springading.com

Checking in while the husband’s out! It’s been a little bit, but truthfully, blogging time is going to get more infrequent. Usually, I post when Jim’s out on Friday nights. He runs a Spelljammer game every other Friday; the other Fridays are The Boyscout’s D&D game. As I’ve mentioned, I went my first Spelljammer game a couple weeks ago, and it looks like I’ll be playing in The Boyscout’s game on the other Fridays as well. Jim and I went to his place over the weekend to work on my character sheet and everything.

If anyone wanted to know, The Boyscout’s actual name is Matt. I just call him The Boyscout because I know too many Matts. I should give them all nicknames, heh.

Anyway, my point was that I’m pretty much now gonna have to cram in blogging when Jim’s out playing Warhammer. By the way, if you’re getting the impression that Jim does a lot  of gaming…ME TOO.

So! Things have been…interesting. I’m on edge about some stuff. Some personal-maybe-happy. Some personal-maybe-sad. I have a feeling my life is about to go in a tailspin again. Honestly, I feel like it’s been spinning for the last year and a half.

But, in good news, I’m going to be off work for the next week! In fact, starting tomorrow afternoon, I’m gonna be off until May 29th! I’m super excited. I don’t know what all I’m going to do yet, but I have a few ideas!

Hello! This is gonna be fast because it’s past my bedtime–and ask Jim, I’m very serious about my bedtime–but before that, I’m gonna sum up the week, just so I don’t forget. So, since the last post:

• Jim and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We both got each other books, in keeping with it being the “paper” anniversary and all, and I also got Jim this recipe shaker from Target.
• We also went to The Hideout for our anniversary. Sadly, they’re not as good as they used to be. Seriously, only two types of soup? What the…? Next year, it’ll be Red Lobster. Or O’Charley’s. I love O’Charley’s.
• Speaking of going out to eat, Jim’s dad and step-mom also took us out for dinner for our anniversary. I wasn’t expecting that, but I wasn’t complaining either!
• I’m almost completely done with season 8 of Buffy, which is the comics, for those not in the know. I’m enjoying them, but they’re definitely not as good as the show. And some of the things that have happened…wow. Gag. And huh. And tear. No spoilers here, though, especially since Jim isn’t caught up.
• We had a pot luck at work because one of our co-workers got custody of her grandson. Yay for that! And also, yay for food!
• I started on Jim’s amigurumi kobold. I’m not very far, and I’m kind of making it up as I go along. Here’s hoping it isn’t terrible, since amigurumi is still pretty new to me.
• Friday night, I joined Jim’s Spelljammer game. My character is a level 5 half-orc cleric whose god is Wee Jas. I took domains in Death and Magic. As expected, it was a little awkward, since I’m not very social and all, but it was okay. Hopefully, I’ll be of some use to the group.

On that note, I’ve been trying to think of ways to access my spell list more quickly. When I played Natalia in the “Homebrewed” campaign, I vowed that I would use notecards in the future, so this time, I had just about all the spells that my cleric was capable of casting written down on 3×5 cards. I used all the cards and went through three pens, even.

Guess what? I don’t think they’re going to work. They were great for the magic items I had in the last game, but for a 3rd edition game, it’s becoming clear that the notecards are way too cumbersome for an entire spell list. There are just too many freakin’ spells. Ideally, I would have a tablet or a small laptop, but I have neither of those things. (Well, I do have the laptop I’m writing on, but this laptop is too big and would probably just overheat in the middle of using it anyway.) But I have another idea that I think is going to work. Once I’m done, I’ll let ya know.

That’s all for now. Seriously, it’s time for bed. Good night!

Geez, if I don’t log into my blog every day and clear out the spam comments, they sure do pile up.

This isn’t the only place being neglected. I’m also ignoring the fact that I need to buy Jim an anniversary present. I can’t believe it, but tomorrow is our one year wedding anniversary. And our first year of marriage has been undeniably awesome.

The problem is that I cannot think of a gift to reflect how awesome my first year of marriage has been.

Here’s the problem: I keep thinking that it’s our first anniversary, so it should be romantic. Important. Something that’s not what I usually get him, which is video games, books, movies, or, that one time, the XBox 360.

