Hose for the Holidays

If you are feeling stressed by the countdown to Christmas, and the wide-eyed wonder of the season has morphed into wild-eyed panic, don't feel alone. I see you. I am you. And may I recommend an antidote?

There is nothing more effective than a pair of festive candy cane socks to help the inner Cindy Lou Who achieve a full body slam on the inner Grinch. Fortunately, festive candy cane socks are now made in support styles for those of us in the peri-geriatric age range.

Yes, those are my chubby ankles in today's shot. (And by the way, do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a picture of your own ankles? If you are ever in need this particular pose, I highly recommend the timer function of your phone's camera and a banister against which to prop that phone.)

I love the holiday season truly and dearly. The beloved carols. The antique angels handed down from our dear German neighbor, and from Husband's mother. The permission to bake All The Things that are not on the usual peri-geriatric eating plan. (These! And these! And also these! And of course, bags and bags of these.)

But as an introvert who pretends to not be an introvert, I must confess: The holidays are also exhausting.

I've spent the past week complaining to Husband about how I felt...off. Achy. Tired. Draggy. Not quite sick, but not quite well, either.

This morning he asked me at breakfast if I was feeling better. To my amazement, I was. I woke up energetic and ready to get tackle the final wrapping and Big Day preps.

"Yeah, you must be done with parties," he observed.

He's a smart man.

This week, in addition to my regular toil in the gig economy, I've had four Christmas parties. Each of these parties brought me together with people I truly enjoy. I love spending time with friends, co-workers, fellow volunteers, and eighth-grade caroling groups. I'm re-filled by the laughter and love, and oh, my, the joy when the carolers' kindergarten audience included two tiny immigrants who spoke no English and I was able to connect with them in Spanish.

Getting myself to these events, though, required effort both physical and mental. That paragraph about being an introvert? I wasn't exaggerating. I needed the energy of those green socks and my peppermint stick earrings to push me out the door, no matter how much I basked in delight once I was at the parties.

Today I'm still in my work-out clothes at mid-morning. I'm watching a cardinal perched in the branches outside the window next to my desk, knowing that the only thing on my calendar for the day is a meal to be taken to a friend who had surgery this week, and some knitting on a pattern I'm beta testing for a designer. While I do those things I'm processing this week's memories, and smiling at how blessed I am to have these people who enjoy each other and the holidays together.

And, honestly, I'm thanking my socks.

There Will Be Rolls

I've been thinking a lot about traditions in the past few weeks. After all, it's Christmas, and nothing says "We will do it the way we've always done it, and we will be HAPPY!" quite like this second-most sacred of holidays.

Unlike Easter, which occupies the top spot in the sacred holiday list, this is the sacred holiday we're allowed to glom up with commercialism and stress. Don't believe me? Count how many times you've said to yourself "I really have to..." during the past week, multiply by pi(e), add number of ugly sweaters, give that number the exponent of days remaining until Christmas, then feel your blood pressure rising in an unhealthy way.

My personal antidote for holiday stress has always been unbending tradition. That way I don't have to make decisions--"Of course we're opening stockings before presents. It's tradition." "No, we're not having  fajitas for Christmas dinner, we're having ham. It's tradition." "How can we not put out the dueling Santas? It's tradition."

The traditions themselves, of course, evolve from stories. And what are our memories, really, except stories we tell ourselves?

"Remember that year Grandma got us the second dueling Santa because she forgot she had given us one the year before?"

"My mom always made peppernuts--it just wouldn't be Christmas without them."

"You can have anything you want for Christmas dinner as long as you make rolls."

But the empty nest does funny things to traditions. The very best changes also bring complications as wonderful new family configurations require our children to have the wisdom of Solomon in deciding when and where they're celebrating with whom. We don't want to cut that baby in half so this year we won't see Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 at all; Boy#1 and Lovely Girl #1 might be able to meet us for New Year's, or maybe not.

The tradition of opening our presents on Christmas Day goes out the window when Christmas Day might be celebrated Dec. 31, so this year we'll be opening stocking on actual Christmas with whomever is in the actual house. Everything else is up in the air.

The dueling Santas are already in place, and I've thought of my mother as I rolled out peppernuts. Sometime during the calendar year end we'll declare the day of the Christmas dinner, and then there will be dinner rolls.

We will do Christmas however we do Christmas, and whatever we do, we will be HAPPY.

It's tradition.

Big Red Barn: Two Well-Moisturized Thumbs Way Up

Big Red Barn corporate headquarters

Today we continue the trend of the last couple months, in which I claim I never sell anything on this blog then go on to give my opinion on a product or service. I don't know the eShakti people or the Pioneer Women personally, though, so I wasn't able to vouch for the folks behind these products. The person behind this endorsement is a total delight and was a heck of a candlelighter in the 1983 version of the Wedding of the Century.

People, if you only one read one endorsement here make it this one. This is a product I never thought I would like but instead it's going to be the 2018 Gift of the Year in the House on the Corner. And it all starts in the big red barn behind the window where Husband was checking the weather in 2014. That's where the most important component of our niece's new business is produced: Goat milk.

It turns out this naturally-homogenized liquid is the not-so-secret ingredient in soaps and lotions that moisturize without being greasy, are gentle for dry or aging skin, and are packed with healing vitamins. I've seen claims that they're excellent options for people who have acne or eczema.

And fortunately for me, it turns out that having a goat herd had been on the bucket list of our oldest niece, Shanna. (She says her husband is wary of what else might be in this bucket.) Shanna has been busy since she lit candles at our wedding 35 years ago. She and her husband have raised and homeschooled a family of eight  kids, including a sibling group of four they adopted after fostering. She gives piano lessons and raises exotic chickens, and has assembled a menagerie of horses, cats, dogs, and assorted animals on the farm where they live.

Last week she sent me a Christmas gift of Big Red Barn Goat Milk Soap. Several years I'd had to quit using body soap. My usually-good skin had turned flaky and itchy and on the advice of my dermatologist I gave away all of the yummy-smelling shower gels I'd accumulated. But a shower of plain water never feels cleansing, so yesterday I gingerly rubbed some of BRB's apple-scented bar into a scrubbie and really washed. I was surprised that the round disk not only produced beautiful suds, but that this bar was clearly more moisturizing than the gold Dial the rest of the family uses.

I was late for church and didn't have time to use the lotion until I sneaked it out of my purse during the sermon. I am a lotion snob by nature, and have no patience for greasy splotches on computer keys or the paper I use to write notes. But Thanksgiving pretty much destroyed my hands, what with the dozens of hand-washings required during cooking, so they were super dry with cuticles that would make a manicurist cry into the soaking bath. I didn't use much of the BRB lotion (maybe half a teaspoon) but it was amazing. No grease, and even my terrible nails suddenly looked respectable.

To be perfectly honest, though, I wouldn't have even tried this stuff if it wasn't Shanna behind it. By nature I am a better-living-through-chemistry person and all-natural products aren't necessary my jam; I don't seek them out and won't pay extra to buy them. But these soaps and lotions? Are my jam.

