradually introduce the boy to the big family. It can be a bit FREAKISHLY overwhelming to meet the 100's of people who all have my best interests at heart.

BACK TO THE MAN OF THE HOUR...

Cute cute cute, isn't he? The other brother is tall, dark and handsome. Just makes me sick. sick sick sick.

I totally gave up on the mobius strip matching wraps for daughter and I. I cheaped out and went to Target and got her a black t-shirt material shrug and I'm almost done with my one-skein wonder. I sure as HECK hope the damn thing fits. I did do gauge, but so far the whole gauge to fit experience has been part of why I'm still the Knitting VIRGIN as I have YET to wear something besides a purse, scarf or hat that I've knitted. cross your fingers. You should be able to hear joy and laughter or VERY loud cursing from NE Kansas later tonight as it's removed from the needles.

Beth's a junior bridesmaid and gets to wear a black dress with spaghetti straps that matches the big girls' strapless numbers. Joey's got a promotion from "ring boy" to "junior groomsman" and thinks his sh*t don't stink. Ok, he knows he smells, he just thinks he's hot stuff. FUNNIEST thing of the day...Beth was trying on her dress and shoes and mom made me try on my outfit and Joey was feeling a bit left out. He went into his room, put on his new black socks and black shoes and came out modeling them complete with his hair all spiked up and wet and a pair of dinosaur undies. Quite the look.

Here's one more shot of my kiddo's at the last wedding they were a part of (cousin Justin's a couple of years ago.) They look so young and innocent. Now Beth's proud of being a "tween" and Joey's hell on wheels with spiky hair.

sweet post from a doggie

Go check out Dogs steal yarn's post from her doggie Diego. too freaking cute. Makes me miss my greyhounds from a few years back.

yadda yadda yadda

OH HOLY HECK the heat-wave is broken. It rained yesterday and now at 11:30am it is only 68 freaking degrees outdoors, sunny, NOT TOO HUMID and lovely!!! WOO HOO!!

I tossed a sophie knitted with noro and the purse that looked like a spittoon into the wash last night to felt. They both need another round today, the sophie's looking GOOD the spittoon-looking purse is looking like a felted spittoon. I thought it could be this cool funky purse, but not so much. ah well, who doesn't need a felted spittoon purse? It could be THE most necessary fashion accessory of the fall.

I FINALLY caught up on all my blog reading yesterday! I also accomplished about 4 hours worth of laundry. I still have the two trashbags of hand-me-downs Beth brought home from her step sister in NM. I just shoved them under her bed so I don't have to look at them. Too much laundry can kill a woman. Back in my June Cleaver days of early marriage in NM with the ex, I used to ENJOY laundry. I had this big ol' clothesline that you pulled out from the house and hook onto a metal post. I'd hang our clothes out on the line, look at the mountains in the distance, enjoy the fresh air and commune with nature. Not quite the same now. ah well.

What else? OH, Monday night could have really sucked, but for some reason, it was a blast. We get home in the 198 degree heat to a house with NO ELECTRICITY. yup. One of the neighbors back behind us never got his trees trimmed after the last big ice storm and a branch took out the power line. fun fun fun. You know, it's an "adventure" when you have no electricity in the winter, but you have candles, sleeping bags and wood-burning stoves for heat. It's not so adventurish in late July humidity. We couldn't huddle in the basement since the carpets were cleaned that morning and the fumes were too heavy. We put together puzzles, drank water and ate cold hot dogs and chips for dinner, yummy. Electricity (and air conditioning) came back on in time for us to leave the house.

My dad had his company night at the KC Royals, so we headed out to General Admission in right field (aka DIRECT SUNLIGHT) for a hot night of watching the teams with the best and worst records in baseball. Mom was bugging me to take towels out with me...wtf? I took them to get her to quit bugging me. The woman KNOWS her stuff. Those dark blue metal seats could've fried eggs and red-headed children upon them. Towels saved our butts and backs. We sat there with sweat running down us, inhaling the four bottles of water I brought. By 8:00, the sun went behind the bleachers and the entire G.A. section breathed this big "aaaahhhhh" all at once, it was a riot. The Royals gave up 5 runs in the first inning, could've been a totally boring game, but they hung tough and got the 12 hits we needed for the fans to all get dozens of Krispy Creme donuuts (why is KC one of the fattest cities??? anyone???) and we even saw a home run with fireworks exploding in the air above us. Kids were GREAT, we had dippin dots, TONS of water, snacks brought from home and watched the boys in blue play a little ball.

We sat in a crowd of strange people. You probably know them. Two rows in front of us is Drunk Waving Guy. He would stand up at strange times and yell "BOB, HEY BOB! BOB! BOB! HEY BOB!" and wave with his entire body. This would go on for a few minutes until Bob finally decided to wave at the guy. A few minutes later, it was on to "JOHN, HEY JOHN!" and so on. I think he said howdy to everyone he knew from work at least 3 times. His wife would laugh, slap him on the butt and tell him to sit down. each time. for the entire game. my butt would'a been a bit sore by then.

Directly behind us was Really Big Momma. Really Big Momma had 8 kids. Not that there's anything wrong with that. She took up the entire area from the back of her seat to the back of MY seat. Really Big Momma had a really big voice to go along with her big presence. She yelled at her kids (who were all sitting very quietly watching the game) and then REALLY loud at her hubby who was at the other end of the clan. He ignored her, pulled his trucker ball cap down over his mullet and so she went back at yelling at the kids. She was eating all kinds of food & ice cream and such but her kids didn't have anything. I was seriously concerned for the two little twin boys at the end of the row as they looked overheated and I was trying to think of a non-offensive way I could give them some water. Their dad took them out for a while and when they came back, one of the other co-workers must have taken pity on them as they all had frozen lemonades with those cool wooden spoon-like slats of wood and looked more alive. Really Big Momma had a lot of really big bodily noises as well. We moved over to another area after coming back from getting our dippin dots and things were much more enjoyable.

The kids and Drunk Waving Guy kept trying to start the wave but it never really caught on enough to go around the stadium. I hate the wave. The kids loved it, I finally waved a finger to get into the spirit. Not that finger, I was a good girl.

We get up to leave around the end of the 6th inning as both kids are falling asleep, and we CAN'T FIND THE FREAKING TRUCK. Now, I'm a ditsy person. I never know where I park, so I have to park in the same place at the mall every time I shop. If I am on my own somewhere, I actually write down where I park and put it my pocket. If I'm with a responsible person (my dad never gets lost EVER), I don't worry about it. We parked on a different side from where we normally park at the stadium, so for 35 minutes, THIRTY FIVE MINUTES, Dad wanders around holding Joey's hand and I wander with Beth. We not only can't find the truck, we lose each other and Dad's cell phone is turned off. We keep meeting other lost souls clicking their alarm buttons and see other cars and suv's lights flashing, but none are the missing blazer. It was like a start of a bad horror film....Do you know how many red suv's look alike in the dark parking lot? I finally found Dad again, ask him to PLEASE call on-star and have them turn on the alarm, (men never seem to do things the easy way), and we finally hit the truck. cripes. Both kids fall asleep on impact of hitting their seats and we get home around 10:30pm. I don't know why, but everyone was in a great mood and had a blast. The kids woke up the next day asking if we could go back that night too.

If I wanted it this hot, I'd live on the beach

Cripes, how have I not melted away like the wicked witch of the west? humid humid humid hot hot hot ugh.

Well, I took my munchkins and my lovahboy to the lake to stay with mom & dad this last weekend. We had a blast. His boys were with their mom, so it was not too overwhelming for my folks (we resemble a regular brady bunch when we all get together). I didn't realize he's never really spent more than 10 or 15 minutes with my parents, so this was kind of a test for the guy. He seemed totally comfortable and my folks seemed to enjoy him as well. In fact at 1pm on Sat, both kids were playing INSIDE the air conditioning (I forced them out of the lake as I was afraid my little red heads would spontaneously combust if they didn't take a break from the sun), mom was napping, I crashed on the couch. Jeff and my dad decide to take a WALK. OUTDOORS. In the unbelievably HUMID-ASS 104-in-the-shade sunny day. They went hiking all over the place so Dad could show his land and Jeff and he could talk boats, fishing and all things manly. He came back and I told him I was so glad he found a little friend to play with so I didn't have to take my lazy butt outdoors. We boated, we swam, we sea-dooed, we ate, we snuggled down on the deck watching the world go by at night with LOTS of citronella candles burning. Ahh the scent of citronella on the evening breeze, romance at its finest. As dear old Martha would say, it's a good thing. He's off on a week at his folk's lakehouse with his boys for the last of his vacation time. I plan on getting lots done work-wise, knitting-wise, and catching up on tv-wise.

Speaking of tv, has anyone else watched the Empire miniseries? I FINALLY watched the first two weeks I had tivo-ed and am LOVING this show! The guy playing Mark Antony is quite the hottie. yumm. I knit half a sophie out of some noro I had in my stash last night. Gonna try to watch the most recent episode tonight and finish it off.

We're heading to the KC Royals game tonight. Yes, the worst team in baseball, the poor boys! It's hard to feel sorry for guys making millions of dollars while I have to count my change at the end of each pay period, but ah well. We're gonna wear blue, holler loud when they do something good and eat hotdogs and Gates BBQ and SWEAT. Dad's got extra tickets from his company, so it should be fun. FREE PARKING! WOO HOO!

