Missy's blog: A birthday and a pirate sing-a-long

I met up with friends for delicious ice cream and sunflowers.

We helped to fight cancer and went home with a beautiful bouquet.

Another of my former lab mates at Qiagen has left.

Soo we got Indian food.

I felt the oncoming fall in my bones and started looking at fall foods,

This is a really neat book on apple varieties. I am looking at it with an eye to buying 3 more apple trees in the spring.

The light looks like fall.

The fall birthdays have started.

We went to Licia's house to have a birthday party for Mr. Scearce.

There was lots of food and we all got to see how nicely her home is coming together.

Plus we brought several fresh tomatoes and had tomato sandwiches.

When I was 17 or so I hated tomatoes. I moved in with Scearce's and was brought around by Mr. Scearce and his instance on eating only tomatoes (and corn and green beans) that came straight from the garden. I know that it is a well known truth that fruits and veggies are better fresh but the difference between a store tomato and a fresh summer garden tomato is immeasurable.

I am so grateful to him for convincing me to try old school tomato sandwiches because that moment was the beginning of my love of cooking and food and flavors as art. Also he introduced me to salt and vinegar chips (my favorite and Kiernan's favorite).

I made some Thai omelettes and Thai coffee for Sunday breakfast. David has started drinking coffee. I am very glad as my love of coffee (tempered by my anxiety reactions to caffeine) has been much neglected over the last few decades.

The weather is not too hot so we are outdoors a good bit just now.

We have started bike riding in the evenings.

Mount Airy is mega hilly so our options are relatively limited.

I got out our bikes and pumped out the tires and spun the chains and tightened seats and training wheels and discovered that my bike tires are full of holes.

Kiernan is really taking to it (he is behind my shoulder up there).

He has asked for bike rides when he is overwhelmed and it seems to be a better fit for him than running. I think that his foot (it was broken last fall) is giving him some trouble when running but also he is not a natural runner like Megan is.

I love it.

I hope my new tires come soon so we can ride together. I'm still enjoying walking while they bike though.

We had back to school to night.

The new principle said a few disturbing things.

She said that they are going to get the school into shape because it is underpreformance.

Here is the report she was referring to.

We hadn't heard anything about underpreforming before.

She also said that the redistricting was about to happen and that the Twin Ridge 5th graders (Kiernan's class) will be split up into two different middle schools.

Megan showed us her classroom and pointed out some new chapter books that she loves. Right now she is really into the Magic Treehouse series and the Bailey School Kids series. I have updated her with list with lots of books and that is very satisfying.

We had DnD. Apparently we are either all about to die or ascend in some way because Martin told us that this was the 2nd to last night of this campaign.

I went to Bardic.

I have hardly been to Haven recently. A little of that is about drama that has happened there over the spring and summer but most of it is about having a new job and Shawns death and Kiernans stress and WOW classic starting and just trying to be home more for my family.

I am going to put my membership on hiatus. I wasnt sure if that was a thing or not but when I talked to Gene about it he said that it sounded like good priorities to him.

I will miss the crafting classes so much but I am happy to say that because I am an SCA member that I will still be able to do the music/bardic evenings once a month.

I prepped a great deal for this bardic. There was a challenge with prizes on offer. The theme of this bardic with Pirate Harvest. The challenge was to preform an authentic piece from the Renaissance or middle ages (470-1600) on the theme. If you could do one and provide documentation then you could get a Haven Treasure of Horn. There were some horn cups and some pendants. This was tricky because the golden age of piracy (what you see in Pirates of the Caribbean for instance) was 1650-1730ish.

I found one that was popular during the reign of Henry VIII. Its on my music channel if you want to hear it. (We Be Three Poor Mariners)

The woman before me got the last cup. Dag Nab IT!

On the other hand I got this beautiful horn tree of life.

The music was so good that night that almost no one was ready to be done at 10 when the official wrap up happened. Even I, who always leave as quickly as it ends due to all the social anxiety, stayed extra long. Here is a song that was sung.

Imagine sitting in a candle lit outdoor space with a few dozen (mostly drunk) enthusiastic singers doing this song. The tones were in my bones. I had goosebumps. It was so great. I left so euphoric that I couldn't sleep for hours after I got home plus I got some very kind (drunken) protestations of love when I left.

The kids went to a birthday party with an epic waterballoon fight and pizza and cake and while they were there I went to the apple distillery and got some Bramleys. Oh man those things make the worlds greatest crumble. The whole household loved them with wide eyed delight. It was so good I make the entire recipe again the next day because we ate all the first batch in a few hours.