*Fall softball has started up for me. We had our first games yesterday. It was fun and I was happy with how I played, but man on man...I think each year I hurt more and more after the games. Oh how I remember the good 'ole days of being able to play a freaking field hockey game, then go play a fall ball baseball game, and feel great. Yepp. those days are behind me. Now after the softball games I can hardly sit down without wincing and looking like I am about to collapse. I have had to icy hot my arm as well. Energy is wasted on youth...Today I chugged coffee and diet coke, and all I wanted to do was curl up in my car during my lunch break and take a nap.
* I'm so excited that the fall tv line up in back. Of course if I spent as much time working out as I do watching TV maybe I would be in better shape to play softball.
* My middle baby had such a bad Monday... she woke up with gum all waded up in her hair, NIGHTMARE to get out... and then ended the day by falling while trying to get in the shower and busting her lip. Her week can only get better I hope.
*Why do these Gossip Girl spoiled brats have crappy cell phones. They totally should be rocking some Iphones. If Serena sports Chanel handbags she needs a better phone. (more proof that I watch too much TV)
*I have been in amazement for a few weeks about how easy meatballs are to make. I had it in my head it was complicated. This doesn't mean I wont be buying the frozen ones though if I need a bunch for my bbq cranberry meatballs. I can always lie and tell everyone that they are homemade.
* I sported leggings and a longish sweater on a trip to Michael's (fall madness sale woohoo) last Sunday in an attempt to be stylish, and I felt half naked the entire time.
* We are going to the pumpkin patch sometime this weekend if Dave gets a day off he put in for. I can't wait to get a bunch of wonderful pumpkins!
For about two years I have been searching high and low for black tulle to use for Halloween. Ok maybe not high and low, I honestly only really looked only 2 places, and then I forgot about it. However, while making a dreaded shopping trip to Walmart, I found them in the precuts. I am not sure if every Walmart did away with the material/sewing departments, but ours did, and when they did my mom went into mourning. The head of the department told my mom that Walmart was going to have precuts for sale when the department went away, and now a few years later they actually have kept that promise. They had a table full of 5 yards for 5 dollars, and honestly it all was mainly crappy stuff, but low and behold I found my black tulle!
Two years ago I wanted to use it in a table or mantel decoration and have it kinda drape around stuff. However, now I no longer want to use it for that purpose, and I don't know what to do. Thinking about maybe making a tu-tu for Emily with it for her to sport during halloween, she's still young enough to get away with something like that. Also, saw some cute halloween wreaths made with it, but I already have my feather wreath that I like better....Of course I could always use it for embellishing decorations already like little ties on pumpkin stems, OR even just use as a filler in a clear vase. I could use it as a cool chair decoration cover thingy, but honestly, that would probably drive my family crazy, and would only be cool for a halloween party. Any other suggestions? Chances are I will just make a tu-tu, but then I would need/want orange tulle or halloweeny ribbon to go with it.....
Speaking of crafting, I spied a really cute tutorial on HGTV's website using pumpkins, lentils, and double sided tape. They put a wide strip of the stuff around pumpkins, and then put the lentils or even corn kernals all over the tape. Super cute. I'm on that like white on rice.
Our youngest turned 2 yesterday! I am a wee bit sad that she's not a itty bitty baby anymore. With having three so close in age it's been a bit of a whirl wind. Time has gone by so fast. We are almost done with diapers, strollers, sippy cups, cribs, changing tables, etc. Some of that is awesome ( hello we had three in diapers for a bit, that was expensive!). But the rest is bitter sweet.
I think Emily enjoyed her day, though it did start out stressful. She was scheduled for her 2 year old check up yesterday, at the same time the others had to be dropped off for school, so Dave took her to the doctor while I did drop off, and finished errand running for her party. Dave called me in a panic as the office staff told him she didn't have an appointment. I had the appointment card at my work on my memo board, so thankfully a wonderful co-worker was able to fax it to the docs office to prove a solid point. Doctors office got all cranky, but after Dave flipped out on them she got seen. They also mucked up with not getting back to us about her tubes for her ears, but had set up a consult day and time with out even letting us know or even asking what was a good day for us. I am going to try to let this blow over as usually I rave about our kids doctor office. But this whole incident did not set the tone very well for the rest of the day. Also, my whole hair therapy post dug up a crazy amount of bad memories that just put me in a foul mood. Did I mention I am PMSing?
