Happy Zombie

Yaaaaay!  I’m a Camp Counselor at Lizzy’s Castle Peeps Summer Camp!  Me… a camp counselor.  Whodathunk.  I’m usually the one sent to the counselor for bad behavior.  My only camp experience ever was on our 5th grade 3-day trip at Camp Silver Spur in Tuolumne, CA.  And it was a blast.  My youngest son got to go on the same type of trip in the 4th & 5th grades… “Outdoor School” it’s called in Oregon.  One year he got to go to Outdoor School in Vernonia, OR… and one year it was a trip to multiple locations in Central Oregon (Bend, Sisters and Kahneeta).   Now I get to relive some of that fun (as a kid and as a parent), through Lizzy’s summer camp.

Using Lizzy’s beautiful new line of Castle Peeps by Andover, I wanted to make something fun and useful.  Something that sang to my inner 5th grader, full of adventure and discovery.
And mischief.
My inner mom screamed not to get dirty. My inner quilter shouted to keep the beautiful fabric pristine. My inner recycling bin complained it was too full to hold one more milk jug.

And then it all came together.  My Dragon Slayer Satchel will pull double duty as my berry picking tote.  I wanted to make my strap adjustable so I can wear the strap across my chest (half a cross-my-heart), so I used a 1″ Dritz Center Release Buckle on the strap.  I LOVE THAT BUCKLE.  So easy to attach, and so very inexpensive (I got mine for just over a $1 at Joann’s with my 40% off coupon). I only wish it came in assorted colors.  Having a buckle also allows for attaching the satchel to things like big honkin’ tree branches and [insert your favorite difficult to hang stuff on object here].

I ramble… and here’s the link to the PDF pattern. Please respect my terms of use disclaimer at the bottom of my free pattern. Go forth and slay, and forage… and have fun.  And get a little dirty.

Recently I came upon a new blog on tumblr called Catalog Living - the life and times of fictional Gary & Elaine who live in the pages of our catalogs.  Yeah, like who knew Gary & Elaine were even there!?  Catalog Living is the hysterical brainchild of Molly Erdman (the  actress who plays the “wife” from the Sonic commercials).   It’s genius.  GENIUS.  There’s a great article at the Chicago Tribune about Catalog Living - my favorite part was the quote from Molly, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I put these pictures up and made little captions for them?”.  I love that.  When I think all the way back to mid-1970 and being in the 7th grade - and we would write naughty captions in the photos of our ancient 1950’s school books - and could now be a success at it?  Holy schmokes… it’s like a dream come true!

So now I’m thinking, as Catalog Living skyrockets into internet and twitter superrockstardom… it’s probaly too late to ask Molly Erdman if she could “Catalog My House”.   Kind of like Pimp My Ride, or like asking James Earl Jones to record my outgoing voicemail message… but what would Gary & Elaine say/do if they lived in my house.  WWG&ED.

If you make house calls, Molly… my door is open. I may have to resort to trying my hand at it. In the last photo, “Liberty and Madison fear being plucked out of the audience during Bob, Triskit and Mother Clucker’s ‘In Hot Water’ performance“. I think I better leave it to the professionals.

I’ve been saying forever that cameras should come with an “Oregon button”. A magic button that turns dark Pacific Northwest daylight (that murky damp Twilight-ishy gray)… into happy pretty sunshiny brightness. Thanks to the Pioneer Woman - she wrote about the aperture button on a DSLR camera. Aperture… aka The Oregon Button. And the OB was staring me in the face all this time.

I had to test it out asap. I went a little extreme and over exposed myself a little too much (THAT’S gonna garner me some unwanted spam). Because I’m a PCP photographer (point-click-pray), I have no +/- numbers or metered levels to recite. I just watched my little aperture bar move up and down as I fiddled with the button. I did make this sound as the meter bar increased… [low pitch] blooooooooop [high pitch]. Decrease on the meter bar… [high pitch] bloooooooop [low pitch].

My before and afters.  Because I had the aperture set to steroid levels… reality is somewhere in the middle of the before and afters.

My kitchen and front entry:

My morning joe:

My phone I never answer (I hate talking on the phone):

Throne cam:


Edited in: I was on the throne… not *on* the throne.

I’m sooo happy to have learned about aperture.  Thank you Pioneer Woman - I can now make every day a happy pretty sunshiny day in Oregon.