OMG I almost forgot. I've got a new OLD GUY STORY for you! For those of you newer readers, I love old people. The grumpier and older and craggier the better. I have also been known to date a few SLIGHTLY older men (Kenny Rogers look-alikes, but not old & craggy, don't worry), but that's another tale entirely. I dropped off some paperwork for the Jewish Community Center's Art Sale I'm doing in September and was walking back to my truck last Thursday morning. This older Russian man was walking along, whistling to himself and smiled at me. Being the freak that I am, I pleasantly say "hello! Enjoying the day?" SHOOT ME NOW!!! WHY don't I learn NOT to talk to strangers????? Let's see, about 15 minutes later, he's standing outside my car door with it propped open, I've learned that his wife "she die of the cancer breast" last March, he shaved his beard when she died in sorrow and now it is regrowing since his heart is learning to live again. I know, sweet or what? so I just sit there chatting away, listening to his tale. He tells me his "English no good" and I have a flashback to creepy Italian old guy from Marco Island that wouldn't leave the kids and I alone, but brush off the feeling thinking, aw, no, this is just some sweet old man. After hearing "my heart, it is better when I see beautiful women" ...... cripes. Let's skip ahead to the end of the conversation..."in my old country, when an old important man is sick, you know what they do? Just like in old stories in your bible..." Anyone? Anyone? I remembered a flashback to King David (or some other king, Solomon? I'm not sure, I'm Catholic, not up on all the Bible details of who begat whom) or some other old king that they searched the country for the most beautiful young virgin to put into BED with him to "administer to him". I thought, surely not... YUP. He said in the old country, they would find a beautiful young virgin for the old man and it made his heart stronger. I thought, well here in America, the young ones normally give the old guys heart attacks and run off with their money, but I said, "huh". Well, I'm not young, I'm certainly not a virgin (2 kids here plus a few escapades in my day) and the beautiful was pushing it. I thanked him for his compliment, shut the door, smiled and wished him luck finding his sweet young thing to heal his heart. When will I learn NOT to talk to strangers????? Hey, not every 36 yr old tramp can say she was called a young, beautiful virgin, can they?

Life updates (SERIOUSLY long-ass boring post with some romance novel drivel at the end)

Knitting stuff:
Did I start the one skein wonder? nope. That would have made sense. Did I start the afghan I'm supposed to make for my bro's wedding NEXT WEEKEND? nope. They live in south FLORIDA off the beach, who needs a warm blanket in Florida? I'll do it later and mail it to them. Did I use yarn from my stash to complete a pattern I've already got? nope. I went to the yarn store and bought some cool Plymouth Eros ladder/ribbon/two stranded/weird yarn in a series of pinks (hot to pale) and black to make mobius wraps for my daughter and I (pinks for the kid, black for momma). I thought I'd just whip them out. I've now started and frogged at least 4 times, with not much to show. We'll see. I think I may just give up and try to whip up the wonder to wear Friday night at the rehearsal dinner.

Work stuff:
Still have a job, that's always good. Local bossman was asking if my 2 year anniversary wasn't coming up soon. (It's in about a week). He was saying he didn't think I'd be able to get much if anything as ..... (company's quickly going DOWN) I said I know, no biggie. Seeing as when the company was "doing fine" I got screwed on the raise/renegotiation thing, no surprise there. The job is really working out great for me, and I seem to be getting enough work done to keep bosses happy, so it's all good. God help me if I have to go back to the corporate world! I'd better get my ass in motion and get enrolled at Avila to get my teaching certificate. If I can do it right, I can be ready to student teach when this place decides to close its doors.

Health update:
Thanks to you ladies for advice on the not-pooping thing! You totally rock! Apparently all women do NOT have iritible bowel syndrome. I just could not bring myself to eat dried fruit, (I have been known to suck the chocolate off choc. covered raisins and spit out the wrinkled raisin), and the whole eating healthy boat sailed LONG ago. My new plan, eat as much healthy stuff as I can stand and THEN eat the normal crap I like. I tried to eat 3 servings of dairy, 5 veggie or fruit servings and 2 protein servings a day along with whole grains in my bread. I tried to stay away from that corn syrup thing that's in EVERYTHING I like. I was actually FULL most of the time, only at a little chocolate at the end of the day, and I can't believe it, but was pooping EVERY DAY, and sometimes TWICE. Freaked me out seriously. I have to admit today's good eating plan was shot to heck by the chocolate covered pretzels (seriously, who can resist Nestle Flipz?) that became my breakfast today with a big-ass diet coke. Ah well, I'll do the cheerio thing later.

Lovey-Dovey update:
SO, yesterday I was sitting there, working at home (I know, I know, it's a hard thing to imagine--me actually WORKING) but I was. I get a call from Mr. Wonderful and he said he just had about 20 minutes but had to see me, did I have any iced tea? He stopped by between seeing clients, we went downstairs and drank some iced tea, chatting about our days and he said "I did a lot of thinking out on the water last week." Always the great conversationalist, I said "huh." He said he made a decision to live life more like I do, living for the moment, enjoying what happiness was available instead of being afraid to take a risk. Again, I said "huh." He said he tried to think of reasons not to let himself get too attached to me but the negative things he thought about, my flightiness, always losing my keys, how I get so stressed out I'm crazy, doing 15 things at once, talking faster than he can understand, crying at disney cartoon movies, going up over the curb every time I parallel park... (he had quite a few here actually)...they just made him want me in his life even more. One more "huh" from me. He put down our iced teas, stood up, picked me up in his arms, hugged me tight and said "you know I love you, right?" I took a breath or two and said "uh huh" and and then told him I think I love him too. AAAAAWWWWWWWW He's not really a man of many words, so he said it's hard for him to say things like that, he usually shows how he feels by his actions. I'm very good with that, as his actions towards me have always been kind and thoughtful.

So the bitter old relationship-phobia no-committment chicadee is in love. Who'd a thunk it? Still no rushing into anything, we're just going to spend more time together when and where we can. I guess my days of Italian Stallion, young-boi and old guy dating are over. Plus he's cute as hell. He's out of town with his boys for the last week of his vacation during my baby bro's weddding, so he gets out of meeting the whole BIG ASS German Catholic family. (Dad was 3rd oldest out of 14 kids and mom's 3rd youngest out of 11 kids...they all had big families and we're all close which can be seriously overwhelming for a normal person.)

Funniest thing I read today:
Justinland's How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Have a great weekend you guys!!!

OK, so I forgot it was a KNITTING blog...

(Hot date details in blog entry below)

Look what I just bought for a measley $3.75 and NO shipping, immediate download and you can pay with paypal. OHH I can't wait to make this, does anyone else see matching mom & daughter one skein wonders?

One Skein Wonder

Check out the one skein wonder gallery

Great, now after reading Miss A go on about Chipotle I have to eat there. Can't you hear it? Christineeeeeeeeee come buy your salad.......eat some guacamole........$10 buys you heaven....chicken salad, chips, guac and large diet coke. Dammit, when's Pinkie getting here so I can go??? (Ok, so she's not so pink any longer, she's almost normal looking, quite freaky in itself)

Life is good

It really is. Ms. San Antonio Who, you got it right. I do really think I love this man. My children are home and healthy and happy, I'm surrounded by family and friends that are positive people, we have food in our bellies and a roof over our heads and I have someone to care about and who cares about me. What could be better? I had really determined that I'd be "just fine" all on my own. I would have been, but I'm really thankful I was set up by those two nosy old ladies. Aren't old ladies the BEST???

So the dinner date...I wore the little black dress and heels, hair all crazy and he wore nice black slacks with a gorgeous baby blue polo dress shirt, his hair was even all spiky/messy with hair gel. He was so cute with his snappy outfit, clean shaved face and smelling good! There's a TINY Italian restaurant near State Line Rd called Jaspers. OH OH OH it was so good. You pretty much have to make reservations even during the week. When we got there, they said "oh, you have table 10" with a big production. I kind of chuckled until I got there. It's the most romantic table in the place, overlooking Watt's Mill Creek and some little waterfalls. Food was DIVINE, service amazing, wine wonderful, tirimisu UNBELIEVABLE. They wheeled over this dessert presentation that was, I SWEAR, 6 feet tall. OH OH OH. Jeff (not a fan of sweets) drank his coffee and I was able to not be a total pig and take part of the dessert home. We met the owners and the chef and I'm telling you the atmosphere was just like nothing I've ever experienced. After dinner we went for a walk down by the creek and read the historical markers and walked hand in hand. We sat down at a picnic table (him sitting on top of the table and me on the bench below with his arms wrapped around me) and talked and watched an older couple fishing. The moon was almost full, mosquitos were not biting, a light breeze blew, I'm telling you it was a perfect evening.

Back to reality now. My kids and I are going to his house Thursday (when he gets his boys next) and are making chili dogs and frito pie and letting them run around in the sprinklers and have water gun fights. We'll be back in our normal evening attire of beat-up shorts and t-shirts. It is really nice to have a fancy real date once in a while, but I like the normal life stuff with him too.

