RolePlaying Game with a child and the rest of my week

Saturday, we played Mermaid Adventures. Our last game was two years ago, much to M's frustration. It was up to her dad to schedule the game and the time passed faster than he had realized. Don't tell M, I'd lost my character sheet and had to make up my octopus spell caster again. M has been wanting to 'play games with Daddy' since she was four. R and I gave her child-focused RPGs for Christmas before she turned 6. She decided she wanted to play Mermaid Adventures. We played two years ago and she really enjoyed it. She enjoyed Saturday's game, too. We may have gotten her bitten by the RPG bug.

I've lost my tatting; both the bracelet I'd finished tatting and my TIAS up to Day 5. Jane has up to Day 7 out and I'm behind. Again.

I'm tatting a heart from a Japanese webpage to keep my tatting fingers busy in the meantime. I'm using Lizbeth seashell in size 20.

My car has been back into and out of the shop again. Maybe this will keep it out for a few months. I would really like to have a fully functioning car for awhile.

I've been playing Pathfinder Online. It's still early enrollment. I've discovered a problem with their graphics. It gives me a headache after a couple hours. And then, while in my character's home town, crafting, three players came up and killed my character. And the local guard (NPC) did nothing. I have no reason to go back into the game. I was just starting to figure out how to fight and how to craft. If it had happened outside a settlement, well, travel is risky. It will take some serious convincing to get me to play again.

Monday, I read someone's blog post about their first troll. And that getting a negative comment on their blog meant their audience had spread, beyond their 'comfort zone'. And that they had expressed an opinion, strongly enough, it grated on someone. It's rather like Jim C. Hines essay about the value of a negative review on his books. I've never gotten a negative comment on my blog. That's because this is a journal rather than an opinion piece.

Gaming/sci fi convention and Tat It And See

I spent most of this past weekend going to, at, or returning from Scarab con in Columbia, SC. We traveled down on Thursday and the con started on Friday. It takes advantage of the holiday on Monday to last for four days. We drove back today.

We played Pathfinder Society all weekend. I signed up to run a game Sunday night. We played only two session for each day. Part of that was the big game Saturday night was a Special and we haven't played the scenarios leading up to it.

About a month or so ago I checked the game sign ups online and didn't have anyone signed up for the game I had volunteered to run. I switched to a game with 7 people signed up to play. It's up the GM if they are willing to run with seven people at the table, but 6 is an easier number to handle. I signed up to GM, too; waitlisted. Since then, someone else signed up so we could have two tables of 4 people. With walk-ins, we had two tables of five people.

Jane's Tat It And See started January 7th but I totally missed the beginning. I could not find a button, without cutting one off a shirt. I finally found one, right before we left. On Sunday, I managed to get started. Five days were out so I did them all at once and took a picture after each stage and sent all five to Jane. I have a guess what the end result will be.

Day Five

Day Four

Day Three

Day Two

Day One

While I was standing in line, I was tatting a heart (clearing my shuttles for the TIAS) and someone noticed. She (Mary) was entranced and loves to crochet. I gave her some info about tatting (Here Be Tatters, Georgia Seitz, YouTube, InTatters) and the heart I'd made.





I've made progress on the knitted wristlet. I'm past the recommended 36 rows, where the thumb hole should be. Since 36 rows were too small, I've kept going. I need to measure my hand.

Sorry about the peculiar formatting. Editing on my tablet has odd results.

Jury Duty and other matters

Do you like to play board games? Are you uncertain about what board games to get or play? Here's a flow chart.

Do you want impetus to try more games? Or just to play games more often? Try 51in15; play 51 discrete games in 2015. These games can be tabletop, board games, card games, played a thousand times, never played before, published, unpublished, playtested, etc. You only count each game once. There are badges, to post, to gloat over, however you choose to use them. The site I linked to has the badges and some ideas. Enjoy.

C got a KitchenAid for Christmas. Now we need to find a place on the counter to put it. We have a possible place, if we get rid of his knife block and do something with our hot chocolate collection. Since we've been trying to eat healthy and I started having problems with milk, we haven't been drinking as much. We had a couple different flavors, and been getting some as presents. We need to decide what to do with it. Unopened boxes will probably go to the food bank or something similar.

This just makes me want to scream. (article about San Francisco seeking exemption from the ADA for police interactions.)

And in case you missed it, Muslims did react to the shootings at Charlie Hebdo. 

Tuesday I had work thing, a half-day retreat. I didn't go. Instead, I had jury duty. Whee?

First, photogenic, project from my new Japanese tatting book. 

The one on the right is the one I did first, and my tension was too tight. I did better on my second try.

And here are the first two bracelets I made this year.

 And I finally finished my lace wristlet. And its a leeeeetle too small.

And here's a picture of a neighborhood in Greensboro, NC. They hang these lighted balls for Christmas.

Happy New Year (Roman calendar)

I could look up which Caesar changed the new year to begin in January but I'm feeling too lazy to do that. There are lots of calendars so I could easily wish everyone a Happy New Year at least 3 more times without even thinking hard about. I'd just need to look up the exact dates as two of them are based on lunar calendars.

My goal this year is to post at least once a week. I'm not going to say what day of the week, but I'll strive for Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here are some websites I've been reading:
okay, this one I'm playing; creating custom miniatures for my characters
https://www.heroforge.com/
About women (some real, some fictional, some...in-between) who stand out
http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/
If you're on Twitter and had a problem with certain people who claim to be concerned about "Ethics in Game Journalism" you may find this tool helpful
https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker
I think this game looks adorable and I really want to play it
http://penguinking.com/games/costume-fairy-adventures/



My friend A.H. gave me a Japanese tatting book for Christmas, Tatting Lace Accessories. She went to Japan this past summer and I had asked her to look for one, more hopeful than expectant. She confirmed the difficulty in finding a book on a topic, a somewhat rare topic to boot, when you don't know the local name for it. However, she found one for me after the trip. Wasn't that nice?

Bracelet I made of A.H.

This is the scarf, around my neck and in my lap

My stepmom gave me a fabulous infinity (aka Moebius) scarf. A friend of hers arm-knitted it, using boucle yarn. When I put it on, the other end is somewhere near my ankles. I can wrap it twice and it serves as scarf, shawl, head cover, etc. My sister-in-law made me a pine cone wreath. I haven't put it up yet, I need to find my wreath hanger. My stepmother and Dad also gave me a lovely deep burgundy pashimi scarf. It's almost large enough to serve as a c. 1814 shawl; but then shawls that size could fit a twin bed as a coverlet.

My niece is in college now, she started this past September. I gave her a gift card to the school store and a bracelet in her school colors. She was really happy to see those. The small moleskine calendar and pocket Shakespeare seemed to be hits, too. I gave Dad a copy of Wilfred Owens poetry; to my stepmom, I gave some pods for her new Keureg and a small prayer box ornament from hungersite.com (note I don't know if that link goes to the Keureg she has, I just linked to a random one). To my brother, I gave a DVD about the development of roads and other travel in NC. For my Midwestern sister-in-law, I gave a book on Southern cooking. All the presents seemed to go over well.

For C, I looked at his list and bought a t-shirt he wanted; a 9 pounds of King Arthur Flour (pastry, pasta, and whole wheat pastry, the King Arthur flour baking book, and from mom a pastry cutter. I found a cute pair of socks for R and a couple things from her list. My one huge goof was giving someone a calendar, who already had 3. At least the one I gave him, The Big Bang Theory superhero one, is entertaining and came with cards.