I Didn't

I suppose Tuesday can only be a let-down after a Monday like I just had. Actually, Tuesday is always a little tough because it's my Monday, really - my first day back to work for the week and my desk is piled high and I have to actually get dressed.
And this Tuesday, as I mulled it over, has offered me no stories. No little happenings to turn into a blog-a-riffic tale. I just didn't do anything interesting.
So, maybe I'll think of some things that I didn't do today.

I didn't spill any coffee on myself this morning. That happens pretty frequently, so, it's a good thing. A thing to celebrate.

I didn't forget my lunch. That happens a lot too.

I didn't laugh out loud when the Pastor I work for prayed in our staff meeting. He sounds like William Shatner. "GraciousGod...we..thankyou..for...your. many. blessings to us."

I didn't get to the bottom of the papers on my desk today. I hate that feeling.

I didn't throw out my arms and tightly hug a dear parishioner today, one who I love much, even though I found out he has Alzheimer's'. It's still a secret and I had to pretend I didn't know.

I didn't get into a car accident today. By all accounts, I should have. I was a sleepy and distracted driver. I apologize.

I didn't lick the bottom of the after-school popcorn bowl. Air popped, lots of butter as a treat today (it's usually olive oil and sea salt). For the record, I really wanted to. I am very fond of licking out bowls. I get that from my mom.

I didn't properly supervise homework time today. I'm not entirely sure if Emma actually did all the stuff listed in her agenda. I signed it anyway.

I didn't wait until bedtime to write this. I am absolutely planning on crashing on the nearest piece of furniture and listening to indie folk music. As soon as I hit "Publish."

DAILY BLISS: cooking barefoot, in my ladybug apron (very cheery) and the smell of chocolate chip cookies

Making Monday - Adventures in Sewing

Hello. Kiki the Maker here. I like to make all kinds of things and Monday is my favorite day to do it. Why? Because I don't have to go to work on Monday and my kids still have to go to school on Monday. So I get to make stuff all day long.
And so we shall commence with the show and tell.
I made that nightie that's been in my head for a while. I took a shirt pattern that had the basic shape I wanted (Simplicity 4589) and just made it longer and, let's be honest, a little wider around the hinie too. I had in mind originally the Canterbury nightie that Victoria's Secret used to make. If you know the nightie of which I speak, you are also old just like me. It was long and had a ruffle at the bottom and lace at the top - a square neck and no sleeves. Perfect. They still make it, but it's knit and short and just not the same.
Anyway, this didn't turn out at all like that. It's a little more clean and modern-shaped and even though I'd planned to do the long ruffle at the bottom (using my new ruffler foot for my sewing machine), I just couldn't do it to my nice, clean-lined nightie. So, there you have it. Done. Nightie photos? Eh...probably not appropriate. I'd take a picture of it all on its lonesome if I were not already wearing it. Maybe some other time. But here it is on the machine:

What else did I make today? Well, I finished a party frock. You all know that the Autumnal Equinox is coming soon (Monday the 22nd) and I could not let this opportunity for a themed dress pass me by. I went with Vintage Vogue 2903 and it sure tested my skilz, which are pretty much not skilz yet anyway. For starters, I know this line of patterns doesn't run true to size - like, if you measure and pick the size on the envelope? It will be wrong. So I went down a size and still had to re-adjust a lot. Plus I had to make the petite adjustments because I am very short. And there's this yoke in the neckline that the sleeves attach to? Yikes. Because I had to shorten the straps even more, the yoke was all wonky, and I tried to shorten the yoke's straps, but it was worse, so I just took it out. No sleeves, no yoke. I have been actually working on this dress for a couple of days - I don't want any of you to get the impression that I am magic and can make two garments in one day. And I want you to know that I spent my entire morning making the sleeves and attaching them to the yoke. They were beautiful sleeves that didn't get used. Oh well.
Off-the-shoulder straps and princess seams with big pleats down the front? Nice. My first successful zipper? Even nicer. Make that one invisible zipper, right in the middle of the back. Yessss. There will be decent photos of this one, once I'm wearing my leaf crown and (hopefully) my Honeybee Stole for the party. And my bow-toed black slingbacks, of course. For now, here's a sneak peek at the shoulder (there are still threads to be snipped that you can see):

Oh - and? Honeybee Stole and I worked down about 18 rows today. About thirty-six more rows will mean the end of the middle section. For good. The rest of it should go faster if my memory serves me correctly....and I think I can squeeze in five or six more rows before I get to bed to make this a Very Accomplishing sort of day.

