July 12, 2009 @ 09:51

So yesterday was the day that I put my not-so-well-thought-out plan into action.  A couple weeks ago I sent out a dinner party alternative invitation.  Instead of piling all into my house and eating and drinking way far more than any of us should.  Better idea?  Hiking.  Responses to the invite? 

“Are you out of your mind?” 

“Good luck with that.” 

*crickets*

And phone calls bowing out of the opportunity, filled with large bouts of snorting laughter.  Not atractive you know who I mean, I’m just saying. 

Yes, I know, it’s July in Arkansas.  Yes, I know it’s hotter than five shades of hell.  But I don’t wanna sit in my house and eat.  I wanna get out of my house and do something that’s better for me.  It’s a Great Plan!  Right? 

And it was.  Firstly, I found out that I have two friends who either A) love me enough to humor me, B) are as foolhardy as me, or C) wanted to be on the trail with me to call in the park rangers to haul my overzealous hide back to the car when I fell out because I’ve spent the last year being a slackass.  Well, two outta three ain’t bad, and we narrowly avoided that C option. 

So brave Sharon (mostly known to me as the over-sharing with Sharon fun girl) and Miss Weight Loss (of course she’d be up for it, and totally able to hike out to the trail head to tell them where my body was later) loaded up into my car around 10 am and headed out.  Oh, did I mention that the night before Trixie and I went to happy hour with Sharon and B and that I had had entirely too much too drink and then proceeded to stay up until 3:30 in the morning talking?  Uh . . .  yeah . . .  Not my brightest move.  Since my body clock is so rigidly set, sleeping in late for me is 7 a-freaking-m.  I had planned to continue re-hydrating on the 40 minute drive out to Petit Jean State Park but somehow all the gear wound up in the trunk, including the water bottles so I didn’t get a head start on that.  And the camelback got left behind.  Just like me. 

We arrived at the park about 11.  We got back in the car after our 4.5 mile hike at 3:30.  Yes, it took us four and a half hours to do four and a half miles.  Now twice we stopped in pretty spots, perched on rocks in the shade and rested. And even the trail guide says this trail takes four hours and classifies it at “moderate to hard”.  And we all know that those classifications are NOT like one-size-fits-all.  If it says it’s hard, it’s hard.  Frequently, just when we’d think we were about to die!, we’d round a corner and the trail would lead us under a ledge of rock with enormous ferns growing in the cool shade of it, or a breeze would slide through the trees.  Even so, it was only about thirty minutes in when we had all sweat right through our clothes.  But the bad part was, with about a mile and half left to go, I stopped sweating.  Not a good thing.  Miss WL kept going on to get to the car and refill our water bottles, which we had emptied at that mile and a half left to go marker.  Sharon stayed with me  so she could wave to the rangers to show them which hollow my body had rolled down into after passing out.  And we took a couple of short rests.  We met Miss WL about a hundred yards from the trail head.  Let me tell you she had a cape and a freakin’ halo, and more importantly, two full water bottles and a powerade.  I tell you it was hard to fall asleep last night with my heat fried brain being so busy composing poetry and love songs to her greatness.  Sharon made me feel far less like a slackass by admitting that it was, in fact, the hardest thing she had ever done.  And when we drove off the mountain and passed the first bank in town, be damned if the temperature on the sign didn’t say ONE HUNDRED and FIVE!  Well damn I feel like the worst friend ever now.  But I will say this, although we will wait until better weather.  The minute we got more water, I felt like million dollars.  I slept like a stone last night.  I woke up this morning feeling awesome.  And the pain of the last mile, caused by my outright stupidity, was so entirely avoidable that I’m ready to go again. 

Soon. 

I wish I’d managed to take a picture of the dozens of little racing lizards we saw all day.  They were pitch black with racing stripes from nose to tip of tail that, I swear I’m not making this up, were electric orange at the nose changing into eletric blue by their tails.  Paint job that would’ve been right at home on any muscle car.  We watched them race around the rocks on our first break on a big slab of rock looking over the almost completely dry creek.  But here are a couple of pics from the day anyway . . . 

Two women who deserve a real dinner party. 

Normally, there’s a creek rushing through these rocks. 

View from our rock, flat on my back, which I dearly needed at that moment. 

Thanks girls!  It was an amazing day! 

June 01, 2009 @ 06:25

If you are going to hang out in the pool all day with Trixie and a floating gallon jug of maitais, either remove your sunglasses every now and then or sun block the end of your nose.  ‘Cause the whole Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer thing just ain’t a great look for June . . . 

