In an attempt at updating at least once this year... Hi!

This is the last Sunday of Spring Break, which is never as nice as the first Sunday but will have to do. I spent a good portion of the day cleaning out the corner of my bedroom that has been the dumping spot for boxes of papers and stuff. Most of it went in the trash. I have almost one milk crate's worth of notebooks that have writing in them--probably very few if any full stories, but scenes that made it into stories and other random stuff that never went anywhere other than the notebook. I'm torn between recycling them because of no space, and keeping them because of omg I wrote that. I dunno. Somehow a baby crib has to fit in that room, so space is kind of an issue.

I'm 33.5 weeks along, which means 5 more weeks of work and 6.5 more weeks until my due date. When the baby will actually come remains to be seen, but I'm kind of hoping he'll give me that whole 1.5 weeks of puttering around the house. Although by that time, I may be more like "get here already!" I already had to buy some house shoes to wear at work because none of my actual shoes except my tennis shoes fit anymore. I'm normally a size 8/8.5, and I can't even get my feet in 10's. Why has no one invented pregnancy shoes? They'd be your normal length, but taller, wider, and very, very stretchy.

I decided to take at least next year, if not longer, off from working outside the home. I've been doing some freelance article writing, so I'm hoping to do more with that to help out with finances. Hopefully it will all work out. It's kind of scary, but not only am I looking forward to staying home with the baby, after 16 years I'm also thinking a break from teaching might be a wise thing. Especially with the current political climate. I just hope there's public education to go back to if I decide to start teaching again.

Fandomly, I dunno. I've been watching stuff, reading stuff, and having the occasional thought about stuff that I never post anywhere. That's pretty par for the course these days. It's weird, going through those notebooks and some other stuff I found mixed in with them reminded me of times when I was way more active, fandomly speaking. I miss it, but ... how did I have so much time back then to do all that???

And now, I am off to the bathroom for the 9032847392 time today.

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Life, as usual, has been busy, but I wanted to pop in and share some good news.

In May, if all goes well, I'll be having a baby! I'm just past my first trimester and it's going remarkably well. I'm sure it will get more interesting when I can no longer see my feet :-). I'm really excited since this is my first pregnancy (getting Will when he was ten came with its own labor pains, but of a different kind).

How have y'all been?

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So sometimes I wake up and I'm in the middle of a thought that must have started while I was asleep. Does that ever happen to anyone else? Like today, I was somehow thinking about the Oprah where AJ was on and the rest of the Boys showed up, and how that was related to them getting back together. Then I thought someone ought to sic Oprah on the various former members of *Nsync, because I don't think even Justin could stand up to her.

I have no idea why I was thinking about any of this. I have had no reason to think about any SBDs for weeks, if not months. My brain, it is a weird place.

Hi.

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Twice today I've heard what sounded like someone out on the front porch or at the door. Twice the dog and I have gone to look (she feels like she should be present at all door openings) and there's been nothing there. It's probably just the wind, which is blowing ferociously enough to almost makes 96 degrees feel bearable. Still, it's freaking me out a bit. Not because I'm worried about someone trying to break in so much as because this is the first day I've had to myself--no one but me and the animals in the house--in *months*. I don't want it to be over. Stay away, family. Just till this evening, but stay away.

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I signed up for hc_bingo again in spite of not filling in a single square on the last card I got. This time, I could easily fill in every single square, I think; some of the squares are things I wouldn't necessarily write on my own, but nothing I can't do (although the "group support" one made me go o.O until I figured out it was probably aimed at the comfort side rather than the hurt side).

( My hc_bingo card )

I'm contemplating trying to do a black-out, but I'm afraid of getting repetitive, so ... if anyone has any requests for certain characters--either just the characters, or the characters plus the specific square you'd like them attached to--please let me know. If I know enough about the characters to write them, I'll give it a shot.

ETA: the disappearing zombie apocalypse is now back where it belongs.

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Hey there! Long time no post, as usual.

