Distracted By Something Shiny

So on Saturday we had a little house party with my sister's coworkers. We had burritos and played Geek Out - (the game where you have to bid against the other team as to who can name the most in a category, ie movies where a child is kidnapped into another realm, educational science tv shows, etc). See, my sister's co-workers are all a bunch of geeks and nerds. Once they got in trouble at work for spending too much time talking about The Avengers and actually scheduled a 'lunch meeting' for them to talk about The Avengers. I mean, they are Electronic Records Managers, they could only be bigger nerds if they were accountants.

( More under the cut. )

I woke up not feeling that great - waking up and getting going takes me a couple hours these days - and I wasn't sure I could do the party at all. It was super important to my sister and I knew everyone wanted to meet me, but I felt so awful and I made myself so anxious about having a lightheaded spell during the party, like 'what if'...but I did it and I am so glad. I was sweating and having hot flashes through the whole thing - and the next day started my Awesome Time of Month so that explains that - but I am super glad and proud I did it. It was wicked fun and I can't wait for them to come back this summer for a Geek out cookout!

So, first I started streaming Parenthood through Neflix and I LOVE it! I adore their whole dysfunctional functional family. Ad who would have ever thought I'd like Dax Shepherd - I mean, the Punk'd guy? But I love his character so much! And the kid who plays Max deserves a freaking Emmy! It's so easy to mainline too. But I figured I should take a break and watch a season of something else before I go back to Parenthood.

I tried Bitten, from D's recommendation. I did not like it. First of all, the idea that there aren't very many female werewolves because they aren't strong enough to survive the 'change'? I call bullshit. Do you know what women have to endure with our stupid bodies? So sexist, man. And also, Clay wishes he was Dyson Thornwood. But he isn't. I watched four eps and quit that. Then I decided to try Scandal, per Guy Therapist's recommendation when we were talking about wanting more female leads and 3-dimensional female characters. I am IN LOVE with this show. It's giving me the fresh new shiny toy feeling of love!

Since Guy Therapist is working at the other clinic these days, I decided to pop him an email and tell him exactly how I felt about this show he recommended. For your reading pleasure, here is my freak-out...( Vague spoilers for Scandal S1 under the cut. )

For all my West Wing peeps out there, I highly recommend Scandal, available now on Netflix!

I kept meaning to get this all written up, just some numbers on my word counts for 2013. I actually kept track throughout the year because the previous year, when I added it all up, I realized I was just 750 words short from hitting 100k and there was no way I was going to let that happen again. Especially this time when I added it up at the 6-month mark and realized I had 50k exactly, I had to go for the big goal and get it done.

Fandoms Written In For 2013 - 15; Avengers, Buffy&Angel, Chicago Fire, Criminal Minds, CW RPS, The Hunger Games, Kitties!, Leverage, Lost Girl, Middle-Earth, Once Upon A Time, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Without A Trace & The X-Files.

New Fandoms Written In For 2013 - 6; Chicago Fire, Criminal Minds, Kitties!, The Hobbit, Lost Girl, and Once Upon A Time.

The Fandoms I Wrote The Most In For 2013 -
Buffy&Angel: 9,250 words.
CW RPS: 13,200 words.
Teen Wolf: 40,600 words.

Lowest Monthly Word Count - 4,000 words in November.
Highest Monthly Word Count - 14,000 words in July.

( Random Things About My 2013 Writing Under The Cut. )

Total Yearly Word Count - 101,200 words written in 2013!!

My goals for 2014 are to finish all of the WIPS in my writing folder. I’m on a mission! I have already finished one this year. Most importantly is to get that freaking Derek/Stiles fic finished! I’m thinking Teen Wolf will probably be the front-runner of word counts again, just in finishing that one fic. But I wonder what new fandoms will strike my fancy during 2014. Anyways, that’s 2013...onto the next!

It’s getting that time of year...spring cleaning for the Tivo. A whole host of cable shows just ended their runs for the season; Being Human, The Walking Dead, Justified, Hoarders, What Not To Wear (which actually does split seasons). Even Lost Girl only has two episodes left! How is that possible? This season was way too short. Also, it was very lacking in Hale. We wait until Friday to watch with The BFF, so I haven’t actually gotten to see the most recent episode he was in. Apparently my anticipation to see Hale is high because I had an in-depth dream about him this week that involved a lot of awkward flirting on my part - (mostly awkward because my family was in the room while I did it and we somehow thought we could stop the apocalypse by doing arts and crafts - idek). Anyways, regular seasons shows will also be coming to an end in about a month here, so I thought it was a good time to take stock.

( Reality TV Talk under the cut. )

So let me ask you guys that watch Downton Abbey, cuz my sister watches it and she just finished series one, but we Tivoed season three from PBS, so she would have it when she is ready. For some reason it only taped seven episodes, even though every episode guide and list that I have seen says, ‘Eight episodes and a Christmas special’. (six seasons and a movie!) I get PBS not running the Christmas special because it isn’t technically part of the season, but did they not run all of the episodes either? If you watch the show, how many episodes were there in series three?

Lastly, I keep thinking I am going to give up Arrow at the end of the season, but every time I think that, Felicity and Diggle do something awesome. Mostly I am just tired of the island flashbacks. We get it - he was stranded on an island and in order to survive he became a killing machine, thanks. Why did they feel they needed to show the island stuff to begin with? Now that they have though, they’ve weaved all this conspiracy into it, so they can’t give it up next season. Idk, I’m still wavering on this one.

For the record, I don't think I can ever bring myself to change out my What Not To Wear icon to any other reality show now. Just sayin, Stacey & Clinton are my scarecrows - I'm gonna miss them most of all!

I just wanted to say a quick thank-you to lizibabes, princesslanie, afra_schatz and denig37 for the yummy gingerbread men! In fact, I love gingerbread men. Someone in my family used to make them for holiday parties when I was younger and I loved them. Now The BFF provides me with my fix every Christmas.

So, thank you for my virtual yummies!!!

Since I never shared with you all what I got for Christmas last year from The BFF, let me do so now and also what I got this year!

( I feel like there should be a warning on this cut. )

She framed it and it now has a place of honor on my dresser right next to my muscle car and under my row of boyfriend-magnets.

And now...( ...this year's present of win! )

I love it like a stupid amount. I need to get to the store and get a new white bra, so I can wear it immediately!

My sister got me pjs (so needed those), Sucker Punch (this movie speaks so strongly to me of the power of stories and story-telling and its ability to save us, quite literally, and for that I love it, plus amazing visuals), first season of Lost Girl (I hugged it, I did, because Kenzi & Hale and Trick, omg! I love them). She also put some weird stuff in my stocking (she likes to do that, but nothing tops last year’s Bieber notepad ) including magnets of those creepy ass Paul Frank monkeys which she knows I am freaked out by! And new barrettes, which I also needed.

What all did you guys get? Share with the group!