Yesterday I managed to hit two things off my to do list.

The first was to finish reading "Making it So" by Sir Patrick Stewart. Very nice and dense book about his entire life. I learned so much about him and his motivations for things it was neat...but long.

The second thing I finished was the calligraphy on the scroll for Ritchard's Court Barony. I will be getting it flattened and then mounted for sending to him at Fabric War. I'm most decidedly chuffed with its outcome. I will post pictures when I know he's received it.

I also down to two bumps of fiber and I hope I can get the spinning done tonight. Then I can see when I want to ply it....it might be a while since there is so many yards on that bobbin cause its so thin. This is a bit over 3 ounces on the bobbin 3 ounces on the bobbin of laceweight. I'm please but oof that has been a slog. Looking back at my photos I saw the meriona/sparkle that I did last July is just as thin. I almost want to ply them together but I'm not sure. I will determine later. I do have some fiber to go through and figure out what is next to spin.

So the next two things on my list to get done before we leave up north is to get my fabric stash purged for fabric war. (Willa will also be running my table for that). And before we leave I'm going to purge clothes and try to hit the mending pile to clear it. I have a lot of clothes I just need to chuck that don't fit, I hate or I just don't wear and they need to go...including the undies drawer.

Today I also head back to the gym for some light weight training and a good walk.

Book I started reading is #23 "The Butchering Art" by Lindsey Fitzharris which is about the art of medical things in victorian era and how the technology changed the landscape. The first chapter was about the use of ether in surgery and now we are hearing about Joseph Lister. Heard about this on the Stuff You Missed in History class podcast ang I got it for xmas a few years ago. So fun historical read.

and all through the kingdom many hands are making light of much work.

The Counties that scribe_ari is working on are faboo and I'm handling all of the organization minutiae to get things ready for both sets of crowns.  All about being the deputy signet.  Woot.  It also looks like we have "time off" for things being due for a few weeks which means the scriptorium can work work work on filling up the case again. Yay!

I also managed to get the shawl I've been working on back on track with encouragement from my friends at knit night.  I even stayed up a bit late to work to the next pattern repeat (and color change) so I'm sent into the lace pattern now.  Its looking really nice and I hope to get through at least this lace repeat in the next week or so and then maybe see big progress on it.

Work is progressing and I've been handing things off with, "here are my suggestions on how to proceed, if you have questions, call, if not good luck" for the old job and I'm in heavy drawing reviews in the new job.

Tonight I get to see Captain America: Civil War and I'm excited.  I have no idea if my Stucky feels will be met but its gotten really good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes etc.

So excited.

Next week will be getting stuff figured out for cosplay for D*C and then starting sketches.

My mojo and want to work on things is progessing which is really good.

So after not making it all year, I managed to get to the gym. I took it slow and I'm already feeling muscle soreness. My scale at home is out of juice and yeah, the one at the gym confirmed I'm now as heavy as I was at 9 months pregnant. Sighs. Well, I know where I need to go and what I need to do and I need to buckle down and do it.

Been doing good on the eating better and back to two beers a week....cause yes, I like beer, it likes my hips and belly way too much. I've indulged too much. So, here is what 2015 was supposed to be about which was taking care of me. The thing I love about our work gym is that its non-judgy, the regulars smile at you and the staff welcomes you back if you've been absent. Very positive atmosphere and its a good facility. I need to remember that....my worst enemy is me. Even a bad workout is better than no work out.

So, I hit the gym...it was only about 40 mins of weights and a bit of cardio but it was good. I was shaky when I was done but good. I then headed to the Southside Costco for essentials like flour, half & half, snack food. The Southside Costco is a strange beast. I feel like it needs to be about 50 foot wider in some dimensions cause the process flow is crappy. You get jammed up at the checkout and it just feel cramped everywhere except the freezer section which is 4 forklifts wide between the freezers. Just weird. But the nice thing is it’s on the Southside which means it has more ethnic varieties of things and I was able to find stuff I can’t get at my normal Costco. I got out and home by 715 to find half of the younger Hrafn members working tablet weaving and Will parked in my spot. LOL. I got things unloaded, made myself a high protein, high veggie dinner and then headed to scribble. It was small to start with we got in a groove. I think 3 scrolls got finished including this one which is way cool that I did:


I finished this scroll and then started another which will probably be finished next week. It’s a really quick paint when am only doing white vine work. I haven’t done work like that since Justin’s Laurel scroll when I did the laurel wreath to look like bone.

