They might be giants

No seriously, my family might be giants.

Okay maybe that's a stretch ( ha!) but given my post the other day about how hard it is to find clothes for my husband and myself, and an incident at Kohls yesterday, I am beginning to wonder.

The girls and I went to Kohls for some deal hunting. I got a ton of cheap stuff. Spent $93, saved $260. I'll take it. Anyway, while we were walking and shopping Ava says Mom, my foot hurts. I look down at her foot and there is rubbed in blood all over the inside of her foot. Her new sandals gave her a blister, surprise surprise. Every pair of summer shoes she has had gives her a blister. It's not the shoes it's her. Ava has this

http://www.hopkinsortho.org/femoral_anteversion.html

and it makes her shoes rub on her feet.

The remainder of the shopping trip she sat in the stroller part of our cart with her shoes off. We went home and got her bandaged up, got some socks and real shoes on, and headed out to look for new shoes at Meijer. I found some Sketchers that I thought were cute, well-made, and not overly obnoxious. I grabbed a 12 for Ava and a 13 for Lil. As they were walking around I did the push on your toe and wiggle test. Holy Shit, these shoes are almost too small. Luckily they had the next size up for Lil, and all was well.

We ended up walking out with a size 13 for Ava and a 1 for Lil. I can't even believe how much they've grown. Their summer sandals that I bought in late Spring were a 11 and a 12. I don't think they've ever skipped a whole size.

I am not ready for them to be this big. Kindergarten is looming...

Dress your husband in corduroy and denim

In the past I have been caught in the middle between clothes that I like and what I see other mommies wearing. To make matters worse I am tall and have freakishly long arms and legs, and ribs that protrude (especially on the left). Add in the fact that I don't have a million dollars to have my clothing custom made or altered and it makes shopping a bit difficult for me. I find myself scouring racks at Target looking for that one size medium T shirt that was cut wrong, with the freakishly long arms. If you've ever been shopping with me you understand.

A few years ago a friend introduced me to The Buckle; a wonderful store at the mall. After you regain consciousness from the price of a pair of jeans and try some on you will realize that your ass really is amazing. You will feel wonderful about your body and you will happily shell out $100 for a pair of "makes my ass look good" jeans. Then you'll go home and you'll gingerly tell your husband how much you just spent on a pair of jeans. After he regains consciousness, and you show him how great your ass looks, he will beg you to go and buy more. And so it goes.

I am anxious for fall. It is by far my favorite season, followed by winter. I did some shopping while B was here and I got a nice gift certificate from Jer for my birthday for The Buckle and put it to good use on new fall/winter clothes. I was showing Jer what I bought and he told me he was no longer cool enough to be seen with me.

For those who don't know my husband, he is incredibly neat and polished ALL THE TIME. The man irons everything he wears, I am not exaggerating. In fact, I bought him a fancy new iron for Father's Day and he was giddy. He will not wear a T shirt that has a wrinkle. He can't leave his shirt un-tucked, he will die, surely. Mostly he wears business casual clothing when he's not at work, button down shirts, khaki shorts. If we go fishing, camping, or hiking he can relax the standards. I tease him constantly but at least I never have to iron.

I asked Jer what kind of clothes he needed for fall so I can start shopping for him (he hates shopping, I love it, it works out well). He told me he wants cool clothes, so he can be cool like me. I thought surely I can find him something that is comparable without being silly and I hit my favorite online stores. This is going to be extremely difficult.

http://www.buckle.com/styleandtrends/outfit_detail.jsp?bmUID=iFJ13gd&N=42+2294

Can you seriously imagine Jer in this outfit and keep a straight face?

http://www.buckle.com/styleandtrends/outfit_detail.jsp?bmUID=iFJ144x&N=42+2296

Not only does my husbands personality make this a tall order, but his actual size is extremely difficult to fit. He's 6'6", 34x36 pant, and a 16 1/2 36x37 shirt. Not too mention that all of the "cool" men's styles are wrinkled and unkempt looking, if I buy him one of those shirts he will iron and starch it, tuck it in, and all will be lost.

What does your husband wear?

An experiment

There was a recipe for Peking Roast in Heloise's column last week that the original Heloise printed in the 60's after obtaining the recipe from a Chinese cook at a hotel where she stayed. It struck me as so odd and slightly unsettling that I am making it tonight. Here is the recipe more or less.

