Granddaddy

Christmas 1992

They told me you were sick
before our visit that Christmas.
You answered the door, your head
shimmering like the gold ornaments
hidden in your tree’s inner branches. The forest
of your hair had been suddenly bulldozed,
and one lone, proud hair stood erect
clinging to life.
When you stooped down to hug me, my heart
dropped out of my eyes, sharp pin pricks beating.

Works for me Wednesday – Assets

Two weeks ago, as I went to a my brother-in-law’s wedding, I had a problem. I had planned to wear a cream and silver sheath dress that I loved, but I had gained a little weight (eek!) before hand that had blessed me with some more curves in some places I didn’t really want them. So, I set out on a search for Spanx that spanned my small town. Everywhere I went and asked, “do you carry Spanx?” I was met with, “No, but I think________carries them.” Yeah, never found any retailer here who had them. Then I remembered I had read somewhere that Target carried a Spanx-like product. So, the evening before we were due to leave, I hustled myself to Target. And there, in the lingerie  department of Target, was my holy grail — Assets. These are actually made by the woman who created Spanx, and they worked wonders for me! I felt comfortable, looked smooth, and as an extra bonus, my tush was suddenly a lot firmer than it ever has been. Perfect! The only problem I had, was that I wasn’t sure what size I needed. I bought two, tried them both, then returned the size I decided wouldn’t work. Assets sure do work for me, for more about what works for others, check out Rocks in my Dryer.

Bubbles

A while ago, I introduced our new family addition, but have neglected to include the most interesting member of my family in any post since then. Shame on me! But, we recently discovered some super cute things Wonder-Puppy likes to do. With all of our summer weddings, Hubby and I have amassed a great collection of bubbles. Sunday morning Hubby was blowing some, and Wonder-Puppy must have thought they looked exactly like her favorite toy, any kind of ball, because she started chasing them, popping them, and trying to eat them. Very funny. We tried it again tonight, and I managed to get a bit of it on video. Enjoy!

 

She’s not as energetic here as she was Sunday morning, mostly because she wore herself out playing in the back yard. I walked into the kitchen to clean up our dinner dishes, and saw out our glass door, a giant, furry, black object fly by. Yes, FLY. Like some kind of giant flying squirrel. Except it was a SEVENTY POUND squirrel. Why was Wonder-Puppy flying? She was chasing her beloved mostly-deflated soccer ball.

Works For Me – Decorating Ideas

This week, what works for me, has to do with decorating. In February, Hubby and I bought our first house. We’re so excited to be here, and we LOVE our cute little cape code. We don’t, however, love our furniture too much. Most of what we have are hand-me downs or cast offs from family members. In fact, most of our furniture are cast offs from my brother in law, who received those pieces as cast offs from aunts and uncles. I would have loved to have bought our house and bought new furniture for our living room and family room, but we couldn’t afford that, and there’s no reason to go into credit card debt to furnish our house. So what’s the daughter of an owner of and architecture and interior design firm to do? Make a plan!

I love to thrift shop and antique shop, but man, that can suck you in fast. You really need to know exactly what you’re looking for, otherwise you’ll end up with a mish-mash of stuff that won’t work together, or just plan too much stuff! So, if I couldn’t buy everything all at once, I decided the best thing to do would be to come up with a plan. First, I decided what pieces I really wanted to add to my room, and what peices I already owned would work in my redesign. Then, I put all of the pictures together, so I would have a referance for what the room would ultimatly look like. I’m not positive all the things that are my inspiration will end up in the room. For example, I found the acyrlic ball lamp at my favorite on-line retailer for over $200. I KNOW I can find one with a similar look at Target or even Urban Outfiters for $50 or less. Now, when I’m furniture browsing and see a great price on a piece of furniture, I’ll be able to assess if it really fits the look I’m going for. It definely works for me!

Thoughts on Batman

With the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, release quickly approaching, I’ve been thinking about what the film’s reception is likely to be. Since I’ve excited to see the movie since the end of Batman Begins, I’ve had high expectations for the second installment in this re-vamped series.

I first fell in love with Batman watching the old live-action TV series staring Adam West when I was about four. For years straight, I was Batman for Halloween. Try as they might, my parents could not convince me it would be better if I pretended to be Batwoman or Batgirl. “I’m BATMAN,” I would defiantly cry. One of the first gifts Hubby have me was the box set of Batman movies; I watched them all in about a two day span. He purchased Batman Begins before we married, and every time I came to visit him, we watched it. I just never get tired of the theme of good versus evil and the struggle to remain good in such proximity to evil. I’m excited the films are getting revamped, as some of the latter films lost sight of this theme and became, well, just a little silly.

Thus far, positive reviews are now abundant (you can see some of them here), and many have focused on the prevalence, and wonderful subtlety in the way the theme is presented. Hooray! But, my fear since learning of Heath Ledger’s untimely death has been that it will overshadow the film and bring it more acclaim than it perhaps deserves. Not that I don’t want the movie to have a great reception, but I want it to garner what praise it receives because it is genuinely a good movie. I hope this will be the case, but this morning I found this article discussing Ledger’s chances to win a posthumous Oscar for his role as the Joker. Both a nomination for a role in a superhero flick and a posthumous win would be relatively unprecedented. I haven’t seen the movie, or any clips (other than a few TV trailers I’ve caught), so I can’t really pass judgment. Regardless of the film’s reception, I know I’LL enjoy watching it time and time again. And I take comfort in the fact that, as the article states:

Warner Bros. and the filmmakers are profuse in their praise of Ledger but have been diplomatic about the Oscar talk. Awards publicity generally pads a movie’s box-office and DVD receipts, and the studio has cautiously avoided any appearance of profiting from the added attention Ledger’s death has brought to the film.