i am not a monster!!!

when i first conceived the IKEAbus many moons ago, everyone seemed really excited about it.  it was positive vibes all around, and it propelled me forward to the point where i actually put my tax return money down on a bus, in hopes that i could actually  fill it up with swedish furniture loving folks with $30 to spare. (ta da!)

a few weeks in and a few tickets (very few at that point) sold, i posted an article on the wsch around town blog about it, thinking that might be a good place to drum up some local enthusiasm. instead, i got this:

Hey WCSH why don’t you take more time talking about the great family run furniture stores that still exist here in Maine, as opposed to encouraging folks to take their business out of state, In a time when Maine is so desperate for every penny in business it can get, I find this irresponsible!

i didn’t know what to say. so stupidly, i said nothing (i really aught to rectify that).

well, i’ve spent the last few weeks ruminating about it, and here is what i have decided:

thawing out: get ready for springtime craftiness!

this morning, my sun worshiping boss came into the office and said:“i don’t know why ANYBODY likes spring”.

and i was all like: “why you be hatin’ on spring bitch?”

or more accurately, i said: “i like spring.”

and it’s true, i do like spring. it happens to be my favorite season. i like the way it smells, i like to see borders of grass poking out beneath the rapidly receding snow, i love those little rivers that form along the sides of the road when everything starts to melt. to me, spring is hopeful and exciting. as if practically anything could shoot out of the ground with the crocuses.

spring is possibilities.

well, this year  something quite exciting an new is busting through the soil. genius craftstress audrey hotchkiss (of little eye designs) has spent her winter digging up the best in local artsy-craftiness so that next weekend (april 16^th from 10 am to 4 pm), we can all don our light coats and go spend our tax return money supporting amazing local artists.

it’s called THE BIG THAW, and it’s a well tailored collection of mostly etsy-based maine artists with a bit more of an edge than the average family craft fair (sorry grandma joan, we’re gonna pass on the crocheted toilet paper cozies this year). you can get the full vendor list right here, but here’s a little list of my  current top 5 biggest BIG THAW craft crushes:

1. my kingdom for this a new heirloom silk scarf!

2. stunning silk screened potholders from doonyaya. (almost too pretty to get covered in kitchen gunk!)

3. the very best maine t-shirt ever made. (way to go flat out tees!)

4. gulf of maine memory tiles by merchant’s row!

5. perfect dainty bird on wire pendants by high wire handmade.

and i’m a jerk because i didn’t even touch on photos and vintage and handmade beauty products…

you’ll really have to go and see the loveliness for yourself.

so just to reiterate, you should definitely get yo ass over to the mayo street arts center on saturday the 16th of april (that’s THIS SATURDAY)  from 10 am-4 pm to peruse the goods. and if the very sexy arts crafts aren’t enough to entice you, you can come visit me. i’ll be there helping audrey fetch and carry. so please, drop by!

weekend pickthrough- lazy beyond comprehension edition.

so today the boyfriend and i celebrated the opening weekend of the dunstan school buffet with a hearty breakfast of nachos and home made donuts (and a promise to our intestines never to do it again). i brought my sunday paper along to pass the time in between plates, and came across something quite curious midway through my CVS flier- a product so ludicrous, i was stopped in my tracks.

EASY FEET!?

with the catchy tag line: “no more bending to clean your feet!”, easy feet easily qualifies as the laziest product that i have ever seen.

every year, americans invent more and more useless contraptions that allow us to do less and less. at first it seemed harmless. so what if we wanted to “set it and forget it” every now and again… it was cool. at least we were still bending down to clean our own feet. right?

are we really so fat/lazy/immobile that we can’t even bend at the waist anymore?

it reminds me all too much of the chair/toilet/feeding stations from the idiocracy world (which is a MUST SEE if you haven’t seen it).  and i worry that instead of retraining ourselves to exercise and eat normal sized portions (we weren’t always one of the fattest nations in the world), we’re just going to keep inventing devices that make it possible for us to stay obese.

i don’t know. i’m speechless. am i overreacting? is easy feet a clever invention or the eventual downfall of our civilization?

well, if easy feet isn’t our downfall, celine dion might be.

this looks totally unappetizing, yet i still really want to eat it.

the most shocking news story to hit this state in years: SOMETIMES PEOPLE LIE ON THE INTERNET.

i signed up for this IMMEDIATELY after reading this article.

an eerie amount of l. ron hubbard descends upon the librarything early reviewers list.

if you didn’t realize that my burlesque name (candy sprinkles) was an homage to this chick, you’ve been missing out.

so, you’re boning sephen dorff. (yeah, i’m obsessed with the hairpin alright)

local girl elisa doucette gets takes down the candie’s foundation. (oh, and if you were following her on twitter– you could have seen the resulting verbal boxing match where she took down bristol palin).

dust off your paypal account…WARY MEYERS HAS THERE OWN SHOP!

worth the trip- the black album (with a plaid b-side).

i feel like it was just halloween. how exactly is it thanksgiving already? now, thanksgiving means a lot of things to me- pie, defending my vegetarianism against people who think it is a personal attack, pie, rolling my eyes at football, pie, and most of all… BLACK FRIDAY.

to many, getting up at the pre-crack of dawn in order to shiver outside in the icy icy weather in a line of other assholes who also think that this is a good idea does not seem like a privilege. i know it seems wrong on a number of levels, but i can’t stop myself. i’m not even buying any xmas presents. i’m not even trying to score big ticket items at crazy low prices. i just really love a hot bargain, and have designs on expanding my chick flick collection for less than $2 a dvd.

now traditionally, one gets the thanksgiving paper and weeds through the ads while digesting their  gravy coated food baby after dinner (sort of like half time before the pie round). but since this is the internet age, and we’re all a big fucking pack of cheaters, there are multiple websites offering up all the black friday deal fliers days before anyone has to stick their hands into a frozen turkey and pull out the “giblet sack” (and people question my vegetarianism?).

i love black-friday. net, but it really doesn’t make a fucking difference if you go there or to blackfriday.info or even blackfriday.com. the point is that i’ve been planning my black friday shopping strategy for DAYS. here is my present  ACTION PLAN: