Cabin Weekend!

Cabin Weekend!
it's been 2 years, i cant wait!

from the last time we were there:

peach ice cream

I got some peaches from my neighbor recently. A big ol box. First i made a couple pies and then i but some in a jar with some rum and then i thought i would can some and make ice cream.

Being lazy, as i am, the peaches sat for a couple days and by the time i went to do some canning they were rotten. Well, not all of them, about enough for a pie or two batches of ice cream.



I stumbled upon this recipe the other day and decided to give it a try.

from what i can tell from licking the spoon, it turned out pretty good. Even though i forgot the vanilla.

the result

For those of you waiting with baited breath, I chose the fancier and cheaper Morgen Monroe.

maybe I'll paint the case.

sold a roll top desk and a pair of roller skates to buy a banjo.

For several moths i have been taking banjo lessons. Actually for the last couple i haven't, but have been practicing at home.
I have been renting an instrument, the deal was, the rental fees from the first 6 months become a store credit towards purchase of an instrument, after that they just go into the void of rental fees.
I've reached my 6 month mark, and I'm still interested in learning. really learning, how to play.
Its an instrument that i like, and my chance to have a musical ability beyond the simplest one note song i learned on the recorder in 3rd grade.It has become clear that it would be in my best interest to invest in a really good beginner/ intermediate banjo, rather than a cheap one.also i have been renting a nice one. so you know. hard to go back now.
So. i sold my roll top desk, and my roller skates to buy a banjo.
Option 1.
I've been renting the Deering Goodtime II. it's easy to tune and the sound is good. but its plain. and who ever designed the head was an idiot.



But I've been researching painting it. I've heard that painting can change the sound, but by how much i don't know. A number of months ago i fell in love with the Sara Ryan painted Creston guitars.What if i added similar style designs on the back and head? [i do know of people who have taken the whole thing apart to refinish it, but i don't want to do that.]



Option 2.
The Morgan Monroe MNB-1W
I've looked at numerous pics of this banjo and it is very red and apparently there is quite a bit of gold- rather than nickle color on it.
i like the mother of pearl inlay. overall it is much prettier.

the catchiest video on the internets this week

the catchiest video on the internets this week

OO, OO, OOOOOOOO

PHAMALy Presents: Disneys Beauty and the Beast

Several years ago i was working with PHAMALy on costuming. After I was hired at Miller i found that even volunteering for the evening show portion was too much- 5 to 1am.
Thursday I found that the girl i used to do cosumes with, was back in town and helping with the show. i showed up to help dress fro 2 nights. It as fun to be back. PHAMALy is an amazing company.

This years production was Beauty and the Beast.

The review in The Denver Post.

oh Etsy. you make my heart flutter.

i was going to post about our trip last weekend to Yarmony Grass. But alas, my camera's battery charger is no where to be found.

I have been looking around Etsy lately, always amazed at what i find there. thinking aobut opening a store. Seems like as good a time as any to get into the faery crown buisness. [besides i have some supplies, might as well try to sell a few.]

I always find so many wonderful things at Etsy.

Love this woman's jewelry- especially these unique constellation rings.Sagittarius, of course.

A beautiful leaf and floral scarf.
To, fun steam punk goggles.I really try not to spend too much time here.

jelly and so much more

the weather was perfect this year for fruit trees- even early blooming Apricots that almost always get frozen out. I believe its been close to 15 years since my mother apricot tree produced more than 3 pieces of fruit.we are now quickly finding various ways to preserve this bounty of fruit.
i actually started a couple weeks ago with making Cherry Bounce. a simple recipe caught my attention and i figured it would make great gifts.previously we have tried to make apple butter and plum jam and have not had luck with the seals working correctly. my friend Mary sent me a couple recipes out of the book she uses.

today i made apricot jelly and apricots in rum- following the same theory as the cherry's.
yesterday i started making apricot leather. and i hope to add apricots in light syrup, and apricot habanero jelly.
assuming these projects go well, i may see if i can get my hands on some more free fruit. apples and peaches are both popular in Denver.