School is finally out--has been for a week. This was a good year kid-wise; also the only year I've ever had where I didn't have a single failure. Most importantly, I didn't have a single student I didn't like, even though a few tried my patience. A lot. I can't say I'm looking forward to next year; we lost block scheduling, possibly teaming and/or department time, and who knows what shenanigans the legislature will have enacted by then. That's two and a half months away, though, so I'm not going to worry about it too much right now.

Fandom-wise, I'm a little o.O at the ( H50 season finale )

Other-fandom-wise, there were a bunch of season finales. As far as I remember, none of them left characters I care about dead, which is always nice. I'm glad that fad is over, may it never be resurrected. Now I'm ready for the summer season to get going so I have something to watch while pedaling to nowhere on my stationary bike. Because it is all about me, you know.

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It snowed! Quite a bit, for here. No word on school yet; I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were cancelled or at least delayed. The roads look like they could be nasty tomorrow.

I have fallen from grace and actually become interested in Glee. It has one of the worst portrayals of an actual school that I've seen outside of cartoons, but the characters are weirdly fascinating and you get music. If anyone knows where *good* fanfic lies, I'd love to read some.

Speaking of really awesome things, I'm on book 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. They're YA, dystopian future/kind of post-apocalyptic, and have a strong female main character. Not just strong as in a good fighter or whatever, although there's that, too, but strong as in "well-rounded, fully developed, non-MarySue". I'm kind of sad that there's only one more book to go; hopefully, it'll wrap things up in a way that keeps the story as strong as it is in the first two books.

Today has been a do-nothing day; nice after work, shopping, and best friend's kids spending the night on Friday, then the same kids plus errands once they left on Saturday. I finished reading most of what I wanted to read for Yuletide, finally, although I know I'll stumble across more as they get recced or I'm poking around the archive. Still haven't read much for MYTG, mostly because my browser crashed and killed the open tab I had for it. Open tabs are the only way I remember to do anything on the internet *sigh*. Oh, well, I figure the authors won't mind belated feedback, right? Plus I have around 40 or so stories to look forward to. Sounds like a win to me.

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MTYG went live this morning and I got this story, which is awesome in its zombie apocalypseness. And it even has a surprise appearance by one of my favorite non-popslash characters! It's a fun story and I loved every minute of it. You should totally go read it.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, and happy weekend if you don't!

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I have just over 2,000 words on my MTYG story and the second main character just showed up. *gives story stink eye* I need you finished today, dude. Get with the program.

On normal years, we'd be done with school by now and on Christmas break. Thanks to the collective (non)wisdom of TPTB, we have to go two half-days next week, when many kids will fail to show up even though they have 9 weeks' tests to take. Which creates a logistical nightmare for teachers who have to finalize grades before the kids ever come back after the break. *headdesk*

I have gotten back into the time suck that is Farmville (and Cityville) on Facebook. It's fun, but good lord can you spend every waking minute on it if you're not careful. (If anyone's playing either one and needs neighbors, you can friend me on FB if you know my real name, or PM me here and I'll tell you my real name. Which probably wouldn't be hard to figure out anyway, but I'm still not going to post it directly on this LJ because I *like* griping about my job here sometimes. See above paragraph for an example.)

Christmas decorations are all up, aside from a centerpiece for the table and the occasional tweaking--and maybe my Christmas village if I can get it to fit on a shelf. This is the first time I've decorated in 4-5 years aside from a mini tree, and I'm amazed at how much I enjoyed it. We even have lights liek woah outside. The tree is proving a source of amusement for Jennie-the-Menace, one of the main reasons that I haven't decorated in the past five years (how can she be five? she was tiny enough to fit in my hand when I brought her home from the vet). At least she only bats at the ornaments, which steadily creep up the tree as we relocate them out of her reach. At least she hasn't tried to climb the tree. Yet.

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Two days of kids watching a movie and me grading papers, and then it will be Thanksgiving break. Boy, do we need it. The kids are getting crazier and I'm getting tireder every day.

We're doing Thanksgiving at my house this year, which should be interesting when we try to fit 10-11 people OMG into my not-really-all-that-big house. Plus I'll have to do something with the dog so she's not barking her head off the entire time. She's gotten kind of snappy in her old age when people rush up to her, especially small people, and my step-niece and nephew will be here. I'm putting her in my room for the day, but I suspect she'll still bark. Should be fun. Really.