Maybe they're my jam because except for the soap-making lye, you probably can eat or at least pronounce everything that's in them--ingredients listed on the label of my red apple soap are olive oil, goat milk, palm oil, coconut oil, red apple scent and colorants. The almond biscotti lotion is also basically food (avocado oil, almond oil, shea butter, etc.) plus emulsifying wax. Heck, I'd eat any of that.

Or maybe they're my jam because I purely love the videos Shanna posts on her Facebook page. I spent a good half hour of my life watching her cut soap, and seriously, after watching her milk her nannies last night I'm pretty sure I want a goat for Christmas. (Moms, your kids would love these videos, but be warned that they also might decide they want kids of their own.)

Husband isn't such a fan of the goats-as-gift idea, though, so I'm settling for soaps and lotions for everyone I know for Christmas. And hey, you can do the same thing!

Teacher gifts? Some give-back pampering for your hairdresser or manicurist? Heck, something nice for the guy who delivers all those Amazon boxes? Visit Shanna's Etsy shop. She has the most delicious scents I can imagine, and at $21 a gift assortment already packed in a pretty container is just the right price point. Non-fattening, too, so a good alternative to homemade goodies. Don't tell them, but I'm getting 2-ounce lotions ($3 each) for everyone in my Wednesday night study group--I'll put an assortment in a pretty basket and let each person choose the scent she prefers.

If you're into essential oils, soaps and  lotions that incorporate these oils are available at slightly higher prices.

Right now Shanna is running a December special on soaps--buy four, get one free--and there is a rumor that if you mention you're a friend of MomQueenBee, or read this blog, or have ever heard of Empty Nest Feathers, you might get a discount. Be sure to mention it when you order!

Turn-around is only a day or two, but they're mailed from the farm in Iowa so to make sure they're delivered by Christmas, order by Dec. 18.

So. To summarize this too-long post: I, to my utter surprise, love goat milk soap. Much less surprisingly, I love my niece, and hope you will give her products a try.

Your skin, and your friends' skin, will thank you.

Still the Best

One of these years I'm going to post here a few days after Thanksgiving and begin the post, "Well, that was...okay."

This is not that year.

Would you look at that mostly-smiling collection of tryptophan-stuffed beauties? (Yes, I almost wrote tryptophan-stuffed turkeys, but that was too obvious even for me.) They are beautiful, and if our newlyweds had not blown all their vacation days on a honeymoon in Portugal we would have had almost all of my dad's descendants here. I don't understand why Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 would choose to have a few days of privacy and quiet in an Iberian paradise rather than a raucous, carb-loaded day in Kansas, but I guess to each their own.

If you count carefully, you'll see that there are 39 human beings in this photo who are related to each other. You will count three times and say to yourself "MomQueenBee, there are only 38 humans there," but you will be wrong because my photo-averse brother-in-law managed to be in the picture while revealing only his legs. Well  played,  photo-averse brother-in-law.

This photo also doesn't include the seven friends I managed to coerce into joining us--I love this day and these people so much that I can't help but herd everyone I know toward the church fellowship hall where our celebration now happens. There's plenty of room, I tell them, and plates for everyone.  Of course, there's plenty of laughter and a fair share of yelling and more hugs than you can count.

And there are words. Words, words, words. With ages ranging from five months to 92 years, we talk about everything from the  newest trend in toddler footwear ("I love your light-up sneakers!") to the freaky November weather. Only a few topics are out of bounds by unspoken agreement, because we have Many Opinions and we love these people too much for those conversations on this day. 

This is the biggest group to ever attend the Best Day of the Year celebration, and I wildly overestimated the appetites of a group that is made up largely of toddlers and geriatrics. (Did we really need four turkeys? We did not.) Even that was a plus, though: I loved being able to put a box of ZipLoc bags on the table and urge everyone to take some Thanksgiving home for supper.

The over-production also led to the second best day of the year when this was my breakfast:

Leftover sweet potatoes topped with leftover cranberry sauce. In  my defense, that's a bowl of Vitamin A topped with antioxidants, so it's practically health food, especially compared to the next night when  I fed my family turkey and noodles ladled over mashed potatoes and partnered with a basket of dinner rolls.

Carbs on top of carbs with a side of carbs are a sure sign that the curtain should be drawn on the Best Day of the Year, so the rest of the un-freezable left-overs left with the garbage truck and our diets have returned to their normal healthy goals.

If your Best Day of the Year was not this wonderful, please join us next year. We have hugs and plates and food for everyone.

Come, ye thankful people, come.

The Mercantile: Shaking My Head in Admiration

You can't say I don't love you.

Because you asked for it, at the moment when I should be peeling potatoes and dusting under the piano (not simultaneously--I'm not that efficient) I am ignoring Best Day of the Year preps to report on my visit to the Pioneer Woman empire.

The short answer, so you can get back to your own peeling and dusting, is that it was So. Much. Fun.

No surprise there, right? I discovered Ree Drummond and her Pioneer Woman blog back in the early days, when her now-college-aged kids were just babies. I read the "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" saga in episodic blog posts, way before it was a book, and was flabbergasted to realize that the ranch where she made all that delicious-looking food was located near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, just over an hour away from Small Town. I was a fan as she documented ranch life, began writing cookbooks, launched a housewares line, got her own television show, etc., etc., etc., but we hadn't actually made the trip to see the Mercantile for ourselves.

So when Husband suggested we check out her store as a pre-birthday road trip, I was on board.

First of all, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that a weekday in mid-November may be the ideal time for such a visit. The weather was glorious, and the crowds were a perfectly manageable size. We've visited Chip and Joanna's Magnolia Market empire in Waco and the elbow-to-elbow shopping there practically gave me the hives. Last Thursday in Pawhuska there were enough people that it felt bustling and energetic, few enough that we could browse at our leisure. We estimated that 80% of the Mercantile crowd was made up of women approximately my age, 10% were trailing husbands, and the remainder were homeschoolers and outliers.

The Mercantile itself has several sections. A merchandise area opens on to the restaurant, which flows into the deli. Upstairs is a bakery, with huge windows and cozy couches so that you can take as much time as you want inspecting the cool stuff downstairs while your husband watches Pawhuska passing by in comfort, if your husband has low tolerance for dishes and kitchen supplies.

But my Husband is a really good sport, so he was holding the shopping basket while I ooooh-ed and aaaah-ed at everything I wanted to buy, which was pretty much everything in the building.

If you have even a passing acquaintance with Pioneer Woman merchandise, you know what was in the store. It's colorful, practical, vintage-y, and surprisingly affordable. I am in a new stage of my life in which I try to not buy anything for which I do not have storage or immediate use, so my major purchase of the day came from this table:

Yup. A plastic wrap dispenser. I am officially No Fun At All. But in my defense, I've used that dispenser constantly during the pre-BDotY cooking preps, and I love it. It also was less expensive here than in a shop down the road we stopped at later in the day.

And in fact, my very favorite display table was the one that contained items Ree uses in her own kitchen--big mixing bowls, strainers, cutting boards. I regret not purchasing a couple of small sheet pans. They were heavy-duty and at $8 each, a great buy.

Okay, okay, I hear you shouting at me from cyberspace: "But MomQueenBee, what did you eat?"

