Back in the Saddle - Sorry about the full two-plus week silence.

Fiber Frolic - So, when I'm not doing everything else, I'm also involved in a community of artisans that promote textile arts. I help with a commercial website for a natural dyestuffs business, and help coordinate events they host. There are several SCA friends who are also involved, but it is a non-SCA modern venture that we do. It's partially connected to the commercial business, and partially a labor of love for those of us who help out.

At the end of January, we ran our first day-event for the Fiber community rather than the weekend annual event we've been doing for 4-5 years now. And it was a HUGE success. Just several months ago, one of the guys had to talk us into pushing forward, despite the lack of pre-registrations. But one of our coordinators had the *fabulously* bright idea for some cross-promotion (go ads on Ravelry!), and suddenly we were filling up with registrations.

I love to serve "Coffee Bar of Splendoor" in support of the event, as well as work as a Staff member assisting with various teaching and support roles. This event I opted to be an unscheduled drop-in hands-on spinning class, with a focus on fiber-preparation, since we'd had many students indicate interest in their registrations. It went splendidly. I worked with 3-4 people hands-on, combing and carding wool, alpaca, and llama fibers. We examined both the technique in general, and the differences between the two. When I wasn't focused on fiber prep, I got to spend some time spinning on my wheel, something I rarely have time for it seems.

The entire event was fantastic. We had a nice debrief dinner about a week later, and have plans to do more single-day events, since there's an entirely new audience of participants who want day-events, who cannot get away for weekend-events. [But don't worry, the Fiber Retreats aren't being abandoned.]

BDays, Meetings, and Newsletters - The following morning, a huge passal of us went out for Dim Sum (for breakfast?!?) to celebrate both Tonwen's and Wulfric's birthdays. Afterwards I hung out, doing nothing more than just spinning more bamboo fiber on my wheel, and relaxing with Medb and Tonwen. It was exceptionally nice to have very little I needed to run off and do. The next night was our Baronial council meeting, followed by dinner on Wulfric's birthday and general friend-time. And within the week, I finished the February issue of the baronial newsletter. I had to rebuild the new template after the USB-drive that failed, but I'm quite happy with the final result.

Festival of the Rose - The first weekend in February, we went to our twice-annual celebration event for Arts and Performances, in honor of the Queen. It's a wonderful tradition in our fair kingdom, and one I always look forward to. I carpooled with Lot and Caterina (and of course, Benji), and we got to see Ciar and Gabriel and *their* new son, Nathaniel. Nathaniel just turned one, so it's doubly fun to see the 10-month and 12-month old children together.

Lot and I prepared one duet to sing, and each of us prepared a solo or two, so we had a nice time being part of the entertainment. The arts displays were incredibly inspirational, too. And several friends were awarded some REALLY exciting things in court, so it was a fantastic day out.

Estrella - Finally, it was the weekend of President's Day holiday, which translates into our annual camping event in Arizona. I mentioned on my twitter feed (and myspace & facebook statuses) that it was filled with "schedules not going as planned." My 30-min delay in being ready to leave with Drell turned into a 90-min delay from our original departure time. THEN we forgot that there's a time change when you drive to Arizona, so we lost another hour. Rather than arriving in daylight, we arrived in the very dark, very cold of the evening Thursday night. This meant I just crashed with two friends who had a tent already up, and a very warm (and large) bed to share. No one froze, but we were *horribly* too close to a very loud encampment behind us.... so sadly at 4 am we were *still* being kept awake by the not-so-considerate neighbors. Around 7 am I was awake, and setting up Coffee Bar.

I *was* planning to drive to town after Coffee, to finish some grocery shopping and get a plastic tarp to go under my dayshade, tent, bed, etc. But the car I was loaned wouldn't start for me (and it turns out it was simply because my legs weren't long enough to press the clutch in fully). So I didn't find any one going to town until nearly 3 in the afternoon, which meant I never got to attend the Japanese drumming class that was offered on Wed, Thu, and Fri at 4 pm. I knew Fri was my only chance to attend, but I had to leave site for the shopping trip, and never made it to the class. (Extremely disappointing, since I like the instructor and knew she'd put a lot of work into the course. And she knew I was trying to be there, in her class. *heavy sigh*)

It turned out that Rhys had a tarp to loan me, so I did get my dayshade set up before Wilhelm and I went shopping. And Lorccán finished making a wooden bed for me, although I never did get to set it up on site. He has a few fixes he wants to complete, so I just used my normal air mattress as usual. Friday night was also the big party at our Royal encampment, so several of us attended together. We shared a few songs around the fire, before retiring to our own camp fire later.

