So by Thursday night I was starting to feel better. Things were moving correctly through my system after about noon and then I was hungry enough and wanting comfort food that I got us Mod Pizza for dinner. I ate two pieces and then had some ginger ale but it felt good to have real food and then relax. I went to bed early and then got up on time for Friday school run and burritos. Mel and I then were picking up the house around our house cleaner and now my house is very clean and things are picked up. Its still cluttered but we will be working on that in december.

The house feels so much happier and it did help my mood. I then sat down and got that darn pumpkin almost finished. I started on the stem and had to rip that back cause it really needed the thickness of two strands but I was finished by Friday evening minus me cinching in the lobes and I need to make an upholstery needle long enough to do that. I ran one errand to drop off shoes to teh cobbler and then home. I really wanted to do more but I was tired and I knew I still had to drive home after my massage. Got the massage and it was wonderful and I felt so much better after that but still very tired. I we ended up watching a few more episodes of Delicious in Dungeon (which I highly recommend) before bed time. I had managed to pull out clothes etc for the next day.

Ari arrived at 730 but we were still gathering stuff when she arrived Saturday morning. But we got into the van and on the road by 8am. Made it to site by 930. I'd even managed to put on makeup before we left. Lots of folks I hadn't seen in forever. Got to meet Shanda's "Best Steve" and "New Cody" and they were delightful. The final court went well. I managed to wind off my spinning during the laurel for Captain Lann. She taught me to make beads and Duchess Elzbieta's words about that class 20 years ago and us having to tie her tippets behind her so she didn't burn up and Lann being so gracious with her spunky queen were seconded by me in spirit. I winked at Lann while she remembered and laughed.

Got back to my seat with the ravens and we watched the stepping down which was nice. I cast on the pumpkin for my MIL. At the lunch break there was lots of chatter and we headed out to the quad to have picnic lunch. Dominique was nice enough to feed us all and I guess her cookies were to die for. They smelled good but had butter so none for me. I had a nice chat with Duchess Mary Grace and lots of hugs from her. Kindred spirits.


We all had a nice chat and then it was back inside for the coronation court and all the fealty oaths etc. Rowan's daughter was again made princess royale and she looked picture perfect in her Rus outfit including veils. So cute. We had the up down up down of all the oaths. Ari and I saw back knitting while the officer oath of service was going on. Mel was back chatting with Sigrid. They finished the coronation court and then started the "first court" business. And then HRM Elizabeth called me up. And I kneeled on her pillow cause its a schtick. And she starts talking about my arts and how I've gotten lots of awards for that, and then talking about my time as queen...and my thought is I would be getting the Glory of Atenveldt for the Royals. And then she started talking about my service and then I got a weird feeling and then she called in the Pelicans. And I lost it crying. Liz was talking with me and Morgan was also talking with me and how much they wanted to do this and how this was long overdue and then Morgan said I should have been there before he was put into the order (which was in 2018). I then looked up and saw all of the pelicans, Mistress Kollgrima was bouncing up and down and there were smiles and I had to hand off my glasses cause I was crying so hard. My emotional dysregulation of the past week wasn't helped by this and well, I got flocked and hugged my way across the stage, down the aisle and back to my seat where I needed my inhaler to breath. It took me most of teh afternoon to not be crying. My makeup was a mess but everyone was so happy and saying "long over due" or "I thought you had this already!". TRH of the Outland Zacharia and Marianna had come to visit and nikki (marianna) made sure to tell me one of the reasons they had come was my offer. Wow.

I was pretty shell shocked the rest of court and then I was overheated and stripped out into my modern clothes. Again, not regulating well but better when I wasn't overheating. Had good convos with Valora and Nikita. Her comment was if she had won crown this was also on her business agenda and Nikita wanted to give me his grace when he was Queen. OMG. Those two are so lovely. They will be crown someday and I will love having Nikita as our first Queen's consort. But yeah emotions were high and we all decided since it was early to head home to Tucson and then get dinner. Ari got her jeep, mel and Benton switched clothes to modern and then off to Sushi Ten to celebrate. We had good food and good conversations.

I went to bed pretty early. I was exhausted.

