Easily Distracted by Shiny Things

First things first: For those not following *their* journals (Which due to pottery marathon, has been including me until this was mentioned elsewhere), bighairyviking has this to say about himself and backpacker_feet:

"Before we turned in for the night, Athena and I took a break to look up at the stars. Without any lights around, there were more stars out than I'd ever seen before. At nine at night, out in the middle of the desert, I babbled something that I hoped was romantic but can no longer remember, and I asked her to marry me."

Little brother, you rock. So does she. Congrats!

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Sooo.

Marathon pottery stuff. Five out of nine plates done, one worked on, three to go. Almost gone throat/sinus issues deciding to make what I hope is their last gasp by leaking out my EYE (ew. Also, ow.) More marathon pottery stuff. having my MP3 player run out of battery at about 6 PM, meaning I was subjected to a bad hard rock station then a worse dance one instead. (I like some hard rock. I like some pop. But I don't like the radio very often, because the commercials are more repetitive than the worst dance song, and hard rock djs are, in this town anyhow, mostly dreadful. Though a "history of vinyl" went by that wasn't.) Four-thirty AM taxi, call in sick at five.

Life's like that. right now.

Marathon will continue an as-yet undisclosed number of extra days. But more intermittently and less "I have nothing in my life but clay".

This week:

Tonight: make pretty designs on plates. Possibly go to archery, if Colin is done helping Vilashna and her Chris with a horrible basement issue. Then resume making pretty designs on plates.

Tomorrow: Dental appointment, then to school. Throw chili bowls until Colin picks me up and drags me to dinner with Armonn, Iulianna, and possibly Tomaas.

Wednesday: Trim chili bowls and mix glazes until dance practice. After dance practice, go home, make pretty designs on plates.

Thursday: Trim chili bowls and mix glaze. Go home. Make pretty designs on plates. I'd like this to be the last gasp, as they do need to be dry very soon after, as the glazing is also baroque and involves painting colours.

Friday: Work. Go to university, drop off last plates. Load kiln with glaze tiles. Candle (IE, low warm-up). Home and more plates. Alternately, last glaze mixing, then load kiln. At least, I think that's the plan. If I have to fire the kiln overnight instead, I'll do it, but if so, I strongly suspect the lenten coffee ban is going to fail (although... it survived last night and the night before. not sure how).

Saturday: Up at the crack of dawn to actually fire kiln through the day. With luck, should be off by evening, late enough for me to be starving, early enough to game (Though probably game late). Alternately, sleep. then up for archery and game and celebration of temporary lease from potteryness.

Sunday: ... unload kiln. If it's cooled enough. Or maybe When. Oddly, I think that will be it unless some of the plates are out of bisque already. I may have to, gasp, write. (And catch up more on internetness.)

It was probably terribly wrong of me to go to the heather Dale Concert Friday night rather than to the wedding rehearsal. In fact, the single wisest thing I could have done would be to stay home and sew so that i could in fact get a full night's sleep.

Maybe. I give myself the excuse that I actually needed the recharging, since I was a point where having to work day jobs on Thursday and Friday was *stress relief*. Even before Friday's shift proved to be another really quiet one. That much business.

( The concert )
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Three AM after the concert, I hammered in the last grommet on the back of Brenna's dress. (To my credit dress wise are the cutting out of 2 underdresses and about 80% of the outer dresses, the dead-basic sewing on 2/3 of the dresses, and the fitting and finishing - the *hard* parts - on Brenna's and my overs and unders. This is *not* to understate the results of everyone else; which included three men's tunics in velvet, outfits for four children in either velvet or satin (Two about two-year-old girls, one almost four, and one older boy), multiple banners and all the rest of the sewing and finishing of the ladies' outfits. (The mother of the bride did the bride's dress so we didn't have to.) And that is the *sewing*. Add painting and carpentry and multiple other tasks....

So the first thing I asked when i got to the house where the women were assembling and getting hair done was "So who here has had more than twelve hours of sleep in the last three days?"

The answer seemed to be Teresa, and even she'd only had three the night before.

( The wedding... )

Want sleep.

Want no more sewing.

Want seasons two and three of Doctor Who on DVD at home. (Not happening anytime soon, AFAICT)

I'm surprisingly close to the end of Season five of Stargate SG-1. I suppose sewing is good for something. I'm thinking it's a better season than four, though it was off to a slow start, but that may also be what I was doing while watching influencing my attention span.

