There is too much, I will sum up:

Since last we spoke in beginning of August we have gone camping up at Mt. St. Helens (surprisingly successful!); I started and then stalled on a Firefly vid; we had Puplet's fifth birthday party; had family visit; celebrated three birthdays in four days; had Puplet start (and love, and then HATE) kindergarten; had Puptoo start daycare (hate, all the time); continued to work full-time; continued to have a baby who hates sleeping; have already had Puptoo get sick three times from daycare; flew on a whirlwind trip to Denver with brynnmck to see Seth Meyers perform; and got a dog!

( You get pictures of the dog! Which, if you follow me on Twitter, you have already seen, sorryCollapse )

And now you are all caught up!

I, however, continue to be behind. I haven't even STARTED Puplet OR Puptoo's 5-yr and 1-yr posts, respectively. I have a ton of pictures I want to re-size and post to my photo tumblr. I want to get back to my Firefly vid. I want to finish my Seth/Amy punk rock AU. Plus work, school, and family obligations. So fall TV season has started and as I said on Twitter, I am already behind and have given up. I think I'm going to skip Festivids this year and instead spend that time finishing a vid for me, but we'll see. I always get caught up in the frenzy of it. Hee. If you want to keep up with me on a regular basis, I'm basically all Twitter, all the time right now (@sdwolfpup) because it's easiest to do on my phone. I abandoned tumblr for like a month straight but I'm occasionally dipping in there again (ajoblotofjunk). And I'm reading here but having trouble commenting because the LJ app for my phone is terrible. But I like seeing y'all here! Please keep posting and I will try to comment more, I promise!

Here's a random fact about me: I really really love the Year With Frog and Toad soundtrack. I'll listen to it without Puplet around.

This entry was cross-posted at my Dreamwidth account. Please comment here or there. ( comments at DW)

I have seen a few posts starting along these same lines but: I cannot believe it's been a MONTH since I've posted. Good grief.

In the last month I have: left a job; started a job (which I love, which is a weird feeling, honestly); gotten terribly sick with, I think, rotavirus; gone on vacation to Orcas Island; had multiple visitors stay with us (including the DELIGHTFUL and very patient heresluck; watched some shows; decided to cancel our cable (haven't done it yet, but will now that Game of Thrones is done for the season); read Brynn's new fic (more on that in a minute); sent 11,000 emails (approximately) to Brynn, mostly about SNL people; done basically all the rest of my Internet time in the dark on my phone while Puptoo refused to nap/refused to nap alone (which is a terrible way to do your Internetting, I do not recommend it if you want to actually engage in anything); attended a Kris Delmhorst concert; had a cat start peeing constantly under our stairs in such a way that we're having serious smell issues, but I can't figure out which cat it is; and taken some photos (including the Photo meme, which I SWEAR I will finish but don't have the picture processed yet for the next one, so that will be in a separate post later).

I have started lots of LJ/DW posts in my head, and they've all been very interesting and encouraged fun discussion, but they all happen during that "in the dark on my phone" time, so I never actually post them and now I can't remember a single one. Typical. Also I lost like 40 tabs worth of links in a Firefox crash a week or two ago, which is one of those annoying/relieving things.

The one thing I DO remember I want to share, is a rec for brynnmck's fic, Friends and Benefits:

Friends and Benefits (17460 words) by brynnmck
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Saturday Night Live RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Seth Meyers/Amy Poehler
Characters: Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Alexi Ashe
Additional Tags: Polyamory, First Time, Friends to Lovers
Summary:

As soon as Kenan had approached him and said, "Hey, there's this benefit thing, and they want you and Amy to--" Seth had said yes. He's lucky Kenan's sentence hadn't ended with "strip naked and barbecue babies in Times Square."

IT'S SO GOOD Y'ALL. Funny and sweet and HOT and - as is her way - crackling dialogue and spot-on character voices and these pure little gems of description that are so good it honestly shocks me that people's brains work in that way. I would never come up with some of these things, but she just throws them out like it's nothing.

