Ah, young nerds :)

Many many years ago, my hubbie started running a game for the children of some of his gamer friends. These girls (and a couple of boys) were around 10-12 years old at the time. We still game with a couple of them, who are now in their early 20s, and another of them is our regular catsitter.

Now there's a new batch of kids, belonging to other gamer friends. So on Saturday, he started running Star Wars for three kids, ranging in age from 11-15. Because there are only three kids in the group at the moment, he let me make a character too. Whee! :)

The kids are actually brilliant, though. Two of them have gamed before (one of them has had me as a GM before), but not with people their own age. The oldest one had never played anything other than card and board games, and she took to gaming like a fish to water. There was one point where my character talked us out of combat (we were pretty outnumbered), but other than that, we tried to let the kids do what they wanted to do. It took them about ten seconds to figure out that if no one ever went to the bog, and there was rumored to be a bog witch hiding there, she was probably a Jedi. And she was, as it turns out. :)

So yeah, we only get to play this game about once a month, but I think it's going to be a fun addition to the gaming schedule. And since one of the kids lives some distance from us, her dad is going to hang out during the game and help with NPCs. That is gonna be hilarious. :)

End of the Work Week Wisdom!

Me: "I'm a little surprised it's already a thing...."
Cyrano: "I cannot say I am surprised. (: I know these people."
Me: "What are you talking about? We ARE these people. :)"
--Me and C.J., talking about the Doctor Pooh idea

Because I found a picture on Tumblr, and then found out it was a T-shirt design, and then found another T-shirt design, and then he found fanfic, and then I remembered that fanfic gives me hives.

(But it doesn't stop me from making weird mashups, and/or wanting to play in weird mashups.)

Nerd time!

We just started our new Changeling: The Dreaming game yesterday. Jeremy is running it, and there are nine players, which means a) the living room is very full, and b) there's always something crazy happening. :) We have 3 Sluagh, 2 Trolls, 2 Nockers, and 2 Sidhe in the game. Six of the characters are high school students, ranging from age 11-17, and the other three characters are teachers at the school.

Because Jeremy often blends a couple of systems together for the game, we spent most of our time yesterday working on the setting, working out the details of the school, and creating crossover Aspects, a la The Dresden Files RPG (and other games that also used the FATE system). Unsurprisingly for this group of friends, we asked for creepy, creepy, and turn up the creepy some more, with a side helping of creepy. We've got catacombs, secret passages, and a mysterious benefactor, all for our SUPER haunted school.

I was among the three characters who hadn't undergone the Chrysallis yet, but thanks to my character's Mentor, she knew what was coming and was ready for it. So after we took down a troll and chased some wolf-men away, she was doing a happy dance and texted her dad to say "Yay! Yay! Happy day!" :)

And now she gets to deal with all of the crazy that I packed into her background. :)

Starting on the Harry Potter movies!

I came late to the Harry Potter phenomenon out of obstinacy. I didn't want to read the books when everyone else was, precisely because they were popular. But I let myself get sucked in last year, and found that I really enjoyed the books!

I didn't watch any of the movies as they were coming out either. And now that the final movie is out, we've finally begun watching them. This will likely take a while, as our movie watching time is limited, and those movies are LONG!

But what surprised me the most, in watching it, is just how much they had to trim the novel to make it fit into the 2 1/2 hour time length. We watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last night. I was expecting a bit more Quidditch and a bit more of the time spent with the Dursleys on Privet Drive, among other things. (In the end, cutting both of those back wasn't entirely bad.)

Jeremy laughed at me while we were watching it, because at one point, I said "ooh, I gotta write that down!" See, I run one-shot Harry Potter games at some of the gaming conventions we go to, and there was actually a bit in the first movie that will fit perfectly into my next game. Of course, then my notebook was out, so I also wrote down something Ron said to Hermione: "You're a little scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant, but scary."

Jeremy has decided that I really am Hermione. :)

The month in review

I've been ridiculously busy lately, which is why I can go for more than a month without updating. But there's plenty to talk about, so here's a nice little recap.

