Thu Mar 16, continued - I know I wanted to have photos up during my lunch hour today, but it never worked into my work day. After getting some deadline material out for review, I spent the rest of my evening at my desk at work, getting my weekend organized and arranged. For one, I'm trying to learn to "live out of my day runner" or basically keep myself on task for deadlines, checklists, schedules, and brainstorming, and keeping everything in one location so I'm not scattered. Additionally, I'm trying to ensure that my finances are always in order, always done early, always done thoroughly. At home, it's too easy to get distracted by the television or sewing machine or laundry or a myriad of other things. At my work desk, it's much easier to be task-oriented for all things computer and financial. The space is very well organized, I have all the tools I need, and basically it's just "easier to work at work."

So thankfully I really did get everything done that I needed to, and created a very thorough packing list and to-do list for Friday's event preparation.

Fri Mar 17 - Once again there were more things on my list than I could have possibly accomplished, but that's sometimes half the fun of packing—giving myself permisison to cross something off as "nope, not going to do that, don't have time, don't need to worry about that after all." It's a different kind of accomplishment: Permission to be human instead of super-human.

I did learn a lesson from Estrella: I need to have a clean home for when I return from events. I need a bed that's ready for me to collapse in, and a closetful of clean clothing for work the next day. So I took the extra effort to do laundry first thing in the morning, no matter how much my packing list was taunting me from the corner. Nope, no packing until laundry done and put away neatly!

After laundry, just a wee bit of shopping before heading home—where a fabulous sale on linen at a local JoAnn Fabric's was my complete undoing. *giggle* Actually, I finally found some the bright cobalt blue I've been wanting, plus a dreamy soft white linen and an amazing bright red. The red will, of course, first go towards something else new for Saul, then something for me.

Then I finished sewing the second pair of trews for JW, and got everything packed into the car. I stopped off in Ventura to do errands before finishing the trip to Santa Barbara... little things like stopping by my eye doctor's office, the bank, picking up mail, etc. By then I got a phone call from Lynn that the freeway had been closed north of Santa Barbara, and traffic to/from Lompoc was being routed over the 154 Hwy. Guess where our campground is located? Needless to say, the traffic was *hideous* when you move all the 3- to 4-lane traffic onto a winding 1-lane/each-way mountain road. I think I went 20 miles in only 1st or 2nd gear, but at least I never just sat still for 45+ minutes (which I heard was true for some people). When I finally got on site, it was pitch dark, but the feast hall was packed with all my friends, so it was worth the effort.

Sat Mar 18 - The weather was mostly cooperative today. Even though it was very cold in the shade, the sun came out for a few hours so it was possible to enjoy the day's fighting on the field. I spent the majority of my day taking photos of everyone and all the activities, as much as possible. And when I went up the hill to take pictures of the scribes painting scrolls, I took the time to stop and paint one myself. I don't spend nearly enough time with calligraphy and painting, so it was quite nice to take a break and pitch in.

The rain rolled in late afternoon, but stayed at a light drizzle most of the time, making it fairly easy to dash between cabins. I never had to hike down the long hills to the lower camp, so maybe others had to get wetter than I did, but I never really saw anyone completely soaked.

I chose to spend my volunteer hours for the event working the pots room during the feast. (And bless Thorin, he took photos for me while I was in there.) It's an unusual job, and one that's sometimes hard to find volunteers for, but I've enjoyed it in the past so I decided to do it again this year. Also, the majority of the feast (although everyone else loved it) consisted of foods either I cannot or prefer not to eat… beef [can't], salmon [eww], and chicken cooked in beer [eww, beer, blech]. So I knew I would enjoy the side dishes better, and eating after the feast was over meant I could eat all the parts I liked all at once. The staff always eats at the end of the feast, and there were *plenty* of leftovers, only because they cooked so much, not because people weren't eating. In fact, folks were groaning with pleasure at the end of the meal, having enjoyed the food so much.

And since many folks anticipated the possibility of wet weather, after the feast people were playing tons of games. It was really fantastic to see so many games at an event.

Kyle and Morgan just turned 12 on Thursday, and it happened that they each wanted to learn how to spin on a drop spindle. I had just the right kind of spindles on hand in my bag, so I was able to offer a quick impromptu lesson to them both, and a spindle of their own as a birthday gift.

Both William and Eogan told some of their famous stories, which made for some cute photos of an "audience" gathered around to hear the tales. And Illiana taught several of us some wonderful chant-songs, so we were able to improv some amazing harmonies together. Alys wants to find more time to sing together, and I thoroughly approve of this idea!

There was much revelry and much fun had by all.

Sun Mar 19 - Breakfast included another teaching opportunity as one of my new friends (Margeali) learned how to make cord on a lucet. And in the volunteer raffle, Thea selected the lucet that I donated to the raffle and gave it to Margeali, since she was so interested in having one of her own. I love when things like this work out well.

