persephone33

Hey, reader! Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat.

Fifty billion points if you can name that cartoon. Only two if you look at the icon.

Aaaaand, scene. This is one of those 'something for everyone' posts. Don't like whatever drivel seeps out in the paragraph you're reading? Skip to the next. That one might be better. You can hope, anyway.

Here goes.

★ I, and consequently anyone older than me, am/are no longer allowed to use the following phrase: "I'm gonna get my _________ on," where the blank is arbitrarily a noun, verb or adjective, depending on the speaker. Example: "I'm gonna go get my dance on," to explain to those surrounding the speaker that she might like to dance. January 14th, 1973. Check the date and obey the rules. Thanks.

★ Gay men make better shop attendants than straight men or even women. (Find me a straight man in retail or musical theatre. The ratio is skewed.) When I proclaimed this to my husband, he asked, "Even in the men's section?" To which I replied, "Especially in the men's section! How's a straight man going to help another straight man, fashion-wise? They'd all come out looking like... you. Honey." He conceded the point, I think.

★ Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking. Saw the show on Broadway. Laughed hysterically. Read the book in an afternoon. Laughed again. Funny, funny stuff. Admittedly, I'm an easy room, but it'll also make you glad for your own, relatively normal life.

★ Sometimes I get disappointed with people to the point that I never want to leave the house. (Where my house is Mt. Crumpit and I just stand at the door and glare down at the Whos of the world.) And then a few days go by and I take a deep breath, sigh heavily and give the world a metaphorical raspberry because, honestly, people are punks and they always will be. My bounceback time is faster, and for that I'm grateful.

★ I made these last night for home group, among other things. I LOVE THEM. In a completely dangerous-to-my-butt way.

★ Ever listen to The Splendid Table on NPR? (Listen now, because I think big brother's cutting it, soon, the jerkface.) My SIL turned me on to the program, and the Supper Tart. It's puff pastry and whatever toppings you like and a drizzle of olive oil. My favorites are chicken, tomatoes, onion and basil, but you can do whatever. Try it. You won't be sorry.

★ Stay tuned: After sewing for other people all spring, I'm going to make myself some dresses. This pattern (Knee length): Only I got black fabric and a green print to practice on and a red and black Chinese cherry blossom silk for the fancy one. Pattern covers are always truly hideous fabrics. Why?

★ And a friend who works at a furniture store in town brought me bunches of fabric swatches, out of which I'm going to make a fresh batch of bags and purses. Want one?  Offer expired!

★ I worry about myself.

★ I just spent about a good minute trying to remember what those orange vegetables are called... you know, the ones with the green tops that Bugs Bunny eats?

★ *headdesk*

★ When Nolan told AJ that he was 'a couple of cans short of a six pack' this weekend, Aaron lifted his shirt, looked at his tummy and replied, "I don't have a six pack. I don't even have a four pack."

★ I finished plotting out a WIP. That's so very gratifying. Wrote a drabble for hp_humpdrabbles, and sent new chapter for for editing. I'm ALL accomplished. The writing drought is officially over. Whew. Thank goodness. I was getting a little mopey about it. I'm looking around for an rpg to write for, but can't find any that need whom I'm willing to write. :)

★ I've been sewing the heck out of a strapless, sparkly dress for Kiss of the Spider Woman. I'm thinking about making one for myself (minus the sparkly, spidery vibe) for the cruise I'm going on in February.

★ We're going on a cruise in February! I CAN'T WAIT.

★ I learned that friends are still friends even when we don't talk every day.

★ The scale won't move past thirteen pounds. I'd love to have lost 20 by the time we get on the boat. Lose it! is still my BFF. Counting calories and exercising. Go figure. :P Twenty-two more pounds to go.

★ Bond girls were curvier in the sixties. For that matter, so were women in during the renaissance. When did stick thin become what everyone wanted to be?

★ I learned that friends are still friends even when we don't talk every day.

★ Nolan just pointed out that James Bond must not have had to worry about STD's. He was kind of trampy. (But hot. Er, that's MY observation, not his.)

★ I need a new camera. Like, bad.

★ What do we think of Miss Me jeans? I tried some on and yes, they look great, but a hundred and something bucks is a lot to drop on a pair of pants, you know? And certainly not til I'm in the single digits, size wise.

★ It's distressing to have principles, at times.

★ That's it. My Sunday evening roundup. Do you have any news?

After thinking that today would be chock full of STUFF that I had to do, I find myself home, sipping on a homemade cafe mocha, and sitting.

*I like sitting.

*It annoys me when restaurant restrooms have some clever indication on the doors instead of simply reading "Women" or "Ladies." I don't want to think, I just want to pee. Thank God for the braille placards that have the right words.

*Sometimes yellow lights were meant to be run. Think about that, Amarillo drivers.

*I'm tired of all the pumpkin recipes, food blogs of the world. Gross. Please stop.

*Writing, after not having done so in nearly a YEAR, is hard. Really hard. I haven't lost the impetus, but I'm clearly out of practice.

*Carpooling is GENIUS. Whoever came up with it gets two gold stars and a kiss.

