I just wanted to quickly write this down before I go to bed, because I had a really nice day, all in all.

Nary and co. were here overnight, and it is always nice to have some time with her and her family. We had a mix of Chinese leftovers and McDonalds foods for lunch, then just hug around talking until it was time for them to go.

After they left, I went and played with my nephews downstairs - they'd both gotten a wooden shield and sword for Christmas, so I brought out my practice sword (from Hollow Earth Swordworks, though I got mine at the Texas Renaissance Fair several years ago now), and we did some sparring games. Then we had a chat about how playing with swords could be dangerous even if you are trying really really hard to be safe careful (and they were so good about light hits! But not always as good about always knowing where their blade is. Spatial awareness is an ongoing battle; there is a reasons the swords are downstairs or outside toys!). Then we transitioned into story time! In which all three of us took turns telling stories, mostly about pirates. I told a few true pirate stories, then Bubby insisted they had to be pretend stories. So I told one about Captain Garrett and the Magic Treasure. After which he told one about Captain Garackle who stole the magic treasure from Captain Garrett. After which I told one about Garrett's crew saving their skeleton friend and swearing revenge. It was a nice little story building exercise, anyway! Nugsy was less confident in his stories, but he did tell a few, including one about a fighter who was friends with a Creeper, and a Creeper family, and some other ones. And then he made me read him one of their pirate books instead.

Anyway, it was really nice! I hope they had as nice a time as I did, but they certainly seemed to.

I can't seem to get back on track with these! Hopefully I'll manage that, but at least I'm still posting, right?

Anyway, <user=tethys123. asked me to talk about living with little kids and how it has affected me. So, to clarify the situation here - I am living with my sister and brither-in-law and my two nephews (Eldest: HD or Bubby or boo, or bubby-boo. Youngest: GH or Nugsy, or the Nug, or Teensy, Tiny Teenser, Teensy Nug, Nug Bug, etc. My room shares a room with theirs. So a few obvious and superficial things - Kids are little time sucks! They want attention, and when they are around even things that only involve them indirectly can take a lot longer than it should. They aren't exactly paragons of efficiency - things that do involve them can take a Really Long Time. Since I started working, I'm usually the first adult awake. The kids are usually up either before me (way less of this lately) or between when I get up and when their dad does, so I am often getting them their morning fruit in the morning, or just chatting and directing them. In the evenings, I'm usually the first line against post-bedtime excusrions, since I'm usually in my room and hear them. They also want me to play with them, all the time. They are pretty much always playing some make believe game - being characters from whatever show they have been watching, or game they have been playing. I'm getting to do a lot more roleplaying than ever, let me tell you! Even if I'm not actually paying with them, they consider this important. (Them: Can you be Starfire from Teen Titans Go? Me: I have to walk the dogs, sweetie. Them: Well can you be Starfire who has to walk the dogs?). I have my own OC supervillain also, the Terrible Tickler, who is probably the most in-demand original character I have ever created ;p He has an extensive back story. And a sidekick. I try to help with kid things, reinforcing things their parents are doing, following their lead when it comes to language and lessons and such. I feel like if I am living here, I need to be engaged on that level. I help the kids when they need help, and I will help reinforce boundaries that they need to grow up into excellent people. This is easy because their parents are pretty awesome - I've never been in a situation where I'm uncomfortable about the sort of message the kids are getting from them. If I didn't share value I think it could be a lot more awkward. Um what else..... I have wiped way more butts than I ever expected to at this stage of my life? Fewer now that I'm working, and especially since the older boy is becoming more independant in his bathroom habits. This kind of goes along with the above, I guess. I also do bedtimes on occasion, but that's more like babysitting than regular life routine. I dunno - there is definitely more to say. I love them a whole lot, and I feel really lucky to be able to spend this much time with them when they are little. I am defintely going to miss them whenever I move on from where I am now. I've talked some about that with the older one - I'm pretty sure he'd be sad. the littler one doesn't like it when I go to work, but he is in a generally pretty clingy phase, so I don't think that is really specific to me. I expect there will be a lot of disappointment all around.... But for now, I'm really happy to be where I am.

