Finally heard from my boss via email and pics of the rainforest. He seems to be having a good time.

I did not inform him that the stupid judge dismissed the case we asked for a continuance in despite my explaining to the Admin that it was kind of impossible for my boss to be at the hearing SINCE HE WAS OUT OF THE FREAKING COUNTRY. Everyone here who can vote for judges, vote against Malone, please.

I vote against the judges every time just to keep them on their toes. Most people just tick the 'yes' box to retain them so it's not like they're going to lose their jobs. :P

I got a lot done and watched some movies/tv. Really enjoying Revolution this season. Monroe is just hotter and hotter every episode (and to find out how he was originally, just kills. I do love me a complicated gray man.) I figured out the identity of Black Canary on Arrow about five seconds before the reveal--interesting twist. Still enjoying The Originals and caught up on TVD (three years ago, Damon would have hit Jeremy; instead, he hugged him. awwwwwwwwww). Anyone think Tyler will meander his way to New Orleans? Also neat twists with Katherine.

Really liking Haven this year with lots of twistiness.

I think Arrow has too much going on right now. ( spoilersCollapse )

So, today is my posting day for Seasonal Spike/Buffy and I have half a fic...

I did hear from my polybb artist, yay! I chose the 11th to post since I'm off that day.

Also decided that the Peter/Stiles fic I started for the Teen Wolf BB will work for this Teen Wolf rarepairs mini-bang that's due the 11th, though there have been no posts on the community since its inception so I'm beginning to wonder if the minibang is still on. Oh well, there are people who will be happy if I write Peter/Stiles for any reason. :)

Need to work on the TW reversebang first, though, as I promised my artist.

Looking forward to all the holiday challenges coming, and writing for fandom stocking and wishlists. I get a lot of writing done while watching bowl games. :)

I didn't sign up for the Yuletide candy swap this year but did sign up for the new drink swap and heard back from both my giver and receiver. My drinks are already on the way! (Person works in a coffee shop). I hope to get somethings purchased next weekend as mom and I'll be going into KC for the Hallmark open house and hitting William Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Trader Joes before racing home to watch KU lose to OSU at 3:00. I signed up for book swap again as well, but those match ups haven't been made yet. I never got my book last year, so fingers crossed.

We had our fledgling women's group at church last night and there were four of us including me and my mom. *sigh* I can't go to the next one in December (well I can, but I won't) because there's a KU game at the same time. I hope the numbers pick up as we had about twenty at the initial planning meeting. I did discover that the grocery I shop at most (our local brand of Krogers) makes an exceptional roasted chicken--one lady brought one--so very tender and moist and flavorful! One thing I've never made is a whole chicken (I've cooked several turkeys) so I may just get one of these some day.

Today I slept in a bit, then took my car to the carwash. It was chilly but they do work through the winter. I had a coupon so got the medium wash for the cost of just an exterior wash. So, interiors vacuumed and windows inside and dash etc. cleaned, too. It's right near my house and I like it because I get out and leave the car to the workers. I hate automatic car washes--used to be terrified of them as a kid. Cost me $14; worth it to just sit and read outside the car.

KU at Texas starts in a couple hours. We're doomed of course. I think dad is coming over--haven't heard otherwise.

Well, enough babbling...

Way too busy weekend.

The Friday night women's group planning pot luck was nice. Good range of ages involved. We decided to keep it pretty much social (not discussion group, though of course people can talk about stuff, just we're not going to have a set topic or anything) with food and chat and games. My parents don't play games (my brother's in-laws do so his family does) and I love games. We'll meet every month, one month on a Friday evening, the next on a Saturday afternoon, to give a better chance for more women to participate and the Saturday one will not be a meal.

I ate small amounts of various foods, though I could have devoured all of mom's chicken rice casserole. It's her Aunt Amy's recipe and so damn good for being so bad for you with the cream of several soups, stick of butter, cup of parmesan cheese. I took Waldorf salad which went over well.

Got home just about ten minutes before the storm hit. Mom ended up driving through blinding rain. The lightning was incredible. Of course it didn't last long--was supposed to rain all night, rained about two hours at the most. Did drop the temp down into the 50s, though.

Saturday I got my hair colored and cut and then went to the Spiritual Service planning session. Signed up to help one of our Seminarians with a service on early Christian feminism/women. I did a service on Mary Magdalene last year so I'm looking forward to this one. Also agreed to help with Christmas Eve and something else I can't remember right now. I have notes somewhere. Oh, right, late January, "Talking to Our Kids" with Marta who I like working with.

Oh, and I wore my jean jacket over my "lucky" KU tshirt (which can now go into the closet, see below) and it buttoned over my stomach for the first time in years (though I didn't button it). It was windy and in the 50s, stupid weather, same for Sunday, and the will be nearly 80 by Tuesday.

Raced home and started the recording of the KU/Texas Tech game and OMG, look we're scoring ten points in the first quarter and they're not doing anything.

And then it went to shit. I dunno what we lost by, 50something to 10 I think, I stopped watching by the middle of the fourth quarter. *sigh* Why give us hope????? So I can start wearing other tshirts and my KU sweatshirt when it gets colder. I never worry about wearing anything specific for basketball because we don't suck at that.

Speaking of, Late Night (basketball) was Friday night and we have six freshman, including the projected #1 2014 draft pick. It'll be interesting to see how they integrate. And will this kid be the next McLemore (superstar) or Selby (dud)? First exhibition game is October 29. Unfortunately several of our early games are on the channel my parents don't get and are on Tuesday nights so I guess I'll be staying home and not working. The work is on a memory stick--for some reason dad wants me to do the work out there. IDEK

More Yuletide controversy. Blah blah. Just open up sign ups! I have no clue what I want or will offer. Amazed at how many people have already drafted their letters. I'm behind the game I guess. *snort*

Oh, did finish (well, 4/5 of the way finished) my polyamory big bang and got it turned in Friday. Summary is up for perusal, art picks open sometime this morning I think. There's a few other TW fics. No Buffy this year--I've often written Buffy though my first ever TW fic last year was for this big bang.

My Bite Off Center fic posted on AO3 as well. Got some nice comments. :)

So, Sunday rolled around and did my reading and journaling for the Chalice Circle meeting--probably shouldn't wait until the morning of for some of these which require creating stuff more than just writing. Church was fine, a bit under-attended. The topic was "shame" so might have been a bit off-putting. It was interesting, though, and a good lead in for the beginning of Chalice Circle (which is basically small group ministry). Basically, people tend to hide their problems, don't admit or share them, because of shame. It's automatic to say "I'm fine" or "I don't need help" when we're not and we do. Chalice Circles are all about true sharing from the heart and soul.

Choir piece went well. Our choir director may be the last person under 65 in the country who doesn't have a smart phone so she doesn't get emails--our pianist got sick that morning and didn't show up (did email choir director who didn't get it). Luckily we have a couple pianists (her included) who can pick up and play anything.

Watched most of the Chiefs before the lady I was driving with arrived. We had just gone up by nine with under two minutes left, so I figured we'd win which we did. 5-0 baby! Unfortunately Denver also won and is 5-0 so we're still tied in the division.

Chalice Circle was very nice. Meets every other Sunday from 4:00-5:30. There are three other groups, but this is the only one that really worked for me. Two were during the week day. It's all confidential, which is good since the leaders are friends of my parents. A couple of the people I know pretty well, a couple I don't know at all, but you still learn new things about everyone. We're following the structure of a UU book called "Heart to Heart". The first one was about stepping stones (milestones in our lives). Next up is gratitude.

