Thoughts

Yesterday was lovely. Thank goodness for air conditioning! And the evening was Lego Night (Whoop!) - I got my castle done fairly quickly, which surprised me until I realised that it was a far more 'airy' design than most, so got to help vander_hazaerdt with his - that was one that took more than 2 1/2 hours to build. It is sitting on our dining room table waiting to be taken apart and put away again.

The drawbridge is a work of art, I tell you. What an impressive castle. Even if it only came with one horse. (What's with that?!) My story is that the dragon ate all the other ones. :)

[Edit] ( for Merely Marcus, a picture of the castle )

Coming home from Williamsburg* this afternoon I passed two vehicles pulled over on the shoulder. One was a ultility truck of some sort, the other an older-looking "soccer mom" light blue van. The van was behind the truck - - - all the better for me to see the band of police lights blinking in its rear window.

A light blue soccer mom van.

Now that's "un-marked'!

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*Where I visited the Pendleton Woolen outlet and picked up a lovely 7 yards of summer weigh wool as one of the prizes for KASF this weekend. Navy blue. I hope it goes to someone who'll enjoy making something from it. Summer weight - it felt almost light lightweight cotton, it was so thin. That'll be nice in our warmer weather!

[additionally.... HA! Ha, I say! After noticing that there was a phone number for 'phone orders' with Lego corp., I called and they had some pieces that were missing from my sets but not listed in their 'pick a block' selection. The perfectionist in me is pleased.]

Seventy-seven Lego kits assembled and catalogued. It took 50 pages in Word to record their numbers and pictures although I'm pretty sure someone more accustomed to editing could have tightened it up a bit. Nonetheless, I am pleased.

And done with the computer-work. I still have to take the last 16 or so apart but that's for tomorrow.

( Gratuitous pictures of Vikings, Peasants, Dragon ships and Jousters. Heavy on the download AND they look better if you double-click on them )

I have taken down and put away over 45 Lego kits today. Do you know how many bricks I had to pry apart with my thumbnail? Me neither. But there's a big ole dent in the middle of it. There's a big ole dent in our supply of zip-lock bags too since that is what I'm using to store each separated kit. Then I put together 10 more sets from the 'unsorted' pile and photographed them. Even though I've run errands, balanced the checking account, paid bills, cooked food (and ate a fab-u-lous breakfast cooked by Arn) and did the dishes and laundry - it just seems as though all I've done is sit at the table in the kitchen and mess with little bits of plastic. Tell me again why I started this project?

No, never mind, I am having fun. Even if I'm also getting rounded shoulders and have worn out one set of batteries in my camera. The 'slideshow' of the currect crop of pictures on my computer looks pretty cool, too. So many sets I'd totally forgotten about - thanks to mmcnealy I have a good graphics program that makes even my photography not look too bad. At least, not when it is full-screen. I can see all their little faces. :)

Tomorrow will be a trip to Tir-Y-Don for their fighter's practise. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and relaxing. I must remember to bring something for the food drive. Maybe I should put a bag by the dorr right now while I'm thinking of it. Yeah, that's a good idea.

It was an enjoyable night last night... if you discount the muttering under our breaths, the wrinkled foreheads, and the occasional wail of frustration. Yes, it was Lego Night. rebeccaleigh21 and her husband came over for a shared dinner and then to help man the attack on the pile of lost lonely lego pieces (the ones still unsorted from their kits). When we were done for the night, we had eleven kits built. The pile of kit guides and plastic bits was significantly reduced and I'm closer to having them all organised again. Not to mention my silly smiling when old old-favorites were constructed and I could marvel at their engineering all over again. I haven't seen these kits put together in over 15 years.

Of the night's work, this was my favorite: ( picture behind here )

I decided I want a photo log of my collection. Last night's completed kits were the first to be photographed and saved to a document. I can't take pictures well but still, its a record of what is in there.

Besides, it was fun. :)

Pain management is easier on your own, yet more difficult. On my own, I don't have to hear all the things that are self-evident that Doctors seem to think fat middle-aged housewives don't know. And ignorance is something of a comfort, in that I don't have to face tests and their results along with the inevitable blue-devils at 3am during the waiting period. However, self-perscribing pain medicine isn't something one can do in America and avoid jail (or bodily harm) so I guess I'm gonna have to let the Doctor lecture me. It can't be worse than what I hear in my head when I'm alone. I have a friend who is heavily into believing that we "call in" everything that happens to us on some sort of semi-conscious level, and I was already sick to death of hearing "I wonder what it is in their life that caused them to feel that they needed to call in this [insert tragedy here] to themselves." Thus I'm writing in this journal because I know that friend doesn't read it... I know her beliefs are a real comfort to her but they anger me in a major way and I'm afraid I'd not be polite and respectful were she to trot such a line out on me right now. I'm quite sure - QUITE sure, that I'd not choose to be in this situation on my own part. Now, my faith does believe that we earn, or select, what lessons we get out of our lives and it's very possible that learning to deal with a sense of dependency and helplessness without falling into despair may be a lesson I'm having to face. It's possible. But I don't want someone else telling me that I chose to be useless to everyone around me for some reason known only to myself as if it were preferable to being healthy and contributing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... rant, rant, rant... it's been a hard couple of days. I know, I know - souls are like swords and need tempering. That's probably why they don't put mouths on swords - to reduce the level of protesting during the process. (And lest you're reading this and feel tempted to worry, don't. I see the doc on Monday to work out a plan to address the growing pain and numbness.)

I got more garb for the Marinus Bazaar made today, which was nice. Better was tossing three piles of papers that I had to sort through to find tax info - three whole piles of paper yielded about 6 sheets of readouts and a whole trashcan full of "don't need this anymore". My desk thanks me. And I caught Miss Sneaky (otherwise known as Humility-the-Manx) playing soccer with one of the crossbows from one of my Lego castles I had set up on my desk - so a few of those got put away today too. I told Zack and Melissa that I'd take pictures of them and post them in our family Yahoo album but Miss Must-play has put paid to that plan. Oh, and I learned that my computer's keyboard vacumn is great for cleaning dust off of Lego castles. Nice!

I stayed up with my son long enough to get him hooked on the new "Kojak" series. I love being able to do that - hook him on something new. First it was "Seven Nations" at our local pub, then Strongbad, then Charles de Lint, Heinlein, and now Mercedes Lackey (everyone needs fluff reading). He doesn't know it, but I have evil plans for more books in his future...