Additional stuff

Stuff that I forgot to mention -
movies: I have now watched After the Thin Man & started Another Thin Man.

radio show: I managed to listen to 4 more episodes of The Scarlet Queen since Friday. I heard the Christmas episode: The 15th Lama & the Wise Guy from the East; the New Year's episode: Hattie McCormick & the Patient Stoway; The Derelict & the Wandering Buoy; & finally The Fang Rubies & the Black Siamese. I'm now up to 22 episodes.

Blog Gap: Oops, no time to blog yesterday. Thus, today's blog is extra long. I hope to download the pictures & post a couple soon.

Monday events: failed to donate platelets; the vein rolled. I plan on trying to donate whole blood on the 5th, at the big blood drive at work.

Met Dad & Kathy at Ted's Montana Grill & enjoyed a delicious bison burger lunch. They liked the front page in a box frame. I suddenly realized, after I gave it to them, that I had completely neglected to make any notes about it on the back. Since my name is not anywhere in the article, that is a concern (okay, so it might not last long enough for my niece's kids to wonder who those people are & why we have it, but it might).

Chris went back home to prep supper & finish his laundry while the other three of us went to the Butterfly House at the Museum. Kathy & I hunted butterflies, with our cameras, while Dad sat & spotted them from his stool. Kathy & Dad have a pair of neat little folding chair/stools that are great emergency seating; plus make decent walking aids. We roamed the tropical & exotic butterfly exhibit before visiting the 'local' butterfly exhibit. Some of the butterflies are more likely to be found in Florida than here but we do see Monarchs fairly frequently. I finally got to see an orange-banded sulphur, too.

Both houses were very warm although the local one just had netting so there was the occasional breeze. Being very warm, we stopped at the cafe there for a cold drink. I had a Yoo-hoo, deciding that I didn't need a soda.

I managed to get us lost getting back home so I didn't get back until almost 5 pm. That did mean that I was able to go with Chris to Rosemary's instead of driving myself. He grilled delicious buffalo burgers which we all ate enthusiastically. Even Duncan had his own, non-spiced & without a bun, burger. We watched episodes of Kim Possible that I had missed before Chris & I headed home.

Tuesday: I did personnel stuff most of the day. At lunch, I bought The Sharing Knife since I didn't get it for my birthday. I used the credit I have at the local bookstore to get it.

When I got home I put some clothes in the dryer & packed my crate (D&D books & RPGA characters, etc) for the con.

books: I read The Sharing Knife & started Darkfever. I stayed up too late reading the latter but didn't bring it to work with me. It's an interesting story but the author keeps interrupting the narrative with 'if only I had known's' & it's starting to wear on me.

tatting: I finished the bookmark. I made a mistake at the far end but I think I adjusted well. The two ends do not match but then again, one end has a tassel on it. I think the bookmark is from a Kersti pattern, simple 5ds 3p rings and 10 ds chains. The neat parts are the ends.

Since I still have a lot of thread on the shuttle, I decided to try one of the one shuttle edgings from The Complete Book of Tatting.

clothes: yesterday it was dark green Geoff polo, black jeans, texture striped knee-highs & loafers (newly repaired), dark hairstick with 4 tiny rhinestones holding a ponytail/bun, onyx earrings, labradorite pendant, Celtic knot ring, bloodstone ring, hematite ring & fem-power ring plus the new green glass beads bracelet. Oh & the silver ladybug watch.

Today it's white polo, black slacks, black knee-highs, & 'slippers, two black (trimmed in brown leather) hairsticks holding my hair up in a ponytail/bun, moss agate bread bracelet, black belt w/ silver buckle, fem-power ring, flower band, hematite ring, same watch, 3 ages of woman pendant, & new ~pewter/silver earrings. The earrings were $3 at Big Lots & look like 4 teardrops of coiled filigree around a central teardrop holding another 'filigree' teardrop & all that in a circle with a scallop border around it.

time with Mom: we went to Big Lots! and did not find an answering machine but did find some electronics very cheap. I picked up a usb hub, new earphones for my iPod plus speakers & other accessories for it.

We finally found an answering machine at Radio Shack. Mom got one for herself & one for me. I set up hers before I left. She loved her belated Christmas present: 4 Last of the Summer Wine DVDs & her Mother's Day present: a DVD player. I set up the tv that I gave her a couple years ago and the DVD player and put the plugs, on a strip, where she can reach them. We also labeled the plugs & the remotes. Too bad her tv reception sucks so badly.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted and my legs ached tremendously. I'm not completely certain why. I did spend a lot of time on my feet, between shopping & trying on clothes.

platelet donation: Now I'm off to drink something with calcium & have a bit to eat before going to the Red Cross to donate.

books: re-read The Devil in Winter. Read a little in The Complete Book of Tatting.

tv: watched the movie 12:01

tatting: continued a bookmark, a very simple one, in size 80 ecru. Did not get much done, too busy shopping, etc.

clothes: yesterday it was Palmetto Tat Days shirt, blue jeans & loafers, braided hair, & Celtic knot jewelry.

