I LOVE TEXAS

But the weather drives me batty sometimes! In the last 48 hours it's been in the upper 70's or lower 80's, and currently it's 43 degrees in my backyard, and the temperature is still dropping. Sigh. It's a good thing #2 is just back from Alaska so the cold won't bother him too much while he's mowing, etc. And my evening plans, ladies sewing while the fellas are rat pucking up the street at the park I think are about to be adjusted, as I'm pretty sure the fellas aren't interested in frozen pucking. Not a huge deal, we all have projects we can work on inside and still have visiting time. Or we can just visit... I think I'm taking my cold little self to bed, with an extra quilt since I already took the blanket off and put it away. And we are within the '10-day forecast' range of Scarborough's opening day. Sure it's only marginally accurate this far out, but the current call is 55-75 with showers all weekend. NOOOOOOO! Colder than that with snow, sure that's fine, we managed just fine in our own little snowglobe on opening day 2007. In the predicted temperature range with sunshine, FABULOUS, we couldn't ask for much more perfect Faire weather. But RAIN? EWWW! It won't keep most of us diehards away, but it will certainly rain on our parade, literally. OK, I think I've rambled plenty for tonite... off to bed so I can get an early start tomorrow.

Gardening 2009

Earlier this week, a couple of things happened that inspired me to actually garden this Spring. First off, my lawn guy came buy while I was at work and mowed the front as well as cleaning out the front beds and trimming the bushes, etc. When I moved in, right about this time last year, it was a mad crazy rush to finish getting everything moved, clean out the old place, and get ready for Scarby, so there was no time to worry about adding to the flowers that my landlord had put in. Second, there was a thread posted on the Wench board about gardening that also inspired me. I've been gathering supplies and plants for several days. I still need to get a broadcast spreader, but I think I'll just pick up one of the handheld ones for ease of storage and because my yard isn't all that big anyway. I'm trying to go as natural as possible, so that means no chemicals going in my yard. Initially it will be a bit bigger outlay of funds, but in the long run it will be better all the way around. I have about 50 plants that need to go in the ground, and this weekend that will happen. What's that you say? Am I aware of the weather forecast? Yep, i know that we are going to have another cold snap. The good news is that my #2 Nephew is back from Alaska, without a job yet. He'll be right at home outside in the predicted temperatures mowing my back yard (which is locked up and because my lawn guy came early, I hadn't unlocked it for him to get in and mow it), fixing a flower bed by the pool deck, and getting what I've already bought into the ground for me. If we finish that before his evening commitment, we may go get more stuff for him to put in. At any rate, by the end of the weekend I should have a BEAUTIFUL garden started.

Playing Catchup Part 2

Let's take a look at my To Do list before Faire starts on April 4th, in no particular order:

• Make a pattern for wrap pants off the pair I borrowed from a friend 10 months ago
• Sew 2 pairs of wrap pants using above-mentioned pattern
• Make favors using my new stamp and fimo clay
• Sort out the tote full of accessories
• Pack the garb tote for opening weekend after narrowing down what to wear to 3 or 4 outfits to choose from
• Charge camera batteries
• Get the toiletry bag packed for the season

Now, that doesn't even include the sewing I need to do before 3rd weekend, and then that for Final weekend (Memorial Day).

So the weekend after NTIF, when I *should* have been home sewing, or making favors, or sorting garb & accessories, I went to Midland. If you are at all familiar with Texas, you're probably thinking MIDLAND???? Why on earth would anyone go to Midland voluntarily? My best buddy lives about an hour and a half south of there, and one of my favorite pipers' EJ was performing with his band Clandestine at the Scottish-Irish Festival out there, so we decided it would be a grand time for us to get together, giggle, shop, and hear some rockin' Celtic music. I flew out to Midland and Darla & her boyfriend (who shall henceforth be referred to as SFB, I'll let you decide what it means) picked me up at the airport on Friday afternoon and we headed directly to my favorite candle shop The Candle Cafe. I was quite restrained, as I was flying home and didn't have a lot of extra space in the suitcase for candles. I came home with her newest cherry scent, amaretto, and and aspen woods.

We stayed at a motel that I'd booked (and prepaid) online.

Yeah, note to self, NEVER THERE AGAIN. It was a "Suite" yeah, this is the bedroom. There was an 18 inch or so space between the beds. Note the lack of a nightstand... yeah that was in the corner near the foot of the bed on the left. The space between each bed and the wall it was up against was about 3 inches, at best. The closet, which clearly should have had a door, did not, simply because there isn't space for it to open , or if it was open, to close, so they just took it off completely, apparently, it doesn't show in the photo because it's to the right of the bed on the right. These next 2 shots are from the bathroom, which DID have a door, with a locking knob to boot!

Love the peeling wallpaper and water damaged ceiling... scary, when you consider we were on the 2nd floor of a 3 story motel. Clearly they are "remodeling" or something. Especially lovely is the use of MASKING TAPE to tape the seam at the wall & ceiling in the BATHROOM

Yeah, pretty isn't it??

The coffee pot didn't work, which doesn't matter to me, since my coffee is Dr Pepper, but SFB was cranky on Saturday morning. The festival itself was fun. Smaller than NTIF, really probably less than 25% the size of NTIF and maybe half the size of Texas Scottish Festival, but hey, Go Permian Basin for having a Celtic festival! Probably 90% of the vendors I'd seen the previous weekend, but they are awesome vendors, and I found stuff that I either didn't see at NTIF, or caught a glimpse in passing but didn't stop to look, or I looked but left behind for whatever reason. I made some awesome purchases that I'll get a lot of enjoyment and use out of.

