flop, near-flop, flop again

It was just that kind of weekend.

Saturday started with the absolutely fabulous third birthday party of our friend Little Man. There were friends, fun, fire trucks (the Bean was in heaven), fire men (mommy was in heaven), pizza and cake: a perfect recipe for fun. But mommy and daddy forgot to combine our sugar-intake-tallies for the Bean as the party progressed, and the day ended in a massive sugar-induced meltdown. Parenting flop.

We regrouped Sunday morning and made it to and home from church with little event, and even managed to have a pretty good time.

This gave me just enough false confidence to take on a long-neglected sewing project: the Bean's dust ruffle for her big girl bed.

I took measurements, I made charts, graphs and diagrams, I cut, I sewed, I pressed, I repeated. And sure enough, in about an hour, I had a rather simple, but perfect little dust ruffle with box pleats. See?

What is that you say? It's not perfect? Oh I see. The box pleats aren't equidistant apart.

And there are seven inches missing up here.

And there are seven extra inches over here. What just happened? But, but, but I made a diagram, see?

There are no misplaced inches or wonky-pleat-distances on my diagram for heaven's sake!

[heavy sigh]

[regroup]

[unsew, re-cut, re-sew, re-press, repeat]

There. That's better.

That too.

Only a sewing near-flop. And when you put the bookcase back, the wonky-pleat-distances aren't so obvious. Unless you're me. Then the asymmetry makes you twitch every time you walk in the room. But that's my own issue. I'll deal. Moving on.

So no matter how emotionally traumatized by dust ruffle asymmetry a mommy is, her family still needs to eat. And when the recipe is from this fabulous new cookbook from Cook's Illustrated, that is alright with me.

And when the recipe is for Chicken Enchiladas, even better! And since I meal-plan



and make exhaustively researched grocery lists



everything is right here and ready to go!!!!

Except the onions. And chili powder. And cilantro.

And part of my soul.

Thank you Brad. And Dominos.

I'm going to bed now.