Beware the wall of text!

I should probably post here more often. But since I haven't posted for a few months, here's a recap!

In October, I got to go to New Mexico for work. I went there several years back, and fell in love with the food there, particularly stuffed sopapillas. So I insisted that we go out to a Mexican place one of the nights we were there, and I got my stuffed sopapillas. Om nom nom.

Also in October, Jeremy's first novella, "Kensei," came out for e-readers! It's bundled with two other novellas as Cobalt City Rookies from Timid Pirate Publishing. All three of the novellas feature teenaged super hero protagonists. I have, of course, read his novella several times, and I finally got started reading the other two recently. So far, super awesome!

We spend November working on our novels for NaNoWriMo. This was the fourth year I attempted it, and once again, I did not finish. This time, it was because my laptop died a week before the end of November. Though I ended up buying a new laptop on Cyber Monday, and had it two days later, it was really a disheartening blow to my potential progress. I'd still like to finish the novel, but I haven't gotten back to it yet.

I also had the big EtsyRain holiday show in November, which was excellent! This was the first year the show was in McCaw Hall, and the new venue was spectacular! My sales were also great, and the new item I debuted, wrist warmers, proved quite popular.

A few weeks later, I sold my crocheted crafts at GeekFest, which was put on by Seattle Browncoat Charities. It was a ton of fun to finally do a show where I didn't have to try to explain things like Cthulhu. :) Also, Jeremy got to see Kirby Krackle, ended up buying all of their music on his phone while listening to their show, and then playing it for me. Yay, nerdy music! (Granted, we had seen the lead singer from Kirby Krackle about a week previous, which was part of the reason that Jeremy went to see them play at GeekFest.)

We spent Christmas proper in Seattle, but then left a couple of days later for a grand tour of the Midwest. We flew to St. Louis and spent one night there. The next morning, we loaded up the car with my mom and youngest sister, and drove to Kansas City, where we spent two nights at my middle sister's brand new house, which I refer to as the mansion. It has an indoor pool. That's really all that you need by way of explanation. I managed to pull a muscle in my leg from either swimming or going up and down the stairs the first day (possibly both), but I still went ice skating on the second day, which really didn't improve my leg any. But it eventually got better. We also got to watch Inception, Return of the Jedi, and Les Miserables while we were there.

After our two nights in Kansas City, we returned to St. Louis for another night, and did karaoke in my mom's living room. Because she found a karaoke machine at a yard sale for like $6, and it worked. The music selection was a bit slim, but that just meant we got to pick out ridiculous songs and sing them. Someone should have taped me and Megan trying to sing all five parts on a Spice Girls song. :)

We drove down to Carbondale for New Years Eve, where we played a ridiculous amount of Cards Against Humanity and hung out with my good friends there (except for Thor, who was sick). We went to lunch with my former boss's widow the next day, after I took Jeremy on a driving tour of Carbondale. I was a little surprised at how well I remembered how to get most places... but I guess I did live there for nine years!

Finally, we drove back up to St. Louis and stayed at my mom's for one more night, where we broke out the wine and played a wine-themed version of Monopoly. Much to his astonishment, Jeremy won the game after Mom and Megan decided to give up.

So now we're in 2013, and though I don't do resolutions or anything of the sort, I do at least have things in mind that I'm trying to do, like trying to budget and spend more carefully this year. I'm also trying to write more frequently (daily would be ideal) and keep my blogs more active. :) On the crafting front, I should probably figure out something new to start making this year. At the moment, I'm doing a bunch of custom work for friends and family, and then I need to restock all of the stuff that sold out at my shows. So it might take a while before I can start on new things. Or, depending on how some of the custom works goes, I might start making these things for my shop!

Time to go to Canada!

We're headed to Vancouver this weekend for our honeymoon, which we intentionally delayed until this weekend, because a) it is a 3 day weekend, and b) I was pretty much out of vacation time right after the wedding. We don't have much of anything planned, and I think that will be the best way to do it. :)

But it does mean that we're disconnecting from the interwebz and most contact for the majority of the weekend. I'm turning off my phone when I get on the train, and Jeremy will be turning off his phone before we get to Canada. We are bringing one laptop, so there might be some internet here and there, but really, I'm hoping for less rather than more.

