State of the AJ -- April 2014
It's been a while... A while since I last did a "State of the AJ" post. A while since I posted much of anything of any consequence here... I could go into reasons, but that would be boring for most people plus it's kind of covered in the info below.
Work
Well, the easy answer is that there isn't any. Am going to re-focus on Care.com & SitterCity.com again to see about getting some sort of childcare and/or pet sitting work. May also look into the tutoring options again. Am also hoping to get a foot in the door with freelance work finally, even if it means picking up some low-paying jobs just to get good examples/experience before I start getting noticed for the better-paying jobs. And, as always, looking for work outside the home, too. I hate this crap...
Am also hoping to more in-depth work of some sort with the tarot/runes/numerology soon. But more on that in the spirituality section.
Pets
We are down to four cats again. Zena was put to sleep on 2nd February after what the vets thought was a stomach mass that ruptured, as she'd gotten very sick very quickly. We buried her in a spot that's special to all of us, particularly Amy. We've been back a couple times since and I always make a point to say hello to Zena when we do.
The other four are their usual selves, though Gabe is getting more and more neurotic as time goes on. Like he's making Stasia seem sane sometimes, which, for those of you who know our cats, is a really scary prospect. LOL Though Stasia's been visiting me down in the office a lot again, which is nice.
House
Amy is heading off to Whidbey for her annual recertification in a week and a half. We'll be using that time to air out & spray down her room with enzymatic cleaner in an effort to remove the cat urine stench left behind by Zena. We're hoping it doesn't go so far as needing rip up the carpet, but it may. Then again, we've been talking for years about ripping up all the carpet in the house and going with hardwood floors, so who knows?
In other house news, the backyard is so damned overgrown with blackberry brambles, it's not even funny. We can barely get back there to do anything. If it weren't for the rhodies, I'd honestly try to find someone with goats that we could rent to eat out the backyard and let us start over. But rhodies are apparently toxic to goats, and we have no easy way of barricading them off to goats at this point.
Am going to be redoing my room while Amy's gone, too. Moving my bed basically back to where it was originally, which will allow me to have my bookcase and altar on the north wall, where I've always had it and always felt more comfortable with it. Am still debating if I'll keep my bed on its frame or put the mattress and boxsprings [and the board between them] on the floor. If I do the former, my room stays permanently closed off to the cats. If I do the latter, I may give them a chance to come in again, since there won't be anything for them to hide under [like Stasia always hiding under my bed]. But if they come in, I'l likely get NO sleep, thanks to Gabe in particular, so I'm still torn over that whole idea.
Spirituality
In January, while spending a belated Yule/New Year's in Port Townsend with Lorre and Will, we stopped in at our favorite juju shop, Phoenix Rising. While there, I found a phenomenal book that intrigued me, but didn't have the money to get it. The book in question is Initiate: A Witch's Circle of Water by Thuri Calafia. It's the second in a series of four books, but since I'm sufficiently past the requirements of the first book, I decided to dive into the second book. Thanks to a lovely Amazon GC from my buddy Kryssi for my birthday last year, I was able to get this book. The only problem I'm having right now in completing the year and a day course of study is that I don't have the additional required readings, which is causing some issues, obviously. I"m working on seeing what I can do with that issue. I may just try to get the books from the library, but I don't know that it'll work with that option while keeping to the schedule of the book's program. So I'm working on it...
Am trying to work more with my divination decks and runes. Also want to start doing more with numerology, but can't figure out a good angle for it that would be like the free tarot draws I do each month. Any suggestions in this arena would be most appreciated...
Writing
My creativity is mostly sucked up in twitter-based RP. Please, feel free to mock me. I still need to do my analysis of last year's writing, but I feel vaguely embarrassed by how much of my writing was fiction vs. how much was RP.
Am hoping to get some pro writing done this year. I'd like to get a book written by the end of 2014. Whether it's fiction or poetry, I'm not sure yet.
Fandom
Well, I'm going to do this the easy way. Here's the list of what I'm currently watching and what's on hiatus and/or possibly cancelled.
