Xanaphia

Feestjuh

Tue, 19 May 2009 21:17:14 GMT

Het is misschien een beetje kort dag, maar aanstaande zaterdag (de 23e) vier ik mijn verjaardag (29 alweer...)
Als je het leuk vind om langs te komen, laat het dan even weten ivm inkopen.
Vanaf ongeveer 2 uur 's middags ben je welkom, maar dan is er kans op familie en is mijn kleine meisje er ook.
Het gaat 's avonds gewoon door ;)

Als je mijn adres nog niet hebt, stuur dan even een mailtje naar kampen at hotmail punt com...

update (long overdue)

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:32:56 GMT

Eindelijk was ik weer eens aan het lezen op livejournal. Ik heb echt heel erg lang er niets mee gedaan (nog nooit eigenlijk). De laatste post is alweer van ruim een jaar geleden. Er is in die tijd wel een hoop verandert, en toch eigenlijk heel weinig.
Ik ga deze pagina maar eens als uitlaatklep gebruiken. Al ben ik bang dat ik op dit moment een tientonner nodig ga hebben.

Het afgelopen jaar heb ik aan de antidepressiva gezeten, voornamelijk omdat ik zwaar oververmoeid was na de geboorte van Lief meisje. Nu ben ik daar een paar weken vanaf en op zich gaat het wel beter nu. Ik ben nu vooral blij dat ik een beetje van de bijwerkingen af ben. Ik had heel veel last van zweten en ik werd 's nachts tig keer wakker. Dat is gelukkig nu weer voorbij.

Ik heb de laatste tijd veel te weinig tijd besteed aan contact met vrienden. Ik ga dat weer wat proberen op te pakken,maar dat zal altijd wel moeilijk blijven. Het hebben van een kindje heeft een veel grotere impact dan dat ik vantevoren had kunnen vermoeden. Ik ben hardstikke dol op ons kleine meisje. Ze kan al zoveel en weet me iedere keer te verbazen en te vertederen. Ik zou haar niet meer willen missen. Maar aan de andere kant is het ook heel zwaar om een moeder te zijn. Je moet consistent zijn, altijd opletten en er altijd zijn voor haar. Je kunt alleen nog maar weg als zij mee gaat of als er iemand anders kan oppassen. Ook als ze ligt te slapen, kun je de deur niet uit. Je kunt dan wel even op adem komen, maar je bent vaak zo moe dat je eigenlijk het liefste gelijk in bed kruipt. Ik mis de vrijheid van voordat Lief meisje er was. Dan kon je in het weekend uitslapen, laat naar bed gaan, snelle beslissingen nemen om ergens heen te gaan en vaker larpen, ook samen met Drahkan.
Nu moet je met alles rekening houden met het kleine meisje, dat op dit moment boven ligt te slapen in haar bedje. Ruim twee jaar geleden kon ik nog alles doen wat ik wilde; ging ik gemiddeld iedere maand larpen en was bijna om het weekend wel weg.
Nu zit ik bijna ieder weekend braaf thuis met de kleine, of bij de (schoon)ouders. Drahkan heeft vaak dienst in het weekend, zeker het afgelopen half jaar, omdat hij meer werkte dan daarvoor. Maar we hadden (en hebben) het geld nodig. En dan zit ik met Lief meisje. Ook als Drahkan 's avonds moet werken, dan moet ik voor de kleine zorgen en ook als hij met de band moet oefenen of optredens heeft. Drahkan is gisteren vertrokken naar de Sum om op te bouwen en dus zit ik tot en met maandag alleen met Lief meisje. Ik ga vanaf zaterdag maar naar mijn ouders om een beetje steun te hebben. Eigenlijk was het de bedoeling dat Lief meisje en ik ook naar de Sum zouden gaan morgen, maar vanwege financiële redenen en het voorspelde petweer gaat dat niet door. Met Lief meisje in een tentje zitten een weekend lang, dat gaat niet werken, want daarvoor is ze veel te pittig (heeft ze vooral van haar papa). Ze kan af en toe een echte dramakoningin zijn.

Ik zit nog steeds niet goed in mijn vel. Ik ben een ontzettende emotie-eter. Als ik blij ben, ga ik soms eten, maar als ik me rot voel, dan ga ik vreten. Ik heb ook net nog een zak chips naar binnen zitten werken. En het stomme is, dat als ik me volgevreten heb, ik me een poosje later alleen maar meer naar voel. Vooral omdat ik nog steeds veel te zwaar ben, ondanks dat ik al twee kledingmaten kleiner ben dan deze tijd vorig jaar. En aangezien ik nu ook nog last heb van het maandelijkse geneuzel ben ik al helemaal niet happy. Ik heb nu net van een antibiotica kuur van een week achter de rug omdat ik na wat een verkoudheid leek weer een ontsteking heb gekregen van de holtes naar het lijkt. Alleen vloekte de antibiotica met mijn pijnstillers voor de menstruatieklachten en ben ik bijna 3 dagen kotsmisselijk geweest en werd de pijn niet goed tegen gehouden. Dus ik zit weer in een dipje en zou het liefste gelijk mijn bed in zijn gegaan, maar ben in plaats daarvan gaan internetten en chips eten.

