I do need to make some resolutions of sorts though. I’ve begun to feel like the Falling Woman. Just bouncing from one thing to the next with no real control. Since closing the store in 2009 I feel like I’ve been trying to get caught up, trying to get organized, trying to get my shit together in other words. I’ve made little bits of progress here and there but never quite reached that place of stasis where everything is where it belongs and life is moving along nicely. Maintenance mode – that’s what I’m aiming for.

Like this blog. Because my life and mind has been so scattered I haven’t managed to carve out moment to organize my time, thoughts and photographs to blog regularly. Writing is a muscle and like all my other muscles, it is terribly ignored and weak right now. I’m afraid had I been regularly blogging for the past 6 months it would have been a bunch of confused babble anyway. (I know, how is that different from usual right?)

I’m stealing an idea I just read on another blog this weekend. It’s called “The Rose, the thorn and the bud.” Every day she asked her young son to tell his Rose – something good or beautiful from his day, a thorn – something bad or painful, and his rosebud – something he is looking forward to for the next day, week, or year. Here are mine for 2010.

Roses

• My new job. I just love what I do and who I work with and for. If I had sat down a year ago and wrote out a list of what I was looking for in a job this one would probably tick off everything on the list. I get a chance to do what I’m really good at every day. I get to be creative and learn new things in my favorite form of craft. One thing that has probably kept me from going completely nuts is that my boss is incredibly organized! While my house and life is a scattered mess, my work environment is pristine and OCD-like organized. I also enjoy working with customers. People come into our store because they love to sew and quilt, we are there to help them enjoy their hobby.
• My new dog. Castiel came to live with us after Heidi died and has really filled the hole in my heart. He has an old soul quality about him and just fit right in. It was meant to be for him to be my dog. Someday I’ll have to type out his whole story.
• The Theater. I’ve found a second home there again. I feel that between working at the sewing machine dealer and being in plays I’ve finally found my life’s calling. I always wanted to be an actress. Always. I invented reality television in my head when I was a little girl. I used to imagine that cameras were following me and recording my every move (not in a paranoid way!)  I used to write little skits for me and my friends to put on during recess. If there was a school play or performing arts group around I was there. College beat that love out of me. I didn’t go to a school because of their drama department. I went where I had a scholarship to and could afford. I didn’t stay as a theater major because I was overwhelmed with college life, working so I could afford to stay in school and the theater dept. wasn’t set up where underclassmen had any involvement in actually being on stage. Plus I bought into the prevailing zeitgeist of the 1980’s that making money was what was the most important aspect of finding a career. I changed majors to something that I was already doing, Retail Management, in order to further my career. Now I have theater back in my life and I couldn’t be happier. I also have a new family of theater friends that have finally made living here feel a little bit like home.

Thorns

• Saying good-bye to Heidi. We knew it was coming, we planned it, we prepared. And it still knocked me out. That is still about all I can manage to type about it with out dissolving into tears.
• The disorganization of my house. I still have too much “stuff” left from the store. Bins and boxes of my personal supplies that I moved there and back home that have never been put where the belong and reorganized in a way that they are useful to me. Boxes of inventory that I just can’t sell and don’t know what else to do with it. I could donate it or give it away but I have to account for it and don’t know where to donate it to. We also just did a small remodeling project that has tossed my basement into chaos, not that it wasn’t chaos before. I swear I hadn’t been down there other than for absolute necessity in a year. We had to clean out part of it for this project and I found crap (some literal) down there that we hadn’t laid hands on in a decade. Now everything else down there is literally stacked to the ceiling like one of those Hoarders shows and covered in drywall dust. When that all finally gets sorted through, donated, tossed and organized I will feel like  I climbed Everest. The upside is that we now have a finished room in our basement that is warm, dry and sealed from mice and bugs. Once the workers get all their stuff out of the garage and the waste picked up off the lawn, I’ll feel better too.

