Saturday, September 20, 2014

Yarrr!

Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs! It be (the day after) Talk Like a Pirate Day, and we be wearing the appropriate vestments!




Monday, September 8, 2014

Happy birthday to me!

Forgot to post this last week... I wore the birthday hat at work for my birthday! Damson tried to blend into the hat.

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Sunday, August 24, 2014

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Yes, we did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! For the unaware and for posterity, this is what I'm talking about: someone who does the challenge nominates you (and a couple other people). Then, you have the choice to either donate $10 to ALS (amyotropic lateral sclerosis) research and dump a bucket of ice water over your head, or donate more (I've heard varying rules, from $25 to $100 or more).

My husband, whose name is also Alex, was nominated by his friend. Since we have the same name, I decided to do it with him. You can see that here if you like.

Damson wanted to join in the fun/donations, so I made an LV-friendly version of the ice bucket challenge. His video is below:


Disclaimer: No LVs were harmed in the making of this video! (Even though the ice cubes are like, half his height.) I didn't know how Damson would react to being totally soaked through, so I thought this water-less ice bucket challenge was a more appropriate way for him to show his support.

My mother-in-law actually matched the donations from me and my husband, so I'm calling that a donation from each of my LVs. (Yes, Piper did the LV-friendly version too!)

And here's a photo of me with Damson after I did mine:


Glimpses of Things to Come

Two little things this time...

First, about a week ago, Husband had his white coat ceremony at medical school. The first-year medical students have their white coats (symbols of doctor-hood) bestowed upon them, take the Hippocratic Oath, etc. We did a two-LVs-in-one photo because a lot of people were walking by and he gets embarrassed when I pull out LVs and start taking photos...


Also, I'm not going to explain this one, just leave it here as a portent of things to come...


Thursday, August 14, 2014

Happy Birthday to the Library!

Today was the big birthday party for our library, because we opened one year ago!

We had little buttons for the staff (and any LVs who happen
to be visiting with staff...)

We had little feet on the floor around the library for patrons to follow,
and they lead to different stations around the building on the "Trivia Trail."
Each station is marked with a festive balloon, and has a photo of an event
from the past year, and information about that area of the library!

Banners to celebrate!

And no birthday party is complete without a birthday cake!
Our library is a joint-use library, thus we are the JUL ("jewel").

Friday, August 1, 2014

DCI

After we visited Beth and came home for a day, we left again to go see two DCI (Drum Corps International) shows: one in Charlotte NC, one in Salem VA.

Damson enjoying the Blue Devils show, "Fellini-esque" (they're in first for the season so far)

Chilling by the rooftop pool in Charlotte

The view from the rooftop pool

The view off the side of the roof at the hotel

Ahh, poolside relaxation
 
A tiny glimpse of the mountains, driving from Charlotte to Salem

Carolina Crown (my personal favorite corps and 4th in the season so far)
does an encore presentation at the Salem show while judges calculate scores
If you've never been to a DCI show, you should check it out sometime. There's just nothing like having your face blown off on the 50-yard-line by a spectacular horn line, and DCI has the most spectacular of them all. Plus, supporting the arts is always a good thing.

Cosplay

Have I mentioned that I'm going to NYCC in October and that we're cosplaying as Game of Thrones characters?!? Well, this past weekend, Damson and I took a trip up to Fairfax to visit my friend Beth, who is the creative genius behind the costumes, so she could start making my Margaery Tyrell dress!

Since the fabric for the top was specially ordered (and dyed at home)
we made a practice top out of plain white cotton. Damson and Piper observe.

Beautiful beautiful pattern on the top piece!

All the pieces are cut for the top.
Around this time, I stopped taking LV photos and started helping Beth, so we skip to...

The mostly finished product!
We still have a few little fixes to work on, but this is it!

For reference, the original dress we're trying to match looks like this:


Hooray for Beth! Damson and I learned a lot... like how to lengthen a skirt from a pattern, how to iron velvet (hint: extremely carefully), and to always check to make sure the snap pieces match up before sewing them on.

We also snuggled with the kitties during our short breaks:

Tyrion gives Damson a kiss


Monday, July 21, 2014

Olive Bread

For my bachelorette party, my bridesmaid, her husband, and my bridesman went all out making food from the Game of Thrones cookbook and the accompanying website. One of the favorites was the olive bread. I made a batch to take to a friend's house for dinner!



Yummy!

We also made churro bites... angel food cake rolled in cinnamon sugar!

Yesterday was the boss's birthday, so I threw this little thing together for her (it's just felt on the back, so it can easily be adapted to be a magnet, patch, Christmas ornament, whatever).


Sunday, July 13, 2014

Ramona Flowers Purse

As you learned from seeing my welding goggles, I'm going to be Ramona Flowers for Halloween (after Damson goes home, sadface) which means I need a subspace purse... which means one of two options: spend over $100 or make one. So I made one. It's obviously not the same quality as one I could buy, but it works for a Halloween costume. Damson helped!


