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So, can you handle another wedding post? No? Hmmm...well that’s gonna be tough ‘cause I’m bubbling over with ring news. How ‘bout I keep it brief?
The ring is in. The stone from my mom’s engagement ring wont work...its a tad too small for the band and its round. Round is sooo not working with that band...square on the other hand is beautiful. So a 3/4 carat, princess cut stone later the ring is perfect. Wazzat? How can I afford a 3/4 carat stone when I’ve been crying poor for a couple months now? Well...simple actually and it didn’t involve a credit card or easy terms. I purchased a synthetic stone. Yep...a fake. And its positively beautiful. I truly doubt that if I hadn’t just come clean on that little secret and had just shared a photo instead that no one would be the wiser.
So...short enough for ya? Good. Photo in three agonizing weeks...argh!
Sometimes posts are just posts. Words typed out on the keyboard that are more an exercise in typing speed than writing skill. The purpose is to fill the page under the appropriate date just to keep the ‘viewers’ satisfied. This would be one of those posts. There is little to report; bead class - good, work - slow, life - ok. Actually...though work is slow, I cleared up much of the back log of customer errors caused with the new system. Tomorrow I’m on to another long list of fubars’...so, good for me but uber boring for you.
Our office was hit my lightening Monday...or at least close enough to blow a building fuse, cook a computer UPS and fry the main board on the fire alarm. Maybe that’s exciting...mostly just a p.i.t.a.; and mostly just life...life with incredibly poor timing. Ok...not so interesting.
Um...lemme see. We had steak and baked potatoes for dinner. It was good...not great...and not interesting.
Errr...we used the last roll of Charmin Ultra Strong, terrible stuff...never buy it. Not interesting, but helpful maybe.
Basically no news here...how goes it with you?
The weekend was a nice blend of accomplishment and lazy. D’s birthday went well; presents opened, cake eaten and wishes wished. He isn’t all that keen on birthdays and would prefer as little to-do and possible. Me I want a brass band for mine, and since he won’t celebrate mine as I like, I celebrate his in kind. My own special brand of torture - heh.
Tomorrow (or today if you are reading this on Tuesday) marks the 90 day mark from the wedding. As if on cue my ring arrived at the jewelers today; we plan on going down this weekend to finalize the design and fit. D was already planning on going back to look again for a ring for himself so the timing is perfect. The hotel is in the works; we think we’ll be staying in a suite here. Its more business class than romantic, but it is new, looks comfortable and the ‘suite’ option gives us a small sitting area so we’ll be comfortable if we decide to just relax in the room. Yes, I said ‘relax in the room’. D and I have to go away to sit still ... but trust me, once we are away we are excellent relaxers.
I guess the next step is figuring out what I’m wearing. It’s a surprisingly tough dilemma. On one hand I’d like to be a little romantic, a little lacy,..girlie, if you will. On the other, have you seen a giraffe’s tongue? They’re long, and sticky and covered in goo. A white dress will be white for three seconds or less in that environment and I dont want to be worried the whole time about getting it dirty. I’m also hesitant to spend money on something I’ll never wear again. See? Delima. Maybe something nice for the cruise instead? I’ve done all my looking on-line and I’m toying with visiting a bridal shop. Toying because I feel like I’m wasting their time, and because I keep reading ‘plus-size’ nightmares where women have been flatly refused service because of their size. Thanks, but that’s a life experience I prefer to skip.
I keep telling myself there is still time...but those bells...they’re getting louder every day and there’s still work to be done.
I took advantage of today’s extra minutes of sunshine and did yard work when I got home. Mowing, trimming, edging, sweeping and a little palm trimming are all done. Leaving only llite weeding, straightening the lanai garden and pick-up for tomorrow. Whoohoo! I’m well on my way to a ‘do nothing’ Sunday! Although with dinner planned with my dad and step mom tomorrow there are a lot of other things on the list that have to happen first. Including a surprise detailing of D’s car Sunday morning before he gets up. But once that’s done, and maybe a movie, I’ve declared the rest of the day as mine-all-mine. D is sure to want to spend his b’day on the computer, so I’m hoping to spend mine in front of my favorite machine - the sewing variety.
