Glad to Be Home Cleaing the Tassel Belts!

I know I have been gone for quite a few weeks, and there are great stories and explanations for the hiatus. As I was talking about in previous posts, it was both my wedding anniversary and my upcoming trip to Chaos Wars that would make me have a long absence from the blogisphere. Both of those events have come to pass, and now I am back at home recovering and preparing for the next big thing. More news on that tomorrow.

For our anniversary, Dan and I went down to LA to ride rollercoasters at Magic Mountain. We both love doing this and have often contemplated joining ACES but have never actually taken the plunge. We then took off for California Extreme the next day. It was much more fun this year, and I liked the convention center they picked better this year even though there seemed to be fewer games and less variety. I blame the bad economy and high gas prices for people not being able to transport their games to the convention. After that it was off to the airport and a short plane ride to Salt Lake City to meet up with my friends from Ered Duath. They took me up to Idaho for Chaos Wars, which was my favorite Belegarth event of all time. I had a great time meeting up with old friends and getting to hang with new Hellhammer members that I had yet to meet. The picture above is all my dance gear that cannot be washed being aired out. While I am still sick with a cold that I picked up from the event, I am so glad to have gotten to take a part in all the fun and festivities. I miss everyone so much now even though there is a big piece of me happy to be home in my quiet confines with the plants and sewing machine again.

Things around the garden seemed to do fine with out me under the care of Dan's watchful eyes. Things are flowering again and starting to turn into fruits and vegetables. There are flowers on the chives:



And big flowers for zucchini:



As well as some young zucchini that will soon be ready to eat:



The tomato flowers are turning into small green tomatoes:



And we even have a green pepper or two:



Most surprising of all is that the lemon tree, while already full of young lemons, is already starting to flower again:



I guess this porch is going to be more fruitful than I thought! Well there is a ton to do today to get ready for some big things that are coming way faster than I can believe. Check back in tomorrow for an important announcement on the Fabulous Pants shop front!

4th of July Hike

We took a wonderful hike on the 4th of July in Point Reyes National Seashore. It was an adventure getting back to the trail head for our specific hike as it is at one of the southern most points in the park. There are few roads in the park as is, and this was a particularly windy way around to the trail head. It was a pretty drive through cattle pastures and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation area and a state park filled with really large trees. The trails we took were one of the favorite hikes on Bay Area Hiker. We hiked the coastal trail to Alamere Falls. The fog was in, and I was appreciative for that. I think if they fog lifted, we would not have made it through the 10 mile trip. The first part of the trail was filled with wonderful views of the Pacific ocean.





We then went a bit more inland and passed by several lakes. They were a beautiful shade of blue. It was neat to see some of them extend to almost the ocean to only be cut off by a slender piece of rock. At one of the lakes, there were people using a rope to jump off into the crystal water. If it had been a sunny day, I would have joined them.







Once our mail section of the Coastal Trail meet up with the Alamere Falls trail, I could not take pictures. This is obviously a very popular hike, and the trails had gotten very worn apparently. When this happens, the NPS usually puts the trail on "unmaintained status." That is what this approximately 2 mile section was marked as, and it surely was unmaintained. There was thick brush and brambles. We had to duck under areas where large fir trees had reclaimed sections of the trail as well as hiking with your hands above your head to keep them out of the shorter brambles. The rough trail was worth it to see the waterfall at the end of the cliff. It had three major descents down the cliff face. To see the largest one, you had to scramble down the rather steep cliff face. It was somewhat challenging, but well worth it.









There was a seal on the beach with us. People of course felt the need to get up close to it, which is not advisable, but I just zoomed in with my camera to snap a quick picture.



We then walked around a mile down the beach in search of a less steep way up onto the trail again. This lead us to Wildcat Camp and a very easy way onto the trail again. While doing this turned our initial hike into a 10 mile one from the original 7.5 mile trek, it was fine by me. The extra miles made me feel like I really accomplished something on that hike. While I am still sore today, I am glad we went



In other news, I will be leaving on a few trips at the end of this week. All orders received before Thursday, July 9th will be mailed out before I leave. Anything ordered after I leave on Thursday will not be sent out until July 20th. I have a fun 5th wedding anniversary weekend planned with potential roller coasters and of course California Extreme is this weekend as well. I also have to sew up some clothes for me to wear while I am at Chaos Wars. So I am off to do some extremely fast sewing, so I can be ready for all that is to come. Perhaps more tomorrow... depends on progress today.

No I Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth!

Ok so many of you must be wondering what happened to me and if I have closed up the shop. Well the answer is that I was on a hiatus and of course I would not just close up the shop! For a week and a half, I turned the sewing machines to work on my own personal costuming for Belegarth. Every year I promise myself that I will work on my costumes incrementally and not put it off till the last minute. Well we all know how that goes. I get wrapped up in working on Fabulous Pants and in my real life and my hobbies many times get put aside. This year I made several items for the event. I created an Afghani style tribal dress. It turned out better than I had even envisioned even though I had to finish hemming it on the train out to Idaho. (I will post a picture up here for you all to see sometime!)I also got a couple of pantaloons made for myself and a new choli to add to the bellydance trunk. The trip to Idaho for Chaos Wars was very fun, and the event was even better. The train trip out was one of the most exciting that I have ever experienced. I met a man who is walking around the world. This begged the question, "Why are you riding a train then?" He was actually on a break from the round the world walk. Once I find his business card again, I will post his blog for you all to read about him and his adventures. The site was gorgeous. We were lucky enough to be hosted on a horse ranch in Hailey, Idaho. The hosts were amazing, and their land was so beautiful. The event was action packed and filled with old and new friends, good fighting, and great food.

After one of the best Belegarth events I have ever attended, I returned home for one day to do some laundry and repacking. I then left for Illinois to visit family and let the husband have a well deserved vacation away. The trip was nice, and it made me realize exactly what I missed about the Midwest. One of those things being sweet corn. Californians may think they have sweet corn, but theirs has nothing over the corn of "home." We also got to have some wonderfully beautiful weather, especially for the Steam Show in Sycamore. Usually it is so hot, and then you are standing next to all these steam engines, you just want to get back to the air conditioning of a house. This year, I had a hard time leaving the Taylor Marshall Farm. It was a great day with wonderful weather and great music and threshing.

We finally returned home on Monday of this week, and I had a glut of laundry, cleaning, ordering, and appointments to keep. 826 Valencia needed some help, so I went there on Thursday. I finally got to turn some attention to the shop today. I went to get some supplies and will be working on some custom orders I have received. I also hope to get some falls and new belts made soon. Check back more often, seeing as I will be back to blogging now that computers are in reach and back logs of computer work are finally cleared! It is good to be back, and I cannot wait to get back to some costuming fabulousness!

Sales and Special Orders Oh My!

So things are really busy all of a sudden. This always seems to happen for me at the oddest and not necessarily most convenient times, but it is great and I am not complaining in the least! On Thursday, I had an all day session at 826 for their summer program. When I returned home, I had a wonderful e-mail waiting for me - my first sale on Etsy! I have done many face to face and custom sales, but no sales off of a website yet, so this was very exciting. I also have a client I am working with on a custom pair. I have to run out to the store again because I do not have the correct color thread for the color of the pants I am making today. I also have a wonderful friend who is working with me on some pants orders. I need to remember to contact her about getting measurements. This of course is all converging on me in the time when I usually do my costuming for the Belegarth event that I attend in Idaho. I guess I will just have to get myself in gear earlier and work harder to get things done. So with out further adieu, I will be logging off here to get to public transit to get to the store. It is spare the air, and I intend to stick with my ever constant use of public transit! Here is to a busy week.