Oh crap.
no no no no no no no

*runs thing across forehead* *bip bip bip bip bippity bip bing!*

Dammit. I have things to do and get done.

I keel you with drugs and you can damn well wait till Sunday.

For the first time in years, 5 years to be more precise, my Sia-mutt Aramis was the cat snuggled up to me last night. I suppose I've finally been forgiven for having the kids and moving her fuzzy butt to Arizona.
This would be the same Aramis, known to visitors as "You have a third cat?" or "Basement cat" or more frequently "Suicide cat" (for her habit of sleeping in random places on the stairs whose color she matches precisely.)

She has been losing weight due to an enforced diet, and has been in the last week testing the waters by venturing upstairs and actually become her old affectionate self again. When we were living in Las Cruces and Austin she was the one cat most frequently waiting to pin you to the couch or chair or floor for pettins, and was renown for her cuddles and LOUD purr. I am so glad to see that version of her coming back around.

Firstly the coats, both of them, are done.
On to the photos. There are a bunch so I dropped them behind a cut. As always click on an image for larger view.
( Unicorn coat )

( Raven coat )

I really wanted them to be done yesterday. Really, really wanted them done a month ago. Thus my lameness. I allowed my schedule to get away from me, and I am completely to blame for that. So to fireryredhead and bobthemad thank you so very much for your tolerance of me and the delay and I do hope you like the coats when they get to you. I will be at the shipping place as soon as they open in the morning and these will be going out to you overnight, to arrive Thursday morning. You will have them for Pennsic.
To add to my lameness I am coming down with Linnet's head cold and not fit company, so I missed practice tonight where I was supposed to teach footwork. Extra lame.

I now have my very own work bench for metalworking, carving, and other such "create through precision destruction" sort of arts.

It is all wood, sturdy, the right height, fits in my newly reorganized space, and I have no fear of whacking it with a hammer if I need to. This is an extreme relief as the only real work table I had was my drafting table and it really isn't the sort of thing I fancy dropping a hammer on or gouging with a chisel. robomarkov was double awesome and made and attached a clear plexiglass shield 6 inches tall along the back and sides for me. This will keep the little bits from rolling off and keep the kids from leaving their junk on my bench.

I am all excited.

Especially since normal jewelers benches tend to start at $300 for decent big ones and mine cost $150 all told.

Front view, the clear shield can just be made out


Back view


For the curious, the fence is to keep the kids out of my space. It is the Border they shall not cross on pain of death.

We are home, got in at 9:30 ish last night.
It was a fun trip. Lots to see and the kids had a blast with their cousins. I got in good snuggle and baby huffing time with my nephew Bo.
Will post later with photos and a bigger update.

Suffice to say:
We chose wisely with the routes, completely on accident, but wisely.

I had forgotten about how rudely an earthquake, even a minor minor one, can jolt a person awake.

Zebra are dumb, interesting, hay burners, who can pull some amazing stunts.

Ranch dogs love kids. nuff said.

Ranch horses think kids are interesting when kept at a distance by moms.

Vineyards everywhere. Tho I maintain the coastal CA folks and So CA folks need to learn to ration water and back the hell off on the freaking minnows so that the central CA farmers can WATER their crops. An allocation of 0% means no watering. Where do you yahoos think the food comes from?

While on the topic of "Where do you think the food comes from?" stop telling the ranchers how to kill the vermin, cause seriously... those cute little ground squirrels... they are HELL on crops, cattle, roads, and just about anything else that needs stable ground and non-chewing and digging rodents to survive.

It only takes a fully clothed 3yr old 1 second to end up back in the pool you just pulled him from, and it will scare him.

Gods but I love that aquarium, and I love the octopus and the leafy sea dragons. So very glad we got there with enough time to see the whole thing this time.


Now I need to get the kids to finish their oatmeal and get to the grocery store, cause dude... the cupboards are bare.

Still coughing lots this morning. Mason pestered me till I got out of bed.
Voice is still on the dodgy end of even being there at all. I can squeak out commands to the kids when I have to.

Have to take the kids in for their yearly check up this morning.
Cats were pests too.
At least I was unable to smell the litter box as I cleaned it.

Gonna finish big black raven #1 today. I've got about 30 minutes left of embroidery. Will post photo once it's off the hoop.
All I really want to do is sleep and stop this infernal coughing.

Taking 2 children (6 and 3), and 2 cats (7 and 13) to the vet.

The children will listen to nothing you say, and shriek till the cats are ready to shred everyone. The cats will fuss and hiss and claw, requiring the most awesome vet tech in the universe (with the flame print scrubs) to go get the double thick towel and the huge leather gloves. The teeny tiny french vet will be gentle and helpful and you will fear for her life at the hand of your ferocious cats.

