The Reunion

Well, I don't have pictures. At all. In fact, the only picture I have is this one shot from the rodeo, just to prove I was there.

DOTR and I arrived in Denver and scored an upgrade on our rental car (I am such a car slut). I always turn my nose up when they say "you have an Impala"....so we got a brand new, two days on the lot, 10 miles on the speedometer Volvo. It was FAB-u-lous to say the least.

We headed toward Nebraska, making a lunch stop at the Pepper Pod in Colorado (the town's name escapes me). Anyway, I had a huge hot beef sandwich with about 3 lbs. of roast beef and a full quart of gravy. You know, just to get myself acclimated. Asked for tea and didn't even have to say "UN-sweet". Yeah, we were home.

We arrived at our hotel, the lovely Quality Inn and Suites. Sadly, this is the nicest hotel in NP. We saw plenty of cowboys and horse trailers when we parked, so we knew we were in for some fun. We had plenty of time before we had to go to the rodeo, so we rode all over town looking at where DOTR used to live (duh, we've been together since 1980, I've seen it all before), the old country school, the experiment station where FIL worked, through Indian Hills following DOTR's paper route, down to all the little inlets where he used to fish....and Walmart. Of course. No trip to anywhere without a stop (or two or three) at Walmart.

The biggest excitement is that there's not one, but TWO Starbucks in town. Yeah. I could so move there now. Or not.

So we went to the rodeo.

It was a rodeo. Saw the son of somebody from my hometown (pop. 200) in the team roping. Left after the saddle bronc riding and went back to our luxurious suite.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early for the Chuckwagon Pork Breakfast. Oh my. Delicious grilled pork chop you can cut with a plastic fork. People in Nebraska are so darn friendly, and we were talking with somebody at the table who knew the DJ from the country radio station who was giving away gift certificates, so she shouted that we were from Georgia and we scored a $25 gift certificate for the mall.

Which I spent immediately at Herberger's (it's the same dept. store company that used to own Parisian, so I got two Relativity shirts...they were on sale already, free to me!) I always liked the Relativity stuff at Parisian. I hate Belk. But I digress.

Then we went to Walmart again. Just because we could. And it was there. Then we drove around some more, and DOTR said it seemed surreal to him that he actually ever lived there. We went by the new high school and looked at the artificial turf on the football field. And stopped for popcorn at the best popcorn place in the world, Vic's Corn Popper. I was very happy about that.

Then we went to the parade, talked to a guy who came to the HS to coach shortly after DOTR graduated so he knew DOTR's younger brother. Two hours later, the parade is not even close to done, but we're paraded out and it's back to our luxurious hotel to get ready for the par-tay.

We made it downstairs, got our nametags and started drinking. Saw a few of DOTR's fraternity brothers, did lots of chatting, danced to the 70's hits, blah blah blah. Realized we hadn't been to NP since the last reunion, and since DOTR's parents don't live there anymore, we probably won't have any reason to go back for ten more years. (ETA: We had the BEST prime rib ever at the reunion--so it was a luxurious hotel, in the beef sense anyway).

Early Sunday we met up with a few of the people staying in the hotel for breakfast, said our goodbyes, then hit the road for Denver in our posh Volvo.

We got on a Bombadier prop jet in the far corner of the basement of the Denver airport and we were on our way to Jackson Hole.

Hee haw.

The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

Our First Night
Gondola ride to the top of the mountain to the restaurant
There was still snow on the ground!

View from the restaurant where we ate breakfast every morning.

Old Faithful

Fly Fisherman in a stream by a thermal pool

Firehole Canyon

More thermal pools and geysers--there are millions

Lake Yellowstone

Back to the Grand Tetons on the way "home" to Jackson Hole

Catching Up

Hillcrest Acres (fellow Nebraska refugee) kindly gave me this award a couple of weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to the follow up. Thank you so much for the award, and now I get to bestow this on some of my favorite blogs. Seriously, there are so many, this will be tough. I may have to do it a couple of times.

So here are the rules:
Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and makes you feel so happy about blogland! Leave them a comment on their blog to let them know they received this award. Remember that people can be tagged more than once!!!

Green Magsterpie is the only blogger that I've had the pleasure of meeting IRL. She's adorable on her blog and ten times moreso in person.

