Mel, you can call me crazy now...

So a week and a half ago when I first mentioned it to Chris, he seemed to think I was crazy. I guess somewhere along the lines I wore him down. Would have been cheaper if he had said yes a week ago though. :)

James is playing at T in the Park in Scotland in July. If I had gotten tickets last week when they first went on sale, we might have just been able to get a ticket for Saturday. However, he didn't approve the purchase a week ago, so tickets sold out, without me getting any. And then yesterday I saw that a limited number was going to be re-released. (Ticketmaster had a limit on how many could be purchased, so these were some of those extras now going to the public, etc.) No mention though of how many tickets, what types, etc.

Tickets were going back on sale at 10 am. 10 am UK time, 5 am in Boston. Blech. I dutifully set my alarm for 4:30. For those of you who know me, I HATE mornings. But I was even semi-awake before my alarm went off. Hit snooze a couple of times and got up.

First I tried for tickets for Saturday only. Tried a few times and no luck. Tried for weekend with camping, and found tickets right away. So now we're going for the whole weekend and somehow we have to figure out how to get a tent and other camping gear over there. I guess worst case we skip the camping and find somewhere else in the area to stay, but who knows.

And we all complain about Ticketmaster fees, right? Well the service charge on the tickers and the parking ticket are expected. But for ticket delivery, when purchasing internationally, box office collection is the only option. Why does that cost me £2.25? It's not like they are sending it anywhere. Actually, I gladly would have paid to have the tickets sent to me, but that wasn't an option.

So yeah, we're going to Scotland. Now we need to plan the rest of our vacation. :)

I'm a scrappin' machine!

While the rest of the world (or at least most people in the US) were watching the Superbowl, I was watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and scrapping. Well, mostly watching the movie, and then when it ended I got my scrap on. Three more layouts to check off the list! Woo hoo! And earlier this week I got another one done as well.



I pretty much failed with LOAD, but at least I'm getting back into it. I'm feeling really behind, so hopefully I'll get a little more caught up soon.

Chris knows how to blog?

Time to breathe. The past few weeks have been a bit crazy. Self-imposed craziness. A friend’s blog has links to other blogs listed in the sidebar and it tells you when they were last updated. At first mine said one week, then two, then three…. You get the picture. It now says “one month ago” but it’s actually been 7 weeks. Yikes! I keep meaning to update, but the longer you go, the harder it is. There are just too many topics that you want to cover. Sorry if it reads a little disjointedly. It’s taken me over a week to write this, and I’ve kind of been jumping around.

I love Halloween, and at times I’m a bit of an overachiever. I guess you saw that already when I made 18 mobiles with 54 witches. And I had to use the good beads on them. I couldn’t use just some cheap plastic ones. I try not to think about how much I spent on those. More about Halloween later.

So one topic that I seemed to overlook, was a trip that we took over Labor Day weekend. LL Bean offers free concerts during the summer. We looked over the schedule and saw that Lonestar was going to be performing. Rather than making a 2-3 hour drive back home after the concert, we decided to camp in the area. This was a week after we returned from camping in Acadia, and a week before camping at Hammonasset. Lots of camping!

We found a state park right next to Freeport. Pretty quiet place. Might have been nicer to spend some more time there. We had plans to hike some of the trails at the park, but never got around to that. Too much of the “normal” activities for us to do- Land’s End, Freeport, etc.

We arrived up on Saturday afternoon. Got into Freeport and spent longer than usual trying to park. We wondered why many of the entrances into the LL Bean parking lots were closed off. Finally we found a spot and started to head over to see how many seats were claimed already. Yikes! Now we know why parking was so bad. When we’ve been to concerts here in the past, it’s usually just seats on the grass. This time there were LOTS of bleachers set up! Luckily we found a spot fairly close to the front, although it was off to the side. After putting down a blanket to save our spot, we headed off to do a little shopping. As it turned out, mostly window shopping. I guess that’s good though, right?

