It's raining, it's pouring, I wish I was snoring...

Dear me, I am so darn tired.

Every night I get six to seven hours of poor patchy sleep.

At nine months old, Little River is still getting up twice a night to eat. Since I'm not breastfeeding all I need to do is get up, mix up a bottle of formula, hand it to him in his crib and he'll eat in his sleep.

The problem is, I can't just go back to sleep while he eats, he needs to be somewhat monitored but I don't have the energy to sit and hover over him waiting for him to finish his middle-of-the-night bottles. So I lay back down and pretty much sleep with my eyes open until he's done. I do this twice a night.

I'm so tired.

I know these photos say otherwise but they were taken yesterday after having a few hours to wake up.

You know what I wanna do right now... besides go back to sleep for another five hours?

 I wanna eat some waffles.

I wanna listen to some gypsy jazz and maybe drink a little wine at 10:30 in the morning.

I think that's what I'll do.

No, River has gone back to sleep now.

Maybe I'll nap too?

Maybe I'll march into the bedroom and throw a coffee mug at my still sleeping husband to get him to wake up and take over for a spell.

The temptation is great. 

Anatomy of a boring but amazingly cheap outfit:

Cardigan, cami, leggings: Walmart clearance rack

Skirt: old dress with top cut off

Boots: Local beauty supply store (old)

Necklace: $1 Jewelry

Head scarf: Goodwill?

Bracelets: Ebay .99 wins

a Hollieween party

Last night I hosted my 3rd annual Hollieween party and as usual, the turnout was small. Very small (4 guests)  but I'm sure that's because 99% of my friends have moved hundreds of miles away over the past three years and I haven't made any new ones. What few friends I do have left, most are unmarried and childless and I think they're kind of turned off by the whole "Hollie's a wife and mommy now so that makes her uncool" thing so they've stopped coming around... oh well, more candy and beer for me.

But at least now I've learned that on the subject of party guests, it's definitely quality that matters. Not quantity.

For the party I dressed us all as hobbits. The original idea was to just dress River as a hobbit but then I realized that we all have the clothes to put together hobbit outfits. So there you have it, a family of hobbits.

Since I'm not fond spending tons of money on costumes the only thing I bought were our pointy ears, the elven brooches and rubber cavemen feet that I "hobbited" up with wood stain and hair.

I used wig hair on my feet and snipped a lock of my husband hair for his. Everyone was pretty grossed out by that.

For my costume I wore an old thrifted skirt and blouse, husband's vintage vest and a cape bought at last year's Renaissance faire.

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Here's the before and after on my hobbit feet. I used gel wood stain topped with my own liquid foundation makeup for a better skin tone match.

For River I cropped some old pants,  made his cape out of one the husband's old tee shirts and drew swirling hair on his little feet with eyeliner. The vest and shirt are handmedowns.

The husband wore old cropped work pants, thrifted suspenders, Renaissance faire cape and a shirt from his days of Civil War reenacting. 

A couple of days before the party, I spent a great amount of time decorating. Well, I didn't just do it for the party. I LOVE Halloween and I love low cost "use-what-ya-got" DIY projects.

The only thing bought for my tiny "laboratory" were spiderwebs and battery operated tea lights for a bit of subtle illumination behind my DIY specimen jars.

Ghost farts!!

(Packed cellophane, water and food coloring)

River and my friend Jennifer. 

During the party we played an impromptu trivia game I invented based off one of my favorite books Where are they buried: how did they die?. The book is full of mini-bios about some of the world's most famous people, how they died and directions to their graves. The game was to guess how these celebs died based on info given about their age at the time of death, the era they lived in and their lifestyle. 

The end results of the game? Lots and lots of lung cancer. 

  And here's one of my favorite Halloween revamps. Cheap strawberry wine turned into delicious virgin blood. MUAHAHAHA!

I love love love love Halloween. I just can't get enough of it and if it were up to me, I'd keep my home decorated like this year round, dress up in different costumes and have a party every weekend.

