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I got another of this year's new blueberry bushes into a pot. Only one left! I mix the potting soil with a cup or so of cottonseed meal to acidify it. So far so good. And having more bushes around, albeit in the small from-the-nursery pots, during flowering time definitely made an upward tick to the amount of blueberries per bush we'll be getting this year.

This afternoon was spent in something of a more hectic mode, though. My sister has been readmitted to the hospital for a mastitis abcess and infection. She wasn't going to be able to keep Niecelet with her, and there's no one else to take care of things. So the social workers at the hospital were going to arrange for me to fly up. A good chunk of the afternoon was spent back-and-forthing on this with her and Wonderful Husband. Jazzy was to go with me; Squiddle was to stay with Wonderful Husband. About an hour before the last possible time I would have been able to leave to catch the flight, a different doctor came in with a different verdict. Sister's getting admitted overnight, probably will be released tomorrow, and a friend of hers can room in and be the responsible adult so far as Niecelet is concerned.

So, I can go to Wondercon this weekend after all.

But at least now I know how quickly I can tidy up necessary crap around the house and pack for a trip.

In England, in Southampton, where my inlaws are adoring spending time with their only grandchild. :)

The flight over was miserable for various reasons, but at least only (ha, "only"!) nine and three-quarters hours long. It took us a couple of days to get over the jetlag and lack of sleeping on the flight, but I think we're adjusted now.

I have a couple of projects I should be working on. Writing more novel, my blocks for this month's Block Lotto... but thus far I've just been powering through my latest embroidery project. Embroidery is fairly mindless. I brought four cards of floss with me and have already polished off two. ^_^;; Tomorrow I shall sew, as the quilt blocks have a deadline, and then when I have those done, I shall see about reviewing and writing.

Current Location: Eastleigh, England

While I was on vacay, between time with

hoshikage and time with my sister, I made two dozen jars of jam. Largely because on the Monday Wonderful Husband had to work, I kept myself and the Squiddle entertained by the picking of blackberries from the bushes in front of our hotel. And ended up with a LOT of berries. And decided to just keep going from there. Of the two dozen jars, I kept half, with a thought to presents for this Christmas. These dozen jars came home in the checked luggage. Having flown with jars of homemade jam one time before, I was pretty much betting on what would happen.

I opened my luggage to find pretty TSA ribbons (okay, sticker tape) festooning my jars of jam. Or at least the bubble wrap around them.

I have made TSA-approved jam! :)

(In other news, home at last. Until godass early Saturday morning, at least. Also, the Squiddle took both flights well, nursing on the way up and then sleeping through the first hour and a half each way. And he's popped four teeth pretty much simultaneously, two on top and two on bottom.)

Last day in Washington. Luggage is mostly packed, and one last batch of jam (blackberry sage) is cooked and cooling. I love the architecture up here and wish there were a lot more houses of this age and style in Orange County. The weather's cooler than I'm used to anymore, but I like the rain. Glorious greenery everywhere! Home is going to be warm. But we're barely there for a day before going off to SDCC, and then I have less than a week before Costume College. No costumes for me this year. No time.

Currently in Tacoma, WA. The hotel we're at is literally right behind my sister's house. As in, if there wasn't a rather tall iron fence around the parking lot, we'd just walk out of the lot to her side door.

So far we've been to Charlotte's Blueberry Park (the fruits of which were made into jam and pie today), and day - tripped up to Vancouver. We were kind of disappointed that Canada didn't stamp any of our passports. Ah well. Sister has also taken me to an antique mall (see: weekend activity, growing up in our family) and an architectural salvage yard. Oh the potential for wallet-dangerous activities...

Tomorrow's plans involve hieing into Seattle and doing the tourist thing there. Space Needle, ho!

All is quiet. Squiddle is napping in his high chair. Wonderful Husband is napping on the bed. And, judging by the faint tang of tar in the air, someone within a half-mile south of us is getting a new roof today.

Survived the rehearsal dinner for my cousin's wedding, despite Squiddle spending most of it melting down due to lots of people, lots of noise, and a vanishing pacifier. Survived the wedding and reception as well, despite two things that hurt me (one - family not coming to find me and Squiddle for the family photo, and two - my uncle going back on his promise to give me a certain book of my grandfather's) and Squiddle having slightly less of a meltdown due to us packing more pacifiers. Everything was lovely, otherwise. Just that a crying infant makes things less fun.

Saw How to Train Your Dragon 2, which I think I have mostly processed at this point. I was not expecting certain things that happened, and overall it was a lot darker/more serious a movie than the first. Possibly Dreamworks' most grown-up film to date? I don't think it was quite as good as the first one, but I do like it and I think I need to see it again, to untangle a few more things about it in my head.

I also day-tripped to Botcon, where I had a wonderful day de-stressing and hanging out with my geekish galpals. Thanks,

okami_myrrhibis,

tainry, and Jecca, whose LJ account name I forget! The day with you was just what I needed.

The day after Botcon, Wonderful Husband, Squiddle, myself, and Wonderful Husband's parents drove eight-ish hours north to Lake Tahoe! Which is a gorgeous, gorgeous place. I'd never been there before. And as a bonus, I got to meet up a couple of times with my childhood friend Cody, who lives/works in the area and had just returned from a trip to Brasil. Alas, though, his wife had to work late, so I still haven't met her.

After Tahoe, our intrepid party went west to Monterey, where we saw seals and sea otters at the Fisherman's Wharf and went to the Aquarium, which was lovely. Then, south to Solvang, stopping en route at the sea lion vista point, and at the Madonna Inn for dinner. We arrived home Saturday and are getting back into routine.

While in Solvang, I picked up a children's crochet book in a thrift shop and started a project last night. Except the jacket panel that was supposed to be 13" long is somehow 20" long, so I'm going to put it aside for now, and instead sew Squiddle a quick hoodie for the trip to Portland/SeaTac in a week, which is what the jacket was supposed to be for.

Anyhow, laundry to do, errands to run, sewing to finagle.

Botcon is going to be a kinda-sorta thing for me this year. Luckily, it's local, so I can drive it! Because I just checked dates of things (including dates of my inlaws' travel, and of our potential travel with them...) and discovered my cousin's wedding is in the late afternoon the Saturday of Botcon! Fortunately, the wedding is even more local (like, ten miles from home), so I can do a half day of the con.

Also working out well is that my friend who lives near Lake Tahoe will be returning from his trip to the World Cup in Brazil a few days before we theoretically end up in his area. Of course, given that California is in a major major drought and he's a fireman and it will be summer then, he may not be available for a meetup regardless, but that's not something that anyone can plan anything about.

It has been a very long day. And tomorrow starts very early. But for now, I will finish my soup, go to the bedroom, and collapse onto the bed. Various quasi-amusing anecdotes about the day to come later. 'Night, y'all.

Am finally home, following a series of Not Fun events that led to Virgin Airlines taking us off our 11:25am flight because they could not confirm that we were medically approved to fly, and putting us on the 3:15 flight instead. At least they didn't punt us to tomorrow, which at one point was a possibility.

And upon getting home we find there's a message from my boss saying I was supposed to be in at work today. Um, no. I booked today off. The reason it's not marked on the 2011 calendar is because we didn't HAVE the 2011 calendar when I left for England. Not looking forward to that conversation tomorrow.

Bed now.

Our flight from LAX to Heathrow left Friday at 6:30 pm PST. Or it was supposed to. We sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes, which in the grand scheme of how travel worked was infinitesimal. But after a relatively uneventful flight of ten and a half hours, we landed at 2pm GMT Saturday.

At Manchester.

This would be because Heathrow was closed due to severe snow and inclement weather. As was Gatwick.

After sitting for four hours on the tarmac (and the Virgin crew was wonderful, there were snacks and they played Toy Story 3) they managed to get buses to take us (all 306 passenger s + 12 crew) down to Heathrow. And we all got five pound vouchers for the convenience store outside customs/immigration, so after buying something for dinner and using the facilities, we hopped onto a coach.

Where we proceeded to stay for nine and a half hours, as the usually three-hour journey was through roads that had a heavy load of snow such that one section of the M40 had three jackknifed lorries and at least one multi-car pileup.

Thank goodness for

toothycat's early Christmas presents for Wonderful Husband (a DS vidgame) and myself (two books, the one of which I read on the coach being CryoBurn, which, argh! the ending killed me, but more about that later).

We arrived at Heathrow at 4am Sunday where my wonderful inlaws had been waiting for us for six hours (the bus made one stop about an hour into the drive, when we had called them and told them the two-more-hours ETA the driver had given us; no one on board had a cellphone for us to later update them), and finally home in Eastleigh at 5:30am Sunday morning, where we promptly all crawled into bed and fell unconscious.

Given the thousands of stranded travelers, hundreds of whom we saw sleeping inside the terminal at Heathrow, covered with tinfoil blankets, we feel very lucky, and we're very pleased with Virgin's services.

Survived flight home. Fairly uneventful except for the fact that it left an hour and a quarter late due to the fact that at the boarding lounge all passengers (having already gone through metal detectors and having their carryons x-rayed) had to be patted down and have their carryons searched. I should note that I was not very impressed with the lady who searched mine; I had my backpack tucked into a duffel bag with some books, as Heathrow is stupid and their security only allows you one carry-on item. But I digress, and the lady didn't even pull out the backpack to check in its five compartments.

Watched four and a half movies on the flight. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs was actually much better than its trailer had led me to believe. Zombieland was fun, though I was probably at an advantage watching it on a tiny screen since I don't like gore. Star Trek was, well, good, of course. X-Men: Wolverine was not as good as the first two but worlds away better than the third film in the series. (Hard not to be.) And I watched Up for the rest of the flight until they turned the entertainment off.

Came home and found cats alive; the house, however, reeked of what I'm guessing was rotting cat food. I think my cousin may have failed to clean the dishes out each day before dumping more in. -_-### Dishes have been washed and fresh kitty food given. Cats seem to like this. Also two plants were overwatered to the point of the cloths beneath them being stained now. Sigh.

But my brain is mush, approaching 22 hours of solid consciousness, so I am probably going to bed now and will be more comprehensible in the morning. Maybe. 'Night, y'all....

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: home, Greenwood

Am back from England. Had a lovely trip despite never fully adjusting to the time difference, and having a low-grade illness for much of the trip. (Had some of my last batch of salsa last night. Whatever bugs are in me are dying as I type. I find pleasure in this. Dunno if it's the capsicum or all the vitamins in the stuff, but it works.) Especially nice was spending some time with Serge and Morag in Cambridge. ^_^ Got some neat books, discovered one of the antique booksellers in Cambridge has apparently gone out of business, and got in our traditional expedition to the top of Castle Hill, albeit shiveringly. :)

The flight back was mostly uneventful. I finished watching Hairspray, and quite like the movie. The music was not so impressive, but how what I thought was going to be a fluffy piece ended up with a real social revolution commentary to it, was. I knew going in what the story was about, but I didn't think it would pull it off as well as it did. Also watched Transformers again, though not all that attentively. More like read and embroidered while listening to it.

Incidentally, the security people at Heathrow Airport are MORONS. They confiscated my embroidery scissors. The ones with the 1" blade, which is well within legal aviation specs. The same pair I have been flying with for three years to three different continents with no problems. Including having flown both into and out of Heathrow with them before. Wonderful Husband had to walk back down to the Virgin Airlines counter--under escort by Security no less--and beg a cardboard box off of them that got taped up and checked as another piece of luggage. I was upset at the time. Now I'm just pissed.

Slept for twelve hours last night, came in this morning to discover (as expected) my desk buried under undone paperwork and filing, and a ton of cremains out in the cremains room. Thank goodness I was only gone for four days! However, am jazzed on sewing and embroidery at the moment, so shall see how far this creative spurt gets me. I also want to finish Cygnus pretty soon, and Twin Terrors, and then get back to other, more weighty, stories....

And spend time with

hoshikage, who is visiting for the next week!

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: work

Last night Wonderful Husband booked our tickets to go to England for the holidays. We're going to be missing Christmas itself this year and visiting over the week of New Year's instead, due to flight costs. Unfortunately this meant staying up late to deal with Virgin's helpline because their website was playing silly games with us. And we're having to take the early flight back to the US instead of the afternoon flight. C'est la vie.

Spent the evening banging dents out of the latest batch of Transformers stories, shinying them up, and posting them to my website. Then I got to try to format them to ff.net's satisfaction, and have started posting them there, along with an old Weiss Kreuz/MahotsukaiTai crossover. Six chapters plus one unrelated story in nine days. I think that's a decent writing rate. If only it had been on The Novel!

Unfortunately, all this exciting activity meant I got to bed late, and Wonderful Husband even later. But I was bound and determined and got up this morning and put laundry away and did breakfasty things and prepped dinnery things and went to WalMart before work, wherein I did not buy the Transformers DVD. This decided lack of purchase comes because I want the prequel DVD but I also want the Special Edition release, and these two things? They do not come together. Which means about $50 for the movie. I am trying to justify this....

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: work

Dreamt last night of a house which was supposed to be the house I grew up in until I was five (it has burnt down since and I don't actually remember it that well except from pictures) but it wasn't but it still had that feeling of *home* to it... Wonderful Husband and I are saving to be able to buy a house someday, but I have the feeling that no matter what we end up eventually buying, it won't have that feeling, which makes me sad and wanting my Abagail doll.

Woke up this morning as cranky/depressed/out of it as I went to bed last night. Discovered halfway through the workday why: that time of month. Managed to stave off drowning my misery in ice cream since I had no time between work ending and class starting to /buy/ said ice cream.

Also discovered that 30 feet of silk thread makes approximately eight inches of embroidery in the new blackwork pattern I've been working. Unfortunately I only had the one spool of this color. Am considering what to do with the results. So far a dress for my Abagail doll is suggesting itself to me.

Mother and sister left today to go to England and points beyond. So of course it starts raining today. Because the weather gods are like this. Tomorrow I leave as well to go visit

hoshikage for the weekend and sew a lot. Hopefully I will not forget anything....

Bed now.

Current Mood: tired

...and little sister has convinced our mother to go to England-and-France with her next month. And Wonderful Husband and I are going (at least to England) in December. Only my father resists. But then, Jamaica is more his thing than England. Not that he's been there in a few years either.