Er is nog zoveel wat ik wil doen, maar of ik durf niet, of ik voel me bezwaard of ik zoek weer allerlei uitvluchten om dingen niet te doen.

Ik moet nog een achtergrond schrijven, een kostuum ontwerpen en maken, en ik wil ook weer vaker afspreken met vrienden. Maar ik heb of oppas nodig, of meer tijd om rustig aan dingen te werken of ik moet Lief meisje overal mee naartoe nemen en ik weet niet of anderen dat wel leuk vinden. De meeste mensen zijn niet ingericht op een wervelwindje van anderhalf.

Eigenlijk wil ik nog wel verder typen, maar ik moet ook gaan slapen. Lief meisje heeft diaree en ik ben bang dat ik morgenochtend weer een bedje te verschonen heb. En dan kan ik beter maar een beetje fit zijn om dat te kunnen handelen in mijn eentje.

back to the doctor...

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:02:03 GMT

I finally called for the results of the bloodwork this morning. Have been really ill the last few days. Finally caught the virus Drahkan had. The one with the extreme throat ache, headaches, diziness, swollen glands, etc. That according to the doctor should last about 3 weeks or so. And it really hurts to speak. But I finally called despite of the extremely sore throat.
But there was nothing strange in the results of the bloodwork. No strange values and no pfeiffer either. So pysically there should be nothing wrong with me (ok, the virus excluded but I only got the symptoms after the blood had been drawn). But that means that the other symptoms I had are either stress or depression related. Which does not really surprise me, but still scares the crap out of me. I have a doctors appointment in about half an hour and the weather is trying to match my current mood (dark and overcast, about to rain).

Emergenza, etcetera

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:08:11 GMT

This weekend saw the finals of the Emergenza festival, at least the Benelux finals that is.

drahkan was playing there with Have a Go Heroes. On friday they had another band competition. They won and can now play at the BestFest festival on the first of September. It is kinda funny that Drahkan actually used to organise the predecesor of the festival, called Nieuw Best Peil. In it's glory days, more than 5000 people attended that festival in one day. But I do not think that many people will come to it nowadays. But back to Emergenza.
My mother would babysit Lief Meisje and my dad and sister would join me and watch Drahkan preform. They arrived in the afternoon and we went for a short walk before dinner. Almost got sooked due to a passing thunderstorm but managed to get back home almost dry.
At about 20:00 I had just put Lief Meisje to bed and my inlaws showed up. They had wanted to see Lief Meisje, but they could now only sneak a peek at her lying in her bed. I am not taking her out of her bed just to let the parents-in-law see her,
We left shortly after nine o'clock. I normally would have gone earlier, but I could not just leave my mother alone and my dad an sis were not that anxious to be spending a large amount of time before Have a Go Heroes would perform. They would be the last band to perform that noght, having the best scores from the previous round.
There were quite some larpers there when we arrived. I started to greet everyone. My sister was quite amused by that because she never had seen me hug quite so many people. She knows some larpers besides my hubby and me but still thinks they are quite weird (in that respect, knowing twilight_banana is not helping :P). I kept checking on them as I greeted more and more people and decided to get a t-shirt. All those people with Hero tees and me not wearing one. That was just wrong. Drahkan helped me to a nice purple one.
Then my dad and sister had disapeared. They had gone to listen to the bands playing but I hadn't noticed that. They said they were fine on there own and I left them to socialize with some more friends. I ended up on the stands with my namesake (2 by maglok's counting) and lupijn. When Have a go Heroes was about to start, we all went to the stage. It was really cool to see that many people in Hero tees and we cheered through the announcers intro. The announcer was really bad by the way. I think he was foreign. He did not speak English very well and with such a thick accent that most of us did not understand a word he was saying. The Heroes were greeted with great enthousiasm. They played well, but the lead singer could not be heard that well. The audiance had a blast and sung along with the songs that were from Snakes and Ladders. I, of course, knew a few more lyrics but that is no more than to be expected. The lead singer also dedicated a song to his dad. I think most did not even hear, and if they did, the signficance would have been lost on them. His father has passed away quite some time ago and was actually in the music business. It got my hairs on end anyway.
After the last song they played, we screamed for an encore but unfortunately that was not allowed.
Then we waited for the results. Eight band were judged by the jury. The six highest ranking bands by votes and the winners from Amsterdam and Belgium. They started the countdown from eight to one with the prizes for individual bandmembers in between (best guitar player, best drummer, etc). We all hoped the Heroes would be named last :)
But to all our surprise, they were called out in fifth place. Half the audiance gasped in shock and started making sad disgruntled noices and some even booed the jury. We all expected to at least see the Heroes in the top 2 or 3. This was a shock. I waited for the end of the results. A group of some really young guys won in the end. I had not seen them play. Then I heared Drahkan had stormed out of the room just after the announcement of the Best bass guitar player. I mistakinly thought he had gone outside and starting to search for him quite frantically. It turned out he had gone backstage to cool down. He had been shocked by the result as well. I found him there and we both went back into the hall. I had to leave then because my mother needed to be relieved of baby sitting duty. My parents ended up not just driving my sister home, but also janestarz and nokey, as arranged before. Lupijn would have stayed at our place because he also could not get home by public transport but he hitched a ride with the Heroes singer, who lives in the same city. Drahkan arrived home shortly after I did. The bubble had burst. The next day instead of the jury report, the votes from the audience apeared on the Emergenza site. It seems like the organisation disagreed with the judges but is unable to do something about it. At least Jeroen, the presenter of the previous two rounds did for sure. We susped he posted the votes, which clearly show the Have a Go Heroes win by almost 70 (!!!!) votes. The actual winners had about 80 votes less and were in fourth place according to the audience. I would say that if a band generates that much enthousiasm in it's audience and clearly wins the "publieksprijs" if there had been any, should rank higher that fifth place. But I guess the jury was comprised of people with a very specific music taste. Stupid jury. To me the audience is the best jury and Have a Go Heroes passed with flying colors there.

I have been home from work since last thursday. I had a severe headache, was feeling way to tired and felt like I was coming down with a fever. On saturday I felt ok, mainly I guess because of the large amount of adrenaline in my system. Yesterday I left for work but turned back after a few km. My head felt like it was about to explode and I felt sick to the point of pucking. I decided to ring the doctor for an appointment but ended up stopping by the practice because the phone was busy during more than 15 minutes. At the desk I could get an appointment for that afternoon. At the doctor's I described al my symptoms. He gave me form for bloodwork. They are going to check my HB, glucose level and a bunch of other things. If there is nothing to be found that way, it is most likely that my symptoms are stress- or depression related. I went to the hospital straight away, but had to turn back when I reached the entrance because I forgot my hospital card. The second time around they relieved me of 5 viles of blood and I can check on the results in 3 to 4 days. I am wondering if there is actually something physically wrong with me. But I guess I'll find out soon now.
We went to Drahkan's parents last night to have dinner. I was not feeling that good, though better than in the morning. It was fun. Drahkan's two sisters and their husband/boyfriend were also there. Tomorrow morning the parents-in-law will be leaving for a vacation of about six weeks to Scandinavia.
As soon as Lief Meisje wakes up again, I'll give her fruit, we'll get ingredients for dinner and go to Eindhoven. We'll pick up my mother-in-law and go and buy the chair for use in the car after the one we currently use, They promised to buy the car seats for Lief Meisje after the current one, which we got from my parents, along with the baby stroller. But the little munchkin just woke up. So that's it for now.

*HUGS*

pink cloud with a dark lining...

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:22:00 GMT

I am still wondering why cards for when a girl is born are almost always light pink. I absolutely hate that colour! But I guess most will be on a pink cloud anyway...

I finally took down the cards we got when Lief Meisje was born. I think I'll make a scrapbook with them.
After half a year it seemed that it was time to let the very pink line adorning the top of the back wall come down. I have read through all the cards again. In retrospect we received cards from people that we did not expect them from. But on the other hand there are some people from which I would have expected a card or a visit and we received none. We have actually received less cards then we sent out....
Somehow that makes me sad. It is such a small gesture to send a card back when you receive the announcement that a little person has entered this world. I know people tend to be busy a lot of late. I have the same problem. Raising a little girl is a task by itself and working 4 days a week and the households and larp and preparations is very busy indeed.
I always try to send a birthday card if I know when a persons birthday is. I do tend to forget a bit more of late. I still suffer from the nasty side effect of the pregnancy hormones that makes it very hard to stay focused on things for an extended time. I get distracted very easily and have to write a lot of things down to help myself remember. I never had to do that before I became pregnant.

There are some friends that I have not seen in quite a while. Staying in contact with people when you have a baby seems like a hard thing to do. You come into closer contact with people that also have children or those who are pregnant or wanting to get pregnant. People for whom children are a far away concept are people who you lose contact with. There are no more spontanious outings, no more staying out till late unless there is a baby sitter present. And even then staying away for too long does not feel right. The people that remain are the real friends I guess. It seems I do not have that many of them at the moment.
Maybe that is partly my own fault. Investing time in friendships is hard right now. I think I might be heading for a break down due to being overworked. I do not enjoy working like I used to. I am tired most of the time. I get ill a lot. I do not feel like doing anything. I have no spirit for most things. Most time is consumed by work and taking care of Lief Meisje. Drahkan and me have only little time together, him having the band, VA FLM and working irregular hours. Have not been totally happy in quite some time. My body is not the way it is supposed to be. I was already overweight when I got pregnant but now I am about 30 kilos over a weight I would consider normal for my length.
I am trying to lose some weight but I refuse to go on a diet. I have seen what that has done to my mother and I do not want to be jojo-ing my entire life. I am eating less and healthier and that seems to be helping a bit. I should exercise more. But I do not feel like it. I know doing sports will most likely boost my energy but I have not the spirit to start with it again. I normally would want a certain day a week to go to the gym but with Drahkan's job, that is not an option for he would have to be at home with Lief meisje. She can not be left home alone, even though she would most likely just be asleep.
I have been feeling very insecure again of late. I am terrified of other people's vision of me and that vision being bad. I can not really explain the feeling here but it comes down to me needing some kind of social confirmation.
I should just pull myself together, start exercising and do things that I want to do. But the road from thinking that and actually doing that still seems a long way from now. I hate being this depressed and the fact that I will have to get myself out of this again. At least writing about it helps a bit...

