Zachary's button

My nephew heard me talking to his mom -my BFF- about getting a pretty NikCo button for the blog's sidebar to link to my Etsy store instead of the icky, boring link that is there now.
 I knew that there are sites where you can make them pretty easily.
Z piped up that he'd been working on his HTML and would like to make a button for me.
Well okey-dokey then.
Right before he left for camp this week he emailed that he was pretty sure he had it done, but needed the pic that I wanted as my button; even at 12 he knows that branding is everything.
Here ya go, Z:

Thanks for all of your hard work.
Look for my new button in the sidebar sometime soon.

returning to my pillow after housesitting

also the explanation for no post yesterday
;-)

 

a touch of perspective

A friend inquired if I find it hard to housesit in places where there are animals since I don't have any pets of my own.
It is a mixed bag to be certain.
I like animals and miss owning my own; it is great to borrow someone else's.
 Plus, who doesn't love cuddling with adorable balls of fur while watching Netflix until the wee hours of the morning?
The flip side is that I have been high on antihistamines for almost 10 days. I'm not allergic to fur on a day-to-day basis, but if there is a critter sleeping on the bed with me (or, you know, four of them) I have to take Claritin to be able to breathe when I wake up.
And litter boxes... enough said, right?
But even when a dog goes missing -he's under the bed pretending that he can't hear you- or a cat steals a sub roll from your plate -this is a different cat than the poptart cat; did they not get the memo about being carnivores- or the sister dogs refuse to go out to pee without each other and one of them doesn't want to go out right this second or a cat wants to play poof fetch for an hour -yes, one of the cats plays fetch like a dog- it doesn't really bother me when I remind myself of this:

Imagine fifteen hundred miles of that.
If that didn't send me over the edge, I doubt anything that happens in the ordinary course of a week of housesitting is going to break me.

mmmmmmm... dessert

fTMs Miriam and Felicia have shared an apartment for a year; at the end of the summer their lease is up. Tonite they hosted one more gathering: a dessert and wine party.
There were so many yummy things from cookies to granite to brownies to ice cream to cobbler to pumpkin dumplings in coconut milk. We had champagne and chocolate zinfandel and orange ummmm.... some wine type that starts with an M.

But there are no pictures.
I was far too engrossed in tasting everything and chatting to remember to take pictures.

However, my favorite thing all evening was so delicious that I am willing to post about it with a shutterstock photo.

Abby showed up with champagne (there is a lot left over from her sister's wedding) which Scott opened and poured all around.
Into my glass went some of Miriam's homemade raspberry granita.
Can you say BUBBLES?
PINK BUBBLES!
It was so, so, so good that I went back for more and I don't normally drink two of anything.
You have to make some granita this summer and toss it into some champagne: chilly, refreshing, yummy and BUBBLEY!

UPDATE: Thanks to Debbie for naming the orange wine I had last night as a moscato.

Tang

A person's pantry tells a lot about them.
When housesitting i enjoy trying to glean insight into my friends' day to day lives by checking out the pantry. [and alphabetizing their spices because who in the world would look for the garlic powder next to the cinnamon?]
For instance, you can tell that a family with a few young children live in a house where Nilla Wafers and Shells and Cheese are purchased in bulk.

wait...


what's that tucked behind the Nilla Wafers?

TANG?

I didn't even know they still made this stuff.

I loved Tang as a kid.

The last time i had it must have been decades ago and i'm pretty sure it involved copious amounts of cheap, crappy vodka.

I definitely got have some Tang.

Being in someone else's kitchen is a constant guessing game.
 Pitcher... pitcher... pitcher... where is there a pitcher?
You know, a giant measuring cup will work just as well.

I made this Tang at 2am, put it in the fridge and drank it nice and cold with breakfast.
Tastes just like i remember: yummy in an odd way.
Thank you NASA for popularizing Tang; i enjoy it, even if Buzz Aldrin doesn't.