DAILY BLISS: Sleeves! I made sleeves! And they were beautiful! The birds looked at me a little bit funny from their cages, they didn't know what in the world I was making high-pitched squealing noises about.

PS: I'm going to order some lotion ingredients this week. Just putting all interested parties on alert.

Hair Day

I got me a haircut today. That's always nice. I sat in Jimi's chair and told him I couldn't decide if I wanted to be a 40s Glamour Girl or a Dangerous Rock Star. And he said, "MMMMMMMaybe a little bit of both?"
And that's why I love him.
And that's also why he says he loves to cut my hair. 'Cause I never want it the same and I always let him do whatever he thinks up.

The weird thing is, I know I've told you all that my hair is almost black, but it just doesn't look like it in the pictures. I swear. It's pretty dark. And I like it in a Dangerous Glamour Girl kind of way.

DAILY BLISS: pumpkin spice candles and cute shoes

A-ha!

Yeah. I definitely need Blackout Night on Wednesday to prepare me for Thursday. Sorry to put you through that yesterday.
I work really hard not to step into the frenetic pace that moms and kids keep these days. I don't think it should be a badge of honor to be so busy that you can't brush your hair and you have to drive the fam through takeout windows for supper four nights a week. Bearing that in mind, I have to say that having only one day a week that's crazy is pretty good. It's hard to say no to stuff, though, when we want our kids to have a little bit of everything in their lives - sports, music, art, friends, culture - it all adds up. And I just won't do it.
Period.
Do I feel guity? Oh yes. Lots. Guilty for not trying to find a way to squeeze tennis lessons into our schedule this year. Guilty that I haven't already found a new piano teacher for Emma. Guilty that we don't take family bike rides four times a week for thirty minutes (or however long it is you're supposed to exercise). And guilty that we haven't bought into the modern myth that soccer is essential for every child's development.
But not guilty enough to force myself into the Confines of Normalcy. No. You're talking to a girl who spent a good portion of her junior high hears wearing a giant, hot pink sombrero in public places. I don't mind bucking the system a little bit.
But we do lots of fun stuff and I hope my kids will turn out to be unique and will feel quite comfortable wearing giant sombreros if they want to.
Like dancing in the car. We did a lot of that this evening as we went about our merry business.
I can't go anywhere without music, and even if there's not music playing for all to hear, there most certainly is a sound track in my head. I wake up in the morning with random songs on my mind and I suspect they may have something to do with my dreams. And the only thing that gets my morning song out of my head is what comes on the radio once I have dropped the kids off at school. That's when I turn it up and boogie all the way to work (this is because I am afraid that I may fall asleep if I don't keep moving). Seriously - if you ever spy me on my morning commute, you might just want to look the other way. I don't claim to be a good dancer, but I'm having fun and staying awake.
I think that the music in my head has a lot to do with the way I handle what comes my way. Some mornings, I am stuck with only Neil Diamond or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which are both bad omens in my world. Some mornings, I will catch my theme song on the radio and that bodes well for the rest of the day.
This morning was a good morning. I heard a song that takes me back to my childhood. My memory of childhood is always a bit fuzzy, but I think I remember my brother being captivated by it, having heard it on TV - maybe it was the Grammys. We only had one TV. It was tiny and was, for some reason, located in my parents' bedroom that year. And we were supposed to go to bed. And Jon was riveted and I really wanted to be, but knew I shouldn't because it was secular music (you have to hiss when you say that "s" - and no, I'm not bitter. I had a perfectly happy childhood filled with perfectly good music ). But Jon was always bolder than I. He was a dangerous one.
Even from far away, and even at maybe eight years old, I knew that it contained the awesomest keyboard solo ever. I was a pianist already and I knew things like that.
A-ha's "Take On Me" - I heard it twice today on the radio.
That song always makes me smile. My sound track today was a happy one. And I danced through most of the day.

