long blather since i haven't posted since friday
Shortened holiday weeks are always so busy!
Quick recap of busy weekend:
Friday night was church GNO. I missed the last one due to surgery. We met at a member's house and she had cold cuts and stuff. I had half a whole wheat bun with a tiny bit of mayo, one piece of turkey and one piece of cheese, some carrot sticks, a handful of grapes and about ten almonds. I wasn't hungry for all the cookies and candy. Had some really nice chats. We were talking about the early days of the Spiritual Celebration (for a couple years I pretty much ran the service all by myself; thank god our minister came at just the right time and started the worship team) and I said I was burning out and Heather said that if I had, the service would have disappeared! which made me feel really good. Sadly we were there to say goodbye to one of our members (also a member of our tiny pagan group whose husband always plays the flute for us) as her family is moving to Tennessee next month.
Mom and I figured we'd stay for like an hour and suddenly two and a half had passed. *g*
On Saturday mom and I headed out to the Pendleton's holiday market (they started out as asparagus producers but have spread out into lots of other things both food and craftwise). Several other venders from the Farmer's Market including the lady who bakes the to die for cinnamon rolls *mourns* were there and I got some gifties.
Then we went downtown to a couple open houses before heading to North Lawrence and its antique corner. I got this gorgeous set of vintage ruby red brooch and earrings for Christmas and then decided that the way to go for a new dining set is refurbished antiques and quickly before the sellers realize how much they are underpricing themselves! Gorgeous furniture, some painted and decorated (a la Jenny on Storage Wars Texas but for about a third of what she charges), in great shape. I found a black buffet table/chest for around $150! And several sets of tables and chairs for $200-300. I think I'll get a six person table and mix and match chairs. If the buffet is there in January I'm getting it for sure. The chest I have is falling apart.
It was fun. I think if the corner adds some artisan food/craft shops it could really revitalize North Lawrence which people have been trying to do for years.
Then we picked up the 11 pound $45 turkey. *rolls eyes* I really can't tell that it tastes any better to have a fresh, free range, hormone free bird, but I don't have to pay for it, so whatever.
Sadly it was a bad day for football. Not only did KU suck badly in a game I thought we could win, KSU lost as well and lost their chance at the BCS championship. *sigh*
I did get 7000 words written on the poly fic which posts this Sunday. I still have about a fourth of it to write or another 7000 words or so, but it's coming along and the threesome is actually coming together. It's not a traditional menage, in that Stiles is with both Peter and Lydia but Peter and Lydia aren't together. The whole theory is that Peter turned Stiles in ep 1.12 and claimed him as his mate, but in leaving a bit of himself in Lydia's head, he caused her to see Stiles as her mate as well, even though she's human, and Stiles is drawn to her, too. Once Peter is back from the dead and physically claims Stiles, Stiles shouldn't be able to desire anyone else, but he does still want Lydia. Peter is not happy about this. Lydia's doing science stuff. Stiles is going 'fuck my life' a lot. *g* I'm getting better at Stiles' voice.
Is anyone really surprised that my favorite character is Peter? And my favorite dirty wrong bad pairing is Peter/Stiles? *g*
On Sunday we had a really nice harvest service at church on the meaning of gratitude. The choir sang "Simple Gifts" (tis a gift to be simple...) for both the service and the program and then I booked it out of there and headed downtown to Made where I bought several handmade gifties and got a free handmade car air freshener. In the plastic wrap, it wasn't very strong but I hung it up the other day and it's wonderful peppermint. I can smell it outside the car!
Watched the Chiefs suck and lose. It was "blackout" day in that the fans wore black. By the end, the few remaining booed. *sigh*
Went to tea with ladies from church and it was fun. I'm not really a tea drinker but I had some herbal peppermint to calm my stomach and about 2/3 of a blueberry scone and a 1/4 of a salmon sandwich. Lots of lovely chatting with ladies from all ages from our most precocious (and brilliant) seven year old to ladies in their 70s in gloves and hats. Blood sugar stayed in the 130s despite the white bread products and real sugar in the tea.
