Okay, so Alice and I have been hitting the idea back and forth like a never-ending game of ping pong about how we needed to get together and knit - and then there was the other conversation about doing a Harry Potter marathon since I've seen only a few of the movies in their entirety and another one in bits and pieces.  Well, yesterday was devoted to knitting - and Harry Potter.  Yup.

My goal for a while has been to knit a pair of fingerless gloves.  I want a pair.  I want to make a pair.  So after lots of digging around, Alice found this pair of wristies that were inspired by Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.  They used to be up on Ravelry and on Knerdy Knitting, but the site went down or expired.  Through some very impressive creative thinking on a friend of ours, we discovered that we could access the pattern through google's chache.  So, if you're interested, h e r e is a link to that pattern.

The wristies I made are a little different.  For one, my thumb hole isn't comfortable at all.  If I make another pair of these I'll have to experiment.  I also made the button track wider, and after I discovered I had no idea how to actually make the button holes, I just knitted a solid track and sewed the wristies together and will add buttons once I find some better suited to the jewel tone colors.  I have one almost completed wristie that's just missing buttons.

I've also completed another book cozie.  This one was going to be for me, but I ended up hating the way the self-striping yarn patterend on the book, so I'll be giving it away with a future book giveaway on Book Addicts.  Stay tuned!

This morning I started experimenting with an idea I hatched for a pattern for fingerless gloves, so I'll have to report back on how that's working, but later - because I need to do a lot of writing since I took yesterday off to watch Harry Potter and knit.

Really.  I'm not kidding.

I willingly went to this movie.  Even though I don't like Michael Cera; he's sort of like Reeves, who just plays himself in a movie.  But - I was hopeful.  What I'd heard from the geek crew sounded like fun; fighting the league of evil x's for the girl of his dreams?  Sounds dreamy, right?

Except that Scott Pilgrim is just another rather spineless jerk.  He cheats on his girlfriend.  He doesn't have the nerve to just break up with the fore mentioned girlfriend even though he's making progress with the girl from his dreams (hereafter referred to as gfhd).  The fights with the evil x's were awesome, though at one point I swear I was watching an episode of Double Dragon.  Come on, you remember that right?  The evil fighting karate twins with the power of the dragon?  Yeah. 

Gthd wasn't without her own issues, but at least she was upfront and all - "I have issues."  "I'm leaving you for that dude."  "Okay, so I'm a bitch."

The supporting characters were what rocked.  The gay roommate and the drummer girl were my favorites.

Rent it.  Unless you're a fan of the comics or something, but don't go expecting it to be *jazz hands* Awesome!  *end jazz hands*  It had potential - had he not been so spineless.  The premise was cool, but the execution just... sucked.

So we got some sad news this week.  The biggest indi bookstore in the DFW area is closing down.  They opened when the recession was just hitting and have held out for eighteen glorious months.  It's a super cool place and I wish I could share it with everyone.  I'm going to miss them.  Hopefully all of the authors who supported the bookstore find other boolalicious homes for their signings and events and stuff.

As usual I'm staying plenty busy!

This last weekend I went to my best friends, little sisters wedding in Oklahoma - I just wished someone would have told me where in Oklahoma it was before we started driving.  We assumed the wedding was in Oklahoma City - but in actuality it was in Ada, Oklahoma.  Yeah.  Making that U-Turn was not fun.  The wedding was very pretty and the couple were very happy.  I also got to see the fore mentioned best friend and her family and that's always special.  I road-tripped it with an old college friend, lots of fun talking about school, our lives now - and books!

Sunday was the official Book Addicts kick off, so several of us went over to Suz's house and camped out to write all day.  I learned something very important about myself.  Sitting at a kitchen table I will stare at the cursor mocking me and maybe dredge out 500 or 1,000 words.  If I move to the couch - BAM - thousands of words!  Yeah, after learning that I parked it across the room on the couch and pounded out words; lots of words.  It's a little disheartening because the weekends are turning into my writing time; I'm getting so busy on the weekdays it's almost impossible.

Like Monday - I did do revisions, but I also had to balance cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and everything else I missed out on doing this weekend because I just wasn't at home!  Tuesday was the book club up at Legacy and that's always a full evening of shopping and talking.  Wednesday I had an accident and didn't go to dance class, but I still had stuff to do for people! 

Tonight is supposed to be Harem Night; I'm thinking I'm not going to go because my weekend is already full and I need time at home to clean and knit and wash clothes and do stuff for meeeeeeee.

