Weekend Wrap-Up: Mother’s Day Edition

May 14, 2013May 14, 2013 | leftylex

I’m not gonna lie, I do not feel like blogging today. That being said, blog I must so here we go! Nothing out of the ordinary happened on Saturday. All the usual tasks: teaching my aerobics class, shopping, cleaning house. Nothing fancy.

For Mother’s Day my siblings and I decided to have a little family picnic at Balboa Park. Sisters Dee and Jeri were MIA for the day’s events, but Sisters Sam and Andi, Vince, Husband, Daddy Lex, Puppy Bosco, and yours truly were in attendance to celebrate Momma Lex. And. It. Was. Hot! Thank God, we were able to find some solace under a lovely tree while eating, but the heat was brutal in sunny San Diego this weekend! After chowing down, we spent about two hours walking around the park.

Post lunch we hit the International Cottages. If you’ve never been to Balboa Park, the International Cottages are exactly that: international cottages. They are little houses that represent various countries from all corners of the globe. I was holding the puppy at this particular time of the day, so I didn’t tour each house, but I did venture into the following: Spain, France, England, Puerto Rico, USA (which was ridiculously lame), Iran, Ukraine, and (my favorite) China!

China was especially awesome because there was a young girl inside who would write your name in Chinese characters for you. I briefly explained to her our plan to adopt a daughter (I tried to sneak that in without Husband rolling his eyes because he still wants to adopt a son) from China and that we want to name her Jia which means health and beauty. She was so genuinely happy to hear of our plan and quickly began writing but told me that she would translate Jia to mean “elegant” and “lucky”. Fabulous!

This is now one of my most treasured pieces of paper. I highly doubt that she will know how much I am going to study this. I absolutely love it! And best of all, she was left-handed too!

Can we pause for a moment to adore the cuteness of Husband? This is his cheesy smile and it is my favorite! Sister Sam got in on the action too. I think that even Bosco was trying his hand at Husband’s smile as well.

We purposely stumbled upon a flower show. Momma Lex is a giant gardener, so we figured that she would quite enjoy the work of fellow gardeners. Aren’t these amazing? I want to stitch them all!

Overall, I think that mom enjoyed her special day. And she deserves it. I know that even at the even though I am all grown and married, I can still count on my mom to be there whenever I need her. Love you, Mom… even though we all know that Bosco is your favorite child!

Weekend Wrap-Up: 4/6-4/7

April 10, 2013April 10, 2013 | leftylex

I apologize for the delay in this post and I’ll also apologize in advance for even sharing the details of the most boring weekend ever with you! On Thursday an old college friend of mine told me that she heard about a craft fair at her church that was looking for vendors. Yay! Another fair, fabulous! All the details sounded lovely (particularly the $35 booth fee which is far, far less than most). I was getting very excited as I read all the information about the fair until I reached one key line, the date: May 4th… the same exact date and time as the Queen Bee Market. NOOO!!! Blast! I was looking forward to doing both shows and raising more funds for our adoptions, but alas I cannot be two places at once. As I began typing out my declining response which started like this: thanks for thinking of me, but I am already committed to a fair on the same date. Hmm, maybe I could clone myself… or talk one of my sisters in to hosting a booth for me. Wait a second, that’s not a bad idea!

If you recall, I have one million sisters…

…well, not quite one million but I do have 4! And at least two of them would be willing (I think) to help me out. The babies; Sam & Andi! These two…

Could this actually be a possibility? If two sisters were willing, and with Mom’s help of course, could I actually produce enough inventory to successfully pull off two shows? Yes, where there’s a will, there’s a way! Right, Mom?

I took the following day to make a list of each collection and items that I would ideally like to take to each fair. As the list took shape I decided that (if I buckled down and stayed driven) I could do it! I figured that I could ask Mom and Sister Sam to take the church craft fair since Mom already has one fair under her belt and Sam is extremely sociable and outgoing. I could then take Sister Andi with me to Queen Bee since she’s a good helper, but not so extroverted. I called all 3 the following day and to my happiness, they agreed! Hooray! Needless to say, I am now very, very busy and spent my weekend doing nothing but creating hoop art!

I only stepped out of the house to teach my aerobics class, take my mother-in-law to lunch for her birthday, mosey quickly through an art market, and go to church.

Outside of that, this chick was sitting in a chair with a hoop and floss! With Husband at work on Saturday afternoon and night, I decided to have a stitching and Disney cartoon marathon. I wanted to see exactly how many hoops and flicks I could get through within an 8 hour period. I actually quite enjoyed this stitch-a-thon.

This was the result… Mulan:

This was followed by Mulan 2 during which I made dinner, ate, and took a 30 minute power nap.

Ratatouille:

The Princess and the Frog:

Then came the giant clean-up. You’d be amazed at just how many places tiny little pieces of floss can find themselves! I apologize for all of these mundane details and for even having the nerve to blog about this most uneventful weekend, but I also didn’t want you to think that I fell of the face of the planet. Toodles and stitch on!

Weekend Wrap-Up: 3/30-3/31

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 | leftylex

I hope you all had a very lovely Easter weekend.

I woke up at about 6AM on Saturday morning to the adorable (note the sarcasm) meow of Jack. God only knows what this cat wanted other than to ruin my sleep on the only day out of the week that I can actually sleep in until 8AM. Blasted little beast! I figured that since I was awake I might as well work on completing and packaging a few orders before I headed out to the YMCA to teach my aerobics class.

