Triple Crown Day Dreams

Yesterday, during the Preakness we came a neck closer to a Triple Crown winner in 2012.  I’m so excited.  There was Bodemeister barreling down the back stretch and thinking he was going to win and then along came I’ll Have Another,  passing  Bodemeister on the right.  Bodemeister didn’t change (or it all went too fast to tell if Bodemeister changed) and I’ll Have Another tore along.  He really lays on the steam.

I’ve just read that Bodemeister will sit out the Belmont.  That increases I’ll Have ANother’s chances, to be sure, and I will miss that third match up between the two.  There may be a lot of new contenders in the Belmont.  It will be a great race to watch. 

 

 

I’ve been away so long, part 2

Well, that first part was getting long so I decided to make this story a two-parter.  I don’t think it will become a mini-series.  We’ll see.

So, my point was that for something like 6 weeks I spent every available minute making all this stuff to sell at the Faire, and planning my Booth and all that.  The fair ended, I deposited my $58.00 (or there-abouts) and began putting all my Fair stuff away.  That took awhile. 

By all rights, It was time to take a rest and get re-acquainted with my family and friends who had heard nothing from me for weeks but the stuff I was making for the fair.  (I am blessed to be surrounded by people who love me and adore me, no matter what I am presently focused upon.)

Then it was time to do the taxes.  Everything I do turns into a production, let me tell you.

Then I wanted to attend other festivals because it is festival season in Florida from January the end of April.  After that all the snowbirds go home (to do their taxes) and it gets too darned hot here to go to a fair.

And so I have spent the past 6 weeks doing hardly anything with my WhimsyGear.  Then one day 2 weeks ago, I began the tedious task of uploading product to Etsy, in hopes of attracting customers who want what I have to sell.  {I say ‘tedious’ because it seems to take a long time to locate good photos and then write all the descriptions and identify all the possible tags, and think about what someone else would think about if they were looking for my Wares.}

I have posted a total of 2 wands to Etsy, since the Faire.

It’s a start.  But right now I have to call my Mother.

I’ve been away so long

I’ve been away from this blog so long, I forgot my user name and password.

I have a very strange sense of time.  It expands and contracts around me in unusual ways.  It has been over 6 weeks since the Florida Faerie Festival took place in Bonita Springs, Florida and this was the 4th one:  FFF4.  I spent about 6 weeks before the FFF4, making items to sell as a vendor.  My items included:

• wands,
• staffs,
• pouches,
• belts,
• hats,
• Fairy Pets,

and all kinds of other things that Fairies would like.  I spent every waking minute focused on making my items.

I took March 16th off and my Husband and a good friend of mine helped me haul all my wares and the “booth” down to Bonita and we all set up the canopy thing and the tables and unpacked the cars and put my wares in tubs under the tables.  We all drove home.

Grackle and I got up really early on the morning of March 17 and drove back down to Bonita.  It was kind of chilly at the Festival site and some of the other Vendors were just waking up:  they had camped next to their booths.

Grackle helped me set up my Booth and we were ready to go at 10:00 AM.  And the doors opened and a trickle of Mothers and Children arrived and continued trickling in all day.  Many of the Children were little Fairies:  they had wings and little wands and they were so adorable. 

There were very few people who were my target audience: grown ups who dress up as faries.  These are grown ups who put on wings and glitter.  They would have liked and approved of and most imporantly, purchased my wares. 

The Mommies came into my Booth with their young children and they’d stop curious hands from touching my wares.  Many of the children were too short to see most of the items on my tables.  I would say, “oh, they may touch these things, and some thing have to be touched to be understood,”  but by that time the young ones had been diverted and no sales were made. 

At midday, my Husband the Baltimore Oriole arrived with several fabulous hoagies (“subs”) and drinks.  Grackle was so happy to see him because she was HUNGRY and so totally done with helping me and she wanted a ride home.  Oriole complied and at about 1:30 they were gone and I had another 4 and a half hours ahead of me.

After lunch, some more people arrived and one lady came in and admired my wares.  In the course of making staffs and wands, I had ended up with a lot of twigs that were too small for a wand, and too interesting to throw out.   Mahogany, for example, has these curious features on twigs that look like little bird nests.  I took a bunch of these twigs and dipped them into glue and glitter on each end and put them on my tables as decoration and called them, “WhimsyStix.”  [I wanted to call them Pixie Stix, but that name is taken already...]

