mix mix mix

Every night Nipper Knapp makes a smoothie. Every night. Am I opposed to this? No. Do I have a problem with kale, or berries, or the intermingling of soy milk, and frozen peaches? NO. I don't. Don't I want him to be healthy? Don't I want him to live FOREVER?! YES! YES I DO!

But something happened. I dunno when. I can't pinpoint the day. Don't know the last time I was able to tune out the once gentle whir of the blender. The last time, I didn't mind pausing The Daily Show, not once but 3-4 times, so the smoothie would be just right. The day it felt personal. One day, I realized that every time he said "you want a smoothie?" I started silently planning ways to destroy him. At first it was just a chin tuck and an eye roll from the other room. "No thank you". But at some point I became openly hostile. It was volcanic. Not explosive, just the rushing hot magma of marital contempt. "Smoothies?" he would text innocently from Jack's room after he heard me leave Charlie's bedroom to go downstairs. "I'm having wine" I'd write back, but I might as well have said "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO CRUSH MY SOUL, AND WHY CAN'T WE JUST RUN FREE LIKE WILD PALOMINOS?!" And then imagine me on the stairs doing an elaborate full body, arms raised, "why god why" move. Nipper Knapp would call this a spastic seizure. I call it a tiny fissure.

I don't know much. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there's a chronic leak in the portion of my brain that once held important facts. Stuff like, the inner workings of a bicameral legislature, and how to fix my hair like I did the summer after college. But here's the thing about marriage. It's a marathon, blah blah blah. If you are a trained runner, someone who wants to be in the race, it's not the distance that kills you, it's the tiny blister left untended, or the unusually high temperature with not enough water, or some other banal detail, that can be your undoing. "We could have kept going, but for those fucking smoothies". Right.

One day, after much sighing (me) and much apologizing, and I'm sure eye rolling (Nipper Knapp), we both realized it is a stupid problem, and said it out loud. "You hate my smoothies." he laughed. "I hate the sound." And we came up with a solution. And this my friends is how two people grow old and completely the same kind of crazy together.

Poor Nipper Knapp, look at this face. 

On Wednesday night Nipper Knapp took the red-eye to NYC to see the Jayhawks in concert, see friends, and spend time with his sisters. It was my birthday surprise to him. He had mentioned that he the Jayhawks were getting back together and playing these two shows, and wouldn't it be fun to see them. Uhm, yes, if I wasn't 6 months pregnant, and basically agoraphobic, that would be GREAT! So I hatched this plan to secretly arrange for his sisters to go to NY, and go to the shows with him. I told him at Christmas. Yay! I love surprises. LOVE THEM. Plus, now everyone thinks I'm a really nice wife, instead of the acerbic shut-in that they were all starting to know...and love. 


I had BIG plans for this weekend. Jack would be in school Thursday and Friday, so minus Mommy nap time, I figured I was going to have a solid 10 hours to get stuff done, Plus an hour or two at night after he went to bed. I started making my to-do list. Here's what it looked like.


To-Do on Nipper Knapp's weekend away
Hang house numbers from Anthropologie that I got in September
Hang new dinosaur towel hanger hook thingy in Jack's room
Paint the outdoor grill and chimney
Clean out closets (mine, Jack's, coat) 
Plan and Order Elfa system to build real closet in our room, before the sale ends
Finish my dad and stepmother's quilt
Water plants, and plant annual seeds in all outdoor pots
Sew top stitch on Jack's nanny's curtains (long story)
Clean office (this is prolly a several day job, but I wanted to get started)
Go to Ikea for Hardware for new closet curtains
Mail care package to Nipper's uncle David who is in the Peace Corps in Tonga
Mail some movies to my mother who is in a buddhist monastery in San Diego


AND 


Take Jack to the beach, maybe see a movie, go to the park, meet up with a boy from Jack's class and his mom to play, see our neighbors before they leave in a week and a half. You know basically have an awesome weekend with my boy, plus get all kinds of stuff done, so I could quiet the nesting monster. 




Here is what I did while Nipper was away:

By the time he was getting ready to leave on Wednesday I was throwing up, and feverish, and achey. As he was walking out the door to go to the airport, I was running into the bathroom, saying "It's FINE, what are you going to do, hold my hair? GO!" He went. I barfed, went to bed, and hoped for the best. Thursday morning, I got up, made breakfast, took Jack to school, came home and went to bed for 2 hours. I got up, moved to the couch, and stayed there until it was time to pick Jack up from school. Lather, rinse, repeat. Except by Friday I was getting a head cold on top of the stomach bug. DELIGHTFUL. 

our nightly routine

Saturday morning, I convince Jack it would be fun to stay in bed and watch Scooby Doo and Super Hero Squad on my computer until 11, when his BLESSED nanny and her daughter came to take him to the park, and for ice cream, and a train ride, and where ever it is they go when they go out. I laid in bed ALL day. I was convinced death was imminent. 

