Whew! Well, I thought I would get back to blogging in a big way, but several things happened to prevent that:

I had a series of fibromyalgia flares that were more painful than usual and interfered with getting a good night's rest. This left me very tired and depressed.

Potrero War, a large Society for Creative Anachronism event, where I taught a natural dye class and a period pigment class using natural earth colors. Though the classes were announced for adults, children showed up for them, too. That's fine so long as said children are mannerly and really interested in the craft. My youngest dye students were 13 years old and they showed a swift aptitude for color. My youngest pigment student was 5 years old and she did a very good job. But the event was long and tiring.

Griffin Dyeworks Fiber Retreat was the next weekend after Potrero War. I was not rested up enough to go into an intensive weekend of crafts teaching and learning. The Retreat was wonderful with classes being taught everywhere in the Verdugo Oaks Scout Camp, and participants learning as fast as they could. The Sunday display of projects was just amazing and inspiring. But I was left exhausted.

During this weekend we learned that three people were in the hospital; one with a burst appendix (she is recovering), one with a serious diabetes reaction (he is recovering) and one who died from a blood clot. Sigvaldr will be sorely missed.

The next weekend was another SCA event: Coronation and Queen's Champion, which we attended because friends were stepping up as King and Queen. This extra activity pushed me well beyond my limits and I dragged myself around for two weeks trying to recover. This was entirely stupid of me, and I need to stop treating myself like this!

So getting my act together to post really interesting blogs with nifty photos has been delayed. Be patient. I will get things sorted out soon, promise.

We leave on July 3 for a trip to Billings, Montana, to visit John's sister. This is our annual vacation away from all our activities. I'm taking my Mac laptop to catch up on blogging as well as edit my Dye Basics book to post on the Griffin Dyeworks website.

While on the Billings trip, we will visit friends along the way and I will teach a 2-day dye workshop (yeah, I know....) -- Bjo