My day today:

I was the first one awake, so I got the kids breakfast and hung out with them until I got off my butt to take the dogs out. I put on an episode of rescue Bots for them before I left, and it was just finishing up when I got back. Then Nugsy (the littler one) wanted to watch a youtube show, so I set him up with that, forgetting that he isn't supposed to watch stuff unsupervised any more because he is a champ at finding things that are age inappropriate. I went downstairs to play the Rainbow Pony boardgame with HD. By then other adults were up who coudl keep a eye on Nugsy, so HD and I played some more board games (Candyland - boring! and Robot Turtles a.k.a. stealth-teach kids how to code). Meanwhile, wererogue was making scones, which were delicious. They were pretty much ready as soon as we were finished our last game ;p

After that, I bummed around om the internet for a bit, trying to get motivation to do just about anything other than read facebook and chat. I finally got myself to do some knitting, but was then dragged away to go to a "yard sale" a.k.a. hoarder sale at a nearby church with Longpig and Nugsy while wererogue took HD out to buy some skates. There is a church just around the block that pretty much has a perpetual yard sale - really it is filled with stuff, mostly furniture, that is sold for super duper cheap. I got a $5 crock pot for work (finishing 3D prints involves a hot wax treatment, but we'd never yet bothered.... but I think we should, so i am facilitating). Longpig got this church pew kneeling bench thing after they confirmed that it was, in fact something for sale.

After our first foray but before going back for the bench, we went to the fish and chips place for lunch and ordered entirely too much food, all of which was delicious. Every time I go there I think about ordering something other than the fish, but I never do, because it is sooo goooood. At least this time I was wise enough to know that I wouldn't be able to also handle a milkshake, so I didn't bother. Nugsy had one though, and I had a few sips of his.

When we got back, I did do some knitting... several hours of knitting, actually (I did three rows! 1 row is about 360 stitches so I feel like that is fairly impressive...), + chatting. Then it was dinner (grocery store pizza that wererogue bought because he was late getting home), then some Dominion online (does anyone else out there play? Wanna try a game sometime? My sister has a few of the expansions), and some chatting, and I worked on my spinning (I got a drop spindle for Christmas :3), and that brings me to now, when I should go to bed.

Tomorrow is game. I should do laundry. I should change my sheets. I should work on a syllabus for a job application. I should do a more serious thinking write up for here that I have been meaning to do but keep forgetting about, if I can remember what it is meant to do about. I look forward to seeing what all I get done :)

It is one hour until Hannibal. I actually watched it yesterday, but longpig is a super-invested fannibal and likes to watch the US airing on a stream and livetweet, and I join her. This week's episode is intense and amazing!

It has been a while since I've done any kind of major update.

I still have no job. I have been dooing very poorly at applying for jobs.

For the past two weeks I have been volunteering for two afternoons a week at the Ontario Museum of Archaeology. It's been.... very nice actually, even though I have done much that is particularly complicated or anything. Just getting out of the house and having something to work at is nice. I've done some re-boxing of artifacts and last week got to play 'where's Waldo' with a bunch of lithics that a donor wanted returned. The collection had been removed from its mounts with permission, but then the donor recanted about one particular show piece, so we had to find all the points (mostly points) on the original mount based on one picture, and then remount them. I got to do a lot of both of those things. They keep saying they are going to get me to write a blog on nautical archaeology, but we'll see. The commute is about an hour each way, including wait times for buses. I've been getting quite a lot of knitting done in that time, to the point that i am trying to plan my next bit of bus knitting.

This weekend was Nugsy's actaul birthday party, which was held at the local Children's Museum. It was dinosaur themed, and went quite well overall. He was a bit distracted for the activities but he loves the employee who was hosting for us, who was very good with him. And then when it was done, they all went off and played in various bits of the rest of the museum.

It was also a treat for me, not only because naryrising? and forthright came up, but also because they brought me my vey own tablet! I now have a piece of actually portable modern technology :V I am greatly appreciative! Forthright is very good at making the point buy system for Shoppers Drugmart, and basically managed to get it for free/by buying lots of dishwasher tablets on sale. Because that's how he rolls. They've gotten several other tablets and similar electronics the same way, and I am very happy and grateful to be the recipient in this case! To be fair, I am pretty sure that Nary wanted me to have it so we can stay in even closer contact, but I am quite okay with this! London has theoretical free wifi downtown, and I have been going places like McDonalds with Longpig and the kids where it will be very nice to be able to have some way of communicating with the saner outside world ;) Plus it gives me another device for using skype.

