They have gone LIVE!

I called Peggy at A Corner Cottage and asked whether she had received my bags. Apparently, they were placed in a drawer? and that’s why she didn’t find them…

Regardless of any confusion, they have been hanging in the store now for a week. They have stories attached to them, and they were on a coat rack.

She priced them at $29, which she said was low, but she wanted to see how they would “take off.” She’s very excited for me. When I picked up sewing, the first thing to hit my mind was never “I want to get things into a store to sell them!” I just thought it was a handy trade to learn.

And now, I’m going to be famous! Watch out Vera Bradley, I, too, will have a large factory up in Northern Indiana!

I need to get started on another bag to sell there. The two that are currently hanging are what I call “The Grandma Series” because the fabrics are from grandma-related materials. I think the next one could also be a part of the Grandma Series.

Aren’t Photo Booths Fun?

We went to a wedding in…well, we didn’t actually go to the wedding, we just went to the reception-thing, Louisville, KY last weekend.

In the corner of the bar/pub/place was a photo booth, and next to the booth was a table full of props.

I dare say, if I could have one in my house, I would take a picture everyday before I would leave and when I got home, look at it. It would be the best way to start my day.

The Boyfriend Sweatshirt Tote

I have a Ball State sweatshirt that’s not a hoodie that I don’t plan on wearing normally. I like that it’s from my college, but I would like to do something else with it. Before I take it apart, though, I decided to use another sweatshirt, bound for Goodwill, and see what I could come up with.

I have created the Boyfriend Sweatshirt Tote. Although the straps aren’t super long, it’s great for carrying the heavier items when you go grocery shopping.

When I take apart the Ball State sweatshirt, I’ll be sure to make the straps long enough to go over the shoulders, since those are way easier to carry.

 

It’s the first bag that has the successful label sewed in as it should, so there wasn’t any sewing the bag to my pants.

Check it out now, while the supply lasts.

“Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I think this was my first Pulitzer Prize...or Nobel Prize...I can't remember which one. I know that the books people write that win the Pulitzers and the Nobels are supposed to be these amazing feats of writing that make you think and redefine humanity, but anytime I pick one up, it's length and topic just seem to heavy for me. It's not that I can't handle it, but there's a time when you need a classroom and a group of people to really understand a book.

This was one of them, and it was barely over 100 pages long. It was short, but the language and storyline was dense. Definitely not a pool read, but I'm glad I sifted through it.

Marquez creates this almost dreamy narrative about the death of the main character. Are we ever inside the characters head? Never. We don't know what the character is thinking or feeling as the story progresses, the only thing we know is what the narrator knows. This unreliable narrator (which I love by the way, one of my most favorite literary devices) speaks to all these towns people to see what really happened the day to Santiago Nasar.

This isn't he first Spanish-translation novel I've read, but I'm beginning to find that I really enjoy novels that were translated from Spanish...what's that about? It's like my weird fix on UK music acts that come to the US. I love UK music acts...

“Freezer Bag” labels are here!

After a few weeks of hoping this would be a good idea, I have the labels made!

The problem is, I had to stitch them into the liners by hand (normally, I’ll just do this by machine) and as I was doing so, I ran into a minor set back on one of my bags.

“Freezer Bag” label sample (also, I’ll be selling the bags in an actual store)

So, the dream is becoming a reality. Inside my bags, I’m going to have a custom label that will look exactly like my handwriting/logo.

Now, the “g” is up a little high at the end of bag, but that’s been taken care of. I don’t have an updated example, but I wanted to show off the next step in my venture.

Once the labels are done, I’ll be sewing them in and you’ll be able to buy them either on Etsy or at The Corner Cottage on the square of downtown Noblesville.

That’s right, you heard me correctly. My bags will be in a store!

“Owning” my own business

I’m hitting a stride with this whole sewing-thing. I didn’t expect for it to amount to anything. That was never the goal when I picked it up as a hobby. It was just something I had recently wanted to learn.

I’m actually pretty good at it.

That wasn’t supposed to happen because I’m a photographer (or, so I thought) and I was trying to build up a photography/card making business. I began to work with my pictures by making hand made cards with them. I thought, “now, people will buy these and I’m going to have so much fun.”

