I'm FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I am always a busy person. I am an only child and I think that being an only child has been fantastic! People say, oh weren't you bored or lonely as a child? No! I could always come up with something to do, this led to several robust hobbies that I have kept on into my adulthood, like crafting, cooking, gardening, video games, reading, costuming, theater, ect.....

Well this past month I took being busy to a new and unholy level. But I am FINALLY finished with my crazy commitments and I am FREEEEEE! Don't get me wrong, I am still quite busy, trying to schedule anything on a weekend for the next 4 months is a joke (I do have some free days coming up in August). But that is my normal state, rather than the work all say, stay late, then go home and work until I drop from exhaustion! I normally don't have this many CRAZY huge things all lumped at once, here is what I have been up to:

March 25th was our "site visit" at work. I work in a Bio lab at UCSD and every 5 years the federal government (NIH) comes to inspect us to see if we deserve more money for the next 5 years. So needless to say this is a HUGE deal for my work, we have to have everything ready and perfect.

Then March 30th was our Spring Line Up! Craft Show. This was a blast! I can't believe how many people came! I was on the PR committee so I am glad to see all our hard work getting the word out paid off! The only downside is right when we opened the doors it was so crowded people could hardly shop!!! If you stopped to buy something everyone behind you bumped into you!!! Well we are working on that for next time! Check out my pictures! I also hate to say I am glad it is over! I enjoyed doing it, but it was also hard because I was simultaneously trying to start up my business so I had to also do things like design and order business cards, get my tax license, try to make a website, ect.......... I also had never done PR before so I had no idea what that would be like! Then I made a 100 pairs of earrings to give away in the swag bag, and I had to make stuff to sell too! So it was pretty crazy, but it was worth it. Also I bet it will get easier with each show I do!
Then on April 5th I had to cook a medieval feast for 80+ people!!! The UCSD medieval club (otherwise known as the College of St. Artemas in the SCA) was having it's 20th anniversary extravaganza so I wanted to do an extra-special feast this year! I decided that the main course would be a beef Tri-Tip roast, it came out SO GOOD! The beef melted in your mouth! We had two ziploc bags of meat leftover which they decided to auction off and they went for $40 each! I cannot believe we made $80 auctioning off leftovers!!! A lot of people told me it was the best feast that they ever went to so I guess I am pretty proud of myself! We did not quote sell out, we were selling 80 seats and we were about 15 short so that means we had about 65 people. Well I cooked 120lbs of meat! And there was not very much leftover! So that means on average people ate 2lbs of meat each PLUS side dishes. We did not have many side dishes left either! It was crazy! Here, check out our crazy menu!

St. Artemas 20^th Anniversary

Feast Extravaganza!

~Course One~

St. Artemas Veggie Platter

Featuring green veggies and special yellow St. Artemas carrots!

Tzatziki Dip

A refreshing yogurt based dip with cucumber and dill

~Course Two~

Capon Rosted

A roasted chicken where lemon and rosemary infused butter is rubbed

under the skin with moist and delicious results

Fenkel in Soppes

Fennel and onions are sautéed in olive oil and seasoning and then turned

into a very light and tasty soup

Bread & Butter

A classic staple! The butter is flavored with honey, fresh parsley, and basil

~Course Three~

Malaches of Pork

With eggs, pine nuts, currants, ground pork, and seasoning this medieval

quiche is basically sausage pie which is extremely scrumptious

Salat

A salad of mixed greens, red onions, glazed walnuts, gorgonzola, and

a balsamic vinaigrette dressing

Couscous

A grain dish that is actually made of very small pasta spheres, added to

this is dried apricots, almonds, and olive oil for a pleasantly sweet flavor

~Course Four~

A Roste

Beef Tri-tip is roasted to perfection for a melt in your mouth consistency

and covered in an exotic array of sweet and savory spices

Garlec

Garlic cloves boiled with a rich array of spices

Hummus

A dip made of mashed chickpeas, garlic, tahini, and pine nuts

Pita

A slightly leaved wheat flat bread with a subtle onion flavor

~Course Five~

Fyne Cakes

These cute little cakes are shaped like mini castles and taste similar to modern

shortbread with cinnamon

Glazed Nuts

A delightful mix of sweet spiced pecans and walnuts

AWESOME Swag for "Spring Line Up"

Ninjas, Robots, and Earrings, OH MY!

Look what fabulous swag we have to give away at the "Spring Line Up!"

If you want to see more great pictures check out my Picasa Album!


My kitchen has literally been overrun with swag!

