Okay, so at the beginning of the year I was really optimistic and set myself a bunch of goals to achieve.  Now, I didn't achieve all of them, but they served to really help me light a fire under my butt and think about doing things.  So without further ado, here's the goals!

Random Goals

Eat more fresh produce - Apples are my new favorite go to snack item.  I pretty much fail at fresh vegetables.  I'm not really excited about cooking, so I stretch stuff out as long as I can make it last so I have to cook less.  But, I do think about eating vegetables and fresh stuff more than I have before.

Do something daily - I fluctuate on this A. Lot.  I've been fairly good about using my Wii Fit, and during the summer I started taking bellydance classes.  I didn't in the fall because there was just too much going on to juggle all of it, but I'll be picking it up at least once a week next weekend for a while at least.  I really hate exercising; I have to convince myself to do it every single time.

Go to a parade - Yeah, didn't happen.  There was talk of going to one, I was going to go, and then I can't remember what stopped me, but I couldn't get there.  I was bummed - and then I didn't even think of it again, so newp, this didn't happen!

Get a family photograph - Didn't happen.  I think my dad is against this.

Organize and cull closet - DONE!  I culled way over 10% of the stuff in my closet and organized it.  Now, I just need to organize everything else that's in there.....

Writing Goals


2010 NaNoWriMo - I kicked NaNoWriMo's butt in 2010!

The Barking Dog - I had several goals surrounding this project, but early this year I decided that it just wasn't worth messing with anymore and I let it go.  Maybe at another date I will return to it, but not in the immediate future.

Research for another project - I've done a lot of research....

Outline for my Graphic Novel idea - It's outlined....

Outline for Love Unexpected - Also outlined....

Write something I believe in - I've written a lot of stuff this year.....  I don't remember what I meant by this.


Complete another draft of a story - any of my ideas or something else - I've finished several first drafts.  I thought I only had a few stories in me at the start of the year, and now I'm juggling how I'll manage all my revisions and writing.

Reading Goals

Read at least two writing books - Yup!

Read all the Robin McKinley books - I've read about half of them....


Read something in a genre I'm not accustomed to reading - I have read so far out of my normal comfort zone, I don't think I have a comfort zone anymore.  There's tons of stuff out there I'll read now!

Act on more book suggestions; at least four - I'm at a point right now where I have far too many books because of book suggestions!

Crafty Goals


Learn three new knitting things - Yup, I knit.  I knit a lot of stuff.  What'cha want me to knit??

Have a successful patio garden - I tried this and it failed miserably.  I'm going to be putting my patio stuff on Craigslist.

Make Presents.  Yeah, I bought presents.  Maybe in 2011!

Money Related Goals

Pay off Express Credit Card - DONE!!

Pay off Khols Credit Card - Will happen in 2011!!!!!

Okay, so there you are.  My 2010 goals.  Now what shall I accomplish in 2011??

Okay, so I'm a *little* late with this - gimme a break!!!

Reading Goals

I know, I'm supposed to do a Girl Talk Thursday blog today, but I haven't blogged about me in over a week so I might as well.  I've been busy, I have a lot to say.  Like - how I need to really keep my camera on me.  I really should take more pictures.  I'm bummed because we had a baby shower on Saturday - and did I think to take any pictures?  Nope.  I really would have liked to.

So, my sort of goal now is to take more pictures.  More memories.  I want new pictures to hang on my walls at home and fill those gaping places.  I should get the chance this weekend; I'm going to my best friends, little sisters wedding - in Oklahoma.  It's love to go to Oklahoma, let me tell you.

And what have I been up to the last two weeks since I haven't really been blogging?  I've been catching up with my friends.  Doing things.  Watching movies mostly.  Knitting.  Ooooh!  I knitted a book cozy.  It's going to go with my first Book-Addicts.com giveaway and it's super nifty.  I need to make one for me so that I protect the books I thoughtlessly toss into my purse all the time.  I also need to take a picture and update my Ravelry and just show it off.  The next one I make will have a few changes, like a ribbed edge instead of just a k&p every other row kind of plan. 