I'm taking the real camera, which means pictures... at least in theory. I often forget to take the camera out, and at the moment, it's in its bag, in my purse. Which is to say, not particularly accessible. But I'll work on it.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to eat lunch and then go buy a watch, which is not something I have done since before I owned a cell phone. :)

Donuts! Hot fresh NOW!

So I am quickly learning that this eating healthy on the road is much trickier than it looks. Especially when you go to dinner with your sister and her kids. Because if said sister sees a Krispy Kreme near your hotel, she just might decide that it sounds like a good idea for dessert.

It was fun, though, because the kids wanted to see how the donuts were made, and I guess I've never paid enough attention in a Krispy Kreme before, or the ones I've been to are more stealthy about their donut production. But we got to see the whole thing. Donuts being conveyed down to oil, flipped over, cooled briefly, and then doused through a fountain of glaze. And of course, the magical sign was lit up, so our donuts were HOT! (Or, as my sister and I kept saying, "Hot Fresh NOW!", because that's what the sign at the Krispy Kreme near my apartment says.)

I'd never actually had a Krispy Kreme hot before. Warmed up in the microwave is NOT the same. It seriously just melted in my mouth. And was delicious. And I was good, and only had the one. Though it was really tempting to have another one. :)

Delicious Donuts Shower Art from Ugly Baby

Stuff and nonsense

1) I'm working on an epically awesome crochet project of epic awesomeness. If the initial epic awesomeness works out, there will be spawn of epic awesomeness as well. (This is all suitably vague, dontcha think? There will be a picture in a couple of weeks. :) )

2) I have somehow slated myself to write four stories by the end of the year. Not sure what I was thinking with that, since I have pretty much NO writing time when derby starts back up next week.

3) Derbyderbyderbyderbyderby. :) I think I'm going to be going to practices 3 days a week starting in September. Maybe 4 days a week, once Booty Camp starts. Yeah. Eat breathe sleep derby. :)

4) We watched Whip It last night. Jeremy has decided that he shouldn't watch derby movies with a ref. I couldn't help but comment on legality and illegality of some of the stuff they did. I guess that means I'm picking some things up. :)

5) I'm currently working my way through The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, who Jeremy met in Kansas (and introduced me to as well). This mainly entails reading about 4 pages each night, while Jeremy is feeding Delilah and I am already in bed. Not the most productive way to read, but I'll take what I can manage. (This is, at least partially, a bit of research for one of the short stories I plan to write.)

6) My mom will be visiting Seattle for the first time EVER. She arrives on Saturday, we whisk her off to Portland for a couple of days (where she has also never been), bring her back for one night, and then put her on a cruise to Alaska. I have no idea what we will be doing for large chunks of the time. We have spa appointments, plans to do a wine tasting, and a place to sleep. Oh, and Powells is a given, even if Jeremy and I REALLY do not need to buy more books. :)

Recap of the recap

I decided a couple of weeks ago that when I start work early, take a short lunch, and leave the office at 4 instead of 5, I am a much more productive person. Since Jeremy has to be at his office at 7:15, and since I generally ride the same bus as him, this works out pretty well. It does mean that we don't take the same bus home any more, but I think this actually works better for us. Anyway, we still have one bus ride together. :)

Of course, shortened lunches mean not a lot of posting from me, since lunch is my prime posting time. So here's an update on things I was talking about a couple of weeks ago.

I got my skates, and have been skating 3 times since--twice at scrimmages, and once at an open skate. I am improving. I fell 3 times at my first scrimmage, but haven't fallen since then. I'm starting to learn how to stop. I'm starting to be able to notice penalties as I'm focusing on not running into the other refs. Still need to work on speed, stopping, and seeing more penalties. But it's coming along nicely.

