You must be lost

For those of you who don't follow my costuming journal and missed my little squee over there last Thursday, I've registered for ALEP2: There and back again and am thoroughly excited, even though it's a year and a half away. I promptly booked the same house we had last time after getting my confirmation. Need to send off my check for my deposit, but other than that, we are go!

Yes. :)

Friday, I drove down to Huntsville for a raptor show and the treehouses at The Botanical Gardens. Jonah and I met up with my in-laws to enjoy the weather. It was warm and sunny, bordering on hot. I sweat, just a little. It felt nice. After that, we stopped in at the West End Grill for some food (since Clementine's at the Garden closed right as we walked in). Then we hit the road home.

When I got home, Chris had taken a half day off and cleaned up the overgrown brush on side where we cleared out the fencing. It looks great, but I'm sure it was tough work. He went and got a pretty cool little fire pit to keep on the patio and attempt to burn up the huge pile of brush we now have. We grilled out some hot dogs and enjoyed the nice evening outside.

Saturday, we got up, went to City Limits Bakery for some breakfast, then to Toys-R-Us to pick out a toy for our neighbor's daughter, then to her birthday party at Monkey's Treehouse (an indoor play place for kids). Once we were done there, we went home and I proceeded to try to dig out my jewelry tools and package them in some sort of portable way to take over to witchcat07's place for a crafty afternoon.

Since she's laid up with an injured/surgeried heel, she invited some of us crafty folks over for a light pot luck lunch and general craftiness to alleviate a brief span of her boredom. Paul and Kim were there as was their friend Beth. Kim and Beth were spinning, which was neat, and Jessica knitted. I wasn't sure how to start a new project necessarily, so I picked up the necklace I made for Steffany a while back which broke to work on repairing it. I'm pretty sure I did it with craft wire (was before I was using Sterling). So, I cut off the wrap on the stone and started something new on it. I neglected to bring my good pair of chain nose pliers and the crummy pair I had kept cutting into the 26 gauge wire I was using to wrap the 24 gauge. So, I wound up breaking wire quite a bit. But for what I'm doing it's not a big deal, Just sets me back every time. We had a tasty lunch and chatted about various topics (Dragon*Con, ALEP2, belly dancing, Ren Faires, Paul and Kim's gigs, et cetera). Was fun and I hope she does it again, since she'll be an invalid for the several weeks. ;) On my way home, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up some Oxyclean for Chris' brew preparations and play sand for Jonah's sand box. We grilled a pork tenderloin for dinner and had some simple brown rice with a little thyme, a pinch of brown sugar and some walnuts.

Sunday, Chris was brewing and our brewing friend Kyle was coming over to brew as well (little did we know he was coming over to brew two 10 gallon batches). A couple of other guys came by just to drink beer, but were gone by the time I got back from lunch. I got up and started trying to clean the house. The kitchen floor felt gross to walk on, so I started there. Some time during my cleaning, I got a call from cashmere_cat that she and her family were in town and wanted to grab some lunch. So, I got Jonah and I ready and we met them at Blackstone's for some lunch. The Irish stout was on cask and it was mighty tasty. It was really good to see Jenny and Scotty. They seem like they're doing well. And Calvin and Alayda are so grown! I guess Calvin is around 9 and I remember when Jenny was pregnant with Alayda, which would put her around 6 or 7 maybe. Jonah did a pretty good job of keeping everyone entertained. It was like he didn't even take a pause between talking about trains in the car and coming into the restaurant to tell people he'd never met before all about it.

On the way home, I stopped at the grocery to grab some sausages to cook for Chris and Kyle for lunch. Then we just hung out drinking beers and snacking on smoked cheddar until Kyle was done brewing.

Yesterday, I tried to get the house back in some semblance of order so that I could possibly enjoy Jonah going back to school today (or tag clothes for a consignment sale, whatever). Had a good spring break, but I'm glad it's over.

On the agenda this week:
Spring Consignment sale this weekend. Need to get all my stuff tagged and turned in by 10am on Thursday. Since I need to buy Jonah's spring/summer wardrobe, I'll probably shop the pre-sale Thursday night to be sure I get what I want for him.

Friday night I'm hosting the book discussion for the Smial. We're up to the first three chapters of Book IV (second half of The Two Towers). Was thinking an olive stuffed pork loin for it, but now (since we just had two meals of pork tenderloin), lamb is sounding good. Decisions, decisions. I'll figure it out by Thursday, I guess.

Hmm, how best to tackle this? A LIST!

1. Jewelry - I'm doing my first show on Nov. 7th at Ceder Grove Elementary School's Fall Festival. This was a tough decision since it's the same weekend as the Superhero 5k and this will be the second year in a row I've missed it. But, I'm trying to grow a business here and should respond positively when I'm contacted about such things. Got a call from the PTO president last night to confirm. It's a done deal, I'm in, just need to send a check for my booth fee.

2. Costuming - Working on Elseworld Batgirl (my progress here). Originally it was for the Superhero 5k. Then was going to do it for Halloween. Now I'm slowing work on it (practically halted) and just shooting to have it as a "just because" costume. I need to work on convincing myself it's ok to make costumes just because anyway. Since I'm spending money in my hobby budget on getting jewelry made for the show, there's not much left for Batgirl. I've got quite a bit to continue work as I'm able, just lacking a few things to finish it off. I do at least want to finish some of the armor by the end of the month in order to have a tutorial ready for ConCraft. Which brings me to. . .

3. ConCraft - It's not my baby, but I'm certainly having a lot of fun with the idea and the work. I'm keeping a running list of articles I'd like to write at some point. A lot of those articles are going to require new projects. So, not only is it giving me some good practice at writing but also it's keeping my costuming mojo alive and well. I need to get back into dyeing.

4. Gardening - Tried to do my pansies from seed this year. They got washed out because I didn't have the sense to protect them from all this rain. D'OH! Did get some more spring bulbs on the cheap though and I'm excited to have lots more tulips and a few more irises ready for the spring.

5. Job - I'm applying today for the same greenhouse I tried in the spring for some part time seasonal work. Saw a sign there the other day. It's not like I need the work nor do we really need the money. I just sort of want to do it. Strategically wearing my Jamaican Bat Guano Organic Fertilizer shirt today and will go in before picking Jonah up this afternoon to chat with them about the position(s) they're filling and gardening in general. Think face time and an inflexible part time schedule might have been what I lacked in the spring.

6. Silver Screen Accessories - I've bought up domains, secured usernames and all the other things I did for Gaia's Jewel in the spring for Silver Screen Accessories. I plan to start working hard on this after the craft show and want to have some items available by the end of the year. I'm going to start with mostly movie replica accessories (Elizabeth Swann's hat and baldric from Dead Man's Chest, Hermione's ribbon belt from Prisoner of Azkaban, etc.). I'm leaving the door wide open for custom accessories as well. I want to offer those hard to find and hard to make items that most costumers who mostly only sew have trouble securing. I can't complete entire costumes fast enough (or professionally finished enough) to sell them. But the accessories, I'm pretty good at and can do a lot of them pretty quickly. I got the idea as I was making my pirate hat. I thought, "man, I could make like 10 of these in a day and sell them!" It also gives me the opportunity to make costume jewelry and not mix it in with the stuff at Gaia's Jewel.

And with all that, I've got to check my sanity at picking up an application for a greenhouse today. Maybe I won't take it back up there after all. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days I work on all this stuff and I'd lose that. Hmm.