If you had invoked me before you began this journey,

Ah, life, it goes.

Got the new schedule for the next six months at work. Yes, I get up disgustingly early (start at 4 am), but the advantages are that I get Thursday, Friday, and Sunday off, and for at least part of the time I'll get a shift differential of 15%.

This is good and makes me happy. Very happy.

I'm continuing to work at a goal that is coming to be somewhat obsessive, which is management. This means looking at metrics that I'm not even sure will have any sort of bearing on anything, but it does give me something to focus on. This is proving to be, in a dark way, highly amusing.


In other news, Ryan and I have been working on the house, sorting things out and making plans. It's going pretty well.

And soon, there is a household meeting. We're not even officially part of said household, but we've reached the point where everyone thinks we are, resulting in much amusement. And glaring. And lots of the raised eyebrow or look that says 'duh' from my laurel... One could argue that actually showing up to this is a sign that resistance is crumbling.

ryan's coming back from texas today - he, dan, and chris went out there last week for the formula one race. i gather that a really good time was had by all. nonetheless, it's going to be really good to see him again.

while he's been out of town, life's been pretty quiet. it's calm and not too crazy, but it's been weird not having him around. there's been small bits of cleaning, and i've done scads of laundry that needed to be done (though i still need to hang up some of it. oops.)

today, dad came over to do laundry, and there was a chunk of cleaning done. by cleaning, however, i mean we got rid of a chunk of things in the arizona room, i freaked out a little, and then after he left i moved things to the alley and called the city to get a special brush and bulky cleanup because i'm not letting it sit in aforementioned alley (or the backyard) until the 9th.

then i called mike again about getting the yards destroyed by his landscaping crew. wooo!


best of all, however, was the fact that dad and i drove up to phoenix on saturday to meet a pair of pugs that we're thinking of adopting. brother and sister, they're a bonded pair who just turned 7. one fawn, one black. very friendly, good with kids and other dogs, they like car rides and adventures. medically, the boy needs eyedrops twice a day and the 'allergies' that are mentioned on aparn's site have been nonexistant since switching to grain-free food. their current foster mother has had them for two months (they spent over a year with the previous foster family and i gather it wasn't good for them in the end) and they've been awesome the whole time. got the home inspection on thursday, which should go well (library and craft room shall be declared off limits to pugs for the time being), at least i hope.

one of our good friends commented recently how when she comes to our place, she looks down, expecting dogs. while we're not actually looking for them, it's been one of those things where it sort of feels right. like it might be about time. this pair, well, it's been one of those things that it just seems like they've been waiting for us.

hopefully soon.

Well, final week of this schedule. I'm going to be much happier when I'm back on something closer to normal and I can get out of the house more regularly.

I'm looking forward to time to get my head on straight and settle back into something resembling sane. I've started to notice that lately the mouth and brain don't work at the same speed (fingers keep up with brain, however, which is a relief), and consequently I'm not making sense sometimes.

Work's good. Informed my manager that I was going to be bowing out of a rotational opportunity because it wasn't where I my ultimate goal was. QA's interesting, and I think I could be really good, but I want management and I really should firmly direct my attention that way.

Otherwise, I intend to spend the next few days working on some projects I've got half-done. Life is... good.

First off, Ryan won the Novice Tournament up in Barony of Atenveldt. I am obscenely pleased, and I know he's happy as well. It was good, and I'm glad I was there.

( Wherein I ramble. )

And finally, I leave you with some Bukowski.

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create."

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

PAX is over. Crown is over.

I'm fucking drained.

This shows in more than a few things. For example, friends came over on Friday night to kidnap Ryan. (It was his birthday. I was working until 9.30 pm.) I apologized, because the house right now is a mess. Like, not total sty, but it seems to be getting there.

Chatted after with Icka, and she pointed out that the house is sort of a reflection of the mind. Mine's been either completely and utterly shut down or running on what feels like pure stress. It's not fun, and it's absolutely desperately a habit I need to break. Or something like that.

Needless to say, my dad came over to do laundry on Sunday, and we got to go through another round of talking about the house. When Ryan came home, there was another round of it, once I managed to get my head out of my ass and calm the fuck down. (It had been a bad day, and I wasn't in a good state at all...) Nonetheless, the final result of all that was that there's a clean (mostly) living room and a plan for the rest of the house.

This eases my mind and has certainly made some things better.

Otherwise, things have been quiet. I've got some projects I need/want to work on, and should probably get started. Scrolls are languishing in my case, but I've had no desire to paint any of them right now.

