elanya

I hope things are going well for folks! I'm having a nice but quiet time in, taking advantage of the Christmassyness of tethys123's place while I house/dogsit over the holidays. She has two little trees up, so I am delighted ^-^ She also left me a house full of baked goods! Seriously - about a dozen cookies, some brownies, a bowl full of candy and *loaf and a half* of banana bread, and some raisin bread in the fridge @_@ Most of this was courtesy of her MiL who had been visiting and apparently baked up a storm.

I had thought I might do some baking while I was here, but that may not be necessary ;p I *did* try to bake a chicken yesterday though, and learned that the downside to all this is that the oven was full of baking runover. I got smoked out -_- Now I am going to bake a chicken today, it seems :V This is all fine, save I am also baking a duck on Wednesday, when I have people over on Boxing Day in an attempt to not be a Christmas Hermit :3

I have also worked out a system to kick my own ass a bit, in the face of my inevitable Chirtsmas gluttony. I can eat what goodies I want, but I have to pay for them with excercise! Each treat means 10 body weight squats, 5 pushups, or 25 jumping jacks. I'm not super concerned with my weight, I just have been terrible at working out this past semester, other than dog-walking. I've got lots of time over the break though, and this will both help me consider my food choices *and* help me get back in better shape, Of course there is nothing keeping me from doing more excercises too, but we'll see just how ambitious I'm feeling ;) For the record though - this isn't me punishing myself for food choices or reacting out of guilt. I don't feel bad about eating cookies, but I'm also cognizant of the connection between my food choices and generla fitness. It's just good motivation that works for me.

I have been working a bit on my diss, sorting out some data for a table. Really i coudl get it all done in a few hours if I could concentrate, but apparently I can't, so I'm breaking it up with some other things :) Shortly this will involve walking to the store to pick up said duck, plus a few other bits to accompany. I'll check and see what all I have here for accompaniment - I have a squash I could use, and possibly some summee squash as well, but we'll see! I also need some butter, I guess, since I wanted to make a grilled cheese and there was none in the house! But now I am torn between wanting to get some real butter in case I wanna bake, or just some butter spread for eating. Decisions, decisions!

Other than that, I have been yuletiding (the small-fandom fanfic exchange) like a mad thing! I picked up two pinch hits in addition to writing for my recip, and if I have time I wanna do some short pieces for madness. I have also beta'd a bunch of things for other people, which is always a fun experience. Delightful stories abound, and I'm looking forward to reading tons of fic tomorrow when the archive opens. Or after I open presents, maybe, we'll see how patient I am ^-^ I have two stories waiting just for me though, and I am super excited for both of them :D I have also been hanigng out in #yulechat helping folks find betas, which also makes me feel warm and fuzzy in a comunity-involvement kind of way. I'm helping :V

I also have some knitting to work on, which I plan to do tomorrow. I've got all the stuff ot make a monster, for this project though I wonder if they might be flooded with monsters! I'm sure any supplementary ones will find good and needy homes anyway, though, so I'm not too worried :)

Anyway, as I said, it is a quiet Christmas here, but I'm enjoying myself! I think this rather rambly post counts as a diss break, though, so I'll do a little more work on that, and then head out to the store.