Sewicked

Ahhh, Friday. What a wonderful thing. I have two days off. Tomorrow, Chris has asked me to go the mall with him (I'm not sure why, unless it's to take notes for his upcoming birthday). Sunday we'll be playtesting an LG adventure. My bard will sing again.

It's going to be a high APL playtest of the Mace BI - GRM7-IN4 By Right of Conquest, part 5 of the Shattered Reflections Series. My knight is very concerned (her stepmom & siblings live in Shiboleth, site of the BI).

TV: Last night the president made a speech. Since I didn't feel like wading through the rhetoric, but then I rarely do, I skipped it. I'll catch the summation later. However, as expected, his speech preempted regular tv programming. It's a good thing we watched that CSI rerun, that we'd missed, when it showed on Spike (cable channel) an hour earlier.

I also watched most of the History channel's program on the American highway system. Wow, it's changed in the past 100 years. The first, continent spanning highway was planned about 1900. However, when the celebratory convoy attempted to actually use the Lincoln Highway after WWI, it was less than laudatory. It did publicize the very poor condition of the road systems though.

We also caught part of the Barbarian special on Saxons and then we watched Burn Notice. I stayed up too late to watch it; again.

tatting: I worked on the wheelbarrow & found out this morning, as I was working on ring 30, that I had made a mistake on ring 11. Arrrrrgh! So I started it again. Or tried. It took two attempts that I just cut off and then another 2 or 3 attempts before I finally got started again. I just keep reminding myself; I do this for fun & relaxation, I do this for fun & relaxation, really. I mean that.

Mail/letter/etc: I have a little something to send to Mitra; I just need to get it into the mail. And I just realized that I left the stationery that I use for her, at home. Guess I'll try to send it Monday, then.

Saturday Evening At Palmetto Tat Days 2007 (& Sunday)
I went by the Vendor's room to pick up some thread. I took all those neat beads that I picked up at Panopoly to match them. I got Karey's help; since, as I've mentioned, she has such a good eye for color. Matching the faceted jasper drops was a little difficult. I think we finally succeeded though. I did do one stupid thing; I forgot to pick up a beading needle. I got the bead spinner, a small one, but no needle. None of the vendor's had size 16 crochet hooks either; and that's nigh onto vital for Jane's beaded picot technique.

After supper, it was time for more fun & games. My group's card set did not win, alas. But there were some very nice cards made. Palmetto's will sell them for $2 each to fund their activities & supplies.

The first game we played was a Bingo variant. Everyone was given a list of tatting terms & a page with 4 daisies printed on it. Each daisy had a sticker dot of a different color, red, blue, yellow or green. On the daisies there were 9 spaces to write those terms, you could choose wherever to write them. Then Janice went through & called out terms. There were 4 rounds, one per color of daisy. You used stickers of the matching color to fill in the flower. If you got all 9, you had 'full bloom' & won the round. If I had gotten 6 again in the last round, I was going to ask for a consolation prize for getting the exact same number every time. But I got 7 instead of 6.

The next game had us in teams of 8. There was one team that didn't have enough people, so Janice pulled people from other teams; I volunteered to leave Anitra & Stephanie. Poor me. The group that I joined had only 6 people; two of whom had already packed their stuff for their flights out 0n Sunday. Since it was a scavenger hunt-style game - do you have the item from the list in the possession of a group member? - that was vital.

Nonetheless, my team was only 3 points behind the winning team; guess which team that was. You guessed it - Anitra & Stephanie's team! The funny thing was, the items that I had, I had bought that day & had thought to take back to the room so I wasn't hauling it around. It's a good thing that I got lazy, or something, and didn't do so. It was a great game even though we lost & I hope that they do it again next year.

I spent the rest of the evening chatting. I talked to Tonya & her husband; they're from Georgia. She's a teacher (on Sunday I told her about Mali's oration on Youtube about what teachers make) and he's in animal control. He had some great stories. Jane's a former teacher so she & Tonya swapped stories about that. Martha didn't talk much but I think she enjoyed the conversation anyway. I think she's shy.

Anitra & Stephanie had gone to sleep by the time I got to the room. I slept like the dead but still woke up in plenty of time to be starving by the time breakfast was served. I saw Jane & Martha looking for a table as I entered, so I was faux-huffy about them not sitting with us and invited them to sit at our table. We had great convo over breakfast & Jane showed me where to find the hot water for my tea. It had been there all the time; I'd just missed it. Bleah.

After breakfast, we packed the car, turned in our room keys and badge holders, said a last goodbye to everyone & was on the road by 10 am. We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel (I have no idea what town we were in), my cold had returned and I was a bit dazed. Reading was helping because I was not up to anything requiring concentration.

I found a string of Christmas bead garland that may work very well for Karey's baubles, just lighter than marbles. We'll see. I also found a book on raising chickens for Liz. It's safe to mention because she never reads my blog.

Once at Anitra's, we admired the work that Steve had done on her craft room (clearing it out - his birthday present to her). I realized, after I had unloaded my stuff from Stephanie's car, that she lived near me and could just drop me off at home with only a slight detour on her part.

Chris wasn't home when I got there so I just vegged. I got my stuff in the door and that was all I was good for. I was so tired.

I felt bad enough that I called in sick on Monday. I slept most of the day (as I mentioned on Tuesday) & I think that made a huge difference in my recovery.

clothes: black ~slippers & jeans, Vorkosigan black/brown polo, clip watch, dragon band, hematite band, amber cabochon bracelet, amber drop earrings, amber 'poison' ring, fem/dancer ring, & (hidden by my color because it doesn't match the rest of my jewelry) moonstone cabochon pendant on heavy silver chain. My hair is loose because it's drying.