Requiem for a Blue Van

Van of blue,
Now I am blue too.
Because I don't have you.
Well, I still do,
but you don't work.

We got you to go to Utah one summer,
and then in the winter,
We took you to Florida.
We've taken you to Washington DC also.
And to Nauvoo.
I think you've been to Canada once
back before we had to have a passport to cross the border.

I apologize for all the trash
Katie, Jimmy, Paul, Hayley, and Matt
(and sometimes I),
Have left in you.
I also apologize for that time I broke
Your passenger side mirror.
I apologized to Jim too
He wasn't mad.

At first you seemed too big to drive.
But then you were my extended arms and legs
That went really fast.
Well, not that fast.
You are, after all, only a van.
And not a racecar.

Now you refuse to take me anywhere
unless we administer electrical CPR first.
Your windshield wipers go off when they are not needed
And not asked for.
You also make funny clicking noises.
Sometimes you ding even when the key isn't in the ignition.
The mechanic said you had gremlins.

Jim tells me to use the white car
when Paul doesn't need it.
I wanted to take the truck this morning,
but Jim didn't want me to.
He said there wasn't enough gas.

I'll miss you, blue van.

Hipster fashion blog post 2

Hayley wore another cheap, pre-owned dress on Sunday. (Not that I do the buying a new Easter dress thing anymore anyway)

This dress looked 'meh' on the hanger, but Hayley liked the fabric. When she put the dress on, it looked so much better.

Now I have to find brown, or even pink shoes to go with it. No, she did not go to church barefoot; she wore her black slouchy boots. AND she didn't wear her coat this time so she could be seen in all her thrift store prettiness.

Teenagers and Easter eggs

When asked if they would like to dye eggs this year, the three remaining at-home children all expressed very little enthusiasm. But I bought egg dye anyway.

Good thing I did because at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, all three kids wanted to dye eggs.

See, this just adds to the hoarder impulses I have. "You need to buy that just in case," my brain tells me, because heaven forbid we disappoint the 18-, 16- and 14 year olds by not having colorful hard boiled eggs on Easter Sunday. For $2, I couldn't argue very much, although I don't mind disappointing the teenagers once in a while.

Dyeing eggs with teenagers means that we aren't making them look pretty with cute little Easter bunnies or chicks. Hayley's theme this year was Pokemon creatures and a TARDIS. Paul chose his two eggs to be checkerboard, one of which involved several steps including tape, and Matt just did random scribbles, one that was nearly completely black (colored by crayon) and a Pokeball.  Jim did "eat me" and "peel me" on his eggs, and I went for an eyeball and a radiation symbol.

Trying the eyeball on for size

See the TARDIS in the lower right corner?

Jim and I asked if kids were interesting in searching for hidden eggs in the morning, and only Paul responded with "If you hide them, I'll look for them."

In the morning when we hid some for Paul, Hayley and Matt were indignant, insisting that they be included. Those two need to pay better attention when we ask them questions. I was about ready to tell them to hide their own eggs to find.

Easter with teenagers: non-standard egg designs and lots of eye-rolling.

#4 in my quest to meet every single author in the world

I've decided that I need to go to more book signings. They seem to be a lot of fun.

Last Sunday as I was perusing the Variety section of the paper, I happened upon a listing for a book signing for an author Matt really likes at a St Paul bookstore. In amazing alignment of the planets, we were totally free last night when the signing took place. I was so glad to be able to go; I feel like I don't do much with the kids anymore because I'm so dang busy all the time. Woe to me.

Anyway, we got to the signing nice and early and grabbed a prime spot. The bookstore is a small one and they had only about 25 chairs set up. I wondered if they really expected that few people--this author is a "#1 New York Times bestseller!" (His name is Brandon Mull)

And I was right. There ended up being closer to 100 people there, most of them ages 8-12. Matt was one of the older kids in the room. He definitely had the deepest voice.

Brandon Mull was fun to listen to. He told us a little about what he's written and how he writes and then took questions from the audience.

Then the book signing! Matt and I waited in line while Jim sat in the chairs and talked to a lady from church whose daughter works at the bookstore and arranged this event (and who got to drive Brandon Mull around during the day).

When we finally got up to have our books signed, Matt was all smiles. This guy and James Dashner are his favorite authors. Matt was wearing his Adventure Time t-shirt and Brandon saw it and commented that they watch a lot of Adventure Time at their house too. Matt had Brandon sign one book "Hi Matt" and then I jokingly suggested for the second one, "Hi Smacky." Brandon laughed and asked if that was a nickname, and Matt said, "One of many." But Matt allowed the nickname to be written.

Brandon Mull and I discussing the spelling of "Smacky"

Yep, Smacky

 

Brandon Mull signing for me

Then I got a book signed. While we were in line, I suggested to Matt that we have Brandon write "Brandon Mull signed this" and Matt laughed. So that's what I requested. Brandon got a puzzled look on his face, and then said, "but don't sign it?" and I said "Correct." He replied, "I've never had that one before." But he did what I asked.

I'm going to ask all authors to write in their books like this. I might even have all of them write "Brandon Mull signed this."

Brandon Mull was great with all the kids who came to see him. He chatted with them, answered their questions about his stories, and promised more good books to come.

See Matt's smile? This was a fun day for him (and me)

Visit an author near you!

Hipster fashion show blog post

I'm still tickled about the dresses we got for Hayley at Bethesda. Be prepared for more posts like this every time Hayley wears one of the "new" dresses for the first time.

Hayley wore one of the thrift store dresses to church this past Sunday. She surprised me with her pick, but when I saw her in it, I thought she looked very cute.