Currently Watching ::
Monday :: Dallas, Bates Motel
Tuesday ::
Wednesday ::
Thursday ::
Friday :: Hawaii Five-0
Saturday :: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Sunday :: Once Upon a Time, Resurrection, Game of Thrones
Shows currently on Hiatus :: Falling Skies, Franklin & Bash, Witches of East End, Rizzoli & Isles
Shows finished/possibly cancelled :: House of Anubis, Ja'mie: Private School Girl, American Horror Story: Coven, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
I tried to get into Intelligence because I adore Meghan Ory and like Marg Helgenberger, but I just couldn't.
I am utterly and completely still sucked into Once Upon a Time and got caught up on the first 3 seasons of Game of Thrones just in time for season 4's premier this past Sunday. The rest of my shows have varying levels of interest.
Misc & Sundry
The big thing here is that I've been spoiled rotten this month. First Amy bought me a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 [in Brown Gold] that came in the mail this past Saturday. I've named it Dark Secret, which is the name I gave Regina's horse before we found out in canon that his name is Rocinante. She's also got a bluetooth keyboard and a pink stylus coming for me, but I'm responsible for a case and a microSD card. This was my birthday, Giftmas, annivesary -- oh fuck it! It's my EVERYTHING gift for the rest of the year and possibly into next year. LOL! I've been enjoying using the beastie [another nickname], especially the Kindle, Twitter, FB, and Spotify apps. And tomorrow I'll get to test out the Safeway app while we're shopping. Oh, and I've been taking a lot of pictures with the beastie. They've been posted on Twitter and FB, but I need to put them elsewhere to share here, too, I guess. LOL
Then this past Monday, I inherited her old tower, which is new to me. This has been named Vault of Hearts, since I wasn't sure I should name it after either Regina or Cora [something about psychopathic characters and computer quirks], but Regina DID inherit the vault from her mother, so... It's a 64bit Win7 machine with a 1TB HD and 8GB of RAM. My old 400GB HD is in teh machine with all my data, and will be wiped/reformatted to be a slave drive once the info's all moved to where I want it. It's just a matter of getting used to it all. And I may be naming the slave drive Henry. Or peasant, I'm not sure yet.
And I guess that's pretty much everything right now. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'll post about it when I think of what it is.
Original post @ Dreamwidth with
comments. Commenting is welcome on either post.
Work
Well, the easy answer is that there isn't any. Am going to re-focus on Care.com & SitterCity.com again to see about getting some sort of childcare and/or pet sitting work. May also look into the tutoring options again. Am also hoping to get a foot in the door with freelance work finally, even if it means picking up some low-paying jobs just to get good examples/experience before I start getting noticed for the better-paying jobs. And, as always, looking for work outside the home, too. I hate this crap...
Am also hoping to more in-depth work of some sort with the tarot/runes/numerology soon. But more on that in the spirituality section.
Pets
We are down to four cats again. Zena was put to sleep on 2nd February after what the vets thought was a stomach mass that ruptured, as she'd gotten very sick very quickly. We buried her in a spot that's special to all of us, particularly Amy. We've been back a couple times since and I always make a point to say hello to Zena when we do.
The other four are their usual selves, though Gabe is getting more and more neurotic as time goes on. Like he's making Stasia seem sane sometimes, which, for those of you who know our cats, is a really scary prospect. LOL Though Stasia's been visiting me down in the office a lot again, which is nice.
House
Amy is heading off to Whidbey for her annual recertification in a week and a half. We'll be using that time to air out & spray down her room with enzymatic cleaner in an effort to remove the cat urine stench left behind by Zena. We're hoping it doesn't go so far as needing rip up the carpet, but it may. Then again, we've been talking for years about ripping up all the carpet in the house and going with hardwood floors, so who knows?
In other house news, the backyard is so damned overgrown with blackberry brambles, it's not even funny. We can barely get back there to do anything. If it weren't for the rhodies, I'd honestly try to find someone with goats that we could rent to eat out the backyard and let us start over. But rhodies are apparently toxic to goats, and we have no easy way of barricading them off to goats at this point.