I've been knitting a lot more.  I think it has something to do with that whole wanting to make Christmas presents thing going on in the back of my brain.  I'm working on an adorable pink and blue stripped scarf.  It rolls in on its self, so it would be a really good accessory, but not very functional.  I'm thinking I'll give it to one of my younger nieces and do scarves for the whole brood.  That's five kids.  Just so you know.  That's a lot of knitting - but I wanna do it!

The writing and revising has been going very slowly.  I'm up to the third chapter on the new WIP called My Personal God.  I've cut about 7K from Sing Softly - and that hurts.  Like OUCH!  My goal with Sing Softly is to just get the plot in place and the manuscript readable and get someone to just read through it; probably the #writersdatenight girls because they're all bugging me about it.  After that I'm thinking I'll shelf it and n-e-v-e-r work on it again. 

I wound up dancing at Stratos for the oil spill fund raiser last week.  It was random and happened at like 4pm - and silly me - I thought there would be more than just one other person and myself doing it.  I'm so silly!  Over all dance has gotten much more challenging.  Myself and three others were bumped up to the intermediate class, which is also intro to zills.  Uh, I can't even move my body in all the ways they're telling me to, and now I'm supposed to zill?  For me it's the body moving that's harder.  Zilling?  Pft - I was in marching band, yeah my right hand is a little dysfunctional; I played French Horn.  But zills and moving and playing doesn't bother me.  Yes, I do get off rhythm easily, but I've always had issues with my internal metronome not functioning properly.

Oh, and I had my first ever experience at a gaming place with a friend for her hubby's birthday.  Yeah, I so don't have a nerd/geek card.  Race?  Class?  What?  *plays with Killer Bunnies*  Yeah, I have never felt so normal in my whole life.

What else?  This weekend is the wedding and the kick off for Book-Addicts.com - so go enter my friggen contest Saturday!  Fer serials people.  I'm going to be giving away a copy of Feed.  You don't know just how awesome this book is.  It's very much a rock-your-socks-off book.

And while we're talking about books, my awesome, funny, talented, mommy-amazing friend Erinn is celebrating her blogging success with a mystery box giveaway of books! G-o E-n-t-e-r N-o-w !-!-!-!

Right.  So that's all the interesting stuff I've been doing for now. 

Okay, so things went from, totally not busy at all, to wow.my.god.too.much.to.do!

I'm currently at that state where I'm so busy I don't want to look at email, twitter or facebook because I'll remember yet again something else I'm supposed to do, have done, be doing - that I'm not.  And won't happen.  It's frustrating and makes me easily bummed.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really good stuff happening in my life - which a good chunk of it I can't/won't blog about/yet.  And that stuff takes time, accordingly, and I know this, but I like to pretend I'm Super Woman!  I can do anything!

This last weekend saw little to no writing done.  I did, however, get most of my bedroom, you know that Epic Closet Cull 2010 thing?  It's practically done, I just need to haul off the clothes I don't want.  I discovered that I'm not a big skirt person. Or I just don't own many?

As much as I'm trying to make this week productive, I feel like I'm already failing.  Last night I marathoned Tremors 2-4, which resulted in me staying up far too late with my company over and now facing today practically main-lining Dr Pepper to stay awake.  Not that great, right?  I'm hoping to go home and take a quick nap after work and then get up and proceed to be super amazing.  I want to do things like, dishes, tidying up a bit, and writing.

As for the rest of the week, it's something like this:

• Wednesday - Strattos for Greek Night
• Thursday - Writers Date Night
• Friday - .....I don't think I'm doing anything......
• Saturday - possibly the RA meeting, but we're fer serials going to see Beauty and the Beast
• Sunday - Crafty Day

Well, at least I can't say I'm bored!

Okay, so ~ I am alive. I am getting better.  There have been no more instances involving the cops and my mother.  That is a good thing.

I know I recapped the DFW Writer's Convention via my writing blog, but I thought I'd talk about the non-professional aspects over here too, since I haven't posted and well, I feel like it.  I meant to get all ready on Friday but wound up piddling around with Linda, shopping and getting lunch and stuff until mid-afternoon when there was a whole trip back and forth to Ross to return a laptop bag and dig around for another.  See, I found this perfect blue and black laptop purse, but it's made for a 15"ish laptop.  Lappy is a 17is" laptop.  Two inches.  Two friggen inches kept me from having the coolest laptop bag.  I'm upset.  I also had to just accept that most stuff is made for 15" laptops apparently!  Insert a very unhappy Cidly  :(  I did get two really nice shell-shirts to wear under sweaters for work and stuff, so that was a win!

Saturday Linda came to my place and we took Jeepie to the convention where we met up with Suzan and Criss - yea!!!  Haven't seen Criss recently since she got prego on us.  I miss her face!  I was really surprised by the lack of technology.  I assumed more of the people there would have laptops and all, but apparently our group was in the minority.  In most of the classes we were the only people clustering around outlets and taking notes on laptops.  And I'm the one in our group that brings a power-strip.  NaNoWrimo taught me well.

There was much fun to be had at my expense because I went to the romance/sex writing workshops.  This included twittering about me being in these with the con's hash-tag.  I also saw people sitting in front of me pulling up my twitter profile as SOMEONE twittered yet another silly thing at me.  Oh well.  Good thing I like to laugh at myself, right?

My amazing friend Linda got a partial request from an agent, so uber congrats and well wishes her way.  (I have yet to hear back on the short story I sent in, but I shouldn't hear back until end of next month)

Saturday night was the cocktail party in which I played dress-up with Suzan and *gasp* MADE HER WEAR A DRESS!  This included a really funny Marylin Monroe moment while Suzan took a smoke break.  We also met a really cool recent transplant to Texas who will be joining our online critiquing.  Super jazzed about this.

Sunday.... Linda and I - without talking about it - both automatically assumed that the conference would also be starting at 8am.  She showed up at my place same time as the day before - without us deciding that's what we were doing, we both just assumed the same thing!  And we arrived at the convention center... and realized our mistake!  LoL!!  I had about an hour long conversation with an author who is trying to understand twitter and so we sat on some benches and I pulled up my TweetDeck and we discussed twittering, retweeting, hash-tags, and the benefits and uses of twitter.  We also got the guy leading the twitter workshop to come over and join us and then there were four of us talking about twitter.  It was really fun.

During a session with one author, the author stopped speaking for a few moments and then asked the full room if anyone had any Claritin - allergies are really bad this year.  Well, when I'm sick and I need to be in public sans-medicine-head, I take Claritin.  Yes, it's expensive but it leaves me clear headed and functioning.  I pop'd up with the medicine and this author said she'd read my first ten pages of a manuscript and critique it.  I needed to have gotten it out last night in all honesty but I got blocked with web hosting issues on godaddy.com

So I'm excited about that!

I also hate godaddy.com  If anyone is better with internetz than I, I would love helps.  Otherwise I'm going to corner Suzan and beg her to help me, though it might not take begging, it could just take some Dr Pepper....

There were also some really nifty writerly threads available.  Sometime this week two shirts I bought will be here and I'm sure there will be pictures. I can't figure out if they have a website so I'll just have to tell you that both shirts are funny and one is semi-sexually funny, but writerly, both are girly.... yeah.

Ho-hum...  I'm rather certain I don't like staying at home.  I don't think I ever realized how little time I spend in my apartment some times until I had someone living with me.  I'm sorry world, I make a terrible roommate.

The Epic Closet Cull is .... still underway in the way that I mean there's a huge freaking pile of STUFF at the foot of my bed.

My apartment is a wreck.  Tonight will officially be Cid-cleans-stuff night; bathroom, bedroom, chin cage, dishes, trash - you're all going down!!!!!!

And my garden is officially beyond resuscitation and is dead.  Dead.  Dead.  Dead.  I'm sad.  I also don't know if I have the willpower to start over again.

I think this covers it.... yes, it should, if not, well, I'll say it next time!

Okay, so this is mostly just pictures to show you the different grouping of clothing going on here.  And yes, this is mostly just for my amusement.

There's a lot going on in this picture.  Starting on the far right, and furthest from the camera are work jackets.  Below that are "nice" capris.  Next to that are work pants.  The huge pile of shirts are all button up shirts.  Next to that are suit-sets.  Above that are skirts.
Okay, from left to right.  Dresses on both sides of the door.  Below that are vests.  Along the dresser are sweaters/cardigans.  And you can just barely see my small collection of shrugs.  And yes, that is a pile of jeans.
Left to right.  Jeans.  Capris.  Khakis.  And jean shorts.
My band t-shirts, which will not be included in the total number of things involved in the cull.  These are irreplaceable and were a major part of my college life.  I'm thinking about making a quilt out of some of these.
Things with long sleeves!
These are my memorabilia shirts.  Most of them are either Maverics or Stars, considering how long I worked for them.  Included are my roller derby shirts and a Rangers shirt.
The left half are graphic t's, and tshirts and stuff.  The right half are shirts I can wear to work, most of them need a cardigan or sweater over them.  I probably won't get rid of much from this section, to be honest.
This would be my collection of jackets and hoodies.  I can get rid of several of these and not be too upset, I think.

And that's it so far.  At a preliminary count I'm up to 336 articles of clothing in my closet.  This does not include what's in the wash or in the dresser - yet. 

Okay, so I have a really big closet.  I also have a lot of clothes.  Said large closet is full of enough stuff I have quite literally lost count of exactly what it is I own.  I decided back in December when I set goals for this year that I wanted to cull the contents of my closet/dresser by 10% and that I would make use of a holiday weekend to complete this project.

April 1st - today - is the launching of said Epic Closet Cull.

I have a spread sheet that I have color coded and printed out to help me tally up how many articles of different types of clothing I have.  Yes, I really have!  What?  You think I'm joking?  Pft - here's proof!!

Seriously.  My ideal time-line will be:

• Thursday Night: Organize closet into groupings of clothes.  If possible, start on Dresser.
• Friday: Tackle the Dresser!  Start on the closet, hopefully get half done.
• Saturday afternoon: Get the second half of the closet done.
• Sunday: Say goodbye to 10% of my clothes, maybe more.

I'll probably be twittering a lot of pictures asking opinions on keeping or tossing stuff and posting lots of pictures.  I also plan on finding stuff I've long since forgotten about!

Wish me luck tonight.

((For some reason this blog is not showing up right for me. Hopefully it's just a problem on my end....))
Well this weekend was a bunch of well-I-didn't-expect-that's.  But ya know what?  It was still fun.

Friday I obviously stayed home and gardened, which I will digress immediatly into more gardening ramble....now.  OMG I had no idea things would sprout so quick! I thought it would take another day or two before I saw anything that really looked like it would make a plant.  It's been a while since I grew anything from seeds.  Anyways, several of my sugar snap peas are throwing out roots and that first little tale-tell leafy thing. I have a Sunflower that's really adamant about I-want-to-grow-NOW. I think the other ones are Johnny Jump Ups that look promising as well as several of the herbs that look like they're doing really well, but it's harder to tell with them because their seeds are so tiny so the resulting plant bits are equally as tiny.  Anyways, here are some really crappy pictures!!

Saturday was supposed to be my research day.  I posted about my like of research and how the research actually went via my other blog.  It didn't go as planned, I can say that much.  I stopped by Half Priced Books on my way home (bad idea, I know!) and sort of hit a gold mine.  I found several volumes I had been thinking about buying after at the library and two others that just looked promising.  I also bought two knitting books.  Yes!  Me - bought knitting books!  One focuses on using colors and patterns which I would like to learn.  I had sort of decided to spend the rest of a failing Saturday knitting, but a friend of mine wanted to go see Alice in Wonderland.  Long story made short, I drove all the way to Arlington - like south-west corner, lol - only to find out that the movie was sold out. Awwee!  So we saw Book of Eli instead!

