The Thing That Goes Doink

First of all:

I hit 50k words exactly yesterday. I've hit a bit of a brick wall in terms of plot, but I'm not particularly worried about that right now, as I have hit the required word count and will probably poke at it during the next week.

Secondly:

Tomorrow, being Thanksgiving, means that my husband and I are going over to his cousin's house in a neighboring town. (For those of you familiar with the Mercy Thompson 'Verse, it's the one that's the home to the fictional Mike's.) It's something like a twenty minute drive, which all things considered is not that bad in terms of traveling for Turkey Day.

Most people may ask why I'm not making the pies, and it comes down to two years ago. Our first Thanksgiving after we got married was spent with my parents three years ago. I asked my mother what she wanted me to bring, and she said salad fixings. Easy enough. No complex baking required. The next year, Thanksgiving was at husband's cousin's house. Between Thanksgiving 2008 and Thanksgiving 2009 my husband found a recipe for a chocolate pecan pie. He decided to make it to take to his cousin's house, which was a smashing success. He made it again for the Christmas Eve dinner at my in-law's.

Last year we had Thanksgiving over at my Grandma's house in the next town over (for those who are up on current events and stuff, the town is also the home of Kennewick Man). That's about a twenty minute drive from my apartment. My uncle came up from Wyoming and the whole family was together, which given that my grandparents' house is on the small side, was pretty damn entertaining. All in all it was fun, and again the chocolate pecan pie was hit. Of course not everyone believed me when I said that my husband was responsible for the awesome pie.

This all came about because my husband found he recipe and I informed him under no uncertain terms that if he wanted the pie, he was going to make it for himself. He seemed okay with that. Though my husband isn't a huge fan of cooking and baking, he can do it, and often times very well.

For those of you who question my ability to bake, remember I made a red velvet cake that sold at auction for $625 this past March. I can bake, all right. And I am awesome at it. But that is irrelevant to this story.

Anyway, he's baking pies, and I casually mentioned that he should put on the Slave Leia apron to keep from getting covered in purred pumpkin. He didn't seem to find the idea of wearing an apron with epic boobs and a metal bikini painted on it nearly as entertaining as I did. Though it might have been because I was threatening to take pictures to post on Facebook. And Twitter. And probably here.

Because that's how I roll. XD

So now I'm sitting, watching Mythbusters while the apartment begins to smell like baked pie crust and pumpkin. And tomorrow it will smell like pie crust and chocolate.

I think I'm dreading getting up to hit the gym tomorrow morning, though. Augh.

I went up to Wenatchee this weekend to spread my grandmother's ashes. My husband and I drove up Saturday afternoon, pulling into Wenatchee at just after two-thirty. After checking into the hotel and grabbing a snack, we headed over to my uncle Randy's place for a BBQ and to visit with some of the family that wasn't going up to Stehekin with us.

At seven the next morning, everyone who was departing from Wenatchee did so, driving the 45 minutes or so to Chelan where we boarded The Lady Express to get up to Stehekin. There was one stop off at Field's Point, but otherwise it was more or less a straight shot from Chelan to Stehekin, a trip of roughly 55 miles. And by the way, the only way to get to Stehekin is to hike, take a float plane, or take a boat.

Once we arrived to Stehekin, we took a bus to an outdoor chapel that Grandma and Grandpa had built, and was where we had spread Grandpa's ashes after he had passed four years ago. Everyone in the family helped spread Grandma's ashes around the chapel before going up to the Stehekin bakery. Most of us walked, with the exception of a couple of my cousins and two of my uncles (though one of my cousins had an excuse, as he had undergone knee surgery a few days prior and wasn't moving around real well).

Once we were done at the bakery, we took the bus back down to Stehekin proper and poked around the main lodge and visitor center for forty-five minutes before boarding the Lady of the Lake II for the four hour trip back to Chelan. We arrived back in Chelan proper at roughly six, before driving back to the hotel for a quick change and then going out for dinner.