I sorely found out that nobody really buys handmade cards. Not really. So, fun was not had. The only person that actually bought the cards was my grandmother. Then, when I got a card from my grandparents, it would be one of mine…

Nothing really became of the cards. I tried my hand at stationary, but I wasn’t really feeling it…and really…I’m not a graphic artist. Go to Etsy. Look there. You’ll find something that I could never have dreamed up. I did one graphic artist thing-a-majig and I think it was a let-down.

Sorry person that got that. I hope you don’t hold it against me.

As I played around with the whole card-making business, the next step with photography was shooting portraits. I expanded the business and added portraiture to the list of things I could do. To get my name out there, I started offering packages for auctions at a local Christian school. I figured, once those people luurved my work, they would show it off to others and my fame would be spread through word of mouth. \

Sadly, only one of the packages really “went through.” I took some fall family pictures, and they even hired me back to do some Christmas pictures. That was so exciting. “This is it!” I thought. “It’s starting.”

I went back, but as I set the kids up by the tree, one brother hit the other and it was all down hill from there.

As fun and wonderful as it would’ve been to get my business in photography going, it’s been a stagnant process. I decided that I would take pictures for anyone who would be willing, but I wasn’t going to stress out about it. Really trying to get your name out there and meet the right people is actually kind of expensive. I still get some sessions here and there, but nothing prolific. Prolific is shooting weddings. I refuse to shoot weddings.

During all this, I acquired a sewing machine and slowly, but surely (like the Little Engine That Could) I began to learn how to use the machine, and well. And then came the bags I sewed for an auction. And then came my own bag made from a pillow case.

Recently, I just think about the type of bag I want to make…cut out the pieces…and wallah a bag is made. With each bag, I get better. I have fun with it. It’s was something I am getting better at as I teach myself, as well as getting more comfortable with the sewing machine and the craft of sewing.

Luckily, with handmade goods, I can sell them online. I have yet to sell anything, but hopefully, that will change.

I am currently in the process of getting labels embroidered that say “Refridgerator Art, Freezer Bags” in my hand writing. Quirky and fun, to follow the original logo.

Those labels will get sewn into the bags that I make, and they will look professional. And they won’t smear in the wash. Because, yes, my bags are washable.

Please, who do you think I am? Coach?

I’ve got two for sale right now on Etsy. The selection will grow bigger once I get my labels.

“The Last Olympian” by Rick Riordan

In the last installment of the "Percy Jackson" series, we are thrown into the battle of the Titans and the Olympians. On New York Streets.

In my imagination, I tried to do my best epic fight scenes I could muster. With the help of the LOTR trilogy, thanks to Peter Jackson, I was able to do quite well with armies against each other, trying to wreck havoc.

Riordan did a great job finishing up the story lines of Percy and the other characters he introduced, giving them a pretty "happy" ending, which is what we like in fantasy novels. We didn't want to have Percy all strapped to a rock, pecked at by birds, a la Prometheus, did we? Nah.

The only happy ending was how the gods were still proud, even though the demigods saved their butts. It's like, c'mon gods! Get real. You ain't so powerful, are ya, when the Titan god Kronos was about to make you keel over.

But really, would the gods have been overly grateful? Probably not. Their problem is their pride. I still have a problem with the fact that these immortal beings are so powerful, yet so...human. They let their petty differences get in their way.

In the end, I applaud Mr. Riordan for creating a new land and use for the Olympians and hope to see more...as long as it's not some terrible, redundant attempt at Hollywood Sequel-dom.

I mean...Disney is his publisher, and you remember all those sequels, right? Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True?

*sighs*

“The Battle of the Labyrinth” by Rick Riordan

I'm coming into the same feeling of story exhaustion as I felt with "Harry Potter." I'm enjoying the story, but reading ALL of them in a row almost gets to be a bit much at times. This is when I wish I was reading them when they were first coming out. 

A) It gets more exciting for the anticipation.

B) You don't look at your pile of other books to read and say, "Maybe I should've read those in between..."

We find Percy, Annabeth, Tyson and Grover on another quest, trying to figure out the confines of the Labyrinth. Since all of the gods and mythology moves with Western civilization, the great Labyrinth (the one the Minotaur lives in) is in underneath the States.

What I love most about this series is the braininess Riordan puts forth with how the mythology entwines into the story. I sat with Wikipedia for references since most of these stories and characters I've never heard of and it was fun to see how he was going to use the character/storyline.