The chef sent me an email about DiRoNA week, Aug 22-26. (Distinguished Restaurants of North America) Some of the fancy-schmancy restaurants across the nation are offering a 3 course prix five menu (OK-I didn't know what that meant, so I checked it allows the restaurant to showcase its unique appetizers, entrees and desserts) for a low price and donating a portion of the proceeds to Share our Strength to help fight childhood hunger. Check the list on the link to see if any restaurants in your neck of the woods are participating, as it'd be a great way to have a VERY expensive meal for a low price AND help hungry kids to boot. Jasper's chef sent me his menu: "My menu will consist of 3 courses, for starters a choice of a Panzanella salad or Lobster Cappuccino with Crispy prosciutto. For a second course, a choice of fresh salmon Wellington in a puff pastry with a tarragon buree blanc sauce, a pollo Toscanini from The Jasper's Cookbook or my summer pasta with uncooked heirloom tomatoes, and for the ending, a beautiful strawberry Napoleon with chantilly cream and local berries! The price will be 25.00! We will also be featuring local wines and port from Somerset Ridge Winery in Kansas!" Mark me THERE and EATING baby!

Ok, so now for the smutty part. (too much lovey-dovey stuff gives me hives) I'll just say, have you ever thought about taking 2 birth control pills the morning after just in case? nuff said.

I've got a hot date!

OK, so I forgot to tell you. I was out getting groceries and I thought about my honey. (He was on the sailboating through the hurricane trip) He had left home with his fridge totally empty. I think there MAY have been a few bottles of condiments in there, but that was it. I've never seen a fridge that empty outside of Sears or Home Depot. I knew his flight was getting in late at night and he wouldn't have any food, so I picked up a few things, loaf of bread, bologna, cheese, milk, cereal and some fruit. I dropped them off in the house before he got home so he could feed the kids before bed and in the morning without having to go out to the store. I just thought it was a nice little thing as he's always doing thoughtful stuff for me and I'm normally all lazy. He was so touched by this little thing that he told all his family and friends and NOW they LOVE ME. They liked me before, but apparenlty they're LOVING me bigtime. I asked him what's the big deal about a package of bologna? It wasn't even the whole beef kind, it was made of chicken and pork and cow "parts". Apparently the ex-wifey wasn't too nice so this is like I bought him a house or something. Now I'm a "keeper". :)

He called me yesterday afternoon and asked if I'd like to go on a real date with him. AWWWWWwwwwwww I know, I love it. We're going out to an Italian dinner at a tiny old-school restaurant near my house that is FABULOUS for dinner & wine and then if it's not raining for a walk in the park and then back to drop me off early for the evening as we both have early mornings tomorrow for work. Sweet, huh? I get to get all dressed up and everything.

I have NOT started on either an afghan for my brother's wedding OR the mobius wraps I wanted to make for my daughter and me. Oh well, nothing like a bit of a deadline to get things moving. I did just throw 2 little bags and the thing that looks like a spittoon into the washing machine to start felting, so that's exciting at least.

One last note, my son is addicted to Herbie the Love Bug. We saw the Herbie Fully Loaded movie 3 times, found the original Love Bug dvd at wal-mart and just got Herbie goes to Monte Carlo. One of the not-so-nice drivers trying to knock Herbie out of the race is none other than actor that plays Victor Newman on the Young and the Restless, my momma's fave show. I cracked up once I realized it. I can't find a pic of him in the movie, I'll have to do some searching as it's a riot seeing him in full 70's racing attire.

Gotta go shave, curl and primp for my date and get the kids ready for gma and gpa to babysit. :)

Rub some dirt on it...and weekend update

The cute hair is BACK baby! I called Allegra and said WHAT KIND OF CRAP DID YOU PUT IN MY HAIR???? (I have at least 1/2 of Beauty Brands products crammed into my bathroom and bedroom closet) I'd used up everything and NOTHING was working and my Lovahhboy was coming back and wanted to see me Sat. night. I was a teensy bit stressed and wanted my sexy hair dammit! She used 3 products from Maxtrix but the secret ingreedient was the Matrix Dirty Trix. I went out and hit Beauty Brands, where I found the stuff FINALLY on 1/2 price clearance. If you want some serious lift, no-humidity-gonna-make-your-hair-flat crap for your hair, get yourself to beauty brands NOW. I actually bought 4 tubs just to be safe. Seriously, the stuff is thick clay mud. You rub it hard with the palms of your hands to get it warmer and a bit more flexible and then scruch the CRAP out of your hair and it's my very VERY favoritest thing EVER. Allegra is the ultimate hair-goddess and anyone wanting interesting cuts in KC area, let me know. She's amazing. But you gotta believe and let her do whatever she dang well wants, so it can be scary. Yup, paying good money for dirt to rub into my hair. makes sense.

Good hair in place, Sat. night I went to dinner with Mark and Russell, caught up on all the gossip, and ate yummy stuff, went to Borders, got my Harry Potter book (yeah!) and then my honey called and said he was back from the airport would I come by and see him? Of COURSE! I swear that man is either just extrememly thoughtful on his own or his ex-wife trained him well. He took me in his arms, hugged me tight, kissed me like old-time movie big kisses, looked at me and told me the new haircut was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. He picked me up, asked me if I got lighter while he was gone. Is he good or what??? OH OH OH I am liking this man. NOT RUSHING INTO ANYTHING people, don't worry! I'm just all shiny-happy-people all the time. He and his boys had a blast, survived Hurricane Dennis in a sailboat and then were stuck in Miami until Tues. They couldn't make it over the rough waters to the bahamas, but were able to go out and island hop on some closer islands and fish and swim and basically have the time of their lives. They even brought back cool tie-die shirts for the kids and me. :)

My daughter came back home yesterday afternoon from FOUR WEEKS with her dad in New Mexico. That's a long freaking time! WOW, I don't think either her little brother or our dog was more than 2 steps away from her the whole afternoon. She had a blast, came back all grown up and I swear she's a "tween". She wants to call all her friends to let them know she's back and get caught up on the social circle that is 3rd-grade. She was dropped off at her summer camp/summer program thing and by the time I left she was surrounded by a circle of friends, giggling and smiling. Good times.

OH, Friday night I survived the big sleep-over. Joey's friend is sweet as can be, but is known for being a bit wild (he used to get too excited and end up hurting his friends sometimes) and is on ritalin (or some variant of it) to boot. They were angels the whole night, played well, built lego lands, tents from card tables and sheets, ate dinner, snacks, played played played with no fighting and nothing getting broken. I had felt a bit worried as FIVE teachers said, "you're taking HIM home? Overnight? really?" and I heard quite a few "good luck"'s and one of Joey's old teachers from the school year offered to bring by a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade for me. I thought, well, heck, I must be supermom or something as this was no big deal. I got to sit and knit and finished 2 more purses ready for felting. All was copacetic until about 9pm. Apparently the medicine wears off at bedtime. yup. My kid was alseep on the folded-out couch. The other boy was having a few "problems" settling down. Actually he couldn't phsically lie still. He was really trying, but a leg would start flying up or he'd jump up and start jumping on the bed, or run around the room, whatever, you name it, he was doing it. FREAKISHLY hyped up. At 10:30pm, I thought "MAN I wish I had me some of that liquor!" But we were able to play a game of statues and he was still for 30 seconds and was instantly asleep. wow. The next morning he got that morning pill within about 3 minutes of waking up. He was an angel until his folks came to get him. I'm normally not a big believer in drugging little chitlins, but once they got the right dosage for this little guy (for a week he was like a zombie and the next week like a crack-head-junkie until they hit it right the 3rd week) it really seems to help him out.

That's it, back to work.

Thanks ladies, I think my temper tantrum's over for now

OK, so for some freaky reason, the KS humidity actually HELPED my hair today. go figure. Now instead of an 80's reject, I look like a 36 yr old woman trying to look like a pixie. I don't like it, but I can live with it.
Colleen, Vicki, Teresa, San Antonio (who cracked me up by the way, driving 35 miles to save $10 HAH!), you guys cheered me up. We all hate our hair. get over it, I know, I know! San Antonio, I bet your highlights are sessy! You need the toes to go with the hair and the attitude!

I think the bad hair thing gave me some good karma coming my way...
Bossman came up and said I could have my paycheck this afternoon even though payday isn't technically until Monday as long as I wait until tomorrow am to deposit it. I was thinking of asking for it, but decided, nah, why bother, then I get this! :) I made a few collections calls and the clients actually ANSWERED the phone, were NICE and 2 said they'd even send checks out (I don't really care if they're lying, I just like people being nice. I give it to the big bossman when things get nasty). My plant (from Ms. San Antonio) is growing all these new leaves and all the bugs I saw today were DEAD! What a nice little Friday in the hole!

I've lost my mind. totally. I VOLUNTEERED to have one of Joey's little friends spend the night. volunteered. cripes. I'm the mom of a child with a better social life than most college kids. He's in hot demand. I admit I've worked the "poor little single mom" thing a bit as they all take Joey for like 6 hours or even overnight (I have 2 mom friends I like & trust enough for overnighters). I take their kids for maybe 2-3 hours. I always feel bad, but MAN, I can't take playdates longer than that or I get REALLY stressed and REALLY pissy. It's not their kids, no, their kids are fine. My little stinking angel decides NOT to share after 2 hrs. That's apparently his limit for playing nice with his stuff. SO I'm picking up the two muchkins at 3:30pm and keeping Joey's friend until tomorrow am. I did ask the mom to keep it kind of quiet, as I LIKE her kid and don't want the other mommas thinking I'm ready to reciprocate fairly on full-time switches yet.