I had great plans to clean my kitchen on Monday but I sat on the couch and watched basketball and read fanfic. KU blew out Washington State completely. That's my Jayhawks!
Work has been busy; Tuesday afternoon (and this morning) they're video deposing in the conference room right outside my office and I can hear everything and have to be quiet. Sorry, I do have to answer the phone and deal with people who come in. Also, on breaks, everyone seems to think my office is the place to confab. Finally, late in the afternoon yesterday, two attorneys actually asked if I minded and I kindly directed them down the hall to the empty office for privacy. This is not a general waiting room!
Tuesday night went to the parents' where we had butter fish which may be the best fish I have ever eaten. Mom marinated it in ginger and soy sauce and baked it. My blood sugar was 98! First time ever it's been normal! (Don't get too excited, it was 147 this morning). I'm going to need to start carrying around a chocolate bar or something in case it drops too low now that it's actually heading to normal. I'm also wondering if I'm going to need both diabetes meds for the three months supply I have. I don't want to start crashing!
(Sorry, I will try to keep the diabetes blather to a minimum but this is kind of important to me for, y'know, not dying *g*.)
KU won again, not blowing out St. Louis, but a good win. We had the lead most of the game and they only once got under ten after we took the lead. Also, North Carolina lost. This always makes me happy.
I'm still way, way behind on tv, but I did finish the damn Buffy/Lucifer fic. I have to edit it today and get it up on my site and AO3 tonight. I've been lucky that the IWRY mod ignored my "oh, please don't post my fic until after November 4 because I'll have the prequel done by then" and with only ten days in the month still hasn't posted the sequel, but that luck is getting pushed. I'm not really happy with Buffy's all over the place emotions or her rationalization for staying with Lucifer. Technically he did rape her, giving her no option, but this is Lucifer, he seduced the Hell *hee* out of her, and, after forty years in Hell, the demon in her isn't completely buried--she's accepted it, she's accepted Hell even while still trying to escape, she's changed and her morals have skewed a bit. I dunno, hopefully I can make it better in editing. It's also the first story in the series with graphic sex. Trust me to write a Buffy/Angelus series where the only graphic sex is Buffy/Other. *snort*
While I'll probably fill in some stories in that forty years and there are a couple darker fics to be posted after (as Buffy becomes more and more demonic) that were written last year, I have the big finale in my head. I had thought about doing it for this year's marathon, but Lucifer got pissy about me not writing him boinking Buffy.
I've also been dithering over TEAOW&S. I need to start writing more and reading less. When I started writing fanfic (nearly 15! years ago--and I'm thinking a Lily story for that anniversary in January, my first ever fic) I wrote prolifically, which is why there are 75+ stories in TEAOW&S. I posted nearly every day at times. Now I look back at my production over the year and it's like six or seven fics! Yes, some of them are long, but this is sad. I do plan to write a lot in December for various fests and for fandom stocking and Yuletide. Which reminds me, I never posted any of the stories I wrote last year anywhere for anyone to read. *sigh*
Something has been irritating my right eye since Monday morning and now it's sore. Great.
Tonight I need to brine the turkey, get the stuffing parts all prepared, and clean the house. Luckily I've kept it relatively clean--just need to tidy, dust and sweep the main areas and clean the kitchen. I need to clean the second oven, too. I totally forgot to do that over the weekend and cleaned one on Monday but then I didn't get home until 11:00 last night and didn't want to start the second oven since it takes 3 1/2 hours and I'm paranoid about sleeping with anything running like that. I need to clean the racks, too. I probably should iron the table linens...or blow that off because I hate ironing...
