I started this on Monday and finished it Tuesday....

Work was nuts last week. My deputy was out and our other Cheif was out so it was so many meetings to cover and I was quadruple booked alot. Sighs. But we made it. Friday was our 9/80 Friday but I had to work. The proposal stuff I have to do takes brain power and quiet to work on and I don't get any extra of that during the week. So I worked about a half day Friday and Saturday. Friday afternoon I had a nice massage and then tooled around the shops to stretch everything out. Didn't buy anything but just looked around. I was feeling very cooped up with working most of the day and then a 90 min massage. I almost just called mel that I needed to go for a drive but knew that was my anxiety talking and it could deal.

Benton was to have a friend over to play so he was cleaning his disaster of a room. His dad and I don't live like that but his Auntie Becca did as a kid so its inherited. Mel was working on getting things ready for the event on Saturday and I was just relaxing. We all went to bed pretty early. With me working during the day I've had movies playing on my ipad to keep me on task. Well that mean my ipad was in the studio and I then just pulled up a different book on my phone cause I'm lazy and I'm 3 novellas short of finishing the #33 of the year (its 1000pages of book). So I started early on #34 which is "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World" its novelization and wonderful and cheerful and fluffy as her tail. Benton has already read these but they were on my list.

So Saturday I got up earlier than I wanted but we were expecting company and my house was not company ready. Benton worked on his room some more while I cleaned up the front room and the family room. So much paperwork...omg. I went through all of the built up mail, the stuff I had set aside, moved stuff on the piano and put cat toys away, recycled a cat scratcher and the like. The couch got readjusted, the corner bookcases got decluttered of stuff. I put the extra impact massager in the goodwill bin and a light we don't use. It was a frantic few hours but the house looks nice and the amount of cat hair i vacuumed up was crazy. I then got to work while Benton played games awaiting his playdate playmate. We one issue was that the phone number Mel had given was our home number which is a land line. so if they were trying to text that wouldn't work. And it was a mess. I feel bad for benton, he was so looking forward to playing with journey. But it didn't happen all weekend. Hopefully we can get the numbers situated and we can try again. Work was annoying and I will admit I physically hot and tired and cranky and was not a good mom. It was not my finest hour and Benton has hit moody tween and yeah. He was also a PITA with his dad when he got home so yeah. The tude needs to change.

Mel fought in two tourneys but had to pull out of the second from nothing left in the tank. But he had a good time and he said it was nice to be back on Ft. Huachucha. Though I guess they haven't had the roads worked on in a while. yikes.

Sunday I slept in a bit but not much past 730. I played Animal Crossing and then after more consternation from the tween about things I got his character off of my Animal Crossing Island and onto his Switch and a new island. this will make it so I can get a new person on my island from my Amigo pack (Hello Kitty people!) and also help in general. He ended up playing AC all day while Mel and I did things. I got the bed stripped and into the wash and Mel dumped everything from the linen closet onto the bed. There I sorted into the style of thing and sorted out things that could be donated to our vet or a shelter. I ended up culling two large kitchen garbage bags full of towels. I then got bins out to sort and fold what was left into and then organized them in the closet and finally got them labeled with my label maker. From looking at things...I'm not ever allowed to buy napkins again. I will be culling all of those shortly for SCA largess and not buying anymore. OMG.

But it looks awesome. I then took a breather and started in out the studio. It had been bugging me something fierce and I want a space I can craft in. Seriously. I want to be able to finish a few things and not have to clean. I managed to find a few home projects to complete (new hanging thingy for ziploc bags that Mel hung on the inside of the upper pantry door and I needed a reinforcement for my shelves. they are sagging after almost 20 years and need to be replaced but its been too hot for mel to have shop time. The lowest shelf with my sewing machines is the worst and I put a support up to prop it until we can fix things at the end of Sept. So, I measured and had mel make me a post...which he said I measured wrong and I told him I would fix it. It was perfect and I unloaded shelves and put it in under the shelf and then reloaded it. All good. I also realized when I was filing away all of the god damned paper for two houses that I don't need to keep utility bills. I chucked them all. I also got out all of the paperwork I need for the probate and cleaned out the file I've been carrying around with all of the mom stuff and got it down to just the final few things I need to take care of. Woot.

