Ballet Shoes

Last week with much excitement and fan fair my daughter was fitted for her very first pair of pointe shoes. This is now the most expensive pair of shoes in our house. After paying for shoes, pads, ribbons..., they gave us a special bag to keep the shoes in along with an extra shoe. Our assignment is to decorate the extra shoe and then email in a picture for a design competition.  I did not squeal with girlish glee, at least not where it could be heard.
It has been so much fun talking out ideas this week. This morning I went on a craft store run to see about turning ideas into something feasible. We couldn't decide between cute or dramatic, so I found a way to do both.
This design was done with 75 cents worth of felt, a sharpie, and a quick google search. It is 100% removable, so after the picture was taken I was able to clear it off to get it ready for design #2.

I'm not sure that we will actually enter this one because of the questionable legality of it. If you are ever having a down day, google Hello Kitty images. You would not believe the things that her cute little likeness has been put on. I'm talking automatic weapons crazy.
There is little to no ballet pointe shoe art out there, and I can not figure out why. It is a great canvas, and after you wear out a shoe there isn't much else to do with them.
The next design is going to have to be more permanent. A glue gun will be involved, as will sequins and maybe even feathers.

Weird or Normal?

When I was young a family friend accused my family of being the real life version of "Leave it to Beaver". She meant it as both a compliment and as a way of saying our "normal" family wasn't really the norm anymore. We were the weird ones. I was thinking about this the other day and it got me to wondering if, now that I'm an adult, I still have a weird family. I'm not worried about it. Weird has always worked for me. Just, curious. I know a lot of the ways that the traditional American family is no longer normal, but there are a few things I'm not sure about.
Is it weird that we eat dinner together as a family the majority of nights and enjoy that time together?
Is there anything your family does that you thought was normal, but isn't?

Evils of My DVR

My parent's main VCR just died. This is a tragedy for them because they have yet to embrace dvr technology. A few years ago my brother and I went in together to get them a dvd player that also writes to discs in an attempt to wean them off the vcr, but it didn't really take.  I had a very funny/frustrating conversation with her about possible solutions to now only being able to record one thing at a time now.
With the arrival of the new fall tv schedule I have been setting our dvr to record the shows we love, and more importantly, the new shows we want to try out. My dvr has been humming every night. The good thing is that I can record a new show and if it turns out to be terrible I can delete it a few minutes and move on to the next thing on the list. Here is the bad thing. I have found myself presenting an "I read it for the articles" argument in regards to the show Glee. Lets' be honest, that show is completely morally bankrupt. The music is great, the singers are stunningly talented, but as far as the show beyond the music goes, I'm embarrassed that I've ever seen it. Aside from the questionable life choices that the main characters make, they are really hateful people with few, if any, redeeming personality traits. I caught myself having the thought that I could record it and just skip through to only watch the singing. Then is dawned on me that this exactly like the guy who says he reads Playboy for the articles. It may well be true, but in the mean time what are you exposing yourself and your household to? I have children in my house that know how to work the dvr. What was I thinking!? I'm usually so careful, especially about things like this. I was wooed by the dark side, but not any more.
I know a great number of my friends watch Glee and probably worse, and you may be reading this thinking I am making a mountain out of a mole hill. First of all, remember that one man's mole hill is another man's mountain. Secondly, no one has every accused me of caring what other people think of my opinion (she said lightheartedly) and if you find yourself mad about what I said please consider why you care.

Girly Rant

Please ignore this post because it is a selfish rant and serves no purpose other than to make me feel better.
Normally I love being a girl. we can like any color we want without fear of being ridiculed for it. Admit it, you secretly think there is something wrong with men who like pink. Girls can wear skirts and don't have to claim Scottish heritage to do it. Shoes alone are reason enough to love being a girl. Men get their choice of black, brown, or tennis. Girls get an endless stream of miniature works of art for our feet as well as ones designed to feel like tiny pillows are hugging our toes.
There is all that and so much more to love about being a member of the fairer gender, but today I am not seeing even one of these. Today I am dealing with the ugliness of womanhood. Things such as being expected to have lots and lots of hair, but only on your head. Here's a news flash, if a girl has lots of hair on her head then she is also working very hard to keep it from showing up everywhere else. Women are expected to not be fat with the exception of what she carries around up top. Hey World! It is thin hips OR a big chest, it is NOT both, and it is high time the fashion world started embracing this idea and stop making clothes to fit Barbie dolls. They only exist in California. This is Georgia!
Now lets get into the real  cause for this rant, hormones. I like to think I am a perfectly sane and reasonable rational woman on most days. Why, oh WHY then do I occasionally snap and start crying over coffee commercials? How does my mind dredge up every bad thing that has ever happened, every embarrassing moment, and every insecurity I have while I am simply brushing my hair one morning? More and more I realize that it is not the thoughts in a woman's head that makes her crazy, but how she reacts to those thoughts. I try to react by verbalizing it. When Rocky asks me what's wrong, instead of the standard "nothing", which we all know really means "everything", I just tell him, "I'm sad for no good reason today." 
The older I get the more physical problems go with the emotional. Today I have a headache, my stomach feels icky, and I am in a general state of blah, and it is all for no good reason other than I'm a girl and this is the price we pay for getting heels and lace and mascara and all the other fun girly things we have.
One last thing great about being a girl, this condition can all be eased with a healthy dose of chocolate. Lucky for me, and those around me, I bought a box of brownie mix on a whim last week.

