Baking and stuff

Last weekend I baked some brownies (chocolate chip cookie dough thrown in a 9x13 baking pan) for DS. He'd mentioned wanting some before we went off to the beach, then he left for school with no time for me to bake them & send him down the road with a batch.

Anyway i baked the brownies on Sunday nite so i could send them along with some books he'd ordered that were due to show up probably Monday or Tuesday. Well the books finally arrived today (Friday). the brownies have been sitting here all week screaming (at anyone who will listen) to eat them. We don't like to ignore such screaming and so the brownies have diminished substantially... ahem. Enough to send DS a small portion but i decided i needed to send him some other goodie. So this afternoon i baked up a batch of his favorite cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip). I have them all bagged up and ready to mail in the morning - even if they don't quite survive the trip - the crumbs will be delicious. :-)

Project Runway - i knew as soon as they said the designers would be dressing moms/sisters there was gonna be trouble. I loved the idea - imagine creating clothes the real world can wear? What a concept.
I was pretty sure Vincent would do ok - only because he had some experience having his own company and perhaps because he's older and the reality of selling clothes requires realizing you need to design for someone other than a perfect 2. I didn't think he'd win but was quite happy he did. He isn't my favorite, he's a little quirky for sure - but gosh - anyone who cashes in their life savings and puts themselves out there like that - well i wish him well - how's that?

I felt sorry for Robert early on - he looked so lost. Vincent's sister was no Barbie doll - his usual client LOL. I was sad to see Robert go - i didn't think his was the worst. (the red was a great color on her - and i can't imagine any woman who is bigger wanting to put on some print like the judges suggested - obviously they've never had a weight problem)

Jeffrey's behavior - well you just wanted to slap him one. Be a big boy and do your job. I think he was more ticked off at having to design for someone who wasn't young and pretty with a tiny little figure and then to get Angela's mom on top of that - well you knew there was gonna be trouble. I was hoping his own mother would go in there and give him a talking to - tell him to grow up. Oh well. He would have been my choice to go this week even though there's something about him i like (and its not those neck tatooes i assure you). His design - well yuck.

Tomorrow DD and me are going to try and hit the Smithsonian Naturalist Center - a small hands on extension of the Smithsonian Museums. http://www.mnh.si.edu/education/naturalistcenter.htm
Our intention is to go there and draw.
Years ago i had to take DS there to work on a school project and found the place fascinating. All kinds of stuff - from insect collections, to shells, to stuffed polar bears (for heavenssake) - they've got it all (including some creatures in jars - things like octopii... ewwww) I got to talking to one of the people who works there and she told me they have many artists go there to just draw. So i filed that in my scarey little brain and knew eventually i'd go back with sketchbook in hand. The best part is its right down the street - literally a minute in the car - or a fine little walk. DD and i have wanted to go there all week - she's only got one week left of vacation - something always seem to get in the way. Their hours don't leave much time after work for me so tomorrow seems to be the best bet this week. Here's hoping we have some great sketch time and good mom/daughter time.

I just realized

its Project Runway tonite! Yeah .... love that show.
i remembered it was on earlier and thought i would throw my two cents in on last weeks elimination. Sorry but i'm the only one i guess on the planet who liked Vincents dress. I know you're thinking i'm crazy. i didn't love it mind you but i think there were several a lot worse. I looked at the show more than once (passing thru and saw it was on again) and i loved the silouhette of the dress with all that junk on it. If you can stay with me on this - and check it out again on the replay tonite - there was one shot of the dress with the girl coming down the runway and the pieces on the dress kinda reminded me of beading and things. Whatever.... I'm sorry but Kane's dress was hideous. And even though i loved her, Alison's dress was not up to her usual. I wish she'd stuck with her original idea. Anything woulda been better than the poofy thing she came up with. i really loved Jeffrey's dress (when i was watching and realized he was working with the newspaper i was hoping he'd paint it up with some PearlEx since they were allowed to buy some art supplies... wouldn't that have been pretty?)
In general i don't like the judges. Michael Korrs and Nina (whoever) were a little skitzy in their critiques. They want inovation but they drooled all over Laura's dress. Sorry - i saw nothing innovative in the dress. I loved the dress but for me it didn't fulfill the challenge. Kane - they went on and on about how hideous it was but MK said somethig like - he can sew a dress. Well again... where was the innovation and they just finished saying how awful it was. So they're allowed to base their choices on past weeks? if so why did sweet hip little Allison go home??? He shoulda gone home. Alison at least tried and hers wasn't theee most awful thing. And Vincent - well- they carried on about how the model couldn't walk in the dress. Hey - she made it down the runway just fine and are they saying that coutoure is always easy to wear? I can remember tons of coutoure that number 1 never was gonna make it into a store and 2 plenty that wasn't easy to wear or walk in (take a look at a few awards shows with these women in tight full length gowns and they can barely walk up or down stairs) Even Heidi conceded the dress was innovative.
ok... done with my rant. We'll see what they come up with tonite... can't wait.
oh and my class... they were just the best bunch of women - so fun and worked like mad - and they were newbies too. Caught on real quick and just were so happy to be there. Made it a total pleasure to go in and work.. doesn't it figure? I spent time whining and it worked out so nice in the end. i hope i see them again real soon :-)

