Stick it to the Man for $4.50

I recently went to Wal-Mart and saw that they were having a sale on rosebushes. After calmly thinking about it for a minute (Oh My Gosh! Roses are on SALE, Let's buy them ALL!), I thought it might be worth it to pick one up.
Of course, I live in an apartment and I am not the gardener. No, I planned to plant that baby in soil I don't technically own. I have asked the apartment manager if the "owners" would consider allowing a community garden. I thought it was worth a shot in these eco-friendly times. Well I'm still waiting to hear what they thought of THAT idea. They also won't put bike racks in front of ANY apartments. I never thought of myself as a tree-hugger or anything, but bike racks would be useful.
So anyway, I bought a rosebush for $4.50. It's lavender. There was one rose left on it when I bought it (hopefully it wasn't on sale because it had swine flu or something) and it smelled really nice. Well, the rose died, and so far no new ones. Of course that was only three days ago, and I've been checking it twice a day. But I'm ahead of myself. I get it home and in the utmost secrecy of the dead of night (8:30 pm and well lit by the Post Office parking lights 'cross the fence) I carried our family shovel around the back of our building.
We live in the back corner of the complex so we only get foundation-planted privet - no boxwoods like the buildings in the center of the complex, not to mention the flowering annuals that the near-the-gate people get. From past observation I knew there was a convenient gap in the bushes. Yep, you guessed it - I planted my $4.50 rosebush....wait for it....IN THE GAP! I know, brilliant right?
I'm thinkin' what are they gonna do? The maintenance men are the only workers who go back there. Hopefully they won't notice my little "rosa anarchia." I can just see them going to the manager: "Someone's been planting rogue rosebushes in the back lot. We gotta nip this in the bud, no pun intended ma'am, or they're gonna start in on bedding plants next. Before you can say 'possession is 9/10ths of the law' there'll be allium, begonias, and God forbid - cannas tearin' it up back there."
Even if they do - I'm only out $4.50! HA!

But you know, the maintenance men were right, this is just my foot in the door. If they'll let this slide I'll try some alliums.

And here's Peter where we like to lay in the grass and look up at the tree. In the background you can see the back. The rose bush is right around that corner.

Sayings of James:

"Mom, guess what. "
"what?"
"I'm a taco. You want to know why?"
"why?"

"Because I tacolot!"
"You sure do."

"Mom, mountains don't have bathrooms so they have to pee in their pants!"

Sayings of Peter:

"blahblow?"

"blahblow?"

"blahblow?"

[translation: "playground? playground? playground?"]

"BAHBOW!"

["POPCORN!]

"mo chiss?"

["more cheese?"]

Two days ago Peter ran up to me leaned over my shoulder (I was sitting on the floor), put his arms around me and whispered in my ear "playground" and ran away. His version of subliminal messaging.

I'm working on convincing James that I'm sporadically a mind reader. I've told him it doesn't work all the time. I think it's working. (Evil laughter...fade out)

My lingerie party dress...

Wait.

The dress I made for a lingerie party (that's better) came out pretty well! I put a belt around it so it wouldn't look like lingerie for Doris Day. I edged the neck and armholes with picot ribbon (the kind with little loops). If they would keep laying down like I want them too, they'd be a really cool detail.

Showering Clothes

My sister has a wedding shower on Saturday, and of course I decided today, Thursday, that I have nothing to wear. I'm pretty sure all Becca's friends will be wearing cute sundresses, my friend Holly is wearing one of those new long dresses, and so I need something "showery" too!

That being said. I don't have any money to buy anything so, surprise surprise I'm going to try and make something. Do I have lots of time on my hands? Do I have other projects I could be finishing? Does my house look like a scary homeschoolers house? (No, Yes, Yes, and coming up - No) Do I let any of that give me pause?

Years ago when GAP (the store) was going through a flowing-whites-ecrus-linens-on-the-beach phase I bought this beautiful skirt in white linen with a flounce along the bottom. It fit me perfectly. Actually it fit my personality perfectly, and my ideal image of myself perfectly. In reality I needed to be at least 5 inches taller and anorexic to pull it off. But it was so pretty I never could bring myself to get rid of it. I did try out dying with tea on it, so now it's not snow-white anymore. It's very vintage looking.

The plan:

The plan is to use the long skirt to make a knee length dress. I have a cotton fabric that's really close to the same color, so that is going to be sleeves, and neckline and the skirt is going to be sewn onto those.

Theoretically anyway.

At the moment I don't have the right color thread. Everything is pinned and waiting until my baby wakes up.

Heres a question:

Why do people walk into Discount Tire (as I did twice this week) and say: "I need a new tire?"

It's like people walking into Starbucks saying, "uh...I need some coffee?"

They don't do that!

They finally get to the counter and say....

Grande Mocha....blah blah - tino.

So people should walk into Discount Tire straight up to the counter and say:

I need a Yokohama Light Monstro."
"Would you like an airing of your current tires with that?"

"Yes please!"

"That'll be 150.62, napkins are on the island."

If the GAP skirt/dress works I'll put up pictures.