So how do you feel about Halloween? Any special plans for this year?

suktoberfest

Saturday evening me and the family went out to our town's first Oktoberfest downtown.

It was... um... for lack of better words... AWFUL.

This was my first Oktoberfest so I don't know what goes on at them but I have a very good imagination and I have a knack for event planning so I KNOW there should be more to it than one beer tent and COUNTRY WESTERN music.

New instillation at the Plaza. 

There were about four food vendors and about four craft vendors there. Yup. That's it.

Hooray for this couple who gave it their all - full of Oktoberfest spunk and enthusiasm- but I think they were working the only beer booth so of course they were dressed up. The booth sold mainstream beer that you can get anywhere. Nothing special.

The flyer advertised a homemade beer and wine contest, keg toss and costume contest but I didn't see any of that going on. It was sooooo bare and boring. 

Figuring maybe we got there too early, we left to grab a bite to eat with plans to come back to the fest to see if anything had changed. 

The restaurant is right across from the town's courthouse/post office. What's so great about it this building? Well the state line between Texas and Arkansas runs right through the middle of it. Cool, right?

Just a little but of fun southern history for ya. 

Below is an old Texarkana tourist postcard featuring said State Line:

We ate at this new restaurant which turned out to be pretty darn mediocre for it's high prices. During our meal River was pretty darn talkative, babbling and squealing at the top of his lungs and you can't just tell a nine month old baby to simply "be quiet" so we scarfed our food down as fast as possible and scampered out of there.

 After our meal, we went back to the Oktoberfest and it looked like it was closing down. According to the ads the fest wasn't supposed to be over until midnight. It was only 7:30pm. Yeah, it was that lame.

But I will say this as an event planner on the outside looking in on another event: at least the city tried.

You gotta get started somewhere right?

...oh and boobs. Yeah, boobs.

Sweet Moses in a basket, it's Autumn! Do you know what that means for me? Do ya!!!

You guessed it!

No more sweating!!

 Now I can layer up, break out the red lipstick, wear my hair down and zip my boots up.

I am so friggin' excited about the cooler weather that now I'm looking for an excuse to leave the house just so I can dress up and feel the air.

Dress: www.599fashion.com

Leggings: Walmart

Wrist Cuff: Just a Dollar

Belly dance costume necklace: wholesale novelty website (has matching coin belt)

Boots: hand-me-downs

One dollar bling ring!

Look, ma! No sweat! 

Oh yeah, and I've got some strange news for ya.

Well remember the post I did about the ugly truth behind having big boobies? And then I posed in a photo the reads "My name is Hollie and I wear a 38I bra"?

Well... not any more...

 Now we're looking at at 36M folks. 

"N" is the end of the road and that's really the size I need since I have one booby larger than the other. 

Let me repeat what I just said so you can get the full effect of my problem here:

BRAS DON'T GET BIGGER THAN AN "N"

I'm not breast feeding, I'm not gaining weight... they're just... growing.

My feet too!  I've gone up a whole shoe size in a year!

What is this? Second puberty?

Well, I'm applying for Medicaid with hopes that they can help assist me or even pay for a much needed breast reduction surgery. My hatred of my massive chest is no longer an issue of vanity...

I'm just worried about where on earth I'm going to get a 36Z bra in the near future.

Or... I could stop worrying and just do this for the rest of my life? Hm? Whaddya think?? I think I'll be good at it. I'm think I'm definitely qualified for this position of tea... holder....

a little free time

Now that the faire is over I have all the time in the world. Well, I do but I'm not using it wisely.

Instead of cleaning my house and stocking my Etsy shop with items that are piling up in boxes in the baby's room, I've been lounging around on the sofa, cruising Pinterest and playing Sims 3 for hours every day. It feels soooooo good to do nothing.

Oh, and I started on my first novel in about eight years. It's under the temporary title of Coffee & Bacon and I have no idea what it's about just yet. That's how I write. I just start writing and see where it goes.