The lady picked up one of the WhimsyStix and peered at it carefully.  She said she was returning to Canada this week and needed a little something for ner niece.  She admired my very nice hand made wands.  These are 13″ Mahogany sticks adorned with silk flowers, ribbons, beads, and glitter.  She said she didn’t think a Wand would make it in her suitcase, and I knew we were both wondering what TSA would make of a Wand in her suitcase.  I sold her the 8″ WhimsyStyx for $1.00, plus tax.

It was 2:00 PM and I had made my first sale.

About an hour later a young boy wandered into my Booth and looked about.  His parents came in right after him.  He said, “Could I make a Wand?” and I showed him the WhimsyStyx and he picked out one he liked.  I rooted around in my stuff I’d brought with me and let him pick out some ribbon and beads.  We put together a wand for him, there and then and I sold him that for $3.00, plus tax.

Those were my only sales of the day so it wasn’t a total loss.  (The other vendors we also having slow days so it wasn’t just me.  We figured it was because it was St Patricks Day.)  As I was driving home that evening I decided I could regroup.  I went into my work room and made about 20 WhimsyStyx:  nice lengths of stout sticks with glitter hot-glued to both ends.  And I made a poster:  “Make a Wand Here,” and another poster:  “How to make a wand in 3 easy steps.”

I packed up my little pile of WHimsyStyx, and more ribbon and beads and a parsons table and some glitter pens and drove back to the Faire.

That day, I sold at least eight opportunities to “Make Your Own Wand Here,” and allowed the kids to select the stick, the two ribbons, the beads and then I tied the ribbons to the sticks and threaded the beads.  That took a lot of time and I could have used a helper but Grackle was home asleep.

 

preparing for a Fair

I knew I had been busy getting ready for the Fair, but didn’t realize its been since early January since I posted on my Blog.  Wow.  I’ve been hand-sewing all these pouches and making all these other crafts in my spare time.

Now to watch some Basketball.

In the Middle of the Fairy Faire

I’m writing from home but I’m in the middle of the Florida Faerie Festival Four, in Bonita Springs, Florida.  (I’m not sure how to hyperlink yet, so you’ll have to look that up in the interweb.  There’s a website and a FB page.)

I’m a vendor and my booth is called, “WhimsyGear.”  I make things for Fairies.  I make:  Staffs, Wands, Pouches, Flickers, SnapDragons, Fairy Pets, Fairy Belts,  ”Glitter Gondolas” and I also make “Fairy Feet” and headgear as custom orders.  The Faire Festival continues tomorrow March 18 from 10AM to 4:00 PM

WhimsyGear-Fairy Belt

WhimsyGear-Fairy Feet

WhimsyGear/Arbor Lane- Several Staffs

WhimsyGear-Flower Fairy Queen Wands

Xmas trinity triptych

Sometimes when I give Christmas Presents, they coalesce around a theme.  Such was the case this year when I decided to restock the Baltimore Oriole’s bar at Christmas.  I couldn’t decide which “jug” to get him, so I purchased three:  A jug of Johnny Walker Red Lable; a Jug of Beefeater’s Gin and a jug of Myers Rum.  That way, I could wrap/give him one jug, Daughter Grackle could wrap/give him one and Santa could give him the third one.  Grackle and I had agreed to this a while ago.

Then one day I wound up at Tar-ghay’ (Target) and decided I should get mixers, like club soda and tonic water, except I couldn’t find these items there, so I bought a 12-pack of polar bear wrapped Coke and a 12 pack of ginger ale.  Santa gave him these items.

Wrapping the jugs became complex:  I didn’t want to use gift bags because that would be too obvious under the tree.  SO, I went to a different liquor store and got booze boxes from them.  I put them in the trunk of my car and waited until I had some spare time to drag them inside and wrap boxes. 

On the Thursday afternoon before Christmas, I was at work and The Baltimore Oriole called me and updated me on his schedule for the remainder of the day:  he was leaving for the gym and would be gone 2 hours.  I realized that it might be my last opportunity to wrap packages.  I ran down the hall and asked my boss for the rest of the day off.  He said yes.  I ran out the door and drove home.

