Distracted By Something Shiny

Just in case any of you wondered how I spend my days…Today, when my sister came home from work, I was wearing my Lego Movie pajamas, listening to the Glee soundtrack, working on a sketch of Shawn Spencer from ‘Psych’ and sucking on a Ring Pop. Cuz I am a grown-ass woman, yo!

So, over the weekend, hiyacynth and her boy, Munchy P, were here. They were set to come on Friday, but after looking at the weather report, we started to get concerned about what were being described as ‘potential white-out conditions’. She said she’d think on it Wednesday night and then on Thursday I awoke to a text from my sister saying Hiyacynth was on the way here, deciding to come a day early! She very cleverly brought a sled along, in case they did get stranded on the side of the road, that she could pull her son behind her instead of carrying him through the snow.

Sis and BFF were at work on Friday, so while Hiyacynth was baking delicious bread, I played with Munchy for a few hours. He got out the Bert & Ernie dolls and we played out what I later realized was very similar to an actual episode of Sesame Street. Bert kept bringing ants into the house via his garden. “Ants in your pants, Bert? Don’t sit on the chair - you’ll get ants on the chair!” - “I sit in your chair, now you have ants in your chair!” Lather, rinse, repeat that for a half an hour. We also played on the IPad and the kid suckered me into purchasing more puzzles in the puzzle app. He is so vocal now and it is adorable. It shouldn’t be so cute when a kid cries, but when my sister shut him out of the basement so the cats could eat dinner in peace, he cried, “If you shut me out of there again, I will be sad!” Also I noticed that if one of his aunties did a transgression, we were all to blame for it. “But my aunties won’t let me in the kitchen!” - “But my aunties turned off the light!” I’m sorry, but it’s just adorable. On Saturday, just after I woke up, while I was still in bed, Munchy came traipsing into my room with a new book, crawled up in my bed and handed it to me to read to him. After that he wanted my IPad, so we cuddled up in my bed and played on that while his Mom took a shower.

We had a lot of good food and watched some movies - got to see Winter Soldier again, which I really do love a lot - and all in all, I had a pretty excellent weekend. Now I have to spend the week working on K’s birthday present. It’s his 50th this year!

I HAVE CAUGHT UP ON THE INTERNET!! Or, well, the parts of the internet I actually care about.

I’ve been so less active since I initially got sick with the bronchitis, last fall. My post count has been way down. I am always a month behind on my Flist. I very rarely post fic. I very rarely write fic. My comments kept stacking up. And my Tumblr folder got up over 600. I just didn’t have it in me to keep up with anything.

But my energy levels have finally started to come back! They are still low - 3 or so hours a day - but they are stable, not this drastic up and down thing they were doing. And that has been very helpful in planning what I am going to get through each day. Hell, this week I caught up on the internet and put away my clothes, straightened up my room and dealt with all my bills. I am slowly starting to post more. I am finally caught up on my Flist and my inbox. I have a story to go up sometime this weekend. And I have written 6,300 words since the end of May! Also, my Tumblr folder is down to 400.

I feel so accomplished and like a real person again. And the writing thing has been glorious. For the last few years I have had ‘weekly’ writing goals, in an effort to keep the juices flowing because my biggest issue is just making myself sit down and get started. Forcing myself to write at least a little bit each week has really helped me conquer that. And in the past two years I have missed maybe 3 or 4 weeks of my goal. But this year I just couldn’t keep at it. I was going for 1k a week, not too strenuous, but I had one week where I was so sick from the bronchitis and I told myself, “Skip a week. Let it go. Take of care of yourself.” And 1 week turned into 2, turned into 3, and then the end of the month rolled around and I was all, “Oops. Well, if I can’t meet the weekly goal of 1k, maybe I can meet a monthly goal of 4k.” So I did. And then the next month, same thing, waited until the end of the month and had to push out all the words at once. I wrote at the end of March and then suddenly, somehow, it was the end of May and I was like, “I haven’t written this month, let me pull up my writing folder...holy shit, I didn’t write at all in April!” Idek where April went. It’d been almost 8 weeks. No wonder I felt so out of sorts.

