Busy days - work, play and Star trek

I really do exist. Besides work, I've been doing a lot of crochet and glue gunning lately. The crochet for a friend's birthday and Mom's incipient Belle's Blankets and the glue gunning and quilting for a friend's wedding accessories.

Here's a picture of the accessories. I used white, blue and brown ribbon with freshwater button pearls as accents. For the pillow and book I quilted one layer with a design all involved seemed to like from the book 1,000 Great Quilting Designs using DMC 938 and 827. Thankfully, for my sanity's sake, they loved everything...and it was a beautiful wedding, full of laughter - perfect for them.

Here's my version of Dave the Barbarian's pet dragon Faffy. I used the pig design from the book Toys to Crochet and just kind of "winged" it for the alterations I had to make to make it a dragon. Thank the gods for felt. The wings are orange felt in a vague wing-shape stitched onto pipe cleaners and sewn like there's no tomorrow into the back of the dragon. The patches are just single crocheted circles sewn onto his back. Horns are rolled up tubes of felt, sewn like crazy and the eyes, tongue and nose are glue-gunned onto him. Ben really liked it and actually recognized it without any prompting.

As for Belle's Blankets (named after Grandma), Mom wants to start a group of people that make afghans and throws for the vets at the VA hospitals around here. I figure I'll do a massive granny square and use up the rest of some of the skeins of yarn I've managed to collect in the past couple of months. Oh, I also have my Grim Reaper nearly finished. He needs his accessories and a face. I'll take a picture of him when he's finished. For an idea of what he should look like, check out the lower left-hand corner of the cover of Creepy Cute Crochet. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to alter Cthulu to make him into a Ood for Dragon*Con. It shouldn't be too hard. Oh, I also get to try to catch up on my neglected stitching.

Mom broke her ankle and my new camera on Easter. It's healing nicely and I had to buy another new camera, which is regrettably bubble-gum pink but will do what I need it to do. She's healing fine. We got new cell phones and numbers. I've somehow managed to resist killing my co-workers these last two weeks. Did I mention I got my driver's permit on Friday? We'll see how long it takes for Mom to nag me about the lessons. I may have a week's grace. I also saw Star trek on Friday. It was really good. I'm still in a little shock over some things they did with it, but it was really good. Go see it!

Viewing

It's over.  I still and will always hate viewings.  I find them to be pointless and insane.  smiled and nodded and hugged and thank-you'd everyone who came.  I DO appreciate the fact that they came to support us.  I just wish there was another way to do it.  Thankfully, I actually knew a good majority of the people that showed and could laugh with a lot of them.  One of the co-workers that drives me absolutely batty came.  I'm not really surprised, actually.  She can be amazingly sweet at times.  It's the other 90% of the time I want to murder her.  Today, it was sweet.

I had to make a break for the statue a few times.  I let myself leave the funeral parlor on the hour, each hour so I could just sit, talk to Her and breathe for a few minutes.  I'm very pleased with myself and how I held up.  The only time I teared up was when I was talking with one of my cousins about how much I hated doing viewings.  Then I sucked it up and went over to greet more relatives like a big girl (with a masochistic streak). 

The worst part was not having anything to do with my hands.  I kept clenching them.  Even if I could have had some crochet or something non-patterned I would have been fine.  *snort*  I'm telling you, this stupid viewing is Grandma's last revenge on me and my ADD.  She's laughing her ass off in heaven (or the other place) and pointing down at me right now.  She damn well better be saying she's proud of me for not having just made a complete break for it and being pretty much entirely sociable, even when I was so jittery my hands were shaking apart.  ;p

So, tomorrow I get to be at the church at 8:30 am.  Mass is at 9:30 and brunch at Stirna's (where else?) is around 11 am.  Getting there.  By 1 pm or so, this should all be over with and I can go home, relax, do laundry and psych myself up for work on Tuesday at the "bright and shining" hour of 4 am.

On a writing positive note, everyone commented on the obit I wrote.  They all loved it.  Oh, and I finished the map for my NaNo this morning before the viewing and have decided my characters are not going to escape the city, they're going to burn down the temple and lead a revolution instead.  Sira's going to have fun getting all flamey when she fights the other dragon.