I wrote a huge blog around the green background with white towers wall haging but the computer eat it and I'm too pissed to rewrite it. Lets just say the wall hanging that Paul and I made for the shire is now in the trash can headed to the city dump.

And I'm very disappointed the shire for the lack of interest or compassion they have shown over the last few months when I have bought up the subject. 

Any new projects will belong to me - alone.

Well, I guess I was pretty hard on Paul last time. I love him to death, but I think sometimes he will be the death of me. :)

No, he has not fixed any of the things I complained about last time, however, he has started removing the seriously ugly wallpaper in the hallway I have been complaining about since we moved into the house 16 years. Yes, 16 years I have been complaining before actions was taken.

The outside of the wallpaper has all been removed and he is now about 80% done with removing the residue on the wall. There is a small amount of mold (the yucky kind) in one corner so that will have to be taken care of and the rest of the wall preped with some kind of mold remover as well. Then it has to be Kilz coated to cover stains. As for paint, Paul wants to do some kind of Egyptian theme that features a black ceiling with stars. Now we are talking about a tiny room that is only big enough for the 4 doors - one on each wall. I don't really want it as it will make the room even smaller. But I told Paul he could do what he wanted in there since I pretty much picked all the other rooms paint colors.

Gwenllyan verch Morgan will be staying the weekend with us next weekend May 8-10, during her trip here to teach a shire Italian Renaissance Garb Class. I have my spring cleaning about 20% done, I have to pick up the pace this next week, and get off of Facebook games. 

I have my new tablecloth about 10% done, got to get on with that project. 

 

What isn’t working today -  let me count the items:
1) The house needs painting so badly, the neighbors beside us have painted their house 3 times in 3 years, our hasn’t been painted since 1992.
2) The back porch is about to fall off of the house it needs repair so badly.
3) The pick-up truck - hasn’t worked in 3 years and Paul won't have anyone look at it.
4) The lawnmower - has not worked in about a year and Paul won’t take it in to have it looked at.
5) The vacuum cleaner stopped working about a month ago.
6) The car AC stopped working today, last time this happened it took about 18 months before it was fixed.
Sigh - I just want enough money to get things fixed or repaired.  I’m so tried of begging to have things fixed and getting nowhere.
 

Another kitten died today.

Early last week I received a very unpleasant email from someone that I had long admired for many years. Although they sent an apology the next day I will never be able to look at that person the same way again. Paul could tell I was really upset even thought I didn’t tell him about the letter or who it was from for a couple of days; he was incredibly sweet to me all week.

On Saturday we went to the new Jacksonville Art Market that is being held in Five Points on Saturdays now until December. Then we walked from the market to Five Points and had lunch at the “Cozy Tea”. The atmosphere at the Cozy Tea is great but I liked the food at “The Chi House” better.  Then we walked down to the Jacksonville Garden Club to see the rose show.

Sunday was Easter; it was very quit. I had hoped by talking about Easters past all week long Paul would take the hint and do something “special” for Easter. I had already told him point blank the week before that I wanted to do something to celebrate the day but it didn’t happen. I don’t why I love holiday so much since I never get to celebrate them - and that really hurts.

Monday night:
Clone-20 gave birth to her kittens. Unfortunately being a first time mother she bit a little to close on the umbilical cord of the first kitten and pulled out his intestines. He was dead by the time I found him. The other kittens appear to be good. I haven’t got too close to them other then to check to see if they are alive.

Tuesday:
Woke up to a big windstorm this morning about 10am and a few minutes later the lights went out for about an hour.

I really love holidays. Whenever one is coming up I think about it, dream it, do a little searching online about it and decorate for it for weeks before the holiday. Unfortunately I'm married to someone that could care less about any holiday include birthdays and wedding anniversaries.  Halloween and Christmas being the main ones I dream about with St Patrick's and 4th of July being second.

