Okay, this past week illustrated just how much I need to get back on bcps. My period decided to kick in three weeks late (hey, the fact that it came AT ALL when I haven't been on bcps for months is a plus). I've decided it likes holidays; this time, it was Cinco de Mayo, last time, it started on St. Patricks Day. :-P

Anyway. Sunday and Monday, I had a very, very bad episode. It was about as bad as when I was on wheat all the time; Matt and I kept going back over what I'd eaten to see if there was any way wheat got in. Nothing. I had to leave meeting early on Sunday because I was trying to scratch the skin off my arm, and I couldn't handle a medium-sized gathering of friends. Just wasn't working. Monday, I actually had to leave work early because I could NOT get my arms to behave and get my hands to do what I needed them to. I kept clawing at my skin, pulling at my hair, and just felt myself spiralling out of control. I don't like those episodes; they scare the living daylights out of me because I know that is NOT normal.

The reasoning was made evident to me around midnight Monday/Tuesday, when an invisible sadistic clown invaded the house and used my uterus to make balloon animals. "I had cramps" is the understatement of the year. I lived on Advil Tuesday, when I wasn't falling victim to the practical jokes of my digestive system (when I have my period, the rest of my body decides not to work right). Every five to ten minutes, it'd tell me, "You've gotta go, NOW!" So I'd get to the bathroom, and "Hmm, nope, just kidding! Nothing, not even gas! Ha ha!!" Wait ten minutes, repeat. But can't ignore it, just in case it's not a joke this time. At least this job doesn't track my bathroom time.

Wednesday, still cramping.

Thursday, the hormone headache hit. Three aspirin, two Excedrin Migrane, and it at least took the edge off the pain so I could work.

Finally, it started easing up yesterday. But the damage was done, and I am wiped out from this week.

But still, I kept reminding myself, as much as I hate having my period, I'd hate most of the alternatives more.

Okay. If you like odd, conflicted, twisting stories involving death, life, afterlife, confused vampires and other supernatural/preternatural creatures, you HAVE to check out blogofstench aka ModernWizard's digital soap/comic "Love Has Fangs." You can find it in a number of places:

1) The main site, http://oddpla.net/lhf/
2) The RSS LJ feed, http://lovehasfangs.livejournal.com/
3) deviantArt, modernwizard.deviantart.com

Right now, MW's working on a reboot. The strip started as one-off comics, using mixed-scale action figures and dolls. It grew into using primarily sixth-scale action figure photography, but MW was never quite satisfied with the medium. It got difficult, and expensive, and could never quite portray things the exact way she wanted them to look.

Then she discovered DazStudio. And suddenly, things started to click. She could manipulate the digital people into the exact poses she wanted, without the action figures' limitations of physical articulation. Facial expressions could be tweaked. And Love Has Fangs started to come back to life (or undeath).

I'm fairly excited to see what new stories she'll be telling. The current posts are familiarizing us with the new look of the old characters, and I believe, IIRC, new stories are supposed to start tomorrow?

Give it a look.

Okay, so....back when I worked at OMax, the CompUSA in the same plaza closed, and I picked up City of Heroes for about $5.  Almost a year ago, I think.  I've yet to install it.

Today, Matt picked up City of Villans at Big Lots for $10 (deluxe version with cards and figures and other miscellaneous stuff).  

We'd been looking for another MMO we could play together, but...we're down to one computer.  We'd been playing Voyage Century Online, since it's free, but the lag's been painful, and well, it was a lot a lot a lot of grinding.  I mean, I would set my character to mining, come back in ten minutes, move her to another ore stack, and start over.  And hope there were no "locusts," ie, swarms of guild alts all doing the same thing, exhausing the resources in no time flat.  Kind of took all the fun out of the game.

But, he wants another RPG.  He even reinstalled Once Upon a Knight, because he's always enjoyed it, and has yet to reach the level where you can catapult cows.  

So, some questions, directed primarily at <lj user="alessar">.  Are they completely separate games, or do they intermingle (ie, can a Villans chara meet up with a Heroes chara)?  Actually, that's the only question he had.  :-P

I'm going to go watch a movie now.

 

Okay. So, Wednesday the ninth, my parents came out for a week. Here's the recap:

Plane was about an hour late coming in, so instead of them arriving just before I could get out of work, they arrived about 20 min after I got out of work. Picked them up at Sky Harbor, then went to Ajo Al's in Scottsdale for dinner. Home, early bed, because....

Thursday, we got up around 4 am, to get on the road between 5 and 5:30, to get to Williams, AZ by 8 am. What's in Williams, AZ? The Train. The Grand Canyon Railway.  On the drive up to Williams, we could see Mount Humpries in the distance, and watched the ambient temperature drop from the mid-sixties in Phoenix to the low thirties as we climbed in altitude.  
The train is neat; all restored historic cars.  We could only afford coach/Budd class, since the Pullmans don't run this time of year.   There was a little "wild west" show beforehand (really little, and fairly silly, and VERY cold), and I picked up a copy of the train guide.  It was okay, with milepost markings, telling you points of interest along the way.  

Okay.  So, we get to the Canyon at noon.  It was COLD and WINDY.  We can't check into our room (Maswik Lodge) until 4.  So, we had lunch at the Maswik cafeteria (not a lot of choices for someone gluten-intolerant).  I had the pork chop (dry), Matt had taco salad, Dad had a hamburger, and Mom had the chili in a bread bowl.  Finished eating, around 1 pm, Dad decided to check if the room might possibly be ready (since checkout's at 11, and Mom had the bag she brought on the train with her knitting).  No go.  Okay, so we walked along the Rim Trail for a bit.  Got back to the lodge at 3:30  Room still not ready.  We were tired, having been up since 4 (3 in my case), so we just sat in the cafeteria until 4, when finally, they said the room was ready.  We had an hour before the sunset tour: no time to get dinner, just enough time to put our bags down, use the restroom, and rest for a little bit.  Sunset tour, still very cold.  Getting in and out of the bus, in the cold/warm/cold/warm, was making me sick to my stomach, so the last few stops, I just sat in the bus.  Especially since around stop 3, the camera died.

We'd decided to have dinner at the Bright Angel Restaurant, since we'd already eaten at the Maswik Cafeteria and it didn't look like the menu changed for dinner.   After again determining there wasn't much on the menu I could eat (especially since I was COLD and didn't want a cold salad), I ordered the South Rim Spinach Artichoke Dip.  Technically an appetizer, but the only thing I could eat that was hot and sounded appetizing.  Matt got the Trailblazing Fajitas, Mom got the Sunset Sour Cream Chicken (and gave me one of the pieces of chicken), and Dad got the Canyon's Favorite Natural Roast Porkloin.  Now, here's where I mention the fact that we got the slowest waiter on the planet.  It was bad enough that a table that came in half an hour after we had (and we'd ordered, but not received anything) went to the host stand to ask for service.  Mind you, I read Waiter Rant.  I understand the concept of being in the weeds, having worked in a timing-oriented service field myself.  Matt understands, having worked at Papa John's as long as he did.  We're understanding of certain things.  But, when people who've come in after us have been served and LEFT before we got our food?  Refills were slow, if they came at all.   My food was slightly burnt on one edge.  The waiter, when he _did_ stop, never let us finish what we wanted to ask or request, and it would be twenty minutes before we saw him again.  I almost felt like I was a guest at a restaurant on Kitchen Nightmares BEFORE Gordon Ramsay knocked sense into the owners.

Either way, it was almost eleven before we got back to the room.  This is where Matt realized the camera charging-only-dock and the printer dock require different power supplies, and he'd brought the wrong one.  No charging the camera that night.

And still, I woke up around 3:30 am.  Lucky for me, Matt was mostly awake, too, and we went to have a shower together since the parents were still sleeping and hey, we're still newlyweds.  :-P  Managed to doze off a little after that, and when the Weather Channel read NINETEEN DEGREES outside, we figured we could stay in the room a little longer.  SciFi was running a Doctor Who marathon, reminding me that I'd never set the DVR to tape Sarah Jane (and still haven't!!  argh!!).  Finally, around 9 am, we decided to brave the cold.  Hiked down to El Tovar for breakfast.

