I bet you were wondering how it went at Pennsic with my boss (Deputy Mayor). Well! We got there the Tuesday before landgrab and set up our tent, then went down to dinner and to see the crew already on site. The Mayor pulled up a seat next to me to greet me and so I thought, "what the heck, might as well", and told him that I had formulated a plan for my booth - that if I caught my boss berating anyone or belittling them, I'd put a stop to it right there, talk to her privately, and if it happened again I'd be kicking her out of the Troll Booth, so this was a warning that he might get a radio call once the event opened up. He asked me to let him know if I did such a thing, which of course I agreed to, but warned that if I had to take action right then in front of a volunteer to let them know that they were being backed up, I would do so. And I explained what the current definition of a bully was, and how my DM exemplified the title. And that I would not tolerate it towards me or any member of my staff. He looked solemn, said, "Fair enough" and wandered off to greet/meet other members of the staff.

On land grab day my DM could not be any nicer, more tentative in her behavior, or bend over backwards any further. She asked permission to enter the Troll Booth. She asked if I minded if she worked at the head of the line as a Greeter, and "of course I could tell her to move on if things got too hectic." I had torqued my back on Tuesday night walking to the portojohn (And fell in the soaking grass and had to crawl across that in my nightgown to reach a trailer so I could use its hitch to pull myself up off the ground. I was a sobby baby there for a little while. And why couldn't I have fallen after I had taken care of business? Huh? What is with that?) She gave me a ride to the booth and my camp every day; pleasant, cheerful, supportive. I swear to gawd, I was sure there was a pod buried somewhere on the grounds, but no - it turned out that the Mayor, and then separately her Peer, both had a talk with her about attitude and the handling of volunteers. She couldn't have been a better Deputy Mayor this year. For me anyway. I heard from other departments that things were not going so well there. There were complaints to the upcoming Mayor and some other staff members. The upshot was that she was informed that while she could be on staff next year, it would not be in any job that had her in charge of any volunteer. They offered her a brand-new position and I swear, I was jealous. It isn't a done deal yet so I can't say what the job is, but I would jump on it in a heartbeat and so would Arni. It is so very needed. (Budgetary negotiations may preclude the job but we'll see. I do think it is a necessary thing given how big Pennsic has become.) *

Our camping situation sucked. We did not get asked to move the tent to a different spot/orientation this year as we had in the past. I appreciated that and think it might have been due to everyone's awareness that we're only going to be in that spot until next year and then it will open up. But unloading the truck and setting up the tent nearly laid out Bossman and we were both miserable and exhausted by Tuesday evening. The back was loaded differently than we'd tried in the past and a solid wall of wooden furniture fell on Bossman's outstretched arms - it cut one forearm up pretty badly along with that hand but luckily nothing was actually broken. He had bruises and contusions the whole event and all the way home though. Tree, my DM for next year, scolded me about us struggling so much and instructed me to call for him and "a crew" to come help us set up next year. I tried to demur but he pointed out that there was a staff member who expected their tent to be set up for them every year "for the last decade" and that "they certainly didn't actually need the help, while you guys do - and you work twice as hard as they do, so you will call me when you drive on site and wait for us to get there to help you unload and set up."

Alrighty then! To tell the truth, I am relieved. We were so tired and woebegone that it was almost five days before we finally got the interior of the tent arranged. We just couldn't bring ourselves to care enough to move out of our chairs and we hit our beds every night at dusk, just about. We were too tired to cook dinner. We pretty much lived on sandwiches and meals bought from the food court. Pack out was a slog and fraught with an explosive temper on Bossman's behalf. I thought the person who was helping him was going to walk out - and they would have had every right to do so. They quietly suggested that I try to hire a few more people to help pack up, and that we consider changing what we bring in order to make it easier for us to pack up. I agreed, and asked for suggestions. The upshot is that we are trimming down what we bring, substituting modern lightweight replacements for our period wooden furniture and we got a contract to sell the pavilion to a camp member after the War is over. It won't go back into our truck, he'll take it home with him after tear down. It is a bittersweet thing.

