Stuff I'm NOT doing...

-  cutting my hair for a few more inches so I can knock "donate to Locks of Love" off of my bucket list. Not sure if I'll make it, as the urge to chop is pretty strong, but I'm getting really good at the rolled up ponytail I wear every day. I'm also growing out my bangs and remembering why I swore I'd never have bangs again...last time I had half grown-out bangs...

- painting our bedrooms. Despite having $100 in paint cluttering up the kitchen floor, I just can't seem to make time for this project, and I just don't really want to do it. Especially now that it's too cold to leave the windows open. Boo for lack of motivation.

- putting up holiday decorations. I didn't put up a single Halloween or Thanksgiving item. It was weird to have spent MONTHS in previous years on Halloween, and this year there was zero evidence in my house. I used to make whole photo albums of decor! In theory I'm going to try some Xmas goodies this year, but in reality - I guess we'll see.

- crossing stuff off my bucket list. I've hit a dry spell in my progression. Part of it is financial - a big part - seeing as stay at home momming doesn't really leave a lot of discretionary funds for travel, shopping, and babysitters, but part of it is just a differing of priorities right now. I may have to add some "with The Cupcake" things to my list, which are the more urgent goals in my life right now.

- roller skating. I miss it. I kept meaning to go and bring TC in her stroller (one of our area rinks allows it) but their open skate is always during naptime, and she's starting to be able to escape from her stroller too easily, I don't want to be caught on wheels chasing after her or trying to tackle her. So I guess now I wait for her to start skating too? :) Or maybe just for a babysitter?

- reading. I just finished "The Passage" and I can't decide if I liked it. I do enjoy myself some vampire literature, and post-apocalyptic stories, but it was so BLEAK. And every time I got into one storyline, it abandoned it for a new one. So I'm going to wait on the sequel, at least till the cheap paperback comes out. What should I read next? I need something fluffier.

Bank on it

My bank is going to start charging me $15 a month so I'm looking for a new bank. And then get to spend hours trying to change all my auto bills and other housekeeping. Who really pays those outrageous fees? We can get it "waived" (oh, what a generous offer!) if we meet a bunch of other circumstances (that generate a bunch of income for them) or if we have a bunch of money to begin with (probably those aren't the people who need the "waiver?") but we don't meet any of them, especially now that I QUIT MY JOB!

Yup, I'm officially a stay-at-home-mom in 1 month. I guess that means I didn't quit, I gave notice, and a really nice extended notice at that. What a great employee.

I shall work hard to observe the Dooce rule on this public forum, but I think I can safely say that I never loved my job, and I have no career path, and I have high hopes that this will be a major positive change in my life.

Primarily this decision comes as our amazing childcare situation comes to an end - The Cupcake might be the luckiest little monkey on the planet as her grandmother generously watched her this past year after I returned to work. And "watched" can hardly be considered accurate, Grandma fawned and doted and chased and sang and dressed up and cooked homemade meals for and otherwise enjoyed the biscuits out of TC 3 days a week while I tried to keep bringing home some bacon. It was never a permanent situation, but it gave me a little more time to think. I couldn't imagine a better environment for TC than what she's had this past year, we are so thankful. As it comes to an end I considered daycare or Montessori programs, but at this point I'd be working JUST to pay the daycare bills, and since I don't love where I'm at, there are few reasons to stay. It's not like this job will eventually lead me somewhere better, in fact, I'm probably hurting my resume in many respects by working so long in a field I have no desire to be in. But with my cautious nature I'd probably never make a leap to something more enjoyable/potentially less reliable at the risk of being irresponsible, so this will be a wonderful catalyst (I hope) that allows me to leave the safe but yucky job and eventually find something much more fulfilling, or at least not quite so deflating.