Birthday fun! I bought glue to attach bits of tatting to the front page copies for my relatives (& for those pins that I made) & some glue to fix my shoe. I also indulged & bought a couple green glass bead bracelets that were on sale for a dollar. Chris & I watched some of the early episodes of Voltron & I took a nap.

After that, we went to get Rosemary & went to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. It had more plot than I expected. It was pretty good & the animation absolutely rocked! I hope they go ahead & make a sequel.

We then stopped by FE to pick up comics, manga & mini's. After giving Duncan a chance to visit his favorite tree, we were off to Red Lobster to meet for my birthday supper. David R, Diana, Colt, Richard & Kathy were there. Apparently, Red Lobster was a good choice as almost everyone had difficulty deciding what to eat. I had a Bahama Mama (mmm, 2 types of rum & fruit juice) and crab leg. For appetizers, we had fried calamari, clamstrips & crab/lobster etc stuffed cheesy mushrooms. No, I don't have a hangover because I also drank a full glass of water.

loot list: gift cert to B&N from David, gift cert to Amazon from Richard & Kathy, the movie 12:01 plus The Complete Book of Tatting from Rosemary & pets, and the Thin Man collection from Chris. Isn't that great!

This list will be continued after I see my parents plus from Diana & Colt (who forgot it last night).

tatting: I started making a simple bookmark of size 80 ecru. I made some good progress.

books: I read A Mold for Murder, Ouran High School Host Club vols 3-5, & Kitchen Princess vol 2.

clothes: green Harrington Steading polo, blue jeans, brown belt, emerald earring & necklace set, moss agate bead bracelet, black & green glass bead bracelet (just bought), and brown loafers.

birthday: It's my natal anniversary today so my co-workers bought me a card, my favorite soda (Pepsi Jazz strawberries & cream), and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Since there is no way for me to eat 1.5 dozen (dozen glazed & 1/2 dozen chocolate glazed) doughnuts, I am sharing them with the entire office.

Tired: I'm still tired but I didn't take a nap yesterday. I went to bed at my usual time & I'm still tired this morning.

Writing: I worked on my cyberpunk/urban fantasy romance novel last night. The parts that I have written do have some good scenes & dialog but much of it is disjointed. I sent it to a friend & he gave me some good advice. I spent some time working on what he recommended, and bookmarking the document. That way I can skip straight to a particular portion or to what I'm working on instead of paginating.

TV: I watched an old episode of Kung Fu (the silver mine one) and then VH1 Rock Honors. the cover bands did excellent jobs but I missed most of it since I went to bed on time.

tatting: I tried to do another Libin bracelet but screwed it up. I managed to get the ring undone the first time but the second time the thread started fraying so I gave up & cut the thread.

saying of the day: Fall 7 times, stand up 8. - Japanese proverb

website of the day: time capsule. It has the top songs, headlines, etc although some years in the 1870's are kind of spotty.

clothes: black 'slippers', black knit swirl skirt (which I just noticed has no hem but it light enough that the air caused by going down stairs is enough to make it float), magenta & black check shirt (short sleeves, breast pocket, buttons up), black belt (on the last hole), lilac animal rescue site silicon bracelet, dragon band ring, Celtic knot ring, hematite ring, chain mail earrings & same pendant. My hair is braided for convenience.

Sleepy: I was so tired when I got home last night that I collected the mail (weeding out what could go straight into recycling), plugged in my iPod to recharge & took a nap. I managed to sleep for about an hour.

I finally reached Alissa about the hotel room for ConCarolinas. She'll be staying with Chris, Rosemary & I. Yes, she lives in the same town but far enough away that commuting is a real pain. Our hotel is less than a mile from the con hotel.

blog changes: did anyone notice? I put up a picture of myself in the blog header. Of course, it's a picture of me when I was about 3 years old, but still.

tanning: It's not visible in the picture but I was a redhead when I was younger. My hair eventually lightened to blond with a few strands of red. I'm no longer a redhead but I still have a redhead's ultra pale skin. I have tanned twice in my life, both times to a dark shade of cream (insert wry tone). The first time was because I had a summer job in a very cold building; I would sit outside in the sun & would finally be warm by the time I was done with lunch. Even with spf 15, the sun eventually darkened me.

The second time was in 2000 when I went to Disneyworld. I spent almost a week, almost all day in the sun. Even with spf 25+, I darkened.

That's a lot of trouble & frankly, I find sunning myself to be inordinately boring. However, the skin on my legs is so pale as to be blinding. I took a shortcut, I bought tanning solution. I spread it where I don't normally get sun: upper arms, legs, etc. I'm still not really tan, but I'm no longer blindingly white.

tv: there was nothing on that we wanted to watch (whee, 2 hours of American Idol, watch me barf now). So we watched Grosse Pointe Blank on dvd again.

website of the day: artcyclopedia, fine arts on the net.

books: I'm going through the Mutants & Masterminds book to create a shopping list of skills & feats for my character.

clothes: I forgot to put my clothes in the dryer last night, so I wearing the same slacks that I did yesterday. I just febrezed them. I'm also wearing the same shoes, but with black, textured ankle socks. The black polo (2002 Ren Festival) gives it an entirely different look. Celtic knot ring, earrings (the longer ones), & star/moon/tree pendant, fem-power ring, hematite ring & silver bracelet (same as Tuesday) is the entire set of adornments (plus clip watch). My hair is down & loose because I washed it this morning & it needs to dry.

Living Greyhawk: I ended up running Bitter Fruit last night. I'm not sure if it's because three of the characters are pretty well-tweaked, but they romped over it. I accidentally ran one of the combats up one APL & they romped over it. Maybe I'm just not a good gamemaster at high APL's. We were done about 10:30 and I was home by about 11 pm.

This was the first time that I had ever run a Round Zero for a convention (Concarolina). Thanks to me, there will be 5 more judges for Bitter Fruit at the con.

wisdom of the day: The beginning of sin is sweet; its end is bitter. -- Japanese Proverb

books: Kind of, sort of dipped into A Lady of His Own. I was too busy reading & prepping the adventure to read anything else.

website of the day: book swap

Nature: Sighted one new bird recently. It has a crest like a cardinal but it's a pale color, blue or perhaps tan (you may scoff but at that distance it was hard to tell which) with a black band over the eyes from beak to back of head. I think it might have been a Bohemian Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus.

clothes: black 'slippers', nude knee-highs, black slacks & belt, burgundy scoop neck knit blouse, silver bracelet (different one), ~rope band, Celtic knot ring, hematite ring, feather-carved quartz point pendant on small silver chain, feather charm & quartz chip earrings & hair up in a ponytail/bun held by a black hairstick with 3 tiny rhinestones.

Chris's game: This is the third night of the same fight. Two weeks ago we finished off the undead, just in time for the evangelist to convert my character & Diana's character (Diana is notorious for not being able to make Will saves - if the target number is 15 & her character has a +16 to the die roll, she will roll a 1; which is automatic failure). Last night we fought the evangelist, his general buddy & their 'justicar,' who was really a doppelganger monk. Luckily our boom (aka Rosemary's warmage) was back. To cover Rosemary's absence her character, who's a variety of fae, was a pile of leaves for the middle of the combat. That does mean that she skipped chancing being converted, too, which was a big help. It would have been very ugly if she had been converted as well.

My character did go negative but thanks, mostly, to the mass lesser vigor & the healthful rest spell, she recovered enough to contribute to the fight.

website: manga quiz

books: I read Case of the Roasted Onion. It's another mystery, an interesting one, too. Otherwise, I'm reading the mod that I'm running. Gotta be prepared. It's a round zero for ConCarolinas.

clothes: black loafers, socks, jeans & belt; brown/black polo w/ silver Vorkosigan, no jewelry (got moving late & had no time), & hair in a ponytail/bun with the same hairstick: black with a brownish bead.

Weekend: Did some shopping. Found frames for my front page debut. Now I need to make copies for my relatives. I spent too much time & money in Michaels but besides the frames, I found some knick knack presents (round card decks, etc) plus some tins & beads for Tat Days prizes.

After supper on Saturday, we went to Doug's for gaming. We finished up about 11 or so & went home. The next day we got started around 11 but finished up about 3 pm. We made some good choices and managed to skip a large battle. That saved mondo time.

Since we finished so early, I took nap & then we (Chris, Rosemary & I) watched Mr & Mrs Smith on dvd. It was not as funny as I expected but it was still good & had some very good lines.

websites: funny posters

books: Re-read Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod. I also read Vol 3 of Inu Yasha.

clothes: Sunday, blue jeans, T-shirt (Brenin is the Land) & the rest the same as Saturday. Today it's black jeans/slacks & belt, 'ballet slippers', white knit shirt, hematite ring, fem-power ring, Celtic knot ring, ~rope band, silver bracelet & flower fairy pendant. Hair is up in a ponytail/bun.

Teeth: They still hurt. But there's an added complication. I have a mouth ulcer on the inside of the cheek on that side, up near the gums. Like I needed more pain.

knitting: I made & remade that scrunchy. I think I finally have it like I want it. It still doesn't ring like I wanted but it looks pretty good. It's silver elastic cord, bells & beads.