Then it was time to head back to the concert area. Wow, it had filled up with lots of people in the short while we were gone. The concert was a lot of fun. I wasn’t that familiar with their songs before we went, but it was still a fun time. Certainly not bad for a free concert. I got a video of their finale- it was a montage of a bunch of covers. Started off with Van Halen’s “Jump” and as soon as I heard that, I grabbed the camera that shot video. Not online at this time. Actually, the quality of it is pretty horrid. But it’s still fun. Maybe one of these das I’ll add it to YouTube.

Sunday we headed off to Land’s End. It was at Land’s End that Chris proposed to me, so it will always be a special place to us. Of course it was cold and miserable that night so we had to stay in the car. And then I called Andrew in my excitement to tell him that I was engaged, and his response was “no you’re not”. Thanks, bro!

We took our pictures with the Land’s End Lobsterman, and then I waded into the water a bit. There were lots of little crabs there. Hard to walk without stepping on them.

And the cribstone bridge. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only bridge of it’s kind. And we’re afraid that they will be getting rid of it. Ok, truth be told, we have no idea what’s going on. But there was a bunch of construction work going on right next to it, and it looked suspiciously as if a new bridge was being built. This makes me sad. I just did a bit of googling and found this. I didn’t read into the 402 page attachment, but it seems as if the state gave them some money for repairs.

Monday we headed home. And on the way, while Chris was driving, he ran out of gas. Fun. Sitting by the side of the road, roasting. Broken AC. Waiting for AAA.

Besides going to the James and Gaelic Storm concerts that I previously blogged about, I got a new car in September! We decided that my Echo was a bit on the too small side. Plus, with the broken AC it was fairly miserable driving around. So, after doing a bit of looking, we settled on a 2009 Subaru Forester. Unfortunately, this means we now have a car payment again and are further into debt, but things are still going pretty well on the debt reduction front.

September also provided me with the chance to meet another Tally friend. Jan and her family were up from South Carolina vacationing in Newport, RI. Tami came down from NH and we headed off for The Ocean State. We had lunch and then did a bit of walking around and poking into shops. While we were walking we got surprise calls from both Minda and Christine. How fun to say hi and pass the cell phone around.

In September/October knitting news, I knit some eyeballs. Super cute. Unfortunately I had them in a candy dish at work, and I guess some people thought the eyeballs were something that they could take, rather than as a decoration like I had intended. I’m now down to only 4 eyeballs. Guess I’ll have to knit some more next year.

The last concert of my month of concerts, was New Kids on the Block. The concert was on the 26^th, the same night as the Glass Pumpkin preview. Mel sent me my ticket so that I could try to be in two places at the same time. I went to the preview, scouted out some that I liked, grabbed some dinner while I waited for Chris, conferred with him briefly about ones I liked, and then headed off to The Garden. I missed the opening act, but I was ok with that. I got there not too long before the concert started.

I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in a while. I found it very funny how so many women were still so enamored with this band. It was fun, but I certainly wasn’t screaming for them. (Sorry Mel.) I was glad I went, but I think I’ve moved on.

I’ve blogged in the past about MIT’s Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. It’s an annual fundraiser that they have and we’ve gone for a number of years now. This year we knew we wanted a certain style of pumpkin, so we saved a little bit every month to be able to afford what we wanted. Now that we have it, I’m not sure if I’ve fulfilled my pumpkin wishes or not. I’m still saving, so I guess that means not. Or at least this way we’ll have the option to get another if we so choose.

This year it was raining for pumpkin weekend. They always say that if it rains on the Saturday (the traditional day of the sale) then the Sunday will be the rain date. But what do you do if the forecast calls for rain on both days? They put up a HUGE tent! Luckily when the sale started it wasn’t raining and they were able to move some of the pumpkins out into the daylight for better viewing. As we were headed back to the car the sprinkles started. Perfect timing!

Rather than putting lots of photos here of pumpkins, here’s a link to a layout that I did about this year’s pumpkin patch. You can click on the image to see it bigger.