Jack and I were bed every night by 8, and both of us were asleep by 9. Sometimes I really pushed it and stayed up until 9:30 checking facebook, and responding to emails. Party down...

I took Jack for a dinosaur donut at Bob's donuts this morning, which almost killed me. I think he liked it. 

So much for my big plans. I was finally able to stomach some food today. Yogurt. Racy. And Jack went to play at the neighbors for a couple hours while I napped. Then we picked up daddy, and all is right and well again. I imagine tomorrow, I'll be feeling at least 60% better and ready to tackle at least part of my list. Maybe the part I can do from the couch in my office. 

Oh my god! Is that my ass?!!!

My ass on our wedding day (my butt, not Nipper Knapp!)

Last night in a fit of love for his wife Nipper Knapp showed me a video he had taken clandestinely on his iphone over the weeked of my butt...walking...in a bikini. He thought he was being nice. He thought he my butt looked great. Thus the video. Unfortunately, upon viewing, I did my best not to burst into tears and start googling liposuction. How did that happen? My ass is white, and flabby, and just, ICK! I'm so ashamed. Not only will I be in a burka by the pool in Palm Springs next weekend, but once I'm done with physical therapy, I'm going to start exercising again, for realz though. And I'm never eating again. (just kidding mom, hold your comments please) But maybe a few less In & Out burgers, and a few more salads. My brother who is visiting this week from Seattle said I should be happy my husband is secretly videotaping my butt and not someone else's. Nice. 


In the meantime, here is my recipe for "company's coming french toast". Nipper's mom made it the first time he took me home to meet his parents before we were married. Good little wifey that I am, I wanted to learn to make something that his mother makes that he loves. Mine has kind of become more of a bread pudding. YUM! So this isn't Meema's recipe, it's my modified version. I've never made it with chocolate croissants or that yummy chocolate sourdough from Zingermans, but I bet that'd be really yummy.

 

2 loafs of Texas toast or any thick cut white bread. If you can only find thin sliced, stack it three high in the pan instead of two high

2 sticks of butter 

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp vanilla

6 eggs

pinch of salt

1-1/2 cups of milk

 

Melt the butter and pour into the 9x13 pan

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon

sprinkle that mixture of the butter

cut the bread and lay in the pan (the recipe says one layer, I usually do two layers, three if you have thin cut bread)

coat all sides of bread with the butter and sugar mixture (I do this with my hands as it's kind of a paste)

beat the eggs with salt, vanilla, and milk and pour over the bread

turn the bread once then refrigerate overnight

heat the over to 350, turn the bread once again before putting it in the oven

 and then turn the bread again after it's been in the over for 30 minutes

bake another 15 minutes until the edges are golden and the whole thing is fluffy and you can't wait to eat it!

 

The total baking time is about 45 minutes.

I find this is best served with lots and lots of crispy bacon.

Au revoir giant booty. Also au revoir french toast and bacon.

 

Pinewood Box Derby

This came in the mail yesterday. I'm kind of excited. Know what's inside? Nipper Knapp's very own 1st Annual 12 South Pinewood Derby t-shirt. I called  Imogene + Willie, to ask if I could buy one even though we couldn't make it, you know, to Nashville, for the race. I'm a freak, but they were very nice, and didn't get a restraining order or anything. I heard through the grapevine that a boy scout won. 


I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to him. Lookie Lookie!

who knew chores could be SO sexy?

SO, I'm pretty sure I accomplished more this weekend than I have in the last 3 months combined. You know that feeling when you have too much you have to do, and too much you want to do, and not enough time to do either. So I've been feeling like that pretty much non stop since about 30 seconds after Jack was born. But this weekend, I broke the spell! Somehow I managed to do a bunch of stuff and spend time with Jack. It was one of those magic times when no one throws a fit, no keys get lost, no one gets a last minute audition in santa monica at 5:30. Magic.

Nipper agreed that if I got up with Jack at whatever ridiculous hour he decided to grace us with his presence on Saturday, he'd get up at 8:30, so I could go to the sample sale, baby free. Love that Nipper Knapp. Ok, so I meet Sadie there, and we're excited because there are only a handful of ladies milling about on the sidewalk. When they open the door we are somewhat disappointed to see that it's a pretty small space, but worse, that we're all going to be let in at the same time. I don't have to tell you what happens next. It's ugly. Women are crouched around boxes of ella moss and splendid littles, elbowing, scowling, grunting strange things. I quickly ascertain that there's not much there for me in the way of cute boy stuff (always the way) and I decide that digging through a box on the floor like and animal for a half priced jersey top isn't how I want to start my day. Don't get me wrong, if I thought there was some crewcuts stuff in there, I'd have been knocking ladies out.


Ok, so as I'm one of the only women standing upright, I notice on a side table this little stack of alphabet cards. I quickly realize they are the Ida Pearle cards that I had been coveting when they had them on the site a few months back. Hooray! Hooray! A little treasure. I highly recommend checking out her stuff, it's beautiful.

Ok, so we were out of there in under 15 minutes, so we went to Lowe's to check out tile for the kitchen. Sadie is a super shopper. By super I don't mean she's great. I mean she's freakin superior. She's better at it than you. Fact. But I had no idea she had crazy home improvement skills. If Nipper and I go into these places it's endless decisions that we can't seem to make. Sadie and I got an employee to go get us a cart, load four boxes of tile, pick out the adhesive, find the grout color we wanted (I decided on dove grey), without really asking or saying please. We were out of there in 20 minutes. This was at Lowe's you understand. Not Saks, not Barneys, LOWE'S. We asked if he had any more of the tile on the shelf, and he went and did all this for us. Did I mention Sadie is a model? I'm thinking of taking her to dentist to see if there's some magic pain free service you get there if you're pretty...

Ok, so tile purchased, we went to Ikea. I just needed to get a frame for this photo that I had printed a few years ago, and had lost to the garage until we started cleaning it out to convert it to our office. While we were there, I found tea towels to make Sadie some owl towels like the ones at Anthropologie that we refuse to pay $18 for. I got a perfect frame. I found a mirror for the STILL unfinished downstairs bathroom. Picked a bookshelf for Jack's room, and ate my first Ikea cinnamon roll. Uhm, yes to that!


SO I came home, and took a nap with Jack. We've fallen into a bad habit of keeping our windows closed even in perfect weather and relying on the a/c. Nipper had opened all the windows, and so while Jack napped in our bed, I laid next to him reading a book, watching the curtains blow in the breeze. You know, LA, 70, sunny, perfect.


When Jack got up, I went outside to finally plant those ferns I bought after seeing the ones Kelly had on her porch in Nashville. (Sunday I got Nipper to drill holes in the window sill and hang those ferns WHILE football was on the tv. I think I had momentary super powers this weekend.) I planted two mandevillas that I've had for oh I don't know 5 months. I framed the photograph, paid some bills, made Jack dinner, put him to bed, and watched The Abyss.


And that was just Saturday!


On Sunday I did a headshot for one of my clients who I shot when she was a kid. I'm not really doing headshots anymore as it's just too hard to work them into our cuckoo baby, audition, eating, sleeping, Madmen watching schedule. But I always say yes to old clients. So I did that, went to Target for diapers and wipes and ended up with $30 in plastic christmas plates and cups for Jack, which I knew Nipper would hate. But this morning Jack had his cocoa out of a snowman sippy cup. How festive is that?


Then I went and had a massage at Burke Williams, where my masseuse who sort of resembled that gymnast guy in Oceans 11 (or 12 or 13) but with a GIANT black mole on his face, rubbed my neck until my shoulders were no longer up by my ears. He also did some kind of crazy thai stretching that made my hips feel like Gumby.


Ok, so I know I'm going to blow you're mind right now, but after all of that, we went for Sushi. No, seriously, we left the house after 6pm, and ate in a restaurant. It was kind of surreal. I had two fusions, which is a pink drink they make with soju, and then I lost my ability to concentrate on the conversation which was mostly about the hostess who was about to lose her top and kept hiking it up as she travelled from the front door to nearby tables. Classy. Ladies, if you're going to wear a strapless dress, please tape it to your body with some Hollywood Stick Tape. Because no matter how pretty you think your decolletage is, it's not when you're tugging on your dress all night like a cholo holding up his low rider dickies. NOT PRETTY.


Ok, so this morning, we cleared almost everything out of the garage in final preparations for Nipper's Dad's arrival. He's going to help Nipper drywall. This put me in a spectacular mood because I had checked something else off my to do list. I'm practically in mommy nirvana as I'm sweeping up the floor. Nipper Knapp on the other hand was cranky and now seems to be questioning his own mortality. Oh did I mention that when Roberto showed up to start the tile we discovered that there was no hardybacker behind the old tile. Uhm, yeah, they had to take it down to the studs, which sent Nipper Knapp into a tailspin of remorse and loathing. I think he's at Sharkey's right now trying to tie one on.

By the end of this week, I will have more things checked off my to-do list than I thought was possible this year. I might even muster the strength to finish the downstairs bathroom. It could totally fucking happen.

Love letter to Nipper Knapp

Dear Nipper Knapp,

Yesterday you met me at Le Pain Quotidien even though you hate it there. You ate an omelette and even said you liked it. You didn't sigh or heave your menu at me when you discovered they don't serve soda. You didn't roll your eyes when Jack refused the fancy soup, and ate only the slice of melon on the side of my tartine. When the waiter took 15 minutes to take our order, you didn't shout "You're effete and overpriced and I hate you!"

At my request you painted the entire downstairs of our house "apricot fluff" even when you knew it was in fact pink.

This is my favorite picture of you. I like it for two reasons. The first being that I think you look like the Marlboro Man (minus the cancer part). I also like it because I took it in NY. You hate NY. NYC did it's best to crush your tender soul. Still you go there with me on vacations. You eat sushi, and visit with friends, and take rides the subway. You never threaten to throw yourself off the Brooklyn bridge or throw poop at people who make a face when we tell them we live in LA.

You are a good man and I love you.

p.s. when you are done reading this, I need some help with this little problem I have in the downstairs bathroom. Won't take but a minute...

Au revoir ennui. Bonjour piano?

I've mentioned before that I was in a fake band. It was fake because even though I wrote a few songs, and we learned to play a few songs, it was mostly me and my friend Sadie getting together, trying to figure out how to fit Claude Debussy, Dave Brubeck, and Jack White into one band. Also I can't sing. I can carry a tune. I can fake sing. But I can't hear music the way a real singer can. I have no idea how to harmonize, unless someone else does it for me. Oh, and I need to be wearing ear muffs. Sadie doesn't sing either. She plays the piano. You see where I'm going with this?

A couple of times we rented rehearsal space and got our drummer friend, who is in several totally non fake bands, and his friend, who plays bass, to play with us. One time Janeane Garafalo showed up just in time to watch me sing one of my embarrassing songs. That was the peak of our fame.

None of these facts stop me from buying THREE guitars, a red glittery amp, and many, many, prom dresses, from Target. I'm going to say this right now. I had band jackets made for us, for Christmas. They cost more than I can admit to spending on such a thing, and I still wear mine sometimes when I feel I need, a little je ne sais quoi. I read Lester Bang's Biography. I grilled my dad on seeing the MC5 one time in Detroit. His recollection was, that they were, very, very, loud. I wanted to eat, sleep, drink rock and roll. It's like I missed out on something in high school, and somehow at 30, I had to let this daydream play out.

Ok, so where is this going? One of the guitars I bought was a vintage 1960s red reso-glass Airline from Montgomery Ward. I found it on ebay, and bought it from a guy in Liverpool. It was SO cool. It was small, and red, and adorable, and oh yeah, Jack White (my hero) played one just like it. Except of course, Jack White, can actually... you know... play the guitar... LIKE A WIZARD. SO I bought this thing and I bought a glass slide, and tried my very best to play the blues. Oh man, if I could just have played the blues. The saddest thing in my whole life, is my total inability to sing like Ella Fitzgerald, and play guitar like Jack White. Can you imagine that person? It's not me. I'm more like, if Lisa Loeb was irritated, and out of tune, and didn't have any stick-to-it-ive-ness.

So this week, as I was cleaning out the garage, emptying out the closets, rearranging everything, I realized that it's time for the guitar to go. I put it on craigslist two nights ago. Nipper Knapp and I went to see "It Might Get Loud" this afternoon, and it was awesome. It was a nice little going away party for my rock and roll alter ego. Tomorrow a nice boy, who seems to know everything in the world about this guitar, is coming by to pick it up. He is a musician, who's in a real band, and he will play it, and give it the home it deserves.

I was thinking about using the money to tile the backsplash in the kitchen. The tile that the previous owner installed, makes me think of refried beans every time I look at it. I've trained myself not to look at it. But I'm thinking I might use the money on a piano. I'd love for Jack to learn how to play. We always had a piano growing up, and even though none of us ever played it, or played it well at least, there was this idea of music in the house. Maybe that's all you need.

Highland Park 10:36 a.m.

Me: on the computer, entering my credit card number as fast as my piggy fingers can fly.

Nipper Knapp, panther like, suddenly at my shoulder: "whatcha buying?"

Me, caught, casual as possible: "Another paint pen"

Nipper hangs his head

Me: "you took a vow", pat on the back, pat on the back, pat on the back

Nipper: "not a paint pen vow"

Did I mention I bought another one at Michael's yesterday, but in a fine point, because that's all they had, because I wanted see if it was all silver markers, or just mine that totally don't work? By the way, it's just mine. The new one works just fine. SO now I have, two not working markers, and one that works just fine, but not in the width that I need. SO, like any sane person, I ordered another one. But this time, I ordered it straight from the Marvy Uchida marker company in beautiful downtown Torrance California. I'm like Daniel Day Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, "I WILL FIND YOU". This bathroom is going to be romantic like that.

I got pinned!

Nipper Knapp likes to joke that my desk is eligible for Superfund status. I admit that my idea of a filing system, is a series of piles, that only I can decipher. However, I have always been (in my mind) the neat one in my family. Nipper Knapp is of course, the king of neat island.

Another trait the old man likes to mock, is my resistance to throwing things away. I don't think he'd go so far as to say I'm a hoarder, or a pack rat, at least not to my face. One of our first disputes was over my storing cardboard moving boxes in the garage. My argument was that they were expensive and you never knew when you were going to pack up and go. His argument was that we could get them from the back of the grocery store, and really did I need a garage FILLED with them? I conceded this point when he discovered you could get nice clean ones off craigslist, for free. Did I mention I'm a germaphobe?

Ok, so I like to think that I have a keen sense of reuse, and sustainability, as opposed to a pathological disorder. I'm always seeing some little scrap of fabric or blurry photo and thinking, "I could use that in a project". I have boxes filled with feathers, glitter, fabric remnants, and magazine tear sheets. Oh, and fake guns. I've gotten better about sorting through this stuff, and keeping it organized, since NK and I got hitched. Otherwise, I'd have to live with my husband rocking himself in the fetal position, repeating the phrase "so many half filled boxes", and crying softly in his sleep. I haven't gotten a label maker yet. But I might.

Sometimes this behavior really pays off. When we were in Michigan over Christmas, my dad mentioned he had some pins from the 1960's in the basement, and said I could have them if I wanted. I forgot to get them before I left, so I sent myself a reminder email this time, and here is what we found:

My parents were members of the Students for a Democratic Society at Michigan State University, and very active in the anti-war movement. I think these two are pretty timely considering the current events in the news.

These were my grandfather's union pins. He was a stevedore in Detroit before he got married. He then worked for Continental Motors, for the rest of his work life. My parents, and grandparents, taught me a lot growing up about what it means to work for your family, and what it means to be paid your worth in this world. Just about every member of my family is a member of some union (UAW, teachers union, SAG). Lately I've been wondering about my job security and my union's choices, but that's a story for another post.

This is my Brownie pin. It must have been either my mother's, or one of my aunt's from the 1950's. It brought back all kinds of memories of homemade candles, tie-dye, and nature walks. I'm kind of obsessed with it, and I plan to wear it every day. It's going to be my thing. When people are trying to remember my name, they'll say "You know her, that lady who wears the vintage Brownie pin". I looked it up on ebay, and there are quite a few really cute ones from the 1940's and 50's. Awesome. When you call me and I don't pick up, know that I am trolling the web for mid-century Brownie pins.

iphone 2 electric bugaloo

The annual Ann Arbor Art Fair is going on this week. I remember loving this time of year when I was a kid. We would wander from booth to booth looking at people's work, and when we got home I would go into the basement, and try to create "art" from things I found down there. Mostly things like ball jars and brillo pads. Hey, it was the 80's. I was a modernist.

This morning Jack, and Nipper, and I, walked over to the playground around the corner from my parents house. They have a swing there that is like a little nest. It's large enough for a parent to sit in with a toddler on their lap. We sat in the swing, and watched the clouds in the sky. The wind in the trees sounds different here. The air is clean, the skies are blue.

