Really.

Dear. Lord. I. Am. Tired.

I had an awesome weekend though!  Friday I went to see Avatar with my friend Lisa, which I posted a movie review on.  It was super fun.

Saturday around noon, my brother rolled in and we proceeded to spend most of the day shopping.  We always go shopping when he comes.  It's like, what we do.  It's fun and I spend far more than I really should, but I know I do that when he comes, so I was ready - so I guess I really didn't spend as much as I thought I would.  We shopped, went to PF Cheng's for dinner and played Wii.  Who would have guessed playing Wii was so much fun?  Amanda joined us after church and the three of us played Mario for maybe an hour before he had to go. Sad!  Amanda left after maybe another half hour or hour of playing; time sure does get away from you while playing that thing!

I stayed up a while longer and decided I'd take The Lightning Thief and read a few chapters in bed; I wound up staying up until 4am and pried the book out of my hands and forced myself to sleep!  Sunday I meant to get up and get stuff done quicker, but I was tired! I think I managed to get a pretty good chunk of stuff done, even read for maybe an hour before Amanda came over again - and we proceeded to play more Wii! It's really addicting.  After Chipoltle we watched the movie, Lars and the Real Girl. Don't watch it. I had a lot of people tell me how great and wonderful a movie it was. Total lies! It was awkward and weird and I didn't laugh at all; Amanda and I were watching the clock, so glad it was only an hour and a half long movie.

Amanda had to leave earlyish which left me on the couch, reading my book - until 11:59 when I turned the last page. I read the whole thing in 24 hours. Whoopse!  I'm suffering for it today; it's lunch and I'm looking around wondering what I can eat that will give me lots of energy to get through not only the rest of the work day, but we have the Book Club meeting tonight! For some reason it's starting at 5, but there's no way I can get to it by then, so I'll just be late, I guess.  I doubt my opinions of the book will be welcomed, but oh well. I also printed out a list of some of the best 2009 books for book clubs; I don't think they'll pick any of them, but they do sound like interesting, thought provoking books!

I haven't read any of my blogs recently that I'm subscribed to.  I've been so busy with end of year things at work that I just have so much to do and then when I'm done with work I've either hung out with people at my place or had some function I need to go to that has left me with little time for things like blogging, knitting or reading - which is sad! I mean, I absolutely love all the time I've been spending with my friends, I really missed them during NaNoWriMo, but a night at home spent in tidying up the place and getting to bed early would be phenomenal!

There have been a few nights that I didn't get to bed because there was a Wii party.  Dear LORD if I had ever realized that the way to get guys was to be super into video games, I would have been doing this a long time ago!  (Okay, not really, but the idea IS funny!)  Video games are guy magnets.  What's even more fun is that my girl friends are getting into coming over and playing it too, so I'm even more excited about it since it provides a fun, interactive game me and my friends can do.  I got a special on the DDR 3 game and the extra dance pad, so we'll hook those up tomorrow hopefully and have a blast!  Yes, people are already slotted to come over tomorrow, LoL.

The other thing this week was the tv show Sing Off, for which we got together to watch and be excited over.  That was fun!  Unfortunately the finale is Monday, which is the Book Club Christmas Party.  :( 

I have bought a ton of books recently; my to-read shelf is overflowing!!!  I need to read some of these, and quick.  First up will be The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan which will be a movie soon and my brother wants to read, so I need to be able to give it to him in two weeks time.  It doesn't look like it'll be a hard read, so I imagine I'll be done with it by the end of this next week. 

Here's the inventory of my to-read shelf simply because I want to share what I'll be reading: Two books by Christopher Moore, Fluke and Practical Demon Keeping.  Fluke I've had for ages but haven't made it through the first chapter.  I bought Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan because of an article on the Opera book club site; I can't recall the exact reason, but it was impacting enough I stared it in my little notebook.  I have Stephen King's On Writing, which is slated for me to read once 2010 rolls over to mark completing some of my 2010 goals.  I'm slowly gathering the Robin McKinley books to read during 2010 and so far I have The Outlaws of Sherwood, Spindle's End, The Blue Sword, and The Hero and the Crown.  There are several of hers I still need to get, but I'm taking what I can get at Half Priced Bookstores until I have to buy them new.  I also have The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson for some odd reason; again I read something, somewhere that said this was a good book to read - and I bought it.  Foundation by Mercedes Lackey, an installment of the Heralds of Valdemar world has been taunting me for about two months so far as well as Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis.  I have two graphic novels by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta and Watchmen; the former I really want to read, the latter will probably be skimmed over and sold off relatively quickly.  I found the first book in a Young Adult series by Garth Nix, the author of the Abhorsen Trilogy; the series is called The Keys to the Kingdom and the book is Mister Monday.  And that's it for now.  Gail Carson Levine's book Writing Magic has been ordered and I have yet to see anything on it's shipping; starting to get antsy on that one.  I'm going to borrow The Lovely Bones from Amanda to read as well... I need to get to reading!

