It seems like anymore, Sunday is really the only day I’ve been getting to sleep in. There always seems to be something going on the rest of the week that I need to get up for, but Sunday morning is still safe. So far.

My dad had his consultation with the oncologist on Friday, I haven’t heard from my mom about how that went, so it must have been more of the same. He’ll start his rounds of chemotherapy soon & then it’ll be my turn to sit with my grandma while they’re gone. It’s heartbreaking to see her this way, so fragile and out of her mind most of the time. For all of the years after my grandpa died from mesothelioma until about 4 years ago, she was self-sufficient. She took care of her home, visited with her friends and handled all of her own business. Then she got sick, her osteoporosis took a turn for the worse & we started noticing a huge personality shift. We just put it down to old age for a long time, but in the past year, we have come to accept that it’s Alzheimer’s & had that verified by her doctor. If we had pulled our heads out of the sand years ago, we might have been able to have managed her symptoms with medication a lot better & she might not be as far along. Now, it’s too late & all we can do is clean up the messes & try to convince her that an airplane didn’t crash in the back yard, no matter how real it seems to her.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if your loved ones aren’t acting like themselves, and are displaying unusual anger, depression or memory loss, please get them to the doctor, get a diagnosis & find out what’s really going on. I wish we had, it might have been easier on my parents that way.

There’s one really good thing about spending all day, every day for a week out in the sun. It cleared up all of my adult acne. I know it’s not good for my skin, so please no lectures. I hate sun block & the way it feels on my skin, so I never remember to put it on. Fortunately, I had enough of a base tan this year that I didn’t get sunburned, except my cheeks on the first day.

It was weird, I had a lot of money to spend this year, I just didn’t find that much that I wanted. I traded in the bodice I bought last year, for one that actually fit me (the old one was two sizes too big), bought one more & bought a silver medallion that I had stamped with a couple of symbols (the Celtic pentagram & a fox). Besides a bit of food, that’s all I bought. Today, on the other hand, I plan to buy a video camera & some new clothes, so it’s all even in the end.

Sorry I haven’t been around the past week, it was, after all, faire week. I noticed this morning that this blog is throwing an error, so I’ll need to try to get that fixed at some point today or tomorrow, as I find time to do it. Faire was good, we had the stage built & ready to be painted before sundown on Monday, which has got to be a record. It was completely finished by about 3 or 4 the next day, if not sooner. Our encampment was up and ready way before then, as was our booth, so we had a really good setup.

I had a pretty steady flow of customers, but didn’t sell very much bath salt at all, so I won’t even be selling it next year. I’m not sure that I’ll do much soap, either, maybe just the soap by the slice stuff, or I’ll slice it up & package it. I do need to make some Dragon’s Blood for a regular customer of mine, but other than that, I’m not going to put much effort into that. The signs sold fairly well, so I’ll do them again, but maybe I’ll do more pirate sayings than I did this year, they seemed to be the most popular.

On Wednesday night, someone broke into a vendor’s trailer & stole about $400 (that’s their cost & not the resale value) worth of stuff & they didn’t have enough left to sell to earn gas money back home, so another vendor took up a collection from the rest of us for them. I felt really badly for them, that kind of thing used to never happen at our little faire.

Friday night we had a huge storm, with wind gusts up to 70mph & heavy rain. I thought for awhile that I had lost all of my soap & bath salts, but we managed to save everything with minimal damage. There were a couple of vendors that had to leave the next morning, because they either lost their actual booth or their merchandise wasn’t in condition to sell anymore. We agreed first thing Saturday morning not to hold our costume contest and of course, there had to be a jerk that raised a ruckus & started threatening to sue us over it and a bunch of other garbage. He “came all the way up here” to watch the thing, by the way, and was furious that we had “no good reason” for canceling it & couldn’t understand why every member of the board had a different reason for not wanting to hold it, so he assumed we were all lying. We weren’t, we all had very different, very valid reasons.

We got to talk to several people we don’t get to see that often, which is always nice. They all have triumphs and trials to talk about & it’s great to see how big the kids are all getting & the new additions, too. One of my friends was having problems getting their oldest child insurance, because they couldn’t prove that he was the father, and were having to save up to pay for DNA testing or some nonsense like that. I just think that’s ridiculous, especially since Troy always managed to keep our kids insured & he has no proof that they’re his.