We did Go Play Northwest in the middle of June, which was a weekend of indie games. I ran a Best Friends game (The Girls of Hogwarts), which turned out to be utterly ridiculous. But that's my favorite sort of game to run. (Of course, I finally read books 3 and 4 of the Harry Potter series over the past week, and discovered that my major plot was similar to something that happened in the books!) I also got to play some games I had not played before, and generally enjoyed them.

The following weekend we had fun at a tapas party with some of our gamer friends. I made chocolate chip banana bread, which was very popular, but all of the food I tried was incredibly good. Lots of little dishes, and lots of chit chat. We also did a quick visit to the zoo, which we found is very nice first thing on a Sunday morning. It's not too crowded, it's still cool out, and it's a good way to get some exercise not at the gym. We're hoping to do this more often when our schedule permits, since we do have a zoo membership. :)

I had a long weekend for the Fourth of July, but that was also the weekend that I had to ship Jeremy off to Kansas for his writer's workshop. He left on the 4th, and I spent most of that day and the next day in my studio, working on sewing projects. I got some designs figured out, and also had fun with making handmade labels for my stuff. I'll have pictures of the new stuff after this coming weekend, when I've wrangled a couple of my teenaged friends (well, technically they're 20 now) into modeling for me. I need the pictures ASAP, so that I can apply to vend at SteamCon. *fingers crossed*

While Jeremy was off doing writer things, I got to spend some time crafting at Black Door Studio, and learning about referreeing for the Jet City Roller Girls. Yeah, I totally needed another hobby, I know. :) But they were looking for skating and non-skating officials, and I think I'm going to try to do the skating side of things. Wish me luck. :) I haven't skated in 5 years, but I'm picking out skates tomorrow night. The good news is that the season has already ended, so I will have some time to get my skating skills up to par before the new season starts next year. And if I discover that I am absolutely a wreck on skates, I can get involved with the non-skating side of things. :)

I spent last week in Kansas City for work, and got to spend some extra time with my sister and her family. I took my nephew to Steamboat Arabia, because he had been asking to go for a while. It ended up that I took him by myself, rather than with my sister and niece, but it worked out surprisingly well. I told him that since he did so well, we would try to do other things like that when I have extra time in KC. But we'll see if this is like the way that kids behave themselves the first time they get a new babysitter, and then start pushing the boundaries... my nephew is pretty well behaved though, so we may be okay. :)

After that, I headed out to Lawrence, where Jeremy had been staying, and got to meet some of the folks he had been workshopping with. It was REALLY hot in Lawrence, and I wasn't there much more than 12 hours before we had to head back to KC to fly home. We made it back safely, and had an apartment full of cats in need of love. But they're always in need of love. :) I got to spend yesterday at home to get caught up on chores and such, which was very nice. I even made a semi-elaborate dinner. I'm so domestic when I have time. :)

We've already got a bunch of stuff planned for this week, and then I'm off to Kansas City again on Sunday. No rest for the wicked. None at all.

Back to normal?

I think that our lives are finally settling back down to normal. Yeah, we have a convention this weekend that will throw things off a bit, but it's in Seattle. We're staying at the convention hotel for convenience sake, but if anything bizarre came up, we're only about 30-45 minutes from home.

Michigan was rather cold, but as we spent nearly all of our time inside, that didn't really matter. I got to meet some new folks, hang out more with familiar faces, and generally have a blast playing an assortment of odd characters. And we went book shopping, so I have MORE books to add to the huge stack of things I've never read. *sigh*

Crafting wise, I spent the weekend working on an afghan for my new nephew, who is due in June. I managed to use up all of the light blue, mint green, and pale yellow yarn that I had, and ended up using some variegated pastel yarn as well, and it's not quite big enough. I need to figure out if I can match one of the yarns I've already used, or if I want to use a neutral color (I'm thinking cream or gray, the latter of which seems more practical) around the edge to finish it off.

As soon as I finish my lunch and this blog post, I'm off to the post office to send a package to Australia. Both of my sales in March have been international sales, which is exciting. Makes me wonder if there are really favorable exchange rates for other countries right now, but I don't really understand the math to that topic, so I just leave it as idle wondering.

