The Perfect Little Baby Gift

Ohhhhh man, did I ever have fun shopping for a little bit of a baby gift this weekend. If you haven't seen these you're going to want to get out to your friendly neighborhood foo-foo baby store and buy some, even if you don't know anyone with a new baby. They are just sooooooooo darn cute!!!

Yup. It's the PeePee TeePee!!
They come in a little soft flannel bag in the sweetest of baby blues (of course!)
and inside..............

Little teensy tiny teepees!!!

For little teensy, tiny............well.......you know!!

Washable! And soft as a baby's behind.
Tell me they're not the cutest little things you've ever seen. (The teepees!)
And in case you're not getting the idea, I've enlisted the assistance of
my favorite bear to help me demonstrate:

Yeahhhhhhhhh, we all get it now, don't we.
With a properly placed teepee you can change a little feller's nappy without getting sprayed.
All sorts of cute, poetic thoughts come to mind...but I will spare you the rhyming sentiments relating to happily teepee'd peepee's.

I think they're wayyyy cool and I'm sending this first little bag of
them off to a new mama in California tomorrow.

And thank you for enduring the momentary indignity in the name of eductation, Mr. Bear.

Cut It.

Short!

Thanks, Allison!!
I love it.

Who Knew???

In the absence of willing neighbors or a parade of flannel-shirt guys that know their way around a tool belt, I went out and bought a drill. Well, y'know, because I needed to drill something. Not five minutes home from the hardware store I made an amazing discovery.

For some very odd reason drills do not come with drill bits. Huh??? Does that make one bit of sense? Is a drill good for anything without drill bits? Would an electric mixer come without the metal beaters? No way. Women of the kitchen would not accept such a thing. Why men of the toolshed have been accepting such a thing is beyond me.

Back to the hardware store we go.
We (in the royal sense of Home Improvement Princesses and Duchesses everywhere) purchase a set of drill bits. The little box has a bunch of different sizes. Surely something will work.

Surely.

But how.

And where do these little guys work into the grand scheme of drilling things??

Hmmm. What is wrong with this picture......

I'm not sure I got it right but my friends and family will be amazed to know that I really did drill something without A) losing a finger, B) starting a fire and C) piercing another hole in my ear. I did it. I drilled a couple of holes which allowed me to hang a light fixture....which you'll never see so I wouldn't even have to tell you, but I will............it hangs kind of crooked.

Nevertheless, hang it does and nicely lights my kitchen counter from beneath the cupboards. (Picture it. Me lying on the counter with my head under the cupboard, power drill over my head making little holes in pieces of wood. I will admit to you, it is a miracle of the highest order that I did not lose an eye.)

And we celebrate!!!

Early Morning Call

When the alarm goes off at 3 AM, I wonder why I always book myself on the earliest flight possible. All the way to the airport I wonder.

And then we take off and I look out the window.



Yeahhhhh.
That's why.

Homework Challenges

This is why I usually study and do my homework at Barnes & Noble. Even with everyone milling around, flipping the pages of books, chatting over coffee and picking story books with their kids in the children's section, it's still easier than studying at home.

It's too easly to get distracted at home. The kitchen says "come get a snack", the computer says "come check your email", my books say, "put down that textbook and read us!!" There are just so many, many distractions.

But that isn't the MAIN reason why I study at Barnes and Noble on Sunday's. It's easier to show you than explain it........ this is me trying to read and study at the desk in my kitchen.

As you can see, I get lots of help.

My cat. Needy. Oh my lord, sooo sooooooooooooo needy.

"I win."

CSI : Parking Lot

The scene of the crime.



Tragic. Such a loss.
Thursday: Company Pot-Luck Day. Up at 5:30 AM to fry bacon, brown the ground beef, drain the beans, add the brown sugar, add barbecue sauce and bake for an hour.

One wrong step and a little teeter when exiting the car...........DANG!!!!! The glass pan survived the drop. My grandma's recipe for Calico Barbecue Baked Beans did not. Very sad. Oh so very sad. I could have slept for another hour. I walked into the building empty-handed, leaving behind my contribution still steaming in the cold morning air where they lie in a pathetic lump on the blacktop.

Candyland for Dummies

Grandma draws a double purple.
Grandma's yellow Gingerbread man moves into the lead!!!