When I arrived home, his car wasn’t in the driveway, but the front door was wide open.  The screen door was ajar and the front door was open too.  My neighbor lady was walking her dog and I remarked on the door.  I said I was going to go in and check… (I thought she would stay there and wait to see if I was ok, but she didn’t! — hmmm…)  Anyway, I went in and found Grackle there and she was preparing to go out.  I initially felt my plans were vexed since I had to wrap her presents, too, but soon I involved her in the wrapping.  Just as we had finished camouflaging two of the boxes, he came in through the front door unannounced.   threw the box from me to him under the tree and the other boxes in Grackle’s room. 

Eventually I got everything wrapped and under the tree and Christmas morning arrived and we unwrapped and Mr. Oriole was very pleased with his presents.

The next day we went on a road trip to Naples to tour the soon-to-be-world-famous  Thrift Shop associated with the Naples St. John’s Episcopal Church.     http://www.stjohnsnaples.com/thrift_shoppe  .  It has some  really high-end items there. 

We headed down US 41 towards Naples and as we were driving, the Oriole and the Grackle began to talk about various things and Oriole remarked about receiving three jugs of booze for Christmas.  I said, “It’s the Xmas Trinity — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”  Whereupon, Oriole noted that the Beefeaters Gin had to be the Holy Spirit, because “it’s see through.”

And as we laughed and drove on South, I had a funny picture in my head of one of those three-paned pictures, a triptych, with the Trinity, dressed up in the labels of the bottles. 

We got a folding tea table at  the Thrift Store.  It’s a great substitute for a coffee table.

 

Gearing up for the Fair

I’m in the process of becoming a Vendor for a Faire!  (WHeeeee…)

I make wands and staffs and all kinds of things that Fairy folk adore under the store name, “WhimsyGear.”  This are items designed by my character, The Flower Fairy Queen.  Now it is time to collect the materials for my store’s inventory.

 Yesterday when we were out driving around I saw a downed Mahogony branch and we went home to get the ‘lopers,’ which I used to trim the branch down.  It was enormous.  When I got all the trimmings home, I unpacked it onto the driveway to continue my trimming.  From that, I culled 13 wands, 1 definite staff and two “may-bes,” and some things that are fabulous but I am not sure how they fit in yet.  I call them “Mahogony eyes.”  They are the indentations on a branch where a twig formed.  They are small enought to be a nest for some being.

I will think of something to do with them.

Wands in the Wings

It is time to embrace your Inner Whimsy!  Last week the UUCFM had a Craft Fair, aand I was able to borrow a table at the very last minute and I almost sold a total of One Wand.  Tomorrow is Craft Fair, round 2 and I am taking more wands.  The wands are made with locally harvested wood, either Mahagony or Live Oak.  The wands have silk flowers and robbons hot-glued to them, and then glitter and pony beads and a jingle bell added,

Whimsy Gear by ~Titania

 The wands bear the blessing of the great Flower Fairy Queen ~Titania, herself.

It is almost time for the annual Medieval Faires!

We found the concert tickets

(Place holder …)

So, in September I took Grackle to a “My Chemical Romance” concert in Tampa for her birthday.  We had been looking forward to the concert for months.  The concert was at the Amphitheater which used to be the Ford Amphitheater and is now the “1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheater.”  {I swear, I am not making that up.  See photo.}   This about three hours from our house so I got a hotel room across from the fair grounds so that I wouldn’t have to drive back to Southwest Florida after the concert. 

And, since we’d be spending the night, I thought it would be a great idea to pick up my Husband (The Baltimore Oriole) at the Tampa International Airport, on his return trip from the Midwest, the next day.   (We had all flown up together in early September and then Grackle and I flew back together, leaving him there to visit family for a longer vacation.)

And, since his plane wasn’t scheduled to arrive until about 7:00 PM, I made arrangements to see my dear friend (_____) and then she and Grackle and I could do something fun in Tampa like go to the Aquarium or something.

As I said, Grackle and I had been looking forward to this concert for months because My Chemical Romance has released their new album, “Danger Days and the Fabulous Killjoys” and we had gone to the effort of accumulating costumes to go with the theme of  ‘apocalypse desert grunge meets neon and ‘Speed-racer’  — or something like that.  I decided since it would be close to 90 degrees and humid that we needed to modify our look for our environment.  {See my headgear — } I think it was the only smart thing I did for this whole party.   Our costumes included water guns which were confiscated at the gates into the amphitheatre.

