Work was work and I finished early on Friday and sat down an immediately finished the viking age necklace I had been working on and then did a modern one for myself. I wore the modern one when I went out to get my waxing appt.

We had leftovers for dinner and I got my spinning wheel back up and operational. I hadn't spun since September so things were dried out and needed oil and adjustments but I got it up and running. Spicy did take an unhealthy interest in my wheel which I caught in a series of three photos 1, 2, and 3.

She really wants the fiber and keeps running off with the batts or she batts at the bobbin when its not spinning. I have no idea what she's trying but she does it with Mel's wheel too. She's been around spinning wheels since we rescued her and she's sat on my lap while I've been spinning. I just think she wants trouble.

I knit on mel's socks a bit too. I'm about 3 inches from the toe decreases. I went to bed pretty much on time. I slept well. Managed to sleep in for a bit which was nice. The boys went to the dojo early so I managed to make myself some chorizo breakfast tacos, play some video games and relaxed. I got things together and chatted with my cousin Jason while he checked on things at the north house for me. We are going to do a BBQ when we get up there since I haven't seen his girls since they were tiny or non-existent.

I then trundled my stuff off to Grandma's for the Local Yarn Store Day for Spinning day and to support the shop. They also were running an Odyssey of the Mind lemonade stand fundraiser for the kiddos trying to go to nationals. The kids were cute but I didn't need the lemonade but I did drop them a $25 donation.

I spun most of the afternoon on my wheel but I did stand for a while and do my drop spinning...slowly making progress on the purple that has been my SCA spinning. I have just one bump left of the pink I started in Sept on the wheel. My setup at the shop which shows the mug I bought with some fiber cause reasons. If you can't read it it says "Spinning cause knitting wasn't weird enough". which yeah.

Saturday was nice. I was very tired when I got home. It was peoply, even though it was a lot of my people but I did talk to folks who were visiting for LYS day and demo'd drop spinnning for folks too. But I was tired. Got home and vegg'd. We managed to have dinner and watch some TV but I was tuckered I think.

Sunday I woke up not feeling right. I cancelled my blood donation cuase I was just not feeling it. I'd been off my asthma controller for a few days since I couldn't get the order in on the app but figured out I could on the website? So weird but then due to things since covid the pharmacy hours are hard to get into for me to pick up. I thought they were open until 5pm on Saturday but they close at 4pm. Sighs. So I got it picked up on Sunday after I did a bit more spinning. I then headed to my hair cut appt but I'd been having weird dizzy spells. I felt weird when I was at the haircut but got it and did a return at Old Navy. I got home, the boys were playing borderlands and I went to take a nap. I was so tired and my head hurt. I thought it was a migraine and may have been but I slept till well passed 6pm. I got up and made a drink and had popcorn cause that was all that sounded good. I went to bed early and woke up feeling tired and lungs were unhappy. I made it through most of the day and at 3pm I finally just laid down for a nap and woke up at like 6pm Still very tired. I had dinner and then early turn in where I just rested and read until mel came to bed.

Today I'm very tired but and my lungs ache. Took my rescue inhaler when I woke up and let that settle for a while and then the controller. I'm work from home today cause yeah....just bleah. so yeah...ugh.

I'm almost done with #7 book.

So, I had planned on doing different things this weekend...I even put in my bujo what I was going to do. But I didn't do any of them. Meh, its okay. I did other things. I got kicked by danabren  

Managed to do some relaxing, some antiquing, some adulting, some parenting, some knitting, some spinning and heading out to the fair. Not too shabby.

I got a new to me spinning chair:


Mel and I hit a newer antique mall and had a good time. Got Benton from school and had a nice Friday night. I may have had too many margaritas.

Saturday I relaxed while the boys went to the dojo and then we headed to the Pima County Fair again to do rides and carnival stuff as well as the exhibitors hall. I bought shoes...at the fair but how could I not?
I also ordered them in blue....

We got home and had a nice evening in. Sunday dawned at 345 in the morning with Benton falling head first off of his bunk into his trash can. I stayed up with him until he could sleep which was about 5am. He's okay, a bit bruised and reminded of why you need to put your head at the head of your bed. He had flipped around and slid down the opening at the ladder. Sighs. At 6am the cat broke int the bedroom, at 630 mel got up for Black belt testing for the dojo and mercifully I and teh boy slept in until about 830am. I was still zonked though and I managed clean up my library corner of books, patterns, yarn etc. I tidyied everything and now its useable as space. I also got out things for projects since Saturday night I finished my Darth Rainbow socks.