Made my last real meal before dieting--sweet and sour chicken--and caught up on tv. Watched Vampire Diaries and Originals (hope Elijah's around the whole season) as well as TAR (phew baseball wives) and the cartoons. All I have is OUAT which I have to watch on abc.com since no one seems to be doing the naughty this season and the last Copper. Am highly impressed with myself. Oh, I also watched Snow White and the Huntsman which despite being Kristin Stewart, was pretty good. I did not know that she awoke from the kiss by the Huntsman, neat twist which they failed to deal with at all. So I'm trying to keep up with Netflix as well.

Boss is going on vacay for two weeks at the end of the month into November so I hope to get a lot watched then, maybe even GoT. I had to order new headphones because mine literally fell apart (the foam covers). Do you know that Office Depot only sells ear buds? I got a set with three different sizes of ear buds because my ears are tiny. I don't want to watch NC17 stuff with the sound out there for everyone to hear but I also need them for transcribing tapes so they're a business expense.

And now I'm at work with pretty much nothing to do. *sigh*

Will do the meme later.

I was actually pretty busy and then I'd nap in between.

Friday night I wrote a short fullmoon ficlet ficlet which I have yet to upload to AO3 due to the aforementioned laziness.

Market on Saturday morning and then back downtown for breakfast with the girls which was very nice. Like the unlimited coffee bar where you serve yourself from four different exotic coffees. I had a turkey, bacon and cheddar omelet with herbed potatoes. The restaurant patronizes several local farms for fresh food which is becoming a trend with downtown restaurants, a trend I support.

The Color Run was that morning which made getting into and out of downtown interesting. It ended shortly before we left so people covered in colored cornstarch started coming into the restaurant.

Went home and watched football. Wow, Akron, man, nearly! Mostly blow out games pre-conference season though some conference games, too--I guess due to megaconferences.

Went to the Jim Scott concert at the Fellowship. He's a UU singer/songwriter/activist. Small crowd but it was fun and he sang a couple new songs he'd just written, one he was still fiddling with the key for. He also sang Pete Seeger's "Turn Turn Turn" but with words written by Seeger's wife aimed at kids decades ago that Seeger never sang until right before her recent death.

He was kind of talkative between songs so it went over two hours. Raced off to parents' for quick opening of presents--two Hollows graphic novels and the most recent book as well as a pair of gold sunflower earrings from the Met (I love their reproduction jewelery) that came as clips, so hard to find in new earrings.

Then dad and I watched KU make a game of it, even went up 14-13 in the 4th quarter, but there were just too many dropped passes and a couple really stupid plays on offense. And Rice's kicker, man. So we lost by like eight or nine or something. Not only did we watch it in HD on cbssports but just the filming quality was bso much better than on TWC's crappy Metrosports from last week where it was grainy and the cameras were way far away from the field and just crappy. This week we play on the new Fox Sports 1 and the quality is high there, too. I'm seriously thinking about buying and HD flat screen tv even though my current tv works fine and the picture is still clear etc. It is nearly ten years old and my DVR is already and HD one.

Got home a little after midnight and zoomed through the Royals game I'd recorded. I'd seen the first couple innings before I left for the concert--we scored one run in the first--and we won by that one run in that we won 1-0.

Still coughing, on Sunday morning I started up a youtube video with someone just singing Elphaba's part so I could sing Glinda and my internet kept shutting down, saying it had the wrong DNS. After it did it twice, I gave up. I'd been singing along to the CD in the car for two days and had the song pretty much memorized so I went out to church early to print off just the lyrics.

Amy was sick as a dog yesterday but thankfully, while still coughing, had her voice. We ran through the song a couple times and we were perfectly in sync, thank god. We pulled the song out of our collectives asses. It is NOT an easy song to sing with a lot of rests and odd triplets, and it's pretty much two solos and then a duet part. Amy had only sung one solo, and that was a really short part in a much larger choir song, so she was nervous.

But it was great. We held the mikes and sang at each other.

Oh, and get this, in a bout of complete irony or something it was her birthday too! As she said, raised fist, Virgo Power!

Mom came over after church to watch the Unforgettable finale on cbs.com while I watched the Chiefs beat Dallas. Well, I napped through most of the second half after she left, but we won. In two games so far we've tied our season wins for last season. Not a great game, only won by one over Dallas, but still a win. Napped some more, then heated up dinner and watched Haven's premiere. Oh look, it's Jack from Eureka! Always love Duke. And Nathan was looking very ruggedly handsome.

Read fanfic while watching the Royals I'd taped earlier. Sadly lost by a one run homer hit in the bottom of the 8th. It is always interesting watching on a non-Royals channel (TBS) and to hear the kind of amazed praise from national announcers. Considering we've pretty much sucked for a good 25 years, to have the best bullpen, one of the fasted teams, several gold glove candidates, that's what we've been waiting so long for, and the national attention.

Oh, also napped through the choosing of art to write for for the TW reversebang, but did snag one. Surprisingly it was one of the Derek/Stiles ones--most of those were snapped up first (and made up a good 2/3 of the art) but it had kind of darkish themes (or at least my mind went to angst) so maybe that's why it wasn't chosen in the first fifteen minute frenzy. I really like it and have got ideas, but am waiting to hear from the artist. I'm glad it was still available because most of the art, while all well done, just didn't speak to me--too much AU, like non-werewolf AUs or set in different times and stuff. I just can't write that. I guess that's really AR (alternate reality). It's very popular right now in TW fanficdom.

Anyhoo...Need to finish the fic due Friday. Have ideas for IWRY but I need to get that started as it's due in just over a month and it may be massive (Buffy/Angel set in the Hell Series about a hundred years in). Had planned to write several ficlets for the Peter/Stiles series over the weekend but that just didn't happen. Also behind already on the SPN meme because I suck. Will catch up on that today. Oh, did read more comics and I'm now through the Xmen/Avengers mega-event from last summer.

New tv season really starts tonight. Bones and Sleepy Hollow (and the finale of Under The Dome). I'll probably watch the Royals and write while taping them. After reading the interview with the SH producers over on tvguide.com this morning I'm even more intrigued because ( i love this kind of thingCollapse )

Don't have much work and hopefully boss will be out most of the afternoon for his "lunch" or I'll have to work on closed files as I already hole punched files last week on a slow day. *sigh* Oh, can pay bills. That takes all of ten minutes.

Oh, and thank you for all the birthday wishes!!!!!

No, not computers. (or my dad's high school nickname for his propensity to "hack" the basketball out of people's hands during games.)

Still coughing up gunk. Clear yellow now. Never went green, so no infection, but this is the cold that just won't go the fuck away. I miss my old 72 hour colds.

Got the new DVR with no hassle at all. Just about a five minute wait because two of the four were doing something else on their computers and they other two were with customers. Last time I went in the afternoon it must have been around the time all the students come back or leave because it was like a 45 minute wait. Anyway, I asked if my problem was common and she said it did happen, so...bad product, imo. I lease it for $14.99 a month and they probably buy it for $50.00.

Hooked it up and got it filled in enough to set up Wipeout and go to the TCU/Texas Tech game on ESPN. Around 7:00, I went to check out the NFL network because I figured there was a pro game as well.

And it said I wasn't authorized.

ESPN News, not authorized. BBCAmerica, ditto. Figured out it was the "silver" range of channels (basic is bronze) which were missing. I've always had that package.

By midnight they still were unavailable so I figured they'd somehow shifted me down to bronze. Since I wasn't about to deal with their stupid phone system in the morning I decided to go in there at 8:00 (oh, yeah, sign on the door said hours were 8-6, stupid phone lady; also open Saturday hours) and have them check.