Now for the Mental Morsel of today's blog post:
It should surprise no one that the inventor of Tang -William A Mitchell- also invented Cool Whip and Pop Rocks: "foods" that are also as tasty as they are unnatural.

why the samurai armor at the Walter's Art Gallery is less intimidating than it should be

Emblazoned dragon,

Angry grimace. WAIT, what's that? 

Bunnies are not fierce.

Bastille Day sale

UPDATED

I spent the entire day sorting and pricing vintage jewelry at my Thursday gig -
The Parisian Flea in Hampden.
sigh... so many lovely, sparkly things

Bastille Day is Sunday

and the store is celebrating all this weekend.

The kickoff tomorrow night will feature

champagne and fabulous deals.

 

Andrew hasn't announced all of the sales yet, but I can give you an inside scoop that costume jewelry will be on sale and that there are a lot of pieces for sale that haven't been seen before.

A LOT of pieces.

Trust me on this one; I think I touched more cool jewelry today than I have in the last two months.

Go say HI to Andrew, have some champagne and for the love of Pete

 buy some jewelry -

I have to put away any of the stuff I got out today that doesn't sell.

source

  Here is the list of what's on sale this weekend;
 I think Andrew has lost his mind.

 

basic bovine anatomy

This is Rea's cow Bess, the first week of May:

Look closely.
Do you notice anything odd about this cow.
Look again; i'll wait here.
Did you notice that she appears to have a few too many legs?
I count six.
Either Rickki has been milking a giant furry insect (ewwwwwwwwwwww),
she bought a two-legged goat from Craig's list,
or there is something else going on.

That makes more sense.

yes, I really AM this adorable

This is Weldon.




Well it was Weldon,
at four weeks old.







Now that he's over three months old he looks more like this.:

We grow up so fast, don't we?

just a little longer

The Plan was to give myself six months to get NikCo up and running.
At the end of that six months I found that I still had so much to do and had been frugal enough that I could give myself six more months.
In 21 days that six months will be over.
What to do, what to do.
It feels like things are finally starting to come together, starting to happen.
I have a clear vision of I want NikCo to be, what I want to accomplish.
Do I dare to keep to this path?
Do I dare to forgo the security of a real job?
Do I dare to pursue the dream?
You bet your bippy I dare.
This week's quote is from one of my favorite authors, Erma Bombeck. That lady could crack me up like no one else and in the next line bring me to tears.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.' 

note: Gotta acknowledge that I yesterday I was post-less. Congrats if you had July 9th in the pool. I'll see if I can get two out tonight to make up for it.

did she say fairy godmother?

Long, long ago (3 months) I announced that I was making a fairy godmother costume (mentioned it in passing in a small print post script).
You see, I was going to be the Fairy Godmother at the Soroptomist Princess Tea - a fundraiser we do where girls dress like princesses, have tea and cookies, create sparkly crafts, etc. The Fairy Godmother reads princess stories to them and leads the Princess Parade.
I volunteered to do it way back in November because, well... have you met me?
Anyhoo, the club owns a very nice costume that looks like the FGM from Cinderella, who obviously did not have any boobs. It fit great except across the chest where it cut off my ability to breathe; honestly, my diaphragm couldn't move.
The logical answer?
Make another costume, of course, because you know I am such a great seamstress.
Yes, I am so untalented with a needle that I was afraid to just add a little fabric for breathing room to the top of the professional costume because I was sure I would ruin it, but create a gown from scratch? NO PROBS.
It had to be long, pretty, a bit matronly and not look like a princess.
I found a great sparkly silver sweater set at Goodwill that was way too big so the matronly part was covered. Plus I figured I could just make a skirt instead of the whole gown.
After a long time in Joanne Fabrics I found lining on sale and decided on lavender because 1) I love purple, 2)  purple is royal, and 3) there are no Princesses that wear lavender.
How much do you need? inquired the helpful cutting lady.
Four, no five yards.
Maybe five and a half.
Let's see how much is on the bolt, was my brilliant, well-informed answer.

