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Not Your Average Monday

Crazy Stuff

Doesn't matter how organized I try to be, it's usually an epic fail.  I spoke the other day of my ability to be easily distracted.  Sometimes I think it is the overwhelming details of particular days that just make it difficult to complete the simplest of tasks.  My week is going to be heavy.  I will try to not dwell on it.

Uhm....  Packing ideas?  I have a few.  
Lists....  Several of those going right now.
Chaos...  All around me.
Confidence...   Lacking at the moment.
Life...   You know, it moves forward whether you are ready or not.
Bags...   Open and ready, but empty as of this minute.
Work...   Flying by the seat of my pants.
Documentation...   Fingers crossed!

Not Your Average Monday

The Wedding -- July 28, 2012

First Anniversary

This is what we were doing this same day last year.  Great fun, and we are thankful that we know farmers that have outdoor air conditioners.

When the youngest Lee family got married, it was in our backyard.  If there is ever a question about whether or not to have a tent, the answer is yes, it's mandatory.  And wonderful.

We already had the tent in place, and we held the Rehearsal Dinner here as well. 

The food was absolutely fabulous, and I'll just speak for myself, I had a lovely time.  A shout-out to Naifeh's -- Katrina and Eric -- Creative and Delish!

This was how I looked in most of the pictures.  Why did someone not tell me that my sleeve was messed up?  Seriously.  Good grief.  -- That's my brother with me.  Wish I was that tall.

 And we had a photo booth for the weekend... Oh. My. Lotsa laughs. Here's the happy couple!

My cute sister and brother...  Yes, they are both younger than me. 

And have you met my young parents?

My darling niece and nephew!  Chuckle when you realize that my hand and its contents are not in this picture....

Here are a few wedding day pictures...  my brother and sister-in-law.  Precious!

My handsome son and beautiful D.I.L.  Love!

Mike was jealous that I got to go sleeveless...

They said it truly wasn't planned.

Our older son and the bride's sister enjoying themselves.  Starting the party off right.

A quick dip with the setting sun as a backdrop.

And then there was this dance.  Oh.  My.  This picture is tame.  The best way to tell you about it is to say that, "It fit them to a 'T' -- their personalities certainly shined through."  I had so many people tell me, "I thought they were quiet and shy..."

He knew I wasn't capable of the moves that had just been performed by him and his new wife.  He kept it easy for me.

No words.

And the stunning bride and groom jumped in the booth for one last photo op.  Sweet!

They were SO ready to go!

Aloha!  It was fantastic!

Such a great weekend!

Thanks to the guy who made it all happen at our house.

The Wedding -- July 28, 2012

Just A Regular Day

Whatever.

Today is our youngest son's birthday.  He always wants to play it down, but that's just too bad.  His entry into this world was less than smooth.  He was 6 weeks early, but he overcame several obstacles, and only spent about a week in the Neonatal ICU, and he was in the hospital a few days after that.  We were so fortunate.  There were some babies in there that were much earlier than he was, and they were much tinier than he was and with greater complications.  We felt very blessed to go in there and see him improving, while these other babies were just going to be lucky to make it.  He gave us a scare, but we are incredibly thankful for the two grown, healthy sons we have.

As you probably recall, I have told everyone that I gave birth when I was twelve.  Mike was a bit older, it seems.  I drag this picture out on our son's every birthday.  He tolerates my recollection of those first days, but I am not sure he understands the gravity of the situation.  I think this was taken before he was moved into an incubator.  This was as close as we got for the first 72 hours.

 A trip to DisneyWorld back in the day.

Soccer has always been his favorite sport, and he is an avid fan today.

It was always such a hassle to get ready to go out and play in the snow.  He is so bundled up, he could barely move!

 That's why if I was choosing, I'd pick the beach.

Somedays when he was little, he would go with his dad for the day if I was tied up doing something else.

Here he is at his Eagle Scout Court of Honor with his grandparents, Mike's mom.

Here he is last year on his wedding day.  More about that tomorrow...

And that's the kid that is leaving with his bride for Amsterdam next week and a graduate program that will take him exactly wherever he wants to go next.  I am one lucky mom.  Happy Birthday, Gant!

Just A Regular Day

General Busy-ness

Short Attention Span

Here it is.  I am going to lay it out for you.  Literally.  A couple of days ago, I began a massive reorganization of the drawers in my bathroom.  Well, they did need it, but the timing could have been better.  Really, THIS week?  I don't know what I was thinking.