Oh, my. I need to preface this by reminding you it was my birthday trip, and I checked in with my doctor daughter-in-law:

We waited about half an hour for a table, but it was high noon and there was more shopping to do while we waited. And then we threw calorie counts to the wind and ordered a couple of wonderful, decadent sandwiches. 

The Ranch Hand Sandwich was meaty and ranchy, and featured pulled pork cooked with Dr. Pepper, ham, cheese, buttered hoagie bun, and a side of homemade potato chips. Husband's was the chicken-fried chicken and he had to carve it into pieces before he could fit his mouth around it:

And in full disclosure, we shared butternut squash soup as an appetizer:

We regret nothing. It was delicious.

Our sandwiches were about $14 each, but iced tea was 25 cents, which made the entire meal seem like a bargain. The heavenly pecan cinnamon roll (which we bought at the bakery and took home for actual-birthday breakfast) would have been $4 to eat in deli, but was $6 for three packaged to carry.

All told, we spent about three hours in Pawhuska. Outside of the Mercantile there isn't much to do--a couple of small shops, and one decent-sized antique store that was fun. But that's enough for me. 

It was amazing to look at what the Pioneer Woman has built. Everything about the Mercantile, from merchandise to food to atmosphere, was completely on brand for her and for her readers and fans, and I am both of those groups. 

It was a fun day, and I am shaking my head in admiration of her accomplishments.  

And now it's off to more BDotY preps. I'm going to be spatchcocking a turkey (when I announced this to Husband at breakfast he was taken aback until I explained further) which heightens the adrenaline level as I realize that this could be a recipe for disaster. Hahaha! See what I did there?

It's the Best Day of the Year. Be thankful!

The Power of the Post (and a Teaser)

Well. I seem determined to transform this corner of the blogosphere into a continual chorus of "I never endorse anything...oh, wait, here's an endorsement!"

Take last week's post, for example, when I admitted that after saying for two decades I'd pay anything to have my groceries delivered, that turned out not to be true. I was irked at Instacart because in addition to a delivery charge (which I was willing to pay), after I'd paid for a year of deliveries there also turned out to be a service fee and a tip for the delivery person automatically added to each order.

I was not happy, and I yanked that MomQueenBee seal of approval faster than you could say "There's no such thing as a free lunch or free delivery."

BUT WAIT! There's a rest-of-the-story to that post! Instacart has rescinded the service fee for Express members! Now we only pay the annual fee, and the automatic tip that can be changed by the customer. My delivery person today even used my loyalty card as requested.

I can't claim credit for this--or can I? May I be so puffed-up as to think that the Instacart moguls read the post preview that I had sent them in the spirit of fairness, and thought "Well, that certainly seems greedy of us, and also MomQueenBeen has so much influence that we dare not interfere with her happiness so RESCIND THE SERVICE FEE! QUICKLY!"

While I may have to have a word with them about consistency in use of loyalty cards, yay for you, Instacart! You've earned, by actual count, five exclamation points in the preceding two paragraphs.

And now I seem to have hijacked my own blog post. This was meant to be a report about my birthday, which was last Friday but I managed to fool all of my friends into stretching the celebration to three days by Facebooking a road trip picture on Thursday with the caption "Birthday trip."

Instantly I received lovely birthday greetings from dozens, and not a single one mentioned my accordion-pleated neck in that shot because they were all focusing on the door behind Husband and me. About half of the dozens also asked for a full report on what was behind that door, so since today's post is already getting too long, I'm going to give you that report tomorrow.

And if the adorable and on-brand polka-dotted soup bowls in today's beauty shot didn't give away where we were, here's another hint:

Tune in tomorrow for the inside scoop on the Mercantile and the birthday! Spoiler: It's another endorsement.

Another Endorsement, Except Not

You all know that this blog, like Ivory soap, is 99.9% pure although in this case we are pure blather rather than pure soap. It has no advertising, no affiliate links, no way for me to make as much as a single penny by writing it. My total reward comes from you telling me how pretty I am, and I pander for that shamelessly. 

But on occasion I tell you how much I love something. A couple of weeks ago, for example, I gushed my endorsement for eShakti. I stand by that endorsement--today's lead photo is my rehearsal dinner dress for WotCII. It's an eShakti dress paired with a shawl I was knitting at the moment that just happened to match pretty perfectly, and I love that dress. 

Today I'm not endorsing a product, I'm writing about a service now being provided in Small Town that I originally loved but and gushed about on social media, but since those non-blogged endorsements I have learned some things since that makes me want to make sure you know them, too. 

The whole time the Boys were growing up I moaned about how much I hated shopping, and how I would be glad to pay whatever it cost to have my groceries delivered and carried into the house. Just a couple of weeks ago this kind of service came to Small Town--Instacart. 

It seemed too good to be true. For $6.99, Instacart shoppers would gather items from your online shopping list, pay for them with the credit card, and deliver them to your house within the time window you specify. 

Oh. My. Gosh. 

Does that seem like heaven? On the days when I loaded four grocery bags on each arm to minimize the number of times I walk the half-block between our driveway and the back door, it would have sounded like paradise. 

I signed up for the two-week free trial, and it was lovely. The shoppers picked out good produce and were friendly and upbeat as they brought the groceries clear to the kitchen. So I signed up for the full-year Instacart Express that, rather than charging $6.99 for each delivery, would give unlimited  deliveries on orders of $35 and over. 

I was so excited--until my shopper accidentally left the store check-out receipt with the bags. When I compared that paper receipt to my online receipt from Instacart, I discovered cost of the service was substantially more than $6.99 per delivery. For one thing, a service charge and tip were automatically added to my cost. The service charge of 5% of order total, and an automatic tip of 5% (which can be adjusted after you have been charged for the delivery) add 10% to your bill on top of the delivery fee. But this didn't bother me as much as seeing that I was charged product prices that were higher than in-store prices. 

Customer service at Instacart explained it this way:

The paper receipt is also not an accurate portrayal of what you were charged on your order, and will not include any delivery fee, tip, services fees, or store markups if applicable. The total you see when checking out on Instacart is a more accurate portrayal of what you will be charged (barring any replacements, refunds, or weight adjustments). When your order is completed, you can view your electronic receipt to see the final amount you will be charged. You can access it directly from your Instacart Account under View Order Detail.

All told, according to my math (and verified by my in-house CPA), I'm paying around 20% more for my groceries than I would have if I had done my own shopping. 

In addition, although I asked for my own shopper loyalty card to be used (so that we could get fuel points and loyalty discounts) Instacart apparently gets the loyalty rewards on its own card. 

And at this point I need to say that it may well have been that all of these charges were outlined somewhere on the website before I forked over my $149, but I did not see it on the Instacart website before I signed up and I cannot find them now. 

Would I have used this service when I was working full-time and trying to wrangle a family? Absolutely. There were many times when I simply did not have enough hours in the day and would have gladly paid whatever it took to have someone else do my grocery shopping. If you're in that part of your life, God bless and carry on. 

Now, though? I regret that I spent $149 that I could have used on two or three new dresses from eShakti. 

Wedding of the Century Part Deux: Why I Cried

(Although I reserve the right to change my mind, this post wraps up my Thoughts about WotCII. I have no lovelier memory than this.)

I cried twice during the hours when we celebrated the marriage of Boy#2 to his Lovely Girl.

