And that's about all that this is going to be. It's been so long since I've updated that I just don't feel like recapping everything that happened. Let's see, I quit my job at the end of June because a) I needed two weeks solid off for Zach's R&R leave and I didn't know if they would give it to me and b) I was getting freaking sick of annoying juvinille delinquent girls running away from the place EVERY SINGLE DAY meaning many many police reports and paperwork for me to deal with every single shift. Besides, we had paid all of our credit cards off, so we really didn't need the money anymore.

Zach came home in July and we had lots of fun. We went to Massachusetts but Zach going a horrendous sun burn at the beach so the rest of that week kind of sucked. But we got to go to IKEA on the way home and get lots of new fun apartment things!  We also made it to the Sterling Renaissance Faire, but it was about 90 degrees so we were pretty miserable and didn't stay the whole time. We're hoping to try and make it to King Richard's Faire in October if Zach's home on time and he has a four-day-weekend that falls at a good time. He's due to leave Iraq in a couple of weeks or so now. Right now I'm down in Alabama staying with my mom and sister, which is fun. My mom's become obsessed with "Lost" so we've so far watched three seasons straight since I've been here. Which is fine cause I was in a mood to get back into the show anyway. I'll be headed back up to NY at the end of the month and hopefully be able to get there without dying or having some catastrophic event happen (ok, it wasn't catastrophic, but I blew out a tire on the way down going about 80 mph which was rather scary and I was just glad I wasn't killed and was within 45 miles of my hotel cause the spare wouldn't have taken me much further.)

In a week or so I'll have the new 69 Eyes cd which is pretty awesome. They announced some US tour dates but they're not really coming near me besides NY City which is just too big and scary for me to try to go for a concert. Hopefully they'll make a Boston stop (though I don't know who I could get to go with me there since all my friends there are pretty much gone...)

So yeah, pretty boring, huh? That's why I haven't updated. Cause I don't do anything interesting whatsoever. I was disappointed with the new Harry Potter movie. Maybe if it had come out on time it would have been better, but by the time it came out I just didn't care anymore and then the movie ended up not even being that great. So many parts were just too subdued, like the Sectumsempra scene. I mean, Harry didn't even get in trouble at all. And the whole final face down with Harry and Snape was just...blah. Very disappointing.

One random cool thing: There is a Lacuna Coil song in Guitar Hero III. I've been playing GH more lately and am finally on playing on Hard.

Oh well, if anyone else out there is truly alive, let me know. Cause I think all of us are just maybe a little sick of the internet.

"Why don't I like you?"
"Cause you think I'm an asshole, and I'm not really. I'm just British and, well, you're not."

This is why every single Alan Rickman movie is worth watching. Even the boring ones. Even the ones where he has a mustache.

For some reason my fingers are cold, so I don't know how well this is going to go. I might get really frustrated a paragraph in from having to hit the backspace button and just say "SCREW IT" and give up (funny enough, I only made one typing mistake in that whole sentence. Huh.)

Let's see, let's see...what have I been up to? My buddy Matt came up to visit from Virginia last week. I like to think that he came up to visit me, but it was really to see his lovely girlfriend, Rachel, and I was just this awesome bonus attached to the whole thing. A really awesome bonus. Like a free BUCK-TICK poster. Like the one I got from cdjapan with my new B-T singles, "Heaven" and "Galaxy." Man that was such an awesome surprise...what was I talking about?

( More inane ramblings... )

I have a lot of stuff that I probably should write about, but since I'm feeling lazy (but understandably so since I worked an overnight last night...) I just wanted to share this. You've probably heard a little bit about PETA's new campaign to "Save the Sea Kittens" (which I find slightly confusing because they are not cats. They are fish. PETA, go back to elementary school...)

I just found out about this just now, and I must say that I'm loving Jyrki being in all of these random reality shows! What I didn't like was that I sat through all of Bam Magera's "Where the #$&% is Santa?" for about 15 seconds of Jyrki. That made me sad. But without further ado, I present:

I'll try to manage a real update sometime soon...

I apologize in advance that my life is so boring, as always.

So for some reason, I got the notion suddenly tonight that I was going to practice guitar. So chop chop went the nails on my left hand (which were already pretty short because once they grow past my fingertips they drive me batty trying to type...) and yeah, I just practiced for probably a good fifteen minutes. Which is about all I could do cause my fingertips starting getting that kind of not good red with white lines which turn to white with red lines which if you don't stop turn into blisters. Yes, my callouses are so ridiculously long gone that if I kept going I would have probably gotten blisters. From an electric guitar. Epic sad.

Somehow, even with Christmas and retail therapy and wanting to spend money while ftsor  was here, we still should have about $2,000 in the bank at the end of the month. I know. Crazy. Really crazy. But of course, that will hopefully all go on the credit cards as soon as Zach's 1st of the month paycheck comes in. Though, as a con, our stupid apartment rental people are upping our rent by over $100 a month once we renew our lease next month. Epic lame. I would still like to consider on-post housing, but Zach seems less than enthusiastic about it. Oh well, that's fine as long as he doesn't mind his Bowflex going into the garage once we have a baby. The baby is not going to share its room with work-out equipment.

I need to make some new icons but I'm too lazy to get Photoshop "working." As in, you know, making it stop yelling at me that I only have so and so many days to preview it.

I have decided that I'm going for 1,000,000 roses again in "We Love Katamari." I wonder what the record is in that game...probably some disgustingly high number set by someone with even less of a life than me. I think 2,000,000 is pretty sad and that's what I'm shooting for. 

I only have about 25 minutes left of "Operaatio Maa" to watch. I'm quite sad...watching it makes me want to learn Finnish, but my exploits trying to learn Japanese (which I would have FAR more use for) have taught me to just leave that one alone.

I saw some screenshots from "Star Ocean: Second Evolution" online at rpgamer.com. Rena looks like she's about six years old. "How disturbing..."

I tried to update last week, got about a paragraph in, then just stopped. So I promise I'll finish this one. ftsor  left yesterday, which is super sad but I'm glad that she'll get to be home for Christmas. I spent most of yesterday sleeping, which was awesome. ftsor  also took my car Hotaru away which is also awesome cause now I can pull Zach's car into the garage. Very nice since we got dumped with snow again last night. Yeah, the weather is pretty disgusting right now. (Yeah, Elise, you know how the path from the front door to the driveways was all nice and clear when you left? It's full up of snow again. Gross.)

So I've been watching this Finnish show, "Operaatio Maa" ("Operation Earth" - www.nelonen.fi/nettitv/default.asp) which Jyrki and Jussi from The 69 Eyes are in. It's basically a reality show where three teams each have an environmental cause and they compete to see who can raise enough money for their cause and make the biggest difference. The three teams are Jyrki and Jussi who have the Baltic Sea area (which explains their whole "Pirates of the Baltic Sea" campaign which sort of seemed to come out of nowhere if you didn't know the backstory), Jukka and Jarpi who are from basically the Finnish equivalent of "Jackass" who have to tackle deforestation in Nepal, and Erja and Marti (Marti is the lead singer of one of Finland's biggest bands though I'm not sure who Erja is yet...) who are in Madagascar to try and find alternative engery sources besides disel. Even though I don't know a word of Finnish, it's still interesting to watch and, of course, I'll watch as much Jyrki and Jussi as I can XD In the episode I watched last night I got to hear Jyrki pronounce his last name which was pretty cool. I think that was the phone conversation where Jussi said something kind of rude and the caller hung up on them. Poor boys! The only thing that totally sucks is that the other two teams seemed to go places where no one spoke Finnish and there wasn't a translator so they speak English a lot. However Jyrki and Jussi speak Finnish 98% of the time and then got a bloody translator when they went to Russia. Boo! It is super cute, though, to watch them go around and talk to these serious-looking government officials and environmental people since they're, of course, all dressed up in their goth'n'roll gear and never take their sunglasses off. Something that was so disgustingly cute was that in their first meeting with the other teams where they got their assignments, Jyrki was taking notes in a Misfits notebook! ACK! I just died from his cute fan-boyness. In other news, I just became a fan of "Operaatio Maa" on Facebook and I am the only non-Finnish person there. Very funny. I think my other friends should join so the Finnish people will be like, "Who is this girl and why did she bring her friends?"

