SIMPLE HAPPY

This week's Simple Happy was watching these guys and all their relatives partying down in our garden.

What about you? What simple wonders made your breathing slow and put a smile on your face?

FAMILY FUN AND CRAPPY DINNER PARTIES

 
Hard to believe Little Goober is four and a half months old now. Things are changing faster than we can keep up with them. One day he's a slug on a rug, the next one he's laughing and giggling and rolling all over the place! Going down in the family annals for sure was the day Papa John said something rude about "silly grandmas" and, with absolute perfect timing, Goobs got a lopsided grin on his face and let out a snarky "Heh!" Mima didn't feel too insulted however, for only she can still do this with her magic lullabies!

A couple of weeks ago, when the men were all at DerbyCon or Fantastic Fest, we gals decided to head down to Austin's Pecan Street Festival.

Our bearded boys would've loved this booth!

Unfortunately, after an entire week of lovely fall-like weather, the sun decided to come out in full force that day, and the canopy on Calvin's stroller really wasn't doing much to protect him.  Luckily, there was a nice cool Mexican joint nearby for us to adjourn to!

Now, onto the subject of "Crappy Dinner Parties". Believe it or not, that's actually a thing now! When I was a young stay at home mom, watching a bit too much Martha Stewart on TV, I longed to throw parties and spend time with other adults the way we used to (parties being our only entertainment when living on company compounds overseas), but just couldn't find the time or energy to pull it all together, especially not to Martha's standards! Thinking about the neighborhood I grew up in, where friends would call and say "We're fixing to grill some burgers out by the pool. Want to bring whatever you were planning to fix and join us?", my solution was to throw lots of pot lucks and form supper clubs with rotating hosts wherever we were living. Number one rule at supper club? She who hosts it doesn't have to cook, since planning the meal, assigning courses, providing beverages, setting tables and most importantly, cleaning one's entire house, were all more than enough to deal with! Lexi's generation has come up with their own solution -- the crappy dinner party.

Apparently a young mom named Kelley Powell wrote a blog post on how she and her best friend came up with this idea, and it really struck a chord, for last time I checked, it had been shared more than 120,000 times. In case you are one of the few people who didn't see a link to it on Facebook in recent weeks, here are 5 Rules for Hosting a Crappy Dinner Party (and Seeing Your Friends More Often) :

1. No housework is to be done prior to guests arrival
2. Menu must be simple and not involve a special grocery shop
3. You must wear whatever you happen to have on
4. No hostess gifts allowed
5. You must act like you're surprised when your guest and her family arrive (optional)

Lex has taken that idea and run with it, sending out an open invitation to friends and family to show up at her house on the last Friday of every month for a Crappy Pot Luck. I think it's a brilliant idea, and am honored to be on the guest list.

Uncle Nootie Gets Quality Goober Time at a Crappy Dinner Party

"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are." ~ Old Proverb

HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

Though the Gaylord Texan may have been a tad short on shopping bargains and moan-inducing food, sister Gus had heard that downtown Grapevine had all that and more, so we decided to go investigate. Our greatest discovery was a little French cafe called Main Street Bistro and Bakery. Oo La La!

Believe you me, there were moans aplenty to be had in this place!

Three Takes on Grilled Cheese -- American, French and Italian

Lunch was so filling, we didn't have room for dessert, but we did take one thing from the bakery -- an amazing tart with a creamy filling beneath a shell of chocolate ganache -- back to the hotel, to share during a high-stakes game of Shanghai (kinda like gin rummy). I lost big time, but didn't really care since I was eating ganache.

Then there were the shops! My favorite, of course, being a color-mad shop called Good Things For All Seasons...

where I found the absolute perfect headpiece to wear to my daughter's annual Halloweeny Day of the Dead Anniversary Mima's Birthday Party!

Too bad I can't show it to you yet.

DISNEYFIED TEXAS

I met up with my sisters in Dallas Tuesday, to celebrate a landmark birthday for matriarch Poodie. We then drove over near the town of Grapevine to check into the Gaylord Texan Resort, which I had never seen. My first thought was Hill-Country-Hyatt-On-Steroids, but with one major difference -- everything is covered by a giant glass dome, which means the weather is always perfect, no matter when you go!

