Oh wow I actually have things to talk about! First off, holy crap, I need a NEW JOB! It was a long, slow, painful process, but my two retail jobs have finally sucked all of the blood out of my body. I'm hoping for a new, non-retail job by the fall. I have a sort of connection at a children's home that is basically in my front yard. So I put in an application there and am crossing every finger I have (plus those of random people I meet in the mall...) that I get it. Oh man I want that job soooo much.

So, since I needed a NY state driver's license plus my Alabama registration was expiring this month (oh thank GOD!) I spent half of the week at the DMV on post. Ah...nothing like a good old American DMV to make you want to move out of the country. But fortunately that all went through well so now Hotaru-chan has nice, shiny, new New York license plates! Yatta!

And now for news on the A-chan front. A-chan is so large that he could actually BE a front. So next time you get a thunderstorm your way, it's because A-chan rolled over and shifted all of the hot air up into the atmosphere (or down...I have no idea. I'm not the little meteorologist. That would be Ja-nanners.) Yes. A-chan is officially 11 inches wide and ways (wait for it...wait for it...) MORE THAN A STONE! Here is a picture to really put things into perspective for you...


Ok, so I have to get to bed, so here's a quick little thing that would make me a VERY HAPPY RENNY-CHAN. The Harry Potter Fan Fiction website is currently taking nominations for the Dobby Awards! So, if you've ever read my lovely fan fiction and you have an account there...could you PLEASE NOMINATE ME??? I'm currently doing pretty darn good in the AU category, so I would love some more shout outs there! Look, I'll even fill the form out for you! Just cut and paste and create a hyperlink for the story! Just go here: Dobby AU Nominations and post this!

Story Title: The Dream of One Night
Author: Renfair
Link: http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/viewstory.php?psid=233532 [M]
Story Rating: Mature
Scene/Genre: Drama, Romance, AU

There! Easy! And you will have made me sooooo happy! I'm sure I have a lot more to talk about, but I reeeaaally need to get to bed! So that will have to wait!

Sooooo....

Yeah.

Ugh. My life is so boring. I feel like I have to apologize in advance for whatever boredom this post might bring to its reader.

Because the Army sucks at life (oh wow! what a surprise!) Zach's probably going to be deployed to Iraq (again again) in the late fall for a year (again again). So what the HELL am I supposed to do for a year in upstate New York?!?! I have been thinking about it, though. Trying to brainwash my lovely cousin into coming to live with me for Christmas vacation (cause it would help me out SO much emotionally, Elise. And just THINK about the amounts of Harry Potter we could watch! And, HOLY CRAP, Movie SIX will be out by then! Maybe we could go see it in IMAX! Come on, you SO owe it to me...all of the random clothes I have sent you throughout the years! Heh heh...) And I suppose anyone else who reads this can take it as an open invitation to come live with me for a while! We have a spare bedroom that I'm going to get all nice and set up in case someone decides to stay with me and alleviate the monotony and save me from talking *too* much to the cats...

(Grrr...husband of the next door lady just came home from work...why isn't ZACHY home from work? Probably cause next door guy doesn't care about wasting gas and is home for lunch...fair enough, I guess...)

One thing I'm working on doing that I think will help me out a lot to get through the year is getting a new job. I've pretty much burned myself out (haha...no pun intended...) on coffee at the cafe and selling crap to rich people at Pier1. Fortunately for me, there's a Children's Home literally in my FRONT YARD where I'm guessing they send kids who are orphans or seized by the state or whatever. They said on their website that in order to be a childcare worker all you need is a high school diploma and a NY drivers license. So I'm off today to try and gets me one of those...not sure if I can get it cause they say that your old license has to have a date of issue on it (and apparently MA doesn't do that...probably cause they're like WTF does someone need that for, yo?) but hoping that maybe cause I'm military (and I'm going to the on-post DMV) I can get around that rule. Otherwise I'm going to have to have the Mass DMV send me a letter with the date or whatever. I also need to get my CAR (yes, sweet adorable little Hotaru-chan!) registered here too cause my Alabama registration expires this month (oh thank GOD!!) Just hoping she passes inspection, but I think that shouldn't be a problem. I just haven't had her inspected in about...oh...3 years or so...

Wow. This is turning out to be a much longer post than I had intended. What else have I been doing...lalala...working on my Renaissance dress, FINALLY. I made my little pirate bloomers which ended up looking AMAZING. I don't know how I managed that...those were the ones I drafted from scratch. I'll definitely take pictures of everything once I'm all done. I started on the bodice to my dress so I've got the sort of in-between interfacing part done. I want the whole dress to be reversible, so I had to sort of hide the boning between the layers. What I ended up doing was to cut out the bodice in two layers of the cotton duck cloth I used for my corset and fit the boning in between those. That way when that whole piece is put between the "good" sides of the dress it should make it pretty stiff and none of the boning channels will be visible. Ok, I'm going to stop sewing talk now cause I'm thinking it's boring people...

Zach *finally* got his dates for his block leave, so we're trying to decide what to do. I'm taking a week off from work and at the moment I'm thinking I'd like to go to Six Flags on the way to Massachusetts to celebrate our anniversary. The only problem that we thought of last night is...oh yeah...we have 2 cats. What the hell do we do with them??? I don't really have any super close friends here and Zach's good friend is apparently in Florida, so we don't have anyone who could come take care of them and I'm really against putting them in a kennel unless we literally had no other option. So I'm thinking maybe we'll just take them with us! They can hang out in the hotel while we're at Six Flags and then they can just run around whoever's house we'll be staying at in MA. (Assuming it would be Zach's dad...but who knows...)

