Last Week - The Thursday hair appointment with Brittany was lovely, although the latest scheduled one we've ever had to date. This working-in-an-office makes it difficult for me to schedule things like mid-day hair appointments or doing my laundry while working at home. Gosh, how did I *ever* do these things before, when I worked in an office? Gracious, I was (happily) spoiled for 13 months on my last contract!

The Friday night dinner party went *swimmingly* well. Probably the biggest achievement was just being able to host a party for that many people. We have a rather limited setup for tables-and-chairs, but we managed to seat 9 people for dinner, and I think 12 or 13 dropped in total. My roomie made a scrumptious spread (all vegetarian), and served the meal piping hot and delicious nice and early. Then we were stuffed to the brim and lounging over glasses of wine and a table loaded with desserts, and enjoyed hours of conversation with one another.

Kim reached for her spinning after dinner, which made me clap with glee that I could bring mine out too. Within 10 minutes, there were four of us with spinning in hand -- Mel winding off a spindle of red woolen thread and plying it up into yarn, me spinning jewel-toned green and purple wool and silk blend, Kim continuing the blue wool from the Halloween party (a sheep spins wool!), and Ellen worked on the "guest spindle" as I loaned her my Outell spindle and some burgundy merino, plus a porcelain bowl so she could spin invisibly thin thread with a supported-spindle method.

Project Day with Friends - Eric came over Saturday morning, to begin (and finish) a Christmas present for his father. His dad has this eclectic "chair/wheelbarrow for archery equipment" contraption, that friends have often declared "all you are missing is a banner!" So Eric decided that he would make his dad a banner for the chair, and just like Gary, called me up for assistance with painted fabric techniques. (hee hee) We lounged around over hot drinks and breakfast until the house was ready for projects, and then I set him to ironing, cutting, marking, measuring, drawing, and testing paints for color and technique. Meanwhile, I finally watched a bunch of YouTube videos and links that had been sent to me for the past 2 weeks while my roomie finished packing for Christmas with the family in Utah. We packed the car with luggage, locked Eric safely in the apartment with a long to-do list and all the equipment he could need, and I took Mel up to LAX for her afternoon flight. Picked up lunch on the way home, enjoyed burritos with Eric for a nice lunch break, and then back to project-work.

He'd finished all the sketching and paint testing in perfect time for me to be back home, and by then Laurie (Aliskye) was able to drop in to visit and work on projects, too. With Eric painting fabric, I was inspired to paint blank promissory scrolls for Their Majesties, and Laurie curled up with hand-sewing. Several hours of inspiring conversation later, a little time with me on the sewing machine, and Eric had a completed piece. He drew and painted it entirely himself, I sewed the lining on the banner, then he ironed everything neatly and headed out to spend time with his girlfriend and her family. Laurie and I went out for a bite of dinner, wrapped everything up, and sent her back home too. I stayed up watching some TV in the background, finished all 11 promissories, and promptly went to sleep.

Sunday at the Museum - Ages ago, I was leafing through my AAA magazine, and caught an ad for the San Diego Natural History Museum exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like so many things in life, I marked that I wanted to go [and hung the ad up on the wall next to my calendar to remind me], but I hadn't done anything about scheduling the trip.

Fast-forward to helping Gary paint his secret "student garter" for Eric, in my home before he went off to KWAR at the beginning of December. Gary, you see, is VERY OBSERVANT (as he tells me, hee hee). He noticed the ad on the wall, made a mental note, and scheduled a small group of us to go to the museum together. He got the free day in our schedules confirmed, and bought the tickets for us as a Hanukah gift. Wow. I do love my Gary! *grin* And since it was Gary, Miryam, Jeff, Adrienne, and me, they were all okay with the idea of Nate joining us, and I bought his ticket as my Hanukah gift to him. And then there were six, and it was good. *grin*