Anyway, after dinner I started feeling dizzy (we were still at the restaurant) so my husband and I headed back to the hotel where I took a shower and then crashed, sleeping better than I did the night before, but not by much. The next morning I still wasn't feeling real well, so my husband and I got the hell out of Dodge fairly early, getting home before noon, where I spent the rest of the day sitting on the couch watching TV and trying not to be sick.

Today I'm feeling better. Better rested and less queasy, but I don't want to rush things so I'm going to take it relatively easy today. So far I'm doing laundry - washing sheets and towels - and I'm not planning on doing anything super strenuous. I might clean the bathroom, depending on how I'm feeling this afternoon.

All in all I'm doing okay. I've come to terms with my grandmother's death and finally feeling some closure. I think I needed this weekend to do that.

First of all:



Secondly, today has been spent poking at my pay job. I'm still not quite sure how everything works/is formatted/put together, so I'm poking at meeting minutes following the previous month's minutes as put together by the previous administrator for the TCLBA as a template. So far so good, but I took a ton of notes and I have no idea what all goes into the minutes and what can be excluded. I guess right now I'll throw everything in and then I'll have my mother go over them to make any necessary changes.

Thirdly, I have the second to last KNRC fundraiser meeting tonight. travellyr just informed me that they're putting hockey stick key chains onto business cards (for the upcoming hockey night with our local hockey team) and if they don't get done by the meeting, the meeting will be recruited to put them together. I volunteered to go in early as I usually spend half an hour or so at the library waiting for the meeting to start because I refuse to drive in the rush hour traffic if I can avoid it. So I'll be heading in to help attach key chains to business cards and promptly became the most loved person in the NRC office.

Finally, I had a nice dinner with my adopted sister last night. She's in town visiting my older sister and her family, and made time to have dinner with me and my husband. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner and then to a local ice cream shop for dessert. After that we dropped her off at my sister's house (where she's staying) and went home. I watched the end of the Oscars, and then spend another three hours poking around the Internet, as I had slept late that morning and therefore wasn't tired until LATE.

That, of course, bit me in the ass this morning when my alarm went off at seven-thirty. I promptly hit "Off" and slept for another two hours. I finally dragged myself out of bed to take a shower and have a cup of coffee before diving into cleaning and work, all while listening to the Nerdist's podcast with Nathan Fillion. And probably in a little bit I'll do some exercise with Raving Rabbids Travel in Time (the dancing game is a full body workout), then shower and get my but to the KNRC office.

I suppose I should get back to the meeting minutes. The more I get down now the less I have to worry about before next week's meeting. At least the wind has died down.

I got the notice today that my wigs had shipped from Amphigory. I ordered my wig for my My Little Pony and a my wig for Sheena. They should be getting here sometime next week, when I'll have to spring four a couple of wig heads (I'm sure I can pick those up at Sally Beauty Supply) so that I can get to styling. I'll also have to pick up some styling products as well. I don't actually own hair gel (well, gel that doesn't react to black light, that is), so I'm going to pick up a bottle of Got-2-B, which is what sideshow_ericka suggested because it'll wash out should I need to restyle. However I think Sheena's wig will just be Sheena's wig and unless I don't have another choice for a wig, I won't restyle it. I don't think I'll be doing much styling with the My Little Pony wig, probably just combing it out and getting it to lie the way I want it.

I also got the notice that my saree had shipped and it should be arriving on Friday. I'm really exited about that, as Friday is the "last" Bollywood night before Maria gets married. If the saree does arrive before I head over to her place, I'll probably take it with me so that I can try it on (and show it off, because I'm like that).

I think that about wraps things up here. I still don't know how my grandpa is doing, but hopefully I'll be talking to my mom this afternoon and I can get that all sorted out. I also get to deal in invoices, which is always very intriguing and fascinating. Please note all intended sarcasm.

I suppose I should eat because it probably won't be too much longer before my mom calls to ask me to come in.

In other news, I've finally arranged musical viewing with my friends, and we're going tonight. The musical is How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which I've never seen before. My baby sister plays one of the secretaries in the production, so I'm going mostly to cheer her on. She's put a lot of work into this (as my alma matter is notorious for having one of the best drama programs in the state and thus the whole production has a lot of work put into it), and I'm really excited for her. And I'm glad that a couple of my friends will be there to share it with me as well.

I can't really think about anything else that's worth posting. The meme from this entry is still open if you'd like to play along, or not. Whatever.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna play some more Zelda. I've been coordinating musical tickets, etc., today, and the list of attendees now includes amberdexterious and Sabrina because my mom had a couple of extra tickets that were originally picked up for her parents, but they've caught a bug and can't go. But that's okay. I know my friends will be there for Jax. :3

If I leave the "fuck" out of that quote it loses its punch. Anyway today is Christmas Eve and for those on my F-list who are celebrating tonight, please be safe. :)

Last night I watched the end of Slayers Try while my husband made pies. Yes, pies as in more than one. One chocolate pecan pie and one deep dish apple pie with crystallized ginger. Anyway, I've reached the conclusion that Slayers Try one long detour in the Slayers-verse that really doesn't move the plot along and really doesn't do much as far as character development goes. It hammers home a couple of points though:

1) Lina is absolutely terrified of her older sister Luna - and probably with good reason.

2) Xelloss lives to cause trouble, and love and kindness is actually quite a good weapon against him.

3) Lina is also very much aware of the fact that the minute that she stops being useful to Xelloss he has absolutely no qualms about killing her, but she doesn't care because as long as they're mutually beneficial to each other, she has nothing really to worry about. Besides, she does has the ultimate weapon to use against him - Amelia the ultimate genki girl.

I also watched the first episode of Slayers Revolution, which was a little jarring as I had just watched the first three seasons in English and switched to Japanese. I do prefer the Japanese cast to the English cast, but I had gotten used to them (except for Xelloss - what the hell were the casting directors thinking hiring David Moo for him?!). As it stands Funimation only has the first two episodes of Revolution up on Hulu, so it's much more prudent to watch it in Japanese.

Today I made an apple crisp for dessert to take to my mother's place tomorrow, all while listening to White Christmas. I thought about putting in the DVD, but I wasn't really watching it and it's more on for background noise. My husband has sighed and rolled his eyes several times when I quote or sing along with the movie, because yes, I've seen it that many times. I should probably start trying to figure out what the hell I'm wearing tonight, as tonight is the Christmas Eve celebration with my husband's family.

I don't know if I've ever gone over the Christmas routine, but for those of you who are new, here's the run down.

My husband's family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve with the big family dinner and games. There usually family pictures as well - which means I should probably remember to bring my tripod and charge up my camera battery. We don't have to be over there until 5, and I'm also swinging by my sister's place (the one I'm more or less estranged from) in order to pick up a few things from my dad and I'm debating if I should take his present. I'm not entirely sure if I want to go over tomorrow, so I may just take it and be done with it.

Christmas Day is when my family celebrates. Christmas morning my husband and I will open our gifts to each other, and then go over to my in-law's house for breakfast and presents. Once we're done there, we'll probably spend a couple of hours getting gifts put away and then head over to my mom's house and we'll do presents and then dinner - this time my brother and grandparents will be there. Things are pretty chill - hang out and play games and enjoy each other's company.

At any rate I think I'm just gonna chill out the rest of this afternoon.

Apparently there are towns in Alaska that are currently warmer than where I live.

So I guess this is a general update of sorts. Thanksgiving was fun - it was darn near the whole family over at my grandparents' house, which is probably another 1000 feet bigger than my apartment. Add around 30 people and you have chaos. But in a good way.

My uncle and his partner (I suppose she's his wife by common law by now) drove up from Wyoming and since the rest of us are more or less local we were able to all converge at Grandma and Grandpa's, where we were served a venison roast and a turkey. As a general rule I'm not a fan of venison but the roast was actually pretty good on top of the turkey being cooked to perfection.

