It's spring!

It's finally spring here in NY! Almost June. But I'm still going to bed with a hot water bottle at my feet every night, LOL!

Again, a lot has happened since I last wrote. My finals are over and I'm very happy with this semester's GPA. We attended our first re-enacting event of the year at Letchworth State Park. I've gotten to ride my horse a lot lately -- and finally, finally, FINALLY got my stirrups fixed (they were too long). Hmm...what else? There's more, but the problem with me is that when I sit down to write something on this blog, every coherent thought flies right out of my head. Well, almost every coherent thought. Come to think of it, I have that same problem when I try to write a paper for school. ;)

I must tell you a little about the Letchworth event. First off, it was COLD!!! The two nights we stayed there, it was down to 40 degrees (or below, if you ask me -- felt like it, anyway). We had the tent heaters on all night, little propane-powered thingies, and still my breath made white clouds in the tent when I got up in the morning! Try washing your face and dressing in that weather. I shouldn't complain, though -- it could have been snowing, as it was two years ago at that event.

Also, it rained Saturday night and our tent leaked! My parents had tried to waterproof it with Canvak, but, heh heh, they scrubbed it with dish soap before they let it dry and waterproofed it. So, after much frustrating research, we learned that they had scrubbed the tent so thoroughly that they took the original waterproofing OFF -- and that the Canvak would do us no good since it only works when it's put on over whatever other waterproofing stuff is already on the tent material. ACK!!

I noticed the canvas becoming slightly waterlogged after the ball on Saturday night, when I was lying on my cot reading. I glanced up and thought, "Hm, that doesn't look quite normal." But I was reading O'Brian's Treason's Harbour (I think it was the part where Killick valiantly protects Captain Aubrey's magnificent chelengk from several would-be robbers -- very, very funny) and thus, of course, didn't really pay attention to how wet the tent was getting. Typical me.

Mum came in later on and, after a while, gasped aloud and said, "Oh my goodness! Look at this! The tent's all wet! How could this happen? Oh no!" Typical Mum.

She began moving stuff around -- covering paper goods, our antique Bible, and anything else that could be damaged by the water, all the while exclaiming, "Oh no! There's another spot where it's dripping!" Finally she settled down and tried to go to sleep, but then the rain dripped down one of the tent seams and right onto her cot.

She moved her cot over toward mine, about a foot closer. The rain followed and dripped on it in its new location. She moved it over again. Again it got dripped on. She repeated this five or six times and finally ended up about a foot and a half away from me (normally there's at least five feet between us).

Then it started dripping on my side. I grudgingly moved my cot over a few inches -- not before Mum had tried to move it herself, with me still on it -- and moved my guitar and violin farther away from the wall of the tent. The rain started to drip not only just down the side seams of the tent, but above my head. I went to sleep hearing the rain drip down onto my pillow. I just didn't care anymore. I was tired and I wanted to go to sleep. I thought, "Hey, if I get wet, I get wet. Worse things have happened to me. I'll live. Nothing had better interfere with my sleeping time!"

And as it turned out, I was fine. Warm and toasty -- until I got out from under the blankets, that is. Then I froze. But at least I didn't get rained on. :)