I had my first executive meeting at Little Miss Sunshine’s preschool last night, and let me just say this: the cookies were fabulous. I think I am going to like it there very, very much.

Side note: Of COURSE I joined the preschool executive. I am coming to terms with the fact that I am a Woman Who Does Too Much. As I age, I’m finding it harder and harder to sit still unless my butt is parked in front of Dance Show (and even then, I’m usually folding laundry at the same time). I read this hilarious post by RealGrouchy the other week that went like this, “There are two types of people who complain: those who do everything, and those who do nothing. Each wants the other to do more.” SNORT. SO TRUE.

So, executive meeting! One of the ladies on the executive had a baby just three weeks ago, and there she was at the meeting last night being super productive with her three week old baby in tow and stitches in her Lady Parts. Now that’s the very definition of a Woman Who Does Too Much.

My point here, actually, is about the baby. Before I had kids I was never a kid person. I have a niece and three nephews who are older than the Captain and I’m not sure I ever really held any of them. I was never the cooing kind of doting aunt, nor was I the fun and games sort of aunt, nor was I even the aunt who remembered their birthdays. I was more like the aunt that said, “Hey, how’s it going?” when they answered the phone and then asked to speak to their mother.

And even since I had my own kids, who I adore with every inch of my being, I haven’t exactly warmed up to other kids. There are a few children of close friends who are close in age to my own who I really do love. Those kids I consider an extension of my own family. But random kids at the mall or park probably aren’t going to get much by way of my interest or affection. Those with runny noses can MOVE ALONG, thank you.

But that baby last night…oh my. He was so, so sweet. He was happy and sitting up and looking around and so very tiny. He fussed a bit in his mother’s arms and then nursed and fell asleep. He was so tiny and his little sleeper was so small and WOW, I just could have taken him home.

Not that I really want any more kids, and it certainly helped maintain the magic that I didn’t have to change his diaper, or get up at 2 a.m. to feed him, or try to walk around with stitches in my hoo-ha. Still, it was an unusual and odd experience for me to actually want to hold the baby, to see the baby, to spend the whole meeting thinking, “I’d actually share these cookies with that baby if he asked.”

This week we gave most of the baby clothes leftover from the garage sale to a charity and it actually wasn’t that hard. A few outfits made me nostalgic but the space in our basement is worth more to me, so out it all went. I didn’t feel sad about it, just like I didn’t feel sad to see the new baby last night, either. It was more of a wallowing in that warm, happy feeling of being a new mother, that cuddly feeling of joy you get when you hold your own little one.

I think I finally feel a kinship with the older ladies who used to accost me when I was out and about with a baby in a stroller. Am I destined now for a lifetime of going all mushy inside when I see a baby? Oy vey. There goes my badass reputation.

It’s just over three weeks until BOLO, and where the heck has the time gone? I need to get my butt in gear, but my goodness, I am SO BUSY. It’s all good, though, things are coming together and I’m excited.

Starting tomorrow I’ll be revealing the BOLO readers one at a time on the BOLO Blog, so start checking there for details and information and general excitement. Whoo hoo! We still have spots for a couple more readers, so don’t be afraid to jump on the bandwagon. You know you want to!

Oh, and photo bloggers, we need you! Email me here if you want to display stuff.

I need a few volunteers to work the night — a couple of greeters at the door, someone to help the photo bloggers set up and to hover around their tables for the evening, someone to help me set up. Any takers?

The garage sale was a middling success. We sold all of the big stuff, but unfortunately, very little of the clothes. It’s not coming back in the house, though, so it’s off to charity with the lot (unless there are any takers out there? Anyone?). Our basement is a lot cleaner so that’s good, but I’m not convinced the sale was worth all the work.

On the good side, however, I let Gal Smiley have a little bake sale on the side and it was a huge success.

I spent all day last Friday making all my favourite goodies. When Sir Monkeypants got home and saw the massive, massive amount of dirty dishes, he thought I’d gone a bit overboard. But we ended up selling just about everything, and the kids made $33. Plus the leftovers were no trouble at all to dispose of.

So next year, no garage sale, just a bake sale. Maybe.

In other news, the Captain’s horrible rash has cleared up, but the Little Miss’ Molluscum Contagium is still hanging around tougher than ever. It’s spreading over her torso, and now she has one little spot on her face. Poor kid. Add in the haircut, and some day she’ll actually be happy that all she has is braces, glasses, and acne in the family photos.

