Oh, my GOD.  

The pain in my arms (upper arms, today, right above the elbows, on both sides) is severely interfering with my ability to concentrate, which is a bitch, since I need to read numbers off lists and check for missing forms.  I can't take the day off since I was sick Monday, and am going to be off two days for the Plimoth trip (I don't work Fridays, thank heavens).  Plus my boss wants to meet with me to find out what I've been doing for the past month and a half.

(Note to self:  Do not say "working on stuff on the Internet", since updating your web site and working on your shop is not actually part of your job duties.)

I'll be back posting next Tuesday, hopefully with pictures (if Bob doesn't forget and take the camera to the farm, in which case, I'll steal all of pinkleader's pictures). 

Excuse me; I have to go back to earning a living now.  Have a couple of LOLaurels on me (I may have done the first one before, I don't remember - but you have to have pity on me, because I'm in pain):

I'm afraid this isn't going to be much of a posting week for me - I'm sick, I'm nauseated, and I'm off to Plimoth Wednesday night.  Hopefully I'll be more recovered by then.

In the meantime, I'm tired, and weepy, as being run-down always makes me.  I have things to write in my head, but I just don't have the energy to write them.

Sorry.  But don't worry about me - I'll be just fine, I just have to recharge my batteries a bit.

Still insomniac, so you're getting a meme I stole from heatermcca:


And, because I've been dying to use this image somehow (and I have no conscience):

 My head hurts.  Other things hurt (including my hips - weird, and not conducive to deep sleep).  I'm tired.

I spent yesterday at home, because of the hurt, and I would have taken today, too, except for needing to do some stuff on my work computer.

The red bodies are almost done with the lacing, and now I just have to hem the two skirts, because I always make them a tad too long.  Thank you to everyone who has chimed in on the lacing discussion, and added more to it through their own posts (looking at you, heatermcca- your pictures rock, and I may be begging you for permission to use them in my article) - I am combing through my library to gather my evidence and my thoughts.

At some point, I may learn that I am going to by physically strained by demo'ing knitting two days in a row, but I'm too stubborn to give it up yet.  I've already given up a lot, so I will fight this.  A couple of days of lidocaine patches, some meds and some extra sleep, and I'll be fine.

 Got the points in - I actually followed the layout on the Pfaltzgrafina bodies, and from a physics standpoint, it works very well.

I'll have pictures after this weekend.

I'm mostly through my first knitted mitten - that's the thing I'm going to be working on at Maryland Sheeples and Woolies this weekend - and, like the socks, I pretty much looked at a picture and guessed.  They work surprisingly easily, even for me.  

You know, considering the economic status of late 16th century working men and women, it's a good thing that Elizabeth I didn't grant Alfonso Ribaldri* a Royal patent for his trained circus of knitting hedgehogs ("100 quills and a purl stitch!")**; a lot more people would have been out of a crappy poorly-paying job that barely paid the bills for a subsistence-level existence in the 16th century.***

I am more of a trained groundhog (short and round, with big pointy claws), but I can still wield a mean knitting needle.

Speaking of groundhogs, last Thursday I saw one half-way up a tree, reaching out for the tender little shoots on the ends of the branches.  His tail was waggling a lot as he tried to keep balance.  

Arboreal groundhogs.  Gotta love 'em.

(Until they fall on your head.)

We're going to see Eddie Izzard tonight - hopefully I won't be farted on, crushed in my seat, or called a "raging c-word" this time.  

Yeah I think that's it.  Gotta go do actual work now.  Mmmm-hmmmm.

*William Lee.
**a knitting machine.
***no, that part's actually true.

*squeak*flail* ouch.  Don't mind me; I'm just pissy because my arms won't stop being grumpy.

So, I've been having this discussion with kass_rants in my recent entries' comments sections (previous two entries - we got a bit silly by the end) about petticoat fastenings, as a result of her asking where I got my info. Having to admit that it's speculative, and based on what the Jamestown Settlement costume department told me years ago, has made me admit that I now have to paw through all my books in a vain attempt to actually find something concrete.

The Freescholar/White Scarf meet was such fun, I was wistfully thinking about slapping on some armour tonight and fighting, damn the consequences.

Alas, pain last night, all night, and bad enough this morning that I am uncontrollably close to tears and thinking I'm ugly and stupid (side effect of no sleep) means no fighting unless things get better.  

Fuck this shit.  I am somewhat tired.

I did, however, enjoy my discussion with kass_rants in yesterday's post's comments section this morning (make sense?  Don't worry) was fun - it's the little things that keep you going, sometimes.  I love it when people question my stuff, as long as they're not assholes about it (which the lovely Kass never is); it forces me to keep evolving my work and refining it - I never want to stop and say "that's good enough" - that's the day I fossilize into place.

But the meet this weekend - I has pictures!  Typing hurts, but it was fun, I saw lots of people, and I'm really impressed by our younger generation.  I know I'm an irrelevant old fogey when it comes to rapier, but I do care about where we're going, and I appreciate it when people at least pretend they're listening to me.  :)

Pics:

Just a quickie (I want to post about this weekend, and how awesome the Freescholar/White Scarf meet was, but I don't have my act together yet):

The latest Extreme Costuming update is up! Read all about the new stuff here. 

I have a couple of new articles, some stuff from my blog, a new reproductions page on the frog needle case, and an entirely new article on doublet trim layout ideas.

The pattern/accessories shop is actually almost ready! I have to work out a few little things with accounting and the shopping cart setup, but we're really, really getting there!

(I'm sure most of you will be so bombed out by waiting that when I finally get it up and running, you won't be ble to stand looking at it, but at least it will be there.) 

