.Give . Thanks.

It's almost Thanksgiving Eve, the kickoff to the holiday season, and more importantly, the night of The 4th annual Thanksgiving Eve Fiasco! A night, in Cambridge, MA, of punk, Lemincelo, and very. very. very. high. fashion. At least for Captain Jacks, Miz Menthol and Myself. I do believe we are the only ones who dress up for this shindig.... The event is held every year at TT the Bears (only 8 bucks kids!), on Brookline St. and right off Mass Ave. The lineup is always stellar and last year included an old-west style bar fight following the show. Sure to be a grand time!
I decided about two hours ago that the dress that I was making for tomorrow night is not high fashiony enough, that and it'll be absolutely freezing cold. So, I'm off to begin and hopefully finish dress no. 2 before early tomorrow morning, as I have butcher work for the rest of the day!

I Love New York; Sunday

One of the reasons I went to NY this weekend was to visit this place in S. Troy. I'm not sure what it was, but there are still buildings used on the property, so I chose Sunday thinking maybe I wouldn't run into anyone, but what did they go and do? Stick a highway department across the street and a whole bunch of nervous elderly folks behind it. I had to act the "lost tourist" a few times and ask for directions and pretend I wasn't up to anything. And it was absolutely worth it. The last time I was here, there was about 50% more, and it looks like they've just recently started tearing it down. But I was lucky enough to get inside some of it before they get to it!

I Love New York; Saturday

Everyone has one of these is upstate New York.

Pouty Mouth Superman

CoraBelle and NutMeg


So far, upstate NY is number one on my list of favorite places. And it is where I spent the past weekend with my brother and his family. And Saturday was filled with babies, museums and carousels!

To Do List; November

1. Tiramisu- The best-sounding recipe I've found so far can be found HERE
Along with all sorts of baked goodness. I just found this blogger today, and she is an instant favorite. Love love love recipe blogs!

2. Winter White Soup. In my head, it has to be snowing out for me to make this one. There has to be a fire in the fire place, and loved ones will have just come in out of the snow. They are all wearing cream coloured cable-knit sweaters. I think I may have seen this scenario in a Folger's commercial a while ago and it is now stuck in my head .... Anyway, the recipe I plan to use is HERE (and, of course, I'm planning on tweaking a bit)

3. Felt Sushi and Poptarts!!!! There will be more variety than that. Can't live on felt Sushi and Poptarts alone, after all. I have soooo much felt waiting to be used! The only problem here is I've been doing this by trial and error. I wish I had a pattern for some of these, as they are a lot harder to create than you would think. If you have an idea, or know of patterns, let me know!

4. I am so tricking out all of my old sweatshirts and copying this from Modcloth. Modcloth is an awesome site, particularly for vintage. The new stuff is also great, but I can't justify spending $40, when I can make it for way less than that. If I had more money than I had time, maybe. But for now I'm content to use this site for inspiration.

I Less Than Heart Massachusetts; Demolish-My-Dreams-Why-Don't-You Edition.

My goal for today was to find and explore some of the abandoned places in the area, and Mum and I started out the day exploring at the State Park, which is less than abandoned, but was still lovely and interesting.

When we got back I immediately drove like a maniac to "classified location", near where I live and which I had not realized housed ruins of one of the oldest steel mills in the country! A very exciting find. I don't have pictures yet of that one. Unfortunately in this area the state likes to plant government and state buildings near these types of places. And therefore they are very often crawling with officers. So I only really got a good peek at the ruins. I think I will save them for a very early Sunday morning when the highway dept. (which just happens to be across from the ruins) is still asleep and the cops are groggy (I hope...).
I decided then to visit the Mecca of my Urban Exploration hopes and dreams, The Taunton State Hospital (aka Taunton State Lunatic Asylum).
Pretty much since birth I have wanted to get into this place. I got in once when I was very very very young, probably eight years old (The hospital was very nearly in my backyard), but only for about two minutes. It left a lasting impression. Soon after that we moved and they set up an electric fence around it.
So, this afternoon I pulled onto the property to get another glimpse of the beautiful buildings and found all of the gates open and the fence half down. And as I drove closer, the main building fell to the ground. I almost drove into a tree. Then I saw the sign, "Taunton State Hospital Demolition; Building For The Commonwealth!"
I was even more gutted when I found out that the state shelled out 1.3 Million on this little project, part of which I, unknowingly, helped pay for.
If I ever meet our governor, I will kick him in the kneecaps (I'm not entirely sure it's his fault, but I've pinned it on him anyway...)
I feel a little better knowing I took some of the very last pictures of Taunton State Hospital...

Taunton State Now and Then

Waste Money, Destroy History indeed