Book of Eli...  Okay, so you know going into this movie that it's probably some sort of post-apocalyptic, religious  movie.  After seeing Legion I was skeptical about this one, but I had heard a few good things so I still wanted to see it - and Denzel Washington does a lot of good movies so I decided to be hopeful.  The setting was sort of Resident Evil meets I Am Legend.  It was sort of believable from what you are led to understand.  The characters were ... interesting.  You really only get inside four characters through the movie, Eli, the girl I sort of intentionally ignored, the bad guy, and the girls mom.  Can you tell I don't pay attention to names well?  Anyways, they were all pretty much okay.  The plot is that Eli is taking what is the only copy of the Bible left on earth,  west, where God told him it will be safe.  Okay, I can believe that; a hard sell to non-Christian or religious audiences but I can get that.  The really hard bit for me to accept came at the end where they do the big reveal.  I've decided to not say what it is...  I don't really think the big reveal is all that believable because he was too aware of things through the movie for that thing to be true -- though if you ignored the plausibility of it, it was a dang good kick to the evil guy.  I liked the movie.  I really did, and that surprised me.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday I had decided to go to church, take the chins out to the patio and scrub their drop try.  I apparently did not set my alarm, and it was raining.  Neither of those things happened.  I did, however, get some knitting done. Here are the pictures of my headband!  Which I finished while watching Ponyo, but I'll talk about that in a moment.
So the yarn is really great and soft.  I need to get a button to sew on to really finish it, but you get the idea.  It's a headband, super fun and comfy.  Of course it's done now, when it's too warm to really wear it anymore!  Oh well, next winter, right?  I'm really proud of this!!



Right, anyways, Ponyo!  I'd posted via twitter that I had it coming in on my Netflix and a friend of mine responded that she wanted to watch it so we deiced to get together and watch it.  Now if you know anything about Miyazaki's films, they're generally a bit abstract or weird, but usually really cool!  I have heard some not-so-great opinions about it so I was ready.  However, I don't know that I was really ready for this.  Ponyo is sort of a take on The Little Mermaid, where Ponyo is the daughter of... well... I'm not quite sure what he was, but he had magic and lived under the ocean and yeah...  So Ponyo has a brush with a human and decides that she wants to be human too!  And she sort of becomes this human-chicken thing.  It was strange.  And then she becomes a human and she gets utterly obnoxious.  I think we commented more on how crazy everything was and how irresponsible the parents were and just how nutty it was and how all the characters just accepted that crazy, silly stuff was going on all around them.  I can say that Ponyo is not my favorite Miyazaki film.


We proceeded to watch bad TV that I think was Legend of the Seeker -- based off of books I hated.  Eventually - thankfully - the Oscars came on.  We were both struggling to write and outline and be productive during all of this.  The best part of the Oscar's might have been Neil Patrick Harris doing the opener.  After that I officially didn't care as much about the awards.  Now, Ben Stiller coming out as a Na'vi was awesome and I still want to know if the fishing pole bit was planned...  I will have to say, after watching the Oscars I now need to see: The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, and The Secret of Kells.  The fun part about watching award shows, all the movies you decide that you might as well watch.


Okay, so that was my long-winded weekend that was apparently all about movies....and gardening......and knitting......and not as much about writing and books as I intended.

Okay, so today is the year anniversary of all the new credit card restrictions.  Supposedly this is going to make the big, bad evil credit companies behave! Except.... things have only gotten worse.  Look, I know I don't even begin to understand all the rules and what's going on, but I do know that before all this mess I managed very well on my own.  Yes, I had a balance I was kicking myself about, but I was paying it off and the interest rate wasn't awful.  I'm not sure what it is now, it's something I need to do a little detective work and figure out, but things are getting stupid.  I paid off a credit card two weeks ago - or was it a week ago? Whatever! I paid it off, I'm so excited that I did! In another six months I'll have paid off another one and then it's time to tackle the black holes in my life; my two albatross birds.  However, credit rates and rules are going crazy.  I understand that in the long term this is supposed to be helpful, but right now it sucks and it's frustrating and I'd like nothing more than for it to all have never happened.

Next on the list.  Health care.  Excuse me Mr President, but we have a war going on.  Yes, I'm sure health care is very important, but in this economy, with a war going on, I think there are other things to worry about other than gouging me of every penny I have.  I'm literally dreading when we have to change insurance; seriously dreading it.  How much is it going to go up?  Will I be able to afford it?  What else is going to be up'd in price?