Not in the Mood

for work.LOL i know how pathetic am i?
i went to work yesterday and found out my class tonite is on. Before i left on vacation no one had signed up for the class (zoo pages... actually very nice class - if you like paint & chipboard - which i do) and i thought well fine. I'll have an entire day off after i get back from vacation to catch up on things yaknow? Well yesterday i looked at the schedule and three people had signed up for the class. It surprised me for some reason - i mean no one had even commented on the samples in the store (we usually get a feeling for how the classes will go just by the comments people make - if they get lots of good talk - the class will fill up nicely). Since i'd mentally decided the class wasn't taking place i had to totally shift my thinking. I had to reacquaint myself with the whole thing and get some more samples done. Last nite i ordered from photos from Costco and i picked them up this morning. (love Costco photo developing for just that). Early this afternoon i created 2 more 2 page layouts for the class with pictures. And although they came out quite nice (nicer than the "class" ones if you ask me) i just wasn't into it. It was such a chore and i hate feeling that way. Know what i mean? Well off to the orthodontist with dd.

Beach Books and DVD's

I read only two books while on vacation (i should've brought a few more)
12 Sharp by Janet Evanovich - if you haven't already read any of the Stephanie Plum novels - do yourself a big fat favor and run out and get all 12 (this series is numbered - for example: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, three to get Deadly and so on). They're hilarious reads. I literally laugh out loud reading them. I've even got my mother reading them and she laughs out loud as well.
Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani. I think I've read all of her books - i especially the The Big Stone Gap books. This one was very good, if not a little sad. I loved the time frame in which the main story takes place - the 1950's in New York City. A good part of the story takes place at B.Altman's. If you don't know B. Altman's i can only say how sad. A wonderful store that no longer exists - a favorite store of my youth. It was a favorite of my grandparents as well as my parents. When i was a child my grandparents would sometimes have us stay with them in NYC on weekends. We'd go all over the city (museums, the UN, Radio City) and 5th Avenue was a frequent destination being not that far away. We'd shop at B. Altman's & Saks. Anyway - I loved the characters and the way the author tells the story.
When i'm picking books i want to be entertained - and both these books and authors know how to do that.
DVD's - I'd heard a lot about a series on Showtime called WEEDS. when we went to the Blockbuster at the beach i saw the first year on DVD and thought why not try it.
OMIGOSH... If you don't have Showtime (we don't) you must rent the first season. Of course if you can't imagine being amused by a comedy wherein the main character is a newly widowed mother of two who sells weed - don't rent it. It's outrageous - we loved it. It's not for children thats for sure. And since we watched something like 10 episodes i have the theme song stuck in my head - it is a brilliant song - actually each episode has music that is quite the coolest bunch of tunes i've heard in a while. But the theme song is something of a 60's protest tune and its just wonderful - called Little Boxes. I shall be purchasing the cd shortly. Here's a link if you want to hear what i'm talkin about http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/music.do just click on the link for the music and listen to Little Boxes.
time for bed - i have to work tomorrow. ugh...

we''re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

well we got back yesterday afternoon. a long delay on the approach to the bay bridge and another delay due to a terrible accident maybe half a mile in front of us on the beltway but we're back. we were trying our best to get home before ds left for school. we thought he was returning on Sunday but he wanted to get going on Saturday. Fortunately he was still packing his car up when we arrived home. Its funny how the first year they go off to college you go with them and its a big dramatic thing. This year (the third year) i think i was the only one who was feeling it. I miss him already. Despite the fact he was rarely home more than a second any day during the summer - barely time to shower and change clothes - i still miss him. oh well.
The rest of yesterday was taken up with doing laundry (piles and piles) reading 100 emails, and unpacking various and sundry items.
We had a wonderful vacation. I shall fill you all in later but i will mention the one bad thing now. I am camera-less.
We were on the ferry to Cape May and i took several pics with no problem. We got off the ferry and started walking about. I saw a house - gorgeous Victorian - tons of gingerbread and it was - pink! - and it practically screamed "take my picture". So i pulled out my camera and took a shot and looked at the review - nothing - black screen. I tried repeatedly to no avail. i thought perhaps when i get home and upload the photos (i took a few more just in case) they will be there. Perhaps something was wrong with the review portion of the camera. Everything else seemed to be working just fine. Last night i hooked it all up and uploaded and still black.
The rest of the vacation i was camera- less. it was like having my arm cut off. At one point, on the beach, i pulled out my phone, forlordssake, to take a pic - i'm that desperate. bereft.
tomorrow i'll be calling the repair company the manufacturer recommends to see what it would cost to repair it. Of course i'm thinking already it may be cheaper to just buy new.
We shall see.
gotta run for now

well thats weird

i uploaded the ocean city pic and its no where to be found. hmmmm
lets try one more time

ah now there you go

and whilst i'm at it a few close ups

See you next week

we are heading out

in the morning for the beach.
de- laware
i plan to :

• do beach (dh's family's way of saying going to the beach. when i was growing up in NJ we said we're were going "down the shore" - so...when in Rome and all that..... )
• read beach books (aka - trash; also semi trash and maybe a little jane austen)
• eat beach food (in these parts that means CRAB. CRAB and more CRAB. did i say CRAB?)
• play skee ball (why i love skee ball - i cannot define it - i could say its because you get tickets and then trade those in for prizes that are total trash which makes it all the more wonderful - but then when i played skee ball as a kid "down the shore" we never got tickets and i STILL loved it... go fig)
• play putt putt (again.. NJ we said miniature golf... but i am in another land - not even that far away - but it might as well be Mars - regardless its got a stick and a ball and its toooooo fun and it is our tradition. And i love traditions.)
• walk every morning (we have taken this up at the beach the last few years. we get up, put on something not too hideous and walk at a good fast pace for around 45 minutes. i like to think of it as an antidote to the ice cream with chocolate sprinkles i will eat later in the day. )
• eat ice cream (with chocolate sprinkles - a major dose of those please) - see above
• see at least one movie
• go to the dollar store for something we forgot. the dollar store is up the street from the house. makes for a nice walk in the middle of the day.
• walk on the beach at least one evening. it is so pretty at night
• draw in my sketchbook every day. i plan to share that here next week.

the skee ball we'll probably play in Ocean City - thats the OC in Maryland not the OC in New Jersey (and certainly not that "other" OC) And on that note - i'll share a photo of a most cool place in OC, MD. We went there one day during last years "beach week". its a short ride from the house in Delaware. everything is a short ride from Delaware (right Lindalou?) Anyway i took my camera (as i'm known to do - i'm no photographer and don't plan to ever be but i like recording for the scrapbook or just to be able to look at things later or refer to the pics for drawing) and snapped this pic of a most cool place on the boardwalk.

sexy since 1981?

have you seen those commercials for Candies? Pat Benatar singing her heart out? Well i had seen the shoes recently at Kohl's and i had a little flashback to college. I took a peek at their website
http://www.candies.com/sitelet/default.asp
and that's the tagline for the original - or rather "vintage" - candies.
Sexy since 1981
I stared at the screen and thought -i think not. I know we had those shoes back in college. Which was between 1975 and 1979 for me.
So i consulted the highest authorities to check that my memory was correct.
The highest authorities - my girlfriends from college of course!
The agreed with me - and have photos to prove those shoes were around long before Candies said they were. How odd -for them to say the company was founded in 1981 with those shoes when we know different. Dontcha think?

