To--*cough* I mean, um, on this 24-hour span of time which I've loosely dubbed "Wednesday", I, uh, did stuff. Yes. I am proud of the stuff I did, though it is hardly blog worthy. Mostly dishes. Loooots of dishes. Some laundry. Some cooking. I have discovered that I have a great love of currants, and have made some truly delicious currant/apple/macadamia nut muffins that I am trying not to snarf down at an unhealthy rate. I also cooked myself some greens for the first time in forever. Turnip greens actually aren't that bad--not nearly as bitter as I expected--though I liked them a lot better once I put them over some yummy basmati rice. So far I haven't been particularly successful in lessening the number of grains I'm consuming, but I have at least upped the numbers of veggies considerably. In fact I feel like pretty much all I ever eat are green things, rice products, spelt toast, and apples. That said, I can think of worse ways to live.

And to--*cough* I mean, um, this 24-hour span of time known generally as "Wednesday" I also WROTE SOMETHING. I know, try not to faint. It wasn't a very big something, but it was the beginning of another short story. (That makes three that I've started now...) I'm not sure if it's going anywhere but it felt good to write it all the same. And it was a pretty good chunk of text, too, if I do say so myself. (Which of course I would be, since I generally am not anybody but myself) I'm hoping I have enough energy and willpower to get into the habit of writing every night I come home after work, with the exception of weekends, naturally, since they are exhausting and I get home very late. (Speaking of which-- one of my favorite baggers is absent tomorrow and I'll only get to see the other one for an hour and 45 minutes! Tragedy! Woe! Sadness! etc. [insert flailing here]) Hopefully I can actually start to make some progress and start FINISHING some things I start and maybe, JUST MAYBE, I can actually make some money off these things. Like, wow. What a concept. *eyeroll* Not to mention it's kind of hard to podcast every week about writing when you're not actually doing any writing. Small but important caveat right there.

OK. It's really cold down here and I hear the call of some of that aforementioned toast. Oh, did I mention I also listened to some more Japanese lessons today? After putting them off for almost a year now? Yup! I did very good today. =D I even tried to listen to a new Italian podcast, but for some reason my brain rejected it utterly. Another day, perhaps. I'll stick with Japanese for now, since I seem to be well suited to it, and try and get my multi-lingual bagger to keep teaching me German. So far I've gotten...um...I think I remember how to say "half", "yes", "thank you", and "good afternoon" and I think I'm pronouncing "good evening" right but I need to double check. Not the world's fastest language course certainly but it's definitely fun. =D I'll have to get him to pick up the pace though since he is abandoning me this spring for YET MORE TRAVEL. CURSE YOU, BOY. (Just kidding. =D)

Ja ne!

Having another day when things are going well, but for some reason I'm cranky about something. At the moment it's the dog. All of a sudden he's discovered his inner escape artist and I'm just tired of constantly having to deal with his latest problem. This morning I was cranky after I woke up. Not 100% sure why that was. Maybe more freaky dreams I can't remember. I do seem to recall something involving the Doctor that wasn't fun. Who knows. As usual I should be happy but I'm not.

Spent most of the morning shopping, which was fun. Dad came along and bought some discount DVDs at McKay, my favorite dimensionally transcendental bookstore. Their prices still aren't as good as Half Price Books, especially where their video games are concerned, but it's better than nothing. Then mom and I ventured into the Asian Market next door to Barnes & Noble, an interesting if somewhat...*ahem* pungent place. Their fish counter did not inspire confidence and I would be wary of buying anything "fresh" there. However, their selection of rice noodles was top notch and dirt cheap. Alton was right - frequenting your local ethnic market really is like visiting a different country.

Oh, and the little Asian girl stomping through the aisles, eyes wide, pigtails askew, was absolutely adorable. I think she was the daughter of the woman running the register. For some reason Asian kids are always mind numbingly cute. Maybe it's because they're usually quiet. Come to think of it I don't think I've ever seen an Asian child throwing a tantrum in public...

After that we headed down to The Shrimp Dock, the only place in Knoxville to get quality seafood. It has all the right things: Knowledgeable staff, good turnover, and it's always packed with people. They also had some delicious looking samples but alas everything involved breading or crackers, so I couldn't eat any of it for fear of wheat intoxication. But their hush puppies smelled divine, and tasted much the same according to mom, who has more leeway in that area.

