Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: Friends

  • The State of My State

    The State of My State

    My life feels like a most delightful form of chaos currently.

    I am halfway into my first semester of my Grad school and I am already realizing that I may have made a mistake. My thought was to take my English degree and make it more practical by studying Communication – Social Media and Marketing and the truth is I don’t like it. Despite having worked in the banking business for 17 years I am not a very business minded person and I don’t love looking at people as commodities and creativity as something that can be swayed to be profitable. I am doing fine, but I am not happy. I am planning to contact my adviser to see what I can do. I will keep you posted on the outcome. I am hoping to maybe swing over to a English – Creative Writing. Fingers crossed.

    The Wenches of Myth, IWG 73, have made they’re debut in their first official year at the Ohio Renaissance Festival. We are having a great time. I even wrote a toast that I got to present during pub sing. I am meeting new people, making new connections, and generally having a really good time.

    I have lost 53 pounds so I am also able to wear some of my faire garb that I haven’t been able to in years. It feels fantastic. I am down to a size 14-16 and still working. My husband and I joined WW (weight watchers) in February and with diet alone have together lost about 108 pounds. He also looks amazing and we both feel so much healthier. Check out this this side by side of my face from January to August.

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    Beyond that my little sister is buying a house, my cousin is getting married, we have tickets to see Rasputina and David Sedaris in October. There is a lot going on, and a lot to look forward to. Tomorrow we are surprising my friend with a Duchess party. Pictures to come.

  • Sisters are doing it for Themselves!

    Sisters are doing it for Themselves!

    I am a woman with sisters. I have biological sisters and chosen sisters and one spectacular sister-in-law. There are few things in this world I find as important or as necessary as the relationships I have with these women.

    I have three half-sisters, two from my mother and one from my father. From my dad’s side there is Chelli. Chelli is a boss babe and an entrepreneur who created Bloom a coworking space for women and women owned businesses. She is gorgeous and amazing. I don’t know her super well, but I am proud to be her sister, even distantly.

    From my mom there is Krystie and Traci. Krystie is eight years older than me. She lives in Oklahoma so I don’t get to see her as often as I would like to, but isn’t that just the way. She worked her ass off and is a manager for Raising Canes, a job that she loves (most of the time) and is good at. She is also studying business management through SNHU online and working hard on bettering herself and the world every day. She is also a bad ass. Traci is ten years younger than me and she and I are super close. She is a creative power house. She is an amazing artist, a lovely singer (though she refuses to do it in public) and is becoming a fabulous cosplayer. She is sensitive and smart and hilarious. She is a bad ass as well.

    Apparently my family only produces absolutely bad ass women.

    My sister-in-law Niki is one of my best friends. She embraced me as the strange coworker her husband befriended because she had no life. She, and her husband Chris who is his brother, were instrumental in my meeting and falling in love with Seth. She is an activist, amazing mother to my two bad ass neices and one bad ass nephew, and a great friend.

    I am involved in several women based groups as well, and those bad ass women are my sisters by choice. I have spoken before of the Lady Gang and those women are precious to me. They are smart, funny, brilliant, creative, and the most fun. The lady gang has had numerous happy hours, hygge nights, wig nights, gone to conventions, gone to put-in-bay, and we are planning a big camping trip soon. These ladies always have something going on.

    There is also the International Wenches Guild which is a Renaissance Festival based group that I have been a member of since 2004. It is made up of naughty, bawdy women who love ren faires and love to play. My friend Susan and I had been spearheading to get Ohio it’s own local and we suceeded last year in establishing Local 73 – The Wenches of Myth bringing my friend Sarah into the mis to be Madame of Vice. Then just in the last couple of months we found out that we also have official sanction from our home the Ohio Renaissance Festival. The guild council had their first meeting today to plan for the season, and I have no doubt that it is going to be amazing!

    Do you have amazing, bad ass women in your life?

  • I Got to Attend A Body Positive Pool Party!!

    I Got to Attend A Body Positive Pool Party!!

    About a month ago an event popped up on Facebook. It was created by a group called the Fat Babes Club of Columbus and the event was called Body Positive Pool Party. I was immediately interested. Then my friend Sarah asked if anyone was going so she and I made a plan to go together. We waited eagerly for more information. So when one Saturday morning at 7 am I was waiting for  mom and sister to pick me up so we can go garage saleing and a notification came that tickets were on sale I immediately snatched up two tickets. Then I found out that my friends Julie and Megan would be coming too. This was going to be so much fun!