Oregon Trail: The Musical- update

we mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and had some enthusiasm. we are aware that someone has it on youtube already, but we think we can do better.
beyond some enthusiasm, nothing much has happened on the project. unless Tim is secretly writing songs when I'm not around so he doesn't have to hear my helpful lyrics.
i have pretty much been forbidden to write lyrics.
So that is where it stands. i would really like to see this project actually happen. it could be fun and creative. and we had a blast helping Adam make is Dr. Horrible Henchman application.

music video of the week

Love This: Jonathan Coulton - First of May - ASL Song

ouch, my kidney

well, really Her kidney.


a friend of a friend who we have met on numerous occasions took a spill while out mountain biking Wednesday. She hurt Her kidney and had internal bleeding. She hopes to be out of the hospital soon, but doesn't have health insurance and cant return to work for a while. Below is the official write up from the Colorado Mountain Bike Association.

Help Nancy Kelly!

Nancy Kelly, Founder of the Dirt Divas and COMBA Board of Directors member, sustained an injury to her kidney while leading a Dirt Diva's ride at Lair o'the Bear on Wednesday July 22nd. She is currently in Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge while doctors monitor internal bleeding that resulted from the trauma. Luckily, Nancy's condition is improving rapidly and she hopes to be back home soon. Please send her your love and healing thoughts.

Nancy is a cornerstone of the local riding community. Through her work with the Dirt Diva's, COMBA, and local shops, she has introduced hundreds of women to the sport of mountain biking. Unfortunately, helping your community does not always come with large financial rewards -- or even health insurance. Nancy's stay in the hospital will hopefully be short, but she has already amassed a large amount of medical expenses for testing and hospital stay.

Join us in coming together as a community to help one of our own. While Nancy is resting and healing her body, we can help her heal the financial wound by contributing using the secure button below. Thank you!

If you prefer you may send checks to help Nancy with her medical expenses to:

ATTN: Nancy Kelly Medical Fund
COMBA
PO Box 280415
Lakewood, CO 80228-0415

Kinko Fry

i have really come to love KinkoFry. this comic makes my heart go pitter patter.

road trip to the balck hills

A couple weekends ago we headed to the Black hills for a family wedding. the wedding was held at the Flying V in New Castle Wyoming.

Bride and Groom

Family

After the wedding, Mr. T and i headed over to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We took a Lantern Tour at Jewel Cave- which was awesome.
We lucked out and had a cool rainy trip- instead of 100 deg and humid. We Found a homemade pie and ice cream shop in Custer SD.
Then we ventured over to Custer State Park, where we walked and climbed around Sylvan Lake. It is beautiful and different than we would have found in Colorado. My interest in Sylvan Lake steams from a family road trip photo album from the 1920s. My great great aunt and some friends borrowed dads car and took a road trip from north eastern Nebraska to the Black Hills of South Dakota. the camped and stopped to make jam along the way. Below are the photos i took and a couple of the photos they took.
Ladies on a hike. in the book, they write that they got up very very early to hike to this point, hoping to be there when the sun rose. i believe that the sun rose quicker than they could hike, but they had a good time anyways.
A fish made from a car at Carhinge in Alliance, NE.


it was an awesome trip.

and new begins

Thursday i was fired. i suppose i could say laid-off, but since it was just me and fir job performance, fired seems more correct.
to be fair i have been waiting to be fired for 2 years, and have been unhappy at my job for 4.
i am sure i wasn't doing a good job, because i felt that i was told a number of completely contradicting terms, with out explanation of what they really wanted. and they felt that i should just "know." there was a section of the "process" that i really didnt know, because my former boss did her best to have her assistants do all of the work, but not have quite enough information to be successful if they ever got out from under her. to the prase "just do it like Susie does." is really not helpful, since i was never involved. then there was the woman i worked with in another department, who would tell me everything was good and fine and then complain to the department head that i was doing things wrong. well, yes, because i didn't know that you wanted it done differently than the other 4 people in the department i have previously worked with, since you didn't mention it to me. i have to say, i am happy they fired me instead of moving me back down. i would have quit.
so now i am free... and out of health insurance at the end of July. i am hoping to find something, even if its not a career move, that has health insurance, and we will see what we can do.

