dazzleberry

Well, mom and dad just left. The house has been promoted from Overwhelming, Hopeless Mess to A Lot of Work.

( Update )

The problem with bipartisan conversations is that there are two parties involved.

In a small, cramped room, combine equal parts discussion of national healthcare and concern over costs. Shake vigorously. Cover and allow to steep overnight. Open to reveal rumors about death panels that force euthanasia on little old ladies.

Does it never occur to us that the people who are talking about expanding social programs are not the same crowd who are typically proposing to sacrifice those same programs to balance the budget?

Seriously. Death panels? Come on, folks. We're trying to get this thing passed.

I intended to update more regularly. Really I did. It just never seems to happen.

( Overwhelmed by the house right now. )

So I posted about my window in the bedroom.

Roll Shade
Plantation-style faux wood blinds
mini blinds
shutters

All of these have the same problem: my window is an odd size-- 28 inches wide by 75 inches high. Every single window treatment I've found so far has topped out at 72 inch size. I can't even custom order them anywhere I've found.

This is getting frustrating. And I've got two more windows of the same size.

So I guess my next option is to make my own. *shudder* You do have to understand that I can't even fix a seam that has already been sewn up once. I'm not that good with a sewing machine.

I'm starting to get settled in my house. Instead of having footpaths through the mountains of junk, I've got little piles of boxes in random, inconvenient places.

( I've )So, for the opinion portion of this post--

What kind of window treatment do you think works in a cottage-style bedroom? When I say cottage style, what that means at present is beadboard panelling, laminate flooring and a double-wedding ring quilt in shades of lilac.

The window in the room is tall--floor to ceiling-- and about 32 inches wide, including the moulding. The glass part is 28 inches.

So far I have considered:

--white sheers
--white lace curtains
--ruffly white organza curtains inherited from grandma
--plantation shutters

My issues with the first three are the sheerness of them. This is a window that faces a major street. There's a pretty significant stretch of yard between the street and the house, and lots of trees, but still, privacy is a problem with too-sheer window treatments.

My problem with the shutters is that the window seems to be a non-standard size. Shutters mostly seem to come in 14-inch widths, and if I could mount them directly on the glass that might fit the window.

I'm not a huge fan of mini blinds, but I can get over my aversion if need be. I just really want to have a pretty, romantic, cottage-inspired bedroom and vinyl blinds don't seem to be it.

Anyone have thoughts?

Apparently the house I just bought is owned jointly by a middle aged woman in the Houston area and an eighty-something in rural New Mexico (not sure which part of that is supposedly relevant).

Apparently, being an eighty-something woman in rural New Mexico means that it is difficult to FedEx important things, like closing papers.

Thus, Jen is on her second day of having a mortgage, but no key.
( This sucks )

I really hate this.

It's 23 out. It feels like 17.

Or, as I prefer to say, it's fucking cold with a wind chill of oh my god. I can hear the ice. Hello, I chipped my car out of an ice block this morning. Once in a week month season lifetime is more than enough.

This is Texas. This isn't supposed to happen here. It's supposed to be 59 in January... oh, wait. That's tomorrow's forecasted high.

No wonder everyone's sick.

"Coach Fired over 100-0 Win"

( Did I read that right, I wonder? )

Poll #1318555 The Jolly Old Elf
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

Does Santa wrap gifts?

I have a coworker who contends that St. Nick has a geographical bias-- that up north, he wraps but in the south he does not.

What do you think?

I would just like to announce that I survived an entire day, at work wearing crimson stilettos.

And, lest you think I exaggerate the impressiveness of this feat, allow me to share a ( photo of the shoes in question )

Today, red stilettos.

Tomorrow, the world. *maniacal laugh*

You know, of all the things I could say about the book, the one thought that's been with me since I finished it is that I'm kind of disappointed it's all over now. I think it's a crucial point of my personality that I prefer a work in progress to something that's finished.

( spoilers. )

Looking forward to rereading the entire series now, to see if I missed anything what I missed in earlier books. And I think I'm glad I got tired of fandom a year ago. I think I would be feeling a bit more rudderless if I still dabbled in fic. I felt a bit that way after HBP-- that things were sliding kind of undeniably into place and there wasn't much wiggle-room. Now that's it's all wrapped up with a nice, neat little bow on top, it reminds me a bit of a Christmas tree on the day after Christmas.

I had an epiphany today. A real 'duh' kind of moment.

It actually started on Wednesday, maybe even a few Wednesdays ago.

( Background )

So anyway. I'm going back next week.

I really need to pay more attention.

I did not know that Boris Yeltsin died or that there was a shooting at Virginia Tech. This is largely because I don't watch TV, I haven't been online in a week or more, and I haven't had the radio on in God knows how long. I guess I've been a bit holed up lately.

But I haven't been completely cut off from the world, you know?

I did get a song-by-song recap of American Idol, and I know what happened on The Unit and on Jericho. I was aware that there was a chance of rain in the forecast for this weekend, but it got reduced, possibly taken out depending on which station you listened to. I know who has Dr Pepper on sale and what the weather has been like in Colorado and when prom and graduation are for all three local high schools. These have been the leading topics of conversation at work for the last three weeks.

Sometimes I think our priorities are in the wrong place.

Incidentally, I'm not blaming anyone but me for my lack of knowledge about what's going on around me. It just stuns me that those two things could happen and I could literally have not had the slightest clue. My first indication about the shooting was when I was in line at the grocery store Thursday night and there was one of the news rags with a headline about tragedy, then yesterday a management memo about security at our hospital. I just about fell over when I read about Yeltsin.

My coworkers don't understand why I'm so 'antisocial'. Maybe it's because I know more about Boris Yeltsin than Josh Grobin (sp?), and I don't give a fuck about American Idol.