But they were working this morning. No clue.

Haven for tonight was still "TBA" but it was there for next week so I set up a series recording off it and hopefully by 9:00 tonight, since I won't be home, it'll show up and automatically be set to record. Then I'll set up all the other series' recordings. I have to remember to watch yesterday's DOOL on nbc.com at lunch today. Got that set up too.

Did not get any writing done due to hassling with the DVR and dithering over calling or emailing them. Did watch Project Runway which I haven't been watching this season due to missing the first couple eps and then forgetting about it. I like the new overall limit on fabric so you have to budget yourself. Also, wow, HUGE prize package. I'm not imagining things, that's Kate from last season right? Also like the touchy feely by the judges of the clothes. Probably won't watch much more due to having a packed Thursday night schedule and the Chiefs play next Thursday as well (on the nfl network which I now have).

Tomorrow is GNO breakfast at The Roost, a new restaurant that does a lot of eggs. I'll probably get an omelet and hold the toast.

I got in the car this morning and a Christmas song was playing. It was the funny 12 Days of Christmas, why they annoy me song, but still. No clue why. Friday the 13th gag maybe? It wasn't a mistake because the DJs mentioned who wrote/sings it.

Really too soon for that! Despite Yuletide noms just around the corner and other holiday sign ups in progress.

On that note...

So Mating Games is over and I didn't win anything, but I am happy with especially the last two ficlets I wrote. It was fun, I'll probably do it again if I'm still in the fandom and they run it again. I find it interesting that I seem to only have one major fandom love at a time. I can dabble in others, and Buffy never goes away, but like I don't read anything but TW these days and hardly write anything else either. Though I can always write Buffy. I guess your first love never completely fades. We're coming up on 15 years of TEAOW&S...

Have gotten a lot of good comments (and a couple super fantastic ones) on the Perverse BB, and a couple not so great ones. Not really flames, but basically I think they wanted me to kill Peter and "free" Stiles. Er, no, are you new to me and my writing? 1) Every long story I write has a happy ending and 2) I love Peter/Stiles. Okay true, some of the short ficlets are kind of evil Peter, but I think I've only ever written one where Stiles was actively planning to kill him.

This reminds me of the few people who wanted me to have Buffy kill Angelus and free herself from him in TEAOW&S. Instead...I made them fall in love with each other and he was still soulless. *g*

Anyway, I really need to get on the fic due tomorrow. I have three queerfest ficlets due the next three Sundays, but I know what I want to write for each one. One of them is a Buffy prompt, one a TW prompt, one a any fandom prompt but it'll be TW.

So church GNO was last night (which now includes one member of other GNO :) After so little sleep I figured I'd stay about 90 minutes. Over two and a half hours into it...*g* Had a lot of fun getting to know some newer members and chatting with a few I don't get to talk to a lot. A nice range of ages, too, from young moms to grandmoms. I think I was maybe the only one there without kids. It's kind of weird that most of my friends, even the married ones, don't have kids, but pretty much every married woman at church has at least one kid. But, then, a lot of them specifically joined our church to have their kids raised in a liberal religion so maybe that isn't so weird.

Then I watched the Royals lose. *sigh*

Dragged myself to market this morning and finally bought something--some head lettuce. I'm not a fan of mixed greens, exotic lettuces. Really, I only like iceberg, but I can handle Romaine and I ran out of iceberg yesterday. Mom got regular peas!!!! They're hardly ever available here--too hot to grow them. $6 a pound but worth it. Not on my diet (a rare veg that does have WW points) and way too carby but I don't care. I'm fucking eating them on Tuesday night. :)

Fed kitty and came home. I figured I'd end up napping all morning to catch up on sleep, but instead I watched the last three CSIs (cliffie!) and PETER looking SO FUCKING GOOD with the shorter hair and the light goatee, mustache. I hope that was for TW, though I like the fluffy hair and the slicked back hair, too. (For those going 'what'? Ian Bohan was in the second to last episode.) Then I watched three SPNs (love Charlie to pieces, but, I'm sorry, Milton? Okay, my fanon is now having her be Anna's cousin) and only have the finale left which I'll watch tonight. Cas is looking very handsome. I love him buying Dean's favorite things to win him over. *g*

Need to run through my solo a couple times. Need to get up early tomorrow and mow. It's supposed to be in the 60s in the morning, as it was today.

This morning my cable kept fucking around--the DVR went off and rebooted--and then the cable went off all together BUT I'm pretty sure that when it does that the DVR should still work to the point you can watch shit you've recorded just like you can watch a tape or dvd if your cable's not plugged in or off. But, it went off. Then it came back on briefly and went off again. Each time there was a popping noise outside--my cable is in the air, not buried. I finally went and checked the tv in the kitchen and it worked fine. The DVR was on in the living roomnm, but static. So, I brought the kitchen tv out to test the cable outlet in the living room. It worked fine, so I thought maybe it was my living room tv. I hooked the DVR up to the kitchen tv and it worked fine. Just to test it one more time, I hooked the living room tv back to the cable and it was back.

I have no idea what the fuck man.

Sometimes I really hate technology.

Now I need to respond to feedback while I'm watching the Royals/Rangers again (bottom of the third, no score) and then try to write something.

Right, just remembered that queer fest is over on DW. I really need to read my FL over there sometimes... I'll just throw the fics up on AO3 and link them. That seems to have become my habit.

Oh, and finally, if you're running a community that has a posting queue, don't disappear! I posted my TW bingo fills last Monday and they still haven't shown up and yesterday was the last day for the challenge! I wondered why it seemed that no one was writing anything--last post was about a month ago. I wonder how many posts are queued! This kind of thing irks me. Heck, last year I was writing for a BB where the mod completely disappeared off the face of the earth and never came back!

Basically, if you're modding a community, get at least one co-mod so that if you get sick or hospitalized or die someone will still be around.

Or maybe I'm just overly conscientious and would never do this.

And the Rangers just scored. :P

And why was there a cow milking contest before the game????

No self-respecting cat would allow you to put a Santa hat on it. *g*

So, currant scones turned out well. Brunch was fun and yummy. Lots of good food that I tried not to stuff myself on, good friends, and babies! It's amazing how fast they grow up.

Then headed out to mom and dad's in time for the KU game and, THAT was the team I've been waiting to see. Blew out Colorado, not a sucky team itself, by thirty six points. :) During that I cleaned mushrooms, jellied and put together sandwich cookies and helped mom dip the baked brown sugared bacon in chocolate and nuts. OMG

After I got home I lazed around reading fanfic, watched a Leverage, watched a couple Wipeouts (why is this show so damn addictive?), then checked to see if my payment to my cc company had cleared, and, since it had, I ordered stuff for the cats (a Lenexa Victoriana store has very potent catnip bags that I got them last year so I ordered new ones as the old are pretty gross from being licked to death) and the brother's fam. Except for him, who put up a couple things on his Amazon wishlist, the other two are getting stuff they didn't ask for because they didn't put anything new up. *sigh* I have over ninety items on mine, every single one I WANT. How hard is this?! I also can't trust that the things put on last year haven't been purchased off Amazon and just not deleted either. *sigh*

Hm, Manziel won the Heisman. Since he joined the team when it was in the Big 12, I'm going to claim that as a Big 12 two year in a row deal. Klein had it in the bag until he lost stupidly to Baylor.

Big day tomorrow. Singing at church and then a lot of last minute cooking and setting everything up for the 3:00 party. Then TAR finale when I get home. :)

I'm going to do some replying to feedback and hopefully start going through Wish Lists tonight, oh and maybe watch the Haven ep I somehow missed that was the one before last night's which I thought was the first new one in a few weeks. :P Hopefully syfy has it because no one does the naughty.

