dear departed doggie

Things have been super hectic lately with all the activities the kids and I are involved in, but I did really need to post about a recent loss we had.

You may remember this header from a while back:

or this one:

Both starring our very awesome dog, Misty. She's been with us a LONG time.

Thing one is twelve in this photo. Hard to tell, I know, because she's still that short today as a married grown-up person....

That's a four-year-old Eclair sharing oatmeal with our doggie. This child doesn't remember a time when Misty wasn't part of our family.


Each winter has been getting harder for her, sometimes she could barely climb the stairs. Then the weather would warm up and she would be her old self again. Her coat went from a caramel brown to a light blonde over the years. This last summer, she really started going downhill, escalated by an injury to her neck and spine in July. The second week of November, she made it known to us that she was ready to go. It's been really hard on us all, she was our first dog ever, and was a larger part of our lives than we suspected until she was gone.

Trying to put together the photoshopped wonder that was our 2010 Christmas card was harder than it looked... Misty was a dog of perpetual motion and great strength. If she had been in the room at the same time as the cats, there wouldn't have been any cats left afterward.

So two separate photos were taken, and the grils were magically inserted afterward to make the very first image above.

Because of the perpetual motion thing, she was a hard dog to get photos of. IMPOSSIBLE to focus on.

She would always sit still for a hug, though.

It's been a difficult adjustment - I still find myself saving the choicest scraps for her while cooking, I look for her to be peeking at me through her "window" between two fence slats at the gate in the driveway, and I miss hearing her "now come pay attention to me" bark from the laundry room when she comes inside. There are a lot of little things that have changed with her absence.

Here is how I will remember her best:

.

Whoovian shoes

When Screamapillar was in Prom court last year.....

We made some awesome shoes for her to wear. We would have made the same shoes regardless of prom court, it was just a bonus that so many people got to enjoy them.

Nerdiness runs in the family, it cannot be helped.

The idea was Screamapillar's. The sketch was done by Thing One. The execution was done my Momma.

they are awesome from every angle

Thanks to Momma's mad skillz, her date's boutonniere looked pretty boss also. I used feathers...lots of feathers....

Here's the step by step: 

1. Use sharp scissors to trim away fluff from the spine of the feather, also trim for shaping.

2. for "curled" feathers shown at center above I trimmed the feathers into a very long an narrow shape, then open the scissors and draw the blade up the inside spine of the feather, much like curling gift-wrap ribbon. This may need to be repeated to get desired curl.

3. Wrap each feather with floral tape; put two together and wrap again, wrap each time you add a feather.

4. You could be finished here, or you could draw a TARDIS on some blue fun foam using paint markers and then hot glue it to the feathers......

But you have to have a very awesome date who would wear such a thing: 

So that's it. How to Who-ify your prom.

On a side note, Thing One has opened an Etsy store if you want some of those awesome shooz.

.

Messin' with people.

A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning....

Back story first: Luke Skywalker & Eclair are home from school puking (ah, the glamourous life I lead...). I need to go to work. So I can have a job. And make monies. And pay for Christmas. And get away from the puking, actually.

Since I have an unemployed married daughter, I drafted her into service. Called her at a little after 8am and asked her to act as auxillary mom today. I'd have to drive to Spanish Fork where she lives and come get her, but it would be worth it.

I allowed her enough time to become fully concious and bathe and find her purse (during which time I put gas in the car and went to Macey's for Popsicles and Seven-up). When I picked her up, I thought it would only be right if I got her some breakfast before throwing her under the bus that is my sick children.

We went to McD's. The one by her house that just had a corporate audit, so they're on their best behavior. And this was our order:

Two sausage muffins
Two large Dr P
Two apple pies

And then I did a hateful thing.

When Drive-up-window-dude was handing me my drinks, I said "Now which one is which?"

I have never seen such a horror stricken face. A face that said "WHAT HAVE I DONE" like he had just murdered someone. Two dark cola looking drinks and neither had any of those little lid button do-hickies pushed in. Beads of sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead, and he aged before my eyes.

This man's world came to a grinding halt.

And then he looked at the order.

Two large Dr. P

And a grin broke out on his face. "I AM VICTORIOUS. I HAVE NOT SCREWED UP. This insane woman is just messin' with me."

