Red Shoes

Last week I talked about making some of the changes that I’d like to make this summer. Starting with my house, and making it more into a home. Something that I am so excited about. I had originally planned to take next week off, but an opportunity for some overtime at work came up, and I had to take it, so I moved my week off to the following week, which will probably work out better since I’ll have the whole week instead of Monday being a holiday and busy with all the holiday stuff.


But I’m getting way off topic here. So anyway, other changes that I’d like to make this summer are more along the lines of a personal makeover. Because well, I’m a hot mess.

First my hair. I don’t really take good care of it. I last had it trimmed almost a year ago, and I think the last time it was done before that was about another 9-12 months prior. Needless to say, I’ve never been a salon gal that goes in every 6-8 weeks to get my hair done. I dye my own hair, and I have been doing so for about 12 years or so. Always red. I love my read hair, and though I do get itches for something different occasionally, I just love my red hair too much. I have had it done professionally twice, both about a year apart and by two different stylists because my soul dies at the thought of dropping $60+ every 6-8 weeks to have done something I can do in my bathroom for $10. I even consider the $10 a splurge because I can do it cheaper by buying the stuff separately from Sally’s Beauty Supply.

But, I’m not a mid-20’s starving college student with a part time job anymore. Somewhere along the line I moved into a professional job with a professional title and my own office and everything. And just because it most certainly isn’t the job I want to retire from and is miles from where I want to be in life, I still need to start acting the part. So, goal #1: Get my hair done and keep it up. I’m going to get my hair trimmed/cut (depending on how damaged the ends are), dyed professionally and get the blond chunky highlights that I got once before and loved but was too cheap to keep done again. Now, I can’t guarantee I’ll be sitting in a salon every 6-8 weeks, but I’ll certainly aim for 12 weeks and under depending on budget constraints. I do want to grow my hair out for now, so I’m not anticipating any major cuts right now. We’ll see if and when that changes.

Next, clothes. And good lord are my clothes bad. Truly. They may not have ALWAYS been bad, and individual pieces may not be too bad, but overall, my wardrobe is sadly lacking in decent modern style. I typically wear the same 5 or so outfits a week (and by outfits, I mean tops). Many of which have holes in them. I have about 2 pairs of pants I trade off wearing and I wear my one decent pair of jeans on Friday. Most of my tops are now stretched and faded so they are far from flattering. I look through my closet and realize that most of the clothes I have, just really don’t suit me anymore. When I was 24 and going to the club after class until 2AM they were cute. Now, they just look sad. Not to mention that the last time I had a closet full of cute, in style outfits was when I worked at Mervyn’s and I got fired from there in 2003, and never really bothered to update my wardrobe since. Yes, I’ve bought a piece here and there and I do admit that I do have a few really cute things, but the overall of my closet is just sad.

Now the wardrobe fix is trickier than the hair fix, because quite honestly, I am so overwhelmed by clothing and style, it’s not even funny. Part of the problem is I’m cheap. Incredibly cheap when it comes to clothes. I’m shocked and incredibly annoyed at the thought of paying more than $15-$20 for a piece of clothing or shoes. And I feel that once I’ve spent that $20, I need to stop because I’m spending too much money. Let me make it clear at this point that in no way does Chris contribute to this thought process. He thinks I’m crazy for turning down a cute top that’s $25 because “that price it outrageous!!!” And he actively tells me that it’s ok for me to buy some new clothes when I point out a new hole in a shirt. But this doesn’t seem to end the enormous guilt I have for buying new pieces of clothing.

What to know the funny part, this cheap side of me seems to only apply to certain areas. I seem to have no problem dropping $30 on a pedi that’s going to last only 6 weeks or so, or spending close to $100 for a goblet that I’m only going to use a max total of 14 days a year. But a new top for $25 that I can wear once a week for a good year or so? That’s crossing a line apparently. Yeah, my brain is totally logical.

The other side to this is I’m a pretty casual person. Though I adore a complicated outfit perfectly pulled together, I am generally too lazy to go through all that work. Hence why I end up wearing pretty much the same things every day. Hand in hand with this is also just the “simple” lack in confidence that I could even pull off anything trendy, cute and pulled together. Going back to the days of childhood, when I was relentlessly teased for my clothing choices, so now I tend to stick with the basics and avoid anything that might seem too bold for the sake of reliving those tortuous elementary school years. :/ And there is the fact that accessories scare me. I have no idea how to use them. And I’m pretty convinced that they may look adorable on others, but will look like crap on me of which everyone in my office will laugh at me like I was 7 years old again.

