Elaby's LiveJournal - 57 Academics

Today has been a perfect Valentine's Day <3

We slept in this morning and I was so excited to give Rachel her gift that I made her put on her glasses and stay in bed and I ran and got it XD I wrote her a poem and inked it on this beautiful brown scrapbook paper with a faded castle in the background, and then I glued it on a border of scrapbook paper covered in faded brown and red embroidered roses. I was rather proud of myself. She loved it <3

Our plan had been to visit Shalimar India for dinner in Portsmouth, but since it was supposed to snow today into tomorrow (TWO MORE FEET WTF) we went for lunch instead. It's our favorite Indian restaurant. We always get the vegetarian dinner for two, which includes the best vegetable soup in the universe, two samosas, two entrees (Rachel had Shalimar Baji and I had Chanaa Masala), rice, raita, naan, and rice pudding with chai for desert. I always bring half home and end up STILL stuffed XD While we ate, we set down in writing our GRAND PLOT for our BJD characters' timeline and the multiple AUs we have going XD We need a freaking flow chart to catalogue everyone's reincarnations/parallel timelines/whatever. We have, let me see -- a Roman incarnation, an Anglo-Saxon incarnation, Council of the Chosen (the circa-2000 vampire-werewolf-paranormal RP monstrosity that started it all, which Rachel and I took part in during college), a secret agent AU (BECAUSE WE SAW KINGSMEN LAST NIGHT AND HOLY CRAP IT WAS MIND-BLOWING), the Pacific Rim AU, Taylan and Dante's recent reboot where they live during an apocalyptic vampire/werewolf war, a post-apocalyptic the-Earth-reclaims-itself world where Aster is from after the end of the vampire/werewolf war, a post-post-apocalyptic scary technology-overrun world where Poppy is from and ultimately where she goes back to become, uh, deified, and finally the mermaid incarnation which takes place AFTER Poppy's final reset of the planet.

HAHAHA BEST VALENTINE'S DAY LUNCH EVER XD

After that, we stopped at Home Goods because Rachel wanted a pretty wooden tray like willow_cabin has to arrange her crystals in, and we ended up getting a couple of really cool things :3 We did find a wooden tray, and we also found two dishes for our altars: Rachel's is silvery-iridescent and kind of shaped like a pyrite sun, and mine looks like greeny-metallic lotus petals. We also got two incredibly awesome teapots: they're both white porcelain, and the body of one is in a basket-weave pattern with a handle like two reeds twined together with a tiny bird on the lid, and the other is shaped like a conch shell. I've never seen a teapot like it. Rachel also got a little sugar dish with a bluebird handle on the lid that she plans to FILL WITH GLITTER. I kid you not. We also got two heart-shaped taper candles that are, as I type, flickering on our dresser-top altars.

We got home just as it started to snow, and I suggested that we swap out some of our less-loved teapots for the new ones. We went through the tea things and set a few items aside for the donation box, and then this led to a whole living-room-wide decluttering. We rearranged three high shelves (one actual shelf and two tops of hutches) and one bookcase. Our collection of lesbian Willow Tree figures got a nice clean space (yeah, I'm sure they're meant to be sisters, but they're ALL LESBIANS IN OUR HOUSE - we have these ones: wifeys, totes girlfriends, not just for sisters, LOL SHE'S MY WIFE NOT MY MOM, and yeah, married).

After a good few hours getting rid of stuff and reorganizing, we took ourselves upstairs and played Fantasy Life all evening :) It's snowing outside and we have nowhere to go tomorrow; it's shaping up to be a great weekend.

