Tisket, Tasket, can I fill a basket!

We sure do live in a cheerful, giving community! As I have been going about my life, I just ask for things, and so far, no one has said 'no'! My "Girlfriend Day/Mental Health" basket overfloweth. Sephora, Beauty Alliance and Bath & Bodyworks has been very gracious to the cause. It now consists of: $30 gift card to Zoe's, two hour-long massages, a bottle of Marc Jacobs body lotion, YSL perfume, 2 lip glosses and 1 lipstick (Laura Mercier), a dual makeup pencil sharpener, two small bottles of body lotion (Orchid), Matrix Biolage Shampoo, Conditioner and body lotion, Kenra Hair Finishing Spray. All of those were full size items! There are various 'samples' of hair products included also.

Today's project is to get an U of Alabama basket filled. That Nick Saban football looks so lonely! Walmart didn't say 'no', but I need a letter from my church first. That is next on my agenda. Swing by the church to get some letterhead, then swing by the usual athletic stores in the area. Sports is not my thing, so I'm winging it (that's how I live most of my life anyhoo).

Oh, and I forgot the selfish part of all this! When I left Walmart, Rob and Shannon were out front doing their broadcast and handed me two tickets to the Alabama Theatre to see Bowfire. I just took them, said thanks, and kept walking. My mind was so focused on sports I just assumed it was a sporting event. I was on a mission and hate being distracted. I am so excited about this now. AND it's the night we are doing the 18 anniversary dinner, so it's a perfect timing. They are very Celtic. I love Celtic.

I am not having such wonderful luck with the 'Bama 'Basket. I need to send my hubby dearest and #1son. I'll switch gears and focus on Cajun Basket. But that one will make me hungry !!!

Life is good

Last week I felt like I was Oprah. I'm not black, rich, a celeb or a jet-setter. But I do have a love/hate relationship with my weight, I worry about my pets, love-love-love-love free/discounted things and happy occurrences always seem to go my way when I have a positive attitude.

A cat as adopted us. She was a stray from the creek in the back yard and she was dying. She weighed about 3 pounds when I taught her to eat. I didn't want her to die in pain and thought a bite of tuna may make her feel better. Anyway, she's a vibrant cat now and comes in our house when the doors are open. "Stripey Cat" has a urinary tract infection and it would cost us $185 to take her to the vet (before the cost of meds). A client of mine diagnosed her with a urinary tract infection. That afternoon another client of mine offered to call in antibotics for me to give her. Wow.....I got out of this cheaply. It was called into the Publix, which offers 8 different antibotics for FREE, and this was one of the free ones! Taking care of God's animals has its rewards :)

Then, I had a delightful new client on Friday. I was discussing the Mountain Marketplace raffle and baksale/cafe. I'm working diligently on that this week. The raffle baskets are coming together nicely! I have a 'family' basket, a 'cajun' basket, and a 'girl friend' basket. Each has restaurant coupons and various other things. I had a connection to get a football signed by Nick Saban, but thought it was a longshot. I cannot describe how surprised I am that Nick Saban and JP Wilson signed TWO footballs for us to raffle/silent auction and they are in my possession! I also have a shot of getting one signed by Bart Starr. I told this to my new client, since he's a Bama grad, and he was happy for me. When my client left, he handed me a a check for $100 made out to the church as a donation! I was so touched! My goal for the raffle/silent auction is $1000, so I'm 10% there! My food goal is $2000.

And lastly, there seems to be some glitch in the Victoria's Secret computer system. Every day I receive a card in the mail for a free panty. So far, I have three :) Each one is addressed differently to me, so I'm hoping this will continue every month!

And I lost 1.5 pounds! Now I need to get moving on finishing those dresses. Gotta keep the good karma going. Maybe I'm more Earl than Oprah. I dress like a fat version of Joy Hickey. I'll ponder on that as I'm crocheting today!

No Pain, No Gain

I've blown off exercising for the past week. It's hard to eat and exercise at the same time. Last night I returned to Hip Hop dance class and this morning I feel it! I slept really well last night and this morning I was sore when I got out of bed. I drank two bottles of water before I went to bed to ward off pain, but it wasn't enough. Thankfully I'm getting my hair cut this morning and that should be a wonderful pick-me-up.

I must focus on the fact I have lost 3 of the cake pounds. I pulled out my bathing suit as a reminder of my goal. Sadly, when I pulled out my blue suit, I found an army green BIKINI I purchased last year. Bikini = Abs. Not good...not good at all. Now that the weather is nice I need to walk every evening. And see if Andrew's orthodontist can sew my mouth shut.

On a happy-happy-joy-joy note, I've been sent a bloggy BBF. Thanks Leigh! Leigh attends Hip Hop Dance Class (Special Ed level) with me. She and Flo are on the graceful side of the room. I'm the fool who is falling all over herself and is about 15 steps behind. It's so bad that our instructor, Chesney, put curtains over the mirrors so she can't see me. She claims it's because it's too much of a hassle to put them back up, but I know the truth.