Where have we been?

We went:

bowling at Lucky Strike
dress shopping
to a neighborhood festival
to the vet w/ all three cats in tow
Ren Fest
to see Christo speak
for a pedi
to the swimming pool

we are not:

keeping up with the weeds
and the lawn mowing.

it seems we are never home, or at least that we work way more than we have time for fun.

i suppose there will be years where we are not busy, and the garden will be fantastic, and the chair and the door will get fixed. and the sprinklers will work right and we wont eat dinner at 9pm every night.

i think i will like that time too.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (Banjo Cover) - Anna Vogelzang

Like her

Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel

Old Crow Medicine Show

song for this week: Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show.

movies- Milk

We watched Milk a couple nights ago. before the movie started Mr. T was kind enough to tell me the guy gets shot in the end. thanks honey. i hadn't remembered that bit on my own.

it was good. i know nothing of Harvey Milk- before my time and never mentioned in history class.
i only hope it was portrayed accurately. i always have to wonder about movies that portray a single side to the story- as most do- just how realistic the portrayal of the hero character really is.

i do admit

i do admit that faery things have a very very very fine line between fun, elegant and enchanting and absolutely bat shit nutty.
i actually like very few actual faery things. a few art pieces, flower faeries, movie looking things like the below post.
please. do. not. buy. me. anything. faery.
or anything cat. we don't need anything w/ cats on it either.

faery tale wedding.

i recently stumbled upon photos of the most beautiful faery wedding.

if i had a dream wedding, is would be it. more or less...

CAMPING 2010

Camping was successful. we managed to only have adventures that we wanted to have.

i only took 1 picture. mainly i decided that the multitude of photos i took last year were good enough.
we ended up with 8 people the first night and 6 the second.
the campground was packed, but we were able to get a section on the far end, that worked out rather nicely.
Tim went on a 16 mile hike with our 2 friends in the army to find a waterfall. Boog was also sick so he and i did a more leisurely 3 mile version on the hike.
the weather was beautiful and the company grand.

cant wait for our next trip.

i have so many pictures to get off my camera. tim w/ hair. the peep party and so forth. want a clean camera before we head out camping this weekend.

headed on another epic camping adventure this weekend. sadly it looks like it will only be Tim, Boog and i on this trip. I'm a bit worried because the 3 people combination was how we ended up on the most epic camping adventure ever, last year.

the place it really beautiful, i wish a few more people could join us.

it wouldent be a blog post if it wasnt about the weekend.

i can barely sit up on my own this morning. sooo tired.

got something like 140 plants planted this weekend- and i didn't even weed the back garden or get seeds in. or mow the lawn.

i did get the car washed, waxed and cleaned out.
we did help tim's dad w/ mulch
watched some fun movies [leagaly blond, Sherlock holmes, princes diaries & julie/julia
went out for drinks with friends
went to a high school graduation. [congrats to the grads this yr.: michelle, molly, medora, cecil and amy.]
and some how didn't sleep nearly enough.

also, i don't blog about the week much because i am afraid that it would end up an endless tirade about my job. my job is alright. it could certainly be worse. it could be better. but its easy to start bitching and never stop. people are nuts [in a bad way], and i try to not let it completely dominate my life.

a non weekend update.

recently, it seems, i only update with a run down of the weekend. mostly, i think this is related to the fact that our week is fairly scheduled.
most of the time things are good.
Tuesdays are game night and banjo lessons.
Wednesdays are kickball
and Monday and Thursdays are figuring out groceries or what ever.

in kickball this week, it was theme night. we went as ninja turtles and lost to the care bares. clearly the Care Bear Stare really does trump all.