TV: Watched episode of The Wild Wild West on DVD, a re-run of Bones & finally, Jack the Giant Killer.

Downloaded a couple demo games onto the laptop & played them. When I have some spare money I might buy them. They were fun.

books: I finished Married the Viscount. Plus I'm reading Bitter Fruit, an LG mod.

clothes: Song of Three Summonings (Geoff) t-shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes, Celtic knot jewelry, ponytail (w/ the new scrunchy).

Dentist: yeah, my teeth hurt this morning. It was enough to rouse me a couple times and to wake me up early. On the bright side: I have enough time to renew my fingernail varnish (a couple places flaked & notched yesterday) and to pack my game bag for this weekend.

Virtual Villagers: at lunch yesterday I found the last beetle. That raises my villages max population to 105. Only one butterfly left to find.

Gaming: Saturday evening & Sunday, we continue with Red Hand of Doom. It's part 3.

Mutants & Masterminds: Chris is still working mandatory overtime (though he also had to pick up something he ordered 2 months ago) and Rosemary was sick so they didn't show. Instead Totem (me), Troll (Diana) & Momento Mori as Halogen (Nate) fought Myrmidon Mark III's and Myrmidon Mark IV's in the 'employ' of Lady Lunar. Totem didn't use her new 'channeling asp' paralyze bite/touch power. Since there wasn't enough time (& they were fighting robots) I figured that she doesn't really know. She did stunt a power for the first time. She used it to heal Troll who, for the first time ever, was taking serious damage. It was a pretty good game last night.

Work: 1 more interview today & then we make a decision.

clothes: black loafers, socks, slacks, belt (w/ gold tone buckle), & polo (Geoff). Jewelry is the emerald set (earrings & necklace), hematite ring, bloodstone ring & ladybug clip watch. Hair is braided & fastened with a green elastic.

Dentist: Well, the visit went fairly well. I hurt like the dickens but I survived. However, the next visit will be an afternoon appointment so I can go home and rest. Going to work after the appointment was not my brightest idea ever. I did get work done, I just don't know how well.

I am getting by on only half a pain pill this morning; so that's a good thing. I also haven't tried to eat anything harder than a soft oatmeal cookie. Yesterday's (3pm) lunch was a smoothie. Luckily, I bought some powder for nutrition shakes recently & I had some of that, too. Supper last night was soup. I really wasn't up to cooking, after all. Chris ate leftovers.

Chris found some great organic chocolate milk. It's from Promised Land Dairy. Absolutely yum.

website: list & short descriptions of lots of Regency romance novels

Work stuff: today I interview new assistants. By preference, I'd like someone who will be here longer but we'll see who we have & who looks the best in person. So far, all three applicants look good on paper.

Books: Read Your Wicked Ways at the dentist, continued on my commute in & home, & finished once I got home. I sort of re-read part of Married to the Viscount before going to sleep. I read a little bit more this morning before learning just how late I was running.

tatting: I did this in the dentist chair. It's very fine silk thread. I have loads of it, so even though it's so fine, I didn't mind wasting some by using it to calm my nerves. I got a tangled mess & I learned not to use the fine silk thread in the Justrite shuttle. The thread kept breaking until I switched to the Boye. (thanks to Jen for the pictures of the shuttles that you have posted).


These flowers/tangled knot were actually done while the dentist was working. It was more important to work on them than to actually get them done.




best pieces (notice that tail rings didn't fully close on the butterfly)



knitting: when I got home last night I didn't have the mental facility to tat or even start a new book. So I pulled out my spool knitter and some silver elastic. I threaded some beads & silver bells on the elastic & made what I though was going to be a bracelet. It works better as a scrunchy. Unfortunately, I did not put the bells close enough together for them to work. At some point soon, I will take it apart & do it again, right this time.

clothes: Today it's the 'ballet' shoes, black slacks & white crinkle gauze shirt trimmed with crochet style lace (band insert at the waist, neck placket, cuffs & insert at elbows), Celtic knot earrings, ring & pendant, flower band & hematite ring. My hair is up in a ponytail/knot affixed with a hairstick decorated with 2 black beads & a dangling silver sphere charm.

Another website: free table top anthro rpg - I want to look at this later

Dentist: Almost forgot that I have an appointment this morning. I'm stressing over it, plus I have a headache.

Painted my fingernails last night. They are now Reaction frost, a frosty pink color. I bought it when I tried to grow long fingernails last year or so. It didn't work then. But now that they are a little long, I decided to see if nail varnish helps or not. You can see where my left index fingernail is shorter than the rest.