I decided not to apply to vend at SteamCon this year. With roller derby added into my schedule, studio time is not likely to be frequent. I'm currently debating purging my sewing stuff, putting my machines in storage, and cramming my other stuff into the front hall closet, so as to get rid of the studio. But that's not decided quite yet.

Spent another week in Kansas City for work. Not much to report from this trip, other than that I was introduced to another great restaurant there. And it's a vegetarian restaurant, at that! :)

Finished up a couple of short stories and got those submitted. One has been accepted, the other is still pending. I suspect it won't get picked up, but we shall see! :) Got another idea in the works, but I have until the end of October to make it happen. So it's plausible. :)

We've got a busy month ahead of us. This weekend, we're going to hit the zoo early Saturday, and then we're taking the ferry up to Victoria on Sunday. It's just a day trip, but it will be my first time out of the United States! Pretty exciting! :)

The month in review

I've been ridiculously busy lately, which is why I can go for more than a month without updating. But there's plenty to talk about, so here's a nice little recap.

We did Go Play Northwest in the middle of June, which was a weekend of indie games. I ran a Best Friends game (The Girls of Hogwarts), which turned out to be utterly ridiculous. But that's my favorite sort of game to run. (Of course, I finally read books 3 and 4 of the Harry Potter series over the past week, and discovered that my major plot was similar to something that happened in the books!) I also got to play some games I had not played before, and generally enjoyed them.

The following weekend we had fun at a tapas party with some of our gamer friends. I made chocolate chip banana bread, which was very popular, but all of the food I tried was incredibly good. Lots of little dishes, and lots of chit chat. We also did a quick visit to the zoo, which we found is very nice first thing on a Sunday morning. It's not too crowded, it's still cool out, and it's a good way to get some exercise not at the gym. We're hoping to do this more often when our schedule permits, since we do have a zoo membership. :)

I had a long weekend for the Fourth of July, but that was also the weekend that I had to ship Jeremy off to Kansas for his writer's workshop. He left on the 4th, and I spent most of that day and the next day in my studio, working on sewing projects. I got some designs figured out, and also had fun with making handmade labels for my stuff. I'll have pictures of the new stuff after this coming weekend, when I've wrangled a couple of my teenaged friends (well, technically they're 20 now) into modeling for me. I need the pictures ASAP, so that I can apply to vend at SteamCon. *fingers crossed*

While Jeremy was off doing writer things, I got to spend some time crafting at Black Door Studio, and learning about referreeing for the Jet City Roller Girls. Yeah, I totally needed another hobby, I know. :) But they were looking for skating and non-skating officials, and I think I'm going to try to do the skating side of things. Wish me luck. :) I haven't skated in 5 years, but I'm picking out skates tomorrow night. The good news is that the season has already ended, so I will have some time to get my skating skills up to par before the new season starts next year. And if I discover that I am absolutely a wreck on skates, I can get involved with the non-skating side of things. :)

I spent last week in Kansas City for work, and got to spend some extra time with my sister and her family. I took my nephew to Steamboat Arabia, because he had been asking to go for a while. It ended up that I took him by myself, rather than with my sister and niece, but it worked out surprisingly well. I told him that since he did so well, we would try to do other things like that when I have extra time in KC. But we'll see if this is like the way that kids behave themselves the first time they get a new babysitter, and then start pushing the boundaries... my nephew is pretty well behaved though, so we may be okay. :)

After that, I headed out to Lawrence, where Jeremy had been staying, and got to meet some of the folks he had been workshopping with. It was REALLY hot in Lawrence, and I wasn't there much more than 12 hours before we had to head back to KC to fly home. We made it back safely, and had an apartment full of cats in need of love. But they're always in need of love. :) I got to spend yesterday at home to get caught up on chores and such, which was very nice. I even made a semi-elaborate dinner. I'm so domestic when I have time. :)

We've already got a bunch of stuff planned for this week, and then I'm off to Kansas City again on Sunday. No rest for the wicked. None at all.

Whew.

