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.

***

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.

***

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!

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.

***

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. :)

***

Now back to real life. *sigh*

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.

***

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*).

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. ;)

***

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.

***

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

***

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.

***

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

***

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.

In past Christmas times I spent with my in-laws, I always missed the huge gatherings of my own kin, with our Christmas Eve traditions and my Papa dressed up as Santa to the awe of the growing masses of little ones (myself once among them, but no more). I'd miss the huge potlucks and cackling laughter of strong women with ready wit, not realizing that people would look back on the pictures of gatherings when I was absent and think that I was in fact there because my cousin's new wife looked so much like me (just another skinny girl with the same haircut and wide, straight smile).

And now nothing has changed, really. It's easier when I'm with my in-laws, because there are no more strong, cackling women and the parties died with them. Those of us who live have our own families, and no one brings us together anymore. When I'm with the in-laws thinking how lame and imperfect their holidays are, if only they knew, I can pretend that my perfect family holiday is still happening somewhere.

But, I am grateful that I had them while they lasted, and I know this flu or whatever that has laid us low will pass, and maybe next year we'll get it right, even as bare as my side of the family tree has become.

It's all good. My eldest was most excited about a stocking stuffed with new underpants, then they got those Nerf machine guns, and OMG. And my three year old niece demanded I sit beside her at the feast, because she decided I was beautiful.

Now I have my nice, warm socks. Though the highs have been in the 60s, I know I'll need them eventually. I love the games and making towers out of Lego and getting to make stickers with two wee girls to whom I am "Auntie Livvy." I could pick them each up with one hand and it makes me wonder if my boys were ever that small.

Then I realize it really IS all good, and this was a great Christmas. Family is family, and life goes on. :)

***

The work goes on as well, and I am very happy with it, too.

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Almost there. Stay on target! Notes are piling up for the re-write, too, which I hadn't expected. I mean, I had thought I was going to plow through just so I could say I'd finished it, but I suspected that would be it. So, I'm pleased that character names and things are coming to me, in the walk-up-and-introduce-themselves sort of way. Maybe it's the fever, but I could go on like this.

Then tehre is this:

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Which was done on HMOWK. Much of it unexpected until a few days ago, but I'm very pleased with it. I suppose I couldn't ask for more than that. ;)

Got to see my sweet little nieces, up from Florida with my Beloved's middle brother and his charming wife, B. She's a librarian, and reads a lot, so I always get cool book recs from her. She's not a lit snob, and likes a variety of books -- we have some significant overlap in our tastes, which is nice. We both like Gabaldon, though she goes for the Outlander series more than the Lord John Mysteries. (Me, I enjoyed the first couple Outlander books after about 150 pages, but the mysteries are more fun for me, now. Haven't even bothered with the latest outlander thing yet. The love is gone.)

But, she really dug the Twilight books. I haven't read them, but considering what most of you have said about them, I was a tad surprised. She likes Vampire stories more than I do, but doesn't go in for mysteries or thrillers much.I'm not mystery or thriller genre buff, per se, but I do love stories with those elements.

Anyway, she recommended Jasper Fforde, and proffered some early Laurell K. Hamilton with just the right blend of praise and embarrassment about what her novels later became. Hee! Plus, she sometimes supplies me with books, and definitely knows what's fun. So we had a great talk.

It was a fun day, if still very rainy and unseasonably warm.

***

Today is my hot cousin's birthday. Well, most of my cousins are hot, in one way or another, but the cousin of which I speak was the one I was closest to growing up. He was chubby most of that time but got very lean in his teens, and would have been a stud muffin if he wasn't so very shy. Maybe I'll get to wish him a happy birthday when we go up next week. He's been on my mind lately, a single dad just sort of getting by, keeping his head down. I hope he's happy.

***

The writing is going well enough. I may finish the draft with the year!

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First off, I missed you guys!

Second, We're back early because Big Boy had some stuff I wanted him to do for school, not homework per se, just stuff he was supposed to be working on over the last couple weeks that I let slip. He brought everything with us that he would need to do it, except for the Internet. Papa doesn't even have a dictionary! I was stunned. So, here we are. I'm glad to be back.

While we were gone:

It got cold.

