Jack Handey Quote of the Week

"If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because, man, they're gone."

Something Fierce and Fancy: Medium Custom Twinkle Toes Tote

This fun, Barbie-esque Medium Twinkle Toes Tote (say that five times fast!) is what I've been working on this past week. My mom's friend asked me to design it for her daughter to use as a dance bag, and I was only too happy to rise to the challenge! You can't be painting something pink and purple and bedecked with hearts and not be happy. I just packaged it up for the post office tomorrow, surrounded by my overflowing boxes of paper and ribbon. I've come to enjoy the wrapping almost as much as the painting.

I think they probably sort of know me at the post office by now, even though I alternate between three different locations. Sometimes they ask if I drew all the pictures on the envelope, which makes me feel flattered and silly all at once. Other times they just comment on my shoes.

Something New and Sparkly: Rainbow Ribbons Necklace

Rainbow Ribbons Necklace

Not too long ago, I noticed these rustic-looking silk cords in A.C. Moore. I think they're meant for stringing beads, but for some reason I was instantly inspired to use them as adornments for a chain necklace. Then I saw a display of quirky charms in Michaels and was a complete goner. I had to have all these fun new pieces to morph into an exciting new necklace. It was so bad that I even had an outfit picked out to wear with it! (I have a feeling that one will be a part of next week's Photo Shoot Friday.) It took me longer than usual to amass the trinkets, as I decided to make multiple trips to the craft stores to use my many coupons. But I eventually got everything I needed, and this Rainbow Ribbons Necklace was the result. So, did it turn out as I pictured it? Mostly. Although, the necklace in my mind had more widely spaced charms and ribbons going all the way around instead of concentrated in a chunky group in the center. But that's the nice thing about creating; you never know just what you'll get.

I made this necklace for me but just posted it in the Made to Order section of my Etsy shop. That way, if you like it, then I'll happily make you one too. :)

Heart and Humor Meet in (ABC's) The Middle

Last fall, when the new sitcom The Middle was introduced to ABC's Wednesday night line-up, I didn't like it at all. The show centered around the Hecks, a middle-class, middle American family planted firmly and unpretentiously in Indiana. You had Mike, the straight-talking quarry manager dad (Scrubs's Neil Flynn); Frankie, a frazzled used car saleswoman-slash-supermom (Patricia Heaton, Everybody Loves Raymond); Axl, their popular football playing teenage son; Sue, their awkward preteen daughter who gets cut from every team she tries out for; and Brick, their brilliant but socially hopeless second grader. Weekly plots focused on all the icky little details of work and home life: paying bills on time, shopping for suspect meat at the discount grocery store, getting the kids to do their homework, squeezing in family dinners, shopping for anniversary present carpet remnants, trying not to be late for work, etc. To be honest, it depressed me. So I stopped watching, clicking over to the vapid but more cheerful (and now cancelled) Gary Unmarried on CBS until it was time for the upper middle-class glamor of Modern Family to dazzle me as far away from reality as was possible.

Things went on like this until mid-season last year when I decided to give The Middle another chance. And you know what? I started to feel ashamed of my prematurely snobby dismissal. I started to, well, like it. Because behind all the tedium, the Hecks had something that most sitcom families didn't: heart. Their struggles became more funny than bleak, probably because they rang true. I especially liked Brick, endeared by his kooky, too-cerebral-for-his-own-good differentness and the way he repeated the things he said out loud in whispers. Before long, The Middle had eclipsed Modern Family for the top spot in my Wednesday night TV-viewing affections.

I still watch and enjoy Modern Family. But sometimes its big, perfect houses seem kind of cold compared to the Hecks's lived-in rancher with the unfinished basement and lime green living room. Similarly, "Modern Family's" three couples seem to be strained by tensions that remain unresolved even after plots are sewn up. Although Mike and Frankie Heck squabble over the usual who's-going-to-drive-the-kids-to-practice sort of issues, they never seem to resent each other as lingeringly as Phil and Claire Dunphy. Interestingly, Claire (Julie Bowen) sometimes reminds me of the high-strung stay-at-home mom that Heaton used to play on Raymond. Although considerably poorer and more heavily burdened, Heaton's character on The Middle appears happier and more grounded. Of course, that could just be because her mother-in-law isn't lurking across the street . . .

