It's SPRING

And Impossible Astronaut day. Why do I have these hash marks on my hands?

It's the day after Earth Day. And today I remembered my sunblock.

The strap on my purse broke. The thread holding the strap to the purse just gave way. I have some sewing to do tonight, don't I?

I have almost finished the baby booties. I am about halfway through the last row. I'm almost done with another minor Norwegian dragon, too. The first wing is done, I just need to do the 2nd one. I have a teapot to tat and some other odds and ends, for the Palmetto Tat Days charity quilt. I need to email Georgia Seitz and let her know I'm going to be late.

The Pathfinder Dragon's Demand game is going well. We have one or two sessions left. In late May or June, I'll be staring to run Skull andShackles. I've started prep. I've done things like sent an email to prospective players, telling them what to expect and what things are and are not explicitly permitted. I've also started an Obsidian Portal wiki/campaign doc.

Mace West, Atomic-Con, and Gnome-con all went well. I ended up running Race for the Rune Carved Key (for level 3-4) at Atomic-con with 2 days notice. According to the players, I did a good job.

This guy makes one suit a year, and it takes him 3 months to a year to make one

We spent some time sight-seeing in Savannah during Gnome-con. And I discovered that Badger Balm's shake & spray anti-bug does work. And quite well. We had one meal in the Pirate's Tavern and sat at the exact same table as last time. This time I sat with my back to the blocked door. And Chris thinks he can make Artillery Punch, in less than the 10 gallons mandated in the recipe.

My laptop was stolen about a month ago. They broke my car window while it was at a park and ride and took my messenger bag. The bag had my laptop, power cord, iPad cord, journal, and a USB lamp. Plus a bag of dice and my steel skwire forms. My iPad needed an OS update but I didn't have the memory on the iPad to do it. I booted up my old laptop, the one I haven't opened in 3 years.

After a week of updates, updates, and updates, I managed to finally get to the point I could update my Ipad's OS to 7-something. Yay!

Month of Letters, and other matters

From the title, you may have guessed this but..

So far, so good. I've mailed out a letter every day. I've also earned some achievements; first letter, week of letters, Girls Love Mail (send a card to a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer through the organization Girls Love Mail), and parcel post (I sent the late Christmas present for my niece, must remember to email my brother for confirmation that it arrived).

I've tatted one of Anne B's dragons. I have a picture of it, but it's completely untrimmed. I'm going to trim the loose threads, take another picture, and post that.

I need to locate my baby booties pattern and the appropriate thread. One of my friends is expecting a baby in July.

I have a cold that just won't quit. I've been coughing since Jan 8. I went to the doctor on the 9th and he said it was a cold; nothing to do but palliatives. He quite literally prescribed rest, push fluids, no sudafed, steam, and no whispering. The sinus drainage was giving me voice issues and the sudafed and whispering are both bad for that.

Still playing Pathfinder. R is running Dragon's Demand and we're playing about once a month. It looks like we'll be finished around June.

I did go to a local con, met Mary Robinette Kowal and found out one of my friends went to high school with her. I've been reading her Glamour series and quite enjoying them. The first one is Shades of Milk and Honey. If you like Jane Austen, I recommend them.Got interested in Month of Letters and found out she's behind it.

I've been watching Sherlock and Elementary and Marvel: Agents of Shield and Foyle's War and The Big Bang Theory and The Crazy Ones and Castle and CSI and um, I forget. Thank goodness for DVR.

We watched the movie, Warm Bodies, the other night. It's a little lame, perhaps. But it's funny, and sweet, and even a little romantic. Psst, spoiler: it's Romeo & Juliet with a happy ending.

Mom is recovering pretty well from her broken elbow but she's been having trouble seeing very far since she had her eye surgery (was it cataract? Or something else? I don't remember). At first, her eyesight was better than ever. Now she's having trouble reading road signs.

