Travelling Time and Space

What to write about ? What to write about ?

I twisted my back a couple of days ago and that faint underlying pain makes my brain a tad mushier than usual, especially in the evenings after hauling around the 20+ pounds of babydragon :?

However, today was kind of nice and exciting since I discovered that our toothless babydragon has been toothless for the longest time : his gum is showing the first sign of a tooth just waiting to break through ! Soon his maniac grins and bright beaming smiles are going to be crowned by the first white of a pair of teeth on the lower, then another pair on the upper jaw *G*

Isn't that cool ? :D

I'm still on the tentquest and actually ca
lled a place, leaving a message on their answering machine - all I want is a pricelist to see whether I'll end up sewing one of those bastards myself or not !

Wish me luck :wink:

Planning or rather brainstorming with the rest of the gang for Panhandle Skirmishes [BIG event in november with an estimated 1000 people attending] is fun and scary at the same time - I've never ever been to an event this big let alone helped run it - EEEEP !

I'll be the scroll-crat, responsible for the scrolls necessary for the event [welcome-letters for the Crowns, award scrolls, etc] and I'm going to help with the decoration since there's only so much you can do with a babydragon on your heels :D

And now, well now I'm running out of words and will stop for tonight and let my brain relax so that maybe tomorrow I can write something that makes more sense than this jumble of thoughts *g*

Until then, be good - people are already too good at being bad, try the opposite for a change :wink:

[b]
Finished projects :[/b]
- 2 Herald Tressures in time for next weekend's Art-Sci event
- 3 Order of the Emerald Seas
- 1 Flower of Chivalry
- 2 Award of Arms for Drachenwald
- 1 Lindquistringe for Drachenwald
- woolen cloak with hood for Finn, handsewn and lined

[b]
Projects in progress :[/b]
- woolen cloak for Tim, so far handsewn, still needs lining
- woolen caftan for me, all handsewn and too needs lining
- tent tapestry : penciled the design onto the piece of linen, needs painting now since I'm not going to embroider it [*g* I'm not -that- insane ]
- 2 Award of Arms for Drachenwald, still needing illumination
- 1 Panache for Drachenwald, still needing illumination
- 1 Flower of Chivalry for Trimaris, illumination needs to be finished
- 1 Order of the Emerald Sea for Trimaris, needs illumination
- 1 Crown's Acclaim for Herald Display for Trimaris, needs illumination
- 1 County scroll for Drachenwald layed-out

[b]
Projects in the planning stages[/b]- lampworking : I've been reading all about norse beads and beadmaking I could lay my hands on so far; all I nee is some quiet time to mess with the torch and the glassrods *g*
- 1 Crown's Acclaim for Heraldic Display
- 7 Crown's Order of Gratitude
- summergarb for the three of us including leines, ionars, tunics, smocks, aprondresses, headcoverings and shoes [Tim promised to help *g*]
- and encampment stuff

And then there's still that tent *sigh*

People wonder why I don't really like telephones and - even less - cellphones.

The reason is fairly obvious [at least to me] and easilly explained : I have seen too many people being the slaves to their cellphones or so bored out of their minds and with a little fullfilling life that the most exciting thing they can do is use their cellphones whereever they go, sit, stand whether it be bus, supermarket, car, home, etc; work kept me always on the phone : nice calls, not so nice calls, long ones, short ones - all day long, so by the end of the day I was genuinely happy to be able to escape the calls.

And then there are those phonecalls carrying bad news.

Today a friend from home called telling me that he was diagnosed with chronic leukemia, not yet in the aggressive stage and despite some rheumatic pain caused by it he's doing fairly ok. He is a big burly guy, loud and rough around the edges, but I know that he wouldn't have minded a real hug.

And people wonder why I don't like phones .

I can't believe it - it ATE my last two entries !

*grumble*

It's not even 9pm and I'm dead-tired, short of falling asleep while typing but

the weekend isn't quite over yet; there's dinner that's filling the whole apartment with the mouthwatering taste of ovenfried chicken and rosemary and garlic roasted potatoes and crisp salad, and I'm starved [or maybe that's just what being tired does to me; however, I'm not freezing which I usually do when hungry and tired - hmmmm, odd]

See, I'm tired, I'm babbling meaningless stuff :shock:

Aaaanyways, the weekend that's not quite over yet has been fun : we went to a little party with other SCAdians and even the occasional Non-SCAdian on saturday night and ate burgers, mushrooms, sweet peas and potatoe salad and sang karaoke [ no kidding *g* ]; we even got "adopted" into the little group and have now people to camp with at events !

We went to a fun thrift store [imagine fleamarket gone sophistic with a storefront and a cash register] and bought woolen blankets to make cloaks [ and yes, we're still oin Florida *g*] and found lots of old singer sewing machines and I got to have one !

Bridgy, you would LOVE the place *g* they are all in nifty "vaulted" wooden cases, one prettier than the other and I found one that has the original manual and lots of bobbins with it *G* Now I only have to wait for the store owner to return from his vacation to bargain with for that sweet little thing *sigh*

Oh, and in case you have the pleasure of meeting Bridgy *g* she and her sewing machine love are addictive - if you don't like the thought of sharing your house with at least half a dozen vintage sewing machines [that still do their work, mind you] - stay away from her ! *G*

If you don't mind and want to meet a very cool, talented, generous, giving person with an awesome sense of humor - go ahead :D

FOOD ! You gotta have your priorities :wink:

Talk to you later - until then, be good !

On saturdays Tim and I take turns in sleeping in since one of us -has- to get up to change, feed and entertain Finn; I just wish I had not gotten so used to those short naps and didn't have my stupid inner clock wake me after a good 2 hours telling me I should probably check on the babydragon - I hope this will wear off some in a bit now that Finn's sleeping in his own room and for longer stretches [phew !].

Anyways, after 2 hours after waking up Finn's out cold for a nap and I'm the only one awake in the house - that's the way it is :) It's a beautiful day outside : the sun is shining, the sky a bright babyblue and a soft breeze is coming through the open terrace-door.

One word : wonderful ! Just my kind of weather :D

Finn's snoozing next to me on the couch wearing the absolutely coolest jeans-shorts dungaree-style [kurze Latzhose, in german] and a tee, his little besocked feet propped up on my thighs. He's breathing regularly, slowly and very softly but if you think that means he's dead asleep - well, that's only looks. His eyes might pop open anytime without any warning so getting up and leaving him on the couch is no option. His "mama" alert might go off and that's usually the cause for him wanting to jump off the couch.

He's been acting a little clingier lately and maybe that's the first signs of the upcoming stranger anxiety stage; for now he is his usual flirty self with other people and we hope that by exposing him to coworkers, friends and other people we can counteract that or at least take some of the edge off of it.

Once in a while the binky moves; he hasn't spit it out yet, but I'm sure he will soon : it's only loosely sticking in his mouth, ready to fall out any second

He is beautiful.

His eyes are closed and so you can't see that they have turned a different shade, having gained a touch of brown to the slate-blue they were from the day he was born. They are rimmed with the longest lashes I've ever seen on a guy, and they curve lightly against his round chubby cheeks that sleep has tinted a fresh pink.

His hair is a silkysoft lightbrown fuzzy halo around his head except for the little mop on the front that's darker and longer. In sunlight you can see that he inherited both Tim's and my red sheen and highlights to his hair . What a change to the almost black hair he had when he was born !

And the skin ! So very very soft - babysoft. I don't think anything in the world is as soft as a baby's skin, so new, so little used, so fresh and clean - real velvet, the one made from silk feels rough compared to it. There' re tiny tiny silverwhite hairs on his skin, almost impossible to see or to feel.

I love watching him, especially when he is asleep, placing his whole trust into his parents to keep him safe and warm and fed.

Awake, he is an absolute hoot *L* He's funny and impish and can busy himself for a good while with his toys although cups, plastic wrapping, combs and especially his brush are considered "better" toys. He's starting to show the first signs of becoming a bookworm :wink: Granted, he currently is more into the taste of of books and so plastic or cloth books are the best choice at the moment, but there's no sunday where he doesn't insist on his part of the newspaper or a page of the book you're trying to read :P

And since we aren't carrying him around as much as he'd like us to do he's getting ready to crawl. After many attempts he's now mastered the art of propping himself onto his fours - and that's it; he either nosedives forward or flops unceremoniously back onto his tummy thus pushing himself backwards and ending up a little further away from his toys than was planned.

That's when you get to see genuine frustration :wink:

There he is again; time for mommy to get offline !

Talk to you later - be good !

So today in between entertaining, feeding and changing the babydragon, doing laundry and taking care of the general chaos that quietly tries to sneak into our lives as soon as you turn your back to it I have been trying to find a tent.

[i]Shouldn't be too difficult, eh ?[/i]

Well, by now you should know that I wouldn't be looking for a normal tent *g* I'm looking for a period that means medieval tent or at least somewhat medievaloid looking one. For an affordable price. Coming in a decent size.

[i]Yeah, rrrright.
That makes it difficult.[/i]

The affordable price is actually the biggest problem. You can buy a lot of medieval tents out there even get them custom-made in every shape, color, size and with all the nifty add-ons you can cove up with.

But the buget says "No" rather loudly *sigh*

Anyways, we want to go to Coronation and since all the cabins are already fully booked until the end of the year we'll need a tent. A spacious one since we're 2 1/2 people now and that 1/2 people needs a lot of stuff :wink:

Well, it's a CHALLEEEEEEEENGE ! Wheeeeeee *g*

I'll keep you uptodate :D

Who would have thought that one fine day I'd consider a sentence starting like this a compliment.

You ? No ? Well, I not very likely either.

However, it did happen just last sunday after a really fun saturday late afternoon.

How so ?

Well, I haven't ranted publically about the changes to my scribal tea - 'nough to say that we delayed the calligraphy 101 class to next month's meeting and instead met to work on 12 out-of-the-blue secret kingdom assignments a certain Laurel had volunteered us off to do those as well as my place and my scribal tea day. Oh, and did I mention the three-weeks deadline ? And that I have still 9 more Trimaris kingdom assignments sitting here ? Not to mention the Drachenwald backlog ones ?

Little surprise I was a tad miffed :evil:

Aaaanyways, we met, we sat down and as all SCAdians are wont to do started babbling and chatting right away trading those "No shit, there I was ... " stories and started working on scrolls.

Some had already prepared the calligraphy and a nice border to go with it and so half of the half dozen of scribaly people went straight for the paints while Paul ended up browsing through our library talking to my husband and said Laurel and I still had to layout all three of our scrolls, do the lining and the calligraphy, the inking and the painting - we started with a simple blank white page *G*

It's all about practice; and I'd gotten LOTS of that in the past and until the very day, so I managed to crank out three different scrolls, did the calligraphy and penciled in the illumination including chatting, drinking iced tea and eating chilli and cake in about 3 hours 8)

Laurelman patted my head for my nice calligraphy hand and openly admired my quick and easy way with the illumination, at one point even asking whether I'd ever had any kind of education in this field [nope, I wish I had] and how many Drachenwald A&S awards I'd brought with me [none, sorry *giggle* but I got paid by my Lord King :wink:] ...

So in total it was a very pleasant and funny and very productive evening .

On sunday I stopped by at fighter's practice to drop off some leftover cake for the remaining fighters that didn't go to Gulf Wars and there - chatting with the scribaly people and the Laurelman again - he finally openly admitted that his thought had been[b]

" Fuck you, bitch, -I_ should be able to do it with this kind of practiced ease ! "[/b]

when watching me work.

Well, I took that as a very genuine and sincere compliment and I think that earned me a brownie point - not like I have forgiven him for screwing with my scribal tea but I'm no longer really ravaging mad at him - after all, he got his Laurel in C&I so he should know what he's talking about :wink:

And, boy, I need a scanner bad *sigh* so many scrolls and all I can do is take pictures with a normal camera right now - bah !

Sorry about not updating for a couple of days again but it's amazing what your fussy baby after a few days of fever does to your priorities.

It's resetting them and getting them straight.

Finn's has had an on and off fever since friday night - cool one moment and blazing hot the other and to make it worse, for no apparent reason.
We thought it was the good ol' "I'm sorta teething, y'know" routine but no such luck - the fever kept increasing and when even the fever reliever didn't seem to lower it anymore we finally decided - after two nights of almost no sleep and a half night with not much more - to grab him and take the babydragon to a Pediatric ER on sunday night.

Of course, by the time we got there the fever was gone and our little one was his flirty smiley self with the nurses again - D'oh !

However, after quite some time spent napping and waiting we had a very nice doctor check him anyways and she found the culprit !

A minor ear infection in his left ear and a sore throat - obviously the travelling with an aircraft and drafty airports had - despite all precautions - taken their toll :(

Armed with antibiotics and Baby Tylenol we're now fighting that stupid infection and started with sleeping pretty much all of today - not the worst start, if you ask me; some sleep is always appreciated.

And, boy, am I glad that all those drugs he's got to take at the moment are squeaky pink and taste like candy - fighting with your sick baby is definitely not funny ...

Oh, and we got a few recommendations for Pediatritians since we told her that our current one is not to our liking [ Ain't I the diplomatic one here - I'm impressed; I mean I could just say that that horribly demented person is never going to get our baby into its clutches ever again *nods gravely* And if you're living in JAX, email me if you want to know who it is so you can avoid him].

Cheers !

The weekend is close - I can almost smell it :wink:

It's friday, the soup is simmering on the stove and saturday is just a quick nap away it seems. Friday nights are soup nights and so tonight we'll be having french onion soup. There's nothing like political incorrectness for dinner :lol: but so far I haven't seen or heard anybody call it "freedom soup". To add some more rebellious twist I'll add steaks and fries *g*

Considering the effect onions do have on some people's body that name might be truer to the soup's nature though - some smells can get you a lot of freedom :roll:


I'm idling about the place, alternating between entertaining Finn and de-dusting the place while taking care of laundry and pondering our SCA wardrobe.

It's warm and sunny today, one of those wonderful bright early summer days [ they seem to skip spring here] and I know that I won't be able to wear my woolen underdresses, smocks and aprondresses that make my norse outfit for much longer. Both Finn and Tim do not have much of a wardrobe, and since I have all this red and green and natural-colored linen lying around I guess it's time for a sewing spree :wink:

So for me that's at least another underdress, an overdress and probably two aprondresses; for Tim - his persona being irish - we're talking about two leines and one or two ionars, those spiffy little jackets, and Finn, well he's going to need a full wardrobe since so far he only owns a single tunic and a hood. However, he is by far the easiest to sew for It's amazing how little fabric you need and how fast even handsewing his clothes is.

Speaking of, at 6 1/2 months the babydragon is getting reay to crawl. So far he's mastered the art of rolling and scooting backwards whereever he wants to go but as of yesterday he has figured out - after much trying and lots of frustrated complaints - how to get his knees under his body when pushing up. That's it for now, and it's one of the cutest sights I've ever seen : a little big Finn bundle into a ball on his fours swaying back and forth and not quite knowing what or rather how to do next *L* Pictures are soon to follow, for those interested !

Time to feed the babydragon ! Be good !

Every first saturday I open my home for a scribal tea where a good handful of people interested in talking and learning about the scribal arts - as performed in the SCA - meet at my place for either socializing, a theoretical class or a practical workshop
Our big goal in the end is to provide a little "Book of Hours" - a personalized prayer book - to the Royal Kit to deecorate the Royal Cabin

Insane, I know, but what would life be without a twist of insanity ? :lol:

So for the upcoming months I have planned the following classes/workshops :

April - "Calligraphy 101 or About unreadable scribble and inky fingers"

ay - "Book of Hours - an Introduction to literate worship in style "

June - " Cutting quills or I ain't spending no more money on art supplies "

July - "A quick and dirty look at styles and centuries"

That's it for now, other classes/workshops that are planned at some stage are gilding, working with pigments and so on, and so on :wink:

For those who care, we made it home from our trip to PA safe and sound and about two suitcases heavier than when we left :shock:

The three of us had a great time with grandpa and grandma despite the cold and rainy weather and Finn's belated babyshower turned out to be a christmas party in march : I've never seen so many packages ranging from small to huge for one person piled up on one spot.

Of course, getting to those presents meant having to fight your way through almost 30 very baby-excited women first ; the most generous, giving and friendly women I have ever met but the most excited ones too.

It is kind of funny to watch adults use some sort of odd squeaky babylanguage, especially when they extend the use of that lingo to you as well.
However, it shouldn't surprise you much to get a slightly dour smile and a fussy-baby-in-terror-scre am upon asking "Isn't the baby sleepy-sleepy" in a highpitched screech of sorts - heh, if I were dead-tired, out of the loop because it's a solid two hours after my usual bedtime and feeling a tad suspicious about all those strangers wanting to get me into their clutches [without mommy letting them] they could consier themselves lucky if a fussy complaint was all they got :twisted:

Get out the big guns !!

Finn's just too sweet for that : easy to take just about anywhere, easy with people, friendly and flirty and wonderful to travel with [except for his weight but that's what the sling is for] - we got a lot of compliments from flight attendents and other passengers and the occasional envious look from other parents

Anyways, we're back with a truckload of toys and clothes and books and picture frames, not to mention the big items [car seat, pack'n play, etc.] which we returned to the store so we can pick them up here at home without having to deal with shipping, etc.

I guess - aside from a bigger car - we'll soon need a bigger apartment - heh *L*

Back to doing laundry - be good !

So we are packed and set for tomorrow's adventure of travelling to PA - it should be a piece of cake compared to our transatlantic flight back in december :wink:

On the other hand, Finn's gained quite some weight and is grown a -lot- but balancing him on my lap for three hours sounds a lot nicer than for 11 hours, don'tcha think ?

Anyways, I'm offline !

See you monday - until then, be good :D

Think big, folks, think big :P

'sides, it's "One thing at a time" or "One babystep after babystep" and not "All at once" although that would better suit my rather impatient nature in this particular field :wink:

Anyways, today I'm finally staining the wood and gilding the inside of the cut-out trefoils of my scribal desk - pictures are to follow soon since I'm still without a digital camera.

Now it looks pretty spiffy although I'm pondering a darker stain as to better offset the 'gold' - choices, choices, choices.

That scribal desk was one of Terafan's and my shared projects - he helped me with the woodwork on our first WWWwT weekend in november 2002. After we'd put it together it turned out that due to my not being able to envision inches, feet and metres the scribal desk was more like a busstop - sizewise *G* It was huge ! and looked like a little house.

On a later weekend after christmas I visited Terafan in Stuttgart and we modiefied it, cutting the writingboard and adding a litrtle shelf which is an awesome alteration. That way I have room to put inkjars and paints.

...or decorative items as lanterns and my drinking horn when it's not in scribal use and just sitting there in the corner of our livingroom looking incredibly pretty.

I'm such a project slut

*giggle* Now, if I only knew where all those ideas come from and how I do find the time to actually realize all or rather most of them

Okay, granted, I'm a stay-at-home mom but our cutesie-pie of 6 months old babydragon is getting ready to crawl and since we're still mostly breastfeeding this is more or less a 24h job - every day of the week Anyboy who doesn't believe this is very welcome to give it a try, say for a saturday or a sunday :wink:

I want to go to War ! Yes ! War ! Waaaaaaaaar !

Ahem, I know in times like these saying something like the above gets you at least raised eyebrows, but it's true - Gulf Wars would be awesome, Pennsic being the ultimate war for every SCAdian

However, before we can really do that with all the comfort of a fartraveller hailing from the shores of Iceland [ahem] and green coasts of Ireland we have to get all the nifty campstuff together

There's nothing niftier than a proper encampment in all its splendor and style !

So aside from the usual " I need to make garb - I have nothing to wear ! " and stocking up the wardrobe of all familymembers there is this loooong list of things I need to make before I'd call my camp stylish :P

- a big tent for the three of us plus some more room so we can entertain intentflaps during nastier weather
- a sunshade
- an outdoorkitchen with tripod and pot and firepit
- chairs and benches
- tables
- chests
- cooler-chest
- boardgames
- a bed or rather two
- cool banners and flags
- cool tapestry
- bannerstand
- curtains
- bedding
etc
etc
etc

There's basically no end to this project-list *g* I'm sure I'll discover more stuff that'd be nifty to have for our encampment while working on something else

Did I mention I'm in kingdom scrolls up to my ears and have started a monthly scribal tea with classes ?

I'm not only a project-slut - I'm also slightly insane - heh :lol:

For all of you who've been missing those regular updates the past days - it's going to be even worse !
:twisted:

Remember ? We are heading for PA on thursday and between babyshower and excited grandparents and husband and babydragon there's going to be no time at all for weblog updates.

Sorry :wink: I promise to be better when we come back home again.

What I've been up to since my amazon-package arrived ? Well, I've actually managed to find some time to read and to drool over the most stunning pictures of medieval and renaissance illumination while trying to find some more time for lampworking [no luck in this respect so far - guess that'll have to wait a few more days]. I've managed to deepen my research into viking Iceland and found some things I want to incorporate into my SCA persona [You're looking up what ? Volcano eruptions ??]. I'd think that a volcano erupting next oor would have some impact on a norse gal living in a turf house, right ?

Thought so.

I painted 3 award writs, too. Yay me ! They are very renaissance-y with a border that's called "squashed bug" in scribal slang because it features a border of goldleaf with flowers and caterpillars and butterflies painted on them, thus "squashed bug" .They are beautiful and actually a lot of fun to paint since I do them freehand, i. e. I don't draw them first and paint the outlined design but just paint them onto the gold border.

Much more fun that way :wink:

Question : Biggest mistake in dodging royalty ?
Answer : Doing calligraphy on too many scrolls .

Last saturday we went to "Cutlasses & Corsairs", a pirate-themed SCA event sponsored by my group. We daytripped because we haven't done overnight camping with the babydragon yet and are saving that experience for some time in spring/early summer or early fall.
It was fun ! I met many new and old people, got to match faces to names and was called to stand up and present myself in court by the Queen after the King had to read my name on the back of too many scrolls.

So much for staying undercover - heh !