I FOUND MY WEDDING DRESS!!!

Steph and I went to the Renaissance Faire in Fishers today. I wasn't looking for my wedding dress, but I found it. Or, rather, I found it in purple and the woman who made it is going to make me one in white.

The underneath part is sleeveless, and it has an overlay of sheer fabric with leaves and vines on it (they will be white). I don't know what the sleeves are called, but they're really big, and the dress has a simple scoop neck and is fitted through the bodice. It has a short train.






I saw one of the sleeves trailing behind a woman taking the dress into the dressing room, so I waited until she came out. She didn't buy the dress, so I tried it on even though I knew it would be too small. I showed it to Steph and suggested that it would be a good wedding dress if it came in white. By the time I went into the dressing room, the woman who made it had told me that she could in fact make it in white and that it probably wouldn't be that small on me after all. I knew as soon as I looked in the mirror that it was The One, and fortunately Steph likes it as much as I do.

When I wear the dress for real, I will not be sporting dark blue underwear (which you can see through the dress in the pictures Steph took when I was trying it on) and tennis shoes.

Degrassi season premiere quote #1

"I'm all about fun. I love fun. In fact, if fun were people, I would be China." --Emma

The sign is out!

I placed the For Rent sign in my yard this afternoon. Anyone want to rent a cute three-bedroom Cape Cod on the east side?

$5-a-bag day at the library sale

We live near the Library Services building where the library book sales are held. There are sales every couple of months, and every six months or so there's a half-price day followed by a $5-a-bag day (presumably so they can clear out a lot of the books that didn't sell). Regular prices are reasonable -- $2 for hardbacks, $1 for trade paperbacks, and 50 cents for mass market paperbacks -- and I've bought my share at those prices, but I'd never managed to make it to a $5-a-bag day... until today.

I purchased two bags of books for $10. 50 books. (And eight cassette tapes 'cause my Honda still has a cassette player but no CD player.) That's twenty cents per book. Not bad. Four books are gifts, three books were overflow from Steph's bag, and nine books are earmarked for half.com. That leaves 34 books for me to read.

I'd better get busy.

Almost ready

I'm hoping to put the For Rent sign out this week. The bathroom is painted, most of the garden overgrowth is cut down, and much of the house is clean.

In other news, Steph and I played a game called Arkham Horror with Mike and Rachel last night. It was amazing and very complicated. Steph and I both felt like we'll never be able to play without Rachel, who's played the game ten or twelve times and is just now beginning to refer to the rulebook a little less. It's a collaborative game, but there's plenty of competition -- it's just between you and the monsters and the gates and the Ancient Ones.

Weekend

Thursday night (not really weekend): Painted my old kitchen. Second coat on walls.

Friday night: Continued painting my old kitchen. First coat on part above cabinets and above other side of counter.

Saturday (all day): Painted old bathroom. (Note: Painting bathroom with lots of edges and stuff to paint around takes 9 hours. And that's just one coat.) Had to paint without overhead light because fixture is failing and had to be taken down to paint underneath because base plate of new fixture is smaller. In bathroom were me, stepstool, ladder, two lights, paint tray, and my dad. Bathroom is not particularly large. I am wearing almost as much paint as the bathroom is. (I dumped the paint cup on my foot at one point.) Kathy finished trim in dining room as well.

Sunday (much of day): Despite upset stomach, finished up second coat on kitchen. Kitchen is DONE!!!!! I took a couple of pictures -- see the Flickr bar on the side. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The color reminds me a lot of the color of the kitchen at my Aunt Dolores and Uncle Mike's house when I was a kid. Didn't feel well enough to start on second coat in bathroom.

Long weekend update

Over Labor Day weekend, I mostly labored.

On Saturday, my dad came to visit and we worked on my old house. We washed the kitchen walls to prepare them for painting, which took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I painted one kitchen wall and half of another. Kathy painted trim in the dining room. We also spackled and sanded quite a bit in the bathroom and a little in the kitchen, and my dad tried to fix the bathroom light socket that pops and crackles when a bulb is screwed in far enough to light. We also mowed the front yard, and I trimmed the bushes by the road. They look much better.

Sunday was my friend Jan's wedding. Jan is an old co-worker of mine. She married Dan, a guy she met through contra dancing. They had a Quaker wedding. I'd never attended one before, and I really enjoyed it. Everyone sits in silence, and anyone can speak if they feel moved to do so. It was interesting to hear people's memories and good wishes and thoughts on marriage. The reception was held in a historic barn, and Hogeye Navvy played. They used to play at the Aristocrat every Saturday night, and I went to hear them with Jan a few times. There was also some contra dancing, and I danced one dance, which was fun. It was really good to catch up with some old co-workers, too.

On Labor Day, my dad came to visit again. He changed the oil in the Honda, and Steph and I finished painting most of the kitchen while my dad washed the bathroom walls. My co-worker Robin put up the tile from the backsplash that had fallen down; he didn't have to do as much wall reconstruction behind it as I thought he might. My dad and I painted the bathroom ceiling and gave it part of a second coat.

The kitchen still has a few places left to paint, and some of it probably needs a second coat. The bathroom walls need to be painted, and some of the dining room trim needs a second coat. Then I need to clean up in all of those rooms, as well as the living room and part of the basement. It's coming along, but I'm impatient for it to be done.

Four for Friday

Four for Friday is back!

Q1 - Food Eating Contests: Joey Chestnut, the top-ranked U.S. competitive eater, is looking to capture his second straight title this weekend at the Waffle House Waffle-Eating World Championships at Stone Mountain Park, Georgia. (Last year, Chestnut won the title by devouring 18.5 eight-ounce Waffle House waffles in 10 minutes.) If you were to quit your day job and take up competitive eating as a professional gustatory athlete, what food items would you specialize in, or, which food eating contest would you be the hands-down favorite to win the world championship?

Popcorn.

Q2 - Laundry: When you do laundry, do you use the recommended amount of detergent or do you pour to your heart's content?

I tend to use a little less than it recommends because otherwise my clothes remain a little soapy.

Q3 - Handwriting: Do you like your signature?

Yes.

Q4 - Today: What are four things you know you will not be doing today?

Eating cereal, meeting the Pope, going out to dinner, and learning to knit.

Second-best Degrassi quote of the day

"Did the gay superhero know you took his belt?"

Best Degrassi quote of the day

"Dude, don't call me rhetorical. That's mean."