DAILY BLISS: simply the knowledge that it is Friday

Okay, Now, Concentrate

This morning, Responsibility dug her cold, unforgiving fingers into my arms and yanked me out of bed when the rest of my body didn't want to and I had to hit the ground running because it's Thursday which is the busiest day of the week for me and involves thorough planning and packing before I even leave the house in the morning and I sat a little bit too long over my coffee because I was still fighting with Thursday about whether I would do it or not and that made my hour-long car time a little stressful because, as everybody knows, if you leave one minute late in the morning, you will catch traffic that causes you to be twenty minutes late to everything else in the world and by the time I got to work, I thought I wanted to sit at my desk and knit because I have a rather mindless job and I am usually so on top of things, but instead I found my desk piled high with meaningless tasks and paperwork that forced my body to frantically spend the day copying and sorting and mailing and publishing while my brain was quite free to wander and be stressed out about the to-do list it was holding for me, knowing full well that nothing could be done about it at work anyway, even though most of it is self-imposed (I find that I am able to put more pressure on myself than I would ever allow anyone else to do) and I found that I had to rush out the door and leave the Pile-That-Has-No-Bottom on my desk to wait until I come back tomorrow and I picked up both of the kids, managing to work a little bit of Honeybee Stole knitting in (that thing has totally been kicking my butt) while I sat in the car lines and I scooted into my mom's house to grab the guitar that's been sitting there (because I remembered to drop it off this morning) instead of in my trunk so it wouldn't overheat and then we headed for the music studio for Andrew's guitar lesson where I was anticipating his first baritone lesson as well (which means we actually have to remember two instruments) and I made Emma bring her homework in and I told Andrew that he could switch out instruments and grab his homework to do in the half-hour between guitar and baritone lessons and we headed in to the studio and found out that there wasn't a slot yet for baritone so we had to regroup, but I managed to knit a little bit on that stole while Andrew quizzed Emma for her tests tomorrow (I'm really glad I didn't have to do that) and when we left I caught the slightest bit of nice breeze out and realized that it was pleasant and not at all humid, even though it's awfully hot, and I really didn't want to do any of what I had left to do, but I had to so we headed to my mom's for a finish-the-homework pit stop and headed to Chick-fil-a for supper because I don't have time to cook between Drew's lessons and ballet, and my husband really cracked me up across the table at dinner, which was nice because I had to spend the rest of my evening feeling greasy and smelling like french fries, so at least that was something, and at dinner I found out that I missed the first Open House of the school year because I neglected to write it in my paper brain and his stupid school doesn't send any paper communication so I forgot all about it and now I look like a sucky mom and have no recourse by which to contact his teachers and find out how he's doing because I feel so out-of-touch and we dropped back by our house to change for ballet and I made a few phone calls and left Andrew at home to wait for Dad, who was following closely behind us in his work car, and we made it to ballet on time, which is great because I didn't think we would and they danced to the Pas de Deux from the Nutcracker, which is my favorite because it always-always-always breaks my heart in the very best of ways and I started back in on that Honeybee Stole, because I had nothing else to do, and found that I was actually kicking its butt this time and upon that discovery found myself thinking things like, "take that you silly bits of string!" and "who's in charge now, you big wuss?" and realized that I was totally taking my aggression out on this thing of absolute beauty (honestly - I can't wait to finish so you can all see it!) and felt a little bit bad, but not as bad as I felt about missing the Open House at Andrew's school (insert feelings of utter failure and doom), only to be redeemed when one of Chopin's Etudes started playing and I saw Emma doing her rond de jambes and I started feeling a little bit better and made a few more necessary phone calls on the way home and realized I was just having one of those days that feels like an enormously long run-on sentence.

