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!

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'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:

Yeah, I've been SICK busy lately. The fun started on Friday. I was scheduled to work at Borders from 9AM to 6PM which was fine until I get a call (at work) from Pier 1 wondering where I am. Because apparently I was supposed to be at work THERE an hour ago. Now I SWEAR that the manager at Pier 1 said that because of various scheduling reasons I would no longer be needed on Fridays and Saturdays there, so of course I signed up for more Friday hours at Borders (thinking I'd take Saturday off as well as Monday so I wouldn't go totally nuts). Anyway I guess the manager at Pier 1 meant that I was only not needed for Friday and Saturday that one week. Which is nuts cause I totally asked her if this was PERMANENT. Oh well. So I felt bad leaving the assistant manager who was on alone to close, so I valiantly headed over to Pier 1 once my Borders shift was over. So, yes, I worked over 12 hours on Friday. That sucked. And yesterday was pretty sucky too. Since we had a major snowstorm here, lots of people were scheduled to work at Borders (it being Sunday and almost Christmas) but of course almost no people came to the mall. I was supposed to be on the front register (AGAIN, which is pissing me off cause I am SUPPOSED to be at the bloody CAFE which I signed up for!) and since I was back-up reg and no one was there, I arranged manga and sci-fi/fantasy books. For EIGHT HOURS. Oh god it was terrible. I just BETTER be in the freaking cafe for the rest of this week or else I am going to be majorly pissed off.

In other news, I think I might need to give up guitar for the moment. I'm just working so much that I don't have the time to dedicate to it that I really need to. It sucks. I'm mad about it. But we need money more right now than I need guitar, so hopefully I can pick it up again once I'm not working so much. Zach and I got a Christmas tree on Saturday, and we're going to try and actually get it decorated tonight. I have to go out and buy some lights...which means I have to shovel my car out of the driveway first (thank you plows for creating your mountains of snow on the entry to my driveway.) Ugh. At least it's sunny out today, but it's still about 23 degrees.

Well, I don't have much more to say. I still need to get some more Christmas presents for Zach...MAYBE I'll head over to the mall today and do that. Ick. I don't want to go all that way, but I won't have much time before the big day and it might be nice to just walk around and relax. Ick ick ick though...hopefully the roads are a bit better.

On a final note, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU RPG GIRLS DOING OVER THERE?! I mean, I know that everyone was busy with finals, but as I take it those were over for most of you a few days ago. Let's get going on this! It's really boring and depressing to check the RPG and see that no one has updated. This could be really fun if everyone would just put in a little bit of effort. I'm working two jobs and I still manage to get a bit in there. It doesn't have to be novel-length, just a few sentences to give everyone an idea of where it's going! Don't let the RPG die!

I've been online pretty much all day today, and I have no idea exactly what I did...well, I did make a couple of photoshopped icons for Nanners since I am NEVER going to get her drabble done. I just finished this sweet new Jyrki one that I made from a screen grab I took from The 69 Eyes' "Lost Boys" video. There are just so many shots of Jyrki in that one! I love when Jussi spits out the Chinese food and Jyrki just smirks at him. So lovely! Well, I'm waiting for the other RPGers to update (HINT HINT HINT NOT SO SUBTLE HINT HERE) so we can continue with that. I feel very tired and blah...I took a nap earlier but didn't sleep well because I was waiting for the movers to call any second. I eventually called THEM and was told that I had only "requested" for my delivery to be today, not "scheduled" it. &%^$(@*# PEOPLE! So they're coming tomorrow night, so we should at least be home then. I hate having work almost every day now...even when I was in school it was only usually 3-4 days a week. *sigh* Being grown up really sucks. I hate it. I just want to sleep all day and watch Harry Potter movies (that is, the ones that I would make...not the ones that OTHERS make and cut a ridiculous amount of awesome material out of.) Yeah, I'm not in a posting mood so I guess I"ll just end here. Don't want to bore people to death. Hopefully someone will update their LJs or leave me a fan fic review soon...I'm so bloody bored!