Oh, and Leigh....my pirate name is Dirty Bess Rackham.

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Hooking on a Monday

Got one dress crocheted. My goal is at least one a day. Deep purple on the top and the material is lavendar with navy and deep purple flowers. Woo Hoo! I'm hitting the mango orange one next! I wish crocheting/knitting were an aerobic sport.

I spent my morning at the dermatologist. I highly recommend Dr. Henderson at Shelby. I hate wasting my time at other people's discretion and waiting rooms really annoy the heck out of me. I came prepared with two knitting mags and post-its to flag pages to copy. My wait time was under 5 minutes. I went into my room with the nurse, reviewed why I was there, then waited under a minute before the doctor came in. I was over and done in under 30 minutes from entering the office to leaving the office. When I was down with the flu, I was on the sofa for a week watching crappy TV. All those syphilis commercials convinced me my skin condition was syphilis and that I needed to get to the doc ASAP before the insanity set in. I have seborrheic dermatitis and will survive. I was on the road by 11 am.

That gave me my usual Monday...hanging with the galpal. Lunch and hanging out at her house. I'd write more, but as she said, "What happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen." It literally was a Sex and the City episode (without the sex). Then to the grocery and made my #1 child grilled cheese.

I have to block the foodnetwork channel from his TV. He saw Bobby Flay throwdown grilled cheese. And he wanted it at 9:30 pm yesterday. I had no bread, Brie, goat cheese or bacon in the house, so a market trip was in order. It was a good sandwich, but not as good as I anticipated. I did like the bacon in the middle. Bobby put a green tomato slice in the middle, but #1 son wasn't having any part of that. I'm glad it wasn't intricate. He liked it, but not *that* much. I guess I'll be eating a lot of cheese this week!

Whoring on a Sunday -- I have no shame

Really, it's Leigh's fault. She was sniffing around my blog and followed the scent of food. I mentioned the June 21 Mountain Marketplace that the church is having and *wham* I remembered I needed to make some things for the church donations. I've been so wrapped up in chairing up the bake sale (I've scrapped that idea and have upgraded it to a Cafe) that I forgot that I had to make something.

I thought long and hard about what I could make. Should I use up the large box of bead I have and make lots of jewelry? Naw..I'm used to the bead clutter. How about use up all the fun ribbon yarn and make a ton of scarves? Naw...it's in June. Who wants a scarf in June? Then I remembered this cute thing I saw on HGTV. I went to Hancock's fabrics to see what I could scrounge up that was summery. Mind you, this was last November. The clearance bin was a goldmine! So, without further ado, I am making about 15 of these cute dresses for little girls. It takes me about two hours to crochet the top part and my sister will sew the fabric. She's a whiz with a sewing machine. I"m having trouble deciding a price. I usually just double or triple my cost, but when I say I purchased this on super clearance, I'm serious. I need to go nosing around cute girl shops. having a son, I only know the cost of t-shirts, underarmour shirts and cargo pants.

I'm inspired to get these done so I can go back to my ribbon summer sweater. I'm selfish that way.

Whoring for the church

I've gained 6 pounds (no kidding) because I've been baking for the semi-annual church bake sale. Chocolate chip pecan cookies , chocolate crinkles, peanut butter cookies and chocolate spritz cookies. I love to lick the bowls. But that's not where I got into trouble. It was fuckydamn's birthday cake she made for her husband. Words cannot describe this gastronomical gift from the food gods. I saw the cake on FoodNetwork's Throwdown with Bobby Flay. It was the cheesecake episode. Bobby made this phenomenal Caramel Apple cheesecake (which won) but it was up against a Devil Food Cheesecake. What is so amazing about a Devil's Food Cheesecake? This ain't no ordinary cake. It's a four layered cake. yes, a 4 layered cheesecake. The devils food cake is just three layers, but between the first and second layer of the decadent cake is a hidden layer that is a cheesecake. This thing is so amazing, that the FoodNetwork will not even have a photo of it on their website! And between these layers of heaven is this fluffy fudge icing. It's very fudgy, yet light. It's a miracle icing.

She didn't have a cake plate that was high enough to hold this 10 inch tall cake so she gave me half of it. Except for the one large slice my son took, I ate it all. Yes, I say that proudly. If you had it in front of you, you'd eat it all too. I promise. Here's a photo of the SMALL cake recipe. Picture it in your mind with two more layers of cake.

What the Heck is a Fuckydamn?

My girlfriend and I have a relationship like no other. It transcends all.

We both inappropriate laugh at other people, not each other. We have our own language and codes. I'm the only one who can tell her things and she doesn't explode, and visa-versa. We quote from TV shows and movies. We watch trashy TV. No judgment. She took a photo of me in my bathing suit as an incentive to diet. NO one sees me in my bathing suit. It's just different.

One day while she was in a funk, Grey's Anatomy had a scene where Christina is trying to describe her relationship with Meredith to Burke. She could only sum it up by saying "She my person". When questioned even further, she said "She's the person I call to help me hide the body". So my friend Delisa texts me and says "You are my person." We both got it.

