over there

Today we decided to do something we've never done before...

We went to the park.

HOW DARING!

The weather was decent, the sky was clear and there was goose poop everywhere and we had a nice time.

I'm wearing a shapeless "one size fits all" sundress with a shirt over it to give it some structure so I don't look like a huge hippie tent. And hey! My bump is bigger than my boobs!

 I look like the letter "B". HEE HEE! Now you can't un-see it.

Dress: NY street festival last summer

Shirt: Old Navy clearance rack

Chucks: Salvation Army

Corduroy backpack: had it since my first year of college ten years ago

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This is the first time I've worn these awesome butterfly wing sunglasses. I got them in a 2 for $10 sale at Romancing the Stone (Earthbound Trading Co.) months ago and completely forgot about them. Aren't they the best?! Well, not the best but pretty darn close.

And um... here are my toes.... because.... why not?

Ok bye! Hope you all had an supertastic weekend.

walk with me

Yesterday started waaaaaaay too early for my taste. I woke up at 7am to be at the doctor's at 8am for my glucose test and first ultrasound.  On average I wake up at 10am (we're night owls) - I really needed those three more hours of sleep. I was a total zombie. Not only was I exhausted, but I was starving as well since I wasn't allowed to eat breakfast because of the glucose test.

Elevator "selfie"...

And wearing my winter coat in the freezing cold waiting room, scribbling in a little journal waiting for my ultrasound...

The whole ordeal took three hours. First I had to have blood drawn, drink some orange juice stuff, go to my ultrasound, get more blood drawn, sit in the waiting room for an hour and then have more blood drawn. Both of my poor wittle arms look like this.

After being sleep deprived, starved to death, poked unmercifully with needles three different times - I got to my car and found I left the lights on.... so the battery was dead. Thank God one of the husbands from the same waiting room I was in just so happened to be walking by. He gave me a boost and all was well...

On the way home I stopped at a donut shop and ordered two dozen donuts to share with my husband. I honestly didn't think about how many donuts that is - I just ordered something. That's a lot of effin' donuts. Not only did I get all these donuts but the cute little freckle-faced Korean store owner threw in two dozen chocolate glazed donut holes as well. I guess that was God's way of trying to make me feel better after having such a crappy morning.

Gift gladly accepted. Divine donuts are tasty donuts.

After a breakfast of about... ahem... six donuts, I took a much need nap dressed in polka dots and sailboats. 

When I woke up I took River out for a "walk" since he ate a whole donut - which is the baby equivalent to me eating those six donuts. He's already getting a Michelin Man look about him so a little exercise is a good thing.

The little dude can't walk without holding on to something yet, but we're working on it.

See?

and it's important too...

Yesterday I had an important meeting with a group of important people that belong to an important organization here in Texarkana. I had to make an important presentation to make an important proposal regarding and important partnership between an important event and aforementioned important organization...
Could I be any more vague?!?!
Sorry, I just can't give out too much info on this just yet. I don't wanna put the cart before the horse if you know what I mean.

{source}

  The meeting was held at this preserved Victorian here in Texarkana known as the Ace of Clubs. You can see why it's called that in the areal photo. The house was "built in 1885 in the shape of a playing card "club" with money won from a poker game; now a tour home and museum."

Unfortunately the meeting wasn't held inside the house, it was in the "carriage house" located behind the home instead. Boooooring... I wanted to go inside! Whine, whine, whine. See what's in there?? In the 40s-60s the last woman of the house had accumulated 500 pairs of shoes from  Neiman Marcus. There's a lot of fashion in that house and I wan't in!

{source}

The boring carriage house.

At the meeting I was so nervous that my legs were weak and wobbly and I had to sit down to finish my presentation. That's very unusual for me. Public speaking doesn't bother me at all, even if I'm not prepared - but this time my nerves decided to work against me. I think I played it off fairly well though.

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Since the meeting rolled over well past dinnertime, me and the family stopped at a Chinese buffet and stuffed ourselves silly - it's the American way! Even River was full to bursting on imitation crab and lo mein.

...passed out in the car with his big full tummy hanging out...

He slept through the trip into the house, a diaper change and all of my attempts to rouse him since it was 7pm - WAY too late for a nap.

