achievment unlocked - rose petal puller

I love new experiences and learning new things.
As such, i have accumulated an odd skill set.
Need a wedding dress properly corseted? I can do that.
Need to keep a nail from falling off after smashing your finger? I can do that.
Need to cook food for 150? I can do that.
Need to properly set a balloon drop? I can do that.
Need to mix glitter to exactly match your wall paint? I can do that.
Need to explain why the sky is blue with ordinary household objects? I can do that.
Need to navigate by the stars? I can do that.
Need to cook cauliflower so that it is delicious? I can not do that. Really, can anyone?

Recently i learned how to pull rose petals from the stem without damaging them.
Yes, there is a specific technique for that.
It involves holding the flower and stem in opposite hands with your fingers curled around the base of the bud just past the first few petal layers and then there is a pushing, pulling, pushing, rocking, pushing, slight twist and pull.

Voila! 
You are holding all of the rose's petals without the rest of the flower; now you just have to gently unroll the petals from each other.

Need petals to throw.

Denude the roses gently.

Ow! That's prickly!

PSA: As you finish 20, 30, 40, 50  roses, it is easy to become distracted.
Stay vigilant or you might forget that there are still thorns.

May is my second favorite month

Beautiful flowers.
                                              Mother's Day.
                 A multitude of birthdays, including mine.  🎈
                                                                      ➤Mild temperatures.
Yes, May is a great month indeed.

What keeps it from being my favorite?
POLLEN

The scourge of yellow dust everywhere and the reality that right now i am out of Benadryl, Benadryl Sinus, Tylenol Sinus, Claritin and Ny-Quil.
It is such a price to pay for all of the beauty, i'm just saying.

rose loaf

Part of The Plan is to spend a portion of my not-working-9-to-5 time trying various charities, trying to find the one(s) that fit my call to serve. In order to do that i have been branching out and meeting new people.
Thursday night i attended a recruiting meeting for Soroptomist International. I am tangentially aware of them as both the jewelry show back in February and the Flower and Craft show were sponsored by them.
It was a nice gathering of women from different backgrounds, but it was the sort of thing where you have to wear a name tag because you really only know the person who invited you.
At the end i stayed to help clean up.
While pulling tablecloths i noticed that there were flowers in the trash.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Perfectly good flowers in the trash?
It literally hurt my heart to see that.
Before i could stop myself or worry about what these women who had only known me for two hours would think, i reached in and plucked them out.
When the organizer saw that i had saved them she said, I was just gonna throw them out since they are so short [they had been arranged super cute, three to a juice glass in the middle of each table].
Oh no; i'll take them replies the girl who, like her mom, keeps cut flowers until they are falling to pieces around the vase and all of the ladies started piling the roses by my purse. In fact, one older lady smiled at me and said, i'll go find you a plastic bag. They didn't seem to think it odd that i'd gotten them out of the trash at all.
When i got them home i was in a quandary about what to do with a bag full of super short roses; there is no room in my house for a bunch of juice glasses to be sitting around. They'd just lay weird in bowls. I only own three bud vases.
hmmmmmmm...
I needed something that i could stand them up in and still be able to see them.
What is only a few inches tall with straight sides?

A glass bread pan!




I am so glad that i followed my ridiculous heart instead of my practical head because now i have a lovely loaf of roses on my table. 

...flowers in the trash... pahshaw

Catonsville Flower Fest and Garden Party

On Sunday, May 6th from 10am to 3pm my neighborhood will be welcoming Spring with a community garden party. There will be flowers and music and crafts and gardening and even a bonnet contest.
This will not only be fun, but is a great opportunity for you to come say HI to me; i will be exhibiting the ReWearables jewelry line as well as handmade cards and other paper goods.
Grab a lovely chapeau and celebrate Spring.

complete randomness

Yesterday it was 86 degrees; today it is 56.
Welcome to spring in Maryland.

