anagramofbrat: (team tatro (2015))
We've been averaging a snowstorm a week since January up here in Ye Olde Newe Aengeland*, to the point where I think all the kids in the state of Massachusetts may have had school on one Monday since the semester began. D: Boston and the surrounding areas have been getting it really bad - I think they've had maybe a collective five feet of snow in the past few weeks and things out there are a complete disaster any kind of transportation-wise. New York MTA had to lend the Boston MBTA two giant rail snowblowers for track clearing, even. (Fun Fact: those machines are honestly called Snowzillas. Seriously, google it.) This has made kid weekends super challenging, and with the current snowstorm finally petering out this morning, Tuesday finds me with a day taken off from work and the kids still here because the roads have been utter shit for the past 48 hours. Thankfully school has been cancelled for the past couple of days, so that isn't a factor, but apparently Kidzilla's class now has Snow Day homework they have to do in case of school cancellation so she's been meeting the news of yet another snow day with alarmingly grown-up groans. On one hand, yeah, there's been a bit of scrambling with the change in schedule, but on the other hand having them here a couple of extra days has on many levels been really fun.

I've decided that Wee Beastie is, in fact, a Neverland fairy. I say that mostly because I often joke that he's too small to hold more than one emotion at a time, so as a result all of his emotions are all-encompassing forces of nature. When he's happy, he's a ball of zoomy radioactive joy. When he's sad, he is inconsolable and Everything Is Terrible. When he's angry it's like a storm descends in the room, he's all violently flailing appendages and screaming. It is certainly a Thing To Behold/worry about.

After he pitched a mega fit last night about having to go to bed which ended with him punching [livejournal.com profile] cell23 square in the nose (not kidding about the violent flailing), I sat with him for a little bit after his time-out to calm him down and we had a long, surprisingly interesting chat about how he experiences big overwhelming emotions. He concluded independently that angry was his biggest feeling, and when he gets angry it's "too big for me" and that's why he has trouble controlling himself. I told him the quote from Peter Pan about how fairies are too small to be more than one thing at a time, and he got this solemn little expression on his face (hilarious, btw) and was all "Yeah. That sounds correct."

He is, indeed, a funny little bug.

Anyway, we agreed that we need to work on making more space for big emotions. I've been wanting to get him involved in some kind of directed physical activity/martial art so he can vent off some of the pent up physical energy for a while but owing to budget constraints on both sides of the state and the additional difficulty of only having every other weekend to work with on ours it hasn't really been practical. Still, this morning I'm taking another stab at looking at some options for him. The local Tae Kwon Do school seems pretty promising aside from the scheduling hurdle; I may stop by later in the week to take a closer look at it and see if the every/other schedule can be worked with/around. That is if it ever stops snowing long enough for anything to dig out and reopen around here. If anything, their summer camp seems tailor made for him with a week of martial arts, playing with horses and learning to swim, so that is something to sock away money for at the very least.

In other news, along with getting bitten with what seems like every creative idea ever (and thus being paralyzed with indecision about which to work on at any given time, since the Super Bowl I've been having intense needs to Color Things. This led to a rediscovery that I absolutely adore geometric patterns and mandalas, a ridiculous number of which are available free on the internet, so as of Sunday I've decided to try to color one per day, be it with actual markers/pencils/crayons or digitally. I've only done two so far and I'm not sure how the one-per-day bit is going to work out long term as I tend to gravitate towards the ones with intensely complex patterns, but I do indeed find the process very brain-unclenching.





Well, we'll see. I do need some sort of anxiety reduction type thing to do on the regular for a while, but previous attempts at meditation have already shown that I suck at it - in fact sitting still with nothing tangible to focus on tends to make my anxiety worse. (This is why I tend to not work well without music or some kind of background noise - silence freaks me the fuck out.) This is also sort of why I miss having a commute - driving tends to calm my brain down right quick as well. Maybe when the roads clear, considering the free fall gas prices have been in for the past little bit I'll do more of that too.