I may have a few issues I’m dealing with.

However, for the same reason as above. I’m an actual adult with a professional job and I really do need to start looking the part. I don’t plan to go on a thousand dollar spree or anything (though, if anyone wants to nominate me for What Not To Wear, I would love you forever. I'll be happy to provide pics if necessary.). But I do plan to slowly buy some more quality staple pieces at what I know will be more expensive. :/ But that I can augment with some cheaper trendier pieces. I will toss/donate the clothes in my closet I don’t wear anymore or don’t fit in anymore. And I will try not to hang on to pieces of clothing until their ripping at the seams because I know I can wear it one more time!!!

But if anyone wants to volunteer to be a shopping guide with me, I could really use the help, because as I said, I am completely overwhelmed and honestly have no idea what looks good on me outside of the same things I always buy. I tend not to veer too far off the path of what I know and am pretty scared of changing for fear of getting laughed at. Yes I’m almost 31 years old and still afraid of being teased. But in an attempt to break out of my rut a little I did make a bold move last week. I bought shoes. Red shoes. This is huge for me. Mostly because Every. Single. Pair. Of shoes I have are black. All of them. So I took a bold step and bough these really cute red shoes that I fell in love with. Time will tell if I actually wear them. I’m a little scared. Ok, a lot scared. :/

They are a lot more red than the pic shows. Apparently Target has some kind of block on their pics so I'll just link to them instead.

I’ll clearly never be a fashionista and I don’t want to be. I like being low maintenance in my style. Plus my work place is pretty casual, so its not like I need to dress for Wall Street, but I do think some improvements need to be made.

Lastly, My body: I really need to start working out again. Since I stopped taking the hormones I dropped about 6-7 lbs in a month and it was great and I stopped there. I would love to lose about another 5lbs, But more than that I’d really just like to tone up. Plus I know I’ll feel better about myself and overall if I’m exercising. I’m going to get back on Spark People and set small weekly goals for myself to get myself going. I’m going to start using my Wii Fit again and possibly the 30 Day Shred. But I’ll probably wait for that until later in the summer. Chris and I are going to start going on evening walks together. I'm going to start tracking what I eat again and start cutting back on the fast food. Some nights I'm just too lazy to cook so we run to grab fast food. I really need to work more at not doing that by doing more meal planning. I've started buying food at Sprouts which has organic meats, fruits and veggies at a ridiculously good price. And I want to start going back to the Farmer's Market now that faire is done.

Ok, I think that’s about it. Sorry this is so long. I have a lot of personal making over to do. :) At least I didn’t even get to the personality/inner self makeover stuff! Maybe later.

Changes

As Ren Faire is heading to its end for another year, I find that I can finally once again look past it and think about life outside of Faire. And as sorry as I am that Faire is ending, I am really looking forward to getting back to the rest of my life and attending to the things that have been neglected the last three months or so. To that end, I have made some plans that I'm pretty excited about.

First and foremost, my house. When Chris and I moved into the house in November we worked hard to make the house as functional as possible and ready to have people over for the holidays. However to do that we stuffed our closets and garage and an extra bedroom with boxes and crap that have pretty much just been sitting there ever since. I don't mind too terribly that it has been that way, but I do think it's time for that to change and to make our third bedroom and closets much more useful.

I've worked really hard over the last few years to save up as much vacation time as possible. In my job I often come across individuals who experience an emergency and have to take a significant amount of time off, but they do not have the leave time to cover it. So I learned to make sure I have a buffer. But I am only allowed to carry so many hours into the next year, any excess is lost, so I need to use my excess time this year. So I decided to take a week off in June to simply just focus on getting some order to my home.

Here is the plan for the week:
- Clear out the boxes and crap from the spare room
- Throw away, donate or sell unnecessary items, find proper places for the rest
- Finish painting the spare room
- Switch the two extra rooms, the smaller will become the spare bedroom, the larger will be the office/sewing room
- Get new couches (We're hoping to get a good deal Memorial Day weekend)
- Bring the desk and hope chest still at my mom's house over to our house
- And overall make both spaces much more functional and useful

I would like to do more, but I think this list is a tall order in itself right now and I think it's a good start. I am super excited about all this. I have been itchin to get back to fixing up my home for a while now and I'm so glad that I can spend the time to do so. Plus, I could REALLY use the time off of work

There are some other changes I'll be making after faire is over, but I'll save that for another post. J

Sixth Weekend

Holy crap Batman!! I cannot believe that faire has been going for six weeks and that this weekend will be the end. It has gone by so incredibly fast. On one hand I am so ready to have my life back, to spend my weekends with my husband, to sleep in, to get things on my to do list done. But on the other hand I'm sad. I'm going to miss faire when its gone. I'm going to miss the escape and the fun.