Tuesday we hosted D&D and had mac n' cheese.

we also started watching season 1 of Mad Men. apparently Angel's son is just an asshole- or at least no one will cast him as anything else.

tomorrow i am headed to the high school graduation of a childhood friend. she's headed to CU at Co. Springs in the fall.

now, hopefully the meeting that was supposed to happen in my office an hour ago, will happen soon, so i can go home.

a weekend not full of bad movies

we only watched 2 movies this weekend. and only one of them fell into the "bad" category.

Friday:
kokoro
shopping
Iron Man 2 w/ Wolvie [who was sad and without power at home.]
- the movie was enjoyable, but since i don't remember a thing about the previous one, I'm not really comparing.

Saturday:
6:30 am, depart for Ft. Fun
8am graduation at Moby
11am Lunch at Chili's
1pm Graduation party [different friend]
3pm head for home
4pm nap
4:30 head for babysitting and birthday dinner
5:02 toes licked by dog
6pm consume cake that resembled a bleeding cat head
7pm Movie time.
- we watched Sherlock "low budget,not to be confused w/ the blockbuster hit" Holmes. that featured a dinosaur and a dragon. this fine piec of film making was brought to us by the same people who did Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus."
11pm. bed.

Sunday:
sleep.
plant shopping
running errands
gardening
sunburn
more gardening
dinner
bonfire.

weekend complete.

more bad movies

We are officially on a bad movie kick. Not all are bad, but a good number of them are.
recently we have watched: American Pie- Band Camp, When Harry Met Sally, Oceans 12, Cool Runnings and Scream.
coming from NetFlix this week we have Twilight: New Moon. I hear its terrible.

comics

i love comics, always have.

have tried to draw a few. never get very far, its not that i give up, but that i find it really hard to sit down and draw at the end of the day. being in an art based field, where my creativity has to be "on" at all times, it is hard to come home and do some more. drawing a comic is completely different than what i do at work, but i have it lumped into that creative category, along with the craft projects i no longer do.

came across this little rambling today, and thought i would share it with you. you being all the people who ever wanted to self publish your comic.

expectations

Tim has been blogging about expectations, along the lines of characters and movies. But, i feel that he has only touched the iceberg that is expectations.
Expectations of school, relationships, jobs, vacations etc. wildly influence how we handle situations when they arise.
At some point i started making an effort to not have expectations of vacations, because i found that i was then pleasantly surprised by the outcome, because i had not been building up in my mind how it was going to be.
I have not followed this with anything else in life. which to an extent is good, it helps you create and move towards goals, and hopefully move away from things when they no longer work.
What we never talk about is how to grieve with the loss of an expectation.
sometimes it's as simple as not getting the grade you wanted and sometimes it's more serious life decisions that goes against the wishes of one spouse or the other.

How do we deal with this? How do we make the decision of what is right for us and how do we move on?

movie friday

Forgetting Sarah Marshall:
was fun and really quite funny. i didn't hear much about this film when i came out, but we finally got around to getting it it and I'm glad we did.

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year:
a Bollywood production that was neither 3 hrs long, or musical. Netflix called it a "romantic comedy" and while the one guy got the girl it was such a minor sub plot that i forgot they were even dating. i wouldn't call it a comedy either. but it was a good movie, about a guy out of college trying to enter the career of salesman and what he learns. I would categorize it under indie flicks.

weekend report

Friday:
we decided to give our latest technological advancement a more through testing. For his birthday, Tim received a package surround sound/receiver/blue ray player. Being that friday was gloriously gloomy, it twas the perfect night for movies. the receiver also has an internet connection, so we can stream movies direct from blockbuster or netflix.
What we learned:
netflix is cheaper.
Not all movies can be downloaded.
movies downloaded do not currently have captioning available- but they are working on that.
the reason for our nice TV set up is because going to the movies is no longer enjoyable. i love to go, but the experience is always bad- for both of us. so now we get movies from the library, and it looks like the $9.99 netflix will be added to our entertainment budget.