So for my part in the great swag giveaway I decided to make earrings! We are giving away 100 swag bags to the first 100 people at the Spring Line Up! Well that sounded fine and good, but I had no idea how much work making 100 earrings would be! 100 pairs of earrings actually means you need to make 200 individual earrings! (duh) But man are my hands tired!
I think they came out pretty cute, so it was worth it!
I wanted to show off some of the other great goodies we recieved! These are some of the plushies and cards from www.sweetandsourgoodies.com I am just amazed at all of the cool things she is giving away for FREE in our swag bags! I cannot imagine the time she must have put into these!

She just has such a neat variety of stuff, there are tiny ninjas, medium ninjas, and huge ninjas for our raffle (not pictured). My personal favorite is the geisha! there are also neat cards and pin cushions!

These SUPER cute cards from www.heartsandlaserbeams.com They are so funky, I love it!

BEADS!!!! The pack on your left is a "build-a-bracelet" kit from www.p-starr.com (what a cute idea, now people can participate in the DIY fun!) The pack on your right is a huge bag of beads from www.southsunproducts.com a local bead shop here in San Diego

These elegant cards are from www.invitapaperstudio.com I love the sift colors, it makes them so classy!
Fun stickers!!! From sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com www.bellepeppercouture.com www.velvetklaw.com and www.iwishihadapenguinfriend.com
I love the UGLY=CUTE movement, and I think these darling little monsters qualify! They are from www.bognogginz.com
Everyone loves buttons!!! From www.madewithluv.com www.longbeachcraftmafia.com and www.poseurink.com
The comb is from the fabulous stylists at www.hairdrezzersonfire.com and the cute candy bracelet is from www.jewelrybyallison.com
These are SO CLEVER! It looks like a little matchbook, but it is actually a cute little notepad! They are from shindigshirley.etsy.com
These cards are so witty and clever! They are from www.iwishihadapenguinfriend.com
What a funky and fresh card! It is made by staceywinters.etsy.com
I am sad that you cannot see these earrings more clearly, I tried to take a clear picture but they are wrapped in parchment paper and I did not want to open them! They are from asilomarworks.etsy.com and I cannot believe sh made so many, I love them!
This cute little magnet is from alteredprovisions.com and this yummy smelling soap from sparkledarkko.etsy.com is fantastic!
Well www.pixelknit.com makes these coffee cozies to go on your coffee cup, but quite frankly I think they make excellent arm warmers too!
These are cute little stitch markers from itscute.etsy.com
Great coupons from www.theweeset.com and sewhut.com
These are lip balms from naiad.etsy.com and they come in such neat unusual flavors! each one also comes with a cute little button!
Ohhhh, I am soooo jealous I don't get a swag bag! I'll have to see if my friends get any, maybe I can do some trades, heheheheehehe.

Spring is here!!!

Well in the past 2 weeks my garden has exploded in floral activity! The whole San Diego county has it seems like! As I drive down the freeways every hill is covered in neon yellow, purple, and orange! It is very exciting because most of the year our hillsides are brown because it is so hot and dry!

I bought the above asiatic lily 2 years ago and I had no idea of was the type of plant that goes dormant each year (I don't have any of those!). So when it withered up I thought I had killed it!!!!! I put the pot around the side of my house and I figured when I had time I would plant something new in the pot! Well it is a good thing I was so busy last year that I never got around to doing that!! Imagine my surprise when I went around to the side of my house last spring to get something and there was a whole huge plant again!! I was so amazed!!! My parents of course late looked at me like I was stupid, "of course Amy, those go dormant." Well it looks like he is sprouting up again for this year!!! It is very exciting because even now I know he goes dormant I am still always a little worried I killed him!
Yayy! Purple is my favorite color!

My geraniums have grown so much this month they are as tall as my 6ft high fence, that's craziness!! I had no idea they were such a fast growing plant, it keeps sending little seedlings out into my lawn. I ripped some out when we put the pond it, I threw it in a trash can for 3 days, then I changed my mind and planted it in a pot and it is doing great! How many plants can do that? I still have some in a trash can and it keeps blooming! it has no dirt, I am not watering it, and yet it is blooming!

Just got these! So pretty!
These are Azaleas, they are becoming one of my favorite new plants!
Some daisies I dug up from my parents garden (with their permission), they were dormant, so I was not sure what color I was going to get! The bloomed yellow, I have one more plant I am waiting on. It is good, since purple and magenta are my favorite colors I tend to buy too many purple/magents plants so I am happy for some variation!