I have to say that last week was a lot of work on the SCA and work front. I did a lot of calligraphy to get things ready for a deadline upcoming and then had a busy weekend. Friday after work I hit the gym and lifted very heavy things. I was tired and angry about things and it helped improve my mood a lot. Got home and mel was the awesomest husband and had made the pasta and chopped the veggies for the pasta salad we were taking to the Hrafn BBQ send of for Mthurin (Derrik). Tuesday he headed to Afghanistan and we wanted to have a good party for him. It was a good time, lots of good food (mel made homemade smoked sausage) and I got to sit next to the BFF and knit.

As awesome as Friday was Saturday was not that way. I woke up after a seneschal performance anxiety dream. I don't even remember what it was about (I did that day) but it shook me into panic for most of the morning and I couldn't shake the feeling of "YOU EFF'd UP!" most of the day. Which is not a great frame of mind to be in when you need to be "ON" and teach a class. Luckily being one of the King's ladies helps when the chamberlain made sure I had coffee. The other not so amusing part of the day was that for as bad as I was doing BFF was also having the same issues and since we share a brain it can be comical to observers. Ivan was very very amused at how bumbling we both were. At least someone thought it funny.

So my class went really well. That helped my mood and sense of "DOOM" but the day was just odd. I got done with my class and got accosted by a few court members saying I was needed for calligraphy help in the ready room. I needed food and then got accosted again while I was getting my sandwich. Sighs. So I headed with my sandwich to the ready room to find Ari slaving away on calligraphy. We needed to get names on scrolls and get text on a few more. I put full text on 2 scrolls and put names on a few too. I was very happy that I got to callig the A0A for Ivan's Student Ariana (Kissa). I personalized the text and that was awesome.

I finished up with calligraphy and I was very very happy that Laura was on site since she watched Benton while I was callig'ing and mel was teaching. He was crashed out when I arrived in the court room and slept for about an hour. He needed way more sleep but was too excited to see people and get to roam around in the grass outside etc.

Court was a bit long but there were some good moments. Benton had us all cracking up in the back when he squealed some gleeful cheer and ran headlong into the window at the side of the hall. It took all of our group to not crack up loudly. No one at the front of court noticed so that was good. By the time we packed up it was almost 7pm and we got home a bit after 8pm. Got Benton a big bottle of formula since he basically skipped dinner and he had a hard time staying awake through it. He was quickly to bed, we had grilled ham and cheese sammiches and then we were shortly in bed as well. Exciting no?

Sunday am was much better than Saturday. I was coherent and sane and slept pretty good. Got things going and picked Ari and Ed up and we headed down to the collegium for the meeting portion. I sat around until the 3 hour seneschal's meeting knitting and having a good time. The seneschal's meeting was really good and informative and that really surprised me. I've done this job for quite a while in the past but there is enough new things that I was very glad to go. I then headed to the southern crusades meeting and that too went way better than I had hoped. We had a good productive meeting and stayed relatively on task. Ari and I headed out after that and hit sonic during "happy hour" and got half price limeades for the drive home. Got home and was happy that mel had dinner going and I ended up cleaning up the front room and getting things organized for Monday after Benton was in bed.

Monday and Tuesday were again just crazy. Monday I managed to hit the gym again (the deadlifts are killing me in a good way) and worked on calligraphy again on Monday night. Southern Scribble all had a "we are done" moment where either our brains and/or hands all stopped working and we packed it up en masse. I was beat by the time everyone left and was asleep very quickly after my shower.

Yesterday I was sitting in my 1pm meeting and my phone rang. Mel had to go pick Benton up for a possible conjunctivitis. He had scheduled the doctor and took him and yes, a mild case but he was also running a fever and was snotty so he was told to stay home and get better. Mel was kind enough to stay home which was awesome.

In other Benton news he's basically out grown most of the shirts he has and I need to go get him the next size above what he's in and lighter weight (summer) jammies.

Today is finishing stuff up before we head out to the retreat. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody and the new babies and getting a chance to spin some more and take classes. Plus Benton will get to play and have a good time with folks. Its gonna be nice minus the 20 hours in the car.

( Pictures of Scrolls and things )

The weekend was busy at the Kemp Household. Thursday night the scribes descended to work on scrolly goodness while mel was at St. Felix practice. We stayed up pretty late working on the scroll but it was a good job well done. I got in a while hair and started doing the landscape and well, I couldn't seem to stop. Everything just kinda clicked. Mel got home after the ladies had left and he commented that he really liked how scribe_ari had painted a piece of landscape. I had to comment that I had painted it and the look on his face was precious. I felt awesome. Friday we got up late which was nice and by late I meant 730am. Benton let us sleep in. YAY!!! Course if I had gone to bed before midnight that would have been good as well.