So Sunday morning Nate phoned me early to see if I'd had breakfast yet [nope], and would I like to get breakfast with him [yup!], and am I ready right now? [eek! I hadn't showered yet! I'd been cleaning house!] So he arrived a minute later (silly goose), and waited the less than 10 minutes while I showered and dressed super quickly. We walked over to my favorite bagel shop, had a yummy breakfast and hot-drink-of-choice (me: soy latte; him: peppermint tea), then wandered back to my apartment. I finished the dishes, we chatted about life in general [big things in his life lately], and then Jeff & Adrienne arrived ready to caravan. J&A picked up G&M, Gary had great maps for our 2nd car, and we all headed to San Diego.

We had a yummy lunch at a Bistro Cafe in Old Town, then wandered over to the Museum district. Parking is tough in the area, with zillions of museum things and the zoo, but once everyone was parked and managed to walk back to the museum, we got some coffee, one more bathroom break for everyone, and in to the exhibit.

Wow.

All I can really say is: Wow.

To me, there is something so incredibly humbling about writing samples over 2000 years old. I'm facinated by the science of how language evolves and the arbitary yet powerful nature of written language systems, all throughout history. Combine that with my reverance and love for Judaism and you have me stunned into awe and wonder at an exhibit like this. I knew I'd be impressed, I didn't know I'd feel this overwhelmed (in a good way). And mix in some remnants of textiles from this era, and you have me nearly pressing my nose against the glass to look at the spun wool and linen fibers, trying to make my eyes zoom into the thread level to examine the people who spun and dyed and wore or used these fibers.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

After we finished lingering over photos, listening to the recorded texts (where each person could listen to a personal audio tour with a little hand-held remote control and speaker on this kind of paddle), and looked longingly at the artifacts themselves, Nate and I wandered around the (strategically placed) museum gift-shop for a bit. I was sorely tempted to buy some of the bigger tomes about the scrolls, but found a way to refrain myself. The museum catalog was "buy one, get one free" and so Nate took advantage of the moment to surprise me with a Hanukkah gift too, getting me a copy of the catalog.

We wandered around outside for nearly an hour before everyone else was done with the museum -- enjoying the huge fig tree, the local butterfly garden, an owl hooting to us from the corner of a building on the edge of the garden, and then singing harmony with one of the sidewalk buskers. A very nice young man named Mark was performing with his guitar -- and he just happens to have no arms. He played with his toes -- one foot gripping the pick, one foot working the frets and chords. He was a better guitar player than some quadraped humans I know, and a nice guy too. We had a blast singing along with him (and of course, tipping him in his guitar case), and then the other four finally caught up with us.

We all headed back to Old Town, found a local sushi bar, and had a *wonderful* time over dinner. It was actually a surprisingly great dinner place, and we'll definitely keep it in mind for returning: with reservations for the alcove booth just like we were sat at this time. They were sweet enough to let us have one of the reserved booths if we promised to be out of there in 70 minutes, in time for the next reservation coming in. We promised, we met our promise, and we made good friends with our waitress too (including tipping her with not only dollars, but some of the sweets and cookies that Gary and Miryam brought back from Spain). We liked them very much!

Then just the long trip home. Nate and I got to have tons of fun chatting both up and back on the drive, and as things change in his life, things between us are still good. He was worried, but we both walked away from the discussion on strong footing in our personal friendship. "He's very good people," as I like to say. I can wish him nothing but the very best. *warm smiles*
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Back to the other adventures:

Christmas - I had both Monday and Tuesday off from work (sadly, no holiday pay for me until I've been contracted longer than 90 days, meh). So I spent most of Monday getting my things in order, then going shopping. I limited myself to Target and Bristol Farms, where I found great things for my nieces, final touches for my gift-exchange-sibling, and some nice touches for my parents and my friends. Then I spent all Monday evening finishing my hand-made gift for my step-sister and all the gift-wrapping. I had originally hoped that maybe I could visit Tonwen for a relaxing "optional apprentices dinner night" but no doing.

