Friday, March 30, 2007

Which Care Bear are you? I am...

Funshine Bear
You are filled with unlimited energy and extremely resourceful. You like to tackle problems and tasks head-on and you gladly accept any jobs that come along the way. However, you often take on too much and your stubbornness won't allow you to accept help from others. But you're always willing to have a good time!

Manifold difference


I've been auto-less this week in Lilburn while visiting sister Julie because of the afformentioned noisiness from my exhaust manifold. Originally we thought it just needed new bolts to tighten it. The old bolts had snapped off and needed to be drilled out. (How does that happen?) Once the mechanic got in there to see what the trouble was, it was discovered there was a hole in the manifold (go figure) and so needed replacement. This is a very expensive repair...one I don't have the funds to cover. But the Lord provided, through the means of my church, and I am so thankful for their generosity and care. I'm also grateful that I won't have to listen to the grumbling engine for 13 hours on Monday when I head home. The Green Machine now purrs like a kitten.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Hotlanta

I spent all day Thursday driving from Baltimore to Lilburn, a suburb of Atlanta to spend ten days with my sister and her family. I am happy to say the trip went just as well as last year, mostly uneventful. The only thing about this trip that made it "interesting" were some minor annoyances such as, even though I spent $406 the day before the trip to have the squeaking taken out of the brake pads, the car decided it needed to make another even more annoying sound. Apparently a hole erupted in the exhaust somewhere close to the engine and the Green Machine sounded like a pack of Harleys everytime I accelerated. Also the little thingy that goes into the tape deck to play cds from the portable cd player over the car speakers wasn't working right. So twenty minutes into listening to "Prince Caspian" the sound cut off. I guess my heads are dirty or the tape thingy is busted, and Little Miss peed her pants and annouced it one second too late for me to pull off at the rest stop (which was the last one for the next 37 miles). So I had to do a roadside changing, but I'm extremely thankful no one got carsick.

Anyway, the children and I are really enjoying the warmth (80's) and the sunshine and the blooming trees everywhere. It's a nice change after that snow and ice storm just last weekend!

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

AVAM




We had a great time at the American Visionary Arts Museum.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

"Dressmaker" not "Seamstress"


I have never liked the term "seamstress" and now I have another good reason. I was just looking up the definition for "tailor" on Wiki and came across this:

A Seamstress
is someone who sews seams, or in other words, a machine operator in a factory who may not have the skills to make garments from scratch or to fit them on a real body. This term is not a synonym for dressmaker. Seamstress is an old euphemism for prostitute.

Dressmaker, Custom Clothier, Alterations Specialist and Pattern Maker all describe what I do much better and that suits me fine.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Winter's Last Hurrah


It would figure that the day after I planted pansies, we would get lambasted by a wintery mix of weather. Last night after some consideration, I decided to venture out into the storm to get a movie. Four wheel drive? No, two foot walk. It took me about an hour and a half to walk a little over a mile, select a movie, and trudge back home. Considering that I've spent close to 45 minutes contemplating movie choices in the past, it wasn't so bad. This time I knew what I was after: Project Runway. MK recommended it, I watched disc one of season one last week and was hoping to get disc two, but Blockbuster wasn't carrying season one so I skipped on to disc one of season two. I had a jump hem on a jacket to do by hand while I watched and ooh, it was good. I think I'm hooked. Although I can't help sympathizing with the anxiety some of the designers face. It reminds me very much of college, bizarre, open ended projects to do with unusual criteria. I find watching Project Runway inspiring though. I especially like watching the processes the designers go through. I'm also a little intimidated by what these people can do... I'm mostly self-taught, and I'm not sure why I didn't pursue fashion in college. I think it's a bit too cut-throat for my personality. I'm not a competitive person, but now I see what kind of skills these designers have and I wish I had taken classes when I had the chance. One more thing to add to the to do list: take design classes.

Black Current L.L. Bean Comfort boots: $39.95
Two videos at Blockbuster: $8.38
Watching the snow fall against the black night sky while my feet stayed not only dry (after sloshing through several deep puddles of slush) but warm: Priceless

Thursday, March 01, 2007

DO NOT FLUSH

Two out of the three kids have been sick this past week. This morning I was feeling the beginnings of whatever it is they had and L was feeling particularly impish. While I was making bacon and eggs for the lot of us, K called to me from the bathroom, "Mommy! L put something in the toilet! Now she's FLUSHING it!" I ran in to see the swirling colors of the three foam alphabet shapes she deposited in there as they disappeared down the toilet. Since the things fit down the hole I thought that perhaps they made it through...none such luck. So after I had a go with the plunger, and dad had his turn with the "snake," he called Roto Rooter. Tom (who broke the stereotype for plumber) arrived shortly to remove our toilet and dislodge the foam obstructions. He only found two of them. We think the last one made it through the pipes. We hope the last one made it through the pipes.