hoping that saying is true

no news is good news.

nana and tom are both on ventilators so that they can be on full force pain killers and it looks like things may be turning around. my sister said that nana looked much bettert today (her surgery to put her pelvis back together was yesterday morning and went well), she slept pretty well last night. tom is anxious to get off the ventilator, it's so not his style. :) so after a weekend of being down and uncertain of what's next, things are starting to look better. i know it's because of the prayers that so many are offering on my family's behalf. thank you. they are appreciated and felt.

we finished up the kids' school shopping. we don't buy a bunch of new clothes for the first day of school because it stays hot here until mid october usually, so we have a first day outfit and maybe a couple of pairs of long pants to get by for a while. my kids approach shopping in completely different ways. annie's trip took us about 5 hours and (mom, it's payback time, no snickering allowed...) we only got her a couple of pairs of jeans, a jacket, a fancy shirt (because you need one), and 3 scarves. writing that out makes it look like we were more successful than i feel, so i guess it wasn't that bad. it's definitely not bad, it's really fun to shop w/ her, she's got a great classic taste, something i did not. she decided that this year she had to LOVE everything we bought. i decided that i wasn't going to go w/o a budget this year. so far so good. we've found some good deals, she got an adorable jacket for $13. not bad when last year's jacket rarely gets worn and cost 3 times that price. and she's decided she's a scarf person. i try not to make a big deal out of it, but I was a scarf person in high school. it's kind of cute :) scarves will definitely spruce up her wardrobe. part of the problem of not growing much since 6th grade is that you have a lot of older clothes and your mom doesn't think you need any new ones. scarves make it all better. i'm pretty impressed at her thought process. after spending the afternoon with her girlfriend michelle, she decided that we needed to go out one last time and work on the first day outfit a little more. she still has some of that budget to play with anyway... we've decided that she is not a forever 21 fan, the clothes just do not fit her body type. i once again found myself rolling my eyes at some of the things there, but then catching myself quickly. i would have loved that store. it was much cleaner this time around. AND they're promoting the fact that they've started buying better quality fabrics for the same price. hmmmmm. we haven't found the magic bullet store for clothes that fit, but delia's jeans are near perfect, she doens't have to wear a belt with them, that's a plus. tops are a different story. she's not as well endowed as she'd like, so finding something that fits has been hard. that's more the reason we were gone for 5 hours, it's not because she's a picky shopper.

ethan on the other hand says, "let's go to target and get a couple pairs of jeans a couple button downs and i'm good." he also hopes that i'll let him wander over into the toy section and make a purchase. i tell him no, we're not here for that purpose. he says, "you mean you won't let me get any entertainment from this trip?" kelly's folks used to call him "mr. purchase" when he was a kid. we have spawned mr. purchase jr. i say, "no ethan, no entertainment this trip, just clothes." defeat. but when we get to the clothing section, he finds a tshirt w/ an old twinkies advertisement on the front. he's never been the kid to wear clothes w/ any sort of logo or ad on the front, but the message speaks to him, as well as the fact that he loves twinkies (he doesn't ever get them from mom, grandpa and grandma pitts supply him with said treat for birthdays occasionally.) and this boy lights up and can't stop smiling. we walk out with a tshirt that says, "it's what inside that matters." i'll post pictures soon. then he found a hawaiian shirt that he had to have, "i'll be cabana ethan!" i say, "won't people laugh at you?" "why of course, but i'm known for wearing outlandish things to school mom!" i'm thinking in my head, "outlandish? you wear jeans, button down shirts, and loafers kid, you are alex p. keaton." but he's all hopped up on the idea of being cabana ethan and i can't take that away from him, especially since said cabana shirt is nearly 1/2 price. :) and the button downs we came to get are 75% off. it was a good day shopping with the boy, we were done in an hour.

my friend gillian started a challenge at SC to scraplift the person above you. i got her, and this is the result. i love how it turned out. i'm playing with my studio calico kit, working on three layouts simultaneously. trying to channel tina azsmus for one of them. hoping it works.

supplies: most are SC documentary line, unless noted. rub on from cameras--blue, yellow alphas stickers, souvenir paper (yellow), holiday paper (green), world traveler sticker, blue alpha stickers (from anthology line), journaling card (from home front line), red mini alphas are cosmo cricket, and pop dots from making memories.

and just a random thing to finish off this post, because i want to :) my black eyed susans in the back garden have quadrupled in size since last year. that makes me happy.