A tale of theft, vomit and the Department of Motor Vehicles

Oh. My.

Run away, friends.  Run far, far away.

I'm afraid my streak of bad luck has reached its peak and who knows who will next be snared in it's gnarly claws of doom!!!

Save yourselves!!

Pure Luck: the Stacie Lucas story

I'm writing this as a weekend update, even though the weekend is far from over and we'll be hitting another one before I'm even ready.

I only just this morning felt well enough to go to work after a stomach bug hit me Sunday and left me flat on my back, unable to stand for even thirty seconds without severe stomach pains.  So here I am, on Wednesday, feeling like it's Monday, trying to get my whole self used to the fact that it is hump day and tomorrow will be the day before the day before the weekend, and....no, you're right, that really isn't too big of a hassle.

So before I ramble any further about something that has nothing to do with anything...

***

Corey and I have been in the process of buying a townhouse since late February.  As most homeowners know, these things take awhile.  You know, with the bank stuff and the title stuff and insurance and blah, blah, blah.  As most homeowners who are married to me now know, when I'm involved the whole process is excruciating.

Where art thou, Lady Luck?!

"They're not all like this," our realtor explained.  "This is the worst I've ever seen."

Great.  I'll try to remember that when I never, ever move ever again.

Our closing was scheduled for this past Monday afternoon.  It was originally set for early April but with so many additional requirements and lost (but later found!) paperwork we were relieved last week to finally have a set date to own our home! 

Everything was finally going to be over!  And done!  And we could pop champagne!  And potty in our new toilets!

Oh, ho, ho naive little ones...

This girl had to lose her wallet on Saturday.  Wait, no, I set it down at Coldstone Creamery and then someone swiped it.  But in my defense, I had to carry my ice cream aaaaand Corey's milkshake.  My subconscious made the difficult decision: dessert comes first, wallet must wait. 

I had money in my wallet, and credit cards, and my work ID, and my driver's license.  Annoying.  So, so annoying.  I canceled my credit cards right away.  And I fumed about losing my weekend garage sale money on a day when there was a ten family sale down the street.  Ten families, I said!! 

My coffee club cards were in there too, and I was this close to getting a free coffee any size at Coffee Planet.  I had big plans for that free coffee, a java chip frappe.  A frappe I said!!

Sigh.

So, my driver's license was gone.  And being a first time home-buyer I didn't know the bank would like to see it and verify I am who I say I am before handing over my house.  Imagine that.  So there I sat Monday morning in my jammies, immersed in Lifetime movies and a heating pad with nothing left in my stomach to, um, expel when I got the call from Corey.

Hey, you're gonna need your license...

Uh oh.

The next two hours was a blur of yelling, rummaging, running up and down stairs, sobbing at the DMV, and lots and lots of gagging and body cramps.

Go get a temporary license from DMV....see if they'll print a picture on the temporary,be really nice....wait, let's look for your passport....where's your passport?.....I think it's at my mom's house....call your mom.....mom can you look through my stuff?.....wait I found it....don't worry, mom, we found it, p.s. sorry you're sick too....oh no it's expired!....can we use it anyway?....no? CRAP....ok, go get your license....ok, I need to take a puke bucket....wait do you have your Purdue ID?.....at my mom's house....call your mom....mom can you look through my stuff?.....no time, go to the DMV and get your license....mom, forget about it p.s. sorry to make you almost throw up climbing up the stairs to look through my stuff....ok, where's my puke bucket? can you get me some water for the road?....is this the right application?.....yes.....my (sob, sob) wallet was (sob) stolen and I'm supposed to (sob, sob, sob, sniffle) close on my house in forty-five minutes!!....here ya go hon'....that's it?!.....that's it....Corey I got it....that's it?....yep, that's it....ok, um, you gonna take a shower?....yes....ok hurry.

I call that the Reader's Digest version.

We get to the closing four minutes late with my birth certificate to prove the picture on my expired passport is really me, my marriage license to prove the person on my passport and birth certificate is the new, married me, my Social Security card to show I'm documented, and my temporary driver's license just for the hell of it.  We crossed our fingers.

In the end the bank could not have cared less.  I'm sure they would have taken a kindergarten self-portrait.

Of course.

Of course!

***

So that, my friends, is the recent installation to the story of my no good, very bad luck.

