march-in’ on

i kicked off march with a fun hangout with my friends - KBBQ at a favorite spot and then a little photo booth fun.

with submissions for competitions at the l.a. county fair due, i pulled out my crochet hooks and got to work.  first up, loafie:

next, planty (yes, my naming skills are not great):

and last but not least…well, i guess i didn’t name this one.  he’s the crochet version of those caterpillar fidget toys that the kids (including the bean) love:

i’d registered for the sewing competition, but hadn’t had time to actually sew anything new.  but i remembered that i had a dress i’d made for a quinceañera a couple of years ago, so i pulled it out of the closet and packed it up.   it was still a piece that i’d made myself, so i figured it totally counted, right? this dress:

i put everything in the car and dropped it off here, at the fairplex:

one sunday afternoon, the hub and i hopped in the car and went out to palm springs for a fun day trip.  we grabbed some lunch, did some window shopping, browsed around the art festival at the park.

while we didn’t buy anything at the festival, we found the shag store and picked up a couple of fun pieces for our still-very-bare walls at home.

i hit 150 classes at my barre studio - but since there isn’t a banner for that number, i winged it:

that was also the day i saw my first labubu in person!

at boot camp, we celebrated our friend trish’s birthday.

the bean and i attended a college fair in l.a. put on by a theater group. we’d gone last year with lilcee and mini cee, but with the bean actually closer to college application time we wanted to take a second look and actually talk more in-depth with the college reps in attendance.

have i ever mentioned that the bean’s favorite store is bristol farms?  bougie groceries, that’s the bean’s jam.

speaking of the bean, it was track & field season again.  i love watching my kid throw the discus and shotput, especially since this is likely the last year of it.

happy st. patrick’s day from teddy and cocoa!

this was a shawl i’d started before christmas with the intent of gifting it to one of my dear friends who had admired one i’d made for myself.  of course, i didn’t finish it in time.  i suppose that’s to be expected.  anyway, i finally did finish it and instead of waiting for september (her birthday) or next christmas (way too long) i just gave it to her on a random tuesday, heh.

at this year’s paleyfest, one of the panels was about “the handmaid’s tale.” dailygluttony and i are big fans of the show (as is the old lady, but with her work schedule it’s so hard to schedule things with her), so we went.  i was a little bummed that we didn’t get a special showing of one of the new episodes (as they often do with these panels), but we did get at least one scene.  and the cast and writers showed a bunch of clips from previous seasons and gave us a lot of fun behind-the-scenes stories about the writing and filming process.

since we let our magic keys (annual passes) for disneyland go last summer, my visits have been few and far between - and usually courtesy of the old lady, who is able to sign me in when she has spots available and can make a reservation for me.  i miss going more regularly, but i do have to say that the process to go to the parks is kind of exhausting now.  you have to make a reservation, drive down to anaheim (usually in traffic both ways), cough up $35 for parking, go through security, get on the bus or tram, line up at the main gate, take a photo at the turnstile and then finally enter the park.  and these days, there is no off-season time anymore.  the parks are always incredibly crowded and the lines for everything are always so long.  it’s kind of taken the happy out of happy place.  still, i’m excited to go whenever i’m given the chance.  and rolling solo means i get to do whatever i want whenever i want to…which includes sitting down in the shade and pulling out the crochet if i feel like it.

the hub and i took the dogs on a day date up to lake arrowhead, which was entertaining.

at the beginning of spring break, i took the bean out to studio city for a class at millennium dance complex and ran into our friend amber:

and then for lunch we stopped at a cool hong kong cafe in monterey park.  we loved the decor in there, and the food was really good (so much so that i didn’t even take any pictures of it, oops).

so much good stuff in march!