We're experiencing a terrible winter this year.  Tomorrow it's going to snow again and if we get the projected two inches of snow we'll have had the snowiest winter ever in Texas.  This means it's been cold here.  The winter is usually when I can get by with tiny heating bills and save up some extra money.  Not this year.  I'm paying as much, if not more than I did to cool my apartment.

I know I'm complaining, but all of these things are out of my control.  I can't exactly get the credit card companies attention, and if I could they wouldn't care.  The president doesn't care about little me, he's thinking about the country and the long-term plans.  And the weather sure as heck doesn't care!

Today is Monday, can't you tell?  I had a mostly sleepless weekend because of dreams and just not being able to stay asleep. I even went to bed early last night and I'm more exhausted today than I have been in a while.

Friday was loads of fun because I spent it with Amanda and we ate dinner with her family, saw Valentine's Day and got gellato at Piccomolo.  The down side was that a toddler ruined most of the movie and an older gentleman talked at us for almost an hour at Piccomolo.

I had a weird, terrible, horrible dream Friday night/Saturday morning that Amanda and I were kidnapped.  It was so bad that I text'd Amanda just to make sure she was okay....

Saturday was the writer's meeting - and we had a blast!  Might not be getting as much writing as I'd like to done at these, but they are so much fun!  I also found The God Engine, which I blogged about but have yet to read.

Sunday I went to church at my old professor's church, loved it, thinking I'll go back again.  After that I went to my parent's place and watched the Olympics with my dad and wrote. 

Tonight I hope to do some outlining work on some other projects and write a bit.  The end of Suspicion is so close! I can see it looming in the distance! ...and then I start Premonition.

Mostly, today's just a Monday and a blah one at that and I'm tired and whaaaaaaa~~~

Can I just say that seeing mounds of snow in Texas is still really weird?

Yes, I've been quiet the last few days; I don't know that I've had anything really to say about the last two days.  Well, I could have said something - I can stretch nothing out over a very long distance if I feel inclined to do it.  I'm gifted that way I guess.  (Yes, I will pretend my long-windedness is a gift, thank you very much!)

See, Monday was work-work-work-real-hard aaaannnnndddd go to La Madeline and write-write-write-omg-I-don't-feel-like-writing! And right when my battery was about to die I finally found the pace and figured out how to wrap up this problematic area.  Good job me.  Wait till you have to leave to figure something out!  Tuesday I had meetings.  Work meetings.  I got a new work project which I feel very confident about and can crank out without too much worry - which is nice.  I have this tendency to expect myself to do everything perfect the first time - which is impossible and unreasonable and silly.

I also listened in on Digital Book World's webinar while I was working on said project.  I'm in the office for a long time by myself, it's nice to hear voices sometimes. It was all about designing for the Kindle and ePub formats; fascinating even if I didn't understand half of it.  I discovered they're hosting something called The Round Table, which seems to be a weekly planned discussion of mostly the book industry.  I think I might try it out, see what it's like if only because it'll be interesting and there will be semi-live people.  I really don't mind being in the office alone, I'm really quite capable of being happy left alone, but occasionally it does get old.

I am disappointed in myself; I haven't done much knitting and I just realized this morning I'm really not doing well on the whole working-out thing.  It's frustrating but I'm going to try to remedy both issues.

Also, is it acceptable for me to not understand why non-Catholics participate in Lent?  I sort of get it, but honestly it means nothing to me.  I guess I should do some research to understand the why.  In college I had a very dear friend who would do Lent and last night at the critique group someone was ranting about what they're giving up for Lent (that ensued an entirely hilarious conversation, but not the point).  Maybe I just don't get it.  It seems like one big contest to see if you can go without your favorite addiction for 40 days.  Oh well, chalk it up to things I don't understand in the world. (Like fasting, I mean I understand spiritually the reasons, but at face value, the way most people approach fasting, I really would like to ask them what the point is.)