And in hair news, the Little Miss kept asking for ponytails and it was so terribly sad, so I took two tiny chunks on either side of her head yesterday and made little antennae-tails, and SO CUTE. And as she herself pointed out yesterday, now that her hair is short, it dries so easily after a shower and is so easy to comb out. So we’re trying to be all glass-half-full around here, and actually having some success at that. Gal Smiley has said many times that she wishes she had a time machine to go back and not play hairdresser, and she seems so sad and sorry about it, so we feel better about that, too. It’s time to move on.

In garden news, all our little plants are poking up now and it’s so very exciting…for us, and also for the bunny rabbit we now have living part time in our backyard. OOPS. The bunny loves the bean plants and so far we have lost five or six of them that he has bitten off right down to the roots. Sir Monkeypants is on emergency build-a-fence duty, so hopefully we can protect the rest.

And speaking of food…spotted at the Superstore this week, APRICOTS. The season is upon us! Get them while you can!

Remember yesterday, when I was all innocent and naive and worried that no one would show up for my garage sale? And I was so afraid of having tons of stuff left over that I marked it all down to a quarter?

Good times.

Late yesterday I posted news of the sale up on some local websites and since then I’ve gotten a surprising number of emails from people asking if they can come out early to have a look. I guess this is standard garage sale etiquette but man, I am not a store front, people!

Anyway, looks like I’m not going to have any trouble selling the stuff. I’d go mark it back up to one dollar but I’m too freakin’ tired of looking at it.

I did sell that one box of stuff yesterday, and I felt a little sad about it, but it’s only today that I have realized (eureka!) that I am not really sad about babies growing up and little ones gone and blah blah nostalgia-cakes.

No, rather, I am upset that some of my piles have been lessened and messed up. I want to open the garage doors on Saturday and have the radiant light of my most AWESOME GARAGE SALE EVER fan out over the waiting purchasers like a golden rainbow. I want there to be gasps at the gorgeous, gorgeous piles, the fantastic organization, the dazzling array of price tags. I want everyone to wait for a minute of silence before entering, then shop reverently, respecting the piles and the sheer amount of stuff and leaving enough for everyone.

I want to be the Goddess of Garage Sales. It’s very sad, really.

So the pre-sale factor had me a little upset mostly because if there is no amazing, fantabulous display of wares when the sale starts on Saturday, I will feel like a total sham, the Slum Lord of Garage Sales. I MUST WIN, people. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

In other news, I was thinking of adding two Royal Doulton Bunnykins sets to my sale because they’ve been sitting on a top shelf for years, gathering dust. I had no idea what to ask for them — one dollar? two? — so I checked online. Turns out that new sets go for like, 60 to 75 dollars! On eBay, this stuff sells for $15 A PIECE, minimum!

So now I’m torn. Should I keep it as an investment in my children’s future? Should I display it, so everyone can see I am the Goddess of Bunnykins? Should we use it like everyday dishware? Or sell it? Hm.

So, remember when I listed all the things I had to do in May and June, and the one thing I said had to go was the garage sale?

Well, it’s totally happening after all! Some of the wedding-related parties had to be postponed so now I have the time and the free Saturday to do it.

I spent all day last Sunday and many, many hours since getting ready for the sale, which is this coming weekend. We are really hoping to get rid of all of our baby stuff, especially the clothes. There’s just so, so much of it.

At first I was thinking of charging $1 per item, but the more I kept laying stuff out, the more I started to think that I really do not want to have anything left at the end of the day. I want this stuff to FLY off the shelves, people. So in my head, before the sale even started, I was already marking everything down to 50 cents. Then I marked more than half of it down to 25 cents.

COME AND GET IT, PEOPLE.

Seriously, I hope it all goes. It certainly isn’t coming back inside my house at the end of the day.

Here’s a shot of my garage right now:

The last few nights I have dreamed of piles and price tags. GAH.

I look at all these neat little piles (sorted by size, then by girl/boy, then by type of clothing) and I wonder why I am always so uber-organized when it comes to big projects, yet my house is such a disaster. I could take 10 random photos of the inside of my house right now and you’d see at least two or three dumpings of random crap in every shot, not to mention mismatched furniture everywhere and builder beige paint on the walls.

But then I would die of embarrassment that you had seen the inside of my house in its natural, raw state, and then there would be no Turtlehead, and then where would we all be? You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, wish me luck, and if you’re in the market for baby clothes, please, PLEASE come over and take some. PLEASE.

Julie of Thoughts of a Smother Mother wrote about her wedding dress today, and I left a small novella in the comments, so I figured I better blog about it too. This is part of the Wedding Dress Blog Tour hosted by Shasher’s Life.

I got married back in 1996 so there aren’t any digital photos of our wedding, and I don’t have a scanner. So I resorted to taking pictures of pictures with my camera. Only these aren’t even the good pictures, these are the proofs. And, they are sealed in plastic so they were extra reflective. Oh, technology, you’ve come a long way, baby.

First, here’s my dress as it hangs in my closet today. I had it all boxed up in one of those heirloom boxes for the past 14 years, but I just cracked it out a few weeks ago so I could extract the veil for FameThrowa.

It’s kind of off white with a gold thread making a pattern through it, and a bunch of beading and roses and crap around the top. I actually really liked this dress, although it looks very dated to me now. I wasn’t planning on buying a wedding dress at all, but my mother had seen this one in a store and drove me out to look at it and although it pretty much defined everything I did NOT want on the hanger, when I put it on it was perfect. So $800 later I was the proud owner of a dress I was going to wear for, like, a half hour.

Ah, youth, so freakin’ insensible.

Anyway, here are some extremely bad quality photos of me on the day.

The best part of this outfit, really, was the veil. I took the fabric they had to cut off of the bottom when fitting it, and used that fabric to make some matching roses for the top of the veil. Why Martha Stewart became famous instead of me, I’ll never know.

I totally should have sold this dress afterwards — I’d do it now but I think it’s too old to find a buyer. Since I busted it out of the box I’ve been thinking of cutting it up to make something new. It’s a lot of very small pieces, but don’t you think it would be cute if I could make a blouse or skirt or something to wear to FameThrowa’s wedding? Hm.

I almost forgot, until I got these photos out, that I changed my dress for the reception, into something with a more Indian flavour (Sir Monkeypants is Indian):

This one was beautiful, made from a traditional Indian wedding sari. I still have this one in the closet too, but I’m actually more attached to it – too attached to cut it up. It’s a top and a separate skirt and I actually wore the skirt part to a couple of fancy Christmas parties back before I had three babies and gained a muffin top. Still, I suppose I could let it out some. Too much for FameThrowa’s wedding? Hm.

I am so very, very bad at growing things. My houseplants all die, my lawn is weedy and brown, and our two trees are completely on their own. But Gal Smiley really wanted to have a garden this year. She REALLY wanted one. And we figured it was good for her and good for us and maybe a little bit good for the Earth as well, so…I’m a sucker.

This year we have put in a very small vegetable garden using the idea of Square Foot Gardening. The concept is that you build a box and then mark off squares that are one foot on each side. The box should be 6 inches high, and then you fill it with super good dirt.

In each square foot patch, you can plant a different kind of plant, and the number of seeds you put down depends on the kind of vegetable. For small things, like carrots or radishes, you plant 16 seeds (you can put two or three seeds in each hole if you’re really nervous about it) in a 4×4 grid. for bigger plants, like peas or beans, you plant 9 in each square. Cucumbers are two per square, while tomatoes are one per square. The result is that your garden takes up a very small area, but you can still grow a wide variety. You’ll have just enough for your own family and won’t end up with bushels of vegetables to give away.

Here’s our box. Sir Monkeypants built it in one day. That’s sexy.

You may notice that for a square foot garden, it’s not very square. That’s because my friend Lee Ann, who has degrees and degrees in horticulture, has drawn up a design for gardens for our entire (currently completely barren) lot. I KNOW. Advice to all: befriend Lee Ann. The designs are AWESOME, and we love them, and we can’t wait to put it all in. Anyway, Lee Ann knew we wanted a kids’ area on our lot so she drew out an area at the side of our house for the vegetable garden, along with other fun things like a sunflower bed, sun dial area, and a bean teepee. This triangular design fits her drawing.

The taller box stuck on the end, by the way, is for carrots. Carrots (and leeks and potatoes) need a 12-inch high box to grow to proper size and depth.

So we planted all our seeds, along with a pre-sprouted tomato and pepper plant we scammed from our (much more organized) neighbours. Then we watered, watered, watered.

And lo, the miracle of life:

I took this picture just five days after we planted our garden, and already the cucumbers are shooting up. How cool is that? Right now it’s nine days since planting, and there are several baby bean and pea plants poking their heads out. AMAZING.

I did some calculations last week and it seems that everything we planted will be ready to harvest within five days of each other, oops. So it could be one intensive vegetable week only, but hey, that’s more than I expected.

I’d even say, it’s kind of a miracle.

So Dance Show is starting up again on Thursday, and possibly for the first time ever, I’m not looking forward to it that much.

I think maybe I’m burned out on reality thanks to American Idol and its season of suck.

Or maybe it’s that Mary Murphy and her screams won’t be around to gripe about, because the griping is one of the best parts.

But mostly, I’m really bitter about the new format. Instead of 20 dancers making it to the top level, only 10 dancers will be selected. Each of these will be paired with a past SYTYCD competitor — popular past dancers like Twitch, Comfort, and Dominic. Then, each week, one of the 10 dancers from this season will be eliminated along with their semi-pro pair.

Does this sound familiar at all? Like, Dancing With The Stars, perhaps?

I am so tired of SYTYCD having a major self-confidence problem, believing it is living in the shadow of Dancing With The Stars. I admit, that other show gets better ratings and doens’t have the embarrassment of being relegated to “summer season.”

But any true dance fan must realize that SYTYCD is a better show. Stars is about personalities. Dance Show is actually about dancing. I’ve seen some amazing things on Dance Show, beautiful things, creative things. I’ve seen dancers bloom and grow and surprise themselves.

On Stars, I’ve seen a lot of shrieking and mocking of old ladies through sequins. It is NOT about the dancing. It’s all about the drama.

And maybe that sells to a mass audience, but Dance Show, I count on you to rise above. I count on you to be original and unique and special.

I do NOT count on you to cave in to your inferiority complex and change your own show to be a pale imitation of that other show.

You are better than that.

At least Mia Michaels is back. She’ll be doing some group choreography but she’ll mostly be on the show as a permanent judge, taking Mary’s spot. Adam Shankman will be back again too, meaning that two out of three judges are two of my favourite Dance Show people of all time.

Overall, though, the show’s on notice. I’m not happy with the proposed changes, Nigel. You’ve got a very small window of time to convince me that this was a good idea.

Just wanted to say a huge, huge thank you for the lovely comments on the Hair Incident Post. You’ve all made me feel so much better — you’ve helped me sort out my own feelings and figure it all out. You so rock.

Things are better today. We were first in line at the Goobers this morning (a fancy west-end kids’ hair salon) and the girl there, after giving me a wide-eyed look of total sympathy, did her best to even things out. There are still a few bald patches and the Little Miss’ hair is OH-MY-GOD so short, but I’m getting used to it. The Goobers girl put sparkles in her hair and the Little Miss was beyond happy, so that’s all good.

As for Gal Smiley, she remains stoic even though we have banned her from the park for this week, and removed all playing-alone-upstairs privileges. At bedtime today we had a good talk in which I reassured her that although we were upset we still loved her very much, and she admitted that she had been making a secret plan to go and live with Princess Charming next door. I told her she was stuck with us, and she actually seemed a little put out but her little secret smile gave her away. Things are looking better.

So now that I am no longer crying every time I look at the Little Miss, I can move on to crying every time I look at the Captain. He’s had a system-wide reaction to some sunscreen we put on him over the weekend, and now his face is red, rashy, and puffy, his ears are beet red and twice their normal size, and he’s itchy all over his arms and legs. Perfect. He’s getting twice daily treatments with hydrocortizone but he’s still making me teary-eyed every 30 seconds or so.

Speaking of tears, last week the Captain had a field trip the Science Museum with his class at school. At the end of the day, the museum gifted each kid a very small bouncy ball. When his class emerged from the school at the end of the day, every kid pulled a bouncy ball from their pocket and started bouncing them around.

And of course, the Captain was the one kid who lost his. It bounced off a big rock and ricocheted somewhere and it was gone. He cried and searched and cried and searched and cried, poor little kid. MOM HEARTBREAK ALERT.

Of course I was near tears myself, but the real thing that got to me was the way his classmates reacted. Several were still hanging around the school yard and they all mobilized and started looking for the Captain’s ball right away. Some came over to offer words or hugs of encouragement during the crying phases. One girl actually offered to give her own ball to the Captain and although of course I had to say no, she was just so sweet and kind that I wanted to hug her, then CRY INTO HER HAIR, because I was so moved.

Kids of the Captain’s class, I love you.

Now excuse me while I crack open YET ANOTHER box of Kleenex. It’s been quite a week!