Flamethrowers and Umbrellas

Taking Lady with me to work today; she has an interview with boss-lady. Here's hoping they have something for her when we get back.

Henna-ed my hair yesterday. Second of the triennial dyeings. The bright red fades within a few days, but it does give my hair some color for months afterward. I never thought I'd still be doing this when I started hennaing my hair five/six years ago, but, well, I let it go for a long time once and it just got so dull.

Tomorrow is leaving day. I checked the weather for the week to see if I might even remotely need a jacket (aside from needing it inside, of course), and it's supposed to be thunderstorms and in the 80s. Yup. Sounds about right. Also, this week in Seattle it'll be in the 70s, which means it'll really be nearly 80, which, since we're without a/c, I'll be glad to avoid. There's a big difference between 90+ and having a decent a/c and 80+ and all you can do is open the windows.

So, tomorrow is all day traveling. We get into Orlando at 9pm, hunt down Benni, steal her apartment. Wednesday we'll bum around WS/Oviedo for a bit, see old haunts and whatnot (and try and find the Oviedo chickens for Lady), before having lunch with Benni and then heading on over to Sarasota. Three hours later, attack Ana. Eat Ana's brain for the following three days. See her graduate, along with all the other awesome peoples. Leave for Orlando Saturday afternoon, eat Benni's brains and then fly home early early Sunday morning.

Now for work!

The weather for the past few days - even the past week - has been phenomenal. Amazing how a few clear skies can really make the winter seem as if it's receding. I really took Florida winters for granted. Cloudy skies and cold and nice on occasion, but I like me some good ol' radiation.

Needless to say, my mood has improved quite a bit from the last post. I still get nauseous whenever I think about grad school, but work isn't too bad and I've got some new plans in the works. I got a raise, albeit a little one considering how many responsibilities I've taken on since starting, and I've gotten near pleadings not to leave even if I do get into grad school. Boss-lady let me know that I could even go part time. And she mulled about my possible future in title today, as well. Not that I have to worry about the need for this kind of business going away anytime soon, anyway. I really have awesome timing sometimes. Still, lady not having a job is depressing for both of us, even if we should just be happy one of us does have a job in this stupid economy.

As for my plans, well, that would be me taking advantage of the part time. This would have to be after lady gets a job. Since she'll automatically be making more than me, I would be fully comfortable hacking my hours in half and devoting the rest of my time to writing. I've found that trying to write with a full time job is hard - I'm so tired when I come home and the weekends are eaten up by errands and much-needed down time. I can do it, it's just slow going. Maybe by then I'll have one of these edits done and I can focus on a finished product. The idea of it thrills me.

Other things that have perked up my mood recently were our anniversary and a trip to the doctor about these headaches and being able to drink coffee again and delicious, delicious cupcakes. Going to the doctor has put a lot of the little anxious voices in the back of my head to rest. I did faint when they drew blood and ended up having to take the whole day off from work instead of the morning, but now I know there's nothing seriously wrong with me. A little low on the iron, apparently, but I'm not going to randomly keel over dead. Stupid anxiety. But I haven't had an attack since beginning of January and I had coffee the last few days and had neither palpitations nor attacks. It was glorious. I won't be drinking coffee every morning again for a while, yet, but at least I don't have to start worrying about the effects of caffeine before I even start drinking it. And cupcakes! Oh, how we've feasted upon cupcakes these past few weekends. I might have to try my hand at delicious-ness this coming weekend...

So things are all right. The economy sucks balls and I won't be getting into grad school, but things could be oh so much worse.

Merry Christmas!

It was a good day. Woke up semi late, had tea, opened stockings, failed at making pancakes (how can you fail at pancakes?), opened presents, talked to family on the phone, went for a walk in the snow/rain, napped, made dinner - veggie stew, spinach salad, cranberry sauce, and rolls - and now waiting for the Dr. Who Christmas special to finish downloading. zOmg. One of the few times I wish I had television...

Presents were good and small. I got some clothes from Lady's mom, as well as a Tad Williams book from Lady and the Discworld Graphic Novel from Ana (THANK YOU - is excellent). Yay clothes! I was really needing a few more long sleeve shirts, considering before I didn't have enough for each day of work each week... Now I just need boots that don't leak so my feet aren't cold and wet after tromping through the slush.

Ugh - speaking of slush, it's warmed up past freezing, so all the snow is very slowly melting. While it snows on top of the melting snow. And it'll freeze overnight again, so getting to work tomorrow will be... fun. Yesterday it took me two and a half hours to get home because the bus was an hour and a half late. Apparently a tree fell on Aurora and blocked half of the street.

All in all a good day, though. The food was the best. It turned out much better than either of us had expected and we still have leftovers. It amazes me how we can make delicious stew and such-what but utterly fail at making pancakes. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Time for editing. I've started on Guardians, having given it time to rest and already gone through one quick reading. It suffers from way too many things going on at once, since the story is so old that it's accrued a lot of subplots that really should be pruned. To help figure out which ones, I'm going chapter by chapter and detailing what's going on, what's working, and what obviously needs to be fixed. We'll see where that gets me.

Less than a week until the 'rents visit! I am much looking forward to a more substantial break from work - it's been nice getting off early so many days, due to the weather, but at the same time it's not been much fun doing three people's work.

Still got the persistent headache - but hey, it's the weekend! And snow! Well, still not yet, but the promises remain. People at work are so funny - they're acting just like Floridians when the temp drops below 70 degrees. *shbs*

Anyway, I feel like doing this meme mostly to remind myself of a few books I still want to read.
( Book meme. )