But that’s pretty much all he likes.

I have gotten him one thing so far, a small thing that is no big deal. I wanted something that was not typical of what I get him, something that could be tied with creating-a-home type of stuff (but something he wanted, not me), something that could be associated with friends and family and celebration. I did get something–like I said, a very small something–and next, I’m going to find something paper-related, as Jim has told me more than once that the first anniversary is the paper anniversary. See, I did not know this stuff. But Jim pays attention, so I figure I might as well, too.

So his gift will be an assembly of small things. Inexpensive things. Because I figure we’re already going out to dinner tomorrow, which will not be cheap, and the REAL thing will be Medieval Times. Jim is already worrying about money, so it’s better to have money for the trip, so Jim can relax and actually enjoy himself.

Luckily, Jim told me the gift he bought me isn’t romantic because, as he put it, “any romantic type of gift will be lost on you.”

Anyway, that’s what I’m going to be doing today, as soon as Jim comes back from grocery shopping. Until then, I’m tinkering with my crafting blog.

Well, I’m in a good mood. For one, Jim finally caved and went to the doctor. The diagnosis? Pneumonia. I’m not allowed to mention this on Facebook, by the way. I did have it up for 5 minutes for those who knew Jim was sick, figuring it was a quick way to give everyone an update. (Also, to gloat. After all, I was right that he was sick enough to go to the doctor!) However, Jim made me take the status down, stating that it would just freak his mother out.

Which…well, yeah, probably. Let’s just say Jim gets his drama from somewhere, heh.

Anyway, I’m not happy about Jim being sick, but I am happy that he went to the doctor, got some medicine, and is starting to seem like he’s feeling better.

I’m also happy because we got our tax refund! This is the first year that we did our taxes earlier than usual, albeit just a couple weeks, and we already have it! And it’s just in time because we’re planning on going up north in a few weeks to Medieval Times and to see my family. Hopefully, I’ll see these two:

Lily and Isaiah

The little girl is my niece Amber’s daughter Lily (the one who was born on the day before my birthday, on my dad’s birthday), and the little boy, Isaiah, belongs to my niece Jasmine. I’ve only seen Isaiah a couple of times, and I’ve yet to meet Lily at all. I’m hoping I will on this trip.

And then, of course, there are Jen’s kids! My most favorite kids in the whole world. I hope to see them as well.

At any rate, I seriously doubt we’re going to spend the entire tax refund while up north. I thought Jim and I would stay out of town for a while, but as we talk, I’m starting to get the impression that we’ll end up drifting back down here after a few days. We were talking about our honeymoon last year, and do you know what we both liked the most about it? All the napping we got to do! Heh. Yeah, and you don’t need to be out of town to do that.

Speaking of our honeymoon…our one year anniversary is coming up. Guess part of the tax refund will be spent getting Jim a present, huh?

At any rate, I seriously doubt we’re going to blow the whole refund up north, so I’ve been looking around the apartment, trying to decide what I want. The first thing that always pops into my mind, of course, is getting a new computer. Just last night, this laptop overheated while I had Word open, reading Jim’s story. Freaking Word, guys. I used to think it was Warcraft that was overheating my computer, but now, I’m convinced that it’s my computer overheating my computer.

I’d also like some end tables…maybe some furniture for our balcony…maybe an iPod because my MP3 player is almost full…and of course, the obligatory CDs, since I listen to music all day at work and always need something new in the mix. But I don’t know what we’re going to get. I’m not even for sure what Jim has in mind. So we shall see!

If you’re curious about the title of the post, it’s derived from the fact that I’m on Vicodin that the very nice dentist man gave me. Ah, yes, what seems to be my yearly tooth extraction. If I keep this up, I will have no teeth left. Hopefully, I’ll have no more infections, either.

Anyway. Forget that. I’m just following up to the last post because now I have pictures. Check this out!

Jim flipping through Expressions literary magazine, talking with Walter.

Jim getting his Best in Fiction award.

Jim and my lovely mother-in-law Lori.

