ALNM: 1838

I forgot to mention that Friday, the Santa Anas started a’blowing. Our pool Shamu ended up not only on the side of the pool, but halfway up the step to the house. My contacts and sinuses were not pleased by the strong winds nor the dry heat and whatever was violently blown along with it. The Santa Anas have since died down, and today the strong breeze was cool. I’m reveling in it.

Tuesday I sent a follow-up e-mail to my birthday party invite, just to the folks who hadn’t RSVP’d, asking them to do so. Most of the replies thus far have been regrets. Do folks really not know that RSVP includes regrets? It’s hard to tell. I know some people were still checking their schedules, which is fine. There are people not coming whom I’d greatly hoped would; friends I haven’t seen in awhile and would like to spend time with. Ah well.

Sarah and I are sitting here both typing madly (hmm, first wrote “badly”) away, and it’s just wonderful. We interrupt each other to confirm plot things and ask questions (“Is Hannah an only child?” “I think so, but she doesn’t have to be.” “Doesn’t matter, really.”) And we’re listening to Gowan on iTunes and we have the same Gowan picture on each screen, and lo, we are amused. And no doubt amusing.

We have a Post-It Note on the window of silly typos. Like, “…that set his feet on edge.” Heh.

Today we went to an incredible needlework store near here. It was less than five miles away; I thought it was much farther than that. Sarah works as a custom framer at a needlework store in VA, and was instructed to check out good stores in this area. I wasn’t urgently tempted to buy out the store, but I did see some cool stuff. An interesting selection of silk floss, and since the brand I like I can only find online, this should help. Floss made from angora, cashmere, and alpaca. I did buy some huge lengths of DMC floss to weave with.

After that, we picked up some meds for her and vainly searched for pearl-headed pins in Michael’s (if anyone knows where to buy pearl-headed pins, please let me know! I need them for the leather coronet that darling Meglet is making for me), and then came home and spent far, far too much time online looking up fantasy and pagan cross-stitch patterns. I don’t even do much cross-stitch anymore. Ack. Then she made a tremendously yummy chicken curry for dinner, and we read Blaze novels, and now we’re in here, and I’m avoiding writing by updating this. So off I go to be productive again. We’re on Chapters 5 and 6, BTW. We’ll be more than halfway through before she leaves. Send positive energy that we’ll keep up the momentum and get this thing finished in a reasonable amount of time!