The Dress, the Shoes, the Test, the Drama...

We had a very interesting weekend a week or so ago. Alexa was approached along with about 300 other girls by a Barbizon rep. This led to her going to 'modeling' classes one weekend a month for 6 months with the culmination a competition in Boston in front of about 20 representatives from various modeling and talent agencies. One of the requirements for this event was that Alexa needed a dress/outfit in either white, khaki or teal...really, seriously?? We scoured the mall(s) for a dress and finally found one - on a poster, yeah, I know, not real wearable. We ended up ordering the dress in the only size available - a size one up from what Alexa wears (it doesn't help that she wears a size 0 or XXS). The dress had to be altered in 48 hours time and it wasn't ready until the morning we had to leave.

Next came shoes. Would the black or nude heels she already had do, noooooo. New shoes were required. Where were the cute white platform sandals? Where were cute white summer shoes? NO WHERE!! We finally found a pair of open toed white pumps...

And we're off - for a 7 hour drive from Buffalo to Boston (Framingham to be exact). On the way there we noticed Alexa is very quiet, not her norm. After her two hour nap, we look back and she's reading her history text book. We had planned to stay until Monday because the event wouldn't be over until about 5 in the evening and a seven hour drive home seemed a bit much. We also wanted to take Lex into Boston and show her around and check out the first home Norm and I had after we married. Every time we mentioned going into the city we were met with, "I have to study!" which meant she had to read the entire textbook and take notes!

We got to the hotel around 8:30 p.m. had a bite to eat and retired to our room so Alex could study. She was up early the next morning. Norm had breakfast and drop-off duty and rather than sit around all day we decided to drive to Marblehead. We drove up, had a clam roll on the water, drove back...to the DRAMA!

When we suggested we drive into the city Alexa had a meltdown. She had only read 5 chapters! she had to study!  She didn't want to eat, she felt guilty we weren't going into the city. Her friend, who was also in the competition wasn't concerned at all about studying, did we want her to fail?!? We calmed her down, decided to leave her alone, told her to order from room service if she got hungry. We beat a hasty retreat to the Natick Mall and wandered around for two hours. I texted her and asked if she had eaten, "no" did she want to go out with us for something to eat,"yes"...

We picked her up, and ended up at Friday's for dinner with a textbook appetizer and no desert :(

Back to room where Norm and I were not willing to give up the Celtic-Heat final, or the Yankee game so Alexa could have SILENCE! I took the comforter off the bed along with a few pillows and set Alexa up in the bathroom tub!

The next morning she had to be down in the ballroom area at 6:45! I got wake up duty and helped her get all her stuff together for the runway and commercial competition. We had to pack up our room and check out before 10:00 which was when we were allowed into the ballroom for the competition.

Here is her runway walk.



She had two call backs, we left Boston at 5:30. Alexa studied all the way home, with a book light when it got dark and we got home at 12:30 Monday morning. Alexa was up early, studying and was at school at 11:00 a.m. for her exam. One of the agencies that gave her a call back wants to see her this week so we'll see how it goes.

Oh, and she got a 97 on her history test :) Do we love this girl, you betcha!



My New Anthem...

I've had a few anthems or words to live by in my time. My original was "Life's a Bitch and Then You Die". Then there was the ever popular "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong". I mellowed out a bit with "It's Always Something" (thank you Gilda Radner), but I've got a new favorite which is even more zen-like.

"What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger"



Kelly Clarkson was kind enough to perform a song in honor of it! Kelly is talking about romance and those self-centered scummy guys out there, my events are little more elaborate than a two-timing boyfriend. I won't go into details but to give you an example right before we moved to Buffalo, in a six-month period my Dad died, my dog died and my mother-in-law moved in...sounds like a bad country song, I know.

I'm what you'd call an optimistic pessimist. The glass may be half full, but watch out what's in it - you never know,...I like to think the best will happen, but I expect the worst. Times are much better now and I usually find myself shaking my head and muttering this phrase under my breath when dealing with Alexa (or the mother-in-law) but I love this song and find myself bopping in the car when it comes on the radio. 

So if you see me driving around Amherst bobbing up and down and doing the Cabbage Patch at stop signs and traffic lights, you know what's on the radio.

Anybody Home?...