We survived the month of too much travelling. Now I'm just staying put until work tells me I'm travelling again... but I think I've got at least 3 weeks at home, for which I am very grateful. :)

I wore my pair of Cthulhu bun covers for a few hours on Friday night, and discovered that as my hair has gotten longer, they're a little snug. So I think I'm going to be creating a slightly larger size for people with longer, thicker hair, like me. So I'll probably be making larger bun covers of all varieties, at least when I get the chance. So much to do, so little time! :)

This week's non-crafting project involves us trying to get a handle on our "office," which would probably be the dining room in most people's houses or apartments. But really, the little space where the computer lives would probably be too small for our dining room table, and the spot in the living room where the dining room table lives probably doesn't have any internet hookups. So we make due with what we've got. :) We're going to try to get the office slightly more functional as an office space, and hopefully open up a bit of closet space for more of my craft stuff. :)

And of course there's also the 8 billion other things that we need to get done. But the only way to tackle it is one at a time. And the office has been bad for too long. :)

Back to normal?

I think that our lives are finally settling back down to normal. Yeah, we have a convention this weekend that will throw things off a bit, but it's in Seattle. We're staying at the convention hotel for convenience sake, but if anything bizarre came up, we're only about 30-45 minutes from home.

Michigan was rather cold, but as we spent nearly all of our time inside, that didn't really matter. I got to meet some new folks, hang out more with familiar faces, and generally have a blast playing an assortment of odd characters. And we went book shopping, so I have MORE books to add to the huge stack of things I've never read. *sigh*

Crafting wise, I spent the weekend working on an afghan for my new nephew, who is due in June. I managed to use up all of the light blue, mint green, and pale yellow yarn that I had, and ended up using some variegated pastel yarn as well, and it's not quite big enough. I need to figure out if I can match one of the yarns I've already used, or if I want to use a neutral color (I'm thinking cream or gray, the latter of which seems more practical) around the edge to finish it off.

As soon as I finish my lunch and this blog post, I'm off to the post office to send a package to Australia. Both of my sales in March have been international sales, which is exciting. Makes me wonder if there are really favorable exchange rates for other countries right now, but I don't really understand the math to that topic, so I just leave it as idle wondering.

Already thinking about April, since it's just 2 days away. I'll be working on soap sweaters for Anne at the beginning of the week, and, assuming I get picked for the EtsyRain show in May, I'll spend the second half of the month stocking up on stuff for that show. I've also signed up for a needle felting workshop just for fun. In my spare time, I'm indexing a book and writing a short story... wow, I think I'm booked for the month!

Wow...

I have completely fallen off with posting here. So you get the super quick recap.

1) Our trip to St. Louis went very well. Mom was utterly thrilled with her birthday present, which I can now tell you all about. :) We're flying her to Seattle in August. Jeremy and I will take her to Portland for the weekend to go to the spa at the Edgefield and Powell's Books. Then we come back to meet up with her friend who will be accompanying her on a cruise to Alaska. :)

2) My conference in Portland was about as could be expected from such. Good parts, boring parts, and Jeremy coming down for the weekend portion of the conference. More than anything, I now take this conference as an opportunity to chat with someone else who knew my former boss, who planned the mini-conference last October in his honor. One of these years, I am hoping that I can present at said mini-conference. So I gotta keep the communication flowing with those folks. :)

3) Been reasonably busy this past week, mainly with the Cassie-cat, who took a slight turn for the worse. She is improving now, I think, but we were notably concerned about her when we got back from Portland. She has now been to a cat opthamologist. How many other cats can say the same? :)

4) Getting geared up for Ambercon US is the other major factor in our busy-ness. I'm really looking forward to seeing some folks I haven't seen since last year (and some I've seen more recently), and actually staying in the convention hotel this time. :)

5) Work continues apace. I haven't heard anything about my next travel dates, but I'm sure they're lurking in the wings... as always...

Commence radio silence in 3...2...

