Travelling Time and Space

This is the self-proclaimed missive of a new officer of uour group and yet I find myself more and more ready every day to just get the hell out of it and be just a member again. Instead of getting excited I'm getting more and more frustrated by this officer's actions and reactions and less and less willing to be involved. And that's coming from somebody who according to some "has way too much energy and enthusiasm for one such small person". Now what is this going to be like for people who are entertaining the thought of becoming involved ? Of quietly wishing to become involved ?

as opposed to a dead one. *sigh* Some people just love to discuss something that actually isn't a problem at all. Arguements fly back and forth and people get all wonky while you sit there and all you want to do is bang your head against something hard hoping this will distract from the frustration and add a new sensation to the feeling of utter genuine bafflement you experience every time you open yet another email. 30 years and none the wiser.

With a loud Bang! the base of my model viking furnace exploded off the beehive-top - at 500F in the baking oven no less *G* Needless to say I was impressed. Talking to Susan solved the mystery of the exploding clay ware : I forgot to wedge it. [Wedge ? Huh ?] You need to beat the holy bejeezuz out of clay to get rid of possible airbubbles because they will explode when baked. No kidding, I now know that *L* The beehive top part of the furnace model stayed intact though and looks just the way I want it. As soon as I can bring up the strength to beat several pounds of clay into submissive airbubble-less pulp I'm on my way. In the meantime I'm taking notes for my documentation and as always plot and plan what we can do a&s-wise in the Shire. If you have any ideas please let me know :) Inspiration is always good and my brain can only come up with so many insane ideas ;)

Bah ! So after announcing the in my opinion pretty mission statement the SCA tucked in its tail, apologized for sending it out prematurely and is now looking for input and feedback on the matter. So we don't get to slap the elves and other not so medieval abominations with it afterall. I just don't see what's wrong with it and why the governing body can't simply publish a mission statement *scratches head* Afterall, we put them into the position where they get to make decisions. My biggest fear is that in case too many SCA members start falling in love with plastic elven ears they are going to include that in the mission statement ... *shudder* Where is a medieval reenactment group when you need one ?

There are times when our throw-away society drives me bonkers. We want more stuff, more things, more clutter in our lives and what does it mean to us ? Nothing. It's so much cheaper, so much easer to just throw this stuff away than to fix it, alter it and preserve it up to the point where we become careless with the things we own and other people's things. On other days I quietly rejoice in the fact that some people like to throw stuff away instead of keeping it, lovingly fixing it and perhaps passing it on like a family heirloom. One of those days made me the joyful owner of a little sewing cabinet that a friend of mine found on the curb waiting for the garbage truck. It's a beautiful little thing made from dark mahagony style wood with cute little dental work along to top and three little drawers, one of them neatly laid out for spools of yarn and with a built-in needle cushion. How funky is that ? Yesterday it movd in and today it sits there, contend in its new corner and shining from the wood polish I rubbed into the somewhat dim-looking wood. So, thank you to the unknown who threw it out. It's a lovely piece of furniture :o) On the other hand, of all the sewing machines I own [and that's 2 german machines and 5 american machines] not a single one fits into the cavity *G*

Today I have finally begun my norse glass bead project. My goal is to recreate norse glassbeads not only in style but - hold your breath - in technique and I'm not talking how to hold the mandrel and what colors to use in which patterns. I actually plan on building an actual furnace. *Grins* I think I did mention before that I get slightly over enthusiastic sometimes, yes ? Well, there are about 20 pounds of clay sitting on my porch waiting to be turned into a viking era style furnace for glass bead making [and yes, I do have a torch *g* but how much fun and how adventorous is that ?]. I just sat down with my son and while he was mucking about with globs of clay and some water I made a tiny model of the furnace I want to build. Pictures are going to follow soon :)

SCA The Society for Creative Anachronism provides a structure for enthusiasts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance to explore various aspects of the period in Europe to 1600 AD. As accurately as possible, the SCA’s members strive to adopt the lifestyle, culture, technology, clothing and accoutrements common to those living during the time under study. The SCA encourages members to learn by doing, to research period arts, sciences and activities, to share their knowledge with others, and to behave in a chivalrous manner in all their interactions.

For christmas I got a complete set of silicone baking forms [yeah, that wasn't quite what you were expecting from the title, hm ? *snicker*] and today for the first time I put one of them to use. I love to cook but I'm not much of a baker because I have a hard time following recipes and that's what baking requires. Anyhow, this morning and due to the large amount of stale bread we had lft-over from last weekend's eastern-european feast I decided to make breadpudding. It turned out great but the best thing was how easilly it popped out of the silicone baking form and how easy it was to clean the form itself. All I had to do was rinse it, heh :) No scrubbing, no scraping - just rinsing ! Just thought I'd share that. Go, silicone baking forms, go !

The Castlemere Cookies are getting together today for yet another [ahem *cough* ... the second actually] medieval cook-out. This time we're tackling the eastern european cuisine with cabbage and beets and honey :)

There are going to be 14 people to cook at my place today so it's going to be a wee bit busy *L* Tim is designated babysitter to get Finn out of harm's way but first he has to teach his first -real- class at UNF. You go, hubby, you're going to rock !

Gotta finish setting up and decorating the den for later !

Tada !

Alrighty, folks, here's Castlemere's new A&S blog-webpage. The blog-style allows me to do quick and easy changes hourly if I want without having to do much coding at all or even having to go through the webminister who'd want to kill me after a week *G*

http://castlemere.twoday.net" title="http://castlemere.twoday.net" target="_blank"http://castlemere.twoday.net

As you can easilly tell by the lack of contributions to this blog I've been busy :)

Christmas in PA with the in-laws has been fun dspite the cold and grey and snowy weather. I'm still convinced I can be perfectly happy without the months of wintery twilight where everything looks washed out and appears in shades of grey : grey-brown, light grey, dark grey, greyish green, etc. Two days without proper sunlight was all it took to turn me into a sluggish zombie-esque creature skulking about the house bundled up in thick wooly sweaters :) Finn seemed to be going through the same pre-hibernation stage but was somewhat more excited about the white fluffy but oh so cold stuff in front of grandpa's and grandma's house *G*

Florida welcomed us back with bright sunshine, a sparkling sun and balmy temperatures just shy of 70 degrees Fahrenheit [about 20 degrees Celsius]. We enjoyed New Year's fireworks drinking champagne on our front porch with a light jacket against the night chill :) Heh, that's the way I like it !

For the past weeks prior to my taking over the office of Minister of Arts & Sciences for Castlemere I've been trying to encourage people to teach classes - successfully, if I may say so because by now I've got all my classes until the end of may and I have more potential ones lined up that I can actually commit to a 'theme' for the summermonths perhaps. So far things are going well *S*
I even set up a little A&S webpage styled as a blog for easier and faster maintenance - nothing worse than webpages that aren't uptodate. Hubby's having fun playing chronicler and planning the newsletter, just in case you were wondering, and contrary to what I said before I am thinking about running Scriptorium again :)

Insane ? Yep, guess so ;)