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recycled crows II 

I woke up to snow today. I imagined it would snow and it did. YAy me. Yay the weather...

Some news on the exciting front...

In March we head up to Saturday Night fever event and it will be a doozy, all the people I adore will be there. And..even more exciting is my C&I master and his wife will be there OMG ladies and gentlenmen am I ever hyped. It's going to be SOOOOO much fun and the best bit aside from all the other best bits is we don't have to do the crash space thing...*bounce bounce bounce*

and on another note, I am thinking of switching this blog over to blogger. Tblog's format is driving me crazy and in all honestly it is one of the hardest to deal with in terms of posting ease, spam protection, , html changes and so on...  

will see if how I feel when tblog sorts some of it's issues out....but feel free to comment on this!

I guess Andrew will have some thing to say about this idea *grin* I just wish tere was a way to collectively retrieve my archives...

yeah,.

until then be excellent to each other!

I got super hero stamps on two envelopes sent to me. They are the coolest things!

Oh... Have an awesome day!

The Day After Tomorrow...

followed by An Inconvinient Truth...

going to bed now...good that the bears are there.

The server crashed

so far life without M sucks.

So I don't have access to any English book shops for browsing purposes and I have no idea what's good any more...Amazon is just far too vast...

 So, in the realm of Sci-Fi and fantasy does anyone have any good suggestions?

In other genres?

Just so folks know I've read, recently, the devil wears prada ( liked it but it was fluffy) and Stephen King's Cell, well it's a king book and I read it on a plane...

suggestions ??? any one...anything that's really inspiring? Anything erotic and sensual well written and easiy to escape into???

*sigh*

Okay, so my writings here have not exactly been cheery as of late. But honestly can you blame me? I mean have you watched the news? The world is going to hell in a handcart, oh wait THIS IS HELL. Hmmmmmmm..then again maybe not.

As I watche the RTL podcast this morning and listened to the gloom and doom report on the weird warm weather ( spring in winter) that has been goingon in Germany ( It was 16 degree C in dresden) I knew a real sense of oh oh... All the talk of war, nuclear bombs, executions, soldiers being blown to smitherines, child porn, kiddies being abducted, school shootings, embassy bombings greedy oil barons is not nearly as frightening as knowing that we, boys and girls, are on the downslide when it comes to the environment. I asked my husband as we watched the news cast if this weird weather stuff scared him as much as it scared me and he said. "I've been scared about this since the 80's when I did my work on climate and environmental studies and predictions and climate models and prognosis..."  I have to tell you this didn't make me feel any better.

There is no snow here, not even on the big mountain we see from the balcony. No snow in the winter means less water in the summer. No snow means the weather is too warm, too warm means the perma frost is melting and this means the mountains become unstable and fall down. And before anyone laughs there were peopel killed just outside of the Gotthard tunnel last year when a hugs chunk of the mountain fell on them. Why did this happen? The previously frozen bits that held it together were no longer frozen and the water that was ice is moving... ( close enough)

I try to maintain some sense of optimism but fail miserably and the only thing I really am grateful for is that we don't have kids ( no offense to those of you who do) because the world we are leaving for them is a fucking mess.Somehow our attempts to recycle, use energy saving lightbulbs, drive less, turn the heat down, conserve water do not seem like enough. I don't know what enough is, I do know that I am worried. I am also betting that winter, when it does come is going to be mean and in a hell of a mood.

Is it that at a certain age one starts to consider one's place cause and effect in the world? That mid life thing? Or do I just spend entirely far too much time on my own? Are other people's alarm bells ringing too? I used to laugh about Switzerland's law about every house and town having a bunker / bomb shelter...now before then ext month or two is out I am hoping we actually stop using ours as a junk shelter and get it kitted out, water, tinned food, chem toilet bunks the works... the truth of the matter is, I'm scared I just don't know what of. Of course that's the media's fear mongering at its best isn't it.

How did Moff Tarkin put it...'Fear will keep the locals in line..."

not very uplifting, is it.

I don't have any uplifting news. Okay maybe 1 bit of uplifting news. In Feb one of my oldest ( as in has known me the longest) and dearest friends comes to hang-out. I can't wait. Not sure what we will do in the back of beyond but I can't wait never the less.  So see, that's good news.