Ok, so enough with silly Finnish show where no one who reads this will know what I'm talking about. I'm pretty psyched cause I found this J-drama torrent site so I've been downloading a new dorama which has Takumi from the NANA movie in it, "Brother Beat." It looks really good and I'm almost done getting it. I gave Elise "Nobuta wo Produce" to watch, which I think she'll absolutely love. "AKIRA SHOCK!" I just could never get sick of that dorama.

My mom finally was able to send me all of my movies and video games that I wanted, so I've been playing lots of Katamari again. I've decided to go for 1 million roses again, since I have NO LIFE and it will kill a lot of time. (A-chan just stepped in front of one of my computer speakers. His fat blocks the sound so much that I feel like I've suddenly got partially deaf.) I also started playing "Persona 4" last night and it's pretty good so far. Not much different from the previous one, but at least they're going a very different way with the plot (like the whole "we're a secret group that fights Shadows and goes into this same insanely huge dark tower every night to fight them" was kind of annoying.)

Ok, there, I updated. I'm most likely going back to bed now since I can and I'm going to be very tired in the upcoming days (I'm working 16 hours on Christmas Day. Oh the joy of joys.) Not that I really care since Zach isn't here and I have zero Christmas spirit. I'm much more psyched for Christmas to be over so the sales will start! I'm hoping they'll be huge since people have no money right now. The sales were already pretty big before Christmas, so that makes me think they'll be ever better afterwards because stores will need to empty out and people will have no "motivation" to spend money (except to use their millions of gift cards they got from friends and relatives that have no imagination. But hey, don't let that deter you from giving me a gift card. I love those suckers.) Yes, going back to bed now.

And Starbucks' Christmas Blend coffee is yummy.

I think I might just fall over dead today. It's 6:40 AM, I'm awake, it's 14 degrees outside, and I have to go to work for 17 hours. It *should* hopefully be an easy day, though, and I am getting over 40 hours this week which means I'll have about 3-4 hours of overtime with the meetings I'm going to attend (but that also means that I can't sleep in ALL WEEK...but I think money beats that. I can just go back to bed once I get back home.)

So I just finished re-watching "The Two Towers" last night. It wasn't *quite* as bad as I remembered, but there were still some parts where I was rolling my eyes. Like Faramir's insane Daddy Complex where he's all, "I'm going to send the Ring to Gondor so Father will love me as much as my dead brother, who also desired the Ring!". Yeah. No. Faramir was way too cool for that. Also, what was with every single leader, including Aragorn, being a whiny little pansy?

Movie Aragorn: "I do not know if this is the path for me.Oh dear, should I let Arwen leave Middle-Earth?"
Book Aragorn: "I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. I am the heir of Isuldur, biatch."

Movie Theoden: "Oh woe is me. The orcs will defeat us as Helm's Deep. We're all dead."
Book Theoden: "FORTH EORLINGAS, BIATCH!"

Movie Treebeard: "Oh baroom haroom. We Ents can't do anything. I'm going to go back to being a tree now."
Book Treebeard: "WOOOO! THE ENTS ARE GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR HEAD, SARUMAN YOU BIATCH!"

Yes, ok, so that was rather silly, but I kept getting so annoyed at every character being a little wussy-pants. Tolkien's characters were way stronger and cooler than that. Since I finished reading "The Return of the King" yesterday, I might try to give "The Silmarilion" another shot. I've never been able to finish that book. I don't think I know of *anyone* who has finished that book, except my mom *might* have. But darn it, I WILL finish that book before I die! Just to say that I have. In all honesty, I do remember it getting pretty interesting once you get past all of the angels and demons and stuff and into the history of the Elves. But I stopped reading for some reason like 10 years ago so I have to start all over again. Ok, I really have to go to work now. Oh please let me get through this day quickly so I can come home and go to bed!

I just found an article today saying that the North Shore Theater in MA is going to be doing "Phantom" next spring. Now this is the AWESOME Yeston/Kopit version of "Phantom," not the overly hyped and exposed Andrew Lloyd Webber one which lately just pisses me off (mostly because of the crap movie version they made. Gerard Butler as a "young, sexy Phantom?" WTF is that?)

Anyway, once tickets go on sale I think I'm going to buy 2. I don't know WHO I could get to go with me...I mean, maybe if I can't find anyone my father in law might go with me since he's really into theater as well. I just want to go see this SO FREAKING BAD! I didn't know that anyone still performed this musical and I've never been able to see it. I love the Charles Dance mini-series that is based on the musical. Ugh, so frustrating that I'm out here in no-where New York.

Uh. Yeah. So I'm not that good at updating, though you knew that. Nothing is happening with me. Zach left for Iraq 3 weeks ago, which sucks but I'm doing ok. Just insanely bored and not feeling like being sociable on-line. I'm kind of avoiding my HP forum right now cause I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say and some of the election banter on there a couple of weeks ago just pissed me off. So, yeah. Trying to get ftsor out here to visit me before Christmas so I can have some human companionship and not go totally loopy. I've been watching an insane amount of Netflix movies lately. I'm also re-reading Lord of the Rings, but it's taking me a while cause I pretty much only read it before bed since for the moment I'm not doing any overnight shifts at work because all the part-timer's hours got cut.

Basically I just sit in my appartment all day like a loser and talk to my cats. I am so bored. I don't know how I'm going to last a year in this place. Ugh. I wish the new Animal Crossing didn't look so incredibly boring. Would it have *killed* Nintendo to put a bit of work and ingenuity into that game? I was debating buying a Wii just for it, and now I'm not going to bother. I figure with Persona 4 coming out I'll have something to keep me busy. I still have FFXII to play too, which I always forget about. I'm still holding onto the vain hope that maybe our Xbox 360 will turn up somewhere. It just doesn't make sense that someone would take it out of the box to steal it. Wouldn't they just take the whole box? That makes me hope that we just put it somewhere WEIRD and maybe it will show up once we move or something.

Man, I'm so bored. And I wish that the Mininova site wasn't down right now. Bummer. I need to re-download the Yeston/Kopit "Phantom" soundtrack cause my CD is in Bamie.

So I watched the first half of "The Colour of Magic" last night. It's pretty boring and is combining events from I think 3 books cause you just can't get four hours worth of action out of that first book.

BUT JEREMY IRONS IS FREAKING PLAYING LORD VETINARI. I AM STILL DEAD FROM HAPPINESS.

This is going to be short because if I don't get back to playing "Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness" soon, my head will explode. YAY cause Zachy fixed my car today!! It was insane how long it took him. Basically the part was only $30, and it was pretty easy to get to, but there was this bolt that was little so worn it was ROUND. There was almost no way to get it off. Poor Zachy spent probably a good 6 hours or so just getting the stupid thing off. But he did, we refilled the coolant, and Hotaru-chan is purring now! She's no longer scowly-growly! Or more like ROARING. Geez, the car was insane sounding. It was seriously embarassing to drive it around. Now that it's fixed I have to work on getting rid of it, though :(

I've gone through my first week of job training and I'm pretty wiped. I still have two more weeks to go, but I'm sure I'll do fine. It is making me realize, though, how insanely good I had it at Cardinal Cushing. No playing video games all night at the Children's Home if I work overnight shifts. *sigh* But at least what I'll be doing will be a lot more meaningful (not that the other job wasn't meaningful, I just never really spent time with the kids...) Hopefully I can help some pretty messed up kids straighten out their act so they don't have to end up back in a residential or locked facility. This week was just a LOT of classroom time learning the rules, level system, consequences, paperwork, and how the Home basically works. Next week will be TCI (thereputic crisis intervention, like CPI I had at Cardinal Cushing but called something differed XD) training and then the last week should be spent actually working. Zach and I are most likely not going to be going to MA (WAAH!) cause I really don't think they'll be happy if I ask for a week off before I start actually working there because it seems like whatever I work the third week of training will be my actual shift, so they're counting on me working that the fourth week. Oh well. We're hopefully going to go camping in the Adirondacks instead since I should have a few days off in between shifts.

