Shefytbast

Accomplished on Wednesday:
- fold laundry
- attend HoN chat
- work on The Last Nomarch
- possibly work on a blog post


I got about ten minutes up the road on the way to work this morning, and I was already like, I really want to snuzzle a cat. :/ Amber stayed out overnight, but I put her back in the shrine room this morning, since her tummy was looking a little ouchy. And I think she was actually glad to go in--she walked right into the room with me and didn't even complain when I shut her in. When she's out with Jet, she can't overcome the instinct to play and wrestle, but she acted like it felt good to have some quiet and rest.


To accomplish today:
- go to the gym
- work on Nomarch
- go to D&D game

Phew! Lot of stuff got done in the last week or so, though I don't remember much of what it was. It's all a blur. :P I know there was leaf raking. And gassing myself with flea spray. And a whole lot of laundry.

And also writing! I'm at about eight pages and over 3000 words on the new book, which is pretty fair progress for me. I'm hitting some anxiety at this point--which I think is more PMS-related than anything else--so I'll need to tuck myself in very cozily and non-threateningly tonight and try to sidle past that block.

Amber had her spay on Monday and is recovering well. We're supposed to keep her isolated and quiet for five to seven days, which is really hard when she cries like a ravished princess in durance vile. I succumbed last night and let her out for a while, since I was around to keep an eye on her and chase Jet off if he got too rough. Jet is all upset too and has been uncharacteristically cranky.

Things I learned today: supposedly there's a feminine version of Sokar named Sokaret. And a male consort of Seshat named Sesha. @.@ (via Claude Traunecker's The Gods of Egypt)

To accomplish today:
- fold laundry
- attend HoN chat
- work on The Last Nomarch
- possibly work on a blog post [fell behind on this during the big Sakura push]

After thirteen years and almost 238,000 words, Sakura and Snow is finally done and posted. NEKHTET! (If anyone's curious about the project that I've been bashing at for the last however many accomplishment posts, you can find the completed fanfic here--but I honestly don't recommend reading it unless you're already a fan of the source material, X and Tokyo Babylon by CLAMP.)

So I've now started work on an original story, The Last Nomarch, which is kind of an unholy merger of urban fantasy, shounen fighting anime, and Kemetic mythology. ^_^ I'm not actually NaNo-ing it, but I've set myself a goal to write at least one page a day. I'm pretty excited about it, and at least one of the characters (the protagonist, Jesse) is already scuffling moodily about in my brainspace, so that's promising.

In other news, we're still wrangling with the fleas. Bleah! The cats have been redosed with Frontline, and the next two days will see intensive vacuuming/washing/spraying of everything in the house. mimian and I are both suffering from an acute case of the creepy-crawlies, so I really hope we get this under control soon. :/

In other, other news, I've signed up at the YMCA, and I'm committing myself to at least three months of going three times a week. I can walk to it from work, so I can fit this in on my lunch break, which leaves my evenings open and I feel less time-crunched overall. (I loved doing the Nia classes on the way home, but it was a total loss of my Tuesday evenings.) While weight loss would be nice, I'm mostly doing this to try to get stronger and less floppy, and because, now that I've turned forty, the shadow of bone density loss is starting to loom on the horizon. So far the willpower is holding. Send happy thoughts!

Late lunch today....

Accomplished Saturday:
- took Meera for her check-up
- bought a new pillow
- attended Naming-turned-fellowship chat
- went to Tamiwi's Halloween party

Accomplished Sunday:
- went grocery shopping
- recorded and posted songs
- attended Sunday chat [yeah! finally!]
- went for a walk
- cooked dinner and made cookies from scratch
- offered to Hethert of the Heden and Bast Nebet-Ankhtawy

First time baking cookies from scratch! (I'd only ever used the Pillsbury tubes o' dough before.) And they came out good! Somebody at the Saturday chat--I think it was Tareshen--mentioned making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and I thought they sounded really interesting and tasty, so I googled a recipe. Maybe I'll make 'em again for the Wesir Mysteries get-together.

Yesterday was one of those days that takes a complete right angle (at least) from plan--I'd been going to do a major push on Sakura, and instead I spent most of the day doing songs. Not that I'm exactly complaining.... I'm so behind now, though. Gah.

To accomplish today:
- orientation at YMCA
- water plants
- work on Sakura, dammit

x-post: Friday findings: Three Basts, British Museum - An interesting piece of sculpture.

Didn't actually do anything on my short list yesterday: D&D was canceled, and instead of doing the edits I worked on bloggity stuff. I added a page for the cats (very important!), finally put up at least a preliminary FAQ, and did some other behind-the-scenes things. It's starting to feel like it's really coming together!

(Oh, hey, did I always have a search box at the top of the sidebar, or did I inadvertently manage to add that last night? In any case, super cool! And useful!)

I'd like to do some more blog posts with pictures, so I need to get in the habit of carrying my camera around with me.( Of course it figures that the last couple of evenings have been glorious, all sun-drenched and golden, and today, when I actually brought my camera to try to capture the view on the drive home, it's all cloudy. :P )

At work right now (well, not right now, since I'm posting right now, but you know what I mean), I'm trying to gnaw my way through one of those books that ought to be interesting and somehow just isn't. I feel very sad for the book's editor, who really wants it to have a wide readership. The copyeditor will hopefully perk it up a little, but it really is just not geared for a general audience.

To accomplish today:
- investigate getting a membership at the YMCA
- work on Sakura re-edits
- watch movies!

x-post: What sets me flying - Feeling myself take wing.

Accomplished on Wednesday:
- work on Sakura re-edits
- attend HoN chat

Nekhtet! (Okay, so I had low expectations. ^_^)

I was just congratulating myself yesterday on having had the least emotionally fraught premenstrual week in ages--and then on the drive home last night the hormones kicked my ass. Still managed to get myself into shrine once I got home, but it was tough.

And I had a "got dressed in the dark" moment today. (It wasn't actually dark, but I hadn't turned up the light in my bedroom enough.) I thought I was putting on my green khaki pants, and I put on the gray pants instead. Since I'm also wearing a grayish-brown shirt, I'm looking rather drab. Fortunately, I've also got a red long-sleeved shirt to layer over it....

Other than that, everything's all good. ^_^

To accomplish today:
- work on Sakura re-edits
- possibly go to D&D game [still haven't heard whether we're on or not]

Accomplished on Tuesday:
- took Jet to be neutered
- had the kitchen sink repaired (and discussed other upcoming work with the plumber)
- paid property tax
- had a very nice chat with the tax assessor about our currently in-progress reassessment
- picked up garbage stickers
- cleaned bathroom litter box
- did laundry


All that, and worked from home, too! And cooked a real dinner, and made cookies! Phew!

Jet came through fine--nothing stops this kitten. He was playing and getting into everything the moment I brought him home. (And wearing me out, because I was trying to keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn't doing too much roughhousing with the other cats. Also, I had to pick him off the African violets like ten times.) Something about his smell really put Bella off, though--she was mean to him all day, and she got very angry and offended with me when I told her to knock it off.

I finally sucked it up and decided to replace our 25+ year old water softening unit with a new one, and also to add a neutralizing system to fix our acidic water (which ate out the bottom of our hot water heater last year, so yeah, really needed to be taken care of). So that'll be happening this Friday.

Randomly, I got a real estate company's "featured properties" mailing yesterday, and I was amused (and somewhat gobsmacked) to find that there was only one listed property that was under a million dollars. The high points were a couple of places that were each priced at twelve million dollars.

*pause* *repeats in the style of New Jersey Lottery ad man* Twelve. Million. Dollars.

Holy cats. They were some really beautiful properties, though. And yes, these were all in my town or immediately surrounding areas. (One of these days, I gotta post a picture of "Southern Comfort" so you all can see the crazy that lives on my street.)