And I threw away, in disgust, the brand-new Igloo cooler that I had newly purchased for Pennsic. Dratted Piece of Shi--- Garbage! It was supposed to be a four-day cooler but it went through 30lbs of ice in half a day, the piece of trash. We bled out money for ice at an alarming rate. I was so angry that on the way home, while we were in the hills of Pennsylvania and only got spotty cell reception, I went on Amazon and bought an electric cooler! A friend recommended the one their camp used by way of a solar charge, said that it drew very little electricity and worked like a champ. So I bought one. I kind of regret that I bought the size that I did. I think I should have opted for the slightly larger one, but it's done now and we've already tested it here at home. I haven't tested it in hot weather conditions yet though. I should do that while the heat is still high.

* I just remembered this. I had a meeting with my staff before we did training and I told them how much I appreciated them coming in, burning more of their vacation time just to work like crazy people, and then told them that I respected them, they were all adults who were in control of their lives, and if anyone should attempt to get in their face or insult them, they had every right to respond to that any way they would normally and I would back them up. Assuming they didn't get physical, that is. "Throwing a punch is Right Out." That got a laugh and I saw a lot of shoulders relax. And then someone said, "We all know who she is talking about, don't we?" and the whole crowd, just about, laughed. It was funny but also so very sad.

I had a great team. I'm inviting all of them to come back next year and all of them said they would, barring real life problems.

It was a day for cutting out hood & mantles. Got four hoods cut out and five linings - yeah, that was strange but it is how the fabric worked out. I might save the extra lining to use on something for ourselves. These are to give as bribes to mercenaries at Pennsic. They are getting four full Viking era outfits; trous, leg wraps, tunics, and hoods. I don't know how many of them are in their household or how they are going to divide their take. My job is just to make the hood & mantles. It took me a while to cut them out. I had to keep taking a break so my back would stop hurting. I really should invest in a tall table for cutting out fabric.

We went to Target today where I picked up a strange little lidded basket to take to Pennsic. I was going to include a link to it but they don't have it up online, probably because it is in their shelves by the front door, those ones where they stock ever changing impulse-buying items. It is a good size for sunscreen, Motrin, and Tylenol - the stuff we want handy to grab but is so unsightly in the "salon" section of our "medieval" tent. It will be experimental. Bringing a basket is fraught with risk of angering the man who is not careful with items to be loaded and unloaded from our truck. And who hates, absolutely, baskets with rigid handles so "basket" is a dirty word even without handles.

KFC shares a parking lot with our Target so I went wild and got a chicken pot pie. I like them. I know it is very plebian of me but I am okay with that.

Arni was up and in the front yard almost as soon as the sun started to show. He sorted out all of the loose branches from our downed tree and put them in separate piles so the city's garbage service will pick them up. They have rules about the dimensions of what they will haul away. Then he re-piled what is left of the now-firewood. We both had posted a "curb alert" about it being there and one guy came out and hauled away about half of what had been stacked up but he made a mess as he sorted what he wanted. Arni cleaned that up and added to it by slicing parts of the huge trunk off with his new chainsaw. It is hard to tell by looking at the trunk that he'd sliced any of it except that the wood pile which had been about half a cord is now closer to a full cord. And we still have a piece of trunk wood about five feet long and a solid three feet in diameter. He managed to get the last edge of it away from the stump sticking out of the ground - there isn't much sticking up, honestly. It seems to have sheared off very close to the ground. I anticipate that more trunk "shaving" will happen over the next few days.

Yesterday while we were out getting supplies for today's barbeque this happened. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10161320288834283&set=pcb.10161320288869283 . Pretty amazing, huh? The trunk was nothing but sawdust inside. It'd been rotting for a very long time, it looks like.