Hmm, what else. I have been doing a little bot of clickwork, but I'm not terribly good at it. I was writing adverts for car rental places in Germany, but they want them all to be very distinct and it is just not worth the time/effort/annoyance! i mean, I knew that's how ti would go. You don't get a reasonable wage for the jobs. But there is a line, I think. We'll see. It might just be more of a learning curve or a matter of experience. I am getting better, but I've yet to have enough of my work approved to make it worth while, either. I'm not giving up on it, but we'll see.

I keep running in to things that make me regret some of my life choices, or make me feel deeply ambivalent, anyway. For example, there is a conference on maritime archaeology and maritime landscapes in Britain this year that dovetails so perfectly with my interests that it is still a little painful. or trying to explain to people why I'm in London, and so on. Part;y bad luck, partly bad choices, partly.... I don't know. On the one had, there have been a lot of circumstances I couldn't really control, but I am often left feeling like I could have done more to mitigate them if I had *really* wanted to succeed. And then I look at how basically content I am in my life currently, and wonder if maybe I didn't actually want it that hard. And if that's the case, then what was I doing with my time and energy, and what do I have to show for it? And of course, always, where do I go from here?

On that note, I have been plotting with Curtana to trying and write some niche-market original stuff for self publication, to see if we can have any success with that. I guess we'll see. I think we have some solid ideas, but we still have to make them into stories before we can even really try and do anything with them.

I also had the independent thoughts that I could try and get some arch field work work, but that I would need good boots (and possibly other gear), and also that I'd kind of like to NPC at least for the local Underworld LARP branch (Ralinwood), but that I would need, at the very least, good boots. Something to consider, as I did finally get my last check from A&M.

So life update - wavering between contentment, ambivalence, and existential crisis. But today I had a very nice day.

My nights are not being any less disturbed. Saturday night the dogs got sprayed by a skunk. Sunday night it was too humid for me to sleep, and I got up to help one of the kids (Nugsy) at 4:00 and it took a while to get him back to sleep. Last night, there was an EPIC THUNDERSTORM with very loud, close thunder. One of the dogs (Sierra) was freaked out. One of the kids (Bubs) was scared when he woke up to pee and the power was out. The cat was up in my room. Nugsy was up early, and the cat was in the kids room ( a concerning combination...) We'll see what tonight has in store!

I actually feel better rested today, despite getting up early-ish. I have some quiet time atm, and I feel like I should be doing Something, but I'm not sure what. I do need to find some part time/temporary work here, as pets are expensive. I did get up to the archaeology museum today to talk to them about volunteering - I'll be going back on the 6th.

Ummm, what else? I've managed to do a little bit of writing - a couple of drabbles. But I feel like more is within my reach! I just need to decide where to focus... I want to finish the last of my last alphabet drabble challenge which was apparently, uh, from last year >.> So that I can do another one guilt free. I feel like starting something new and longer too, though I have some WIPs that need attention - we'll see. I wanted to try getting back into original fic as well, but that requires more solid ideas than I currently have :p

I think I mentioned already that longpig has gotten me going back to the gym? I need to be going at least twice a week, though, and haven't quite managed that. Hopefully we're going tonight though!

I've also been watching a lot mote TV here, for various reasons. Longpig is addicted to masterchef, so we burned through what was available of that, and she was bitter to realize that she's now caught up and can't binge! I've been watching Rescue Bots with the kidlets, which is adorable and I love it. And Hannibal, which hopefully will be picked up, because it really is quite good. And I watched the opening of the new season of True Detective last night which was slow.... but has some interesting potential. I think my favourite character, though, is Vince Vaughn's character's wife. The only main character whose name I remember is... haaa I forget the actress. But the lady cop, whose name is Antigone. Interesting choice thee, parents ;p

Anyway, that's all I've got. Gonna go walk the dogs before supper :)

So, the last time I managed to update was before I left the US.

( Now I'm in Canada, yaaaaay! )

From the opposite of the arctic ground though - I am hoping it will be much nicer in New Brunswick than it is here!

( Pics of dad's place from last summer )

Those are a couple of pictures dad sent me last summer, though I think there is a bigger garden this year - the second one is looking off the porch.they have I forget how many kayaks now, plus a canoe. My sister will be there, and my adorable nephews who are 2 and 3. there may be fishing.

I should be able to keep up with most of my other stuff - wrangling stings and tag staff things (though I may miss the next meeting), gaming things if they happen. Maybe do some writing. Maybe some job applications? I probably should start at least looking at this point... Anyway - I'm looking forward to getting away. I'm definitely going to miss my pets though :3

I suppose I should probably get on that whole 'packing' thing tonight then >.> We'll see how things go I suppose. Expect a list at some point :p

I have many things I want to write about and do!

