Is it too early to start thinking about Halloween?  Apparently not according to retailers. But if you go by the retailers, I should probably be putting up my Christmas tree.

Anyway, back to Halloween.  Halloween is not a big thing for me, I could take it or leave it frankly, but for several months now, Sean has been saying he wants to dress up as a pirate for Halloween.  So being the over-involved, over-engaged mother that I am, I have been looking at pirate costumes at said local retailers and oh my goodness! – $30! No way people.  And it’s not just the money, it’s the principal.  You know whenever someone says it’s the principal, it’s the money.  Only cheap people stand on principal. And that would be me. Not that there is anything wrong with it. Disclaimer, etc.

When I was growing up, and given that was a few years back, we made our own costumes and that was half the fun.  We’d go through the Goodwill bag (which was ironic since most of our stuff came from Goodwill) and cobble together an outfit of sorts and then we’d crowd around the bathroom mirror and draw blood on our face with a tube of mom’s old lipstick. No matter what you were going as, it required a trickle of lipstick blood — and there is nothing more frightening than Raggedy Ann with a facial flesh wound. 

So I’m undecided on the pirate costume – to make or to buy. To make one would require a substantial amount of effort on my part that could be better spent sitting.  To buy one would mean spending $30 that could be better spent on me. 

Do you celebrate Halloween? If so, do you make or buy costumes for you/your kids? What did you go as when you were a kid? Did you buy or make your costume? What’s your favorite Halloween candy?  Or just make up your own Halloween question and answer it.  I’m flexible.  

your vacation photos look like this:

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Hello reader friends!

I have a number of projects that require my attention this week, so I will be otherwise occupied and unable to entertain you with tales of run-ins with public toilets or chi chi sandals that conspire against me.  I am working on writing and illustrating a children’s book as well as writing another family memoir.  Not to mention I need to workout. Badly.

Now that Sean is in school a few days a week and getting a bit more independent, I want to take advantage of that of free time and get back into my studio again and paint and do the creative things I love– in addition to writing this blog.

Please feel free to browse the archives or drop me an email and say hello.

See you next week!

~ Antique Mommy

If I were going to vote off one of the months of the calendar it would be August. August is the doldrums of the calendar – a stretch of time when nothing exciting is happening, no special holidays, nothing to look forward to all month except for August being over. I think we should be like the Europeans and skip August all together and go to Monte Carlo. Who’s in?

And then in addition to the ugh that is August, a lot of little crud has turned into a big pile of crud which I plan to dig myself out of as soon as my three-year-old boyfriend returns to school THIS WEEK! Yes, of course I’ll be crying my eyes out all the way to Starbucks and then to Nordstroms and probably Dillards after that. I will be devastated to have all that free time to myself, oh yes I will. But I will cope, because I am strong. And it’s just bad form to weep into your double latte.

So I won’t bore you too much with all the woe is Antique Mommy stuff other than to say that before my computer died, I had a couple of weeks worth of posts written that are gone. Pfffft. Outta here. And at my age, you don’t remember that much. So I got nothing.

Oh wait, there is this — a little snippet from my ridiculous life that will make you feel better about your own walking skills:

One morning last week, Sean and I went to the open house at his school. As we made our way across the school parking lot towards the building, he started crying and clinging and climbing all over me like some sort of psychotic koala bear. He starts this every time we get within 100 yards of a school. He does not want to go to school. He wants to stay home and play with me all day which is all well and good, except that I don’t really like him that much. KIDDING! Sort of. No really, I have him in school because he needs to be out of my hair with other kids.

So I hoisted him up on my hip and continued towards the school but not before my sandal catches on the one section of pavement that is 1/1000th of an inch taller than the previous step. Yes, those sandals. And oh yes, I did one of those long-stride stumbling sequences that is just so very graceful, all while carrying a 40 pound koala bear on my head which does little to improve one’s balance. And I can’t even blame it on my iPod.

Of course this kind of move exactly conveys the kind poise and confidence that will no doubt make all the other mother’s who were also walking into the school that morning clamor to be my friend and invite me out for coffee because really, where can you find that much cool all in one place?

Luckily, I did not fall. And I was really really grateful for that small blessing because if I had to go to the open house wearing a 40-pound koala on my head, at least I wasn’t all bloodied and scraped up.  And see, that’s how you know it’s August becuase your idea of a blessing is not limping into the school open house wearing torn and blood stained capri’s and carrying your child on your head.

This past weekend I drove through little Arkansas towns with names like Pickle Gap and Toadsuck Hollow on my way to the White River where we went rafting with some friends.  We had a great time but today I am tired and I have a mountain of laundry that smells like Toadsuck, so I’ll be back here in a day or two!

