Okay, someone explain global warming. This is the 2nd morning in a row that we've had frost & it's not even November yet. *grumble, growl, grumble* I should still be wearing light jackets, not pulling out scarves, hats & gloves. I know, I know, it's really part of the natural cycle, but I claim my right to complain about the weather. Nyah.

The Bradford pear by my front door decided to split. This isn't the first fork that it's lost, just the biggest one. It was a bit startling to come home to on Tuesday. I'll try to get a picture of it.

I haven't been sleeping well recently. My cold, aka Fair crud, is partly responsible. When your throat hurts so much that it wakes you up at 3 am, you're not sleeping well. It got bad enough that I took a nap yesterday at lunch & went to bed half an hour early last night & still overslept by half-hour or more.

Gaming: Mutants & Masterminds tonight. At least one person won't be there, I'm betting on Nate. Basically because I would have heard already if one of the other three wouldn't be there. Sunday is supposed to be Rosemary's game but she's already prepping a 4e module, just in case.

Ren Festival: Saturday, Rosemary, Chris, Alyssa & I are going to the Ren Faire near Kannapolis. Christopher & Alyssa are kindly opening their house for us on Friday night so that we'll be there bright & early on Saturday. Christopher is working so he won't be with us but we'll have supper with them both Saturday night. I need to decide if I'm going to dress up or not. If I do, then I need to find a blouse and maybe skirt or something. I have the black & red piratical pants so that's an option, and my bodice is blue reversible to black. Unless the weather changes, I'll need my cape, too.

Politics: I voted Monday. I had the day off anyway, to recover from the Fair & to pick up my entry. I can now ignore all political ads with impunity. I've cast my vote. I'm done. There's been so much mudslinging, by everybody (as far as I can tell) that I feel like I need to do laundry twice a day just to get rid of the splashes.

Mom called on Tuesday. She got the scam info that I mailed her last week but I missed the message that she left for me over the weekend. We caught up a little. I won't get to see her until Thanksgiving, so phone calls are going to have to do.

Tatting: my bookmark (at the Fair).

Okay, recipe for tired: 1) cough late into the night, 2) get five hours of sleep, 3) walk around the fair grounds from 10 am to 9 pm (except for lunch, supper, a few minutes watching the male Boer Goats judging, a few minutes learning about saving energy & a couple minutes talking to a merchant), 4) drive home and haul stuff out of the car, 5) get up at quarter to one am and throw up supper.

I have confirmed; no ribbon for my bookmark. The blue ribbon piece is very pretty, a tiny, intricate bobbin lace place in something like size 80 thread.

I did buy a few Christmas presents. I also bought a couple things for myself. I tried some pain reliever cream. It smelled strongly of menthol & camphor. The salesperson said that the smell would fade in 5-10 minutes. When I hugged Carrie (she has a cold) she was sniffing me for the menthol...an hour later. I showered and can still catch the occasional sniff.

Tonight I'm off to play LFR, These Hallowed Halls. whee! Who needs sleep.

One Fair weekend down, one more to go. Yes, two 12-hour days of tatting. Anitra is there for all 11 days. Whew. But she loves doing all that tatting so it really is a vacation for her. It was so cold that I wore my Colonial era outfit. I just wish that I had not forgotten my fichu; I really could have used it.

Incidents of note- an ambassador, either to or from Japan, came through & bought 2 Trantham cds. Cool, huh. A tiny turtle, either a painted or a yellow-stripe was rescued. I learned that someone who's observant and is truly interested in what you're doing is just as pleasurable as inspiring someone to learn your hobby/craft/obsession. No one that I've talked to in the Village has seen the embroidery hoop/trivet (wagon wheel rim/rug) weaving. Dad & Kathy came by and we had lunch on Sunday.

I have heard that I did not get a ribbon for my bookmark. I'm not really surprised. It has color.

Discovery yesterday: Monster brand energy drink keeps me up for hours. I drank it about 7 am & was still awake at midnight.

I've started reading the Aurora Teagarden mysteries. Thanks Steve for the loan. I also read Nation, Pratchett's new book.

Chris's birthday: I did not have his present ready. He wants a padded bag to hold & protect his D&D 4e books. I was about to sew up the sides when I realized that it's too wide. I will be working on it some tonight but he's leaving for Wicked Harvest (gaming convention that's all Witch Hunter) so he won't get it until he gets back.