By nature I am the most tear-prone person in any room. I cry at airports (both departures and arrivals), fall foliage, Hallmark commercials, the sight of perfect baby toes. But this wedding was so purely joyful that tears were almost unthinkable.

Almost, until that moment when the doors swung open at the end of that long, carpeted aisle, and my son saw his bride arriving on her father's arm.

I was watching his face and I could see that first glimpse through his eyes, the moment when the organ prelude switched to triumphal bridal procession and she took her first steps toward him. The years melted away. I had seen that face the moment he was drawing his first breath, and truly, this felt the same.

As I did when he was born, I cried for just a moment.

And then we blessed them, and received the holy moments that were the ceremony and their vows, and as the church doors were flung open again for our newlyweds to walk back down the aisle together, the sun suddenly came out for the first time that day. They took their first steps of marriage in a blaze of light. If I had seen it in a movie, I would have rolled my eyes and called it impossible; it was that kind of day.

It wasn't until near the end of the reception that I cried again. The toasts had been splendid--touching, funny, heartfelt. Dinner was lovely, and the special dances that opened the dance were heartwarming. But then the band kicked up the volume and the real celebration began.

As a family, we aren't really dancers. Boy#1 danced largely because Lovely Girl#1 loves to dance, and Husband pulled me onto the floor for the slow numbers, but the floor was packed with college friends and people from Wisconsin, because hooo-boy! Those Wisconsin folks love to dance. Even M.'s grandfather, whose mobility is limited to a wheelchair, was on the floor and keeping time to the beat of Uptown Funk. 

M. is a dancer, though, and by that I mean she is a real dancer: She was a competitive figure skater until a knee injury ended her skating in her late teens, and then she became part of her university's competitive ballroom dance team. One of my favorite pictures is of her in full competition mode, toe pointed, shoulders squared, eyes focused on an imaginary point beyond her partner's shoulder.

For much of the evening Two and M. were busy circulating, greeting loved ones and accepting hugs and good wishes. They danced often, though, and as the hours wore on I stopped watching their every movement.

It was a few minutes before the clock was to strike the ending hour of the day when I noticed a commotion on the dance floor. I looked up to see that those tireless dancers and friends had slid to the edge of the floor, forming a circle.

Inside the circle was our new Lovely Girl#2, her head thrown back, and she was spinning and spinning and spinning. Her beautiful dress billowed out as she pirouetted, and with every revolution she was seeing her new husband cheering her on, a Best Beloved among her beloveds. And then she grabbed the handles of her grandfather's wheelchair and ran with him as they circumnavigated the circle again, high-fiving and laughing.

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

This is the way it should start. In joy and sunlight and laughter and music and family and friends, and just a few tears to baptize this new beginning.

Amen, and amen.

A Break from WoTCII: Halloween Verklempt

Parents, be aware that you will take a picture of your children tonight before they go out to trick-or-treat, and you will wake up tomorrow and both of the bees will be married and the bunny and jack-o'-lantern will be adults with actual jobs and 401k plans.

And you will be delighted that you don't have to come up with costumes, but you'll kind of be a little verklempt. 

Eat some therapeutic chocolate. You deserve it.

Wedding of the Century Part Deux: The Head

Oh, you lovelies! So, so, so kind about That Dress, and about the way it made me feel. Enough of you commented about my inner and outer beauty that when I came across this shot on my phone I could only assume you were basing your judgment on scans of my lovely pancreas.

Because look at that face.

That is the face of a mmphty-plus-years-old person in the hairdresser chair of the bridal suite, surrounded by lovely young things who honestly take your breath away with their fresh faces and thick, waist-length hair. At the age of mmphty-plus everything above the neck is pretty much interlocking wrinkles and aspiration. (Okay, fine. So is everything below the neck but I avoid looking at that part in  the mirror.)

The Mother of the Bride, who may be the kindest person I've ever met, invited me to participate in the gussying-up morning of the wedding, a session that included both a hairdresser and a make-up artist. This is the first time, ever, in my life, I've had that kind of simultaneous pampering. I've had my fabulous barber doing stellar work with my hair for decades, because when your hair has the texture of cotton candy you'd jolly well better have some stellar work being done or invest in a lot of hats. And I had avoided sunbathing because ick, sweaty and buggy, so my skin is fairly well preserved for mmphty-plus. But hair and make-up at the same time? Nope. Never.

When I slid into the hairdresser chair right after the attendant with the most beautiful red hair I've ever seen, I'm sure Hairdresser Ashley sighed a deep inner sigh and perhaps even had the thought I've imputed to her in the thought bubble above.

"I want to look like I always look, but better," I told her, ignoring the fact that I'd met her four seconds earlier and she had no idea how I usually looked. "I just want to avoid looking like Minnie Pearl showing up at the Grand Ol' Opry." Also ignoring that she was way to young to get that reference, but whatever.

Twenty minutes later she had--well, I'm not sure what she had done but I loved it. My head was tousled and fluffed so artfully that it looked as if I'd slept on a fancy pillow in the most wonderful way and just jumped out of bed to go to a wedding.

But that face. Oof. As I got into the  make-up chair, I was fervently wishing I could turn back the clock and moisturize faithfully for a couple of decades.

Fortunately, make-up artists don't become make-up artists just because they like Halloween. Or maybe they do, but they pick up a few tricks to disguise the passing of years. My own make-up regimen takes a flat two minutes from the time I slap on the Oil of Olay and a dab of tinted moisturizer to the time I've put  the cap back on the mascara wand. This session took a flat 40 minutes and a full tackle box of age-defying potions.

I had brought Lovely Girl#1 with me as my security blanket--"You're responsible for making sure I don't do anything dumb," I told her. "If I ask for a cat-eye eyeliner or some kind of fake tattoo, you have to override me."

Maker-upper Jessica was soothing and chatty, complimenting me on my skin (thanks, Mom, for the good genes) and eyebrows. (Hahaha! I know! This blog is built on a solid foundation of my complaints about my eyebrows.)

Anyway, she was almost done when she said the magic words that may have changed my life:

"How do you feel about fake eyelashes?"

I...had no words. Me? In fake eyelashes?

"We don't have to do a full strip--I could just add a few to pump up your natural lashes." And she held out a box of individual lashes. They looked like spider's legs. "Really, it wouldn't feel heavy and it would look great."

I could practically hear Professor Harold Hill singing about trouble in River City and the first big step on the road to de-gra-day... And yet..

"Here, let me try it on one eye, and if you don't like it, I'll take them off." Jessica dabbed a lash in glue and set it on top of my own lashes. It felt strange, but not painful and strangely light. She added another, and another, six in all, and I was sure I was looking like this:

via GIPHY

I turned to my security person and Lovely Girl both yelped and gasped. My immediate reaction was that it looked as bad as I had feared, but she was grinning.

"You have got to do that. Seriously, you have to."

And that's why I spent the day of WotCII with false eyelashes,batting them every which way and enjoying the breeze. It was fun, and when I washed my face with hot water later and saw those spider legs crawling down my face and disappearing into the drain, there was a moment of regret.

It was fun to be pampered in a manner worthy of That Dress, and to remember that I'm simply a female female with my eyelashes all in  curls.

