Travelling Time and Space

And a Happy healthy New Year 2006 !

Last night Milica, Darlene, Martine and I got together to make venetian plaster maks for the upcoming mask balls at various events and tell you what, we had a blast !

nevermind the fact that we sat and chatted and munched on all kinds of christmas treats until almost 10pm [at which point Martine had to leave, poor girl] Milica, Darlene and I got 4 half-face masks done. 4 because my husband ran into this mad plaster session unaware of the excitement and enthusiasm that had gotten hold of us *G* In seconds he found himself on a chair, wrapped in towels and with his face gunked up with petroleum jelly :)
When the initial shock subsided he decided he wanted a bear-mask, and he's actually happy with the final result *G*

Milica was the one who triggered the adventurous approach to the masks we made. She wanted a mask with raised eyebrows and an upwards pointed nose and it all went downhill from there. I went wild with the plaster for her mask and it looks great. I got a squirrel mask although Finn went "Oh, CAT !" when he saw it and Darlene's new half maks makes her look like Disney's Madame Medusa from "The Rescuers".

Next time we get together we're going to finish them with a layer of gesso, paint and all kinds of trim and fur and lace and all kinds of other things we can come up with :)

The definition of a combat scribe:

Any scribe authorized in the penjitsu form. Usually one who participates
in the war against Royal award notification tardiness. Weapons commonly
include semi-automatic fountain pens firing black tipped cartridges.
Combat scribes often have shields to hide the name of the recipient from
passers by, and may be found in platoon strength in the back of the
Royalty room 20 minutes before Coronation.

As a thank you, the commanders usually just send the scribe back into
combat. Like the navy, the elite use the term "Seals," which is a name
that has been appended.

The Middle Kingdom actually has a Division of combat scribes. They are a
division of the Herald's department. You can tell who they are at events
because their hands are often camouflaged with black splotches. The
officers often wear gold.

by Master Ranthulfr

Right. I -should- be finishing up my scrolls and instead I find myself handsewing a pair of hosen.
No kidding.
Nice raspberry red linen and while the pattern was made after a duct tape dummy of my leg it's a teeny bit crooked. They do fit though about which I'm really happy, they stay up neatly with a little bit of help from a pair of garters [yep, made those too] and it's the first piece of my latest wardrobe adventure :)

More on that later though. Lady Lala is coming over tonight to make a venetian plaster mask for me. In turn I'm going to do some calligraphy for her. Nifty barter even though I won't be sewing a venetian dress to go with it. Heck, right now I don't even know if I'll be able to go to the event that has the masked ball. In any case it'll be something cool to have, either for later or as decoration *S*

So I'll be officially taking over on january 3rd, 2006.

Be afraid, be very afraid *G*

Remember that little fish going crazy over the bubbles rising from the pirate's treasure chest Nemo meets in the dentist's aquarium ? The one that goes "bubbles, bubbles, bubbles !" ? Well, that's what my husband does with his baby mead *G* and it's adorable :)

Yep, it's true, Tim did his first abbysteps in getting started on brewing. Nothing better than havign my Master over to give him that final push in form of yeast and other brewing gadgets. On my last trip to orlando I got a plug that actually fits the big glass bottle and now we have baby mead bubbling happily on the top shelf in the craft area. Every morning hubby will walk over to it, smile at it and watch the bubbles rise [which usually earns him a maniacally "bubble, bubbles, bubbles" from moi *g*]

I'm very happy that he's having fun with it *S* That man needed another hobby at home :) and I can't wait to try his first attempt at making mead. We're going to have that at our little 12th Night party with a few friends at our place after the mad rush of the holidays and our trip to snowy and cold PA.

More later; the little Prince just woke up and he's sniffly :/

And right now it does it on the computer *G* Rock and swing, that is. I love oldfashioned Big Band style christmas music which for whatever reason always goes right into my legs [and fingers too, obviously, as I'm merrily hacking away on my keyboard] and dares me to sing along. It's haappy joyful music and I love it.

Pandora.com makes this even more fun because it helps me find even more rocking swinging Santa rythms :) Awe-some ! Give me christmas anytime of the year. I love the sparkling lights, the bright red bows, the smell of cinnamon and cloves and baked apples, candles and the fresh crisp fragrance of firtrees. Oh, and marzipan ! Marzipan is very important for a really good Christmas. That and friends and family. Finn's round baby eyes filled with wonder and his constant "Oh wow, look at that. 's nice !" upon spying yet another brightly decorated house or watching the colorful lights draped around the window in the den change colors from red to blue to orange to green.

The only thing that sucks [and now I'm going to create an uproar] is snow and the cold *GRINS* Boy, could I do without it. This year we're spending christmas with hubby's parents in PA and guess what, they have temperatures below friggin' freezing ! *sigh*

Yes, I'm a whimp

Drachenwald scrolls are done and only need to go into the mail :) Huzzah ! Bridget, I need your mailing address again since our laptop on which I'd stored it died a sudden death *grumblepout* Please ?