DAILY BLISS: a wildly animated (because it had to be super-short, and how else are you going to pack a catching-up into three minutes) conversation with a friend-I-bumped-into in the Chick-fil-a parking lot

Blackout Night Returns

With all of the mess going on around here (hurricanes, Dear Husband gone, school starting up, etc.), Blackout Night has kind of slipped into oblivion for the last few weeks. Oh, we've had a couple hours here and there with the lights off, but not a real Blackout Night.
I do not intend to let that happen often.
We are going to try out Wednesdays as our new night, since our schedule has definitely changed with the start of the school year and new activities all 'round. So, last night, just as we were getting ready to turn off all the lights, I heard the shattering noise of glass falling onto my bedroom's cement floor. Ohdearme. It could have been worse, I must say. It was only a bottle of fragrance oil that I use for making lotions and stuff.
But it was a big one.
It was the Emma's Garden oil and it had probably 12 ounces of concentrated fragrance oil in it, which was now all over my painted floor, floating tiny shards of brown glass in it. So, it was going to be a strong-smelling Blackout Night, which required the lights to be on a bit longer while we tried to get it all cleaned up before the oil took the paint up off my floor.
Some things are just going to be difficult in life, aren't they? I'd had a whole day of getting almost-somewhere and then not quite making it.
Anyway, I stuck my husband on Cleanup Detail while I put together our dinner - salad with raspberries, sunflower seeds and goat cheese with raspberry vinaigrette. I know. My kids eat and actually like weird stuff. I absolutely love that they proclaimed things in the gray-ish, fading light like, "Wow, Mom! This is a really good, creamy goat cheese! You picked a good one this time!" as they shoveled fork-fulls of salad to their mouths.
It makes up for the other weird stuff kids do.
Once fragrance oils and dinner were cleaned up, we gathered back in the living room for a game of Scattergories, which is becoming a family favorite as the kids are more and more able to think of words to fill out their lists.
And here's my observation about last night - Blackout night is usually this quiet, peaceful time of being unplugged, but I think a couple of weeks without doing it has really thrown us out of practice. It was really hard this time not to turn on the TV and not to check my email. Maybe it's because I was pretty tired and just wanted to zone out. I don't know. But this time around, we had lots of loud laughing and shouting and forcing each other to look up words that were on our lists because some of us make up words (not me this time!) and are quite sure they're real.
This time, it was anything but quiet and peaceful.
But it was still just as refreshing and deeply connecting and it still narrowed our focus down to just each other. Which is the whole point.
And once the kids were in bed, I went to my sanctuary, my bathroom, which was already lit with candles and drew myself a quiet, peaceful bath.
A bath without any Emma's Garden fragrance oil in it at all. Because, thanks to the oil spill, the whole house already smelled like peonies, raspberries and lilacs.

DAILY BLISS: Chatting in the car with Andrew - I love the time between carlines, when it's just Drew and me in the car. I know he won't "talk" to me forever, so I'm eating it up while I can.

Labor(less) Day

We made good use of our annual passes on Monday and took the kids to Sea World. We've gone several times this year, but only once all together, so it was a treat. The sting ray petting pool is one of my favorite spots. I always head straight for these guys at aquariums and such. I don't know why. I just like 'em a lot and they seem to have more personality than you'd expect. These guys wondered where I'd been. They poked their cow-ish noses out of the water and greeted me, then swam by slowly, just in reach, flicking me with their fins. I guess they're called fins. I don't feel like looking it up.

We enjoyed the aquarium at the end of the Journey to Atlantis ride. Not that we all rode it. I made the grave mistake of taking the kids on it earlier this year and they kinda freaked out. This time, just Chris went on it and then we all enjoyed the fishies.

Mostly. The eels whispered evil hisses at Emma. They know a noble and good princess when they see one and they don't like her.

And the pretty jellyfish...I really love them.

We let the kids pick out an oyster to get their own pearl. They've wanted to do this all year and we finally decided to let them. You know, it's a little pricey for one stinkin' pearl, but sometimes the experience is worth it.



And then the little man in the store, the one who cleans and measures the pearls, offered to have them set in jewelry. I'd done this before, but was really not expecting the hefty price tag he foisted on me for a measley little setting - without even a chain. It was, like, $80 or something. Drew, of course, didn't want his set, but we decided that Emma would have to just keep hers in the little bag they give you.
And do you know what happened? That man in the store was very ugly about us not buying the gold setting. He got all huffy and in the end, he threw the receipt at Chris! We will never, never, never be buying anything in there again.
Ever.
But the whale and dolphin show redeemed it. That one's my favorite show - even more than Shamu. Really. Those dolphins really have fun when they're out there and it's obvious.



And the whales enjoy it too.



DAILY BLISS: cookin' out with the fam and laughing at my brothers