Unfortunately there was a significant amount of rumors and drama this season,  and it look like there will be some changes for next season, though I'm not really sure what they are since I've heard more stories than in a book of Aesop Fables. In any case, I know I'll be back for more next year.

I'm bummed that Chris won't be able to come and visit me this season. He had been planning to come out this weekend, but his uncle recruited him to paint his grandparents house, so he won't be able to make it out. We're both disappointed, but family comes first. I'm really not looking forward to the amount of crap that I have to bring home this weekend. The many trips to the car are not going to be fun.

My ankle did MUCH better this weekend, which is awesome. I am REALLY hoping to actually do a dance or two this weekend.

So Highlights of last weekend:

~ Saturday morning's Pony Ride
~ The amazing support of friends
~ Having the ball that is Master Jarvis thrown back into my court. I'm so gonna break Mistress Verno
   this weekend.
~ Dinner with the gang, including making Brendan wince at some very bad images I made him think
   about and almost making Alicia choke on her tacos.
~ Lady Shrewsbury getting the bagpipes to play at lunch for Lord Mountjoy
~ Finally catching a Commedia show
~ Spending Sunday morning with Lily and playing Eye Spy
~ Spending Progress with Fiona and playing Spelling Bee and playing with talking flowers
~ Getting to say a line for Queen Show
~ Officially receiving the title OMH (Old Married Hag) and now being called that by all the Maids. I'm
   having a handkerchief made with the initials OMH.
~ Catching a Boggards show.

I always feel like I'm forgetting so much. There is just so much that happens in two days, it's hard to remember it all.

I'll have some pics up later in the week and I'll actually have one or two non-faire related posts, if you can believe it.

Why?

So, I wanted to talk a little about why I do faire to begin with. Why I get up ridiculously early in the morning on a Saturday AND Sunday, to drive an hour, park my poor car in a dirt and rock parking lot, lug a bunch of crap I'll need for the day the quarter mile or so until I get to backstage where I can cover my body with 35lbs of velvet and silk. I cinch about 4 inches or so off my waist with a corset that sexily pushes a mass belly blob down, making me look like I have an 85 year old man beer belly. I hike up the girls, coat them in several layers of sun screen, layer on makeup, braid my hair and put in million hair pins all to make it look like I'm beautiful with no effort, though I have to reapply makeup throughout the day as it sweats off and cover my hair with a hat. I can only eat a little food because my stomach can't expand. I down water like it's going out of style as my dress turns into my own personal sauna. Using the giant port-a-potty to pee is an adventure of unspeakable proportions. After which the dress just does not sit right for the rest of the day.

I'll swing my hoops a bit to catch a breeze whenever I can. Attempt not to trip or fall on any of the unbelievably uneven ground or trip on my own skirts, or someone else's skirts or even a man's sword. I'm on my feet about 75% of the day. I can't raise my arms higher than my boobs, I can't bend over to pick something up, I can't get up from sitting without help. At the end of the day, after 10 hours in full dress, I can release my ribs from their confinement and take deep breaths again. My body is covered with dust and sweat. I feel icky all over as I lay in a puddle for a few moments trying to remember how to be human, before I hang every up, put everything away, lug the dirty laundry and everything else back out to the car, find some protein for dinner that my body is screaming for and go for another hour drive home before I can take a shower and collapse in bed. Then I get up the next day and to it over again.

No this isn't an exaggeration. This is pretty much exactly what faire is like. This is every Saturday and Sunday for 7 weeks. All this in addition to the 6-8 rehearsals we have throughout the year, 4 weeks of workshops and building, which is both Saturday and Sunday, and teardown the weekend after faire. In addition to the countless hours sewing, the million pricks of the finger, the dozens of trips to downtown LA for new fabric, the tears of frustration, spending more nights with my sewing machine than my husband. Alyson brought up a very good point a couple of weeks ago. That we spend our entire year planning, preparing and working towards what amounts to be two weeks of our year in the end. That's a lot of freakin work.

So why the hell am I doing it? Because I Love it. I freakin LOVE every bit of it. All of this is 150% worth it. And I really can't imagine not doing any of this. Yes, I know I may be clinically insane.