On the down side, as of Thursday I am on my own for 6 days. Ugh. As if being alone during the day wasn't enough... the upshot of this is that I get to eat all the tuna I can stuff into my face with cheeze! I get to write 24/7 and I can sleep in. The down side is my companion and best friend isn't here to keep me company, or bring me coffee in the morning, or laugh with me about stupid stuff....or worst of all cook for and with me ( and boy can he cook) and no offense to the bears in the house, but I miss my man when he goes away.

There is a comet flying around though, you can see it in the horizon of the eastern sky, all we see here today is clouds and I think the mountains will get in the way but it's cool. I like comets.

Inthe meantime I have a ton of revision to do on my book, fixing up the 2nd rate wordiness and trying to clean it up some. I hope this year goes a bit better writing wise, I struggled last year with the 2nd book, not so much for lack of ideas more like too many personal interruptions...but I feel the niggle of ideas shoving their way forewards in my brain for book 3 so hang on to your hats kids, we're not done yet. I have to keep reminding myself that , really, it's a hell of an accomplishment to actually write books, even if no one buys them, even if they are web published. The very fact that I did it, saw the project through and that people read and seem to enjoy is a HUGE thing. I spend a lot of time selling myself short, but I always did so there's nothing new there.

in the mean time... I am trying to find my optimism...it's in a box somewhere, get on with the 2nd book, be a better house-wife and combat my own personal demons... Ain't life grand?

Until then, be excellent to each other!!!

I suppose it was only natural to expect that things would change suddenly, get better somehow, be fixed.... but when the problem is firmly rooted in one's own head that's not very likely to happen is it?

We got back home after Christmas in Germany and for the first few days everything was good. I woke feeling fine, no angst, no nothing actually and life toodled on at its usual pace, but then Marcus went back to work and the cycle of worry worry worry started up again. And the weird thing is worry isn't the right word, it's more like a non specific niggle in the back of my brain whispering that not all is kosher in denmark...(so to speak). The actual panic attacks have subsided considerably but the echoes of them linger. I *know* it's there which is what makes this sensation even worse. I also know it's me that's doing this so it's me that can stop it as well. But it's a hard cycle to bust.

I hold my breath, my solar plexus clenches and I hold my breath..now you gotta ask why? It's crazy to run around holding one's breath. But this is the..it feels as though I am waiting for something...aspect of it all. We have been 'on hold' now for a year, circling in a holding pattern in sleepy little Bedano, town of what 100 people give or take??? My unanswered question is what am I waiting for, what are we waiting for? I know this is a stop gap, we're not staying here, at least this is how it feels. Switzerland is a nice country but it's sooooooooo sleepy. While we were in Hamburg we spent as much time in the city as possible and it was glorious. I fed off the energy like crazy, craving the busyness of it all, the crush of people, lights, shops, things to look at and stimulate the brain. It wasn't even as if we bought everything in sight, actually in terms of consumerism we did very little, but we feasted on the city itself.

I miss that and face to face human contact more than I ever thought possible. What I find even more disturbing is that two years have gone by since we moved and I am still telling people we only just got here. It's a time sink hole this place. As though te rest of the world is flying by and we are stuck in the singular moment. Of course given the shop opening times and how things seem to work here, as well as the radio stations and their odd play lists I think that Switzerland in general is caught in a weird backwards time vortex. I half expect to wake up and see horse and buggies out my window. No offense, it's a lovely place to live but so strange. Kinda of like a Neil Gaimen story actually, beautiful but slighty twisted.

I go from boiling hot to freezing cold, stripping off layers, adding them back on. My desire for coffee has flown right out of the window and tastes like ashes in my mouth. I craved sweet milky tea this morning...usually something that the mere thought of makes me sick at and a whole bunch of other things that seem to be adding to my topsy turvy world.   

In the SCA world, all is quiet from where I stand. Scribes do their work, I parcel out assignments and watch the clock tick as I wind down my second term, okay I have a year but damned if a year doesn't go by fast. Apart from that there isn't much else to say. A new Crown steps up this weekend just past and life goes on. from where I sit nothing much changes. I get assignments, I hand them out...

I am also bound and determined this year to get out of the house more, I started walking every day, the little portable mp3 player helps this. Once I get going I don't want to stop and once I do go home and stop I want to sleep for a 1000 years. Today is on hold since I am waiting for the oil dudes.. listening out for the sound of the truck trying to back its way up our slender driveway.

in between all of this personal crap I am still trying to write, get that pesky 2nd book done so I can slog onto the 3rd and say hey I did it!