Friday we're going up to Legacy probably to say our goodbye to the store and attend the Rachel Caine book signing.  Saturday is dance class and I got roped into going to my friend's cooking demonstration class, and I might possibly have a movie outing if we get out early enough.  Sunday we're discussing another possible writing day... And then it starts over again!  @__@  I need a vacation from my life, lol.

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. 

I'm doing better at blogging, aren't I?  Yes?  Please just say yes.

Thank you!

Things are still busy, but it's a fun, good busy.

The weekend was full.  I went and saw The Sorcerers Apprentice on Friday.  I went in with mediocre expectations and I was entertained.  It's a Disney movie, about sorcerers, and Nicholas Cage is in it.  I like Nick Cage - don't ask me why, I. Just. Do.  It probably has something to do with my persisting like of The Rock and ConAir.  "Put down the bunny."  Now, the movie is fun, the affects are good, but it's total cheese - like you leave the movie theater constipated from the Cheese Factor.  It's cute.  It's interesting.  I was entertained, but I could have Netflixed it and not missed anything.

Saturday was a total race against time!  I woke up early and got writing done before dance class.  It was only a few  hundred words, but it got the gears turning and I liked what I had going on.  I think I was off kilter for class because I was letting the cogs spin about the novel and not really on beat with the class.  I think I bruised my foot when we were doing floor work; seriously!  Bruised the top of my foot!!

The rest of Saturday was spent at the monthly RA meeting, where I returned to what I'd been working on earlier and really pounded out some good stuff.  RA always has a lot of chitchat going on, but we did focus on writing for a good chunk of it.  There was a craft store run, where I bought yarn for Christmas presents.  I've made myself knit more recently - because I like it and I want to get better and do stuff!!  I'm excited about some of the projects I'm going to do; mostly scarves because lets face it: they're easy!  But there are two projects I want to do that will be fancier takes on scarves.

We watched Predator that evening.  Now, I have a deep residing love of the Predator movies.  Predator 1 & 2, and also Aliens vs Predator - love them!  Something about the Predators just makes me cheer.  I was told it was a good movie; I hadn't remembered that Adrian Brody was in it, but he does a great job.  I think he's an amazing actor that I wish did more movies.  If you like action movies, Go. See. Predator.  You'll like it.  You'll cheer.  You'll leave wanting more.

Sunday I spent cleaning.  Like deep, scrub the floors clean.  I haven't seen my kitchen table since December!  I have a kitchen table again!  It's not without purpose that I'm doing all this cleaning; this weekend we're having a baby shower for a very awesome lady at my apartment - and Crafty Day is this weekend.  Yeah, it sort of slams me, but it's all in one place so that's at least nice for my poor nerves.  LoL.  So I cleaned and scrubbed and I'm feeling uber good about my place.  I want to attack the shelves with my swiffer duster and do some moving around of books, but the living room/kitchen is looking good for this weekend.

Oh!  And I watched this movie called Daybreakers.  It's a semi-horror movie about a world where most of the population has become vampires and are facing a blood shortage.  It's a really awesome, non-sparkling vampy movie if you're into horror-vampire-gore movies.  I slept with a light on in the living room.  Not so much because of the vampires, but because of these other things that were in the movie.  Made me shudder.

Now, last night!  It was the fundraiser for the oil spill rehab at Stratos, the Greek place we go to and dance and hang out at.  I was supposed to just go and watch, hang out with friends, etc - but at like 4pm one of the girls texts me and asks me if I'll do the routine we did for Harem Night with her.  Uh - sure, why not?  I didn't realize it was just going to be the two of us.  Greeaatt.  I'm a team player and since a few people who were supposed to perform didn't show up, I did it.  I also got pulled up to dance with a few other things.  It was cool and also kinda made my skin crawl because I'm not that good.  All in all - I had fun, my friends had fun, and we raised money for a good cause.  I just didn't expect to be on the performing side of it, lol.

Okay, so off for a busy week!

Okay, so I was chatty, then silent, then chatty - dramatic! - and then silent again.  I'm sorry, very sorry - last week was just a lot to handle.  No, my father's health isn't great - and I'm not supposed to know anything so I'm not going to talk publicly about what I'm not supposed to know.  There has been Other Family Drama, resulting in me turning rather anti-social.  I think after a few crazy weeks I need some down time, without the crazies or the distractions to sort of recharge.

But wait! This is me we're talking about - I hardly know how to do nothing, ya know?  Last week was almost an experiment in just that.  Oh wait - no it wasn't! 

Monday I did spend solo, warding off the world, cleaning, doing grocery shopping, etc.

