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?

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!

four how long, now?

If you're reading this post then there's a great chance you remember when this kid was born. Crazy no? Welp, he turned four on the 20th of January! 

I've been blogging since forever but I didn't start interacting with other bloggers until I was pregnant with #1. I was on the hunt for other mom bloggers and somehow stumbled into a strange underworld populated by eccentric punky-haired middle aged women who dress in vintage clothing with bracelets up to their elbows.

Needless so say I liked them much better than the 20 something hipster moms I was looking for.

Now mind you, I have come across a few "mom bloggers" that I love and follow but they are few.

I found them in the comment sections of the older ladies blogs and figured, if they like that blog then I'll probably like them too!

So here we are.

**huggles**

Because kid's birthday parties are terrible and no one really likes them, I'll just share with you a few random photos because... I can.

Since River loves trains I figured let's do a train themed party. Duh. 

But he loves Thomas the Train. Nope. Not gonna do it.

Mama don't do cartoon themed parties. That's too easy and super overplayed.

Soooo I asked him what colors he wanted for his party and he said "rainbow".

Alright, a rainbow train party. My greatest event planning challenge to date... and I failed.

So are you noticing a lack of trains in these photos yet?

Yeah. If you want train party decor, you better be going for Thomas or nothing at all.

Since I didn't have time to order anything online I just ran to the dollar store and grabbed anything I could find that was colorful. I couldn't even find party stuff in all the colors of the rainbow so... we'll just try again next year. Meh.

Yup, that's River being consoled by his Granny. Not because there were no trains, but because the girls at the party formed a clique and we wasn't invited.

I'm not sure what this face is about.

Alrighty. That's it. Hopefully I can get caught up on blog reading today. 

I've been stupid busy with my other blog and the social media management business thingy is really taking off! Woohoo!

See ya soon!

no cookies, no grains, no job, no nudity

Hey everybody! You know what time it is? It's HOLLIE TIME!!

Yo. How's it going. You doing good? All cool? Cool.

It's Sunday, it's noon and I'm fat, I'm hungry and I'm ready to party...

and by party I mean browse Pinterest and eat brownies for the rest of the day. 

Yesterday we took a little trip to see the husband's parents in Nacogdoches, TX.

It's boring two hour drive.

When we arrived we were supposed to check out the town's annual Blueberry Festival but when we pulled up it started raining cats and dogs and elephants too. Everyone in the festival was scrambling to get out of there. It didn't look like the rain would be stopping any time soon so we just continued to the inlaw's house.

▲▲This is the face of a man who has been robbed of a golden opportunity to get pie.▲▲

The rain hadn't reached the inlaw's house when we got there (and they weren't even there yet), so we seized the opportunity to take some photos.  

Just thinkin' about what's inside that trashcan out there. Lovely.

  And then the rain came. It was pretty awesome. Just my type of storm - no thunder or lightning. Just heavy rain, a little wind and cool temperatures. Ahhhhhh yesss...

  And River FINALLY got to play in rain for the first time evar!

So the inlaws came home. the rain stopped. Both kid's got a costume change. We ate some pretty effin' awesome ravioli and shrimp stuff. We hung out outside - which was gross and sticky thanks to the sun coming out after the rain.

Granny tried to help Cedar get over her phobia of grass.

And here's my first "wildlife photo". Look at these savage beasts! I can't believe I got so close to such wild and dangerous animals! I could have lost and eye or a limb or worse... A NOSE!

 Soooo, That's it. Oh wait!

In my last post I was whining about super pic-heavy posts and mentioned bloggers need to put photos in a collage to put an end to BRSMFIS (blog-reader-scrolling-mouse-finger-injuries)  right?

Well, many of you said you don't know how to put photos in collages.

That's a dang shame.

Let me help you... because, you know, the world revolves around me AND my opinion about you and your blog and how you do things is very important.

MUHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

Seriously, though. PicMonkey is the way to go if you would like to collage your photos. It's crazy stupid easy to use and making collages is a breeze. For realz.

Save a finger.

Collage your pics.

I made it from scratch

Alright, alright, simmer down. I know I'm late with my weekly blog post. You just couldn't make it through the weekend without me, huh? You cried yourself to sleep at night, you had fits and withdrawals and you probably even got sick at the thought that I might never come back to the blogging world.

Well, never fear. Here I is... am. Here I am.

And I'm wearing another scarf turned vest thingy.

Click HERE to find out how to make your own.

I took a lot of  photos this weekend but I'm nice enough to put them in collages for you. Why don't all bloggers do that? It should be a frggin' law. Don't make people scroll through twenty-one photos of you in slightly different poses from one to the next featuring each dang piece of clothing and jewelry you have on. We get it! You look great, ok?! My finger hurts! Scroll, scroll, scroll.

Ugh, and mom bloggers are the worse.. with the kids and photos of their food and Starbucks. How many different angles of your skinny latte do you really feel people need to see?!?!? 

I've pretty much given up on mom-blogs. Not mine. I like mine. I mean... the others... {cue the ominous music and lightening strike}

So as you'll see in the photos below we took the kiddos to the park. This was the first time Cedar's got to experience it. And by experience it, I mean... eat gravel.

 

 

Cedar's sunbath Sunday morning. She doesn't get out much and was starting to look a little jaundicy. Or so I think. I could just be a paranoid mama. Either way, a little sun won't hurt.

And River got his first real ouchie this weekend. I wasn't there to witness the accident, I just heard the thud and the heart breaking cry of pain coming from the hallway. From the looks of it, I think he caught a jutting hinge on the door to his nursery. It started off as a little scratch but the next morning it looked like this. He's doing just fine now, though. He's a tough kid.

And I found this happy guy waiting for me yesterday morning. I guess the farmer lady we get our eggs from has some seriously jolly chickens.

So that's it for now. Time to go get caught up with blog reading, blog posting on the other blog, faire stuff, faire fundraiser stuff, faire sponsorship stuff, more blog stuff, baby stuff, cooking stuff, drinking gin at noon stuff... you know. The usual.

LATERS!

Oh, and if you like parenting stuff, go check out my other blog. Please.