State Fair: looks like it's going to be cold & rainy so I'll pull out my Colonial era outfit. I think that I will take my new bodice & an appropriate blouse in case I need a change of clothes (Anitra & Steve usually do laundry Sat night after we get back & the clothes are ready the next day).

Work: Yesterday was interesting. When I came back from lunch I learned that the power was. The power went out in the restaurant that I was in, but since it's a 10-minute walk I didn't think that my building would be out, too. There wasn't much that I could do except hang around and wait for the power to come back.

Today was Employee Appreciation. There's free food, and this year's selection was much better. Since I volunteered, I got a different lunch though. I also hit the sale at the store and went through the information fair; lots of drawings and free pens.

Before things got started

and while things were in full swing. Yes, that's the line for lunch. The lunch tables are just out of sight on the right.

And this is where I worked during my volunteer shift. We were visited by a number of 'striped damsels', mostly honeybees but with the occasional yellowjacket for variety.

Craft: I finished the rag 'rug' that I was working on. It's from a craft that I saw while on vacation. Originally, they would use a wagon wheel; since I didn't need anything that big, I used an embroidery hoop. You tie & weave strips of fabric to make the rug, or in this case trivet type. I tied the ends too tightly though & it cupped, as you can see. The first picture is how it looks from 'the top' & in the 2nd picture you can see where I tucked in the ends.

State Fair: My entry is in and I added a couple remarks about the origin on the back of the tag. I neglected to get a picture of it; whoops. Maybe I can find out how I did this weekend. Cross your fingers.

Gaming: Yesterday was interesting. No GMs signed up and whoever was organizing it did nothing to rectify it. So we had 9 players and no GM. Since I had an adventure on my laptop, I volunteered to run something. And someone else volunteered to run an adapatable; he just had to get the book from home. Three of the four people at my table had played Inheritance before. At least two of them had also read it. On the bright side, this means that they could nudge me when I made a mistake.

Chris's Supper: We took Chris out to Rio Churrascaria. I managed not to eat myself to foundering. I count that as a victory.

Health: Tomorrow I'm getting my flu shot. I meant to get it last week but I needed my health insurance card. I want to have it in effect by the time I start working at the fair. It will hopefully prevent me from catching anything really nasty.

Here's a heart from Martha Ess's book of holiday tatting. I really need to work on my block tatting. I have all these gaps.

I finally sent the letters that I wrote to my family. I included the picture in the local picture of me in the walking group. I also sent a copy of one of the letters to my mom (she doesn't care, as long as she gets something).

I made another Viking wire tatting piece today. I did this one in silver and made a necklace.
Here's a detail:

It got almost 2.5 times as long once I pulled it through the drawplate. It went from about big enough to fit over my pinky, to small enough to fit into a mechanical pencil.

Gaming: Today was the LFR (living forgotten realms). We only have time to play the 1st two of three parts.

Watched the season premier of CSI last night, so that makes my 4th night of less than ideal sleep. Maybe I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Maybe.

Chris took the day off to go get his new Driver's license, today. Sci Fi network was showing a marathon of Friday the 13th the Series. He taped them. We watched the first episode, Inheritance. The actress playing Mary, the little girl, looked scarily like me when I was a little girl. As a result, Chris declared that I cannot have any porcelain dolls (cursed bisque doll in the episode), just tooooo creepy.

Mom scared the crap out of me by calling after 9 pm. From her tone of voice, I honestly thought she was about to 'invite' me to a funeral. Turns out there's a change of plans with next month visiting my aunt & uncle. My other two aunts are coming into the state but my uncle is worse and has trouble dealing with strangers; so no nieces and nephews. I'll go visit mom for Thanksgiving, instead.

Gaming: Looking back, I realized that I never posted what happened in last week's Mutants & Masterminds. We had a nice little fight in the vaults of Astro Labs with the Bestiary (4 ~myth-themed villains) and then met the superthief for hire, Magpie, as he was stealing something from the Freedom League vaults. Turns out, Lady Celtic's son, from a previous life, has stolen her powers, at least partially. He's a little obsessed with his mom's legacy. We ended with Freedom League trying to find proof that he was behind the theft by Magpie.

Saturday I'm in a zero-round of a game for the Living Forgotten Realms weekend. Basically, I'm rounding out the table. Sunday, I'm in another LFR game. How did this happen? I could have sworn that I had a free weekend somewhere.

