girls like guys with skills

it's quite interesting how society plops you in school for roughly 18 years, and then you walk across the stage, get your diploma cover, and it's just all over.

18 years of sitting in classes, listening to teachers, homework, stress.

18 years and then nothing.

from high school on my life has been so structured. between school, homework, and work, i had my schedule set. i always had something to do - something hanging over my head. not that that's a good feeling. i'm actually so thankful i don't have that kind of stress anymore.

but suddenly i have so much free time. maybe i shouldn't say but because that connotes something negative, and i do not see this as a negative thing. because i'm using this down time to work on my skills. HA! but for real.

i can't say i have many skills. it takes a long time for me to be good at anything, and that's why i'm a bit of an academic (18 years!). plus between school, work, and a social life i haven't had the time to really work on improving any of my interests. but now i have all the time in the world. not really, but i h

ave every day after 5.

i've been enjoying these evenings immensely. i've been able to hang out with friends many of these evenings. i've been able to write snail mail to many of my college buddies. heck, i got to watch the winter olympics!

but on those nights that i haven't been otherwise busy...i've been sewing!

and finally, after far too long, i finished my first ever dress. i know, i know...it's not worthy of project runway, but i'm not competitive enough to be on a show like that :) for now this dress is good.

so for the first time ever made known to the public, here's my dress!

now on to the next project...

gnocchi, uncrustables, half a quiche, spinich artichoke dip.

tessa's and my meal from the other night.

hats

i recently realized that i have an awfully large assortment of hats.

about a month ago, several local high school students came to evan's candy to make chocolate for a fundraiser with all proceeds going towards haiti.

that same day the local news station and local newspaper visited my place of employment to do a story on the kindness of these high school students. but of course i needed a piece of this action.

the evening before, i realized that i should wear a hat to work since, after all, that's a very sanitary practice. my dad's collection of baseball hats sits on the top shelf of my closet (hence why i am claiming all of them), and i began looking through all of them to try to find the best one.

as soon as my eyes saw it i knew it was the one. i couldn't believe my luck in finding it.

it's a beige color, and it's huge. there's a fish right across the middle of it. all it says is:

IDAHO The Great Getaway

how ever in the world could i resist?

so after waking up at 5am and then 6am to watch my boss on the news (he did so well!), i hurried off to work and excitedly showed my hat to everyone that i work with. they were just as impressed as i was.

and then the students came. and we had fun being silly and helping them out.

and then the cameras rolled on in. how was i supposed to contain my excitement? i followed the cameraman and news anchor around, attempting to get everyone in the susquehanna valley to see my face on the local news at 5:30.

i got on tv.

could they see my face?

no.

they could see the huge hat though!

as my kind parents sat down to watch the news with me, i saw my hoodie, and the hat, and even a bit red hair! but no face.

i was still satisfied.

because i also managed to jump into a picture that was printed in the local newspaper, and i'm even mentioned as a "professional candy maker."

no lie, read about it here: http://engleonline.com/AdDesk/Htmlfiles/Readers/article.epc?id=29255

i now like to rub that in my boss's face - i'm the professional.

and it does get better than that, because i found out how many hilarious hats i have (and some are actually mine)!

i have an asian hat (like this one) that i bought in chinatown a couple years ago. unfortunately, there's no strap and it kept falling off my head. it didn't last too long.

i have a brown trucker hat that says BILL MELONE (my dad's, grandpa's, and brother's name). it's chocolate brown and disgustingly old and large. it may be my favorite.

and i have an anne of green gables hat. this one is so huge that throughout the day i couldn't help but run into everything. and every time i walked by the radio we would lose signal.

but now i've run out of hats. the hilarity at evan's does continue to ensue, just without the help of my head covers.

i do have an eventful life!

over the years i've come to label myself as a bit of an old woman. the activities in which i choose to partake are sometimes - well - just plain old boring.

but that doesn't mean i don't lead an interesting life.

i'll use this weekend as an example.