Gypsy went in for her senior wellness check, Balo for what turns out to be an impacted anal gland that burst. (eeeeeeeewwwwww.....)
I will get the call tomorrow with the results of Gypsy's tests and any adjustments to her meds. The compounding pharmacy should be calling me when Balo's antibiotics are ready. The vet, tech, and I all agreed that trying to pill the ferocious incredibly strong Russian Blue boy cat would be a bad idea, and we are gonna go the flavored liquid antibiotics in gooshy food route.

He gets to go back Tuesday at 2 for a recheck.

Why hello there Beer... I do believe I've earned you.

It attacked me full force yesterday. Did not matter what drugs I threw at it, it nibbled on my brain for several hours. Mark eventually made it home and I crawled off to bed with the dark and the eye covers. Dozed off and on for a couple hours till the phone rang. Managed to get some soup down through the queezys so that I could take the next dose of medicine. Got all the bits together for the party favors and put those together before passing out in bed again.
I am up and functional this morning with only minor lurking of the beasty around the edge of my brain. There is a ton of house work that did not get done yesterday and has to get done today. Hopefully I can bust it out and not have the brain eater show up again. Gaming group is tonight and I want to be able to go.

I
Hate
Palo Verde trees.

Allergies have descended upon me in full force this morning and they are making me grumpus.
For one the sneezing has just got to stop. It is giving me a headache.

bleah

*sneeze**sneeze**sneeze**sneeze**sneeze**sneeze*
grrr
*sneeze**sneeze**sneeze*

sniffle.

Where's my axe?

As most of my friends know, given the choice of shoes or bare feet I will choose bare feet. Of course this means that the winter and floors are very hard on my paws. This past winter has been wicked in its dry and this last week really pointed that out to me.
Both of my heels have developed huge painful cracks in them. I hate this and it forces me to walk constantly on my toes.

I soaked my heels in Hydrogen peroxide, slathered them in aloe, and slapped on the industrial sized bandages. A couple days of this and I should be right as rain and ready for the first pedicure of the summer.

Hates cracks in my heels.

/whiny tmi

Here are public_shaylan's 5.

The rules - The rules are a basic set of 3 that I think sum up how I think folks including myself should behave. They are:
#1 Don't Look Like Ass. This means both how you dress and how you behave. You can look like a million $ but if you act like a jerk/idiot/simpering fool people will treat you accordingly.
#2 Don't Make Me Look Like Ass. Meaning for peers don't behave in such a manner that you make yourself or the crown an embarrassment, and for apprentices and everyone else don't make your peer or head of house look an embarrassment.
#3 Don't Be THAT GUY. You know the one, the person who everyone points to as the poster child for birth control. Yeah... don't be him/her.

Bricks as murder weapons - Back when I was studying for my degree and had quite possibly the best Forensics instructor ever. Dr. Stanley Rhine was the Chief Forensics examiner for the Office of the Medical Investigator in New Mexico. Imagine if you will that Mark Twain/Samuel Clemmons was cloned and had an interest in forensics and you'd have Dr Rhine, and excellent storyteller and teacher with an amazing mind for details. First day of classes the board had one thing written on it. "If a person offends you, do not resort to extreme measures, simply watch for your chance and hit them with a brick." It is of course a quote of Mark Twain's and led to an amazing lecture on murder with blunt objects and how to tell what object caused damage by looking at skeletal remains.

Crazy laurel - A moniker given me by my Richard over a misunderstanding about what exactly I was DOING with the lewis chess set. Not so sure I am all that crazy, I just have a very hard time not trying or doing art, and when I do go about trying it there is a ton of research and no fear in trying the actual method for making the piece before giving the shortcuts a look. Takes just as long to do something right as to do it wrong.

She sings-she dances-is there anything she doesn't do?** Spin my own thread, fly under my own power, raise the dead, turn lead into gold. Other than that, give me the right set of instructions and the tools and I will give it a shot. Might not look right first try but I'll get it right with practice.

Tackle box - An efficient and effective way to carry a bunch of jewelry to an SCA event. the cubbies can be lined with soft stuff, the box is durable and keeps everything in its own place and untangled. I think everyone should use them.

These are five things that snotblossom associates with me and what I have to say about them. If you comment, I will give you five things, and then you can pass it on.

