Random Ramblings

1. Renovations: Our kitchen reno is starting tomorrow. We've got everything moved out of the kitchen, and a subset of it set up in Marc's office to use as a makeshift kitchen for the next two weeks. It's been a bit of an adjustment... but at least it's only for two weeks, and at the end of it we'll have a brand-new kitchen. Focus on the positive, and not the fact that nothing is actually covered in plastic yet.

2. Gaming: Continues apace. The finale of 7th Sea will be this Saturday, and will last either one or two sessions, depending on how fast we go. I've gotta say, it's really nice to see a game through to an actual conclusion, and not just fizzle away because of scheduling problems. Heavy Gear is also lots of fun, as always. The rest of my games... well, let's just say they're either not very frequent, or not super-amazing. A lot of them are new, though, so I'm hoping things pick up.

3. SCA: Sadly, letting it slide. Completely skipped out on yesterday's local event so that I could work on the kitchen, and I've been letting my saint stories lapse as well. I'm about 30 pages behind where I should be in the Golden Legend, which isn't an insurmountable gap, but I really should get back into it if I want to be ready by Pennsic.

4. Pennsic: Speaking of Pennsic, I'll only be going for Peace Week this year, probably arriving first Saturday and leaving middle Saturday. I'm sad that I won't get to do the two full weeks, but at least I'm getting something. Also, I really should start planning some garb and bardic stuff at some point, to say nothing about classes and scheduling. (Yes, I know we're only February. Pennsic's only 5 months away!)

5. Almost an Auntie: Marc's sister-in-law is due pretty much any day now. In fact, her "official" due date was today. Still no baby yet, but soon, very soon. I just wish I could cook food for the new parents, but see #1 above. Oh, well. I'm sure they'll still want food in a few weeks.

6. Work: Was very busy two weeks ago, but has mostly settled down for now. Stuff will probably pick up around March, when we start really ramping up for the Annual Meeting in September, but I'm now in that nice little phase where most of the membership renewals have been done, but I don't have any other big projects just yet.

7. Exercise: I admit, I weigh more now than I've ever weighed in my life. I bought some new jeans last week, and I'm a size 14, which is pretty much the biggest size I've ever worn. On the other hand, it'll probably start being warm enough in a few weeks that I can start walking to or from work without invoking the asthma demons, and soon Zombies Run 2 will come out, which makes me super, super happy. Even if it's another $8, I consider it money well spent. Definitely cheaper than the gym, or even an audio book, which is effectively what it is.

Unlike years past, I did not have a true break for the holidays this year. Instead, I've got two 4.5-day weekends, the first of which just ended. Despite that, it was quite pleasant, consisting of many of my favorite holiday traditions. One of these is the Christmas Eve drive with my dad, brother, and boyfriend, in which we drive around looking at the pretty Christmas lights and listening to The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth, and then we go find somewhere that sells donuts. (A far easier proposition now than it was when I was a kid.)

Christmas Day was spent with Ian's family up in Laval. I took a preventative Benadryl, and while it knocked me out for a while, it worked as advertised: I was able to spend two five-hour stints in a house with two cats, with only minor discomfort. Yay! I gave out all my cookies, which seemed to go over quite well. (Ian's cousin Asha was very vocal about liking them; her favorites were the snickerdoodles.) Marc and I got a few presents as well: some throw blankets, a couple of tear-away day calendars, two heart-themed mugs, and a lovely sectioned serving platter. We also saw The Adventures of Tintin, which surprised me by being highly enjoyable and a great movie to get in the mood for playing 7th Sea.

Monday I spent the day conquering the pixelated world of Civ IV with Eric, and Tuesday I cooked for the week. (Something I sadly didn't do last week, and my wallet is lighter as a result.)

Also yesterday, I went with Marc to Alpenhaus to celebrate our five-year anniversary, which will be on New Year's. Tasty food, good company, actual wood-burning fire... life is good, my friends. Yes, it is.

And now I'm back at work for a 2.5-day week, and then I'll be on my second mini-vacation. I suppose I should actually attempt to get some work done, huh?

1. Hi-Fidelity Star Trek Quartet (3-minute video) -- a barbershop quartet spoofing Star Trek! Too funny! (And if you like this one, check out part 2.)

2. The proliferation of a virtual species (you'll like this alot) -- for those Internet grammar mavens who get frustrated by people spelling "alot" instead of "a lot," this is your site. You'll like it. Alot.

3. Welcome to the Dark Side: British Isle Named Skywatching Paradise -- when I was younger, I used to do amateur astronomy. This article makes me really want my next vacation to be to Sark Island.

4. Norse problem flowchart (picture) -- anyone with even a passing interest in Norse mythology owes it to themselves to take 10 seconds to view this 4-item flowchart. (Warning: may not work for non-Facebook users.)

5. Life-size Settlers board for Burning Man (pictures) -- I'm an avid Settlers player, and when I win my millions and buy a mansion in some tropical paradise, I'm putting this up in the backyard.

6. Tim Minchin - If I didn't have you (4-minute video) -- hilarious and catchy. Be sure to watch until at least 0:50 before making any snap judgments.

7. The Iowa House v Zach Wahls and his moms (3-minute video) -- I don't often delve into US politics, but this one's worth watching. When I have kids, I want them to be this articulate and persuasive regarding their beliefs.

Today is the first day (of two) where I will be baking all my holiday cookies. (Disclaimer: anyone who's expecting presents from me will be getting cookies this year. This message brought to you by a year of unemployment.) My freezer is super-tiny, so I've got to make all the cookies very close to Christmas so they don't go stale. So today I'm making all the dough and baking the spritz cookies, and tomorrow I'll bake the chocolate chip cookies.

Of course, this has necessitated me being a bad girlfriend.

Marc likes sleeping in, and I don't blame him. But once I get to the point of having the dough prepared, I'm going to need to access the oven every 3-4 minutes. If Marc is trying to make his omelet while I'm trying to make cookies, we *will* kill each other. So I've got to wake him up to tell him to get his breakfast ready, so I can start baking. Otherwise, there just won't be time.

So I'm a bad girlfriend this morning. Hopefully the gift of raw chocolate chip cookie dough will put me back in the good books.

Hi everyone. I realize in looking back through my recent entries that although I've been posting quite a bit, I haven't actually written anything about how my life's been going in a while. I figured I owed you. (And if you figure differently, you can always click away from this post. The internet is nice that way.)

1. Job hunting: After a very, very long period of procrastination, I sent out seven CVs last week. (To Davids Tea, McGill, Concordia, and the Côte St-Luc library.) Seven isn't great, but it's better than nothing. Now I just need to keep the momentum going and remember to follow up on the ones I sent. Also, at some point I should really figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

2. Roleplaying: Lots of gaming, as you can probably tell from all my "lines of the night" posts. Enjoying it muchly, and worry that when I get a new job, I'll have to cut back. Four games at a time (including two that are weekly or almost-weekly) take up a lot of time. Oh, and I may be co-GMing a one-shot game at the end of December.

3. Apartment: I've now been in my "new" apartment for slightly over a year, and I've mostly adjusted to its little quirks. We're getting some tiny ants in the living room and a bit of a resurgence of bugs in the pantry (despite everything being in sealed containers), but I attribute that mostly to the season. I may be getting a new sofa soon to replace the ratty, ripped one, which would be very nice.

4. Relationship: It's been a tough few weeks. Marc's been dealing with some Stuff (tm) that it's not my place to talk about, but it looks like he's finally made a decision and hopefully will be less stressed in the coming weeks. I've been dealing with my own stress, mostly from psyching myself up for job hunting. I think our "date night" once a week is a great idea, and we'll keep that going.

5. Cooking: I'm pleased that I've progressed to the point where I can make a recipe and 85% of the time it will be not only edible but relatively tasty. I was not at this point a year and a half go. That's progress! (And bloody-minded stubbornness, of course.)

6. SCA: My SCA participation recently has been sporadic. I very much enjoyed Winter Nights in Albany and have taken a few tentative steps towards starting up bardic more regularly here, but it hasn't really gotten off the ground yet. The truth is that with so much of the rest of my week scheduled (2-3 nights gaming, 1 night with Marc, 1 night with family), I don't want to give up a weeknight for the SCA unless I know there are going to be people attending who want to do bardic. And people won't show up unless I make it a more regular event. So I'm sort of stuck in a catch-22 here.

7. Weight: Less good. Sometime between late 2008 (when I started working for Softitler full-time) and this summer, I managed to gain back almost all the weight I lost in 2006-7. I haven't been doing karate (see: lack of free evenings), and while I've been trying to eat better and do more walking, I keep finding myself gifted with unexpected baked goods, or going out for dinner, or a million other little things that sabotage me. I've managed to lose 2-3 pounds since the summer, but that's not much, especially with holiday season approaching.

8. Writing: I continue to write short stories for my various roleplaying games. I'm probably up to around 25,000 words for the year, which is nowhere near the 161,000 I wrote last year (85% of which were for one particular character), but there were special circumstances last year that I doubt I'll ever have again. No new bardic works lately; I really need to stop procrastinating and start in on that.

9. Other people in my life: My family is well, my step-sister is returning from her honeymoon, and Marc's family is well too. Friends seem to be in varying states of "stressed" and "okay" -- let me know if you need to come over for tea. The stuffed animals all seem to be very happy, especially since Grunty and Sheepie just got washed not too long ago.

10. Parties: The next party is probably going to be in late November or early December, and I have yet to decide if it's going to be another chocolate fondue party or a Channukah party with latkas. Any thoughts?

Current infatuations: Right now, I'm completely in love with Davids Tea (their winter teas come out today!), the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck (review to come as soon as I finish the last chapter), and Echo Bazaar (highly addictive -- don't say I didn't warn you).

Yay! Marc is home! Huzzah!

We spent a wonderful few hours last night before we both collapsed into little heaps of unconsciousness. This morning, Marc left very early to go to his 8 a.m. class. In fact, he's got four 8 a.m. days this semester and 31 hours of class per week, which is going to be a huge challenge. I wonder when we'll see each other!

The next few days are going to be a bit tricky for both of us as we readjust to living together. I had a period of a few weeks after Marc left where it was awkward for me to be living alone. I suspect we're about to go through a similar period of awkwardness for the next week or two. I've already discovered small things that... "annoy" would be too strong a word... but small things that need readjustment. But we'll get through it. The good news is that Marc's home, and I'm keeping him.

We dropped Marc off at the airport at 6 a.m. this morning, after a very hectic and stressful last day in Montreal. He's probably on an airplane now. I walked back into my apartment with the odd sensation that it's going to be just me here (plus occasional guests) for the next three months.

It's too soon -- and I'm too tired -- to really be missing him yet, but it definitely feels weird to be alone in the apartment and not expecting him to come home within a few hours.

Why is it that I can brainstorm with Marc for and hour and come up with a really awesome background for his roleplaying character, something we're both really excited about, but in three hours of brainstorming for my character, we both feel like we're hitting our heads against a brick wall?