My Blue Castle

As I just said elsewhere, these internets are wonderful things.

I just got a cookie from 51stcenturyfox !! Internet cookies :D full of yummy hugs!! ILU Foxy!

The always adorable kel_reiley rec'd me over on TWH over the weekend. I about fell off my chair when I saw it. :D Made for bouncy times around the blue castle that's for sure!!!

Having had a day off yesterday from rehearsals helped a lot. I went out and bought food and wall paint {berry mousse is it's name} and did some laundry and killed a mouse ... and wrote a couple thousand more words on my reel_tw fic that needs to get done sooner rather than later...

...but now I am off for a burger lunch with mah pal.

it's kind of a good day here. yay.

Writing an LJ post is no-where on my list of things to do... but it's not like I ever actually pay much attention to those lists anyway.

Busy weekend, and as usual I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow morning... although since the students are all gone for Fall break, and it's only a three day work week I guess I can't work the sympathy angle too hard!

Yesterday was mostly taken up by five hours of standing outside "attending sale."

In the never-ending, always uncomfortable "so what do you want "Santa" to bring you for Christmas" discussions with my parents I suggested that perhaps we could go to the second-hand resale place (run by the prison outreach program) and pick up a new old couch as mine had seen better days even before the cat decided this big thing made a great scratching post. I bought the sofa at least six (maybe eight) years ago from a friend who was getting a divorce and selling off the marital assets CHEAP. It had seen it's day ... but I didn't want anything brand new, or terribly expensive because a) my parents do enough for me w/o spending a lot of money on presents and b) the cat's probably just going to scratch it anyway, so...

So, to make a short story long (my specialty I think) when my mother read that there was going to be an estate auction at a house around the corner from them which included two sofas ... a plan was born in her twisty brain.

As a consquence I was out of bed way too early for a Saturday and we stood outside for four hours waiting for them to sell the furniture.

Sales are interesting things. There are people who attend auctions like this for entertainment. I see why, I suppose, but not exactly my type of fun. Although there were wonderful bargains to be had. I felt sorry for the son who was having this sale to auction off not only the contents of his parent's house, but the house itself. Given that things were going for so little, it has got to be disheartening to see everything your parents worked for all their lives reduced to a bunch of one dollar odd lot boxes.

But, all this ended up working distinctly in my favor when they finally got to the furniture and we were able to pick up a sleeper sofa for $12.50 (yes... twelve dollars and fifty cents) and a double bed frame, box spring, mattress, and the bedding that was on it, for $5.00.

I was sort of idly looking for a single bed to put in the guest room I'm redoing... but hadn't found one yet, so although I now have to rethink my floor plan, I have a double bed for the guest room.

For a total investment of $17.50 (which the parents paid for as early Christmas presents) my house now sleeps six! Once I get the room painted and the parentally donated carpet laid, the welcome mat is open here in Central Pennsylvania! :0)

Of course, all of this involved a lot of heavy lifting (sofa beds are bitching heavy) that my soon to be 73 year old father shouldn't be doing, but we got the old sofa out this morning and the new one installed in the living room. There's a bit of a 'musty old people's empty house' pong about the couch, but it'll air out pretty quick.

Between the cold, and the lifting, followed by a rehearsal later Saturday afternoon which included a lot of falling down (on purpose) I came home exhausted and ate most of a pizza and had a couple four rum and cokes. So I slept well last night! LOL.

Haven't gotten anything further written on my Reel_TW fic which I want to finish this week. I can stay up late a lot this week, tho, so that's something.

Off to do some dishes or something vaugely productive like that!!

In case you were wondering ... I'm still here.

Have had to sacrifice the online writing for the offline writing... although...

Attempted to work on my novel for NaNo month. Got about 8,500 words in and crashed and burned. I know they say just write and you will figure out where the story is going... but it wasn't working for me. C'est la vie. La novel is in a coma right now, but will come back to it at some point.