I had a show this morning (what idiot authorizes Saturday morning shows? oh, yeah...) and it was the same one where i got a touch electrocuted yesterday. I'm glad that i had to do the Jacob's Ladder again right away cause if i'd had to wait more than 20 hours i might have really psyched myself out. I was so skittish about testing it before the show that TM Chris actually laughed at me at one point. Good news, though - it worked perfectly, just like the hundreds of other times i've done it and no alternating current entered my body.

This is one of the ugliest flowers i have ever seen.
It is huge and kinda impressive in its weirdness.
One of my dad's friends grows them in his cool butterfly garden.
I don't remember what it is called, but it goes to prove that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder because it is quite popular with insects.
Maybe it has UV markings that attracts them.
Did you know that some insects can see in the UV spectrum?
Science is awesome.

When i was trying to remember the name of that hideous brown flower i did a Google image search with the parameters "pitcher shaped flower brown with yellow veins" and pretty close to the top i got this:

Really, Google? Try again.

I do not understand single ply toilet paper.
You aren't saving money or conserving resources cause you have to use twice as much, so what is the point?

I really like red hair.
I don't have many friends who are natural redheads,
but yet several of them have redheaded babies, like this little miss of Oregon Francie's:

Genetics is fun.











There is a new location of Sofi's Crepes in Belvedere Square,

 so now you can grab some crepes before or after your movie at the Senator.
As you can see, TM Katie's flabber was pretty much gasted [awesome phrase stolen from Jim Butcher and reworked to fit my needs] by the size and deliciousness of her Original with Bacon.
I am a bit embarrassed to admit that i've never been to the Sofi's by the Charles Theater -a Baltimore tradition- so this was a new experience for me completely.
I ordered like this Florentine beauty

which was tasty and a homemade butterscotch one that was hands-down the most delicious dessert i have ever eaten, ever.
Just be warned that there is a delectable, piping hot lake of butterscotch waiting at the bottom of the crepe, waiting to explode all over your uniform.

We celebrated Dash's second birthday last weekend and Kate made this great cake.
Yes, the pan did all of the tricky mouse shaping, but she piped on all of those delicious buttercream stars. My hand is cramping just thinking about it.





I've spoken before about about crazy school mascots that we encounter in our travels. Recently we were at a little private school that were the Panthers. That isn't that unusual, but check out this painting:

Is that not the smuggest expression you have ever seen?
He is painted on the wall where we were performing.
I felt like he was judging me during the entire show and distinctly found me lacking.
Oh yeah, Mr High and Mighty Panther? Well, you're... you're two dimensional!

Finally, i understand that we are a litigious society so there are warning labels on everything, but should anyone have to be told that it is a bad idea to put a mechanical hamster on his or her head?

That is all for now.
Return to your regular programming.
Thank you.

like lemon italian ices

I love irises and have seen them in a multitude of colors, but was surprised by these in front of Jason and Kate's house

I don't know if i'd call them yellow with white or white with yellow, but i'd definitely call them lovely.

Another birthday come and gone

Thanks to all who helped celebrate the High Holy Day of the Nikiverse.
With an upcoming art exhibition there seems to be a distinct lack of time to write, so instead enjoy a few slices of this delicious birthday collage.

yes, this IS the short version

Matt and Sara got married 7 weeks ago, but i have all of these pictures edited and sized so by jiminey i'm gonna post them, but we'll do it in bullet points; after all, i still have Hawaii pictures to share and life just keeps happening so there is new stuff to attend to as well.
Hold onto your hats, here we go:
- the reception was at Cortland Mansion in Hagerstown, which is lovely, but is intentionally a blank slate:
- Sara (bride), Matt (groom), Carol (mother of the bride), Shannon (bridesmaid), Bella (matchmaker and bridesmaid), Christian (groomsmen), Avi (adorable baby) and Niki (me) decorated the room and mantle in cream, brown and burgundy/wine/red and created centerpieces of glass, cranberries, oranges, coffee beans, pine cones and candles:
 