I guess that's it. I FINALLY beat Persona 3: FES last night. I seriously put about 140 hours into that game. And now I have the mini-sequel game to play! Bleh. It makes me want to play it over again since I would have such a better idea of what I was doing. Zach won a $100 giftcard to GameStop from the stupid Army and he gave it to me! Yay! Not sure what I'll buy with it. There's "Silent Hill V" coming out, plus a couple of new Harvest Moon games. I'm waiting on buying a Wii until there's a gosh darn Animal Crossing for it!

Ok, I think this post is long enough. To wrap up here's my result to that Attachment Style Test that everyone's doing. I think it's really accurate, though I'm quite amused at being called a "Cuddleslut." It sounds like something we would call Nimue...

Your result for The Attachment Style Test ...

The Cuddleslut

15% Anxiety Over Abandonment and 13% Avoidance Of Intimacy

You're mostly secure, but sometimes you need a little extra reassurance to make it through the tough times. You are usually affectionate and sweet, and you find it easy to fall in love. An encouraging word from a crush or a loved one can motivate you for weeks.

 

Fictional character with whom you might identify: Kaylee (Firefly/Serenity), Hiro Nakamura (Heroes)

 

 

I'm like Hiro! YATTA!!

So, since I'm trying to be better at posting, I thought I'd post a quickie before work. Zach had the day off so I'm eating YUMMY French Toast and bacon, which is sugoi! Let's see...well, on Sunday we went to Big Lots (cause we are LOSERS) just for fun cause it was right next to Quiznos where we went to lunch, and I totally found the dvd of Beat Takeshi's "Brother" for three freaking dollars!! It was soooo cool! "Brother" is a really awesome Japanese movie about a yakuza who is banished from Tokyo so he goes to LA to find his younger brother, who is in a sort of little gang there. Basically the whole movie is about how violence begets more violence. I normally don't like action or ganster movies at all, but something about Beat Takeshi's movies just make them soooo interesting. Amazon lists the price as $22, so getting it for 3 was pretty neat-o :)

I'm currently reading Tanith Lee's "Flat Earth Series" and I'm almost done with the first book, Night's Master. The book is soooo good, but anything written by Tanith Lee is bound to be. The book is three parts and each part contains about 3 stories that flow into each other and all have something to do with Azhrarn, the Prince of Demons (who is HOT HOT HOT!). Though all of her books are amazing to read, this one is exceptionally imaginative with absolutely gorgeous descriptions. Every time I read one of her books I just get so insanely jealous that one person could think up so many beautiful things. *sigh*

So...I *finally* started working on my new faire dress last night. I drafted a pattern for my bloomers I'm going to wear underneath (which are going to be black linen to match my short chemise...yay!) and I cut out muslin pieces so I can sew those up and see if the pattern actually works ;) OK, well, I have to go to work now, which makes me a sad panda. I don't want to go! Oh well, at least I updated!

Hoo...ok. SO here I am again. Updating like, what, twice in a week or so? IT'S MADNESS!! So, er, not much going on, you know, like always. Working and working, and when I'm not working I'm usually playing "Persona 3: FES" or sleeping. I've already pumped 85 odd hours into Persona, which is very sad. At least it's something I feel like playing, cause there really isn't anything else. I still haven't even OPENED "Lost in Blue 3" and I got mad at "Silent Hill: Origins" about five minutes into the game so I haven't continued with that since then. I think I'm done with polygamy books for the moment, and I'm slowly making my way back into fantasy. Just finished reading Diana Wynne Jones' new book, "House of Many Ways" which actually is the direct sequel to "Howl's Moving Castle," though I think it definitely helps to read "Castle in the Air" in between the two or else you're like, WTF did this small child come from? Hehehe...I love Howl, but definitely not as much as Chrestomanci. Chrestomanci is definitely probably in the top 3 of all-time hugest literary crushes. Reading that book made me want to re-read "Howl's Moving Castle" so that's what I'm doing right now. I finally read my  "Tail of the Moon" manga #11, which I was rather putting off because I know it's going to be a good month or so until I have the next one. I love that manga, but most of the time I'm yelling at it, "When the &#@% are Usagi and Hanzo going to DO IT already??" I want them to have numerous little ninja babies running around! I'm actually pretty behind on my other mangas. I've been buying all of the "NANA"'s, but I haven't really read since like #6 or something...I'm also behind in "The Wallflower" and am pretty much stagnant in "From Far Away" and "The Queen's Knight," which Sylvana has offered to let me borrow but I keep forgetting about it...I just also finished reading "The Last Hero," by Terry Pratchett, which was nice cause I never really got over finishing the Discworld books. Dammit, I need LOTS MORE LORD VETINARI! Cause he's hot in my mind. And doesn't look like the pictures I've seen of him...He has a ponytail, I swear it!! I think he actually looks like an older Chrestomanci in my head, actually...

I've got most of my fabric for my next Ren dress, now it's just a matter of making myself sit down and MAKE the darn thing. I also need to remember to put in requests for time off at work for next month. Zach has about 20 days of block leave, but I keep forgetting that I DON'T, so I need to actually take time off as well so we can go camping and go to the Faire. I think it's going to be hella awesome...I'm really excited, and I know my dress will look HOT. You know, once it's made. Cause right now it's sitting as yards and yards of fabric in Jo-Ann's Fabrics bags. Dang. I don't want to sew...bleh.

So, since I missed a couple members of BUCK-TICK's birthdays (like Acchan! I don't think I did a REAL tribute to ACCHAN!) I'm going to do a MASSIVE shout out to Hidehiko here:


So, speaking of BUCK-TICK, I think I need to reiterate how FREAKING AWESOME THEY ARE!

