That is a pretty good list to start. We were at the Renaissance Festival today for Time Travelers weekend. There were time lords, mandalorians, multiple tardises, and I was a triceratops.
Photo of wenches, I am center front holding my triceratops mask to the side.
Here is my treasure from my Halloween Advent for today…
And my October book bingo as I read through The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik. Got several off the board.
It’s April. Crazy. March flew by and I barely noticed. We had my birthday, Seth’s birthday, my sister-in-law Niki’s birthday. Traci and I went to New Orleans. I got my first dose of the Moderna Vaccine. I made a new friend through roller skating and got to try out my new babies for the first time. I dyed my hair blue/teal. Generally it was a good time.
We recorded and released the first episode of Girls, Ghosts, Ghouls Podcast! (you can listen/watch here.) We also did a live reading of Hop-Frog; Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs by Edgar Allan Poe. I bought a new mic after the first recording and am waiting to receive a ring light so the visual and sound on my end will be improving.
We have officially announced this month’s film which is…Psycho!! I am a huge fan of Hitchcock’s work, even if he was kind of a disaster of a human, and Psycho is one of my favorite horror films of all time. I also have a bunch of stories around the film, so I am going to ramble a bit which I’m sure will be exciting for all.
I added the footage of our most recent live reading of The Masque of the Red Death by Poe recorded on Saturday April 3 below. The beginning is a little odd because we were having issues getting the live stream to work, but after some chatting and silliness the reading is pretty fun. So, enjoy.
This month we are obviously recording another episode. My mother, sister, friend and I will be going to a socially distanced drag show. Seth and I got new hiking shoes, so we are planning to go hiking soon. I am going down to Newark this weekend to take some photos for a story I am working on. So much happening.
Oh, and I gave the blog a spring cleaning. What do you think of the new layout? Yes? No? Let me know.
Things I need to get done that I am procrastinating: 1. Finishing putting Christmas stuff away 2. Make several videos for various social media platforms 3. Put on Garb and make more videos for social media 4. Put together and mail things to the wenches 5. Update my profiles and such on social media with podcast info 6. Get ready for my next class 7. Read the book for the module I would like to run for D&D 8. Take up the old crappy carpet in the front rooms of the house
So, this is a little late. I had a big paper due this weekend, so I spent all day yesterday working on and refining that. Priorities, lol.
I am super excited because the other day I received a package in the mail and no it wasn’t more stuff I bought online. Well…it kinda was, but not in the way my last post was talking about. I got my membership package for the Ohio History Connection in the mail. Ohio History Connection is housed in Columbus as the Ohio Historical Center building which houses various museum style exhibits, the Ohio Archives and Library, and The Ohio Village which is a recreated 19th century community where they hold events.
With my membership I can go to the Ohio History Center for free once it is open to the public. I get reciprocal admissions from over 250 museums nationwide and reciprocal benefits at over 800. Free tickets to Ohio History Center/Ohio Village Events like Night at the Museum, All Hallows’ Eve and Dickens of a Christmas (I have attended the Dickens event and it is really fun). Plus many other amazing benefits.
More than that, though, I know that I am supporting the preservation of Ohio history during a time when they could use that support more than ever. I am also considering buying a membership to the Columbus Museum of Art for a similar reason. We already purchased a COSI membership for the inlaws and the niblings (I found out this is the non-binary term for nieces and nephews and I love it.) We also still have our zoo memberships which Seth’s parents purchase us for Christmas every year. While we may not get much use out of these this year, we are supporting important pieces of our community.
I have done these lists in the past and they are fun, and I like to see what I have to look forward to the rest of the month.
Magical Days, Madrigal Nights – Final Weekend: Wearing my new witch hat and having a blast with my friends.
Spooky Basket Exchange #1 – finish up and mail out: I need to finish a craft, box everything up and mail out.
Medieval Monster Mash at The Forge: Social distanced and monster themed. Our table is Witch themed. And Jameson’s Folly will be performing.
Spooky Basket Exchange – Duchess Edition: The ladies of the Duchess Squad will be exchanging baskets. Mine is purchased but needs assembled.
Give out candy for Beggar’s Night – Safely. I will figure it out.
Hallowest 1: Virginia West and Krystal Something Something co-writing and starring in the first Halloween performance at District West.
2020 Witch Walk : My friend’s Kristan and Susan created this event a couple of years ago. We meet up at Goodale Park and then walk through the Short North dressed as witches.
Lady Gang Halloween at Carol’s: It’s Halloween and the Full Moon. We can’t let this go past without celebration.
I believe I have spoken on the blog before about my love of Roller Skating. I have been roller skating since I was probably 5, but possibly even younger than that. I grew up having old skates that my cousins and I could hold skate parties with in my grandparents garage and driveway. I was also a frequent attendee of our local skating rink in Newark, Roll-a-Way spending hours there on my quad skates happy as a clam.
