1. My "Somethin' Else from Skechers" T-strap mary janes leave marks on the floor when I try to tap dance at the copier.

2. DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse) is a good place to go for impractical (read: fun dress up) shoes, but for work shoes, it's all about Shoe Pavilion or the Macy's clearance rack.

3. If you throw your junior-high age child a pool party in your backyard, invite their entire class of similarly aged friends, rent a karaoke machine, and turn it up so loud it can be heard a block away, your neighbors will hate you. One of them will drive around the block while leaning on their horn. (this was originally intended for a post entitled "Scenes from an Idyllic Sunday Afternoon Rudely Interupted by 13-year-old boys 'Singing' Bratney Speers" but it never got written due to busyness and the overwhelming need to exit my neighborhood and thusly my wireless connection to escape the caterwauling)

4. The hideous pink curtains in my bedroom are actually good for something- keeping the cold morning from creeping in through the windows. They also *really* darken the room so that 7 am looks like 5 am and make you think that it could not possibly be time to get up yet.

5. Neosporin lip treatment works really well on cracked, dry lips, but has a weird orange flavor that almost makes it worse than having cracked, dry lips.

6. Retail Therapy is extra effective when I am buying teeny tiny clothes for a new teeny tiny person (or four, as the current baby boom count seems to be).

7. Bamboo skewers (this kind you use to make kabobs) have to be soaked for 20 minutes prior to use, not the 24 hours I for some reason thought they did.

What have you learned recently?

Nothing new to see here. Instead, you should head over to Brad's and congratulate him on the newest addition to his family.

Welcome to the world Sebastian Dale!

... and much more pleasant than this morning's off-key rendering, I'm sure.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TARA

1. I should not be as amused as I am that someone put Dau's laundry in the dryer. (he hates that)

2. Troll gets more and more awesome all the time (despite having the least flattering nickname)

3. Shut up, Rabbit Boy. Learn to BE QUIETER!

Feh. I wish I didn't know that I hate living alone. Because I am so incredibly tired of half the people who live in this house. And I wish I could do something other than complain these days. Although I did actually get home before dark today, which is a refreshing change, since I can't remember the last time that happened. Hopefully I'll be back to my old fun self soon, because I don't like my current self very much.

This is my friend Laura. Laura is called by many names, by many people. Her real name is Larisa, but she goes by Laura, Lara, Lottie, Lola, Lolly, Bunnygirl and Laura the Russian Princess. Mostly I just call her my friend. She is a pastry chef trying to start her own business making wedding cakes and desserts for events. She is also one of the sweetest people I will ever know. If you need something, and it is in her power to help you, she will. Now she is in need of help, and it is my turn to do what I can for her. In the last two months her family has been hit with one blow after another, and it is really hard to sit by and watch it happen.

Laura turned 25 on July 29th. That weekend her parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Her mother is a homemaker, who works part time in a quilt shop (but mostly that money gets used to pay for her quilting habit). All of Laura’s friends adore her mom. Her dad was a retired pastor at a Russian church, and a freelance architect.

On July 30th, her father died suddenly of a massive heart attack. He was the breadwinner in the family; his death left Laura and her mom in a very precarious financial situation. The family has lived modestly for as long as I have known them. I obviously am not privy to the details, but I know it was looking for a while like they might lose their house.

Our church (the one Laura and I attend, where she works part time) coordinated people to bring dinners to them for two weeks after her father's death, which Laura said helped them out immensely. Once the two weeks were up, they weren't doing too badly, but I know it has been a struggle for them.

If that wasn’t enough, on Saturday she had stomach pains so bad her mom took her to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with appendicitis and rushed into surgery. Thankfully she does have medical insurance, or that would have devastated them. She has had to take time off of work to heal, obviously, and her mom has taken time off as well to care for her, since she can't get out of bed herself yet.

Then on top of everything else, the other day she noticed that their refrigerator was making an odd noise, like there was a short and the motor starting and stopping repeatedly. I heard it when I was over there helping to prepare a dinner for them, but didn't think much of it at the time. She sent me an email today updating me on how she was doing, and in it she said this:

"Today while my mom was fixing dinner, I went to the freezer and noticed that the ice cubes had melted....wait, nothing was frozen! no wonder it smelled like chicken and fish in there all of a sudden. (ick) Opened the fridge and nothing was cold either. Our refrigerator had died! What was worse was that my mom had just gone shopping, so here we were, throwing out things that were still new but now bad, including the leftovers from the dinner you and Rachel made us... I felt so bad for her. I wanted to cry.

We had to immediately drive to Sears and buy a fridge. I'm trusting that God will help us pay for that... What's sucks is that they can't deliver the thing until Sunday, so we will be eating mostly out of our pantry. We are SURVIVORS!

I am asking for your partnership in prayer mostly for my mom. It's so easy to feel like giving up and wondering if you've done something to deserve all the craziness that happens in your life. I am praying my mom stays encouraged, however tough that is. She even commented today that all of these things are just too hard to handle sometimes."

And really, that last part sums up the way Laura is. She is not the type to ask for anything from anyone. She struggles through as best she can and trusts that God will provide. She asks her friends to pray for her, but it wouldn't even occur to her to ask us for money, which we'd all give gladly if we could. Her mom is the same way.

Once, way back when, I had a cushy job and could have afforded to write a big check myself. I can’t do that anymore. But I still want to help Laura and her mom.

So I set up a fund.

I've seen the blogosphere come together to help others. I know it's not cancer or a premature baby or a lifesaving surgery, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn't at least try? I promise that anyone who donates and trusts me with their snail mail address will receive a handwritten thank you card from me. I'll use whatever is given to buy them a grocery gift card, and maybe one of those prepaid Visa cards for miscellaneous expenses. (and please, if you know Laura or me in real life, she does not know I'm doing this, so please do not tell her)

*this says "Two Wonderful Ladies" in Russian.

Okay, so it took me two weeks to get a recap of Caryn's wedding up, but at least it's up before she gets home from her honeymoon. I got in on Friday evening, and had to order dinner into my hotel room because Caryn had stuff to do, and it was too hot to walk anywhere. There were fried pickles on the menu. I was surprised, apalled, and slightly intrigued. So, I ordered them. And I was almost upset to learn that they're good. But not once they get cold. Ewww.

The morning of the rehearsal was beautiful. Sunny, clear, and once again, HOT. I'm a California wuss when it comes to weather, but still. The place where the wedding was being held was stunning.

The rehearsal dinner was at Dave & Buster's. It was so yummy, and so much fun. The Dave & Buster's by me is kinda ghetto, so when Caryn told me they were thinking of having the rehearsal there, I was skeptical. But, as with everything with this wedding, I gave my opinion when asked, but accepted the decisions she made because they were just that- her decisions. And I'm glad she decided that, because the rehearsal dinner was great. It was so them, and everyone had a great time.

The day of the wedding was gorgeous too, but soooo HOT. Caryn had told me that the temperature for late September was usually in the high 80s. I may be a wuss, but I can handle high 80's, especially with the breezes that always run through Villa Antonia. But of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, it was way hotter than that. The record high for Austin for September 25 was 97 degrees (F). On September 25 of this year, I heard the temperature was 108. YIPES. But Caryn still looked beautiful.

And despite the heat, there was still dancing. I loved the looks on their faces as they looked at each other during their first dance. And I'm totally stealing her father/daughter dance song if I ever get married. She danced with both her dad and her stepdad- I thought that was sweet. One of my favorite photos from that day is from that dance, taken by her mom, and she wasn't even dancing:

There are a ton more, but I'm not going to upload them all - instead here's a link to a select few more- I have over 300 pics thanks to Tegan, I chose about 30 to share with y'all. (oh, and I only spent 4 days in Texas, but the "y'all" seems to be permanently stuck)

Knock yourself out.

There was going to be an entry here posted last night entitled "the look on my face asks if it is bedtime yet" but it never got written. Mainly because I am once again dogsitting, and while I swung home long enough last night to cook some food and grab some work clothes today, I did not want to take the time to post because I had to get back and walk the poor dog, and I didn't pack up my computer and take it with me because I wasn't sure if Bennett had left a cable out for me to get online from their place. But also, because as soon as I got to their place, it *was* bedtime. I walked the dog, and then promptly passed out on the couch for several hours-- waking with a nasty crick in my neck-- and then staggered upstairs and threw myself into bed.

Though I finally feel rested today, I don't remember when the last time I was this tired was. And I don't really know why I'm so tired. I'm coming off of a busy streak, but it involved less running around than normal. Working 10s every day for the last 3 weeks might have something to do with it, but, whatever. I don';t think the smoke breathing thing has much to do with it. I'm hoping for a restful weekend, and then I should be back to normal.

I work at a small community theater on the weekends, Hillbarn, as a house manager. Basically that means I make sure the lobby is ready for the audience, I supervise ushers, make sure coffee and concessions are ready for intermission, keep the bathrooms tidy, and similar stuff like that. Hillbarn used to have a tradition where during intermission, there was a fire going in the firepit in the courtyard. This season, they have decided to revive that tradition, and so before the show, I throw a duraflame log into the firepit and light it up.

Well, those things are super smoky. They aren't so bad when they are flaming, but basically a duraflame log is a brick of flammable chemical sludge. It doesn't turn to ash as it burns, like wood does, so it is not self snuffing. A wood fire (in a properly contained environment), when presented with wind, will stop flaming and be a pile of ash and coals and unburned matter. A duraflame log, when presented with wind, will stop flaming and become a pile of very very very smoky smoldering chemicals. A wood fire, if you blow on the coals, will generally start flaming again. A duraflame log, when you blow on it, just produces more smoke, which I discovered when I tried to blow on it. Eventually I lit a piece of scrap paper and got it to flame again for a bit, but not before I had breathed in plenty o' burned chemical smoke.

My throat burned for the rest of the night, but not any more than it would from inhaling a bit of wood smoke. Yesterday morning when I woke up, my throat was really burning and my lungs hurt when I breathed. Breathing is an involuntary action- you don't think about it, you just do it. So, when you can feel your lungs, thats generally a bad thing. Knowing that I had probably breathed in some pretty nasty stuff, I figured a trip to the ER was warranted, and I now have an inhaler to use 4 times a day, and I have to see my regular doctor next week.

It's funny how scents and tastes bring back memory- the inhaler tastes just like Elmer's glue smells. And (TMI AND GROSS TO FOLLOW) the crap it makes me cough up out of my lungs tastes just like that cherry liquid penicillin you take as kids, and you know that flavor is imprinted permanently on us all... Thankfully the damage seems mininmal and it won't take long to heal. YUCK.