I've finally FORCED myself to update. It's really quite silly how long I went without updating, but there really wasn't a whole lot to talk about! Zach was gone for over a month doing JRTC in Louisiana, so that really sucked. I spent a lot of time just watching Netflix movies and playing Persona 3: FES (which is a really addicting game, though I don't think I'd ever play through it again...)

So what else is new...hmm hmm hmm...I've been REALLY interested in polygamy lately and I've read some amazing books written by women who were forced into plural marriages then later escaped from it. I've been learning a lot about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) church, which is the group that's been on the news a lot lately with Warren Jeff's trial and the kids seized from the Yearn for Zion ranch in Texas. I TOTALLY recommend these books I've read to anyone who basically really wants to better appreciate their own lives, especially if you're like me and married to a totally wonderful, loving man (and you're the only wife!):

"Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife" by Irene Spencer
"Escape" by Carolyn Jessop
"Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs" by Elissa Wall

I'm still reading Elissa Wall's book right now, which is the most relevant for me because she's actually four years YOUNGER than I am. I liked reading all of these books because each one is written by a woman from a different generation, so you can slowly see the evolution of the FLDS church from being slightly more tolerant and "normal" to being the totalitarian hell created by Warren Jeffs. So, yeah, I definitely recommend these books, if only to become aware of a culture that exists in modern day America which I didn't even know about. I also watched the first two seasons of "Big Love," the show on HBO that is about a polygamous family living in the Salt Lake City suburbs. It's really a great show, and reading the books helped me to better understand how life was like on "the compound" and also the subtle parallels the show makes between the relationship of Roman Grant and his son Albert to Rulon Jeffs and his son Warren. Definitely a really interesting show and I'm looking forward to the third season (whenever they get around to airing it...bleh.)

Um...what else...I'm (slowly) starting work on a new Renaissance dress that I hope to have finished by next month for the Sterling Faire. It's going to be red and HOT! Well, hot in both senses of the word...I'm going to make it totally without commercial patterns, so this will be my first big foray into that way of sewing. I'm going to be making the bodice basically from the pattern I drafted for my Elizabethan corset, so at least I'll sort of be familiar with that. I'm going to make it sleeveless, but also going to sew removable straps that I can attach to the shoulders if I feel like changing it up. I want to make the entire dress reversible, too, so it's going to take a LOT of planning. I want to sew the whole thing with French seams (phew!) if I can...and also I'm going to do cartridge pleating on the skirt. All in all I think it's going to look really cool when I'm done. I'll make sure to post some pictures. I have the fabric already for the outside of the dress, so I need lining and also fabric to make a chemise and maybe also an underskirt. Phew. I'm going to be busy!

So today I'm off from work so I'm going to check out a fabric store a few miles away to see if they have anything. The Joann's around here is pretty ghetto, though I heard the Wal-Mart (eeeew!) near the mall has a decent fabric department so I *might* check that out if I am just totally desperate. It's been DISGUSTINGLY hot here the past few days...upper 80's with about 99% humidity. It's not *too* bad out today, though, and the heat is supposed to break on Wednesday. Yesterday Zach and I went to the little zoo right down the street from us (which actually had a lot of animals...very cool!) then we went and got ice cream so it was like we had a real little date instead of sitting around playing video games all day! I've been working a LOT of hours the past two weeks, so it's definitely nice to have a couple of days off. I also have Friday off, which is good, but also not good cause that means my paycheck is going to be smaller next time around.

Ok, wel, I definitely updated, so I think I'm going to get dressed and head over to that fabric store now. Hoping it isn't this tiny shack filled with quilting material, but it can't hurt to check it out. Hope all my LJ buds are doing well!

Actually, I'm not, but apparently I was at work this morning. One of my customers at the cafe told one of the cashiers at the front of the store something along the lines of, "The girl at the cafe is really friendly and cheerful, but really chipper! She needs to lay off the coffee!"

WTF, dude?! I didn't HAVE ANY COFFEE THIS MORNING! That's just called working in retail! Haha, whatever. I don't care cause I made $4 in tips in about 10 minutes. It was hella sweeeeeet. And I got a 5/5 on my secret shop done by one of my supervisors who NEVER gives out 5's! I was rocking it today. I also got to be up to my elbows in coffee grounds since we put the used ones in bags for people to take home for their gardens. I got to be all messy like a little kid!

After work Zach and I went to Panera Bread. We ate outside cause it was really nice in the shade. I'm super sad that he's going away for a month, but I'm a big girl so I can handle it! I'm just going to hopefully hang out with some work friends and maybe write some fan fiction! At the very least, I can get caught up with all of my online buddies' fan fics, which will be great!

desdiamonds tagged me to do this, so I guess I will ;) Granted I haven't been listening to too much new music, but here are the seven songs I've probably listened to the most recently.

Cause I never have anything interesting to say! But I'm going to do my darndest to think of SOMETHING!

I'm still SO into The 69 Eyes. I just watched a couple of music videos (again) today, and I am just in awe of them. How can one band be just so darn COOL? I mean, each member is so COOL! I just want to hang out with them and bask in their coolness. They're recording a new album right now (YAYNESS!) so hopefully once that's done they'll do an American tour again! I am so there.

In two weeks I'm going home to Massachusetts for a visit. I'll be staying with my best friend and we're going to see Eddie Izzard live together! I'm going to take a day to go down to Kingston and spend it in my woods (hopefully I'll be able to pull myself away...) Then a bunch of my friends are getting together to go to The Medieval Manor which will be cool, though we're not going to dress up because apparently no one does. *tear!* Oh well, at least we'll get to see what it's like there cause I've never been. Sarah and I are planning on hopefully going to The Garment District, too, which is this really cool, huge, consignment store in Boston. I've only been there once, so I'm looking forward to going again.

