Hmm, this whole having-five-weeks-off thing is pretty sweet.

So, a bit of rambling about writing. I haven't done much in the last few days - actual writing, that is - so there really is no better time to talk about it than when I'm not doing it.

The Victorian Ghost Story (VGS on my computer, which makes it sound like something requiring medication) also known as The Half Killed, is kinda... stalled. The irritating part is that this is the story that feels the strongest. This is the one that I would use an example if someone were to ask "How good a writer are you?" I'm proud of this story, of how it sounds, of how much work I put into the research, and so on. And yet this is the one that is sitting and not going anywhere. And it is SO CLOSE TO THE END. Something like 80,000 words done, with a probable total of 100,000. I'm SO CLOSE. So close. I really think that the only way I'll get it done is to just pound my fists onto the keyboard for about two days straight until there are words and then I can say it is done. Well, until the first round of editing begins.

The Chick-Lit (which some of you have read most of (no, I didn't finish posting the last few chapters (and there's really no point in doing that now, and you'll see why in a second))) is undergoing a minor rewrite. Basically, I'm experimenting with changing it into a young adult story. Why? Because I really think it could work that way. In the original story, the main character is in her late twenties, several years out of college, but still wandering around, not knowing what to do with herself. In the new version, she's just graduated high school and about to head to college for a degree that she isn't really interested in, etc. and so forth. The change has been pretty smooth so far, especially since the original version had no gratuitous sex, language, or bloodshed. The only things that really need to be double-checked are the ages of the characters and a few other small-ish details. And if it turns out to be crap, well then I still have the original version to fall back on.

The short story has been sitting for about a week or so. I should post it here as a locked entry so some of you can take a look at what I have so far, but right now I'm at the crossroads where I have two options for an ending, either one would work (I think) but I just have to decide which to use and then move forward.

There aren't any other writing projects that I would say I'm in the middle of. There are a few older projects that I'd love to resurrect at some point, and two new ideas that keep teasing the corners of my mind, but I'd like to get at least one of the above finished before I tackle anything new. Ugh, why do new ideas have to be so darn tantalizing?

It had been my original intention to start posting in here with some semblance of regularity. And then Livejournal went down for a few days, and I was able to be distracted. Dang distractions.

Today is my second wedding anniversary. For some reason, when I look at that, it makes me think that it's the anniversary of my SECOND wedding. Or maybe I'm over-thinking here.

Last week was also my mom's birthday. I won't mention how old she is, but her oldest child is now 36 years old (NOT ME! I'M THE BABY!!!) so anyone with basic math skills can at least work out a decent estimate. We went to see Harry Potter 7.2 together (I missed 7.1 at the theater, a fact that will always bother me for the rest of my life) and I have to say that I really liked it. The last couple movies (Half-Blood Prince, especially) disappointed me, I think because it was a matter big books being trimmed down to single movies. I don't want to say that I wished they'd made all of the larger Harry Potter books into two movies each, but I am glad that they did that with the last one.

HOWEVER. I will say that watching all of the camping bits in the first movie, followed by their arrival at Hogwarts (FINALLY) in the second movie only reaffirmed my original belief that I really would've liked to have known all about the happenings at Hogwarts while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were off snipping at each other. WE MISSED NEVILLE BECOME A BAMF. Why deprive us of that, Ms. Rowling?

Speaking of Neville: WHY HELLO THERE MISTER LEWIS! Tell me you don't want just one more Harry Potter movie focusing solely around that guy.

Other things:

Still writing. Lord help me, still plodding away with that. There's a short story in the works right now (actually, it's one of the only things I can work on because I'm currently using my mother's computer for a week while my husband jiggers all of the bugs out of it, and I only have a couple of things saved to Google Documents, so there you are) and I'll be sure to let you guys know when I finish it. By the end of this week? Here's hoping.

Now, laundry. Or dishes. Or maybe just a snack. Yeah, a snack. Let's go with that.

Thank you, guys. (Or "Thanks, you guys"?) I gave Ola an extra snuggle from all of you.

I wanted to mention that Freja is doing very well, just so that no one thinks that things became completely Ola-centric here over the last few months. She'll be two years old in September, which means that she's eating big people food and saying big people words (minus a few letters, here and there) and trying to put on her pants like big people do.



And there is Tim, as well. He has glasses now, and the addition to his appearance makes me wonder how I ever found him attractive before.

I'm still in the middle of Catching Up On Things. The house doesn't feel as if it's about to topple down onto my head anymore, and I actually have a fair amount of brain power leftover for teaching dance and choreography. (Oh, we had our shows in June. That happened while I was gone, as well.) I've been crocheting lots of things for my Etsy, because there are a good number of bills from Ola's multi-week stay in the hospital. One of the things that I made was a TARDIS scarf, with pockets and little cylindrical buttons for the light on top of the blue box.



It sold pretty quickly, and it almost made me sad to let it go. Not because I'm a scarf person, really. When I do wear scarves, they're usually wrapped around my neck multiple times and tucked deep within the confines of my coat. A scarf like this would have to be worn outside of the coat and displayed, which really isn't my style. But I still liked it, and I'll have to make a trip to the yarn store so that I can make another one.

There are writing things that I want to mention, but I think I'll save those for a future post. I'm in the middle of about four projects right now, and... yeah, I think that really is deserving of its own post.

Other than that, things are going pretty well. Oh, and it's hot. Really, really hot.

I'm not even going to check the date of my last entry in here. I'm just... no. THINGS HAPPENED. That is my only excuse.

Like, I had a baby.



On March 26th, at 4:59 in the afternoon, I huffed and I puffed and I brought Ola Solveig into the world.

And then, three weeks later, just when I thought I was recovering from that whole "having a baby" thing, ( it all went to hell )

I'm going to admit that growing up, my family was not really concerned with healthy living. We ate processed foods, we used cheap soaps and whatnot... It was along the lines of "If they sell it in the store, and everyone else uses it, it must be fine."

But I - and many members of my family - have sensitive skin. So we noticed that from time to time certain laundry detergents or bath soaps would make us break out in little bumps, or make us so itchy and dry that we'd have to slather on tons of lotion to compensate.

And then, when I was in my late teens, my body broke.

Okay, that sounds very serious and traumatic, but allow me to go into more detail. I had been one of the kids who always got sick. If I came in contact with another person who had a cold, flu, ebola, I got it. And as I got older, it only got worse. And then I started to get sinus headaches. A lot. And then, when I was seventeen years old, I got sick. Really sick. All day, every day, I was nauseous. I would tremble. I would feel like I had a fever even though my temperature wasn't even 98.6. My mom took me to the doctor, and either because we had poor health insurance at the time (I believe the letters H, M, and O were involved) or because they were just lousy doctors, they told me that I had a stomach bug, that I should eat tea and dry toast, and wait for it to pass.

But it didn't.

I was sick for an entire summer. I could hardly eat. I lost about fifteen pounds (and being a tall skinny kid, the shedding of that much weight made me look frighteningly ill.) There were more visits to the doctor, but blood tests and stool samples (yes, I know) said that nothing was wrong.

And so my mom and I had to figure out what was wrong on our own. We started to keep track of what I ate, and we started to look for patterns. We learned that certain foods (at the beginning, it was partially hydrogenated soybean oil) would set things off. So we cut those foods out. But partially hydrogenated oils seemed to be in everything. And then we cut out pasteurized milk. And then we cut out bottled juices. And then we cut out corn syrup. And then it began to feel like there was nothing left on store shelves for me to eat.

Until we started to experiment with real foods. Whole grains. Vegetables. Fresh fruits. Baking from scratch. And I immediately began to feel better. We bought a juicer and I would drink a huge glass of fresh veggie/fruit juice every day. I started drinking raw milk from a local dairy, and all of my lactose intolerance problems disappeared. I began to put on weight again. I had energy. I slept the sleep of the healthy.

