Bagpiper Birthday

My mother-in-law hired a local bagpiper to come play for her father's birthday over the weekend as a nice surprise. I didn't get a very good photo of Stella with him:

But we wanted to share anyway.

Donuts? Duck!

Duck Donuts may not have originated in Virginia Beach, but we do have TWO of them! Over the weekend, we took Stella there.

You can sit and watch them making the donuts fresh.
They only make ring donuts, hot and fresh, and you can
choose from several icings, toppings, and drizzles.

Originally from Outer Banks NC

Then, later in the day, we made some poke! If you aren't familiar, it's raw tuna marinated in onion, soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, garlic, and some other stuff, then you serve it on top of rice with avocado (or any of a number of other things, that's just what we had around). It's a great meal for a rainy summer day.

Independence Day

Stella and I had a fairly quiet Independence Day (in the sense that not being busy is "quiet"... we heard a lot of fireworks so it was not that kind of quiet). It was a mix of being home after driving across the US, wanting to get some home organizing/cleaning done, and preparing for my husband to start clerkships today (the unpaid intern part of med school). Plus, it was rainy off and on all weekend.

This was the rain we were faced with, leaving work on Friday!

We made a mad dash for it (Stella had the benefit of hiding in

my purse, with a plastic bag around the whole thing, while I got

more drenched than I would have if I had just stepped into the

shower in my clothes!) and of course, the rain cleared up after

we got in the car and made it about a mile up the road!

It was fun though. I'm a firm believer in running through a good

downpour about once a year.

Not knowing what would be open for lunch on the 4th, we decided a safe bet
was our favorite sushi place, since they're open pretty much all the time.

Fireworks! (I promise Stella is in the photo,
it was just really dark.) We go to my in-laws' house
for fireworks, since there's a country club across
the water that does them every year, and that means
we don't have to worry about parking or crowds.

Saturday on the Couch

Stella is nursing me back to health from a sore throat / stuffy head sort of thing I think I might have picked up in DC, so we spent today on the couch for the most part.

We snuggled with Gimli

We worked on my fashion drawing practice project
(I want to be better at drawing fashion, so I can
better design my own cosplay, so I'm drawing one
outfit inspired by each Pokemon. There are 720 Pokemon
so far, and that's not counting the upcoming Sun/Moon!)
I call the project "Gotta Sketch Em All"!

It was the semifinals of the Europe Hearthstone Spring Championships today,
so we watched that on Twitch (and played some Hearthstone ourselves, too).

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)!

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.

Cosplay Preparations

After a whirlwind of library conferences, Stella and I are now preparing for a whirlwind of comic conventions! We have been largely unsuccessful in finishing most of my cosplay ideas, but we have at least one ready for this weekend. For logistics reasons, I need to use an older one for the other day of this con... You'll see why later...

This is the hand-drawn patch (or... going-to-be-patch-piece-of-fabric)
that we made for the back of my jacket...
I'm going to be Zoe Hange from Attack on Titan.

Crafting and Cupcakes

We are going over to a friend's house for Game of Thrones tonight, and I volunteered
to bring dessert again, so we made angel food cupcakes! Some of them aren't very pretty...

But this one is almost as cute as Stella!

We also had to take advantage of the break in the
recently rainy weather to do some spray-painting
for cosplay... But I wanted Stella to stay away for
her own safety, so she watched from inside.

Cosplay Crafting

If cosplay has taught me one thing about myself, it's that I prefer to work under pressure. It's two weeks until Tidewater Comicon, and I don't have any of my cosplays finished. So Stella stepped in to help me.

We made a stencil...

...we peeled labels off of PVC pipe pieces...

...we played with tulle...

...and we built a hammer head out of cardboard!

Still lots of work to go, but we made some significant dents already.

Star Wars Day

Stella celebrated Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you!) by watching The Force Awakens with us.

Lazy Sunday

We took it easy today, taking a lazy Sunday before going to work tomorrow. Here are the main highlights:

Stella was officially introduced to Gimli, the very sweet kitty who only attacks
LVs because they resemble his toys. Stella seems to have been no exception.
She got a little love bite on one tentacle, but no harm done.

We spent a large portion of the day reading
The Martian by Andy Weir cover to cover.

Stella's Bag

Today, we're taking it easy after our trip, doing a little cleaning and planning for the week, things like that. I decided that if Stella is going to spend a lot of time in my purse, she might need something to hide in. Being crocheted, she seems pretty vulnerable to getting snags from things like pens, keys, zippers, etc. So we pulled out the sewing machine and made this!

Stella is hiding...

Peek-a-boo!