Reality called. I hung up.

I'm baaaaaacckk!

Did you miss me?

I know some of you did. You even sent me emails wondering if I had died, given up blogging, gotten lost on one of my drunken stupors, drove my bus to Hell off a cliff... or all of the above.

Actually I just took a break. Or got lazy, depends on how you look at it.

I like to think of it as some time to "catch up" with my life, be in the "now" but really all I did was stop blogging for a bit,,, I felt as if I had run out of things to say... I know? SHOCKING right?!

Well thanks to all of you who wondered what happened to me and cared enough to keep checking back, I really do appreciate It!! So now I am about to hijack a good portion of your life trying to catch you up will all that has been going on since I last posted...ok, here we go.........

This guy? Well he celebrated a Birthday and will continue to be my "baby" for one more year. Then he will metamorphosis into an evil teenager. Believe me when I say the transformation has already begun... Don't get me wrong, he is a good boy, gets good grades and all that but he can be stubborn, mouthy and very strong willed, oh and LOUD. I have NO IDEA where he gets all of those traits from... I blame his Father.

I spent a lot of the summer at flea markets and garage sales, I love the hunt... and looky what I found for $5.00 at a flea market...

I luurve her...

And a $20.00 box of old buttons,, it was soooo worth it, there was some good ones in there!

I also paid $ 20.00 for this box FULL of old stationary.. there are some really cool things in there, I sent some to Sharon because she likes to "alter" things... so goes to scrapbook retreats. She doesn't scrapbook. She does however make some kick ass cocktails. I'm looking forward to a tasty treat of cotton candy vodka (yeah you heard me) at our next retreat in a few weeks...

My SISTERS came to Chicago to see me and spend the night. (we have the same Father, different Mother) I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see them. They have grown (they are 20 years younger than me) into such wonderful young women. They are both in college, one will be a Dr. and one will be a vet. Both so grounded and level headed and SMART. I credit their Mother for raising them so fantastically, she had her challenges as a single Mother and she should be (I know that she is) so very proud of these girls. I am and believe me I had NOTHING to do with it. I should have but I didn't. I intend on making up for that. Somehow. I know that my Grandparents are looking down, smiling, wishing they had a chance to know them as well. I can't wait to see them again soon....... I'm hoping Christmas time in the city...  

This is Cathi. She is my partner in crime. Crimes of the non incarceration nature. Well, if we don't get caught anyway. So I took my partner in crime and...

Our partner in crime "in training" on a cross country crime spree. well, 3 states anyway.  (This by the way is a picture of Lauren opening up her free grab bag she got because some guy felt sorry for her, in the bag was MIss Spider party decorations and this CD of Diana Ross's Christmas greatest hits, which we totally rocked out to for HOURS)

Our Crime spree Started here in IL and took us to our destination of....

We went to Ohio to travel the worlds longest Garage sale, down the 127 Highway.... it starts in Michigan and ends somewhere in Alabama ... we started in Ohio just outside of Fort Wayne Indiana and took it almost to well Kentucky.. I think.... well all I know for sure is that we were on that damn road for long enough! I would show you the pictures of the AWESOME things that we saw, but frankly nothing was all that awesome,,, there were some pretty good stops...

Alot of times there were BIG stops, sometimes there was a long drive before we would hit another sale... all and all we saw some things that we couldn't live with out but we saw a lot of things that we definitely didn't want to live WITH either. I think Cathi summed it up best when she said "It kind of reminds me of a sale where someone just grabs their dresser drawer, turns it upside down on a table and says "here ya go have at it" kind of sale."....

I found something for Karl.....

And Lauren humored us when we stumbled on some good junk. Yes there is such a thing as "good junk".

 

3 days and 2 nights later it kind of looked like we were a lesbian couple living in our van...

We decided to cut thru from ALMOST Kentucky and shoot up the center of Indiana so we could stop and pick up Coop at his Dad's on our way home. and all I can tell you is that as much fun as we had, and we DID have fun. I was DANG glad we did go that way because we ended up stopping at an antique store North of Indy and that was BY FAR the best find ever!  We bought the biggest stuff there, so much so Lauren and Coop had to be WEDGED into the car for the remainder of the trip...

We didn't eat here.

 
 And when we got to Coop he had to show us some of his newly minted dirt biking skills.....

He is on a bigger bike now and it goes much higher.

And faster.

Kind of like my heart rate when I'm watching.

On the way home he found a nice comfy suitcase to plaster himself to.

He was tired you know.

 
Lauren was more than happy to get out of that van.

She needed a shower.

And a comb.

Next year we are going to Minnesota for Junk Bonanza. And I'm hoping that trip won't result in a lawsuit over custody of a black baby doll like this one did.

Its the worst two dollars I never spent.

Trust me.

It's fall and you know what that means !?!

Yep.

   

A few weeks after buying this Coop and I were in the Coach store looking for a matching wallet and the sales lady says to me "Why are you not carrying your new one yet?" and without missing a beat Coop says "She has "seasons" for her purses ya know.."

That kid I tell ya. He knows me too well.

And in closing I would like to extend the following invitation to Karen and Chris:

And that concludes this episode of catching up with Dawn... Please tune in again next time for an episode of "If idiots grew on trees, this place would be an orchard."

Not sure when that will be as I'm still feeling kind of blog-lazy.

So I won't make any promises I can't keep.

Peace and love,

 
 
  

Comments

[Deanna]

nice to see you back. glad all is well.

[Cathi]

For the record, that "black baby doll" has a name- Sweet Baby Tyrone. And I dearly miss that anatomically correct naked little nugget. It's a good thing we didn't buy him. I'd have a really really hard time deciding whether to keep him or sell him for the $600 profit we could have made...

[Sheila Stuckman]

happy birthday!

love ya - Sheila