For the record, my property isn't worth a million dollars. ^_^


To accomplish today:
- work on Sakura re-edits
- attend HoN chat

x-post: Walking the valley - Coming back to the things that matter

Accomplished on Sunday:
- went grocery shopping
- did weekend offerings
- worked on Sakura; posted final 5 chapters for beta comments [yeah!]
- clipped kitten claws [with help from mimian]
- went for a walk
- tied up recycling
- carried eight 40-pound bags of water softener salt down to the basement
- paid some bills

...I forgot the Sunday chat AGAIN! ASDFJKL;!!!! I don't know what it is about that chat--it seems like Sunday afternoon should be the perfect time to hang out and chat with people, but I always end up doing something else. (Actually, I guess Sunday afternoon probably isn't really the perfect time for me to chat, because that early afternoon spot is right when I'm likely to be most productive either in house or yard work or in writing. It just seems like it ought to be a good time.) I've been toying with the idea of running a fellowship chat myself during one weekday lunch hour--I think I should be able to access the wifi in one of the campus libraries. And if I'm actually running the chat, hopefully I'll be able to remember it! :P

Today, however, I spent my lunch break making a mad dash home, because mimian had emailed me wondering if Amber was too young to go into heat, because she was kind of acting like it, to which my reaction was "Oh crap! She could be in heat!" but mimian had already gone into work by the time I could respond. Anyway, I made an emergency neuter appointment for Jet for tomorrow (since the vet can't spay Amber until after the heat finishes), sprinted home and chucked him in the kitchen with a bed, some toys, and the extra litter box, and then bolted back to work. (Since Jet has to get no food after 8:00 tonight, it seemed easier to isolate him rather than Amber!)

To accomplish today:
- work on Sakura [still need to finish re-editing the earlier chapters]
- possibly do some recording

Edited to add: I almost forgot--more kitties!

Accomplished Thursday:
- go to D&D game
- work on Sakura [I opened the file and then forgot to do anything to it, ahahahaha FAIL err, at least I remembered to play D&D ^_^;;;]

Accomplished today (Friday was planless relax-o-day):
- piled-n-filed assorted paperwork
- caught up with bank paperwork [finally!!!!]
- bought kitten food (and people food)
- cooked people food
- discovered why water was accumulating in the space under the sink
- did some preliminary recordings for new songs

The water under the sink is a fun one. So I'd been wondering why we'd been gradually getting a puddle on the floor of the cabinet under the sink. Today I took out the garbage can, ran the water, and watched with a flashlight. Finally I spotted a drip falling from the drainage pipe, just beyond the U-bend. Oh, I thought, so there's the leak. And I reached out to put my finger on the drip to see just how wet the spot was and how much water was coming out--and I put my finger right through into the pipe. Goosh! That's how corroded it was. Which turned the drip into a stream, so I had to turn the water off and run for a bucket. Gotta call the plumber on Monday....

So to distract myself and everyone else--pictures!

nefersedt, I saw this relief at the Met the other weekend and thought of you. (If you look at the king's hand, it kinda looks like he's offering a bone to Yinepu. ^_^)

For something completely different, this cow libation bowl is pretty awesome. I can just imagine how they'd pour water into it and it would look like the Divine Cow walking on the great flood. Fabulous.

Finally: kitties! Or at least one kitty. Amber really likes candles. At least she's very cautious about them and has yet to set herself on fire.

x-post: Glimpses - A moment of beauty.

Accomplished on Wednesday:
- work on Sakura [Yes! Progressss!]
- attend HoN chat
- possibly do some recording
- possibly sort craft stuff
[ran out of time, energy (and voice) for everything else]

Note to self: probably better to eat leftovers or something else that can be prepared quickly on chat nights, instead of making a full-scale dinner, at least if you want to get anything else accomplished. Oh well, at least it was a tasty dinner: barbecued spare ribs, wild rice with mushrooms, and brussel sprouts. (Yes, I know, you're all going BRUSSEL SPROUTS?! What can I say, I had a craving. Must be either a hormone spike or a vitamin deficiency. ^_^ )

I'm having a bit of song overload at the moment, with three already written but not to a point where I can sing them consistently yet, three more in various stages of stuck/progress, and another one that just got started this morning. Not that I'm complaining, but my brain doesn't quite know which way to jump first.