We had snow a couple weeks ago. That was interesting. It's been a few years since real snow, as opposed to a powder sugar snow, fell around where I live. Thanks to public transport I made it work just fine. I did leave early, to get home before the slush started freezing. It was...interesting enough walking on the road when a car went by on snow. I didn't want to repeat the experience in the dark, on possible ice. They're predicting more snow on Wednesday. We'll see if it amounts to anything.

Games, et al

I've been playing Oblivion Scrolls. I'm up to level 12, now and I've completed 10 quests, I think, after 40 hours of playing. I finally got the hang of persuasion.

I'm going to a belated Christmas party tomorrow. There's a general gift exchange and I don't know if I've made a good choice. I missed an update narrowing the gift possibilities. It's a gaming society party, so it will be filled with gamers. Whee! Nick, a really fun guy from Fayetteville will be there.

The next two weekends are gaming conventions, one local and one not so local. Nick will be at the local con, too. I'm supposed to be running a game at the non-local one. I guess I should read it, huh? And I need to create 2 1st level Pathfinder characters by then. I'm working on one of them today, using the new advanced class playtest.

I'd like to be tatting but every project has been frustrating lately. Thread broke, pattern mis-read, ran out of thread, what have you.

Anyone want to ask me a question?

Happy New Year (Gregorian reckoning)

It's a new (Gregorian) year and what has changed? Not really much. I'm still tatting, and gaming, and occasionally loom knitting. My niece will be going off to college in the fall and my namesake is a provisional black belt in tai kwon do.

R is running Dragon's Demand, a Pathfinder module, when all the players can't make her Forgotten Realms, DandD 3.5 home game. When her home game is done, I'll run the Pathfinder Adventure Path Skull and Shackles.

Interesting links I've come across recently:
Netflix micro-genres (pay attention to the block at the top)
Body Atlas reveals emotions

I've gotten more involved in Pinterest and in the Google+ community. My mom has recovered, about as much as she's going to, after her broken elbow last year. She just had cataract surgery before Thanksgiving and she says she no longer needs glasses, except to read. Which is disconcerting because she's been wearing glasses for decades.

If I remember, I'll come back and add some pictures from my new iPad. My camera died. Then so did the replacement camera I picked up used. Now my iPad is my only camera. It takes pretty good pictures, but it's a little awkward.

Rambling Ramble

Last year, a local group (Knight of the Fiat Lux) held a Fantasy Conclave, of gaming and goodness to raise money for the Autism Society. They asked C, R, and myself if we'd be willing to run Pathfinder. We said yes. We ran first level Pathfinder Society adventures, We Be Goblins, and rounds of the Beginner Box Bash. People had fun and they raised money.

So they invited us back this year. We ran We Be Goblins, We Be Goblins, Too; (please Pathfinder, make the sequel called We Be Goblins, Many), Beginner Box again, plus some other low level adventures. We had 3-5 tables at every round and 4-6 players every Beginner Box round. And they raised over $4000. Isn't that cool. We also made it to the auction this year and I picked up Knightmare Chess 2. They run a great con; with pre-ordered, delivered lunches on Saturday.

I've signed up for Palmetto Tat Days, registered for classes and paid. Unfortunately, the tin with my walnut Silent Tatter, Aero shuttle, and partially completed bracelet has gone missing. I had it at work last week but it's not in my bag now. I'm terrified that I've lost it for good.

Contemporal was loads of fun. Chris bought me this fabulous fan, and the same vendor has fan holsters. I bought one and it's great. It holds all but the smallest sandalwood fans and up to the size Chris bought for me (the size of my torso when open). I ended up running two games of Fate Accelerated and a quick Ironclaw adventure. I had left my notes in the car, and didn't realize it until Chris went to get food in it. So we did character generation and I ran them through Squirrel Hunt.

I bought a cute little bolero jacket at the thrift shop but the sleeves were too tight. So I cut a vent from hem to seam, hemmed the raw edges, and added a strip of white grosgrain ribbon at the hem to make them peek-a-boo sleeves. It turned out quite well.