In 1989 The Renaissance Pleasure Faire moved from Augora, CA to Devor, which was about 10 minutes from where we lived. I was 10 years old and my mom thought it would be fun to take us to the faire. She even made me a cute little pink princess dress and my brother a cape and hat. I just remember loving every second of that day. It was so magical. I was in awe of the Queen and her Court (ironically many of whom I know very well now). I told my mom that day that I wanted to be in that court.  I remember one of the ladies giving me a little cheap ring, and I LOVED that ring. It slipped off my finger as we were leaving the faire and I was heartbroken.  We visited the faire a few times more over the years, and I always loved it.

In high school, I was always slightly awkward. Not quite a total reject, but certainly not cool. So of course I hung out with those like me, typically the drama gang. Some of who actually worked at the faire. In 1997, I was a junior, and my teacher was Chuck Obversby. Who just so happened to be a key player in the Guild of St George and had already recruited several students to join the guild. I BEGGED my parents to let me just do one year. I would be in household, and the guild would provide the costume, so we wouldn't have to put out too much money. My teacher would be there, and several other responsible adults. With great reluctance they agreed and I started faire.

First of course there were the rehearsals and then workshops. By the time faire was set to open, I had the most amazing feeling about faire. I was home. I felt so welcome. Everyone there was like me. This place was just as magical for them as it was for me. I was shocked to learn that people did this for years, some for decades. The people were amazing. I really can't describe it any other way, except that I just knew I belonged there.

I spent most of that first season in shock and confusion over many of the double entendres, mostly of sexual nature and about 90% of which went right over my head. I was from a Christian, conservative home and was pretty well protected from such things until then. I met and got to know gay people for the first time. I came into contact with such a wide range of people from different backgrounds, beliefs, religions. A whole new world was opened for me. I remember laughing. Laughing all the time. There was always something happening that caused me to smile and laugh out loud. I started acting and interacting with the customers. Trying to make their day as magical as mine was. I gained an amazing sense of confidence. These people had accepted me just as I was and really cared about me, took an interest in me. They didn't talk to me like I was a silly teenager. They listened to what I had to say and took me seriously. I would end the day/weekend more energized then when I started.

Now I'm 30. I'm about to complete my 14^th season. A lot has changed since that first season. A lot of friends have moved on or been sadly lost. I get a lot more of the jokes now, and I'm not quite as wide eyed innocent as I was then. And even some of the shine from the magic is gone. But the laughter still remains. I can always count of someone bringing not just a smile to my face, but laughter. Every day I know I will laugh and laugh hard. I know I have great friends who care about me. I know that there is always someone who is willing to listen to me, support me or just simply tell me when enough is enough. Faire is more than just a hobby for me. It cracked open my world. Exposed me to so much. It has had a HUGE impact on who I have become. It is a large part of who I am today. I can't even imagine who I would be without these people and this place. Every day I learn something new about myself and I continue to grow because of it.

Yeah, sometimes it sucks. It's not easy and not always fun. It's hard work. Some of the hardest work I've ever done. But when it is all said and done. It is totally worth it. So I'll get up and do all over again.

*Updated* Fifth Weekend

*Ok, sorry, pics must not have worked trying again.

I'm not going to really do a recap this weekend. they're kind of boring to write, and I'm even way more boring to read. So instead, some highlights:

~Belly dancing at St. Ives with my sister Saturday afternoon
~Watching Kat Ashley (Annie) break Yeoman Hammer
~Breaking Jimmy and Laura by describing what it’s like to live with my husband
~Christening my new goblet with a Pony Ride
~The invention of a Penny Ride
~Actually walking Progress both days and walking around the faire, visiting with patrons
~Starting Sunday with a nice quiet walk with Mary (Alyson)
~Being introduced to the meat locker at the Whore House
~QOTW "Jimmy, did you just teabag Jose's hat?"

And now some pictures:

Self Portrait

A good shot of my dress, even though I’m
making the dorkiest face ever.

And yes, I made that whole dress myself.
I have the blisters to prove it.

My pimp cane. Thankfully I haven’t had to use it in a couple of weekends. It’s still pretty bad ass.

This is my old (left) and new goblet. Both made by Girl Glass. To give you an idea on the size, my old goblet holds 16oz, I think the new one holds about 12-13 oz.

Taken in better light so you can see all the pretty colors. This was made to match my gown. I absolutely LOVE how this came out. Worth every penny. Yes those are flecks of gold throughout the glass. (sorry for the crappy cell phone pic)

A pic of the inside of the goblet. I can’t imagine the amount of talent it takes to make art like this, but I am in awe.

Infertility Alphabet

I found this a few weeks ago and fell in love. It was meant to be posted yesterday, so, oops.

Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Matthew 7:7

Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Joshua 1:9

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with Thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2

Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. James 4;8

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice. Psalm 55:17

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life John 3:16

Godliness with contentment is great gain. I Timothy 6:6

He that abideth in me, and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. John 15:5

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Psalm 31:1

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Luke 6:37

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Jude 1:21

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:2

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen Hebrews 11:1

O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever. Psalm 106:1

Pray without ceasing. I Thessalonians 5:17

Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Psalm 80:18

Rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee... Deuteronomy 26:11

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth Colossians 3:2

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live; and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Psalm 119:116

Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you. John 16:23

With God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it... Psalm 127:1

Ye shall seek Me, and find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13

The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion... Psalm 128:5

Scriptural references are from the King James version of the Bible

By Lola Anderson

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who have had such beautiful babies in these past couple of years and to my amazing mother and mother-in-law, I love you!

4th Weekend

So another weekend came and went. And it was a good one. This weekend was the March ARB Air Show, and I had planned to attend one of the days for some time, so I had already planned to miss one day from faire long before faire stared. I opted to do the Air Show on Saturday because we are typically short of people on Sunday at Faire, and I didn't want to leave them one more short.

The Air Show was impressive as usual. We couldn't afford the Thunder Birds this year, but they did get the Patriots, which were pretty impressive. Other highlights were of course the F-22 and C-17 and the Heritage Flight. I love Air Shows, I've been going as long as I can remember, and they're always a blast. I just love the Air Planes. J

Chris also got himself new tired for his car, which he was excited about and has been obsessing over for weeks prior, finding just the right ones. We also hit up T-Mobile for new phones. Both our phones were over two years old and starting to die on us, so we needed to upgrade. We both went for the My Phone smart phone. It's pretty amazing. I love that I can access the internet wherever I am. It has taken some getting used to. Chris had given me an iTouch last Christmas, which I love but I can only use the internet when I can access WiFi. So now I'm covered pretty much wherever I go. I just have to say though that honestly the iTouch is more user friendly with its apps, when going on Facebook and Twitter, and its internet browser. The touch screen is a little more responsive, and the screen is slightly bigger, which you wouldn't think would be a huge difference, but it is. If I had a choice between the My Phone and the iPhone, I'd totally be all over the iPhone. Just my 2 cents there.

We also headed over to Ashley to check out couches. We found one that we like, though I'm not really in love with it, so we decided to keep shopping around, to the despair of our sales lady. We figured if we're buying something that is going to be in our home for long while, it should be something we love. The couches we have now are ugly but functional, I think it's time to find the ones that we really want, and not settle because they kept offering more discounts as we walked out the door. We may go back, but I think we owe it to ourselves to at least know all our options. I had a great Saturday spending it with my husband.

Sunday was back at faire. My ankle was feeling much better, so I ditched the pimp cane and ventured out of glade. First going on a walk with some of the maids. We ran into Michelle (Mistress Vernon) who was going to stay for the May Pole dancing, so I stayed to watch. I'd never really watched them dance around the May Pole before and it was so much fun, I just wish I could have joined in.

Sunday was also the day that they held the faire memorial service for those we've lost from our Fire family, and we've lost a lot this year. I didn't go. I really didn't need to cry. The maids and I went to a Poxy Boggards show, one of their real shows on the NC-17 stage and sang the dirty songs. I've definitely missed that show.

After lunch I attempted Progress for the first time since Opening Day My ankle did pretty good, but I was scheduled to walk on second leg with the queen, so when progress passed back by glade, I slid out to sit and rest it for a bit. For Glade Stop* I was part of one of the gigs the Maids were doing. They wrote an awesome masque for the Queen and I was Mary Tudor. For my leg of progress again was the Kids Tea and Knighting. The tea is at St Cuthberts, and they only make room for 4 ladies with the queen, even though 5 attend. Apparently this is greatly offensive to some. I quite frankly don't care. I enjoy the tea, but will gladly make room for someone else to have a turn, so I found myself a bench off to the side and sat there as I wrote in the Queen's book*. When the time came for our relief to come, turns out that a couple of the ladies, decided not to do their assigned duty and didn't find anyone to replace them, so Rachelle (Lady Dacre) and I stayed on to help. Again, this wasn't a huge deal to either of us, a job needed to be done, and we did it. But some others were quite offended for us. Oh well, I still had a good time. Then it was the end of the day, I bought myself an artichoke covered in butter and hollandaise sauce. It's quite possible the greatest thing on planet earth. Thus ending another weekend.