Some good, some bad and some more good stuff

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 08:58:34 GMT

drahkan was nog feeling well, so my prediction that he would not be joining me tuesday morning was correct. At the CB everything seemed ok. Lief Meisje only gained a little over 300 grams in 1,5 months. But she had been ill and throwing up just after the previous visit and she wasn't drinking well back then. But the doctor did not see anything wrong with what we were feeding her. She gets 4 bottles of 200 ml milk a day and a small jar of fruit and a small jar of vegetables and she usually eats and drinks all of them.
The doctor did check her hips a few times, as if she did not believe the result from the CT that Lief Meisje's hips are ok.
She seemed irked at the fact that Lief Meisje had a CT instead of a X-ray but the pediatrician at the hospital thought her too young for an X-ray.
She did not say anything else about it, but I think she checked about 3 times more, which of course I did notice.
Taking lots of tablespoons of salt with me every time I visit the CB. A mother's instinct is really quite acurate in most cases with me.
But our little girl is doing fine and she is very happy and active at the moment. She is discovering all kinds of new things to do and loves making new noises. She is using her feet a lot more, which tells me her hips are fine now. She uses her feet to pick up toys, move herself around, etc. She is not crawling yet. But she will be soon I think.

The rest of this week was rather slow. Work as usual and a update seminar on Java 5 on friday.
Yesterday I got quite a disturbing letter from the IBG. It turnes out I earned too much in 2004 to have right to StuFi.
I only had a loan at the time, so that should not be a problem. But I think I ommitted to turn in my OV card.
It is actually still in my wallet right now. And that is almost 73 euro worth in fines a month. Yay, that is going to hurt my wallet, to use a translated Dutch saying. It does not say how much the total is, so I'll have to ring them on monday. I vagely remember turning in the OV card, but then I should have a receit and not have the card in my wallet, right?
I do know I did not pick up the 2005 card, so I should be save for that year. But this is not funny at all. Am slamming my head for not turning in the OV.
Drahkan had a stag party of the drummer of Have a Go Heroes. It started at about 14:30.
I went to have a bbq at my parents-in-law. We eventually ate off a grill plate outside, with Lief Meisje in the play pen next to us.
She was a bit fussy when we were eating and she wanted to eat as well. So I fed her vegetables inbetween the grilling of the meat.
It was ok. We talked about Lief Meisje a lot and she constantly got our attention. I got home at about 21:30 and went to bed not long after that.

I woke up early this morning. At about 6:00 drahkan came back to bed from what I thought was a toilet visit. I turned out he had just come home! I got up and washed my hair. That takes a long time with me, with my hair length and all and Lief meisje usually does not grant me the time to do so when she is awake.
I have now fed Lief meisje her first bottle of milk of the day and her fruit. Her dad has just finished showering.
He has to practice with the band for the performances in Best and Tilburg on June 15 and 16 at 11:00.
He is pretty hung over due to sleep deprevation, but he did that himself. He has to take Lief meisje to his parents now.
I will leave in about an hour for my sisters place. She gave me a ticket for the Doloris O'Riordan (leading lady of The Cranberries) concert tonight for my birthday. I'll pick her up and we'll drive to Amsterdam. The concert is in Paradiso, but we'll go shopping and have dinner first.
Sis and me used to go to a lot of concerts together. Usually bands like K's Choice, The Cranberries and Live.
We used to braid eachothers hair the night before. I got 18 braids tops and I have given her almost 100 at one time.
I have way more patience to do such things then her. So she usually got many more braids.
We always wanted to be in the frst row and usually managed to get there by arriving at noon with a concert starting at 20:30.
I think our extreme was at the Gelredome when we were there at 7:00 and got into the third row at a stadium concert.
Some people had been camping for 2 days in advance for that concert.
We have not been to a concert since she got pregnant almost 2 years ago. And now we will most likely not wait for the concert hall to long.
Maybe we have outgrown that. And it is a small hall this time. We'll just check in advance what the situation is and if there are already people there.
I am really looking forward to it. It has also been a while since I last saw Sis without her baby (and mine) being there.
But I have to grab some food and other stuff and then I'm off.

