So I haven't been happy at my job for a while now. So I applied for two positions recently. I didn't get one of them, although I was told they were very impressed with me and would have loved to have offered me a position if they could have. I just got a call offering me the second position.

So what's the problem, you're asking? ( Well . . .Collapse )

Getting ready to walk out the door and go to a job interview. Nerves, they are in me. And since I already bit off most of my fingernails previously, I don't have that crutch.

Here's hoping Hurricane Sandy hasn't destroyed the roads I need to take to get to the interview.

Three Good Things That Happened Today

1. I was quite productive at work today!

2. Enjoying some fourth season of The O.C. with the roommate.

3. Got confirmed that I will need a slip with my new dress, which I will hopefully get on Thursday after I get paid.

Two Things I Did Well

1. I attempted to stay relatively positive about things at work. I wasn't as successful as I would have liked, but I tried.

2. I posted a new chapter of my latest Chuck fanfic, and then wrote another five hundred words on the next chapter.

One Thing I'm Looking Forward To

1. I'm going to do a cookie experiment: I'm taking a chocolate chip cookie recipe and adding in some pecan chips and Heath Bar pieces, and flavor them with butterscotch flavoring. [crosses fingers]

Trying to work through some things in my life, so I thought I'd steal an idea from polymexina, with a bit of a twist. So, without further ado . . .

Three Good Things That Happened Today

1. Maria Sharapova won the French Open, and therefore completed a career Slam. She's not the most artistic tennis player around, but I really admire the way she fights; she never gives up.

2. Nationals beat the Red Sox again!

3. So much great fruit is now in season. I love this time of year.

Two Things That I Did Well

1. I got some domestic things done and out of the way: I went to the supermarket; I unloaded & loaded the dishwasher, then ran it; I folded some laundry and put it away.

2. I talked to my mom for forty minutes today. She's great, but sometimes talking to her is all about her and not so much about me. But I helped her with some questions she had, at least.

One Thing I'm Looking Forward To

1. French Open men's final tomorrow! Can't wait to see who wins. I'm rooting for Djokovic, but I'd be fine if Nadal wins.

Strange that when it comes to life's big issues, I come to LJ to talk about them rather than other places. :-)

So! The issue at hand is whether I should consider buying a condo next year (we're talking in the January-March time-frame), instead of continuing to rent.

( more details hereCollapse )

The Christmas break wasn't nearly long enough. MPOW was closed Friday-Monday, and I took advantage of the time to go up to New Jersey and spend time with my friend C. and her husband. Since they're Jewish, we just sat around watching TV in our pajamas, then we ordered Indian food. It was awesome. :-)

The library opened back up on Tuesday, and the last two days have just been insane. It's partly just the normal busyness we'd have after being closed for so long, plus people coming in because they're off work/the kids are off school. But what's new is how many people are coming in and calling to get help with accessing the library's ebook collection. I swear, if we could make it as easy as Amazon, libraries could stop worrying about their relevance to today's society--we'd be relevant. But given how little power libraries have when it comes to ebooks, it's probably only going to get worse.

With how busy work has been, I've had no energy when I get home, which is a bummer. I have things I want to do! Cleaning! Reading! Writing book reviews! Yet none of those things has happened. I know I'll get a lot done this weekend, but there comes a point where you can't keep piling things up to do on the weekend. I've wanted to sneak some of these tasks in at work, but it's been all I could do to keep up, let alone add on extra tasks.

[strives for calm]

I hope everyone had a happy holiday! Now to work, where I'm on the desk four hours today. Goody.

Whew. December's been kinda crazy for me--juggling lots of different things and trying not to drop anything. At this point, things are okay. I got all my holiday baking done, much to the delight of my coworkers and leighleighla. I'm looking forward to going to New Jersey on Saturday to visit my friend C. and her husband. And today is the last day before the library is closed for the Christmas holidays. So at the moment, it feels a bit like the moment before you take a deep breath--that sense of more coming, you know?

Of course, this morning I opened up my closet and discovered that some mice must have gotten in there somehow, since a bag of butterscotch chips I had stashed there, due to a lack of space in the kitchen, had been totally destroyed and eaten. ( cut for more detailsCollapse )

Be positive! Don't get moody! First world problems! [keeps chanting]

A very happy holiday to everyone on my flist!