First rule of Candyland:
When Grandma's Gingerbread man passes your Gingerbread man...

It really stinks.



Second Rule of Candyland:
When you draw the coveted Candy Cane card
and your Gingerbread man leaves Grandma's in the dust....

life is very very good.

Post Holiday Wandering

Three days after Christmas the far end of the mall is eerily silent.
Ahhhhh but first impressions can be quite deceiving.

It starts out as a vague buzzing noise, like something off in the distance. As you pass the Coach store and Bath and Body Works, the buzzing gets louder. With each step the volume increases. It sounds like the chatter of a herd of mice scurrying and screeching around a kitchen full of crumbs in the distance.
Louder.
Louder still.

Officially it's The Magic Forest or Happy Hippo's Hunker Down and Holler or some such.
I call it The Play Pit. They didn't have these little islands of respite when my kids were small. No, the only fun at OUR mall was a massive bronze sculpture of a guy with wings riding a tricycle. Naked. I kid you not. And he was anatomically correct if you get my drift. Yup. Bronze bottom and..... everything.

Anyway, back to the new age in shopping malls. The "parking lot" on the perimeter gives you an idea of the fun....frenzy?? mayhem??....that awaits children who walk through the narrow passageway to enter The Pit.

And this is just the North stroller parking lot.
All around The Pit, strollers are lined up stuffed full of blankies and bottles, favorite bears, sippy cups and Iowa Hawkeye sweatshirts in midget sizes.


Inside.......well, if you haven't made a "pit stop" with a kid or a grandchild in recent years, sit down and fasten your seat belt.

Somewhere in all that cacophony is a short person in a little lavender shirt and black pants who calls me Grandma Debbie. That she emerged from The Pit without a bruise or drop of blood still amazes me. Frankly the place scared the heck out of me but apparently kids just know the ropes these days. She had her shoes off and was lost in the sea of small people before I found a seat. The place was packed. I finally squeezed into a spot next to a nursing mama. She was wearily watching her 3-year old twins who had claimed authority over the Magic Castle and were pushing anyone who tried to climb the stairs off into the make-believe moat. Remember that whole "stop, drop and roll" thing that we used to use as a reminder for fire safety back in the day?? I saw it over and over in The Pit. A real survival skill. At one point her twins made a little princessy sort of kiddo in a black velvet dress cry and she shot me a look that said, "You look like a nice enough complete stranger. If I give you six million dollars would you please just watch these kids and let me sleep for two hours?"

Honestly, I figured I would have to carry my little Victoria all the way home after the half-hour visit to The Pit. Ha. Not so much. We stopped for a recharge at the candy machine where we spent our quarter.

And headed home.
Where Grandma Debbie took a nap.

A Good Day for Soup

Mother Nature's gourmet menu for the day: Deep-frozen winter berries. Dear hungry diners, sharpen your beaks or bring a blow torch.

Merry Merry Christmas!!!!!

HoHo Binksy

I refuse to impose indignities upon my kitty cat roomie in the name of any holiday. I won't dress him in a dumb little sweater or strap little reindeer antlers to his head for the Christmas card photo.

Nope. He's a family member. An honored resident of this home.
I won't humiliate my prideful kitty by dressing him up like a doll. No glittery vest on the 4th of July. No razzle-dazzle collar on Christmas. Or New Years. No way.





But he hardly ever checks my blog.
What he doesn't know won't bruise his fragile ego.

Oh the weather outside is frightful!!!

Ode to A Fellow Traveler

Dumb ass Dumb ass

In that big SUV

Grinning so smug as you’re speeding past me

Oh and look at the way that you fishtail and swerve

While my sweet little Saturn negotiates the curve

That you missed! Oh my goodness

Is that your muffler I spy???

Pointing toward heaven

As past you I fly

Merrily on my way

To my shopping I go

As you’re buried to your headlights

In a ditch full of snow.

Note to Your Brilliance:

Four-wheel drive is nice

But it don't mean squat on a highway of ice.

Turkey Weekend 08

So I went to California over Thanksgiving. Stayed with my cousins, hadn't seen 'em in ages. The kids have all grown up, in college, have jobs, boyfriends, all that stuff. It was fun. We ate turkey together, drank some margaritas, sipped a little bit of wine.