The studio is now useable and though I really need to purge all of the drawers of things do I use or not and I still need to get the closet cleaned out. those are activities with the girls since I will need help sorting and figuring out what I want to keep or not.

I went to the gym after Spicy's vet appt. She's up to 3.8 pounds which means she's gained 3.1 pounds since June 1st. She did really well with her shots, course they feed her a tube of Churu to keep her happy while they do it. The gym was good and Keith had mixed things up between legs and chest. I was tired but made it through two sets on each items 1 and 2. Did modify a few things cause the ankle is a not happy. But it was good. I grabbed a burrito from Viva and then went to Ari's for the restart of scribble.

I kept on my cleaning binge and while Ari cleaned all her nibs, I pulled every last thing out of my scribal kit and purged all of the crappy worn out brushes, dirty crap, old dried up and cant be used paint tubes and packaging from things. I then purged my folders and sorted out patterns, ducti and lining sheets into separate folders in my file set. The goal will be to get that set to fit in my case but I need to move a sketch book around. All good though. Bridget and the kids (who are now 19 and 24!) arrived and we went trhough and cleaned out her case and set assignments. Basically we will make things until told we have things needed by the signet. I have a commission from 2017 that I did some research on and pulled some exemplars for. I have a partial plan in my head. I hope to start sketching things the next scribble or Monday I may go to baronial and see what I can do. Its a holiday but it would be nice to go and see the baronial folks.


With the 3 day weekend....I have plans to try to finish two projects. 1) the quilt project for my grandma's quilt and 2) the seams on my black dress. I also want to go through bins of fabric and start really purging or at least organizing but the closet also does need to be fixed before I purge fabric. But some lose plans are better than no plans.

So, yeah I think the new med dosages are helping me be more me...I still have anxiety and I know its there but that energy I can use to focus on something else that I want to do or that is buggging me. So I care about things more.

I have started the probate paperwork for moms estate and I hope I can get someone to call me back about the wall around the Tucson house. I'm hopeful I can get a call back. If not I may implore some help from Thyra who knows folks in the business. But things are better. I made it the whole weekend with 4 drinks total. And I've been doing good with eating and moving. So just trying to keep the momentum and get my work finished without doing too much OT.

 Tuesday night was super nice, I got sewing done, some crochet done and got video game time.  Seriously, what a nice evening....so when I went to bed and finished up book #11 of 2021 which was Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett.  I then started Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Its scifi with necromancy...so Warhammer 40k?  Lol. its been interesting and they just throw you in the deep end to start...very much like Glenn Cook in The Black Company...speaking of, I really need to do a re-read of that series...its been a while.

So I'm reading and a storm starts blowing in...and I do mean blowing. Lots of wind, wind chimes going crazy, heavy ass rain, lightening striking the wash and thunder so loud.  Usually I have no problem with this but my skin was itchy and I couldn't get comfortable.  I got up at midnithgt to get benedryl and the cats were hiding in the linen closet.  They don't normally freak so that was new.  I then just stayed away listening to the storm and mel snoring and trying not to scratch non-existent hives. Its so annoying but I fell asleep after 2am.

The next morning was rough and Tasha was a scaredy cat and hid in Benton's closet all day.  It took us forever to find her..she didn't' even want to come out for treats. We all gave her love and snuggles and treats and she was on her front room perch at night but this AM  she's been hiding behind the back couch in the family room.  We have more storms coming and I'm not sure what to do.  Our Baroness stopped by last night to work on a project but we just ended up kibitzing which was just fine.  And she suggested that I give her some benadryl or dramamine to help her calm down. I'm not sure what dosage and will call the vet.  I'm up for helping her out and making sure she's loved... if she was a snuggle kitty it would be nice but she's very aloof in general.

