So...

So yeah. I was in Oregon recently.

Sullen Pre-teen Drama Queen

Two friends who saw Moonrise Kingdom said that upon seeing young Suzy Bishop said to themselves, "Omigosh...that was Amy!" Hee hee! I love it! I really wanted to get a yellow suitcase and a record player too, but there's only so much stuff you can haul around to Halloween parties. Most of you likely know that instead of a yellow suitcase, I carried a black briefcase most of the time. It contained all my spy materials, of course.

Suzy had her binoculars around her neck whenever necessary.

I think in hindsight, I actually needed more smoky eye makeup.

Sam crafts earrings for Suzy out of beetles and fishhooks, then pierces her ears with them. No fishhooks for me, thank you, but I did find these awesome beetle earrings on Etsy!

Backside of beetle earrings... feathers and legs. ;)

Inside Suzy's fishing creel she has a kitten. I think this thrift store Beanie Baby was actually a cougar (named "Canyon" on the tag), but it had whiskers. That's what $2 will buy ya. Lots of folks asked me if the creel was decorative or real. I got it in the Walmart sporting goods department, so i think it was supposed to be the real deal. It's awesome to have a costume with a matching purse (last year was my Pan Am bag)...it's excellent for storing all your Halloween party items...camera, lip gloss, phone.  I think I will definitely continue to use it as a purse. Happy Halloween!

Khaki Scout Part II

In addition to Sam's scout badges, he also wears a gold-and-pearl brooch in memory of his mother. Brooches are normally only worn by ladies, but he's made an exception.

Check.

The first time through I was watching TV while stitching and accidentally sewed the raccoon on sideways. Oops! I love love love my words-sewing sewing machine. It sews in two fonts!!

Oops, just realized these two are out of order. Hand-crafted yellow silk kerchief with furry knot-accessory?

Check. I've never made a scarf before, it was fun!

Felt pocket raccoon?

Compass and canteen?

Check and check. I rather enjoyed stitching on the yellow piping. If you ever need piping stitched on, I'm your girl!



Turning my Husband into a Khaki Scout

So I try to edit myself down to 6 to 8 photos per subject, but this will require a couple posts. Cause I worked pretty hard on these get-ups. The kids from Moonrise Kingdom...

Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop! Adults dressed as children always has a sorta weird factor, but we just went with it. Here are the details!

Name badge and rank?

Check.

Troop number 55 and map corps badge?

Check.

Coonskin hat, black glasses, and "Khaki Scouts North America" shoulder patch?

Check.

Halloween Costume Pieces!

OK my lovelies. As usual, I needed to acquire the pieces and parts for our Halloween costumes. It wasn't easy to find a red/pink/orange dress with long sleeves in my size. I initially bought this very strange costume at a thrift store.

If anyone has any idea what this costume was supposed to be used for, please let me know. The long-sleeve jumper felt clown-like. The tie-on shoe covers felt sorta religious. The cape felt sort devilish. I go no ideas. I originally thought I could cut the legs off and make it into a dress, but it turned out a little TOO short.

So I ended up with this one. Tho as you'll see, it was really 3/4 sleeves. But it was the best I could muster.

It was hard to chop up a perfectly good man's shirt to make my costume, but much easier than trying to make my own collar and sleeves.

My husband's costume base was just a green shirt from Cabelas, but it didn't have the shoulder detail on it, so I ended up cutting up ANOTHER green shirt for his costume. So down two shirts for two costumes. ;)



Yes I am a Pirate... 200 Years Too Late...

Jimmy Buffett came to town! For the first time ever! Sometimes I wish we could take the weather with us.

Since it was going to be about 43 degrees at our tailgate, you have to go tropical where you can. 

After teleworking early in the day, we were able to pop down to see and participate in the Parrothead festivities!

The tailgate we were invited to attend went all out, roasting a pig, offering sidedishes and a bar, and a full speaker system for our musical enjoyment.

I thought there would be a bit more Parrothead spectacle than I encountered. Dudes on bikes in skirts pulling dudes on skateboards seemed pretty tame.

Of course, there were lots of leis, and your occasional boat captain.

And then parking lot craziness ensued.

Jimmy gave us a good show. I wouldn't say it was a great show, but we had a fun time. It was nice to see some Key West footage up on the big screen too.

It was fun to spend a tropical evening out with Mister Buffett, who played for nearly 3 hours with no opener. I'm gonna try to keep that weather with me.

The First Hunt of the Season

Hmm. There's red and orange stuff all over the house, and guns propped around. It must be hunting season!

And my first hunting adventure in NewTruck! Which is almost a year old, so really I should only refer to it as BigGreen.

And...OMIGOSH! Where'd the reservoir go? Where'd they put it?!? 'Member when I drove a boat on the reservoir? Yeah. THAT reservoir. I don't know where it's being kept now.

I didn't skimp on the layers, so was very warm the whole hunt. But felt a little like the Michelin Girl.

We were shocked at how much snow there was just over an hour away.

Dear Mother Nature,

 
This is just wrong.

Love, the Chicken Ranch.

We searched a good lot of this area, and found some footprints, but no deers.

But it was awesome to hike in the snow, probably around 3 miles.

I Live!

sHello sweet visitors! I am alive, I haven't abandoned my beloved blog...I just haven't been doing much that's..."blog-worthy." The summer was set up to be super dull, so the fireman could go without feeling divided. Well it worked! We did almost nothing since partybarging. Well, we did do one thing...we bought a sectional for the upstairs TV room! Yay! Our first ever real furniture bought new. 

But even when you buy something new it's still delivered in a damaged state. But they let us keep it until the second one was shipped.  

So here's our second secctional. Yay! And what my husband is doing here in this picture? Laying on the new leather sectional watching TV? Yeah. We've been doing a LOT of that.

My fireman was in the woods over our anniversary, but we celebrated upon his return. 

And he sent me these. They filled up the front seat of the Cooper!

And he brought me this lovely bauble, all the way from Montana.

AND, he brought this from Montana too. Welcome new White Chicken! There has been some speculation as to whether lady chickens have combs or whatnot, but we have decreed her a lady chicken. Mostly she is a dining room chicken. I think the sectional delivery dudes were a little wigged out by my three stuffed chickens. I like that.