flow with me

Rejoice! For I have finally have a short caftan thing!

Ok, well I'm not really all that excited about it. The excitement was just for show. See, I've been wanting some lightweight flowy ethnic dresses for this summer and I found this one on eBay. It came from India, free shipping, low price, blah blah bloo. As soon as I got it I tried it on and it smelled of wet dog and the seams started to pop open at the sides. The dress originally came with a drawstring to cinch the garment under the bust... but on me the drawstring sat above my massive boobs. No amount of pulling and tugging could have made it work, so I just pulled it out. It works out ok and I still like it.

 BUT a couple days ago, I went to Ross Dress for Less to look for a few more summer dresses to tie me over for the next two months, only to find they have tons of these caftan tops in the "one size fits all" section for a few bucks less than eBay. PLUS they smell better and you don't have to wait  to get them. So yeah, I bought more.

  So enough about my smelly foreign garments...

We finally found out Monday.

Sorry, River. I tried to make you a little brother, but I'm just too dang feminine to make another boy.

a pirate's life is not for me

 Last night me and my crew co-hosted our town's first ever Pirate's Ball on the lawn of a lovely Victorian mansion downtown. Yes, we CO-hosted. We were not alone in this project. I decided to team up with a local non-profit to help make the event bigger, better and more diverse... but things started to get pretty ugly during planning. I don't want to go into much details about all that but I will say we probably won't be co-hosting another event with them. Preesh the help... but not the stress.

Me and our new friend and faire supporter Fred Flores, Jack Sparrow impersonator.

 I'm really not a fan of pirate stuff but I know there are plenty of pirate fans out there and we've been wanting to host a more historical fundraising event so I came up with the idea for a Pirate's Ball a couple months ago. Everyone liked the idea so I went with it. 

 Dr. Scott the Pirate Shantyman, a regular performer at out faire, a huge supporter and all around great guy.

  And the Queen's guard in the middle. All I can say is... awesome. Irrelevant, but awesome. His hat looked like a cow had licked it but.... still awesome.

 I used to be in this band waaay back before it even had a name. They're good friends and great entertainers. 

 My husband looking slightly confused.

 Donated petit fours!!! FREE FOOD IS AWESOME FOOD!

Here's a friends of mine who's four months prego with her first baby. She decided to bare it all because her costumes and corsets won't fit anymore! I would totally do the same if my belly didn't look like I just got mauled by a tiger.

  And of course we had a raffle for three prizes.

 Attendance was around 40. Our goal was 100, but  there just aren't that many people in this town who are interested in having fun. PLUS there was another event going on that same night, hosted by OUR co-hosts. Yes, our co-hosts held another event on the same night as this one. Why? Good question. Your guess is as good as mine. Like a stated before: we won't be doing another event with them. 

Yes! She has a little ship in her hat! 

 Belly dancers are rare around here. Our original go-to dancer already had plans, the next group we booked had to drop out but luckily before they did they hooked us up with another group. Loving the mermaid themed costumes.

 

 We ended the night with a rather rowdy costume contest that was judged by none other than Jack Sparrow himself.

Now it's Sunday evening and I'm stiff, I'm sore and I'm exhausted. 

It took everything I have to get dressed and put on makeup to meet my brother and sister in-law for a Mexican lunch today. 

Ah, the ups and downs of planning events...

I love it all!

Our budget Costumes:

Husband

Vest - handmade by a friend for free

Shirt- from his Civil War reenacting days

Pants - Etsy

Boots - online renaissance store clearance

Tricorn - Awful $5 hat from local party supply store, stained black with shoe polish to conceal crappiness.

Me

Chemise - Ebay (the only chemise I could find that would fit over my belly)

Leggings - Walmart

Boots - handmedowns

Jewelry and acessories - cheap Ebay finds and gifts

oddball

Here's a brief lookie loo from Father's Day (which was on the 15th).

River got his Daddy a special coffee mug from snapfish.com for a Father's Day gift. Well I bought it, and.... you know what I mean...

Later that day...

With nothing planned for the rest of the day, we decided to try out this fancy kiddie pool that was given to us as a gift a few weeks ago.

The word got out that we were having waterific fun... 

Hello company!

And then this happened:

My husband bought this giant vinyl banner from a company that installs and removes them from billboards. Instead of throwing the banners away, the company sell them for super cheap to be used as tarps and anything else you can imagine.

We used ours as a giant redneck slip-n-slide.

Welcome to the trailer park life.

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend!

See ya laters.

11 weeks left.

quote pink boxing gloves unquote

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

-Philo

"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."
-Helen Keller

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” 
- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
-Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The travelling pink boxing gloves project was born in NY to Ally of the blog Shybiker a few months ago. The gloves have made their way around the US and finally came to my doorstep here in Texarkana, TX a couple weeks ago. The gloves will go back to NY and then from there, I'm not sure where they're going, but I know if you follow Ally's blog I'm sure you can find more info.

Thanks for reading and have a swell weekend!