Fair-tastic!

I spent Friday at the Minnesota State Fair with my sister. My niece and her boyfriend also went with us but magically disappeared as soon as we entered the fairgrounds.


The fair is all about the food. This was some of the entries for State Fair ribbons. I always wonder what happens to all this food after the fair. Do you pick up your entry after the fair (I don't know if I would still want to eat it) or do they toss it?


I've never had cookie bars look this uniform.


When I saw this stand I thought I was back in Korea. They LOVE SPAM in South Korea. The stand even had a line!

In keeping with my old Korean blog where I took a picture of just about every meal we ate out, this is a chicken fajita. Yummy.

We also had fish n' chips with lots of packets of tartar sauce. We are both sauce girls.

Potato skins with sour cream, cheese and bacon.

My sister Wendy HAD to have this. It is a deep fried Twinkie. It did not sound good to me at all.
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But she LOVED it.

I warned her that I would be spending a lot of time here and she was lucky enough to find a place to sit. But then she got impatient and came looking for me. She couldn't believe I was still looking at the exhibits.

These darling mice were felted.

More felting.

Polymer clay Bottles of Hope. Our South Korean mover refused to ship my polymer clay back to the States. It was on a list of items that the U.S. would not allow from South Korea so I ended up giving it to one of my Korean girlfriends. So I find myself for the first time in 20 plus years without a brick of clay in my house.

My favorite thing to look at the State Fair is the quilts and this year there were plenty to look at.

This was my favorite and it also won a first place blue ribbon.

There was even scrapbooking at the fair.

More polymer clay.

This is rosemaling. I took lessons back in the early 1980's and had forgotten about it until I saw this.

I saw a lot of cross-stitching. It has not been big since the 80's but I believe the time has come for it to resurge again. While living in South Korea, I found many mom and pop cross-stitching shops. It was a craft I did in the 80's.

Needlepoint.

I love this sweater. The colors and the design were amazing.

I love beading.

Honestly, I wasn't in the Creative Activities building that long but I guess it seemed that way to my sister.

We also ran into some local celebrities like Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota.

We also got to catch a little of my favorite news anchors, WCCO's husband and wife team Frank Vascellaro and Amelia Santienello. They were having a blast doing a newscast.

Of course, I can't leave out a picture of me with Wendy.

I saw many fair goers walking around with ShamWows. I had seen the informercial many times and I had to get one. We finally had to ask someone after searching to no avail. It happen to be a buy one, get one free so I gave my extra set to my sister. Big mistake. She and I had random sword fights throughout the rest of our time at the fair and yes, we did get a lot of strange looks.

Wonderful Wednesday!

Guess what's in these boxes that were left on my doorstep?


Yes, my maedeup book is out! The book teaches 10 knots and 30 projects with lots of step by step instructions and photos. I've also included stories from my stay in South Korea as an added bonus. Once you learn maedeup you will be hooked like I was. It is a magical craft. I am selling autographed copies at $22.99 plus $4.95 Priority Mail shipping for a total of $27.94. Email me at becky@meverden.net if you are interested in purchasing a copy.

If you are looking for the Korean cording that I used in the book, Satincord is carrying the cording. It's my favorite!

This was also to launch date of my new website: www.beckymeverden.com. There are so many exciting things happening in my world.

Toys

The craft world never disappoints when it comes to toys. I recently discovered the Zutter Bind-It-All on the Internet and had to find one. It is a binding machine which I can use to make my own photo albums, notebooks, calendars... anything you can think of that needs binding.

On a mission, I got into my car and I was off to my local Michaels store. I immediately headed for the scrapbooking aisles and carefully walked up and down looking carefully for it.. I finally asked a clerk and she went into the storage area to see if they had any. I waited for awhile which was no problem since there is always something interesting in a craft store. She came back with a similar machine made by Provo Craft. I had my heart set on the Zutter so I thanked her and left to drive over to the JoAnn store which was only a few blocks away.

JoAnn's turned out to not carry any binding machines. I was disappointed and more determined than ever to find one. I searched on eBay and found one that came with a lot of extras (love that). You can also find videos on youtube on how to use it.


While I was in a spending mood, I decided to add the Zutter Dreamkuts. It cuts paper into 100 different sizes. I also found this on eBay. I want to make my own Christmas cards this year and this will help me out tremendously. I didn't send out many Christmas cards while living in South Korea and the ones I did send were Korean and really cool looking. I want to get started on now because Christmas will be here soon.

Gifts from Afar

Curt was in Asia for business which included a stay at what was our home for two years, South Korea. He stayed at the Dormy in Suwon which is where we stayed while we waited the 5 weeks for our ocean shipment to arrive. He said it wasn't the same without me there.