Currently at work, too, and not sewing, which doesn't help anything but my finances. Thankfully, the last two nights of marathoning did help; there's exactly two tasks left which i am competent to handle. (After which the dresses need to be delivered back to the bride for grommets to be put in - there's some hand-sewing, too, but someone who is actually adept with a needle, not a machine, should do it. I only sew remotely gracefully using things with names like Kenmore or Singer, that plug into the wall.)

I may have talked my husband into doing one, or part of one, for me, if only so I can get home, leap to work for a handful of time, and have the miracle happen.

The reality is, too, that the dresses should go through the wash before the wedding; and mine should be sprayed where the inexplicable grease marks popped up during the sewing stages (This happened to something like three dresses.) How I'm supposed to do that in the narrow window of time tonight, *even with* Colin's help, I don't know (woe!)

Plus, of course, wedding prep starts early. At least I can hope for one night's sleep first. Maybe.

Sunday I will sleep muchly, and laze muchly, and maybe go to a barbeque for lunch, and definitely watch Fantasia(s) in the evening (But probably not The Court Jester; that needs to be saved for when _aura_ can join us.)

Let's see what actually makes it into text here.

( life and writing and art updates; the boring stuff )

( Reviews of cool books and music; more interesting )

Let's see. Since I last Posted:

brannie_bird got married, in a very lovely ceremony that was a mix of Scottish, Wiccan and Christian (Emphasis on the Wiccan). _aura_ and I had put her hair in rag curls the night before, mostly with success. I did not, in spite of best efforts, knock the communion table (A tea-tray, since this was an outdoor ceremony) into the pond. (Keith caught it.)
And to my deep surprise, I didn't actually cry, though I came close.

( Weddings and other things. )
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This weekend is our September cabining/tenting event. Whee! Alas, it seems like only half the really cool people are going. Well, so long as I'm not the only participant in the bardic Circle.

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( Writerly moaning. )
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( Some reading )

Sleep...
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* Or rather, the lyrics to. I don't write music. I'll probably steal a tune in classic renaissance tradition, if I ever decide it's good enough to try to sing. If so, I won't admit it's the one I'm talking about.

No archery tonight: Tired, headachy, listless. Colin especially headachy. We watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which I hadn't seen. Good but I don't feel like reviewing.

He's having some real work stress again. Friday he learned that their graphic designer quit, which, since he's done graphic design work for them, puts more directly on his plate. The ONLY good that came out of that was that we went to see Casino Royale because he wanted to de-stress. (Yes! A James Bond movie I like without reservations. Though I see a bit of what forodwaith and I discussed, and likely most of the reviews did, about the darkness and the mood.)

He was called in on Saturday, came home looking frazzled today because the backup machine ate a tape -- and did so because it itself was broken. This is not long after a software malfunction in same -- though not so close on the heels of it that they don't have anything current. Still, half a day right when the workload explodes...
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As for me, I just found out that my rewrites of two particular scenes have vanished. I have everything before and after, so I can only presume that moving stuff from the thumb drive to the main computer, I overwrote the file the wrong way once. Not a biggie: I had to change part of it due to deciding to cut two named characters and a whole bandit camp from the plot, and I remember most of the rest of what I need to tweak. Not that I'm not *frustrated*, I just don't ahve the energy to get worked up.

That being said, I think I did manage another negative 200 words in the stuff around it, and it's that low only because I did some re-filling as well as the chopping to smooth over a spot or two.

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Unlike today, when everything seems kinda blah, the weekend was fun. brannie_bird, her aunt, mother-in-law-to-be and I went to the Wonderful Wedding Show, and like me, she got some good ideas off it. PLus, of course, entered lots of draws for cool prizes. She also set up dance lessons for herself and Dan, a jewellery party for her attendants and other female friends (No obligation to buy, but you know how we is with the pretties. Thankfully, this we is also broke.), and a free spa night.

The same evening, we had a candle party at Amy's, in which I got silly and bought the only thing within my price range currently, which was some tealights with an apple scent that isn't a vaguely fruity ish scent, but actual green apples. (I'd've preferred votives, especially since we have piles of unscented white tealights, and votives are better in all respects)

I also agreed to host one of my own around the end of March - right, I realised afterward, about where it looks like I may have a gap in my school schedule anyhow (Just after the tests/essays are all up). I think I'll be inviting anyone from the Barony who wishes.

