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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!

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.

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!

There has been a lot going on this week that I was going to post, but I think it’s going to have to wait. Today is Joshua’s and Amber’s birthday, and it’s hitting me harder than I thought it would.

Joshua would have been 25 years old today. It’s a milestone I can’t help but feel he was cheated out of. And I worry that his sister Amber is always going to feel grief on her birthdays from now on. The thought of that just kills me. Her birthday should be joyous, a day about her. I know the first couple will be hard, but I hope it eventually becomes something wonderful again, something she doesn’t have to share with grief.

Today, though, I’m going to light a candle for Josh and play the hell out of Skyrim, which I bought on Friday. Joshua was very into video games. He actually had a collection of consoles. He had everything from the old school Atari to the newer Playstation 3 and XBox 360 and everything in between. Video games were something that he and I both really loved, so trust me when I say that Josh would approve my playing Skyrim.

Also trust me when I say that he would have been way better at it. For those of us who grew up with the simpler joysticks of the Atari and the original Nintendo, the XBox 360 controller is a little complicated. I really love the game so far, but I’m terrible at it. I hope wherever Josh is, he’s watching me and getting a damn good laugh!

So this week, I’ve:

• Started crocheting a tiny cthulhu, frogged it, restarted it, and am still working on it as I need supplies.
• Been getting rides to and from work all week while my car was (and still is, apparently) in the shop.
• Found out some of my co-workers in Harrisburg are dealing with the aftermath from the F4 tornado.
• Had to take cover in the women’s bathroom at work as more bad storms passed through the area just a couple days later.
• Found out that my raise was bigger than I had expected, and my gainsharing was more than I had expected as well. (Jim and I did fist bumps when I showed him the numbers, heh.)
• Found out that my mom lost her job. (She seems to be surprisingly okay with it, though.)
• Been doing a lot of reading on my Kindle, trying to catch up with our book club.

By the way, I love my Kindle. I still and always will love regular old books, but now I’m wondering why I held out so long on getting an ebook reader.

And The Walking Dead tonight! My co-worker Ryan told me some of his predictions on the fate of a couple of characters, and I’m curious to see it is plays out as he thinks. I relayed Ryan’s predictions to Jim, and we agree: Very plausible.

We shall see.

Okay, time for more coffee and more Buffy. The marathon continues! I’m on season 4. Now, the question is, do I watch the Angel episodes along with Buffy (because, as you know, several the episodes between the two series “go” together), or do I later give Angel its own marathon? Ah, decisions, decisions…

I’m getting very bad about updating, I know. And at first, I started to tell you why (mostly, because I get annoyed at squinting at the screen–my Internet surfing has dropped dramatically as my eyes get worse, let me tell you), but I’ve decided to pitch it. You don’t need to know how much my eyes suck. Just know that they do. They really, really do.

So. A couple days ago was Valentine’s Day. There are some people who complain about it being too commercialized, that it’s just some stupid gimmick for Hallmark to make money. To those people, I say you’ve forgotten the real importance of Valentine’s Day. Or, at least, the importance to me. Wanna know what that is?

It’s a day to cheat on your diet. 

So, yeah, nay-sayers. Shut up. It doesn’t matter who buys you chocolate! Buy it for yourself! Valentine’s Day is an excuse to gorge! Who cares who invented it?

Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to tell someone you love them while stuffing your face. There’s that aspect as well. It can be your dog, though. Hallmark doesn’t judge.

Anyway. Besides chocolate, Jim got me the third volume of the Buffy comics. Turns out, we also had the first and second ones here, but I did not know this. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS? Apparently, Jim brought them into the relationship and forgot he had them. I’d divorce him for forgetting to tell me, but I’m afraid he’ll take them with him. So I just hog his comics instead.

And his chocolates.

I bought Jim the complete collection of H.P. Lovecraft. Should keep him busy for a while, I think. It’s a pretty big book that would take anyone else forever to read. So for Jim? He’ll probably have it done in a week, once he starts reading it.