Although it would be great to understand and know about Greek mythology before reading these books, it's good to at least know the story of Icarus and his father Daedalus...after that, just keep Wikipedia open. Or find Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" where they do a cool live-action actor/Muppet version.

The Yard is a Yard is a Yard…

The backyard is what brought us to the conclusion that this small little house would be perfect for us. Nigra loves the outside, and, look! It's already landscaped nicely. 

Let's buy it, okay?

And then, the first summer commences, and we have no clue what we were getting ourselves into. The man who lived here before us planted wildflowers, and those wildflowers died and turned into a massive infestation of weeds. The kind that are out for blood.

"Feed me, Seymour!"

Luckily, as the years have continued, we've been able to kill off most of the hateful weeds. The next order of business is the mulching. The backyard is sectioned off, but it takes so much mulch to make it look satisfactory and for us to do a good job and layer the mulch thick. 

In order to mulch this summer, we had to weed, and weed, and weed. The problem with that is this: the weather has been unbearably hot, so going outside would cause heat stroke. Then, we can't forget to mention the insane amounts of rain and thunderstorms we've been having, for a while on a daily basis. Next, let's add humidity. Put all those elements into a blender on high and you'll get a yard that's overgrown in places because we haven't been able to keep up with it. 

Some of the weeds, we call rhubarb, are these tall meaty beasts that hide themselves in the pine tree and the neighbor's tree/bush that invades our yard. They were as tall as me. We had to use limb cutters in order to cut them down, and they crunched and fell to the ground. So gross. Weeds are so alien-looking to me. 

Also, from our trees, we've got the whirly-gig seedlings that plant more trees throughout our yard. Now, I'm all for planting trees, but when Nature decides to do it for me...I get a little testy. If Nature talked to me about where I wanted the trees, that would be different, but you see, Nature is a terrible landscape architect. Really, we've got plenty of trees already...

Another force of Nature that was against us were the mosquitoes. We believe some of their relatives are in "Eclipse" and they were pestering Steph because she refuses to read or see "Twilight." They swarmed and molested us. 

We have put in almost 20 hours this week just trying to get the yard back to normal and mulched. 

Then, we ran out of mulch...so, we're not entirely done...yet. 

A Couple of Stupid Indie Flicks I Don't Like

I know film = art.

There was a time I got it and I liked it, kind of. I enjoyed serious movies. Serious movies like, "Cold Mountain," "The Hours," and "Closer." I also own those three movies. I liked them in the theater, and I thought I would be the type of person that would enjoy a serious movie whenever.

Six or more years later, those movies still remain in their plastic wrap, unopened.

I realize now that I don't have as much time in my schedule for a really serious movie. I'd rather sit down with a serious book. I get more out of books. I try to write them. I don't write movies, so watching movies as "study" doesn't exactly exist. I'm one of those that have begun to enjoy movies for pleasure and escape. You know that small, little film from the 1990's called "Independence Day"? Yeah...

I can't forget to tell you that I loved "Transformers."

Do I realize what they are? Total eye candy. Do I care? No, because I don't leave the theater wanting to die.

The two movies that we rented through the library (or Netflix) where I wanted to simply die after watching were the following: "Happy Endings" and "Margot at the Wedding."

What do I begin with? "Margot at the Wedding" took this foul character of a writer-mother who sucked the attention and life out of everyone, and made her the most hateful, manipulative, pale, "I climb trees and get stuck, look at me! Look AT ME!" woman I've ever seen.

That's Margot, played by Nicole Kidman. Then, Jack Black shows up and shames the entire cast of "The Office" by playing the most awkward, uncomfortable character I have ever seen on screen. In my heart, he is Mr. Schneebly from "School House Rock" and the romantic Miles from "The Holiday." You can hate those movies, but those, to me, are better fits for Black. I get it that comedic actors need to stretch, but "Margot at the Wedding" was a depressive bomb that stank of a screenwriter that had serious issues and needed to go to therapy to work out their dirt, and not write a script...

Am I angry much? About that movie, I am. Although, it's fun to meet up with people who've seen it and also hated it. It is worth communal commiseration.

Then there was "Happy Endings." This strange "quirky" film where all these lives just randomly run into each other. I get it that "Pulp Fiction" paved the way for this kind of film. Some films do it well. Then there's "Happy Endings" where Lisa Kudrow's character is like Phoebe from "Friends" with depressive, self-destructive tendencies that knows no joy, and at the beginning of the movie, she's hit by a van and then we're told that "she doesn't die" by this split-screen text narration.

