READ IT!

It's the Muppet Doctor Who Special, With Our Very Special Guest Star, Matt Smith! This story combines everything we love about Doctor Who with the insanity of the Muppet Show.

Can't recommend it enough; I'm still giggling. :D READ IT!

I have computer!

The nice shiny Dell Inspiron 570 showed up yesterday and installed easily. But I still don't have home Internet because I have to pay the phone bill. *headdesk* Next paycheck I swear.

So far the only complaint I have is the same one I had while trying to order it: not enough USB ports. It comes with six, but two are gone right out of the box if you want to use a keyboard and mouse. I added a USB hub with four more and now have three unplugged peripherals for the one remaining port. :p So when I stop in Target to pick up my contacts after work, I'll have to see if they carry reasonably-priced USB hubs.

I have to reinstall my programs and get used to Windows 7. So far all I've really done is played a few hands of Spider Solitaire and decided I really don't like how it keeps informing of an illegal move with a pop-up box. I need to find a way to shut that off.

I hope everybody has a great Christmas/Yule holiday and hopefully I'll get to check in again before Dec. 28th.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

2011 Goals

Two days on schedule is too soon to say it has sunk in. Since I promptly broke my track record today, I think I've proved that point. Still I got fifteen minutes of writing in yesterday morning for the first time in weeks. So something is working.

Fun exercise: After so badly missing the mark on 365,000 fiction words written in 2010 and then seeing a remark on how you don't write well until you have written over a million words, I got curious over what my lifetime total is. So I made a spreadsheet of all the totals I could easily get. 85 finished stories, but I was able to get totals on all but five for a grand total of 1,067,144 words. Best year was 2009 in which I wrote my second longest novel, finished what I wrote the year before for NaNo, and two short stories sprinkled in. I didn't finish any fiction in 2007, but a look at DUF shows I was busy with writing and the Educator's Guide. But most obvious is that 365,000 words was a huge jump that I wasn't ready for. My yearly average computes to be 46,398 words. Oh and I discovered that I had made this great detail sheet to record things like date I finished and word counts when I finished a story and stopped using it a decade ago. Oops.

I'm supposed to be working on my goals for 2011. So now I'm wondering why I'm trying so hard to distract myself from the making the vague concrete? Well, my monkey brain hates when I want to change things for the better. The biggest change I want to implement is to use SMART technique so instead of wondering what I meant by "get serious about paying off debt," I have a plan.

What do I want to accomplish in 2011?

• Show progress on paying off debt load
• Take health seriously
• Write 182,500 fictional words
• Submit enough stories to get rid of the anxiety over it.
• Remodel house.

Lovely and vague, that's where my brain goes first. Now to bread each of those with SMART so I have action steps to take.

Show progress on paying off debt load

• Specific: Follow budget every month
• Measurable: Update Quicken every day
• Action-oriented: Find a part-time job to increase income.
  • Bring all bills current by Jan. 28, 2011
  • Put the budgeted amount into savings out of the first check every month. If there is overdrawn issues to pay for, it comes out of what should be saved.
• Realistic: Pay off what I owe Mom, Dad, and Republic Finance using the debt snowball method by Dec. 31, 2011.
• Trackable/Time-based: Update my NetWorthIQ badge and show the progress
• Save $1000 emergency fund by March 25, 2011.

Take health seriously

• Specific: Follow Primal guidelines on food and exercise
• Measurable: Weigh every morning
  • Take body measurements once-a-week
• Action-oriented: Exercise every day. Use outside play with Atticus
• Realistic: Lose 4 pounds by next check-up with Dr. Miller
• Trackable/Time-based: Keep a food diary and measurements at FitDay.com
  • Fill out the workout log book every day I exercise and show progress at Joe's Goals

Write 182,500 fictional words between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2011

• Specific: Write at least 500 words every day
• Measurable: Post the weekly total every Saturday at DUF using the Writertopia progress bar
  • Keep track of daily progress with a marathon spreadsheet
• Action-oriented: Finish Stellar Gift of Death by March 20, 2011
  • Finish a 5000-word short story for Triangulation submission by March 31, 2011
  • Finish steampunk mystery
  • Finish another story in the Piper of Shadows universe
  • Finish the "Blue Man on the Porch"
• Realistic: Finish four original stories before any fanfiction
• Trackable/Time-based: Each story has a marathon tracker of its own, and metrics are posted daily at DUF

Submit enough stories to get rid of the anxiety over it

• Specific: Submit to six markets by Dec. 31, 2011
• Measurable: Find a tracking method that I can update without fuss.
• Action-oriented: Look for 12 markets
• Realistic: Send out at least one story in February, April, June, August, October, and December
  • Have conversations with the Fear Monger; it helps
• Trackable/Time-based: Honestly note the anxiety over each submission on tracking method

Remodel house (Good Lord and Lady, can I get any more amorphous that that?)

• Specific:Replace roof and exterior walls of back half of house to have a level ceiling.
  • Demolish sheet-rock walls in bathroom and rebuild one between hall and bathroom with a pocket door. Put new sink in a new spot. Repair floor. Buy cabinets and shelves for storage. Move hot water heater to another location.
  • Enlarge kitchen to add more storage and eating area
  • Enlarge back bedroom or add more rooms to separate functions: exercise, sewing, storage, guest room
  • Build an office desk from cabinets to function as a built-in
  • LaGrange Consulting audit to make house energy efficient and switch over to cenralized AC and heat

Excuse me for a moment.

HOLY FUCKING HELL! There is no way to do ANY of that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need a new roof. The current roof is probably over twenty years old and we've tried every sealant product to stop the leaks to no avail. But what happens is I replace the roof and then reconfigure the back half of the house next year? New roof again? I haven't even figured out how I want to do the extensions! And I want a profession to go over those plans once I decided! Can I put the roof over and just not demo? ARGH!!!!!!

Okay, I think I'm better now. Remodeling is a project this is so not ready for prime time. Consider it tabled until after I have paid off Republic Finance.

Now I made this list pretty for the sidebar. Eight days before the end of the year to practice these goals.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Finally Friday

This week has been crazy with the blahs and keeping appointments and trying to be motivated. As a result, I haven't seen the rest of my family since Monday night. So despite feeling like death warmed over, I finished getting my glasses fixed at Target and bought Atticus a soccer ball for Christmas and got through traffic with enough time to see them. Bowed out of going to my grandmother's Christmas party, and was fixing my supper when Atticus hit me with his second most important news (first was when was it okay to go to my house and play again). "I got a soccer ball!"

Dad ruined my train of thought that we have a psychic in the family. "Grammie (my mother) bought it for him yesterday."

I shooed Atticus out of the room so he could show me his new Hot Wheels car. "I was buying the soccer ball for his Christmas."

"Well, it was the last one Wal-Mart had."

"I BOUGHT the soccer ball tonight for his Christmas present." Kai, my sister and Atticus' mother, walks in and I repeated it. "I just bought the soccer ball tonight when I got my glasses fixed. I told you that's what I was getting."

"I didn't buy it." And she fled back to the living room.

Mom came bustling into the kitchen the next time Atticus was out of earshot to defend her purchase (and yes, she was there when I said I was going to buy one) and offered to exchange it for me. "He wants a football too. And it was the last one Wal-Mart had."

After sending her off to the party with confirmations that I could go back to Target just fine on my own, I turned to Dad. "The reason I went with soccer is because I sucked tossing the football back in P.E. class. And who takes Atticus outside to play? ME!"

He laughed. "You can still kick the soccer ball."

"It's going to be the cake plate year all over again." And he laughed harder.

The cake plate year is legendary in my family. Mom decided to make a list of all the stuff she really, really wanted and needed, tired of our guessing at items and not getting it right. Me and Krista dutifully ignored the list, but Kai followed it. Item number one was a fancy glass cake plate with a cover and a stand so you can display the dessert on it. And the day after Kai had bought a really nice one and told me about finding it, in bustles Mom showing off the cake plate she had just found for herself. Kai good-naturedly took her cake plate back and went for item number two on the list, which Mom promptly bought for herself before Christmas too.

