This and That

I know that, according to the rules of good blogging, I'm supposed to have a point when I post, a shining insight into life as a mother thing. One, do not assume this is a "good" blog. And two, I shine not.

Instead, I kill rats. HA! 4 and a half rats dead. Two died right off the bat, umm, right off the trap. We found a half eaten rat carcass after our trip back to West VA. Gross, I know, but happily dead. We killed another this week. Dave noted it was fat. I noted she was pregnant. I felt bad about that until I saw a rat dive into our potato bed, and then my sentiment was to kill more the rats before they get their rat cooties on my potatoes.

Scarlett has been sick lately. I told Dave that if she "passed", I wanted a kitten for my birthday. However, last night he mentioned that he thought a pellet rifle would be useful, too. I seriously thought about it. How about a kitten and a pellet gun? That says a lot about the kind of southern woman I am.

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The other night, Conor and I were snuggling before bed. He looked up and saw his Thomas the Tank catalog in one of his new bed's cubby holes! He loves to read the catalog as he goes to sleep and I think starting a habit of reading in bed before the age of 4 is pretty darn good.

"Do you want to read it?" I ask.

"No," he insists. "I want to snuggle with you."

He puts his hands on either side of my face and gives me a kiss.

(((pause)))

He looks deep into my eyes and then he begins pushing my face away. "You can go now."

Ok. Thanks! I won't let the door hit me on the way out!

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Steve and Barry's. Steve and Barry's? Folks, do you know about Steve and Barry's? God bless America, people. Do you KNOW about Steve and Barry's?

I surely didn't until yesterday. The NY Times recently featured Steve and Barry's as having some of the best quality cheap clothes in the US. Their goal is to have Old Navy, Gap and (sometimes) Banana Republic quality clothes FOR LESS THAN $10 EACH! Their shirts are definitely Old Navy quality. But their pants are NICE. And I bought a fitted Bitten dress for $8.98 yesterday. And it fits well. And the Bitten pants I bought fit well and they are pretty!!

I bought Mossimo shorts from Target last weekend for $16 and an Isaach Mizrhai sweater for $24 and neither of those have the quality material or construction as the Bitten clothes I bought.

Seriously. Everything in the store was $8.98. And it fit. And it looked pretty on me.

Wow. Dead rats and new clothes. What a great week this has been.

How Not to Look Like a Used Up Old Hag

In my quest to be more "shit giving" I bought a book, How Not to Look Like a Used Up Old Hag. Actually, the name of the book is How Not to Look Old, and it is about as vain as it sounds. Or worse.

The author is on the cover and although she is attractive, she sort of scares me, too. She's a bit too pink pastel for this feminist. (Yes, I am aware of the irony of a feminist buying a book to look pretty. Let's just say I'm a post-feminist)

However.

I've been trying to new face cream and seriously, there are less wrinkles. (Oil of Olay Regenerist, if you must know) And I've been trying with the clothes and the mani/pedis. And I'm going back to my highlighted hair because it did look a lot better. (her hint: the older, the lighter)

And I have to be honest: folks are noticing.

Of course, it's a pretty big distance from dressing "to not be naked" to actually wanting to look like I give a shit much less to "not look old". And that alone could be accounting for the compliments. But it's rewarding. And maybe it will inspire me to drop these 10 lbs that I really don't need.

In the meantime, check out The Fashionable Academic. It's clearly not me, but it's fun.