blow your horn

I'm taking a break from my work to blawg over here for right now. I need to talk. I need adult interaction and sometimes my blog is the only place I can get it. 

**SOBS** It's been a terrible week!!! Kids and poop and pee and disobedience and PMS and housework and bills and cooking and laundry! UUUUUUUGHHHH!!!!

And it's SO HOT outside! The heat and humidity is outrageous!!

It's only getting up to about 90-95F outside which isn't so bad when the humidity is low but that rarely happens here. It's HUMID here. HUUUUUUUUMIIIIIID.

Texas summer hasn't even reached it's peak yet. It gets up to about 102 and even as much as 104  when things get into full swing. Add humidity to those temps and well... you ever been in a sauna?

I went grocery shopping Saturday and I felt like I was about to have a heart attack from just walking to and from my car. No lie. I was sweating buckets, I was light headed and having heart palpitations! 

But wait... is it really THAT hot or have I gotten that fat???

Both. 

I'm sure it's both.

I've been spending most of my days indoors, only going out to take the trash to the dumpster and let the kids play with the water hose after the house shadow has covered the entire yard.

I. HATE. SUMMER.

Enough of my complaining.

I scored this dress at Ross Dress for Less for $9. I love it! I love the way it fits. I got boob room, nothing tugs or pulls and the two slits in the skirt let the breeze in... mmmmm... swoooosh...

It's wonderful! It also came in burnt orange. I'm getting super into bold colors these days but I think I  might go back and get  that one too because this simple dress is stellar.

And here's little Cedar girl in her new-to-us Vietnamese blouse. I found it on swap.com and it came with lavender satin pants. I'm not sure if that was the outfit or if the store paired it like that but it wasn't a good match. We went for white leggings instead for church. You probably can't tell in the photos that it's chiffon over satin. Fancy!

Since I'm only taking a break right now, I might not be able to get to blog reading until tomorrow. 

Sooooo I'll see you guys around hopefully sooner than later! Byyyeeee

winning good art and bad steak

I did a something! A cool something!

I won the City of Texarkana's photo contest a couple weeks ago.  I won the "community events" category and Best in Show with this photo below:

The photo is of my friend (and ren faire merchant and supporter) throwing beads in the Mardi Gras parade a couple years ago. The photo isn't the best quality, but I chose it because it features a faire person, Mardi Gras, downtown and a historical building. I guess that's what they were looking for and I won!

I didn't even know there was a real prize. I was quite content to only have my photo featured on the city's website but it turns out the prize was a staycation and free dinner at a local hotel. Woooo!! Me and the husband sent to kids to spend the night with my mom and started the evening at the TRAHC's (Texarkana Regional Arts & Humanities Council)  29th Annual Juried Exhibit Opening Reception for some art and wine.

We arrived fashionably late. Wait. Let me stop there.

Ok, what's the deal with people not dressing up for events anymore?

The public invitation stressed business attire but I guess blue jeans and Hawaiian print shirts are the thing now? Me and the husband have been to a few local events... FORMAL events where people have showed up in work uniforms, jeans and tee shirts. We once attended a formal charity banquet and I was absolutely appalled to see that my husband and I, the volunteers and one doctor were the only one's in formal attire out of about 200 people. One woman's dress was so short, she squatted down to pick something up and I could see all that she wasn't wearing under her dress. I rushed over to her to inform her and she was quite grateful for the warning. Dress appropriately to folks. No one should be able to see your cooter at a formal event.

I brought my camera but totally left the card at home so I had to use my phone to snap pics from the evening.  All of the is from artists in the region.

A middle aged purple haired pianist with an eyebrow piercing? Yes, please!

The hotel lobby ^^

After the reception we picked up booze at the liquor store, got to the hotel, checked in and headed for dinner. It was almost 9pm so the dining area wasn't very busy but there was only one server who was being ran between waiting tables and a room service. It took foreeeeeeever to get our food and drinks, we were starving and the prices were outrageous! 

Luckily dinner came with the contest winnings because we would never ever pay that much for food unless it made us poop diamonds. The food was decent but my salmon was absolutely crusted in salt that had to be scraped off to make it edible and husband's steak was super poor quality. Not worth the price at all. Snobby snob meat talk. Blah, blah, blah.

We got to the room and realized that we were too dang tired for any "special relations" so we sat on the couch and drank and watched cartoons just like we do every single night...

And it was great.

4 birds with one stone

I'm currently eating ramen noodles, writing this blog post and another post over at QBM and folding laundry at the same time. This is nothing new. That's how I roll. Am I the queen of multitasking or do I just have ADD? Probably both.

How do I do it? I take a bite of food, fold a garment as I chew, then type something here. I switch over to the other blog post while of think of what to say next,  then write something and then take a bite of food, switch back over... repeat.

 So today is the 4th of July and you know what that means? Well do you?

No, really - I'm asking because I have no idea what that is.

Juuuuuust kidding.

 We don't really have any special plans for today but we're going to grill some burgers made from brisket the husband ground up. We might let the kids shoot at barrels of gasoline with guns and or roman candles but I'm not sure yet. Our gas supply is still pretty low from the monster truck derby we hosted illegally in the field behind our house last week.

Because America.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to blog reading today, but I'll try my best!

Soooo... what are you doing this evening? Have you ever boxed a roo?

What I wore:

Blouse -  handmedown

Skirt - handmedown dress worn as a skirt because I'm fat.

What Cedar Wore:

Linen star-print dress, $4 from China on eBay.