We got some GORGEOUS whole Red Snapper that was on sale for $8 each and then a couple of Mahi Mahi fillets for me. Tonight, we cook. As usual, the pirate-ey guy behind the counter commented unintelligibly on my shirt. (Today it was my yellow "Death from above!" T-shirt from Dominic Deegan) He looked confused when I told him it had to do with a webcomic. I swear, I'm buying a package of bland, boring gray T-shirts before I go there next time.

After that it was off to Fresh Market, which was packed full of loud, insane people that upset mom and dad and were totally lost on me. (I didn't even realize the place was busier than usual until they mentioned it in the car) We got lots of cool stuff and I found some nagiri sushi that had some of the best looking tuna on it that I have ever seen. The nice little Asian man who I think runs the sushi counter there offered me some chopsticks and soy sauce to go with my sushi, even though I could have easily gotten them on my own without his assistance. I guess maybe it made him feel better to offer them to me directly? Who knows. People do seem to love coming up to me when my parents aren't around.

Here's to hoping my mood for the rest of the day will be better.

I definitely think that it's time to stop writing when all I can think about is pizza. =P Here I am, mulling over what my characters should say and do next, and I discover that I can't come up with a damn thing because all I can think about is food. Sigh. Hel, you were right, I am obsessed. ^_^()

Good day so far. Went out and got some Thai food (I had the "Massamun", a coconut milk curry with pineapple and potatoes. Didn't care for it a great deal. Spent most of the meal envying dad's yummy pad thai. XD) and finally put the rollerblades issue to rest. May I never have to walk into that damn store ever again. Bah. Spent some time today giving Diane Duane's website a more thorough examination. She's got some really cool stuff there. These two shirts (1, 2) are going on my wishlist right after ThinkGeek's sonic screwdriver. =D I also enjoyed looking at pictures of her cats (thank goodness I'm not over 50, otherwise that sentence alone would permanently solidify my reputation as a dotty old lady who lives with dozens and dozens of felines) and I LOVE the look of her wizard cat series. That's the kind of stuff I want to write in the future. You know, the kind of book that makes people smile and laugh just from the description, as opposed to those summaries of other books that involve death, destruction, and destiny. (The other three dreaded D's, perhaps?) Funny how the more I explore Duane's stuff, the less I like Holly Lisle. Which is really a shame, because Lisle is a very nice lady and I love her podcast (which she never does anymore) and saying I haven't learned anything from her would be a lie, but I've had her Secret Texts trilogy on my book shelf for almost a year now and I've only read the first book. (And only because I forced myself to do so.) And her blog is just downright depressing for me anymore. I'm moving away from some of my other writing heroes/podcasters, too. I wonder if that's just normal writer's growth, or am I just fickle?

What am I doing still sitting here? There is pizza upstairs that is calling my name! Fear not, oh pizza, for soon I shall rescue you from your long lament by taking you out of that plastic baggy and consuming you like there is no tomorrow! *rushes to the rescue*

Over the weekend I plotted to start a dog walking business, bought myself a pair of kickass rollerblades which I look like a total idiot using because I am badly out of practice, ate Thai food, ate Japanese food, watched several excellent movies, made homemade pasta noodles, and ate fish.

Yes. That's right. FISH. With their heads STILL ATTACHED.

( And I took PICTURES. Because I live to gross you guys out. )

How was your weekend? =D

Great day today. :) Went to the mall with my parents and did a bunch of shopping. JC Penny's was having a sale, so we stopped there first. Mom got an entirely new wardrobe and I got a new shirt, which I am very fond of and which looks very nice on me. Then we stopped at Ruby Tuesday's for drinks and queso dip and spinach and artichoke dip and I got a fresh tomato/mozzarella salad. The minuscule little balls of mozzarella were absolutely pathetic (I was expecting something more like CHUNKS, but I guess they're too stingy for that. Fuckers.) but it was still a very tasty salad. Lots of basil and the dressing was yummy sweet. Corn ships came in all sorts of different colors. Much fun was had by all. =D Then we did some more shopping at Claire's (I got some new earrings) and even stopped by EB Games, but alas, their sale bin was devoid of cool games. So we left.

But that's not all. There was an orchid expo there too, right in the middle of the mall. (I took pamphlets!) And OH MY GOD, the smell. The smell was incredible. There must have been at least 200 different plants there, many of them for sale. It was like an orchid explosion! They were so beautiful, almost painfully so. All kinds of colors and shapes. I especially liked the little yellow ones on the dark green stem that had been "bent" to the side, so the flowers were in a big L shape. It had a first place ribbon attached to it, so obviously I wasn't the only one who liked it. ^_^ Oh, how I wish I had the money to start an orchid obsession. I love orchids. Did I mention the smell was AMAZING?

