Party Pants

How was your weekend?  Mine was nice; it included steaks on the grill, cheesecake with cherries on top, a pizza slice the size of my head, and CHRIS' BIRTHDAY!

1.  Party pants needed a party hat to match his party banner (#3).  He did not like wearing it.
2.  My status over the weekend went from "Not A Griller" to "You Bet Your Ass I'm A Griller."  I told Chris I was making hamburgers on the grill for his birthday to trick him like any good wife would.  Not surprisingly, he preferred the T-bone.
3.  The party hat banner I made for Chris' birthday last year (and will display every year).
4.  The end of another weekend, and the thoughts of aaalllll the screen printing I have to work on tomorrow morning...

how was your weekend?

our weekend was busy but awesome.  a huge, and i mean HUGE, group of people surprised my pop with a retirement party on saturday night.  we ate, we laughed, we talked about him buying a motor home so we can road trip to san francisco, and i dank my new favorite drink - angry orchard traditional dry hard cider.  yum.  but i didn't really take pictures until sunday, and even then i hardly took any.

we started off our morning (really early) with a visit to chris' aunt & uncle's dragonfly ridge and had brunch, art talk, then did some hiking to work it off.  we also had a chipmunk spy watch us eat.  after that we went to the firefish gallery to pick up the watercolor portrait i did of carrie & simon to show in the project perry art show and auction.  it's the first time anything i've painted has been in a gallery, so i was both excited and nervous!  after we picked it up we went to a pretty park to drink coffee (chris) and lemonade (me) and eat snacks, and because it was so pretty, i told chris that i wanted him to take outfit pictures of me.  you won't see those because they never happened.  a local outreach was giving out bowls of chili to the needy and homeless in the park, so obiously i'd feel a little weird standing there like an idiot having my picture taken eleventy billion times.  maybe next time!  then we had dinner and laughs with some of our favorite friends and called it a night.  oh man was it nice to go to bed after such a long day.

i also did the whole messy bun deal and decided that it just didn't work for me.  not even a little bit.

so what did you do over the weekend?

the art and the seeing eye dog.

wow, this was such a long and busy weekend that i actually kind of don't feel like even typing a blog post! but i'll tough it out. so, one thing i'm really excited about is my new art, courtesy of my friend allyson. she and i did a trade, and i couldn't be happier! i actually wasn't expecting the paper cut in the frame, but how sweet is she to make me one?! i put the larger print in a huge antique gesso frame that sits on the mantle in my living room so anyone who comes in my front door can see it. i think it might be my favorite yet!

now, the seeing eye dog. saturday morning chris woke up at about 4am with an intense burning in his eye. then a little while later he tried to wake me up, and while i was already awake, i just ignored him and pretended like i was still sleeping. a little while later he asked me when i was waking up and said that he needed my help. he told me about his eye, and after looking at it and noticing several small white spots at the bottom of his iris, i told him he should make an appointment with the doctor. after spending a long time in an emergency doctor's appointment, we discovered that chris has multiple corneal ulcers caused by a combination of foreign material and contact lenses. so then, we spent the rest of the day looking for somewhere that could make eyeglasses that day, and we spent the day today getting new eye drops and waiting for his glasses to be finished. because chris is very, very blind, with a prescription of -6.75, he isn't able to walk into the stores without having me guide him or point him to where a person is standing; he's obviously not able to read a menu at lunch; he certainly isn't able to drive. so until about 4:00 this afternoon when his glasses were finished, i've been a seeing eye dog, a chauffeur, and a menu reader for him. i even had to tell everything that was going on in the tv show we were watching as he could only hear it. i don't mind helping him, but man is it ever weird to go from having a husband who can see and do things for himself to having one who is just about helpless!

oh, and here's one thing i'm not happy about: on our way home on saturday evening, i saw a snake crossing the road. it's the first one i've seen this year, which means i'll be staying out of the woods until november when the beasts aren't slithering around just waiting to scare me. gross.

so how has your weekend been?

the maple festival!

on saturday morning, chris and i got up early and got ready so we could head out on our field trip to the maple festival. it was a sunny day (a little windy though, especially when you're small like me and have a hard time walking through it!) which i think attracted about three times more people than the last time we went - a cold, rainy morning. i really love the mountains, and if you're familiar with the virginia landscape, monerey, va is just a few miles east of the west virginia border, so you know just how mountainous it is! so, here we go...

in addition to some junk food (that we ate already), the only things i brought back are this amazing vintage bag (remember a few wish lists ago i had several of these bags? well, i found this baby for $2 and the proceeds from everything in that shop went to the spca! double win!) and two beautiful stones. one stone is bismuth, which i learned about shortly before the festival, and the other is dolomite which i've been wanting for quite some time!

our first order of business was breakfast. because of the rain the last time we went, i think there were maybe only three people in front of us in line for pancakes. on saturday, we had over an hour wait to even get up there and place our pancake order! madness! so, being the health-conscious adults we are, we had funnel cake and fried oreos for breakfast! the oreos were so good because they got all hot and melted and gooey! at about 2:00 or a little later, we finally got in to eat pancakes and met a nice older couple who live about 1.5 hours from us (and i think they were the highlight of lunch). also, just look at my hair to get an idea of how bad the wind was! AAAAHHHHHHH!

so how was your weekend? did you anything exciting?

soul glow and the worm.

i told you in my last blog post that on friday, chris and i were going to meet up with josh, cossandra, another chris and jen, but then keith and elizabeth ended up coming, so we had a full house for mexican fun night! anyway, josh and i have been discussing the soul glow song and commercial from the movie "coming to america" and i knew that the night couldn't end without me getting a video of such a vocal feat.


it was a night of pure indulgence: fajitas, mexican casserole that knocked my socks off, chips & guacamole, Wii competitions, the sprinkler, and my personal favorite, MANGO MARGARITAS!

now, onto the next order of business. i'm a little late at setting a new goal or resolution for myself, but i'm serious about this one. it's something i've been wanting to be able to do for years and years now, but i just never really tried because i knew i'd fail. but now, i'm ready to break out of that mindset and go for it! what is this new thing i want to do? have a look...


that's right. i want to be able to do the worm. and i'm not talking just one move, i mean i want to be able to do it all the way down the hall, or even better, all the way across my house. i can do it now on the bed because it gives me a little extra spring, but when i'm trying to worm on the floor, i basically just smash my body down and hump the floor. it doesn't sound pretty because it isn't. but i'm serious about this goal. i'll make it my mission. maybe once i master that i can move onto the windmill. little sidenote, i always wanted to breakdance!

my new friend, aunt cindy, and pictures

isn't that such an original title? it's all i could come up with. so, my weekend was pretty busy, but i really, really enjoyed it and wish i could do it again! saturday started off kind of slow, and although i knew i had TONS of things that needed to be drilled, i was just too lazy to do any of it. that afternoon, i went to my aunt cindy's house to start an engagement photo shoot (doesn't that make me sound so professional?) with my cousin emily and her fiancee, blake. while emily was getting ready, aunt cindy told me that she wanted to show me her new camera. my first thought was, "wow, i can't believe cindy got a digital camera" because i know she doesn't really do a lot with computers or cameras. so she reached up on her mantle and pulled this little gem off...

she said that she got it at a benefit yard sale and thought of me since 1. i like cameras, and 2. like everything old. and then she told me to keep it! i felt so bad taking it, but at the same time, i was so excited and instantly started to think of where i'd put it! when i told aunt cindy & uncle marc that i first thought, "wow, aunt cindy's going hi-tech," my uncle marc responded, "hey, that is hi-tech for us!" i wish you could all meet aunt cindy & uncle marc. they are seriously so fun to be around, and i have NEVER, EVER in my life been around them and not laughed so hard i almost wet myself. so anyway, that was awesome, and i can't stop staring at my new friend!

then, we started the photo shoot down at their lake and continued to the old city cemetery. it may sound weird to take pictures at such a creepy place, but it's truly beautiful, and a very historic place here in lynchburg, va. it's become one of the most popular places for any kind of photo shoot, and it's no surprise; the place really is gorgeous.

i've been doing some editing and playing, and i have a lot of work ahead of me, but i'm so excited about getting to be the photographer on such a special day for emily and blake! i' have so many ideas for the wedding photos, and since it won't be until next september, i have plenty of time to think of even more poses and props!

