So yeah, I was pretty much a zombie today at work, counting the minutes until the day was over, but I didn’t realize exactly how tired I was until I fell asleep with my laptop running (on my lap), the tv on, the light on, and with my glasses on. I woke up about 45 minutes from my last recollection when Abbie whined at the back door, and woke up grumpy. Feh.

I’ve never really been a nap-person. If I sleep, I sleep, and if I’m woken suddenly I’m not exactly Mary Sunshine either. Okay, if I’m woken at all, suddenly or not.

The grumps shook off after a bit, as they (almost) always do, and I got a few more things ticked off of my updated to-do list. I know have all three of my personal-quota Kingdom scrolls sketched–words and art–so I can start on calligraphy some time next week. Left on the list are general home tasks, a couple of errands and some sewing projects just to keep in practice and not fall behind for the next events.

And speaking of events: Wow, I cannot believe that Harvest is next weekend already, and Panhandle only 3 weeks away. I’m really looking forward to both events, and on to November and Coronation–the first road trip in the new car!

That’s what I’m striving for at least…or maybe that should read art-full. Full of art. Full of creativity. Full of creating.

Tonight has been spent in various creative pursuits. After the required homework for the week was finished and submitted, I gave myself license to do what I liked. This turned out to be putting myself through the many paces of Mijwiz for the better part of an hour, but I’ve figured out the musical cues for and a few counting errors I’d made in the cane dance. I still need to get with Julianna for some clarification of the footwork before the turns, but other than that I think I’m very close to “getting it” even with keeping the cane level and applying the correct amount of hip to the required moves (something I realized I was lacking).

Besides the physical I managed to get another kingdom-intended scroll sketched out for the illumination and started to lightly pencil in the calligraphy (for spacing issues) but I keep letting my uncial outgrow my intended space. I gave up on that for the night and instead moved onto person sketching. Oh my but I really wanted to get these ideas down in some form, and now I have 8 pages of sketches on 5 music-inspired pieces. For me that’s a lot.

Granted, these are mostly rough outlines of what the finished pieces will look like, just charting them out and making some notes for the mixed media portions or possible inclusions. Not fine art here yet, and they may never be, but I’ve discovered that certain pieces of music (notably folk songs, but others as well) evoke such strong mental images that I just want to put them into some tangible form. I’ve wanted to do this for almost a year maybe, but have just let them rattle around in my head, forming and reforming when I hear the songs, and not really doing anything with them. That’s changed now. Some pieces will be more difficult to execute exactly how I see them, and some pieces will undoubtably evolve over the course of their creation, but I have 5 in sketch form and at least 2 others that I have pretty clear mental images of. Hey, a few more and maybe I’ll actually have enough to get a show. Okay, so maybe that’s putting the cart before the horse, but I have to think about what to do with them once their done (I only have so much wall-space lol and art is meant to be seen and shared and, especially these–one will involve motors by the time its finished–experienced).

And in a semi-related topic, I really need to search through the knowledge base for wordpress and see what the issue is with the file-upload option…each time I try to save the activated “allow…” checkbox it doesn’t keep and might be giving me an error messge. Either that or I need to redownload that gallery program and actually install it here on the site 🙂

Went and picked up Phoebe today at lunch time and all went well. Fedex’d the title to Tampa to get my money for said Phoebe downpayment. Showed off car to co-workers. Have to call about getting the tires replaced, at least the front two…way too worn and they said they replace them if they’re more than 50% worn. We shall see. Also need to check manual for transmission fluid maintenance guidelines.

Other than that had a wonderful Bellydance class tonight. Parts were hard, parts were merely confuzzling, other parts were pretty easy. I almost have the cane dance down–and now I actually have the cane 🙂 Next month we’ll do the scarf dance, so it’s cane and bits and pieces. Julianna was a bit down because one of the types of classes had to be cancelled–she hated to do it, but that’s the unfortunate side to when your hobby and passion becomes business. I hope she’s able to bring them back eventually, I wouldn’t have minded taking it as well, I just cannot manage a second class with the current schedule of everything else I want to do. Temperance, finally, lol.

Blast from the past today when I found out my old Latin teacher called Mom’s for me. Turns out she’s retiring in December (oh no, no more Bun!) and she wanted to know if I wanted the scrapbook I helped make while I was there. Wow. That scrapbook I recall was (is) huge with a big heavy cover and lots and lots of pages of pictures I would kill for. Now it looks like I won’t have to. I was just thinking about it, my first scrapbook per se, a couple of weeks ago, and wondering how it all has survived (since we used all sorts of construction paper and who knows what else). Now I guess I’ll see. This will be awesome!

But I wouldn’t recommend it on a regular basis.

So, a few more calls between the insurance companies, rental agents and an independent appraiser yeilded an assumption of liability and claim and then, after a few hours and a few more calls a number was given. A number that was blessedly higher than even my own insurance company’s estimate, so I didn’t even have to argue. I’d gone at lunch and gotten the necessary belongings (including the title!) from Cher and then after work and a quick trip home to feed and walk Abigail, it was straight over to Saturn of Tallahassee to settle the paperwork for my new(ish) car. After all that was done I finally made it to the Park for dance practice in time for the last two dances and then went to dinner with some of the group. Such a big day.

Wow that was a big check! But it really didn’t faze me too much, I mean part of it was because its just a place-holder until the insurance money gets here and part is because I routinely write large checks at work that I guess I’m desensitized to an extent. Oh well, all the paperwork is done so all I have to do tomorrow is return the rental car, settle up with them (then fax the insurance company the bill for reimbursement) and then pick up my wonderful little Saturn SL1. I’ve decided her name will be Phoebe after one of the moons of Saturn (see, I think about these things) and the Titanis oracle at Delphi and goddess of bright intellect. My goals for Phoebe are to keep her interior and exterior clean and tidy and keep her maintained better than I did Cher.

And, because how many people are tired of hearing about the car situation, it’s Abigail’s Second Birthday! Hmm…I’m going to have to get her a special treat this weekend, maybe a trip to the dog park, too.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the file upload thing on here working…then you can expect pictures!

So, obligatory automobile update first: Friday night I got the call from my insurance appraiser saying that Cher is a total loss. Of course, she couldn’t give me a number since apparently all figures must first go through her supervisor, but she felt pretty certain, as well, that the other insurance appraiser would find it a total loss as well. Sooo…Saturday I went on a little reconnaissance mission to the used car lots to see what, if any, options were available should I choose to go the car-payment route instead of buying a filler-car.

Well, it wasn’t so bad. I spent quite a lot of time at the first lot, Saturn, partly because I was just warming up to the idea and had a lot of questions and partly because my salesman was a chatty fellow. And he’s a fringe SCAdian–what a small world. Anyway, I test-drove three cars that would all work budget-wise (at least theoretically): two 02 SL1 models and one SL1 from 97 (same year as Cher) but with only 48K miles (!)–about half of Cher’s milage. Of course, the 97 is priced about $2K above what Kelly Blue Book says it should be, even with the low milage, and I’d be taking on a car payment (allbeit a low one) for a car that’s no younger than my current one. Of the 02 models the one with slightly more mileage (31K as opposed to 28K) drives better than its cousin, and was a leased vehicle according to the Carfax report. So, for 8900 it wouldn’t be a bad deal and is actually slightly under KBB number.

The Toyota lot had only one car that came close to my price-range, and I test-drove it, but the salesman wasn’t interested in spending time with someone who wasn’t actually ready to buy a car right then and there, so didn’t even go on the test-drive with me. Anyway, KBB shows it to be almost $3K overpriced, and the car itself had a slight “sound” when I accelerated, which it shouldn’t have for a relatively low-mile 01. Doubt I’ll bother going back there.

The Ford lot sported hugh SALE signs everywhere, but the salesman there was trying to show me Focuses (pick a color cause they’re all the same otherwise!) and kept saying $200 when I kept saying $150. Yeah, no thanks. I didn’t even bother driving one because a) I don’t want a Ford and b) I cannot afford it. He kept spewing the “yeah, we have cheaper cars on the lot but I’m not even going to show them to you because their not as reliable and I wouldn’t want to think of a woman out on the roads alone in an unreliable car” yadda yadda garbage crap. Harumph!

So, unless the newspaper “under 2000” section has something to good to be true then I’ll probably go with the blue 02 Saturn with 31K miles otherwise I’d have to probably go to my bank for a loan to do a private sale depending on the amount the insurance company comes back with. And what is with the here’s the most we can pay but it’ll reduce based on cosmetic, etc. work that would need to be done to resell it. Are they actually going to put work into a total-loss car and sell it at auction to some unsuspecting sap and fault me, the victim for being responsible enough to keep the car, pay it off, and drive it as long as possible? Ugh, I just don’t get that and plan to ask a few more questions about that, you can bet on it. Oh, and we’re still waiting for the other insurance company to get off their hands and do something. Rest assured, I will be making some calls tomorrow morning.

And now for the rest of life. Today was a pretty quiet day. Went to Strozier to check out some illumination books (both to round out my scroll documentation for Winter Art/Sci and for inspiration for future scroll-work), passed by fighter practice on the way out…several fighters out (yay!) but a somewhat less than hospitable welcome by 2 of the 3 spectators, so I decided not to linger too long. No biggie, I really did have stuff to do at home. This weeks flowers are a mixed bunch of bright yellow and white daisies, some white carnations and red-purple tiger lillies. I’m pressing some of the extras as well as the heads of the pink carnations from last week. The other pink carnations I strung on some wire as an improptu garland and now have hanging on my french-memo-screen in the bedroom to dry.

I made a big pot of red beans and rice and some yummy bread pudding with the left-over chocolate-orange bread from last weekend’s baking session. Mmmm. Let’s see, I watched Sin City on DVD (yup, bizarre in a fun film noir way and chock full of stars) sketched out a Kingdom scroll words and illumination (including my first actual celtic knotwork border, whee!) and worked on my BritLit response paper. I’m stalled on question 3 and still about 200 words from the minimum, but I wanted to make sure I got an entry up. Hey, people actually read this thing now! (and I’m glad of it 🙂 Tomorrow I need to remember to bring boxes with me because I get to go clean out my (old) car at lunch into the rental, and also need to confirm with Hertz that the rental needs to be extended because the claim is obviously not settled yet.

Back to Chaucer then…