And spent the day at a spa.
Yeahhhhhh. A spa. Take one pasty-white girl just flown in from the Heartland, smear her up one side and down the other with soft, red clay mud and soak her in a warm pool for half an hour or so and you've got one happy, happy girl. My cousin and I were newbies and never did quite figure out how one guy in the pool managed to be reading the newspaper. And another was snapping digital photos of his group of friends.....all without getting mud all over the paper and the camera. But they did.



Once the mud dries and all of your little pores are squeaky clean, you step into an alcove with lots of shower heads and rinse it off. All of this, I might mention, was in the great outdoors..........another odd experience for me since anyone standing outdoors back home this time of year, even in full snowmobile regalia, is likely to freeze to death, nostrils splayed with every visible nose hair coated with frost. As I stood under the shower enjoying the warm water under the palm fronds, I kept thinking to myself...........sister, this hardly ever happens to you in November in Iowa.

That's when I noticed the white bottom.
Out of the corner of my eye, mind you, but white it was. Like a lily. Like a perfectly appointed Easter lily on the communion table of the Evangelical United Brethren church of my youth. Glaringly white and there it was, standing right next to me at the adjacent shower nozzle. Ahhh-hem!!!!! Mister! I'm thinking! I can see your butt!!!!

I averted my eyes. Of course. And I thought to myself, my goodness but I have much to learn about spas, this bare-bottom thing was not mentioned in the nice brochure the pretty lady at the counter handed us when we paid our money.

I assure you, no weirdness was involved. None. The nice man with the white bottom was actually wearing a rather conservative pair of bright green Hawaiian-print swim shorts but at the time I happened to turn and glance in his direction as I tried to adjust the spigot on my shower head to warm up the water, he happened to.........well, clearly he was simply adjusting things so that he could get a good rinse. We were all covered with mud, remember. He was even cordial enough to reach over and show me how to adjust the water temp on my own shower when he saw me struggling with the technicalities of the nozzle.

What the hell, I thought as I closed my eyes, stepped further into the jets of warm water and tugged at my bathing suit, letting it rinse off the cheeks of my own lily-white behind. We're all just one big, happy, muddy family here, aren't we??

The first thing one notices after a proper mudding is the total sense of relaxation. Once rinsed, I could have taken a long nap on a flat rock. I felt like every ounce of energy had been sucked from my pores and washed down the drain with the shower water. No time for that. Our next stop was the underground grotto where perky young attendants painted our entire bodies with a silky, minty green whipped creme sort of stuff, promised to contain aloe and all manner of things that would moisturize our skin for the next half hour as we sat in the sauna. Again, my first body painting. Hmmm. I can see how someone might get used to this sort of thing.

Notsomuch sweating in the sauna. Not my favorite thing. It's hot in there. Really, really hot. Hot like summer in Iowa. If I closed my eyes I could almost hear the sounds of the Iowa State Fair and smell corn dogs. But NOW I know why they say humidity is good for the skin. Half an hour in that miserably hot sauna, sitting there bathrobed and frosted like a cupcake, my skin was soft as the inside of a bunny's ears. Lovely. Just lovely.



Good news. They sell the stuff. The spa is called Glen Ivy, there are several locations and you can buy all these magic things in neat and tidy little jars. I'm ordering some. I doubt that they will work the exact same magic in my Midwest bathroom. But they'll surely bring back some great memories.

Just like this photo.
These are some of my cousins.

I sat at their family dinner table, laughed with them all weekend, slept in their guest house, enjoyed their kids and unfortunately, wrapped up the holiday by coming down with the flu. In conclusion, all I can say is...........you can really tell how much people love you by how they react to you throwing up all night in their purty little bathroom.

Barf bag aside, it was a great few days.
I had a blast. Thanks for the great memories, guys.
Love you bunches.

True Confessions: It had to happen sooner or later...

I know the commercials on TV say different but I have my doubts about the success rate one might expect at hook-up places like Match.com and EHarmony.com and GitYerselfANewBoyfriend.com or whatever they're called. I base my skepticism not ONLY on a number of nightmarishly weird stories I've been told but also on a couple of personal experiences. Yes, I will admit to God and my children, ONE TIME I posted some basic stats on a local website of similar purpose and within 24 hours had snagged me a real live looney-tune that insisted I was NOT NICE and PEPLE LIKE YOU SHOULDN THINK YOR SO GRATE.

Well now. I'll be honest with you. I don't think I'm any grater than any other peple but I do have my standards and one of them is, I don't meet guys for coffee or anything else when their first email to me mentions A) probation B) living with my mom and C) foot fungus, not necessarily in that order. Call me crazy but in Debbie's Book of Dating Do's and Do Not's that's a lineup that gets you a quick sliding trip right off my dance card. If that makes me not nice, so be it. I'm not nice. I've been single again for a long time now. If I have to run a gauntlet of similar lovely available fellows to MAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYBE run into that special someone...........as my favorite buddy in New York would say.......................ehhhh, fehgitaboutit. I just don't think the internet is a good place to meet men.

I DO however, think it's a GREAT place to meet friends and by the way, did anyone wonder if I was ever going to get to the point? Grab the handrails, people. We have arrived. My point is, I've met some great friends on the internet and one of them sent me this real nice little award today:



Isn't that fun? Becca lives in Alaska. We've never met in person but we read one another's blogs. This little award is special to me because I think of myself as something of an anomaly amongst her long list of favorite blogging buddies, nearly all of which best I can tell, know their way around a needle and thread. They're a crafty group of girls, stitching projects that would simply amaze you and amaze me for sure as I literally do not sew anything beyond a button and then only when forced to by the potential for inappropriately exposed body parts. WHY she reads my blog, I do not know but she does. On my little world map down at the verrrrrry bottom of my blog, if you click on the map, you will see an ever-growing red dot up there in Alaska. Yup, that's my buddy Becca, faithfully reading and every now and then chiming in with a comment to say hello.

I have some confessions to make. I had intended to take these tales to my grave with me but so-honored by Becca on this day, I just feel like I need to cleanse myself perchance she is under the false assumption that I can sew. If she's going to love me, she's got to love me for who I am and for who I'm not. And I'm not good at sewing. Evidence:

8th Grade Homemaking Class, 35 students in an overcrowded room which makes it possible to look busy and get lost in the intense work of a sea of students when Mrs. Peterson walks the room, checking out the progress of each sewing project. We worked on those projects for three weeks, me in a state of total daze and confusion, flying under the radar until the final week when the wandering Mrs. Peterson paused by my sewing machine, adjusted her glasses and all of a sudden in a grand gesture threw her hand to her chest as if that might prevent the heart attack that she was about to have. Yes, I had stitched up the center seam of the culottes (I think you call them "skorts" now...) that I was making so that the only way one could walk would be to keep ones legs tightly together and shuffle along since the legs were sewn tightly together like some kind of fabric binoculars. Mrs. Peterson gasped. I wailed. The principal called my mother. It was ugly. Ugly ugly UGLY with a capital UG.

21 years old. First full-time job. I notice the hem coming out of the skirt I planned to wear. Not owning a needle and thread I stapled the 10-12 inch expanse of unraveling hem, quite proud of myself that the staples barely showed, thanks to a wild, peasant fabric print. Somewhere around noon I swiveled in my desk chair to retrieve something from a file cabinet, dislodged one of the staples into my backside causing me to jump out of my chair, throw a manual that landed on a co-workers desk, dumping her coffee all over her typewriter (yeah this was a hundred years ago) and down the front of her dress. The staple was still lodged in my butt.

I give blankets to all my nieces and nephews. They are tied with knots. Seriously. I can't sew. Even back when I could see the hole in a needle to thread it, that's all the further I could go without getting into serious trouble. God knows I tried but my darts were concave and it only went downhill from there. I'm an artist but I CAN. NOT. SEW.

Thank you for loving me anyway, Becca! Someone might want to know how I found Becca's blog in the first place, since she lives wayyyyy up there in Alaska. Simple. I love turtles. They are my weakness. Visit her blog (listed on the right side of this page) and you'll see what I mean. You'll also find my friend Stacey's blog from her new home in Brora, Scotland and one written by a great guy named Matt who lives in LA. He doesn't even know we're friends, but I check in on he and his little baby girl Maddy every single week and have their names on the little prayer list I keep by the sink in my kitchen.

The internet makes the world a smaller, cozier place.
But I'm still not having coffee with a guy who picked up foot fungus in the pen.

Her Royal Highness

When you truly believe you are a Princess as my granddaughter does, Trick-or-Treat Night presents the perfect opportunity to doll up a bit and introduce the idea to the world so everyone can get used to it.