* I made that spelling up. don't have a historical accuracy cow at me please.
anagramofbrat: (ding dong)
The kids are over this weekend and this is how Kidzilla has taken to opening up non-conversations with me. It's adorable. It's basically "I wanna hang out and talk with you because yay but I have absolutely nothing to say." Bless that girl.

I've gotten a bit more reflective on the passage of time this weekend... I think it started last week at the Owl when I was holding [livejournal.com profile] stormslegacy and [livejournal.com profile] coureton's baby and he was grabbing strands of yarn in his chubby widdle fists and either pulling or stuffing it in his mouth cause teething is no joke. (An aside, wtf he's three months old and like... six months ahead in development, yikes.) I've been having a lot of flashbacks to when small blonde was even smaller and pretty much would interact with me and my hair the same way. And now she's bearing down on 11. Both kids are just interesting little people now, every so often I'll just pause and go wow. I get to watch these kids grow up. I get to help these kids grow up. That's an awesome thing. And not just because I have a bazillion and three embarrassing stories that I'm collecting for when Wee Beastie brings home a romantic interest. ;) It's just moments like this morning as I'm typing this and overhearing them in the other room huddled around an ipad singing along to Weird Al's "Word Crimes". (We'll overlook that it's probably the 347th time I've heard that song this weekend.)

In other news, I have several creative projects trying to get my attention. Since I can't pick one I've been defaulting to Minecraft. I'm in the middle of two major builds (finishing off the castle and one inspired by Chand Baori) and I always swear that when I finish whatever I'm on I'm gonna put Minecraft down for a bit but lol no. But I do need to work on a few other things for a change.

J and I have been emailing again. This is both a good and a bad thing. Of course I'm expecting him to have an attack of the feels, freak out and disengage at any moment so I'm trying to treat it as an ephemeral treat, like getting the occasional NY street hot dog. The upside of that is we were talking about an old project we had partially been working on together years ago and that I'd started developing again on my own by myself. Yet another creative iron in the fire.

It just keeps snowing out here in the Northeast. It's apparently Boston's turn for an ass-reaming by Old Man Winter and while we're not getting spanked nearly as bad out on our end of MA, we've still been getting quite a bit and there's more on the way. I swear if it keeps up like this I'ma go out into the driveway in a blue dress and get my Idina Menzel on.

Valentine's Day Approacheth. I have... feels about that. I have a weird kind of holiday burnout right now - I'm not sick of holidays because I fucking love them, but what I am sick of is holiday backlash. I feel like this year I've really let the varying cries of Fuck Christmas! Fuck Super Bowl, and Fuck Valentine's Day! get to me. There are very valid complaints and deconstructions to be had about any/all of them, don't get me wrong, but most of the vitriol isn't coming from a place of honest critique, but rather 5th dentisting for the sake of 5th dentisting. Anyway, considering I have the annoying personality quirk where one criticism of something I enjoy "ruins it forever"* for me getting through this winter has been somewhat more of a challenge than usual. Strongly considering just quitting facebook between Thanksgiving and Presidents Day next year so I don't have to deal with it next year.

Hilariously, I don't have anything even remotely planned for Valentine's day itself. On the date itself Drew and I are going up to Athol for a memorial gathering for his Dad, and then I have to work Burlesque, and then depending on what my wallet looks like next week the day after we're going to drive out to the Flea. Maybe. I still haven't properly decided on that. I might drive down to see htl_1126 instead, lol. Most of the leadup to it is mocking the shit out of the massive FSOG marketing because eek.

Well. That's all the news for now.
anagramofbrat: (TV)
So I said I was gonna do season overviews instead of individual episode reviews. I wrapped up season I last night.

cut for the doncurrs )

HOOOOOT

Feb. 3rd, 2015 06:45 pm
anagramofbrat: (yarr!)
I threw a Superb Owl party on Sunday and it was awesome. I had a packed house (seriously, there were like 25 people in my house eep) the game was good, there was sooooo much food and all of it was great, and it was just... yeah. It was just a damn good party, and I feel damned accomplished that everyone had such a good time. Of course all of yesterday and a bit of today I've had party drop, which has only partially been fixed by eagerly planning the next one (Storytime II!) or at least just setting the date for it.

