Joie de vivre

I am now the proud owner of four beautiful vintage dresses, which I picked up at a church rummage sale for $2 per gown. I'm guessing they range in date from the late '50s - early '70s?

This is so going to be my Going-To-See-Phantom-Of-The-Opera- When-It-Comes-To-Town-Next-Year dress.

Mom thinks I should save this and have it be my actual wedding  dress. I'm thinking about it. Would it not be cool to say you got married in a $2 dress?!

I think this is so adorable.

And this one almost has a regency flavor, except for the sleeves.

I was going to say "goodbye", as tomorrow I fly up for a week with savetheolives, but the truth is, you probably won't notice much of a lack of activity. In fact, it's quite likely I'll be posting even more than usual, especially if Interesting Circumstances occur (as they so often do when we're together.)

I don't think musical comedy gets much better than that.

Today I spent more on two small items of, er, personal clothing than I did in buying a genuine leather coat AND two sweaters. Behold why I like shopping Goodwill better than department stores. =P Outrageous.

But...I bought a hat, which will hopefully not turn out to be a Mistake. I have never worn a hat before, but I've eyed this one for weeks now. It's soft (angora rabbit hair!) and see? It has a bow!

It's useful for when I'm feeling shy.

Or just plain weird.

And for the guys, who doubtless are completely uninterested in hats of any sort, this is the new Mercedes 450SLC. We call it the 
Mo-car, so named because now dad can go out in the morning and go "eenie, menie, minie, mo" to pick which car he wants
to take to work. *facepalm* That doesn't even count my car. Trust me, this is not like my family. We are all astonishment 
at how we have managed to collect five cars and only three licensed drivers.

I'm working on convincing the guys to make me a sword for the 19th. Er, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and all that.

Hagen soaking up the sun on my bed.

A lady pirate shirt, some pirate bling, and a quirky attitude.

I LIKE pirate bling.

As does the Hagen-cat.

Here, let me kiss you.

Eww! People kisses! (Notice the catly disgust.)

We shall glower together instead. Argh!

Temps tonight below zero and so I am going home early to avoid lovely things like black ice; however it did finally snow last night and so all in all I am a contented person. I'm not one to be upset over an early evening home, either, no sir.

A long grey woolen skirt, very swishy, and knee high black zip-up boots do one happy girl make.

Yoplait has a new kind of yogurt--Whips Chocolate Mousse Style, in chocolate, chocolate cherry, and chocolate raspberry. As soon as I'm hungry enough to justify eating one, I'm going to. I'm dying to open it now, but I just finished lunch. That would be foolish.

I think I've convinced my mother to spend her Saturday with me, galavanting hither and yon to places like Wal-Mart (picture developing, yay!), the gun museum (guns, yay! Civil War reinactors, yay! A Guard booth, yay!), and Goodwill (a treasure hunt of clothes, yay!). I kind of hate to give up my one day of the week at home, but....if I don't, I'll never get to do anything fun. (Except for the Civil War Fashion Show and Brunch, which all of the library staff is going to go to Thursday morning before we open. More yay!ness.)

My slingbacks are stylish, but they're starting to hurt. Ah well. One must suffer in order to be beautiful.

I can never decide if that's a great philosophical statement or just foolishness.

Not sure what this proves one way or the other, but I have a jaunty (and classy and beautiful) scarf on, and it doesn't hurt a bit.

4/22

There were still men on the library roof today. Unbelievable! There must be more involved then I thought in redoing this type of roof. At least they have apparently ended the stage that sounds like jets, and were only making loud big-men-stomping-from-one-end-to-the-other noises.

Random note: I escaped town today without buying ONE SINGLE BOOK. (Mostly this was because I didn't have time.) I also deposited lots of money in the bank, but only after visiting all the clothing stores and finding out that the one time in the world I had a definite idea of what I wanted, no one had it. Therefore, nothing to spend my last paycheck (the smaller one!) on.

I also briefly looked at the prom dresses, just to see if there was something I would consider wearing to the ball that (pleasepleaseplease) I'll be going to in Dec. with the Blued Eyed Luinhendi (that's redundancy, for Quenya speakers). I decided that for the money involved and general lack of modesty in anything I liked I would just rather stuff myself into her older sister's dress or revive my own $300-price-tag-but-free dress.

And, to end things with for tonight, I just did something I haven't done in a long time. **awed whisper** I read an entire book this evening! Not a little book either. It helped that I'm naturally a fast reader and the book wasn't that deep, but still. What's sad is that this used to not be a rarity. In fact, I used to get at *least* ten books every time I went to the library, because I could count on reading one a day most days. Anyway, I left everything else and just read tonight. The aforementioned Luinhendi's letter is still not finished, my emails are not answered, Sunday school stuff not organized...but I READ! (past tense verb!)

4.29

More long time lapse, which means more random schtuff.

*Met two more ATI guys last Sunday (crystallia, they're friends of Quinton Miller, they work with him in OKC). It furthered my theory that you can spot one a mile away. It's so odd. But they had great penmanship, how rare is that?!

*Until this morning I was reading five books at the same time. Then I realized that's really a bit extreme, so I finished two of them and vowed to finish the rest before starting another. I just finished The Princess Beautiful (sappy 1940s Christian novel, good reading only for it's quaintness) and The Body in the Bookcase, which was a decent mystery by Katherine Hall Page. Not spectacular, but decent. Now I just have to finish Return of the King (yet again), the Mary Queen of Scots bio that seems to multiply in size every day, and Hinds Feet in High Places, which I wanted to read before I gave it to my friend Seh for her birthday.

*I've been cooking. Reading Gourmet and Bon Appetite magazines do this to me. The Brown sugar Buttermilk cheesecake was ok, but the Triple Lemon Bundt cake was FABULOUS. I defy anyone to dislike it. ; ) And it's simple, too!

*I'm not a girl, I'm a lady. At least to six year old Candace, one of the little girls in my Sunday School class. Yay for me.

5/12
Yet more and more of a long time lapse. I still haven't found that item of clothing that I want so badly--and not only that, but the sandals that I saw on someone else's feet and got up the courage to ask where she got them...well, I went to the store and they were out of that style. Only temporarily, so at least I'll be able to get them later, but STILL. I must have bad luck with that kind of shopping. I even looked through the entire section of woman's clothes the other day, and didn't find one single shirt I'd even like to wear, even if it was given to me. Much less if I had to buy it. Why is everyone into this retro-frilled-froufrou stuff now? Why won't anyone sell the classic tailored button-down that I want?? And who says black is out of style??? Please!

Anyway. Anyone ever had a moment where you wanted to sink into the floor (to use an old cliché...I hate clichés)? Sunday I had my class admirably quiet and was feeling quite good. Until...Aaron turned off the light, leaving the room in complete darkness, whereupon Alexis let out a piercing shriek that must have been heard all the way to the far-off old mens class (and they're all deaf). I was sure the superintendent would come check to make sure I wasn't terrorizing my students. Thankfully he didn't. Amazing.

In other news, I happened unexpectedly upon the Vinita's library book sale. Glory, glory! A whole room of books for sale. I managed to pick only four, though. Cause really, I just don't have room; it's distressing. The ones I got were gems, though.

5/13
I was looking at the front of my Bible, the one I use most of the time. My parents gave it to me when I was seven; I still remember how eagerly I picked it out--light pink--and how excited I was when they printed my name on the cover in gold. In the "Family Record" part I wrote my mom, dad, and brother John Robert's birthdays. A year later, when my other brother was born, I immediately added his birthday to the list. I realized today that it was before I'd learned to properly spell his name: to this day he is listed in my Bible as "BeNNjimeN." Lol.