in need of a thimble, and, apparently, a good cry

i'm trying to be not just a good mom, but a great mom. i hate buying cheap, polyester costumes that fall apart after one use. i like the quality of handmade. hence, this morning i worked on my son's costume. he's going to be an owl. i found instructions for an easy (albeit more expensive than buying a ready made) costume. wow, let's stop right here and ponder my use of hence and albeit. okay, the costume consists of a hoodie sweatshirt, some shaggy fleece (i bought chenille) and a couple of feather boas. everything was moving along nicely, until i told my mom that it was 'so easy and going so quickly'. that was when the evil eye's attention was directed on me. for the last 4" of stitching, i broke 4 sewing needles. then, as i hand tacked the wing tips to the sleeves, i impaled my right thumb with the dull, eye end of the needle.
ouch.
it bled a lot for a tiny puncture 1/4" deep. so i bandaged up my sore thumb and set about using the handle of my scissors to coax my needle through what would be the last 3 stitches. the force shoved the sharp end of the needle under the nail of my left thumb about 3/4" deep.
YOWZA
i shouted 'dang it!' then i proceeded to cry and then bawl and wail. it hurt. bad. and i was frustrated and mad. so i called my mom and told her everything. and do you know what she told me? cry it all out. cry about everything. use this opportunity to have a good cry. by the end of the call i was feeling better. i thought. i was watching elizabethtown while working on this project and stabbed my thumbs during the funeral. i went and made a turkey sandwich because i hadn't eaten anything all day. and i thought about my friend who is God-knows-where doing something dangerous for our country. and he is one of the nicest people you could ever know. and i prayed for him and started crying again. me and my sandwich went back to my room. and i pushed play and then cried some more to 'free bird' being played at a funeral. the fire and the sprinklers, and they kept playing. and i sat eating my sandwich and crying while orlando bloom had a conversation with his dad who was now in an urn. and he cried and i cried. i'm still crying a little, but i feel a lot better.



jb, please you and melissa come to the halloween party i'm throwing on nov. 3. it's not at my house, though. and it's a movie theme - come as characters from a movie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TINK & SHANNON!!!!!!!!!!!!

summer of the spiders, meet fall of the frogs!!

this summer, our property was overrun with these unsightly beasts.

they were here for a month or so. and then, as quickly as they showed up, they were gone. it may have had a little to do with my buying joe a fully automatic air soft gun for his birthday, but who knows.

then, come fall and a lot of rain and guess who shows up?

yep, timmy tree frog. they are everywhere. on my car, on my house. occasionally, i'll find an emaciated one in a dust bunny disguise hopping around. what's with the lame plagues?

my dvr did not work right last night and i missed the first 15 minutes of the office. i'll try to catch it online.

pretty pics from other bloggers & an old crush

i thought these were awesome.

as for this guy... it's funny how, as a 13 year-old, you can have such a crush on a guy that's 17. and he's so hot and you can barely look at him. then he sits next to you at lunch and you say anything - even untruths - agreeing with him on stupid things so he'll keep talking to you. and he takes on mythic proportions in your mind. then, 17 years later, you see this regular dude with realtor hair and WHERE DID THAT HOT GUY GO?! oh, and he had (has) the best crush name, 'tommy kiss'. how hunkerific!

here is a poor yearbook scan. pretty hot for 1991! kind of has a milo ventimiglia thing going on.

my new favorite show

i watched this last night in a last minute decision. i loved it! sigh. it's about ned and his ability to bring someone back from the dead by touching them. if he touches them again, they go back to being dead. but if he waits a minute, someone or something within the nearby vicinity will die in their place. then they'll live forever (i think), but he can never touch them again. this explains how he's had the same dog for 20 years. but he has this mechanical hand on a stick that he pets him with. ned runs a pie shop. he makes the pies because the fruit is always perfectly ripe at his touch. ned becomes partners with a man, and together they visit murder victims (in the morgue), bring them back, ask them who killed them, zap them again and then collect the reward money. this is fine until he finds himself staring into the face of his childhood sweetheart he has thought of every day of his life since her father died (ned's fault, sort of) and she moved away. she was killed on a cruise ship. he touches her and after telling her of his 'gift', decides to keep her alive. the horrible thief of a funeral director dies in her place. now ned and his true love charlotte 'chuck' are reunited, but they can never touch. i love this show. it is so sweet and strange and i want to laugh and cry at the same time. ned has a jonathan togo (csi miami's wolf) look to him, but his personality makes him so endearingly cute. if you missed it the first time, you can catch it on abc this friday night. it is sooo good.

