Weekend Wind-Down #105 - Judgement Day Edition

Saturday morning we stopped at VILLAGE CANDY in nearby Sewickley, PA. Missy is doing a candy trade with a friend in the UK and she wanted to see if she could find something interesting. I ended up buying a couple of bottles of JUDGE WAPNER ROOT BEER...yes, JUDGE WAPNER, the godfather of courtroom-reality television, has his own root beer. Or at least, a beverage company saw fit to license him. Who wouldn't want a soft drink named after them? The saying on the label is awesome - "I sentence you to drink my root beer!", though it makes it sound like drinking his beverage was some sort of punishment...does it taste THAT BAD? When you drink all the root beer the message "JUDGE FOR YOURSELF" appears. The verdict? Guilty of good taste.



I also bought a pack of these AEROBICA candy cigarettes. Putting a lady in a JAZZERCISE OUTFIT on a pack of candy cigarettes is brilliantly bizarre. Candy cigarettes are just so wrong anyways, but this packaging takes things to the next level...



FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Getting to come home to Pittsburgh.
RAOUL - Roadtrip!

WORST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Running into the heavy rain on the ride up.
RAOUL - Eating at the saddest Subway in the world, West Virginia.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Greg's birthday cake with tons of candles.
RAOUL - Playing PAIN on Greg's Playstation 3.

WORD OR PHRASE OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - "OOCH!"
RAOUL - "OOCH!"

FAVORITE MEAL OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - I liked all the stuff Greg made on his birthday...especially the potatoes.
RAOUL - Breakfast at Del Taco!

WORST MEAL OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - The Subway in West Virginia.
RAOUL - 6" Veggie Delite at the saddest Subway in the world.

FAVORITE CHARACTER ON "PAIN"?
MISSY - David Hasselhoff!
RAOUL -Even though I didn't play him, I'd have to say the Axe Effect dude.

FAVORITE SOUND EFFECT / SAYING ON "PHOTO DOJO"?
MISSY - Toy toy toy toy TOY TOY TOY TOY!
RAOUL - Toy toy toy toy TOY TOY TOY TOY!

PERSONAL SOUNDTRACK FOR THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Laura Marling, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Roots Manuva, This American Life podcast, K Records mixtapes, Kill Rock Stars 2010 sampler.
RAOUL - Creedence Clearwater Revival, Best Coast, Roots Manuva, This American Life podcast, K Records mixtapes, Kill Rock Stars 2010 sampler.

Vacation In The Rust Belt

Friday, Missy and I packed up her shiny silver VW Bug and hit the road going north, hoping to get to her hometown of PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, within the usual 12-hour time frame we are accustomed to. If millions of people hit the roads this holiday weekend, we didn't run into any of them (as we had expected) and we made it to PA in record time, despite a couple of distractions...the first one being DEL TACO somewhere in SOUTH CAROLINA...



I had never seen a Del Taco in the South or on the East Coast before. Sure, there are plenty of Taco Bells, but it's not the same thing. You can't get fries and EL SCORCHO hot sauce from Taco Bell. Growing up in California, Del Taco is arguably as quintessentially Californian as say, IN-'N'-OUT BURGERS...feeling a bit nostalgic, I exited the highway and "forced" us to have fast food for breakfast...





We zoomed by the GIANT ASS-SHAPED PEACH in Gaffney, South Carolina, and managed to click-off these couple of photos...









We hit some heavy rain storms as we paid the entrance fee into WEST VIRGINIA...



Late in the afternoon, we were enticed to stray off the highway again by signs advertising the WAFFLE HUT - OPEN 24 HOURS...turns out that the Waffle Hut was a combo restaurant/gas station/motel and it looked really really sketchy. We gassed up and headed down the street to THE SADDEST SUBWAY IN THE WORLD for a quick bite to eat. The young sandwich artists there might as well had "FML" tattooed on their foreheads they looked so utterly defeated by life. I joked that our 6" Veggie Delite sandwiches had little chunks of coal in it. It was also the first Subway shop I'd ever seen that sold biscuits and gravy...







We stopped at the Welcome Center after having crossed the border between West Virginia and Pennsylvania. We freshened up and fished out Missy's cell phone, which accidently slid underneath the driver's seat. We picked up a bunch of pamphlets and called Missy's family to say we were about 150 miles away. Southwestern PA is part of COAL MINING COUNTRY, so the rest stop had displays and tributes to the area's hard working coal mining families...

Feelin' Crafty

My pouches from My Paper Crane fabric. 2, originally uploaded by sugar-cookie.

I was feeling crafty recently and made some pouches from some My Paper Crane fabric I ordered. I want to get better at making zippers, so I tried to sew little pouches. One can never have too many pouches.


Here is the first try. As you can see, the zipper did not catch on the corner. My quick fix was to use embroidery floss and sew it up with a tiny red bow accent. Can you tell? I really love this glockenspiel fabric!


Both pouches have a candy striped lining and I made sure to cut it on the bias. I thought it was a nice touch for the interior of the pouches.


I added a cute little matryoshka felt pin of my creation! I thought it looked cute with this matryoshka pattern fabric.


And here is the finished handmade goodie!


And here is the other one!

Good Times

The next time we post, we'll be in Pittsburgh on vacation. See you then!

Hallelujah

Last Sunday, we had a meet-up for the Athens branch of the CHURCH OF CRAFT here at RANCHO COCOA...we had a lot of fun! We kicked things off by introducing the pets to everybody...Audrey got into Oreo's pen and tried to tempt our bunny out of her tent with some carrots while Nilla sat on her lounger and supervised all the action in our livingroom...







Missy got to work on cutting out little felt slices of FRENCH TOAST, while Clare drew in her sketchbook. Gary showed up sans craft project, so we put him to work...he cut out ONE-INCH BUTTON designs and then pressed them in the badge press. Soon, everyone took turns making their own one-inch badges...















Beky embroidered CAT AND HEART DESIGNS on felt and then pressed them into badges, while Clare turned some of her drawings into WEARABLE ART...











Elizabeth worked on a spotted FELTED BALL and Beky worked on her EMBROIDERED OWLS...





All the while, we ate a bunch of food, listened to music, and watched the HANDMADE NATION documentary. After the younger crafters left, we closed the night out with comic heartthrob Aziz Ansari's "Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening" dvd in the hopes of inspiring Gary's fledgling career as a stand-up comic...