I am hereby banning myself from looking through the jewelry section of DeviantArt until the holidays are over. My shopping weakness is earrings, and there be some beautiful ones on DA, I think I've already seen about 7 pairs I want. If only my sisters didn't have such bad allergies to most metals, I could buy them some and at least get holiday shopping out of the way. Though, nothing is going to stop from sending a link or two to a couple of the etsy shops I found as a wink/nudge to them.

I need to get back to writing and prompts.

Went on a family road trip to visit my grandpa from my mom's side.

A much needed break from everything.

It's been a while since we saw him, but with his old age and demand to set my mom as his power of attorney, it was about time. The drive really wasn't bad, only five hours to where he lives in Arizona, which when you live in California is quite good considering we go eight hours to see my brother in Northern California.

I don't think the fact that he's 93 really hit me until I saw him. You see, he's nineteen years older than my grandmother. The fact bringing up the question about what my parents would think if one of us started seeing someone that much older. The answer: shifty eyes and them all but saying I'm the only one the wouldn't have an issue with being in that kind of a relationship. Well, talk about digression...on to the visit.

Despite being 93, he's still up and about. We had to stop him from helping re-arrange the furniture in his apartment to make room for the walker he picked up while we were there. He's pretty set in his ways, so I think we may have thrown him off a bit upon our arrival, though he did seem to enjoy the company.

I suspect that my mother got more of her sense of humor from him than I'd previously thought. He's quite sharp, had everyone laughing everywhere we went.

It felt a bit odd being in such a quiet town. Everywhere we went people knew we were from out of town.

I think I liked our visit to the grocery store where the bank is the best. Why? The announcements over the intercom: "Would Stephanie come to the front to claim her brat?" "Gerald, if my broom isn't back in two minutes you can clean up the mess on aisle four." "Henry, your wife wants you to pick up some milk, too." XD

They had Bingo night while we were there, and we offered to go play with him, only to find out he'd rather play cards than bingo...no wonder I knew how to gamble before anyone my age even knew what poker was.

We met some of the other "regulars" at the retirement center where he lives. I guess there's only a group of about 15 who've been there for a while.

Overall, it was good to see him, and we'll have to make time for a quick trip more often.


And now, the 22nd approaches much more quickly than I anticipated. For anyone on my f-list who hasn't heard about it: fireandice2009 is still accepting sign-ups until the 6th!

I'm sick, tired, and just want to go to bed, but what am I doing instead?

Writing a grievance letter to my manager about one of the assistant managers.

I know the business has its needs and that we need to get to the bottom of any issues to keep them from happening again, but there is a proper way to go about it.

And that is not interrogating those involved where other employees and customers can hear.

It would also be helpful if you would listen instead of just try to make excuses for the supervisors and play the blame game.

This comic explains exactly how I feel about work atm.


Side note: Just turned out the lights, words do not describe how amused I was to find the snowflakes on the pajamas I haven't worn in years are glow in the dark. At least I can go to bed with a happy thought.

Manga:
3 Omake
Brotherhood:
4 Ep. 30
78 Ep. 29

Preview:



( They treat us like we're pieces in a parlor game )</div>

So, I've officially started!

I'm cheating...not really. I started this one story long, long ago, okay, not that long, a couple years maybe. It was before I knew what fanfiction/fandom was though, so I feel that was long ago. I never got father than 1000 words with it, and am doing a re-write of those words.

I don't know if it's technically considered fanfiction...

Upon reading J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, I wondered how it came to be that Wendy fell in love when she was so obviously head-over-heels for Peter. Don't tell me it's not true, I think the most recent film did well on touching that part of the story. I have no idea where my plot outline went, so I'm starting the outline from scratch, too.

So the story is about the boy who loved Wendy and how he came to win her over in the years after her first trip to Never land.


Well, only the end of the month will tell if I'm a winner.

Current WC: 1787, need another 1547 words in the next 22 hours to stay caught up on daily words counts.

Happy and Safe Halloween to those who celebrate! 

Preview:




( in a plastic bag you'll be before the night is over )


 </div>

14 Manga
78 Brotherhood Episode 27 & 28

Preview:    


( as if a million voices cried out in terror, and they were suddenly silenced )

I'm still looking for the right image of Father to make an "Ed, I am not your father" icon XD. I'll probably make more Jedi icons in the future with the rest of the cast.

resources here</div>

82 FMA Icons: Spoilers for chapter 100
15 Manga
67 Brotherhood

4 F.O. Banners

( with great power comes great responsibility )

I really enjoyed this episode. It seems that the pacing is under control, and hopefully it stays that way. The animation for the OP is great...I can't complain it has Olivier, Buccaneer, and Miles.

