Oh, yeah, today I went to the dentist at 10:45.  I am finally getting over it.  I had a root canal last week and today was the appointment for the temporary cap.  It was horrible.
It was the very last tooth in the back on the bottom so I guess it was awkward.
Did I say awkward?  I meant AWKWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My mouth hung open for the better part of an hour and forty five minutes. My jaw is so tired I can hardly stand it.  Not to mention that he had to push my cheek out of the way while the assistant held my tongue back with a dental mirror.
Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
Don't get me wrong. Our dentist is an okay guy. He isn't a sadist or anything like that.  He told me I was doing good about a million times and that I should keep breathing.  Wait, I'm not breathing?  What's he talking about? So I breathed...oops, he was right.
He gave me a tissue at the beginning of my appointment to dab my chin if I drooled or any such thing.  You should have seen it at the end of my appointment. I never dabbed my chin once but that little tissue was a balled up mass of wrinkles and all torn up to boot and then squished back together.  Who did that?  Oh, wait, I think it was me.
The chair looked out onto the parking lot and I saw a fire engine pull in and didn't give it much thought.  After sweating and not breathing and a pounding heart, the assistant finally got me out of the chair and we headed to the front desk to set up the next appointment.(oh goodie)  In the hallway are six firemen including two paramedics.  Oh, for me?  I didn't think I was that nervous.  And the girl says to me, "Oh, don't worry."  I had to laugh at that. Who, me, worry? 
Of course it wasn't for me.  Some lady had some kind of an attack.  I can't say I blame her and I wish I would have thought of it before we got started on my procedure.  I guess the novocaine must have numbed my brain.

You Can Always Go Downtown...or can you?

In case you haven't heard, Cleveland is bouncing back from the bad reputation of the last few decades.  My DS is really into it and loves spending time down there.  He even lived there for a while.  We got to see the air show from his roof.  It was pretty cool. 
There are a ton of restaurants down there and even I have gone to some of them.
I don't really go downtown.  DH and I would rather hit a winery than a downtown restaurant but that's just us.
Anyway, I don't want to debate the merits of downtown Cleveland. I want to tell you about a woman who refuses to go down there.  She was on the news last night and she said she had a really good reason she would never go there again.
I thought maybe she had been robbed or aggressively panhandled, possibly even been physically harmed.  She was adamant that she would not go down there because of her horrible experience.
Wanna know what it was?  I sure did.  She was riding a city bus and a mentally handicapped person sat next to her and........licked her face!  Say what?  Someone licked your face so you wrote off the whole downtown Cleveland experience?  You didn't just wash your face and go on with your life?
Now don't get me wrong.  I wouldn't want anyone to lick my face either but I can think of a few ways I could have handled it.  Like wipe my face off with a tissue til I got to the nearest washroom.  Like tell the mentally handicapped person not to do that.  It was unacceptable. 
If the person sitting next to the woman licked her it was probably on the cheek cause any other thing is not logical.  Like the front of her face or something.  Don't you think you'd notice someone getting close enough to lick you???   What, was she asleep?  Obviously the person who did it didn't understand personal space.
Anyway, I just thought the whole thing was overblown and stupid.
I don't go downtown much either but I would never say never and she shouldn't have either because by the end of the piece, the reporter talked her into going down there again in spite of her horrible experience.  Oh, brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pin Me

I am loving Pinterest.  Heaven knows when my daughter tried to explain it to me I just didn't get it.  It is really hard to explain to someone who doesn't pin.  My favorite question is Why?  My answer is always long and drawn out and full of explanations but the answer really is..... Because.
I have so much fun scanning all those pins and choosing ones I might use someday.  I have enough recipes to last until I'm 100+ years old.  I have so many "Good Ideas" and you should see my Polyvore board.  It would cost me mucho,mucho bucks to really have those clothes.  I can look at them any time I want for free!
Some of the ideas are practical.  I made sugar scrub for Christmas gifts and it turned out real good except one friend's son tried to eat it.  No harm done, it wasn't anything but sugar and olive oil and peppermint oil.  He is a high school graduate so you'd think he'd know better but whatever.
Anyway, I almost pinned something on my favorite things board this morning.  It was a picture of Barbie.  Then I saw the caption and decided no.  Why, you ask?  Haha, not Because. It said how to help your daughter avoid Barbie.
Barbie is not a demon.  Is she realistic?  Heck,no.  She is a teenage model for crying out loud.  Is a baby doll realistic?  Will all our girls grow up to think babies never cry or poop?  Nobody complains about that.  So why would a girl think she should look like Barbie?(who by the way doesn't poop either)
My daughter always loved Barbie.  She never thought she had to look like that.  She had her own beauty.  We told her.  She knew she didn't have to be a Barbie to be beautiful.
So, Moms, try talking to your daughters instead of dissing my old pal, Barbie.  When I was a gawky preteen, she was my friend.  She was my friend when I gave her to my daughter and watched my girl light up at the sight of that giant hair( it was the 90's after all) and the fluffy dress.  Oh, yes and I talked to my daughter about being pretty on the inside as well as the outside starting when she was hardly four years old.
That's what Barbie is good for.  Starting a conversation not a controversy.

