Two Years, Already? - I was chattering in an email to a friend, about all the things in my life in the past couple decades (we haven't seen each other in a while). I got to the part about "joined a household" and went to my calendar to find how long it's been.

Two years ago, today. Sunday March 5, 2006.

Happy White Star Anniversary to me, today! [okay, yesterday, but when I wrote this journal draft, it was yesterday]

Job Things - No new news on the job contract extension, but my boss still talks like I'll be doing the training documentation after all the user guide documentation. Right now, it's 6 books for user documentation with each new software release, and I'm completing version 2.7. The engineers are talking about "so when do we start 2.8?" which also gives me some good hope.

I did get a really nice (monetary) job lead in email about a week ago, but I never got around to applying for the position. It requires a security clearance, which if I land another job like that, then my clearance stays active. But I would need to land a security clearance before end of September, if I want it to just roll over. But talk about splitting my efforts: I hate trying to job hunt actively when my current job is going well. *sigh*

More Lyrics - I was sending a link to the YouTube video to a friend, and it dawned on me that I really should finish the lyrics. So, at Royal Request, here they are: http://www.catellen.com/eilidhswann/firstyoutakeasheep.html

(My thanks to our previous Queen Ithuna, for requesting the lyrics... and Baron Thomas for recording the song and loading it on YouTube). Of course, the lyrics as written are much better than the stumbling lyrics as recorded and performed. Enjoy anyways!

So What Took Me So Long? - What in the world have I been doing for the past two weeks, that I couldn't spend all my waking time reporting on the meals I've been eating? (*winks at Wilhelm*) Let's see: Estrella recovery took a little more concentration than I was expecting. Or more accurately to say, I avoided even walking into my kitchen when it was filled with things I brought home from Estrella. I'm not sure how I ended up so disinterested in cooking for myself after cooking for almost a week for almost 18 people... oh, yeah, I know exactly why I wasn't in the kitchen! *giggle*

Arts and Archery - Our local baronial event for Artisans and Archers fell immediately after Estrella, on Saturday Feb 23. I knew I wasn't entering our inaugural Arts Championship competition, but that I should put forth *something* in the People's Choice arts display. Since the only "recent" art I'd spent significant time on was my Caid Fighter Song from Estrella, I put together the musical notation as sheet music, all the lyrics, and placed that in the Arts display. And I was quite surprised that I won the People's Choice (by one vote). My apprentice brother won the Arts Championship, so our Laurel was really pleased and proud of us both.

Eilidh, Tonwen, and Conchobar

The weather had been cold and rainy quite a bit, so the Baron and Baroness asked me if I would serve the "Coffee Bar of Splendoor" at the event -- both on site during the day, and for the revel in the evening. I hadn't even unpacked Coffee Bar from Estrella, so I just cleaned a few dishes, restocked a few foodstuffs, and set up at the Archery field. Master Donal was there with his apprentice Rhienhart, and they were doing tastings of non-alcoholic drinks like syrups and sodas. We made a lovely presentation of hot drinks, snacks, and brewed drinks, and had fun hanging out until the rain came around 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon. We all scurried to pack up and set-up again at the revel site, where we hung out, played games, drank hot drinks, shared soups and breads and other simple fare, sang songs, and closed with the announcements of the champions and other closing court business.

As is my current pattern, my photos are not online yet. But here's three albums to keep you busy, if you're so inclined.
* by Thomas: http://tinyurl.com/3d6azl
* by Christina: http://www.nettleleaf.net/2008/ArtArch/
* by Dalphina: http://tinyurl.com/2seuq3

Monthly Newsletter - Of course, I have so many links to so many photos because I had a newsletter to put out by March 1st, too. So right after the event, I returned to my Estrella laundry [it took 5 separate trips to the laundromat, with 2-3 loads of wash per trip], and my kitchen cleaning [to put away all the Coffee Bar and camping items], plus working on the newsletter. Now, if you'd like to read my monthly newsletter too (if you're not already subscribed), it's an electronic newsletter. You can read the PDF online, and you'll receive an email each month when it's posted for reading. Go here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tydes/ and follow the instructions to "Join This Group" to subscribe.

My dear friends Jon Thomme and Pierre (Patrick) are now a *staff* of two proofreaders (wow, I have a staff!) so I'm even more motivated to get things done in advance for the newsletter, so they can proofread it and catch my typos before I go to press, instead of after. But even with all their excellent help, I didn't get the newsletter posted until 2:30 am on March 1st.

Lessons of the Arts Log - And then I still didn't sleep: I had a homework assignment from Tonwen that was due by March 1st, too. She asked me to keep track of all the hours I spend on anything arts related every day for a month, for February. As I worked on keeping my log, I also did some spiffy spreadsheet magic (as I do, because I'm me), so I could easily analyze what all these numbers mean. So, in no particular order:

Lesson learned: I want to keep a log from now on. Wow, did I learn so much from this! I've likened this to when people start a diet and they learn to write down everything they eat, so they can really notice what they've been eating.

