So Autumn is at the 900m mark and slowly making its way down towards us. :) Nice sunny days with crisp air and cool nights , I love this time of year. Not much to do now but get the garden ready for winter and get the house sorted out. ( Get fire wood in, stock up on candles and tee lights and matches) Autumn and winter are cozy times in the house. We spend a lot of time downstairs watching shows with a fire on.It's nice.

We started Italian classes again, the once a week at work ones. I had not forgotten as much as I had thought but I am so shy about speaking out loud, you'd like I'd get over that but nope...still I am deturmined to getthis down andthen brush up on my french..before I die i want to learn Russian...... ack learning languages is like eating chips, you can't just stop at one.

now I gotta get back to work. Merly's in trouble and I have to fogure out how to sort that out... and I have two scrolls I need to make gesso for. Going for that BLINGBLING effect on these ones. One is a gift the other for someone I adore... Time to get out the gum arabic and morter and pestle.. woot! The world's easiest gesso rescipe!

until then be excellent to each other. 

so I put it down to a bad night carrying over into the day. Yesterday as crap but it ended okay.Today is brighter, sunnier and I see colours today not that dull flat greyness. Ugh I hate it when I get depressed.

Been busy writing. Poor Merly goes through hell at every turn.But she is so much fun to write, especially when she and Thrawn are together. I don't knwo why they are so awesome on stage but they are, if I wasn't so concernened about the whole PG thing it would be a whole lot more racier than it is.  Been working on a scroll it is goingto be a beauty! Based on the Duke de Berry stuff, it is very gothic. My quadrata text is pretty much spot on. I am thrilled with it since I haven't done quadrata in a while. ...on top of this I am mostly been trying to combat the ups and downs of lonliness. Luckily October will be busy with friends and visits.We will have a Halloween party and people are looking forward to this! YAY me too. I get to break out the Vampire fangs again after a few years off.

I had a great Fulvio session this week but I shall never ever again tell him my knees hurt. That deep muscle thing he does is brutal. I mean brutal but damned if it didn't work. That slow agonizing ache has gone, but the memory of what he did hasn't.Then after 15 minutes of agony he did his head and neck thing...and wow just wow. I love this Cranial Sacral stuff.

so anyway, my apologies for the poopie posts lately. ( well except the one about Susan)

Hope everyone has a great weekend, it's wildly sunny here thanks to a high that is doing europe atm. woot.

 Until then, be excellent to each other!

I am so depressed I just don't care any more. How sad is that? I am hoping this is just a phase. :(

I got an email last night from the son of one of my old friends to let me and a few other people know she had finally succumned to her fight with cancer.

Susan was a woman who befriended me when I was at University in Ottawa almost 20 years ago. She was a woman full of laughter and life, she shared her heart openly and she put up with me. At one of the worst times in my life she was there for me. I remember laughter adn fun, making light of our art history classes and her three astonishingly wonderful children. We went on mad adventures including one very scarey drive one night down some dark and spooky road. I remember cups of tea, sympathy and mostly a lot of love.  When I left Ottawa we kept loosely in touch for a while but I was bad at letter writing and we lost contact. At 20 aomething I never thought that one day not writing a few letters would matter, after all  freinds always know how you feel abuot them....( I coudl not be more wrong in this and I suspect I am not alone if making this mistake). Some time ago she found me via the internet and we emailed back and forth catch up news and stuff. Now she is gone.

She is the second friend this year to die from cancer. So today I am sad. Sad for me, sad for her family and sad for the world which has lost a good soul who cared and loved more than most. Mourning is one of the worst things in the world.

So, Sue, Rest in peace! I hope that where-ever you are now it's pain free and you are happy. I will miss you. The world is a lesser place now without you in it.

Until then, be excellent to each other... you never know when you will lose someone you really care about. 

So I have been a poopy bum head when it comes to updating this blog, but now I am home and life is sort of back to normal.

I had my doctor's follow up today and all tests are good I am healthy and he is happy with my response to treatment for the panic attacks so I am fine, I feel fine and just have to stay that way.