One of my most recent pet peeves is hearing people talk about how they don't pay attention to politics and think all politicians are evil and rotten and the lowest dregs of society; when they don't know what the election issues are and when they randomly guess which parties support what viewpoints (for example: my mother was stunned that the Democrats favor gun control and the Republicans oppose it-- she has locked it in her mind that the GOP is the 'moral' party and thus supports all her 'moral views'. I suspect the only thing she really agrees with them about is the school prayer issue, which no one actually ever does anything about except complain...)

And yet, these people vote.

I know that seems hypocritical coming from someone who just admitted to being completely out of touch for at least two weeks apparently, but oh well.

Been shoving furniture around.

( pictures again )

So, I'm desperate to rearrange my living room. I'm so tired of it that I could scream. But I'm stumped.

( Pictures behind the cut. )


Which do you think? Or do you have another suggestion?

The room is about 12 ft wide and 14 ft deep. The sofa would take up exactly the entire wall beneath the window if I were to put it there.

At the moment, I'm probably leaning more towards option 2, just because I really want that chair in the corner. I hate hate hate hate the entertainment center in the middle of that wall opposite the door though. I'm very much open to suggestions, though, especially since I don't particularly like either of my ideas.

I just got the most incredibly adorable photo of my kitties!

( big pic )

Can you tell I'm in love with them? That is a photo that reminds me why. They've been little brats all day, but they really are so sweet.

That's Izzy in back, and Ella in front. Ella really has turned into a pretty cat. She was such an ugly little kitten that she was adorable, but she's grown into a very svelte and elegant kitty. At least, she's elegant when she isn't being her usualy graceless self. She's been scolding me all day for something, but I can't figure out what. I've about decided it's because it was a pretty day and I wouldn't let her out.

TADA!!!

I've been without internet for almost two weeks. In fact, I was without phone for most of that time.

It's all better now. *pats brand spaking new clearwire modem* Broadband = $30.54/mo Land line = $31.34/mo. I used my land line to connect to the internet with crappy dialup connection.

Complete no brainer.

Didn't even have to haul the computer desk into the living room as I was afraid I might have to.

Someday, I'm going to have to go to work on a Monday again, and it's really gonna suck.

This is the fourth Monday in a row that I've been off. Last week, I was ill, the week before was New Years, the week before that was Christmas. Today? My car is buried under such a thick crust of ice that I can't even open it. And my ice scraper is inside it. I never gave three seconds thought to my ice scraper being inside my car. Is that something logical that people who live in cold environs just know?

Anyway, I decided that if my car was encased in ice, and there's an inch of solid ice on the parking lot, then my chances of getting up the hill I live beside were slim to none. So I'm home again.

Ella, however, is outside. She snuck out while I had the door open just now. I'm very confident that she'll decide in short order that she wants nothing to do with 24° and ice on the stairs, or else I'd be chasing her around. I'll have less of a fight on my hands if she decides that, though. And closing the door for a couple of minutes should be enuogh to make her panic. In fact, I think I hear her now.

I did. My kitty psychology skills are still intact, it would seem.

Bummer about not going in. If I'd come to this conclusion before I got up and showered and dried my hair and got dressed, that would have been one thing, but since I didn't, I'd just as soon be at the office. I'm bored here at home (been inside for going on three days now) and it's easier to get my office warm than it is to make my apartment warm. At work, I turn on my space heater and shut the door and it's about 90° within a few minutes. Here, I bundle up and shiver.

Such is life though.

I don't know why I feel like it's some extraordinary breach of lj-etiquette if I don't do this. Therefore...

One of my goals is to get my f-list down to a size I can manage, and filled with people whose posts I'm not skimming over. Last week, I cut all my communities, and now I'm in phase two of this, which is trimming people. I just cut 25.

Most of the folks I removed fall into one of two groups: people I have no f***-ing idea who are, and people who post exclusively about either HP types of things or fandoms I've never even heard of.

If you're one of the people who got cut and are deeply offended at not being on my f-list (even though I never comment on your journal, nor you on mine), I'm sorry. I just don't have time to read every meme and every fic update. And if you ever read my journal, you know you're not missing anything exceptional by not being privy to my work-related rants.

It's still cold. Didn't quite make it up to the forecasted 29°. *feels vaguely ill* Normally, I'd say it didn't make it quite *down* to the forecasted 29°...

You know, I think that's what has me floored about this cold snap. Usually, cold only lasts a day or so around here. The temp has been dropping since Thursday night. We've had our quota of below-freezing. We can go back to our regularly-scheduled winter now.

Finished another romance novel this weekend. Hysterical. I recommend it, actually. It's by Katie MacAlister and it's called Noble Destiny.

( cut for analysis )

Working on my own novel now. It's turning into a bit of a twelve-headed monster. I think I'm going to have to print it out soon and start threading scenes into chapters so I can see what I still need to write. I've gotten 42,546 words written, in the form of 23 scenes that range from complete chapters to 283 random words, many of which are notes for myself. I have a database of characters-- a *database*!-- and four pages of things I have to check for continuity at some point.

I'm actually hoping to have this draft-- if I can glorify such a mess with that title-- complete by the end of the month so I can start refining it.

It's going well, all things considered. The entire plot is embedded firmly in my mind. I know every single scene of it, every detail that happens, and that's a comfortable place to be in. By my estimation, I have another half-dozen scenes left to write, and maybe as many more to finish. Hoping to bring my final word count to around 60,000 for the first draft. Trying very hard not to blow that number out of the water, because that gives me a fair amount of revision room.

The biggest problem I have right now is that my computer room is SO FREAKING COLD I can barely sit in here without being bundled up, and gloves aren't particularly conducive to writing.