Glass pumpkin day happened to be Chris’ birthday. He gave me lots of crap about making him get up early, but I think I made up for it when we got back to the house and I gave him his birthday gift- a Wii. He opened it up and started playing, and I took a nap. Later that evening we invited people over for cake and an impromptu Wii party. In recent weeks it hasn’t been played as much, but I think in a few weeks life will quiet down a bit and we’ll play some more.

So as I mentioned earlier, I am an overachiever when it comes to Halloween. This wasn’t completely apparent at home- I pretty much had my standard decorations, although I did add the Yankee Candle haunted mansion tea light thing. Finally! Only took me 3 years. They’ve always sold out so quickly that I had to buy it in August.

My Halloween overachieving transpired at work. In an effort to make the work environment more fun and to encourage interaction between departments, we had a Halloween party. And since it is known that it is one of my favorite holidays, I was asked to help plan it. Ok, go ahead twist my arm. And the best part? All of the stuff that I bought for the party- I get to keep it

So not only was there a party, but as one of the activities there was a cube decorating contest. I decided to bring in my apotheScary from last year. I had seen online vinyl sheeting stuff that I mentioned to Chris I would use as a backdrop. He had something even better! Turns out that Brandeis had overbought some vacuform brick wall for a show. So we took a sheet of that and then Kristin painted it for me. It looks fabulous! So good, in fact, that people have said that I should keep it up year round. (I foresee a fireplace for the winter months, and then in the spring and summer maybe some ivy and flowers?)

But since I’m an overachiever, apparently just having the wall and the apotheScary bottles wasn’t enough. I had to go and get a streetlight. And a bloody/rusty lantern to hang from the ceiling. And then people were commenting that I was really only decorating one wall, and not my entire cube, so then I went and got some of the vinyl sheeting stuff and decorated outside my cube and put in a little cemetery.

I guess it was worth it, since I won, but I spent a lot more than my $50 prize. Good thing I can reuse everything!

Remember how I said I’m an overachiever? The cube decorations are only part of it. I also had to carve the company logo onto a pumpkin and then bake and decorate 4 dozen cupcakes. Yup, self-induced stress.

There also was a costume contest. I was completely blown away by how many people got into the spirit of things and wore a costume. It was fabulous! Funniest was “Super Garbage Bag Man”, Best costume was a lion (fabulous mane!), and scariest was a witch. I went with the Ice Princess costume that I made for Linda 7 or 8 years ago. People weren’t quite sure of what exactly I was, but after I told them they all seemed to get it.

Back at home after the party, I added my new tombstones to the yard, scattered some bones, and hung up the skeleton. (The bones and skeleton had previously been party decorations.) My pumpkins- I kind of took a quick approach to these and very roughly had carved “trick-or-treat” into them. And a few days later I think a squirrel absconded with one of the pumpkin lids. Not really sure where it has disappeared to. Better the pumpkin though than my newly planted bulbs.

And so that brings us to what’s going on now. There’s a craft faire that is going to be held at our church on the 22^nd. Chris is going to have a table. I’m going to have a table. I’ve been crazily working for the past week or so knitting, sewing, and making other items. Here are pictures of cupcakes, toadstools, and sachets that are awaiting the lavender that I ordered. Lots more to do. Hopefully I don’t stress myself out too much!

I’m also insanely behind in my scrapping, so in an ideal world I would manage to get a bit more “caught up” with that. Yeah, I know, I should stop dreaming. If only work didn’t get in the way!

Congratulations on having made it to the end. Hope you’ve enjoyed, and maybe I’ll be better about updating more regularly. I’d like to have once a week be my goal. Maybe every other week.

A summary of my time in Acadia

It has been mentioned that I have been back from vacation for two weeks now and I still haven't updated my blog.

I guess I'm just overwhelmed. I took about 380 photos, and I have no idea how to narrow it down. Also, most of those pictures are of landscapes and granite carriage road bridges- not exactly the most exciting to the viewer/reader.