I wish I could sleep like that.

Alright party people. I've missed out on 50 blog posts so it's time to get caught up!

See ya on the flip side.

late on the green

Happy Day After St. Patrick's Day!! 

This day is completely unimportant, but I figured I'd use it to share a bit about my St. Patrick's Day since I was unable to make this post on the actual holiday. 

 If you know anything about me then you'd know that I loooooove holidays and I always do my best to dress accordingly - but I have nothing green... well, I mean, nothing that FITS anyways. I have two green sweaters and a green skirt but they're all too small - but my favorite green eye shadow still fits. 

I enhanced the color in the first photo so you can see what a pretty green it is but the photos still aren't very accurate. It's a bold shimmering emerald that is out of this world.

Since going out drinking and partying is out of the question for a few more months, we stayed in and just watched crime investigation shows on Netflix.

 For dinner I made scotch eggs with green hollandaise sauce, green mashed potatoes and broccoli.

Never had hollandaise on scotch eggs? You're missing out! Give it a try! As gross as it all looks, it was pretty fantastic.

All this green madness was followed up with my famous handmade strawberry shortcake. And by "handmade" I mean I used my hands to assemble it.

It's so easy to make. You want the recipe? Here it is: fresh bakery angel food cake, strawberry glaze, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. So simple!

So how was your St. Patrick's Day?

I just ran out of pistachios

I just ran out of pistachios and now I'm pretty sad on the inside. I just thought you all should know.

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Today, me and the family were supposed to go to Washington, AR for the 46th annual Jonquil Festival.  The Jonquil Festival is an American Civil War themed festival with 19th century demonstrations and crafts and music. I don't really care that much for Civil War history but going to the festival would have been a great opportunity for me to go out and find more vendors to join my faire in October BUT the dang thing is being rained out right now as I type. So POO.

Oh, well. I'm not even sure if black people are allowed into the festival anyways.

That was a joke... get it? Black chick going to a Civil War festival... get it? Hm?? Do ya?!?!

I wonder if they have a separate festival for the descendants of slaves...

Oh, yeah. I totally went there.

So instead today I've been relaxing on the couch, neglecting my housework and fiddling around on the internet - mostly looking for ideas for fun interactive games and activities for the faire. We already have a blacksmith, archery lessons, kid's craft booth, pony rides, petting zoo and "Dunk the Monk" dunking booth game... but I want more!! Any suggestions??

 And here's the great bump reveal. I'm only 4 months pregnant right now. Women usually show sooner with their second pregnancy because the uterus is worn out - but in my case it's mostly just my fat getting pushed outwards. 

Outfit under $20

Plaid dress (well, it WAS a dress. It shrank) - online store

Blue striped dress - Ross

Socks & studded wrist cuff- The Dollar Tree

Chucks - Salvation Army

Peace necklace - made by me

 Bonus:

So a few days ago I was vacuuming and...

Yeah, I'm totally guilty but... how did I not see a pair of earbuds on the floor?!?!

bare bottom blues

 Today was my first ever "hospital setting" prenatal checkup. When I was pregnant with River, I had a midwife and my appointments were in a cozy little pseudo-bohemian house-turned-birthing center. The difference between the two is night and day.

I would love to go back to the birthing center to try my hand at natural birth again, but I had an emergency c-section with River and VBACs are very risky.... I think you'll explode during birth or something like that. Women have VBACs all the time and everything works out just fine, but I really don't want to take that risk... I don't wanna explode.

Dressed in a crispy paper gown I spread my clothes over a chair so I could have a warm clean place to sit my ice cold bare bottom. I sat and shivered in the examination room for what seemed like hours but it was really only about ten minutes. Ten arctic minutes.

 Whenever I have an appointment I never think to bring anything to keep me occupied, but this time I remembered! A few weeks ago Shybiker tweeted something about investing in Netflix and it sparked my curiosity in stock investing. I've even been playing a  virtual stock exchange game on www.marketwatch.com to help me learn how everything works. I'm not even that interested in buying - I just like to learn about things.

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Bonus photos of River because.... well, you know-  because I can:

 

I hope you all have a great day and may all your paper gowns be soft as silk and your buns as warm as a puppy's tummy.

disaster relief

This is my bedroom at the moment. Terrible ain't it?