It was nice knowing you, now run for the hills before I cause generations of early onset baldness or an outbreak of feline AIDS in your subdivision.

I don't always eat cake, but when I do I eat the whole thing

"Corey, I'm leaving now to get the groceries."

"Hey, do you want to pick up a cake mix?"

"Noooooo.  You know I'm trying to get beach ready!"

"........"

"Okay."

 fancy eats Betty Crocker style

They call me Stacie No Willpower Lucas.

I'm a sucker for cake.

And brownies.

And cookies.

And razzleberry pie.

And any other pie.

And any other type of dessert, minus anything with raisins.

Raisins aren't dessert.  Neither are carrots.  I'm looking at you carrot cake.

Yummy yummy yum yum yum!  Batter is tasty.  I eat it with my fingers!

Hello dinner.

I also ate that corner piece.  It was lonely.  Also, I don't know when to stop.

they call him Arnie Eats Everything Not Bolted To The Floor Lucas

Arnie's wondering, do I get a piece now oooooor do I just sneak one off the counter when you're not looking?

I distract him with chicken biscuits.  And he's pretty flaky (blonds, go fig.) so it works.

But now that mama's in a sugar coma it's all fair game.

Confessing my love of early 90's rap

I used to do this thing back on the other blog where I would confess the random//embarrassing//stupid moments of my week, not so much as a "must repent of my thinking this was a nautical symbol:"

...but more of a "laugh at me because I'm sure I'm the only dum-dum on the planet who didn't know what the heck this thing meant."

I miss out on a lot when I've got my head lost in a bag of wool roving!

...it's a felting joke, maybe you...never mind.

And since my weekly confessions were met with rave reviews from my mom, I figured why not revive them here!  I certainly haven't ceased to perform the random//embarrassing//stupid just because I stopped publishing those moments.

But let's ease into it with just a few juicy morsels, shall we?

this is my baby...before he went crazy

Corey was nervous about Arnie meeting my sister's 112lb Rottweiler, Mika, last Saturday.  Turns out he had good reason to be nervous: she did, in fact, pee on his head.

***

I gave Arnie a bath on Saturday.

***

Last weekend was Corey's annual Fella's Retreat in Vegas.  Also known as Stacie's Vacation From Making the Bed and Putting Dirty Dishes in the Sink.

***

Also known as Getting Some Sleep Diagonal Style.

***

Also known as Fold That Laundry Quick Cuz He's Comin' Home in an Hour!!

***

I learned the lyrics to Whomp! There It Is in sixth grade, sometimes I sing them to myself when I do my chores.

"Tag team back again, check it to wreck it lets begin..."

***

I am a big fan of pancake batter.  Raw, pancake batter.  Salmonella and all.

***

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

***

Just kidding, I had to throw that in there with the theme being 90s....never mind.

******

See??  Wasn't that fun?! 

I know, it's a work in progress.

Until next time, have a lovely weekend!

Friends don't let friends look like idiots in booties

I am an awful person.

Downright nasty.

Srsly, be warned.  If you are my friend, I just might purposely put you in a situation that will cause you to be unsure, unsteady,  maybe even a little uncomfortable just so I can laugh at you.

Awful.

Maybe you've read how I find a great deal of enjoyment in watching dogs in shoes.

Maybe you've read how I've spent many a lunch break looking up YouTube videos of dogs in shoes and then snorting wildly at my desk.

this one is my fave.

So maybe it won't come as a shock to read that the first chance I got to put my own dear, sweet, trusting puppy in shoes I jumped at it and then sat back, with recording device activated, to enjoy the show.

That he didn't care last week when I put Corey's t-shirt on him and screeched, "the baby's wearing pajamas!!" wasn't an indication to me that I might not get the reaction I desired, so I proceeded to strap on four canvas booties I had previously purchased for Oliver (who summarily stripped them off when it was his turn without even a single awkward prance for his mother's sake. The nerve.)

It was probably what my sister calls Christian Karma that Arnie didn't do anything.

I mean, he had a moment of, "here we go again...." and danced around the kitchen for a few seconds, but it was more from a lack of traction than ohmigawshthesethingsareeatingmyfeet!!  After a few uneasy steps he trotted all around my mom's kitchen, sniffing out the person who was shoving treats at him as I had him pinned to the ground to strap on the booties.