This summer, leighleighla got me into Chuck, and I'm so glad that she did. We knew going in that this would be its last season, and it was a short one. So we knew we wouldn't get many more episodes. What I don't think I realized was how active the cast and crew were on social media, so you kept getting all these great little nuggets of behind-the-scenes activity, especially as filming wound down. I've never watched a show that had such an active social media presence that wasn't shaped entirely by the network's PR department, and that was so much fun and so interesting to get the chance to be the proverbial fly on the wall.

They wrapped yesterday, and there was just so much appreciation and love shown by the cast and crew towards their fans. And it was just so . . . nice. To feel valued. To feel that it wasn't about the ratings (which, honestly, have never been great and therefore kinda don't matter) but about the people who enjoyed the show. I'm glad that I found this show, even if I kinda kick myself for not picking it up when it started. But I got a chance to watch the last season live, and there will always be something about scripted television, about sitting down to watch an episode and not know how it's going to turn out. I'm going to miss this show, but I'm glad I found it before the end.

I'm looking forward to seeing the cast go on to other projects. I hope that other people discover Chuck afterwards, and get to enjoy its great mix of drama, comedy, and heart. And it makes me glad that even when things are dark in my life, I know there are bright spots like a favorite TV show or a chat with a friend or just my cat doing something silly. Chuck was a good reminder of this, and really, that's a pretty awesome thing. So thanks, Chuck.

New holiday-themed layout, courtesy of thefulcrum. It's so cheerful!

I'm slowly getting into a holiday mood. Work has been crappy lately, so it's been tough to feel a lot of the milk of human kindness. Add in the fact that my apartment complex wants to jack up our rent by $170/month, and yeah, December hasn't started off in the best way. But slowly, I'm getting in the spirit of things.

What's been good in my life?
--I got my first royalty check for my book! It's definitely enough to feel like real money, and I was good by allocating the money towards savings and debt repayment.
--I splurged on an early Christmas present by buying myself a Nook Tablet. I've been in a reading slump for a few months, and the tablet has really helped me get over that. Plus, it's a fun gadget to have. :-)
--Now that I won NaNo, I'm pondering where to go next with my writing. I have an idea for a YA historical fiction, but of course the idea means needing to do some research. I'm hoping to get enough done over the next week or so that I can start outlining and writing. With NaNo, I didn't really have a plan, I just wrote. And while I liked that approach, I think I'd like to have a better idea of where I'd like the story to go with the next thing I write.

Today, I'm baking cookies, doing laundry, and watching football. A bit later, I'm going to finish sewing curtains for one of the windows in my bedroom. So a domestic goddess kind of day.

Hope y'all are having a great Sunday!

I did it!

I have to say, I'm still kind of shocked that I finished, on time, in spite of Thanksgiving and writer's block. There were moments when I wasn't sure what I was doing or even why. But I pushed on, and now I have a (very) rough draft of a YA novel! What's more, I have this experience and accomplishment. I know now that I can do this: I can write a novel. And it's inspiring me to not let this be a one-off experience. So here's hoping!

Long time, no write, eh?

Without fandom, and with a lot of my friends here on Twitter, I have definitely shifted into more a lurker mode here on LJ. And that's not bad, since you know, things change.

In good news, I'm doing NaNoWriMo!



I'm at over 3800 words after two days, which is progress I'm happy with. If you want updates as I go, I'm going to be using my Tumblr for that. Me on Tumblr

September and October were totally crazy at work, and November is crazy in a different way. I suddenly have several social events to attend before I head to Florida to see my parents for Thanksgiving. Adding in NaNo might be tricky with all this, but so far, so good!

Hope y'all are doing well--rest assured I'm still reading, and I hope your lives are good.

My earliest thoughts this morning, after I fully woke up, were pretty similar to the ones I had ten years ago.

I thought about my dad. Because today's his birthday. Ten years ago, I woke up just before nine, happy to sleep in since it was my night to work at the library. I was thinking about calling my dad to wish him a happy birthday, and about a trip to DC to meet up with some friends that weekend, and about work and my life and everything. And then I turned on the TV.

New York is a city I love. It's just got so much. It's like America shrunk down into a city. All the best and worst that we are. It's no wonder it was and is targeted by terrorists. And now, living so close to DC, I've come to love that city, too. I love the stateliness of it--something that the US doesn't have a lot of, really, but when they do have it, they do it big.

It's hard to realize it's been ten years. Because it's an event that I have such pristine memories of. Watching the reports. Trying to get in touch with my dad as phone lines jammed up. Driving to my parents' house to be with my mom, and seeing the roads so utterly empty, even for a Tuesday afternoon.

9/11/01. 9/11/11.