Last week

Mon, 28 May 2007 19:19:15 GMT

This week was ok. At work there were some high priority problems coming my way. Had to synchronize 3 databases for the old framework and figure out what patch scripts needed to be run. Had to install a new Application Server at the office because our admin did not have the time and I needed to run a test on a newer version than we had. Friday ended with the solution to the most pressing problem from Amsterdam. Quickly updated the helpdesk application with the solution and drove home to fetch Lief Meisje from daycare. I came into the Babybos and I did not see her. Because of the nice weather she was outside, sleeping in a baby stroller. She was a bit cranky that I had to wake her up to take her home.

Saturday I want into town wit Lief Meisje as drahkan had to work a day shift. I had to pick up the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb in English.

drahkan had bought it for me for my birthday but he had gotten the Dutch version and I like reading books in the original version. Unfortunately I could not get the hard cover version, which was out of stock and is out of print. But I have all three in the same paperback version now. Also shopped for some gifts for fathers day. I nowadays never know when I’ll be able to go into town and buy gifts so I try and shop in advance.

I also went to the fabric store. I bought fabric for a new kimono for myself and for Lief Meisje. All the lovely flower designs I found did not have enough left on the roll so I decided on a deep pinkish red cotton for the top kimono, a light yellow cotton for the under kimono and a lovely grey based flower pattern mix for the obi and sash. I still have some time until the Yoshida picnic but it is better to have the fabric at hand ahead of time. Just hope the little girl will like wearing a kimono. I will probably adjust the pattern to allow a bit more freedom of movement.

Yesterday morning Lief Meisje greeted me with the most wonderful smile. She spotted me and her entire face just lit up. Those moment make it absolutely wonderful to have a little girl like her. She can sometimes be obnoxious and irritating and stuck up. But she can also be absolutely adorable, sweet and funny. She takes after her dad in that respect. But she just has to smile to win my heart again.
That afternoon we went to S&S. Had not seen them in quite a while. They are old university friends of mine, him finishing the same study I had and her having started out in the same faculty (mathematics) , so Drahkan was unsure he would have much to talk about. But they are also married, they have just moved to a new house and she is expecting a baby in 3 weeks. Lief meisje and talking about babies took up most of the time. Afterwards we had dinner at my parents place. S&S moved to Maassluis, so we were only half an hours drive away. My sister, her hubby and my niece were also there. My niece is still a bit afraid of Lief Meisje. Lief Meisje pinched her quite hard a few weeks ago (she is not subtle in any way yet) when she petted her very gently and that startled her badly. But in a few months I hope they will be playing together. Lief meisje is a bit to small with almost 6 months and her niece being a little over a year.

Drahkan is not feeling well and I took charge of Lief Meisje this morning. Unfortunately for me she woke up a 2:30 in the morning and wanted her soother. After getting it back, she started playing in her bed and I crawled back into ours. My hubby never even noticed. I did get to have a nap this afternoon, which was really nice. It is hard to get over to little sleep. Sleeping in late is impossible with Lief Meisje there and no daddy at home. The little gobbo is not for sleeping long stretches during the day anymore. And it is no fun gong to bed at 21:00 all the time.

It was that I checked Drahkan’s calendar and noticed the scheduled rehearsal with the band, or else he would have been very late. And they have only a few rehearsals left before the finals of Bestfest and Emergenza in June. The weekend before will not feature any rehearsals since the drummer is getting married in that week.

So I have just fed Lief Meisje, gave her a bath (very much needed after the carrot dinner she had :P) and a bottle of milk. She is asleep right now and I will be soon also I guess. Have to be up early tomorrow to take Lief Meisje to the cb at 9:00. Am curious if she gained a lot of weight and length. I think the fruit and vegetables are going in very well and she seems to be heavier. But we’ll see in the morning. Drahkan said he would come along but I know how he is with getting up early in the morning so I think he’ll not be out of bed in time. But maybe he’ll surprise me.

Charm XII

Tue, 22 May 2007 21:51:37 GMT

This weekend was really great. I have not been able to play LARP properly since I became pregnant with Lief Meisje.

For some people, larping with a “dipper lint” seems to mean that the person is not worth playing with, while it only signals that you may not hit the person in question. This fact really irked me at the Vortex so I gave up playing and did not go to Moots 2 last year and have not been back yet, except to visit drahkan while taking Lief Meisje along.

I had Symbols two weekends ago but I had a shoulder injury at the time that prevented me from archery and fighting in general because it hurt like hell. Did have good roleplay there but I did miss the fighting part.

This Charm was the third Charm I played and the first one I could play properly.

I had wanted to play at Charm already for quite a while and had been asked to several times already. But until then there had always been another LARP at the same time with a character that I would not give up that easily. That character came to an abrupt ending in the most emotional and though scene I have ever experienced. I still get goose bumps when I think about it. But that story might be told another time.

That character had become sort of a duo role with lupijn‘s character and we both felt sorry that we could not play those characters together again. So we decided to make a new character couple to play. And the live where we would play them became Charm.

