The hardest part is over

I don't mind buying and wrapping gifts for the holidays. I don't mind standing in line to mail them. I don't mind the cooking and cleaning that come with the holidays.

I do MIND trying to figure out what to wear to holiday parties.

My office party invitation says "casual formal". What the hell does that mean? Men need a tux but they can wear tennis shoes with it?

Big Princess was home from college last weekend and I made her follow me around to 7 different stores where I probably tried on 30 outfits. (Hey, somebody's got to zip up those ball-breaking, inconveniently placed zippers.) I still didn't find anything that demanded I buy it right then and there, it was so perfect. I did have an outfit put on hold. It was almost $200 before any accessories. I figured Big Daddy better love it before I drop that on a dress I'll only wear about 10 hours (between 3 holiday parties, in separate cities).

So I dragged him to Dillard's the next day. He wasn't impressed (i.e. he just shrugged is shoulders). He picked out a couple of dresses and I tried them on and hey, this dark blue satin cocktail dress is pretty and less than $100. I didn't think he'd go for it but I suggested we go downstairs and look at the shawls. After looking at and hold 10 of them up to the dress, we finally selected a silver satin one.

Ok, now I'm really pushing my luck. "Hey honey, shoes are just right over there and I wonder if they have anything to match my outfit." I cringed, waiting for the beating and angry words to spew forth from his mouth. He said, Ok.

After 13 different shoes, the silver, perfectly matched to my outfit shoe screamed, "I'm on sale, BUY ME bitch before the tired-of-your-shit salesclerk decides to charge you triple for me!"

So if "casual formal" means cocktail dress with slutty stilettos, I'm totally ready for the holidays.















* Imagine my toenails a deep, dark blue.

Googled and got me instead:

1. gym locker
2. say "i love you" bad cell phone reception
3. "when i hug people"
4. goggles no glue johnny depp
5. ps i love you johnny depp
6. P.S. i love you explanation
7. neice panties

I may just start throwing around the name Johnny Depp in every post since it seems to bring people to me. (I love you Johnny Depp. Call me!)

I have no idea what someone was looking for by googling "goggles no glue johnny depp". I mean, what does Johnny Depp have to do with "no glue"? (I'm assuming the "goggles" thing is from Johnny Depp playing Willie Wonka.)

And #7? WTF? They had better have meant "nice".

Anyways...

ps. I Love You Johnny Depp

Ha ha hahahaha... ahhh, no thanks.

Does anyone have any PeptoBismal?

Big Princess came home from college this weekend for one of her favorite events, Dinner and a Movie. I preview a movie and write down every piece of food or something resembling food that appears in the movie. I then serve it during that exact moment in the movie. She has been trying to get me to do Willie Wonka for probably 5 years. Some of the movies I can remember doing:
Bruce Almighty
Dragonfly
Saved
Never Cry Wolf

My excuse is that I will not be responsible for the sugar overdose of 8 teens and it doesn’t have a religious tie-in, that and I didn't want to drop $100 on candy. But I finally gave in. They wanted the old version, not the Depp one and that surprised me because they are all big Johnny Depp fans. To their credit, he does just look weird and creepy in this movie remake.

For the movie that they thought would result in 10 lbs of candy each, we had:
Cabbage soup and bread (I can't believe that 2 of the 6 asked for seconds)
Candy, of course (gummy bears, almonds, kisses, fruit rollups, gum, ½ lb. bar of chocolate for the winning ticket)
Chocolate milk (for the river scene)
Everlasting gobstoppers (couldn't find in the store so BP made them by microwaving 5 jelly beans together)
Tomato soup (the kids say I make the best ever)... Secret ingredient= homemade salsa
Roast beef
Baked potato
Blueberry pie
Fizzy soda
Hardboiled eggs (for the goose that lays the golden egg)

They left with large, sore bellys. I warned them.









Who said:
"I've just decided to switch our Friday schedule to Monday, which means that the test we take each Friday on what we learned during the week will now take place on Monday before we've learned it. But since today is Tuesday, it doesn't matter in the slightest."

Its just like 7th grade all over again!

OMG, my friend, she's like not talking to me and she won't tell me why--cause she's not talking to me. And my mom is totally freaking out over Thanksgiving, and I'm like "that's two months away. I can't even think about it yet." Oh, and I still need to find some gloves for my Halloween costume.

In school news:

I rock at decimals and fractions and converting fractions to decimals and decimals to fractions and comparing decimals and fractions to each other. I'm pretty good at Texas history too. I read 3 chapters tonight about Spanish and French missions. I'd give myself a B+ if the teacher let me make up my own grade. Tonight I did an awesome political cartoon about the bird wars (whatever that is), in color! This morning I wanted to go to tutoring before school but the secretary wouldn't let me because I didn't have an appointment.

I was like "what...ever"!

So I just went to work instead.

Little princess is kicking my ass and making me repeat 7th grade with her. Last week she was failing math and reading so I buckled down and helped her achieve a 74 by Friday, the end of the grading period.