Tuesday was Cover Girls, a monthly book club up in Plano my friends and I trek up to attend because it's just awesome.  I made cake-pops, which there are pictures of them in my Flickr.  I also made some book-pops with Dakota Cassidy's new book My Way To Hell done as a flag.  Super cute.  Check out my bakery success, fer serials.  Somehow, I'm not quite sure, but I wound up as the Teachers Pet at this event, lol.  The organizer, who turns to my friends and says, "I don't remember names, I'm sorry," proceeds to call me out of around 60 women for opinions and things.  It was funny and Certain People poked and prodded at me all night, but we were all laughing about it and really I didn't care.  Hey, it's flattering to get noticed!  You're lying if you disagree!

Wednesday was dance - but sort of a big night.  My dance school was featured by Groupon.com and Wednesday was the first night people could redeem their class voucher.  400 people signed up for the class!  400 people!  There are now two beginner classes on Wednesday.  I'm getting kicked up to the Intermediate Class that meets afterwards.  Sunday instead of just having Aliki's class, there will be two additional beginner classes taught by Neenah.  That's a lot of additional classes!  That's a lot of people!!

Thursday - Writers Date Night - and Cid forgetting the power supply.  It was a very beneficial night as I plotted out a new WIP and worked on some additional writing stuff I'm doing.

Friday - I think, don't quote me on this because I cannot for the life of me remember - I spent alone!  ALONE! HURRAY FOR ALONE TIME!

Saturday was dance class again - this one seriously kicked my butt.  We worked on floor work, and how to gracefully get onto the floor while dancing.  It's freaking Wednesday and my whole body still hurts.  The worst move we did was getting down on the floor, sitting on your legs.  Raise your butt up off of your legs just enough to clear your heels, and then move hips in a circular fashion while making your arms look pretty.  There are all sorts of directional changes and other things to do.  It also hurts like hell after not using those muscles seriously for a year!  We also did fifteen minutes of arm drills.  I didn't think this would be that bad.  Arms? Pshaw!  O. M. G.  The rest of the day I spent groaning every time I got in and out of my friend's car.  We went shopping in the pm for clothes.  I lurv shopping, and I lurv making people be my personal barbie dolls - because I never really played with them as a kid I guess I just like reliving that portion of my life now, right?  Did lots of great shopping, had dinner with some other friends and hung out for ages talking and whatnot so I got home uber late.  Now, I cannot just get home and go to bed, I have to like, unwinde and stuff, so I check my email and - So a few months ago I wrote lots of short stories and submitted them.  Haven't heard anything so I just accepted the silent rejections and moved on with my life.  Waiting in my inbox was a contract for a short story I'd written and submitted.  A contract to be published - and paid!!!!  I text'd tons of people, heck, you probably already know yourself but it's still fun to blog about!

Sunday was all about being at home and writing and reading and knitting and watching movies.  Really productive in some areas, I will say.  Started a new knitting project I'm excited about and will probably share pictures of later.

And this brings us to Monday - which was a random celebration of my impending published status and going out with the belly dancers to support Aliki dancing at Stratos.  Stratos is probably becoming my new, favorite restaurant, sorry McAllisters!  It's just a fun place.  Dance floor where the dancers dance every so often.  Amazing Greek food; I ate flaming cheese!  The waiters are almost all super cute.  And you get to dance!  Even on the tables!  Aliki got a bunch of us up to do a Shakira routine with her that we pretty much improved.  We did Greek dancing and some other line dancing - the only thing we didn't do this time - dance on the tables, lol.

So now we're at today - and today is another shutting the world out day, but only because there are books coming in on order today I'm crazy about and Must. Read.  The rest of the week is dance, writers date night and RA, so my live moves on in an ever persistent pendulum of crazy!

I knew going into this last week that there was going to be a lot going on.  It was compounded by the things going on at work - but I'm me and I manage pretty well under stressful situations, I think....

Well, besides that - there were other random things that happened this week that I want to blog about - so here goes!

Monday I was really annoyed because my apartment smelled like Death when I got home.  It wasn't really time to clean the Chinchilla cage but I did so in the hopes that it would clear the odor.  I also took out both trash cans and cleaned the fridge.  I'm pretty sure I even bought a new Febreeze air freshener.  Did any of this do me any good?  Nope.  Frustrated, I opened the blinds to my patio to enjoy the rain and pout over the odor.  No sooner than the blinds being opened and a fur ball launched at the glass doors, hissing, clawing and spitting.  Yeah, crazy!  Well, I realize that it's a momma cat with two or three kittens who have taken up shelter on my patio because of the rain... But that's when I see their leftovers!  There was something very dead and in such a stage of having-been-eaten I couldn't identify what it had been; I'm thinking tail because there looked to be five, long appendages.  Well, I live in apartment so I can have someone else take care of problems like this so at 5:25 I jogged over to the management office and was at least able to tell them about the situation - with a straight face.  Seriously, only me will have an attack kitty and dead things.  They sent over a maintenance man and together, armed with brooms, we were able to beat the kitties back and he removed the Dead Thing.  I have seen the cats since, but I've been trying to scare them away from my patio.

