Daily Archives: September 15, 2008

Not The Official Festival Report

Am exhausted. Ran out of spoons mid-Saturday, not long after it started to pour buckets of rain upon the fest. Fortunately, the energy ran out after my workshop; unfortunately, before the other workshops and rituals I’d planned to attend. Sleeping badly all weekend plus two seven-hour car rides did not help. Neither did the energy-sapping damp weather. It’s going to take me about three days to get back into some sort of normal operative mode.

Workshop = success. Yay me. Yay workshop attendees. Yay festival organizers for being an awesome team of awesome people. Love them all with much love.

Sold some books, even. Was also asked to do an article on hearthcraft for Circle Magazine.

Both HRH and I came home from the festival with new blades from Helmut’s Forge. I also acquired a stunning kyanite pendant from Shan, a highly polished cabochon the size of my thumbnail that looks nothing like that Wikipedia photo of the mineral. (Oh, this site has a gallery of cut and polished stones; much better.) Websites variously tell me that kyanite is used for stimulating energy, encouraging clarity and intuition, dispelling anger/confusion/frustration, protecting in energy-sapping situations, facilitating communication, and promoting tranquillity, among other things. We just bought it because it looked pretty.

Stopped by t! and Jan’s new home on the way back yesterday to run around the place (okay, the boy did the running, I did a lot of sitting and drinking a glass of water) and generally admire their house and land. The boy smashed the cats’ water goblet in one of his enthusiastic turns through the kitchen. Sigh.

Finished Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last night. Would have been life-changing had I not just read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Started Neal Stephenson’s Anathem this morning and love every word of it.

The boy has a cold; his chest seems congested and he coughs now and again. (Travelling with him was not much fun yesterday.) He stayed home with me till we verified that the preschool takes kids so long as they are not feverish or diarrheaic or have streaming noses, drove him in for ten, dropped the car off for HRH, and metro/bussed home. Walked through the front door at 12:30. Lay down for a while, then hauled myself here to assure you all that no, I is not ded.

Except now, having seen that the world and the Intraweebs did not blow up in my absence (the remnants of Hurricane Ike smashing into the back of the house last night notwithstanding) and my inbox holds nothing of dramatic deadline, I will drag myself off to lie on the couch again and read more Anathem, because I have the energy for nothing else.