Weekend Wind-Down #83

It wouldn't be a proper visit from Missy's parents without some sort of HOME IMPROVEMENT project being involved, though we kept it fairly simple this time around. The last time they visited, they helped us install an ADJUSTABLE SHELVING SYSTEM in our CRAFT ROOM (which also doubles as our MUSIC ROOM). The weight of some of Missy's craft supplies was causing some of the shelves to bow in the middle. The solution was to install a third brace between the two previously installed braces and brackets that would prevent the shelves from bowing. We pulled everything off the shelves, installed the new brace and brackets, and added an additional shelf...











We also installed a brand new SHOWER HEAD (not pictured) in the GUEST BATHROOM (which I use as my own personal bathroom)...it's amazing how something as simple putting in a new shower head can greatly improve your quality of life. And then, on Saturday, Missy's parents were especially kind to gift us with another upgrade - they snuck out of the house early and came back with a brand new 32" FLAT SCREEN TV to replace our out-dated television. Christmas came extra early to Rancho Cocoa!



FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - My parents coming to visit!
RAOUL - Thanksgiving!

WORST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Not getting to do everything I wanted to when Mom and Dad were here...
RAOUL - When Missy's dad bought that faulty deep fryer from WalMart...and then having to go back to WalMart to return it.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Standing in the front yard, pouring out oil from the broken deep fryer back into the bottles...
RAOUL - Watching "Tropic Thunder" on the new wide screen TV...especially love the fake movie previews...

WORD OR PHRASE OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - "Soap n'at"
RAOUL - "Booty Sweat"

FAVORITE "BLACK FRIDAY" PURCHASE?
MISSY - Bananagrams!
RAOUL - New shower head.

LEAST FAVORITE "BLACK FRIDAY" PURCHASE?
MISSY - I think the shower curtain is kinda boring...
RAOUL - Faulty deep fryer from WalMart.

FAVORITE MEAL OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Thanksgiving!
RAOUL - duh...Thanksgiving dinner!

THREE THINGS ON YOUR TO-DO LIST FOR THIS WEEK?
MISSY - Clean up Nilla's litter box, organize my crafts, draw my comic.
RAOUL - Attend Ohh, Boy's grand opening shindig, pack the car, participate in Craftstravaganzaa.

PERSONAL SOUNDTRACK FOR THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Laura Marling, St. Vincent, Craftypod podcast, This American LIfe podcast...same crap I always listen to.
RAOUL - Best Coast, The Very Best, Simon & Garfunkel, Human League, Finally Punk, Cryptacize, Phil Spector "Back To Mono" boxset, Mayer Hawthorne's "Hawthorne Radio" mixes on Stones Throw podcast.

New Handmade Goodies!

My Headphones Mini Notepad, originally uploaded by sugar-cookie.

I have been busy as a bee adding new mini notepads to SHOPPE SUGAR COOKIE (and soon to MY WEBSITE!) My dad (who owns and operates RECORD PRINTING, up in Pittsburgh) brought these MINI-SIZED RAINBOW NOTEPADS when they came to visit for Thanksgiving. I just love how they turned out! Thanks, Dad!




I have eight new notepad designs, so keep an eye out cos I will try and list them throughout the week, I hope. These are a great size for little thank you notes - I use them for all my Etsy orders! Plus, they make good little stocking stuffers, too!




My Meow Kitty Mini Notepad was a favorite at the Indie Craft Experience in Atlanta a few weeks back. I love this drawing, too. It is so Nilla!

Nilla Seventy-Six

Yawny., originally uploaded by sugar-cookie.

Here is my alarm clock, Nilla. She gets me up at 4am and I toss her one treat and then I go back to bed. Then she gets me up again between 7 and 8am. I have been up early on our Thanksgiving holiday cos pets need to be fed at the early hour!

Scenes From Black Friday

Missy posing with a giant sub outside of the SUBWAY which was inside of a WALMART:



Looking for a new CEILING FAN at the HOME DEPOT:





Missy reacting to some shocking tabloid news she read while standing at the registers at KROGER:





Missy's dad bought some LOTTERY TICKETS at the Kroger and won TEN DOLLARS. He got ten more SCRATCHERS and gave one to each of us...I ended up winning FIVE DOLLARS!



Missy's dad was really really wanting to DEEP FRY his own FRENCH FRIES, so he bought a deep fryer while we were at WalMart. He filled it with oil, only to find out that the darn thing wouldn't even turn on! They ended up pouring the oil back into the plastic bottles and they did it in the front yard so it wouldn't spill over everything. The neighbors were scratching their heads, wondering what was going on. Missy wondered when the madness was going to end:





Missy's dad was hell bent on frying up some potatoes...so we went to TARGET and bought another deep fryer. We placed it in the trunk of my car, to the left of the deep fryer we were taking back to WalMart. This is probably, hopefully, the first and last time TWO deep fryers will ever occupy the trunk space in my car:



We ended up back at Home Depot to buy an extra shelf to add to the adjustable shelving system in our craft room. Missy posed with this huge SANTA RUG...it is supposed to look like she is sitting in his lap, asking for a pony:



We stopped at the PEACHMAC across the street from Home Depot so that Missy could buy a case for her new iPOD TOUCH. The nerds running the shop seemed to be in a good mood:



We stopped in at BORDERS and I scored this awesome SIMON & GARFUNKEL BOX SET for HALF-OFF...I love BLACK FRIDAY!