I got flustered while grocery shopping for food for the party as I was an idiot and left my list at home, after finally finishing that task , I caught my parents dog laying in a massive hole in our flower bed that I had fixed the night before from his antics. I ran him off, and then started on the sauce and party prepping, which took me honestly from the time I got home from that until the party started.
I am already flustered from the days events when my younger nephew embarrasses me in front of guests as he didn't recognize Emily as it has been that long since he has seen her. He thought she was my friends kid and was shocked that she knows how to walk. That made me upset as I hate that my sister and her kids have distanced themselves from us after the whole blaming my kids for almost killing my dad. I miss my sister and I miss seeing her and the boys. She didn't even come to the party, or bother letting me know she wasn't showing up. Ouch.
Then on top of making food for about 25 people, I had to make my dad a special meal as he doesn't eat spagetti. Of course I didn't cook his meal long enough, so I felt bad about screwing up his dinner, and then I just got overwhelmed as my house then became chaotic with a lof of people, and my older kids wanting to open up Emily's gifts, and spazing out because they are excited people are over. Which just made me miss my sister more, because she always would know what to do, and be helpful in times like that and help me calm down and actually would help me rather then get in my way.
Did I mention I didn't cook enough spagetti sauce I made the same exact amount a year and half ago for my other daughters party and we had more people and we had enough and leftovers. I also ran out of ice cream. Yes, I spent a lot of time trying to plan this party, and spent the whole day getting ready for it, just to screw up and spaz out anyways. Mommy Failure.
Of course 2 year olds don't care about the details that I beat myself up about. She was happy to see her family and friends and get attention, and though I feel like a failure, what all that really matters is that she is happy and that she enjoyed herself. I learned that I think it might be in our best interest to have future parties at Plaza Azteca, where I don't have to cook, clean, and freak out, and the margaritas just flow like water. I totally know why Chucky Cheese has beer available now. It's genious!
I kept hearing all his buzz and excitement about the Tucker for Target line. Gilt even had a early sale that sold out of the items pretty quickly, blogger buzzed about how wonderfuly made the items were. To be honest with you, I don't even know who or what Tucker is. I know who the big name designers are, but this up and coming trendy ones I don't have a clue on. Guess that just tells ya I am not exactly a trendy person.
Anyways, I got curious about all the buzz, and when my Target got in the items I was super confused. The quality looks crappy to me. I could see some strings on the clothes, and some of the material looking like it would fray if washed. Call me crazy, but it looks all like stuff my granny would have worn. Now don't get me wrong, my granny was pretty hip, but it's all poly stuff. I knew the dresses would without a doubt make me look like a granny, but I thought maybe the navy blouse they had would be ok. So I bought it, and hello that stupid blouse was $30, and no matter who designed it, it's still coming from a Target and who wants to spend that much on one clothing item from target. Anyways, I tried on the blouse in the comforts of my home, and it looked horrible on me. It was too flowy and billowy, and flowy and billowy just doesn't look good on someone of average size. I think this line would look great on someone skinny, but on people like me who wear an 8 or 10 forget about it. Spanx wouldn't even be able to help me fake it with these clothes.
The blouse got returned the next day. I am going to use the money to get something from Lands End Canvas. I at least know their stuff is well made and classics.
I tend to have bad self esteem. I hope and pray that this is something that my girls do not get from me as they become older. Most recently I mentioned that I had some low lites put in to darken up my hair for fall. I went to work feeling all confident, loving the new hair, and I spent the rest of my day hearing from a lot of people how they hated it. OUCH. Ok, so not everyone hated the hair, I did get some compliements, but the negative feed back was harsh. It didn't help matters that when I came home my mom appeared to not be a fan either. I may or may not have snapped at her.