Tuesday I was able to close another book.  I wrote another whole book!  I talk about it on my website of writerly things if you're interested in hearing more about it.

I think it was Monday that a friend of mine (who we will call C) mentioned she was going to Austin for a writer's workshop and convention, but another friend of hers was no longer going.  She was bummed to be going alone.  The whole ticket to get in was only $50.  I totally bandwaggoned and invited myself.  Another friend jumped in (who will be called Z) and before C had an opportunity to say no, we had the whole trip planned out.  Thankfully C is excited about Z and I attending with her; or at least she claims she is.  ~__^  The heart-attack moment came when I realized that I had to send in a chapter to use for the workshop; it had to be Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Horror.  I don't have a completed project of any of these three that would - in my mind - fit.  So I decided I would break out a short story that I have been itching to expand into it's own, full length story, and embellished on what I had.  I wound up with a kick arse first chapter!  I waffled because I will admit, the first chapter is shocking and I was and am a little uncomfortable that strangers will be reading this and then sitting down with me to talk about it.  They won't know I've never written anything like this before and that I'm trying something new.  I waffled over what to send until yesterday and just sucked it up and sent it off.  I have since brainstormed and plotted the whole thing and I'm pretty excited about it!

So I did mention that Harem Night was this week, right?  It was last night.  Three of the girls in our routine dropped out so it was just the five of us, which was cool, but that threw off some of the girls and we had a lack of formation for the whole performance.  I totally got part of it wrong but had such a big smile on my face that it really didn't matter!  Pictures I believe are forthcoming...  And a huge thank you to all my wonderful friends who came out to support me!  It was really cool to have so many people there, and I am so lucky to have such a great group of friends.  You guys make my heart go all warm and squishy!

After Harem Night an abbreviated group of us went to go see Shammy's rip off of a great cartoon series.  I went with low expectations and would advise you do so as well if you choose to see it.  I was entertained - bur for probably the wrong reasons.  Watch the cartoon, you'll be less confused and more entertained.

Okay, so that was this week!  This weekend I have a wedding, fireworks, more dancing and I need to bust a move on the editing train so yet more me - not being all that entertaining I guess.

Well, like I said, this was bound to be an interesting week!  Thankfully the low point of the week was dealing with my exhaustion post-Tremors marathon.  The rest of the week has been a lot of fun, stuff is going on, I'm happy, blahblahblah.

I think I've read like - four books this week.  Highway to Hell, Mage in Black, Stormwalker, and Over My Dead Body.... wow, yeah, I've read four books this week!  I looked it up on Goodreads and thus far this year I've read about 59 books.  The one I'm reading now will be the 60th.  I took Kori's challenge to read 100 in a year and even if I cake walk the rest of the year I'll still make that - but I bet I blow 100 books out of the water - easy peasy.  I can't talk about why I say this with confidence, just rest assured you'll know when the time's right and everything is a well oiled machine!

Other than reading, I had a bit of a writing slump, which I discussed in todays WIP update.  I'll refrain from double posting about it, but suffice it to say - I felt uber dumb.

Because June is a five-Wednesday month, we skip one Wednesday and go without dance class.  Yes, very sad, very nervous about the upcoming harem night - but whatev, right?  I can't change it - oh well.  On the up side, girls from my class decided to pop over to Strato's where the harem night is taking place next week, and hang out for Greek Night.  I hauled a friend with me because that's the kind of person I am; if I'm going down I'm taking you with me!  I had no idea my Saturday instructor was performing; that was loads of fun!

It was kinda a bummer cuz the restaurant was mostly empty, but our table was loud and cheered a lot.  At one point we got involved in one of her routines - and in short - I wound up on tables with two of my class mates - dancing.  Yes, I was dancing on a table, stone cold sober.  There are pictures, and I trust those that have them to use discretion - because I had this pained look on my face.  The three of us had no idea what was going on, so we mostly floundered around and had fun. 

The biggest kicker was that our sub instructor decided we would do our routine - sans the two girls that didn't come with us - right then and there.  I learned a few very important things: I don't know the ending as well as I thought (and neither does anyone else!).  My jeans are really too big.  And I step on my own jeans.  I need to just not dance in jeans - so I will be finding appropriate dancing pants this weekend most likely.  All in all, Wednesday was a load of fun, I'm sure pictures will be forthcoming eventually.

