Semi-lucid ravings of an Archangel

Things wot I have done this week

esmerel — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 21:11:02 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Today I:

Called Paul Ryan's office to say I supported the ACA. I know people who would have died without it. Repealing it without ensuring those people can get care is tantamount to murder. Period, full stop. You can not be pro-life, and actively support the deaths of people. Repealing the ACA will kill people.

Called Kamala Harris' office. The mailbox was full, so I sent an email instead.

Did some work, too. Oof.

Over the weekend:
I don't really know what I intended for the weekend, but:
I cleaned a bunch of things out of the garage and moved them into the shed. In so doing, I made it so C's bike can actually be parked on the ground instead of laying on top of some other stuff. Paint, empty storage bins, all the winter holiday stuff, and so on. Garage is still too full, but it's less full than it was, and a bit more organized.
Despaired a little that the shed doesn't have power. It'd make a nice work space. Extension cords to the rescue.
Knitted a hat base for my brain hat for the science march, whenever that happens.
Drank more mimosa than was good for me.
Emailed Feinstein's office to oppose Sessions for AG.

Today:
Still have tech challenge meeting with my team. woof.

Timeless

esmerel — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 18:32:44 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

One of the shows we've picked up this season is Timeless. It's not the greatest show, but it is a decent show. One of the main protagonists is played by Malcolm Barrett - a black man - who I loved in Better off Ted.

The primary protagonist (Lucy - Abigail Spencer) is female! She's the 'mission director', as it were. She had a fairly typical life leading up to this point.

Barrett's character is also super smart - his entire job is to make it so the mission can even happen, and ensure everyone can get home. He's the navigator. He ALSO has a fairly typical life; he's got a full family and everything. At the end of the day, he goes home and does stuff... with his family.

The third protag (Wyatt - Matt Lanter) is a white guy; he's the protector - his job is to keep the other two alive. He's the one with the sad backstory. As a character? He's probably actually the least interesting. He's good though, and he's nice to look at :D

Anyway, there's a few reasons I am watching - the writing is... not awesome sometimes. There are kind of dorky/cheezy places. I'm not completely sold on Spencer's performance, but she's trying. Lanter *sells* his character, though, and Barrett is just fun to watch.

Barrett (Rufus) - given that he's black, and these folks are time traveling - he sells the "Are you people fucking kidding me" damn well. It's not an act, it just IS. "You want me to what? In this time period? Are you kidding me?!" It's a reminder that HELLO SKIN COLOR IS AN ISSUE without actually yelling it in your face. And while some people really could use a good yelling in the face, I'm glad to see TV continuing to more subtly play that in a way that might make people go "Oh yeah that's a problem" without immediately rejecting it because it's being yelled at them.

There are also plenty of secondary characters who are not white guys. Most of the characters we deal with regularly are non-white. It's kind of awesome.

Quiet activity time

esmerel — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 23:45:29 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

It's no secret that we're a device heavy house. The kids get more screen time than they probably should but HEY, I am pretty bad about it myself sooooo.

But in order to get the kids headed towards bed, devices are down at 8:30; it's a half hour of quiet activity time, and then reading time. It's doing some good things for the kids; they're definitely relaxing more before trying to get to sleep, which is a good thing.

It's working well enough for R that he is getting upset when he *doesn't* get quiet activity time. In fact, he's started asking if he can put his device down sooner and have quiet activity time.

Quiet activity time is stuff like coloring, playing with toys (also means at least 5 minutes of cleanup time), other small non-messy crafts, etc. Last night I pulled out one of the puzzle mats one of the kids got at some point, and got out an easy jigsaw puzzle. Apparently this was a GREAT IDEA. It was the right size to take about a half hour for the kids and I to put together (mostly because they still don't grasp the basics of how jigsaw puzzles work.)

I may have to keep doing puzzles - maybe one night a week or something. We have puzzle storage mats! We can store uncompleted ones and everything!

New year, moar stuff

esmerel — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 05:42:01 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

I failed to do a lot of things I'd intended to last year. I never made it back to the dojo. But I've washed my gi! So now it's clean and I don't have any other excuse besides "I'm tired, meh!"

I have declared that 2017 is the Year People Will Put Things Away. The children are thus far not impressed with mom's insistence that "You will put either toy A or B away before you get out toy C." and "You used the crayons with your homework. put them away. Also the scissors. And all the pencils." We're half a week in, we had a new year's eve get together, and the house is still cleaner than it was for significant portions of 2016.

I feel pleased and dumb at the same time. I've been struggling with places to put the kids' clothes. They have school uniforms. Turns out there's a shelf in the closet. C's uniforms pretty much all fit on the shelf. CRAZY. I get my third laundry basket back. WOO.

I finished Dragon Age Inquisition for the second complete time (I've got 3 other mostly complete playthroughs) and I told myself that once I finished this playthrough, I'm allowed to play games a bit, but I need to do more crafting and creative stuff. Mass Effect: Andromeda comes out March 21, and I plan to play the EVERLOVING HELL OUT OF IT. So I need to take some steps back from the games for a bit until then.