First stop. A trip to mom's styling chair for an up-do befitting royalty.

A few last minute adjustments to the royal gown.

Special shoes. Of course.

Her name is Victoria.

She has a strong Welsh bloodline and the slightest hint of an accent thanks to her beautiful Nana. She is loved by people all over the world.

Y'know, I think she's right........
.....she IS a princess!

In the absence of obvious answers to
so many questions I have to consider on my own, I can always
count on my favorite coffee shop to provide.....along with the
slow caffeine drip into my system........some decent wisdom
from the side of their cup:

The Way I See It #17

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you
you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct.
But do not do their work for them.
Seek any job. Ask anyone out. Pursue any goal.
Don't take it personally when they say "no".
They may not be smart enough to say "yes."

Keith Olbermann
Broadcast Journalist and host
MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann


I try to live my life like that. I taught my kids to do the same.
Less of an instruction at this point, the message on my morning Starbucks
cup is more of a reminder than a lesson:
I sought the job and I got it.
I asked him out and he said yes.
Someone told me it couldn't be done. And I did it.

Thanks to my favorite barista for the gentle reminder:

Always make them tell you no.

'Tis the Season

There is a rattle in the tree tops when the wind blows these days. The leaves are drying, turning crisp. Soon they'll fall. This is the season when all living, breathing things get the feeling the weather is gonna take a quick ride straight downhill very soon and they're looking for places to hide. Mouse traps snap. Squirrels are hoarding walnuts.

Friday at work I crossed paths with an eight-legged critter that had apparently decided it would be nice to spend the winter inside where it is warm. I went down to our employee dining room for a break and there, blocking my path to the coffee was a spider the size of a plate. He was hairy and scary. I didn't get close enough to see fangs, but I know they were there. It was HUGE and frankly, I'm not adequately armed for these kinds of encounters. As he poised to strike, I grabbed for the nearest weapon available and was in the process of drowning him with a spray bottle of window cleaner when a very thoughtful, BRAVE co-worker whose foot was barely bigger than the body of this thing............gallantly squished him with his shoe.
Whew.

The next morning I stepped from the shower and pulled a favorite silky nightshirt from a hook on the back of the bedroom door, slipped it on and buttoned up the front. I was on the last button when I felt a little stab of pain in my.........chestal regions..........and thought to myself.........oh! there must be a pin stuck in here.

I unbutton the top button and pulled at the fabric to find the pin............and looked in there to find a huge wasp staring up at me. A wasp!!!!! Inside my shirt. INSIDE MY SHIRT. And I might be mistaken, but I think he had a little napkin tied around his neck and a knife and a fork in his little front wasp-feet.

I screamed bloody murder and literally ripped every single one of the tiny silk-wrapped buttons off my favorite nightshirt as I tore it off. They went flying all over the room. I looked down at my chest, realizing to my horror that the pin-prick was actually a sting and...........to put it in gently for the most delicate reader.........that wasp had come perilously close to a full frontal assault on my girls. A nasty welt was growing in the valley.

I beat the wasp to death with a 3-pound hand weight which kinda-sorta made me feel a little better. Not nearly better enough, but better.

Aghast!!! Assaulted in my own bedroom.
And not in a fun gee-this-is-one-for-the-diary kinda way either.
What next??? A raccoon in the linen closet?????
I have a feeling it's going to be a tough winter.

The Director wasn't kidding, Camper Girls.



One dozen fresh lemons, ripe and waiting on the kitchen counter on Sunday morning.
What on earth is a girl to do with all these lemons?? Since she came home from the woods with a bad cold, I'll tell you what she does......

Toddy time.
Morning, noon and night.
If we don't chase the sniffles away, at least we'll be happier about the whole thing.

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Did I hear Kum-bah-ya in the distance???

To Campers Beth, Becky, Princess Janie, Teri, Rhonda, Gayle, Deanna, Sher, Billie, MareJ, Melody, Kathy and special hugs to Camper Linda for morning coffee and scooping cow pies to make room for our tents..Director Debbie loves you all. See you next year, same time, same place....under the stars.

Camp Debbie 2008
All that remains are the memories....and photographs to come.
But right now, Director Debbie needs a handful of Sudafed and a nice, long nap.

I love my camper girls!!!!!!!