Massive Update: Narnia Party, NaNoWriMo, Snow, Etc.

I have been putting off updating for a bit, but now I shall. So, it may be a bit massive.



I made Potato Soup with much difficulty and also with a cementing of if I need to spend over 30-45 minutes making something, it is more than likely not worth it. But hey. Live and learn I guess. :)



My sister threw her first movie night where people came with Narnia: LWW. She made Turkish Delight among a couple other oddities, and I proceeded to bawl my eyes out anytime anything remotely interesting happened. This may or may not be why I was not too fond of the movie (except for the phoenix, which is worth the entire thing). However, I still like it. :)



Food that Joelle prepared and others brought.



People!



This is our home theater. In SV, the entire living room was pretty much designed to accomadate this system. However, here at our new house the basement was most definitely not designed for a theater. My Dad did an amazing job setting it up all the same (though he's been cringing over the wires showing). My picture is crooked, but the screen is straighter than it looks. :)



The following Friday, we had a Prince Caspian movie night (to which, yes the typical jabs at Ben Barnes' accent were made). Now that we've had our build-up, we're just waiting for when VotDT tickets will finally go on sale at Regal. (Due to adventures in the snow and ice and "what's that?" responses to a request for buying a midnight showing ticket. Whole 'nother world here.)

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We had a fun Thanksgiving with my cousin and her family. She had prepared the most delicious turkey ever (this coming from someone who is not a fan of turkey), and overall the meal and company were absolutely delightful. =) Jaiden, Khristian and I played monopoly in the basement for an hour or so, upholding tradition. B) And yes, I believe I was creamed. Again. But hey, old habits die hard.



Also on Thanksgiving, I completed NaNoWriMo. The earliest I have ever finished and after having never gotten behind once this November! I am quite proud of myself. However, although I managed to maintain a. er. semi-flowing story, the story itself is not finished. But it will probably be left forgotten for a while anyways due to the apathy I feel toward it.

My final word count: 50,935--however some of this was written after my word count was verified.

My official final word count: 50,022.

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As for other misc. odds and ends, it is currently snowing so much we can barely see the road from our house. While this is awesome if we don't have to go anywhere, I sincerely hope we...don't have...to...go anywhere...






Otherwise, today's agenda includes potentially throwing the cat in the snow at some point (that's always fun), plotting/writing (*egasp!*) my story I give a hoot about, and vegging. A lot. And justifying my vegging with tv shows by knitting a Christmas present (a phrase I can honestly say I never thought would come from my mouth). Though it might be an "oops I forgot about Christmas and I'm broke, have a scarf" type of thing but who knows. :)

Parting Pic:



Trouble outside while it's snowing for possibly the first time. He can hold on really tight when he wants to.

Kick Off Party

No, I didn't ditch the blog. Good grief, it's only been a few days. :) The pace of my blogging will pick up during November as I make extreme efforts to procrastinate (then get behind, then write the last 20k in a week. it's a system that works, okay?)

On Sunday, Heidi aquiesced to taking me to the Swordsmanship class taught by our NaNo ML, and then afterwards the Kick-Off Party.

The Swordsmanship class was awesome, as is our ML. As a general rule I begin to get distracted after 30-45 minutes of things, but I didn't get bored once during her lecture! It was really quite interesting and I have the handout stuffed with notes for future reference. Although I have never been one to write about swordfights, it is good to have, and it's fun to know. Who knows, maybe this NaNo year will be the year I get over my loathing of writing fight scenes. Especially since quick = accurate.

*NOTE* If, for some reason, any of the people in these pictures do not want your picture up? Just let me know and I'll take it down. =) Please contact me over the NaNo site though.




After the class, Heidi and I braved trying to navigate the creepier part of town, and got to the Dairy Queen. Everyone seemed to be really nice, and despite the lack of too, too much chit-chat on my part, it was very fun.

The goody bags were also made of total and utter awesome:




*left to right*
- The Magic Golden Paperclip
- The Writer's Block Rock
- Toy Soldiers for Fight Scene Planning
- Peppermint Aroma Therapy (<3)
- Power Outage Emergency NaNo Kit.

The night ended well, though tiredly. It's starting to get cold here, which would be awesome if I could keep my blasted feet warm. :/

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Yesterday I made Red Bean Vegetable Soup with some minor alterations. Such as no red peppers due to lack of them being in stock (but I'm totally fine with that, I don't like peppers. Or things that are hot. Or have too much flavor at all.). We also only had two cans of kidney beans, therefore there were two cans of kidney beans and two cans of black beans, and it tasted great. There was also no hot sauce, and it was just fine. This was probably my favorite thing that I've made so far. =) Definitely one to remember.




I was also able to get my desk re-organized with the new drawers.



Due to the funky shape of my walls, the metal crate on the right is at a weird angle against my book wall. However it works because the crate is far enough from the book wall that it doesn't look too cramped. =)

Mom and I also hit Wal-Mart, and I found one thin that's been on my wishlist for a long time, and another awesome deal in the $5 Bin of Awesome.



I have been wanting Some Like it Hot for a long while, because it's hilarious and terrible that I find it hilarious but it's old and a classic and therefore justifiable in its hilarious terribleness and I will stop this long run-on sentence now. Honey and Clover I just decided to get due to it being only $5, and I haven't heard anything negative about it...if it's horrible though, I'll send it to Miruial. :)

Parting Shot:

Yesterday

Yesterday I got out of the house for the first time since Mangy left. Meaning...since Tuesday. 'Twas a glorious experience! Mom and I went over, got coffee at Starbucks, and then proceeded to PF to Wally World.

I found the perfect drawers I needed for my "desk" (which is a table, but since I now have drawers! it works fine.)



Also found the second box set for Honey and Clover in the Wal-Mart $5 Bin, which was weird, but decided not to get it. But if it is still there next time I go (which I'd be shocked) then I'll probably end up caving.

Big Lots! had a nice selection of things last night, first volume of School Rumble, Trinity Blood 5-6, Black Cat 4 and a couple other things. I did end up only spending $3 there on Black Cat, yayay! It's always nice to find even one disc of one of your favorites when you can't afford the $30 for the whole thing.



When I got home, Jpeg immediately claimed the bottom drawer of my tower for his own. It was pretty adorable considering it's no bigger than a three-ringed binder, but he's still pretty little. He did get booted, however, as I needed it for other things.



Oh, and as a side note, yes I did cook the last two days, just did not feel like posting it and sharing it. Whatever I did on Friday was entirely forgettable, what I did on Saturday was instant mashed potatoes (I was trying to hurry, okay?), Mom made green beans + cheese and we cooked up hamburg to throw in the potatoes. At night we got really fancy and made canned soup. Oooh yeah. Though I did throw the extra green beans and potatoes from lunch (Mom's suggestion) in there + parsley. So does that count as cooking more fancy if I add to the can? Probably not, but oh well. It was good. :)

Crockpots are Good

Last night I watched the second episode of The World God Only Knows and have landed on it being a keeper. It had some staple fanservice, but as long as that is not an ongoing thing I see this being a very refreshing laugh. It is definitely not something for everyone, and will probably offend a large group. But there is always something oh so enjoyable about watching the "I reject reality" geek group placed into scenarios caused by his own pride, no? Maybe it comes down to the whole the funniest things being true saying. But no matter whether I should feel insulted or not, this gives me something to look forward to on my Wednesdays. :) Especially if I don't have a bad headache--such was the case last night.

In other words! My hulu queue has dwindled down to the latest episode of Bones and episode 2 of the current season of Castle. Of course, I have dropped No Ordinary Family and the Stargate documentaries (Stargate documentaries! How funny is that?). However my queue being in single digits is either a sign of my purging or of my lack of life to be able to KEEP it in single digits. But oh well, to each their own, right? right?! Hehe.

However, I have continued to go on Day 3 of actually cooking things! Today I got up late...as usual...and was in a foul mood. But after deciding to suck it up, I have decided that cooking is therapeutic if not only in that it is a service, and serving is very therapeutic. One could say that, in itself, is a proof of the Bible's truths and of Christ's love. We are called to serve, to love, to share His Gospel. But I haven't been feeling anywhere near at peace except these last few days as I hang out in the kitchen, blast my music from Silvereagle and throw food together. I haven't even had my instinctual "get out and leave me alone!" defensiveness that I have had for...years. God is good. :)

I used a recipe from Mangy.




I pretty much followed Mangy's recipe, except for replacing tomatoes and mushrooms with broccoli and green beans. (We didn't have tomatoes and mushrooms are disgusting.) I also added cheese. Because cheese makes everything better. :D

It turned out not bad! I was not very hungry for dinner, but--as was ground into my head by my cooking instructor--did eat a little of it. This was also my first foray into the usage of a crockpot. My decisions? Crockpots are good. Very good. Hopefully I will be trying it out many more times, especially with NaNoWriMo coming around! If anyone knows of NaNoWriMo recipes? Please let me know. Yep. B)

NaNoWriMo Countdown: 10 Days Til Caffeine Overdose

Keyboard and Cooking Adventures

It was one those mornings where getting up felt like an extremely difficult chore. Jpeg woke me up around 9am, as usual, and I proceeded to ignore him for as long as I could...as usual. The result was getting up at 10:30-11am, and dragging my butt downstairs.

As I settled down to make my dad and myself some eggs, .Jpeg went and hopped in the Elf Family's box, contented to sit in Mercy's fruits basket.




Immediately after breakfast I started planning lunch, as I had nothing else to do and Mom and Joelle were going to be oot and aboot for a while (later to be learned: 6pm). After poking around with this blog layout for a while, I made a "cooked-in-a-pan" roast beef and cheese sandwich + tomato soup for my dad, and myself had a ham and cheese "grilled" whatever sandwich.




I fulfilled my goal to cook something today, and actually ended up cooking three meals. Tonight I made my Dad an egg and ham sandwich--so my "cooking" skills are not skillz-with-a-z. So what. It's edible, it works!