We had a good day and headed up to Hanger Medical to pick up Benton's helmet. He did really well with the fitting. Liz our orthosistian is really good with kids and we were in and out pretty quickly. We slowly break him in with the helmet partially to help with getting used to having a hard piece of plastic/foam on his head and second to help get his body used to temperature regulation. Its very similar to being a fighter and getting used to being in your helm all day and not feeling over heated. The first day he was in it and hour off for an hour 3 times, the second day was on for 2 hours/off for 1 hour for 3 times and then we've been increasing the time on. Tonight he will sleep all night in it...we shall see how that goes.

Friday afternoon we worked on the scroll just msaimeesue and I. We had a really good time and both felt that we learned a lot and managed to really knock things out of the park on the parts we were painting. It was awesome to see both of us have a lightbulb click on a technique. Yay!

Saturday Mr. Benton was very very cranky. Helmet time wasn't going so well and he had a bit of a drippy nose. The weather had turned colder and it was a bit chill in the house. When he finally went down for his nap things were better and after another really long nap he was pretty normal again. It was a trying morning until he went down for his nap though. Mel had gone over to Bill and Sara's to do the cochineal harvest. He got back from that and then headed to Casa Grande for the "Brew-haha" event. It was so lightly attended that they called the event off. Lame but true so he was home earlier than he had planned which I was happy about. bewilde, elinor_dear and Hope were all awesome and painted some great stuff on the scroll. I finished up the landscape and then started in on some buildings after people left for the evening and I got lost in the painting. Mel and lferion were working tent poles and chatting about various things. We had pizza for dinner and I worked pretty late on things. Do we see a trend?

Well, about 2am Sunday morning Benton woke up and would not be lulled back into sleep. I was up with him for about an hour and then I finally just put him back to bed and he finally crashed out about 3am but was up on an off until we got up about 7am. Bleah. I painted more in the morning and basically finished up everything I had planned to paint and got help in later in the afternoon from bewilde and swordmage. By the time folks left things were looking really good and we will be able to finish everything else off tonight. Course I spent most of sunday blowing my nose and by the afternoon I was pretty well burnt out on painting and my hand was also fighting me pretty badly along with a nose that was like a faucet turned on. Mel was awesome and watched Benton all day. He got to spend time out on the patio brewing beer with Mel and Malaius and then later he was in the shop playing and watching Mel and Storvarr do woodworking. He was way happier and way okay with the helmet. Plus during the late afternoon he figured out how to crawl to get to something he really wanted and then he decided he was going to pull up to standing all by himself! Wow!

I went to be pretty early and Storvarr and Mel stayed up playing Portal2. I was so tired and addle brained that I couldn't even follow what they were doing. I went to bed and propped myself up, applied some Vicks and managed to sleep all night. Butterfly was snuggled up on my stomack most of the night and I was comfy, warm and cozy. Benton work up about 3am but Mel got up and got him a binky and then he was out until he got up at 6am.

I had thought I was okay enough to just head into work, grab my laptop and then head home. By the time I had gotten Benton to daycare I was so tired and just unmotivated to drive the 40mins to work and then back. Traffic due to construction on Valencia just make things special and I wasn't up to dealing with special. So far I've fielded two phone calls from work due to an issue that we've had on a material we are using that failed after the fact on an assembly. Its an interesting problem and we just need to get our analysts working on things, test some stuff and give us a recommendation of a new material. Hopefully we can get us going on that soon.

But its basically just me and sleeping today. I think a good day of rest, fluids and rest will do me good. I'm just happy that right now my nose isn't acting like a leaky faucet. The scrollage is awesome and I will be posting an album of step by step pictures of each of the scrolls.

So, right before coronation I had a sekrit squirrel project. It was the scroll for msgolda's court barony. Its based somewhat on the style of a legal document and I've finally learned bastarde enough to make me happy. So, this was also for this meme, so two birds one scroll...all good.

( picture behind cut of scroll )

Mel said I could get lights for the outside of the house...here is a view of them. The fascia board clips are awesome and make this an hour job...which involved moving the ladder and another trip to Ace for another strand of lights.
( picture of lights )

I also uploaded a lot of photos from coronation, a few from southern, a lot from the regatta and so on. Check out my photo page once I get things published...while it lasts.