( Mostly this is rambling about my trip )

Well, okay. Technically I have a job I have been hired for, yes, but I can't actually start work until i get my Visa, which I'm hoping will be by the end of the month. Really *really* hoping.

For now... Well, there are things gong on. My dad is coming down here on Wednesday for my graduation on Friday morning. He flies out again on Tuesday morning. I have no ides what all we are gong to do, though - he doesn't really want to leave the sweet protection of the air conditioning ;p I guess I can get him to listen to Night Vale? Watch Firefly? I dunno :3 I'll figure something out, I suppose. Theoretically on Sunday night I have my game, but I'll see if he minds if I play, or what.

I'll be through house sitting next Monday, and then back at the condo. There was someone who was interested in renting the other room, but I never heard anything more about it, so I assume that is not happening. ( This turns into rambling about money things )

That is really not what I meant to write about when I sat down to do thins though. I meant to talk about the fact that I am already flailing about uselessly due to the lack of structure. It used to be I would get home from work/social lunch at like 2:30 and do fuck of of use for the rest of the day. I mean, I've written a lot in the past couple of weeks/months. A *lot*. And that's great! I do enjoy it. I'm having a lot of fun playing in the Night Vale fandom. I even got a tumblr! That should really tell you everything about how my days have turned into a wasteland of uselessness (measured-words.tumblr.com, for the record. Reblog allll the Night Vale @_@). I'm one of the tag-wranglers for the fandom on AO3 and it is hopping. My co-wrangler cleared out the bins of new stuff earlier this morning, and there are already 17 new ones. I'm slow and picky about it too, so it eats time, but I enjoy it as well. But at the same time, it is not precisely helping me get ahead in life. Okay, so it is actually very similar to what I will be doing with my new job, on a smaller scale, but I'm not sure how I'd put it on a resume :p

I'd meant to be doing all kinds of useful things with this time. I thought I'd have started the new job a lot sooner, and that I'd be acclimatizing to a real, actually busy, 8 hour work day, but that once I'd done this, I would start, say, putting together course syllabi and trying to get articles published from my dissertation research. I have done... none of this. I was planning to read more academic stuff on fandom and poke at my co-hosts to keep gong with more ficthropology stuff, and that hasn't happened either. And just read more academic stuff in general! I have so many books I've bought and have only really just peeked at, or read parts of, or never even opened. I need to read more - I have the time now - I should do that right? Heck, there are books in this house I should read if I have time in the next week :p

Anyway. I have a lot of time on my hand, and I'm having trouble organizing myself to make good use of it. I have writing commitments, and I have story ideas and I have original material I want to do Something with. I have knitting to work on. I have articles to write and courses to design. I just need to figure out how I can make myself do these things. Maybe I need to make more lists? Schedules? I don't know. If you see me online too much, make me do something useful. If I'm being morose and whiny, tell me to have some tea. I was feeling meh when I started this, but now I have had tea and feel less meh and more just... bored I guess? I know not having concrete things to do is not going to be good for me longterm :p

Right now, I'm going to go make lunch. That should help too. And after that... I dunno. Maybe I'll read, or knit. Maybe I'll do some market research for stories. Maybe I'll do something with friends in town...

While I am not here under the best circumstances, I am trying to take advantage of it as much as I can.

I got to see a bunch of my relatives yesterday, including my one aunt on my dad's side, and some second(I think) cousins I haven't seen in an age and a half. Also my sister!!! <3 <3 <3 *more hugs*

I am at my dad's now, spending some time with him and his wife (I like her, but it just seems weird to consider her my stepmother, since they got married after I'd left home!). I just ate a canadial maple donought, and am drinking a chocolate iced cap, and have some timbits downstairs. Tonight we are having salmond and scallops and fiddleheads!!!

Tomorrow, we are going canoeing somewhere, and Satruday I am going to the Fredericton Farmer's Market, after which I hope to spend the day hanging out with friends I haven't seen in aaaages! Hopefully, anyway :o I'm still looking to get a drive back to Monkeytown on Sunday moring, but I am confident something will work out.

Now, if only I hadn't left my powerbar at the Moncton hotel. Bah, I blame the Dutch.

Also, during my ridiculously long layover in To, I am going to get to see Rob, and possibly my cousin Melissa, who I also haven't seen in forever :)