I definitely stuck more with the knitting - I didn't knit as much in 2016 as I did in 2015, where I'd resolved to craft at least 15 minutes a day, but I still did some stuff. I also attempted to read more in 2016, but that pretty much fell off about a quarter of the way through the year. I aimed for 25 books, I think I read maybe 12.

I saw a therapist for several months in 2016; anxiety, ADHD, stuff like that. I have more coping tools now; turns out that I'm an anxious type person, but I know that THAT is my normal and I'm better about dealing with it.

I was going to craft tonight. Then I figured out the closet thing. HAH.

Things that make me stabby

esmerel — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 20:23:52 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So there's a post I've seen a few times today on Facebook that says:

We need to care less about whether our children are academically gifted and more about whether they sit with the lonely kid in the cafeteria.

And my immediate thought?

FUCK YOU. FUUUUUCK YOU. FUCKITY FUCK YOU, you sanctimonious, KNOWLEDGELESS, inexperienced, ass. Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow, etc.

Seriously. Go fuck yourself.

That lonely kid in the cafeteria? GOOD CHANCE IT IS THE GIFTED KID.

GUESS HOW I KNOW.

The gifted kid? Often the kid with other issues like anxiety. Difficulty relating to their peers because they're academically advanced and either they're bored to death and either space cadet or act out. Nobody wants to talk to the space cadet, or be associated with 'the bad kid'. Kids also are often jealous of the gifted kid if that kid actually is lucky enough to have their abilities recognized and get any sort of special help (guess what, kids with learning problems get special attention too, but gosh, that's not a problem, is it?) Gifted kids also often have learning issues. Sensory processing problems. ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

That makes them the lonely kid, because they're weird. So maybe shut up about how gifted kids getting extra attention because they need it to keep school from being state mandated fucking daycare. I work hard to ensure my gifted kid (likely kids) treat people like people, and be respectful, and polite, and friendly and to judge others on their merits. Maybe everyone should be teaching their kids to treat each other like people and worrying less about my gifted kid's academics.

Holy shit I missed half a year!

esmerel — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 04:27:30 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

And now it's june. Well, tomorrow anyway.

I've stayed pretty steady on the weight.

I've failed to get back to the dojo.

I've signed the kids up for Ice skating lessons.

I went to a glass blowing class!

This past weekend we went to Kublacon. We took R with us for the whole weekend this time. He did pretty well!

We played Epic roll. The kids both beat the boss, and got t-shirts. This is a pretty simple dice-based game with a small board, and an RPG sort of flavor that takes ~20 minutes to play. Bought it, because the kids both enjoyed the hell out of it. The guys at the booth were AWESOME. If you happen to go to a con where they're at, stop by the booth and give the game a try. Even if the game isn't your style, they were awesome with the kids and I want to support people who do that.

Bought No Thank You, Evil! which I didn't realize was a kid-oriented RPG, but it's cute and we played an adventure and C loved it.

GemPacked cards - point-taking, building game. Cute and pretty straightforward. The kids liked this one too!

The Siblings Trouble - Given that I've already liked two of PencilFirst's other games, I'm sure we'll like this one too, we just haven't had a chance to try it yet.

The Kublacon staff was, as always, fucking fantastic to us. I can not say enough good things about the Young Players' room and the staff and their handling of kids.

The Hyatt kind of left a bit to be desired, but maybe next year once the remodels are done it'll be back up to snuff.

It's 2016!

esmerel — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 22:19:06 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Holy shit!

There's been sickness and food and food and family and holy crap the amount of fondue has been ridiculous by SO TASTY. Also bread pudding with homemade bread you DONT EVEN KNOW.

Anyway. The holidays are officially over, and 2016 has started. I figured I should get back on a number of bandwagons. Or something.

So, last year I said "back to the martial arts oh and craft 15 minutes a day".

So I utterly failed at the getting back to martial arts. But R is old enough to start studying now and so... once neither of us is sick (cold WILL NOT GO AWAY), then I will take him down there so he can start. Because he needs focusing and burning of energy holy crap. C is being MEH about the idea, but she's also been doing the couch -> 5K program and I have allowed that as long as she's doing that program, she doesn't have to go back to studying martial arts. Once she's done with it though, BACK IN SHE GOES. She needs the exercise too.

As for the crafting? I did so much better last year! I didn't actually manage 15 minutes every single day, but I probably averaged it overall. Some days I got none, some days I did for hours (traveling and watching football will do that). I made 3 dolls, some hats, 6 or so pairs of socks, a tea cozy, and maybe a couple of other things during the year. I got partway (1/3ish?) through a shawl, and I did some other things as well.

This year no seriously I need to get back into the dojo. I'm going to keep crafting. I have a pair of socks on needles now, and I have 3 projects, 2 of which I should get done sooner rather than later. C wants new mittens, I need to do a surprise gift for a baby and C also wants a new hat 'for sleeping in'.

I also want to read more; I haven't ready very much in the last several years. Young kids will do that to you. I'm behind on my Jane Yellowrock, so I'm starting with rereading those. Goodreads is doing a reading challenge., so... why not? I can read and knit at the same time. BOOYAH.

I'm also doing the 100 pushups challenge (100pushups.com). Because I managed to earn a brown belt a while back and I have kinda sorta kept up with pushups, I'm not hopelessly inept, and I was able to start day 1 at rank 2. I MIGHT have been able to start at rank 3, but I figured rank 2 was probably going to be challenging enough. My arms hurt today, so I clearly wasn't wrong on that count.

After the indulgence of the holidays, I also got back on the 'exercise more, eat better food' wagon, and I did some walking and I'm watching my food intake again. I hit over 180 lbs last year, and it was causing problems; I was super uncomfortable sitting, it was affecting my breathing, and stuff like that. With some minor effort on my part, I got rid of 15 pounds, and I'm a little under the weight I was at when I got pregnant with Charlotte. I hope to get rid of 15 more this year. It's a reasonable and doable goal!

I've never been a fan of resolutions, and I don't think I'm picking up anything new and crazy here - just recommitting to things I've let slide a little (or a lot). I'm ready.

GaymerX3!

esmerel — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 00:36:12 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So I went to GaymerX 3 this past Saturday. It was pretty fun! At first I had some anxiety about it. Earl was off doing his own thing, the kids were at Dickens' faire... I COULD BE AN IRRESPONSIBLE ADULT ALL BY MYSELF WHAT WHAT.

LAM had been poking at me to go for uh 6 months. Because Jennifer Hale was a BoH (Boss of Honor) for the con and COME ON JENNIFER HALE. Then I found out Brianna Wu was also coming and so FINE FINE FINE I bought a ticket.

So I got there around 10:30. Holy cow, I am so not used to things being that damn quiet in the mornings at a game con. There was freakin NOBODY there. I'm used to cons where by 11 am everyone is out and playing and doing a billion things.

So I hit the 'Unheard voices' panel, because I was there and the room opened. It turned out to be a pretty interesting panel with 5 different podcasters who talked about different aspects of gaming and gaming culture and why they podcast. I'd have to look up everyone's names.. AH! http://gx3.sched.org/event/4IOq/unheard-voices?iframe=yes&w=&sidebar=yes...

I don't listen to podcasts; I don't really have the opportunity to. I can't work while I listen, and ..anyway. It was still really interesting.
I hung out in the room because I wanted to see the Diversity in Games panel (http://gx3.sched.org/event/4N1E/diversity-in-games-whats-next?iframe=yes...) and because David Gaider from Bioware was part of it. WOOHOO. I got to meet him briefly afterwards and that was nice.

I also went to the "Trans in Gaming" panel, because that was Brianna's panel and I got to meet her YAY. And she even recognized me! =)

Sadly, by the time we got out of her panel, the line for the voice acting panel was HYOOOGE and we didn't get into it. So we went and hung out (after a couple of mishaps) and then got into line and got to meet Jennifer Hale. EEEEEE. EEEEEE. EEEEEeeEEEeeEEe. She was also super nice. EE Ee eeeeEEEEEe. She signed my hoodie and my copy of ME3.

As for the con itself, it was fun. It was definitely not my normal crowd; which put me a little out of my comfort zone. I rolled with it as much as I could. I butchered one person's preferred prounouns (you got a ribbon at registration he/him, she/her, they/them, or blank that you could write whatever), and apologized profusely. Especially embarassing because I HAD READ HIS RIBBON AND STILL SCREWED IT UP. He was very gracious about it, thankfully.

It was definitely a little more flamboyant than other gaming cons I'm used to - no surprise there, but it kept making me pause. I haven't been to GenCon in nearly 10 years, and KublaCon is not a cosplay or video game type con. There was a lot of nifty art clearly aimed at Audiences that Weren't Me, which was cool. I saw some nice stuff that I could enjoy and be aware that it wasn't my thing, but it was good for other people. I was happy to pass on that and enjoy some of the stuff the same artists carried that was my style. One booth had a lot of (mostly male) superheroes eroticized, which some people really like, but I'm meh on it - it hits me in the same place fanfic usually does, but the same guy had a REALLY nice drawing of Jessica Jones that I seriously considered buying. I wasn't alone - when I swung by to take one last look at it, she was gone :D

There were a ton of Mass Effect and Dragon Age fans there. One really nice Grey Warden mage, and a Red Templar, and of course Josephine :D

it was fun. If it's local to here again next year, I'll probably go =)

Paris

esmerel — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:23:24 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

I'm horrified by the events in Paris this evening - as any sane person should be. I've been fortunate enough to visit Paris. It's an amazing, beautiful city, full of history and art and culture and holy fuck amazing food.

How the fuck could anyone want to damage such a place.

It's not my place to say, but I'm still going to say I hope each of you slime gets exactly what you deserve.

I remember

esmerel — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 19:44:28 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

It's September 11. Fourteen years after I woke up to my alarm clock radio telling me the second tower had collapsed. I remember.

But I think Jeremy said earlier today - he's avoiding media in general today because WE REMEMBER and we dwell on death.

I remember. I also remember where I was when the Challenger exploded. (8th grade, first period concert band.)

I remember.

But instead of dwelling on that, today I'm going to remember other things instead of dwelling on death.

