Okay, I'm obviously behind the times. What's this AO3 thing that apparently is where Yuletide fics get posted this year? And what's Google Wave?

Pipe thawed. Of course my leaving it on and thinking it would just drip actually had water running all day but luckily I'd run the disposal so the sink didn't back up or anything. Leaving work it felt so pleasantly warm, even though it was only 24. So much better than yesterday. I got all my purchasing done at Target, finding what I'd missed the first time around. Now I just have to wrap stuff and get it in the mail and find out where they're taking Toys are Tots donations. I got something called a bionicle or something like that.

Watched Bones. Cried near the end of Bones. Absolutely adored Fringe and its wonderful twists. Can't wait till it's back.

Just finished my fic! I need to proof it and get it sent off. It's one of those anonymous posting ones with the reveal at Christmas or New Years or something so no one else gets to read it for awhile. It 's Dean/Cas and I'm pretty happy about it.

Then I'm going to watch CSI and probably some SPN and avoid cleaning my house once again.

Had a bit of weirdness when I was at church. There was a car there when I got there but I never saw anyone upstairs or in the lobby or sanctuary. I didn't see any lights on when I pulled in. I figured someone's car from last night hadn't started or something. Until I'd been there about a half an hour and I heard someone leave. Maybe the person was in the basement. No clue. It was a bit disconcerting. I went to the bathroom and wandered into the sanctuary and talked to myself like I always do when alone and no one popped out to wonder who the hell I was. lolol

Okay, proofing.

****

And failing to post this, apparently.

Also, I appear to have written angsty fluff. Is that even possible?! lolol

And I really need holiday icons up!

My card poll

I'll be sending cards next week so if you want one, please sign up. The poll is viewable only to me and I'm not an insano stalker. Even if you don't send cards, can't afford to send cards, are too busy to send cards, please sign up! I love sending cards. Love getting them, too, but that's never the point for me. :) I also send overseas so don't let that hold you back. And even if I've been sending you one regularly please sign up again so I have your correct address and know you want one, though some of you I've known for a decade will be getting them anyway. *g*

My arthritic hands are making typing hard which is not good since I haven't started that fic yet. I do have a vague idea...

I did type up four pages of a judgment that's been sitting here since Vegas. It was all typed up by our law clerk who conveniently didn't save it anywhere apparently! So I had to re-enter it all. :P

Emmy reminded me about Toys for Tots which reminded me I haven't bought mittens for the church mitten tree this Sunday so to Target I will go after work. Also need to get one more thing for my Secret Ho which I couldn't find at Target so a stop at the grocery then the liquor store for sherry then maybe the church after all.

Busy busy busy

JEEZ, with my boss out of the office I've just dealt with letting two people stay in their mobile homes if they pay today, negotiating between our client and them. I'm not an attorney! Why do these things always happen when he's not here? lolol

*snort*



It is COLD! I made a joke walking to work that my coffee was going to be an iced coffee by the time I crossed the street. Last night leaving church with the wind blowing, I've never felt so cold. By the time I'd walked across the parking lot I was shivering so hard I could barely unlock the car. And I was wearing a coat and boots and scarf--didn't matter. At home I had to do the two sock thing to keep my feet from hurting from the cold. It was somewhere below zero I think. I'm afraid to go look.

Of course, even with the dripping of the water and turning the heater on in the basement closet where the pipes go, the stupid hot water pipe in the kitchen sink froze. It's supposed to get into the low 20s today. Pray it unfreezes. Luckily I just did the dishes.

KU won. I fell asleep during the replay so, yes, no cleaning or decorating.

I'm all caught up on Survivor so I can actually watch it tonight.

I have fic to write today. I'm sadly unmotivated. It's due tonight. Really should get on that.

LJ is finally getting me all my comments; luckily I managed to keep up with most of them on my own page.

After work I was going to go out to church to do the deposit I failed to do last Sunday but I'll be too worried about my pipe bursting (which it never has but...) and I know if I stop by home I'm not going to want to leave again.

Thanks to killerweasel I watched a 1976 live performance of "Carry On My Wayward Son" this morning. I always liked that song but since my SPN obsession have fallen in love with it (It's my ringtone). Then I got this stupid fic bunny about John knowing the band since it's a fact they hung out in Lawrence in the '70s (because no way anyone would hang out in Topeka where they're from when Lawrence has always been more hip and cool). That's not the fic I need to be writing today.

Well, boss was here for a split second. Probably should do some work so I can think about that fic...or watch Ugly Betty.

Yes, I'm still not working.

Remember yesterday and the whiners at the newspaper site complaining about kids going to school in the 1/2 inch of snow? Well today they're whining because it's too cold for their widdle darlings to be out.

SUCK IT UP! You had these kids; it's the school district's job to educate them not baby them. If you don't want them to walk in the cold then figure out another way to get them to school. They cut funding for buses in my neighborhood so what did the parents do? They hired a bus at $100 a year per kid! When I was a kid here we only had bussing for elementary school. My parents did the carpool thing for four years until I was old enough to drive myself (and then I had to drop my younger brother at junior high for two years).

If it was me and I had to be at work before school started and my kids usually walked, I'd arrange with some other neighborhood parents to set up an inclement weather carpool where parents who don't have to be at work early can drive.

Or, y'know, put a hat and mittens on your kid and make them walk! Yes, it's very cold but they aren't going to freeze to the sidewalk and it's a fallacy that being out in the cold will give a kid a cold.

Sheesh.

I was typing this up for a holiday recipe exchange and decided to share it a bit farther...

Best quick bread in the world. I make it every Christmas and eat one loaf drenched in butter all by myself. Even this dieting year.

( SOUR CREAM RAISIN BREAD )

Choir practice was canceled last night for fear the roads that were wet from all the RAIN we had would become icy. I swear, weather forecasting must be the worst job ever. Our 6-8 inches of snow turned into about 2 inches overnight but all yesterday all we got was rain. Anyway, I watched the first seven episodes of Project Runway. I know who won. Boy is she a bitch. I hate people that talk about others behind their backs. And she thinks she's all great and everything and everyone else sucks which I also hate.

I didn't clean my house, decorate, or bake anything. *sigh*

It's sunny but bitterly cold here today. The streets are snow packed but fine, though apparently south of us it's icy under the snow which is now blowing off everything and so it's simply icy. Church is south of town. I'm waiting to see if the board meeting is canceled.

My sister-in-law finally got us a list of things she wants. Of course most of it was well out of my price range. *rolls eyes* So I got her one thing on her list and something not on her list. When your next cheapest item is $25.00 over my entire budget...

Gee, it'd be nice to be so rich.

I love her dearly but she is incredibly spoiled.

So, except for a calendar for my boss, I'm done with shopping. Need to wrap and mail a few things but I won't get to that until next week, along with cards. Which means I need to get the house decorated this week and the weekend's out for my parents' party. I also have to get to the post office to pick up the wreath I ordered which they didn't leave for some reason. Hm...problem. I can't open my front door to insert the wreath hanger. Shit. And the door is steel which means no nail. I guess I'll see if I can get a nail into the wood trim under the light. Shit. Didn't think this through too carefully but then I've always been able to use the wreath hanger.

Darn, looks like board meeting won't be canceled since they're going to clear the sidewalks and the secretary made it in.

KU plays tonight so maybe I'll be motivated to clean while I'm watching the replay.

