Mind the Gap

( You asked for it! :) )

Between nearly daily (and nightly) babysitting of the god baybay and trying to get everything sorted for the wedding, I've been a frazzled mess. Last night the intended and I were finalizing the ceremony and we went to make sure our rings still fit. We've had these rings for years but had taken them off months ago for a variety of reasons, such as wanting to have that "just put on" feeling for the wedding. So, I go to get my ring...



Yeah, I seem to have lost it. Months it had been sitting in one spot. Now, it's gone. I have a feeling the cat had something to do with its disappearance. I'm fairly upset, but hopeful it will show itself soon. I'm not thinking about what to do if it doesn't.

In related news, it seems like half the guests are wanting to show up early to "help". It was sweet when grandma and cousin S wanted to come help. And I was excited at the thought of my out-of-town guests coming early to hang with us. But then great-aunt S and aunt J and Aunt D all said they were coming up early, as well. I foresee way too many butts in my kitchen. This has caused my Matron of honor to get territorial and is demanding to know what they are going to be doing and why can't she do it instead. I promised to be a bridezilla just for her. She thanked me.

Grandma also has informed me that she has commissioned aunt J to make a card box. She was not thrilled with our idea of using a photo box that can be put to use after the wedding. You see, it didn't have a lid with a slit in it. That, I am told, is imperative. In case our guests steal from us. Grandma owns her paranoia, at least. So, I will have some sort of card box made to look like a gift, "so that no one will know it's a cardbox." I wonder if I should have my usher play Hot-Cold with those bringing cards.

Also, I just had this conversation with grandma the other day while talking about the card box:
Me: Well, we weren't even sure people would bring cards. But since we really underestimated how many people would actually want to come, we thought we'd better get one just in case.
Grandma: Well, many people will be bringing money. I know of at least two people who didn't know what to get you guys and I told them cash.
Me: Oh. Um, well, we registered with two different charities and organizations.
Grandma: Yeah, but no one knows that.
Me: Dang. It was on the website for the wedding.
Grandma: Website? What website?
Me: The one that is printed at the bottom of the invitations?
Grandma: ...I didn't even look. Oh, well, I'm sure others saw it!

Goodness knows we could use the money, but I really wanted it to go to help the world and not just us. Besides, I would feel so awkward writing thank you notes for cash. "Thank you, Aunt D for the Ben Franklin. You kick ass!"

All in all, I'm still having a good time. Stress is starting to occur, there is still quite a bit of wistfulness over the lack of tableclothes, and we are both nervous that people will think that our wedding blows and be disappointed that they came all that way for it, but other than that, it's good.

Ok! Off to paint some poles for my cake table before god baybay returns for the evening. :D

So, you wanna know what sucks? Realizing you have re-addicted yourself to the Internet after having your power go out.

Omg, it was terrible! Not only did I not have computer access, but the only thing the itty-bitty amount of power we were getting was able to power was a fan! And only at a slow, sad pace. It wouldn't have blown out birthday candles. And our house lights made it look like a scene out of Poltergeist: flickering, dimming, then surging. It blew out one bulb and we may have lost my son's DVD player. So, I have spent about... 36 hours? hot and bored along with my equally hot and bored children. It is a miracle we survived. On the plus side, I was able to get some cleaning done. Not much since I couldn't run the dishwasher, or the washing machine/dryer, the vacuum, and most movement resulted in dying from heat exhaustion. Oh, and feeding time was fun.The microwave didn't work. So the oven and stove had to be used. In a house with no cooling mechanism.

Wires under the ground have burned out and they will start excavation tomorrow morning. Until then we have a ginormous extension cord running to our house directly from the transformer box thing. Good times.

So, I will be returning emails and comments very shortly. *hugs and pets Internet*

A few days ago, my sweetheart and I were asked to be godparents. We were surprised, seeing as we are pretty far from being godly in any sense. But we were also flattered. My sweetheart, being more knowledgeable about these things having gone to Lutheran school for 10 years, asked if there would be a ceremony or anything. The mother said no, and that if it were up to her family, the baby would have been baptized many times. Big Christian family, then. We look to the father, our friend and a boy we've seen grow from a teenager into, well, a father and stuff. He shook his head and said, no. They've decided to keep their son away from religion until he's old enough to make a decision for himself. Makes sense since the father's side is big-time Jewish.

