Thank goodness for picfor1000!

go forth and have no fear (1000 words) by dogeared
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Poe Dameron, Leia Organa, Jessika Pava, BB-8
Additional Tags: Community: picfor1000, Pre-Movie
Summary: Poe’s not good at downtime.

Somehow, my comfort watch of the moment (do you have those?) has become Pacific Rim. I’ve probably watched it five times in the last couple of weeks. (The funny thing is, I was genuinely scared when I saw it in the theater—like, convinced giant monsters were going to crawl out of the Atlantic and get me scared.) But on the small screen, it’s perfect.

In recent weeks, I’ve also seen Age of Ultron (mostly not a fan) and Welcome to Night Vale (such a fan!), and I finished the sweater I’ve been knitting since December. (Well, finished except that it still needs its buttons.) I enjoyed the sweater-making so much that I’m already picking out my next pattern and yarn . . . and when fall comes around, I’ll actually be able to wear them. ;) But I’m not rushing that, standing as we are in these parts on the edge of summer, smelling the last of the lilacs and looking forward to the first ice cream cone.

Happy Friday!

-I’ve been 40 for a week! So far, so good :D

-I had a couple of good hair days this week! (I would like to up that percentage, but I’ll take what I can get.)

-It’s been warm enough the past few days for me to wear the new skirts I sewed this winter! Next on the agenda, learn to sew some simple tops.

-I had an amazing dinner out tonight with my sister and sister-in-law, and when we walked home, it wasn’t dark yet; we took the dog around the block, and it felt like a summer night, and in the twilight we saw buds on trees about to pop, and a bat swooping, and bright planets shining in the sky.

This photo that David Hewlett posted this morning of him wearing a Rodney-orange fleece made me awfully nostalgic. :D

While we wait for our snow to melt and for any actual signs of spring to reveal themselves, I’ve been doing some spring cleaning by way of Marie Kondo’s method in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I’ve been trying to stick to her suggested order of tidying, and so far I’ve tackled my clothes, shoes, bags, books, magazines, toiletries, “electronics” (including CDs and DVDs), linens, and Christmas decorations. I’m amazed at how much I’ve discarded—and especially amazed at how much stuff I had squirreled away in my not-very-big apartment with not very much storage. It’s kind of weirdly exhausting (and more mentally than physically, mostly) but also really, really satisfying. :D

I wrote a little something for picfor1000!

Twelve and a Half Ways to Say I (Really, Really) Like You (1000 words) by dogeared
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski
Additional Tags: Comfort, Community: picfor1000, Developing Relationship, doughnuts, Getting to Know Each Other
Summary: Stiles knows a secret.

Thank you to sheafrotherdon for betaing! ♥

Snow! So much snow. This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon between storms:



Today it is 3ºF and whiteout conditions and dumping more snow on top of the 2+ feet we've gotten in the last week. But I made the executive decision to leave work early and get a ride home, and I am about to make myself some hot cocoa and settle in with my knitting and an audiobook (Smek for President!). Stay warm and safe, all! Six more weeks of winter, indeed.

Today, I bought a ticket to see a Welcome to Night Vale live show! \o/ I'm so excited. (Also, it will be well and truly spring by the time the show date comes around, which is a really wonderful thought.)

In other news, I "celebrated"(?) 15 years at my current job this week . . . I am looking forward to the prospect of doing something else way, way, WAY before another 15 years have rolled by.

We're expecting snow tomorrow. I can't really express how glad I am to have arrived at the cozy weekend. :D

I spent all of last week battling a cold, which was annoying, but also not entirely unexpected this time of year. I brought copious amounts of zinc and vitamin C to the fight, and I was actually feeling much better by the end of the week, but there's nothing like a Saturday morning trip to the grocery store to drive home the fact that you might not quite be all there, yet.

In addition to me having a cold, it's also BEEN very cold; to keep warm, I've been knitting, drinking endless cups of cardamom cinnamon tea, and baking honey-oat bread every weekend. And tomorrow I'm going out for pancakes. These are good things. :D

Hope you all are staying cozy! ♥

I have a project to take me through this long, cold winter—I’m knitting myself a sweater. A cardigan! (I’ve knitted a couple of baby sweaters for friends before, but never a grown-up one.) At the moment, it’s mostly kind of an amorphous blob of stitches, but I am reasonably assured that so far I have knit a collar, and a buttonhole, and that some shoulders are being shaped.

