CaySwann
A "G-Rated Journal" That Even My Mother Can Read (because she does!)

Effervescence is a state of mind. It's about choosing to bring sunshine to the day.
Every person I meet matters.

If it's written down, I know it (If it's not written down, I don't know it)
If it's color-coded, I understand it (If it's not color-coded, I don't understand it)


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Today's Feature Image:

Daddy-do and me, 2010


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Possible Good News, Rings, and Parties

Possible Good News - Keep your fingers crossed, say a prayer, light a candle: My employers are working on another extension to my contract, because they have a *next* version of their software, and they'd like to keep me around to write the next version of the User Guides and other technical documents. When I was first hired, it was a 30-day gig to do 3 guides for version 2.5. Then they decided to keep me for 2.6, and put me in charge of not only updating those 3 docs to the new version, but writing 2 more books [because there's new content in 2.6 that's not in 2.5]. So 1 month, 3 books; 2 months, 5 books. I'm finishing book 4's content this week, and getting all the final approvals on all 5 books next week, and then technically the contract would be up next Friday. But now they're working on an extension to the contract, because there's a 2.7 version of the software. That would include 5 books, and who knows if there's any other content.

So I say: Some possible good news revealed today. And the other good portions of this news: (a) If I stay on further, my technical services (contracting) company puts me into the "You have medical insurance" category because I've been working more than 90 days. (b) If I stay on further, I can REALLY afford to go to Arizona for the week long SCA camping trip called Estrella because I know I have work when I return after President's Day. I've been explaining it to the headhunters who call me and to my boss as "a family reunion in Arizona" -- which makes lots of sense, because these SCA friends really are my family. [No disrespect to my blood family: I love you all VERY much too.]

Computer Magic - Some days, computers are made of magic. Programmers are magicians, and even software USERS have to be magicians. I had a moment of weird magic one day last week: (geek mode: ON) I use FrameMaker to publish User Guides and Training Materials. After I build the book in Frame, I generate the PDF, and this is the final file published to our users. There's supposed to be these cool links when you click on the Table of Contents, it jumps to that page in the book. Half my tags worked, half my tags didn't -- but they were IDENTICAL in build and structure. So I searched for a fix, consulted with other FrameMaker developers and writers, tried every setting possible, and even rebuilt some of the chapter files from known working chapters. It was still broken. Then suddenly, it was working. I have NO IDEA how I fixed it, but it works now. *yippee* (geek mode: OFF)

Back to the Adventures - When we last left off, our intrepid heroine was eating Persian food for dinner and leftovers for 2.5 days in a row. Ah. The joys of saffron rice with sour cherries, or with cranberries, lamb, hummus, pita, tomato & cucumber salad, and even a roasted tomato or two from the boys who wanted just "meat on a stick" and none of these silly plant life things, grilled to roasted goodness. *hee hee*

Thursday morning I went by my mailbox [which is about 3 miles from my apartment], and found that my favorite laundromat was finally open again. So I thankfully got to finish my laundry before work, and in those rare breaks in the rain last week. I also got to curl up with my TV Guide, Newsweek, Crown Prints (the SCA Kingdom monthly newsletter), and Tournaments Illuminated (the quarterly SCA Arts-and-Sciences magazine). Some friends of mine are keeping track of the books they read in 2008, and I've never done that before but I decided it might be fun to do this year. But now, I'm wondering how I might track things like my periodicals. I take 2 weekly magazines, 2 monthly magazines, and 3 quarterly magazines, plus a few other occasional publications. They're not exactly books, but if you were to just count "pages read" in year, month, week, or day, these certainly count for me. I'm thinking I might just log the periodical "titles" in my spreadsheet, and ignore the separate issue numbers. If anyone else does this sort of thing (track your books and/or pages read in a time-period), how do you deal with regular periodicals?

Anyways, all that to say: I enjoyed a quiet hour reading and getting laundry done, even before heading to the office. Then I had the time to enjoy working late at the office on Thursday night, including slipping out for a bit of dinner, then coming back to the office before heading home. It was a very relaxing day.

Friday Jan 25, I did work a little bit late, then headed home to meet up with my friends for another madrigal rehearsal. Getting dinner was one disappointment after another, and very frustrating. I decided I just wanted a latte and a spinach wrap, but Starbucks was out of food. So I got the coffee, then stopped at Bristol Farms for food. I wanted sushi, there was none in the case. I decided I wanted lox and cream cheese (which I had at home), and there was no lox in the case. So finally I went past the deli case, got a tomato and basil and mozzarella panini, a small tomato and cucumber greek salad with black olives and feta cheese, and some cheese and blue corn tamales for Saturday. At home, we had a wonderful rehearsal on our madrigal, and then I actually got to bed at a decent hour.

Saturday I went to a mini-course and brunch at the synagogue with Meala, and we enjoyed our time there very much. I actually remembered several names, which made me feel good. Then I stopped in at Gyldenholt Unbelted, to meet up with Morgan (from Acanthusleaf Designs) to pick up my finished rings. She took two of my rings and sized them smaller, since I used to squish them flat into ovals to wear them. And I also ordered a new ring, one of her quatrefoil ring designs - mine is done with the lab sapphire in the center (like the 3rd ring down in the top picture).

I absolutely ADORE my new sapphire ring, which worn right next to my "Northshield" ring makes me think I'm finally wearing my own "Caidan" ring too. The "Northshield" ring I have is a compass rose on a silver ring, that I bought at WW 2 summers ago. The compass rose is one of the symbols of the Kingdom of Northshield, which you can see on this page. I continue to ask Morgan to design a Caidan ring with the "Crescent Cross," which is the populace badge of the Kingdom, meaning anyone in Caid can wear and use this symbol to say "Hey, this is where I'm from."