This was the Blink-182 tour.  There was a warm up band featuring two kids from Brooklyn.  The woman was a drummer and she beat the drums at about 158 mph:  Her arms were toned.  She remarked about the humidity and took her bra off (while her shirt was still on,) on stage between numbers.  She was accompanied by a nice young man.  I forget what instrument he played.  They played a couple of songs which by the nature of their resources all sounded the same.  But hey, they are on tour.

My Chemical Romance was next up and it was about 8:00 PM.  They were fabulous.  Their costumes were awesome (but didn’t look a thing like ours) and they played songs from most of their albums including Black Parade.  All 45 minutes of their set was the most intense concert experience I’ve had in a very long time.  But then it was over.  Grackle and I needed refreshments and we made our way downstairs with a swarm of other thirsty concert goers.

Grackle doesn’t care much for Blink-182; and we could hear them just fine from down below all the seats.  So we wandered around with all the other My Chemical Romance fans who felt it was too soon to go home.  I remember thinking that if I had not made the hotel reservation, and all the other interconnected arrangements, I could have driven home then; I wasn’t too tired and it wasn’t that late.  Instead, Grackle and I sat around some more and ate nasty fair food.  (It was over priced and way too salty.)  Eventually, Grackle and I walked back across the field to our hotel room.  I took a shower and we went to sleep.

When we woke up Sunday morning, Grackle took her shower and then showed me her legs:  she had poison ivy all over the backs of her legs.  I went down to the hotel lobby and got directions to the closest ‘walk-in clinic,’ and we packed out of the room and headed out there.  I called my friend, D_____ to let her know what was going on.   At the clinic, I discovered I had field-stripped my wallet too much.  (I normally clean it before I go to a concert, and this time I had left my insurance cards at home.) So, I had to pay in cash.  [This is on top of over-paying for the concert tickets when I bought them.  But I've already vented about that...] 

The medical team at the clinic did an awesome job fixing Grackle up including providing me with a “to-go” bag full of ointment and gauze and tongue-depressors, and those pad-sheets to sit on, because I mentioned we were traveling.  Then we went to the drugstore to get medicines. 

We made our way to D______’s house.  She was gracious to us in spite of our being contagious.  We had 7 hours to kill before Oriole’s plane was to arrive and Grackle didn’t feel up to much of anything.  Plus, we couldn’t take her in to any restaurant or venue because her legs were covered in bandages and it was a sight.

Eventually, we bid D_____ bye-bye and went to fetch Oriole.  His plane was on time.  He was hungry and I had to tell him we would have to go through a drive through because Grackle was suffering with poison ivy.  And we drove home and unpacked the car.

It was a wonderful concert.  I think next time, I will just buy my own copy of the cd and play it really loud.    

Have to find the concert tickets by Saturday!

I purchased concert tickets a few weeks ago (and paid way too much but won’t do THAT again,) and printed them out and put them in a safe envelope with airplane tickets.  Then my Daughter Grackle and my Husband the Baltimore Oriole and I flew to the midwest to visit my Husband’s kinsfolk.  (I guess that would be his Flock.)  Grackle and I stayed long enough to see sacred ground and lots of family and for to catch a l-i-n-g-e-r-i-n-g  head and stomach flu.  She’s been sick for a week.  Just when she seems to be getting better, she has a relapse.  She had another relapse this morning so now I am spoon feeding her blue Gatorade and saltine crackers on the half-hour.  Soon, she’ll graduate to ramen. 

I’ve been puttering around the house cleaning for a week, because my Husband the Baltimore Oriole stayed up there for an extra 10 days.  He was telling everyone that he would be in town for a week then Grackle and I pulled him aside and point out that it was really two weeks.  He knew the date he is returning, but didn’t realize what day it was.  “These things happen,” I said and when I got home I sent him an extra week of his essential elements.

So, I have cleaned little piles of papers that have been nesting and reproducing all over the house.  I’ve made a lot of progress and the house is starting to look great.  There’s just one little problem. 

I don’t know where I’ve put those concert tickets.