Noodling around before the party I found a terrifying clip art drawing of a seriously jacked to the point of severe disproportion football player with an owl head and had people color it during the party. We chose a winner to give a copy of A Gronking to Remember* to at the end of the party, but they were all pretty great/hilarious:

seriously terrifying owls ahoy )

Not too much else going on, really. We got a foot of snow dumped on us over the course of yesterday, so everything in the region shut down and I got to stay home and work. It amuses me to no end to work from home dressed in a Totoro kigurumi, let me tell you. I am clearly casting about for some kind of creative project as lately I've been drawing up schematics for handmade notebooks, being pestered by characters from a long shelved webcomic idea, being pestered by other characters in several stories relegated to other corners of my brain, thinking rather wistfully about the furniture building plan I was working on this time last year, drooling over 3D printers and their doll stuff/craft accessory potential, and feeling reasonably guilty for not working on Sqwrrl or beadwork or something. I am still minecrafting but I'm in the middle of two large builds right now and I've hit the wall on both of them. Argh. So really I just need to pick a direction and focus on it, but I don't know which direction to pick. Its all very frustrating.

On top of that I'm in jangly headspace. Not sad, just... unsettled, I guess. I'm thinking the creative idea geyser is me trying to unconsciously cope with that. I'm not super worried about it, it will settle out, I will work on things, and all will be well. Some variant of this happens every winter. Maybe it's just cabin fever.

Next weekend we have the kids and then the weekend after that is Burlesque on Valentine's Day. I keep fucking up and thinking it's this weekend but it's not, it's actually the latest in the month it ever is, seeing as it's always the second saturday of the month and this month started on a Sunday (meaning there will be a Friday the 13 this month and next.) I was toying a bit with attending FFF the day after. I haven't been since that fateful trip six years ago and even though I'm a little wibbly about running into a certain blue fox there, I do actually want to see [livejournal.com profile] 11th_letter, so that's a thing. But really I just want to go and shop and drool over expensive toys and corsets I can't afford and soak up kinky atmosphere because I miss it. (Also hanging in legit kinky space that weekend seems like an appropriate protest against the scads of FSoG fans on parade this weekend. Ugh!) I don't know. We'll see if I make it down. If not... there's always the summer Flea as well. Not the end of the world.

In media consumption news I apparently need to catch up on Sleepy Hollow; I haven't seen it since the winter premiere and it's apparently finally returning to form. I've been really bad about TV watching lately - I still have the latter half of Galavant to get around to, I haven't arsed myself to check out the last season of Parks and Recreation yet, I completely forgot about Archer which is six episodes in already, I've still got half of last season of Lost Girl to watch, let alone any of the current one, and fuck picking up anything new at this point - I'd been meaning to check out Empire, Black Sails, and Marco Polo, among other things. About the only thing airing right now that I am managing to keep up with is Agent Carter, and I think that's just because the husbeast and I watch it together. (I am utterly in love with it BTW. Human Jarvis may be my new surprise favorite character in the MCU. And a love of Peggy just goes without saying.) What I have been watching, much to my own surprise, is Star Trek: Deep Space 9. I started it because I've been playing [livejournal.com profile] verbena76's Trek game set roughly around the same time and since my general handle on the pre-reboot Trek universe is rather deficient,** I started watching it for "research." I was familiar with the characters from sitting through a few binge-watch sessions with J back in the day, but that was only a few eps here or there. I'm about to finish up season 1 and even though it hasn't quite grown the beard yet and they're still essentially throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, I'm enjoying it so far. I've been assured that it gets amazingly good in later seasons, so I'm looking forward to that. I don't think I have the patience to do an episode by episode recap, but I might do entries offering my thoughts on overall seasons as I finish them.

* I shit you not this is an actual thing. Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

** I was more of a Star Wars/Babylon 5 girl growing up.
anagramofbrat: (ice)
So this is currently a thing:



projected snowfall was somewhere between 18-30 inches depending on which weather outlet you subscribed to, but we are still under a foot this morning. (The east side of the state, however, is getting spanked like a ginger stepchild.) Seeing as one of the perks of apartment living is blissful freedom from shoveling/plowing, I am free to be enjoy this. See also statewide travel bans and completely shut down public transport ensuring that I stay home. I still have to work, but I am doing it dressed in a Totoro kigger. Because I can and it's warm. :)

In other momentous news, this morning wass my last prednisone dose! A good thing too - I had my physical yesterday and discovered that there were 22lbs worth of Skippy and chex mix I packed on in the past seven weeks. (Cause it's powerful, yeah! PEANUT BUTTER!!) On one hand, yikes. On the other hand, aside from the annoyance of my brand new winter corduroy's now being tight (sigh) I don't exactly mind? For one thing, my face looks... normal for the first time in a long while. I've long been unhappy with the shape of my face in the wake of being skinnier. It's closer to the shape of my residual self-image now. And I am not going to argue being able to fill my bras again. I missed my boobs. So... mixed feelings regarding this.

Anyway, aside from broken gut and being a bit rounder than I was, I'm in pretty decent shape. Game plan right now is starting Humira again in a couple of months, and figuring out what parts of my diet I can tweak to keep the inflammation to a minimum and try to rein in the extreme munchies I've been having, because while I'm more or less okay with the uptick in poundage, I don't want to pack on any more. I've also decided that once the weather thaws out some I'm going to buy a new bike and start doing that again, since I miss it. (See also not being bound to the horrid bus schedule during the summer, lol.) I am overdue for eye and ladybits appointments and I really really need to actually take advantage of my dental coverage despite my phobias and find a damn dentist this year, but so far so good. Yay?

Anyways, back to work.
anagramofbrat: (abi-station)
I really enjoyed my afternoon of pizza, wings and football yesterday afternoon/evening over at the McGurks. We hadn't seen them in a bit, it was shitty outside and the mild bug I'd had last week seems to have moved into my chest to morph into a lovely cough with laryngitis (I sound like a phone sex operator with a 30 year Newport habit right now), plus I had plans to yarn up my head so pretty much the choice was plop on my own couch and watch hours of TV by myself or plop on someone else's couch, eat yummies and watch football with good friends. Yeah, hmm lemme think about that, lol.

blah blah blah sportsballs )


Today I'm spending a quiet Martin Luther King day at home finishing up my hair, cudding cats, nursing my still-shot voice and reflecting on the past year in conjunction with King's legacy. We ain't at the promised land yet, y'all, Much work still needs to be done. I took about half an hour to reread "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" this morning; I invite everyone to do the same. It is quite resonant in the dust of the last year's events, and it's important to really sit down and read King's words as they were written/said and not the easily digested and oft regurgitated soundbites we are spoon fed every January.


*Interestingly, the Pats are the only MA-local team I've adopted as a New York transplant, which is funny because aside from the Cowboys and the fucking R*****ns they seem to be the most hated team in the league. Still here for the Nets, Mets and Rangers tho. I bear the Celtics and the Bruins no ill will but if anything, living in MA has soured me even more on the Red Sox because my GOD their fans. >_< Big Papi could get it, though.
anagramofbrat: (fruitviking)
I'm dicking about with my friends filters for the first time in like, four years. So many names, so many ghosts of people behind them that moved on from LJ. I may go through and cull the folk who haven't been by in a minute.

Wellp. I'm still here. I come out to play less often than not (mostly because my internet life tends to subsist on outside attention and I get more feedback on facebook and twitter than here) but I'm inside, in my basement, poking the endless fires.

Meh.
anagramofbrat: (little help?)
I got the usual amount of antsy after finishing up the Seuss library a few weeks back so I started a big castle build a ways north of the Library.

cut to spare the UGGGH MINECRAFT types. Also picture heavy. )
anagramofbrat: (lizard happy)
I've been singing that at Kidzilla all day. It's kinda fund watching her instantly run out of can with me.

Another sort of Quick Notes post, I think.

I seem to have recovered from the Great Steroid Mishap okay. Had another day of headache followed by yesterday being extremely irritable, but today I seem to be pretty much okay.