Even with a bad night of sleep and not hitting the gym cause I did not feel safe enough to drive, lift and drive back when so tired I had a nice night.  Being a sounding board for our Baroness and chit chatting on various topics is good.  I kinda needed a night like that.  But tonight its back to the sewing grind.  Gotta do some fancy cutting to make the most of trim things but all good.

Also, a big shout out to SilkBaron.com....their customer service is fabulous and really nice.  I called and left a message since its had been 5 business days and no shipping confirmation. I realized looking at past reciepts that this swatch order didn't have shipping marked and figured I did something wrong.  Got a ring back from Andrew and they have just been swamped with orders and mine was actually next in the swatch cuts so all good.  I said cool no issue. They got me my tracking number before they closed last night.

So brain is tired but I'm feeling better after drugging out myself to sleep last night though my REM and deep sleep get jacked by that but I slept and that was the important part.  I will workout and work on projects tonight and tomorrow is the day off and moving day for Linnet.  And then a weekend of sewing and kibitzing with my apprentice and Baroness.

Work was a lot of work all last week. I worked a lot and my next paycheck will show that. When you have a 330pm in the afternoon on a Friday change board you know things are serious. My entire team is a bit crispy but luckily the end is near for this set of packages and we can take a breather and work on the next hot list. To say I was tired at the end of Friday is mis-statement. Got done with our meetings, hit the gym and then had to reorganize our evening while on the treadmill.

Benton had had a bad week and we thought we had turned it around on Thursday. Nope, he had lied about his day so he could go to marital arts. Le Sigh. And he'd had a bad day on Friday. So he got to stay home with his dad (who was already peopled out) while Ari and I grabbed Erika for the hockey game. Note to self....go early for parking elsewhere in downtown cause you can get food and drinks earlier. We got there just in time to see Linnet and the TCDS school choir sing the national anthem and then we got food / beers and watched some fun hockey. Erika and I knit (ari forgot her knitting! Oh the horrors!) Then we headed to ice cream and the Screamery and then drinks at the Distillery. It was loud in there but they both loved the absinthe cocktails called Jezebel's Fire. This was the first time I'd been there when it was that busy but I had a G&T and had a good time. After that we headed home.

Got up on Saturday (even though it was cold and I was warm and snug in my bed thank you very much) to head to the SCA event. The College had its event and it was fun. Though I honestly hate very slow meetings...sighs. This is why I bring things to work on otherwise I get more than surly. I finished mel's orange socks:



Then I worked on my "Birthday Socks" which I call that since they are from some luscious yarn mel got me for my birthday last year. So nummy. I had about 2inches of leg done on them and by the time we left I was in the heel flap. Got home and we got unpacked and reorientated to the modern world before heading out to dinner with the college crewe. Jessie and Jen were in town to see lil' Cora and we had dinner and drinks at Serial Grillers and then J/J came back to our place to chat and we exchanged lots of youtube awesomeness back and forth and just caught back up. Mel and I chatted before bed and we think that Ben's chemistry had changed again and were going to try to up his meds the next day to see if it made things better. I did make it through the heel though on the sock while we chatted with J/J.



Sunday we slept in though I was awake early due to my brain being evil and it left me tired and exhausted all day. To add to that Obsidian is not doing well and this will be her last week with us. She's not eating and just snuggles with you and wants love. Sighs. I spent a chunk of the morning with her under an afghan in my lap while I read. I had lunch with Erika, Icka and Willa and then ice cream at Hub since we were downtown again. Got home and did some laundry, worked on socks while I watched Voltron with Benton. The upping the dosage seemed to work well. We are trying it again today. We had a nice dinner of turkey noodle soup and then mel and I finished up Young Justice.


