The last year has been an absolute whirlwind.  Acting as one of the royal bards, and planning and hosting my elevation to the Order of the Laurel and Alherin’s to the Chivalry was intense and wonderful, but didn’t leave a great deal of time for writing or recording the costuming projects that took up so […]

I’ve been working away on dozens of little projects, and then a million things happened at once.  I’m still processing.  I wrote a new song, and I love it.  It started out on a very different path than it eventually carved for itself.   I went to an event most of my closest friends don’t attend. […]

I’ve never been wild about competitions, particularly Bardic competitions, because of a myriad of reasons.  We all do things differently; we have different styles and time-periods that interest us; we focus more or less on spoken or sung pieces; favor different vocal styles; and on and on and on.  I think I’ve participated in six as […]

I’ve been writing and not mentioning it here, for whatever reason, and organizing thoughts and words into little collections.  Let’s rectify that. Naming Deirdre’s Mother grew out of my very strong, angry reaction to the treatment of Deirdre and her unnamed mother as I’ve been translating the Exile of the Sons of Usnech into English. […]

I bought a charming new old house.  We’ve been very busy working on the house, traveling, playing with a puppy, hosting visitors, and running about like crazy people. The house went to closing a year and a day ago.  Since then we have added a pantry, which the house needed: Installed some light fixtures–one of […]

This Friday, I go to closing on this charming little place. It was build in 1895, and it’s on 3/4 of an acre. It’s also around the corner from a train station and outside one of the niftiest old neighborhoods in the greater DC area, so I’m very excited for the community I’ll be joining […]

So we went to France for the Battle of Nations in May, and it was an amazing experience.  The US team members and support staff were absolutely wonderful.  The people of France were wonderful.  The other teams were wonderful.  I didn’t want to come back.  I did take thousands of pictures, of course.  And then I […]

I went to Mississippi again.  I had an excellent time teaching and promised to repeat the early period embroidery class this summer.  I adored camping and cooking with my friends.  I had a blast singing in the long hall and by the fireside, and finally performing a pair of companion pieces together, the way I […]

I keep promising myself that I’ll cut back on unnecessary projects.  I mean, really, doesn’t everyone who wants a knitting wristlet already have one?  Why do I need to make hundreds more?  I don’t, do I?  But then I think of the eventual move, and how it would be best if I had less fabric […]

Autumn kicks my ass. Every. Damn. Year. It’s my favorite season, but it also has far too much going on. Here are some snippets to serve as placeholders until I can spend some quality time with my camera and Lightroom.  (I broke down and bought Lightroom, by the way.  Setting it up finally killed my […]