Another SPF30+ day. Hey, it's summer, what a shock.

Once again, the breaker for my room tripped. I had to go reset it about bedtime. That's no fun.

books: Read Bloodbound on the way home. Read it all the way through before bedtime. Finished making an Exalted character.

TV: watched X-Play & Veronica Mars. I didn't recognize any of the games covered in X-Play. The focus of Veronica Mars was someone who was a child soldier in Uganda. After the show, they had a brief PSA about invisible children organization.

Two deaths yesterday: Martin Luther King, Jr's oldest Yolanda King & Rev Jerry Falwell.

clothes: grey polo; black jeans, socks, loafers & belt; hematite ring; flower band; moss agate bracelet; chainmail earrings; paui shell pendant necklace, paui shell ring and my hair in a ponytail.

Mailed stuff: For some reason, the red cross sent me a yo-yo type thing. I can't explain it. But I have scheduled another platelet donation on the 28th.

I have fingernails still. I'm thinking about painting them, if I can find one that hasn't been tested on animals.

tatting: only made a silk butterfly from the thread left on the shuttle after the flower. May try to make another one.

book: Finished re-reading Seeress of Kell.

tv: Nothing on until after 11, so we watched Wild, Wild West on DVD. We saw an episode that guest-starred Richard Pryor & the on after it had Sammy Davis, Jr. Who knew?

clothes: white polo (crochet edging), black skirt (crinkle-gauze, knee length, my other new skirt, the one that claims to be size 10), black 'ballet' shoes, onyx pendant & earrings, braided silver ring & flower band ring & hematite ring.



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website of the day: free plants!

Mom got sick. No Mother's Day joy for us. Went to eat with boyfriend's family. It was nice, just not the same.

Books: went by & traded in some books & picked up some more on Store Credit. Been reading the Exalted game book & re-read A Rogue's Proposal.

clothes: this weekend, blue jeans & t-shirts, navy loafers, & Celtic knot jewelry. Today: black slacks, white polo (UNC), black belt, black 'ballet' shoes, & Celtic knot jewelry.

Keys update: Rosemary found them in her yard Monday. That helped just loads.

Silk blouse update: tie-bleach didn't work.

books: Read Pleasure for Pleasure over lunch & on the way home. I've had it for awhile & just hadn't read it before. Started reading a little of Seeress of Kell again.

fingernail: that broken fingernail ripped the rest of the way this morning. At least it wasn't painful. Now I have 9 decently long fingernails & one very short one.

Today I have errands to run. The roto-rooter guy says that he has to call to get an appointment to get the guy who checks for leaks to come out.

I need to go drop off plastic bags, used books & stuff for the thrift shop. Plus, I need to find at least three tank tops to go under my new blouses. I'd like to stop by the bead store & the thread shop. I want to go see Anitra, too.

website of the day: is your iPod broken?

Another foggy morning, but it burned off more quickly than yesterday. Thus, I was almost blinded by the rising sun as I looked to see if my commuter bus was on its way. Again, it's going to be at least a half-dozen degrees above 30-year average today.

books: Re-read Slightly Shady.

clothes: new black knit skirt (gored so it fits well over the hips & is very floaty/flirty around the knee-length hem), black gauze shirt with silver embroidery, black 'ballet' shoes, Celtic knot jewelry (different earrings), braided silver ring, hematite ring, ladybug watch on a heavy silver chain & my hair alternating between loose & up in a ponytail.

Fingernails: I've taken pictures of my nails to show what 'long' fingernails look like for me. They're not really long but for me, they are.









This is the poor, broken nail (after some healing) or at least the best picture that I could get.









website of the day: The little brown dress

Starting to make plans for ConCarolinas. I've submitted the game that I'm running (Ironclaw) and asked for most of Friday off.

clothes: black 'ballet' shoes, socks (later removed), black slacks & belt, mauve & black check blouse, Celtic knot earrings, ring & pendant, hash mark ring, hematite ring, & ponytail (held by an elastic hidden by bronze/silver hair ornament).

Games & stuff: I had Virtual Villagers running while I was burning my CDs into my iTunes. I now have all the tech bought up, and a population of 57. There are still 3 rare items to find, 1 butterfly & 2 beetles. I haven't experimented with all the possible recipes yet and there are still at least 4 puzzles to solve, although one is 65% done (the covered floor).

Music: I only have one cd left to burn onto my harddrive & I listened to at least 3 last night, to rate them. I need to burn some of the songs that I've downloaded onto a cd in case something happens to my hard drive.

I wrapped Mom's belated Christmas present, using a wrapsack. Unfortunately, I don't have one big enough for her Mother's Day present. I think I'll use a map for that one.

clothes: same black loafers, black socks, black slacks, same black belt (& watch), green Harrington Steading polo, moss agate bead bracelet, bloodstone ring, green amber ring, hematite ring, emerald necklace & earrings.

