babe ahoy!

Guess what folks!

I'm going to have baby!! Yes it's true! What's that? You already knew that? Oh.

Well did you know that I'm going to have a baby THIS SATURDAY?!?!?

Yay! I shore am!

At my last checkup I bumped up the date of my sea-section from September 11th to the 6th. I'm miserable and I feel like I've been pregnant for years. I'm so crabby all the time and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and I'm SO ready to meet my little girl.

Sailor Hat: Halloween clearance last year

Modern Kuchi tribal necklace, ring and bangles: eBay

Tank: Old Navy clearance rack

Skirt: Old, retail

Shoes: Local beauty supply store 

Ok, well now I'm sardine to have trouble coming up with more nautical puns. They do anything for you? Turn you on a bit? Make ya giggle? No?

 In the days after birth, fashion will not be a priority. Hygiene probably won't either. You can bet that I'll be bra-less in an old faded cotton nightgown wearing adult diapers. I reeeeally don't think that's something you all want to see. I decided that before I go on my short blogging maternity leave, I might as well go out with a bang - or more like a tiny pop? I'm linked up for Share-in-Style. This week's theme is "sailor". Yippie!

 SEA YOU LATER!!

Up, up and awaaaaaaaaay!!!

Saturday me and boys attended the 4th annual Arklatex Comic Convention. We're not fans of comic books or anything like that but we are fans of dressing up in costumes. Traditionally people attending cons dress up as their favorite comic book superhero or villain or favorite video game or sci-fi movie character but we don't keep up with that kind of stuff so we went a different route with our costumes.

For $26 total I dressed us all up as characters from the Disney/Pixar movie "Up". If you haven't seen Up here's a brief summary:

Carl Fredricksen is a retired 78-year-old balloon salesman. When Carl was a child, he met and eventually married a girl named Ellie who grew up in a small Midwestern town. Ellie always dreamed of visiting South America, but she died before she got a chance. Now, when developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie. To accomplish this, he uses 10,000 balloons to make the house fly—but unwittingly takes a chubby eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell with him. The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected foes, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the Venezuelan jungle.

Here's a breakdown of our loooooow budget homemade costumes:

Husband as Carl Frederickson

All clothing and white hairspray - already owned

Glasses and balloons from Just A Dollar Store 

Total cost of costume= $7 

River as Russell the Wilderness Explorer

Hat, felt for DIY sash, tee shirt and scarf - Michael's Arts & Crafts

Shorts and other - already owned

Total cost of costume = $10

Me as Kevin the bird

Dress, tights, boots - already owned

Feathers - Micheal's Arts & Crafts

Total cost of costume - $9

This costume is now one of my favorites. I love the colors, the makeup was fun to do and the outfit was actually pretty comfortable.

At the con I handed out flyers for the faire -  but since we got there kind of late, the crowd had thinned out quite a bit. I set a personal marketing goal for myself to hand out 150 flyers but a few people from my crew were already there and had already beat me to the punch. So I set small stacks of flyers all over the place; in the bathroom, by the water fountains and on any surface that had people near it. I cheated!

 In the photo below: the guy to my left is the master of ceremonies of the faire - he's my right hand man and our unofficial mascot. To my right is our newest addition Belinda who is now in charge of the children's activities at the faire since I simply just don't have the time with the new babe coming.

"Lady Loki" in the upper left corner is also a part of my crew and the lady below her is her aunt and she's a huge supporter of the faire.

Overall the con was ok. Well,  it's really hard to judge since we're not comic nerds but it was a great excuse to get out, promote the faire and dress up.

Have you ever been to a comic convention?

Do you like to dress up in costumes?

and now...

I am SO ready for autumn! I'm so excited about it my nerves are vibrating with anticipation. I'm ready for the weather, the layers, the smells, AH everything! But alas, autumn will not be here in Texas at least until November. It's been a rather "mild summer" here, averaging in the upper 90s but... ugh... that's plenty hot for me.

(Only 2 weeks left)

Saturday me and the husband went to have dinner with a nice couple from church at their home. Since it was hot AND I haven't shaved my legs in heaven knows how long, I had to reach for my trusty old maxi. Something nice and long to cover my gorilla legs.