Yeah, that'll happen.

I have a fic due tomorrow. Have yet to start said fic. Boss will be out of the office the next two days so hopefully I'll get some writing done. Probably should do some actual work now, though, since he'll be in soon.

God, somethings just never change do they?

I posted this to a fanfic list I'm on after reading several posts recently where authors are apologizing for offending people with their fic choices. GAH!

Okay, I felt this needed to be said and I'm sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds, but...

Over the last few weeks I've seen several people feel the need to apologize for the way they've written something in fic and that bothers me a lot. We all have our own interpretations, our own ways to express our views. They are ALL valid. If something I write offends someone, I won't apologize and, in fact, sometimes fictional writing SHOULD offend and make people think. I will gladly take ownership of my writing and my viewpoints and defend them but I won't change something because someone doesn't like it. Sometimes what a person writes isn't likable and it's not meant to be.

If I don't enjoy something I read due to certain interpretations or character depictions, that's my problem and not the writer's. I usually just don't read things by that author again. It's nice to have a large readership but, for me, writing my views, my believes, my characters the way I want them is much more important to my own growth as a writer as trying to make everyone like what I write. I learned that the hard way in fandom after nearly being forced out and mocked for writing certain pairings.

So, please write what you want the way you want it! Don't change your stories because someone doesn't like it. Use constructive criticism if you must, but don't let it outweigh your own desires. All that will do is lead you to a place where you're dissatisfied with fandom and your own writing.

Oh my god suck it the fuck up people! I just visited the local newspaper site and read the comments on the school closings (or, lack thereof) and my god the whiners! Our kids have to go to school wah wah it's going to snow two to five more inches wah wah if someone gets killed because the school district doesn't want to use a snow day wah wah.

I'm at work! Do I want to be here? Of course not! I had to dig out the scraper to make sure I had one and I'm sure the drive home will be much worse than the drive to work, but right now it's still only a prediction for more snow.

Kids get out of school all the time here now. It's supposed to be very cold tomorrow and I'm betting they'll cancel because of that. We NEVER got school canceled due to cold and they do that all the time now. I guess kids freeze to death walking or something. I dunno, no one I knew ever did and I knew a lot of kids that walked.

We certainly wouldn't have had school canceled because notoriously wrong forecasts showed we might have more snow during the school day. I think school was canceled all of three times my whole school career and that was due to the county roads drifting shut so buses couldn't get through, and there was one day that was a bad ice storm. On another icy day, though, the bus I was in with chains and snow tires slid ten feet past my bus stop.

My parents would never have thought to keep us home because of weather and mom didn't work and could easily have done so. We sucked it up and went to school.

Gah.

My give a shit factor is very low right now. PMS. Be wary...

Well, so far the "big snow" of pre-winter has been a disappointment (or, not, since I HATE snow). We have about a half inch and the streets and sidewalks are just wet. It is barely flurrying out there now.

I think it's tracking farther north than Histrionic Horner (the KC CBS weather person) originally predicted. We were originally somewhere in the 8-10 inch range, then by 10:00 last night that had dropped to around 6 inches maybe but we were on the edge and not actually on her stupid map. Topeka to the west was going to get 6 inches.

We'll see.

My boss, about ten miles north of here, got around 2-4 inches and mom about ten miles west got around 2.

Horner is also on the KC Christmas radio station I listen to so on my drive in she was mostly talking about rain through the middle of KC and south and snow to the north. That meant nothing for me, of course, unless I was going to KC.

On another note, it's extremely sad to me that the former great album rock station, KY102, is now one of the Christmas stations... I was tired of the other one, though--it tends to play the same thing over and over; 102 at least plays stuff I've never heard before.

Last night I had quite the experience. I got home after dark (Monday is grocery day) and instead of trotting up the front steps in the dark to check if there were any packages (I park in the garage and go in through there) I thought I'd give opening the front door from the inside a try. For those of you new around here, my house builder was the worst in creation, he built the foundation on chickenwire and sand, so the house shifts leaving big cracks in the walls and doors that sometimes open and sometimes don't, like the front door which over the last year has become more and more problematic. I hadn't opened it in probably three months.

Yes, there was a package.

But...the door wouldn't close. It would at the top but at the bottom it was a good quarter inch too far over the side.

So, there I was in my jammies, in bitterly cold weather, with a dead phone, trying to hammer a steel door into place. I have NO tools (I asked for a power sander for Christmas last year--so didn't get it, so will be buying it myself). While the steel door wasn't going to respond to sanding or sawing, the wood frame was, but, of course, the only saw I own is some rusty bow saw dad left behind. I cut away a good four inches of the frame at the bottom.

The door still wouldn't close.

By this time I was in hysterics, crying and cursing and freaking the cats out (Elektra had already gone out once but came back about five minutes later, obviously not liking that it was like 20 degrees out). I turned to the hinge, thinking maybe I could pop the bottom one and the door would hang straighter. It was obviously rusted and bowed wider than the other two hinges.

So, I got a screwdriver (not electric, of course, because don't own one of those either) and a flashlight (replacing the batteries with the tv remote's) and stood outside in the bitter cold unscrewing. I could only get three of the four off the frame side and none off the door. It didn't look like the hinge would have come off the frame anyway. I think it was superglued on.

So, I took the hammer and started beating the shit out of the hinge. I could tell that the screw part of the hinge had come into the space between the door and the frame. If I could just beat it back out enough...

And, after an hour, sore feet from kicking, sore hands from unscrewing (and beating and sawing), a pretty much ruined frame and scraped up door, the piece of shit closed.

It's not opening again until my handy dude can replace the whole freaking thing including the frame. I don't care if Publisher's Clearinghouse comes to the door and rings the bell, it's not opening. Unfortunately said handy dude broke his foot and is still on crutches for several more weeks so we're looking January sometime. Plus I'm not 100% certain he can do this job, though pretty sure.

So, that was fun. I'd planned to sit on the couch and eat some cheese and crackers pre-dinner and watch some Mediums I was behind and instead spent an hour going insane.

I also cursed the builder to die a horrible gruesome painful death--but mom said she thought he was already dead so I hoped he died a horrible gruesome painful death.

Hopefully y'alls evenings were better.

Today was my day at noel_of_spike and I posted a rather lame take off on The Twelve Days of Christtmas over here at DW.

Thanks to all who gave me drabble prompts and then this idea latched onto my brain. It may have been due to the fever from last night (yes, probably another sinus infection *sigh*) or Texas nearly losing to Nebraska or the amount of food I cooked and baked yesterday.

Apparently the caramels, which have to be cut with a knife heated with mom's blowtorch, are the best I've ever made but obviously very hard! Luckily I didn't get sick until last night so we baked molasses cookies, salami biscotti, peanut butter/chocolate cookies, and made spinach filos, bacon crescents, and meatballs. And probably something else I'm forgetting. Most everything this year can be done in advance which is necessary since for the first time in decades mom will be at church the day of the party so last minute cooking isn't really an option. Also, they say this is the last year for the party which began as the history department holiday party back around 1982 or so when dad was Chair the first time around and then evolved into pretty much the social event for history geeks in Lawrence. Mom's food is that good. People come for the food. *g* I'll believe it when I see it (this being the last year).

It's drizzling or snowing or some shit outside. The next three days have chances for snow. I'm not happy. But it's supposed to be 40 on the day of the party so that's better.