It's been an unusually cool summer so far. Our hottest day has only been 96F (35.5C), which hasn't happened since 2004. There's been a lot of rain. Too much for it to soak into the ground, so there's been quite a bit of flooding. One day, the place where I work got 5" in a matter of a few hours. They are still fixing the damage that caused.

My aunt at the coast has decided to move to Florida, to be closer to two of her children. Her house really is too big for one person; shoot, it was too big for two people, but now that my uncle is dead, she has no reason to stay there. Although, it was great for hosting the kids and grandkids. It had 5 bedrooms plus a mother-in-law apartment. Add in the couches and air mattresses for the kids, and much of the family stayed in her house for my uncle's funeral. 

Still Alive

But it's been a very busy 6 weeks, or so. Let's see.

IOLA (you know about that), then I went to see my mom for Mother's Day weekend, then off to Tennessee for Diana's graduation party/wedding reception, my birthday weekend and Tri-Tatters meeting, off to Maryland to see a friend and his wife, and this weekend back to see Mom, weekend after is Maker's Fair, play We Be Goblins, Too, and Father's day, the next weekend is prep for Contemporal and finally Contemporal. Don't ask me about July yet. I know I have a small con at the end of the month, but I'm not thinking past Contemporal yet.

Mom loved her Mother's Day present. I found a copy of Best, Exotic Marigold Hotel on DVD, on sale. A movie she loves and I got it on sale. I swear, I think she was in heaven. We both watched the movie and enjoyed it massively. All the actors are quite good, even the four I'd never seen before (the Indian actors, I'd like to see more of them). She bought me my Christmas present, an iPad. I was a little surprised, but I love it. Just in time, too. My newly installed anti-virus software was fighting with something I thought I'd turned off and it crashed my laptop. My friend in Maryland fixed it for me, fyi.

The trip to Diana's graduation was long but it was great to see her and Chris again. They've gone to Canada now where she has a job. Guess it's time I buckle down and get my passport. Since we were uncertain if it were a one-day or two-day party (there was a typo on the invitation), we ended up being at loose ends on Sunday. We went to Gaitlinburg. We went to the Ripley's Aquarium. We saw a baby penguin and found the sea turtle (she was napping, I think).

On Saturday following, my dad, step-mom and brother drove down to take me to lunch. C was able to join us after all. His car repair was going to take long enough that he had time for the courtesy van to drop him off, him to do some shopping (cooking store for the win), and have lunch with us, then catch the van back. They brought a lovely shell disk bead and turquoise chunk necklace and tea accessory kit from Ikea. The set has a lemon squeezer, honey wand, and a combined tea ball and tray. The tray suspends the tea ball over the cup or mug, then gives you a place to put the tea ball when you withdraw it. Very nifty. It was great to see them and I really enjoyed it.

The Tri-tatters meeting was loads of fun, as always. We had a couple new people as well as familiar faces.

Then it was off to Seoul Garden for some Korean barbecue. That was quite tasty and I may have overeaten just a little. The rest of the weekend was quieter and I got some things done.

This past weekend wsa the drive to see M and his wife, B. She is such a good cook. Her blueberry pie with marscapone is incredible. She also made salmon with kolbi marinade. Must look for some of that. We played two Pathfinder modules, Scene It (both teams won once), and Munchkin. We went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. My expectations were not high, so they were met quite well.

I should try to add some pictures, but they're in my iPad. Maybe my next post will be more picture heavy.

Tendonitis sucks

Back in February I started have shooting pains in my right wrist. It got so bad a couple times I couldn't even sign my name (luckily, the store knew me and accepted my SO's signature). But I couldn't tat, knit, type, write, or do much of anything. I could read, but with my current eye issues (I can read better without my glasses but I'm nearsighted so I can't see much else without them), I couldn't even do too much of that.

It was frustrating. But I wore a brace or elastic bandage on my wrist. I stretched my tendons and eventually my wrists improved. I can now tat for more than five minutes in a row and I can hold a pencil. I still need to be a little careful, but it's better.

Of course, other stuff happened. My camera card died. A very nice person sent me a new camera, I just had to buy a card for it. And the screen promptly died. My car's steering has gone wonky. That's going to be expensive.

