We’re Back!

Hard to believe that we still have three more days of November – Thanksgiving was way too early this year.

The drive home was fine – it took 4 1/2 hours and that was with traffic and a quick stop for some food.

I had my final fitting for Mare-Bear’s bridesmaid dress. She told me that she would be doing the final alteration tonight so I can pick up the dress any night this week. I said, “I’ll come by tomorrow night and bring a blank check and we’ll fill it out for all these alterations.”

“Oh,” she said, “I can tell you that right now. It’ll be $45.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. “No!” I exclaimed, making it obvious that that was WAY too cheap. “No!” I repeated.

“Yes!” she said.

“I’m telling you now that the answer is no.”

This dress was basically taken apart and put back together in a smaller size. She has worked with the beading to make it look seamless and as though the dress was ready to wear. She has done FIVE alterations over the past month. And not easy ones.

So needless to say I will be giving her more while still actually paying a lot less than I was expecting to pay. And that price difference now pays for the 12 hours of babysitting we have to pay for on Saturday during the wedding AND the housecleaner that is coming next Tuesday to clean our house before the White Elephant party. SUCH an answer to prayer, that was.

What a fun weekend we had! On Saturday I got to see my old high school pal KJ, and she looked fantastic and seemed to be perfectly content with where her life is – she said she’s actually enjoying grad school. That’s great to see!

Then Denis and I hit a few of the antique/flea markets. I was shocked that no one had any Fiesta – usually you can find some at the shops we visited. But on Saturday we didn’t really see anything that stood out to us – at least, nothing in our paltry price range.

Saturday night was spent with friends and family. It was nice to catch up with JHP and LP, as well as see the reactions of everyone to CootieGirl. She mostly behaved through the night but got fussy near the end because of all the stimulation of being passed around from person to person. Denis took lots of pictures, and of all the ones he took, I think this one is my favorite (CootieGirl with her great-granddad):

I got some great birthday presents, including some Bunnykins dishware from my Uncle Bill. Apparently his parents bought the set for him when he was a baby, and he gave it to CootieGirl. It’s VERY sweet and is now sitting on the shelves in her room (shelves she’ll never be able to reach to destroy items later).

I also nabbed a few books, some great bath stuff, and a few other things. It was a fun night.

Sunday was church (where CootieGirl was fawned over by nearly every woman in attendance), brunch (again at Old Glory), then we drove home. We got home around 7 p.m., exhausted but satisfied that we had a good weekend.

And what did my mailman have for me this weekend? Not one, but TWO copies of the latest Harry Potter book! HOW THRILLED WAS I? One copy was from my pals Ace and Anthony, and the other came from Phern at Damaged Goods. Happy Birthday to ME! Thanks guys – you shop good. =) I’ll be returning one copy and getting Elinor Lipman’s latest book – she’s an author that I adore. In fact, I like her so much that I even wrote her a fan letter once. I sent it to her publisher, and four months later I got a response from her. In the note she apologized for not responding sooner, but she was on a long vacation and had only just gotten a chance to open her mail from her publisher! Needless to say I was thrilled and tucked the thank you note in one of her books. So cool…so that’s the book I’ll get.