This weekend should be an interesting juggling of events.  I'm trying to finish my novel by the 30th, but I'm still going to a theater event on Saturday night, Sunday is Crafty Day, and next week is it's own beast.

Now if I could only convince myself to not stay up all night reading a book - I think I could tackle the day a bit better!

I probably shouldn't blog - because I'm uber tired, but it's my lunch break and I'm too tired to write or revise credibly and my eyeballs feel like falling out of my face so reading is out *gasp* so OMG I'm going to blog!

This week sees me as being uber busy - which isn't really that unusual, just not really at a point that I wanted to be busy.  I have things that I've promised people I would do and because stuff happens I'm sort of a flake.  I hate flakes.  I'm pissed at myself for being flaky.  Flakyness is a sore subject right now; because of flake behavior my bestfriend and I haven't seen or really spoken to each other in months.  I just got tired to being flaked on and just decided there was no point in getting upset about stuff and said something polite and all - well, when you want to hang out, call me.  We haven't spoken.  I'm not upset at her, but I'm upset that everything has unraveled like it has.  I try very hard to be dependable and come through on stuff, because I know how much it sucks to not be able to depend on people - and I've been a wonderful flake recently.

Goal for the next week: improve on the flaky behavior.

So what am I busy with this week?

Well, last night I went to see Iron Man 2 with guy-friend (I have to come up with a better way to name people for privacy's sake).  I have to say, I think Pepper is a freaking bimbo; she should have left that job 5 minutes into the first movie.  She's stupid for sticking around.  That's my opinion!  The movie was entertaining - and guy-friend and I are um, we're movie-talkers.  If you're familiar with Mystery Science Theater, that's kinda what it's like sitting through a movie with us.  We talk, laugh uber loud, and follow tangents.  This is why he's currently my fav movie buddy.  It's a rare person who doesn't mind my endless chatter.  The really funny thing was after the movie we decided it was a GREAT idea to go back to my place and watch Inglorious Bastards, which I've had from netflix for like two weeks, maybe more.  Yeah, I had no idea it was full of subtitles.  My contacts were trying to peel themselves off of my eyeballs by the end of the movie. 

Tonight is uber seekrit project meeting.  I'm thinking it'll include lots of tangents, talking, and possibly some productivity.  I can't say any more or else the other co-conspirators might ambush me for my snack money.  (Not really. I could tak'em.)

Practicing for harem night hasn't happened a whole lot.  I have hardly any room to practice in my apartment.  I think that I'm just going to take my hip scarf with me tonight and make everyone learn the routine so I can practice in an open space.  I have got to figure out what to do with my hands.  They're totally out of control, lol.  So yes, dance class is tomorrow night, it'll be lots of fun and I'm really liking it.

Friday is yet up in the air as far as what's going on, as well as Saturday - though there was discussion of going to the derby game - I should probably poke people about that, shouldn't I?

And Sunday is Father's Day!  I need to do something special for him.  I think he's hit a streak of blue days.  His health is good, but he's getting older and I think that's hard on him right now, and with my mom always gone on her bike he's left alone and lonely a lot.  I need to be a better daughter and call him more often.  I suck at phone calls.  If my dad would only learn how to text.... Well, then we'd never STOP talking and he'd probably know far more about my life than he wants to - because anyone who text's with me generally ends up that way.

So I had someone ask me: Don't you ever regret your tattoos?

Honestly?  Nope.  I mean, there have been times that I've stopped and realized that life would be easier were I not a tattoo'd person.  I've realized that a guy didn't like me because of my ink.  I've realized some girls are scared of me/won't talk to me because of my skin color.  But you know what?  It's like a litmus test for people; the ones who really are cool enough to be in my life pass it with the physical.  So if you think for an instant I regret or wish I would have done something differently, please stop.  I'm happy with who I am.  Okay, I'd like to loose like 50 pounds and I'd like it if my hair were longer, but really - those aren't that big.  So I'm happy with me, so you should be happy for me.

And really cold Dr Pepper burns going down and is a great way to really wake yourself up!  Back to work I go.

I don't have a lot to say but i feel bad about neglecting this blog, my other blog, and reading hardly any blogs.  I gave up reading blogs about a month ago to get myself to be more productive ~ and had the most productive month evah as far as writing goes.  which means there's not a lot else that I've really been doing.

And I get to finish season 3 of Dexter tonight, which is awesome.  I haven't watched much tv or many movies.  In fact, I think the last movie I went to see was How to Train Your Dragon...  And that was a while ago.

