Sonia Sunshine sent out a group prom invite and I have to admit I had to dig deep into the memory banks for senior prom 1987.

One of the best memories of my senior prom, besides my date (more on that later), was my dress. It was a baby blue Zum Zum tea length dress with a cool diagonal waistline. I bought it off the rack at the local mall. Oh, how I wish I had kept that dress because Zum Zum is still rockin’ the prom wear. Back then I had bigger things to think about than saving my dress for posterity, like making sure my Clairol hot rollered hair was sufficiently plastered, because apparently I needed a hair style that would withstand a hurricane out on the dance floor. I wish I had kept the dress so that I could share it with the girls, but in a fit of late teen stupidity, just one of many I might add, I gave it away. Not that I’d be able to squeeze myself into it as I think I weighed 95 pounds soaking wet 21 years ago, but still.

Senior prom was a classy “Never Say Goodbye” Bon Jovi themed event held in the school cafeteria. My date picked me up in his mom’s white family sedan. We posed for photos in the entry way and out on the lawn.

I had the fake tanning bed glow. He had the cheesie moustache. By the time the evening closed he and I had had a serious parking session in his mom’s car in some country cow field off the main highway in town and I reeked of Polo cologne. This was a happy event that was just the start of a cruel summer that would have made a perfect John Hughes movie. I left for college that August and generally went hog wild boy crazy, spending my weekends developing a taste for cheap keg beer (you know, when I wasn’t studying), finally out of the house and feeling a little wild and carefree since my mother had always been rather strict. Meanwhile my boyfriend at home finished high school and generally felt trapped in a town where he didn’t feel he quite fit in, writing me long love letters and probably wondering why he still loved me when I was generally an immature girl who played his emotions in a mini melodrama that would have been great inspiration for a big hair metal band ballad. I’d drive home for the weekends in my little white sports car and revel in the status of college life, only to take off again and leave him in small Southern town-ville.

My senior prom date may have “just” been a sophomore, but he was, and still is, an old soul. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed brooding type who typically arrived late to school, he wore a denim jacket and stood out to me in a sea of boys who drove pick up trucks and listened to Hank Williams Jr. My date listened to Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles. He hung out with the older guys from my class. He bought cigarettes and cheap beer at the local corner market. He made mediocore grades, but was smart as a whip. He did crazy things on the weekends, and I marveled at how he never got caught. He had a bad boy streak, but I knew him as a kind, sensitive, super intelligent guy. He was nothing but a gentleman to me and the epitomy of politeness to my mother and he won her over immediately.

Good thing I finally grew up and figured all this out, since our 11th wedding anniversary is this Saturday.

I am blind as a bat.

I never needed glasses as a child, but during my senior year of college I started having trouble reading from a distance in the classroom. Seventeen years later I can’t remember life before contact lenses and glasses and I have no idea what it’s like to wake up in the morning and be able to see clearly without fumbling around.

The hubby and I met for lunch yesterday at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and I had to laugh when I walked in and saw information for a drawing for free LASIK eye surgery. Ha! Who would enter to win LASIK surgery at a restaurant?

When Miss C and I got home around 3:15 from school I got a call on my cell phone from an unknown number. Between Miss C and our neighbor’s daughter incessant chattering and our dogs barking like MOFOs, I could barely discern what the caller was saying. Something about Smoothie King, runner up, and laser surgery. Thinking this all sounded fishy, I asked her to please call back and leave a detailed voice message as it was obviously an inconvenient time. At dinner I’m relaying all this to the hubby who says, “I entered your name in a drawing for free LASIK surgery at Smoothie King the other day! Call them back!”

Today I called after finding out that this is a reputable and well-known vision center and surgeon (and one our office manager just saw a few weeks ago for her own successful LASIK surgery) and I’m going for a free consultation on the 24th. If I’m a candidate, and I don’t want to get my hopes up, I’d be eligible for the surgery at a discounted rate since my name was drawn as runner up. After checking out the center’s website, I learned that this surgeon has performed more than 45,000 LASIK procedures. Still, I’m a little nervous about having my eyeballs tinkered with.

Have any of you had LASIK surgery? How did it go? Would you recommend it? I know several people at work who have had it done and recommend it, although my boss was around my age (closing in on 40) when she had it done and she still has to wear reading glasses.

