A Twist of Things to Come

I've been working and writing and working, and driving to visit family and driving to work.

Oh, yeah. Also moving. Sort of. We rented a place just before Christmas, and came back from visiting my family to move in. Mostly we've been fixing things and getting utilities turned on and such. The landlord has had the carpets cleaned, so we didn't move any real furniture in today. I cleaned shelves and windows and baseboards, hung a shower curtain, put frosted plastic decals on the bathroom windows in place of the awful lace curtains.

Basically, the house is 100 years old, with an addition in the 80s and some remnants from a redecoration in the 70s, I reckon. I bet it's haunted. After living in cookie-cutter neighborhoods for so long, though, I LOVE this house. It has nooks and crannies and weird little cupboards under stairs that don't go anywhere but the attic. There is a stained glass window and an honest-to-god mechanical doorbell.

The electric, plumbing and windows are all modern. It's well-insulated, too. The best part is that we've rented it for the same rent as a tiny two bedroom apartment was going to cost us. Plus, we didn't have to sign a lease and the landlord cuts the grass.

Also, we won't be changing school districts in teh middle of the year. :) It's just off the main street of this small town, so walking distance to cool shops and restaurants. Also walking distance to a park and the lake, both with bike trails. The library is across the street. It also faces the train tracks that run through the median between the roads downtown, BUT the house is so old and well-built, it really isn't an issue with the windows closed. I was amazed, but we could talk normally with a train going by 50 feet away.

I will post pictures. Honestly, it is perfect. I could write stories about how creepy and cool this place is, and probably will.

There hasn't been enough work to make my hours this week, so it is actually a good time to move. The workflow will pick up next week, probably meaning overtime again.

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I'm on chapter 23 of the re-write of Form and Void, which is now at about 300 pages and all that remains is the final act, once this chapter is over.

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He said we'd have a place by Christmas, and we did (at least put the deposits and all down before we left for Christmas). So there we go. My husband is magic. ;)

( Huge new Year's Meme )

Spent today taking everything out of my closet and trying it on. My closet is now organized and I have a bag of clothes to donate. That's good. I found money in some of the pockets. That is also good.

I cleaned the house a lot, too. Just had the bug, I guess.

I had a lovely night last night, writing and chatting with my BFF via Skype between my Dawning of 2011 and hers. Even so far away, it was fun to get to spend time together. I am so blessed with awesome friends!

It's been a great couple of weeks. Finished up some reading, watched some foreign TV (*snrk*) saw a movie in an actual theater (wheee!) and had some real family fun time, including some biking. :)

It's all good.

Then there was the End of Time. *sigh* ( spoilers )

Starting off the post-holiday season with a bit of fluff, I'm happy to say. Pearce's One of the Many Reasons Sesame Street is Awesome, which is simply a video of Patrick Stewart on said show, presented without comment.

I agree, though. Both Patrick Stewart and Sesame Street are made of awesome.

Just when I was beginning to think that Facebook was a bad idea (I was beginning to extricate myself from the insidious games on offer there, after getting a friend request that was game-related that went something like, "My rule is, if it has tits, attack, but let's join up and be game friends." Yeah, sure, as soon as kick your balls up your digestive tract, and hell freezes over, you ninny.) I got a friend request from a person I have tried to get in touch with, off and on, for YEARS.

My Beloved and I had an old college buddy, Tadashi Takahashi, who visited us a few times when he came to the US after his schooling, but we hadn't been able to connect with him after we left Chicago. We sent airmail letters through the forwarding address he had left at the college, which we believed to be his parents' address, and once I even begged an internet friend who speaks Japanese to call his place of work (which, we discovered through internet stalking, was the Kansai seminar house) when our second son was born. She left our email address, but later we found out that our ISP routinely blocked emails from Asia.

Anyway, I'm pleased to have found him again. I forwarded his info to my Beloved right away.

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Great weekend! We went to the swamp, which was actually quite lovely -- full of flowers (and HUGE spiders, but we won't discuss them) and wildlife. We got out and walked around Uptown together, which was nice, if hot. I learned from my darling that women in Louisiana do not sweat-- they glisten. I told him I was glistening like a pig, which made him giggle. He was very complimentary of my appearance, though, ("Prettiest girl in the swamp!") which just goes to show that he's a smart cookie.

Yesterday, we had a lovely meal with yourprecious and her fella "Circus Boy" who was adorable-- my kids adored them both, and they were very kind and indulgent with them.

Then I got to talk to my BFF via Skype when we got home. :) It was a great weekend. :)

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Now back to real life. *sigh*

The Holiday is over and all that. First, I must acknowledge the ever-lovely micehell for the Torchwood audio books and radio dramas -- they made my weekend more pleasant than it might have been. YOu are an angel of light and mercy.

