26 April 2010

Yep, I’m cheating! I figure since I’m so far behind, I’ve already broken a few of my own rules, why not one more? So, on the 26th of April, I did my Monday stuff—laundry, paperwork, banking, etc.; I had a wonderful lunch date with my friend Kevin; and I totally forgot to take a photo.

In lieu of a photo actually taken on this day, or a post with no photo at all, I submit for the enjoyment of our readers, a photo I took on Sunday of our beautiful Queen Anne Boleyn of Scarborough Renaissance Festival.  I revel in this opportunity to share not only the lovely lady Shannon, the actress portraying our queen, and her new gown which I am very proud to have made, but also the brand new and improved Scarborough website.

~MB

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25 April 2010

Sometimes I have to struggle not to borrow from Frank L. Baum and use the phrase, “Glenda, the Good.” For, this lovely lady is one of the sweetest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. We became friends well over a decade ago, through our mutual love of both comic books and faire. Glenda and her husband David were part of our Order of the Silver Ribbon in years gone by. Their son collected comics and I believe that Glenda even worked at a local comic store for a while … I’m not sure why she didn’t work for me! But, at any rate, our friendship has continued and now both David and Glenda are part of the Scarborough performing company. When I first got wind of the fact that Glenda might want a new dress, I jumped right into the deep end and told David I wanted to be the one to make it! It was a secret for a while … meant to be a surprise to her, while he paid me in installments. But, by the time it was time for measurements, the cat was out of the bag and she came prepared with pictures of dresses she loved. We picked the best and most do-able elements of each, and designed a dress that would make her happy. Originally meant to be blue … last minute “intell” about what other women would be wearing this year, caused her to change her choice to copper, and I don’t think she ever looked back! It was a good choice, and I am very proud of how she looks in what I created.

I just realized … there are two, real-live “Glenda, the Good”s in my life, and I took pictures of both of them this week! Both beautiful, talented, wonderful women that I am proud to call friend.

~MB

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24 April 2010

“The sun is shining … the birds are singing …”

In our chosen family, we have a bit of an inside joke about these words and the sentiments of a morning person on a beautiful spring day … not always sentiments shared by the non-morning people among us. As I awoke this morning, earlier than my alarm would have insisted, and this was the sight that greeted me, I could not help but think about our Lisa and our Ginger and that wonderful anecdote about their early friendship. I hope reading this will make them both smile.

The sight out my window was so bright and blue and green … clean and crisp … perfectly promising the prettiest faire day ever … I just had to take a photo. Good thing, too! The day was busy enough I never had another chance. And, as faire day gave way to Jewelry Trunk Show, and there was a party to prepare for … cheese to cube, tables to set up … the camera got even further from my mind. As always, our dear Allyson of Beading Dreams made a wondrous showing of her beautiful handcrafted jewelry, and the annual wine and cheese party was a hit.  All in all, a practically perfect day.

~MB

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23 April 2010

One of the lovely side effects of having friends with school-aged children, is that once in a while you get a delightful packet in the mail such as the one I received recently from Nicole’s son Tristan. Tristan is her third child, and although I don’t really know him as well as I once knew her other two kids, he is special to me since he was born while they lived here in North Texas, and I was fortunate enough to hold him before he was even two days old. He is now eight years old, and his class at school has read Flat Stanley.

In a large manilla envelope, therefore, arrived Tristan’s version of Flat Stanley, with his paraphrased telling of the story inside a little booklet … AND … a Flat Tristan!  It seems the students in his class, all made “flat” versions of themselves to send to friends or family in the mail.  My job, then, was to take my Flat Tristan on some sort of an adventure that was unique to where I live, and provide photographic evidence.   In the final throws of preparations for Scarborough, I’m afraid he had to wait for me to make time for him.  But, in those weeks of looking at him on my desk, I formulated a plan … and when the bluebonnets bloomed, I was ready!

I wish I could have visited the Alamo, or gone to a rodeo or something even more “Texas-flavoured,” but what I came up with was bluebonnets.  And, I decided somewhere along the line to combine the Texas-thing, with the dog-thing.  Tristan loves our dogs (‘Tia is offspring of Charlie and Charlotte, their two border collies) as some of our readers may remember from this Daily KRuMB entry.  So, I thought I’d get them in on the act.  We took a walk to the nearest patch of bluebonnets and took a bunch of photos.  Unfortunately, the dogs didn’t cooperate as well as Flat Tristan did.  There were so many distractions!  This is the best photo of the batch.  I printed copies of a few others … I hope they make the 3-dimensional Tristan smile.