Jim received his Best in Fiction award for his short story “Bad Men” in Expressions literary magazine. If you’re curious as to why the first picture is cropped, that’s because Walter, Jim’s friend/classmate and recipient of Best in Poetry, has been cut out. I don’t know the dude, so I don’t want to assume that he’s okay being posted on a public blog somewhere.

Now, you might be wondering…why would I post a picture of Jim’s mom, then? Well, because I do know her–and she’s absolutely, hands-down, the LEAST shy person I’ve ever known. Ever. EVER.

Plus, she looks totally cute in that picture. And proud. And she should be. Cool factors that were found out during the ceremony: One professor who had never met Jim before had already heard of him. How? Because when she gave an assignment to her students for them to bring in their favorite poems, one of Jim’s former classmates brought in a poem he wrote last semester. Even the department chair mentioned how “now [he had] finally met the famous Jim Stearns.”

I’m happy my mother-in-law took pictures, since I was unable to go. Curse me and that whole paying-the-bills thing.

Okay, the next post won’t be bragging about my husband, I swear.

I better hurry up and post this while Jim is too distracted to notice!

So, on Monday, Jim got an e-mail that not only did he get a story published in Expressions (his college’s literary magazine), BUT his story was voted Best in Fiction! He’s getting a small monetary reward and he’s reading an excerpt tomorrow.

I just hope his voice clears up a bit before he does his reading. He’s been sick since the weekend, and he sounds awful.

But still! My husband! Best in Fiction! NOT SURPRISED.

I’m trying to convince myself to start scheduling my free time. I think I’m supposed to think that it will make me more of an effective person, that I will get more stuff done if I have said stuff written on a to-do list somewhere.

Suffice it to say, I haven’t quite convinced myself of anything. More than likely, any schedule I make for myself will be added to the list of unpleasant things in my life that I choose to ignore.

Very much like my diet. Don’t ask me about that, by the way.

Anyway. I’m giving myself, like, 5 minutes because that’s all I can spare right now. I’ve got plans, yo! What I’ve been busy with lately is Tykus the Dog. Well, that’s the current title, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll stick. But it’s the rough draft of Jim’s first novel, and he’s asked me to read through it.

Enter all that creative writing training I got from SIU a few years ago. I had to warn Jim about a few things, such as 1) my leanings tend to be more towards literary fiction, so keep in mind that I’m not as familiar to the fantasy genre as he or his friends are. (Although I agree with one of my former professors, who stated that you could bring literary fiction elements to any genre and it would work.) 2) Editing is a lot like…well, writing code, actually. You can add some stuff or modify lines to include a new function or fix an old batch of code, but you will inevitably still introduce more bugs. You’ve just got to smooth it out the best as you can, and figure out how to make it so the bugs that it does have are something you can live with.

That being said, I’m happy to report that I can honestly say that I’m enjoying Jim’s book so far. It’s still in the rough stages, but even in its infancy, I think it’s better than some of the things I’ve read. (CoughStormFrontcough!) I do have my suggestions, though, and that brings me to my third warning that I gave Jim.

Just because I suggest something doesn’t mean that he should do it.

I remember back when I was getting my degree in fiction, one of my professors pulled me into her office after one of the peer-reviews of one of my stories. She asked me what I thought of some of the suggestions that my classmates had given me.

“Well,” I said slowly. “I appreciate their comments…but I don’t agree. I’m probably not going to do that.” (Whatever “that” is, I don’t remember.)

And my professor nodded, looking relieved. “Good,” she told me. “Don’t. They’re wrong.”

It was kind of a pivotal moment for me. My classmates, up to then, for the most part, had always given me good advice. Even if they hadn’t, I’m one of those people who tends to think that others know best and take their advice anyway. However, during that particular class, it finally occurred to me that I knew enough about writing–and my own story–to know which advice was actually useful and which advice was better ignored.

It’s a difficult line to walk. On one hand, you want to discern the good suggestions from the bad. On the other hand, you don’t want to be so cocky that you think that your writing is flawless and nobody could possibly have valuable advice on how to edit your story, either.

I think I’ve balance the two pretty well, actually. That’s the only time I remember completely disagreeing with a writing critique.

Anyway. Same will go for Jim. He knows his genre and what he’s trying to do better than I do. In the end, he has to have the confidence in his story and, mostly, himself as a writer. Hopefully, he won’t feel that just because I’ve taken more classes on this stuff than he has means that my word is the gospel. Because, wow. It really isn’t.