So I sat down on May 31 and started a birthday fic for my sister - (a Hobbit AU!) - and then I just kept going and I actually finished it - (in time for her birthday!) - and then wrote 600 words of Avengers fic for The Nephew. I’m back on the weekly word goals - (haven’t met this week’s yet though, eep) - and ready to start posting fic again and feeling so much more like myself. I don’t think I am ever going to get my energy levels back to anywhere near where I was before, but I’ll take stability over quantity any day.

Now I just have to get around to tackling the dreaded email inbox! I go forth with bravery.

Every day I swear I’m going to be productive and then I am not productive. I didn’t even write last week. But I caught up on comments this week and today I arted for an hour, so maybe tomorrow I’ll actually tackle the 20 tabs I have open. On the upside, I am feeing better than I was. Still tired and low on energy, but less hot flashes/vertigo/shakes, though my stomach is still weirdly out of sorts. My brother convinced me to try yogurt, says it has helped both him and The Nephew with their stomach issues. I fucking hate yogurt though. I choked down about half of one and it was gross. I don’t like the texture - it’s weird!

( More blahblahblah under the cut! )

In happier news, I forgot to share with you all about The Nephew’s Halloween costume. He was Return Of The Jedi Luke Skywalker, in the all black, and he even called here to ask us which hand to put the glove on because he wanted to be 100% accurate. And he insisted that his baby sister be Leia. I said, “She’d make a good Yoda, cuz she is so tiny,” and he said, “Yeah, but Yoda and Luke aren’t siblings. Like we are. And like Luke and Leia are.” Valid argument. His Halloween kind of sucked though because they don’t really live in a neighborhood-area and it was raining and his friend got hurt - (she fell down and her vampire fangs went up through her lip). Next year Halloween is on a Friday and we are hoping to do steam-punk vampires, so we told his dad they should just come in and trick-or-treat in our neighborhood and then leave The Nephew here to help us pass out candy and spend the night!

Anyways, this is me checking in. How are all of you?

The month of June’s word count - wherein half my words were dedicated to Teen Wolf! Also, I finished two WIPs - one of which has been sitting on my computer for like two years now! It was a very productive month, mostly I think because I decided to try this trial run thing of doing one writing-related activity everyday; be it writing or posting or editing. Even if it was only ten minutes, it was something, every day. It also helped me clear out my ‘written but not edited’ folder, so I have a line of things now that are ready to post. I think next month I should focus more on posting than anything else, just to get that folder cleared out!

Here is my approximate word count for the month.

June, 2013
Day One: 1,300 words of Avengers/OUaT fic. Completed. (already posted!)
Week One: 1,400 words of Christian/Jensen PWP. Completed.
1,200 words of Teen Wolf Family fic.
Week Two: 2,000 words of Danny/Stiles fic. Completed. (already posted!)
Week Three: 4,200 words of Teen Wolf Danny fic.
Week Four: 750 words of Teen Wolf Danny fic. Completed.
1,250 words of J2 Clothes fic. Completed.

12,100 words written in June!

( Fics posted in June, 2012. )

You guys! I know it is jinxing things or whatever to add up my word count thus far, but I did it anyways and…I am at 50,000 words for the year! That’s counting January thru June - literally exactly 50,000 words in six months! When my yearly goal is 100k, so I am perfectly on track so far! Awesome.

I have finished The Nephew’s fic! It is at the beta! I have to do art tomorrow still though! So now let’s talk about Iron Man 3! Come join me!

( Spoilers out my ass. )

In short, I was contemplating how I liked Iron Man 2 better than 1, and wondering if 3 would be better than 2, and you know what? IT WAS.

So, my sister claims she actually works at her job, but then she comes home and shows me what she has been doing with her time. Like making up a royal schedule for if Fili & Kili were Kings Under The Mountain. Yes, King(s) plural, because they would have to rule together, because they are BROTHERS!

The Royal Schedule:
Breakfast
Braid each others hair
Royal blah blah blah
Nappies
Snackies
Wrestling
Go here to see more, as it only gets better from there.