This is what happens to most of my home during "Faire Time".

What is Faire Time?

Faire Time is the time between February and October where I work for several hours a day to plan the year's renaissance faire. As you can see from the state of my room, it's a very time consuming job...
I'll go into more detail about what I actually do later.
It also doesn't help that I've got a bad case of the "pregnant effits"
Ok so, what's the "pregnant effits"?
The pregnant effits is a term I invented for myself. It means: I have the energy to clean... I just don't have the will, nor do I care. So, "EFF IT."

Later on in this pregnancy, this apathy will be replaced with severe episodes of nesting: 

"Why are all the doors so dirty?!"

"We have too many DVDs!"

"NO!! There's a hair on the bathroom floor!"

"All the light bulbs in the house need to be cleaned!"

"WHO LEFT THIS COFFEE MUG IN THE LIVING ROOM?!?"

I will clean the house everyday to the point of pure exhaustion, but the house will never be clean enough.

That's how nesting works, folks.

Here's a good example of the "Effits": On the bed are my hoops and petticoats that I wore under my gown in the Mardi Gras parade. When it's bedtime, I just dump it all on to the floor, and then in the morning, back onto the bed it goes.

I actually DID clean the bathroom the earlier this week, though and during cleaning I saw my nail polish collection and wondered, "Hm, how many bottles of this stuff do I have and how much of it do I actually use?"

So I lined it all up and realized that out of 39 bottles only ONE bottle didn't get used. It was an old, separated half empty bottle of some off-brand shade of classic red - I have no idea where it came from.

I used to never ever paint my nails. In fact I've only been painting my nails for about two years now.

The shade I'm wearing now is (chipped up) called Palm Tree.

I think instead it should be called something like, Baby Leprechaun.

I want a job naming nail polishes. I'd be good at it!

Honestly, I didn't know I was a nail polish "fan". I don't actively seek out nail polish - they're mostly impulse buys that never cost more than $1.

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So, let's talk:

What's the state of your home right now?

and

Are you a nail polish fan?

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"

Cajun French for "Let the good times roll!"

A Mardi Gras battle cry, I guess one could call it.

Gown - RecycledRockstah, Etsy

Chemise- Ohana Sewing, Etsy

Hat -  WinterMute42, Ebay

Glasses & Necklace -Wally's Party Factory

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Saturday afternoon me and my crew marched in Texarkana's second ever Mardi Gras parade. Dressed in traditional Mardi Gras colors (green, purple and gold) and loaded up with beads, we rocked the parade scene again.

 The parade was a lot longer than expected with a few thousand more people that we thought would show up so we all ran out of throwing beads halfway through the parade.

 If you've ever been to a Mardi Gras parade, then you would know that running out of beads is a crime.....

Adults and children screamed and BEGGED for those cheap plastic beads. It was so strange! "BEADS! BEADS!" they cried. Their fervor was almost disturbing.

Our friends from Middlefaire Renaissance Festival in Hillboro, TX joined us too!

Since my husband had camera AND baby duty, he wasn't able to get many photos, but here are 8/100 of the other parade entries. The parade theme was Superheros... again...

This isn't anything like what you'll see in New Orleans. There, they prepare for Mardi Gras all year. Here, it's just another parade and everyone's still pretty new to the concept.

And here's River with some beads Daddy caught for him. He kind of looks like he's not happy with his small collection.

After I handed out 100 flyers for the faire and pimped the event to potential vendors, I treated myself to a nutritious dinner of funnel cake and a corn dog. 

If you're unfamiliar with funnel cake, it's just a giant swirly deep fried doughnut covered in an inch-thick layer of powdered sugar. The best dang thing in the world.

On our way out, we stopped at this vendor to pick up two pounds of delicious Cajun crawfish for dinner. You can't have Mardi Gras without crawfish*!

I think the proper term for this little bugger is "crayfish". Here in the South, they're "crawfish", "crawdads" or "mudbugs". They're boiled in a spicy Cajun mix and are almost always served with potatoes and corn on the cob that have been cooked with the crawfish.

So that was my Mardi Gras weekend.

 Did you all go to any Mardi Gras festivities this weekend?