Any day that starts with making fudge can't be all bad. :) Although my shoulder's achy now, which is sad. Sniffle. Still, fudge!
Oh, my. I just tried it. *Damn*, I make good fudge. *Damn*.
Must do laundry. And make the topping for the cheesecake. And, um. Finish this proposal, and ... other things. Clean the kitchen, probably, as I've made a proper mess of it.
Ok, not a very exciting posting this morning, but that's just how it is. :)
It was a good mail day. Not only did we get our Joss Whedon is my master now t-shirts, but around 6pm a box full of books arrived! I now have copies of WINTER MOON! It is Pretty Damned Cool to see my name on a cover with Mercedes Lackey and Tanith Lee, lemme tell you. :) :) :)
Down to the last 2 episodes of Dark Angel. Really enjoying it now, and wishing there'd be more. Can't wait to see how/if it wraps up. And I'm wondering why Jessica Alba has managed to make the coveted leap from tv to movies where so many haven't, though I'm not objecting to it, as I like her. (Ted said, "Great abs," when I put that question to him. :))
I have made a turtle cheesecake for tomorrow night's dessert. It looks lovely. I'm pretty sure it'll taste good, too. :) The chocolate part was, IMHO, too thick to properly swirl, so next time I make one of these I'll futz with the concentration some, but I think it's going to turn out very nicely. It's pure, unmitigated doom for my diet (untrue! I used low-fat cream cheese! It's pure, *slightly mitigated* doom for my diet!), but damn, it's going to be good. :)
Making fudge in the morning for the comic shop boys, who have put in a request. More doom. :) Although, you know, much as I love eating sweets, most of my emotional satisfaction seems to come from /making/ them. I mean, I want some of that cheesecake, but if I could get it out of my house without ever cutting into it, and let other people eat the whole thing, that'd be fine. I'm just not brave enough to resist it when it's been cut into and slices are being handed out. :) And fudge is just pure delicious hell, although I'm going to adulterate it with walnuts so it won't be as tempting to me.
Perhaps I should stop talking about food now, and go to bed. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 167
Just got back in contact with a high school friend. This makes me happy. :) Perhaps I'll call him in a bit and see if he wants to go out to lunch!
Got the PHOENIX LAW proposal off to Jenn, YAY. *That's* done. Now one more proposal to go over, and then it's full bore on COYOTE DREAMS, as well as half-bore on PHOENIX LAW.
Question in comments asked why I have to do proposals (question in comments actually said, "Why do you have to write proposals? I would figure if they've read your other books, that should be enough. I'd publish a book on 'How to Pretend Your Oscillating Fan is a Jet Plane', if it was written by you.", which I thought was pretty funny. *giggle*).
The answer, in short, is that I'm still a newbie. I'm a newbie who's doing very well, but I'm not at the point of selling books on a paragraph dashed off to my editor. And, really, that's fine with me. When I pitched the Strongbox Chronicles, I did so in a couple of paragraphs, and was asked to write a proposal because the idea was interesting to my editor. That basically made us both happy; I knew she was interested in the idea, so writing a proposal wasn't a waste of my time, and she got to see a considerably more detailed proposal to decide to buy from.
Me, I like the surity of proposals. It means I've had to think about the story, had to get a start on it, and that I've got a reasonably solid idea of where it's going when I sell it. I'd love to move up to where I don't have to write them, someday, but for now, proposals are of the good. :)
ytd wordcount: 183,600
Last night while Ted was making the magnificent salmon dinner, we fed the cats (and the dog) some salmon scraps. Lucy is normally very, very slow about taking food that's offered to her, but she gobbled the salmon right down.
She has spent the last 18 hours since then begging for more. *Chanti* begs. *Zilli* begs. Lucy *never* begs. It's pretty funny. She clearly suddenly considers us the Purveyors of All Things Salmon, and hopes that if she is charming enough, we will give her more of the Good Stuff.
So today she's been very helpful with my writing:
:)
I'm about to go off to get a massage to get this kink out of my shoulder. I have about another 1K to write on the PHOENIX LAW proposal, and will be getting that sent out tonight or tomorrow (yay! finally!). COYOTE DREAMS is coming along. Ted is going to make halibuty goodness for dinner tonight. Emily and Coby will be in town for Serenity this weekend. Life, as they say, is good. (Even if I did forget to go to the RWA meeting last night, blast it all. Not my fault: I was watching TedTV in my kitchen. :))
I need to get a cooking icon, too, which means I need to take a picture of my hubby in the kitchen when he's making dinner.
Wow. Tonight he made broiled salmon with a sun-dried tomato wine glaze, potato pancakes with carrots and onions and a bit of parmesan cheese, and broccoli. Wow. Did I do good by marrying him, or whut? :) Really delicious. *swoon*
Nothing else in my day compares to that, so that's the mention-worthy thing. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 164.5
Not so many words the last couple days. Ted did put my nook back together, though (best husband EVER), and hopefully my shoulder will be more better tomorrow. Gonna get a massage sometime this week to help it unknot, I think.
Ted has just ordered us Joss Whedon is my master now t-shirts to wear to Serenity on Friday. :) Since we don't have browncoats. :)
We spent the evening watching 2nd season Dark Angel. It actually got reasonably good during second season. Enjoyable enough that I think it's kinda sad they didn't re-up it for another season. Ah well.
I have an RWA meeting tomorrow night. I'm posting mostly to remind myself to go to it. *remind remind remind*
ytd wordcount: 180,500
miles to Mount Doom: 162
This morning I don't feel much like writing. I suspect this is because I need something to go wrong in this chapter and I'm not sure what it should be, so I don't want to work on it.
*pause* Rob has just given me something to work with.
Looking forward to writing, now!
Lucy didn't help me write so much today, but I perservered bravely without her, and got in another 3700 words or so. I must get a picture of her sitting on my shins as I write, and make another writing icon with it. :) The words, they sure start adding up fast when you're writing around 4K a day. I luffs it.
It's all windy, but otherwise staggeringly beautiful out. This is my favorite time of year, with the leaves changing and the blustery winds, and the air warm enough to play outside in, but with no mosquitoes worth mentioning anymore.
