malinaldarose

It's Monday again. It's currently 10°, but it's not supposed to get much warmer. 16°, maybe? The forecast is calling only for flurries today, rather than yesterday's steady snow. We got at least a foot of snow yesterday. I didn't expect to see the snow guy, but he showed up around 5:00 p.m. I think I'm going to pay him half again what I normally pay him. That was a lot of snow. Looks like he was using a larger snowblower than usual, too. In any case, after he was gone, I had to put on my coat and boots and hat and two pairs of gloves and go outside to clean off the van and then shovel the resulting mess. Sometime between the time Snow Guy left and I got outside (twenty minutes or so later), the plow went through and left a sizeable ridge along the end of the driveway, so I'm going to have to shovel that this morning -- though I'm waiting until the plow goes by to get dressed to go out there.

I was really kind of counting on not being able to get out so that I wouldn't have to go to work today. All of the schools in this entire end of the state are closed, but of course my office isn't. Le sigh.

Yesterday was actually something of a productive day. I scrubbed the kitty fountain in the kitchen, and had such a hard time getting it apart that I think I'm going to have to scrub it weekly instead of biweekly; I think the condensate (precipitate?) from the hard water here was kind of glueing it together. I scrubbed and refilled one of the basement bubblers. (The other was still half full.) I brought three containers of kitty litter (two bags of clay and a jug of clumpable) in from the breezeway and took them down to the basement.

I also did a bunch of stuff at my desk. I had a bill that came after my last bill paying day, but was due before my next paycheck, so I paid that. My bank statement was sitting on my desk, so I balanced my checkbook, and it was the usual pain in the butt because of my abysmal math. There's a reason I keep the balances in pencil. I downloaded the new version of the software that I use for my taxes and installed it, then did my taxes, so that's done.

By that time, it was well after 1:00, and I was sleepy, so I decided to skip lunch and take a nap, which didn't, somehow, happen for another hour after that. Chasing noises, maybe, because there was a lot of animal noise yesterday. A lot of skittering and then a chirruping sort of noise from over the ceiling in the library, so I definitely need to call the removal specialist guy this week, even though it's the worst possible week for it: freezing cold and so much snow on the ground. I only heard the chirrupy noise twice. The second time I tried to record it, but it stopped before I got my phone unlocked.

I did eventually get my nap with cats.

And because of going out to clean off the van, I didn't get supper until late, meaning it was even later by the time I got the kitchen cleaned up, so no movies for me last night.

I am a bit concerned about Tegan. I'm not sure she has been eating. I don't know whether Parker has turned into a bully about the food or whether she has decided she doesn't like the bowls or whether she doesn't want to eat where there have possibly been rodents (remember the spilled kibble that disappeared?), but she kept pussing my legs while I was washing dishes last night like she wanted to be fed, but both bowls were full. So I pulled a spare bowl out of the cupboard, put some kibble into it, set it down next to my feet, and she went for it immediately. So I guess I'm somehow going to have to feed her separately from Parker. And I did have to nudge him out of it, of course, and she was very shy about coming to it after I had to nudge him out of it, so I'm inclined to think he's being a bully about it -- which he never was before, so I dunno what's going on there. I'm thinking of getting a camera (trail cam or nanny cam) to train on the food bowls to see what's going on there. I don't even know where I'd feed Tegan that's separate. Upstairs bathroom, maybe, but I don't really want to get into having food up there. Though with Kethri, I did eventually have to have a litter box up there, so....

Anyway. If I'm going to shovel the end-of-driveway ridge and still get to work in an hour and a half, I need to move my butt. Le sigh.

Since I am behind on Snowflake Challenge posts, one of my goals for today is to catch up. (Along with cleaning my desk, finishing paying the bills that are due before my next paycheck, scanning and shredding old paperwork, catching up my book journal, and a few other administrative tasks leading up to my retirement in twelve to fifteen months.)

Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

Process? Process?!?

I am a total pantser. I quite often start things with no idea where they're going to end up. Usually, it works out. Sometimes, it doesn't.

When I sign up for an exchange, which I only do a few times a year, I do have more of a process. It looks something like this:

1. Await assignment with bated breath.
2. Read assignment.
3. Go...well, heck, how am I supposed to do that?
4. Review canon, trying desperately to figure something out.
5. Procrastinate.
6. Realize there are only two weeks left.
7. Panic.
8. Panic.
9. Panic.
10. Frantically start writing.
11. Finish with a week to go.
12. Edit.
13. Send to beta.
14. Re-edit.
15. Panic -- did I miss some DNWs?
16. Re-read and re-edit.
17. Aw, heckit.
18. Post.