We had one neighbor come over last night with his extension trimmer, which had a cute little chainsaw at the end of it. Arni headed out and bought a larger chainsaw from Harbor Freight and was up early this morning to work on it - a neighbor across the street saw him on the front porch as he was drinking his coffee and planning his attack on the tree and she hustled her husband and their neighbor into coming over with their chainsaws, trimmers, and water bottles. So starting with the first picture of the tree, you can scroll through and see the crew and how things look now. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10161321974034283&set=pcb.10161321974374283

We still have to deal with the giant trunk from the bottom of the tree. That is going to take a 20" chainsaw, some axes, and a splitter. Luckily we can rent most of that from a local Big Box Hardware store.

Doing the work in 93f/34c temps is rough. It is going to take more than one day to deal with what is still there. We are in the orange range of the wet bulb humidity scale. Our heat index has us at 102f/39c.

I ruined a tunic that I loved. I'd been embroidering on it, outlining a design around the neckline, and in the course of that became aware that I was not going to be able to embroider it fully as I had planned. The tendonitis won't allow it. So I decided to fill in the design using permanent ink on the inside of it. The first ink I used turned out to be water based and splotched all over everything in the wash. Got that mess cleaned up and went shopping for a better pen. Found one (I thought), filled in the design*, and tossed the tunic in the dryer to heat-set it. Then put it in the wash. The ink ran. It danced with wild abandon all over the creamy echru of the tunic. It spread out and made itself at home all around the neckline. It was everywhere. For the last couple of days I've been using various methods to try to remove the stains but none have been successful. It won't stay where I want it, and won't leave where I don't want it. So at some point I shall either have to toss the tunic in the dryer so I can reclaim the trim or just chuck the whole thing in the trash. I'll probably opt for saving the trim but that may not be done until after Pennsic.


*You spotted my error, didn't you? Always, always spot test dye or ink. I wasn't thinking.

Remember me posting about the ex-protégée who'd been dissing me in public and insulting me at my house? Well... she has hit a heck of a run of bad luck and I really feel for her. She and her spouse had to move from their apartment to a complex that would enable them to move out whenever it is time to relocate to their new place in the Great Lakes area, whenever the Navy contract comes through. So they moved to their temporary abode and the first thing that they found was mold happily growing in the refrigerator and the dishwasher, and cockroaches and ants wandering the rooms. They called the management. It took two follow-up calls to finally get some of that addressed. A new refrigerator was brought in and the dishwasher was "sterilized". But no exterminator showed up.

Go forward two weeks and she smelled something nasty while in her bed, got up, and found six inches of sewage backed up into their bathtub. It turns out that this is a fairly common problem in this apartment complex. Her description of how it was handled by the maintenance folks was disgusting and the guy left without fully cleaning the sewage from the tub. In the meanwhile, ants reinvaded the kitchen. And a couple of women tried to let themselves into the apartment (and nearly got shot!) without knocking or calling out. It turned out that they were cleaning crew and had thought that they were called to clean an empty unit. B had already scrubbed the life out of the bathtub so she sent them on their way with a flea in their ear about knocking before trying to enter. Another round of calls to the main office leads to an exterminator showing up - who said that this call was the first service request he'd gotten. The office had not bothered with it before that day. But the exterminator was thorough, and she was content with that.

Then this week hit. Their toilet began to leak out of the bottom. It seems that the maintenance folks neglected to use a proper wax seal on it when they installed it after the "renovations" they'd done before B & her spouse moved in. So there is yet another work order in to get the toilet repaired. Which is the only toilet in the apartment. But the maintenance guy won't get there until tomorrow because he's dealing with a sewage back up in a different apartment.

We had torrential rain yesterday and the day before. B woke up because she could hear water dripping. It is coming out of the wall and the frame of her bedroom window. It was also coming out of the wall and window frame in the other bedroom. It was leaking so badly that the caulking and the wall board around the windows started falling out. Both windows will have to be replaced, the openings re-built, and the wallboard replaced. I have no idea where B & her spouse will live while that is being done.

The Luck, she is not smiling at B.