*My grandmother had a stroke last Wednesday, but is in therapy now and may even get to go back to her own home in a few weeks. I think that's brilliant and miraculous! Amen.

*Still disappointed in Bones and Castle. Boo, hiss.

*That science experiment list from a few posts back? The eight year-old's. I have bigger problems than I thought.

*I've started a new bag design, and it is CUTE. More work, but CUTE. Did I mention that it was cute?

*I've planted over 250 bulbs and separated a crapload of irises over the past few weeks. I want to see the flowers. Now. Alas, I won't get to until spring. Delayed gratification sucks out loud. Can anyone identify?

*The priority inbox feature on gmail is wonderful.

*Time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. I do so love making those lists.

*Don't forget to enter November's contest, HERE. Tell me what you're thankful for, and win a prize. Maybe. :D

Even though I didn't plan it, I seem to be busy. Really Busy.

I'm pleasantly sore from all the workouts I've been doing to reduce in the name of South Pacific, waist deep in research for costuming Eurydice (now that I understand it, I think I may like it. Still not sure, though),preparing and rehearsing for a women's retreat drama mid-September, dance rehearsals and blocking rehearsals for South Pacific, managing to do the HGC diet without wanting to pull my (or anyone else's) hair out*, writing a little and sewing, painting and keeping the house from exploding with dirt.

I am woman, hear me roar, etc.

We're getting our new bed delivered today. I could NOT be more happy. I still need to document the drama that is The Bed. Gracious. It's an epic freaking saga.

The children have been gone since Sunday, and they return this afternoon. I've missed them! But the house is really clean. And quiet. ;)

---

* Actually, I'd sell my grandmother for some queso. And you know how I love my grandmother.

( Wherein I discuss snoring, tans, state of the bed, jam, diets, big thighs, my immense dorkiness and Commercials on TNT )

Now aren't you glad you read all that? Aren't you a better person for knowing it all?

No?

Well, at least you got to see my new layout. :) Goodnight.

• The boys had an awesome time at golf and tennis camp.  They are tanner and blonder and worn out, but happy.
• I did some fun shopping with mom, got to cook with my little sister, fix my niece's gorgeous hair, argue the semantics of a properly drawn sun with my nephew, absconded with some custom made pottery from my Tom, drank a bottle of wine with my girlfriend and discovered my BIL's sense of humor.
• Traffic.  Good heavens.  It took 30 minutes to get out of Arlington today, and another 45 to get out of the metroplex.  How the heck did I ever live there?  I 35 has got to be on one of the rings of hell.
• Also, the heat.  The heeeeaaat.  The humidity.  The freakin' mosquitoes.  Good heavens above.  My skin may dry out on the caprock, but at least my hair looks good. ;)
• I slipped an fell (on my face!) on Mom and Tom's deck this morning and I'm a mass of aches and pains.  Man, I feel old.  Knee and shoulder are not working properly, even after having been iced down after it happened.
• The boys and I listened to Deathly Hallows on the way home.  Six hours of listening to Jim Dale, and we're not even to the 500 page camping trip.  Long winded much, JK?
• I like Jim's character voices, but his narration voice drives me cuh-razy.  Also, his Hermione voice. "Harrrrryyyyyyyyy!."  Good gracious.  Do people talk like that?
• Six hours in a car.  I stopped in a drive through for dinner and the boys ran in for a pit stop, but I realized once I was home that I never got out of the car, from Arlington to Amarillo.
• We got a new mattress while I was away, apparently.  The Carrie and Nolan bed saga (with a MPAA rating of PG)  deserves a post of its own.  For now, I'm going to say, "Um... no."
• I took two Advil Pm about 30 minutes ago (so I could sleep through the aches and pains from my idiotic fall) and it's like typing with gloves on.  Lots of backspacing.
• It's good to be home.  I'd say it was great to be in my own bed... but this ain't it.
• Since I'm about to crash face first into the laptop, (twice in one day on my face would be a bit much, methinks) I'll bid everyone a good night and happy weekend!

*crashZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

&hearts Old downtowns that have too many one-way streets confuddle my limited driving skills.

&hearts I will park two blocks away from the building to which I need access just so that I don't have to go through the humiliating horror of parallel parking.

&hearts The new Body By Victoria bra from Victoria's Secret is a marvel of modern engineering and should be declared the eighth wonder of the world.

&hearts When you go into the mall with money, with every intention to buy yourself a new dress, you will find only matronly lace monstrosities or horrifically short miniskirts that do not flatter your figure, no matter how hard your bra is working.

&hearts Li, the pedicurist at Q Nails gives one heckuva a foot massage. I want her to move into the guest room.

&hearts A large Diet Coke from Sonic cures a multitude of ills.

&hearts Dean Winchester is the undeniably the coolest character on television since The Fonz.

&hearts I am BESIDE myself waiting for Thursday's 100th episode of Bones. Like GIGGLY about it.

&hearts I'm ridiculously excited about leaving town this weekend with my husband. Even if it is just a business trip. A resort in San Antonio is still a resort.

&hearts Laundry is perpetual. Eternal. Infinite.

&hearts You can never think of anything really profound for the last bullet point, thereby leaving your audience feeling a bit cheated at the end of the post.