So I ended up with six yards of this lavender fabric..
Easily twice as much as I needed

When you buy fabric off of a bolt it is folded in half; when I unfolded my piece at home it turns out that it was about the same width as my height. I was planning on using the selvage edge as my hem anyway (cut me some slack all of you sewers out there who just gasped; the dress was for three hours with six-year olds and I have never made any clothes from scratch) so to avoid more cutting I revise my design from a skirt back to a full gown.

I like how the words my design make it sound like I had any idea of what I was doing. In fact, I had done it as a geometry problem: I need it to be this circumference for a few inches under my arms, then this circumference across my breasts, then this circumference for the length of the rest of my torso, then my waist and then my hips. I decided how large of a circle I wanted it to be around me at the floor (or the poofiness as I was calling it in my head). Then it was just connecting all of the circles with lines.
Easy-peasy.
[it totally made sense in my head. I explained it twice to my mom who used to design and sketch dresses when she was a teenager. She was dubious at best]

After giving the fabric a quick iron I assembled my tailoring tools:

pins, measuring tape, Sharpie and hammer

"Measure twice, cut once" applies to fabric as well as wood so I was very careful to pin and mark the fabric so that I would only have to make one seam: basically it was just a somewhat modified, graduating cylinder transitioning to a cone. (I wonder if there is a name for that shape)

Pinning all along the seam before cutting the fabric was the most time consuming part.

My straight pins were MIA so safety pins had to do the job. With the cardigan I figured I could just pin the top so the pins ran along the cut line, but where I was going to have run the skirt through the sewing machine I pinned across the line as Jean Kake taught me.

Hands down the scariest part was cutting the fabric.
You can't uncut something, people.
With my Grandma Craig's fabric scissors in hand I took a deep breath and just did it.



Sewing time!
Jean -the Quilted Cupcake master herself- had given me a sewing machine and shown me how to thread and run it since Home Ec was a zillion years ago. Frankly, I was terrible in sewing back then, ironing the side of my hand and running the needle over my finger, but I did great with Jean.
In fact I took all of these pictures during the process because I wanted her to see that I used the knowledge and machine she gave me.
One tiny problem: the machine would not bring up the bobbin thread.
 I threaded the needle several times, took out the needle and reset it, tried the thread from the back and the front, took out the bobbin and reset it several times, all to no avail. Everything looked right over and over again, but every time I used the wheel to lower the needle no bobbin thread came up with the needle thread.
AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
I spent about 25 minutes trying to get it to work until finally I snapped and yelled at the machine, Oh yeah? You think you can twart me? Defeat me? I am a tool user, you stupid machine. I will make this @#$%^ dress even if I have to staple the whole thing together.
So I did.

Ever stapled a floor length, pooffy skirt? I don't recommend it. 

Tea time arrived and I donned my totally jerry-rigged gown: skirt stapled, bodice tucked and pinned around my bra and neckline rolled and shaped with a purple flower brooch from 1988.
With my silver wand and a bottle of purple glitter tucked into the sleeves of my sweater, hair curled and pinned with flowers and butterflies and a matching lavender crown I was ready to whip up some magic.

The tea was so fun.
As the Fairy Godmother I ended up emceeing the afternoon, making all of the announcements and such. The book a chose -a great newish book about urban princesses called The Princess of 8th St by Linas Alsenes- went over great with the girls. After pouring tea and assisting with crafts, i taught them how to royal wave (we did screw in the light bulb) and curtsy, which they did on command in the craziest parade/follow the leader I have ever had the pleasure to lead.
Of course everything was done with handfuls of purple glitter thrown in the air, over me, over the girls, everywhere. In fact as I left afterwards to go to work at the Parisian Flea (yes, I went in costume just to see what my boss would say. He about died laughing in the doorway as I put money in the meter and then asked if I brought other clothes with me) I looked down to realize that I was caked with glitter.

sorry about the gratuitous cleavage; that's my POV,
not the way it looked to the girls 

Later I was informed that I am now Fairy Godmother for life.
Maybe with nine months lead time I can actually get a gown sewn for the next tea.
Newspaper coverage of the event here.