Do Not Open...

... to avoid confusion and all the troubles, asshown."

Thus read the badly translated (yay engrish!) instructions for one of the airsoft rifles brought along for this weekend. Sure enough, the owner of said rifle then had to open the gun itself, unleashing a barrage of springs and mystery components. "Oh no!" said K-the-knitter. "All the troubles!"

All the troubles aside, it was a great 4-day weekend. Mr. Hasturdrove us up to Nixon, where one of our buddies owns some cows and land (this IS Texas, after all), and we gamed and shot each other with plastic bb's, and K. made delicious food for 14 people multiple times a day (and worked entirely too hard on it, must do something nice for her).

Not wanting to spoil the weekend with the finishing of the SBT, I worked frenzied on it the day before we left, and was able to drop it off at the yarn shop in plenty of time. It's done! It's finished! I never have to work on it again! So now I just have Emma and good old Frost Flowers to work on. I brought FF along with me, with the chart, and hooboy. It's been a while. I think I need to string a lifeline through the live stitches, until I get back in the habit.

During the trip, Hastur called up and told me that since it would be Mr. Hastur's birthday on that sunday, to stop by their place on the way home so there could be surprise cake and celebrations. It was very easy to get him to agree to this little detour, and when we got there it turned out Hastur had told him to get me there for the same reason, as by birthday is on the 19th! Yes, I am easily duped, but the cake was delicious and Hastur gave me one of the most thoughtful gifts I think I've ever received. She stitched and framed the "Rat Bastard" design from Subversive Cross-stitch for me! It's glorious. We took pictures of the cake (48 candles, half for me, half for Mr. Hastur), the stitching, and the stitching with the rat :) Go check out her blog for photos!