Thrifty Finds!

What a wonderful weekend of garage-sailing! I walked away with two really fabulous finds. The first is a bracelet...at $4, it's more than I would usually pay at a yard sale, but it's one-of-a-kind, and has the potential to become a signature piece:

My second great deal of the week is this bird feeder:

Handmade, only $2, and has space for 2 kinds of seeds and 4 suet squares. Unfortunately, the birds don't seem to be as impressed with it as I am!

And here's the grocery deal of the week: Goldfish crackers at Giant. With their store card, it's buy one at $2.39, get one free. But if you look carefully, some of the packages have a .55 cents off coupon attached...with double coupons, that comes to roughly 10 cents per package. Yes, friends....I walked out with 10 assorted varieties of Goldfish crackers for a grand total of $4.54 (not all of them had coupons).  So good, it shouldn't even be legal....

So You Think You Can Dance First Performance Show

My first thought after watching the Top 20 performance show...."Wow, there are so MANY of them." And they were all great. So, did anybody make an impression on ever-cynical me? Not overwhelmingly; again, everyone was good, and with the sheer number of performers, it is hard to single any of them out. That being said, I DO (of course) have a few random comments:

1.  I must say, the hair and makeup people at SYTYCD did wonders with these contestants! Almost all of them actually looked good, with the exception of those who needed to look bad on purpose for their routines. Kudos!

 2. Ashley was adorable! Her hip hop number was cute and fun, but not overly technical or exciting. I hope she doesn't go home as a result; I think the resident ballerina has a lot more to show the audience as she moves into other genres.

3. Iveta was stunning in the gold lame costume she wore to open the show. She really stood out in a group of ladies mostly wearing some combination of underwear and short skirts.  I'm still not sure how she'll fare in non-ballroom genres, but I hope she sticks around long enough for the people from Dancing With the Stars to notice and invite her to join them a la Lacey and Dmitri. (If Iveta is cagey enough that this possibility is her main motivation for being on SYTYCD, I like her even more!)

4. Best non-scripted moment of the night: Jordan kicking the camera during rehearsal in the middle of a lift. At least she said, "Sorry!"

5. So, in my humble opinion, the winner of the night was:   Travis Wall!   Quite possibly the best thing EVER to come out of SYTYCD, Travis' choreography is always good, and last night he was exceptional. I agree with the judges that the statue number may well be nominated for an award.

So, in summary, I have no true favorites yet, and no clue who is going home. I'm looking forward to finding out (and to playing the ever-popular game of "How many dancers can you identify by name in the group routine").   

Our Big Pokemon Adventure

Today, Michael participated in the Washington Regional Pokemon Tournament. He did quite well too...breezed through the first two rounds, and almost won the third. We're already looking forward to next year.

The whole event was very well organized and efficient. There were also costumed versions of the three main Black and White characters, plus some very nice inflatables. Here are the boys posing with Reshiram (white) and Zekrom (black), two legendary Black/White Pokemon:

Congratulations (and a limited-edition souvenir totebag) to all the participants, especially Michael!  Excellent work! Way to go, Stealth 'R Us! (Which shall now be our new slogan.)

In less exciting news, Princess Roxanna got a new collar. Although she now looks like a lovely little diva, she was not much in the mood to pose for a picture, so this is the best I could do:

Now she's Pretty in Pink!

Goodbye, Old Friend

Sadly, Chance moved on the the Rainbow Bridge on Friday, March 20. He was a wonderful dog for lots of years, but his medical/psychological issues finally got the best of him. Poor Roxie is confused and sad, and further befuddled by the daily Really Scary Thunderstorms. We've been giving her lots of extra treats and attention. Good-bye, old friend!

Chance enjoying the blizzard of 2010!

Blue Ear, My Deer

#1: My Child Has a Blue Ear: This morning, I noticed David's whole ear was bruised blue. I asked him what happened, and he "didn't remember".  Since the boys had a "sleepover" in Michael's room the previous night, I asked Michael, who "had no idea".

Here's what I heard during what I believe to be "the incident". . .
Crash. . . Thump.
Michael: "I told you not to do that."
David: "You shouldn't have left your desk there."

Near as I can figure it, one/both were jumping on the bed, or from the bed to other furniture, and David fell into the desk and bashed his head. I can't believe it didn't hurt enough at the time for him to cry or come find me and blame it on his brother. Oh well...like we learned from the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie, sometimes sibling solidarity is worth letting something slide. . .

2. Look what we found in our front yard this morning:

Isn't she cute? I also saw a member of the chipmunk family that lives under our porch the other day. Glad to see they got through the winter okay!

My first post

Thanks to the wonderful blog of Meghan Buffkin (soon to be Matticola) http://thematticolas.blogspot.com/, I have been inspired to start my own blog. So, brace yourself. Who knows what random musings I might feel the need to impart?

For starters, I ran across this earlier today:
http://troy43.com/2011/05/13/troy-polamalu%e2%80%99s-student-of-the-year-2/
Seems Troy Polamalu took advantage of the NFL lockout to go back to school and complete his degree. Now, he wants to give signed jerseys to deserving students. You have to be a teacher/administrator to nominate a student, and the deadline is May 17 at 9pm. Please forward this link to your child's teacher/principal; the nomination process is short and easy! And it couldn't hurt to add a nice note of congratulations to Troy's website while you're at it.

This afternoon, my family and I stopped by the Purcellville Heritage Days celebration. It was a nice event, but the highlights for me were:

1. Chatting with one of the wonderful ladies from Purcellville's newest bookstore, Around the Block Books (http://www.aroundtheblockbooks.com/). Their grand opening is scheduled for June 24-26. Exciting!

2. Talking with the lovely Sarah Shabi, Virginia's only Biltmore Inspirations consultant. If you've ever thought about getting into the direct sales/party business, now is the time to check out this new opportunity. Hopefully, it will work out for Sarah to be a vendor at My Child's Closet's fall sale. In the meantime, if you're interested, you can find her at: www.facebook.com/inspwithsarahshabi. Tell her I sent you!