Rosebuds

• My daughters. I can’t believe Sarah will be a senior in the fall of 2011 and turn 18. My girls will always be the center of my life even as I help them transition into their own lives. I will never regret one moment I spent with them or thing I gave up to be their full time Mom. Sarah is now past the half way mark of her high school career and I couldn’t be prouder or more impressed with the person she’s becoming. Emma’s creativity and drive impresses me every day. She’s always been a little stubborn but as I predicted when we would butt heads, it is serving her well as she gets older. As both of the girls get older we find more and more things to share and do together instead of less. Both of them have been involved at the theater with me. They’ve stepped up and volunteered and worked hard that now both of them are requested by the directors and stage managers to help out when they are available.  Both of them are talented artists and crafters. Sarah has gotten into knitting again this fall and Emma is always making something and surpassing me in creativity and craftsmanship. We share and talk about books, music, movies and television.
• More sewing. I finally bought (on ebay) an embroidery module for my Bernina 180. I never thought I was that interested in machine embroidery but after working for the Bernina dealer for a few months I learned all the cool things you can do with them and had to upgrade. I’m not able to afford a whole new system yet but was able to swing a module for my old machine using my ebay ninja powers. I got it a week before Christmas and haven’t had time to do much with it yet other than test that it works. But I have plans to master it and the V6 embroidery software I get to learn on for my job.
• The possibility that with a lot of discipline and hard work I may be able to pay off all the debt from the store. I am still about $17k in the hole but have transferred it to a no interest loan and am putting every penny from etsy sales and 95% of my paychecks toward it every month. I am determined that my last foray into small business will not be bailed out by Steve or other family funds. The other reason I love my job. Without it there would be no way that my etsy business could pay off this debt. I would be faced with the possibility of Chapter 11 or using our home equity to pay off a bad idea. I just need to get my etsy business rolling again at a higher level. I have old fabric inventory that needs to be moved out and I need to find some marketing avenues to get my name out there. Again, time and organization are key.

So there it is, all typed out. I was interrupted at least twice while typing this by Steve and the dogs and distracted countless times by the sunshine coming through the window highlighting the pet hair and dust under the tv cabinet and my to-do list nagging at the back of my mind. This isn’t going to be easy but sitting here in my chair isn’t helping.

It’s been almost 3 weeks and I still can’t talk about it much. It was time. She left us with dignity and grace, just as she lived her life. She will always have a special place in our hearts and memories.

This is Cate our neighbor and dog sitter. We got Heidi right after Cate and her family moved in next door. In middle school she started a pet sitting business. She just finished her junior year in high school and has been the greatest friend to all of our animals. When she heard that we were preparing for the inevitable she came over to say goodbye. You can tell by the looks on both of their faces how much they loved eachother.

This is my best friend Jayne with Heidi the day before we made our final journey. Jayne and I have taken our dogs to the local off leash forest preserve for years. She also dog sits for us when Cate isn’t available. She came by to say goodbye and offer her love. Again, it is obvious how much Heidi touched lives.

Sooooooo, today you get random thought farts. Lucky you!

Twitter I signed up for Twitter (Follow me! I’m Snarkdog) this summer. I’m still not sure I really get it. I follow about 20 or so people. I find following “famous” people the most interesting thing about Twitter. Jason Mraz sends regular inspiration/gratitude/thought-of-the-day kinds of tweets. (He doesn’t actually type them himself which is kind of a bummer.) It has been interesting to read P!nk’s posts from her Australia tour this summer too. I also follow Dooce and she has just recently started Tweeting a lot. But I have to say, I don’t think if I ranted about crappy customer service anyone would be offering me a free washing machine. I guess having 1000s of blog readers really helps in that regard.

Facebook Oh Facebook, how I love and loathe you! I think I have a serious addiction problem with Facebook. Screw vodka, I walked away from that bitch with hardly a tremor, but take away my social networking and Bejeweled Blitz/Farkle fixes and I may have to be institutionalized. Of course as anyone can tell you, the coolest/scariest thing about FB is that it is like a cyber high school reunion except at this reunion you can avoid the people you hate and those that you don’t want to know that you got fat and did nothing to live up to your potential. (But you can show them that your hair finally recovered from that unfortunate perm you had 1980) I’ve heard many people talk about old flames finding them on FB and just for shits and giggles I did a search for an old high school boyfriend. I found him, didn’t send a friend request. He didn’t go to my high school so we don’t have any friends in common, he did have a friend in common with a couple of my friends but it was like 3 degrees of separation and quite frankly, he was a douche and no one liked him so I doubt he’ll be mixing with my cool crowd anytime soon.