I have started writing a small vampire piece; probably a short story young adult piece by how it's looking.  still struggling with how the main plot should go, but there are some great elements to it I'll enjoy writing yet mock myself for somehow falling into part of the current fad of vampires.  I should make them angels; angels are the next hot thing, duh!

And now, I will go read some of The Lightning Thief and sleep.

Really I have been doing stuff.  I've just not had time or the patience or the state of mind to compose much of a blog.  So far I haven't written a stinking thing other than co-writing.  People come over and play Wii with me.  And people come over to hang out.  And...I don't know.  I'm exhausted, and going to bed; will leave you with the few links I had compiled over the last many days. 

I wanna learn how to knit this!!!!! I need knitting help, I really do; I'm hoping that the crafty group we're putting together to start meeting in January will help me some.... I dearly hope so....

Ug - so I will finish my trilogy despite hell, high water or whatever!  However, I know the chance of it ever doing anything other than sitting lovingly on my shelf is a chance thing; this article underlines it and I can understand why. Doesn't mean I won't finish The Barking Dog!!!!

I'm having one of those days where I just want to sit around and read and do nothing else; I'm even happily plugging away at the Book Club book - which is a Christmas book!!!!!!  I'll save my other comments for the book review.

I am slightly frustrated with myself;  I have yet to get Christmas cards out - I'm going to try for tomorrow since I also get paid tomorrow, which means I need to write and finish and print my letter today so I can write out all the addresses, most of which are still locked away in my phone as text messages.  I meant to be so much more on top of things this year! I rocked it last year.  Today will be putting the finishing touches on a terribly rambling mess of a letter I began yesterday and hopefully printing it out on the fancy holiday paper I bought at Target.

So again I could not hook up the Wii last night; I have a friend who is coming over tonight to help me with it and in preparation I want to go buy additional controllers and look at some games - though for now I'll probably just rent games.  I've invited some others, but I have no idea if anyone's actually going to show or not - I at least have some meat thawing though today is really one of those I - don't - want - to - cook days. 

I had a long conversation with my dad last night; he's such a funny bird.  He gets angry about everything and anything. Right now he's mad at my mother, and it was that reason he said NOTHING while we were all out at dinner because speaking during a conversation with her in the same restaurant - well that's just not acceptable! I think I've figured out why he's mad at her, but I already know she won't do anything about it and he's too stubborn to understand things if they aren't the way he wants them to be. Ug. I love my father. I love my mother. But I don't want to be like them.  Have you ever been that way?  Love someone, but want to be nothing like them?  My parents are both very autonomous people and it's almost like they clash more than they get along and it's so silly.  I couldn't live that way.  It's troubling to know about it, and feel like they both just need to sit down, talk about it and be okay - but know it'll never happen.  They'll just continue to run this circle and complain about eachother and so forth.

So I'm less excited about this next statement; I joined the Oprah Book Club today. (Now is it bad that I misspell Oprah regularly, or that spell check knows her name well enough to correct me?)  If you know me very well, you'll know I'm not a fan of hers, I think she holds far too much power and makes statements and decisions without many facts and affects far more people than she has a right to.  That said, she also does some very good things.  Now my main reasons for joining this book club are selfish and I'll let those out of the bag later on my Goals for 2010 blog - but if you want to find me over there, my screen name is CidWrites, because you HAD to have a sn with 6 characters.  I'll only use that blog to post my personal thoughts and reviews of the books, so don't expect much from that one.  I very well might regret even considering this....

It's Thursday, which means today is one of my designated writing days, yet I haven't written anything. I'm frustrated but still feeling slightly drained from November. I have ideas and goals that I plan on following up on, but I think it will be this weekend before I really write much of anything except rp posts - which are going really well.  I missed writing with my friends!

Books, talking about books - I just order Gail Carson Levine's Writing Magic book. She's the author of Ella Enchanted - of which I own the DVD, and have read the book.  Again, this is a purchase I'll explain with the Goals for 2010 blog that's stewing in my drafts, getting edits and additions and subtractions. 

