{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"the essential kit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/","description":"the essential kit - LiveJournal.com","lastBuildDate":"Sat, 13 Jun 2020 12:46:31 GMT","generator":"LiveJournal \/ LiveJournal.com","image":{"url":"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/33324088\/296044","title":"the essential kit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/","width":"84","height":"100"},"item":[{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158837.html","pubDate":"Sat, 13 Jun 2020 12:46:31 GMT","title":"Fic: Walker Papers\/Supernatural 'thank you' story","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158837.html","description":"

I've written a little Walker Papers<\/em>\/Supernatural<\/em> crossover fic story for you, my readers, basically because you're wonderful. <\/p>\n

There are EPUB and MOBI versions of \"Ghost Rider\" available for download at my Patreon<\/strong><\/a>, or you can read it on mizkit.com<\/strong><\/a>. :)<\/p>\n

It's one thing for freshly-minted shaman Joanne Walker's past to come back to haunt her...but when it comes back with a vendetta aimed at her beloved 1969 Mustang, Petite, all bets are off. But with the help of a couple of really tall, really cute FBI agents who definitely aren't who they say they are, Joanne might solve this mystery before it hurts somebody else's Baby....<\/blockquote>\n


<\/p>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158837.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158599.html","pubDate":"Wed, 04 Sep 2019 23:57:58 GMT","title":"Launch Day: THE QUEEN'S BASTARD","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158599.html","description":"\"\"<\/a> Sex, politics, murder and betrayal arrive with this re-release of THE QUEEN'S BASTARD!

Amazon<\/strong><\/a> || Apple<\/strong><\/a> || Barnes & Noble (Nook)<\/strong><\/a> || Kobo<\/strong><\/a>

Belinda Primrose deals in secrets.

Since childhood, Belinda has known she was the unacknowledged daughter of Lorraine, the unwed queen of Aulun, an island nation on the edge of the vast Echonian continent. Belinda is a spy, an assassin...and a danger to her mother, should she ever be discovered. She can be anyone, and will do anything, to cement Lorraine's position of power within the treacherous Echonian courts.

But as she infiltrates the glamorous royal palaces where her mother's rivals scheme, a new power awakens in Belinda. The witchlight she commands is a dangerous aphrodisiac\u2014one that could bring down everything she's worked for when she finds a teacher in the sensual prince of Gallin. Javier harbors secret witchbreed magic of his own...and a claim to the Aulunian throne that ranks him highly among Lorraine's enemies.

Belinda has never wavered in her mission, but love and loyalty will collide as her secrets are revealed...<\/i>

This is a re-release with new cover art (and a few spelling errors fixed) of a book I published through Del Rey in 2008 and which I got the rights back to last year. It's the first of a duology that tell the story of Belinda Primrose, the Queen's bastard. Between the two books, a complete story is told, although it's clear to any reader that there's more in the world to tell.

It is not like my other books. It is full of sex, murder, politics and betrayal, in more or less that order. Its voice is completely different. There is at least one scene of Extremely Questionable Consent.

I do not tell you this to scare you away. I tell you this because this book sold like hotcakes upon its original release, and sales on its sequel, THE PRETENDER'S CROWN (re-release out next month!), collapsed so hard they almost took my career with them. My wonderful, loyal urban fantasy readers all went out and bought THE QUEEN'S BASTARD, and two-thirds of them apparently went \"oh my GOD what have I gotten myself INTO\" and did not buy the second.

I have felt somewhat guilty about this for ten years. :) In retrospect (and frustratingly, we discussed it at the time and decided against it), it would have been wisest to publish THE QUEEN'S BASTARD under a related pseudonym, because it's so different from the urban fantasy stuff. But, well, hindsight is 20\/20.

The good thing is that the people who bought TQB for what it was really loved it. There is a small, passionate group of people who have been hoping for ten years that I might someday finish the story I was building for this world.

Now that I have the rights back, that's a possibility. It's not going to be for a long time. I have a lot of things I need to get written first. But I also have notes and titles for the rest of the books set in the Inheritors' Cycle world, and I've always wanted the chance to tell the whole story.

(I feel like I must again emphasize that I absolutely do consider TQB & TPC to be a complete story unto themselves. They end where they were always intended to, and the next book was always intended to be someone else's story.)

I tell you what, though. Putting this e-book together was almost a revelation. I knew TQB was well-written. It was\u2014it is\u2014a book I somewhat self-deprecatingly called a real book: it's not set in the modern world; its has a cast of, if not thousands, at least several; it does not rely on quick patter and one-liners and blinding fast pacing in the way the Walker Papers, especially, do. It was meant to be something new, something that showed what else I could do. And it succeeded. I knew it did all of those things.

But it had been years since I'd looked at the book, and when I opened up the file to make the e-book, I read the first sentences and I thought, \"Holy crap, this is really good!\"

That was, I confess, a pretty great feeling. :)

So...well. There you go. THE QUEEN'S BASTARD, backstory and all!

THE QUEEN'S BASTARD is available now!
Amazon<\/strong><\/a> || Apple<\/strong><\/a> || Barnes & Noble (Nook)<\/strong><\/a> || Kobo<\/strong><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158599.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158262.html","pubDate":"Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:31:40 GMT","title":"CE Murphy & the Great Newsletter Tragedy","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158262.html","description":"Ten days ago I accidentally deleted my entire newsletter mailing list, backups, old newsletters, and all, and it cannot be retrieved.

For the TL;DR crowd, you can (please please please) sign up (again) at https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/ce_murphy\/<\/a>

For those who enjoy stories of epic EBCAK, let me share the sad, mortifying tale.

It was so so so so stupid. I was trying to set up a NEW mailing list for blog posts, and tried using the same email address figuring it would say \"that email is already in use\" if that couldn't be done, right?

Except it didn't.

But THEN it wouldn't let me log in with the new username & I went \"oh jeez, did I kill my ability to log in with the old username?\" & tried & could. So I thought \"well okay I'll just delete the new one,\" & switched to that window.

...only then I was logged in to my original account, and I didn't think it through, so when it said \"do you REALLY want to delete this\" I was like \"sure brah\" and...deleted it. All. Forever and ever, amen. And five seconds later I was like \"OH, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD NO OH GOD NO I DIDN'T I DIDN'T OH GOD I *DID*\" and really this was just not my finest moment. I spent half an hour or so trying not to throw up, that's how sick I felt, and a lot more time in a futile rage.

Obviously I did not confess this error to the world until after I had thoroughly investigated the possibility of retrieval with the provider and verified there's not a single solitary good god damn thing I can do about it except rebuild. I've spent about a week howling about it on other social media and am finally bringing it to the blog page, where the mark of my foolishness will be available for everyone to read forever and ever and ever. :}

So, once more, the sign-up page is at https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/ce_murphy\/<\/a> and I am so grateful to anyone who signs up again (or for the first time).","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158262.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158086.html","pubDate":"Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:31:43 GMT","title":"The Hugo Post","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158086.html","description":"People have asked me, as they do every year, to put together a list of what I had published last year that could qualify for a Hugo nomination. I don't normally get my act together enough to do this, but a combination of elements, including

1. Worldcon is in Dublin this year!
2. I'm very proud of last year's novel! and
3. Somebody else did the hard lifting and I'm able to use that for the basis of my post

means I'm doing a proper one this year. I'll put the cold hard facts up front, and then go into greater detail below.

