Fun Stuff

Any minute now.

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Back again.  Anna did a fabulous job… and wore just the right sweater!  Yay Anna!

Happy Halloween!  Any guess who Elijah was last year?

Fresh flowers.  Freshly- painted table.  Down with brown!  At least, in this instance.  And it rhymes and sounds a bit controversial.
Truth is, I’d love to rip up my tiled floor in favor a dark brown wood
floor, all knobbly and funny.  Impractical fantasy though.  For now.

Too tired to speak in full sentences today.  Maybe tomorrow.
Gladiolas were Isaac’s favorite flowers when we were dating.  I wonder
if they still are. 

No matter how much I try not to play favorites with color, I always
come back to green.  Like a favorite child.  Most moms swear they don’t
have one, but usually all of the kids will point to the same sibling as
the favorite.  Same goes with color for me.  I swear I don’t have a
favorite color, but my close family and friends say that this is my
color.  Anything from a warm lime to a rich avocado.  Ya okay, they’re
probably right, but I’ll never admit it.  Or have I already?  I
guess it’s true.

This little wall separates our morning room (a.k.a. kitchen table
room) from our laundry room. What do you think I should put on the
shelves?  Recipe books? Vintage tins?  Nothing? 

I hope that vase doesn’t stick to the top.  Too impatient to let the paint cure.

Perhaps the silliest thing I’ve ever spent more than $50 bucks on
— a lamp lady with a tiered skirt made of the most atrocious lace.  I
don’t know where to put her, but she makes me smile.  I brought her home
about a year ago I think, and set her on a cabinet in my room and well,
there she is. 

Gosh, I think I’ll have to go with The Snart
(6 comments down, if you can believe it.)  Mainly because I can’t get
the new vocab word out of my mind.  How horrible to be outed in the
school paper after complete denial.  Sneeze + fart = snart.  Then, oh
to get stuck in the tub while pregnant only to be rescued by the
military police or to grab the boss’s nether-regions when innocently
trying to reach for the doorknob behind you.  I’ve conclusively decided
that I’m not above embarrassment, I’m just fortunate to never have been
subjected to such monumental humiliation.  My friends, my dear
friends.  I feel for you all.

The second fat quarter stack goes to comment #274, a la the random
number generator. #274 is Joyce, who heard, "Duck!" and promptly hid
behind her steering wheel, plowing right into a duck on the road!  So,
Joyce and Jan (snart), send me your addresses.

And, speaking of new vocab words, have you ever played the game
Balderdash?  Every player makes up a fake definition for an absurd, but
bona fide word.  Each definition gets mixed in a stack with the true definition and then everyone guesses which is the correct one.
You earn points for getting it right and for effectively tricking your
opponents.  I rock that game.  Of course, I’ve only ever played
it with my family and I’ve got their psychology down pat.  We haven’t
played Balderdash in years (likely due to the influx of new babies two
years back), but I think it’s time to revisit the general concept…

How often do you come across an almost-word when typing a pass code
on the computer?  You know, those codes we so often have to get through
before we can leave a blog comment?  Perhaps some of these could be new
slang. What would their meanings be?  Help me out.


Exhot.  This one’s pretty obvious.  Ex•hot {eks’hot} adjective:
Used to be hot;  someone who is still trying to be hot, but it’s not
working.

And "riprz," well, that one’s probably pretty similar to "snart." 

But, these others, what’s your take on them?  Ready ladies, define… that… word!  Keep it clean or you’ll be deleted 😉

Hmmm.  Maybe someone should start a code-word-slang blog or
forum.  Could get pretty funny!  Or maybe an embarrassing stories
blog… or a book.  We’ve about got that together already, don’t we? 
Thanks for the laughs.  I had a fabulous birthday!

Oh
my, oh my.  Thank you for the stories!  They’re coming in faster than I
can read them.  I’m going to cap the contest at 300 comments so I can
catch up sometime this month 😉 and get some winners announced!  And,
wow, I didn’t realize just how embarrassing embarrassment can be.  Thank heaven I didn’t do it; I did not
wish for an embarrassing moment as my birthday wish.  In fact, the one
candle on my slice of cheesecake blew out on its own before I had a
chance to wish.  What does that mean? 

Artifacts above?  Evidence of my own Poppy in the works. Yay!

It’s my birthday.  Hooray!  And I’m serving up some goodies, like last year.  Care for a slice? 

The price?  Tell me your most embarrassing story.  Moo-ha-ha (evil
laugh, twiddling fingers). Of course, I can never think of one of my
own.  Never.  Either my life’s been dull, I’m not easily embarrassed,
or I’m in complete denial.  Isaac, on the other hand, just shouted from
the other room that his whole life has been one embarrassing story. 