Yesterday was a bad day to be irritable as it was a busy and socially taxing day - we got up super early to head up to Athol and visit with Drew's mom (who seems to be doing much better than she had been) and then later the rest of the Chiassons for collective birthday/anniversary things. On top of that, Wee Beastie was sick, so he was also irritable and whiny about having to go places but once there he tended to curl up in a couch corner and nap. After we got home from that I had the run about, slap makeup on my face and run down to N'Hamp for Bon Appetit Burlesque, which was a huge busy but GOOD show and even though I do stress about making sure everything's running smoothly it almost always does because my stable of competent stage kittens remains awesome, and I must be doing something right because I keep getting complimented on the tight ship I run those nights. Plus come on, it's a burlesque show... I think you have to be precisely my kind of weird to participate in that sort of thing. :) Anyway. Life has been given, lets hope that can sustain me for the month.

Today was much easier, as I think I've leveled out on the hormone front and also it was just a quiet day at home for us and the kidlets, although now Drew is sick with KidPlague to the point where I messaged their mom and G to ask if they'd mind sparing us the drive out. Drew could have made it, I suppose, but it would have been a bad scene and I powerfussed at him when he objected to me going around him to ask. I don't usually get all LET ME TAKE CARE OF YOU DAMN IT but when I feel like I need to, man...

Tonight's plans'll be tying up Friday's work loose ends while watching the hollywood drunkfest that will be the Golden Globes. I AM ASHAMED OF NOTHING.
anagramofbrat: (Default)
[Error: unknown template qotd]I've got a fair bit of West Indian in me, so of course I love dancing. :) I don't remember concretely the last time I danced for real (bopping in my desk chair at work doesn't count) but it was probably to amuse the kids or something. Last time I went out dancing was to the local goth night a few months back - I need to do that again soon.
anagramofbrat: (anxious tenna)
I normally have no complaint with CVS, I've been getting my scrips filled there since college, but man, when they fuck up, they fuck up big. Long story short I've been on this runaround cycle of calling one of three CVS pharmacies reasonably local to me, then my GI's office, then calling CVS again, rinse lather, repeat trying to get my steroids refilled this week, and each round of the cycle caused a bit more panic because as of yesterday I was literally out of prednisone and... well, it's not a good thing to miss doses on that, it can make you wicked sick.* Thankfully I've weaned down to 10mg by this point, but that's still enough to fuck you up if you skip it for long enough. Anyway after another round of calling the doc, asking if they'd faxed my scrip in and then calling CVS only to have them tell me they had no scrip order for me in the system, I asked to talk to the pharmacist at the U-Drive store and proceeded to melt down on the phone with him about the Merry-go-round of suck, whereupon he was all "oh gosh, yeah, you shouldn't be off that, here have a few days worth while we get this crap sorted." I realize that's kinda his job, but I think I'd best send him a thank you note anyway.

Alas, I think I cut it to the wire in terms of how long I could "safely" go without: I've had a screaming headache for about half the day, and I'm all twitchy and bleh feeling. Hopefully starting back up again'll fix it, but it was a near thing and I don't like it.

In other news:



Waiting for the bus to work is not cute this week. Especially not when the bus home is always running about 10 minutes late.

I have some feels about work this week too but that's not for an open post.

So much good TV this week that I consistently missed at air time, lol. Last night I did manage to sit down and shotgun Agent Carter and Galavant, both of which were very enjoyable despite being slightly problematic at points. Galavant is just silly charming Medieval Fun-Time World levels of fun, and Agent Carter is also fun but in different Marvel CU sort of ways. (Also see scratching my decopunk itch haaaaaaaaard.) I still have yet to see this week's Sleepy Hollow but I have it on good authority that it's at least going somewhat uphil after the crash and burn fails of various episodes before the hiatus.

Also! I saw Mockingjay pt I with MotherGrimm on Tuesday. I remember being meh on the third book but I feel like the movie extracted the important bits, fleshed them out, and then rearranged them into a fairly compelling couple of hours of intensely LOOK WE ARE AT WAR!" flavored narrative that worked.