The following books & stories are suitable for Hugo nominations in the listed categories.

Best Novel<\/strong>:
REDEEMER by C.E. Murphy
Kobo<\/strong><\/a> || iTunes<\/strong><\/a> || Amazon<\/strong><\/a> || Barnes & Noble<\/strong><\/a>

Best Novella<\/strong>:
Kiss of Angels by C.E. Murphy
Kobo<\/strong><\/a> || iTunes<\/strong><\/a> || Amazon<\/strong><\/a> || Barnes & Noble<\/strong><\/a>

Best Short Story<\/strong>:
Family Ties (collection: KISS OF ANGELS)
21st Century Ghost (collection: KISS OF ANGELS)

Best Novelette<\/strong>
Threnody (collection: KISS OF ANGELS)

Best Series<\/strong>:
The Old Races by C.E. Murphy (KISS OF ANGELS qualifying collection)

Best Cover Artist<\/strong>:
Tara O'Shea (for KISS OF ANGELS art, & for REDEEMER design)
Lindsey Look (REDEEMER art)



Okay, that's the cut & dry version, up above. What follows are more details and my own thoughts about the works, I guess.

\"\"<\/a>REDEEMER<\/a>
Suggestion for Best Cover Artist nominee: Lindsey Look<\/b>
The war is over\u2026but for Rosie the Redeemer, the homefront battle is just about to begin!

It\u2019s July 1945, and more than just the boys are coming home from war\u2013monsters are coming with them, and Rosie Ransom learns she can redeem a damned soul\u2013but she may lose her own in the process. And yet, without her Redeeming ability, the scare started by a few demons may turn into a full-fledged nightmare\u2026 <\/i>

This was a very difficult book to write, partly because I challenged myself to several things that I'd never done before in terms of writing (not just ONE, oh no, but SEVERAL, because let's NEVER DO ANYTHING THE EASY WAY, CATIE), and also (not to lean in to a personal sob story in awards season or anything @.@) because my mom, after whom the main character was partially named, died while I was working on it.

I honestly didn't think, while I was working on it, that I had done well, or that I would ever want to return to the Redeemer world. Then my copy editor emailed, 3 chapters in, and said, \"If the rest of this is as good as the opening, WOW,\" which is not...normal. :)

Then my book designer, who is normally very, very fast, took *weeks* to lay the book out, because she was actually reading it as she laid it out, which, she says, she never ever does.

Despite all that, honestly, I still wasn't at all sure of the book until I did the final round of copy edits on it, and I gradually realized I'd done what I wanted to with it. The writing challenges I'd set myself--no semi-colons! (the horror!!!!) limited use of 'was' in non-dialogue prose! (oh god that's hard) improving my descriptions!--had succeeded, and the kind<\/i> of story I wanted to tell, one about female friendships, one that reflected not just the social expectations and restrictions of the era but also shone light on the same problems today...had made it onto the page.

And then it turned out that because the book was so very late, with the #MeToo<\/a> and #TimesUp<\/a> movement, with the huge surge of women elected to Congress, with the upheaval of the past few years...REDEEMER had become timely in a way it wouldn't have if I'd turned it in when it was due. Heh. Go figure. :) So in the end I'm actually really proud of this book, and I'd honestly love to see it nominated for a Hugo.

REDEEMER is available here:
Kobo<\/strong><\/a> || iTunes<\/strong><\/a> || Amazon<\/strong><\/a> || Barnes & Noble<\/strong><\/a>


 
<\/p>

\"\"<\/a>KISS OF ANGELS
Suggestion for Best Cover Artist nominee: Tara O'Shea<\/b>
The laws that governed the Old Races for time immemorial have been broken. Ancient rivals are scattered. Friendships are ended. What was hidden begins to step out of shadow and into the light.

And after millennia of imagining this moment, even the Old Races discover they are unprepared for what it brings\u2026.<\/em>

KISS OF ANGELS is covering a loooooooot of territory for this year's Hugo nominations, carrying, as it does, the possibility for nomination of the titular \"Kiss of Angels\" as best novella<\/strong>; for best short story<\/strong> with \"Family Ties\" and \"21st Century Ghost\"; best novelette<\/strong> with \"Threnody\", and, finally, best series<\/strong> for the entire collection as part of the ongoing saga of the Old Races, which, with the publication of KISS OF ANGELS is now some 650K words long.

The KISS OF ANGELS collection is set after the Old Races trilogy, and the titular novella, Kiss of Angels<\/i>, is the teased-at and long-promised story of Grace O'Malley (yes, that Grace O'Malley). I think it stands alone reasonably well, but it also brings the entire Old Races saga to a point where I could, and someday will, write more full-length books in the world. (!)

\"Threnody\", at an 8800 word 'novelette' length, is possibly my favourite of the collection. I think it stands alone pretty well, and I'd be thrilled to bits to see it nominated. ♥

\"21st Century Ghost\" is a first date story about the difficulties of dating the supernatural, and amuses me. :) \"Family Ties\" is a short Janx story and honestly belonged in the BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER collection, but I didn't write it for like two years after that book was published, so... :)

Seeing the whole book nominated as part of the Old Races series would be REALLY COOL, I'm not gonna lie. That would be...REALLY COOL. :) :) :)

And I would really, really like to see Lindsey Look and Tara O'Shea nominated for their cover art work, which is reliably fabulous! ♥","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1158086.html?view=comments#comments","category":["#metoo","#timesup"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157678.html","pubDate":"Fri, 14 Sep 2018 16:47:57 GMT","title":"STONEMASTER Stretch Goals!","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157678.html","description":"The STONEMASTER Kickstarter has reached goal<\/a>! Now it's time to start laying out the stretch goals!

Now, here's the thing. Obviously the, er, obvious, stretch goal is book 3, SKYMASTER, which is already written, too. HOWEVAH:

Another book is exponentially more costly on my end, mostly due to postage matters: it's not possible to get SKYMASTER ready at the same time as STONEMASTER, which means I'd be shipping it separately, later, and as most people know, shipping costs are pretty appalling. So I'm willing to put that up there as a pie-in-the-sky goal, but I want to put some more *possible* ones down between here and there. In descending order of interest (absent book 3), people have said they'd like to see these stretch goals:

1. short stories about secondary characters

2. a world map

3. cover art posters

Discussion of these ideas, in reverse order:

3. For me, the problem with posters is proving to be that I can't find anybody who will print posters on folded paper (or fold the posters after they've been printed, you know what I mean :p ), which means rolled posters, which means a separate shipping cost from mailing books or other things that can be flat-packed, which means...posters would cost a lot more than their probable value. So it's just as well that's #3, probably. :)

2. I'm talking to someone about a world map. I'd like a world map. I keep inventing places, and it'd be nice to have a map to put them on. :) Now, realistically, because I'm aiming for a short turn-around on this project, a world map might not be READY to go in book 2. It could go in book 3, and I could send PFDs and postcard-sized print maps to people who order print editions. But I admit I think a map would be really cool, and I'm gonna put it up there as a stretch goal!

1. The ONLY PROBLEM with writing short stories (aside from time) is that SO MANY of these characters will want to run away with the short part and make them...books... :) I'm going to put 3 short story goals in:

\u20ac3250, Story #1<\/strong>: Isidri, Guildmaster and venerable Ilyaran elder who is *suspected*, half seriously, by the youth of the Seamasters' Guild to be THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

She's not.

(probably.)

\u20ac4000, Story #2<\/strong>: Asindo, Seamaster, captain of the Ilyaran flagship Waifia. The sort of man who does not start a fight, but definitely finishes one. He is absolutely not 300 years old.

\u20ac4750, Story #3<\/strong>: Kisia and Desimi, our hero Rasim's age-mates, will get an adventure that...I don't know yet if it'll be pre, during, or post-series. Well. It won't be post, because SPOILERS, SWEETIE! :)

\u20ac5500<\/strong>: a WORLD MAP is unlocked!

\u20ac6750<\/strong>: at this point backers will have all read SEAMASTER, book 1, which I will be sending out shortly to backers. Backers will have opinions on who should get a short-story-bordering-on-novella. I will seek those opinions, and attempt to fulfil them. :)

\u20ac8000<\/strong>: BOOK THREE, SKYMASTER is unlocked!

Let's see how far we can go!

(...okay, somebody cue Moana, now...)

-Catie","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157678.html?view=comments#comments","category":["#3","#2","#1"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157482.html","pubDate":"Tue, 11 Sep 2018 13:16:48 GMT","title":"Kickstarter success! What's next?","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157482.html","description":"My latest Kickstarter, for STONEMASTER, Book 2 of the Guildmaster Saga<\/a>, has funded!

View Poll: What's next for STONEMASTER stretch goals?<\/a><\/div>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157482.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157372.html","pubDate":"Wed, 05 Apr 2017 11:21:15 GMT","title":"so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157372.html","description":"I don't *want* to leave Livejournal. I've been here seventeen years and have a paid-forever account and all of that. But it's thinly populated anyway, and they're rolling out these new terms and conditions that require users to comply with Russian anti-LGBTQ laws, which, y'know, no.

So effective immediately, I'm no longer cross-posting from mizkit.com to here. You can follow me at mizkit.com itself, or mizkit.dreamwidth.org<\/a><\/b>, which is where all the cool kids are headed (or have already set up shop). I may even go so far as to port the entries over to dreamwidth, although, well, IDK.

Anyway, if you head over there yourself but change usernames on the way, let me know so I, uh, know who you are. :)","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157372.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157087.html","pubDate":"Mon, 03 Apr 2017 15:41:56 GMT","title":"Let me tell you about growing up in Alaska.","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157087.html","description":"

I grew up in a small town in Alaska. It was on the road system, which meant we could and did drive to Anchorage once a year, maybe twice, but my town didn’t have, say, a McDonald’s, when I was a kid. I remember when the Dairy Queen opened, and the Arby’s, which was less of a big deal because it opened after DQ, but the first time I went to McDonald’s I was around 11 and I froze. I had no idea what to order. I hardly had any idea *how* to order, even though I’d gone to DQ and Arby’s. But that had always been with my parents, never leaving me on my own to order. <\/p>\n

I remember standing there in the McD’s, staring at the menu in a panic. There was so much STUFF and I didn’t know what was *good* or…*what*. I ended up ordering a Big Mac, because two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun<\/i> was basically all I could think, so it’s what I got. (I thought it was awful.)<\/p>\n

And that was the first McDonald’s experience for a kid on<\/em> the road system.<\/p>\n

I have a friend who teaches in a Yup’ik village on the west cost of Alaska. You fly in, to get to Kotlik, or if it’s winter–and the ice is safe, which it often isn’t anymore–you can take snow machine (mobile) up the river to visit other villages. There aren’t many cars. My friend brought the first *cats* the kids had ever seen to Kotlik. The nearest movie theatre is 200 miles away, in a town you have to fly to, to reach.<\/p>\n

Three of her students have qualified for a Yup’ik language spelling bee in Anchorage this year. They’ve never competed in the bee before, and didn’t expect to do so well. Their school has no money to send kids to Anchorage, so my friend is running a GoFundMe to get them there<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They’ve paid for the basics. They’re hoping to cover all expenses, at this point. They’re hoping to be able to go to a movie, which they’ve never done in a theatre. They’re hoping to eat at a sit-down restaurant, which isn’t something that exists in Kotlik. They’re hoping to go swimming in a pool.<\/p>\n

It’s almost impossible to convey how much it means for me to see these kids get to experience what is almost certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Kotlik is threatened by climate change, but most people don’t leave the village, and most of them will only move with the village when it has to move, rather than going somewhere else. <\/p>\n

It’s not just that they’ve got the chance. It’s that they’ve got the chance through academic achievement. It’s no insult to the kids to say most rural Alaskan schools aren’t well known for their academic prowess. They’re small, underfunded schools in tremendously remote locations. So I am *so proud* of these kids, and I want so badly for them to get to do all of the things they have a chance to do here. I think about me, eleven years old or so, overwhelmed by McDonald’s, and I think about how amazing and overwhelming and exciting this is going to be for them, and I want it for them so much.<\/p>\n

If you have a few dollars to spare, it would be amazing if you could help these kids do the things that an awful lot of us take for granted, and that they’ve never had the chance to do.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1157087.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156856.html","pubDate":"Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:28:17 GMT","title":"Picoreview: Ghost in the Shell","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156856.html","description":"

Picoreview<\/b>: Ghost in the Shell<\/i>: I think it’s probably the kind if thing you’re going to like if you’re going to like it and the kind of thing you’re not going to like if you’re not going to like it.<\/p>\n

I apparently decided the hill to die on was “female-led films need to do well at the box office” rather than “whitewashing is evil” and went to see it last night. Having only seen the anime once, and not having particularly cared for it and remembering almost nothing about it except a handful of iconic images, I thought it…wasn’t bad. It didn’t seem good, either, but then, I didn’t like the original, so.<\/p>\n

The visuals were good. Excellent, even. Scarlett Johansson’s bodysuit\/shell, in contrast to my recollection of the anime, is the least sexy thing I’ve ever seen. I suppose really enthusiastic teenage boys might be titilated by it, but seriously, it utterly lacks in titilation. I loved Johansson’s body language: she moved like a tank, stiff and unconnected to her shell, which was exactly right for the process that created her. I thought she went through a reasonable emotional story arc, although I kind of felt that Pilou Asb\u00e6k really did a fair amount of heavy lifting for the film’s emotional arc, without having all that much time on screen. He was good.<\/p>\n

I don’t really know how to feel about the casting. From my perspective, as a white American lady, it was a problem. My vague understanding is that while many people in Japanese fandom (which is to say people who are fans in<\/em> Japan, not of<\/em> Japan) would have *liked* an Asian actress in the role, they didn’t expect one and figure Johansson’s at least got star power. On the third hand, the Major isn’t drawn as particularly Japanese in the anime, and there’s story stuff related to that. So I just don’t know. I personally would have liked an Asian actress in the role, but at the same time I didn’t feel that Johansson was badly cast.<\/p>\n

A couple of very minor spoilers, more or less regarding the casting, behind the cut.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I knew going in that the Major’s original self was Japanese, and I expected her first words–perhaps all her words!–to be in Japanese, and felt they’d really screwed up by giving her English as her primary language. Given that her mother, when introduced, speaks English with an accent, there’s no reason for the Major to sound like a Nowhere In Particular American, and I was never convinced that her “code” would have been rewritten\/able to have been rewritten to the degree that she believed English was her first language. <\/p>\n

