The Fandrogyne

~ I ranked high enough on the last challenge battle in Pokemon Shuffle to get a Manectite! I'm really glad I'm getting to the point where I'm strong enough to stand a decent chance when these challenges come up.

~ I started embroidering a Christmas present for my grandmother. It's a simple thing, really, and it shouldn't take me longer than a few days to get it all ready and mailed off. Money being tight at the moment, I thought she might understand and appreciate something I made myself, and something that she might be able to use.

I'll try and remember to post pictures once I'm done.

~ It finished raining and instead there was snow on the ground in the morning. Just a little, barely an inch, but it looked beautiful. Apparently last winter didn't make me as snow-phobic as I first thought!

~ While I was asleep I left a slow cooker chicken and bean stew to heat. I haven't had any yet, but it sure smells good!

~ I finished my rewatch of Victorian Farm and have moved on to Edwardian Farm. I do love these historical recreation shows. Especially the ones that are done by experts and not just random people in an attempt to create a unique reality show (and all the associated annoyance and drama or reality shows).

~ I ranked high enough on the last Pokemon Shuffle event to get a Gardevoirite!

~ Still staying on top of my wordcount goal for my unofficial participation in NaNoWriMo. Not doing it officially means I don't feel as guilty if I miss a day for whatever reason, or only write 1000 words instead of 1666, but my goal is to teach myself to write steadily, consistently. Getting to 50,000 words is no challenge at all for me now; one November I did that in 12 days, just to see how quickly I could do it.

But a big block to my writing has been burn-out, and that leads to never finishing a manuscript. I've learned a lot about writing first drafts. I've learned a lot about editing. I've learned a lot about what appeals to readers, what pitfalls to watch out for, all the things I learned from reviewing for so many years. Now it's time to give myself the lesson that I hope will be the final piece in the puzzle and allow me to complete something that can be further worked on and hopefully, with some time and luck, be turned into a manuscript that an agent or publisher might consider taking on.

~ I finished rereading Courtney Schafer's The Tainted City and moved right along to The Labyrinth of Flame, which I've been so excited about for, oh, about 2 years now. I have such high hopes for this book being amazing!

~ Taking a melatonin pill right before bed does help me sleep, but there's every chance that it helps me sleep too well, since I got about 12 hours of sleep, was in the same position for much of it and so woke up with a load of body aches and trouble moving, and had disturbing dreams in which I started to have hallucinations, seizures, and started to lose control of how my body moved. Maybe I should stick with half a pill when I need it, instead of a whole one, and see if that cuts down on the vivid dreams and too-deep sleep.

~ Sarah Chorn of Bookworm Blues wrote a great rant on the accessibility problems at conventions, and it's well worth the read. It's been a while since I've had an obvious physical limitation (doesn't mean I don't have less obvious ones), but I've still encountered opposition at multiple places when I try to tell them, "Guys, you're not mobility accessible. You need to be!" One company said they couldn't provide a ramp because they only rented a building and couldn't force the owner to put one in without good cause, and said they figured anyone coming for an interview would tell them in advance about mobility problems so they could arrange said interview off-site for better accommodation. (So they required full-disclosure from an applicant, which is sketchy, and then they'd have every reason to not hire that person if it put them in the position of having to force building renovations if that person stuck around...) One employee left that same company because of mobility issues, after the automatic doors stopped being automatic and problems with mobility due to dwarfism made it very difficult for him to open those doors and even get into the building.

I know that at some point in my life, there's a good chance that I, either temporarily or permanently, will end up facing mobility issues again. And Sarah's right: accessibility shouldn't be something that's praised, it should be standard. The lack of it shouldn't be something so frequently encountered by people who need it to be different, and who are thus excluded not only from fun extracurricular stuff (though cons aren't always extra-curricular; sometimes attending them is part of one's career), but also from getting jobs or buying groceries. This stuff shouldn't still happen as often as it does.

~ I made a turkey chili last night. I didn't have as many of the usual vegetables that I typically put in a chili, so it's mostly beans and tomatoes and meat, but it's still tasty, and after a weekend of not eating anything that resembles healthy food, I think my body was craving something with even a small amount of vegetables.

It wasn't as good as the usual chili I make, but it was pretty good anyway, especially with garlic naan.

~ I played Final Fantasy VII to distract myself. Got Vincent in my party, and started heading through Mount Nibel. For some reason I've always loved level-grinding in this area. I'm not sure why. Maybe because this is the area you see in the story Cloud tells in Kalm, when you see Sephiroth be awesome and have level 3 spells, so it feels like the kind of area that can make you strong. Either way, I've never minded spending a while getting lost on the twisty paths, because the battles are good and I get quite a bit of experience.

~ Caught both Celebi and Lugia in Pokemon Shuffle. Now I have almost 2 weeks to work on catching Ho-Oh before that event disappears. Fingers crossed that I can get strong enough, because so far it's a tough battle and I haven't managed to defeat it once, let alone catch it.