I am not going to embarrass myself any more than this.  This is all I can reveal.  Apparently, I like lip gloss.  My excuse for this mess, and the mess that you cannot see, is that I am a collector.  Clearly, I don't need all of this stuff.  Or maybe I do, but there's only so much makeup can do for a person.  I am a self-proclaimed "product slut."  Isn't that awful?  They say the first step to recovery is admission.  So that's what I am doing.  There is no one that is a bigger sucker for "the new fall palettes" or "fresh off the runway looks."  And the older I get, the more interested I am in the latest serums and skin treatments.  Note -- you don't see any in this picture.  There are quite a few things you don't see in this picture.  It was strategic.  You don't need to see it.   You would judge.  I already read magazines like my life depends on it.  I have a running list in my phone of new products I want to try, and when I am out of town, I hunt them down like a German Shorthaired Pointer.  That is what led to this mess.

The deal is -- this is not what I should be doing!  I am leaving town in less than a week, and I will be gone for nearly a month.  Work, laundry, packing, correspondence -- there are more than enough other things I should be doing.  But I am easily distracted, and this is what happens.  I am the butt of many jokes because I can't keep my focus.  Is this what happens when you approach a significant birthday?  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I am treading water.  My glasses aren't where I left them.  Oh, that's them on my head.  My phone!  Where is it?  I think I saw it yesterday in the kitchen...  Yes, I called it.  Yes, it is on vibrate.  I'm just going to take a deep cleansing breath........

General Busy-ness

A New Royal

News of the Week

In case you missed it, Prince William and his beautiful bride, Duchess Catherine, became parents to a new heir to the royal throne.  It is a boy, and other than the fact that he weighed over 8 pounds, that is about all we know.

Here are my observations.  Catherine comes out of the hospital looking fabulous and not at all as if she has given birth just about one day earlier.  She is sporting a polka dot dress, which is very similar to what Prince William's mother, Diana, wore when she and Prince Charles presented an infant Prince William to the world.

We know the royal family is kind of warming with the times.  Prince William surprised everyone when he drove a car after his wedding, and he did it again when he drove his new little family home from the hospital.

Okay, now about the name.  I realize that Charles and Diana took a week to announce the name of Prince William, and as I recall, he has like 5 or 6 monikers in his full name.  I also recall that was 30 years ago.  In this day and age, a lot has changed.

A)   No doubt these two knew the gender of this baby long ago.

B)   Surely to goodness they have selected a name.  

Heck, I would have chosen a girl's name as a backup plan.

C)   Why would you wait a week to announce it?  Why would you wait a day?

Apparently, you can leave the hospital without naming your baby in the U.K.

D)   Do you suppose they have to ask someone?  Like the Queen?

Please tell me that these two will be allowed to name their own baby.  Please tell me that grandmother doesn't have to sign off on it.  Please tell me that Spencer will be somewhere in that baby's name as a respectful honor to William's mother.  It is a classic last name that would fit with all the George and Henry and William and Phillip and Charles and Harry and Arthur and Louis that may be prerequisites as part of the baby's name.  Pretty sure they don't give a flying flip or a royal rip what I think.  I just feel strongly about it, mate.

A New Royal

Flight

Travel -- Love it!

At a very young age, I was exposed to travel.  When I say travel, I mean every form of it.  I can't really think of very many trips that I have been on in which we didn't experiment with travel.  Growing up, we spent lots of time in the car.  We lived several hours away from my grandparents, and all four lived to seniority, if that's a proper way to put it.  So not only did we log many hours making those trips back and forth from their city, we explored the whole United States by car, mostly.  To date, I believe I have hit 49 states, and the only reason it's not 50, is because no one can agree on which state we missed.  We think it was Michigan or Wisconsin.  But it could have been Minnesota.  That was the area, anyway.

My folks were big on state parks and state capitals; not just the cities, but the capital buildings themselves.  And I am not kidding when I say we hit nearly every one.  Additionally, we have the pictures to prove it.  Oh, and I am pretty sure we never missed a cave.  I have seen every stalactite and stalagmite within the continental United States, without a doubt.  They are very cool.

I was trying to think of a way that we have not traveled, and I can't think of one.  Ships, boats, canoes, ferries, rafts, trains (steam and modern), elevated trains, subways, buses, trams, street cars, single engine planes, multi-engine planes, jets (small, medium and large), cars, trucks and buses.  Is there anything left out? 

This Embraer jet is for sale.  Click on the picture for more details.  I love trade-a-plane.

