RaNdOm SuNdAy ThOuGhTs

So I finally went to the Lilac Festival this afternoon with my daughter. The sun was shining and it was a bit cool, but better than the thunderstorms that rolled through yesterday. My daughter's a good sport and always up for an adventure, so off we went.
Plus, out of everyone, she's a cheap date.

We got there and I realized I FORGOT MY CAMERA! Oh, NOOOOOOO. *Everyone takes photos of the Lilacs and the various oddities (people) that walk around.

Oh, well, we knew what we wanted to taste and see, so here's our (photo-less) report:

• Top of the list: fresh-squeezed lemonade, corn dog and funnel cake (hey, I never said I was going for healthy and balanced)
  
• I was buying some clever tees that I thought my kids would appreciate,

Bruises are cool.

• and since they were buy 2, get one free; I was deliberating over the design of the third (for me). As I was debating whether to go with one that was too large vs one that was, shall we say, more form-fitted; my daughter pipes up to help me with my decision by saying; "If you want it to last longer (to grow into) you should go with the bigger one." :-X The proprietor and I looked each other and cracked up. Umm, no, I don't think that's what I'm shooting for.
• A select few of you will get why we HAD to have this tee, "I canoe. Canoe canoe?"

• The kettle corn line was about a 1/4 of a mile long. No lie. What is the appeal?
• There was an older man wearing dirty yellow crocs. Why?
  
• There were 2 women who we kept crossing paths with who were dressed like the Wicked Witch of the West with striped stockings and thick black shoes. Yes, 2 of them.
• As I waited in line for a turkey leg (Yay! I don't have to cook dinner!) we were surrounded by a group of gang-bangers (or pierced, bandanna'd, droopy-drawered wannabees) with potty mouths who peppered their speech with so many f%^&s that a girl in front of us told them to knock it off. Aaahhhh, diversity.
  
• I had to mortgage my house to buy 2 turkey legs.
• They were big enough to feed a golf foursome.
• Even my 14 year old gave up and said he couldn't finish it.
• Artichokes French were a HUGE disappointment.
  

Here's a photo I got off google of the Lilac Festival.



They really are beautiful and fragrant.

oDDs aNd EnDs

A lot of ends, not so much odd.

Wow, I don't think I've EVER gone 13 days without blogging.

I'm not sure what's happening, but I can't seem to get past the 140 characters of Twitter. That seems to be just about right now.

So... here's the Twitter version of things I've thought about blogging in the last 2 weeks:

• I *finally got my black v-neck tee. I'm now a part of the club. (see previous post)

• We TOTALLY surprised my kids with Disney World. They thought they were going to the dentist and I had their bags packed when I picked them up from school. That was the best part and I wish I had a hidden camera to record their reactions.

• It was hotter than the Amazon jungle in Florida last week. I sweat so much it looked like I wet my pants. TMI, huh? Sorry.

• We met our Chicago cousins there and went to Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Cirque de Soleil. All was totally awesome. Well, except for the heat part.

• Everything was great last weekend until we got home. It's amazing how an argument between one stubborn husband and one obnoxious teen can ruin an ENTIRE day, even if it occurs at 6 PM.

• I got new funky glasses that I thought I really liked, but they either photograph really poorly or don't look all that great on me.

• I got my haircut today and had to face the great debate of whether I should A) continue to grow out the bangs and layers, B) go short again, or C) keep growing long and go for bangs.

• I haven't been to the Lilac Festival yet and this is the last weekend. I LOVE the Lilac Festival. Random note: a few years ago I took my kids and a few neighborhood friends and went to see the local teen hearthrob Teddy Geiger (whatever happened to him?) It was cold but totally fun.

• I opted for option A and now still feel like I have a total mom-cut. What should I do?

• My period lasted four weeks last month. WTF? Sorry, again for TMI.

• I have about 300 pics from Disney and about 120 are of tourists wearing fanny packs. You could say I was obsessed.

• Hopefully I'll be back soon with pics and more "interesting" and less "random" (does that count as a submission for the blog of unneccessary quotation marks? If so, sorry.

• I don't want to go to BlogHer, but I totally want to meet up with other bloggers. Just not ones that are too serious, kwim?

• In an attempt to avoid other chores, I cleared out a two ft tall stack of cookbooks. That was helpful, wasn't it?

• I now have backfat. Oh, joy.