In preparation for the 10-11 people in my house OMG, we've been cleaning all weekend. Living room carpet got cleaned, kitchen got cleaned, bathroom will get cleaned Tuesday night and then re-wiped down Thursday morning, since Wednesday will be busy with cooking. Everything will just need a quick wipe-and-straighten closer to the actual time of 10-11 people OMG arriving. Well, three already live here, but OMG nonetheless.

In the process, we figured out an unorthodox but workable arrangement where we could actually have a kitchen table--in the living room, granted, but at least we have a surface we can sit and eat at for the first time in years. (What was once our dining room became our laundry room out of necessity when the floor under the washing machine got damaged and it had to be moved. The washing machine, not the floor.) Anyway, it kind of looks unusual, but the rearrangement actually gives us more room in the living room as well as a table to eat off. Woo-hoo!

Now if we only had a floor that didn't rise in the middle like an upside down V... *sigh* A girl can dream, can't she?

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There are lots of people on my friendslist/circle/whatever we call it now who like yarn and can do cool things with it. I like yarn, but find myself completely stymied by a) knitting in general (I need more hands!) and B) crocheting granny squares. Or maybe for that last one, it's just reading the damn directions, because it is literally written in code, and and while I can read the code, I am constantly thinking, "did they mean keep going where I'm at, or in X loop or Y loop? and chain this then chain that adds up to chain 15, so why not just say chain 15 if that's what they mean? and what the heck does double crochet in the miss mean anyway**???" and it's all very frustrating.

Which is to say: are there good videos out there that show how to knit? I think part of my problem is that I'm looking at hand-drawn illustrations. Maybe if I saw a very simple, step-by-step, for-the-knitting-impaired video, I'd get it.

Also, does anyone know of an extremely simple pattern for granny squares that's pretty much idiot-proof? Or maybe explains what it means as it goes? Because I swear I am smarter than yarn, but you wouldn't know it from the time I've been having.

**that might not have been what it said. I was very confused at that point.

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Hubby is actually home! The last time he was home was around the first of September, and the next time will probably be after Christmas, so I'm going to enjoy him while I got him :-). As usual, he's busy fixing ALL the things because he is incapable of sitting still. I do not have that problem.

Fannishly speaking, I think I have an opening line for my MTYG story, but I'm not entirely sure where it'll go from there except, of course. the general direction of X falls for Y and Y falls back. I probably won't write on it until William's gone anyway.

Also fannishly speaking, this week in TV was slim pickings with so many shows taking the week off. It's messing with my exercising. I need something interesting to watch while I'm peddling eternally across the room, people. Keep the TV coming already.

In school news, this was a long week. In the past two weeks, I've gotten 11 new kids and lost one. Eleven new kids is like starting the year over. I have to retrain the basic routines and re-establish the classroom atmosphere. That's too much work for this time of year. Compositions start this week, too, which is also too much work for this time of year but nevertheless necessary. I tried giving them their prompts early this time in the hopes that they'll come to class with a story in mind. We shall see how that works.

And in totally random thoughts that have crossed my mind this week:

--Are we entirely sure that what we want to do in a recession is have the government reduce its spending? I'm no economist, but I'm unconvinced that this is such a good idea.

--If you want to encapsulate what is wrong with this country in a 1 hour reality show, you can ... actually watch most reality shows. However, the "School Pride" one is the one that actually pisses me off. Not the show itself, which from the commercials seems to be doing a good thing. But what kind of country lets its educational infrastructure get so destroyed that a reality show has to come in and make repairs?

--You know that blond, curly-headed kid on that car commercial? The one who not only has the selfish arrogance to believe that his parents should base their car-buying choices on what is socially acceptable to him, but also uses totally ablist language? Whoever wrote those commercials needs a reality check. Recession, remember? People are lucky to have cars, if they do.

--I taught a kid who had that kind of arrogance. You literally could not convince him that there were kids who couldn't buy whatever they wanted when they wanted it. I spent a lot of time wanting to pinch his head.