It's not all bad. We went to Savannah, Georgia for Gnome Con and spent some time touring the city. We found this great little shop (our shopping plan: 'hey, we've never been down this street, I wonder what's down here?') with scented soaps and knick-knacks. I found a couple of fans for myself (summer is coming, eventually) and sample sized Tiger Balm for my co-workers.

I also went back to the Frayed Knot and bought some yarn (grey and purple) to make a cowl for myself. I bought some beads from Perlina, the bead shop in back, and made 2 bracelets, one for me and one for R. I took a picture of hers, using my cellphone, so it's not a very good picture.

I

I mis-typed. It's a horrible picture.

My SO and I have nearly caught up on our recorded shows and we finally got a new remote. One that reacts when we press the button instead of one that insists I hold it down for five minutes, or press it repeatedly and then it still doesn't work.

My mom is doing much better. Her arm is out of the splint and she is recovering use of her arm.

I went to the spring meeting of the regional lacers chapter of IOLA (International Order of the Lacers?, I should look up what the acronym stands for, shouldn't I?). It was nice. I'd never been and I made some new friends.

I'll try to keep up a bit more, now that I can type again. But I make no promises.

Whoops (plus some feminist stuff)

I made a mistake on my TIAS, on the 1st day. I didn't notice until the 4th day. Here's the thread I used for the "I can't wait for the next step of the TIAS!"

 And here's my day 3 of the same, in Buzz thread

 And here's my day 3 of my original (if you look, you can see, I only did 8 rings, not 9..wait, crap, I have no idea what happened, but day 4 was not working). I've started it over.

 And here's day 4, Buzz
and below is day 1 (and partial day 2) of Mance

I guess I'm lucky that I'm so low key that I don't get harassed on-line. But here's some advice on what to do if you do see a woman getting harassed/abused on-line (link to article in Ms.Magazine online).

Tired

I missed some days in the 365 challenge. Again. Maybe I should start again from today. What do y'all think? I'm tired. But here's a photo of traffic.

It was a stop and go.

And does anyone know what this is?

Worn Out

My mom broke her elbow last week. Luckily, she had her police whistle to summon help. She's doing pretty well, all things considered. But I've been running around trying to help her. I've gone back and forth to Greensboro so much that I've practically memorized every tree.

This is from Thursday, sunset over a neighbor's roof:

And Friday:

It was a grey, foggy day. I had a great shot of a dew-laden yew tree, but the light turned green and I lost it.

I missed Saturday but here's one from Sunday (just before I got Mom out).

The weather was gorgeous both Saturday and Sunday.

Here's a little something I did on Monday.

And here's my Day 1 of Jane Eborall's TIAS 2013.

And between all this, I also prepped to run an adventure at a gaming con this weekend. I missed taking any pictures on Tuesday, but here's an unknown plant from Wednesday.

Today's picture:

and Day 2 of Jane's TIAS 2013

With a split chain! My false picot is a little off but I did the knots okay.

Distracted

Family stuff (I'll talk about it Monday) going on. It's nothing world-ending but it's demanding my attention and I probably will not be able to be online tomorrow to get the 1st step in the 2013 TIAS. I'm bummed.

And I didn't take a picture for the 365 project on Tuesday. I'm blaming the family issue for distracting me. I'll try and post what I took yesterday and today, and hopefully this weekend, on Monday.

I cooked!

Yes, this is somewhat remarkable. No, I don't have pictures. I cook a couple of entrees and a couple desserts, but I do not experiment, as a rule. But the SO came home really tired last night, so I cooked. We were out of shake and bake/oven fry so I browned some ground bison and we had ~burritos/tacos. The SO had brought home a couple fresh zucchini and some okra; and per his instructions I dredged them in panko crumbs and baked them. They were pretty good, although next time, 400F for 20 minutes and zucchini spears instead of medallions.

