hot ‘n’ cold weekend

 saturday was my friend allison’s baby shower & while i didn’t stay the whole time (as i also had another engagement to attend in mad city), it was such fun hanging out & gushing over all the baby cuteness that have been arriving daily to her house.  it’s baby central over there, hehehe.  she & her hubby are expecting their pink bundle of joy in 6 weeks!  allison, to me, looks the same…she doesn’t even look preggers>>> she’s all belly!  she looks & feels great. her mom & sisters (she has 3 just like me) planned a lovely tea shower  & the weather was gorgeous, blue sky & lots of sunshine.  i hated to leave the party as there was such a nice gathering of gals & all those yummy finger foods…but it’s nearly an hour to mad city from allison’s sister’s house…so off i went.    when i got to the antiques mall that was hosting the tea talk, the gal at the counter told me that the speaker had just finished (early, i might add!  the talk was supposed to run from 1:00 to 3:30pm & i had arrived at 2:30!).  i was surprised, if not disappointed (seeing that i just drove for an hour!)… but the speaker who presented the talk was still in the building & i did actually get to chat with her a bit about tea things.  she told me to help myself to all sorts of teas (i chose organic ginger, mmm, spicy!) & some delectable sweet breads (the walnut nutmeg bread was delish). since i had driven all the way there, i figured that i may as well browse around the mall (which was not so bad of a consolation) & took my sweet time to see what was to see. i saw what i thought was a period custom on a dress form.  but on closer inspection this was actually an elaborate shelf or i should say, bookcase sort of contraption!  how cool, yet bizarre.  can you imagine owning this thing?  yeh, i could see my cats ripping up the ends to tatters & lounging on the shelves! the thought of that amuses the heck out of me. that would make one helluva expensive cat toy/furniture, ha!  okay, NOT!

 while i was meandering through the place & found some wicked kewl vintage aprons.  ever since my flickr pal, suzi, sent me one of her fab aprons from her online shop, i’ve been apron patrol ever since (hehehe).  & i just found out from another lovely flickr pal, graygoosie, (who hosts a fab group called, aprons! wear aprons as fashion) that she is featuring my humble lil’ blog in her group this week.  wow, i am honored (thanks graygoosie!!! i so appreciate the bloggy plug).

saturday was such a gorgeous day & my sis, looney, & her chitlins came up later in the evening to visit us.  the kids were wicked excited (i could hear them chitlins screaming in the background when my sis called to say they were nearing our place).  my sis told me that she heard her kids say to their little preschool pals that they were going to “the cottage for the weekend.” lol, my sis couldn’t believe her ears (nor did i!) that such topics were talked about among the preschool set!  i mean, when i was 5,  i’m pretty sure that “cottage” & “going away for the weekend” were not in any way, shape or form a part of my linguistic repetoire.  oh the sophisticated times we live in…

 sunday, we all headed for the ren faire (that’s short for renaissance faire) in my town.  but unlike the day before, sunday was a complete 3-60>>>cold, damp & wet.  but the kids wanted sooo badly to see robin hood & fairy princesses at the faire. the cloudy skies threatened rain, but we piled into my sister’s mini-van & took off.  when we got to the fairgrounds, shioban (my niece) said, “i’m so excited!“…& ian (her brother, my nephew) exclaimed, “i want to see robin hood!“

yes, we did meet “robin hood” (ian, in fact, got to play a part as one of his “merry men” in the children’s storytelling stage) & little (actually big) john…they sang some somewhat raunchy (robin hood did tell the audience that their performance would be family/child friendly), tho hilarious “medieval” songs about the 7 deadly sins.  we also met molotov the flame-eating gypsy…the guy reminded me of wayne’s world meets pirates of the caribbean meets austin powers…we were enjoying ourselves & then it started to rain *literally* on our parade…we tried to weather the storm, but when you’ve got kids+rain+cold+wet + damp=recipe for diasaster.

 we also were getting hungry, but i remembered that i had to pick up this art print (pictured above) that i won a few months back from carri travis, the fairy artist i met at last year’s ren faire.  carri had emailed me back in february or so to let me know that i had won her “snow fairy” print in an online random drawing on her site.  i did not know this actually because i don’t remember receiving that email…anywho, long story short, i got another email stating that she was going to my town’s ren faire & that i saw my name in that email.  naturally i emailed her back & said, i won something?!  she responded & told me that she’d present it to me when i went to the faire. 

we got to her booth & my lil niece just about died when she got a load of all the fairy magic happening there!  she wanted my sister buy her everything under the sun.  it was too funny & cute at the same time to see her go BESERK over carri’s stuff.  i also met the gal who organizes this huge ren faire over in the quad cities, called “the four kingdoms“… both this gal (i didn’t catch her name) & carri talked about how huge the turn-out is at their faire.  & this year it will be at the end of september.  oh, wouldn’t that be a nice fall outing?  i also bought a few more of her prints to give away as prezzies to some lucky people i know… 

it started to pour something wicked, so we made a mad dash to the van.  our tummies were grumbling, our bodies shivering from the cold wetness of it all…all good things had to come to an end… but not before we pigged out at one of my fave places to get my grub on>>>

john, the wicked friendly 1-man owner/chef/host/busboy extraordinaire, whips up some serious, kick-ass sushi & other delicious japanese fare.  he is unbelievably fast & the food is prepared fresh & cooked to perfection.  YUMM-o as we all stuffed our hungry faces, hehehe.

soon my sis & her kids will be returning to chi-town.  the kids still have to go to school later this afternoon.  it was fun having them around.  they are looking forward to another stint “at the cottage”  (that totally cracks me up!)…

oh yes, before i forget, last saturday, i received my wonderful swap package from lovely blog pal, artsyfran. this was part of CaC’s box in a box swap>>>  thank you ever so much fran!!!  i love everything you so generously sent my way!  thank you my dear!

well now, now that i have thoroughly exhausted you from my weekend recap, i hear my niece & nephew running around upstairs.  i better squeeze in some last minute visiting before they make their way home. 

have a wicked terrific week xoxo