March 26, 2009 @ 20:56

Better late than never?  Last week’s stats: 

Miles:  About 30 is my guess, all around the campsite. 

Hours of other:  About 30 more?  Does walking between camps for hurricanes and jello shots count as cardio? 

Pounds lost:  3, I’ll take it. 

So my house is a wreck.  The day after I return home from my little vacation we began working on repairs.  Seems I’ve got three failed beams  and fifteen failed pillars to replace.  Oh, the joys of home ownership.  Thank god for baby brothers with skills.  Turning a five thousand dollar job into an under two thousand dollar job . . . I am grateful.  This past winter I noticed a weak spot in the living room floor.  A sagging space about five feet across.  This could not wait.  So the first two weeks of March I was working overtime, then the third week I allowed myself those three days off to go camping.  And Monday night my brother arrived with a friend and the work began.  Now I was already behind on laundry and housework because of the work schedule and vacation, so I was bit out of sorts.  Wednesday morning I was supposed to arrive at work with a baby shower cake.  Worse, a baby shower cake for somebody that I really like. 

I remembered this at 7:15 a.m. 

Wednesday morning. 

Oh, crap . . . 

So I fly into the kitchen, mix up the batter, get it in the oven.  I run Puppy out to his daycare (he’s back at his preschool for Spring break) and then come back.  The cake is done, I wrap it up and get it into the fridge to cool.  I rush to work, only 15 mintues late.  Wow.  I run home at lunch and decorate it and arrive back at the office at 1:00 p.m.  Shower is at 1:30 p.m.  Again.  Wow.  I’ve never been so grateful for a plain vanilla with pink roses request in all my life . . . 

 November 05, 2008 @ 07:11

The costumes are delivered.  Praise was recieved for them.  If I had known everything that was going to happen, I never would have taken the contract.  I lost just shy of a full month of production time because of the lumbering university’s financial system.  They did not pay the advance until 30 days after having recieved my estimate.  And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have thousands lying around in case of brocade emergencies.  Oh, how nice that would be, right fellow SCA folks?  So, by the time the university wheels ground out the advance, it was too late for me to say hey, you guys, I can’t do this.  I was not the original costume builder.  The first was forced to leave the project when her grandchild was diagnosed with cancer.  How horrific.  And I hope her family is making it through such a terrible time.  The director searched for weeks with no luck finding a person crazy enough to think they could pull off the project.  So it came to me late already.  And anybody who knows me will tell you what a sucker I am for a sob story.  I’ll give away the farm.  So, I could not in my version of good conscious leave them hanging in the wind like that.  The set design was already scrapped for the same reasons.  The company said no check, no set.  And who could blame them?  A minimalist design was chosen in the original plans stead.  Just a scaffold on the set.  That’s a lot of pressure on the costumes to carry the visual theme, no?  So what did I do?  I spent every waking moment outside of my boys’ needs and my job in front of the sewing machine for the last six weeks.  Plus a couple of vacation days.  My fingers bled.  My back ached.  My eyes blurred.  And I enlisted the aid of some family and friends that saved me.  Baby Sis and Stephie in particular.  They were delivered on Sunday.  And Thursday is the opening night.  There are things about them that I hate.  Shortcuts that could not be avoided.  A shocking level of skimping in some areas.  I hope that no serious costumer is present.  They’re fine for everyday.  Not fine enough for Sunday, that’s all I’m saying.  I’ll post more pictures if I can get them. 

Not too bad for 30 costumes in 27 days, I suppose . . . 

And I’m happy that the election is done.  And happy for the results.  I think McCain is a good man.  I personally am a mostly liberal / sometimes conservative Christian.  Even a registered Republican, if you can believe it.  But I can’t remember the last time I voted for one.  Each year it seems the gap between what I believe and what the Republicans deliver widens further and further.  I am absolutely sure that the Republican Party has abandoned all but lip service to the matters that I believe in.  Caring for people above corporations, our evironment, and the list goes on and on.  I am sorry for those within it that still struggle to do what is right.  However few they may be.  So I voted for hope.  And thank god, hope won. 

So despite my one very bitter disappointment with the banning of some very qualified families from being able to foster children in need, I’m happy.  Hope you have a happy day today, too . . . 

September 05, 2008 @ 18:48

I have committed to a project this week.  I was asked to consider taking on this project because the woman who was doing it had a major family emergency and had to bow out.  So, for the next eight weeks I will be sewing my butt off costuming a university production of The Scarlet Letter.  I’ve lost my mind, huh?  But I’m very excited.  Remind me I said that twenty-six seventeenth century American costumes from now.  K?  Thanks.