Ok, to those members of goodluckcharmrp reading this, I AM going to post soon...I am just so freaking brain-dead from job training right now that if I did write something it would probably be like, "Severus Snape jolted awake from where he had been standing in the corner, half-asleep. 'I'm sorry, what just happened?," he asked."

So yeah. I'm guessing everyone wants a slightly bigger contribution than that. But that is my #1 priority after work tomorrow, so I promise I'll post! At least Amanda hasn't yet either *he he.* At least I got my user icon uploaded. That's a plus.

I hope that my work schedule doesn't totally burn me out. I mean, it shouldn't cause I've done way more work than this in college and with other jobs. I think I'm just not used to working again just yet...plus A-chan crying every five second in the morning doesn't help either. He is nuts. Nimue is still sick so I have to find SOME time tomorrow to pick up MORE medicine for her at the vet's office. Tomorrow I'm going to learn how to make lots and lots of cold drinks...which I'm sure will be fun. Making stuff is fun, I just don't like the pressure of having to do stuff while there's a line of people waiting for you. God there's just so much stuff to remember. At least all of my Christmas shopping besides stuff for Zach is done. Um. Yeah. Brain dead. Going to watch Project Runway then I am going STRAIGHT to bed, as in...going to sleep not reading Terry Pratchett for an hour and a half. Ok...night night.

I've been putting off posting for some reason...seems like whenever I thought to do it it was like 2 AM and I was tired. So far Pier 1 is a pretty cool job, everyone's really nice and stuff. I also just got hired yesterday at the cafe in Borders which will probably be fun too. I start work there a week from tomorrow. I have a lot of training hours next week, so I kind of hope that will be my normal schedule cause they have me down for 27 hours so far...not too shabby. What else what else...I've been reading a Snape fic on Fiction Alley (only cause the author said right out that it's not a romance fic. I can't read Snape romance fics cause MINE IS THE ONLY ONE THERE SHOULD BE! Woah...scary.) It's pretty good, called "Armilla" and it's been on the main FA page with mine for a couple of weeks cause both of us seem to update everyday. I got my period last night so I'm feeling pretty cranky and icky...probably going to go take a nap after this. Right now Zach's working on my car which is AWESOME cause when I brought it into the mechanics they said it would cost over $1000 to fix everything on it, and Zach said he could probably do it himself. So he bought parts today for under $200 and that should be it. Pretty awesome. He's just taking it out for a drive now to see how everything is on it. Zach's super SUGOI awesome! Our kitties are doing well...in case you didn't know I have pictures of them on my FaceBook (damn trendy networking site that it is...) page. Nimue had a cold for almost 2 weeks but she's getting better. I haven't been doing a whole lot with Photoshop lately...I'm still kind of figuring things out by trial and error. When I visit MN, Amanda, (and I WILL!) you'll have to show me some tricks. That would be sweeeet. Zach and I watched "Blades of Glory" the other night. I thought it was stupid. Normally I like those dumb Will Ferrell movies, but for that one I guess I knew too much about real ice-skating to enjoy it. I mean, they were supposed to be in something like the Olympics and the character does ONE DOUBLE JUMP and he gets a perfect 6.0? What the HELL is that? I kept yelling at the tv. Oh well. Damn I felt like I had a lot to talk about, but I can't seem to think of anything. I'm glad that I have 2 jobs though...the discounts alone will make it worth working there, and I'm getting $8.00 and hour at each job, so that's not so bad either for retail. I was getting $9.25 at my old job and I had to stay up ALL NIGHT and be in high risk situations (like where a pissed off student might punch me in the face...there were some BIG boys and girls there...) Yeah. This is boring. Sorry...er....guess I'll take a nap. Maybe some more interesting stuff will come to me when I wake up.