I want to be able to watch most of the Macy's Parade without having to cook stuff, so I'll probably prep the turkey by 8:00 even thought it doesn't need to go in the oven till around 10:00. I found the apple cider turkey recipe I made a couple years ago which has the best gravy--I'm not a fan of dark gravy usually but this is wonderful, and the green bean bake recipe was the bookmark for the stuffing recipe. Dad asked if I had the stuffing recipe (from the white Silver Palate book). I think he asks this every year. I've had the book for twenty years, dad! (To be fair, it is THE best stuffing with corn bread, french bread, brown bread, apples, pecans and sausage with sage). I call it stuffing but it's really dressing as we don't stuff the bird. Mom's bringing pies and I have the lactose free milk to make the mashed potatoes with. Butter doesn't bother her. She eats William Sonoma's cranberry relish over the Waldorf salad so I don't have to worry about the lactose in the sour cream.
I'm going to eat moderately but I am going to eat some of everything (except the cranberry relish and the pumpkin pie and the roll because why waste calories on a roll when I can have stuffing?) and just not worry about the blood sugar. I'll be exercising a lot on Friday as mom and I are walking the entire six blocks of downtown shopping (both ways). Usually she poohs out before we get to the 600 and 1100 blocks but she's in so much better shape and her hip, which was out on Saturday, should be okay as she's going to the chiropractor today.
Naturally it's going to be 74 degrees today and tomorrow and 47 on Friday.
Oh, I fit in my jean jacket! Well, it won't button over my stomach, but it fits! Yay! I've noticed that my tummy is a bit flatter (which is why my undies don't pinch!) My coat is actually a bit big but I haven't worn it with a sweater yet. Hopefully my old coat from when I was thirty pounds thinner will fit by January as it has a hood and is more a parka then a pretty wool short coat, in case we actually have a snowy winter.
I'm not counting on it. I'd actually take rain over snow the entire winter. I'm afraid it's the new Dust Bowl around here.
Oh, my webmail finally migrated to the new format which doesn't suck quite as badly. When you delete a message it still doesn't open the next one but you can now move through messages without having to exit one and open another one. I don't see any other great benefits and I keep forgetting to type in the new website to start with. Too used to typing sunflower.com It only took them two months and two emails to me saying they would be doing it overnight (the last on election night and then it took over ten days).
Well, this is long and I do actually have work--all of Friday's normal stuff--and that fic to edit.
If I'm not around tomorrow, have a great Thanksgiving all you Americans and a great Thursday everyone else!
Quick recap of busy weekend:
Friday night was church GNO. I missed the last one due to surgery. We met at a member's house and she had cold cuts and stuff. I had half a whole wheat bun with a tiny bit of mayo, one piece of turkey and one piece of cheese, some carrot sticks, a handful of grapes and about ten almonds. I wasn't hungry for all the cookies and candy. Had some really nice chats. We were talking about the early days of the Spiritual Celebration (for a couple years I pretty much ran the service all by myself; thank god our minister came at just the right time and started the worship team) and I said I was burning out and Heather said that if I had, the service would have disappeared! which made me feel really good. Sadly we were there to say goodbye to one of our members (also a member of our tiny pagan group whose husband always plays the flute for us) as her family is moving to Tennessee next month.
Mom and I figured we'd stay for like an hour and suddenly two and a half had passed. *g*
On Saturday mom and I headed out to the Pendleton's holiday market (they started out as asparagus producers but have spread out into lots of other things both food and craftwise). Several other venders from the Farmer's Market including the lady who bakes the to die for cinnamon rolls *mourns* were there and I got some gifties.
Then we went downtown to a couple open houses before heading to North Lawrence and its antique corner. I got this gorgeous set of vintage ruby red brooch and earrings for Christmas and then decided that the way to go for a new dining set is refurbished antiques and quickly before the sellers realize how much they are underpricing themselves! Gorgeous furniture, some painted and decorated (a la Jenny on Storage Wars Texas but for about a third of what she charges), in great shape. I found a black buffet table/chest for around $150! And several sets of tables and chairs for $200-300. I think I'll get a six person table and mix and match chairs. If the buffet is there in January I'm getting it for sure. The chest I have is falling apart.
It was fun. I think if the corner adds some artisan food/craft shops it could really revitalize North Lawrence which people have been trying to do for years.
Then we picked up the 11 pound $45 turkey. *rolls eyes* I really can't tell that it tastes any better to have a fresh, free range, hormone free bird, but I don't have to pay for it, so whatever.
