Monday was one of those days that you think "What did I do last week?" then I thought about it and remembered it "Oh, yeah. I'm glad that week is over."

Some of the highlights...an unpleasant doctor's appointment, dentist appointments for all the kids and myself that left me with a headache(I had a very thorough hygenist), lots of time getting ready for and stressing about the visiting teaching conference this last Sunday, playdates, house in a whirlwind, helping at the school multiple times, a long but good visiting teaching appointment and lots of cleaning and re-cleaning the house (which is part of every week).



I did get to visit with my cousin David and his family this weekend. Emily is inbetween chemo treatments and was wanting to get out of the house and have some fun family time. They came down for a whirlwind San Diego visit and have got to see about everything that there is to see in San Diego. We met them in Temecula after they were done visiting the Wild Animal Park. Our visit was quick but I was so glad we got to see them and the kids loved hanging out with their 2nd cousins(?).



So last week is gone and I'm jumping into this week. I got good news from the doctors, the VT conference is over and I'm ready to move on. This Thursday Jeff and I are flying out to San Fransisco for a quick trip to have him speak for a New York Life kickoff. Normally he goes on his own but I thought I'd go with him this time. We're having Jenise and Sean come and hang out with the kids while we're gone. I woke up yesterday realizing everything I have to do to get ready to go, have the house ready, stocked with food and so on.

One of the things on my list to do was to hunt down a modest cocktail dress for Friday night, (quite a feat). Jeff has black tie events about twice a year at least and I've worn the same floor length, too formal, sparkly dress for enough years in a row that it's time to get something else. After searching and searching I ended up at Nordstrom's for my last ditch effort. Nordstroms is one of those places that I secretly wish I could shop at and dread to shop at the same time.

I didn't realize that Nordstroms comes with your own fitting room assistant/sales person to help you/get you to buy stuff. I just wanted to slink in the fitting room inconspicously and try on a dress and she descended on me. She was very nice and annoying at the same time. I told her I was looking for a cocktail dress with sleeves but she brought me a slew of dresses with 1/2 of them without sleeves. Even when I asked her a second time I don't think she really understood. She brought me things with sleeves but they were see through all down the back and chest. Another one had sleeves, but it was off the shoulder. There was a few plunging necklines and some over the top dress with blue palm frond looking things on it. Not the look I was going for. She even threw in a red dress that wasn’t formal at all that she thought would look good on me. It didn’t look good even though she tried to insist that it did. Nice try. Every time she brought me more dresses I had to open the door to receive them from her. I had to keep trying to throw a dress on to receive them and of course she would have to comment on how wonderful it looked. I thought to myself more than once “Is she kidding, I don’t even have the thing zipped up yet” or “can’t she see my undergarments obviously hanging out of this dress” She was nice but I’m pretty cynical when I think that someone is telling me something to make a sale.

Jeff tried calling me while I was in the fitting room and I would talk to him but she was outside the door with more dresses and she thought I was talking to her "OK Jeff I'll call you back." Well I expected to pay a lot but I ended up paying pretty much what I wanted to on 2 dresses (one of which she brought to me) so all in all it wasn't too bad.

"My assistant" then encouraged me to go over to the shoe section next. Since one of the dresses was navy I thought I should probably go look for shoes that matched. After I saw the $238.00 price tag for basic pumps I left. I ended up scoring at JC Penny’s where I got a pair of matching shoes for $11.00 on clearance. Now that's my kind of shopping.

So last night the kids were in a "mom look at what I can do" mood. I had them coming at me from all sides so I thought I'd make a video of it...my talented children.