Questing

We had a fantastic work night on Monday for our Writing Group. I actually wrote. Really! We all have chosen goals to acomplish between solstices. Mine is to write and polish two short stories. It’s lovely to be writing.

The w0rd-vixens, belleweather, Kim, Heather, and I had lots to chat about; plots and designs, murders and missions, music and madness. (We also had a Gr4mm3r-Fox, Ray, Show up later)

I’ve decided to work with asking casual motivation questions to help fill in the holes of things I’m working on.

Last night, my husband and I met two people, Jason and Stephanie, who tracked me down via the internet, and my Halo tendencies, we sat and chatted, and then played some Halo. They are very nice, and good at Halo. We look forward to seeing them again.

Our A/C is fixed. All hail the cool air that gives life and meaning to our domicile. I think I am sleeping better now that we’re not sleeping on the floor in the basement. I am also feeling less stress this week, which is lovely. This also means I can finally hold art night over at our place tonight! woo.

This weekend is our anniversary. We’re going to spend the day and night in Milwaukee. I’ve booked a room at a B&B near the down town area, The Acanthus, and we plan on wandering about the Milwaukee Museum for the day. I’ve never been there, and am thrilled. We once took a trip to the Chicago Museum. That’s a fond memory. I can’t wait to make more. I’ve never stayed at a B&B, and am very thrilled. Yay! some time for just us!

Sunday we’ll likely share a dinner with my parents, and grandparents at Porta Bella, whom we share an anniversary with. (4 generations, 3 still living) My mother and law and her husband may join us as well. It’s becoming a tradition.

1. Use Fanfiction.net’s Search > Story By Summary and look up your name in either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
2. If there are any Mary Sues that share your name, pick the worst-sounding one and post the summary:

The Book Report by zambini

When Hannah and Stacie got electrocuted, they were transported into the world of Harry Potter. How will they cope in a new world, and what friends will each person make?

All the rest of my results seemed to be song-fic based on the ‘Stacie’s Mom’ song or the song by Stacie Orricio(sp?).

What’s your Mary Sue been up to?

McDonald’s has these go-active happy meal for adults that come with these cheap stepometers, and some brochures about being more active, how many steps one should be taking a day, and a link to http://www.presidentschallenge.org.

I decided to give it a go, and signed up on the website. The president’s challenge is an extension of the elementary school program that has kids all over the nation doing so many crunches and pull ups for medals and such.

They have a couple options, but the one I chose, three weeks ago was the Active Lifestyle one. It asks you to do 30min of activity 5 days a week for 6 out of 8 weeks. You log your activities, which can include your stepometer steps, dancing, walking, and juggling. I’ve been mostly counting steps and juggling.

I’ve found though, that trying to extend my steps to 5000 a day (5000= about 30min), just a few extra steps here and there, being more open to finding avenues for activity is really helping me.

Starting on my 4th week tommorrow, I have two complete weeks (president’s challenge fills in an arm of a 5 pointed star for each day of activity, and then a full week is a complete star in another section.) So, two full stars, and one week in the middle where I only completed the activity requirement for 4 days of the week.

The overall result is, I am more active than I was three weeks ago. Any more activity than the almost nothing activity I had been doing. It also helps to think of these things as activity and not purely ‘exercise’. Also, my ‘week’ starts on tuesdays. I think that helps too.

Friday, I even went and got a new card to go to the health club I joined with my family in 87, then Mom and I walked around the inner track for around twenty minutes. We’re going to try to go a couple times a week.

Saturday, I may have done little aside from my shower and a fanfic readathon, but I did get outside and walk for around the neighborhood for 30 min under the bluest sky I’ve seen in a long time.

Juggled for about an hour tonight, I can do it while watching TV, it doesn’t seem to take much practice to get a little better each time. Juggling is nice, I can do it just about anywhere, and I really do enjoy it. I should pick up some clubs though, for some variety and more heavy practice. Juggling 3 balls does elevate my heartrate after a bit, but I know that clubs would be a real work out, especially because I’m not very good at them, and all the drops means lots of bending and picking stuff up off the ground.

I have some really clear memories of juggling during college. Some are a bit lonely, but clear. A couple of really pleasurable ones involve people and interaction. I don’t want to ever give it up.

30 min of some sort of activity, that’s actually not all that tough.

I would just like to state, for the record, that I’ve read more harry potter fanfic in the last two days than I have all year.

Harry Potter with my Bro and my coworker. I really enjoyed seeing this movie, and it was really fun to hang out with my bro. We even got good seats! A bit dissapointed though, for opening night we didn’t get treated to costumed people or people doing martial arts like at
kill bill. I mean, yeah, the movie, but we stood in line for a bit and had no strange or weird fun added.

I did head over to the Goth Girl Garage Sale on saturday that Heather and friends were having. I picked up about six cd’s for cheap! Avril, Bowie, Ghibli, Clannad, some
techno, and a projekt sampler. To complete the olio of things I also got picked up some goggles(which look fun with my wigs), a set of juggling bats, an import DVD set of Hanibane Renmai, and a purple ponyfall. None of the clothing jumped out at me and said, ‘pick me, ME!’, which is just as well, as I spent around 35$ on the assorted other things.

So funny though, I must have been there a half an hour or so, picking over all the things before I saw Heather. It was nice to say hello, but it looked like a ton of people were converging on the garage sale, so I cut out. What a beautiful day for garage sales though, warm and bright. Everyone seemed tobe in a good mood.

Some additional work on the weekend helped me figure out a code issue I was working on. Which brings a good deal of anxiety down, lovely.

I also played some video games for the first time in over a month. New ps2 mem card, and Devil may Cry, Xenogears bought for cheap. I do not fool myself into thinking I’ll really be able to finish them anytime soon. But it’s nice to have some games to play that I don’t have to start over. (Still hoping to find my original memory card that holds an almost done game of FFX, and
well along saves of Sly Cooper and .hack.)

Spent lots of time with my hubby. We rented several movies and games. Insomnia was pretty good if a little confusing, Donnie Brasko was really really good, and Pitch Black was as good as we remembered it. Thief 3 for xbox looks pretty, but I only looked at it for about 10min and Chronicles of Riddick for xbox seems well done.

Why is it I always end up here, at the end my entries, and don’t have a suitable ending paragraph? Huh? You talkin’ to me?! Do you feel lucky, punk? OH, ah. heh. Well, that’s monday for you.

What a day, started out well, I got up early, ready early, ordered my Harry Potter Tickets online.

So far so good. I would have made it early to work, but could not find my key.
Looked everywhere, emptied purse twice, checked all pants, which I had washed and dried last night.

Finally found it by the door, 10 after, and stopped at a local gas station to get some breakfast and cash.

Getting back into my car I bent back one of my nails really hard.

Then I got to work half hour late by this point, and immediately knock over a glass of water on my desk. Thankfully, away from my computer, but still, a mess.

Things go ok for a while, until I realize I broke our extranet, and code I thought I had figured out completely isn’t quite working the way I thought it was, and thank heavens I had a backup of that section so I could fix it for the users.

But still! And now my code isn’t working, and I wanted to finish this up today!

And on top of all that, I’m getting lots of pressure from someone to finish her requests, but I haven’t had the moments to deal with it, and! the requests said they weren’t due till Monday.

Feel very inept today. waaah.

At least I have my Harry Potter tix… right?