Okay, you got more than 5 minutes. I told you, I’m way bad at this scheduling thing. Back to Tykus!

The second season of Game of Thrones starts tonight. For those of you who want a recap:

Sadly, I will not be watching. Our apartment complex dropped one cable company and picked up another, so we don’t get the free HBO that we used to, and HBO is too expensive to pick up for one show, especially in a one-income household. We already know we’re going to be buying the DVDs, so we’re just going to have to wait until next year to see it.

Luckily, we do have the first season that I bought with my gainsharing check just a couple weeks ago. It’s still sitting unopened on the shelf. My plan is that while everyone else is watching season two, I’ll just be re-watching season 1. Since it’s been a year since I’ve seen it and I’ve got a terrible memory, it’ll be like seeing it new all over again, right?

Happy Friday! Of course, I plan on going in to do overtime tomorrow, but we’re going to pretend we didn’t hear that, right? And stay up all night, anyway?

(And be sorry for it in the morning?)

So, not too long ago, I knocked something off one of the stand thingabobs where we keep our DVDs (and yet, it’s not really a DVD stand–don’t even try to understand our furniture choices) and the something (keys, I think?) slipped between the wall and the stand. I reached behind it and made an odd discovery.

A poster, in a hard plastic casing, of this picture:

OMG, it's Ned!

Yup, Ned Stark from Game of Thrones. The odd thing is…I don’t remember buying this. When Jim came home, I questioned him. He scratched his head. “Maybe I bought it for you and hid it back there…and forgot?” He couldn’t remember buying it, either.

Regardless, the picture is now hanging in our hallway, although we both agree it would have been even better if it were over the toilet, haha. As it is, that space–the space over the toilet, that is–is occupied by a cross stitch made for me by my sister of a cat grabbing onto a branch that says “Hang in there!”

Actually, now that I think about that picture in the toilet-context, that’s pretty funny too. Well, if I were 12. Or me.

Anyway, Jim’s out tonight. I am not playing Skyrim. Are you shocked? I’m learning that it takes me hours to do anything in the game, and since I don’t have much time before I have to get to bed, I might as well not bother. I’ll try to get some game time in tomorrow.

Besides, Jim updated his blog, making me feel sufficiently guilty for not updating my own. Although he has a better reason for updating than I do: He’s actually finished the first draft of his first novel! I’m impressed. I’m looking forward to getting to read it, although it’s going to have to squeeze in between Skyrim, reading Name of the Wind and Storm Front, and crocheting these:

Cthulhu!

Ha! I have my own accomplishments. This is my first attempt at amigurumi–a cthulhu. Granted, my skill is nowhere near Ruth’s (a.k.a. Cthulhu Chick), but I don’t think it’s half-bad for a first attempt, especially considering that it was just a short time ago that I got over my longtime fear of crocheting in circles.

Here’s the back:

Wings!

I did better on the wings that I thought I would; however, my stitching is still sloppy. Also, I found out afterwards that I should have used a smaller hook. I actually figured it out myself when I decided that the gauge should be tighter, then looked it up online and found out that this, apparently, is a well-known fact in the universe of amigurumi-making.

Dumb of me? Well, maybe, but what do you want of a girl that pretty much only makes scarves?

At any rate, I knew my first attempt would be sloppy, but it’s all about the learning process. I’m on my second, and I already think it looks much, much better than the first.

The real goal, by the way, is to make Jim an amigurumi-like kobold. He found some by Meri Greenleaf. (Click the link, scroll down, behold some awesome pictures of her husband and the kobold plushies.) Jim thought of all the kobold plushies he’d seen, her kobolds looked more…well, kobold-y, heh. So he wants something similar.

You know what I want? To go to bed. Actually, that’s not true at all, but I don’t want to be as exhausted as I was this morning, when I decided to go in early at 6 AM. Blech. Remember when Friday nights were FUN?

Yeah, me neither. Night!