I think I get so uncomfortable with some of this material because it's visual and it hits me harder than a book. A book, regardless of the visceral detail or raw emotion, doesn't phase me and tear me up like a movie. The book will stay with me forever and haunt me at moments, but it doesn't make me cringe...normally. Whereas a movie is so visual, and although we are so automated and desensitized when it comes to the moving picture, the music and scarily realistic portrayals of messed up people (without the violence and such) get me squirming because I ask myself: Am I that messed up, too?

Don't even get me started about "Management" with Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston.

One Stone

Our pond, right now, is super gross. It needs a good cleaning.

(Even worse, Raible will try to get drinks of water out of the brown pool. We have to shout at her, and then we feel bad because she thinks she did something wrong, which she did, but...you get the picture...)

What could possibly make the pond any grosser? Leaves and whirly gigs from oak trees fall into the pond, cook in the hot sun, and create a noxious stew.

As I was mowing the lawn, I came across two bodies floating in the water. Two little bird bodies. You know how the saying goes, right? 

"It's like killing two birds with one stone."

I never expected to find those two victims floating in my pond. 

I had to don my big black rubber gloves, I pulled out the tiny rake in from the shed, the little thing with the bright red handle, and used the rake to scoop them out. I laid them in a Kohl's plastic bag, and then tied the bag up tight. Then, I began to panic. My gloves didn't really touch the birds, but the rake did. To clean up, I did a clever bit. I hosed everything down with straight vinegar. Straight vinegar is a great bacteria killer. Any bacteria that had infested my tools are now dead. 

Only one question now remains: Who threw the stone?

"The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan

So, I think we need to go back to our mythology books and do a little research before we progress any further. The whole war between the Titans and the Olympians is vital here. If you don't know much about this war that took place, you need step away from Percy Jackson and read, if you even dare, Hesiod's great poem Theogony.

I gave it go for a few minutes, and oh. My. Gawd. I need to go find a visual family tree, really, to understand who came from whom. Everyone's all related to each other and some of them are having illegitimate children (seriously, Zeus and Hera are brother and sister, AND husband and wife). 

So, with great praise, I give Riordan his kudos. He did the research, I believe him, and Chiron is the son of Kronos? And Zoe is the daughter of Atlas, am I getting this right? Good lord.

I cringe when I realize how much research goes into fiction.

In the third installment, we realize that Annabeth has gone missing. We meet the Hunters, who follow their Huntress Artemis, and they must vow to be with her and abstain from boys, among other things, and we journey AGAIN. And just like in the first book, we travel west. The journey is riddled with, well, riddles (a few) and the Oracle actually leaves the Big House to come and tell of it's latest prophecy. So, as we quest, the Hunters are off to find and save Artemis, who has fallen victim to one of the Titans (who are getting stronger, now) and Percy is off to find Annabeth, regardless of the dangers. On the way, we continue to worry about the prophecy about a certain half-blood (Riordan does a nice job messing with us by using Thalia and Percy, so we don't know what to think) and their pivotal role in bringing down the Olympians.

We even get to meet up with two more half-bloods. Their story is much more important to the plot than you think to realize.

The story really starts chugging full steam ahead by the end of this book, and although loose ends haven't been tied up yet, all the frays that are out there in the series are overlapping nicely.

"The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan

We open the second installment with the same shenanigans that we found in the first book. Although, this time, we get to meet a new character.

Change is always difficult when reading a series. You're like, "OMG, I enjoyed that first book, I hope the second one kind of does the same thing." Then, you realize, Rick Riordan would be doing himself and his readers a giant disservice if he did that, so then, you realize, "Please do something different."

I think I enjoyed the second installment more than the first. I enjoyed the reading-aloud that I got to enjoy through the audio addition, I enjoyed the "frenemy" relationship that begins to bud between Annabeth and Percy (although, you realize it's really just tween "looourve" and so they don't know how to work with the infatuation, so they just annoy/enjoy each other).

We find the heroes on another quest, this time they need to save Grover, who thinks he found his bestie Pan, but they realize that they found the ever-famous Cyclops (ursa major). There's the golden fleece, there's trouble at Camp Half-Blood, they're on the water most of the journey...and the way they incorporate the "sea of monsters" and where it is in Western Civilization is perfectly brilliant.