Already thinking about April, since it's just 2 days away. I'll be working on soap sweaters for Anne at the beginning of the week, and, assuming I get picked for the EtsyRain show in May, I'll spend the second half of the month stocking up on stuff for that show. I've also signed up for a needle felting workshop just for fun. In my spare time, I'm indexing a book and writing a short story... wow, I think I'm booked for the month!

Wow...

I have completely fallen off with posting here. So you get the super quick recap.

1) Our trip to St. Louis went very well. Mom was utterly thrilled with her birthday present, which I can now tell you all about. :) We're flying her to Seattle in August. Jeremy and I will take her to Portland for the weekend to go to the spa at the Edgefield and Powell's Books. Then we come back to meet up with her friend who will be accompanying her on a cruise to Alaska. :)

2) My conference in Portland was about as could be expected from such. Good parts, boring parts, and Jeremy coming down for the weekend portion of the conference. More than anything, I now take this conference as an opportunity to chat with someone else who knew my former boss, who planned the mini-conference last October in his honor. One of these years, I am hoping that I can present at said mini-conference. So I gotta keep the communication flowing with those folks. :)

3) Been reasonably busy this past week, mainly with the Cassie-cat, who took a slight turn for the worse. She is improving now, I think, but we were notably concerned about her when we got back from Portland. She has now been to a cat opthamologist. How many other cats can say the same? :)

4) Getting geared up for Ambercon US is the other major factor in our busy-ness. I'm really looking forward to seeing some folks I haven't seen since last year (and some I've seen more recently), and actually staying in the convention hotel this time. :)

5) Work continues apace. I haven't heard anything about my next travel dates, but I'm sure they're lurking in the wings... as always...

Survived the weekend, barely

So the show on Saturday went very well. I was a lot more comfortable on stage this time, and I think it showed. Jeremy was terrified, but he still did awesome. :) There is video with passable sound this time, and I'll link to it as soon as I find out where it's posted. :)

Sunday was my Vampire game, which went okay. Once again, it felt like it was all about one character, to the exclusion of the rest of them. We tried to get the other folks involved, but they weren't really going for it. Apparently I need to push harder. :)

However, I also had a pretty bad headache through most of Sunday, which got worse after the game, and then lingered into Monday. It was an odd one that I want to call a migraine, but I'm not quite sure what might have triggered it. At any rate, it wiped me out pretty soundly. So I spent part of Monday sleeping, and then the rest of the day relaxing in front of the TV with a stack of unfinished crochet projects. I've now finished a bunch of rose pins and, the most exciting item, my crocheted TARDIS. (You can see additional shots of it on my Facebook Fan Page.) I've already got the next one in the works, with a few design modifications based on what I learned from the first one. My prototype is waiting to see what fun destination it will fly off to, and I'm pretty sure I've got a few more people lined up to buy the first ones to arrive in my Etsy shop. :)

Gaming recap

So I ran the first session of my Vampire game yesterday. We got off to a slightly late start because one of the players managed to lock her keys in her car when she and another player stopped to get Krispy Kreme for everyone. But we got going eventually.

I think the game went pretty well. I felt as though I didn't do particularly well with two of the characters, while the other two got more screen time and personal attention. Some of this is related to knowing a little less about the first two characters, and some of it may have to do with my own focus. So my goal is to make the next game session a little more focused on those two.

One of the players mentioned that the game was "episodic," which is very true. I think that most of my games tend to be what Jeremy calls "mission based." Per his request, I've tried to avoid a total mission-based feel for this game, but it seems that I was only partially successful. In my defense, I will also point out that I did sow some seeds for future plots (a few of which involve one of the two neglected characters), and there will definitely be further action generated from what went on in this session. But overall, having a sort of episodic structure just works for me, much moreso than a free ranging game of "what are you doing now?" Because invariably, what the characters are doing WITHOUT outside influences is much less interesting than what they are doing WITH those outside influences.

(I will also point out that I'm totally ready to go off on whatever tangent they'd like... if they come up with a tangent... :) )

It's almost Christmas!

Today is my last day in the office until Monday. That's right, I get a whole four day weekend! It's a far cry from the days when I had the week between Christmas and New Years off (and then some), but I'll make do with what I've got.