That's pretty much how I live my life really.

 

I'll be "faire free" until the middle of next year so I've decided that I need to use this free time to work on my family's Halloween costumes, write a bit, start belly dancing again, work on my Etsy shop and continue to unpack from our move two effin' months ago.

Speaking of belly dancing... lemme tell you a funny little story:

A few years ago I worked at a bank and the topic of belly dancing came up between me and a customer. 

The conversation went like this:

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ME: I'm trying to grow my hair out so I'll look more authentic as a belly dancer. Many belly dancers have very long hair and I wanna look like that.
LADY: Oh, you're a belly dancer?
ME: Yeah.
LADY:  (leans in close and whispers) So do you go the the men's houses or do you meet them at a hotel?
ME: (long awkward pause) Um, I'm not that kind of dancer...

Dress: www.10dollarmall.com

Jacket: found

Socks: Just A Dollar

Suede Granny Shoes: Good Samaritan Charity Shop

Bonus:

The original photo is me trying to get the camera away from my husband.

A little bit of cropping goes a long way.

Faire Buys

And now it's time for me to share with you all the wonderful things I bought at the faire from my awesome vendors. 

For those of you who are just now tuning in to this station, you can get caught up on all this faire madness in my previous posts: Part One & Part Two.

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Now, in my last post I dropped a hint about one of the items I bought. The hint was "roadkill". Well, I don't know for sure if the skull of this swamp rat came from a hit and run, but all I know is that I love it.

This hand painted swamp rat skull was purchased  from merchants Sylva Pagana. I bought it for my husband to give to him for Christmas, but I was too excited about this find and gave it to him the same night. It's on a  leather cord so you can wear it as a fancy necklace.

As we were not financially prepared for a lot of cash throwing at the faire, me and the husband traded in one of our partial deer skulls with antlers in-tact for some of Sylva Pagana's organic perfume. It's called New World Brew, strongly scented of coffee and nutmeg. New World Brew mixed with my new pumpkin spice body spray makes me smell like an Autumn Goddess! 

 I got this bag for a decent price from a vendor who sells low price Renaissance inspired goods. Their booth was kind of like a Rennie thrift store, a resale shop. This unused bag was only $12 . I rarely spend that much for purses but I have a weakness for Indian bags... especially colorful ones featuring elephants!

As a special Director's bonus, the seller threw in these two vintage pill boxes..I have no need for them so they will go in my Etsy shop for a low price since they were free.

The temperatures were stupid high the Friday we opened and I was so dang sick of sweating. I'm a forehead and upper lip sweater and it's most unattractive. I bought this fan from a vendor for $4.  Yeah, these are the same ones you can get at the dollar store, but when you sweat as much as I do (being in a hoop, crinoline, leggings to prevent chafing, suede boots and a brocade bodice)  you'll spend the extra money to try to stay cool. 

  And last my favorite buy.  I was on the hunt for something for River and this fat little fellow begged me to take him home. Much safer than a knife or sword! I got this plump precious handmade dragon from Rascal Robert's Magyke Emporium. The original price was $45 but I got a special discount of 50% off! That's a crazy awesome deal considering the fact that they are HANDMADE! Isn't he precious?? AND his head pivots! Oh, the handiwork on this thing is incredible! 

 And River loves him!

EDIT: Woops, I forgot this one! A handmade chalice from pottery merchant Thou Art Pottery. 

Well that's the last of the faire posts! Now that the faire is over, I don't plan on even THINKING about the next faire until May of next year. I'm ready for break!

Renaissance Faire pt. 2

Next I would like to share with you the better quality pics from the faire.

These photos were taken by a sweet little high schooler who's trying to hone her skills as a photographer. I think she did a wonderful job.

Part one here.

 

 

In my next and last post, I'll share with you all the wonderful goodies I bought!!

I'll go ahead and drop a hint on one of the items: roadkill.

Stay tuned!