Belle in Bloom, It's Toile Y'all, and Green Girl in Wisconsin can always be counted on for a sweet comment--I wish you all lived close by so we could hang out. Hairgirl does live close by, but so far we've never managed to be in the same place at the same time....as far as I know!

One Fabulous Mom...wow, you ARE fabulous. I think you were my first commenter and I was so excited!

How can I forget my other homegirl, Quintessential Procrastinator? I'm sure we know some of the same people, since there are, at most, two degrees of separation in Nebraska.

Tickled Pink and Green, Self Confessed Lamp Tramp, Pearls to Hide My Neck and Madras Matters....well, we all went to high school together in parallel lives, I think.

Puttin' on the G.R.I.T.S. has such a fun life right now...brings back memories!

And finally, Tucker lets me come over and play with the boys sometimes. Thanks. And Go Jackets!

You know there are hundreds more, since I waste.....I mean spend....so much time reading and commenting....so keep on blogging.

Back in the Saddle

Well, back to reality.

No more breakfast buffet waiting for me as soon as I wake up, no more maid service to both make and turn down my bed and no more prime rib dinners four times a week.

Jackson Hole was very relaxing. We decided to take the kids back there next summer, hopefully before J1 has to start her "real job" for one last family vacation. J4 was so little the last time we went to Wyoming, he doesn't remember a thing. (Duh, I remembered it was in 1996, which means he was two. Explains his falling asleep during the raft trip anyway.)

I wasn't wild about most of the people from this company, but hey, I can't complain. DOTR has only sold one group with this company (which they screwed up, BTW) but they gave us a two bedroom suite with a kitchen, dining room, laundry, fireplace (pictures coming) and courted us like nobody's business. We'll see. Don't think I could get into a vaca with these people every year, but we are independent travelers and spent a lot of time on our own (unlike some people, who could not get on a shuttle bus, sit at a table, in a raft or participate in any other group activity unless they were with people they knew...seriously, it was like "are you freaks, or what?") Next year is in Mexico and we have no plans to go, but the following year is in Whistler. At the Four Seasons. Definitely a possibility.

And people, I did NOT get cowboy boots. We got the other pair for DOTR's brother, who was supposed to go on this trip before he bailed out of his own business and had to get a job.

I still won't be your cowgirl.

Gone to the Rodeo

Be back in a week!

Thriller

So how excited am I?

I just found out that instead of getting a new flatscreen tv, three gorgeous chairs, two new lamps, new wallpaper, overhead lighting revamp and built in speakers for the surround sound in my den.......I will be the proud owner of new plumbing pipes in my whole house. Five figures.

All I know is that I better never have to yell "FLUSH!" ever again. I'll be sure to post pics when it's all done. I know you'll all be so jealous.

Location, location, location.

Knowing Changes Everything

If you happen to request information about attending Georgia Tech, this is what you'll get. It's called the viewbook. It's 21 pages long and has information about everything you'd ever want to know about going to Tech.

See anybody who looks familiar?

That's your "I'm not good at math and science, but I went to Tech anyway" postergirl.

And you can, too.

Fajitas and REI

Lunch at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant and a family shopping trip to REI.

Just what the daddy ordered.

Happy Father's Day!

Filthy Rich?

This book is available on Amazon. It appears to be in the spirit of "The Official Preppy Handbook" and from the pages I've seen, it should be hilarious.

Many thanks to The Trad for letting me "borrow" the images.

So how many of these items can you check off the list? I'm about 8 for 10.

Is it 5:00 Yet?

I sit here sipping my G&T (good lord, we've gone through a giant bottle of Tanqueray since we got home from London!) and reading this cute little book. I keep it in the butler's pantry with all my wine books, in case a cocktail party breaks out and I need some recipes or something.

Actually, I spent two years as a bartender in college. It was a great bar in Lincoln called Barrymore's. Backstage of an old live theatre that was turned into a movie theatre. You should've heard the booming when "The Empire Strikes Back" was playing. The owner made tapes of his 40's swing collection and that was the soundtrack. All the sandwiches had names like the Grant, the Gable, the Groucho. It's still there, and from my brother's accounts is now a fratty bar. It had been around for years when I was in college, at times sort of gay/theatre crowd hung out there when a couple of the bartenders were theatre majors, and one was gay. But mainly, we served the business crowd for lunch and after work....gotta sit out that massive Lincoln rush hour. Our favorite was a guy we called "Rock", as in Rock Hudson. He, ironically, was an employee benefits broker (like DOTR is now) and was oh so handsome. He had kids in high school at the time, and he actually looked more like Dean Martin than Rock Hudson. But whatever. He drank Beefeaters on the rocks. Doubles. For lunch. Three, every day.

