Lionel Supporter

A few months ago, I designed a 'Lionel Supporter' t-shirt for Lionel Rocheleau and his family to sell as a fundraiser. He was recently chosen to go to EuroCross, which is an honor and also a financial burden :) If you'd like to help out and learn more, or buy a t-shirt, see the MadCross page for more details.

Crocheted Bling

As I've said, the urge to craft is upon me, and the list of projects I can do is limited. I recently ran across photos of a big crocheted gold chain so simple that just by looking at it, I could tell how it was made. That's my kind of craft! It was easy, it was funny, and I was halfway finished with it before I thought "What am I going to do with this?"...

I solved that problem. Sort of. I sewed a Hawley 'H' on it, send it to my ol' friend Bloggy at The Hawley Company, and now it's their problem.

The 16th Annual Green Race

A few weekends ago Todd, Robb and I headed out to watch the 16th Annual Green Race, which is a creek race (using kayaks) on the Green River Narrows. I'm not a paddler, myself, but it's interesting to me, and the spectating was supposed to be prime.

There was limited parking when we got there- there's one long, rural road to park on and we wound up parking a long ways away from the trail. Luckily Robb was thinking quickly when the driver of a truck stopped to ask us a question. With the driver's permission, we hopped in the back and watched the poor suckers trudging down the road as we floated along for a few minutes.



The race is well attended, and that showed along the hike down to the river. Young and old piled up at slightly difficult sections.



We got down to the section of river and watched at different spots as we walked further up. There was a pretty good crowd, and most people were intently watching the racers.

(Hiking on the trails along the river)




You can see paddlers on the other side- we hikers couldn't access that side.



We watched for a while at the end of a particularly hard section. At the end of the run were some volunteers in safety gear, waiting to flip people right side up. It seemed to be pretty common that a paddler would spend the entirety of a section upside down, swept along with no break to right themselves. Fun, right?



Since I don't know much else about whitewater kayaking or the race in general, how about some more photos?











Fin.

Rock Climbing

Lucky for you, I don't know enough about rock climbing to really talk your ear off about it. Instead, here are a bunch of pictures and a little narrative.

I went rock climbing last weekend for the first time; a 5.9 or 5.10, and nothing death defying since I was on top rope the whole time, but I'm counting it. Here we are parking and unpacking, arriving after a 30 min hike, and setting up at the base of the wall.







I managed to get up this wall, which is slightly sloping, but as you can see from the third photo (the one with my bum in it) it was really smooth and hard for me to learn how to stick to. Please do note that in this second photo, Official Trip Photographer Todd has the camera tilted, making it look easier. He's since been let go. That's Former Official Trip Photographer Todd.







Here I've got one hand hanging onto an undercut in the rock, which made it easier for me to lean back and kind of stand.



All in all, not a bad time for a first climb. The second route I took (the one in all the photos) was much harder than the first. I'm not used to how much or little the shoes grip, and it was frustrating to try to find purchase on what seemed to me like a smooth wall devoid of any purchase. At one point I gave up and said "I want down." only to look up and declare, seconds later, that I was going to finish it. Robb was not amused, but he complied because he knows what's good for him.

Post about Posting

I haven't posted anything new in a while, but the urge to do wintery-style crafts is upon me. There's no shaking it until I've made scarves for just about anyone I think might want one. Being as this is my fifth year of crocheting only scarves (patterns = HARD) I'm kind of scraping the bottom already. I thought I might learn to knit this year, but to be truthful, I like the simple repetitive act of crocheting long lengths of scarf while I watch a movie or chat with someone.

New Carpet and Living Room Tour

What is this? you ask. Did you stay at a tacky hotel recently? A: No! That is our new carpet. It's much too big for the room, it's busy and colorful, and I really like it. It's super thick wool, and the colors seem to change all the time in different lights.



I think the 'ol futon needs some different throw pillows to go with the rug, but once you start down that road you find you need new end tables, and a coffee table and some matching throws and then it's too late for you. The pillows stay for now.

We switched up the shelving thang, which used to be horizontal and between the futon and the table.





Check out that handsome fireplace. Surely there's something better that could go on the hearth, but I haven't figured it out, and it's good as-is.



Check out those hot moon bootie slippers and busy flower pattern. Sorry to make you jealous, this just comes naturally to me.

Halloween

Ok, the original costume idea went out the window while I focused on a couples costume for me and Robb- he was a beekeeper and I was a bee. I also 'remixed' my old showgirl costume for Monday's Halloween costumed CrossFit workout. I've wanted to wear corpse paint (the black and white face paint) for a number of Halloweens now, and I finally got my chance as a Black Metal Showgirl. Here I'm lifting sans feather fan, wig and headpiece.



Here's a photo with those things:



Wicked, right? I had also planned on wearing this to race in, but the morning of it was just way too hard to get up and drive two hours.

But back to the bees! Here are some process shots of the costumes, Robb's beekeeper costume first:

I made a bee smoker out of cardboard and some canvas I had left over from oil painting.



Here the green clips hold the canvas on while the glue dries. (Halloween is the worst time to misplace your hot glue gun)



Amazon provided a great, cheap Safari style straw hat that I spray painted white.



I made some bees from pipe cleaner, following and tweaking a tutorial I found. I took short sections of white tulle and wedged it between the coils for the bee wings (one of my more genius time-saving ideas).



Robb bought a suit you'd use to paint or clean, and voila! Bee keeper for probably under $30, including spray paint and all materials.



We went on a ride, the Pumpkin Pedaler, and there were several other bees there. There was a bevy of bees.



I taped off and painted a cheap yellow silk shirt I found at TJ Maxx.





I made wings from coat hangers around the house and cheap pantyhose in a coffee color- perfect! I had a specific (and anatomically correct) pattern in mind, so I drew it in Sharpie on a piece of paper. That way, I could flip over the paper and trace both wings with fabric paint (or 'puffy paint', as my mom and I used to call it).



I had no idea how to attach these suckers. I wound up winding yarn around the top and bottom pieces, and using electrical tape to secure one side to the other by matching up the curved 'hanger' part of the hanger.





I liked the angle these wound up at. I added a cutesy bow for full cutesy points.



Shoes? No ordinary shoes.



Voila! Bee shoes. The black bow they came with happened to work perfectly to tie a pom pom on.



Not pictured- I bought a cheesy springy bat headband, cut the bats off to make them more antennae-like and added a yellow bow to that as well. I also wore a wig and false eyelashes because you can! You can do these things on Halloween! And that's part of the reason why it's such an amazing holiday. Le sigh. Why can't there be like four Halloweens per year?