#WeekendCoffeeShare: Fantasy Worlds

Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!

Grab a cup of coffee and share with us!  What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans?  Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

The link will be open from Friday July 26th at 7 am (Pacific Time) until Monday July 29th at 7 pm (Pacific Time) to give us a good range of “weekend”!

Welcome to another weekend! As seems to be my tradition, I had set out this weekend with the plans to NOT DO MUCH, and have already started to add to that list.

First, though, I promised some pictures from last weekends party! I didn’t actually end up taking many pictures – it was an interesting party for me. I had a lot of fun, but I imagine that for some people just looking in from the outside it wouldn’t necessarily look like I was having a good time, but I really was! There were a lot of people, but the weather outside was gorgeous – so sitting outside at 1 am was super-comfortable. And the hosts had set up their garage to be an “introvert corner” where people could sit and relax in a somewhat quieter atmosphere. I ended up spending a lot of time there, and next year will probably bring some games with me to see if I can get others to play. As it was, no one bothered me when I pulled out my notebook and wrote a bit, or just sat on the couch people-watching.

I danced a little, mingled a little, but my energy that night just ended up being a quieter, more observing, type of energy. And I LOVED that it was okay for me to be that way. No one hassled me to do anything differently than what I wanted to do.

Enjoying some time writing a bit of my short story, as I try to find my way to understanding this character.

As promised, I also took a picture of the treats that I took! It was a lot of fun making them all last week, and I was very proud of how they turned out!

Chocolate-Berry Fairy Cups! They were such a mixture of flavors, and I think they turned out spectacularly!

It was a late night for me, my ride to the party didn’t pick me up until 8 pm – nearly my bedtime! And I left at around 2 am (when my other ride was heading out). This is an annual event (with a different theme each year, it seems) and I hope that next year I have more social-energy going into it. But any party where I can be an introvert and allowed to just be in whatever state I want to be in is a WIN in my book.

This weekend I’m going to take a brief venture into another fantasy world – as a few of the businesses in my town are hosting Harry Potter themed celebrations so I’m going to check those out. Our town is going through a bit of a revitalization of the downtown area, and trying to claim itself as a city in its own right, rather than just a suburb, so have put together a “passport” for local shops – encouraging people to visit them this summer. I got one of the passports, but haven’t made my way to the shops yet, so hope to get some of those visited and enjoy a little downtown time (and maybe a stroll through the farmers market) before heading back home to do around-the-house stuff.

Like, creating a Warping Mill. I finally have all the pieces I need (I think!) and the tools I need (I believe!) so I can MAKE this thing, which SHOULD make my loom-working much easier. For those who are not familiar – when weaving the threads/yarn/materials that run up and down on the loom are the “warps” and those need to be strung onto the loom before you do any actual weaving. To do this you have to stretch them out and, well, load them onto the loom, in a particular way. The problem I’ve been encountering is that I don’t have the space to stretch them out as much as I’d like, and it just takes me far too long and far too much energy to get the loom “warped.” A Warping Mill is a way to get those warp-threads ready using less space and, because I’m making one that spins, a bit less energy on my part.

I found someone who was selling plans for building a Warping Mill, so decided to go ahead and try my hand at building one – especially since the ones pre-built cost over $100 and I was pretty sure I could find the necessary materials for less than that! It took a while to find a way to drill the holes I needed to fit the dowels (my little brother was able to track down the proper drill- bit! Yay!), but now I think I should be able to actually make this happen. Which is great because there are PROJECTS waiting for me….

When it’s all completed – this is roughly what my mill should look like. Fingers crossed that I do it properly!

Aside from that all, I’m hoping to get some writing and reading done. I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo this month, and am far behind my word-count goal but, more importantly, far behind in getting a draft of a short story I wanted to complete in order to enter it into an anthology contest. So, I have to get MOVING on that thing. Fingers crossed that I can make it happen.

That’s what I have in store for my weekend, what are you doing this weekend? Any plans?