I have been delaying posting this to see if I could come up with anything...OH. I know, I saw this meme on Tumblr and saved in drafts ages ago because I thought it would be a good LJ/DW meme. Here we go:

Comment with a number and I’ll tell you my opinion.

1. A selection of television programs you do not care for.
2. A selection of musical artists you do not care for.
3. A selection of celebrities you couldn’t care less about.
4. A hobby you “don’t get”.
5. A habit you find disgusting.
6. Something in school you really liked doing that everyone else bitched over.
7. Your favorite household chore.
8. Popular video games that make you go “meh”.
9. PC or MAC?
10. A sport you don’t like, for whatever reason.
11. A sport you really like, for whatever reason.
12. Television programs you love but have gotten shit for liking.
13. Musical artists you love but have gotten shit for liking.
14. A hobby you have/find interesting that other people bother you over/make fun of.
15. A habit you have that other people bug you over.
16. Something in school you hating doing and it felt like everyone else loved.
17. The household chore that makes you want to shoot your own face off.
18. A selection of video games that you enjoy that perhaps you really shouldn’t.
19. A celebrity crush that maybe even you don’t understand.
20. Free rant on whatever grinds your gears at the moment.

(On Tumblr it said I was telling my "unpopular" opinion but I have learned that every unpopular fannish opinion I have ever had was way more popular than I thought.

This entry was cross-posted at my Dreamwidth account. Please comment here or there. ( comments at DW)

Day 1 of the 30 Days of Photos meme! I still have lots of days left if something comes to you that you'd like to see.

Today's request was "One of your cats doing something hilarious."

This may not be hilarious so much as adorable, but I laughed when I first saw it. Possibly it's extra-funny to me because the baby refuses to use this anymore.

( Cat photo under hereCollapse )

This entry was cross-posted at my Dreamwidth account. Please comment here or there. ( comments at DW)

Today we put our older dog, Sophie, to sleep. She hadn't really been eating much of anything but a handful of deli turkey and some roasted chicken for nearly two weeks now, and last night she laid down and didn't get back up until AHH picked her up to take her to the vet this afternoon; so while it wasn't a surprise, it was still really sad. She was almost 14, which is pretty remarkable when I remember that her first vet gave her 7, 8 years at the most. She had terrible genetics. She'd been in surgery three times by the time she turned two, and always had a little bunny hop from hip dysplasia even at a young age.

Sophie was a lab/chow mix, incredibly loyal to the family and incredibly anti-other dogs and many strangers. She'd mellowed a lot in her old age, but even up to a year ago, a dog walking by our house would get her hackles raised. She was really smart, but stubborn. That dog wanted to be the dominant member of the family, and it took some years before we convinced her that wasn't going to happen. It also helped that we had Sydney, our remaining dog, who is about as much of a pushover as they come. We got him when she was 2, and she spent the next 12 years bossing him around. He's been pretty aimless this afternoon since we left with her, wandering around, panting. He's 13 himself (and, we discovered, in the early-to-mid stages of a progressive degenerative spine disease), so we're keeping an eye on him to see how he responds.

The house isn't quiet, not really, not with Syd and four cats and Puplet still around, but it does feel different. We stayed with her while they administered the valium and whatever medicine it was that stopped her heart, stroked her thick, furry coat and told her what a good dog she is. Because for all her quirks, she taught us more about being pet caretakers than any pet either of us has ever had. And she loved her family deeply; we always said that if it ever came to it, we could adopt out all our other pets, but she would have to stay with us. I'll miss her quiet presence by my chair while I'm working every day; her soft, gentle muzzle; the jingle of her collar when she shook her floppy ears. Our Pupster.



This entry was cross-posted at my Dreamwidth account. Please comment here or there. ( comments at DW)

Festivids sign ups are OPEN!