But, first commenting on OMG BIG BANG THEORY! He actually spanked her!!!! LOLOLOL Love it.

Oh, and my dad can't get over me writing 15000 words in one weekend and putting out a 33000 word story. I think he keeps mentioning it to hint that I should write something "real". I don't have any "real" ideas. I wanna write Stiles/Peter fic. *g* And I'm not turning TEAOW&S into the next 50 Shades of whatever. For one thing, I had no clue how BDSM should really work when I wrote most of it. *g*

My Christmas play list has a song about spending Christmas with a Dalek...I have no fucking clue...

but then I spent it writing 15000 words, plus 2000 more, and editing a 33000 word monstrosity of a story that I'm actually pretty proud of. The more I wrote Stiles, the more I got his voice down I think.

Why has the furnace not kicked on at work?

So turkey day food all turned out great. I have no idea why the thermometer was going down there in the end but the turkey was done and moist. Mom's new pecan piece was fantastic. You roast the pecans first and then instead of Caro syrup use maple syrup and a bit of molasses. She also used a gluten free crust that was surprisingly tasty.

After the meal we wrangled the tree upstairs. I'll need to replug it all together because mom and I were randomly unplugging any bits we could find to get it separated to move downstairs last year...or, y'know, in September.

Then football, napping, reading fanfic, eating more food, watching tv.

I planned to get up at six on Black Friday and I did, but that was after being awake for about ninety minutes as the weather shifted and the wind battered the house. I fear wind due to the many trees surrounding my house and I'm guessing there were some 40-50 mile and hour gusts.

Mom and I went to Penny's first and each got dad a sweater, then got in the very long line (at least 25 people in front of us), but the store had gotten very smart. I bet studies have shown that people with only one or two items in a long line may abandon them and leave, so they had a salesperson with a handheld credit card scanner going through the line for those people with just one item. So, we were out of there very quickly. Trips to World Market, Michaels, Bath & Body Works, and Pier One also took little time with non-existent to very short lines, though the stores were busy, so because most of the shops downtown weren't opening until 10:00 (our big department store was opening at 9:00 so we were going there first) and it was like 8:15, we went to Steak & Shake for coffee and, since I had still been stuffed from dinner and pie the night before and hadn't eaten breakfast I had about half a fruit yogurt parfait.

Got downtown and parked in the mostly empty parking garage for two hour free parking (It's a half block from the main shopping street so no one uses it because they're lazy I guess, but it's right in the middle of the six blocks and covered and free; I just don't get it). Mom figured she'd just pay the ticket rather than move the car as it's only $2, then we faced the horrible north wind. It was around 32 degrees and the windchill must have been around 10. The day before it was like 74.

I think the cold did keep the crowds out of downtown. Also, there were no KU home sporting events over the weekend and game goers often go downtown to shop and eat.

We did the south block shops (one guy even opened his store early when he saw us looking in the window and I discovered that a store I hadn't shopped at since I was thin in HIGH SCHOOL now has a line of plus size clothing! I still need it in skirts.) Went back to the car with packages and braved the north wind as we headed north. Mom even messed up her hair by wrapping her wool scarf around her head.

Ate at Ten (in the historic Eldridge Hotel) where I had a chicken salad with cranberries, feta and almonds and a garlic vinagrette. Ate only half of it but all the chicken, and then started back south. I bought several decorative items for myself and most of dad's gifts. I'd planned to get a certain local chocolate item at a store that has always sold it and they no longer were which sucked, as we'd gone in the other store already that I knew sold it.

Mom started to tire in the last block but that was amazing because usually she's tired after an hour or so and sitting on benches outside shops rather than shopping. Of course no one wanted to sit outside in that wind!

No ticket on the car!

Went to Hastings for comics and then the booze store for Irish for dad rather than wine because he has tons of wine, then home by 4:00.

Surprise, surprise, I napped. I also had recorded Days of Our Lives even though it said it wasn't new and it was an ep from about fifteen years ago which I hadn't seen, where John married Susan dressed up like Elvis. I wonder if they showed that ep because the actress is back on the show. Great to see some characters that have been long gone or replaced by different actors.

On Saturday I slept in till 8:30, watched Game Day, started editing my, at the time 18000 word fic, then met friends down at 715 for brunch. I got a parking place right out front! Wind had died down but it was still chilly. I had the locally made sausage with my whole wheat waffle and it had really good flavor, though kind of dry. Maybe they overcooked it? Hit a home decor store for some candlesticks I'd seen the day before but I'd been carrying a large bag at the time and found a gift for my impossible to buy for sister-in-law, then went to the other place I could get the chocolate and got a KU man cave plaque for my brother and a KU picture frame for my dad--there's a pic that will fit of my dad and brother from some Final Four in the early 90s where they were wearing these stupid cardboard Beak 'Em Jay hats I'm going to put in it.

Then headed back home and started writing and writing and writing...

And watching football.

Sunday I met with my pianist and rehearsed Bridge Over Troubled Water and was having problems early in the song and absolutely no issue with coming in at the right time on the "Sail on silver girl" verse. So, naturally in the performance I had no problem with the early sections and came in early...She covered so brilliantly even our choir director didn't catch it. My mom did, of course. Got lots of compliments; everyone loves that song. Met a new choir member--a high soprano which is great since our normal high soprano can only be available occasionally this year--then headed back home to write, write, write.

And watch the Chiefs lose again.

I also baked five dozen peanut butter cookies for Wednesday Night Dinner at church. Tonight I'm baking snickerdoodles.

Luckily I had my art for the big bang because my artist's internet went down and she couldn't post it. She had this problem back with the Once Upon A Bang, too, but I didn't have the art yet for that when I posted. She made dividers which I love so I incorporated all the art into the fic and the masterpost. I was beginning to worry I wouldn't get the fic done but finally managed it. Editing as I was writing helped. Now if someone would just read it...I'll probably load it to AO3 but because it's not Derek/Stiles, I doubt anyone there will read it either. I did get a lovely comment on my Buffy/Spike fic and have gotten some on the Buffy/Lucifer one so people do still read my Buffy fics. I wonder if I'll ever lose the ability to write those characters. It's like stepping into a pair of favorite old shoes.

I need to do my Wish List and put up my card post. I bought holiday stamps this morning and I have way too many cards. I found a couple boxes unopened from at least three years ago to go with the ten or so new ones and the half full ten or so. Sheesh. Remind me not to buy any new cards next year!

It feels weird to have nearly five weeks till Christmas. I'm not even going to decorate until this Saturday. I don't have any cookies to bake or candy to make since I can't eat any of it, though I'm going to bake several breads to give away as always, starting with banana bread this week as I have bananas going past ripe on my counter. Due to busy weekends, dad and I are going shopping for mom this Sunday and I'm going to order some things tonight, so I'll be all done hopefully except for picking up Wish List and Ho items.

Coming up in December we have the last KU football game of the year, the big choir holiday extravaganza (did I mention that we're not only singing the Charlie Brown Christmas song, but the duet of Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth that Bowie and Bing Crosby made famous?? I LOVE that song), the parent's big party, and then they're out of town the weekend in the middle, solstice service which we have not started planning at all, Christmas Eve service which we have music for and not even a theme (though our minister is supposed to be working on that while on a trip this week since she has this Sunday off so need to work on a sermon and the following week is the music service where she just has some readings and comments on songs) and then, y'know Christmas, and after that I'm giving a service on UU views on Jesus.

In amongst all that are several fics due, luckily none of them will be 33000 words.

I already feel very busy.

