Back from Vacation

So, for the big 3-0, I decided to go big. My mom and I took a cruise to the Bahamas and had an awesome time (I no longer consider Monday part of my trip, so that I can say that). For my 30th, I didn't just stay home and lament my new "adult" hood. (30's the new 20 right? RIGHT?) No, I went to Atlantis where I could swim with dolphins and slide through shark infested waters. That way, no matter what, I can say that my birthday was BIG.

Cosmo and I nearly ran over a few spectators.

A non crafty recommendation here: I LOVED Atlantis. It seemed like a lot of money to do the dolphins AND the water park but it was so much fun and so me. And it's gorgeous. Every part of it. Cleanest water park I have been to BY FAR. Even every inch of the not-so-lazy river was spotless. So if you're headed to the Bahamas, I suggest a stop by there at least. Worth every penny.

Keep going for a few more pictures and some housekeeping style updates.


So, let's skip to the housekeeping style updates:

Okay, one more dolphin!

• I made a new page *points upward*. It's got a listing of the cartridges I have and those that have been used have the posts linked to them. Also, I created a listing of cartridges in Excel that is also listed. I tried to put prices on there, but prices change fairly frequently so I added a box to tell you when I looked it up. 
• I've started (as you may have seen) a tutorial feature on Tuesdays. 
• I updated the Tutorial page with a few more pages that had relatively thorough instructions.
• I made a good many updates on my other site cosplay.katienobles.com including updates to the patterns that were used for each costume.
• Continuing to press onwards with the todo list. The last bit of required fabric for it arrived while I was gone and I haven't even opened it yet. Current in progress task: Captain America purse. Any one know where I can find a belt buckle that's a star?
• Acquired a serger. Expect a tutorial on at least how to thread the thing...as soon as I figure it out. I'm very excited to see how this changes my typical sewing style. 
• Started only slightly reorganizing fabric because it's gotten so spread out, instead of the by-type method that it started out in. I'll take a picture of the bins all about the loft. 

Goals for the weekend (other than actual housework):

• finish as much of the purse as I can
• friends' Christmas presents
• Dad's Christmas presents
• MAYBE the towel dresses
• Fix Quinn's strap
• Serge the edges of Silk Spectre and attach to old neck piece
• Fix Talho's zipper
• Fix Firefox's zipper
• go see Sherlock Holmes

Yeah...I doubt I'm gonna finish all that, but hey, I didn't expect to put a shelf up in my bathroom last night, but I did. Gonna be like a factory upstairs in my loft!

And now for your patience in reading all of that:

Yep, those are sharks.

And yep, that's a water slide going straight down that goes THROUGH the sharks.

And that's me on it. And this was the 2nd time.

 Someone once bet me $20 I wouldn't go on an amusement park bungee jump. They quickly changed their mind when they realized who they were betting. Side note here: the Abyss is scarier by far. This is out in the open, the Abyss is in the dark and you fall into a cave. The only scary part on this was you do become weightless for just a fraction of a second at the beginning. There was another slide called "the surge", I probably should have gone down that just for the hilarity of running a crafty blog and going down a slide called "the surge"!

Looking towards the beach.

The Royal Towers.

Not a bad way to tell 30 that it doesn't scare me. Maybe a little. But I'm far more scared of sharks and the dark. I guess some things never change.