Tonight, we're headed over to see what amounts to Jeremy's family in the Seattle area for Christmas. Not sure exactly what we'll be doing, but I know there will be dinner and probably either pool or video games, depending on his brother's preference. :)

Tomorrow, we're sleeping late, heading to the zoo for part of the afternoon, having a snack-y dinner and then snack-y treats as we observe a Christmas tradition that does not seem to have any presence on the internet. Must check with Jeremy and determine the origins of this tradition before I try to explain it. :)

Friday, we're also sleeping late, opening Christmas presents, lounging about aimlessly, and then going out for Chinese food and to see Sherlock Holmes. I have to say that the opening Christmas presents part of the event intrigues me greatly. We finally wrapped presents last night, and Jeremy commented on how heavy mine is. As I was getting my boots on this morning, one of my gifts to Jeremy fell off of the "mantle" (read: the top of our entertainment center), and I realized that his gift to me seemed to be sliding the Rock Band drum set over slowly, so I picked up the gift to move it to a more secure location. It is HEAVY. And solid. And I have no idea what it is, unless it's a slab of rock. Seriously.

Saturday, I have claimed to spend the day in my studio, taking pictures of all of the stuff I've made in recent weeks, working on a serious destash of the supplies I will never use (keep an eye on Counting Stars if you want to see what I'm getting rid of!), and maybe even getting some sewing in. I know, shocking! :) And then we've got D&D in the evening.

Sunday will be a day to get all of the usual chores done, but other than that, a lazy day.

Sometime in there, I need to work on my Vampire game, and I'm chomping at the bit to work more on Jeremy's family genealogy. I'm getting somewhere with the German side of his dad's family, which seems to have arrived in America and stayed in one place (Minnesota), until they eventually made their way to California. This was very thoughtful of them. :) It makes my life a lot easier. :)

Wow

So my vacation was great. It was super relaxing, but I also got a lot of crocheting done. The presents I had picked out for the kids were a HUGE hit, especially the hats I made and the stuff I found on Etsy. I was really pleased by the latter, because I like having people to buy for who appreciate handmade stuff. :) (The belle of the ball has been stuff from Kayce's Nue to Me shop, which I did buy quite a bit of...)

Then we got back, and I was in the office one day, but sick by that afternoon. I spent the last two days at home watching Battlestar Galactica, crocheting, and otherwise being a lump. But I'm pleased to report that I feel MUCH better now (and am back in the office).

I finally get to play in our Saturday afternoon game tomorrow, which has switched from being the all-combat Exalted game to a Scion game run by Jeremy. I'll be playing a daughter of Baron Samedi who is a tattoo artist. :)

Sunday is my final show of this winter, at I Heart Rummage. One last chance to get handmade Christmas gifts if you haven't already finished your shopping! :) And if you have, come and buy stuff for yourself! :)

I'm looking forward to my four day weekend for Christmas, which will include the zoo, the new Sherlock Holmes movie, and Chinese food. Oh, and a present. Jeremy picked up the box that contains my present on Wednesday night, and gave it to me to carry. In my sickly state, I had to give it back to him, because it's too heavy. I have NO clue what it is. I'm looking forward to opening presents on Christmas morning. He will have a stack to open from me... which reminds me, still gotta pick up the last couple of things for him. (Alas, not handmade.) :)

Making vampires

Sunday was the character creation session for my new Vampire game, even though three out of four characters had their characters built before we started. But the session was mainly devoted to establishing relationships between the characters and choosing Aspects (a la Spirit of the Century) for the characters.

This is a system that Jeremy implemented when he ran his Dragon Blooded game, and I decided to use for my game as well. In Jeremy's game, it was wonderful and led to all sorts of roleplaying and interaction based on things our characters had done as kids. I'm not sure if it is going to be quite as cool for my game. Some of the scenes were really awesome, but others felt a little bit forced. This might have been related to the fact that with only 4 players, and 3 scenes to cover, everyone HAD to pair up with each of the other characters. So the forced interaction between, say, the Gangrel and the Toreador didn't necessarily make as much sense as some of the other scenes (not that any of the pair-ups made a lot of sense, with a Brujah, a Gangrel, a Toreador, and a Tremere being the PCs). Somehow this seemed more logical in Jeremy's game, when we were often related by blood or marriage to the other PCs.