I do have the usual complaints/annoyances with FB as a lot of you do I’m sure. While I do love a stupid quiz to pass the time on occasion, I do get annoyed with the constant stream of them from some people. I equate them to Christmas cards. Follow along with me here. Do you get those Christmas cards from people you’ve known for years but never get to see anymore that are just signed with their names and no note or anything? Or worse, a photo card with pictures of their kids that you’ve never seen in person and the card is “signed” by the computer that created it. I would much rather receive a long treatise of your year in review complete with details of your last surgery and pics of the scars and photocopies of your brilliant 3 year old’s transcripts from Harvard than some bullshit generic holiday greeting. But I digress…These are the same people that do nothing on FB but play games and take stupid quizzes and post EVERY score and result on their feed. (You can disable these notifications and believe me I have!) They never comment on anyone’s status or shared photos. They rarely even update their status. Facebook is about connecting with people, getting to know them better or reconnecting after years apart. It is a dialogue. Also, I don’t care if your cow is missing on Farmville or if you are looking for an exploding cigar in Mafia Wars or what your latest Hatchling became, especially if you are over say, 12 years old.

The other really interesting thing I’ve discovered via Facebook is just how many LGBT people went to my high school. I graduated in a class of 106 students in a very small town in rural Michigan in the mid 80s (1985 to be exact, and yes that song was written about me, why do you ask?) I knew what gays and lesbians were and even knew a few personally but no one was “out” in the way we are familiar with today. My cousin moved to California sometime in the 70s and I remember when he came home to visit with his “friend” (or maybe we were progressive enough to call him his “partner” I don’t remember) and there were assumptions and rumors about a girls’ volleyball coach or two over the years but that was about it. But it seems that the “10% rule*” holds true even in small rural communities. (*Common belief is that 10% of the population is LGBT) Many of my gay/lesbian classmates haven’t attended any of our class reunions over the years and I think it is probably due to the worry that their lifestyle wouldn’t be accepted or understood. I’m hoping that through the buffer of “coming out” on FB and reconnecting with some of us they will realize there is nothing to fear and feel comfortable enough to attend a reunion in the future.

Blogging and reading other people’s blogs. I have been blogging since about ’01 or ’02 I think. One of my old original blogs is still floating around out there in Blogspotland and a couple years of original posts to this blog were lost in an unfortunate database accident about 2 or 3 years ago. I come and go with how diligently I post new things. Probably because I change my mind every 6 months or so as to what direction I want to take with my blog. (Which incidentally is why I chose “eclectic mess” as my name because I knew I would change my mind and naming it something with Knitting, Mommy or Crazy in the title wouldn’t make sense in the long run, well except for that last one maybe.)

I really enjoy reading other people’s blogs too. I’m very much a voyeur that way. (Which is also why the game/quiz/signed-card only people annoy me so much I guess.) Right now I only have about 30 subscriptions on my blog reader and I need to weed those out further too. I’ve been adding a few new ones here and there now that I have a little more time to go link surfing and comment reading. I’m always curious to try to figure out how some blogs get so many readers and especially commenters. I’ve never been very good at self-promotion (see: failed business venture 2008). Because I read so many blogs in my blog reader I don’t often see other people’s blog templates or sidebar junk but often to read comments I have to click through to the actual blog. (BTW, if you only have a partial feed sent to the RSS reader, I will drop my subscription to your blog unless I really love you. Just saying.)

This leads me to a question. Can someone explain how BlogHer works? I think I joined it or signed up or posted my blog address there ages ago but never had the time to figure it all out. Recently I found a few new blogs that I really enjoy (Aunt Becky I’m talking about you again in that weird stalker way I have) and I know they are “members” of BlogHer but I still don’t quite understand what is involved and how one goes about getting involved. I’m not sure I’m really down with the big ugly (sorry) advertising thing I see in sidebars across blogland so if that is required I may have to think it over more. The other problem I have (and I have many as you are well aware) is I don’t know how to classify my blog. Is it a craft/knitting/sewing blog? Yes, sometimes. Is it a parenting/mommy blog? Yes, but rarely. Is it a humor blog? Only because if I don’t laugh I may never stop crying. Is it a lifestyle/personal blog? Most definitely, sometimes too personal. But what am I to do? It’s my life.

School started this week Both girls are fine with it. Sarah is a sophomore and Emma is a 7th grader so neither of them had a new school to adjust to so it was pretty smooth sailing yesterday. They both came home with fairly standard first day of school reports. A few weird teachers, a few annoying students, no locker problems and the usual complaints about the bus. I’m trying to acclimate to the 6 a.m. alarm and it has been cold and rainy so I’ve had to drive them to the bus stop. But all in all it is just another school year.

Maizey got spayed a week ago. She is still wearing the “cone of shame” because she is a tad bit obsessive about her stitches. She slams around the house and into things and people. It is a quite entertaining and a bit annoying. I tried taking it off her and putting a T-shirt on her but she found a way around that too.

Plus she looked even more ridiculous wearing a “Have you hugged your Big Dog today” shirt than one would imagine.

The last post I just finished and published was not what I intended to write when I sat down in my comfy recliner with my HP-mini notebook and can of diet Pepsi. But it is what came out and what obviously I NEEDED to write.

Today was just one of those days. One of those days that just keeps getting better and better. I won’t rehash the last post. I’ll just remind my gentle readers that I took my girls shopping and it was trying and tiring. We went to one mall initially and ended up back at what I lovingly refer to as Chuckletown Mall where most of the stores are empty spaces. But there is a Deb store that sells plus sizes and it is one of the last remaining places in the state of Illinois where my daughter can find jeans and homecoming dresses that fit her and don’t (usually) make her cry.

When we got home around 5 p.m. I had the horrifying realization that the puppy had been in her crate since around 10 a.m. and that may just have been longer than her digestive system could handle. We came in the house with a sense of exhaustion and trepidation. Fortunately she was fine and clean. She ran for the backdoor immediately and went out to do her business.

But alas! All was not well in the land of the Shiny Island. As we progressed further into the house we smelled the distinctive air of canine defecation. Upon close inspection a steaming pile of crap matching the living room rug almost exactly was found. Heidi had a bad day.

All I wanted to do was relax in my chair with a can of Diet Pepsi and watch last night’s episode of Mad Men. But no. I got a pile of shit to clean up instead.

Thank goodness I bought this little machine right after I bought this new rug and before we adopted the new pup. It has paid for itself many times over.

I think the color of that water about says it all.

When I was done I found this glass’ worth of wine left in the fridge. I think I earned it.

Edited to add: I find it very difficult to watch Mad Men without a martini and a Lucky Strike but was so pleased to find on this weeks episode the crew at Sterling Cooper working on the “Patio” (the working name for what would become Diet Pepsi) campaign. Cool.

On to other news you didn’t know you needed to know.
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I spent the weekend back in my lovely homestate of Michigan. This time I hit the east side for a mini-reunion with Steve’s family and a few days with my Mom and Dad.
This is me and Patty. She is Steve’s cousin. They were best friends growing up. People often wonder how Steve puts up with me and what he ever found attractive about me in the first place. It’s because of her. She is loud, funny, loves her family unapologetically. In other words, she is me. When I first became part of the family I was told many times that I reminded them of Patty. Thank you Patty for preparing Steve for 20 years of the crazy.

We also had what can only be described as typical midwest weather. It rained all day Saturday (which explains my bad hair) and then got hot and humid. In August rain does nothing to alleviate the humidity, it just adds another layer of wet to everything. Unlike the coastal parts of Michigan the inner part of the state just gets dreadful hot and damp. Sunday there was a breeze but it was a hot, damp breeze. It is the kind of weather that people who live in the desert southwest chuckle and say things like, “At least where we are from it is a dry heat.” That’s usually when I fantasize about punching them in the throat but that would take effort that I just can’t expend in that kind of weather because it would make me sweat more. Instead I just sit around and cuss.

You see we went to my parents’ house in the Thumb Saturday night and spent Sunday with them. Did I mention that they don’t have air conditioning in their old farm house? So when kids today complain about ANYTHING I can say old people stuff like “You have it so good these days. When I was a kid we didn’t have a/c and we liked it.” Thankfully my parents bought a new motor home this year and we spent most of the weekend out in the “apartment” where it was air conditioned. Still we slept in the house and I think I may have steamed off 10 more pounds in the night.

There is a new neighbor in the old hood that is causing quite a bit of interesting gossip. About 3 miles up the road from Mom and Dad there is an old farm house that over the past year or so has been completely renovated and a rumor had it that a famous old Detroit rocker was moving in. Growing up in the Thumb there was a big house on the way to Lapeer that was rumored to be the home of said rocker but that was later proven to be an urban rural legend. This time is appears that the rumors are true. My dad used to be a County Commissioner and says that the work permits filed with the county had this famous person listed as owner of the property. Then this weekend he was telling me that a guy I grew up with was on the work crew that paved the driveway up there and was told by the foreman that the owner may show up that day and if anyone bothered him or asked for an autograph they would be fired and no one would get paid. He did show up and talked with the workers (he as a very nice guy from all reports).
Of course on the way home from going to brunch in Sandusky I had to try to get a picture of his house.

