Trish's World

It’s been a while, and I know, I’m totally lame. I’ve actually been pretty busy for a jobless waif!

Houseboating last weekend was awesome as always! I didn’t take many pics because the landscape really hasn’t changed, plus it was rainy and/or overcast for most of the trip this time. The weather has been better, but trust me, none of us cared. We made the best of it and still had a ball. Shawn & I finally decided that we are equals when it comes to drunken Scattergories. So the grudge match is finally over and we can all rest easy. Pics are over at my Flickr, and here’s a video that I LOVE. Casey & Mike are singing along with 90’s on 9 and it’s so great. You’ll love it. Click here: Just a Dream. NSFW because Mikey says a naughty at the end. I know, I’m disappointed, too. I would have loved to embed it BTW, but Flickr and Wordpress can’t seem to play nice. I am having some kind of ongoing issue with uploading stuff to Wordpress. Super frustrating! Grrrr.

The week went by super fast since we didn’t get home until late Monday night, then Mike had Tuesday off. That left me only 2 days to get all of my usual stuff done before Friday!! So I was pretty busy with chores & such. We had another busy weekend, too. Sunday we had the latest edition of Crappy Movie Sunday – the dance classic Breakin’. Our rehash will be on the CMS blog in a day or 2. After the movie we grilled some yummy ribs (that Clovis made) and some burgers. It was quite a fiesta! We had a full house and tons of yummy eats. After we ate, the whole gang, except for Mike & I, headed downstairs to watch the big Lost finale. I’m not caught up yet and Mike has no interest, so we went to the man cave and had a romantic date watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We’re about halfway through season 2 and it’s really starting to get good. As for Lost, I’m about 2/3 of the way through season 3. Man, is it a crazy and intense show.

My friend Dawn has convinced me that I need to sign up for Netflix so I can get all the sweet TV shows streaming. You know I love television, so it was pretty easy to sway me. As soon as I finish season 3 of Lost, I am going to sign up for the 2 week trial thingy and get rolling on season 4. I can’t wait to get a look at hat my options will be!! I’m really really excited about this.

We had a busy weekend, but it was good. I was so tired when I went to bed last night I didn’t even read first, I just collapsed.

Friday afternoon we went to Noah’s school for a music program. It was very cool. They sang a song about a bull and acted out different parts with song and they played intruments, and they had a fun little parade. It was really awesome, and we were very impressed by the kid’s music skills. Here’s some pictures.

On Saturday, we took my mom out for a mother’s day dinner. She picked Red Lobster, so we took her there. We had a great time and we gorged ourselves on cheesy biscuits and seafood. We had a great time and I hope she did too. Since I’ve been doing so much artwork lately, I made her a pretty watercolor painting of a vase of flowers in a little glass frame. I think it turned out pretty nice and she seemed to like it too.

On Sunday we went to Grand Rapid for Mother’s Day with Mike’s family, which was also nice. We went to Frederick Meijer gardens, which I love anyway because I like flowers and sculpture, but there is a new exhibit of blown glass sculptures by Dal Chihuly. I LOVED it to say the least. It was amazing and beautiful. I took some amazing photos, here are a few of my favorites.

These are just my favorites, there are so many more at my Flickr page, link is on the right. The second photo is a new piece called Blue Moon, and it was my favorite. I took several photos, and none of them do it justice. I just couldn’t seem to get a good photo from where I was. It is so amazing in person. If you get a chance to visit the gardens before this exhibit ends, you really should. It’s so worth it. I definitely would go back. One thing I found interesting is that for the larger sculptures made up of thousands of pieces of glass, the pieces arrive individually, and then it takes a team of 90 three weeks to put them all together to prepare for the exhibit. Incredible. I loved the blown glass reeds, as pictured in the third photo here, the tall blue pieces. There were lots of these around the gardens in all different colors and I think they are so cool.

After the gardens, we raced home for Crappy Movie Sunday. Last night’s feature was Purple Rain. We will have a rehash up on the blog in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

I finally finished season 2 of Lost, and I am just about to embark into totally unknown territory – season 3. I’m excited and also terrified. Wish me luck!

Oh, and houseboating is this weekend!! I could not be more excited!! I’m going to be on a boat!!! Definitely packing my flippy floppies and planning to ride a dolphin.

On Monday I had my hands-on training at the thrift shop. I was all excited, and I got all ready and then stepped outside to bring the garbage & recycle bins up from the driveway because it was garbage day. As I got to the end of the driveway, I notice a lady standing there and talking on her cell phone. As I approach, she hangs up the phone and sees me and says “Can you help me? I need help!”

At this point, I notice a second lady slumped over onto the curb with her feet in the street and resting on top of a 2 liter of Ohana Lemonade. Lady 1 tells me that she was driving down my street, and noticed Lady 2 lying there. She had stopped to check on her and make sure she was ok. She shook her several times and Lady 2 did not respond at all. Lady 1 tells me that she has called 911 and they will be there in 5 minutes. Ok, wow. I take a closer look at Lady 2 and I can see that her chest is rising and falling, so she is definitely breathing. After a few minutes Lady 2 started moving a bit – she scratched at her face, but then went right back to catatonic and wouldn’t respond again. We waited way longer than 5 minutes, but finally, a cop showed up. He did the same things Lady 1 did – shake her, try to talk to her. She opened her eyes for a sec, but still no response. Then the paramedics got there. The siren seemed to rouse her a bit, and the paramedics actually were able to get Lady 2 to sit up. They spoke to her and she spoke back, but she definitely wasn’t coherent. They finally put her on a gurney and took her away. I sure hope that she’s ok, but I don’t know if I’ll ever know. It was a scary situation, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I was late for my first day at the shop! I explained what happened and they were super understanding, though. I had a good time there! I was mostly working the front of the store, but I am also eager to work in the back and actually accept donations and then sort through them. It’s been really fun and a good experience so far.

I’ve been watching Lost, and I am about halfway through Season 2 right now. I am trying to power through it so I can get to True Blood. I am trying to stay caught up on my regular weeklys too. George & I are almost caught up with Vampire Diaries, and I am only a week behind on everything else. Man, I love me some tv.

Oh, and I obviously changed some things around again. I kind of like it for now, but you know I’m sort of indecisive, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

First, an update on the sock yarn binky. It’s really coming along, and I must say, I like the way it’s turning out. It’s fun to work on too! I guess I was wrong about not having many solid colors. There were more than I expected. Anyway, Ta-da!!

Last week, I had my orientation for a volunteer position, and today I have my hands on training. I’ll be working at a volunteer run charity thrift store! I’m excited about it, and I think it’s going to be really fun. I am definitely going to do this at least one day a week, maybe even 2. I’ll get my schedule all firmed up after my training session this afternoon. I LOVE thrift shopping, so I think this is going to be awesome.

Crappy Movie Sunday continued yesterday with the latest installment – Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. The CMS blog is all up in your grill here (I also added it to my links over on the right). If you haven’t seen this movie, I’m really not sure what you’re waiting for. It’s a kung-fu classic with music from DeBarge, so if that doesn’t have you running to the video store to rent a copy, then you must be crazy. Oh, and don’t forget to follow Crappy Movie Sunday on Twitter for all the latest.

We are houseboating in Kentucky in less than 2 weeks, and I could NOT be any more excited than I am right now. I can’t wait!! I found out last week who is going, and that made me even more excited. It’s an awesome group and it will be a ball. Pls it will be totally sweet to get out of town for a bit and relax with my homies. YAY!!

Wow, it seems like there really isn’t too much going on latelt that I want to post about. Mostly because I have been completely wrapped up in the Southern Vampire series of books. These are the Sookie Stackhouse books that the show True Blood is based on. I’ve had them for a while but wasn’t too excited about getting into them since I had seen the pilot for True Blood and was not at all impressed. However, the books were good. I finished all 9 books in about a week and a half. I finally finished the last book last night, and also found out that the 10th comes out on May 4th, so I am eagerly awaiting it’s arrival. Also, I really want to watch the show now, so I’m looking for someone who has True Blood season 1 on DVD or BD that I can borrow. If you have it, please let me know! In the meantime, I am taking book suggestions – let me know about any good books you’ve read recently. I think I’m going to hit up the Stuart Woods series about Stone Barrington in the meantime.

I finished this scarf recently, and it is for sale at Fuzzy Paws Knits. It took me forever to finish this thing because I used the tiniest little bits of yarn to create my own yarn for this. It took along time to collect all the yarn bits and then tie them together and then knit them., Whew. I think the result is worth the effort though. I call it “Fluffy Fingers”.

And just for giggles, here’s Dawn & I boozing it up at Gallagher’s last week. We are making a dent in the beer list. Distinguished status, here we come!

Harold came over the other night! Mike & I saw him so we thre some carrots and some asparagus into the yard. Harold loves him some carrots. I actually got some decent photos! Can you believe it? In the second one he’s cleaning his face to get the carrot off. So cute.

I also want to show off a couple of stuffies. These cuties are both for sale at Fuzzy Paws Knits for $5 each. First, Arturo. He likes reading, chocolate chip cookies, and rainy days. Dislikes clowns, brussels sprouts, and math. Then we have Miss Mimi. Mimi likes flowers, cheesecke, and shopping. She dislikes bees, spinach, and homework. There are more pics of both of them in the shop.

OK, I have a lot I want to cover today. First things first. Friday was The George’s 31st birthday! We got an early start at Gallagher’s on Thursday night, and had a few beers to ring in the big day. On Friday, Mike & took him to Red Robin, where he celebrated with a delightful sundae. You can see his excitement, right?

We also continued Crappy Movie Sunday this week with Conan the Barbarian. Dawn & I were less than thrilled, but Mike, George & Clovis thought it was delightful. It is definitely a guy movie. As Dawn put it, it’s “Twilight for dudes”. I guess so, but I can freely admit that Twilight (the movie) sucked. These guys can’t seem to come to terms with that reality about Conan.

I also took a break from Percy Jackson after I finished Book 3, and I decided to give the Sookie Stackhouse (TrueBlood) books a whirl. I have just started the third, and they are pretty good. I find Sookie just as annoying a character in the books as I did in the show (which I admittedly only watched the pilot episode of), but somehow in the books she is a tad bit more relate-able. Anyway, I am enjoying them, and I burned right through the first 2 books in just a couple of days.

I also came to the conclusion that I needed to use up the last pack of i-Zone film instead of hoarding it up. It’s been expired since 2006, and the quality will only go downhill. So I’ve taken a few shots, and plan to use them up very soon. You can see there is definitely already some loss of quality, so this was the right decision. Even though it breaks my heart.

They are so awesome, and I love this little camera! I will never get rid of it, just in case they decide to make film for it EVER again.

Last but not least, I started a new knitting project. I am making a Sock Yarn Binky. Basically, a blanket made from scrap sock yarn. For the non-knitters out there, this is a big deal because sock yarn is very thin, and you have to knit it with very small needles – so basically, I could be working on this for a long long time. Like years. I decided to do a log cabin style blanket because it will give me a chance to kind of free form this thing a little and really play with color and pattern. Also, I took the log cabin knitting class at Stitches Midwest last August, and haven’t had a real opportunity to put it into practice. Here’s a picture of what I have so far. I numbered the blocks so you can see where I started. Oddly enough, 3 of the 4 blocks so far are a solid color. This will not continue to be the case as almost all of the sock yarn scraps I have are some sort of self striping or self patterning colorway. It’s also important to note that I am only using machine washable sock yarns, because I think a blanket that needs to be hand washed is a little ridonkulous. So here’s the first pic, I will update whenever I feel there is decent progress.

I heard recently that Polaroid film is making a comeback, thanks to the people at The Impossible Project. They started selling black & white film a few weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to get my paws on any….yet. Color film is supposed to be available sometime this summer.

I freaking love Polaroid. Instant cameras & film are the coolest. I could not be more geeked to hear this. I have had 2 Polaroid cameras for a while. I have a pink & gray one that I bought shortly before the film disappeared. Not new, of course. It’s totally retro, I’m thinking 80’s. How could I resist a sassy pink camera? It actually still has the last pack of film I could get my hands on in it, with a few shots left that I’ve been saving for a VERY special occasion. I also have a glittery blue i-Zone camera. This is probably the coolest camera I’ve ever owned. It takes a tiny photo – 1.5 x 1 inches – and the little photo has a sticky back. I bought this camera in the late 90’s when it came out, and I had a blast with it. I still have one pack of sticker film left (12 pics!!)for this baby, and again, I’m waiting for something incredible to happen so I can take tiny photos of it. The film is long expired, of course, as I’m sure the film in my pink camera is. But it’s all I’ve got!! Here is a sample of just a few i-Zone photos I’ve taken. These are just some of my favorites that I’ve scanned. I have lots more.

Mike & I happened to pop into Goodwill last night to kick around and see what was shaking, and I managed to find an awesome forest green Polaroid camera for $6!! It is definitely newer than Pinky – I’d say late 90’s as a shot in the dark. It’s super cute and I can’t freaking wait to get my mitts on some Polaroid film to make it go!!

I’ve scoured the internet to find out if they will also be making film for the i-Zone, but couldn’t find an anwer. I emailed the Impossible folks, but it may be a while before I hear anything back. But, really, here’s hoping. For now, the fact that they are making the 600 film makes me giddy.

Here are my cameras, left to right: Pinky, Glitzy (i-Zone), and new to my pack, Evergreen (this photo doesn’t really show off her super cute green color, but take my word for it). Also, my last pack of sticky i-Zone film.

Finished this earlier this week. I think it turned out really nice. I love the creams and whites together. It actually looks a lot cooler in person.

Sorry I didn’t manage to get this up yesterday like I planned, but better late than never, right?

On Wednesday last week I was hanging around on the patio and basking in the lovely weather, when I got a call from my BFF-OMG Amber. She had just rolled in to town from Florida. What a lovely surprise! I knew that she and my BFF Becky had plans to come visit, but I had no idea it would be that particular day. I guess that’s what I get for neglecting Facebook. Anyway, they were here!! They settled in a bit and then came over to hang out with me on my patio. SO great to see them. We hung out for a bit, then decided to hit Center Ice for dinner & drinks. We also ran into some other friends, so our little posse grew!  I even got everyone to relocate to Gallagher’s so I could knock a couple of brews off of my list! Fun fun fun!

The girls were here to clean out their MI house so they could get it on the market. George & I headed over there on Thursday to try to help them out. They had some rather large, heavy pieces that needed moved, as well as lots of small miscellaneous stuff. There was plenty to be done and we ended up helping them on Friday and Saturday as well. They were able to get everything done and the house is now for sale, so that is AWESOME. Except for the fact that they are definitely Florida residents now. Man, I miss those chicks. Anyway, we were so happy to get to spend time with them while they were here, and I hope to see them again soon!

As they were going through everything, Mike & I just happened to score some awesome stuff that they didn’t want anymore. First, a water cooler that does hot & cold (although the hot isn’t working right now and we are trying to figure out why), a super sweet floor lamp, a new leather office chair for Mikey, a BOMB upright carpet shampooer, and an art/drafting table with stool and light. The water cooler is so awesome. I have always wanted one. Even if we are never able to get the hot working, it is still the greatest. We even took an empty 5 gallon jug to Harding’s across the street and they refill for only $1.95. Quite a bargain! I also tried out the shampooer yesterday and it is really nice. It is very easy to use, feels lightweight, and makes the floor look totally sweet.  

On Easter Sunday we headed up to Grand Rapids to hang out with Mike’s family. The weather was so nice, and I am glad we got to do the Easter egg hunt. I got paired with Mr. Jesse, which means I was in charge of hiding his eggs and then helping him find them. He did awesome, he was only a little stumped by 2 of my egg hiding places – other wise I think I underestimated him. It was really fun! I am pretty sure that all the kids had a blast, along with all of the adults. If you missed the slideshow, pics are here.

Yesterday the UPS man brought my new juicer! It is so shiny. I can’t wait to try it out this afternoon. I might actually do fruit juice to christen it. I typically do veggie juices exclusively. But I have some lovely strawberries and apples that I think will taste super yummy. We’ll see.