Not the wild, flailing dance I was hoping for.

Serves me right for trying to use my own puppy's uncertainty for my enjoyment.

I gave him treats.  Then I took off the booties.

...and that's when my mom strapped them to her Basset Hound, Maggie.

(insert evil laugh here)

:)

*******

No dogs were hurt in the making of this post, they were only a little confused and maybe a tad embarrassed.

My weekend in a tweet

So over the weekend I flew to the moon and had tea with the queen and then I took a nap before I saw the Rolling Stones perform a special concert just for me because I called Mick and was like "what's that song you sing where you do that thing...??"

It was a slow weekend.

....

Have you noticed I never, ever post a recap of my super, awesome weekend adventures?  Now that I've dragged myself back on the blogging wagon I've given you something for your dreaded Mondays, but do you ever wonder what could I possibly be doing in those two days where the world is mine to do whatever I want with it, granted that anything is whatever can fit into one-and-a-half days because I do need my Sunday evenings to unwind by folding laundry in my jam-jams?

You're curious.

I can sense it.  I'm good at reading people.  That's why my friends call me Stacie Sixth Sense Lucas.

But they don't say it 10 times fast.  It's kind of a mouthful.

Now that I've made you aware of your curiosity and my mystique I kinda hate bursting both our bubbles by telling you the reason I never give weekend updates is because they're so lame I fall asleep even thinking about them.

Best part of this past weekend: finding a pair of kelly green matchstick jeans for 40% off the already reduced price.  Bam.

Best part of the weekend before: I was given a coupon written on receipt paper for buy-one-get-one-free coffee by a man who called me pretty and said he could help me pick out a good non-alcoholic wine at his wine store after I told him, not sure how we got on the subject, that I can't hold my liquor.

And the weekend before that: I got bangs.

You'll be glad I don't do wrap-ups after next weekend; my mom has recruited me to pick up dog turds in her back yard.  Imagine that play-by-play.

I don't remember Corey and I having so little going on last year at this time, but it seems like I go into mental hibernation when the weather goes below 45 degrees so this could be a typical early spring boring routine for us that I just don't remember.  Come late May when flowers start to bloom (yes I said start to bloomohmigoshhowImissSoCalweather) we'll have trips to camp, vacations, hikes, BBQs, baseball gamesgoYanks! and, if I have my way, kayaking all over that Saratoga Lake.

But until then I'll just have to find some enjoyment in green jeans and dog poop.

And lunch dates with her majesty.

Mostly non-reflection

Blech.....

....ugh.

Anyone else at a loss for words today?

Like you can't find a way to say how you feel about what happened in Connecticut without diving into thoughts and feelings that are so painful because to really realize there is pure evil so close to home you have to go to a dark place where no one should have to go, especially this close to one of the best celebrations of an eternal perfect life.

Kinda like that.

.....

So be safe, friends.  I'll see you in a little while.

:)

I work hard. For dog clothes.

You are going to be mildly impressed blown away by this post.

No, really.

I'm normally not too keen on wrapping up my weekends here, mostly because nothing happens besides the typical 30hr felting session//craft show//zombie movie marathon//remembering loved ones who have passed.  But this past weekend was just too much to not share.

Too. Much.

Day One: my very first auction.  I can't find the words...no I can find the words, I just can't arrange them into a sentence that conveys how exciting this was for me. 

Thank you bullets:

• I love junk.
• I love to repurpose junk.
• I love working for my junk.
• I love a good deal.
• I love old stuff.
• I love watching people.
• I love imagining why anyone would want German woodcut figurines.
• I love out-of-the-ordinary activities.

While driving home with my mom, my sister, our junk, and her 1860's drop leaf table she got for $17.50thankyouverymuch:

"Hi honey (this is my mom on the phone to my dad), we're just on our way home from an auction......Yeah, an auction.  Stacie dragged us to it......(to me)  Your father said that had you written all over it."

I may or may not have ended up with $13 in goods by way of a paddle-happy sister.  But in her defense she was sure I needed a gold framed oval mirror.

Also Day One: Mr. Oliver T. Lucas is now the proud owner of a brand new rain jacket!

He hates it, but we are hoping he'll grow to appreciate it on those days we would normally have to call off walks due to inclement weather (drizzle).

"Yay, Oliver has a rain jacket!"

"Yaaay....you do realize this means we have to walk him in the rain, right?"

"......oh."

One More Thing About Day One:  turkey sandwich. 

What?!  It was a great sandwich.

Day Two:  shopping and holiday coffee and nap and zombies. 

At the end of this day I had Christmas gift ideas, one shirt I don't need, another shirt I'll wear once this year, peppermint mocha in my belly, one hour of uninterrupted snuggle time with the dog, and my weekly fix of zombie apocalypse.

At The Very End of Day Two: banana split.

My current vice.  Don't judge.

...

Of course there was some work to be done.  Which I did.  Because those four necklaces, 13 baby headbands and acorn ornaments can't make themselves, am I right? or am I right?! or am I right?!?

And that brings us to Monday.

Aren't Mondays easier when you know there's an eatin' holiday coming up?

Is this just me?

What to expect when you're vending

If I had to sum up my latest craft show on the campus of Plattsburgh State in northeastern New York in just one Twitter post it would read:

Great time with the most creative and positive vendors; a variety of shoppers and so many of them; met many wonderful inspiring people that I can't wait to keep in contact with; and just the right mix of DMB and Alvin and the Chipmunks over the loudspeakers.

But then I would be 128 characters over the limit, and you know what they say....

...well, they say you can only use 140 characters, so to sum up the summary:

Plattsburgh....yay!

I don't tweet much.  It's probably better that way.

But I digress.

.....

Hello!

See my face here?  This is what we all look like after a full day of smiling.  All day, smiling.

"Hello!  How are YOU!?"

"HI! Good to SEE you!"

"Love that jacket, I just LOVE that jacket!!"

This is the world of vending.

It's easy to picture the excitement of it: a crowd of people swarming and openly admiring your work, the exhilaration of making a sale.  This is the feeling that keeps us all coming back for more; I mean, besides the actual income generated.  But what's money spent on a Chipotle rice bowl compared to the thrill of verbal affirmation....right?

Am I right??

But what about those times when the crowd is reduced to a slow trickle of shoppers?  When the thrill is gone and the unavoidable lull sets in?

The following is like those stories from moms to soon-to-be-moms about how much your feet are going to swell or where you might find bulging purple veins.  You know, the unpleasantries no one tells you before you get involved but forget after it's all over because "it's just so beautiful!"

This is what happens in....The Down Time:

You think about snacks.

It's overwhelming.  When is it ok to get your next helping of sausage and peppers and where is it going to come from.  Also, which kind of pie will it be followed by.

You realize your feet hurt.

Standing all day does a number on the tootsies.  You don't notice it when you're laughing and chatting with customers, but when you have a chance to think, you think about foot massages.

You try to talk yourself out of buying that.

That shirt you'll never wear at this booth, that glass bowl you'll never use at that booth, that sock bunny the dog will end up destroying at the booth over there.  You will not be successful.  But you will leave with most of your Christmas shopping for yourself done.

You mentally calculate your sales.

After every other sale.  Why not?  Was this show worth it? you'll ask yourself.  Or more importantly, have I made enough profit to get that glass bowl??

You sit down.

This feels so good toward the end of the day you start to wonder if you really need to stand up and greet your customers or if everyone is better off if you hide behind your displays and leave them to browse in peace.

You rearrange your display.

Several times.  What is working?  What isn't working?  What can I do so I have something to do?

You plan your tear down strategy.

"How do I get out of here and into pjs as quickly as possible?"  No matter what kind of day/weekend you had, toward the end you will not be able to stop thinking about how great that flannel pajama set will feel in a nap, and you will do as much tear-down prep as you can three hours before the end of the show.

...

But at the end of it all, when you're laying under the covers wrapped in flannel you smile to yourself as you try to remember when the deadline is for the next show and why in the world are you taking a nap when there's so much work to be done for it.

It's a beautiful thing.

Spending my nights with serial killers and horny toads

I consider me 'n Corey city kids.

I grew up on the wild side of Long Beach, California.

Corey grew up in Air Force town, Plattsburgh, New York just south of Montreal.

And now we live in the city of Saratoga Springs.

In other words, we like it when light shines in our apartment all hours of the day and night.

Because serial killers live in the dark.  Everyone knows that.

But go just 10 miles east and you're in a whole other world where you can almost reach out and touch the dark and "traffic" is whichever toad dares to cross the road.

I was there last night.

And I lived to tell about it.

Corey and I have a friend who is a born and raised country girl, bless her heart.  Now she lives on an honest to goodness horse farm complete with, well, horses and horse accoutrements, and last night it was about time I visit her neck of the dark.

One thing, people, about this sprawling expanse of green is that your typical directions are useless.  There's no "go two blocks, turn where you see the Starbucks then go about half a mile and turn again at the other Starbucks and then BAM, you're at Macy's."

This is the only way I know to get to her house:

• Head up (I don't know my directionals, please excuse) route such-and-such.
• Keep going until you think you've gone too far.
• Go further.
• Turn onto P. Road.
• Try not to vomit on the hills.
• Veer left and then turn onto the street that comes out of nowhere.
• Veer every which way because now streets are laid out according to the wandering paths of cats.
• Turn onto the road that comes out of nowhere.
• Also the road that smells like cow crap.
• Turn at the end of that road.
• Drive just long enough to wonder which serial killer is living in this very field you're driving past.
• Turn where you don't think there is an actual road.
• Reach your destination.

Obviously on the return trip you do the reverse and hope and pray she someday finds a cozy, well-lit home in the city.

One month of wrinkles

We're friends, right?

I mean, if I were to share something intimate and private you could keep that between the two of us and, you know, not spread it to the farthest corners of the world.  Right?

I knew I liked you.

Anyway, there is something I've been wanting to get off my chest.

That's a funny expression.  To get something off one's chest.  Where did it come from?  I always picture a man with with lots of chest hair making grand motions of taking all his invisible cares and throwing them upward and outward.

So dramatic.

Not sure why the hairy chest.  That's weird.

But I digress.

My friend Jill says I digress too much.  There are all these little conversations I have with myself when I'm telling a story, sometimes I keep them to myself and sometimes I think you'll want to know about hairy chests.

Where was I?

Oh yes, secrets.  I wanted to tell you something you can't tell anyone, especially my mother-in-law.  With this I am sure she will disown me and never ever again buy me Vera Bradley purses.  Which could mean the end of my world.

So....here it goes:

Ihaven'tfoldedasinglepieceoflaundryinoveramonth!!

I know, I know, I know.  This is bad.  This is SO bad.  We have a literal mountain of laundry that towers over our bed.  Poor Corey can't find matching socks anymore; I'm not entirely sure he isn't wearing one black and one blue right now.

Or at least one spotted black sock and one striped black sock.  Still so sad.

But in my defense....it's the felting.  People enjoy draping themselves in felted wool beads.  I can't fault them for that, I can't.  And so I must sacrifice that precious laundry folding time to give the people what they want. 

If that makes me a terrible person who shall never own a beautiful Laptop Travel Tote in Portobello Road then so be it!  At least my conscience is clean!!



...just like our unfolded laundry.

I quit.

Let's get real, people.

Sometimes life is shizz.

No mom, I said shizz.  It's totally not the same.

She's a little sensitive.  I spent the weekend using semi-foul language with the sole intention to ruffle her feathers.  Kind of like an I'm-an-adult-see-what-I-can-do kind of thing.

I also eat dessert and then tell her about it.

It's how I say I love you.

But I digress.

What were we talking about?

Shizz?

Yes.  What shizz we have to go through sometimes, eh?!

And isn't it grand that there are more times than we care to count when all the shizz hits the fan at once?

Snarking grand.

But this is all to say that eventually that shizz that stunk up our mental places turns into fertilizer; metaphoric crap we can actually use to make life better.

Oops, I said crap.

Crud.

But actually, crud doesn't make too fine a fertilizer.  You need literal poo.  But here I go getting away from myself again.

No, I'm not really quitting anything.  Sometimes I'd like to, but I'm not.

Shizz is only shizz if I let it get to me.

So I go back to the drawing board and do it differently.

.....

How vague can I get, you ask?

Mmmmhmmm.

"...and so I just got him new underwear."

Yeah.

I'd like to know what that means too.

It's what I overheard from a coupla gals walking into my booth Saturday at the Round Lake Arts and Crafts Fair; a little festival in the middle of a teensy tiny town where people grow dahlias as big as your face and read books in hammocks on their porches.

So lovely.

But back to the business of the underpants: was there an accident?  What could possibly have happened to not only give this guy a reason to need new shorts but warranted spreading the news to others?

Intriguing.

But I digress.  There was other business in Round Lake.  Craft business.  I say every craft show I've been a part of is my favorite, and this one is no different.

The Round Lake Arts and Crafts Fair is my fave.

I do realize eventually I will have to pick a real favorite.  But for now my all-time, hands-down, no-buts-about-it favorites are in Glens Falls, Schroon Lake, and Round Lake.

They make me happy.

I brought some stuff to sell.

My usual stuff.  Felted wool jewelry to complement every single thing you own.

It all fits in a small Rubbermaid tub and a shoe box the size of 4" t-strap Mary Janes in a size 8.

That's the beauty of accessories.  They're meant to be accents.  Anything more than an accent and you've got yourself a sweater.

Or a neck brace.  I guess.

Hello Fair-goers!  Do you want to stop at my booth?....No?  Well then I'm going to put an unflattering picture of you on the Internets for all the world to see.

Just kidding.  But seriously, I don't think they stopped by.

Christian Karma, as my sister would say.

Tasty treats for all.  The Ices were tempting, but peach pie is kinda my thing, and down the road I found me a slice.

I shared it with my mom.

Did I mention my mom was with me?  She comes to these things and helps me manage the booth so I can go potty and buy pie.  I pay her in jewelry and she just keeps coming back.  By now she has the whole spiel down: merino wool, needle felted, so lightweight you're gonna wanna pinch yourself.

Have I mentioned I love this town?  Home of a former Methodist church camp, Round Lake is an old community with narrow streets and 150-year-old houses.

And then there's the auditorium.

I may be redundant by saying the auditorium is, well, an auditorium.  Built in the late 1880s and restored in the 1950s, it's home to one of the biggest darned organs I have ever seen.

Oh.  Em.  Gosh.

It is the oldest and largest of its kind and still in use today.

I'm a sucker for historical history.  There was a book sale going on but I just wanted to look at the organ.

No, I wanted to play the organ.

...

Moms and I had a good weekend.  As usual the company was excellent.  The weather was perfect.  And I made enough money to keep on keeping' on.

A job well done, Round Lake.

Have I told you lately you're my fave?!

How I managed to flash hundreds and other business

First, a little back story:

I live in Saratoga Springs, home of the most historic horse race track in the country.

Every year Corey's family comes into town for a weekend at the races.

I enjoy wearing dresses when it's hot.

.....

Sunday afternoon I find myself at the track in my favorite summer dress.  It's a blue bouncy number that is worn loosely from my mid-section down to allow for maximum air-flow.  Thank you Calvin Klein.

(and thank you TJ Maxx for not carrying my size, forcing me to buy the dress two very roomy sizes too big)

After placing my bets at the window I make my way back to our section of seats.  In an effort to not un-seat an entire row of race watchers, like the classy gal that I am, I decided to climb into my seat from the empty row above. 

As you may know, this involves more straddling than is allowed for a lady.  I'll tell you what, you can take the girl out of the Midwest but you can't take the Midwest out of the girl.  Just kidding.  Hoosiers aren't heathens.  But I digress.

So here I go hopping row to row and wouldn't you know it, I stepped right on the bottom of my dress.

Yep.  I planted my foot on my chair and the hem of my dress.

Naturally, my next step would be to take foot from chair (and dress) and place firmly on ground.

So that's what I did.  But when that danged dress got free it sprung from my foot past it's rightful place near my knee, past the danger zone of my butt, and ended  somewhere near the middle of my back before falling back home.

This left my entire backside unobstructed for all to see.

My bum was on display at the racetrack and I'm afraid there were more than a couple hundred people who witnessed it; one of the more emBARErassing moments of my adult life.

*sigh*

Butt in other news, the next day I was over it and I brought some wool with me to knock out a couple gold stretchy bracelets.

Score!

Although, I think my cheeks might still be a little red in this picture.

That's the end.  I promise.

hehe.

It's not like I was *planning* on dropping her

I'm married.

Almost three years now.

We currently do not have children and sometimes I wonder if my fear of dropping/mishandling/forever emotionally scarring iddy biddy babies is apparent to others...

Yes?
No?

(for the record: I did move from the cement walkway to the lawn just in case.)