Hurray for Tyson! Riordan incorporates a cyclopean character that is the equivalent to a sweet puppy-dog, and he just does everything right, especially when he loves "ponies!" He embarrasses Percy and then Percy realizes that even though you can't choose family (half-brothers), you can still love them, and also learn from them.

I think one of my favorite bits was about donut shops popping up, and whenever there's a donut shop, there's monsters...

It continues to enchant, and although the language isn't the most striking, Riordan captures the voice of Percy, and that alone catapults the series forward as they get closer to the showdown against Kronos and his minions.

"The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan

This was the book that was constantly in the hands of my students. Not just this one book, but the entire series, thankyouverymuch. Since I teach middle school children, I am often wanting to read what they are reading. Not because it'll make me appear much hipper, or whatever, in their shoes, but because sometimes what they read looks good. So, I put down the Dean Koontz adult novel I'm reading and I pick up something that's a bit easier on the mind.

Then I realize it's mythology, and it's been years since I've studied Greek mythology and so it wasn't exactly easier on the mind. The language was, but all the stories that I needed to know as background weren't.

I'm glad someone out there decided to play around with Greek mythology. There's the concept that the gods move (as well as Mount Olympus) to where the Western Culture is as its strongest. I think that intelligence made the novel for me. That small piece hooked me and made the idea of Greek mythology in modern times relevant. The character, Percy Jackson, seemed a bit older than sixth grade in the book. I think that's my biggest beef. I also enjoy that the bad guy in the story isn't Hades. I think, out of all the gods that were introduced and characterized in the book, Hades was my favorite. You would want him to be the "bad guy" like he is in Disney's "Hercules," but really, he got a lousy deal. While all the other gods got to shine on in the realm of Mount Olympus, he's stuck in the gloomy underworld. Pshaw.

Thank you Rick Riordan for playing around with one of my most beloved aspects of literature: mythology. I look forward to traveling with Percy and his friends through the next four novels. I needed another journey.

Strawberry Fields Forever

I think I might be most proud of this bag. It's shows the farthest that I've come. It was also a year in the making. You know why? A button. Yes, a button. Just a simple, stupid, red button. But, it had to be the perfect button. The button that was the cherry on top. The creme fresh of an hors d'oeuvre. The snow on top of the peak of the highest mountain ever climbed by man! The...softest toilet....

You get it. There was this need for a large red button. The large red button was important, and I needed to get it right. If I didn't get the button right, well, the bag'd look stupid. And not just stupid, but stoopid. It took months. I searched through any craft store I was in, but the only red buttons they had were fire engine red, and I needed something with more orange in it. That color wasn't being made in large over-sized, circular buttons, but in tiny little ones that were shaped like a dragonfly. Finally, walking through an antique store, mine eyes traipsed across a small bag of two red buttons. I bought them, stuffed them away and then procrastinated. 

Finally, with time to spare in my schedule, I finished it. It's been named aptly, but since then I have sewed a new bag and sadly, this bag is no longer showcases how far I've come. If you would like to purchase this bag, please visit here. And buy it. I'm not stopping you. 

Tree Frog

Really, what I wanted to do was be a photographer. I have an eye for portraiture and composition. At least, I thought I did. I tried to take that photography and put it into handmade cards, but no one was buying those. At an urging, I turned it into a small business that I own called Refridgerator Art. Then, I decided, why not do portraits, too? I had a few successes, but nothing like weddings. Weddings are daunting. Weddings cost too much money and they need to be perfect. Even though weddings bring in the big bucks, I don't want someone to cry because I ruined their photos. What do weddings have to do with sewing?

Not wedding dresses. Sorry.

It's just another thing I realized I could do. It was something I wanted to start doing because I'm a big fan of the DIY generation. I saw people sewing on HGTV and since that kicks ass, I thought I would too. Now that I've had success these past couple of years, I sort of like it more than photography. It's really nitty-gritty. You're using your hands and your mind, there's measurements and everything needs to be perfect. There's the sound of the machine. There's mixing and matching of colors. There's shopping through thrift stores for the perfect "recycled" piece of clothing; there's shopping at antique stores for bundles of random scraps. It's a scavenger hunt to find the perfect materials to rethink and reuse. And once it's finished, you hold this thing in your hands, and you know what, I made it.