Visiting Lev & Gayle - After dropping in to pay for and pick up my new (and fixed) rings, I drop up to my Shire to hang out with old friends I haven't seen in years. Lev and Gayle used to live in my Shire, and then they moved up to Portland over 10 years ago. I've seen them occasionally when they've visited our weekend camping event in March, or when Lev was down 4 years ago for a Morris Dancers trip. Kelly and Richard were there, Brian and Morgana (of course, since it was at their house), Thomasina, Dayle and Ken, and me. There were others there earlier, for the 2 pm tea time, but by the time I arrived, we were contemplating dinner plans and folks were actually out buying yarn and knitting needles for an impromptu knitting lesson and evening of crafts projects. We got some amazingly cute photos of Gayle learning to knit from both Kelly and Lev, and had a fantastic dinner of Thai food. Finally, I just stayed in Brian and Morgana's guest room rather than drive home in the latest heavy downpour. It was a heavenly visit, and one of these days I really will get a chance to visit Lev & Gayle up in Oregon.

Baby Shower and Heavy Showers - I got up at 5:30 and on the road, stopped for breakfast around 6:30, and finally got home just after 8. I had originally planned to watch Project Runway with my roomie on Sunday morning at 8am, but she already needed to head out to her day's appointments. So I cleaned up around the house, and got ready for the Baby Shower for Adrienne. Theresa, bless her!, did all the shopping and prep for the party, and I just needed to provide a home large enough for the guests, and with sufficient parking. Her apartment is a closed gated community, with very limited parking, and my place has a rather large living room. So she arrived a little before 11, and we hung crepe paper, put out food and chairs, and got a gifts table started. Everyone else started arriving at noon, and we started feasting within the first 20-30 minutes (since many of us were starving). There was egg salad, chicken salad, meat slices, olives, several breads, veggies, dip, cheeses, fruit, cake, cupcakes, brownies... party food heaven! A few more people drifted in, filling the house with happiness and laughter. All in all, we had Adrienne, Theresa and me, Sarah, Tamara, Erika, Karen, Miryam, and Juliette. Mel (my roomie) couldn't be there because of her Italian Guild rehearsal/workshop for Ren Faire. Sandra (Ciar) couldn't be there because (hopefully) she could be in labor now as we speak. There are now dozens of photos that also need my attention (sigh, I'm *so* behind!), but it was a fantastic party.

Gary stopped in with Chiara for a while, which was fantastic because we all love Chiara so much. She's three now, and so I'm going to need to restock my home with crayons again right away. I have some crayons that are packaged in spiral pencil format (dial the crayon tip up more, when you need more coloring), which were a little bit difficult for her at first since she wanted to dial them up REALLY far, you know where they're likely to snap off quickly. But she and I did some coloring together and we had a wonderful time. She babbled and chattered with me throughout the whole adventure, and it was lovely. She's still getting used to seeing me at events and doesn't always remember me, but our drawing time was great for building that friendship.

After most of the party-goers went their separate ways, half of us returned to Adrienne's house where all the boys in the area were entertaining Jeff for the day. They originally wanted to do a day of fencing and sword-fighting, but the rains battered us all day long. So they ensconced themselves indoors with a day of snack foods, beer, and table games, and they seemed to have a wonderful time together. We brought the leftover cake to the house, and had fun watching the boys turn their lips, teeth, and tongues blue with the saturated blue frosting on the cake. Scary! *grin*

After most of *these* party-goers all headed home, Mel came over after her guild meeting and the four of us had another music rehearsal. We finally all know all four pages, and we're down to just polishing the piece for this weekend. Eric dropped in briefly to visit, too, and to finally get a Christmas present from me: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Knots & Ropework. I bought this book for him, and a copy for me, nearly 8-9 months ago, and have been dying to give it to him for ages. I was pleasantly surprised he didn't already have the book, but had been hoping to get it someday. Yippee!

Now it's Monday, and I've successfully gotten rid of the migraine I was battling in the 5 am hour, had a great status meeting with my boss this morning (with the good news of my possible contract extension), and now tonight I'll be at Apprentice Night at Tonwen's. Yippee -- we finally get to open our Alms Boxes tonight! *whee* And I even remembered to bring the scribal goods that Aliskye gave me ages ago for Medb Renata (argh), and brought Medb's mandolin with me to return to her, and to play my song from Bard of Caid for them. I'll need to brush up on the lyrics to both The Swordsman's Honor and Sunshine, my two newest compositions, but I sang the Swordsman on Saturday for the visit with Lev & Gayle, so I know I'm pretty much ready on that one. I'm not sure if my tune for Sunshine now is anything like the tune I used at the Bard of Caid competition (since it was composed on the spot), but I really like the tune I've been developing all month since then. So I feel ready for tonight's dinner.

Lunch today consists of party leftovers (thank you Theresa!), so I think it's time to go enjoy some party memories and yummy lunch.

And Now For Something Completely Different - A friend of mine tells me she uses the "Word of the Day" like a fortune-cookie. One day, the post popped up in my Google Reader as I was chatting with her online:

haggis: OED Word of the Day
Today's word from the OED has the following earliest quotation: c1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 52 For hagese. {Th}e hert of schepe, {th}e nere {th}ou take..Hacke all togeder with gode persole [etc.].

As she says, for her it's been an offal-sewn-into-stomach-lining kinda day.

I like the random quote of the day that I'd love to overhear in the middle of conversation: "Don't make me take your hert of schepe and hacke it all togeder!"
* * * * *
Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: The hope of extended employment!


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