The next step for this game is for me to work on the NPCs, so that I can get "character" information to my volunteers. I've got a small group of players who couldn't play in the game, mostly due to time constraints, but also due to geography constraints, and they will be helping me by coming up with the downtime actions of their "characters." I say "characters" in quotes because these distance players will not have full control over the characters. I'll be voicing all of the NPCs during game sessions, but during the in-between times, I'll have the assistance of some veteran players and some newer players to help me flesh out what the world outside of the PCs and their immediate circle is doing.

Anyway, expect sporadic posts about this new game and how the rules variations we're using are going. The first play session isn't until January, though, so if you aren't into RPGs, you'll be spared until four weeks from now. :)

d10 earrings from siarh.etsy.com

It's that time of year again!

Time for another Punk Rock Flea Market. Number 7, in fact, and I've been a vendor at all but one. Assuming I get my usual spot, I'll be right at the bottom of the stairs when you come in. I'll have arm warmers (though the selection is a bit slim right now), cozies (ice cream and coffee), cat toys (eyeballs and fish), Decapitated Dollies, and cupcakes (lavender stuffed, plain, and geeky ones).

The hours for the Market itself are now 12-8 (instead of 10-6), and there are bands (and beer!) after 8 p.m. (Usually they start the beer a little before the bands come on, actually. :) ) I'm utterly thrilled because I know that Shea of Kung Fu Monkey Robot will be there, and she's bringing a plaid beanie with skull and crossbones on it, which matches gloves that I bought from her last year. I will likely be coming home with a new hat. :)

+++++

In other news, we're doing character creation for my new Vampire game on Sunday afternoon. It's basically revised V:tM, but we're using Aspects from Spirit of the Century instead of merits and flaws. I think it's going to work out okay, but I'll report back on that once I know. :)

Fun with crafting!

So my show on Saturday went very well--lots of sales, a really lovely environment, and fun people to share it with. It wore me out thoroughly enough that I didn't even take my crochet to D&D, and ended up falling asleep soundly on the couch, with my laptop still balanced on my knees. That's talent. :)

I tried to get a little crocheting done while we gamed on Sunday, but didn't really succeed. I ran out of the yarn I was using to make arm warmers, Gabe decided that he REALLY wanted some of the catnip I was using for catnip eyeballs, etc. But still, some work is better than none. I just need to find somewhere to work on the catnip stuff away from the cats... though finding time when that's possible makes this a difficult prospect.

And I'm gearing up for my next show, which is this coming Saturday and Sunday. The EtsyRain Holiday Show runs from 10-5 on Saturday, November 21st and Sunday, November 22nd, at the Intiman Theater (201 Mercer Street) at Seattle Center. I think there's something around 60 vendors, and the first 50 people in the door on each day get free swag bags! There is a suggested donation of either $1 or a new article of warm clothing for Treehouse.

I'll be there with arm warmers, cat toys, Decapitated Dollies, lavender cupcakes, ice cream cozies, and coffee cozies. And possibly more! :)

Brrr...

Even though the sky is solid blue today, and the sun is shining brightly, it's still a wee bit cold in Seattle. I meant to grab a pair of my arm warmers today, since I opted for a short sleeved dress over jeans, but our morning rush meant that the arm warmers stayed in the drawer instead of coming to work with me. Luckily, it was only really bad this morning while I was at UW, and just now when I had to run out for quarters and lunch. Ah yes, my thrilling day. :)

I have been doing little other than writing recently, which further contributes to how thrilling my life has been. But Jeremy has begun brainstorming on his character for my upcoming Vampire game, so I'm getting to toss a few ideas back and forth with him when we aren't both frantically working on our novels. I didn't expect that anyone (other than Katie) would get me much on their characters until December, when we start the game, but everyone has at least given me a small taste of their upcoming characters. Amusingly, after Katie and Megan were chomping at the bit for me to get them the character quiz, I haven't seen ANY answers yet. :)

Our plans for the next few days involve writing and gaming, in addition to my show on Saturday. I may not get to participate in the gaming, but I'm hopeful that I can at least divert my attention from the novel for a little while. My brain needs a rest every now and then! :)

Hmmm...