Meet Tree Frog. He's an old Puma t-shirt. You will know this because there's a little puma jumping in one of the the leaves. You will also realize the brand of the t-shirt is Puma because the red tag that stuck out at the bottom of the shirt is now a part of the strap. A touch of character. Something that will make someone go, "did that used to be a shirt?" Then they'll say: "Holy crap! That's cool!"

Holy crap is right.

Since the photography never really made it...I mean, I may do two photo sessions this summer, but it wouldn't make me enough to buy a new Mac laptop or D-something-or-other digital camera that I would like to have. Anyway, since the photography never really kicked off, I decided to kick it and work on bags, too. Who says I can't do it all? What's that saying? "Jack of all trades, master of none."

Charlie's Angel

Friends of ours had a baby and I wanted to do something special. I asked Steph if I could make a baby blanket. I decided it couldn't be that hard, right? At this point, looking at anything on Etsy was a little expensive. People were adding all kinds of tidbits to the blankets that weren't exactly necessary. But custom is good, right? Everyone likes to have an original, something tailor-made. Steph picked out the fabric and we found the perfect pink fleece to match (and it had to be soft). It didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to do, and it didn't take me long to put it all together.

I think Charlie, the little girl who got it, likes it. I'm assuming she has spit up on it numerous times. If that's the case, it has been washed numerous times, too. If that's the case, it's definitely getting some love. I want it to get spit up on. I'm sure some people would get a blanket and never use it because someone made it, but dammit, people, what's the point? I can make another one, if they wanted. It would probably need to be a tad bit bigger, too. Would it be the same fabric, probably not, but hopefully Charlie wears this sucker out. I'm hoping it gets pooped on, torn a bit and peed on. I hope it gets washed so many times that, really, a jug of Tide was used on it alone. What's the point of making something if someone isn't going to use it, right? So, they better be using it. If not, the next time we visit, I'm going to poop on it and wash it.

30 Days Ago

My last post was *gasp* 30 days ago?

The last time I attempted anything written was probably 30 days ago. It’s not been easy “getting back in the saddle” as they say. It’s almost like I’m content with not writing. Like, it’s easier to not write.

I can’t believe I just said that. Easier to not write? It’s easier to not breathe, too, I’m sure.

It’s just been a helluva spring, really. Even my lawn’s been neglected. Three weeks without mowing the front yard made us those kind of neighbors. The ones that bring your property value down. Except for last night. The property values are back up. I mowed the front yard, not just once, but twice within the hour. And weed wacked. And edged. And obliterated the annoying grass/weeds that grow out of the cracks of our driveway. It looks neat and clean. Even our neighbor came out and said, “your yard looks very nice.”

And I said, “your property value is back up, so if you try to sell again, you will!”

All this not-doing was because of track season, softball season and randomly rainy weather. It was the perfect trifecta of getting nothing done. The weekend afternoons I could mow, it would rain. The evenings when I didn’t have track meets, I would be at a softball game. The evenings when it was beautiful warm weather, I was at track meets. It was fun in a pull-your-hair-out kind of way. Not a bad pull-your-hair-out, just, well…it was like being in one of those fair rides when you spin in a circle and the floor drops out beneath you. It’s fun, but then it just starts getting stressful. Nauseating, really. And you start whispering to yourself with your head between your knees, “I just want to go home.”

The goal is: that stops this weekend.

I’m done not doing yoga, so I woke up at 8:30 this morning to start my summer routine. My goal was to write, but I needed to break through the barrier of “but I haven’t written anything in a month, it’s too hard.” Now that I’ve done that with this is fairly boring post, tomorrow morning I will commence with the yoga, but add in some serious writing time. Like, seriously.

That one joke from “The Office”

I get it that middle school kids love to watch “The Office.” In all actuality, I believe that it was the “cool” thing to do, and so they all watched it because it was “in.” Did they understand it? Probably not entirely, and so they picked up on random tidbits that they thought were funny, like Dwight’s “shun/un-shun” gimmick. One of the major jokes that has been released from the show is one of those that can practically be told anywhere.

Pop culture will often overflow into my classroom, and usually it’s quite acceptable, but this latest was not.

My sixth graders were about to break out into small groups to work on different activities. Instead of saying, “spread out!” the words “spread her out!” came out instead.

Then, “that’s what she said,” came out of the mouth of one of my kids.

