How to fix a halter-top dress

Halter dresses annoy me. Probably it's just my girlish figure, but no matter how snugly it ought to fit, the back slides down and the strings dig into my neck and the skirt hangs asymmetrically in a not at all fashionable way. And, to top it all off, if I wear a tank or something underneath, the layers get tangled up whenever I try to adjust it.

I am therefore pleased to share my cure for the common halter. It involves safety pins.

1. Put on the dress. Untie the strings.
2. Pull each string over its respective shoulder, crossing them in the back.
3. Adjust until the length is right. Have your assistant/husband safety pin the strings to the back of the dress.

Ta-da!

Dressing for the occasion

Due to a creditable threat of takeover by the dirty dishes and trash, I thought a spot of housewifery might be about due. So there I was scrubbing pots and growling at the jammed-up disposal, which hummed uselessly back, when I decided that this was ridiculous. Either I should do the thing cheerfully or not at all.

So I put on heels, a striped apron, and red lipstick, and started fishing. However, the disposal was unimpressed and stayed jammed. I think it's got a peach pit in its depths.

"A house... a brick residence adjoining the palace... et cetera"

Right, about house-hunting. We have talked to a realtor and talked to a financial whiz loan person. We know our price bracket and are getting regular emails, and basically we're waiting for a suitable house to show up.

It can't be a townhouse or condo - it needs to be big enough to have family come stay with us without anyone sleeping on the couch or behind a pile of books - it needs enough yard for a patio and a garden and running around in - and I have to actually, you know, like it. I figure that's only fair, if we're going to be paying for it for the next thirty years. I'm also attached to functional roofing, plumbing, and wiring, but I hear this can be arranged, depending on your type of loan.

We also have a long list of wishes, starting with a Great Room suitable for banquets and impromptu plays and ending with a stream at the bottom of the garden.* I really want a house older than myself. Eccentric is good. I have an irrational prejudice against split-levels, and would actually prefer the kitchen not to have been remodeled recently, since I don't particularly care for current kitchen fashions and suspect it would just make it more expensive. But our wishes are more flexible.

The nice thing is God provided our current very nice apartment, and no doubt He will also provide a house in good time. I'm actually not worried about it. So we're waiting hopefully... and trying not to think about real estate prices in cheaper parts of the country!




*Unfortunately from a house-hunting perspective, I was raised on The Secret Garden and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and somehow enormous English manor houses keep hovering on my mental horizons. There are a lot of them around, too - a whole enclave just off Route 7. I think they all belong to DC multi-millionaires. I'm trying to fend them off with more realistic(?) visions of The Incredibles' tract house.

Sewing

Mending is much easier than sewing from scratch. I love the whole instant-gratification thing: you sew about an inch, and whoosh! you can wear the whatever again. Today, for instance, I took up the shoulders of a too-long tank top, fixed a seam on Jonathan's suit pants, and reattached a button to a blazer. (It was an ugly button which I would like to replace someday, but it works.) Then I cut off a pair of too-short hand-me-down khaki pants, hemmed them, and created a pair of shorts. All this took about half an hour.

Patterns traditionally confuse me, so I've been experimenting. There was the Miami Mod dress, a hot pink and turquoise color-blocked little tent dress for which I figured out how to do a bodice lining. There was the Tilted Layers dress, which took about 11 hours and turned out accidentally Forties-esque, but cute. (Though Mom did ask, very kindly, if I'd like her to show me how to insert a zipper properly. Yes, but unfortunately now we're half a continent apart.) Then over the weekend I imitated a shirt I've got and made a little lined voile bat-wing top out of a very loud orange print.

I'm finally good enough, I think, to try a real pattern.

I've got about three yards of red broadcloth, a chunky zipper, and a pattern for an A-line sleeveless dress. Visions of Kate Spade and J. Crew have been dancing in my head.

So far, I've read through the pattern, looked up three technical terms I'd never heard of, and cut out the pattern pieces I need. At about an hour in, I'm about to unfold the fabric. I have high hopes that if I can make it once I'll be able to make it again... more quickly.

In everything give thanks. Literally.

Poor Tigger's tail got caught between Meg and the scissors. He had to go away and recuperate on a high shelf until I got a chance to make repairs. Last night I stitched up his lacerations and tucked him in with his sleeping lady, and when she woke up this morning there was much delight.

"Mommy stitched up Tigger's tail. That's kind of nice. SANK 'OO, LORD!"

Fourth of July doings

Small-town fourths of July are a lot of fun, and they do them right in northern Virginia. We started by walking (!) over to the parade down King Street. It had the usual floats from the police, fire department, cub scouts, and Corvette clubs, plus a few from political campaigns. We noticed the same thing as Veith - some cheering for Romney's float, and dead silence for President Obama's! They also had some Celtic dancers, who were unfortunately not dancing, and some Bolivian folk dancers, who were. Meg contemplated their masks and headdresses and referred to them as "the monster dancers" for the rest of the day. I think the best one was Heritage High School's marching band. The bass drummer bringing up the rear danced all the way down the street. He was just having a great time.