Circling back to the critique group.  I'm not sure what it is, but the last two weeks have been just crazy.  It's like we're all drinking the same cracked out water because the tangents we get on and how much we laugh - it's just unreal.  I guess that comes when you really like your company.

I've referenced her blog a few times, but Janice Hardy's Re-Write Wednesday blogs are just always great.  She did one today that touches on The Spit Shine of a novel.  She lists several groupings of words people either use too much or wrongly.  I don't need to do this now, I'm still working on putting words on the dang page, but later I think I will try to search out these different words and try their place in things.

So it must be that this weekend is a weekend of unexpected surprises.

First, this morning I was finally roused from my bed by knocking at my door.  Now, people don't knock on my door.  If you knock on my door chances are I don't know you and I don't want to buy whatever it is you're selling.  People who come over regularly come expected and when I know they're on their way I unlock the door and they let themselves in.  It works nicely this way.  However, I answered the door against my better judgment and - I got flowers.  They're from a friend of mine I seldom write with online but we text regularly and he's a genuine sweet heart.

Second, I paid off a credit card this morning and the balance was less than I remembered - two bit bonuses!  Considering how much electricity is going to run this winter any spare dollars I can latch onto are appreciated because heating costs are rivaling what summer cooling costs. UG! Even with almost two weeks of having the heater turned completely off or down to like 50.

Third, well, this isn't unexpected but oh well.  The Lightning Thief came out last night and the plans are to go see it today with a friend of mine.  I didn't ask her if she's read the books but oh well! It's gonna be a blast!

OMG - I needed the relaxedness of last night so bad!  I got home and yes, I preped dishes for the dishwasher, and I did a few other things, but mostly I just did a little exercising time, watched a movie, some writing and I did my first ever card embroidery!

I talked about it a few days ago - but another opportunity to do it came up when someone close to me had to have a sudden surgery. I've made the card, but I still need to cover the stitching on the inside with something which requires glue... which I don't have.  UG!  But I'm really happy with my first card embroidery.  It's simple, but cute and made made.  I'll probably do one or two more like this and maybe change the dimensions so it'll fit in a normal envelope.  I tried an overly complicated design first, and then went for this simple text and daises.  If you do too much you start forgetting which line goes with which dot and then it's all messed up!

I'll be starting my next one probably this weekend and hopefully sending it out soon as well since it's for an upcoming event that I'm being all say-nothing about.  :P

This weekend should be a lot of fun. Despite the crazy weather, my friend and I will be going to the Stars game tonight.  I'm really excited!  Not only do I get to go to a hockey game, but I get to go with my best friend!  I'm going to take a lot of pictures this time, of us and the game and hopefully they do really well tonight!  But if not - we're going on Sunday too!  I'm hoping to get a lot of writing and revision done on Saturday, as well as a load of domestic things.  Maybe I'll even fix the darn vacuum cleaner.

I absolutely have to register for the Writer's Conference tonight or tomorrow! Must-Must-Must!  I'm excited because several people I know and adore are going so even though I'll probably be a wallflower, I'll still have fun!  It also puts some more pressure on me to finish my novel.

I'm looking at the big picture of writing The Barking Dog and I'm considering cutting a huge portion of the Premonition section at the beginning that's just yet more stuff, more stuff, more stuff. I'm thinking I may just cut to some big action and allow the reader to get backstory details through flash-backs or filler paragraphs. Not sure.  I still have several chapters to go before I get to that section and by then I think I'll have a lot more of an idea where I want to go - or at least I hope so!  I won't cut anything at the moment, I'm still fleshing out the beginning and working on that.  I'm altering some of the plot so that more of the major stuff comes in at the beginning instead of later on.  Really, I am very much excited about it all.  I like my story, I think there are probably some areas I could do better on, but I'm learning and I'm continually doing better!