Work's been poopie lately, and I'm just trying to stay positive and get through a few more months until we find out what's going on with Zach's job. He wasn't able to make this deadline for the Warrant Officer application, so he's submitting for the July one. He's been putting together  his Class A's (since he's in a new unit and also has a crapload more ribbons and stuff from his last deployment) and he looks so smexy in them. Yay for Class A's! I just wish he still got to wear his BDU's cause the ACU's still make me want to barf. They're so fugly!

I finished uploading all of my fan fic onto Gluttony, so now I'm still doing the "Should I actually sit down and try to write a sequel" debate. Zach has to go into the field for 2 weeks in May, so I'm thinking, pending how much I have to work, I could get a good chunk of writing done then. I just have so many cool idea for scenes...I just need to, well, flesh out the plot a bit more in my head.

A-chan is still fat and Nimmy still stinks. I have the two stinkiest cats in the world. A-chan's quickly ending up like Dudley Dursley in that he's wider than he is tall. And he is still such a CRYBABY! He howls in the morning, then I go check his food bowl and it's totally full! He looks at me all like, "But MUMMA! It COULD have been empty! You wouldn't have known! I could have been DYING out here!"

Re-reading "Biting the Sun" has been depressing me...it's just such a good book! But I got so depressed reading it the other night that I had to actually get out of bed and play Katamari for a while to cheer myself up. The book made me cry, which sort of triggered my normal depression. But it's just such a good book! I'm almost done reading it, and then I think I'm going to read "Stardust" cause I just bought it. I'm thinking of re-reading "The Silver Metal Lover," but since BtS is making me cry so much, I don't know if that's a good idea. 0_o

Ok, Zach's getting ready for bed so I guess I should too. He's got a four-day weekend, lucky little poo...oh well...at least I don't have to be to work till 1 (though I actually prefer opening and then getting to leave earlier...*sigh*) So, off to bed for me!

I really can't believe how DUMB people are. Take, for instance, today's changes to the HarryPotterFanFiction.com webpage. It has been renamed: "HPShippersUnite." On the main page they have stated that they were all so disappointed with the way that DH turned out that the only ships that will now be accepted is Sirius/Lily and Harry/Cho. If you look at the posted stories, all the ones that do not feature one of these two ships have been deleted. But if you actually READ the new rules, it becomes GLARINGLY APPARENT that this is all a joke. Uh...remember what DAY it is tomorrow, people? And what day it is currently in parts of the world like Australia? Yes, it's April Fools. I was confused for about 10 seconds before I actually LOOKED at the page. Now, I have some online friends who were freaking out, but they totally "got it" once we reminded them that it's April Fools Day tomorrow. But there are people still over at the HPFF forums totally wigging out because their stories have been deleted. I was trying to convince people over there that it's ONLY A JOKE, but gave up. It was a losing battle to begin with.

So, I've been spending the day updating my story on Gluttony Fiction! And, in case people missed this in the past: I have a sweet forum for Harry Potter fans who are over the age of 18! Right here --> Elderly Harry Potter Fans Forum. It's really fun and I've made some awesome friends there! All you peeps on my f-list should join up. reallyginnyfand desdiamonds already have! It's only a matter of time before I get you tooooo....

Besides all of that HPFF shenanigans, I haven't been doing much. Still working a lot. I just read Twilight and thought it was pretty much crap. It had a couple interesting parts, but not enough to warrant at least 3 book sequels and a major Hollywood movie adaptation. All of my Twilight-loving friends are mad at me. Oh well. I just reread The Last Unicorn for the first time in about 15 years and finally got to read the mini sequel, Two Hearts. Oh my god those books had me bawling my eyes out. I guess that's why I wasn't so impressed with Twilight. After reading Peter S. Beagle, anyone is going to seem mediocre (and worse so if they really are...) I'm stuck on what to read next. I really need a new Discworld book, but I might settle for reading Biting the Sun again. I love that book and I haven't read it for a year or so. I lent The Black Jewels Trilogy to my friend Silvana, who totally loved it and read it two days. I should make a chart of who I've converted to those books and who those people have converted. It would stretch on forever!

So I'm getting hungry and I have Netflix movies to watch so I can send them back and get Sweeny Todd! Finally I get to see Alan Rickman in all of his creepy glory!

Ugh, I feel like I never have anything interesting to say anymore! But I'll try my darndest...

Ok. Let's see....well, Zach and I are both back to perfect health which is VERY NICE! However Zach's part of this team at work who are working on this big project (uh...fixing helicopters I assume...) so he's been working 12 hour days and I haven't seen too much of him lately :( But that's ok cause I'd rather it be that than him be in the field for like 2 months XD

TV's been pretty good. I was really happy that Christian won "Project Runway" cause he is just CHOU KAWAII!! "America's Next Top Model" is on again, and I sort of watch it by default. I hate all of the annoying drama they pump into every episode, but I really like the fashion and the photographs so I end up watching every season. Bummer, though, that Twiggy's gone as a judge. I heart Twiggy! She was just so cool. "Hotel Babylon" just started up a third season and I downloaded the episodes that have aired so far. I really like that show...Emma Pierson is just TOO CUTE FOR WORDS! Too bad her hair's a bit dark in the show, and she wears to much make-up to really look like Avrille, but she's still my Avrille nevertheless! I'm really happy that the woman who played the Hotel Manager, Rebecca, appears to be gone cause I wasn't a big fan of her or her character. Zach and I are still playing "CSI" catch-up and we're in Season 8. Still haven't started watching this season of "Lost" yet, but we'll get there eventually. We usually end up putting it off, then get REALLY into it once we start watching so we'll go through about four episodes a night. I figure we're just stockpiling them until that happens.