Saturday afternoon, another storm started blowing in, so most of the vendors shut down early & started tearing down. We waited it out for a little while & then joined them. The stage was down & loaded along with everything else by 9:45 & we were off the park by 10. All in all, it was a good faire & we all had a pretty good time.

Things just haven’t gone like they should have this week, honestly. We ended up having to help Dawn, Jason, Blake & Melissa move, with a couple of days notice & 4-5 days to get it done. All of the kids who live or stay in that house spent the week bickering & fighting, which really grates on the nerves after the 25th time. Troy got upset by somethings that he found in Dawn’s daughter’s room & we had a terrible time getting it all sorted out, but we did. I wasn’t able to really help out over there for more than a day, because I’m still trying to get everything finished & ready to go for faire. That hasn’t been all that successful, either, I started freaking out because the walls aren’t even at one end, not stopping to think that Dave will take care of it while he’s hanging them up.

I knew that I was burning myself out & compromising my immune system, so I took yesterday off to just rest & relax & still ended up sick today. I’m so nauseated today that I can’t even think about food. At least now I can drink something, which was out of the question earlier. I still haven’t gone through my garb & decided what I’m wearing each day & repaired & cleaned everything, shoot, I don’t even have all of my jewelry rounded up & ready to go yet. I can’t do anything tomorrow, because we’re (me, Dawn & Melissa) are driving to Las Vegas to pick Dave up at the airport & that’ll take the whole day, and in the evening is drum circle, which I try to never miss. I guess I’ll put Troy to work on the house Sunday while I work on sewing, that way twice as much can get done.

I posted this on our troth’s forum & thought it was so much fun that I’d share it with all of you

Look to your left. Name 5 things you see. Rolls of ribbons in several different colors, a hand knitted wash cloth, a Pirates of the Caribbean sock, my Linksys router and a ladybug cell phone charm
Look to your right. Name 5 things you see. A Burger King Cup, some peppermint foot spray, nail polish remover, Sylver’s phone number, a little ceramic Witch boot.
Look at your desk/workspace. Name 5 things you see. A cup with my family crest on it, some pens, a Baltimore Ravens sticker, a cup full of sewing stuff, eye drops
Whats on your desktop? two dragons, black & white on a starfield nuzzling each other
Ok, now look out of the nearest window. Name 5 things you see. a dead tree, a live tree, a half dead tree, a cinder block wall, the sky
Name 5 of your favorite:
- books: Cell, Number of the Beast, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Wyrd Sister, Carpe Jugulum
- movies: Con-Air, Water World, High Fidelity, The Replacements, We Are Marshall
- songs: Up All Night, Save Me, Ruby Soho, True Believers, Don’t Take me for Granted

I only plan to spend about an hour online this morning, there is still so much to be done, just to get everything I have in my craft room organized enough to figure out what goes to the park next week & what doesn’t. That’s not even talking about finishing things up that I have started & haven’t found time to complete yet. I should never have let Erin come back & stay for the few days I did, because there are now things in there again that aren’t mine & I don’t know what to do with. Yesterday I found some audio racks and he never even owned any audio equipment. How does that even make sense? There’s a strobe light hanging on the wall, too, that’s been there since he moved out. I don’t know when or why he got it, but I know he never moved it out.

Now there are things in there in boxes, I don’t want to really mess with them, so I’ll put them in the closet, after I get the closet clean enough to do anything with. On top of all of our faire preparations this week, Dawn, Jason, Blake & Melissa have to find a place to live, rent it & be moved out by Saturday. I have no idea how that’s going to happen, but they have no choice at this point, so we’re all scrambling around trying to get them packed and everything else. It’s going to be a crazy week, that’s all I can say. We’ve had crazier, and made it through, I imagine we will again.

Last night I started sewing the walls for our two buildings that we pretty much live in for 4 days during faire. I’m not sure at this point that they’re going to be long enough, but we’ll do what we can with what we have, I imagine. I have 4 two-panel sections done & when I have the last section (which will be a 3 panel section) sewn together, I’ll start attaching those to each other until I’m putting together a 5 panel & a 6 panel section. Then I’ll hem both the top & bottom & hope for the best & start all over on the second one.