Sadly it was a bad day for football. Not only did KU suck badly in a game I thought we could win, KSU lost as well and lost their chance at the BCS championship. *sigh*
I did get 7000 words written on the poly fic which posts this Sunday. I still have about a fourth of it to write or another 7000 words or so, but it's coming along and the threesome is actually coming together. It's not a traditional menage, in that Stiles is with both Peter and Lydia but Peter and Lydia aren't together. The whole theory is that Peter turned Stiles in ep 1.12 and claimed him as his mate, but in leaving a bit of himself in Lydia's head, he caused her to see Stiles as her mate as well, even though she's human, and Stiles is drawn to her, too. Once Peter is back from the dead and physically claims Stiles, Stiles shouldn't be able to desire anyone else, but he does still want Lydia. Peter is not happy about this. Lydia's doing science stuff. Stiles is going 'fuck my life' a lot. *g* I'm getting better at Stiles' voice.
Is anyone really surprised that my favorite character is Peter? And my favorite dirty wrong bad pairing is Peter/Stiles? *g*
On Sunday we had a really nice harvest service at church on the meaning of gratitude. The choir sang "Simple Gifts" (tis a gift to be simple...) for both the service and the program and then I booked it out of there and headed downtown to Made where I bought several handmade gifties and got a free handmade car air freshener. In the plastic wrap, it wasn't very strong but I hung it up the other day and it's wonderful peppermint. I can smell it outside the car!
Watched the Chiefs suck and lose. It was "blackout" day in that the fans wore black. By the end, the few remaining booed. *sigh*
Went to tea with ladies from church and it was fun. I'm not really a tea drinker but I had some herbal peppermint to calm my stomach and about 2/3 of a blueberry scone and a 1/4 of a salmon sandwich. Lots of lovely chatting with ladies from all ages from our most precocious (and brilliant) seven year old to ladies in their 70s in gloves and hats. Blood sugar stayed in the 130s despite the white bread products and real sugar in the tea.
I had great plans to clean my kitchen on Monday but I sat on the couch and watched basketball and read fanfic. KU blew out Washington State completely. That's my Jayhawks!
Work has been busy; Tuesday afternoon (and this morning) they're video deposing in the conference room right outside my office and I can hear everything and have to be quiet. Sorry, I do have to answer the phone and deal with people who come in. Also, on breaks, everyone seems to think my office is the place to confab. Finally, late in the afternoon yesterday, two attorneys actually asked if I minded and I kindly directed them down the hall to the empty office for privacy. This is not a general waiting room!
Tuesday night went to the parents' where we had butter fish which may be the best fish I have ever eaten. Mom marinated it in ginger and soy sauce and baked it. My blood sugar was 98! First time ever it's been normal! (Don't get too excited, it was 147 this morning). I'm going to need to start carrying around a chocolate bar or something in case it drops too low now that it's actually heading to normal. I'm also wondering if I'm going to need both diabetes meds for the three months supply I have. I don't want to start crashing!
(Sorry, I will try to keep the diabetes blather to a minimum but this is kind of important to me for, y'know, not dying *g*.)
KU won again, not blowing out St. Louis, but a good win. We had the lead most of the game and they only once got under ten after we took the lead. Also, North Carolina lost. This always makes me happy.
I'm still way, way behind on tv, but I did finish the damn Buffy/Lucifer fic. I have to edit it today and get it up on my site and AO3 tonight. I've been lucky that the IWRY mod ignored my "oh, please don't post my fic until after November 4 because I'll have the prequel done by then" and with only ten days in the month still hasn't posted the sequel, but that luck is getting pushed. I'm not really happy with Buffy's all over the place emotions or her rationalization for staying with Lucifer. Technically he did rape her, giving her no option, but this is Lucifer, he seduced the Hell *hee* out of her, and, after forty years in Hell, the demon in her isn't completely buried--she's accepted it, she's accepted Hell even while still trying to escape, she's changed and her morals have skewed a bit. I dunno, hopefully I can make it better in editing. It's also the first story in the series with graphic sex. Trust me to write a Buffy/Angelus series where the only graphic sex is Buffy/Other. *snort*
While I'll probably fill in some stories in that forty years and there are a couple darker fics to be posted after (as Buffy becomes more and more demonic) that were written last year, I have the big finale in my head. I had thought about doing it for this year's marathon, but Lucifer got pissy about me not writing him boinking Buffy.