During one of our visits to Home Depot, I treated myself to a brand new SHOWER HEAD. Of course, it was on sale...I'm looking forward to some pulsating water massage action tomorrow morning:



Missy's dad was finally able to make the scalding hot golden brown fries he had been obsessing over the whole day. And yes, they were delicious:

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americanos! Hope everyone is having a nice time...if you're lucky, you're enjoying a 4-day weekend off work...I know we are!

Last week, work gave everyone in the company a FREE HAM for Thanksgiving...that's close to 300 hams that they handed out! Naturally, both Missy and I were given hams...which meant that our house ended up with two of them...and we're totally VEGETARIAN! Luckily, Missy's parents weren't, so they instantly became the recipient of one of our superfluous hocks of meat. We ended up giving our other ham to BEN & MICHELLE who live next door to us...Ben works at the MAYFIELD DAIRY and he routinely hooks us up with free milk and juice. The other night, Michelle knocked on our door and brought over a buncha bottles of EGG NOG (the non-alcoholic variety) and we in turn gave them our other ham. We love our neighbors! The egg nog went pretty quickly. Mmmmmmmmm...



Missy's parents drove down from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and arrived in town yesterday while we were at work. Today, we basically cooked and ate all day while parades and football games played out on the television screen in the background. We basically did what everyone else was doing today. Missy keeps saying she wants to get up early to take advantage of some "doorbuster" deals on BLACK FRIDAY, but I don't know yet...there was some talk about getting a brand new BIG SCREEN TV, but I highly doubt it since Missy treated herself to a small screen iPod Touch yesterday!

Weekend Wind-Down #82 - I.C.E. Atlanta Edition

This past saturday we participated in the INDIE CRAFT EXPERIENCE, ATLANTA (I.C.E. ATLANTA) holiday craft sale...but before I can even talk about that, we have to skip back to the Friday night beforehand. It has become a tradition of ours to load up on PIZZA the night before a huge craft sale, and we always load up at the TRANSMETROPOLITAN pizzeria, just down the street from our hood. We always order a large vegetarian pizza - way more than two people can handle - eat a couple of slices, then take the rest home. We learned several craft sales ago that cold pizza (or rather, room temperature pizza) makes for a great meal when you're stuck at your booth during a busy craft sale. We just wrap the individual slices in tin foil and place in an insulated lunch bag. When the munchies strike...voilá!...a hearty slice of pizza is at hand to chase away those hungry feelings...







Early Saturday morning, we headed out for Atlanta and the old SOUTHERN MILLS building which houses the cavernous AMBIENT + STUDIO photo studio. Our load-in time was at 7am, which meant we had to leave Athens at 5:30am, which meant that we got up at 4:30 am. This wasn't as bad as it sounded, because we loaded the car the night before and pretty much had everything prepared way ahead of time. Actually, this was probably the most prepared we've ever been for a craft sale. We've been doing this for several years now, so I guess we can chalk it up to experience. One thing that we did that was really helpful was that we actually set up our table in our LIVING ROOM about a week before the sale. Before we even got to the sale, we had already planned where everything was going to be and how everything was going to work. That, combined with a four hour buffer between load-in and the start of the sale, equalled a relatively stress-free job setting up our tables...





Missy's plush BOILED PEANUTS stewing in a black cauldron turned out to be a big hit!





















































Business was brisk and there was virtually no let down in the action...we barely had enough time to leave the tables and look around the studio and do some shopping of our own. In the end, the sale ended up being one of our best one ever! As the sale wound down and the sun dipped into the horizon, we pulled out our battery-operated LED CHRISTMAS LIGHTS to help illuminate our tables, enabling us to squeeze in a few more sales before finally calling it a very successful night...













FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Having so much fun at the craft sale!
RAOUL - I.C.E. Atlanta!

WORST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - The magnets not fitting on the back of my one-inch badges.
RAOUL - Not getting enough rest before the sale...but that's a given.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Raoul talking in "emoticons"
RAOUL - Girl: "what does F.M.L. mean?", Me: "Fuck My Life", Girl: "What does J.A.H. mean?", Me: "that's JAH...you know, it's what Rastafarians call GOD...it's for the Rastafarian that comes to the craft show thinking, 'there's nothing for me here...wait, mon...look at THIS!'"

WORD OR PHRASE OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - "Sometimes she's in the office, sometimes she's getting fat" (in reference to the comic strip "Cathy")
RAOUL - "What does J.A.H. stand for?"

FAVORITE MEAL OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Zyka, in Decatur!
RAOUL - Indian food at Zyka, even though it gave my tummy a green sad face the following day.

FAVORITE THANKSGIVING DISH?
MISSY - Mashed potatoes and gravy!
RAOUL - Dressing/stuffing.

THREE THINGS ON YOUR TO-DO LIST THIS WEEK?
MISSY - Clean up, make a Christmas list, and figure out what kind of dessert we want to have for Thanksgiving
RAOUL - Fix the vaccuum, clean up the house before Missy's parents get here, catch up on sleep.

PERSONAL SOUNDTRACK FOR THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Beirut, Bjork, The Cure, Alessi's Ark.
RAOUL - The Cure, Tuscadero, Finally Punk, Stereolab, The Very Best, C.O.C.O., Adam Green, Vampire Weekend, Cryptacize, Mayer Hawthorne's "Hawthorne Radio" mix on Stones Throw podcast.