I learned how to make all the old guy drinks, and I won't say I didn't make really good tips at the bar. I'd be lying. A 20 year old blonde with a gift for gab can make some good cash. And I can make a Rob Roy, Manhattan, or any old coot drink you want. Nobody drank martinis out of those ridiculous glasses, and when I see a man drinking out of one now, I just want to laugh.

It's funny that drink trends come and go, just like everything else. Remember the Colorado Bulldog? How many times have you had Kalhua and cream lately? I'm glad I did that little stint behind the bar--DOTR worked as a bar back at the hot college bar, PO Pears, so he never learned all that. I still tell him, if they haven't moved the bottles, I'll bet I could go into Barrymore's today and pull any of the call liquors down from behind the bar. I knew where every one of those 100 bottles was located and being a nerdy research person, I could tell you a lot about them, too.

Yet, the only thing I like to drink....red wine (with food), gin and tonic, vodka and cranberry, pimms and tonic (or gingerale) and a frozen margarita.

One of my favorite shows on FLN is The Thirsty Traveler. He goes all over the world to see how all different spirits are manufactured, from absinthe to ice wine. And enjoys every minute of it.

Me, I just like mixing.

Coming Soon

Last summer I got hooked on Mad Men. (Remember, I was afraid to say anything out loud because of "the kiss of death"?)

I got to see the third to last episode in Dublin and the second to last episode in London (the sun comes up early there this time of year, people, I was worn out by 10 pm). If you missed it when it was on AMC last year, the first season comes out on dvd July 1st.

The second season starts in late July, and they are scheduled to have a marathon of the first season's episodes before the new season premiere if you'd rather wait. I'm not sure I can. Just watching the two episodes again, I saw so many things I missed the first time. Just the clothes and furniture make it worth watching. And the storyline--not too bad. Just a little more realistic than the agency where Darren Stevens worked, good old McMann and Tate, don't you think?






The weirdest thing for me.....Don Draper looks so much like my dad did when I was a kid. (actually, January Jones sorta looks like my mom did....they were very young when I was born!)

It's kind of freaky.

So Smooth

So far we've been pretty successful at the "no eating out" part of our boot camp campaign. Although I will say that running the dishwasher three times a day is getting a little old. But I got a new Bosch dishwasher that is uber energy efficient, so what the heck.

Today, I am locked in the office while DOTR is off coaching a baseball game in extreme outer suburbia (yeah, all these HS tournaments assume the coaches are teachers so they don't have to work during the week in the summer--luckily, DOTR has what you could call a "flexible" schedule). Even though I have a boatload of homemade chicken salad in the refrigerator at my house, I decided I needed a little diversion, so I went to Gabriel's for the first time in at least a month. I needed chicken salad, a fruit cup, a couple of tiny cheese straws and a snickerdoodle. Seriously. I NEEDED it. And I needed to see people. Which I did--it was packed to the gills at 1:30 and I ran into at least 5 people I knew.

BUT when I drove up, I noticed that two doors down from Gabriel's there was a brand spankin' new Smoothie King. Yeah baby. We're back.

See, in Blue Devil land, we don't get many new franchises anymore. Sure, we got a Waffle House (who doesn't?) and a few fast food places off the Square and toward the Big Chicken, and there's all kinds of stuff up and down 41 Highway. But generally, if we did have something right here in the part of town where I live, they moved it out west when all that started getting developed. It was like "hey, we're still here and we still like Pizza Hut pickup!"

The closest smoothie places are near the mall and out toward Target on Dallas Hwy. But no more.

We got a Smoothie King.

Bumped --A favor

Remember my new year's resolution? No, not the losing weight or keeping my house clean resolutions (I'm a total failure at those, too...but I digress).

I'm talking about the blogroll. Well, since we're six months into the year and I still don't have a blogroll, I have a favor to ask.

I have a huge list of "favorites" bookmarked at home, but I only have time to put the blogroll together when I'm at the office. Where I have very few "favorites" bookmarked.

So could you please help me out by leaving your blog address in this post so I can work on it at the office AND cross at least ONE thing off of my new year's resolutions list?

