Arontius of Bygelswade

.....TBT's preparation for Christmas? Finishing the hard wood floors enough to be able to put up the Christmas Tree. Even as I type the air nailer is going 'Pop', 'Pop', 'Pop'. :-)

.....The presents have been purchased for the most part. The Rhys Monster is going to have a pretty good Christmas. :-) Just a couple left to get, primarily for Mom. TBT and I went out into the world first thing this morning to brave the crowds, and found Silverdale to be still rather navigable at 1000. Costco already had a line of people at the door, but the usual frenetic pace was not yet in place. The crowds were still polite at Target when we buzzed through there.

.....However, when the Rhys Monster finally made it out of bed and dressed, and we hit the shopping trail, things were not so friendly! Traffic was much more intense and the crowds much less polite. But we still managed to get everything done within a couple of hours. JoAnn's was relatively easy, although the Rhys Monster was rather disappointed as JoAnn's has obviously been picked over hard by the holiday shoppers. He had to do some major searching to find things he wanted to get. Target was a little easier for him, as was Cost Plus. But I think a lesson has been learned. Either shop earlier, or shop the Internet. :-)

.....Kharma is not a nice creature. I waited until almost the last minute to use our Vision Insurance for 2011. I have needed new glasses for a while now. I'm getting really tired of squinting at everything, even with my glasses in place. :-) There are only a handful of Optometrists in Kitsap County who accept our insurance in the first place, and only one who had something available in the next week. Guess where that was? Yup, WalMart. I will be forced to enter the Proverbial Den of Evil tomorrow at 1PM, in Poulsbo. Sigh! Oh, well, it was my own fault.

.....Yesterday was a trip to Seattle, to places we had been wanting to go for a while and just never had time to do. Madrun went along with us. Pike Place was the first stop. I love the feeling of Pike Place, and all the variety. Many eclectic little shops everywhere. Maybe a few less seeing how we're in mid-Winter versus Summer.

.....There was one shop that was an artists' Co-Op store, where art work made by individual artists was sold in one place. TBT could immediately see a venue for some of the things she creates. Like the little creatures she puts together for Christmas every year. It would be interesting to see how much she could charge for some of the things she makes. As Madrun reminded me, artists rarely get paid even a minimum wage for the artwork they create, unless they are either creating unique pieces, or creating mass pieces for a commercial market.

.....I was somewhat sad to see that Shark-In-The-Morning has left Pike Place. It was always a good place to go and put your hands on all the unusual instruments of the world that you heard and read, but had never actually seen in person. I never bought anything from them as they were always outrageously expensive, which is probably why they got rid of their storefront and went primarily internet.

.....Went to one of Madrun's favorite book stores on Capitol Hill where I promptly became engrossed in a couple of books of Arthurian Legends and scholarly interpretations of the meanings involved. Very inspiring actually. Lots of good ideas.

.....Next stop was an Import store and apothecary. Primarily Asian merchandize. There was a carpet bag there of monstrous size that, had it been made out of some other material and not been $250, would have made a great armor bag. :-) But I was thinking that it would make a good instrument bag as well as it was compartmentalized to a degree. And looked rather cool. But $250 was a bit more than I wanted to pay.

.....Ran down to Freemont as I wanted to visit Dusty Strings. But I couldn't find parking to save my life, and we were starting to get hungry. So we ran off to have late lunch. Met Countee E. and Cire at Zoopa's in Tukwilla. Lots of good conversation over how things have been going in Dragon's Laire and Madrone. I continually find it amazing how culturally different Dragon's Laire is from Madrone, even though we are so close to each other geographically. Not better or worse or anything, just different.

.....Traded good advice. Vented on our current frustrations. There are things that can't be 'fixed,' in reality and so must be tolerated gracefully, even if they are frustrating. :-)

.....Spent a couple of hours there and hit the road in a hurry when we realized it was already 4PM and the commute was starting to hit full swing. As it was we had to sit through a couple of good back-ups. Which was a good reminder that Kitsap County traffic is not necessarily that bad really.

.....Tomorrow I have some errands to run in the morning, then my eye appointment at 1PM. But I'd sure like to get a few things struck from my 'to-do' List of Doom.

.....New Cell Phones are finally starting to hit the PRZ (Probable Reality Zone). Costco has some nice discounted plans, through Sprint. There are even a couple of phone that we liked, which we had the opportunity to pick up and feel at Target today. Now we just have to make that one last step and make the deal happen. For me the only part I don't like is the renewal of a two year commitment. I would rather have gone the direction of Ralph and a cheaper version of pay as you go. But I could never fall in love with the phones available or other features.

.....Turkey AND Salmon on the Christmas Eve dinner menu. :-) I love holiday roast turkey. With a fifteen pound bird, there might even be some leftovers for turkey sandwiches for a few days afterwards as well. :-)

.....Hmmm, now I'm hungry. Time to find something on which to nibble.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

.....It was an interesting day of catching up with a few things and contemplating others.

.....I woke up at about 0500 and pulled out the circlets I finished in the workshop yesterday. They went through the final polish and shaping. Then finally into their shipping bags. I do not like to rogue I'm using right now. I miss my fabulustre greatly and need to get at least a tube or two before the next order comes into the e-mail. I wish Alpha would come back on line.

.....I received a flurry of order requests over the past handful of days. Invariably people placed orders without checking in with me first (as the Ingasbo web-site requests) and invariably most of the order requests were for a.) patterns I do not have currently in stock AND b.) they are all wanted BEFORE Christmas. Sigh! I had to do three refunds this morning. Thankfully PayPal doesn't charge me for the refunds. But the people sending me the money ended up paying PayPal $1.50 each for the priviledge of having their funds returned to them. :-) TBT and I are thinking of ways we can beef up the web-site to explain this to better degree.

.....TBT still had a chance to chat and coffee at Starbucks before heading off to Ralph's birthday breakfast at the Airport Diner. The buffet was O.K. It has been better, and worse. I left full and we had a lot of good conversation around the table. Ralph was in a good mood and received a number of nice presents. TBT and I were extremely lame as we forgot to even get a Birthday Card. One of these days we'll join the human race and remember those things. :-)

.....Ran back home before noon where I packaged up circlets for shipment out via Priority Mail at the Post Office kiosk. Most of the orders were for the East Coast. I'm not holding my breath that they'll arrive by Christmas, but that would be nice. One order went out to Wasilla, Alaska. It has a chance to arrive by Thursday, but they were definitely nervous buyers. I received almost daily requests for status updates. They wanted the circlet at least a week ago and I told them it wouldn't be done, and they accepted that. But I should have checked the anxiety meter as they pegged it a few times. :-)

.....Threw boxes in the car and met Gwen as she dropped off Brigget for the day. I was fretting over a Sekrit Santa gift for a recipient who is a Duchess from the West. I google-stalked her a bit and I couldn't come up with any good ideas. As usual Gwen came through with a fantastic looking feast setting, complete with goblet. I think I just need to give in to reality and hire Gwen as the official Baronial Miracle Worker (tm).

.....TBT and I ran out a short time later and went shopping for Mom. She stayed home today, but I didn't harass her at all. She rode the bus by herself yesterday to the Kitsap Mall and walked its length back and forth. I was extremely pleased. The apartment was messy, but showed signs that she was working on it. So I felt that I needed to keep my mouth shut today. :-) I took her shopping list and went to the store for her. TBT found a turkey at a good price at Albertsons and we picked that up as well. We're going to have Mom over for Christmas Eve and do the family thing. Mom was all excited as she picked up a game Rhys wanted. She also picked up her own Mobile Hot Spot that she is all excited about using with her new e-Readers. :-)

.....TBT and I then braved JoAnn's, which wasn't too bad. Then ran to Gwen's for the present, then the Post Office, then a quick lunch before heading home. Picked up Rhys and went out shopping again. Back to JoAnn's with TBT's list of Christmas Wishes. Which kind of takes away the 'mystery' of Christmas, but sure makes shopping a lot easier. :-) Only problem was that JoAnn's had had a number of sales over the weekend and many shelves were bare, especially the Gingher Scissors! Which has become something of a tradition to get at Christmas.

.....Just so we could 'prove' our non-conformity, Rhys and I did the rebellious thing and went to Fred Meyers and bought a few presents that WEREN'T on the approved shopping list. :-)

.....All my Christmas shopping is done and I'm just about ready for the work week. I wish I were really on my vacation, but if I have any luck at all I should be able to get out at mid-day on Wednesday. I'm crossing my fingers hard as I'll still have eleven days of vacation still at that point. There is a large laundry list of things I'd love to complete.

.....The Wyverns have been discussing a project of painted canvas scenes that can be hung at halls like the VFW to give a more period ambiance to the places we use for events. She asked me to upload a bunch of local outdoor scenes, some of them of the Olympic Mountains. One of the pictures was of Hart Lake. It sure looked like a certain Heart Lake I hiked to as a Boy Scout a lot of years ago. Made me want to go out for a hike.

.....If the weather is even half decent maybe next week maybe I could sneak in a day hike to Olympic Hot Springs. I've never been there this late in the year, so I bet the trailhead is back a few miles from where I usually start. I may have to check on that.

.....Hmmm, need to check in with Sir Richard as well. I was going to see about hanging out with him for a day. Will have to see what sort of trouble we can get into. :-)

.....And it is after 2100. Time for bed. 0400 comes way too early....Zzzzzz.

.....Aaron / Arontius.