Mood:  bright

Yesterday (8/1/09) was a tremendously busy day! We started to tie dye the children's shirts around 10am and didn't finish until 5:30pm. We did 19 shirts, as 5 of the shirts that I had purchased for Deanna and Kayla and Debbie to tie dye when they were here and now Michelle's. Kyle did two long sleeve shirts and five short sleeve shirts. Michelle did two long sleeve shirts and ten short sleeve shirts. I have posted the photos on my Facebook photo album. I am really impressed the children's shirts came out so well.

We did a little thing different this time, we used RIT Fixative to keep the dye from running so much and we steamed the shirts - "cooked" them each for 15-20 minutes in my wok on a grill inside the wok. I think these two new processes will help keep the colors brighter and the dye from running and ruining the design as much. I have told the children that they need to wash the shirts in Woolite and to not dry them in a machine, but to line dry them. We'll see how they weather over the coming months.

Joey and Kaitlyn showed up tonight and we ran an adventure in Matt's world with the children. It was the second time we've done a D&D marathon run in the last month. Instead of playing to 4:20am like we did last time, we only played until 3:00am. That hour and twenty minutes does make a difference. Everything ran smoothly, although Joey lost his patience with Kaitlyn during one encounter when she could get the whole weapon speed and initative thing down to figure out how far ahead of the monsters she got to go and take actions. She's new at this and just needs time. Joey's been playing since he was knee high to a grasshopper (that's 5 years old) to you and me, so it is in his blood how to figure armor class and initative and attacks and THAC0 adjustments. Kaitlyn is sure trying hard. She has read the Players Handbook from cover to cover at least once and is trying to do it again after each time we play so she can gather all she has learned and apply it. The hard thing is Joey and Matt have modified the basic rules for combat in their own worlds...like allowing someone to Dodge at half their Dexterity, or a Luck roll to save someone from loosing their weapon when they fumble, etc. All that isn't in the basic 2ns Edition Players Handbook, it is in their own handbooks (Matt's is a Black DM folder he created) for their worlds.

We are going to be playing in my world next Saturday, August 8th - so I have got to come up with a good finish for the Cult of Umbra adventure I created. Should be evil and fun.