Er, what else. Been very neglectful of my forum and my writing lately. I'm still supposed to write a Severus chapter for our "Defining Moments" collaboration (which one a Dobby, but certainly not because of my contribution...*sigh*) I'm still reading "The Dresden Files" books. I'm on the 7th one now, so Zachy has a lot of catching up to do! We're pretty strapped for cash for the moment since I don't get paid until training is complete (and all of my stuff is in like fingerprints and my TB test) But then it should be a LOT better than the money I was making at my other TWO jobs.

Ok, that's all I got for now. It's a lot of video game playing and hanging out with Zachy...he's deploying in a month or so, so I'm trying to spend all the time I can with him! After that...uh...LOTS OF ALAN RICKMAN MOVIES ON NETFLIX! YAY!

Ugh, I don't know why I always put off posting so much. Probably cause the stuff that happens in my life is either boring or sucky, so I usually don't feel like going into it in great depth.

Ok, first off, I got that job I wanted so I start training there on Monday. Which means I only have THREE more days left at Borders! That's only ONE WHOLE BEAN EFFING FRIDAY, FOLKS! YIPPEE KYE YAY MOTHER...(oh wait, my little sister reads this...hahaha...) GOOSE!

So that should be cool. I can walk to work in about...oh...2 minutes tops. The edge of my apartment complex abuts the playing fields for the Children's Home. So yeah, very close.

My is very unhappy with me at the moment. I busted the water pump so now whenever I go anywhere, I have to pour about half a gallon of water into the engine so it doesn't overheat. I can't drive Zachy's car because the registration expired and he's off doing run around in the woods Army stuff until Monday (he's been gone over a week now...). At least once he gets home, he should be able to fix my car pretty quickly. It's just the labor I don't want to pay for.

So my fan fiction ended up winning a silver medal on the Dobby Awards, which is pretty cool I guess. Still can't believe that I lost out to a V for Vendetta crossover fic, but then again I didn't really think my fic should have been in the AU category to begin with. I mean, it's not fair that your fic should suddenly be shifted into the AU category just because new canon information came out. That seems kind of stupid. That means that probably 90% of the fics out there should be labeled AU. I probably could take that off, but then I'd have scores of teenie-bopper canon-fanatics complaining, "Snape was a HALF-BLOOD! And he WAS IN LOVE WITH LILY!" Geez, I freaking hear you, but that's what happens when you take YEARS to craft a work of fan fiction art. Later books get released on you. Dammit.

Wondering if maybe the Twilight craze has calmed down a little bit. Fortunately I haven't heard too much about it lately and I see less amounts of teenage girls at Borders clasping their SMeyers books to their young, tender hearts as though they could smush Edward inside of themselves by osmosis. *Sigh*

Er, let's see. A-chan is still fat and Nimmy is looking kind of skinny so I need to keep an eye on her. God, my life is so boring. All work and car trouble. Er...um...I entered a couple of graphics challenges on my forum yesterday. I was in a real Photoshop mood for some reason. So here's what I came up with in case anyone cares:

(Challenge #1: Make a banner of your favorite artist using the quote "When all I have to do is dream")



I can't believe this one came out so well because I honestly didn't do that much to it. 99% of the credit should go to whoever directed BUCK-TICK's "Romance" PV because I didn't mess with the colors and the background just mushed together perfectly. Random thought, but I discovered fonts for Japanese today! Yay! Now I can make my kanji look handwritten. However, I found this out after I submitted this, or else I would have made Acchan's name a little prettier...

(Challenge #2: Make a signature set (100x100 and 500x200) using your favorite flower and scenes from nature.)



I also used a quote on that one (cause we could as long as it was relevant) from the song, "Sakura" by BUCK-TICK since I'm sure most of you know that that's Japanese for cherry blossom. I just liked the image of sakura petals falling in the moonlight or something...very poetic and I think Atsushi would like it XD So yeah, that's what I did last night and this afternoon. I still need to make a signature of Avrille, my fic OC, for another challenge.