A lot to recap, so let's just dive in.

1) Gabe, one of our two elderly cats, spent nearly a week at the vet. He was meowing a lot on Monday night, but he does that occasionally, so we thought little of it. By Tuesday, he was having enough intestinal issues (as evidenced by the litterbox) that we thought it wise to get him to the emergency vet. They weren't able to find anything for certain, but advised us to keep an eye on him. As I was feeling poorly on Wednesday, I stayed home, and tried in vain to feed him several appealing dishes. Since he wasn't eating, and since we were getting ready to go out of town, we decided to take him to his regular vet, which also offers boarding for cats. So they checked him out and agreed to board him, while running some tests as well. The tests ultimately ended up being fairly inconclusive, but Jeremy picked Gabe up from the vet last night with a shaved belly and a bag full of medicine. Gabe seems to be mostly back to his usual self now, except that he slept the entire night curled up by my side. Jeremy is off work today, so he's going to keep a close eye on Gabe's eating and litterbox habits. We're hoping he is over his sickness, whatever it was.

2) We spent Thursday through Monday at the Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon, for Ambercon NW. The Edgefield is super awesome--we made spa appointments for shortly after our arrival, so we were nice and relaxed by the time the gaming began. I got to meet a lot of people I had thus far only heard stories about, as well as a lot of other cool people. I ran three games and played in four games, and was generally exhausted by the time my head hit my pillow every night. In related news, soaking in a hot tub-like pool apparently causes fingernail polish to unadhere from your fingernails. What I didn't lose in the pool proper came off in CHUNKS yesterday morning. :(

3) As a result of the above two factors (the cat and the convention, not the nail polish falling off), I've fallen a bit behind on my NaNoWriMo word count. I had a few hours to write yesterday morning, and I finally think I know where my story is going. Now I just have to actually write it all out. I did discover this morning that I can write (by hand) on the bus, so long as I don't have a big backpack on my lap. Time to switch back to my usual purse, I guess. :)

4) I've got a craft show on Saturday at the home of Kay, along with several other local artisans. If you're interested in attending, drop me a line, and I'll get you the evite. I'm surprisingly well-stocked already, though I do have a bag of catnip eyeballs to finish up before the show. Sometime...

5) Awaiting word on whether I'm traveling for work next week. If I am, having my weekend compressed means I'm going to be running around like a madwoman all weekend. If I'm not, I might actually manage to squeeze in a night at the studio next week. Ooooooh. :)

Blergh...

So the headache on Sunday and Monday turned out to be a sinus headache (as best as I can fathom), which was the prelude to the accursed cold coming back. Just when I thought it was all done, I get smacked with it yet again.

The timing is horrid, too, since I have to get on a plane at o'dark thirty Sunday morning to head back to Kansas for another week. I hate flying when I'm sick, because my ears never quite pop correctly. And since I have a chemical sensitivity to several artificial sweeteners (and am not willing to risk the migraine that they might cause), my gum options are pretty limited. So I'm going to try to find some sort of gum with real sugar tonight, and if that fails, I'll have some chips or something to try to keep my ears from feeling like they want to explode on the plane.

(If anyone has any good tips on how to get your ears to pop on a plane other than yawning and chewing gum, please share them! Yawning doesn't work for me when my sinuses are already messed up. :( )

In other news, I'm slowly but surely hammering my games for ACNW into shape. Not sure if I posted what I'm running here, but it's a steampunk game, a weird Deadlands/Scion knock-off, and a Firefly game. I'm homebrewing all of the systems, which makes this a double challenge, since I have to write up game systems and work on plot stuff. Jeremy helped me with the steampunk game a bit, so I'm hoping I can get some done on the other games next week. I don't technically NEED the systems done till the end of the month, and the games until November, but it's still nice to get them out of the way.

Luggage tags by maluhia.etsy.com

So let's see here...