It's a monday, it's gloomy and grey outside. I am waiting for the oil dudes to come and doing my best not to be neurotic, but old habits are hard to dump. Surprisingly enough I feel good right now, except my hands are blocks of ice...

until then, be excellent to each other.

At the thresh-hold.

So here we are...3 days into the new year. Saddam is dead but it accomplished nothing except to make him a martyr in the yes of some and a relife in the yes of some others and to most of the western world a shrug of the shoulder and one more name they don't have to hear on the news any more.  He was hung, a sneak video showed his last moments were not pleasant and that the hang men were just as cruel as he was. Humans never change. Given every oppertunity to shine , we fail. Our darkside comes out. That nasty lurky dark side that whispers in our brains telling us that greed is a good thing, that who cares if the other guy is down and out on his luck, what does it matter that we are running out of oil, heating up the planet and systematically wiping out species after species.

The do as I say not as I do policy of the political leaders has us all disillusioned. It's not about democray it's about avarice. I gotta ask you, after the first million how much money do you really need?

I lose my hope when I watch the news.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

So we opened the door of our house, we let out the old year and let in he new. Fireworks boomed around the hills and moutains about us and the flashes of light and colour could be seen reflected on the clouds.

2006 was an odd year. Lots of nice things, new friends discovered and old friends lost. In 2006 two of my friends passed away. In 2006 I met Florence and the Captain who became a part of my virtual family. I discovered that being alone and lonliness are not good things, that confronting one's fears is a bit more tricky than books let on, that having a good, no amazing partner is indescribable. That Switzerland is the sleepiest, most back in time country I have ever lived in.No offence meant but honestly...one only has to listen to Swiss radio to understand what I am talking about...*yawn* That Hamburg had somehow become home but I never noticed until I moved away.

2006 - I turned 40 and began that life pondering crap that seems to happen at 40. The what have I done with my life ennui crap that I couldn't seem to shake off.

2006 - I missed my mum a lot. And for the first time in as long as I can remember my sister said 'I love you' first during a phone call. It made me cry. We never got along all that well but I miss her and I am proud of her.

2006- Italian lessons progressed slowly...

2006 - The house we rent is slowly falling apart.

2006 - I slogged on with my 2nd book in the dote series and hope to clue that up soon.

2006 - panic attacks put a nasty little monkey wrench in my life.

2006 - found a great dentist, and a great obgyns. ( big things when you know me and how I am about doctors and dentists.

2006 - was a shakey unsettling year and I am glad it's over.

lets see what happens next.

So where ever you are in the world, I hope that your year ahead is a good one. I hope that the world learns it's lessons, that we start to take care of this planet.

until then, be excellent to each other. 

So all you wonderful people... Have a great holiday season..

We are in the last dregs of getting ready, I am fighting off anxiety and the usual sense of impending doom. Have started a work out programme that helps dissapate this negative energy that seems to gather in the morning and nag at me all day. I am tired of the fear caused by panic attacks which leads to more fear and anxiety and then of course more panic. I am telling my amygdala to behave itself. There is nothing to fear, no reason for the pounds of anxiety and after the last HUGE check up I went through a few months ago I am perfectly healthy for a person my age.Not too fat, not too thin, good BP all blood values normal and nothing abnormal showed up on the ultrasound.

Today we will be getting the last amazon gifts sorted out, the house cleaned so that we don't come back to a pit. That way we can relax when we come back and enjoy the rest of the holidays without looking around at chaos.

I am hoping that getting away from it all for a bit will allow me to get back on track with the writing and finish the second book. But of course at this time of year there are a lot of things to distract and my brain is too full of lists to be useful for anything else.

Anyway folks, I hope your holiday winterfest thingy is filled with fun, family, laughter and love. Will see y'all when I get back...

xxs and oos.

It is that time of year again. The crazy race to get it all done before a certain date. I threw convention into the wind this year and send packages off to people and they went surface. So can I say for the record I loath this time of year.

It doesn't help that I suspect I am heading into peri menopause. I had a freak out session yesterday which co incided with me starting my period. When I think back I begin to put two and two togetehr and see that many if not most of my panic attacks the really bad ones have all co incided with my period. Hormones ....bad things all around.

Now when I cross ref all those symptoms of pre menopause I can pretty much check them all off. *sigh*

Just what I need.  Still it's all just guess work with nothing confirmed.

I don't know what to say. I have nothing to say. What is there to say? My life is blah blah blah at the moment. Nothing wrong, nothing bad just blah. That time of year.

so if I don't get around to posting before we bugger of to Germany, land of great Christmas markets and gluhwein...

Merry HO HO.

until then, be excellent to each other.

I have very long eyelashes. I don't say this to piss off those of you out there who don't and use mascara , etc... to get that long look but to explain the next bit which is naturally long lashes are a big pain in the eyeball. For the last week or so I have had the sensationof something in my eye but no amount of rubbing, eyedrops, looking or poking around said eye showed anything so today I wentto the mirror that gets the most light and had a REALLY good look and what do you know one of those pesky, fine, hard to see lashes that grow at the corner of my eye was heading inwards not outwards. Grrrrr. To tweasers in hand I plucked the offending lash out, along with a few other that threatened to follow the inward trend...voila NO MORE irritation.

The other annoying thing about long lashes is that they bat against my glasses. Trust me this is about as irritating as it gets. So all you gals out there with short eyelashes..I envy you!

there...that being said I suppose I should update tis thing. It's been a while but the above said eye irritation has stopped me from hanging out on the computer too much.

We have been on the go a lot. Crown in Austria, visits to Vicenza, University in Lübeck, and Nürnberg last weekend. Today Marcus is in Frankfurt for the day / night and comes home tomorrow, hopefully with my latest purchase of ebay nibs. Setting up scribe blog, sorting out scribe admin stuff, gearing up for Coronation and our own up coming holiday to Germany for the silly season. I am SO looking forward to the Hamburg and Lübeck Christmas markts.

Today is nice an sunny for the first time in ages, I am actually making lists of stuff I need to do before we head out up North. Doing Laundry and writing... The writing is slow and i am struggling with it a bit because I am having to get out of medieval scribe mode and into merly-starwars mode. I need two brains... oh wait if I had that I'd be even more neurotic than i already am. *sigh*...

I do have a list of scrolly things not SCA related I want to do and on top of that some hand made presents for folks. In between I am trying to get 'library thing' working for me and just generally being me. On top of this... the Italian learning has ramped up because I am determined to be able to speak somewhat by the end of this year. This is so hard but I am working on it. I learnt German as an adult I can learn Italian as well. There is JUST not enough time in a day any more, well there would be if i didn't spend so much of it wandering around virtual reality. :)

Time to get the laundry hung up.

until then, be excellent to each other.

It is that time of year when it rains and rains and rains and so  far this past week this is what it has done. I don't mind too much, because the clouds do really cool things as they skirt around the hills and the mountains.

For the last three weeks I have not been at my best. Since crown, where I got very chilled and stayed that way, my body has been very unhappy. The combination of severe allergies and getting cold just wore me down and by the time University rolled around, along with th stress of flying it was inevitable that I get sick with a cold. Hey presto... SCA event = being sick. *sigh*

I don't recall a lot of University. I do remember answering a LOT of questions and spending a lot of time running around up and down the stairs to our under the roof room ( most lovely) to fetch things for people that I had arranged to bring / deliver / give... etc... The scriptorium was quiet and relaxing. The way I had hoped it would be. Some new folks tried out some calligraphy, some establishes scribes hid out , heads down and did what they did best... scribed.

Someone asked about art work. You can see what I did for the event here.

Scrolls for university

I had my Fulvio appointment yesterday, he is my SC / massage therapist who is sometimes very gentle and sometimes quite brutal but ni a good way. Yesterday he did some intense deep muscle massage on my back. Ow! but god afterwards you feel great! I don't know how he does it, and he is pretty magic.

Yesterday was also the first time I have ever spoken in Italian to him. It was hard but also cool because he doesn't speak much english so he was thrilled to bits that I tried. I am at that stage in the language learning where Iunderstand a LOT more than I can speak myself because I simply don't have the vocabulary and I don't have all the verbs in their conjugation memorised. It's incredibly frustrating, but speaking helps a lot and Fulvio is safe, he's delighted I try and helps me out doesn't laugh and so I am unafraid to try.