"Have a great day, ma'am!"



I seriously need to do that more often.....
.

I'm baaack....

Okay, yeah, scold me all you like, I was BUSY for heaven's sake.

But it's nice to know that both of you missed me, loyal readers.

Prepare yourself for a slew (a positive SLEW) of posts. They may or may not be very interesting, or funny or anything, but there will be something to read anyway....


First up: where I disappeared to.

My kid was in a play. Here she is, the harlot.

And being the completly insane person I am, I volunteered to costume the entire production. Partly because I'm really, really stupid, but mostly because it was 

Les Miserables.

Wanna see some more? 

Our incredible Fantine was a 15 year old gril who was the most amazing singer. You would have loved her.

Our Valjean (seen here with his convict cohorts) was wonderful also. Jack E. Sparrow's little brother, actually.

There were factory workers:

And peasants:

And soldiers:

And rebellious students:  

And a wedding:

And let's not forget the Thernardier's....

You see, I spent many many many nights up late. Many nights where I skipped sleep altogether. You may blame much sleeplessness on Enjolras and his lovely vest: 

If I had truly appreciate that I would have over 70 cast members, some of whom had up to six costume changes, I'm not sure I would have been so eager to volunteer.

If these kids had been any less awesome, it would have been a chore. As it was, they were a delight to work with, and they made me cry. Often.

 A good time was had by all. Audience, Cast and Tech alike. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

And I'm mostly caught up on my lost sleep now.

the $49 dollar prom dress

This post is SO late. Screamapillar kindly reminded me the other day that I never posted about Prom last spring.

I doubted I would be able to top last year's $26 prom dress, and so far I haven't. This year's dress came from a bridal outlet (....where we may or may not have been looking for a big white dress for somebody else...). My little sister referred me to this place, and I must say I was quite impressed. They had a plethora of beautiful bridal gowns (an absolute plethora I say!), and probably twice as many formal dresses in every color of the rainbow.

I knew before we even got in the car what color dress we were going to come home in...even though we tried lots and lots of things like this:

and this:

Looks like she didn't like this one much. Nice face, dere.

They were very pretty,  but didn't scream "SCREAMAPILLAR" at me...

This one did.

Toxic Lime Green.

The gown only had a halter type strap on top, so bolero time again. She chose pink for the bolero to match the ruffle at the hem, and did all the beading herself. The petticoats underneath are just a bridal petticoat with the top layer pinned up to expose the tulle. We did add one yard of gathered pink tulle over the white layers to add a little more pink (and we only attached it with SAFETY PINS!!!).

The original dress was also backless with just the corset strapping baring quite an expanse of flesh, so Mommy had to fix it some. I just pinned a piece of tissue paper to the back of the dress to create a pattern for the area I needed to fill. Cut two from matching fabric (that was the hard part, actually), sewed it together, turned it right side out, and hand stitched it down the right hand side of the dress back. I put in hooks on the left side to keep it in the right location, but the lacing pretty much held it in place.

Unfortunately, when laced up it looked kinda bunchy, but the bolero covered most of it so it didn't look too bad. At least she passed the dress code and didn't look scandalous....

At the end of the evening, she managed to accessorize with some stuff that didn't quite match:

YEA NOT PROM QUEEN!!! The sash for queen was white, and that would have just been too normal looking.....

Congratulations, Screamapillar, for winning 2nd attendant, you are so completely awesome.

And in case you didn't notice.....her date had a very unique boutoniere... but that (and her matching shoes) are fodder for another post...

.

...worth a thousand words...

After many much waiting.... we have some wonderful photos from the reception. I have been really looking forward to these, if for no other reason, because I was under the influence of some heavy duty pain killers after blowing out my knee earlier that day. My recollection of the evening was pretty hazy, and I was sitting here with fingers crossed for the last 9 weeks.

At last they are here, and I have picked my very favorites to share with you. The old saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words," but some of these need captions.

Enjoy.

"Touch not my dear husband, or I shall smite thee, brother mine"

TEAMWORK. (Hard to make such a wonderful cake with three and a half arms to work with)

"Ummm. Uncle Scopp, when I leaned over to hug Grandma, she ran over my dress with her wheelchair  and now I'm stuck..."