Of 8 Art-Sci scrolls I promised 3 are done completely and 2 more are already sketched out. Looks like I hit a very productive phase just in time for christmas [and Art-Sci in january] :) It's good to be back to doing calligraphy and illumination after so much teaching and organizing stuff. I'm just not sure if I can squeeze in a last Scribal Tea before christmas - bugger !

Hubby just called to let me know he's picking up some stuff he needs for brewing this weekend. Now I only need to talk him into giving chocolate mead a shot.

Having a family, a goodsized apartment and all the chores that come with it, not to mention any other activities my quiet time for reading has been reduced severely. Working and single I used to be able to spend long evenings and sometimes - depending on the book - entire weekends devoted to reading, to being engulfed in other people's lives reading new stories and re-reading well-loved passages in favorite books.

Some of those passages can be found in Laurel K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake" series - a series of books revolving aroudnd the adventures, murder cases that is, of its heroine Anita Blake who lives in a very supernatural gothic version of our world crawling with all kinds of were-creatures and vampires. Fun books with likable and living-breathing characters, odd twists and turns and lots of dry humor. Last night I read my last Laurel k. Hamilton book and said good-bye to several of my favorite characters. I doubt I'll read her next book in line, "Micah" or any other book related to this series she is ever going to publish.

Why ? Because I'm greatly disappointed. It's not like her style of writing has changed or that her characters are less likable, less intriguing. Nope. I just can't be arsed to read books that revolve 98% around the sex life of their characters and who gets to have sex with whom when and where. I have no desire whatsoever to read how the main character has practiced enough so she's finally able to deepthroat a well endowed former lover in a happy threesome. And no, you won't be able to convince me that it is necessary to write about this kind of stuff in explicit detail in estimated 70 out of 82 chapters of a 733 pages book. Yeah, a lot of the supernatural powers are tied in one way or the other to intimate contact but still, too much is too much.

Anita Blake books used to be great, IMHO. I loved them dearly and couldn't wait for the next book to be available. The murder cases were wicked and twisted, the vampires intriguing, the weres fascinating but at one point all got out of control and the books turned from mystery to romance [nope, they don't get around to lighting candles before. Thought I'd mention that in case you thought it were -that- kind of romance.] and everything revolves around what bodypart goes where.

"Incubus Dreams" had roughly 12 chapters worth reading, not enough for me and my precious spare reading time. So it's Good bye Anita, Ed, Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, Jason, Louis, Ronnie, Zerbrowsky, Damian, Larry, Dolph and all the others. It's been fun.

*sigh*

... again. My mom made it home to germany safe and sound and with less nervous trauma than on her flight to the States and now it's the three of us again here. I think we're in for a vacation and yet there's no rest for the wicked. There're still christmas gifts to shop for and little projects to prepare before we leave for our home-on-the-holidays trip to PA on the 24th to spend christmas with hubby's family. It's going to be fun, I know for sure, but I'm already looking forward to being home again, just me and my family and some dear friends stopping by once in a while so we can relax and take a breather :)

I've got little projects lined up for now, some project ideas brewing and then there's this MoAS office take-over in probably january I have to mentally and probably physically prepare myself for ;) So if anybody has ideas for activities and what a MoAS should do please feel free to drop me a line. I'll appreciate any and all suggestions :)

But first things first : Breakfast !

Wow - the past weeks have been a real ride and it doesn't appear the remaining rest of 2005 will be any less of a ride ;o)

First, my Master came to visit me and we spent a fun but way too short week here in Trimaris doing stuff and talking lots. It was a great refresher in what I truely miss about having left Drachenwald. Leatherworking, gilding, bookbinding - everything was on our list, even scouring the woods for pilgrim staffs :) Finn loved that part the most. "Pilgrimage to Rome", the event we visited when he was here, was fantastic requiring a lot of work from the event crew both in preparation for and in running the actual event but everybody had a blast. It was all very relaxed and easy going and you had plenty of time to sit down and just talk to people *L* What a concept ! In the end, "Pilgrimage to Rome" turned out to be my favorite event of the past 2 years [well, leaving Scriptorium out of the race, of course] ;)

Dropped Master off at the airport on monday, raced home to clean the house all tuesday and drove back to the airport to pick up my mom on wednesday just in time for Thanksgiving. Brother-in-law and Hans, a London-based friend of hubby's, helped tackle the turkeys [yes, we had 2 'small' ones instead of 1 big one] and all the other food.
Since then we've been to Christmas parades and concerts, did some christmas shopping and a whole lot of christmas house decorating and I even managed to talk my mom into doing crafts *G* Now it's sunday, the 2nd of advent, and she's almost on her way home. 2 more days and we start our treck to the airport again ...

And in 2 more weeks we're leaving for our own trip to PA to spend christmas with hubby's family :)

And -then- we'll be needing a vacation. Really ;)