I remember walking down the path with my brother in his zoot suit, up to marry my husband (13 years?!).
I remember sitting on the kitchen floor in our rented house in a sports bra and shorts while the 3 guys I lived with stripped out of shirts because we had the little AC unit in the window and it was the only room in the place that was below 100 degrees and HOLY COW SO HOT.
I remember the smile on my daughter's face as she walked into her kindergarden classroom for the first time.
I remember holding both of my children for the first time, welcoming them to this crazy, mixed up, insane and still awesome world.
I remember my son, SO EXCITED to get his new glasses, just like his big sister.
I remember 3 little girls sitting in a row, belting out "Let it go" at the tops of their lungs in the back of my car.
I remember how my son likes to make sure everyone's hug meter is at 100% and that squeezy hugs are worth 20% of your battery.
I remember traveling around Europe with 3 guys in a borrowed car, finding that every Chinese restaurant had a McDonalds next door (bring on the McFu meal!)
I remember Colleen pulling out the fake tears talking to the harbor authority the morning of her wedding because some yacht club was going to be setting off FREAKING CANNONS during her wedding ceremony. (totally oscar-worthy on her part)
I remember my friends cartwheeling home through the sprinklers, losing their shoes =)

Sure - these things don't shape the collective consciousness of an entire country, but they shape MINE.

Maybe if we all remembered more of these, we'd let the others shape us a little less.

ALLLLWAYS BUSY

esmerel — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 21:14:38 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Seriously. I HAD PLANS for this summer, and we've been busy every freakin weekend except uh. 2? And one of them was this past weekend.

It's been good, we've seen lots of friends and stuff all summer so that's been excellent. I finally got to see Dannette & Charles' new house (love it!) and then there were SMORES on the 4th. So good.
There was a game day. There have been birthday parties. We have a new front door. And a new dining room floor and hallway. The CLOSET DOORS WORK for the first time in literally a decade.

I got a bug up my backside last week, and pulled something like 20 or 30 shirts I used to wear to work out of my closet. Some of them don't fit, some of them are things I'll just never wear again. There are still plenty I probably won't wear again, but I think I dropped that number by close to half.

We saw Inside Out a couple of weeks ago. LOVE. SO LOVE.

Haven't seen Ant Man yet.

My nieces were here all week! The kids had a lot of fun together, and then J and I took the 4 kids to the beach (natural bridges down by Santa Cruz) on Saturday, where I failed my 'Apply sunscreen properly' roll, but fortunately only on myself. I have the weirdest (if mild) sunburn.

Husband took the kids to see Minions yesterday, after Andrew took the girls home. I have pretty much zero interest in seeing the movie, so I stayed home and DID ALL THE THINGS.

Washed all the laundry, including the full of sand stuff from the beach.
Got the ice chests put away.
Cleaned the entire kitchen (including an unload and reload of dishwasher)
Folded most of the laundry.
Removed a crappy, broken, filthy, disgusting, ancient light fixture in the garage.
Replaced it with a shiny, new, LED fixture that works.
Cleaned out the last of the bins from the dining room remodel.
Took all the bins out to the garage and stacked them neatly.
Sorted some old towels and stuff to go out to donate, emptying nearly half a shelf in the hall closet.

While the girls were here, we also watched the first 6 Harry Potter movies (I'd only seen the first one). We watched 7.1 last night, maybe the last one will be tonight.

Also the kids got to film Signing Time! sentences! SO AWESOME. The kids were great, Rachel and Aaron and Iffer were terrific to work with, and I can not WAIT to see the final thing. We got to meet up with Colleen & family so hopefully there'll be some shots of our kids together, too. SQUEE.

Yes, it is their fault

esmerel — Tue, 12 May 2015 23:19:39 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So Sunday I tweeted a response to someone who'd pointed out that the new "Cycle blast quinjet" toy from Hasbro - practically Black Widow's ICONIC SCENE in Avengers: Age of Ultron, doesn't even have her on the fucking box. I said "that's a giant fucking fail, AND you are not getting any of my toy money Hasbro and Marvel".

Note: I am (currently) a fairly well-off person who can, without a lot of thought about the money, buy just about what the fuck ever my kids want in their scavenging little hearts. But we also have limited space, so it's got to be a pretty cool toy.

A motorcycle dropping out of the quinjet that DOES NOT HAVE THE FEMALE CHARACTER WHO RODE THE FUCKING THING does not count.

What got me though, is the person who tweeted at me in response, "It's not Marvel's fault."

Really? How is this not Marvel's fault? At least in part?

Sure, I know that Disney owns the company. They get to decide what toys ultimately get made.

But Marvel's CEO already is known to have his head up his ass about female superheroes.
Marvel hasn't put any push (as far as we know) to promote their female characters.
It will be TEN YEARS since the beginnings of the MCU before we get a female-led movie (Iron Man: 2008 - Captain Marvel: currently scheduled for 2018).
Nobody from Disney or Marvel or ANYONE says anything besides "We have the girls locked up in the princesses." (BTW, FUCK YOU GUYS WITH SANDPAPER. MY DAUGHTER IS MORE THAN JUST A PRINCESS.)
Marvel comics are starting to turn things seriously around - A-Force is due in another week. The new teenage Ms Marvel is pretty cool. Goddess Thor? HELL YEAH.
I was happy to see multiple women in Age of Ultron, though now that I think about, I'm not technically sure it passes the Bechdel. (Do Dr. Cho and Scarlet Witch talk to each other? Do the two lines exchanged between Natasha and Hawkeye's daughter count?)