In fact, this whole weekend was filled with meeting new people and memorizing new names. Let's see if I can still recall the new friends I met (excuse my inaccurate spelling—several of them warned me that their SCA names are spelled in an unusual manner, but I'll learn that later *grin*). Margeali [mar-GAY-lee] is out in CA on an exchange/study program with Anheiser-Busch, and I think she returns to Illinois in several months. I'm pleased she'll be taking back her new lucet skills with her. Up in the Scriptorium I met Albra's apprentice, Ellen, plus two more ladies: Isabeau and Antonia. Evelyn tells me her name is definitely spelled differently, and I met her with her friend Siobhan [siv-AN]. Nicolai and Sabina are from the Barony of the Angels, and they're hoping to come to some Lyondemere events, too, since we made friends at Black Oak Lodge. Viscountess Krista and Baron Corwyn were out from Starkhavn (Las Vegas), and I'm so glad that they found the trip worth the drive. We're looking forward to seeing each other at Crown in 3 weeks. Plus, their son Liam was our *second* Liam child on site, so now we have "big Liam" and "little Liam." It turns out that Krista was Princess in the Mists, and she's friends with Ximena (also a Viscountess from the Mists), so we were able to find mutual friends in our lives. Elizabeth of Esvere made it out to the event, bringing her long-time friend Mergrid, who looked *amazing* in her late Elizabethan clothing (and I couldn't tell that she altered it just that morning to make it fit for the event). I met Carol a few years ago, and I finally learned her SCA name (Markeshka), her daughter Claire's SCA name (Leonarda), and met her husband at one of his first events (Greg). I hope he makes it out to more events, and I'm certain I'll have to memorize a new name later, too. I know Alys's husband from other events, but bless me I couldn't remember his name, so I finally learned John's name this weekend. Catherine is trying out a new SCA name, and I hope she sticks with Mattea because I think it's beautiful. Darn, I can picture a gentleman with lovely grey/white hair, woolen outfits, and beautiful pewter pins but I cannot remember his name any more (I should have practiced his name more often). Over in merchants, I finally learned Richard the Weaver & Maka's names, and got some nice photos of their booth this year as well as 2 years ago. Kyle has decided he has an SCA name name, which sounds like "Conree" but I *know* is spelled all differently. Speaking of children, I finally learned the name of Dietrich & Adriana's daughter, Gwyn (Gwendolyn). Nula has changed her name again, now to Finula, and it was nice to do music with her on Saturday night. Sadb is pronounced [sahv], and it was great to reconnect with her again since Bardic Collegium. I'm blanking on her daughter's name, but she wasn't at the event so I have some time to remember it later. I think Balthazar's friend's name is Katerine, and she'll be sweet enough to correct me, I'm certain. I'm quite uncertain whether Meala's husband's name is Richard, but I got lovely photos of him doing some woodcarving. And I need to relearn Lucia's sister's and niece's names, because I'm completely drawing a blank now.


Well, if you read all this and didn't skip ahead, thanks for sticking with me as I made notes to consult later when I'm trying to remember these names again later.

Onward.

Packing in the morning was briefly nerve-wracking when I could NOT find my car/house-keys for the life of me. I'm usually very disciplined about putting things like my keys ALWAYS in the same place, and this time I could not even remember carrying them up the hill after parking my car. They weren't in any obvious place, any likely secondary place, and I unpacked every bag twice before checking to see if they were locked in my car. Finally, I came back up the hill and started unpacking/re-packing for the third time, when I opened the bag I carry band CDs in. I never remembered opening this bag ever, the entire weekend, and only opened it out of desperation to check everything I owned: And yes, somehow the keys were in my CDs bag. I have no idea if I threw them in there in a strange fit late Friday night or if I had left the keys out and some well-meaning friend in the cabin put them inside the only obvious bag sitting out, but all was well and I found my keys.

A large group of us had lunch together in Santa Barbara, laughing and telling stories and having one last debrief with one another before driving our separate ways. At home I went straight to the shower, clean clothing, and then the laundramat. I now have clean garb again, as well as all my new linen washed and ready to be sewn into new outfits (from my Friday purchases and from Mina's trip to the Garment district). I collapsed happy in bed, with clean clothing and new projects lined up in the queue.

Mon Mar 20 - After a wonderful weekend, this morning I find my legs are wobbly sticks of knotted muscular pain, reminding me how much fun I had (on those blasted foresty hills). I'm hobbling a little bit today (a little?!) but I'm sure I'll be fully recovered by Tuesday or Wednesday this week. I've been looking into correct costuming for my favorite outfits (England 1375-1399, the court of Richard II), so that hopefully by King's Hunt in two weeks I can have at least one new outfit for myself.

Also, one of the best features of this weekend included wearing my favorite new hair piece—18 inches of wavy/curly auburn hair. Several friends really thought it was my own hair, it matched so nicely. I wore my "war braids" when I needed my hair up quickly (like for working in the pots room) but I wore the auburn hair down, and long, for just hanging out at the event. One, it looks *so* nice, and two, it was =warm= on my neck, an important feature in the chilly Santa Barbara hills. So now I want to find additional costuming pictures for hair and head coverings, and try to have several more in my repetoire this month.

My Beth Hart CDs arrived at my apartment over the weekend, and I'm thoroughly enjoying them at work today! I definitely adore her Janis-Joplin-like style, with the full modern rock sound. She completely rocks.

Tonights projects definitely include working of tons of photos, so links will be posted here after I'm done. I'm definitely proud of the photos taken, and even the photos I'm in, so I have much to share with you soon.

Finally, I was quite pleased to get a quick phone call from Gauge this evening, since he's coming to CA for some job interviews and wanted to find out which weekends our household might be free and how far away different cities are from where we all live. The guys had a *wonderful* time at Gulf Wars, but it sounds like Mateo had quite a bit of drama to deal with, so I may try to phone him to see how he's doing this evening.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: This family I call the SCA. I know how well I am loved, and how often I get to share my love back with friends that are so valuable to me.
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Weight Loss This Week:
Fri 3/17 - 16.6 (down -0.2)
Mon 3/20 - 14.6 (up +2.0) Apparently I ate better at the event than I remember eating. Oh well. I know I exercised my batukus off (that's an official term, of course) and I'm clearly recovering now. *happy sigh* But at the same time, my rings are all nearly falling off, so I'm going to have to change what fingers I wear each of them on. Nice.