She also sent me this picture of a Bag-End Litter Box and I WANT!! But apparently you can’t actually purchase it. /pout/

( Picture Under The Cut )

We also had a very serious discussion here at FanGirl Central about whether or not Dwarves have knots and alpha/omega relationships. I’d like to say it took us awhile to go there, but sadly I’m pretty sure that topic was broached within hours of the first Hobbit viewing. Yeah, we’re a classy bunch. But then again, come on, if it makes sense anywhere, it’s among the dwarves, what with so few females and the whole ‘other species’ thing going on. Idk if it has happened in the fandom yet, but there is MPreg out there already for The Hobbit. Though the general opinion at FGC, concerning Thorin being pregnant, is that it does rather impede all his ‘being majestic’ time. Being majestic is his number one job requirement, after all.

Also, The Nephew was talking to my sister about The Hobbit the other day but he doesn’t know any character’s names except Bilbo so he called Gandalf, ‘that one real tall guy who gave Bilbo his sword’, and Galadriel, ‘that guy’s lady friend’, and Lindir, ‘that guy’s friend who ran up and told them that the dwarves were leaving’. Idk why that amused me so much, but it was all kinds of adorable-awesome.

To Sum Up: I got my hair cut today! It took for-freaking-ever, well beyond what it should have and I will not use that stylist again, but it looks really cute and feels so good not to just have a mop of hair weighing me down. So, accomplished!

I HAVE FINISHED THE BFF’S FIC!!! I honestly can’t believe it. 25,548 words. Can you imagine there was a time when I thought this thing was going to be 6,000 words long? And then every 4,000 words or so after that, I would say, “Oh, it just needs another 4,000 more words.” Yeah, I said that 5 more times before I hit the end. Man, when I say I have no concept of how long something is going to be when I sit down to write it, I mean it. 70 pages long! It’s the longest fan-fiction I have ever written. It’s about 8,000 more words than what was my previous longest fan-fic ever, which was 17,000+.

Now I have reached the point where I am unsure if it is actually any good or not though, because I’ve been working on it since May. May! Still, I like it myself, so hopefully she will too. I thought maybe the front half was action-lite but then I thought, isn’t it true that in like, say a movie, you get way more action in the second half than you do in the first half? Right?

Anyways, soon enough I will be able to reveal to you all what the crossovers are in this secret story. The BFF gets it on like the Saturday before Christmas and then after that I can tell you all about it. Given my crazy Christmas/New Years schedule, it probably won’t get posted until January anyway but still, I’ve been calling it the ‘Secret Crossover’ for so long, I thought you might be curious.

At 25,500 words, this is like Big Bang length. Which makes me think I should do some art for it. At least like a cover page. I make cover pages for The Nephew’s fics and they are usually only like 3,000 words, so I think a 25,000 word fic should get one too.

What I really need now is a beta reader. Anybody up for it? You know, the usual; typos, tense changes, tell me whether or not I need to add anything. I don’t expect any major issues with it but like I said, after nearly seven months of this thing, I can’t see straight. I’d give you (virtual) hugs. And my (real life) unending gratitude. Anyone? /puppy eyes/

Alright, off to bed now. Chicago Fire time! Gotta watch my sexy firemen/paramedics save people and flirt with each other.

I am caught up on LJ comments, you people! 100% for the first time in Idek how long. It’s a miracle!! (I always feel compelled to say ‘mirable’ because of way too much time spent watching The Rugrats). Last week I hunkered down and cleaned out my personal email inbox too; saved all the links I wanted, downloaded all the pictures people had sent me - (had some in there from Christmas 2010!) - and replied to things I needed to reply to - (seem to have gotten an onslaught of personal friends and family emails in the last month). Then I caught up on all my LJ comments as well. I FEEL SO ACCOMPLISHED!!

I also have written about 4,000 words so far this month, which is awesome, since the month is only half over with. I wrote some stuff on The BFF’s fic yesterday that was very exciting. Ever have that feeling that a story is kind of dragging and you don’t know why and then you suddenly realize exactly what it needs to get going again? Yeah, I had a scene like that the other day. It wasn’t in my initial plan but it has really upped the tension. It’s all very exciting!

I would now like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all my Flisties who are having birthdays this week - four of you, damn! Happy birthday to saddle_tramp, fragrantwoods, phamalama and angelcords!!! Hope they are/were great ones, darlings!

