A Belated Weekend Report with Pictures

I meant to post this on Monday, but, well, MONDAY.

This was my weekend:
SATURDAY

I did some spring cleaning, including moving the Minerva altar from the living room to the bedroom (I have altar shelves in both rooms, and the living room one tends to be focused on whatever is going on right now--often whichever book I'm working on--and I thought that since Minerva spent most of her time in the bedroom, she'd rather be there) and changing the comforter cover from the winter one to the spring one. This was actually a pretty emotional endeavor, because it meant washing the last of Minerva's fur and smell off of the other comforter cover. On the other hand, it really needed washing, because the last weeks of her life she had been spitting medicine all over it. (She was NOT happy about taking meds.)
Here's the altar now--that little wooden box with her picture on top of it has her ashes in it. A lovely sympathy card from my friend Karen Rose Smith is to the left.

Here is the gorgeous spring comforter (which was made especially for me, along with the wall hanging above it, by one of the artists at The Artisans' Guild)

The same bed, with cats a few hours later. If you look closely at Angus, the yellow cat, you can see that he is holding his right eye partially closed. He has something going on with it--probably viral, and returned from an occurrence a month ago--and I have to put antibiotic ointment in it twice a day. You can imagine how well THAT'S going.

Lest you think these guys are the only ones getting attention, I also spent some time playing with Luna. I need to do a post about her soon--did you realize I've had her for over a year?

I know the pictures are a little blurry...she rarely stops moving!






SUNDAY

On Sunday, my friends Ellen and Chris and I had a small birthday celebration for Jo, my step-daughter's mom. Some of you may be aware that Jo, as well as being sort-of family, came to Blue Moon Circle rituals for a couple of years before she had a massive heart attack a little more than a year ago. To be honest, no one expected her to be celebrating this birthday (she's since had another smaller heart attack, open-heart bypass surgery, and is in her 11th year of dialysis), but she's tougher than she looks. Or more stubborn. Either way, we broke her out of the nursing home for a few hours so we could celebrate her turning 54. She had a great time.

Chris made these great cupcakes

Jo asked for pizza, so that's what we had.

Blowing out the candle

Opening gifts

Of course, in with all of the cleaning and partying, I also did a lot of writing. Here's a picture from Saturday evening of Magic helping me.

The Red Writing Chair

So tell me, what did you do last weekend? Anything interesting planned for the one ahead?

A Robercon Report

Last weekend, I went to the RoberCon Science Fiction convention in nearby Binghamton, NY. This is my report.

Short version: IT WAS A BLAST.

What, you wanted a little more detail than that? Okay.

First of all, I got to spend much of the weekend meeting and then hanging out with one of my favorite authors, Tamora Pierce.

Amazingly enough, she seems to think I'm pretty cool too, and loves the Baba Yaga books!

One of the many panels we did, along with moderator/con organizer Crystal Sarakas and pal Nancy Holzner and a horror writer who was surprisingly nice :-)

We went out for an amazing dinner (that's my friend Ellen grinning on the other side of Tamora)

Oysters Rockefeller! One of my favorites. They were delish.

In the Green Room with Nancy, Tamora, and Crystal on day two. (I'm holding my new friend.)

On Sunday I got to see Sophie, Robin, and Nate (and dad George)

Look who we found!

In short, it was a great weekend. I came home with a bunch of signed books and some terrific memories. Oh, and a red dragon, in honor of Wickedly Powerful...

This is me at the end of the day on Sunday. Cons are exhausting.

Stay tuned, because there are all sorts of fun things coming up here on the blog, including a bunch of giveaways and some cool announcements. I'll be sending out another newsletter soon too, so make sure you're signed up. (Just fill out the form at the top left of the blog.)

What did you do this last weekend?

Garden's End

My plans for the weekend had been to do some cleaning, make a dump run on Saturday, go to the last farmer's market, and then spend Sunday writing. The Saturday schedule went about as expected, and I had a lovely time walking around the market, eventually coming home with these goodies:

Purple cauliflower, the last of the corn, fresh local apples, a pot of basil, organic bacon & sausage from local farmers

I came to find a large, fun box on my doorstep. Gods only know what my mail carrier thought when she delivered it. The lovely Robert Skinner, who made a special broom for me earlier in the year The Broom sent me a box full of broom-making supplies, so Blue Moon Circle could make one of our own together. He's even going to make me a "how to" video. We'll probably bless and consecrate the supplies at Samhain, even if we don't have a chance to make the broom itself until later.

Acme Broom Company--Contains 1 Flying Broom Kit

 My plans for Sunday changed when I woke up to this:

Kale with frost. Luckily, kale is hearty, and once the day warmed, it was just fine.

That's the kale, which is one of the few things left in the garden, covered with frost. It was the second serious frost of the season (and the second morning when the temps hit below 29 degrees), but it got really nice in the afternoon, so that made it Time to Put the Garden to Sleep for the Winter. I called my stalwart pal Ellen, and we spend a sunny afternoon clearing the remaining beds of debris, planting next year's garlic, and harvesting the herbs. (Plus the less appealing chores like rolling up and putting away hoses and such.) The lovely weather and good company made the work go quickly, and there is always something satisfying about having the garden all neat and tidy. The end of the season is bittersweet, but this too is part of the Wheel of the Year.

You can't see it now, but this is where the garlic will come up next year. And there's the kale, looking fine.

The fish pond, with the filter & fountain removed. A heater will keep it from freezing over later.

Lemon balm, chocolate mint, thyme, and rosemary for drying.

Miraculously, I even managed to get 2,100 words written later in the day, but boy, was I tired.

Still, it was a very satisfying weekend, for the most part. What did you do with yours? Did you put anything away for winter? Harvest anything good?