Is that a gun in your pocket?

It’s been a hectic couple of days. It was the end of the month which is always hectic (since I always wait until the very last day to do my reporting). There was the big blow up I had with the teens on Saturday. I spent all weekend writing my research paper (again…waiting until the last minute). Caleb’s field trip to the nature center today. And Skyler’s dance pictures (as well as me staying up late to alter her costumes because….I waited until the last minute. Is there a theme here?)

After not sleeping much this weekend because of that dreaded research paper, I was really looking forward to going to bed early last night and sleeping in this morning. But when I dropped Skyler off at dance last night I found out pictures were on Tuesday night (tonight) instead of Wednesday night (like I thought). I couldn’t alter the costumes without Skyler so I had to wait until she got home…at 8:30pm. There went my go to be early idea.

After grabbing a quick bite of dinner, I had Skyler try on her costumes.

Luckily two of her four costumes fit without alteration. Woo Hoo.

Unfortunately two costumes required sewing and/or gluing. Bummer.

For her tap costumer I had to cut and sew her straps (so she wasn’t showing anything her daddy doesn’t want anybody to see). This wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t so inept with a needle and thread. I really should have my mom card revoked. I can’t cook. I’m a horrible housekeeper. And I can’t sew. I kept poking my fingers as I was weaving the needle back and forth through the fabric. And it looks like a 3rd grader sewed on the straps. I should of let Skyler do it. It couldn’t look much worse. Thankfully she’ll be way up on the stage and nobody will really be able to see the hack job I did on her costume.

Much to my relief, her ballet costume didn’t require any sewing. No, it just required a hot glue gun. Seemed easy enough. But it wasn’t.

First I couldn’t find the hot glue gun. I’m pretty sure we have at least three hot glue guns somewhere in this house. But God only knows where they’re at.

Lee finally find his industrial strength glue gun. It’s no sissy crafting glue gun. This is a big ol’ man’s glue gun. But when I was only halfway through my gluing the thing ran out of glue. Typical. Men (and their tools) never seem to finish the job.

Lee ran out to Walmart at 10:30 to get some more glue. But he couldn’t find the large glue sticks. So, instead, he just bought another glue gun and a whole bag of glue sticks. Great another glue gun we’ll never be able to find again.

The ballet costume had these sequin straps that needed to get glued to the back of the dress in a “v” pattern. The top part of the dress is stretchy so it really needed to be on Skyler in order for me to make sure I was gluing them in to the right spot. I didn’t want to burn her so I kept my hand behind the dress and pressed the sequin straps to the front. Hot glue is, well, hot. I tried not to cry like a baby, but it was a bit painful.

And then I glued the strap to the top of the dress, accidentally missed the dress and instead glued it to my finger. As soon as it hit my bare finger I yelped, jerked my hand back, and ended up touching my thumb on to the tip of the gun. So now I have a blister on my middle finger and on my thumb. Nice.

Then, just as I was finally finishing up, the gun stopped working. It looked like there was still some glue in it so I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t come out. I turned the gun over. Looked in the back. Yep, still some glue in it. I squeezed the trigger to see if I could get the glue stick to move forward. Apparently tilting the gun down was enough to unclog it. A blob of hot glue squirted out. Right on my leg. Youch! I peeled the glue of my leg and it brought a patch of skin with it. Double Youch!

But the costumes are done. And pictures were taken. (Even though it took TWO AND A HALF HOURS…in a very hot portrait studio.) Skyler better appreciate all this work I put in to these costumes.