Today it is rainy and wet, pretty weather really, all misty and autumny. Our trip to Germany was awesome, we saw friends and I got to hang out in Hamburg. Just gonna C/P what I wrote about tha on the s ghosts blog

So....we spent a week in Germany and I feel as though I have had the best holiday of my life even though really it was a work trip for Marcus.

We drove up sta morning arrived in heusenstamm to over night with Carsten at  a good time, we drove the back roads and over th the Gotthard pass on Saturday to avoid traffic hangups. It doesn't save time but it gives an incredibly scenic route with a view to a glacier and no traffic jams just very windey roads.180switchbacks and a view to die for...

At Carsten's we did the obligatory go fo Thai...yum yum then watched Aeon Flux, Sunday we left for North Germany and made good time although the weather was crap and there were accidents alongthe way..some people just don't seem to understand that when you drive 160km/hr on pouring down rainy roads bad things happen.

In Ahrensburg we got to the hotel and then after a sudden and somewhat decisive downpour we ended up not going to the Alster vergnügen instead we went to our favourite Greek restaurant and then hung out in the hotel. I had a sever panic attack while in the middle of food and Marcus had to talk nme down from it. We left and in the hotel I felt better. That was the last panic attack for the week :) I reckoned the drive really strung me out.

OnMOnday I went into ACER with marcus and saw all my friends it was awesome, snuck upstairs with Karsten(2) and hungout with internet. MOnday Marcus and I went into Hamburg and shopped at Andere Welten, our fav sci-fi shop and spent money!!!!

Tuesday I went to my fav apotheke and ordered my henna then tookthe train into Hamburg and walked around that beautiful city window shopping and found a book of Duke de Berry Hours fo 29,95 instead of the 49,95 that THalia wanted, pictures to die for some fab ideas for scrolls. (not the tres riches hours).
wandered about looking at Hamburg in general and then late afternoon utterly exhausted took the train back to Ahrensburg where I explored my fav second hand shop and found a drawing tablet thingy ( one of those A4 drafting tables for four euro fifty, they are usually 50 +..yay me.

That evening we met up with SCA friends and had a blast atthe greek place....
wednesday more of the same walking around Hamburg all over the place and dinner with more friends...Thursday at acer then drive to Pinneberg to hang with the parents inlaw, nice time there then friday a slow easy drive back to Cartsten's....

We bummed around down town Frankfurt and went to a Toys R us in Darmstadt ( TOTALLY DISSAPOINTING). We ate lunch in an awesome fish restaurant and generally had a VERY good time. We went back to Carsten's and hung out, made supper and watched Nochnoi Dozor ( A russian fantasy film called Night Watch)

We left on Sunday and we got home in good time...and so far it has been a slow unwind.

I am trying to maintain better eating habits ( that is I remember to eat during the day) and not sit at the computer ALL day long. So on the whole I feel like I am back to normal. YAY me.

So now I am back to writing and painting.

I just wish the world would get it's shit together. *moment of silence for the students in Montreal that were shot at.*

Until then be excellent to each other!

We made it to Germany safe and sound. It was a great drive up and a great visit withour friend and fellow geek C.

The drive up on Sunday was a bit more hectic with rainy weather and the usual Sunday morons on the road.But we máde it in one piece, got the the hotel, got checked in and settled in and then went for supper at our favourite greek restaurant Santorini. The food is always supreme. Unfortunately right in the middle of my meal  I had a huge panic attack. So I am starting to wonder if my issues are not related to eating which would make sense considering I battled an eating disorder for years. Still is was awful but Marcus talked me through it and by the time we had finished and walked back to the hotel I was okay again. This just makes me cross if anyone wonders. This bizar helpless feeling that washes over me for absolutely NO reason pisses me off.

Anyway, right now I am sitting at ACER feeling happy happy since I used to work here and there are people here I know and it is kinda like home. It is windoy, and wild and wonderful and I am so glad to be back. Something I never thought I would be since I didn't think I was that happy here, guess I was wrong.

When we arrived here there were crows all over the place. It was good to see my crows again. I love switzerland but I am starting to think we need to get a WHOLE lot more than we do.

Nice to have internet too!!!!!! 

So until then, be excellent to each other!