I think Dad felt sorry for me last night (it has been a stressful week so I'm fairly certain my expression showed it), because we worked out a payment plan and ordered a new computer for me with a USB headset microphone. So now all I have to buy is a new phone because the one I have doesn't have a mute button and a new modem because mine is still dead Jim, and I'll be ready to apply for Convergys virtual call center job again! Looks like that'll probably happen in January. *crossing fingers*

I was invited to an outing to see Tron this weekend, but I don't think it'll happen. I couldn't focus on bill paying last night and woke up too late to do it this morning, so I have to do it as soon as I get home tonight. If I get home tonight, I had planned on stopping at an AT&T store for a new modem and Barnes & Noble for the book portion of Atticus' Christmas (and the above episode is why I claimed books as my province when he was born), but now I have to go back to Target for the third time this week!

And now that I think about it, the budget I'm tweaking for 2011 (using Quicken's process that I find quick but clunky) needs to be tweaked again because I didn't make sure the computer payment is added to the monthly bills.

It's not the number break down that I find clunky but the report of monthly spending versus the budget. Using gasoline for the example, according the Quicken's report I have spent $121 on it month to date, okay. The next column is the amount allotted under the budget, which it says is $98. Third column is the difference between the first two. What I can't figure out is where $98 came from when the monthly allotment is supposed to $191. I think that Quicken takes the total monthly amount divides it by how many days are in the month and then multiplies it by how many days have passed. At least, when I do that it comes very close to what the report tells me. Problem is the way I'm used to looking at a budget is subtracting what I have spent from the total monthly allotment until there's no more to spend. For example, I can take $70 out of this paycheck for gasoline until I get paid again. It's a theory I understand not that I've been very good at following it, but I'm buckling down on it in 2011. Honest!

What I would like to do is change the report to show that math instead of what it shows. I have no idea if I can do that, so I've got a research project for today while I'm working on lawsuits. *rolls eyes*

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Trying to catch up

Wednesday and Thursday I have all day training classes. I'm trying to stay on top of email and other updates, but you may not hear from me again until Monday.

In sorta related news, I found a good deal on a Dell desktop. Too bad I don't think the money is going to work out. *head desk*

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Weekends

The most writing I got done this weekend was while I was waiting at the garage for my car's brakes to be repaired and an oil change. I knew that my sister and nephew moving in with my parents would change my schedule, but I underestimated it. My parents can't keep up with an active four-year-old, my sister thinks he should be inside unless a grown-up is in the yard with him, so it has fallen on me to make sure he actually gets to play outdoors. And then he wants to come home with me and watch movies and play board games. Family comes first, but I need to find a way so I'm not being taken advantage of.

Otherwise, a rather uneventful weekend. I finally got Quicken straightened out (with the minor issue of not being able to import the export file I saved at work), and then spent my entire paycheck on car repairs. And that wasn't everything that Rizzo needs right now.

Computer is still dead, but I'm going to try to resuscitate the modem and see if I can get a wireless signal out of it. If I'm not totally brain dead by the time I get home.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Craig Ferguson explains Doctor Who

Read Free!
The BookWorm

More motherboard research

Selecting a New Motherboard
How to Buy a Motherboard

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Cyber Monday's weather is ironic

It's a drizzly mess today, perfect for staying inside and shopping online. Too bad I had to come to work. The trade off is I have Internet access here.

Parents got home Wednesday night about 11:30 with sister and nephew in tow. I sacrificed writing time to spend time with Atticus since my parents and his mother need to have frank discussions and I never get to see the kid. Frank discussions have yet to take place. *headdesk*

On the computer front: Dad doesn't know if he has any spare motherboards or not and could really care less compared to what he'd rather do (reading the two weeks of newspapers that piled up and football watching). The spare DSL modem that he's not sure works or not needs a power cord that neither one of us has in the correct voltage. *headdesk* Sunday, I asked for his laptop so I could get access to Quicken once again and figure out how to spend my December paychecks. That's STILL not done because after visiting the extendeds Atticus wanted to play board games with Aunt Kindra and we watched the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie plus three Biker Mice From Mars episodes. By then it was both our bedtimes. *headdesk*

Since I got work so insanely early, I thought shopping for motherboards would be a good idea. Apparently, I need more education because I don't recognize any of the terminology and I left the manuals for what I already had at home. I just bought RAM last year; I'd like to continue using it but can't remember the specifics. *headdesk*

So this is what kind of Monday it's shaping up to be.

Oh this looks really helpful: Computer Shopper's Complete Guide to Buying a Motherboard. Actually, I'd rather be on a current pizza commercial with this. In the commercial, the mom rattles off what she wants in a pizza and the choices shrink. I want to upgrade the motherboard to 2.8 GHz processor that's still able to run the old parts I'm keeping. I don't know why that isn't a check box for those requirements. ;)

Time for me to get to work on the paying job.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I'm nearly convinced I have a busted capacitor

There is something underneath the slightly off-kilter capacitor and if it's not a trick of the light, there is a slight bulge on it.

Craptastic.

The good news: My RAM, fans, hard disks, DVD burner, audio card, ethernet card, modem card, monitor, and printers are all decent and should be able to move to a new machine.

Not so good news: CD burner gets cranky, USB ports are 1.0 (I think), and the graphics card is original with the computer. The monitor needs a new cable, but I have figured out how to tweak it to fix the color issue. The tower may or may not be salvageable thanks to the switch issue I've been having for years. Dad's supposed to be getting new cases though, so that maybe a free fix.

Bad news: buying a motherboard and a DSL modem at the same time.

So I'm probably offline until next Monday with only some borrowed computer time to check in. Biggest aggravation: my brain finally kicked into gear yesterday and I have things to upload to the Library. That's something I really don't want to do at work.

Hopefully this is an uneventful Wednesday before Thanksgiving, even though we are a woman down in the office. Hopefully everyone who is traveling to or through Baton Rouge will do it EARLY so I can get home at a decent time tonight. As opposed to 6:30 last night, after leaving work at 4:30, to cover a distance of 45 miles.

If I don't get to contact blog readers again, have a Happy Turkey Day! For non-U.S. readers, have a happy un-Holiday!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Something fun

Via Mez.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:
• Copy this list.
• Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
• Tag other book nerds.

I have read:

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
24. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
25. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
26. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
27. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
28. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
29. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
30. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
31. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
32. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
33. Emma -Jane Austen
34. Persuasion – Jane Austen
35. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
36. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
40. Animal Farm – George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
44. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
49. Atonement – Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
51. Dune – Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
61. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
71. Dracula – Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses – James Joyce
75. The Inferno – Dante
76. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal – Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession – AS Byatt
80. Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
93. Watership Down – Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
97. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
99. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

That's how I got the list. Because I have MAJOR ISSUES counting an entire series as one book to read, I present the new and improved BBC list:

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – JRR Tolkien
4. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – JRR Tolkien
5. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone – JK Rowling
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – JK Rowling
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – JK Rowling
11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
12. Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows – JK Rowling
13. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
14. The Bible
15. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
16. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
17. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
18. His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife – Philip Pullman
19. His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman
20. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
21. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
22. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
23. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
24. Complete Works of Shakespeare
25. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
26. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
27. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
28. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
29. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
30. Middlemarch – George Eliot
31. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
32. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
33. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
34. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
35. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
36. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
37. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
38. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
39. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
40. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
41. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
42. Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
43. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – CS Lewis
44. Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – CS Lewis
45. Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair – CS Lewis
46. Chronicles of Narnia: A Horse and His Boy – CS Lewis
47. Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew – CS Lewis
48. Chronicles of Narnia: The Final Battle – CS Lewis
49. Emma -Jane Austen
50. Persuasion – Jane Austen
51. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
52. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
53. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
54. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
55. Animal Farm – George Orwell
56. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
57. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
58. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
59. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
60. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
61. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
62. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
63. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
64. Atonement – Ian McEwan
65. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
66. Dune – Frank Herbert
67. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
68. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
69. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
70. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
71. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
72. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
73. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
74. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
75. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
76. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
77. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
78. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
79. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
80. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
81. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
82. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
83. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
84. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
85. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
86. Dracula – Bram Stoker
87. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
88. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
89. Ulysses – James Joyce
90. The Inferno – Dante
91. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
92. Germinal – Emile Zola
93. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
94. Possession – AS Byatt
95. Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
96. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
97. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
98. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
99. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
100. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
101. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
102. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
103. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
104. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
105. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
106. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
107. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
108. Watership Down – Richard Adams
109. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
110. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
111. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
112. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
113. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I Don't Think I'm Addicted

But three days with only an over-sized paperweight on the desk has reached irritating status.