After an hour of straining for an embarrassing memory, my best offering is a story Isaac insists I should find embarrassing:

My husband is a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings series.  He claims to
have read the series at least 20 times ("about once a year since I was
twelve.")  So, when one of the movies came out (not sure which), I
rummaged through my fabrics and old costume bits, and ran out to
various thrift stores to put together makeshift costumes for us to wear
(an act of love & support — complete, unabashed geekiness).  I
even got my sister & brother and their spouses on board.  Isaac was
a leather-clad man of Gondor and I was an elf, of course.  My dress was
some bulky, crazy dragonfly- inspired costume I designed in college.  I
needed equally awesome hair, so I hopped from beauty store to beauty
store in search of long locks to add to my own.  In one of those store,
I discovered these things called "hair rats,"  which are like long logs
of rolled-up hair.  They’re used for adding volume to buns and
beehives, I guess.  I’d never heard of such a thing.  Hold that
thought. 

So, the movie geek fest was a complete disappointment on my end,  I
couldn’t find a parking spot in time and ended up running to the
theater, then hunting out my family in the dark as the opening credits
rolled.  No one ever saw my amazing braided elf hair, glued on ears,
and repurposed-junk-jewelry headdress.  Ah well.  I do think Isaac, who
arrived in a separate car, had plenty of fun scaring small children in
his grungy leather garb and scraggily blond wig (with real yak hair
glued to his chin — now that’s commitment!)  And that was the point,
after all, for Isaac to have a blast.

Ok, back to the story.  So, some time later, in examining my hair
brush and its need of a de-hairing, I had a thought, "Hmmm. How do
those hair rat things work anyhow?"  I pulled the hair from my brush,
rolled it up, and started playing.  Not that embarrassing really, but strange enough to keep it to myself, I guess.  I never did find
the perfect use for my homemade hair rat, I have a lot of hair already,
but I did leave the thing in my bathroom drawer. 

Weeks later, along came Isaac, minding his own business, looking for
some sort of something, and discovered that abandoned hair wad for
which he demanded (with a mighty smirk) an explanation.  He has a major disgust for lost hair (which makes the yak-hair beard even more remarkable).
I explained myself, the history, the fascination, the miraculous height of 60s hair and so on.  Oh, he laughed.  And.  he.  laughed.  By the
time he got a grip, I was feeling a bit embarrassed.  Isaac still can’t get over it and brings it up to embarrass me whenever possible.

Ya, I know, I haven’t set the standard very high.  I guess I
could make a birthday wish for something terribly embarrassing to
happen this year so I’ll never have a blank look again when asked for
my most embarrassing story.   Or maybe posting that atrociously posey
photo of us in costume can be my new story (I was trying to be all "my hero!" campy, but that doesn’t really come across).  And, yes, I’m feeling a slight tinge of embarrassment now.

So anyhow, in consideration of all poor, generally unembarrassed
souls like myself, I’ll give one stack of fat quarters at random, even
if your story’s not very good 😉  But the other stack, the other stack
goes to the most hysterically- horrible embarrassing story ever told. 

So, bring it on!  I’m ready for a good laugh… or cry.

Oh, and here’s a token photo of Isaac & I as old folks (that’s
some sort of plate behind Isaac’s head).  I found this treasure while
hunting for the elf photo.  We were gussied up for a friend’s 30th
birthday party.  Laura calls this proof that I don’t embarrass easily.

Are you a fan of The Princess Bride?  Yes?  Then, go see Stardust.
The trailer doesn’t do it justice.  Laura, Isaac & I guffawed
through the whole thing while the baby slept in his stroller, good
boy.  Oh, and he’s so cute!!!  Truly cute.

Today’s a fun day.  Laura’s painting me a poppy for my birthday and
I’m making paper things — though I haven’t decided what.  We just
might have to do some shopping too.

I just received some fun little pick-me-ups in the mail.  These
goodies hail from ms. elinor, lowercase e.  I love this little
figurine.  She’s only about two inches tall.  She’ll be making herself
at home on Charlotte’s bookshelf (which used to be a china hutch —
I’ll have to post about that one too).

Elinor,
well mom :), also sent some funky fabric bits, horsey buttons and an
antique mother/daughter postcard.  Random and perfect.  We have a lot
in common in our taste for miscellany.  And, mom’s now selling my
fabric on her website.  So, here’s a link for that. 

It’s our babysitting night tonight.  We have a co-op set-up with
three of our friends where each couple takes a turn watching all of the
kids on Friday nights.  In other words, we each have reliable
date-night babysitting for three weeks, followed by one very hectic
fourth Friday filled with all the goings-on of eleven little kids.  So worth it.
Highly recommended.  Of course, it was on a date night that Charlotte
broke her teeth at our friends’ home.  So, if you set up one of these
babysitting circles with your friends, make sure all couples agree to
some sort of basic structure — like two adults present or rooms with
bunkbeds get locked, etc.  It can get pretty crazy. 

We usually take the kids to the park for a couple of hours and get
them all tuckered out and then set them up with pillows, blankets and
popcorn in our loft and project a fun movie onto the wall.  Sometimes
we’ll slip in a craft activity or cookie decorating.  I think we made
New Years hats once.  Anyhow, that’s my night.  It’s actually kind of
fun.