Rejected

I am rather bummed. I got rejected by one of my better shows. I didn't do real well last year, but heck I have been doing that show for almost 10 years. It is always hard when you have no clue as to what was wrong with your slides or your application. It comes with the territory. Better artists than I have been rejected by shows, but I usually fill a nice little niche without a great deal of competition. Boo Hoo.

The rest of my week has been filled with prom stuff. Four years ago Maddie bought a dress at Goodwill (of course) for 10 dollars. it is a floor length sheath covered with a gray green chifon shot with purple so that when it hits the light a certain way it shimmers purple or gray green. The bodice is sprinkled with rhinestones (sort of irridescent type) It was strapless and had these two really long chifon wings that came off the back of it just under the bustline. They trailed out about 3 feet and although the dress is quite pretty and exotic looking we never have been able to figure out how to properly get the dang wings to work.

I tried tieing it up in the back and that looked idiotic. When they drag they are too long to dance in. It pretty much seemed like a standing around look pretty kind of dress. I talked to one of my coworkers who do alterations about taking a look at it finally since Maddie really wanted to wear it to Prom. She said she thought she might be able to do something with it. This was a few weeks ago. That night I came home and Maddie came down the stairs wearing the dress. She had taken ponytail ties and tied up the wings, slipping the ties over her wrists. It looked fabulous... she looked like a fairy. Well that solved that problem. Of course I was not going to send my daughter to prom with hair ties around her wrists.

I decided that beaded wristlets would work. She also was concerned about the strapless part of the dress. It had two sets of spaghetti straps that tied in the back to close it. I had a brilliant brainstorm and took the top two, crossed them at the back and put hooks and eyes on them to hold the bodice up. Now she won't be hitching up her dress every five minutes like most girls at dances.

We found some pretty glass beads, but they really didn't match. It is a tough green to match. Looked around another day and found better ones. She strung up the beads on elastic and I sewed them to the dress. I had found a length of heavy satin at Goodwill that was an almost perfect match to the underdress (very fortuitous) That only cost me a dollar and was long enough to make into a shawl. I got some crystal irridescent beads to use as fringe and it turned out quite pretty. The dang beads for the shawl cost more than the dress LOL.

Our big outing was shoe shopping. My daughter is not used to buying fancy shoes. Only her tennis shoes have been purchased brand new so she was griping about the horribly high cost of footwear at the mall. I think is our 6th trip to the mall in the 7 years we have lived here. It is not my favorite place to shop. We ended up finding a cute little pair of strappy sandals with irridescent jewels on sale for 40 dollars.

Maddie made a necklace and matching earrings using the leftover beads

So so far the prom has cost us a little over 60 dollars. Now all I need to worry about is the hair

Otherwise I have been working hard on my powerpoints and have been considering purchasing a new computer so that I can to work at home. I think I could deduct it from my taxes too if I keep working for this lady and hopefully get a webpage going for my rug business

Puck and Maddie spent yesterday getting the garden ready for planting. Mad cleaned out all the dead raspberry canes and found a little more asparagus to pick. It was delicious. Our cherry tree is not blooming very well, but hopefully we will have enough for a pie.... I should make a rhubarb pie soon.

We heard from our good friend Jodi who lives in Renton Washington. She used to live with us when we lived in River Falls, but we have not seen her for over 10 years. She is coming out for a visit in June. I am so excited. It will be like having a long lost sister come home. I love that girl. We will be making cheesecake that is for sure :)

and that is my life