Mr. Fix-It

This is my husband.

This is my dryer.

They have a close, personal relationship. You see, we have fixed our $37.50 appliance five or six times since we bought it five years ago. This last time was a real mystery that lasted 2 weeks. No, I'm not complaining about two weeks without a dryer. I did complain actually, until I found out that my neighbor has been without a dryer for like a year because theirs is gas and they only take electric dryers here in the fine apartments that are The Reflections at Cherry Creek. But I digress. Not really actually...part of my complaint (before I was not complaining) was how the management responded to my drying dilemma. You see, I had put off doing laundry long enough that I had quite a stock pile of loaded laundry baskets. It was a Tuesday, I decided to start with our bedding. When I discovered our dryer problem (running but not heating) I had wet sheets and a wet mattress pad. Those mattress pads take forever to dry in the dryer. It was a hot day, so I ran a string from my upstairs neighbor's porch to the fence. Granted, this was a very obtrusive way to dry sheets. But I hung the pillow cases over the actual walkway, so people just had to duck a little. (This explanation is taking a long time, hope you're in it for the long haul...)

The manager, Kim, was out walking the grounds with the guy who is really in charge. They were discussing this I hope:


See how much they care about us? This non-grass area that should be a lush carpet of water sucking Kentucky Blue Grass translates into a lot of dirty clothes in the last year. Sometimes multiple changes of dirty clothes in one day. Digression again. So, apparently they were discussing the situation. I'm assuming Kim was mortified by my use of string because she walked on over to me (I was out with the kids and our neighbor and her kids) and informed me that we're not allowed to hang laundry here. Not worried about the "grass" though. Or at least she hasn't been for the last year. Anyway...back to the dryer:

My amazing husband finally figured out what was wrong. He fixed it. Then he fixed it again because the first fix wasn't quite good enough for my snooty dryer. So, the moral of the story (do you like how I'm wrapping it up so quickly) is that we have lots of clean, dry clothes here. And I owe it all to my fantastic Mr. Fix-It.

Did I mention that he fixed Zach's dresser too?

Basket Liner

Maybe this isn't really worthy of this blog, but I'm really happy about the basket liner I made this morning. I know it's a simple project, but sometimes simple and fast is good. Right?

The material is actually black, it's hard to tell in the picture though. The liner is a little big because it will shrink a tad when I wash it. I didn't pre-shrink. What can I say, I'm a risk-taker! No, actually I didn't pre-shrink because the dryer is out of commission at this time, so no shrinking would actually happen if I washed it and hung it out to dry. ANYway, that's another story.

See how much nicer this black is than the cream fabric the basket came with. The cream was nice in theory, say if you don't have kids or if you aren't using it by the door for the shoes. So I went with black.

This thing has actually been washed recently. It just doesn't get much cleaner than this. The blob on the left is tomato soup. Nice touch huhh? Just don't think about what it did to the shoe it hit first!

Prom Dress

I had a last minute prom dress client last week. It was exciting because it's my first non-friend or family job! Anyway, I asked the girl to send me a picture of her wearing the dress, but haven't gotten anything yet, so this will have to do for now. It looks much better on...so hopefully she will send me a pic.

Marvelous Day

If you don't know who this guy is, you should:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHMPdrCvCkE&feature=related

We love Steve. We have his CD's and they make me happy. I love the one about the elephant, and Marvelous Day, and the one about the ducks. And, well, most of them.

That's all.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a typical Mother's Day here including a green snot nose for Becky and a zombie husband. I got to sleep all the way until 6:30. It was thrilling! Ryan was so exhausted from staying up all night working on a paper that he didn't wake up until I was in the shower. But I got pancakes. They were good. Zach made me some Mother's Day cards, and gave me some chocolate. Becky also gave me chocolate. Ryan gave me a nice miniature rose plant (when he gave it to me he said he had gotten me a dozen roses-there really are 12) and more chocolate. The chocolate is almost gone. I was really stressed out after Sacrament meeting because we didn't get our customary box of chocolates. But the young men saved the day when they brought us plates of cookies and chocolate dipped strawberries in Relief Society. I would have preferred the box of chocolate. But I'll live. As you can see, chocolate is pivotal in the enjoyment of Mother's Day!

"It's Just Not Your Color" or "What the heck are you doing?!?!"

See how it just really doesn't match her skin tone? She needs more pink in her foundation.

I tried to tell her, but she was really concentrating. She was sure that my foundation would work just fine for her rosy skin.

Thank goodness Mary Kay makes a cleanser that gets all this stuff off!

Soap

I don't think we need to worry about Becky getting Swine Flu. She washes her hands for 5 minutes before rinsing!