Yesterday, Colin had decided to make a roast pork (Honey garlic glaze... YUM) and a gargantuan squash, tried to call up abacchus and _aura_, only to find out abacchus was working. Mom stopped by for a little in the afternoon, had tea and got more Battlestar Galactica foisted on her. After that, since we weren't expecting any more guests, I decided to take down all the Christmas stuff.

Then abacchus and aura called back; his shift had been cancelled. Since I was in mid-de-decorating, we didn't get to clean the rest of the house, but we warned them ahead, and even if we didn't, I guess they're used to us. The one thing that did get wholly cleared was the one that really mattered: the table (Where my pottery stuff has sat, partly ignored, for months). So they came by, had a good meal, and we played games (Starfarers of Catan) and talked until over an hour past Colin's bedtime.

Progress notes for September 15, 2006:

And it shall come to Pass


New Words: Just over 2000 words.
Reason for stopping: Once again, finished a draft..
Tea: cherry juice, then water.
Music: Emmylou Harris, Red Dirt Girl
Mean things: Prophecy's a bitch.

Now to let that stew a handful of weeks to decide if it's worth anything.

Inevitable Asides: I get to go pretty dress shopping with brannie_bird tomorrow. Well, likely she'll be doing the pretty dress part, and I'll be watching. So far I haven't seen bridesmaid things I feel strongly inclined to try.

Let's see. Good things to say about the wedding yesterday.

The ceremony was very nice. The groom was a widower, but this was the bride's first wedding, so aside from the children, it looked much more like a first wedding as regards the pomp and elaborateness.

The bride's dress was gorgeous, she was radiant (She started out as beautiful, which puts her ahead of most of us), the groom was handsome if too solemn, and they both got weepy during their vows -- which is uncharacteristic of him, as he tends not to show the softer feeligns much. His daughter was stunning (Ahead of time, there'd been a problem where they'd ordered her the wrong dress size), and the young son was adorable and obedient (Having seen him around the office when bored and restless, and knowign the bride, who is great with him, was probably too busy for child wrangling, this isn't necessarily something they could assume ahead of time.)

The dinner was excellent, the hors d'oeuvres and oyster bar during the cocktails were very enjoyable. There was an unfortunate harpist in the corner of the reception hall who was probably audible only ot the nearest two tables and thus went far too unappreciated for her contributions.

And it was good to hang aorund with some of my co-workers outside standard work.

This would give you the wrong picture, alas.

The bride was 40 minutes late for the ceremony. (Those of us who know the couple, including the brother/best man, were astonished it wasn't the groom running over half an hour behind.)

This meant most people rushed over to the reception for the cocktails in the foyer, only to end up standing, and rapidly running out hor d'oeuvres for almost 3 hours. This translated to a great many people being rather too tipsy prior to the meal, mostly in friendly ways, but one ended up wasted and paranoid and ugh.

Even I had had most of four drinks, which is the most I've had in one night, well, pretty much ever, but I tried to pace them and to eat enough to sober up. And I had nothing but water during the meal.

The reception line took over half an hour more, and they did the first dance before the food, so it was a good while after we got to sit at last before the food showed; and the courses dawdled, with an ice course after the salad when people were getting seperate for real food. I'd been hoping for the dancing, so by that time I had enough restless energy to annoy my table by beating up on the star-shaped chunk of water ice the flavoured ice had been served in.

We left just after dessert -- at almost 11:00 PM -- and after several co-workers, those who had to work in the morning particularly.

Anyhow, I took a nice walk around the quieter and more residential streets in our area after we got home, to make up a bit for not getting any dancing. That was surprisingly pleasant.

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Today, after a far too restless and interrupted sleep (The cats were pests, the husband, being somewhat ill, tossed and turned, about which I was less than sympathetic at 7:30, and then my mom chose to phone at 9:30 on my day off. I managed to be friendly, but hung up muttering, "Why does everyone who loves me hate me today?" Now, of course, I feel badly for griping at a sickly Colin.) I got to the University, and I've almost entirely resolved my courses for the year. The professor I couldn't reach by e-mail I reached in person. Alas, I failed to reach the one who'd already agreed via e-mail to letting me into a "full' class, but the administrative assistant was remarkably helpful in setting things up so he could sign in my absence. I sent him a second e-mail apologizing for the missed time anyhow, but, still, whee! I'm in!

I tried the Student Loan system again only after I'd come back home, and ran into trouble again. However, I talked to my brother on the phone tonight, and he told me what to do to get through. So off to try again!