So, is it Marvel's fault I can't find stuff my daughter wants? YES. YES IT IS. If equality was actually important to you guys? You'd have more women. I'd be able to find stuff with Gamora. With Widow.

FFS, I got a "We have new costumes in the disney store!" The boys? They get all the avengers. They get princes and pirates and Jedi. The girls? Princesses or fairies. Widow? No. Gamora? No. Hera? No. I sent them an email saying "Seriously - where are the female superheroes?" I got a response "We don't know when we'll get new costumes." WRONG ANSWER. I could give two fucks about what you know about costumes. You TELL YOUR SUPERIORS that we want Lady Sif. And Scarlet Witch.

Fuck you marketers. My kid's going to be Black Widow and I'm gonna make the damn costume myself. And you know what? I'm gonna make her DOLL into Black Widow, too. Because the corporate world? You've failed to grasp that even though my husband currently makes more money than me?

I DO THE SHOPPING FOR TOYS. And if you can't figure out how to give me the toys my kids want? If you can't put the women in? You don't get my money.

I mean it. I'm not giving you money. My kids want the women. BOTH KIDS - because my son? He likes Gamora and Black Widow because they're HEROES. They help people. They save the world.

Turns out, saving the world doesn't really require the use of genitals.

Adventures in sickness

esmerel — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 19:23:47 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

The kids have both been sick for most of the last week. R has had a horrible cough, so bad that he sometimes throws up. Fever has been up and down. After the 3rd time his fever came back, and the pukecough, we went to the doctor.

Doc says "Yep, it's a really bad cold. Humidifier, apple juice and honey. I'll give you an antibiotic prescription but I don't think that's actually the answer, but I don't want you to have to come back down here tomorrow for a piece of paper if it turns out you do need it."

Today? After a long bout of hacking at 6 am? He seems almost back to normal.

But you know it's been a bad week when you call the preschool and the person on the phone says "oh, no" after hearing you say "hello!".

Yeah, it's been like that.

Clearly it's not my first roundup

esmerel — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:25:40 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Seeing as I keep attempting to write posts and not getting around to doing them.

So: the holidays were good. No major illnesses. Things were acquired. Children agreed to rid themselves of some other toys they don't play with (without an argument, seriously!) There's still a lot of cleaning to do, but I've done a bunch of reorganizing of things lately:

The kids' craft stuff is all reorganized. I managed to actually free up shelf space AND a bin.
A bunch of kids' lame toys went into a box (we have a ton of happy meal toys and crap that is, well, crap. They never play with it. It needs to not be in the house any more.) Something insane like 2 big plastic BINS worth of toys.
I cleaned out a bunch of the kids' clothes. R has finally outgrown all the size 2 stuff (yes, he's 4. He's small.) so that all went into a bag. I dug out a bunch of things of C's I'd kept around, and much of it is adequate size for him now, so into his drawers all of that went.
I need to clean out their toy box. They have literally not opened it in a year. It's full of stuffed animals. They pretty much play with a very small set and that set is out on their beds. The rest should go.
I cleaned some stuff out of my closet that had been in there a long time, collecting dust. And cat vomit, apparently.

And now it's a new year. Yes, I'm making some resolutions. Yes, one of them has to do with exercise, because holy shit, the scale said something utterly unacceptable to me and when I thought about it, all the signs were clearly there and I'd been ignoring them until the number stared me in the face. For what it's worth, when I get up to a certain weight, my body starts to feel *bad*. I don't like that. So:

Get my ass back into the dojo. I've been a fail at getting in there since I tested up to brown. Brown sure as shit isn't the end of the line. There isn't an end, and I can't just sit around on it. Black belts don't happen by sitting on your ass. To that end, I've made a goal of at least doing warmups (squats and pushups mostly) every day or two. But seriously, figure out something that's going to work, and get back into class.

On the non-fitness front, I've been neglecting (mostly) my crafts. There are reasonexcuses like "I am tired. I don't want to concentrate and watch tv at the same time", etc. A coworker of mine (and fellow Drupal community member and crafter), Heather James wrote a blog post on her crafting resolutions for the year. Her goals are fairly simple and straightforward. I love the idea - while my stash of STUFF is not nearly on par with many people's, I have plenty of crafting stuff. I've also been really lazy about crafting, even though I kind of want to craft. So:

I will craft for at least 15 minutes, every day. This can be pulling out the spinning wheel, knitting on a sock, whatever. But 15 minutes - heck, I didn't even make it 15 minutes yesterday because I ran out of time, but I DID fix a scarf that needed repair, and I'm going to count that as good. I've already finished a (previously started) pair of socks, and I've cast on a pair for the little guy, who want want wants mommy to make him some. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's there to remind me "hey, grab a knitting project on your way out the door - you're not driving, you can knit!"

Other: I'm going to make a real effort to meditate for a few minutes a day, even though right now it's like 5 minutes before I lay down in bed. It's calming, it's good for me, and I feel better when I do it. I can lay down in the bed and toss and turn for 20-30 minutes, or I can meditate for 5 and if I'm lucky, I'm asleep in 20. So, it's kind of a win, if it works.