Spent Friday evening playing a Girl Genius table top game, and then curling up on the couch because it was WAY past my bedtime. I basically slept through the entire combat, which is a pretty spectacular feat, given how loud the other players were. We won't be playing in that game regularly, since Friday nights are often booked with other things, but we did have a lot of fun. I made a construct for my character, who works as a contortionist in the circus that all the PCs are a part of. My character is currently stalking one of the other PCs, who used to work for the person who created her. Later, Jeremy plans to make a second character, a 13-year-old girl who "converted" my construct into a dress-up doll. Fun times. :)

Saturday was the Exalted game, which was really wrapped up in a whole lot of us talking about everything other than the game. We didn't even finish one combat. I got quite a bit of crocheting done, though. :)

Sunday was Houses of the Blooded for One Hit Wonders, and that one was a ton of us fighting with the rules, and deciding that while the setting is super awesome, the rules leave a lot to be desired. But it's fun to talk game design stuff with other gamers, for sure.

I managed to have a headache for pretty much all of Sunday and most of Monday, so I stayed home yesterday and slept very late. Then I played Rock Band and finished up season 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica, and was horribly disappointed by the end of the season. I'm hoping things will turn back around in season 3... (which I think they will, since there are something like 4 more Cylons revealed in season 3.) I did make a whole bunch of cat toys though, mostly for the shop, but a couple for Jeremy's cats. So far, they are loving them. Gabe, at the very least, is a total catnip fiend... the toys have to go up on a high shelf when we're not home. :)

Gaming galore!

So we had the usual weekend of lots of gaming. Saturday was Exalted, where I somehow managed to grab the wrong character sheet, and couldn't figure out why my character was so smart... nor why she had so little Willpower. Eventually, when we got to combat, I figured it out. :) I really need to throw away my old character sheet, or otherwise not have it in the book that we take with us to game. :)

Sunday was the Dragon Blooded game, and it was a whole lot of silly fun. Somehow, my character became the responsible one (she's one of the youngest in the group), paired up most of her cousins with their perfect spouses, and got married and had a kid of her own. :) It's a little bit of a bummer that she became responsible, because she's not really a pirate anymore. But when asked if she wanted to give up her Admiralship, she absolutely refused... meaning she had to do things the traditional way and basically conform to the status quo. Ah well, at least she runs the entire Imperial Navy now. :) (We do have 5 years of downtime between the games, so I MIGHT have her go back to her piratical ways, but there's been a lot of story stuff related to her growing up, so it seems a little disingenuous to go back on that now.)

We've only got two more sessions of the Dragon Blooded game, and then two months off before I start in on my Vampire: the Masquerade game. I'm very much looking forward to getting to run a game for a regular group again, since it's been almost a year since I had that in my gaming schedule. Now I just have to figure out how to keep the game at a reasonable number of players, especially for our tiny little apartment. :)

I'm really happy, though, because all of my gaming books are at our apartment now. And while I've realized that I got rid of a lot of books that would be useful now, I've still got some fun stuff that has reemerged. :)

Hurrah for Friday!

Glad to have made it to the end of the week. As promised, the temperatures have dropped, to the point where we could actually sleep comfortably last night. I even ended up bundled up in a sheet by morning!

I'm anxiously awaiting the weekend, even though I know it will be a zoo. In the midst of all of the moving stuff we need to do tonight and tomorrow, we have two games and a photo shoot! Eek! The games are the usual pair of Exalted games (though there's a chance we're going to call off the second one and go to the EMP instead), and the photo shoot was originally so that Jeremy can hopefully get some photos he likes to use for writer's stuff. Lucky me gets to come along and get some pictures taken with him as well. :)

Because I am a dork, I've had my clothes picked out since I first heard we were doing these pictures. :) I'm going to wear the cute vintage dress I bought from Betsy at the last Punk Rock Flea Market--white with tiny black polka dots, with red and black felt leaves and acorns stitched on (to camouflage the sorts of flaws that vintage dresses often have). I totally love the black and white and red color combination, and it's the closest thing I'll probably ever own to a white dress. :) Now I just gotta convince the boy to wear something that matches what I'm wearing... he has a perfect shirt, which he doesn't like. *sigh* I'll post pictures (or links to pictures) when all is said and done!