As I watch “The Shining"

Okay, it’s true. I’ve never really sat down to watch “The Shining.” It’s not that I never wanted to. I think it was more that I’m not a Stanley Kubric fan, and Shelley Duvall casted as the wife of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance didn’t help either. With all that mixed together, I thought: eh.

I will give Jack credit for his portrayal of a crazy-dude. I think one of my favorite moments is when he’s in the food pantry and he’s calling out to Shelly Duvall (Wendy) and the camera is angled up at his face while he leans against the door, and he says something about a surprise for Wendy, and then he taps the door with his fingers all excitedly and sticks out his tongue. Cuh-reepy. And then Jack, later in life, plays the Joker in “Batman.” No wonder Steph couldn’t watch movies with him in them…

Don’t even get me started on Danny, the son, and the kid who’s playing him. The scene where he’s watching cartoons and stares off into space (because he’s seeing blood spilling from the elevator shaft in his head – which, by the way, doesn’t happen in the book) is a bit much, but before Wendy abandons him to go chase down Jack, he says, “Okay, Mrs. Torrance” with his pointer finger.

What is that about?

As a stand-alone, “The Shining” is actually a great movie, but compared to the book, it’s just insulting.

*yawns*

Farmer’s Tan

It’s been 80 degree weather, and the sun’s been burning through the clouds like a mother. Thanks to the handy dandy track meet, during weather like this, and the awesomeness of t-shirts – I’m getting the best tan there is.

I’m getting Farmer-fied.

A parent volunteer in the school library asked me:

“Where did you go for spring break? Your so tan!”

After the first track meet? You’ve got to be kidding? The farmer tan is starting so soon. Steph said it looked like a bad make-up line. Like those girls that are pale and wear too much bronzer. Their collar bones are pale (like mine is), but their neck is nice golden-orange.

I told the parent volunteer that it was all from track. She was amazed.

I was horrified.

I went screaming into the closest bathroom, scrubbing at my face with paper towels. It wasn’t bronzer. I wish it was, because then I look like a tacky dad when I go to the beach. You know what I mean: they’re the men in blue swim trunks with that bunchy elastic waist that haven’t seen the light of day for four years, they’re pale and freckly, but alas, they have bronzed necks and bronzed forearms. They wear those bulky velcro black sandals. They have a hat on over their large glasses.

That’s going to be me. It’s time to go to Goodwill so I can find the perfect bathing suit to fit the look.

I need to find some bunchy

Everything but the kitchen sink... Part II

Two weekends ago, my dad came up to help me figure out the debacle that was the Kitchen Sink Blog of the Century. We started with going under the house. The goal was to undo some "cap" that would allow us to put a snake in and stab at the clog (see fig A). Well, there was no cap, and if there was, it was rusted shut.

So, we went and bought a better pipe snake (the Walmart one I had just wasn't doing the trick), but it didn't want to snake through the pipe. Saturday night, Steph and I went grocery shopping, so we bought Liquid Plummer Foaming Pipe Snake. We poured it down the drain, but nothing happened. Well, that's a lie. It did clean a section of my sink that I can never get clean. I undid the pipes again, and decided to put some more baking soda and vinegar down there.

Well, that wasn't smart, because there was some bleach in the Liquid Plummer, and when you mix bleach and vinegar, you get a nice little chemical reaction called chlorine gas, or hydrochloric acid.

Deathly gas used in concentration camps, what?

Deathly gas in my kitchen, what?

Steph was researching, making sure nothing was going to explode or kill us, but she started searching after I poured the vinegar down.

I should have waited, but you see, I have this issue where I can't leave well enough alone. If something is wrong, and I want to try and fix it, I dwell on it.

So, once Steph read that it creates a gas that is far-from-healthy, my hypochondria begins to make me flush and sweat, especially after she said that vinegar and bleach make chlorine gas. Which, I could've been breathing in. Maybe. Am I dying? Is that a tunnel of light I see?

No. Just the large light we were using under the sink.

We did learn, the "taking lemons and making lemonade" aspect of the story: the best way to get a hold of poison control. (The number is now written on a magnet and posted in plain site if we'd ever need it again.) The man on the other end said I would've noticed any side effects instantly, from a burning in my eyes, nose and throat. Since none of that happened, he said we were safe. After that, I said, "I'm letting a plumber deal with it."

