Bleah

Today has been pretty much a Downtime day. Last week, after losing my job on Monday, I had a crazy busy week. My roommates had their wedding planned for Saturday, and there was a good bit of sewing to be finished up before we left on Friday afternoon to get to the motel, organize who would be in which rooms, check the reception site, and settle in for the night. Most nights that week, we were up until nearly midnight working on the various projects.
On Friday all of the sewing was done by about 10 a.m., and we loaded up the truck van and moved to Beve Waxahachie around 1. By the time we got all of our stops made and pulled into the parking lot, it was about 3:30. By 4ish we'd sorted out smoking/nonsmoking, first/second floor, and king/double queen rooms and were moved into our homes for the weekend. I had to make a run over to the local Ryan's buffet style restaurant to check the room we'd reserved for the reception, and by the time we returned, the pizza had just arrived, as had the groom's nieces & nephews, and various & sundry other friends/family members. If not for the fact that they are usually about 3/4 full weekends in April & May with crazy Rennies, I woulda felt kinda sorry for the staff...  My weekend roomies and I had lots of giggles into the wee hours, and 2 of us fell asleep, sort of, by about midnightish. The 3rd stayed up until 4 a.m. doing some of her crafty things. Yeah, I didn't get nearly enough sleep that night.
Saturday morning, as Maid of Honor and organizer, I was running around like a headless chicken. 2 hairstyles (Groom & Best Man), 1 guest dressing assistance, getting myself dressed & all packed to go. Then came BITCH mode... too many people in the Bridal Suite, I wasn't particularly nice as I chased everyone out except the Bride, her mother, her daughter, and 2 of her mother's friends, but there was just too much in and out and it was starting to stress her out. When one of the guests who was camping at the faire site called about 20 minutes before we were supposed to leave to find out what room we were in, I just almost lost it, and when she came into the room, I was pretty short with her, which, she told me later she totally understood and wasn't offended by.  When the Bride was ready to leave, I had to go chase EVERYONE out of the parking lot, save for the Groom, Best Man, and the 3 friends who had agreed to go help get the guest table set up in the park.  Fortunately the ceremony went off without a hitch, well, except for the official hitching of the couple, and we had a great turnout.
By noon, we'd made it to faire & were getting settled at our usual spot, except for those who were marching in parade. I was also charged with getting everyone who hadn't been to faire before into the shire and to our home base, then over to where we watch parade every day.  Several of us left early to get to Ryan's and set up the room.  Yeah, that was FUN, lemme tell you... they reserved for us a different, albeit same sized room than we'd been told we would be in the night before. The manager on duty, who was not the one with whom we'd spoken either originally or the night before was rather snarky about how many people we were planning to have, to make sure we were going to use the room to maximum seating capacity.  Umm, sure dude, we are having a WEDDING RECEPTION, INCLUDING 2 CAKES, yeah, we'll just suspend those suckers in mid-air so we can use that table to seat 6 people! We didn't make it down to Waxahachie with the toasting glasses, the gold tablecloth, or the rose petals that were supposed to be used. Fortunately Karma, angels, or the diety of your choice ensured that we would have what we needed to make the whole thing work anyway... We had a large swatch of tartan (who doesn't love having access to an unsewn great kilt, right?) to use as the tablecloth, the blue "pearls" to line the edges of the Bride's cake were more than were necessary so they could be used in place of some of the rose petals (which wouldn't have shown up on the tartan anyway), and somehow the Groom's grandfather's tankard had made its way into the tote that went to the restaurant with us, and the Bride hadn't taken her silver goblet off when she loosened her corset and removed her hoopskirt, so everything was lovely.
On Sunday some of us went back to faire for the second day, while most of the folks at the motel with us headed home.

I was berserk stressed all of Saturday morning, until we actually got to the park, and then from the time we left to go set up Ryan's. I really expected to have set myself up for a flare, despite leaving very early on Sunday as well, but fortunately, I didn't have to do any driving, and my ride was ready to go when I was DONE. 

Things I learned this weekend:

1. do NOT wear a busked corset with nothing underneath (yeah, I know, I should always have a chemise on under my corset, however my only good corset is NOT an undercorset, and I HAD to have one on, in order to avoid looking preggers) unless being chewed up and bruised by the pinching of the busk hooks is what you want
2. do NOT wear a steel boned corset for 14 hours without at least loosening it up some, yeah sure, the support is fabulous, but the soreness the following day is totally not worth the look
3. Maid of Honor OR Organizer is fine, both is a BITCH to handle
4. Sometimes I HATE being the "strong one"

I have been lucky enough to manage not to have a flare despite the stress and lack of sleep. I'm sore, especially my back and my left hip/butt cheek (which has had an on/off again hitch in my git-along for a couple of years) is a little more tender than usual, and I'm sleepy as all hell, but having taken today as a Downtime Day, I think I've warded off the tingly & painful skin, the need to do nothing but sleep, and the general all over, non-responsive to ibuprofen pain.

Tomorrow I go back through my OTC supplements and try to get my nutrition back on track and my vitamins/minerals back to levels that they need to be.
Now it's off to bed.