In fact, only one character (Aramaki, played by Takeshi Kitano, who was terrific) consistently spoke Japanese. He was a member of the Japanese government rather than an employee of the Hanka corporation, which is presumably why he defaulted to Japanese and nobody else did, but I really thought the Major should speak Japanese. And, arguably, that everybody else should have too, since they were, you know, operating in Japan<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The film seemed so *thoroughly* set in Japan that there appeared to be no particular reason for everybody to be white, but oddly enough, I actually thought the Major (and the terrorist) were the two that, with one sentence of explanation, could have been most logically in a non-Japanese (or, more broadly, non-Asian) shell: they’d had their memories wiped and had been lied to about their origins. I could have plausibly accepted that the decision to give them _completely different_ outward physical appearances was intended to help _totally break_ their mental associations from who they’d been to who they now were. So I spent the whole movie waiting for that one line of explanation and it never came.<\/p>\n

So, y’know, I don’t know. I thought it was okay, which is what I thought about the original, so…*spreads hands*<\/p>\n<\/a>

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156856.html?view=comments#comments","category":"picoreviews"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156569.html","pubDate":"Fri, 31 Mar 2017 15:38:12 GMT","title":"gorilla dreams","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156569.html","description":"

I wondered aloud the other day if I were to consistently get enough sleep, whether I would still be tired all the time. I recall an experiment in this field a couple of years ago, where for about two weeks I made a real effort to go to bed early and get enough sleep. After a couple weeks I felt so great I…stopped…<\/p>\n

Anyway, after a very busy day yesterday I slept 11.5 hours* and this morning had a lot of weird dreams, the highlight of which was about a troop of gorillas living along the creek behind us. There were three of them, an adult couple and a younger male, and they were well-known all the way up and down the neighborhood. <\/p>\n

But then they had twin babies, and I became a little concerned about my 6 year old and the babies (or, more accurately, their parents), so I called Dublin Zoo and told them they should perhaps get these gorillas and bring them to the zoo for everybody’s safety.<\/p>\n

The zoo, quite reasonably, insisted that there couldn’t possibly be a troop of gorillas living wild in Ireland without them knowing about it. The whole thing turned into a rather intense discussion, and came to no satisfactory conclusion.<\/p>\n

*I probably only SLEPT for about 9.5 hours, as this morning I kept waking up and thinking I should probably get up but I was bound in such comfortable sleep paralysis (I’ve loved that sensation ever since I found out what it was) that I didn’t want to break it by moving, so after a while I’d fall back asleep and that went on for quite a while…<\/small><\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156569.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156263.html","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Mar 2017 09:47:05 GMT","title":"international consortium of Getting Stuff Done","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156263.html","description":"

Nearly 8 years ago now I started the ‘war room’, a chat room for writers to log into and keep each other company while we write. It’s a combination of support group, inertia-breaker, guilt-inducer, and social space. People log in from all over North America and Europe (I don’t think we have any other continents checking in), and it works really well. (Michelle Sagara<\/a> dedicated the latest Elantra book to us. ♥ :))<\/p>\n

I wish I could figure out a way to make something similiar for more off-line activities work. Going to the gym, for example (or at least, exercising). The best way to get me to the gym is to have somebody I don’t live with expecting me to show up there. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually my workout partner; they just have to expect to see me there. Etc.<\/p>\n

But it’s different to have somebody expect you to show up in physical space. When there are thousands of miles separating you it’s harder. Past experiments with “I’ll email you when I’ve worked out, and then you’ll have to, too!” haven’t been…I mean, they work for a few days, but then somebody misses either a workout or an email and the whole thing peters out, and it’s months or even years before it gets picked back up again. I don’t know how that can be dealt with.<\/p>\n

I mean, at the moment I’ve got a bit of positive feedback loop going with my friend Ellen, who was inspired by my spring cleaning post the other day and then did one of her own that inspired me and back and forth a bit, but I’m afraid we’re running out of speed on that one. (Although I got the table cleared off, Ellen!) So I dunno.<\/p>\n

Anyway, they (“They”) say to become a (relative) expert in something, all you need is to do it consistently for 20 minutes a day. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a 15 minute body weight workout<\/a> that he says is all you need to get fit. (I’ve done it. He’s right. It’s a great, by which I mean ass-kicking, workout. Unless you’re already pretty fit, don’t try all four reps in your first workout unless you don’t want to be able to walk for a week.) Even overlooking DuoLingo, there are a ton of 20-minutes-a-day language study programmes. <\/p>\n

I’d like to get myself doing those things. Arnie’s workout, studying Spanish for 20 minutes a day, drawing for 20 minutes a day. Assuming some lead-in and wind-up time for those, they’re half an hour each. A total of 90 minutes a day. God knows I could afford to lose out on 90 minutes of looking at Facebook or Twitter every day.<\/p>\n

(Obviously there are forty other things I’d like to do too, but I kind of think managing 3 is a big ask all by itself, even if it’s HARDLY ANY TIME, so, y’know. Baby steps. Or at least, medium-sized steps…)<\/p>\n

(And yes, this is like a combination of Spring Sunshine Makes Me Ambitious and New Hair Means I Could Be A New Person, Right, so, y’know. Stupid brain, or something.)<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156263.html?view=comments#comments","category":["thinks to do","daily life","getting stuff done"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156052.html","pubDate":"Fri, 24 Mar 2017 23:04:56 GMT","title":"Kitsnacks: Cocoa Brownies","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156052.html","description":"

\"\"<\/a>This is our family’s go-to brownie recipe:<\/p>\n

Cocoa Brownies<\/b>
\n3\/4 c sugar
\n3\/4 c flour
\n1\/3 c cocoa powder
\n1\/2 tsp salt
\n1\/2 cup butter, room temp or softer
\n2 eggs
\n1 tsp vanilla<\/p>\n

Whisk the dry ingredients together. Add butter, eggs and vanilla and mix. Scrape into a 9×9″ buttered pan. Bake at 350°F for 15-18 minutes, until barely done (a fork inserted in the centre should come out slightly gooey but not *wet*). Allow to cool. Frost as desired. (I usually use chocolate buttercream frosting.) Eat! Makes 16 brownies.<\/p>\n

(This recipe scales well and can be used to make up to a quadruple batch successfully. I’ve never tried anything larger. We often make double batches, though. :))<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1156052.html?view=comments#comments","category":["recipes","kitsnacks"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155671.html","pubDate":"Fri, 24 Mar 2017 15:53:38 GMT","title":"new hair!","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155671.html","description":"

My hair has been driving me increasingly crazy. I challenged myself to grow it for…three years, or something. Around the time Indy was born, until my 40th birthday. And I’m now a few months shy of my 44th and had kept it long, but all I ever do with it is pull it into a ponytail, or sometimes braid it, and eventually get the ends that are wrecked from ponytail holders trimmed off. And it’s just been driving me nuts. Not the weight, but the presence. The bits sliding into my face. All of it. Just hate.<\/p>\n