In the mean time I am battling with my desperate desire to continue writing my SW DOTE books which has ground to a halt during to the SCA scroll stuff. At the moment I have this want to write but am being driven to do more art work and it's driving me mad. I guess I will have to give in to the desire to paint so that I can get back to writing.  I need to be two people to get it all done. Those reading the story need not fear I have enough material to keep updating for a few weeks yet and there will be a Christmas break as when we head up to germany the internet access is limited severely.  But I have some medieval pieces I want to do for friends for Christmas gifts and I need to get all that started now. This duality of art nature drives me crazy though.

in the mean time...I am getting better, recovering from the chills, aches and pains, allergy attacks and the cold. Gearing up for the stupid season and all the running around we have to do on the next while. It seems to me that we are always more busy now, either with Work related things or the whole christmas stuff and that we travel an awful lot during this time.

Not so sure what the new year will bring I guess we will have to wait and see.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

how I can be so bored and yet so incredibly busy ALL AT THE SAME TIME?

I know I am woefully behind on this blog... if you are nosy head over to the LJ one there some stuff there. I will post here soo I promise I just gotta take a breather... 

that is all...

for now...

till later...

be excellent to each other

that I feel like bantha poodoo. It would be so typical to come down with something nasty and flu like right before we fly. I keep hoping it is allergies ....but I ache all over and asprin ain't cutting it.

anyway I thought I'd share. now I am going to escape in a stinking hot bath.

until then be excellent to each other... 

that I rather like the title...evil minion dark side scribe!

that's all

So, we went down to Vicenza to hang with friends and do some scribal stuff. The actual event was called off on account of people being broken and unwell. Mostly it was a very quiet weekend and fun with lots of time for chatting and tea and or wine drinking.  I got to teach some techniques to a first timer and that was... well... interesting but had positive results. I also learnt that I sort of suck at the whole hands on teaching athing nd just don't really know how to go about being a good instructor for something I am not even sure I know how I do. It was an odd feeling.

I have rediscovered though that cigarette smoke makes me terribly sick. It's been a really long time since I was in close quarters with that much smoke snd I had forgotten the results. I am still a bit wheezy and queazy this morning, hacking up green stuff...ook. It's been a long time since I had an asthma attack but  came real close this weekend, not a happy sensation. I am debating whether or not to get a new inhaler. I haven't needed one in three years but I do feel safer having one on me.

Now we are home, always seems like down to earth with a bump on one hand , nice on the other in that it's home. It also seems that our house is tiny after visiting the villa in Vicenza. It's funny-weird really. but in a good way. I always get that home feeling once we get through the border crossing and I see the sharp peaky mountains. There is no snow on them yet and it was colder in Vicenza than it was here. Still winter is coming and you can see it crawl its way down the mountains sides as now the soft hues of yellows and browns turn to bare branches as those leaves drop.

The next three days will be about getting ready for University, making sure all the scrolls are done, ready to travel and safely packed, that we have clean garb ( eep) and feast gear and also comply with the new airline regulations for hand luggage. Flying just gets stupider and stupider eventually we won't be able to get on a plane unless we are naked. Oh well, it's not as if we fly that often so hopefully things will be okay.

I am so looking forward to seeing all my friends, my house-hold kids ( it's been a while since all the trees from DW have been together, well except for Skarf but I think he has left the SCA ) and relaxing in the Scriptorium. There will be three very interesting classes held in the scriptorium which will make it really fun. I am looking forward to this. I also get to spend time with my parents in law and some shopping time in Hamburg and trying to sort out what comes next. We have Christmas coming up and a bunch of birthdays. We will also be away a lot or at least Marcus will be away a lot and so it will be a bit of a hectic time. I can't believe the year is slowly coming to an end. We have been here almost 2 years now but it feels like only a month has gone by. Which reminds me I have italian homework to do and laundry to do. Real life bounces in with a bang.  The winter cmoes, our nights when there are no clouds are brilliant and clear. Last night the moon's light was so bright I could have read by it. There is also a comet making its way out of the solar system that we should be able to see with the naked eye. If the clouds that came in on the morning winds vanish maybe we'll see it tonight.

okay well back to trying to get some work done, some writing done and some laundry and some house work in general. I also have to get some thank you gifts ready and try to plan for the weekend.

so until then, be excellent to each other!