I don't mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

Vacation was absolutely wonderful. I got to visit with people whom I haven't seen in nearly twenty years, spent quality time with my father and stepmom, enjoyed best-friend zipmeister's new house (which is STUNNING), and lazed about Mom's lake river house. Really, I couldn't have had a much better week off.

Except that the trip from northern Virginia to Germantown, TN and from Cherokee, AL back to NoVA was AWFUL. The 850 mile trek from door to door normally takes between 11.5 and 12 hours. It took fourteen. FOURTEEN. The trip from AL to NoVA should have taken about 12.5 hours. It also took FOURTEEN hours, most of which was in blinding rain. We stopped for the night just inside the Virginia border so as not to fall asleep at the wheel.

I forgot to make a "Post-op month 3" post on the 29th. At that point, I'd shed 50 pounds and was starting to shrink out of the capris I purchased earlier in June. While on vacation, I misplaced another 5 pounds and bought my first size "L" shirts in FOREVER. Talk about a ego boost. I have officially hit the in-betweenie range of pants, unfortunately. I need a 14W to accommodate my baby-makin' hips and I can't find that size in my local Tar-zhay. I'm pretty sure a Lane Bryant 14 would be too big and I REALLY don't want to have to go to LB for ANYTHING anymore. Straight sizes will gap in the waist while pulling across my hips and butt. Allow me to sigh and staple my wrist to my forehead for a bit.

At this point, I'm only a few pounds away from what the WLS forum people call "one-derland". I haven't been under 200 pounds in... oh, I have no idea. At least 15 years. I'm about to bounce out of my skin with excitement and joy.

My teeth hurt. My jaw hurts. My inside lip hurts. Obviously, I went to the orthodontist on Friday. My upper teeth are moving nicely, he said, and now it's time to focus on the bottom teeth again. He's got an activator chain on the tooth next to the tooth which needs to move and the entire bottom right side of my mouth is howling in pain. I also have to wear a rubber band between upper and lower teeth on that side to add to the chorus of misery. I haven't been popping Advil like candy, but I'm getting close to that.

Owie.

Saturday was good, though. Hubbyfink was pitifully sick and I made him stay home from Holiday Faire. I am a big, strong girl and I was able to set up my booth (The Ermine Mouse) by my lonesome and have open spaces on the table and shelves ready for psalite's and reasdream's items when they arrived. I had items priced to MOVE (maybe priced too well, but I was more interested in clearing out space than making money) and clothes and fabric flew out of my shop. Hooray! I didn't make quite as much money as I did five years ago when I was able to pay for movers AND the speeding ticket I got en route to the event, but it was pretty close. I did a bit of shopping as well and came home with lovely Thai silk, an adorable white mouse puppet, nommy potpourri, earrings, and a few other trinkets. Dinner with friends at the Japanese steakhouse afterward was the cherry on top of a pretty fantastic day.

For Sunday, Hubbyfink and I ventured into DC to see a revival of Cirque du Soliel's "Quidam" at the Verizon Center. Quidam was my first experience with Cirque twelve or thirteen years ago. I think I've become jaded since then because the acts weren't as spectacular, but I suppose that Cirque and I have both grown. I'm glad that we left home pretty early because my phone's navigation system did NOT want us to take I-66 in and then it didn't want us to take Constitution through town. I did drive I-66, but I couldn't get into the lane for Constitution and wound up taking E to a numbered street and made a series of left and right turns until we happened upon Gallery Place. Leaving the event was just as exploratory since construction on Constitution had it closed down to one lane. Yeah, no. We cruised around the mall, passed the recently renovated DC war memorial, found the recently opened Martin Luther King, Jr memorial, made a (probably illegal U-turn) after being passed by an ambulance and seeing traffic stacked up ahead, and finally escaped from DC via the 14th Street Bridge.

Hubbyfink spent the evening glued to "House Hunters International" (dear Lord, what hath I wrought??) while I organized the craft room within an inch of its anthropomorphic life. The reduction in SCA clothing, accessories, and fabric allowed me to reorg the fabric shelves and I can, for the first time in nearly five years, see exactly what I own. It turns out that I have no plain brown wool, but I'm mostly okay with that right now. I have lots and lots and LOTS of grey wool. Huh.

Tonight there will be a manicure and packing and then a mad frenzy of house cleaning before we hit the road at oh-dark-thirty to go over the mountains and through the woods to Aunt Trisha's cabin in the Smokies.

Hubbyfink and I spent the past week in the company of my SCA household in a gorgeous house on the Corolla/Pine Island section of the Outer Banks. It was exactly what we needed. And happily, unlike last year, the weather was absolutely perfect this time around.

My beach schedule went something pretty much like this: wake at 8:30, breakfast, two-mile walk on the beach, swim for an hour, shower & dress, lunch, shop, snack, play games or fly kites, dinner, play games or watch movies, bedtime around midnight. Pretty fantastic if you ask me. I was happy to see that the anchor was still out in the surf and sad to see the dessicated remains of a sea turtle up near the dune. I adopted a beach bum wardrobe of cargo capris, tee-shirt, and flip-flops. I got a LOT of sun. Kim/Cassie and I finally had our mini golf face-off and she handily beat me. Hubbyfink, Nicole/Sian, and I explored every Sound Feet Shoes from Corolla to Nags Head looking for Vibram Five Fingers shoes for him and Keen sandals for her. pirategirleee and I got an Old-Timey picture of us as pirate wenches with cutlasses and bottles of rum. (Must scan that...)

We also saw lots of dolphins playing and hunting in the surf. As I stepped into the water on Saturday, I saw three dark dorsal fins pop up out of the water about a hundred yards from me. My heart stopped. It restarted when I realized the fins belonged to dolphins. (I mean, yes, I am the one who wants to do a shark dive, but I want to be prepared for the sharks, you know? Also, I don't want to be the only one around the sharks. I don't need to be the fastest swimmer; I just need to be faster than you.)

The stars were absolutely amazing. We could even see the Milky Way. There was no moon and the brightest object in the sky was the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus. On Saturday night, pirategirleee, duchesssimone, francesca_la, and I strolled up the beach as the Big Dipper rose from the horizon. It was HYOOOGE. We couldn't keep our eyes on the stars all the time, though. We needed to watch the beach as well so as not to step on the angry little crabs. When we turned around to go back to the house, we spotted fireworks waaaay down the island. I still don't know if they were in Duck or Kitty Hawk. It was pretty much the perfect way to end vacation.

You know, I have GOT to learn how not to get tied up in knots over work. I've been nauseated and dizzy most of today because of the two India project calls I hosted an hour ago. I seriously considered staying home for those calls because I felt so sick. About halfway through the first call, though, my anxiety cleared up and I've been feeling fine -- aside from allergy ick -- ever since. Easy-peasy, Mel. Chill the eff out.

The trip to Gettysburg with carthew, pirategirleee, and psalite was fun. We achieved our objectives of ghost-hunting and procurring fudge. We also poked our heads in lots of little shops downtown, visited the train station museum, drove through a bit of the northern parts of the battlefield and Gettysburg College, dined at the Dobbin House/Springhouse Tavern, and took lots of pictures. Well, the others took lots of pictures; Hubbyfink took our camera to WAMW. It was a very long day and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I spent most of yesterday on the sofa flipping between the "Doctor Who" marathon on BBC-A and the "True Blood" marathon on HBO2 with brief housecleaning forays. I was fairly happy with the TB finale and I need to find or make an LJ icon with a picture of Sam and text which reads "I'd wear him like a scrunchie."

...and it was grand.

Friday night the 'fink and I met dmn4nr and spouseling and K & J for dinner at Ted's Montana Grill. Mmmm... steaky and lemondroppy goodness. And for once they actually had key lime pie when I was ready for dessert. Got home about 10 minutes after the BSG premiere but caught up quickly with the DVR.

Saturday morning I took off for the not-quite-wilds of Pennsylvania to retrieve danabren and meet woodwindy at the east coast BPAL mecca. I had a couple of false starts, though. Since the air temp in Sterling was a mere 3 degree farenheit (the coldest I've ever been), both the Prius and Jeepfink were cranky. The Prius wouldn't stay in gear; it kept slipping from drive into neutral. When I couldn't make it to the end of the street without it slipping three times, I decided I shouldn't take that particular vehicle on my three-and-a-half-hour sojourn. Blessedly, Jeepfink started but the brake light stayed on through much of northward trip. The brakes were fine, if a little mushy; I made sure to keep extra braking distance between myself and other vehicles.

But! The meat of the trip: BPAL! Shelly had prototypes of the new Lupercalia blends and I fell in love with only a few of them. I was disappointed with the Ode to Aphrodite line and surprised to like many of the Shunga line. Shelly didn't have any of the Lupercalias in stock so I managed to escape the shop with dropping a fairly small chunk of change instead of the significant chunk I'd planned upon. We wound up hanging around the shop for several hours as it seemed that Shelly really needed some folks to talk with. She was in bright spirits when we finally headed out for our late Sonic lunch.

woodwindy and her friend headed home after our quick lunch with everyone piled in the Jeepfink, and danabren and I hit the kitchen stores at the local outlet mall. She talked me into a set of three springform pans for $10. I don't know what I'll do with them, but I'll be ready when the day I need them comes around. I got her a light-up, burbling goldfish; she got me a mouse-shaped cookie cutter.

Our enthusiasm for shopping finally waned and we rushed back to danabren's neighborhood for sushi. Post roll, million dollar roll, and godzilla roll, ahoy! And lots and lots of hot tea. danabren said she'd turn me into a geisha yet. I lamented that I should've picked up those chopsticks at the kitchen store for my hair. She gave me a look. I laughed and said, "Oh don't worry. I know that only maiko wear chopsticks in their hair." She rolled her eyes.

We parted company after dinner, and my drive home through the countryside (I decided to forgo the interstates and beltways) was uneventful. Did you know that "Ski Roundtop" is the Gettysburg Round Top? I hadn't put the proverbial two and two together until I passed the visitors center exit and then saw the ski routes all lit up on the mountain. Neat!

Yesterday, I was mostly sluglike. I did a little bit of straightening around the house and Hubbyfink and I put away the laundry which has been languishing in baskets for over a week, but that was it. It was delightful.

A quiet turkeyless Thanksgiving day with the Hubbyfink was followed by a busy Black Friday where I did my part to shore up the US economy. Thanks to an award from work, I was able to get Hubbyfink an Xbox360 as an early Christmas gift and scored an 8Gig Nano for myself.

psalite, pirategirleee, and I visited Colonial Williamsburg on Saturday, with an obligatory stop at the Williamsburg Sonic for good measure. We were smart and parked at the visitor center and caught a bus over to Colonial Williamsburg. We met a delightful lady in Mistress Dickerson's shop with whom we discussed things Regency while purchasing yummy soaps. We oohed and aahed at the decorations (I want to make a pomegranate and pineapple wreath), shopped 'til we very nearly dropped, and dined like kings at the Kings Arms Tavern. The whole day we kept saying to each other: "This is SO much fun!" And it was.

So, between Friday and Saturday's expeditions, I have just about finished my Christmas shopping. Need one more item for my father and something for my brothers and I'm done. Yay!

No, the Daily Ornament Report hasn't cranked up. It might not run at all this year. Since we're going to Memphis for Christmas, I'm debating even putting up the tree. Plus, weekends are full: this weekend is Unevent, next weekend is Ponte Alto's Winter's Welcome Revel (which I'm autocratting), and the following weekend we leave for Memphis. We may do what we did our first Christmas in the house and just put presents under the tabletop tree.

If everyday could be like yesterday, I would be very happy, if broke and slightly damp, woman.

dawnhutchings and I retrieved danabren just before noon and arrived at the East Coast BPAL Mecca about an hour later where we met woodwindy and her friend (whose name escapes me). We browsed, we sniffed, we bought. A lot. Scents I expected to love disappointed me, but perfumes I expected to feel meh about made me fall head-over-heels. I was smart this time and brought little dot stickers so everyone could map out on their arms which scents they had tried and, most importantly, where they had tried them. Like a doofus, I didn't use my own stickers and as I huffed the crook of my elbow I lamented not knowing what perfume I'd applied there because it smelled SO GOOD. Next time.

It still amuses me how large a role personal body chemistry plays in whether or not certain oils "work". woodwindy and I must have similar chemistry because we both make grabby hands at the amber scents. And dawnhutchings and danabren are similar; one perfume that made me wrinkle my nose and cry, "Dirty ashtray!" made both of them say, "OM NOM NOM!"

Next on the agenda was Sonic. We arrived at the height of a hurricane, and like idjits, we actually ran around in that incredible wind and rain trying to figure out how best to enjoy our Sonic experience. We finally found the lee side of the building, parked cars next to one another, and then everyone piled into Jeepfink. Cheese coneys, poppers, mozarella sticks, ocean waters, shakes and cherry limeades were the orders of the day. Mmmm... Sonic. We continued trading and swapping perfumes with each other.

We parted company with woodwindy and her friend, and met up with danabren's mom at the local gem show. With only an hour until closing, we snapped up some pretty good deals. I was able to cross three family members off my Christmas list with that trip. Whoo hoo!

Back to danabren's house where we decanted bottles of the Yule scents for the decant circle as well as some of our personal stashes for one another. Aside from my not realizing the rectangular labels I'd brought were clear ("I can't read!"), the process went smoothly and was actually pretty fun. Although, I'm glad we weren't trying to decant the entire Yule line. Crazy-making that would have been.

And then, there was sushi. We feasted upon Sakura roll (I don't remember the ingredients), another roll (I don't remember the ingredients), Godzilla roll (crunchy crab meat roll topped with eel -- I made my O face a few times), and Scorpion roll (half spider roll, half something roll, topped with eel). Oh yeah, baby, YEAH. Red Bean, Green Tea, and Mango ice creams rounded out the most amazing and delicious meal. We thanked the chef profusely.

dawnhutchings and I retrieved our belongings from danabren's and hit the road towards home. We can't wait to do it all again in either February or March.