The Smell

There will be no picture with this post and as you read on you may see why. Tuesday night I had a training meeting downtown at the district headquarters. We were learning how to use the new Blackberries the district had purchased for all buildings for communications in an emergency. Since I am the primary user, I thought it was important to know how to actually use it.
So as I am sitting there in the meeting I keep smelling this smell. At first I think it must be the recycling plant across the road. Strong winds coming up from the South do tend to waft very unpleasant smells from the recycling plant towards the district buildings. But that was not it. The smell seemed to come and go. I moved from one place in the room to another and still I smelled it. I sniffed my hands, the blackberry I was using and still I couldn't figure out the where the smell was coming from.
Later that evening as I was laying on the sofa watching TV, I smelled it again. I hadn't smelled it since I left the district headquarters or up until that point but there it was again. I realized it must be on me. I turned my head to the left, the smell got stronger I turned my head to the right I didn't smell it so much.
Keep in mind, that I was still wearing the same clothes I had been wearing all day. I hadn't really noticed the smell at work that I could recall but perhaps I did because the smell was most definitely coming from my clothes. The left-hand side of my blouse to be specific!
So lets backtrack and take a little trip down memory lane. Over Memorial Day weekend, we went for an overnight to the Cupcake cabin. We had been shutting our bedroom door when we were gone for long extended periods of time so the cat would not get hair all over the nice, new, beautiful quilt that Aleta had made for us. So we shut the door of our bedroom. (I know you can already guess where this is heading). Of course, we checked to make sure the cat was not already in the room (wink, wink). There were several stacks of clean clothes all over on my side of the bed that I just hadn't gotten around to putting away and I was leaving them until we got back.
When we got back, I was starting to put away those "clean clothes" when all of the sudden I realized that there was cat poo under one of my shirts (no, not the one I was wearing Tuesday). I lifted the pile and sniffed, sure enough there was cat pee to go with. See, even when we got home we didn't realize the cat had been locked in the bedroom until I began putting away the "clean clothes". I wasn't sure whether I should, explode, barf or laugh. So I sniffed my way through the rest of the clothes to see which had been used as the litter box--well at least I thought I did.
So you guessed it! Tuesday night I was wearing a shirt with cat pee perfume on it!! You might ask how could I not notice before Tuesday afternoon if I had been wearing the blouse all day? It has been unusually cold here in Seattle lately and hour school building cold to go with it. All that day, I had been wearing a sweatshirt over my blouse to keep warm. I didn't notice the cat pee smell until I was sitting at the meeting with my sweatshirt off! The sweatshirt had been masking the smell all day long. I guess it was a small spot because otherwise the smell would have been more potent.
By time I figured it out, it was too late at night to do anything about it but laugh. Hope this makes your day seem better. Spending the day wearing a cat pee shirt sure beats most "bad" things you might have experience in your day!! Good times.

A Grandma Hall Apron

Last week was my birthday. No special birthday, just a birthday. I received a package from Inkom Crazy Lady in the mail. When I opened it, I was hoping it was what I thought it was (otherwise it was some pretty wild fabric if it was something else). Lo and behold, it was!! I was so excited. It was a "Grandma Hall" apron. I had been jealous of Crazy Lady, Celiac and Aleta because they all had one (Bert probably has one too). A Grandma Hall apron is the coolest thing in the world and Crazy Lady had made me one! That's what I am wearing in the photo of course.

What's cool about a Grandma Hall apron you might reasonably ask? Well, there are no strings to tie, it fits easily over your head and covers your clothing well plus it has the added bonus of the roomy pockets. What's extra special about it for me, is that it reminds me of my Grandma Hall who, just thinking about her brings a tear to my eye. It's true. She was an amazing woman who was so many things that I could spend pages and pages talking about her but I won't. I'll simply say that I look forward to the day when I will be able to sit down with her in eternity.

I will also think about Crazy Lady of course who is also an amazing woman that would take pages and pages to describe adequately. It will also remind me of how much I have been blessed in my life to be surrounded by amazing women. My mom, all my sisters, my grandmothers (yes both of them), my aunts, my nieces, my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, women from my church, women from my children's school, women from my mission...you get the idea. There have been so many amazing, talented, interesting, wonderful and beautiful women in my life and I feel blessed to be able to count so many of them as sisters, family and friends.

Why should an apron remind me of women? Isn't that an old-fashioned, anti-feminist notion? Maybe so. But I have to say that some of the best, most profound and interesting conversations I have had with women have come around the preparation of food. There's something about working together like that which sparks conversations. There is a bond that develops as you work side by side.

Of course, the Grandma Hall apron is not only for women as Tucker shows here. It also looks quite fetching and manly on men (or almost men). Even ones wearing skinny jeans!

Now if you are interested, you can check out our recent weekend at the Cupcake Cabin on Camano Island. Always a good time with our friends. One of the boys favorite places to visit--especially when the Roches come with us. Just click on the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/MisteChandler/CupcakeCabinMay2008?authkey=a8mvC_OZMtw