Dancing Away

What a joyful passage, a beautiful night, such happy smiles.  Senior Prom.  I can still remember how giddy it makes you feel (as a girl anyway!) being all dressed up, having your date look nothing like he typically does in the school hallway with his Converse sneakers and plaid shorts. 

You feel grown-up, like you are on the brink of something.  You feel it ahead of you but can't quite see it yet.  But the late Spring night is gorgeous, you are with all of your friends and the night is ahead of you.

Can't say what will happen to these two high school sweethearts next year, with what they don't know yet, how much things will change and all of the new people they will meet at college.   Will others turn their head?  Interest them?  That's for another day.  Right now they've got all summer. 

The Ugly Door

 
So this is a story about an ugly door.  But moreover it is about how many people came in touch with this door and thought it would be ok to put on MY house.  Here are a few background photos of my asthetic.

You know, cottagey, flowery, trying as we all do to make the most of what we've got and where we live.

Tried to follow the architectural charm of the house when making any changes or additions.  Added a pretty summer stripey awning in blues because I thought it went great with the white house/black shutters.  In other words, I took a minute to think about these things!

 

And then came this horror.  We had been living with the original garage door since we moved in 7 years ago and even then it probably should have been replaced.  It was worn out and finally stopped working altogether.  We spent a few weeks with just a plastic sheet over it to protect from the rain.

So I left this project to my husband and he found a place and ordered a door.  He asked if I wanted windows as the old door had them and I said yes.  When I came home from shopping on installation day and saw this well, many choice words came out of my mouth. 

"How many "men" thought this looked ok?" 
"Who thought this asthetically matched my house?" 
"Don't you think it looks like the face of a robot?"
"There is no way this is staying like this!!!"

And so I have had to look at this for one week already and a new plain top panel is being ordered with some black carriage-house detail trim to be added to match the black shutters.  I don't know why this has thrown me into such a twist.  I am sure that all of the angst about graduation and Prom and 5th grade graduation and the anxiety I feel over all of that manifested itself in this horrible door.  So maybe it served some purpose after all ; )

On Mother's Day

I had a super-duper waffle and fruit salad breakfast on the deck. 

Got my mother exactly what she wanted...because I asked!  Her favorite plant and a hand-painted trellis.

And finished with a soccer game.  Carter is on the left.  It is very hard to take pictures at a soccer game, even with the "action" setting on the camera.  Those boys move FAST.

Teacher Appreciation Week (from the night kitchen)

I wanted to take advantage of all of my new baking recipes and donate some goodies to Teacher Appreciation Week at my son's schools.  There were two late nights (into the wee hours if I am being honest) of making maple pecan sticky buns and another night (where at least I was in bed before midnight) of cupcakes and dipped pretzels.

So what I learned is that no one deserves this more than the teachers and it was my pleasure to make stuff from scratch.  However, it is no small achievement.  By its very nature, making things from scratch is truly a labor of love.  Unless you do it professionally, it is done after work, dinner and laundry.  When the house is quiet you pull out the recipe folder and independently get to work.  Luckily for me there was a "Housewives of Orange County" marathon that provided company and required me to pay attention once every 10 minutes, fitting together perfectly with the KitchenAid mixer's schedule. 

Meeting the "Wimpy Kid" author!

I am a big one for cutting things out of the newspaper, fun things to do, hear, see...and due to an already busy family life, we get around to about 10% of them.  So when I saw that "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series  wicked famous author Jeff Kinney was going to be in Newburyport, I stuck a magnet on the clipping and put it on the white board.

Soon enough 10 year old Ronan took an interest and asked if he could go.  I had to work, so he and Rich went together.  I gave them the big speech about the long lines I've encountered with author signings (cookbook authors are like rock gods to the middle aged woman and the lines follow suit) and how they should bring a snack and water and a book to read.

Well they arrived early and had to wait about an hour, but that's not bad at all.  Ok, now to the fun part.  Ronan just loves the "Wimpy Kid" series.  In fact a year ago I helped him paint his Pinewood Derby car to look like the book.  We called it "Racer of a Wimpy Kid", so funny.  Well N-E-V-E-R in my wildest dreams did I ever think that Jeff Kinney himself would be holding the car!  Turns out, he's a scout leader himself and thought the car was great. 

So, son, the lesson here is that it's better to go out in the world and try then be afraid that there will be too many people, or the line will be too long, or you won't get to meet him.  Just give it a try and memorable things can happen.