that thing I do

Hello, you wild beasts.

Behold, a little weekend recap:

Here are some clothes and jewelry and my face and stuff.

 I'm wearing a recently thrifted dress over a skirt because the dress is oddly very short in the back. I never have that problem. My dresses are always too short in the front.... you know... the boobs and the fact that I have no rear. No butt at all - well, at least for a black woman. 

 

So check out these huge Afghani glass bead beauties I scored on Etsy. Two for $10! Not bad, eh???
They were marked down because they're a little damaged but nothing that can't be fixed.

After last year's jewelry mishap at the faire, I swore off dancing in metal jewelry.

In case you don't remember, I danced for two days in the sweltering Southern heat and my sweat and cheap jewlery did not get along very well. 

I had a rash on my left boob that got so bad, it split open. I had terrible rashes on my upper chest and behind my ears and down the sides of my neck from my earrings.

These necklaces are so fabulous, I can't see myself only wearing them for the faire. Look at these! I wanna sleep in them! 

Sunday afternoon, I joined some friends in the park for some drumming and music like we used to do  way back many years ago. Eh, hardly anyone showed up so it turned out to be more of just a hang out session instead of a jam out session. Oh, well. The weather was nice.

And here's me with a tambourine on my head showing off... my balls.

The aslatua is a percussion shaker instrument from Ghana. It's two little gourds filled with seeds or pebbles, tied to a string. I got these weeks ago and I love them. They're a serious challenge. You hold one ball in your hand with the string between your fingers. Then swing the other ball around your hand, over your thumb to make it hit the other ball in your hand. Swing it back around to catch it in your hand. 

Ok, I'm no good at explaining stuff.

I'll post a little demo video at the bottom.

Where does the sound come from?

Oh, and I finally got a pink ukulele! I had not idea how cheap these were! Er, well for a beginner one to just fiddle around with, anyway. Wanna come over and rock out with me, Emmy?

Those Yellow Flowers

Here are some random photos from our second visit to the Jonquil Festival in Washington, AR.

The festival is held every year at the Historic Washington State Park which is a little town that has been preserved to maintain that good old 1840s "Southern Charm".

See? Charming...

There are tours and all kinds of Civil War era crap to see but we didn't have enough time to check it out. We got there kind of late and didn't even get to check out all the vendors so, poo. Oh, well. We'll be back next year since it is a pretty cool festival for a town with the population of a whopping 108 folks.

I got to eat shark on a stick though. Jealous?

Never had it? Meh. Tastes like chicken.

So let's chat in between photos: 

In other news: I'm considering taking a hiatus from the QBM blog so I can have more time to... not blog at QBM. Get what I mean? I tried. It didn't work and I'm ready to move on. I'm going to try my hand at a different kind of "for profit" blog. I'm not going to reveal what the plan is just yet but it's already in the works! HEE HEE!! I'll explain more about the blogging issue in another post.

Two bits of good news: We finally got a second vehicle so I'm free to leave the house as I please! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 

AND

We're finally getting to remodel the house I showed you guys photos of a while back. I think when I mentioned it last, we were considering moving in. I don't recall ever announcing that we will be moving in hopefully within the next couple months. 

So winnage #2!

So there ya go! What'd you do this weekend?

The Mighty Navajo Warrior

Notice anything different (besides my new faboo patchwork Banjara bag)?

I ain't got no hair anymore.

I cut it off myself.

See, what had happened was...

I quit giving self chemical relaxers, (AKA "perms") about a year ago so I can grow out my natural curly nappy hair.  Many black women are doing this because natural hair is happy hair and it grows like mad once you stop torturing it. I've always had very long hair but it's  only going to get so long when it goes through such harsh treatment every other month. 

Oftentimes when chicks "go natural", after they have a year's worth of the new hair - many women usually go ahead and do "the big chop" to cut off the damaged permed chemically treated hair. Some women just shave it all off and start from scratch.

Sometimes they keep the permed hair for the length because it's easier to style but

I didn't have much of a choice since the treated hair was dreading into the natural hair, forming nuggets of wadded hair that had to be cut out and tiny little knots that fell out when I tried to comb them out. I was losing the treated hair at an alarming rate so it had to go.

When my hair was growing out, I was keeping the craziness hidden with a drawstring ponytail, headbands, scarves and flowers. You'd never guess there was so much action going on under that big fake ponytail, huh?

What do you think? Ya dig it? 

For educational purposes, because I know the topic of black folks hair can be a bit confusing:

Here's a photo I found online of a woman's natural hair growing out. See how thin and dry the permanently straightened hair is versus the natural curly hair at the top?

So yeah. Ya get it.

A Gay Old Time

Allo good peoples!

How do these posts usually start?

