Calendars, Lists, and More Lists - Happy Flip the Calendar Day, my dearies! So far I've only flipped my wall calendar at work (the KWAR fundraising calendar... if you have a MySpace login, you can see photos from the calendar -- sorry, I don't know of any online link for non-MySpace users). At home I'll have 2 big desk calendars hanging on the wall to flip, three calligraphy and/or museum calendars in my room, and the Caidan fundraising calendar in the kitchen to flip.

One thing about calendars and lists this year: My goodness, there are so many!! On a personal note, I've been spending more time staying caught up on my online calendars, where I like to use Google Calendars. To get color coding, I have to have more than one "calendar" -- each separate calendar has a separate color, but then all the calendar entries are collated on one calendar screen. Does that make sense? *shrug*

Anyways, the other nice thing about Google Calendar is that you can share them individually with specific friends or make them publically searchable and usable by anyone. My own records of our Kingdom events in the SCA has turned into a publically shared calendar; several of my categories/color-coding calendars are shared with a few friends specifically, and of course there are a few that are private for just me. I also managed to create a publically shared calendar for the theatre (for which I do their website).

But outside the "literal" sense of calendars, I also started tracking the books I read, just for fun for the year. It's been an amazing habit already for just one month, to see how many different titles I'm reading at any one time, how much I read in a day, week, or month, etc.

And then just this week, at our "Apprentice Dinner" Rae (Tonwen) gave Rick and I some homework: Log all our arts every day through the end of February (33 days to log). Again, I'm raising my eyebrows as I see my own habits and patterns recorded on a spreadsheet, with the fun of analyzing what these records mean to me. I'm definitely appreciating the assignment, and I might just keep the habit, long after the original intent of the exercise.

Alms Box - We finally opened our alms boxes this week, too! I have so many notes and quotes and thoughts I still have to really digest and think about. And I'm considering typing them up, to have them all together in one place. But there were also some physical items dropped in that I can tell you about. Lora (Lorissa) gave me a silver ring with some decorative carving on it that fits me like a dream and matches the silver rings I wear already. Very cool! Ercil (Astridr) gave me a minature weaving shuttle with red silk floss -- that she reeled, spin, plied, and dyed herself (of course!). Now I'm on a mission to figure out how to use the red silk, because it's begging to be used in a project. Ellen (Maryam) gave me a spindle whorl and a spindle shaft, so I will have to figure out what fibers I want to work on with it. I'm thinking that I want to spin true "thread" with her spindle, because she spins some amazing thread that totally inspires me. Renata (Medb) gave me a bone naalbinding needle that needs to be filed and sanded/polished a little bit, plus two small skeins of silk embroidery floss. I love the floss, and funny thing: The company that produces the floss is called "Splendor." Hee hee! I have several ideas for the yellow silk, but I'm not sure what I'll use the purple silk on yet. There was a Dreiburgen baronial site token or coin, which I'm sure came from their baron. And there was a "Medb Renata" penny, probably from Renata. And there was a piece of vellum hand-calligraphed from Rae (Tonwen) that says, "First You Take A Sheep..." which I'm certain I'll need to mount and frame for display at home.

My greatest thanks and appreciation for all the alms notes and thoughts and gifts, from all the peers and respected members of my kingdom. And a special "squee!" of laughter to my roomie, for slipping me a drawing of one of our favorite cartoon characters -- Gir giving me a piggy wearing a tall hennin.

More Persian Yumminess - I admit it: My absolute favorite local restaurant just never gets old for me. My friend Dave (Gareth) and I go way back to my first year in college, when I met him in the local SCA group. He's been active non-stop since then, and we remained friends even in my off-years when I was pursuing my bachelor's degree and wasn't involved in the SCA. Now that I live in this Barony, we live near each other again for the first time in years and years, and we see each other in passing a couple of times a month at fighter practices or events. We were chatting on email recently and I said "why don't we just grab dinner or coffee some time?" and we ended up meeting Tuesday this week at my favorite local Persian place. I just never get tired of rice, sour cherries, and lamb. Yum!

Sewing Night - Our bi-weekly household sewing night has probably permanently shifted from Adrienne's house to my place, since she's due in March. This week, Tamara came up from the south end of my county, and brought her first garb project with her for some assistance on the pattern and instructions. I taught her how to make her own bias tape, and helped her understand the neckline, and got her set up on my sewing machine. Kim sent me a text message, "Coffee!?" and so I invited her to come over and join the two of us for an impromptu "More String Better" kind of evening, complete with coffee and chocolate. The three of us walked the half-block to the local Bristol Farms, and picked out a couple of fancy truffles each from the chocolate cases. The nice checker poured us each some sample hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream, and then we went back to my apartment. I put on some coffee for me, hot tea for the girls, and we chatted over our drinks and truffles. *mmmm*

Tamara wrapped up her sewing and went home. Kim and I were both awake and still chatty, so I took the newly carded alpaca fiber and washed all the batts of fluffy roving for the next two hours. I now have 5 ounces of brilliantly white alpaca for spinning, although I will need to card it out one more time before spinning it. I'm contemplating looking into the rules of the local County Fairs, and possibly entering the spinning categories. I enjoy my SCA fiber arts, but I also want to do some modern spinning activities, like local guilds or county fairs. I think this hand carded, hand washed, soon to be hand spun alpaca would be perfect for competition in the county fair.

Rest of the Week - Wednesday night I joined up with everyone at fighter practice and then "social practice" at IHOP. I had meant to keep spinning at dinner, but had more fun just with conversation and socializing. Thursday I had lunch with Bill, and spent about a half-an-hour planning the costuming that I'll be doing for him. He's decided he hates sewing after all, so he's paying me to make him some clothing. It's quite exciting, although it makes me a little nervous, trying to squeeze the work into my schedule. But I know I can also use the experience and the money.

At home last night, my roomie and I finally caught up on the two episodes of Project Runway stored on my Tivo. And over the course of the evening, I completed the silk embroidery on my underdress (raw silk chemise) that I'll be wearing to keep warm at night at Estrella (in the Arizona desert). I used up all the copper silk floss (from the year 1906), and the neckline has just a solid line but the sleeve cuffs have a solid line and some decorative "bangles" embroidered. If I want to embroider more of the neckline or the dress in general, I'll need to find a comparable modern silk floss. But I love the look of the finished piece.

Now today I still have to put the final touches on the baronial monthly newsletter, have a music rehearsal tonight with 3 friends, tomorrow go to an event for the Queen that's all about artistic performances and displays (see today's random photo for last year's event), and then Sunday is our annual family "Girls Day" while everyone else is busy watching the Super Bowl. We're possibly going to a museum, especially one I've never been to before that I'm quite excited about.
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Momentum and Organization