Saturday morning I got to reprise the singing muster, leading both the Armored Combat and Rapier Corps armies to the field. I heard later that several warbands would like to start practicing the singing muster and march to the field, so I may start attending some of the war practices to help train the fighters in marching songs. Then, I spent most of the rest of my day at the Royal encampment, helping stitch hand-woven trim to the Captain of the Guard's fancy woolen over-tunic for the evening, and generally holding down the camp while messengers came to-and-fro with questions and information for the court.

I'd also braided Jolie's hair earlier in the morning for her Protege ceremony before we mustered for Grand Court, and the ceremony was quite lovely. I enjoyed some conversation with her Pelican earlier in the day, and was thrilled to see what they each brought to the occasion.

In the afternoon, I braided several people's hair so we could all look fancy, and after the protege ceremony, we all gathered to head to Grand Court. We sang out on procession, we sang quietly amongst ourselves while waiting for Grand Court to set up. And then we sang mightily when it was our turn to process in. The accoustics were *wonderful* and I really loved singing with our Court, Guard, Monarchs, and my household Captain / Bard of the Kingdom. We were quite proud of ourselves, and I must say: I thought we sounded the best. But then again, I'm biased.

I missed meeting up two friends at the food court for crepes (sigh), but had a nice time hanging out at our camp again into the late evening. A few of us held down the camp while everyone else traipsed about from three different big parties.

Sunday I finally spent some time away from camp. I found some *great* striped socks (in my colors, of course), and decided to finally buy the hand-woven bolt of cloth I'd been dreaming of buying since I saw it a year ago. It hadn't sold in 2-3 years, so I was lucky that it was priced almost 50% lower than the current work of this same weaver. I got just under 6 yards of this wonderful patterned green and gold, and I'll likely have to do some extensive research before sewing with it. But it's dreamy. Photos later.

I did run into the Queen of Atenveldt out in merchants, who happens to be one of the three ladies I met at Known Worlde Heraldic and Scribal Symposium two years ago. We exchanged warm hugs, greetings, and introductions again later when she was able to introduce me to the King. I never did get over to their side of the camp ground the whole weekend I was there, and I never got to see my dear Ianuk either (who apparently suffered quite the adventure early in the week with winds and rains). So I missed most of the friends I wanted to go see ("gurdymonkey," Ianuk, and the Princess of the Mists Syele). And I only ran into Baroness Elizabeth a few times in passing. But my original intent was this should be a "no stress, no obligations" trip, especially since I couldn't take any time off to be there extra early in the week.

Saturday evening, around the fire, I thought a lot about singing muster with the troops, and the kind of music composition I do well in our group. I really do write the songs that anyone can sing. I try to write in a limited range, that men and women can reach. I try to write material that is not too hard to memorize. The marching songs have been call-and-response with simple choruses. So on Sunday morning, I decided I needed to write a new song for the event. I started the tune and chorus while getting ready to head to the shower line, and refined the method of the song while I was out in merchants, shopping. I ran my first two verses and the chorus past several friends (in camp, in merchants, through the site), and got very favorable feedback. So after a quick bite in merchants (and a nice tip for Wolgemut as they did a lunch-time gig in the food court), I hurried back to camp to finish writing more verses before evening court. I was done 30-minutes early, and spent the last 30-minutes memorizing the song to perform at Closing Court.

The final song is here -- I've written six verses (although I wrote a 7th on the drive home) and the chorus. On Monday morning, the song had gone viral. At least 5-6 people shared their new verses with me in person, and since then I've seen additional ones written at home by people who haven't even heard it sung yet. I still need to replace my headset/microphone so I can record the song... I accidentally wheeled my chair over my last one, and it broke. But I'll have a recording loaded sometime this week.

Drell wanted to be on the road Monday morning around 7am, but he overslept and was moving very slowly. So although we got off site in the morning, his warband wanted to stop for breakfast together. We didn't get on the road back to CA until nearly noon or 1 pm. We met with some friends partway home for dinner, and then just struggled to deal with heavy traffic, heavy winds, and moderate to heavy rain until we were finally home around 7:30.

So now I'm home again, and scrambling to get caught up on all the computer work, office work, housework, and artistic work that's piling up in my schedule. This weekend is our local Arts and Archery event, including the Arts Championship competition. I know that several people have been hard at work on their arts entries for weeks now. I'm planning on challenging myself to also enter, even though I know I'm doing some of this work "last minute." But I'd rather push the envelope than give up early, so I'll be scrambling during all my evenings this week to finish the three entries required.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Drell, for driving. Nicolette, for serving kitchen (and Tristan too!). Dylan and Enid, for a warm tent Thursday. Lot, for a warm tent Sunday. Delphine, for such funny new lyrics. All my friends who inspired lines in my newest song. And all my friends who've encouraged me that, "This is what I do: I write songs that are like heraldic cartoons, colored with the original 8 Crayola colors."