Rebi the Dark Pixie

I guess the costume turned out OK. She left for her party quite happily. . .

Migraine City

Here are a few highlights from the 3 hours I entertained 20 kids last night.

Curse the stretchy fabric!

It's 2 am. It feels like 4. Evan and his friend are hosting a Halloween party tomorrow at -of course- my house. That is not really the bad part. The bad part is that I now have to have Rebi's costume ready for tomorrow night. Oh yeah. Did I mention that I have to sew a little something for Ellie too? We went shopping for Halloween costumes last week and after the 5th or 6th store, it became apparent that the only chance I had to buy a costume to fit her was:
1) decrease the amount of muscle she has built in her chest and shoulders thanks to gymnastics
-or-
2) allow her to look like a tramp in a skimpy little skirt

The kids costumes fit her fine all over except don't fit her shoulders, and the adult costumes are gross. So, we wandered off to the patterns, found the pattern and the fabric and I have not even looked at either since.

None of this is the worst part. The very worst part is that I am just dumb enough to skip steps while sewing. I don't skip the important steps, just the non-essentials such as pinning things together. Mostly, I get away with it and the flaws that result from the incredibly inaccurate sewing are not so noticeable as to be embarrassing. Naturally, for this venture, we chose very stretchy fabric for Rebi. It just twists and rolls and pulls and if it looks anything like a fairy (a goth fairy) dress when we're done, it will be a miracle. . .

I'm going to bed now. I have at least 3 hours more of sewing and 3 hours of cooking and cleaning to be anywhere near ready for all of the company tomorrow night. Evan told me today that he thinks there are 20 kids attending. Why do I keep saying yes to the insanity?

(And in case the sarcasm doesn't make it through the typing, I know that ironing and pinning are both super important steps in sewing, I just hate them both so I skip them a lot. Like I said, just dumb enough.)

Celebrating my 19th birthday. . .for the 17th time.

So, yesterday was my birthday. At one point, I would have expected the entire day to be about me, but I am over that now. :)

At any rate, yesterday was completely insane. Fire, neighborhood drama, smoke smoke and more smoke, the desire to leave the blackened skies and no idea where to go. Fire crews in the neighborhood south of us. Add to that a party for 12-14 year olds where a bunch of older teens showed up with alcohol and all of the phone calls that needed, new information about a family referred to as the "dog beaters" and it was 8:45pm before we sat down to dinner.

However, I received several awesome presents. There's the itouch. I love it, I really do. Then, Dave took the kids shopping yesterday afternoon and came back with the van shampooed. I love that too. It took them two hours, so I had two hours of peace and quiet. Fantastic. Blissful, really. I even got to read for 30 minutes or so.

My most amusing gift was the one from Tyler.

Ty:"Mom, I left you a present on your pillow."
me:"Oh, thanks sweetie. Do I need to go up and see it now, or can I find it when I go to bed?"
Ty:"You can find it when you go to bed."
10 second pause. then, ty grabs me and starts pulling me from the couch.
Ty:"OK mom, it's time for you to go to bed now!"

On my pillow was a cute Lego sculpture in the shape of a heart with the word "Hi" in it.

Smoke inhalation

Still no threat to our home. However, volumes of smoke are settling into the valley now making it hard for everyone to breathe. We are weighing the options of where we would go if we tried to find clean air.

More Fire Photos

The view

Smoke (and flames, although not visible in this photo) from the front out our house.

The smoke from the back of our house

Temecula Fire

For those of you who are unfamiliar with our area, there is a fire burning in Temecula. However, it is burning on the west edge of town, and seems to be headed west and south. It's more bad news for Fallbrook and even Oceanside, but the majority of Temecula is still safe. The homes that are being evacuated now are in an area known as De Luz. Unfortunately, they are some of the biggest and prettiest homes in the area. Hopefully there will be no damage to them.

Our skies remain quite blue, in spite of fires burning fairly near us and the winds continue to gust fiercely. Tyler and Evan and I seem to be fine on the breathing difficulties, although none of us have been out of the house today so that will probably change.

To everyone who has emailed, called and txt'd us, thanks for your concern. It is nice to know we have so many places we can go if we get evacuated (which is not at all likely). My cell phone is still having issues. I think it's because it's a San Diego number, but I'm not sure why that would be the case. Txt messages seem to be making it through.

We're on Fire!

OK, not us, but the rest of So Cal. We are at no risk. However, the neighborhood we moved from a couple of years ago is part of the mandatory evacuation orders. So, I've been surfing the net looking for more info and ran across this gem:
*****

"The situation continues to deteriorate," fire chief Bill Metcalf said at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, with numerous structures lost across the county.

"I think there's a very good possibility it will reach the coast before it's finished," Metcalf said of one of the fiercest blazes.

*****

It made me sick to think of all of our friends who would be effected by this.

Instead of new couches

Since we're spending all of our money on braces, the new couches we really needed are out of the question. So, I am putting the old white couches back into use. Rather than have grubby white couches in the living room, I hired Rebi to help me decorate. These are the results, thus far.