The Fandrogyne

~ I made potato soup in the slow cooker, using this recipe. I didn't have any Russet potatoes, so I used 7 small yellow potatoes instead, and I think that works out to about the same amount, if I remember the size of Russet potatoes properly.

However, a friend wanted to go to a coffeeshop breakfast with me in the morning, so I ended up having a delicious chicken pesto sandwich and chai instead of potato soup. Which I'm definitely not complaining about. The soup was just as good when I woke up tonight!

~ I pretended to be a responsible adult and I emptied the recycling bin and took the bags down to the basement to await pickup day. I also siphoned more of the leak from the basement, because that problem's not going away any time soon, but I need to keep up with it or else water gets absolutely everywhere and it's a royal pain to just be in the basement, let alone do anything there.

~ I wrote 1 full review and 2 mini-reviews, all for books/novellas. The 1 big one has already gone live and have been cross-posted to GoodReads and Amazon, and the 2 smaller ones will lie in wait until the end of the month.

~ Speaking of books, I finished reading Daniel Polansky's novella, The Builders. It was pretty good. Think Redwall, but with guns and where nearly everyone dies at the end.

Now I'm settling in for a reread of Catherynne Valente's Fairyland books, because I seem to be in the mood for short-and-sweet books right now. (Probably has a lot to do with the fact that the end of the year is approaching and I want to achieve my reading goals for 2015.)

~ I went out for a walk before bed (mostly to mail my grandmother's Christmas present and letter) and discovered a pawn shop relatively nearby, with a second floor almost entirely devoted to video games. My bank account is already wincing in anticipation of how much money I'm likely to spend there at points in the future, since I saw a few games that I want (though I'm trying to use my money for holiday gifts for others, not holiday gifts for me). But it's been a long time since I've been in a store that sells second-hand PSX games, so even just being in there makes me feel good and makes me want to spend hours and hours gaming again!

~ December's Skoshbox arrived this morning, and I had fun trying out a little bit of everything before I went to sleep. Expect reviews and commentary later.

~ Snooooooow~! The city got about 10 cm of snow overnight, which is a little weird for this early in December, but eh, it's Canada, so you take it as it comes.

The problem is that it was wet heavy snow, and the weight of it caused broken tree branches and knocked-out power lines all over the city. I was without lights for about an hour. Fortunately I anticipated that and charged my 3DS, so I just lay in bed and played video games until the lights and heat came back.

Of course, then I had the joy of clearing heavy wet snow off the front steps, and the whole back porch. The driveway can stay covered for now, though. I don't have a car, nobody comes to visit, and it's just not worth busting my back over at this very moment.

~ Finished reading Sylvia Sprunk Wrigley's Domnall and the Borrowed Child. I thought it was a novel, but at under 100 pages, it's actually a novella. Interesting look at fairy lore, and it was a nice diversion.

I've moved on now to Daniel Polansky's The Builders. I've heard some good things about this book, and I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy it. (I wouldn't be reading it if I didn't think it was at least possibly enjoyable!)

~ My Internet connection did cooperate long enough for me to get my latest bookmark listed on my Etsy store.

~ Had stomach problems before I tried to sleep, which, combined with more exertion than I'm used to lately (shoveling so much wet snow off the back porch), had me reduced to shaking uncontrollably and being unable to get warm. The shaking didn't actually stop until I'd fallen asleep (at least, that's when my awareness of it stopped), and it took 3 heavy blankets to even start to warm me up despite not actually feeling that cold. Probably lousy hydration and low blood sugars to boot, but knowing the probably cause of it doesn't make it any less terrible to go through.

~ The Whitefire Crossing, by Courtney Schafer (reread)
~ The Tainted City, by Courtney Schafer (reread)
~ The Labyrinth of Flame, by Courtney Schafer
~ Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey (reread)
~ 397 Ways to Save Money, by Kerry K Taylor
~ The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler

Currently Reading

~ Servants of the Storm, by Delilah S Dawson

~ I won NaNo! And impressively, the official wordcount was only 8 words shy of what Open Office told me I had written, so apparently I didn't use nearly as much hyphenation as in previous years. But either way, I've finished, and I'm happy.

Oh, I didn't finish an actual story from beginning to end. I have 3 partly-finished stories in the file. But I did write over 50,000 words this month, and that's all I needed for a NaNoWriMo win, so I'm still counting it as a victory.