Oops. Any waxing poetical that I might've done is being cut short by the need to go do errands. Bye! :)
ytd wordcount: 179,000
miles to Mount DOOOOM: 158
Lucy helped me write some more this afternoon, so I got a total of about 3700 words today, which pleases me. There are bits that make me laugh, too, which is also good. :) I also printed out the first couple chapters of PHOENIX LAW so I can pry them apart and work out where I need to improve it, so I can get that darling out the door soon. *cracks knuckles* I like writing. Even when I complain bitterly about it, this is the best job *ever*. :)
I must get up earlier, so I can write more earlier. Also, must re-break the habit of turning the desktop on in the morning, which would effectively be getting up earlier. :)
Also must go lie pathetically in the hallway and meow to proclaim my hunger. Meow! Meow! MEOW!
ytd wordcount: 175,300
miles to Mount DOOOOM: 154
It was a bit of an odd morning here at the Murphy-Lee-Sandness household. Shaun only got a few hours sleep night before last, so he went to bed at 6pm last night and consequently got up before 8 this morning. This is sufficiently unusual that when Ted heard a door close before 8am, he leapt out of bed to go see if he needed to bash something's head in. Fortunately, there was no bashing, but it did get everybody up and moving quite early today. :)
Lucy helped me write about 1600 words this morning. Amoebakitty on my shins. I came back to the desktop for a lunch break, and Lisa wanted to know what I was working on now. I said COYOTE DREAMS, the 3rd Walker Papers book, and she said, "Write more! Lunch, bah!" :)
We finished watching "Firefly" last night. I want to beat Inara with a stick. I'm very, very curious as to how they're going to do the movie, whether they'll try picking up the story as we know it or if it's going to be largely new, or if they'll have moved on a distance from where they are, or what. I think it'll be hard to pick up from what we've seen, because there are nine characters to introduce, and that'd be a lot of work. OTOH, I really want to see where that story was going, so I find it a conundrum! Fortunately, I only have to wait a week to see what they've done. :)
Did I mention the wanting to beat Inara with a stick? Ok. Just checking.
Uhm. Was gonna say something else, too. Oh well, can't remember. I think I'll go take a walk before it starts raining again. :P
"Work", so far today, has consisted of making bread, doing laundry, cleaning the kitty litter, answering the phone, and cleaning the kitchen. It has not included *writing*.
This is the problem with working from home.
I am now going to switch laundry out, get a big drink of water, and spend the next two hours writing if it kills me.
Except for the breaks where I have to pound bread down and switch more laundry out. And violently twitch when the phone rings.
When I'm rich, I'm going to have an *office* to go to. :)
I don't know what the deal is with the LJ feed and this site, but it's sure as shit not picking up with any kind of regularity. The site's been loading slowly for me, so maybe that has something to do with it, but grr. V. annoying. Maybe I should whack my provider about that. Bah.
Got, oh, around 1100 words written today. Not nearly as triumphant as yesterday, but words is good. Also, I just spent several minutes rewriting the history for one of Shaun's CoH characters so it fit in the 500 word limit. That was kinda fun. :) But it doesn't count as writing, since I was really only editing it. :)
ytd wordcount: 171,000
Barnes & Noble just called me up to ask me to do a book signing.
*blink* Awesome. :)
November 4th at 5pm. I will attempt to make everyone I know attend. :)
And on a completely different note, Ted inna tux!
I'd never seen him in a tux before. Isn't he gorgeous? :) He's got a black-tie dinner affair tonight that his company is sending all their supervisors to, so he had to get all spiffed up. *beam* Handsome hubby!
miles to Mount Doom: 150
I ended up with nearly 4,000 words yesterday, which is very pleasing. What's less pleasing is that I wrote them on my laptop and my shoulder/elbow/pinky are paying the price today. Ow. Now I'm trying to get my writing computer set back up, but either the desktop mount for it got thrown out (which would be irritatingly ironic, as Ted rarely throws away any boxes, and the odds of him letting me throw that one out are not good, but might be just good enough) or I just can't find it, so argh.
This is the only reason I'd trade Little in on a newer model, and the annoying truth is that no laptop is going to have a better keyboard for somebody with a shoulder problem, so there's not much point. It's painful and frustrating, though, especially when I can sit at Nook (who is going to need another name, since the Nook is no longer functional) and type for hours without even the slightest shoulder twinge. My desktop computer (the one hooked up to the internet) is better than Little for keyboard structure (ergonomic vs not), but I'm not particularly good at writing at a computer hooked up to the internet, and I generally prefer to just remove myself from the temptation.
I keep thinking this shoulder thing is going to go away. It keeps not going away. I'd been planning on just bringing Little to Ireland and using her for a few months, until our stuff got there, but man. This is teh suck. :P
ytd wordcount: 170,000
Hm. I got most of the PHOENIX LAW chapter done, but I thought I'd take a moment to write a scene that's been bugging me for a couple of days. I ended up writing 2600 words, very nearly a whole chapter. I know exactly where this chapter belongs.
It's the last chapter of the sixth book of the Walker Papers.
Hm.
It should be Wednesday, because I seem to have gotten over a hump, here. I feel like I'm reaching my stride in the proposal for PHOENIX LAW; I've turned in some revisions for commentary to my agent; I am looking forward to writing COYOTE DREAMS.
The PL proposal is particularly pleasing to me at the moment (how alliterate I am!), 'cause I've been stalling on it for much too long. I should have that all finished up by the end of the week, which is of course later than I want, but it'll do. I'm going to go finish the second chapter in a few minutes here. Yeah. This is good. My intention had been to really get back into the swing of writing at the beginning of September, although with all the house stuff and then going to RMFW that didn't work as solidly as I wanted it to. I did start getting back into it, though, and I'm now feeling like ... yeah. Back in the saddle.
Speaking of which, if I finish my chapter, I get more Firefly, so I better finish my chapter. :)
This is a good morning. :)
There was more Firefly last night. I love this show. It makes me squee and augh and wriggle around with delight. It now kills me that there were only fourteen episodes, but at least the movie opens next week! :)
I have nothing particularly *coherent* to say, apparently. But I'm cheerful!
LJ Interests meme results (click through)
- biking:
Biking is good. It's faster than walking. Zoom zoom! Being outside is fun! O.O :) - cats:
I must admit I prefer my cats when they are not trying to take over the entire foot of the bed. Or sitting on my arm. None-the-less, I like them :) - drawing:
The thing about me and drawing is I'm a good enough artist for other people to think I'm good, and for me to know just how good I'm not. I could be very good if I were more disciplined in the pursuit, but, well, I'm not. :) - gaming:
I'm not sure if I like gaming so much or the socializing that comes along with it, but there've been at least a few games that I really truly loved just for themselves. Slaying things is good! - jennifer connolly:
Raar. - miss manners:
"Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to walk in heels?"
"Gentle Reader: Left, right, left, right, left, right...."
How can you not love her? - pamela dean:
Pamela Dean wrote one of my favorite trilogies, The Secret Country books, and I aspire to publish something equally cool someday. - robin mckinley:
See above, only not with trilogies. :) - superheroes:
...I love larger-than-life characters. Superheroes fall into that category, and that's at least part of their appeal to me. That, and I think our society needs heroes. We don't see the ordinary every day ones all that often, and our old heroes, whether of war or politics, or you name it, have been so thoroughly defrocked by the media that they're nothing more than flawed human beings. Not that there's anything wrong with that inherently, but I think people need ideals to look up to. Take 'em where you can get 'em. - wolverine:
Speaking of flawed heroes. See, the flaws in a fictional character play up their strengths, whereas a flaw in a real person is usually just used to tear him down.
Besides, I mean, Wolvie. C'mon. Mmmm. *snikt*
Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.
Finished the scene rewrite & sent it to some people for some betareading. Hopefully it does what I tried to make it do, and I can be done with that. Tonight I should finish the PL proposal, but I won't. :) I probably /will/ walk the dog, which is about as good as it's going to get this evening. I wanna watch some more Firefly, too, but Ted's just gotten a new laptop, so it's hard to know if there's going to be any social sorts of activities tonight or if it will be All About The Shiny. :)
(Hey. There better be Firefly tonight, as Ted's got a dinn...no, it's *Monday*, the dinner thing's not til Wednesday. So there could be Firefly tomorrow. Nevermind.)
Bitterly disappointed that the big screen concerts aren't done in Alaska, because otherwise I would be going to a Bon Jovi concert tonight, even if only by proxy. As it is, I've spent much of the day listening to the webcast all-day Bon Jovi stream, except I .cannot. write when listening to most music, so I had to turn it off in order to work. Tomorrow, though, I'm going to go have a Bon Jovi accident and get the new CD and last year's 20 years of Bon Jovi thing they did, because I've heard songs today that were only released on that. Fnrt.
Oh, hey, second chapter of "Ill Met by Moonlight" is up!
And Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Kirby says today I have to tell people I'm moving to Arrr-iland!
Arrr!
current music: Bon Jovi, Bed of Roses
miles to Mount Doom: 145
Such a fangirl geek. Such a happy fangirl geek, though. Bon Jovi's got a new album coming out tomorrow and Trent just told me XM Radio is running an all-day Bon Jovi channel (the Boneyard) today. Can you say Free Trial Account, boys and girls? So can I! I don't even like having my computer making noises at me, but how could I resist?
Apparently VH1 is doing a two hour block of Bon Jovi videos sometime today, too. I don't think I've ever /seen/ a Bon Jovi video. I accused Trent of trying to destroy any productivity I thought I might have today, and he readily agreed that was what he was doing, and was it working?
NO.
Still need a fandom icon.
Finished the synopsis. Doing a scene rewrite today. Boy am I a party animal. :)
Watched three more episodes of Firefly last night. I am in love with Mal. Pat or Melissa said, Friday night, "Y'know, he looks a lot like Ted," and y'know, he does. Facial shape is very similar, coloring is similar, and presumably if Ted weighed the 195 or whatever Captain Tightpants weighs the similarities would be even more marked. Sadly, I look nothing at all like Inara. (Actually, I don't want to, she's not my type, but that's not the point. Ted could cosplay Mal easily (...sorry. got distracted there. O.O), but I couldn't do Inara. Sad. :))
I wonder if I'm having coffee with Jai this morning. I should call her and find out.
Right. This is not like working. :)
miles to Mount Doom: 142
I have made a fandom category for my journal entries. Now I need a new icon. I'm already using Rogue twice, so that won't do, and what's prompted the fandom category is Firefly, so I probably need a Firefly icon. At least for the moment. :) Wait. Maybe I need to make lots of fandom icons, and make a bunch of different categories! Now I've gone and done that, so now I need a fandom icon in general, and a Firefly icon. It's hard to be me.
See, this is one of the things MT doesn't handle nearly as nicely as LJ. I love LJ's usericons, but it seems ridiculous to have hundreds of categories on my MT site in order to be able to pull something like them off with relatively little effort. It's the one thing that makes me continue to consider pulling my LJ site into my mizkit site instead of the other way around.
How easily distractable I am.
Deborah sent us Firefly. Instead of gaming last night, because Ted was very tired, we hung out and watched the pilot and first episode. We luffed it. There were some very, very Joss moments, and things that made me go AUGH I KNEW IT and then AUGH AHAHAHA HE PSYCHED ME OUT! which was very satisfying.
Boy, it's really too bad Fox didn't air the pilot first, because the first five minutes explain everything I needed to know about Mal to be willing to watch the rest of the show, despite my extreme dubiousness about Cowboys In Space. But so many people said it was good, and the trailer for "Serenity" looked interesting enough, that I thought I'd try it, and in fact I'm enjoying it a lot. Mal. Raar. And Zoe, but c'mon, like you can go wrong with Gina Torres. So we'll be watching the rest of that before the movie comes out, fer sure. :)
*switches gears*
I've concluded what I need at this point in my diet is not willpower, but structure. By early or mid afternoon I've lost any interest in cooking, which means defaulting to ordering in or going out to eat (or cooking earlier in the day, which is smart but hasn't actually happened except once), and because of that I sort of give up on eating well for the remainder of the day. I suspect there are a variety of reasons for this, ranging from I'm back to writing, so there's some of the whole "working after work" aspect of cooking, to currently being at my lowest maintained adult weight and probably having a sort of mental block about "this is as low as I get!". I don't believe that, but it's a whole lot easier to maintain than to continue to lose, so it seems like a good excuse that's all on account of psychology.
And, y'know, some of it, too, is that I've been doing this weight loss thing for almost a year and I'm just tired of it. I really. *Really*. Would like to be at a total of 35 pounds lost on October 7, which is not as much as I hoped for, but would put me at less than I've weighed since at least my freshman year of college and possibly since high school, and would be a good solid number to be proud of having lost.
So. Willpower is nice, but at this point I really require structure. I've asked Ted if we can spend some time tomorrow cooking main course meals for the week, because hey, potatoes and vegetables, sure, I'll cook those, but having to make a main course seems like the overwhelming part. He pointed out that his schedule's going to change so he'll be home around four, but I still think pre-packaging dinners is probably a good idea, because I *know* he often doesn't feel like cooking when he comes home, and if I have to wait til he's hungry/ready to cook, it is often late enough that I'm a snarling bitch I've gotten moody.
I've also slacked off on exercising the last week, since coming back from RMFW, and I need to get back on that wagon. I *also* need to bring my good chair up here to the computer room so I can use that keyboard instead of this one, because my shoulder is starting to act up again. *sigh* I miss my nook. I'm not sure the keyboard's going to help that much, because the computer screen is too far away, but I guess we'll see.
Anyway. Gotta go work on my synopsis now.
miles to Mount Doom: 139
I seem to have caught a cold. I didn't even know I was chasing one. Bah.
The synopsis rewrite is going well. It's going to be twice as long as the original, not that the original was that long, and it's going to be a better synopsis, period. That's so annoying. :)
I really want chocolate chip cookies. And popcorn. And I really, really should make some chicken soup. Especially since I have a cold! Poor me! *snortfle*
Okay. Tea break is over, back on your heads.
Been doing some brainstorming with various peoples the last several days, and now have enormous amounts of storythings that are lurking around the back of my brain. I have to rewrite a synopsis, and I have this fear the book is going to end up a hundred and fifty thousand words before I'm through. :)
Well, no, not really, but lots of good ideas, and now I've got to go pick through them and turn them back into a synopsis. And then work on PHOENIX LAW and get that proposal out so I can start on COYOTE DREAMS. No rest for the wicked!
...just for the record, writing synopses is bad enough. *Rewriting* them is just unfair!
hell. handbasket. let us not discuss the doom of baskin robbins.
yes yes, i admit, i was WEAK!
...which reminds me of some years ago when my family were sitting around the table Christmas night playing Spoons, a card game where the idea is to get 4 of a kind while passing cards as fast as possible and not holding more than 5 in your hand at once. There are 1 fewer spoons on the table than there are players, and you're supposed to take a spoon when you get 4 of a kind. Then you either frantically seize a spoon, or sneakily seize one and continue playing until someone notices a spoon is missing, at which point there's usually a mad bloody leap for the remaining spoons. The key word here is "bloody"; rings must be taken off before playing this game, and it's best if nobody has fingernails worth mentioning.
So we were playing Spoons, my parents and sister and I. Someone--Dad, I think--got 4 of a kind, and took a spoon. No one noticed, and then Mom noticed, leaving one spoon left for Deirdre and me.
We lunged for it. It spun out of control, whipping toward the end of the table. And then it was airborne, and so was I, *flinging* myself in a literal bellyflop across the table, reaching, reaching, reaching--
--and Deirdre *threw* herself across Dad's lap, snatching the spoon from the very jaws of my victory! She thrust her hand into the air, brandishing the spoon triumphantly, and sounded her cheer of domination!
Crushed, I collapsed back into my chair and said, in bitter disappointment, "I was weak!"
It pretty much reduced us all to tears of hysterical laughter, and we still occasionally say, "I was *weak*!" when we've gone to great effort for no avail. :)
Going to bed now that I've given myself a good giggle. :)
Oh, but first, congratulations to Merlin, who won Jenn's auction! Awesome!
miles to Mount DOOOOOM: 136
My awesome agent, Jennifer Jackson, is participating in a Katrina fundraiser. I didn't know she was doing this or I'd have mentioned it earlier, but she's offering up an auction on eBay: she'll read and critique 30 pages of your manuscript and a 5 page synopsis, all for the low-low price of whatever the winning bid is. This could be a fantastic way for someone to get Jenn to read their stuff as well as donate to a good cause, so go bid on the auction!
brain...derailing me...mouth...wants chocolate...must...stay strong.
miles to Mount DOOOOM: 133
SQUEEEEEEEEE!
I just randomly popped over to Amazon to check to see if there was a cover up for THE CARDINAL RULE yet, and there WAS!
*SQUEEEEEEEEEE*!
SQUEEEEEEEEEE!
You can order CARDINAL RULE through Amazon (or your favorite online bookstore, I don't care), and read the first chapter at my professional website, cemurphy.net. The book will be out in December 2005.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Ok. I decided I'd better stop putting getting back on the weight-loss wagon off til Thursday, because if I did that I'd keep doing it indefinetely and possibly start gaining weight again. After the last two weeks of pretty much paying no attention at all to what I've been eating, I'm up about half a pound (which, actually, is an insignificant enough amount to almost count it as normal weight fluxuation), and I don't want to see that scale number rise any more than that. So, back on the wagon as of this morning, and in order to bring that home, I'm cutting sweets out of my diet again for the next ten days. That should be long enough to get over the MUST HAVE GOODIES cravings, and if I continue the no-sweets route after that, well, it's all good.
It's 3 weeks until I reach my 1 year weight-loss mark. I'm not going to come anywhere near my goal (which is still 13 pounds away), but if I'm good about watching what I eat, I might get down to a number that's below anything I've ever seen as an adult. So that's the goal for the next three weeks, and I'll have to be v. honest about what I'm eating to do that. Oi. :)
In unrelated topics, Ted's got a perfectly horrible day at work today. They've got an Event tonight, so he'll be there for 12 or 13 hours. Blah.
Ok. TBF front materials today, post FD for people to read, maybe work on the PL proposal.
ETA: I am getting inexplicable spam on this entry, so I'm closing it to comments. :P
miles to Mount Doom: 130.5
First: I recieved a magnificent gift in the mail yesterday. I knew I was getting it, and so I'd planned to take a picture of it and the very very silly cool gift Angie sent me at the same time and post them together, not that they have anything to do with each other. But it seemed like the timely thing to do.
Sadly, in the process of housecleaning, Angie's gift disappeared into the garage. There are plans to fumigate the garage this week, so I will have to re-find it and show it off when I've dug it out. Angie, you may castigate me. Bad Kit. :(
However, the day planner Deborah and Rob sent is every bit as god damned cool as one might hope. It would be cool even if it weren't electric blue leather, because it's just a really *good* day planner. It would be cool even if they hadn't included a fountain pen that writes very smoothly with it. It would be cool even if it didn't include personalized notecards and an excellent place for business cards.
But nothing in the world could beat a day planner with my own sassy lady emblem embossed in the leather:
On a completely different note, while I was gone, the boys discovered the dog has Certain Opinions about where she gets to sleep when Catie isn't home:
On a third totally unrelated note, yesterday was an extremely good day and in time I shall tell you more about that.
And on the fourth and final random note, we put our house on the market on the 6th, accepted an above-asking-price offer on the 8th, and will be moving to Ireland by the end of November.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled day.
miles to Mount Doom: 128
I got a rough draft copy of the THUNDERBIRD FALLS cover. Instead of being able to show it to you, I am simply going to go "Neener neener, I've seen it and you haven't!" I *really* like it. The colors are breath-taking and the pose is full of appropriate action and the more I look at it the happier I am. :)
Heard back from Jenn. Sadly, the sold-outedness of URBAN SHAMAN was a warehousing problem, not a sign that the print run had sold out. Oh well. But! It's being resolved, which is the most important thing at this juncture.
Um! What else? There were other things I was going to comment on.
Oh! Eep! Wow! Apparently "Ill Met by Moonlight" is up! Well, the first chapter, anyway! I thought it wasn't going up until Thursday! The first chapter is available here! Eeep! Wow! Cool!
I'm back! Did you miss me?
Meant to do some updating from Denver, but the hotel added a new exciting feature where you had to pay for the reportedly free internet access (my computer doesn't have a wireless or ethernet card right now), so I ended up just answering a bit of email and not paying for too much access. Feh.
Poor Little's starting to show her age, not so much in the wireless factor as things like her screen lock isn't working as well anymore, so she pops open, and other small things. None-the-less, I don't think I can justify replacing her, even if the new Sony Vaio is even smaller and cuter than she is. Well. I'm not sure I really feel like it's cuter. It's something to be coveted, but Little's keyboard's a better size, and I do love the old girl. Still, poor lil' thing. :)
Anyway, the conference.
I went, I admit, more for the networking and socializing aspects than the workshops and panels, though those that I went to were as always enjoyable. Anyway, I'll begin with the absolute highlight of the networking activities, then put the rest in extended entries so as to not to spam the LJ friends list. :)
One of the attending editors was Betsy Mitchell of Del Rey. I've been aware of Betsy Mitchell for, I don't know, at least ten years--she's one of those editors who gets thanked a lot in dedications and acknowledgements. So, y'know, pipe dream is that Betsy Mitchell would know who I was. Not a chance in hell, but what's life without dreams?
Friday evening my friend Lee (Margie) Roland, whom I originally met at RMFW in 2002, said, "Let's sit down with Betsy," whom she'd met earlier in the day during a workshop. So we went to sit with Betsy, who was charming and said, "Oh! Are we meeting?" when I said I wrote SF/F, and I allowed as how we were, and so all of that was nice. Someone else at the table noticed my yellow "author" ribbon that the conference gave me (they give them to all the authors, not just me!) and asked what books I had out. I said I'd just had my first book, URBAN SHAMAN, published.
And Betsy Mitchell, head editor of Del Rey, said, "Oh! *You're* the one who wrote URBAN SHAMAN!"
Because I am uber-cool and calm and collected in the face of that sort of thing, I said, "You just made my entire life!"
Turns out she'd been at CascadiaCon/NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Convention, the conference held in the US when Worldcon is held overseas) last week, and Luna had come up at a panel or some such, and people in the audience had mentioned URBAN SHAMAN and told her she needed to read it. She was completely astounded at finding herself sitting next to the writer of that book a week later. It was VERY cool! And she came by the book signing that evening and bought a copy and even had me sign it for her. *silly beam* Isn't that awesome?
(The next day at our meeting she also said, "Sorry I haven't read your book yet! I read my trashy romance last night." I told her I thought I could probably forgive her. *grin*)
Ok, for the rest you can click through, either on the MT click-through on the main page or on the journal entry URL posted on the LJ feed. :)
So I got in Thursday morning at 7am. Without question, the only good thing about flying red-eyes is that occasionally you see women running from the Wild Hunt and get caught up in amazing adventures sunrise from above the clouds. If "God's light" is the pale gold sunlight that comes through clouds in broken chunks, then I think the thin bold stream of sheer fiery gold that can sometimes follow the rising sun must be Lucifer's light. It was absolutely beautiful.
I went to the hotel, and conked out for a few hours before actually, almost unbelievably, meeting up with Erica for lunch. (We hadn't really arranged anything, so the odds of actually making lunch together were pretty slim. But we managed!) We went out for Ethiopian, which I'd never had and Erica had had very little of, so we asked the woman to feed us something not too spicy, with a good variety of vegetables and chicken and not too much beef. She did just that, and it was very, *very* good, so that was pretty cool. And Erica and I caught up, which was wonderful. She looks fantastic, is having a terrific time with her massage schooling, and will be graduating soon. I must find excuses to visit for massages. O.O :) She might even have a job lined up for after graduation, so you can't beat that. I'm very pleased for her, and it was really nice to see her. She was impressed with my weight loss, too, which was nice. :)
Back to the hotel, where I was obliged to go work out in order to not fall asleep, but I had to take a nap before dinner anyway, 'cause v. tired. But I staggered out of bed in plenty of time to head downstairs and meet Christie Golden and Mark Anthony, though I think Christie got taller since the last time I saw her, and I got thinner since the last time she saw me, so we weren't quite sure we were each other, and I had no idea what Mark looked like, so there was some hmming and peering across the lobby at each other before we were brave enough to go see if that was us. Er. You know what I mean. :)
We headed downtown for dinner, and hung out for probably three hours, eating and chatting about everything from World of Warcraft--which Christie is desperately addicted to--to politics to, of course, writing. We got to talking about killing off characters, and Mark, in his Last Rune series, killed off a character that I just .absolutely. adored, so I went "Augh!" at him in person, which was quite satisfying. (I'd already aughed at Christie rather extensively in email over the character *she'd* killed off.) Oh, and Christie gave me a copy of her new book, IN STONE'S CLASP, which I promptly went home and read, and I brought her jam and all was well. *Really* nice evening. The thing about being a writer and working from home is there's a fair lack of getting out and about, so when I do, man, all that socializing packed into a short time is just great.
And I *did* go back to the hotel and read the first half of IN STONE'S CLASP while luxuriating in a hot bath, then thudded into bed. Christie's first Luna title, ON FIRE'S WINGS, was one of my two favorites last year, and I've really been looking forward to IN STONE'S CLASP. I enjoyed it very much as well, and it had its own share of AUGH! bits that I can't wait to email Christie about. *grin* Knowing writers rocks. :)
Friday morning I spoiled myself rotten by having a massage after my workout, and then went down to the lobby to register and meet up with Margie Roland and started to see people to say hello. I'd run into Karen Duvall the night before--her hair's gotten all *long*!--and I saw Jan Gurney, who is the woman who emailed to tell me RMFW had opened their membership and I could now join, and I think I completely failed to go to *any* of the workshops or panels on Friday afternoon. I'd had some hope of going to the RMFW new members thing, but Margie and I had planned for an early dinner (in order to prepare for The Dessert Buffet), so I ended up doing that instead, and we picked up a couple of other people to eat with us, so that was very pleasant.
Then the opening ceremonies commenced (along with Death By Chocolate), I met Betsy Mitchell, and Ed Bryant--*laugh*
Ed Bryant is a SF writer of some renown, with about twelve books and 25324569827 short stories out, and he gave a very funny opening speech which he thought would make it clear to everyone what not to do as a kickoff speech. :) He talked about what I thought of as Things To Do In Denver While You're Dead, and talked about writing, but the best--or worst--part was that he got up and did the whole Alcoholics Anonymous sort of introduction--"Hi, I'm Ed, and I'm a science fiction writer," or something to that effect. Well, of course the proper thing to do was say, "Hiiii, Ed!" in response, so I called out, "Hiii, Ed!"
No one else did. Certainly not as loudly as I did. *howls of laughter* I mean, come on! I *honestly*, truly expected the entire audience of four hundred to chorus, "Hi, Ed!", and was really, really surprised when they didn't!
Instead, Betsy--and several other people, for that matter, but Betsy was right next to me--turned and looked at me with vast amusement (or maybe astonishment, or possibly horror), and Ed said, "Well, at least someone has some experience with the association," and later I found him to tell him that I was the one who knew a cue when I heard it, so we hit it off pretty well. *laugh*
The book signing was after the dessert buffet, and I had about a dozen people come over to buy copies of the book, and had a great time talking with people, and I was *very* proud of myself: I went to the conference intending to buy only one book, and that's all I bought. The restraint, the restraint! Admire me! The book I bought was Robert Buettner's ORPHAN'S DESTINY, the sequel to ORPHANAGE, which I'd enjoyed tremendously. Oh, and by that time I'd at least spoken to almost everyone I knew from previous years, and I'd had a lot of compliments on my weight loss, and to my astonishment even Bob said, "You've really re-invented yourself!" So that was pretty wonderful. :) Anyway, so I got ORPHAN'S DESTUNY, and had a minute to talk with Bob before Terry um, I've forgotten his last name, but he helps run the book sale, strongarmed me back to my seat. *grin* He's a cool guy, giving people a hard time left and right. :)
Gosh, I saw so many people I was so pleased to catch up with. Margie Lawson and Jan Gurney (who asked how much weight I'd lost and told me I looked like a model! wasn't that nice? *beam*) and Alexis Brooks de Vita, whose daughter Novella wasn't there this year, but whose equally beautiful and delightful son Joseph was, and boy, just too many people to really ennumerate. I went upstairs to the after-hours party after, you know, hours, and hung out for a couple hours talking with people--with Ed Bryant some, and Terry the book guy some, and I don't know who all else right now, but it was a really fun evening and then I staggered downstairs and dropped into bed. :)
Boy did I not want to get up Saturday morning. :) But I did, 'cause there was an 8:30am panel I wanted to go to--how editors really buy, I think was what it was; I mostly wanted to go to hear Betsy Mitchell talk. There wasn't anything revalatory, but that was okay, and on my way out I caught up with a woman named Patty whom I'd talked with last year, so we ended up spending an hour talking instead of either of us going to any panels or anything, which proved to be a common theme for me throughout the weekend. I know I went to the speculative fiction panel and had lunch and then went and took a nap, 'cause I was v. sleepy, before going up to the editor-agent pitch sessions at 4pm.
I got there plenty early and ended up chatting quite enthusiastically with the two women sitting on either side of me while we waited, and one of them later told me that it'd really helped her relax and that she'd been much less stressy over her pitch session than she'd expected to be, so that was actually pretty cool. And, since I was there and I had the meeting--I'd essentially put in for a pitch session with Betsy because I really wanted the chance to meet her, not knowing I would accomplish that Friday night--I pitched HEART OF STONE, and she said to have my agent send it to her. *blinks cheerfully* This networking thing is cool!
And *laugh* I went to Margie Lawson's "Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors" workshop, not so much because I need positive reinforcement as I'm terribly fond of Margie and wanted to go be supportive. So one of the exercises she had us do was write down the letters of our first names and put adjectives next to them, and then she asked for some volunteers to read them. One person volunteered, then there was deadly silence, so I volunteered, and, er, well. Confident Awesome Terrific Interesting Enthusiastic, or something like that. Even Margie said I didn't belong in there. :)
You know, that was kind of something that came up with somebody I was talking to on Friday night, too: this idea of people not being good enough. The woman I was talking to was talking about how everybody is always told at some point they're not good enough, and they internalize that and it haunts them forever. I honestly cannot remember for the life of me ever being told I wasn't good enough, or that I shouldn't do something because I wasn't good at it, or anything to that effect. I mean, I just don't remember ever being told that. I can't figure out if I grew up in an *insanely* unusual not just home (I already know that's pretty much true) but in fact entire environment, or if everyone else is just a little melodramatic.
Wow, getting to be a bumpy ride here. If we all die horribly, remember that I love you. :) Speaking of melodramatic. *laugh*!
God, I just had a really fun weekend all around. I ran into Robin Owens in the elevator on Saturday morning, and since I'd FORGOTTEN to email her and tell her I'd be there, she was very VERY surprised to see me, and I ended up eating with her and her critique group at the banquet Saturday evening, which was really nice. One of the group, Steven... Donnes, I think... has entered the RMFW contest for years and years and finaled for years and years without ever winning, and this year he'd finaled three times, once in mystery and twice in romance, I think, and didn't win in the mystery category, so he was pretty down, though not surprised.
But he won the romance category, and pretty much the entire table burst into tears. That was fantastic. And Alexis, whom I just utterly adore, won the science fiction/fantasy category, and was *completely* taken aback by winning, and I'd been awfully certain she would (for absolutely no real reason), so I was just smug and thrilled all around. The only downer was that my friend Margie Roland had finaled in both the romance and SF/F categories, and didn't win. :/ So on the one hand, two big happinesses, but I wish Margie could've won too.
Let's see. I went to the after-hours party again, and spent probably a good hour talking with Ed Bryant, whom I just got along with like a house on fire--we talked some politics, we talked some writing, we talked some stuff about whether or not the small cheesy-looking pink food things on the table were safe to eat (we decided not, although I dared to try one of the four remaining chocolate balls even though we discussed the possibility that they were still there because they were poisoned, and when it proved to be non-fatal, the other two women talking with us dove upon two of the remaining three, and then we had a very entertaining discussion about how someone might take the last one; we thought it would be done seriptitiously, but in fact the woman who took it swooped down on it and fed it to her husband without and seriptitiousness at all. We did, however, have a really good time saying how nice it was to have met him and it was sad he'd be dying so soon now, since we knew that had to be the poisoned one. *laugh*), and eventually someone else stole Ed away and I had more discussions with Patty and someone charming named John whose family is from New Orleans, so that got quite a bit of discussion, and I talked a lot, the whole weekend, about a bed and breakfast in Ireland, and I think half the conference said, "My God! You could run writer's retreats!" and also, "When can we come over?", which was pretty cool.
That was an extremely long sentence. 265 words, in fact. Let's hear it for the power of parenthetical statements. :)
I managed to catch up with Jessie Wulf, who was the RMFW contest coordinator for many years, and who is just the most delightful, charming, supportive woman in the world. We commiserated over ANGLES being rejected by Tor, but she was very, very happy about the sales I *have* had, and she, as many people at that conference do, more or less bodily dragged me over to introduce me to a couple of people--in fact, *I* did that to Alexis, who wasn't sure she was going to get to meet with Betsy Mitchell, so I dragged Alexis over to meet Betsy to make sure they'd get a chance to talk to one another, and I'm pretty sure they ended up eating together at the banquet, so that worked out. Though she *did* get her meeting with her on Sunday morning, so that worked out too. Still. I was going to give up my appointment with Betsy if Alexis couldn't get one, because it was icing on the cake for me, and I *really* wanted Alexis to have a chance to talk to her. But! It all worked, so it was good. :)
Oh! And Alexis also told me--last year when I stayed up half the night talking to Novella, I was wearing one of my Harry Mason ear cuffs, and she'd admired it and had said something like that might work for her sister, who has very, very delicate ears and can't wear earrings at all. So I just impulsively gave Novella the cuff for her sister to wear, and hoped it'd get to her--they're tiny and really easy to lose. And Alexis told me that she wore it all the time! *beam* I'm really happy it got to her, and that she likes it!
Bathroom break.
*returns* Every time I go into an airplane bathroom I feel like Jo: Have you ever noticed that the mirror is by far the largest object in those tiny airplane restrooms?
Anyway. :)
Boy, I talked to so many people. This morning Robin swept down upon me and we sat and talked about Luna for about an hour, about our plans and our ideas and what we were working on and everything. Really a very satisfying talk, and it was awesome to have some time to talk just with her instead of in a crowd, which was mostly how I'd seen her previously. I spent quite a while talking with Alexis after that, and we had lunch together before I had to take off.
Even leaving was totally conference-oriented, as a woman I'd met briefly earlier in the weekend was on the bus with me, so we talked about writing and what we wrote and all of that sort of thing for the ride over, and then on the train from one concourse to another the woman standing next to me had been at the conference, too, and so *we* ended up talking until her plane left. She was another fantasy writer, and we met up with a third one at the terminal, so yeah, just straight across until I went to get on my plane it was writing talk all the way.
The last woman I talked with, Stephanie, said talking to me had really lifted her spirits. Apparently she'd been feeling a little down and discouraged, and I'd ended up, for some reason, talking about how your odds as a writer were both awful and very good, as evidenced by Harlequin getting 20K unsolicited submissions a year, but I'd heard those numbers quoted at a con a few years ago and watched the thirty people in the room just deflate, and I had to point out that yes, Harlequin does get that number of submissions a year--but in that room of thirty people, there were two of us, me and Wendy Douglas, who'd made the 20K statement, who had been picked out of the slushpile. So 1 in 15 is rather more encouraging than 1 in 20,000, you know? You do have to write a good book. You do have to be persistent. But the thing is that I really truly believe that if you have talent and persistence, you'll make it. I really, really believe that. Anyway, I went on about that, and it evidently made Stephanie feel better, so that's kind of cool. :)
I'm reasonably certain I'm forgetting about 34563987 things--like the fact that Betsy kept saying hello all weekend, and that this morning on her way out she came through specifically looking to say goodbye to people, which, I don't know, doesn't seem like the thing I've seen editors and agents do at previous conferences, so I thought it was particularly neat--and that it seems like I met way more people this year than I have in previous years, and that I wish I could remember all their names and our conversations, and how Mary Buckham, I think her last name is, was there again and kept giving me a hard time (ok, I gave her one back, I admit)--and other good stuff, but I have already written more than 3500 words and this is *nothing* like working on my PHOENIX LAW proposal, so I think I'm going to stop writing on it and flip to my other window and work on that. :)
Zoof!
Ok, heading for Denver for the RMFW conference now. If you need to get ahold of me in the next four days, my on-the-road email is mizkit73 at yahoo dot com.
miles to Mount Doom: 125
*laugh* I was just bitching about having very few clothes left that I can wear, and that it was absurd. This caused Image to say:
"Be glad it is absurd and not obscene, as it would be in other contexts -- people without clothing generally should be obscene and not absurd."
Bad, BAD Image. *laugh*
But it's true. I don't own a single blouse anymore. I have a handful of dress clothes that fit, about ten strappy tanktops, and all the shirts I bought in March are getting very loose. My smashing red blazer still fits (but won't in another ten pounds), and I have only one dress even vaguely appropriate for the semi-formal-to-formal dinner on Saturday night. I still want to go school shopping!
Starving. Meow. Meow. Meow. Soon I'll get food, but I thought I'd post first.
RillAnna tells me that the University Bookstore was at CascadiaCon and had copies of URBAN SHAMAN at their table at the front part of the dealer's room, and that they sold out the copies they had. *beam* Awesome.
It is very, very, very wet outside. But my hair is newly bleached, so it was worth walking home in the very very very wet.
And I got a frog for my backpack in the mail. :) He's in my backpack now. I'll take a picture of him later. :)
Got a little writing done yesterday. 600 words or so. And ended up walking a lot (it stopped raining for a while). Our bathroom is caulked and clean and the only room in the house that's still an actual mess is the office. *sigh* Working on it. Gotta clear off the kitchen table, and pick up the floor down there, and finish laundry, and clean the bedroom closet, and I think I'm going to stop now before I get depressed. :P We are out of garbage bags.
Ok, *really* starving now. Food.
miles to Mount Doom: 121
ytd wordcount: 162,000
Wrote another 300 measly words yesterday, not even on the thing I was supposed to be working on. I had a dream yesterday morning involving a very anti-heroic protagonist, and wrote a bit about her, and spent much of the day considering what's necessary to make an anti-hero a likeable, sympathetic, or otherwise compelling enough character to keep the reader involved with her.
Riddick is an excellent example of an anti-hero that people like. Peter David's SIR APROPOS OF NOTHING character is, OTOH, so utterly vile that I stopped reading the book and will never read anything of his again that isn't a Trek tie-in. Mel Gibson's character in Payback is clearly a bad guy, but his journey is sufficiently entertaining to keep the viewer with him. Thomas Covenant is a hideous character, but people keep going back for more of him (I don't understand why. I read four and a half Covenant books before it occured to me that I didn't *have* to read the whole series just because I'd started it. I was about twelve, I think. I was very very glad to put the fifth book down and never pick it up again.).
