Ready or Not

No, I'm not hiding, just trapped under several deadlines.

Tomorrow is going to be extra sad. It will be the first Halloween since The Carmens moved away. Every year Carmen and I would drag our chairs, bowls of candy, and libations (!) down to the curb to greet the Trick or Treaters, thus saving them the trip up our killer driveways.

Speeders Beware! I've been known to whip Laffy Taffy at cars that are driving too fast.

The Viking Flu

I was humming along on my machine, furiously free-quilting when I ran out of bobbin thread. I wound a new bobbin, dropped it in the well and tried to raise it. Done it lots of times. No dice. I tried new bobbins, checked the needle, rethreaded the machine, lit a candle to the Patron Saint of Swedish appliances, mustered a magical incantation: bibbity-bobbin-y-boo, all in vain.

I even called the Husqvarna Help Desk in the form of my M-i-L , Carol, who generously gifted me the Viking. She is really more of a Bernina expert, as her new one has a thumb drive with more computing power than the space shuttle. But all to no avail. I shut the machine off and took a nap thinking fresh eyes and some REM sleep may be able to solve the problem. So much for that idea, I had a dream that, oh never mind, don't want to give the prosecution more ammo for the sanity hearing.

I reluctantly took my ailing appliance to the sewing machine ER, plopped it on the service desk and watched the nice lady write up my ticket and immediately raise the bobbin thread. I felt REALLY stupid, but then it's not like I unwittingly left my car running for four hours, well, not today at least.

I left it for service anyway. Seeing as we were there, a checkup seemed like a good idea. (M-i-L should stop reading here.) Though I don't use it terribly often, my machine does get a lot of abuse. As you can imagine, not all of my substrates are fabric and I have been known to use the carrying case as a cradle for a hot glue gun, as is evidenced by the melted hole in the top. (Ok, Carol, you can look now.)

So my machine is in the shop till Wednesday. I guess I'll have to resort to working in paper in the meantime and find another place to prop my hot tools.

*Beeeep*

I know. I KNOW. Just popping in here for the last couple of weeks and leaving a couple of pictures (albeit mostly cute ones) is kinda like calling someone when you know you're going to get their voice mail -- that way you can leave a message to let them know you're thinking about them without really having to talk.

Lots has transpired in the last several weeks, but here are the highlights:

1. Trumpet is now a finished champion - yay Trumpy! No more shows!
2. The boys turned 12 and celebrated with Whirlyball and Halo 3 (Warning: The next person who says "Oh, and next year they'll be 13!" is going to be punched in the chops for their crackerjack math skills as well as for not letting me adjust to the idea of my babies being 12 before aging them a whole year.
3. I lost my ability to make coffee and park a car.

Number 3 illustrates the actions of a person who has too much to do and not nearly enough brain power to accomplish it.

So. The coffee. My parents and my aunt were in town for the boys' birthday. The guys had an 8am soccer game that day -- apparently some people get up that early. On purpose! I found my way down to the kitchen around, oh, dark:thirty and made a 55 gallon drum of coffee to premedicate for the game.

My dad wandered in and asked for sugar in his. To normal people, this request would be simple enough to accommodate. But, alas I don't take sugar in my coffee, just half-n-half, and neither does Mark. Mark drinks his with fat-free, hazelnut, non-dairy, yuck-yuck which is too long to say so I just refer to it as "stinky creamer" for short. I accidentally drank out of his cup once and almost sprayed that nastiness right out my nose which would have been tragic because I'd still be smelling it. It's synthetic and super foul - if hazelnuts really smelled and tasted like that I wouldn't love Frangelico, ok?

Back to "the coffee incident." The day prior to our company arriving, I got out all my cute fall decorations and chatchkies, including a small ceramic pumpkin bowl that was filled with sugar. Sugar doesn't go bad does it? I mean, it had been in the buffet for a year, but no bugs were evident upon inspection. Good enough. I heaped 4 spoonsful into Dad's coffee. Bleary-eyed, we all piled into the car with our travel mugs and headed to the soccer pitch.

Given the hour and the amount of wine consumed the night before, we were driving in relative silence, when my dad asked me:

"What kind of coffee is this?"

"Starbucks Verona blend."

"Did you put sugar in it?"

"Yes, Daddy, I put sugar in it." Sheesh.

(long pause)

"Cheryl! You put salt in my coffee!"

Oops. It seems I had put salt in that little pumpkin last year, not sugar. Who can remember that far back? Must be why the bugs left it alone. Reminds me of that Greek urban legend dad used to tell us about the old lady who put rat poison on her cookies instead of powdered sugar and killed the whole village. Too bad I wasn't there, I could have made the salty-coffee to go with the killer kourabiedes.

Honest mistake, you say. Not such a big deal? Heck, if that's the worst of it, you might still be sane and relatively functional, Cher. Please reserve judgement, kind reader, and let me admit exhibit B for your consideration.

At quitting time on Monday, after a particularly stressful day in the world of recruiting, I was eager to get home. I rounded up my cell phone, purse, sunglass and, hey.....wha.......where are my keys? Y'all seen my keys?

I looked under my desk, in my pockets, dumped my purse out. No keys. My cube just isn't that big. And my keychain is. They were nowhere to be found. I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I must have locked them in my car and went downstairs and out the lobby already dreading the call I'd have to make to Mark -- "Hi honey. could you come to my office in rush hour traffic and unlock my car for me cuz I'm an idiot." But guess what? I didn't have to make that call - you wanna know why? Because although I left the keys in the car, in the ignition no less, I had left the car unlocked and RUNNING. For. Four. Hours.

Take that Al Gore.

Frankly, I'm shocked I put the car in park. I mean, what was preventing me from absent-mindedly rigging a bungee cord to the steering wheel and let it circle the building until 5pm?

Makes you kinda long for the posts with the cute pictures, huh? Next time, let your voice mail pick up.

Go Trumpy, It's your birthday

Seen above with two of his littermates.

Triplets

And you thought having a baby was painful. Try popping three of these out.

Click here for more ridiculously cute pix and silly captions.

How to tell you're not Mom's favorite

Wanna Be

Am I too old to be wearing cropped, stretch leggings? What's the cutoff?

Maybe I'm on the Borderline.

Used to play this LP in the morning when I got ready for school. (Kids, ask your Mom or Dad what LPs are, um, were.) It gave me fashion inspiration.

The leggings make me nostalgic for the 80s when my hair was big and my butt was still defying gravity.