The character I set up is a half-orc barbarian named Lia. She has been raised by her human mother to become a healer. Mother got killed by green skin mob and she was left for dead. Enter Lupijn’s character who saved her, nursed her back to health and took her with him. She is very young (is 14 by now, would have been about 11 when Kilian and she met) and was supposed to go into puberty the first Charm we played. But getting pregnant and not being able/allowed to fight kind of delayed that. She hides the fact that she has green pointy ears and green spots on her face by wearing a hood most of the time. She has done so during the first two Charms and the only one that IC knew that she is an half-orc was Kilian. She has healed a lot of people during that time and it was now time to see if puberty would get Lia killed or release her of wearing the hood all the time.

So I went on my way to the terrain directly from work.

I got the terrain where Charm would be held early. I helped drag boxes filled with costumes to the monster tent, helped set up named tent and helped put up the lights in the trees. Then I was shooed away from the monster tent because of stuff being brought in that was not for player’s eyes and there was nothing else left to do. So I started getting ready. It turned out we would go IC in the forest and again Lupijn was not there yet. He arrived in the nick of time to go IC with the rest of us. The evening was spend getting into the Helena mood and catching up with what was going on story wise. A player had an ogre as character and I was very suspicious of his intensions. Complained about a toothache to Kilian who advised chewing a bandage. Angus was the only one to notice that and ask if I was ok. An inquisitor looking for necromancer or people hiding them showed up. He claimed he would kill Helena worshipers if that would get his job done. Se we did not trust him one bit. His helper Anne on the other hand did seem trustworthy and she offered to teach Lia how to guide people through the forest, starting the next morning. The saurus beastlings showed up for the first time and first contact was cool. The inquisitor became “Majoor hoed” to them after being “Majoor Muts” at first. (Smirk)

Went OC at about 3:30 when Kilian had finished writing two scrolls but showered before that. Had a very good time singing songs with a couple of people and went to bed at 5:30. Tried to sleep but could not because of iron bars underneath the bed poking me to much. Was extremely bouncy in the morning anyway and got dressed early. Was surprised that breakfast was not planned before time in because I would need to eat before putting in the false orc teeth. Managed to get Lupijn out of bed on time with some unexpected help. ‘Butch’ almost pulled him off the bunk bed with mattress and all. He had requested me to get him out of bed in time. But I had not planned to do it in such a way.

The increased green spots and the teeth that came through during the night made it impossible to hide my heritage. I first showed the teeth to Kilian, who noticed the increased green spots as well. What to do now. I could not go out without people noticing. He got Endar and Sara Witteveen (anemoona), who are the other two Helena followers (him being the “paladin”, she a bishop of the faith). They were shocked to find out the truth but since they had gotten to know Lia during the past more than a year their opinion was that I still was Lia, the kind, caring healer and Helena follower. But would they be in for a surprise… I decided to try and hide my heritage or at least try to a bit longer. But the teeth did give a lot away. When I saw the ogre, I went crazy. I rushed to him, got to his back (he was carrying a tower shield) and hit him hard with my big club. Endar was the first who noticed it and tried to stop me from hitting him again. That worked and when I realized what I had done, I dropped my club and ran out of the gate to the grounds of the inn we were staying in, with Endar in tow. He caught up to me at the edge of the forest. We had a talk and he convinced me to come back to the tavern and he would talk to the ogre about the situation. I tried to get to the ogre every time I saw him for longer then a certain time with Kilian and Endar trying to stop me or distract me. When Angus say my ears and teeth he almost charged at me. His wife was killed by orcs and he caries a grudge. Sara, Endar and Kilian stopped him by convincing him that I was still the same person as before. Mass for the gods of day was hell because I realized I had gone against every god of day and had disobeyed every law of Helena by charging the ogre. I still got the blessing though. Had to show Anne what I was but she seemed not to care much. She instructed me in guiding anyway, which took most of the afternoon and also some time the next day. I did graduate and was deemed capable to guide people from now on. We did run onto a couple of marauders heading for the tavern. They were all killed except the woman by the time we got back. Endar had taken charge of her, because that was the right thing to do. He had only one eye but Butch had tried to give her back one by sewing in a dead eye in the other socket. I got really mad at him for that and wanted to attack him but I first removed the eye together with Kilian, who healed her and administered heavy booze as an anesthetic. Then she was locked in the basement of the tavern. She would have to go on trial but there was one person of nobility short to for a court. The group had among other thing killed 4 soldiers of Turingen and the Inquisitor.