I just caught up on about two weeks of reading... boy, I've been off about being on my computer. I did manage to re-write the text for the Pennsic Troll webpage and submit it. Three, no four, times. Currently there is an updated version online but it is version two or three, not the final one that had been long-distance edited by my Pennsic boss. and I think lost in her inbox.

We attended the staff meeting at Cooper's Lake during Aethelmark War Practice. As usual, it was cold and raining. I am so glad we opted to stay in a hotel this time. Yeah, it cost more than camping would have, but not having to deal with midnight potty runs in the rain made it worth it. I was able to confirm that my Pennsic Boss (PB from now on) was, in fact, lying to me about this and that concerning my department and her interaction with it, but I was able to assure the Mayor that it wouldn't be a problem - I pretty much know what sparks the warping of his words or any decisions by my boss and I can work around it. And already my eyes are starting to focus on next year's war when she won't be in charge of our section of staff.

A friend is 3-D printing a humongous five-part cylinder to mount somewhere in the Troll Booth. He's made it in dark blue and green; two of the rotating sections are green and three are blue. We will use this to keep count of how many people have registered each day. It can't be connected to our computers to do it automatically but that is okay. And man, those wheels are big! Probably ten inches in diameter. That takes a lot of filament, which he is donating. My budget swings more towards the dry erase board category. He's filling the numbers on each wheel with white epoxy so they show up well against the base colors. I don't know how, or where, this is going to be mounted but I am pleased about being able to return to providing a running count for interested passersby. We are also getting one of those weird posters with a figure whose face is cut out so a human can stand behind and put their own face in the hole for a photo. It is a corny idea (it was my corny idea) but I think it will make people laugh. Even though we're moving away from the job title of "Troll", the figure is going to be one of these https://www.etsy.com/listing/978548581/90s-tnt-troll-doll-vintage-troll-doll . I don't know exactly what it will look like as the person in charge of Pennsic Beautification lit up when I asked about doing it and they took off with the idea. So we'll see. This one will be set up on the volunteer's side, as they are the ones who get to be "trolls". It is possible that there may be other cutout figures posted along the path where our registration line will be so folks can amuse themselves while they wait to check in. Baroness Tysha (the Beautification person) was pretty excited about the idea. She'd made some small ones last year for kids but I think she is excited about coming up with something larger to relieve the boredom of the line-waiting.

I am planning on spending my own money to augment the snacks we offer to our volunteers. Not a crazy amount but I want to bring in a few small comforts. Our budget is woefully small and will not be getting any larger. All too often a Mayor even tries to eliminate it completely. We do get a Keurig coffee machine and those boxes of mixed types of coffee & tea, and we get name-brand sodas (there have been years when we did not!!) but the munchies have been abysmal for the most part. Welch's fruit gummies (those are disgusting), Utz chips, and hard candies. Sometimes a cookie tray of the type often seen in a office training session. It is too hot to lay in any chocolate candies but I'm going to see if I can scout out any decently priced chocolate cookies. I have to have them in their own serving-sized sealed bags as we can't have different fingers reaching into the same container of open food. Could you imagine! Which is a shame because I would have loved to stock one of those big barrels of Red Vine licorices. Maybe I can if I glue a set of tongs on a string along the side of the container. That would be amusing.

The new nomenclature for the department is "Head Tolner" (once Head Troll) -> "Tolners" (shift supervisors) -> "Clerks" (those who man the computers.) In a few years we'll have people inured to saying "Tolner" rather than "Troll". This is a Directive From On High but I got to choose the replacement term and I like using one which existed medievally for "the person who takes money to let you in".

