Green Glasses in the District: A river runs through (my tube).

Craft-zine? How about Craft-awesome.
The push for all that comes with year closing when working at a school is soon rewarded with summertime. I'm not lucky enough to have the summer off completely, but the level of expectation (that is already pretty low) plummets to barely a blip on the screen. I'm honoring my first day to summer hours with jeans and sandals and catching up on a huge backlog of craftzine. I'm stoked to see a plethora of yarning posts, with some really cute things. Unfortunately they're on this DIY Wedding kick lately, so pardon the vom-tastic wedding emphasis.

The first one that caught my eye was this crochet floral ensemble. As much of a yarnie as I am, I still couldn't fathom giving up real flowers. But I think the idea is fantastic and unexpected

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/06/petal_to_the_metal.html

Not yarn related, but check out this awesome layered necklace. Hello bead store...I might be coming for a visit sometime soon.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/06/layered_pearl_necklace_tutoria.html

For a common space in a residential facility that I was designing last Fall, I found, loved, and used these Poufs from Design Within Reach.

Floor seating - yes please. Using fiber in an unexpected way - YES PLEASE!!

I'm usually a fan of the home-made version. I find myself not buying things with the "I could totally make that" complex, so my vote usually goes to the homemade version. Except this time. Part of the awesomeness of the pouf is it's use of oversized yarn, creating massive stitches. Somehow the knock-off falls a bit short...

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/06/knitted_poufs_patterns.html

And then I couldn't help but notice these perfect conecakes featured last week. Ahem, why wasn't this posted two weeks ago so that I could pick up on their excellent tip of baking the cones in an egg carton to keep them up right. Damnit.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/06/how-to_cupcake_cones.html

Oh craftzine. I've missed you so much and almost forgotten how great you were.

But enough playing cliffs notes to another blog. Let talk about a few recaps of my weekend of "blogworthy" moments.

Cringe moment #1.
The set-up:
An unexpected side effect to moving super conveniently close to work is that I run into work people ALL OF THE TIME. We're not talking the occasional walk by at the supermarket. I mean - I take bets everytime I leave the house as to how many students or parents I'm going to run into (generally 2 on a weekday, 4 on a weekend day). I discovered this the hard way by rolling out of bed one Saturday morning, throwing on a little tank top and wandering bleary-eyed over to the market. I spent the rest of the day trying to coyly cover up my non-bra'd breasts while having awkward small talk with no fewer than 12 students and parents. Awesome.

Daytime hours - I'll give you that. But I didn't realize this bleed over from work to personal life would corrupt my nightlife. Friday was graduation at work, so it wasn't entirely unexpected to run into three packs comprising the total of the 8th grade class on my way to the Pour House Friday night. They were running around on a scavenger hunt, sufficiently distracted and thus saving me from a barrage of questions. I met the beau and one of his man-cave mates and girlfriend for the Stanley Cup finals, and I sipped my brew voicing my relief that I had run into the class BEFORE the bar instead of after.

The moment:
Fast forward 5 hours; the beau and I are walking home from the bar and I run smack into an 8th grader and her dad. We exchanged awkward hellos and I spot another 8th grader up the block. We quickly cross to the other side of the street and I tried my best to hide behind the silhouette of Hercules. I celebrated my elusive victory a bit too soon, as 10 of the loudest and nosiest 8th grade girls come running onto the sidewalk - spotting me immediately and screaming "oh my god, that's Heidi. Heidi what are you doing? Hi Heidi! Oh my god, is that your BOYFRIEND??!!?? Who is he?....." The beau best summarizes my response in: "When approached by a group on 13 year old girls, Heidi will (a) exchange pleasantries and then continue on her way or (b) run away like a little girl"

oh.sweet.jesus. yes. I ran. I ran away like the fat kid running towards the hot donuts sign at Krispy Kreme.

Cringe moment #2
The set-up:
I'm an interesting mix of my mom and my grandmother. My Santa list from when I was 6 asks for makeup, long hair, and high heels. My toenails have never not been painted since I was probably 10 years old, and I was the one who had to teach my mother that makeup beyond naked mascara and chapstick was not the devil. (thanks Nina!) on the flipside I'll never refuse to try something - surfing, zip lines, rafting; and I'll always try to keep up with the other outdoorsy people in my life. (thanks Mom!) That being said, I'm not so great with some of the outdoorsy stuff. I'll try, and I'll laugh, but it always ends up with me being the source of humor for the group. But when everyone wanted to go tubing down the 50-degree river on Sunday, I was a good sport and excitedly agreed.

The moment:
I ended up on an $8 pool toy from Weggmans. Oh yea, nothing could possibly go wrong with this scenario. So we all roped ourselves together, and started floating down the river. About 10 minutes into our 3-hour journey, we come upon a huge tree limb sticking up out of the water. The tubes attached to the beginning part of the rope go right, the end go left, and I end up wedged on top of the tree. The rest of the tubes continue careening down the river, ripping the eyelet holding the rope straight out of my tube, and thus ripping a 4" hole in my tube. As Nick would say "hm. Heidi I don't think it's a good sign that I can fist your tube." Luckily I had just enough air in the reserve compartment to keep my head above water as I floundered my way to the bank with the rest of our party laughing their asses off. With two eagle scouts in the crowd, they Macguyvered a duck-tape patch with seaweed accents, blew me back up, and sent me on my way.

I'm smart enough to not combine camera and water, so here is my beautiful representation of what was supposed to keep me afloat for three hours: