Travelling Time and Space

Will be back wednesday !

They are pretty much everywhere stacked to Mi-tall slightly wobbly towers and I'm perched on the couch between the cardboardbox mountains speaking of my daily packing activities. There are still 3 more bookshelves, the closets and of course the storage room to go but for tonight I'm out of boxes and everything will have to wait until tomorrow. Not a bad turn of events if you ask me ;)
It's finally starting to look like we are going to move this weekend. Walls are bare, cabinets empty and shelves gaping. I so can't wait to get all our stuff into place at our new nest. It's such a gorgeous place !

Of course, now all my projects are on definite hold. If all goes well, and considering my experience of my last two moves, everything will be back to fairly normal in about a week. No kidding, I'm the master of moves :)

Finn's been a real blast today : chatty and very helpful in his own kind of way *L* Babbling until there were fringes around his mouth he kept dragging a small cardboardbox along, his pockets stuffed with duct tape and a pair of scissors, Mr Whiskers trailing curiously behind him. It was so much fun to watch him and I can't wait to see how he'll like the new place. He'll have so much more room to move and explore *S*

Anyhow, time to feed my wonderful and just as sniffly as myself husband :)

Talk to you later !

Well, at least for now. When the temperatures dropped to be low 0 degrees Celsius all my begging and cooing and baiting finally had some effect on the poor little cat and she came back in. She hasn't moved much and spends most of her time curled up on the bed.
She is now a lot calmer than before, patient as ever with Finn's clumsy signs of affection. The only thing that has changed is that she obviously hates the little tomcat now. As if it were his fault. All she has to do is see him and the yowling, snarling and hissing will begin, low and deep in her throat as a first warning, then louder and followed by a clawed paw when the little guy doesn't get away in time. Odd, that, isn't it ?

I feel rotten :(

I think I caught a spin-off version of Finn's strep throat and since yesterday I'm feeling slightly more dead than alive. Nyquil worked its little magic on me though and I feel not quite as dead as I felt yesterday but still not really good.

However, as a little bright spot on the horizon, I got a sewing machine for free. Freecycle sometimes rocks, even though I constantely have troubles with people not replying to my emails or not picking up stuff they wanted. I don't know why but why go through the hassle of answering an offer in the beginning, come up with a reason why you want it and why I should choose that person, maybe even going so far as to decide on a date and time for pick-up only to turn into a no-show ? I mean, c'mon, either you want it or you don't.

I even had a woman telling me she'll pick up everything I have to offer since she's working for a charity organization. Well, somebody tell that organization that she's hot air only. She never replied any of my emails nor returned my calls. This makes it - unfortunately - very tempting to post "Wanted" emails only and to reply only to those wanted-emails. They seem to be more reliable.

Enough ranting, time for a hot bath and some time out. Did I mention that our place looks ever so prettily exploded because of our upcoming move ? Bleah, I do not like cluttered rooms *crunches up nose* I really don't, they make me nervous. Cluttered drawers and closets - fine but I need open floor space to be happy. We should have plenty of that at our new place ;)

I think Boots - pissed about the abuse of going through unconsented spaying - has left us for good. No good-bye letter, no flowers, nothing.

I let her out on the porch yesterday because she seemed to be doing fine and the weather was great : sunny, warm but not too warm, just purrrfect. She hoped out, slowly walked towards the bushes and then she was gone. She didn't come back later and she wasn't waiting to be let in early this morning like she used to do before she had her kittens.

Bah :o/

Mr Whiskers seems to be enjoying his new status as only-cat in the house though ...

The Finndragon came down with high fever yesterday and since it didn't get better but worse with him crying from obvious pain, trouble swallowing and a runny nose and no comforting nor babymedicine would do the magic of bringing back night's sleep we finally took him to the ER at 3:30am.

Actually, that's not a bad time to go to the ER. Depending on what you have you might actually survive going to the ER. Jokes aside, in the middle of the night seems to be the only time of the day when the ER is not packed with people and you don't have to wait 4 or more hours before you get to see a doctor. If you could only time your emergencies properly ...

Anyhow, we got to see our favorite pediatrician : Dr Kostecki. It's not like we have seen her that often - yesterday was the second time she checked Finn - but she is sweet, friendly, great with Finn and takes parents seriously.

She is also not afraid to run tests on things that might be a little off. Usually strep throat affects kids 4 years and older and is almost unheard of from kids of Finn's age unless they are exposed to germ-y daycares, etc.
Finn is a stay-at-home kid with a stay-at-home mom and our only exposures to other people's germ are at the church's nursery and the Mops group we attend twice a month. I still think neither was the place for Finn to catch the bacteria that are causing the strep throat though. He just had bad luck.

He is still feverish and very much on the whiny side but at least he ate dinner again and drank a good amount of water, tea and milk during the day so that's a turn for the better. He has trouble going to sleep and I'm sure it'll be another rough night.

Wish us luck, it should be better tomorrow !

Man, she is not a happy cat ! Boots gloomily stalks the apartment stopping only to glare through the window at the now dark porch and to hiss and to snarl at the poor little Mr Whisker who is mightily confused about his mom's evil mood.

Now, let's hope that'll change for the better :)

Boots is going to learn to hate me today. Me and the travelcrate because today I took her to the animal clinic to have her spayed. Later today we get to pick to pick the poor thing up again and I'm sure she won't be happy about the whole procedure. On the other hand, there is no way we can find homes for all the kittensshe would happily produce aside from the fact that having litter after litter wouldn't be too healthy for her either.

Mr Whiskers, the little shit, is allowed to keep his balls for a bit longer ;) he is too young to be neutered yet.

On a brighter note, after her surgery Boots will be allowed outside again. I felt sorry for her having to keep her locked up inside knowing how much she enjoys lounging on the table on our porch. And she will possibly stop yowling and chirping after the red tomcat that's sneaking around the house day and night. So it's all for the better and since I'm not much of a catperson I can live with a bit of feline resentment, really.

Last night was a lot of fun :) I surely have missed those little gatherings at my place and I'm looking forward to resuming A&S service again ;) Paul and Tamara, Darlene, Thalia and Martine stopped by to help pint those competition scrolls and we got a fair amount of work done. Huzzah to the Castlemere Scribes ! *G*

As soon as I'm done with my kingdom scrolls and C&C scrolls I can tackle my other secret project. So far I've only been doing some brainstorming and surfing and I think I have a fairly good idea of where I'm going with it ;) More to come !

So today is Cutlasses & Corsairs scroll night at my place and scribes will gather after nightfall to paint 11 competition scrolls for our upcoming shire event.

I based the combat related competition scrolls on pirate's treasure maps and except for the little mermaids and the seasnake and the calligraphy of course they are as far from being period and authentic as battery-powered sewing machines *G* However, they look cute and make for a pretty keepsake ;)

The "Bard of Castlemere", "Warriorbard of Trimaris" and the 2 "Cornerstone of Castlemere" are based on folios from Books of Hours and thus a tad more on the period side even though writs would be more proper for this purpose. Or rather, all awards in general. Very few period writs and charters came with illumination, much to the SCA illuminator's dismay but to the SCA calligrapher's pleasure. I'm a bit of both although I've started to lean towards calligraphy.

Anyhow, I'll have at least 3 people show up to help me paint the scrolls so I hve some cleaning to do this afternoon to make our place presentable to the public ;)

Tata ! Talk to you later !

Thalia can't come tonight since she miscalculated her henna hair treatment *g* and so we postponed our painting until tomorrow. Since tomorrow is the evening I reserved for my scribal partners in crime to paint the competition scrolls for Cutlasses & Corsairs I got started on my tourney billet anyhow :)

One project at a time - I can't do both tourney billet and competition scrolls tomorrow, right ?

This is how I did it :

First I sanded the wooden placque down lightly. It has a few smudges and stains but nothing bad so it was more to clean it up a bit.

Next I grabbed one of the templates on Coat of Arms I have filed for scribal purposes and penciled a quick light draft onto the wood using a regular pencil.

After correcting a few curves of the acanthus leaves and deciding on the final layout I cleaned up the lines erasing the lighter pencil lines and darkening the final lines by applying a bit more pressure.

Now it's basically ready to paint :)
That was easy enough !

Before I'll start painting my tourney billet I'll draw the blank shield with mantling and helmet onto Thalia's placque. She claims to be one of those drawing-skills challenged people and I promised to help her with it :) Since she will actually get to use her tourney billet this upcoming weekend I decided to give her the sturdier one of the two wooden placques I found in the old trunk. The molded edges are a bit more pronounced but the size and shape is pretty much the same.

Off we go a-penciling :)

Actually, once you know what you're doing it goes fairly fast. I managed to pencil and finalize Thalia's tourney billet in about 15 minutes. Heh, I could start mass production *L* Both tourney billets are done and all that is left is painting in the colors. We are going to use acrylic paints because they are bright and will last through lots of rain :)

I took pictures of the whole process and once the film is developed [yep, still no digital camera :( ] I'll upload them to the brandnew project-gallery !

