When Vision and Reality Collide

October is such a wonderful month, isn't it? Beautiful red, orange and gold leaves glitter in the foggy morning, cinnamon and pumpkin goodness-as well as popcorn balls, caramel apples and apple strudels-assault the senses and favorite Fall-themed movies finally exit the cupboard.

That's the vision.

Our reality now consists of an October birthday party for the one girl of five children. Girl parties can zap the life right out of a previously joyful month.
Boys: "Hey, it's your birthday, let's go bowling."
Boys: "Hey, how about three paintball parties in a row?"
Boys: "Oh look, I bought a cake- Happy Birthday Son."

Girls: "If we start now, that gives us 10 months to plan and coordinate..."

Without the England-style disco-complete-with-lights-and-dj option gone, one can really find themselves at a loss for party ideas. October weather here is just bipolar enough not to plan outdoor parties, and filling our house with a bunch of 6-7 year-olds didn't really appeal to me. But we had to do something.

A Tea party seemed like the trick. How easy would that be? I talked the daughter into it (manipulation is my middle name).

So I went onto Pinterest.
Evil, evil Pinterest.

Did you know that there are some really ambitious party-throwers out there?

One idea in particular really caught my attention:

A Cupcake party.

The kids could make and decorate cupcakes! Yes!I can do that. Talked the daughter into a Cupcake party with a Tea party twist.

One Pinterest find was this: 

Taken from A Little Loveliness found HERE

Aren't these awesomesauce-nessly adorable?! 

I could do this too! In pinks and greens and turquoise! The girls would LOVE them. The parents would bow down to my craftiness. The nagging "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" came to mind, but in my Pinterest-fueled enthusiasm, was quickly brushed aside.

Cue the YouTube videos!
Search: "How to sew an apron when you have no idea how to sew" and come up with Tea Towel Apron demos. Tea Towel Aprons in 30 minutes. I can do that! "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" 

Off to do some fabric shopping...on a Portuguese island, where everyone speaks a different language than I do.
Still, I managed to bring home meters and meters of ribbon and fabric in beautiful colors; some color coordinated thread and some tea towels."Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?"

I envisioned ruffles. Lots of ruffles. 

Cue YouTube videos!
Search: "How to  make ruffles when you don't know how to sew".
Discover this really cool gadget, a gathering foot just for ruffles. Convince the husband that one day, in my future Apron-making stardom, that I may need that.

Out came the sewing machine. I read the manual so that I would know how to turn it on. I Began by cutting super expensive material...

measurements, shmeasurements- they're just ruffles....

More super expensive material was cut, this time in larger strips-and don't worry, the table was already looking bad from previous Air Force moves, so the new rotary cutter slashes will blend right in (note to self: must order a larger cutting pad "Ahem, remember that you don't know how to sew?" )

The husband never even questioned me. Bless him.


Here's the final product. Two weeks later (30-minute aprons my hindquarters).

Feeling empowered by my new-found craftiness, I went back on to Pinterest (evil, evil Pinterest) and found a cute idea for treats to "Boo" some people with.

I saw this:

Found at CrazedPhotoMom HERE

and thought, "That would make adorable cupcakes!"

That's after burning a few batches of cookies.
Martha Stewart's job security is looking better and better. Be glad if you weren't on our Halloween "Booo!" list this year, it wasn't pretty.

I may just stick to sewing. "AHEM!"

A Little Lost in Current TV

I should start a review blog and call it A Day Late. You know, a review blog for people who have been living under (or in our case, on) a rock.

We just finished Seasons 1-6 of Lost.

Yes, I know. 2004-2010, where the heck was I?

About the time I finally heard of it (I'm holding all of you accountable), the rest of the world was several seasons in, so I was completely confused by the one show I watched.


Now I'm cool. Hip. In the know.

All I kept hearing (and bless everyone who did SO well not to give me ANY information that I might use to figure everything out) was how angry everyone was with the ending. 
 I heard about the disappointment, the unanswered questions, the disgust with the finale.

I felt none of that. Completely satisfied.

There's nothing wrong with the fact that my mind continues to churn around certain episodes, spitting out questions, "If this was this and that was that, then how did he...?"
Doesn't bother me one bit.

Usually, if given hints, previews or any foreshadowing whatsoever of a book or movie, I tend to speed ahead and figure it all out, (the DH says it 'must suck' to be me, but I can't imagine not thinking that way) so what I REALLY liked about Lost is that even though I may have had the mini plot (inside the plot) wrapped up beautifully and tied with ribbon, I never had the whole package.

I did get a speaking ban for several episodes because I kept blurting out my discoveries as they came to me, when the foreshadowing apparently hadn't been so obvious to Sexy Guy. 

Personally, I'm thinking that because of this, he'd better choose me for his side if we're ever stranded on a mysterious, time-traveling, good vs evil sort of island, because he is SO going to be cut by the first season without my help.

So here's my review- with no spoilers in case there's still ONE person on the planet that hasn't seen it.