My visit with my stepmom and Dad went well on Sunday. We met at 11:30 and I headed home at 4pm. We didn't take up the table at the restaurant (Ted's Montana Grill) the entire time. We moved to a bench in the mall so Dad and I could talk, out of the weather, while Kathy shopped. I couldn't find the ornament I'd bought Kathy in Savannah but I did give her the watermelon tea, which should be a good summer tea. I also gave her a glass angel. It's clear glass with space for a tealight behind it. Dad liked his Marine Corps dress hat ornament I bought from the "Feed a homeless vet" store at Hungersite. I'm not sure if he really liked the coffee table book about tintype photography, but he might as he looks into it. He did really like the 'what the heck' present; an illustrated dictionary of the Marine Corps.

My Dad

Here's a flower patch in a planter near work on  Friday:

And here it is yesterday:

We had some lovely weather over the weekend, even though yesterday started frosty.

Here's my current tatting project (does the pattern look familiar?)

I'm waiting for a phone call today. One of my mom's friends called me last night, right before I went to bed. Mom broke her arm last night and I contacted another friend who was on her way to go see her. I'm waiting to find out how bad it is. So far, nothing. I'm hesitant to call, because she might be in the middle of something (or have a dead phone, or be somewhere they tell you to turn off your phone). No news is good news?

Saturday was 'return stuff and use gift cards' shopping day. I didn't have anything to return but my SO did. We shopped for stuff to use the store credit and it was a little frustrating. We were in Bed, Bath and Beyond (and he's a little scary in the kitchen area) and saw the perfect wooden stirrer/paddle to replace the dying one we have (cracked wood in kitchen/food = bad). It was in a display, so we looked through every package of wood tools/spoons/etc they had. And it's wood, not bamboo. We finally found it; it's part of a tool container/tool package. Neither one of us liked the container so we weren't going to buy it just to get the 1 tool we wanted. (insert swearing). We did find a new (dishwasher safe) cutting board to replace one of ours and a couple other items. I also found, in the Christmas clearance area, some finger lights. I wore one last night and it was perfect for my walk home. It wasn't just a light, it's a flashlight.

After BBandB, he took me surprise boot shopping. The good side: new boots! The bad side: I was wearing completely the wrong jeans (tapered leg) to try on boots, unless they were ankle boots. I have ankle boots, I want some calf-high ones. We found one or two possibilities but we'll have to go back when I have the right jeans on. We did find some high-heeled Mary Janes. I wore them for a couple hours to start breaking them in.

BTW, the harvest fruit tart at Red Robin is really, really, good.

365 project

I'm trying to do the 365 project. It's simply take one picture a day.
Here's my picture from yesterday.

size 30 DMC, variation on motif from Aug 1998 Tatting Times

I missed the 1st, so I guess my first day is January 2nd.
And here is my picture for today:

It's the same pattern, in size 20 HDT (from Shuttle Lab Trends, but I lost the label).

Here's the thread I'm using for Jane's TIAS 2013.

Isn't it pretty?

Remark from last night's Stargate 1889 game: There's pneumonia, old monia & now Classic monia.

Half the party was still captured but the airship we were on was attacked and we were 'rescued' by more canal Martians, from the Red Martians. Now we're out of the hands of Red Martians and are meeting a new political entity. Hopefully our departure from them will go more smoothly than our most recent one.

Two Posts in Two Days, Who'da Thunk?

Great, I've started a post and I don't remember what I wanted to say.

I remembered to bring my lunch today. Too bad I forgot my purse. I noticed I didn't have it while I was waiting for the bus. I had to go home to get it, which of course meant I caught the next bus. I got to work on time, but just barely instead of with 15-30 minutes to spare.

I finished reading the mystery I started two days ago. Now I'm re-reading The Hobbit. I received a small leather bound edition for Christmas. I feel all literate just reading it.

I still have a bracelet to make. I just don't know if I'll send it to the recipient as a random present, late Christmas present, or what.

I tatting a variation on the snowflake I posted yesterday. I chains are a little tighter, so my flake cupped a little bit. I'm adding a couple stitches to the chains and throwing off a ring from the outer chain. I did it in purple HDT but now I can't find it.