my friend tessa came over friday night to sleep over, and we decided to go to stauffer's, a local grocery store whose motto is "we deli

ght shoppers." unfortunately, last time tessa and i went into stauffer's we were severely NOT delighted. usually stauffer's is known for its free samples, but all tessa and i could find was stinky cheese and coffee. see? undelightable.

so we went friday evening with great hopes, praying that stauffer's would redeem itself. and it did! we got some great salsa, chips, orange slices, bread, coffee and tea, and honey mustard dip. the free sample guy didn't seem to appreciate us, and ending up waiting for us to finish the honey mustard. but we walked away reimbursing stauffer's for our free sampling and got gnocchi, uncrustables, and half a quiche. wei

rd combination, i know, but tessa's been talking about uncrustables for weeks, and then she suddenly wanted gnocchi, and then i suddenly wanted quiche. stauffer's did however fail us in one area (of course - way to continue to not delight us, stauffer's!): they had no spinach and artichoke dip. i love this stuff. so we went to giant and got some, and then went home.

we had a fun evening with our random assortment of food; we watched "she's the man" (a hilarious take by amanda bynes on shakespeare's 12th Night and one of my favorite movies), and i taught tessa how to play backgammon - another example of my old lady-ness.

we got up at some point saturday morning, and then tessa asked me to cut her hair. i've always wanted to cut hair, but having never done it before, we figured we should watch some youtube videos so we could become masters of the trade. there are not, however, many good videos explaining how to do it. one lady showed us how to cut your hair and make it into a make-up brush.

then we saw the photo booth option on my parent's computer and went crazy with it.

yes we did.

at some point during this time, my sister larissa and her boyfriend mike came by with her new puppy, jackson. of course tessa and i were still in our pajamas. larissa and mike got ready for a wedding, tessa left, and i was stuck with jackson the puppy and maggie, our dog who hates puppies.

as soon as larissa walked out the door, jackson peed on the landing. so i cleaned up the mess he had thankfully made on the linoleum landing. then i used the bathroom, came out, and saw that jackson had left what i like to call a "tinkle trail:" he had walked all around the house peeing as he did so. i cleaned it up with our bottle of carpet cleaner that doesn't spray right (i ended up just pouring it onto a paper towel), all the while cursing him in my head. and then got my tea. i sat down with relief only to have my nose start bleeding. since i have a cold i've been blowing my nose more lately, and therefore it's been bleeding a lot. so i got some tissues and sat down again only to see jackson tinkle trailing again!

that was it.

i stuffed a tissue up my nose and threw him (and maggie) outside. my nose began gushing so i couldn't tie up jackson and had to get more tissues. eventually i looked out and saw the dogs fighting in the neighbor's yard and wouldn't come back. since jackson doesn't know where he is and has never been off the leash before, i was afraid he would run away. so i ran out to get him.

let me set up this scene for you.

my neighbors were outside.

i was in my pajamas.

i had bed head.

i didn't have any shoes on - only socks.

our yard is half soggy, half snow.

my nose was bleeding - more like gushing - and i had a tissue shoved up it.

so i ran out to get him which took a couple tries and some more silent cursing. finally i carried him back, put him down on the deck so i could take off my muddy, soaking socks. at that point, maggie ran by and jackson just couldn't resist a good chase. so again i ran after him - the difference being that i was barefoot. i caught him, ran inside, threw him in the crate, and started screaming at the poor, clueless dogs.

sigh.

i cleaned up the second tinkle trail with the awful carpet cleaner, got a much needed shower (much to the chagrin of jackson who was barking the whole time). i came out and maggie was waiting beside the bathroom door - poor thing didn't know what to do with a barking puppy. she has no motherly instincts. i washed some dishes and cleaned up the house, and then i let jackson out. i was standing there, petting him. and don't you know. he peed.

and so that was my weekend. eventually i just sat down to watch blood diamond and sew my dress. and then my parents came home and they got to deal with messy carpet and awful carpet cleaner.

i asked larissa and mike to never have me dog-sit jackson again.