Boot-scootin'

Dear world. Thank you for finally having a fashion trend that I can work with.  This skirt, legging, boot thing?  Is FABULOUS!  And not just for me…I think it is a look that FOR REAL can look good on anyone.  Skinny minis look good in it.  Tall chicks look great (there are few fashion trends that DON’T favor the tall). Short girls can modify it to look taller.  Even, er, Rubenesque women like yours truly can rock this look.  And it’s comfortable.  It can be worn in the deadest of winter with thick, thick leggings and a sweater or it can work in milder weather with light weight tights, a tunic and ankle length boots.

Now here comes my complaint.  The only skirts I am finding in my size are black.  Black, black, black.  I bought two black skirts…one wool and one with some kind of stretch to it.  And they are great, don’t get me wrong.  If I wanted more black skirts in my size, I could have any number of them.  I have found them at Walmart for as low as $9. I found three different cuts of black skirt at Dillards.  Target had your basic black pencil skirt.  And that’s lovely, really.  I have a trendy pair of black boots and a number of tops that look good with the whole ensemble.

But then the other day, I bought a pair of brown boots.  My daughter found them on JustFab.com.  She got herself a gray pair, I got the brown…because if you bought two pairs, the shipping was free.  And they ACTUALLY had a brown pair of boots with a wider calf.  They arrived just 3 days after we ordered them (am now a HUGE JustFab.com fan) and the boots actually fit like they were made for me.

Only I can’t find a brown skirt.  Anywhere.  That’s when the abundance of plus-sized black skirts became apparent to me.  You can’t sling a dead cat in this town without hitting a store selling black skirts.  But not brown.  Never, ever brown.  If a store is feeling particularly diverse in its offerings to the curvaceous, you MIGHT score a gray skirt.  In my pursuit of a brown skirt I even ran across this houndstooth number that I snagged immediately (I live in Alabama, people WALLPAPER in houndstooth down here).

 But still no brown skirt.  What’s the dealio?  I’ve seen brown skirts in other sizes.  Many brown skirts.  Why don’t they want fat chicks to have brown skirts?  Why? I have some perfectly adorable brown boots languishing away in my closet.  I need a freaking brown skirt.

Blinded me with science

I have a new theory regarding some of the basics of quantum physics.

Basically an addendum to the Schrodinger's cat experiment.

It is thus:
Cats hate science.  If you want to get any experimenting done at all, you're better off locking them in a box.
I'm almost certain that Schrodinger came up with HIS theory out of sheer frustration of trying to get anything done with a cat around.

Below is photographic evidence to support my theory:

Daughter had to make a car that ran off of the energy of a mouse-trap spring:

Maxx:  What the....Hey!  Is someone trying to do science in the foyer???

Maxx: I will eviscerate the demon-science machine! Nom, nom, nom!

Science was momentarily halted while Maxx was chased off and the string repaired.

Then this happened:

Daisy: Whoa, now!  What's this? Science?  In my house?  I think not!

Daisy: Science is no match for my feline incisors!

Daisy: Hold up now!  What do you think you're doing?

Daisy: The fact that I stepped to the side in no way indicates that I will put up with this "experiment" nonsense.

Daisy: I am stalking Science so well, I am nothing but a blur.

Daisy: Wa-pow! I attack you, Science-machine! Take that!

Maxx:  I think we won, Daisy.  Do you smell any Science over there?

Daisy:  All clear here!

Maxx: Heeeeyyyy....what's Mom doing with a box, a small amount of radioactive isotope and that Geiger counter?

Let's go check it out!

Bowing to the inevitable

A quick word about belly-button rings.

I. Hate. Them. (a quick three words, then)

In my last post, I talked about allowing my daughter to get her belly button pierced.  I think I may have failed to convey in that post how very, very much I dislike belly button piercings.  I'm not anti-piercing across the board.  I myself have two piercings each in my earlobes and one in each helix (upper ear cartiladge). I have seen very nice, discreet side nose piercings (I will never be on board with those bull-to-the-market looking nose piercings).  I don't REALLY mind eyebrow piercings if the person fits it. Not a huge fan of the tongue piercings but that's mostly because most folks speak like they've got a mouth full of marbles when they have a tongue ring.

But I have never, ever liked belly button piercings.  Honestly, I think it looks like a fishing excursion with PawPaw has gone tragically wrong.  A quick Google image search of bellybutton rings and I found this:

It was on a site called www.bellybling.net and was NOT a joke.  How can you look at that and tell me that it DOESN'T look like you've gotten snared by a fishing lure?