I've never really thought too much about Easter in the past 20 years or so. However this year for the past 2 weeks I've been thinking about it A LOT. I've been having vivid dreams about coloring eggs, hiding eggs for children to hide, those pressed sugar eggs with little scenes inside them, and new spring clothes. I've been dreaming about the coconut cake my mother use to make every Easter with the coconut dyed green and tiny candy eggs in the center of it, and lots of chocolate Easter bunnies. I've dreamed about the year my sister and I got live chicks for Easter from a cousin that lived in the country, and the year that we went to hide eggs in the country with Jeff and Joyce Mount and their parents with 5 year old Joyce in a big bunny suit and the white turkey farm we ran into so there were 4 kids with Easter baskets of eggs with the youngest in a bunny suit surrounded by hundreds of young white turkeys. I’ve dreamed of huge fields lots of beautiful spring flowers and a Easter dinner table filled with them, and a huge Easter dinner with lots of friends sharing ham, candid yams, fresh green beans, and roast veggies.

Last night I dreamed we were sharing a large feast and I was in charge of creating a Easter-ish dessert and I spent hours in the grocery store just walking around trying finding the ingredients. I finally decided on "poached pears nest" in brown sugar and cinnamon covered in green coconut with tiny eggs in the hollow of the pear. 

Then I wake up -- back to real life -- no chocolate Easter bunnies or flowers or friends, or dinner. Just Paul and I trying to get by.

 

April 2 Thursday
No SCA meeting due to Spring Break. I’ve been good today drinking lot of water. I don’t really like things with no taste so I don’t drink as much water as I should, so I have to have it really cold to get it down. LOL

April 3 Friday
Late in the evening went in the sewing room to clean up and sorted some scrap fabric into another pillow for the Scriptorium event. It has a Persian theme and we are making floor pillows.

April 4 Saturday
Paul has been pulling his hair out doing taxes the last few days, he really hates it. I offered to do but he refused saying I couldn’t do it. Never mind the fact that I did my own taxes for 12 years before I met him.  Had been looking forward to going to the event staffing class today but just couldn’t face it and an all-day-headache too.

April 5, 2009 Sunday
I’ve woken up with a migraine headache for the last 3 days, generally takes about 6-7 hours before it goes away for the day. Got one this morning but got up anyway to go to the Herb Faire on Southside today. Been wanting to go to it for a few months now. The house it was held at had a really lovely backyard with half the yard being covered with multi-level raised wood decks,bridges and 2 ponds with fish (and snakes - yep, saw 2 black snakes basking in the sun on rocks around the ponds). There was about 7-8 herb vendors. I got a rose scented geranium and a couple of others plants.  We tried the herb banana bread, shortcake cookies and allspice tea.

I'm feeling really wiped out right now, overheated and really to go back to bed and cool down. Probably shouldn't have gone out with the migraine. Off to bed and the heating pad on the back of my skull.

Sunday 11:40pm
Spent several hours this evening taking apart 2 purses that were donated to the pillow project because of the design of the fabric & taking apart the "Big Purple People Eater" shirt. The purses have gold elephants on them and I'm suppose to applique them to a larger pillows, took forever to get them apart, it would have been more helpful if the person donating would have taken them apart first before donating them and had just given me the elephant design part.
The purple shirt is something that was donated to the pennants project in 2005 and for what ever reason it was decided by the shire back then to give it to Gold Key - fast forward 4 years and Gold Key doantes it to the pillow project. There is so much fabric in this shirt it took me half an hour to decide how to chop it up. I kept turning it around and around in my hands trying to find the seams. I chopped off the 2 sleeves first - each one was so long and so wide they would each have made a full strapless dress for a 10 year old. The gathered lower part of the shirt I cut away from the yoke and it had enough fabric to make a gathered skirt for me and maybe one other person. Who the heck would have ever had enough girth to fill this shirt? No one I have seen in the SCA - maybe the 1000 pound guy they show on TV, the one they had to bury in a piano.   I will made 4-5 pillows from that one shirt with the yoke part being used for stuffing.
 
 

I've been very lazy this weekend. Just monkeying on the computer.