Merci beaucoup.

If you haven't seen this yet, please add your blog address! I'm going to work on it this week!

A Dress

I found a dress for DOTR's reunion at Ann Taylor. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but there is a little bit of bright green trim around the neckline and the bottom. I bought the shrug, which I will not button like the picture, to take care of the flabby arms/possibility of freezing issues. And I also bought a pair of green sandals with three big rhinestones on them, so I'm wearing that outfit to the awards gala, too, since we're "required" to wear one sparkly thing.

I guess I'll be a Hawaiian cowgirl (don't they have ranches on the Big Island?)

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Travel Plans--Round Two

We got our big Fedex envelope with all our airline tickets, information, giant luggage tags, etc. for our trip to Jackson Hole in two weeks. Putting together my wardrobe for this will probably be harder than London (here's why, remember?)

First, we fly into Denver on Friday the 20th where we pick up our rental car and head to North Platte. DOTR already ordered and received our ticket to the Nebraskaland Days Rodeo on Friday night AND the Chuckwagon Pork Breakfast (at the mall, of course) on Saturday morning. He bought them online and they came in TWO days! He said he was sure that the people in the Nebraskaland Days office must've been so excited to see an order from so far away, they jumped right on it! The pork breakfast is amazing--you can literally cut your thick grilled pork chop with a plastic fork. I am NOT lying.

That afternoon is the parade--it's huge. It's an election year, so it will be reeeally huge. Along with all the saddle clubs, civic clubs, scouts, every small town's marching band, a few beauty queens (usually they are fair queens, pork/dairy/beef queen, etc. as opposed to Little/Tiny/Junior/Teen Miss Everytown, like here in the South) we'll see all the politicians running for statewide offices along with the local yokels. Hope it's not hot. (have I mentioned that it's either hotter than Hades or freezing cold, and you never know which until you get there?)

That night, the 30th Class Reunion. At the Quality Inn and Suites (don't laugh). I think it used to be the Holiday Inn, which had a Holidome. Very popular back in the day, the Holidome. Indoor pool, putting green...not sure what else. DOTR was Homecoming King (yeah, baby, he's a celebrity) and a lot of his friends were also in his fraternity in college, so it should be fun. If I ever find a dress, that is. Good thing, Western Nebraskans are not widely known for their fashion savvy, so I should be okay no matter what I show up in.

Sunday we drive back to Denver and take a flight to Jackson Hole. Then the whole getting dressed up in the costume thing starts all over again. I'm seriously thinking I will not be participating. DOTR is trying to figure out how to get a Stetson he bought at a charity auction (don't ask) on the plane. I pretty much told him it would be over my dead body. And I found out they are GIVING us a damn pair of cowboy boots, but making us pay for our own float trip. WTF? What am I ever going to do with a pair of cowboy boots? The kids are out of elementary school, so there's not that hoedown to look forward to every year. (And of course, once we moved to the 'hood, there were no more hoedowns because it was really confusing for some of the kids....no, not that kind of ho....sheesh!)

So besides the evening extravaganzas, we'll be taking a float trip, DOTR is going fly fishing and we're renting a car and going to Yellowstone for one day. Not sure if I'll be able to hook up with my aunt and uncle because we are taking two other couples with us on the Yellowstone trip.

So, yeeee haw! Back to packing!

Out the back door

I thought this was a goner after last summer--it looked terrible!

Luckily, I was wrong.

DOTR is quite proud of his tomato plant.

Don't plant lavendar unless you like bumblebees.

This is why I was lamenting the neighbor's tree removal.

Our backyard and both sides of the front are completely covered by very, very tall trees.

Our pool is over 40 years old and it was looking very rough, so last summer we had it resurfaced with pebbletech.

Everybody tells us, "I used to swim in your pool when I was a kid!"

Hope you enjoyed a peek out my back door!

Shopping

I love it. Not so much. I used to love it, but now.... not so much.

I used to troll the stores for at least 4 hours a day 3 times a week when my kids were in preschool. Since I had to get out anyway, why not? Anything I bought for them, they loved or were too little to care, so it was great fun. We used to have some pretty good stores in our mall, Rich's (not my favorite) and Macy's (same stuff as Rich's but in a nicer store), Parisian, Banana Republic (before it became too "fashion-y"), Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer. Way back in the olden days, American Eagle was even a store for adults--it sold Royal Robbins, Woolrich, etc. It was one of my favorites.

