Costa Week

So… Costa Week.

How can I accurately explain it? Probably not nearly as well as my husband, who was born into it and has been doing it since he was a wee one. Me, I just married into it, so I may miss something in the translation here and there. To be brief, it’s a week long family-plus vacation in Sea Isle City, NJ. And family alone, minus the plus, this thing is huge. Three rented houses, one owned house, and one condo full of people. Not counting, I roughly would estimate the family-plus is about 40-plus, more or less depending on how far out you extend that “plus”. There is alot of drinking, pizza, noise and sand. I mean, there’s way more to it than that, yes, but neither of us has all day here, do we?

So let’s get to the important part: the t-shirts.

Now, I don’t know when it started or why, but “hey! matching t-shirts for everyone!” became a thing in recent years, a hot commodity of sorts among the pluses as well as the family. And the designs have been increasingly cool and thought out. But I have to say, I am not sure how someone is going to top this year’s set. Because, of course, I did them :).

When I said before that there is alot of drinking, I mean there is alot of drinking. If Costa Week had a sponsor, it would certainly be Coors Light. Not sure why; I personally would be happy with a bucket of margaritas or swimming in an Olympic-pool sized box of wine. But, majority rule, to each his own, so on and so forth. So, naturally, I thought it was a crime that there hasn’t been a Coors Light-style Costa Week tee. Also naturally, as soon as such genius occurred to me, Mr. Jennysold and I staked out the rights to this year’s t-shirt and made these:

 

Don’t worry – as you can see I made Coca-Cola style shirts with the young’ns in mind. I wasn’t going to plaster them in beer logos. Though my 36-week pregnant self DID go to the bar in one of the gray shirts. Soda, seltzer and socializing only – I promise. Though I won’t claim that the spiked lemonade wasn’t a real tease.

The family (minus the kids) got both shirts, the pluses and the kids got the Coke only. The design was fun to work on but definitely a bit of a challenge. I hand-drew the Coors Light one completely from scratch in Illustrator (starting with a bootleg EPS logo – blame the weird Russian copyright-infringing logo sites, not me), and altered a Coke font by hand for that one.

Pretty awesome, no? Why yes. Yes I am.

Update and Randomness

So, I know it’s been awhile. For the three of you (if any) who may be regularly following me, sorry ’bout that. I haven’t had any crafts to post about lately because all the crafts and designs I am currently working on are surprises for other people/designs that are not ready to be released yet. So, in order to keep you entertained/keep things rolling/prevent me from talking to myself (out loud, anyway), here’s a collection of random thoughts I have been having lately:

• Jell-o Jigglers are infinitely better than regular Jell-o. You should make them sometime soon to remind yourself. However, do not transport cut Jigglers in only a piece of Glad Press-n-Seal. That shit does exactly what it says, man, and you’ll smash the Jigglers trying to madly tear into the wrapping. When the edges of the wrapping get lost from sticking together so well, it’s murderous.
• One child on the way does not necessitate the immediate purchase of an SUV or minivan. Stop trying to tell me it will, it’s pretty infuriating. If you are already in the market for a new car and you plan on having 3+ of kids pretty quickly, it’s very financially practical to skip a new sedan and go right to the larger vehicle. If you live in a snowy, mountain-y area and need the 4WD and heft of an SUV, you should probably already have one. If you have, like, 75 Great Danes you need to cart around, a lage vehicle makes sense – but it doesn’t involve having kids, so I guess that is irrelevant here. Anyway, has everyone forgotten how our parents would shove, like, 4 of us in the back of a Ford Escort? Some cars can’t fit 3 car seats, different requirements now, I get that. But only ONE kid? “Oh but there’s so much you need to carry”? Eff that. What you need is to clean out your trunk and carry less shit. Strollers are big? No one told you to buy the huge one. You need room for groceries and a stroller? Use the back seat too. There’s also a diaper bag? Those are big purses, not full-sized adults. I once packed for a 10 day trip to Europe/Mediterranean cruise in solely a 1.5 x 1.5 x4 duffel bag, and for one week overseas packed in a high school backpack. I am fully confident I can fit the three of us in my hatchback Prius. I’m not going to go from 47mpg average to 18mpg and pay an assload for gas just so I can carry extra shit I won’t need in order to run to Jo-Ann Fabric and park poorly because I can’t handle the thing’s size. That, of course, being said, I will more than willingly capitulate to a Prius-V. Same seating, basically same exterior size, extra room in the taller hatchback, all while maintaining a 40+mpg? Yes please. Plus, I like turning on a car by pressing a button. It feels so technologically advanced. :)
• Speaking of hybrids, WaWa is opening a location in Florida. For those outside of Philly who don’t know what a WaWa is, Google it and find out what you’re missing from your empty, empty life. I cannot fathom how this deli-convenience store combo has not been recreated by another company – it’s genius. Sheetz is like a big 7-11 that doesn’t count, and I just found out about something called a GetGo in Western PA/Ohio-ish that doesn’t quite seem like the WaWa but merely like it wants to be when it grows up. The only downside: whether you spend 5 hours in WaWa working or 5 minutes grabbing a coffee, you come out smelling like you’ve been roasting the beans yourself. It’s strange, but worth it. In and out under 5 minutes, you are probably safe.
• My god, I LOVE me some bacon.
• I miss some things about being myself. Like loving wine with dinner. I hope that when I can regularly have it again I won’t have lost the taste for it, as well as the ground I was gaining on being able to detect nuances. I also miss going to the gym to weight train (not that I am a bodybuilder by any remote stretch – far from it), or going on long walks. My love of yoga is suffering too in these later weeks – getting into “happy baby” is now near impossible, and I hate feeling like I am too awkward to do things I never had any issues with before. Being physically forced to lose momentum is crap.
• I wonder how different I feel now than I used to feel before pregnancy. I mean, I KNOW I walk (well, more like penguin-waddle) slowly now, that I can’t sleep in one position for more than 3 hours on a good day, and that I handle the heat even worse than I already did. But I can’t remember how normal feels, it’s been so long. Am I more different than I realize, or am I a horrible whiner? Thank god I haven’t puked this whole time – no nausea, nothing. I guess that kind of good karma relegates me to a huge public poo on the delivery table and vomiting my Rita’s Water Ice at least 3x during labor. Ah well.
• When the hell is UPS getting here with my print order? “Out For Delivery” on package tracking is very vague.
• I still think that the 1990’s are not that far behind us. A date like 1995 doesn’t seem to me like that long ago; maybe it was because I was in high school then. I remember alot of that time: I was starting to form my adult personality, beginning to really understand that I was an artist – a genuine creative and not just a minor dabbler. I was incredibly into Pearl Jam at that time, something which I am still incredibly into. And somehow, being into one thing seems to stop time: like if you’re still in that “stage”, life isn’t exactly stagnant, but somehow seems to be frozen in space on one dimension. And then I remember that last year, “Pearl Jam Twenty” came out. For their 20th anniversary as a band. When you realize that you’ve loved something for 20 years, and that 20 years is well over half of your life, you simultaneously feel old and confused. Which I guess go hand in hand, really.
• And finally … “That’s what she said” jokes will never get old.

