Best vacation ever

No seriously, it was. I can’t even stress that more. It was jam packed with win. Here’s how it went.
Day 1: Vaca commenced at 3:30 pm when I left work. I hightailed it to Providence to see the PRD vs Montreal Double header. PRD lost but it was such an awesome derby bout to watch. I was so proud of Small Wonder who played her first bout ever and totally got MVP. That girl squeaked through many tight walls. I wish I could post the photo here but instead you’ll have to go to George Ross’s Facebook to see.
Day 2: Drop Zeus off at the babysitters and prep for Maine. Not all that exciting. Very busy day of errands, shopping, and packing.
Days 3 & 4: Drive to ME and enjoy the company of our lovely friends, Mike, Jen, and family. The photo below is a link to the set of photos from our trip.

Days 4 – 6: Canoe the Saco River with the boy and the pup.
Trip Highlights!

• Spending time with an amazing family.
  
• Our perfect weather from start to finish.
  
• The little snake that greeted us and led us to our first campsite.
  
• Peaceful rowing along the Saco River.
  
• A group of four beavers that worked hard through our second evening right near our other campsite. They were so cute!
  
• Having to make car repairs that turned out to be only a hose to replace. Found an inexpensive mechanic after duct taping the crack to make it into town.

Day 7: Driving home after the repairs and totally stopping at Bruised Boutique to score a new pair of skates!!! I also had to pick up a pair of socks (with owls on them), two booty shorts, and laces. Then proceeded to the farm to retrieve Zeus and his new sibling Io.
Day 8: The lazy last day. Ok, so it was relatively lazy. We did a bazillion loads of laundry, Charlie harvested a ton from the garden, we made just over 6 jars of half sour pickles, and enjoyed an episode of True Blood before crashing into bed.

 

This was the best vaca ever. I spent every waking hour with the boy and we didn’t bicker once. I find that to be pretty awesome since we really only get to spend time together on weekends even though we live together. The weather was great for us. We enjoyed the river and everything it showed us. And we truly got our much needed relaxation. Thank you to all and whatever made this possible. *sigh* Can I retire yet?

Indie Arts Fest!!

Guess what. Providence Roller Derby is skating in a free bout on Saturday for the Indie Arts Fest. Our bout starts at 5:30. Click the flyer below to go to the site and see the whole schedule.

It's Zombies Vs. Robots and I'm totally skating on the Zombie team! Be there to cheer us on and see some awesome roller derby!

The cycle of my life: Chaos, Vacation, Chaos

Life was so busy before I went camping. There was chocolate peanut butter balls to make, a squid to felt and sew a pocket on, a Derbytaunt Ball to attend and packing to do. Needless to say, I needed my camping weekend after all the chaos.

Here's the remaining chocolate peanut butter balls that I had saved for the boy. =)

Below is the lovely Squid (click to see larger photo). The felting was a little off but I think he came out great. There is a pocket inside but I failed to take a photo of it. I love this guy though, and Val was so excited to receive it. I love reactions like her's. Before she goes to India I will be reciving an adorable crop top hoodie.

I had a blast at the ball, but I still don't have a working digital camera so I don't have any good photos from the event. There was fabulous music and everyone looked great. I love the PRD girls. I really need to get that manual camera out. Cindy gave it to me, but I fear wasting film and lack photo skills. We'll see. Maybe there will be camera adventure posts.

My time at Forest Folk was amazing. Charlie and I got there Tuesday but it was raining too much to set up. That led us to a cozy and dry evening at the lovely house of Bruce and Jess. We all hung out, enjoyed stew made by Cate and made notes on the registration. We had to make sure that the important procedures like strip searches were not forgotten for certain attendees. =)

The rest of the week went by with maybe a sprinkle here and there. The weather was beautiful, the music never stopped, everyone was full of great food, they were cooled off by the frigid water, and warmed up by the roaring fire in the hearth. It really doesn't get any better than that. My stressed melted away when I was there. It was exactly what I, and many others, needed.

I'm glad I had a beautiful time there since now my life is about to become chaos for a short time. I arrived home finding out that I will have to move out by July 1st. My roommate can't stay anymore and I refuse to let another stranger in my place to F-up my finances. I don't need that kind of bull so off we go. We'll see where my new home will be. The fun never ends.

Birthday Surprise!

Here's my account of a lovely Sunday suprise. You should check out the one by the birthday girl over here! She has great pictures up.-->http://jonirae.com/

My friend Joni has an amazing husband who wins at surprises. For a couple of weeks he had secret plans that I got to be included in. It was fun to hang out with her the week before and think secretly to myself "I know something you don't know!"

