My leperous little band nerd.

So, Marissa is loving the fourth grade.  Her teacher is nice, and this year?  She gets to be a band nerd, just like mommy.  I convinced her to give the clarinet a go (it's what I started on) so we go today to sign our lives away and rent one for an ungodly amount of money per month.

I'm excited for her -- and am happy she didn't pick a saxophone or trumpet.  It could be said that I strongly discouraged her from picking the trumpet, and I perhaps might've threatened to throw things at her.  Possibly.

I made her a new dress that she wore to school yesterday, and the only reason I'm mentioning this is because her legs were bare.  The only reason I'm mentioning that is to segue into the topic:  Marissa Is A Leper.

She has bug bites all over her legs.  ALL.  OVER.  I took pictures, but I'm not showing you.  It's that bad.  It's terrible.  We bug spray her, and put calamine lotion on it for the itching, but her legs are terrible.  Horrible.  When she came home from school yesterday, I saw just how bad it was, and it had gotten so much worse.  She's scratching the bejeesus out of them, and they're turning into YUCK.

She scratches them in her sleep, so one morning she woke up to find her pj bottoms duct-taped to her ankles.  Yeah, that's the way I roll.

I made her wear socks yesterday when she got home, and today?  Pants.  Tomorrow?  Pants.  The day after that?  More pants.  I'm also going to be investing in tights, and probably more duct tape.  I can only get on her so much about all the scratching, because I get bug bites too (though not nearly as bad) and I'm bad about scratching.  But Marissa is an over-achiever, and takes scratching to a whole new level.

I have to stop talking about it, because I'm getting all worked up, and considering driving to her school right now to smuggle in some duct tape.  Just in case.

Worth every penny.

10.1 megapixels in the hizzouse, y'all.

Ack!

We did it.  We put ourselves in debt, for a fancy piece of equipment.  Wahoo!

It's okay, though, because it was a GREAT deal.  (It helps if I repeat this to myself.  A lot.)  I'm sure we'll be very happy with our new camera.  We can take pictures of ourselves riding off into the sunset while we embark on part II of our lives -- After the Camera: the Journey Begins.

You can come if you want.  There WILL be cake.

Tough choice.

I came across a really, really good deal on the camera I want.  I can even use a credit card, and make payments.  And I REALLY want it.  But, it's super spendy.  And, I don't want to be under that debt.  And what with birthdays and holidays coming up....

But BIRTHDAYS and HOLIDAYS are coming up, what better time to have a great, shiny, new, kick-ass camera?

Should we, or shouldn't we?  Is it a good investment, or an unnecessary expense?

I'm.  So.  Conflicted.

Is it too early to think about Halloween?

I guess I just need a lot of time to get motivated.  It's in my nature to make costumes at the very last minute.  Like, the night of.  Like, 5 minutes before they need to leave to go trick-or-treating.

That's the benefit to having friends that live very far away.  It gives me oodles of free time to worry about ridiculous things.  Months in advance.

Oh, and speaking of ridiculous, I decided to re-redo the contac-paper chair.  It was almost physically painful pulling all that hard work off, but it was turning out to be a mess.  My kids?  They're pickers.  So, because I love them, and don't want to have to kill them, I pulled everything off, and spray-painted both chairs.

And made little butterfly cut-outs from the contac paper, and put those on, instead.  I like to keep things interesting.

And then I made chair pads that match the butterfly cut-outs.  Naturally.  And I quilted the covers, by sewing around random butterflies in the fabric.

I went ALL OUT, man.  It's like, XTreme chair redecorating.  I'm officially LIVING ON THE EDGE.

*click the picture to view all the pictures of my chair madness*