Ooop, I want to write more about all kinds of stuff but the sleep train just full speed hit me so it will have to wait. Oh well.
anagramofbrat: (Default)
[Error: unknown template qotd]Its kind of a good thing I don't have very much disposable income, otherwise I'd be drowning in American Girl dolls and Hess trucks.
anagramofbrat: (ARBT logo)
Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] maschalismos at A cry from the soul, a call for help
UGH. Ok. So, here we go. Long story short, 2014 was the year of medical fuckery and medical bills for me and my health is still pretty much in the shitter. Until the nurses and docs figure out treatment that actually works for me -- last medication for pain and neurological symptoms had me coughing up coagulated blood for a few weeks, that was fun -- my medical bills will continue to climb. I do still have a job...for now, but I am closer than I like to think to having to sell everything I own and. I don't know, honestly? I've hit the level of hopelessness, despair, and panic where thinking is sluggish and brackish.

[sighs]

What I'm fumbling at horribly is this: If anyone is able to give anything, I'd be immensely grateful. No, seriously. Anything. The bank and the hospital will take pennies and so will I.

But only if you're able to give.

Let me repeat that.

Only give money to help me out if you are able to do so without adding undue stress to yourself.

We're all struggling out here, I know my struggle is nowhere near the worst, so please. Please, please, *please* do not put yourself out trying to help me. Rather than donate your money, donate some good energy my way in whatever form that is for you, but only if you have *that* to spare. Trust me, I understand only having enough energy to keep yourself vertical and not falling into traffic, so don't send what you can't spare.

I'm not putting an amount on this because there is no way I'm asking folks for the obscene amount of money I owe the medical establishment. I'll just say again, any little bit will help. If you're able to help, you can donate here or just paypal me at the.lost.maenad AT gmail DOT com.

I hate asking for help or bothering people but I'm running out of options and maybe, just maybe, this long shot will actually bear fruit. Without being a loan with 70% interest.

Please share as, again, any little bit helps. And more little bits from more people help even more.

Now, if you will excuse me, the panic attack I've been stavving off is galloping over the horizon and I really must see to it.

Thank you all for whatever you're able to do.

This post @ DW| Reply @ DW| comment count unavailableComments @ DW
anagramofbrat: (brat)
I think if I had to take away anything from this past holiday season, it's that children think I'm awesome. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn or anything, I'm mostly putting it here for posterity because it's something I forget, and indeed something I thought I'd lost in the nearly two decades since I went away to college. Several things have happened over this past Christmas that have assured me that this is not the case, aside from the constant affirmation of this from Kidzilla and Wee Beastie.

When I went down to see the fam a few weeks back, Nuke thought it would be a grand idea for us all to write letters to each other and had us read them out loud after dinner. Most of us groaned over the exercise and it being my family, a good portion of the letters were loving snarks, but it turned out to be really touching and many of us got to say things to each other that we don't normally. And I think all of us were moved by the letters we got from the younger folk in the family. I got one from Spring this year, and when she read it to me, even though she was doing it in a funny voice... well, here:

Dear Andee,

I apologize for my handwriting, I'm sitting on a train.

So when I found out I got you for my letter, I smiled. There's so much I want to say to you. First, I hope you realize that you made my childhood so perfectly awesome. I remember being young and getting to 47 and the first thing I'd do was race Roy up the stairs to get to your room. You were always so much fun! You had so much patience with me and always hung out with us. It was awesome.

It's amazing that we're all so much older now. Which brings me to my next point. You are by far the best mom in the world and I envy those little critters. Now don't get me wrong, my mom is a serious slice of perfection pie. But I know that you're a mom like no other as well. I'm so pumped because I know your kids will have a childhood full of so much magic, laughter and most importantly, culture. I am so excited to see the awesome people they grow up to be just so you know how great you really are. If I could, I'd send all children to live with you because I know your atmosphere is where children's dreams go to take flight!

So to end my letter, I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I wish you and the family a beautiful New Year. And lastly I thank you. I thank you for all of the love you have given me and I thank you for being you.