Hopefully, we'll return to your regularly scheduled programming later this week (end)

I know I owe you more...

crap, the whole post disappeared. I'll try again.

I was saying that I hope this will tide you over - snarky commentary on the elementary school science fair I went to on Friday.

This woman can't even be that old! She's got a kid in elementary school!


I like this woman - she's nice, attractive, trim, dresses stylishly...but tonight = fail.
She had on ultra low-rise jeans which gave her a muffin top that she probably didn't even HAVE.

(Disclaimer: I know I was sporting back fat, an exposed bra strap and a nice beer belly/ice cream gut, but at least I had on cute sandals and a nice pedicure, dammit.)
And below you can see 5 of the 17+ women who were wearing black v-neck tees with jeans. I'm obviously hanging out with the wrong crowd because they didn't send ME the memo.

CopyCat

Yes, I'm copying Deb over at Debland.

I'm trying to install Linkwithin, but unless it only works on new posts, I've already failed.

So this is a test.
Bear with me.

Thanks.

You'll want to get in on this

A give away.

No, not mine.

This one is Lorrie's . Isn't she the greatest?

And it comes from the wonderful Etsy shop of Simag.
Trust me, her stuff is super cute.
See? Told ya so.

But I'm a little bit lazy busy at work Twittering right now so I'm just going to tell you to go on over to Lorrie's blog and read the details of the giveaway.

But don't forget to visit Simag's Etsy shop to check out her cool jewelry.
Even if you don't win, it's worth checking out and placing an order.

It's been a hard days' night, and I've been working like a dog...

No, not really.

I've been roadtripping. Vacationing. Driving. A lot.
Playing tourist.

I'm baaacccckkkkkk.

Today I'm just slacking. It's 11:30 and I'm just about to head in to the shower.

Hey, I've been busy. I think I deserve it. Besides, I'm the mom and I can slack if I wanna.

So, let's recap the week. (skip it if you're bored already)

Friday - drive to Cornell and pick up freshman nephew, continue to Wilton, CT to bring him home. Check into hotel room 5 minutes away at midnight.

Saturday - off to the new Yankees Stadium. Wait in line for an HOUR to see Monument Park. Plaques of dead Yankee players. Big whoop. I'm sorry, I just don't get it. But I did like the ballpark. And the beer. And the garlic fries.
See neighbor from Fairport. Random. Meet friends there in nosebleed seats over home plate looking at the first base line. Good view, though.
...To see the WORST inning in baseball history. 14 runs scored in the second inning. Yankees lose 22 - 4. NO, that's not a typo. It was history. At least it was a beautiful day.

DH and Number One Son go to midnight Easter services at the Greek orthodox Church. I stay with sleepy Darling Daughter. (yay, me!) They return somewhere around 3 AM. Christos Anesti!

Sunday - Greek Easter with the fam. Lots of lamb and other good food. We leave at 5:30 PM to drive to Washington, DC. We arrive at midnight. Again.

We check in to the beautiful Westin in Old Town Alexandria.

Monday - Awake to POURING rain. Buckets and more.
Decide to drive, instead of take the metro. Spend an hour looking for a parking spot that doesn't involve needing a rescue buoy or rowboat.
Car develops a weird shudder and service engine light comes on. Tour the National Air and Space Museum.
So is everyone else. See family from the church where I work. More random.
Drive 45 minutes out near the airport to see the other Air and Space Museum. The one with the shuttle.
Hey it was raining, what else would we do? Saw cool stuff. On the way out, saw Tuskagee Airmen. For reals. They were there for some ceremony.

Tuesday - GORGEOUS DAY.

Car still shuddering.
Tour Arlington Ceremony.
What's wrong with this picture?
Did you see it?

Lincoln, FDR memorials and Korean, Vietnam, and WW II War memorials.
Interrupted tourist agenda to sit through 2 our timeshare presentation (UGH!) It was the reason we went to DC for $99 for 3 nights in the Westin. It was totally worth the pain and suffering. Except the presentation sucked and the sales office was shabby. We are loyal to Marriott, thankyouverymuch.

After a late lunch we resume our tourist activities.
Daughter RUNS the whole length of the reflecting pool for fun and isn't even winded. Yes, I'm a bit envious. Starts to sprinkle, we run to car. Sky is threatening. We go to the Jefferson memorial and DH stays in the car because there is no parking.
Thunder and lightening begin, sky opens up with a biblical deluge. There are white caps on the water. Emma sees boy from her class at school. More random.
Yes, kids left their raincoats in the car and I left my phone there. We sprint to the car and arrive looking like we took a shower and forgot our towels.

