Weekend wrap-up

Rand and I went to Pennsylvania over the weekend for my cousin Meghan’s wedding. I’m waiting for my dad to post some actual photos of the ceremony, because I wasn’t in a very good position to get them…

On kind of a whim, we stopped for dinner at Blasdell Pizza in Springville. I’d never had it before, but Rand had. I heartily approve. 🙂

Friday night was pretty mellow. We went to the reception hall to help with some last-minute decorating things. Saturday morning, I finally had the chance to cash in a massage gift certificate I received last Christmas. Ahhh…very nice!

The ceremony began at two, and we headed over early. My brother needed to be there to hand out programs. The photographer was one of my old high school teachers, so I chatted with him briefly about my becoming a teacher and teaching eighth grade. He told me that when he made the move from teaching middle school to teaching high school (after 14 years), he found that his 40-minute lesson plan only took 15 minutes. I laughed. Everything takes three times as long with middle schoolers because you’re constantly saying things like “be quiet,” “don’t touch that,” “put that down,” and “stop it.” 😉

While I couldn’t take any actual ceremony photos, I did get a couple of interesting shots during the ceremony:

window

colten and daddy

Amanda (Meghan’s sister) was the matron of honor. Her son, Colten, was the ring bearer. I caught this cute shot of Colten resting on daddy.

My cousin Scott (Meghan’s brother) sang Ave Maria quite beautifully. I continue to be impressed with his talent. 🙂

The reception had a sort of garden faerie theme. This was their cake:

waterfall cake-front

waterfall cake-side

cake cutting

There was, of course, the obligatory cake-smooshing. I was assured that there will be no cake smooshing at mine. 😉

We posed for a family photo, which I think is pretty nice…but for the redeye I can’t remove and the slightly crazed expression on my brother’s face.

family

Then I posed for a couple of shots with my “double sister.” (Leslie, my sister-in-law, and I were in the same sorority…)

double sisters

There was much drinking, dancing and general carousing. The reception was huge–around 400 guests–and *everyone* was there to party. I did the chicken dance, which I have to admit that I like. I did not do the hokey pokey. The electric slide was not played. As is usually the case, I was unimpressed with the DJ.

Later, my aunt showed me some pictures I had drawn for her way back when (I’m guessing I was somewhere around ten). My repertoire consisted mainly of unicorns and Care Bears.

unicorn

other care bear

Later still, we enjoyed the adventures of Dudley, the Highly Energetic Shih Tzu. Here’s Dudley with his new most favorite toy, a Swiffer duster handle.

dudley

We went out for breakfast Sunday morning, then said our goodbyes and headed back to Buffalo.

All in all, a lovely weekend. Congratulations to Meghan and Tom!

Creativity

So I’ve gotten a serious creative bug up my butt these past few weeks. My renewed interest in drawing has inspired me to go back looking for things I’ve done in the past, and I’ve been able to post some of them here. (that set includes snapshots of my sketchbook as well as photos of some old artwork)

I also found one of these on eBay for about half price. I decided to order it, and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. According to the UPS tracking page, it should be delivered today. (it was put on the truck this morning!!) Check that–it just arrived!

And as you know, I’ve been busy with my calligraphy, and making an effort to spread the word! Many, many thanks to Debbie, Hilary and Seanan for their posts! And as a reminder, think of me if you need a wedding/anniversary/baby/whatever gift. Feel free to help me get the word out!

I’ve been wanting to learn how to sew for quite some time, and I’ve been thinking seriously about it again. Joann’s offers a beginner’s sewing class, 3 3-hour sessions for $75, and I’m thinking about signing up. My mom’s a wonderful seamstress (see her work here and here), but when I was at home, we lacked the patience to teach Erin how to sew. Maybe this class would be what I need…mom has an old sewing machine that I could have. Not that I have anywhere to put it. 😉

And of course, when I picked up the class flyer at Joann’s, there were several other classes that interested me. Ooh, watercolors!

I’m feeling a wee bit stalled on the writing front…although I’ve enlisted some people to help me dig in to my NaNoWriMo novel and try to whip it into some kind of shape. We’ll see how that goes. 🙂

Other than that? I’m very much looking forward to my yoga class that starts next week!

Doodling


beavers
Originally uploaded by enappe27.

I don’t really know where this sketching thing is coming from. I think it probably started with me responding to one of Debbie’s blatherings about how I used to draw unicorns way back in the day.

I loved art. I did take art classes in high school, after they were no longer required. I took the “regular” art classes where we did a bit of everything–drawing, painting, etc. I also took a ceramics class and a “studio art” class in which we learned things like calligraphy and origami and other things I’m forgetting.

So anyway, back to the doodling…the response to Debbie started it, and then I was wandering around a craft store and sketchbooks were on sale. I picked one up, along with a couple of drawing pencils.

I’m just having fun with it…and I decided to start snapping some photos and created a flickr set to post them. I’m really enjoying exercising the creative part of my brain.

As for the beavers…well, they go back to high school. Long story short, there was this girl nicknamed Beaver (yeah, I know…), and, well, let’s just say that she and I didn’t exactly get along. I used to amuse myself by drawing these little guys and writing stupid messages expressing my, uh, feelings about her.

I remember this serving as a great source of amusement at Model UN my senior year. This guy John and I sat next to each other and cracked each other up instead of paying attention to the security council meeting we were attending. I don’t even remember what country we were. And yet, I remember the beavers. Ah, good times…