My step-brother suggested that this year we try making something for our siblings-and-spouses gift exchange. There's just under 10 of us in the 30-something age range, so we just buy for one of each other, and then worry about numerous gifts for the grandbabies, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc. I drew my step-sister this year in the exchange, and so I put together a gift basket with some of her favorite things (rice bowls, chocolate, beaded garland for Christmas, and a couple of ornaments) and then I painted a long wall-hanging in a Chinese brush-painting style. I definitely need to upload the photos, because I'm *really* proud of how the finished piece came out. I'm thinking that I might even be able to stitch the photos together neatly to create printed stationery and cards, possibly to sell on etsy.com. [No link yet, since I don't have anything in my shop for sale yet, but more on that later.] She loved the basket, and she loved the painting, so yippee!

My step-brother, who suggested this whole thing in the first place, drew my name. And bless his heart, wow he did a great job! He scoured my journal, my library thing, my myspace account, whatever he could find -- and he came up with two great gifts in the combination. First, he saw I liked Tori Amos, and that I had some of her sheet music on my Amazon wish list. He already owned two volumes of her published piano music, so he gave me both those books.

Then, with my love for medieval history, he got REALLY creative! He took two pillar candles and carved the tops to be crenelated castle towers. Then he inset tea lights in the pillars, so I can burn just the tea lights, or if I want to, the wicks in the large pillars are still accessible. Then he built a wooden frame for the pillars, and carved the walls with castle fortifications. Then he gave me a bag of sand, to pour in the middle of the wooden base, to use like a Zen garden. He made a little rake to play in the sand, and made a place to store the rake in the "back of the castle" wooden frame. He also made little slots to keep wooden matches AND attached a matches-striker strip, so I can light the candles. It is so incredibly cute and adorable! I just love it, and he did such a great job finding out what I might like and then making something unique for me. Wow. :)

After the big dinner with my sister, Mom, nieces, and all the extended siblings, the big gift exchange, lots of cute photography of the 3 and 4 year olds tearing open presents, and a table filled to overflowing with dessert, it was time to hit the road again. I went up the road 20 miles to Inga's place, to share a bit of Christmas with True, Inga, and RJ. You'll remember my composition, "Mara's Song" -- it was written mostly about RJ and his mom, Mara. So I really wanted to take advantage of the Christmas invitation, to bring a gift to RJ. I met True's parents, Inga's friends, and my dear friend Selene was there too. We lingered over samples of a yummy Blood Orange Mead [exquisite!!!] and a Rose liquor (the name of the type escapes me). I sang them "Carol's Carol" since it was Christmas, after all, and then headed back down the hill again.

Off to Alan and Theresa's, where Jeff and Adrienne spent the day with friends. Theresa plied me with turkey, stuffing, two kinds of pie, and a warm and friendly home with friends. The boys were playing Wii video games (hee hee), and I finished spinning another spindle full of the the jewel-tone fiber from Ellen, and wound it off to begin plying the yarn. Then we all watched several scenes from several episodes of the Muppet Show (*squee!*), and then I headed off to LAX where I was picking up my roomie.

Her flight was due to land around 10:20 pm, and I got there (to the general neighborhood) around 10:25. Around 11 I still hadn't heard anything from her, and called Delta for arrival updates. Seems her plane landed just 9 minutes earlier. Five minutes later, she called from the tarmac, and 20 minutes later she finally had her bags and was waiting for me. I picked her up without further incident, and we made it home just fine.

The house is nice and clean (my big task Christmas morning, after the late-night painting and wrapping), and we're ready for the project day we're hosting for sewing costumes on Sunday. Saturday is a holiday party up in my Shire, so we're working on plans to carpool together, and maybe stay overnight rather than drive home late. Now I'm headed off to the local baronial fighter practice, where I'm going to practice some instrumental music. *grin* G'night dearies!

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Mark, the musician at the museum.