Happy Solstice and Yule! I wish love and warmth and happiness to all of my friends as the days start to lengthen again and midwinter takes hold <3

Rachel and I had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, we visited some friends in Boston and had a really, really happy and fun time. Our friends down there are such awesome, kind people <3 We drove home in the evening to host a Call of Cthulhu gaming session (Cthultide! :D) and the campaign was predictably insanity-inducing. My character died horribly – run over while trying to get into the escape vehicle, then put out of my misery by my friends-turned-brainedwashed-cult-followers – but there was so much hilarity that I didn’t mind in the least. My character was lots of fun to play: she was a published paranormal nonfiction author who’d had some really creepy shit happen to her, and she was also a technophobe, so I had all sorts of fun pretending not to know how to work the digital camera the GM brought (complete with local photographs as clues!). She also had inherited her grandmother’s pendulum and I used it mostly to my advantage, although for the first hour or two I don’t think I ever rolled under a sixty no matter which dice I used XD

The next morning, we slept until 11:30 (!!! That’s what happens when you’re up until half past two gaming with a tableful of awesome friends and load of delicious desserts :3) and then we ventured out to Trader Joe’s to pick up food for Christmas Eve, which we’re hosting at our house. We were happily surprised to find the mall area much less jam-packed than we expected, but we got our couple of groceries and beat a hasty retreat nonetheless.

When we got home, Rachel worked on sewing projects for Christmas presents and I started making our Solstice feast. Our original plan was potato soup, which we changed to corn chowder thickened with Rachel’s famous Best Mashed Potatoes Ever. I started by washing and peeling the potatoes.



( More photos, dinner, and our ritual )

Rachel and my seventh wedding anniversary was October 6, and this past weekend, we took a little vacation to Boston to celebrate <3 Most years, we go to Rhinebeck to the sheep and wool festival on this weekend in October, but this year we didn't manage to plan early enough and when we tried to book a hotel room, they were ALL sold out T_T It all turned out for the best, though, because we had the most wonderful weekend in Boston.

It didn't start out all that smooth XD Our plan had been to park our car at the train station in Dover on Friday, have my parents drive us to an end of the T line, and take the subway in to our hotel. We'd then take the train home on Sunday and our car would be at the station. However, when my parents were waiting to pick us up at the station lot, we discovered that we would have to pay $0.25 per hour all weekend to park there. It's never cost to park there before. I had forgotten my camera, so we had our parents meet us at our house to drive us down. My mother graciously agreed to pick us up from the train on Sunday <3

We arrived in Boston around 11:30. Even though we couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00, they had a luggage storage service, so we went there to drop off our suitcase - and they let us check in early! It was wonderful to be able to settle into the room before going off our adventure. The hotel was a "boutique hotel" (I'm still not sure what that means) and it was very beautiful and fancy. Everything was nautically themed because it was right near the harbor (very close to the New England Aquarium).

( Cut for such an awful lot of photos )

I already knew our autumn was going to be busy, and then the universe threw a broken ankle into the mix XD

In case you missed the mention on caitirin's blog - I fell down our stairs last Tuesday night and broke my ankle. The half-a-tennis-ball-sized lump on my foot compelled us to cart me to the emergency room, where they took x-rays and diagnosed me with a left talar avulsion fracture (which means that when I fell, the ligament that goes from my outside ankle bone ripped a chunk of bone off my talus, the middle ankle bone). Relatively speaking, this is a fairly non-serious break, so I didn't need it to be set or casted. I have a big black velcro-strapped boot that lets me put a little weight on my foot. I can get around now with only one crutch. Optimistically, I'll be able to stop using the boot in about three weeks from now.

I was doubly frustrated to have broken my ankle a few days before mermaiden and willow_cabin were coming to visit! We were supposed to cavort! It turns out you can cavort pretty well with a broken ankle given the right set of friends :3

We had the most spectacularly love-filled, magical, fulfilling weekend. Having Sarah and Jenn at our house was a delight in so many ways - great conversation, so much laughter, inspiration and love and understanding and unique camaraderie. There's nothing quite like getting to show people you love and admire all of the best things about the area where you live. The whole weekend was one long, rainbow blur of wonderfulness, but here are some highlights:

- Sarah is a brilliant repository of Victorian gravestone imagery and death culture, and we have a really cool cemetery right down the road from our house. She gave us a tour and told us the meaning of the carvings and gravestone shapes that appeared there. We even had some zinc monuments, which are fascinating and apparently rare, so she was wicked excited about that! :D
- We got to take them to two of our favorite places to eat, Susty's Vegan Cafe in Northwood, NH and Dobra Tea in Portland, ME. I always love Susty's, and we tried new food at Dobra Tea that was DELICIOUS: couscous topped with apples, bananas, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, honey, maple syrup, and cinnamon. HOMG. Sarah also convinced me to try Genmaicha Matcha, a green tea made with roasted rice. It was SO GOOD.
- While in Portland, we took them to Mexicali Blues, the clothing/accessory/decor store where we get pretty much all of our hippie-dress clothes. Sarah and Jenn had always liked our clothes from there, so we wanted to bring them. Rachel and I got some really pretty shirts :3 Ha, one is the same shirt only different sizes XD Jenn got the most gorgeous scarves, and Sarah got a pair of so-comfortable-looking-yet-dressy pants.
- On Sunday, we visited South Church to attend a Unitarian Universalist sermon. South Church is so pretty and the sermon was incredibly nice - funny and meaningful and bursting with self-affirmation. Everyone was so welcoming.
- We brought Sarah and Jenn to two of our favorite "rocky Maine coast" places - Seapoint Beach in my native Kittery Point and the Nubble Lighthouse in York. They're both such beautiful places and I know Sarah and Jenn love the ocean so much. We had a great time at both places, walking around together and enjoying the world.
- LESBIAN MOVIES OMG. I'm sadly bereft in experience with lesbian cinema. When we told Sarah this, she was like "WE SHALL BRING ALL THE FILMS THEN" and we watched some really good ones. When Night Is Falling is a modern lesbian interpretation of the Cupid and Psyche myth, and it was uplifting and so beautifully filmed. Were the World Mine is a gay Midsummer Night's Dream about a student acting in a high school production of the play. Things that happen in the play start happening in real life too, and it's so funny and gloriously gay and the MUSIC is SO AWESOME. Tipping the Velvet is a BBC miniseries based on the book of the same name, about an oyster-girl-turned-vaudeville-crossdresser in Victorian London. COME ON, HOW COULD I NOT LOVE THAT. It was my favorite (Victorian lesbians and a happy ending? You're so surprised! XD) but they were all so excellent and had such good, happy messages. Lesbian stories that don't end in tragedy-due-to-lesbianness are the best.

I'm leaving out all kinds of little moments of wonderfulness - I'll cherish the whole weekend forever. We told Sarah and Jenn to sleep in the day they were leaving, because we had to get up early for work and they had a long ride home, and when we got home that night, they'd left us the most beautiful note and two clear quartz points. Such love radiates from those crystals. We're going to see them again in a couple of weeks after the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival, and I can scarcely wait <3

I've been having a truly lovely weekend. On Thursday evening, I stayed late at work to finish one of the more stressful projects I've ever worked on. I went in a little late Friday (a little late being like 8:05, but I usually get to work before 7:30) so Rachel and I could go to breakfast at the dining hall. It was relaxing and very nice. Then - the biggest treat of all - my manager let us all out early because it was the Friday before Memorial Day :3 She does this fairly often on the day before we have a day off, but because we've all be insanely busy, I didn't even consider that she might this time. I got to leave by 3:00, and considering that I've worked at the very least until 4:45 every day since the beginning of April, this was incredibly special. I picked up Rachel early and we did all sorts of can't-do-after-normal-work-hours errands. We went to the town hall in our new town to drop off paperwork (they were going to send the water bill to our old address and we had to submit a change of address form. I mean, seriously? The reason we have a water bill in your town is because WE LIVE HERE NOW! -_-;;). We found out what we need to get library cards. And we stopped at some of the little shops on the main street of our town that we'd never been to before. Most were about to close, but the one we spent the most time in was Poppy Seed Studio, a beautiful clothing and accessories shop with a vintage, antique style. It had floaty summery dresses and vintage silk nightgowns and slips and a lot of flowery, lacy jewelry. Many of the accessories were of a sort of teatime-steampunk bent - keys and wire and pressed flowers and clocks. We discovered a tiny Willow Tree Angel hugging a book for a very good price, and we bought that and a set of really gorgeous postcards that were reminiscent of vaudeville posters, only with more flowers and kick-ass inspirational messages. I also bought this locally made flower headband:



The staff was extremely friendly and invited us to all sort of other events they're involved in :)

On Saturday, we went down to A Loom with a View in Newburyport, MA to check out looms. I've been wanting a loom for years, but I didn't seriously consider getting one until last year, and then I didn't want to actually buy one until we had a house and the space to actually use it. Once we knew we were getting the house, I started saving (and was able to put my gift check from being elected employee of the month towards it!). Rachel helped me research and I tried out a bunch of looms at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. We also stopped at A Loom with a View back in March to take a look at what they had, and I decided I most likely wanted a Schatt Flip Loom. I just wasn't sure what size I wanted. When I went down yesterday, we tried them all out, and I decided I wanted the 25-inch since I could always weave smaller on it if I wanted. I didn't have quite enough saved, but my beautiful self-sacrificing wife moved money from her fun money and fun-money-savings into my fun money account so I could get it right then and not have to wait until next weekend ;_; I'm so lucky I have her!

My loom is home now in the craft room and has met Rachel's spinning wheel, Rana :)



A lot of our flowers have started blooming! Every day we find new ones, and half the time we don't know what they are XD The people who lived here before us must have spent so much energy on their garden, because it's beautiful even this year.

Peonies beside our driveway:


Purple irises in our back yard:


And yellow irises too!


Yesterday evening, we went to my Uncle Bill's house for a cookout, onnacounta Memorial Day and because his birthday is next week. We got to see my awesome cousin Heather and her husband, Nate, and their INCREDIBLY ADORABLE children, Nora and Levi. We sat outside with our bare feet in the grass and had (veggie for me) burgers and hot dogs and pasta salad, while the kids ran around us, "on a boat to Mars and Christmas" XD On the way home, the drive was so beautiful. We stopped at the Wiggly Bridge, a little suspension bridge in York, Maine that goes over a tidal stream and a bunch of mud flats. The sun had just set, and it was hazy, making the pastel-rainbow sky like frosted glass over the dark trees and perfectly reflective water. We made silly jokes and ran around and jumped on the bridge until it undulated and clanged (this is what it's made for), and I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a perfect, wonderful wife. She fills up my life with a joy than can never be lost.

And today we're doing housework and we bought a metric ton of fresh fruit, and Freija is sitting on my lap for the first time since we moved in. Life is pretty (amazingly, blessedly) good :)

OMG OMG OMG n________n

caitirin got me beautiful and adorable and non-smutty KenshinxSanosuke dounjinshi for Valentine's Day! Eeeeeeeeeeee!

Two whole books of shorts, all beautiful and even sort of legible to an out-of-practice gaijin!

When we got home from work, we made Philly Cheese Steaks in wheat wraps for dinner. Then we got out the presents! XD

Caitirin got me the doujinshi and a box of my favorite LUSH things! A Karma bubble bar, a Floating Island (which I've been wanting to try) and two tins of Dream Time temple balm! Karma and Dream Time are my favorite LUSH scents :3

And last night, when I was feeling all little and fussy, she brought out part of our Saturday Valentine plans (we're going to have an inside picnic and do some other exciting things I don't know about yet). She bought me a huge bucket of different colors of glitter glue and a canvas bag, and I painted rainbow swirlies all over it! It looks really nice n________n

She also wrote me 100 reasons why she loves me *wibbles* I love her so much! I couldn't ask for a more wonderful wife! I'm married to the most beautiful, perfect, loving, creative girl in the world n_______n She's my reason for being.