Valentines

Can't find the right words, so I'm giving up. Just smiling. Smiling is good :)

Summer ahead!

Today is the 13th of February and as it stands almost all of my weekends are already planned from now until October. Between SCA events, trips home & trips to visit out of town friends, I have barely a free Saturday until the passes all close. Last year was much the same and let me tell you, it was exhausting. As much as I love going and doing, I was so excited by the end of last season to just be staying at home for once.

So far, I have 8 SCA events scheduled and I hope to fit in a couple more local ones as the summer goes on. My camp gear is all cleaned and ready to go, I just have to finish my garb. I have 3 dresses that are just hems and closures away from completion, then I need to start on chemises to go under them, linen scarves to tie up my hair and if I'm really lucky, a wool hood to wear with my short cloak. I have a couple other dresses in the hopper as well, but one step at a time, right?

I camp every season with a girl friend and we're both chomping at the bit to get this summer rolling. We're working on clothes for the season, as well as the constant task of updating and upgrading gear. This can be a very expensive habit and as neither of us has a significant other that plays, we're holding off on switching to period pavilions and all wooden tables and chairs. Camping like that is amazing and we both hope to be there some day, but doing it just for the 2 of us is a bit much for now. So we content ourselves with accurate, kick-ass garb & accessories and look forward to someday.

So around all of that sewing, I also hope to make a pair of chairs for camp. I built a collapsible, round-topped table last year and need nifty seating to match. This is the fun of camp furniture, it needs to look like it walked out of a museum, and still be able to be broken down into basic planks so it can be packed safely and easily. This is not a simple task. My wood working skills are minimal, so the chairs scare me a tiny bit. Not that it's likely to stop me. I love the challenge of working out a new design and making all the pieces fit. Now if I can just figure out comfortable as well as period looking, I'll be golden.

Some where, between events, I get to go home, hug my parents, do some fishing with my dad and welcome home a friend from service overseas. This is going to be an awesome year! Now will it just get started, already? :)

Home

So I'm sitting in the library at the state college I went to for one whole year. Staring out the window at a campus covered in snow and having the weirdest feeling that this is all wrong. I shouldn't be here, I've moved on. I moved away, have a career, have a life outside this tiny town.

At the same time, it's almost healing to visit this place again. To be back where I was when my life was all possibilities. Where each new day could change my path forever. It's so much the same as it was then, and yet many small changes remind me that this is now, that I'm not 19. The campus green is gone, now buried under a building full of classrooms. Parking lots have been moved, sidewalks rerouted. The bells in the clock tower just chimed. And again I have to shake the feeling that this is still 1999.

Going home has the eeriest effects on me. I've already run into people that I went to school with. You have that strained 2 minute conversation about where do you work, where do you live, are you just home for the Holiday? You walk away not knowing if they were glad to see you, if it should evolve into meeting for coffee to really catch up or if they're thankful to be out of your presence until the next time you awkwardly bump into each other in another 3 years.

My 10 year high school reunion is this summer. It will be interesting to see how everyone hasn't changed and who ended up married to whom after we graduated and went our separate ways. I feel like my life is in order enough to not be embarrassed about comparing files with all the ghosts from my past. I can't hold a candle to the guy who is now a Super Bowl Ring sporting, Pro Ball Player, but I work for an international corporation and have a title that sounds important if you don't really know what I do. I know it shouldn't matter how everyone else turned out, that I should be happy just to be me, but who is really ever happy with that?

Back From the Dead

Okay, so I've avoided this for far too long. 11 months later, I should surely have new things to say, but I'm not entirely certain that I do. Work is still much the same, though a transfer to a new category has meant a lot of late nights trying to get a handle on things. Life outside of work is basically non-existent, which is sad in so many ways. I go to work, stay late, and then come home and crash on the couch. Wow, I'm so exciting.

It's the Christmas season, so I should be out drinking and making merry, but really haven't been into it this year. I've been a bit of a shut in. I can't seem to make myself put on a happy face and go play nice with the other kids. All I want to do is sleep. I feel like I could sleep for the next 2 months and still not be caught up.

Today I should have been working on the new dresses I need to have sewn by January. "Should" is such an ugly word. It's actually been banished from my house. I'm not allowed to say it out loud, in the hopes that it will help keep our house stress free. My sister, who I share a house with, is an artist. Things that "should" be done are very low on her list. Which I can definitely see the joy in. Why force yourself to do the things that should be done, when there are so many more things that "could" be done.

My biggest problem is that my days are upside down. It's 10:45 pm and I'm just starting to feel like I have the energy and enough focus to work on all of my projects. I have 4 dresses designed in my head that I'd like to get done by the next event, but I'll be lucky if I get through 2. I feel like I could finally start working on them now, but my sister will be home soon and all the noise that sewing machines make is not so conducive to her being able to sleep. I'll have to start again tomorrow.

Really not looking forward to the first step. I have to redesign the pattern for the dress. It's a very fitted style and the last ones I made are now way too big. I'd give anything for a Simplicity pattern that could just be cut out and sewn, no thinking required, but accurate clothing from 1370 doesn't come from a Halloween costume book. Still trying to figure out exactly why I put myself through this...no I'm not. I'm crazy, that's why I do it.

Time to get a few things done, now that the creative juices are flowing. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Holidays Survived

Having hidden from my computer for the better part of the last month, in order to complete the arduous task of Christmas shopping, it's time to end my silence.

I have to say that this year was the roughest so far for finding the perfect gifts. Usually I'm done shopping long before the day, all gifts wrapped and under the tree, but not this year. Sadly, I was down to the wire this time. I think I went out every day after work, struggling to find what I was looking for. I actually fell prey to the holiday stress this year.

Shopping finished, work survived, we headed over the mountain to stay with the parents for the holiday. The week was wonderful, filled with movies, laughs, food and of course the horror of a 4 year old when she realized there were no more presents to open on Christmas morning. This year was also special in that I got to sit down to dinner with my parents and all 4 of my sisters. This has only happened a few times in my life and it was as a truly memorable night.

After a fun-filled drive back including snowy mountain passes and broken chains, it's good to be back in my own bath tub. Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of the 20 lbs I swear I gained in Christmas cookies and candied popcorn. :)

Decorating Gone Awry

Today we decided to decorate the house for the Holidays. Now if you know us, you know that my sister and I each collect holiday figurines, of sorts. I have Angels galore and she has enough Santa's to make even Gimble's jealous.

Each year we pick a new theme for our tree. Red and Green, Blue and Silver, All Pastels. This year's went a little out the window. We decided that we wanted all color, all the time. We dug out our flashiest ornaments and ribbons and literally threw beaded garland at the tree. We kept giggling guiltily, like we were doing something very naughty. It brought back all those crazy memories of throwing tinsel at a tree covered in bright colored lights, just like when we were 5. Now we just need a few orange glass balls and maybe some pink marabou and we'll be all set.

So the tree is mostly done, and we get to spend the rest of the week sorting out all the figurines that have been unboxed and need spread throughout the house. Let's hope we can scrounge up enough flat surfaces this year. ;-)

Better today...

I am mostly done being angry, but am still a little hurt. Or maybe sad is a better word. Sad that it's over before it began. Sad that those few short days of silly happy are gone again.

For my part, I suppose I can't blame him too much. You can't control how your heart moves, no matter how you may want to. Plus, I refuse to be anyone's second choice. "Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of my time." So I wish him well, and hope he finds that which will make him whole.

So back to my quiet life, and the search for something great. Perhaps it's time to go back to corsets and fluffy skirts and the land where chivalry still rules. It's always good to go back to the one place where you get to feel beautiful, no matter what. ;-)