Sunday Mel headed up to King's Champion and I had already decided to stay home. I slept in, watched some TV with Benton, made some lists for the day. I got a needle made from some wire to finish the pumpkin and then Poe and Jeff came over to get stuff for their family thanks giving. They have 19 people coming and needed extra tables and benches, a crockpot etc. Plus I had stuff for Poe from Wander. It was nice to get things moving and then Benton and I went to Costco. Now they changed the way the food court works and its not very easy...you order and then stand in line and they fill orders as they get to the window. This seems less than ideal. Anyhoo, we did our shopping including getting the boyo a new winter coat that will do for this trip. he's growing so quickly that I didn't want to spend too much since he will wear it for a month or so. We then grabbed lunch and then home to unload and relax. I got going on dinner in the afternoon and made red beans, rice, and sausage. Beans were in the pressure cooker, I made roux from the sausage cooking, and put the rice in the sauce to cook. I also made box mac and cheese to go with at request from Benton since he hadn't had any in so long. Dinner was ready about 30mins after Mel got home. he'd had an inconsistent day fighting but had a good time. Good people won Art and Sciences and that makes me happy.

We had a good dinner and then watched some fun cheezy fail tv. (industrial accidents etc) on YT Mindwharehouse. Was up later than I wanted but mel and I talked a lot and then I had things switch to politics and that was not where we wanted to go but we know we have to talk about things sometimes and the way the business is going for what we work on is very different than when we started. Can't retire until Benton at least gets to college but looking at numbers right now isn't too bad to think about. I didn't expect my mom to have set us up so nicely but wow.

We leave for Washington State on Saturday and that will be nice to 1)not be working and 2) spending time with my MIL. Benton will have some schoolwork to do but I have crafts and hanging out to do. Its going to be fun for weather with rain and snow expected. So that will be fun. Luckily I got a full size rental car and have recent experience with snowy roads. so yeah.

Not the weekend I expected but feeling very loved.

For once in my entire life my vote matters. I've voted in every presidential primary since 1996. The contentious 2000 election I lived in SD for most of it so my vote was basically thrown away there since I voted third party and that state is ALWAYS RED.

This year and the last election I didn't vote 3rd party because I know the harm that can do for our system as it is. This year AZ is a battleground state. My vote has been counted (I checked) and we have 321k votes left to cout between Pima (46k) and Maricopa (275k). Pima is Tucson and Maricopa is Phx....and usually Pima is Blue and Phx is Red. I hope the votes left in Maricopa help turn the tide. We will know by 6pm tonight I guess. The Reservations have been very much voting Blue so hopefully that will help as well since the Res is in Maricopa. Crossing fingers

The waiting is interminable. I just ugh. My brain is wandering and I have huge things to get done for work and ugh. I don't wanna. I want to watch TV and spin yarn.

I have finally gotten the pattern figured out for the Pskov dress. Part of my problem was that I had sewn the gussets to my sleeves off 90°. Sighs. no wonder shit didn't fit. But yes, my lats are huge...so this is going to be interesting. I now need to contemplate my shift cause it needs to cover the boobs and be sleeveless but how do I not get it to show? I will have to figure that out....another mockup. Sighs. But that is okay.





The presentation/panel I was on went surprisingly well. I was nervous and I got a webcam from work so I was on screen for folks. I did my makeup and hair and put on a leopard print dress and felt really fine to give the panel, work late and then drink and spin while we watched a movie versus the election coverage.


I did finish 43) Hounded by Kevin Hearne
I really liked it and the fact it was set in Phoenix and I recognized all of the places and love the fact that a large majority of it takes place in Rula Bula a faboo Irish pub. I'm starting the next one tonight.

When last I wrote I had just gotten back into fighting and that was good. Now a list of the good and bad and how I'm a fragile bunch of pieces right now being stuck together with coffee, determination and scotch tape.

1) Invested a new B&B, gave a laurel offer of awesome
2) Saw Solo and The Incredibles 2 - both lots of fun
3) got majorly sick and missed a week of work
4) got majorly sick and missed almost an entire week of work (bad virus)
5) Lost a dear fiber Retreat Friend Baroness Arianwen suddenly.
6) Went to Battlemore and got to spend time with my populace and that was good.
7) Got to hang with HRH Titus of Aethlemearc at Battlemore before he died suddenly of an embolism
8) The next week went to Highlands, fought rapier and hardsuit and we got rained upon and our tent flooded.
9) On the way home from Highlands, household folk's truck got struck by lightening and the truck is dead but they are okay.
10) Mom of The Duchess, broke both of her legs and then the AC went out in the house flooding things
11) Benton tested for his first rank in martial arts
12) My MIL got hospitalized, had emergency surgery and they think its cancer.

So, yeah. WTF. What gods did we piss off. Gonna go light some candles and sage and see what we need to do to appease TPTB.

