Thursday, August 01, 2013

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. 


Thursday, June 06, 2013

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.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

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 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.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

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).

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

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?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

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.





Thursday, January 10, 2013

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.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

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.

Friday, January 04, 2013

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.




Thursday, January 03, 2013

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?


Wednesday, January 02, 2013

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.