There were three different kinds of pie - pecan, chocolate pecan and pumpkin - and cheesecake for dessert. We broke into little groups most of us "kids" playing Apples to Apples while the "adults" sat around and talked. After that I pulled out my violin and played some highlights from The Phantom of the Opera and then "Ashokan Farewell" for good measure.

Shortly after that we decided that it was time to call it quits and my husband and I came home and watched Punkin Chunkin' on Discovery. And then my husband informed me that he could build any of the contraptions that were chunkin' punkins if he felt so inclined.

Yes, that is the joy of being married to a mechanical engineer. X3

Yesterday I avoided the Black Friday chaos, instead choosing to decorate the apartment. I still need to finish the dining room table, but that's pretty straight forward and really only requires me to quickly clean off the table so I can put the table cloth on. However we got the tree up, lit and decorated, the lights around the balcony and windows and the various holiday plush, dolls and knick-knacks up.

We only ventured out when we decided that it was time to replace the old lights with some new LED ones, which we found for a pretty reasonable price at Big Lots. I also needed a new star for my tree, which was found at Fred Meyer and thankfully late enough in the afternoon that I wasn't smack dab in the middle of the Black Friday crazy.

Today I fully intend to hide in the apartment because we're getting that lovely winter mix that makes driving extremely dangerous. But I have the Wii to entertain me, along with the interwebz at large. The only thing that is officially planned for today is the housewarming party for my husband's cousin and her fiance, and even if we can't drive there we can have his family pick up us and take us. (Though I really like the idea of being able to leave when we want.)

Also, I've reached the 50k goal of NaNo, though my story isn't done yet. I'm going to try and write a bit more over the next couple of days and then I'll do the "verify and win" on Tuesday evening and get my web goodies for being a NaNo winner. This year for the third in a row. (Apparently that's some sort of special achievement, as most people don't even finish...)

Hmm...I should probably get some lunch. I don't know what, though. I'm hungry and I have no idea what it is that want. Something warm, probably, but I have to go diving through the cupboards to figure out exactly what there is to eat around here.

Tonight we collected 232 food items. Combined with the 475 from yesterday, that brings the grand total to 707 items of food (hell if I know how many pounds that is) for the local food bank. Also, something like ten bucks. (But cash is good, it allows them to get perishable items and things like infant formula and baby food.)

All in all, it was a successful venture and we got a great community response. I don't know if we'll be doing the same thing again next year - Halloween is on a Monday so I suppose it's possible we'll be open Sunday/Monday in order to continue the food drive, or perhaps since it's established people will just bring donations. Which would be all kinds of awesome.

I think I'm going to sit and chill for a bit - maybe go diving for fanfiction. I'm tired but not exhausted, and I managed to spend most of tonight in the house because Sheena's a little on the thin side. (Duh, she's made of broad cloth.) My baby sister was freaked out by the size of my boobs (for my new friends from the ToS community, read this entry about my adventures in getting a bra to give me the proper bust for Sheena) which are, for all intents and purposes, foam. Yes, those wonderful Bombshell bras from Victoria's Secret really do add two cup sizes. I go from a D to a DDD in a matter of seconds. And they jiggle when I laugh. Apparently, they also make it really awkward to hug me, as my sister found out today. My mom snapped a few photos when I was at the house, and once she gets them posted on Facebook, I'll figure out a way to share them with my friends here.

Okay, I think I should probably start the wind down, now. G'night everybody.

But totally worth it. We collected 475 food times tonight for the local food bank. We're hoping to get a bit more tomorrow. I am now going to take a shower and pass out and stay dead until football pre-game shows tomorrow.

In which case I'll probably spend most of the day in half of Sheena's costume because it's comfy.

So I mentioned the newspaper article AND that one of the local stations covered the house.

Here's the segment from this evening's news.

I'm not mentioned, so we're clear, but should we be covered tomorrow I'll make sure to put up links to that as well.