the darkness has not overcome it

wow. apparently i have game tomorrow and i didn't even know it.
shawn is running a game that 3 of us are playing called "my life with master."
basically you are the minion of an evil overlord. you gain self-loathing and world-weariness points as you go along and it has to balance out with love or bad things happen. really bad things happen anyway. it's great.
our game is already pretty dark.
two of us have characters that are pretty sick.

still, i wish i had known about it.
extra time job-searching for me today.

it has mostly been a good week.
i am remembering how much happier i am when i excercise (biked 10miles yesterday) and bemoaning the fact that my skin can't take more than about an hour in the sun even with 50 sunblock. even that much time leaves me with a slight sunburn so that i can't do it every day.. stupid doxycycline. i remember when 10 miles was nothing to me. my pride wants me to be doing 20 every time i go out.

the grass is coming up on our newly fixed lawn and it looks SO much better (pictures will be forthcoming as soon as i fix my camera battery charger). the tomatoes are going gangbusters and we may actually get a few strawberries.

i have done 4 informational interviews. the first two were great. the second two sucked. i blame the methodist church.
i talked to cindy gregorson (one of the minneapolis district superintendents) and sally johnson (deacon at hennepin UMC). both of them were nice ladies. neither of them were any help.
apparently because the UMC up here has no money, there is also no help for deacons to find work. sure, people have some contacts in the non-profit sector, but it isn't actually part of their job to help deacons looking for work. in fact, most of the deacons are not actually working outside the church. instead they are doing the work of elders in congregations that already have 2 elders.....this is very frustrating to me.
worse yet, deacons only meet annually with their DS and have cursory attachment to a church because they already have a supervisor in their job. as a result of this, there is no structure in place to make use of deacons as an informational source. i have no problems with deacons not answering to the church as much as elders, but the waste of them as a resource apalls me.
i continue to apply for things and cross my fingers.

i have discovered that i love to knit socks.
i knit a pair for my mother for mother's day and after some initial figuring-out, i am working on my third pair. pictures will be forthcoming as soon as i fix my camera battery charger....

i barely see ross these days as tech for 1776 is in full swing. we get a few moments in the morning after he rejoins the world of the living (i'm up before he is) and sometimes at night. but monday we went to see

i have been having GREAT fun with my new character thanks to sidhedevil, kurosawa2005 and rumpleteazaer. ibukij, rojirand a few others gave me advice too, but i haven't had a chance to follow up on it yet. it is so nice not to feel burnt out. it is lovely to not be bored, and i am learning a lot about combat - lessons i am ashamed to admit, i played over 3 years without. ventrue get other people to do their killing.

starting with friday, in which i had one of the most exciting role-playing nights i've ever been a part of. sarnait (ventrue primogen) challenged var (brujah primogen and sire of the prince) in defense of a clanmate. lost. got stripped of status. handled part of the discipline of another clanmate. ended up the night with a blood boon. fantastic night. fantastic role-play from everyone. wow. i think the rp at this game has gotten better since i got here - nothing to do with me, i just think it has improved.

then yesterday i spent all afternoon and evening at a LAN party in paynesville, hosted by the lovely eltanin and wilderheart. i met some really nice people there and had great fun playing capture the flag. i really like LAN parties because i get into the same groove i do when playing hearts. it's okay to try outrageous things that don't work and make you look like an ass because it is a safe environment. winning isn't the important thing. the important thing is the comaraderie and teamwork or maybe just the jokes you're cracking with each other. it had been way too long.
today i slept til 2pm....which is awful, but in my defense i was up til somewhere between 3-4 two previous nights in a row and had gotten up early the previous morning. then i got some housework done and went in to the guthrie with ross. i spent most of the time sending out IC e-mails but at least i got some time with my husband.
i have one day left to get everything done before we go to Germany tomorrow evening.
i have two rooms to clean, a prescription to pick up, packing to do and probably half a dozen other things i'm forgetting. wish me luck.

( meme proving i liked school too much )

i came home early from game friday night and missed the praxis.
this job is just WEARING me out. i don't have the energy for any of the fun stuff!

yesterday we went to the apple orchard and got my FAVORITE apples - jonathans!
a big bag of them sits in my fridge in all their tart red crunchiness.
then ross got me totally hooked on startrek nextgen episodes. i'm so behind the times. i mean, i watched it when it was on tv....just not anything close to religiously. so there are many episodes i haven't seen. we got in one or two before going over to see shaun and thistle and cedar and talk politics and play a cool card game involving the decapitation of french dignitaries a la revolution!
they are always cool to hang out with.

today we went to the ren faire. we got to see the gypsy show (bravo wilderheart and eltanin) and a truly offensive show of villification tennis and then i shopped like mad without buying a thing.
i couldn't find the things i wanted and i got an awful headache and backache...probably from my corset being laced too tight(thank you ross).
but we have been chilling out since then on the couch and being all connected and cuddly and now he is out grocery shopping for me because my head still hurts.
ross rocks.

....now about that sudafed.....

our friend dusty has been staying with us for a few days helping ross fix computer issues down at the guthrie. this has ups and downs.
it has been nice to see dusty who i quite like. it has been GREAT for ross, who rarely has anyone to whom he can talk about the IT side of the audio department and get any degree of comprehension back, much less someone who can actually HELP him.
the down side is that they have been working into all hours of the night.
i didn't miss them too much last night because i was at game, but in general, i miss ross.
i wake up and he's not here. even on saturday.

this coming week we will go to connecticut to visit my brother and nephews and sister-in-law. i am SO excited! i will get much-needed husband time. i love to travel with him. and i love my brother and his family. my brother's rock group will be playing and we will go see him and potentially cirque du soleil as well.

game last night rocked. i got advanced. i got to clean up city messes. i got to negotiate and politics about things i knew next to nothing about...and it worked(granted this is only because i had powerful people helping)!
it was great. i don't know if this is because of the change in ST staff (corey was getting burnt out) or whether i was just in the right place at the right time, but it was a great night.

to midwinter or not to midwinter...that is the question

still fighting off sickness.
rockin' time at game thurs. night. very busy. i was very impressed by RP from martin and john. found some new directions for character development of my own as well. but i think i may have been running a slight fever by the end of game.

yesterday i woke up at 8 and couldn't sleep. don't ask me why, i think it is ungodly too. mainly because i didn't have work. z suggested nyquil. friends, this was heather j. hall's first introduction to nyquil and let me tell you i'm a convert. aside from the fact that my typing/spelling became progressively worse as the sedatives began to kick in. i got in a 3 hour nap before driving up to PA for the weekend. good thing too.
i asked z if i should bring some up to PA, but he said they had some already. this morning i wake up at 7 - even more ungodly! and there is NO nyquil. z went out and got me some. i think i have the sweetest boyfriend ever! i didn't even ask. he just did it. now THAT is love.