Oh, I did get SPN Season 7 for $9.99 from Amazon! I'm glad I waited! Or that no one bought it for me for my birthday. *g*

So, back to dieting. I don't think I gained anything but I wasn't all that good since Thursday. My blood sugar was okay, in the 120s mostly, though after walking so much on Friday it was 98 that night!

And now I have to file and do the monthly invoices...Yuck, work...

Shortened holiday weeks are always so busy!

Quick recap of busy weekend:

Friday night was church GNO. I missed the last one due to surgery. We met at a member's house and she had cold cuts and stuff. I had half a whole wheat bun with a tiny bit of mayo, one piece of turkey and one piece of cheese, some carrot sticks, a handful of grapes and about ten almonds. I wasn't hungry for all the cookies and candy. Had some really nice chats. We were talking about the early days of the Spiritual Celebration (for a couple years I pretty much ran the service all by myself; thank god our minister came at just the right time and started the worship team) and I said I was burning out and Heather said that if I had, the service would have disappeared! which made me feel really good. Sadly we were there to say goodbye to one of our members (also a member of our tiny pagan group whose husband always plays the flute for us) as her family is moving to Tennessee next month.

Mom and I figured we'd stay for like an hour and suddenly two and a half had passed. *g*

On Saturday mom and I headed out to the Pendleton's holiday market (they started out as asparagus producers but have spread out into lots of other things both food and craftwise). Several other venders from the Farmer's Market including the lady who bakes the to die for cinnamon rolls *mourns* were there and I got some gifties.

Then we went downtown to a couple open houses before heading to North Lawrence and its antique corner. I got this gorgeous set of vintage ruby red brooch and earrings for Christmas and then decided that the way to go for a new dining set is refurbished antiques and quickly before the sellers realize how much they are underpricing themselves! Gorgeous furniture, some painted and decorated (a la Jenny on Storage Wars Texas but for about a third of what she charges), in great shape. I found a black buffet table/chest for around $150! And several sets of tables and chairs for $200-300. I think I'll get a six person table and mix and match chairs. If the buffet is there in January I'm getting it for sure. The chest I have is falling apart.

It was fun. I think if the corner adds some artisan food/craft shops it could really revitalize North Lawrence which people have been trying to do for years.

Then we picked up the 11 pound $45 turkey. *rolls eyes* I really can't tell that it tastes any better to have a fresh, free range, hormone free bird, but I don't have to pay for it, so whatever.

Sadly it was a bad day for football. Not only did KU suck badly in a game I thought we could win, KSU lost as well and lost their chance at the BCS championship. *sigh*

I did get 7000 words written on the poly fic which posts this Sunday. I still have about a fourth of it to write or another 7000 words or so, but it's coming along and the threesome is actually coming together. It's not a traditional menage, in that Stiles is with both Peter and Lydia but Peter and Lydia aren't together. The whole theory is that Peter turned Stiles in ep 1.12 and claimed him as his mate, but in leaving a bit of himself in Lydia's head, he caused her to see Stiles as her mate as well, even though she's human, and Stiles is drawn to her, too. Once Peter is back from the dead and physically claims Stiles, Stiles shouldn't be able to desire anyone else, but he does still want Lydia. Peter is not happy about this. Lydia's doing science stuff. Stiles is going 'fuck my life' a lot. *g* I'm getting better at Stiles' voice.

Is anyone really surprised that my favorite character is Peter? And my favorite dirty wrong bad pairing is Peter/Stiles? *g*

On Sunday we had a really nice harvest service at church on the meaning of gratitude. The choir sang "Simple Gifts" (tis a gift to be simple...) for both the service and the program and then I booked it out of there and headed downtown to Made where I bought several handmade gifties and got a free handmade car air freshener. In the plastic wrap, it wasn't very strong but I hung it up the other day and it's wonderful peppermint. I can smell it outside the car!

Watched the Chiefs suck and lose. It was "blackout" day in that the fans wore black. By the end, the few remaining booed. *sigh*

Went to tea with ladies from church and it was fun. I'm not really a tea drinker but I had some herbal peppermint to calm my stomach and about 2/3 of a blueberry scone and a 1/4 of a salmon sandwich. Lots of lovely chatting with ladies from all ages from our most precocious (and brilliant) seven year old to ladies in their 70s in gloves and hats. Blood sugar stayed in the 130s despite the white bread products and real sugar in the tea.

I had great plans to clean my kitchen on Monday but I sat on the couch and watched basketball and read fanfic. KU blew out Washington State completely. That's my Jayhawks!

Work has been busy; Tuesday afternoon (and this morning) they're video deposing in the conference room right outside my office and I can hear everything and have to be quiet. Sorry, I do have to answer the phone and deal with people who come in. Also, on breaks, everyone seems to think my office is the place to confab. Finally, late in the afternoon yesterday, two attorneys actually asked if I minded and I kindly directed them down the hall to the empty office for privacy. This is not a general waiting room!

Tuesday night went to the parents' where we had butter fish which may be the best fish I have ever eaten. Mom marinated it in ginger and soy sauce and baked it. My blood sugar was 98! First time ever it's been normal! (Don't get too excited, it was 147 this morning). I'm going to need to start carrying around a chocolate bar or something in case it drops too low now that it's actually heading to normal. I'm also wondering if I'm going to need both diabetes meds for the three months supply I have. I don't want to start crashing!

(Sorry, I will try to keep the diabetes blather to a minimum but this is kind of important to me for, y'know, not dying *g*.)

KU won again, not blowing out St. Louis, but a good win. We had the lead most of the game and they only once got under ten after we took the lead. Also, North Carolina lost. This always makes me happy.

I'm still way, way behind on tv, but I did finish the damn Buffy/Lucifer fic. I have to edit it today and get it up on my site and AO3 tonight. I've been lucky that the IWRY mod ignored my "oh, please don't post my fic until after November 4 because I'll have the prequel done by then" and with only ten days in the month still hasn't posted the sequel, but that luck is getting pushed. I'm not really happy with Buffy's all over the place emotions or her rationalization for staying with Lucifer. Technically he did rape her, giving her no option, but this is Lucifer, he seduced the Hell *hee* out of her, and, after forty years in Hell, the demon in her isn't completely buried--she's accepted it, she's accepted Hell even while still trying to escape, she's changed and her morals have skewed a bit. I dunno, hopefully I can make it better in editing. It's also the first story in the series with graphic sex. Trust me to write a Buffy/Angelus series where the only graphic sex is Buffy/Other. *snort*

While I'll probably fill in some stories in that forty years and there are a couple darker fics to be posted after (as Buffy becomes more and more demonic) that were written last year, I have the big finale in my head. I had thought about doing it for this year's marathon, but Lucifer got pissy about me not writing him boinking Buffy.

I've also been dithering over TEAOW&S. I need to start writing more and reading less. When I started writing fanfic (nearly 15! years ago--and I'm thinking a Lily story for that anniversary in January, my first ever fic) I wrote prolifically, which is why there are 75+ stories in TEAOW&S. I posted nearly every day at times. Now I look back at my production over the year and it's like six or seven fics! Yes, some of them are long, but this is sad. I do plan to write a lot in December for various fests and for fandom stocking and Yuletide. Which reminds me, I never posted any of the stories I wrote last year anywhere for anyone to read. *sigh*

Something has been irritating my right eye since Monday morning and now it's sore. Great.