Inspired by "Romance" I also made the icon that goes with this post. The kaji spell "yuuwaku" which means "temptation," a very fitting word to be placed next to Mr. Sakurai, I think. I was going to use the old kanji for "sakura" that Acchan uses in his last name on the cherry blossom one, but I thought it was nicer with less stuff on it. I don't think I'll win either challenge since there are so many amazing and talented people on my forum, but it was just really fun to participate!

Um, so yeah. That's about it. I'm slowly trying to catch up with my friends' fics, but I get kind of ADD sitting at the computer and reading so I don't do it as often as I would like to. I got "Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness" for the DS, but haven't played it much cause I'm not loving the interface. I don't like games that don't give you the option to use buttons as well as the touch screen. The gameplay and plot looks good enough to make it worth the money, but I'm still sort of putting off playing it.

So that's it for me. Sorry for those hoping for something mad and exciting from me. It's all very boring here in Watertown. I don't normally do this "posting of lyrics" thing, but Acchan's lyrics are just so freaking beautiful I'm feeling the need to. I never really read these lyrics before, but the song always sounded so sad I sometimes would skip it. Now I'm just going to feel even more sad when I listen to it...

Sakura
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Ah, please close your eyes for me, as if you’re sleeping peacefully
You’re probably already tired of acting, of dreaming, of everything
Your lifeless fingers fell, and you kept looking at me
Your voice made no sound, but you gently murmured

“I’m going soon…” without knowing any way to escape this blue room
Before the moon grows full, gently fly down to me
The waves are washing away, always, “it’s forever”

There’s no help for a broken body
The only medicine is sadness

If only you could sleep here one more time
Because this time, I’ll sing beautifully
If only the glittering stars would die out
Because at the end, I'll weep with my love

Ah, please close your eyes for me, as if you’re sleeping peacefully
You’re probably already tired of acting, of dreaming, of everything

In the fluttering of the full moon, gently fly down to me
The waves are washing away, always, “it’s forever”

There are no tears for deceiving pain
Only lies, and anguish

If only we could meet here one more time
Because this time, I’ll smile beautifully
If only the glittering sea would dry up
Because at the end, I’ll smile with my love

(Translation by the lovely, amazing people over at NotGreatestSite.net! I LOVE YOU!!!)

Ok, I REALLY need to be sewing right now (cause it's already 6:30...eep!) but I know it's a long time since I updated so here I go with a quick one:

Zach and I had massive fun in MA. We decided to skip going to Six Flags (cause it was hot and I didn't feel like walking around all day) and went to IKEA on our way home instead. Yay IKEA!

I had my last day at Pier 1 yesterday (OHTHANKTHELORD) and I have an interview for the job I want on Monday. Wish me luck! I REALLY WANT IT! Zach's geting re-re-deployed in October (I think my head will fall off) so I want this job to help me get through the next freaking year.

I'm a finalist in the Dobby's! Check it out, yo!: HPFF Best AU Story  Please go vote for me if you have an account there! Yay! I WANT TO WIN!! Don't let the "V for Vendetta" CROSSOVER beat me!

Zach and I are headed to the Sterling Renaissance Faire on Saturday, so that's why I have sewing to do (still.) I'm mostly done, though, so I'll be sure to post copious pictures!

I seem to be now known as the resident "Twilight" hater at Borders, which I find very amusing. Almost as amusing as listening to my co-workers try to defend "Breaking Dawn." Lol. It's great! Random loser Renny moment here: Today at work I got down a box of forks and I seriously thought to myself, "Heh heh, maybe Edward lives in here...Heh heh." It was a combination of !fail and !omgwtfthat'sfunny... (Now I feel sorry, Nanners, for sending you "Twilight." It's an ok book for someone your age (no offense) but otherwise you're better of reading manga! Yay for manga! Oh crap-a-doodle I have like 12 of Silvana's mangas that I need to read and get back to her...)

Ok, there's probably lots else I'm forgetting here but I need to get on the sewing machine now. My time is pretty much booked solid until Saturday so I have no more time to slack off! Go Renny go! Go make your blouse! Ack!

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. ginnyjfand 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!