Tuesday, January 19, 2010

...for this, I shaved??

I have resolved to be a happier person this year......(internal dialogue, major reminder for the minor minder) Well the 17th came and went and we got all dolled up for Donna's Company party thing they had out at the Hilton on the lake. I have about a million things to spill out here and i'm not sure which side of this bucket has the hole, so please bear with me. I guess first thing would be the dress. On an eleventh hour change of plan, i scrapped the empire waist and went A-line. Still a sweet heart neckline and two into four straps across the back and floor length. All in black. Naturally. However, the shawl had already been completed and she wore it. They went together fine, but i knew the difference. I know it probably doesn't make any sense, but this dress irritated the hell out of me and i missed my own deadline. I had it all set up to go to the cleaners for its first pressing Friday morning, but i ended up doing something else and didn't finish the dress until Saturday. They don't do pressings on Saturday. Water under the bridge. This party was the same as most other company parties i've been too. A whole load of phoneys trying to out phoney each other sprinkled with a few genuine people here and there. At one point, a woman asked me to hold her camera while she and Donna and some others took a picture. Naturally, i held her camera. After their picture was snapped, she looked at me and started yelling, wanting to know why i didn't take a picture. It wouldn't be nice of me to repeat what it was i was thinking at that moment, so i simply yelled back at her to take her camera. At that moment i was holding a shawl, my dr pepper, and her camera. It's not like i had a third arm, but she asked me to hold her camera, not to use it. ACK!!! I don't have to see her again. Woo Hoo!! It wasn't long after that we came home. We scarcely talked to each other the rest of the evening. Go figure, i had to be married for a hundred years to have a bad date with her.
On a better note, my Freshman beast child, a.k.a. Bucketface, is throwing Shot Put and Discus with the Varsity and he's competitive. So, i'm terribly proud of him. Right now he's battling acne, something i barely had, and the zinc alone isn't getting it all. Talked with a doctor friend that suggested a milk holiday as sometimes milk can bring about acne if you have a milk allergy. Evidently, you can have the allergy and still tolerate the milk. So to that end, it's Soy Juice for the kid. Bucketface is not the happiest kid in town over that, but he'll do anything for a clear face.
Further good news. The little one, Cheech, received a letter from the school district this weekend informing him that he had been accepted to the Math, Science, and Technology Magnet School. The really amusing part to this is the letter said that if we accept the offer, we'll have to fill out the application for the program and to just write "accepted" in the blank and mail the letter back. Maybe all of the lectures and redoing homework are paying off for him. I mean he's been in honors classes since they were made available, but he just doesn't get fired up about anything. Well i'm proud of him too. I told him today that you don't have to be a football hero to be loved, you only need to be yourself. He patted me on the head. He's my hugger, or in this case, patter.
Well, school and work return to our world tomorrow and i'll be back to my routine. I still need to get a battery for my car and replace my camera, but eh, i'll get there. In parting let me say this. I have made the dress that i made this time before and i believe i am going to retire it. She got the last one of those i'll ever make. Tomorrow, i'll check her closet and see what she needs and go ahead and make her something new for work. Someday, i'm going to get around to making me that poet shirt i want, but until then i'll just soldier on. Y'all be cool now, D

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

It's time to start the dress.

