Bob Dylan and Ketchup

Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets coming out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams
You got all the love honey baby I can stand



I have had this Dylan song stuck in my head all week. I love Neko Case's cover of it, have a listen, it's pretty! The song is completely appropos, since it has been pouring buckets of rain here in Massachusetts all week long. I'm seriously considering building an ark and gathering things in two.

I apologize for being a bit MIA. I've been extremely busy with work and Neo and have fallen into a little bit of a slumpy slump. Not just with blogging either, my house management skills have been eluding me as well. This is the kind of slump where I will attempt to make a grocery list, and instead I end up staring at recipes and the blank piece of paper in front of me for over an hour, becoming increasingly more boggled by the second about what to eat/buy. Does this happen to other people too? Or is this a brand of insanity entirely unique to me?!?

Sigh. Here I am! Trying my best to catch up. (Har-har...that's where the ketchup in the post title comes in. I am beyond clever. And clearly mental.)

I do have one tid bit of good news to share, since some of you have asked. YES, my dance company got the opening act slot! If you are a reader within driving distance, I will be putting up performance information soon over on the Neoblog.

Aside from that life has been pretty much work work work, dance dance dance, sleep sleep sleep around these parts. This past weekend I was able to escape and have THE MOST AWESOME GIRLY WEEKEND OF ALL TIME with my seeeester, but I will save that for tomorrow's blog post...Which will be more enthralling...and maybe have pictures. Maybe.

Neo Indoor Picnic

Well, my goodness, it is just pouring BUCKETS in Boston! Pouring, pouring, pouring rain ever since yesterday. That did not keep me from having a full and busy day though!

This morning the Neo ladies and I visited the artistic directors of another local dance company to audition to be the opening act for their upcoming performance. This company is larger than ours, and their shows are well attended, since they have an established audience here in Boston. My dancers performed their piece well, and now we must wait! We will probably know by the middle of the week whether or not we will be in the performance. Keep your fingers crossed - it would be a great opportunity for my company!

Since we had to meet at a dance studio in the city at noon, this put a wrench in our normal rehearsal schedule. I offered the girls a stop-over lunch at my house on the way to rehearsal in the North Shore. It was such fun!



I absolutely love entertaining, and nothing makes me happier than seeing my dining room table filled with dancers! We had a tasty lunch of Carrot-Ginger Soup, recipe here. This is one of my new favorite go-to recipes. I recommend doubling the batch, otherwise it will be gone in an instant!

I hope that you are staying warm, toasty and DRY wherever you are!

Five Senses Friday

:: tasting ::

orange scones



:: hearing ::

here's looking at you kid by The Gaslight Anthem

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:: seeing ::

so much sunshine for the month of March

:: smelling ::

lemon essential oil, that i sprinkle on my dust rags to make the rooms in my apartment smell nice

:: touching ::

the beautiful yarn and prezzies sent to me by my buddy cyndle (((more on this later!)))

:::

Well, to sum it up politely, this week sucked! (Aside from all of the mail love lavished upon me by my awesome blog friends of course). Today was the cherry on top of a very big suck cake. It started out with a painful stomach flu, moved on to Matt getting a $150 parking ticket ON OUR STREET, and finished today with me realizing that I bounced our rent check. I have never ever done this before, and what made the whole thing worse was that it was entirely my fault. I made a stupid mathematical error when I was transferring money into my checking account to cover things and came up short. The worst thing is, is that we had the money to cover rent, but because of my dumb, dumb, DUMB mistake we've been slammed with fees and now we're in the hole. This is all happening smack in the middle of one of those stellar weeks where I am not sure where our next meal going to come from. I cried my fool eyes out this morning.

During a brighter moment earlier this week, I sat down and wrote my husband a little love note. Part of it said something to the effect of The bills might stack up and the fridge might be bare, but as long as I have you, I am rich. Ahem, FYI, universe, that wasn't some call for a cosmic test of my love, and sanity. You can step off a bit...Jerk.

I bet Matt feels rich when I snot all over the shoulder of his favorite sweatshirt.

SIGH.

I am rich. I am rich. I am rich.

Tomorrow will be a new day.