Photo courtesy of Fail Dogs.

I walked out of my office last week and saw newly planted pansies bobbing in the sunshine and nearly started crying. Today I heard “Lucky Man” on the radio by Montgomery Gentry and did start crying. Boy am I embarrassed to admit that. And no, I’m not pregnant.

The hubby and I have a date night tonight while the girls spend the night with his parents and it couldn’t be better timing. I’ve been in an intermittent funk all winter and have had a hard time shaking it. What better way to celebrate the first day of spring with a date, even if it’s going down to 37 degrees tonight?

This George Michael song pretty much sums up how I feel right now about going out tonight.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ll be 40 next summer, but I feel caught in an odd transitional place in life, somewhere between not being quite middle-aged, yet definitely not in my 20s any more, somewhere between feeling like I should be incredibly thankful for what I have in my life, yet restless and wanting some sort of change, somewhere between being in awe of seeing my children grow up but not wanting them to do it quite so fast. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m in denial about the fact that I really need reading glasses, in addition to my contacts. Damn you presbyopia! I do know I have so much to be thankful for, but sometimes that just doesn’t seem to be enough and I am ashamed to admit that.

It’s time for me to shed this winter funk. The sun is shining, there’s not a cloud in the sky, I have two adorable little girls, an understanding husband who is an awesome cook who works like crazy, and I have my swank new purse.

I know some of my blog friends are going through post-winter blues. Maybe it’s in the air?

p.s. Because I am a wealth of information, and also because I get depressed when I read about new TV shows featuring characters my age with teenage children (OK so I had my first child at nearly 33, that’s not that old), did you know there is talk of a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff?

And also, because I just found Shamelessly Sassy and to coordinate with the butt title of this post, you have to check out this bizarre medical story she blogged about.

With Miss A now potty trained except for Pull Ups at night (cue the choir of angels singing over a gleaming potty in a meadow of daisies), and my black and multicolor striped purse slash glorified diaper bag with the cute black beaded fringe going on its fifth summer, I have been engaged in the Cute Summer Purse Hunt of 2008.

Since I tend to carry the same bag for years and I gravitate toward some sort of exciting variation of solid black or brown, I’ve been looking at some preppy mama bags in fun colors just to liven things up a bit.

On Monday we took the girls out to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and to see a matinee of Horton Hears a Who (which I highly recommend) to kick off Spring Break: Miss C Bounces Back From Strep Throat Edition. The geniuses behind Off Broadway Shoe positioned a store directly across from the restaurant in an effort to entrap mothers far and wide. Since I hadn’t been in one in a couple of years, it was all I could do to not sneak over under the guise of going to the ladies room. As soon as we paid our bill, I asked the hubby if he would get lost with the girls for a few minutes while I browsed in Off Broadway. I headed to the clearance section and miffed that I couldn’t find a cute pair of shoes on clearance for less than $40 (a criminal offense in my retail Zen utopia), I wandered over to the purses.

There she hung, trimmed in my favorite spring color, a very saucy apple green. This was a purse for summer evenings sitting outdoors, sipping margaritas, and listening to live jazz or maybe some reggae. This was not a purse for diapers, unscented wipes, and butt ointment.

I bought the purse even though my old boring purses may talk about how slutty she is behind her back. My standard summer outfit consists of denim Old Navy capris I bought on clearance or khaki GAP shorts with a black short sleeve t-shirt and black sandals, so I figured this would spice things up. If nothing else, the hubby will be able to spot me from a mile away the next time I get “lost” on purpose in Target. Then again I could always hide in a dressing room and turn off my cell phone. Sometimes I just need a little peace and quiet people!

I’ve found many cute purses during Cute Summer Purse Hunt of 2008, so I thought I’d share some of my finds:

These hobo style purses with matching makeup bags are from Swoozies in Atlanta (I wasn’t familiar with them, but I quickly signed up for their e-newsletter):

Pink Monogram’s cute tote is reversible (I love the green.):

I also like Pink Monogram’s classic little black monogrammed purse for just $25:

This fun pink monogrammed straw bag from Morgan & Co. is definitely more than $25, but I won’t hold that against it:

Happy shopping in honor of me ditching ye ole diaper bag.

p.s. What kind of purse do you carry? Are you a faithful, carry it until it is falling apart type bag lady like me or are you one of those must have a coordinating bag with every out fit bag divas?