I am bringing appreciation gifts for my Tolners. Just before Covid shut everything down I was slated to be the Autocrat for our Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival, which was also going to feature the investiture of our new Baron and Baroness. I had enough time to make "big" event tokens so I knit about 200 multicolored bags https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158652693439283&set=a.196689984282 , https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158452111494283&set=a.196689984282 , https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158494862459283&set=a.196689984282 ... they are of acrylic yarn and are sized so a person who drinks Gatoraid could hide their bottle in the bag. Anyway, even after giving a bunch away I still have well over 100 of them, none matching. I'm going to bring the whole shebang with me and offer my Tolners their choice of bag stuffed with an assortment of Kasugai gummy candy. It is so very tasty. And is gluten free and low on carbs too. As a diabetic, I can have four pieces and stay within my snack allowance. The flavors are good enough that four pieces satisfy a person. I love, love, love the Muscat flavored ones. Some of those will be reserved for the Head Tolner. Heh. The rest of the bags will be offered to those whose faces I see often within the pavilion. And if I have any leftover gummies, I will offer those, too. I'd like to avoid loading anyone down with useless stuff to schlep home.

I still haven't started a Standard Operating Procedure book yet. I need to get on that. I also need to talk to Maylene, who is the person on Cooper staff in charge of their side of the booth. She'd be best able to walk me through the computer functions my PB didn't bother to teach me about. I can't really write anything about those from here until I know what all I should know. As it were.

Oh, and today is our 46th wedding anniversary. We aren't doing anything for it - "46" seems a bit lame when we're working towards "50" in just a few years.

We're going to a small local event on Saturday. Something happened and the event has been suddenly modified so we can only use the site until 6:00. I bet the head cook is going nuts. I think I remember that at least one dish was planned to be a long slow-cooking one so now it's going to be a choice between precooking (and deciding how long and how much) or creating a different dish. It's nothing that the cook can't handle but I feel for them having this hit at the last minute. I am thinking about bringing my never-used-yet cribbage board with me to see if I can lure anyone into a game or two. It is this one and I think it is very pretty. https://www.amazon.com/Palm-Royal-Handicrafts-Cribbage-Availabe/dp/B093QGGJH9/ref=sr_1_11?crid=1I33LGINPQSI6&keywords=round+cribbage+boards+wooden&qid=1682652732&sprefix=round+cribbage%2Cspecialty-aps%2C104&sr=8-11 I have my embroidery to bring, of course, but I can't do it for very long anymore and need something else to do during the rest of the event. We're not staying for feast so it is going to be a short day but I am okay with that. The temperature is predicted to be in the low 70s (f) with a 16% chance of intermittent showers, which likely means one or two half-hour moments of rain and then we'll be back to partially cloudy skies.

We had planned on just "hanging out". There is no archery going on, so my spouse has nothing to do but help set things up and tear them back down again. This is good, in that if he couldn't be busy at least part of the time he wouldn't want to go. "Just visiting with friends" is not his idea of a fun event. We're planning on bringing our new-ish pop-up and testing out the new walls I bought for it. It didn't come with walls and we need at least one sun & wind break. I'd originally purchased patterned shower curtains to use for that but even though their black patterning on the white cloth is somewhat correct-to-period for woven design, I don't like them. I'd only purchased two, just enough to lap over each other and cover one side of the shelter. During the winter I got a wild hair and bought three red walls (the roof is a pagoda style in red and black, our household colors) so this will give us a chance to try out the walls and see if they work. It isn't easy to find walls for a 12x12 pop-up after the fact. And I know that red walls are not the best choice - a Pennsic mayor once bought a huge black and red pavilion to use in for the motor pool and it was a disaster because of how the sun shining through shaded everything red. It is now used as (I think) the "noisy tent" out near the battlefield, for musicians. Anyway, I'm not too worried about what things will look like in our interior since we'll only be using one wall at a time to shade/shield, and the few times that we put all three of them up it will be because it is raining, when the interior is going to be murky anyway. On those occasions we'll use the two shower curtains as "drapes" for the open side, which should look nice. But first to make sure that the walls actually can attach to and fit the sides. It is going to suck if we get there and find out that the walls don't work on a drippy day!