What were those plans? Well a surprise visit from Vicky and I. We then went off to an undisclosed location for breakfast (the Hearth and Kettle). The whole time we were traveling she had no idea where to. Breakfast was great. We were seated quickly since we beat the church traffic and all our orders came out as hoped.

Next came a trip to the next location, Borders! She had a shopping spree to take care of. I picked up a couple of books for myself. Maybe I'll let you know how they are in the future. They were Men of the Otherworld - Kelley Armstrong and The Forest House - Marion Zimmer Bradley.

During the shopping spree it was a waiting game. She didn't know it but we had one more surprise for her. Eventually the Huz (as referred to in her blog) asked her to take a seat. The birthday guest strolled up with a smile, a drum, and a guitar. It was one of Joni's favorite local artists, Kelliana! She was to have a private show in borders! Not a bad birthday at all. The show was great. She has a great voice. We only had one guy with major issues. He used a bit of profanity, stormed out with a plate clanging on the counter, and shared a few choice words with the baristas. We were all much happier when he left. Many of the other patrons enjoyed the random show along with us.

After the show we hung out a bit with Kelliana. She is so nice and down to earth. It's great to spend time with musicians like that. I recommend checking out her music. She has a great personality and voice. After a bit of chatting it was time to head back home. It was a wonderful day. I was exhausted and still had practice that night but the whole day was totally worth it.

A small piece of the flood of March 2010

This weekend is going to be a beautiful weekend that RI needs. It was a devastating week for many. Homes are being pumped and stores are cleaning up. The Warwick mall is out of commission for a long while. The disgusting water of the Pawtuxet River took over Warwick, West Warwick and Cranston. Thankfully my parents are on top of a hill in Warwick, keeping them safe from the river and the end of their street. They also have patched the foundation of the years and have and empty cesspool to collect the rain.

I went to the Pawtuxet River to check out the rapids that are speeding down the river. It was so loud and made me almost kind of want to grab a raft. If only raw sewege wasn't mixed in. The waves looked like they would have been fun, if you don't wack your head on the archways of the bridge. =) I'll leave you with photos of the river. Click them to see a larger version. On a normal day you could sit on these ledges in the corners but the water completely covered them.

I just really like how this last picture came out. I was wondering over by the boat house and there were lots of rusty remains.

Spring means new projects!

The weekend was amazing. The Forest Folk and I celebrated a special B-day and the first day of spring the only way we know how. A SLEEP OVER! As of late I fail at taking pictures since I have too much fun and forget about my camera. I will show you one picture though that I did post on my FB the other day. I was happily making vegetable pot pies for the event and my oven really sucks. It wasn't crisping up the top at all so after they cooked for a while I decided to try out my broiler. I had it in for the the right amount of time, but just like the rest of the oven it's not even. The oven definitely received much profanity for the turnout shown below. It is totally lucky that everyone loved the pies despite the mishap. I don't even know if it knows how lucky it is.

On to crafty update. Now that my knitting commission is done, and I won't take another for a while, I can now continue to work on stuff for the store I need a banner for. Today was a good night to start since I was winding down after a day of work and an amazing weekend with the lovely folks from CT.

What did I do for the next creative endeavor? Well I made my own yarn...out of a T-shirt! It was pretty fun. It was really easy. I found a tutorial here. I found it to be really simple, but I recommend using some good fabric scissors. I intend to pick up a better pair for this. Today was a test on just a plain white t-shirt. I didn't want to ruin one of the pretty ones I got from Bruce yesterday. I didn't take too many pics since the tutorial has great ones. Below is the chaos as I just started to tug the strip into tubes. It worked so easily. The directions couldn't be any better. It turned out well even while I was watching season 1 of Rome.

After all the tugging I was able to wind it up into a nice ball. I didn't take a size comparison photo, but I can next time.

I can't wait to make more. After some final felting of the swatch for my art trade I will make some with the different colored t-shirts I got. One day I'll learn how to spin but till then I'll recycle for mother earth with some old t-shirts. :) I have a couple of projects in mind, for the cotton yarn, that I'll sell online. I love when the creative juices are flowing!

Music and Derby

On Saturday I saw Shryne. It was their CD release Party and they put on an amazing show. My friend Jon is a the lead singer. They are all very talented musicians. I recommend checking them out sometime. They had a great lineup. They chose all the bands that night which was great because everyone had a different style. It was a high energy show. the only downside was that I now have laryngitis. The combo of dry winter air, not drinking enough water, and having to talk loud ruined me. No skating for me tonight. =(

In the world of roller derby, Providence Roller Derby is holding a fund raiser for a good cause. I will be there volunteering and enjoying the bout. I haven't passed my scrimmage assessment yet. On Sunday March 7th we are having a scrimmage to collect donations for the Sojourner House (www.sojournerri.org). It's a V-Day event (www.vday.org). V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls.  The flyer below has all the details. Hope to see you guys there!

