It is not well with my sole

Today I was feeling a little chilly, it only being about 80 degrees outside. We needed a few things from the store so I decided to walk! In my Jerusalem Cruisers! Which turned out to be a very bad idea. I ended up getting a large blister on the inside of my foot…fortunately John doctored it up for me. Maybe I should have worn socks and looked even more nerdy. What’s true is that I am not getting any more Birkenstocks. There are some waaaay cuter walking sandals around now, that don’t make as much of a statement.

I took the children to see the American Girl movie…very safe and saccharine. I admit, my favorite kids’ movie of late is “Cars.” Not too long ago John and I watched it without any children around! We know how to party. William would have rather seen Wall-E but I am not going back anytime soon to sit through thirty minutes of ad junk and overly loud previews. It’s right up there with paying for cable TV. I’ll send John instead! Or, we can just wait til it comes out on DVD, as for the price of three matinee tickets I could buy the darn thing.

And in other news, the basement overhaul is coming along, slowly but surely. All the shelves are assembled. Not sure what’s next. I even found my old scrapbooks (stopped at 2004)…they really aren’t too bad. I think the less ornamentation, the better they age. Too much decoration can look dated quickly. I have several brand new unused albums just waiting to be filled with pictures…that are still in the computer. So at least I have a wee bit of renewed interest in the scrapbooking thing, although it is low on my totem pole of interests. Currently I am investigating embroidery…maybe time to expand beyond the little pre-made kits of my youth and design something my own self. Then I can embellish the skirts I keep making! Instead of looking for great fabric, I can use plain fabric and make it great myself!

Hope you all are having a good weekend!

Demolition Man

You should see my husband wield a crowbar. Nails, 2×4’s, cement, and plywood quake at the sight of him. The previous owner of this house built (or more correctly, over-built) some kind of weird gun cabinet in the basement along with a funky work bench, attached to the cement wall. The cabinet was really, really over and badly engineered (although I’m sure the ammo was safe). John suspected it was for guns as it had a long flat cabinet that looked like it could hold rifles or shotguns. Then there were two smaller cabinets, one with a lock, and in that one we found the metal tip of a rather large bullet. It took way longer than it should have to pull it apart. Seriously, it was hideously ugly and useless for any other purpose.

John went and bought a tool called a “Wonder Bar.” It definitely works wonders. Today he had to buy a regular crowbar. Colored bright yellow! Apparently it’s good to be able to see it if it swings your way. We now have an entire corner of our basement freed up, which we’ve been kind of using as ugly storage. But in the spirit of taking back our basement, it’s gone. Well, hopefully it will be when the trash truck comes. The guy used so many nails that a lot of the wood is worthless.

The plan so far is to replace the ugly, ugly stuff with nice black metal shelves we got from Target. We’ve already got two assembled in the basement with some of my stuff on them (canning jars and family memorabilia). We’ve got four more to go, for storing John’s beer stuff and who knows what else he has accumulated over the years. Actually, I do. I’ve seen it. It almost made me cry, the things we keep. The fact that we just accumulate so! much! stuff! all! the! time! But a lot of it he either recycled, donated, or threw out. Still not sure what to do with the ancient computer and recently busted printer. I’d like to recycle them, and I’d even pay a small fee, but what a pain.

Once we get shelves up, or maybe before, we’d like to put in another circuit in the basement so we can put a freezer down there. Right now there is only one outlet, and many extension cords and at least one power strip. Not good.

Then we want to take the big piece of 3/4 in. plywood that was the top of the work bench and turn it into a craft and games table. Woo-hoo! There are only two legs on it, only one of which was bearing weight. This guy must have been 7 feet tall because the bench was about 4 and a half feet high.

Silly us, didn’t take before and after pictures. But 20 years of cobwebs are gone from behind the bench. Yuck. And while it was awful to look at before, it’s still not up for an article in Good Housekeeping. It’s definitely moving in the right direction.

Probably the most exciting thing today is that John rescued a bunch of Legos from languishing in their basement dungeon. He has pretty much all of his childhood Legos, and now our children have some more. I’m certain that William had a few square inches of floor space in his room that weren’t covered with Legos. Crying shame, that. Now he can fill the voids.

The good news is that they won’t be sitting still long enough to accumulate spider webs under them.

Decisions, decisions…

First, take a look at this picture of our front garden bed:

About six weeks ago, I planted marigold seeds that I had saved from last year. I had already spent my limit on gardening for the summer, and I figured if these seeds didn’t grow and produce flowers, at least I wasn’t out any money. It was an experiment. So, I watered, and set up pink yard flags all around them so no one would step in my little bed (children and solicitors are very bad for stepping in my dirt). Then, there were sprouts! So I danced a little jig and kept watering. After a while, I noticed that some of the wee plants don’t quite look like the rest. (”Which one of these is not like the other?”) I know that some of them were forget-me-nots, as I had just dumped last year’s dead flowers in the bed, in the name of compost. But there were also some others…which somehow I didn’t recognize until this weekend. I swear there were geraniums (same story as the forget-me-nots), but these others? The ones on the left, starting to tower over my beautiful marigolds?

TOMATOES!

How funny is that? (Clue: really darn hilarious.) And now, I am at a loss, both in knowing how they came to be there, and what to do. I am loathe to pull a perfectly healthy looking tomato plant. I have no idea what kind of tomatoes they are…but I am sure they are in fact tomatoes. I am not about to put a tomato cage in my front bed (one cage would take over the whole space), so if I leave them, I’ll have to stake them. I’m considering it. I don’t feel qualified to transplant them to the backyard where I do have some space. Obviously they wanted to grow here…

…and perhaps the biggest irony of all is that I planted some more marigold seeds in the tomato bed in the back, and they never came up. Crazy garden.

Also in the picture are periwinkle on the left, and a Japanese goldenleaf barberry shrub on the right. Both are ridiculously easy to grow and very hardy and drought tolerant, meaning I never really water them separately, just the flowers, and they flourish. We had to cut them back because they were taking over the flower bed. So they are nicely trimmed for the photo.

And in other news…I am considering upgrading to the new flatter jars seen here. I have a bunch of the old canning jars, and now I’ve got people trained to return them to me, so I wonder if I’ll ever actually need them. Okay, I have made a decision that when and if I need new jars I will get these cool new ones. Hip, yet old fashioned. Kind of like me!

And also? I am going to have a raspberry jam apprentice! I have a friend who adores the jam even more than I do, and even though I am pretty generous with it, she wants more! Which I completely understand. So I will take her berry picking and go through the whole process with her. Hmmm…more jam for her, and more for me! Maybe I’ll offer her a good deal on my jars. Then I can buy the new ones!

Busted

All my grand plans for yesterday turned out to be a big wad of uselessness. The scissors sharpening person had personal problems (don’t we all?) and so sharpening day is postponed…unless I want to drive 30 minutes to another location on Friday. Or else the manager can hold your knives and scissors and take them over for you and you can pick them up Saturday! Sure, you bet. You know how you aren’t supposed to let your rings out of your sight when you are getting them cleaned? That is how I feel about my knives and scissors. I’m very attached.

We then drove to the Great American Quilt Factory, which should really have a sign saying, “Everyone Under 50 Don’t Bother Coming In Because We Are Not About to Give you the Time of Day.” And the fabrics? Eh. I seriously don’t understand what is so great about that store. It took me 20 minutes to figure out where they kept the patterns they supposedly stock, because they are nowhere near the samples. But at least I didn’t find what I was looking for. Seriously, no greeting or anything. One of the women who owns it/works there/whatever looked directly at me when I walked in and said nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that’s how much I’m going to spend in your store, honey.

Plus I was getting annoyed at the lady who kept asking everyone checking out, “Are you in our computer?” The correct answer being, “No, I’m standing right here.” She was kind of snipey about it. Why can’t someone just buy something without being given a geography quiz? What’s your zip code? And I am such a sap, I always say my right one, instead of 90210. They want you in the computer so they can send you stuff, and when you spend $500 you get more stuff. I like when the stores just type in any zip code and don’t bother to ask.

Let’s contrast this visit to my first visit to the Fancy Tiger store in Denver. It’s really hip, urban, etc. The people working there were really friendly and I didn’t feel unhip at all in there, even though we all know I am, tragically.

The store happened to be next to a fairly large antique mall so we went in. Anymore, these things are not that great, because most of the good stuff ends up on eBay, and the rest looks like it was rescued from Goodwill, or else stuff we cleared out from my mother’s and grandmother’s estates. There were a few pretty items, but I just didn’t have it in me to spend $85 on a cake plate. Well, that’s a chronic condition, actually, the whole “I can’t spend $85 on a cake plate” disease. Sure was pretty, though. And I’m convinced cookies and cakes look so much prettier on a fancy plate than in a rubbermaid container.

Then we came home and I made myself a frappucino, way better and oodles cheaper than the store we all love to hate, and John and Bubba came home. William earned his whittling chip (a card they give Cub Scouts who have taken knife safety class) and whittled me a heart out of soap. So cute!

