Isaac's Crib: Bachelor Pad Curtains

Isaac isn't even out of the womb yet, and he has already let his crib turn into a frat boy bachelor pad.  Bottles everywhere - clothes all over the floor - enough white powder to send him to the clink for 80 to life.  I'm pretty sure I saw a hooker climbing out of his window as we walked in, but I'm not 100% so I am letting it go.

In all honesty, the people to blame for the room disaster are the parents of the students in Jen's third grade class.  It was recently teacher appreciation week, and instead of doing the typical flowers, snacks, candy, etc., they decided to make a baby themed week of gifts for her.

Diaper Monday

Tub Tuesday - bath supplies, wash clothes, towels

Wipe Wednesday - baby wipes

Thoughtful Thursday - baby clothes, books, treats for Jen

Their generosity was ridiculous.

So ridiculous that I had to climb over their mountains of benevolence just to get the damn curtains I made hung up.

Then I shoved everything to one side of the room so I could get a clean picture to show the curtain addition. 

That's how the legit bloggers roll.  Shoving.  Any beauty emanating from the creation in the lens needs to be balanced by piled tension behind the camera.  

This is a closer look at the curtain fabric that matches the wall stripes and is accented in his crib quilt.  Isaac will have a keen sense of complimentary colors and fabric balance.  I'll make sure of it.

I put in blackout fabric for the lining, because when I babysit and want to pass out on that plush orange rug, the only thing that better wake me up is the chills from my blood alcohol level dipping too low.

And just so you can sleep comfortably tonight, we did get that mountain of generosity all organized and put away before I left.  But that's it for me.  Once Isaac shows up in about a month the room cleaning is all up to him.  And the next lady of the night I see trying to sneak out of his room is in for it. There will be a Heidi chase down...so I can give her a business card for any inappropriate attire she might need.

Sippers & Skimmers

...For when you want to coordinate what's going to your head with what is already there. 

Is it possible to look good with a beer bottle sticking out of your drink? I want to try.

Links: Corona Rita & Eugenia Kim

Sipper Photo: (and where the niece or nephew that draws my name for Christmas can purchase me a set of the cocktail glass bottle holders) - Xtreme Barware

Order Up: In The Black Plates

I met Jackie at a craft bazaar last fall.  A craft bazaar with a $40 registration fee, where I was positioned only feet away from the gourmet coffee hut, with the church lady baked good table in between.  You could say that I was destined to lose money that day.

Jackie endured my cheesy sales pitch "Get a head start on Christmas gifts...these items are food safe ...sealed and cured...recommend hand wash...look it's a Santaur!"

When she told me that she was interested in having me paint the two maroon plates perched on her kitchen wall and took my business card, I assumed she was executing the ol' 'ego stroke and bolt'. A classic craft fair getaway technique.  No worries, I had a church-lady-made pumpkin scone (or two) with my name on it.

My sales total was $40 that day.  The only thing I took home (besides unsold product) was the crumbs of a scone and some cranberry bread that had managed to work past the modest neckline of my sweater to sit all itchily in my brassiere.  That usually only happens with movie theater popcorn, but I guess it is just anything that I eat aggressively.

A few weeks later, Jackie emailed me pictures.  She wanted something decorative on her plates that coordinated with her valances.  And I wanted a magic pill that melted away my holiday pounds.

One of us was in luck.

I sent several different idea sheets to Jackie to narrow down the style and held the paint flip book up to her valances to choose colors.  She lives just down the road so it was consultation convenience at it's best.

After painting began, Jen came over and asked to see the valance picture.

Me:  What do you think? I think the design will look nice.
Jen: You should have offered to make her new valances first.

I wish she were in charge of my sales department instead of me.

I should give myself more credit.  With this project complete, I am finally in the black for that fall craft bazaar.

Yes, even after the coffee and church lady treats.

I wonder how much the church ladies made that day?  It had to be ridiculous.  Like Spanx sales in the beginning of December.  I don't know last fall's going rate for the crack they put in those scones, but I like to imagine that the snifter glasses weren't shy on the brandy at the Ladies Aid meeting the following Thursday.  They tell me it is the only appropriate chaser for Gertrude's 'Better Than Sex Cake'... unless Clarice brings her Virginia Slims. Then that works too.

Order Up: Fix The Door

If saving the Rock County Star Herald's - On The Record sections makes me a hoarder, then yes, I am a filthy, sordid squirrel and On The Record be my sweet weekly nuts.