Okay, so she's five foot ten inches. Why is this relevant you say?? Well I'll tell you. A very long time ago i made dresses and never gave a hang about the shoes that would go with them. I had this "Positive Shoe Theory". This PST worked fine for a while, but as you know all good things must come to an end. I made a wedding gown once and set my PST as the bride having a three inch heel. I'd seen her wearing such shoes more times than not and just figured that was what she would be wearing. The afternoon of her wedding i was called to the church for a "repair". A very rare occurrence, but i do make myself available on the afternoon of the event for anyone that gets an occasional gown from me. Well imagine my horror to discover that she, the bride, was wearing flats with bangles on them for both the wedding and the reception and hence made her dress a couple inches too long and she kept tripping over the damn thing. What made this really fun was one of her friends had tried to use hem tape and an iron to move the hem up and all she did was make the drape of the skirt twist. One last little detail, i had thirty five minutes to fix it or the day would be ruined. well with about six needles worth of thread and a very hot shower in the rectory, the dress turned out, though the invitees had to wait about ten minutes on the bride. She did look stunning, but again, i think all brides look stunning. There is just something about the way a woman looks that is about to get married, it's happiness, it's promise, hope, joy,... all good things in one package. So, back to Donna's shoes. If she'll settle on shoes, i'll start on the dress and i even have kind of a plan.
Well, I'm going with the empire waist and a very full skirt. It should drape a little heavy, but that seems to be in this spring, especially for her body type. I'm considering splitting two to four straps with them woven across the back and a sweet heart neckline. And, since I'm not a huge fan of sleeveless, it's probably going to get a full shawl. Both will be lined and all the trimmings, now i just have to get my butt in gear. It's for the 17th, so I'm not too worried about it. Now, the hard part of this actually turned out to be color. As i wrote previously, I'm tired of the little black dress, damn utilitarian wonder such that it is. So, i layed out the following, bone white, cream, a silvery gold, a copper, and a very pale olive. And the winner is........................BLACK!!!!! For the shawl, following black was easy, i got a gold lace and a lite gold lining and a cool little gimp for the edge. I have some lead crystal buttons that I'm going to use and I'll end up gathering the straps. All i have left is to find a gold trim for the dress, but i won't add it just for the sake of having it. It will have to work or it won't make the cut. As i get it going I'll see if i can't post a couple pics just to share.
In the meantime, be great and take care of each other, D

Sunday, January 3, 2010

My Resolution, Resolution.

In years gone by i have been among the portion of the world that makes New Years resolutions and this year, in a sense, is no different. With that said, this year i am taking a new tack toward a direction that has tortured me for a number of years. You see the thing i forget, and many others i would imagine, is that resolutions are nothing more than goals. Goals, you know, are supposed to be trying, but attainable with an amount of effort. The amount of effort depends on just how trying you want your goal to be or rather on the depth of the lesson you are attempting to learn. On any given year i have resolved to: stop getting irritated at my children for doing stupid crap, stop getting angry at people in line at the grocery store that feel the need to hover over me in line, stop getting mad at people who do not listen and still try to answer the question, stop wanting to park my car on people that don't talk and choose to keep everything bottled up till it boils over, stop getting pissed off at people that put things off until they have to be dealt with, stop getting crazy mad when my own stuff doesn't get done because i was helping someone else... There are others like my weight, smoking, and my growth as a writer, but I'm sure you more than get the point. So, here is my new tack for today and beyond.
I'm going to resolve to be a happier person. Should i become angry over something, I'll address it and regardless of the outcome, I'll let it go. If i miss my Rosary a day or two, I'll pick it up where i laid it down. When i get the person that hovers at the grocery store, I'll remember to smile when i say, "Hey, Scoochass back." When it comes to my growth as a writer, if i can't write at home, I'll just get in my car and go to the park and do it there. I'm just not going to wait on anyone anymore and I'm going to learn the word sorry. Out of all the words i know, sorry is the one i use the least and i probably should use it a whole lot more. I say that not only as "I'm sorry, i did that", but also as "I'm sorry, but i can't help you today."
Today, i am going to start my life. Sounds funny, start my life at nearly forty five, but that is what it is. I have things that have laid fallow too long. I have an Aunt that had a tremendous impact on me i haven't seen in over fifteen years. I don't know exactly how long, but I'd sure like to see her again on this side of the grass. I missed my first novel goal by about ten years and I'm through with that eating at me. There are others, to be sure, and i will take them on the same way i do everything else. For those of you taking notes, that would be head on, one at a time, left to right, top to bottom.
I bid each of you all the blessing of a new day and those things you so richly deserve, D
P.S. My boot heels where dug in, will stay dug in.
"I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if i could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man." Sam Houston.