Book Report: Deadly Housewives

As it turned out, I wasn't far from blogland after all.

Now, about this paperback cover. The white picket fence. The four women. And that title: Deadly Housewives. All a little familiar, isn't it?

I picked up this bargain book at Borders the same day I purchased Julie & Julia and Second Shift. Funny how that feminist theme snuck its way into all of my picks. But on to the review.

Blatantly cashing in on the popularity of the TV show Desperate Housewives, the Deadly Housewives short story collection features women who have moved beyond desperate into the more disturbing realm of, well, deadly. I think just about every story centers around a housewife murdering someone. Some of the stories are funny, others are just downright dark. Similarly, some were cheesy while others boasted more layers. All in all, it was the kind of book I was embarrassed to be reading. (Which might make you wonder why I'm broadcasting it to the world here. But as I often say, this blog is dedicated to reporting an accurate cross section of all my intellectual and artistic experiences, however good or bad).

That's not to say that I wasn't entertained by this murderous missive.

The story that intrigued me the most was "Next-Door Collector" by Elizabeth Massie. Its heroine is Anthea, a stay-at-home mom and artist who likes to be alone. The drama begins when a new neighbor, Lisa, moves into the house next store with her forty or so dogs and cats. As messy as Anthea is pristine and as sociable as Anthea is aloof, Lisa takes every opportunity to invite Anthea into her unkempt and fur ball-ridden home, cheerfully explaining that her pets are like the children she could never have. But Anthea, put off by Lisa's slovenliness and forward nature, politely declines, insisting that she needs time to work on her paintings. Meanwhile, Anthea notices that Lisa often ventures out to her yard in her bathrobe past midnight to haul a veritable forest of plastic storage bins into her basement. Although troubled, Anthea seems content to satiate her curiosity by spying. The story most likely would have ended here had Anthea's only son not taken a shine to Lisa and her menagerie. He sneaks over along with the other neighborhood children to play with Lisa's pets, much to Anthea's horror. She forbids him to return, her anxiety ignited when she hears that her son's two best friends -- twin brothers -- are missing. Convinced that Lisa and her ominous boxes are somehow to blame, Anthea creeps into Lisa's basement one night. As predicted, Lisa is there in her bathrobe, handling the boxes. Her movements are punctuated by crying that seems to be coming from beneath the floor. Sure that's she's hearing the pleas of the twins and countless other kidnapped children, Anthea bludgeons Lisa, killing her. The deed done, Anthea peers into one of the boxes and finds -- dogs. Piles and piles of dead dogs awaiting burial. Then Anthea returns home and begins painting a picture, entirely in black, in a frenzy. In the morning her husband sees her and says, "You've killed another neighbor, haven't you?" And that's when we realize that the "next-door collector" isn't Lisa, a mere lonely woman with too many pets, but Anthea, a paranoid serial killer who's murdered neighbors in various cities, forcing her family to move time and time again. (The twins, by the way, resurface quickly, having run away.)

Creepy, huh?

Jack Handey Quote of the Week

I may be far from blogland tomorrow, so I decided to deliver this week's Jack Handey quote a day early:

"Children need encouragement. So if a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling."

Movie Moment: (Froth and Fun Abound) in You Again

Today my mom and I celebrated Columbus Day by shopping (I finally bought my "serviceable" JCPenney flats for just $13!) and going to the movies to see You Again. Mom and I share a guilty pleasure for chick flicks of all kinds, which is nice because no one else I know really likes them. Sure, You Again was silly and predictable. (For those of you not in the know, it's about a successful twentysomething PR exec [played by Kristen Bell] who finds out her brother is marrying the "popular" girl who tortured her in high school.) But we knew that going in. We came for the slapstick, the drama, and the outfits. (But then, it's almost always about the outfits.) Oh, and for the Betty White. (She plays Bell's character's grandmother and is as charmingly spunky as ever.)

The popular girl vs. the nerdy girl storyline is always interesting, regardless of how cliched it is. But then, like all clichés it got that way because it's true. That's why people keep making movies about it. Whatever their high school experience, people can relate. Because underneath all the labels, gosh darn it, we're all the same.