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Challenge #9

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

1. Crossovers! Crossovers are my favorite thing of all time, going all the way to when I was a kid and Jaime Somers and Steve Austin regularly appeared on each others' shows.

2. Whump. At least, I think it's Whump -- where the hero (or one of the ensemble of heroes) is hurt, but has to rescue themselves. It happened a lot on shows when I was a kid, usually with blurry vision effects, and stumbling.

3. I couldn't find a term for it, but I also enjoy those characters that aren't completely human (or do know it, but don't know what to do about it), or have a hidden past of which they are not aware. Probably some subset of Chosen One. Though I also like a good Chosen One, too.

4. I love me some Found Family (though in the case of NCIS, it got to the point where Abby being so constantly inappropriate at work made my teeth itch so much that I actually stopped watching the show at the end of the ninth season and haven't watched it since (even though I know she's gone), except for an episode here and there if I happened to be visiting someone who was watching it.

5. I adore Fluff. If it makes me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy, then I like it.

Since I am behind on Snowflake Challenge posts, one of my goals for today is to catch up. (Along with cleaning my desk, finishing paying the bills that are due before my next paycheck, scanning and shredding old paperwork, catching up my book journal, and a few other administrative tasks leading up to my retirement in twelve to fifteen months.)

Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

I'm going to assume that this means the last page I visited, versus a page belonging to me.

I have been watching YouTube videos today (instead of doing the tasks that I planned, because this is what happens when I sit down at my desk on a Sunday). So here are a few:

I like Erin Smith's videos. She sets up journals and talks about stationery. Since I am a stationery junkie and enjoy collaging, I watch at least one of her videos every week. So here is the one I am currently watching.

I also watch Rewilding Jude every week. Jude is a young man who moved to a wreck of a cottage in Scotland and has been renovating it and attempting to be as self-sustaining as possible. His life is as different from mine as it might be, but his videos have helped me to think about my own wreck of a home a little differently (though I'm absolutely not going to learn plumbing and wood working myself). His latest is here.

I have also been watching a lot of the Holderness Family who I just came across a couple of months ago, because they're hilarious and relatable. I really hope they're as cool as they seem to be. (Please don't tell me if they're not. I don't want to know.)

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Challenge #5

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

This is a really hard one and kind of where I got tripped up that put me so far behind...so how about just a wishlist in general?

1. I would like to travel again. My last trip abroad was in 2018. I want to see Newgrange and go back to Stonehenge and tour France and go to Germany and...it seems increasingly likely that it's not going to happen.

2. I would like all of the problems with my house to be fixed. I would like the raccoons and various other fauna evicted. I want the shed demolished and hauled away and the garage fixed. I want the twenty-five years of sticks and branches hauled away. I would like the landscaping fixed. I like my house most of the time, but I would like to love it all of the time.

3. I would like a faster and easier way of traveling so that I could see my far-flung friends and family. TARDIS? Transporter? Teleportation?

It is 20° this morning. It's not supposed to get too much warmer -- only to 26°, though it's supposed to gradually warm up all week and possibly even hit the low 50s on Saturday. January Thaw time.

Yesterday, there were flakes in the air occasionally, but they were kind of lackadaisical about it and there was no accumulation. Toward evening, there was even almost sunshine, which was nice.

The day did not go the way I had hoped. I went out for groceries early and was home by 7:30. You can tell it's getting on toward inventory time, because the shelves at WickedMart were bare in a lot of places. The Christmas stuff is all gone, of course, and there isn't enough Valentine's Day stuff to fill in the gaps. I did pick up a new hair dryer, though there wasn't much choice about it. Here's what I want in a hair dryer: small (because my arms aren't long enough for a full-size one), preferably three temperature settings and two speed settings. The one that sparked at me the other morning was a Revlon travel dryer. They apparently no longer make it...because of course they don't. The one that I did purchase was not what I wanted, so when I went out again to pick up my prescription, I took it back to WickedMart and chose a different one...which seems like it's going to be too big; the barrel is at least an inch, possibly two inches, longer than the previous one. So then I started searching online, which is why I figured out that they don't make what I really wanted anymore. Remington does have a model that seems to be what I want, but that, also, appears to not be being made any longer as it is out of stock on Remington's own site, though it was available on Amazon.

BFT says she uses a profesional Conair dryer. I'm not willing to pay that much for a hair dryer.

I have not yet returned the second dryer that I bought at WickedMart, so perhaps I will try it out first, since it does at least fulfill the three heat/two speed requirement, even if it's too big.

In any case, after the internet failed me, I ended up going out again. I checked Ollie's, Marshall's, and CVS to see what they carried. CVS at least had a Conair that I had been considering, so I was able to open the box and look at it and determine that it wasn't suitable. That sucker was heavy for a hair dryer. I considered BJ's, but decided not to stop because by that time, the Saturday crowds were out in force. (Also, Marshall's was practically empty, given how much stock they had crowded into that tiny store for Christmas.)