    Saturday I threw on my Harry Potter bathing suit and met Sarah in the parking lot across the street from the Westerville Jaycees Pool. When we got to the door they were not quite open yet, as they were still clearing the pool of daily visitors. We were the first people to begin forming a line into the event. By the time the gates opened there was a nice sized line behind us, and the party was ready to begin. My id was checked and a blue heart was drawn on my hand to show I was old enough to drink and in we went.

    Immediately into the party room there was a bar to the left and beside it was a table loaded with raffle items. As you walked through you passed a table with little bags of chips, cookies and pastries. Once you got out by the pool there was a DJ set up spinning vinyl all night and the pool was full of fun inflatables. Sarah and I claimed some chairs and then hit the bar.

    The bar had sodas, natural light strawberry lemonade, bud light and several flavors of white claw. I am a fan of white claw so I started with a raspberry. I moved to the raffle table and they had some amazing raffle items: gift baskets from local businesses and companies, make up sets, skincare sets, and more. I bought 15 tickets for $10, and put them into the drawings for a basket from Wild Cat Gift and Party, Uproar by Babe Roar, Urban Decay, Benefit Cosmetics and a couple of others I have forgotten.

    I got a tattoo this week which was stupid honestly since I knew I had a pool party this weekend, so I decided that I would not “Swim” but would get in the water keeping my arms out. I got in and there was this adorable unicorn floaty that I decided I needed to get on. Some lovely ladies helped me and I floated for exactly 2 seconds before the unicorn bucked me off and I was fully energed in the pool. Oops. Not intentional, but still What the Hell, Unicorn? I watched him buck several others as well, so it was obviously nothing personal.

    Julie and Megan arrived around 8:30 or so, and I lounged beside the pool drinking while they swam and chatted with me. Sarah got pulled into doing some footage for the people who were video recording the event. She went down the slide about 3 times, and ended up doing some under water and jumping in shots.

    They called the raffles at 9:45, and Julie won a package of facial cremes etc, and I won the Benefit Cosmetics Brows before Bros set. It had eyebrow powder, a pencil and a filler along with a pore shrinking primer and a They’re Real lip stick in Lusty Rose. I was so excited!

    There is going to be another one in August and you know that if I can I will go again.

  • Miss Creant Only Wants World Peace.

    Miss Creant Only Wants World Peace.

    This weekend I went out on the town with The Lady Gang for Pageant Night, a creation of my awesome friend Susan because I took her to a store in my hometown and she purchased her very first tiara. (Every woman should own at least one tiara.) We all wore tiaras, some form of “pageant” dress and made ourselves pageant sashes with names like Miss Creant (mine), Ms Aligned (my sister), Miss Chevious (Kristan), Miss Adventure (Mary), Miss Articulate (Dorothy) and Miss Behavin’ (Susan). Then we called an uber and headed to one of our favorite Columbus bars, The Light of Seven Matchsticks.

     

     

     

    The Light of Seven Matchsticks is a speakeasy style bar underneath a Natalie’s Coal Fired Pizza. It is dark and moody. The menus are housed inside of books (Ours were I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Huckleberry Finn and a third that I just cannot remember. The cocktails are modern twists on old classics. The food is delicious. There are strange decorations and the booth area we were in had a mail slot to put your order, written on a library checkout card, through and a little door where drinks and baked goat cheese are passed through.

     

    We moved on by another Uber to Two Truths, another favorite Columbus bar, where the absolutely charming bartender created for us more delicious cocktails. I got my personal favorite the Local Socialist. And tried a new cocktail, Summoning Solstice, because it involved setting things on fire and I was very intrigued. They were both absolutely delicious. I also realized that one of the bartenders was a belly dancer I have seen dance (Karen), so I spent a bit of time drunkenly praising her which she gracefully accepted and absolutely deserved.

     

     

    We walked to two more balls, that were okay but nothing special. We had some lightly out of focus photos taken by some lovely lightly drunk women who were impressed by our finery. We were treated to shots by a young woman whom one of us convinced that we were all brides to be. Then we grabbed another Uber to take us back to Susan’s where we ordered pizza and snuggled puppies before heading home.

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