Oedipus JD

When I was pregnant with JD and people told me that little boys are fun because they adore their mothers, I had no idea what I was in for. I never expected JD to go in full on competitions with Rocky for my affection. It is weird and sweet all at the same time. JD emulates his dad. Since Rocky is good about giving me compliments, JD is good about telling me when I look nice too. JD tells me I'm a wonderful mother and my heart melts. He has started taking out the kitchen trash without anyone asking him too. He is so proud of himself and always runs to tell me. I've joked about the trash being Rocky's job, and I'm wondering now if that is part of the reason Jack wanted to do it.  He works his way in between Rocky and me when we are sitting cozy on the couch and flashes that devious little grin of his. It is all very innocent and very funny. It's like he is in training to be a good husband. What is really fun is that for the first time ever, Rocky has competition. He is having to step up his game a bit to keep from being shown up by his own son.I think I can find a way to work this to my advantage. It has me wondering if all boys go through this phase or if JD is just a very advanced charmer.

Encouraging

Yesterday a friend of mine wrote about the National Day of Encouragement in her blog. I hate that I missed it on the actual day. It really drove home something I have been thinking about all weekend. I use to be pretty good about sending a card, writing an email, or baking a pie, but lately I have slacked off. I think I let myself get... busy. There was a time when I would think about sending a card and before the thought was finished I was addressing the envelope. For several years the kids and I have made brownies and taken them to the firehouse on 9/11, but I skipped this year. JD called me on it, which is what had the subject on mind to start with. I felt really terrible about letting it slide, and then I started thinking of all the other things I have let slide in the past couple of years. I am outright mad at myself. It feels like I have taken a spiritual gift and tossed it aside. Well, look out world because the candle has been lit again! Look for peppy messages, random acts of kindness, and all around encouraging thoughts flying out of me once more. I promise to do my best to avoid cheesiness.

Technically Sad

I thought a few might could use a laugh today.
The down side of having a jumbo tron is that from time to time the bulb blows and it becomes more of a modern art exhibit than a television. Fixing it isn't a big deal. It just takes a hundred dollars and time for the bulb to ship. In the mean time, Rocky needs to be able to keep up his P90X, so we moved our tiny portable tv/dvd player into the den. Instead of watching one of the other tv's in the house JD has taken to watching movies on the tiny tv. I could not resist taking a picture of him with the tiny tv in front of the jumbo tron.

Excuses, Excuses

Thanks to that blogging modern pioneer woman I have this great recipe for rolls. It involves buying those little frozen yeast rolls that you have to let rise. It is so good that I typically buy a giant bag of Kroger brand so I can make a batch of them (or monkey bread) whenever the mood strikes. I was going to have them for dinner tonight so I set the 4 that were left in the bag out to rise. Rocky was out of town tonight (he gets home in a couple of hours) and somehow I let the kids con me into fast food. As I was cleaning up tonight I saw those 4 beautiful rolls just sitting there waiting to be cooked. I couldn't let them go to waste. That would be wrong. There are starving children somewhere in the world. So I tucked the kids in and cooked the rolls. I couldn't just wrap them up for later. I'd forget about them. They are warm and buttery and smell so very good. When you think about it I really had no choice but to eat them. I still have one left, but I seriously doubt it will still be here when Rocky gets home.
If you go to try this recipe keep in mind that I have a very large amount of will power when it comes to food so the fact that I have just gone to the trouble to bake them for myself and eat all 4 of them should tell you how hard it is to resist them. Bake at the risk of your waist. Also, I don't own a cast iron skillet so I bake them in a cake pan. At Thanksgiving I bake them in a 9 x 13 with no problem. Just make sure you spray the pan.

The Results

I gave the pastor a kidney stone! Okay, not really, but last week the pastor had a near death experience with a kidney stone that he just happened to bring to church this week for show and tell. Also in the past couple of weeks, he had an encounter with a man who didn't like to go to churches that talked about the blood of Christ. This became the topic of the sermon. Lots of blood talk. He broke into song a couple of times and asked for audience participation. And, last but not least, he actually used the phrase "once saved always saved" (my parents are Methodist).
Now for the good parts. It was a great sermon! The pastor sang "Nothing but the Blood" and he has a fantastic voice. It was an uplifting reminder of why the blood of the lamb is so miraculous. Even the kidney stone story was more funny than gross. I can't remember the last time I heard so many deserved amening in a service. My parents enjoyed it! They liked the church. The eternal security pitch didn't phase them. My father even said he looked forward to their next visit. This church has passed the kid test and the parent test now. If we can find a Sunday School class for us, we might just be sold.

The Ulitimate Test

I can not recommend things to my parents. The minute I do there is some sort of curse that kicks in. Take for example television shows, if I suggest my parents might enjoy a show then the very next episode will feature something gross, sexually explicit, and/or large amounts of profanity. Just this week we were talking about how funny and cute "Good Luck Charlie" is. It is wholesome and innocent with surprisingly smart humor. The very next episode featured repeated jokes about the baby breaking wind, which is the exact opposite of smart humor.
If I suggest a restaurant, it is suddenly under new management, the food is terrible, and overpriced. After a string of things like this we no longer suggest movies, tv shows, restaurants, or churches to my parents. It is now officially a family running joke and I have found out that it works if my mother suggests something to her mother as well.
Now that we are looking for a church we are putting this odd streak to work for us. If we can visit a church with my parents and there is no "yelling in the spirit", interpretive dancing, or real wine passed around, to name a few possibilities, then we are probably safe. More than once Rocky and I have attended a church for a couple of months, loved it, joined, and then the spiritual other shoe will drop. My parents are our new weapon against that happening.
With this being a holiday weekend we are taking a double risk taking my parents with us today. You never know what a lesser holiday church service will involve. At least one way or the other, after church today we should have a better idea of what to expect from this group.