For your birthdays, (and for everyone else), I will now make you all well up with tears. My sis and I watched this movie this weekend, Chimpanzee. It is shot like a documentary, but narrated by Tim Allen and very family-friendly in its presentation. There are some tension-filled moments, as well as sad moments but I promise you, if you watch it, there will be a happy ending. It was amazing and I don’t exaggerate.

Oscar is too fucking cute.

Even the trailer gave me goosebumps. It doesn't help that they used Switchfoot's Narnia song either - always gets me.

( Spoilers for the movie. )

Go watch this movie and be filled with hope and love and tears!

I had a really good holiday weekend. Friday was very productive with lots of replying to comments and emails and a good solid chunk of writing. The rest of the weekend was less productive, as all I want to do is play my new video game. Go!Vacation is the most fun ever! So far Dodger!Mii has run into Spock, Special Agent Danny Taylor, The Nephew, Spike, Scully, Uhura and Angel. At one point I was hanging out with Spike and Scully at the same time, which amused me to no end for some reason.

On Saturday my sister took me and The BFF out to Olive Garden for dinner. I went outside the box and tried something new - Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara and it was D-Licious. Then we shared a piece of cake at the end of the night - Triple Chocolate Cake - which is a layer of chocolate cake, and a layer of chocolate mousse, then cake, then mousse, then cake again at the bottom. YUMMY.

On Monday we had a cookout - my sister, myself, The BFF, my cousin and ceitfianna. We had good food and my cousin brought ice cream cake. We had good conversation and we played our six degrees of actors game. But most importantly, in the middle of the cookout, my sister-in-law called to say...

That she's PREGNANT!! THE NEPHEW IS GOING TO BE A BIG BROTHER!!! He has wanted a little brother for so long - he used to tell me stories about things he did with his brother, Iceman. But I am honestly hoping for a little girl. We don't have enough of those in the family. In the kid-generation, we only have two girls and one of them is the Canadian-Niece, who lives in Canada. Financially, this is going to be a big struggle for them. My brother has been doing the stay-at-home dad thing for six years and now that The Nephew is in school full-time he has started picking up some work - (he was in construction, drywall, roofing, etc), which gave them just that bit extra cash to not be sweating it all the time and now he will be back to doing the stay-at-home thing. So I am a little worried about the stress this will put on them, but mostly I am just SUPER EXCITED TO BE AN AUNT AGAIN!!!

In sadder news, The BFF moved out of our basement apartment today. Her parents are headed off for a year and a half and need someone to watch the house and the dog. So it is a good set-up for her - she can live there cheaply and be right near work - (she just got a temp job at a place that will last her several months). But it will just feel weird not to have her in the house anymore. I know, for the first eight years of our friendship, she didn't live with us - but it feels like she always lived with us. It’s okay though, we will all live together again during the end times (we have an apocalypse plan, after all).

I suppose I should do something productive now - like put away laundry or do some writing - even though what I really want to do is play more Go!Vacation.

So, I noticed last night, that according to my info page - the last post I made; the random one about my cousin's kid visiting, and seeing my grandpa, and meeting my physical therapist's daughter - WAS MY 200TH POST!!!

I find it amusing that it was just random shit from my daily life and not me fangirl-ing something - because when I got this LJ, I figured it would only contain me squeeing/ranting over random fangirl shit. I never thought I would just type up posts about having a nice visit with my little cousin. I certainly never thought I'd feel comfortable enough here to talk about physical therapy, or the fact that I even go to physical therapy at all. It actually makes me very happy that it was just a post about my life. I don't know why.

HERE...HAVE A PICSPAM IN HONOR OF THIS MOMENTOUS OCCASION!!

This is Elijah Wood greeting Orlando Bloom. I'm told it's a customary greeting for Hobbits and Elves. As is tradition.


( HUGS & KISSES & CUDDLES, OH MY! )

Also, a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to waywardson_lvr!! Hope it was grand, darling!! For your birthday, have this picture of JDM and his best girl. It totally keeps with the theme of the picspam, since they are TOTALLY CUDDLING!!! Also, BELLY!!

One More For The Road...