Hi, I'm Cassie. I am a 38-year-old English fangirl, music lover, bibliophile, writer, Hufflepuff, slasher and a geek.
(I'm the one who isn't Richard Dean Anderson, just in case that's not clear! ;)

What else is important for you to know?
I love llamas. My favourite colour is orange. I have a terribly boring job in finance that I'm really good at. I would be lost without my bullet journal and to-do lists. I wish I could draw. Stationery is my drug of choice. Never get me talking about Stargate or Raintown because you won't shut me up again. Wings make me wibble. I have 8 tattoos and 6 piercings. I'm gay. I give inanimate objects names. I'm the least Leo-like Leo ever. I have an asymmetric tilted pelvis with hip impingement, one leg longer than the other, a few other hip/leg/back issues and arthritis in my back, right knee and hip, and I walk on crutches. I suffer from depression and anxiety.

I love, amongst other things, fanfiction, music, gigs, sci-fi conventions, reading, pizza, chocolate, cooking, wordsearches, travelling, history, science, nature documentaries, bad movies, horror, science-fiction and watching far too many tv shows... it’s a fairly endless list that changes like all the time haha

updated Jul 19

I am declaring Self-Care Sunday a success!

I treated myself to some choc chip cookies in Tesco. Couldn't really afford it but hey, £1 isn't going to make that much of a difference to broke-ass, y'know?

( I dyed my hair a gorgeous shade of red and while I didn't make the best job of itCollapse ) I LOVE IT. I also soaked in a very hot bubble bath while my hair was stewing which cranky muscles in my hips and back were very appreciative of. I had Riley singing to me whilst said soaking was occurring.

I cooked chicken fried rice for the first time and it is NOMMY! For the next time, a little less rice and a little more veg & soy sauce but still delicious all the same.

Those few things, combined with just a little bit less pain have me feeling about 50% more llama-like

I thought I'd share the recipe for the Chicken Fried Rice

Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
3/4 to 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups frozen peas and diced carrots blend (I don’t thaw and use straight from the freezer)
3 green onions, trimmed and sliced into thin rounds
2 to 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups cooked rice
3 to 4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
salt and pepper, optional and to taste

Method
To a large non-stick frying pan or wok, add the oils, chicken, and cook over medium-high heat for about 3 to 5 minutes, flipping intermittently so all sides cook evenly. Remove chicken with a slotted spoon (allow oils and cooking juices from the chicken to remain in the pan) and place chicken on a plate; set aside.
Add the peas, carrots, green onions, and cook for about 2 minutes, or until vegetables begin to soften, stir intermittently.
Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, stir intermittently.
Push vegetables to one side of the skillet, add the eggs to the other side, and cook to scramble, stirring as necessary.
Add the chicken, rice, evenly drizzle with soy sauce, optional salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Cook for about 2 minutes, or until chicken is reheated through.

Thoughts
I would use a little less rice, and some more vegetables and soy sauce but OMG it was in-fucking-credible and I will most definitely be cooking it again. I've got like 3 Tupperware pots of it in the fridge as well!

We've reached the time of year where the annual wrap-ups from the sites I log media consumption through. SpotifyWrapped is coming at the end of the week and that's honestly one of my favourites because I've pretty much always got music playing.

I was curious though, so I went to last.fm to look at my YTD scrobbles. Everything I listen to on Spotify is scrobbled through last.fm so it'll be similar reports.

As of today, my top 10 most listened to artists in 2019 are:
Blue County
The Life Of Riley
Riley Smith
Bryan Adams
Raintown
Good Charlotte
Aerosmith
Bon Jovi
Christian Kane
Steve Carlson
And, I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised that Chris and Steve are in there. I didn't think I'd listened to them much this year, so it just goes to show!

Top 10 most listened to albums so far are:
Blue County - Blue County
Blue County - Population 2
The Life Of Riley - Live in Hollywood at the Hotel Cafe
Various Artists - Now 100 Hits Forgotten 90s
Raintown - Writing On The Wall
Riley Smith - Riley Smith
The Life Of Riley - The Life Of Riley
Christian Kane - Welcome To My House!
Raintown - Hope In Troubled Times
The Life Of Riley - By The Way

And the most listened to tracks so far are:
Blue County - Hollywood, California
Blue County - That Summer Song
Blue County - What's Not To Love
Riley Smith - Radio
Blue County - Sounds Like Home
Riley Smith - Break Somethin'
Riley Smith - Bad At Goodbyes
Blue County - Time Well Spent
Riley Smith - Earthquake
Riley Smith - Hard to Kiss

I'm curious to see if/how any of this changes over the course of this month. Will knowing this now have any effect on what I choose to listen to?

