Hobbies | Kimberussell.com

NJ Renaissance Faire and my first zipline!

Jun 14 2017

This weekend, WM and I headed north to Liberty Lake Day Camp in Bordentown to attend our third New Jersey Renaissance Faire.

This gorgeous and majestic creature is “Sir Angus.” And his horse.

If you live anywhere in NJ and have yet to visit the New Jersey Renaissance Faire, please go give it a try. And you’re like, “Yeah, yeah, Kim. We go to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire every year and it’s huge and amazing!” I know! It is! We go too.

But the NJ one only runs for 3 weekends a year, and it will charm the pants/kilts/pantaloons off of you. It’s smaller, but because of that it’s easier to see everything and catch more performances. It’s more immersive – there are dozens and dozens of costumed staff members along the pathways who will interact with you, if you’d like. It’s less commercial.

For those 3 weekends out of every year, Liberty Lake Camp is transformed into English village of Crossford. What makes Crossford different than your average Shire is that it’s located on some sort of time wormhole that brings different historical personalities there each year. This year Italy’s Borgias made a visit. Last year it was Brunhilde and Vikings, the year before it was Blackbeard, etc.

This gorgeous and majestic creature is Jacques Ze Whipper.

Two years ago we funded their Kickstarter to give them a permanent office and to make the Faire 3 weeks instead of 2. It was probably the best Kickstarter we supported.

We visit, we wander, we attend some performances, we usually watch a blacksmithing demo because BLACKSMITHING!, we buy something stupid, and we come home.

This majestic and gorgeous creature is my amazing husband.

But this year we saw a zip line. I have always wanted to try zip lining. So without much thought we coughed up $15 each and got to zip across Liberty Lake. Despite the woman in front of me’s tale of woe about being stuck on one in Mexico because she was too light (sigh) and someone slamming into her on the way down, I was clipped to the wire, took a tiny step of faith off of the platform and HAD A BLAST!

Video proof, shot by WM:

Ziplining at the NJ Ren Faire from Kimberly Russell on Vimeo.

I felt like I could fly! The straps were comfortable and I felt completely secure the whole way. I am so glad I took that chance. The best part was we got to zipline back across the lake so that we didn’t have to walk allllll the way back to get our stuff. Those were screams of joy, by the way.

This year’s stupid purchase was this tiny axe. I don’t know what to do with a tiny axe. It’s not even sharp.

It’s not sharp so I can’t toss it at things.

Next year, if you’re a proud New Jerseyan (or even a curious Philadelphian) go visit the New Jersey Renaissance Faire.

Beach bum necklace

Jun 08 2017

The older I get, the more Jersey pride I have. Maybe I’m trying to compensate for our size, our reputation, or our Governor. (Whom I voted for. Twice. Yeah.) In any case, I love my little Garden State. I even have a NJ Pinterest board! Two weeks ago, WM and I were at the Collingswood Mayfair and I saw the most creative jewelry idea!

You might remember that I used to make jewelry as a hobby. I’ll get back to it someday, I suppose. But I’ve seen so many copycat products that I got a little jaded on jewelry booths at craft shows. But The Sassy Apple‘s booth allowed you to create your own bangle bracelets with beach tag charms!

Back to NJ: You have to pay to get onto many of our beaches. It kind of blows, but the money goes to fund ~~the victims of the bad NY and PA drivers who plow through our state every Friday-Sunday with seventeen bicycles strapped to their roof~~ beach replenishment and cleaning efforts. You can see what they look like here. You pin them to your beach bag or wear them on your swimsuit.

I already have a New Jersey seaglass-like charm that I wear on a necklace and when I saw these I knew I found the perfect accompaniment.

Beach tag charm on a chain.

She created charms for many of the NJ shore towns. I love how the little gold wire is bent to resemble the beach tag pin!

Fitting for me.

I couldn’t decide which shore town to go with, because Wildwood was my town we went to when I was a kid, Ocean City when I was older, and now I go to Margate because there is nothing there but beach. I think beach bum is perfect.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for my first beach trip of the season. The weather has not played nicely with my free time so far.

I was not compensated for this writeup. I just love the charm.

Adventures in hair color: Garnier Light Nude Brown

Jun 06 2017

It to ANYONE that I dye my hair. People at work don’t even blink anymore when I swing from reddish to brownish to blondish.

This is my dream hair at the moment. It’s a simple textured bob with some brown balayage (fancy word for two different colors). Until I work up the nerve to do that, I continue to bring the color of the roots up, and tone the color of the ends down.

My most recent color was purchased strictly because the name made me giggle: Light Nude Brown. Is this a brown with no blue or no red undertones? Inquiring minds needed to know. Here’s the before and after.

To my knowledge, this is a historic blog day. Other than the old pictures from when I was young, I don’t think I’ve ever shown the natural color on the blog. But it’s 2017, and the oceans are rising, so why not let it all hang out?

That dirty blonde shmutz-color at the roots is my regular color. The Garnier covered it nicely as well as neutralized the nuclear orange ends. I’m very pleased and will likely stick with this color for the summer.

(That’s Garnier’s cue to discontinue the color, by the way.)

***
Last night I had a dream that Lin-Manuel Miranda was hosting a salad-making contest. He’d pull the name of a salad out of a hat and you’d have to build it. The winner got to smooch Jason Bateman.

I was eliminated because I didn’t know what a Shayfield salad was and couldn’t build it. I don’t even get to smooch Jason Bateman in my dreams.