So the next time I’m there I’m going to listen to some old time rock and roll and hope to run into the new neighbor when I’m up at the corner store buying my Silver Bullet beer. I’ll try to play it cool (like a rock) and not put any night moves on him. Otherwise, the old neighborhood is pretty much still the same.

We used to do this family camping thing when the kids were younger and then lives got busy and we took a few years off. It was so fun to see the teens all hanging out together and playing games (and eavesdropping on their conversations. Teen boys have the funniest things to say about teen girls.) It is also so much easier to camp with kids that can go to the bathrooms and pool by themselves, sleep in their own tent and help set up the campsite. The first time I took Emma camping she was still sleeping in a Pack-n-Play and I forgot a booster seat and feeding her was interesting. I think she ate more dirt that trip than food. The next year she was potty training and we had the potty chair next to a tree because I knew if I tried to get her to use the Porta-Potty she would never get out of diapers.

The Wood Family is also a family of storytellers. My Grandpa told stories of his youth and when his entire family drove Model A Fords from Michigan to California when he was 13 years old. (He also started keeping a daily diary on that trip and made an entry every day until he died in his 90s. My dad has all these diaries in his safe and someday I hope we can have them transcribed) My Dad tells stories about farming and truck driving and trail riding and people he’s met and anything and everything else. My siblings and I also tell stories. Memories of camping trips from our childhood.

Remember when we took the truck top camper to the steam engine show and it rained all weekend and there was a river running through the campground? And the “hit and miss” engine was across from our campsite? And Pam got stung by yellow jackets?
What about the time Beth peed on Pam’s pillow?
Or the year we camped next to the big family from Detroit and then we went to visit them? Their Dad was a minister at a church and something weird was going on at their church that day. Wasn’t there a dead body found behind the church or something?

These family stories are fun to share. I remember listening to the last two generation’s stories when I was young and they made me feel connected to a time and a place as well as the people. My kids are growing up away from that place and most of those people. It makes me sad at times that they don’t have that sense of connectedness. Little things like holidays together and trips like this one help ease the gap and hopefully help them stay connected with our family heritage. Monday I took the girls up to Traverse City to their other grandparent’s and left them there until Friday when we’ll meet up with them for a family reunion with Steve’s siblings and cousins.

Funny, I look at the few pictures I took this weekend and realize there isn’t one with my own children. I did take them, they just don’t like me in public and don’t allow me to take their photo. I hope my sisters have at least one picture of them.

Edited to add:
The best part of the trip was getting home yesterday to find the house clean (Steve stayed home to take care of the dogs and because he had to work) and a full case of diet Pepsi in the fridge. Now all I have to do is repack the tent after it dries out and store all the camping stuff until next year.

I’ve had a hard time writing blog posts lately because quite frankly my blog and I seem to be having an identity crisis. I’ve been blogging in one place or another since about 2000. I had a Tripod site before that with family pictures and current craft projects and stuff even before that. My earlier blogs were all just personal blogs. This one even started out pretty much as a personal blog with a lot of knitting content. But then I decided to try my hand at running a small business and named it after my blog. Then this became a business blog with a strong focus on crafting. I felt the need to curb a lot of the personal stuff and to stop with the cursing!

But now that I’ve closed the store and just sell fabric on my etsy store there just isn’t much to say in that regard. I haven’t done any sewing since I packed up my machines at the store in April. They are still in boxes in the work room. I started knitting a cardigan sometime in May I think but it just sits in a bag now because I haven’t been back to Friday knitting at Wool & Co. since I started it. (Knitting with a new puppy in the house is next to impossible! She grabs the needles and yarn and my hands….you get the picture.) I’ve all but lost all my crafting mojo.

I read a lot of blogs of all kinds. I still subscribe to a bunch of knitting and crafting blogs but many of them go unread. About a month ago I came to the shocking realization that I may be becoming one of “those” middle age women. You know the ones. The ones that say things like, “I used to do all kind of crafts.” or “I sewed all my own maternity clothes and made so many dresses for my girls when they were little. But now I just don’t do it anymore.” etc. etc. It’s not even like I don’t have the time, I’m just not interested right now. I read craft blogs written by women in their 20s and 30s and see myself at that age. (It wasn’t THAT long ago!) They all have such a fresh and dynamic energy about what they are doing that I seemed to have lost along the way.