Most people spent that day preparing for some big ritual to summon the big bad necromancer. I tried to find a way to focus my anger by talking to several people to find out if they could help me or give me more information about half-orcs. But no one could help Lia so far. The ritual to call the great necro worked like a charm, but we could not get to him because he had erected a force field to protect himself. Runes appeared on the ground that flamed white. I tried to put out the fire but the water I poured on it evaporated and left the foot of a rather large undead. I jumped back, dropped the water skin put back on my backpack and charged in head first with my club held high. Hit a lot of undead in the process. A mummy tried to scare me away but in my rage I hit him anyway but he hit me back harder. Went down a couple of times, each time being healed by Kilian. Pulled some people out of the danger zone and fed some healing potions. The big bad necro was killed by an even bigger bad necro with a almost 4 meter high monster. He disappeared and the monster was brought down eventually. Made sure everyone was being healed and was to tired to go after the ogre again. Rage drains you. Went to heal some people in the tavern. Forst patient ran off and I went to drag him back by the hairs. But he had to pronounce himself being a Anata follower, so I let him do that, even though he cut himself even more. Dragged him back and put him together anyway. Put Warrick back into one piece as well and had to help with restraining Mioni. She sank her claw into my already weak arm and Kilian in trying to free me, got stuck underneath a nail as well. With the injured hand Lia went to see the Mass for the gods of night. The saurus had requested people to be present at a ritual only played out once every ten year. It was the story of how with the help of the four gods of the night a great enemy of the saurus was killed. The enemy was portrayed by Bram and Whisper, priestess of Helos, the god of the dead and Lia decided to check on him as soon as we could enter the ritual circle again. But he was given healing herbs before we could even properly check him over and deemed friend of the Saurus. Lia felt very at ease at the Mass, which confused her even more faith wise.

When I came back, Kilian and Angus decided to put me back together again as I looked like shit. As I was helping to put Angus back together (healers always heal themselves last), a group of Seelie appeared from the forest. It was breathtaking. Lia had no idea what was going on. She just felt happy and there was no more pain. The wounds had magically disappeared. She and Kilian locked hands and stood there watching as the Manos priest was taken away by the Seelie. We went to ask what had happened and we heard Daphne would tell a story. Little did we know that we would end up in Radon’s debt because of the vision we had in the freezing cold. Went to bed after some talking and it turned out to be 5:30 again after showering. I did get an extra mattress and slept.

Woke up at 9:15, with almost everyone still sleeping. Woke up Lupijn in phases. I told Nala in the bathroom that I would get him out of his sleeping bag if he would not be out by the time I had fixed my face painting. I do not know what she did but he was up before I was finished.

I still got the blessing of the gods of day at Mass and went for my last leg of the crash course guiding, which was cut short by Saurus IC and big groups of children and adults walking around through the forest as well. Butch came along to be guided and I almost attacked him. He is so dumb. And he almost got lost as well.

A new inquisitor arrived that got a lot more respect than the other one. She was of nobility and that would have made a trial possible for the one eyed lady. But Endar had just sent her on her way. Would he get in trouble? In the end he did not get into much trouble it seemed.

Another ritual was planned. This time to kill an Unseelie (evil counterpart of the Seelie) that was trying to get through a stone Nala held. They can only be hit by every type of attack once before they become immune to it. So would have to hit it with everything possible once. Daphne asked me to hit it with my club as well as it would appear. But it was to beautiful to hit at first and very powerful after that. After cooling my rage by trying to hit it as many times as possible (which of course had no effect) I pointed my attention to the wounded after being downed a couple of times. I put Daphne back together again and fixed the crooked stitches Angus had made so she would not have to bad scars. There was no more magical or divine healing left to avoid scarring.

Then the event was ended. We had a group photo session with the Helena followers and I changed back into my normal gear and cleaned my face and teeth. Goodbyes were as hard as usual because I won’t see most of the people for some time now. I was to late to go along to eat pancakes and lupijn would drive home with Angus and would take a train back to his place. I eventually drove Mordochai and the ogre, who turned out to be his baby brother, to Breda. Drove around way to long trying to find the train station. But I eventually got there and drove home. Got a burger on the way and I came home with a lot of bruises and bumps and aching muscles but it was absolutely worth it. I got to give Lief Meisje her last bottle of the day and went to bed not long there after. I slept till about eleven the next day (thanx to daddy taking care of Lief Meisje) and worked the afternoon. Today took care of Lief Meisje and have now finally found the time to write this report. Am still in LARP afterdip. Hope it will subside soon.

One hour and counting...

Fri, 18 May 2007 10:06:59 GMT

I'm not supposed to go online at work other than for work purposes but I am really not feeling like working (way to bouncy). Even though I do not feel like it, I have already specified about 40 scenarios for a software test that will take place somewhere in the coming two weeks or so I guess.
And I still need to work out what the expected results of these tests are supposed to be. It is a registration and billing system for local schips going through locks, under bridges and into mainland harbours. So I have to virtually let different schips go upstream or downstream on a river, passing different checkpoints and billing them afterward depending on the type of schip, loading capacity and many other characteristics. You can't say my work isn't varied. But I guess I'll have to go to work again. I'll probably post this just before I leave at about 13:00 to go to Oosterhout. Charm here I come (in about an hour; yes I am counting down the time).

Unwanted early bird...

Fri, 18 May 2007 05:25:50 GMT

Lief Meisje woke up at 5:30 this morning and would not go to sleep again. She kept on crying after getting her fiep and a diaper change. And I so wanted to get dressed before giving her a bottle. But I just was not to be. I eventually gave in at 6:30 (usual time is between 7:00 and 8:00). So now I am sitting here eating my breakfast, about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Got everything standing at the ready to put into the car, except for Lief Meisje, who is currently sleeping in the play pen.
My adrenaline levels are way to high right now and I hope I will be able to relax during the drive to work. I can't blame Lief Meisje, for telling her to stay in bed a little while longer is not a thing she understands yet at 5 months...
But I'm off now. Got to put the last things for Charm into the car, pack Lief Meisje in the maxicosi and away we go. To the kdv, the ah for kukident and then to work.