And in the meantime, I'm going to mom the crap out of this little monkey:


I have a LOT of hopes and dreams, and a "to-do" list a million miles long (find a new bank...find the kitchen table under the piles of crap...find out what I want to do with my life and make a plan for it...teach TC to talk so I can reason with her about SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!) but in my heart I know that this adventure will probably be a lot like my birth process was - I could research and form ideas and even make a "plan" on paper...but I'm not going to really know what it is like, what my limits are, and what will bring me joy until I'm in the thick of it (and then the "plan" will just be hilarious kindling from the naive former life). I'm scared that I'll be MORE tired without my "sitting on my @$$ time" at work. I'm terrified we'll be destitute and that will be NO fun, not to mention probably end up in me getting a worse job at a fraction of the pay. I'm sad I have to leave my copy machine and scanner. I'm excited to go to storytime at the library, and grocery shop during the day, and walk to the zoo whenever we want. I'm not sure if I will be able to handle not having "my own" income for the first time in a long time or if TC will just miss her grandma and wonder when I'm leaving again...

Cheers to new adventures.

Whistle while I work...

I find lists very comforting. Sometimes I make "to do" lists and include things I've already done, just for the satisfaction of crossing them off. I don' expect a gold star or dozen roses, but man, I feel like I've accomplished a ton since I got home last night!

1. hunted all over the house for hidden cinnamon rolls, and I *think* I got them all...

2. vacuumed & swept up all the big chunks off the furniture, then oxy-cleaned the sticky residue left behind.

3. vacuumed and lint brushed all the furniture, and covered the big red dog hair magnets (I mean chairs) with throws.

4. Swept & vacuumed the living room and hallway.

5. Removed the sticky throw pillow covers and threw them in the wash.

6. Replaced the bag on my mini Oreck - it was so full it exploded when I opened it, and I had to re-vacuum all the previously vacuumed stuff back up.

7. stripped the bed and pillows and changed all the linens (necessary before I could even crash, since there were cinnamon rolls mashed into the sheets.)

8. moved all the furniture in the bedroom to find cinnamon rolls he had actually shoved under and between furniture. This also involved scrubbing said mash off of walls.

9. dusted, vacuumed, and de-cluttered bedroom (it looks so foreign right now!)

10. unloaded and re-loaded dishwasher

11. stripped the cover off the dog bed (this had to be done outside because there was so much mashed cinnamon roll it was practically a cake) and tossed it in the wash.

12. 2 loads of laundry so far, many more to come...

13. emptied and sprayed down the shower with scrubbing bubbles

14. watched a few episodes of "True Blood" re-running on HBO

15. had a dream Alison served grilled cheese at her wedding (fine by me!)

16. took out 2 bags of garbage

17. wiped down the kitchen walls

I still need to finish the kitchen and bathroom, and head up to make sense of the craft room before a friend comes over to work on wedding stuff...but first, I think I've earned a Maverick's roast beef sandwich as a reward for all my hard work.

My Not So Sweet Cinnamon Roll Fiasco - Thanks, Norm...

I really love these two bite cinnamon rolls from Costco. When I left this evening, this box was about 1/3 full, pushed to the back of the counter next to the stove.

When I got home, it was was on the floor in the living room.
Empty.

I guess Norm had a snack.

We always knew our dog wasn't normal. Most of the time we can laugh off his quirks - call him "The Woody Allen of Dogs" and be more careful about where we leave food, plastic bags, or kleenex (he likes to destroy all three).

But I really hate it when he gets hold of large quantities of food. While this is the first time it's happened with cinnamon rolls, every few months he manages to grab a loaf of bread off of a counter, and the process is relatively the same.

But Norm doesn't just EAT the bread, or cinnamon rolls, or bagels, or apples. That would be much too simple. Instead, he destroys the packaging (he particularly loves shredding plastic bags) and then proceeds to stash pieces of the food all over the house.


ALL OVER THE HOUSE.

Did you catch what I said there? Like an alcoholic in denial, he hides secret stores of said stolen food anywhere he can think of.

Like under the pillows on the couch.

And my new chairs.


In laundry baskets, preferably full of clean clothes.

And in his bed.
(He also decided to unstuff a pillow, which is where the white fiberfill came from. Thanks dog).

And in MY BED.



!@#$ and double %^&*!

So when I rolled into the house late this evening ready to crash, that couldn't really happen till I went on a treasure hunt for hidden sugar bombs, changed all the blankets, sheets, and pillow cases, and vacuumed all the furniture. ARGGGGGGH!!!

I have about 8 loads of laundry to do tomorrow now, on top of scrubbing sticky cinnamon & sugar paste off of all the furniture and thoroughly vacuuming every nook and cranny.

Not exactly the projects I had planned, but I suppose the house was due for a good cleaning...

Now I just have to wait and see if my dog goes into insulin shock or a diabetic coma...

Mirror, Mirror...

This could be the start of a new craft obsession - mosaic!
Tonight was the first of my two part class at The Studio at Rush Creek making a mosaic mirror. It's actually going to be at least a 3-part class, since I'm nowhere near finished with cutting and gluing my glass tiles, and once that is done I'll learn to grout it. I've wanted to learn how to do this ever since I saw a beautiful blue and green mosaic mirror in a little artist commune in Bemidji. I bought it and gave it as a wedding gift, but always secretly wished I would have kept it.


I was inspired by my epic "leg table," my Dept. 56 coffee table with striped stockings and gold pumps - I can't seem to find a great pic of it right now, but here's what it looked like last Christmas. I like the mix of the lime green, red, and white, and decided to run with that.

Tonight we chose our glass, learned to cut it, and went to town arranging and gluing it all together. It's pretty tedious, but really exciting and kind of relaxing - I could definitely get hooked on this. And I love how it looks so far! The colors are so vibrant, it sort of reminds me of a watermelon right now. I'm going for a eclectic crystal look (rather than the squares the other girl in the class did) and I really like it.

Cutting glass is easier than I thought, but still a little painful. There were shards everywhere, and my arms are a little cut up from rubbing in it. I'm most interested in learning the grouting part - can you believe I've never done that? Maybe I'll love it and end up tiling my basement bathroom all by myself :)

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Me!

Countdown: Thursday is jump day!

I think I haven't really rationalized this in my mind yet, I've been so busy with showers and bachelorette parties, it hasn't totally sunk in that I'm actually jumping out of a plane this week. A moving plane. In the sky.

Statistically speaking the DRIVE to the jump zone will be the most dangerous part of the day, followed by eating in a restaurant(both cause way more yearly deaths than skydiving. So do candles, police officers, obesity, skin cancer, and a million other things) but I did my due diligence and read about all of the skydiving deaths in the past ten years on dropzone.com . It was actually pretty reassuring - very few problems with tandem dives, and even in the case where an instructor had a heart attack, the novice jumper was able to land safely (albeit with a dead guy strapped to their back, but hey, more padding I suppose). The Midwest seems to be among the safer places with the least incidents, and first time jumpers rarely seem involved in any of the problems.

So I fully intend to have the time of my life, but *just in case* I thought I'd set a few things into the public record (since I have yet to cross #72, make a legal will, from my bucket list - and my filing system is in a state of horrid disrepair, so you'd never find anything up there anyways).

Statement of wishes in case of my death, or: my backwards take on Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.

1. I wish with all my might to be an organ donor. If I meet my end and anything is salvageable, please give it away! I think a skin graft that keeps my mermaid intact might be the most awesome memorial of all - see if someone can work on that. And then please give me posthumous credit for #71 on my bucket list, being a donor ;)

2. Once everything possible has been "recycled", I'd prefer cremation for the leftovers. I can't imagine taking up all the ground space required for burial, and I never expect anyone to go visit me planted somewhere. "Reduce" me to the bare minimum, and feel free to use scattering my ashes as an excuse to travel somewhere exotic - it's not like I'll be here to argue if you declare "Heather secretly told me she wanted me to take an African safari and sprinkle her ashes on the Savannah while riding a zebra. And then dog sledding through the arctic in search of happy penguins. And maybe in the lost city of Atlantis." Hey man, I'll gladly be the excuse for your adventures, but no pressure. I'd feel just the same about never being claimed from the crematorium too - and maybe that's cheaper? What ever works for y'all, no biggie to me.