– Me

I’m Baaaaack!

So, Mr. Jennysold and I got back a few Fridays ago (I told you I was slow with travel photos) from our last (for awhile) baby-free vacation and, sadly, my last trip on an airplane for the forseeable future. For someone who inexplicably LOVES going to the airport, and lives for planning her next international adventure, this is somewhat torturous. Yes, I know, new baby, way more important, bigger adventure, all that. And you’re right. Besides, it may not be too bad, as I have done my research and found that most airlines will let a newborn fly as young as 7 days old. And there is a good chance Mr. Jennysold is going to have to go to Europe and/or Australia again for work post-baby: hellooooo tag-along! All hope is not yet lost. Luckily, he took his boring middle-of-nowhere Canada trip next week, past my self-imposed third-trimester “ok to fly” cutoff date. Good that he wasted that one now; I used the time home to watch all those “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” episodes that were piling up on the Tivo. It’s like a misogynistic Redneck Jersey Shore – awesome!

We were in Seattle for the first two nights and spent a day doing the whirlwind “must-sees”: a good meal, Pike Place, the Original Starbucks, the Space Needle, and the EMP museum (which, bonus, still had the Nirvana/punk exhibit up). Touristy, I know. But tell me which of you coming to Philly for the first time won’t: A – go see the Liberty Bell, B – run up the Rocky steps at the Art Museum; C – slide a greasy (read: real) cheesesteak down your maw. Yeah. That’s what I thought too.

The rest of the time was spent in Maui, save the overnight stop in Seattle on the way back. This was the third time we have gone, and it was pretty awesome to recognize everything from having been there a few times before. It was like that when I went to visit my sister’s place in Belgium – the airport was familiar, driving the road to your home for the trip is like second nature, you have a favorite restaurant already, that sort of thing. It just feels, I don’t know… good. Though I must say I was a little upset that the gigantor blow-up gorilla wasn’t by the gas station with the broken credit card system. I was looking forward to that gorilla. Ah well. All in all, the trip was awesome (as it usually is); so much so that I hormonally started to cry when we were dragging the luggage down the hall to go check out. It was kind of pathetic, really, but what can a girl do when pregs but let it out? And do more research on where to go next. I am thinking Munich, Prague, Vienna? Unless Australia creeps up again, in which case, sausages and beer will have to wait :)

Below are a few photos from the trip; there are more of Seattle since we hadn’t been there before. Anyway, enjoy!

 

Starbucks, a touristy must.

 

Pike Place Market

 

Yummy looking produce at the Pike Place Market.

 

There were some surprisingly colorful skies there. A little credit to Lightroom, of course…

 

“The Space Needle is impressive.”
“That’s what she said.”

 

Experience Music Project.

 

The Chihuly Garden and Exhibit that I drug – and I mean DRUG – Mr. Jennysold to.

 

A few scenes from the Four Seasons Maui, including the shuffleboard piece with which I FINALLY beat Mr. Jennysold. At a game, not, like, in a spousal abuse way.

 

The death stare I gave Mr. Jennysold for being able to drink when I couldn’t. See that glass with the lime he’s holding? Seltzer. That’s how exciting I am these days. Livin’ it up!

 

Some scenes from around Maui, including the sunset as viewed from Mama’s Fish House. MMM… Mama’s…..