DSL Modem is probably dead and I had to reinstall everything to be functional once again. Well, last week the computer developed a will-not-stay-on problem. I thought it was the temperature acting up again, but it still cut off despite having the case open and a desk fan blowing into it. I was already having issues with the switch on the power supply, maybe the power supply has gone kaput.

Saturday a friend suggests another possibility: a capacitor has gone bad on the motherboard. So I'm looking at images of those and I'm not sure if that has happened or not. Ugh!

Thursday, I submitted "Covenant of the Restless," but I couldn't get into the mood to work on anything with the computer in pieces. It really doesn't matter, but at the same time irritates so much I don't want to be in the same room with it. *Shrug* That's going to make for an interesting holiday this week.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

This is troubling

My computer decided being closed off from the Internet isn't enough fun, and has started shutting itself off and on. I found out on Tuesday morning. I had temperature related shut offs a few months ago, but it hadn't been a problem since I rearranged the computer components. But I also had the AC on then. So I downloaded a program I thought could help me track what the internal temps actually are and see if that is the problem or if my power supply has gone to crazyville without the rest of the computer.

Last night, it wouldn't even stay on long enough for me to transfer the files and try the program out. Even with me opening the case and aiming a desktop fan into it. I'm not having high hopes for the drop in ambient temperature to help either.

If it's willing to cooperate tonight, I think I can get into the BIOS setup and at least turn on an alarm to find out if it is the temperatures doing it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

What Will It Take For a Win?

Getting to the internet failed again Friday night. A real doozy: computer says everything is connected fine, but none of the programs can update or go anywhere. So I called tech support for the DSL Saturday after my company left. Exhausted everything they could do, problem still unresolved, so they recommended I call in the for-pay tech support.

Sunday after I try shutting off the firewall and virus protection and still can't pull up a website, I call in and charge a one-time issue to my phone bill. First call's final solution: it must be an embedded virus so do a clean install of Windows XP. Second call to make sure I did the clean install properly after I had backed up everything I could to the external hard drive (the program folders kept having fits). Third call was because I still couldn't connect even with a fresh out of the box install of XP. It couldn't find Windows updates. Third call's final solution: the modem has gone bad (even though I can access all the setup stuff for it) and I have to buy a new one.

Final straw for last night: I finally figured out a solution to make an area to stack piles in, moved the piles to it, and now I have to shift the piles again to reach my shelf of computer software I have to reinstall. *headdesk*

So no progress with Elizabethan sea dogs this weekend, my headspace has been too present-day. I'm going to ask Dad if he has a spare DSL modem before I go buy a new one, just in case that isn't the issue. I'm supposed to have a dial-up back up connection but I have to reinstall that too, and I'm not sure if that is worth the hassle.

Also shifting the set of bookshelves in front of the telephone jack has made me realize I need a better set of shelves there and on wheels if I don't want to cut a hole in the bottom shelf to access the phone jack.

Today's plans: finish the edits to "Covenant of the Restless" on paper at least. Reinstall what programs I can to the home computer.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

PHONE!

I have phone. I have DSL. I have happy thoughts.

Apparently demanding a credit for time of no service really does get them out faster.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Weekend ARGH!

I am without phone service and DSL until Bell South/AT&T decides to finally send out a technician and give me a dial tone without harsh static feedback. That will be between when I reported it on Saturday to 6pm Thursday.

I wish I could report that I got so much done with my enforced offline status, but I'd be lying. Basically I took last week off of everything but housework. The dust bunnies are in shock.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

November Already?

So NPI is over (I got longest run without using a reprieve and most reprieves left at the end WOOT!), Halloween is over, family drama is not over, and I need to have friends over before holiday crazies start. I do better when I actually have goals and deadlines, so what are my goals for November?

1. Submitting "Covenant of the Restless." *Pause to kick the reflexive anxiety away.* Needs to happen. Also mean I have writing left to do. I have a game plan after having a chat with the Fear Monger monster that was stirring up my anxiety. Now it's just a matter of ignoring that anxiety and follow the game plan. This is a finish-able goal since I need to submit before Nov. 18th.
2. Finishing Stellar Gift of Death's first draft by Dec. 31st. I have to write over 600 words a day now. EEP! This is a goal that will be plodding along in the background while I continue through my days.
3. Focus on finances. I've gotten no where fast on money issues this year. My head's barely above water, which I wish didn't feel as familiar as it does. I need to stay on budget and save up for a laptop and other equipment to apply for a virtual call center job. If I get the budget focusing down cold for November and December, I think I can start saving for the laptop goal in January.
4. Lose weight. My health demands it. Primal eating helps, but I cheated with too many carbs last month. And I don't exercise enough, so I have to do more of that.
5. Post all fanfiction I have written. This is just some housekeeping so I can start next year with fresh projects.
6. Keep a clean house and have a party. I haven't decided if this party is a glorified DVD and boardgame sleepover or extra help on remodeling the bathroom. Probbaly the first since I have no money for the second. Keeping the house clean is an ongoing goal. My schedule for when to do what is good; I just don't follow it. So I'm making an effort to cross off items on the to-do list.
7. I should have a number 7 just to make it even and powerful and holy (according to numerologists). Sewing! I still have the Tin Man!Adora uniform to finish and my coworkers got really excited over a Steampunk Batgirl from Project Rooftop. Regardless, I have to start on them soon.

Okay, let's go ahead and declare this is the goal list for the rest of the year. Some items are finish-able; other more continuous. It's a starting point at least.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Halloween 2010

So do you know who I am?






Seriously, how well did I cosplay this?

Of course, after I found this picture, all my coworkers voted that I should sew this for next Halloween.



Read Free!
The BookWorm

Trailer: The Tempest

Trailer: The Tempest

YUMMY! Gender-bending makes even more sense for Prospero's snit-fit attitude at the beginning of the play.

October's first week is done

October is moving along, faster than anyone probably likes. I realized it had been a while without an update, so here I am.

Progress with Primal lifestyle: I didn't lose any weight during the challenge, so I think I'm cheating somewhere and not realizing it. And I never managed to work the exercises in. But I'm feeling tons better, energy up, and no trouble with getting out of bed (and getting the lamp alarm to finally work has helped more than I expected it to). Keeping a food diary and opening up the routine to exercise are the next steps.

TV viewing has went way down. I'm taping Castle and watching Bones. What did they do to Bones' hair? For three episodes now, at random points during the show, I'll blurt out "I really don't like her hair." I laugh and concentrate on the mystery, so it really must be bothering me.

Creating threesomes for the sake of threesomes isn't me. So I was mildly surprised when my brain chimed in with Brennan/Booth/Hannah could work. Of course the one who will put up the most resistance will be Booth (oh Catholic guilt trips!) followed by Brennan (if I love people I lose them so let my brains keep me away from the rest of the human race). I still want to fix their confrontation in season five. Booth should have mentioned her baby want. Really, I didn't expect another outcome, including running away to Indonesia, but damn it the writers just left that alone like they forgot about it.

And Haven has gone bye-bye until second season (squee!). Frell, I did not see the twist they ended on coming at all, and I have been really good at picking the twist up by the thirty-minute mark. And what does it mean about Agent Howard, who also trained Mulder (*giggling*)? But how awesome is Vince, who knows so much more than he is telling but seems to have a strict hands-off policy to keep living in Haven. The tattoo appearing and disappearing on Julia and going back so far into Haven's history, delicious. It's not a separation between Troubled and the norms, so I'm intrigued with what else it could be a marker for. Poor Nathan and the Chief, but I was glad to see the Rev again. I thought they hadn't played enough with the fundamentalist wacko theory (the Troubled are Godless or cursed by God), so I'm looking forward to him shaking things up next season.