I've got scooby doo movies, a fold-out couch, a lot of yarn for HOPEFULLY getting knitting done while kids are entertaining themselves (hey I can dream, right?). wish me luck.

The cute has died

Why is it when your stylist does hair, it turns out to be a flippy, sexy messy look? I did the same damn thing. I scrunched product in, dried while scrunching and flipping, and even fingered into place with more product. I have no more cute flippy sexy hair. I have an 80's feathering incident gone bad on top of my head. It's a good thing I work in a damn basement. I'm too depressed to put a picture on here. Just know it's bad. I think I'll go buy some prenatal vitamins and kick this hair into overdrive. I know there's a sexy haircut in there, I just have to find it.

TWO haircuts later...

Yes, yes, it's cute. NOW. I'm a bit TERRIFIED of what will happen tomorrow am when I try to style hair that's no longer than my little freaking finger. This is the shortest hair I've had since I got a bug up my butt and had three haircuts in three different salons in two different cities back in my college days.

You HAVE to know by now that I've got serious hair issues. Yes, there's better things to worry about in the world, health...safety...terrorism...our country's leadership...but still, my hair my hair my hair. cripes. I had a very nice cut from Allegra. She styles it AGAINST my head, which drives me batty. I think she does it just because she knows I hate it, it does look good, but it physically pains me. I get home, hop in the shower, products, hair dryer and styling apparatuses later and I realize my hair's crooked. (Jildo, I swear I had actual flashbacks to that day when I ended up with a SERIOUSLY butch almost shaved do.) I ask my mom, "mom does this side of my hair look totally different than the other side?" I loved the right side, just a bit shorter than it was, flippy, cute and sassy as heck. The left side (the thicker side of my hair) looked like a damn long bob. Big, boxy, flat and dull. Mom suggested I go to her hair stylist to "fix things."

I tried to think of how to describe the feeling of when I'm having "bad hair issues". It's not like you can just stick a hat on it and be done, no. I think the closest thing is back on the original Indiana Jones movie. Remember when they're up on that hill and all the nazi's faces are melting off? OK, imagine the first tinglings of knowing that's going to happen to you in a second or two. THAT's HOW I feel when I'm having bad hair. seriously. That feeling causes me to be a bit rash once in a long while. SO I try to wait. I can't stand it. I'm waiting for the flesh to peel from my bones and the hair to grow and burst into flame. seriously. freaking out here. I call Allegra. I say, "Allegra, is it at all possible for you to chop a bit more on my thicker side sometime in the next few days?" She, realizing I will probably either pick up scissors myself or worried I'd do something drastic like go to a johnson county salon and end up with cookie cutter hair, says "Girl, get yourself back out here and I'll fix it up good." I pick up the kid, and we're off through the grandview triangle at rush hour on our way to the other side of the city to Independence. Yup that's how I celebrate the fact that gas is over $2.22/gallon.

ANYWAY, I made the mistake of saying, "doesn't this side look a little like a long bob?" Allegra hates the bob. (not that there's anything wrong with that) I was sporting a long bob about 6 years ago when she came to my rescue and said "Girl, you're stuck in the 80's" and gave me a $50 gift certificate to come in and cut hair or get a massage at the day spa she was at then. Instead of the 5 minute chop here and there, she got all fired up, put me back under the sink and re-chopped the entire head of hair, cut with scissors, cut with razor, cut with thinning scissors/razor combo thing, and finally used an electric trimmer. SO I am no longer sporting the longer bob-like half-do. Nope, I'm spiky headed SHORT haired chic. I know it LOOKS like it's not that short. It has "long pieces" that I'm supposed to "finger into place" that will stick up do to the bulk of my hair being about 2" long. I'm ok, no skin peeling any second feelings, but I do have a general sense of unrest. I'm also in my bro's wedding in 2 weeks, so hopefully it will grow long enough I can actually use a curling iron on parts of it by then.

YES I'm shallow, dammit. If you hadn't figured that out by now, tough.

On the knitting side of life, I don't quite know what the heck I was doing but I did this tonight. It should be interesting to see how it felts. It's a combo of 2 strands of black cascade bottom and top with leftover esperanza in the middle. Doesn't it look a bit like a southwestern pot? It's supposed to be a cute felted purse. I think it may end up being a felted spittoon. ok, that's just gross.

Holy crap I've got a LOT OF CRAP

So, I spent the evening listing stuff on ebay. Yeah for me! The scary thing is this is only the SCRATCH of the surface of said crap. If you'd like to see what the Knitting Virign is unloading, check out my ebay stuff. Right now there's no yarn or knitting paraphanelia (man I use big words when I get tired)...but there's a veritable cornucopia (or should I say a plethora? I always liked that word, plethora) of crafty items and clothes getting the heck out of my house. I can just see me on an Oprah show....."the poor woman was suffocated in her house by her craft magazine obsession. It's a sad, sad story." I will be listing more each day until I can see under my bed or into ONE closet at least. I'm not even dreaming of hitting the old craft repository under the stairs, I'm just trying to work my way through the "just stick this pile of stuff here for a minute...." that multiplies and takes over serious floorspace.

OK, this is TOO FREAKING COOL...I just listed 45 (yes 40-freaking-5) plastic canvas patterns and someone BOUGHT the damn things before I even went to check to see how the items looked. AND my 25 christmas magazines and 23 plastic canvas magazines just sold too...WOW, there's other sicko's addicted to this stuff besides me....bwaa haaa ha haaaaa. What could be better than making some money while clearing out crap?

ANYWAY, the kid's feeling better, and SLEEPING as his momma should be. Hopefully he can go to preschool a bit tomorrow as I have an appointment with ALLEGRA the hair-cutting goddess that is my savior.... I'm getting headaches from wearing this mop up in clippies to keep myself from snipping away myself. NOON tomorrow, can't freaking wait.

funky felts

So this is what I did last night:

I wanted to experiment with the leftover schaefer esperanza I had from the felted groove bags. I started with a round crocheted bottom and think I like that, it turned out pretty well. I'm not sure how to do the top, I think I'll pinch it in like shown and use a black cord for the strap, running it through? can't decide. I'd love to have made an icord strap, but didn't have enough yarn. I want to felt it one more time as the stitches are still pretty visible but I don't want it to get too small. Any thoughts? That was just ONE time through the wash, so who knows. Maybe I'll try it.... I also added an extra row of single crochet around the bound off edge and I really like the detail!

I am LOVING this stuff: Crystal Light on the go packets, you pop these puppies open and pour into your water bottle, shake, and voila, sugar free and calore free drinks! Yum! I am so freaking lazy, I swear. (Don't buy them from the site, I don't know if it's reputable or not, I just wanted a pic to show) If I actually make up an entire pitcher of lemonade, it sits in the fridge and gets all moldy and I end up throwing the whole thing out (I go through lots of cheap plasticware at my house) because I just grab a bottle of water. Now I'm shaking and drinking! woo hoo.

What else? Oh, kid #1 is supposed to come home this Sunday! yeah! Kid #2 was up in the night with ear pain. cripes. He was only off the antibiotic from the last sinus infection for about 5 days and the coughing and congestion is back. You know how Chuckie sounds on rug rats? Yup, that's my snuffly little boy. Motrin and warm washcloths and sleeping the rest of the night on mom in the lounge chair helped. We went in to the pediatrician where our regular dr was out and we had his partner, a good doctor, but one that hasn't been properly "trained" to realize that just because I'm a mom and NOT a doctor does NOT mean I'm an idiot. I have learned when Joey is really sick and when he's moderately sick from being his primary care giver and medical chic. I listened to the requisite speech of "just because a child sniffles doesn't mean he needs antibiotics......most dr's prescribe antibiotics too often.....if the child doesn't have a fever it is very rarely an actual infection.....(Joey does NOT get fevers until he's almost in a coma state of infection, it's weird, but that's the way it goes and it's IN his file and I told the damn dr that too).....on and on and on...... Finally doctor-man quits lecturing long enough to actually LOOK into the kids' ears and huh, what'll you figure, BOTH ears are heavily infected. huh. Guess he DOES need the damn antibiotics after all. He also has a bit of "crackling" in his right lung in the front lobe. That is what it sounds like through the stethoscope when a cf kid (or other people with lung probs) have congestion in there. None is the goal, a little's ok, but too much and he's pretty sick. I know, I know, patience.... I'm sure the guy sees a lot of moms freaking out over a little thing and demanding their antibiotics and such, so it makes sense to give the warning first. But, GOD I hate being talked down to and pushed around by some members of the medical community. I think I'm overly sensitive to it because Joey was not diagnosed for the first 3 1/2 months of his life because I kept listening to the doctors telling me they knew better than I did when I KNEW that something was WRONG. ANYWAY, the kid feels ok, I think he's used to being infected with sinus infections all the time, so he doesn't really know any different. He's spending the day at home and I took him to work with me for a couple of hours where he made his own cubicle out of (guess what?) cardboard boxes. Bossman seemed to enjoy him and I got some work done.

This is why I have to sneak cardboard out to the recycling bin after taking the kid to preschool

The mighty inventor showing off his latest creation ala duct tape, roofing cardboard roll, mailing box I WAS going to use for shipping out some yarn and a ziploc baggie box. He lifts his weights while momma works out on her weight machine.