I should really try to get to bed on time, but we all know that's just doomed to failure :D

Fun with preschoolers

esmerel — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 16:50:49 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

R's preschool does a few 'take-home' projects during the year. One is a "our favorite book" project. You get a cardstock piece that looks like a book cover, and you decorate it like your favorite book.

This often results in some very cute pseudo-covers of things like _Goodnight_Moon_ and _The_Very_Hungry_Caterpillar_, and so on.

R's favorite book right now? Naked!

ugh, seriously. It's not even fall yet.

esmerel — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 16:17:29 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So, across my feeds this morning came one of those exclusionary, intolerant "It's Merry Christmas! Not Happy Holidays!".

I already want to vomit. It's SEPTEMBER. It's not even fall and you're whining about what other people call their 'made up holiday to coincide with the beginning of winter"? Do you seriously not have better things to do with your time?

Also, "It's not happy holidays!" You're right. For a lot of people, it's not happy holidays. It's merry christmas. Or happy hannukah. Or blessed solstice. Or ... is happy the right modifier for kwanzaa? I don't actually know. For some people, it's "Happy you get screwed because your birthday is too close to a made up holiday!" For some people, it's not 'happy' or 'merry' anything. It's crushing depression and anxiety.

Oh, and then there's the fact that many, many, many people consider the end of the year to be a holiday. So... happy holidays covers your soltice-centered celebration AND year's turning. So, if you insist on Merry Christmas? I personally consider it to be a 'have a nice christmas, but FUCK YOUR NEW YEAR.'

Seriously, if you can't take the sentiment behind "have a lovely holiday!", and you insist that it be YOUR holiday, then you're intolerant, exclusionist, and, well, wrong. You're telling people that YOU and YOUR beliefs trump their feelings and beliefs. Surprise! When you do that, people think you're a jerk!

And ultimately, if it's 'About Christ', do you really think he would have given a crap about what you called the day? Or would he have cared more that you're going out, loving your neighbors (regardless of how they wished you a holiday), and doing good things in the world?

I think I have a good idea which one he'd have preferred.

everything's a blur

esmerel — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:23:07 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

I had PRK corrective vision surgery on friday. WOO! It was neat and scary at the same time. I'm 5 days into my recovery, and my vision is apparently 20/25, which is better than the average 20/45 or 20/50 that most people have at this stage. The protective lenses are out, which is excellent because they were just exactly like wearing the same contacts for 5 days. Ew.

I have a follow up in a week.

I was super, super light sensitive the first few days. I still am sensitive, but I always have been, so that's not super surprising. The first couple of days, it really felt like I was burning my eyes out of my skull if I looked at anything like a light.

I can see to drive, YAY. Reading is more difficult right now, but that should change as time goes on. Still. I CAN SEE. WHEN I WAKE UP. WITHOUT MY GLASSES. WOOWOO.

All of the things, or none of the things

esmerel — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:30:56 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

We pretty much failed to do any of the things I wanted to do with the kids this summer. School started yesterday, and that always puts a giant damper on doing things that are fun. And the kid has homework, which puts a crimp in doing anything fun anyway (seriously, how does a young kid need homework? They need to PLAY.)

I made brown belt over the summer. Work is going well. I am super tired because R is doing well at getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. This means that he needs mommy to come help him and so then he wants to sleep with me.

And stuff.

Also, testing a new keyboard. Works pretty well.

Summer keeps rolling

esmerel — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 03:41:46 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So I've got all the material for my brown belt test (seen it anyway, remembering it all is an issue). Except for that part where I have to do 40 pushups and... yeah, ow. So, I grabbed the Hundred pushups app that a couple of friends recommended, and I started working on it. Pushups are tough, yo.

C went to Camp Galileo this week, and had a blast. I'm pretty impressed with it, and I would definitely recommend it. She may get to go to another one this summer,even. We'll see.

Work is work; many of my team members are off the next two weeks, so that should be..a touch crazy. Hopefully nothing explodes, but there's ALWAYS something.

Cheating can be fun, too

esmerel — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 03:24:58 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

C is reading the Thea Stilton books. They're chapter books, but there's a good amount of pictures, colorful fonts and visually interesting things that are great for a reader at her level and age. There's only one problem with them - there's occasional 'handwritten' passages, which are in cursive.

She doesn't know how to read cursive. So she's coming to the adults for help, which is great. It shows me she's really reading it.

She also hates to write. Really, really hates.

She got two new books tonight. She asked me for help with the cursive. So when we got home, I printed out charts of the uppercase and lowercase cursive letters - ones that had 'regular' letters printed next to it.

I took the charts, a notepad and a pencil out to her and said "It's like a code. Look for the letter on the chart, then write down the letter YOU know on the notepad. You'll be able to translate the code and read the message."

She got very excited. "OO, thanks mom!"

Me: . o O ( You're going to learn cursive and practice your handwriting. BOOYAH. )

OM NOM NOM

esmerel — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 20:03:42 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

We went to Fogo de Chao last night for my birthday. We've been wanting to try one of the Brazilian churrascarias since they opened here (hot damn, I even spelled that correctly the first time!). We took the kids, too. I suspect we will never have to endure another birthday dinner at Sizzler for the sake of the young lady in our house. I think she was in heaven. "NO. THAT NEEDS TO STAY GREEN SO I CAN HAVE MORE MEAT MOM." Also, "DO NOT TURN OFF THE MEAT FAUCET."