--The highlight of my week was reading that Bush, Jr. called Dick Cheney "Darth Vader". That was totally awesome.



--

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Hey there! Thanks for writing my story! I'll love it, whatever it is, so don't worry. Just write a story you enjoy writing, and we'll both be happy.

If you need some pointers/inspiration beyond what was in the assignment letter . . . for both Chris/JC and Nick/AJ, I'm not picky about time periods, so anything from their first meeting to now (or even in the future) is cool. I'm also not picky about canon vs. AU; I love them both. If you're into AUs, I'm particularly fond of fantasy/scifi/post-apocalyptic stuff, but again, these are just ideas if you need some, not requirements :-).

My biggest likes are: humor, hurt/comfort, all the guys in the band caring about each other, the slow build-up to the realization that the love they've always felt as friends has become something more, happy endings (although I'm totally okay with angst happening before the ending).

My biggest dislikes are: depressing endings, unreconciled betrayal, unreconciled discord/dislike between the members of the band, bashing of the wives/girlfriends of band members, graphic sex. On that last one, put it in if you think the story needs it, but ... I would be happier with a story that wasn't primarily about sex.

(I do have one teensy request: if you're doing current era BSB and have Howie and Brian in the story, can you slip Kevin in there too? Even if it's just a phone call? BSB will always have five members in my head and heart.)

If this works right, I'll be posting at DW and it will automatically post to LJ. We shall see.

I got on a tear yesterday and today and actually cleaned the windows in the living room. We won't discuss how long it's been since I've done that. The weather's been so nice that we've had the windows open, and staring at the accumulated dust was just getting to me. Turns out there's a world out there. Who knew?

And it's a world that is under the mistaken impression that it's spring. We had weeks of 100+ temps this summer, and then a fair amount of rain. Now all my flowers are blooming again. Even the roses, which usually stop blooming in June, have a few flowers on them. Poor deluded things. Little do they know that freezing temps are ... actually probably at least a month to two months away. Bloom, flowers, bloom!

(I'm also on DW. You can comment here or there. There are comments on DW.)

Trying out the dreamwidth interface for posting. I really like Semagic, but to my knowledge you can't get the crossposting thingy at the bottom of your post with Semagic--can you?

It seems like every time I try to get better at posting here, I completely don't. That said, I read this book recently called The Happiness Project. It's about how Gretchen Rubin, the author, decided to spend a year being happy, so she set out in this totally type A manner to figure out what made her happy and to do it. Like, charts and stuff. While I'm not exactly a chart person, I have been interested lately in being happy, and posting and interacting on LJ (and DW, I'm sure, although I haven't done much of that) used to make me happy. So it's one of the things I'm trying to get into again. I think a goal of posting at least once a week, more if I feel like it, is totally doable.

As for things that make me happy, Haven has been renewed. Given that it's my favorite show this year, this is definitely happy-making. While I watch it for Eric Balfour and the Duke-Nathan (and Duke/Nathan), I also love Emily Rose and her portrayal of Audrey Parker. She's just so intrigued by all the weird stuff that goes on in Haven instead of being thrown by it or refusing to believe in it. Highly sensible. I approve.

Less happy-making is SPN, which . . .

And to end on another happy-making thought: Hawai'i 5-0 and Haven should both be small enough fandoms to qualify for Yuletide, wouldn't you think?

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It looks like my gmail account got hacked last night and was used to send out spam. If you get email from me, proceed with caution, and I'm sorry in advance.

Back to changing passwords everywhere because now I'm paranoid...

Via someone's link on my LJ friendsof list...This is Why I'll Never be an Adult. And it is sooo me.

ETA: now with working link. *headdesk*

I've watched a few eps of Mythbusters, but quite honestly I don't know which one's Adam and which one's Jamie. That said, In Search Of by Toft is awesome even if you don't know the characters. I imagine it's even better if you do. Post-apocalypse, a long, slow buid-up to a relationship that probably woudn't have ever happened if not for the end of the world, and consistent, well-developed characterization. You should read it.

I have a feeling that there was something I needed to do tonight that I haven't yet done. It's driving me up the wall.