Saturday:
Most of our day was spent with Katie. after a very long while spent in the Target photo album section, we had not quite free Chipotle, took a nap and did puzzles.
then we headed to a birthday party that was quite wonderfully designed around games and a taco bar. [boccie, apples to apples, hink pink and blockus [sp?]]

Sunday:
Despite quite a few drinks on saturday night, i felt remarkably well. cleaned house [damn shedding cats], went to Lowes, Tim re-arranged and wired up the surround sound, so that the cats will be less likely to eat the wires, i went to a roller derby scrimmage, got the record player up and working [yea!!!!!!!!1111111omgOne].

pretty good weekend, all in all.
this week starts off good with Tim back on his previous work schedule of 7 - 4, which means: more walks, more writing time, easier dinner coordinating and so forth.

lovely things

i have a lot of bad days. right now I'm going to blame them on not sleeping.

One thing that cheers me up is flirty, cute Spring fashion. And something that cheers me up even more is the affordability of all of these fashions- all are under $30!

[OK, admittedly, this top frock, is not. but not as expensive as i would have guessed.]

peeps

tonight is the Peep roasting party.

i showed Tim a picture of BBQ-ed peeps.
Tim told some people about the idea.
people started hounding us to host a peep party.

tonight. 7pm. our place.
12 boxes of peeps
20 people
and 4 Christmas trees to burn.

hope the cops don't come.

500 days of summer

We finally saw 500 Days of Summer, this weekend. it was good, and fun and different. i love Zooey Deschanel and am glad to see Joesph Gorden-Levitt in something new.
Recommended.

started watching season 2 of Flight of the Concords. it's extra trippy.

we are looking at a 3 sitting, viewing of Milo and Otis. neither one of us remembered the graphic kitten/puppy berthing scenes.

Open Doors Denver is next weekend and looks fantastic. i hope to make it to a couple tours.

Camping

I've started thinking about the upcoming camping season.

Places I'd like to go:

The Spot outside of Eagle that we tried to go to last summer.
it had Caves and hiking and a lake [i think.]
tip: don't try to camp anywhere where the rodeo is in town.
tip: take a map, even if you know where you are going. if you stop knowing where you are going, buy a map.

The place we actually DID camp last summer. between Gateway and Grand Junction.
Absolutely stunning. 4 wheel drive is needed to get in and out of the canyon.

somewhere in New Mexico.
Elephant Rock sounds nice.
basically i absolutely adore norther New Mexico and never pass up a chance to see Taos. and we haven't been in a couple years.

where do you want to go? and who wants to go with us?

lets see... what can we change?

one of the main things i do for work is absorb criticism.
a lot of it, is trying to create ideas from thin air that 6 people agree on, and the 40 more people will c0ment on- usually not know what we went through to get the line that we did.

i try to listen to what is said, and make changes accordingly, with out taking it personally. its not that they dont like me, and it doesnt matter if i love that print or T-shirt, what matters is if the design will sell, and sell to people with a more conservative design appreciation.

it's a hard spot to be in, to try to connect with your work, but also not care what happens to it and if people don't like it.

it's also hard to have people tell you your not doing things how they would like- then they list off what you ARE doing, and its exactly what you thought you were supposed to be doing- but apparently no one told you they wanted different, so it was wrong.
and no. i cant just "make it like Target." i agree that target has cute fun things for a good price. in fact Target has cute fun things for a price that is less than i can get it done at cost, not to mention whole sale and retail.

so yes. the clothing industry is stressful.

crazy weekend

Went kind of like this: bought movies at a closing Blockbuster, dinner- only 1 glass of wine, did some house work, bought a fancy new hair dryer, got stuff to fix the chair, helped with a move, watched Katie, got new phones, went to an Absinthe party, cleaned, went to a movie watching party, got lost leaving Evergreen and then it was Monday.