BIL fed the cat, but took no notice of him. Thus, Irascible Cat has been keenly affectionate to me, and generally keen to fight and play tag with everyone else.

micehell is an angel of Light and Mercy, assuring that I have Video Crack to come home to, plus pictures of Travis Fimmel, actor and Calvin Klein sock underpants model. I dare you to Google him. I double dog dare you. *chortles madly*

While I have not seen the movie Twilight (and probably will not seek out said experience, though I won't go out of my way to avoid it, either), I have truly enjoyed reading your reviews of it. From narniadear and abrynne who had a good time and fell rather hard for the "wrong" character *wink* to hopeandprey, whose review contained many jewels, such as the following:

If you haven't read the book: don't. It's billed as a squeaky clean romance with supernatural elements, but it's really a how to guide for getting into an abusive relationship. On top of that, the entire narrative is first person from the perspective of a lovesick teenage girl. So, no sex, whiny teen angst, and vampires, the obvious ingredients for an international best seller.

She also refers to the book/movie's narrator/main character, Bella, as "the damned fool cunt at the center of this tale," a salty bit of veritas you are not likely to encounter elsewhere. Go read the whole review. It'll make you long for a theater for grown-ups near you.

(ETA: Since it isn't clear, I should probably add that all the people I mentioned reviewing it really enjoyed the experience of seeing this movie, and really liked the scenery, too.)
These are just a few of the reasons y'all are so much fun to come back to at the end of an exhausting holiday.

First things first:

I was in such a rush all weekend that I didn't notice my birthday wishes for biggelois were unintelligible. It's corrected now, so snaps to clara_swift for letting me know! *blush*

Crazy busy weekend, but loads of fun!

Saturday was a red letter day because we took the fam to the Decatur Book Festival to meet the utterly lovely sarah_prineas and generally loll about looking at bookish stuff (and actual books, Hee!) The boys love riding the trains for some reason, so we drove to Sandy Springs and took MARTA. This was especially convenient because the festival was located on top of the MARTA station.

We watched Sarah's reading (she was confident and engaging, a real pro) and queued up to have our copies of The Magic Thief signed (one for us, one for Big Boy's reading class). Big Boy was excited because he'd just finished the book a couple of days earlier and was so thrilled with the climax that he got out of bed to tell us about it, even knowing it would get him in trouble for staying up waaay past his bed time (he is not a creature of the morning, let me tell you). We had dinner together and she was kind enough to let Big Boy interview her on camera. ;) (It always makes me a bit nervous when I meet people I've known only online -- just a personal tic -- but I need not have worried.)

It was a great time! I'll post Big Boy's interview as soon as we complete the editing process. (It's taking rather longer than we had hoped, due to my unfamiliarity with the software.) It looks great, though. :D

Sunday we all woke up feeling like our breathing passages had been scrubbed with pipe cleaners. Evidently Saturday was not a great air quality day or else we are more sensitive to pollutants that we had thought. We managed to sort most of the book situation in Big Boy's room. So now we have boxes of books that we will donate and a box of books to keep for the next generation, and the books and magazines are now mostly sorted to each of the boys room by how relevant they are to their interests.

This is both good and bad news. The good news is it's done. The bad news is that if it took three days to sort the books, then the toy sorting will take at least a week, and I will most likely be doing it on my own. Also, we still don't know what we're going to do with the stuff we're discarding. I think the neighborhood yard sale must be coming up soon, so we may try to sell some of it and donate the leavings.

Monday we spent at the in-laws' house. My Beloved and his youngest brother and both the boys built castles and armies and things out of Lego (the BIL built a solar collector, lol). They have a fig tree at their new house, and the gave me fresh figs to eat. I had never had fresh figs. Nummy! I also sat in the sunshine by the window and did some work on a needlepoint I'd abandoned years ago when the kids were small and life was hectic. I've got it all done but for about a hundred French knots. I think they should be called @$^*&!! knots. Two strands of gold cotton thread and one tiny filament of metallic gold thread just don't seem to want to come out even. LOL!

My work is cut out for me on all fronts. :D I hope you all had a lovely holiday (or weekend, for those who didn't have a holiday yesterday).