The weekend was good and productive and Monday was great minus school calling cause Ben was running an almost 102°F. Wow. So, Mel picked him up and brought him home and worked the rest of the day at home. I got off of work at a reasonable time and we were set for scribble since the house was already cleaned! I did not sew after getting yelled at by Ari. I did the calligraphy on my own Queen's Champion scroll which was fun. The running joke is I'm not the queen of grace and beauty....I'm a klutz so we had to come up with a cool turn of phrase and we decided Valkyrie Queen was good. I then helped paint on the cyphers "GOLD GOLD EVERYWHERE!" and it was nice.

Tuesday Mel stayed home to take care of Benton and he was still feverish and sick. By the end of the day he went to the doctor who found nothing wrong except the fever and headache. So I picked up Mason at school so he could get to martial arts. On my way back from the dojo I was bopping along, glanced at my side mirror as you do and looked back ahead to then crash into the car in front of me. I had slammed on the breaks but it was so sudden there was no time. It wasn't very fast and the car was drive-able but I'm sore and they are looking to see if the car is totaled. Sighs. I see my chiro today to get accessed for personal damage. I think I just need a good reset and I'll be good. This is not like the last crash where I had some whiplash.




So I have a rental car (Kia Soul) and am waiting for the collision center to figure out if its repairable or beyond economic repair. Sighs. We were hoping to get 2 more years on it before looking for a new vehicle. Sighs. The problem is we have no idea what we want in another vehicle. We can't get another fit since they've changed it so much I don't fit in it any longer. Which is sad but lowering the internal headroom 4 inches doesn't work for us. I kinda like the Subaru Forester or the Outback but need to test drive them. Anyway...no need to go down that route until we hear from the collision center.

Ben is still sick...we thought it broke yesterday but he again spiked a fever 7 hours after he had meds. Sighs. Luckily today and tomorrow is off of school. Thursday was called off on Tuesday due to a statewide teacher walk out #redfored. Friday was already a grading day so the boy is off school while we are off work for our "off friday". Though due to all of the rigamarole yesterday I may be working part of it.

I'm woefully behind on sewing. I couldn't even brain on Tuesday night I was soo shook up and disappointed in myself. Wednesday we had dinner with Marek and Golda to go over the stepping down/state of the kingdom. We have some fun shenanigans planned. I just need to get stuff to the finish line over the weekend. I have people coming to help which is good. I need to be productive Friday and get the final things cut out as I have someone who can sew them. Course my main machine is growly right now (of course) and we've pulled out my featherweight and may pull out the 1951 machine as well just in case. I can do this...it will be fine. The weekend will be productive, I believe this and we shall overcome...I just had hoped to be further along so I can go see Infinity War. May still get a baby sitter for Saturday night or Sunday AM to do that.

Being busy is nice...being too busy to do laundry is not so nice. I think I will be in a skirt tomorrow for work due to that. I've been going strong on things since last week. Between finishing up the Tour de Fleece ( I missed my spinning goal by 2 ounces of fiber, snarf), Middle East Feast, two peerage scrolls in the works, household meeting, banner planning, pennsic packing and cleaning, Benton being difficult due to teeth and not enough sleep things have just been plain weird. Add to that some SCA drama and tasks and I'm one tired cookie at the end of the day. Plus I'm back at the gym running and lifting and I've managed to pull a hamstring muscle slightly. Hmmm...that sounds a lot like me whining....lets talk about accomplishments....

1) I finished scribe_ari's hat
2) Hit the gym a full 3 days last week.
3) Got to dance quite a bit at MEF
4) Wrote and awesome 9 page work report
5) Managed to get a pedicure!
6) Cast on my first sweater for me!


The SCA drama is just interesting. Folks need to understand and accept "The Greater Good"versus personal agendas. It makes things way easier. Its hard, you have to work at it but these jobs we volunteer for or are awarded are not easy. If it was easy everyone would be king.

On the flip side I got to watch to of my FAVORITE ladies in the world get recognized for their being AWESOME!!! msaimeesue was FINALLY asked to join the order of the Laurel. And thyririgain got brought up on legal charges by the writ of the King for TOO MUCH SERVICE! She has to answer to those charges by accepting (or not) the Order of the Pelican. Needless to say both ladies were deer in headlights during their offerings. The southern Scriptorium has both scrolls. I was immediately struck with the idea for thyririgain and the exemplars were easy to pull. We all sat down on monday with celebratory cake, pear tart and champagne and a stack of books and we all poured over them with glee and zeal for ideas of things to put in the scrolls and full exemplars. When Ari got to page and the entire table erupted into inspired ideas on the theme we knew we had Elsa's scroll in hand. Next week will be layout and then after pennsic we shall get some sketching done and start painting. bewilde and Ari are both busy with prep for Dragon-Con but things will get done.