3. Re-use: Someone please, please, please go immediately to my craft room and put all of the stamps, card stock, glitter, and fabric to good use! There are costumes in various states of completion, a pile of rhinestone tiaras, and a fabulous collection of one of a kind purses. There is a fortune in Wilton cake decorating supplies, enough gift wrap to cover a small town, and a crazy Italian sewing machine that has an instruction video up there somewhere. I have the full set of barely-used Sookie Stackhouse novels and a treasure trove of chick-flick DVDs next to an actual treasure chest full of candy, guarded by two hilariously creepy nun dolls. There is no way the hubs would have a clue what it's all worth, let alone need it, so you crafty people out there - please promise to pack it all up and take it home with you! The formals including my wedding dress are in the cedar closet, and if someone can step into my size 14 bridesmaid's dress and hustle over to Al's wedding, that would be awesome. Make the hubby polka with you - he's taken lessons - again, you can blame that on my dying wish, but really it's just too funny deny the world, regardless of if I'm there to enjoy it or not.

I'm going to jump out of a plane!!!!

Yeah I'm free, free fallin'....

ANOTHER BUCKET LIST ANNOUNCEMENT!

It's almost time to check off this , which is currently #22 on my bucket list. Auggh! This is kind of a big one!

August 20th I'm heading over to our neighboring state of Wisconsin where I will be strapped to some dude and pushed out of a plane at 13,000 feet. Apparently this is WAY cooler than the competition, who only lets you fall from 10,000 feet. It's all in celebration of my baby bro's 21st birthday, and his posse of wild jumpers has grown to include both myself and my father. This, of course, has left my mother steaming mad - she claims she didn't work so hard to keep him alive all this time just to throw him out of a plane now that he's healthy. No word on how she feels about us kids taking the plunge. Don't you think it would be more fun if she just joined us? C'mon mom, it would greatly increase your street cred. :)

Sneak Peek: Bachelorette Goodies!

I'm deep into bachelorette prep mode again, with my good friend Al's party coming up this weekend. Without giving too much away, I had to share at least a glimpse of what I'm working on:

Goodie bags!

Tonight I scooped up these mini gloss gift bags in the perfect shade of teal blue. I found them at Litin, a huge party supply store in Minneapolis that has a pretty great selection of themed decor, color coordinated tableware, take out boxes & other disposable packaging, and a large selection of life size photo standees from Star Wars to Marilyn Monroe.

I managed to get in and out without too much damage (and without finding the one thing I went in there for, of course) but when these caught my eye I had to scoop them up!

I used cardstock leftover from the invites to make name tags for each guest. This helps to personalize the bags, but also to keep them straight when there are 14 of them laying around a table or room. I punched a large circle from brown and then a smaller scalloped circle from pool. I used double stick tape to mount the teal on the brown, and then a standard hole punch to create the hangar. I ended up just looping the existing bag handle through this hole, and then tied a bit of coordinated ribbon (also from the invites)to form a little bow.

I wrote each guest's name in brown marker on the tag, and I think they look really cute. I won't show you yet what they are filled with (and I'm still working on it) but I promise to share next week ;)

Book Club

Tonight I have my "book club."

We watch TV together.

It's truely awesome.

Once upon a time, it actually started out as a traditional book club, we read one book a month and met the last Tuesday for tea and crumpets. We had deep conversations about why we hated each of the authors and should be making more money than them, especially Sloane Crossley who we decided was an all around douche. We functioned for just under a year at which point my book completion ration went way off the rails, and I was not alone. We dwindled and faltered and eventually became extinct.