I fought the good fight regarding the bellybutton ring.  She started asking for one when she was 14.  The majority of her friends had one by the age of 16.  She's 17 & 11/12ths...I wasn't going to be able to prevent it for very much longer anyway.  As a Mom, you pick your battles.  And the kiddo could have just waited the extra few weeks out, but asked me if I would please consent to her doing this...it felt...almost ritualistic.  Probably silly...but I sort of felt like giving her permission to indulge in some goofiness right before she didn't need permission anymore was a good thing for both of us.

P.S. Want a good laugh?  Google image bellybutton rings.  There are all flavors of RIDICULOUS out there.

Stuck in the Middle

So I learned something new today.

It all started with wanting to make Turkey Tetrazzini.  Stacey Ballis (wonderful author...love her books...wonderful chef...though most of her recipes are a little above my abilities) had posted a recipe here on her blog.  It looked easy enough to pull off and her suggestions a couple of posts earlier about dry brining a turkey had resulted in the best turkey I have ever presented for Thanksgiving.  Even Jeff liked it, and he is not a poultry fan.  Anyway, the recipe called for sherry.  I didn't have anything but cooking sherry and asked Ms. Ballis on her blog if that would do.  She replied (did I mention that she's really nice too?) that the real thing really was worth the effort of my getting out of my PJs, putting on a bra and combing my hair to go get.

My black Friday plans usually do not include doing any of those things...unless I get leftover gravy on me and have to change my pajama top.  As soon as I got into the shower, the kiddo was alert to the fact.

Somehow, someway, over the last few days when I was off work and she was out of school, she had convinced me to let her get her bellybutton pierced "sometime."  She's about a month away from 18...at which point she could do it without my consent.  I'm not exactly sure how it happened, during our 10 hour long "Modern Family" watching marathon and mother/daughter bonding session, she convinced me that it would mean a lot to her if I went ahead and let her do it with my consent and my presence.  Now that I was washed, dressed and combed, she wanted to do it now.

I had gotten the health ratings of a few local establishments and we decided on a place called "Artistic Additions."  After stopping into Winn Dixie for the sherry (not the finest of sherries...but I only needed 1/4 cup) we headed over to the tattoo/piercing place.

For the day after Thanksgiving, I thought the parking lot was surprisingly full.  We went in...apparently some (odd) folks like to hang out in tattoo shops.  There was an area with couches and chairs and a TV and several highly-inked late-teen/early 20-somethings with many metal protuberances lounging about.  They didn't pay us much attention.  We found the guy running the counter and inquired about piercing the daughter's belly button.  Nice enough fellow, he gave us the waiver to sign and took the kiddo back for her piercing:

 

 

 

While he was sterilizing everything in the autoclave, I noticed a whole wall of the shop dedicated to someone named Percy Waters...a native of our town. 

There were several of his pictures, a tombstone rubbing, some magazine articles and a copy of his 1929 patent of the electrical tattoo machine.  Apparently, Mr. Waters's design is the basis for modern-day tattooing equipment  and until recently, his Anniston, AL based company was the largest tattooing supply company in the US.

 

So that's the something new I learned today.  Also?  The Turkey Tetrazzini was delish.

 

Celebrate!

Last year, I completely dropped the ball.  It was a perfect storm of late business travel, out-of-town guests coming in, Thanksgiving coming BEFORE, the fact that there was nothing in particular he wanted as a gift...

Still none of that is really an excuse for only half-assing my husband's birthday.  He was very good-natured about it...as he is about so many things.  And of course, he is not the birthday diva that I am.  We didn't FORGET his birthday or anything...but we didn't give it a whole lot of attention either.  The gifts he got were appreciated...but still a little "meh."...nothing there that really flipped his wig.  We were still stuffed from Thanksgiving, and had two refrigerators full of food, so we didn't do anything particularly special meal-wise either.

I was determined that this year, I would try to make up for all of that.

Even though he had to work on his special day...I had snuck out in the middle of the night to purchase freshly made Dunkin Donuts and place them with a sweet note in the passenger's seat of his car where he'd see them first thing.  I had already purchased his gifts ahead of time and got those all wrapped and ready.

One of them...a brand-spankin new iPhone 5s I had to go get ready for the change-out as soon as he had it opened (he needs to download his old busted 4 (no s) with his contacts and all before the hand over actually takes place).  But I got all of the paperwork and legwork done.

The other gift was a game for his new Xbox One system...and something the whole family will actually play together...a Lego game.  This one with the Marvel characters.  Very cool.

