A Veritable Smorgasbord!

The last few days have been packed full of activities!

Thursday, in particular...The day started with a mysterious delivery in the mail.  It was covered with Kanji and the address was China, so I knew it could only be one thing...the dress we ordered for Emma from the Cosplay company!  We ordered it just a couple weeks ago, and I was surprised that it had arrived so soon!  They estimated 50-60 days to create this dress, and it's been...what...14?  Awesome!  I was glad that it didn't take nearly as long as they said it would, but Emma's sizes were perfectly "off the rack" for the XL size.  That's right.  SHE is an EXTRA LARGE.  Those Asian chicks must be really skinny since Emma's a size 6 to 8.  What a porker.

I ran up the stairs and said, "Emma!  A dinosaur egg arrived for you!"  She gleefully tore into the packaging!  The red satin peeked through the clear plastic interior packaging and she was really excited about getting her Elizabeth dress.  She pulled out the wig, the accessories, and unfurled the dress...

And it was a dramatic let-down.  It's the wrong dress.  Hmm.  I asked her what character this dress was for and she didn't know.  I posted this picture on Facebook to see if Heide or her girls knew what it was, but they didn't.  Emma called her friend, Miss E who was able to identify it as "Beatrice" from another anime that they don't watch because it's too scary.  Note the photo laying on the floor next to the dress--it's all red and white with a little pink on it; no black or gold sequins.  Not happy.

I emailed the company and asked if it would be possible to return it, and they wrote back (in broken, but understandable, English) to apologize for the mistake and verified our order and that they would begin to make the correct dress and mail it.  They didn't mention how to return the wrong dress, but they'll probably want it back since it's a $134 gown.  And that's the sale price!  If they don't want it back...well, then I guess Emma has a bonus anime dress that she can wear.

The quilt show is coming up very soon, so everyone wanted their quilts done, and they want them now!   I quilted three different quilts this past week--a small Japanese panel quilt for Michele (didn't get a photo of it--I'll have to get that at the show next week), and a "Lasagna" quilt for Donna, which was done in the same pattern as Sharon's quilt that I finished a couple weeks ago.  For this pattern, they take 2 1/2" wide strips of fabric and sew them end to end (at 45 degree angles).  Then you fold it in half and sew those together and cut it at the fold.  Now it's half as long, but twice as wide.  Repeat process until it's about equally long and wide.  Instead of the bright colors that Sharon chose, Donna chose slightly more subdued, but still wild, colors.  The fabrics are the more modern Amy Butler or Kaffe Fassett type patterns that are all the rage now.  There were a lot of florals and leaves, so I quickly quilted it with loops and leaves.

Another large quilt I did was for a woman named Joy.  This quilt top she put together to go up for auction at her church.  While Joy's quilt isn't going into a quilt show, but it's going up for auction on the 24th--the same day as the quilt show.  I did two different quilts for her Mom a few months back--one was actually a repair from another quilter's work, and the other was a top for a wedding gift, I think--and I'm really happy that she gave her daughter the reference.  I still have to take some photos of the quilt before she comes to pick it up!

In order for two of the quilt owners to get them bound before the show, I made a trip up to drop off quilts and the pins and other supplies for our Pinning Party on Tuesday.  While I was in town, we went to the fair!  On the hottest day of the summer!  During the hottest part of the day!  We stopped at the needlework barn first; I thought that I would get it out of the way and have the kids spend most of their time seeing the critters and enjoying their fair food.  I enjoyed this Harry Potter quilt most and after a few minutes of searching, found the pattern...A FREE PATTERN...on a web site.  I also got a chance to talk to a few guild members, which was too boring for the kids and they ended up dragging me out of there within about 15 minutes.  Ah well...

We headed over to the cow barn...one of my favorite places.  I love cows...they're big and gentle, make great things like milk and butter and delicious steaks...and they don't stink as much as pigs.  Clearly an important aspect of my admiration.  This is part of the birthing center at the cow barn where this baby cow was born about four hours before.  The mama next to her was due to deliver that day, but we had lots to see and didn't want to spend the whole day waiting.

