I want my money and my split ends back

Sean just walked outside and said, "What smells like old lady?"

Then he said, "Oh, your hair looks nice, did you just get back from the salon?"

At least that's what I thought he said before I ran inside and stopped payment on the salon check and ran the water in the bathtub to drown myself in a shampoo cocktail of Finesse and Fabreeze.

I use the terms, "Date" and "Night" loosely here

Man, do I hate nights like yesterday's.

I don't normally have a problem sleeping--I have trouble staying awake. But last night I was up until 4:45 tossing and turning and watching horrible movies on HBO. (Casino, Michael and Smokey and the Bandit, which the baffling combination of the those three titles alone are enough to give anyone nightmares) and so today I am suffering from one of those lack of sleep headaches that makes my entire head pull to the left--presumably in search of a pillow--but I'm no doctor.

But there's work to be done, so I fight through the haze to take A-Dog to speech and then write pathetic prose before the last errand/date night before the trip. But I'm dragging.

I hope my sleeplessness has nothing to do with the fact that tonight's date night will be the first in over a year that we'll get a table for two since the Intern has quasi-officially moved out.

Luckily, much of his crap is still here to keep me company, though.

Love you, D.

If you've seenchapters 18-23, please send

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours re-mourning my lost chapters.

Yesterday afternoon the Apple store called well ahead of their repair deadline to tell me that the MacBook had been freed of its Gatorade death shroud and was now working at 100%. They had restored the restorable and I could pick up my new, old, dry computer. I was very excited because not only was I finally getting back, but back well in time to take on the trip.

Yay, right?

Almost. It seems everything was restored EXCEPT the actual new document I was working on when the spillage occurred. Which just happened to be all of the new chapters. The rest of novel had been restored--but I had all of that backed-up and stored in like thirty different places. The new stuff inspired by my Palm Island sun? Nope. That is gone. Forevah.

So I've started recreating that part of the book with lackluster passion. I guess it's good that the hard part of actually coming up with the story parts is done, but trying to piece it all back together from memory just plain sucks and makes me grouchy. But I will finish this this summer if it kills me.

Which judging from our fated progress so far, just might.

Suburban Diva in rhinestones is the new black

After years of requests from Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Tim Gunn, I've finally embarked upon my new empire: Suburban Diva fashion.

Modeling the first SD couture in a dazzling rhinestone-laden top in ebony, is the lovely A-Dog, Suburban Divette.



This unique garment is also available in fuschia.



For anyone interested in wearing me across their breast, please email me for available colors and sizes, and I'll be happy to ship you one ASAP. More will be available soon from the talented women at the All About Me Company which I highly recommend for all of your gift-giving needs. (Remember to mention "DIVA" at checkout and you get 10% off of your order....)

The pictures from my iPhone do not properly capture the sparkle power nor the Samantha Stevens-esque quality of these fun shirts--a perfect gift for any diva in your life.

And it just makes me smile.

Whoa Momma needs summer camp feedback

(Cross-posted from Whoa Momma!)

I did laundry every day last week when my older son was at the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve Pioneer Camp. If you are familiar with it, the kids who attend the camp are generally dirty every day and then get hosed down at the end of the day. So every day he was soaking wet after playing in the mud, getting in the line of fire of squish (it's rotten food than is basically squished by a sledgehammer) or going through the pudding gauntlet. It used to be the pudding pole but the gauntlet is fun too, only maybe dirtier.

And even though I was tired of the daily laundry routine by the end of the week, for the third year in a row my son was as happy as a clam. He couldn't wait to get there every day and when my husband picked him up, he couldn't wait to talk about the expolits, whether he worked in leather, made a shelter with a team of kids or learned a new joke or riddle. If I had some stock in Tide, I would probably send him every week each summer.

So, now we want to hear from you. A few weeks before school ended, Go Momma ran an extensive list of bay area summer camps. But that's only part of the information we want to give you. We want to be able to share what other parents and kids thought about the camps. We want you to tell us about your child's summer camp experience. Did she love it so much she can't wait to get back next year or next week? Or would she rather stay home alone than go one more day? Do your feel like you are getting your money's worth or will you look elsewhere next time? Does it offer extra care or are you out of luck when noon hits? We want to know everything, so Mommas and Poppas, please fill out this questionnaire on your child's camp experience and let us know what you think. Once we have gathered your tales from summer camp, we will share them with readers in the coming weeks.

Thanks in advance for your help. Here's to lots of laundry in your future.

-- Sherry Robinson

*Please leave your thoughts here.

Blinded by the blinds

Not all of my adventures in domesticity earn accolades. Sure, there's the occasional wine rep that wants me to moonlight as a caterer, (yes, flattery will work on me and I'll buy more wine) but there are many, many, many other domestic failures that keep me humbled.

A few months ago at a party, we locked Jingle in our room so she wouldn't molest the guests as they entered the house. She found this imprisonment rather offensive, and proceeded to eat the wood slat blinds that adorn the french door to our bedroom so she could see the festivities outside. Months later, not only was half of the door exposed, but we still had a dog that defecated plantation shutters.

Being the kind of girl that knows this will only happen again and again, instead of replacing the broken blinds with future broken blinds, I spent a ridiculous sum on custom Roman shades from a popular fabric chain. I don't want to drop any names here, but it rhymes with "Balico Forners."

Anyhoo, after spending that ridiculous sum, ordering when on sale and then selecting from every thread, size, fixture and grommet option ever conceived, I waited three months and finally received my shades.

Ahem.

The only thing resembling "Roman" or "shade" is that they look like someone ripped off their toga after a drunken frat party and tacked them to my bedroom door. They are sloppy, unfinished and completely impractical. And the worst part is they are custom, so not only did I pay handsomely for the not-handsome window treatments, it means I'm stuck with them until I can find a naked gladiator that wants to look like a sofa.

So luckily for the world, I'm done decorating anything but a cupcake for me for a while.

I'm grilling Acai berries to counteract my holiday weekend diet

Now that we have all of those pesky parties, parades and illegal fireworks out of the way, let's do some work, shall we?

Sounds good in theory, but I'm having a heck of a time writing anything other than campground reservation confirmation numbers and emails to friends and family warning them of our impending arrival.

I have been scoping out some fun recipe ideas on camprecipes.com, though. Looks way fun. I test-drove a recipe for camp biscuits last night night, and while certainly easy to make, they probably should be used to put behind the back tires of the R.V. when parked rather than ingested by humans. So I need a little help in this department. Got any tried and true camp favorites? Leave a comment here and help a sister out.

We're going on a little tour of our new home on the road tonight.

That's sure to inspire some words.

It seems like just yesterday I was doing his laundry. Oh wait, it was.

Just about one year ago, we welcomed a new arrival into our house.

A healthy baby 22 year-old Intern. We called him Danny.

Proving again that they really do grow up so fast, our little Danny is about to fly (again) on his own.

Officially, he had possession of his new apartment yesterday, but I haven't seen any actual possessions leave here to land at that new address, but we gave him a little farewell dinner last night anyway. He reminded us that he only lives 4 minutes away and he'll be here all of the time, so I'm not sure if he's really moving out or just bought a rather pricey place to watch something other than Spongebob.

But regardless, we're going to miss that boy.

Even the loud parts.