Blah blah blah more sexist lyrics, but I enjoyed being a girl.

Wedding of the Century Part Deux: That Dress

The dress, with bonus look at fancy hotel room

I've remarked before that the Mother of the Groom has a wonderfully easy ride when it comes to wedding planning. With the heavy lifting of wedding planning done by the bride and her family, the MoG's most important work was done 30 years ago (see also: big-headed babies) so it frees up brain space for obsessing on the one thing friends ask about, over and over:

What was I going to wear?

Oh, dear reader(s). If only you know how much mental energy I spent on this issue. On the one hand, it was much fun to have a good excuse to surf the 'net looking at beautiful dresses. On the other hand, wedding pictures are forever. Those "for better or worse" judgments also include the style choices of the wedding party as seen by future generations, and those choices can be either timeless or ridiculous.

As soon as Boy#2 and his Lovely Girl announced their intentions (or, ahem, perhaps before the announcement) I was scouring the interwebs for what I would wear to the WotCII. The Mother of the Bride and I commiserated during the search--she called it one of Dante's circles of hell, and I could not dispute the description. If you are in a similar search, I'm holding up a fist in solidarity because this path is fraught with brambles, and those brambles are sequined, chiffon-ed, and cellulite-revealing.

 In my case the search was even more difficult because I loved my first MoG dress. I can recall feeling absolutely beautiful only two times in my life--the day I got married, and the day our oldest Boy was married--and in both cases this was partly because I loved my dress.

With six months to go until the wedding I already had five different outfits hanging on the guest room closet door. Each of them was...okay. One was a muted version of the first Wedding of the Century's choice. Another was lavender and sequined, so...not so much me, but time was ticking toward October with no dress love in sight.

Finally my barber suggested I try one of the fanciest stores in nearby Big City. I had assumed it would be out of my price range but she'd found her own MoG dress there, so I took a deep breath and braved the upscale environment. I walked through racks of clothes normally chosen by women way above my social status and was already planning which department store I'd visit next when I saw it:

That dress.

Hanging near the back of the store was a floor-length ball gown with a form-fitting black bodice and absurdly huge roses on its full skirt. And it was in my budget range.

I carried it into the rose-carpeted dressing room and Dianne the saleslady slipped it over my head. I gasped. It felt exactly right--heavy-skirted, posture-enhancing, no sequins in sight. 

Except that it wasn't exactly right. It was sleeveless, and I am not in the minuscule percentage of women who can wear sleeveless dresses at mmmmphty years old. Every look in the mirror reminds of Garrison Keillor's names for his third-grade teacher's upper arms--Hoppy and Bob.

"Oh, I love it, but I can't do sleeveless," I told Dianne sadly.

Never have I seen a sales person move more quickly. She zipped back onto the sales floor and within 10 seconds was back with a filmy chiffon jacket. It was perfect.

I walked out to where Husband was waiting in the show room, and I'm pretty sure he was only looking at my face when he said "Is this the one? Yes? Then I can tell you that lavender and sequins are not you."

I don't have a good way to wrap up this post that doesn't sound like I'm asking you to tell me whether you do or do not like this dress. (Black for a wedding can be a controversial choice.) I can only say that I now have three times in my life that I have felt absolutely beautiful. Happiness can do that for you, but it doesn't hurt to have a dress you really love.

This was that dress.


Next up on the WotCII chronicles: MAKE-UP! HAIR!

Wedding of the Century Part Deux: Chapter 2

Boy#3, Boy#1, Lovely Girl#1, Lovely Girl#2, Boy#2, MoG, FoG, Boy#4

This is the largest photo I have ever attached to a post in this site, and my apologies to Boy#4 for hiding his handsome face behind a description of his mother. No, I did not intend for it to take over the entire top half of your computer/iPad/phone screen, but once I had hit the wrong size button I realized that in some ways this little error was emblematic of the WotC: It was not exactly what I had anticipated but oh, how I loved it.

When they were growing up my mental picture of what our Boys' weddings would look like was heavily influenced by what Husband's and my wedding looked like--a nice little ceremony in a pretty church, with cake and punch in the church basement following. My brother and a dear friend sang our favorite songs, and my father-in-law officiated using the little black book he had used during decades in the pastorate.

Fast-forward 30-odd years to Oct. 13. I have not yet seen the videos of Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2's wedding, but I'm suspecting they will be strongly reminiscent of this:



In so many ways our wedding was reminiscent of that other little party, from its setting in a gorgeous historic church to the Anglican ceremony to the throngs of people waiting outside the church doors. Okay, those crowds were not actually there for the wedding but for the book fair being held in the adjacent square, but not a person walked by who did not smile and call out congratulations during the pre-ceremony photography session.

The day had started out gray and misty, and at one lull during that photography Lovely Girl#1 and I ducked into the National Public Radio tent to get out of the chill.

"Hey! Mother of the Groom!" one of the NPR workers called out. "Have you had anything to eat today?"

"Not much," I admitted.

"Here!" she said, thrusting a bag of potato chips into my hand. "You're going to need some energy. And take this, too!"

It's like she knew me: Chips and a  Stand With the Facts t-shirt from WBUR in Boston are my love language.

Even better than the spectacular setting and the kindness of the passersby, though, was the feeling in the air that all was perfect, just as it should be.

I had worried that our side of the aisle would be undermanned. The distance from Kansas, the expense of travel, even the unexpected hospitalization of my father (he's doing fine but was deeply disappointed that he couldn't travel) meant only two rows had to be reserved for the groom's family.

But wedding magic is real. The same joy that was sealing the marriage of our son to his beloved was weaving together the families and friends, and there was no "us and them," only "us."

Tomorrow (or soon, depending on computer access that has been spotty during my writing hours), I'll start writing about the things you've asked about. My dress, which I know is what you're really waiting for. The best moments. The groom-and-mother dance that almost was danced to what would have been the creepiest symbolism ever. My make-up, although I promise I will not post more than half a dozen pictures of that.

Almost none of it was exactly what I expected. Almost all of it was better.

Wedding of the Century Part Deux

When Boy#1 married Lovely Girl, I remember feeling a little sorry for his three brothers. She was so funny, so smart, so very kind--she was all the qualities we prize in the House on the Corner. And she clearly loved our Boy.

"The only thing that worries me," I told Husband, "is that she's setting the bar so high for other daughters-in-law."

And I continued to be a little concerned as the years passed. The bachelor brothers dated, although few of the young women reached the critical stage of meeting the rest of the raucous, nerdy, pun-loving crowd that grew up in the House on the Corner. Were our Boys looking for perfection that might not exist?

But then friends of Boy#2 decided he was not getting out nearly enough as a graduate student, and they signed him up for an account on a computer dating site. On the other end of the computer screen was M., a beautiful third-year medical student whose friends had done the same for her--and the two of them were a 99% match. They decided to meet; it was the first and last computer date for either of them.

I'm guessing Two fell in love within two sentences. He introduced himself  and asked how her day was going.

"It's going great!" she sighed happily, her eyes crinkling in a smile. "I just got a haircut!"

How could you not fall in love with that? Is that not the most wonderful, revealing, nerdy opening you've ever heard? Everything that followed was just added detail, but it turned out she was funny, smart, hard-working, and so very kind.