We wandered over to the beef barn where Ben started to wonder why we had to kill animals to eat them.  The thought seemed a little upsetting to him, but he got over it fairly quickly.  Cammie was introduced to the idea of the FFA and will have to look into clubs around here.  Of course, here we are living in the big city with nary a farm to be seen.  I ran into Tonya, from the quilt guild and chatted a bit about the upcoming show and our staffing issues...I assume everything will fall into place.

Connected to the beef barn was a live animal auction that was going on.  Ben got a kick out of how fast the auctioneer was talking and asked how anyone could understand him.  I totally get that.  They were auctioning pigs off at the time, and I wasn't sure if they were selling them by the pound, by the hundreds, or what.  He kept saying "one-seventy-five, two dollars..."  Maybe it was $200.  Doesn't matter...I don't like pigs.

After that, we looked at goats and sheep.  We saw little signs that said, "Wanted:  Dead or Alive" on all the pens, and then had their crime:  "eating tin cans", "escape", "ramming farmer", etc.  It was very cute!  While we were enjoying the furry critters, up steps my friend, Chris, whose boys were showing their goats!  It was so good to run into another good friend.

We wandered back to the main area to look at the rides, which we discovered were too expensive--they wanted $1.25 per ticket and each ride was at least 3 to 4 tickets, so $5 per ride per person.  The kids were disappointed, but understood that finances were not conducive for dropping $30 a kid for the infinite ride wristband.  We got some cotton candy and sat in the shade, which was also conveniently located next to the drinking fountains and the bathroom for hand washing, while the sun beat down on the grounds...it was 97 degrees that day.  I dumped a little bit of water on Ben's head to keep him cool, and we stopped for water at the drinking fountains several times, but we still got pretty dehydrated in just a couple hours.

Cammie and I shared some poffertjes from the Dutch bakery, but we missed out on the ice cream sandwiches (the "Moo-wiches") from the Dairy Maids.  After just a little more wandering, we decided we'd had enough of the heat and decided to get some ice water and lemonade from Dairy Queen and drive over to see Tara's new place (she wasn't home or we would have stopped in).  With the air conditioner on full blast and large ice waters, we soon cooled down enough to be comfortable.

We had dinner with Sharon, who explained in more detail about the mass-layoffs at the office earlier that day.  Everyone in their department was sent home after the office manager's secretary announced that the grant money had run out.  Uh...they didn't see this coming?  Apparently the boss had a head-in-the-sand technique for dealing with the upcoming money issues.

So a couple weeks ago, I got to the peak of frustration with my dishes.  I originally bought 12 place settings and I'm down to 8 plates, and a couple of them have chips in them.  While the smaller plates and most of the bowls are fine, if we have more than a couple friends over for dinner, we're going to be out of stoneware pretty quickly.  I went online and found that Macy's was having a huge sale on Fiestaware, and if you buy $50 or more, the shipping is free.  How could I resist?  I got plates in twos in scarlet, paprika, marigold, shamrock, turquoise, cobalt and plum.  This goes with the small cereal and serving bowls we already have that have withstood quite a lot of abuse in the last five years.  We broke one bowl when it crashed to the floor, but considering we bought the last set of dishes just over a year ago and lost four plates already, and I know several restaurants use these plates for their services, and friends who have recommended them, I am confident that they'll last a lot longer than the cheap Gibsons that I got before.

The Sounders played a game against the Vancouver Whitecaps this afternoon--part of the Cascadia rivalry that has endured for decades--and as a special surprise, Kelly bought two tickets in the front row at the stadium.  If you buy them at the last minute, you can get a really sweet deal on them.  Front row is perfect for short people like me and for kids who want to see the game without having to stand on seats (and probably still not be able to see).  He would have bought just one in our area, but Emma is staying with Miss E for the weekend, and I dropped Cammie off with Sharon and Miss O for a camping adventure until Tuesday.

Although we had three seats paid for, one of the seats was on the other side of the stadium, so the adults sat on the seats and Ben sat on our laps.  It was a great game and we won 2-0.  Everyone got free sunglasses and a photographer for the MLS took pictures of Ben holding his scarf over his head like the rest of us.  He's just so totally adorable!

And for my friend, Dave from Boston, I give you the Sporty Edition of Fant-Ass-Tic Days!  Enjoy!