All in all things have been good with a mix of strange (Benton teething and another coworker passing away unexpectedly). Oh, well. With the sweet comes the sour.

Also in random bits I finished Unbroken, #15, and have now moved into reading Devon Monk's Magic to the Bone, #16 of the year. So far the style is a bit jarring but I'm managing.

So to give you some idea about how bad mel has been feeling he took himself to the doctor. Not kidding about that. He has/had an pretty severe ear infection and maybe strep...but the antibiotics would kick both in the but (seriously high dosages, whoa!) Already this AM he was looking better. I'm still kinda functing at about 70 % but I seem to be able to kick things quicker or just deal not sure but its an interesting mechanism to have.

Anyhoo things this week.

Benton turned 15mos old yesterday. Wow. He's making connections to things and following directions like "Benton please come here" or "Please bring me Mr. Elephant" and the like. He's trying to talk and making progress on understanding phrasing when you speak to him. He's parroting a bit but doesn't usually repeat things more than once...I'm sure that will change. He's getting so big now..just wow. He's already in 2T for shirts and I hope the 18mos shorts last through the summer. We are moving to size 5 diapers tonight and it just amazing the dexterity he has. Course he's only dexterous when he's awake and he managed to fall to the floor yesterday just after getting up from his nap and get a bloody nose. So our kid...seriously.

On the crafty front I've done a bit of knitting on my Castiel hat and saved it from me ripping it back to the lace part. There are 100 stitches on the needles and that is too many for my 4 dpns...I really should have went to 5dpns but I decided to switch to circular needles instead. It all works out the same thought. I hope to finish the hat over the weekend. We shall see.

Got a somewhat busy weekend planned with game night tonight and then an event Saturday and a house meeting sunday. Not sure if I'm up for an event on Saturday. Its been a rough week.

My brain is really bleeding right now from the information I've been absorbing for my new job...oy. Seriously...oof and when people on the teams are giving you the look of "you are crazy to have this job" its a bit daunting. Oof.

Well, on to the weirdo paperwork.

So, in the pouring rain I picked up Benton last night and got him settled and when I went to start the car the wheel and ignition were locked. Try as I might I could not get it to work. I called a couple of folks and in the end I called AAA. Mel finally got the message I was stuck and he came and got Benton while I waited for the tow truck. Guy got there about 30mins later and he worked on it for about 5 mins and he finally got it to turn. Gah! I felt dumb. Admittedly, my key had some schmutz on it and he cleaned it and that seemed to help.

I got home about 745 and mel was finishing up feeding the boy. He got a bath and then I fed him and he was out pretty quickly since it was so late. I'm glad he just napped while I futzed with the car.

During all of this and most of the day my back has been spasming slightly. Its now not any better. Sighs. Hoping it loosens after some stretching and heat today. I hate it. Its my old stoopid spot again that has been damaged since high school and my broken tailbone. LAME!

Well, lets see...the weekend was Dragon's Horde and the dragon made the weather HOT! Which made me a bit grumpy on Saturday...which made things weird. Mostly all my headspace..sorry if I worried folks but grumpy hot baby and grumpy hot me not so good combo. Also, why don't people ask permission to cut across tent spaces? Its annoying. Anyhoo...the day was hot and Mr. Benton got all heat rashy but he got to try applesauce for the first time and liked it and he liked frozen banana again too. Lots of good people got to have awards and one of the most special for us Southern Scriptorium Girls was the Pelican Scroll for Thegn Steffan. We'd been asked to do the commission a while back and we poured through books and kept coming back to one design that was perfect. The issue was it was beyond most of our skill levels and that is saying something. So we got to bring bewilde back into scribing by being the awesome drawer of "fiddly shit" for this Italianate scroll. It was a labor of love for most of us and we all learned a heck of a lot about things.

Drawing entirely by Bridget, Gold and Calligraphy by Ari, Background painting (blue) by Willa, Elsa, me. Border detail painting by Elsa, me and Ari. Miniatures by Bridget.

Here is the album, I still need to get all of the photographs/scans that scribe_ari took during the process too.


We got home from the event and it was time to cool down and change for the vigil. Little boy was much better getting cooler and fed well and then was out for the count. We took him to the vigil asleep in his carseat and he stayed there until we left hours later. The vigil was nice. I sat and tuned up Yanaton's brother's mandolin and played and sang with Yanaton, Illora, Joanie and spunkybluegrl. Wow, that was lots of fun and we had some magic moments of pure musical bliss. I played so much that my thumb got a huge blister on it from not using a pick. Go me.