Outside of that … today was Friday … off to another weekend of faire.

~MB

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22 April 2010
Happy Birthday, Glenda!

I had never really realized until looking at these photos, just how much it always looks like Christmastime at Edelweiss German Restaurant!

Today was Glenda’s birthday, and in what seems to be a tradition of sorts, we happily joined her and Terrill and a bunch of other friends at one of the metroplex’s most fun dining establishments. We started by meeting at the Royal Falcon, a great little pub right next door, and after a round of drinks, we headed off for our schnitzel and sauerkraut, and some excellent accordian music. It was a lovely respite from the work-a-day week.

~MB

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21 April 2010

According to my calendar, the 21st of April was a very busy day!  By now, six weeks or so later, I am so worn out from the pace we keep during faire season that I can barely even imagine a day like this one!  But, it seems I took Kyle to work, got the oil changed in my truck, ran some errands, got a long-overdue massage, and met Kyle and the Pub Guys at a movie theatre in Bedford for an early evening showing of the film Kick Ass.  While I was at the little oil change place, I reorganized my purse and took this photo. These are not the type of belts I would normally be taking pictures of, but I guess on this day, it amused me to do so.

~MB

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20 April 2010

Our beloved Giesens are gone, now … on their way home to Milwaukee.  The Mouse Suite is empty and the house is quiet … and the camera went unused today.

~MB

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19 April 2010

My birthday celebration continued into the week … after all, Larry and Denise came just for the occasion, right? <wink>

I know … they also have a daughter who lives here, but … well … I can pretend!

We all went to the Yucatan Taco Stand for lunch, and to Italianni’s for dinner.  I could have sworn there were pictures, but alas, I cannot find them.

~MB

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18 April 2010

I turned 48 today. That is, I turned 48 on April 18th …

I’m not sure what it says about my aging process that I am actually posting this entry to The Daily KRuMB almost two months late. Why did my birthday seem to somehow trigger laziness, forgetfulness, or simply a change in my priorities?

In my defense, I have been busy, fulfilling orders, doing much-overdue projects in the house, and basically … having a life. But, The Daily KRuMB is a hugely important part of my life, and it deserves better of me than this.

I hope that this delinquent phase I’m caught in right now, won’t last, and won’t ever rear its ugly head again. I am disappointed in myself in ways few people could ever understand or fully appreciate. Over the next two weeks, our dear readers will see me get caught up and begin my summer adventures with a clean slate and the promise to post daily. In the mean time, there will be short posts, and missing photos … there will be days when I can’t remember why I took a certain photo, or why I didn’t! But, bear with me … please?

So, way back on April 18th, I had a wonderful birthday at Scarborough Renaissance Festival! I started the day with one too many bloody marys, and there are a couple of very funny anecdotes about the day that should best be told in person! The one and only photo I managed to take all day is this one of a mannequin at the Pendragon Costumes shoppe—a customer ordered this exact outfit in a different size, and I needed the photo reference for Nicole to be able to fulfill the order. It was a fairly busy day at faire … beautiful weather (for those of us who like rain)  and happy people. Celebrating a birthday on a faire day is a fabulous thing!

~MB

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3 June 2010
We are 8 days away from the beginning of the biggest sporting spectacle in the world. We are 8 days away from a fever that will grip nation after nation, man after man, city after city throughout this incredible world of ours. And, this year, even the U.S. is getting into the swing of things a little bit. ESPN has promised that the US v England game on 12 June will be the most heavily advertised single sporting event in the history of television advertising. I have walked into bars and become engaged in soccer talk with those who don’t know their Pele from their Didier or their centreback from their striker. Yet, somehow, that fever has struck and they are excited about something that is foreign to them. Perhaps it’s because ESPN has done an excellent job at promoting this year’s event. Perhaps it’s because David Beckham and Posh moved to Los Angeles with an media circus. Perhaps it’s because the U.S. Men’s National Team is ranked 14th in the world and stand every chance of escaping not only the group stages but the first knock out games, too. Or, perhaps, to the shame and detriment of far too many of my sports-minded friends, this game is finally finding a foothold stateside. I seriously hope it’s that latter point. I have hoped that for the better part of 4 decades.

This is a close-up of the USMNT strip from the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I will wear it proudly when our USMNT take on the Three Lions of England.
Up the US!
Cheers.

~KR (Written on 4 June 2010)

Listening to:
Janie’s Got a Gun by Aerosmith
from Pump

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

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