So I got it cut off yesterday.<\/p>\n

The hairdresser, whom I’ve gone to for some time and whom I have warned since the beginning that someday I would come in and tell her to cut it all off, still asked me four times if I was sure.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was sure. She said, after a while, “It’s so weird to actually get to *cut* someone’s hair. Usually people are really precious about their hair and want a millimeter off. This is really strange!”
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Have you had short hair before?” she asked. “All my life,” I said. “Long hair is not my norm.”
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“…I actually don’t remember what you looked like with long hair,” she said, upon finishing. “It’s like you’ve always come in for this haircut. This is your haircut!”
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Which is true, but I still almost don’t recognize myself. Except it also looks more like me than long hair, so that’s confusing. :)
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d told Indy I was going to get my hair cut almost as short as his. He thought that was pretty funny. This morning when he saw me, he gasped and said, “Cute haircut! It IS almost as short as mine!”<\/p>\n

I managed not to use a gallon of shampoo (in fact, I was trying so hard not to I didn’t use quite enough!) but I forgot I wouldn’t need two towels anymore. It took two seconds to blow it dry and spritz some stuff into it for shape and then I was done and it was wonderful.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I figured my head would be cold and feel weirdly light for a couple of days, and I was prepared, upon walking out of the hairdresser’s, to go BRRR! Except I didn’t. It just felt RIGHT and FINE and GOOD. And the only time my head felt lighter was *immediately* after she took the first really big hunk off the back. It’s just felt *better* since then.<\/p>\n

So I’m glad I whacked it all off.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155671.html?view=comments#comments","category":["new hair","hair"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155553.html","pubDate":"Tue, 21 Mar 2017 16:12:04 GMT","title":"spring cleaning, i guess","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155553.html","description":"

I read an article the other day that said the average American household has 300,000 items in it and now I want to get rid of everything we own. :p<\/p>\n

I mean, this isn’t really like a sudden new urge. I’ve been suffering from the Tyranny Of Things for a while now, and I keep grimly trying to do something about it. It doesn’t seem to get anywhere. More books appear. More RANDOM PIECES OF PAPER appear. I hang on to clothes in the hope that I’ll get slim enough for them or the fear I’ll get fat enough for them. There are unnecessary numbers of shoes. On and on it goes. And today I’m trying to clean the office. It’s not going well. Like, so:<\/p>\n

oh look at all these rogue figurines do i really need to keep all of these they mostly just collect dust<\/p>\n

oh look at all the art supplies i can’t justify because i never do any art<\/p>\n

oh look at all the sewing supplies i can’t justify because i never do any sewing<\/p>\n

oh look at all the bags i can’t justify because NOBODY NEEDS THIS MANY BAGS, JFC WHY DO I HAVE 8 CAMERA BAGS<\/p>\n

oh look at all the unnecessary copies of my own books i have, why am i keeping french copies, it’s not like i read french<\/p>\n

oh look at all the history books i have which are never going to be useful if i don’t read them so i can write books drawing from their info<\/p>\n

oh look at all the great bookends i have but can’t use because i have TOO MANY BOOKS and they go from shelf-end to shelf-end<\/p>\n

oh look a rogue wig & 2 white wigs meant to be test cases for a nebari\/chiana costume if i ever got less fat\/sewed again do i need those NO<\/p>\n

oh look jr high & high school yearbooks? do i need those? no. i do not. their only value is briefly entertaining children. and yet.<\/p>\n

oh look dictionaries of angels. am i ever going to write the not-exactly-post-apocalyptic fallen angels books? probably not. so do i need the angel dictionary? no. AND YET.<\/p>\n

The really grim thing is despite appearances I do keep trying to get rid of stuff and it JUST KEEPS ACCUMULATING. Part of that is almost certainly that, for example, I managed to clear off enough shelf space to TAKE STUFF OUT OF BOXES. And I got rid of a lot when I took it out of boxes, BUT STILL.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I feel like I’ve gone about as far as I can today. At least in this room. <\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155553.html?view=comments#comments","category":["the tyranny of stuff","haus","housecleaning"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155132.html","pubDate":"Mon, 20 Mar 2017 15:20:18 GMT","title":"ambitious!","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155132.html","description":"

I woke up feeling really ambitious this morning, between the head cold and 6 hours of sleep:<\/p>\n

I decided Ted should start working out and get in shape like The Rock.<\/p>\n

(honestly, i have no idea where that came from but it’s so hysterical i thought it was worth sharing. i liked how *i* wasn’t gonna do this shit, no way. it was an ambition for TED. a really really extreme one! in retrospect, i thought, y’know, getting in shape like chris pratt would be a sufficiently impressive ambition. :))<\/p>\n

As far as my own ambitions are concerned, well…I got home from bringing Indy to school and I’m still on the couch. I need to get the hell off social media. (I was wondering, somewhat grimly, how much, and what, I would accomplish, if I could manage to limit myself to 2 hours of social media time a day. Since I read like 40 books the 6 weeks we didn’t have internet, I probably have a pretty clear idea, really….)<\/p>\n

A friend told me St Patrick’s Day was the traditional day for early harvest potatoes to go in the ground. Yay! I thought. Great plan! But my ambitions were scuppered by this cold. We spent the holiday watching movies and sleeping. Which was good! But not much like digging up the front garden plots and planting potatoes. My new ambition is to have them in the ground by the 21st, which, somehow, is tomorrow. That, frankly, doesn’t bode well.<\/p>\n

My next ambitions may be to pull the drapes closed so I can’t see the rain, and watch some Farscape…<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1155132.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sick","daily life","sick and tired of being sick and tired"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154997.html","pubDate":"Mon, 20 Mar 2017 11:41:48 GMT","title":"Picoreview: Beauty and the Beast","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154997.html","description":"

Picoreview<\/strong>: Beauty and the Beast<\/em>: exceeded my expectations by a considerable margin.<\/p>\n

(Also, irrelevantly, I was sitting between two little girls who sang all the songs they knew, and an older woman who kept wiping her eyes, both of which I found pretty charming. :))<\/p>\n

The showing I went to go see originally was sold out, which meant I basically spent four hours wandering vaguely around downtown Drogheda (spoiler: it hasn’t got 4 hours worth of entertainment in it) so I could go to the next one. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be worth four hours of puttering around. <\/p>\n

I was, in fact, feeling pretty…cautious about it, overall. I hoped I’d like it. I wasn’t sure. The animated film has problems, especially with the timeline, that I figured would be extant in the live action version as well. I mean, obviously it was a *chance* to fix those problems, but every time I think an adaptation is going to take advantage of BEING AN ADAPTATION and FIX PROBLEMS WITH THE ORIGINAL, it doesn’t. So I didn’t have much faith.<\/p>\n

But the screenplay was actually much stronger and dealt with…basically every issue I had with the animated movie. I was astonished. It had *other* problems, new ones of its own, but that’s what I want out of an adaptation, as expecting perfection is unreasonable. :)<\/p>\n

Having JUST written my own version of BatB ([begin shameless self-promotion] ROSES IN AMBER<\/a> [end shameless self-promotion]) there were moments early on where I went “oh but that’s not the way the story went,” but I got over those swiftly and settled back in to this being a new, improved version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. And I really do think it was improved.<\/p>\n

I shall have many thoughts, but not many spoilers, behind the cut.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I don’t even know where to start.<\/p>\n

