The Collage

I finally got my act together and assembled the collage for the story I'm doing for Fast Draft!  Here's the picture:

I'm sure the text is too small to read, so the top one is a quote from the beginning of The Hobbit.  It says:

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.  He may have lost the neighbors' respect, but he gained-- well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

The other one says:

"Nothing Happens without risk."  Anne Packard

It's on a magnetic board, and the round things are all magnets I made for the collage.  Some are just pictures, but most of them say something, like "Keep Calm and Rock On" or "Keep Calm and Do It Anyway".  A couple are Big Bag quotes, including "I'm clearly too evolved for driving" and "I am not crazy, my mother had me tested".

The pictures all represent a character or group of characters or some aspect of the story.  The big 3 is to remind me that in stories, things often happen in threes.  So if I'm stuck, look for something that needs to repeat.

I guess that's it.  If you have any questions about any of the images, or can't tell what they are (the overall picture may be a little small if you don't already know what you're looking at), just ask.

I've already procrastinated the day away, so I'm going to go poke at a blank page and see if I can't at least rack up a few words before bed.

Lip Balm of the Day: White Cranberry

2011 Wordle

I meant to post this last week sometime, but you know how stuff gets away from me.  It's a Wordle of the titles and authors of all the books I read in 2011.  Pretty clear who made my "most read" list, huh?

Sorry it's so small.  If you click on it, you'll go to the Wordle page with a larger image.

Wake Me Up

Sometimes, people are shitty.  Sometimes, on the internet the drama is so thick it's hard to tell which side is the shitty side, or if both are well intentioned, or if they're all just shitty.

So I'm posting a happy song.

And if there's ever any question, pay attention to the tshirt and Choose Life.

Just for the Fokker

I saw this and immediately thought of Betty Fokker.  Don't you agree?

Update on Last Week's Goals

So, some stuff got done, some stuff didn't, and some stuff is worse than it was before.  The DVD finally went out in the mail.  I managed to do some dusting and clear out a bag full of packing materials, catalogs, and general crapola.

But the laundry is still in the basket, taking up way too much space.  And instead of reducing my "books to read in 2011" file, it's increased from 107 to 120.  (A couple ebooks finally came available at the library, and I picked up a few others cheap.)  But 21 books in the rest of the month is still doable, if tight, as long as I don't add any more titles to the list.  (HA!)  Maybe I should just change the goal to "somewhere near 100" instead of "under 100".  Might be more realistic.

So that's about it right now.  One step forward, two steps back.  You know, the usual.

Lip Balm Flavor of the Day: Cat Pee (not as scary as it sounds- pink grapefruit, orange, and lime)

Goals

Hello!  I'm not dead!  I'm just up to my eyeballs right now.  (How anyone who doesn't work or take care of a family or do anything really can be up to her eyeballs I don't know.  But whatever.)

Anyway, I'm here to set a few goals for myself.  First (and I can't believe I'm making this my first goal, but that should tell you just how much it's annoying me), I need to clean.  I have not one, but two laundry baskets full of clean clothes that need to be folded and put away.  There's precious little floor space in this room.  I don't need to take it up with laundry.  There's about an inch of dust covering everything in the room, and what's not covered in dust is covered in cat hair.  Or my hair, because I'm shedding like mad again.  At this rate I should be completely bald by next Tuesday.  And there are piles of junk mail and general crap everywhere.  I can't take it any more.  The room must be cleaned.

My second goal for the month is to get my Goodreads "books to read in 2011" list under 100.  That's really not all the books I intend or expect to read this year.  It grows constantly.  But most of the books on that list are things that I've already bought and are languishing in the TBR of Doom.  (Sorry, I just read Shannon Stacey's Undeniably Yours, and now everything gets an "of Doom" tacked onto the end.  Plus, it really is the TBR of Doom.  It's where books I want to read go to be smothered to death under the stack of all the other books I want to read.  Scary, scary place, my TBR file.)  There are 107 books on the list right now, so if I can read 8 of them, without adding any others (Ha!), I'll meet that goal.

My third goal is to blog more than once a week.  That's really kind of pathetic.  Even I, who go nowhere and have no life, can usually come up with something to say more often than that.

My fourth goal is to remember to return Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to Netflix.  I've only had it for a month now.  I've watched some of it, and it's only meh, plus it keeps acting weird and skipping.

So, those are my goals for the month.  I think I'll start out strong by sticking the Scott Pilgrim disc back in its envelope (if I can find it) and putting it on the table with the rest of the outgoing mail.

Lip Balm Flavor of the Day: Gummy Bear

Hanging on to the Happy

I've been dealing with some difficult internal stuff this past week, and there have been a few things that have saved me.

1) Comfort food.  Last night I made a Mexican casserole that I used to make in Houston.  It wasn't quite how I'd have done it if I were working from scratch (I'd rather start off with chicken and rotel in the crockpot instead of left over cooked chicken), but it was still pretty good and a taste of home.  Then I made a Strawberry Dream Pie.  Tonight Mom made mashed potatoes and gravy just for me.  Yum.  I had a bowl for a midnight snack, too.

2) I'm reading a really fantastic book called A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  Really.  It's fab.  I'll be reviewing it soon.  I'm about half way through the book, only 275 more pages to go.  It's a big 'un.

3) I've been listening to a LOT of Katy Perry.  Very peppy.  My favorite is Teenage Dream.  But I don't love the video, so here is the boys' choir from Glee doing their version.  Hope it makes you as happy as it makes me.

If I Had a Million Dollars

I have a rich fantasy life.  Lately I've been imagining what I would do if I won the lottery.  The short answer is that I'd move back to Houston.  I'd buy a little house and I'd get set back up with my old doctors and go back to my old life.  (Mom has been nagging me about getting on the ball and finding new specialists.  I know I have to, but I don't wanna.)

Then, I would buy a car, because I really miss having my own wheels.  I loved my old Camry, but if I won the lottery and had virtually unlimited funds, I think I'd buy a hybrid.  Houston may be oil country, but I really like the idea of spending less on gas.  And while I'm going green, I'd want solar panels on my house.

I'd hire someone to come in and do all the cleaning and maybe some cooking.  I'm just too run down to keep up with that kind of stuff, even if I didn't hate cleaning and avoid it whenever possible.

And then the biggest thing, the one that probably won't be practical even if someone handed me a million dollars right now, is that I'd travel.  I'd love to head out to California and go to the RT convention.  I'd like to go to NYC to the RWA convention.  I love all things Disney, and I'd love to go to Disney World again.  I haven't been there since I was a freshman in high school.  They've opened like three new parks since then.  I'm pretty sure that just one of those trips would leave me scary exhausted, let alone doing all three this year.  Maybe it's a good thing I'm broke.

On a smaller scale, when/if the government ever comes through and decides to pay me my social security, I'd like to take some of the back benefits they owe me and buy some bright yellow paint and get rid of this drab gray/purple color on my bedroom walls.  (This dingy room is enough to depress a person all by itself.)  I'd like to get some sort of media cabinet organization thingie so that I have something to unpack what little stuff I have into.  More yellow paint for my bathroom.  And maybe some new towels and bed linens.  (Not yellow.  I'm thinking blue for the bed and bright pink and green for the towels, to go with my flamingo shower curtain.)

My realistic fantasies are much more modest than my fantasy fantasies, but at the moment they're all out of reach.  Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets.

My visit to a foreign land

Today I went out to dinner with my parents and brother and sister-in-law.  But before we went to the restaurant, my SIL had coupons that were about to expire for a local Christian store.  I didn't burst into flames upon crossing the threshold of the store, so I decided to look around a bit and report what I saw.

First of all, let me just say, there is a lot of Christian crap out there.  There were a million books, including Christian weight loss and Sarah Palin's latest.  My dad picked up a copy of George W's book, and I was a very good girl.  I didn't once stick my finger down my throat and make gagging noises, even though I wanted to.

There were CDs and DVDs.  There were wall hangings and statues and tchotchkes of all kinds.  They had cards, which wasn't surprising, but they also had boxes of children's valentines.  They had gift bags with Christ-centered messages on them.  Children's toys.  I spotted a box of Bible Scrabble.  I'm not sure what the difference between that and regular Scrabble is.  Maybe the dirty words don't count, or the "no proper nouns" rule is waved and you get to use names from the Bible, like Habakkuk or Abednego.

What was most odd to me were the items that were trying to ape secular crazes.  Like Faith Bands- a Biblical version of silly bandz.  This dog tag amused me.  It says, "thelight", but the font used makes it look an awful lot like Twilight merchandising.

And this was quite possibly the weirdest item I spotted: 

It's the Solar Powered Praise Flower!  (The ones they sold had words like Love or Hope printed on the base, along with a scripture reference.)  These flowers sit on your desk or windowsill and just sort of... sway.  Bounce.  Cute, but kind of weird.  And other than the reference to the Bible verse, I'm not sure what makes it a Praise Flower as opposed to just a plain old flower.

So, that was my trip to the Christian bookstore.  Nothing caught fire, and I entertained myself by laughing (quietly, I hope) at all the odd things that people will buy if you slap a cross on it.

It's a Sign

This video cheered me up immensely.

 Also, the doctor's appointment went well.  Antibiotics, but no lancing for now.  I've named my abscess Farkle.  Anything that big really ought to have it's own name.

Poor Man's Blog Post

I have many things on my mind right now, but no energy to express them.  So I'm making a list.

1. Long Term Disability called.  They've decided I could work, I just choose not to.  Fuck them.
2. Talked to more medical insurance people today.  I am too fat to qualify for insurance.  Fuck them, too.
3. Talked to old apt manager.  They decided to charge me $135 to clean an apartment that was fully emptied, with nothing more than normal wear and tear, and is scheduled to be completely remodeled, anyway.  Fuck all y'all.
4.  My brother declared at dinner tonight that he and his wife will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us, and then they're leaving at 11:00am to drive down for Christmas brunch and dinner with the in laws.  Since my brother's idea of "morning" is 1:00pm, I don't think we're going to see much of them on Christmas day.  Mom didn't say too much about it at the time, but I know I'm going to get an earful tomorrow.
5.  My 71 year old father kicked ass on Wii Bowling tonight.  He scored a 189!
6.  I'm pretty sure I officially have all my Christmas shopping done.
7.  I'm about 2/3 of the way through doing my Christmas cards.
8.  I received my first three Christmas cards today!  I'm going to hang them on my door as soon as I find the scotch tape.
9.  It's freaking cold in Indiana.  There is snow.  I would like to go home now.
10.  I'm reading an historical romance right now.  There's some fairly improbable stuff going down, but everything else is so good that you don't notice so much.
11.  I have many more bookish things to say, but I'm having trouble finding the motivation to say them.
12.  Same goes here.  This blog has been shamefully neglected in the last month or so.
13.  I should make a commitment to write on one of the blogs every day, but I know I won't do it.  Maybe I'll try that when it gets closer to New Year's.  I always get excited about new projects and old stuff gets reinvigorated then.

So, that's the Readers' Digest version of what's going on in my head right now.  Aren't you glad you asked?

Twits

I have nothing of any depth to say today, so this is going to a group of tweet-ish length updates, or Twits.

Julie, yes my birthday was Monday!  It's the first birthday I've spent with family in years.  One of my favorite breakfast, one of my favorite dinners, birthday cake-- yellow cake with chocolate frosting and Homemade Vanilla Blue Bell Ice Cream (the best ice cream in the world and formerly available only in Texas), a dozen roses from my parents, and a bunch of birthday cards.  It was a good day.

But my hand still hurts.

I was in the bathroom earlier this evening when I heard, "Bad cat!  What did you do?"  Turns out, what the cat did was get up on the table and chew up four out of the 12 hamburger buns in the package.  I mean just totally annihilated them.  It was bound to happen sometime.  I warned Mom that he does this.  She may be annoyed, but she also thought it was funny.  She had a heck of a time telling me about it without laughing.  Mom always smirks at how Troub has Dad wrapped around his little paw, but he's got her, too.

Tomorrow we get my stuff out of storage.  It's lived there since I moved to Massachusetts Labor Day weekend.  I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and set up my Wii.  I want to see my Wee Peeple dolls again and have my own clothes hamper.  Unfortunately, this means I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in boxes or the foreseeable future.  Pray for me.

Things are... not going well for my brother's marriage.  I would not be surprised if she files for divorce sometime after Thanksgiving.  You never know, things could work out after all.  But I'll be shocked if she doesn't file by the end of January.  Ordinarily I wouldn't mention any of this, as it's most certainly Not My Business.  But it's causing drama with the 'rents.  If he does what he was talking about doing earlier today and moves to another state, there will be an explosion of epic proportions.  Mom has been gloating for weeks about all of us being together again.  She is going to lose her shit if he takes off now that we've moved across the country to be here.  Maybe this is just early-onset divorce crazy, and he'll live on our couch for six months instead.

I finally broke down and ordered my new clothes today.  I got:

2 zip front hooded sweatshirts
1 zip front, floor length, hooded bathroom (I spend so much time lounging in the one I already had, I decided to get another)
3 long sleeve tshirts
3 thermal shirts
1 long thermal henley sleep shirt
3 long sleeve sleep shirts
3 flannel sleep pants
3 layered look tshirts
2 pair of jeans, hopefully the right size this time

So, basically, I should be drowning in warm, cozy clothing by the end of next week.  Yay!

Extra points if any of it comes in on Wednesday.  They're predicting snow here for Thanksgiving.  Yuck.

I think that's everything for now.  I tell you what, this may be a particularly boring blog to read, but I could crank out these little updates all day.

Picturepalooza

I'm not feeling particularly wordy today, and I just downloaded a bunch of old pictures off of my parents' camera, so congratulations!  You're getting pictures today!

These first few are Christmas ornaments that I knit for my brother and sister-in-law as Christmas presents a few years ago.

The "body" of this little guy is a wine cork I got from
someone on Freecycle.  Recycling at it's finest!

Mini sock

Itty bitty sweater!
You'll notice that all the other ornaments are Hallmark.
My SIL works part time at a Hallmark store.

Troubbie the Wonder Cat
Also, you can see a very *small* part of my yarn collection
there on the left.

My Christmas tree.  Wasn't it pretty?

We had Christmas crackers!
Isn't it lovely how my paper hat matches my outfit?

Dad had a hat, too, and he looks absolutely thrilled about it.

Huge time jump!

Here's a picture of what will be my bedroom in the new house.
I haven't seen it in person yet, but according to my brother,
it really is as small as it looks.

Closet!

And one last set of pictures to finish off with the Christmas theme.

Snowman!

Snowman butt!