I am no longer TUSH! (Trapped Under Something Heavy) Woo hoo!
So much has been going on around here so let me explain . . .
No. It is too much. Let me sum up:
Karl was tutored at home for three weeks while they switched him to another school that is much further away so he's now riding the bus and has to get up at an indecent hour which requires me to do likewise and three weeks without working put me terribly behind in several deadlines that I scrambled to repair and the kitchen plans were totally put on hold and the contractor stopped calling and threw away my file meaning I had to start over (sort-of) when I finally got back to it last week with the idea that I am determined to have a beautiful new kitchen by December 17th when I will host a crop for my local club and I got to go to Rusty Pickle's retreat last week and teach a class and I have two trips for DollarScrapbooking coming up and no, I'm not at Memory Trends.
All caught up? All rightie then!
The Rusty Pickle trip was just fabulous, and flattering, and fabulous. Those Chefs are seriously talented! I flew in for just one day, taught a class, and flew home again since my anniversary was the next day. Wish I could have hung out longer, though. The class project, not surprisingly, (I mean, we're talking ME here, and I can't seem to improve in these two arenas) was slightly too long and slightly too complicated but what was so nice about teaching to a group of professional designers was that they taught you just as much as you taught them. We pooled our knowledge and got a gameplan for tweaking the class to be more universally do-able and time-conscious. Look for the class, called Girl, Unexpected, to be taught by Lance at stores in the upcoming months. I hope to do some more class design for Rusty Pickle because the people and the products . . . MWAH!
In my mad dash of preparations for the trip, though, I was able to EITHER get my hair highlighted or buy an anniversary gift for John. My hair looks great. Heh
Our anniversary was Saturday and we had plans to go to dinner and a play. My parents kept the kids for the weekend. Sometimes if we make plans we don't do gifts, so I was hoping this was one of those times. As I boarded the plane on Friday evening to head back home, I gave him a call.
Me: Hey there! I'm on the plane - should be home in a few hours. I'm looking forward to our anniversary plans! Um . . .are we doing . . .you know . . . gifts?
John: Well *I* got *you* a gift! (He said that sort of affronted-like, as though it was a silly question)
Me: Oh! Well of course. I mean, I got you one too, but I didn't want to embarrass you in case you didn't get me a gift. No worries.
John: See you soon.
Me: Okie doke! Hey, it's raining here and we might be delayed. Don't worry if I'm late.
Actually, it WAS raining in Salt Lake, and we WERE delayed, which made the whole ruse of buying myself some shopping time moot. By the time I made it to my car in Denver it was 8:30 pm and Best Buy, which was 20 minutes away, closed at 9!
Look, the way to a man's heart is not through his stomach.
My guess is that Laura Ingalls coined that term and her choices were:
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
The way to a man's heart it through covering him in ice to break the fever that came on with the pneumonia that was caused by moonlighting as an ice delivery man to subsidize the rent at his ex-girlfriend's sister's blind school.
I mean, the point is that food for a man in days of yore was a welcomed break from heavy manual labor, bathing in an icy creek, or picking up supplies in Mancedo. Obviously you could woo him with strudel.
But nowadays even Betty Crocker is shopping at Best Buy because the way to a man's heart is not through his stomach . . .it's through electronics!
I knew what I would buy for John. I bought him an iPod several years ago when 13 Megs was the top-of-the-line. Recently his iPod stopped working and I suggested that he send it in for repairs. It's been on his list of things to do for over a month and in the meantime he's been borrowing my iPod for his bike rides and business trips. I figured it was time to upgrade him to a new one that played video, etc. (And to get my iPod back, of course)
I found a sales guy, told him what I wanted, and he retrieved a 30Meg black iPod from the locked case. I told him I wanted some sort of sports sleeve for it so John could ride his bike and he grabbed that for me too, all the while saying "You're a nice wife!" while giving me a look that suggested he'd marry me too if only I'd buy him a new iPod for our 11th anniversary. I was so totally NOT looking my best, either. I'd been traveling, and driving, and stressing, and my makeup had worn off hours ago, leaving Mt. Vesuvius looking lava-red on my chin. But he only saw the iPod-buying-beauty on the inside.
Beer goggles got nothin' on electronics, yo!
The whole transaction was over in 7 minutes. I'm a very proficient last-minute shopper! And I was rather sneaky in how I presented it to John. I wrapped up the sports sleeve but put the iPod in my purse. The next morning went something like this:
Me: Happy Anniversary! Open your present!
John: (pulls out the sports sleeve) Oh. Wow. This is . . . great.
Me: (enthusiastically) If you ever get your iPod fixed you can use it for your bike rides!
John: Uh. Yeah, yeah. That will be great.
Me: I thought it might encourage you to send in your iPod. Are you going to send it in?
John: Uh. Yeah. I'll do that. (thinks to himself: My present is so much better than this!)
Me: Well . . . I guess you won't have to wait. (hands him the iPod)
John: WHAT?!!! What did you do? Oh come here, my precious!
That last part about precious was not, I repeat, NOT in regards to me! In fact, he only had eyes for the iPod after finding out its features. He forbade anyone to touch it while it was charging because he didn't want a single fingerprint on the shiny silver backing.
John: You know, I really like your hard plastic case - do you think they make those for the big iPods?
Me: Yeah, they probably do. You want to exchange the sports sleeve?
John: If you wouldn't mind. Your case is really strong, too, although I did crack it.
Me: Yeah, I noticed that. How did you crack it?
John: I dropped it while riding.
Me: While RIDING?!!! You dropped my iPod while RIDING?!!!
John: Yeah, and I dragged it for a block. No damage though. See how great that case is?
On Sunday he begged me to go exchange the case for him. He couldn't touch his iPod, after all, and it was killing him. I agreed, still on the high from the beautiful jewelry he gave me.
In Best Buy I scanned the wall of iPod cases, noting all the brightly colored silicone, but not seeing a hard shell case. I asked a salesguy who looked to be about 19 if they had any hard shell cases for the bigger iPods.
Salesguy: Yeah, we have them right there. (Points toward the wall of silicone.)
I couldn't see any hard cases, so I examined the trajectory of his gesture and honed in on an empty peg with fine print that said "VideoShell" above it. He was pointing right at it.
Me: You mean the peg where nothing's there?
Salesguy: (seems to notice for the first time that he's pointing at nothing) Oh, yeah. The one with nothing there. Hmmm. Let's check the other side.
It was looking bleak but he did finally find one lone case and I gleefully took it home, where John was pacing back and forth and staring longingly at his iPod charging on the table.
You may think that two trips to Best Buy was enough for a weekend, but think again! We have one of those Reward Zone cards that gives you coupons throughout the year, so I was able to save 10% on the iPod and the case and I still had one more coupon that was expiring yesterday.
So I bought a refrigerator!
Initially I had a salesguy who I will call "Carny" because he seriously looked like he'd spent years on the carnival circuit running the Tilt-o-Whirl. In a pleasant turn of events, however, he turned me over to Beau, who was only slightly older than 19-year-old-point-at-nothing-guy but infinitely easier on the eyes. As he was ringing me up he let out a large hiccup.
Beau: Sorry about that. I get weird hiccups.
Me: Oh I know what you mean. When I get hiccups they tend to stay with me throughout the day.
Beau: No. I mean I let out one large hiccup every hour.
Me: Okay then.
The fridge is coming on Friday. After taking such a long break from my kitchen plans I spent a fortune yesterday, putting down deposits on cabinets and new flooring and buying a refrigerator. Still, it's feeling real, and that's a good thing!
And it feels great to crawl out from under that rock!
RMQOTD (I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!)