See, after last week I knew this weekend would be a lot of fun - and I was right!! I love it when that happens.  ^__^

Friday I went with a friend to see Legion.  Now I wanted this movie to be good.  I know, I know - it was doomed from the moment you put an angel on it and expected me to take it seriously.  However, the first 3/4's of the movie I thought were done really well and though not exactly believable, were good and entertaining and drew you into the story.  That last 1/4 with the angel-car-chase and weird moment-on-the-mountain were.... like from a completely different, cheesy movie.  I liked the characters, even if they were a bit predictable.  Jeep gets my favorite character award for simply being named Jeep!  I liked his character, even if I thought he was foolish at times.  For the most part, I really liked and thought the characters and setting worked.  The plot wasn't even that bad - the dialogue during the last bit, however, killed it.  When an audience laughs during what should be the most poignant moment of the film - well - you know something wasn't done well.  My biggest beef with the movie - the name.  Legion was the name of a demon and I was totally ready for some demon interaction - which I didn't get.  Hollywood should have done a little more research and given it a better, more fitting name.

Saturday I made cake-pops (I have pictures... I will probably do a follow-up cake-pop blog because I have 20 more pops to dip that we didn't do Sunday. I should have been more like, hey lets all do an activity! CAKE-POP TIME!) and cleaned and did shopping stuff.  I also went out with some friends to Trinity Hall, which is always an awesome experience! And I saw my first karaoke!  I remember vagely having really bad karaoke at SAGU, but I never hung around or participated in it.  This was an interesting experience though.  Small room, lined with couches, and a big tv that played random Korean tv with the lyrics to whatever songs they pulled up.  It was fun!!  (even if I was a wallflower....)

Sunday was mostly cleaning and reading Recorded Attacks until people came over around 2:30 and we started knitting and crocheting and watching movies.  I think we watched Dr Horible's Sing-a-Long Blog, Star Trek (the new one), Connie and Carla, and Howel's Moving Castle.  I did a big chunk on the scarf I've been working on, which is good since I'm getting bored of it!!  I don't know that I want to do another circularly knitted scarf again.

So I'm getting head aches, and I think it's due to my eyes.  I need new glasses/contacts and I haven't done anything about this issue yet. I have one more set of contacts to go through and then I'll get my eyes checked.... I'd better switch contacts soon and make my appointment.  This whole hard-to-focus-on-stuff is a pain.

I look back at the last week and I failed doing some things I had hoped to get done.  So this week I will be more proactive!  First, I'm sort of excited about this one, I'm going to try my hand at embroidering cards.  I got the idea from the What Katie Does blog, which if you're a fan of tshirt surgery, you probably know her website, Oh My Stars.  I went through a phase in college where all the shirts I wore were taken apart and put back together in interesting ways.  Some better than others!  Anyways, I must refrain from saying more on this project until it's reached the recipient since I think there's a slim chance that person might read this.... *waves*  I will, however, update with pictures later!

[edit] I'm actually going to see about making a get-well card tonight after writing if I can grab the materials.  My boss had an emergency surgery this weekend so I'll make a card. I printed off one design and punched it out during lunch and then looked at the pattern... and realized I couldn't make heads or tails of it! Need a simpler something I think!

This week I want to eat at home more.  Except for Tuesday because it's impossible.  I have more than enough food to feed myself this week and I don't need to go out and spend money on food that is more fattening and less healthy than what I have at my apartment.  And I bought blueberries! YUMMY! I have a tub of that plain, vanilla yogurt.  Vanilla yogurt + blueberries = YUMMIER!!!!

I also failed last week on editing on my 2nd chapter of The Barking Dog.  Granted it's a huge undertaking because the chapter was ginormous but it still needs to be done and I totally dropped the ball in favor of other things, so this week I will redouble my efforts to not only edit that but write some more and do some more chapters in the Writing Magic book.  Most of my writing numbers have been either in my blog or rp related things this week, which is not what I wanted, but it was a really stressful week so I will forgive myself a little.

Also, I didn't do anything this last week.  I stayed up too late and struggled to get out of bed and just get to work last week. I want to try to get in bed reasonably this week and get up in the morning and do the whole Wii thing.  It makes me feel more productive about my day, even if it is only a little bit of exercise.  I should do it!

Alright, I have successfully rambled through my lunch of leftover lasagna from yesterday and will now proceed to muddle through the red items in my email in-box....