The sleeves are a bit too long, but she likes things slightly too big. As you can see, the neck is scooped quite low, but a red cami underneath it adds an interesting bit of color (the phrase "a pop of color" currently makes me want to hurl. So I avoid saying/typing it). I tried to convince her to wear red tights too, but she wouldn't. And yet she complains of being cold all the time. She wore her coat over the dress all through church so wearing a cute dress was pretty much a wasted effort. Oh well. At least I have this picture.

Forced seriousness

She is also wearing the ballet flats we got at the thrift store. I neglected to get a close up of them, but y'all know what black ballet flats look like so no biggie.

a "pose"

$81.50

We didn't intend to spend any money beyond the cost of dinner, but...

It started out as the traditional birthday date with our daughter. Hayley got to pick the restaurant, and she chose the Beijing in Minnetonka, having had her first taste of their food the week previous and she LOVED their cream cheese puffs. Since the Beijing is not far from my mother, we invited her to join us (our other children, however, were not invited. They dined on whatever they could scrounge for themselves, which for Paul was a "heptaburger" at Culver's--7 patties. *shudder*).

Dinner was good, and the entertainment was actually very good, because half the restaurant had been rented out for a private wedding reception. Where we sat in the front part of the restaurant gave us an excellent vantage point to hear the toasting going on from the wedding party. Mini golf, Acute Ashley Disorder, a scrapbook, and stalking were some of the main points of the toast I heard from the maid of honor. We kept sneaking looks into the wedding party area to see who was talking and how the bride and groom were taking it. I think Hayley might like to have her reception at a Chinese food restaurant. And I might be ok with that.

After we had finished eating, one of us mentioned needing to use the bathroom, but the mentioner didn't want to walk through the wedding reception to use the facilities.

Mother suggested we go over to Bethesda Thrift Shop and use their bathroom.

And that's when the fun started.

My siblings will know where this is headed. Mother LOVES Bethesda Thrift Shop. She calls me every so often when she is there to ask if a child needs some item that she found. She finds stationary and wrapping paper there.

The store workers know who she is (and this will figure into the story as well).

While certain people were using Bethesda's bathroom, Mom and I wandered over to the dress rack. Hayley needs new dresses and I had been planning a trip to the mall this weekend. I found nothing that I thought Hayley would like. I focused on dating the dresses on the rack by decade and thinking about  my wardrobe of those decades and cringing. Mom found a chair nearby and when Hayley finally joined our little group (Jim was off wandering around the furniture area), Mom started working her magic. I swear there were no cute, Hayley-worthy dresses when I went through the bunch of small sized dresses the first time. But as Mom pointed and directed, we found 9 that Hayley said she liked and wanted to try on.

We moved our little group to the sitting area in front of the fitting rooms and Hayley began to try on the dresses, one by one.

And they all fit. And they all looked so cute on her.

Mom and I laughed and laughed, thinking about what a bargain these dresses were and how cute they looked on Hayley. $6 for a dress!

Then mom insisted on looking for shoes. 4 pairs materialized before us, and Hayley chose two pair--ballet flats and slouchy black velvet boots. Mom also found a pair of dress pants and a shrug.

While we sat and Hayley tried on, one of the store employees approached Mom and said, "Isn't this the second time you've been here this week?" Mom got a little red in the face, but said she likes it so much and finds such great stuff here. They talked for a while, and afterward, Mom said "I like her."

The store began closing proceedings, and I had to literally push Mom over to the cash register because she kept finding things. Jim was already at the register with the dresses and we had the shoes. As we neared the register, the employee who mom talked to quietly slipped me a punch card that had been all punched out. She whispered, "Use it for an extra 30% off." Mom said, "see it pays to be nice to employees."

We ended up with 10 dresses (one of which was a full retail price one, but was so cute we couldn't leave it behind), 2 pairs of shoes, 1 shrug, and one pair of dress pants for $81.60. I don't know why I thought Hayley needs 10 dresses, but for $4-$6 a dress, I could splurge! Two dresses at the mall would have cost me that much!

Here is the haul:

I am still giddy.

One reason I am giddy is because I have a daughter who does not turn up her nose at previously owned clothing. Another reason is because shopping with Hayley can be difficult because she has a very narrow definition of style and none of the stores around here carry much of what she likes. We would have had to traverse the mall several times over to find even one dress that would suit her tastes. But at Bethesda, we found 9 of them in a 4'x6' space. WITH A CHAIR TO SIT ON.

16 things

Namely years, in the case of Hayley. It's hard to believe that she has been around for 16 years. She was born back when we were still in the townhouse. Not that she remembers living there.

16 things about Hayley:
1. She gets packages in the mail. She's some sort of trendsetter on a website and as a result of having so many followers, she gets freebies in the mail.
2. I tease her about it, saying she's like Lane's little brother in "Better Off Dead," but I don't think she can build a rocket out of cheap t-shirts and leggings with skulls on the knees (which is what her packages usually contain)
3. She's going to prom
4. and proudly wearing a dress she rescued from the dress up box, one that used to be Katie's.
5. She stayed home sick from school today (the day after her birthday)
6. I think she just stayed up too late playing with her birthday present
7. which was an electronic drawing tablet.
8. She goes to friends' houses after school at least twice a week.
9. I assume they feed her.
10. She asked to play a family game for her birthday
11. She likes family games, and usually invites a "friend" over to play with us.
12. You'll see the "friend" in the pictures below.
13. His name is Kyle and he's a senior.
14. His house is supposedly not one of the friends' houses she goes to, but then I don't know that for sure.
15. I still trust her.
16. The same things make us laugh.

Killer bunny game. I won.

Hayley's Marceline cake. (google Marceline Adventure Time if you don't know who she is)

setting up Killer Bunnies

Hayley and Marceline

Strange face

I have no idea.