Just added: Etsy favorites

silk blouse: Since yesterday's blouse had, for lack of a better term, bleach spots, I decided to make use of them. I tried a tie-bleach job on it. I tied knots in the sleeves & the blouse and dipped it in bleach/water solution. It certainly bled a lot. Now I'm waiting for it to dry & see what happened.

sign of the times: The other day, as I was waiting in line at the Super Target, I noted what they had in the impulse rack. I remember when they had candy, magazines & little dollar books in the impulse rack & that was it. Now you can see: a 32MB flash drive, 257 MB SD card, an iTunes card, phone cards, purell (hand cleaner), and floor care in addition to the candy, gum & magazines.

website of the day: Okay, this information is a year old but it should still outrage people.

Gaming: I hate D&D evangelists. The save DC is based on their perform check & they only need one round to do it. As a result, Kelis (my character) & Deriot (Diana's character) have converted to the worship of the Devourer of Souls. That leaves a badly wounded Gaius & Thorvald plus the real Vertum, who's chained up, to fight us & the 3 bad guys. We finished fighting the undead last night, finally. I couldn't make a save to well, save my character (rolled a 5 & then a 3). But Gaius can use one of Kelis's pearls of power to recall his Resurgence spell & give her another chance. He bluffed that he was healing her but it didn't do much (just the healthful rest boosted lesser vigor that he cast earlier).

Health: When I tried to give blood the other day my blood pressure was 107/74 and my temprature was 97.5F. I should check as to whether those are in the healthy ranges.

Books: I'm going through the Magic Item Compendium to see what stuff looks good for various characters (like a couple whips for Nadia & some anti-undead stuff for Edana & Reed).

I won some books from the Bulls Head yesterday. They had 57 bags of ARCs and the 1st 57 people to respond to the email got a small bag of them; about 5-8 books.

We got news of Kelly last night. She & little Emmit are fine. I sent the bear I bought for Emmit home with Joe since he's more likely to see them before the child is a toddler than I am.

clothes: black socks, loafers, jeans & belt, gold tone belt buckle; my silver ladybug clip watch, white tuxedo shirt (lots of vertical pin tucks), quasi-patchwork vest in black, tan & cream, onyx pendant & earrings, hematite ring, hash mark ring & circle ring. My hair is braided today as it's another windy day.

Keys! I've misplaced my keys. I had them when we left for gaming yesterday but I haven't seen them since. That makes getting home this evening very interesting.

Birthday supper: It was great. There were enough of us (9) that we rarely had the same conversation at the same time but the food was good & so was the company. Everyone liked their presents but I snuck Joe's to him & he didn't see it at first.

books: I finished Goblin Quest. Alas, Bull's Head does not have Goblin Hero.

clothes: fuschi pink silk shirt (that has bleached spots, so I need to bleach/tie dye it), black jeans, black belt, black socks & loafers, same jewelry as yesterday & braided hair. It's too windy to let my hair be loose in any way, today. And it's gotten cold again.

Gaming: Today is Rosemary's Forgotten Realms game. Since Sofia is gone, it's just the 5 of us. We're finally leaving Tantris.

Afterwards we're taking Richard, Kathy & Joe out for their birthdays. It's also Richard & Kathy's anniversary. We'll be joined by Kathy, Diana & Colt and going to Macaroni Grill.

Books & Games: We stopped by FE and I picked up the latest Shojo Beat & two manga.

Movie: We went to see Next last night at North Hills. I can see why it got bad reviews; it's such a geek movie. I mean, I loved it, but for really geeky reasons. After the movie, Chris, Rosemary & I talked about it. We've decided that Mr. Cage must have gotten to the point where he's really well-off & since no one is offering him parts that interest him, he's making movies that he wants. And he's using stories & comic books that he likes. Why else would he do Ghost Rider? I mean, that's not exactly one of the big comic book names, now is it.

Books: I started reading Goblin Quest today. It's pretty good.

clothes: red Wilson Athletic t-shirt, blue jeans, brown belt, white tennis shoes, moss agate bead bracelet, silver hash mark ring, Celtic knot ring, hematite ring, star/moon/tree pendant, Celtic knot earrings, and my hair pulled to one side in a ponytail.

Dead Tennis Shoes: Well, my old pair of black tennies are dead. I long ago wore through a spot on the heels but it wasn't until today that it started hurting. Say good-bye to that pair. I need to mail them to Nike for recycling.

Chris took his car into get the oil changed. Then we went to use Chris's 10 year gift certs. We went to Barnes & Noble, where Chris bought more books than I did for once; FYE, where I saw a digital camera on sale for $10; Target, where I spent too much on cloths; & Best Buy, where I bought Mom's present for Mother's Day.