Unbeknownst to me, she quit doing any work in science and language arts that whole week... so she could focus on math and reading, and she flunked both classes with a 63.

So now I spend Monday and Tuesday playing catch up in science and language arts when today I get an email from the Texas history teacher. The little shithead has not turned in any homework for the last three days!

I blame her retard genes on my husband--cause I'm rocking all this homework.

Rebooting

Have you ever awoken and felt like someone hit the Ctrl, Alt, Delete keys of your brain?

I laid down for a nap on Sunday, not because I was particularly tired, more like because there was time. It was a little late for a nap (3 pm) but I haven't napped for more than 1 hour in the last year or two so I didn't think it would affect my ability to fall asleep that night.

Next thing I know, Big Daddy was attempting to gently wake me up. The sun was low in the sky and I could see the clock glowing 6:30 but 6:30 when?

I struggled to sit up and Big Daddy asked me, "You want me to wake you, right?"

I tried to process why he was even home on a Monday morning instead of at work. I said "Oh, that's ok but I don't have to be up until 7."

He replied, "Honey, its Sunday."

"Oh, what time do we need to be in Corpus Christi?"

He looked puzzled and then said, "Ahhh, that was last Sunday."

"So we've already been to church? Ok, I remember, then we went to the Sunday School pool party. Ok, you want me to make dinner, right?"

I can't believe how disorienting a 3 and a half hour nap can be when you aren't in practice.

The 7', 7 lb. Mommy

I remember when both my girls thought I walked on water. I was the smartest, prettiest, bestest person on earth. Little princess made me a mother’s day card in first grade that I still have. It says I am 7 ft. tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and I weigh 7 lbs. (I love that kid). She also says I love broccoli and pizza. So, 4 out of 6 ain’t bad.

I remember the exact moments that each girl realized I did not know everything. The older they got, the less they thought I knew. But I pretty much know from experience each and every broken heart, guilty thought, and doubt either of them has ever had.

Little princess is just starting that hard path of adolescence. She doesn’t want to ask for help, not in school, not in life. She confessed that a boy asked her out at school. I asked her what she told him. “I didn’t know what to say, so I took off running.” (thoughts in my head: Hmmm, is she wanting my advice.)

Ooops, I think everyone should remember she’s 12 and 5/6th’s years old and every moment of middle school is a life or death deal breaker and if you’ve called 28 of your closest friends and no one answers, you are allowed to talk to your mom but don’t expect her to understand.

As Big Princess has grown into adulthood (she’ll be 20 before this year’s over), I think she is reverting to childhood memories of her mom being intelligent. She still keeps her secrets but she seems to be more open to my advice. Of course I am still waiting for her to actually take any of my advice but hey, she’s listening and that’s a start.

Its hard to watch them grow. Sometimes (i.e., every friggin day), I want to tell my girls exactly what they can and cannot do, what will and will not happen, what they should and should not do, what they can and cannot achieve without getting hurt, whether its a physical, emotional or spiritual wound. But each day I have less and less right to plan their lives. What would I really achieve by mapping out their whole lives for them in a totally safe manner. Would it really be a life worth living? for any of us?

Thank the Lord, my Father gave me free choice…and forgiveness. Can I give my girls any less?

Disclaimer: And no, this is NOT permission for Big Princess to get a tattoo and ask for forgiveness later. I will still bust your ass. And that’s a promise!

Finally an answer to the world's last unanswered question!

Ok, I actually think this answers two questions... why was she smiling and how, exactly, was her hair styled.

PARIS - Researchers studying 3-D images of the "Mona Lisa" say she was probably either pregnant or had just given birth when she sat for Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century masterpiece. The clue was something she wore.

Scans turned up evidence of a fine, gauzy veil around Mona Lisa's shoulders — a garment women of the Italian Renaissance wore when they were expecting, a leading French museum researcher, Michel Menu, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. The scans also make clear that Mona Lisa does not have her hair down, as it appears. Most of her tresses are pinned back into a chignon and covered with a veil, Menu said.

The veil "would confirm art historians' hypothesis that Giocondo asked for a painting of his wife to celebrate the birth of his second son," said Menu, chief of the research department at the French Museums' Center for Research and Restoration, which has its offices in the Louvre.

John Taylor of Canada's National Research Council said there were no signs of brush strokes. "That includes the very fine details of the embroidery on the dress, the hair," he said. "This is the 'je ne sais quoi' of Leonardo. The genius. We don't know how he applied it."

"What is amazing and paradoxical about that painting is that people think it's been analyzed but it's exactly the opposite," Rioux added. "This is the most inaccessible painting in the world. Why? Because it's 99.9 percent of the time in the Louvre for the public to view. The last time it was up for examination was 1952."

Mona Lisa's smile has for centuries inspired speculation. In the 1950s, Nat King Cole asked in a song lyric if she was smiling to "tempt a lover" or "to hide a broken heart?"

New discoveries "don't take away the mystery," Menu said. "On the contrary, they merely add another layer to the meaning, which only makes things more interesting."