elanya

I had/am having a great Christmas. It is great to be here with my family, especially my nephews. They got me a "Star Wars Guy" for Christmas - a Finn figure, literally the last one in the store. we watched A New Hope with them a few days ago and it was great.

I have seen the new Star Wars and I loved it! I have many ~feelings~. I wrote a short little fic yesterday, over here - just a short missing scene form near the very end of the film. Spoilers, clearly.

Yuletide has been great - today I am planning to read through stuff in madness. I have one outstanding comment on a madness fic, for a recip who is apparently usually a late commenter, but it has gotten other positive attention so I'm not worried. I need to do a longer write up on my writing journal but might not get a real chance until after reveals, we'll see.

I have the week off of work! \o/!

The rest of the family is out...somewhere....atm - time to work on lace knitting! And make quick journal posts I guess...

Other things I need to do today or in the next few days: call and make an appointment for someone to come and register my animals. Try and get out to take the written part of my drivers test for Ontario so that maybe, in two years, I can get a license :p Go and get cat food (wet and dry) and litter. Laundry. Other things I'm probably forgetting...

So I opened up semagic this morning with the intent pf posting.... something. I didn't have any grand plans, I just realized I haven't been having much to say and that I should maybe try something?

I don't think there is a whole lot going on for me to talk about though, really. I'm still working. Still gaming probably more that is reasonable for a responsible adult. I'm ding yuletide, which is consuming most of the rest of my free time. I have prepared a story to submit to the Innsmouth Free Press' She Walks In Shadows anthology, but I haven't yet submitted it. I am sending a terribly slashed up version of The Cursed Wreck - slashed as in it used to be 7000+ words and their length limit is 4000. It is certainly a lot tighter, and I think the atmosphere is different. It is definitely more polished, though I am still sad at losing certain parts of it. I am super grateful to all the people who helped me refine and cull along the way! Special shoutouts to morbane and naryrising though for the big chops and various hand holding endeavours. If anyone else is curious, the submission guidelines are here.

I'm staying in Texas for Christmas, but I'm going to be house sitting for the usual suspects. for about three weeks. I get almost no time off? Whee? Ahh well, I get a longer staff holiday in March I guess... I suppose I will probably still be here.

I am almost done with all the absolutely required work for this job - this should coincide nicely with the end of the year, which when I told myself I would start serious job searching. Anyone know any museums hiring?

Happy Thanksgiving, mi Americanos! Thank you for letting me infringe on your day of great gluttony! Followed by the day of great commercialism, huzzah!

My dad and Jennifer got in a little earlier than expected on the 24th, but luckily I was at least dressed after getting out of the shower minutes earlier :V i took them to Rudy's for lunch, which seemed to go over pretty well! I hadn't been in a while, so it was nice for me too. Afterwards, they wanted to see if they could find some cooler clothes (shorts!!!) because it is supposed to be warmer (it was 20 today - supposed to be ~25 tomorrow) for the rest of their trip. After a Christmas eve excursion to Walmart (D:), we came home, and chilled out. We were all pretty full from a big lunch, so we chilled out for most of the evening. I baked some gingerbread cookies that I'd made that morning, and we decorated that later that evening, afetr we watched Love Actually (A movie I've owned forever and never seen before). It was cute, but I'm not sure what dad and Jenifer thought of the couple who met because they were lighting models on a porn set ;) I think I'd need to watch it again to catch all the connections between the story lines. Oh, we also went to the 6 pm Christmas eve service at the church around the office. There was fire, and a lot of Christmas ties. We had a snack during cookie decorating of pita and carrot sticks with hummus and Greek yogurt (mmmm, fage...). And I think that is all! belryan may be in danger of losing his kitten to Jennifer though :o! Oh also, walking Jola a couple of times to show peeps around the neighbourhood and look at birds. No bunnies though :/

Today was Christmas! I walked Jola and opened presents! Jennifer and dad had a few little things here - a card from me, and some fruitcake from Hazel, mostly. I got a Playmobile set from B, a hodgepodge of things from C, including some amazingly awesome cookie cutters that I can hardly wait to try out :D A ring from tethys123 and a steampunk bee pendant from longpig (both from Cognitive Creations etsy store <3). Also a tea pot (yay!) with a pirate tea cozy :D And some cookies and other assorted stocking bits. It was a nice morning! After we got our butts (okay yes it was mostly me) moving, we went up to campus to look around the empty department and see the empty empty campus. Oh, yes, fellow NAP-ers, guess who *was* in on Christmas day :p Oh, you know. I can hear you sighing from here, earis! We came home and it was time to start preparing for duuuuuck! Only we didn't so that. I had a nap, other peeps made lunch, which we ate around 2, meaning that we didn't have duck until super later. After lunch, I made the pie (choc. pecan), and cards were played while the duck was cooking. I called a bunch of peeps - family, plus rob, and J&S earlier in the morning, and chatted to Hazel <3 over the internets.

Dinner was late, but soooo delicious! I made crispy duck (slow roasting for the win, thank you Joy!), with an improvised orange ginger sauce, a rice mix, and dad made a salad. It turned out very well - we quartered the duck for facility of serving, and ate most of it. What's left is stewing in a pot now with some veggies, to make soup :) The pie was also delicious.... and now we are digesting. It seems like there was more to the day, but I don't think I am actually forgetting anything, hmmm... now I'm chilling out on the couch watching STTNG :D

Good times, in any case! I think tomorrow will be more shopping :x

they let us out early today account of it being some wacky American holiday or something. I don't know what the big deal is - we spent all of Canada sitting around very slowly digging a meter and a half deep hole looking for funny rocks ;)

In any case, I'm home on time to get in on some celebratin', so happy belated 1st to all my Canucks, and happy 4th to all my 'Merkins ^-^

I'm off to have some Jola visitation rights, and see some peeps! 'Tis a small world though, turns out my digging partner used to be in the cam here and roomed with ruby7829. Madness!

Anyway, I'm clean, and I'm home, but I'll be *in* later. hopefully my hand and shoulder can recover a bit over the weekend, and it won't rain too hard on my poor little tent.

See you all in a bit, and I'll tell you about the dig :)

Term is done. This means a fiction binge. This year, I started out with Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan, which is kind of like Gonzo journalism in The Future. It was fucking fantastic. I read all 60 issues in two days.

Next!

Alas, I cannot see the moon. Samson is wuffing adorably in his sleep. He now lives under my papasan chair. I am hoping that I will be able to settle down soon and create rather than consume fiction. It has been too long since I've had a chance to write in more than ten to twenty minute bursts. i have things that need to be typed. I have a conference paper to compose.

What I really want to do is throw things and swear at people until I discover a Truth that can help start the world changing for the better. If only. If only!