on sunday chris and i skipped church, and if you live in the south and skip church, then you can understand how we have to hear about it from everyone we know. ugh. anyway, i just kinda needed to vent. i had A LOT of work that i needed to do on sunday morning that i was too lazy to do on saturday, and it felt good to have all of that accomplished. chris and i got a late start leaving to go run some errands, but after we ate lunch, i asked him if he'd mind riding to the humane society. we ended up spending about an hour rubbing and playing with some beautiful cats and dogs, and of course i felt a little lonely when we left. because i love those animals even more than the pampered ones who've lived a life of luxury, i've been thinking a lot the last few months about volunteering. i looked at the application today, and it just may be something i'll do!

so, how was your weekend?

on sunday, i...

...got up way too early after going to bed way too late, and wasted time until chris got up. once he was awake, we decided we'd go to a tiny town about 45 minutes from us called Lowesville. since i'm not big on breakfast foods, and it was already too late for that, we got ready so we could leave in time for lunch. when we got to Lowesville we drove by The Old Store at Lowesville, and chris said we'd get to "the town" further down the road. as it turns out, "the town" actually isn't a town at all, as it consists of a store, a school and a general store/restaurant which is where we had lunch. they had a buffet with freshly cooked items like zucchini & squash (yum), chicken enchiladas, mashed potatoes, bbq & coleslaw egg rolls (chris said the person who thought of those must be named genius) which may sound gross, but they were actually sooooo good.

once we finished eating we felt sick we bought some candy, as if we really needed anything else to eat! then we walked outside and let our guts hang loose to see just how big our food babies were. chris is really skinny, so i let out some kind of cackle, because i have never in the 11 years i've known him seen his stomach bulge so far! our next stop was back at the old store, which is a combination of handmade, antiques, and junk. chris got me the old glass telephone pole insulator you see up there because 1. it was cheap, 2. i like old glass & those, especially, and 3. i love love aqua, blue and green old glass. although i brought my camera, i didn't take a single picture all day. and that's about all there is to lowesville. i will definitely be going back to eat.

once we left lowesville, i could barely contain my excitement because we were headed to see THE KITTENS!!!!! the knife is still in my heart after turning over custody of the kittens to the humane society, but i felt that if i could visit them again and tell them how much i love them, it may make me feel a little better. i took a bag of kitten chow as the humane society runs off donations, and got one of the women to show me where my babies were. it is amazing just how much they've grown in only a few days, and i guess they've been doing that the whole time, i just didn't realize it because i saw them everyday. i was so so so happy that they remembered me and purred while they nuzzled against my hand for rubs. i'm still lonely without them, but they have such sweet dispositions, so i feel confident that they'll be adopted by loving families. once we left the kittens, we went to see the dogs, and i fell in love with a pitbull. he was so sweet, and he was so excited to have attention, he was prancing in place! i hope i don't offend anyone by saying this, but i would strongly urge against buying from a breeder when there are so many loving cats and dogs who need to be adopted. that pitbull melted my heart, and if it were possible (i.e. if my hubby said it was okay), i'd adopt him in a heartbeat!

i survived...

...the cage of death. I have no idea what the ride was called, but boy am I glad it's over! Chris suggested that we ride to the carnival that was passing through town, and anytime I get a chance to ride "the scrambler," I do! He was also the one to propose a ride on the spinning, twisting, upset-my-lo-mein-noodles-stomach ferris wheel on crack! Okay, so the big wheel went round and round, but each of those cars also spun around with a steering wheel that was inside. I like spinning just as much as any 7-year-old, but I think even that was a little much!

In addition to the carnival, I got the heads up from a friend on a J. Crew sample sale (and I scored jeans, shirts, and two bikinis). I probably could have stayed all day, but I'd venture to say that Chris wouldn't have been so happy. I'll see if I can get some pictures of my favorite new bathing suit, but I will NOT be modeling it!

Saturday was spent at my little sister's graduation, then at my pop's house for the after party. My family is crazy, and while it may be wise to down a vallium ahead of time, they sure are fun to be around!

What's your favorite carnival ride or game? And did you do anything special this weekend!