Omorka's Lair

The end-of-semester crash-crunch has been interesting this year - very intense and very stressful, but at least I never felt out-of-control with it this year, unlike many of the last seven or so. Unfortunately, I kind of fell off the Earth social-media-wise for a little over a week there, and I left a couple of people hanging. Gotta see what I can do to patch that up over the next few days. I love my job, now more than ever, but wow, I need to get a better handle on grading.

My Fandom Stocking is here if anyone is inclined towards that sort of thing. My listed fandoms have shifted a bit in the last couple of years; I omitted some of the more obscure anime ones, for instance. Not that I have any less love for Mahou Tsukai Tai! or Escaflowne, but listing them makes me feel old. Anyway, I've signed up for one Monkees exchange and one TGWTG/CA one, but if anyone wants to subtly point me in the direction of stockings that need ficlet stuffers in fandoms I've written before, have at.

As for what I want non-fannishly for Yule (other than for a certain hotel/reality TV huckster to quit playing at politics and go away before he moves the Overton window permanently), the usual small things - nice yarn, nice teas, interesting cookbooks - all apply. I'm really not in the market for toys and games this year; I have too many I haven't played or played with sitting on the shelf. I do want a chiminea for the back patio-yard-lot-thing, but those are heavy and I want to pick it out myself. I also want a burr coffee grinder, as the tiny little blade grinder we inherited from the MiL is a piece of crap, but I can't find one at a reasonable price point, so I can't really ask for anyone else to get one for me - I might end up letting that be my gift from my parents.

Two more school days. Let's get this done.

A happy new year to one and all. I have, as usual on vacation, messed up my sleep cycle, but that will shortly get fixed one way or another.

Happy birthday, moontyger!

Happy birthday, theoldone!

1) GODDAMN, it's cold in here and my feet are freezing! I just gave in and turned on the gas heater in the living room, and am hoping it does not give me a headache.

2) There is more leftover pie than you could possibly imagine. Having said that, both the apple and the pumpkin pies turned out better than usual.

3) I have run something like seven loads of dishes in the past three days, and my poor dishwasher is giving me this mournful look.

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Only three of us brought instruments for the jam session (although starcat_jewel joined in signing on a couple of songs) and we all kind of sucked, but it was a lot of fun. And I think if we actually practiced "Road to Moscow" a couple of times, it could sound really, really good.

At one point, bassfingers had on his Stick Bass, I had the electric autoharp, and cheshirebast was playing his violin while still wearing the electric guitar we keep in the living room. The sheer number of strings was just astonishing (and rather amusing).

I wanted a 12-to-15-lb turkey and ended up with a 20-pounder. Again. Apparently they don't ship small free-range ones to Texas. :-/

Not that anyone on my flist probably needs the reminder, but - all you USians, if you haven't already voted early, remember to go vote today! If none of the candidates are palatable, go vote for obscure third parties, write in "Lizard People" in every slot, even spoil your ballot - I don't care. Just go, and remind them that we're still here and still watching!

Ended up with a blob of about eight trick-or-treaters coming by quite late, so now I only have half a bag of caramels left over. That's more than double what we had last year.

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Well, yes, although it's complicated for me by being two holidays on the same day - the light-hearted cultural Halloween celebration, and the rather serious religious celebration of Samhain. Fortunately for me, we're actually celebrating Samhain tomorrow (I'm priestessing this one, which means I should go back to making my ritual prop).

Happy solar return, cheshirebast! *mwah*