I can't wait to see the OBJECTION icons that come from this episode, if not for having to be at work in 10 hours and it being 2 am, I would probably be making some now.

Loved the "he had kids" part, Father looked so adorable and creepy at the same time.

Mei's fantasy being crushed lol!

Ed, you're so honest when it benefits you.

Cavalier!Al XD <3

Panda Dance! 

The bit where we only see Ling's hand during the transformation, beautifully done!

Greed!Ling, or Grin as VIZ puts it

Great episode, nothing but positive feedback.

Opening and Ending are both growing on me.

Oh, my best friend was also watching it live tonight, turns out her husband has been an FMA fan for years...

I needed something to procrastinate with while trying to figure out my fma_big_bang plot, so here we go:

Leave me a comment and I'll give you a letter. You make a list of ten things beginning with that letter that you love and leave a link.

amestris_star gave me a "L"

40 Brotherhood Icons
10 Manga Icons
1 Ed & Al F.O.
2 EdWin F.O.
1 Riza F.O.
1 Greed!Lin F.O.
1 Al FO
( Behind the cut )</div>( Icons )</div>

I thought I'd pulled a muscle...but I have a kidney stone. Guess what, they're hereditary. My normally low blood pressure was in the zone that would be considered normal for most people. I usually find it entertaining waiting for the nurse to be able to get my blood pressure because it takes them a couple tries, but this time it took her no time at all. I chalk it up to the pain.

The plus side, I finally got around to some reading. I read <i>Graceling</i> , by Kristin Cashore, and have a couple other books in waiting.

So, about five years ago, fresh out of high school, I attempted to start writing a novel. I shared my work with my two best friends, and they were excited about it, but my enthusiasm quickly died with the onset of college classes and a full time job. I worked on it slowly building a plot and shaping characters, characters who slowly started forming into Mary-Sues (& Gary-Stus), yes I do admit that in my first attempts to seriously write (before I even dared fanfiction) I didn't know what a Mary-Sue was. 

After getting deeper in classes and leaping into the world of the internet, I lost interest in my original piece, and set it aside for homework and procrastination.

After much prodding from the BFFs, I decided to get working on it, and had the great computer crash of freshman year, during which my entire baby, aside from a bit I'd printed out to edit was lost for good to a very fried hard drive, though I did learn a valuable lesson, make sure the outlet your computer is plugged into is grounded in case of rolling blackouts and power surges, or use a surge protector, especially when non of the outles in your room are grounded! 

In hindsight, it turned out better that I lost the baby, because now I knew of the much loathed Mary-Sue and was able to steer my character away from becoming one.

So, the school year ended(because I do not like to punish myself with summer school courses), and I spent the time whem I hadn't been out with friends or filing away records for the doctor's office with a notebook and pen by my side, recreating my story. Before the semester started back up my Brother-in-law had fixed my computer, and I now saved everything on a flashdrive. My BFFs were liking the rewrite as much as I was, but when school started it got knocked down my priority lists quite a few notches, becauase we all know sleep is very important. I worked on the rewrite, but not very often, I got far enough to consider my novel half-finished by the end of the year, but my classes had taken hold of my interests, and my job was stressing me out, because most of our staff aside from three doctors and I had quite and been replaced. Receptions were let go of at an amazing rate, at least one a month, and being eager to learn more, I'd volunteered to help fill in as a receptionist while they were inbetween employees. That summer I figured out why they'd gone through so many receptionists...they had some crazy patients. Well-to-do people (in that area)don't take no for an answer when it comes to seeing the doctor or getting their drugs, and the doctor in charge of the office was very particular. It was by no means a horrible job, but if someone didn't know how to take on difficult patients and stick to the doctor's strict guidelines it wasn't easy. When they didn't give me a riaise to match the two posistion I was now filling, I started my job hunt, and by mid-semester I had a new job, new car(new for me, but used) because mine had been totaled, and death in the family to deal with.

The death in the family really shook me I was very close with my great grandmother and lost enthusiasm I had in anything. Then, my computer was hit with a virus, and I decided just to buy my laptop. I forgot about my story, and let it gather dust on my flash drive while my BFFs brought it up on occasion. I had 178 pages but was stuck anyway, so it was easy to put aside in lieu of everything that was going on.

I've looked at the printed out copy I have stuck in a folder every now and then, editing the pages here and there, but nothing motivated me to work on it, not until now

Now, two years later, I've picked up that notebook, ignoring the file on my little red flashdrive, to work on it again. I pushed aside thoughts of editing into the notebook, and have been editing and changing many a parts as I go. As a result I've got over 7,000 words in four days, and I'm hoping to stick to the NaNo standard of 1667 words a day, at least. Hopefully this time around, I'll be able to actually finish off the novel and get my very first manuscript sent out before I attempt NaNoWriMo again, because if I'm able to follow through with this, then I will be able to get the proper word count done during NaNoWriMo with no reason to make excuses.