Summer school is two days over and going reasonably well. The kids have been decently behaved in our class--it helps that there are two of us teaching, plus the Spanish teacher is in and out of the class that has all the ESL students, helping them. So that's, like, an 8-1 ratio, which is good for at-risk kids. Too bad that's not the norm during the real school year.

Making time to exercise is a bit of an issue, though. I keep setting my alarm to get up and do yoga before work, but then I don't get up in time. (In my defense, this morning I didn't get up early because the dog decided she had to go outside during the intense thunderstorm at 2:30 in the morning, then didn't do anything while she was out there. I, of course, was very awake for the next little while.) Yesterday, I did yoga and 30 min on the exercise bike right after the yoga when I came home from work, but today I didn't do anything. One issue is that the bike is sooooo much easier if I've done yoga first because I'm not fighting my own muscles. And then there's timing my eating around my exercise so that I don't eat right before yoga (hanging head below stomach right after eating = bad, bad idea) and so that I can eat something after due to the blood sugar crash exercise causes. It's so much easier when I don't have to schedule all of the above around work.

/whine

In more chipper news, I've started watching Castle, Lie to Me, and Drop Dead Diva and enjoying all of them. I am disturbed by Ben Feldman, though (Fred on Drop Dead Diva) because he looks uncannily like Scott Baio used to. It's messing with my brain, people. I keep thinking I'm back in the 80's and need to go put on some leg-warmers or something.

Do dogs get chiggers? Or maybe I should say, do chiggers like dogs? Brenna is itching like crazy in certain spots, and it's early for her next flea medicine. Doesn't mean it couldn't be fleas; this is summer in Texas, after all. But all the humans here are eaten up by chiggers, so I started wondering if maybe she was, too.

I'm going to dose all of the animals anyway. I've put it off a few days, so now it's only about 4-5 days early, which I think is okay. It just causes such DRAMA and ANGST and OH MAMA HOW COULD YOU (not to mention I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR FACE OFF from BJ-the-antisocial-cat). *sigh* If only animals understood the "it's for your own good, now suck it up" argument.

The h/c bingo thingy was made for me, so I signed up. I figured it would be a fun way to get myself to write. Also, given the prompts, something of a chance to write out of my comfort zone--tentacles? really?--which should be good. My card is behind the cut.

( I am a lemming )

It's a conspiracy. Last year, I had a wedding followed by a cookout in my back yard for family/wedding party. Temp: first 100 degree day of the year.

This year, Will's graduation is Saturday morning, followed by a cookout for family/friends. Forecasted temp: 101--first 100+ (!!!) degree day of the year.

Dear Texas,

You're hot. I get that. You often make up for it by not burying us under snow in the winter, so it all works out.

However, I am not pleased with this "cooking the humans while they cook the food" thing you've got going on. Two years in a row, man. Come on, cut us a break, okay?

Peevedly,

Me

I just planted: 2 white dogwoods, 2 goldenraintrees, 2 eastern redbuds, 2 sargent crabapples, 2 Washington hawthorns, and 1 crapemyrtle. They're baaaaaaaaby trees--really just sticks about a foot or so high, so I planted them in buckets for the first year or so. (Hopefully that won't prove to be a mistake. My soil is so clay-y that it's hard to get anything you *want* to grow started. Things you don't want seem to thrive. It's almost impossible not to grow pecan trees and bois d'arc trees, for example. Did you know bois d'arc trees have wicked thorns when they're saplings? *Inch long* thorns. But I digress.) In a few years, we should have lovely flowering trees to make a privacy border near the fence.

We also got our taxes back today and don't have to pay in! We're actually getting a decent refund, but more importantly, no scrambling for money to pay the government more after a year of already paying them! Yay!

So all in all, after a fraught week at work, I'm having a very nice Saturday. That suits me just fine.

Um. It's supposed to get up to 72F today. Tomorrow night? Snow. Texas weather *sigh*. Good thing I didn't plant anything this week like I wanted to.

I am on spring break, which means I have time to make posts about unimportant topics! In this case, about Supernatural's ( Swap Meat and The Song Remains the Same )

Yes, after ages of not talking about anything fannish, this is what I've got.