Calafia/Gyldenholt Friendship Tourney

Well I had a fun day Saturday! One of my many hobbies is the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) which is a medieval and renaissance reenactment club. It is a lot like a Renaissance Faire, except we are a non-profit organization so we do it just for fun and education. Like people seem to think in Medieval Europe that the King sat around eating giant turkey legs,.... well no, turkeys are from AMERICA. That's why we eat them at THANKSGIVING! We are 100% participant driven, at a Faire they put on a show for you, for example they might sword-fight. Well in the SCA if you are interested in sword fighting, you pick up a wooden sword and you learn how!

I was merchanting! Here is my cute little booth:

My other pop-up was missing poles so I just had the one, but we had a nice little tree so it was ok. It was a good practice run, I have my big Spring Line Up show on March 30th and I have to make all my jewelry fit onto one table so I was able to test that out here!
I think my new PVC earring rack is much better on the table, at the Crafty Debs I had in on the floor and it looked awkward for people to have to squat!

The event was at Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center, CA. This was fun because they have a cute little shop, I bought English Toffee (YUM!!!) and a cute new tea strainer (I seem to have quite the tea strainer collection these days).

Crafty Debutantes was FUN!

Well we had our first San Diego North Park Craft Mafia show of the year! It was the "Crafty Debutantes!" craft show! It was named thus because we were "presenting" our new members (including me!) to society! We all dressed up for the event and our founding Mafia members presented us all with tiaras and the most beautiful corsages!!! It was silly but very fun!!! It was a small show, very casual, but it was a good trial run as our group gets ready to host the Spring Line Up on March 30th which is going to be a HUGE craft show, we have invited 50+ vendors, we are having some really great local bands play, we will have a fashion show, we are going to serve beer & wine, and the Other Side Coffee House is going to serve coffee and tasty treats and sandwiches! I am so excited, but I have a lot to do first!!!

Kick your butt Flu

Hello! You all may be wondering what the heck happened to me because I have not posted anything lately, I had a really terrible flu or cold or something. It was just awful! My throat hurt so much I couldn't talk, I couldn't eat solid food, I was going through 2 Kleenex boxes a day, which means I had no skin left on my nose. My lymph nodes in my armpits were even swollen so it hurt to have my arms at my sides. I could go on, but you really don't want to hear about this... Normally I would think if I was not going to work, I would have even more time to blog, but I did not even feel up to that!

But the good news after 2 weeks of communing with my Hello Kitty humidifier I am doing much better! So now I feel up to writing about all the quirky things I notice about the world...

My new sewing machine!!!

Well I went to an estate sale yesterday because I heard they had 2 sergers for sale and I have been thinking about getting one for awhile... They also advertised great vintage fabrics and lots of notions so that all sounded good. They also said they had one sewing machine for sale which I did not even give a second thought to because I already have a sewing machine that I LOVE... Well I got there took one look at the instructions on how to thread the serger and I was already lost! I decided I am probably better off waiting and saving up money to someday get one that automatically threads. So I spent some time digging through the farbic and found some real wild pieces. Someone else was asking about the sewing machine and the seller said oh it's a Bernina. Well then my ears perked up so I asked, Really?! What model is it? They said, oh it's the 930, we're asking $350 for it. I was so excited, because that is the EXACT model I was originally looking for originally!

2 years ago my sewing machine broke (it was a Singer and while everyone I know is like oh, I have heard of them, they are good right? Well no, they are pretty awful, I only had mine for 2 years and this was the 2nd time it broke!). So I went to my backup (it's a 30-year old Kenmore) and it broke too! I decided it was finally time to fork over real money and get a real machine. My friend had a Bernina 1030 which I really really loved, she said that the 930 was the same but slightly better. So I called around to all my local shops looking for one, then I went looking on eBay. They go for about $800 on eBay. I noticed they had a 1630 on eBay for $750 "but it now" price. The 1630 is 'fancier' then the 930, it has a computer and you can program it to do simple embroidery stitches! The 2 things the 930 has going for it is that it is more durable (it has all metal parts) and it sews just slightly faster. In the end I decided to go for the fancy bells and whistles of the 1630 (which I admit I have hardly used!!!). I have been 100% satisfied with my 1630, but when I saw the 930 at this sale for half the price it should be (and then they went down to $300) I knew I had to have it! It still had the original carrying case with accessories box, 16 presser feet, 28 bobbins, the knee lift, instruction manuals, and the clip on table thingie!
Well the only disappointing thing is that while they said it definitely still worked and they had just used it to sew a pillow last week it is unfortunately partially broken. It does sew in a straight line, so yes you could make a pillow and think it worked, but the zig-zag stitch does not work. Also the knob to select other fancier stitches is broken, so right now sewing is a straight line is the ONLY thing it can do. Well as soon as I have some money saved up I guess I will bring it into the rapir shop and see how much fixing it will set me back!