jedibuttercup

So, I haven't been posting personal stuff much lately. Or much at all, really. There's lots of RL reasons for that, only the latest of which is that my mother broke the elbow of her dominant arm badly - twice; required surgery - twice; and has required, and will require, quite a bit of assistance for awhile.

I'd just been starting to get past the depressive phase I'd been struggling with ever since I abruptly ended up having to get my own solo apartment (and nearly doubled living costs that came with it) last spring, and the other family drama that occupied the fall and winter months - and, yeah. Double-shot motivation killer. Fandom's just getting the corners of my life at the moment.

Anyway, I decided to give multifandomdrabble a try this year to see if I could nudge myself forward again, and was blessed with no less than SEVEN awesome gifts:

We're a Happy Family by Ultra
Firefly, Mal & Crew: Mal appreciates the family around him.

Without Words by beedekka
John Wick, John/Winston: John may be 'excommunicado', but that doesn't mean he can't still communicate.

dead is dead by kiss_me_cassie
B:tVS, Buffy & Kendra: Mr. Pointy vs. A Sword.

Good Favor by lionessvalenti
Snow White and the Huntsman, Snow & Eric & William: Eric is teaching Snow White the art of swordsplay. It's not going well.

Wind Beneath Her Wings by klutzy_girl
B:tVS, Buffy/Spike: Spike and Buffy arrive home following their wedding.

Routine Upkeep by st_aurafina
Firefly, Kaylee-centric: Kaylee's learning what it takes to keep her crew going in hard times.

With Comments from the Peanut Gallery by misura
Fast and the Furious, Hobbs/Deckard: All talk, no action.

I only had time to write two myself (see previous posts!) but the whole experience definitely lifted my spirits. 10/10 would participate again. :)

So, those of you who are used to expecting a flood of twistedshorts Buffy crossovers out of me in August may have noticed I've been suspiciously absent.

Two reasons for that: I was sick with a bad summer cold I caught from my niece at the beginning of the month; and I'm currently glued to the Rio Olympics. I don't think I'm going to try to get involved, at this point, beyond working on some of my wishlist_fic entries still unfinished from last December. Kind of a relief, actually. I've been doing it for how many years now? And that's a lot of pressure to add to the rest of my schedule.

I'm almost to the end of my het_bigbang Little Bang; it's another Ichabod/Abbie, this one an AU of "Novus Ordo Seclorum/Incident At Stone Manor" aka Abbie Lost in Ziggurat Land, from the middle of Sleepy Hollow Season 3. After I did the AU of the S3 finale for not_primetime, I got a lot of ideas about other times Ichabod might have stepped up rather than looking on in dismay, and, well. I'm 16,000+ words into this one.

I signed up for all three of the big bangs I've worked on this year pretty early; I'm surprised and pleased to have succeeded at all three. Together, they'll add up to more than 133,000 words, enough that I've already surpassed my word count from last year, and finally crossed the two million word mark at AO3! But backagainharry and wishlist_fic will definitely be my focus for the rest of the year.

In other news, I went ziplining this year with my mom on what would have been my dad's 65th birthday. We had a blast. Pictures later maybe? On my way over to her house now to do some digging so she can move some trees out of pots in her yard ....

I realize I haven't posted much in the last week or so, though I have four wishlist_fic prompts left; I caught the inevitable holiday cold from staying up late so many nights writing and going out. I've been writing some, but nothing I want to post until the resultant brain-fog clears. Ugh. Sorry!

The actual holiday parts have been great, though - and I now have permission to pass on my excellent family news: I'm going to be an auntie, in August of next year! \0/ My mom is over the moon; and my brother is already neurotic (in a Must.Buy.Baby.Stuff and Must.Pamper.Wife way) about becoming a daddy. It's a good look on him. I'll be praying every day 'til then that everything goes perfectly for them.

Expect summary posts on the year's fic writing, entertainment consumption, and with any luck another fic or two Saturday or Sunday. Oh, and the Yuletide reveal, of course. =)

Happy 2011, everyone! May your upcoming New Year's Resolutions (if any) be as successful as mine have been the last two years, and may the year itself be happier than the last.

Well, I got my yuletide in on time-- at 36 minutes 27 seconds, phew!

OTOH, my own requests are now sitting on the Yuletide Treats list, unwritten. *thinks positive thoughts toward last-minute writer crew*

(ETA, if that applies to you, dear reader: my original Dear Author post is here, if you need any additional insight or information on my requests).

In other news: the weather is completely beautiful and bizarre, and my brother and his fiancée picked out their rings on Friday. *does happy dance*
~

Back at work this week. Not so much fun after vacation, but ironically enough, gives me more Internet proximity than gallivanting to the coast and Portland and theater pub and etcetera with the family. *grin* Evenings are still going to be very busy, though, until the 12th.

Speaking of! After the requisite Breakfast With Her Concerned Father, my brother gave his girlfriend a promise ring on Saturday. After about three weeks of actual dating. *boggles* Yeah, I think I called this one last month: sister-in-law sometime next year, for sure, unless something goes seriously awry. They are blindingly cute together. Mom even invited her to participate in family photos yesterday. Good thing I like her.

Anyway. Maybe I can catch up on more of my backlog of comments this week in between job duties. I spent today's borrowed moments distracting myself with a meme-- that one where you pick 12 characters, then answer 24 questions:

Character List:

1. Buffy Summers (B:tVS)
2. John McClane (Die Hard)
3. Zoë Washburne (Firefly)
4. Michael Carpenter (Dresden Files, bookverse)
5. Azkadellia (Tin Man)
6. James Tiberius Kirk (Star Trek)
7. Sarah Connor (Terminator: SCC)
8. Wesley Wyndham-Price (Angel)
9. Sara Sidle (CSI)
10. Evan Lorne (Stargate: Atlantis)
11. Éowyn (LotR)
12. Richard B. Riddick (Pitch Black, TCOR)

( The Questions & Answers )

WHICH REMINDS ME. How many of you joined me in running out to buy a copy of Small Favor today? *dancing in chair*
~

Mom called. They're back from the coast. D--'s parents will be going back out tomorrow; still haven't found him. The Coast Guard have given up the search; they say it could be next morning, or three days from now, or two weeks, or never before he washes up.

( This is going to be a very bad week. )
~

I know, I disappeared off the face of the earth immediately after promising a new chapter. *wince* Sorry, writer's block got in the way, and then Real Life popped up and demanded my attention for awhile.

I spent nine hours Wednesday just balancing my accounts. Agh. Remind me never to wait four months to do that, ever again. I thought I had about $500 more than I actually do, because I'd forgotten to record a few things like, oh, my summer course registration fee, the auto insurance payments that were being automatically deducted from my account, etc., etc. *slapping forehead* But now my records on my checking account, student loans, car loan, and credit cards are all in Quickbooks, properly totalled and categorized, and the relevant bills all sorted in my filing cabinet. I felt nicely accomplished afterward.

If it weren't for the promise of unemployment checks starting next week, things might be looking a mite grim, though. Oh, I'm not short on money at the moment, but I only have about a month and a half of cushion for future bills; if I didn't have a source of income, I'd have to put in my 30-day notice with the next rent check. Thankfully, however, it looks like the government will be paying me about 80% of what my employers were, so all I have to do is cut back on things like books and DVDs and fast food and I should be fine until I get hired somewhere.

Thursday I spent some time with Meadhbha. We were meant to have a sewing get-together, but she didn't bring the necessary equipment, so we did a bit of shopping and watched movies instead. The first was "Court Jester", which I am informed is part of the Top Three necessary videos for any SCA member's education. (The other two, of course, are "The Princess Bride" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", both of which I own). It was highly entertaining, but a bit winceworthy, as many of the older comic musicals are. The second movie we watched was "Moulin Rouge", which I never would have seen on my own. Ewan McGregor might be a significant draw factor for me, but my dislike for Nicole Kidman balanced that out, and did I mention that I'm rather picky about musicals? I'm glad to have seen it the once, I suppose, so I can say that I have -- it was quite the experience -- but never again.

Yesterday morning I filled out some applications and voted. Gotta love the Oregon mail-in system, but it took awhile to read through all the informative pamphlets. I may tend to vote Republican, as most of my family does, but I'm registered Independent; I believe in weighing up the facts for oneself and making the decision that feels right, regardless of what the party line or public opinion might be. After that, I spent some time updating some of my other personal files.

Mom's sick. The injectable medication she's been taking for her severe osteoporosis has been making her ill, not as bad as most of the other options, but still not good, so they sent her in for an EKG Thursday to check for the cause of the chest pains she's having and Friday they scoped her upper GI tract to make sure there wasn't any damage there. I hate this. Sometimes it feels like she's been eroding away in tiny fragments for years, and she's only 46. She sounded awful on the phone last night. But at least there weren't any immediately apparent problems.

In slightly better news, my brother scored a 92 on his ASVAB. As long as he does well on his physical, there seems to be no immediate obstacle to his gaining his choice of Air Force career -- air traffic controller. Apparently, due to the high stress nature of the job, applications for the post are a little thin, so he has a decent chance of getting it. Also, as he already possesses an Associate's degree, he'd go straight to Airman First Class. Mom's tense over it, but it's not like he'd be in any combat danger like our friend DS, who is in advanced infantry bootcamp right now and will be on the ground in Iraq after the turn of the year.

Tomorrow, after church, I'm off the parents' house again. Every year, we throw our own private All Hallows' Eve party and watch a collection of horror movies. Not the gory ones, though. A couple of mildly spooky ones like "Sleepy Hollow" are good, but we usually follow them with old cheesy 50's type horror pics like "Them!" or "The Birds" or "Creature from the Black Lagoon". And of course, hot cider and caramel apples and ceramic pumpkins filled with candy.

I did avoid my duty once, 1999 I think, and stayed at Fox instead to host a party.

( Here are a couple of pics from that one. )

Anyway. I suppose I'd better get back to The Mandalorian Armor if I want to have a review for it up within a week of starting it. I bragged about my reading speed, but I'm afraid my AD/HD tends to reduce that drastically when my interest is flagging, and Boba Fett was never the draw for me that the main characters are. Sure, he's cool, but in the end the stories of the various bounty hunters have relatively little impact on the vast story arcs that hold the Star Wars universe together. What I'm really looking forward to is reaching the Thrawn trilogy again, the first EU books I ever bought, but I have the rest of the Bounty Hunter Wars to slog through first, followed by The Truce at Bakura, the first seven X-Wing books, The Courtship of Princess Leia, and Tatooine Ghost. *sigh*

*sniffle* I have a cold, too. First of the fall season; joy. *cough* Hmm. I think I still have a few packets of Earl Grey tea left, and I suppose it's about time I got the lap blankets down out of the cupboard ...