Carpe diem... fantastic weekend...

Last Thursday, I flew to L.A. for the Tolkien Forever Hall of Fire. What an incredible undertaking. Bless all those who put in so much time and effort. I'm very good at doing simple tasks that don't require any creative input, but we had a couple of true artists who could take "junk" and make it really cool. Amazing!! Rocks and cloth and lights became Gollum's pool. Old trays, candlesticks, tea sets, plastic Mardi Gras beads, decorative pebbles, plastic "jewels," gold plastic chips, and more cloth and lights became Smog's horde of treasure. Wow! There was a lot of singing and dancing and simply the joy of associating with people who all love Tolkien and LOTR. After the party, the next day was spent cleaning up. I'm very good at cleaning up. :-) It was a delight to be a part of something so loved and enjoyed. My friends also made sure I was able to visit the beach. And we talked and talked and ate well. I came home, today, feeling better than I have in a long time. Work is now all caught up. I'm almost all caught up on emails. I'm caught up on most of my websites and figure I'll simply start tomorrow with most of them, without trying to catch up on what I've missed. I'm unpacked, and ready to start the day, tomorrow. My folks took me to the airport and my younger brother picked me up and took me to pick up my work for the day as well. A very productive day and past week. God blessed us with cool weather so setting up and cleaning up weren't unbearably uncomfortable. It was beautiful all weekend with some incredible rain. Not often do I have the opportunity to see the Misty Mountains. :-) And finally, today, I filled out my sample ballot so I'm ready to vote, next week.