Enter book club 2.0:
True Blood Night :)

We now gather weekly and still have deep philosophical debates (Eric Vs. Bill, which Eric has won handily, though there are holdouts for Jason & Sam), but nobody has homework and attendance is at an all time high! Most of us have read all of the Sookie books as well, so there is SOME discussion of books vs. series, and honestly I think our criticism is much more detailed and evolved now.

I think we'll have to come up with something to watch when this is (tear) over in mid-September, I'm really enjoying our discussions too much to let them go!

On another note, True Blood is an excellent theme for a Halloween Party if you're still searching and your friends are devotees of the show. You can serve True Blood the beverage, V shooters (red liquor in test tubes), decorate your house like Fangtasia or Merlotte's, Serve MaryAnn's tropical fruit platters or Burgers Lafayette, project the creepy show opening sequence on a wall or screen, and guests can dress as vamps or victims, whether they know the show/books or not. A devoted fan made True Blood labels you can download here, and there's a gallery of costume photos to inspire you here.

And if you're just confused now, you're clearly not watching the show. What a shame. You are missing out BIG TIME!

Hey mom, these are just, um, rockets?

I know my mother reads this blog, generally in the wee hours of the morning. She was already scandalized at the half naked mermaids from my Coney Island trip, so I can only imagine what this is going to do to her. Sorry mom. But I couldn't deny the creative public this fun bachelorette project.

And seriously folks, how cute are these?!?!? Bachelorette party #1 is this weekend, and I volunteered to bring a couple dozen cupcakes. I baked my traditional extra moist dark chocolate cupcakes in fuscia foil cups. I frosted half in vanilla (my favorite combo) and the other half in fudge, and topped each with one of these tiny peanut butter peckers. I actually think they look pretty adorable.

And, the giving person I am, I'm going to tell you how to make these little darlings at home!

First, the molds - I got mine in the "adult" drawer at Lynn's Cake & Candy Supply in Spring Lake Park. They have strange hours but are one of the best resources for cake & candy supplies in the metro area. They just have one little drawer under the candy molds that says "adult" and it's rather hilarious to dig through. These were around $3.50, and I got 2 - one thing about candy molding, the more molds you have, the more you can do at once which sounds basic, but every time you need to wash, dry, and re-melt candy for another batch, it takes wayyyyy longer than just doing a bunch at once - well worth a few bucks more.

Second, the candy. I looked around at a lot of options, and had intended on coloring my own "flesh" candy, but when I was digging around at Michael's I came across peanut butter candy melts - PERFECT! Candy melts are the easiest for these types of molds, you can control the portion you melt, they melt quickly and in the microwave, and come in many colors. Buying the right color saves a ton of time and mess over self-coloring.


I put 1/3 of a bag of candy melts or so into a disposable pastry bag and melted them in the microwave. Melt them in short bursts of 30 seconds or less, and massage the bag in between to keep the temperature even. Snip the tip of the bag and pipe the melted mixture into the molds. Do not overfill.

Once all the cavities are filled, lightly tap the mold on the counter for 10 - 20 seconds as the mixture spreads throughout the mold and the air bubbles rise to the surface and pop.


Place the molds in the fridge for a short time until hard (I find this happens in less than 15 minutes). Carefully remove candies from mold.



Voila! Naughty pastries for a ladies' night out!

I have more bachelorette-related posts to come, but I don't want to ruin all the surprises right now, so I'll put them up later on :)

Get this party started...

Here is the mock up of the bachelorette party invites I just put together! Though the lighting is terrible, I'll remind you that the colors are brown & teal ("pool" to be precise). I'm going for a sort of "Sex and the City" vibe. There will be a Carrie Bradshaw shoe-related quote on the top, the silver rub ons I featured previously on a brown circular medallion with a striped ribbon band, and then the party details below the band. They will all be printed in brown directly on the teal card stock. The back of the invite will just have a full teal panel with all of the party details - addresses, parking, hotel, etc.