I am on my painfully slow home computer today, so while there are many comments I want to reply to in my previous post, I'm waiting until Monday, when I will be back at work.    You guys rock.  :)

We're off this weekend to the Freescholar/White Scarf meet, and will be spending a couple of days (well, today and tomorrow) at the farm first, so we can do a couple of things (plus we have a couple of people staying).  

And now I'm actually boring myself, so I'm going to go back to working on the lacing points for the sleeves I've made for my blue bodies.  They're white linen tape with blue linen sewn aglet points, and look rather cool.  The only trouble is that they're super-dense, and I've already broken a sewing needle on them.  

That's the first time I've ever broken a hand needle - snapped right in the middle.  No wonder my arms are cranky this morning.

Evil out!

(Note: This is not a post about all men; relax. It's about the kind of assholes that cannot see women as anything but sexual objects, and don't understand when we object to it.  The "geeze, cantcha take a compliment, bitch?" kind of guys. ...not to mention the "wow, you're really uptight about this" guys.  ...oh, and the "what's the big deal?" guys.) 

(um, yeah.)

hugh_mannity 's Boobgate! linking post led to some fascinating (nauseating) reading for me this morning. I read the original post, then the "A Modest Proposal" rebuttal. I was interested by the men who responded with "but kicking a guy in the balls is not the equivalent of asking to feel up a girl's tits!" (uh, if you read both posts, that sentence will make sense).

For the literal-minded, then: 

And too tired to recycle a post.

Hey, guys, Happy Earth Day.

Now - we've overstayed our welcome.  The place is a mess, the oceans needs scrubbing, and our host is running out of food - let's get our rears in gear and start colonizing other planets.

Just a thought.

I was watching TV last night, and was impressed by the number of ads that now manage to work "green" into their pitch somehow.  I can't blame them for jumping on the "green" bandwagon - they have to keep people buying their products, even though eco-friendly policies frown on the mass accumulation of material goods.  

There's a strong irony in the possibility that if we really went green, we'd tank our economy, which is absolutely not geared towards the idea of "reduce, re-use, recycle".  

Anyway.

I'm heavily into "I'll sleep when I'm dead" territory - my current event list goes something like this:

So, we had a garage door to pick up and half an acre of lawn to rake and seed this weekend. It was an exciting couple of days, not least because of this:

http://www.nbc12.com/home/17954734.html (Forest fire devastates 600 acres in Buckingham County Saturday)

It came within a mile or so of our house, and the place smelt like woodsmoke for the entire weekend. We were driving back from theblueleader 's house with garage door bits strapped to the top of the truck, and we got quieter and quieter as we got closer to the house, since we couldn't tell where the smoke was coming from. We got stopped by some firemen just past the house, who told us that the fire was close, and they were evacuating people on the other side of rte. 610 from us (about 1/2 a mile down the road). We went back to the house, and packed in case we had to evacuate.

*pause to build tension*

The house is still fine, and I didn't need to attempt to fit a baby grand piano into the truck, but watching the smoke was disturbing.

In happier (but slightly frustrating) news, this was the weekend for wildlife around the house, and of course, I forgot the camera. I found a large-ish (3 feet) rat snake hanging out in the driveway, and Bob caught it so I could admire it (they get a bit stinky, but they're cool as heck), then moved it so it wouldn't get run over by the asphalt guy who was coming to price our driveway. Then, while cleaning bits of plastic and slate from the bit of the lawn where the old house used to be (in preparation for re-seeding), I heard a grunt, and looked up to see the two local black vultures in one of the black walnuts, all relaxed and groovy, watching me. I later saw one on the roof of the old barn, looking for all the world like a Halloween prop.

Saturday evening, we got a yearling doe and her mother right up by the house - yearling had lost her spots, but was still knock-kneed and incredibly cute. She stood and stared at us through the window (she was about 15 feet away) for a good while. Of course, this means all the nice plants will have to be behind fencing, but for the moment, there's nothing for them to damage, so I like having them nearby.

Bob found a very Heath Robinson-esque squirrel nest in the wood shop - all fiberglass insulation (itchy!) and bits of paper - and I will get a pic of that next time, as it's epic. I saw baby squirrels frolicking in one of the black walnuts on Sunday, so I assume the nest is now empty of babies, but Bob was watched by a large squirrel on the second floor of the wood shop, so it may still be occupied regularly for sleeping. It's a nice dry set up, so I can't blame the squirrel.
All we needed was a turkey or two, but we haven't seen them in the yard for a while - though I bet if I put out corn, they'd come out of hiding. We hear them in the woods all the time. 

Blech.  Tired now - I'll be more insightful tomorrow.  Right now I'm just glad we aren't filing an insurance claim for fire.

pinkleader posted pictures in her Flickr account of my sock, so thanks to her, you can see the pathetic sock of not-very-scary doom:

So, as pinkleader mentioned, I knitted my first sock ever this weekend. No, not the one in the icon - I don't have pictures of the finished product yet (though pinkleader took some, as I recall).

It's a pretty lame sock, but I've never let being lame stop me before, and hey, it fits. I'm trying to put together some bits that I'm not worried about people touching for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival demo (we're listed as "medieval and renaissance textiles demo") in May, since it's a guarantee that by the end of the weekend, everything I put out will have been pawed over multiple times, even if it is attached to a display board (which it will be - no-one is walking off with my stuff).

 Hmmm... ummm... er... yeah.

*thumb twiddle*

Thinking up things to write about is always a challenge; not because I can't write just about anything (it is, after all, my journal), but because I get big thoughts and want to communicate them so that all your heads swell up to massive size with all the enormous thinky-type stuff, and then explode.

Man, I loves me some head-explody.