No, today is not one of those “official” days where it’s calling awareness to mental health. “Mental health day” is my mental health day, a day I’ve taken off to preserve my sanity. Thanks to a mild winter, all those PTO days that I was hording to use as snow days are going to be used as good, old-fashioned days off instead.

Today is one of them.

I decided to do this last week as I was put on the hotline yet again. I was stressed, and I decided I needed a break.

A more permanent (mental) break, though, seems to finally be coming. Last week, I was approached by my supervisor. They had selected a few written CAs to be protected from the hotline. This is in attempt to sort of wean the phone unit off using the written unit to keep their numbers down. (They have gotten a bunch of new people, after all. The fact they’ve needed us for so long is kind of alarming.) The people chosen to be protected from the hotline were based on stats–whoever had the highest quality and production.

Guess who was one of the selected?

(Watch me get jinxed for mentioning this and get an error now.)

Anyway, that is all well and good, but I’m even happier that on Tuesday, we got notice that they were pulling all but 15 people off the phones to focus on–gasp!–our actual work: WRITTEN. Heh. That means that more of my co-workers (but still not all) are now off, too. Since I like my co-workers, I’m happy that they’re also getting protected from the hotline.

So, we appear to be at the end of the tunnel, looking at that light. Remember when I used to like my job? Yeah, it looks like I’ll be going back to my regular duties and back to loving my job again.

There has been all sorts of awesome in the last week. Aside from finding out that my job wouldn’t suck for much longer, we finally got our car back, and the mechanic didn’t charge us for the deductible! So that money I had squirreled away for that–totally ours now! Also, we had a dent in our rear bumper that was completely unrelated to Jim’s accident. Well, apparently, the mechanic noticed it and popped it out. It’s barely noticeable now. And we weren’t charged for that either!

To say that I’m going to be recommending this guy to everyone I know is an understatement.

In addition to having money in our pockets from saving on the deductible, Friday was THE payday–the one that included our new raises, as well as our gainsharing checks. And it was AWESOME. The amount of gainsharing you get is dependent on stats and how much overtime you’ve put in over the year. As you can imagine, my gainsharing was pretty freakin’ sweet.

So, that Friday morning, Jim took the car because he had decided to use some of that money to complete our Stargate collection. When I got off work, I added to our DVD collection with the first season of Game of Thrones. I also picked up a  Lacuna Coil CD and Skyrim.

Ladies and gentlemen…we now have a new obsession in the house.

Okay, I can’t tell you a whole lot about it. My character just finally got up to level three. I can tell you that I’ve seen enough to realize that this was the game for the XBox 360 that I’ve been looking for.

However, I haven’t had a chance to play it much. Jim, who was originally completely uninterested in it, is now completely addicted, heh.

In Jim’s defense, I really don’t like playing on the XBox with other people around. I don’t know why. I just don’t like being watched. And since this is a tiny apartment, and Jim pretty much only likes to hang around the living room…you see why I haven’t been playing as much. Jim has been good about consistently offering me a chance at the XBox, and I’ve been declining, spending my time poring through the book I bought for Skyrim instead. I’m a total Virgo in that regard: I’m one of those people who really like to read things like manuals. And if a game has a training mode, so much the better. I don’t like going into something without knowing what I’m doing. I don’t like to “wing” it.

(Incidentally, this is why I really only liked to do spur-of-the-moment dungeon runs in Warcraft with my friends. Kyle always explained what to expect and the best strategies to employ. Most pugs I’ve seen are just crazy, random killing sprees. Ugh.)

Anyway, as you can imagine, most of my mental health day (“stay home or go crazy!”) will probably be dedicated to Skyrim, since Jim plans on spending most of his afternoon playing Warhammer with his friends. I’m pretty excited. The world in this game is just massive, and it looks like there’s a lot to do. I still suck at it, but at least I can walk around without slamming into walls now, heh.

Well, mostly. Hey, I never played the XBox much, so I’m still getting used to the controller.

Still, even just starting out my first character, I’m already thinking of other characters I’d like to try. The character I have now is a high elf mage. She’s going to be pure mage, I think. The book I bought has “archetypes” of characters listed as possible characters to try. One I have my eye on to try down the road is an orc berserker. That totally looks fun.

Speaking of this thing we call “fun,” I think I’m going to go have it!