KU beat UCLA--not running away but never really struggling. Looked pretty good especially on defense.

I was almost hoping that Nebraska would beat Texas just to see if there would be controversy and if the BCS would pick Alabama and Florida both then. I really dislike the BCS system. But, and sorry southernbangel Go Texas!

I read the latest JD Robb which was enjoyable, as always.

My boss is out of the office the last two days this week so I'm hoping to get all the stuff done I used to do during his monthly vacations--hole punching, file organizing--while I catch up on things like Gossip Girl and Ugly Betty and Survivor.

My sister-in-law still hasn't told us what she wants for Christmas. She's doing her shopping for us, though, as I received a pile of packages on my doorstep on Friday for mom.

And my tree is finally decorated, only for mom to find two bags of Hallmark ornaments she never gave me from the last two years. Well, there are a few gaps and I need to get out the stool to do the top.

Raine has already tried to bat a few snowmen onto the floor.

Thank you to the people giving me virtual gifts! Y'all rock!

And now I'm going to go watch...yes, Supernatural. How'd y'all guess? *g*

It's 20 degrees out. I'm going to have to drip the water in the kitchen sink tonight.

grrrrr

and

brrrrr

Further evidence that Martha Stewart is insane--I wanted to make gingerbread caramels from her holiday sweets mag. First, it makes 12 dozen. Who needs 12 dozen caramels?! Well, mom said we'd give them away to anyone who wants them at the party, take them to church etc. Second, that's four cups of cream, four cups of sugar, two cups of Karo syrup and other stuff. We started in the largest calphalon pan. As soon as it started to boil it nearly overflowed so we put it in a large dutch oven. Nearly overflowed. Mom got out her god knows how big I think she used to can in it pot! On the other hand, it's setting up--unlike the last time I made caramels--and tastes wonderful.

We also baked a couple cookies but we have a ton of stuff to do tomorrow and I still need to decorate my house and tree. *sigh*

If I don't freeze to death first.

Okay, off to watch SGU.

ETA: Sheesh, the reason I posted in the first place!

If you could resurrect/bring back five characters, who would they be?

1. Jenny Calendar
2. Cordelia Chase (resurrected as she was in her goodbye ep and not as she was in Season 4)
3. John Winchester (duh)
4. Sir Guy (redeem him and kill him, lovely)
5. Kitty Pryde (though I'm not convinced she's dead)

A couple of years ago I would have had a list of DC characters but they keep coming back to life!

I guy just came into the office and in our discussion of the cold he mentioned his brother just called and it's snowing in Houston.

That's just seriously fucked up.

Perfect timing for my muses to go poof. *pouts and glares at long list of fics due in the next few weeks*

I'm up to bat on Sunday for noel_of_spike and I have no idea what to write. I got the idea to write holiday drabbles but I need prompts.

One or two words, just something like "snowman" or "eggnog" or "blue Christmas", no pairings or anything. Maybe that'll stir me.

Don't even ask about the status of my Yuletide fic. I've...er...thought about it.

*sigh*

In good news, no Finance Committee meeting this Saturday because half the committee wanted to go to the downtown parade which gives me a couple more hours to bake at mom's which means I should get home mid-afternoon which means maybe my house and poor empty tree will get decorated as I watch Texas slaughter Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game.

Last night I fell asleep on the couch at halftime of the KU game replay but considering we were up by like 45 points or something I wasn't too concerned. When I turned it on the other team was up 4-0. And then it was like 36-4 us. Apparently we were one point away from the NCAA record for consecutive points. Kinda sad. Sunday's game, though, is our first big challenge--UCLA.

It's bitterly biting cold here. I've managed to lose the black knit scarf I've had for twenty-five years that is lightweight but really long and I wrap it around my head and over my mouth. So I'm wearing hats. Hats and I don't mix too well. I have a big head and a short neck. I'm still refusing to get out my coat, so I'm wearing a heavy sweater with a cardigan over it.

I was saddened by the Top Chef result last night, but I do think all four finalists were strong for once. Then I watched the Project Runway replacement which was interesting but OMG they got rid of the wrong person! That one outfit was like some 70s reject disco outfit! I may continue watching, though I actually need to watch all of PR from last season.

I have both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve off, yay! Well, boss said re: New Year's Eve, you can either work till noon or take off all day. No decision there! He's out with cataract surgery on the 30th so basically I have that day to not work either.

My pedicurist managed to get most of the disgusting dead hard skin off my baby toe that was left from the blood blister that never broke. I'd peeled off a lot of it but couldn't get it off around the nail. And she accidentally poured a large amount of lotion on my right foot and let it soak for a while and my foot is still smooth, despite showering this morning. lol

Well, back to reading fic...er...work.

THE FANFICTION LOVE MEME

I never do these but I am curious as to what fics people like and I'm currently feeling swamped and could use some petting. :)

Mine's on this page

Something bit me or I have one hive on my finger.

*sigh*

So, Thanksgiving wrap-up...

( this got long )

So, that's my thrilling life. Go sign up for a holilday card a couple entries back!

And now I'm going to put this behind a cut...

You know how sometimes people on your friends list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration. One-Word-Answers seldom help anyone out.

( stole this several days ago )

I'm not that hard to please so we'll start with the easy ones.

( the good books )

( and now the bad ones )

Forgot to mention that in the holiday address poll over here your responses to the poll are viewable only to me. Also, I'm happy to send outside the USA, too!

Now gotta write like half a dozen fics...

Holiday cards!

I don't care if you don't send them, can't afford to send them, don't like me (well, I care about that one but I figure you wouldn't be here if you didn't like me for some reason), or well whatever, I love sending cards! I love everything about Christmas, especially the giving, so let me give this to all of you. :)

I swear I'm not a crazy stalker and if you give me your address I won't hunt you down!

So, please answer my poll. Even if I have your address and you haven't moved, please answer it so I'll have them all in one place. Also, cards probably won't arrive until the week before Christmas so leave me the address where you'll be over the holidays.

Poll #1491534 Holiday Card Addresses
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 25

Name, address please!

What type of card do you want?

*snort*

I think I've mentioned that vampires shouldn't sparkle, right? I even wrote a fic about it.

I haven't seen the first movie, why would I see the second, and I couldn't get half way through the first book so no way was I wasting money on the sequels. I'll stick to my sexy smutty vampire novels and tv shows/movies, thank you very much.

*huggles Spike and Eric and Damon*

KU is on the cover of Sports Illustrated (basketball; football is dead to me--*sigh* just kidding, but it's sad that such a promising year went to hell and now we're most likely going to lose our coach) so we're cursed.

Looking forward to the short work week, though I have a lot to do and dinner at Ixtapa (gawd, real texmex, keep me away from the homemade chips!) on Tuesday with the family and KU game on Wednesday, plus still catching up at work.

Despite napping for like three hours yesterday morning I managed to write several fics. I rewrote--to some extent--the ones I stupidly deleted the weekend before Vegas. As always, I'm not as happy with them. I'll post them tonight. The Cas/Lucifer on is up on DW already.

I also baked these scrumptious apple cinnamon muffins--three points each and very filling. And I made a pumpkin sage orzo for lunch which I think I'd make with arborio rice next time rather than as a pasta dish. Mom gave me an extra can of pumpkin because of the shortage--apparently there won't be much if any after the holiday. Now apparently Kelloggs Eggo Waffles are facing a shortage, though not the nutrigrain kind which is what I eat.

Whatever.

I was good today at church and did not stay for the harvest feast despite how good it smelled. Nor did I get popcorn at the movie--Men Who Stare At Goats, wonderful and funny and do you think they purposefully hired Ewan? *g* The sad ironic part is that this program really did exist (and may still) and a student of my dad's (he has mostly military grad students from Ft. Leavenworth) knows one of the men who was involved and said he was completely nuts. Great way to spend our tax dollars, America. *rolls eyes* Still, great movie! I'm going to see 2012 next weekend, dad wants to see Avatar, and we're going to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day. I'd like to see that Sandra Bullock football movie but I don't think I'll have time. The movie theater was jam packed--forgot what premiered this weekend. As I never saw the first one I will easily avoid the second.

Found the turkey recipe I made last year that had the wonderful cider gravy. Mom's going to make it this year. We get all these gourmet cooking mags and it's in a Better Homes & Garden Holiday Cooking. lol

Church service was good, kind of a historical reenactment of the First Thankgsiving from the Native American perspective, intergenerational with lots of music and a cranberry bread communion. It was led by our minister and we had a large crowd. I skipped the harvest festival program to do treasurer stuff.

My brother and his family arrive tomorrow. I need to update my Amazon wishlist and encourage them to do the same. Apparently my nephew is into older Star Wars and Harry Potter lego sets, ones that aren't made anymore and that are running for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Champagne tastes and he's only eight. *sigh* It's quite possible that mom and I won't be shopping on Black Friday as they'll still be here for part of the day. It'll be weird even though we stopped getting up at dawn and going to KC years ago and would just go downtown. It's more of a 'point out stuff you want' expedition than buying anything.

I headed for the movie at halftime of the Chiefs game. After a very promising start we were down 17-7. Apparently we won in overtime. Huh.

Looks like CBS is running about 25 minutes late tonight so I can get some more reading in before heating up dinner. Reading a wonderful, very long slave Dean fic.

( spoilers for SPN )

Enjoyed Vampire Diaries except for the cliffhanger! The CW is obviously trying to kill us all. Also, Bones and Fringe were very good, too.

Then I watched most of the replay of KU and some Arkansas team (Central State or something?). I wasn't really paying attention and we were winning by 40 when I went to bed halfway through the second half.

( vague spoilers for future SPN eps )

Geez, KU, nearly give it away! I really don't need a heartattack so early in the season!

Yay to Zach Grienke for winning the Cy Young! I was worried because he only won sixteen games but I guess the committee took into consideration the lack of run support in his losses as well as his league-leading stats. Kind of sad that his team has the lowest winning percentage of any team with a Cy Young award winner.

My radio station keeps touting savethanksgiving.com I didn't know it was in danger...Though I totally agree that Christmas is shoved on us way too soon (and I adore Christmas). Over the recent years I've caved and bought presents prior to Black Friday but I refuse to do anything else until after Thanksgiving.

Which is next week! Sheesh this month went fast with my vacation!

My brother and his family will be here and we're going to the KU game on Wednesday night. Fun. :)

Oh, sad to see the demise of Dollhouse, though not surprised. Joss, when will you learn that Fox sucks?!

After the game last night I watched the last two eps of SPN Season 2. Damn Dean cries beautifully. Gotta wonder why the brought JDM back and didn't let him talk, though. My dream ending for the show would be for the brothers to win out, survive, not be vegetables, and get their parents back alive. :)

Board meeting last night actually ended on time at two hours. Amazing. The DRE and I giggled a lot together. I really need to stop sitting with the other young women...or not. We both agreed that our webmail interface SUCKS.

I'm slowly catching up on tv watching. The problem with going on vacation during a sweeps month. I need to watch last weeks Vampire Diaries since I watch that live on Thursdays. I think The Big Bang Theory is the funniest thing on tv ever. I had to put my mug down while watching on Monday because I was laughing so hard and nearly spilling.

Back on the diet. So far so good, I guess. Not as inspired and the holidays coming up are always hard because I love to bake and eat.

The blister on my toe got all flat and disgusting. It didn't seem to ooze into the sock I was wearing overnight so I'm ignoring it.

Comic book day and two weeks worth! Whee!

I'm easily amused.

Still very excited about my Yuletide assignment and I need to get cracking on a few others due in December. I hope to write this Saturday while doing the football watching thing, then I'm going to talk mom into seeing The Men Who Stare At Goats on Sunday. Next weekend is definitely 2012. I love me an apocalypse!

We haz Star Trek 9!

Well, the file pile is not getting any smaller...

*snort*

My stupid webmail is showing threads from LJ as having posted forty years ago.

I was four. Most of you weren't alive.

*snort*

Still hating it; reading Dean porn and avoiding huge ass pile of work to soothe the hatred.

It is sleeting/snowing. :P:P:P

Apparently my boss and the office survived barely without me. Yay for indispensability! Of course I have a shitload of work to do--no way I'll get it all done today. I've got this avalanche of file folders next to me.

I have a new webmail interface and I HATE IT. It times out, for one thing, and you can't move smoothly between messages and it replies to the sender not to the email list and I couldn't even use it in Netscape so I finally had to download Firefox (which I prefer but all our work bookmarks are over in Netscape). grrrrr

Also, I seem to be not getting all my emails.

I have a church board meeting tomorrow at 6:30--it's usually on the second Wednesday but half the board was out of town last week--and if it's not over by 8:50 I'm outtie. KU plays its first challenge--Memphis in a rematch of the NCAA championship of 2008--at 9:00 and I'm not missing a minute of it.

Well, better bet back to the slog...

Home from Vegas! (Well, last night) Thankfully we decided to save money and come home before the killer Saturday night hotel rates because all of United's flights through Denver are cancelled today due to snow! It was flurrying there when we got in yesterday and continued to ten inches!

Anyway, had a great time with the Ho's and then my mom. Walked my feet off and they're still so swollen plus I have this ugly purple blood blister on my baby toe which I discovered on Wednesday while waiting for my mom to arrive. Luckily she brought an extra pair of shoes (a size larger than mine) because while I could squeeze my feet into my shoes I was afraid the blister would pop. It still hasn't and it's still kind of puffy and disgusting but doesn't hurt at all.

I'll put up a blow-by-blow of Vegas sometime this week but I'm sure tomorrow will be crazy busy at work as I'll have to do all of last week's work. Never heard from my boss so either everything went fine or he went catatonic. *g*

I lost way too much money and the strap of my big purse broke so I had to replace it with a Brighton (oh the horrors *vbg*) but I sang karaoke for the first time, ate foi gras for the first time, felt high winds in Vegas for the first time, saw an impersonation show for the first time (The Rat Pack, OMG so wonderful!), sat in a light booth for the first time (Ka), and so much more! Miss the Ho's already!

Came home to find out my nephew had swine flu this past week! (He's fine now but his temp was scary high and, naturally, my brother was in London for the worst of it). Also, when they were in Vegas the week before I went my nephew was the one out of 700 audience members taken on stage for a magic act and he was levitated in a corvette that vanished! lolol Apparently my brother and sister-in-law were 'they made our kid disappear'! *g*

Also, KU sucks.

But, hey, it's basketball season and Vegas odds have KU 3-1 to win the National Championship! I didn't bet because dad said if we lost it would be all my fault. *snort* Also, I had no money left.

Got my Yuletide assignment and am very excited about it!

I was able to keep up on LJ and email on my phone--yay, phone--though it was somewhat hilarious to see us all standing around together texting and emailing while on vacacation. God knows what we did before we had these fancy cell phones!

Okay, have to read like four pages of LJ since yesterday afternoon.

Oh, but first...there are people bitching about last week's hilarious SPN?! I love the fourth wall breaking. I love Chuck and Becky. It was hilarious and, yet, like the ep before, had it's serious moments.

Signed up for Yuletide using my ancient version of Netscape. I, the microsoft hater, finds it very amusing that you can't use IE to sign up. Anyway, I had no problems. I have no clue what number I was or how many fandoms I offered to write in. Hell, after spending an hour going through the list I can't remember what I requested! lolol But I had to get it done now since the signups end while I'm in Vegas.

I'm so far behind on housecleaning etc. It didn't help that I fell asleep on the couch around 11:00 last night when I should have been folding and putting away clothes. I leave Saturday at dawn and I foresee being up all Friday night. *sigh* Tonight, of course, is out until around 10:30 after I watch Vampire Diaries, SPN (WHEEEEEEEE), Bones and Fringe.

I really need to figure out what clothes to take, which means trying some on that didn't fit three months ago but might fit now.

Choir practice was good last night. We're not performing anything for three Sundays so that made it a bit more relaxed, and then we're doing a unison hymn and the following Sunday unison "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". Dad's doing a service on foxhole religion or something.

For Christmas we're singing this wonderful version of Silent night. Each part sings a different language--German, Spanish and, for some unknown reason, Korean. The male voices sing the Korean and then Zulu! It's a really great arrangement.

lolol Just got a call asking for an assistant of mine who quit about seven years ago! Geeez!

Well, should work or read fanfic or something...

Here be my Poly Big Bang Fic! (No art, of course, because I NEVER get anything in exchanges--you'd think I'd learn). But I enjoyed writing the story.

Title: They Will Not Fade Away
Fandom: BtVS/AtS
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Spike/Angel/Buffy
Warnings: Bit of blood play, angst, het and slash smut
Disclaimer: Nothing about BtVS or AtS belongs to me; it's all Joss; I'm just playing with his characters and making them do naughty things.
Word Count: 11,745 words
Summary: It's the end of the world as they know it and Buffy, Angel and Spike come together in the ruins of Los Angeles to try to find a way to survive the destruction wrought by Wolfram & Hart. Angel's injured and despondent. Spike's fallen into the familiar caregiver role. Buffy's trying not to let her guilt for abandoning them get to her as she leaves her family and friends behind to go to L.A. to find her two former lovers and tell them finally that she loves them both. Reunited, they need to get out of the city if they want to survive to see if the world really does end, and, in doing so, they find something very surprising for the three of them to share.
A/N: I thought about using a beta but, y'know, I just don't. My vision is my vision and I'm fairly confident with grammar (though I was absent on comma day). Anyway, I'm dedicating this to burningeden who was always there for me in the bad times and for whom I owe the second half of that Sin Wagon story from years ago; this is at least the same threesome. Also, to spikesleman who hasn't hunted me down...yet...for my extreme slowness of writing TEAOW&S, and is one of the nicest people out there. And, to those Buffy/Spike and Buffy/Angel shippers who said either 'why can't we just be friends because shipper wars are stupid and there's enough of Buffy for everyone?' or 'why can't these three just get together and do naughty things to each other?' So, to the survivors of those shipper wars, here's my solution.

Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.
(HEINRICH HEINE, "Lutetia; or, Paris," Augsberg Gazette, 1842)

Or, here be demons...

They Will Not Fade Away over at DW.

*falls over dead*

Spoiler Pics for SPN 5.10, the Big One, as I call it

*falls over dead again*

I swear, if this was next week, mom and I would so not be going to see Ka that night! lolol

The guy who owns this building always brings coffee from someplace (highly unlikely it's Starbucks because the man is a millionaire and drives a Toyota and lives in my very middle-class neighborhood). Anyway, he heats it up in the microwave. 50% of the time (at least three times a week) it boils over (that's my guess) and he has to take the tray to the sink and clean it up.

One, you should never boil coffee and, two, how freakin' hard is it to stand there and watch for thirty seconds?! lolol

Men.

Mom and I decided to go to Joel Robouchon's restaurant at MGM Grande for our big splurgy dinner next week. Yummy French food!

I'm so not ready to go to Vegas. I haven't cleaned the house, done laundry, caught up on tv watching. You know tomorrow night is shot to hell with seven hours of tv to watch. That means getting up in the morning to clean before work. And I have to mow. *sigh*

Apparently no one flies from KC to Denver and back. My flight from Denver to Vegas is sold out, my one returning to Denver has about six seats available, the other two legs are more than half empty.

In the world of weird coincidences...Yesterday I got the urge to read a part of Zoe Chapter 1. Of course I've only tagged chapter 4 on, so I was skimming day to day through Winter 2007 and came across a post celebrating SPN's use of Styx's "Renegade" in some ep. I didn't read the post so I didn't know what ep, but, I was happy to see my love of SPN really did go back a ways.

Anyway, last night I watched the bank robbery ep of season two which, yes, ended with "Renegade" and Dean's famous line of "We're so screwed". :)

I really should be cleaning my bedroom while watching these...

Last night was the first KU basketball game of the season. We have a buttload of talent, maybe too much. Dad says they need to redshirt a couple of these guys. Defense was sloppy, letting Fort Hays State hit way too many threes, but offense was impressive. Lots of threes and nice dunks and easy layups off of steals. As KU football continues to suck my sporting attention is switching back to my first love.

Today is my posting day for my poly big bang fic but I'm waiting on the art. If I don't hear back by 4:00, I'm posting without it as otherwise it'll be nearly midnight. I'm going straight from work and comic book buying to church for dinner, class, and choir, and then I'll get home just in time for CSI NY and Eastwick, so it'll be around eleven before I'm on the computer again, at the earliest. As usual, the story has a lame title but hopefully the story itself isn't lame.

Well, really need to work if I want to goof off and watch V and Heroes later this afternoon when the boss, who isn't here now, isn't here again.

I don't believe I just did this. I deleted five unsaved ficlets. I'm so pissed at myself! I've been so lackadasical about saving and I just hit delete. No back up on the computer that I can find anywhere. This is so damn depressing. I don't have the energy to try to rewrite them right now.

*kicks things*

Four Slade ficlets, one of them was really damn good, and a Lucifer/Cas fic.

*spits*

And KU...jesus they suck. When does basketball start?!

I'm going to go wallow in watching SPN and trying not to eat every bit of chocolate in the house.

This a "what if" in TEAOW&S. What if Angel had turned Willow in "The End"?

( nope, Willow ain't mine either )

Not 500 words on any of these, I think, but this is what spewed forth from my brain--actually last Saturday, but I apparently at suck at timely posting...I'll be spamming you for a while here.

( Lionel isn't mine, if he was he wouldn't be dead )

Someone needs to stop me...

Actually, too late. *sigh*

I signed up for another Big Bang, but, I mean, how can I resist an apocalypse story!? I've been writing those since I was a teenager! (in fact, my poly BB is one, look for it Wednesday)

Not surprising, about 75% of the signups are for SPN, which, I dunno, seems kind of cheating since the apocalypse is nigh and all that on the show, but then I decided to do a Buffy/SPN crossover so I'm kind of cheating, too, since Buffy had an apocalypse every year.