I got all 'Little House on the Prairie' again. :D  I went from gorgeous, perfectly ripe apricots...

To beautiful jars of jam... all within a few hours, and for less than $8.  Move over, Ma Ingalls.  I got it covered.

Rather than give you the step by step, which you can see here, I thought I'd share a bulleted list of  other random stuff:

• seegrim  and I are going to rock the Mile High Music Festival this weekend.  I've been writing with the woman for nearly two years, talking to her nearly every day since December of '07, and spending hours and hours on the phone.  It's about time I met her face to face!
• It's raining.  Hallelujah.
• I fell while on my walk yesterday (oh, yeah, I'm graceful) & my hand is messed up.  Silly Carrie.
• I've clocked something like 140 miles walked since the beginning of May.  Get smaller, rear end!
• I get my grey roots colored tomorrow.  Seriously.  SERIOUSLY.  Enough with the 'growing old' crap.
• I've been doing lots of painting, lately.  It's SO good for me. I love it.  Soothes my chi or whatever.
• I've also been doing lots of writing.  I entered the ronpansy_fest  with seegrim  and the dgficexchange  with mynuet , and both are pretty solid efforts.  I was pleased.  So YAY for that.
• I was a runner up in the dg_ldws  this round.  Was fun and challenging.  I learned that I'm too wordy for a limit.
• five weeks til I have to stand next to my SIL in a swimsuit.  I wish phenfen didn't cause me to die. :(
• six weeks til my punks go back to school.  Come on, August.

Tell me something cool, f-list.  What's been happening?

A personal update: free from cooking pictures, fangirlish squees or underwear stories. (For better or worse.)

I'm good. For the first time in a good long while, I feel at peace with the universe. (Or my little corner of it.) I've gone a month with no drama, no, angst, and I like it. Whether or not that's directly related to the amount of time I've spent online, or the amount of medicinal help I've had, I'm not examining. I had a monster headache yesterday, for the first time in a loooong time. I slept for a good portion of the day, woke up to watch part of Battlefield Earth (a gigantic waste of film and costumes if ever there was one) and then went back to sleep early.

Nolan and I are recovering nicely from our respective surgeries; I'd say I'm at 95% and Nolan's at 80%. We're young(ish) enough to recover quickly, so I'm grateful for that.

There are three and a half days of school left until summer vacation, and then I won't have a day to myself until August. I'm ready for it, though. The swimming pool and sleeping in are a good trade off, in my opinion.

I've been painting and sewing a lot, lately. I find I've missed both. I've made all sorts of goodies for Ethan and Aaron's teachers to thank them for being so wonderful to my sons this year.

I've been writing, too. Not as much as I'd like, but with good results. I'll be able to post some things soonish, I think.

But the best thing at the moment? Sitting on my back porch, sipping a cup of hot coffee and listening to the birds. Awesome. I'm happy. Nothing can harsh my chi today.

So.
I've not written much this week, but I've read a few books and an obscene amount of fan fiction, all across a spectrum of fandoms... Narnia, Chuck, Ironman, Supernatural, even That 70's Show, oddly enough.  Some of it was good, some of it was really  good, and some of it was spectacularly horrific.  What reading always does, however, is to make me want to write;  it makes me want to be a better writer so that people don't want to put their eyes out with a rusty spork when they read my work.  (I thought about doing that very thing this afternoon;  It's what made me stop reading today.... Man.  Punctuation?  The proper use of the comma?  I mean, I know I abuse the comma, I do, but really?!)

Had a conversation about girls and girlfriends with the boys.  Turns out that they both like one of the little girls on the street who's a year younger than Ethan and a year older than Aaron.  *blinks*  Deliver me, O Lord, from this burden.  Maybe Jesus can come back before my little boys start to date.  It made me a little hyperventilated just having a casual conversation with them about girls, let alone thinking about when they're sixteen, driving and ruled by their hormones.  YIKES.

Watching Supernatural with the French subtitles is a kick.  There's nothing like Jensen Ackles cocking a pump action shotgun and saying, "Nous avons le travail pour faire."  (We've got work to do.)  I imagined Amelie in the Impala's backseat, furiously transcribing.

I have several ideas for  new stories.  *giggles at all the new bunnies*  *waves*

I might want to sign up for the exchange at pansyxron , but I'm still on the fence.  I have a week to decide.

Wonder of wonders, I actually have a small drive to finish my 2 WIPs.  One of them is done, written out, but only needs to be typed.  How lazy am I?  That's actually one of my least favorite things to do - type up something that's written out in longhand.  :P  Can't STAND it.  And I can't let anyone else do it, because it probably needs to be edited.

Nolan bought our plane tickets for the family Florida vacation this week.  Woo hoo!  Florida in August =Going to fry in the hot sun with the fam.  The boys haven't ever been to the beach, though, so they're excited.

....And I've been dissatisfied, lately.  Disappointed in people, disillusioned by "friends" and frowny in general.  But maybe things will look up, soon. I'm ever hopeful. 

And NBC?  Thinking of cancelling Chuck?  You aren't cool, NBC.  Not cool at all.