I was a bit out of sorts when I got home, but I have discovered (rediscovered?) the simple joy of Campbell's tomato soup. For years, I have bought Progresso's tomato-basil soup for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich dinners, but I am thinking that after all this time, I do prefer the Campbell's. It's warm and comforting and there's probably some nostalgia involved, since we always had it in the house when I was a kid. I add some rice and eat it with Ritz crackers when I'm not in the mood for making a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum! (And that way, a single can gives me three lunches. I prefer to add my own rice rather than buy the tomato-rice version.)

There was a completely cat-free nap (kind of disappointing, but they were both upstairs on the bed when I laid down on the couch).

I called MyAuntie around late afternoon and we talked for three hours. I'd say that's a record for us, but it's really not. We generally talk anywhere from two and a half to three hours. We certainly never talk for less than two hours. And usually when I go out there, I'll sit down at the dining room table for lunch, and we'll still be sitting there yacking come dinner time.

I floated the idea of going out there in May and September this year in addition to my regular July visit and she was enthusiastic about it. Since I get the maximum amount of vacation time due to my longevity at the agency, I still have two weeks of vacation left going into this year, and by the end of next month, I'll already have another week. I would still like to spend two weeks at a time out there, but can't leave the cats on their own (even with twice-daily visits from my sister or BFT) for that amount of time.

Today, I really have no plans. My vacation-week do list is glaring balefully at me, but it's too late now. Maybe I'll just spend the day reading. After two Snowflake Challenge challenges, I am already realizing the impossibility of keeping up with reading others' challenge responses, especially after I go back to work tomorrow. Ah, well. It is ever thus.

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Why are introductions always the hardest part?

I'm malinaldarose. I have been online since the early '90s in varous guises. I am currently in my late 50s, which makes me an Authentic Fandom Old, especially if one counts that my first fic was written...some forty-five years ago. (It was original flavor The Tomorrow People. I also crossed original Star Trek with Doctor Who (the...fourth Doctor, if I recall correctly).) (No, I'm never going to share any of it.) I live in western NYS, about a mile from where I was born. It's rather snowy here at the moment. I live with two black cats. I love chocolate. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to acquire a taste for tea. This is something of a disappointment to me, since my visions of my future always involve a steaming cup of tea.

I read mainly fantasy, with the occasional sci fi, cozy mystery, or autobiography. I am usually behind on TV series and movies, because I don't have cable anymore (too expensive). I'm still catching up on '90s and early '00s stuff! (Thank goodness for DVDs and streaming.) The only thing I'm usually up to date on is Doctor Who. (Capaldi is my current favorite Doctor; my favorite Companions are Sarah Jane and Donna Noble. When I was a kid, my favorite Doctor was Peter Davison and my favorite Companion...was probably still Sarah Jane.) I'm a Trekkie from way back -- my favorite episode first aired the day after I was born, and I got into the show when I was in junior high or thereabouts.

I am currently learning French on Duolingo (over a 1,000-day streak) and beginning to wonder if there is anyone in town with whom I could practice speaking. I was learning German, right up to the point where I realized that I was going to need more than Duolingo could give me, and stopped to focus on French, which I already had a grounding in, since I studied it in college. (Which is to say that I crammed four years into two and a half because I changed my major in my junior year.) I would actually kind of like to start a local language club, but am not sure how to go about doing it.

This will be my third or fourth Snowflake Challenge. I'm doing it mainly because it's fun...and that's pretty much what I'm hoping to gain from it. Just some fun. And meeting fun new people, of course.

(Also, I like using the old banners from previous Challenges.)

In 2025, I read:

51 published novels
18 novel-length fics
1,948,555 words of shorter fic

Which works out to 104.97 books.

(I measure fic by the NaNoWriMo rule: 50,000 words = a novel.)

It is 28° this morning. It's supposed to get up to 47° and rain later. The forecast says the temperature will continue to rise overnight, then fall sharply tomorrow, and there is a red winter storm warning band on the long range forecast for the rest of the week. Oh, joy. Good thing I really don't have to go anywhere, excepting tomorrow, when I have a bunch of errands to run.

I ended up not going anywhere yesterday, either, not even to my recycling bin or my mailbox, because when I went outside to do the former, the pellety ice had solidified overnight and was just thick ice. I decided I didn't need to put those collapsed boxes into the recyling bin that badly, and I more or less forgot that I needed to go get the mail. It's fine. There's probably only some credit card advertisements and maybe a catalog in there, anyway. The check I have been expecting arrived the day before, so it's sitting on my desk now.