I've also been dithering over TEAOW&S. I need to start writing more and reading less. When I started writing fanfic (nearly 15! years ago--and I'm thinking a Lily story for that anniversary in January, my first ever fic) I wrote prolifically, which is why there are 75+ stories in TEAOW&S. I posted nearly every day at times. Now I look back at my production over the year and it's like six or seven fics! Yes, some of them are long, but this is sad. I do plan to write a lot in December for various fests and for fandom stocking and Yuletide. Which reminds me, I never posted any of the stories I wrote last year anywhere for anyone to read. *sigh*
Something has been irritating my right eye since Monday morning and now it's sore. Great.
Tonight I need to brine the turkey, get the stuffing parts all prepared, and clean the house. Luckily I've kept it relatively clean--just need to tidy, dust and sweep the main areas and clean the kitchen. I need to clean the second oven, too. I totally forgot to do that over the weekend and cleaned one on Monday but then I didn't get home until 11:00 last night and didn't want to start the second oven since it takes 3 1/2 hours and I'm paranoid about sleeping with anything running like that. I need to clean the racks, too. I probably should iron the table linens...or blow that off because I hate ironing...
I want to be able to watch most of the Macy's Parade without having to cook stuff, so I'll probably prep the turkey by 8:00 even thought it doesn't need to go in the oven till around 10:00. I found the apple cider turkey recipe I made a couple years ago which has the best gravy--I'm not a fan of dark gravy usually but this is wonderful, and the green bean bake recipe was the bookmark for the stuffing recipe. Dad asked if I had the stuffing recipe (from the white Silver Palate book). I think he asks this every year. I've had the book for twenty years, dad! (To be fair, it is THE best stuffing with corn bread, french bread, brown bread, apples, pecans and sausage with sage). I call it stuffing but it's really dressing as we don't stuff the bird. Mom's bringing pies and I have the lactose free milk to make the mashed potatoes with. Butter doesn't bother her. She eats William Sonoma's cranberry relish over the Waldorf salad so I don't have to worry about the lactose in the sour cream.
I'm going to eat moderately but I am going to eat some of everything (except the cranberry relish and the pumpkin pie and the roll because why waste calories on a roll when I can have stuffing?) and just not worry about the blood sugar. I'll be exercising a lot on Friday as mom and I are walking the entire six blocks of downtown shopping (both ways). Usually she poohs out before we get to the 600 and 1100 blocks but she's in so much better shape and her hip, which was out on Saturday, should be okay as she's going to the chiropractor today.
Naturally it's going to be 74 degrees today and tomorrow and 47 on Friday.
Oh, I fit in my jean jacket! Well, it won't button over my stomach, but it fits! Yay! I've noticed that my tummy is a bit flatter (which is why my undies don't pinch!) My coat is actually a bit big but I haven't worn it with a sweater yet. Hopefully my old coat from when I was thirty pounds thinner will fit by January as it has a hood and is more a parka then a pretty wool short coat, in case we actually have a snowy winter.
I'm not counting on it. I'd actually take rain over snow the entire winter. I'm afraid it's the new Dust Bowl around here.
Oh, my webmail finally migrated to the new format which doesn't suck quite as badly. When you delete a message it still doesn't open the next one but you can now move through messages without having to exit one and open another one. I don't see any other great benefits and I keep forgetting to type in the new website to start with. Too used to typing sunflower.com It only took them two months and two emails to me saying they would be doing it overnight (the last on election night and then it took over ten days).
Well, this is long and I do actually have work--all of Friday's normal stuff--and that fic to edit.
If I'm not around tomorrow, have a great Thanksgiving all you Americans and a great Thursday everyone else!