It’s National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day today.

Two overly ripe bananas inspired me to make Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. I have to take some to work tomorrow, but I made a double batch so my family doesn’t get mad at me…

I always enjoy looking at other people’s flower pictures, but I don’t feel like I quite have the knack yet, that mine look…boring. It might be, though, that whole “worst critic thing…”

Here’s the original.

It’s OK, but I think it looks more interesting after I did some strategic cropping:

And then I zoomed in on the center of the flower and realized how much cool detail I had captured, so I tried a crop that shows just that:

It’s like some weird sea creature or something. Neat.

Which version do you like better?

***The owner of the truck that hit Toby, our English Springer Spaniel, brought us the Clematis. We weren’t sure it was going to actually grow, but it keeps coming back, bigger and better and this year, wow, there are a TON of blooms on it. Somebody should probably weed the thing, though.

He wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to be here, checking out the quilt.

I got the impression he approved, but was confused. He thought quilts were squishier. I had to explain the different steps of quiltmaking to him.

He just swished his tail at me.

I’m caught up for now, but I’ll probably be behind again in a few days: graduation is 2 weeks from TOMORROW. School is a very busy place right now…

Here’s a glimpse at this past week in the Earley household.

We gave you an opening line: His crossed arms answered her question before he spoke.

We gave you space to bend the rules: Incorporate the idea of crossed arms as close to the beginning of your piece as possible.

We gave you a word limit: 450 words

His crossed arms answered her question before he spoke. Sarah wasn’t ready, though, and before Carter could finish saying “Hello,” she silenced him with a finger to his lips.

She leaned against the car next to him, dropping her bag of papers to be graded at their feet.

She hip bumped him. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” He bumped her back.

She exhaled, making her bangs fly up and said “I want to know, but I don’t want to know. You know?”

He chuckled. “Believe me, I know.”

“My students thought I was losing my mind. I started to cry during the lesson on gerunds.”  Her bag had tipped over against her leg, and she nudged it back upright. “And then I tried reading essays, but after four times through one paragraph, I gave up.”

The bag had leaned toward Carter’s leg, he tried propping it up. “What was so sad about gerunds?”

“The first two examples were ‘acting’ and ‘singing.’  Stupid sentences like ‘George is fond of acting’ and ‘Singing is Susan’s favorite activity.’ All I could think of was you…” she held her hands out in front of her, palms up.  “And now, I’m going to cry again.”

He shrugged. “You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield.”  He glanced at her. “I can keep going, if you would like.”

“How can you joke?” Sarah punched his arm, but then softened her fist and started rubbing the spot she had just jabbed. “It just kills me that you didn’t get the part.”

She dropped her head in frustration and then swore. Her bag was on it’s side, the contents spilling out. She bent down to pick the papers up, attempting to neaten the pile before shoving it back in the bag. Carter pushed his sunglasses up on his head and bent down with her.

“Who said I didn’t get the part?”

“But I thought…the whole bug and windshield thing…you actually got it?”

He grinned at her. “Yep. Us actors call that ‘acting.’ I’ll be doing a lot more of that. And singing, too. Maybe some dancing.”

Sarah threw her arms up in delight, forgetting the stack of paper in her hand. The essays went flying, and a breeze carried several of them down the street.

“Oh, help! Grab those papers, Mr. Fancy Pants Actor. Quick!”

Carter pulled Sarah up and spun her around, giving her a quick kiss before she pulled away and started chasing her papers. He was glad she was so happy, he’d let her keep that for now, before he told her the rest of what he had learned that day.

Oh, I almost gave up on this one. I had too many ideas.

And then once I settled on a scenario (the news he has for could have been…a scholarship, a job offer, a baby up for adoption, a house…you name it, I thought of it…), I had trouble ending it.

I very nearly went with “They never saw the car coming.” But decided on something a little less, um, final, but I realized that the story as it was, was too happy…

I’ve also reached a point where I just need to stop dithering and push publish. Any second now…just watch me…here I go…you know how scary this is for me to post this stuff, right? OK. Pushing…publish…now….

The Prompt:

core
noun

1 the earth’s core: center, interior, middle, nucleus; recesses, bowels, depths; informal innards; literary midst.
2 the core of the argument: heart, heart of the matter, nucleus, nub, kernel, marrow, meat, essence, quintessence, crux, gist, pith, substance, basis, fundamentals; informal nitty-gritty, brass tacks, nuts and bolts.

adjective

the core issue: central, key, basic, fundamental, principal, primary, main, chief, crucial, vital, essential; informal number-one. ANTONYMS peripheral.

My story:

Mr. Weber opened the door before I could ring the bell. It was 5:45. He did not look very happy to see me. Apparently, when he had called to ask me to babysit, he had been serious when he told me arrive at 5:30 for a half hour orientation.

His wife was right behind him, and she was friendly. “Megan, I’m so glad you could help us out. Grant, let her in. Give her a quick tour and then we must get going.”

He glared at both of us, but stood back. “Fine. We’ll do the short version.”

I scrambled to keep up as he strode off down the hall.

He tapped a thick binder on the kitchen counter, saying “This is your instruction manual. Anything you could want to know is in here.”

