Turns out my crop art was due Monday. It was a bit of a scramble, but I got it in in time. This is what I did this year.


The catagory is special occasion, which is broader than I expected. Seems like almost any occasion will do. Ah well. I like mine and I had fun making it. Here's me with some of my competition. Wish me luck.

Full of Accomplishment

I had a lovely weekend. It rained almost the whole time so getting outside felt extra heroic and staying in with a mug of tea felt cozy. I made it to the Midtown Farmer's Market for the first time. Quite nice. Smaller than my St Paul market with a more obvious influx of Hmong fav veggies. I grabbed some huge Hmong cucumbers and salsa fixins. They've got a crepe stand there so I had a buckwheat crepe with market sausage, gouda and market veg. It was steamy and savory, perfect for a cold rainy morning as I ate it in my car.

I had a huge To Do list on the white board - just a ton of stuff I had put off until the travel was dine (like 5 loads of laundry, house cleaning, bills, etc) and I made a hefty dent in it. I also have my crop art for this year 95% finished. Filling in the background with poppy seeds was tougher than I imagined. It was exactly like working with glitter when I was 10. The seeds stick everywhere and the hard part is getting them off the places where you don't want them. Tonight I'll check for any bare spots or lumps and try to smooth everything out. State Fair starts this weekend so I take the crop art in sometime this week.

Whew...

I love traveling and seeing friends and new places, but I'm glad to be home. Especially with the knowledge that I don't have to go anywhere this weekend. I've got a mountain of laundry calling my name and I'm looking forward to buying some fresh stuff (and having time to eat it before it goes bad).

Thanks again to everyone who hosted me. I'm happy and sated and looking forward to returning the favor.

I'm alive

Weird night last night. I left work around 7:30 and got a message from my dad asking about the bridge collapse. I had no idea what had happened. Then I saw the footage. It's not a road I take very often, but the weird thing is - Because of the free tickets to Bourne, I was going over that bridge on Tuesday at exactly the time the bridge fell the following day. Creeped me out.

Keeping up with the curve

I spent a lovely long weekend with Susan and Brian in Philly. The house is lovely and I can officially recommend the guest room. In addition to catching up on some missed foods, we also cooked in a bunch (Brian makes out of this world breakfast potatoes). Susan and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie and Ratatouille. We also managed to both tear our way through the last Harry Potter book. There was a plethora of Potter dishing going on this weekend.

After a much longer than necessary trip home, I arrived back to discover I won two free tickets to an advance preview of the final Bourne movie. Yay! Rebecca and I went and rotted our brains on fantastic car chases and fight scenes. It was a wonderful third act.

This is a big travel month. I leave on Sunday for St. Louis. City Museum - Here I come!