~ Fully caught up on Once Upon A Time now, right up to this week's episode. I have my theories about what's going on, but I can't tell if that's because I'm so used to the way the show pulls twists and turns all over the place and I'm getting used to thinking how the writers think, or if I'm just falling for the hints of misdirection. Or if I'm just hoping something will happen even though it never will. I guess I'll have to wait and see, really. At least now that I'm caught up, even when I don't have TV anymore I can watch the most recent episode on the CTV website, so I can stay caught up instead of waiting for this season to appear on Netflix.

~ Finally, the basement has been completely siphoned! I sucked up as much water as I could with the ShopVac, then mopped up the rest, then remopped it with bleach and water to kill any lingering mold that might have taken root after so long. It took a while, and it hurt my back bending at such a strange angle while I mopped and vacuumed, but the basement has finally been properly dealt with.

...Or so I thought, until I went back down there a few hours later and saw some water back on the floor, and heard a faint drip, drip, drip. So I do have a leak somewhere, but no matter how much I check pipes with a flashlight, I can't actually figure out where it's coming from. Short of having the landlord come in with a plumber (which will result in another sleepless and interrupted and frustrating day, no doubt), I think I might have to resign myself to just going down to the basement every few nights to mop up.

It wasn't leaky before I moved in. It got leaky when all the snow from last winter started to melt, but that's expected. But at this point? Part of me suspects the water heater, actually, which would explain why I can't find the leak if it's underneath the heater, and it might have happened due to corrosion from all the snowmelt water that ended up down there in the spring. Something I'll have to ask the landlord, of course, even though I'm dreading how much hassle it'll end up being.

Weirdly, he didn't seem too concerned. He seemed more concerned with having the front door issue brought to his attention. That issue being: it doesn't lock, has never locked, and we were never given a key for it. He claims he didn't know. I know he was told at least twice, and he ought to know how many keys he handed over when I moved in. -_-

~ Still having Internet connection problems, only now it's starting to affect other devices, and ones much closer to the router. I really don't want to have to call my ISP about this, mostly, again, because I'm afraid they'll have to send someone out and I don't want to have to deal with interruptions to my schedule. I tried resetting the router and it didn't seem to make a difference. Lovely.

~ The roofing guy showed up at almost exactly 12:15, and given that I was already nervous about getting so little sleep before I'd be woken up, I had even more trouble falling asleep and pretty much only got an hour, max, before all the thumping started on the roof. He didn't get everything finished, but he got the loud part done, and is only coming back tomorrow to clean up fallen shingles that he left on the back porch.

~ I finished another book, hurray! This brings me up to a total of 79 books read since the beginning of the year. I'm aiming for 100, and I'm still pretty confident that I should be able to make that goal.

~ Speaking of books, I had a wonderful fangasm the other day when I found the e-book copy of Courtney Schafer's The Labyrinth of Flame in my email! I adore this series, and I've been so excited about the release of the final book in the trilogy, so now that I have it, I'm practically dancing!

I'm not going to read it right away, though. I have to get through the remaining 5 books I have to read by the end of this month, then I want to reread the previous 2 books in the series, The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City.

~ I caught Dusknoir in Pokemon Shuffle! I'm always happy when I manage to catch the event Pokemon, even though I know that there'll probably be another identical event in the future. I could it as an accomplishment, anyway.

~ Now's the time of year where I want to do all the cooking! Chilly weather makes me want to be in the kitchen where the oven will keep me warm, and then the tasty things I make will be even more enjoyable to eat. I'm glad that even though I was discouraged from cooking as a child, I learned how to as an adult. I can't imagine subsisting off pre-packaged stuff all the time now. I enjoy things like that every once in a while, but it doesn't take long for me to want to get some meat and fresh vegetables and make myself something good and homemade!

Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend!

~ The 4th season of Once Upon A Time is on Netflix now! I definitely have to make some time to catch up on that show!

~ Did 20 situps tonight: 8+8+4. This is something I want to do more of on a regular basis, because it takes almost no time at all out of my night, and over time it'll help me get stronger and hopefully lose some of the extra weight I'm carrying.

~ Managed to catch both Latias and Keldeo in Pokemon Shuffle! :D Much happiness, because I didn't think I'd get either of them so quickly! If I can keep grinding away at the Latias level, though, I might be able to get a Latiasite so it can Mega Evolve, but I'm not sure my team's even strong enough to get that far anyway, so I don't know if it's worth trying and using up time that could be better spent on other levels.

~ I joined a few "get paid for doing surveys" sites last night, partly because I've had some luck with them in the past (from 1, I ended up getting about $40 in gift cards, and that was with me mostly slacking and missing out on a lot of potential surveys). Any rewards I get aren't going to make a huge difference to my budget, but even a little bit extra now and then can be helpful.

~ Because I had to wake up earlier than normal, I woke up even earlier than that, so I think I only slept for about 6 hours. My eyes are burning, but not so badly that I'll need to nap later. I think. But it was worth it, because I had a lot of fun at embroidery class.

~ Touch wood, but I think I'm on the mend and that stupid cold is finally leaving me!