I plan to attend both days for the rest of the three weekends we have left. Though, I am getting some flak for missing Mother's Day. I do feel bad, but I have already missed so much of the season,and quite honestly, I really don't feel like really celebrating the day too much this year. I'd much rather grab a Pony Ride and have some good laughs. I'll grab something for our mom's and grandmothers, but they'll just have to live without me this year.

I'll post some pics soon!

*Glade Stop: This is a period of about a half hour or so where the Queen stops at glade to be entertained. We get a decent crowd and do different gigs for her and the audience.

*Book: All day long there are at least 4-5 women assigned to the queen and they follow her wherever she goes. The positions are Basket (holds things the queen might need throughout the day), Cup (her drinking water), Pitcher (fills the cup), Book (to write notes to the queen, write down info of gifts she's been given) and Favor Basket (carries a bunch of different favors to be handed out by the Queen to children and other patrons as she sees fit. When I talk about being assigned, it means the position I was assigned to during a certain time of the day.

2nd and 3rd Weekends

So I wrote this post last week, with every intension to post it last week with pictures, but I never got the chance to get the pics together, so I'll just do a pic post later. Which I know, is far more interesting than my droning about faire. But sorry, you'll just have to suffer through:

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Life's been busy. But good. This is just a brief post and pics about the second and third weekends of Faire.

Second weekend I was still taking it easy because of my ankle so I only went out on Saturday. Which was probably good since Sunday my ankle was protesting. But Terri loaned me an awesome pimp cane that helped me hobble around the faire. I rocked it. But I really spend most of the day in glade. Which is weird, since I hardly ever spend time in glade during a faire day.

Dre, who plays my mother at Faire, was visiting for the weekend. She lives up in San Francisco, so she only comes to visit. Laura, who plays my sister, planned a nice luncheon for her where we threw grapes and nuts, discovered the wonders of monkey cheese, drank lots of Deveraid, and explained to our mother our new family motto "An experience with a Devereux is like an alien abduction, without the anal probing". I'd share our other family motto, but I don't know how easily offended my readers are. :P

I was sure to blame my sprained ankle on my sister when our mother showed up and explained to her all about Penny throwing me down, stopping and beating me and then throwing rocks, which is totally how it went down.

I attended the Queen during her tea* and knighting*, this section of progress requires minimal walking, so it was good for me. I offended someone who is easily offended by doing something that I had no idea I did or that it would be offensive. Sigh. And that was pretty much that.

Saturday Chris texted me to let me know his grandma fell and broke her pelvis. She's OK, but has to rest for at least another 6-8 weeks. I felt so bad for her. We spent Sunday at their house helping out as much as we could.

Third weekend came, and it was evident that we are now in the middle of the run. Friday was Kids Day* which I was sad to miss, but because of my ankle I was taking it easy, and was hoping to be out both days. The weekend was a whirlwind. It was Laura's birthday so we had another luncheon, and we had far too much fun. Again, Saturday I spend most the day in glade. Jennifer and I did hit up a Boggards  show, my first one this season, certainly not the last.

Sunday, well let's just say I had a lit to drink. A LOT. Way too much honestly. I had a great time, but holy crap. I can't really remember a whole lot. I know I talked a lot. I have a tendency to lose filters when I drink too much. I'm just hoping I didn't say anything too bad. :/ Thankfully I was amongst friends.

I did commission a new goblet that I'm really excited about. She's making it to match my new dress. I can't wait to get it. I have one of her goblets from 11 years ago when last she was at Faire. So I knew I wanted to snag another one while I had a chance. It was expensive, yes, but in my opinion it is so worth it. She is a beautiful glass artist and I love that I can have some of her work. I get countless comments on the goblet I have.

*Queen's Tea and Knighting:  These are two of the events the queen does during the day for the kids that visit the faire. They can pay to have afternoon tea with the queen and afterwards at Kids Kingdome they can be knighted by her and receive a certificate with their name on it.

*Kids Day: Is usually one Friday during the run when schools brings kids from many different schools to come out and enjoy the faire all to themselves.