This time tomorrow, our flight leaves Seattle. I'm not even taking my laptop with me, because I know I won't have time for it. We get in to St. Louis after dinner tomorrow, and will head straight to my mom's house. Saturday, we need to buy party decorations, buy and prepare a bunch of food, and help with set up before the party. Not to mention that somehow I was roped into promising Jeremy Imo's pizza for lunch. :) The party is in the evening, and we will probably collapse afterwards.

Sunday is our excursion down to Carbondale. I have been assured of New Kahala for lunch, then a stop at one of the local wineries, and 17th Street for dinner. More importantly, it's with some of my friends in the Midwest, namely, Cindy, Thor, Bryan, Vanessa, Jarrod, and Lord Pleasure. (There's a story behind his name. Otherwise, we call him Nick, and we had too many of those for a while.) (He is also significant for having been the person who designed my first tattoo.) There may be other stuff to do in there somewhere, but nothing is solid. One of the people I wanted to see will be in Seattle on Saturday, en route to Alaska (and she comes back through Seattle next week, when I'm gone again), so that part sucks.

Monday, we fly back to Seattle, and due to my scheduling fail, we get back later than I like to get back. Luckily, I have a to do list for this evening that will obviate most of the things I would normally need to do when we get home. The only essential thing will be washing Jeremy's work clothes so that he can go to work on Tuesday, and unpacking and repacking the suitcase so that I can hop on a train less than 24 hours after arriving in Seattle.

If you're lucky, there will be a trip recap next week. If you're not, you won't likely hear from me until after the 15th. Yeah, it's crazy like that. :)

Ugh.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm at least getting SOME stuff done, especially when I'm not getting all that I would like to be doing done.

So, the good stuff:
1) I've been posting daily on Shop Etsy. I am featuring new (and new-ish) artisans on Etsy who have 10 or less sales until Easter. I've heard from at least one reader that she's found things to buy through my posts, which gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside.
2) I'm making decent progress on the TARDISes for my shop, restocking arm warmers, and getting enough eyeballs done that I can put some at Black Door Studio in Everett. In fact, I'm taking a bunch up there on Saturday! :)
3) Thanks to Chore Wars, we've begun to make a dent in things we need to go. Jeremy has taken on a few things voluntarily; my competitive nature has been triggered by making a game out of it. :)
4) I think I'm just about ready for the month of crazy traveling. Just about.

Here, There, and Everywhere

We're gearing up for a month FILLED with travel, which produces all sorts of thrilling complications. Most of the complications are things I've already taken care of: we have our accommodations and transportation booked well in advance of the trips. But we've got to line up a cat sitter for 3 weekends in March and one in April. And today we had to sort out Jeremy's vacation for pretty much the entire year to make sure that he will have enough to get through November. Suffice it to say, we will NOT be traveling this December, because we'll both be scraping the bottom of the vacation barrel by the time we go to ACNW.

Of course, only one of these trips is a work related trip for me, as I'll be attending a conference in Portland. Not my typical work trip, and Jeremy gets to join me for the end of it. :) All the rest is fun travel, and the last trip isn't even out of Seattle, but we're staying at a hotel rather than dealing with driving in every day and parking near the airport. Both are nightmares.

This is certain to throw off all of my regularly scheduled everything--crafting, writing, blogging, and more. But hopefully all of the fun stuff will outweigh the chaos that it causes. :)

Party planning

So last year, I planned Jeremy's birthday party (indoor barbeque), and it went off without a hitch (aside from me getting mildly claustrophobic for a bit). Now my sisters and I are planning a big birthday party for our mom (and Peter, Lila, and myself), and it's a bit nerve-wracking. It probably doesn't help any that NONE of us live in St. Louis (where the party will be held), so we're having to do a lot of "well, we can get that when we get there." So here's hoping that we don't have any flight delays...