There are some successful meshes of the two universes and some not so. Let's hope mine's the former.

It's not due till March so...more TEAOW&S hopefully and the Ho's January NaNo in which I'm going to attempt to start the werewolf story that I dreamed up last year in vivid detail. Of course, what I write will not be anywhere as good as what I dreamed up--never is--and what the hell am I doing with werewolves? I'm a vamp chick!

I've been reading tons of SPN crossover fics this week and, y'know, it's really sad when there's a brilliant idea and the execution is just wanting. Makes me want to write it myself but that would be kind of plagiaristic. Also, very disappointed that so many of them are unfinished (which I should be the last one to complain about though how can someone get to the very last chapter over two years ago and not finish...wait, I did that with Zoe...)

There's a brilliant cross with Bones out there which has one of my iron clad kinks--someone trading their body for something be it money, drugs, food, a place to stay, or a silver box needed to contain the unholy artifact. My personal fanon is that Dean has prostituted himself before and, of course, would never, ever let Sammy, so I loved this fic.

Also, because my stupid brain doesn't have enough fics I should be writing, I've managed to create an OFC (Dean's twin) and stick her into the episodes. I really need to stop doing that. I've got like whole conversations in my head.

I need to clean my house this weekend in preparation for going out of town next weekend--I can't believe I'm going to Vegas in a week from tomorrow. I probably should discuss this with my boss (though it's been on the master calendar for months). But, I hope to get some ficcing done, too.

SPN last night was funny and good. Two more funny ones in a row and then...well, nuff said. If you don't want to know the basics, don't go to the episode guide at wikipedia because I did and got all depressed.

I'm actually looking forward to Smallville tonight--probably haven't said that since before Lionel died. I love Oliver and Oliver centric eps make me happy.

Tomorrow I'm making pumpkin bean soup for lunch. I'm not a big pumpkin fan, so we'll see how that goes.

My watch battery died and I'll be going slowly nuts here without being able to tell time...

Well, Geocities is gone and with it a lot of good, old fic. *sigh* Nightblooms disappeared sometime in the last six months or six years--not quite sure why--but I have it all saved if I ever want to put it up again. RIP Geocities and the awesome yellow on black and glittering fonts that blinded us!

I actually have a butt load of fics from around 12-10 years ago saved to my harddrive. Hard to rec them if they were only on Geocities, but at least I can read them.

In other news I went into my boss' office to look for something and found a handgun on his desk. Lovely. There's a rifle leaning against a bookcase as well. He has an appointment at 4:00 about guns so I'm guessing he's selling but it was still startling. I don't do guns.

Apparently I'm in no danger of being fired (not that I thought I was) since he asked today if he, his wife, and son all died together, if I'd deal with things like their pets.

The less said about KU the better.

Ditto with the Chiefs.

I did write a few things but was too lazy to put them up anywhere.

Great service at church yesterday on "old time religion" (which the choir sang as well), how we're heretics but we've been around for a long, long time being heretical (which actually means "to choose") and, hey, we were actually a religious kingdom for about six months in Transylvania in the 16th century.

Then I did treasurer stuff and came home and after lunch napped for three hours. Later I watched the last two eps of SPN season one. John....*sob*

Got a bitchy call from a bitchy woman who basically blamed us for her not being able to pay her house payment or something because we're garnishing her husband. 1) she set up a payment plan, made one payment, stopped, didn't respond to phone calls and letters for several months before we garnished him; 2) it's not our fault the State takes three and a half weeks to pay us for the previous month which means that once he's actually paid according to his paychecks we won't release the garnishment for three and half more weeks until we get the money which, by law, we have the right to do; 3) it's also not our fault she got another garnishment on her ass which made the payment to us half of the usual which means it'll take longer.

I hate it when people call and complain to me as if it's my fault they're in debt. Really people, STFU, especially since I'm just a freaking secretary and make less than you!

Very little on tv tonight so I think I'll gear up to watch the first ep of SPN season two and cry a lot.

Signed up for a Dean/Cas holiday Secret Santa, so that's two for sure plus Yuletide. Hey, and this one, in the 'use this header when you post a fic' actually said "disclaimer"! So very stunned. If you know of any in Buffy, DC, SPN, point me to them. :)

Well, need to work on the monthly billing while the boss is gone...or read fanfic.

I hate it when my boss has arguments with defendants right in front of me. It drove me to finally do the dictation that's been sitting here since last Friday (because I could shove headphones on my head).

It's raining. It's cold again. I have a cold that's making my ear and head ache from the sinus pressure (but it's a cold--coughing etc.--and not a sinus infection). I missed my pedicure appointment last night thinking it was next week. This week is dragging. I'm so distracted I can't even concentrate on reading fanfic, flitting from fic to fic to majong game to working. I've been hungry the last couple of days--my body going into some kind of 'needs more food' phase because I've been eating the same amount of food each day--and so I went to bed hungry rather than go over my points. I managed to walk out of the comic book store without this month's Outsiders. I can't write a thing.

And there's no SPN tonight.

DO OVER!

At least with the cold I can sing really low which is needed for the tenor part of "Old Time Religion" we're doing this Sunday. Hopefully I'll be over the stupid cold by then and will have learned the piece.

And hopefully KU won't totally embarrass itself against Oklahoma this Saturday. If we'd both won last week I believe we'd be the national 7:00 ABC game instead of the 2:30 regional, but, hey, every game so far (including next week's also on ABC at 2:30) has been televised. That's never happened! Basketball, sure, every game is always televised and has been for twenty years, but football?

I can't believe I planned my trip to Vegas to miss two football games. *sigh* Thank god for my phone and college football app. I'll also be able to keep up with LJ and reading fic instead of dragging several books along to read at night. :)

And also luckily my pedicurist was able to get me in next week at the same time as usual so I won't have skanky feet in Vegas. Sixteen days! I can't wait to see the Ho's, but also can't wait to show mom the wonders of Vegas shopping! And we got the free tickets to Ka by sitting in the light booth so we can spend even more on shoes! Actually we're going to go somewhere really fancy for dinner one night. Dad refuses to go to Vegas but I think if he really sat down and learned about the gourmet restaurants and wine, he'd be lured in.

I can't believe it's nearly Halloween which means it's nearly Thanksgiving which means it's nearly Christmas! Too soon!!! Mom was talking about buying a Christmas present for someone already. Too soon!!!

I've decided to buy a treadmill of my very own so I can walk daily. Even though it was painful to walk two days in a row last week it also felt good and I'm not huffing as much going up the stairs at court anymore (there are at least 25 stairs). I was hoping mom would just go 'oh, you can have ours since you're the only one who ever uses it' but no such luck. Oh well, I don't need to buy the superdeluxe model they have. I'd like one that is portable and can be stored so I can keep it in the living room in front of the tv and then move it when I have guests.

Well, should try to do something other than bitch...

Today was baking day. Before she left town mom gave me a handful of basil from her indoor growing thingie (so it wouldn't hit the light and burn) and I'd already planned my menus sans basil but I'd just gotten a recipe for purple basil parmesan biscuits. Basil is basil and I had the other ingredients, so I decided to give it a try. I was making an Italian tomato soup for lunch today and having spaghetti on Monday night, with which I usually have a small roll, so I figured I'd try these.

