Corsets and moving vans and nephews and Nano...oh myyyy...

Random acts of Silly doth abound in Fairhaven...

(You should absolutely read that Oh My in the way that George Takei says it.  In fact, every time anyone says Oh My it should be using his voice.  Every. Time.)

So it's been awhile and I've promised time and again to blog about the honeymoon, the European extravaganza that was the months of May and June for me and The Mister.  This isn't going to be that post either, so if you've been waiting for that, you might as well keep surfing.

It's currently the end of October which means the Carolina Renaissance Festival has been in full swing for four weekends now, leaving only three to go before we sadly pack up the Dog Barn for another year and start madly plotting our garb for our trip to the "Southern Kingdom" of Newcastle in Georgia in the spring of next year.  But wait, that's not all that's going on...I'm still working on getting my soon to be former roommates decked out in garb of their own (a court gown to be done by this coming Saturday as well as a doublet!  I must be MAD.), moving into a new house, and starting a NaNoWriMo on Thursday.  Mad indeed!

We thought that it would be easy to do when we started this sewing project back in August (nevermind that I was doing a Camp NaNo then as well).  We planned to do the parts of the gowns at the same time and finish them both before Opening Weekend so that we didn't have to worry.  Ah, the best laid plans...

My gown is mostly done, as you can see in the photo above.  There are some bits that need finishing and WHO KNEW that thing would be as HEAVY as it is, but there you are.  Beauty is pain.  I had a little girl curtsy to me yesterday because she thought I was royalty ("your dress looks like the queen's!") so I guess it's all worth it.  Out of the mouths of babes...if ONLY my garb looked like Bettina's work!

Anyway, so mine is almost done and will have to be re-done before next year.  The sleeves are the heaviest part and will have to be grommetted in so that I can removed them before performing mundane tasks such as going to the privy or picking up poop or...amazingly enough...putting on my cloak!  It was like I was holding two persian cats under there.  Not good.

We've almost completed our move into the new house.  As I type, The Mister is wrestling with putting up blinds and unwrapping/setting up IKEA bookshelves.  It never ceases to amaze me the size difference in our furniture in our American house as opposed to our English one.  Where are my "huge" leather sofas?

Over the weekend my brother in law Andrew and his...partner?  Girlfriend?  I'm not sure the appropriate term, but they had a little boy, the first grandson/nephew for the Dunnes.  I'm hoping to see photos soon, and I need to get on the ball and email my niece, the new kid's big sister, to check in on her.  Being a big sister is not always as glamorous as it looks, and I want her to know that Auntie Nancy has been there/done that and would love to listen if she needs to discuss the finer points of siblings.

Finally...Nano starts on Thursday and I think it's going to be EQ fanfic for me again.  My hope is that all of this writing I grind out in November (as well as the past Nanos that have been on the same theme) can one day be edited to remove anything that the EQ head honchos may think is actually their property and made into a fantasy novel that can be published and read by people other than me and my sometimes muse, Mike (who brought one of the main characters to virtual life in game for years).

Yeah, so...that's what's going on here.  Not much, really, in the grand scheme of starvation and war and Hurricane Sandy, I suppose.  But enough.  You hear me universe?  I've got enough for now.

Oh myyyy indeed.

Boo!

Boo!!
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

Happy Halloween from me, in my newest piece of Rennie Finery, and Daisy, who is none too happy to be wearing that mask. I know we're a day early, but better early than late, right? Thanks much to Debbie for snapping that photo of me in desperate pain...I mean my new dress.

You know you should go to bed when...

...you lose count how many orange slices you've had...the candy, not the oh-so-healthy fruit.

...the Showbiz Show makes you howl with laughter, even during the commercials.

...you call your "Friar Dave" costume project "McShane's Sundress."

...you realize that you've probably stayed up so long that you will have to skip your PM yoga and go straight to AM yoga.

...you blog about skipping PM yoga like anyone is interested.

...you sing three rounds of "World Leader Pretend" in your head and comment to the cat how much you miss REM.

...you comment about anything to the cat. THE CAT.

Just a hood, a tabard, and I'm done with Dave's monk costume...if I don't get ambitious and embroider some flowers on it and call it a sundress. Insomnia sucks.

Can you hear me now? CRASH

My sewing machine is sitting on my dining room table currently because I don't have a special sewing table. At the dining room table last night were two chairs, only one of which is safe enough to sit in. The other one was either not put together correctly or has just worked a screw loose in the 7 years of its chair-life, rendering it wobbly at best and darned near dangerous at worse.

I'll let you take a guess at which chair I ended up sitting in to sew last night.

All started out well as I sewed the twill tape on the edges of Kalyne's bodice, the fabric for Dave's costume churning away in the washing machine in the background. I even got up to answer the phone when it rang and sat back down without incident. But then I made my fatal mistake: I leaned back in the chair to stretch my back, because as I sew I tend to hunch over and get closer and closer to the needle, leaving me looking like Gollum from LOTR by the time the garment is done. "My pressssssshus seams..."

