I love Ben Lee

"Begin" I'm walking down Broadway Each footstep is a new love letter I'm trying to make eye contact With each and every stranger that I pass I'm thinking about the city It's living proof people need to be together I'm thinking about how I just wanna open up And give and give and give And its ok for you to care Cos I can feel you in the air And while you wonder How's this gonna end I only wanted to begin I'm thinking about desire I've had to learn how to sin successfully I'm thinking about bliss And bliss is all dressed up and there's no one to dance with Remembering her smile And the nuclear bomb and the reasons I loved her I'm walking through central park I'm in a foreign country and I'm waiting for a sign And its ok for you to care Cos I'm not going anywhere And while you wonder If you should let me in I only wanted to begin I'm still singing Twisting new melodies, breaking arrangements I'm thinking about my heart I guess youve heard, sometimes its heavy But I just keep moving When I hit a wall I look up at the sky I'm thinking about my maker And despite all this I know she wont give up on me And its ok for you to care Cos I can taste you everywhere And while its true all straight things must bend I only wanted to begin

Not quite as good live. But I can't find the album version anywhere...

Dress make over.

So I have been cleaning out me and Isaac's closets as I do periodically. I got stumped when I got to this black and white dress. It's very cute, especially with this little short sleeved black cardigan. It fits me pretty well. But I don't think it is particularly flattering. I am short and chubby and anyhing that hits me lower than the bottom of my knee caps makes me look like a tree stump. The dress was about to be tossed into the "give away" pile when I decided to see if I could salvage it.

Here is the before picture (please excuse my workout clothes which I was in too big a rush to change out of). Also, I had to rope Isaac into snapping the pics for me, so excuse the wiggly photography. I think you get the idea though. Tea length hem = not doing much for me. However, Regina Spektor pounding in my ears is always a good thing.

I figured out about where I wanted the skirt to hit me and marked it with a marker. Then I attempted to pin everything below that point up. I ran into some trouble here, because the skirt is flarey, not straight (like a pencil skirt) and there was too much at the bottom when I went to pin it up. Also, I noticed the skirt material had some stretch to it and wasn't sure if I should stretch the fabric as I was sewing or let it fall flat.

So I called up my childhood best friend and seamstress extraordinaire Kathleen. She gave me a lot of advice and also offered to come over this weekend to walk me through it.

Let the record state that I ignored nearly all of her advice and forged on myself to do the project here and now when I was on a roll with it.

And, I think it turned out okay.

Not as flawless as if she would have done it, of course

But it is definitely acceptable.

At any rate. Here's how a non-sewer like me managed to finish this project. I took a ruler and using my original marks measured more marks all around the skirt that were 5.5 inches from the bottom like the mark I made. I just drew them right on with permanent marker. I'm sure you are supposed to use, like, chalk or some kind of sewing crayon. Then I just took my fabric shears and connected all the lines. It wasn't too hard because the flowers sort of formed little rows and I just had to cut across the top of one row.

Then I decided to hem it on the sewing machine. (Note: Kathleen recommended handsewing first.) I just flipped it over so the raw edge was lined up with the left side of the presser foot and the right side was lined up with the folded edge threw a few pins on and got started. I really did line it up better than the picture shows. It's hard to juggle everything plus the camera.

After I sewed the whole way around I tried it on again and I think it is much cuter now that I've lost 5.5 inches from the bottom. Don't you agree?

Don't worry, when I wear the dress for real I will actually

a)zip it up

b) brush my hair

Despite doing things the cheater's way, I'm chalking this one up as a success!

show me what I'm looking for

• I just finished twenty mins of jump rope in the driveway. It's the only cardio I can do here. After Isaac's in bed I take the jump rope out. I can't do it for very long but it sure gets my heart pumping and makes me feel like at least I haven't spent my whole day being a lazy bum.
• I'm also relearning all the old jump rope tricks I used to be able to do, like skipping, crossies and swinging it around twice in one jump.
• What I really need to do is give in and get a gym membership again. There are so many that just opened around I want to take the time to compare all the costs and I just haven't taken the time to do that.
• Speaking of excercise, how about my one sneaker just vanished? I have waited almost a month hoping it will turn up and it just hasn't. I changed out of my sneakers in the parking lot by the river trail and I think one of them must have fallen out of the car or something. I need to call Nike and see if I can purchase just one shoe, because it was a brand new pair. Only me....
• I had a dentist appointment today for a filling. It hurts like hell and I still can't chew on that side. The dentist said it could be sore for possibly the next month.
• Just finished another Jodi Piccoult book House Rules. I was 207th the waiting list at the library when I saw it on a shelf at my mom's house. I am a big fan of her books generally and this book is set around a character with Asperberger's, so I was into it at first. But my overall thought was just meh. It was extremely repetitive (at least 1/3 was descriptions over and over of charactertics of aspbergers) and the ending didn't make sense. Definitely did not compare to My Sister's Keeper or 19 Minutes.
• My next book is:

• So I'll let you know how that one is.

• I've been doing more reading in my room at night since I can't watch TV. Why not, you ask? Because the cats have chewed through both of the cords I use to sync/charge my ipod and then recently Cody chewed through the cable cord, so no more TV in my room. It's ridiculous. Good thing they are ridiculously cute.

• I don't have to much to write about. My days are filled with a few hours of incredibly easy work, catchy up on odds and ends, and doing whatever I can to maintain my tan. It's a tough life, but I think I deserve it, as hard as I work during the school year.

"We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest." -- Philip Gilbert Hamerton

another one..

Literally out of no where... "MOM! I don't want to go to church for a whole week and learn about Jesus!!!" "Um... ok... you don't have to." I finally figured out he was talking about Vacation Bible School. I don't even know how he knows about it, but apparently he is terrified I will send him. Made me chuckle...

Isaac-isms

These are all from today: "Mom can we stop on the way home from church and get a cool drink?" "No hunny, we don't do the drive through on Sundays." "DON'T YOU LOVE ME!?!" "Mom, the Holy Ghost is talking to me." "Oh, what's he--" "SHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! The Holy Ghost speaks very quietly!!!!" **After two minutes of silence** "He says, keep the commandments."

What I'm Up To

Life is good... seriously.... I freakin LOVE summer vacation. Crossing things off the to-do list Kind of mundane but now I finally have time to cross things that have been lingering on the to-do list forever. Things like seeing the doctor about the excema patch I've had on my eyelid for like six months. It's great to get my life a little more organized. Also some fun things too. Isaac and I took a trip down to the beach which was lovely. Hopefully we can squeeze in at least a few more day trips there, plus our big trip as a family in August. Summer School Easy breezy. The kids aren't too bad, the day goes fast, and I like to think they are having fun. I'm putting a lot of effort into trying to make it exciting and not just worksheets and flashcards all day. The kids who were such pickles during the year aren't a part of summer school, so that helps as well. I just turned in my time sheet yesterday and can't wait for my next paycheck with the extra cash. Maybe then I can finally afford get some paint up on the remaining walls. Walking My friend Kim and I are on a big walking kick. I figure, if I'm only working 8 hours a week, there is no reason why I can't get serious about excercising this summer. We have been walking along the River Trail. The past two days we did about 4.6 miles. Yesterday, due to the heat wave we are in the middle of, I totally tried to bail. I mean, I figure the fact that it is literally 105 degrees outside should be reason enough to skip. She insisted we still go and we were about a half a mile into our walk when it began to POUR with crazy lightning and wind. I seriously felt as if I were drowning! The crazy part was the amount of steam that was coming up off the sidewalks. It's that hot here. When it was all said and done our fronts were 100% soaked but our backs and bottoms were nearly dry. This was useful since we had to get back in the car and drive home. Anyways, afterwards I saw that power had gone out all over the place, it had hailed in many places near the city, trees were down all over and that some people had suffered property damage. Sheesh. Wedding Season So I went to this lovely bridal shower for my friend from Pitt Nicole. She was my randomly assigned freshman year roommate and we ended up living together all throughout college. She is from Lancaster, which is where my parents live now. Anyways, my friends (also girls I lived with at various points) showed up and it was the first time I had seen them since the Pitt days over seven (!!!!!!) years ago. Let me see if I can wrestle up a before picture.

Here was the picture we took at El Serrano:

It's wierd cause on the one hand college doesn't seem that long ago but on the other hand I have a five year old. Unreal. Oh and while we were there Nicole gave her bridesmaids their dresses. It is the EXACT same dress in the exact same color as my bridesmaids dress for my sister's wedding. It's a good thing I saw them because it had sort of been my plan to wear the dress to Nicole's wedding (it's more like a party dress). How awkward would that have been to be wearing the same dress as all of the bridal party????

Anyways, that's all for now. How is summer treating you?

Affirmation of the Week

"Where I am right now is perfect".