Oh, yes.

Yesterday me and some of the crew of the Texarkana Renaissance Faire participated in the Texarkana Mardi Gras parade. 

The theme of the parade was "decades" so I chose the 1890s (ish) for my group since most of us already have Victorian(ish) costuming from steampunk events. I decorated a 12-ft trailer myself using plastic table cloths, flowers and paper doilies I got from the Just A Dollar that's going out of business so everything was $.69.

The float was supposed to be set up to look like a quaint little cafe on Bourbon Street but I was unable to pick up the bench, cafe table and streetlamp from my mom's place. So two of our dining chairs, plus two TV trays were set up to kind of act as a cafe setting. The day I was working on the float I saw one of the neighbors had been evicted and all of their furniture was out on the lawn, headed to be burned because it reeked horrifically of cat pish and other odors of general uncleanliness.

I was in need of two more chairs for the float so I held my breath and got two of their dining chairs and gave them a thorough power spray down after soaking the cushions in baking soda and Dawn dish soap. 

The ride down to the parade site made the float decor a little wonky but by that time I kind of didn't care anymore. I was so burnt out on float decorating.

Many of our folks were in Galveston for their Mardi Gras as the Pirates of the Caribbean so we were missing a few familiar faces. The good thing is, we had a few folks come in from Shreveport, LA to join us so we had plenty of folks!

My view from the float.

We dropped the kiddos off at their cousin's birthday party before the parade, so me and the husband were able to get in a little "us time" doing what we love to do: 

Looking weird and eating Cajun food.

Even at a crazy event like Mardi Gras we get stares but they're mostly followed by compliments and requests for photos. I actually love the attention and I love when little girls run up to me giggling and squealing because I look like some kind of Disney Princesses reject.

Have you ever had Étouffée? It's a very popular cajun dish; a kind of stew of shellfish served over rice. It's usually made with crawfish but this vendor was selling it with shrimp which makes it a little more affordable to make and sell. Still great tho!

The band featured at Mardi Gras was a group called Pelican212; a Dixieland style family band fronted by twin 11-year old trumpet players in shiny suits and glittery hi-top sneakers. They've been on Little Big Shots and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and they are so full of spunk and raw talent.

The adorable gorup!

You can see one of their amazing performances on Steve Harvey's Little Big Shots here:

Did you do anything for Mardi Gras this weekend?

Catch up, ketchup, catsup...

Sa

Saturday:

I bought myself a toy.

Seriously, I bought myself a $1 Yellow Submarine Hot Wheels. I said it was for the kids, but it's mine. MINE!

So, let's get caught up. 

My freelance social media management business is doing great! I get to work for super super cool companies that I simply adore. I'm not going to give names (just a courtesy thing) but I'm currently working for an American Tribal Style belly dance collaborative, a Russian merchandise store (totes in love with it), a clogging dance team (!) and a child abuse awareness program.

So basically what I do is update their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts for them using my wicked self-taught marketing skillz to help them gain clients and more sales and stuff.

I frigging love it. If you need help with something just gimme a holler, I can squeeze in a couple more clients (and I'm cheap too!).

I'm also helping out with the city's Mardi Gras parade this year. I've volunteered to coordinate the kid and pet parade, helping design flyers and promoting and all that good stuff. I can do all that from home so it's been pretty easy to do.

I'm also in charge of the faire's float this year since the new owners will be in Galveston at the BIG Texas Mardi Gras prade to be a part of our friend's crew there. Our friend (Fred Flores) is going to be Jack Sparrow in the parade and many of our folks will be playing the rest of the Pirates of the Caribbean folks with him. So there's that. We got reps in two hotspots during Mardi Gras so YAY.

Here's a sneak peek of my costume for Mardi Gras. The parade theme is "decades" and I chose the 1880s for us since most of us do steampunk stuff and already have victorian-ish clothes... easy peasy. I put this outfit together in about 10 minutes. It's a thrifted hat I bent into a more shape, a satin nightgown, skirt to a Tudor costume, my gypsy overskirt and custom leather waist half-corset. Not the most period correct Victorian costume but I'm cheap and I have no intentions of buying a costume for this. This'll do just fine.

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 Sunday:

We were running super late for church, so I literally just started picking up clothes off the floor and threw them on. I do that a lot. Coordinating outfits gives me a headache. I like the spontaneous "just grab something" method much better.

Sunday evening we took the kiddies to a park that's new to us. Too lazy to find a different outfit for outdoors play, I just took off the leggings and caftan thingy. The temperature dropped and it got uber windy, I regretted the strip-down but I held my own.

Have you ever seen me show so much leg before? Oooh laa laa! 

And now it's time to go see what you wackos have been up to. Laterz!