The same week of the Grey's Anatomy episode, I received an email from a very angry Chinese woman. She was dating my ex-fiance in China. I'm not very familiar with the Chinese culture, but this woman had been trying to befriend me. I thought of it as international stalking, by my ex said it was just 'cultural'. She had demanded that he give her all his passwords to his computer (which he did). She changed his myspace page to only have pictures of her and she deleted everything on his page wrote of his devotion and love for only her. Did I mention she was engaged to another man? Like I said, I don't get the culture.

She also had access to his email accounts and all of my email addresses. She therefore would email me 3 times for every one email she sent me. That pissed me off. Not to mention that she wanted to be added to my friends list on myspace and yahoo. I told him to tell her to leave me alone. I do not need any more psycho's in my life. He just laughed. But she read the email and he broke up with her. Not good for the yarn whore.

So I receive (three times mind you) this utterly pathetic email from her saying that, in essence, I was trying to sabotage their relationship and I had lied to him about her. She typed numerous times 'fucky damned'. I just laughed and found it very amusing.

So did my person.

So we merged the two together and we became each others "fucky damned person". Now it's just shortened to 'fucky damn'. Everyone should be so lucky to have a fucky damn. It's not even a cuss word anymore. It is what it is.

And ironically, we did hide a body together. And that's the least of the offenses we've done. But we do knit together and out of fuckydamnedness, she gave me some knitting magazines to get me through the rough time I'm having putting together my new notebook. I'm losing valuable knitting time over this.

My husband is one smart cookie

No, he didn't find the book, but he did the next best thing. I think he was tired of that forlorn look in m eyes. No matter where I am in the house, my eyes are always on high alert for the notebook. After he cooked me dinner last night, he said, "let's go to the bookstore." That's a common hang out for him on the weekend evenings. Sadly, it used to be hip bars, 25 minute Madonna remixes & Crown and Coke but now it's Barnes and Noble, Caramel Macchiatos & pseudo-intellectuals. My how times have changed. But I digress......

After our coffees, we headed home, but hubby had another idea. He pulled the car into the Office Depot parking lot and said the most glorious words in the world, "Let's get you a new notebook." Now, I had never thought of purchasing a new one. I am a reuser and was going to use whatever our son could salvage after the school year was over. But I feared there wouldn't be one capable of holding my beloved pages. If you have an 8th grader, you know what I'm talking about. After 9 months in a cramped locker and backpack, most notebooks look like they've been in a 3rd world, war-torn country.

Before my eyes was an entire wall devoted to notebooks. I carefully chose one that was just perfect. It's preppy striped. No one will EVER mistake this for anything but a girl thing. I ran home and spent an hour looking for many of the patterns I had. I will print them today.

So, the hubby knew what he was doing. He got thanked in a BIG way ;)

Sigh....No Sign of the Knitting Bible

I'm allowing myself one day of mourning for the kidnapped knitting notebook. I slept in late (all the way til 7:10!) and am not working out. I am, however, watching the Turbo Jam infomercial on TV. At least I'm not unshowered and eating Godiva. I'll post pics for Leigh to see my handiwork. She's my new dance friend. I've also found a new pattern to begin. It's quite lovely and from knitty. I'll have to make a run to a yarn store to have someone tell me which yarns I already own I can use. Although it *is* an excuse to buy more. I'll have to carve out a new hiding place. I did make some extra room in my great-grandmother's hope chest while I was looking for the MIA notebook.

Here's a photo. Imagine a fat girl instead of a skinny chick.

It will be the first in my new notebook. I'm purchasing a pretty new notebook today. Maybe purple or green. A knitting pick-me-up. Maybe they have lots of them at Staples or Office Depot. I will be sure to put my name on this one.

I'm in yarn hell

I'm in super denial. I have this utterly organized, black one-inch, three-ringed binder that I have all my patterns in. I print out the free patterns online, and on one side, I enlarge the photo, then print the directions on the back. I spent hours over my monitor on Garnstudio.com alone. I went page by page looking at the thousands of patterns. I printed out only the ones that I adored. There are dozens of them in the notebook. When I go yarn shopping, I take the book with me and when I see fabulous yarn on sale, I ask the sales person to help me with the yarn-to-pattern conversion. I then write on the front of the pattern which yarn to use. This justifies all the yarn I have around the house. I tell hubby dearest "that's for the blahblahblah sweater." It makes me feel like the hoarded yarn has a purpose. My family knows the sacredness of the black notebook. My yarn friends are jealous. Yarn store owners stare at it in awe. It's a wonderful creation. As chaotic as my life is, the black notebook was perfection.

That was until the black notebook went missing. I scoured the house. Looked under and over everything. I looked in my car, even the black hole of a trunk. I went to the church where we have the knitting group and looked all over, with a friend. It's no where to be found. I know the truth: It's been booknapped. I want it back. I have all this yarn and don't know what it's for.

If you see it, please contact me. It's my life. That's how pathetic my life is.