I bought only two books while Chris updated his Dresden Files collection, ditto Star Wars. I also made a list of books to get after my birthday. Chris found almost a half-dozen cd's at FYE & vol 2 & 3 of Voltron (he had found Vol 1 at Best Buy).

One of Target's line of clothes has gone overboard on their flattery sizing. I had to go down to size 10 before it would fit. Since another line, with an elastic waist, fit just fine in large, you can see why I blame flattery sizing.

books: I re-read Owlknight, mostly. Next I want to start one of the books I bought today.

tatting: I've made the first petal or two of the burgundy silk flower & I've started on the Libin bracelet. It's orange beads with cream thread; which makes the beads look amber-colored instead. Too bad I've run out of thread on that shuttle, so I'll have to do a join.

Gaming: Nate wasn't at the game either, last night. So only the women were playing. We started with a girls' night out. Totem, my character, is not old enough to drink in the US. But she's from an ancient Egyptian culture, in which beer (I keep typo'ing that as 'bear'; I did that last night while typing the notes), is practically a sacrament. She won't get a fake id, that's illegal but Lady Celtic was tired of drinking canoe beer. Instead, they went back to Totem's home where they had Egyptian beer for her & Lady Celtic had picked up some Killians for herself & Troll.

They ended up getting a call to go help Dr. Atom at The Nucleus. That's the top 5 floors of the Goodman building where he is the house AI, from the digitized personality of the late Dr. Atom. His grandkids, the Atoms, were busy in another dimension so the ladies of Freedom League had to go find out who was attacking & stop them. It was Lady Lunar, convinced that there was an Earth plot to replace the leaders of Farside City (located oddly enough..on the far side of the moon). She was attacking The Nucleus because Dr. Atom's data banks would have the information about it. They (the female Freedom Leaguers) thought that there might be a connection to the duplication situation that they fought in South America but Lady Lunar said that it wasn't, the ones in Farside were a different kind of duplicates. [and yes, when she said Farside City, we all got flashes of a city populated by cows with funky glasses].

We took out most of her guards, the 6 in power armor, the 12 in body armor with guns & 1 of the 6 crater apes. At that point, she decided to get the heck out of dodge. Totem got a couple of hero points. One was for the terrain, she's decidedly non-tech (drawback - unfamiliarity with modern tech) in a high tech building. The other was for failing the save versus Lady Lunar's confusion blast. I used one to try & make the save a couple rounds later. It might have worked if I had rolled higher than a 2! That still left me 5 points shy of making the save.

However, I finally saved up enough character points to move Totem's jump ability out of her magic pool and into its own separate power (so I won't have to choose between movement & healing). I'm substituting paralyze attack, channeling Cobra, so I won't have to play numbers games & re-arrange my powers. I brought the book to work & read up on the stuff that I need on the way to work. At lunch I'll work on a new character sheet, complete with notes on what the powers do.

David C stopped by David R's. He had to get something uploaded to someone else for work but the work network connection was down. And he had a problem at home, too, so he came to use David R's internet connection. It took him an hour or two and a few phone calls but finally everything was working and he was done. He was profoundly relieved.

music: on the way home, we plugged my iPod into Diana's car stereo & listened to my music on the way home. I had it on the sing-along playlist. We started with 'Bedlam,' she'd never heard it, and then it was shuffle. Out of the other 9 songs, 4 were by The Donnas. Out of 143 songs on that list, there are about a half-dozen by the Donnas, but 4 of them played in the 1st 10 songs. One note about that song, it's provided the title to Mercedes Lackey's Bedlam's Bard series.

books: I finished Marriage by Design last night. For some reason, I ended up staying up to finish it. That means that I've had about 6 hours of sleep, again. And then about 5 I was dreaming that the alarm clock wasn't waking me up so I woke enough to figure out why..it wasn't on yet!

tatting: I'm still working on that silk Lyn Morton flower. Since I somehow lost a couple picots from the center ring, it's going to be a 5-petal flower instead of 6. I also remembered what I want to do with the perle cotton, I'm making a Nina Libin bracelet. It won't be as firm as hers are because I'm not using metallic thread. Hopefully, that won't be a problem. We (by that I mean I) will find out, I guess.

clothes: With the cold front that came in yesterday & left me chilled, I've dressed a bit warmer today; in gray suede boots, black jeans, purple long-sleeved shirt (iridescent cotton, purple & blue-ish), black belt, Celtic knot ring, hematite ring, Celtic knot star, moon & tree pendant, & chainmail earrings.