It’s been a rough week at work; we’ve discovered yet another error in the ‘new’ computer system that tracks all the way back to January. Oh. Joy. But I got as close to entirely caught up as I ever do today so there should be time to sit down with the problem and sort it out, without causing too much behind-ness. A very odd side of me actually likes problems like this; the same one that liked research papers in high school - not that I would have admitted it then. The more day-to-day side of me is well past frustrated with the whole thing; not my job, but the damn program. I dont trust it. Imagine printing out totals of monthy sales, and not being able to believe that they are right. State taxes. County taxes. Warranty and contract claims. I simply dont trust any of it and every time we encounter one of these glitches I trust it less. No wonder the boss doesn’t sleep at night. I’ve no doubt we’ll get to the bottom of it, but its hard not to feel like we should start the entire year over.
Ah well, its the weekend - or close enough - and time to leave work behind for a few hours and concentrate on home. And with luck - relaxation 
When I got home tonight I grabbed my camera with the intention of sharing the outcome of last week’s bead making class. And then I saw the spider. And when her web fell into shadow I went looking for other interesting things around the yard to snap. I found jalapenos, fresh on a nearly forgotton plant, and a flower planted so long ago that I no longer remember what it is. I am always amazed what I can find when I look close enough but what I love about macro is that you’d never guess that the the spider was found on the porch, deep in weeds or the flower is in a vase on the edge of sink full of dirty dishes. Sometimes tightening your focus shows you something you’d otherwise miss...and other times it just hides the ugly. Enjoy.
I am not altogether here today. I woke too early this morning from a dream…actually, a wedding nightmare. It seems a little soon for me to be worried about it (just over three months away) but evidently I am. It was a classic stress dream. We were two hours late for the wedding, and still had to drive to the other coast – so six hours late. I’d forgotten to mail the money to the zoo and the photo/officiant, both of whom require it prior to the actual event, and both of whom I was frantically calling to see if they’d wait and if they’d take my check on arrival. Additionally I was trying to curl my hair, but every curl I put in would relax back out almost immediately because of all the other women getting ready in my bathroom – too steamy. So I gave up on my hair and brushed my teeth instead. The little girls (???) kept cautioning me not to get toothpaste on my dress because I was brushing with RED toothpaste (I hate cinnamon toothpaste) while wearing my clearly second-hand, ill fitting wedding dress; which, by the way, I needed to hem before I left. And everywhere there were people – some I knew, most I didn’t – rushing to get out the door and get to the wedding.
Last night’s dreams prior to this one all had to do with bead making, and torches, and flaming hot glass. Perhaps ending at 9pm is a little too close to bed time – or I’m concentrating too hard. Class was last night instead of Monday, due to a huge snafu on the studio’s part, and will from here forward continue on in its original Tuesday night slot. I’m enjoying it, and I think I’m picking it up quickly, but that’s hard to determine since D is really the only person there I can compare myself to. The older gentleman – who seems to be an art studio groupie – graduated to a mixed gas torch and continued to do his own thing. The half-nekkid-men-mug lady was still content to watch rather than make beads and the newest member, from the intermediate class, was situated at the far corner of the room and pumping out big beads left and right. Of the group she seems the most affable but is also very absorbed in what she is there to do. It’s hard to chat when you are minding a six inch flame and a wad of molten glass so even I tend to keep to myself while working.
We learned to make ‘twisties’ last night; long, thin rods of glass that are twisted from two colors like a candy cane. My first one was pretty good, but I was never able to duplicate it. D was even less lucky and struggled with his; we may try it again on our own this weekend. I can honestly say that the economic crunch that is affecting everyone has finally landed at our doorstep – both at home and at our business. I’ve personally put a moratorium on unnecessary spending and sadly that includes the bead class. I’m not sure how much at home work we’ll do as it’s a somewhat expensive hobby and a very consumptive one; we’ve already burned through two containers of mapp gas. By all rights I should cancel dinner tonight with our neighbor (told ya I’d find a way out of cleaning toilets) but it’s just not seemly. I believe that many little cuts can add up to a big difference, and canceling ‘life’ altogether is probably not the best course. Just think, if I hadn’t bought that $1500 keyboard D wants for his birthday how much better off I’d be (Are you sneaking around in here looking for b’day present hints, honey? Huh? Are ya? You are so not getting that keyboard – beat it, buster). In truth, it’s the added expense of our recent trip to Atlanta, our own wedding spending and the economy that is causing the pinch. So most of it we brought on ourselves – or maybe it was just me, heh.
To cut back we’ve reduced dining out, high end groceries (skip filet mignons – pass the pbj’s) and gasoline. D and I have been carpooling most days of the week. It puts more miles on his car but is saving us two tanks of gas a month – roughly $120. Not a huge savings but one that will add up by September. There is a little room to cut back at home, like on power and water. We were already trying very hard to be more conservative in those areas but we could improve. I still use the oven for our small dinners for two – putting the gas grill to more use would be better. Who knows what I’d save if I were actually on hand when the dryer quits to fold the laundry rather than tumbling it out three times? Someday we should replace the window and doors because there is no doubt that we are air conditioning the neighborhood – believe me that house is no where near air tight. Since that isn’t on the expense list right now we’ll settle for fixing some known leak points – like the valve box for the washing machine that I never finished reinstalling three years ago or the worn out gasket on the sliding door. Turning up the thermostat and living as nudists while indoors might be another option, but I’m not sure we could afford the litigation from any wayward peeping toms that stroke out due to the view, so for now it stays where it is set.
So, when you need to tighten your economic belt where do you cut back?
Parties attended, movies watched and loads of laundry done; the weekend sped by so fast it feels like it should be Wednesday already. I got a little sewing finished – another swap, a picnic tote this time. I admit that I purchased fabric for this one. The theme was red-white-and-blue and I really wanted to work with denim – which I didn’t have. There is enough left to make another one to for toting bead making supplies. I know, stop the planet, Shan is sewing something for herself. All I can say to that is don’t hold your breath…somehow I don’t get quite as worked up over the things I promise myself as I do the ones I promise others. Go figure.
D’s birthday is coming up this weekend and we’ll be celebrating it along with a late father’s day for my dad. I am not prepared for either so evenings this week will be spend cleaning things – that way I’ll have less to do come Saturday. Well, not this evening – bead class. Or Tuesday evening – dinner with a neighbor. Who knows what I’ll dream up for Wednesday? But if it prevents me from having to scrub toilets… heh. In any case, the sort version is: same ‘o’ busy around here.
As a complete aside I must share that my Monday started off better than most because there was a small package waiting for me…an unexpected ‘just because’ from Rox. She discovered some time ago that I have a weakness for poppies and has taken it upon her self to overload me with them (her words). I must admit that this is probably not something I’m going to discourage – heh. Thanks Rox…what a wonderful way to start the week.
Tuesday evening D and I attended our first bead making class. It is definitely something that the instructor makes look crazy easy…believe me when I say it isn’t. Or, it isn’t if you want round beads. If wonky, pregnant beads are what you are after, well then it’s a piece of cake. We were told by the instructor that after your 100th bead they’d be round; for now it is simply a study in how glass reacts to being freakin’ hot. There are four folks in the class, so few that next week we will be combined with the intermediate class on Monday night. The other two people are an older man who has been making beads at home and spent his time doing his own thing all alone at the end of the table, and an almost-but-not-quite-as-old lady who is terrified of the torch and seems to have come to class mostly to watch. She and her ginormous-faded-covered-in-half-nekkid-men thermal cup are assured to be good blog fodder for some time to come.
I enjoyed it, possibly too much as the allure of glass and pattern closely mirrors my attraction to fabric. We went back last night to pick up the finished beads, because D was hopping with curiosity to see how they’d turned out. As expected they are very lopsided and unusable but interesting, and a delight to say “I made that”. We picked up more glass while we were there so we can make beads this weekend. I pilfered some stainless steel from the work junk pile to cover the table, and we purchased a cheap crock-pot last night; those two items plus our supply kit will allow us to torch (lookit – bead lingo) at home. The crock-pot gets filled with vermiculite and cranked up to high then it serves as a controlled cooling spot for the beads, until we can return them to the art’s center to be properly annealed in the kiln (for $3 they’ll do all the beads you want – bargain!).
More than one person has asked ‘why’ we would want to make beads; my dad even suggested that if we made bag full we could probably buy back Manhattan…not, from what I understand, that we’d want it. Our original hope was to meet people, and I suppose we are doing that but so far its better people watching than people meeting. We also wanted something we could do together –it’s a great success in that category and made for a fun and challenging evening. I have no aspirations of selling beads; I doubt very seriously that I will produce anything that cannot already be found on Etsy. There is a great deal to be said for practice making perfect, and I’m comfortable saying that I cannot afford the amount of glass it would take to give me steady hands and flame proof fingers…at least not before the wedding! To be doing something artsy without worrying about being graded; well that is truly pleasurable. I foresee other classes at the art center; D is already eyeballing a tin-smithing class and I am considering one in digital photography. If you’ve never checked into your local parks-and-rec organization I suggest you do so, you might be pleasantly surprised at all they offer. Plus, there is the added bonus that you feel like your money is going to help the community rather than some big craft chain.
Before I go start on our amazingly packed weekend (birthday party tonight, house warming party tomorrow, movie sometime, and minutia spread all through) I have a few photo’s to share. The first is one of me and the bride…starring my fathers @#$% elbow, which is where the camera focused - a lesson in why you should always bracket your photos. Still, it’s a cute photo…honestly, could that woman be prettier (and I do mean the one on the left)?
The second is the bride and groom. Told you my brother was a grinning fool - lol.
The last is a spider I found outside my brother’s house. Again, the focus isn’t quite in the right spot, but I’m still pretty darn pleased with it and am using it as my desktop until I take something else I like better.
Have yourself a fine weekend!
My last two posts might suggest that I didn’t enjoy our trip; not true. Granted it was more whirlwind than I like, had its frustrating moments and was so friggin hot everyone was wilted before they reached the garden gate; there was plenty that made me a happy camper, and I’m not just talking about the two inch thick slice of Challah French toast and mound ‘o’ bacon I had for breakfast one morning – but I gotta admit it was pretty darn joyful! There was, for example, mint shampoo, and mint soap and mint hand cream in the hotel room! Stupid as that sounds it’s amazing what a little dab of minty product will do for my mood…seriously. There wasn’t once I didn’t grin when that pleasing aroma hit my nostrils and that alone made the days that required two or more showers well worth the heat. Those who doubt aroma therapy…you don’t know what you are missing.
I also got to see and for once, spend time with my aunt and uncle. Any time I’ve traveled to their fair state to visit I’ve ended up either at my mom’s or when I was younger my grandparent’s and visiting with my aunt and uncle was relegated to one or two family dinners and shared with what seemed like ninety other folks. This trip we managed to have breakfast together, do a little shopping together, and chat over ‘hell cake’. D even spent some quality time with my uncle as they helped build the stage and mortar a brick sidewalk in preparation for the wedding. D speaks highly of them both…and since I pretty much adore them, that makes me very happy.
My hair was cute for the wedding – for about fifteen minutes. And my make-up equally successful, although most of it had slid to my feet by the time the first photo was shot. If hair and make-up starts off good I’m delighted, where it goes from there is its own business (I rarely re-apply).
And of course, the bit you are waiting for, the wedding was wonderful. One of my all time favorite poems was used as part of the ceremony (drat! I was gonna use it) which made me giddy. The groom couldn’t quit grinning … yes ladies, the last of the ‘he-man-woman-haters’ has been tamed. The bride was beautiful…she pretty much always is. Mom made it through seeing her ex for the first time in 15 years – with flying colors – and seemed to enjoy herself. And the number of people who got up and said something nice about the two of them was astoundingly touching. I was one happy, proud, big sis
I hate when things go missing. I don’t mean the socks the dryer eats, or pens that up and walk away or a certain brake caliper spring that reappeared of its own accord when the worm hole it disappeared into reopened and spat it into D’s hand. I’m no fan of those incidents either, but ‘hate’ is a little strong for those occurrences. It is not, however too strong for the things that went missing on our trip. Like the garment bag. When I started packing, by that I mean mentally packing, I based my plans on a certain garment bag we own. It’s large, has pockets on the front and back and in the upper corners that are perfect for socks, underwear and other incidentals. Considering what kind of room we had, or rather didn’t have, in the Cooper I considered it perfect for our trip as it could lie across the top of everything. But, when I pulled down the huge suitcase, the one that all the other luggage is packed into as if it were a Russian nesting doll, and opened it up (and the next, etc) there was no garment bag. Gone. Evaporated.
The most likely scenario for its disappearance is that I loaned it to someone and forgot about it; forgot so well I’ve no idea of whom to ask of its whereabouts. Gone so well that the only proof I have of its existence is that D recalls that we once had one. Also gone are several other garment bags, the cheap kind you once received when you purchased a suit…probably packed in the big one and living with it somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
The other thing that went missing on the trip was a battery. Not just any battery, but an $85 battery we purchased just for the occasion, to give us longer recording time on our video camera. I remember picking it up from the counter where D left it, and patting myself on the back for remembering it when it was so far removed from the camera bag. I recall putting it with the growing pile of things to take, and believed I had gotten it as far as the camera bag. The wedding started and we set up the camera only to find a low-bat light. No problem, just install the four hour battery. See how worth that last minute, tearing through the building trip to electronics store was? We are prepared! Whoohooo! Yeah. Right. Not. No battery, none. We searched the car, the bags and later the hotel room, and our house. Gone. Swallowed up by some unseen sucking monster with a penchant for batteries.
It’s the wastefulness of it that makes me use the word ‘hate’. I might as well have tossed $85 bucks in the street; at least someone might have gotten some use out of it. As for the twenty dollar bill D thinks is in my brother’s laundry somewhere (he was attacked by a waiter with a plate full of syrup and had to do laundry) well, we’ve already recommended that it be spent on pizza and beer…which isn’t so different that its original intent anyway – heh.
Update: My keys are missing now, and have been since last night. A thorough search has and will continue to be done, but nothing yet....anybody got a particularly ornery kid they want me to watch for a little while?
We are home again, and though there are many little vignettes of the weekend that I want to share, the tale I’m going to tell today is about the cake from hell. Yes, I said ‘cake from hell’ and to be honest, that sentiment is not strong enough. The baking, packing and its travels went off without any problems, in fact it was so perfectly shaped that I had to do very, very little leveling – and that should have been what tipped me off to the disaster it was to become.
Our first day in Atlanta was, for me at least, to be devoted to the cake, but breakfast with family, and grocery shopping carried us past lunch time and into the afternoon. We were working at my brother’s house … the one with the kitchen so tiny that if you turn around fast enough you are likely to bump into yourself. The recipe I chose for frosting was a tough one involving candy making skills that I don’t have but would hold up best in the heat. But it doesn’t ‘make well’ in hot surrounding so I waited until all the boiling of water and poaching of chicken was done before starting; I think the first slap of frosting went on at 4pm – did I mention that I made four flavors of frosting? Yeah. I’m an idiot.
I was maybe mid-way when people started to arrive to eat pizza and drink beer… sixteen people, four or five of which were in the kitchen at any given time. I should have stopped working, but my frustration level was growing along with my dogged determination to finish it. Miraculously the frosting itself was nearly perfect, despite the warm kitchen, but working with it in that heat was miserable. I wanted glossy smooth with neatly piped borders, easy, simple, quick and clean. Not. For the life of me that stuff refused to go down smoothly and instead looked rather like stucco…bad stucco. I gave up for a little while and joined the others outside for pizza and socializing but it wasn’t long before I slipped back to work in the now quite kitchen.
The quiet lasted about twenty minutes and then people began to wander in to cool off, visit and watch the progress (not that there was much). I was working on the last tier when the bride’s brother and my aunt arrived to keep me company. We chatted and laughed while I tried desperately to get the too soft frosting to pipe properly. When I finished that tier I stood to stretch and noticed that the finished middle tier on a nearby counter didn’t look right. Closer inspection told me exactly what was wrong and I played back in my mind who had last been in that spot – the bride’s brother. I looked at him and said “I guarantee that you are shoulder to belt frosting on your back”. He looked at me like I’d flipped and I motioned for him to turn around…his back was covered in vanilla butter cream. While talking he had leaned on the counter, and into the cake. My aunt cleaned him up and I stoically went about correcting the frosting and then shoved the whole mess into the fridge and threw my hands up in disgust.
The plan was to return the next day and give it another shot, which I did, but little changed – still stucco, still not like I wanted. Time was not with me and I was finally forced to admit that it was as good as it was going to get and it was time to deliver it. We loaded it, and traveled with it safely but when D set his tier down he punched a thumb into it. Before I could scold him for it I did the same durn thing! For the second time that day I put the cake somewhere I couldn’t see it and said to myself ‘later – fix it later’.
Hours passed between putting it atop a bookcase and the bride coming to me and saying they were ready for it to be served. To my surprise it had already been moved from the bookcase to a table in the back yard…more thumb holes. So I grabbed up my trusty spatula and icing bag and set about spackling over the stucco. Unfortunately the only thing melting faster than the frosting was my makeup so while the touch ups hid the holes, they looked pretty sad. One of the cakes needed to be piped around the bottom edge to hide the seam where it met the plate. As I was doing that and man appeared in front of me, horribly embarrassed and saying “I’m so, so sorry, he touched the cake. I didn’t even realize he got close to it.” And then he scooped up a little boy I hadn’t even seen and disappeared into the crowd. I finished my piping and went around to the front of the table to find that junior hadn’t just touched the cake, but had sunk that chubby little fist of his into it and snatched out a paw full. I packed the hole with icing, tried to make it smooth and returned to the last tier that needed to be set in the stand, the same tier that had been leaned on. I picked it up, centered it on the stand and promptly dropped it. Luckily it hung on the stand and did nothing but go catty-whompus and cut a big smiley face into the side of it as opposed to splatting on the table. Since I was out of ‘ugly’ sides to turn to the back of the stand I just slathered it over and thanked the powers that be for the fading sunlight, alcohol and poor eyesight of some of the revelers, and for the third and last time walked away from it.