Finally, John registered for his class reunion and I decided I have nothing to wear, despite spending an entire day at the mall. Must go back. There’s the typical dinner dance thing, plus a family event with hiking! Of course, who looks cute hiking except the REI models? Hiking shoes are soooo not cute!

At least I have bronzer.

And now you may read about my day.

Because John is not here to tell it to, I am telling it to you. It started fine, early, but fine. My daughter got up at 3 a.m. and never went back to sleep. I of course didn’t find that out until 6:30 when I got up. She seemed fine, not sleepy at all! I dropped her off at a friend’s house for the day and went to the mall! Where I met a friend of mine and we shopped and shopped. All I had to show for it was a few t-shirts and a phone conversation with the hotline operator at Eddie Bauer, who promised to send me my stuff in 7-10 days. Turns out EB doesn’t sell longer legs to fit their pants, but they do sell petite sizes. I would totally pay for shipping on longer legs. Pants are easier to mail and so they ship free.

A huge suburban mall and a dismal shoe situation. We must not speak of this anymore though. The good news is that the exact same sandal I’ve been wearing for at least 4 years is still being sold! I’m tired of it but didn’t find anything else. Whoops, wasn’t going to speak of it.

I will mention that it’s becoming increasingly important to take a friend shopping. Someone who will give an honest opinion. This is how it goes: you find a garment you like, you try it on. Let’s say it fits (first major hurdle), in that you can zip it, button it, breathe in it, etc. Now, just because it fits doesn’t mean it’s a good choice. Maybe it is a little too low cut. Maybe it gives you the muffin top. Maybe it makes your neck look short. There are so many variables, many of these you could probably figure out alone…but the worst one? It makes you look like a muumuu wearing Florida resident. Yes, it’s true. A lot of stuff out there is either for women on Medicare or for your adolescent daughter. The upshot is, if you want to feel young, you just have to step into Coldwater Creek or Chico’s and be thankful you have a friend who doesn’t want you to dress like your grandmother. They were playing Neil Diamond in the J. Jill store and I was a little concerned they were trying to appeal to a certain demographic. “Sweet Caroline, good times never felt so good.” Does that song ever bring back the memories…of 1978! Me and mom with our Dorothy Hamill hair…I should scan in that picture for a good laugh.

I did find some stuff at Sephora, my new favorite store ever. I get a little paralyzed in there, though, because all the stuff starts to look the same. I bought a bronzer! I picked one out from the 50 different kinds (the same kind I had used a sample of). Now if you see me and I look tan and well rested, you’ll know why. (Just now I was going to write about the summery eye shadow I still have even though at first I hated it and thought no one over 21 should wear it, and I couldn’t believe I was writing about eye shadow on Scriptus, so I’m not going to write about that.)

I finally went and picked up the girl, a little burnt on the nose and cheeks, and very, very tired. She went to bed at 7:30. Ahhh…the good old days. I tried to explain to her that next time she gets up in the middle of the night she should go back to sleep.

And another highlight of my day: I was pulled over for running a stop sign. I know, me who drives like your grandma. I completely didn’t see it. I did see it later, though, the second time I went through the intersection. Funny how this ticket is less money than a speeding ticket, but seems way more dangerous. Also interesting is how you can pay a “surcharge” within 20 days and get the points off your license reduced by half. (I still don’t understand that whole system). It seems like a totally legal bribe. Which of course I am taking.

The cat is acting funny, she misses John too. Things just aren’t right when he’s not here…even if the grass looks nice. She jumped up on the computer desk and sat herself down in front of the keyboard and started purring. We all miss him. And Bubba, who forgot his jammies for camp. Heh. That’s not as big a problem when you’re a guy.

I also ordered some more skirt patterns, as it seems lately I am obsessed with making skirts. I also found a good fabric store…The Great American Quilt Factory. My mother-in-law told me about it a long time ago, but she made it sound like it was waaaayyy across town, when in fact it’s very close to church and John’s office, all things considered. I might go tomorrow. It’s calling to me. I even know the very fabric I want to get, Day and Night by Robert Kaufman. It’s crazy how there are famous fabric designers. This store is getting the entire Midwest Modern line from Amy Butler in August. Be still my beating heart.

So that’s my day. Tomorrow is scissor and knife sharpening day at Jo Ann fabrics. I will be impressed if they can sharpen my mother’s pinking shears (especially because then I won’t have to buy new ones). I’m also going to have her sewing shears sharpened and give them to Carolyn. I have true left-handed shears which are still very sharp. I also have several other scissors and kitchen knives to sharpen. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep given all this excitement. Sharp scissors and maybe fabric on the same day. Did I mention I need a margarita?