I already posted the picture, but here it is again for my blog lurkers:
I still really like it. The funny thing is, this is pretty much what my hair color is naturally. I was a blonde baby/girl, and over the years my hair has darkened some, and I have some natural red in the front that I have worked hard at bleaching the hoo hoo out of. So I think this is pretty much the natural color minus the red.
So why I am harping so much about just hair? I tend to have some bad hair history. For starters I spent much of my early child hood years with pixi short hair for reasons only my mom could explain. Ok so I may have gotten into the scissors when I was 5, but she kept my hair short and it wasn't pretty. I straight up looked like a boy.
Then there were the perm years....My parents allowed my grandma to perm my hair a few times. Hilarious I esure you. However, my mom took me to hair dresser and allowed me to get a professional perm when I was in the 6th grade which leads me to exhibit A: the gerri curl:
Oh yes the gerri curl... aka the spirtal perm. Sadly this was probably a good hair day, because I didn't understand that you couldn't brush curls, so it usually looked like a frizzy poofy mess. I was called a poodle pretty much every single day at school.
By summer the curl had relaxed a great deal, and I spent every day in the pool in chlorine or on the baseball field. My hair turned snow white from the sun and chemicals. Summer ended and 7th grade began, and I began the ugliest year of my entire life. There is nothing harder then being 13 and looking like this:
Wow. Oh how this picture scares me. By the time the fall school pictures were taken, some of my natural hair was coming back in that wasn't damanged from the perm and it was really dark compared to the white hair from the pool/sun. Pretty much everyone in my grade told me on a daily basis that I was ugly, and accused me of bleaching my hair because I had janky hair and roots, and braces. Looking back at this picture I can understand why people said what they did. But I pinky promise each of you, I DID NOT BLEACH MY HAIR. It was the freaking pool and sun.
Kids are mean, and meaner if you don't fit into the typical mold. I attended a very nice private school during these wonderful ugly years, and looking like this and not having the latest and greatest clothes didn't help. I posted long ago about being teased for having fake birkenstocks. Yepp same school. I don't have an 8th grade picure for you, but in 8th grade I started to understand what brands were cool, and got my act together with hair and makeup. I actually remember in 8th grade when school started that a group of my friends sat me down and told me that I was actually looking pretty, and one guy said "yes you looked like a total dog last year". Yikes. I still spent that year insecure, and it may sound silly but those middle school years set up a lifetime of insecurity and body image issues. If I lost a boyfriend or had a fight with a friend I felt it was because it was because I wasn't pretty or cool enough. I hated this school, and acted out and begged my parents to get me out of there. My parents even to this day felt that this school walked on water and that I should have stayed. Academically it is a great place, but they just don't understand what I went through. One thing that I did do well was play sports. I had good coordination, and it didn't matter on a baeball field, field hockey field, or volley ball court what I looked like, as long as I could play well. I couldn't concentrate in the classroom with dealing with worrying about picked on, but on the field noone would mess with me.
So when someone talks smack about my hair, or my weight, etc it just makes me die a little inside.
On a side note, this wonderful school I went to as a middle schooler, has since expanded and has a elementry program now. We have to make a choice on schools here soon for my oldest for next year, and my husband thinks it would be swell if she could go there. I have some serious mixed feelings about this, especially since I have seen that some of those wonderful peers of mine that were mean are teachers there now.
* I had my hair did yesterday, I had more low lites put in, and my hair is a lot darker now. I really like it, but of course a few people today who are rude scrunched their noses up at it. Bitches. I mean seriously, some people need a filter, and a full length mirror.
* I am convinced that I need a children's bible to understand much anything in my neighborhood bible study. Maybe I should I have put myself in vacation bible school this summer rather then my kids.
* How lame was the season finale of True Blood? I am usually a big fan of Sookie, but her acting was horrible. I am going to really miss my Sunday night fix though of all the vampire goodness.
* I need an eyebrow wax stat.