42: The ending was great. It explained all of the unexplainable stuff. I could easily have watched at least 3 more seasons.

23:In case anyone else missed it, no one had a great dad. It was a terrific message for anyone who wanted to argue the impact fathers can have on their children's lives.

16: I still don't like Kate, despite the fact that she's the reason there was 6 seasons (the show could've ended by season 2 if she had JUST STAYED PUT WHERE SHE HAD BEEN TOLD TO STAY-just once).

15: Locke continued to be my favorite even though he took up smoking...

8: What on earth happen to Claire's hair? Did someone go a little bonkers with the peroxide?

4: If Walt was so 'special', why didn't he have more scenes? I think his dog was featured more than he was.

108: What did you think of the show?  (if you can remember back that far) Who was your favourite messed-up character?   And when do you think...

***spoiler alert*** 

...they died for reals?



até logo!

Favorite Foto Friday

I thought it would be fun to post the favorite photo taken in the week... and then I started sorting. I take hundreds in a week, but on this particular week when I chose to do this post, I only had a handful- and most of those were "drive-by's.

And then I remembered... I had grabbed my camera as I heard my children getting closer to the house after their long, hot walk home from school, so I pulled out my memory card and found one.

This week's winner is not because it's the best photo technically, but because it reflects the joy that comes with turning 7. 

One look at her face, and you know she was made to feel special all day at school. I love that.
Little Miss Ky is seven. How did that happen?

What Do Drive-by Shootings and Government Shutdowns Have in Common?

Nothing.


This current government shutdown has probably left a lot of folks trapped in homes all across the nation, timidly drawing back one tiny corner of the drapes as they fearfully await the riots and chaos (that will in no doubt ensue). With no PBS to watch or National Parks beckoning, many will be lost as to how to productively spend their days. **

I will fight the urge to say, "I told you so".

I told everyone not to let their blogs die. 

I cried out against Face-lessbook's "declaration of nothing" status style: "Worst day ever", "My kid did it again!" "Well THAT was disappointing" (which leaves most of us wondering what the heck the poster is even going on about) and Tweeter's fly-in-and-out conversation style: "Wolf at the door", "Some cookie guy just ran by", "doing the congo behind some dude playing a flute #inatrance #wherearewegoinganyway? "

You lot are lucky I stuck around and didn't succumb to the blog-killing, story-teller silencing social networks. Stories and/or photos = Tax-FREE entertainment.

You're welcome.

What's not free is gasoline. Although our island is very small, we somehow manage to go through quite a bit on our little weekend jaunts, and since starting and stopping eats more gas, I take a lot of photos on the run (I am not above sticking my slightly expensive and very heavy camera out the window and shooting blindly).

Today, I present for your government shutdown entertainment, 

free of charge, 

Terceira Island, drive-by style:

The well-trained husband took the roundabout nice and slow for this one. One must say "Moooo!" when passing a vaca.

These ladies were awesome for being so conveniently placed!

Coming up on a Holy Ghost house. Must photograph every one- doesn't matter if the photo isn't any good.

 This Holy Ghost house was on the route of a "pilgrimage".   

"Festa da Nossa Senhora dos Milagres" is held in September.  People walk miles along the coastal road towards the village of Serreta to participate in the festivities centering around ‘Our Lady of the Miracles’.

We were lucky that one of our friendly commisario workers had told us it would be on, so we didn't have to wonder why there was a mass exodus occurring (especially since everyone was walking back toward the way we had just come).
There's a little too much "zombie viewing" in our house, so it doesn't take too much to get our minds rolling in an unnatural direction.

Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh

Speaking of zombies, am I the only one who is always calculating the best place to hide when the zombie apocalypse happens?

cobbled street of Angra

 Truth is, the theory of any safe place went to pot with World War Z.   

As many times as I pass this church, I will never again get a drive-by where the sun is perfectly placed

I love cobblestone. My tires and suspension don't care for it much, but I like it.
A few years back when Portugal made the horrible decision to join the EU and change it's currency to euros, a lot of money was dumped into the island for "improvements". Some of those improvements were to pave a lot of these beautiful, hand-laid roads.

Why am I never consulted about these kinds of changes?

Cobbled roads of a village

More churches and ugly paved roads

Traffic jam (now you say it, "Mooooo")

Yes, the camera is out the window, facing behind us. I don't care. It's Terceira's tallest church

Another camera-out- the-window-behind-us shot of Sao Mateus

 This shut down could take a while, but that's okay. I've got hundreds more where these came from...



wait, where are you going?



I was just getting ready to tell you about the bullfights!




Até outro dia.

**before anyone whips out their poison pen to berate me for being flippant about something that is SERIOUSLY affecting a lot of good people, please keep in mind that we are military. Also know that even though the POTS so proudly stated that we will get our paychecks this month, there are other ways we feel the cuts, the shutdowns, the whole craptasticness of it all- and have been for a very long time. October 1st didn't mark anything new.