CRAAAACK.

The next thing I remember clearly is being on the floor in terrible pain with the phone pressed to my ear and Scott yelling into it, "Nan? Can you hear me?" I told him to hold on, disentangled myself from the chair, and tried to stand up. It seems that when the leg came out of the chair I pitched backwards, striking my head and then neck on the wall and landing on my tailbone on my hardwood floor. There is also some apparent damage to EVERY STINKING MUSCLE between my hair and my toenails on my left side, as evidenced by the shooting pains in that general area if I move too quickly or try to turn my head to the left.

Dangerprone Daphne does it again! I am reminded of other incidents of equal grace: The time I sat willingly in a hammock at camp hung on one side with rope and on the other with BANDANAS AND DUCT TAPE. The time at Maryville when I walked off the edge of a platform in a play (having missed the stairs completely), causing the stage manager to line the edge of the platform and the stairs with reflective tape so that from above it looked like an airplane tarmack. The summer we lived in England I couldn't stop falling down the stairs in our house. If there is a way to get hurt doing it, I will find that way.

I'm just wishing I hadn't left my advil at home. I wonder if my chiropractor takes walk-ins?

Randomness

I think I may be coming down with something, so my post today is going to be random stuff slung together...that's about the best my brain can do at the moment.

Quote from this past weekend that only Rennies would understand:

It's always good to have friends that ride horses and carry big sticks.

Funniest Thing that Happened Over the Weekend:

While shopping for shorts with Thug and Amy in an effort to not completely lose my sanity to sewing, we came across a pair of shorts in Belks...BELKS, mind you...bastion of polyester suits and sensible shoes, one step up the teenage acceptable clothes ladder from SEARS...that Amy thought were exactly what Thug was wanting and would satisfy the length requirements at her middle school. "See," Amy says knowingly, "you can just roll them up to make them shorter than Bermuda length when you're not at school! How much are...Holy Jesus Lord..." The shorts, which were denim and showed multiple signs of repeated distress including strings left to dangle where they had obviously been cut from a pair of jeans with dull kitchen scissors, were $87. I'll let that sink in for a moment. Jeans Shorts. Holes and rips. Cut off with strings hanging. Had that look that says they haven't been washed for a year despite repeated trips either under a car that's leaking oil or to the Varsity in Atlanta with someone who has never heard of napkins. Eighty-Seven Dollars.

Best Moment of Clarity from the Weekend:

Despite the fact that I taught myself to sew, more or less, and I find a lot of the tasks that used to frighten me to be quite simple, I cannot and should not ever try to teach someone else to do anything involving a needle, as evidenced by Thug's attempt (at my encouragement) to hand sew hooks and eyes into her costume's waistband. She did exactly what I told her to do, which was not at all what I meant, and I ended up doing it myself. Thug's ability to sew had nothing to do with the knotted mess she handed me to fix...it was, as I've said, exactly what I told her to do.

Thing I Wish I Could Remember From the Weekend:

There was some story that I was telling Amy as we were walking through Haywood Mall that made her laugh until I think she almost snorted. Why am I only randomly funny? Thank goodness I never tried to make comedy my living, despite how well Profile and I apparently do with it.

Why You Should Never Give a Digital Camera to a Thirteen Year Old (especially when you are trying on the new corset you just got in the mail that you found on Ebay...):

Thanks Thug, Amy, and Drew for a fun weekend!!!

Timeline of Procrastination

November, 2005
-break down tent at CRF
-say temporary goodbyes to other cast members
-make plans for new garb to debut at GARF in the spring

December, 2005
-become overwhelmed with moving, put off new garb
-become overwhelmed with ice storm, put off new garb till you get back in your house and the power is on and it's warm enough to sew
-Christmas...need I say more?
-New Year's...friends don't let friends sew drunk. Put off garb until after Lost Boys show in Georgia.

January, 2006
-recover from New Year's Eve.
-purchase interfacing and thread for Kalyne's new garb. Put off your own till you have hers and Dave's done.

February, 2006
-This month is missing two days, so I can't possibly be held accountable, responsible, nor guilty for the fact that I didn't sew a single thing during the month of February.
-invite Kalyne down for a "sewing weekend," watch movies and play on the internet instead.

March, 2006
-have a major panic attack over the fact that the festival in GA is next month
-sit down at the computer to look for a costume to just buy and spend 8 hours looking through ebay
-wash old dress from last year and hope that it still fits

I'm flipping out today because I only have about three weeks to get Kalyne's dress done and I haven't even started!!! I'm heading down to Georgia on Saturday to take stuff to Mom and Dad's storage building and hopefully get Dad to help me with her costume. I've bid on a corset on ebay so I don't have to redo mine, and I'll just wear the McDonald dress again. It is one of my favorites after all...

Miranda's dress will just have to remain an idea (that you can see the beginnings of here) until after GARF...at which point all the procrastinating will resume again in earnest, I'm sure.