As the father of the bride explained to their wedding guests, he suspected right away that the two might have something special so he called his son (who was studying at the same university and had met Two) for a report. The brother described our son as kind and thoughtful and smart.

"What you have to realize," he explained, "is that he's just M. in a big-boy body."

Saturday afternoon, in a ceremony that was surreal in its beauty, our Boy#2 married his own Lovely Girl. As I witnessed their vows and saw the intense love with which they spoke about their new life together, I realized I had completely underestimated any new members that might join our family.

I've learned that while we value kindness and puns, we only require love. These women will not even be looking at the bar set by Lovely Girl#1: They are setting their own bars.

Welcome to the family, Lovely Girl#2. You are perfect.

My Best Marriage Advice

Another picture of my nails! Lucky you!

So we here are at the gangplank waiting for the Queen Mary to sail. Our trunks are being carried aboard by burly stevedores and we're kiss-kissing the cheeks of family members who are seeing us off.

Not really, of course. What we are is frantically packing to get ready to leave today for the Wedding of the Century Part Deux, because we are so, so close to the big day. When I talked to Boy#2 Sunday I was able to remind him that it was only six more sleeps until the wedding. (He had already done that math, but he appreciated the sentiment.)

I had carefully planned these final few days, pacing myself so I wouldn't be ready too soon and have to sit around idly stewing. Yesterday's mani-pedi was the final checkmark on my to-do-at-home list before the final folding of the MoG dresses for carrying on the plane. Last evening was to be a few hours of quiet contemplation and knitting, maybe a bit of sentimental scribbling.

All was going well, in spite of the torrential rains that were falling outside. A brand new manicure was making me happy (I like the shellac nails so much better than the dip version that was my test run, and Nail Genius Kelly says they'll last at least until the weekend). I was knitting a new complicated-enough-to-be-fun lace project, and Midsomer Murders was on Netflix.

And then I heard it. The basement sump pump was cycling on. And off. And on. And off. And on. Etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, because nauseum was my immediate response.

The House on the Corner is at the intersection of a big hill and one of Small Town's major drainage streets, and in truly torrential downpours, that street becomes a whitewater course. Twice in our 31 years of living in this house that whitewater has overwhelmed the storm drains, and the run-off knocks on our basement drain saying "Please, may we come in?" Then it does, with vigor.

Last night was the second of those times, so I guess the overall average of 15 years isn't bad. After all, the basement is unfinished concrete, and the water coming in is clean rain. The timing, though, was terrible.

Instead of quiet contemplation and sentimental scribbling, Husband and I spent the evening hooking up the auxiliary drain pump, using the shop vac to suck up gallons of overflow and schlepping it up the basement steps to dump outside. In the rain.

In the process I completely borked my new pedicure, tripping and stumbling on the steps so often that my left big toe was shredded and the I'm Not Really a Waitress red polish was destroyed.

But do you know what? Husband is a total rock star in situations like this. He'd been at a school board meeting when I heard the ominous rumbling from below, and even though he's board president he turned over the meeting to the vice president and came home when I called because he heard panic in my voice. Then he handed me gloves to preserve my manicure, and took the heavy side of the rain-filled shop vac on every trip.

Then he said "I have a plan--" and explained how he'd set his alarm for every two hours to make sure the pump was keeping up with inflow, and I went to bed and got a good night of sleep. This morning a dear friend heard about our predicament and offered to babysit our basement while we're away, an offer that made me cry at how blessed we are by our people. The plumber, even as I write this, is in the basement fixing the problem.

And that, Boy#2, leads to the best advice I can give you as you start your marriage. When what you have planned does not go according to your script (and that will be more often than not), be the kind of husband your father has been. Recognize panic in her voice, even if she doesn't say she's panicked. Carry the heavy end of the shop vac. Make good friends. And tell your Lovely Girl that you've blocked out time for her to get her toes repaired, even if she decides she'd rather just wear closed-toe shoes.

We love you, and we'll see you tomorrow!

Following Up to a Gushing Endorsement

via GIPHY


Oh, my gosh, guys!

Truly, I did not post the picture of my stripey eShakti dress yesterday just so you could flatter me and tell me pretty things and make me smile and blush all day long. No, that was just a wonderful side effect, but I could not be more grateful to each and every one of you. I've been kind of rage-y in the past week, and this was a wonderful antidote.

Seriously, have I told you lately how lovely you are? You are lovely and I am humbled that you are my friends.

But a couple of details I realized later I had omitted:

1. This is not the MoG rehearsal dinner dress. This was the starter dress I bought in May to see if eShakti was a scam. It was not, and I loved this dress so much I wore it at every opportunity during the summer and (gauchely) after Labor Day. Because I love it.

2. The MoG dress is much more appropriately fall-ish, and I also love it to distraction. Pictures will follow in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!  Woohoo! Wedding ahoy!

3. Yesterday's post was not sponsored except by my own strongly-held opinions. eShakti is not paying me, or at least not paying  me in anything other than what they would  pay anyone else who recommended them--a coupon code for potential customers, and a (smaller) coupon code for me. In fact, they do not know me at all except that they know every single one of my measurements, which, come to think of it, is more than anyone in the world knows about me except for my Husband. And my gynecologist. And the TSA screener in Boston last summer.

So because y'all made me feel so wonderful yesterday just because I posted a bad selfie of myself in a cute dress, I have a suggestion for the next few days:

The past week has been one that has filled people with rage for a variety of reasons. I am one of those people, and my reason may have been the same or different from your reason. Your lovely comments yesterday were quite literally soothing to my soul.

How about if you find another person, and compliment that person even if she/he isn't wearing a cute stripey dress or making a gushing endorsement? I intend to pass on the loveliness, and I hope you keep the chain going.

We're all in this together, and it could soothe all of our souls.

Caution: Gushing Endorsement Ahead

You can't imagine the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth that accompanied posting this picture. I am the world's worst selfie-fyer. I mean, here I'm staring at my phone as if I am expecting some kind of terrible news to be revealed, and the streaky full-length mirror is original to House on the Corner (ca. 1927) and I have nothing on my feet except a summer sandal tan. Worst of all, the dress had been pulled from the shipping box two minutes earlier and I didn't even take the time to run a steamer over it before its digital immortalization.

That's what happens when I open a box from eShakti.

I mentioned in my last post that my MoG rehearsal dinner dress came from eShakti and the lovely Swistle asked for details on my experience. How do I describe it? Wonderful? Exciting? Fortifying?

Fortifying. Yes. That will do it. Ordering clothes from eShakti has made me feel stronger and more in control of my wardrobe. I'm no longer at the complete mercy of ready-mades.

As most of you know (Hi, most of you who are my friends and family in real life!) I am a plus-size girl. I have been a plus-size girl all of my life with a couple of momentary dips into regular sizes, and except for those few (very, very) brief moments, clothes shopping has been a decades-long  nightmare.

It wasn't just that for most of my life plus sizes didn't exist in regular stores. It's also that my top half and my lower half are two different sizes, by several numbers. I'm long in the leg and have assorted and sundry quirky body variations that combine to mean that as I reached adulthood I settled on almost exclusively wearing skirts and tops. No dresses for me.