To finish things off, tonight I decided I could definitely get the warp off the board for the trim Ryan was making me to put on a bag for Knight Light. I swear, I followed the instructions, found video, and it still fecking failed. I'm not 100% sure where, but it did. Luckily, it's salvageable, if I put it onto another loom and do it very slowly. Just means it won't be for Knight Light.

Well, someone will get a nice new tunic with it, I've decided.

It's also likely a good sign I need sleep.

Here's the schedule for the next two weeks. Eeep:

8/19: dentist
8/20: fighter practice/sewing with ianuk
8/21: gaming with bill and sara
8/22: dojo (just ryan)
8/23: tabletop gaming
8/24: mace and greatsword (just ryan)
8/25: rest day
8/26: f1
8/27: fighter practice
8/28: running about like a chicken with it's head cut off
8/29-9/3: PAX Prime
9/4: probably something for ryan's birthday
9/5: rest day
9/6: ryan's birthday and gaming
9/7: crown
9/8: warlord (just ryan)


We're not doing cosplay for pax, which makes things easier. However, I've got clothing to finish for Crown. Woo! Plan is to use a gold and blue linen for my underdress, trim it in black, and make an apron dress in blue and white. Part of me wonders if it'll be too busy, but at the same time, I think it'll be ok.

kit-wise, ryan's sort of wandering towards rus, especially with the name research he's been doing lately.

i realized that there's enough trade from the western areas of europe/vikings that i don't feel like we'll look totally out of place next to each other as i stick to mostly-viking.

Today was my birthday. It actually wasn't all that bad - had my performance review at work to boot.

Ryan got me two lovely books - the first is a lovely art book from a South Korean artist (along with some neat extras) and the second is a copy of Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, which is the Damien Hirst sale from 2008 at Sotheby's. I've wanted it for more than a few years. (He pointed out that I've not exactly been subtle in my desire for it, however.)

He then arrived home with cheesecake, tea cakes, and booze - specifically peppermint mocha Kahlua and really good vodka. If I don't have an utterly awesome husband, I don't know what he is. Needless to say, this stuff then went to Scribble to be devoured by scribes, which was good. I got to spend a night with friends and relaxing.

Pennsic prep goes along nicely: I've got just a bit of raventhourne's dress left, and I pulled most of our things that need repairing. Tomorrow's probably going to be a chunk of that, as well as finishing her hem. The complete panic has passed (and is helped by the fact that I made sure that the one cooler I was worried about has been made note of), and I think stuff is going rather better in my strange little mind.

I am a lazy seamstress. I will not deny this.

It's mostly that the outsides look decent, but the insides really are atrocious. Several years of last-minute sewing mean that I've taken to not worrying about how it looks inside, so long as it's done and I'm not about to tear it up into shreds. It's bothered me for one reason or another, but usually not enough to actually do something about it. Combine this with the fact that the serger's decided it hates me, and yeah... I'm lazy.

Now, in honor of the first two rules (Don't look like ass. Don't make me look like ass), I should note... they're solid and decent. Should not (and will not) look like a complete slob. From the outside, they're not bad (if I look at them), and they hold up decently.

I've decided that post-Pennsic will be the time for some serious work. (This will likely be minimal between war and PAXPrime, for which I also have quite a bit to finish.) I'd like to take everything we've got and, at the least, run it through the serger - even if that's not the ideal way to do these things, it's going to clean stuff up and I'll feel better.

This was the type of weekend that was needed. Pretty much spent it quietly and being semi-useless. Got some SCA work done today, though, which was good.

Generally spent Thursday running some errands, and then picked up Bioshock Infinite. Which I spent a good chunk of Thursday night through Saturday afternoon playing. It's enjoyable and I'm not driving myself up the wall with it. Both of these are very good things for me.

Saturday we ended up not driving to Prescott and the event, for a few reasons. First was that we ended up needing the day to ourselves. The second was that Ryan jacked up his back at boxing on Wednesday night and generally was feeling rather blah. It ended up being a day where we hit Star Trek up (very, very, fun) and then had dinner at Hub (cocktails, food, ice cream!).

This week's looking to be quiet and calm, which is good. I'll probably get to work on some projects, or read some. I definitely should get the nomads started.

Have Friday night off with no gaming, and even though we're hitting Phoenix Comiccon on Saturday, thinking of checking to see if anyone feels like anything. (raventhourne, you possibly game?)