Birthday, Friends, Reasonless Walks, & Artsfest

I've been coding on the website again. I had to take a LONG break from it because it was driving me crazy. Now I have deleted everything and started over from scratch, have the right programs installed the right way, and all the little fancy codey bits in the right places. Somebody asked me if the ironing out I had to do included beating myself in the head with the iron, and it may well be the way of it before I get this completely done, but I have discovered that some coders have a particular weakness for girls that beg & offer baklava to whosoever can assist them in their time of need. *laugh* I think I'm in pretty good hands. *grin* The solution is, I'm sure, a relatively simple one that I cannot figure out due to the simple fact that I have not yet been able to locate a tutorial for it. Not that I've looked very hard yet, but that work will be saved for Tuesday or so. *smile*

Woke up this morning in a bad mood, so I opened up all the doors in the house, left Keeb at home, and went for a walk. I didn't have any real purpose for walking, just felt like it, but after about 100 feet, I decided that I might as well make the trip worthwhile and started casting cursory glances into dumpsters along the way. See, there's a dumpster diving challenge in one of my crafter groups online, and it's been raining so much that, not only are my rain catchment buckets full to overflowing, but I hadn't had a chance to go looking for anything. I didn't manage to come up with anything crafty, but I did pick up a small seed starting greenhouse, some old plastic mini blinds that I can make into plant markers in the garden, a tray for seedling flats, and a nice smaller box for shipping product orders in. Not what I was looking for really, but it'll come in handy. *smile* It was nice to just wander around a bit, lost in my own thoughts. On my way back home, I grabbed a clipping off of a really beautiful honeysuckle vine (I didn't know they came in pink & white too!) so I can root it a bit later, and some more pickle buckets from a local bakery. Tomorrow I plan on getting those holes drilled in the buckets so I can start hanging the tomato plants. Already they need to get fertilized again and get put into larger pots. Worm poop to the rescue! *grin*

In the afternoon Keebler & I went to the Artsfest as it was closing today with a printout of the online petition statements that I had arranged in word and printed out in blue ink because our black ink cartridge was empty. *laugh* Like I said, it's important to me. *grin* We walked around for a bit and had quite a bit of fun petting all of the puppies and meeting old & new friends. We managed to gather nearly 40 signatures during out little foray, and we just got done entering them all into the computer. Hopefully al of the folks will remember to go check their emails and confirm their signatures before tomorrow at 11:50pm so that They can get on the petition on time for it to be sent out. I plan on attacking the local neighborhood and probably campus tomorrow. It was really fun. There was a really talented copy artist that we met at the fest, and she had painted these:
Keebler "screaming"

Keeb & I being backwards gothic. *snicker* The booth fees have dropped in price since I last checked, so I'll likely try to get involved in the next artsfest. Heck, I might even make some art just for the fest! *grin* I wonder if they allow wandering vendors... *ponder* We shall see, I suppose. *smile*

We met only one angry, angry antagonistic, self-avowed capitalist who couldn't seem to stop telling me how wrong I was to want freedom on the internet because he couldn't understand what I was saying and was hollering at us that we could continue to live in our little socialist dreamworld as we walked away... *rolls eyes* Wow, some people are just nuts! When he was hollering after us, I couldn't help myself, I said over my shoulder loudly so that he could hear. "Okay honey, no reason to be a meanie-head, you can be quiet now" and continued to walk off. *sigh* I can only assume that he was so grumpy because he hadn't made good sales because of yesterday's rain. *shrug* I don't have problems with capitalism, in fact I think it's essentially a good thing in it's purer forms (especially since I own my own business, hello? *laugh*) And I'm definitely not a socialist, but everyone's entitled to their own little delusional opinions. Maybe he thought I was some "crazed hippy" because I have dreadlocks? No clue, don't really care, but it was a passing amusement to watch him fly off the handle about nothing. *smirk* Heavens know I wasn't accosting him! *laugh*

As we were wandering, we petted many adorable puppies, saw many old friends, and met a good many new acquaintances. Saw some folks from The Radish (where we will also be peddling the petition tomorrow after we make more dandelion cookies), and were invited to go hang out with some hippies and visit a friend's house, which we did shortly after we were done wandering around on Walnut street. *smile*

Met the hippies who had set up a trade blanket outside of their house (also right outside of the gates of the fest, smart thinking) and saw a tam (hat made especially for dreads) I just HAD to have. Hand crocheted in black & rainbow variegated yarn by a lovely sister from out of town, she was only asking $15!!! Tams usually go for about $25-$40 elsewhere, and it was really high quality, so I gladly agreed to pay the price (if they would wait for me to get the cash from home) They were leaving, so I got the cell # of the person we were with and called them later to do the transaction. *grin* Visited a friend's house after that for a while, and chatted before we HAD to get home and enter all of the signatures into the computer.

On the way home (back through the now closed festival) We peeked in all the trash barrels just in case someone had tossed away something nice. We found fresh yellow daises, some scrap PVC bits, and a nice piece of raw, untreated hardwood for the ratties to chew on. Still not crafting goodies, but it's all useful or pretty to adorn the house. *smile*

When we got back home from my little birthday romp, we discovered that my mother had brought the children back, along with my grandmother's poodle, Buffy. We'll be framing this for my grandmother to keep in her room at the nursing home until she can go back home and hang it in her house. (she's there for constant specialized physical therapy because she fell & broke her shoulder) The kids & my mom had been home for about 2 hours, and had watched the DVD we had kept from the library for my mom. She enjoyed it, and tomorrow it goes back, along with all of the other library goodies. *smile*

We had a little birthday party (cake, ice cream, presents), Keeb & I entered in all of the petition signatures online, and I called the travelers so I could get my tam.

They showed up not long after dinner (I was wanting a tam ALL winter!) , I offered them some birthday cake, and gave them a tube of the Snake Oil Lip & Body Butter ( we had been talking about yucky petroleum lip balms earlier in the day when another friend brought out some cartoon brand and started applying it to her face *twitch*) I figured it was appropriate. *grin* Then they up and gift me the cute little crochet mushroom necklace you see in the picture above! It's not just a decorative necklace, it's functional! See, the mushroom cap slides up the string to expose what is held in the pocket that makes up the stem. It can hold nearly anything, and is really handy for lighters, lip balms, money, and other small goodies. Too cute! And it matches my new tam!! *HUGE GRIN* Aah gifting is so fun! They were surprised when I told them the balm & other stuff I showed them was made by us. *laugh*

The walks are doing me good, I'm actually loosing enough mass for it to be noticeable, even to me! *grins & does the happy birthday dance*

I think I ate too much chocolate cake, I'm all twitchy. *laugh* Today was a great day. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!