Summer Reading (and a Postcard!)

Being in a library all day means we are definitely doing the Summer Reading Challenge!

This book is actually for book club.
We're reading westerns this month.

Summer Reading Challenge Bingo!
I put mine on my office door so people can watch
my progress. Stella and I haven't finished a book yet,
but it only started on Monday, so we have time.

Bonus: We got a postcard in the mail from Anana & Haylie's
trip to the Detroit Zoo! (We got it a little while ago,
but I kept forgetting to take a photo of it.)

Awesome Con

This past weekend was Awesome Con in DC! It's a very hectic weekend, so I did my best to get as many photos of Stella as I could while also cosplaying, doing the cosplay contest, buying art, meeting celebrities, navigating the convention center, and remembering to breathe!

We found some buddies for Stella! We didn't buy any,
just stopped for a quick chat.

In the Lego building area, they had this newspaper cutout for photos.

Time to stop for a snack!
(Walter Washington Convention Center has excellent fries!)

Open play video game area with several old-school games (see the Pac-Man table on the right?)

There was a group that does memorabilia preservation work,
and they had several glass cases of interesting items,
including these Superman pieces...

...this Rainbow Brite and Care Bear, the Newsweek from when
M*A*S*H ended, and a few other things.

Back in the Lego area, there was a Brick Fair Derby
where kids could build a Lego car and race it down the track!

The tables for building the Lego vehicles

One of the MANY artists we bought art from
in Artist's Alley

General crowd shot... EVERY aisle was like this
on Saturday!

From above the exhibit hall floor, checking out the crowd

And Stella also helped watch my friend Beth's baby,
who was an absolute angel the whole time.

Somehow, I managed to not get any photos with Stella when I was in the Iron Man scale dress that I posted the teaser photo for, so here's one without Stella:

(Beth is Hawkeye, Jessica is Hulk, I'm Iron Man!)
Beth knitted the scale together, and made the bottom of her & Jessica's dresses too.

Stella in Augmented Reality

I've been playing with some augmented reality (when you view something through a mobile device's camera and it adds something that isn't there in real life) to use in a scavenger-hunt-style library instruction activity. Today, I tried it out on Stella:

When I scan the "trigger" of Stella on my desk, the app adds the "overlay" of the speech bubble!

The library activity is more like scanning printed icons for databases and printers and other library services and resources, and getting information about them and answering questions about them, but this was more fun than that.

Memorial Day Weekend

What a lovely holiday weekend! A few days off was exactly what we needed to re-energize us. We did a little bit of everything...

We did a little cleaning
(the stop motion gif is an idea I stole directly
from Haylie and Anana!)

We did a little sewing
(Stella made friends with my narwhal pincushion!)

We went to a friend's birthday party and ate a little potato salad
(She wanted a "theme" of potato salad: You're seeing SEVEN different
types of potato salad, plus a pork roast and bacon beans)

We did a little gaming
(My husband won... I haven't beaten him at this game (Pandemic: Contagion) yet!)

We did a little baking...

...and a little eating!
(Those are puff pastry pinwheels that should have been more loosely rolled,
because they didn't have room to expand and got really dense. Yummy though!)

We did a little rain-watching
(Tropical Storm (or Depression, I've lost track) Bonnie
came to visit for Memorial Day)

And we did a little cosplay touch-up
(you'll see what this thing is for in a few days!)

And with that, our three-day weekend is over. But we only have a three-day work week as well, because we're taking Friday off for Awesomecon in DC (which is also three days)!

Food Truck Rodeo at Farmer's Market

I think it is just so neat that there is a Farmer's Market just up the road from where I work! Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to get into the driveway from our direction, so I don't go as often as I should. But yesterday they had a food truck rodeo, and my favorite local food truck was there. Plus, we were staying after work for book club anyway, so it was a nice little break to head over for dinner first. (Also, the rain finally stopped, so it was bright and sunny!)

Stella relaxes on the grass with our food: "Blue Ribbon Fries" (a spiralized, fried
blue potato with queso fresco, a salsa-type sauce, and cheese sauce drizzled on it)
and, the reason they're my favorite food truck, two beef empanadas!

Live music playing on the stage in the middle of the
traffic circle where all the food trucks parked

Stella on the little table next to the truck (Sofrito) while we wait for our food

Tidewater Comicon!

Not only is Tidewater Comicon the beginning of my comicon season, but it's my favorite, because it's at home. I know exactly where I'm going, where to park (and that it's free to park), where to eat... so easy. Also, I've worked with the guy who runs it, and he is very good at what he does, and all around a nice guy, so I like supporting the show.

Our friends Beth and Chris bought Munchkin: Marvel edition
on Saturday at the show, so we played it that night.
I accidentally helped Chris win the first game (oops!)
but then I won the second one. Cool!

Line of cosplayers waiting to see the judges for the second day of the cosplay contest
(first day was superheroes + judges' favorites; second day was non-comic-book).

What a crowd!

A female Deadpool with a functioning
taco truck!

Stella watches me and my friend Nicole
give a panel on Fan Fiction.

Then she joined us on the panel!

Checking out some of the many wares... the exhibit hall was HUGE! It grows every year.

A glimpse of a con to come... Hmm...

[I will add a photo of Stella with me in my Zoe Hange cosplay when I get it off the phone later...]

Library, and Finishing Touches

Last night, one of my coworkers held a program I wanted to attend in our library, so I stuck around after work. That meant I had some spare time to wander the library with Stella and show her a few highlights!

Our glass art "fireplace." It's not actually warm. And it's not Chihuly... It's a local artist
inspired by Chihuly.

The very beginning of what we call "Main Street."
The wall on the left is the public library's adult fiction,
and it stretches the entire length of the building
(which, according to reports when we opened a few years ago,
is a football field).

Then, we had this morning off, so we frantically worked on some of the finishing touches to my cosplay for this weekend, which PerfectlyBohemian correctly identified as being from Attack on Titan!

Fabric glue to fold the edges of the patches under,
and binder clips to hold the edges in place until it dries.
I would have sewn them, but I didn't plan ahead,
and sewing would have gone over some of the drawing.

And the BIG patch for the back of the jacket.

This will be one action-packed weekend! Stella is in for some treats.