Paul's hip is looking about the same, but he said it is feeling better and it is not hot to touch anymore so I guess the meds are working. He is on the road to NY tonight, and will be home on Monday night. On Tuesday we are waterproofing the green kitchen tent and redoing the Lala tables (table we got from Lala when she moved to PA). We are going to try to borrow a small trailer from Liza to use for Coronation this coming weekend. Paul is going to get it early and drive it around town to see if our little car can pull it. If is doesn't work Kenet has offered to carry some of our stuff to the event. I hate to keep imposing on her she does too much for too many people.
 
Paul has named the black & white kitten "Jeeves" from one of Paul's favorite stories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeeves
He is turning into a great little guy. Since the other kittens have found homes he is turned out to have so much personality. He has been climbing on the chair next to my computer chair and putting his paws on me to pet him and jumping on me at night in bed.
 
Well, I'm off to take the trash to the street and wash some dishes.

Well, the 4 of the kittens have found homes. The last two left today to the same home, a friend of our next-door neighbor. That leaves one kitten, the black and white one, the one I wanted from the start. LOL He has been so shy and the other kittens have out shone him. Now with just him and the adults cats left I'm hoping he will come out a little more. Generally he comes out at night and plays with the other kittens and hops on the bed. I'm glad they found homes of their own but I still think about and worry over all the kittens we have had in the past.
 
Paul got a haircut today and shaved his beard down to a goatee. Haircuts are big deals around here. LOL They are so rare.
 
He also finally went to the doctor today about the infection on his back hip. I think they are spider bits about (6 of them) and they are looking pretty bad. Doctor says the infection is deep. We have to wait for the swab test to come back to know for sure or see if the new meds work. He is having a lot of pain sitting on that hip.

Today I'm on the recovery from a bad, bad night of stomach problems. During the worst part of it early this morning JEA (The City) came around and finally decided to string wire on the pole they put up a few weeks ago. The sound of the wire coming off the spool was a very high-pitched whine that made my teeth crawl. Paul had to go ask them if they could do something about it. They said they would oil it but it was a while before it ended. 
 
Last week we cleaned out around one of the small trees in the side yard and planted some white crocus bulbs, wild violets I pulled up in the yard and a fringe of Boston Fern. I'm hoping the Boston Fern will spread and eventually take over that whole side yard so we don't have to mow there anymore. I have ordered some red spider lilies online that I hope will be here soon. I had not thought of them in years but last September when we went to my nephew's wedding, we saw thousand of them in Alabama and it made me so homesick just to see them dancing in the breeze. I have never seen any in the stores here in Jacksonville. Since this is the time of year to plant them for fall blooming I ordered some. We will see if they do anything here. I know that irises just don't survive the Florida soil and heat, I've planted several dozen of them over the years and they never come up.

On Saturday we went to Sebastian's house at the beach for dinner with several other household members. Touched briefly on the upcoming event but didn't really make any plans. The dinner and socializing was wonderful.
 
This past weekend we hosted a shire workshop to make floor pillows for our upcoming Persian theme event in July. Over the last few months we have been collecting scrap fabric from shire members to make the pillows. We had 23 bags and boxes of small scrap fabric and ended up with 11 well stuff large pillows, several half stuffed pillows, large fabric pieces to be turned into more pillows and several bags of scrap we didn't open yet. We will continue to collect any scraps and do it again in a few months.

Next project is to see about making a Grant of Arms circlet for myself. It has been 13 months since I got my GOA and haven't found a circlet that I like. I haven't seen one at all at Trimaris events. I've searched online but didn't really like any I have seen. The trouble with making one is that it has to conform to a guideline on dimensions: "Persons with Grants of Arms may wear a circlet of any metal with no protrusions above or below the band, ornamented with a single precious stone, the overall height of which shall not exceed one half (1 /2) inch."

I'm not a metal worker and don't have any clue where to find 1/2 inch brass wire/band. I want a moonstone for the single stone but there is no place in Jacksonville that I can find that carries loose gems stones. I have searched Fire Mountain Gems but at present they don't carry one that is 12mm, I even searched eBay. So I'm looking for options at this point.