How great is that high heel shoe punch? Those are punched through the teal so that the brown shows through, and then they are adorned with a jeweled sticker. Adorable! I think this sets the tone for a classy fun ladies' night out, don't you?

Martha Stewart Rub Ons

I also worked on bachelorette party invites this weekend for a friend's upcoming shindig, and while wandering the aisles of Archivers, found these rub ons for a great deal (75% off brought them down to $.98 for 24 images). I have had a love-hate relationship with rub ons in the past, when they transfer well I much prefer them to stamps, they are more precise and crisp. But I've also often had trouble getting them to fully transfer, and sometimes they just don't work for me. But, for this price, I thought I'd give them a try.

I took them home and mocked up my design (TBA), using the trendy color combination of teal blue ("pool") and brown. I punched circles out of the brown just larger than the rub on designs, cut apart the rub ons, and set about rubbing them with the Popsicle stick.

A few things I noticed:
1. they transfer very easily.
2. you can easily see where they transfer, so it was easy to center them in the circles, and if you missed parts - like a few of the dots in the borders - it was pretty easy to go back and re-align them and rub some more. Not as easy if you missed a letter, but since the font was small it was pretty easy to be sure you hit the whole phrase.
3. they are not at all sticky on the back, like most rub ons are, which is probably why they transferred so easily but also made it difficult to keep them in place. Since they are kind of small, you had to hold them with one finger while you rubbed, then be careful not to move the paper or transfer when you moved the finger to rub underneath it. A little learning curve involved, but it was still okay.
4. the design with the little lines making up the ring were impossible. I'm not sure why. The dots and swirls were fine, but the lines just didn't transfer right, and when you went back to go over them again, that actually seemed to transfer more of it BACK TO THE PLASTIC, instead of to the paper. So I think I successfully did 2 of those, and bombed the rest. Oh well. For the price, it was still well worth it for the designs that did work. The color is a very foil-y silver, which really pops on the brown and would be great on any dark background.

Overall, I give these a big thumbs up - especially if you can score them for under a buck. I might have to run back and see if I can scoop up a few more for future use.

Update: Weed War

My driveway still smells like pickles.

My driveway is still full of weeds.

BUT!

Some of them are starting to falter! Take that, evil weeds. See the few sad & shriveled pale weeds dying between the sprouts of healthy burly ones? I consider that somewhat of a triumph. We're going to need a lot more vinegar...

The Vinegar experiment

Our driveway has a few big cracks, and growing out of those cracks WAS a few green weeds, but is now practically a bush. I've watched enough "Life After People" to know that weeds strive for world domination and were we to turn our backs for a moment too long, they'd overrun our society and tear down all our monuments and libraries. (The same show is why I'm terrified of riding the NYC subways under the rivers - it's really interesting, but only feeds your paranoia) So far I've let our weeds get a little head start (I've been busy!) but it was getting close to out of hand. Something had to be done.

I read this post on "The Long Thread" that said you could use vinegar to kill weeds in a more eco-friendly and non-Norm-poison way, so I thought I'd try that. Last night I dumped a full gallon of vinegar on the driveway, pouring it carefully down each row of green and singing a "Happy Death to You!" tune.

My driveway smells like pickles.

My clothes, shoes, and skin smell like pickles.

I really don't like pickles.

I woke up this morning sure I'd find only twisted weed carnage left....but it pretty much looks the same. Of course, the temperature dropped dramatically over night, so maybe they need to slowly cook in the sun? I forgot to snap a picture, but I'll keep you updated if this has any effect...so far I have a bad feeling I'll be stuck ripping up stinky pickled weeds.