That's my day so far. Needless to say I'm not cranky anymore. :)

OH, and did I mention that Claire's sells these little hot pink socks with the faces of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom on them? (From Pirates of the Carribean) I'm not kidding. Their faces are seriously right there on the front. Of socks. I showed some to my mom and she actually recoiled in horror. XD You know, I love getting all fangirly over Doctor Who and you guys know I adore my TARDIS and my single copy of DWM, but I don't think I would *ever* buy an article of clothing with David Tennant's face on it. (or any other Doctor) Certainly not socks. That's just...wrong. Amusing, in a crazy kind of way, but...wrong.

HA! I'm not dead Bones, just hibernating. Yeah. That's totally what I'm doing. I absolutely, positively did not lose an entire week watching the Star Trek: Voyager marathon on SpikeTV last week. Nope. Not me. I so did not wake up early at 8am so I could plant my butt in a comfortable chair at precisely 9am and stay there all day long to watch episodes of Star Trek: Voyager until 6pm. You know me, I'd never do anything like that!

=D

This is just a quick mini teaser update to let my friends know that I have not expired, have not been kidnapped by Swedish pirates, and that despite any rumors which you may have heard my offshore accounts in Aruba have not been infiltrated by a crack team of ninja gibbons. This is also where I'm going to tease you all by telling you about the cool British Sunday roast I attended last week, as well as the yummy Indian food I had on Friday, (my first experience with Indian food, I might add!) and that I haven't in fact forgotten about Picspam: Episode 2 and that it will eventually find it's way into this LJ before the end of the year. There may also be some content involving pictures of a large world map which I drew with my OWN TWO HANDS and is now hanging proudly over my bed in full color and detail, as well as some tales of adventures in cookiedom and whining about how I still don't have a clue what I'm going to write for that Doctor Who short story contest going on over at Big Finish. But right now I've got some chores to get back to and a couple of parental units to glare at, (just kidding) so the updates will have to wait until later.

Wishing you all happy holidays,
- Me.

( Pimping a cool new comm I joined today. )

Today was actually pretty crappy. Apparently if I consume sugar consistently enough, I turn into Angry Bitch From Hell Who Wants to Kill Her Dog. Not fun. I'm better now that the toxins have had several hours to work out of my system, but it still hasn't been an easy day. Poor Bruno. I didn't hurt him or anything but I did get pretty mad at him on our walk. I'm actually quite ashamed of my behavior now that I've calmed down and returned to rationality. Sigh. Who would have thought eating a couple of cinnamon buns could be so damaging? (Though to be fair that was after a week of sneaking bits of chocolate and other sweet things, so it's not like this came out of the blue or anything) The downside is I've only got a week to detox before another hit: My family and I will be going over to Kimberly and Marcus's house this coming Sunday for a Christmas dinner, which is fabulous and exciting and absolutely delights me no end...but we're bringing them egg nog. Which is mind bogglingly delicious and chock full of sugar. At this point I may actually skip it and just put it off until New Year's or something. We'll see. There's a good chance I'll break down like the pathetic weakling I actually am and go for it anyway. The inherent shortness of life is becoming a very dangerous excuse.

I could go on, but I'm sure absolutely no one cares to know about the rest of my bodily problems, so I'll be merciful and spare you all that touching TMI moment. :) Aren't I nice?

Nothing much else happened today, actually. Joined a comm. Got mad. Stayed mad. Ate too much food. Collapsed into an unexpected nap that was almost two hours long. Watched a lot of TV. I guess my days can't all be winners.

P.S. I like Heroes. I've only seen one episode, have only a very faint idea of what the hell is going on, but I still really like it. Especially the Japanese guy. He cracks me up. I'm also really proud of the writers daring to venture outside the tired old formula of "America is the world." These people are literally from all over the world, not just the crappy old US of A. (Instead of being American actors with bad accents) Hurray!