Some friends and I are working on an uber seekrit book related project we can't talk about ~ but really excited about what's in store.

My parents are doing well.  Mom's cycling, dad's hanging out, so nothing big or life changing there.

Dance class is going awesome.  I have a recital at the end of the month ~ yes, that means I'm performing. Dancing.  In front of people.  It's fun and something interesting to throw into my week.

Oh, and I've decided I should grow my hair out longer, something niceish looking.

I'm also going to own up to the harsh reality that I hate housework.  I need to take a whole day and just clean.  My bedroom.  The kitchen.  Floors.  Carpets.  The whole nine yards.  But have I?  No.  Do I plan to anytime soon?  Not really.  But do I need to?  Yes.

Okay, that's me rambling about nothing at all to ease my conscience about my lack of blogging.  There.

I won stuff! I won a companion to the Dexter tv show from Grasping for the Wind.  Super excited.

I've read several books.  Still needing to write outstanding book reviews on my other blog.

Writing - a lot.

Having friends over at various points for movies.

And oh yeah! Belly dance!

So I'll talk about my belly dance class I went to.  It was super fun, and I felt kind of silly, but that's expected when your body isn't used to moving in certain ways.  I think I'm really going to like it.  I mean, by the end of the class my arms hurt, I could feel the burn in my thighs and I felt the workout through my upper body and abs.  I need to practice at home, which I've been bad about because of my fanatical writing, but I will get better.  I even bought belly dance music and one of my writer-friends-who-shares-my-brain bought me a hip scarf at the ren fair this weekend.  I'll now have jangly hips.  I may or may not post a picture of me wearing said hip scarf.  There will be no video of me dancing.  None.

Got to see The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus this weekend which was sort of sad to see Heath Ledger's last film.  There's a really ominous moment early on in the movie where it kind of hits you: he's dead.  The movie was really nifty.  I'm supposed to watch it tonight again.

Also saw two movies I didn't care for: Nine (the musical) and Defendor.  Both were very disappointing.  Nine I knew was the story of a filmmaker, but it was just downright depressing at times.  I re-watched it yesterday and became even less impressed with the music.  Defendor was just all round depressing, though I love Woody Harrelson after Zombieland, I wish I would have passed on this movie.  It wasn't funny, it was depressing and sad.

Yup.  This week should be lots of writing because I'm wanting to finish one novel this week and I have a lot to accomplish.  Though next week should be more interesting as far as social interaction goes.

Thanks to those who have contacted me willing to help with research. I appreciate it!

I've gone from being an every-day blogger to a, you-might-think-I've-fallen-off-the-edge-of-the-world blogger.  *sigh*  I'm sorry!  There's either nothing going on or I can't possibly think of anything interesting to say that's not something like, 'I'm writing.' or 'I just wrote this really cool scene where so-and-so does THIS and whats-his-face does THAT! It's awesome!'  Because as much as I know it excites me, I don't even pretend to think that anyone wants to hear a minute by minute replay of my writing.

What is new is that tonight I start dance classes.  Yes, dance classes.  I'm taking a belly-dance class this month, well, for the next four weeks.  After tonight I'll know if I'm a once-a-weeker or a twice-a-weeker; I'm thinking twice a week, honestly.  I'm already looking at hip scarves.  I'm not too excited about the whole belly-dance costume, but the hip scarves are super nifty.  I'm sure I'll have all sorts of interesting bits to say tomorrow about my dancing experience; heck, I might even surprise you and double blog!

Besides the dance class, I've been thinking heavily about tattoos.  For several years now I've had standing plans for a full sleeve on my left arm.  I love the memory-tree idea and in my head it looks uber cool.  However, now that I'm in a professional environment - I have learned how much I hate wearing longed sleeves.  Plus, it's Texas and Texas is freaking HOT in case you don't already know.  I'm toying with the idea of cutting the tattoo down to a half sleeve, get it designed to look like a stained glass window and just have multicolored stars hanging from it so it mirrors the stained glass window on my right arm.  I'm not sold on the idea at all, which is why I must now begin the stewing process.  This probably also means I most likely will not get a tattoo in 2010.

I'm also still in limbo about my two submissions for press; I have 12 days left until no response means no acceptance.  I'd really prefer a rejection letter, personally, but understand that not everyone has time for those types of things.

My family is doing well.  Dad is of course experiencing some changes to the way he does things but he's coping and things are good.

Hmmm ~ Oh! I finished Avatar: The Last Airbender and recently came to understand that the movie will really be three movies.  I sort of died a little on the inside when I heard that.  I don't have much faith in Shammy, can you tell?  I could stomach one movie, but three is trying my patience.  I should be open minded, I know, but I like the series.