Letterman Update

We didn't find out until moments before we entered the theater that we were actually taping FRIDAY's show, so if you missed it yesterday...you didn't! They taped two shows, and ours was even BETTER than the Monday show - we got to see Martin Short and Regina Spektor! We'll most likely be on camera too, look for us right behind the dumb anniversary couple towards the beginning of the show but after the monologue. I'm wearing a red turtleneck sweater and Ryan has a dark grey t-shirt.

Look for us tonight on Letterman!

Ry & I scored tix to Letterman, we'll be watching Samuel L. Jackson, Emeril, and Iggy Pop (He's still alive?!?!? SWEET!) up close and personal. Not sure if we'll have any camera time (seating is pretty random) but I'm excited!

The Mermaid Parade

We've made a brief stop at home to ditch the mermaid duds and dry off before dinner, then it's back over the rivers to Jana's house for the evening, where I won't have my computer. I promise to post more later, but for now, here are a couple highlights from our day...we had a blast. We got tons of compliments (both on the costumes AND the tattoo), posed for a lot of photos with people we don't know, saw a lifeime's worth of pasties, tassels, and body paint, and ate a Nathan's hot dog.

We also had quite an interesting time walking through the city in our costumes - how do mermaids get to Coney Island? The Subway of course :)Our costumes were right up there with anything at the parade, I was pretty impressed at how we came together. We even survived the rain pretty well! More to come later...and seriously folks, I'm thinking this might have to be an annual event on my calendar...

Sneak Peak Take II:

I also made Ryan's crown (only fair, since he did all the rest) and here's that sneak preview. They were both made on bridal-type bases we found at a trim shop for a few bucks each, covered in the fabric of our respective tails, and detailed with shells (Ryan's) or starfish, trim, and a pearl spray (mine). Ryan's will perch on top of a head of long dark hair, and mine will surround a wild updo.

We had a brilliant night Martha would be proud of, cranking out all the final details we needed for tomorrow. Jana even made a few accessories, and I whipped her up a shell-adorned hair clip I'm excited to see in action. Now that it's 2:15 I should be getting to bed, but I'm still a little keyed up. I'm also amazed, being I kicked out all my old ideas and really started from scratch again yesterday.

I AM SO EXCITED! Hope for dry skies :)

Mermaid Sneak Preview

Ryan is amazing. In just a few hours, he has whipped up the most fantastic set of mermaids you can imagine. His is faux snakeskin with Y-suspenders and a dorsal fin. Mine is pearly blue strech vinyl with a flesh colored bustier and sequin appliques, and here is a peak at my crown. I cannot wait to get all decked out in these beauties and hit the town. I don't even care if it's trecherous getting on and off the subway, I'm so excited. Tomorrow morning we're getting up early for hair and makeup - oh yes, there will be hair (extra hair) and makeup (OMG is there anything more fun than a friend who designs costumes?!?!?!).

This was a wonderful day, I'd love it if some of the dry weather could hold out until tomorrow, but regardless, I'm bursting at the seams with excitement. Mermaid Parade, here we come!!!

The rain couldn't dampen our creative impulses yesterday, my first full day in NYC. Ry & I hit the fashion district and it was nothing like I had ever seen before - there were at least five stores that had nothing but TRIM! It was amazing. I've never seen so many sparkles and spangles in my life.

We also hit fabric stores, including the infamous "MOOD" of Project Runway fame, where we took the photo above. While there, I'm pretty sure we saw Korto Momolu of last season's final 3 shopping for fabric! Don't let the show fool you, Mood looks like a little hole in the wall where they all buy everything they need for pennies...not so much! The one fabric I looked at was $40 a yard - nope!

The forecast for tomorrow calls for storms, which is disheartening but I'm not giving up - the parade goes on rain or shine, and a little water never hurt a mermaid (though I'm a little concerned for those who come in only body paint...) It did, however, spur a change in costume decisions, and last night over Chinese take out Ry made me a new tail! It's a pearly blue with a long train and flesh colored bustier - you know pics will follow when we're done :) Today is more crafting, shopping, and local flavor. So far my feet are holding up well, knock on wood!