Weather and pollen have combined to make me grumpy and sore for a while now. But I had a fabulous day yesterday after sleeping for 13 hours (!) and waking up at a normal time for those who live day-focused lives. I got so much done! Went to bed all chipper and happy planning more to do today after I'd wake up, then struggled to get to sleep and finally succeeded sometime after 3am. Urg. My glucose monitor's alarm did not wake me up so far as I can remember but I did wake up a few hours later at a dangerously low level. It read 41. It doesn't register lower than that so I don't know how low my count was. Drank apple juice and ate a package of peanut-butter crackers (nasty. I must have bought the wrong brand) and things improved so I went back to sleep. Woke up to my count almost at 300, then it dropped down to stupid-low again, and back up again, without any food or dink involved. It was frustrating and the aches in my body tell me that it wasn't appreciated. I know this is a common complaint for diabetics so I also know there isn't an easy solution for the yoyoing. It seems to rely on too many vague variables. You just have to treat as you can and carry on. Channel your Inner Brit, I guess. In the meanwhile, today has been a washout.

Tomorrow I have errands to run. I "killed" the chip on my bank card and will have to go in to get a new one. I hate the hassle of switching over the new specs on my card for each account I have at stores and apps but it beats the alternative. Later in the evening I plan on sewing and baking, which I'd meant to do today. Nothing is dire though so I won't be stressing about missing getting any of it done.

We waited until the last minute to file our taxes. I always dread it because we always seem to owe a couple of thousand dollars. We didn't! We're getting a refund! I have no idea how that worked out, even when the tax preparer explained all of it to us. What a relief.

We went next to an old farmhouse in our area that has been converted to a micro-brewery and small event venue. I had promised to buy a particular can of beer packaged in a one-of-a-kind label for the 2023 Norfolk Tattoo. It's for a friend who lives in another country. The brewery had had a contest to design the label and he'd taken part in it. He didn't win but he wants a couple of cans to display on a shelf behind his home "bar". Our timing was unfortunate. The organisers of the Tattoo beat us to the brewery and took off with all of the cans. The only way to get any would be to attend the event - and I am not such a fan of pipes and drums that I'm willing to pay fifty dollars just to buy a can of beer. But the day manager at the brewery recruited the barman to join her in the brew house and lo and behold, they found a four-pack that had been hidden behind the main dock. So now I can give our friend his beer. After I figure out how to ship it to Australia. I think I may have to hold on to it until Pennsic 51 (2024) and hand it off in person.

I tried another youtube recipe and it turned out great. It was for slow-cooker potato & ham soup. The recipe made enough to feed five people and still have enough left over for tomorrow's dinner. It is a little lighter on potatoes than we'd like but it sure didn't look like it would be when we were loading up the slow cooker. My only regret was that I thought 1 tsp. of salt was insufficient so added more. I'd forgotten that ham is salt-cured and that it was going to leech into the soup. Wowsers, was it salty. Not so much that we couldn't eat it, but enough that I made a note on my recipe to warn against that mistake again. And friends on Facebook wanted the recipe - one made some for her and her man yesterday and they both liked the ease and the flavor of their dish. That brightened my day. Oh wait - that friend is a Dreamwidth buddy! Hi Dru!

I am on my computer right now to hide from the three-foot-tall stack of paper I took off of my desk and plopped onto the kitchen table. I have got to sort it. But I am procrastinating..

When I can't sleep I cruise YouTube on my phone* and one of the things that have been popping up on the random list has been cooking videos. Usually with a musical soundtrack and translated ingredient notes. One that was in English caught my eye and I thought I'd try it. I was a bit dubious about it but hey, it might end up tasting surprisingly good. All one had to do was buy a tube of Pillsbury cinnamon roll dough and a can of apple pie filling. You put each roll in a muffin tin and stretch it up and out to form a dish, then spoon in a dollop of apple pie filling. Bake and add the cinnamon roll topping (or not) before serving.

They were vile. I should have expected them to be but I've been surprised before by something I've doubted. Nope. Horrid. I was thinking of breaking up the things into pieces and throwing them out onto the lawn for the spawning wild life but my spouse saved the squirrels, bunnies, and ducks by pouring the plate into a plastic bag which he immediately threw into the outside trash can. That is how bad they were.


*Okay, when I can't read further or play any more stupid solitaire games on my phone.