If any of y'all can see this, I finally gave in and got a Dreamwidth account. I'm dettiot over there, too. Would love to see any of you there!

As a side note: gee, LJ, that $150 for a permanent account sure seems like a great investment now. :-/

My cat has been an ongoing topic here lately, and not for good/happy reasons. The most recent update is that she's becoming resistant to using her litter box. It started with her peeing on my roommate's sleeping bag that was out in the living room. (Not only was there cat urine to clean up, the sleeping bag's outer shell bled onto the carpet and stained it.) Now, she keeps peeing at the same spot. She's done it twice in twelve hours, and it just feels like she's going to keep doing it. I don't know if it's just she's being really picky about the cleanliness of her litter box, or if she's stressed out and acting out over all that I've put her through recently.

[sigh] I . . . I'm starting to feel that I can't take care of my cat anymore. Financially, with all the vet bills, and emotionally, with not being able to get her well without everyone's lives--mine, the cat's, and my roommate's--being negatively affected. But all that being said, I just don't know. I feel like that would make me a bad person, if I gave up my cat. That I was shirking a responsibility, one that I took on and that I shouldn't give up. If she went to a shelter, I don't think there's much chance of her getting adopted, with her age and the medical problems she's faced. Yet I just . . . I hate dealing with all this now. I hate coming home wondering what's gotten broken or ruined because of the cat. And when I am home, I'm on edge, trying to catch her before she misbehaves.

I don't know. If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I've added several new marble magnets to my Etsy shop. Take a look if you like what you see!

I've been listening to Fleetwood Mac lately, and Monday Morning is a good way to start a Monday. :-)

Busy weekend: lots of people in and out of our apartment this weekend, so that was a change from normal. Good while it lasted, but I'm glad that it's over for now. My parents are coming to visit me Memorial Day weekend, but happily they won't be staying with me.

( cut for mental health talkCollapse )

Time to dive into work stuff. Yay.

I've decided to reopen my Etsy shop. If you like the pretty and the practical, I hope you'll take a look at my shop!

Hearing the news tonight, about the death of Osama Bin Laden, made me go back and read the post I wrote on the sixth anniversary of September 11th.

There's such a mix of emotions right now--satisfaction in a job done, relief that one kind of evil has been removed from the earth, a small worry about how this will affect our world. But most of all, it's . . . inspiring. Hearing the stories about people gathering outside the White House, about New York firefighters gathering to march to Ground Zero, reading comments on Twitter and getting that sense of America pulling together--I've missed that feeling so much. We lost that feeling somewhere after September 11th, too caught up in our lives and our problems. But tonight, right now? I feel so proud of my country; something I haven't felt for a while.

So tonight, I'm going to take comfort in that Mark Twain quote that has been floating around: "I never wished for any man's death, but there are many obituaries I would read with great pleasure."

Feeling a bit disheartened this morning. I took my cat in to the vet on Monday night for her recheck, and the upshot was that surgical procedures (draining the hematoma on her ear and flushing her ear canals) were the best way of dealing with her issues. So I went ahead and did that, and now I have another three weeks of pain meds, antibiotics, and ear drops. She really doesn't like the ear drops on this go-round, and I'm not sure what to do. [sigh]

Part of what I'm struggling with is that this might have been avoided if I had taken her to the vet for annual check-ups. Instead, I was penny-wise and pound-foolish in thinking that if she was eating and acting normal, she was fine. As it is, in the last two weeks I've spent over five hundred dollars on just her ears (and nearly a thousand dollars in vet bills total, since I had her teeth cleaned while they were working on her ears). And the thing is, if I said after this, "I'm done--as long as she's not hurting, I'm not going to do anything else," there'd be a stigma about that. I like having my cat around, and I want to take care of her and make sure she's not in any pain. But she's an animal--not a child. But saying that to the people at the vet office or coworkers or pretty much anyone, and you get looked at like you're a psychopath that tortures dogs before moving on to killing people.

Maybe I'm feeling guilty because I have plans to go out of town this weekend, and I subconsciously feel like I shouldn't go. But if I stayed home because of the cat, it would wreck my mental health even more, between the disappointment of not getting the trip I've been excited about and having to struggle with the cat all weekend. leighleighla is awesome and has been a big help with everything involving my cat, but that's the thing--it's my cat that's the issue.

Any advice?

Whew. The last few days have been hectic. First and foremost: cat issues.