Random Kindness from Strangers

One of the things that I have always found amazing about the blogosphere, is the random utter kindness of total strangers. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a sweet woman named Wendy. She had been following my blog since the first round of the Vintage Swap. She said incredibly complimentary things about my ramblings here on G+N, and said that she had found "a few things" she thought I might like while shopping for the round two of the Vintage Swap (which I am sadly not participating in). Could she have my address to send me a package, or is that creepy and weird?

Let me think about this for 2.5 seconds...umm it's never creepy and weird if you want to send me vintage stuff! Oh boy, I just got a funny horrible image of me getting kidnapped by a man in a creepy van waving, not candy, but vintage sheets. I have serious issues.

I waited for days, thinking a padded envelope with my name on it would show up at any moment. Wendy was, in fact, just sending "a few things." What really happened is that I opened my screen door one day and a giant package fell out of my door frame, walloped me in the shins, and came crashing onto my cement porch. That's when I noticed FRAGILE written all over it. Thanks United States Post Office! I reached to pick it up, but my hands were full of other stuff, and I dropped it again!!! Doh! At this point I'm thinking to myself, "Great. Now I have to e-mail Wendy and thank her kindly for the giant box full of broken Pyrex. I am an idiot."

I finally got the huge box upstairs and opened it up. Not a single thing inside was broken, and each little gift made me squeel, gasp or otherwise!

s&p shakers (in their original packaging), a tiny Fire King luster ware dish and a maple syrup carafe



an amazing vintage apron with lobsters on it, what any good New England girl needs for summer time!



a piece of patchwork that is destined to become a pillow for my bedroom



a beautiful table runner embroidered with butterflies



A SILK SCARF! now i have 32, YESSS!



a janis joplin-esque hat, which sits ridiculously high on my head, but i intend to wear it anyways.



a tea towel



a crocheted pillowcase



an amazingly sweet tray!



Also included was a note from Wendy written on a BINGO card (*love*) and an issue of Workbasket Home Arts magazine from May, 1969. The hilarious advertisements in that gem are worthy of its own blog post!

Thank you so, so, much Wendy! Your package was such a thrill to receive!

P.S. You really should start blogging. Maybe you can post about where you find all of this amazing stuff!

CRDF Recap

Thank you for the well wishes for my dance company's performances. Everything went swimmingly!



If you want to read a detailed recap of my dancing weekend, you can do so over at the NEOBLOG.

Unfortunately, I think my busy weekend ran me down a bit, I've been suffering with a bit of a stomach bug since last night. I'm off to get some rest for the evening, hopefully I will be back to my good-lookin' cookin' crafty self soon!

xo!

Dancey-Dance-Dancey Time

Hello Everybody!

Sorry I've been a bit MIA in this space. My dance company, Neoteric Dance Collaborative, is performing this weekend at the Charles River Dance Festival and preparations have been afoot...HAR, HAR! If you live within driving distance of Watertown, Massachusetts you should come check out the show! Two viewings at 3:00pm and 8:00pm.



In other exciting Neo news, after many, many, MANY years I have finally updated the website. There are still a few links to fill in, but my eyeballs feel like they are bleeding from staring at my computer screen for the past two days, so I'm calling it good for now! Please check it out, and let me know your thoughts.

Tomorrow is going to be a full-on dance day, because in addition to my company's two performances, I have a new session of my dance class for children with Down's syndrome tomorrow. WAHOOOOO! I'll meet you back here when I emerge from Saturday night's sleeping coma!

Holiday Handmade Crusade :: March Theme!

Follow this link to find out more about the Holiday Handmade Crusade...



Your theme for March is: Celebrate your heritage! aka I couldn't think of witty song lyrics to describe this month's theme...

Why should Irish people be the only ones to have all the fun in March? Find a way to celebrate your families' heritage by incorporating it into a craft. How about about a cookbook dedicated to ethnic recipes, or trying your hand at a traditional craft? Celebrate the the history that makes you or your gift recipient, unique!

Leave a comment on this post with a link to a blog entry showing your finished item by March 31, 2010 11:59 PM EST for the chance to win a fabulous prize!

Happy crafting,

Your Craftastic Christmas Crusader

P.S. Je suis canadienne!

What's for dinner?

Swiss Chard/Carrots
Brown Rice
Balsamic-Glazed Pork Chops

NOM.

P.S. I tried a new to me beer tonight, Harpoon Munich Dark. I give it two thumbs up! Very tasty!