Mom and I went yesterday and saw Secretariat, and what an awesome bio pic it is. I'm still in awe at how they shot it to make you feel like you were riding the greatest racehorse that ever lived.

Novel Push Initiative: NPI has also been keeping me busy. I gave myself the goal of 250 daily words for the month of October in Zy's novel, which I finally named Stellar Gift of Death. So far I've kept ten days in a row.

I've also been working on editing "Covenant of the Restless," so it fits into the Piper of Shadows universe. Details are over in DUF.

Fun stuff: I found a new YouTube user whose fan trailers I adore. I really wish this one could happen for the small cameo at 0:30. *Sigh*



I would also love to sit through this movie:



And this one, the World's Finest moment makes me tear up:



Something Positive had a rift on witches that should amuse all the Oz fans I know.

And now I'm off to blog about NPI day 10, to finish folding laundry, and to edit "Covenant."

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Don't Try This at Home, Kiddies

Rizzo finally has a clean bill of health. What stranded me on Sept. 3rd was overheating because my radiator fan broke and then the fan motor burned out. Monday, Sept. 13th, after that had been repaired, I drove into work and the M.I.L. came on. I did find my gas cap was loose, but the light stayed on. Mom took the car back in yesterday and the mechanic found a loose vacuum hose, which he fixed for free. HUZZAH!

So at home and I finally cleaned out the computer tower with the second bottle of compressed air. It was dirtier than it should be, but that's not where I spent the first bottle. I stopped at WalMart yesterday morning and bought the air and food for lunch. When I got to work, I only brought the food in with me. I came back to an empty can that had exploded some safety cracks and shot the nozzle head off. I'm extremely lucky it didn't bust any windows in my mother's SUV when I did what the warning message on the can tells you not to do. *headdesk* A second trip to WalMart on the way home was a small price to pay.

I moved the computer to the desktop and put the front cover back on it. Hopefully that'll cut down on the amount of dust that gets inside. Dad replaced the fan over the graphics accelerator, so all the fans are running now. But my monitor has gone green. Seriously, Cain's pants are now olive, all my blue bars are emerald, and I haven't opened up a blank white document to see what color it turns into. I think the monitor plug may be damaged, but I will borrow a monitor from Dad tonight to make sure it's not the video card. Right now, I'm letting the computer run to see if it turns off again. If it doesn't, I have to figure out where to keep the tower and replug everything. The cubby is a pain in ass to try to plug anything in and if I need to get inside the tower. On the desktop takes up valuable space. :p

As of leaving out at 6 a.m., the computer hadn't shut itself off or tried to reboot itself. *Crossing fingers.*

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I'm Back

Back home and had a great time. Rizzo is fixed, *crossing fingers.* Home computer is shutting itself off. *headdesk* Haven't figured out how to fix that. Bloglines is packing up shop, so I'm moving all my feeds to Google Reader.

And today was a bad day to not pack my lunch.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I Meant to Do This Before Now

An updates blog post, that is. Had the idea on Friday and then Rizzo (my car) overheated to the setting alarms off on the dashboard degree. That killed Friday night.

Saturday morning, I had the intentions to do so much computer work including blog posts. But then the computer went wonky and by the time I had cleaned it, my desire to do more computer stuff had died.

Sunday and Monday: enjoyed the time off.

Tuesday: back to work.

So now it's Wednesday and since I'm taking a mini-vacation Thursday and Friday, it's update day!

Mom got some free hotel nights at a casino resort in Shreveport, so we're heading up there. There are some free exhibits in the area so I won't have to play the slots the whole time. WOOT! I'm hoping she wasn't exaggerating about a spa being available and hoping for a pool too because I suck at slot machines. Mom finds them relaxing and can spend hours playing off her winnings. Nothing against gambling, I'd be better at it if it was more like a video game. And that's saying a lot considering how bad my hand-eye coordination is.

I don't know how much writing I'm going to get done off grid. I have a week left to the "Phantom Highwayman" incorporate the brand-new zag (as in just thought of it and almost derailed this blog post) and submit.

Problems with Rizzo: her AC went out last Thursday. I didn't freak out about it, just planned on rolling down the windows until I got paid and then have some coolant put back in. Then Friday's afternoon commute, her temperature warning light went off in the middle of stop and go traffic. Luckily, I made it over to the next exit, parked at Chick-fil-A, and waited for my parents. Then they took it to the mechanics Tuesday since I had to go to work, but he can't look at it until today. So I still don't know what is wrong and how much to fix it.

Sept. 7th also marked the start of a 30 Day Primal Challenge and that couldn't come at a better time. My insurance decided I don't need Byetta anymore and there's a manufacture's shortage of my dosage of Glumetza. What I really need is to get off the drugs and control my blood sugar and lose weight. So time for a lifestyle overhaul. So if Blank starts looking like a food diary, this is why.

Second component of this will be thirty days of Primal Fitness. So far, I only missed this morning's workout but I'm planning to make it up when I get home as long as I get home three hours before bedtime. :p

Off to noodle now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Five Years Ago Today

I was at my baby sister's apartment in Natchitoches, having evacuated from a gal named Katerina. Mother Nature has decided we needed mood weather to remember and the thunderstorm hasn't stopped yet. The leak in my back bedroom is worse and now running down the wall. *head desk*

I guess I should start calling for estimates on a new roof that I know I can't afford because I have some outstanding debt to pay off first. I wanted to hold off until I could afford to extend the back half properly. I'll figure something out, eventually.

Now in honor of five years of rebuilding: Vince Vance's "I am New Orleans."


Read Free!
The BookWorm

Why does my house think I have money?

I just watered the backyard for thirty minutes because the washing machine never got off the fill up the tub setting. *head desk* It worked once I moved the dial, so the load I put in should get washed. But I sure don't want to put another load in. I'll have to borrow Mom and Dad's so I'll have clean work clothes for next week.

It's one thing to know that you'll have to replace appliances because they wear out. It's another thing when they break and the budget is so tight it's squeaking.

Mom and I examined it. The verdict is it could be the timing belt since it worked after I moved it manually. So I'm testing it by running another full cycle and see if I'll have to watch it from now on.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Hello Projects! I'm Baaack!

My cubicle desk is cleared; all assessments snug in their folders inside the filing cabinets. I'm blinking at the light reflecting off the now-visible surface and hit with the what's up now? feeling. Don't get me wrong, I have other tasks to do on my paying job but suddenly my brain matter is free to go back to writing. And maybe I'll have time to put words on paper.

Yeap, I need a moment to process that.

While I processing, Mez came through with some totally unexpected submission calls: Our Haunted World and Cthulhurotica. The first could be a good home for my phantom highwayman story and the second, LOL. Upon looking at their guidelines more closely, my Lovecraftian-rift story won't work even adding in new erotic material. I like Lovecraft, but I don't know if I like it that much. However if I actually submit to one market, I will be improving my current submission track record by a hundred percent.

So state of writing:

• Edit the phantom highwayman story for submission
• Edit the Hyrueliana
• Add stuff to the Zy Novel Wiki -- This I can do right now; I have everything with me

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Scary!

Google disabled me for hours, but once I got back home I was able to prove I am me and get everything back. *wipes brow*

Now excuse me while I do some backing up.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Weird but this still works

I'm kicked out of Gmail for some reason but I can still blog. Tres weird.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Not on the agenda

I had my list of things to do today. Despite staying in bed two hours more than I had thought I should, I was really cruising crossing off stuff. I exercised today, cooked and ate breakfast, and was in the middle of rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher when I felt a bang under my foot and the hot water slowed to a trickle. The bang wasn't bad, it felt like a vibration of something hitting the floor. Nothing dropped in the kitchen so immediately I thought the pipe had burst and hit the floor under the house. My house is built off the ground, maybe about two feet.

My uncle found me sawing through the stupid vinyl lattice so I could see if that theory was correct.

Luckily, it wasn't. The problem is the valve for the hot water under the sink has gone bad. Secondary problem: going to town wasn't on my list! I did that yesterday!

So for those of you keeping track of everything I need to fix.