Sucking up the awesome - This is a phrase the friends came up with in reference to my arts. I have found it to be one of the best compliments ever, and a rather intimidating goal. In my corner of the world a certain amount of intimidation is good. I've always maintained that you must be at least a little afraid of your teachers at all times if you expect to learn and grow from them. It also means that I am constantly revising where my personal bar is set at. Outrageously high seems to be the universal answer. This, I think, keeps me intimidated and striving for better.

String-fu - This is how I jokingly refer to what I do with string. Embroidery, weaving, sewing, crochet, knitting, and attempting to do it with skill. Spinning eludes me, and I am comfortable with that fact right now. Taking string and turning it into something is a mystic art, and still makes me think of magic.

Scribal goodness - Manuscript arts! Taking them away from me would be akin to a death sentence. The whole process of making illuminated pages and documents makes me very happy. This is goodness.

Mud-bogging in flip-flops - This is a regular past time at Estrella. It used to be a past time of mine at Gulf War. At some point during the soggy part of an event I will find myself with my coat hems tucked into my belt, my pants pulled up to my knees, up to my ankles or deeper in mud running around the site to get stuff done. Flip flops are the easiest footwear to deal with in those situations. Don't care if I have to throw them out after either. Besides, it got the best reaction from my apprentice the first time she saw me doing it. "MISTRESS!!!!" heh. I can document it, perhaps not the flip flops, but the rest of the outfit with the naked muddy legs, yep!

Yurts - My home away from home at events. I love my yurt, it is comfortable and secure in the worst of conditions. It is a rare microburst that makes me worry for my security while camping in one. I enjoy having doors, real wooden doors, that I can shut and secure. The rugs on the floor don't hurt either.

My kids
and...

This goofy ass photo of a snowy owl.


I can totally hear it saying "Durr...."

No not a new music genre, a stench.

In my time in the SCA I have smelled some pretty powerful fighter funk. The kind that wafts around and can make your eyes water. Stuff so ick you have to walk the other way to escape it, but you can escape it.

Today I actually encountered a stench so horrid, so mind numbingly awful, so nose searing I actually blurted out "For the love of God man, Bathe!" before I could stop myself. The closest I could come to explaining this stench is to have you imagine what it would be like to encounter an ambulatory Bog of Eternal Stench from the movie Labyrinth. The man did not look at me, but I slapped my hand over my nose and mouth and quickly fled from the isle of the store. What is worse, like those women who wear too much perfume and trail their scent behind them for yards, I could tell which isles he had already traversed from the lingering odor.

I mentioned it to the checkout clerk, and she knew exactly which man I was speaking of. She had been subjected to him at close quarters. Her solution was to get an air freshener from the scent isle and place it by the register.

Note to future shoppers, please wash before heading to the store, and deodorant is your friend. There's no way to shop hungry with that man around.

It is the little moments that come up while in the SCA that touch on what makes this hobby so much fun. Yesterday was our local Baronial Polling and a rather fun even called Knight of the Tree. As I understood it to work, 4 knights were selected to represent one of the four seasons and took on all challengers in a specific combat style. While they were fighting, they were looking for someone who embodied one of the knightly virtues. Only they knew which virtue they were looking for. At the end of the day they awarded a special hand painted tasting plate to the person they felt embodied that virtue. An overall winner was also selected for the day. The man who won managed to beat all 4 knights a total of 11 times. This is quite the feat given that the knights were Sir Tighernan - fall, Sir Ivan - winter, Sir Zighmun - spring, and Duke Eduard - summer.

The children were included in the even by being able to receive quest apples from the tree of the knights. They then were awarded tokens for finishing their quests. As the event was held at a local city park there were many outside folks there who got to watch and have fun visiting our event. The Arizona Star Newspaper had a crew there as well taking photos and filming. I will have to keep an eye out for their report. My apprentice Sibilla and her husband Tighernan will be the new Baron and Baroness. I think they will do a great job of it and I am very proud of her for wanting to do this. Yay!

The site was very near one of the enormous playgrounds and there were a million kids there. This leads me to one of those special moments...

It is easy for some women to forget just how much we all wanted to be princesses when we were little, and these days it is not so hard for me to remember with my 5 year old daughter around. I still blush when folks use my new title of Baroness. yesterday I chose to wear one of my new gowns with my veils and regalia and thought I looked ok (tho I am forever fighting with the veil). It came time for my son to need to slow down from playing at the playground and take a rest so I went to go get him. At the edge of the playground a little girl, must have been around 4 years old, stopped me. She was looking up and me with the biggest just seen a fairy tale walk in eyes and fiddling with the hem of her shirt.
girl (in a very small voice): Are you a princess?
me: no sweety, I'm a baroness
girl (still fidgeting): you must be a princess. You look like a princess in your princess costume.
me: Thank you.
girl: I'm gonna be a princess too someday (and runs off)