( some semi-gross discussion of what's wrong with SerendipityCollapse )

Because of the cat, I felt frazzled the rest of the day yesterday. I went to a birthday party that I had already agreed to attend, but I only stayed an hour and a half before I left to pick up leighleighla and go home. I'm glad I did that, because I definitely needed the relaxation time. Since I'm working this weekend, that was especially important.

I'm juggling some different projects, which will hopefully be wrapped up in the next few days. I've already put in to take off the week before Memorial Day weekend, which I plan to spend watching tennis, doing some sight-seeing in DC (since it seems the government won't shutdown), and spending time with family. Plus, over Easter weekend I'm visiting my friend C. where we will have massive fun girly time. So yay for that. I just hope I can get through the next week until the cat's checkup.

Hope y'all are doing well!

I just discovered that for whatever reason, LJ is blocked through Firefox on my work computer, but it works fine in IE. Hmmm.

Anyway! Today has been a better day than the last two. It's mostly because this morning I decided to go ahead and weigh myself, instead of going with the number I thought I was. And hooray! I'm actually ten pounds lighter than I thought I was. I'm still overweight, but ten less pounds is a good thing! Especially since I was really worried that I was heavier than the mental number I had.

And now I have to go do a program at work, so that's all for now.

It has been unseasonably chilly in this area, which makes me sad. Spring is one of the best times of the year, and having to wear my winter coat still is no fun. Here's hoping it starts warming up soon.

My weird neuroses, let me show them to you! I'm overweight, and I'd like to lose weight. I'm actually attempting to start that process, thanks to the MyFitnessPal app on my phone. It's making tracking my eating and exercise a lot easier, and giving me a clear picture of where and how I need to improve. But because I'm overweight, and trying to lose weight, I don't want to buy clothes. Yet my clothes are in bad state--actually, my whole wardrobe is. I could definitely use several items--some of which are pretty essential (aka, underthings). Add in the fact that I'm bored with all my clothes, since I haven't bought much of anything in two years, and . . . yeah, I'm a little knot of insecurity and doubt. ;-)

I think at this point, I'd be best served getting some new bras and some tops to get me through the summer. Then, in the fall, I can figure out what to do. If I've lost weight, I can get some nice new things. If I haven't, I'll make what I have work for another winter.

I can't think of a better inducement to lose weight than that. So here's hoping! [crosses fingers]

And obviously, this all doesn't apply to shoes. Because shoes always fit. And I need a replacement pair of brown flats--I already have a pair picked out, I'm just waiting to have the money to make them happen. (These, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway! Things are going okay otherwise. I had a pretty productive weekend: I baked cookies and made dinner yesterday, with enough leftovers for another meal for me and leighleighla. I also did a lot of reading, as well as seeing Sucker Punch on Saturday night. ( spoilers for movieCollapse )

Hope y'all are doing well!

Doing this meme partly because it's a good one, but also because I wanted to prove I'm alive. ;-) Snagged from leighleighla.

Put your iPod/mp3 player/iTunes/music player of choice on Shuffle mode.
For each question, press the 'Next' button to get your answer.
Write the song name down that comes up, no matter how silly it sounds as an answer to the question or how embarrassing it is. Make snarky comments as necessary.


( and here we goCollapse )

--The move went well, overall! The movers showed up fifteen minutes early, which should have clued me in that something was going to go wrong. And it did--when the movers stopped at the weigh station on the way to my new place, they got cited for a bunch of things wrong with the moving truck. So they had to get another truck, move all my stuff onto it, and then bring it to my place. Instead of having my things in the apartment by about 3pm, it was closer to 6. But that was the only real problem. I've been working away at unpacking, and I think by the end of the weekend all my stuff will be taken care of.

--I'm greatly enjoying my new smartphone. It was a real lifesaver during the move, and I find that I'm spending less time sitting with my laptop since I have the smartphone. It's less likely that I'm going to get distracted for an hour when I'm just checking my email on the phone. So yay productivity!

--This weekend is about finishing unpacking and doing some reading. BTW, if there's anyone on Goodreads that I don't have friended, I'd love to see what you're reading! You can find me by searching dettiot at yahoo dot com. :-)

Happy Friday, everyone!

--Packing is proceeding. This weekend will be the whirlwind of trips to Goodwill & the library to drop off donations, cleaning, and final packing.

--My new phone is on the delivery truck now. GIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. (I really am an adult. I swear.)

--Work is going surprisingly well lately. This could mean a crash will happen at some point, but for now, I'm glad things are okay.

--Netflix has season 4 of Farscape available on streaming. This means I will be watching John Quixote tonight. Oh yes, I will. :-)

--Hope y'all are doing well!