What year is it? Oh, yeah, we're still in 2012, but it's been a while. I was reminded of that fact today by a customer who came into the store and told me how she missed my blog entries. I hung my head and mumbled some nonsense and offered up the most feeble excuse. Truth be told, my brain is turning into mush. I should already know this because my daughter manages to remind me of the fact whenever she can.

I've commiserated with several other mothers of teen aged daughters and it turns out I'm not alone in my early onset senility. When Alexa turned 12-13 I discovered I knew nothing, absolutely nothing. I had no life experience I was born 50 something years old and had no knowledge of what came before my daughter's 12th birthday and no life experience, period.

Fast forward to 2012. I'm slipping in my daughter's advancing age. Today I not only know nothing (is that a double negative?) but I'm now losing whatever minimal grasp of intelligence I had previously been given credit for. Now I'm just plain stupid. I can no longer grasp the most simple concepts like why one mascara is SOOO much better than another or why a $160 dollar PINK tennis racket is a Venus Williams quality compared to the $120 yellow racket (the equivalent to a Regis Philbin throw-away).

I've discovered I don't know how to read ANYTHING having to due with with my daughter and my memory retention of where she purchased every item of clothing (including date, time of day and mall location) is sadly lacking.

But even worse than all of my brain drain is my unconscionable habit of daring to ask her, every day, "How was school today? Anything new going on?" OMG! you would think I asked Obama for the secret codes to NORAD (or Joan Rivers how many plastic surgeries she's had). I know, WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Which brings me back to my lack of posting. I get tons of ideas, the first sentence of posting possibility will form and then - poof! I try to form the second sentence and like a puff of smoke the entire idea, inspiration is gone. It's like a train that goes into a tunnel and isn't seen again until 'Ghost Busters' does it's ghost train episode. My little witticisms trail away to nothingness. These brief bursts of inspiration turn to dust and I'm left wordless. Therefore, no posting...

Do you think Alexa may be on to something?

Long Time No See...

I'm back! I hadn't been feeling the inspiration to post and didn't have any earth shattering news to catch you all up on so - no posts. However, I have been hitting the keys for BSS a lot doing the newsletter, class descriptions for the website and the BSS blog. The scary part is that I thought I was pretty tech savy but this newer technology is passing me by in leaps and bounds. This doesn't even count my lousy typing skills! If there is typo, link error, date goof - I'll make it. Worst of all I seem to have a natural talent for it! I don't even have to try had to screw up. It just comes naturally...

I do have some photos to share of a visit Norm and I made to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens a few weeks ago for the local Orchid show. I love orchids. I have the darndest time keeping them alive, but I love'm. See what you think...

These first two are cattlyeas. You see these orchids in corsages alot. I love the color of the second one. It's the new background on my phone.

These three are phalenopsis. They are also popular in bridal bouquets and arrangements. Our local Wegman's sells them and I have a small collection I'm in the process of probably killing right now. However black my thumb is, these are still a good choice for the home grower. I had never seen a blue one before so we were really intrigued with the one above. My husband is even getting into orchids. Hopefully his thumb is greener than mine!

This last one is a phaphopedlium or 'lady slipper' orchid. I really like these too. They can be grown indoors also but need a little more temperature control.

I've got my semi-annual scrapbook retreat coming up the end of the month and I'm looking forward to seeing all my girly-girls and having a great weekend of food, drink and fun. Until then I'll try and post more now that my computer is back amoung the living and when my brain isn't farting.

I've got a New Obsession...

I don't spend enough time on the computer? Between email, Facebook, the blogs I read on a regular basis, doing the banking, game playing, getting my news on CNN - I had a few minutes to spare.  I knew about Pinterest from friends and was determined not to get sucked in. Well, scratch that!

I think I have about nine boards set up and I can spend way too much time re-pinning. Now I need to figure out how to pin my own photos or images.

If you want to take a look I'll put a link here but let me warn you - you may not be able to stop...

Winner, winner - better than a chicken dinner!...

Yee Haw!! I won Day 4 of Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas! WoooHoooo!!!! Zippedee DoDa!! Cool Beans!!

Can't wait to see what Santa Tims helper, Mario sends! I'm not using periods in this post, way too excited!! Go to www.timholtz.typepad.com to see the first six days of tags! (I'm not loving today's but if I could use ink instead of paint I see potential for serious fun!)

My Homage to Jeff Foxworthy...