Tonight I need to brine the turkey, get the stuffing parts all prepared, and clean the house. Luckily I've kept it relatively clean--just need to tidy, dust and sweep the main areas and clean the kitchen. I need to clean the second oven, too. I totally forgot to do that over the weekend and cleaned one on Monday but then I didn't get home until 11:00 last night and didn't want to start the second oven since it takes 3 1/2 hours and I'm paranoid about sleeping with anything running like that. I need to clean the racks, too. I probably should iron the table linens...or blow that off because I hate ironing...

I want to be able to watch most of the Macy's Parade without having to cook stuff, so I'll probably prep the turkey by 8:00 even thought it doesn't need to go in the oven till around 10:00. I found the apple cider turkey recipe I made a couple years ago which has the best gravy--I'm not a fan of dark gravy usually but this is wonderful, and the green bean bake recipe was the bookmark for the stuffing recipe. Dad asked if I had the stuffing recipe (from the white Silver Palate book). I think he asks this every year. I've had the book for twenty years, dad! (To be fair, it is THE best stuffing with corn bread, french bread, brown bread, apples, pecans and sausage with sage). I call it stuffing but it's really dressing as we don't stuff the bird. Mom's bringing pies and I have the lactose free milk to make the mashed potatoes with. Butter doesn't bother her. She eats William Sonoma's cranberry relish over the Waldorf salad so I don't have to worry about the lactose in the sour cream.

I'm going to eat moderately but I am going to eat some of everything (except the cranberry relish and the pumpkin pie and the roll because why waste calories on a roll when I can have stuffing?) and just not worry about the blood sugar. I'll be exercising a lot on Friday as mom and I are walking the entire six blocks of downtown shopping (both ways). Usually she poohs out before we get to the 600 and 1100 blocks but she's in so much better shape and her hip, which was out on Saturday, should be okay as she's going to the chiropractor today.

Naturally it's going to be 74 degrees today and tomorrow and 47 on Friday.

Oh, I fit in my jean jacket! Well, it won't button over my stomach, but it fits! Yay! I've noticed that my tummy is a bit flatter (which is why my undies don't pinch!) My coat is actually a bit big but I haven't worn it with a sweater yet. Hopefully my old coat from when I was thirty pounds thinner will fit by January as it has a hood and is more a parka then a pretty wool short coat, in case we actually have a snowy winter.

I'm not counting on it. I'd actually take rain over snow the entire winter. I'm afraid it's the new Dust Bowl around here.

Oh, my webmail finally migrated to the new format which doesn't suck quite as badly. When you delete a message it still doesn't open the next one but you can now move through messages without having to exit one and open another one. I don't see any other great benefits and I keep forgetting to type in the new website to start with. Too used to typing sunflower.com It only took them two months and two emails to me saying they would be doing it overnight (the last on election night and then it took over ten days).

Well, this is long and I do actually have work--all of Friday's normal stuff--and that fic to edit.

If I'm not around tomorrow, have a great Thanksgiving all you Americans and a great Thursday everyone else!

I could have sworn I read somewhere yesterday that the President killed SOPA, so why is the internet still boycotting? Maybe because the other bill is still around though it's most likely he'll kill it, too?

Anyway, not boycotting and hopefully there'll be enough fic being loaded to keep me from being bored because, outside of copying dox and writing checks and going to court, then filing files, I have NOTHING to do today. Oh, I have a three line letter and a notice of hearing to draft--that'll take all of five minutes put together.

I brought the new Fright Night to watch once boss leaves. Other attorney is in NY getting sworn in.

Oh goodie, I have powdered donut sugar all over my blue shirt. *sigh*

White Collar's back, yay! Very good ep. Go El! Be proactive!

I enjoyed the first two eps of Alcatraz. Interesting scifi mystery and cop show plus Sam Neill. The spawn of Satan always makes anything better.

I'm looking forward to Touch next week but I can't figure out when it's on again. It's not on the next week any night. Typical Fox. Hype something big time; show the first ep; then make it disappear.

The road to the Big 12 championship continues to go through KU after we beat Baylor Monday night. Once we got the lead we really didn't sag off at all like we usually do in the second half. It may have been the best second half we've played all year.

Still completely obsessed with Sherlock. Has it been confirmed there'll be a third season? Can we hope it's more than three episodes?!

I signed up for the SPN Crossover Big Bang. I'm going to try again for the Chuck/SPN zombie apocalypse at the Buy More. I have about 100 words written from last year's failure.

Oh, yay, I just got subpoened.

:PPPPPPP

This is so stupid. I have to testify that I witnessed some dead guy sign his Will. Yeah, that's my signature but do I remember this guy from ten years ago when I witness probably 50 or so a year? Nope. I'm also sure I drafted the document but I have no memory of it because I draft 50 or so a year!

And it's not even in this county so I have to waste basically half a day--so does my boss so the office will be shut down. Oh, I made $10 plus mileage though. I'll be out about $80 if it is only half a day or use vacation time, but tough titties. ETA, boss said he'd pay me.

The only thing that makes me want to do this is that the opposing attorney's case is based on his client's (the wife, second) statement that the Will is a forgery and my back is up over that piece of shit lie. Unfortunately we didn't draft the prenup which wifie destroyed when he left everything to his kids and luckily the kids had the original Will safe where she couldn't get to it.

Luckily also it's February 15 and not March or there'd be that whole Ides thing.

GNO tonight. Hope there's wine.

It's at Indie's; there'll be wine. *g*

I didn't go to the MLK concert on Sunday night as I'm having intermittent fevers/sinus crap and was actually asleep on the couch when it started. I did go to the service that morning where the same couple performed four songs. They were great. The youth did the service and they chose some really good readings and a couple made some really articulate off the cuff statements about how the readings and images affected from 50 years ago affected them.

Okay, got court date set, need to do Notice, and boss is here, so...buhbye.

So, I finally watched the last three eps of last season's Gossip Girl. I dunno why I didn't watch them before now--maybe it was because I'd read negative reactions to Chuck's drunken violence towards Blair and I don't care a fig for the prince. I dunno.

Anyhoo, watching on hulu is annoying. There are commercials now and you can't fast forward through them like you can when you record something. So, an hour ep took an hour! I should have just done the naughty and gotten them commercial free. I watched the last two eps at home on my DVR.

GNO was quite enjoyable. I didn't eat anything--so proud of myself because there were cupcakes and reeses!

The Royals continue to win. I dunno guys. Why couldn't we have played this way in June when we had a chance?

Still not thrilled with the DC comics but the new Buffy looks interesting. Probably should read the last twelve issues or so that I've only skimmed.

Only a couple weeks till Yuletide prompts! That can't be right! That means Christmas is nearly here!

Well, Survivor started tonight--should go watch that and I have Superman/Batman Apokalips cartoon from Netflix.

It's supposed to get to 35 degrees tonight. I'll believe it when I feel it. Actually, a heavy frost would be nice. My eyes are killing me--allergies are terrible right now and they're watering and sore.

I know there was something else I wanted to say....

Five days till Christmas and I'm nowhere near ready. It would help if I'd quit falling asleep on the couch. Missed most of the Chiefs game (though was awake for the fourth quarter and obviously we can't win without Cassel, which I never would have said last year) and was up frosting sugar cookies at midnight.

I did get all my cards addressed while watching Survivor--very happy with the result--and finished packaging everything up to mail.

Finally heard that my brother is sending us presents. They should be here Wednesday so I'll be wrapping more presents before the late night KU game. Tonight I want to get all the bowing and ribboning done on the ones I have. I need to watch Leverage, too.

And bake more bread.

And finally decorate the front bathroom.

*sigh*

Do we really care what celebrities think about the repeal of DADT? Apparently tvguide.com does. Of course I'm thrilled.