• New roof
• Replace the back portion of the house with something built to code
• More efficient plumbing!
• Remodel the bathroom
• Remodel the kitchen

Read Free!
The BookWorm

The misson if you chose to accept it....

I didn't have a choice. I was down to 2 pairs of jeans that fit comfortable and one of those I can only wear around the house because of the holes in them, and another pair that fit sorta. I could close them, but they and my tummy fought about sitting arrangements. Both of the non-holey jeans are cut so the waist below my belly button; I'm just not sure if they're supposed to be hipsters or not.

So this means TORTURE clothes shopping.

First pair, the fly never could meet. Back to the store for another one.

Last week, I got a pair in the same brand and same style as the ones that fit but went up a size. Tummy should have more room. This was a lie because I had to do the lay-down-on-the-bed trick to get the fly to meet, and then the zipper pulled apart at the bottom. Pants off, fixed zipper, same thing. Pants off again, fixed zipper and it doesn't yank apart with my hands, put wax on zipper to oil it, same thing happens once on my body. Stuffed pants in bag to go back to store.

So this morning I was faced with the choice of sitting all day at the job in a pair of jeans trying to reach my spine while my tummy resists or go REALLY early to Wal-Mart and find a new pair of jeans. I walked into Wally World at 5:45am with "third time's the charm" vs. "three strikes and you're out" in my head.

So I ended up leaving with two pairs of jeans in two different brands and two different sizes. I think my assumption is if one doesn't work the other HAS TO. And praise the goddess of denim, the Just My Size FIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only is my tummy happy, these jeans also have a waistband on my natural waist instead of my hips. They are too long in the leg (I nearly stepped on them after shoes were on) but that is NOTHING to hem. I can live life with two pairs of jeans fit for outside the house. :D

Weekend plans: I don't have to clothes shop now, but I do have to fix the caster on the dishwasher. Other than that and some other housekeeping chores, I need to respond to a lot of emails and write. Worse ways to spend the days.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Another fangirl moment

Benny and LINK?!

Yeah, I'm cackling hysterically at this. The way I feel, it doesn't take much to set it off. And no, I won't be making it part of my fanon.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Light at the end of the tunnel

NO MORE OIL!!!!!!! *Snoopy dance*

We've been under a massive heat index and I think the triple-digit temps have melted my brain. It's been harder than usual to remember everything I need to do.

Plus side, I got less than 20 assessments outstanding (i.e. the companies haven't paid yet). I never can remember the tally of how many companies we assess in total, but trust me this is so nothing to worry about. I may actually get my Monday nights back!

Hopefully, I have enough energy to cross off items on the to-do list tonight when I get home.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I can be such an odd fangirl at times

And it's the little things that make me happy.

No one's going to take me alive
Time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive -- "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse

I treated myself to a Muse CD. They've been on my to buy list ever since I first heard "Knights of Cydonia" and claimed it for a Biker Mice song. Cydonia is an area of Mars, made famous by the Face on Mars controversy. So I was pleased to squee a little to find a photo of Mars under the CD in the back cover.

I played it on the commute into work and think that a few songs on the album might be applicable to BMFM soundtracks.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Let's hear it for Central Plumb It Yourself!

At work today, I mapped out three plumbing supply stores on my route home to look for an adapter to make the connection between my sink faucet and the new portable dishwasher. Took all my manuals and the aerator, and faucet adapter. Felt like crap all day, if I could have curled up for a nap, I would still be asleep now. Finally got to leave work at 4:20 (after arriving at 6:55 this morning; don't ask). And last thing I wanted to do was go shopping, but wanting a working dishwasher won. The first stop was Central Plumb It Yourself.

I walked into a bathroom showplace and sighed internally, but made a mental note that I might want to check their prices on bowl sinks when I'm ready for the project. I figured I had gotten a decorating store that specialized in bathrooms. A saleclerk came out of the employee section and I explained that I was looking for parts. "Oh come on to the back, the girls back there will fix you up." And led me through a door labeled "Parts Dept."

Now the store reminded me of a hardware store, racks of plastic enclosed plumbing doodads. I explained what I needed, she took the parts, opened up a tool box, got another employee's expert opinion, and put the new adapter onto the faucet adapter with a washer and rung me up. Took about fifteen minutes. Total cost of the dishwasher now is $68.22.

So now I'm finally getting to test the dishwasher! There is a leak at the faucet, but none from the machine, WOOT! I figure I didn't tighten the faucet adapter enough and it's not shooting out and making a mess. Mustard's not sure what to make of this noisy new white box, but I find it's not any louder than any of the window AC units I'm running. (I'm worried about the office one, it sounds horrible.) Once I've made sure all the water has drained out, I can start my first official load!

SQUEE!!!!!!!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Tropical Storm Bonnie

Tropical Storm Bonnie should be making landfall Sunday. *Crossing fingers* Hopefully, it won't intensify. It will be going through the oil spill zone. Though luckily they've been having trouble finding oil floating in the Gulf since the cap has allowed them to catch up, the radio DJs just told me.

I still think somebody needs to invent the submersible rig from the Abyss. Underwater operations could continue, even if the ships had to skedaddle.

Saturday I'll probably have to spend cleaning the porches. Hopefully, I can find the parts I need for the dishwasher today so I can get the pile of dishes cleaned before I lose power. I have a generator now, but I'd rather not turn that on just to do chores. *SNORT* Looks like I won't get the plate rack built this weekend either.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

It only took ten years!

I got home and found this waiting on my back porch. (Picture taken once we moved it inside the house.)



Mom dragged Dad to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore today and spotted it. The portable dishwasher has never been used. Their price? Sixty-five dollars. I wrote Mom a check for it as soon as we got it in the kitchen.

Now I'm off to actually do my dishes! BWAHHHH!

EDIT: Foiled by technology! The dishwasher has faucet adapter that you screw to the faucet (once you remover the aerator). The hose to the locks to it to get the water. And it's too big for my pipe. *headdesk*

So I spent an hour at Lowe's, picked up the last of the items to build the plate rack (cross your fingers on that), and finally get some customer service to find out they don't have a part to make that adaption. "Another lady was in here earlier with the same problem."

ARGH! It's not so much that they don't have it. Lowe's is hit or miss with small items so specialized. It's that this took an HOUR, thirty minutes spent waiting for a sales clerk. Me patient? What the hell is that?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

The Toxic, Hidden Toll

Andrew Sullivan's post alerted me to this short film by Thomas Mortan on the impact of the oil crisis. Follow the link and watch. "Our nation's most well-spoken rednecks," oh that made me grin. He does call it what he sees "a total clusterfuck."

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Assessments are kicking our butts

Assessments are a lot simpler than how they were done when I first took this job a decade ago, but the sheer volume with the new system kinks adds up to overtime Monday and Tuesday. My sleep schedule has been shot, but hopefully, I can even up tonight and wake up on time tomorrow. Maybe.

I really haven't gotten to start on anything writing-wise. I'm supposed to be finishing the edits to Hyrueliana, but it's so hard to find the energy. I don't want to promise my weekends to anything because that hasn't been working lately.

Lunch is over, back to the grind.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Hello World

It's been over a week since the new program to classify the revenue debuted at work. The list of 2- to 25 items of "FIX NOW" to "this is annoying" degrees of importance is down to 12. Not to bore you with the details of how this has been so hair-pulling frustrating, I'll sum up with this:

Whoever's bright idea it was to start using a new fiscal program at the beginning of the new fiscal year when the books must be balanced and the assessment invoices go out should be fired, so we don't get any more bright ideas from idiots them.

I'm not overly thrilled with the "show off what we've built while building and then the users are trained and have given us input on how to improve it" operating procedure. Too many issues are glossed over until the users actually using it break the program. The good news is after week of breaking it in, it looks like we have found most of the bugs that stop the program cold. Then they put out a new build to fix the bug and lock us out of our job functions with security features. (About the fifth time first day that I went down to the programmers office my question became "what did you give us permission to do?!") Any way, they got the whole list of 12 today and I don't care if they have to work all weekend. I don't want them to, but nothing will run right on Monday either.

An important life lesson: Programmers never realize how many times they click on the mouse. So when they say they'll make the program so you click less, just smile, nod, and feed them more caffeine. Yeah, today's meeting we were told that everyone else loves the multi-screens and pop-up windows telling us were good and we don't because of the repetitive nature of our job. Yeah, okay, whatever. Our jobs suck and thank you for rubbing it in.

Sheesh, I am SUPER grumpy. I woke up this morning and something up between my shoulder blade and spine decided not to work and grab hold of all other muscles so turning and bending my neck is impossible and stretching my arm out pops my spine. That's not normal. I already iced it down and I'm saving more ice for when I go to bed. I haven't decided if I'll stay home if it doesn't clear up tomorrow.

Adventures in Wood Building
I need a plate rack. I have been needing a plate rack for a long time. I found a plan I liked in Great 2x4 Accessories. I bought the materials and then promptly let it get buried.

I uncovered it while cleaning up the sewing debris before the 4th of July long weekend. It still isn't built yet. I had planned to build it while fogging the house. The screws had gone missing, and I discovered this much too late to buy screws. Bought new screws during the week to build it July 10th or 11th. Then after that shopping trip, my parents take my sister in Texas their jigsaw I had planned on borrowing.

Sunday I go buy the jigsaw. Then I wait for it to get a little cooler. Then decide that isn't going to happen and get started. My extension cord is in use charging a car battery without my knowledge it had been borrowed. Okay, rearrange the sawhorses to reach the outlet with the jigsaw cord. Then I decide I should mark the stuff shown on figure two before cutting and my tape measure refuses to roll back up. I pulled all 25 feet of it out completely trying to make it roll back up. Then it starts thundering again, so I pack it all back inside so my wood doesn't get ruined by my leaky porch.

After all that, I double checked my drill bits and found I still need a 3/8 one for yet another step. So that means yet another shopping trip. And I don't know if my back will want me working with power tools.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

New Month

Don't have any real lofty plans for the month of July. I spent my three day weekend liberating my house from sewing debris and the back bedroom from fleas so I could store the sewing stuff again. And whoever fixed the vacuum valve on Space Bags is my new bestest friend in corporate America. No more losing the cap! And the seal is much better now. And while I was having fun storing blankets, I also went through the garb closet and got rid of a basket's worth of things I don't wear and probably won't ever wear again. Then moved the winter clothes out and now I have room in my wardrobe.

The only bummer news I have is I think the leak is getting worse. *Pulls hair* Second bummer news: I would like to use the back bedroom as a sewing space and a workout space. I only have room for one or the other to be the priority. And even then, it's a tight fit.

When I replace the roof and the back half of the house, I will have to expand the footprint of the house. I need room to put a guest bed somewhere after all.

At the paying job, we're switching computer systems on how we track the money. Many things are breaking. I'm going home at 4pm no matter what; I don't care if we have no money to deposit tomorrow.

Read Free!
KLCtheBookWorm

Fresh Start Monday

*Snort* It sounded so doable yesterday. Course that was before I couldn't fall asleep on time last night and ended up waking up late this morning. Abbreviated morning routine, bought breakfast and lunch, and then discovered getting off the Interstate was the only way to get to work.

Welcome to Monday, folks.

Goals for the Week

• Using the allotted chore time, clean up the sewing debris.
• List Big Rocks.
• Decide on Zy's novel or Strix's novel.
• Exercise.
• Primal eating.

in all honesty, I should start on the Tin Man Adora uniform for Halloween, but I just made my shoulder angel and shoulder devil burst into tears with the suggestion. So a break while I improve the sewing environment is probably necessary.

Improving the sewing environment: I discovered that moving the sewing machine to the living room so the extending table in the back room is free for cutting works, but not on my mother's six-foot-long folding table.

My idea is to modify a rolling kitchen cart to be a rolling sewing machine cabinet with panels that fold down into table tops for the fabric. I haven't gotten any further in the planning process than that.

Big Rocks self-explanatory.

June is almost over and I haven't worked on either Zy's or Strix's novels. I may end up flipping a coin.

Exercise & Primal Eating: two hundred sit-ups starts this week along with removing grains from me diet lifestyle. I've been following Mark's Daily Apple for a while now, and my health is not getting better according to Conventional Wisdom's way to treat metabolic syndrome. I had planned to go more cold turkey into primal eating this morning, but this morning left me unprepared for breakfast. My foraging included an English muffin.

Primal Blueprint 101, if you're interesting in reading more.

I think that's all for today. I'm off to find a kitchen cart to modify.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Wedding pictures!

What has consumed my life for so many months, making this outfit:


Best shot I have of the flower girl and ring bearer:


The happy couple:


Maid of honor, me, and the second best man, Chris:


The sewing odyssey will eventually go up at the Garb Closet; I just have no idea when.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

The wedding is done

Suzanne and Eric are off, finally. I'm home. I left only my pillow and the Byetta pen in New Orleans. *headdesk*

I'm going to bed. You may here more from me tomorrow or Monday.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

"Boom" from GQ

Boom from GQ explaining impartially what went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon.

BP should be prosecuted for 11 counts of murder just to start.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Big Rocks or Scheduled Tasks?

Today's the day to review if the schedule works or if it needs more tweaking. So far the only thing to tweak is my ability to stick wih it. If I don't go to bed on time, I don't wake up on time. Nearly everyday but Tuesday, I've had issues with this. The nice thing about this schedule is I jump right into what I should be doing after a minute of making the bed.

After too many days of missing my Byetta dose, I've decided to move it to breakfast instead of supper and eat before leaving the house.

Yesterday, I found this post on setting a minimum standard: Thinking Small without the Guilt. The daily To Do list is my minimum standard now, and I felt pretty good about that. Then I took a look at my Big Rocks. Big Rocks is a concept from Zen to Done at Zen habits. I've been using it for nearly two years now to plan my week.

Only without me realizing it, the Big Rocks list has become everything I want to do on ongoing projects instead of what I can and will finish this week. See. I know why I do it; I have an overdeveloped sense of fear of being bored. Mom related a story of how one of my teachers in elementary school berated her at Open House because I was bringing college-level books to class to read and when she took the "too old for me" books away, I colored my fingernails with crayons. My mother answered "Kindra's bored silly, so let her read the books we're letting her bring from home."

So it's no stretch when I'm doing my weekly review to jump in with "what are you going to do if you finish that?" and the next thing I know twenty-three slots are filled. *headdesk*

First step: move the items that have a scheduled day to the daily schedule. That opened up four slots.

Second step: identify what items have a deadline.

• Steampunk story - pen
• Bridesmaid dress - H
• TM_Challenge 12 entry - pen
• FFGarret WT #13 - web
• FFGarret EL #13 - web
• Edit Hyrueliana - pen

So this takes me from twenty-one items to six. And keep me from getting lost in the sea of projects. Everything not on this list needs to move back to the projects lists and wait for an opening.

That was pretty painless once I actually looked at things rather than just carry the items forward a week. See the new version.

The A-Team this weekend and the last of the sewing! *Crossing fingers.*

Read Free!
The BookWorm

At least I don't have tires under my eyes*

Declaring to test the schedule last Thursday and Friday was treated like a joke by my body. If I had paid attention to the smudges under my eyes, I would have recognized I hadn't been getting enough sleep. I regrouped this weekend; not enough to get up on time today but no tires in residence on my face* either.

So Thursday will be schedule evaluation day. Tuesday will be two hundred situps exhaustion test, pegging to start the workout next Monday. And if the wedding schedule messes it up for any reason, they built in 'stay at this week longer' tests so taking longer than six weeks isn't unheard of.

In not fixing the daily routine news, I got the shoes to go under the bridesmaid gown Saturday!

And I wore them a good chunk of the time I was sewing Sunday to get my body used to heels that high. Today, I decided to wear the black high-heeled sandals that were bought Saturday also. My feet currently think this was a bad plan.

Alan Cumming has discovered Tin Man fanvids. "But there are loads of them up there [YouTube]. Where do you all find the time?" Sheesh, I ask myself that nearly every day. :p

And the shoes went off at noon, stayed off until I had to go home.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

* = "Tires under my eyes" is a reference to my Biker Mice From Mars fanfic Put Me Back Together in the Wars Are Won By Those Who Dare series.

June Already

It’s gotta be better than May, right? We have oil spewing in the Gulf, hurricane season has started with predictions of a repeat of the 2005 season, and we’re supposed to go live with a new system at work by the end of the month. Positives: making tweaks to the schedule, Suzanne and Eric are getting married, I think I can make the deadline for the steampunk story.

Tweaking the schedule: it is good to follow my To Do list, but chores make a lousy reason to get up in the morning. Stepcase Lifehack asks Do you have a morning ritual? and I had to answer "not really as such."

And as hard as it is for me to get up most mornings, I think I need to heed their advice and find something I want to do. This ties into my To Do List actually.

Step One: Draft a short list of the things you do each morning and what you'd like to add. I already have this list as my Daily Chores on my To Do list.

• Exercise
• Writing hour
• Website Hour
• Make bed
• Wash dishes
• Empty inbox
• Empty Gmail and LiveJournal Inboxes
• Budget
• Weekly chores
• Get dressed
• Pack breakfast, lunch and snack
• Commute

Granted, if I don't finish this list before going to work, I can finish it through the day. But out of these items I can see what I'm not crossing off consistently or what I can add.

What I'm not hitting consistently list is much shorter:

• Exercise
• Writing hour
• Website Hour
• Empty inbox
• Budget

Too often, I'm using the weekend to catch up on what I missed during the week and skipping exercise altogether.

I got rid of the inbox by adding a “budget” and a “needs filing” folder to my box of 42 folders. The plan is to empty those every day and not keep a basket full of paperwork I just keep on my desk.

Step Two: Figure out how much time it'll realistically take to do everything on your list. This is where I think I fall down badly. I have no clear time of how long things should take in the morning, and let's face it trying to wake up doesn't help remembering how to do things.

Julie Morgenstern recommends timing yourself doing routine tasks because you probably don't know how long it really takes. When I read that advice, I realized I had no idea how long anything took to do, so I timed myself over a few days and took averages. The results:

• Make the bed = 1 minute
• Washing dished = 30 minutes
• Empty folders = 23 minutes
• Weekly chores = 45 minutes
• Budget = 30 minutes
• Getting dressed = 26 minutes
• Getting food = 11 minutes
• Exercise = 15 minutes
• Writing = 60 minutes
• Website = 60 minutes
• GRAND TOTAL = 301 minutes = 5 hours 1 minute

I get up around 3:00am and try to leave the house for 5:45am. So here I was trying to squeeze five hours of stuff into less than three hours, and then beating myself up for not doing everything. This hammered home how easily I can over extend myself.

Step Three: Adjust your wake time to accommodate your new ritual. This is the fun part. My first draft had me waking up at 2:30am. I’ve tried and it doesn’t happen, so 3am is the earliest and that means 8:30pm is the latest I can go to bed. That should be a big enough window to get everything done, right? If only I didn’t have to go to the paying job.

First thing to face: I can’t have a full hour of writing in the morning and clean house. But I can have thirty minutes.

June A.M. Schedule

• 3:00 = Wake up, Make bed, Wash dishes for 15 minutes
• 3:16 = Exercise
• 3:31 = Writing for 30 minutes
• 4:01 = Get dressed
• 4:27 = Get food
• 4:38 = Empty folders
• 5:01 = Weekly chores
• 5:46 = Leave for paying job

While at the paying job, I’ll clean out email inboxes, write and work on website projects as much as I am able. The evening schedule has to have more flexibility built into it because if I work late, getting anything finished is just a dream. I’m basing it on my usually and preferred habits.

June P.M. Schedule

• 5:00 = Arrive home, Take medicine, eat supper
• 5:45 = Wash dishes for 15 minutes
• 6:00 = Budget
• 6:30 = Finish writing hour, website hour, or special project
• 8:15 = Set stuff out for tomorrow, Get ready for bed
• 8:30 = Go to Bed

That only thing inflexible is the bedtime and that I need to do what I have listed. If I end up running late, I can borrow time from the one hour forty-five minutes section before starting the bedtime routine.

Step Four: Go through your list each morning for at least two mornings before making adjustments. So by Friday I should know if this works or not.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Life Update

I've been quiet on the personal front for a while. A busy spell, getting my finances in order so I didn't lose my house. Long story in short form: I was making partial payments to the mortgage company but didn't talk to them. They served me with foreclosure papers. So I've been in a scramble to find more money ever since. I managed to get less than half of the reinstatement fee together with the loan modification came through. My house note is now about half of what I was paying, which means I'll have money to pay on other debts now.

The snowball method vs. pay off the highest interest rate first is a non-issue; the loan with the lowest balance is the one with the highest interest rate. And I think I have a system in place to make sure I don't get complacent and forget the important bills. Because when head goes into sand is when I get into trouble.

The stress has been killer on the steampunk story and house cleaning naturally. I have a three-day weekend thanks to Memorial Day. Mom has already booked Monday as a spa/getting ready for the wedding day. So Saturday becomes cleaning day mixed with a little writing, and Sunday will be sewing day mixed with a little writing.

May 7th the Bachelorette Party: It was fun. Renting a hotel room on Bourbon was a great idea. I managed to have fun even though I was still reeling from having just been served with the notice of seizure. The only bad thing was it was a hotel right on Bourbon. I don't remember anything after then boom-booms from the clubs finally stopped, which means that's when I passed out. But I had been trying to sleep for a long time before that.

If we do that again, I'm packing the air mattress too.

May 11th new medication: My doctor put me on Byetta, otherwise known as the prescription that scared me silly last visit. My taking it has been spotty, thanks to late hours at work. What will help the most is regularly scheduled exercise and I know it. :p

May 15th High School Reunion: It was a lot less awkward than I feared it would be. I even managed to have fun for over three hours. Judie and I caught up, and I found out what many of my classmates have been up to in the fifteen years. We should do a better job getting the word out for the next one though.

Work aggravation: My hours are 7:30am to 4pm. I try to get in around 7am so I have some time to settle, eat breakfast, check email, etc. Thanks to traffic, I usually get home somewhere between 5pm and 6pm.

You wouldn't know it with all the overtime I've been clocking. I don't mind the overtime, if it's our busy season. I DO mind--a lot--when it is happening every single week for multiple days. It makes me irritated and I don't do anything when I get home hungry and irritated. And my old routine of just have supper in the city and wait for the traffic to go away is now kaput. You have to take Byetta BEFORE supper and I keep it at home in the fridge.

Happy camper I have not been over this.

Sewing progress: I'd be a lot further along if I would stop coming home too late and tired to work on the bridesmaid dress. :p I'm fairly confident that I can finish most of it this weekend and turn over what I can't do to Mom.

To Do List Progress: I need to get back to this. I started to analyze what was going wrong and then foreclosure crisis put a halt on the introspection.

Current shoulder pain: I have no idea what I did, but the right arm and shoulder hurt to the point I'm having trouble reaching full range of motion. I've ruled out lifting anything heavy or differently, so that leaves sleeping on it wrong or now that I have dealt with the financial stress my body is letting me know just how bad it was for me.

Exercise plans: I've been trying to find something uncomplicated to do. I really miss the old days where walking was as easy as just leaving my dorm room. I got pointed to One Hundred Push Ups and I really like how you just concentrate on one thing for six weeks. Hopefully my arm and shoulder pain will clear up so I can start on this next week. If not, I may started with one of the other exercises: Two Hundred Sit Ups or Two Hundred Squats.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

NARNIA!!!!!

I have posts of more substance that will have to typed later. This news is too good to pass by.

Out of the whole series, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Silver Chair are my favorites. I think because Eustance and Jill overcome more in their journeys. And I was more than a little annoyed that the Prince Caspian movie didn't have an Easter egg at the end referencing the next book. They could have focused on the picture of the Dawn Treader and got in tighter until it came alive. *Sigh* That missed opportunity would have been so cool!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Wednesday Progress Report

Monday: I only crossed of four of the ten daily items, but I crossed off four Big Rocks for the week and put in forty-five minutes on the bridesmaid's dress.

