lauragarabedian

So trying to do both my RF and my AFC write-ups in this post, because I hadn't gotten to RF yet.

RF!!!
Rainfurrest continues to be one of my favorite conventions.  Its just the right size, the people are fantastic, and the food is always stellar (okay, okay maybe thats just that Seattle has good food and I've found some real gems but FOOD man.  That stuff is important.)  So this year I flew in on Thursday, and the wonderful, noble, heroic, Davecko *grinz* helped me haul my luggage from the airport to the hotel... I'm stubborn and probably would have tried to haul it all over there myself otherwise, which probably wouldn't have ended terribly well ><. I need to learn from this, and know that if someone can't help me next year, I need to call a cab. After weighing all my luggage I realize that it outstrips my own weight by, well, quite a bit.  In any case, he helped me get my luggage over to the con, I setup, and then went to dinner with that awesome fellow and his friends, and I am in fact AWFUL with names... so... I'm sorry for not calling you all out individually *sorrrrry*. (Also, I got furry and real names and that just means I am twice as likely to forget)

Con went great for the next few days, pretty productive and I limited my commissions so ended up being able to do a good amount of socializing every evening, which was lovely!  Hung out with the ever awesome, Kit, Kyell, Kenket, Teagan, FoxAmoore, Vantid, Xyk, Davecko, Jack, Path, and more... again, horrid with remembering names so if I forgot yours, my most sincere apologies, you know you are loved, and appreciated, and that my mental filing system is just horrid.
After the Con I spent a couple days just outside of Seattle proper with a friend who I hadn't seen in a few years, which was lovely. Had the best sushi I've had in my life, saw harbor seals, and sea lions, and wandered about Seattle a bit, but mostly hung out with her, (introduced her to Doctor Who, because thats what I do) and caught up on all of our crazy life gossip.

Then I came home for 2 days, and my dad got into town, so I promptly went up to Frisco with him and his girlfriend. Unfortunately, due to Frontier Airlines horrid screwups, he got here 8 hours late, so I only got 2 days with him, but we had a lovely time.  Did a few light hikes, wandered around cute little mountain towns, and generally enjoyed each others company.

Two days after that I started my road trip to AFC with my dear friend Liz.  First day was just a pounding of road beneath our wheels. Fourteen hours of driving later (all me, she doesn't drive stick) we hit the hotel, punch drunk and still silly happy with each other.  Met with the guest liaison Arielle (who is a wonderful human being and was terribly helpful all weekend), got shown our room and around the hotel, setup in the dealers room and then settled in for what was to be a gorgeous weekend.  The weather was a bit hot for my tastes, but then I'm spoiled by Colorado.  The view was exquisite though, looking out over a golf course with the mountains behind that and the huge dark desert sky above us.  This con is the first (to my knowledge) to give dealers a lunch break, which just made it that much more awesome in my book. The fact that we, as dealers and guests, could retreat for an hour or two to our rooms. Collect our thoughts, and recharge afternoon was invaluable. I absolutely loved that!
I continued my tradition from Rainfurrest and strictly limited conventions to allow for socialization, and it worked out so well. I actually had a chance to enjoy my evenings with my friends.  Hung out with such wonderful people as Myenia, Rukis, Liz, Fuzzwolf, Teiran, and more.

On our way back we didn't do the crazy long haul of the first trip.  Stopped for a picnic lunch detour at an offshoot of the Grand Canyon (didn't got to the Canyon proper, b/c it was quite a bit further, but even our little offshoot was glorious).  We had gotten a rather late start, but made it to Moab by evening, where we found a place to pitch a tent (ended up in an RV park which isn't as nice as proper campgrounds but DID have a hot tub, so bonus points).  The next morning we had adventures in Arches National Park.  We were up and out by 8 and got to Arches by 9:30 or so and it was everything I could have wished for.  Liz and I both hoped to go there to get a good solid center spiritually (yes, sounds flaky but having that quiet outdoor time is important to both of us, and our lives have been pretty tumultuous recently so it was soothing to our souls to just sit and enjoy that exquisite piece of nature).  Luckily the day before our arrival Utah opened its national parks with state funds, so we were able to make it in, and there were hardly any people there. Only about 12 of us or so at Delicate Arch, and we had lots of time to just sit quietly, to enjoy, to take it all in.  We picnicked at the 'Windows' area, and then started our stuttered trip back home.  That night was spent with Liz's family in Grand Junction, and the next morning puttered our way from a diner, to a winery, through Georgetown to one of our favorite restaurants in Colorado, then back home.

So I've been home for a couple days now and am about to leave again (Wednesday) for another week.  I'll sure be glad to be home for a while after this next trip, and am hoping I will be, but I just got news that my grandmother is in rather poor health, so I may be making a trip to Philly to see her. *urf*

I have a whole 'nother post I want to write later about centering and such but thats for later, I think this is more than enough for now.

It's odd. I wrote this huge long post and couldn't put it up. Because of this odd body shaming that I've had happen. I'm in this strange paradox right now, where I feel pretty confident about how I look (in general) but also have these huge shame issues attached to my body in certain regards, and when I've mentioned them I've been shot down as 'not knowing how bad people with real body issues have it'. So... I don't know. Strange uncomfortable feelings about blogging about them. So instead I'm just gonna say, guys. Don't make fun of people or say their body image issues aren't real or aren't good enough because other peoples are worse. Then it just makes them not want to talk about it at all. *cough* yeah.. so things.  And no it hasn't really been the LJ community, you peeps on my friendslist, so don't worry about that... not trying to put any of you down, just kind of sending a reminder out to the world at large through the crazy-vibes of the internets...

So... the next four months are gonna be flat out crazy.
Gone Thurs-Wed for Rainfurrest and spend an extra 2 days there to see a friend.
back
Dad arrives Fri with his GF and we go out to Silverthorne for 3 days
Leaves Monday
I leave Thursday morning for ArizonaFurCon
Back Wednesday
Spend a WEEK at home thank goodness
Leave for a week

So... yeah... dunno how much I'll be around here.
Also, yay fall! 

Because why not have a subject that is longer than it has any right to be?

Life events!!!

THE CARDIS
So my car, whose name is CARDIS, because of reasons*, had a couple moments in the past couple weeks where it would randomly 'hiccup'. I.e. Skip a cylinder when accelerating, I assumed the grounds were getting corroded again, it happened shortly after I got the car, took FOREVER to diagnose, but once I did was a relatively simple fix.  Only happened twice, a pretty far apart so I figured I had time to talk to my mechanically inclined friend.

Meanwhile.... HOUSESAT!
Was up in Fort Collins for almost a week, housesitting for the awesome idess where I hung out with her pups (and my pup) did lots of art on her couch, and cuddled chickens. That was pretty cool. I wasn't used to living without A/C so that was a bit of adventure, but I had a blast, and so did my pup.

Then I came home to THE RAIN
The rain, and the flood and the water forever.  Now, take into account that we live in a floodplain... Colorado doesn't get a ton of rain often but when it has one of those 100 year floods... well... its been pretty terrible here for people.  I've been terribly lucky, in that we weren't flooded out. The basement is fine, the new trees are fine, the veg garden is FLAT and pretty shot now, but overall... we're all right.  However during this nonsense, apparently it rained hard enough that it soaked my air filter... which shot dirty water up into my MAS when I went to drive my poor car and it misfired a LOT the next time I went to drive it and now is registering temperature sensor problems and not accelerating at all. :( So now I am carless, which sucks because I have a couple of car intensive errands I am supposed to run tomorrow. Cleaning and drying everything but my silly air filter just isn't drying because its been so humid here (which is bizarre, humidity in CO?? What??) Oh, yeah, and it hailed and now I have little paint dings in my car. Which makes me sads.

And then there were ROCKS!
I had planned on going to a fossil/gem/mineral show with a good friend Sunday and when my car zonked out I got super upset thinking I wouldn't be able to go. But luckily my boyfriend was able to drop me off and my friend drove me home. Man, we had a blast. I spent a bit too much money but now have some great focal pieces/things to play with for wire wrapping so I can put together some necklaces (some of which hopefully I'll sell) but among the treasure I found were some beautiful blue opal pieces, a small jar of mexican opal, fire agate, red tigers eye beads, ammonites, a chunk of petrified wood, and fossilized walrus teeth.  We were supposed to be home by 1 and got so distracted by all of the awesome that was around us we barely made it home by 2 whereupon people started showing up for

MAKING THINGS!
I host little or large making things events periodically and they are always varying sizes. I decided to host another one this past Sunday, but it was super small because I didn't feel like cleaning the whole house, putting out enough tables etc. And it ended up even smaller because (due to the rain/flooding) a couple of those few couldn't make it. But it was a blast. Zhon and I sorted our firey opally treasures, I painted some Exploding Van Gogh TARDIS shoes for a friend who paid me in sneakers to paint for myself. And then worked on two of my MissMonster masks and some wire-wrapping.  Some of the cool things that were being worked on at this get together were - crocheting/knitting, costume making (and costume repairing), coding for uploading to art sites, sculpting, and general cookery and silliness.  The food was pretty epic this time, I made a batch of chili from scratch, gluten-free cornbread was made by one friend, and another brought delicious pumpkin cheesecake that he made. NOM!

So now I am going to try and fix my bloody car before tomorrow so I can make it to see MUSE!!!!! (If not, I'll figure something out, but I'd like to have my car so I can continue initial plans).  I got tickets for them to see with a friend for her birthday, I'd rather not have to make her b'day plans stressful.

You'll probably be hearing a bit more from me for a while internet, even if its just food diary-ish stuff, because I think its a good idea to keep a food diary for reasons outlined below. But I'll try and do interesting stuff too.

So I'll end with the boring/gross stuff, skip this paragraph if you don't want boring gross food drama - I really need to start making note of what I eat everyday, and see if there is something that is tricking my poor tummy out.  I've never been one to have a super unsettled stomach and three times in the past three months I've thrown up right as I take that last bite of my breakfast. First time it was right after a lot of travel and pills got taken at wrong times and I thought I was reacting poorly to that. Second time it was after a night where I drank a bit more than usual but didn't feel like it was enough to throw up but that last bite of breakfast and my stomach revolted. And today... today nothing has been abnormal, that I can think of. Pills on time, no drinking in last three days, and still. Last bite of breakfast and stomach is done. Not even a moment of nauseau, just a sudden, message from my stomach of "Oh hey, get to a toilet NOW you have less than three minutes". So, I need to food  diary this nonsense. So what I can remember from yesterday is as follows - Breakfast : Eggs over easy and bacon, Lunch: Leftover Pot Roast, Snacks: bit of veg, fruit (grapes), and cheese, Dinner: Homemade chili with roasted green chilies and gf cornbread, and pumpkin cheesecake for dessert (did have a wheat crust but I hardly had any of it)



*CARDIS is thusly named because it is a) Bigger on the inside b) makes all sorts of noises other cars don't because of its exhaust (not because I leave the brakes on) c) was initally pretty twitchy/hard for me to drive because I hadn't driven manual in a while.
So TARDIS-car
CARDIS
 

So I was able to setup this vacation so that I would have a few days completely work free and the work that I did need to do was primarily e-mail correspondence based. Have a lots of pieces I needed to start, but had a lot of e-mailing to do first, AND had to buy supplies once all the deets were worked out.  So while I am/have been doing lots of sketching, the actual work of MAKING was being saved, and my creative buildup has been really kicking in. Have some pretty solid sketches, and am ready to go.

Except that someone apparently decided I should ring in the new year with the plague.  Well, probably the flu. But man do I hurt.  I still have another day and a half here in Texas and it is going to be spent curled up on the couch with tissues and around hot tea.  I have cold chills, hot flashes, my whole body ACHES, I have a fever and I am coughing up a storm.  Got next to no sleep last night because of it.  So yeah... gonna be a bit slow ramping up to productivity when I get back because, well, OUCH.  I still have a lot to do to prep for FC and am excited about it, but right now it is hard to get too excited for much besides tea and sleeping without coughing my lungs out and my head off.  Blagh. Happy 2013, it can only get better from here!