Saturday morning was brunch at indiefic's which was yummy and fun, then I went home and started the playback of the KU game. Had to put it on pause as I was dozing off, then slept for two hours.

Part of the problem is that the stupid three week cold is still going strong and has moved back into my head. Yesterday I was incredibly stuffed up and dripping and sneezing and still coughing up gunk from my throat. Just lovely.

This morning I got to the post office before it opened and was second in line. The guy in front of me must have been mailing something to the moon because it took ten minutes and the lady behind me was bitching up a storm. Yes, they only have one counter clerk at that time of day (though there was a second one going by twenty minutes after opening) but it's the busiest mail day of the year. And all you wanted was stamps! Go to the freaking grocery store and buy them at the check out line!

I wasn't happy that the new guy/fill in guy made me step aside to fill out my customs forms. I could have easily done that while he was mailing the other twenty packages that didn't need them. That made me late to work by a couple of minutes which meant I spent over thirty minutes in the post office. Still, much better than it would have been this afternoon!

I still have a few tardy birthday presents to mail and then I'm done.

Need to stamp my cards.

This post is all over the place...

OH MY FUCKING GOD!

You can't leave it there!!!

...

Oh wait, you just gave it away in the preview for next week.

While, yes, I'm glad to know, still...! Way to ruin the suspense!

( spoiler for preview for next week's SPNCollapse )

In other news, I am a complete lightweight (and, no I'm really not). I had two martinis tonight and I got tipsy! I had eaten something at 4:00 and drank from 5:00-6:30. I should not have gotten tipsy! Ridiculous. It used to take me like five glasses of wine to get me to that point.

Though it might help if I had a drink more than once a month...or two months.

They were very good, though. I started with a chocolate mint one with fresh mint and then had an amaretto one which was basically an amaretto sour with vodka in it. It was yummy.

Then we strolled a bit through Final Friday downtown, art and music and some of the shops still open, though why they started this in September and didn't run it all summer, I dunno. It's (hopefully) going to be a bit cold at the end of November, if they continue it.

bellanorth and indiefic both gave me the good news that it was 28 degrees this morning so please god kill everything growing so I can breathe and stop hacking up crap all day. At least the slight dizziness tonight was due to booze. *g* You were missed tangofic!

Now I'm just really tired. I've been yawning all day. I probably should just go to bed but that would mean I'd be up at 4:00 a.m.

And...I got nothing...

After a long, busy day (during which the gentleman I mentioned in the earlier post as having coded after surgery, passed away) I spent an enjoyable and relaxing evening out with the girls. It was paperkingdoms final GNO as she's off into the real world in a few weeks. We talked clothes buying and weddings and ate turtle cheesecake. bellanorth was missed, but I was glad to be back. It's been a while for me, between church stuff and illness.

Oh, and I found out that crankylex will be here in October! We're two old skool Buffy fans and it'll be so cool to meet her!

Apparently while I was amazingly busy this afternoon the Royals played and won. I wondered why I couldn't get them on the radio driving home.

I'm still way behind on everything. *sigh* I did watch two more eps of Pretty Little Liars which is interesting. I was amused that the one girl, who played Abby on Days of Our Lives, has as her father her uncle from DOOL. *g*

I dealt with the death and the massive amount of emails fine all day but on the way home I nearly choked up because I wondered where his dog was and who would take care of it. The gentleman has no local family, has never been married, and has this tiny miniature Yorkie. I'm sure someone is looking after him since his owner was in the hospital for knee replacement, but I hope someone will take him. He's just the sweetest dog, and, if you know me, you know I'm not a dog lover (outside of my cousin's pug, Wilson, whom I want to steal).

If I don't get more written on this vampire BB I may have to drop out, which I really don't want to do. *sigh*

( 28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.Collapse )

29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I cannot believe the Chiefs managed to blow a 21-10 lead in the last two minutes of the freaking game!

...

I'm at my parents' party. My feet hurt and I was trapped by the talker. Had a good chat with a former UU--my predecessor in running the spiritual service. Lots of good food. Etc.

My voice managed to hold up and I managed not to cough during my solo today. :) It was well received. I got applause. I don't really hold with applause during a religious service (though this was during the secular Program) but it feels good.

The service was interesting--all about needing to accept and spend time with the dark and the sorrow in our lives (the month is about light and dark, next week being the return of the light at Solstice), talking about winter depression and how to deal with that but not ignore it as the dark and winter is a part of our lives. The choir number we've been working on forever went well though I'm convinced I only hit about half the notes.

The Program, our traditional Holiday Program, that I've been going to since I was a kid and played Mary at (and several years later sang O Come O Come Emmanuel at) went very well. Our RE director wrote a wonderful story about a UU girl trying to figure out what UU's celebrate at Christmas time and thinking about what her friends do, interspersed with music and the old (Mitten Tree) and new (Cookie Communion). The mitten tree has to be at the back of the room now the way the new space is set up but it didn't stop the kids from trying to see who could toss their mittens the highest. I sedately placed mine on a branch. I was in the 16-50 age group. Over 50 was called wise elders. Aileen and I, (she's one year younger) agreed that neither of us want to be considered wise elders in only a few years! lolol

Last night was a wonderful Girls Night Out. I've missed the last couple of months--England and church. We chatted for nearly four hours, ate great food, laughed a lot. indiefic's daughter is absolutely adorable!

I got about 2/3 of my holiday cards done while watching the last two Survivors. I should get the rest done during Survivor tonight and hopefully get some wrapping done. I've decided I just don't have the time to make Christmas cookies. :( I have to clean my house, wrap all the packages, finish the cards, write fic, and pack to leave at dawn next Saturday. Plus do that work thing and go to two evening parties.

Hopefully the weather will be better by Saturday. Not that it's bad yet here, but, let's just put it this way, on the way to church at 8:15 it was 58 degrees. I opened by saying 'welcome on this oddly balmy winter morning'. When I left church at 11:50, sans coat, it was 26 degrees. I was listening to the Chiefs station and the weather guy said that at Arrowhead Stadium it had dropped 30 degrees in five minutes!

Stupid Kansas weather.

Well, probably should get back to the party...

When the tvguide.com guy references Christopher Pike (in reference to a show about a spaceship) and half of the respondents say it's the author.

*sigh*

Also, is it a bad thing that the Dunkin Donuts guy either now recognizes my voice over the speaker or my coffee order? *g*

Weirdness of the day: someone actually asked to be garnished...

I will not be watching Baby Borrowers tonight but I think it's a good idea. Definitely the best birth control. While a lot of teens still get pregnant the unplanned way, more and more are doing it to have someone who will love them and because they think it's cool. Not cool. WORK.

I watched the season ending of Smallville finally. Um...? I kept yelling at Jimmy to die and Lionel to come back to life. I'm not sure that's enough reason to keep watching next year though. I think it depends on how much Lex is on and if he continues to know the truth (which I found amazing that they revealed as it threw the comic universe out the window for good). There were some lovely slashy scenes. Where's my lovely slashy season ending fic?!

Next Saturday begins my second favorite sports season! (That would be Le Tour for those new around here). Apparently the Discovery Channel team is no more! And two American teams have been invited. Also last years winner who was on DC moved on to Astana which was so plagued with drugs last year they weren't invited this year! One of the American hopes, Levi Leipheimer is also on that team. I'll probably root for the team with George Hincapie--I've always liked him and I keep expecting him to break out and win. Anyway, as it's on at predawn I'll be recording and watching every evening over dinner, which is good because I can fast forward through all the boring flat stages. I'm there for the mountains!