Luke Evans was born to play Gaston. He bordered on appealing, which I didn’t think was possible with the character. And I had a real fear they would cut my favourite line in the entire movie, “Screw your courage to the sticking place!” which is in his song “Kill the Beast,” but it remained. (I’ll never forget the thrill of visceral joy I felt when I first heard that line in the song, lo these many years ago!)<\/p>\n

Josh Gad’s LeFou was a lot better than I expected him to be, in many, many ways. He actually has a story arc and character development. It’s a small arc, but the fact that he has one at all really pleased me.<\/p>\n

I didn’t realize Kevin Kline was playing Maurice, and spent fifteen or thirty seconds going “wait who is that” before I recognized him. He was very good in the role (of course he was), and the role itself is…so much better. So. Much. Better. Than the animated film’s. SO much better.<\/p>\n

I was less enamored of Ewan McGregor’s Lumiere than of Jerry Orbach’s by a…considerable…margin. Considerable. Part of it is just that I hated both Lumiere and the Potts’s animation. I don’t know if it’s uncanny valley or just creepy design (I’m inclined to feel creepy design: I dislike the Mrs Potts teapot toys violently, too, I just think they’re gross.) but I do not like it at all. Emma Thompson’s Mrs Potts, however (although not Angela Lansbury, which is no fault of her own), was *fine*, for me, vocally, whereas I just felt McGregor’s Lumiere was…awful. <\/p>\n

I thought Ian McKellan’s Cogsworth was underused, but not as distressing in animation terms as the other two. I was really disappointed with Stanely Tucci’s over-the-topness. I didn’t feel like that was necessary at all, particularly coming off the Hunger Games films. <\/p>\n

Lest you think I just hated all the animated characters, let me pause in my litany of dislikes to say I really *loved* Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Plumette, whose animation was just *gorgeous*, and whose Frenchness was not simply there to be Outrageous. They also did a really nice job of demonstrating how the servants were gradually losing their humanity, in a way that the animated film really didn’t touch.<\/p>\n

Having gotten all of the side characters out of the way, there is, of course, the titular couple:<\/p>\n

Emma Watson really should have worn a corset, or everybody else should not have, but really, she should have. It didn’t have to be tightly laced. It just needed to make her clothes lie correctly. Also, I found her natural hair when virtually nobody else had it to be…really odd. She sang well enough, though either the sound editing or the soundtrack or her lip synching were slightly off for her first song, which I found…very distracting, and made it harder for me to tell whether she was singing well or not. <\/p>\n

Nitpicky details like that aside, she was really very good. There were things about her character that have been shifted, in a really delightful way, from the animated film, and it was pretty fun to watch her deliver some of the original Belle’s lines verbatim. Her relationship with the Beast develops a lot more smoothly (still very quickly, but while the argument’s been made for the animated film that it’s less fast for them than the outside world, the details of the live action version actually makes that a much more *plausible* argument, and if somebody wanted to convince me that’s the case, they wouldn’t have much trouble doing so) and, in fact, much more believably, which made me REALLY HAPPY. I thought she brought a good combination of compassion and feistiness to the role and there were even some bits of humor in there. :)<\/p>\n

The Beast. Oh, the Beast. I’d say 80% of the animation was excellent. 15% of it was pretty good. 5% really stood out badly. Sadly, some of that 5% was in a “new” scene that I think could have been the prettiest (okay, second prettiest, after the ballroom dance) scene in the film if the Beast’s animation hadn’t been standing out like a sore thumb. But most of the animation was good, and I have to say, he’s a very *handsome* Beast. (Vastly more attractive than the prince, but we knew that, didn’t we.)<\/p>\n

I thought some of his backstory was presented in a very ham-handed way (including, unfortunately, the opening scene), but it was nice to get a little more backstory for him at all, and I thought he did a *very* fine job of gradually bringing on the charm. (That voice. #ded) <\/p>\n

AND HE HAD A SONG!<\/p>\n

One of my greatest problems with the animated film was that Robbie Benson’s beautiful voice only got one damn verse and the Beast didn’t have a song of his own. I was THRILLED that this Beast got a song of his own! Hooray!<\/p>\n

…that said, I thought all the new music was pretty terrible. I don’t know if it’s *actually* terrible or if it’s just New And Unaccustomed In The Context but I thought it was all pretty bad. It sounded like an uncomfortable marriage of “The Secret Garden” and “Phantom of the Opera”. The new verses added into the old songs were fine, even carrying some character development, but the new songs…well, I’m going to see it at least twice more, so we’ll see if they grow on me.<\/p>\n

The architecture is beautiful, and on the exterior, at least, has at least a degree of period accuracy. And the bit where Belle’s going up the tower to find her father is–if you’ve ever climbed tower stairs in an old castle, you’ll probably have encountered their Death Side: the stairs often don’t meet on both walls, so there’s a terrifying drop on one side. And the terrifying drop was there, which was totally unnecessary for them to do, but they did it, and it pleased me. I realize it’s almost all CGI, but I’d love to explore that palace. It was just lovely.<\/p>\n

Huh. I feel like I’ve actually panned it a lot in this review, which is funny, because I was really, really happy with it. It may be that I can’t talk about what I liked without going into spoiler territory, though. <\/p>\n

I mean, there’s stuff like–it’s not Sleeping Beauty’s castle, in the opening Disney castle thing; it’s the Beast’s. Which delighted me, but isn’t about the *film* so much. And there’s an establishing shot of the village where you can see a river winding through the hills, and it’s the same river that’s in the opening Disney castle thing (just as it was the same river and landscape in Malificent, and, I suspect but need to rewatch to verify, in *some* establishing shot in Cinderella–that river leads to the castle at the heart of the goblin kingdom, people! That river is magic, but those are…those are Disney being smart with its marketing and branding; they’re not about this movie in particular, even if I love seeing them doing that.<\/p>\n

Yeah. I can’t go into details without spoiling stuff. I’m just SO MUCH HAPPIER with the story structure and the through-lines! The characters are much more well-rounded! They did good, by gum! They did good!<\/p>\n<\/a>

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154997.html?view=comments#comments","category":["batb","beauty and the beast","roses in amber","picoreviews","movies","reviews","fairy tales"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154603.html","pubDate":"Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:45:29 GMT","title":"i has a sick","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154603.html","description":"

A cold attacked me on Sunday. One minute I was fine, five minutes later I had a raging sore throat and completely stuffed sinuses. Monday I sat on the couch and watched Farscape. Tuesday I went to Dublin, which was clearly an overtaxing of my ability, but I was glad I went. I went to bed at 7:30pm on Tuesday night (Indy tucked me in and read me a story &heart;), woke briefly at 11 and thought “yay I’m a lot better!” and went back to sleep…and woke up at 4:30am. :{ Got up at 5 or something. Went BACK to bed at 10. Got up at noon, sure I would make it through until evening. Then at 7 on Wednesday evening Indy wanted some snuggle time and we went upstairs and I lay down on the bed and was like NOPE. THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE. <\/p>\n

And woke up at 2:30am. *sigh* Stayed up until 8:30. Went back to bed until around 11. I’m pretty clearly going to have to rely on caffiene to get me through until 9 or 10pm tonight, because it’s now a quarter to one and frankly I feel I could go back to sleep.<\/p>\n

