Some of you may appreciate this

Surfin the web and came across this. FUNNY!!!
Read the comments also to see how many other people feel the same way!

She doesn't look like much now...

...but boy is she shiny!

It is coming together but here is the part that I don't like...

There are soooo many pieces and so many different things happening at once and there are parts literally EVERYWHERE! I wandered all over the shop into each mechanic's bays to take these pictures of all the pieces.

Bumper and back window upstairs, hood in my office, stuff on the floor, stuff in the trunk, on a workbench, in a box. AAAHHH!

The crazy thing is..it will all come together.

Despite the look of chaos, they all know exactly what they're doing.

It amazes me when I go out into the shop and see them all working on it and one of them is holding a baggie labeled "rear window motor" full of tiny pieces that will somehow work again!

Daniel is meticulously polishing chrome, Franco and Pat are wrestling the windows into place and Ryan is welding some a/c mounts.

Amazing.

The very coolest thing?

I know this sounds totally corny but it's true..

I love it that everyone who has put work into this (mechanics, painter, embroidery guy) has said in some way or another,

"This is what I love! Using my skills to make something so darn cool!"

And they all have this little twinkle of, "Yep. I did that."

I LOVE THAT!!

Random Things That Thrill Me

Wiping out the entire calendar and starting fresh. I do it about every two weeks and shift the dates so I can see further into the future.
A minute after this picture was taken I whipped out a paper towel, wiped off the whole thing, started with February 15th and now I can see all the way to March 21st. Strange that this thrills me.

A tower of brand new white washcloths.
I love Costco.

Webcam Outtakes

I finally joined Facebook.

After receiving a few messages saying, "Where's your picture?" I started to hunt through my computer for a picture of myself. Guess how many there were?

NONE!

I guess I'm the one always behind the camera!

Jimmy said that he'd take some but I knew I would feel goofy and get obsessive about how I looked and I'd start asking after every picture, "Let me see it"

So webcam it was!

Here are the ones I didn't use: hehe

Lookie Lookie!

That fine piece of black shiny-ness is the hood to my Cadillac!!

Hehehehe (that is me being giddy with excitement)

I forgot that I had these too. These were taken right before the chrome was stripped off and it was sent to the painter guys.

V Day Eve Romantic Chat

Jimmy: Hey! You still owe me money from last week when I bought you that coat.
(I know this seems a little silly. Long story.)

Me: I know. I didn't forget.

Jimmy: Well how about this? Instead of giving me the money you can just say that the coat is your Valentine's Day present.

Me: Yeah. Good plan. Then I won't be disappointed when you don't get me anything.
You do know I'm not getting you anything, right?

Jimmy: Yep

What do YOU think?

This is what my days usually look like.

JuJu is indeed eating rice krispies, from the box, with a spoon. She's also under a table and wearing a "snow princess" dress.
Stella waiting patiently for me to give her the go ahead to scarf up the mountain of cereal on the floor. Who needs a vacuum?
Poor Aladdin.
Men don't stand a chance in our house.

Guess what grammy and grampy brought from Hawaii? Grass skirts and coconut bras. Nice.

Olivia rocks the hula.

I say all that to say this...

I know it seems early but this is the time of year that we start looking forward to the next school year. Intention forms, open houses, contracts, etc. All in the workings right now.

I have to make plans for summer and right now, dear readers, knowing what you know about me, I need your opinion.

Here's the thing: It's a wash. With two kids I will earn what I pay out in care. So. Should I stay home or should I work?

Another day wasted (?)

Cool kid skirt idea. I can just see JuJu with pockets full of goodies.

and this is genius!

On the upside..

I did 10 (yes 10) loads of laundry today and we are going to make cupcakes in about 5 minutes. I managed to take a shower and get out of my jammies! Woo!

It's the small victories, ya know? hehe

Treasure!

Yesterday I stopped off at the Collister branch LIBRARY! to drop off some books and Jimmy noticed a little antique mall-y thing next door. Since we didn't have kids in tow I agreed to go in . Antique mall-y things are not my favorite thing but sometimes I'm in the mood and can enjoy it. I have a similar feeling about yard sales and Ross.

So yesterday I was in the mood enough to agree to go and I'm so glad I did!

I found a gorgeous butter yellow tweed coat that fit absolutely perfectly! Like it was made for me!

When I was ready to check out the lady at the register said that she had a friend that worked at Frederick & Nelson in the 50s.

"That was when they had full time elevator operators and my friend was an 'elevator girl'. She wore these little white gloves and she just opened and closed the iron elevator doors all day long."

I wish the picture looked a little better. All the lighting in my house looks so sickly when it's grey outside. Bleck.

You have to click on it to really see it. It makes a visual representation of the words in your blog. As far as I can tell it only uses your most recent posts but it's still pretty cool to see all the words you use. Notice all of my words that end in "-y". Hehe

A friend of mine pointed me to this HILARIOUS blog a while back. Oh my God is she funny.

Totally unrelated to the actual blog but she did have a link to this Wordle thing and it's pretty cool.

Sunday Surfing

Came across this blog and the gorgeous things that she makes for her daughters. So beautiful. Of course I don't make clothes for my kids (only for myself) but they're still lovely!

I've been thinking about starting on my summer skirt sewing frenzy now rather than waiting for mid-summer. Duh.

And you know how I love aprons, right?

Check out these beauties

Maybe my maker is getting unbroken?

Or maybe I will just be content with looking at the beautiful things that I could easily make and not make them. All the while wishing that I made them?

Did I show you what I did make? Months ago.

I only made 4 things for Christmas this year. I don't have a photo of the puppet theatre that I made for my niece but I do have a photo of the rockin' Madonna-esque fingerless gloves that I made for Megan and the pair that I kept for myself.

Also made this cute-y cute (if i do say so myself) wrap thing-y for my sister-in-law.

It has cards and envelopes in the middle. A little notebook for addresses or notes on one side and a pen and stamps on the other.

In an ideal world you could take it with you while you did some waiting type thing and whip out some thank you cards or something. I'm not organized enough to make that happen but maybe Robyn does that with it?

You just had to say it

2 Good things today:

* "Teacher!! Our first day of 5!!!"
We have a thermometer and a clothing guide hanging by the outside door in my classroom and the kids know that if the (digital) temp starts with a 4 then they have to wear coats. If it starts with a 3, 2 or 1 then they have to wear as much clothing as possible.

On those glorious in-between days when the temperature starts with a 5 we gleefully strip down to long sleeves and absolutely BASK in the sun and relative warmth.
Today was the day and oh was it good.

*Haircut day!
There is nothing like a haircut to make a girl feel better. Plus..that Erin. She's a gooder.

Nothin' like dinner and a transvestite

MOM!! DON'T READ THIS!

My brother and Kels are staying at my house for a few days...ah the circus is in town.

Last night (while perusing craigslist hookers. highly entertaining. try it.) Joe came across a lovely looking (obviously male) woman and said to Jimmy, "Ooh! Check her out!"

To which Jimmy replied (not knowing it was a man), "Not bad"

Which of course set him up for a good 'ol junior high ribbing.

"You heard it! Jimmy thought the shemale was hot",

"Hey Jimmy! Do you know how I know you're gay?"

Etc, etc.

The conversation quickly deteriorated to some horrible conversation involving the desirability of various parts on various people and this brings me to the quote of the week:

(Courtesy of Joe)

"Think about it! Think of the hottest girl you know. Ok, now add a dick. Ruins it doesn't it?"

I'm not the only one

Check out Soulemama's "February Manifesto".

You can also click on her links "years" and "past" to see how she has coped with February in the past.

Love it!

One good thing about February that I did notice today (and despite me telling February that it sucks because of all the pink, red and valentiney cute-ness)

I absolutely LOVE to go into stores in February. Everything is so pink and red.
I went to Paisley Roberts today and it was just so darn pretty and I had to appreciate it in spite of it's dreaded V-day implications.

If you've never been (and you have a sick sick obsession with all things paper) Paisley Roberts is always a fantastic place to shop and a huge plus...locally and female-ly owned and operated! (Female-ly is a word)

They are always super sweet and helpful and it's just so darn...paper-y and beautiful!
A wonderful pick-me up!

Dear February, I HATE YOU!

Ah February you seem so sweet and innocent. All valentine-y and pink and red but in reality you're cold and grey. And not a little bit mean. No snow to cover up the ugliness and no signs of spring to give hope. You're the crappy in between month and you deserve to be squished. I declare war on you February. I will not let you bring me down this time with your no sunshine bullshit.

Who's with me?

February is the month for finding the good in the bad and I intend to do that every day that your miserable existence plagues me.

So today..the good that snuck in...

MY LITTLE BROTHER AND HIS WIFE ARE GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER CRAZY LITTLE O'DELL!!

YAY!!!

Congratulations you guys.
Thank you so much for calling me (first?). It absolutely made my day. And Kels...I know it's a little scary but you will be amazed at your capacity for love. I promise.
I love you and of course you know that I'm always here.

True Story

Last night I COULD NOT sleep! Even though I headed to bed early and finished an entire book I just never got that drowsy feeling where I knew I could turn the light off and sleep would come easily. Something was off and I felt restless.

Jimmy was awake and engrossed in some project in the garage so I wandered out at about midnight to see what he was doing and maybe polish some chrome*.
He was listening to some tunes on the ipod and had a "90s music" playlist going. (one that itunes compiles for you) After saying repeatedly, "I loved this song when I was in high school."
He turned to me and said, "So you've always been angry?"

To which I replied, "What are you talking about?"

"Well, every song that you 'loved in high school' is some scary girl acting really pissed off!"

Sure enough. I flipped back through them and they were all a tad bit on the pissed off (mostly at men) side.

So I said, "It's true! Geez! I didn't even have anything to be angry about! I must have been one seriously angsty teenager!" Jimmy laughs as I say, "my favorite song was 'You Oughta Know' by Alanis Morrisette! And stop laughing at my terrible taste in music. My favorite line in the song is the part where she sounds the most pissed off! My gosh I was a mad girl!"

And we went on our merry way of not sleeping and laughing at bad 90's music.

Ok, I lied. I went to Taco Bell and Redbox at 1am and then we went on our merry way. hehe

Here she is in all her pissed off glory and my favorite line is 2:02 to 2:05.
Oh and check out her awesome bad 90's lipstick. Love it!
And if you have delicate sensibilities...it does contain the big f-er.


*This is not a euphemism you sickos! There is actually a shit ton of chrome from the Cadillac that needs polished before it can go back on.

One more thing. A pop quiz that I think angry 'ol Alanis would agree with:

Q: What's better than being sad or hurt?
A: Being really really pissed off.

Quote(s) Of The Week

Joe: I just wear jeans until they fall apart.

Jimmy: Yeah. It's like, "Why drop 50 bucks on a pair of jeans when you can buy a bag of good shit?"

Joe: Yeah

Jimmy: And then you won't care what your pants looks like.