Last few days

haven't been ultra interesting. Our A/C was failing and we had to call in someone on Sunday to check it out. It definitely needed fixin. Let's just say freeon (is that how you spell it?) has gone up in price - akin to the gas pump.
I visit the gas pump frequently as E is doing a class this summer and we are running back and forth to the school every day. Well, J does the drop off and i do the pickup, but i digress. An hour to and an hour home - kills a lot of gasoline. Good news is Thursday is the last day of her class. What's she been learning? A computer science class she must have for school. She must be learning lotsa fancy stuff. She was working on her final project last nite when i checked in on her, working hard at her computer. Playing a game that looked like Pong. She made her own version of the game. She wasn't done yet but it looked pretty darn good to me.
Well i'm off to work. I hope to check back in later.

Black is ever so slimming

so tonite i went to the crop at work with the intention of getting work done. i have two classes in september and the idea was to work on the samples: one completed and a good start on the 2nd. well i finally left in disgust at about 9pm. I never began the 2nd sample. The first sample was halfway completed when i walked in the door. I'd done all the cutting yesterday (while i was cooking dinner...lol) and thought this was gonna be easypeasy assembly.
needless to say it wasn't.
darn if these projects that appear sooo simple end up being theeeee worst.
however.
one of the other croppers is a wonderful woman named Teri. She comes to the crop most every week and works on ATC's. she's in a bazillion swaps (or seems to be) and uses friday nites to create her swaps. she is very talented. her atc's would make you drool. they're just - wow. and yaknow i don't think she realizes just quite how good she is.
anyway Teri and I are sitting at tables that face one another and we are chatting off and on. somehow the topic of weight always comes up in female conversation doesn't it? interspersed in the same conversation we're talking about what we're working on. i noticed her atc's are edged in gold. i was inking an edge of a tag with some chalk ink. I commented to her how they (my employers designers) are enamored with black ink. I didnt think it appropriate on the very colorful tags i was working on for their class so i chose a pink pad and was dabbing away. (it looked just right) and suddenly i got a pretty funny notion and started to laugh. Teri said "what?"
i asked her if she thought that if i inked all my edges in black (hips, thighs....) that i might appear thinner? you know - black is ever so slimming.
i hadn't laughed that hard in ages.

tumble dry kitty

i said i was doing lots of laundry yesterday. I pulled a load out of the dryer and left the door open. i went to get the next load for the wash, returned and this is what i found.
he's a funny boy, my frankie. i wish i could've gotten a shot without the glowing eyes but he's not one to sit still long. I am amazed he sat there long enough for me to run down the hall to grab my camera.

2 out

ok so project runway - i guess i lied before when i said i didnt have a favorite. i really liked Keith. Well... maybe not liked him but i loved his clothes. I kinda suspected he might be the one to be getting the boot when they showed the previews last week. He was a bad boy. And we love a bad boy - especially when they make pretty clothes. It was kinda stupid of him to have those books (how did he get them past them in the first place?) but i guess he also left and used the internet (apparent no-no's). You break the rules - you gotta pay the piper.
I really liked his design and was happy the other two were able to pull it off without him leading. i woulda picked their team. Angela - she's a piece of work. She was able to work with her team - not like when she was paired up with Vincent - egad. And those little rosettes worked as buttons (thank goodness they talked her into that!)
When i saw those rosettes i thought of this quilt my mom told me my grandmother made. It was out of little circles all sewn up like little puffs - not unlike Angela's rosettes. Funny - everything old is new again.

a little this - a little that

ok. so i've been on a long blogging break.
but i've been delightfully prodded back
- thank you miss b -
anywho -- life has been whirlwindish. summer brings visitors, new schedules and more reality tv.

i admit i've been hooked for years on Big Brother. It is back and its all stars and it is tooo stinkin fun. it might be hard for someone to just jump into watching BB7 now but if you're at all inclined give it a try.
my other reality guilty pleasure is Project Runway. I watched last season and was so happy to see a new one starting up a few weeks back. Last season i had my definite favorite - Daniel - but this year i'm still on the fence. I do so enjoy watching and tonite you know where i'll be - watching PJ. Course i can't just sit there and watch. Tonite i'll be folding piles of laundry. Makes me feel a bit less guilty :-)

well i'm off right now. i just finished making a huge batch of meatballs (for tonite and a few other meals) and now i think i'll see if i can work on a little project.
i'll be back soon