Here’s a snapshot of a 5-piece set that commissioned for a Dr. Suess themed nursery. This was my second commissioned order of the week which I think is pretty cool because commissioned pieces always seem to push you out of your regular little comfort box and allow (or force) you to create something you never would have otherwise. I rather like the finished product! (If you have a particular design or theme you’d like to have stitched, drop me a line and I’m sure that I can work something up!)

And just in case you ever wondered what my YMCA looks like…voila!

After I finished teaching my aerobics class I noticed that I received a text message from one of my dearest friends, Lorraine, that read: “Excited to watch A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder with you today! Hope it’s a good one.” What? Had I completely forgot that I was going to the theatre today? Apparently so! And thank God that Lorraine sent that reminder to me or I would have missed the show altogether! Now I had about an hour to drive home, shower, get dressed, and high-tail it over to the Old Globe! I was instructed by the theatre to pick-up my tickets at Will Call no less than an hour before the show began so I was under an extremely tight time crunch.

By the grace of God I was able to find parking easily! This absolutely never happens during the spring and summer months as the Old Globe is located in Balboa Park which is one of San Diego’s most visited tourist hot spots. Isn’t it lovely though? This has been my favorite place in all of San Diego since I was a little girl; it gives you the feeling that you’ve just been transported to Europe (with the luxury of SoCal weather!).

Once I picked up my tickets (early as instructed) I now had an hour to kill before the performance itself began. I decided to take a leisurely stroll through the Mingei International Museum gift shop. I love this gift shop because it shows that literally each culture that roams this big blue planet creates beautiful and unique art of its own. And I love the quote that appears immediately outside of the shop: Art Belongs to Everyone.

Once my hour to kill had expired, I met Lorraine and her lovely husband Ed for the performance. I was the third wheel at the particular event. Husband had work to do so he was not able to join us (boo!). I believe that this was the fifth theatrical performance that I had seen with E&L. We tend to be theatre junkies together; it’s always better with partner’s in crime! And fittingly enough, we were about to watch A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.

The set was enchanting, the story engaging, the music inviting, and the performers divine! I had no knowledge of what the musical was going to be about, thus I had no expectations; however it was fabulous! One of the cast members, played a total of eight characters! He was genius, I absolutely adored him! I will not give away any of the details of the play other than it includes love and murder. Go see it!

Once the performance was over I headed home and the most wonderful news awaiting me in my email inbox…. I was selected as a vendor for the next Queen Bee Market! Woohoo! I was so, so, so excited to read “you have been accepted!!”. It felt like my senior year of high school all over again, just waiting to see if I had been selected to by my college of choice. Well, maybe not that exciting, but pretty exciting none the less. I immediately began doing the happy dance in my living room, giving Husband about one million excited hugs, and made a prompt call to Mom to let her know that her assistance would be much required for the next several weeks. How anyone can participate in a craft fair without the assistance of his/her mother is entirely beyond me. I would have died a terrible death at my last fair if it were not for my Mom! Seriously.

The rest of my day was spent taking inventory of my finished products and drafting up lists of things that need to be finished between now and the May 4th fair. It’s going to be a busy few weeks over here in Lefty Lex land! But a fun busy few weeks. I love this stuff! For more information on Queen Bee Market, click here: http://thequeenbeemarket.com/

Sunday was Easter, in case you didn’t know. So after church was over we headed over to my parents’ house for some good ole family fun. By the time I got there Sister Jeri had already left as she had to work, but being able to spend time with 4 out of my 5 siblings wasn’t too shabby. Now, you may find this funny (or ridiculous) but I think it’s awesome… Mom still makes all 6 of us Easter baskets every year! Yes, I am 29 and I still get an Easter basket! Actually, she makes 7 baskets, because Husband gets one too.

This year the highlight of the baskets were bottles of Middle Sister wine that accurately reflected each sister’s personality. They were as follows:

Mine: Goodie Two-Shoes. I found this funny that even my own mother would identify me as a goodie two-shoes. I am not an angel (well, not entirely) but of the five of us girls I am definitely the one who has most played by the rules my entire life and never really fought against my parents growing up. Let’s say this much: I attended a private Christian college immediately after high school, graduated four years later, was married seven weeks prior to graduation, subsequently went to grad school, etc., etc. I’m rather a homebody, I don’t really drink…I suppose you would call me goodie two-shoes!

Dee: Rebel Red. I found this one debateable I’m not quite sure that I would lable Dee a “rebel”. At this stage in her life she’s more along the lines of a free spirit. She’s just enjoying life according to herself. She’s definitely changed a bit over this past year, so perhaps that’s where the rebel is coming from.

Jeri: Forever Cool. Jeri is a musician; so by default she’s cool. This chick kills it on the electric guitar, how is that not cool?

Sam: Wild One. Well selected, Mom. Sam was definitely the devil to my angel growing up and we bumped heads like mad! I’m seven years older than Sam and we did not have a good relationship when we lived under the same roof, but we have become very close over the past two or three years. She is the only sister that I actually have 4 hour long FaceTime conversations with. Yes, out longest conversation was 4.5 hours!

Andi: Sweet & Sassy. Andi is definitely the quietest of the five of us and can definitely lost in the shuffle at times as a result of this. She’s our baby girl so, of course, she’s sweet but I’ve been told that she can have a bit of sass when it comes down to it. I don’t think I’ve seen that side of her, but the others have told me that it does exist.

(Mom was getting so mad that we would not take a serious picture!)

And we must not forget my brothers… Vince and puppy Bosco!

Hope your weekend was lovely too. That is all good people, go forth and conquer Monday!