Well, you all knew it had to happen sooner or later.

Yep, Nick and I are having a baby! Crazy, right? We’ve been trying for a few months now, since I graduated. It had been just long enough to make me feel discouraged.

So, as far as I can figure, I’m about seven weeks along, just long enough to be about a week into morning sickness and exhaustion.  I’m working through the exhaustion, and saltines and ginger ale have kept me pretty steady through the morning sickness. Luckily, it’s not bad, even when I don’t eat. Not throwing-up bad. More upset-tummy bad, which is okay.

Nick and I are really excited about this; after eight years of just the two of us, it’ll finally be the three of us.

So, you may or may not know, most of our stuff is still packed. And living in the garage. Which is fine, except when I need something. Something like, say, the battery charger for my camera. Cue me, digging through every single box in the garage, making myself a sweaty, aching mess. And finding nothing.

I hate blogging sans pictures, so when my battery finally died, I kind of stopped blogging. Yeah, sorry about that.

Today I woke up with a blinding flash of inspiration: we had one more box in the closet that I’d forgotten to check. I looked inside and lo and behold: my camera charger! And camera remote, lenses and external hard drive. I am picture capable once again.

Just in time, too. Tomorrow is King’s College and I’ve agreed to be a hair model for a friend who’s demonstrating period hairstyles, so I’ll try to get a good number of photos from that.

In 1539, DeSoto claims Florida for Spain. Smallpox blankets ahoy!

In 1621, The Dutch West India Company is granted a charter for New Netherlands. Why aren’t New Yorkers still speaking Dutch?

In 1850, Kansas City, Missouri is founded. It was originally called “City of Kansas.” Good change.

Tags: this day in history

Things that happened today in history:

In 455 AD: Rome is sacked by the Vandals. They will spend two weeks looting the city.

In1098 AD: The siege of Antioch is broken as Crusaders take the city. It doesn’t end well for the Seljuks.

In 1855 AD: The Portland Rum Riots take place in response to a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of rum in Maine.

I’m thinking this will be a recurring theme. Maybe not every single day, because I think that’d get in the way of regular posting (although I could make it a separate post, or a footnote) but often. I like the idea of knowing what went on in history on any given day; it creates a sense of connection with history that’s pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Edit: Apparently, I can’t begin paragraphs with numbers in this theme without royally fucking up the look. Oh, well. I don’t think it bugs me enough to stop using this theme, so we’ll all just have to put with the “in” at the front of the dates.

Tags: this day in history

So, I finished some projects yesterday.

Since moving to Austin, we haven’t had a chance to do anything SCA-related. Well, that’s not entirely true.  We have been going to the Tuesday night fighter practices, but nobody (except the fighters) dresses up or anything.  Next weekend there’s a Land Court, wherein we all dress up and beg the Baron for land befitting our station and rank.

So, as a small bribe for Their Excellencies, I made some goblet covers for their largess basket. Typically nobles try to have on hand some small items with which to reward people.  Problem is, they generally don’t have time to make said items themselves, and rely on others to provide them with things to give away.

A while ago, my champion Richard linked me to a small essay that a woman had written about her views on largess. She views largess as part of her feudal duties. She doesn’t fight, so she gives largess instead, one piece for each of the “lands” that come with her awards. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Since I just got my Award of Arms (pictures coming as soon as Richard sends me the actual scroll), I figured it’d be neat to start off giving my Excellencies some pretty things.

The covers are about 12 inches square. The next time I make them, I think I’m going to cut it down to 8 or 10 inches. They’re pretty, but they come really close to being too long. The really only work with fairly long-stemmed goblets.

The designs come from the Barony’s coat of arms. I decided to make these guys in blackwork instead of stem stitch because their Excellencies have both late German and Elizabethan personas. I figured blackwork would be quicker than German brickwork.

I tried to make the motif small enough that the laurel wreath, or at least most of it, would be visible when placed on the cup. These were so much fun; I can’t wait to make more. And more, and more. Now I know why Isabetta has a bajillion of them; they’re totally addictive.

Next up: embroidering Richard’s Champion’s favor.

Yesterday, a friend of mine took me down to The Steeping Room down in Austin. What a cute place! They had a lovely variety of teas and the service was wonderful. Of course, it didn’t hurt that our server was a handsome Asian man with a voice like butter.

We both got a “Tea-tails,” a cold shaken tea drink. Yum. My friend got the Island cooler (coconut tea with pineapple and pomegranate juice) which was okay. I’m not generally a coconut person. I got the Kasbah Cooler (hibiscus tea with mint, pomegranate juice and rose water). Oh, my God, I have never had anything quite so wonderful. Ever. And? Completely caffeine free.

We also each got a pot of hot tea. My friend got something with strawberry in it which smelled good but was a little bitter for me. I, on the other hand, got an organic Jasmine White Tea. I cannot sing its praises highly enough. I loved it enough to buy 2 oz of loose tea to take home with me. I’ll be writing up a formal review of it soon.

After we were done with the tea (and blueberry coffee-cake thingy, also very yum) we wandered around the Domain, a small but upscale shopping district (I think the link over-hypes it a bit, but you know how it is). They have a lot of really cool stores there. There’s a Zara, and a chocolatier place with Guinness truffles (I was so good; I didn’t buy any) and a M.A.C. and an Anthropologie’s opening this weekend.  A whole bunch of “nice to browse but too rich for my blood” going on there. Still, it was fun to be girlie and walk around. It was a lovely day for it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some tea to drink.

For all those of you who wondered if I like it here in Austin, if it was worth it for us to come here, let me show you these:

This is my sky now.  What do you think?

I miss my Shire.  They’re my people, the ones who first got me into the SCA, and taught me that it could be something more than drunken parties, or stick-jockeying.  That there are people for whom the love of history comes first.  When Nick and I decided to move to Austin (Barony of Bryn Gwlad, Ansteorra, if you’re interested) one of the things that tore me was the fact that we were leaving this group behind.

So, to always have them with me I decided to make a favor with the Shire’s coat of arms on it. Ive been working on it pretty steadily since I posted last, and it’s almost done.

It’s actually a bit more done than that.  I divided the last part up into three parts: the plain blue part above the laurel wreath, that plain blue part below it, and the really fun bit in the wreath. Yesterday I finished both plain bits and this morning I’m into the laurel wreath part. I don’t think I’ll get it done today, but certainly by the end of the week.

I finished the embroidery on Nick’s Anglo Saxon Tunic. Finally. I’m very pleased with how well it turned out.

Doesn’t that look nice? There are some parts where the blue line is a little lost in the sea of fill stitching, but I think it’s okay on the whole.

I finished the neck embroidery and decided that something was missing. So I did some quick decorative stitches around the cuffs too. The blue is stem stitch, the ecru is a chain stitch (with 3 strands instead of 6), and the yellow and red is a tied herringbone stitch. Not sure if it’s period, but it’s pretty.

Don’t worry, this will be the last post that this tunic gets. Until I manage to get a picture of Nick in it, of course. And lest you all think that I’m shirking my embroidering now, I’ve got another project in the works already: a “butt-flag” favor with Afonlyn Shire’s device.

A while ago, I made an Anglo-Saxon-ish tunic for Nick.  It’s a relatively easy thing to make, and an easy thing to throw on for a last minute event. The problem I have with most T-tunics is that they look plain and hastily thrown together.  So, in an attempt to avoid that, I decided to embroider the neckline of his shirt.I picked a design that I’ve seen on all sorts of Anglo-Saxon brooches.

Since I decided to do the embroidery after I’d sewn the tunic together (after the facing, even!) it’s been a bit of rough going in spots. The embroidery is pretty stiff and holds the slit in the neck up pretty well. Before, it had a tendency to widen a lot.

Sorry for the washed-out photos; I took them on my phone.  They show the general shape of the embroidery and the curve of the stitched pretty well, though. I’m a bit further on with the yellow than these pictures show. The whole front slit is embroidered and I’m one or two sections around. I’m hoping to get it finished fairly soon; I have other things what need working on.