Lately, our mall is in heavy competition for the lamest mall in the world. Unless you're a hoochie momma dressing, britny channeling 14 year old. Or a gangsta. Or under age 16. The first blow was the demise of Rich's (both it and Macy's were owned by Federated Dept. Stores) and moving the nice Macy's store to the crappily arranged Rich's store and closing down all but one of the three floors for a furniture gallery (gotta love that brown paper in the window and the empty parking lot). Banana Republic closed and became some kind of cheap teenage crap store and is now in its third incarnation of that genre as "Heritage 1981". Excuse me, I was young in 1981 and we were NOT wearing the crap that you are selling. Nice try. Not.

So at that point it was still acceptable, although for real shopping you had to go to Perimeter or Lenox/Phipps. Because we were a third tier Macy's at best. Parisian had nice things but kept little inventory--I swear, I always thought they were going out of business.

Then Parisian was sold to Belk. Or rather, Blek. Hate that store. They're trying to be Macy's and stocking it with stuff from Kohl's.

Then, recently....so long Ann Taylor and Eddie Bauer. See you at the Avenues. And Panera closed, supposedly because of rent/management issues. Sheesh.

But lately, things are looking up. Sorta. Maybe.

A new stand alone Coach store opened, although it's always full of teenagers so I sure haven't been inside. Yesterday, J4 had money burning a hole in his pocket, so I took him to the mall and I encountered the NEW Macy's Men's Store. The ENTIRE first floor of the old Macy's store is now the Men's store. I am in trouble when J4 finally grows enough to wear men's clothes. He was stroking the shoes, fixing the arrangement of the tie fans so they looked perfect. DOTR and J3--whatever, they couldn't care less--I practically have to dress them myself unless it's a baseball uniform. J4 is my boy who loves a cute outfit.

So anyway, that means that down at the other end of the mall, in the "used to be Rich's then turned into Macy's" we MIGHT actually get some decent clothes for women. They are remodeling right now, but maybe we can come up in the world and actually get some of that nice stuff they have in the other Macy's stores.

Because right now, it's Sag Harbor and Liz Claiborne.

Or bust.

Two Down, One to Go

I'm a sucker for Nora Roberts trilogies. Sucker, sucker, sucker.

Now I think I have to wait for Christmas for the last one. I really prefer the ones that come out three months in a row. Lately, I can't remember what happened in the first one by the time the second one comes out.

That frightens me more than the scary storyline.

T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K

Teamwork is something our family is sorely lacking. I don't know if it goes back to the days of divide and conquer during J1's long ballet career or the general obsession with J3's baseball teams from age 7 on up. You take the boys, I'll take the girls....every morning we wake up two parents short so now we have to deal with it. Possible, I guess.

However, I'm hoping it's not too late to instill that "we're a family, we need to work together for the greater good" feeling before J1 has totally flown the coop. That's what attracted her to her high school boyfriend's family, and she is actually now best friends with his sister even though they broke up shortly after they went to college. They are sorority sisters and she's going to be in her wedding in a few weeks. She compared their family to ours and ours came up on the short end of the stick (of course, she didn't take into account that she was never home for dinner for about 12 of the 17 years she lived at home, and when she was home, she was in her room...so what were we supposed to do?) Life at our house basically went on without her.

Then there was baseball--the dead horse I'm tired of beating. DOTR coached J3's travel team, ran the area travel league, was state AAU coordinator for J3's age group every year from age 8 until last year, league coordinator, ran the huge all stars tournament, president of the park, built two new fields....and on and on and on. Today he is running the wood bat tournament....so we won't see him until late Saturday night or Sunday if the get in the finals. Because he's also coaching the summer team. Love it.

So, back to teamwork. Yesterday I made the boys help me work on the shrubs in front of the house. I was trimming, they were pulling weeds and carrying away the trimmings. I was exhausted after an hour. Not from the yardwork, but from the constant fighting with them just to get them to do the littlest thing. J3 just kept saying "why don't you hire somebody to do this?" Well, because we have six able bodied adults here who should be able to pull together and get it done. Same with the house, the pool, the laundry, etc. I really don't think I need to spend $6,000 a year to get somebody to clean the house just because everybody else is messy. I'd rather do something else with that $6,000. Like pay for college. Or go on a trip.