Dear Debbie, Kat and Dimitra:

If you gave up smoking because you had to choose between the stamps you wanted and your cigarettes...you might be addicted to stamps

On marketing day you came to the stamp store first because if you went to the supermarket you might not have enought money left for stamps...you might be addicted to stamps

You've asked your LSS owner for the "Christmas Wish List" form and it's not even Labor Day yet...you might be addicted to stamps


If you wait until your husband goes to bed and then creep into the garage in your pj's to bring the bag of stamps you bought that afternoon so he won't see them...you might be addicted to stamps

If your "Vacation to Hawaii" piggy bank is suspiciously empty...you might be addicted to stamps

If you complain that your stamp store doesn't have a ground hog stamp - to celebrate the holiday...you might be addicted to stamps

If you start a petition campaign to your congressman demanding a mandatory, federal, three day weekend devoted to stamping...you might be addicted to stamps

You turn your child's room into a dedicated stamping studio and he/she is only starting 4th grade...you might be addicted to stamps

You have every take out and delivery restaurant within a five mile radius on speed dial and your kids have memorized the numbers...you might be addicted to stamps

If you start making up relatives to make cards for...you might be addicted to stamps

Any other symptoms anyone??

The Boob Tube...

Remember when TV was called the 'boob tube' by those who thought it would be the ruination of all future generations. That's a topic for another day especially considering all the junk that is on today. I want to go back to when getting a TV was a big deal and that first color TV put you on the map and hyped up your prestige on the block with the other kids.

I'm a child of television. I was seriously, seriously addicted to TV. I can remember the TV we had when I was a young child. It had a screen about 24", came in a cabinet with doors that closed and was black and white. Our next TV was a bigger model that had a color picture. I remember them delivering that TV!

I watched TV like going to church. It was a religion to me. To my parent's extreme frustration, I watched Saturday morning cartoons until about 12:30. The cartoons came earlier in the morning and shows like Sky King, Roy Rodgers and Rin Tin Tin came on later. Also on Saturday was Wonderama with Sonny Fox. There was another show that was a combination of games, cartoons and Johnny Carson on Sundays, also with Sonny Fox. He would sit at a desk like Johnny and had a small couch or chair next to him. Both the Sonny Fox shows had a live audience or bleachers of kids that would serve as contestants for the games. They gave away AWESOME!! prizes.

My parents weren't too fond of my TV addiction and my grandmother, much to my mother's dismay sealed my fate by giving me a portable B&W TV for my birthday. I don't know how old I was but it was well before high school and I quickly became adept at turning it on and off with the littlest amount of noise possible and watching it with the volume turned down so low it couldn't be heard downstairs. You see, my room was on the second floor - all by myself... My dad would send me to bed and I would get ready, turn out the lights, close the door as much as I dared and turn on the TV and watch all those 10:00 p.m. shows I couldn't stay up to see. My dad was a firm believer that a child needed 9-10 hours or more of sleep per night. Me, I could easily get by on 8 or less, but dad didn't buy into that.

Weekends were great. I'd go up and clean my room every weekend and watch Million Dollar Movie on WPIX. I discovered Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, Eleanor Powell, Gene Kelly, and all the great 30's and 40's movies that filled up airspace on the local channels in NYC like WOR and WPIX and channel 5 which I can't remember the call signs for. It was like discovering a whole new world!

As I got older and my grades got lower, my TV was banished to the basement. That was fine, I had my rocking chair, a refrigerator and at Christmas time, my mother's cookies to snack on as I watched my evening shows.

I watched sports with my mother on the weekends. Bowling year round with Chris Schenkel and the Professional Bowlers Tour on Saturday afternoons, followed by the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat", Wide World of Sports with Jim McKay.  Golf during the spring and baseball - the Mets during the summer and the Giants during the winter. I also got a smattering of tennis, ice skating, and car racing.

When it came time to go to college - I admit it, I panicked. No TV in my room, what would I do? The dorm had one TV in the basement lounge. I became a permanent fixture. My dorm mother always knew where to find me. On weekends my future husband and I would be the only ones there and we would get take-out grinders (subs), push the couches together and settle in for an evening of TV watching.

It's true what they say about college students scheduling their classes around their favorite soap operas. Our dorm was a designated "Young and the Restless" viewing site. Commuter students, students from other dorms, guys - would show up to watch Snapper, Jill, the Chancellors and others on a daily basis.

I'm a lot better now, I'm not as bad as I used to be. I don't have to have the TV on as background noise like others turn on a radio. I don't watch soaps everyday, sometimes I don't see them for weeks at a time. I do have my favorite shows though and DVR'ing is a must at times. I don't get a physical reaction (all right, maybe a little one) when my favorite shows are cancelled and the last episode is shown, sniff, sniff.

For the most part I still watch far more TV than most. I still have very eclectic tastes. I stopped buying the TV Guide way before they changed the format and ruined it. But I still look forward to the beginning of every new season, just not as avidly as before. I am more melancholy about TV knowing what great shows have gone before and dwindling amount of just as good show that have replaced them. This week I'm especially sad as I have watched the last week of All My Children. But, I think I'll come back to comment on that later in the week. For now it's time to check the listings to see what's on tonight.

Donna 2.0...

Ah, technology. Remember the days before remote controls, cell phones, cable, dish, HD, 3D television and computers? Unfortunately, I do. All of these came during my life time so you'd think I'd have a pretty good learning curve. After all it's not like I was Rip Van Winkle waking up to all these new fangled changes. That's what you'd think, right...well, not so much...

I swear, as much as I like technology and I do like technology, it's doing it's best to pass me by and thumb it's nose at me on the way. I feel like I've reached my technology plateau. It's like my mind is not capable of handling another upgrade, another newer, better version of what I already know and I'm questioning why do I need a tablet when I already haver a desktop, laptop, mini laptop, and a smartphone.

I feel like my operating system is obsolete and is incapable of accepting upgrades! I'm officially stuck at Donna 2.0. What is even more frustrating is my 14 year old can just look at a piece of technology, fiddle with it for a few minutes and have it mastered! That is so unfair! I used to be the go to for fixing the TV/VCR but no more. Now with the DVD player and the Wii plus the Fios hookup, I'm clueless. I want to watch a video but I have no clue how to change the wiring and connections to change from Wii to DVD. I've got an iPhone and I'm still struggling with using it. I want my old Blackberry back!

What will we do when Lex goes to college? We'll be at the mercy of our appliances that will talk to each other, our electronics that will talk to each other, our computers that talk to each other and none of them will talk to us! The only thing that I can hold over all this technology - I still buy the batteries!

Good and Bad...

It's been a while, how are you all doing? Me, just ducky - quack, quack...

Part of the reason it's taken so long for me to post has been a lack of creativity on my part, a little laziness and a just a little busy-ness for me. No major news to impart except that my hubby is back from Asia. My daughter has graduated from middle school, the dog is groomed and my MIL has started her dental implant procedure, scintillating, right - right...

This is where the good and the bad comes in. I like to think of myself as an optimistic pessimist. No, that's not an oxymoron. It's an accurate description of my thought processes and how I approach life. I am always hopeful, positive and optimistic about life. The glass is always half full - (it got that way because it has a slow leak...)

I don't expect bad things to happen, but I'm never surprised when they do. I reserve the right to not be surprised when things go south... get it? Some examples:

GOOD: I finally got my haircut and I still think I like it!

BAD: I look like Justin Beiber - just 50+ year old female version...

GOOD: It's finally summer! Sunshine, vacation, warm weather!

BAD: The sun hates me (and I hate the sun) I'm the type of person who goes out and burns going directly to red, peeling and either freckling or I go right back to white...I can't afford a vacation (and I desperately need one). My daughter has her heart set on going to NYC and I know we will be there during the hotest week in July (Kenzie's rule - whatever can go wrong, will go wrong). This brings me to warm weather - my internal thermostat is permanently in the HOT position and I will be a dripping, sodden mess two minutes after I walk out of the air conditioning...

GOOD: It's been a full year since my hysterectomy surgery and I have suffered NO complications or bad effects - Yippeee!!!

BAD: I gained back all the weight I lost....not.another.word.

GOOD: My daughter graduated from middle school with a very, very, very good average. (Very proud mama and papa here)

BAD: OMG! my daughter starts HIGH SCHOOL this September! ARRGGHH!!! Panic to follow...

I will have to drive her everyday as she chose to go to a different high school than she was assigned to. Can you say 7:45 a.m. start time! I can't get my left eye opened at 7:45 in the morning...

BAD BONUS: College in 4 years! We haven't saved enough money!!!! Is there a lottery drawing tonight?

So, you see - an optimistic pessimist. The perfect combination of both worlds...