Turkey Day was a success. The only thing that went wrong was that we didn't put enough salt into the brine for the turkey and as a result, it was not as moist and luscious as it usually is. Amazing how much difference one tiny half a cup of salt can make in that whole process. Oh, and the pies didn't work out so well. Mom, um, kind of got a little mad at Alton for his pie dough recipe...but we worked it out. While her pumpkin pie custards with heaping dollops of home made whipped cream (which I made myself) were fabulous and absolutely worth every delicious, velvety bite, the buttload of sugar my body is processing right now is reeeally taking it's toll. I haven't had to correct this many typos since the last days of finishing up TSW. My entire brain feels like it's slogging through mud, I've got a dull headache in the back of my head at all times, I can barely see straight and I'm just a tad dizzy. Concentrating is difficult. It's a very weird experience. Sort of like being half drunk and half hungover at the same time. Definitely time to back away slowly from the sweets and start clearing out again. Luckily this does not prevent me from having loads and loads of yummy Turkey Day leftovers, such as mom's home made dressing, (delicious!!! also I would like to add that at no point was the stuffing put into the turkey because STUFFING IS EVIL =D) heaps of mashed potatoes which I will be experimenting with soon, (I want to make potato pancakes like Giada) and of course the copious amounts of delicious turkey gravy which were made from a combination of my wonderful turkey carcass stock and the drippings from the oven turkey. Yum.

Mom has spent most of today revamping the kitchen, and is continuing to do so if the loud crashing noises I can hear coming from upstairs are anything to go by. I am ecstatic that she managed to do most of this without my help, which is good not only because my brain is seriously screwed up right now, but also because it's nice not to be automatically involved in a Huge House Moving Project for once. Dad has always done that to me and I hate it. I either participate and end up getting tired and cranky which makes everybody fight, or I get excluded which makes me feel like a useless lump of flesh, causes me to get guilty then cranky, and I spend the entire day depressed, snappish, or a combination of both. And of course since my dad often (also see: ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL) mistakes sullenness for bitchiness, this results in more fights.

Wow. Totally didn't mean to go off on a rant there. O.o Stupid brain.

I'm going to go add some finishing touches to my NaNo and write down ideas for future projects (I've got about three new story ideas I want to pursue in the next three months) like I intended to do when I came down here over an hour ago. (Yes. I'm easily distracted.) I've decided to stick with my 50k-per-month plan because the change that has come over me during NaNoWriMo has been incredible. When I don't work, I get cranky and depressed, mostly the latter, and that's not fun for anybody. But when I'm writing, I'm more creative, I sleep better, and I feel more fulfilled. I don't think it will be a strain if I don't let it become one, and honestly I've got so much stuff coming out of my brain I don't think I'll have to worry about "fluffing up" my stories just to reach my word count goal. :) Still, I'll stay cautious, and will definitely take breaks if I feel the need to. As fast as I type it's quite possible I can churn out a 50k novel in two weeks and then spend the rest of the month resting or editing a previous work.

One thing is for sure, though: I am going to miss NaNoWriMo like you wouldn't believe. I already miss it. The excitement, the forums, the feeling of being part of something fun and delightful and uplifting...wow. This has been one of the best months of my life and I'm honored to stand next to so many writers. (Except the ones writing Sherlock Holmes porn. They can go stand somewhere else. FAR AWAY.) It's been a lot of fun, I've learned a lot both about myself and my writing style, and I think the lessons I've learned in the past 24 days will serve me well in the coming months, possibly even years, of my life and writing career. Yay for NaNoWriMo! =D

*BELCH*

I totally did not take four days off NaNoWriMo just because I had a stunning and amazing word count! It was done for...y'know...medical reasons! Yeah. My back hurt. My shoulder hurt. I needed a lot of sleep. That's all. Uh huh. I totally didn't start reading a whole bunch of palmistry and rune books and taking like, three naps a day or something in the interim. And tonight I absolutely, positively, did not have the best dinner ever consisting of spaghetti in a red wine and tomato sauce and a couple of slices of mom's pre-Thanksgiving turkeys and a glass of red wine! And then I totally did not go to my room and crash happily for about an hour. Nope. Not me. So totally not me.

^_^ *grin*

Actually, even though I've found my break extremely refreshing, I'm glad to be back on the horse. As soon as I'm done with this post (since I have spent the last forty-five minutes checking all my message boards, LJs, etc., making sure that all is still right with my little e-world) I'm jumping back into NaNo world with Lynn and the gang with a happy energy, the occasional loud belch, and lots of loud J-pop. Yay! I'm not behind in the least, though if I'd procrastinated for any longer I probably would be. I calculated it out, and I only have to write approximately 2,000 words a day until the end of the month to surpass my 50,000 word goal. No sweat.

The only thing about this week I regret is being stupid enough to eat corn chips, salsa, and some extremely sugary lime sorbet last night. Even though I didn't overindulge like I could have, my face still looks like a war zone. Ugh. I HATE BEING A NON-SECRETOR. DAMN YOU, PATERNAL GENETICS!!!! *huff* There's a downside to being, like, the rarest blood type/secretor type on the entire frickin' planet. Grrr.

Write and murder some Japanese lyrics at the top of my lungs now.