Assembling our materials

And skip straight to the finished product!
So far, we've managed to get the goggles, pink shorts, purple leggings, black boots, black jacket, and now the purse! All that's left is the hoodie, nail polish, and cutting/dying my hair (which will happen the week of Halloween).

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Welding Goggles

I have my welding goggles for my Halloween costume!


I'm going to be Ramona Flowers... so it'll look better with the blue hair. But they're legit welding goggles, so if I need to do any welding anytime soon, I'm so ready.

Monday, June 23, 2014

AMH

I work in a joint-use library, so we're part community college, part public. I went to a meeting at another public branch last week, and I got to see their AMH! We have one too (they put one in our brand-new building to see if they liked it before they started adding it to the other branches). AMH stands for Automated Materials Handling, and it's the system that automatically checks in your books when you put them in the book drop, and sorts them based on where they need to go next. It's pretty cool to watch, and theirs is a little fancier than ours.


Damson wanted to ride on the conveyor belt, but that would have been extremely dangerous for him, so we had to watch from the side.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Damson and the Dumplings

This week's challenge is to post a photo of our LVs participating in our hobbies! Since I'm a cooking fiend (go check out my food blog, Look I Made Dinner!) I let Damson help us make Chinese dumplings last night with my new bamboo steamer!


Here's a picture of the finished product, too!





Monday, June 9, 2014

Cassy's Wedding!

My friend Cassy got married this past weekend! It was beautiful and lovely, and I told her that of course I was bringing my LVs with me, and she was very excited about that. Damson even matched the purple-and-orange color scheme!

Pretty banner out in front of the library where the ceremony was held

Handley Regional Library in Winchester, VA... beautiful!

Bookish centerpieces!

Orange-flavored cake! YUM!

My LVs congratulate the bride

Kiss from the bride!
It was lovely, and great fun, and Damson seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Around Home

Damson and I spent the majority of last weekend cleaning the apartment, and he wanted to show off some of our hard work. Also a little bit of fun...

Can you find Damson among the knick-knacks? (Yes, a lot of our photo frames
are empty or still have the models in them... a few of them were wedding gifts
and I haven't ordered prints of the wedding photos yet.)

A shelf that has been plaguing me is now neat and orderly!
(If you're wondering about that thing on top, it's a cassette tape box
that my dad hand-lettered, probably before I was born.
It's upside-down because I can't make it balance on the handle.)

Gimli says we can't fold laundry just now. He's too busy shedding all over the black shirts.

After we rearranged where all the clothes go, we needed Post-It notes to
remind us where we put everything!

Crafting break! Damson is handy with a cross-stitching needle!

Another break, this time for WoW.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Towel Day

Happy belated Towel Day! Damson helped me clean the apartment all Memorial Day weekend, so for Towel Day, I let him help me dust with a washcloth... Still a pretty big "towel" for such a little Little Visitor!


I've been under the weather (kind of literally... pollen and storms causing weird air pressure have been ganging up on me to cause a general icky feeling) but I'm starting to feel better, so we can hopefully go back to having photographable fun soon!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Duck!

I am super excited to announce that we got to go see the duck!!! Florentijn Hofman created Rubber Duck to bring people together and spread joy, and it travels the world to do exactly that... and this week, it's in Norfolk at the Chrysler Museum of Art!!!


And it was a beautiful day to go see the duck, too. It was our last chance, because we're going out of town this holiday weekend and the duck is leaving on Monday.


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Damson in Toronto

What an exhausting weekend! We had flight delays (first the kind where they cancel your flight before you're even headed to the airport, then the kind where you sit boarded at the gate and wait for someone to fix part of the airplane), excessive walking (we were originally sent away from the Rogers Centre for my purse being too big), etc. etc. BUT we're home now, and we had a bunch of fun in Toronto!
At the concert in the Rogers Centre... pretty sure that's about 10,000 people behind him!

Avicii is on!

Pretty fountain

Travel buddies!

Damson and Piper check out some public art

Lake Ontario!

The CN Tower

More public art for Piper & Damson

The CN Tower from further away

We visited Toronto's Chinatown...

...and tried spicy Dan Dan Noodles!

My travel buddy, Christopher, makes faces with Damson
while we wait for our planes to arrive at the Toronto airport

#vacaselfie!

So we're back, safe and sound, and have lots more adventures on the way! If it seems like we didn't do much in Toronto, we were only there two days (after an initial 17-hour delay because of storms keeping us from leaving Norfolk) over a holiday weekend (Monday was Victoria Day) so a lot of things were closed. And my legs beg to differ... Damson isn't feeling it because he had me to carry him around in my purse, but I had to walk everywhere, and my legs are sore!