Saturday, September 20, 2014

Ahoy, Mateys!

It be (the day after) Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Piper and I dressed for the occasion! Yar, and such!


Rrrrr!


Monday, September 8, 2014

Happy birthday to me!

Whoops, forgot to post this last week! We have a birthday hat at work... I wore the birthday hat for my birthday.

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Sunday, August 24, 2014

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Yes, we did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! For the unaware and for posterity, this is what I'm talking about: someone who does the challenge nominates you (and a couple other people). Then, you have the choice to either donate $10 to ALS (amyotropic lateral sclerosis) research and dump a bucket of ice water over your head, or donate more (I've heard varying rules, from $25 to $100 or more).

My husband, whose name is also Alex, was nominated by his friend. Since we have the same name, I decided to do it with him. You can see that here if you like.

Piper wanted to join in the fun/donations, so I made an LV-friendly version of the ice bucket challenge. Her video is below:


Disclaimer: No LVs were harmed in the making of this video! (The water-less version seemed more appropriate for someone made of fabric. My other LV, Damson, did this version too!)

My mother-in-law actually matched the donations from me and my husband, so I'm calling that a donation for each of my LVs.

And here's Piper with me after I got soaked:


Things to Come

About a week ago, we went to Husband's white coat ceremony for medical school, where they take the Hippocratic Oath and get their coats (symbolic of the medical profession)...


And this week, we attended convocation for the school I work at (where the president gives out awards to faculty/staff, tells us about the budget and projects the school is working on, etc.)...


And while both of those events were interesting and informative, that's a lot of sitting still and listening quietly. So we need to do something a little more... fun? Here's a clue:


Stay tuned to see if you guessed right about what we're going to do!




Thursday, August 14, 2014

Happy Birthday to the Library!

Our library just opened a year ago, so today we had a big celebration! Patrons could follow the "Trivia Trail" with green feet on the floor to take them to stations with balloons as markers, and each station had a photo of an event we had in the past year, and information about that area of the library.


The staff all wore little buttons to commemorate the day, and I grabbed a couple for Piper and Damson:


We put up banners at the service desks so everyone would know what we were celebrating.


And of course, we had a pot luck lunch, with a beautiful cake!

Since we are a joint-use library, we abbreviate ourselves as JUL,
pronounced "jewel." Thus the "crown JUL."





Friday, August 1, 2014

Cosplay & DCI

Piper and I visited my friend Beth so we could start making my Margaery Tyrell dress for New York Comic Con!

Piper and Damson supervise Beth's sewing

What a great pattern!

The pieces are cut for the top

I stopped taking photos so I could help Beth, so the next one is
the mostly-finished product! We have some tweaks to make,
but I had to leave to get home to start the next part of the trip...

Blue Devils drum corps at the Charlotte NC show!
They're currently first place for the season. Their show is "Fellini-esque."

Hanging out by the pool...

...which is on the roof of the hotel and has this awesome view straight up.

And this awesome view straight out.

Ahh, pool day.

Another neat building from the pool on the roof.

Glimpsing the mountains on our drive from Charlotte to Salem.

Piper enjoys the encore performance by my personal favorite corps, Carolina Crown.
It was quite a week of learning for Piper! Sewing techniques, drum corps lingo, how to drive in a giant triangle all the way around the state of Virginia (and into North Carolina)...

Monday, July 21, 2014

Olive Bread, Churro Bites, Make It So

It was a crafty weekend for me and Piper! We made olive bread and churro bites for dinner at a friend's house, then cross-stitched a gift for my boss!

Churro bites = diced angel food cake rolled in cinnamon & sugar!

Mmm, warm olive bread!

For the boss... er, captain.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Subspace Purse

If I'm going to be Ramona Flowers for Halloween, I'm going to need a subspace purse! Instead of spending over $100 to buy one, I decided to make one! Piper helped!

Gather your supplies!

Showing off the finished product

Nice and roomy... if Scott Pilgrim can fit in there, Piper certainly can!

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Welding Goggles

Since I'm going to be Ramona Flowers for Halloween, I need to start piecing things together now to spread out the costs and give me time to find weird things like welding goggles. Well, I have those locked down, at least!


Piper thinks they'll look better once my hair is blue.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Central Library

Piper accompanied me to a meeting at the Central public library in Virginia Beach. This was my library growing up, and since I work in a joint-use library now (part community college library, part city public library) I sort of work with them.

They recently installed something we refer to as an AMH (Automated Materials Handling system)... basically, it automatically checks in books when you drop them in the book drop, and it sorts them based on where they're supposed to go next (shelf, another branch, holds shelf, etc.) We have one at our joint-use library (since our building was just finished last year, we were guinea pigs to make sure it worked the way they wanted before they put them at other public branches). But at Central, the conveyor belt goes under the floor at the front door and you can watch your items if you drop them in the box outside and run around to the door to watch!


We have bigger, exciting adventures coming up soon, but I'd rather keep them a surprise for now! (Oh, the suspense...)

Monday, June 9, 2014

Cassy's Wedding!

We went out of town for my friend Cassy's wedding this weekend! She was very excited to hear that my LVs were going to be in attendance.

Banner in front of the library

Piper and I stand in front of the library where the ceremony was

Pretty centerpieces!

Mmm, cake! Orange flavored!

Congratulating the bride

Bride smooch!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Duck!

Rubber Duck, the giant yellow duck sculpture by Florentijn Hofman, is in Norfolk at the Chrysler Museum of Art! And we got to go see it today! (Everyone in Hampton Roads is posting selfies in front of the duck on Facebook.)


The duck is meant to bring people together and make them happy, according to the artist. Piper looks pretty happy, I think!


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Piper in Toronto

What an exhausting few days this weekend was! Flight cancelled, long wait for a rental car, had to walk to the Rogers Centre twice because security told me my purse was too big (does he not understand that I have two LVs who want to come to the concert too?), got a little lost driving back to the airport, sat boarded at the gate for twice as long as we were in the air on one flight... but all in all, we had a good time!!!

At the Rogers Centre... That's about 10,000 people on the floor, by my math.

Avicii takes the stage!!!

Neat fountain outside an office building in downtown

Travel buddies!

Piper & Damson enjoy some public art near the waterfront

Lake Ontario! We aren't certain whether that's Hamilton (Canada) or NY behind her.

CN Tower

Damson & Piper check out this whale statue

CN Tower from afar

We visited Chinatown...

...and tried the spicy Dan Dan Noodles. Hot!

My travel partner, Christopher, makes faces with Piper
while we wait for our planes to board.

#vacaselfie!

I only planned the trip around the Avicii concert, so I totally missed the fact that it was Victoria Day weekend and most things were closed. I think we squeezed a lot of fun into the two days we had, though! (Would have been three, but storms between Norfolk and New York postponed my first flight by 17 hours.)