Until then, be good !

Projects. I think I'll create a gallery for stuff I've done so I can point people to pictures of my projects more easilly.

Sounds good ?

I mean I've posted pictures of various projects here [scrolls, rosaries, garb, etc.] but nobody - including myself - is going to browse through the past months to find out what I did, when I did it and what it looks like.

Stay tuned for the link to my new and improved projects gallery !

The all too short weekend is over again and we're 2 days closer to our moving date. So there is less time, but still enough to squeeze in some small SCA projects.

Tonight I'm meeting with Thalia to paint tourney billets. These are small wooden placques, ideally heater shield shaped but not necessarily so, painted with the equestrian's personal arms and motto to be displayed to announce presence at an equestrian tournament.

Spiffy, eh ?

I know there is no chance and no time for me to get started on equestrian activities anytime soon [remember, one project at a time and no spreading myself too thin] but at least I can make stuff *G* like barding [heraldic clothes for horse] and tourney billets. I'm sure I can find another non-equestrian use for those too :)

Anyhow, since I found two wooden placques the right size although not heater shield shaped in the big overseas travel trunk we picked up from a pile of trash at the curb [it was literally stuffed with all kinds of odd fabrics, craftkits and pictures] I invited Thalia over for a painting-night. She is going to participate at the Emprise of the Rose Azure two weekends down the road and has been so kind as to show me how to make my first own barding.

I already have a drawing of arms with motto and mantling and crested helmet to size for our project and so we will only have to trnsfer this to the wooden base and paint it :)

More about it, and pictures, later :)

... is finally all done and on its way to its recipient *G* It was fun to do, not as difficult as I'd feared and certainly turned out to be an inspiration for future projects, hehe ... *L*

More as soon as I know it arrived at its final destination since I do not know whether that particular person reads this blog or not.

Off to another secret project ! *GRINS*

Well, honestly, I do not really believe in New Year's Resolutions, at least not the usual ones like "I'll loose 30 pounds" or "I;ll quit smoking". Either you do or you don't - a certain date like New Years has nothing to do with it.

Anyways, based on last year's madness I came up with a few SCA Resolutions that just coincided with New Years :

- one project at a time. Living in a new kingdom with many more resources has its advntages but the big drawback is that you can get carried away easilly trying too many things at once. I'm still finishing up last year's projects that I started and then set aside to do something else. That's going to stop. I'll tackle one project after another from now on :)

- focus. I've been doing the "whipping out scroll after scroll" since I started doing calligraphy and illumination, and while it's done wonders for my calligraphy I do not feel that I have improved much in illumination. That needs working and focussing on by doing more elaborate and detailed illuminations instead of many and small ones.

- organization. I'm going to organize my research and get ready to enter an ArtSci. I need serious feedbck to see what it is I'm doing :) So far I have three good ideas for projects lined up and plenty of paperwork to go with either.

That's it :) What're your New Year's Resolutions ?

Guess it's been a while :)

Our trip to germany was quite a trip. Both ways, to and fro germany, we were exhausted because of too little sleep, too little room to move and stretch out and too many uncaring flight attendents yelling at us "Do you want tea or coffee ?" despite all our frantic miming to be quiet when Finn had just fallen asleep. Of course, he would jerk awake and start screaming.

So after 15 hours of travelling and a quick nap at Amsterdam Airport we arrived at our final destination where my Dad was waiting to pick us up and take us home. My mother, sister, her son and my grandmother were already waiting for us und since we arrived just in time for christmas eve we moved from hugging and welcoming each other to unwrapping christmas presents. Finn was zooming around, squeking and squealing and laughing as if he were on drugs and of course the crash-down followed right after dinner. Finally all the travelling and exhaustion and strangeness of everything took its toll and he would only calm down if he held on to either Tim's or my hand. It was a cheap and welcome excuse to crawl into bed with him and call it a night.

We spent a great week with my parents who enjoyed having their grandson no. 2 around and we even got to see snow ! Finn was absolutely fascinated by the white 'sand' but preferred to wear gloves when playing with it.

Funny enough I was happy to come home again. We caught a stomach bug in Orlando just before driving back to Jacksonville and one after the other we came down with a 24h case of ...well, not so fun things to do and felt genuinely miserable, but still it was good to come back home. It's amazing how much I've learned to regard Jacksonville as my home during the past year but it's true. And the friendly people working at the local supermarkets are just one reason of many ;)