The last two nights I slept, when I slept, sitting upright in my chair in the living room. Sinuses. Sinuses are evil. On Saturday morning, on top of the face pain and migraine-level headache, my ear canal was so badly clogged that I was weeping from the pain. I could not stand to touch anywhere near the ear or back jaw at all. I would swear that I had a knife stuck into my ear. It came on suddenly, too. My blessed spouse figured out what to do and brought me a hot moist washcloth to hold against my ear, cheek, and nose. That did help. I guess something is actually wrong but I have no idea how any doctor would be convinced that it is important enough to try to find out what it is. I'm accustomed to being blown off when it comes to sinus problems. So for now I'm relying on a regime of Motrin, antihistamines, and decongestants (normally I'd be taking a half dose but full doses for now) along with so much fluid intake that my name should be changed to "Mississippi". I hope that a few days of pill and liquid pushing will encourage whatever is clogged to clear itself out.

Bah! Spring is a pain!

Friday I had an eye exam and ordered new glasses and will be getting them in a few weeks. My prescription is "oh-you-are-so-so-blind", so the glasses have to be made in a lab somewhere in Denver. Trifocals, astigmatism, and the beginning of cataracts make lens grinding a challenge. The cataracts are a new development but do not require surgery yet and he says they may not ever. When I was a kid I was told that I read too much and "you will overstrain your eyes and damage them, and you'll go blind when you get older!" But I'd also been raised believing my medical condition would kill me before age 40 so I was pretty flippant about anything having to do with old age. Why worry about what you'll never see, right? I read by moonlight, under blankets with a flashlight, read constantly every day and night for hours and hours on end, especially when trying to get to the end of a story. I refused to wear my glasses (got teased too much for being a girl with glasses), read books with teeny tiny print, and I remember reading for so long that my eyes couldn't focus anymore and would cross so I'd shut one eye so I could see the letters on the page with no blurring. I also stared directly into the sun more than once or twice. These are all mistakes I guarded our children from now that I am a living example of what not to do.

So the new glasses are comfortable, half-frames, and designed by Armani. Ohhhhh.... that is about as close to haute ton as I shall ever be. The tops have almost exactly the same curve as my eyebrows. I do like that.

The doc checked out the diabetic risks on my eyes - no problems there at all. Those are more frightening to me than the stuff mentioned above. Glaucoma, retinal myopathy, macular degeneration, blindness due to elevated pressure in the eye - those are all risks for a diabetic. Scary, huh?

I'm working on downsizing our possessions some more. The kitchen is going through changes. We bought new flatware and will be donating away all of the mis-matched spoons, forks, and knives we currently are using. Our new set serves 12 people which should last us for the rest of our lives. And we will be losing our huge collection of plastic lidded containers this week and replacing them with a new matched set of nesting ones. Part of the "plastic problem" comes from sandwich making, odd as that sounds. The better tasting sliced meats come in resealable plastic containers, which we save since they are not recyclable. So we try to use them up until they don't seal any longer. They come in two handy sizes, too. But my man LOVES sandwiches. Loves them. I think he averages two meals a day from them. That means that we go through a lot of meat packages over the course of a year. Even holiday giveaways can't really dent our container collection. I'm going to have to take a good look at what is in the deli section to find a more affordable but earth-friendly supply. It is too bad that buying sliced meats directly from the deli is more expensive than we can manage. We have a ton of Tupperware containers. I started buying them in 1977 so you can imagine what I've stockpiled. But I don't really cook like I once did, and don't store the amount of ingredients that I once relied on. I've held on to the containers because they are Tupperware and Tupperware is expensive. I need to let that attitude go and clean the excess out of our shelves.

After flatware, storage containers, and pots & pans to follow will come - - - mugs and cups. I'm not looking forward to that. That is going to hurt and require patience and resolve. How do we collect so many of them? I think we have three cupboard shelves of "regular" mugs, then another of just Arni's travel mugs, and then yet another shelf of SCA-use cups too!