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real life

A 3822-post collection

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

Tomorrow morning is a busy morning.

Tomorrow morning, I get up,do my usual morning weigh-in [I'm in the 90K zone! Yay!] brush my teeth and take my meds... and then make sure both toothbrush and inhaler are in my carry-on.

Tomorrow, I take my refrigerated meds out of the fridge and pack them in my luggage. I make sure one baggie of supplements is in my carry-on and the other's contents go down my throat.

Tomorrow, I am sad to announce that the story will be rushed..

Tomorrow, I close down all my computer's windows and tabs and shut down before I take off for the United States.

Tomorrow, I get in as many hugs and kisses as I can before everyone leaves.

Tomorrow, I become a time traveller.

Tomorrow... I say goodbye to Australia. And my home. And my family. [BTW Mum you can keep emailing me. I like to see you in my inbox]

Tomorrow... I hope that various customs agents don't elect to give me hell because my luggage X-rays look suspect.

Tomorrow - I pray to the Powers that my big suitcase doesn't go walkabout.

Today... I am cleaning a lot of photographs out of my phone, signing up to Uber, and making absolutely, positively certain I have everything I need.

...I might be stealing an extension cord...

The big suitcase is already pretty chockers. It's going to be some fun to take home the wheelbarrow of merch I want to get. But I know luggage tetris. I should be cool.

Today - I write the thousand words that keep me on my schedule for writing my WIP [ten weeks before its done and I STILL don't have enough word back from any of my beta readers. Yikes] Today, I put one Vice Quadrant badge into the big suitcase. Today, I worry about marking my bags so that everyone knows they go together.

And tonight... with all luck... I should be having a Farewell Feast with my family at Hog's Breath.

My blog is going to be out of sync for a while. And I leave it up to you to decide how many stories I owe [I will catch up!] thanks to time travelling. I end up losing two days on the way back home. Not fair.

And tomorrow... I am firmly on my way to see Steam Powered Giraffe. My heroes. [And I'm old enough to be their parental unit... technically... eeek]

Almost there!

The dress arrived, yesterday! And it looks GORGEOUS!

If I ever order another one [my size has gone down since January, when I ordered this one] I will be sure to include my arm girth because these sleeves are more than a little snug when I bend my arms.

[Shown here: some blur of the dress just after it arrived]

You might not be able to see, but it has POCKETS! They're covered by the corset when I'm in costume, but who

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Preparations

I've got to finish stressing the "photo" today. It's the last day that I have another adult around.

I've already written down some thoughts in case one of the many planes I'm catching ends up on TV for all the wrong reasons. And I made myself cry. Yay.

I have all most of the stuff I need for the con in one place. I will start packing my backpack and organising my suitcase today.

The Dress of my Dreams is still in

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I'm going blue!

The Dress of my Dreams is currently relaxing in a warehouse for the weekend. Assuming it doesn't go to a warehouse closer to Burpengary over the interim, it should have a nice, relaxing weekend before meeting its doom owner.

This weekend, I'm getting my hair and nails done.

Plan C - if some incompetent specimen looses my luggage - I am still an off-duty Walter Worker with my blue hair and nerd shirt on. I've been unable to find blue lipstick in

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The best news EVAR!

I was all ready to go and collect the Plan B skirt from MeMum's, after I collected the kids. And just as the alert goes off for me to take off and fetch my little darlings... I get an email from Hello Cosplay that contained this beautiful information:

["We have sent out your cosplay via DHL Express"]

Of course, I still have to be prepared for it all getting lost in the mail. There is many a slip between Shanghai and Burpengary

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Ugh...

Last of the last of the running around, I hope and pray. I have eyedrops, sunscreen, and a tube of the pawpaw stuff. Just in case. I plan on carrying along my little tin can of band-aids and elastoplast. Also just in case.

I've emailed the people at WWWC about transport for foreigners, without much in the way of word in return.

I've emailed the people at Hello Cosplay about Overnighting my finished dress... without much in the way of word in

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PLNs and high finance

I got my travel insurance settled, yesterday. As well as all the mad dash to get a substitute skirt done with minutes to spare. So to speak.

The price for the finished emergency outfit is literally one tenth the price of the dream dress. Which, I might add, Hello Cosplay is now not sending out until... either today or tomorrow.

I've enquired about them sending it to me by overnight express [since regular post delivers inside 3 weeks] but I haven't heard

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Cue the Lone Ranger Theme Music

This is the email I got from Hello Cosplay. You can understand that this is nails-down-the-chalkboard stuff for me.

My corset is in transit because I now dwell in the 91Kilo zone. My dress is in limbo.

I had to rush arrangements for the kids because I will be in Boronia Heights, 80K away, getting a kludge skirt together out of whatever we can manage.

At least Spotlight takes Amex.

Alas, I shall also be rushing today's Instant because I only have

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More lessons learned

Post makeup lesson one: I should have applied vaseline.

It's the little things that "everyone knows" that trip a body up. In this case, "everyone knows" to put vaseline on body hair before applying sticky stuff.

Not I, said the mouse.

Following the usual thing-making, I shall be posting pics of my horrible face again. Be warned.

[Shown here: reassembled clock]

Beloved drilled some holes and we re-screwed in the embellishments. The bell will be pointing towards my rear, so people will

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Tests and Finessing

Be prepared. This blog contains images that some may find disturbing.

That's right, gentle readers. I finally got my keister in gear and did a makeup test.

But first - a little about what we're doing with the clock.

[Shown here: clock bits]

First, we took off the bell and the two brass feet so we could remove those weird little bracer things. They'd just get in the way.

[Shown here: Red clock insert and belt clips]

This is the result of

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Round, round, I'm run around...

Welcome to the Last Mad Dash, the final 80Km relay in the Cosplay 2016.

Today, I am taking my admittedly limited funds to Spotlight to get the best look material for Bitzer's capelet. It has to be warm, because night-time temperatures in Tucson head to the single figures, it has to be woven, because MeMum can't pilot an overlocker, it has to look pretty nice, because Bitzer's a robot with standards, and it has to be cheap because I'm almost broke.

You

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Print crazy

Many of you probably don't remember the first time you got a printer. I do. Of course, this was before I found out what the internet was, but the ability to make copies of things, or even print out stuff on demand? It was like magic.

I'm pretty sure I did more damage to the rainforests of the world with my first printer than I have throughout the rest of my life. Heck, I even printed and bound a "book" of sorts,

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I got Beloved a gift!

It's always hard to shop for the snuggle-buddy who can get everything they want for themselves. Unless, that is, Aldi's happens to be selling 3D printers for $500.

The next-best commercial price for a 3D printer is around $1600, from Jaycar's. So this thing is literally less than half the price.

Caveat emptor - you have to at least know something about these things to get anything decent out of it. Including that it uses absolute meters of filament to print anything

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Progress and setbacks

I hit the 92 zone, this morning. 92.6 kilos. On one hand - hooray, I'm losing weight and that should be good for me. On the other - boo, the corset I have is now too big. And I have no idea where to get cheap and comfy corset stuffing.

I have got in contact with the corset people to see if I can swap it out for the same style in one size down. Fingers crossed that it won't break

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Spoonless...

The blockage in my lungs is not preventing me from getting air, apparently. I've been taking the nebuliser to little or no actual effect. And certainly zero relief.

I couldn't sleep because of the blockage. It's a struggle to breathe in. So, long about midnight, we had the home service doctors swing on by and take a look at me. That's how I know my asthma meds are working, even though it feels like some invisible python is crushing my windpipe. Or

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