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Richard in elementary school in East Texas.  One day Richard was suffering from a bad case of spring fever and all he could do was lean on his elbows with his chin in his hands and stare out the window at the beautiful blue sky.  “Richard!” snapped his teacher, jarring him back to reality. “Pay attention! What kind of job do you think you’re going to get staring out the window at the clouds all day?” she admonished.  Richard is Sean’s Godfather and today he flies commercial airplanes – he sits in the cockpit and stares out the window at clouds all day.

When my brother was a little guy, my parents bought him a toy tool kit for Christmas one year.  His favorite hobby became disassembling anything he could get his hands on. Today he makes his living taking helicopters and airplanes apart and putting them back together. 

One of my earliest memories is going to the grocery store with my mom. I was fascinated by the cashier. Back in those days, before scanners and bar codes, the cashier manually pushed buttons for the price of each item.  I thought being a cashier would be a great job if it meant getting to push buttons all day.  Today I spend a lot of time sitting behind my computer pushing buttons.  On the other hand I wanted to be a nun too, so maybe it’s just coincidence.

What did you want to be when you were growing up and are you doing it?

This past weekend was our annual neighborhood garage sale. I like garage sales, but with a three-year-old in tow, I don’t go to very many. The effort of lugging a toddler around, getting him in and out of a car seat and keeping him out of stuff and/or running off trumps the possibility of finding an original Declaration of Independence which I would probably just toss in the trash after I let Sean play with it for a few days.

Garage sales, much like trips to Wal-Mart, are interesting studies in humanity and when you go to your neighbor’s garage sale, it’s somewhat less interesting and just weird. It’s like peeking in someone’s window. Yet we do it anyway.

Saturday morning in North Texas was the perfect day for a garage sale. It was sunny and clear and about 75 degrees. So we loaded up Sean in his wagon and set off to see what and whom we could see. When I told Sean that we were going to some garage sales and that maybe we could find some toys to buy, without missing a beat he offered, “Yeah, or maybe some books!” See why it’s hard to not indulge him?

The first place we stopped was at the house of a friend of mine. Carol had her husband’s motorcycle sitting out front with a price of $14,500. I would have gotten it for Antique Daddy as a companion for his other motorcycle that sits in his mother’s garage going on 25 years now, but I couldn’t talk Carol down to the $80 I had in my pocket which is what I think motorcycles in general are worth. And just because Carol was also selling Tim’s golf clubs and a bunch of his clothes probably isn’t any reason to start a rumor. Although I didn’t see Tim anywhere. Sean picked out a 1950s children’s book and a pocket version of a New Testament, which I thought was unusual because he usually prefers to read the Greek version of the New Testament. Carol wouldn’t allow us to pay for the books because a) she is so very kind and/or b) to get rid of us. So we thanked her and continued on our adventure.

The next stop was our friend’s house that we like to use as the local Emergency Room. They were kind of doing a combined sale with the people next door. Between the two families there are six kids and so they had a lot of stuff. In spite of the abundance of toys, at this stop, Sean only wanted to buy a box of lemon flavored Girl Scout cookies and once again, we tried to pay but were denied. Apparently our neighbors think we are indigent, a reputation we like to cultivate.

Aside: Darn those Girl Scouts and their delicious lemon cookies! Darn them all to heck!

As we went from house to house, we found that some people were friendly and enjoyed the interaction and others acted like we were from the wrong side of the tracks and could barely bring themselves to speak to us. Some had tons of fun stuff, others had teeny tiny tables of junk and I wondered why they would even bother. Some wanted to just give stuff away, others had inflated notions about the value of their crap stuff. Nonetheless, we got out and about and met some of our neighbors and it was fun.

At the end of the day, Sean spent $7 and got a Lego’s table which included a giant box of Lego’s (because the 14 million Lego’s we currently have are just not enough). He also got a backpack full of Lincoln logs and a nifty little toy tool kit. I got two just-like-new companion tapestries for $50 which look as though they were custom made for my house.

Do you garage sale? If so, what’s the coolest thing you ever bought? Me first: Last year I got two St. John outfits, just my size, tags still on, for $1 each.

Veronica Mitchell of Toddled Dredge tagged me with this Mug Shot meme which was started by Julie of Bookworm — both excellent writers.  If you haven’t already discovered their blogs, by all means go treat yourself.

This mug became my favorite when Sean was about a year old.  As I was drinking from it one morning – one very bad Mary-Tyler-Moore-in-pajamas kind of morning – he studied it intently. Then he pointed to the dog behind the dryer and began laughing hysterically.  Once it became clear that he appreciated The Far Side, I knew we were going to keep him.  Far Side appreciation is kind of a prerequisite if you want to hang around here.

So what about you Shalee and Shannon?  Show us your mug shot!