I want to do the same thing in December. Aiming for 50k words a month might not be a bad idea, really, at least until I finish something and can move on to the editing stage.

~ I tried playing Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, just to see what it was like, and I suspect it's going to be a really addictive video game. It's an action RPG, somewhat childish but still fun, and best of all my computer actually plays it without crashing! (Touch wood!) I don't want to get too into it at the moment, because I still have other video games on the go and I don't want to neglect them for a load of new things, but at least when I do decide to spend more time playing it, I'll end up having some good fun with it!

~ For supper I made pork chops stuffed with apples and brown sugar (okay, technically they came pre-stuffed, but I still cooked them!), boiled potatoes, and carrots. With After Eight ice cream for dessert. This is the high life, folks!

~ I also made a trip to the library, where I got out Delilah S Dawson's Servants of the Storm. Looking forward to reading that, once I finish Django Wexler's The Forbidden Library.

~ A friend and I have started to read the Twilight saga together, as a sort of "share my pain" project and so that when people tell us that we can't badmouth the books because we've never read them, we can say that we have indeed, and that they're still pretty bad.

Really, though, we're a quart of the way through the book and nothing's happened except for a load of banal conversation about nothing, Bella being simultaneously pretensious and self-deprecating, and Edward saying a lot that amounts to, "Come with me. ...You should stay away from me. We're going here together... but I'm too dangerous to be around, for absolutely no reason that you can fathom. Want to hang out with me? WELL YOU SHOULDN'T!"

I'm honestly not sure how this managed to attract an agent, because there's absolutely nothing in the standard excerpt length that would lead me to believe the book is about anything but an unhappy girl trying to cope with general life while being ignored by attractive people. You don't even get to that whole "Edward saving Bella from a car accident" bit until after chapter 3, and that's usually the limit most agents will give anything, if they're feeling generous.

Yes, it went on to make lots of money and launched the YA reading careers of a million teens, but I don't know how, because it isn't a very good book, and there were plenty of better ones already on the shelves at the time.

~ At least I've finished Arrows of the Queen. That took some of the bad literary taste out of my mouth.

~ I did play more Final Fantasy X this weekend, which was nice because I neglected it all last week. Made it through the temple at Macalania, laughed maniacally over winning the battle with Seymour, then spent most of the night level-building on Bikanel Island, because the desert is vast and full of monsters that actually give me a bit of a challenge. So that was plenty of fun.

I have the Airship now, which I think is an event that every long-time Final Fantasy player waits for in every game.

~ I got quite a bit of housework done this weekend, too! The dishes are all done, laundry mostly folded and put away, the kettle cleaned and descaled, and I made beef strips and rice one day and then chicken fajitas the next, both of which were delicious!

And let's not forget the tasty pumpkin cinnamon rolls!

I'm glad I managed to be so productive and get so much done!

~ I'm finally and properly caught up with my wordcount goal for NaNoWriMo! It took a few 3k+ nights, but I got there, and now I can just work at a normal pace for the rest of the month, provided I don't take any more days off.

Then it'll just be a matter of continuing to write until I actually properly finish something. Which for me is a lot harder than writing 1.6k words a day.

~ I had a satisfying but unproductive night and day, which is okay by me because those kinds of nights are usually pretty relaxing.

~ I got a bit more writing done, and even though I'm still behind after leaving everything alone for that many days, I'm catching up, and the difference isn't insurmountable. I also signed up for the NaNoWriMo site, not for the community aspect or the wordcounter or anything, but mostly for the discount I'd get on Scrivener when I meet the 50k word goal at the end of the month.

~ I read more of Courtney Schafer's The Labyrinth of Flame, which I'm not reading as quickly as I normally would because I keep getting distracted by things like writing and playing video games. But I'm almost three quarters through, and if I make sure to take the time tonight, I ought to finish it and the heap the author with praise, because she's wonderful and writes wonderful books and ought to be told that more often.

(Can't tell I'm a big fan, can you?)

~ I used my slow cooker to make a pot of oatmeal while I slept, because the days are getting colder and sometimes it's hard to get out of bed when I know that it's cold outside the blankets. But knowing I have to get up because food is ready, especially hot food, makes it a lot easier.

I like my oatmeal a lot thicker than it turned out, so next time I'll add less liquid, but it still tasted okay, and was nice and warm, and that's the important thing.

~ I took a trip to the library and got out a couple of books tonight, because Tuesdays are the one night of the week the library's open late enough that I can go without having to get up really early. One book on money-saving tips, and the other on making trickle income online, combined with getting freebies to supplement budgets. Most of the info I suspect I'll already know, but even if there are a few tricks in there that I haven't already done to help cut my costs and expenses, I'll be glad to hear of them.

~ I seem to be at that stage of having a cold where I'm useless as a human being, much less an adult. I just want to curl up in bed with an endless mug of tea and some books, and not come out until I feel better. Unfortunately, my body seems to also be conspiring against that plan, because I'm still going through stress-related insomnia, which makes my restless legs act up, so lying in bed isn't the most comfortably thing because of pain.

Thanks, Obody.

~ Did some reading last night, watched a couple of YouTube videos, and just generally tried to rest and relax. Can't say that I accomplished much, but it's probably better that way, if I'm feeling so cruddy.

~ I did catch Ho-Oh in Pokemon Shuffle, though. I had to use a whole load of money on Great Balls to do it, because the battle was seriously annoying and I didn't want to keep doing it over and over again and hoping for the best with a low catch percentage, but I did catch it, and now I can spend half a billion battles trying to recoup some of that money I just blew.

~ Technically finished all my responsibility reading for the month! This makes me so very happy, and it's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I still have to write up a final review, and I do want to read T Frohock's Without Light or Guide and review that on Friday morning, but after that, I consider myself free to read or not read however and whatever I want to.

That may not sound like such a big thing to most people, but when you've been running a relatively popular book review blog for almost 6 years, you start to feel the pressure of always having to provide regular content, always having to clear off the review copy pile (which never ends, and that's a blessing-curse of the best-worst kind), and so many books get left by the wayside because you don't have time or energy. I get to step back as of November first, and I think that's the right move for me because it feels like a lightening rather than a pure loss.

~ I made garlic beef yakimeshi for supper. It didn't turn out as flavourful as I'd hoped, probably because I lacked both mirin and any greens to add to the mix, but it was still tasty. Next time I think I'll add more garlic, and probably some chopped green onions, and I think that will help make it taste a lot better.

~ After the lack of sleep and the loud pounding and the interruptions of yesterday, and the accompany higher-than-normal level of housework that accompanied it, I determined that last night needed to be a fun night for me. Or at least a relaxing one. That meant tea, video games, and reading.

~ Finished one book (which could have been good but needed a lot more editing), and moved on to a second, which caught my attention from the first page and promises to be a lot of fun. I hope my suspicions pan out with this one!

~ Played some Torchlight, which is fun for whenever I want to just do a mindless dungeon crawl and feel like I'm getting somewhere even if that "somewhere" I'm getting is just better equipment so I can handle a tougher dungeon crawl.

~ I currently rank a little above the 5000 mark on the Mega Banette battle in Pokemon Shuffle. That's my highest rank for any event battle so far, and I'm hoping that I don't drop below the 23,000 mark when it's all over. I want that Mega Stone! And I worked my butt off to get a team that could get that kind of high ranking, even if it isn't as high as some people manage. I like to see payoffs for my hard work. I'm strange that way.

~ It's getting cold enough that my chestnut sapling probably shouldn't stay outside any more. The grass was covered in frost at sunrise, which looked beautiful, but I want to take care of my baby tree as well as I can, and that means keeping it from getting too cold. I know that trees survive winters all the time (obviously), but this one's only been planted since June, so it's young and depending on how hard the winter is, it may not do so well staying outdoors.

So indoors it will come! Now I just have to find a place to put it where it will still get sunlight and won't be destroyed by cats. The last part is the hardest part of all; one of my cats will chew any kind of leaf within her reach, and getting munched on by a cat probably isn't any healthier for the tree than the cold would be!

~ Had a terrible bout of insomnia through the day. First I couldn't get warm, despite my face feeling like it was on fire plus me being able to feel that my skin was actually warm enough. It was like my body was filled with weird pseudo-ice, making me cold even though I wasn't cold, if that makes any sense. But after struggling through that, I started getting annoyed with every sound, every wrinkle in the blanket. A melatonin pill, muscle relaxants, and calming tea did nothing to put me to sleep. It was just one of those days when I was destined to not get any sleep.