This is my carnivore child, yes.

Things that amused me today:

One of my coworkers said "I'm going to this conference and they asked for a local contact for the childcare form. I put you down so if I die you can pick up my child."
Me: "I would prefer you did not drop dead, but I have an extra infant seat so it's covered just in case."

My coworkers have an unhealthy obsession with memes for communication.

I found a list of killer braid tutorials.

Holy crap, I think I need to actually install a wysiwyg on this thing. I've gotten JUST enough use out of the button that makes me a link magically that I am missing it. How sad is that?

I have paid pretty much zero attention to WWDC; unless a new iPhone is coming out in the fall, which I would potentially acquire to replace my current one, I am pretty much out of craps to give on that front.

Everyone who is eligible in my house to read _Skin Game_ has finished it. I picked up Urban Shaman with an intent to reread most of the series before the final Walker Papers book is due at the end of the month :D

Here I sit

esmerel — Fri, 30 May 2014 04:32:55 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Because my desire to blog outweighs my ability to actually do so. At the moment, the little guy is not sleeping even though he should be. So I'm writing a post, go me.

Since we last our intrepid adventurer, there's been a bunch of stuff.

We have a new kitchen. It's super fantastic. There's a real working dishwasher, under the counter! There's a sink with a spray nozzle. There's a fridge that makes sparkling water (that was a hell of an indulgence). The countertop looks amazing and ... There are places for everything! And you can fit multiple butts and they don't hit each other! Amusingly, we got a package from the company that made the countertop. They sent us a cheese board that matched the countertop.

I love our new kitchen.

While the kitchen was being redone, we vacated the house and went do Disneyland. We got several chances to visit with some friends while there. We also did legoland. Man, after Disney, legoland is, well, a total waste. It looks flat out shabby in comparison. There are hardly any employees to be seen. The rides are poor, or cost extra. Seriously - R couldn't go on most of the rides, and the older one found them fairly boring. The legoscapes were cool but they were definitely not a hundred bucks a person worth of cool.

C got sick during the trip. I got it on the way home, and we spent most of the next week being sick with various things.

We are starting to get back into the swing of things now. Kublacon was this past weekend and it was pretty fun, as usual. The young players room is terrific, and the staff was awesome to C. We picked up a bunch of games: a Dominion expansion (cornucopia), Star Realms, Race for the galaxy, P.e.r.k., a couple of decks for the My little pony ccg, lords of waterdeep. Maybe something else. There were many games of Wooden Wars, which C had a ball at. To the point where the guy who runs the games saw her and said "I have extra units, want to play?" http://www.skullncrown.com/store/ has some of the units - he's clearly behind :)

All the things, all of the time

esmerel — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:57:49 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Work is work. It's busy, there's lots to do. We've got new goals and they're going to be tough to meet.

In the last week and a half I've:
Had young Miss E over for a playdate with C, because both her parents needed to do things where having her there would have been at best BORING TO DEATH for her.

Hosted the Brauer family for several days, and former co-worker Alex J. It was a real treat to hang out with all of them because the guys and I all have been coworkers (or at least worked for the same company) at one point or another, so there's plenty of opportunity to chat about history and stuff. Sarah is a terrific lady that I really like to hang out with too; and our older kids get along like peanut butter and chocolate.

We also had my brother and one of my nieces here for a couple of days. I think C doesn't know what to do with herself now that all her friends are gone again.

I've done a ton of laundry; I'm hoping to avoid doing much more until the kitchen remodel (no, these aren't really related, I just hate doing the laundry. but I like having clean underpants).

I'm at the dojo 3-4 days a week; one day a week I'm either in teacher training or if everyone else is out, I get a private lesson. I finished my short stick form, and last week I got to start working with the nunchucks. And then I jammed my finger. Ow ow ow, I need to get a set to practice with. And a short stick, because my 2 foot long spoon is not enough. I am slowly building towards finishing all the material for my belt, but I've got a physical test to worry about too, before I can make brown. My goal is to make it by the end of summer, but damn have I got to get better at pushups :(

Last friday, we did something I thought was super fun. C has been very into playing with a hula hoop down at the dojo, and I knew we'd have a BUNCH of kids at the house. So... I found a tutorial on making hoops. I bought the supplies and we made hoops! It was super cool. I think the kids really enjoyed it too. I had some electrical tape in different colors so the kids could personalize their hoops as well. I had enough to make 7 kids hoops, and I could probably make 2 or 3 adult hoops with what I have left. SO MUCH FUN.

On Saturday, we went up to south SF to see Signing time Rachel. YAY. Apparently theyv'e got another kickstarter project in the works. Because I NEED MORE KICKSTARTERS.

Current kickstarters:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/191197566/faire-play-barbie-compati... - 3D printed Barbie armor. SERIOUSLY.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2126584956/yellowberry-changing-the... - Yellowberry; because young women should have not-shitty bras.

I'm considering https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2084593011/a-hundred-tiny-hands-toy... - it's made goal and it ends in about a day. I'm undecided.