 This dress was originally bought from Walmart for a wedding reception in NY and later worn for River's baptism. I liked it well enough when I bought it, but because of my watermelon belly I've been stuck wearing it a couple times a week as opposed to a couple times a month - so now I'm just plumb sick of it. Buuuuuut it's comfy and fits my huge boobies nicely so I can't complain too much about it.

  Dress: Walmart

Necklace: gift from belly dancer (ex)friend

Handbag: Merchant  from my renaissance faire last year

Bangles: ebay .99 each

So it turns out the wife from the couple we had dinner with Saturday is a bit of an eccentric and thrift shops for unique ethnic pieces like me. I honestly thought I was the only person that did that in this town and I RARELY have luck. I think I need to look a little closer and get out more often. Here are just a couple of items from her collection of goodies she's thrifted in the area. The shoes remind me a bit of trailer hitches but they're so unique!!! And a brass evening bag?? Um, YES!

 And then...

 The 4th annual Arklatex Comic Convention is this Saturday. I'm not a comic fan AT ALL but I loooove dressing up in costumes and comic nerds are often fans of renaissance faires so I like to use the opportunity to promote the faire. We didn't rent a table this year for the convention like we usually do. I don't think I'll be up to tending a table for eight hours in my current condition. Instead we're just going to take our time,  go to have fun, schmooze with the vendors and hand out faire flyers.

And here's my costume for the Con in the making. I'm not going to tell you what it is just yet. That's a surprise - but I will give you a hint. Feel free to guess if you want: It's a big bird from a Disney movie. If you keep up with Disney movies, then you've probably already guessed it. The costume is made from what used to be my all time favorite dress but after it's sixth washing (always air drying) it was time to retire the poor thing. The elastic fibers in the stretch lace are popping out all over, it's covered in fuzz balls that are entangled in the material and I've snagged the devil out of it a few times. But now it's getting new life as the most ridiculous costume I have ever made and boy, I can't wait to wear it!

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So what are your plans for this weekend???

little miss sunshine

A huge thunderstorm hit the Ramsey house two weeks ago. Not a real thunderstorm... well, we did have a couple of those. I'm talking a metaphorical thunderstorm - dark clouds, bad news, emotional destruction... and teething.  But no worries, for Little Miss Sunshine has many reasons to smile again!

So what happened?? Tell! Tell! Alrighty then:

My husband lost his job. He was fired and for a really crappy reason too. I don't want to go into much detail but the reason they gave him was perhaps one of the dumbest reasons for firing someone I've never heard of. It was almost as if they fired him, "just because."

My husband was the manager of the trailer park we live in and the perks were pretty darn good: free internet, a laptop for my husband to work from and to have for personal use along with an awesome printer/copier/fax machine, a land-line phone and most of all NO RENT. With no warning his boss came to fire him and they took all of that away. 

Since I manage an Etsy store, 2 websites, a renaissance faire and about 6 Facebook pages, not having the internet and all of that other equipment was, for lack of better words.... just not cool. But we've gotten all of that set back up now. As of this morning we're back online now, we found our old printer in the closet and now I can get back to work!

Oh yeah, it didn't help at all that during all of this, Mister River had four teeth coming in so he was an uncooperative bundle of fussiness and drool.

 I launched my ironing business and so far I haven't gotten any response. I know it's going to take a while for the word to spread, but we could really use a little extra money coming into the house right now, especially with the wee one coming in just a few weeks.

But here's why Little Miss Sunshine is smiling: 

My husband has already found another job and will start this week or the next. Our internet is back up, I have my own business phone and we have enough money to cover our bills and other expenses until the husband's first pay day comes. The storm came and hit us hard but rescue and cleanup happened in a flash!

 Oh yeah, River has bad news to share too. Kiddie pools have been banned in the trailer park... so this is now his summer fun. I think he's coping with it well enough though.

sounds like a plan

Now that my back is all healed up from a tweak from a bad turn, I'm still left with the "crunchy-spine" lower back pain of pregnancy. Instead of my pelvis growing slowly during throughout this pregnancy, it has decided to do all of its expanding over the past couple weeks. Now I'm waddling, I'm creaking and popping, I'm moaning and groaning and really just all around miserable...