To accomplish today:
- work on Sakura
- go to D&D game

Accomplished on Tuesday:
- replace car's headlamp bulb
- do a sort-through/inventory of some of my craft stuff [ran out of time and energy]
- work on Sakura or another writing project

...I guess a song counts as a writing project? (Unexpected song was unexpected.) I actually haven't really been counting the songs or the blog posts toward my goal of wanting to write more, and I suppose I should, since they are in fact writing.

I've been having mixed success with cutting back on the Internet and caffeine, so I'm focusing in on it again. I'm starting a new thing where I'm allowed to get online at work only at the following times: before 8:00, during my lunch break (generally 11:00-12:30), and during the last hour of the day (4:00-5:00) if everything is quiet. I'm hoping that establishing very specific boundaries will help me to contain the clickage. So if you catch me posting at any other time during work hours on a weekday, feel free to poke me. :P

I saw this book on the warehouse return shelf today and thought it looked super cool. But I already have piles of books I haven't read yet, both at work and at home, so after a brief inner struggle I left it there. Go me! It's all about knowing what's enough and setting limits.

To accomplish today:
- work on Sakura
- attend HoN chat
- possibly do some recording
- possibly sort craft stuff

x-post: Upon the lake - Gazing at a candle.

x-post: Seeing anew - Some thoughts on new ways to look at things.

I was reading through a list of epithets for Djehuty, when I came across this one: Who drives away the evil that is in his neighborhood.

Is there a special hell for me if I immediately pictured Djehuty in a Mr. Rogers sweater? ^_^;;;

Accomplished on Monday:
- water plants
- vacuum and spray carpets in case of fleas (which will mean shutting all the cats up in carpetless areas until the spray dries)
- give kittens deworming pills [turns out they're not due to be pilled until 10/31, so off the hook for the moment]
- give cats lots of love-loves to make up for all the trauma

Found a dead flea in my bed this morning (thanks, Amber), so the Frontline appears to be working. And last night the kittens were passionately interested in getting into the fireplace for some reason, so I kept having to chase them out of it. Little boogers.

To accomplish today:
- replace car's headlamp bulb
- do a sort-through/inventory of some of my craft stuff, so I can figure out what the heck I actually have and start thinking about projects
- work on Sakura or another writing project

Had a good weekend of slacking off.... Imti came up and we went to the Met, since he's never managed to make it to one of the NE Met get-togethers. It was pretty awesome (although when is the Met not awesome? -_^) This coming weekend I really need to stay home, though--crafting, doing work around the house, and just being at home.

This morning I fiiiiinally managed to do Senut before work for the first time in ages. Nekhtet! I didn't even get up any earlier than usual--I just woke up immediately before my alarm went off and got up right away, as opposed to being dragged out of sleep and then going in and out of a doze for half an hour. Now if I could just get that timing down as a regular thing....

We found a couple of fleas on the kittens, and since I'm paranoid about infestations we're taking all precautions. Fortunately they're old enough for Frontline. Amber's fecal sample also came back with roundworms, so they need some extra deworming, beyond what the vet normally does when they get their shots. Poor kittehs. That might explain why Amber is skinnier than her brother. The vet was really funny--he was like, "Are you sure these two are from the same litter?" Because apparently Amber's already got her adult canine teeth and Jet doesn't. Going just by their teeth, he would have put Amber's age at a month older than her brother.

To accomplish today:
- water plants
- vacuum and spray carpets in case of fleas (which will mean shutting all the cats up in carpetless areas until the spray dries)
- give kittens deworming pills
- give cats lots of love-loves to make up for all the trauma