Plus, you can visit the San Antonio Riverwalk...

the Alamo...

or even a west Texas canyon, without ever leaving the comfort of the dome.

Everything was absolutely perfect, from the plantings...

to the presentation...

as long as you didn't look too closely.

There's nothing but a blank wall behind those saloon doors.

It's the best place in the world to rack up lots of fitbit steps without ever breaking a sweat...

or dine semi-al-fresco on a gorgeous patio, with nary a bug in site.

In fact, it was soooo perfect, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was a character in one of my dystopian novels, part of some weird experiment, or living in a biodome on some inhospitable planet -- especially when something seemed just a little bit off. For instance, though all the food was super gorgeous and uber expensive, not one thing made me moan, and though there were lots of lovely shops, there was nothing I really wanted/could afford to buy.

Still, there was eye candy galore, and old town Grapevine was just five minutes away, where we found plenty to buy and eat and moan over (more about that tomorrow).

All in all, it was a most excellent adventure, and when Little Goober is a bit older, I'm thinking we really need to take him to this!

IF ONLY HE'D KNOWN

The things this poor baby has to put up with!

And, it wasn't even his crazy daddy or Papa John or Uncle Nootie who did this to him. It was his own mother! 

 

If only he'd known what kind of crazy family he was being born into, he might well have...

pumped his fist into the air, hollering "Hot diggity dog! Let the shenanigans begin!" 

After all, he did inherit their genes, did he not?

P.S. I'm headed up to Dallas for a few days to help celebrate Sister Poo's Big Seven OOOHH. Strange, but I'm not in the least disturbed by the fact that I'll be turning 63 at the end of next month. But, having a sister who's turning 70? Now that kinda freaks me out! Unfortunately, the weather does not bode well for the first day of this adventure. Here's hoping it's not white-knuckle-driving all the way to Big D! (Actually, here's hoping I can even get over our low-water-crossings when it's time to leave.)
 

EPHEMERA: IT COMES AND IT GOES

Every time my creative journey heads down a new fork in the road, the same thing happens. It starts with one tiny little change, like sorting my "rainbow" of painted papers by color, and storing it in these plastic crates, which used to hold all of my yarn. 

 But, in order to make room for those crates on your shelves, you have to consolidate something else.

And, in order to make room for the new tools and supplies you never knew you needed before, then you have to purge something else.  Before you know it, you've reworked every single shelf, drawer and cabinet in the room!

But that's a good thing, isn't it? Because it helps you to focus on what is truly useful and makes you really, really happy, and to eliminate that which is just taking up space.

When I took my very first art class on-line, I had an instructor who was mad for scrapbook paper and ephemera.

Ephemera

In fact, I think art journaling probably came into being when a bunch of bored scrapbookers started looking around and thinking "Yikes, now what do I do with all this stuff?" Well, I had never done scrapbooking, so I had to run out and buy a bunch of that stuff for my class! My second instructor used those things occasionally, but was more into drawing and watercolors, and I discovered I enjoyed those a lot more. So I added those supplies. Each successive teacher led me a little further down the path toward my own true style, but it wasn't until this last major purge that I finally faced up to the fact that I freakin' hate scrapbook paper and ephemera, so out it went at last! Which gave me a really great space for storing all my not-yet-painted papers...

and my hand-carved stamps, which I hope to be doing a lot more of!

So, for those of you who were wondering just what I am planning to do with that rainbow of papers I painted, first on the list is this...

completing that toucan, the second project from my Paper Painting Collage workshop with Elizabeth St. Hilaire. I consider both this and the apple to be my practice projects, and probably the last ones I'll ever do on canvas, since, believe me, the last thing we need in this house is any more stuff to hang on the walls!

My instructor was right. You NEVER have enough paper!

Once this fellow is finished, I plan to jump back in to my art journals, to see where these new techniques might lead me.

I'm especially anxious to get back to my travel journal -- finish up with Sudan, and get to work on Barcelona. Because, seriously, if ever there was a city just crying out to be illustrated with a million tiny bits of colorful paper...

it would have to be Barcelona, would it not?