Anyway, on Valentine’s Day, Jim and I went to Evelyn’s, which was short-staffed but was still sooo good, and then we went to Walmart and picked up Serenity and Stargate: Season 1. I was excited about Serenity, since I’ve been wanting it for a long time. Admittedly, it was nice to finally get something “frivolous.”

I’ve been thinking about this lately, actually. One of my friends at work told me that I needed to learn to be frivolous sometimes. This is because…well, truth be told, I’m a bit of a tightwad with money. True story. Anything that is not in the food or bills categories gets deemed “non-essential” and I refuse to spend money on it. This is why I haven’t gotten my hair cut since my wedding (why should I PAY someone to TAKE my hair?) and why just about all my clothes have holes in them. Even when I buy yarn, it’s in small amounts to make functional things like dishcloths and beds for the cats.

Luckily, Jim got his loan money in and is able to help out with gas and groceries, allowing me to knock out the car stuff with my check. (The mechanic has ordered the parts! Can’t wait until my girl has her whole face back!) He should be getting paid for painting those Warhammer figures, he’s insisting I take half of it, and he’s suggested that I get a Kindle. (Not sure if it’s really going to help with my reading-on-the-screen issues, but it would be nice to have.) Soon after, we should be getting our raises at work (my review was good!) and our gainsharing checks. I’m hoping to put this check toward a new computer because this laptop, I’m afraid, is on its way out. Although, if I get a new computer, I’m thinking it better have a much bigger screen. Because of, you know, the eye problems.

Anyway, to me, that’s “frivolous,” since technically, my laptop hasn’t broken, and even if it had, it’s not like we couldn’t go to the library to use theirs. Although we can’t if we don’t want to kill someone. The library computers are absolutely awful. Someone remind me, if I’m ever a millionaire, to donate nice computers to our library.

But after that? My eye is on Medieval Times. And maybe even House on the Rock. The ultimate in frivolity. And I will totally get there. Who says I don’t have goals?

Jim started a new blog last week. In his last post, he mentioned I haven’t been writing as much on my own blog. I guess that’s a hint.

So, here’s a new post to prove I’m still around. Nothing much going on. Still working a lot, still getting put on the phones most days, although it is finally slowing down, and Fridays are pretty much the days we don’t get put on at all. (Last week, we were only on for 20 minutes. THAT, I can handle.) Next week, we’re not supposed to sign in at all–they claim they’re going to try to keep us off the hotline. I’m not delusional; we’ll probably be put on. But I see this as progress. Calls are slowing down again.

And thank god. Being on the hotline so much has made me start disliking work, which has been pushing me toward depression. I don’t mind calls here and there, but for 6-8 hours a day? It just wears me out.

That, honestly, has been why I haven’t been around. Also, when Jim’s in school, I don’t have access to the laptop as much. Oh, and he’s also been working on his novel again. Not that I’m arguing. My vision has really been acting up, and squinting at a computer screen some more at home when I’ve been doing it all day just isn’t my idea of fun.

Honestly, I’m too tired to say much more, and I have Lexx waiting for me on my big screen TV. (Which, admittedly, is still kind of blurry. I’m going to make an appointment for new glasses this week.) So I’ll end this post with pictures, showing what 2012 is like so far:

Weird, the bread from my new bread machine is pretty much the same color as my cutting board.

I crocheted a dice bag for Jim. It has since been completed. He seems happy with it.

I made a "cat mat" for Piper, but at first, she wouldn't stay in it until I put it next to Emmy. Awww. She LOVES Emmy.

I found this in my lunch box on Monday. It's some sort of scroll thing. When I opened it up, I found that Jim had put a love poem in it. Sweetest thing ever.

Things I also did this week but don’t have pictures of: I got an award of appreciation for the massive amounts of overtime I did the last 6 months of 2011, along with a keychain. (Sounds lame, but I’ve actually been wanting a new keychain, so it works out. ) I also went to a visitation for Angela’s mom, who passed away last Sunday, and I went to an art exhibition where another friend was–is, actually, as it’s still going–a featured artist. I did both of these things on Friday night. I know. I’ve never done the “partying on Friday night” thing right. Oh, well. One day I’ll learn.