Thursday night I made dinner which was vegan pesto that I then put chicken into along with the cashew/spinach ravioli I got from TJs. My pesto is:
soak 1 cup of cashews in hot water for 20 mins
Drain, put those in food processor and blend for a bit, then add copious amounts of basil, a tidge of olive oil, garlic and onion powder, juice of one lemon and some S&P. Super tasty and easy but a bit of clean up on the blender/food processor. The ravioli were good but I over cooked some of them a tad. I added two cans of chicken that I diced up good and it was a very good meal with leftovers for dinner and pesto for bread.

I worked on the embroidery and got the the leaves all outlined in either stem/chain stitch in two different colors of thread.

Friday we headed up to Phx early and forgot things like our masks (thanks to maggie she had spare) and I forgot my ibuprofen which was saved by Shanda having some in her bag of holding. Anyhoo...we parked, walked to get breakfast at Morning Squeeze which had excellent food. We then walked to the Science museum which was loud with children but pretty informative. The cool thing is they had Power of Poisons traveling exhibit which was very lacking in children and super interactive and informative. I took okay pictures of it but it was low light.

We then headed over to quilt con where I needed a sit down while we waited for Maggie (aka Bertana) to get back from getting her badge from ehr hotel room. We didn't get badges just electronic scans on our phones which made me sad but it was a cool convention, Quiltcon. They used the 3rd floor of the Phx Convention Center, those familiar from Fan Fusion know this now as the Photo Op and Autograph area. Lots of attendees couldn't believe how big the convention center was and I giggled. Uh, this is just one set of the rooms they could use. Though I guess the classes were on the Symphony side which makes sense is a across the sky bridge. Anyhoo...we were there to see the quilts and I had hoped to Meet Chris from Rose City Originals. And we walked up to the Accuquilt booth (this is a thing I want but can't justify buying until I'm older and have more free time) but got to meet him, get a selfie and his STICKERS!!!

Saw a lot of teh quilts on display (or tried to there were a lot and my knee while better was cranky pants by the end of the day.) And shopping. I got some notions (needles, needle minders) from Rachel Rossi, stickers and a small bag from the MQG shop, stickers and a 1.5" iridescent ruler from Feral Notions, yarn/fiber/needle minder from Storyteller Stitchery who are local, and I got a pattern Called Splintered Spectrum from Lemon Quilts. I was surprised by Mel who got me a Lap App which I didn't realize I needed and have used the heck out of Sat/Sunday embroidering especially when I grabbed a clamp to attach my embroidery hoop. So effing handy. To understand how this works see The designer explaining it. Yes its expensive but its super well made, good materials and damn if its hella handy. Maggie had seen it with me and I couldn't' figure out what it was for and I went around to see something else on the next aisle. After I left Maggie got a demo of it and immediately tried to find me or Mel, found Mel first and he bought it for me once he saw what it did. I'm super grateful and super happy with it thus far. My only beef and I will call them is I would like to get the other heads for it to do the ipad stand and/or the bead table and not have to buy a separate thing? Maybe? I will use it and see. But I see this useful for all types of in lap hand sewing and I could put my third hand attached to it too. I will probably make a bag to carry it and have the caddy stuff. But right now i love it.

We had a wonderful dinner and drinks at Harumi (sushi) and then mel drove us home. My knee was on fire and we got home, I iced it, took more drugs and we we went to bed. Saturday I woke up and my foot and knee both shifted and settled more in place. The swelling had gone done a lot since the weekend and it was nice to have full extension on my leg. I was good and elevated it most of the day in-between walking around. I watched movies (Muppets Treasure Island --Muppet Haunted Mansion -- Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion --Rosario Dawson Haunted Mansion. I love them all and marathoned those. I got the center of the rose done and I love how it turned out. Sunday was embroidery in the afternoon as we had errands to run for household things (harbor freight and ace hardware) before I sat down and got going on couching goldstyle thread. I got through the little leaves and almost finished the last petals that are padded. Here is where I finished up. I'm going to finish the padded couching and then I think its pearls around the outer edge of the petals and then its done? Its rather striking with what is showing now but I'm not sure yet. Gonna take it to scribal tonight to work on it and get some peer review on it.

I also need to get some laundry done (like my war stuff) and finish the deep clean/declutter/destash/organize of the studio. Finding things immediately when I want them is fucking fancy as hell and then there is the filing cabinet to deal with. And I have this weird thing where I want to wear a new dress to Cassandra's elevation and I will have like 10 days to make one....doable but necessary?

The weekend made me inspired and needing some that with the world being dumb right now. Just want it.

The beginning of the week seemed kinda dire and Tuesday I was having panicked moments of thinking I'm going to fail to get anything accomplished. Well, I just buckled down and got things done. It wasn't easy but I managed. So, by the end of today I will have released the 4th report of the week (medium sized 10-15 page things) and I've read a lot this week.

I was reading book #6 of the year which was Dragon Bone and I'm intrigued enough about the world to read the next one when I find it. I also finished listening to Dracula on the Craftlit Podcast. Faboo story telling there. Seriously. Bram Stoker had a knack. So I'm counting that as #7 since it was a full book and I did more reading around the world and the text since its Craftlit. BTW, if you want to miss the crafty stuff in Craftlit, Heather is doing Just the Books which is just the audio of the book discussion and chapters. Go look it up on Itunes or her website Just the Books. The next book is Gulliver's Travels and it starts in April.

The next book I read I read to Benton last night. I wasn't going to count kids books but this one is popular right now due to its movie and I had never read it as a kid. So #8 is The Lorax by Dr. Suess. I picked it up at Toys R Us for half price on Wednesday. I started thinking about it and I didn't read a lot of Suess as a kid. I read almost all of the "I Can Read" Series but not Suess. Not sure why but I think part of it was that they weren't available to me and second...going back to reading them I think my dad probably didn't like them due to all of the nonsense words and my take now is some of them are a bit creepy and not in my normal creep I like. I don't want to limit Benton so we are reading all types of things but I'm sure we will have to have discussions about the themes of some books etc.

So, I've written and released 4 reports this week, finished 3 books and I even sat down and worked on the Ravens for the Hrafn cloaks last night and got a reasonable ways in the 2.25 hours I put in. I'm feeling much better about that task than I did even Thursday am so I think if I work hard I can manage to meet my goals on that for the war.

Tonight is laying out the baronial land with zippydclown and Aleyd and then that task will be done. The land layout will be interesting since its the first time we've laid things out at that site and its always odd the first year while we figure out the dynamics of things and movement of vehicles etc. I hope the roads have good turn radii for large vehicles and trailers..that is always and issue. Well, off to work and release that final report and get some emergency paperwork flowing down the pipe. All good.