Also, I am tired and should go to bed. Woop woop.

The tireds, I am full of them

esmerel — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 05:32:48 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I was hired full time at Acquia. Upon signing my offer letter, I was told to book a flight to Boston for Build Week. If you aren't familiar with the idea - all of our engineering department got together on-site and Built Things. For most of a week. There are a lot of really, really smart people in that group. Hell, there's a lot of really smart people in the company.

I flew to Boston and managed to catch a slightly earlier shuttle than my planned one out to the hotel in Burlington. BTW, the suites at the Hyatt House? NICE. Two bedroom suites, king beds, with full bathrooms. A full kitchen with a real stove and oven and refrigerator and microwave shared between the two rooms. The breakfast buffet did not suck either.

It was damn cold out there, but I was prepared (yes, some Californians know how to read a weather forecast). I had plenty of my own wool stuff to wear so I never really got cold except when I had to take my gloves off for something. Annoyingly, I somehow managed to pop stitches in my Rogue sweater in 4 places :( I was working on my super awesome Ribby Pulli though, so I had yarn to do emergency repairs with. i was trying to get that sweater done before I flew out; I finished it on the flight home. I promised my roommate pictures though, which I still need to do.

I got to meet my boss for real on sunday night, and saw a bunch of people I'd known for years. On monday, I got to meet most of the support folks, which was AWESOME. I got a good laugh when none of them recognized me until I turned sideways. "OH now I recognize the profile!" - my laptop is to the side of my actual work monitors, so nobody ever sees me face-on :D

I got to meet my own team, including our spectacular editor. I traded off time between her desk, and sitting with the support team; the docs team works to make sure we're all doing things the same way, but my *job* really is all about making support's life better and easier.

Monday and Tuesday night I went out with the awesome Tashabear, whom I have known for many years through livejournal and twitter and Ravelry. She took me out to dinner and Tuesday we went to her dojo, where I learned a karambit form and sensei sent me home with a practice weapon, WOO.

Wednesday was LAN party night. We played Xonotic, which is pretty much an open source version of Unreal Tournament. It was a lot of fun, and I was not always the worst player on the teams.

Thursday was something; there was a storm that swept through, and for a while we couldn't see the the parking lot - there was a bit where we were concerned about getting back to the hotel in the shuttles. I spent some quality time with the folks on my team who were there, but once the shuttles came, I fled for the hotel to make sure I'd get there. There was a great deal of drinking - I discovered (thanks to my coworkers) Angel's envy - bourbon aged in a port cask, oh yes.

Friday was fortunately uneventful. I struck gold on the Virgin America check in - the counter agent told me exactly when I needed to be back to my gate, how crappy the food was there, and where I should go for good food (at least, as good as you can get in an airport). So I got me a lobstah roll and made it to my plane.

I got a bit of sleep, then did breakfast for the family ( and Angie, who super helpfully stayed over so Earl did not have to drag the kids to SFO at 11 PM). We went up to the nephew's birthday party. I fell asleep at the same time R did (I lay down with MOMMY) and proceeded to pretty much sleep for the next 11 hours. Sunday was a day of being flat. I did some unpacking, but happily monday was a day off YAY and I unpacked and did some dishes and built a laundry sorter cart and culled some t-shirts ( there are at least two shirt quilts in my future). Holy carp I have so many shirts. I could make an entire quilt out of my Drupal shirts alone. I'm not, but I COULD.

Npw I need to integrate my work laptop (hello, MacBook Air!) into my KVM environment - which is going to cost me, because airs are not compatible with my kvm. But I've wanted to update mine to a USB one for a while and haven't managed to do so yet.

Tomorrow, we hopefully make it back to the dojo here at home, and I'll be able to crank out some real work. I'm part way through another project (hats for a costume), but my official "need to make" queue is empty after this. I want to do some clothes for the dolls I made for the kids, and I may very well start on that, but I think I'm going to pull out my spinning wheel and spend a little quality time with one of them, too.

I'm a real boy! Er. girl. whatever

esmerel — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 19:54:30 GMT

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

Two weeks ago, I was formally Acquiasitioned, and I'm now a full time employee, with REAL BENEFITS AND STUFF.

This is a major win. Because paying for your own benefits bites ass. Also, 401k and stuff.

I've actually been contracting for Acquia since last May, but it took this long to get me hired on as a 'real', full-time employee. My team is awesome, and the teams I work with are awesome.

We have a new bathroom! It still is super nice. And bright! And feels less nasty with cat litter! winwinwin. We're planning/hoping to redo the kitchen in a few months as well, when Earl is ready and we're sure that the cash is all in place to do it.

We're also getting a new bed! WOO NEW BED - a giant king sized memory foam thing. OOOh yeah. Just in time for me to travel to Boston for a company on-site. At least I'm looking forward to meeting my coworkers, and a friend I've had online for gosh, years now. WHEET.

I'm knitting like mad. I've made a doll for each of the kids (zomg cute), and I started a sweater on sunday. I've got the sleeves done and I started the body last night. Crossing fingers that I have enough yarn (I should, but.. YOU NEVER KNOW).

Also, I am hungry and I want a burrito.