Moon Princess

Moon Princess by angel-mom featuring otazu

Matthew Williamson long ball gown / GUESS by Marciano high heels / Arunashi fire opal jewelry / Irene Neuwirth oval diamond ring / Otazu

Oscars 2013

 I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love with a wonderful......oh, wait  I'm in love with four guys.  Yes, it's true.  I fell in love over and over last night and I'll tell you why.
I fell in love with Ben Affleck for his excited, rambling, overwhelmed acceptance speech.  Handsome and sweet, what's not to love?
Daniel Day Lewis was teary but pulled it together to tease Meryl Streep and go on to give a moving acceptance. I loved what he said about his wife.
Hugh Jackman ran up to help that poor Jennifer Lawrence when she fell unlike Bradley Cooper who was only two seats away from her and just sat there.  My DD says it was Bradley but I'm sticking to my guns. It was Hught, ok?
The biggest surprise for me was falling for Seth McFarland.  All I knew about him was that show Family Guy which I find disgusting and offensive and my kids love. So I expected a total jerk and instead I got a total entertainer.  I hope he will be the host of the Oscars for this generation like the perennial Bob Hope who was the host in my youth.
My DH is used to my Hollywood loves so he doesn't really mind but this is my first multiple so I don't know what he's thinking.  Really it is totally innocent and from afar so what's the harm?
The best part is I don't have to pick one.  I can have them all and how often does that happen?  Am I right?

Sun Princess

Sun Princess by angel-mom featuring multi color sandals

Alexander McQueen / Giuseppe Zanotti multi color sandals / Nail polish

Ice Princess

Ice Princess by angel-mom featuring marquise cut diamond rings

Temperley London long ball gown / Tabitha Simmons high heels / White gold jewelry / Tiffany & Co. marquise cut diamond ring / Blue Nile white gold diamond earrings / Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry / Clear nail polish

You know that old saying be careful what you asks for you might get it?  Well, that really hit home with me recently as I "learned" how to tie my Polyvore stylings to this blog.  Oh, I was so excited to put one up there since I had blogged about it the same day.
Now it won't stop doing it.  I have all these outfits up here that I don't want.  I always think I'm pretty tech savvy but this has thrown me for a loop.  My kids would probably laugh if they read that I think I'm tech savvy because I still haven't synched my phone and my car after almost two years.  I can't really run my Wii with out the written instructions my DD left for me.  I also have trouble copying and pasting but only sometimes like when the icon isn't right in front of my face.
But I'm not an idiot about it--most of the time.
Here's an example of one of those rare times.  My sister wrote a book that my book club decided to read.  We had to pre-order it at lulu.com because it took about 8 weeks for it to show up on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.
So my friend(who shall remain nameless) called and said she couldn't find the site and could I help her.  Sure, said savvy Susan.
Well, she kept telling me it was closed.  I kept telling her a website isn't closed when I am looking right at it at the same time.  After a ten or fifteen minute struggle involving my friend, her husband, my daughter and myself, I figured out she was saying "clothes" not closed and we directed her to the correct site and all was well.
I guess that wasn't really ever tech unsavvy, just bad hearing!
PS  In case you are wondering my sister's book is Waiting for Dusk  by Nancy Pennick.  My book club loved it!  Even my "closed" friend!

Tops In My Book

Tops In My Book by angel-mom featuring clear crystal earrings

Roberto Cavalli top / By Malene Birger stripe skirt, $290 / Fendi strap shoes / Sass & Bide leather clutch / Rachel Zoe clear crystal earrings / Black bracelet, $105