* I talked smack about all the flannel/plaid shirts that are coming back in style, saying I would never buy one... so I am embarassed to admit I really really want to find a cute longish one that I could wear as a dress with some leggings... oh dear lord did I really write that.... Costco had a really cute perfect one in a few weeks ago, but of course it was a special event and they are all gone now. Please don't tell me I will actually have to go in Forever 21 and buy something similar. I don't even know if they will let people my age in there anymore.
This afternoon I busted out the sewing machine, and as luck would have it, I screwed up on my pumpkin shirt project... I forgot to put the presser foot down, and got the shirt all jammed up. This resulted in a hole, but I attempted to patch it. But it still looks rough. Can I just call this my shabby chic shirt? Whatevers... my older two still like it, and can fight over it.
For this project I used a black long sleeve t-shirt that I got on clearence for $1.50, some fabric scraps, and some heat 'n bond to adhere the fabric to the shirt before I sewed around the shape of the pumpkin.
I used the rest of the pumpkin fabric and some ric rac to make a halloween burp pad. I am going to give it to a co-worker who has a wee one.
*We are having some people over for dinner tonight, I made Pioneer Woman's cheesy olive bread to have as an app., Dave begged me to leave the olives out cause he's a wuss. I said some nasty things to him.
*Despite me not keeping track of my WW points worth a crap I have managed to lose what I gained when we went camping and then some, bring my total loss to a smidge over 10 lbs, but I plan on eatting Dave's share of said olive bread and consuming all kinds of other tasty treats, so I guess I shouldn't get all excited just yet.
* My husband got Facebook after telling me for years I was a retard for being on it.
* I had a employee level coupon for the Yankee Candle Factory and OMG, they have the cutest halloween decoration stuff right now, and I had two items in my hands, but I put the items back and bought two gifts to give at Christmas presents instead... I am almost cried.
* My husband says with all the halloween decorations we have up that we look like Wiccans.
* I was uber productive last weekend, and I was also using some Nasal spray for sinus issues... I learned today that Nasal Spray is similar to speed, so umm that explains the motivatin I had going on.
*Maybe I should buy a bunch of nasal spray and open a booth in the carpool line and sell some some to the other moms.
*
It's been a productive day. Dave made two more witches for me using the one my dad and I made as a pattern, so we now have three little trick or treaters marching up the sidewalk. We cleaned out his garage (groan), and then I was able to talk the husband into taking me to Michael's, as I saw a craft I wanted to do on another blog... First of all I was in awe of all the freaking cute Halloween stuff Martha Stewart has out in Michael's... seriously, I could have blown some serious cash if I had had any....cute stuff. Instead I bought some of her glitter glue, black glitter, three fake pumpkins, some black letter stickers, some bling, and a glittery crow.
I added black glitter to the pumpkin stems, slapped on the words and bling and hot glue gunned the crow, and they now all happily live on top of my kitchen cabinets...I dig them.
I stole my mom's latest Better Homes and Garden Halloween edition, and was plotting making this trick or treater witch shadow. During the kids naps I figured I would attempt to draw out the outline of the witch on some left over plywood we had in the garage. This magazine did not offer a pattern, so I just took a red sharpie and attempted to eyeball it. Once I was satisfied I thought about waiting until my husband was home to cut it out for me, but I have the patience of a 2 year old, so within 1 minute of getting it done, I was begging my dad to help cut it out with his jigsaw. Thankfully, he was happy to help and it didn't take long at all.
Dave did spray paint it for me, as I was not able to find our black spray paint after we got it cut out. We still need to drill a hole in the litte hand for the candy bucket and put a stake in the back to hold it in the ground, but I am all kinds of proud of my little witch, and the girls love it!
Late afternoon I found myself at the docs office with my wee one who has a double ear infection, and decieded today I would stay home since everyone is feeling yucky, and we were also supposed to get a hurricane, but thankfully that at least spared us. So, today was an extra stay at home day, and I took advantage of the morning to sprinkle some halloween goodness on the house. I have tried hard to contain myself, but alas, it is now September 3rd, and the majority of my halloween stuff is now out.