Zach and I watched a REALLY good, cute movie the other night, "Stardust" which was based on the Neil Gaiman book. I LOVED IT! It was a lot like "The Princess Bride" in respect to pacing and sense of humor. Oh it was too cool. Not to mention the character of Septimus...that REALLY freaked me out cause that's what I named Snape's father in my fan fic and the actor who played Prince Septimus in "Stardust" could TOTALLY work as Snape's dad! I was freaking out, and Zach thought I was weird. I thought the choreography for Septimus', er, "final" battle at the end was simply stunning. The fact that it was really him using wires and not computer-generated helped restore a bit of my faith in the movie industry. It was seriously the best bit of fight choreography I've seen since "V for Vendetta." I'd recommend the movie just for that one scene.

Let's see, what else. The (ahem, $14,000) espresso machine's busted at the cafe, so we haven't been able to make hot drinks since Saturday. People are pretty disappointed, but fortunately no one's been really cranky and rude to me over it. Dan and Luke are probably both leaving soon which makes me want to CRY, cause they're both probably getting new jobs with much higher pay. It's going to suck, though. I love all of the girls who work at the cafe, but it's just fun to have guys around too. I'm still working at Pier 1, which is fine. Zach's in the process of applying for a Warrant Officer job, and if he gets it we'll probably be BACK in Alabama for about 40 weeks for his school. Can you believe it?! At least we'd be pretty close to the Gulf Coast so maybe we could take a weekend and go to the beach! That would be awesome, and I'd also be right in the middle between my mom's and grandmother's houses, so I could probably visit both of them. My mom's going with Joanna and Katrin to Florida to visit my grandmother in April. WAAAH! I WANNA GO TOOOOOO! I'm SO SICK of winter here! The cold doesn't really bother me, though I am dying to wear cute spring clothes, but the SNOW is just insane! I'm so sick of driving in blizzards and wondering if I'll be able to get my car out of the driveway.

Wow, I guess I did end up having a decent amount to say! Today's my Mommy's birthday, so I want to give a SHOUT OUT to her, even though she'll NEVER see this. Also a late shout-out Birthday greeting to both my awesome little sister, kami_chama  and the LOVELY Sakurai Atsushi of BUCK-TICK. March 7th is a great day!! I feel like I need to make some more icons. Yes, icons. And see what the %$#@ my cousin, ftsor is up to lately. However I can't complain cause she's been WAY better than me with updating. Gosh darn little goody two shoes. XD

Just a random note here, but I'm in serious review withdrawal. I haven't had a new review for my fan fiction, The Dream of One Night, in like, TWO WHOLE DAYS! The queue is 6 days and I've been waiting that long for my latest chapter to be validated. But, come ON, TDoON readers, SHOW ME SOME LOVE! I'm DYING OVER HERE!! DYING I TELL YOU! On a related note, I'm almost done re-reading "Half-Blood Prince" and dreading starting "Deathly Hallows" again. I think I'm just going to be a sobbing mess all over again. But it will be good to read that book cause I BARELY remember it. I remember I cried a lot and they did a lot of camping out in the woods...and Lee Jordan made some crack about Snape's hair that made me angry. Really, that's about it.

I need friends.

I'm super sorry that I've been a sucky updater lately, but things have BEEN kind of sucky, so I guess the last thing I felt like doing was regurgitating it all up again through LiveJournal. But I promised several people that I would update today, so here I am, even though I don't feel like doing this right now!

So, yeah, every single one of my special February days ended up sucking. First off, Zach had to have all four wisdom teeth out on Valentines Day, poor thing. They were all out so they only needed to be pulled, which was quick, but still left him very uncomfortable for a few days. So no happy happy, kissy kissy for us. I also had a stomach bug so I couldn't even eat my own candy. To make things worse, on the 23rd (our "How Long We've Been Together" anniversary) Zach had a delayed allergic reaction to antibiotics he had been prescribed for his wisdom teeth so we spend most of the day in the ER. Then on Monday, my birthday, I cam down with the flu and I'm still a little sick. I took Tuesday off of work (I really had to...there was no way I could work) but I made myself go to Pier1 one last night and I went to the cafe today. Fortunately both were pretty short shifts and I have a shortish one tomorrow. So, I guess you can see why I haven't felt like updating with all of THAT fun stuff going on.

The forum is still going well, though I barely have time to keep up with it. I'll probably very slowly, bit by bit, lose track of what's going on and eventually have to pass my admin duties off to someone else. Hopefully that won't be for a while, but it's obviously going to happen someday. I really don't have anything else to say...I'm out of touch with most of my family, all of my real friends and most of my online friends...I have no time what-so-ever to do anything between work and sleeping except keep up with the forum. God this sounds so depressing...I seriously don't have anything cool going on. I've made some friends through work, but we're all so busy working that we never have time to hang out. I feel like Zach and I are making no progress with our debt, even though I'm working myself sick, and that's really depressing. Zach's trying to become a Warrant Officer which would really help us out, and hopefully we'll get a lot of money back from our taxes. Even though I like both of my jobs, I'm so sick of working so much. I think I might have to force myself to take a couple days off in the week, even though we need the money. Ok this is boring and self-pitying enough. But at least I posted so people won't think I'm dead. I'm going to try and get off of the computer now cause it just makes me feel icky...

Sorry, I've been a little distracted lately so my LJing's been a bit neglected. And the RPG. Oh my god I think I better go composition notebook smack myself this instant...I'm SORRY, RPG-LADIES!! Though, for all I know, NO ONE ELSE HAS UPDATED IT EITHER!

Ok, the main reason, besides work, for my recent absence is that I sort of ended up co-founding this forum for older (as in college-age or above) Harry Potter fans and fan fic writers. It started out as a thread I posted on the HPFF.com forums, but then another user, the lovely JLHufflepuff (check out her stories! They rock!) decided we just needed our own space. So, if you're older and want to check us out, please do!

Elderly Harry Potter Fans Forum (JL made the name...not me!)

So, that's what I've been up to. I finished Discworld (WAH!) so I'm re-reading Harry Potter again with the aim of making up my mind whether or not I should write a sequel to The Dream of One Night (<-insert shameless plug and link here). I probably will. I have no fan fiction will-power. I SWEAR that will be the last one, though.

Silvana from work tried to get me to play Everquest II. I downloaded it, played five minutes, then started to feel nauseated. MMORPG's do that to me for some reason. So I had to regretfully tell her that I wouldn't be joining her in her Everquest leveling pursuits. Silvana, Jodi (a customer who's our friend) and I all went out to dinner and to see "The Eye" last weekend. It was nice to do something with REAL LIFE FRIENDS! Very cool. The movie wasn't bad either. I'd seen the original, and I think they actually did a pretty decent job of adapting it. Oooh yeah, and there's some new HBP set pictures out, with Snape-a-doodle in them! Yay for Alan Rickman in a WIG! I've been pretty stoked about those tonight.

Ok, I REALLY need to get to bed. Like I should have REALLY gotten to bed an hour ago. Off to read PoA, then. In case you're curious, I have my period which means A) I'm not preggers and B) I'm feeling CRAPPY and feel like I'm dying.

I am so super stoked cause I just did my first load of laundry in our new WASHER AND DRYER!!! I never thought I would be so excited over an appliance in my life, but after three months of going to the laundromat we were SO ready for it! We actually ended up being able to afford it because we're getting two months of BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) for free cause we don't have to start paying rent directly until March. Woot woot!! We also ended up getting a brand-new fridge since the door seal on our old one wasn't good and apparently it was easier for the maintenance guys to just replace the whole thing. It's bigger and shinier than ever! (Well, maybe not really shiny...)

So today is shaping up to be a pretty gosh darn good day. I worked 8-1:30 so I got to come home nice and early. I stopped at Target to get some sticky hooks so I FINALLY got my awesome Pier 1 eucalyptus wreath hung on our front door, I cleaned up and vacuumed, and now I'm making some bruschetta with cheese to eat while I watch OotP!! Woot woot woot!! And to make today even more cool:

IT'S U-TA'S BIRTHDAY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, U-TA-CHAN!!! I LOVE YOU AND YOUR LITTLE UT-A CIRCLES!!

I've been working a lot this week, and will be just as much next week. Between my two jobs I'm clocking in 30-34 hours a week or so...it's good to be making a good amount of money, but my hobbies have rather suffered. I still haven't found time to practice guitar which is really getting me down and I have a lot of HP fan fic reviews which I really need to get on top of. Obviously I've had no time to work on any new fan fic myself, though I do really want to write a sequel to TDoON still, or at LEAST a spin-off one-shot or two.

Well, I'm kind of out of it so maybe I'll edit this later to put more interesting info in. In case anyone is marginally interested, I made a few sweet BUCK-TICK icons which I posted on two fan communities I belong to. If you're interested, you can check them out here: buck_tick. I'm quite proud of them, especially my U-ta/Toll Tag Team one! (in case you don't know anything about B-T, which is fairly likely, U-ta is the bassist and Toll is drummer. Toll is also U-ta big brother so icons with the two of them are just so cute!) There's also a couple smexy Atsushi ones that I know ftsor will be interested in (once we resurrect her from LJ death that is...) [Come ON, Elise! There's even one from the Climax Together concert with his pretty pretty long hair!!]

 And here's a poll because this one is just too awesome not to do:

I don't have anything specific to say, but everyone else's updating, so why not? Um. Haven't been doing anything except some reviews on my HPFF forum thread for lovely people who request them. Still debating writing a sequel to "The Dream of One Night." I really REALLY should be working on an original work (because I know those characters are just beyond seething mad at me...) but I just keep getting the most awesome ideas for a new Sevie and Avrille fic!! Dang it all. I want so much to go to Portus, but I'm seriously thinking it's just not going to happen. We are just really short of money right now, and even though we might be able to afford it in July, I'd have to make the reservations now and I just don't think I could swing it. I'm so sorry, RPG ladies!!! Maybe next year, if they do one, I can go! Hopefully we'll all still be in touch then! No, we WILL! I am very hard to get rid of, so you better LIKE me being your friend! Mwa ha ha. Besides, I was thinking that if The 69 Eyes do another US tour, I really REALLY have to go to it. Like, that isn't even an option for me. So I better save my money for that...*sigh*

I started randomly playing Animal Crossing the other day, which is so nice and relaxing. I love that game. I also got Cooking Mama 2, which is NOT relaxing! That game is even harder than the first one... A-chan is laying in the sun right now which is just so cute! He's so fat, but that just means that there's more of him to love.

I think ftsor is dead. I haven't heard from her in like, TWO or THREE BLEEDING WEEKS, CUZ! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?! I heard from the Grand-Mama that you guys were sick, so I hope you're all better now :D

I feel like I should be Photoshop-ing, but there's nothing I feel like making. I should be making more icons for my little kami_chama, but I'm just so poopie. I'll probably go back to bed here. I have to work the next three days so I need to get all of the naps in that I can. Gosh I live for naps. Naps naps naps...I love you so...naps are the best.

Well, I had this idea last night in the shower that since I have so many new LJ buddies lately, they might be slightly interested to know a bit more about me besides the fact that I'm in love with Snape. So here it goes...

I found this. It's bloody hilarious. I've only read the Occlumency scene (cause, you know, it's me...). Go check it OUT!

The Order of the Phoenix Film in Ten minutes (Part 2)

Yes. Going to bed now. Riiight.

Ok, I think I might have written this before, but since I want lots of people to read my Snape fic (it already being on FF.net, Fiction Alley, and HPFF.com) I submitted it to Sycophant-Hex (Occlumency) and The Petulant Poetess. Ok, so I got this e-mail from Occlumency this morning, listing an INSANE amount of corrections I needed to make to my first chapter. Now some of them were totally reasonable, like I had a couple of typos I never noticed (which is insane given the number of times I've read it through) so that was really good to know about. And, ok, their comma corrections were PROBABLY correct, but I'm of the school of thought that if you have an introductory clause, you only need a comma if you would naturally pause there, like to offset something. So I found them to be a little bit comma-Nazi. But THIS just freaking pissed me off:

"--My eyes rested on a wizard, a little older than me,['me' s/b I] {Knowing when to use 'I' or 'me' can be tricky, but if you complete the thought: ...a little older than I am... it can help you decide which to use.}"

Ok, who the hell would actually say, "A little older than I"?!?! HELLO! IT'S CALLED COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH, YOU BAKA-HEADS! The whole point of my fic being in the first person was that I wanted it to sound like the character was actually talking to you. So, yeah, maybe for Severus I might want to do it their way, but Avrille is laid back and cool and wouldn't worry about picky stuff like that in her speech. Ok. I'm done. I just had to rant. That e-mail reminded me once again why I decided to not pursue an English degree in college. Bunch of uptight, rule-obsessed, holier-than-thou morons. I guess it just really made me mad given the sort of fics I was reviewing myself yesterday. I let a LOT slide. And I'm sorry, but I think my fic is a LOT more sophisticated and clean than most others out there. God dammit that made me angry.

UPDATE: Apparently The Petulant Poetess lives up to their name and have their wands even further up their bums than Occlumency. Besides other things, they wanted me to put spaces after all of my ellipses (...'s) WTF, PEOPLE?! IS THAT REALLY ENOUGH TO DENY ME POSTING? YOU BLOODY COMMA, ELLIPSES NAZIS!

But yes. I'm done with that now. I'm obviously NOT going to correct most of those mistakes and I am no longer going to submit to them since I am NOT going through that for 38 more chapters (where I also have to put in my own html tags. Cheap bakas.) So we'll see how TPP turns out.

Well I had to work today so I'm kind of tired. Probably going to take a nappie now, and then get some more reviews done tonight. Yay! Looking forward to that. The requests I put in for my own story to be reviewed are going through now, so it's nice to check my HPFF page and see there's new stuff to read! Before I go I wanted to share a few pictures with you guys of my two insane kitty-babies, A-chan (named after the lead singer of BUCK-TICK, Sakurai Atsushi) and Nimue (named after the character in Arthurian legend). These were just too awesome not to share.

I figured I should do once since everyone else is...let's see...we had a pretty cool Christmas. Zach got me lots of neat-o things: A Domo-kun t-shirt (that says "doki" in katakana...I think that's like a heartbeat...I have to look it up), a set of Skelanimals ornaments, a Skelanimal kitty pin and a Charmander pin (Charmander Charmander!!), a mini Sweeny Todd poster, three adorable little plush beanie babies (A bear, a tiger, and a wolf...he was going for lions and tigers and bears, OH MY but couldn't find a lion...), the first DVD of "Death Note" mostly for the sweeeet Ryuk figurine it came with, a nice warming neck massager, and a sweeeeeeeet back massager (one of those ones shaped like a seat that you put into a chair and just veg out. Very very nice.) My grandmother also sent us matching red fleece Columbia zip-ups which was neat-o too. Our kitties enjoyed their presents, but they enjoyed all of the wrapping paper more. We still haven't bothered to clean all of it up since Nimue has been having so much fun attacking it. She and A-chan are both sleeping right now, gathering their strength for another nighttime Mumma and Daddy assault.

I spent the whole day reviewing fan fiction, which was ok. I'm not sure exactly how long I'll be able to keep this up, but at least for the moment it's getting me to read things that I normally wouldn't. Which is pretty much ALL fan fiction except those written by people I actually know (RL or LJ, whatever.) My composition book smacking rampage seemed to have a slight affect, but of course we still have the problem of BOTH of our RPG mods being unable to get online at the moment. Hopefully that will all work out soon because I've already posted again, meaning that I have to WAIT for other people. Oh well. C'est la Vie (Sailor V? Where?)

I have to go to work tomorrow which is sucky, but it's only for 5 hours which is both sucky and not. It's nice cause it's not a long shift, but I'm a tiny bit concerned that I only have 10 hours this week at Borders. Hopefully it's only a temporary thing and next week it will be back to normal because I'll start getting paranoid that I did something wrong and they're cutting my hours without telling me. I'm already wondering if I'm even still working at Pier 1 cause my name wasn't on the schedule for next week. Hmmm. Very strange.