Mel worked on his restoration project throughout the weekend:

Well, my weekend was pretty busy. Friday was dealing with the cats and the vet. We've had to make some changes to the girl's litter box setups and I'm not convinced its working. Time will tell I guess. We were all very tired by Friday night. Little boy has been teething hard on his top front teeth and mel is still getting over his crud. Saturday morning mel got up and ready to head to Bumble Bee Ranch for MWW with the Knights of Hrafn and the his squire. Benton and I had a good day where we played I sewed off an on all day. After his nap we had a good time shopping and we picked up a new pair of shoes for him and a new outfit. I had pulled one off the rack and he looked at it and did his happy noise about it. Other outfits he didn't comment on so the one with little blue monster's going "ROAR" came home with us. (You can see a pic of the outfit here.

Mel got home a bit late and I had sat and worked on Tony's TARDIS mitts. I had ended up frogging them back to the start of the stitch pattern because I couldn't read my own pattern. Lame but true. I'm happy with them now and should be able to work on them pretty well. On Sunday I did a bit more sewing and knitting while mel was in the shop. Benton was a bit crabby by the end of the day and would not take a second nap though he needed it. By the end mel and I were pretty strung out and tired. But little boy has been sleeping good (though a bit of whimpering at night) so that is better than the previous weekend. His walking is much improved and he's been walking across the family room quite regularly. I think all of his effort to move while standing is wearing him out.

Over the weekend I finished #3 book of the year Steal the Dragon and moved on to reading #4 which is When Demon's Walk by Patricia Briggs. I relaly like that these stories are all independent but if you read them all you get a very large at least 40 year history of the area from very different points of view.

Monday dawned early and when I got to work I was working hard when my phone went off to tell me I had a blood donation scheduled. I did my first "double Red" donation. I have to say that is weird and I did not like tasting medical saline all day in my throat. I was really tired afterwards and throughout the whole day. That was normalish but I was wiped. Got home late after working late to make up the donation time and a wonderful lunch with the work husband Pete. Benton was a bit cranky when I got home but it was the "i'm tired" kind of cranky. He ate a good dinner and I guess was out shortly after his bottle. Mel had a nice evening home while I headed to scribble and almost finished a scroll. We all made good progress on things and got to chat with Gael on her new position. The Southern Scribble Hive Mind is weird for lots of people to conceptualize until they see us in action. We all work really good as a team and have a good time doing it. Plus we push ourselves which is also really good.

I got home and mel was getting ready for bed. I was a very good girl and put away my laundry that had been sitting in baskets for a week or so. I need to do laundry again so...maybe I'm not as good as I want to be.

Today is St. Valentine's Day and the Arizona Centennial. Last year at this time I posted this picture :

Of mel at Joe's before he headed off to Estrella. Wow, its been a crazy year since then.

Oh, well, time for some meetings.

Work was work. I have lots of paperwork to finish before I start my transition to my new job on monday. Uffdah. Mel was awesome and took his girl to the vet. She was a bit dehydrated so we get and IV for her for a few days to keep her fluids up. She got blood work so we hopefully will know what is up soon. She's eating but only if we give her small amounts over a time does she keep it down. She also coughed up some hair after getting back from the vet but I'm sure that is from her full body bath she gave herself when she got back. We'll continue to monitor and see how things go. Butterfly is now in a hissy mood and has been a pain in the ass. Obsidian did smell pretty medicinal when she came home and butterfly isn't happy about that. She was so grumpy she didn't get dinner and she only got breakfast after mel took obsidian away so she could eat in peace. Sighs.

So we had an evening at home. Mel and zippydclown worked on things for estrella. I got to cut stencils for them and they turned out really nice. Zip did a faboo job on sewing before hand so the guys stencilled and drank beer while I pulled armor apart. I have to resew the buckles back on this afternoon but it should be good. I also got my hat closer to done and I have 9 rows left to knit. They are decrease rows so each row goes more quickly as less stitches are present. I'm rather enjoying the lace parts...I might have to cast on for that lace cowl soon. Knitting is slow but its enjoyable..especially when the patterns change every few rows.