Then, onto a girl I've known since I was ten, the newest addition to the GeekaChicas gang, using the unassuming pseudonym, "Goddess of All." Her first article, "Tag Along Spouse? I think not!" It's not a new idea for us at GC, but one that bears repeating -- Just because you don't notice the women in fandom doesn't mean we aren't there!

Plus it has pictures of fit men in Spartan costumes! (Golly, I'm shallow.)

In other news, we've got at least one person to post on the Forum about why certain of our Kick-Ass Femmes of SciFi and Fantasy TV poll choices were sucky -- a development which pleases me greatly.I had hoped for a little more discourse on the topic, but I suppose time will tell.

There's another article I have up my sleeve that might very well stir up some controversy, even among the Chicas, since I know they are dotted all along the political spectrum. We don't usually go directly political, but I've no desire to stop anyone from speaking her mind. I'm hopeful it will at least spark some spirited discussion, but we'll see.

I've set up a GeekaChicas page on Facebook. If anyone has any advice on how to best use Facebook so that it is not merely a re-hash of the same GC stuff, please throw me a bone.

Much thanks.

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Hope you all had a fabulous Fourth of July! My in-laws took us to lunch at franchise of the company my Beloved is courting as a national customer, and it was very tasty. We had probably the smartest, most engaged waitress ever. Then we went back to the in-laws lovely home, where I soon succumbed to sleep while sitting up. I avoid speaking politics around them, but they had just come from a "Tea Party" so I allowed myself some soft snoring as commentary on their Obama-bashing.

I've been hearing about how X political figure was going to ruin us all since I was three years old, and I'm frankly tired of the perceived need to vilify a person with whom you happen to disagree. It simply exhausts me, even when I'm not a supporter of the person in question. Hence the sleep.

Even when politics is not involved, I generally fall asleep at the in-laws' place. I don't know why. I don't mean to be rude. I suppose it is because I'm consistently left out of the conversation (except when there's an opportunity to nit-pick our parenting *sigh*).

Or, "Seuss Day" as some of the kiddies call it. *wink* It's my absolute favorite unofficial holiday.

I have a Green Eggs and Ham T-shirt that I used to wear quite often when the kids were smaller. On the front it has Sam-I-Am proffering said comestibles, and on the back it has an excerpt.

I wore it to a birthday party of one of Big Boy's preschool classmates, back in the day, and one of the parents present was rather shocked by it, I think, just seeing it from behind. You know, "I will not, will not with a goat... etc." can sound rather different if one is not familiar with the source material. *smirk*

The fellow's father was American but his mother was British, and he'd spent most of his school years in boarding school in Belgium, I think. So I can't really blame him for wondering what naughty thing it was that my shirt proclaimed I wouldn't do on a boat, or in the dark, or on a train.

The entire text can be found here:

http://boe.berk.k12.wv.us/217/dr.htm

And you can see the famous reading by the Rev. Jesse Jackson here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPy2alWEZ-U

(I couldn't embed it, but it is worth going to see, I promise.)

Had friends over for BIL's birthday yesterday. I made a cake, and it was not at all lop-sided. It was quite tasty, too. We played Rock Band for the first time since just before Christmas. I sang Skullcrusher Mountain, and ended up with a 95% rating even though I laughed pretty much all the way through the half-pony, half-monkey monster verse. That song LAYS me.

The coolest bit about having folks over was that W. (BIL's on/off romantic interest) came over, and she ROCKS. She's weird and funny and gorgeous and clever in the best possible ways. Our best buds B and L were there, too, and despite feeling a bit old and fat and sickly, I had a great time. I think BIL had a good time, too, but he's hard to read. I've gotten to where I can tell if he's ecstatic or boiling with rage, but the various stops between the two are still a tad subtle. Those of you who know him know that isn't an exaggeration. He is very hard to read.

But I think he had a good birthday. ;)

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I also did a lot of the groundwork for the website I'm trying to build. It's a lot of work to be just for fun, but it will also be a cool place to cross-promote my friends' work/websites, and I'm learning a LOT.

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Check out abrynne's Icon post - many icons of the lovely men of the Discovery Channel. *grin* The gal'ss got taste!

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Woke up with the idea of drawing my 20-year-old self being eaten by werewolf, in loving memory of my best friend from high school, Ronnie Ellis. I didn't get word of his funeral in time to show up in a red dress, but I think maybe the drawing would be a way to honor him as well. He made Z-list horror flicks until he was sidelined by cancer of the kidney. Beat the cancer, but the radiation and stuff weakened his heart and he never really recovered. I've never really drawn horror, so it would be a challenge as well as a tip of the hat to his love of spatter-gore (which I never shared, or even understood, really). I'm not sure if I can do it, but I woke up this morning wanting to try.

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This being sick thing has played heck with my complexion. It's like being fourteen again.

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I've managed to keep up with the dishes, though. The rest of teh house is kind of a mess, but the dishes are clean. They boys are cleaning up after themselves before they go back to school on Tuesday, though.

I am sooo ready for them to go back to school, it isn't even funny.