And then came the keyboard...as many of you know, I have a slight keyboard cleanliness obsession. This little issue of mine is made all the worse when it comes to having a black keyboard, a saint bernard, a shih tzu and a cat.

I refrained, oh did I refrain! from popping the keys off my keyboard as I did not feel like calling Dell for the 6-7th time in the last year, and the 2nd time for a keyboard. But lo and behold, in my attempts to compromise at yanking numerous (numerous) dust bunnies out of my poor precious' keys and "not popping" popping the keys up...*ping!* Yep. I half-popped the C off my keyboard. I proceeded to finish pulling it off because it was not going back on...and what ensued next was an attempting of putting the little plastic bouncy part of the key back together. Fortunately, an hour or so later, all was well, the key back in perfect working condition. I do not think Dell would amused had the story not ended well.



I had inspiration for how to write this earlier, but it is gone now. And was actually gone before I started this post.

Life Update, Fall TV Blurp

Well! Another lovely day in CDA. Today Mangy abandoned us to go back home at approx noon, as her flight left at 1:05pm. After that Mom and I arrived home and the house proceeded to feel quite empty and strange. Immediately it was "What do we make for lunch?" and "um..." Tomorrow we shall begin anew, however, and I will hopefully push down my lack of fondness for the kitchen and make breakfast and/or lunch. Despite my frustration with cooking, it is one of those skills that I sort of need to have.

We did make Mac 'n' Cheese. From a box. With frozen peas and canned tuna on the side. It was a far cry from Mangy's delicious, home-cooked meals, but still better than going out. Hopefully next time she visits we will be able to cook muchly for her.

For the rest of the day all I did was either get caught up on the many tv shows I follow (rambles and episode reviews to follow) and goof around on Oblivion. I am fairly certain I am going to be inconveniently turned into a vampire soon, but hey! I have another day or two. Blasted sunlight, so troublesome.

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, and under two weeks certainly does not seem enough time to prepare. Especially when it will be two year now since I last did something crazy and writing-related, but bring on the mountain dew and the old gang! My plot (from dearest Amber! :) ) will revolve around an underwater city and conspiracy, because underwater cities and conspiracies are always good things. There may be some crazy dystopian future (also always a good thing) and lots of black involved. Maybe it will be gothic-ish, that'd be fun. Oh well, one can never tell what NaNo will turn into it. For all I know it will turn into a romance story between the fishes who found true love. It will also be exciting to meet new people at the CDA Write-ins, though to admit it I am a bit nervous. But such is life. If it isn't intimidating, it's probably not really worth it.

As for my tv watching which has developed into ridiculousness--but still a hobby!

Keepers -- Castle remains to be up to par with awesome, Sanctuary finally ended its horrible spider arc but yay! It's back! I missed it. Hawaii 5-0 turned out to be fun, worth watching. :) The Event is also way fun, even if not terribly original and probably won't last past season 1--but hey, at least it's doing better than Happy Town.

Deterioration --Stargate Universe is not Stargate, it is an embarrassment to the mere name! Lie to Me is starting to deteriorate...here's hoping it's only temporary.

Apathetic --Fringe...I don't really feel one way or the other about it. It's good as sci-fi goes, but I still miss the original, episodic cases. I am actually enjoying Bones more. No Ordinary Family is another meh one, it's okay, but nothing special at all.

As for anime, I continue to follow:
Nuraihyon: Rise of the Yokai Clan -- nothing special, but fun.
Legend of Legendary Heroes -- its name is its greatest downfall, gory at times, but overall staying fairly strong, especially considering how standard fantasy it is.
Shiki -- all I have to say is: Yay! Shiki! I look forward to every Thursday. :D
Bleach -- yay Bleach! Yay Ichigo arriving! Now for another two months of filler. woohoo. But it's a good thing to put you to sleep!

Probation:
Squid Girl -- boring, dumb, but I'll give it one more episode.
The World God Only Knows -- love it! But only one episode in, so we shall see...hopefully it continues to be rofl lol funny.
Otome Yokai Zakuro -- I am fairly confident about this being a keeper! :) But I'm giving it one more episode before passing judgment. But this is way fun.

Newbie Keepers:
Bakuman -- every part of my brain says this should be horribly boring, especially because I am very conscious of J.C. Staff's total lack of heart that they put into this. But it is informative, and it is fun. :)
Star Driver -- wow. just...wow. This makes almost no sense, but it is so, so pretty. I am in love with this. The characters are a blast, and it's so pretty! I'll be sticking with this--unless it gets real fanservicey--if not just for the pretty.
Tegami Bachi Reverse -- I'm sticking with this even if it is all filler (though I will be sad, I want more Gauche!). The concept is too charmingly awesome to ditch.

Ditched:
Togainu no Chi -- pointlessly brutal--but if anyone is following this and it gains a point? Let me know.
Psychic Detective Yakumo -- too creepy, but sounds like I'm not missing anything anyways.


Goals for tomorrow: Cook a meal, clean the litterbox, clean the rodents