Oh Happy Days.....

I am in love with my dry cleaner. He is a squat little man with glasses and grey hair. I love him. Yesterday morning, I went to pick up the skirt. When the girl brought it out, she said "Take a look, it all came out." There was not a shadow of spaghetti sauce left on that creamy white material! I could have kissed him! I'm sure I floated out of there. Now, I'm deciding what to bake him for his kindness. HOORAY! I may just wear the skirt today. :)

Those were the days....

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping baby?

And the universe comes 'round....

I don't know about the skirt yet, but yesterday the universe gave me a pick-me-up. Doesn't it always happen that way? Something good balances something not so good?

I have this skirt. It was a "sale" skirt too. I loved it, bought it, and realized I had nothing to wear with it. It sat in my closet for 6 months? 8 months? I don't know. It bothered me that I was silly enough to buy it when I had nothing that matched. The skirt was black with only one other color in it. It's a hard color to match. I thought perhaps I should just bring it to a consignment shop. The other day I was shopping for some other things in TJMaxx and Marshall's (oh how I love bargain shopping when I have some time to really look) and found IT. I thought this shirt would match perfectly. I wore the outfit and got tons of compliments! Everyone** in my office, as well as a (married) male visitor to our office, and a client in our office. I sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but really it was just such a nice feeling. I figured I can love this skirt, just as much as the stained one, now that it has a match!

**One of the girls in my office told me I looked like a Polly Pocket. I'm not sure whether to take this as a compliment or an insult?


Hopefully, this does not sound conceited beyond belief. I feel like it might.

Reason #216 Why I love my Mac

It reset the time by itself with no "patches" or "fixes" by me. I love you Mac.

Excuse me - Do you do miracles?

So today I performed a very classic "ME" move. There were lots of children at the christening and I have a well documented love of small people. These people are my other family. I have known them all forever - their Gram is my Gram - and I could attend without my friend and feel perfectly comfortable.

As food was served, I corraled a small child who belongs to my friend's sister. She has two and is currently separated and trying to manage them on her own. I figured the least I could do was get Dean some lunch. He was so cute in his tie and white shirt but Mom suggested we change into play clothes before his spaghetti lunch! I changed him and we headed to the buffet. I was wearing a brand new off white skirt, bought on sale at Ann Taylor. It was originally marked $108, marked down, and by the time I bought it - it was $29.99. Unfortunately, I did not change myself.

I successfully scooped a meatball onto a plate with a small child on my right arm and the plate in my right hand. I moved to the spaghetti dish, still balancing - and you guessed it - somehow managed to lose my grip on the large spaghetti sauce covered spoon so that it hit the counter and bounced in a lovely red pattern down my skirt to the floor. Thank goodness my dear friend (the child's aunt and mother of the christened baby) scooped him out of my arms and directed me to her car where she happened to have a spare pair of khakis that I could change into. I was so angry with myself.

Grandmothers, aunts, mothers and other older women were all offering me advice on how to remove the stains. I would show you a photo if I hadn't been so devastated at the moment that it occurred. I handed the skirt to one woman while telling her that I only wanted cold water on it. I've been reprimanded more than once by my dry cleaners. DO NOT PUT ANYTHING ON A STAIN. BRING IT TO US AND LET US WORK ON IT. I have ignored this advice and it did not work out well for me. The woman began soaking the stains with cold water in the kitchen sink - until I noticed that same EVIL spaghetti spoon in the sink - and told her that I thought we should stop before it got worse.

I alternate between a chain dry cleaner (open more hours and have better coupons) and a local dry cleaners (love the people, great service but I can't always get there during work hours). Tomorrow morning at 7am I will be at my local dry cleaners asking for a miracle.

Pick Mom Up

Saturday morning I tried out a recipe I found through Finny. I felt like baking, but I thought this sounded pretty healthy. I'm suspicious of heathy sometimes. I prefer real butter, regular sugar, and no "diet" items in general. I believe in moderate eating, but I like the real stuff.

These bran muffins from Farmgirl seemed real and I love honey and molasses. My mom is a big fan of bran muffins (with real butter of course). Mom has been going through a real rough spot lately and I thought I'd make these as part of a little CAOK project for her. I was up early and had them finished in time for breakfast. When I went to deliver them, surprise - she was still asleep! I made up a little tray with juice and tea, a muffin and some butter and left it for her to find when she awoke. I'm glad I chose this morning because she was able to stay in bed and relax for awhile this morning. After all she has been through, she should not be dealing with the aggravation she is right now. There is not much I can do to change that, but I can give her a little "extra" love and attention.

Mom pronounced these muffins - YUMMY - as did my friend who ate hers immediately when we met at the mall. Excellent recipe! :)

GarlicArt

The Cuisinart and I made "GarlicArt" tonight. I have a christening party tomorrow and Whoopie pies were requested. I will make those in the am, but I decided to try out a recipe for Roasted Red Pepper Hummus also. In my office, we might never eat anything healthy, if not for the woman who makes this hummus and shares it with us. It is scooped up on anything handy - crackers, pita, carrots, bread, seriously ANYTHING.

She kept swearing that it was easy to make, so finally we asked for the recipe. I overheard one woman say she tried it and hers did NOT turn out quite the same. I was nervous. It was all for naught. The Cuisinart was long a fave kitchen appliance of my mother's - when we were kids she chopped every leftover veggie etc and put them in ice cube trays for omelets etc. It was never something I carried that much about. Tonight I made the whole recipe right there in my Cuisinart and now I have almost 2 LBS of Roasted Red Pepper Hummus in my fridge for tomorrow. I have a new respect for that Cuisinart. Let's hope everyone likes garlic!

**Aside (and funny garlic story): When my godson was christened, it was the first time my best friend and I had thrown a "big party." We held a dinner for the minister the night before, with lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and fresh peach shortcake. It was delicious, yet we were stressing about the "real" party the next day. The next morning we (both parents, Godparents, grandparents, etc) all rushed around her tiny apartment getting ready. As we stood at the front of the church that morning, I smelled something rather - shall we say pungent? It was the breath of those around me who had eaten our fabulous and VERY GARLICKY - garlic bread at dinner. Oh dear. Note to self: only feed that much garlic to people you don't have to see the next day! ;)

Leavin'

Tomorrow I leave for my trip. I discovered something today. On Weather.com (sorry no link here) they have an option to see the weather predictions for the major airports in the U.S.. It's pretty cool because I can look at airport predictions for tomorrow morning. That's great - if only my airport wasn't the only one with a RED plane on it. Oh yes, my airport says there is a "HIGH" probablity of delays while all the others are "MEDIUM" and "LOW."
Oh well. We may spend several hours in the airport tomorrow, but we will get to our GIRLS' weekend and I may get some knitting done in the airport. ;)
See you in a few days!