see the resemblance?

renewed project & cavemen!!!

these are faerie dresses i made a while back with the intention of selling them (like everything else) and they got shuffled away. i was in a home decor boutique downtown last week and talked to the owner about her selling my stuff. she told me to call her and make an appointment next week. i'm very excited. these are in black shadow box frames. each one has the name of a faerie and eventually i'll build up the wardrobes of each faerie. i'm working on a few more right now so that in the event that she pays me for these 3 i can go buy the frames for the next 3 and take them to her.

cavemen.

yes, i watched it last night. for those of you 6 people (and i know you're out there, reading this and not commenting) that didn't watch it, a few points of interest.

1. there are 3 or 4 main cavemen

a. one of them, joel, works at ikea (but it's not called ikea). he is 'johnson' from those cereal commercials where the boss is always trying to get rid of him, but he can't hear him because of the crunchy cereal.

b. then there's joel's bother, andy. shannon, we know him. look!

2. in an outline, you have to have at least 2 points.

i think that's it.

WARNING: GROSS PICTURE OF DEAD ANIMAL BELOW
OOPS! YOU PROBABLY ALREADY SAW IT.

bad omen

POLLO MUERTA!! EL CHUPACABRA!

it's a rainy day. grey skies to and from school. and this greeted me when i got home. it was not there when i left, i'm pretty sure. now my dog, jack, is a known chicken killer; but i'm almost positive he did not do this. i would blame the dingo next door. it's huge and likes to jump on small children. it took me a few seconds to figure out what this was - the head was not immediately visible. why didn't what killed it take it somewhere to eat it??? ugh!!

and where are its feet? i blame chupacabra.

the pitfalls of motherhood

yesterday, my precious 2 year-old fell and hit his mouth on the blasted marble windowsill. if we had traditional wood framed windows, this wouldn't have been so bad. he chipped one tooth and the gums of his front teeth are very bruised. i am sick to think that permanent damage has been done, but i'm waiting to see if they'll heal. i'm so scared that root damage has occurred and his teeth will die. what am i to do? the only pediatric dentist in town is so overbooked that i don't think they would get us in, and what 2 year-old wants to let a stranger touch their sore teeth? i'm just praying this will be one of those normal childhood injuries that heals and we don't have to endure more drama than the hour of crying and hours of gum bleeding that has already occurred. don't think i'm negligent, though. as a mom, you learn that running off to the doctor for every bump is more traumatic to the child and the wallet than just waiting it out sometimes. thank God baby teeth are like practice teeth. you learn what not to do during the trial run.

jim & pam / take me out to the acne

i just finished watching the 1 hour season premier of the office because last night i was at a baseball game. more on that later.

i am soooo happy that jim and pam are finally together and the fact that they kept us in the relative dark for the first 1/2 hour was great, because it made the revelation of the truth that much better. yea!!!!! pb&j!!

okay, baseball. went to the yankees/devil rays game at tropicana field in tampa last night. no one scored until the 4th or 5th inning. there was a very loud lush sitting near us the entire time. i was sickened by the middle-aged floozies shopping for baseball players. and the previously empty row in front of us was overrun with 3 young dating couples. but about the couple directly in my line of sight to home-plate. the girl started by constantly trying to pull the guys hat low over his eyebrow. i didn't know why. when she got up one of the 8 times to get more beer, he took off his hat and i noticed his 2 zits above his eyebrow. then, of course, trying to watch the game and here she is with her big fake nails, picking and squeezing on his face. totally grody, like, gag me with a spoon.