But then a non-standard-sized columnist I follow mentioned that she had tried eShakti and liked it, so I clicked over and looked around. What I found was unlike anything I'd seen in clothing.

The short description is that this company custom makes a dress for you, based on your size or (if you're like me and don't have a standard size) based on your measurements. You can buy any of the dresses, skirts, pants, tops, etc., on their site and it doesn't matter if you're normally a size 0 or a size 36--it's available for you.

So I took a deep breath, pulled out a tape measure and started documenting every inch of my amplitude. Not just bust, waist, and hips--I measured from top of shoulder to waist, circumference of upper arm, bent arm from shoulder to wrist, hip to knee, etc., etc., etc.

And then I chose the cutest dress I could find on the site, entered a coupon code provided by another happy blogger, took another deep breath, and hit the order button. Then I waited to be disappointed.

People, when the dress arrived two weeks later and I pulled it on I almost cried. Do you know how seldom bigger women get to wear cute clothes? Oh, I usually think I look fine when I leave the house. But I never look cute. This dress is cute.

Straight out of the box, it fit well, which is also unheard of for oddly-sized women. The eShakti folks apparently know me and had thoughtfully provided some kind of undergarment that smoothed the drape of the skirt. The stripey dress was of a knit that was perfect summer weight--not clingy or see-through, but not hot. And the dress had POCKETS! (All of them do, unless you request that they not be included.) I LOVE POCKETS!

It's no wonder I immediately took a selfie to send to the enabler who provided my coupon code.

The biggest surprise is that the company does this magic at prices that are not custom-made prices. The base cost of most dresses is $50-ish. Customizing (using your own measurements rather than giving a standard size) adds $10, but is so, so worth it. Oh, and if you like a dress but want a different neckline or sleeve or length, you can change that, too. There are always sales and coupon codes available. All told, I think my first order cost something like $45.

And frankly, that was my one concern with the company. Was my dress being produced in a sweatshop that took advantage of its workers? An online review said this: "It’s true that eShakti manufactures most of its clothing overseas. Its largest production facility is in India. India, however, has fairly strict labor laws that match those of the international community. The laws in India are much more stringent than those in Bangladesh."

In the box with each of the dresses I've ordered has been a card thanking me for my business, and naming the women who worked on it--Kamlesh the pattern make, Shyam the cutter, Miraj the tailor, and Kunwar quality assurance. I like to think that my business is helping them make a living wage for their families.

If you don't like the dress you ordered (and I wasn't crazy about one I received) a postage-paid label is included so that it can be returned.

So, eShakti. All the thumbs I have enthusiastically up. Or they would be if I didn't have pockets.

Want a coupon code for $35 off your first purchase? I can hook you up, and get a slightly lesser code for my own next purchase. Just leave a comment here or message me on the Empty Nest Feathers Facebook page.

If I have not yet convinced you to take this plunge, I have only one final word:

Pockets.

Wedding of the Century Part Deux: Counting Down

Well, that's certainly a new look in visual aids, no? I went from the brightest, most vibrant picture of Honeycrisp apples I could snap to the least colorful photo ever posted on this  site. A sharp left turn from bright to something that looks like a daguerreotype shot by Matthew Brady on his way home from Gettysburg.

That's because I'm trying to disguise what's hanging in the background: On the closet door behind the antique lamp in the guest room are three dresses that will be part of the mother-of-the-groom finery at The Wedding, which is now less than two dozen days in the future. (Yikes!) I promised myself I would not post pictures of the dresses until after the blessed event, but they pretty much epitomize my preparations so I did the photo editing equivalent of pasting a fake mustaches on them as disguise. (Tell the truth: Could you pick out those dresses in a crowd of MoGs? No, I didn't think so.)

My preparation for the wedding can pretty much be summed up in five words: Me, me, me, me, me. Also, me.

Because Boy#2's Lovely Girl and her mother are absolute dynamos of organization and creativity, and because all of the Best Men (i.e., additional Boys) can now dress themselves, I've been able to spend all of my anticipatory energy on myself.

These dresses represent six MoG outfits that were ordered, tried, and rejected (insert increasingly panicked look on my face as nothing seemed right) before I found the right one by walking into a store, picking it off a rack, and falling in love with it. Who knew that was a thing?

The closet door also supports a rehearsal dinner dress that was made especially for me by the fine ladies of eShakti, and a whole post will follow on that experience because I cannot express my love for them adequately in one paragraph.

And the dresses are repping the trial manicure, the two new pairs of party shoes (one fancy, one plain, both comfortable), the shawl I knit in case Boston weather turns cool, the teeth whitening trays, and the industrial-strength foundation garments that promise to make me look long and sleek and 21 under those dresses.

I think I have everything, plus spares of essentials.  Now it's just a matter of fitting all of this into suitcases and two weeks from tomorrow entrusting it to Southwest Airlines baggage handlers.

Just a few more days and those black-and-white dresses will be full color. We're counting down!

Friday Orts and Blurbs: Things That Are Making Me Happy

If you are a long-long-longtime reader of this blog, you may remember that a long-long-long time ago on Fridays this space was reserved for Orts and Blurbs. This was back when I had Thoughts in my head and didn't invest all my mental energy wondering where I left...something. Anything. Everything.

Anyway, orts and blurbs are short features of things I love and endorse. This week I have several things I'm loving:

1. The apples shown above. Husband and I spent last weekend with Boy#1 and Lovely Girl in their Missouri home, and One thoughtfully put out a bowl of apples as snacks. I took a bite of one and lo, the heavens opened and angels sang. They were Honeycrisp, and this cultivar is certainly the most delicious thing to come off a tree since the Garden of Eden. Better, really. They're sweet, tart, and crisp, but without the Fall of Man associated with that original apple. I immediately bought my own over-packaged Honeycrisps, and they are not inexpensive (think $1 each), but when I consider how many wizened apples I normally throw away from the bargain bag, it's about the same cost.

2. This book. Oh, people, this book. I know I am late to the party (it was published in 2004) but I am savoring it as if it were a Honeycrisp apple. To sum it up: An aged father, knowing he will die soon, writes his legacy to his young son. I'm only halfway through but I have re-read, lightly underlined (it's a library book and I will erase before I return the book), and pondered at least a dozen pages that are now paper-clipped for future reference. One of my favorite paragraphs:

For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now, whatever that can mean considering that you're only a little fellow now and when you are a man you might find these letters of no interest. Or they might never reach you, for any of a number of reasons. Well, but how deeply I regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful I am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed. That is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth. 

Oh, so lovely, and such truth in that for any writer or parent.

 

3. Knitting and Netflix. As the weather has cooled from if-it's-July-in-Kansas-this-must-be-hell highs to September's more reasonable temperatures I've been able to put several projects into the finished column. I hold dear the superstition that if I'm happy while knitting the stitches come off the needles easier so it was the perfect time to discover that The Great British Baking Show is now on Netflix. This series is quite possibly my favorite television show of all time, and I'm including Here Come the Brides in that assessment. (My teenaged self is shrieking in disbelief.) Lovely people, lovely food, and the self-delusion that if I were in the tent I'd get a Paul Hollywood handshake for my dinner rolls. This and lovely Icelandic wool are the perfect companions.