An Educational Rant

I am so angry and upset about the education of our young children I can hardly speak.  I am so tired of hearing data, data, data.  Children are not data.  They are unpredictable little entities that surprise you when you least expect it.
Support the data.  What does that even mean? Children are not a science experiment. Children need to explore and try and choose.  They need to take ownership of their learning.  Now what the heck does that mean?  It means the child has to buy into what you want her to do.  Our responsibility as educators is to set up the environment so the child wants to perform or try or take a chance.
There is no scientific pattern for how a child learns.  There are stages that every child passes through but not on an assigned day at an assigned time.  In other words, If Jo and Moe were both born on May 1, 2000 you would not expect them both to learn to walk on May 1, 2001.  That would be downright silly, right?  But Jo and Moe are expected to enter school on the same day, learn the alphabet letters on the same day, etc.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  Setting up unreasonable goals is setting our education system up for failure.
Then the blame game begins.  The superintendent blames the principal and the principal blames the teacher.  There is no one to blame, the blame is in the fundamental idea behind the program!  Why can't anyone see that?  If you exit the classroom and go on to bigger and better things( a matter of opinion) why do you forget what children are like?
And politicians are the worst.  They are supposedly educated people who went to college even.  Didn't they take psychology 101?  A lot of them are parents too.  Did they not see their children develop?  Why is this such a hard concept for them--every kid is different and learns in her own time.  This is not hard to catch on to.  It is as plain as the nose on your face.
Teachers of young children know that school has to be fun and engaging and well-rounded for every kind of learner.  When you take away their ability to do that by standardizing and data collecting you take away the opportunity for them to do their job.
Once again, I ask that you look back on your school years.  Which classes did you like the most?  Which teacher was your favorite?  I bet if you think about it  you liked those classes and teachers because THEY WERE FUN!
Children are not guinea pigs or lab rats.  They are developing human beings who need to be taught from the heart and the mind.  Give children a chance to be children and they will grow to be educated adults.

On Getting Old

I am coming to grips with the fact that although I may not think it or feel it other people are considering me an old lady.
Today at Target the 12 year old clerk who took care of my return called me honey.  Honey, like in boy, you are old!  You'll be proud of me when I tell you I didn't slug her or anything.
Then I headed to the mall.  It was an icy morning here in Northeastern Ohio and the parking lot at the mall was a skating rink.  There was an older woman walking a bit ahead of me and another woman(not that much different in age from me I suspect) offered to walk her to the door.  The first woman refused and said she was not taking any chances and was going back inside her car.  As she passed me I said to both of them something along the lines of  yikes, it's a mess in this parking lot.  They both agreed. Lady returned to her car and the other one turns to me and says, "Can I help you to the door, sweetie?"
I wanted to scream I AM NOT A SWEETIE nor am I an old lady who needs assistance getting to the door of JCPenney.  I just laughingly said no thanks and stormed my way(very carefully, I didn't want to fall down) in to the store. Another woman who doesn't know how lucky she was not to get slugged this morning.
The fact that I almost fell on my ass twice on my way into the bank earlier is not relevant to this story. LOL
I must be honest though and admit something.  I was dusting the other day( I know, right?) and was working on my doll case which has a mirrored back.  Suddenly I saw a woman with a wrinkly neck, white skin, tons of wrinkles and kindof uncombed hair.  I almost screamed until I realized it was ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So maybe these people who insist on calling me honey and asking me if I use the computer or want to walk me in the door have some evidence to think those things are necessary.  Or else, as my DH said, I was just a victim of bad lighting!

Vanity Fair Party

Vanity Fair Party by angel-mom featuring ball gowns

Elie Saab ball gown, $2,645 / Platform high heels, $195 / Marchesa box clutch / Glitter eye shadow

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones by angel-mom on polyvore.com

Leather or Leather??

Leather or Leather?? by angel-mom featuring a zippered tote bag

Drome , $1,035 / Oasis faux leather dress, $58 / RED Valentino , $445 / Moschino Cheap & Chic , $350 / Charlotte Olympia high heel / Casadei platform heels, $1,285 / Giuseppe Zanotti / Miss Selfridge pink heels / Chloé zippered tote bag, $1,560 / Lanvin handbag / Pim + Larkin solitaire jewelry / Tourmaline earrings / Pearl jewelry, $9.17 / Baccarat jewelry

Designing Woman

Gee, it's been too long.  I really have to keep up on my blogging skills.  I got re motivated when my sister started her blog on goodreads.com.  She is an author and a good one if I do say so myself.  Her book is Waiting for Dusk by Nancy Pennick.  You should read it.  I have about five or six times and I never get tired of it.
I have been spending a lot of time at polyvore.com doing the stylist thing.  I have designed almost 300 ensembles.  And I'm not out of ideas.  I get them from literature, television, occasions, things in nature and I haven't run out yet.  Hope I never will.
I always wished I could be a stylist.  I would like to take on the girls of our local newscasts.  Although lately I've been thinking that they must have heard me since I think the girls at NBC have kicked their game up a notch.
I am always watching those award shows to see what people are wearing and lately they all have been doing well too.  So it was kind of arid out there hence the Polyvore thing.  I was getting kind of snarky too so maybe it's for the best.  If you look at some of my old posts you'll see what I mean.
Anyway if you want to see my creations just go to polyvore.com and follow angel-mom.  Hope you like them.