So what makes an anti-hero work? One thing appears to be that an anti-hero says what he's going to do, and then by God does it. The character earns your respect, if not your fondness, and his motives have to be crystal clear. Mel Gibson's character wants his $75K back; Riddick wants the one or two things he cares about to be safe--not because it's good, but because it contributes to his own happiness. It's a completely selfish motivation, but it's completely consistent.
This character, this woman, is a stone cold killer. I get the impression the world she lives in is pretty dog-eat-dog (I'm sure some of this dream stems from reading too much about what's going on in New Orleans), and she'd as soon shoot you as walk around you. I don't get the idea she necessarily enjoys or likes killing, but she's apparently very good at it, and it doesn't *bother* her in the least. She's been in prison for years, and they're paroling her because there's something worse out there they think she can catch. Or kill, more accurately. As far as I can tell, she must be in prison for having killed somebody important, because nobody gives much of a shit about murder in general in this world.
There are two things she'll break her own survival rules for, or go back for, a la Riddick: she has a daughter with whom she's had, I think, no contact since she went to prison fourteen years ago, and she has a ... lover, for lack of a better word, a man who's on the "right" side of the law, which I think means he only kills people who are doing actively bad things. Those are her weaknesses; her humanizing factors, which discussion at the household thinks might be vital to making an anti-hero a good protagonist.
Beyond that, can a stone cold killer be a sympathetic protagonist? I'm going to write this book eventually and find out. I think it's probably mostly in the presentation, but it'll be interesting to try.
In other news, finished painting the bedroom yesterday, and did the hall and part of Shaun's bathroom. My hands hurt. They hurt from holding the paintbrush and they hurt from washing paint out of brushes. This is not any fun. I'll be glad when it's done, if for no other reason than I'll stop bitching about it. :P
My shoulder is not taking to me writing on my laptop, so I'm turning off all Internet applications now and doing my writing on the desktop. Bah.
miles to Mount Doom: 116
ytd wordcount: 161,300
i'm too tired to finish clearing up the path to the bed, and the bed, so i can go to bed.
ted did a magnificent job of replacing the toilet without losing his temper. aside from some caulking, the bathroom is done. it looks completely different. the kitchen is also done. it also looks completely different. it's quite amazing. possibly i'm easily amazed, but it's quite amazing and i'm very pleased with it. so there. :) in fact, the whole downstairs is done, although the bathroom down there needs to be cleaned. then it will be poifekt.
i got half our bedroom painted, and the trim around the garage door. it doesn't sound like very much, but it took an awful lot of the day. tomorrow i'll do the rest of the bedroom and the hall and maybe another room if i've got anything left. physically and emotionally, that is; it turned out there was indeed another gallon of the right-colored paint in the garage. i'm glad i didn't look. :)
i even wrote. 300 measly words, but i was falling asleep from sitting still, so i decided i'd take what i could get and be glad i'd at least written. and i walked the dog. a piddly little mile walk, but a walk. plus i made more raspberry jam. go me.
ok, i've gotten a second (or 2254380967th) wind, so i'm going to go clean up the room enough to sleep.
ytd wordcount: 161,000
miles to mount doom: 115.5
dammit, i did not factor walking the dog into my things to do today. argh.
i've run out of paint. there's a small chance there's more in the garage. i'm not looking to find out. i'm going to go paint something else a different color, and then i'm going to walk the dog, argh, argh, dammit, argh, and write and make dinner although i may just say screw that and go with leftovers, and make jam.
and i just took my contacts out and my eyes are exhausted. i'd sleep, if i could reach the bed, but it's surrounded and covered by Crap. probably just as well.
argh.
It's Monday morning here at the Murphy-Lee-Sandness household, and the most common refrain around here is, "Are we there yet?"
Our list of things to do to finish making the house beautiful is really pretty short now, but we are just all damned tired of it. The kitchen ceiling is done; the porches are painted; the bathroom is spackled and needs painting. Unfortunately the frelling toilet tank has sprung a hairline leak, so we are hoping to God that one can buy a rubber sealant for the inside of the tank instead of having to replace the whole flipping tank. :P Beyond that it's mostly caulking and painting in the rest of the upstairs. It *is* looking progressively more attractive. This is just tiring. Bah.
Today: writing, painting, and gymming. Not necessarily in that order.
BTW, we skipped the Bruce Campbell thing because we were too tired to deal with fanboys, and went to see The Transporter 2, which was even worse than we expected it to be. :)
last night we went out to girdwood to watch the young dubs play again. the opening act was...remarkable. we'll leave it at that.
the dubs, however, as usual, rocked beyond belief. the sound was very good, and they did _two_ sets instead of the usual one, so i was _particularly_ glad that i'd been Sniky and had rented us a room overnight at the alyeska prince hotel. it was ridiculously expensive, but totally worth it. :) we had a total blast, got back to the hotel around 1:30 with ringing ears. lots and lots of fun. :) i woke up at a quarter to seven this morning and got up because if i hadn't we'd still be sleeping. :)
the double musky was also very good. neither of us overate, which is unheard of. we showed _restraint_. go us! :) breakfast at the hotel was only adequate, though, oh well.
wish i could've weighed myself this morning, 'cause i bet between the dehydration and the sweating i was at about 153. :)
The wonderful boys have the back porch nearly all repainted. They'll probably be done by the time I'm done with this entry, in fact. It looks all different and nice. :) They trimmed the lilacs, too, and even though I love crazy mad lilacs, it does look tidier.
I talked my brain out of walking 5 miles today, and only did 2.5. That seems like enough, especially as there's a Young Dubs concert tonight and I expect I'll spend an hour or more jumping up and down. :) Looking forward to it. Also looking forward to going to the Double Musky Inn, where I've never been despite being a lifelong Alaskan. It's reputedly fantastic, and it's in Girdwood, where the Young Dubs are playing, so it all works out. *beam*
Oh, lordy, I'm going to eat food that's *so* bad for me. *swoon*
Ok, we're off!
miles to Mount Doom: 112.5
Well. The back wall of the bathroom, the one the wallpaper came off, looks perfectly awful. There's no texture, so it's all patchy and horrible, and painting it white made that painfully clear. I'm thinking of doing a sponge contrast on it, and hoping that makes enough contrast to make it look nicer. If not, I donno. Ted thinks maybe spackle stuff comes in a spray can, so maybe we'll look at that. That'd be easiest of all, actually, if it does. It'd remove any /question/.
The kitchen ceiling has taken two coats of paint and will need at least one more. Sigh. I wonder if I need a redecorating icon...