After the park, we went to Zingermans for lunch. It was in this post cloud watching, Zingermans, swing day, that tragedy (and stupidity) entered our little holiday. I was in a dreamy haze walking home. A friendly man who was selling golf balls 3/$1, gave Jack one for free. He was thrilled. He was gleefully throwing it up in the air, and then chasing it where it landed. Walking ahead, I turned to say to Nipper how funny it is, that the free thing, or the box the toy came in, is so often his favorite thing, when I saw the ball, flying through the air, headed for the road. For some reason I lept into action, iphone in hand and blocked it, racquet ball style with the iphone. Nipper looked at me, and said "That was smart". I smiled, and then looking down, realizing my screen was smashed to pieces, I gasped. What was I thinking? It seemed totally instinctual to swat at it, like I was at wimbledon. But what the hell kind of instinct is that? Apparently this is the week I smash stuff. Look out America!

I have an appointment at the apple store for the morning. Apparently they have a package for situations like this. It's called, "you give us $200, and we'll fix your toy dumb dumb."

Vaya con dios LA! We're headed for the mitten!

Actually we are already in the Michigan. Apparently no one outside of Michigan thinks it looks like a mitten. But they are wrong. We flew into Detroit last night, and arrived at Jack's Grandpa and Grandmas house in Ann Arbor around 2am. We went to bed at 3am, and Jack woke up at 8am. Yay vacation!

We are here for our annual visit to see family, and eat Zingermans, and swim in Torch Lake. But this year is special because Nipper Knapp's cousin Todd is getting married to the lovely Anne Marie, at Nipper's parent's house on the 25th of July. They've asked me to shoot the wedding. After shooting my good friend Misao's wedding in Sonoma, last summer, I am excited I get to shoot another wedding, of a couple I love.

The wedding photographer has to be willing to wrangle people on what is both a happy, and sometimes chaotic day. Someone has to be willing to tell your aunt Esther and uncle Frank to stop dilly dallying at the shrimp buffet, and get their booties over to the shady overlook, for group pictures. At the same time, you have to be able to make yourself invisible during the wedding. Oh and get great shots. For some reason, I thought I would hate bossing around a bunch of people. Nipper thinks this is really funny. I loved it.

Todd and Anne Marie thought it would be fun to have a photobooth type thing at the wedding. Meema and I found this great fabric that went with their rustic Gatsby-ish wedding theme. We decided I would sew it together and we would hang it just inside the doors to the barn. Simple, simple, simple. HA!

Problem number one, was that we bought about 1/3 as much fabric as we needed, and when I went back, they were out of it. Merde. It looked sad and weird, and wasn't nearly wide enough.

.

So, I thought maybe I could sew some other fabric onto the sides, like the pale green seersucker we were going to use for table runners. But that would have looked horrible, and the pictures would have been a trainwreck, and I would be cast out of the Knapp family forever. I procrastinated so long, that the last time I was in Michael Levine shopping for fabric to make a bench cushion for the play room, (that's right, I'm going to take a whack at upholstery) they had gotten more of the fabric in, and it was on sale! I bought more, and set out to sew it into one large piece.

Problem number two: I smashed the window.

Meems had given me the measurements of the opening in the barn, and I wanted to see how long the panels were exactly. If they were too long, I'd to ship my backdrop kit to Michigan. But if they were just right, we could nail it to the rafters. SO, while Jack was napping, I started to unfurl the fabric on the floor of the living room, while holding the tape measure. It just slipped. In my cro-mag brain, the motion of throwing my arms out, made my hand fly open, and I underhand tossed it, with all my might right into my dish cabinet. We always thought Jack would be the one to smash the breakfront. Whoopsy daisy. One call to Highland Park Glass, and 45 minutes, and $76 later, it was fixed. BTW, the backdrop is exactly 9 feet tall.

Problem number three arose when I decided to applique the date of the wedding across the middle of the backdrop. I've mentioned before that my sewing machine was not really in use for a few years, (ok, 17), and so it had some timing issues. I thought I'd be able to do that tight applique stitch that I did by hand, on Jack's wall hanging last year, faster, if I did it on the machine. Uhm, no.

It looks like Edward Scissor hands, got crafty. Nipper says it's cute, but how do I know if he was even talking about the backdrop. He might have thought I was asking about my hair. "Uh-huh, yeah, that looks cute. No I don't think anyone will notice but you."

Problem number four has not a lot to do with the backdrop, and more to do with my total inability to focus on one thing at a time. I started this project in April, and finished it last Thursday. Not because it took me that long. The whole thing, including applique, and the multiple shopping trips, took about 4 hours total. But that's 4 hours spread out over about 10 afternoons, and nights, of me spreading the fabric out on the floor and staring at it, while Nipper silently cursed me.