To pull myself out of that hole, I started working on my Reel_TW story which is going better, although draft #1 is basically just a reworking of the actual script. But once I get the bones laid down, I can start embellishing. It's actually sort of scary how many parallels between TW and the original movie I am finding, given that they have NOTHING in common. Also, was happy to figure out a way to work Jack into my TW London story in a way that actually is more canon that need be in this AU story!

And I got my Yuletide assignment over the weekend which I am pretty happy about. I get to write in a fandom I've never written before, but have read read read so much that I don't think I will have too much trouble coming up with something fun for my recipient!! There is much to play with in that world that I first got turned onto in college ... so I forsee some fun there. Also I will have to go back and re-read a bit to refresh myself and that's never a bad thing.

In non writing news... had our first "rehearsal" for the Christmas play last week. The next rehearsals will be dependent on Director Cee's recovery from her knee surgery last week. Given that the gist of the whole thing is an "everything that could possibly go wrong, does" production of A Christmas Carol... anything goes. To that end we're working on a lot of improv-ing, so we add that into the mix. The Victorian themed Christmas celebration here in my little town is a BIG DEAL, so it will be fun to play into that.

(I should do a post showing you the absolutely INSANE gingerbread houses we used to do for the townwide competition)...

Was woken from a sound sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning by the squeaking of a very freaked out field mouse being chased around the bathtub by my cat. I gather some cats eat mice. Mine likes to make them his best friend. The mice are not so into him. So after bunging mr./ms. mousie into a plastic bucket and arranging for some middle of the night rodent witness protection/relocation... (involving wandering around my driveway in nightgown and sock feet) I went back to bed.

But the night's sleep was pretty much wrecked. Added to which the cat decided that losing a playmate was  good excuse to hog the covers!

So am at work fagged out and with a headache... and have about 20 minutes until I have to head off to the mothership and learn how to 'free myself from electronic clutter.'

Have been spending this first week of NaNo writing AROUND my "novel." I want to give up and say it's not ready to be written YET... but that seems defeatist somehow. So not feeling very enthusiastic about it all, but c'est la my vie.

Should be eating my lunch before I trek across campus, but find I am not hungry.

On the plus side, it looks like I've lost in the neighborhood of five pounds in the last two weeks. So I must be doing something right!

Got to work and ended up in a blue funk ... so I went out at lunchtime for a little retail therapy at Barnes and Noble.

I needed a new blank book, which I got, and then ended up with the following in my bag:

The sweetest, most wonderful vintagey 2010 Day Book which I love already. Bonus points for the blue satin ribbon bookmark!!

Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. I actually thought I was picking up Tales of the City, but I read the first three chapters while I ate my lunch, and I'm hooked already. A really vivid first-person narrative, and delightful (and a bit cracky) so far. Am jealous already of how free and easy he makes writing fiction look.

Also off the bargain rack I picked up a nice, hard-bound, feels-good-in-your-hand copy of Walden. It seemed like appropriate Fall into Winter reading somehow.

and then seeking a bit of inspiration for my bad mood, I bought myself a magnet (printed with certified wind power, it says) with the following quote:

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you!
-Christian D. Larson.

Truly, words I need to hear all the damn time.

“Ladies – We Eat Out Tomorrow!”

Something about the wording or the syntax or something just makes it sound like a royal decree.

Actually, it should be fun. Quarterly I go out for lunch with my old bosses from Interlibrary Loan. It’s an odd combination of girlfriends catching up and workplace networking. It’s always a great ego boost as they think I’m great in all the ways I wish I could think I’m great.

If I take my Vermont scrapbook along they’ll die of squee.

Have a meeting tonight with Director Cee about the Halloween Parade, the skin-horse costume for The Velveteen Rabbit, and I’m hoping to get some more details of whether they need me to work the NJ show in November.

HOPING to get home in time to watch Criminal Minds.

Also, I want to play around with today’s Technique-a-Palooza inking tip. Played around last night with the gesso I’d textured the day before that, adding color with oil pastels. Would have gone better with newer pastels. Mine seem to be a bit dried up, but they worked OK. Want to try adding color with inks rather than the pastels… but that means making more test pages. YAY for more gesso under my fingernails!

