Shannon is making Kelly’s wedding veil. At first I worried that perhaps this project would be a bit much for my crafty kid, but I’m delighted to say I am being proved wrong. I really must stop underestimating her talents.
Not the best pic, but then it wasn’t taken with my spiffycool digi 🙂 Will post better ones later.
Hej alla! Varför förmiddag mig handstil i svensk? Därför att jag kan! Och därför att I-förmiddagen lära det språket lite och det har varit rolig.
I’m pretty sure the translator I used butchered what I said there, but that’s ok. So wtf did I say? “Hi everyone! Why am I writing in Swedish? Because I can! I am learning the language and it is fun.” 🙂 Or something. I met someone in Sweden who is teaching me a few words here and there (and is very patient with my horrible pronunciations.) It’s a fun language though! I heart the interwebs!
Other than that I don’t have a whole lot to report. Saw Batman last weekend and loved the ever-loving hell out of it. Heath Ledger’s performance was disturbingly awesome and Christian Bale is just amazing. Thing about him is, I don’t believe he’ll be stuck with a stereotype for playing a superhero in a blockbuster film. He already has an impressive catalogue of quirky movies to his credit (American Psycho, Little Women, Swing Kids, Equilibrium to name a few) and he’ll go on to more like that. He’s doing the new Terminator movie which, yeah, another blockbuster type but man does it look bad-ass.
Anyway, so yeah, saw Batman. What else…. Oh! Got asked to host the episode 3 commentary for the second season of BBtL. Should be fun! And my co-writer and I have finished writing our scenes for the first episode of Angel Between the Lines and all that’s left is to put our halves together and make it flow, do some tweaking, and then hand our baby in. Over a month ahead of the deadline too 🙂 yay us!
Speaking of writing, I seem to have lost the plot a bit on my CherryPop story. And by that I mean, I haven’t wriiten anything in a month apart from one ficlet sequel. I need to focus on that. Watching all these Twitter updates from people at Comic-Con this weekend meeting their favourite authors and thinking that I would love to be someone’s favourite author someday. Won’t happen though if I don’t kick myself in the ass and get into it. I will find a way though.
I’ll skip all of the ‘I know, I haven’t blogged in a while and here’s why’ crap. I don’t have a really good reason other than general busy-ness and lack of a desire to post to this one. I haven’t been Ficleting either which sort of breaks my heart a little. So I’ve sworn to get back to it, and posted another little chapter in the life of CherryPop. It might re-awaken my desire to write again. It’s been slacking.
I’ve been working a big project at work, sort of Movie Madness redux, this time with music. I’ve been on my own as far as figuring out how to power this thing and make it fun and I don’t think I’ve done too badly. It’s drawing over 5-600 pageviews a day so far. Yay! So that’s taken up a lot of time.
Between movies I must see, BBQs, family visiting, and a new addiction to Second Life, Blogging’s just been on the back burner. But no more! I’m looking forward to jumping back in on all of the blogs. So this is a sort of “I’m back” post. More will be coming, for I must review Dr. Horrible and Batman 🙂
Ok, back now. Calmer. I probably can’t/shouldn’t talk about it online much but the long and short of it is the paper went through some layoffs this past week, including 2 single moms, a guy who had just gotten married, and my very good friend. Two of the layoffs happened in the Online department, so yeah, close to home. And as anyone who’s been through stuff like this can attest, there’s a lot of weird feelings. Fear, guilt, anger to name three. Mostly fear and guilt though. Fear because it happened so damn fast and unexpectedly – in 15 minutes, the course of those four people’s lives were dramatcially changed. And guilt because you got “lucky” and were allowed to stay and you’re relieved it’s not you but then you feel like you shouldn’t be feeling relieved when people you know got hurt.
It’s very bizarre and I hope to never go through it again.
Knock on wood.
I thought all week long about what it would have been like if I had been let go too. If suddenly, the job I took a chance on 4 years ago when I left another job I loved to take this on and found I loved this one even more, it was taken away from me through no fault of my own. Would I land on my feet? Would I fall into depression as I’m prone to do. How could I provide for Shannon? How could I find another job as good and as great in this tiny market?
I’ve been through upheaval many times. Moved a lot growing up, rough, bitter divorce, death, and none of those were my choice, and I came out the other side just fine. Eventually. Even when it was my choice, such as when I upped sticks and moved to England everything worked out.
I think the same will hold true for my friend and for the others. It hurts. It will hurt. But things will work out. I think one thing my friend has already discovered is how many people cared about her and will miss her and would do what they can to help her. That’s a good feeling.
There’s not much more I can say about the layoffs. I don’t feel any safer, but all I can do is my job and hope for the best. Morale has taken a hit and everyone is shellshocked, but I’m hoping we can bounce back. I think we can, anyway. Still have a paper to put out.
Taking a few days’ break from blogging and stuff. Actually what I want more than anything is to vent my spleen right now, but it’s probably not a good idea. Will be back in a few days or so.
I love this song. Lloyd Price’s version. Tonight I learned that the song was based on some historical events back in the 1800s or something (I’ll have to wiki it in a mo) and there have been numerous versions of the song dating back to at least 1923. This is why I love the 50s on 5 channel.