I did sleep later, though, which is good.

~ Finished rereading A J Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically. Fortunately, I didn't notice as much gender stereotyping as I had with The Know-It-All, so that made me happy. Now, back to my responsibility reading so that I can clear off that backlog!

~ Compost pickup was today, but apparently my compost bin wasn't actually picked up. No notice was on the bin to explain why, so now I have to contact Island Waste Management to find out what's going on and when they'll be by to do what they were supposed to do this morning.

Of course, digging deeper into their website, it may actually be that the service costs money, that I've been piggybacking off the previous tenant's payment and their coverage just ran out at the end of last month, and at no point did my landlord ever think to mention that waste disposal cost money that didn't just come from taxes or was handled by the city directly. So far the options are me being misled on the issue, or someone making a mistake on their route.

I sincerely hope it's the latter...

~ I was bad an bought myself a donair oven sub from Greco for supper tonight. I haven't had one in about 2 months now, so I figured it would be okay to treat myself a little.

~ Is it weird that I'm actually looking forward to going grocery shopping tomorrow morning?

~ I cleaned out the kettle today. It hasn't been long since I last boiled vinegar in it, which is how I usually clean kettles, but tea started tasting weird again so I looked up the specific instructions that came with the kettle. Turns out you're supposed to mix water, lemon juice, and baking soda, then let it bubble away for about 45 minutes. So I did that instead.

And when I poured out that water? It looked like I'd just actually made tea in the kettle. It was a horrible shade of brown, and all that was apparently just from the usual; buildup of minerals and stuff that you get from boiling tap water so often. Very disgusting! I'm glad I cleaned it, because all I can think of is that the scaling on the metal and the buildup of stuff was just getting into the water I use for my tea, and I was drinking it, and ugh, no wonder my tea has tasted a bit weird lately!

~ It's very windy right now. It's blowing right at the front of the house, which always makes the door the separates the entryway from the rest of the house get squeaky, even when it's closed. When I first moved here, I thought it sounded like mice in the walls, but none of the cats seemed to care, and eventually I figured out it only happened when it was windy. Something to do with the draft because the front door doesn't seal well and the entryway isn't insulated. Just another one of those sounds you get used to after a while, I suppose. I hear it, but it's stopped registering as a sound I might need to care about.

The rustling leaves in the trees is louder, though. That sound really makes me think that autumn is well and truly here!

~ I started rereading A J Jacobs's The Know-It-All. Because I could. I decided that responsibility reading can go hang itself for a few days, and I'm going to read what I want until the end of the month and nobody can stop me. Which means I'll probably start rereading A Year of Living Biblically right after I'm finished with this one. Both are good books, and I like his writing style and his humour.

~ I made some banana "ice cream" with some cheap bananas I got recently. A nearby grocery store often has great markdowns on their slightly off fruits and vegetables, which is great if you want to be creative with cooking and use things up pretty quickly. I got a bunch of 5 bananas for $0.49 (that's the price for a marked down bunch, no matter how many are in it), and it made about 1 litre of pureed banana to freeze.

No matter what I add to it for flavouring (peanut butter, Nutella, homemade fruit syrup), that price is far less than any commercial ice cream I can buy, and is healthier for me because aside from added flavouring, the only ingredient is banana. No added sugar or preservatives, very low fat, and unless you can't eat bananas for whatever reason, it's a suitable treat for just about any diet a person could be following.

I'm not sure I did it right, though, because all the recipes I see talk about freezing the banana and then blending them, whereas I blended the banana and then stuck it all in the freezer. I guess I'll have to see. If this batch turns out okay, I'll stick to it, because there's more room to store a bunch of bananas on my kitchen counter than there is in my freezer. If it doesn't work well, I'll freeze the bananas first next time and try again.

~ I also made a slow-cooker chili, again doing the thing where I put all the ingredients in there before bed, then wake up to a delicious-smelling supper. I almost never use ground beef for chili anymore, instead using cut-up pieces of stewing beef, because I can often find better deals on stewing beef than I can on ground beef. It tastes just as good. This batch turned out milder than usual, probably because my spices are old and need to be replaced, but it was still pretty good, and now there's plenty of food that I just need to reheat whenever I'm hungry. And that always makes me happy!