I also often have a feeling of “been there, done that” when I’m reading craft blogs. My mom was a very creative woman (still is) and my sisters and I grew up doing every craft under the sun. We were also a big 4H family and every year made all kinds of projects for the county fair. Some years I would have entries in sewing, knitting, cooking, macrame, painting, basket weaving and needlework in addition to showing our horses all week. Like fashion, crafts popularity come around in cycles. So I’ve now been around long enough that everything old is new again. This is why sometimes I have a hard time teaching what I know because it seems like I’ve just always known it. I’ve forgotten what it was like to learn it for the first time and I have a hard time relating to my student in that way. So many of the craft blogs are written by people relatively new to their chosen art form and that is refreshing and exciting. I don’t feel new and excited anymore.

So this will probably go back to being just a personal blog. I’ve been thinking about it and I do realize that I may have a perspective and life that might be a little unique to many of the blogs I’ve been reading. “Mommy blogs” are very popular and I wish that they had been around when my girls were young because I could’ve used the support and the outlet when I was home alone trying to keep it all together. But I did survive it and now I’m a Mom to two wonderful young women. They hate when I blog about them but no one says I can’t blog about my side of things.

So in short, I can’t guarantee a lot of regular craft content and if you subscribed just for that I’m probably talking to thin air anyway because I haven’t offered much in the way of craft stuff in months anyway. Creativity is just part of my DNA so I’m sure I’ll come back to it in some way, shape or form eventually. If you are interested in eavesdropping in on my weird, eclectic, and crazy life, stay tuned. There will probably be a lot more of that coming up. But be warned, I do swear a lot and even though I know my mother reads this on occasion, it is just who I am and I’m bound to drop a shitdamnf*ck when the mood strikes.

I think the Mess Family is finally adjusted back to the school routine. But every year has different challenges and adjustments. This year has been a big one for us because we’re now a Middle School and High School family. Earlier start times, E now riding a bus, S getting out much earlier and still having after school activities that get out mid-afternoon, etc. Not only have I gone from being a stay at home mom a year ago to a full-time working Mom, but we have joined that legion of families that is not home until almost 9p.m. every evening. It has been a struggle to juggle everyone’s schedules. The other challenge I’m trying to figure out are those mid-afternoon activities of my girls. The high school S attends isn’t within walking distance of either the store or home or any of our friends’ homes. When she does after school clubs she gets done around 3:30. Students aren’t allowed to “loiter” at the school once their activities are over so she can’t wait in the library or elsewhere to do homework until I close at 5:00 and can come get her. Once she was able to score a ride with a friend who happened to stay after for another activity but mostly I’ve been closing for 20 minutes while I run up there and pick her up. This isn’t the perfect solution but it’ll have to do until I find a better one. I apologize upfront if anyone comes to the store around 3:30 and finds a post-it note on the door saying I’ll be back in a few minutes. I promise if you’ll be patient, I’ll be right back.

The other thing that has had me busy in a very good way is my etsy shop. I finally got organized and started listing some of my fabrics there. It has been a great success! Every morning I come into the store a little earlier as to have time to get fabric cut, packaged and postage printed so I can get it in the mail. Kind of cool to be able to say I have customers in the UK, Norway and Australia as well as Montana, Utah, Georgia and Colorado. It has also started to pick up the slack of the slow days around here.

In my struggle to keep all the balls in the air I’ve unfortunately let some things slip through my fingers. Like my Dad’s birthday. It was a month ago tomorrow. (I also didn’t call or send a card for Father’s Day so I’m really on the sh*t list!) I don’t have a good excuse so I won’t make one.

Instead I’ll just say, “Happy Birthday from your little pumpkin!”
I love you dad.

I should lie and say that I have some super-duper-craft-and-business related stuff to attend to but the truth is that I’m flying to Vegas tomorrow afternoon to meet Mr. Mess and some friends for a weekend of fun and sun. Yeah, about that, Steve informed me yesterday that it has been around 107° there all week (he’s been there since Sunday for a conference) but the a/c is set so high everywhere that I’ll probably need a cardigan or shawl. Nice. Back in January when this trip was proposed that sounded delightful.

I see a couple days of lounging in a shaded, mist-cooled, poolside cabana in my very near future. Oh and SPAMALOT! (You know I will be saying the lines along with the actors.)

I will try not to fart in your general direction.