That evening we joined my sister and her in-laws at the Purcellville fireworks. Their pre-show music was a swing band, a real live swing band run by a friend's father - fabulous. I actually got to dance with my husband. So cool. It was extremely muggy out and nearly a hundred degrees, but so worth it. I didn't quite talk him into practicing any aerials, though, because we saw some old friends were about to catch up with them.

Some other friends came over and told our group that they were predicting hail that evening. My immediate reaction was that they were talking crazy talk, but then the MC made an an announcement that a storm was blowing up, so they were going to start the fireworks a little early and recommended everyone go back to their cars to watch in case it started pouring.

We sat on the hood as they shot them off quickly. A cool breeze hit, bringing the temperature to very pleasant levels, and clouds started boiling over the horizon. Lightning strikes lit up the sky. Between the natural and human fireworks, Meg may never see a more dramatic display. I don't think she appreciated it properly. :-) The main storm passed to the south of us and never did pour. Or hail. It just gave us great fireworks.

The green smoothie

In an effort to get Meg to eat a leafy green anything, I fixed her a green smoothie. She adores smoothies. I put it in a blue cup so the color wouldn't bother her. But I felt really awkward about it - not so much about tricking her, but because green smoothies what Those People make.

You know, healthy people. They probably run marathons before breakfast and wear Toms and fair-trade hemp tunics while organically gardening.

Vegetables are fine, but... we don't do that to them. Smoothie them, that is. It felt like a betrayal of my roots.

However, I might as well have saved the guilt, not to mention the produce. Meg didn't care for it.

I wonder if she'd eat fried okra?

Way out west

I've been trying to work up the energy to post about our lovely trip West, which we took at the beginning of June. First there was laundry and then the moment had passed. My pictures still aren't even downloaded, which is sad. I think I'll give up on doing it justice and just post already.

We really went out for my friend Anna's wedding in Colorado. We also celebrated a triple birthday party for my sister, dad, and brother-in-law, threw a surprise mini-shower for my sister, visited the good doctor and admired his new office, and spend a few days with my grandparents. Meg has only met them twice before, so that was especially important.

A secondary goal (totally accomplished) was to eat at as many of my old favorite places as we could manage. Behold:

El Pinto - Albuquerque
Ecco Gelato - downtown Santa Fe
Joann's Ranch-O-Casados - Espanola
Mimi's Cafe - Colorado Springs
Chili Works - Los Alamos
El Rancho - Portales
Leal's - Clovis
Cotton Patch - Clovis
Rosa's - Lubbock

We also tried to get Dad caught up on superhero movies, went to the dress shop in Portales, and did a spot of antiqueing in Clovis. But really most of our time there was spent eating, getting ready to eat, getting ready for the triple birthday party and surprise baby shower, and, in approved family fashion, going to Wal-Mart every day at least once. Mission accomplished.

Happy summer

Happy summer! Yesterday was The Day, and here in Leesburg it celebrated by getting up to 97. Meg and I had a few errands to run in the morning, and for the afternoon we holed up in our lovely, air-conditioned apartment and watched Sleeping Beauty and The Incredibles.

I felt like we should celebrate Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer's Day. It didn't really happen, except for fixing nice dinners. For Midsummer's Eve we had guacamole sliders, and then last night
I tried this amazing ginger-peach chicken in a soy-sauce base - I used fresh peaches and it was excellent. The recipe called for baking it half of forever, but I think it would be nicer crock-potted or maybe grilled with the sauce prepared stovetop. Or something.

Some of our young mamas from church really miss the company of weekly Bible study, so we're getting together once a week to go out and about and do something fun. Next week we're going to the Brunswick train museum. Today, we're supposed to walk on the W&OD Trail and have a picnic after, but seeing as it's supposed to be 97 again, I'm not sure how that's going to work. But if anyone is interested in joining us for future expeditions, let me know.

Anybody do anything especially summery?

Cowgirl hat

Meg and I went to Old Navy on Friday and picked out a straw cowboy hat for her. She's been needing a summer hat because I won't let her wear fleece headgear when it's 85 out, and more impressively she's been wanting a summer hat, possibly because I have a big raggedy straw hat with roses on it that I wear to the barn and the park.

So we picked out the little cowboy hat, and she plopped it directly on her head. It came off just long enough for the cashier to scan it, and back on it went. She wore it to a cookout last night, to great effect. Then this morning, starlet-style, she wore the hat with a pair of hot pink sunglasses clear into the church nursery. That, my friends, is panache.