Damn I wish people would review MY fan fic...*sigh.* You get such a rush from reviews, and then you get used to having them and it really sucks when they stop. I've started posting my fic on both Sycophant-Hex (in Occlumency) and The Petulant Poetess because I'm so desperate for people to read it. I mean, I look at certain stories that, to put it blunty, SUCK (horrid spelling, terrible punctuation, and 2D plots...) and they have hundred of reviews. WTF is that? I put three bloody YEARS into my story, and it's twice as long as the Chamber of Secrets book on which it is based. And I don't want to be vain, but my story KICKS ASS (that is, if you're a Snape fan. Otherwise, um, yeah, you probably won't like it. No, I take that back...it WILL MAKE YOU like Snape! Cause he's purty. In my mind.) Ok, shameless self-promoting rant over. I'm just frustrated. But not really...sigh.

I can't believe I'm almost done reading all of "Discworld." I've read TWENTY-SEVEN of those books so far, which is utter insanity. And I started less than a year ago...probably in February. For Christmas Eve I watched the first half of "Hogfather" again (even without commercials it's still hella long. And FYI, Borders is selling the dvd exclusively. Pick it up! Yay!) and then Zach and I watched Christmas episodes of Futarama and Family Guy. Then we went to bed. It was rather nice...nice quiet Christmas without going long distances to see family. Of course that would be nice too, but we wanted to have one Christmas with just THE TWO OF US for once. I mean, come on people.

Damn this is rambly. Sorry. Didn't know I had this much left in me after all of that reviewing. Got to find something to do now...that isn't napping. Since I have to go to bed kind of earlier than normal...but...want...to...nap....zzzz

There. I did it. I totally just went around and smacked every RPG lady with my composition notebook of utter doom and divine judgment. OK, GIRLS?! Can we PLEASE get this thing moving now? :D I'll give you one day's respite since it's Christmas tomorrow, but after that, let's get back to having some RPG fun!

And just to be fair, I'll smack myself as well. *smack* Ow. Severus' fists of steel cut to the bone ($5 if anyone knows where that line comes from...Nanners might...)

(Hehehe! Look at the little annoyed blue bobble thing! He's soooo cute!! What a FACE!)

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UPDATE: I just (finally) finished the drabble I promised desdiamonds I would write for her friend, reallyginnyf, who wanted a story about Snape at Christmas. This is my first actual canon Snape thing I've ever written, so that's kind of weird for me. I hope my OC, Avrille, won't be too pissed...

I think all of my LiveJournal friends are dead. I think the RPG is dead. It makes me sad. Dead, I said, dead. DON'T make me go on another RPG rant, ladies. You don't want to see Snape REALLY pissed off. So save yourself lots of composition book smacks and post something! I want to know what is going on in that bleeding meeting already! XD

So, yes, I'm pretty gosh darn golly excited cause I am officially done with work until Thursday! Miraculously neither of my two jobs scheduled me until then, so I have a few days of well-deserved rest and (hopefully) writing. I signed up to do free reviews for people on the HarryPotterFanFiction forums so I have a few people waiting on that. I ALSO have to get a drabble for Desi done by Christmas (and I will! I will! I have ideas and time now!) so that's very important. Maybe I can start a little work on some new writing for me, too.

A brief FYI here: beer and balsamic vinegar do NOT go well together. *gagging*

What else what else...Zach and I saw "I am Legend" last weekend. Most depressing movie I have seen in a VERY long time. Seriously, by 10 minutes in I was bawling my eyes out and I really never stopped. Don't get me wrong, it was VERY good and VERY well made, but not something you want to see if you're in the mood for lighthearted family fun. Actually, not really a family movie at all. Granted it was TECHNICALLY PG-13, but that was because there were no really bad swears or sex in it. However I found it to be WAY too disturbing and upsetting for young kids, and there WERE young kids there, maybe their parents thinking it was like "Independence Day" or something. But yeah, really really heart-wrenching and the most believable, scary, upsetting zombie-esque movie I've ever seen.

I also watched the movie "1408" last night with John Cusack. Also really good, at least for a horror movie. It was funny but the little things that happened to him in the room in the beginning scared the crap out of me WAY more than the intense, crazy stuff later. I guess cause that's like the kind of stuff that could happen at my Grampa's (old) house so it freaked me out more. Yeah, I guess what I've learned is I am way more scared by things that could really happen. Like I think "I am Legend" could totally happen, and it also had that "abandoned city" thing going on which also scares the hell out of me. That's probably why I like the Silent Hill games so much. Abandoned towns are WAY scary! Oh yeah, on another abandoned place movie note, I also saw  "Session 9" which was filmed in a real abandoned mental institution in Danvers, MA. Too bad they've since torn the place down to make bloody condos and apartments. God I hate this country...it was a really beautiful building too, even though it was uber creepy. Now I have "Zodiac" to watch and the 7th season of "CSI." Man, what is the MATTER with me? I just like creepy, scary, psychological stuff.

You know what I wish I had with me here in NY? My Harry and the Potters (and friends) "A Magical Christmas of Magic" cd. I have it on my iPod, so I could technically listen to it through my speakers, but I want it on my computer. Wow, this post is actually kind of long. I didn't think I had that much to talk about. I heard that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's, which makes me want to seriously cry. I mean, what a hellish, horrible thing to happen to a writer. So I've been pretty down about that lately, but still trying to enjoy "Night Watch" which rocks my world since you get to read about Lord Vetinari when he was in Assassin school. Cause he's hot. And assassins are hot. So Vetinari + assassin = uber special hot. I'm going to eat dinner now. Then probably go to bed (or stay up late watching a movie. You know, either one.)