Mon Aug 8 - One of the nicest things about this history group that I do is getting to make new friends from everywhere. And with the internet, email, messaging, and multi-tasking as the norms, it's also easier to keep in touch with all these new friends.

Back in May, I was invited to camp with a household of friends called "The White Star" which stands for the name of a "Merchant Ship" ("of course they are not pirates! They have letters of mark from reputable nobles, so these rumors must be greatly exaggerated."). Sometimes as participants in the SCA, people develop a narrative for why they are hanging out and participating together. The "ship" is fictional, but based in historical examples.

Anyways, the White Star has made alliances and friendships with other households too, including some folks who are "creating an Inn" in the "port" where the White Star "docks." (You'll forgive me now if I drop the quotation marks?) The folks who've started the Crimson Spade Inn are focusing on recreating the games played in history as well as the culture of the port-side Inn.

At Pirate tourney this weekend, I got to spend a little more time with my new friends from both the White Star and the Crimson Spade, and today I've gotten to converse (via email) with one of guys from the Inn. It has been an absolute joy to get to know all the folks in these households, plus now I have yet another friend who has offered to come help me with the very mundane (but real!) task of moving the last of my boxes from the old apartment to the new.

At the same time, it is so refreshing to have healthy friendships blossoming that bring a smile to my face. One thing Lilya observed on our drive home is that most of the friends I spend time with are couples. And so I shouldn't be surprised when I joke about being "single and bored bored bored" since I'm clearly not spending any time with vast quantities of single people. It was both something I could laugh at as well as something that cut to the quick. I'm not in any rush to "find someone" but there are days I miss it more than other days.

So all that to say that some non-threatening, silly banter on email is a healthy and wonderful thing.
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Hope has been putting all the photos from this weekend into our new photo album database and programming, and it's turning out quite lovely. I'll post a link as soon as we're done testing the code and copying it over to the live site.
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My roomie is not only wonderful to live with, but ever so intelligent. In college she had a loft bed a few times, and today suggested that I could try something she did once. Try putting the mattress on the floor under the loft, use the loft as storage, and possibly even consider putting curtains around the entire thing. What a fabulous idea! So I've set up my bedroom with the mattress on the floor (I hadn't put it on the loft yet because it's an exhausting endeavor and I wasn't feeling up to it yet). And I already absolutely adore the arrangement. I have some gauzy curtains from the last apartment, but I was originally thinking about putting them in the living room. So I'm contemplating making or buying some curtains for the loft, probably something gauzy and red/gold rather than the light mossy green that I already own.

I also got to show off all my new spindles and yarn to Mina, and in the process found my misplaced (thought they were lost) jewelry from yesterday. I hadn't thought of looking through my spinning bag yesterday when I couldn't find my rings and bracelet at Dayle's place, and so I was pleasantly surprised to find it all this evening. Yippee.

So now I have a clean room, plans for the move on Thursday, a smart roomie, and the lost was found. Not bad for a Monday. Very nice!
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Recently Listened to: Gravity Willing "Requia"