Ever since Matt and I started dating, all I've heard about when it comes to hot chocolate is the hot chocolate at El Tovar.  How rich, how creamy, how wonderful it is.  So of course, we had to get the hot chocolate.  For food, Mom and Dad split a cinnamon roll as big as a dinner plate, and still had a breakfast entree.  Dad got the pancake trio (buttermilk, blue corn and buckwheat) with prickly pear syrup and honey pine nut butter.  Matt got Sonoran Style Eggs with Chicken and Chorizo.  Mom got the special, which isn't on the online menu.  :-P  And I got the Hickory Smoked Bacon, Gouda and Chive Three-Egg Omelette.  Again, not much on there for the gluten-intolerant.

Well, the hot chocolate was okay, but I didn't think it anything special.  Matt agreed that it wasn't what he remembered.  Then again, it was seven years ago when he had it last.  

Back to the room, to get the stuff together so we could check out.  Again, checkout's at 11, the train doesn't leave until 4.  I think that was the biggest annoyance on the trip.  We had to figure out what we wanted to carry for five hours.  Water bottle (I got a nifty clip so I could hang my water bottle off my belt loop), hat, jacket, wallet, keys.  Everything else went into the bag, which would be checked on the train by the staff.  We took the shuttle down to the other side of the South Rim, down to the end of that section of Rim Trail, then hiked back along the Canyon to where we'd gotten on the bus.  I was fairly wiped out by then (at 7000 feet, the air's a little thin, and I admit it, I'm out of shape), so we took the shuttle back to the El Tovar area.  We checked out Hopi House, and another gift shop, got some lunch at the Bright Angel Luncheonette (hot dog, no bun, chips, ice cream), and by then, the train was boarding.

Loot/Souveniers:
water bottle clip
hat/shirt combo (I needed the hat)
patch for my collection
poster of lightening over the Canyon
gift for Matt's mom
gift for Matt's dad

So, train back to Williams, where I picked up a Grand Canyon Railway patch for my collection, then all back into the car for the trip down to Kirkland Junction and dinner.

Mapquest lies on times.  It took an hour longer than quoted to get there, but at least my parents really enjoyed it.  Mom loved their fries.  If it had flopped, we'd have been more upset about the time to get there.  Matt and I love their steaks, but we were nervous.  

Got home a little after midnight.  

Saturday, it was time for the 25th Annual Glendale Jazz and Blues Festival.  Mom doesn't like jazz, so Matt and Dad went and listened to the bands.  Mom and I walked around the vendors (nothing we could afford), then the Bead Museum (only two rooms...I thought it would be bigger), and a few little shops in downtown Glendale.  Met back with Matt and Dad at three.  Again, I was beat, so we decided to head up to Fuddruckers.  This is because of Matt's "free 1/2 pound burger a week for a year" card.  Use it or lose it.  Did minor grocery shopping, then back home.  

Sunday, Matt and I went to meeting, then we just sort of hung out at home.  Played mexican train dominoes, canadian cribbage, and golf (the card game).  Had mesquite grilled chicken for dinner.

Monday, we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  Very pretty.  Very hot.  Very tiring.  I think I walked more that week than I have in a long time.  I ended up skipping the desert wildflower trail, just heading for the gift shop.   That's where Mom found a lot of things she was looking for, like prickly pear jelly, and pure habanero hot sauce for Jeff.  We came home, had leftovers for lunch, and we all took naps.  At least, Matt, Dad and I did.  Don't know if Mom napped or if she just sat on the back porch and read.  Ron and Omera came over for a bit and visited, then it was bedtime.

Tuesday, Matt and I were back on our normal 4 am wake time, took parents to the airport, then off to work.  If I'd been smart, I'd have requested Tuesday off, too, since I was falling asleep all day at work.

And I think that's what I'm going to do now.  Go back to bed.  

Back a while ago, I listed things I wanted to have done by April:

Things to do before April (when we get our next houseguests):

--paint the master bedroom, closet, and two bathrooms (colors are now picked out)
--get a bedframe and new bedding for the master bedroom
--take down the shutters and put up curtains in the master bedroom
--get ceiling fans/lights installed in the bedrooms
--curtains in the guest bedroom
--finish pulling up the linoleum in the kitchen, paint the kitchen floor


Well....

Bedroom and bathrooms are painted. We skipped the closet.
We have a bedframe and bedding.
Shutters are down, curtains are up.
Ceiling fans/lights: not yet, but working on it.
Guest bedroom curtains: no
Kitchen linoleum: as good as it gets. Painted even.

