Adventures of the Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief

Work got done (although I still need to email it), sleep was had, words were written of Yuletide (but I am still engaging in that terrible feeling of BEARS) and I have sort of started to win the war against the lurg.

I have also seen the Hobbit. Helen and I have squeed over it, I have had thinky thoughts over one of the most insignificant parts of it, and while it wasn't the film I necessarily wanted of the book, I enjoyed it. Mostly I took from it this - since when were Dwarves sexy? (I blame Richard Armitage).

I have a staff meeting from hell tomorrow, which is prefaced by a pre-meeting meeting because my department is made of drama-llamas of the highest fucking degree. If I could, I would go in armour, sadly, I don't think that would go down too well. Nor would weaponry.

I should be in bed, but my throat is annoying me and I want to finish my tea. I also failed at dinner today; I got pie filling out the freezer, bought pastry on my way home from the cinema and then found when I got home that the 'chiller cabinet' in the co-op is actually the freezer, and my pastry was rock solid. So I had cheesey chips. Which was not the tasty chicken and mushroom pasty and veg that I wanted.

Right, bed, for I need to get up early and read the stuff I should have read for the meeting and then go to the meeting and not maim anyone.

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.

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 made frog cookies the other week, and I plan to make more, but here is the recipe, because they were pretty tasty.

( Lemon and lime frog cookies )

Obviously they're only frog cookies if you use a frog cutter like I did, and I didn't bother with the icing, but they were tasty.

Well I'm not wanting to maim anyone who comes near me now, although I'm still not fond of people in general. We'll see how this goes.

Possibly I'm coming down with some kind of plague, which displeases me greatly.

My Ladies Big Bang project is really badly stalled, because none of the music I keep finding works for what I want it to do.

And all the writing I've been doing recently seems to hinge on identity issues. Which is, possibly, either very much saying things about where my brain is at the moment, or just there to irritate me.
I did manage to get some editing done yesterday, which was marginally useful at least. One day, something I've produced might actually be publishable (this is unlikely, I hate everything I've ever written and would rather keep it buried than ever actually show anyone).

My twitter feed is full of my workplace retweeting students who will be joining in a week or so, and they're all so, ah, interesting. (I have opinions about my workplace, they don't get vented in public)

(there was a rant here about not transposing modern expectations of race/gender/sexuality onto pre-20th century texts. I deleted for fear of being jumped all over)

I'm going to go and have lunch now, then off to MK. Oh the joy.

Dad came and took the first lot of boxes away yesterday. 1 box of DVDs, 2 of kitchen stuff, 1 of cookery books, 1 of his and 5 of my books. I didn't realise I had quite that many books (I kept finding more as I was packing) and the boxes probably should have been packed a little more sparsely, as they were fucking heavy. The bookshelves have also gone to the locker.
I'm now surrounded by piles of books and DVDs that I'm trying to get rid of.
So far one whole thing has sold on eBay.

I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones yesterday. It was, something. I'm not sure if I really like it or not yet. I didn't realise who Jon was until I looked him up afterwards, I thought he was just some bod. Theon does not look like Theon in my head.
I am hugely unimpressed with Lena Heady, which is shocking, as she's one of my favourite actresses, she also looks terrible blonde. On the flip side, the girl they've got playing Dany is pretty good, and the girl playing Sansa is almost exactly as I pictured her.

I woke up this morning and thought to myself, "hmmm, what day is it today?... it's plastic". I don't think I'm really going to rise above that all that much.

I baked yesterday, mostly out of boredom, and also because I'm trying to empty the cupboards. I made Banana and nectarine muffins (which have a bit too much almond essence in them, and not enough nectarine flavour), and mocha brownies (which are incredibly rich, have walnuts rather than pecan because nowhere had pecans, and go excellently with strawberry icecream). Today I may make double chocolate muffins (I have a lot of cooking chocolate that needs using).

I need to get on with listing all of these bloody books up on Green Metropolis (and the list for friends and what not), start shifting all my writing from Pharangese to Nene and pack LARP kit for the weekend. And go in to town and run some errands, sort my eyebrows out and at some point, pick the car up from dad (I have a nasty feeling this will involve a ride to his place on the motorbike, do not want). And maybe do more packing.

This had all better be bloody worth it.

I just spent ten minutes reading a lecturers profile, and came out realising that I had NO idea what I'd just been reading. God was it badly written. I'm not even sure why I started reading it in the first place. No, wait, I was checking a reference for work.

Today I have been working and reading Marvel's Civil War. Yeah, I know, so behind the times. Half of it is boring the shit out of me, and then I lose where I was, and it just gets confusing. Meh.

I've also made pastry, and soon I will go and make filling for steak and mushroom pie. Omnomnom.

I'm hoping that this week is a bit busier than last week. My paycheck is otherwise going to be a little on the small side, and me and dad are discussing car insurance options at the moment.

Right. 3 more pages, and then pie.