Roses review

Now that I have the time and a minimal amount of energy, and since people are less sick of hearing about it right now, I would like to finally reflect on Roses.

This year's Roses was full of some amazing moments for me. It was also very quiet and relaxed and I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to do as much as I would like. But the Coffee House was a great environment because people came by to visit and me being as ill as I was, walking around the site was something I had to save my energy for. More often than not, I was seated on the ground ontop of my rug and cloak using Kathy's four treadle loom working on my weaving. I was a very productive bunny.

I was also suffering from a painful dog bite that I had gotten that Friday. That made things a little annoying as well since I suddenly was unable to do all the things I was hoping to do: archery, spinning, knitting... etc. So I brought my weaving. And with my morning sickness I was unable to do the other thing I love at events: bardic. So I had to skip bardic and I felt that sitting around a smokey campfire wasn't a good idea either with already lacking in oxygen. So I barely visited Vestfell which broke my heart. I really missed everyone.

But as I said, the Coffee House was a great environment because it just collected friends, new and old, who wanted to sit around and chat. And it meant that I could visit with people, even if only for a little while.

So although I felt like I wasn't doing what I normally enjoyed doing, so many amazing things happened this weekend. I felt I grew a lot closer to members of Dione Sidhe, feeling more like family and less like I was just there cause I'm cute. I also had a few heart to heart chats with people that, in the state I am in, I felt I really needed. I was also surprised in court twice. Once in getting my AoA that blew me away. Although I'm pretty good at shrugging things off and just smiling and saying "Yeah, that's neat.." it near brought me to tears. It is rare, I feel, for a scroll to be so personalized towards your persona. Certainly, they say lots of nice little things about you and things you do or have done in the SCA, but it isn't always so personalized. Mine was written in Russian. And they even found someone to read it to me and all of court in Russian. The painting on it was Russian designs. I don't think I have ever felt so loved by so many people before. I don't even know the people who made my scroll by looking at their names, but it is obvious that they know or have heard of me. I was flustered and if you saw me as I sat there before the King and Queen, I'm certain I was red. I kept touching my face trying to hide how much I wanted to cry. It was so very touching. And knowing that a good friend is who wrote me in for it, I'm speechless, really. Thank you to everyone that made my AoA so incredibly special. I'm so glad so many important people were around when it happened.

Also, later in Sunday court, I got inducted into the Order of the Friends. This, also, incredibly touched me. In fact, so much so that later that night, ignoring how I felt inside, I went down to Baron Angus's camp to personally thank him for his recognition in court. I told him how much it meant to me and having that ten minute quiet talk with him made me feel so special, made me feel like an individual and someone of importance both to him and to the society. I was grateful to hear what he had to say and walked away from that night with a renewed feeling of self. It is amazing what taking just ten minutes out of your day to talk to someone can do.

I came home from that weekend tired, but feeling refreshed and much happier with who I am as a person. I've been burned out recently from various different things and add to that having been sick and losing weight for about a month and a half, I just haven't been feeling my normal chipper happy self. So thank you everyone that helped make Roses that much better for me.

Besides all the good things for myself, I saw many well deserved awards and amazing things happen for all those I care about. I am proud of all of my friends and those I consider even family. I saw some amazing pieces of art at the A&S competition (I entered baklava. Got in third place). I wish I could have heard the bardic competition, but I have faith it was amazing as well. I wish I could have seen the fighting, but I saw the dirty and tired faces and knew it must have been great. I know the archers of our barony and I knew they put up a great fight themselves. It was a wonderful event.

What else did I learn? Seeing the amazing spread of hard work that Shelly did, absolutely beautiful, a whole outfit that she sewed by hand, I thought to myself, if I do an A&S competition again, I will try taking up a table and see how I do. Maybe a whole Russian feast. Or something feasible that I can do. It would be a blast to try and do. But I don't think I could do as amazing as Shelly. She has worked incredibly hard and deserves all the recognition she got. I also got some recognition. Some woman came to praise me for my documentation on my baklava, saying she knew how hard it was to document something that was almost undocumentable. That made me feel really good, too.

All in all, a great weekend. This weekend I have off and I'm just going to slug around the house.