Pretty excited about the new phones. i didnt get the one i have been lusting after, but I got one that i like, making a compromise of plan price. I think it will be fine. the new phones, in general, do so much more than my phone from 5 years ago. [that until last weekend worked perfect, but then the camera function stopped working.] Tim got a military grade phone that does cool science nerd stuff like, telling you the moon phase and what the temperature is right where you are standing. it's supposed to be indestructible- at least as far as phones go. So now we are on a Family Plan, together and i we can text more and i can access e-mail. WOOO.

The Absinthe party was fun, though i was a bit exhausted after the 3 hr phone buying ordeal. We went to a friends house- the same friend who turned us on to Absinthe originally- for a tasting and general merryment. Turnes out we brought the only bottle containing Wormwood, and quite a large dent was put in it.

Due to the Blockebuster near us closing, we are now the proud owners of Ninja Turtles II & III, Flight of the Concords Season 2, Milo and Otis and Notting Hill.

Yesterday we watched: Soylent Green, Akima [? or something like that] and Children of Men.

tales from the gym 2

at my rec center, the gym has windows looking out over the lake. i watch people heading to and from the dog park [just out of view]. going in the dogs are practically rearing up at the end of their leashes, because the excitement is so high and on the way back the dogs are lagging along behind their owners, tongs hanging out, probably thinking about tomorrows trip to the park.

solar power?

so I've been thinking about it, and i want to know if anyone is working on Solar panel shingles. the large block solar panels are unsightly, especially on older homes. Also the technology for Solar Parking lots is already being used.
seems like there could be the base strips put down- like the black paper... w/ evenly spaced hooks, then the shingles would lock onto the hooks, and be equipped to draw solar energy.

so i asked Google.

http://www.oksolar.com/roof/

cool!!

um...

i keep checking my blog to see if i posted something new. its a bit funny, but i always do it.

so there. now i have. i will continue to check back to see if i have anything new to say.

banjos

i have had a fascination with Banjos for a long time, the same way i was fascinated by scooters. i know nothing other than i loved them, and wanted to ride/ play one.
i have the scooter. not having a lot of spending money, i haven't gotten into the much more expensive scooter culture, but i love mine just the same.
i bought a scooter on a lark. okay, i at least paused to take the Motorcycle Safety Course, and I'm glad i did.

My other larks?
play the Banjo
Own Bees
have a comic.

owning bees... we haven't really looked into fully. i know some one who has them, they are now legal in the city of Denver, and we need to take a trip by the bee keeping supply store, that is not too far from us.

Have a comic... well... started, but got distracted and basically lazy. need to get drawing again, and try to stick to a schedule. i hope to go live, sometime, ever.

Playing the banjo... i just got wildly excited [as i do] by an add for a relatively cheep starter kit. did a quick google search, turned up some really good useful information. i wont order this kit this afternoon, but maybe i will stop by one of the places i know does string instrument lessons and talk to some one sometime. my main concerns are that [due to complete lack of practice] i have rather crappy time keeping ability's, i don't hear keys well, and have zero instrument experience after recorders in 6th grade.

i have gotten into a TV slump. really, i get sucked into shows and like them, and want to know whats going on in the story line. i have often found it best to just not start watching things in the Fall. I'm trying to eliminate shows- i might not completely until summer.

i desperately want a fancy phone that does things other than be a phone. because we all know that that is boring.
but there's that little voice in my head informing me that money spent on bees and banjo lessens is money far better spent.

some good info on banjos: get started buy and learn

the shoes pt.2

got the shoes in yesterday. wore them to the gym. running was great. i felt better on the treadmill than i have in quite awhile.
will have to see how i like them long term.
wearing them in general, i feel the fabric between my toes and its a bit weird. but at the gym, they were great, i wasn't thinking about them at all.