And I got a new phone. I think that's the end of my exciting news.

Yes, I really am.  I'm going to blog about stuff.

....Hmmmm, what should I say?

Well this weekend was one huge long social function.  Friday is somewhat of a blur.  I think there was tv watching and writing and hanging out with Alicia.  I think.  Like I said, Friday is somewhat fuzzy.

Saturday was one huge circus.  I was up early and drove to Cleburne to drop off a check and then to my parents house.  My sister and her boyfriend were there - which was a surprise.  We spent the day doing stuff around the house and talking.  My sister also thought it was okay to punch me.  She didn't like it when I punched back.  She didn't like it when I restrained her from escalating the situation further.  After a long, exhausting day at my family's place, I couldn't decide what to do when I left.

I knew there was a Supernatural marathon going on at my place.  I also knew I wasn't in the best mood to be social and watch a show I don't particularly like or dislike.  I made a weak effort to go do something else but wound up at my place piddling around on my laptop and listening to Supernatural and needling some of the girls  :P

Eventually I went to bed.  Only to wake up and .... they're still there! And Supernatural is still on!  LOL

Sunday is Crafty Day so that means it was just more people in and out of the apartment.  It's funny how Crafty Day has sort of.... become movie day.  We watched both Boondock Saints movies and started season 1 of Dexter.  It was a grand finish to a long weekend.

I now need to ensure that I bury myself in The Cave for several solo hours at some point or else I might turn into Evilness.  This is the problem with being both extroverted and introverted.

Okay, so it's Friday and all I can think about is the weekend. Hurray! It's here! And omg the next discs in the Avatar: Last Airbender anime are in!

Don't know what I'm talking about? That's okay. M. Night Shyamalan is making a movie from the beloved Nickelodeon series.  I'm sure you'll see enough advertisement and fan-fair about it to get excited too.
Right now I'm in the middle of Book 2: Earth, for those of you who know how the 'books' (read: seasons)
 go.  I'm slowly working my way through them.  Book 1: Air was available on Watch Instantly via Netflix ages ago and I think I spent a whole Saturday streaming them while I wrote.

I'm iffy about the movie.  I don't precisely like Shyamalan movies and that he would take something I really like and rip a bad movie out of it worries me.  And maybe I don't know yet - but who is the person in the bottom right corner in green?  That doesn't look like the Blind Bandit which is the only persistent Earth Bender besides Boomy that I know of yet.  There's already been plenty of discussion about the actors chosen.  Aang is themed around Chinese heritage, is played by either a dark Caucasian boy or a Hispanic; I forget which because honestly it's been a while since I read the articles.  Katara and Sokka, Eskimos, are played by white actors.  At least Zuko, taken heavily from Japanese influence, at first glance looks different.  Honestly I'm less worried about the color of the actors skin and more worried about their ability to play the roles.

Regardless, I'm going to curl up on the couch tonight and enjoy like, two hours of cartoons and writing with friends and friends children coming over.  It's going to be great fun.

And Zuko! I'm squealing over how this season is turning out because I really like the antagonist in this series.  He's such a great character in that he does great evil but because of how it is set up you sort of cheer for him and whatnot.  Oh well, that's enough of my rambling.

The roaches are back.  Well, a single roach was seen last night and promptly attacked with all the viciousness it deserved for invading my domain.   At least I've progressed from screaming and running away, but these aren't the hissers, these are just the creepy big waterbug ones that fly.  My skin crawls just thinking about that.  I have yet to see another one, but now that I've seen one, I'm watching for the others.  I'm not stupid, I know they're out there - waiting for me to let my guard down just a bit.  That's when they'll really attack; but I'm ready.

This week is going better than last week.  It would be hard to be worse than last week, and thankfully this one is not trying to run that contest.  I'm still struggling with the previously mentioned knitting pattern, but I didn't get to mess with it today because I read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.  I have also written this week - where I didn't read at all last week.

The plants are shooting upwards.  I'm going to have to pull the top off soon - I think.  I'm a little unsure of what constitutes as leaves.  I'm really surprised because the Bluebonnets are blooming; Bluebonnets usually take a year to plant and bloom.  I'm hoping to get a few viable seedlings; that would be fantastic.  I should have taken pictures....

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm not going to my mom's race this weekend; I'll be staying home, waiting for twitter updates on my mom's progress.  Instead I will probably do some much over-due cleaning, writing and knitting.  I'm poking people to let them know it's an open invite to come over and hang out because I don't have a plan to go out. 