He also got to see our Korean friends a few times and came home with a suitcase full of gifts. Hellena is a flight attendant working for Quatar Airlines based in Quatar. She had to leave while we were in the States for a visit last Christmas so I haven't seen her since December. She happened to be on vacation in Seoul when Curt was there. She gave me this beautiful perfume compact.


She also gave us a set of camels.

Their saddles open to a hidden compartment.

She also bought Curt this fancy bottle of cologne. It smells as good as it looks.

Next came gifts from Jennifer and Jeff. Do you know what's in these?

Name stamps (dojong in Korean) in each of our names. Curt's is on the left and mine is on the right.

The dojongs went together to make a heart.

Last but not least, this came from Hannah's nephew who has been learning origami for seven years and is unbelievably talented. I have a few other pieces of his that I will include in a future blog. This came in a clear display ready to hang on the wall.

Hannah also picked up some Korean stickers.

Somehow she was able to find the OST of the Korean drama Full House which aired in Korea in 2004. It stars Rain and the music from the drama was fantastic. I still don't know where she found this.

I had wanted some Korean stamps and she found some in Seoul.

She also enclosed this diary book with pictures from a Korean girl's group called Girls Generation.

I left treasured friends in South Korea and I am so thankful to the internet that we can still keep in touch through SKYPE and email but it isn't the same as dinner and coffee in Seoul. My heart aches for it at times.

Old Postcards

My grandfather collected postcards from all over the world. Most were purchased by him in his travels but he also saved ones that were sent to him by family and friends. The dates range from the early 1900's through the 1940's.

When I was a little girl, I loved to visit my grandparents and rifle through trunks and shelves in their basement. I found a bunch of old postcards throw into trunk and my grandmother let me have them. They fill an old shoebox and I just recently discovered them tucked away in my closet.

This postcard really shocked me. I can't imagine driving into a new town and seeing that.

Postcards are a wonderful and inexpensive souvenir to remember your travels. I bought quite a few while living in South Korea but I don't know where I put them. I'll try to find them and post a few.

Intention

I wanted to share a recent email I received from someone who had found my Korean blog, http://meverden.blogspot.com/.

Dear Becky,

I just wanted to let you know that I spent a few hours last night reading your blog. I am Korean, but when I was 3, my mother married an American. I haven't been to Korea since 1982, when I was 8. I have few, but fond memories of an old, pre-Olympic Korea.

Although my mother still spoke Korean and made Korean dishes, I am essentially American in all aspects. I'm what you call a "Twinkie." Asian on the outside, White on the inside.

I have found your blog fascinating. It brought me to tears at times, remembering and envying. I laughed thinking that my mother did almost all the basic Korean stuff-dressing too fancy for casual things (when we went to Disneyland, we were dressed in our Sunday clothes!), being feisty yet demure.

Anyway. Thank you for writing. I don't think I could ever convince my husband to move to Korea, but your blog definitely made my heart ache for it.

Yours,
Annie

When I started my Korean blog, it was with the intention to keep everyone back home informed on our adventures and as a personal diary for me to look back on when memories fade. I never imagined my blog would impact people all over the world but that's exactly what happened. Even though my Korean blog is no longer active, I still get emails from people who someone stumbled upon it.

I even received an email from a Hollywood screen writer with questions about the Korean culture. They were looking at remaking one of the popular Korean dramas. Many of the emails are from Korean Americans wishing to learn about their culture. It's a wonderful feeling to share what I learned while living in South Korea.

Maedeup Memories

I had kept all the practice maedeup that I had made from my Korean maedeup classes. I recently found the plastic bag and emptied the entire bag onto my bed. As I picked up each maedeup, it became a walk down memory lane as I remember learning each knot and how some came so easily while others I struggled to remember each step.

My class was on Saturdays from 12-5 in Seoul. I would ride the bus into Seoul with Curt, hop the subway to the right station and we would catch some lunch. Curt would drop me off by 12 and then do some exploring of Seoul. He would pick me up promptly at 5. Hellena and Hannah also took the class with me when they didn't have to work (they had to work on Saturdays sometimes). We would either have dinner with the girls or head home usually to stop by a mandu (dumpling) shop. They charged 1000 WON ($.80 US) for seven mandu. You had your choice of meat or kimchi. We usually got one of each.

Looking at the pile of maedeup on my bed I realized how far I have come from my first day at class. I miss the girls I met in class and especially my maedeup teacher, Su-Mi. Even after I had taken all the maedeup classes available I continued on with private lessons. Su-Mi would come to my apartment every week. She loved to have an American dinner with us. She was excited to see what I would be cooking and I always sent the leftovers back with her for her family to enjoy.