So here's a really lame summary:

Saturday- headed up to Acadia. We stopped along the way in Freeport to go to the Maine Highland Games. It was kind of interesting. We didn't stick around for too long as we still had a few more hours of driving, but we heard some bagpipes and watched some athletics. We both agreed that we wished there had been commentary during the sports as we really didn't know what we were watching or what the point was of it.
Got to the campground in the late afternoon, set up, made dinner, and then went to one of the evening ranger programs. I remember going to these all the time when I was a kid. It was kind of interesting, but we were cold, so we left a bit early to go back to the site to put on warmer clothing.

Sunday- decided to climb Cadillac Mountain. Cadillac really kicked my butt. And my knee. For the past 5+ years I've had a knee that hurts when I go hiking. It was fine on the way up, but the hike down sucked! Then even walking around camp really hurt.

Monday- woke up with my knee still hurting. Going for another hike was not going to be an option. However, it turns out that biking wasn't causing me pain, so we decided to hit the carriage roads for a bit. Went for about 9 miles.


By the evening my knee was feeling a bit better, so we went for a walk around Bar Harbor and did a little bit of shopping. However, both the yarn store and the scrapbook store were closed, so we'll have to come back. :)

Tuesday- we had planned to go for another bike ride, but on our way out it started to rain. Blech. Change in plans. Instead we went into Bar Harbor so I could go to the yarn store and the scrapbooking store. Yes, these are important things to do. Found a cafe where we could get online for a bit, so at least we were out of the rain and we got an internet fix for an hour or two. We then headed back to camp for reading and napping. I guess doing nothing all day is tiring. :)
In the evening it was time to go back to Bar Harbor so that we could go to Bar Island. We had looked at the tide schedule for the week and figured that this would be the best day to go. The rain had stopped, so we decided to go ahead with our plans. Then it was time for dinner in town. We were actually pretty good during this vacation with not spending lots of money at restaurants.

Wednesday- Time for another bike ride! We started off doing a loop that was about 8 miles, and then decided to do another 5 miles after that. And as if that wasn't enough exercise, we went for a hike.

This time we decided to hike the North and South Bubbles. Both of these are really short hikes, but they are a tad steep so are fairly strenuous. We did lengthen the hike a bit by coming down an alternate route. And we're very glad that we didn't climb up that way- lots of bouldering.

Thursday- Started the morning off with a carriage ride. The driver wasn't the best, but it was still a pleasant time. While we were out we even passed by one of the Rockefellers. Nice to see that they still make it up to the island.
After the carriage ride we went for more biking. It was our goal to see all of the bridges, and there were some we hadn't seen yet. Guess we overdid it a bit the day before- we were exhausted! We had thought about doing another hike, but we just didn't have it in us. We were beat. We did go over to Thunder Hole, but got there at the wrong time so it wasn't that exciting.

Just a random photo here of our dinner. This is pizza crust, cooked on the campfire. Looks like a certain country, huh?





Friday- Time for another hike. This time it was the Beehive. It was here that I discovered that I kind of have a fear of heights. Well, make that a fear of cliffs. I realized I'm ok with heights when on balconies, roller coasters, or other places where I am more or less secure, but on the ride of a cliff? Yeah, not so much my thing. I was very glad when we got to the top! We came down via a different route, but we had planned to do that anyway. When we got to the bottom and saw how many people were climbing the Beehive, we were glad we had gone earlier so that we would be able to go at our own pace.
After our hike we headed back to Thunder Hole. The tide was coming in, so it was supposed to be getting to its "peak" time. The waves were certainly better, but still nto that impressive. We decided it's probably best during a storm. We asked some ranger sand they agreed. One of them even commented that he had come out in a hurricane and it was fabulous!
We then stopped at the beach just long enough for me to run in and get wet. Beaches just aren't Chris' thing. At this point I was tired and wanted to go back to camp, but figured I had to at least go in, so I did and then we went back to camp.


Saturday- Time to head home. It was great not having to take down and set up camp every night like we did last summer. However, that's not to say that the day was without drama. When we were about 30 minutes from home Chris quickly pulled over three lanes and stopped the car. We were out of gas. Blech. About 40 minutes later AAA arrived. And wouldn't' you know it? There was a gas station less than a mile from where we had stopped.