Mel got home at 345. Icka was over chatting since I found her something cool while shopping friday. I ran errands and then was home to cook dinner and then to work for a while before setting my spinning wheel back up to spin some fiber while we watched a movie.

All in all an okay weekend....wish I had more done but it was nice none the less.

Work has gotten a bit busy again, which is good and bad. My brain has not been up to the task of organizing this much data but I've had to put on my big girl panties and just do it. But its leaving me exhausted. I'm still a bit beat up from the previous weekend and I hit the gym hard on Wednesday and Friday. I did not woos out on my running on Friday and hit almost 2.25 miles in 35 mins. Not too shabby. Have a coworker who asked me if I wanted to do a 1/4 marathon at the end of March and well, I'm tempted. I'll be slow but it would be good I think. It will be the longest I've ever run but if I get my distances up for the next while I think 6 weeks is a good time to try it...before the dreaded milestone birthday coming up.

Anyhoo...got home, got cleaned up and changed and Mel, Benton and I met Will and Ari for dinner at the Welcome Diner (formerly ChafFins Family Restaurant). Its hipster but the food was tasty and teh drinks were good. Benton at his entire bowl of mac/cheese with bacon and I had a sample and it was good. I had shrimp and bluecorn grits. Got home and got Ben to bed and then Mel and I were both tired. We went to bed early and I slept pretty good. Ben got up early but I made sure to get him breakfast and made pancakes for the family before he and I trundled off on errands.

First we got him a hair cut which he did well with. Then I returned things to BB&B, hit Target for essentials and then picked up Obsidian's ashes. The staff had done a pawprint for us on an ornament and Ben and I were pretty sad after that. I got him ice cream (his first Blizzard) which he ate just a bit of before it went into the freezer. Icka was over for a visit when we got home and after some chit chat I managed oh so slowly to cut out 2 tunics and facings for benton, 2 tunics and facings for Mel and a dress for myself with facings. Seriously, it took hours. I know in that I was helping Benton learn to use his icord maker, I did some laundry, I checked some patterns and did a bit of ironing but still...I finished up jsut a bit after dinner and then by that point mel was going to bed. He'd been sick all week and was just done. I was not in the mood to cut anything else out or sew things like facings so I snuggled up on the couch with a beer and my knitting and watched Sherlock : The Abominable Bride. I never got to watch it. But was glad I did. Cumberbatch did a great job of being Jeremy Brett, my first love, to a tee. I loved all of it and the trippy nature of when things actually took place. So fun. It was good and I hit the hay about 1030 and snuggled in to sleep.

Sunday dawned and I again got up with Ben, got him breakfast, made coffee and tried not to be a lump. I had sewing to do and so I got myself fed, dressed and slowly sewed all 5 facings/necklines before I lost steam and headed out to do errands. I got new knee pads and things at Dick's Sporting goods. I really don't like there store and their selection is meh. They had no elbow pads or any high impact sports bras that didn't include a wire closure or underwires....seriously. sighs. Got home and Ai'sha and Lucian were over working on their bed. I started on sleeves for Benton's tunics and then it was dinner time. Mel was as tired as I was but I managed to get some laundry put away and put away everything related to sewing from the front room so we could have scribble tonight. I did manage to get the sleeves on his tunics and then sewed the pad of my thumb with the machine cause I'm an idiot. It hurts but I'm not injured.

So a few pics and a video:
Ben'd cute Tunics:


Mel's Wheel All done:



Me spinning on the wheel:

Well, the morning was stress balls. Got the diagnosis summary for Ben and that was truthful but still damaging in my head. Yes, he presents as ADHD and by itself the summary hurts but with the plan etc its part of the same package and taking it out of context is a bad plan. Got that settled and we have a meeting with the school August 1st to go through the plan for the year with his K teacher etc. So, we are in, we just need to make sure to follow everything so we can stay there. oof. I'm less stress and more stressed due to now the worry that we have the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads since we aren't out of the woods yet. But its forward progress.

Got done with the day and headed to knitting. I got myself noms at Beyond Bread including their green chille corn chowder. OMG was that good. I also got myself their raspberry torte cup since its tasty and I've been craving sweet things. I weigh in tomorrow to see how much this past week of stress and back pain has nerfed my weight loss. My pants are falling off my butt so I don't think its been too bad and I've only went over my calories 1-2 days and not by a lot either. So all good.

I finished one back foot on the cat and almost finished the second one before it was time to leave. The girls also helped me decide that I want to barbepole the singles I had for the red and blue.





Headed to Lowes where again, no receipt and this time my lowes member number wasn't linked to my purchase which sucked but I have store credit to get things now. Course I think I realized what is up..I probably have 2 mylowes accounts. Need to fix that.

