Hi Brian. :)

Quick *hugs* and a huge thank you to incapricious and hazyshade for the vgifts. :) I really appreciate it! I feel so lucky to have you guys.

♥

I have had an absolutely CRAP week. Work has sucked unbelievably, to the point where I found myself in tears several times (which does not normally happen. :P) I have been given completely unrealistic "top-down" milestones to hit on my project (a major data center migration). If I am held accountable for these, I am set up to fail. If I am not, what is the point of my job?

(No advice, please. I know I need to push back, communicate more realistic timeframes, communicate the impossible-to-achieve circumstances under which the abovementioned milestones would be possible ... whatever. It just sucks. Once again, I care too much about my job.)

Also, my parents have been visiting. While it is been great to see them, and they have helped enormously with childcare and tasks on the household front, 1) it was something of a surprise visit (they were in AZ, and decided to swing over to CA to visit me and my brothers here), and 2) they have now been staying with us for two weeks. I feel guilty, but today I took the day off of work (with one day of notice to my interim manager, because I'd reached my threshhold and just did not even want to be there today) and I am not spending it with my parents.

Instead, I am hiding in a local Internet cafe. I posted an update to Hopeless and also redid my banner for the story; I am much happier with it now. I just hope the title and images are not too depressing, but ... it's appropos for where the story is, I think.

Adding to the general suckage: 1) my husband has been working *insane* hours (like, until four in the morning) at his also insane high tech job, and 2) we got our tax returns back from our accountant last week and owe ... are you ready for it? I wasn't ... $21,000. Jesus Fucking Christ. Don't even ask me where that came from. The good news: we can come up with the $ over the next six months (thanks to the aforementioned high tech jobs that equate to indentured servitude); the bad news: no fun, no shopping, no travel, no home decor, no electronics upgrades, no nothing else. I know, I'm spoiled, but it's still a bummer.

I might feel at least a little better if I felt like the $ was going to a good cause. Suffice it to say that with the financial crises over the last several years and the Tea Party ascendant, I don't.

I try not to be depressing in general, but God, I'm depressed at the moment. :(

ETA: ... and I have "adhesive capsulitis," otherwise known as a "frozen shoulder," in my right shoulder. This ... really, really sucks. It basically means I just can't move my arm past a certain point. I had this in my left shoulder a couple of years ago (it took over six months of intense and painful physical therapy and accupuncture to go away) and now it has reappeared in my right. :( :( :(

I won several items at the help_japan fandom auction! I had actually gone a couple of times and been daunted by the number of offers ... but the delicious index made it SO much easier to go in and look for items of interest. So, I wound up totally under the wire, combing through the listings at about 2 am on Thursday morning. :P

I am glad I did, as I won:

• a crocheted angry bird! :) :) :) (along with Plants vs. Zombies, the most awesome game EVER)
• fingerless gloves (look how gorgeous & here too)
• a small piece of furniture of my choice in the shabby chic style
• a crocheted cherry blossom bookmark & also a crocheted octopus (apparently I need to have random crochted items :P)
• beta services (yayayayayayay!)

I have never participated in a fandom auction before, but this was fun and obviously for a very good cause. I didn't make it through the art or graphics listings, so if there is a second round, I will definitely be checking those out. But I had a ton of fun browsing the "interesting stuff" category (obviously...) There are so many talented people out there!!!

I am making my donations now; we had donated some money already, but more is good. I will get a corporate match for these also, so if any of the folks who listed any of the above items are reading here, my donations will be doubled and the entire amount is thanks to you.

So, I just saw Red Riding Hood. Even thought I knew it wasn't going to be a good movie, I still wanted to see it because, well ... I guess because I wish I looked like Amanda Seyfried. She is stunningly beautiful.

And ... RRH was really, really not a good movie. :P It was visually absolutely breathtaking though, with the snow and the woods and the blood red cape. (Although, seriously: what is up with that cape? At times it looked normal and then at other times it was like 50 feet long. No one would walk around wearing a cape like that through any forest, werewolf or no werewolf.)



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There were several songs I liked though, so I'm thinking I might have to check out the soundtrack.

So I highly doubt that anyone has been waiting for this, but ... *drumroll* ... I think I must win some kind of award for the fic that is taking the longest to write or the longest time between updates or something. I don't even know.

*is insane*

But for anyone still reading, I am posting here tonight. Cross-posting tomorrow. Zzzzzzzzz.

Just a quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY to hazyshade, my fandom twin! I am thinking of you today and -- as always! -- am very grateful for your friendship.

♥

So, it's been a long time since I shared an anecdote here involving one of my sons, but in this case, I simply can not resist. I got up early with my 3 year old the other day, and we were about to watch a DVD on my Mac. I had to reboot, and in doing so, of course it displayed my desktop picture (which is normally covered with open documents or applications or whatnot):


~*~
G: "That looks just like you!"
Me: ... what?! Really?!
G: "With the long hair and stuff."

ROFL. I mean, not that I'm not incredibly flattered and all, but ... I do not look like Legolas. I'm nowhere near as pretty! ;) Talk about the eyes of love ...

In other random news:

• I just read recently that Guillermo del Toro has dropped out of directing "The Hobbit." I'm totally bummed! I hope that somehow the movie still gets made, because I so want to go back to Middle Earth. *hopes hopes hopes* (OTOH, I guess that means I get an extension on my self-imposed "deadline" for finishing my epic Aragorn/Legolas fic. :P)


• I've been travelling a lot recently for work, which has been hard on both me and my boys (including my husband.) Most of my trips are to SoCal, and I was there three times in July, for 2-3 nights at a stretch. :( I'm feeling very meh about work these days. Like I really need to not be doing it ... I got my review recently, and while it was positive, it wasn't as glowing as I felt it ought to be, especially for all of the slaving away I've done this past year.


• I'm reading Merlin these days and consumed with Merlin/Arthur and their Epic Love. I read a fun ship manifesto (the only one I could find, oddly) in which the author comments that "Prince Arthur is the hottest thing in the history of ever ... " which, YES. Merlin has definitely grown on me -- to the point where I actually find Colin Morgan more attractive than Bradley James in real life -- but I TOTALLY lust after Arthur on the show and it's only getting worse! :) And the two of them together are lovely. :)


• In spite of my recent rant, I recently changed my relationship status on Facebook to married, prompting a friend of mine to comment "... and I thought I was behind on my to-do list." I got married in 1993, so yeah. I think that about sums it up. ;)

♥ to you all!

Okay, this is going to be a rant. Am I the only person who really dislikes Facebook?!

Honestly ... it seems like the rest of the world lives on Facebook. I have an account (for various arcane reasons) and periodically log in, primarily just to friend people back, but I don't update and I rarely respond to comments. Reason #1: I don't have time. Honestly, I don't understand how it is possible to spend the amount of time on Facebook that many people seem to (and these are also people with jobs and kids ... what the hell am I doing wrong?!)

Reason #2: (perhaps more importantly) It seriously freaks me the fuck out to have a forum frequented by: my immediate family, my extended family, random former classmates from elementary school through college, my work colleagues and other people from my professional network, livejournal friends and ... finally ... real life friends. Seriously, I can think of NOTHING that I would want to share with people in all of those different categories, save minutia that is not worth wasting the time on in the first place. WTF?! How does that even work for anyone?

Reason #3: Perhaps because of the above, every time I log into Facebook, it feels like I'm back in high school. I had a great time in high school, but it was 25 years ago! I like to think I've moved on. There are people that I'm happy to connect with again -- that I lost track of, and for whatever reason didn't have the bandwidth to keep in touch with -- but they are in the minority. Given my limited bandwidth for social interaction, I wouldn't (and don't!) choose to spend it on random people with whom I happen to have gone to high school.

Reason #4: I resent the fact that I know a number of people who seem only to be able to communicate through Facebook these days. WTF. I mean, seriously. If I care enough about someone, I can figure out other ways to interact, and if I can't, it's not worth even the time it takes on Facebook.

Reason #5: ... and once again, I just seriously don't have the time.

Can someone explain the appeal of Facebook to me?!

/rant (sorry! :P)

I'm on a roll! I was tagged by the lovely hazyshade for this meme:

1. Write your username.
2. Write your 2 favorite bands/groups of the moment.
3. Write something you ♥, aka lemme see your heart.
4. Write the name of your favorite person of all time.
5. Write the name of your recent favored/favoritistist person.
6. Tag 6 people to do this meme.

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I've always gotten a big kick out of handwriting. Isn't it amazing that everyone's handwriting is so unique and individual? The whole idea of handwriting analysis is intriguing as well, even though I've never really studied it. But I always feel like I know someone slightly better even after just seeing their handwriting for the first time. :)