Got to be mostly on time and finished book #3 of this year which was Diane Duane's Book of Night with Moon. Very fascinating twist on the So you want to be a wizard universe. There is a 2nd book in the series and I'll have to see if bookman's has it. I really enjoyed this one. Not as fluffy as the last books I've been reading have been. Duane rights things in a dense format. Though I think I'll be reading some spinning books in the next bit though along with some fluff.

Well, time to grind on some more work. Haven't heard a rain plan for tomorrow yet...but I think wool will be the order for the day...along with a hot lunch. I need to get some chili into thermoses for tomorrow...that and hot coffee will be most awesome I think. Looking forward to the gym this afternoon to do legs and biceps. All good.

Last night I got home a bit after 6pm at work. Lots of stuff had to happen for today at work for those going in. Hopefully the results from that will be okay but we shall see. I made myself some dinner (tunasalad) and crocheted a bit. I was still not on par for VH but I should be ready by next week. I hope all of the walking tomorrow will get things rolling for me and that will be good.

I went to bed about 945pm. I was tired and I slept wonderfully. Mel came home late and I was well asleep. Got up this morning and the girls have been cracking us up. This morning's sunrise earth on HD theater was Stonehenge and there were little black birds all over it. Both obsidian and butterfly tried to get them by bounding up to the tv and trying to paw at them. We got them down before the scratched the screen but I'm sure I'll be cleaning nose prints off of it later. That seams to be the only program they ever take interest in. Course, when they did a close up of one of the birds and butterfly was on the tv stand the bird was bigger than her and she got a bit confused. It was funny. Obsidian is still watching tv waiting for birds. LOL.

Plans for today, some grocery shoppping, some sewing, some knitting and gaming. The house isn't too bad, we need to do dishes and pick up. Hope to make it to grandma's for the happy hour. Gonna have more coffee and toast and get on with the day. All good.

Well, my plans for last night were offed by cats. See, sometimes the girls have it in for ivan and I. He was making nummy pressure cooker chili...not my chili but still very good and we are going to can some of it! and then he got tired and laid down for a quick nap. I was also tired and though...ya, 20mins and then get changed, head to knit night and kung fu. Well, I laid down and the cats descended upon me with great vengeance and snuggles. Both of them were curled up with me, purring and I was out from a double soul suck. Its really hard to stay awake with 2 10 lb sleep bombs upon you and even harder to get back up.

I slept for over an hour I think...and then I was starving and ate dinner too fast. Chili good but my tummy wasn't happy with it. I think beans too many times in a row this week aren't making it happy. So by this time its just after 6pm...so I made the decision to just grab my knitting and go to Grandma's. It was light night of folks but Valerie helped me out with casting on my Noro Silk Scarf. I got it cast on and did the first row...realized that I had two mess ups, learned to unknit and unpurl and fix things and then got back on track to finish 3 rows total...I think. I'll look at it tonight and see. The Noro is odd to work with and I'm knitting a smaller gauge than the last practice I did but I think it will be nice and I can see what I'm doing when I screw up so I think that is okay.

After that I headed to micheals and joanns to find things they don't carry. Sighs. But online looking is showing me options and that is okay.

So, got lots to do today at work and had a really good meeting to get folks aligned on a project. Now off to send off the notes and get more stuff done.

I don't really care what anyone says...I'm not going to be here tomorrow. The fires that are burning can do so over the weekend...I'm just sick and tired of all of my hard work being for naught or for me to work so hard and to fail because others aren't keeping up with the tasks at hand.

The moon is waxing which is not when this type of stuff occurs...something else is going on to make the universe hate us all so much right now.

I needed last night, it was good. I'm going to need more of the same tonight and tomorrow, to myself to just organize, pack and clean will be good.