Mrs. Weber grabbed the binder before he could open it and start reading to me. “Let’s take this upstairs so Megan can meet Josie.” He sighed, but followed us back out into the hall and up the open staircase.

We found Josie playing in her big, pink toy room. She grinned shyly at me and gave her parents kisses and hugs.

Mr. Weber had ended up with the binder again and handed it to me before his wife dragged him out of the room. “At least read the table of contents.”

Josie seemed pretty happy with her dolls, so I let her play while I opened up the binder and started skimming.

It was a core dump of every fatherly worry from small to epic.

Vomiting, fire, tornadoes, hurricanes, choking.

“What to do if Josie falls down the stairs.”

“In case Josie is run over by a car.”

“What to Do in the Event of a Nuclear Bomb Attack.”

I had started to read that one when the sound of someone pounding on the front door startled us. Josie said “You’d better go tell them to stop banging. Daddy doesn’t like that.”

I almost checked the binder for “how to handle people pounding on the door.”

The front door has large windows on either side, so I could see the crowd on the front porch. I stared, dumbfounded, taking a few moments to register the bloodstained clothing, ruined faces, and vacant stares. The pounding grew louder when the creatures outside saw me.

Josie had followed me down the stairs and her scream startled me in to action.

I checked the lock on the front door and then ran back upstairs, dragging Josie with me in to a closet.

I had carried the binder with me and found myself hoping there was a section called “What to Do in the Event of a Zombie Attack.”

My sewing machine still works!

And look! I got all of my green and white strips sewn togeth….

Oh.

Damn.

I wasn’t supposed to do that. I was only supposed to sew 16 pairs.

My mad quilting skillz are a little rusty…

I guess I’ll get to work on my UNsewing skills on this project too.

Yesterday’s stack of fabric has been edited — I made an actual plan (yesterday’s fabric was just pulled with no pre-existing plan in place…) and as a result, some fabric had to go, and a bunch more had to be added (I think there are 11 different greens and about the same number of reds…)

I was a little nervous handling the rotary cutter for the first time in just about forever, but it was like riding a bike, I guess. I finished the cutting tonight, but now it’s time for bed…the boys had their second track meet tonight and we didn’t get home until almost 9PM. Tomorrow is another track meet, so I’m guessing the sewing machine won’t get turned on until Thursday at the earliest.

What’s a few more days, when it hasn’t been used in a coon’s age, right?

Is it possible?

Is Suzanne going to make a quilt?

Will took the pictures, he did a pretty good job!

I tried to talk Mark into a pink tie, but I never got around to actually buying one, I think he would have worn it if I had presented it to him. He also learned that he maybe needs to get some solid colored shirts, apparently stripes are out.

The necklace is a bejeweled butterfly. While I was waiting for the chemicals to do their trick on my hair on Friday, I wandered around looking at jewelry, and fell in love with several pieces. I decided on this one for a couple of reasons, not least of which was that it was significantly less expensive than the other options. I figured it went with the dress, with the flowers/butterflies/etc…plus, it made me think of my Grandma, who collected all things butterfly.

It was funny getting dressed thinking about how the girl in the green dress from yesterday’s post didn’t need the extra special undergarments that her future self requires. Spanx (or their generic equivalents…) are a Godsend.

Prom itself was fun. The food was good, and the company was fun (we got to sit at the special teachers table in the corner). We were as far away from the music as you could get, and we were right next to the Sunken Ship, which was the site of the photography station. The decorations were impressive: the walls of the entire room had been covered with dark blue paper (sort of like the stuff you use to cover banquet tables…). Lots of twinkle lots and cardboard fish and many tiny clever touches, like the Goldfish crackers on the salad, instead of croutons…

The dresses, of course, were beautiful, although there were a few that left me wondering things like (a) who would have actually designed that and (b) what does it say about the taste of the person that chose to wear it…not that any of them were, inappropriate, but I did think of Barbie several times, and little girl fantasies about what a fancy dress should look like.

I was also surprised by the amount of orange. Now, don’t get me wrong, orange is a nice color, but a little bit of orange goes a long way, and there were several girls who were wearing an awful lot of orange. Or rather Orange, with a capital O.

I saw one hoop skirt (how did she sit to eat? did she crowd out the rest of her companions?), and only one girl that made me worry she was going to fall out the top of her dress. Two girls in cowboy boots and one wearing a tux.

The boys were all handsome in their tuxes — mostly black, a few white and at least one that I’m pretty sure was brown. Lots of them with their sunglasses pushed up on their heads, even for the pictures, which I thought was weird. I would have made my date pull his glasses off. One young man caught our eye, but only because we noticed his orange tie. The rest of his tux (and cowboy hat!) was a camo print, so he kinda blended in.

So, that’s my prom report. I hope the kids all had a good time, and made good choices. Prom itself lasted until about 11:30, and then they all headed home to change, so they could come back for the After Prom party — I think there was more food, a hypnotist and I don’t know what else…maybe more dancing?

I was in bed by 10:30, and I was so lazy, I didn’t get up until nearly 10 this morning…feeling pretty smug that I didn’t have to be back the dance site this morning to help tear down…like the juniors did…I bet they were pretty bleary-eyed…