It paid off when I received a request from a Luverne native whose husband also finds delight in the police department chronicles.  For an instant I worried that I wouldn't have enough fodder to make another stand, but then quickly remember my roots.  Luverne may be scant on grocery locales and places to eat after 9 PM, but there is plenty of crazy to go around.

I called it Fix The Door

Honestly, I didn't mean that crazy comment bad.  It is good crazy.  Phoenix has felony/capital punishment crazy.  I feel like if the career criminals here would have had someone call their ass in the first time that they put on that blaze orange ski mask and ran around naked after cars then things wouldn't have gotten so far out of hand for them.

Dispatch: Attention all units. We have a Code 83 on Blue Mound Ave.
Deputy Dwayne:  Jay Jay or Hum Diddler?
Dispatch: That'd be a Diddler.
Deputy Dwayne:  Damn it. It's my cousin, Bucky. Can we keep this one out of the paper?
Dispatch: That'd be a negative.  He'll learn from this.

In the end, there was more than I could squeeze onto one plate.  And it kept pouring in every week, so I decided to get ahead of the game and made:

Your Brother Is An Ass 
Available on Etsy

And two new paper weights:

Nap Time
Available on Etsy

and Red Touch
Available on Etsy

So much gossip.  So little time.

Patty Gets A Jacket

I got chills, they're multiplyin', and I'm losin' control

Cause the power she's supplyin', it's electrifyin!

And by 'she' I mean my friend Lori.  Who stole the show as Patty Simcox in Luverne High School's magnetic 1997 rendition of GREASE.

It's obvious from the yearbook photo, right?  There's Lori in the front and center with only Marty Maraschino (like the cherry) and Roller Waitress at her heels.

She became Patty. Lived Patty. Breathed Patty.  And now, 15 years later, she is bringing Patty back

...to her bedroom.

No.  That's not her bedroom there.  That is the hotel we all stayed at after her posh bachelorette party.  Right before the pizza guy showed up. Around 3AM. Yes, of course she answered the door.

Lori's wedding is this summer, and in keeping with the tradition of tailoring risque role-playing boudoir outfits for my engaged friends, I made her that Patty Simcox inspired number.

But I didn't call it 'Patty Simcox'.

You heard that right.  Patty Suckscock.

That waiter heard it correctly too.

If you are familiar with Grease, you know that Patty wasn't part of the Pink Ladies.  She was a cheerleader, student council officer and honor roll representative, but not quite badass enough for club inclusion. 

You know who is badass enough? Lori.  She was all those good things that Patty was.

And also, got pulled over for driving us around town when we were 14 and didn't have licences, got a loitering ticket outside the Subway, and even donned the rubber gloves that poured fox pee on the cars belonging to the senior guys that had peed on, egged and floured my car.  

One of those cars belonged to her boyfriend.  

And when that boyfriend's mom called the next day to inquire about if we had poured it directly into his heating system (we hadn't) and, why would you girls do something like that, Lori calmly asked if she knew about the things they had done to my car, shared a few, and then ended the conversation with a smile and likely a "Yep, you bet. Take care!"

She was born to have that jacket.

I considered making the jacket say "In-The-Pink Ladies" but didn't.  Because even I know when things are going too far. 

Or maybe I just didn't want it to detract from the Scotty dogs doing it doggy style on the poodle skirt.  I forget.

For the accessory pack I serged a pink organza neck scarf and then purchased the items below.

Those tassels?  They are the 'shirt' that goes with the look.

And those shoes? The only size left was Lori's.  On clearance for $5.

If that isn't a message of  <in the voice of your chosen deity>  "Go forth, my child, with your Patty Suckscock and spread joy to the world."  then I don't know what is.

Some things from our pasts will stay there.  Some will be inappropriately adapted for the future.  And some, if we are lucky, will be constant, like the friendship of our Patty Suckscock that supports us through automobile vandalism via animal urine, countless batches of monster cookies, some pole dancing, and all the beautiful adventures yet to come later in life.

What's that you say Lori from 1998?

 I can't speak for LHS, but I will speak for the waiter from the bachelorette party.

"Thanks again ladies.  And congratulations Patty Suckscock."

Project Info:
Jacket: Simplicity Pattern 2812 Bodice with shawl collar and sleeves (no bottom)
Poodle skirt tutorial: Made
Pick up riffles under the skirt: Melly Sews
Cat eye glasses: Party City
Tassels and Shoes: (Mom, don't click on this link) Fascinations

D to the I Distraction: Derby Date

I finally had my date with the Kentucky Derby.  

Jealously perusing all the grandiose hat photos. And after that, enviously admiring the mouthwatering drinks sucked down by my 'brethren in the same tax bracket' sweating it out on the Infield.

This was my favorite.

Photo: Weasie Gaines

I tried really hard to choose something not red with sequins, but I couldn't.  I refuse to apologize.

When I'm 70, I am going to wear this one.

Photo: Weasie Gaines

And all the diamonds are going to be real and I am going to pull them off when I leave and give them out to the best DIY hats made by my drunk friends from the Infield that are now in a much lower tax bracket than I.

Just to add some non-red sequin diversity to the Derby mix, I will give out a few more awards.

Best Height: If my red number up top would have had the feather stature that this one does, I would have been completely smitten.

Photo: Liam Spradlin

Best Dressed Couple: It goes to the guy with the Charlie Chaplin hat and his lovely date.  I wonder what it would take to get my Anthony into something matchy like that?  I hope roofies are still around by the time that I can afford to attend the Derby.

Photo: Dan Dry / Power Creative

Best Infield couple:  "Guys Hung Like A Horse."  Like a dead, limp, lifeless horse.

Photo: Donald Vish

Best Derby Badass:  I want to be friends with her.

Photo: Weasie Gaines

Best DIY Hat:  I pray that it is actually DIY.  The base looks expensive, but that ribbon wrap around the wire stems is rough.  "A" for effort.  And what the hizzy, I will give her the award for 'Making Me Want To Get Into the Hat Business" too.

Photo: Andrew Kung

Best Hat for "I'm Going To Try and Nab a Rich Husband Here, and if I Wake Up in the Morning and Can't Find My Dress, Then I Can Use My Immense Hat To Cover My Wobbly Bits As I Leave the Hotel."

Photo: Kinetic

 Best Smokey-Drinky Photo Bomb:

Photo: Sam English

And finally.  New this year.

The "Thank God. Now I Don't Actually Have To Talk With 'The Help' Award."

Photo: Dan Dry / Power Creative

Links:  Kentucky Derby There are so many lovely pictures to check out.

School Days: When Life Gives You Lemons

When life gives you lemons...

Water down the juice and sell your sour pucker cups to elementary school parents under the ruse of 'donating the money to charity.'

Wait.  That's a college lesson. The third graders at my favorite elementary school actually followed through with the donation.

The fundraiser was started by last year's batch of budding nine-year-olds.  Spring for them meant learning about business.  Business costs, supply and demand, advertising, sales pitches.  All the fundamentals paralleled with reading the action packed novela The Lemonade Wars.  It was all just another random lesson until the day before spring break 2011. That day one of their sixth grade friends died in the hallway from an ongoing heart condition. During their sadness and hurt, and with the help of their teachers, they decided to start their own businesses for an upcoming school event to raise money for the Phoenix Children's Hospital.  A place routinely frequented by their sixth grade buddy.

Each third grade class picked a business.

Lemonade Stand
Manicure Station
Candygrams
Tattoos

Sort of a One-Stop-Salon-Shop if you will.

The business hours were set for 'Celebrate Learning Night' when every grade level would be lovingly leading/dragging their parents through the hallways.

Jen asked last year's kids to come up with as many advertising ideas as they could.

Sign spinning. Great.
Commercials for the school news. Let's do it.
Ask Ms. Heidi to sew us a lemon costume like that pizza guy that stands on the corner by Slices. Um, I'll ask.

Of course she knew I would say 'yes.'  She was just being polite.

Just like I said yes when this year's class needed lemontastic T-shirt iron-ons with their snappy slogan.

The four classes together raised $740 last Thursday night.

And I delightedly watched 22 mini entrepreneurs work a lemon costume with more ferocity than the Suns Gorilla on crack.  If I was a fightin' girl I would have driven the lemon above down to the corner by Slices and had her tell the Pizza costume, "You better call Pizza Hut, because you just got pizowned!"

Let's be real.  The only thing that stopped me from making that drive was the fear of kidnapping charges.

Some of the success of the night could be credited to Isaac's belly advertising too.  I hope that he has as much heart and generosity as those third graders.  And I hope he likes costumes because it is out of his hands until he can utter the words, "Please Ms. Heidi, I don't want to wear the Mr. T headpiece anymore."