I still smile thinking about it now. We look at the SCA and we think and tell ourselves that we are doing the historical thing and having fun. Or we turn into stress balls and fret and fume over politics and conflict and forget the joy. All of us should remember that there is one more thing we do. We bring the dreams, the fairy tale part, to life for some folks. The kids are more vocal about it, but I think it is true for many of us. Who is to say that she won't/can't grow up to be a princess. That is why I try to look right, to dress appropriately, and to act appropriately. The little girl would not know the difference, but I do and the people who care do. Our grail is those moments that make it all seem real, the medieval moments when everything falls into place and we are transported. The path to the grail are those instances when we are allowed to see how we give to others a window to what they have only read about.

I'm doing it right, I am a great lady, a little girl told me so.

Not dead
House still standing
Bird still living in the house
Planning for Estrella
Finishing projects
killing laundry hydra

going all agog at the massive double standards being displayed

I just finished archiving all my LJ entries for the last 4 years. They have had a few layoffs at the home base, last count 13, and I just want to make sure I have all the writings.
There are multiple useful programs out there for doing the archiving.
I don't think that LJ is going anywhere, but better to save what you want to keep than feed it to the either.
I used a backup that created an archive on my personal spare hard drive. Using this software
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/

It was quick and easy for my windows machine.

Here is a post with the response from LJ Inc.
short is. Don't Panic, just make copies of what you want to save.

Quote as follows LiveJournal press contact, Tim Smith, and received this response (reprinted in its entirely from the e-mail I received a few minutes ago):

The rumors are accurate. LJ laid off about a dozen employees yesterday, which is less than 20% of the entire LJ workforce.

Their official statement is as follows:

"LiveJournal Inc. today announced a restructuring of their US and Russian operations to more effectively manage costs in light of the global economic downturn.

LiveJournal Inc.'s headquarters, technical operations (and servers), legal, administration and the customer service teams will remain in the United States. LiveJournal's global product development and design will now be coordinated out of its Moscow office. The pooling of resources between the US and Russia will allow the company to build a stronger business model, well positioned to guarantee the long-term success of LiveJournal.

As a result of these changes Matthew Berardo, VP and General Manager of LiveJournal Inc., will be leaving the company along with other valued colleagues. Mr Berardo has played the leading role in consolidating product and design effort to enable the business to more effectively streamline costs during his tenure. LiveJournal Inc. will now be led jointly by Stephanie Gravelle, currently LiveJournal Inc.'s director of finance and administration and Sergei Komarov, currently CTO of SUP (the owners of LiveJournal)."

That's all I have for you now, I'm afraid. Hope it helps.

Paper model complete. it fits nicely and I like the flexibility all the hinge points give me.

It is not as delicate a look as it might seem and this is happiness.
It also gives me a much better idea of how much silver I need to order. I have the sheet brass for testing designs and such in before progressing to the silver sheet. Going to place the order shortly for my other major supplies, especially before prices go up again.

Nearly finished with an embroidery project of mine. It will be good to have that done and out the door. Woefully behind on another project I want to be closer to finished on.

The laundry hydra needs slaying

Went to the street fair on my own. Cruised the whole thing in 2 hours. Found my favorite jeweler that I bought 2 different rings from about 20 years ago on Telegraph Ave in San Francisco. Chatted with him about the broken band on my turtle ring and he says he can fix it for free. *glee* I still WANT, NEED EVEN one of these
*sigh*
Also found the artist I was looking for and bought 2 more prints. He does Cowboy art, but strictly with a #2 pencil and is simply amazing.

Now I get to decorate the Christmas tree, and do some more laundry. Sometime this weekend I have to wrap and package for shipping the presents that need to go out, and get a good photo of the kids for the holiday card.

A jar of blue linen fabric buttons resembles a jar of blueberries. I am resisting the temptation to put cute little eyes and mouths on them anime style. I think Cecelia would not approve.

Children will always choose the one thing you are trying to hear, be it the phone or a bit of information on TV or radio, in which to be their absolute noisiest and annoying.

Children are completely unable to see a shoe in the middle of the floor not 3 feet away from the one they just found.

Simple tasks become the most complex around when their parameters need to be tweaked.

My dad and Wile E Coyote must be related. Super Genius indeed

I get the following fortunes in my fortune cookies



The first is the Cluebat ^TM
The second is just cryptic as all hell

Who writes these things?

I would totally love to stop biting my lip now.
you hear that?
the inside of it has been chewed enough.
Why is it that once you bite your lip while eating you can't stop?
stoopid Frazier fangs...