WARNING--TMI POST, read only if you're not easily nauseated

OK, so apparently I have iritable bowel syndrome. I get gassy, constipated and have a hard time going poo on a regular basis. I kind of thought that was just BEING A WOMAN. In my entire life I've only met ONE woman that could go poo every day. My uncle has a girlfriend who is BEYOND vegetarian. Not that there's anything wrong with that....(seinfeld quote, couldn't help myself)... ANYWAY the woman survived on nuts and berries and she smelled REALLY bad as the strange gasses emitting from her body made me decide I'd rather just be constipated. PLUS she even pulled out all the little marshmallows from the lucky charms cereal at our house and proceeded to give us a lesson in where jello comes from (apparently we're eating horse hooves in our marshmallows and jiggly jello). So, the options are some drugs that could cause headaches, diarrhea and other wonders, or increase my fiber and water intake and cut back on caffeine and we'll see how it goes. SO I figure, I can drink more water, no problemo. I can eat more veggies and fruit, also no problemo. Diet coke cutbacks, not going to happen. I'm supposed to NOT take xlax or other goodies as I could get addicted and it's supposed to eat away at my insides.

Isn't this fun? I figured out the solution. Got a problem of yourself? Are you a woman? You probably do. Here's my recipe for a happy belly...drink a few extra glasses of water during the day, eat chipotle for lunch, 3 corn on the cob ears for dinner with lots of watermelon, eat 11 double-stuff oreos for bedtime snack. YES ELEVEN. 10's not enough and 12 will make you hurl, trust me on that one. I guarantee you will be all cleaned out by lunchtime.

What's that? worried about all those calories from 11 double-stuff oreos? Here's my theory...When I was chomping down 3 or 4 each evening I was getting chubbier. The times I've gone and eaten 1/3 of a bag at a sitting, it seems to rush through the system and I don't gain weight. I think my body can't handle that many calories at one time and they just go shooting by. yeah. maybe. but of course, my damn denim skirt's a bit tight, so don't quote me on this thing.

No real knitting news, other than I just realized I'd told my baby bro that I'd make him and his wifey-to-be a pretty afghan for their wedding. Yup, he's getting married in 2 weeks. Hmmmm. I really wanted to make this mobius wrap thing for my daughter and I to each wear to his wedding (yes she still lets me make matching crap, I LOVE that!) and haven't started them either. THEN inspiration struck (about oreo #6 I think) and I realized they live in FLORIDA and are getting married in KS, so It'd be the polite thing to mail the blanket to them at their home. PLUS they're going on an extended honeymoon somewhere tropical, so I have some extra time. cool! I'm off to the knitting store (yes, I'm broke and ate peanut butter and stale wheat thins and an old tub of applesauce I found in the fridge from who knows who for lunch yesterday, but I have PRIORITIES) to get the ribbon yarn for the mobius wraps. No, I don't exactly know how to make them. No, there's no pattern, so I have to find the store person who made it so she can write down how.

PLUS, I'm working AT HOME TODAY!!! Scary thing, I've gotten more done between 7:30am and 10:am today than I accomplished all freaking day yesterday at work.

do a little dance....make a little love....get down tonight!

WOO FREAKING HOO, can you feel the earth shake as I dance around down here? SHE'S HERE!!!! Pinkie showed up to work on schedule at 12:30!!!!!I'm not saying SHIT about her not being here Friday, let bossman handle that one when he gets back.

WOO HOO BABY!!!!!

Well that's just CRAPTASTIC!!!

SO, my little life was going well....happy and basically healthy family--check, sweet honey boy--check, surrounded by friends and family that love us--check, WORKING AT HOME EVERY TUESDAY AND THURSDAY--maybe not. CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!!! It was all set to start this week. I was happy, bossman was happy, pinkie (part-timer who's hair faded from violently metallic red to a pinkish-peachy color) was happy. SHE didn't freaking show up to work Friday. Great. bad feeling anyone? So, I left a message at her house, no answer. Bossman said, maybe she asked for the day off and we just forgot. yeah. that's the ticket. keep on believing that one. SO, I come in this am and no pinkie. She's supposed to start working MWF 12:30-4:30 and Tues & Thurs all days. Let's all cross your fingers that pinkie shows up this afternoon or I'll be one pissy little dungeonite. crap crap crap crap crap. I was JUST getting everything caught up and working well down here too!

On to the "this-n-that" stuff that's running around my brain...

JILDO came to town! Woo hoo! Thanks for coming out babe! We drank diet coke and diet beers, ate chips at Chili's (are they the BEST with ranch dressing or WHAT???), did a bit of wandering around the makeup counters at Dillards, hit the casino's (how far away is payday now???? 7 freaking days??? are you kidding me???), talked talked talked and even caught a few rays at the pool. good times. I swear, every time I hear Big Ol' Jet Airliner and Brown Eyed Girl...the memories about make me wet my pants. I love you babe.

What else? OH, Jeffey-boy rode out the tail of the hurricane in a sailboat in a marina in Miami with his boys and his aunt & uncle. He said they basically lashed everything down and went below and tried to play cards. The winds were about 70-90 mph and the boat was bouncing around non-stop for the whole night on Friday. Saturday and part of Sunday they couldn't head out into the big waters due to the big swells and waves, so they hung out at Miami beach and running around the marina. I think they're on their way to the bahamas now. Crazy boys, they all thought it was "an adventure", I just saw myself barfing through the night freaking out being all claustrophobic not knowing what was happening up above deck or bailing out and sleeping in a hotel lobby if I couldn't get a room. When I think "sail to the bahamas" I think BIG ASS CRUISE SHIP, not sailboat. Ah well, they're all having a blast and that's what matters.

Mark & Russell's tree got struck by lightning during the big storm that hit KC over 4th of July weekend. Joey and I went over to see that and the new roof the two boys are putting on the house THEMSELVES. Roof and new addition was looking very good, they hadn't killed each other yet and the tree had scorch marks running from the top where branches were blown to bits down to the ground, it was pretty cool. They also now have enough kindling to light fires all winter long.

I found a home for some of the yarn that was pissing me the heck off! Yeah! No more emails please, I'll let you all know the next time I need to clear stuff out...I'm sure it won't be long. I'm working on de-cluttering my life (yes, again). I didn't do a very good job last time as I'm easily distracted. Soon all kinds of crap will be listed on ebay and hopefully being mailed out of my house!

I heard from my daughter in NM last night! She's coming home this Sunday! woo hoo! Joey's so excited he can't hardly see straight. She sounds SO grown up, it's spooky. Eight and a half going on 20 I swear. Man I feel old.

Finally, what's up with cnn's website? I know it's cool to be able to watch the video of their coverage of current events, but they need to do a bit of editing on the page. It shows lists of things going on like "London bombs death toll rises to 42...watch" and "Gunman, baby die in police shootout...watch". Does that bug anyone else? It just bugs the living crap out of me....hey, let's watch carnage and people die....MAYBE we could say "watch coverage" or "watch breaking news video" or something. cripes.

yup, pissy on-a-rampage Knitting Virgin is back. That pink haired chicadee had BETTER get her butt down these stairs this afternoon or I'll be MAJORLY pissy....I'm also the worst receptionist EVER. I should not be allowed to answer phones. Not only do I have to think about WHERE I am before I answer so I say "good morning" with the right company name, I have NO short term memory, so can't ever remember who's calling and where they're from...My announcements to bossman usually go tlike this, "Line 1 is Mark from....well, it's Mark, I think. Could be Bob, heck I don't know, sorry." Thank goodness we don't actually get too many calls.

Anyone want a part-time job in a dungeon in Olathe, KS? They want a lot of computer experience and great customer service skills but the pay sucks and environment isn't too whoopy. I know, I know, hold yourselves back. crap

that rainbow boucle stuff SUCKS

SO, the bigger-than-the-dog yarn skeins SUCK SUCK SUCK. I tried, I really REALLY did. I could NOT find the damn end. I even tugged out a significant part of the guts of the damn thing, and STILL never found the end. I don't know if there even IS an end in there. I couldn't even find a yarn that would pull from the middle even cutting in the midst. I snapped the damn yarn twice, gave up and started knitting from the OUTSIDE of the biggest yarn ball this side of the Mississippi (does anyone else have to sing the little M-i-double-s-i..... when they type that state too?). CRIPES. The pattern may lend itself to some NICE yarn, I'm going to try it on something else. BIG ASS YARN BALL #1 is headed for the trash tonight. I couldn't even feel right about giving it to some old lady in a nursing home. Big-ass ball #2 is being very quiet trying not to be noticed and thrown out as well.

I tried not using BLACK yarn and BLACK fun fur this time and got a bit done on a crappy little ugly purse crocheting it in pinks, but gave up on it too. I went back to working on my clapotis that has been sitting patiently in its little bag. I'm sticking with the good yarn. Life is too short to knit with crappy yarn. PLUS it's about as expensive as (normally) cheap yarn comes in littler skeins so you have to have more of it. Back to using up some of my stash I guess.

