Adventures of the Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief

Take that Yuletide fic!


No, I haven't finished it. I've just hit 1000 words. What the fuck is wrong with me? Also, all my pens are dying and apparently I can only handwrite this (or type it on my phone at arse o'clock in the morning). Sitting down in front of the laptop with the intention of writing gets me nowhere.

God I feel like shit. Bad night's sleep and a resurgence of plague that has had me wobbly all day.

I made it home and got the work I wanted to get done done, and I've watched an awful lot of Bubblegum Crisis and related media; the last disc of original BGC, Bubblegum Crash, which I haven't seen in years, and the original AD Police series, which I've never seen. I still have the new AD Police series to watch (but I need to plug my other DVD player in for that as my TV is the wrong region) BGC 2040 (which I have seen many times) and Parasite Dolls. It is good. Well, it's pleasant, although dear god the original ADP series is misogynistic. Very of its time, and not always in a good way.
I was also amused to see the bit that had me going "Tony Stark has a motoslave!" when I saw the Avengers in the summer (and there is a terrifying crossover prospect).

I am however now drowning in snot. It probably wouldn't be so bad, but I decided that I wanted icecream, and that never mixes well with colds.

I have actual words for my Yuletide fic. I'm not sure if they're good words, but that they exist is making me feel slightly better. Once again I appear to be doing an episode tag, but it fits with the request, and I'm not up to huge sprawling plots right now.

I also now have a steaming headache, so I think I'm going to go and hide in bed with the end of the book I'm currently reading (Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf, which I'm still not sure if I'm enjoying, despite being 200 pages in) and a hot water bottle and hope that I can get some sleep and be human in some way tomorrow. I'm not holding out huge hope, but all I have planned for tomorrow is reading, writing and trying to remember to eat food (and hoping I don't have to leave the house for said food).

I have also apparently turned into someone who drinks Earl Grey. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I'm scared.

I really ought to be reviewing my source material for Yuletide (again, the first attempt lasted about 200 words before I hated it to death) or finishing work. Or cleaning. God, why is there always so much cleaning to do?

Instead I'm sitting here bemoaning how fucking cold it is. Because it is, and I hate the cold.

I have no idea what I'm doing for christmas this year. I was angling to stay with dad and Kay, but I've just found out that my step-sister and her other half will be there, and I'm not sure I'm interested any more (not because I don't want to see her, we just have nothing in common apart from the marriage of our parents, and I don't really want to have to put up with her and her other half being couply because I am bitter and single, or something). I was pondering inviting people over to mine, but again I'm not sure if I want to. Hibernating could be a plan, but, blah. Christmas is weird for me.

I'm quite sad that Sir Patrick Moore has died. We were talking about him in the office the other day, wondering what had happened to him.

( Fannish stuff, because I am never sure what is a spoiler or not )

That's probably about it for now. I need to get on with work, and try and figure out if taking the potatoes out the fridge now will warm them up at all before I peel them (I hate peeling cold spuds). And possibly find a blanket, as it is bastardingly cold and I can feel my shoulder start to tense up weirdly again.

Oh, and I won NaNo this year. Go me :D

The last few weeks have been a bit odd. Not always in a bad way, I've just not really had time for much, and my mind has been kind of wonky anyway. But I'm hoping things are now on the upswing.
Dave and I split up, which is nowhere near as terrible as people seem to think. It was mutual, and it's a bit weird, but it happens.
Work is hell at the moment.
The house is still a state, but it's getting there. I'm finally managing to get on top of keeping it tidy thanks to Unfuck Your Habitat, which is awesome. The bathroom is almost finished and we have stuff to start wallpapering and plastering my room and then repainting. It'll get there.
Money is tight, but it always is this time of year. It's one of the downfalls of not working over the summer.

The LARP season is over and we're onto system updates (new spells in, checking things are right in the manual, making sure characters are up to date, playing with some of the new setting stuff) and I'm actually itching for it to be next year already. Not just for PLARP, but for other bits and pieces.

I'm almost finished Toll the Hounds. I really haven't read as much as I would have liked this year. I set out with the goal of 60 books but have had to be sensible and cut that back to 50. I haven't been reading a lot of comics this year, which is possibly part of the reason the number is so low (I usually only read trades paperbacks, which totally count) and work is so manic that I barely have a lunch break to read in most days.
Work is doing a number on my back and shoulders and hand thanks to stupid chairs, a lack of tables in half the rooms I work in and the belief that I can sit and write for 4 hours straight (I put my foot down and refused to work more than 4 hours in a row, they weren't happy with me, but with the amount of typing I also have to do for work, I'm just waiting for the wrist and hand issues to start up).

I am doing NaNo this year, although I'm horribly behind. Mostly due to the lack of lunch breaks and the fact that I get in and it's all I can do to check e-mail, blogs and such and eat dinner before I pass out. The write ins at MK library have been godsends of a weekend, and when I do manage to write, the plot is churning out fairly easily. It's just finding the time.

Anyway, today is a beautiful crisp clear cold day, I had a nice lie in after staying up too late last night reading (and after stomping home from the train station because I made a social interaction fuck up (at least in my head, the other person quite possibly didn't even notice) which made me sulk, and my bag came undone halfway home and I didn't notice, but thankfully I didn't lose anything (although I thought I had lost Pygmy-Pygmy my tiny plushie dinosaur)) and now I'm pottering around the house tidying things up, doing odd bits of work typing and doing the odd bit of NaNo. I need to go and buy veg for dinner, and I might go for a walk later, but all in all, today is ok.

Mushroom soup with ginger

150g finely chopped onions
25g finely chopped root ginger
25g butter
7.5ml/1.5 tbsp olive oil
1kg halved and quartered mushrooms
1 litre hot vegetable stock
150ml creme fraiche
30ml tomato puree

(I used absolutely bog standard supermarket economy closed cup mushrooms and a few flat mushrooms, and it tasted great. Using nicer quality or differenly flavoured mushrooms may well be a good thing.)

1. Fry the onions and the ginger in the oil and butter until they are pale golden brown
2. Add the mushrooms to the pan and fry for about 7 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 7 minutes.
4. Leave to cool until lukewarm.
5. Blend in 2 or 3 batches until smooth and transfer to a clean pan.
6. add the creme fraiche and the tomato puree, reheating gently without boiling, stirring from time to time.
7. Serve hot.

I split it into batches and froze it. It defrosts a little weirdly, in that it does separate, but slow reheating on the hob seems to fix this.

I've just had the new timetable of students I'm (allegedly) supporting. Which include 6 hours at a campus that I physically can't get to in the time allotted, but which I've been told is only a penciling in and not to actually bother.
Half the module codes don't seem to exist on the system, and those that do are, um, thrilling. Lots of Human Resource Management and first year English. I have 2 continuing students, rather than the 3 I was expecting (whether that's down to one of them not carrying on, or if it's just a case of timetabling, I don't know) and one student who I know is going to be interesting.
The student I've had through freshers week has been nice, although it's been slightly awkward for various reasons. One more hour (possibly 2) tomorrow and then I won't see her again. Although her lecturer keeps wittering about her needing support all the time, but that's between her and the office, I don't know the ways of the timetabling.
I've also got a module that I am slightly worried is very practical work based, and it involves something I know nothing about.

Hmmm, today has been a sort of day off, and I've been stupidly productive. I've emptied the hoover, hoovered downstairs, organised the shoe pile, taken a load of stuff upstairs, made mushroom and ginger soup to freeze, walked to and from Morissons, taken stuff up to the charity shop after I finished clearing out my wardrobe, done 2 loads of laundry, 2 loads of washing up (and put both away), remembered both breakfast and lunch and I am pondering making brownies.
So yes, productivity win.

I also sort of destroyed another pair of jeans (wear on the inner thigh, which is how all my jeans die) which is a wee bit annoying as they were basically the only pair I had that fitted me. I need to lose weight, and in the mean time, find another pair of nice jeans.

What I haven't done much of recently is writing. I'm percolating ideas for NaNo, and I have one more adventure to write for PLARP this year, but everything else is a bit vague. I have ideas, but nothing very concrete.

I seem to title too many posts variations of "oww". Oh well.

Weekend just gone was amazing. It was also wet and horrible and muddy, but mostly just amazing. I fought in some excellent battles and then by the end of the weekend had agreed to become my group's priest, so a complete change next event.
It might be for the best. I've got interesting shaped sunburn across my shoulders from wearing armour which is actually really fucking painful, just wearing a soft t-shirt. I've got steri-strips holding a chunk of my knee in place after I slipped in the rain and then didn't realise I was bleeding until I was halfway through getting armour on, and then most of Saturday and all of yesterday was spent walking round a swamp after torrential rain. I've ruined one pair of shoes and lost another, and my feet were caked in mud (I eventually gave up on shoes for everything but arena fighting, as it was actually safer walking barefoot). My bad ankle has swollen up and I can't move three of the toes on that foot properly (and they weren't even the toes that got trodden on).
My group are amazing and despite my usual round of "oh god oh god people" I had a really great time. Especially the several hours I spent (sober) in the bar, talking to random people and avoiding the rain.

Anyway, I still stink of woodsmoke, I really want a bath but the shower is dripping and I'm waiting for a plumber to show up. I need to post some ebay packages and I have an all day training course tomorrow on how to do my job. Joy.

I've also run out of teabags. Bugger. Oh well, I suppose this means I have to go out in the rain.

Today I made cake and drank cider. I wish I could say that actually there was more to it than that, but really, it is about it. I made a cake which I now don't want to eat (it was a test cake) and had cider with my dinner. And did some washing up.

Dave is telling me that I should have worked out what I was doing at Odyssey before I booked. I know what I'm doing; ignoring the fact that I really shouldn't fight this event and living in the hope that there can be some kind of emergency armour purchasing. I got paid today, it's fine.
It doesn't help that Panga has broken and may not be functioning in time to get us to the event. This will make things awkward to say the least. Dad should know by tomorrow what the state of play is.

Umm, yeah. I think I'm going to go and read or something. Or play Diablo II. And mostly not think about the state of the kitchen. Oops.

And I forgot I'd started to write this. Oops.

So I'm not going to say that I'm sane again, but I'm better than I was. The sun is shining (at the moment), I'm no longer covered in blue facepaint (excellent day of LARP yesterday) and I'm getting things done.
The dress that I bought on wednesday in a fit of madness has also arrived and is thankfully not ridiculously cleavage revealing, so can (as I hoped) be worn for work.

Now I just need to catch up on the pile of writing that needs typing (or doing, full stop) and get on with housework. And unload the car. I was supposed to take it back last night but we didn't finish early enough and then I had to drive home in the driving rain and I think dad might be a bit miffed because he probably got wet going to work this morning on the bike. Oops.

I'm going through one of those awesome phases where I don't sleep. Or rather, I can't sleep. Not sleeping isn't an issue for me usually, I'll start working on something and decide to stay up and get it done or whatever, then crash a couple of days later. No, this is me trying to get a normal night's sleep and failing miserably. It's not unusual in the summer (I hate curtains, so don't block out the light, but then since I don't go to bed til later, it's not so much of a problem) possibly because I don't really have a routine in the summer since I don't work (at the moment). But at the moment I'm adding the fact that it's cold to this (I hate the cold, and I object to wearing socks to bed in June).

Normally I wouldn't worry too much, but at the moment I've got a pile of extra stresses (my house is falling apart, the boyfriend is buying a house, the bookshelf falling down yesterday and post for mum making me suddenly not cope all over again blah blah blah) so I fixate on the little things that shouldn't be stressful (Odyssey in two weeks, which my booking didn't go through for properly and the boyfriend is nagging at me to get it done, and I failed at getting armour sorted and due to a really important work thing the day after I can't fight (because I will hurt myself otherwise) and oh god people blah blah blah) which is, apparently last night now causing the wonderful cycle of "I can't sleep because I can't breathe, I can't breathe because I'm crying, I'm crying because I can't sleep" which was just what I didn't fucking need at 2am.

There were two more paragraphs here that basically came down to "wah wah I can't cope with being an adult right now" which is pathetic because I can't, I'm just not. So I deleted them and am now going to go and make a cup of tea in a mug that doesn't taste of chai (I like chai, but I also like my tea to taste of tea when I want it to) and have a bath, because that generally makes everything better, and if nothing else, at least my hair will be clean and my legs shaved.