Technically it is a dress, but Pooky calls it her butterfly shirt. There is nothing special about this dress. Its a stripped cotton dress from Target. She has others. But is obsessed with her butterfly shirt. The moment she wakes up she wants to wear it, actually taking it out of the laundry basket a couple times. She has thrown tantrums if she can't wear it, or its in the washing machine. So, one Saturday evening, after one of the many Christmas parties I went to, I trecked to Target with Kindra to do a little shopping. Lo and behold, the dress was on clearance! I had thought I would buy one more, just to have a clean one to wear and one to wash, but ended up buying two. In my defense the second one is in a larger size, so as she grows she can still wear her favorite dress. According to Pooky, she looks like a princess in the dress, usually complete with crown. Am I weird for wanting to go back again and get a few more "spares" ? I might be, but the next week I did go back and buy more. She now has a total of four! I swear over Christmas while we were in California she wore one every single day! This is her on Christmas Eve on the way to dinner with family.....
6790 Obispo Ave Long Beach, CA 90805 That house has been in my family for almost 70 years. My Grandpa and Grandma bought the little house way back when they first got married, and the twenty acres surrounding it. My Grandpa built most of the current house himself, and its rather large now. Over the years they raised their three daughters, my Aunts Gloria and Janet and my mom. They had their first dates, prom, Christmases and all those other growing up experiences in that house. As time went on most of my family has lived in that house at one time or another. My mom moved back in when I was in 5th grade, I lived there with my brother every other year until high school, when I decided to stay. I've called every room in that house my bedroom at some point, painted the walls different colors more than once. I remember using the sheets to make a fort under the dining room table with my cousins. The same table that has been in that dining room since before I was born, the table all of our holiday dinners have been eaten on for as long as I can remember. I believe that table moved with my brother to his new house. Its the house I called home when Ashley was born, having repainted her room a pretty yellow. While my brother was in college it was a bachelor pad, you treaded carefully, not sure exactly what might be growing in the corners and always brought your own toilet paper because college boys had interesting hygiene habits. As kids we played in the yard, explored the garage and its many hiding places, there was a tree house in the big tree out front, until we had to cut the tree down because the roots were disrupting the plumbing. I remember how the house always smelled the same whenever I came back from being away for a while. I've crawled through the attic and the crawl space under the house. When my brother got married, it was the house he brought his wife home to. Thankfully that caused my Grandpa to replace the olive green carpet that had been in the house since the 60's. We were all sad to see the familiar, holy, worn carpet go, but defiantly glad to have something less that 40 years old to walk on. My brother finally bought his first house and moved in back in August. Since then my husband has been helping give the house a much needed face lift, with new tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, freshening the carpet and what not. My Grandpa is living there alone for the first time ever, on his way to living at the nearby retirement home as soon as an apartment is available for him. When he moves the house will be sold. I have known that is why Gary has been fixing the old place up, but it got me thinking last night about everything that house has seen, everything it has meant to our family. Am I weird to feel sad that we are letting it go? It will feel strange not to go down for Christmas there. We all have keys to the back door and everybody comes and goes regularly, I don't think I've seen somebody knock to enter since I was a kid. I wonder if the new family who buys it will wonder about the history of the place?
I love my friends. Heck, I love the fact that I actually HAVE friends! But I was particularly grateful the weekend before Thanks Giving. My dear husband was home that Saturday, so I took advantage of the chance to do my grocery shopping sans kids. I made my holiday shopping list, complete with Thanks Giving turkey, pie makings and cookie ingredients. I swung through Starbucks on my way to my trusty Wal-Mart, not the least bit annoyed by the Saturday holiday shoppers. I slipped my ipod into my pocket and bopped along to my Christmas music as I wandered aimlessly through the holiday section, looking for cookie platters and other useless Christmas items I would feel the need to have after Thanks Giving was over. I took my time poking through all the turkeys until I found just the right one. I chatted cheerfully with the check out clerk, walked out to my car, and like a responsible woman shopping alone, I put my purse on my front seat, then locked my car doors while I unloaded my cart. Since I had no pockets I set my car keys inside the back of my car.....then slammed the back shut, with my groceries, purse and cell phone inside, and no kids to let me in! Okay, deep breath. I go back inside Wal Mart, feeling rather strange not to have anything in my hands, and asked if there was a phone I could use. Of course, Gary's cell phone was off, he wasn't answering the house phone and I didn't know anybody elses phone numbers because they were all in my cell phone. I even tried calling Gary's ex wife, thinking she could call Jacob and have him to get his dad, no luck. So I dialed 411 and started running down my friends names, nobody was listed!!! Until I got to Alicia, my dear anti-Walmart friend. She is very adamatly against Walmart and Sam's Club. After she stopped laughing at me, we remembered her daughter was a friend of my neighbors daughter. After much text messaging and calling we determined that my neighbors daughter was not answering, so no luck. Thankfully she decided to come get me so I could get my spare set of keys from home. Only problem with having someone who is anti-Walmart pick you up is they have no clue where Walmart actually is. She went to one and had to call another of our friends to ask where I might actually be! All in all it took me five hours to do my grocery shopping, on the up side my milk didn't go bad because it was freezing cold outside :-)
I have decided having friends is expensive and time consuming....I shall return to being a hermit now :-) In an attempt to nail down a day for my bible study group to have a Christmas party, three of us broke out our calendars and tried to find a Friday or Saturday that seemed to work. After noting the women's ministry cookie party, nixing the day of Jenny's awesome cookie party the following Saturday, we were left with a couple Fridays and the Saturday before Christmas. More schedule checking went on until an outside source pipped up and suggested we do a Monday night! Since that is the day of our bible study and we're all used to being out that evening, it made perfect sense! But then it got me thinking. I have cookie parties, Christmas parties, volunteer cleaning ministry day, bunco nights (that I didn't make this month) and a varity of other social obligations now that I have friends. Was it only a couple years ago that my schedule was as empty as my address book? I've never been one of the popular girls, or had a huge group of friends. Being a single, young, mother I never really fit in with any group. Well now I do and my date book shows it! You don't even want me to get started on what I spent (cheerfuly by the way) over the weekend on little things to make Christmas baskets for a couple of my dear friends. Then there are all the cookie ingredients that I am going to have to buy, the time spent baking dozens and dozens of cookies. At least two different holiday outfits will need to be bought for the various functions I shall be attending, with accessories....being a girl is a good excuse for a new pair of errings :-) Which will just mean more time spent shopping hehe All in all I have decided that having friends is not only expensive but time consuming too! Oh the horror of being me LOL
Well, the youngest of my old friends is now 30 (yes, Mich, that is you!) Although she refuses to admit to being anything over 26.....I still remember when we were 7! Now, when I hit 30 I got a new tat, chopped my hair off, then went shopping for a new wardrobe. So for the last few weeks I've been feeling cute, well dressed and healthy (thanks to the gym) But yesterday I was taking a quick peek in the mirror before running out the door and realized my "new" wardrobe screamed soccer mom, not hip 20-something! Okay, WHEN did I actually get old? Is 30 the magical switch between "cute young thing" and "cute middle age chick"? ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Gary left yesterday to go surfing and instead of sitting around cooped up in the house for the weekend I decided to get me and the girls out of the house. Being halloween, Friday and knowing that I had friends who would be taking their kids out, I called Kindra. Yep, sure enough, they were planning to go around her neighborhood, along with Alicia and Christopher. Both Alicia and Kindra asked what my husband said about my idea to take the girls out, knowing his opinion on halloween. I ended up calling him and actually asking if it was okay, after the usual lecture he was fine with it. Em was going to be a princess, Pooky was a very cute Elmo. After eatting pizza with Kindra, her husband, Super Mckenna and Devyn Kitty, we met up with Alicia and Obi Wan Christopher to treck the neighborhood. I've driven around there before, figured