Here's a picture of Janis, my friend's dog. She's about 9 month's old.

I'm still playing Oblivion Scrolls. I'm level 7 now. Chris is much higher level. I'm having fun and we're finally having a little more overlap in our games.





Does anyone know what I wanted to talk about? Anyone?

Post-Holiday

Ahh, the holidays, with their hustle and bustle, are over. Now, it's time for the hard slog of winter. I did some gaming over the winter holidays, played some Pathfinder and Arcanum. I also played some Munchkin and Trekkers of Catan, or whatever it's called.

I made(tatted) a snowflake for the Sandy Hook snowflake project. And then did a variant of it in shades of purple, for myself. It's vol 7 issue 3, August 1998 Tatting Times.

Yesterday, I ran Accursed Halls (there's nothing in the Wiki when I posted this, so you can ignore the link for awhile). from Pathfinder's Thornkeep. I only had 4 players, but two were second level. It was close a couple times, and I did almost kill the dog more than once, but no one died.

There's more, but I want to get this posted today.

Look Ma! A Post!

Oh look, it's a post (see the additional picture at the end, added after Jane's comment)

Did you have a good ritual turkey day? I did. It was pretty quiet, ending with supper at my SO's parents' house. I spent Friday and Saturday playing Pathfinder games with friends. Well, Friday I ran a game and Saturday I played. Both games were sanctioned modules. For those of you not up on shared world RPG campaigns, that means they are published adventures that the game coordinators allow to count as part of the campaign.

And if you understood none of that. Don't worry, you don't have to. Just accept they were really long games.

I've been tatting a bracelet or two. And I made some butterflies for a co-worker (distantly) who is going into the hospital. Next to last time I saw her, she requested some for her hospital room but she didn't say how many. I tatted a shuttle plus worth and gave them to her the last time I saw her. I don't think she was expecting the number I handed her.

bracelet and ~matching earrings

I've been wanting to use that center bead for ages

 Oh, and I finished the hanky for my friend.

A good friend's mother died a couple weeks ago. It was both sudden, and not. She hasn't been in truly good health in some time, but still, I didn't think she was that sick. She took a turn for a worse, went into the hospital and passed quietly. This was right about the time I had a horrid cold and didn't dare visit. I haven't been able to be there for my friend like I would have liked to.

I have to give high props to zinc tablets. My coworkers, as a welcome-back-from-vacation present gave me a nasty cold. The sinus drainage started late Tuesday and I was miserable by Wednesday. I went to work anyway, because I had a training to go to. I started the zinc that night, canceled my plans for Wednesday and Thursday, called in sick on Thursday and kept my plans not to go to work on Friday. I canceled my plans to see my mom and sat around for three days, taking zinc and resting. By Saturday night, I was mostly recovered. I kept my Sunday plans and was back to work on Monday. I tried to catch another cold and fended it off with more zinc.

I managed to work another day in the community garden. Turning compost is a real workout, fyi. I have pictures! I took some and the director asked me to take more. She has a really nice camera. I took pictures of it, too. 

Uncovered bed

covered beds

compost piles

 We went to Savanna Georgia for a week. Here's a tip; if you go eat lunch at The Wilkes House, do not make supper plans. You might be able to manage a light snack later in the evening, but that's all. We visited Fort Jackson, the Railroad Museum, a few of the squares, River Walk, City Market, took a trolley tour and a ghost tour. May I say, Sorrel-Weed house? One of the creepiest places I've ever been.

Fort Jackson (designed by a West Point graduate from Wilmington NC)

It's a cannon!

spotted this fellow as we were leaving the fort

What a lovely thing to put under the stairs

Me and Johnny Mercer

Cotton Exchange, classic shot

Stationery steam engine

It's a train engine

Sorrel-Weed House: I have no idea what that pale spot is

I think it's a teenage ninja mutant turtle

And the cape I bought when the daytime temps stayed in the 50s with a cold wind