Yeah, that went well...
{{peeks out from under rock}} Is it safe??
As you can see, I've been a bit remiss lately, though I have a pretty good excuse reason - I spent two and a half weeks on holidays at the end of July/beginning of August, traipsing around the continent (from Toronto to San Diego to Vancouver to home) and have been home exactly one weekend in the last five (not counting this one). Yes, I'm still playing catch-up at home and the next few weeks are crazy as well (the Merrill collection sale is next week, ZCon the weekend after, and I'm working in our company store the following Saturday).
The good news is, I have actually managed to get some things done!!
Misc. Housework
I took some time a couple of weekends ago to clean up the house a bit while my Mom and Stepfather were off in Virginia. Swept the kitchen floor (which is, unfortunately, now back to it's disaster area self) and washed the back stairs (after giving them a good sweep). The stairs lead down to my living room, so I try and go over them with a cloth and water a couple times a year (periodic sweeping helps too).
I also dragged out the vacuum cleaner and gave most of the house a good going over. It would be so much easier if they actually took some time every week to clean the house, as opposed to cleaning whenever they feel like it {{sigh}}.
And somewhere in there I did a couple of loads of dishes in the dishwasher (me likes a clean kitchen - I'm a little anal that way) and laundry.
Get my haircut
When my bangs start driving me crazy, I know it's time to make a visit to my hairdresser. I got it cut at the start of the summer, but it needed a trim (I can see, I can see!!)
Finish story edits
We're releasing the last our planned anthologies and a novel at ZCon in a couple of weeks, and I was a little behind with my edits (gee, can't imagine why). All done now :)
Go through and Mail Comic Con stuff
I left San Diego with a stack of goodies for people. Some of it never left the city (given to the lovely couple I stayed with), a bunch was distributed in Vancouver (to my girlfriends and the con itself, for the charity auction) and the rest came home with me. After setting aside everything I wanted, I had a small pile of things left over and seeing as I had had a request from someone on my flist for goodies (being on the other side of the pond can have some disadvantages), I popped a box in the mail (I will admit it took me about a week to find a box big enough and to hit the post office with it). I am pleased to report that it has arrived safely. Now to send the other one off to Nevada (I need to make a condensed photo CD first and I haven't had time to do so as yet).
Shopping!!
Yes, I know, one of my least favourite activities. In this case, I picked up season 8 and 9 of SG-1 on DVD, as well 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' (I know it's a girls movie, but it was filmed in Vancouver, has Bradley Whitford in it (Josh, West Wing) - even if his character is a total dick, and the stuff they did in Greece is *gorgeous*). Now to see if I can pitch any SG-1 tapes.
Go through 'con box'
I have a box in my workroom that I toss everything I plan on taking with me to the next con in (mostly stuff to sell, or things I need to give people). In this case, I was ferreting out anything I could take to the Merrill Flea Market. I now have three paper boxes worth of stuff to take with me next weekend, and it should be a bit more before I'm done {{fingers crossed}}.
Oil change for the car, and checking a couple of tires
I was 16km over 5000 (rather good timing) for the car's next oil change, so I dropped in yesterday afternoon on my way home from the Ex (the Canadian National Exhibition). I also needed them to check a couple of tires that were losing air (one of them at a rather prodigious rate). Turned out all they needed was a good cleaning (the one drawback to having aluminum wheels). Much better now :)
Printing
Remember those zines I mentioned earlier? We do all our own colour printing (umm, well, I do it) and to get a head start, I printed out all the title plates I had so far for the anthology zine. Got the cover for the novel this morning, so the printer is merrily printing away as I'm typing this. Saves us a fortune not having it run on a laser printer (especially with the way the exchange rate has gone on the US dollar - great when you're going to the US, not so great when you change it back to Canadian).
Looks like that's all for now. Do have one request - anyone have a Coles Notes version on using LJ cuts? I'd like to start using them (mostly so I don't keep dropping this big message into your flists) and I have exactly no time to look up how right now.
Thanks muchly and I hope everyone has a most excellent long weekend :)