Peking Roast

Buy any 3-5 lbs roast, cut makes no difference. Make small slits all over the roast and insert cloves of garlic and slices of onion into the slits. Next, place in a bowl and cover with 1 cup of vinegar, make sure the vinegar runs into all of the slits. Refrigerate for 24-48 hours. Remove from vinegar and brown on all sides until almost burnt. Then transfer to a heavy non-reactive pot and cover with two cups of strong brewed coffee and one cup water. Cook 4-6 hours on the stove top, making sure that the pot doesn't boil dry. Season with salt and pepper 20 minutes before serving.

I will let you all know how this turns out. I can't even wrap my brain around this to even have a guess as to how this will taste. But Heloise swears in the column that you could serve this to the queen of England if she should show up at your door tonight.

Update: The Queen of England would not be impressed. The meat was good with some soy sauce on it, otherwise too bland. If I make it again I will highly season it.

Wrong

We went to National Night Out last night for the first time and had a blast. We will definitely make sure to go next year as well. We took the girls in the fire departments' smoke house which is something I did when I was a kid. They freaked a little when the smoke started which is to be expected but I think it made a big impression on them.

Free events sure do bring out everyone in town. I saw more toddlers with no shoes, dirty clothes, and Mohawks than I have all summer. I swear that I heard calls for "Sissy!" and "Pawpaw!" all evening. Next year I think the police should stand at the entrance with a list of the counties most wanted, I'm fairly sure they would nab a few meth heads.

But one thing bothered me more than the rest, so much so that I'm still thinking about it today. There was a big kid, maybe 18 or so, but just huge, that obviously had special needs of some sort. He was with what I assume was his family and being led through the crowd towering over everyone. His hair was not combed and he had on a black T shirt with huge lettering that said DORK. I suppose if my child wanted to wear a shirt that said DORK on it I would allow it, but this kid didn't look like he was verbal at all. I am still trying to figure out why you would do that to a kid with special needs.

A lesson in pronunciation

according to my children...

apricot = africot
that's why = thatwise
McDonalds = Old McDonalds
Cracker Barrel = Wheel Barrel
Raspberry = Rozberry (Lily)
Grandma and Grandpa = Grampa and Grampa (Ava)
Something = someking (Ava)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

or something.

Every once in awhile I go through a spurt where I am completely uninterested in the computer and all things Internet. Of course I still check my email but everything else just gets to be too much.

The weather has been beautiful and we've been outside for the better part of the day, every day for weeks. The inside of my house is low on the totem pole of stuff that's important to me right now. We completed two rooms (1/2 bath, foyer) and almost completed the dining room, now we have switched our focus to the yard.

I had 4yds of dirt delivered and regraded the backyard/side yard, and fixed a downspout issue while Jer was in TX a few weeks ago. We put in two new flower beds and edged them with brick. We had one and a half tons of flag stone delivered last week for our new patio. A neighbor offered to give us her pergola for free if we would take it down for her, so now we are working on digging the holes for that and reassembling it over the patio area. When that is up we'll lay all the stone.

I have been planting peonies, astilbe, gladiolus bulbs, dahlias, re blooming day lilies, freesia, and pink bleeding hearts. I started the spinach (which is doing nicely), and the lettuce tape (which isn't doing shit). The veggies and plants I've started from seed are doing nicely and are almost ready to transplant. I chopped out three shrubs that my neighbor and her husband have been trying to kill for years, and as payment got some plants that had grown amongst the chaos.

I need to go to Joanns and get fabric to make a cushion for the side porch swing. I also need to buy the dwarf blueberry bushes I've had my eye on since January.

So much to do, so much to do....

Advertising works

My kids watch TV and I like it. Summon a policeman.

Their favorite channel is Sprout and 99% of their TV watching is that channel. Unfortunately, unlike The Disney Channel or PBS, Sprout has commercials. Most of those commercials are those infomercial product things, like The Snuggie. I knew it was becoming a problem around Christmas when we were making out Christmas lists and they both wanted The Touch and Brush on their list. It's an automatic toothpaste dispenser. I probably would have wanted one of those too at their age. Needless to say Santa didn't deliver.

Yesterday as I was cleaning the bathroom Ava came in to use the facilities. She asked what I was doing and I explained myself. She looked at me with a very serious face and proceeded to tell me that steam was the best way to clean. After a small discussion about the wonders of advertising she went back to playing Barbies, probably still thinking that steam is the best way to clean.

And me? Yeah, I just finished placing an order for two Pillow Pets. So there.

It's a pillow, and a pet. It's a pillow pet!

Bring on the commercials, I'll get my wallet.