Luckily, Jeremy and I fly in the night previous, and we'll have a rental car (oh, if I remember to book that...). Of course, that also means that _we_ get to do all the running around at the last minute... whee! :)

My excitement for today? Ordering the cake. If it were a local place, I would have drawn up the design I wanted and given it to them. In this case, it's a bakery that Sarah recommended, of course in St. Louis. So I talked to someone who sounded a bit like a bored teenager, and am really hoping that she got all of the spellings down correctly (nothing too complicated, but you never know), as well as the design. I know that no one will care if it's not perfect, but I still WANT it to be perfect. *sigh*

Royal Crown from World of Whimm

Sometimes, I visit the neatest places!

As most followers of this blog know, my job often sends me out of town to do research. Recently, though, I've been getting to do a lot of day trips to Tacoma, Puyallup, and other locales in Pierce County. Sometimes, these trips are to really neat places.

Today I got to visit the Points Northeast Historical Society, which is in northeast Tacoma, right by the water. There's a lighthouse (not the original one), a museum, and the historical society offices. But one of the really nifty things about this place is that they have a little cottage that they rent out for a week at a time. Since the cottage was empty this week, I got to go on a tour of it, especially since I mentioned that when I told Jeremy about it, he said he wanted to go stay there. :)

Cutest. Cottage. EVER. It's got 3 bedrooms, but only one bathroom, and a modernized kitchen. Otherwise, it's furnished with antiques and photos of historic stuff from the old lighthouse and other stuff nearby. The museum is in the basement of the house. The rates are surprisingly reasonable, too, though there is the trade-off of being responsible for opening the museum on a couple of days if you stay anytime other than in the winter. Now, to figure out how we can take an entire week off work... :)

Wow

So my vacation was great. It was super relaxing, but I also got a lot of crocheting done. The presents I had picked out for the kids were a HUGE hit, especially the hats I made and the stuff I found on Etsy. I was really pleased by the latter, because I like having people to buy for who appreciate handmade stuff. :) (The belle of the ball has been stuff from Kayce's Nue to Me shop, which I did buy quite a bit of...)

Then we got back, and I was in the office one day, but sick by that afternoon. I spent the last two days at home watching Battlestar Galactica, crocheting, and otherwise being a lump. But I'm pleased to report that I feel MUCH better now (and am back in the office).

I finally get to play in our Saturday afternoon game tomorrow, which has switched from being the all-combat Exalted game to a Scion game run by Jeremy. I'll be playing a daughter of Baron Samedi who is a tattoo artist. :)

Sunday is my final show of this winter, at I Heart Rummage. One last chance to get handmade Christmas gifts if you haven't already finished your shopping! :) And if you have, come and buy stuff for yourself! :)

I'm looking forward to my four day weekend for Christmas, which will include the zoo, the new Sherlock Holmes movie, and Chinese food. Oh, and a present. Jeremy picked up the box that contains my present on Wednesday night, and gave it to me to carry. In my sickly state, I had to give it back to him, because it's too heavy. I have NO clue what it is. I'm looking forward to opening presents on Christmas morning. He will have a stack to open from me... which reminds me, still gotta pick up the last couple of things for him. (Alas, not handmade.) :)

Going to California

This will probably be the last post I make for about a week, as we get up bright and early tomorrow morning to fly to California, where I'll be meeting Jeremy's mom, his remaining siblings (I've already met his youngest brother), and all of his nieces and nephews. This is only marginally nerve-wracking, as such things tend to be. Mainly, I'm just hoping that everyone likes me and that the kids all love what we got them for Christmas. Because seriously, I think we're bringing an entire suitcase just for presents. :)

For whatever reason, the original flight I had us on got changed to an earlier flight, which is a bit of a pain. We have to get up at the usual time tomorrow morning (o'dark thirty), and we really need to pack and get everything else done tonight. We've gotta figure out how to get Black over to Uncle Andrew's house, as he is doing much better, but still should probably be isolated and watched for any signs that he's not continuing to get better. He does at least get to play with the other cats at Andrew's this time, though, which will make all of them very happy. :)

Our plans for California are pretty much entirely family stuff. We'll head straight to Jeremy's mom's house tomorrow afternoon. Friday, we're going to spend the day in libraries and cemeteries, working on his family's genealogy. Saturday, we're meeting up with one of his brothers (who Jeremy has not seen since said brother was a baby, and said brother is 30 now) and his family. Sunday, Jeremy's mom is having all of her kids (Jeremy, another brother, and his only sister) and their kids over for dinner. Monday, we fly back. It'll be a bit of a whirlwind, but with the flights and all, we really only have three solid days to spend.