I bought a new pair of quad skates in 2004 or so when I learned about Ohio Roller Derby, then the Ohio Roller Girls, and I wanted to do derby so badly. I bought my skates and I began going out to try to get my skate skills back. I would train with them several times in anticipation of trying out, but it never worked out that I could play. And after a fall, not skating related just klutzy, I tore my ACL and because of the nature of derby I knew that continuing to train would eventually lead to surgery, so I stopped training and became an athletic supporter instead (See Eight Wheels of Badass Joy, Talk Derby to Me: First Bout of 2019, and Skatemare Before Christmas)
Then in 2020 the pandemic happened and I started to see people buying skates and skating on Instagram (Nicole Byer being a huge Inspiration as was Rolla Skate Club). I decide I would like to get back on skates, so I go to the internet. I already have skates, a couple of pairs in fact, but I needed new pads (knee, elbow and wrist), a new helmet, a skate strap and I decided I wanted a pair of toe covers since mine were pretty scuffed.
I found my pads as a set on Moxi. They were roughly $75 for the full set of Knee, Elbow and Wrist pads. And on the same site I found a turquoise and pink leopard print helmet and I just had to have it, so I put in an order. I got a skate strap from PeaceGrenade on Etsy in Magenta Glitter. I got an amazing sticker that says Skate Witch from Simply Savage Design which lives on my helmet and I just ordered another couple to add to new things. I bought my toe caps from Rollerstuff they are super shiny leather and I LOVE them. All together the whole set looks like this:
So…now I had skates, and gear, and no one to skate with. I had a thought and then I went to social media and I said:
So…I added this on Instagram and Facebook just to see if anyone would respond or be interested, and the answer was a resounding yes. I had many friends respond that they were in, that they were looking for a reason to buy skates, and so on. I created a Facebook Group called Skate Expectations and we have our first meet up this Friday after work. I am so excited that this is becoming a thing, and also I am somewhat surprised, but so excited. I am hoping that I can branch this out into more interesting things. I have ideas!!
Is anyone else making strange lists of things they want to do once the social isolation is over? Here are some of the strange lists I have found myself making in my head as the days move on.
Songs I want to sing in Karaoke once I can: The Warrior by Scandal, Heartbreaker by Pat Benetar, Kiss me Deadly by Lita Ford, Man in the Box by Alice in Chains, Call Me by Blondie, Rock Lobster by The B-52s…
This list is odd for a couple of reasons: one, while I love Karaoke I almost never go out to do it, and two while I love Karaoke I almost never go out to do it. So why am I suddenly curating lists of potential songs? I am guessing it is mostly because I no longer have the option and I hate that.
I had so much fun working through my bucket list for the last quarter of 2019, so I decided to do more of them in 2020. Here is what I have so far…
Create 2020 Vision Board – Done!! Photos Below.
Get prettied up for Shrimp’s Cocktail Party!
Meet Dirty Martini at Shrimp’s Cocktail Party! on Saturday.
Buy a pair of Veronica Lockhart’s rhinestone cockroaches.
Go with the Wenches to Pub Sing at Dub Pub.
Wench wine meet up in February.
Be under or close to 200 lbs by my birthday March 14.
Visit Prologue bookstore.
Sew new Viking garb for Seth.
Write 30,000 words in my work in progress.
Go to Mustache Ride Drag Brunch
Go to Archery Range
Visit Elizabeth’s Records
Set up new Entertainment Stand.
Set up Stationary Bike.
Vision Board – The lovely Molly Roberts held a live event for her Patrons all about creating a vision board. I decided to get in on the action and began building up images and words for my board. I just bought myself a brand new Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (as previously stated my favorite dictionary) so my old falling apart one became fodder for my vision board. I found these battery operated lights I bought at Target a couple of years ago that have glitter in bulbs around the lights and I decided they would look amazing on my vision board. I bought a shadowbox style wooden box to use and painted the inside neon pink and the outside silver. I used glitter infused mod podge to place my images on the board. I began with bright colored images and then added words and pieces from the dictionary. I found some star shaped push pins and attached the lights to the edge with them. I am really happy with how it turned out. It is going to live on my new altar for 2020.
Columbus has over the past couple of years really embraced the darker side of Christmas which has led to a prevalence of Krampus related activities. This year the first day of December was marked with the second annual Merry Krampus craft show and the Fourth Krampus Walk sponsored by a local pagan shop, The Magical Druid. The International Wenches Guild Local 73 decided to plan an invasion of the Krampus events.
The Merry Krampus was held at Strongwater and featured many alternative craft vendors. I had splurged and bought early bird entries for myself and Seth which gave us an hour of shopping before the show was opened to general public. I bought a beautiful hand printed calendar from Midwest Mermaid and an amazing wrought iron wand from Rust Wolf. I ran into some friends who were vending and selling chain maille and knives. My Madame of Vice, Sarah, and I got our pictures taken with Santa and Krampus.
We then headed down to Clintonville to participate in the Krampus Walk. We had a pretty good turnout of wenches, and had a wonderful time parading down the street all dressed up. We were photographed a lot, and made quite an impression. Obviously I chose to go for more of a Krampus look, and I had a great time.
General consensus is that we are mostly naughty, but a really good time. Happy Krampusnacht!!
Betsy Snow White Bibliophile 