Virtual Villagers: the Lost Children - It's a computer game. It's in real time so if I'm going to be away from my laptop for awhile I pause the game. I forgot to do that once & 2/3 of my villagers starved. I had to start over, I just didn't have enough people to keep going (read no fertile females). I've gotten to all of the stage 2 tech benchmarks & to stage 3 (last one) of Medicine. I think I'll skip right to stage 3 of Farming. That's the only way to reliably & consistently provide food for my villagers.

I've also unlocked puzzles 1-5, 12 & 16. That's not quite half of them. One of them will be unlocked when I hit stage 3 Farming tech. I've gotten the population up to 22 (no deaths so far but a couple of the villagers are bordering on elderly now). I've collected a sample of each of the 12 rocks, 11 of the butterflies, 11 of the seashells & 9 of the beetles. For puzzle 3 I had to look at a help site. I just could not seem to figure out what the problem was.

TV: we watched Bones, Criminal Minds & CSI: NY last night. Bones, episode: Spaceman in a Crater, had aliens (sort of) which CSI is supposed to have tonight (Leapin' Lizards). Criminal Minds (Open Season) had arrows (which CSI had last week- Ending Happy) and CSI: NY (Cold Reveal) had a crossover with Cold Case. One of the detectives came to NY from Philadelphia following up on a case.

books: I started Paid Companion on the way to work & I finished it as I got home. Partially, I was able to do that because it's a re-read & I skipped certain portions. I also sort of re-read Mad Jack. That has been by bedtime book the past couple nights. Now I'm re-reading Marriage By Design. That reminds me, I need to check to see if that author, Lynn Michaels, has written any other books with those characters.

Gaming: tonight it's Mutants & Masterminds again. Chris won't be there, he's working late again. Diana will be giving me a ride, so that's helpful.

Gift-giving: Found a cool site; Kaboodle.com. It's all about lists. I have composed a wishlist (for upcoming gift occasions), a list of tatting books & a list of gaming sites.

clothes: It's supposed to be cooler today, so I broke out the black poly blouse I was going to wear over the dress earlier this week. It's paired with black jeans, socks & loafers, so I'm very monochromatic. Even my jewelry is, mostly, black & silver; silver ladybug clip watch, hematite ring, onyx earrings, labradorite pendant & bloodstone ring (that's the exception & it's still dark).

Power out! When it happened 3 times in one week, I suspected human intervention. I thought maybe some kid playing around & not knowing what the result was. Chris suspected new lawn care people doing something accidentally.

Now it happened overnight. I woke up & my room has no power. The rest of the house is fine. I need go reset the breaker. Weirdly enough, the reset is out-fricking-side. Do you have any idea what it's like to get do ablutions by candlelight? At least there's hot water.

books: I finished Games of Command. It's a pretty good book. It took a little while to get started but then it's like a roller coaster that way. There's a slow build up and then suddenly you're off on a wild ride.

Music: Two songs that I've recently heard & really like. One is Bomshel Stomp & the other is Before He Cheats. I kind of like You Know I'm No Good, too.

clothes: Luckily I laid out clothes last night. Black loafers, trouser socks, & slacks; with a dark green Geoff polo, moss agate bracelet, green amber ring, hematite ring, green amber necklace & earrings. I haven't decided what to do about my hair this morning.

Time to leave for work.

Mom: I called Mom last night. I'll be going to see her on Mother's Day. I need to wrap her Christmas present (that finally arrived after Christmas) & go get her Mother's Day present. I think I will go do that tonight.

AOL: I still haven't been able to contact anyone in AOL about that bill that I received. Since I don't have AOL service, I find it quite worrying. Their customer support line is an absolute joke. There is no way to talk to a real live person. It's all voice mail. Frankly, that alone would keep me from ever considering, much less recommending AOL. In fact, I would strongly recommend against it for that reason alone.

books: I finished reading Glossed & Found on the way home. I finished re-reading Truly, Madly Viking last night before going to sleep.

tatting: I need some really good light to figure out what's going on with that silk. Burgundy is pretty but it's hard to see. I went ahead & wound some cream perle into a ball, from a hank, for my next project. Of course, now I've forgotten what that is. *sigh*

I've started a tatting only blog on Friendster. For that I will post progress reports & pictures of projects. I'm aiming for a weekly update schedule. We'll have to see how well that works.

clothes: It's going to be hot today so I was going to wear the dress that I bought last fall. It's sleeveless so I had a short-sleeved shirt to wear over it. However, it doesn't look very good on me. One of those 'looks better on the hanger'...or on someone else. So I changed to my ankle-length forest green skirt, black rib-knit sweater (short-sleeved), black knee-highs, black sequined flats, bloodstone ring, hematite ring, moss agate bead bracelet, onyx pendant, & chainmail ~chandelier earrings. My hair is loose because I didn't have enough time to do anythimg else to it.