My sister and I were at Target yesterday shopping for her daughter when we turned and saw the above. And then we started mocking relentlessly enough that the flip flopped toe you see in the picture ran away before she could admire the denim nightmare for her own offspring. I mean, COME ON! (Eileen...). This is just not pretty. It wasn't pretty when Dexy wore it in the 80s and it sure isn't cute stuffing your poor choiceless daughters into it. Sigh...Where are the cool 80s stuff?
I don't shop in the little girls department, so I was baffled walking around finding things for my niece. It was like every bad 80s trend had babies and threw up there. I don't think I realized the 80s were back with QUITE that much vengeance...neon. EVERYWHERE. Peace symbols being corrupted and co-opted for evil (or well, at least for kittens and rainbows). Denim everything. It was dizzying.
I don't remember really dressing that poorly in the 80s. But I know I did. I have this one picture I would post if it wasn't incriminating my sister as well. I had neon orange parachute material shorts with a white tshirt with glitter and neon pink, orange and blue design. I'm pretty sure it was Ocean Pacific and I was so thrilled with it I wore it CONSTANTLY. At least there wasn't a kitten holding a rainbow peace symbol thrown on it...Or, you know. Spun glitter...
Has anyone seen the lace-on-denim look yet? Ala Madonna? Because only then will this revival be complete. In the meantime...let's all stop and back away from the denim on denim look, shall we? Those who were there are trying to save the young'uns from our mistakes. Our GRAVE mistakes...
Yesterday was one of those nice productive days that don't come along very often. At least in my house. For the first time in a REALLY long time, I got my important weekly to dos out of the way on Monday. Nice.
I finally gave up on Mother Nature and changed the sheets over from flannel to regular (take that!) and got the mattresses flipped while I was at it. Got all the sheets washed and dried and the flannel put away for next fall. I bemoaned, loudly, that it was the last week of April and I could still conceivably HAVE the flannel on our bed and not be uncomfortable. I'm not usually one to moan and complain about spring not coming, well, until May, but C'MON! It was in the 30s last night. Ridiculous. The farmer's market starts in two weeks and I don't know how anything will be for sale since it's all still too muddy to do a gosh darn thing. Our apple tree is finally starting to bud out (just barely) but our nectarine tree is not. Maybe. Too muddy to go inspect. And I just know we have had mice massacres out there this winter (Up next: CSI - Mouse) and I refuse to go inspect until Isaac goes out and rakes it all up. Not to mention that U2 is coming up in just over three weeks and I'm fearful it's going to be freezing. Blergh. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I changed the sheets...
I also cleaned up the kitchen and the pantry and made a trip to the food pantry with a load. I also stopped by my sister in law's to pick up our weekend Trader Joe's haul and I was saddened (but not at all surprised) when all of our chocolate was melted and re-solidified to the plastic. It looks as though we'll be chipping dark chocolate caramels and PB cups out with an ice pick. Sigh...that was a costly little mistake and I KNEW we should have thrown the sacks in their hotel room instead of throwing caution to the 95* no wind, but...alas. Note for next time? Chocolate on our NORTHERN Trader Joe's trips. I should have stuck with the lemonade, but stocked up on olive oil and balsamic vinegar instead. Live and learn and melted money down the tubes, right?
I spent a large part of the day frustrated that my computer wouldn't recognize my external hard drive nor any of my flash drives. I wasn't TERRIBLY sad, since I have my hard drive backed up, but had IT been the problem, there were a few things I would have lost. Thankfully I concluded that the problem was my computer. So I backed up my drive to my back up drive via my laptop while I called Isaac to complain. And then, Isaac in his hilariousness, decided to say this. In his fake British...
Sadly, for me, that worked and now I'll never hear the end of it...