- Sara, Tiffany (sister-in-law and bridesmaid) and Daphne (maid of honor) worked on flower arranging in several sessions over different days with flowers ordered off of the internet; everything turned out incredible:
- Niki, Bella and Sara made tulle and ribbon birdseed packets that were eventually put in beribboned baskets with adorable cows that Sara collects:
 
- paper-wise there were table cards to be made and candle favor tags to be made, plus everybody -and i do mean everybody- worked on the programs at one point or another; first they had to be finish, then printed, then reprinted, then math problems, then an entire third page that i personally screwed up, then more reprints, then we ran out of ribbon, then more reprints; thank God, that Daphne and Tiffany finally figured out a way to get everything right:
 
you know, a collage will be faster...
 
- MEANWHILE, Earl (father of the bride) and Andrew (brother and groomsman), along with people i didn't see cause i was otherwise occupied cleaned out the huge garage, shoveled and leveled wet gravel (it had been raining forever) and prepared for the pig roast:
from this to this
 
(shoveling gravel is yucky, but shoveling wet gravel is even worse)
- we managed to fit in Thanksgiving dinner,
 with Carol cooking amidst the chaos.
plenty to be thankful about
 
-Matt and Sara had baked the 8 cake layers earlier in the week and put them in the freezer, so most of Thursday there were thawing cakes everywhere:
 
- sometime well after midnight we got to making seven batches of butter cream, leveling, filling, coating and frosting:
  Matt demonstrates that smoothing butter cream involves paper towels - who knew?
- Sara decided that we needed more cupcakes, at 3am
 
- Daphne still needed to finish the veil, but Sara's modeling really captures how tired we all are at this point
 
- finished cakes were strewn about the mud room,
  cause there was no room in the fridge
 
-the pig roast piggie arrived along with equipment and guys to watch over the roasting around 3am, though i didn't go outside to take pics right then cause 1) it was dark and 2) i was starting to lose all sense of reality and finally crashed around 3:45:
 
- after the ladies' brunch and the guys' skeet shooting, everything was loaded to go to the church or Cortland with Niki, Linnea and Wade (sister & brother in law, bridesmaid & groomsman), Chris (brother and groomsman), and Chris (groomsman - yes, 3 of the groomsmen were named some variation of Chris) all taking loads along with Matt and Sara and her parents:
 
that's a lot of stuff
-there was some rehearsing:
- then back to the farm for delicious, cooked forever pork, plus lots of sides and salads made by Pat (stepmother of the groom) and Nan (grandmother of the groom) and pies made by Iris (aunt of the bride)
-smores were made with marshmallows the size of my fist, on super long sticks to keep us a safe distance from the flames
 
- i spent some time communing with cows
 
-there was a lot of love and laughter around wood spool tables and hay bale benches:
-three of Sara's friends surprised us with a Steel Magnolia's groom's cake
 
-there was a beautiful, meaningful wedding with all of the ceremony, homilies, music and communion done by friends and family; i have no pictures of it cause i was a bit busy but you can see them in the photographer's book here, where you will also find pictures of a lovely and fun reception, which i have almost no pictures off because i was quite a bit busy,
but i do know that there was posing,
dancing,
kissing,
and cake cutting
- Christian and Brian (groomsman) got Sara's truck ready, birdseed was thrown, balloons were released and Mr and Mrs drove off to the surprise wedding night location
 
The End
...phew
oh, wait - in my haste i forgot my 3 favorite pictures from the whole shebang:
-Matt was soooo sick and exhausted the whole week leading up to the wedding that one night while i was driving us back to the farm -in an ice storm, no less- he fell asleep in the most uncomfortable position i've ever seen:
poor guy
-but after the pig roast he went to the hotel, took a bunch of cold medicine and slept for more than three hours in a row so when i took him to church the morning of the wedding, he looked like the boy i know and love:
 hey, i'm getting married
-somehow there are no pictures of me with the Mr and Mrs on the wedding day (did i mention that i was busy?), but this one taken at the pig roast makes me smile because you can see that the work is all done and we are finally relaxed: