Another hot one, what a surprise. First thing, had a run to South Building. Too bad I had to detour, very much, to avoid construction. By the time I was done, I was soaked.
Today's outfit: black jeans, forest green Duchy of Geoff polo (Living Greyhawk thing; embroidered white letters around silver/black griffon shield), braided hair, black loafers, emerald pendant & earring set (2 of my very few pieces of gold jewelry).
Yesterday's shoes really tore up my heels. I wore, or tried to wear, bandaids to cover the raw spots with little success. I even went barefoot most of the day & that mildly helped.
Convention planningI've almost finished preparing my characters in case they level at the con. Only Nadia is left, and I just need to pick a 4th level spell & two 5th level spells. I still need to plan what clothes I'm going to wear; shows my priorities, huh?
Problem?I have a potential problem. My iPod isn't charging. This is bad. I have it plugged in, we'll see how it looks in the morning.
Car Update:Hopefully, we'll know on Thursday. The company is paying for parts, Chris just has to pay for labor. His entire AC system has to be replaced. Once more, he's gotten a malfunction that has a bigger cost in parts than labor. We just need to see if the parts are available.
TV:Watched
Biography channel's show on Robin Williams. I did not know that he came from an afflucent, conservative family. The commercials mentioned that he's a gamer but nothing in the show did so.
Then it's
Criminal Minds followed by
CSI: NY. It's gotten late and it's time for me to go to bed.
My incipient headache has dimmed without medication this evening. It's still there, just subdued.
Labels: Biography channel, Chris's car, Criminal Minds, CSI: New York, iPod, Nadia, TV, weather
Well, I'm not packed yet & we leave tomorrow morning for
Origins. Wheeee! I still need to do a little cleaning for the house inspection tomorrow morning & we have gaming tonight. What was I thinking? Plus, I need to do one load of laundry & get more airtime minutes for my cellphone.
Saturday's outfit: USAF hospital shirt, leggings & loafers as needed, otherwise barefoot. Mom came by, she showed me some old photo's (from grandmother's collection), we talked & she went home. I got some cleaning done & I got major depressed (as in wailing, crying jag depressed. Yuck).
Sunday: English language t, navy shorts, grey sandals & celtic knot jewelry. Chris took his parents & me to see the latest Harry Potter movie (I got more cleaning done that morning & I felt better). Then we went to Maggiano's for supper. We got there before the rush so we were basically seated immediately. I've never sat in the balcony area before. It was kinda neat. Great food, as usual.
Today's outfit: long-sleeved silk blouse, purple slacks, black loafers, feather & quartz bead earrings, moonstone cabochon pendant, spoon ring, band & my hair in a French braid.
I've been busy getting directions to the hotel in Columbus, plus one a half-hour away & one an hour away. I've also looked up some stuff for Living Greyhawk & finally posted in character about Nadia's promotion & transfer.
Gotta go, lots of errands to run.
Labels: emotions, Harry Potter, Living Greyhawk, mom, Nadia, Origins, photo
Well I made it to Charlotte in good time. Spent some time talking to Liz, Leela (she burbled a lot), Alysa & James. Then it was off to bed. The next morning we left bright & early to go to
ConCarolinas. I made it in time for the RPGA: Living Greyhawk interactive, Promotion Review Board. It was very tense. Since my success rested all on my own efforts, instead of being shared, I had some serious adrenalin moments, vicariously. I did okay on the written portion, started out decently on the obstacle course (in the lead by a considerable margin at first) & would have ended better if I'd remembered to take 10 on the ride test, did well on the command portion & acceptable on the interview. Nadia was one of the 2 corporals at the board trying to promote to Sgt, both the only women there & both vastly overqualified to be corporal. I ended up playing with the other newly-minted Sgt plus other high level pcs (even the 2 cohort people outleveled Nadia). Poor Nadia, half-experience & half-gold again; 9th lvl pc at an APL 12 table. Wheee. But it was interesting.
I had two players for my evening game because no one showed up for a D&D game that the girl was waiting upon. So I dragged her in & she really liked it. I ran them through Cup Quest. I finished up a little early (12:30 instead of 1 am) & drove back to James' & Liz's. Up early the next am & barely made it to the con by 9 am. So I was a little late for my game. The girl (maybe 12?) was there again. So I know she liked my game. Metra & Chasarae showed up (Rae played last year) late but I got them involved. Then Hoss showed up & I added his character. I ran the Rinaldi adventure. Poor girl, her character Enaid, had the flaw romace but she didn't specify. So I chose for her. Her character, a baroness & distantly related to the Rinaldi family, is now engaged to Don Fabrizio.
After that I attended a panel on 'D20, is it dead?' Answer, d'uh, no. But we talked about some of the D20 stuff, like hype vs. backlash etc. Since there were only 5 of us, including the 2 panel members, it was a very informal talk. More of a discussion really. Then I toured the dealers room & spent too much money. As usual. I did find a nice coin scarf to wear to the Living Kalamar interactive at Origins.
Made it home by 7pm tho very tired. Read
Ring of Fire, one of my dealer room purchases, until midnight. Bad girl, I need my sleep. Oh well. I'm off home, I need to clean up enough to play Jadeclaw tonight.
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Labels: ConCarolinas, Diane, Hoss, Ironclaw, Living Greyhawk, Nadia, Ring of Fire, Squirrel
Busy week this week. Monday was Living Greyhawk at 1pm, supper at 6pm, home campaign at 7pm. Clean up after gaming at 11 pm. Tuesday, prep for Living Greyhawk on Wednesday (read through module & take notes & pack), Wednesday was run Living Greyhawk at
Cerebral Hobbies. Tonight it's pack for ConCarolinas in Charlotte this weekend. Tomorrow night it's drive to Charlotte, to spend the night with James & Liz. At some point I need to make certain that I know how to get to James & Liz's & then how to get to ConCarolinas. This could be important. Saturday I have entered Nadia (my primary LG character) in the promotion board, then I'm playing in a mod that afternoon & in the evening I'm running Ironclaw. I leave after that, maybe 1-ish. To return in the morning & either run the same one or a different adventure, depending on if I get the same players or not. Then I come home.
Yesterday's outfit: salmon silk blouse, print gauze skirt, black loafers, moonstone jewelry. Hair done in a temple braid. I'm trying to train it to side part again.
Today's outfit: bone slacks, print silk blouse, lapis posts (that fell out sometime this morning, I need new backs), same hairstyle with a different colored elastic, & silver rings.
Labels: ConCarolinas, hair, Living Greyhawk, Nadia
I've lost my small crochet hook, the pendant one. Well, crap! That means I have to get the other one & its longer length is very inconvenient for portable tatting.
Still trying the 19th century patterns. Not going well. Buttonhole stitches,....pbbbbbbt.
Today's outfit: black boots, black button down skirt, white silk brocade shell, cream & tan checked silk jacket, rainbow moonstone earrings, moonstone ring, silver band, onyx ring, tri-moon moonstone pendant & hair in a half bun/ponytail, affixed with a bone (faux ivory) hairstick.
I mailed the letter to Nick today. Maybe Nadia (my rpga living greyhawk character) will finally be a knight.
Labels: Nadia, tatting
This weekends outfits: jeans & assortment of t-shirts, tennis shoes & jewelry assortment.
Yesterday's outfits: black faux-suede slacks, black polo shirt, black loafers, onyx & silver earrings (new pair), mother of pearl & silver pendant, silver band, & braid.
Today's outfit: khaki slacks; Vorkosigan brown acid-washed polo shirt; brown loafers; yellow amber pendant, earrings, rings; silver band & assorted amber bead bracelet, & bun/ponytail w/ curvy 'bone' hairsticks.
The weather apparently decided to skip straight from late winter/early spring into late spring. Today's morning low (62F) was last Wednesday's high. I am not very prepared. I still have all my turtlenecks out. I have to dig out my summer weight blouses, short sleeved shirts & light weight skirts & slacks. I have to pack up my sweaters, turtlenecks & most of my sweatshirts. I can probably keep my vests out. The office has AC and is often chilly in the summer.
I finished
The Dreamland Chronicles: In the Net of Dreams, When Dreams Collide & Woman of His Dreams. 3 books in one volume, it was very good. There were a lot of puns & little pokes at classic fanasy & sci fi. Like 'they went to Smith's Dock.' If you've never heard of Doc Smith, that line means nothing. If you have, then you get a quick snigger.
The con was great. I talked to Jill for quite a while again. She's the con organizer's wife & she's really the co-head of the con. I did not get to talk very much to Keith but I did see the people at the Game Griffon again. They have a daughter now! She was a preemie but she's healthy & doing well. I met new people, Darlene & Keith who just moved down from Indiana (they know Doug Wood), owners of the dachsund 'Rogue' & Doug, (friend of Keith B. & Carol) who lives in Hickory, plays the 1/2 orc barbarian Budd. I did not get a chance to use the pool. Chris & Rosemary went Friday evening & I was just too tired. I went to sleep about 9 pm.
Duncan was sick most of the weekend but the pepto bismol helped. He was a very sick little doggy on Saturday though. Rosemary had to walk him every hour & even that wasn't enough. So Chris & I went to Wally world after our games Saturday night (C&R played 'Sterich Burning' while I played the interactive) and got the cleaning supplies & the medicine. He was feeling fine on Sunday when he met Rogue.
Reed died, again, for the 3rd time. Nadia really died but the gm let her be at -9 hp & I made the stabilization roll. That gave other characters time to reach her & heal her. *phew* It was very close. So Nadia leveled to 9th level but Reed is 5th again.
Labels: clothes, Darlene and Keith, Duncan, Living Greyhawk, Nadia, Reed, Roundcon, The Dreamland Chronicles, weather
It's Monday. I just sucked down 16 ounces of diet coke, and I still don't feel awake. Hopefully, this will not last. Thank goodness I have reminders on my calendar to remind me of time sensitive tasks.
The last weekend of the fair was great fun, but boy was I tired. Saturday, Sharon Hill, a seamstress in the Village, loaned me a dress to wear. This was a good thing as my silk blouse was still drying & the substitute was less than satisfactory. The dress is a reproduction of an 1810 dress & it is comfortable & flattering. Sharon & I both benefited. I went to buy a new garment, something to extend my Village wear and she offered to make that dress. I got to see if the dress would be comfortable, etc while I tatted and I was a model so that other Village craftswomen could see how the dress looks on someone who isn't slim. I need to check my fabric stash for 5 yards of suitable calico & 4 yards of a coordinating calico for the apron/pelisse. If I don't have it, I may buy some. Then I'll send it to Sharon & she & her daughter Beth will sew it for me. Then later I can make my own from that. Wheee! Lots of dresses. I got a picture of myself in that outfit too. Must send a copy to Mom.
(15 minutes & I'm still on hold)
Sunday night I helped Anitra & Steve pack the booth. Anitra & I slept in on Monday while Steve went to get the booth hardware, display case for the Village History display & breakfast. Steve took care of the birds, daily task, while Anitra & I went to the Fairgrounds to pick up our entries. (20 minutes & I'm off hold, whew). We stopped by the Village to say goodbye to the last folks packing up & to give 'drive by' hugs. Peter Blum & his sister were the first folks we saw. Wow, they look different in jeans. Then, everyone does. After we left the fairgrounds we stopped by Reader's Corner, after all, I had a 5 dollar check burning a hole in my pocket. That $5 is the 3rd place prize money in Infant's Wear, Other category.
I found a copy of
Perfect Patchwork Primer, the book that inspired me to start quilting. I also found a copy of
Diplomatic Immunity in hardback as well as
War of Honor and some other assorted books. I bought a book on hemp braiding as a gift for Nora, Amanda or Hailey. The
War of Honor isn't out in paperback yet (insert gloat). I spent more than I hoped but less than I feared at Reader's Corner.
I made it home about 1pm and started unpacking. Well, I got my dirty clothes out of my bag anyway. I settled down to read one of my new books & relax. About 3 pm my throat started hurting. Sure enough, I'd caught Anitra's cold.
Monday night, people finished their characters to test play Diana's supplement. I had finished mine but it disappeared so I wrote it again. Then we went through the first encounter. We'll finish it, hopefully, on the 10th.
I called in sick on Tuesday. Then I drank soup, hot tea, and lots of soda & juice. When I could I watched tv & read. Frankly, I was too tired to really pay attention to anything. Tuesday afternoon, I called in sick for Wednesday. Linda handled Tarheel Temps for me. Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday, except I slept later. I took a 3-hour nap Wednesday afternoon, skipped gaming & went to bed at 10 pm.
I wasn't feeling any better, but no worse so I went to work on Thursday. The dayquil was worse than the cold. It made me feel dizzy, in addition to the sore throat, runny nose & sneezing. The zinc lozenges, while tasting nasty, did more good. According to my co-workers I was looking a little pale, even for me. I took care of some time sensitive tasks and then headed for home at 4pm. I stopped & mailed my latest letter to my mom. Thanks to an accident of Farrington Road I finally made it home at 6pm. Bleah.
Friday, I felt better, consumed more lozenges & actually stayed & worked until 5pm. I was all alone in the office. Mike, Ira & Jim are at a conference. Rut was in DC & Susan almost never comes to this office on Fridays. I picked up a little candy on the way home, changed into something vaguely costumey, and was ready to answer the door for Trick-or-Treaters.
We had 2 groups. The first one was two little girls; a fairy & a princess. The fairy complemented me on my braids; I had unbraided my hair & then re-braided two plaits next to my face. The 2nd group had 4 kids, one still a baby being carried, dressed as a bumblebee. The first child took all but two pieces of the candy I had. The 2nd child took the next to last piece & the 1st child took the last piece to put in the 3rd child's bag. Momma was not happy & told the 1st child to put that candy back. The child did so. When he put one back that
wasn't mine, I told him to stop & gave it back to him. He was sooo cute. If I'd known that was the last group I would have let him keep the candy.
I was up later than I should have been, watching tv. So I slept late Saturday. Barely had enough time to clear the dining room table for gaming & go pick up Ted G. He's a student at State who was going to play in our session of Birthday Bash, RolePlaying Gamer's Association Living Greyhawk game. Since we were meeting him at Foundation's Edge, Chris picked up his comics & I bought
Forgotten Realms: Underdark. We ended up with 6 players, Chris, Rosemary, Ted, Jenna, & Bill D. It was a fun game & not as bad as it could have been. But we had some close moments. My character, Nadia, is a senior squire, so she was mentoring Ted's character, Julia, a junior squire.
I basically changed clothes, ran out of the house & made it to the COTE board meeting barely on time. Anitra is still sick so she wasn't there. It was just Steve & I. So we worked on the lanterns for the ritual and then went & picked up supper from the Jade Garden. Steve had brought Digdug, a burrowing owl from Utah that had just arrived at the Refuge last week. Digdug was perching on his shoulder as I arrived & I did not see him/her until Steve brought my attention to him/her (we don't know which gender she is yet). Part of one wing is amputated from a car collision injury & Steve is training her/him to be an education bird. It's a very cute owl.
Things went well Saturday night. But I didn't leave until 11:30. So I called Chris & I crashed on Steve & Anitra's couch. Again. Their dog Siesta was glad to see me again so soon. Anitra & I caught up (on the whole week's worth of doings) and then off to sleep. Anitra drove me to my car on Sunday, I drove home, showered, dressed & made to Foundation's Edge in time to run my Ironclaw demo.
I had 3 players. One who had played my Jadeclaw demo and one guy who had the book but who had never played before. He had a character half-made and I helped him complete it. I ran until 6 pm & then headed home. Chris played Halo all day, so we had pizza delivered for supper. I went to bed early, 9 pm. Still had trouble waking up at 6 am.
It's a beautiful Monday morning & I will wake up at some point. It was almost 9 am before I saw anyone else from my department. I was feeling very lonely when Linda finally stopped by. I was just exclaiming about how alone I'd felt when Paula walked in, too. Very funny.
Off to more work type stuff.
Labels: 1810 repro dress, Digdug, Halloween, Ironclaw, Ironclaw demo, Living Greyhawk, Nadia, Perfect Patcmmuhwork Primer, Peter, Sharon, sick, Siesta, State Fair, Steve and Anitra
My weekend: stay up a little late Friday night (don't even remember why). Tried to get going early, I had errands to run. But I got caught up in a discussion about which characters I could play at Hochcon. My primay RPGA Living Greyhawk character, Corporal Sr. Obedient Master Nadia Xianalannae, veteran of the Cleansing of the Oytwood & the Siege of Gorna (wow, what a string of titles), is down to 2 time units (vacation). Between her training as a junior squire, staying with the Fey king & then having a daughter, plus actually playing games, her time units have been eaten up. She's 7th level, almost 8th.
Then there's what started as my tertiary character but she's now my 2ndary: Combat Specialist Reed of the CatTails. She has 4 time units left. I've just played her a lot, and spent some time units with her clan as part of her qualifying as a clan protector (rank w/in the clan).
The other two characters are Edana Tiernan & Isolde. Edana is in the scouts; she's a 2nd level halfling rogue & has about 38 military & 11 vacation time units left, maybe more. Isolde is a human sorceress & has 39 military units left. I've only played her once.
Nadia is a half-elf bard/ranger who's a senior squire with the Knights of the Watch & Dispatch. Reed was a human cleric/fighter. Then she died & was reincarnated as a wood elf. She's still a cleric/fighter, though. All of my characters are in the Gran March military. Frankly, in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
Back to what I was saying, since my two primary characters are so short of time units that meant I was probably going to play Edana. Since she's 2nd level I had to check because not all the games had APL's low enough for me to play her. So I canceled one game (Rites of Spring, a double rounder - I
want to play Nadia in that one because she played in the 1st one in that series) & signed up to play one of the core modules with Edana.
All told, that took about 2 hours, including email. So I ended up driving through part of the early game day traffic at Carolina on my way to Pittsboro to pay the rent on my storage unit.
I made it to Southpoint, bought the stuff at Victoria's Secret (yeah coupons). Then I passed by The Body Shop. But I had spent more than I had planned at VS so I didn't buy anything there. After that it was into Barnes & Noble to spend my $25 gift certificate. Ran into 2 people I knew. I managed to resist
Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett. It's still in hardback.
Chris & I picked up Rosemary (yeah it was out of our way but she's having brake issues) and we all went to see
T3 at Blueridge. In some ways, a predictable movie but it did have 1 or 2 surprises & it was well-done. Definitely worth matinee prices so we got a real bargain. We still plan to see
The Medallion &
Matris Reloaded, both of which are also playing at Blue Ridge. After the movie it was Ten Ten Diner for the buffet. Yum, great buffet. But I did not like their crab rangoons. I loved their sesame balls (with red bean jelly inside).
I finished one book I'd bought that day & started another one.
Woke up Sunday with a headache. We went to Pizza Hut for their buffet & I dosed my headache with food, caffeine & an ibuprofen. They never did have a chocolate chip pizzert, much to my sorrow. I had some salad, apple pizzert & blueberry pizzert, though.
Then we went to Southpoint. Chris wanted to see how much Sears was charging for ovens. Ours took 30 minutes to heat Friday night, averaging about 10 degrees per minute. He wants (& I agree) a double oven. We looked at Maytag's Gemini but the Sears' Kenmore with the tri-use drawer (storage, warming & baking) was $200 cheaper and had a half-removable rack for cooking tall items, say a roasting pan with a lid. It had 2 double burners on the range top. It has one of those flat top ranges instead of the burners we have now but that's a common feature.
While there we also checked out dishwashers (ours is probably as old as the oven so could go any day) & small fridges for when we have the game room aka the basement done. We decided that the 4+ cu. foot was bigger than we needed. And that there are a lot of dishwasher features that we just don't like.
Then it was home to finish working on our characters for Rosemary's Forgotten Realms campaign. I had lost my character sheet & the part of my notes that had the stats I'd rolled up so I had to start over. I remembered what sword I wanted; I need to make 2 notes on my character sheet though, -1 damage on the sword & that my character reacts less-than-well to sudden bright light (part of the whole 1/2 Drow, Darkvision thing). Chris had his stats & notes, he just had to fill out his character sheet, equip & name his character.
I picked up the living room a little. Disposed of the box (recycling) from Wizards of the Coast. I kept most of the stuff they sent, other parts of it ended up in recycling too. I finished another book that I'd bought Saturday (that's 3 read plus 1 additional book:
A Gentleman's Honor,
to Sir Phillip, with Love,
Blood Price, and
Blood Trail). Was up until almost 11 between finishing that book & picking up around the living room & kitchen.
Kept waking up with nightmares all night long. Most of them were different, too. Apparently I turned off the alarm clock at some point 'cause I woke up at 6:45. Only about 45 minutes late, & I needed to weigh myself, pick out clothes & pack my lunch. It was a little close this morning & I was 10 minutes late to work. On the bright side, I've lost 2 more pounds.
Ran into Shaw again, on the bus. He lives in Cary & parks at the same P&R lot. I saw him on the bus home Friday, too. He was late for an exam in his African-American History class.
Wow, this is a long post. I'm reading one of the stories in
Changer of Worlds, again. It's the 3rd of the Honor Harrington anthologies. I picked up the 1st one on Saturday. I bought 5 or 6 books. If I actually stop & think about it, I'll remember how many & what their titles were.
Now I have work to do (I've been working - I started this post at 9 am & finished at 10:15 plus 10 minutes for editing)
Labels: Changer of Worlds, Edana, Forgotten Realms, Isolde, Living Greyhawk characters, Monstrous Regiment, Nadia, nightmares, oven, Reed, storage unit, T3, weight loss