4. Finally, the thing that happened during my junior high accompanying gig yesterday. The delightful and energetic young teacher was warming up the group when she uttered the following sentence: "Boys have one wonderful thing that girls don't have. Does anyone know what that is?" The seventh grade boys on the front row came unglued, as did the accompanist, because the accompanist apparently has a junior high sense of double entendre.

Falsetto. She was talking about falsetto. And she carried on with the class without missing a beat. Brava, Mrs. M.

What's making you happy these days?

Cranky Wednesday

Boy#4's falafal was not awful. (It was wonderful.)

It is a cranky Wednesday here in the midsection of the nation.

Other than my usual reasons for crankiness (the political climate has continued to be jaw-droppy for almost two years, and Doc Martin is on its final season) I've been trying to suss out why I'm feeling especially stabby this morning, and I've narrowed it down to a few suspected causes:

1. It is raining. Again. And while we in the midsection of the nation love rain for the refilling of the aquifer and replenishing of the land, we are within days of the annual festival that doubles the population of Small Town and puts tie-dye in every aisle of WalMart. I don't have a personal financial stake in this festival, but I feel for those who are fielding the REALLY cranky questions from campers who will slog around in rain boots for days on end complaining about their banjo strings being out of tune.

2. Also, it was raining yesterday and I had to walk through two inches of run-off in the parking lot and may have ruined my favorite sandals.

3. Also, I found a tiny snake on the back steps of the House on the Corner. By tiny, I mean that it was caught in a spider web that my execrable housekeeping had conveniently left unswept, and I thought it was a three-inch piece of snipped yarn until it wiggled at me. It may have been a friendly wiggle or a cry for help (see also: caught in spider web) but I'm still wrestling with the question of whether napalm or a Molotov cocktail would be more efficient in burning the house down.

4. Also, I am back to my job-shared accompanying gig, but my partner-in-sharing is out for September so I am working (brace yourself) EVERY DAY. By that I mean four days each week, but people, after a lazy summer this feels GRUELING.

5. Also, Husband is not completely sympathetic about #4, seeing that a computer conversion means he is working pretty much non-stop with no regard for days at all.

So,  crankiness. However, just two days ago I had one of the most lovely days ever.

1. I finished a knitting project* that was so much fun, and when I got it onto the blocking board (aka the guest bed) and stuck 354 blocking pins into it, it also was beautiful! This is a rarer outcome than one would imagine, with me often standing over a drying garment on which I have spent actual U.S. dollars to buy yarn, not to mention the investment of uncounted hours of time, thinking "Yeah, don't really like that at all."

2. Also, at two weeks my manicure is going strong. It's nearing the growing-out stage at which I will need to revisit my manicurist as I have been informed that a powder manicure removal is not to be attempted by amateurs, but if  you don't look closely, these nails show no indication that I have used them to scrub pans multiple times in the past two weeks.

3. Also, Boy#4 spent a couple of days at the HotC, and oh, people, it is so fun to have grown-up Boys in the house. Not only are they good conversationalists who tell interesting stories, they cook. For Labor Day lupper (like brunch, but between lunch and supper) Four made falafal to go with my homemade pita bread and it was one of the best meals I've had in ages. I was the worst mother ever when it came to teaching my children to cook (I am territorial and impatient in the kitchen, which is not a good look) but all four of our sons have turned into excellent, adventuresome chefs.

4. Also, Husband heard my shriek and evicted the minuscule snake from the back steps, and was very sweet about my unapologetic dumping of that task on him. He reminded me that years ago one of the Boys found a tiny garter snake on those same stairs and we survived that horror so we will probably live through this one as well.

So while it is still raining, I'm now drinking a nice cup of coffee during my break between classes and feeling somewhat less cranky.

Also, Doc Martin isn't gone quite yet.



*The knitting project was a shawl named "Waiting for Rain" by Sylvia McFadden that I worked in a beautiful yarn I got on sale and still thought was a stretch for my budget. I'd link the pattern, but I'm lazy. Knitters, find it on Ravelry. 

Avert Your Eyes (Fingertip Edition)

Oh, gosh! I'm sorry!

Did you not pay see the title of this post and accidentally glance at today's "beauty shot"? (I use that term ironically.) Well, believe me when I say that the assortment of copyright-protected shots of funguses, infections, and other stomach-turning maladies that result from a Google search of "strange fingernails" is even worse than the image you see here.

We are now at T-minus 47 days in the countdown to the Wedding of the Century Part Deux, which means that the speed of Project Mutton Into Lamb is accelerating. (As, obviously, was the usage of capital letters in that previous sentence, for which I apologize.)

The Mother of the Groom dress has been checked off the list, and although I'm not posting any online pictures until the day of the ceremony or thereabouts, suffice it to say that I love it. It is so fancy and princess-y, in fact, that I realized the hands emerging from its sleeves were not up to snuff.

My hands can be charitably described as well-used. They have developed Grandma Veins(TM) and age spots because I'm an overachiever even though I don't have grandchildren and still feel quite young. They have converted years of piano playing and knitting into knobby index knuckles. They have been mistreated (one fingertip crushed by slamming into a Suburban door, another scarred by injudicious use of a cutting tool) and my fingernails are routinely used as screwdrivers, pot scrubbers, back scratchers, weed diggers, and label removers.

But I am optimistic, always, and when a young and beautiful friend said that all my hands needed was a dip manicure, I believed her.

I have never had a manicure in my life. Oh, I've slapped some clear polish on my nails, and when Boy#1 and Lovely Girl were married I asked the woman doing my pedicure to clean up my cuticles, but a full manicure? See the list of things I use my hands for and tell me if that seems like a good investment. (Rabbit trail: Almost every time I am in the nail salon I see teenagers in the salon having full manicures and pedicures. HOW DO THEY AFFORD THIS?)

So last week, when I was in for the every-four-weeks maintenance on my summer feet, I asked the sweet girl who does that job to also give my fingertips a makeover.

"A dip, please," I told her. "I like my nails short, and I'd like a French tip."

Well.

I was the worst manicure subject ever. Even though she warned me to PLEASE STOP MOVING MY HANDS, I apparently have ticklish fingers because every time she grasped a different digit I flinched. By the fifth application of powder and polish I was getting the hang of it but did you know that you can't blow on a dip manicure, or wave it around, or do any of the things you'd normally do to make it dry more quickly when you have already been in the nail shop for upwards of two hours and there are miles to go before you sleep? Poor Kelly was beside herself.

"I CANNOT FIX THEM!" she warned me, probably remembering the number of times I've limped back into the shop after smacking my new pedicure as I got into the car. "THEY WRINKLE!"

So I sat there with my hands quieted, pondering the new reality in which my fingernails wrinkle. It's the logical next step, I guess, since the rest of my body seems to be more Shar-Pei every day.

Five days later, I'm optimistic about my fingertips. My instructions of short plus French tip means they are not exactly what I want to see (a little too much of both of those) but the durability seems excellent. In fact, as I picked baked-on casserole off an under-soaked Pyrex last night I forgot to pamper the nails, and they were still shiny and unchipped when I finished.

Now if I could only do something about those Grandma Veins....