Of COURSE this is fun.

We got to a little Greek restaurant near the capitol and have an amazing Greek meal. After we circled for 35 minutes looking for a parking spot.

OPA!

Wednesday - DH leaves at 4 AM for Dallas. We wake up at 7 AM and find a clogged toilet. Lovely. Because I am stubborn and want to see goofy tourists on Segways, we detour into DC to find and photograph them before heading to Philly.
This little excursion costs and hour due to traffic, construction and breakfast. Yay. Car stops shuddering, but service engine light is still on. I call dealer to make appointment for Thursday.

Arrive at Philly by 12:30 to meet my little bro for lunch and a little touring.

We go to seafood restaurant where Number One Son and bro gorge themselves on stinky fresh seafood while Darling Daughter and I eat kids meals - hot dog and chicken tenders.
Across the street, we go to the Mummers museum - built in 1976.
My Dad was the project manager for it for the city of Philadelphia as a part of his work on the bicentennial. It's a little tired looking but it was cool.

Yes, I still don't know how to rotate my pics on blogger. Sorry.

If you don't know what a Mummer is, google it and go to a New Year's parade in Philly sometime - very cool.

We played tourist in my home town and see old churches,

Carpenter's Hall, statues,

and the Liberty bell.
Just like my father, my brother knows someone everywhere we go and takes great delight in showing off Philly landmarks.

Despite all the impressive historical landmarks, my kids really want to get to my brother's house to see his dog and chickens.

Yes, chickens. And Aunt Sue, of course. ;-)

We have a delightful 2 hour visit and then are on the road again at 6:30 to head for home.

Fast forward to 5 hours, 1 nap, and 300 miles later, and I get stopped for speeding in a work zone, less than 40 miles from my house. I was going 63 miles per hour and it was 1 AM. I couldn't believe it. Grrrrr. He gave me a bogus ticket for using a cell phone and acted like he was doing me a favor since it has no points and is a lesser fine.

Thursday - Got to work after 5 hours of sleep.

And now I'm tired. With mounds of vacation laundry to do. Why is there always more laundry to do then what we normally wear in a week?

Yes, I know it's super long, but I had a whole week to catch up on.

Here's a list of bloggers/twitterers that I came close to, but didn't get to see:

TooofEach/PearlsofSomethin (PA)
Lorrie (NYC)
Kelcey (NYC)
Marinka (NYC)
JeffKay (Scranton)
Debland (PA)
Flamingo (Syracuse)
Junkdrawer (Lehigh Valley, PA)
Tiffany (Baltimore)
JudyZ (CT)
Amy (CT)

Waaahhhhh. I did wave from the highway, though. Didya see me?

My SpRiNg FLinG is OvAh!

::Sniff:: Yes, it is.

My Piperlime box came today!!!

Oh, joyous goodness, how exciting!

Alas, out of 4 shoes, the only ones that remotely fit are the clearance flat suede boots. And even they are a wee bit snug in the calf.

I might keep'em anyway.


Look at what I have to return.



It breaks my heart.

The old sneaker next to the cute red shoe is more like what I normally wear. :::sniff:::

Mars Landscape? UpDaTe

What is this?

Update: Yes, you clever, eagle-eyed bloggers, it is an eyeball.

*My eyeball, the left one, I think.

I went to my eye doctor yesterday and he has this nifty space-age retinal imaging opto-somethingorother machine that takes a pictue of the back of your eye.

Apparently they can get a better look at your whole eye than they can when they use those annoying dilating eye drops that leave you blind for the next hour.

Since I'm a big girl now and was planning to drive myself home, I didn't think dilation was such a good idea. :-)

MoRe SpRiNg FeVeR

Okay, I'm waiting for my shoes to arrive, but I got to thinking that I really need to celebrate Spring with style, so I've been looking at handbags, too.

I found this site back when they were first starting their website and had a Twitter contest. (Sadly, I did not win)

Handbagheaven.com

But I love to "window shop" and browse through their site.

Here are a few I've been eyeing:



What do you think?

And they're having a sale! Click below for a discount.

15% off all Handbags at HandbagHeaven.com