Hold me, I'm cutting fabric

I received a nice little sewing machine from my mom for Christmas, which I upgraded to a little bit nicer sewing machine in January.  Since then, I've just been flirting with Bernie (the sewing machine).  Sure, I'd thread it, or sew a stitch or two, but nothing more than harmless flirtation.

Until tonight.

I found a couple of really cute spring outfits for the kids by Rosie Posie, and when I was visiting the inlaws last weekend, I found the girl's outfit on sale.  SCORE!  Since my parents have Strip for a spoil-me-rotten visit this week, I decided to take advantage of some quiet time and take it to the next level with Bernie.  Nugget and I went to our favorite little fabric shop and selected some material (he slept through the whole experience), and tonight is the big night.  

Nugget's in bed, I have a tasty glass of 2 buck chuck and I'm about to make my first cut.  Fingers crossed.  The good news is, the outfit is for Nugget, who is 2.  And while he may have an opinion on things, he doesn't have enough words to express said opinions, so I can have crooked seams, and loose buttons and he can't complain :-)  I'll post a pic if when I finish!

Greatest.Picture.EVER

His lips are saying, "Cheese," but his eyes are saying, "boobies!"

This thing's got ups

I have a really long, drawn out, rambling post about our least magical Disney experience EVER that I am working on and debating on actually posting, but while I drink my dinner, please take a look at this marvel.

When I was getting Nugget's balloons inflated for his party, the balloon lady asked if I wanted some magic spray that was supposed to make them last longer. I politely declined. Who really wants a balloon floating around for longer than a day anyway, right (well, besides a 2 year old)? Fast forward to Strip's party day. I had a mylar butterfly balloon inflated on Strip's birthday party day, May 9th. Hubs and I were both amazed a couple of days when it was still full of life and floating around the house.

Today's date is June 16th. 5 weeks and 3 days post helium. I give you the butterfly balloon:

Yup.  Still on the ceiling.  When we came in from Disney and saw it was still up there, I was sort of convince that some arachnophobia-type spiders had suspended it up there in a web, but no.  It's still there.  Getting our money's worth out of the helium.   Over a month.  That's longer than some goldfish live!  

And just for dramatic emphasis, here's another shot (but please note, we did NOT choose the paint color in this room.  The nice man named Ed who lived here before us selected it):

Amazing.  Part of me wants to take it down and toss it before Strip comes home from Ma's, but a really big part of me wants to see just how long this thing can stay up.  I wonder if there's a world record for longest balloon life.

Here I go again

I have a problem. I get borderline unhealthy obsessions on morbid/odd stories and historical events. My running tally includes the Holocaust, the Romanov dynasty and the Tudors. If there is something on tv, a movie or a book about any of those, you bet I'm all over it. In fact, I accidentally read Angela's Ashes because the not-so-bright book girl told me it was about a family surviving the Holocaust, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Hub's indulges my obsession, too. He very sweetly surprises me with a cable upgrade to include Showtime so I can watch Tudors every new season. But honestly, he really gets into the cute girls whose clothes tend to fall off story line.

So we recently watched Into The Wild ,  and I decided to pick the book up for our trip to Disney.  I devoured it, and finished it as we were hitting the Georgia state line.  Because we still had a good 6 hours to go, I spent the rest of the time googling pictures of Chris McCandless and reading excerpts to Hubs.  His story just haunts me.  I think it's because he reminds me visually of a friend of mine's husband, physically of a friend of mine's brother and mentally of my brother.  I could totally see UP running off into the woods just to see what would happen.  

I think one of the main things that intruiges me about Chris, is how absolutely happy he was.  He documented his journey in a journal and through pictures.  I hate to post this, because I don't know the true person to give credit to, but here's a picture I found on flickr posted by a chriso2000.  It's the last photo taken of Chris.  He knew he was about to die, was getting too weak and the possiblity of someone finding him before he died was slim to say the least.  Yet here he is in his farewell message, looking extremely emaciated but holding a sign that reads, "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD.  GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"

What a peaceful and message to leave the world!  I don't think I would have gone off into the woods like he did, but had I been in his galoshes, I'm quite sure my last note/pic would not have been that touching or happy looking.  I mean, look at his face.  I just spent a week in Disney World, and I'm not sure I look as happy as he does in any of my pictures, and he's about to die.

I'm now off to find some chick lit to read and rot my brain so I don't start getting too obsessed with his story.

On the road, still!

We are on the road back home, and I can't blog from my phone, but will overly update soon!

To Tweet, or not to Tweet. That is the question.

Twitter intrigues me.  I'm still not sure I "get" it, though.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's pretty much a run of status updates?  I think this would be perfect for me.  I update my FB status waaaay too much.

My brother is a twit is on Twitter, but he's too cool and made it so you have to follow him to see what he's doing.  Which leads me to my next thought about the subject.  If I did sign up for Twitter, it would be mainly just to follow people.  However, I would feel the need to Tweet, myself.  And if I'm tweeting, I would *need* followers.  Otherwise, I'm just that creepy bird in the corner talking to herself.  

While I do the blog for me, I'm honored to have seven followers, but let's face it.  Two of the followers are dogs, and I don't know if dogs tweet.  Not to mention, if I were on Twitter, most of my tweets would probably be things like, "Hey you!  Reader from Chattanooga, TN that just hopped on the blog from Facebook.   Who are you?!?!  I see you reading and assume since you got her via Facebook, we are actually friends, but I can't figure out who you are and it's bugging me."  Not exactly "following" material.  

Hmmm.  What to do, what to do.  And I am totally serious about the reader in Chattanooga.  You're killing me here.  Who are you?!

Paying it forward

Hubs ruined a movie for me last night, so I'm going to share the love and ruin it for all of you.  Don't read this if you haven't seen Into the Wild or read the book.  STOP READING NOW.  You've been warned.

We suspended Netflix three months ago because we just weren't watching movies like we should.  I figured by the time it started up again (end of May/June) things would have slowed down and we'd see how much we used it this summer.  It started up this week, and because I had not looked at our queue in three months, it sent us 2 "good" ones -- Strangers, which we just watched on demand a couple of weeks ago and Into the Wild, which I put on with every intention of getting the book at the library and reading before the movie got here. 

Hubs decides after laying bricks all day (with a little help from me) that we should watch Into the Wild.  We cozy up on the couch and get all into it.  I am PRYING my eyes open, trying to stay awake for the end.  I think I made it until the last 15 minutes.  The next thing I know, the credits are rolling.  Oh well.  I stumble upstairs and into bed.  A few minutes later, Hubs came up.

  Hubs:  Did you read the book?

Me:  No, but it looks like I'm going to have to since I fell asleep and missed the ending.

Hubs:  It ticks me off that he died.

Me:  WHAT?!  

Hubs:  Yeah, those berries he ate killed him.  I really wanted him to make it out of there.

Me:  Guess I don't need to get the book now.

I know he was all worked up from the not-so-happy ending, but geeze!!  Give me 20 minutes in the morning to watch it, then we can talk about it.  Ugh.