It is the first cake that I neither have nor want a photo of. The only cake that has gone wrong so many times – certainly the first to suffer attack by rabid child and to date it is my biggest disappointment. If I hadn’t wanted so badly for it to be perfect I’m sure it would have gone very differently. It was, at least, very tasty, and garnered several compliments as I was serving. The bride had earlier pointed how special she thought the cake was as it had been made with an extraordinary amount of love and care…well love anyway. Thank goodness she doesn’t know just how many four letter words went in there as well!
Awake again in the bright and ugly; this time because my brain found five things I’d not packed. Things that wouldn’t match up in a nice little list like bread, milk, eggs, butter and instead insisted on rattling around like stones in my brain pan. So, up I am, and the five things are sitting quietly with the luggage and cake cooler waiting for the sun to come up a bit so I can see to start loading the car. I should say - reload as its already clear that what went in last night will have to be shifted to make room for everything else...it’s still a little iffy which vehicle we’ll take. Oh the joy of travel!
With Mackie off to my uncle’s and D still sawing logs the house is unnaturally quiet. The cats know something is up and even the bonanza of cat food that has appeared in the kitchen isn’t enough to entice them to show themselves. It’s probably going to be a quiet around here too, at least untill Monday. We are off this morning, once D is up, and heading about ten hours north. I am looking forward to it, and like any big project, looking forward to it being done. We will be home a little more than a day before we start the next project - glass bead making - we’re looking forward to that too. Exciting days around here, it almost sounds like we have a life.
Take care of yourself and have a nice rest of the week and weekend; I’ll be blathering again soon
Oh how I love to prep for a trip. I was up a little before five this morning because my brain insisted on mulling over all the things to remember. With a list that includes things like mom’s ring, a staple gun, chili paste and stand mixer I guess its no wonder. We’re going to try to take the Mini Cooper - its hard to ignore the gas savings we get driving it - but the pile in the living room is rapidly approaching the same size as the car. I’m no longer sure there’ll be room for us - heh. Luckily, ‘Pepper’ (the car) is deceptive and easily packs more that it would appear to; we may yet make it. We’re loading the majority of it tonight for an earlt start Thursday so we’ll know soon enough.
In other news, I never fail to get excited over a sale on Ebay. I can’t keep from visiting my summary page to check on my auctions. I’m gradually listing things to help raise wedding money. I have four items listed and three will sell; the fourth has a watcher so it’s possible it could go too. When I get back from Atlanta I’ll fire up the sewing machine and serger and finally make my run at Etsy. I’ve a dollar goal in mind - a combination of sales from Ebay and Etsy, and its a tall order, but like the packing the car...it’s possible. We’ve planned most of the money set aside for the event itself, but some ‘fun’ money would be nice.
On that note, D and I were talking budget last night, and I mentioned tipping the photographer and officiant. I know that there is a lot of tipping in weddings, and I’ve found on line articles both for and against. D says, ‘no way, we’re paying for the service’. Me, I’m torn and could go either way. What would you do?
Is there any thing better than a good pedicure and a cute pair of shoes? I say, “Not much!”
This, plus a day of baking, made for a nice weekend. There is still much to do prior to our trip, but things are coming together and the bride and groom are back in the states and answering emails as fast as they can type. There have been some bumps – like the friend who was going to officiate cant make it – but the to-be-weds are taking things in stride and have adopted a ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude which is probably for the best at this late hour.
It did rain a bit this weekend, short furious bursts that barely rinsed off the cars, but the weather know-it-alls are saying that this heralds the beginning of our normal rainy season pattern. That means it will rain somewhere everyday at 3pm – heh. It also means the shrubs I planted recently might make it. I don’t care how diligently you hand water nothing beats a good rain. It’s so dry here now that every day brings a new brush fire and the air quality is pretty dismal. I’m semi miserable; I can’t imagine how people with respiratory problems are coping. Not too well I’ll bet. Hopefully by the end of the week the air will be much cleaner.
Otherwise there is little of interest to report here…proof of my advancing age when the weather and someone else’s wedding are the only topics I can come up with. LOL.