It was a long weekend, and a good one, but not the one I had originally planned. I found myself in DC, hanging out with Ave since I had a photo shoot there this morning.
I made my first etsy purchase, much inspired by geelizzie's artistry. I purchased a necklace I'm going to be giving as a gift, so I'll just post a picture of the packaging, which was wonderful in and of itself. I hope to have my own etsy store soon, but first I need to build up a store of items. Ave and I spent all day Saturday playing Spore, something like the Sims, but instead of little people wandering around, it's a creature evolving from a single-celled organism to a space-faring civilization.
On Saturday night, we made a trip to Paper Source, which is my most favorite store ever. I love it, absolutely and completely. Ave got me some birthday presents: book binding twine, text block paper, some gorgeous paper I'll be using for the covers of the journals I'll make with the text block paper, and what I thought was a gocco, but actually turned out to be an accessory for a gocco.
I was so excited about what-I-thought-was-a-gocco that I tore into it when we got home and was instantly perplexed. (I should perhaps explain that a gocco is small machine used for small screen printing/print making, which is something I've been dying to try. Here's an example of what you can do with a gocco.) There was no screen. No bulbs. No printmaker. Just a sponge on a plastic thing. I did a bunch of research, and what I have is an accessory that will allow me to use my gocco to print on fabric or other oddly shaped items that won't fit in the gocco.
So, when I come up with $400 to buy the basic gocco kit, I'll be able to print on fabric, too! I like to prepared.
On Sunday, Ave and I went out to breakfast at IHop with his sister after making a trip to Target. I love Target. I got my first new purse in two years, which I found greatly thrilling. There's something about having a new purse that puts a swing in your step. We finished off Sunday with some marathon movie watching and Ave working on the box he made a co-worker as a birthday gift.
This morning, I got up and hopped the metro out to University of Maryland-College Park, where I was the photographer at a shoot for Potential, the magazine I am editor of for the Kennedy Krieger Institute. 
And in between all that, I did a little sketching, a little bit of picture taking, and it was pretty much a great weekend. 
But wait, there's more. The icing on the cake that was my weekend was the super cute dog Ave's roommate is fostering. Her name is Bonnie (Bonny?), and she's a Boston Terrier/Chihuahua mix. Too adorable. I'd adopt her in a heartbeat, but I don't have the space or the time, and I think the cats would eat her alive. On a sad note, my beta fish, Nemo, died while I was away. I'm taking it well (considering the last time I had a fish that died, I was hysterical, bawling and distraught). I knew the second I walked in the house. It didn't smell, but I just knew. Things have been going downhill with Nemo for awhile now, so I was prepared. I calmly flushed him, said a little eulogy, and then rinsed out his little tank. He was a good fish, and he had a good, long life (more than 2 years), and he was quite the traveler (from New Mexico to Maryland in a UHaul). He also survived life with Nut and Squish, my two cunning (and often hungry) cats. All in all, he's got a lot to brag about in fishy heaven.
Now I'm off to bed, completely exhausted.