But I've got too much to do around the house to stop moving and park on the couch for the next seven weeks. I was unable to start the ironing business Monday because I totally forgot that I'm hosting my own baby shower this Saturday and my house could reeeeeeally use some deep cleaning- so I've been doing that since Monday. I got started cleaning early so I can take my sweet time move at a low comfortable pace and do just one room a day. 

But wait - why am I hosting my own baby shower? Well, when I was pregnant with River my Aunt hosted Thanksgiving that year and it was also supposed to double as a baby shower for me. Well.... SHE KINDA FORGOT TO TELL THE REST OF THE FAMILY. So we returned home with a baby blanket and about $10 in cash.

Later, one person offered to throw me a shower. She was a lady from my church... not family or even a close friend. Just a nice lady trying to help but I think she forgot she offered so I didn't get a shower until River was 3 months old. It was hosted by another nice church lady, it was pretty small and we didn't get much but I really truly appreciated the effort. And this year? No one has even mentioned throwing me a baby shower so I decided to just do my own. No biggie. I LOVE hosting parties so this works out just fine.

We're going to have a super colorful fiesta. It's not going to be all pink and frills with a bunch of giggling ladies sipping punch and gushing over tiny little socks. It's just going to be a party. Just a fun party with beer and burritos.

I think River's already pretty bored with all the party planning, cleaning and talks of the new wee one. He is, after all, about to be dethroned in a seven short weeks. Nothing really to be excited about.

what's that... oh, bye!

It's been pretty slow around here lately. Nothing too spectacular has happened since the 4th of July. Well, I went grocery shopping today and shot a cow with a bazooka. I'm not proud of that last thing but it's something right?

 I jacked up my back a couple days ago (for the fifth time this year) so I've been taking it easy. Lounging on the couch, pimping the Faire, selling crap online and I've even been setting up to start my own temp ironing service. Yup- an old fashioned ironing service!! That all gets launched Monday and I'm actually pretty excited about it. I'll do it until the baby comes in September and then pick back up after the Faire in October.

Entire Outfit under $10

Shirt dress (edit: it's actually blue) - recent hand-me-down from aunt

Pink Chucks - Salvation Army

Yellow handkerchief - Wal Mart

Yeah, I know it's a pretty boring outfit, but it's stupid hot outside now. The less I wear the better. I'd go about in a swimsuit like Miss Vix if I could but I'd probably get arrested for indecent exposure with my hairy legs, lumpy butt and cellulite knees. Yes, it's true. I have cellulite down to my knees.

 

So, why an ironing service?  It's easy, I've already got the fancy equipment, I like money, I'm a fast worker, I can do it from home,  Etsy sales are slow and when I'm done doing faire work the rest of the day is open.... and did I mention I like to make money?

Speaking of Etsy - I'm closing up shop until next year. I'll be relaunching in 2015 with a new shop. No, it's not my "Massy Fassy" fascinator shop. I had to drop that one for personal reasons (er, lack of organization and confidence). I'd like to keep the new store a secret until I launch it, but I'll go ahead give you two clues because I'm SO excited about it - here's goes: Ethnic and textiles...

That's all I'm saying.

There's really not much left in the store but what is left, I don't want to keep it - I don't need it... so you go buy it.

And here's a little bonus fer ya before I go. More about... THE ROLLAHS. I've been using these long bendy foam rollers for a few weeks now and I'm just plumb addicted to them. A couple post ago you saw the end results but not the process, so here:

I sleep in them...

Take them out...

 Finger comb my hair (and makeup magically appears)...

And then wrap it up! Easy, fast and best of all, no more damaging heat styling and boring ponytails.

Give it a try! You'll love it.

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Yeah, so now I gotta go make dinner. Turkey burgers with colby jack, arugula and chard. Yeah, food time!

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD TIIIIIIIIIIIME!!!!