My dress is almost done. I just have to do eyelets and finish the newly cut sleeves and my tippets. The eyelets will be tonight, tippets will be tomorrow and that will just have to do. I need to pre-make dinner for saturday night and get that vacuum packed. Pasta is easy that way.

Obsidian was a pill last night, course she urped up all of her food after she ate it so I'm sure it was her being hungry. But man that cat can be a pain in the middle of the night.

Well, time to shove to.

Work was rather productive until about 230 when the duldrums hit. I toughed it out until about 315pm and left. I got home, changed and did my Gillian Micheals tape and then changed into bike clothes and did 5 miles. Things to note...I need to do my workout tape in my bike shorts if I'm going biking afterwards...they are really hard to get on when sweaty. Sighs and LOL.

Got home, cooled down and then realized while eating snack that kung fu might not be in the cards. I was worn out. Got some dinner and made the decision to not go to kung fu so I'd have some ability to hold a pen. It worked an I was able to get 2 scrolls callig'd while we were there, organize all of the other scrolls in my case and work on more scroll texts. I've got a pile that need to be done and well, I have a start..just 10 more to go or so.

Scribble was lots of fun with a larger than normal group. Plus with the added bonus of The Abbreviated Shakespeare Company the night was light and really entertaining. Left and needed a few small things from the store about 10pm. Fry's on 22nd and Kolb shuts their checkouts down after 10pm and I had to wait for self check for about 10 mins. Got home and put things away and then headed for a shower. I wasn't tired and I was a bit too warm so I sat up reading and drinking water until I cooled down. Read for a bit more under the covers and then was out.

Obsidian has been lovingly bringing her rat to bed with us. I awoke at 3 to hit the bathroom and it was in bed, I tossed it out into the hall. When we got up at it was back in bed with us. So cute...though it needs a good washing...ewww.

Today is shaping up and I hope to run a few errands, do my work out tape and then hit practice. All good...though I have to go to the ELYS (Evil Local Yarn Store: Purls) to check their selection. They are evil because they are not nice and they look down their nose at you...especially if you are a crocheter (can we say Crochate?!, I think we can). But talking with the girls at Grandma's, they might have what I'm looking for for the other baby blankets. We shall see.

So, all in all a good day. Got a good work out and hope to today as well.

My peer review was, I guess, okay. Lots of discussion, lots of information was shared that I wish I had known before walking into the project. Sighs. I'm trying to keep things simple in the design since that is not my favorite or even my best thing I'm good at and some of the stuff brought up was kinda "huh..." Anyhooo that was good. Got good feedback from some coirkers on some slides we have to have ready for today. Then it was time to go home, well past time and that was okay.

So, I got home, made myself a really big nummy salad and then camped out on the couch for a bit to relax. Then I changed into my black pj's and headed to kung fu via grandma's spinning wheel for open knit night (well all crafts really). Had a really nice time chatting and working on my afghan. Then it was time for class where the only place my knee really protested was during sweeps in 7 kicks and then at the end of class when I was chasing after meowandbark and it just kinda collapsed on me as I was moving forward..probably too quickly. It didn't hurt until mel started working in on the muscles...the lower leg is still tight and now the uppper was tight again. I get to do more ballet stretches...but even after taking care of ari's cats it wasn't too bad..not really hurting or sore until you touch it...though a bit weak when I tried to change levels from playing with the cats.

Gypsy doesn't like her pills and tries to bite me..so I'm having to crush it up and put it in her gooshy food which she takes her own sweet time eating. I think I'm spoiled with how fast my cats eat. Narhachi, the bird, and I have finally come to an understanding and she's not squawking and is happy to see me and munch on her food and shreddies. Balo thinks I'm weird and Aramis keeps trying to trip me on the stairs and rub on me constantly. Eh.

So, it took me a while to take care of them and then get to work...and I still need coffee and breakfast. I should have stopped at caffe nation but I was worried about being later than I was already. Eh. I'll just be happy to ge through all of the stuff today, including some training. I have crafty business afoot that keeps calling my name.