I'm rather surprised at the lack of interesting bloggings this week; last week there was just so much stuff being blogged about that this week is a bit stark.  Not much worth sharing other than a few interesting articles I'm not going to bother to link.  I think that's it for now; I've had an aweful headache that after taking some medicine and eating lunch is going away so I'm sorry if the blog is a bit dull and boring today.

Really. It's far too cold; it's in the low 20's. This morning when I got in my car, I backed out and slid.  Apparently the water main broke or something, coating the whole drive in ice and I slipped all the way out to the drive way.  I very nearly called into work for the morning because that was crazy.  I also need to go get my tired rotated and aired up and stuff.  All this cold air is giving me low pressure notifications.

And I'm spending so much time away from home.  I haven't been able to get the Wii hooked up; I need to unbolt my TV in order to hook it up, but that requires another set of hands... My friend said he would come over tomorrow and help me put it together AND a new episode of The Office is on.  I'm looking forward to that.

I'm far too busy; looking forward to a weekend - At Home.  I didn't go to church tonight because I don't feel just amazing. It's so cold!  Tomorrow night should be a home night, but I don't know how many people, if any are coming over.  Friday night I plan on having it be a movie night and lots of sleeeeeeeeeeep.  Yes, I want to be uninteresting!

Wow, okay, so my parents came and visited me last night; other than my dad currently being upset with my mother over something unknown and not speaking the entire night - it was fun! If made slightly awkward by his silent, staring off into the distance, refusal to speak, presence.  My parents also bought me a Wii!  Now, I'd only said in half jest that I was going to buy one; they're rather expensive and once I really considered it I didn't think it was the best way to spend my money; with insurance going up 50% I need to cinch it in a bit.  But they bought me a Wii!! And I'm rather convinced I need someone else to put it together; I started trying to read the help guide for putting it together and got distracted by the bad grammar and started pondering writing things like the help manual to stuff....Yeah, never made it past the first page!  Hopefully tonight before the writing critique group I can get it together and feel successful!

I ran by Half Priced Books last night and found they had three Robin McKinley books; I'm sort of rediscovering her and going fangirl over them.  I now have The Blue Sword, The Outlaws of Sherwood, and Spindle's End.  I really want to read The Hero and the Crown first - so I believe my $10 B&N gift card will be going to getting that.  However, first I need to speed read the Fannie Flagg book, A Redbird Christmas, for my book club book. Arg! And I still have V for Vendetta to read, bought Watchmen because it was $7 and the comments on Writing Excuses actually made me curious.  And then I still have Foundation from Mercedes Lackey to read as well as the first book in a trilogy from Weiss and Hickman!!  *sigh*  I will probably go through the book club book first, then a McKinley book and slide V for Vendetta in then as I really do want to read it.  I will now be collecting the full roster of Robin McKinley books, I believe - so if you are in need of a Christmas present idea - go there!

Began discussing the Last Air Bender movie with some friends; I know the release date was pushed back because of the name stealing Avatar movie coming out this weekend, as well as the official name being changed.  I don't like Shameylanwhateverhisnameis - with the exception of The Village, which I really liked.  I've also only seen one Book of the Air Bender series, but it was good.  I've heard that the creators are collaborating over the making of the movie, but some of the casting looks questionable to me. I don't know, but it came up so I'm mentioning it in passing - Ha!

Today I signed away another chunk of my paycheck to pay for insurance - I never use.  Insurance was a drop in the bucket when I first got this job; I didn't have to pay hardly anything - now I'm paying a hefty sum.  Thanks Obama, thanks a lot. I wish I could just go without insurance; say screw it and throw caution to the wind.  It's really ridiculous how I hold a decent job, I don't spend an absurd amount of money, often less than I bring in, and I can hardly afford insurance.  I'm starting to rethink my big trip next fall to Georgia, that maybe it's not a good idea and I should do a staycation instead.  I know I stress too much over money, but it's because I'm not good with it - so I over compensate for my inability by being obsessive.  Yup. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  I'm thinking about picking up something else to bring in money on the side, like crafty things; people are always asking me to make them something so if I ask them to cover cost plus a little I'd make a little.  It's an idea and every little bit helps, right?

Bah - anyways - tonight was my first go at the critique group and it wasn't so bad. I took a very silly section from a short fairy tale I'm doing; I'm pushing myself to write in First Person and not over-explain everything.  I like it and the general response was very good and very encouraging.  I still need to finish it, but I'm actually excited about it and not dreading finishing it.

Anyways, I should sleep soon.