After much hemming and hawing and weighing of my options, I cut my offer list way down (for me) this year to just media I am SUPER STOKED about and now I am more excited about what I'm going to match on than what I may receive this year. 70 glorious fandoms, all of which would be a treat to vid.

If you're a vidder, you should join us! It's got a nicely spaced out deadline, excellent mods, a friendly community, and at the end you get a vid to one of the rare/small fandoms you requested! (Or if you're super lucky like I was last year, you might get MULTIPLE vids to the rare/small fandoms you requested. \o/) I am really really hoping to do a treat this year (I already have an idea for one; I hope someone asks for this fandom in particular), which means I really need to get my Wire vid done soon. I only have roughly 30 seconds left to fill, which, given that I've had this vid idea since at least 2007, is kind of amazing. Then off to beta, fixing it up, and hopefully posted by the end of the month. *fingers crossed*

Anyway: Festivids! It's the best(ivids)!

Day 25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you rip source? Do you listen to your vid song immediately before vidding, months before vidding, or just while working on it?

I don't usually listen to music while I rip source because I'm often re-watching the source while I rip it. If I'm just ripping and planning to re-watch later (or have already watched it recently), then I'll usually be doing a bunch of other stuff: listening to music, reading LJ, dicking around on the Internet. The usual.

I listen intensively to my vidsong when I first get the idea, because I'm usually super-excited about it, and then I put it away until I am going to actively start working on it. Then I listen to it over and over and over again as I'm prepping for the vid, and then I almost never listen to it all the way through once I've started laying clips, unless I'm watching the draft to see how it looks. And I'll usually immediately remove all traces of it from any listening devices because I'm sick of the song by the end. That isn't always true; I still think "The Loyal" as one of my favorite songs, but usually, I'm DONE with a song once I've vidded it. I have wrung every drop of emotion and energy and interest that I could out of that thing and it needs to lie fallow for a long time.


Day 26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you've had to do for a vid?

The oddest/funnest thing I've ever done for a vid is probably filming the picture frame at Brynn's house for "That's All" (my Ray/Ray vid). (The oddest/funnest thing someone has done for me for a vid was the Ray/Ray cheer Brynn & Jarrow did for me for that same vid! That was good times.)

Full list of questions.

Ugh, BOTH of the dogs have thrown up this morning. Seriously, doggies? Seriously? Simple Green to the rescue.

In happier news: Kathleen Edwards has a new CD coming out in November YAYAYAYAYAY. Expect me to start pressuring you all to listen to her again because she is amazing.

This entry was cross-posted at my Dreamwidth account. Please comment here or there. ( comments at DW)

I'm here to rec fan_eunice's new vid, Dreams.

I have a few things to say about it before you head over there, but I highly highly HIGHLY recommend viewing it at some point today.

Thing 1 - It's a vid to the movie Marley and Me but was made as a tribute to her own dog, Cody, who passed away a couple of years ago.

Thing 2 - Which means ultimately it's one of those rare pieces of art that are about a very personal, specific thing but which translates universally to all who've been in that situation. In this case, all dog lovers, all pet owners, can likely relate to the overwhelming joy and grief that these relationships bring us.

Thing 3 - I start crying about 4 seconds in, and by about 15 seconds I'm sobbing, so if you're not comfortable with tears at work, save this for home.

All that being said, it's gorgeously done as a vid, regardless of what it's about. (This isn't like So You Think You Can Dance where someone does a dance about something personal and so even if the dancers aren't great, you feel bad saying something - the technicality underneath the art is strong and holds up to the message.) But mostly it's a vid that, for me at least, has burrowed into my heart, is a way to point to what my relationships with my pets mean to me, and to have a bit of a cathartic cry over them.

And now I'm off to mercilessly snuggle every pet (all 10 years or older right now, meep) in the house. But first, because it seems appropriate, a brief picspam of some of my non-Puplet babies.

( Under hereCollapse )

There. Time to go buy stock in Kleenex.