Lesson learned: When I look at my Total Hours by Category: (Music = 28.00 hours; Fiber Arts = 32.00 hours; Research = 1.25 hours; Visual Arts = 1.00 hours) ... it makes me realize that without any effort, I'll spend nearly 30 hours per month on Fiber Arts and Music each. But only an hour or so on research? Embarrassing, that I can let that slip.

So my goal for March is to try and do an hour of research, minimum, per week. If I can hit that minimum, I'm already doing 4x the research I did in February. And knowing me and how I can get wrapped up in a project, I might go past that hour each time I sit down, so I can only benefit if I aim for an hour-a-week.

Some of what I need to do in the next year is to deepen my actual research and documentation on the things I've been making and doing all along. And I do feel that I'm a wee bit anemic on the study and way too lazy about just doing without looking up much in the supportive research.

Lesson learned: I didn't really work on anything for Pentathlon in February, which is completely unacceptable. So this month, Pentathlon work has to be a major effort.

Lesson learned: One nice thing about the log is that I did realize that my rehearsal and composition time in the car is greater (in quantity) than I thought it was. I was worried I never do any rehearsal or composition, because I never really do as much sitting in my house. But I'm constantly singing in the car, and memorizing lyrics on the road, which made me happier than before I knew that's what I was doing.

My research time at home needs to increase for my bardic things. I've also been having some wonderful conversations lately with some fellow musicians who want to spend some time rehearsing instruments more often. I have a feeling I should be able to get back into the instrumental swing again, with this wonderful motivation of working with fellow musicians to do more rehearsal and performance together with instruments.

Lesson learned: Some fiber arts projects get so much attention (possibly even disproportionately so) because it's really easy to "take little bags" with me everywhere, for multi-tasking. I need to keep my fingers busy, all the time. When I'm in a class or a lecture, it's easy to spin or braid or embroider. When I'm visiting friends, and we're chatting for hours, again it's very simple to spin or weave or do hand-sewing. But I can be lazy about this: The same projects travel everywhere with me, even though these might not be the highest priority projects that I want to be working on. It would be good for me to revisit my "All the Projects" list, probably monthly, to ensure that items with deadlines and higher priorities start traveling with me too, not just the fun and easy, "turn my brain off and enjoy" busy tasks. Of course, I'm not getting rid of all the brainless tasks -- just making sure a few high priority tasks are bagged up for travel, too.

If you're *really* interested in all the physical arts I worked on in February, my Arts Log is online. You're a nut, of course, if you're interested. But hey, I'm a nut too.

Road Trip - After completing the newsletter and the Arts Log, I showered, dressed, packed, and headed to Scott's for a Road Trip to Vegas for Starkhafn's Baronial Anniversary on Saturday, March 1. Having not slept yet, I was super-thankful that Scott was driving. I napped on and off, although we also had marvelous political discussion, since he enjoys listening to XM radio and some of the political channels. It's wonderful to have someone as smart and on top of things, as him, to chatter with.

The event itself was lovely. Lorccan (Scott) is the Royal Scribe, which is what I did for the past two sets of Royalty. So I pitched in and helped out with the calligraphy (which reminded me, add another item to the March Arts Log), and then got dressed for the day. I enjoyed some time relaxing with Khalida, spinning [note in Log], and singing the Caidan Fight Song for several friends [note in Log]. (Gee, that Log fills up quickly!)... first singing personally for one friend, then for a small group behind Royals in the afternoon (and even the Queen wandered over to sing with me, the song started with only about 2 people around me, and ended with nearly 8 people who'd come running over to join in).

And then at closing Court, Edric asked me to lead the entire assembly in the song to close the night. There might have been 80+ people there, and it was AMAZING to have them all singing along with me. Afterwards, a half dozen people or more came over to introduce themselves to me, and to thank me again for the song and the memorial for them (and for Al). A few people specifically said, "thank you for making Caid have Caidan songs!"

It was humbling and wonderful and encouraging, all in one.

Since then, this week has been fairly pedestrian. I've been working hard on my user guides at work; done some fiber prep for a crafts-exchange with an email friend who lives in MA; done some spinning; done some hand-sewing repairs on Scott's fighter garb; done some website updates; woven a few more inches on the tapestry loom in front of the television; worked on some reading/research for spinning and fleece preparation; and started some new reading/research on music notation in history (first studies on Hebrew cantillation and "trope" marks; next I'll also be looking at European Western music notation "from period"). Amya visited twice to borrow our internet connectivity, although she's got signal at home again now. And I'm still slogging through the last of the post-war laundry and house-cleaning.

Just in time to throw a party.
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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Rabbi Laibson, for being so darn cool.