Three out of five? Not bad. The only major thing we didn't get done was the ceiling fans, and that's because we didn't call our electrician in time.

I went to "the big hole in the ground up north" last week. Longer post will follow once I'm recovered fully from my vacation.

Quick points: camera battery died on day one. We brought the charger, but the wrong power supply. So, no more pictures the rest of the vacation. Means we gotta go back sometime.

I always have a rough time sleeping Sunday nights. I don't know why, maybe it's because the weekend's over and I go back to work on Monday, maybe it's because Matt doesn't work Mondays, so he's up all night, and my schedule is thrown off. Tuesday through Friday, my schedule is up at 4 am, ride into work with Matt, then sleep in the back of the car for a few more hours until my shift starts at 8 am. Mondays, though, since he doesn't work, I'm reliant on my alarm at 5:50. Maybe it goes back to being afraid the durn thing won't go off and I'll end up seriously late. I don't know. All I know is I woke up at 1:30 when Matt came to bed. Then I started noticing things, like, "I gotta pee." "I kinda have heartburn." "My whole right arm assembly is aching." So I get up, use the bathroom, take a Pepcid Complete and a few ibuprofin, go back to bed. Toss, turn, toss, turn, can't get back to sleep. Give up, come out to the computer, check the Monday morning webcomic updates, check the e-mail, LJ, etc. It's now 2:30, and I'm a little tired again, so maybe I can get back to sleep. Three hours until the alarm goes off.

Trader Joe's sparkling sake.

Taste good.

Goes down easy, like champagne.

Hits the head a little harder.

330ml. All gone.

I think I'm a little spinny.

Whooo.

We went to McDonalds' tonight so I could have a sundae. And what did my wondering eye behold on the menu board?

SHAMROCK SHAKES!!!

Glee!!

I am content.

It's 82 degrees outside right now; the sun's on its way down, Matt's got burgers on the grill and potatoes in the fryer. There's a big bean bag chair on the back porch, and the weeds are nice and tall, making the backyard look like a jungle from that vantage point.

I'm going back outside. :)

It's sad that whenever I hear "Free Ride" or Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Higher Ground," the first thing I think of is the first Power Rangers movie.

Matt was watching tv in the other room, and I heard "Higher Ground," and had to wander out to see what he was watching. Of course, it wasn't MMPR:TM, it was, I think, Walking Tall. The Rock was playing football; six teenage color-coded superheroes weren't sky-diving.

It's sad that I watched that movie so much, I damn near wore out the VHS tape (and I was in college at the time). And when I found the DVD for $5, I snapped it up (even got the Turbo movie, even though I didn't like it as well).

MMPR: my first serious fandom. Soap operas don't count; it's too damn hard to write fanfic for them, because canon, continuity, and characters change too often.

Billy: my second serious fan-crush. I lose all geek-cred when I admit my first. It's too bad David Yost didn't age well (at all!).

I was checking the stats for my site tonight, and one of the main ones I check is "recent keywords." One of the recent ones was "zedden," which of course, leads to a few stories, since Ellen and I have been writing about Jamie since 1994. I was curious to see what else would come up with that, so I did a search myself.

What I found was surprising. Two different sites, both with a home domain page advertising MMO credits, one for Eve Online and one for FFXI, with sub-pages containing snippets of fanfics. Ellen confirmed that some of them were bits from her Trial Arc, but others weren't.

The sites are http://www.ffxigilstore.com and http://www.eveonlineiskstore.com If you wait for it to load, then use "select all," you'll see a line of itty-bitty numbers under the main image, links to the sub-pages. ffxigilstore has at least 50 sub pages.

It's somewhat surreal...for one thing, advertising gold farming with no way to contact or order. Also, the whole snippets of mixed fics on sub-pages. Trying to fill a domain? Any ideas?

This just weirds me out.

x-posted to oxymoron_inc

My grandmother died on Thursday. I can't make it back for the funeral; it's already over, in fact. It was held at 11 am EST today. I was even encouraged not to try to make it back; it would be expensive.

So, we didn't try.

Here's a picture of my grandmother, back in April of 2006, at her 85th birthday party.