And so all of this led us to the realization that the more processed things are, the more we should probably stay away from them. Once we changed our diets, we began to change other things in our lifestyle as well. We stopped using soaps and detergents full of dyes and harsh chemicals. We cut out toothpaste with sodium lauryl sulfate, which had always made my gums bleed before. So then we cut out the soap and the shampoo that contained it, too. My skin became more soft, my hair less flaky during the evil winter months. And when I switched to a dish detergent made with more gentle ingredients, my hands didn't dry out as quickly. So that meant needing less lotion and creams to keep my skin nice. It was a win-win.

Now, thirteen years after that summer when I first got sick, I feel good. Yes, I still eat junk food from time to time. (If you try to take my Cadbury Creme Eggs away from me, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.) But I don't live on junky, over-processed foods. And I don't get sick near as much as I used to. Maybe one cold a year will find its way into my system, and I work with kids several days a week, so that has to be saying something. My skin doesn't break out like it used to. My teeth aren't sensitive anymore. I don't get dandruff. My clothes don't make me itch. I keep weight on like I should. And you know what? Food tastes better. Cooking from scratch, learning to use spices and herbs and vegetables that I didn't even know existed makes everything taste so much better. I used to love going out to eat, but now, I'm always disappointed in the quality of the food, because I know that what I had for dinner the night before had so much more flavor. And I know what was in it.

But I will still snarf down a bag of Cheetos in one sitting if I'm in the mood. Just sayin'.

I feel as if I have nothing to post about, but that I should at least attempt to cobble something together so that I can pull myself back from the edge of the map. Again.

Let's see...

Ah, as of tomorrow, I will be thirty-seven weeks pregnant. Which means that I will be considered full-term. Which means that if I go into labor THERE WILL BE NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME. Do I feel prepared? No. Nothing is ready. I don't have my hospital bag packed. I don't have a bag packed for Freja so that she's ready to spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy and Daddy spend a few days at the hospital. The bassinet is not ready. The infant car seat is not installed in the car. I don't have enough newborn-size diapers in the house. There is nothing. I am not ready. I am not ready.

*blinks*

Seeing as how I am so close to my due date, my last day of teaching will be on Tuesday, giving me - possibly, depending on the timely arrival of my next child - about two and a half weeks to wander about the house, spend some quality time with Freja (because Lord knows that will be in short supply once there's a new baby in the house), and just get some general nesting done. And packing and bassineting and car seating.

And eating. Because... food is good.

In other news...

My chick-lit didn't make it to the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest I Am Not Sure How Long The Official Title of This Thing Is. I wasn't expecting it to make it through, but... ah, well. At least I have a finished manuscript sitting on my computer, instead of another half-completed bit of rambling that mocks me with its incompleteness.

I am still working on The Half Killed. I finished the first draft of the last chapter, and after finishing the flashbacks that will be sprinkled through the story, I'm ready to go back and give the whole dang thing a much needed edit/rewrite.

And... now I think it's time to give that whole eating thing another go. Because I have some strawberry shortcake in the kitchen, and it calls to me. It calls to me.

I've been busy making Daleks for some time (I'd really like to try a Weeping Angel soon. Maybe bastardize a lovely Christmas angel pattern to suit my needs...) and my husband kept bugging me to make a TARDIS. I wanted to make an ornament size TARDIS with blue cotton thread, but my local craft store failed me, and so I figured that I would work out a pattern with regular ol' worsted weight acrylic yarn first.



I wanted to put as many details in as I could (door panels, etc.) without using felt or anything else except the blue yarn. I made it in six pieces, the four sides and then the top and the bottom.

( More pics and crochet babble )

I came across this catalog some months ago at a yard sale, mixed in with a mess of crochet patterns and calligraphy books and assorted other things that I snatched up as if I had been turned loose at a chocolate buffet. I can't figure out exactly what year the catalog dates from (my Edwardian sense tells me that it's after 1900, but probably not later than 1905 or 1906) - unfortunately, the cover was missing but the entire 80-something pages appear to be intact.

There was some wear on several pages, some stains, tears, folds, etc. that I repaired manually and through the magic of photoshop. I've put it all together into a .pdf (which is now for sale on my Etsy (Yes, I'd love to give it away for free, but the close to $3000 dollars I have in medical bills is saying "no").

The catalog starts off with women's clothing, then children's, men's clothing, accessories, and plus another twenty pages or so near the end for furniture and other household accessories (everything from Japanese mattings to wire potato mashers... I kid you not).

The prices are insane to read, by today's standards. I think it really drives home all of those stories that our parents and grandparents would tell us about the price of a cup of coffee and a loaf of bread and how much they spent on their first car (like... $1.50 for a corset. $1.50. It... boggles the mind. (I know, I know. Inflation. Cost of living. Etc. But still.)

If anyone can clue me in to the exact year, I'd be thrilled. I'm going to try and do some research this afternoon and see if I can figure out *exactly* when it came from, but even if I can't, it's still an amazing thing to search through.

( Moar better, bigger pics )

We got about two inches of snow last night, mixed with some sleet and various other wintry precipitations. Nothing is falling right now, but it's supposed to start up again after eight o'clock tonight with mostly ice.

I... I really want Spring right now.

I had my three-hour glucose test, which came back "abnormal", so they then sent me to see a diabetic specialist. She showed me the actual results from both glucose tests, and then said that she didn't understand why they had sent me to see her. BECAUSE... for the one hour test, I was one point over the line. One point. And so they ordered the three-hour test. For the three-hour test, I was three points over the line before I'd even taken the glucose, but for every hour after that, my results came back about twenty points below the line. So. The specialist was very nice, and went through the whole "cut back on your carbs and such" speech with me, but she told me that I wasn't diabetic, probably wouldn't develop diabetes unless I started eating Swiss Cake Rolls with every meal, and sent me on my way. (For the record, I have cut out bottled fruit juices and switched over to low-carb pasta. That alone should keep my numbers nice and low.)

In other news...

I only just realized that I never finished posting the last few chapters of my chick-lit (It has a title now: Untying the Knot, which is... the best I could come up with) for you guys to read, so I should probably get on that over the next week or so. The reason that I bring it up is because I was struck by a whim and entered the thing into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. Will it win? Psh, no. Will it even survive any of the earlier rounds? Probably not, especially since the very first round is judged on the cover letter alone. But my real motivation for entering was to force myself to finish jiggering around with the last few chapters, apply all of the edits and notes that everyone had given to me, and be able to tell myself that it is actually finished. Done. Kaput.

Now if I could just get myself to move forward again on The Half Killed...

Also, there are now Daleks for sale at my Etsy. Because pregnancy-induced insomnia doesn't mean that I have nothing to do when I'm sitting up until two in the morning.

I had my three-hour glucose test this morning (No, I do not yet know the results) and it didn't go as badly as I anticipated. Yes, I had to fast for twelve hours prior to the test. Yes, I did have to drag my butt out of bed at the crack of dawn to make it to my 7:30 appointment. Yes, they did take my blood a total of four times in three hours. Yes, I had to drink down twice as much of that syrupy, sugary drink (Lemon-Lime flavor this time. It made me think that I could've added a ton of carbonated water and had myself a Sprite.) in about five minutes, and keep it down. But really, it wasn't bad. The people there knew how to take blood - no fuss, no muss - and I did remember to bring a book along - Guillermo Del Toro's The Strain, which I cannot read after six p.m. or else I am all creeped out when I go to bed - and someone brought in their three-day old(!) baby girl for a blood test, and I got to gaze dreamily at her for about twenty minutes (Don't worry, I did apologize for the dreamy gazing, and the mom was totally alright with it, to the point that we started trading baby stories and other such things that moms do) and then... I drove home.

Of course, when I arrived home, I was so exhausted (from not sleeping well last night, worrying about the test, not eating for nearly sixteen hours, general pregnancy tiredness) that I basically wandered around the house doing not much of anything until I finally forced myself to sit down and at least crochet a little bit to keep myself awake and aware of Freja's adventures in toddling.

On the crochet note, I've decided to put a Dalek up for sale on my Etsy page. It's only one so far, but I'm thinking about doing more in other colors, and maybe even trying my hand at some larger plushy ones and perhaps! even a felted wool Dalek. Because just the idea of a felted Dalek makes my heart happy.

And... I swear that there was something else I wanted to mention, but my brain has gone away from me just now. Maybe I'll remember tomorrow.