I *am* a lot better than I was Sunday thru Tuesday evenings, but I’m still wrecked. I’ve accomplished no work at all this week, which would be frustrating if I could muster the energy to care that much. I am crying at everything. This is No Fun At All.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154603.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sick & tired","sick","daily life"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154542.html","pubDate":"Tue, 14 Mar 2017 20:26:29 GMT","title":"Sugar Wars: Wagon? What Wagon?","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154542.html","description":"

After closing out my 30 day run at this, I didn’t so much fall off the wagon as take a long low running dive and strike out away from the wagon as hard as I possibly could. I even stopped counting calories. There has been a distinct To Hell With It All vibe, and I’ve been Just Fine with that.<\/p>\n

Today, however, marks the start of another go at this, with a 6-week run ahead of me instead of 30 days. <\/p>\n

I don’t know quite how I’ll handle this go. Back to counting calories, but I don’t know if I’ll be more strict, or less strict, with myself regarding actual sweets. I’m leaning toward more strict, which means no hot chocolates on Thursdays, but we’ll see how much willpower I have in that regard come tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Even with most of a week of throwing it all to the wind, I’m down five pounds over the past five weeks. That’s a perfectly reasonable rate of weight loss, although not a terribly inspiring one. (The lack of inspiration is probably part of why I flung myself off the wagon so readily. Thanks to biology my lowest weight this month was a couple weeks ago, and I’m actually slightly lighter now than I was when my 30 days were up.) Anyway, inspiring of not, that rate of weight loss will eventually get me where I’m going, so here we are, back on the wagon.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154542.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sugar wars","fitness","food"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154070.html","pubDate":"Mon, 13 Mar 2017 15:18:37 GMT","title":"Introducing Sophia the First","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154070.html","description":"

Not that we expect more Sophias. She’s named after a Disney princess. :)<\/p>\n

I decided rather suddenly this week that we needed a cat, and since the animal rescue was having an adoption day on Saturday, we went in to look at “Tiggles”, who had been with them since December because she HAAAAAAAAAATED adoption days and curled into the corner of the cage and hissed and spat at anybody who came near. She’s been fostered at one of the rescuers’ homes, though, and they swore she was charming and sweet outside of the kennel, and, importantly, an adult (she’s 3.5 years old) who doesn’t mind small children, and I believed them. We took her home, renamed her Sophia, and now we have a lovely cat.<\/p>\n

Sophia, lounging. :)
\n\"sophia05\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Radiators are best.
\n\"sophia01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Watching birds out the window.
\n\"sophia02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sophia immediately displays a cat’s natural antipathy to a human having a laptop instead of a cat on their lap.
\n\"sophia03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Hey!” said Indy. “I want to be in that picture!”
\n\"sophia04\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1154070.html?view=comments#comments","category":"cats"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153803.html","pubDate":"Thu, 09 Mar 2017 12:35:56 GMT","title":"Garden Ambitions","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153803.html","description":"

I have Ambitions about the garden. My Ambitions probably require a wood chipper, a chainsaw, a tiller, whatever one uses to pull (reasonably small, because I wouldn’t try to deal with the big trees) stumps\/roots out, and as many willing bodies as is feasible, to accomplish. <\/p>\n

See, half of it garden is gone to wild, and was before we moved in here. I don’t even necessarily mind that it’s wild. It’s that it’s murderous, full of brambles (which at least produce blackberries) and nettles (which don’t). I’d like to reduce it to non-murderousness. I don’t have any PLANS for it beyond non-murderousness, not really <\/p>\n

(except the blackberry bramble patch would probably make a good area for a small vegetable garden)<\/p>\n

it’s just that I want it to not leap out and attack random passers-by. But if that’s going to be done it might as well be done right, and if it’s going to be done right it’d probably be silly to not at least put grass down, or something. <\/p>\n

There’s far too much of it to be done, realistically. It’s…well.<\/p>\n

\"gardenwreck02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s probably…I don’t know. I mean, from that angle, it’s 60 feet deep, but that’s looking toward the corner from where I was standing. Facing straight back it’s at least 20, maybe 30 feet deep from where I’m standing to the fence blocking the creek. And it’s at least a hundred feet long, so it’s just…a lot of ground. Too much. Except, y’know, if you’re gonna do it at all… #sigh<\/p>\n

Even so, just dealing with the first…15 feet of depth? <\/p>\n

\"gardenwreck03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s a fence running along the left of this picture, more or less (more or less) where the earth stops. Taking that out and clearing even just the five or so feet in front of it and the ten behind it would get rid of MOST of the brambles and nettles and it’d…just be a lot better. *sigh*<\/p>\n

The whole mess is made worse by the fact that when pieces of the apple tree fell off last year, the gardener just threw them right over the edge of the fence in the clearest patch (which had been my blackberry patch, god damn it):<\/p>\n

\"gardenwreck01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

so what was bad the year before is much worse now because it’s got an entire extra dead tree lying on top of it. #sigh<\/p>\n

And of course the longer it goes on the worse it’ll get, so I would LIKE to deal with it, but…agh. :\/ And it should be done NOW, before spring really kicks into gear, and…agh!<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153803.html?view=comments#comments","category":["actual manor house","daily life","gardening"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153589.html","pubDate":"Wed, 08 Mar 2017 20:30:44 GMT","title":"Sugar Wars: 30 Days Done","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153589.html","description":"

Today was sort of a weird day. I’d fully intended to get up and make pancakes and really just blow the whole thing out of the water, but we ended up going into Dublin, so I had a decent breakfast instead and headed in.<\/p>\n

Had my beloved mint hot chocolate there, and thought “This is really very very sweet.” That was a kick in the pants. o.O<\/p>\n

Ate a small sensible lunch, had some gorp for a snack, ate quite a lot of dinner and some cookies afterward, but stayed close enough to within my calorie allowance that it’s hard to condemn myself.<\/p>\n

It’s clear it’d be very easy to slide directly back into bad habits. I feel like I’ve earned some indulgence, of course, but at the same time my indifference to sugar-based foods has grown considerably, and there’s no point in throwing that all away.<\/p>\n

I have a couple of…plans, going forward. One, unexpectedly, may be going ahead and cutting that weekly hot chocolate, because…well, that was really very sweet. It’s the ritual of it that I’ll miss more than the actual drink. But hey, you know, Lent is coming up, and assuming I’m in the right ballpark for the calorie count on those hot chocolates, six weeks without would theoretically add up to about a pound and a half of bonus weight loss.<\/p>\n

Other plans will be referenced when they crop up, because I don’t like making much in the way of predictions about this kind of thing. At some point I’m going to have to actually make a real effort to properly overhaul my diet, but honestly, I don’t see that happening in this next round. I think probably most of what I’m going to be doing is working on staying the sugar wars course, and perhaps making some modest effort toward a slightly lower average daily calorie count. A hundred would make a…very modest…difference, and is probably what I should be aiming for, realistically.<\/p>\n

Anyway. I’m out for the night.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153589.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sugar wars","fitness","food"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153349.html","pubDate":"Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:01:05 GMT","title":"Sugar Wars: 28 Days Later","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153349.html","description":"