So it's Tuesday and my house is pretty much clean, save some mopping and bathtub scrubbing and Sammy's signed up for summer art camp and I bought our tickets to go see David Gray in July (EEEEEEEE!!!!!) and my hair appointment is moved to a better day and an appointment is set to see a guy about a blog redesign and Plants Vs. Zombies is bought and downloaded to the iPad and everything is charged and done. And I love it. Well, except the rice bags I keep trying to sew. My machine keeps breaking and since it's the second machine (and brand) to break the same way, we all know that means 'operator error' which is frustrating since I need to fix it in order to schedule quilting time with my mother in law. Sigh...But there's a list of projects I'd love to focus on this week that keep getting pushed and a tivo folder that's bursting and waiting for me. Sammy has play dates, of which only one require my presence and this week is the student ceramics sale (yay!) and other than the darned weather, nothing heavy is weighing on me. Which is a nice change from last week when EVERYTHING was weighing on me. Things are getting done...
When the alarm rang at 2:30 am, I kinda wished we had just flown in the night before. Because, hello. CRAZY. I jumped in the shower and it took forever to wake up. However, we somehow managed to leave on time to catch our flight, with a wide awake little boy way too excited to go back to sleep. The airport was surprisingly busy for 5 in the morning and we had a little trouble printing our boarding passes, but were soon trudging through security (Isaac got the gamma ray shot into him twice...it was his lucky trip!) on the way to the steel trap in the sky. Sammy LOVED - no LOVED, LOVED - the airplane ride. And despite the fact that he woke up at 3 am, he did not fall asleep at all. He was way too excited. Me, however...not so much. Isaac's arm was only a *little* bruised and wet from the sobbing. I really, really hate airplanes. And, sadly, thought I was hiding my discomfort well until Isaac told me differently. Ooops. Sorry random plane people. Really sorry about the look of terror. I tried to reign it in...
Once we landed and got our car, we really and truly were able to feel the weight of the Phoenix heat. Holy hannah. It was hot. It was in the upper 30s / low 40s when we left home and I think it was in the low to mid 90s in Phoenix. It was such a roller coaster, weather wise. We picked up a GPS for the car (which was remarkably useless) and ended up ditching it. Our iPad was a much better navigator. As long as I wasn't the one typing in the directions, apparently. We got lost. Nearly immediately. We picked up my sister in law and brother in law and headed for breakfast and...ended up at Trader Joe's. Thanks to operator error on the addresses. It turned out to be a serendipitous error, but still. It was a running theme to the day. After we picked up the essentials (chocolate pomegranate seeds and lemonade, of course) we typed in the REAL address and finally made it to the restaurant. Thanks to a recommendation from my aunt, we went to TC Eggington's for breakfast. Granted, I don't think I've ever had eggs benedict before, but, now? I may have them more often. If they are like that...It was LOVELY. Spinach, avocado, tomato on an english muffin and topped with eggs and hollandaise. And the potatoes? Oh, my. OH MY. Do yourself a favor, the next time you're in Mesa and go get some. YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.......
The wedding was lovely. My sister in law is gorgeous, anyway, but she was absolutely stunning. Her dress and veil and flowers were so very HER and I was so happy we could be there. It was worth EVERYTHING to be there for her and her new husband. And the bonus of the day was being able to see one of my best friends. We've been friends since before we could speak, but haven't seen each other in about...15ish years. It was only a few minutes of catch up, but it was lovely. Like absolutely no time had passed at all. I walked away baffled how some people can come and go out of each other's lives and pick up right away like it has been no time at all and how some, well, can't. I wonder at the difference.
We hung out with family at the wedding lunch and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the airport. Time really flew and I was sad that we didn't go a little earlier. There was so much I still wanted to do. So much left to say, but it didn't matter. We had a plane to catch. So we headed out again. And got lost. Again. I'm completely convinced that our rental car really wanted to go to Scottsdale. By that time, we had reached maximum heat and tired. Sammy was the only one who looked like this, but we were all feeling it... The flight home wasn't nearly as bad as the flight down (yeah, I'm sticking with that story) (well, except the descent into Salt Lake...that was really bumpy...).
Saturday was, well, excruciating. I do not do well with such little sleep. Neither does Isaac, clearly, since when he got home from work his suggestion for dinner was brownie sundaes (totally took him up on that). We ate ice cream with glazed over eyes and wondered why our child was so.full.of.energy. It was a little nauseating.
But the trip was good. We're glad we went, even if we didn't fully breathe the entire day. And I got a little sunburn and taste of summer, which made the 43* we came home to all that more depressing.