Stupid new digital scale thinks I weigh ten pounds more than my old scale. Sigh. Way to gain ten pounds in one day.

Then I ate a veggie burger, walked to ten minutes, watched three or four Criminal Minds back to back, made a scrapbook page about the surprise snow, played fetch with the cat, and messed around with a bottle of Elmer's glue for today's paint and ink resist technique.

Save alcohol ... and a lot of sugary and salty food, pretty much a normal Friday night.

HELLO WEEKEND.

So I'm not loving this black cherry flavored Propel water I grabbed with my salad at lunch. Also I'm not sure what Vitamin E and Choline are supposed to be doing to my brain.

My crazy friend in the next building picked today for us to walk over the the creamery and get lunch. It's EFFING SNOWING OUT PEOPLE!! What happened to my OCTOBER?

My mother, who has Olympic medals in WORRYING is probably freaking out over this precipitation. Mostly it's just annoying, but I also wouldn't want to be one of those students camped out outside the stadium for good seats (um. there's like 106,000+ seats, so I don't know why they're worried) to Saturday's Homecoming Game.

I love snow. I do. As long as I don't have to drive in it. And then I worry more about the weirdos in the other cars who don't know how to drive in snow.

Been chasing the same pound up and down and all around this week in dieting news ... so ordered a dancing dvd to try and trick myself into getting more active.

Working on plotty issues for my reel_torchwood story based on the 1960 classic "The Apartment." AU Torchwood London Office Assignations. Oh yeah baby. TW meets Mad Men. HA.

Today's Moral -- Stay Warm and Dry!!!

I do not know why, but the writing prompts over on staringout always end up making me think of Jack and Ianto. Case in point:

Today's Prompts:

+ "Love gets me into more trouble than hate ever could."

Immediately I start thinking of Ianto writing a diary entry.

Also in writing news I may have figured out -- as I was drifting off to sleep last night -- a way to frame the writing that I need to do in order to figure out some stuff about an idea I have for some original fiction. I don't have a plot yet, but I may have found a way to figure out how to find one. I wish I could be one of those people who can just start writing and tell a story. Me, I gotta write around the story for awhile...

It's like how I always gotta start everything with a collage, and let the pieces tell me the larger story. My brain must be a really interesting place!!

It's rainy and horrible here today. But no matter how icky I think that is, it's probably not nearly as icky as it is to the students who have been camped out in their pup tents for two days now outside the killer stadium so they can be first in line for the student seats.

I did not pack a lunch, so I will have to venture out to procure food. I also have a Michaels coupon burning a hole in my pocket. And a heat gun I need to get for class next week. Hmmm.....

Hitting the snooze alarm 75 times is somewhat counterproductive.

My cat still hates the bathmat. They have nightly wrestling matches. I do not understand this.

If I was a motivated person, I would spend the weekend carting my thousands of books out into the garage so that I can paint the room they are in.

Anyway... I suppose I should get back to work. Have emails to send.

Happy Friday!!

Took yesterday off to rest up from last week's madness. Ended up sleeping almost all damn day. Clearly I needed the sleep... but I hate losing days like that.

Finding it hard to get focused here this morning. The problem with loose ends is deciding where to turn to next. Have work stuff that needs to get done ASAP.

Then there's all kinds of things I could/should be spending my time on... from re-doing my guest room (or doing since it's really the only room that hasn't really been touched since I moved in five year ago or whenever it was) ... to catching up on some scrapping -- those Europe and Me as a Baby Scrapbooks won't create themselves tha' knows ... to getting back to WRITING things. Feels like I've forgotten how I've been away from it so long ... to that pile of "to be read" books that's stacked up in the corner of my living room ... to... gosh knows what else.

On the immediate list is -- put gas in the car. I wonder if it's still raining out. That's the thing about working in a building with no windows.

And it's payday, so that's always nice.

OK, enough dithering... it's back to work I go...