Didn't get my toes did, dammit. I got detoured by "a quick stop" at the outlet mall. Yeah, you saw that one coming, didn't ya? $200 later, I didn't have the heart, the money or the time to do them, so they're put off for this weekend after I return some of the crap I bought today. I should NOT be allowed in a mall-like environment with a short amount of time. Something happens to me and I get in a totally psychotic SPEND SPEND SPEND IT ALL NOW bwaaa haaaa haa haaaaaa mode. It's quite frightening. Before my wedding to knucklehead years ago, my daddy sent me & Jildo to the mall with ONE HOUR before it closed for me to pick up "a few outfits" and "whatever else you think you need honey" thinking he was safe. What could us two girls do with one credit card in an hour? silly man. I got my mall-walk going...lets just say the credit card company called to verify the card had not been stolen and leave it at that. plus I had some seriously cute outfits. This weekend I go back to the mall and leave with less clothes and more money.

JILDO'S COMING TO TOWN! woo hoo! She's getting in tomorrow night! Our plans include SHOPPING (after returns of course), GAMBLING, DRINKING, EATING, and getting some sun. What could be better?????

Mark & Russell's big tree in front of their house got struck by lightning Sunday night and split it down to the ground. They are also re-doing their roof THEMSELVES, crazy-ass men, so let's all hope for no more rain and storms for a few more days!

I just realized NO ONE pissed me off today. Is that frightening or what? Tomorrow I send Jeffey-boy as Jildo calls him, and his two boys on a plane for Miami. Yes, they are heading down to meet Hurricane Dennis. They were planning on sailing to bermuda and fishing and snorkeling and sailing for a week. The storm's heading for the gulf and they're going to be on the outside of FL, but they will probably have to spend some extra time in the marina in Miami as I'm sure they'll get lots of rain & waves from the outskirts of the storm. MAN what is it about trying to get to FL this year? sharks, hurricanes, humiditiy, cripes. How do you Floridians do it? OH with those gorgeous beaches, nice people and good food, that's right. I forgot. Hope you all get through the storm ok!

I'm hoping to sell EVERYTHING not currently being utilized on ebay this next couple of weeks, so I'll let you ladies know if I'm getting rid of any good stuff with the multitude of CRAP. If anyone wants my crappy yarn, let me know. I'll send it free. It hasn't made it to the trash yet, but will within the next day, so speak now or forever hold your peace!

To Do List for the day

Get up, bathe and get child to school and self to work. check

Accomplish at least 2 things at work. check

Pray for people in London. check

What the heck, pray for people everywhere. check

Chipotle salad and guac and chips. check check check

Get my toes did. ON MY WAY

Drink 3 beers with my honey. Later tonight's agenda

Chipotle, how I love thee...

Praise to the goddess of chubby thighs!!!!! Did you notice that the universe was a bit off-kilter lately? I apologize. I had not eaten at chipotle for a MONTH. How did that happen? I don't know. Too much work, sick kid, not enough money, vacations, crazy things were happening around here. WELL, once I realized what was happening, I took myself to the nearest restaurant and was all ready to order the my usual addicted self the steak burrito bowl with guacamole when I saw they have a SALAD now. Not any salad, holy crap this thing is GOOD. I ate chicken on actual GREEN lettuce type stuff with all the other heavenly stuff in those little trays and the viniagrette was to DIE FOR. I am not a fan of viniagrette, heck, I don't actually know if I'm spelling it right, but it's almost midnight now and I don't really care. I was FULL all damn day long from a salad. I am going back TOMORROW for more......mmmmmmmm....... All you carb-fearing skinny mini's that piss me off in your little shorts with your little thighs and no belly fat can just be happy and eat there too. I'll be nice and share. I will curse you under my breath though, just so you know.

Ah well...now, not that I'm the kind of person who since she worked her butt off and went above and beyond all expectations at work the last two weeks would slack off for any reason, nope not me. I spent oh, let's say about 7 or 8 hours the last two days just catching up on reading blogs, organizing the online patterns I want to do someday on my free patterns link, and generally slacking off. All on my own time, really. seriously. I'm a good little worker bee down in the hole. usually. ok sometimes. It's weird, at home I actually WORK and at work, let's just say I should spend more productive time at home. OH YEAH, I am now!!!! WOO HOO! Starting next week, I'm going to work in the office MWF and home Tues & Thurs. The main goal is so Joey can sleep in and schedule dr's appts on those days when I need to, but basically I'm all shiny happy people about it! Local bossman was all up for it. no argument, and thought it was a good idea. I'm telling you, if it weren't for the whole "no future, no job security, low pay, bad environment, laying off of all employees" thing, it'd be a nice place to work. seriously. oh and the cockroaches. I saw a dead one today, which is an improvement I think.

ANYWAY, I was all inspired and found a few patterns with good ol' Lion Brand and JoAnn brand yarn and thought, why am I such a yarn snob? I spent about an hour wandering around JoAnn's craft store. What's wrong with fun fur? Let me tell you, it's NOT FUN. I'm telling you, this crap is PISSING me off. I try to make a nice, quick little crocheted purse. LB homespun and fun fur. How hard could it be? It is a BITCH. Gave up and am now crocheting like a blind woman. I can't see a damn stitch, so I'm going by feel. I wonder if knitting it would be any easier? If I don't make a furry little noose with the stuff, I may try it and see.

I also was all inspired by this boucle wrap pattern that only uses ONE SKEIN of yarn. ONE SKEIN. They failed to mention that the skein was the largest thing I've ever seen in my life. seriously. It has 853 yards and is 11 oz. It's bigger than my freaking shoe and I have really big feet. It's almost as big as my damn dog.

OH, for those of you wondering, I only have one child now as my daughter is with the kids' dad for 4 weeks in NM. Joey is getting spoiled here in KC and Beth is having a blast with her dad & his wife (who is a pretty nice lady) and her step-sister who she adores.

Sappy lovey dovey stuff and a big-ass spider attack

SO, how's life? I'm FINALLY catching up on all you bloggers out there, so here's the not-so-wild and unexciting details of my life (in no particular order whatsoever)...

Loverboy and I are so happy, birds sing, sun shines, mosquitos don't even bite around us. seriously. (deet spray helped a bit too). This weekend he mentioned that he thought the swimming family party was "a bit uncomfortable" (it was FREAKISHLY NOT RIGHT) but he didn't know how to make things better without causing a scene or letting the kids realize something was wrong. I figure as long as he knows the chic's acting psyco, we're ok. I wasn't going to put up with these little "family" situations each time we all had to be together. That's good.

We went to his little cabin on the lake of the Ozarks for the big 4th weekend. It ended up just being my little Joey, Jeff and me. It was A BLAST!!! We haven't spent that much all-the-time time together before and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go or not. (I was still a bit pissy and starting to have those old relationship-phobias surfacing). I am SO glad we went. Basically, we cooked together in the old-time kitchen, he grilled on his manly homemade grill made out of a big ol' metal drum on his self-made patio/deck rock shelf thing he made half-way between the cabin and the lake, we swam, we sea-dooed (or is it sea-did?), we went hiking, sight-seeing, and ate ice-cream in an old fashioned shop in the nearby town. We lit fireworks (yes, I'm the timid one who was making Joey wear yellow safety goggles and stand just inside the door of their old shed while Jeff lit them off), we sat on the dock, we talked, we laughed, we danced to the radio playing outdoors, we had a little snuggle time after Joey went to bed, it was FABULOUS!

The only drawback was I looked down at something that brushed against my toe in the shed Sunday evening. I thought, oh, it's just a big dust ball. but the dustball MOVED and had 8 legs EACH AT LEAST 3" long. YES, it was a good ol' Missouri Ozark Wolf Spider. For those of you non-outdoorsy-people, it looks like a freaking tarantula but with more attitude. This critter was 7 inches across from legs to legs. It was the size of my freaking HAND. I made Jeff take a picture of it and measure it, but he wouldn't kill it as it was "a good spider that hunts small critters and bugs." I had flashbacks to girl scout camp where I woke up with one of those puppies crawling towards my face along the top of my sleeping bag. EEEEEWWWWWWW Let's see if I can re-create the situation for you guys.....In a split-second, I grabbed up my son, leaped at least 4 feet out (no exaggeration, I could've been in the olympics) all while spewing things that would have made an old sailor blush.....(this is the print-able version) "holy crap, mother bugger, got-tammed, son-of-a-witch, fudge! fudge! fudge! fudge! fudge! fudge!" and on and on while Joey was going "uuuuuummmmmmm mommmmmmmmm you can't say those words...uuuummmmmmmm" and Jeff is trying not to wet himself he's laughing so hard. After determining it was "just a harmless little wolf spider" he took Joey down to the dock while I went cursing up the hill to take a shower. Joey wanted to catch the damn thing and keep it in a jar as a pet. yeah, right.

Once I'd calmed down, scrubbed the ickiness off me, drank a few more beers, and Jeff stopped laughing (he still had bursts of laughter "for no reason", "no, I wouldn't laugh at such a serious occasion" and other crap), we returned to the calm of sitting on his rock shelf/deck thing and watching fireworks all over the coves and lake while Joey fell asleep in his little loungechair. It was pretty damn close to heaven on earth (minus the spiders). What else, oh, right before we left, we had a little time to kill while the sheets & towels were drying so we took a walk down the gravel road and Joey's running ahead picking up "cool rocks" for his rock collection. We're not really talking much, Jeff points out the mimosa trees (or something like that) that I think are so pretty and he reaches out and holds my hand. We walk hand in hand with the light breeze, sun shining, birds singing, etc etc etc. I know, I know, it's sappy, but it was so nice.

