Winter's Welcome Revel

Let's try this again. The last entry was too disjointed.

I survived my first turn at the event steward wheel this weekend, and the biggest reasons for my survival were the amazing and wonderful event staff and set-up/clean-up crews (pretty much all the same people). Event attendees raved about the site, the feast, and the background music provided by friends from Bright Hills, Highland Foorde, and a few Pontoons. We had the highest number of entrants in our yearly chess tourney and we more than doubled our new coronet fund with profits from the silent auction. Alle Psallite entertained the hall with a post-feast performance; see dawnhutchings' LJ for snippets of the concert. And after court, event attendees took to the floor and spent over an hour dancing.

I'm still humbled by how fantastic all the volunteers were. We had so many people volunteer to help clean the kitchen that we had to turn some people away. None of my fears and worries about the event came to fruition, and most of my dreams about the event were realized. There were a couple of issues, but those were handled quietly and mostly gracefully.

I still need to send out my thank-you and lost-and-found notes to the email lists and then my event steward duties end. You know, I just might volunteer to do this again sometime in the future...

Oops & pictures

I'm working from home because UPS was kind enough to send a recorded message yesterday stating that we'd receive a signature-required package on Monday. When a knock came at the door, I startled and managed to kick a nearly full glass of water into my open purse sitting on the floor next to the coffee table. *sigh*

The person knocking wasn't the UPS guy, though; it was the postman and he gave me a package containing ( the following: )

The picture below this next cut has nothing to do with what's going on today. I saw it while perusing a non-wrecky site posted on the Cake Wrecks blog yesterday. Next time I'm in need of a special cake, I want ( this one: )

This delightful confection was made by the talented proprietor of Cake Nouveau in Ann Arbor, MI. Love it!

Done!

Gifts are wrapped and ready for transport to Memphis this weekend. Whoo hoo! Unfortunately, I'm now hobbling around like a 90-year-old woman because my back hurts so bad from wrapping gifts on the floor for two hours. Oof.