Spooning.

::::falls over and d.i.e.s. from the cuteness::::

I never knew it was possible to desire measuring spoons.

[Beehive Kitchenware Co. via oh joy!.]

Cutting.

Oh, "<-----Place On Straight Grain Of Fabric----->", how you do make me so very nervous.

Welcome to the Alexander Henry Dress Factory.

Wondering.

Unless you are Jenna Small Bird, you can go look at this flickr set of a project that's been in the works for over a year now (or I worked on it for 2 months solid and then let is sit for a year, and then I did something with it a few days ago). If you are Jenna Small Bird then it's going to be in your mailbox in a few days anyway so I wouldn't peek. I shouldn't even be posting this until it's in transit but I couldn't resist and it looks like rain so no bike ride to the PO for me.

Digging.

I went to the thrift store today. The DAV never disapoints.





When the house started "coming together" a bit (it's still far from done, but what I mean is more like, "when we got a couch"), I was surprised how many people were surprised by the decor (words like "Pottery Barn" and "Martha Stewart" are being used). Is this more what you were expecting?

Biting.

I skibbled into Steve and Barry's (who I see have dropped "University Sportswear" from the chain's name) on Thursday on my way to work to check out dear SJP's new collection, Bitten. Like everybody, I was skeptical of whether it was actually going to be cute. I think in the wake of Sex and The City, we're having a hard time separating Carrie from Sarah Jessica. Carrie's style was created by Pat Fields. Sarah's style was created by I can only assume Sarah and possibly a stylist. Holy moly, it's actually cute. I'm going back. In a place with no H&M, my beloved source of cheap and interesting clothes, Bitten is a good thing. H&M is one of the top five things I look forward to most about my trip to Rochester next month (1. fam 2. knitters/wedding 3. various friends who don't knit 4. thali 5. H&M. Ta-da.) I feel bad about my lust for trendy made-over-seas clothes, but I don't know how you can assuage that guilt when you're on a tight budget. I like SJP's motives, which are (so she says and I want to believe her) growing up in a big family with no money. That's pretty noble. I'll toast to that. Any thoughts?

Practicing.

Just so you know, for the past month or so, nine out of ten nights, this has been the scene in my basement. The upside, for you, lovely reader, is that this is a still picture, with no audio. I can dig the audio these dear boys are producing, it's just that it, like, permeates my entire stinkin' house. It's not very peaceful. You think you wanna be one of those moms (wives?) where all the kids feel welcome at your house, but this whole "Um Shit You Guys We Have A Show In Six Days And We Gotta Learn Twenty New Songs By Friday Night Holy Crap Dude" ordeal has taught me that probably, you don't. At least, not four beer swillin' dudes with amplifiers and drumsticks, anyways. Oy.

Coupling.

First & Most Biggest & a few days late:



As of 6/4/07, this dude and I have been married for two lovely years. And I still have done nothing in the way of creating a wedding album. He is my best friend in the world and I adore him a little more every day. I smile when I think of him. This photo is apparently the most glorious picture of us ever taken because I have a pillow case with it on it. Long story, you don't really want to hear it. Anyways, to commemorate this stupendous occasion, Aaron surprised me with a pink rose at work, and after my shitty twelve-hour workday was finally over, we went out for pancakes. It was stupendous.

Also on the subject of weddings:



It's really no secret that I am a weird Martha Stewart semi-fanatic. I am not alone. Many a blogger has confessed that she will buy pretty much any magazine that Martha publishes. I am among them. My only regret towards our very brief engagement was that only two issues of the utterly gorgeous MS Weddings came out during my time as a Bride(zilla)-to-be. OK but did you know that if you buy the fancy Collector's Edition of Weddings ($9.95) that's on the stands right now, that you get a free year of Blueprint? It's crazy. My plan is buy it with the 50 percent off coupon from the JoAnn NPI so then I get it for five dollars. FIVE DOLLARS = SIX ISSUES of Blueprint and the magic fancy issue with it's many pictures of lovely flowers and cake for looking at when I am sad and when I decide we need to renew our vows in 18 years so I can have a mini-wedding with cupcakes. Oh, blog, I knew you would understand.

Squishing.

I don't think I've ever been really clear about my "dayjob" (while I blather on about my nights-and-weekends-and-school-holidays job at the Fabric Hole). I am a para-educator (which is nothing more than a fancy Iowa word for teacher's aide, I think, just like "guest teacher" which is Davenportese for SUB) at an elementary school and I work with behaviorally disturbed kids K-2. It's the hardest goddamn thing I have ever done in my life. But you get to love the kids so much, even when they're being A W F U L. The classroom teacher I work with is a doll and one of the things she does is first thing in the moring, they draw a name out of the basket and that person is the Warm Fuzzy. The Warm Fuzzy gets to be the line leader all day, and go first at whatever, and everyone has to give them a compliment (A WARM FUZZY, PERHAPS?), and then we go do the calendar. So the Fuzzy is denoted by the sticker he wears on his shirt (all five of our kids are boys) but the problem is that the stickers keep falling off and getting lost. And that can be pretty disasterous to a seven year-old. So with five days left 'til the end of the year, I had a Stroke of Genius and I made a little badge out of wool felt and DMC and a safety pin. How hopelessly nerdy can you get?