Anyhoo...got home and took care of things and then sat down to work on spinning and really got into a groove until my back wasn't happy with me. It was spasming and I'm sure spinning didn't help it. So I sat on the floor with the tennis ball for pressure points before I headed to bed on time etc. I read for a bit and then was zonked.



Today is lots of things to do...and mandatory training we have to do. My goals are to pick Ben up, have dinner, get him cleaned up, read a book and then finish the 4th bobbin of rambouillet which will leave me to plying for Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the TourdeFleece.

As well as working on the Loli (I hope to finish it this weekend) and working other costumes/pieces for D*C. I also need to go through my fabric and pull out things for crown. I need a new under and another overdress. Plus we are going to Mons for their A&S and have a household gathering/pool party.

Last week was sucky. Too much crappiness going on. Work was weird...I may be moving to another new program...I may not. Its all up in the air right now. But I was determined to have a nice weekend. So, Got things done friday after work though I must say that I need to not break my rule of getting a vehicle worked on the day before an event, even if its local. Got home and relaxed into the evening where I made a list for packing and I think I got to bed a reasonable time.

Got up on Saturday and had the mad dash of packing getting things sorted etc. The folks all carpooling were all ontime and we headed out about 815 to go up the mountain. I drove it easy since we had 2 people who get car sick in the van. But it was nice drive. Lots of bikes out. Got to site, got unloaded and then began the "how do we set this us" shuffle for the setup of our area of Boast and Toast. Hrafnheim had a lot of stuff to put out and figure out and we all teamed up and got it done with nice signs for what foods we had etc. The beers were on tap, ginger ale on tap, smoked salmon, potato soup, tarts, spinach puffs, cheese, pies, breadpudding, beets, sausage, steak, breads, butters, jams, pickles, mustard etc. Basically, we provided the hospitality our household is known for and had a good time. I grilled up sprouts chicken sausages and Dickman's ugly steaks. Tim was awesome and sliced those up thin for serving. It was exhausting and fun and I forgot to bring my charcoal chimney so that meant Mel had to muck with the chunk charcoal I brought to get me fire to cook on but it cooked perfectly.

The toasts were great all around and I spent the afternoon doing some spinning and chatting. Got cleaned up and ready for court. Our household knows how to tear down and get things moving. Such a good house. They even made sure we had a household picture before the night was done. I think Berki or Magdalen took this.


Ben had just snarfed a piece of bread pudding but didn't chew or swallow it so he's chipmunk in each picture that was taken. LOL.

I did some TdF spinning at the event and finally got a picture of me spinning at an event.



We ended up winning the competition which was awesome. We like to entertain and provide good food and drink. I'm especially happy with our plan to put up the cloaks as decorations worked great and the aprons we got to match looked nice too.

Got loaded up and headed home with a bit of rearrangement of passengers for motion sickness and then down we went. Got home exhausted but happy and got Ben into a much needed bath. He was so tired. We were tired and it was beer and ice cream for dinner. LOL.

Sunday Mel got up and road his bike. I slept in a bit but Benton was hungry and woke me up for breakfast. Got up and moving and we all got food and then started in on the cleaning of the kitchen and the front room. I successfully threw out 4 pairs of shoes. Go me. Still need to get the piano cleaned off a bit more but it looks better than it has. The living room needs a bit of a tidy before it scribble but not too bad.

I had lunch with Ari, Bill, Faydra and Sarah and it was good. After that I headed to shopping for things at Target and Sprouts before getting home and being DONE. I was hot, tired and not motivated. Ben was tired and we sat down to watch the second season of Shaun the Sheep. This is seriously the only thing I've seen him watch that gets Benton going on giggling. Its so cute to hear and I love the show. I made bratwurst and ahi tuna on the grill to go with mac and cheese for dinner and relaxed on the couch before I decided to sit and do more spinning while we watched American Pickers. I finished off the 6th oz of fiber and now have 2 oz left.

Got a hold of the Doc for Ben and she is confused as we are on what the school is looking for. She is making the appointment for her being able to observe him and will help us through this. What I love about her is that she heard my brief on the concerns and then asked me how I was doing. I told her we were panicked which is true in many ways. I felt better and need to chat up her office today to see if she got a hold of the school for the meeting.

The day was long and I'm in between projects which doesn't help but I left about 5pm to head to meet Ari for sushi and knit night. When I arrived at Sakura I realized that Grandma's was closed due to them being out of town....so, just sushi for us. I got us a table in sniper position and got to watch the Tour de France. Our server was okay and our orders were slow but OMG the salmon melted in my mouth. We had a good time good food, drink and conversation. Then we headed to my house to work on things and watch the Tour wrap up. What a finish....first time in a long time the breakaway worked.