So, Sunday dawned and things were just better. It wasn't as hot, we had a breeze and folks were going to see the spectacle of a knighting. Again the girls and I in the scriptorium pushed our boundries. It turned out awesome. Again, more photos to come with the calligraphy done etc.
So, drawing by Ari and Bridget, Top Minature by msaimeesue, Floral border painted by ickaimp,swordmage, Shoshana, Coats of arms painted by elinor_dear and Icka, Sky of main miniature by Shoshana, Landscapes by me with the dry river bed, rapids and shark by Bridget, trees/cactus by Shoshana, Monuments by Aysun and Elinor, City and Castle walls by me. Bridget did the tents and lots of folks worked on the horses and knights. Again I'll have more pictures of the finished object soon.



I hope to get photos of the weekend from my camera up this weekend. We shall see if i"m successful. After we left early so I could get ready for my trip the boys napped and I should have worked...it was tough going and I was up late trying to get everything done.

I left Monday morning after dropping the boy off at daycare to Alabama. The trip was sucky. The travel was okay but the business itself went sideways from the beginning. Things were ready, paperwork was missing, stuff was built wrong...you get the idea. This was really odd for this supplier and it was frustrating and I had to finish paperwork over a very slow cellular connection and it was special. I ended up working in the evening...not knitting happily while watching tv. I feel kind of guilty that things were poorly done but its not like we could have known that going in...its just frustrating. Things have now slowed from OMG GET IT DONE to sit around and wait so, well, I'm gonna leave when I get my 40 in at 230. All good.

But when I got home last night mel was happy to see me, I got good kisses at the door and the boy was uber cute. He saw me and started bouncing on his butt and put his arms up for me to pick him up. So cute. ( Read more... )

Well, monday happened. yeah. I'm not sure what I did yesterday...lots of paperwork and reading but it was a weird day. I got home and Benton was cranky. Mel finally figured out that he just wanted some company on the floor. He was very happy and sleepy but it was too late to have a nap before bedtime so we coped. He was basically almost asleep when the scribes started arriving. No painting happened on the big scroll but the final sketching of the floral border was completed by Sioux and ickaimp. Its faboo. i sketched a few things that Ari later inked and it was a good night. All of us were crazy tired so folks left at 930pm. I got things settled in the house and was in bed by 1030pm.

Benton decided that 445am was wake up time. Mel was awesome and gave him his binky. He was still loud and cooing but he went to sleep just after I got up for the day. Crazy boy. Not sure what is up with that but I guess we just get to deal. Just crazy.

Also, my hand has been okay. Its now really sore on the back of the wrist and then I go an bang it on the door jam of my bathroom. I had gotten out of the shower and my foot was still wet and I slipped on the tile. Grump. Very sore and achey and I forgot my wrap to help support it.

Oh, well, stuff to do...

Well, yesterday was not quite like I thought it would be...I slept late and relaxed and my goals for the day were to 1)get car washed, 2)get car seat installed and 3)start the podling's hat. Well, I got the first on done and then things went off plan. The battery on the car died and I was able to restart it. So I headed to autozone to have it checked out. Yea, basically no life really left in the 4 year old thing but they don't carry those smaller than a 2 piece toaster batteries. So I headed to the dealership. I had to wait a while but that was okay since I had knitting and got a new battery. I'm glad I got that done and out of the way before the baby gets here...cause yanno how things work...we'd have needed the car and it would be dead and AAA wouldn't have the battery. Got home and I laid down for a rest and mel got home and we headed out to Glenn's for fixing our bodies. Felt really good but by the time we got home it was basically time to head to dinner with a small amount of Hrafn folks. I had never been to Sushi Garden and it was good but by the time we had "ate enough sushi" I was so tired and weak that mel drove us home. I just wanted to lay down cause the body was protesting me not resting in the afternoon. We snuggled up and watched Antiques Roadshow and then it was time to get ready for bed. Mel passed out snoring and I had trouble falling asleep even though I was so tired. My hips were sore and the cats kept stealing the covers...seriously...my blankets were a foot shorter on my side of the bed the darn bed hogs.

So I slept pretty poorly but was okay and awake by the time I got to work. Hit work hard with lots of things going on at once and then got stuck in a two hour meeting that went to 4.25 hours and that made it so I didn't eat for 5+ hours...not so good. I was shakey and had to take a bit of a rest while I ate my lunch. While I ate I found out that a coworker had passed away this morning. He was the nicest guy...its really sad. Very weird day.

So, its tuesday. We have birthing class tonight and mel will get to see the new Birth Center. We might get to putting things away from Estrella...we shall see. All good though. Time with the hubby will be good cause really, I didn't get much of that during last week or this weekend.