Hand-Me-Downs

I love hand-me-downs. I do mean love! I love thrift stores, and I love when people give me clothes they no longer wear or want. It's great! I think the last time I bought a new skirt was around Christmas of 2010. Not this past Christmas...the one before that. Honest! It was a Christopher & Banks skirt...green suede-ish material, with a paisley imprint design. I got it because I thought I liked it, and I guess maybe it was a thing for me, you know... "I haven't bought a new skirt in so long, I'm just going to buy one!" Christopher & Banks had a sale and I was suckered in. I spent $20-something on a skirt I've worn a couple times. Doesn't even fit me right anymore..still hanging in my closest! I think...maybe I already took it to the thrift store. If I haven't, I need to.

Soon after I started going over to Jacob's family's house every week, his mom came to me and said that she didn't know if this was ok to ask or not...but she and some other relatives had a bunch of skirts they wanted to give me. She was so careful not to offend me or anything and I thought it was great! When we lived in GA there was a lady in our church there who would bring me big bags full of clothes every few months. (It was more fun once you got past the fact that they lost weight and gave you what was too big...oh well.) I'd go through it and get what I liked and could use, and get rid of the rest of it. (Take it to the thrift store, or make something else out of it.) Anyway, Jacob's mom wasn't sure if I'd be ok with folks giving me stuff, so I assured her it was more than fine!

Since then they've gifted me with nearly 20 skirts!!! I loved many of them, and most of them fit me, which was a miracle in and of itself. Usually when you find something you love it tends to be a tiny bit too small...in which case some weird people might get it (or keep it) anyway and hope for those 5 pounds to come off. Not that I'd do that...just saying.

So anyway, a couple weeks ago, I got a couple more skirts from a cousin. I'm not sure if one of them will work...waiting for those 5 pounds to come off still!!! However, the other was a denim Cato skirt. I love Cato skirts, but the new ones I've tried on don't seem to fit me right. Seems like when they fit me in the waist, they don't fit...elsewhere. Not to get into a discussion of my shape here, but I've had a hard time with Cato skirts, even though it's a good place to find nice skirts. However, a lot of these skirts I've been given recently are Catos and I wear them frequently...and they fit nicely. I'm thinking they must be older, so they're not cut the same as the new ones...but that's just my theory. Anywho, back to this new skirt. It fits (and it's a smaller size than I've worn in quite some time...say, several years) and it was a nice skirt. I wore it just like it was a few times, and it was great. It had a nice shape and flowed nicely. But, being me, and not being able to leave well enough alone, I got to thinking. (That's probably not proper to write, is it?) The skirt had a couple tiny bleach spots a few inches up from the hem, so small no one but me would ever know they were there. (You might be able to see them in the picture...right in the center on the front) And, I'd been wanting a couple shorter skirts for the summer...and I really needed a denim one.

So here's what I did. I took this: (Sorry for the crappy picture, but one of the boys had my camera and all I had close by was my iPod!)

..and made it into this. I took about 6 inches off of it, and made flowers from the scrap fabric, tacking them on with a button in the middle. This denim is thin and they kinda flopped over, so I fixed that by sewing them down in a couple spots...and then fabric-gluing them to death, leaving enough unglued so that it didn't look glued down. ;) They stayed.

(What I wanna know is why in Heaven's name it looks like a 22 hanging up like that. It's a 10, if you thought it looked like a 22. 22 is not the size I haven't worn in years. Just clearing that up.)

This is sorta what I followed to make the flowers. And let me tell you right now, I'm no artists. Sheesh...it shouldn't have been that hard!

Oops

So, it's Thursday, right? We don't usually have desserts throughout the week, not until Friday. We're considering staying up until midnight every Thursday night and start eating sweets at 12:01 Friday morning, but we haven't gotten that crazy yet. No promises, though.

Dad asked me a little while ago if I was making some kind of dessert tonight for a special someone who'll be coming to see me. Well, I told him we didn't usually have desserts during the week...remember? :) I told him I'd be making homemade ice cream (his favorite) probably tomorrow so he could have some then.

Please, dear readers, if you follow my example in this area...rinse the evidence of a chocolate cookie for that special someone out of the sink...before said father comes to wash his hands in the sink. ;)

See, cookies aren't exactly dessert! We never eat cookies for dessert! They're for coffee time! And Jacob mentioned a couple weeks ago that chocolate chip cookies were his favorite (so maybe them being Dad's favorite, and me making them twice a week for the past few years, wasn't just a random thing after all?) but that Chocolate Crinkles were really really good, too. Huh? Chocolate what? I'd never heard of them before, but lucky for me, Google had. So, that's what I whipped up this morning. Only, I left the mixer attachments unrinsed in the sink. And there was chocolate on them. Oops.

Dad says "did you make something chocolate for Jacob?"

Me: "ummmm....nice day out isn't it?!" 

So Dad made fun of me. Again. "Oh, I get it... 'you can't have any dessert til the weekend. Here, let me mix up something chocolate for Jacob'" says Dad.

By the way, my new favorite hobby is paying close attention to everything Jacob says, making mental notes on  all his preferences. :) It's fun.

A month or so ago, he'd been saying my desserts sure were rich. Dad likes chocolate and ice cream and doesn't like fruit desserts, so that's what I've gotten used to making over the years. I make rich desserts. After paying attention for a while, I learned that Jacob likes cobblers, especially blackberry. So one day I made a blackberry cobbler. He said it was good, and I smiled. Then a few weeks ago, I made a carrot cake. You can't imagine my supreme delight when he took one bite and said how good it was, and that he always loved carrot cake. Smile.


We spent a few days in Louisville last week, with my grandparents, and I got lots of pictures, so I'll try to post some of those soon.