Am going to be redoing my room while Amy's gone, too. Moving my bed basically back to where it was originally, which will allow me to have my bookcase and altar on the north wall, where I've always had it and always felt more comfortable with it. Am still debating if I'll keep my bed on its frame or put the mattress and boxsprings [and the board between them] on the floor. If I do the former, my room stays permanently closed off to the cats. If I do the latter, I may give them a chance to come in again, since there won't be anything for them to hide under [like Stasia always hiding under my bed]. But if they come in, I'l likely get NO sleep, thanks to Gabe in particular, so I'm still torn over that whole idea.
Spirituality
In January, while spending a belated Yule/New Year's in Port Townsend with Lorre and Will, we stopped in at our favorite juju shop, Phoenix Rising. While there, I found a phenomenal book that intrigued me, but didn't have the money to get it. The book in question is Initiate: A Witch's Circle of Water by Thuri Calafia. It's the second in a series of four books, but since I'm sufficiently past the requirements of the first book, I decided to dive into the second book. Thanks to a lovely Amazon GC from my buddy Kryssi for my birthday last year, I was able to get this book. The only problem I'm having right now in completing the year and a day course of study is that I don't have the additional required readings, which is causing some issues, obviously. I"m working on seeing what I can do with that issue. I may just try to get the books from the library, but I don't know that it'll work with that option while keeping to the schedule of the book's program. So I'm working on it...
Am trying to work more with my divination decks and runes. Also want to start doing more with numerology, but can't figure out a good angle for it that would be like the free tarot draws I do each month. Any suggestions in this arena would be most appreciated...
Writing
My creativity is mostly sucked up in twitter-based RP. Please, feel free to mock me. I still need to do my analysis of last year's writing, but I feel vaguely embarrassed by how much of my writing was fiction vs. how much was RP.
Am hoping to get some pro writing done this year. I'd like to get a book written by the end of 2014. Whether it's fiction or poetry, I'm not sure yet.
Fandom
Well, I'm going to do this the easy way. Here's the list of what I'm currently watching and what's on hiatus and/or possibly cancelled.
Currently Watching ::
Monday :: Dallas, Bates Motel
Tuesday ::
Wednesday ::
Thursday ::
Friday :: Hawaii Five-0
Saturday :: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Sunday :: Once Upon a Time, Resurrection, Game of Thrones
Shows currently on Hiatus :: Falling Skies, Franklin & Bash, Witches of East End, Rizzoli & Isles
Shows finished/possibly cancelled :: House of Anubis, Ja'mie: Private School Girl, American Horror Story: Coven, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
I tried to get into Intelligence because I adore Meghan Ory and like Marg Helgenberger, but I just couldn't.
I am utterly and completely still sucked into Once Upon a Time and got caught up on the first 3 seasons of Game of Thrones just in time for season 4's premier this past Sunday. The rest of my shows have varying levels of interest.
Misc & Sundry
The big thing here is that I've been spoiled rotten this month. First Amy bought me a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 [in Brown Gold] that came in the mail this past Saturday. I've named it Dark Secret, which is the name I gave Regina's horse before we found out in canon that his name is Rocinante. She's also got a bluetooth keyboard and a pink stylus coming for me, but I'm responsible for a case and a microSD card. This was my birthday, Giftmas, annivesary -- oh fuck it! It's my EVERYTHING gift for the rest of the year and possibly into next year. LOL! I've been enjoying using the beastie [another nickname], especially the Kindle, Twitter, FB, and Spotify apps. And tomorrow I'll get to test out the Safeway app while we're shopping. Oh, and I've been taking a lot of pictures with the beastie. They've been posted on Twitter and FB, but I need to put them elsewhere to share here, too, I guess. LOL
Then this past Monday, I inherited her old tower, which is new to me. This has been named Vault of Hearts, since I wasn't sure I should name it after either Regina or Cora [something about psychopathic characters and computer quirks], but Regina DID inherit the vault from her mother, so... It's a 64bit Win7 machine with a 1TB HD and 8GB of RAM. My old 400GB HD is in teh machine with all my data, and will be wiped/reformatted to be a slave drive once the info's all moved to where I want it. It's just a matter of getting used to it all. And I may be naming the slave drive Henry. Or peasant, I'm not sure yet.
And I guess that's pretty much everything right now. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'll post about it when I think of what it is.
Original post @ Dreamwidth with
comments. Commenting is welcome on either post.