Off I go for a very early morning typing session. Going over the outline I put together from going over the draft in the notebook, I start really getting into the meat of the story in the next few thousand words.

Goodness, caffiene after a closing shift at work is not good, at least I work a later shift tomorrow...today, so I don't have to worry about being a sleepyhead at work.

Anyway, my return to the internet is going to be slower than I thought with me dusting off this half finished manuscript and my goodness it's August, I need to make a calender! 

So, I recently won a poetry contest at a local college, and got to have my poem set to music and performed by Melody Versoza, a local soprano opera singer, and I thought I'd share it here. I think the piano piece was the best. It was great to hear the composers' interpretations of my words, I'll edit this later with the info on the composers, I still have a program around somewhere.

I'm saddened to learn one of my favorite band is breaking up, no on big, most people probably haven't heard of them, but I've enjoyed music by The Matches for a while the past four years, and unfortunately they won't be producing anymore new music unless they pull a Blink182.

In fact they're purely evil, especially when they're in your window screen and allow in a late night visitor like this in, just when I'm ready to turn in for the night.

So, I'm not the stereotypical girl scared by bugs, but when it come to water bugs and roaches I freak.

You see, my bedroom is set up so that my bed is under my window to let that wonderful night breeze in, I guess it's just poor Feng Shui to have my bed there in this case.

We have central air, and it generally only gets turned on at night, because we all sleep better in the cold. I was going to close my window when I noticed the intruder, and damn near jumped out of my bed. The first thing I did was get the kitties and try to get them to go after it, but they weren't a playful mood, so I had to get the Raid. By the time I got back it had disappeared, so I started pulling furniture away from the wall and found it behind my desk. After I doused it with Raid, I was done chasing it, and took everything I needed to get ready for work out to the hall along with a blanket, pillow, and alarm clock to sleep comfortably one the couch. I stuffed a towel under the bedroom door to prevent it from escaping to the rest of the house, and went to sleep.

I had a plan, to look for the (hopefully dead)bug in my room after I got off work.

Now, I've already vacuumed up the carcass, but I'm on a mission to finally rearrange my room. Maybe, moving the bed out from under the window will be a good start...can't wait to get the dresser moved, it's a monster of a thing.

Just finished watching episode 14, and Selim's cuteness is so overwhelming that I can't remember anything else I wanted to comment on.

Just remembered...lame that Greed wasn't  "crusified" like in the raw manga, makes me think it's for the same reason why he isn't in the English version Viz released

AX was awesome, though I am quite tired. Lots of good Cosplay,windxalchemist would have been fangirling over the Kuroshitsuji [fogive me for incorrect spelling, to tired to double check) Cosplay, and skit at the masquerade, well done.

Good weekend, but sleep is much need, night! 

Been very absent from the internet this week. Family was in  town for my baby sister's high school graduation, and it was great to see everyone. My grandparents and sister-in-law are still here. We're going out to dinner for Father's day in just a little while, and I want to finish this cross stitch I've started for my grandparent before they leave.

Went and saw The Hangover, nearly laughed myself out of the theater chair. XD

Had over 12 inches of hair chopped off for locks of love. I don't understand the way some girls have an emotional attachment to their hair. The only reason I even thought twice about it was the weather here is acting oh so strange, and being cold in June. I know it happens in other places, but not in SoCal, and the hair keeps my neck from freezing, but one hot day in the middle of our cool weather reminded me of why I had been so frustrated with my hair just a week ago.

The stylist was very taken aback when I went in with a ponytail and asked her to chop it off above it. She told me, "It's going to be short!" I was good and didn't give a sarcastic reply, just nodded.

I admit, I did get a bit nervous when I saw she kept cutting my hair shorter, and shorter, but it's looks adorable, though it might have made me look even younger than I already do...Seriously, I get carded when I buy C.D.s with a parental advisory sticker on them.

Anyway, the week's almost over, and it's nearing time for my vacation XD I'm going to be draggin my feet when it comes time to go back to work after those two weeks off.

Wow, they start at such a young age.

My younger sister (the baby) graduates from high school on the 18th. She had a picnic with her graduating class today. Basically, it's a time for all the seniors to get together and sign yearbooks at a school function outside of class and breaks, plus they get free food, music, and games.

So, my neighbors (ages 6 & 4) saw my sister get home, and came to bug her. So, they started playing a game with her yearbook. Each page she turned, the boys would say who they think is cute/pretty, and she has to tell them one guy from the page who is cute.

It's so funny, yet sad to hear a 6-year-old and 4-year-old judge people based solely on a photograph.