Love,

Spring


Yeah, I nearly cried. Hell, just transcribing it I'm choking up a little bit. One of the things I constantly feel guilty about w/r/t my family is that even though I desperately needed the distance I put between myself and them in college and most of my 20s, it did also mean that I wasn't there nearly enough for my niblings. Considering Dakota was born my freshman year, I feel like I pretty much missed him entirely, and Gabe... ehh, not so much either, though the last few times we've gotten together have been good times, and he's still only 13 so it's not too late there. But I don't know, hearing that I did have a loving positive impact on Spring... It means a lot. I remember I was hitting the road back to MA that night and I was sitting in traffic on the BQE and realizing with horror that I'd left Spring's letter behind, so I called Ruthy to ask her to drop it in the mail for me.

I discount the near constant assurances from Drew that I'm doing right by his short stacks, but I really shouldn't. Between the Thanksgiving trip to New York and their damned awesome Christmas if I do say so myself... I don't know. Even above and beyond that, I think all three of them recognize I'm trying my best with what little time I have with them, rewarded in tight squeezes, still slightly slobbery kisses and Kidzilla telling me I'm awesome. It does make the groaning, stubbornness and Wee Beastie insisting that I must hate him whenever I enforce rules worth it, lol.

Other little stuff that's underscored this to me were interactions with various not-my-kiddos over new years. I finally met [livejournal.com profile] coureton and [livejournal.com profile] stormslegacy's baby New Years Eve and again on New Years Day when they surprise showed up for Storytime. My own babycrazy and angst aside, I did spend a fair amount of time specifically doing silly things at him just to get him to burble and grin at me. Which he did. A lot. And [livejournal.com profile] inle_rah brought her family with her to Storytime as well, which included a toddler (who immediately lit up when we pulled out the bendy racetrack and light-up cars Beastie got for Christmas) and a newly minted teenager into Everything Nerdy who declared me awesome upon learning that I'm into Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes, RPGs, videogames and Minecraft. I let him tool around the world I've been building and I think some of my structures about blew his mind. So yeah... that was pretty great as well.

I angst a lot about not having my own spawn, and I'll probably continue to do so on some level, but it's really really REALLY good to know that I did do and am doing right by the kids associated with me and mine. Atmosphere of dreams and magic indeed.
anagramofbrat: (beads)
Well 2015 so far has no personal complaints in it. Not big ones anyway. Even the days leading up to it were good, if a bit crazed, since I spent the several days before new years being all MY GOD PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE IN MY HOUSE and cleaning. Which is exactly why I think I should throw more parties. My house has not been this shiny and spotless in a very very long time.

Cut for picture-heavy. )
anagramofbrat: (Default)
[Error: unknown template qotd]Installments, definitely. I'd also try to get away with telling as few people as possible, because no one needs to know how much money I have, really. Next I'd pay off all my debts, both personal and credit-score affecting. I'd get a good sturdy tank of a new car, set up trusts for my stepkids and niblings, give a chunk of it to various charities, anonymously fund some gofundme type things, and put the rest of it to work for me via investments so me and mine can be comfortable in perpetuity.

2015

Dec. 29th, 2014 10:09 pm
anagramofbrat: (to do list)
I don't really have resolutions going into next year, just Things I Want To Accomplish:

- Take a serious stab at developing Sqwrrl

- Finish "The Seven"

- Another big bead screenshot and maybe some Minecrafty beaded things.

- Nebulous "Better Health" goals, be it just actively taking care of myself, eating better, dragging my ass outside/to the gym again, finally going to see someone about my head problems again, etc etc.

- Go to the big handbell festival con at UMass this summer, and see what may be needed to start a local secular bell/boomwhacker troupe, aside from startup capital (bells be expensive, yo). Not that I don't love the Sunderland group, but I would like to play something non-churchy sometime.

- I'm already slated to reprise my Minecraft burlesque act in April (fair warning for those of you that missed it last September) but I'd like to develop and perform another one, maybe for next Christmas. And maybe do Dr. Sketchy's again if they'll have me, that was way more fun/gratifying than I expected.