When I finish those, I’ll get a chemise & a shirt cut out for my niece & hopefully a few overskirts for her, too & sew those up really quick so she has something to wear when she comes to the park. That should be everything that I NEED to sew, we’ll see if I get anything else done. I would have loved to have made myself a new dress this year, to wear in processional, but I don’t see that happening this time. I’ve seen some beautiful examples in pictures I’m looking at today, some with beads, some have freshwater pearls sewn on, some are just appliquéd with heraldry. Maybe next year I’ll make something pretty, just for that purpose.

I have so many other things to do besides the sewing, and it’s just not going to do itself I’m afraid, so I probably ought to get back in there & get back to work!

The first setup day for faire is in exactly 2 weeks. That means I have 13 days to finish up everything for our encampment & my sewing. Maybe 14 days to finish up my booth stock & get things packed up & ready to go to the park. I wish I had thought to have some custom boxes made for packing my signs and such in for transport. It would make things so much nicer, and would probably be easier on the signs, too. As it is, I’m thinking of picking up a roll of bubble wrap fort hem, so they don’t get dinged around too much.

I’m finishing up all of my shirts & bloomers that I needed to sew, as a matter of fact, I’m taking a break from threading elastic right now. My back was really starting to hurt & I had to stop for awhile. During this week, I plan to sew the last 2 skirts that I have planned & get started on Jaycie’s dress & overskirts. I made her a deal on what I was going to sew, just because it’s getting so close to faire & we put off shopping for her fabric for so long, so hopefully I’ll be able to get that stuff finished for her.

At any rate, I need to get back to my elastic so I can sew everything together & then get finished with it all.

Sounds kind of odd, doesn’t it? We’ve been redoing the thrones that the royalty sit on for our renaissance faire since Saturday & we’re still not quite finished. When we first started going to it, the larger of the two was stained a lovely dark brown, with a light gold rub in various areas. I’m not sure what color the panel on the back was, but it had a backing of quilted fabric of some sort & color in it. The smaller one was white, but I’m not really sure what color the filials & panel were, because I never paid attention to it back then. In 2000 a woman named Kelly took them home & painted them. They came back a hideous, light flesh-colored pink. The big throne had a maroon panel & gold trim (which was very bright, it would have been great on gold cufflinks, but not on that throne), the smaller one had a green panel & the filials were green & gold.

Over the years, the pink paint started to peel off of the larger throne & we took them this spring & put them in Dawn’s garage for painting. When we started this past Saturday, Troy noticed that the paint on the larger throne was latex & we started peeling it off in huge sheets. The beautiful brown stain under it was intact & in pretty good shape. It took us a pretty long time to get most of that off & then we started on the other. Because it hadn’t been stained underneath the latex, it wasn’t coming off, which was fine. We painted it a deep Tudor brown. They both have silver rubbed into certain places on them & the large one is now brown again, with a pretty green panel, trimmed in silver & the smaller is trimmed with purple. I painted the filials with a faux marble technique & they look pretty good. I’ll have to take pictures when we’re completely finished, there’s just too much to really describe.

Anyway, Dawn just called to tell me she was home, so I need to go & finish up.

The sari skirt I ordered left Salt Lake yesterday, so I’m really hoping it’ll be here today, and if not, it’ll be here tomorrow for sure. I’m excited to try it on & see how it works and all of that. I think I’ll get a new t-shirt or tank to wear with it, because I plan to wear it a lot & not just as faire garb, I think it’ll be beautiful & cool to wear, too. After I get it, I can use it to make myself a couple more, too. I’ve already bought the fabric for them, I just need to actually see how they’re put together so I can make some.

There’s kind of a funny story behind Troy ordering a laptop for me the other day. We were sitting around that day, not doing much & he saw a Dell ad & went to look at the laptops. He thought we had no credit left with them & didn’t even suggest getting me one from them at the time. We did play around with the options and all & colors, but then we took off to go & look at memory cards for his pocket PC & while we were out he asked if we had any credit left at Dell. When he found out we did, we came home, he got his memory card formatted & ready to go & we started laptop shopping. He has taken to telling everyone that he got a $20 memory card & I got a $700 laptop & it’s not fair, all the while he saying it he has a huge grin on his face. I’m excited for it to be shipped & even more excited to actually have it!