I was at peace with that, and finished doing dishes Sunday night with my make-shift sink (my 5-gallon Menard's bucket filled with sudsy water, see fig. B).

Then, Steph's dad called and told us about sticking a hose down the main pipe under the sink. It was 8 p.m. Sunday night. I really didn't want to do this, but knew I had to suck it up because if it worked, it would save us money. Plus, I would feel a little more awesome for solving (with help) the Vexing Kitchen Sink.

He said if we could get hot water in there, not only would it help blast away whatever was down there, but it would also melt it a bit, too. The cemetery of food corpses would melt away like it was 2012. Just like John Cusack's movie career...

Getting the hoses out of the shed wasn't pretty, but once we figured out that hooking up a hose to our water heater spout was our best option, I jerry-rigged the hose in the pipe with old t-shirt strips so it wouldn't leak water, and so the hose wouldn't bust out spraying water everywhere. I had gloves on, and while I held the hose in place, I was ready for the clog to kick back the water and tell me, "Hell no, I ain't goin' anywhere." Similar to those mucus families seen on those Mucinex commercials.

Instead, hot water leaked a tiny bit out of the t-shirts (they caught most of the drip) and after about 3 minutes total, the hot water continued to flow out of the hose, and there was no pressure coming back from the pipe. We cleaned up (not without taking pictures and posting them on Facebook) and I turned on the faucet to see if it was just kidding.

It wasn't.

The joke was on the clog.

Fig. A

Fig. B

"The Shining" by Stephen King

The Shining by Stephen King


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In the latest reprint of the paperback, with a new introduction by the author, King said that he came to a crossroads with this novel. He could keep doing what he did with "Salem's Lot" and "Carrie" or he could take it to the next level.

That next level was that Jack Torrance had an abusive father, and through the vicious loop, he had abusive tendencies, as well. That's what made the book so scary. The hotel was beginning to make him crazy, but there was something underneath that the hotel needed to get to, like his alcoholism and anger. With those powers combined, AAAAAAAHHHHH!

Not to mention topiaries that attacked.

It was a great novel, and just like "Salem's Lot" it was mostly a slow burn, with a few horrific moments inside. I think this was the advent of King's ability to get inside the heads of all his characters, and therefore, the book was more psychological. It's also a book that a classroom could sit down and dig into.

What is the motif of the wasp nest? These metaphors buzzed around in the book in places, and I could see a literature class dissecting it and really digging deeper.

Each of the three characters are all strong on their own, and King does a good job giving each one a voice. Wendy is a stronger woman than she gives herself credit for, and even though she decided to stay with Jack, regardless of his alcoholism, it ended up the better choice because Jack was smart enough to snap out of it. Danny's voice, I think, was a tad bit harder for King to get. Now, it's been a long time since I was 5, too, but some of the thoughts King gave Danny seemed a little too old for the kid. It's forgivable, though, because it wasn't constant. There were only pockets of it, then Danny would be 5 again. I get that he has a bit of "the shining" and so he is super-perceptive... I guess King could argue that would be why Danny seemed a bit older at times.

In the end, the entire story worked. King gave us history, a few murderous scenes, and a masquerade party that kept happening in many ghostly ways.

I think the one part of the novel I didn't like, and it's not King's fault, was the narrator reading, "Unmask! Unmask! Unmask!" That made me cringe.


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The Mystery of The Missing Velvet Blazer

A couple of years ago, I purchased a blackish/dark navy velvety blazer, what some people would consider a smoking jacket. The blazer was soft and it was elegant, and it could've been worn with the darkest of jeans to make me look like a philosopher, an artiste, an avant garde. It was the one blazer my wardrobe cried out for. 

When it was in my hands, this feeling of completion washed over me. I would not need to purchase any other piece of semi-formal clothing ever again. This completed it. It was very Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Not metrosexual. I hate that term. 


When I got home, I placed the bag down and didn't return to it for a couple of days. I wasn't in a rush to put everything away. When the day came for me to put it away, I plowed through the bag to find that it wasn't there. 


This mystery has plagued me for a couple of years. One minute I had the stupid thing, and the next minute, I didn't. What's up with that? 


I'm thinking the store clerk didn't actually put it in the bag. The hanger, yes, but not the actual article of clothing. What? The hanger? Last weekend, Steph came out with a giant plastic hanger. We assumed it was the hanger the blazer came on, but where was the blazer? The void in my wardrobe remains.