So we've managed to go for two days with the getting up and getting moving at a decent hour, eating at home or packing our lunches, and turning off the tv and going to bed before midnight. Not a bad start to family boot camp.

We'll keep working on teamwork. Because the house is getting grimy and the weekend is coming.

I see a toilet brush in someone's future.

Day by Day

I think we're making progress here. Yesterday, after masquerading as the world's biggest bitch (oh wait, maybe I wasn't pretending) I think they boys might see things are not going to run they way they want all summer long. They were in their own beds by 11:30--they were watching hockey that kept going into overtime....tough crap. GO to bed. (they like to sack out on the big comfy sofas in the basement). J3 used 15 different glasses and spent 75% of the day in the kitchen getting something to eat or drink. Stop now. Seriously. We'll work on that again today.

On the other hand, the girls both got up bright and early again this morning and packed their lunches for work. The first day I told J1 she needed to pack her lunch so she could save her money and she's been on the bandwagon everyday. J2 works with all her HS friends and last year they had the very bad habit of going out to lunch everyday after work at about 2:00. Then at dinnertime....not hungry yet. Today she is babysitting for our youth director's daughter after work, so she packed a lunch to take along. Good job. Especially since there are at least 15 restaurants between the church and his house. (As an aside, I guess I did not know that our church is the only one in the N. Ga Conference that has babysitting for our staff. Pretty cool. We have a fully staffed nursery because we have something going on every single day, so the employees can take advantage of it for daycare.)

So today we have to decide what to do about summer school. J4 missed passing the math CRCT by one question, along with about 50% of the state's 8th graders. No pass, no go to high school. He has an "undefined reading disability" and has never passed the reading portion, but this year he actually fell into the "exceeds standards" range. He has always met or exceeded standards in math, so we were definitely not expecting this. He's in good company from what I hear. So, because he was so close, he has the option of just doing an online course with worksheets, etc. There's a meeting to find out more about it today. This all came down while we were gone, so I had the girls sign him up for summer school. He's worried about the online thing, because if he doesn't understand it, there's no help. He's been assigned to a summer school class that starts tomorrow and his teacher called this morning. She's a friend, her daughter was in J2's class and she also goes to Tech (but also not a helluva an engineer--she's there on a swimming scholarship). So although he can take the "easy out" I'm almost inclined just to have him go to summer school every morning to make sure he gets what he needs. I'm worthless in math, and my stellar Tech girls both got D's in their math classes. Not a clue how much help they'd be if he didn't understand something.

Oh, and I asked J4 what happened with reading. Seriously, last year he asked me if he would ever be able to read like a normal person. It about broke my heart. So when I asked him what he thought the difference was this year and why he did so much better he said, "I don't know, Mom, it was like all of the sudden I could read."

Day by day.

Finally, Summer Vacation

Although the boys have officially been out of school for a week, today seems like the "official" first day of summer vacation (and I use that term loosely). The girls were both off to work bright and early. Last week J1 worked at home most of the week because her boss was out of town and J2 only had abbreviated camp. The boys, well....you know. J3 got in trouble on Tuesday already, and J4 was being his normal pester pester pester self because his best bud Z was at Big Canoe all week. His latest pester project--he wants an electric guitar. Shoot. me. now.

This morning was the first wrestling workout and J4 had a meltdown and said he wasn't going. No amount of threatening changed his mind, so I took J3 with the promise that I would come home and kick J4's butt when I had more time. My mistake, I waited too long to get them up. New rule: everybody up and dressed by 8:00 am. No exceptions (meaning me and the slothful boys--the girls and DOTR are long gone by this time). It takes J4 a loooooong time to wake up (like his mother), so he was throwing a fit and crying like a baby. Yeah, can't say I don't feel that way every morning myself.

Last night I tried on every dress in my closet in search of something to wear to DOTR's class reunion. Not pretty. Even painful underwear couldn't make some of these dresses look good, considering my jellied, lily white arms are showing. But the thought of shopping for yet another dress is just too depressing for words. I might have to fall back on my Go Big Red dress from the Yell Squad reunion five years ago. The cut is very forgiving to a few extra pounds around the middle, although there is the issue of the bare arms. Unless a perfectly appropriate dress falls in my lap between in the next two weeks, I may have to just suck it up and hold my arms to my sides the whole night.

Ahhhh, summertime. It's finally here.