"Yeah, we all know I'm the cutest bridesmaid."

"I told you I could be trusted to not smoosh cake all over your face!"

"You did WHAT with the cardboard cutout of our missionary bridesmaid????"

The bride gets her first glance at the gift table.

Daddy - daughter, mother - son

(After dancing with her daddy)





Okay, before you look at this series, you need to know it's title.


THE GARTER CONSPIRACY

(please excuse the poor groom his confusion, as he was completely unprepared for what transpired)

Who knew? Superhero bloomers.



As I mentioned earlier, much of the evening is a blur in my memory. I'm really glad our photographer was able to make sure I didn't miss a moment of Eclair's exploits as she spend entirely too much time unsupervised:

road trip

I took a road trip with my mom last weekend. We went to Boulder, I had no idea what an adventure it would be just getting there.

There is so much to see on Interstate 80 in Wyoming....

A history lesson, for example. Did you know that before it was Interstate 80, it was Highway 30. The first transcontinental highway, privately funded and maintained.

There's lots of wildlife on this route as well: 

There were antelope everywhere...

And then there was stuff like this on the road: 

Slightly intimidating, staring down the gun barrel of the vehicle in front of you...

I don't have a picture of the next best event, which left me so flabbergasted  that I must use google images to piece is together for you. Here's the truck:

source

And here's the driver. Click the link, because I really don't want this face on my blog:

REDNECK IDIOT

and his unsuspecting passenger:

This redneck blocked us from passing him for about 20 minutes, when we reached a hill he had trouble climbing. We pulled alongside the trailer and started to pass, and the redneck driver apparently wanted back in our lane and started screaming at us through his window to get out of his way....

why? I suppose we'll never know. He wasn't very happy about being behind us. He tried valiantly to overtake us, but just then a semi tried to pass a slower truck and pulled in front of the redneck. 

Well, we all know the best course of action when you want to pass a semi.

USE THE MEDIAN STRIP.

So Redneck is now going 70 in the dirt in the center median - pulling a horse trailer - until he can pass the semi. It was quite a dust cloud he was making back there, dodging the little reflector posts....

Poor mule.

Funny thing though, he wasn't ever quite able to pass us again....

ON TO THE NEXT AND BEST ADVENTURE, FOLKS.

About mile marker 180, things came to an abrupt halt. A complete and total halt. A turn-off-the-engine-and-maybe-check-on-why-all-the-other-drivers-are-walking-around-on-the-highway-up-ahead kind of halt. 

Mom gave me the "will you check this out I don't wanna get out of the car" look, so I walked up ahead about half a mile to where people were congregating to find out what the hold up was. Dude with binoculars says he can't see where there isn't a parking lot on the highway. Dude with the Iphone says there's an accident about 10 miles ahead, but can't get anything more with the poor reception we have out here in the middle of nowhere. 

So I walk back to the car and we sit and read for about 30+ minutes. Finally, I call Boyfriend Fiancee Thing One's Husband to see if he can look online and see if there's an update from the highway patrol, perhaps? He says he'll check and give us a call back.

Well he must have some kind of magical traffic powers, because everyone out there is running back to their cars and my goodness, we're moving again!

And then we    S   L   O   W  down again after one mile. But at least now the scenery is getting interesting: there's a bunch of firemen putting out a brush fire alongside the road. But traffic is still barely crawling, for miles and miles ahead, so the fire can't be the hold up.....

and then another mile and another smoldering section of brush.....

and another mile and a smoldering brush fire that has jumped from the side of the road to the center median......

.... another mile, another small fire..... you begin to get the picture.

Then we go down hill into a small dip area (mostly smoldering...)

AND HERE IT IS!!!!

The source, apparently, of all the little brush fires over the last eight miles.

Seriously? You didn't notice that YOUR TRAILER is ON FIRE? FOR EIGHT MILES?

He managed to save the front end...

Arriving at our destination was a joy. The museum exhibit we went to in Denver was wonderful, as was the one in Boulder. So, all in all, it was a wonderful trip that will leave me looking forward to my next foray into Wyoming.

NOT.