While he was at work, I set about making his very favorite dish of all time...spicy red clam sauce with linguine.

It came out perfectly.  I cheated a bit because I found the refrigerated noodles in the grocery store and went with those instead of home made...but it was DELISH...
The sauce isn't HARD to make, but it does take some time.  Abbreviated recipe:
sauté 8 garlic cloves and a two bay leaves in 2 Tbl olive oil.
remove garlic & leaves, add 1 cup of chopped onion to the olive oil.
chop the cooked garlic and return to the sauté-ing onion.
Add:

1 large can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
1Tbl chopped basil (fresh is better, dried will do)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper (cayenne)
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
Another bay leaf

Drain 3 cans of chopped clams...put 1 cup of the juice into the sauce

bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer....simmer for 30ish minutes and then add the clams...simmer for another 15ish minutes.

chopped fresh parsley sprinkled on top if desired.  Jeff doesn't like, so I just have it to the side for whoever wants to sprinkle it on top after making their plate.


And because we aren't really cake people, I decided to make one of his favorite pies...a peanut butter pie:

 

I didn't think to take a picture before-hand...so this is after we murdered it.  The holes are where the candles were.  If you aren't from the South, you may not have ever had the wonder of an ice-box peanut butter pie.  It is heaven.  You take a cup of peanut butter, a cup of cream cheese, a cup of confectioner's sugar and a dash of vanilla and mix until smooth.  In another bowl, you make fresh whipped cream (1 1/2 cups whipping cream and a 1/4 cup sugar).  You fold the two together and put into a graham cracker crust (you can make your own...but the store bought tastes as good and is too easy to pass up).  Pop into the refrigerator for a couple of hours.  If you serve with coffee, you can reduce the probability of your guests dropping off into a coma after they eat it.  Otherwise, all bets are off.

 

After the meal, but before the presentation of gifts, the daughter decided that the whole house needed in on the festivities:

 

They are every bit as pissed off as you would imagine.  Maxx was at first thoroughly disgusted:

 

But later got a little violent over the fact that the daughter would NOT LET IT GO ALREADY:

 

You can't really tell in this picture, but the kiddo had decided that since Maxx didn't seem TOO affected, (the other cats all walked backward until they fell off the table and then continued to walk backward until they hit a wall, like they could somehow back out of the hats) she'd make him into a sort of feline-stega-bday-a-saurus and put pointy birthday hats all down his back...at which time he completely lost his patience and all of HIS pointy ends came out.  He was like a fluffy, festive chainsaw.  I told the kid that if I were her, I'd lock my door that night.

All-in-all, everyone agreed (MOST importantly the hubs) that we had a birthday success and that I had redeemed myself from the mediocre birthday celebration of last year.



Coming home

We had a welcome home party last night for one of my nearest and dearest friends...my sweet, sweet Jacquie.  She is a doctor/surgeon and for the last year, she has been helping out in New Zealand.  I was at her farewell party last year...my going away gift was a necklace with a compass on it...so that she could find her way home.  Jacquie got to spend a year in a wonderful, beautiful country where she used her gift of compassion and her talents as a doctor to help others.  And then she came home.
Last night we had a wienie roast for her...one of the only things that the bright, beautiful country of New Zealand did NOT have to offer was a good hot dog.  As we spent the evening welcoming her back...we ate, drank and were merry.

I was sitting out back just talking to another of the party-goers and I heard it...Jacquie's unrestrained laugher.  She was gathered 'round a fire with some of the other guests and she was laughing at something someone said.  I wasn't paying attention until I heard her laugh.  No one laughs like my Jacquie does.  It is full of joy and sunlight and love.  It sounds like coming home.  I am so glad she's back.

Score!

On this day, one score and eight years ago, in the year of our Lord 1985, a particularly fine and strapping young man (and buddy do I mean FINE) decided that he needed to make a change in his routine.
As the celebration of his 17th birthday drew nigh, and the leaves began to change and the weather grew blustery and cold, he realized that his regular weekend activity of cruising through the parking lots of Moore's (the local hangout/arcade) and Taco Bell with his buddies was getting less and less fun as the temperature continued to drop.  Also, less and less people were doing it...instead, they were seeking indoor entertainment.  That was when he decided, "I need to find a girlfriend for the winter."

And so he did...with every intention of flying free again once the weather turned favorable for more of whatever antics young studly men get up to when improperly supervised.

The young lady, however, realized what a wonderful catch she had snagged and had other plans.

 

28 years later...here we are.

I love you, honey.