And, tomorrow night is the 10th anniversary of Boondock Saints.  If you're a fan, go look at the Fathom Events for locations and tickets.  Boondock Saints II came out Tuesday but I haven't had the chance to go get it -- yet.  Okay, I'm tired and the Chinchillas are begging, for something.  As always, I'm not sure what.

((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 there's lots of new stuff up and going on.  I've made my own website!  Nothing too fancy, but it's up and it's mine and I'm working on a customized layout/design all my own.  It's been a pain learning all this but I'm really glad now.  If you know anything about making websites or FTP servers (which is the next thing I need to learn) please, please, please feel free to email (cid@cidwrites.com), twitter(@cidwrites), or IM(aim-spazticstarfish, msn-slippersarecool, skype-cid.tyer) me.  The website is www.cidwrites.com This will change how I blog a bit.  I will very much limit how much I blog about writing and books here and save that for my website blog.  Why?  Because should I make the decision to peruse something different in the future, it would be wise to have some content and history already established.  Now what will I be perusing?  Well that's my secret.

Right now there is a lot that is rocky, and since it pertains to work and other delicate matters - I can't blog about what has me seriously stressed, so excuse me if my blogs are scattered and sparce for the next few days to months as things are sorted out.

Um, on to something more interesting!  In the wake of these stressful events, I gave myself the night off to do - whatever.  I have knitted more on the headband I showed off last night.  It's not as far along as I would like but I would imagine it will be finished by the end of the week and I will be making a decision about making another one or trying something else.  I also watched Angels and Demons, which I was really apprehensive about watching.  I think knitting while "watching" it helped a lot.  I anticipated it being a lot slower and - well - boring.  I've heard that said a lot in reference to both book and movie, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It makes me want to reread my church history books.  The Catholic church has such a vast, complicated and interesting history.  Now, I don't believe in the myths brought up by the books, but it is interesting and I have to applaud how the fact and fiction is interwoven.

Okay, so I am putting this plug in here because a) it's my friend and b) the more plugs I stick in the more times I'm put in to win the book, soooo... A good friend of mine over at Ninja vs Pirate Book Reviews did a recent interview with new author Patrick Doud.  You can read the interview here. There is also a book give-away which I will be shamelessly entering.  Good luck!

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~~~

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!

So this recent onset of snow, snow and OMG MORE SNOW?!?!?!  left me with little to blog about because my face has been pressed against the glass watching these mysterious fluffy fat flakes of white stuff drift down from the sky.  This is Texas; we get anorexic pieces of hail and dare call it snow maybe once a year.  The last twenty-four-hours have provided a rare glimpse into what a real winter-wonderland is and the change on the landscape has been mystical - though it hasn't been without it's problems.  Had to cancel plans for the theater last night, wound up using my broom to literally sweep a foot of snow off my Jeep, and just getting out of the apartment complex was tricky simply because no one had been attempting it.  A silly person on the way into work decided to drive in all the turn lanes and then swerve in front of me several times; one time I was sliding because I was driving on snow and couldn't get traction to stop.  Idiot.  Oh well.  I drive a nice, big Jeep.  He would have been squashed had the light not turned green!

Okay, so Valentine's Day is coming up this weekend. I belatedly realized that I'm already planning on spending it with some of the most wonderful people I know; my parents.  We'll probably while away the afternoon just being in the same room, have dinner and then I'll go home, but it's what we do.  We aren't really an exciting family-time type of family, but they're my family and I love them.

I think that Valentine's Day doesn't really bother me - it's the people who feel that a day pledged to celebrating love is an excuse and a right to bemoan their singleness.  I think that's silly.  I think that people should really take advantage of V-Day and take the opportunity to tell people in their lives that you love them and that they're special.  Those are my thoughts.  There are more than a few people I'd like to tell them to stop being so selfish but I know it won't do any good.

I recently subscribed to John Scalzi's blog, Whatever.  I stumbled across his first chapter of his new book, God Engines. I read it. I need to read all of it. Why didn't I see this yesterday when I would have been at Borders? Boo! And here I am pleading to not buy any more books until I read a good chunk (5-10!!!! I promise!).  I'm grumbling about this decision but I'll stick to it for a little while longer.  I'm so intrigued by the idea behind the book that the first chapter reveals!  But I can wait.  I read Zeus yesterday, finished the Glass Castle last night, so now I want to read McKinley's Sherwood book and I'll probably go ahead and read Touch of Evil .... and then I have a whole shelf of stuff to pick from!

Ug. Blogger lost the last bit of my post.  So lets see.... I plan on writing some this weekend.  Surprise, surprise.  Get my bangs trimmed most likely.  Hopefully see The Lightning Thief and Wolfman.  And that's all I'm saying.