Ascension day

Thu, 17 May 2007 21:05:16 GMT

Today was a bit of a lazy day. Lief Meisje woke up a bit later than usual, at 7:00. Gave her her fiep and she fell asleep again till 8:30.

drahkan had to go to work early and left before 8:00.
After Lief Meisje had her first bottle she fell asleep again like a log, I took a shower and started sorting some stuff for Charm. But more on that later.
My dad called at about 10:30. I had just started feeding Lief Meisje her fruit so I asked him to call me back in 15 minutes. I eventually called him back when Lief Meisje was playing again on the 'cat' (i.e. a blanket with arches with toys dangeling from them). My parent's computer was showing strange error messages at boot time and sometimes would boot and sometimes not. I was not familiar with the error message but after google-ing it, I advised my dad to back-up his data and call my brother-in-law to come over and check it out (he lives 10 minutes away, we more than an hour by car). It is most likely a BIOS setting gone wrong or one of the mother board components is failing. Of course I got my mom on the phone as well. While I was taking to her, Lief Meisje was very busy trying to roll from her back to het stomach. She managed that and I was waiting for her to cry out for assistance to get back. But when I looked at her again, she was back on her back. I had not seen her do that before. And a few moments later she roled from back for stomach to back in an almost fluent motion. I was very suprised but also very happy because this most likely means that her hips are ok. She has to go to the hospital on monday to get a CT-scan of her hips and now I hope this will be for nothing.
At lunchtime drahkanshowed up. He had forgotten that all shops would be closed today and came to get something to eat, which he had ommitted to bring. He left a little over an hour later and I was alone with Lief Meisje again. I did however get all of the stuff still in the back of the green car from Moots. I had to sort out what I would need and I hoped to do that before my hubby would come home tonight.
Lief Meisje sleep a lot today and when she wasn't sleeping, she was very busy playing. While she was sleeping I packed most of the stuff that I'll need this weekend. Hubby came home early but spend most of the time here sleeping on the couch. I could have used some extra sleep as well. But that's just me, always to nice to everyone. After I had giving Lief Meisje dinner and bath I put her to bed, where she is sleeping right now. I put most of the gear for Charm in the car already. Just have to pack the toiletries, my pillow and the leather coat
drahkanreattached the rabbit skin to in the morning. I forgot to pack the leather coat and I have just washed my hear and am in my pj's, so going outside is no longer an option.
I am looking forward to this weekend. To weekends ago I had Symbols and that made me realize that I have really missed larping as before I was pregnant a lot. Pregnancy restricts playing out things a lot and you cannot fight. At symbols I still could not play as I wanted due to a shoulder injury. I could not handle my bow, which is my primary weapon as Tingel. So I spent most of the event as leatherworker and gained a level at that. But now, after a shot with inflamatory repressers almost 2 weeks ago I am ready for action again.

I have to work half a day tomorrow. First pack the last things, bring Lief Meisje to the kdv, fetch kukident and then off to work. Kukident you may wonder, yes kukident. drahkanbought me orc dentures at Moots and I tried to model them to my teeth tonight. But that failed miserably. The stuff that hardens did so so fast that by the time I sank my teeth into it, it had already hardened, making it impossible to put them over my teeth. I could fortunately remove the stuf from the false underteeth but that left me with non-fitting teeth. And the kukident I had, has an expiration date early 2005 (I bought it for playing a vampire at halloween 2002). So I have to buy a new tube tomorrow morning.
I hope I make it okay through the morning at work because I do not feel like working at all. Have to continue writing a test plan on a piece of software I hardly know anything about. But I'll have to suck it up and do it anyway.
I'll be at the terrain hopefully at 14:00 and then I'll help set up tents and such. Hoping on good weather for obvious reasons...
And I'll see some good friends of mine again.
Charm is a LARP I go to and play a double role with lupijn. He plays Kilian, a passifist priest of Helena, the goddess of healing and protection and I play a half-orc barbarian named Lia, that hides the fact that she is a half-orc to avoid trouble. But I'll be starting puberty this weekend. Already wanted to do that the last 2 episodes but as I was pregnant then I could not fight and wasn't feeling well either. So I will make up for that now. Am still wondering very much how the other character will react to the fact that she is a half-orc. Some people (for instance the desert folk) are very prejudiced against greenskins. Will Kilian and the good Lia has done so far save her? IC things are very exiting, with the puberty, undead I can finally bash and getting money to rebuild a temple Kilian kind of took charge of.
I've got mead with me to share, so I hope the OC time will be good as well.

But I think I should go to sleep now. A long day tomorrow and not enough rest is the past days. Gotta love it.