Just overall I want to be better this time next year and actively working on What's Next as opposed to running to stand still.
anagramofbrat: (winter holiday)
Christmas has sailed on by, and it was all good. Between the whirlwind day trip down last Saturday to gather around the table at the House with the family, yankee swap up some gifts, and just all be together at home for a day, the bell performaces the day after and on Christmas eve (which mostly went without a hitch, and the big stuff came out pretty perfect) and then Christmas Day first at the Chiassons for Christmas Lasagna, then at aersi and verbena76's for fuck-it-I'm-making-a-Christmas-Ham, and lastly with two short people descending on their piles of gifts like starving crazed weasels after an afternoon at their great-grandparents... yeah it was pretty awesome. Those kids made out like absolute bandits this year - if they were the sort of kids that believed in Santa, I'd have made up some silliness about how his sleigh ran smack into a Nintendo truck. Hooray for a Christmas when Andee and Dad have actual money to spend on it, I suppose, lol.

But yeah IDK, I've had such good holidayish things this month with friends and family. I think I needed a little more Christmas than usual this year to offset health stupid and The-Wider-World-Continues-To-Be-Awful-If-You're-Black shit going on this month. :P I'd been thinking about why I get so into the holidays a lot lately because it seems like the very sort of thing I should disdain, but I don't. I think a lot of it is just handed down from Dad, he loved Christmas so damn much. Like, he'd start planning and shopping in July for it level loved it. So some of it is definitely a little bit of that. Another big chunk of it I think was summed up in this recent Cracked article and echoed in the latest Doctor Who special about how every Christmas is kinda the last one. Not to be dark about it, but... yeah.

Anyway - Two last stops on the Holiday train for me - Wednesday esoteric_scribe is hosting a new years eve gathering, and then Thursday I'm throwing a New Years Day movie marathon. NOT Lord of the Rings. Gods. I have survived a New Years Day of Extended Editions once, that's all anyone needs lol. Instead I present 80s fantasy movies! Ladyhawke! Labyrinth! Legend! Neverending Story! The Princess Bride! So some massive housecleaning is in order for the next couple days lol. And then a long dark, cold January after that. Hooray? :P


Healthwise I'm doing reasonably okay. Still on steroids, but tapering down one little pill per week so New Years Eve I get to go down to three. Considering I started with six... yeah. Survived endoscopy prep (it was somehow not as bad this time around), swallowed a camera, and had the film come back... nothing stupid horrible is going on, just a lot of Crohnsy inflammation, according to my GI, so once I taper completely off the prednisone, I have to go back on Humira. Bleh. Meantime eating actual food is still a revelation, though I have to get on top of the extreme munchies if I want to stay in the nice new winter pants I bought myself last month, and a newfound obsession with Gardetto's Special Request rye chips is not helping lol but OMG they are so good. Essentially, you know the random bread chips they have in bags of Chex Mix and how they're the best things in the bag and oh yeah, they're only like five of them in the bag? yeah these are an ENTIRE BAG of just those and they are DELICIOUS. I curse my husband for finding those, lol.


And now for something completely different: if you haven't seen Into the Woods yet, dear fates. "Agony" just by itself is worth the price of admission and I'm still thinking about it and giggling maniacally. But the rest of it was breathtaking, the cuts were understandable (and not much missed) and overall it was just fan-fucking-tastic. I also can't say enough good things about the two kids that played Little Red and Jack, they nailed it. Want to see it, like 9 more times just so I can get that orchestration through theater speakers again.
anagramofbrat: (Default)
[Error: unknown template qotd]Not so much on franchises because modern updates always end up disappointing or start decent but end up horrifying. But individual random things? Tan M&Ms, Hypercolor, the Red Heart rainbow yarn they used to put out before Mexicana, Hi-C Ecto-cooler, and non-gendered LEGO marketing.
anagramofbrat: (little help?)
Finished up that build of the Geisel Library in MCPE today. Jeez, only took, what, a month?

EDIT: wellp that didn't work. Click the picture to see the whole album.

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