I’m on day 2 of an achy head. This is different from my usual searing pain migraines. It’s a dull ache that’s sitting right up in my forehead and I think I can directly attribute it to the weird fumes the monster copier has been putting out lately. It’s nauseating. I think I might see if I can work down in the dungeon tomorrow.
On top of that I had an infuriating day at work and I can’t talk about it so that’s probably not helping the head either.
Some good news though. Or encouraging, rather. Some of you might know I’ve been doing the whole attempting to lose weight, because well, I want to be healthier. It’s paying off too. I’m getting into clothes I haven’t been able to wear in a long time, and I *feel* better. It’s a good feeling. I stopped drinking soda altogether. Yeah I missed it. I was a Dr. Pepper girl. But as time goes by I find I hardly think about it. Been drinking a LOT of water, which I did anyway. I love water. But Crystal Lite lemonade is awesome, cheap, and satisfies my sweet drink craving. Also been drinking iced and hot tea as well. Some folks have told me they just switched to diet soda. Yuck. I have *always* hated diet sodas of all kinds. I had high hopes for diet Dr. Pepper, but to me, and my weird taste buds (the ones that don’t let me like fish) ALL diet drinks have a weird fake sugar/sweet & low aftertaste that I dislike. Just like ALL seafood has a “fishy” aftertaste to me. Besides, there’s still sugar in diet drinks and sugar is bad for me.
Also gave up fast food. That was always my Achilles heel really. When you’re an overweight person, it’s funny how people assume you’ve got candy bars hidden everywhere and that you eat cake and pies all the time. In actuality, I rarely eat candy, the only time I really have pie is at Thanksgiving, and yeah, cake is good, but the last time I had some cake I think was back in April at my little cousin’s bday party. And even then I ditched the frosting. (Besides, the cake is a lie :))
No, sweets have never been my problem. My problem is fast food. It’s too convenient. And it’s horrible for you. And I was eating it all the time. It’s quicker (duh), fairly cheap, filling, and easier to do than actually cooking. So I cut myself off from it too. Been fast food-free since Easter. And I do not miss it. No really. My friend Tonya has been on a calorie counting kick since New Year’s and when you look at the calories in a quarter-pounder, and consider that a QP meal with fries and soda is pretty much your calorie intake for the entire day, your mind boggles. And they aren’t good calories either. If I think about it like that, it totally helps me stay away. That and the fact that I’m a few weeks away from being able to wear some clothes I haven’t been able to get into in a very long time. I’d be an idiot to break my streak now.
My next hurdle is working on some sort of exercise routine. I need to find something that works for me (well, I know what works and that is swimming, but 10 bucks a pop to go to the pool is kinda pricey). I’ll find something though. My favourite thing right now – and I never thought I’d ever say this – is doing the household chores because I put on my iPod and I have a ‘clean the house’ playlist and basically I dance like a fool while I clean. It’s hella fun. I’m sure I look silly, but I don’t care 🙂 Plus Shannon’s been teaching me her bellydance moves. Those are quite a workout.
Anyway, I feel less grumpy now. Head still hurts tho so I think I’ll head for bed.
I have… issues when I’m behind the wheel. People piss me off. Especially if they drive stupidly. And I can’t contain my anger at the abundance of stupid people allowed to get behind 2 tons of metal and propel it down a street at certain speeds. One day, my road temper is going to get me into trouble – well, it has already actually. I flipped off a coworker who cut me off. I have since learned to hold back on the gestures when I’m within a two block radius of the paper.
My town seems to have more than its fair share of idiots on the roads. People who do not understand the concept of a 4-way stop. Or ones who like to fly through that yellow left turn arrow after it turns green because they are far more important than oncoming traffic. Or the little-olds who drive about ten miles an hour below the speed limit. Or people who force you to slam on your brakes when they turn into your lane even though it’s clear for miles behind you. Or truck drivers who wait until you are just about to pass them before they decide to get in your lane and pass the truck in front of them.
I could go on. I’m getting angry just thinking about all these morons. But I want to learn how to not be angry. I don’t like losing my temper, and outside of the car, I don’t lose it very often. I’m a cheerful person for the most part. But when I’m behind the wheel and someone pisses me off, I lose my shit. Swear words tumble out of my mouth as if I’d been holding them back for months and I actually *yell* (if you know me, I’m often told to speak up. Voice is too quiet.) Sometimes I scream. Depends on the stupidity level I’ve just witnessed.
Of course, no road rage rant would be complete without the obligatory “I’m not saying I’m a perfect driver yadda yadda yadda.” I’m not. i’ve done my share of stupid stuff. But in general I try not to. And I’m sure some of the people I get pissed at are probably just having a duh moment too. But some of them are malicious. Like the ass in the fuel-sucking monstrosity of an SUV next to me waiting to turn left while I was trying to turn right, who kept inching forward enough so that I couldn’t see around his fecking bumper to see if I was clear. And he was doing it on purpose and laughing at me. Drivers like that I swear… Trying not to think about how satisfying it would be to whip out a baseball bat and play whack-a-mole with his headlights. It’s drivers like that that set off my road rage.
And I don’t know what to do about it.