So yeah, don't expect much out of me till I'm back in the office on Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm going to be crocheting like a madwoman and trying to work on stuff for my Vampire game. Hopefully not at the same time. The world does not need a crocheting vampire beyond my old character, Mel. :)

The weekend recap, now with 50% more content!

Despite being sick for the whole weekend, we had a lovely road trip around the Olympic Peninsula. We spent Friday driving around the southern and western sides, debating whether to stop in Aberdeen after I found out that Kurt Cobain was from there. Then we stopped off part of the way to Forks to look at the ocean, where I managed to cleverly fall off of a slippery tree trunk and skin my knee. We continued on to Forks to be ridiculous tourists. I was able to get a subtle Team Jacob shirt, while Jeremy got a slightly less subtle Cullen shirt, and also a funny "Tsunami Evacuation Plan" shirt. Because really? Tsunami? Bad times.

Eventually, under cover of darkness, we made our way to Neah Bay, where we were going to stay for the weekend. I say "under cover of darkness," but what I really mean is "on a really twisty road, while it was pitch black out." This involved a whole lot of squinting at signs, and hoping we weren't going to drive into the ocean. It all worked out in the end. :)

We spent Saturday finishing up our NaNo novels, since we had no TV, no internet, and no phone signals. Amazing how much you can get done with the distractions gone. I finished around 5, and Jeremy finished later in the evening, so I worked on a bunch of eyeball cat toys while he wrote. :)

Sunday, we managed to miss the turn we were supposed to take, which meant that instead of driving along the twisty coast road, we ended up on the twisty lake road, on the south side of Lake Crescent. Totally beautiful. :) We finally got to civilization in the form of Port Angeles, where we had phone signals and wi-fi! :) Wandered around a bit till I started feeling more sickly, and then headed back toward Seattle.

We got to pick Black back up on our way home, and got all settled in to the apartment to do more internet things, eat Chinese food, and play Rock Band. And it was good. :)

It's been a week...

And by that, I mean that it has been not a great awesome week, but also not a hugely crappy week. It's been some of both. Therefore, it's been a week.

1) Nearly ready for the EtsyRain Holiday Show tomorrow. Come out! Buy stuff! Get your Christmas shopping done! :)

2) I'm about 1,900 words shy of my personal goal for my NaNo word count. I managed to pound out 4,000 words on Wednesday, but then wasted about 45 minutes of potential writing time last night because I couldn't make myself write the next scene. I had ended the previous scene with this over the top, dramatic monologue, and I just couldn't help but think that whatever I wrote next would sound trite. I have to get to it, I know, but I needed the time to NOT have that monologue taunting me.

3) Cats seem to be doing well. *knock on wood* Gabe is eating again and seems a little less needy. He still hates us at pill time, and has not been enjoying his isolation chamber (a.k.a. the bathroom) during the day, but we want to be sure that he is, in fact, eating, drinking, and doing other things that cats ought to be doing.

4) We have plans to go to Forks, Neah Bay, Port Angeles, and Victoria (B.C.) next weekend. This will mark the first time that we get to use our passports. YAY! :) We are doing the totally dorky Twilight tourist crap, but staying in Neah Bay because I've been wanting to get out there for a while. It's going to entail a lot of driving, and I will. not. forget my camera. Mandatory!

Hmmm...

A lot to recap, so let's just dive in.

