DIY... not so scary after all

Last week I had my first little DIY experiment and I am proud to say: I did it! While I consider myself creative and like a project here and there, I prefer a method known as BIY – Buy It Yourself. I feel like I can get a good idea but instead of crafting it, I usually find someone to do it for me. Fortunately, I have a wealth of helpful resources in that area; the husband has not only refinished but built furniture from scratch to match my hairbrained ideas (I usually provide him with very specific instructions, such as “I want it painted chocolate CHIP mint, not cucumber mint!”), my very talented friend has designed gorgeous Christmas cards, shower invitations and thank you notes (her Etsy shop is reopening next week here),  another is gifted at party prep and planning, and when I’m really desperate, I can find something pretty dang quick on Etsy. Or my other best friend comes in handy, Amazon Prime. So, DIY does not really have a place in my heart. Or home. However, Halloween reared it’s evil head, and I had no choice.

Of course, we already had Gavin’s Halloween costume planned. The husband, being the king of costumes, requested about 9 months ago that the baby be a bear for his first Halloween. (He has a weird obsession with bears right now that I don’t get or care to further investigate.) This was no problem, as one of Gavin’s older girlfriends had previously worn a bear costume, so we were set. (Here is a sweet non-Halloween edition if you just want something cute to keep baby warm with - love these things.)  Then comes the night of October 30^th.

“What are you going to wear?” asked the husband, accusingly, I might add. “What do you mean? Gavin is going to be a bear and I am going to be… me.” I actually (mistakenly) thought I would finally be off the hook for dressing up now that the husband has his own protégé – my dream come true! No more weird rainbow ballerina costumes for me! I was going to enjoy this Halloween costume-free. But no. He acted like I should have known all along I needed a costume too. For someone who has 21 tubs of dress-up clothes, it’s odd to me that this was never mentioned until the DAY BEFORE. I digress.

Anyways, if I HAD to dress up, at least maybe I could finally get my wish of dressing up 1) as something normal and 2) as a family. I have always wanted to be a cute couple dressing up, like Don and Betty Draper or something equally dapper. But no. I have had the pleasure of going to Halloween parties with the Chiquita Banana fruit-basket-on-her-head lady, a fairy, a rainbow DJ, and more. The closest I ever got to my cute couple costume was when we were the “Tequila Bandits” and that is a whole other blog post for a different trip down memory lane! (And that memory is a foggy one; the costume title alone can give you a hint.)

First, I thought we could be the 3 Bears. It took him about 2 seconds to shoot that idea down. Of course, it was way too NORMAL. Plus, I admit, I wasn’t thrilled with dressing up as a bear myself. Goldilocks was another option, but I really don’t have the hair for it. Terrified, I asked the husband what he might be dressing up as. “A bear hunter.” Um, excuse me? Your kid is a bear and so you are going to be a bear hunter? Great, you want CPS alerted on our first Halloween. No. His second costume choice (always gotta have a back up) was Timothy Treadwell. Typical. Another costume that no one will understand what/who he is. I explained that he would look like a blond guy with a black eye, which did not go with the bear theme. Had we planned this in advance, the aforementioned talent (or Etsy, or Amazon) could have helped produce something great for all of us. But time was not our friend.

So, inspired by none other than the famous Yogi Bear, I decided to be a honey pot and suggested the husband join us as the bee. If I was going to dress up, I was going to take charge! For the first time in 9 Halloweens together, I won. I practically ran a victory lap around the house! But it gets better. I could tell he didn’t have full confidence in this yet. Skepticism was oozing from the costume king. Especially when I called him at work to ask him if he thought it was a good idea to make my honeycomb hat out of the pasta strainer. (I had no time for the DIY ideas I frantically searched for online – sandwich boards and foam tubing? I don’t think so!) I had to act fast and make it legit. So, a quick trip to target and literally 10 minutes of crafting later, my strainer was transformed by a little gold wrapping paper and masking tape. I threw on my gold cardigan (with some gold necklaces of course) and turned a pencil into a honey wand/stick/thing. Boom! I was a honeypot and there was nothing he could do about it. When a stunned, “Wow, that actually worked,” came out of his mouth, I had made it. To be considered quality on Halloween by this man ranked right up there with my life’s crowning achievements! Truly, I usually don’t care how he feels about what I wear, but Halloween is his holiday, and I had finally risen to the occasion!

missing stripes + a martini = creepy bee

Then, there was him to worry about it. That bumble bee. While yellow painters tape on a black shirt was a good idea in theory, in practicality it was not. Unfortunately, the pencils did not serve his costume as well as mine, as his bee antennas were pitifully un-pointy. One beverage in and his stripes were peeling and his antennas were drooping. His DIY was kind of… a fail. But the husband was a good sport. I consider it payback for all the “joy” I have endured with him on Halloweens past. Moral of the story: when you need a DIY costume, be a honeypot, not a bumble bee. (And don't ever assume your Halloween can be costume-free... at least not in this house.)

PS Let me know if you need your own honey pot building instructions by commenting below and I'll give you the skinny!

PPS If you have better DIY costumes (and i'm sure you do) - share those too!

Summer Book Club, here I come!

My normal reading material consists of US Weekly (I am loyal subscriber and therefore read it religiously every Thursday night), Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar (again, I wait for the monthly glossies to arrive in my mailbox), and catalogs (the husband hates that when we moved I was thrilled to get us on a mailing list for all home stores in the nation!). However, in the summer, I get serious about my reading. I try to plan my days off in accordance with the weather if at all possible, and lay out (on my front porch, someone else’s roof, my parents’ patio, wherever) for several hours per day and devour approximately a book or two per week. When I say devour, I mean it. I get completely obsessive about my books, the plots, the characters, etc. After my day tanning, I proceed to read at night, when I’m sweating in our sweltering third floor apartment. I get lost in the story to the point where (thank goodness) I forget about the heat and stay up for hours past the fi-fo-fum husband, who like clockwork, peacefully falls asleep before 10pm.

This summer, I decided to get really serious about my reading. After a lunch break spent pouring through the shelves at Barnes and Noble, and another few hours reading the backs of all the books at Target, I created my own personal summer reading list. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I took it one step further and invented MY OWN SUMMER BOOK CLUB. The husband (again, he is so ridiculous) says that you cannot have a real “club” if you are the only person in it, but as usual, I beg to differ. I am THRILLED about my club, however independent it may be! And, for being so negative, he actually turned out to be quite supportive, because he even bought me three books from Amazon! (By bought, I mean I clicked “Yes, use credit card on file” while I was ordering, and then asked him afterward. I LOVE stored account numbers like that!)

Since I (someday) want to write my own book, my reading list is rather memoir-focused. (See, this is why I can be the only person in my club, because the titles are all for my own personal benefit.) Here is what I have tackled so far:

“the best of friends” by Sara James and Ginger Mauney (an excellent read – two best friends wind and twist their individual tales and the span of their friendship through three decades)

“someday my prince will come” by Jerramy Fine (the true story of a girl searching for her prince, literally; incredibly candid and hilarious, it’s an easy and upbeat read that brought much joy to the few days it took me to read it!)

still to come…

“change of heart” by Jodi Picoult (not a memoir, but I love this author, and I’m sure this book – one of her earlier novels – will not disappoint; she is responsible for this summer's blockbuster, "my sister's keeper" as well)

“pretty in plaid” by Jen Lancaster (another memoir, by the same funny girl who wrote “Bitter is the New Black;” her writing style is supposedly quite “bloggy” so I think I will like it!)