fun

An all-too-short weekend.

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments

Hope you all had a fun & relaxing weekend.

Me, I got spoiled. On Saturday my husband took the ladies to a friend’s birthday party, leaving me with 3 hours of complete freedom. WOW. I walked into town. I stopped for a chocolate croissant at a little cafe – all by MYSELF. I went clothes shopping at H&M. I cannot tell you how nice it was being able to try on as many clothes as I liked – so many in fact, that I lost track – with no children beating on each other, pestering me about how bored they are or grabbing my behind. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. And it was AWESOME.

Sunday, a beloved & very brave friend took the ladies to the Camden Aquarium, leaving John & I free to go walking with our dog Max, who absolutely LIVES for these rare jaunts as only child.. We explored a local nature refuge, spending a lot of time off the beaten path.

Back in the day this land used to be a whole town. Streets with shops and homes, and people. Before the Philadelphia redevelopment authority confiscated the land and razed it all to the ground to make way for airport (and Korman Suites) expansion. A very sad story, especially since this area, known as The Meadows, was long home to my husband’s family. The whole place is very surreal. Open fireplugs sprout from the ground like metal flowers, and the ground is littered with half-buried construction debris, tires, empty beer cans and other trash. The oddest thing is how many lifeless shoes we found dotting the landscape. Dozens of them. What could have compelled all these people to not only remove, but LEAVE, their shoes like this?? I half-imagined we’d turn a corner and find a big mound of corpses. It’s a very strange place. Feel free to check out a few photos HERE.

And now it’s MONDAY. again. Back to the workweek. I tend to get a little depressed on Mondays. But sometimes I enjoy feeling maudlin, so I’ve been watching the old Boomtown Rats song on Youtube and sort of reveling in it. Another weekend gone. Oh well.

Egg hunt with the chicks

~ thedailydish ~ 4 Comments

Happy Easter everyone! Sending candy-coated wishes to you all. Here at the palatial West Philly estate, we are still recovering from the FIVE HOUR LONG birthday party we sponsored yesterday, which was super fun & super successful, but left us reaching for the bottle well into last night. Well. o-kay, just me.

This morning my husband, live-in tech whiz supremo that he is – recorded the ladies egg hunt, which of course I just KNEW you’d be dying to see, even though we have not showered and are not wearing any fancy pants Easter costumes or anything. So w/out further ado, Click here for the HUNT.

My first sewing project.

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

Yesterday I was positively GIDDY with the glory that is my brand new sewing machine. So after finishing up all of my housewifely chores, and reading half the manual, I decided IT WAS TIME. I put my younger daughter in the car and off we went to find my very first sewing machine project. And since I just knew my younger daughter would soon be demanding huge amounts of my attention, attention which would otherwise be captivated by the glow of the light on my new sewing machine, I was also looking for a foolproof bribe. Which I oh-so-conveniently found in the form of a 15 piece paint-your-own plastic suncatcher kit; the best $4 I have spent in quite some time.

As a complete novice sewing champion, I wanted to select a pattern which wouldn’t tax my repertoire of skills and throw me over the edge. Here is the pattern I selected:

It does look sort of complicated, but reading the back of the package I decided it would fit the bill, requiring only fabric, thread and the pattern itself. It was waay less complicated than the prom dresses featured prominently in the racks, and slightly more practical than the patterned scrubs, especially since I am not employed as a vet tech – well, not professionally anyway. I was not eager to undertake anything requiring elastic, buttons or zippers, since I hadn’t gotten to that section in the manual AND I WANTED TO SEW NOW!! I then chose a 100% cotton batik print from India, not only b/c I found it attractive, but also b/c I knew its busy pattern would mask any less-than-perfect stitching and/or slip-ups. It looks like this:

YES it IS PRETTY. Thank you.

So by mid-afternoon I’d delved headfirst into the wondrous world of My Very First Sewing Project. And then the fun began. Because I never knew how truly colorful my vocabulary is, nor just how thin I can stretch my patience.

As I laid out the fabric and removed the pattern from its paper sheath, I wondered WHAT THE HELL I’D GOTTEN MYSELF INTO. It’s been 20 years since Home Ec at Abington Jr, and a lot of other baggage has been crammed on top of the Suitcase of Sewing Knowledge in the interim. I pondered the thin tissue pages, I studied the pattern directions which seemed to have been written in some secret cuneiform for sewing professionals. I am a cook. I know basting, but WHAT THE HELL IS BASTING?? After several online consultations and a whole lot of worried sweating, I just said Screw It. and I started. I knew it wasn’t going to kill anyone if it wasn’t perfect, I AM NOT NASA.

So as I pinned, and pondered, and carefully cut, I simply prayed that this undertaking would not render me so angry I would throw my beautiful new sewing machine out the front window. And as I stitched and bitched, basted and un-basted, and jammed the bobbin for the UMPTEENTH F*CKING TIME, I knew, thread by thread, that I was earning my stripes. I was rediscovering the joy that is creation, and seeing what every creator sees. The wondrous beauty in form. Round about midnight (with a dinner break in between) it was DONE. Well, technically I still have to slip-stitch the bodice liner to the inner seam, but as you cannot SEE THAT IN THE PICTURE, it is DONE.