it wasn't all that big and not everybody would be home. Driving is vastly different than walking! Two hours later, my feet were killing me, my legs jelly, my lower back achy and I had two wal-mart bags topped off with candy. The little buckets that I had gotten the girls had been repeatedly emptied into the bags I carried. Now, normally I would complain about the achs and pains right now, but watching Pooky run up to all the houses, in her cute little red fuzzy costume and yell "Trick or Treak", then "thank you!" was very worth it. This wasn't Emily's first trick or treat run, its only been the last couple years that I haven't taken her, and as usual she was rather pesky about knocking on doors, but still very polite, even giving Christopher the last bag of woppers at one house. At home a candy full Pooky, hands sticky from whatever she managed to sneak while I wasn't looking, was tucked into bed. I sorted the candy, into three big bowls and gave one to Wayne....hopefully it will prevent him from stealing all the good stuff out of our bowls :-)
With Emily I am used to having serious discussions about behavior, needing to dicipline and all those other fun parenting tools. But Pooky is another story. She is just so darn cute, not to mention only 2...well almost 3, but still, little and cute! Today I made some cupcakes for a friends birthday, they were cooling on the kitchen counter but when I came back into the room, there were some Pooky sized finger holes in one. I looked around and there was the culprite, with pupcake (her term) crumbs on her shirt, her fingers in her mouth, sucking off the pupcake pieces. I asked her if she had ate the cupcake and without missing a beat, or removing her fingers, she looked up at me with big puppy dog eyes and said "No" I asked her again, only to recieve the same answer. Well, I was at a loss. With Emily I could point out the crumbs on her shirt, her fingers in her mouth and call her on the lying, but how the heck was I supposed to handle the cute little bundle of crumb covered cuteness? She ended up with a swat and a stern "Do NOT mess with the cupcakes" after which she pouted off into the next room, with her head down.....still looking adorable.
Okay, everybody knows how fashion challenged I am. Apparently me and my dress in multiple colors is legendary, annoying not just my husband. He comments a couple times a month "can't you wear something different", my friends tease me, my kids actually help me pick out which color to wear each day! Its amusing, but getting rather old. So last week my dear husband gives me a good sum of money and orders me to the mall. I wasn't sure if I should be grateful or offended. But I enlisted the help of my fashion savy friend, Jenny, and we hit the malls today. As I sit here now, at midnight, my butt hurts and my legs are sore....oh wait, thats probably from the yoga we did earlier at the gym, although I'm sure all the shopping didn't help! After the gym this morning we herded the kids back to my place to critique my meager wardrobe. I pulled a lot out and threw it in the good will pile. I rearranged what was in my closet so some things I don't wear often, but are very flattering, were more prominate. Then Jenny surveyed the useful "what not to wear" books she has and we made lists. One list of styles that flatter my body type, that I can keep in my wallet to pull out whenever I go shopping. And another list of specific items that I am apparently required to have as staples of my wardrobe, top on the list....a pair of jeans. I own no jeans. I hate pants. They suck and are uncomfortable. Our first stop was Lane Bryant, where my opinion of jeans completely changed. In Lane Bryant world I wear a size 3 for one thing, which sounds much better than an 18. Top that off with they have pants actually designed for women, you know, people with hips, butts and other curves, not waif skinny stick figures that teen agers are now days. I fell in love with two pairs, got some perty earrings too (they were on the official must have list....I usually just wear studs) Our next stop was the actual mall....after a pit stop at Del Taco first, gotta have fuel to shop! We hit New York & Co for tops, Payless for shoes, Vic Secret for bras, then deviated from the official shopping plan and stopped at Bath & Body for some of the mint lip gloss that Jenny has and we all covet. Our last stop of the night was supposed to be Old Navy, we were sure it was open later than the mall, but to our shock, it closed at nine too!! Then I had the bright idea to actually call the one near my house, its on the strip, it has to be open later, and sure enough, it was. So more tops were bought at Old Navy, Jenny had to forcibly drag me away from a blue cotton dress, but otherwise I stuck to the shopping list and found quite a few casual, but cute, outfits. As I expected, when I got home, everybody else was asleep. There was nobody to revel in my new found style. But never fear, I left everything in the bags and will lay out each outfit for my dear loving husband in the morning so he may ooo and ahhh over every little detail....okay, so he will look at it all and ask why I didn't go shopping a year ago, but he'll still appreciate it in his own way, although he might complain that I don't actually need any more shoes.
Okay, I have had a blog on here for a while, but hadn't used it in a long time. So now apparently I have to start all over again! Oh, where to begin....hmmm, I don't want to begin! I wasn't planning any witty blogging tonight and am actually rather tired after an unusually crappy afternoon. So stay tuned, I shall return in a better, more creative mood, to discourse on my goofy children and strange friends :-)