I spun the second ounce of the ramboulliet and then worked on the kitten for Julia's baby.





Ari attempted to cast on a shawl....it went poorly but comically. Then she got us hooked on Post Modern Jukebox" and Mel and I were up very late watching and listening to them. HOLY COW....I also got a plunnie (plot bunny) for a fic which I hope to get sussed out today as well. Seriously inspired. Darn you ARI!!!! (grin)

So got to bed way late but felt good for once and not too panicked. All good.

I had big awesome plans for the weekend. Make things, Tour de France, Tour de Fleece, make my house look less like a mess, relaxing, reading and sleeping. Work had been dragging all week due to it being cold as a morgue and quiet as one too. I was exhausted on Friday but managed to hit Micheals for a sale. We had pizza for dinner and just relaxed. I think I went to bed early...not sure.

Saturday morning was good, slept in, got things organized, spun some stuff for Tour de Fleece, cleaned the bathroom a bit. Mel, Ashley and Wander made ginger beer and peach ginger beer. Wander worked on some cross stitch and I worked on a kitten for Julia/Eric. Its turning out very cute...though I'm using up ends of yarn and it will be a very, very calico cat.



Things were great until I went and got the mail to find a letter from teh school which both mel and I took very hard. Others reading it did not take it to mean what mel and I thought but its again in flux for school for Benton. The thing is June flew by....we traveled a lot through it...were gone a lot and well here we are at July. School is about 4 weeks away. Yes, in AZ school starts in August. This means that all of the work for over the summer...is gone...we need paperwork and the like done now and well....excuses suck and I suck and that got my head screwed on my body completely sideways the rest of the weekend.


Saturday night we went to Perrin's going away party at Sentinel. That was nice to sit and talk with sathrn who we have not seen in FOREVER. Lots of old and new faces. Ben hung out with Faydra, and Babba's son. He at good the restaurant and ate well....he was needy all day and drove us nuts. We need to be more inclusive on big project weekends.

Mel was sick on Sunday, some time of tummy issue...not sure but he was tired/felt icky and didn't eat much. I was even good and cooked a nice dinner. Sat with Benton and gave him another spinning lesson. Which I think he just likes the spinning part. I may just give him yarn to spin and play with for a while.



Tour de Fleece:
I got things plied up from an old (2013...eep) project. I ended up finishing plying and then replying an older skein I had done on the spindle since it was way too loose. It looks nice now and I got to use my new yarn bowl which worked really, really well. I got through 4 oz of red that spun beautifully and now I'm wondering if I want to ply the red and the denim (from the retreat) together as a barber pole yarn. Not sure. After that I have 8 oz of white to get through and I may pull out more fiber that is colored to offset the white. I need to get the scale out and parse it out in 1oz parts. We shall see.

Monday I woke up badly. I had been up in the night and finally got back to sleep very late. I spun to settle myself and then got in on cleaning up the house. I washed floors, bathrooms and kitchen. Got laundry on for Ben and washed my wool chair covers. I was cruising fast to get things done and it seems if I had done a bit every day it wouldn't have been so long but oh well. A deadline is better than free form for me.

Ari and the kiddos arrived while I was in the shower. The boys played with the legos. Linnet played on her phone and we all chatted about Neko Atsume and lots of topics. I worked on the kitten, we just had a good time talking. Ashley arrived after Ari and I had hit the store for final essentials (cat litter cause I obviously bought some and left it at target, sighs; ice cream, yogurt and salad). I got food on the grill about 445 or so. I made grilled chicken which I had marinated in two batches...1 in Stubbs BBQ sauce and the other in wing sauce that Mel had picked up. Chicken always takes forever and since I was doing corn at the same time I had to keep opening the grill to move things and that made things cooler than I wanted...no worries. Got things together with the salads and the couscous I made and it was tasty.

The day before I had made cobbler with the spent fruit from the peach ginger ale experiments and we had that with tillamook ice cream. I had bought a pie from the store and it was moldy when I opened it. I will be taking that back to Safeway today. EWWW....

I was doing better by the time dinner was done and we were showing people how the Tour de France works, watched Big Trouble in Little China during dinner (yay!) and then did some D&D with the kids. We climbed up on the roof and watched the airbase fireworks. Some really pretty things this year. Folks went home after the kids almost got eaten by a gelatinous cube (no really!) and then it was bed time.