I've never made biscuits from scratch and naturally I don't own a biscuit cutter. I ended up with kind of half cut/half drop biscuits but they're YUMMY even without butter!

So was the soup. Incredibly simple and fast using marinara sauce instead of tomatoes and very hearty with pasta, carrots and cannolini beans.

I also made my reduced fat version of peanut butter cookies. Still high in points--three a piece--but then there's a whole cup of PB for twelve cookies, and even reduced fat is only 25% less fat than normal. Still, although they were not quite as good as the real ones, they're worth the points. The splenda worked well in replace of the sugar and I baked them about three minutes less (as the splenda box directed).

I'm so loving the cooking and baking! I didn't realize how much I missed it on the previous diet. And I'm losing weight quite obviously (naturally first in my wrists and boobs but also in my stomach as my very tight slips are now looser) and I'm back to walking thirty minutes at two MPH on the treadmill. Since I had to go out to my parents' the last two nights to check on whether or not dad's stupid mail order bacon had arrived (which it hadn't) I walked both nights and I'm starting to feel it in the back of my thighs, which is good.

Just watched Oklahoma lose and am currently watching Nebraska lose. I hope this isn't a trend today with Big 8 teams playing Southwest Conf. teams (OU v. Texas and Neb. v. Tex. Tech) though we play Colorado, former Big 8 team. We're on tv at 6:00 and then MU v. OSU is on at 8:15. Good Big 12 football day.

Now if I could just write something other than this (which will be posted late tonight as I still have no wireless and my laptop is currently on the couch well away from the modem).

I also need to practice the choir piece from tomorrow. I may be the only tenor and I don't know it. I keep wanting to sing the alto part.

Talked to mom today and found out we can get free tickets to a Cirque show if we sit in the light booth! (Dad has a colleague who has a daughter who works for Cirque in Vegas) So we're going somewhere really fancy for our dinner. Also, dad got a very well paying assignment to write a thirty page article so they're going with an LED tv instead of the typical LCD. My brother has a 50 inch LED in his new media room and apparently dad is addicted to watching sports on it. I'm sure they'll be getting it before KU basketball starts. This means dad will be watching sports upstairs though so they'll probably end up with two so that they have one in the basement tv room and mom can spend her Saturdays watching sappy English movies and comedies on dvd upstairs.

I'm still enjoying SGU. I'm not quite sure why we have cliffhangers every ep, but it's an interesting show. Also, Fringe is very good this season. I'm behind a couple eps on Smallville, haven't watched any of Dollhouse, and have a handful of shows from this past week to watch but I just watched all eight eps of Top Chef. Also really liking Flash Forward.

Also, SPN rocked, as usual. Cas was...perfection. :) Thankfully only one week off before it and Vampire Diaries are back. I'm really loving the darkness on VD (okay, that's just wrong lolol). Really didn't expect what happened this past week to happen to any of the main characters!

Where comics are concerned, I haven't read much of the past few weeks but I did read Red Robin and I still love Tim to pieces (and Tam is cool, too) but the best one of the past week was Adventure. Not only was the art gorgeous--most beautiful Tim I've seen anyone draw--but OMG so wonderful. The best reunion we could get--a lot of sorrow and angst and Tim being crazy and Kon being supportive and what I've missed since the early days of TT. And the tear....*happy sigh*

The sun finally came out fully today. This last week has been ridiculous. Rainy, bitterly cold (I mean, really 42 as a high before the middle of October?!) and yesterday's sun was that weak wintery sun way too many months early. It's supposed to warm up over the next few days back into the low 60s, thankfully. I'm almost missing that time in June when my AC wasn't working and it was 90 in my house. (as I sit here with a heating pad on my lap, a sweater on, and socks that I can feel the cold through).

Okay, all for now...

....

(Much later)

CRAP!

*goes off to pout over crappy defense*

*actually goes to read angel porn*

Video mostly so I don't lose it. Dean's pain to Johnny Cash's "Hurt". OMG so gorgeous! There are very few male actors who can cry well, Jensen is one of them.

( video behind the cut )

Sometimes I just have to boggle at the people who post on the Weightwatchers board. I mean, how could anyone think that twelve Buffalo Wild wings weren't going to be high in points?! Four ounces of chicken breast is four points for gods sake! That's around a quarter of a breast!

I dunno. I've been tempted to cheat, but then I don't. Sure I could eat all four of the Skinny Cow fudge cones instead of one, but I don't. I always have strong willpower at the beginning of a diet--we'll see how it goes next month in Vegas. I'm thinking of taking granola bars for breakfast--not low in points but nowhere near what I'd get at a cafe or buffet--and WW cookies and raisin boxes to snack on. I'm just not going to fuss about keeping track of points. I figure I'll walk off pretty much everything I eat with the miles between casinos. *g* I actually tend to lose weight when I go to places like Vegas and London because I walk so much.

I have a new plan for ficcing this holiday season. Since I suck at requests, I'm joining seasonal communities. I'm planning on doing Yuletide again as well, just being a bit more careful about the fandoms I list to write in. I can't believe Alias is listed in the rare fandoms. That makes me sad. Sark is sad, too. Also, True Blood, which I find interesting because I see lots of fic out there. I didn't nominate any new fandoms but I voted for Alias, Blue Beetle, Darkover novels, True Blood, Vampire Diaries (tv) and the "Relic" novels.

I LOVED Adventure Comics that came out yesterday. Beautiful art, beautiful tear on my Timmy, lovely, lovely, lovely friendship between Tim and Kon (I'm just not calling him Connor, stupid lawsuit). I also quite enjoyed Red Robin. Crazy, crazy Tim. *sigh* Loving Tam, too.

I haven't read anything else yet as I had church board meeting last night. Went okay. I could almost see Heather bristle when our chair elect referred to the Spiritual Celebration Service as the Spiritual Program. It is NOT a program. (Heather's me from two years ago--in charge of the Spiritual Celebration Team). But, otherwise it went smoothly enough and we were out of there in just over two hours.

Sadly they rescheduled next month's so I won't be in Vegas and will have to attend.

I really gotta stop volunteering for stuff.

I also watched the first four Top Chef eps this season. The top contenders are obviously the brothers and Jen. Mike the asshole needs to be booted just for being a misogynistic asshole.

Oh, and I just discovered that I've been using too many WW points for my McDonalds FF, SF latte. It's only two, not three. WW doesn't have any of the points for the McDonalds drinks so rather than go to the McDonalds website for the nutritional info, I used a Starbucks latte. I've been cheating myself out of a point every week!

Yes, Starbucks is great but we have no drive through and it's higher in points!

I may have to break down and have a white chocolate mocha in Vegas, though. I adore those at the holiday season.

There seems to be little buzz about tonight's SPN which I find odd especially since, unlike last week, Cas is back.

I have this whole bizarre AU spinning in my head where an OFC is Dean's twin sister and there's this whole incest pregnancy thing going on and it's just so wrong wrong wrong and it won't go away. I have no clue where it came from! It started with a succubus problem--possibly because I read a succubus fic that was all Dean/Cas--where the sister is the only woman around and just keeps getting wronger from there.

I dunno. My brain is sick sometimes.

