News, News, Swen, Wens, Snew, and Ewns.

News, by any other name…

Okay, Sweety and I have been busier than who knows what for the last 6 weeks or so…

Sweety and I drove son down to Richmond for some fencing tournament.  Pics were in an earlier entry, I think, along with pics of the new Prius.

Drove my son and his teammate down to Charlottesville for the state team championships there (their team won 1st place, easily, over all the grown men teams.  yayy!)

Drove son to Charlotte, NC for the Junior Olympics fencing tournament – he was in the U17 sabre.  Out of 195 guys, he started seeded 91st and finished 57th, which is better than he’s ever done in one of these major tournaments.  He’s improving.

Sweety and I drove to Charlotteville (again) for a 2 day workshop on how to run a Bed and Breakfast.  Found out that the hotel and restaurant lobby has gotten laws passed so that B & Bs are only allowed to serve one meal a day, or else they have to have a "commercial kitchen".   (that means commercial sanitizing dishwasher, and I’m not sure what else). 

I’m driving down to Harrisonburg on Friday to watch the daughter shoot in the regional Nationals. JMU hosts the tournament (one of 4 across the country – the combine the results to determine National Indoor Target Archery champions) every year in their gym.  I’ll drive back home Sat nite after dinner. 

After this, I think things settle down for a while.  I am so looking forward to some quiet weekends with Sweety in our own little house without having to go anywhere.

On other news, Sweety and I had long talks, and I did start estrogen. Very low dosages at first, and the patches are so small that it’s no more than having a piece of scotch tape stuck on you.  Can’t report noticing anything yet, but it will likely take months to notice anything at all.  I may write a whole separate entity on things I’m learning (from Sweety, from Helen Boyd (www.myhusbandbetty.com), and PhoenixPoet about how spouses/partners deal with their partner’s trans-ness. 

I finished a 3 saturday course in thai cooking last Saturday.  It was great.  The class was thru the county’s adult education program, and it was pretty cheap ($120 for 9 hours of instructions).  We learned 6 recipes,  and they were surprisingly easy.  There were a number of little tricks involved in different spots in the process that make all the difference.  I need to retype them, cause the sheets got wet and some of the ink ran, but when I do, I’ll post them up here too.  yes, they involve some odd ingredients ( little cans of chili paste  – it comes in at least 3 flavors – red, green, and panang.), and chinese broccoli (which is absolutely wonderful and tastes very different than regular broccoli).  it’s worth it to make the extra trip to the thai grocery.

It is beginning to pour rain here.  Time to stay inside tonite.  😉

love to you all.
Jude