Ack! Why didn’t I post on Friday? I have no idea. No real memory of what I did that day. Wait—I did my monthly clean-up of guidelines and got stories in the mail. I do remember that much. I think I got the In Box back down to a manageable level, too. What excitement.

(Although, really, I can’t complain about my life. In the same week, I got to play with dolphins and re-meet two members of the band I’ve been obsessed with for—eek!—20 years. Oh yeah, bitch and moan. I’ve got it sooooo bad. [g])

That evening we went to our friends Caterine & Emrys’s for dinner. They live in Claremont, about an hour and a half away. We don’t see them enough… They fed us gorgeous Greek food, Caterine showed me the various projects she’s working on, and Emrys and Ken went over the library bookshelf plans. We didn’t get home until 1 a.m., whereupon we fell over into blissful sleep.

Saturday morning Dennis came over to help Ken with the library. They got a good portion of the panelling up, and it looks brilliant. Apparently having PME early this month, I decided to finally do the SCA File Drawer Project. This really does warrant all caps, honest. See, when Ken and I got together, we merged two SCA file drawers with different filing systems. Well, perhaps “merged” is too strong a word. Anyway, when we went to Britain, we didn’t take any of the files with us because we were supposed to be gone for only a year. As ya’ll know, that turned into a second year, and a third, and we held Kingdom Offices and ran Kingdom and local events and started a Shire, and… When we got back, all the files from everywhere got thrown into a single drawer. There were event files all over the place, and at least two rapier files—you get the picture. I’m doing what I did with the household drawer and my writing drawer: making matching labels, mostly using matching file folders, etc.

So I went out and bought more file folders and more printer paper and a roll-y cart thing for under the desk (after I went out and did some food shopping, I might add), and tackled the file project. And realised just what a mess everything was. Stuff shoved in files because it was close to the same topic and we really didn’t have a file for it, so… Needless to say, the project’s not yet done. I finally realised what I need to do is make all the file folders so I have places to stuff the random pieces of paper. Once that’s done, I can make the appropriate hanging files.

Anyway, one of the reasons this is still an ongoing project is that Saturday afternoon, Meg, Matt, & Julian came over. Meg worked on my leather baronial coronet (which she’s entering in Pentathlon)—it looks stunning and I’m slavering at the thought of being able to wear it finally. We ordered pizza and generally hung out, and all was good.

Today, Emrys and Caterine and their daughter Eleanor (age 10) came over. Emrys and Ken made the centre part of the shelves for the library. See, we needed to decide how the corner where the shelves met was going to work. I suggested making a corner section for knickknacks. I also later suggested that the area be lit. Well, the two of them figured out how to do all of that, and it’s going to totally rock. The pieces are cut; we have to stain them and then put them up, and Ken has to wire the light switch. At that point, we’ll put up the other upright pieces, then the shelf pieces (after they’re all stained, of course), and then the leaf-carved pieces that go along the uprights.

While the menfolk were playing with power tools (I’m jealous…), Caterine and I sewed. She made most of a wool tunic for Eleanor, and I remade the front of my brick-coloured cotehardie with the sage-green-lined oak-leaf-dagged sleeves. The dress was too big so I cut a bunch off the front (short explanation [g]). All that’s left is sewing the trim back down the front, then sewing on the hand-cast oak leaf loops with which to lace the cotehardie, and it’s done (again). I want to have it ready for Black Oak Lodge, Darach’s weekend event, the middle of this month.

I made caesar salad and Killer Shrimp with angel hair pasta for dinner, and Ken kindly did the dishes (me snarling, sotto voce, “I HATE cooking” as we sat down to eat may have had something to do with that, hee), and we sat around and chatting, and then C/E/E left. Ken and I sat in the hot tub, then came in and reviewed the month and what evenings we’ll have time to work on the library (which has to be liveable by 28 March when Sarah arrives) and our Pentathlon projects and docs (which have to be done by 29 March by 8 a.m.). Technically, eight evenings between now and then. Doesn’t that scare ya? And Ken has to go to Boston for three days, so he’s looking at taking a Friday off, which will give us two full days as well (the Friday and Saturday, because that Sunday, the only weekend we don’t have a weekend-long event this month, is a birthday party in Darach that afternoon and a full moon get-together down here that evening).

Again, I cannot say we live a dull life, filing projects notwithstanding.

Hey, go check out http://dolphingirl.blogspot.com/

Go on. I’ll wait ‘til you get back.

[beam] This was really a “pay it forward” project. I’ve never met Sarah (er, this Sarah), but she seemed like such a sweetie from her journal, and despite what she says, she already is doing things like this for other people, which is why I did it for her. I’ve got all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings going on inside (and it’s not because of the Killer Shrimp, thank you).

Pay it forward. I was trying to do that before the phrase became all sorts of cute. Believe me, the time I spent making that chemise is nothing compared to how chuffed I am that Sarah is happy with it.

So go do it. I dare you. Pay it forward.