Valentine's Day weekend

(Published a little late because I was procrastinating on photos. Enjoy!)

In preparation of the amazing weekend to be had, I made a montrous amount of cookies. I was afraid to count how many till I was done, and it was rightly so. I ended up making 13 dozen adorable heart shaped cookies with royal icing. They were chocolate sugar cookies. The recipe can be found here. I brought 3 dozen to work and the rest were eaten at the lovely party I attended this past weekend. I did the minimum amount of water in the icing but I should have added it more slowly so I would use less and make it easier to draw with. I highly recommend the recipe though. The icing is way more pink than this looks.

I recently went to an antique store and found awesome V-day cards which I failed to bring to my Valentine. Oh well. He did get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cookies. He's been sick lately too so we don't need to jinx him with these kick ass cards. I love the Curiosities store in Providence. They have such cute and random things there. You can click to enlarge them since I didn't get a chance to crop them. =) They are the front and back of each.

Saturday I met up with my Valentine in Hartford and we headed to Bruce and Jess's house in Oxford. They are lucky enough to rent a house on a beautiful farm in Oxford. This just moved in and it was their housewarming party. We had a cozy party with about 30 people of our Forest Folk Tribe. They all are really great people and our parties are always the best. We had great lasagna, cupcakes, rib roast, peirogies, cookies, quiche, bacon, and alcohol. =) We never are left hungry or thirsty at these events.

Something hilarious happened at about 6am. I was innocently tiptoeing to the bathroom on an important pee mission. It was pitch black in the living room and I was relying on shadows. Well shadows failed me because my toes met up with a dark box with a few bottles on top of it. My silent trip wasn't silent for long. The bottles fell right into a ceramic jug announcing me. I scared the crap out of sleeping innocent bystanders along with myself. Thankfully I made it to the bathroom in time. Sorry to Nici for the Charley Horse you endured afterwards.

The next day we all had breakfast and lounged around. Then Bruce fired up the tractor and we went for a beautiful winter hay ride. There were pheasant and hawk sightings. It was weird seeing the campground we party on all covered in a blanket of snow. It was so peaceful and quiet. I can't wait to return to our site in May. On the way back to the house we stopped and visited sheep with their lambs and pigs of all sizes. Finally back at the house we had a choice of homemade beef or chicken soup. A perfect ending to the weekend. (Again they are thumbnailed.  Hover over the photo for a description. Just click to see a medium sized version or go to my flickr page for the largest.)

I couldn't have had a better weekend anywhere else. For now I'll relax here in hartford ill it's back to derby practice and work. Life is good.

Non-glitterpires.

Last night I went to see a play written by a friend of mine. Jon did an amazing job writing it, his mother and friends made beautiful music, and the cast showed off all the work beautifully! The play is called "Nightsong".

Robert is a 300 - year old vampire, who's been feeling off lately. It doesn't help that Vivienne, his eternal lover, has grown increasingly cold over the years; she views humans as little more than a source of sustenance, while Robert still finds them fascinating. However, a new conquest soon catches Robert's eye: Andrea, a naive human who's been widowed for nearly two years. Desperate to be closer to her -- but not wanting to pursue her physically -- Robert calls upon an ancient, forbidden power known as the Nightsong. Using this power Robert enters Andrea's dreams while she sleeps, drawing her fragile mind ever closer to him.

I love when people asked Jon where this all came from he replies, "I made it all up." No grand explanation of his inspiration. Just that he made it all up. *grin*

He really is a great and talented guy. I never will let him forget that I remember him being in 'James and Giant Peach' for All Children's Theater a loooong time ago. He was the caterpillar in a very embarrassing costume he named the poop suit. Yeah it looked that awesome. But of course even at that young age he was great. He was probably only 7 or 8 at the time.

Something else that was really cool about last night was the venue. It's called St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center. This awesome church has the largest fresco collection in North America. It's pretty amazing. The photo below is a taste. If you click it you'll see the few photos I took last night. Now these frescos are very important and require a certain temperature to be maintained. Well, in order to do so it costs $1800 a WEEK to heat this building. This non-profit organization would really appreciate the donations to keep this art safe.

I was in awe of it. The photos aren't amazing because I was taking pictures of an extremely high ceiling. If I was the painter I probably would have thrown up from being that high. There is no way I could do stuff like this. Please set up my easel on the ground. Kthxbye.