So, we spend from Friday afternoon through Monday afternoon with each other (and a lot of it with me and not much makeup and my hair naturally drying (NO CURLING IRON, NO CURLERS, NO HAIRSPRAY, who is this woman???? Thank GOD for Allegra and her phenomenal skills at cutting my hair!) and I think "whew-wee, we survived, he'll probably be all tired of that lovey-dovey stuff and need a break." He called this morning just to say "good morning" and to tell me he was thinking of me. AAAAAWWWWWWWW.

It is nice to not smell like bugspray again. Oh, perfumes, how I missed thee...

Summer Knitty and making Dress Forms

The summer issue of Knitty's up! woo hoo! It's full of patterns for men! Jeff's been hinting that he wants me to knit him something...I've been putting it off because there's no manly patterns that I could handle and there's always the boyfriend sweater curse....no, really, I figure I'd better be able to knit a sweater I can actually wear before I try making him one. He wants socks, but as I've only completed ONE sock so far, that's not gonna happen yet. At first I thought he was teasing, but I think he really wants something made by his honey. I'm thinking MAYBE I'd like to work up to this sweater Baseball and I think I need to have this sweater Saranac all for myself! In the meantime, this hat Tychuslooks like of cool, and I'm liking the cigar gloves, but the idea of knitting those little fingers scares me silly. Anyone else got a good idea for something EASY yet manly? I also like that the two-colored hat uses cheap and washable acrylic yarn.

OK, I don't know why I would need this, but I'm totally obsessed and GOING to make this...check it out.... Duct-Tape Dress Form and Paper-Tape Dress Form. OK, I have a reason, wouldn't this be a cool way to display a lovely shawl or scarves at the knitting art sale? very artsy, no? A body cast of moi made of duct tape? HOW cool is that? (and you KNOW I'm putting the silicone self-stick bra inside my bra because who wants to see a flat chested body form? so very sad). I got the links from this sassy little knitting Cuban momma down in Miami, Nite Time Knitter.

let's go swimming with the new honey AND his ex-wife

Doesn't that just sound like too much fun? It almost was. holy crap on a popsicle stick.

First, look at my pretty little sophies: I think I'm going to add some felted flowers to the green one. Disregard the pretty Target bags sticking out of the tops, they're helping shape among the cans of pumpkin filling and cranberries...how old are those cans anyway? cripes. I have GOT to get some more schaefer esperanza to make more felted groove bags for the sale. I'm also cranking out some little cell phone/lipstick bags (my generation called them bar-bags) out of the leftover esperanza for some interesting groovy looking patterns, I'll add pics once they get felted.

OK, enough knitting crap, lets get to the evening's entertainment. And entertainment it was. SO, remember I was set up with my honey by my son's preschool teachers, as Joey and Jeff's youngest son are in the same class. I've met the ex-wife a few times, she's very polite and it was only marginally uncomfortable. Jeff always talks about how she can be so polite in public and let's just say "not so nice" when it's just he & she. It's Jeff's night to have the boys and there's a pool party for the families of the preschool aged kids. I go with Joey and bring Ben (his little friend and Jeff's youngest) and Jeff brings his other son. We walk in together and drop our stuff off on a chair. His ex-wife walks up and hugs the kids and says hello to me. Very normal stuff. no problemo. The chic has bigger boobs than me (who doesn't?) but my butt & belly outshine hers and there's some cellulite on her that I'm missing, so I'm all feeling good (yes it's petty, but that's me). We go off to swim and she wanders over to her chair. Jeff & I and the boys are playing water basketball and she swims up and steals the ball from Jeff playfully and starts playing too. I'm thinking "ick" but hang out for a while. She doesn't talk to either of us, not one word, but it's just getting a bit creepy. For all practical purposes, it looks like they're this happy family and I'm the extra woman just hanging out not sure what to do. I mean, it's not like I can swim up and steal the ball from her and go all postal on her ass. I decide it's time for Joey and I to go swim off on our own for a while. We wander off.

Jeff & the boys come looking for us, we all go to the diving boards. My son, normally a bit on the wimpy side, gets brave enough to go off the board as long as I'm in the water at the edge to pull him up. I'm so proud. Jeff & his boys compete in a cannonball contest, all good fun. I get up to dive off one board, glance to the other board, and ex-wifey is diving off it next to me. IS IT JUST ME OR IS IT CREEPY????? I think, you know, I'm NOT leaving biotch. I smile and I dive in too. STILL not talking to us, but standing within that uncomfortably close range of us all the time. It's like we're this big happy family on the outside and FREAKY ASS MESSED up on the inside. She HAS a boyfriend also and he was THERE too, but she was hanging with us, weird weird weird. It was like the Brady Bunch converts to old-school Mormons. After a while, I went up to ex-wifey and said, you know, "I think Joey and I are going to go hang out with some friends to give you guys some family time." She looked at me like I was crazy, had no idea things were a bit CREEPY TOWN. I can't describe it here, but let's just say EVERYWHERE I went, there she was. Not threatening at all, I'd be ok with that. but nice. and in my space. and creepy. It's not like I was thinking she couldn't spend time with her boys, but for the LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, couldn't she say "hey, I'll take the boys over here to play for a while?" or something instead of looking like June freaking Cleaver out on a weekend adventure with Ward and the boys? was his name ward or walt? I can't remember.

Finally her bf came over and held her hand and they went off for a while. Things go to almost normal. She plays with her boys and the bf for a while, they come and play with Jeff for a while, normal stuff.

We go eat our hotdog meals (Just Jeff, me and the boys as ex-wifey was with her own bf) and then she comes up and sits down at the little table, scooting between her boys. She looks at me, and says "I just miss them so much when they're away, surely you know how it is?". She dropped them off at school that very morning and will get them back TOMORROW. I thought oh yeah, I party all night the few times I'm without kids, but sure, you just go ahead and freak out. whatever.

After a bit more weirdness, we get ready to head out, she comes over to hug her boys goodbye, shook my hand, saying how nice it was to see me again and we all walked out together. She never said one word to Jeff, which was actually pretty funny in retrospect. I thought this chic has learned how to work over a man and I had to respect that, doing a bit of gotcha's to my own ex long ago.

OK, so it sounds totally boring now, but I'm telling you, it was SINISTER and just not right. It reminded me of an old episode of Frasier. Remember when Niles had left his new bride for Daphne but the scorned woman made him attend all the social functions and pretend to still be married, she'd be polite in front of people and psycho up close? THAT was my night. Poor Jeff looked like a deer in the headlights, trying so hard to be with his kids without them realizing anything was weird and trying to hang out with us too. The man does have a good heart.

On the plus-side, honeyboy and I have survived our first misunderstanding. awwwww. Yes, it's very sweet. He'd pissed the living crap out of me and then he was freaking out about something totally different and we talked last night and realized we both were totally retarded. Now we're back to lovey-dovey and Joey and I are going to his lakehouse for the 4th weekend. awwwww. PLUS the guy told me that I looked so thin and he told me he thought I'd lost weight. (I know, I know, that's an easy get-laid trick by men, but HEY it's nice to hear ANYWAY!) He may or may not be a keeper. At least I'm keeping it an option. I have a FEW issues with relationships. just a few.

lots of feet in the dungeon welcoming me back

The pitter patter of little feet down in dungeonland are not those of merry little children, visiting, nope. Not those of new employees, nope. Part-time girl is still there. She had me worried as she showed up in the same black pantsuit she wore to OUR interview so I thought she may have been working on finding another job, but now she's there, with hair dyed as bright pink/red/metallic as you've ever seen, flip flops and jeans with parts cut out and bright green ribbon lacing them up the sides. Not quite the shy little blond "Oh, I tried to go away to college, but after one semester I missed my mom so much I had to come home...you see, we're best friends....." now. Now she talks about which titty bars are the fully nekkid ones and how those only serve juice while if they keep a string up their butts, you can serve alcohol. wooooo hooooo. That meshes well with Preacher man/bossman. Actually, she's pretty good at doing all the stuff we have, TOO good actually. Maybe I should get her addicted to blogging, she keeps coming back and saying "I'm done with that, now what can I do?" until we have NOTHING left for her to do. How hard is it to surf the net a bit? read a damn magazine? anyone? jeez.

BACK to the little feet, sorry. I sat down at the desk, pulled my little envelope with a paycheck in it from my inbox, and this BIG ASS COCKROACH with serious ATTITUDE jumped out at me. EEEEWWWWW. It was dancing around at me like it was saying "what 'cha gonna do biotch?" at me. It was not pleasant. I miss the good ol' days of killing crickets and roly polies in the kitchen, not having big ass nasty bugs jumping out at me. and on my desk MY DESK.....eeeewwwwww!! I cleaned that puppy inside and out when I moved over there, and I swear I'm not a dirty person, no food near there....eeeewwwww. The place is a hole. I've finally convinced bossman that we should PROBABLY do something before I run screaming from the basement never to return. He said he'd bug bomb next weekend. ick ick ick.

Our beloved President is speaking to the nation tonight with a "clear strategy" for Iraq. hmmmm. I haven't decided if I can watch it or not. So far, my cousin count is good, 2 army, 1 air force, 1 contractor all still alive in Iraq. Let's hope the "clear strategy" includes getting all our family members home alive and as little-emotionally scarred as possible. The Illustrated Daily Scribble is particularly good today, go see it.

Knitting news, I made TWO, count 'em TWO sophie bags, and am going to felt them today, I'm so stinking excited. I know they're little bitty things when done, but I thought they'd look good with some felted flowers attached. I'm forcing myself to use some of my stash as I'm TOO FREAKING POOR after vacationing, gambling and all the rest.

Happy Blog Bday to Me!

Wow, the Knitting Virgin is one year old. I can't believe so much time has passed. I can't believe I'm still in this dungeon that caused the stress that required this blog to save my sanity... Time flies! (I know I sound like an old Grandma, tough crap!) What began as a way to keep myself from screaming in person (screaming in type is so much more socially accepted) has now become a wonderful part of my life. Thanks to all the friends I've made in blogland and to my non-knitting friends that read to keep up with my little life stories as well!

Reading back over some of the old posts, I realized I was much more fun to read when I was more bitter. Maybe I should get all pissy again! Here's a few of my fave's...

Momma toughs up Joey & Beth

old guy prayer from the good OLD days


Master of my donut domain & the bike/chubby roller blading man incident"

Yes, I'm an idiot and can't reference back to the archived post as I can only get to the entire month. Sorry.

Florida Stories Part 2: (sorry, long post follows)
The last day of our WONDERFUL trip I decided to take the kids to Marco Island. It was the PRETTIEST beach I've ever seen...white sand, beautiful shells, and EVERYTHING was alive. The beach by the Pier in Naples, FL had people fishing a ways off shore, but really nothing was wiggling around near me. I'm one of those people who likes to be out in nature, but doesn't actually like anything in nature to touch me. I like the IDEA of nature, just on my own terms.

Apparently the undisturbed natural scene is a real draw for others. Beautiful beach, pretty waters, the kids and I parked our stuff under the umbrella and headed in. EVERY FREAKING thing was MOVING around us in the water. Freaked me out. majorly. Minnows nibbling at our toes, crabs and other creepy things in shells moved when you stepped on them. Yes, my feet touched icky things without my approval. The kids loved it. They ran around with their sand buckets trying to catch minnows and other weird long skinny snake-looking fishes and had a blast. I toughed up and decided not to pass my insecurites along to the kids. I caught a couple of fish for the kids in the bucket, they were so impressed. Then I saw this big string of seaweed floating nearby and grabbed it up to further impress my children with being able to see nature up close & personal. It was not seaweed. It was alive. It did not like being picked up. I think it was a snook? Some freaky eel/snake looking fish that did some major flip in my hands. I screamed, all the people nearby screamed, the beach was almost cleared as the dolphins were swimming in as well and someone thought I saw a shark. It was quite the scene. yup, just call me nature-girl.

We saw dolphins, some guy near me asked if I wanted to hold a live sea dollar. I looked and decided, not so much. It was covered in hairs and very strange. I guess the pretty sea-dollar shell thing is INSIDE the animal. I always thought some little critter went inside the shell. Live & learn. Everywhere you stepped, things MOVED under your toes. I had the kids float on their boogy boards so they didn't get bit by anything. I got stung on the bottom of one of my feet right in the middle of my arch by something and did not scream, was tough and only cussed under my breath. We even had a manatee (freaky sea cow looking thing) swim up and people went out to swim along. I passed on that little adventure as I'd had enough of nature by then.

THROUGH all of this there was this little older guy watching us in the water. You know me, I never overreact, so I was thinking PEDOPHILE. We moved a ways down the beach, he followed. We went up for a break under the umbrella, he came up and said
"hello...you verra verra bootiful woman" yup, I'm sexual dynamite. I said, "thank you, but I'm married" and gave Joey a look that said "SHUT UP NOW!!!!!!" He smiled, said "no speak English, you speak Italia?" "No, Married, Sorry", turned my back on him thinking he'd get the picture. Apparently not. For the next TWO HOURS this little guy followed us around, staying about 3 feet from me, just staring at me. Quite unnerving. When I was picking up shells, he'd come, bring me some shells, bow low, smile and more "verra verra bootiful" crap. We sat and ate lunch with this guy just standing nearby. I'm not kidding, TWO HOURS of him following us around. I was considering asking some nice man nearby to ask the guy to leave for me, when Italian man comes up and says "if you married, where you husband?" I pointed at the hotel and said, "he doesn't like me talking with other men, he gets very angry" I even made an angry manly face. He stood around a while longer and finally left. creepy. Yes, I'm a single mother with my children in a strange land. Let me go off with an old guy that doesn't speak English and end up on cnn news. yeah. that makes sense. Cripes. We ended up having the time of our lives even WITH the critters, fish and old guys.

Florida stories part 1

AAAAAHHHHHHHH it was so relaxing down in Naples last week. I could have stayed for a few weeks. I couldn't believe these kids. They were happy, got along almost the entire trip, and just wanted to go to the beach. period. Tropical storm Arlene caused a week's worth of raining and flooding, but we got lucky in that it all ended the Sunday we flew in. I was concerned we were landing in a swamp, and it was bumpy in the rain clouds, but no gators got us. good thing. After that, it was all sunshine and happiness.

Click the itty bitty pics to see our larger versions. I just dropped off the disposable camera today, so should have pics of the action shots of body surfing and other general beach silliness soon. Can't wait!

Our days went like this...wake up around 8am, make waffles (talking like Donkey from the movie Shrek, yes each day we did this), put on swimsuits, pack big ol' cooler full of water and snacks, head for the swimming pool & hot tub at the condo. I don't know why, but my kids had as much fun in the tiny swimming pool and not-hot tub playing with "headless barbie" as they did at the beach. Our days began and ended here, which helped to wash off the sand in the outdoor shower too I guess. I don't know why, but headless Barbie was an everlasting source of games. They played "fling headless barbie", if she landed butt-up (no face so you can't say face-up or heads/tails here), they jumped into the not-hot tub, if she landed belly-up, jump into the pool. repeat for hours. Then, off to the beach for body surfing on boogy boards, eating ice cream cones on the pier, building sand castles, picking up sea shells and more body surfing until it's time to eat snacks under the umbrella. Everything tastes better with sand in it. We'd head back to the pool, to the condo, play cards or go for a walk or see a movie and go to bed and start the whole dang thing over again. heaven!

One night my baby bro and I decided to head out gambling. No sissy Indian Casino's for us, nope. No pretty large SAFE cruise ship casino's either, apparently. He picked one a friend had gone on before and it was a DUMP on floats. cripes. We rode on this shuttle boat out into "international waters" aka "too damn far from the coast to even see land on the horizon", to meet up with the casino boat. We passed a few other LOVELY LARGE safe-looking ones on our way, but kept on going. going going going. We pulled up next to this boat that I swear had duct-tape holding it together. It was not much bigger than the damn shuttle boat we rode on out there. I was a bit concerned, but figured, what the heck? THEN a few storms come through. I'm getting a bit more concerned, but am doing ok at the craps table, so figure AH, what'll happen. Started losing said money and took a walk upstairs. It started rocking so that I was having a hard time standing up (not just the free beers and a couple of shots I'd had, the water was ROUGH!) I thought I'd better start looking around for the lifeboats (none visible). Ok, no problemo. Find where the life preservers are kept. There were two little closets with small numbers of jackets supposedly inside. The closets were in the back corner of the lower deck. I figured that would be a death trap to try to get there if we started sinking, so I decided to work on self-preservation here. I started checking out the fat people on the boat. I discarded the tough mafia-looking ones as they'd have too much attitude. I settled on a nice overweight couple as my peeps. If we went down, I was going to very nicely ask to float on top of them. Not only would we float, but the sharks would hopefully get full before getting to this single momma. I've got to look out for those kids, right? My brother told me I was nuts, but he's skinny and a hell of a swimmer, so he'd probably do just fine in the water. I wasn't worried until I couldn't see the shore any longer and those dang pipes with water shooting out of the bottom of the boat were cranking out the water. I know they are supposed to do that a bit, but when that boat started rockin, I was ready to live. (I mean no offense to overweight people, I, myself, am too chubby for my own good, but seriously, being politically incorrect could have saved me from the sharks.)

More about my sweet/psycho little old Italian man "verra verra bootiful woman" that I could NOT get rid of when we went to Marco Island. Yes, we went around saying "marco...polo...marco...polo" the entire time we were on the island. So, my children are obnoxious too, where would they have learned that?

An apology to my best friend in the world Jildo. I called Jildo from the deck of the upper level as I watched the waves crashing onto our little boat and I thought I was going to die. You don't get a lot of cell phone coverage out there, so I cut out after explaining how I was going to outlive the sharks and I left her a bit concerned. All she heard was "international waters" "sharks" "storm" and "lost a butt-load of money" so she thought she was going to have to wire money to me on some strange island if I survived the storm. I did email later to let her know I was alive and had enough $$ to make it home (we'd been on a few trips where the gas card was the only thing keeping us fed and alive on the 20 hour drive home, so there's a history here). SORRY Jildo!

Thanks Secret Pal!! You're the BEST!

Check it out, click the little pic to see my goodies in all their glory...can't you just see me embellishing every living thing with felted flowers???? I'm telling you, this has EVERYTHING, the yarn, the pattern, the tools, and I'm cranking out some CUTE ASS FLOWERS!!! She even included the pinbacks for the completed deals!

My package is FINALLY going out in the mail today to my pal, I'm following the lead of my SP and including pattern, yarn & goodies. It's just so much fun to sit down with all the stuff you need!