Spring Break 1990

Road trip with four other girls from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to Daytona Beach, Florida, in a crammed gold Chevy Baretta that reeked of hair spritzer. Close out the trip by getting kicked out of our room at the Aztec theme beach front Days Inn for having some nice boys from Michigan in our room after midnight after being asked by security to have them leave as they weren’t hotel guests but oops they didn’t leave and then somebody emptied their drink over the balcony and the spittley remains just happened to christen one of those security guards in the head. Spend our last morning in Florida sleeping in our car in a Denny’s parking lot. This was also the trip where I got sh*t on by a seagull as I was talking to some guys and trying to be all cute in a bikini. Did I also mention it was Biker Week?

The blogger at age 20. Same cheesie grin, but skinnier and with five times more hair volume thanks to spritz, my trusty pick, and blow dryer diffuser.

Spring Break 2008

Feel absolutely decadent for going to bed on a Sunday night without setting my bedside jumbo numbers illuminated digital alarm clock. Consider living it up today and requesting extra butter on my popcorn at the matinee of Horton Hears a Who. Thank God the girls are still at the juice box and matinee age, not the overpriced shooters and bikini contest age.

Party on spring breakers. Party on.

Yesterday I was reading my fellow Divine Caroline friend Amy’s great blog, The Mother Load. She had posted a code for a free Red Box movie rental.

After school I thought it would be a treat to take Miss C to rent a movie seeing as the weather is less than desirable.

I was all…

MUST GET FREE MOVIE!

MUST DRIVE TO MCDONALD’S AND STAND IN FRIGID COLD IN LINE WITH NO COAT ON AND 5-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER CLINGING TO MY LEGS BEHIND THREE PEOPLE DUMBASSES WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHO SCROLL THROUGH EVERY MOVIE SELECTION AS SLOW AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

Ahhh finally we reach the kiosk.

My fingers and brain are frozen and I get all the way to the end of the rental process only to realize you punch in the freaking code at the beginning prompt screen.

The code…that expires at midnight.

I realize it’s not worth backing out and starting all over because I am freezing to death and Miss C’s ears are starting to turn a strange shade of purplish red and it’s not worth potential hypothermia to save $1.

End up charging $1 rental on my debit card for a stupid Dora flick because it turns out the Hannah Montana movie Miss C wanted was not available.

Dammit.

I will be back, though, as I registered my e-mail address with the Red Box site and I’ve got another free movie rental code.

Only this time I’m saving it for a warm sunny day when no one else in our neighborhood will be renting movies.

I am holding the irresistibly cute Miss A, who is as fidgety as Carrie Bradshaw in a room full of Manolo Blahniks, while wearing a v-neck pajama top that reveals just a bit of cleavage (remember, I’ve breastfed two babies and had a lumpectomy so the cleavage factor is fair to middlin’ as my daddy would say.). She plows both her hands down my shirt front and starts fishing around, as if to find the TV remote or a chocolate chip cookie.

“Miss A, what are you lookin’ for?” I ask, tickling her so that she’ll release me from her probing hands.

“BUTTER!”

Speaking of Carrie Bradshaw, have you seen the Sex in the City movie trailer? (Hat tip: Uncommon Blonde.) I can’t wait!

How’s that for a segue from one totally unrelated topic to another? Sarah Jessica Parker does not invoke images of butter.

And now to change the subject from my boobs and Sex in the City to something on everyone’s minds– football. What a game! I’m not a huge football fan, but last night’s ending was incredible. I also loved the commercials. My favorites were the Budweiser “Rocky” Clydesdale commercial, Bridgestone’s screaming squirrel, the Will Ferrell Bud Light spot, the Coca Cola Macy’s ad, the Planter’s peanut spot, and the Diet Pepsi Max commercial with Chris Kattan.

I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned this morning and my new dental hygienist went to school with Eli Manning at Ole Miss. She also attended a Super Bowl party with our daycare owner. This is just a testament to the fact that everyone in the South knows everyone else, or at least went to school with one of the Manning brothers.