She gave birth to four children, lost one at only six months old. She had five grandchildren. My grandfather died in the spring of 96, which left her living alone for the first time in her life. It wasn't long, though, not even a full year, I think, before my cousin moved in when he started college in Clarion, and he lived with her until she died. When he married last summer, his wife moved in.

In the past three years, she saw her two eldest grandchildren marry, and her third eldest grandchild gave her a great-grandson, whom she saw at Andy's wedding.

I'm glad I got to know her as well as I did; I have a book of memories she filled out for me about ten years ago, with pictures and stories in her own writing. I also have some of her recipes, with commentary. I'm glad to know where those recipes came from (some were from when she was in high school, from her home-ec class!), how she learned them, why she liked them.

And I have the resurrection hope, that in the new system, I'll see her again, this time healthy, without pain.

It's true, there's nothing new under the sun. I just saw an ad for a new Barbie, "Braid It" Barbie. I watched the ad, looking at the device it comes with to braid her hair, and exclaimed, "It's Twirly Curls Barbie!"

I never had Twirly Curls, but my mom would sometimes do my hair by hand the same way that the Twirly Curls machine worked. I have a machine now that does the same thing.

Wow.

Related, the other Barbie in the ad is a hair coloring Barbie. You could say that goes back even further to Color Magic Barbie.

1. Get back in the habit of going to Curves regularly.
------This shouldn't be too terribly hard, as there's one right next door to work now.

2. Start watching portion sizes again.
------Slightly more difficult, especially when Matt cooks and serves.

3. Save money for vacations.
------Well, we'll see how many wallet-crippling emergencies pop up this year.

4. Attend meeting regularly.
------Having the Sunday meeting at 9 am rather than 6 pm should help this.

5. Get out in service more.
------Again, having Sunday meeting at 9 am rather than 6 pm should help; we'll already be up, dressed, and at the hall.

6. Increase personal study time.
------I have a copy of the daily text in my car. Now to remember to read it in the morning! Also, I need to find my mini-Bible and put it in my locker at work, as well as upcoming Watchtowers and Awakes.

7. Respond quicker.
------ie, thank you cards, letters, and gifts. Need to get a ton of stuff mailed.

8. Keep up on housework.
------This will be a goal shared by Matt. We both need to work on keeping the house cleaner and more organized.

9. Write more.
------I have two storylines in my head. Neither have been written down yet. I must remedy this.

10. Update Gridmaster's Castle more.
------If I get #9 going, this will follow. If I can get some advance going on those two stories in my head, as well as work on the third one's revisions and update those ooooold embarassing fanfics, I should be able to manage a weekly update again.

Ten's a nice round number. Manageable. We'll see.

It's been a year since Matt and I left NC for AZ. In that year:

--Matt started working at 2Wire
--I started as a supervisor at OfficeMax
--We removed the popcorn ceilings and nasty orange carpet from the house.
--We painted the kitchen, living room, entranceway, hallway, floor and guest bedroom.
--We replaced the thermostat with a digital, programmable one
--We bought 2 queen beds
--I found out I was gluten intolerant
--We replaced the locks on the house
--We replaced the dishwasher
--We had new cable drops put in to replace the cable coming in through the bathroom window
--We celebrated our third anniversary
--I became a baptised Jehovah's Witness
--Matt's mom came out and stayed with us for a month
--Matt and I had our first real vacation/first cruise
--I left OfficeMax for 2Wire
--I left 2Wire for AlphaGraphics
--My Dante-cat ripped out one of his back claws, requiring $300 worth of vet bills.
--We've had a total of seven flat tires and bought six new ones

All in all, we didn't get as much work on the house done as we wanted to, Matt hasn't progressed in his job as much as he wanted to, and we've spent a lot more on the vehicles than we wanted to. But, I'm now in a job I enjoy again (all the good things about the job at OMax with none of the negative aspects), we have plans set about the house next year, we've gotten a taste of vacation and enjoyed it, and we know we can sort-of handle houseguests.

Things to do before April (when we get our next houseguests):

--paint the master bedroom, closet, and two bathrooms (colors are now picked out)
--get a bedframe and new bedding for the master bedroom
--take down the shutters and put up curtains in the master bedroom
--get ceiling fans/lights installed in the bedrooms
--curtains in the guest bedroom
--finish pulling up the linoleum in the kitchen, paint the kitchen floor

If we can get at least that much accomplished by then, I'll be happy.

