Heraldry Day!

I’ve been chastised for not posting in forever.  Mea culpa, and all that, and here’s a post!

Part of why I haven’t been blogging on my SCA activities is because what I’ve mostly been doing is a 500p3r 53kr1t project!  (= super secret, for those of you who don’t speak l33t).  It is awesome and fun but cannot be discussed right now; and I’ve been working on that instead of the red dress, so… yeah.

BUT there’s stuff going on besides A&S, of course.  For example… about two weeks ago, Lady Elizabeth (our kingdom submissions herald) and I drove out to the Shire of Corvaria, which is a fun little group unfortunately rather isolated due to geography (they are surrounded by mountains and especially in winter hard to get to/from).  A lot of people there were interested in registering heraldry but had trouble getting access to the right resources (heralds and books).

This is where E & I came in.   We showed up with ourselves, around a hundred Crayola markers, and a whooooole lotta books and forms.  The Shire fed us lunch and dinner via potluck (and it was lovely!) and we helped people brainstorm and research options.  In the end I think we had a total of 17 items submitted – names, devices and badges!  Everyone seemed to get something they liked, and happily nothing made the heralds twitch, either. =D

It’s the kind of stuff that makes me love being a herald – helping people understand how and why heraldry is so cool, and helping them work disparate ideas about what they want into a unified whole.  Hopefully we did our conflict checking right and everything passes…!

Pennsic!

Well, I have returned from my pilgrimage to the great eastern gathering!  I had a fabulous time (unsurprisingly) and am not really ready to enter the modern world again.  A ton of people brought me bits of my camp, so all I had to bring on the plane was my garb.  It was amazing to be back with my barony again; they’s some of my favorite people in the world and it was so great to feel like I’d never left!

I ended up spending a LOT of time volunteering at herald’s point, consulting on armory submissions and helping with paperwork in the evening.  I love consulting and I’m really devoted to heraldry, but I think I probably overdid it.  I never made it into the bog, took only one class the whole week, did not dance at all, and missed seeing some people I really wanted to catch up with.  It’s a tough dilmemma; serving really makes me happy, and serving in heraldry is EXTRA awesome, but then I deprive myself of other awesome things.  So I need to figure out why I felt so driven to skip things in favor of working, and how to strike a better balance between service-time and me-time.

Other notes… there was some shopping.  I bought some things that were wise purchases, and some things that might have been less wise (so much fabric, so little time!).  I taught two classes; still don’t feel like I’m all that great a teacher, but practice makes perfect.  Had fun drinking with my barony.  Had fun with Northshield, both at games and at bardic.  Coveted the same expensive jewelry I covet every year and have not bought yet (siiiigh).  Saw some amazing and inspiring pieces at the A&S display.

All in all, had a FABULOUS time.  Hopefully I can go again next year!