I’m doing this for 30 days and keep thinking “4 weeks” and also keep forgetting what day I started, so today is 4 weeks but I’m not quite done yet. Not, she said grimly, that this can ever be *done* for me, because I’ll just fall back into old habits if I loosen the rein. Old, tasty habits. Still, I may treat this as sort of a wrap-up post, although hey, don’t worry, there’ll be a new leg of it starting soon.<\/p>\n

The only other time I’ve gone off sugar for this long I was MUCH stricter with myself. I went absolutely cold turkey that time. I’d say I’ve run somewhere between 80-90% on target this time, which, since I’ve stuck with it, is certainly sufficient for my purposes right now. <\/p>\n

The scale hasn’t moved much over the past couple weeks, but I think that’s as much a combination of bad timing regarding my digestive cycle and biology, as anything else. I’ll see next week where things are. Even as things stand, I’ve lost 7 pounds in the past 4 weeks, which is completely reasonable. It’s not, of course, the mega-dramatic OMG LOOK WHAT AMAZINGNESS HAS HAPPENED JUST BECAUSE I CUT SUGAR that one dreams of, but it’s completely reasonable. It would also be better, of course, if I hadn’t regained ten pounds in the six months previous to starting these sugar wars, but there’s not much point dwelling on that either.<\/p>\n

As much of a triumph as the actual cutting of sugar aspect is that I’ve kept a calorie calendar going for 28 days, too, despite eating out. I don’t really know why I’ve managed to, but it’s probably helped, because I was able to see that the problem wasn’t necessarily that I missed sugar, but that I’d cut so many calories that I missed FOOD. That probably helped me choose wisely about what to eat to make up for the sugar, instead of just throwing the towel in and eating an entire cake.<\/p>\n

Exercise has been hit and miss, and when I say exercise I mean ‘getting my 10k steps in’ because I’m not even trying to accomplish anything else. Most weeks I average pretty close to 10K a day, but I don’t often hit 10K every day. I’d say I’ll try to do better, but realistically I won’t. There are days when I just don’t leave the house, and nothing I’m really honestly going to do is going to get me 10K steps on those days. <\/p>\n

Anyway, so that’s not quite a wrap, but it’s where things stand at the end of four weeks. <\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153349.html?view=comments#comments","category":["exercise","sugar wars","fitness","food"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153141.html","pubDate":"Sat, 04 Mar 2017 22:21:25 GMT","title":"Sugar Wars: Whoops","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153141.html","description":"

Despite my careless confidence yesterday, I went over calorie budget today. Given that I was below all week (drastically below on the day I inadvertantly barfed up dinner @.@), I’m not exactly concerned about this. It’d be nice if all this nonsense reflects in the scale on weigh-in day. We’ll see.<\/p>\n

I went to a movie this afternoon and was quite hungry going in, but reluctant to get popcorn or any of the other crap available at the theatre. I stopped at a local bakery and got an eclair instead.<\/p>\n

I mean, I ate it, because I was hungry, but I could tell from the first bite that I wasn’t really impressed with it. (I mean, beyond the fact that with one glorious exception, I’ve never had eclairs that I thought were as eclairs should be. The exception was at a farmer’s market where one of the businesses made eclairs that were the Platonic ideal. Like, these things were what God had in mind when God said “Let there be eclairs.” They used real, dark chocolate, almost a ganache, and chantilly cream, and a lavendar blossom on top, and they were *perfect*. As it happened, the last time I saw that company at that market, I stopped to tell them that these were the perfect eclairs. The guy said to the woman, “See?! I *told* you so!” and then they were never there again. Perhaps I broke the spell?) <\/p>\n

None of that was the point. The point was that normally even if an eclair wasn’t the Platonic Ideal, I’d have been all like “eclair nom” and I was much more “eclair meh”.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly nice to be past the murderous stage of this, to feel like I’ve turned a corner. I know all too well that it would be exceptionally easy to fall right back off the wagon, but right now, at least, it’s nice.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1153141.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sugar wars","fitness","food"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152991.html","pubDate":"Sat, 04 Mar 2017 16:51:57 GMT","title":"coloring: elfquest: picknose","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152991.html","description":"

“PICKNOSE,” shrieked the six year old, gleefully. “Why is he called PICKNOSE? Does he PICK HIS NOSE A LOT?!?!”<\/p>\n

“No,” I said, amused. “It’s because is nose is shaped like a pick, which is the thing he’s holding.”<\/p>\n

Indy was less disappointed by this than I expected. :)<\/p>\n

I haven’t done much coloring lately, by which I mean, in the past 6 months. I opened up my big Elfquest coloring book once and got overwhelmed because all I’d put down on the page so far were the orange highlights for the fire reflections on skin, and it looked like so much work to continue that I didn’t. But I finally looked at the actual coloring book, and this page, which was next, wasn’t too overwhelming. (The next page is also of trolls. I would have…laid it out differently, if it’d been mine. I also wouldn’t have had four versions of basically the same scene, but I’ve muttered about this before so I won’t again. Not much, at least.) <\/p>\n

Anyway, doing the shading on this was fun, which is probably indicative of some kind of mental problem on my part. Although of course I then found a filter on my phone that smoothed out the shading so it looked much more impressive and liquidy and stuff, so I sulked for a while about that, but I’m not posting the filtered one because it’s not really what I did. :p<\/p>\n

\"eqp11\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152991.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152624.html","pubDate":"Fri, 03 Mar 2017 21:16:52 GMT","title":"Sugar Wars: A Corner Turned","author":"mizkit","link":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152624.html","description":"

I’ve turned a corner with this whole thing. Since Sunday I’ve been…pretty indifferent to the idea of treats. I mean, I had my Thursday hot chocolate, but I had a discussion with myself about it and got it after the movie I went to, when I’d actually gotten to some level of hunger, instead of shortly after lunch & before the movie when I was quite full but trying hard to convince myself that I really needed to get that hot chocolate now. I finally was like “no, really, why would you?” and walked away from it until I had actual appetite. <\/p>\n

I ate sensibly all the way around the rest of the day, too, which is really unusual, as Thursdays are kind of my Indulgence Day, and I don’t berate myself for whatever I might eat on that day. <\/p>\n

I did have four small cookies and a glass of milk after dinner tonight, but it wasn’t even vaguely an OH MY GOD I MUST HAVE SWEETS kind of thing. I had millions of calories left in my budget and a variety of things I could have chosen, but I thought cookies just sounded nice, so I baked up a few and ate them and they were *lovely*…and I didn’t even remember that I’d baked up more so Ted (who had gone to a movie) could have a few too. Usually that would be a fingernails in the couch cushions keeping myself away from them kind of thing, so…yeah. I feel like I’ve turned a corner.<\/p>\n

I also still ended up miles under my calorie budget, which was a totally unexpected but nice bonus. I have, in fact, been on or under budget all week (unless I’m hopelessly miscounting my intake, but I try hard to overestimate rather than underestimate), which is the first time that’s happened in this entire process. If I can get through tomorrow, and I have no reason to expect I can’t at this point, I’ll have 7 full days of on-budget eating, which is pretty great.<\/p>\n

And now I’m going to bed, because my eyes are very tired.<\/p>\n

(x-posted from The Essential Kit<\/a>)<\/font>","comments":"https:\/\/mizkit.livejournal.com\/1152624.html?view=comments#comments","category":["sugar wars","fitness","food"]}]}}