There's also the massive AU smushing of the Vertigo world with SPN but with my own OFC thrown in, of course. I keep playing through the end battle with Sam being taken over by Lucifer and Cat (the OFC) calling down Michael to take over Dean because Sam/Lucifer has taken Cat's middle child, Lydia, as his bride (which is just very wrong since she's John's daughter) and Cas has brought a wounded Dean to Cat's oldest daughter Zoe's dorm room where she's Claire Bennet's roommate and Zeke (Cat's son who is also Vertigo Lucifer's son) is missing and it's just a big ol' mess. I really need to stop coming up with OFCs--though, to be fair, I created this one about twenty years ago when I first met John Constantine. Just reading all that is giving me a headache. I do have a rather creative idea of how to combine the Vertigo Lucifer and Michael with the SPN ones but, no, no, no, I will not write this!

*sigh*

Stupid brain.

Also, I nearly got thrown out of a fic when the author referred to Lawrence as a small community where everyone is related. *looks at 75000 people in town and boggles* With the internet it really isn't hard to find simple facts about a place! If you're going to use a real town, do a bit of research! The show's creators are just as bad, though. I giggle everytime I watch the season three finale set in New Harmony, Indiana, because 1) there are no newly built houses that big in the town of 170 people and 2) they just got mailboxes a year after the show aired. Also, they wasted a great opportunity to use the town itself, since it was founded by two spiritual Utopian societies!

Okay, enough ranting.

My father orders meat through the mail. He and mom have gone to Chicago today. Not all the
meat showed up in the order on Tuesday or last night so guess who has to trot out there each day until it does show up. *rolls eyes*

For years I've bought things like pork chops from the butcher case but they're always really big and I needed to find ones in the four ounce range so I checked out the pre-packaged ones. I thought about getting the breakfast chops but they're really thin and I worried about over-cooking them, so finally I decided on a $10.00 off package of eight that were in the four to six ounce range and I could cut them. I had a couple two nights ago with a brown sugar apple sauce and, OMG, so tender! I was surprised that they were just so tender and juicy and much easier to cook than the really thick ones you get from the butcher. And a heck of a lot cheaper.

Well, my boss is out this morning, so I need to watch last week's CSI, I mean, work.

liliaeth asked for Dean. This is truly one of the oddest things I've ever written.

( Parallels )

finnchneas asked for Sawyer from Lost. This is what he thinks about Juliet.

( A sleeping lover )

darkdanc3r asked for Rose. This is a bit twisted.

( Rose learns some lessons in her short life )

For darthbatgirl who requested Tim Drake aka nutcase boy (or at least that's my version...no, wait, that's pretty much canon, too *g*)

( Tim is so fucked up it's not funny )

Well, after going to the grocery and deciding not to go to the movie today and watching the Chiefs COMPLETELY SUCK after getting my hopes up, I fell asleep until 6:00 and did nothing.

My solo did go well at church, yay me.

Here are a few of the 500 word "free writing" fics I wrote yesterday though it's quite probable that some aren't 500 words. Sorry about that. Fickle muse.

The first one is for delphipsmithi who wanted Blackadder and I was going to blow her off because, really, Blackadder?! but then I decided to write his view of HSU. She might not know that he was once the Ho's butler. If you have no idea what HSU is it's this sort of weird role playing email list with fic that supposedly centers around Obi-Wan Kenobi except there's only like one Ho left who only has eyes (and other body parts) for him. Take a college for women who want to save Obi-Wan from facial gerbilization, add neuroticism to a high degree, sex to a high degree, and every other fandom cute boy you can think of and stir. Oh, and ewoks.

( Edmund Blackadder's Views onthe Harlots of HSU )

Well, KU nearly gave the damn thing away but they hung on, thanks to the Defense finally showing up in the last two minutes.

I wrote some of the 'free writing' character fics and will finish them and post them all tomorrow.

So, before I go make some fat free popcorn and watch Jus in Bello a couple more memes...

A. Has my portrayal of a character(s) changed the way you think of him/her?

B. Pick one of my characters (Edited to add "name the series if that's applicable") and I'll answer the following questions about him or her.

1. What would your character kill for? What would they die for?
2. What would they refuse to do under any circumstances? Why?
3. What do they dream about?
4. What's their biggest fear?
5. What single object would they be most hard pressed to part with? Why?
6. What is their fondest memory?
7. What is their worst memory?
8. What or who was their most significant influence? Expound.
9. What do they believe makes a successful life?
10. What makes them laugh?
11. What are their religious views?
12. What is their greatest strength?
13. Do they have a fatal flaw? If so, what is it?
14. Who is the most important person in their life?
15. If they died, who would miss them most? How would they die?

GRRRR! While it was easy enough to switch back to my custom layout all my cutsy titles (like feelings and jump back) were missing. Colors were right--font sizes wrong. What the hell, LJ???

And of course I can't remember them all! Also my blurb--which is sadly out of date--is gone!

Did this happen to anyone else? I've seen no announcement on LJ about problems with layouts randomly switching to ugly!

.....

90 minutes till KU. I'm in my KU top. I've already been to the Christmas in October at the Hallmark store and had my blueberry oatmeal muffins--okay, kind of chewy, need tons of butter dripping off them.

I didn't squee over SPN mostly because, while I liked it--I always like the occasional funny ep--and it was good to see the brothers working through stuff (and FINALLY Dean admitted he started it all!) there was no Cas. I can't help it. My extreme love for the show is due to Cas. He'll be back this coming week so expect squeeage.

Continue to enjoy Fringe, Bones, Vampire Diaries, Flash Forward and Medium. I still have to watch all the Dollhouses--maybe this three day weekend (for the win!) and Smallville from last night. I'm also still enjoying SGU probably due to the fact that I was neve a huge SGA fan. And, yay, Jack!

Mlom made a WW chili last night that, except for having onions and tomatoes in it, was just like our homemade chili. I grew up eating very basic chili--canned chili beans, ground beef, water, and spices. No vegetables or chicken or chunks of beef please! This was quite yummy and 1 1/2 cups for five points, very filling! I'll need to get the recipe from her. I love chili on winter weekends.

The heat is working in my house. Elektra has already claimed the vent by the tv. What's scary is that she's had her winter coat for three weeks now and she's an INDOOR cat. This is going to be a bad winter!

I plan to write some today (after the KU game) and read Mary Ann's story which I've been tardy on. Tomorrow after church I'm going to see Zombieland then I'm not stirring from my house until Tuesday!

Hopefullly that means fic will be produced and not that I'll be laying around watching SPN eps (though undoubtedly there will be some of that).

After the successful baking of the muffins this week next week I'm going to attempt to reduce the fat and sugar in our traditional peanut butter cookies. I ran the points--five each! ACK! I'm going to attempt them with low fat pb and splenda instead of the cup of pb and cup of sugar. I'll keep the one egg and vanilla. We'll see if they're edible. I love pb cookies--unfortunately I only love OUR pb cookies which have no flour and every other recipe out there has flour. Again, I grew up with them and that's what I like.

I think I was the youngest person in the Hallmark store this morning. All these little old ladies dragged in their little old husbands! There was a line to get in! Mom got her ornaments, though, and I got a new salt and pepper shaker set of snowmen. Do not allow me to buy any more wrapping paper etc. or cards. I bought tons of rolls on sale right after Christmas last year and I have enough left over cards from the last four years for at least two years!

Okay, outtie and unplugging the computer to take it down to the couch!