I watched some of the US Gymnastics trials over the weekend and, as always, grumbled a lot. For the women, why even bother? The two chosen could have fallen on their asses on all four apparati all eight times and still would have made it. I love gymnastics (and skating) but I also get pissed that someone unknown or from some dinky little country who does an excellent, tough routine gets a lower score than some mediocre performance by some star. It's why I prefer swimming and track and field, timed and measured events where you're not relying on human judgment and prejudice.

Still, I'll be rooting on the American teams come August.

Well, off to do some work and hopefully get a lot of ficcing done. Dinner out with the gals tonight--looking forward to some relaxing time!

Bossless week went too fast. :P

And I keep forgetting to say something about ( spoilers for RobinCollapse )

Oh, and thank you everyone for cutting all Indiana Jones spoilers. I won't get to see it probably for two weeks. I'm finally going to see Iron Man this weekend. I never go to premieres and usually wait a couple weeks for the big blockbusters.

My mom's mystery novels are selling well over a ladyoneill on eBay. Yay, since she lets me keep the money.

And mom and dad decided to let me borrow off their home equity line of credit rather than get my own, which means I can pay less every month and pay it off over a longer period of time. Yes, I am an adult, and my plan was to get my own loan, but I have the bestest parents ever. :)

First thing is put the fence up.

Wonderful Girls Night Out last night watching bunnies frolic. Tonight was Spiritual Celebration Team meeting which went well. We need to recruit men because it's starting to feel like another GNO. *g*

After about two hours of searching through sheet music last night I finally caved and downloaded (and paid) for music to sing next Sunday. I'm singing All Good Gifts from Godspell. I wanted to sing Light of the World but I couldn't find it online and I didn't have time to go to a store and find it, if that's even possible anymore. I like this downloading thing, even though it's not cheap. I was also able to transpose it down a fifth before I printed it--me likes! Still not low enough, I think, but the pianist is the one who's played for me for every other solo and she's really good about transposing on the fly.

Dad did get the house we wanted in London! The second bedroom has it's own shower and a queen size bed which is nice because I often get stuck with a twin. The place is full of antiques, has a grand piano! and that wonderful wireless internet. Now I just have to remember to ask him when exactly we're going. It's in Eaton Mews, paratti. :)

Well, gotta go load more books, watch Ugly Betty and package up mailings. I'm beat tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the final two Life on Mars eps watched, but I have to do the monthly invoices, too, and get everything organized for boss' return.

Boss is gone, after only being here about ninety minutes! Yay! I'm going to be naughty and watch a Gossip Girl episode and write more of the next Lilith/Severus fic (which is up to about six pages so far and dark and dismal, just like I like it). I also have a glimmering Robin Hood AU after Season 2 fic squirming in my head.

I'm nearly done with the third Gossip Girl book and I must say I prefer the characters on the show. They're shallow enough there, but, my god, in the books they're pathetic!

Today I get to leave an hour early for my monthly pedicure. I actually got up early and shaved my legs and went to the post office and was still on time to work. Well, I was a minute late because I had to drive around the block because they blocked off the ten hundred block of my work street due to tonight's stupid Wilco in the vacant lot concert. Why they need at least twelve hours of blocked off street I don't know.

Tonight is choir practice for the Rev. Sinkford visit this Sunday (it's not GNO, right gals? Buehler? Anyone?) and I haven't even looked at the music since last week. Neither has the other alto, which I know because we were at a building committee meeting last night where I reigned supreme on paint and counter top colors. We have nearly black floors, pale blue to nearly white interior walls, yellowish wood cabinets and stainless appliances and you want cream colored counter tops?!

I chose a blue/gray marble swirly stuff. The men didn't care, and the women all agreed with me. :) I also talked them out of eventually painting our old building this pale green and putting that on part of the new building and using the much darker, mossy green for the old building. Really, you don't want a nearly hundred year old building painted pale green standing on the roadway as the first thing anyone sees.

I also managed to get volunteered to lead the Library Committee next year. *sigh* Just as I was getting out of being head of the Spiritual Celebration Committee. And I'm the new archivist as we voted out the Archive Committee and voted in an appointed position.

My life is beginning to revolve around church. For someone who probably doesn't believe in God, this is truly weird.

Reactions to various TV stuff:

Looking forward greatly to Supernatural's finale.

Behind on Smallville and probably won't watch it next year with it basically becoming Lois and Clark the younger years. They are so not the reason I watch.

Lost continues to intrigue but I try not to think about it too much because it hurts my brain.

Survivor was an excellent season but the winner baffles.

I'm disappointed about the non-renewal of New Amsterdam and Moonlight but ecstatic of the renewals of Eli Stone, Reaper (though only mid-season and thirteen eps) and Terminator.

In a truly odd brain glitch, my mom convinced herself that the second season of Robin Hood was only four episodes long because there isn't an episode next Saturday (Memorial Day weekend). I know British telly shows have smaller seasons but that's just silly, mom. Plus, I've seen all the eps but 4 and 9, including the finale which is episode 13. *g*

Which I'm in huge denial over, by the way.

Kind of like I'm in huge denial over Lionel on Smallville.

Comic book day, yay! Batman RIP starts and Titans 2 is out!

(Got interrupted by someone looking for the company that was here for decades but moved over a year ago...)

Lots of books for sale at ladyoneill on eBay.

In happy news, my mortgage is going down about $26 a month next year because my taxes aren't going up and the projected escrow is less. Considering it's up $70 from where I got it lowered to about three years ago, this is good news, though any savings will go into my gas tank. :P

Back to tv, the Bones and House pre-finales both rocked.

I don't even like Iron Man as a character but I want to see the movie. It's supposed to be really good. I think dad and are going to go see it the weekend Indiana Jones comes out because everyone will be going to that. I haven't been to a movie since Christmas!

Well, I've rambled and bored you enough...

Boss is back, so I'm swamped of course, plus dealing with Dell and his malfunctioning new laptop. It's going to have to do the restoring factory settings thing which I hope means THEY do it and I don't have to spend another hour on the phone fiddling with a computer.

Migs in probably India is supposed to call me back in about ten minutes so I'm goofing off doing this instead of attacking my large pile.

Plus I have to clean up boss's old desktop so he can give it to his son and my god the computer freezes at the drop of a hat and when it's not doing that it runs like me in quicksand...or me anywhere for that matter.

Had a great night out last night with the girls and I did not cheat on my diet despite the chocolate fondue fountain and the little bits of chocolate that dripped onto the table which made my fingers itch to scrape 'em up. *g*

For some reason I didn't sleep well so I'm beat today and facing that large pile I'm currently ignoring. It's supposed to be raining/storming but then it was supposed to do that all last night, too, and nothing so far. Which is good because the less rain means the less chance of flooding basement and more chance of me getting leaves raked on Saturday.

TV's just come back from the strike and I'm already majorly behind. I'm collapsing on the couch tonight and watching Survivor and the finale of Eli Stone, which I really love. Plus then Smallville.

( possible spoilers for SmallvilleCollapse )

Okay, well I had to do the factory settings restore myself but it only took about five minutes and now I have to set the computer back up again. Luckily not one iota of data was lost. I'll have to reload some programs but my boss does nothing but use it for email and internet and all of the email is on the email server since AT&T no longer lets us use Eudora.

So, two computer crises this week...I'm so backing up our data this afternoon!

And now my slogan.

( darn tootin'Collapse )

Y'know, you kind of forget the bitter cold and coming snow when you can watch pretty boys kissing on a big screen in high def.

Thanks, bellanorth for hosting our get together and letting us watch "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang"!

So needed a night out with good friends, good food (where did you get that blueberry stilton?), great conversation, and Spike...er Capt.John...no, he's Spike. ;)