Met up with some old friends in Raleigh last night. It was nice seeing some old friends, and some new faces. Anitra wasn't there, she's still occupied with family matters.

As I was leaving, I managed to drop my Palm. Luckily, I had sync'ed it night before last, so I only lost was I had entered yesterday & I think that I remembered it all.

I finally found some stamps so that I could mail my letters. I sent one to Mom, too. That reminds me, I think that I need to write Mitra again.

Tatting: Saturday was the Heritage Day at Oak View Historic Park. The Triangle Tatters got together & had an exhibition table. About six of us came, tatted, chatted, demonstrated and displayed. The weather was nigh onto perfect, although I could have done with fewer bugs. I did not get much done, except for learning that I have my necklace entered in the wrong category. To still have a good entry, I'd need a new creation, one that fits the category that I entered. Poor Tara about freaked out. Today is the first day that entries can be taken to be submitted. I have until Monday. My bookmark is about 3/4 done so I'm not very worried. And I wasn't worried on Saturday.


Gaming: Sunday's game got cancelled. One of the players got sick and Chris had a flat tire. If we had tried to go, after that, we would have been at least an hour late. It was one thing after another. The special piece that lets you loosen the theft-prevention lugnut was missing so Chris and Joe couldn't change the tire to put the spare onto the car. So we called AAA and had it towed. The tire place we took it to didn't have a universal so they couldn't get it either. Chris ended up taking it into the dealer on Monday, before work.

Monday's game: we managed to leave the Giant's castle, without fighting the entire population. We did score, inadvertently, a diplomatic coup. We set off the traps on the magic artifact, so the queen for whom we were retrieving it, won't. Which is good, because she'd auto (story-line) fail all the saves and die. Poor Gaius, Joe's character, failed one of them and was in very bad shape.

On the bad side, I apparently bought my tennis shoes, on sale, when I weighed a couple pounds less. When I was driving to meet Anitra on Saturday they about cut off the circulation in my left foot. I am not exaggerating. Ouch. Luckily, I had another pair of shoes with me. Otherwise, Saturday would have been quite unpleasant.

I was interviewed on Monday for a friend's ethnology class. It was interesting trying to explain gaming to someone with little to no common experience. For one analogy, I suddenly stopped, she had no clue what I meant when I compared Superman to oh..Booster Gold, or Blue Beetle. Literally, I had to explain the dice involved, the character sheets, the existence of rulebooks, touch on the history of gaming, all that. She barely knew enough to know what questions to ask. Heck, if I'd been a jungle tribeswoman, she'd have had a better idea what to ask.

The walking group was still small on Tuesday. We walked a 3rd route and boy howdy, this one was hill-acious. It took me half the afternoon, and a smoothie, to cool off.

Online Weirdness: I am on a couple social networks and I always include in my profile that I am in a relationship. So why do guys keep sending me messages about 'how pretty' I am and wanting to get to know me? One, while I don't scare small children, I'm no beauty queen either. Two, you only know what I've posted. For all they know I'm a guy who's using some woman's picture & is spoofing being female.

FYI, according to the "quiz" below, I jumped on a football player because I'm a Ninja.
Pick the month you were born:

January-------I kicked
February------I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August--------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October-------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:

1-------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4- ------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7-------my mobile phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends ' boyf riend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19------ - a surf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an iPod
29-------a surfer
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:

White---------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink---- -------because I'm crazy.
Red-----------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Gr e en---------because I think I need some serious help.
Purple---------because I'm AWESOME!
Gray----------because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow ------ --because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange --------because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown---------because I can..
Other----------because I'm a Ninja!
None----------because I can't control myself!

At 2 am, a mere 2.5 hours after I'd gone to sleep, my stomach woke me up, cramping with hunger. I dragged myself up to have a piece of bread with jam. I dozed until my stomach stopped cramping and went back to bed. The entire time I could hear thunder rumbling, like someone wheeling a trolley on uneven floor.

I'm managing to stick with my cutting down on soda. I've only had about a glass a day for the past three days. I've been getting my caffeine from hot tea, instead. At least that doesn't leach calcium from my body.

As soon as I stepped out the door after work, I could feel the cold front. The temperature has dropped considerably since lunchtime.

I have tomorrow night's Mutants & Masterminds game to look forward to. Wheee!