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.