Tuesday: Crossed off three daily items and one Big Rock. Working late killed my concentration for more creative pursuits. But I did enlist my mother's help on the sleeves on the real dress.

Wednesday: Looks better than Tuesday. I already have four daily items crossed off, but I will be late arriving home because of the chiropractic appointment.

Usually this is a great opportunity to catch up on writing hour time. I just have to find something that doesn't require a computer. :p

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Big Plans

I have big plans for today. I plan on crossing off everything listed for Monday!

It's really not polite to laugh like that.

Seriously, I need to reestablish order over the chaos and that means following the list with actual rewards. I have earned quite a bit and still haven't watched them.

The Oil Spill: Mix of good news and bad news.

Good:

• It's Louisiana sweet crude which doesn't act the same way the heavy crude that the Exxon Valdez spill was made up on. So we probably won't see a black tide event.
• The weather and currents has been making it hard to clean up in the open water, but it has kept the bulk of it offshore.
• We've got great facilities like the Audubon Institute to take care of the injured animals.

Bad:

• This is not a spill; it's a spew. They've given up trying to calculate how many barrels of oil are leaking into the Gulf now. Until we plug the source, we have no idea how bad it can be.
• The source is a MILE under water. That's 1.60934 kilometers for you metric readers.
• Seafood is a renewable resource, but it will be hit hard. Worse, the bans keep the commercial fishermen from earning a paycheck. Yeah, BP is going to pay restitution but you can't count on a check you don't have.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Facebook *Snarl*

It's done and I hate it already. It doesn't understand HTML code, there's no place to put the links for what I actually use, and did I mention it doesn't understand HTML codes in posts?

I've been building my own frakkin' websites since 1997, have a basic understanding of creating and maintaining Drupal powered websites (even though I can't make them as pretty or as user friendly as the head model is), been on Blogger since 2003, forget how many damn years at FanFiction.Net. < SARCASM >Yeah, I LOVE it when you computer social network places/corporations decide I am too stupid to know what I'm doing.

Hells bells, I put HTML coding when I write stories longhand so I know what I wanted to do with that text when it comes to typing it.

Okay, I took my medication and I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow's Friday, should automatically be better, only we're looking at an ecological disaster happening in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill will probably hit land tomorrow. And that land will be our fragile and necessary wetlands. *Sigh*

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Got a new monitor at work

We got new monitors at work and ours is not to question why, but to say thank you instead. Max resolution is now 1920 x 1200; I set mine to 1920 x 1080 and then had to drop all the applications to the smaller windows rather than stretched out to the full screen. This is a lot of visual real estate to get used to.

I still need a better home for my earphones. Maybe I could hang a hook off the cubicle shelf?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Thursday was Better

Felt better when I woke up so I actually went in and continued to be a good little worker bee. Found out that fifteen minutes was enough to make a dent in what had to be done for the day but not the dishes. Guess what I get to do when I get home? *Whimper* It has to be done and tonight.

And bill paying with other budget work. Odd sensation actually having money to pay bills without having half the paycheck go to pay overdraft fees. Now my best bet for May is to not have any overdrafts. That means being proactive with my money, something that always makes me anxious. Why does being responsible with my money make me anxious? Pulled Money Demons off the shelf to see what it has to say about it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Should I Take a Personal Day?

I'm in the stop-and-go traffic seriously wondering why the hell didn't I call in? I don't make a habit of it, and it wouldn't really be hooky because I would spend the day on chores and other must do projects.

Too late to turn around, more's the pity.

I made headway into getting pieces of the bridesmaid dress laid out for the mock-up. I have to make sure I have enough fabric for the second front piece and then I get to see what is left for the sleeves, which are coming out of a different pattern. The vest is last, mainly because it will fit on the sewing table instead of needing the living room floor.

Chores: I've been getting enough sleep, but I haven't wanted to drag myself out of bed in the morning and confront them. I don't think there's really that much, just my brain in freak-out mode because I haven't done (chore in (time frame). Yes, it changes depending on the chore under consideration.

I'm think I should spend 15 minutes on getting the house in order before starting on the sewing project for the night. I won't finish the chores but I can make a dent, I hope. I have company coming this weekend so I have not catchup time.

This afternoon my stomach has not stopped rolling. What I will find totally ironic if I am sick enough to stay home tomorrow.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Over-Scheduled Weekend

So how much did I accomplish on my list?
Stuff to finish:

• Bloodwork
• Corset
• Cutting out the mock-up for bridesmaid dress
• Mock-up for bridesmaid dress
• Dishes
• Budget
• Empty inbox of all financial papers
• Catch up on website hours
• Catch up on writing hours - edit LJ header file with proper word counts

Instead of feeling all giddy that is done, I'd rather pull my hair out that I didn't finish everything. It's a big mess of can't win.

Anyways, bloodwork did not make me faint and I rewarded myself with Doctor Who. Major thoughts: I just saw a giant eyeball go "oh shit" and run away. "I've put a lot of work into it." (The Doctor referring to Earth.) And a kid raised by the Doctor in the TARDIS. Oh, I know the powers that be won't do it. The Doctor deals with too much potentially scary stuff to subject a child to, but still. Think about it for a while.

Evidently, I'm going to have to work on the rest of this list during the week. No matter how tired I am. No matter how I don't want to deal with the items on the list. No matter how late I have to stay in Baton Rouge, though I'm hoping that won't be necessary this week. I still have my rewards in place. So onto facing Monday!

Rewards for finishing a project:

• Watching Castle: The Last Shaft
• Watching Castle April 19th episode
• Watching V April 13th episode
• Watching V April 20th episode
• Watching the Good Wife
• Watching NCIS: Truth or Consequences
• Watch Doctor Who April 24th episode
• Watch SGU April 16th episode
• Watch SGU April 23th episode
• 30 minutes of video game play for each finished project once I run out of TV shows

Read Free!
The BookWorm

A fire alarm is great way to start a Friday

So in the office with my supervisor trying to solve a problem with the online payments statement and the fire alarm goes off... at 8am. Spend the next 45 minutes outside waiting for the all clear. It wasn't a drill but the building didn't burn either.

I had to stop at Wally World before work this morning and bought two pairs of jeans in a 16. Going up instead of down. I'm not happy with weight gain, but the concept of watching what I'm eating flew out the window a few months back. I'm stressed over money and I run to my cravings when I'm stressed.

Next week I really start five minutes of exercise every day.

Amazing how a simple thing like getting more sleep can make you feel so damn good. This week has been filled with irritants and I have been sailing above all of them. Now I still haven't caught up on doing stuff at home, so this weekend will be fun attempting to do just that.

Stuff to finish:

• Bloodwork
• Corset
• Cutting out the mock-up for bridesmaid dress
• Mock-up for bridesmaid dress
• Dishes
• Budget
• Empty inbox of all financial papers
• Catch up on website hours - edit Ref. Wiki images
• Catch up on writing hours - edit LJ header file with proper word counts

I'd like a clean slate of a house to start next week off with. That will be a novelty.

Rewards for finishing a project:

• Watching Castle
• Watching V
• Watching the Good Wife
• Watching NCIS: Truth or Consequences
• 30 minutes of video game play for each finished project once I run out of TV shows

Budget needs to become a daily item on my To Do List. Basically because I am a stupid twit and will ignore it until I'm in trouble. Hopefully daily reminders will keep the accounts balanced.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Castle experiment failed

It's been so long since I used the timer recording function on the VCR, I forgot that the VCR has to be turned off for it to work. So I didn't get any Castle. *head desk* I'll remember to turn it off for V tonight.

Now I'm going to see if ABC.com will let me see the episode I missed and if my computer's sound system will be nice about it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

SiteGround is mad at me

Why the Library is offline: my account is suspended until I take care of (in their terms get it off our server!) my songs directory. So they finally caught up with me. And I'll deal with it, good sport that I am, but I can't do anything until I get home.

So now I get to figure out what to do with the embedded songs. I really like having that feature in my stories, but apparently the music industry doesn't.

Read Free!
The BookWorm