1) Gabe, one of our two elderly cats, spent nearly a week at the vet. He was meowing a lot on Monday night, but he does that occasionally, so we thought little of it. By Tuesday, he was having enough intestinal issues (as evidenced by the litterbox) that we thought it wise to get him to the emergency vet. They weren't able to find anything for certain, but advised us to keep an eye on him. As I was feeling poorly on Wednesday, I stayed home, and tried in vain to feed him several appealing dishes. Since he wasn't eating, and since we were getting ready to go out of town, we decided to take him to his regular vet, which also offers boarding for cats. So they checked him out and agreed to board him, while running some tests as well. The tests ultimately ended up being fairly inconclusive, but Jeremy picked Gabe up from the vet last night with a shaved belly and a bag full of medicine. Gabe seems to be mostly back to his usual self now, except that he slept the entire night curled up by my side. Jeremy is off work today, so he's going to keep a close eye on Gabe's eating and litterbox habits. We're hoping he is over his sickness, whatever it was.

2) We spent Thursday through Monday at the Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon, for Ambercon NW. The Edgefield is super awesome--we made spa appointments for shortly after our arrival, so we were nice and relaxed by the time the gaming began. I got to meet a lot of people I had thus far only heard stories about, as well as a lot of other cool people. I ran three games and played in four games, and was generally exhausted by the time my head hit my pillow every night. In related news, soaking in a hot tub-like pool apparently causes fingernail polish to unadhere from your fingernails. What I didn't lose in the pool proper came off in CHUNKS yesterday morning. :(

3) As a result of the above two factors (the cat and the convention, not the nail polish falling off), I've fallen a bit behind on my NaNoWriMo word count. I had a few hours to write yesterday morning, and I finally think I know where my story is going. Now I just have to actually write it all out. I did discover this morning that I can write (by hand) on the bus, so long as I don't have a big backpack on my lap. Time to switch back to my usual purse, I guess. :)

4) I've got a craft show on Saturday at the home of Kay, along with several other local artisans. If you're interested in attending, drop me a line, and I'll get you the evite. I'm surprisingly well-stocked already, though I do have a bag of catnip eyeballs to finish up before the show. Sometime...

5) Awaiting word on whether I'm traveling for work next week. If I am, having my weekend compressed means I'm going to be running around like a madwoman all weekend. If I'm not, I might actually manage to squeeze in a night at the studio next week. Ooooooh. :)

Traveling and cats (but not traveling cats)

Yup, I've been out and about again, on another work trip. It went relatively quickly, until Friday night, when I got home about 2 hours later than originally planned. There was a LOT of panic involved in that, too, with an almost delayed flight to Chicago, and then a seriously delayed flight home. About the time that it started looking really dire for me to get onto a flight home, I realized it was also too late to call my brother if I needed to stay in Chicago, which meant I'd be sleeping at the airport... not my idea of a good time.

But I got home in the wee hours of Saturday morning, exhausted, but happy to see Jeremy and my new kitten, Paint It Black. Andrew and Amanda brought him over on Friday night, and he was already settling in to the apartment by the time I got home. So far, so good. The other cats are not thrilled by the new addition to our household (though I think the fat cats enjoy snacking on Black's kitten kibble when he doesn't finish the entire dish), but they're adjusting. The funniest moment, though, was yesterday when Andrew stopped by during my All Flesh Must Be Eaten one shot. When Jeremy confirmed that it was Andrew he had just buzzed up to the apartment, P-Cat took off like a light for the safety of the bedroom. My comment on P-Cat's thoughts: "Oh crap, he's back! I hope he didn't bring another kitten!" Coincidental, I'm sure, but funny nonetheless.

Black is just pure joy for me. He is cute, affectionate, basically gentle with his claws, and a little bit clumsy, which makes me laugh. He's all legs and a huge head, and sometimes his legs get ahead of him, I think. He doesn't do well on linoleum, which is only really an issue if he gets to playing around in the bathroom. It may just be that he responds to the sound of human voices, but if I call him, he will come out from wherever he's been hiding and look at me. He doesn't do the sort of rough playing that Vlad was a fan of (possibly learned behavior from the way Jerome would play with him). Basically, everything I ever wanted in a kitten. :)