We won't go into SFB making a complete ass of himself at dinner at a little Mexican restaurant trying to show off his Spanish skills by talking to the obviously ASIAN waitress in Spanish, and then deciding to publicly proclaim that all of his relationship problems are my fault. Whatfreakingever. Yeah, there's a reason he's SFB!

I flew home Sunday afternoon in time to get to Burleson for dinner with friends after their Pirate Invasion at Weston Gardens, and was still home by 6 to do laundry and start getting ready for the week.

This past weekend I had lunch and time to hang with my friend Erin wandering through Joann's looking for fabrics for later in the season sewing projects. Sunday I went to Benbrook with some Faire Folke for rat pucking practice and visiting. Sunblock Nazi (that would be me) FAILED and I wound up with a bit of sunburn around the top of my forehead and on my arms. Poor Isa's face is peeling already from her burn. Sad thing is, we BOTH had SPF 70 sunblock with us, and just didn't use it! Yeah, epic FAIL for me!

OK that's enough rambling for one night... Gardening posts start tomorrow or Friday....

Time to Play Catch Up, Part 1

I'd tell ya that I'm going to try to give you the short version, but well, I don't know how to do a short version of much of anything, so bear with me. My festival season has officially started. NTIF is held every year the first full weekend of March and many of the local rennies consider it sort of a kickoff for the Faire season, because it's one of those situations where we can dress up in garb, or our kilts and be out in public without garnering much negative attention. This year marked the return of The Rogues to the festival after a much too long absence. As a result, my favorite Canadian, his wife, and a fiddler came down and stayed with me. It was a long and busy weekend, and I feared that my sweet Leo would be stressed to the max. Then, about 6 on Friday night, Randy said, as he was leaving to go meet other friends for dinner, "I'll see you about 10 in the morning." Puzzled, I said "Oh, you're coming over to the house? Ok, that's fine" To which he responded "Oh yeah, didn't we tell you, we've got to rehearse, and we are planning to do it at your house. Is that ok?" "Umm, noo, you didn't tell me, but sure, I'm game for it." Before I left for the airport, I did manage to visit with my friends Mary & Sakeeta at their Estelril Enterprises booth and get more lotion and salves, as well as catching the Clandestine show (yeah those pictures aren't all edited yet), and a wee glimpse of a wee new Ameri-Scot, Max Kean, who was a whole 3 1/2 weeks old. By the time that I got home from the airport with the Canadians, I had learned that in my media room there would be 2 sets of bagpipes, a fiddle (actually 2 different ones, but played separately by the same guy), acoustic guitar, probably bass & electric guitar. Yeah, that was going to be interesting. Since we didn't get home until almost 12:30 and the Canadians' were at 1:30 a.m. after being up since early the day before, a text was sent telling Randy not to show before noon! Bow fell in love with Nelson's wife, and commandeered his guitar case for her morning nap. She's such a rotten thing. She learned from the master, the late, great Mr. Moro, who was absolute the King of sweet kitties, thus she believes that the only reason that guitar case came to TX was to provide her with a new and interesting bed for awhile. For DAYS after they left she kept going into the guest bedroom looking for them and wailing her head off when there weren't there! I got a couple of shots of the rehearsal as well: Doug's back, Lyric on chanter, Nelvis, Randy beating on the wall, and Corey on fiddle Doug & Lyric both on chanter, and Nelson's back Apparently years of listening to bagpipes blare through the house on the CD player/Ipod has mellowed Leo somehow, because he slept through the whole thing. By the time we got to the festival on Saturday there wasn't much shopping time, and I didn't get many decent shots because I was at the sale table instead of sitting on the front row.

Sunday was a better photo op for me, and I got some great shots, but haven't gotten them all edited to upload, so you'll just have to wait. We got out there a little earlier, and I got to spend some time with Erin, Tony & Tom, and later with Mark and sweet baby Claire, who, OMG is almost a year old! And isn't she absolutely darling? She LOVES her Auntie Rae and the camera!

Probably wasn't my best decision, leaving the festival to take the Canadians back to D/FW, then going back to the festival for a few more hours, because I was definitely POOPED by the time I got home that night, but I had fun and made some awesome purchases that I'll eventually add photos of as well. Yeah, I suck at getting photos done in a timely manner most of the time, so sue me. Note to self, schedule a vacation day for March 7th next year to recover from NTIF.

And well, I'm tired, so you'll just have to wait for Part 2, I guess, cuz I'm too tired to keep typing and 5 a.m. comes early tomorrow.

it's not over yet, apparently

This afternoon, I went out the back door to unlock the gate so I could bring one of the trash bins onto the patio so I wouldn't have to keep going in and out of the cold to take the food I've let go bad in the fridge and get freezer burn to the bin. I got out there and found this:

The inside of the gate, near the bottom:

These 2 are the outside:

Yeah, *someone* appears to have tried to pry open my gate from the bottom. Stupid bitch, does she really think she wouldn't be the prime suspect? It's not like she can get into the house at all, short of breaking a window, because the locks have been changed. Even breaking a window won't help her because, well, I have put those little security locks that you need an allen wrench to open on them.

What really pisses me off is that now I may have to rethink my plans for faire this season and staying closer to faire on the weekends, lest I come home to find all my shit gone! What the hell is the deal? I did everything I could to help her, I did more than most people would. Now I'm out probably a grand in additional utilities and groceries, not to mention money I loaned her to get her car fixed. You know, I'd finally started to feel normal, well whatever's normal for me anyway, and not like my space had been violated. AAARRRGGGHHHHHH