I also realised I've been scrobbling music plays through last.fm for 13 years now (!!) so... what are my all-time most played?
Artists
Good Charlotte
Steve Carlson
Goo Goo Dolls
Bon Jovi
The Life Of Riley
Kane
Simple Plan
Jason Manns
Bryan Adams
Hilary Duff

Albums
Goo Goo Dolls - Dizzy Up The Girl
Jason Manns - Jason Manns
Good Charlotte - The Young & The Hopeless
Good Charlotte - The Chronicles Of Life & Death
Good Charlotte - Good Charlotte
Kane - Kane
The Life Of Riley - The Life Of Riley
Good Charlotte - Good Morning Revival
Simple Plan - No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls
Hilary Duff- Hilary Duff

Tracks
The Life Of Riley - Short Story Longer
Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
The Life Of Riley - By The Way
The Life Of Riley - She Got A Move
Steve Carlson - I'll Remember You
The Life Of Riley - She Got A Move
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
The Life Of Riley - Trouble
Kane - America High
Steve Carlson - You Belong With Me

I find it interesting that no matter what moods and phases I go through with music, I always seem to come back to the same handful of artists. These have been in my top played artists most frequently
Good Charlotte - 12 years
The Life Of Riley - 10 years
Goo Goo Dolls & Steve Carlson - 9 years
Bon Jovi - 8 years
Gary Quinn, Jason Manns & Simple Plan - 6 years
Jenn Bostic & Raintown - 5 years

So there you go!

The Real World^(tm) is stressing me out like crazy right now. I'm finding myself retreating into fandom more and more, and the fandoms are changing again. My muse has shiny new objects of interest like Good Omens, Rocketman and Prodigal Son. He's also rediscovered a Christian Kane, a Steve Carlson and a Jensen Ackles, and is even more in love with Riley Smith than ever. I've started writing again (still SG-1, still Jack/Daniel) and finding myself falling into AO3 and Tumblr again.

And that, of course, brings me back here and I'm remembering how much I used to enjoy blogging, how therapeutic it is to open up a window and type what's going on in my head: the good, the bad and the ugly. Even if I don't always hit the post button.

There's also the memory keeping aspect of blogging and I love re-reading old posts, reliving shenanigans and I haven't been doing that, don't have the posts of things I'd done recently. So, one last-ditch attempt at getting back into it.

What's also given a kick in the ass is that Kara @ Boho Berry has restarted the Boho Berry Challenge which is ostensibly a journalling challenge but also works really well as inspiration for blogging.

The prompt for day 1 (which, should have been yesterday) is Five things that make me happy and God knows right now, I need some happy so:
1) Having a hot bath, putting on warm & clean pjs and getting into a freshly made bed with clean bedding
2) Stargate
3) Raintown
4) Riley
5) Marking things off a to-do list

Day 2 is a little less happy-making, doesn't fit in the tone of this post, and will be continued later this afternoon. (I'm off work sick due to my joints hating me, have been since Thursday. Ugh!)

Also things that make me happy are music in general, and the awesome ways in which technology lets us listen to music. I really appreciate Eliot having bluetooth because it means I can listen to Spotify on my phone, played through the car, when I drive. It means I listen to much more music than I had before, and I can listen to a wider range of music when you consider my digital collection vs my music collection. Course, as my post last night of my top ten music artists I listened to last month shows, the more things change, the more things stay the same LOL

My Music Monday post tends to be the song I listened to most last week. I also love how last.fm scrobbling gives me all these awesome stats about what I listen to #cassieisageek And the song I listened to most last week was Bryan Adams - Fearless

Because I do love a good list, y'know, so I thought I'd keep some of the TV & Movies I watch, and the books I read. I'm not gonna list all the music I listen to or we'd be here for forever - but I'll probably do like... a monthly wrap-up.

