An update on some of the *dork dork dork* parts of my life...
I've had a good few days. One of the best parts was getting to talk to John twice in four days! Yay! He's got a cell phone in Afghanistan, but it's upwards of three dollars a minute for me to call him, so calls are still going to be pretty limited, but at least he's able to call when he gets a spare minute instead of having to wait until he can get to the call center on the other side of the camp.
Let's see- Friday I noodled around a bit, then took off for Ft. Worth to see Amalia, the Best Friend of Awesomeness and Kittens. Yay! (And yes, for all you smart-alecs, I do happen to like going up to Ft. Worth, although I really need to schedule in some time to get over to the Dallas side of the area!)
Got to meet Amalia's mom, and I really enjoyed that. She's a neat lady. :-)
We spent most of that afternoon getting Amalia ready to show int the Kingdom Arts and Sciences competition. Basically, getting stuff printed, doing a bit of copy-editing, and bagging it all up so we didn't forget anything. By the end of the night, it was feeling a bit like school, pushing to get a big project done, and being a bit punchy by the end of it all. :-) However, I must say it was time well spent (including making Egghead the Dress Dummy look right) because we didn't forget *anything* and even brought stuff we thought we might need, but weren't sure about, and it was nice to know we were ready for anything!
Saturday was The Big Day. We got off to a bit later start than we wanted to, due to problems getting pictures printed. I finally convinced Amalia that we didn't have the time to stop at one more place to try, and I'm really glad she agreed, because we got to the site with about half an hour to spare before they kicked everyone out of the room to start judging. We set everything up, make it look pretty and then...skedaddled!
I wandered over to another building to help set up for the Princess Tea, and had a good time with that. I didn't stay, as I'm not a cadet (I got grumped at for that later, too), but I heard lots of good things about it. I also heard some good news regarding a couple of friends who have been having a bit of a rough spot lately, and I'm happy about it. They're good people.
After that, I headed back to the judging area, to sit and wait and wait and sit for the results. We hung out and chatted, I watched a bit of the youth chivalric tourney, and then...bum bum bum! It was time to head back in and ogle all the displays as well as get judging sheets back. Amalia did amazingly well! I'm so proud that I'll be helping her put it all together again to show at Gulf Wars! Honestly, her dress is AMAZING, and you should totally come by and pet it. (Make sure your hands are clean, please!) Silk velvet is...wow. I could SO get naked and roll around on the dress and then, die happy.
We got out of the hall about 1930, and headed off to grab dinner with some friends. If you're in Athens, Texas, do yourself a favor and AVOID Mazzio's. The food, when it finally showed up, was good, but the salad bar was disgusting, my pasta didn't come with the chicken I ordered and the restrooms were horrific. (I mean, so bad that we decided to skip them in favor of a gas station.)
It was close to midnight when we finally got in, and I passed out until about 0800 Sunday morning. We noodled about, cleaned up a bit for a client that came by, had dinner and I, sadly, had to take off for home. Liam had left for Houston earlier in the afternoon, so the puppies tried to tell me they'd been crated for YEARS by the time I got in (lying puppies lie.). He'd gone to work on some new armor, and pick up...a trailer! Yay! We're now the proud owners of a one-horse enclosed trailer. It's in need of a good scrubbing, but other than that, it looks great and will be wonderful for our needs.
I've got two cotes almost done, and hope to have them completed (except buttons and buttonholes) by Sunday. Amalia is going to come spend Saturday evening with me, so that I can get these finished and I'm happy about that. It's so much easier to do them when she's around because I can pick her brain about what I'm doing. I also love my sewing guides! The Vogue book is so freakin' awesome for when I do get stuck. It's not as MUCH help when I'm sewing SCA stuff, but good technique is good technique...
Liam got home with the trailer, and John called shortly thereafter, so it was an AWESOME night all over. :-) We watched an episode of Farscape and then hit the rack. I don't want to talk about how badly I overslept this morning, though...
Let's see- Friday I noodled around a bit, then took off for Ft. Worth to see Amalia, the Best Friend of Awesomeness and Kittens. Yay! (And yes, for all you smart-alecs, I do happen to like going up to Ft. Worth, although I really need to schedule in some time to get over to the Dallas side of the area!)
Got to meet Amalia's mom, and I really enjoyed that. She's a neat lady. :-)
We spent most of that afternoon getting Amalia ready to show int the Kingdom Arts and Sciences competition. Basically, getting stuff printed, doing a bit of copy-editing, and bagging it all up so we didn't forget anything. By the end of the night, it was feeling a bit like school, pushing to get a big project done, and being a bit punchy by the end of it all. :-) However, I must say it was time well spent (including making Egghead the Dress Dummy look right) because we didn't forget *anything* and even brought stuff we thought we might need, but weren't sure about, and it was nice to know we were ready for anything!
Saturday was The Big Day. We got off to a bit later start than we wanted to, due to problems getting pictures printed. I finally convinced Amalia that we didn't have the time to stop at one more place to try, and I'm really glad she agreed, because we got to the site with about half an hour to spare before they kicked everyone out of the room to start judging. We set everything up, make it look pretty and then...skedaddled!
I wandered over to another building to help set up for the Princess Tea, and had a good time with that. I didn't stay, as I'm not a cadet (I got grumped at for that later, too), but I heard lots of good things about it. I also heard some good news regarding a couple of friends who have been having a bit of a rough spot lately, and I'm happy about it. They're good people.
After that, I headed back to the judging area, to sit and wait and wait and sit for the results. We hung out and chatted, I watched a bit of the youth chivalric tourney, and then...bum bum bum! It was time to head back in and ogle all the displays as well as get judging sheets back. Amalia did amazingly well! I'm so proud that I'll be helping her put it all together again to show at Gulf Wars! Honestly, her dress is AMAZING, and you should totally come by and pet it. (Make sure your hands are clean, please!) Silk velvet is...wow. I could SO get naked and roll around on the dress and then, die happy.
We got out of the hall about 1930, and headed off to grab dinner with some friends. If you're in Athens, Texas, do yourself a favor and AVOID Mazzio's. The food, when it finally showed up, was good, but the salad bar was disgusting, my pasta didn't come with the chicken I ordered and the restrooms were horrific. (I mean, so bad that we decided to skip them in favor of a gas station.)
It was close to midnight when we finally got in, and I passed out until about 0800 Sunday morning. We noodled about, cleaned up a bit for a client that came by, had dinner and I, sadly, had to take off for home. Liam had left for Houston earlier in the afternoon, so the puppies tried to tell me they'd been crated for YEARS by the time I got in (lying puppies lie.). He'd gone to work on some new armor, and pick up...a trailer! Yay! We're now the proud owners of a one-horse enclosed trailer. It's in need of a good scrubbing, but other than that, it looks great and will be wonderful for our needs.
I've got two cotes almost done, and hope to have them completed (except buttons and buttonholes) by Sunday. Amalia is going to come spend Saturday evening with me, so that I can get these finished and I'm happy about that. It's so much easier to do them when she's around because I can pick her brain about what I'm doing. I also love my sewing guides! The Vogue book is so freakin' awesome for when I do get stuck. It's not as MUCH help when I'm sewing SCA stuff, but good technique is good technique...
Liam got home with the trailer, and John called shortly thereafter, so it was an AWESOME night all over. :-) We watched an episode of Farscape and then hit the rack. I don't want to talk about how badly I overslept this morning, though...