At this point in my life, flying is the most fun to me.  It hasn't always been that way.  There was a time that I could barely put one foot in front of the other to get on an airplane.  I just didn't understand the concept of flying.  Heavy metal tube - kind of floats in the air.  Really doesn't make sense.  I used to need it to make sense.  Now, I don't care.  I am not a pilot, but I am so interested in flying.  We live near an airport, and I have been known -- oh, this is embarrassing -- to watch planes land, and if they come close enough, and I can read tail numbers with binoculars, you can go to the FAA website and see to whom the plane belongs.  Hey, it's a small town.  Sometimes you know them, and sometimes you don't.  But I LOVE doing that.  I love watching planes land in funky weather.  And I love it when they take off right over my house.  We have a helicopter plant near where we live, and they test the Bell Helicopter Tilt Rotor V-22 Osprey by flying to our local airport for touch and go practice.  Here is one of those bad boys.  They make quite a racket, and things in our house shake as the Osprey fly overhead.

One of the more exciting jets I have seen land at our airport, was an NTSB government jet that flew in to investigate a train wreck near here last year.  My first clue that it was a big deal was that it had a U.S. seal on the side, and very large letters spelling, "United States of America."  The N-number was something like N0001.  I lost complete control.  I called Mike and told him Air Force One had just landed, but it looked a little smaller than I would have guessed.  Well, it was a good story.  By the end of that week, we had so many planes coming and going, I couldn't keep up.  There was a very large one, probably the largest I have ever seen here, but I couldn't identify the type.  It was smaller than a 737, but a bigger passenger jet kind of like that.  

That's an F-16.

Here's an F-14, with its wings fully swept.  I don't think the U.S. uses these anymore.

And this one is an FA-18 Hornet.  I believe this is what our Navy currently uses. 

I do know my fighter jets.  Top Gun is probably one of my favorite movies of all time.    You can give me some stats for the F-14's, F-15's, F-16's, F-18's, and MiG's, like the 29 Fulcrum, and I can't learn enough.  How cool would it be to land on an aircraft carrier?  Second thought, I would prefer to take off from an aircraft carrier.  Let's head for land.

I probably shouldn't call ours a little airport.  My understanding is that we have one of the longer runways in the area, and it can accommodate aircraft that are quite large.  Still, there isn't enough air traffic to keep me entertained full-time, so I have to be lucky enough to catch them coming and going.  My luck improves when the radio in our office is tuned in to the airport's frequency.  That gives me a little advance notice.  I must be an airport dork.

Flight

Ridiculous News

Really?

One of the few things I tend to watch on television is local news.  Since I live in a rural area, there is not always an abundance of newsworthy items to report.  When a television report begins with, "The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that there has been a 600% spike in accidents when televisions are pulled or have fallen and landed on children," you know it's a slow news day.  Surely to goodness, there is something that falls under the category of news that they could tell me.  Maybe something about a Boy Scout, or a story about a lady that rescues dogs, -- I don't know.  I'm not a news reporter.  Seriously.

So I am going to give you what I would consider news.  Rain is possible and in the forecast for us here in the center of the United States tomorrow.  

Okay, so I can't even find a picture to put here to show you.  I don't even know why I watch the weather.

Then there is the royal baby watch.  Dutchess Catherine has supposedly been at the hospital for at least 8 hours now.  I have a 9 hour layover in London next weekend, and I have never been anywhere except the airport.  Should I go to Buckingham Palace, or  try to catch a show in the West End?  No doubt there will be a plethora of baby souvenirs.  I kid you not, I am excited about this.  I was one of those people who watched the entire 56 hours of wedding coverage a couple of years ago.  Always been enamored by that kind of stuff.  I think it is because it is so different from anything we have in the United States.  Well, that, and the fact that Catherine is such a photographic and intriguing subject.  Here are the odds on the gender and name for the baby.

Today's post is feeling like an epic fail, as I am having trouble with every picture that I have tried to pluck and put with this post.  Maybe reporting the news is harder than it looks.  

Ridiculous News

Shopping Mode

Still Shopping

Once I get into shopping mode, especially if sales are involved, it is hard for me to step away from the bargains (and non-bargains).  Can I share some of my favorite makeup finds?  My D.I.L. does this on her blog, and I love reading hers.  Being that there is somewhat of an age difference, and our skin types are slightly different, we do tend to gravitate toward different products.  I am going to look at my favorite makeup products this time.  Skin care, maybe another time.  There is just so much!

And we would begin with my favorite primer -- all of these products are "of the moment" -- because I have a pretty short attention span when it comes to all things makeup.  My current fave primer is from Becca.  It is matte, and it makes my pores disappear.  Love it.  You can get it at Sephora, which meets my mandatory free shipping mantra when you spend $50.  Not too hard to do.

My absolute favorite foundation, and I have been using it a couple of years, is Face Fabric from Giorgio Armani.  It has a little silicone in it, and I love the feel of it on my face.  Note -- I am all about the feeling and the smell of things.  Sticky or stinky never make the cut.  I have a couple of different colored tubes in my drawer for different times of the year.  Do what you must.

Chanel has tons of products that I love.  Their color powders, like eye shadows and blushes, are extremely pigmented, so they last for-ev-er, possibly making it worth the extra cost.  Their other facial powders are so finely milled, that they can cover lines and imperfections without looking cakey.  One of my favorite products just was discontinued, but apparently they are replacing it with this.

Les Beiges, a versatile new powder, which can be worn alone or over foundation.  It is supposed to make your skin look absolutely radiant.  We wouldn't know, because it isn't available in the U.S. yet.  But what's that?  Oh, yes, I am leaving for the U.K. in a couple of weeks, and you can bet I will head straight for the cosmetics counter in the airport at Harrods.  My first stop.  I can't wait!

This summer, this has been my favorite blush.  I use bronzer almost all over, but this is my pop of color on top of my cheeks.  It seems a little bold, but I am telling you, the intense pigmentation allows you to just barely dust it on or apply it more aggressively, whichever you prefer.  My advice -- toss the brush, into the trash. 

This is my absolute ultimate favorite blush brush of all time.  It is a Trish McEvoy, Brush 48 Blending.  I have been using it for years, and I have never replaced it.  It is simple to wash.  I use a gentle dishwashing soap and slosh it around in my bathroom sink.  Sometimes it takes a few minutes to get all the color out of the brush, but keep sloshing and washing until you can get the brush to run clear.  No bubbles, and no color.  Squeeze gently to remove as much water as possible.  My non-humidity location helps my brushes dry quickly.  I lay them on a towel, and the tips hang over the edge of the sink.  Within a few hours, they are dry and clean.  I am headed off to do this little job right now.  It is overdue.

Shopping Mode

Sale - Sale - Sale

Nordstrom's Big Sale

This girl does like to shop.  But let there be no mistake about it, she loves a bargain.  I think I am some kind of professional shopper because I know where the sale racks are in all big department stores, and if I don't know where they are, I can easily sniff them out.  Even boutiques -- I've got their number.  (Go to the high floors and the far corners.)  And another trick I use is looking in other sizes on the rack, because sneaky and deceitful people hide my size in the midst of very different sizes thinking they will come back later and get them at a greater markdown.  Those are a couple of my tips for "in-store" shopping.

Online, you have to strike early, and you can't think too long about a purchase.  You know one of my very favorite places to shop is Nordstrom.
A)     They don't have a Nordstrom in my state.  Cha-ching!  No sales tax.  Well, it used to be that way, there might be tax these days.
B)     Free shipping and free returns all the time.  Yes, please.
C)     Great selection of beauty products, too -- so I can always load up on my favorites while picking up those great sale items I need.

This particular sale has new and different things called Daily Online Exclusives.  That's their way of getting you to click and shop everyday.  I am not fooled by such trickery.  I may look, and if there is something I really need, it's free shipping, so I may buy.  Just giving you all the deets, here.  Click on the pictures for the direct link.

So, if you thought it was time to splurge on a handbag, it may be.  I thought this was fun and summery.  Where I live, the temps usually spike in the 100's into October, so why not?  It's from Coach.

 Even though I could do an entire post on purses, I will venture into questionable territory and shake things up a bit.  Natori is an extremely comfortable lingerie brand.  I have several pairs of their super soft cotton pajamas (all purchased on sale), and if I was a betting girl, I would imagine these undergarments would be comfortable, as well.  Comfort is my middle name.

Here is one of my very most favorite cosmetic brands.  I love Trish McEvoy.  This Nordstrom exclusive "Power of Makeup Planner" looks like every product is tailor made for me.  It will take all my restraint to not order it.  Gosh, I love her stuff.  Did I mention there is a free gift with purchase?

Uh oh.  It's time to step away from the cosmetic department.  I can way too easily justify a product that will help me be more organized.  Trish has this lovely gold bag to organize all your lotions, potions and makeup. 

Okay, back to shopping -- how cute is this summery scarf?  Looks like an easy transition piece to wear in the fall as well.  Oops.  Not on sale.  It is Marc by Marc Jacobs.

Okay, focus.  Back to sale items, Lily.  This dress has my name on it.  I love solid color things like this with kind of a funky shape.  Being old, and not all that cool, I probably wouldn't do the black hose and booties, but I guess you never know.  It's Calvin Klein -- but on sale, under $100.  And if you click on the Calvin Klein link in that previous sentence, you are welcome, ladies.

Shopping wears me out.  But, hey, it's mandatory.  Onward and upward!

Sale - Sale - Sale