Things I would LIKE to have done by April, but probably won't happen:

--FLOORING!!
--moulding and trim in the guest bedroom
--new garage door (installed properly so it WORKS)

If we can at least get those done by the end of the year, I'll be happy.

For blogofstench

I wanted to play around with making some more Sims, so, to ease loading, I took everything out of my downloads folder except hair, eyes, makeup and skintones, then fired up Bodyshop. My experiment was to see if I could create her character, Will (whom she's rendered in Daz|Studio), as a Sim.

This is what I ended up with:


Now, keeping in mind that I didn't go looking for Will-specific hair and makeup beforehand, just used what I already had, I don't think the end result is too terribly bad. I used one of her makeup-test closeups as reference.

Skin is "Ghostly," by Enayla. Eyes are also by Enayla. Eyebrows are by im-a-disaster. Hair is by HystericalParyoxism (I think that's spelled right). I don't remember who created the lipstick; eyelashes and eyeshadow are by Helenae.

I found it amusing that as I was working on him, Matt walked past (when Will had different hair) and asked, "Who's that supposed to be, David Bowie in Labyrinth?" :-D

After living in Arizona for almost a year now, I can empathize with my great uncle who lived in Tucson. He called my grandmother (who lived in PA) one winter, complaining of the cold. She asked him how cold it was. He replied, "It's only seventy!!"

She hung up on him. :)

Right now, it's "only" 66. I still have a few windows open here, because I'm cleaning and I overheat, but yeah. I've had a few days of "Wow, it's cold!" and it's still been "summer" temperatures for what I grew up in.

Also, I quit my job at 2Wire Tuesday. I start as a key operator (production only) at AlphaGraphics on Monday.

Dante's foot is doing well, but he may be permanently short a claw. That's fine; he's got 17 others. Still needs to be on antibiotics for another week or so, which is REAL fun, as he's something of a squirmer. He doesn't have to go back to the vet for another checkup unless he starts limping again or we notice something changing about the foot.

Yesterday, I had half a pot of coffee. I also tried to clean the kitchen, ran 2 dishwasher loads, and 4 loads of laundry (three folded and put away; last one was towels and a blanket, in the drier as I went to bed). I think there's a link; maybe I should keep drinking lots of coffee on the weekend, so I keep cleaning. ;)

My water intake's dropped since starting here. I think last week, I had the same bottle of water all week, and only drank half of it (a 750 mL bottle). I know I need to step it up again, especially with the dry season upon us.

My haircut from October has finally grown out to the point where I kinda like it. Only took a month. :-P I need to trim my bangs, though. They're starting to obstruct my vision. I'm tempted to just let my hair grow out over the winter, then get it cut again in April or May. I really don't like paying for haircuts that may or may not be what I wanted. What I need to do is get a copy of the picture I used in July for that haircut.

My other hair problem is that when they did the highlights last time, she didn't do them well. In July, when I had them done at Kate's, Kate put the main color in first, then Jocelyn (I think?) put the highlights OVER that color, so it wasn't "OHMIGODBLONDE!!!" it was a lighter red-copper. When I went to Fantasic Sam's in October, Lily put the highlights in first, and tried to do the main color around them. As a result, she missed a spot around the highlights. I have one spot on the left side that is really dark brown compared to everything else.

I think I may have to give in and just start coloring my hair at home again. It should work out cheaper than a salon, even if home hair color is supposedly more damaging than salon color.

I picked up a cookbook at a thrift store, called "Cooking for Two." I've been planning meals out of it for the past few weeks. So far, no "Blecch, don't make this again," a few hits, and a few, "Eh." What it's really helping with is portion control. Each recipe makes just 2 servings. No leftovers, and no overeating (hopefully). Plus, menuing in advance helps when it's grocery shopping time. No more, "Well, maybe we could use that..." so not as much overspending. Also helps with the "What do you want for dinner?" "I dunno, what do you feel like making?" frustration. On the one hand, having a husband with few food dislikes is great. On the other, I get virtually no input on meals. The usual answer to "What do you want for dinner?" is "Whatever, you know me, I'll eat anything." That's not the answer I want. I don't want "What will you eat?" I want, "What do you WANT?"

But then, he does make waffles for me on the weekends, so I don't complain too overly much.