( sweaterish!Collapse )

In other news, &PEGGYCARTER; The show is so great, and there is not one thing I don’t love about her. (On my rewatch, I noticed how many times we see her eating . . . at the diner, at her desk, a scone at Howard’s place. And her grocery list—PG Tips! Biscuits! SECRET AGENTING IS HUNGRY WORK. ♥)

Goodnight, 2014, and happy new year, all! ♥

( fic year in reviewCollapse )

I have a new favorite thing, and that thing is Fireplace for Your Home on Netflix. It is almost as lovely and mesmerizing as a real fire, and a pretty amazingly good substitute for people who don't have a fireplace or a wood stove but wish we did. The lights are out, the tree is glowing and the fire is crackling, I had a little nog in my eggnog, and life is good. :D Merry, merry!

I’ve been to four local art & craft fairs in the past few weeks, and I’ve been shopping and making and wrapping, and I have a pile of Christmas cards sitting here that I’ll get around to any minute now . . . I think I feel a little frisson of extra holiday something this year because I will be hosting Christmas morning/day at my apartment, for the first time ever—my sister’s work schedule is such that she didn’t think she’d be able to take time off to travel, and my SIL is training to become a midwife and is on call for BABIES (who, she assures me, prefer to arrive during storms and/or holidays), so they and their dog and my parents are all (babies allowing) coming here, where we will enact our family traditions of Christmas bread for breakfast, and stockings and presents and hanging out being cozy and eating cookies. I dumped every holiday- and winter-themed song I could find on my computer into one playlist, which is about five and a half hours long, so I think we should be good.

( Holidaying!Collapse )

And in other news, sign-ups for the next round of picfor1000 are open!

People who care to know probably DO know that they're showing the rest of the Selfie episodes on Hulu Plus; I just caught up with the three most recent episodes and ( vague spoilerCollapse )

&johncho; &karengillan;

We had the most dismal weather today—a tiny bit of snow overnight that turned to ice and rain and slush and slippery sidewalks and giant puddles. But in spite of that, I went to the winter farmers' market and two craft fairs, which were very fun, and then shoveled the slush, which was less fun, and then settled in my house to work on the hat I'm knitting for my SIL by the glow of the bird tree, which was very cozy indeed.

And then this happened:

sheafrotherdon: I just saw a photo of Hoechlin with his longer hair. Dear god, but he's handsome!
dogeared: I HAVE NOT SEEN *scours tumblr*
dogeared: :))) I literally gasped out loud and said "OH MY GOODNESS" when I found a picture of him

Sigh. :D

I had a busy Thanksgiving weekend filled with family, and one of the highlights was when we all went to cut down my Christmas tree on Saturday. We’d gotten a fair bit of snow on Wednesday, so the tree farm, with the tractor ride up the hill and the hot cider waiting at the top, felt even more festive. :D (Sadly, in all of my tree-cutting excitement—seriously, just look at my ridiculous face—I somehow COMPLETELY FORGOT TO PAY FOR IT. So we had to drive back to do that. Oops.)

( trees and snow!Collapse )

And now my tree is up in my front window, festooned with white lights and all manner of bird ornaments. :D

Hello from the middle of November! It’s a bit chilly here, but not nearly as bitter and/or snowy as it is elsewhere, so I hope everyone in cold places is staying warm, cozy, and safe ♥

Back in October, I got to take a kind of whirlwind, long-weekend trip to visit a dear friend in California, who I hadn’t seen for eight years! It was really wonderful in so many ways, but one of the things we did together was page through her extensive cookbook collection, pick a bunch of stuff to make, shop for some cool ingredients at her local markets, and cook it all up in her beautiful kitchen. One of the things we made was a pumpkin granola that everyone loved, and I’ve made it again several times since I’ve been home. In fact, I just made another batch tonight, and now my house smells delicious. :D

( recipe!Collapse )

In other news, after what feels like SUCH a long time, I have a Teen Wolf story I really want to tell. (And I hope that by saying so here, it’ll give me the added accountability to actually work on writing it!) And in other other news, this picture of Tyler Hoechlin and his mustache and his cap and his swoopy hair and his ridiculous face makes me all asdflasdkfjasdlk :D

P.S. TIME FOR THE FESTIVE HOLIDAY ICON \o/

Happy weekend! :D

Today I:

-went grocery shopping
-put fresh sheets on my bed
-cooked and canned my annual jars of plum butter (yum!)
-finished a knitting project
-listened to the new full-cast audiobook of The Graveyard Book
-subsequently took a lovely afternoon walk that meandered though a graveyard
-ate some leftover scalloped tomatoes for dinner (SO VERY DELICIOUS)

It was 80 here today, with unlimited sunshine and cloudless skies, which is pretty weird for almost-October, but the leaves, at least, knew it was fall. :D