Eva, especially for you!
Overview of the burns, they’re not that big, the top one is the biggest and its about a cm at the longest.
The smaller pics below, the top one shows the biggest burn, on my arm (ignore the stripe, it’s an impression my sweater made). It’s a bit bubbly, and feels funny 😀
The middle one has the dual burns on my arm, just two small spots.
The bottom one shows the burn on my hand, second biggest in size, about 7mm or so 😀
Went out for pizza and ice cream with Eva and Nienke. While we were out, and afterwards back at Nien’s place for tea, we discussed crafts. Eva’s very much into fabrics right now, notably felt, and is making hangers, and bags and puppets and stuff. I’ve not been very crafty lately, but felt attracts me a lot (and the work I see from Eva & Signe fires the drive) and in my head I’m sketching out the big ass painting that I want to create. One corner has been figured out, but since it’s so big (about 0,75m by 1m canvas) I want it figured out fully before I put paint to canvas.
This led to asking Nienke what she has in terms of craft supplies, which turned out to be mostly things for drawing. Eva then mentioned that she’d like to paint, but is never satisfied. I always find that working on a canvas, as opposed to just paper, makes it more ‘real’. I’m better able to quit and say it is done, instead of just going and going and finally tossing it away because it sucks. We talked about differences between acrylic paint and oils and then decided we’d like to paint together sometime soon. Totally inspired I got a call just after I’d left for my parents again (I’m spending the weekend there) when I had to work on Sunday. Unfortunately it’s 4 hours in the middle of the day, so not easily combined with painting. We postponed for a later day.
I feel invigorated now, I want to create! *buzzes off*
So, I went to re-enact the Iron age over the weekend at a festival. I’ve still got everything jumbling around in my head so not really a proper telling in story order, more this was awesome and this was awesome kinda bulletpoints.
The group of people was awesome. I’m not always very good with larger groups, let alone when there’s people in it I don’t know or don’t know very well, but I liked the (for me) new people and got along very well with those I did know but not very well.
I slept outside the first night. It was very cool to see the stars, plus, it’s something that was on my 101 list 😀
It was insanely warm the two days and my hair was really getting in the way. Too long in the neck and hanging in my eyes near the sides. So I asked Eva if she would cut it, Iron age style 😀
On Saturday we cut the back side. First I got soapy water poured over my head (remnants from the wool felting) Then Eva massaged some of the camomile blossoms (actually there with other herbs and such to demonstrate plants that can be used to dye wool…) in my head, all the while bullshitting the spectators on how they first needed to calm the skin on my head 😀
Then the awesomely made (by our very own blacksmith Juut) Iron age knifes were grabbed and Eva and Wilma started cutting my hair. It was a hit with visitors, people stopped at the camp in droves, intrigued at what we were doing. Some must have declared me crazy for letting them do that to me 😀
Sunday we finished the job with the front end.
Eva and Signe brought their horses. This made the whole encampment come alive, and look much more real life than without it. It was too warm to do anything with them during the day, but we did some pulling with Yngvar on Sunday evening. It was hilarious dragging the event volunteers from one point to another.
All the various works that were done/demonstrated over the weekend were all very well thought out (the group’s been doing this for about a year now, this was my first time going with them) and it felt completely natural to be doing them or to see them done around. Wool felting, card weaving, scraping horns to prep them for being turned into drinking horns, chopping wood, carving wood, cooking over fire, blacksmithing (normally done, but this weekend it was too warm), the aforementioned hair cutting, sewing etc… The whole experience felt very natural, just like a regular kinda lifestyle (as opposed to really feeling like you’re playing or something) 🙂
Wool and plants to make dyes
Food stuff
More food stuff
Felted wool and card weaving
Everyone has something they can do for when there are spectators. I brought a tunic so I could sew edges on it
Cooking set up
Felting
I hit, and tore open, my small toes on a tent pike…
Feeding the fire
Also music
Took the day off today (was only planned in for 4 hours anyway) so I can get ready for the weekend. I’ll be joining a bunch of friends in re-enacting iron age Germans at a Celtic midsummer festival (KMF). I need to pack my things and make it as small as possible since we’ll be with lots of people and space is limited. I have to work all day tomorrow and we leave right after work so no real time to pack then.
The weekend looks to be very, very warm. Not my preferred weather, but not much I can do about it 😀 I imagine I’ll be getting some more colour on me arms. I hope I ‘ll be able to get some pictures in this weekend also. Can’t just walk around with my camera all the time, it has to look realistic.
Made awesome chocolate mousse yesterday after a recipe Eva showed me. It was very, very tasty although one should not eat too much, it is really filling.
Cat’s an idiot. He’s been in a fight again a day or two ago. He has huge spot on his inner thigh without hair. When I spotted it, it had already dried up (it wasn’t bleeding, but I imagine it kinda looked like when you prick a blister, moist and such) .It’s healing nicely though so I’m not really worried or anything.
Went grocery shopping yesterday, bought lots of chicken, some feta to put in my salads (for variation with the other cheese I usual throw in) and tangerines and strawberries. Found, in the discount bin, the most recent (2008) CD from one of my favourite singers, Laura Pausini. I didn’t have this one yet (shame on me 😀 ) so I bought it. Label said €8,99 but when I later checked my receipt it said €5, yay!
I should water my plants *goes off to do that*
I’m grateful for friends, for they are awesome 🙂
I’m happy that I found a second hand store that has additional volumes of a childhood SF series I used to read and for cheap too.
No sad/angry this time 😀
I learned that when you put a friend’s phone in her bag, you should tell her so. ‘Cause when you don’t, the friend might accidentally pick up your phone, thinking it is hers, and put that in her bag when she leaves…
So yeah, Eva has my phone 😀 She came over Friday and we’d been sitting outside for most of the evening. Then when we moved inside, I put her phone in her bag. Later, when she went to leave, she grabbed my phone, which was on the table, thinking it was hers. I didn’t notice until even later, when I wanted to show Nienke a movie I’d made with my phone. We tried calling it but heard nothing. After a try or two, Eva picked up and the mystery got solved 😀 She was supposed to drop it by yesterday but forgot so she’ll be here later tonight to drop it off.
Had the day off work today so I was expecting to sleep in and lounge about the house today. Managed only one of those as around 8:30 the housing cooperation started drilling into the wall that separates my house from the neighbours’. And let that wall be my bedroom wall, where my head is… Suffice it say I was not pleased >:
I’m thinking I can expect more shenanigans like this in the next week or so. New neighbour is about to move in (that’s why the housing guys were here, I think, fixing up stuff so he can move in. It seemed like they were doing rather a lot though) so I expect more noise as his stuff gets placed.
I did the rest of my waking up on the sofa with the trusty laptop and some Facebook games, then went to play Warcraft. It’s Midsummer Festival in the game so lots of special, temporary, things to do. Then the housing cooperation called me to make an appointment for someone to come by and look at the garden door. I’ve mentioned it before, Neighbour Nienke and I closed off our backyard with a door to stop neighbourhood kids from using it as a short cut to a play field; and now another neighbour is complaining about it because he is convinced it actually is a path and not our yard. HC guy let through on the phone he doesn’t really buy that, but feels he should see it with his own eyes rather than from the pics behind his desk 😀 I don’t blame him, and it will finally settle this mess so Nienke and I, hopefully, won’t be forced to keep the door locked just to stop the kids from using it still. We set an appointment for coming Wednesday so we’ll see what he has to say.
Shortly after this Nienke came home from work and we decided to take a trip to the supermarket where I still forgot half I wanted to buy :S Eva mailed me this great recipe for a low-carb chocolate mousse thing and I wanted to get the stuff for it. The only thing I came home with from that list was the whipped cream… I did buy carrots and chicken and new eggs. I’ve been doing a no/low carb and high(er) protein diet thing since two weeks or so to help me loose weight. So far it’s going well, it’s a kind of thing that still let’s me eat a lot of stuff I like (chicken!) However I use a lot more eggs now (they’re full of protein and as such an excellent way to make you feel full) so need new ones regularly 😀
Cooked 8 eggs this morning, and there’s only one left. To be fair, Nienke and Eva had some too.
Eva, who’s doing the same diet thing, came by today. Of course we first had to discuss the finer points of our respective journeys along the dietary path. Then it was time for dinner. Eva had brought hers along, and with a few minutes at Nienke’s stove to prepare her meat, she was all set. I needed some more time since I still had to make my salad. It turned out great: lettuce, egg, french cheese, a bit of dressing and grilled chicken. Nom, nom, nom 😀 I stole the idea of an eat-book from Eva. Not just a book to list your daily food in (I tried that before and I never manage to keep that up for more than two or three days) but also for numbers, notes and ideas/comments about the food as well as inspirational things and stuff. Kinda like a cross between food diary and regular diary. I found an empty book and wrote the first page today. It does need decorating though, otherwise it’ll be boring and I’ll still forget it after a few days. I’m hoping I keep this up.
In the evening we ended up making music. Eva on guitar, me vocals and Nienke as the silent companion and occasional moviemaker 😀 At the end of the evening we did manage to FINALLY! get Nienke to actually sing!!! This after she figured out that when she has notes with the lyrics, she has a much easier time singing. With just the lyrics she can’t get the melody and with a melody she can’t remember the lyrics. It turns out she has a really pretty voice! After Eva was gone Nienke went on to say she would sing You Raise Me Up at Christmas 😀 I wrote it down into my book and am so keeping her to it 😀
And now I need to crash.
When I graduated high school I promised myself I would do things differently. I’d participate more and go with more.
Backtracking for a sec, I was born with congenital hip dysplasia. If you want to know exactly what is and such, google it. In short, the (left) socket in my hip isn’t deep enough. It is in fact so shallow that the ball of the femur doesn’t stay in and slips up. There it is being held in place by a bit of bone and, for the rest, the muscles and tendons and stuff that are there. This causes a limp while walking and also hurts when I walk or stand for a long time. Picture it as a muscle ache (’cause that’s basically what it is) but then increase the pain. By how much varies with what I’ve done but roughly five fold for just pushing it and hundred fold when I’m really going way beyond what I should be doing. In the latter case, pain killer/muscle relaxant is my friend.
This has, rather obviously, influenced me growing up. As a kid I’ve undergone numerous methods of treatment trying to fix it and force the socket to deepen and the femur to stay in place. Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked. Even the five surgeries during my first ten years of life were mostly ineffective. However, during elementary school, I didn’t notice all that much how it hindered me. Field trips were usually not taxing enough to really be noticed as they took, at most, about a day. There were some small things. I remember a field trip going to a forest where we would go for a walk. I think I was in 4th grade or so. It was only 3 kilometres or so but I ended up on the teacher’s back at some point so he could carry me for the remainder of the way. And I could never participate in the yearly 4-evening walk. Kids all through the country then walk, four evenings long, either a 5 km or a 10 km route and get a little medal at the end. Even the 5 km route was too much for me. Eventually, I participated in a similar event but then it wasn’t walking 4 evenings but swimming. Just so I could also get a medal.
However, I really started noticing just how it hindered me during the introductory field trip in my first year of high school. I was just shy of twelve years old* and we were going to Schiermonnikoog, one of the small islands of the north of our coast. It was a three day trip and there would be lots of walking and lots of events. So, while all the other kids walked from the hostel to town and all that stuff, I either rode a bicycle that had been arranged or I rode in the back of the van carrying various things. Now, I’ve always been a bit of an outsider kid, but from the start, this set me apart from my classmates. And it would remain so for the rest of my high school career. Not just because of the leg, but, later, also because I wasn’t interested in what the popular kids were interested in (mostly boys, make-up, shopping, you know…) and just wasn’t the group person most of them were. But I didn’t mind that.
(*we don’t have such a thing as middle school here, high school starts at 12 and takes 4, 5 or 6 years)
I did meet the girl who would become my first friend in high school during that trip though. Eva had, and still has, weak ankles and it didn’t take long for her to sprain one so she also had to ride in the van with me. Now, 12 years later, we’re still friends. 🙂
Looking back now, this is one of those defining moments. I realised I couldn’t do a lot of things. At least, not like other kids could. This realisation began to become a fixture and eventually caused me to miss out on things. We’re finally getting back to my original point now. I didn’t go with my class to The Hague when they had the history field trip to visit the parliament because there would be extensive walking. I didn’t go on the weekend field trip to Cologne because there would be extensive walking. And, finally, the one trip I now regret most not going on: the big trip abroad every class goes on in their penultimate year of school. My year, the choice was between Barcelona and I believe one of the big cities in Italy, Rome or Venice or something. I wanted to go, I had a hard time picking where to go but eventually I picked Italy. But then more and more info started dripping down as to what we were going to do and just how much was to be done on foot. In hindsight, arrangements could probably have been made, a bicycle, letting me take public transport instead of walking etc… But I eventually decided not to go.
When I graduated, the next year, I vowed to myself I would not let my leg stop me from doing anything anymore. A slightly unrealistic vow but adequate for the time. So I went to study Archaeology, something I really wanted but had been doubting on account of the physicality. And I went on the introductory field trip, even though it meant lots of walking. I paid for it dearly in terms of pain but I also gained, I got to know my classmates, became friends with some of them, laughed at the antics of others that were drunk and on the whole had a good time. I also went on the second field trip, a week or two later, to a dig. And that was a similar story, lots of walking, and thus pain, but again I gained. I made friends with Gert, and now, nearly seven years later, we’re still friends.
I went on digs in the summers and they all hurt like hell but I learned stuff and had fun. And, most importantly, I went on the week long field trip to Denmark. We walked a lot, and that hurt, but we also drove a lot and I saw the awesomest things and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it for the world.
But, outside of those things, I remained the outsider kid I had been in high school. Mainly because I am an introvert. Not to be confused with being shy, although I used to be that too. Introvert means that I don’t like lots of people, being around a lot of people makes me mentally tired. I prefer to stay at home because that’s where I feel my best. When other, more extrovert, people go out, they enjoy themselves. They revel in the energy and the vibe and have fun. For me, going out is tiring, the energy and vibe of many people messes with my own and wears me out, and sometimes stresses me out. I didn’t go out when the others did, sitting in a bar drinking and shouting over music and other noise trying to have a communication is not my thing. Neither is going to a club and dancing and other such things my classmates did.
So, all things put together, I was still the outsider. And I (still) didn’t mind. I had enough things to occupy me and give me pleasure. It was in this period that I started playing NationStates. And for years it was my major online thing. Maybe if I hadn’t played NS I would’ve ended up on LJ earlier or somewhere else, I don’t know. I do know that NS was really good for me, I learned a lot. Not just about politics and government (NS is a political simulation game) but also about social interaction, life elsewhere, that all those artificial barriers society pulls up don’t really matter in the long run and a lot about myself. NS was also my support during the semester that I studied abroad and was wracked with home sickness during the first month.
… I think I’ve once again veered far from my point. Let’s see if I can get back to it and bring this ramble to a close.
“When I graduated high school I promised myself I would do things differently. I’d participate more and go with more.”
This is what I promised myself. And it started out okay, but eventually I couldn’t keep this promise. And surprisingly, it was not because of my leg, but because of my personality. And that pleases me. Because if I stay in and don’t go with because I genuinely don’t like it, that’s okay. But not going because I’m afraid it might hurt, that’s not okay.
And I’m glad that, through typing this I made this realisation. because when I started typing, I was sure I was gonna end up with a conclusion that I failed to keep the promise and still let my leg control me. 🙂 Thinking about it now, I know that is false, I have gone and done too many things the last few years to have that be true. For example, I went to multiple weekend-long fantasy events where most we did was walk around, either watching stuff or while engaging in role play. I paid for these events with pain but I still went and still enjoyed myself. So, go me.
I’d ordered some new clothes a little while ago in one of my favourite online stores and they finally arrived last Tuesday afternoon. Everything was there, even the blouse I’d been informed would come a few weeks later…
That evening I went to Eva for her birthday and we had a very nice and happy, lots-of-laughs evening save for a bout of sorrow when my friend got reminded of her pet dog who would be put to sleep the next day. Lodewijk, as he was called, was really, really old and just couldn’t go on anymore so the vet came by at their place yesterday afternoon. Eva said it had been a difficult day (of course) but that he had gone peacefully and it was okay.
Today was my mother’s birthday, she turned 57. We didn’t really celebrate though, that’ll be Saturday. We went grocery shopping this morning which enabled me to hop into the bookstore and get her a present. I’d been unsuccessful at finding a nice book last week but now I succeeded in finding a very nice book with short stories in our provincial dialect which was priced so nicely I could add another book to it. This was also a short story collection in our dialect but of a different author.
After I’d bought the gifts and we had finished the rest of the shopping we drove home. Along the way, we stopped at a car dealer ship as my parents (who’ve been after a new (2nd hand) car for a while now) knew he had one they thought was nice. So we spent some time there and they took the car for a little spin around the neighbourhood and when they came back they’d decided to buy it. They’ll go in next week to pick it up and leave the old car there. I’m gonna miss the old lady we’ve got now, a Volvo V40, ’cause she’s a very pretty red and we’ve had her for years. The new one’s gonna take some getting used to, I’m not too fond of the colour or the model of the car but it’s my parent’s car so their choice. And this one, a Peugeot 306, was very nicely priced.
When we got home, we stored away the groceries and then I finally got to give mom my presents and she was very pleased with them so yay me 😀