This morning I wrote letters, made phone calls and sent faxes for the school thing. I will call shortly to make sure it was picked up by who it should have been picked up. I had confirmation the fax went through from the machine side. So, better...tonight I need to work on stuff at the house...put laudry away and finish the declutter of my studio and put shit away.

I need to stay busy to keep my internal monologue of suck at bay. Just need to get through things and get stuff working.

Well, the holiday has come and gone and work has begun anew for the new year.

2015 was a struggle on many fronts. Many good things happened but I'm looking forward to the new year to get things resettled for myself. Take care of me and mine plus get back to happy and less stress. So in December I finished:

1)Knit Cowl for my mom



2) A Knit shawl for my MIL (her handspun and some alpaca/wool/silk)



3) Two crochet cowls (for scribe_ari and public_shaylan)



4) A Knitted/felted Hedgehog for lferion


5) Plied some TdF2015 yarn
305 Yards


6) Made pie, lots of meals for the holidays, lasagna, homemade cheese (won the taste competition) and more pots of coffee than I care to think about.

I also enjoyed time home with my family. I even enjoyed cleaning and starting the purge of stuff. My MIL went home with pants that don't fit me any longer and I'm not holding on to them until they do. My SCA stuff and stash will be next. Purge and organization of the house is our theme for the first part of 2016. We will be getting the roof re done, getting a wall and a new patio door and in general making our home more livable and comfortable.

I'm still working on Mel's xmas socks. I'm at the toe on one and hope to cast on the other one this weekend. I also cast on a shawl for myself that is stuck right now...I need to fix it and I have some spinning on the wheel too. I think evenings will be project orientated once again and weekends will be sewing. I need to update everything in my SCA wardrobe and Mel and Benton need more things as well. Time to look less scruffy.

Weekend was nice a productive. The work week was kinda crazy and I was so looking forward to the end of the week. Benton did really good at Theresa’s and we had a nice evening at home on Thursday night. I did some knitting and contemplated my spinning. I really need to order more bobbins for my sidekick. Cause using another wheel to ply is annoying when I mess things up and ply something the wrong way which is what I did on Tuesday. Sighs.
Friday I got up early and got the tires changed on the Fit and then off to a massage. I got some organization stuff at Big Lots/Dollar Tree, including a new ottoman. Its bigger and faux leather and has a tray on the lid which will be nice. Got home and the boys were having fun with legos. Got laundry started, fed the kiddo and worked on getting my studio unearthed. It had become the dumping ground for, well, everything and I got it cleaned up and things put away and I could get to the fabric I wanted to use to make things. I found stuff I thought was lost, I put things away that have been out for over a year and well, just in general tidied. I still need to go through the closet and pull out the SCA clothing that no longer is my favorite or just in general doesn’t fit and get rid of it. I also need to find a way to store the Baroness that isn’t so bulky. No idea on how to do that. But I need closet space. Seriously. I can’t hang everything up in it so its hanging my studio taking up space. Grump.

Wander arrived in the later afternoon and we got the front room converted to a sewing studio complete with 2 sewing machines, 1 serger, cutting table and ironing board.

See the list of things I accomplished:

• Patterned/Updated Benton Tunic Pattern


• Patterned/Updated Benton Bag Trousers Pattern


• Cut out 5 project bags


• Sewed 2 project bags that have been cut since last year.


• Added Button to hand me down tunic for Ben that now fits.


• Took in two Benton tunics that were made for him during the reign and I gave bad numbers.


• Sewed 3 of the 5 bags cut out.


• Learned new way to do the bags to not have to PIN EVERYTHING!


• Cut out red linen tunic for Benton


• Cut out Star Wars Tunic for Benton


• Cut out Dinosaur Bag Trousers for Benton


• Cut out Shark Bag Trousers for Benton


• Cut out 2 flannel PJ pants for Mel


• Washed so much laundry I’m appalled.


• Bought and washed 5 sets of fabric for Mel’s Modern shirts that Wander will make.


• Helped Benton putaway all of his books and toys& laundry /reorg his room.


• Got apprentice to help with ironing and other things. YAY!


• Made grilled peaches (nom, nom, nom)


• Plied up the blue merino for Tour de Fleece


• Plied up the Everybody’s Weird Colorway for Tour de Fleece


• Knitted on my new shawl


• Knitted on Benton’s hat.


• Shipped off Bunny/Hat to Dana


• Shipped off Sox to MIL


• Shipped off Books to Nikolai.


• Shipped off Presents to Viktor.


• Hand delivered Bunny to Mary at Joe’s Pancake House


• Figured out my path forward on my crown hangerrock with Wander

So pics of the awesome stuff:
Bags:


Shawl:

Spinning: