Tasia's August 2006 Eviction Journal

Now that I am back from Michigan I have to work, work, work this week. I am leaving for a long camping trip next Friday and I need to get tons of work done. Plus, I need to sew some more medieval costumes. The camping trip I am taking is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, SCA event - Pennsic War. I have not gone to Pennsic since 1994, when the attendance went over ten thousand people for the first time. Now, if I want to be able to really enjoy Pennsic I need to do tons of work.

However, before I get started let me share a few photographs I took at the two SCA events I went to while I was up there.

The first was the Equestrian Emprise & Fighter Tourney. The archery range we set up in a hay field with a good eight inches or deeper of new growth. This sure made finding lost arrows a challenge. Luckily, one lady loaned us a metal detector and we were able to zero in on the metal in the arrow tips. My new arrows flew well. I set a new high score of 33 on the Royal Round.


	I like to take pictures of the marshalls. No SCA tourney can happen with a marshall. Left is one of the marshalls and the lady on the brown horse is the other marshall.
	One of the showiest events is the Mounted combat. This is done with boffer equipment for safety. I had never seen this before. The lord in the red and blue barding with his helm off was the winner of the mounted combat.

	The other competition they held for equestrians was the Ring Tilt. I believe the lady in the red and white won this competition. From the Society For Creative Anachronism Equestrian handbook: "Ring Tilt - Rings of various sizes are suspended from the arm of a standard. The riders attempt to spear the rings on the tip of the lance. This martial game is usually run in a straight line. Smaller rings usually carry a higher point value."

10 August 2006, Thursday

Tomorrow Rick will be picking me up to drive off to Pennsic. This will be my first Pennsic in twelve years. I am so excited.

I am also thinking about the fact that I will not be taking my weights like I did when I went to Michigan. Instead, I need to do something else for deliberate exercise. I have already packed my wheeled rack to move my stuff from where we can pull the vehicle to where I need to set up my camp. I think I will plan on delivering ice to those who have never had ice delivery. Children deliver ice up in the merchant area and the flat camping area close to the camp store. I will plan on delivering down the steep hill that no kid should take ice down and out past the solar showers.

Changing my exercise plan completely should also help me finally get off this blasted summer plateau. I have been right around 275 all summer. Today I weighed myself and I’m actually down to 272.5. Hey, this is a nice surprise. I have not been stepping on the scale all that much this summer due to all the travel I have done for work. The few times I have managed to weigh myself I seemed to always be on my period or just after it and still bloated.

I am setting a personal goal to loose three pounds while I am at Pennsic. I will achieve this by hauling ice up and down hills. Even if I don’t actually loose three pounds I will at least loose some weight. My Pennsic Weight Loss Plan – Schlepping Ice! Brian says I’d loose weight just with all the walking I will do. However, I want to loose more than just a little weight. I want Pennsic to jump start my weight loss again with a significant amount. Besides, breaking that 270 mark will be so satisfying.

10 August 2006, Thursday evening

Gadget jumped into my lap voluntarily today. She is finally snuggling up to me again and I will be leaving out of town tomorrow morning. Brian had said I should have waited until September to get new kittens. However, I do not think I could have survived an entire summer without my fuzzy children.

From 8 until 10 or 11, and one day noon, I delivered ice. I was planning on using my wheeled cart, however, the first night I was there a really wonderful lady offered me the use of her period cart. Oh gosh, did this cart ever make a difference! I was able to take a 275 pound load of ice down that steep hill every morning. I also took at 325 pound load of ice out past the solar showers. Next year I am planning on adding a third ice route and going all the way to the far camps beyond the battlefields. I had someone take a picture of me one day of me with the cart that Fabric Dragon loaned me.

In the afternoon I took A&S (Arts & Sciences) classes or went out to the archery range. Actually, I only went to the archery range two days, Monday and Friday. I took Red Cross CPR and ASHI First Air and CPR Pro. Now I have my certification and I started my training to be a Chirurgeon. I worked one shift at Chirurgeon’s/First Aid Point and am now a Chirurgeon-In-Training, or CIT.

In the evenings I either wandered around seeing things, socialized with friends or most of the time I went to Herald’s Point and worked. I drew heraldic submissions and colored submissions that others had drawn. It was a great way to relax while still doing something productive. Plus, I got to keep a copy of all the submissions I drew.

I think I have the most fun at SCA events when I am volunteering. I put in eight shifts at Herald’s Point, only one at Chirurgeon’s – but I did have to take all those classes to be able to work that one shift, two shifts at the Archery Range, and seven shifts at Troll. All this time I spent volunteering and doing different things really contributed to making this the best Pennsic I have ever had.

I saw old friends that I did not even realize I still knew. When I got to Pennsic the people working Troll had said, "Welcome home." It really was a home I had not been to in years. I also made a lot of new friends and have a great group of people that I will be camping with next year.

I also had a SCA first. I have been in the Society since 1984 and I never had a fighter ask to carry my favor into battle. This year this a fighter did! I took a lot of pictures of the field battle for him with his camera. These are just a few that I remembered to take with my camera.	Just like equestrian events, no battle can happen without the Marshalls. The in the black with yellow crossed swords on their fonts and backs are the Marshalls.

23 August 2006, Wednesday

I cannot believe how absolutely, unbelievably, terrible the yards look. Brian has been working so much that he did not do the yard work while I was gone. I also did not get the lawn mowed before I left because the mower had needed to be repaired. Brian did get the mower repaired and part of the lawn mowed, but oh, my golly, jeepers creepers, the weeds! My gardens are gone. My roses are completely eaten by weeds.

I started in the back yard today and weeded for hours. I have filled both yard waste barrels and the one yard bag we had with weeds. It is not looking too bad back here now. I have rediscovered the raised vegetable bed. Hey, I even have ripe tomatos. I also found that the hostas I planted this spring made it. They have not grown all that much, but they are alive. My raspberries are also doing well and I think I will get some berries this year.

24 August 2006, Thursday

This morning I started with doing the laundry. In addition to all of my camping laundry, Brian had some laundry as well. Mostly it was my camping stuff. The dishes were a disaster. I know I left this kitchen not completely done, but three sink loads of dishes is a lot to do in one morning. Yes, I have yelled at Brian for doing the dishes when I was home, but I was not home so he had my blessing to do the dishes while I was gone. Brian actually did the dishes while I was gone. We just did a lot a cooking since I have been back and this is the first time I have done any housework since I got home. I have been working and so has he. I actually do like doing dishes and it was very satisfying to get them all clean.

Thank goodness the yard waste was picked up this morning. I was able to reuse my barrels and weed the front yard today. I am all scratched up like crazy as I tackled weeding the roses. However, the front yard looks much tidier.

26 August 2006, Saturday

I’m beat. I have been contra dancing for the past three hours. I went to an All Soles dance tonight and had an utterly fantastic time. It has been quite a while since I went to a dance. Contra dancing is some of the most sweaty fun you can have in public.

I danced every single dance. I did not have a partner for the first waltz set so I asked Ellen. We had a fun time waltzing around not knowing which of us was leading. We didn’t run into any of the other couples so I call it a success. Neither one of us is used to leading. I lured a nice man who had never been to a contra dance before onto the floor as soon as he arrived. He had no idea what he was doing, but he was having fun. I saw Mary again, who is responsible for getting me into contra.

I like the fact that at contra dances we all wear name badges. It sure makes knowing who the heck you are dancing with much easier. Except for that one gentleman who’s handwriting was so bad that I thought it said Ian when it actually said Dan. Oh well, I’ll know his name at the next dance.

31 August 2006, Thursday

Brian and I have finally figured out why they heck I have been down for the count with this week. I have been having an allergic reaction. Once I started taking Benadryl I started feeling better. These scratches on my arms are due to my ripping my skin open in my sleep. When unconscious I scratch until it stops itching. Unfortunately, this is when I have removed the skin that was itching completely. This morning Brian commented that where I was scratching looked like a classic case of hives. He suggested taking Benadryl and seeing if that helped. A few hours later I actually got out of bed and stayed out for the first time this week.

Last Sunday I had gone to a work party day at Apache Bowhunters. While I was there I helped tear down the 3D targets. I got rather dirty carrying these targets as they were all wet. It had started raining really hard and I got completely soaked while I was shooting. I did shoot my best score ever – 205. But this also meant I got mud rubbed into my skin when I lifted the targets. Mud on the area of my skin that had been scratched by the roses. I did not remember that I am allergic to something in the dirt here in Ohio so did not immediately scrub myself once we were done. Instead I had driven home and then washed. In the future, I am going to work on remembering this. Hey, at least I did not get to the point where I had to see a doctor and take steroids like the last time I had this allergic reaction.