atypical Wednesday night

In a radical departure from my usual Wednesday night activities, I went to a concert last night.



A concert in a loud, smoky bar, no less. I saw one of the great 80s one hit wonder bands, Modern English. But oh, what a hit it was!



I mean, it just can't be disputed that I Melt With You is one of the top ten iconic 80s songs. Probably top 5, if we're really being honest here.

This adventure came about when a friend of mine, who runs the best 80s site ever, was looking for someone to go to the concert with her. Her husband was not into New Wave so much in the 80s (she tells a story about how after falling in love with him, marrying him and having his baby, she found a Richard Marx cassette of his in the garage -- I mean, you think you know a person) so he had no interest in going. But she didn't have to ask me twice! (As an aside, I wish I had an equally interesting for-work outing I could take her on to return the favor. Maybe a raging 341 meeting will pop up in the near future?).

When I told the kids I was going to a concert, they were surprised and curious.

Cathy: Guess what guys! I'm going to a concert tonight!
Jacob: A concert? What concert?
Cathy: Modern English.
Jacob: Are they famous?
Cathy: Well, they're kind of famous. They were really famous in the 80s.
Jacob: The 80s?!?! And they're still ALIVE?
Cathy: The 1980s! Not the 1880s.
Caroline: Mommy, are you going to be IN the concert?
Cathy: I sure hope not.

My friend interviewed Robbie Grey, the lead singer, before the concert. He was totally cool and down to earth (which was obvious during the concert as well). She asked him how it feels to be mostly known for one song, to which he responded: "It's (bleeping) great! It's paid my bills for 30 years." Love that refreshing honesty and the total absence of Serious Artist ego there.



This was the original band performing. The hair is generally less fabulous now but other than that they are at the top of their game. Most of them are pretty clean cut 50 year old guys -- you'd have no idea that they are actually British post-punk New Wave rockers! Look at this guy; he could be an actuary:



The one exception is Gary McDowell, the guitarist:



Yup, Gary has embraced the rock 'n roll life.

This was hands down the BEST time I've ever had a concert. The band was awesome and the show was just plain fun. They gave the people what they wanted and played I Melt With You three times, and then hung out afterwards signing autographs and taking pictures. If I wasn't a Modern English fan before, I am now!

MomFail 2 (ballet edition)

You may recall that a few weeks ago I sent Elizabeth to ballet in a pink leotard when at her new, hardcore ballet studio, the 6 year olds wear blue. Well, I'd just barely gotten over that humiliation when this happened earlier today:



You'll notice that Caroline is wearing a right-footed ballet shoe on her right foot (the one with the shamrock - they may be hardcore, but they're not afraid to use stickers). And if you'll look closely, you'll see that she is also wearing a right-footed ballet shoe on her left foot. The one on the right is a size smaller than the one on the left (she pretty much wears Elizabeth's hand-me-downs, and Elizabeth has ballet shoes in just about every size). Somehow in the frenzy of gathering supplies for class I grabbed two right shoes. We didn't have time to run back home after I realized my mistake, so I just sent her into class and prayed that the teacher would not notice. I figure that two right-footed pink ballet shoes are more subtle/less egregious than a pink leotard on a 6 year old, right? Right?

My kids are unlikely to have a future in ballet, but if they do, it will be in spite of me, not because of me.

overheard from the back seat

E: Stooooooopppppppp iiiittttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
J: Elizabeth, you can read with a foot in your face. Anybody can!!

So grateful for my minivan and the distance between the driver's seat and the way back.

It's a family affair

I really didn't want to have to drag David into my little table situation. We're not DIY people, but that's not for lack of interest on my part. In my dreams I'm laying flagstone patios and retiling the bathroom on the weekends. I'm the person who will fantasize about putting in a patio so I could sit out on it and drink my morning coffee, but in reality I'd never sit still long enough to actually relax on said imaginary patio, because mentally I'd be on to the next project. It's a moot point; these projects rarely happen because we have kids (i.e., no time), but it really didn't happen much before we had kids either because, frankly, in David's dreams he's relaxing and watching some football on the weekends. Which is definitely the more normal of the two dreams (and one that does not come true for David any more than tuckpointing the stairs on the front porch comes true for me). David works hard and then spends his free time coaching multiple soccer teams and running Jacob's Cub Scouts den, so I really try not to force my weirdo manual labor dreams on him.




Still, while I'd been working on this project mainly during the week, once I broke out the sander on Saturday, David wanted to help me. What a guy!

And then Jacob also wanted to help. Here he is using the Dremel rotary tool:



Once they saw Jacob doing this, the girls wanted a turn, so we instituted a "no power tools before age 9" rule on the fly.

I'm still sanding (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Wow, and to think I went into this table project thinking this was a pretty basic pedestal table with clean, simple lines. Once I got deeper into sanding this thing, I found ridges, nooks and crannies that I never knew existed. And I've been dealing with sanding them, slowly but surely. Serious, how does Rococo furniture ever get refinished?!



Not by this girl, that's for sure.

After doing what I could with our little hand held belt sander, I finally broke out the Dremel rotary tool (as seen on TV) to help me get into the little nooks. Anything to avoid hand sanding. Much as I dread the prospect of hand sanding, I'm mechanically challenged /impatient when it comes to reading manuals/assembling things (generator victory notwithstanding) so my two-year old-esque attention span would not permit me to focus long enough to I couldn't really figure out how to attach the circular sanding disc that was probably best suited to my specific sanding needs, but I was able to get a drum sanding attachment on, as that was somehow more intuitive (i.e., did not require me to study the manual). I then proceeded to chew up the wood on the ridges in the table legs with the drum sander until I was able to steady my hand a bit. I'd stay steady for a while, chew up some more wood, steady up again, chew again, and so on. The stain is coming off, however, so I'm calling it a victory. I really hope that by the weekend I'll be in a position to start applying wood conditioner (don't be jealous now) and begin staining.

ziplining away

We ended a fun weekend with a picnic at the park with David's brother and sister-in-law, my nieces, and David's grandmother. The kids are almost all at ages where they can just run off and play while the grownups look on and visit -- it is sooooo nice! Here's Jacob ziplining:



Elizabeth needed a little boost to grab onto the handle, but after that she was able to ride the cable herself:



Caroline was all over the place -- monkey bars, tire swing, seesaw, turtle, moving steps. I got tired just watching her. She stopped for a millsecond to have a bite of the last watermelon of the summer:



We say this every time we have one of these playground picnics, but we really need to do this more often!

country photo session

Last weekend the kids and I visited our favorite photographer at her lake house in the country. We told the kids that if they let Heather take a few pictures of them, they could go swimming. Heather took us on a fun mule ride to the property across the street from her house -- with its majestic rolling hills, wildflower fields, ponds, horses. And being the amazing photographer that she is, got the most incredible pictures of the kids in pretty short order. You can click on the link here to see the blog post she did of the session. After the pictures they played with Heather's kids in the lake and ate hot dogs. As Phineas would say, "best day ever!"