I started the Grand Work yesterday with the back room. I collapsed all the boxes that I had been saving, except for the one that actually fit the giant dog toy that I bought for MyNuncle (because it was a capybara (and, yes, there's a story behind that)). They made it as far as the breezeway (see above, re: ice). I put away, or at least moved, all of my Christmas gifts that had just been stacked on the table. I packed the capybara for shipping. I gathered up a bunch of stuff that I had ordered from Kohl's and been iffy about keeping (including a full-size wreath, and all the Halloween dishes I ordered) and got it ready to go back to the store (tomorrow), after the ice melts but before the next snowstorm starts.

I basically got the room down to its baseline level of clutter -- which means there's still cleaning to do out there, but there was progress.

A few things got ticked off my do-list for yesterday. While listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I drew the February pages in my desk calendar. I signed up for a budgeting workshop next month hosted by CSEA. I finally put together the vacuum I ordered on Black Friday and which has been sitting in the laundry room for a month. It was very simple, too -- all the pieces just clicked together, so I didn't even need any tools. I ran it in the kitchen; the beater bar seems to propel it on carpet, then that can be switched off for uncarpeted floors. It's heavier than the Hoover that it's replacing, though, and I'm not certain I like it. I don't think I want to try lugging it upstairs.

I wouldn't be replacing the Hoover at all if I could get the damn thing open so I could get at the filters to clean them. I didn't have this trouble with the last one. It simply requires more hand strength than I have.

There was no napping yesterday. I tried to call MyAuntie and Nuncle, but they were out, so I got my book and retired to the couch and read for the rest of the day. I finished Sorceress of Darshiva and have only Seeress of Kell (which I did not start last night) to go. I don't think I'll read The Rivan Codex, which is basically the story of how Polgara takes care of Garion's ancestors through the centuries (if I recall correctly, anyway; I have only read it once). After ten straight books of Eddings, it's time to move on to something else.

I went to bed around the normal time. I was able to reach Parker, so I kicked him out of the bedroom...and that was probably a mistake, because about an hour and a half later, he woke me up by scratching at the bedroom door to be let in. So I got up, used the bathroom, and went back to bed...and fifteen minutes later, he was scratching at the door again, so I got my little misting spray bottle from my craft room and spritzed him with it. He ran off, but fifteen minutes later he was back. So I spritzed him again. Again, he ran off and came back. After the third time, I was wide awake, so I ended up getting up and playing games on my computer until 1:00 a.m. And did Parker come to sit with me to get the attention he was apparently craving? No, he did not. He disappeared completely, the fuzzy little bastard. But at least when I finally went back to bed, he left me alone. Unsurprisingly, it was 7:00 a.m. when I finally woke up again -- two hours later than usual.

Today...I haven't quite decided what I'll tackle. I should probably just keep working in the back room until it is finished. I'll need to put yesterday's laundry away and maybe do another load -- I have accumulated enough rags now to do a rag load (which will include my sandals, because they were waiting for a load to go into). I need to sit down with my calendar and plot out do-lists for the rest of the week. Oh, I have to clean the kitty fountain today; it's Other Sunday. (It gets taken apart and scrubbed every other Sunday.)

The temperature is supposed to rise slowly today, by the looks of the hourly forecast, so it'll be a while before the ice starts melting, so I probably won't be going anywhere until this afternoon, if I go anywhere at all. Though I do need a couple of things from the grocery store. On the other hand, they could wait until I am running errands tomorrow....

According to their FB page, the new bookstore is going to start running three book clubs: a romance one (ugh), a general one (different topic every month), and a silent one. I may try the latter two. What I would really like is to have a language club where people could practice languages or even start learning new ones. I wonder if the library would be amenable to hosting something like that? I'm pretty sure there isn't already something like that and I'm not sure I'd want to have to organize it. I may check with them tomorrow, though.

I really don't want to spend my vacation cleaning. Have I mentioned that I really don't want to spend my vacation cleaning? But this is what happens when I don't spend my evenings and weekends cleaning....

A photo of my Christmas tree, snapped this morning with my cellphone on night mode. I feel like it's a nice photo, but kind of a cheat, because a proper night photo should involve my camera, some tricky settings, and a tripod.

But that's just me.



Merry happy, y'all.

Here are the pages from my June work calendar. I found this package of rather whimsical celestial stickers in the depths of my celestial sticker box and decided to go with them.



The second week is a little different from the rest, but that's okay. I didn't have enough of the big pastel stickers for four different weeks, anyway. I still like it.

I thought maybe decorating the March pages in my work calendar would be safe enough this afternoon, but I made plenty of little mistakes. Stamps wiggled in my fingers, markers went where I didn't intend, I brushed over wet ink.... It has definitely been A Day.