Books Read
Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson & The Sea Of Monsters
Franklin W Dixon - The Hardy Boys: The Secret Of The Old Mill
Daniel Klein - Travels with Epicurus: Meditations from a Greek Island on the Pleasures of Old Age
Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson: The Titan's Curse
Marian Keyes - Watermelon

Currently Reading
Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Under Ground
James R Morris - Biology: How Life Works

Top Music Listened To
Aerosmith
Bon Jovi
The Life Of Riley
Bryan Adams
Radio Company
Lainey Wilson
Taron Egerton
Thompson Square
W.A.S.P.
Zedd

Top Played Song


TV Shows & Movies Watched
9-1-1 3x06 - 3x08
90210 1x11 - 1x12
All Rise 1x07 - 1x09
Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Billy Elliot
The Birch 1x01 - 1x02
Black Lightning 1x09 - 1x10
Buffy The Vampire Slayer 2x19 - 2x20
Bull 4x05 - 4x07
Carmen Sandiego 1x07 - 1x09
Carnival Row 1x03 - 1x04
Charmed 2018 1x11 - 1x12
Contact 1x07 - 1x08
DIY SOS 28x02, 29x04
Eddie The Eagle
Eggheads 20x16 - 20x17
FBI 2x05 - 2x08
For All Mankind 1x01 - 1x02
Frankie Drake Mysteries 3x06 - 3x09
God Friended Me 2x05 - 2x09
The Good Doctor 3x05 - 3x08
The Graham Norton Show 26x05 - 26x06
Grey's Anatomy 3x03 - 3x06
His Dark Materials
The King
Lawless
MacGyver 6x05 - 6x06
Magnum PI 2018 2x05 - 2x09
Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD 2x13 - 2x19
The Morning Show 1x01 - 1x02
Most Haunted 1x09 - 1x10
Nancy Drew 1x05 - 1x07
NCIS 17x06 - 17x07
NCIS: Los Angeles 11x04 - 11x07
NCIS: New Orleans 6x05 - 6x07
New Amsterdam 2x06 - 2x08
The Passage 1x03 - 1x04
Poldark 1x07 - 1x08
Prodigal Son 1x07 - 1x09
The Resident 3x04 - 3x07
Rocketman
The Rookie 2x05 - 2x08
Seven Worlds, One Planet 1x02 - 1x04
Smallfoot
Supernatural 15x03 - 15x04
Trollhunters 1x09 - 1x10
Tyrant 2x03 - 2x04
Vampire Knight 1x13 - 1x14
The War Of The Worlds 1x01
Yellowstone - 1x07 - 1x09

It's been one of those days where every time I looked at the clock, another hour had passed and the day was just racing away from me. It was a pretty good day though and I felt pretty accomplished - I got most of the payment run completed and uploaded. Tomorrow I need to focus on email and queries because my poor inbox is pushing 100 again and that's stressing me out. Then Wednesday we're closed for the whole day for a stress test on the new system. ARGH

I got distracted watching this video for this week's Music Monday. I'm supposed to be watching the David Attenborough episode on my TV (South America, the mama Puma just took down a Llama-cousin. I sadly!) but... well... Riley, y'know? LOL



I remember that gig. I remember that horrible little haunted venue *shudder*

Title: The Secrets We Keep
Author: Cassie Morgan (badfalcon)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Categories: gen, angst, au, drama, fantasy, hurt/comfort
Rating: PG-13
Thanks to: You, for reading this. ravensword for the beta.
Disclaimer: Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Sam Carter, Janet Fraiser, Teal’c, George Hammond and all recognisable elements of the Stargate universe are so very not mine, and remain the property of the respective copyright holders. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes and no money is being made from it.
Notes: HUGE THANK YOU to Natalie for the handholding, cheer-leading and beta on this. It's been brewing for a couple of years now but I've never had the confidence to even finish writing, let alone edit or post. But Natalie's coaxed me along, drawn the story out and here we are

I'm still mildly terrified of posting if I'm perfectly honest. This is the longest fic I've ever written and there have been plenty of blood, sweat and tears spilt in the process. But I'm super proud of it and hope you enjoy!
Summary: Daniel has been keeping a pretty huge secret, but a ceremony on an alien planet makes it impossible to keep.

Have a link to read on AO3, because it's too long to post in one post and I don't have the brain to figure out where to split it into parts

Because I do love a good list, y'know, so I thought I'd keep some of the TV & Movies I watch, and the books I read. I'm not gonna list all the music I listen to or we'd be here for forever - but I'll probably do like... a monthly wrap-up.

Books Read
Milly Johnson - An Autumn Crush
Ali McNamara - Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
Aaron Rosenberg - Stargate Atlantis: Hunt & Run

Currently Reading
Anne Rice - Interview With The Vampire

Top Music Listened To
Raintown
Riley Smith
Pink
Blue County
Enrique Iglesias
Steve Carlson
Christian Kane
Green Day
Ronan Keating
The Corrs

Top Played Song


TV Shows & Movies Watched
9-1-1 3x01
11.22.63 1x01 - 1x04
Always A Witch 1x09 - 1x10
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Infinity War
Bella and the Bulldogs 1x05 - 1x06
Black Panther
Bull 4x01
Captain America: Civil War
Carnival Row 1x01 - 1x02
Castle 8x03 - 8x04
Contact 1x04 - 1x06
Country Strong
Criminal Minds 4x22
DIY SOS 22x01, 24x02
Doctor Strange
Eggheads 7x01 - 7x02
Empire 2x03 - 2x04
The Eugenics Crusade
FBI 2x01
Frankie Drake Mysteries 3x01 - 3x02
The Good Doctor 3x01
Guardians Of the Galaxy
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2
Illuminated: The True Story Of The Illuminati
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
The Lego Batman Movie
Light As A Feather 2x07 - 2x08
Luther 5x01 - 5x04
Magnum PI 2x01
Men In Black: International
Most Haunted 1x07 - 1x08
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction 1x05 - 1x06
NCIS 17x01
NCIS: New Orleans 6x01
New Amsterdam 2x01
The Resident 3x01
Sanditon 1x01 - 1x02
Serenity
The Seven Deadly Sins 1x11 - 1x12
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The Story Of God with Morgan Freeman 1x01 - 2x03
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Thor: Ragnarok
Titans 1x07 - 1x08
Tolkien
Xena: Warrior Princess 1x01 - 1x03
Yellowstone 1x01 - 1x02

The FC called me into his office late this afternoon for my 'return to work' interview, he asked me how I was doing and, when I paused, asked me to be truthful. So I was. There may also have been tears.

I told him I was feeling like I couldn't do my job effectively, my lack of faith in Fleet when query invoices get sent to them (complete with a specific example that happened today), how I felt like L was micro-managing me/looking over my shoulder/telling me how to do my job. I told him about the day when I was doing a payment run at the end of July for overdue May invoices/June invoices and L was insistent that I stop the payment run and focus on processing the July invoices (y'know, that aren't due for payment until August), that I'd said to her that if I didn't pay the invoices the suppliers would put us on stop, and her response was 'they'll just have to put us on stop. He wasn't aware that she'd told us to prioritise processing over everything, including checking emails.

I also told him that I didn't feel comfortable having a conversation with L to tell her so, that none of us would. He's going to have a word with her on our behalf. I'm just hoping I haven't made things worse. He's already working with the Fleet director on them multitude of issues both we and our customers are having regarding POs and invoices. (They're about a month backlog on providing initial POs to suppliers and they're not telling suppliers which company in our group to invoice, which means half the time, an invoice is already overdue before we even receive it for payment... and then we have to go back and tell them 'please reinvoice to [one of our other companies]' and they're so fed up they're now refusing - or charging admin fees on it.

The amount I've got done in the last two days without L being in is ridiculous. I was on emails dated 17th July yesterday, I started 1st August today. I've cleared all my reminder letters and most of my filing and am half-way through my statements pile. I have a checked and organized pile of invoices to process once we're open from month end. And don't even get me started on how it's already the middle of August and we haven't even been able to start processing August invoices yet!

He wanted me to know if I started getting stressed again to come and have a word with him. He said it was hs job to get stressed over things, not mine, that's what he gets paid the big money for. He's going to see if L&D can get me any stress management training and if there's anything for helping me deal with interruptions.

I'm supposed to hear back from the other job I interviewed for last week. The recruiter has already told me I'm the preferred candidate. I'm starting to wonder if thinking of leaving is a knee-jerk reaction and should I give it a little longer and see if things improve. I'm very torn, and think there could be a pros and cons list in my future!