Interesting.

So, we are godparents. Haven't got a clue what that means, (other than being emergency contacts and such) but all I know is they have given me direct access to a baby! Hahaha! One that I can send back when I've had my fill! One I can make things for and spoil without having to worry about storing the crap! Woot!

You know what else is awesome about this? Tomorrow we are going to a family birthday party while also babysitting little God Baybay. We're not telling any of the family that we are bringing an extra guest. Heheheheheh. My sweetheart says it's not a nice thing to do, since Grandma may have a heart attack, thinking we've taken in another kid. (We've shown up with new unannounced foster kids in tow to parties before.) Tee hee hee. But, my kicks will be had, damn it! I can see the "Oh no, you didn't!" look from Aunt D now. >:)

Now I have to remember how to make and store formula. It's been... 5 years!! Gah!
( Pic of Baybay )

I'm very happy to be back with the boys at Island Ink.


Island Ink: Postmortem

When Cale's brother shows up on the island, Cale has to answer
for one serious issue he forgot to mention. He's dead.

It was recently brought to my attention that "Indago" was brought up at Terminus. If that wasn't cool enough (which it so very totally was!), it was brought up in a roundtable discussion. A discussion entitled, "Sadistic Authors and the characters they love to torment".

Oh, yeah. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

I won't be able to get out of my house due to the size of my head! Wow! Thank you!

Thank you, coconut_ice22. Thank you!

I think I need a "Sadistic Author, Terminus Approved" icon. Oh yes, I do believe I do.

As seen on roedhunt's journal. My name was among a host of awesome authors, so I was compelled to feel really cool.
This is a fandom-based meme, but I'll be throwing in original writing stuff, too.
( Read more... )

We applied and got our marriage license today.

We had to hold up our right hands and swear all that good stuff and then the lady behind the glass smiled and said, "Congratulations. You are now able to marry."

I could have lit up a small city with the wattage of my smile! And yeah, okay, I may have teared up a tiny bit. Don't tell nobody.

You guys! You have no idea how awesome I feel right now!!!!!!!!!

Contemplating a leisurely day out, my life partner and I were interrupted by our son who came rushing into the house to inform us that he stopped his little sister from getting rabies from a rat. Used to such odd tales, we say, "Uh huh."

"No, really," he said.

"Boy child," we reply, "we don't have rats." (Which isn't to say that we couldn't have mice, as they like to come in from the desert. But in the six years we've been here, we've been fortunate to not have a rodent problem. *knock on wood* Opossum and ants, are of course, another matter.)

He intelligently disagrees with a well-placed, "Yeah, hunh!"

Irritated, we followed him out to where the "rat" was, prepared to explain, once again, that there are no rats, just as we have done about spiders from the Amazon and Egyptian cobras that do not hang out in our back yard. (Thank you, Grandpa, for sending him your National Geographics.) To our surprise, there was, indeed, a very upset rodent trying to hide in my decorative rocks under the honeysuckle. The story goes like this: Girl child, on her way out to the back yard, sees a cat trying to catch a snack. She "didn't like that" and scares the cat away. She is fierce and the cat quickly abandons its prize. Girl child then calls Boy child over and he stops her from petting it, insisting it has rabies. He then runs into the house to the beginning of our tale.

The neighborhood cat, who I have dubbed Mr. Mustache due to the very nice Clark Gable 'stache over his lips, was successful in taking a chunk out of the rodent's leg. We were able to coax (scoop it with a shovel) into a bucket. And then we stared at it trying to figure out what it was. We then quickly showered and dressed and took our hurt friend to the nearby vet. When the receptionist asked, "Do you want it back?" I quickly escorted the children out to, uh, look at the sky. My fiancee was informed it was a pet gerbil and that it had a 50/50 chance of survival. We, unfortunately, could not take him in, but the vet said they would do what they could for him and find him a home. My fiancee attempted to pay for euthanasia if that was what was called for (she feared they would get a bag and a hammer. Yeah, she's a trusting sort.) But they gave her a funny look and said that it was okay, they'd handle it. The children now know that Mr. Gerbil, a.k.a Lucky, is going to get all patched up and go to a home with a bunch of other gerbils to play with. And both children are a couple of the greatest heroes of gerbil-kind.

On our way back home, just a couple houses away from ours, we saw the rare sight of a gorgeous falcon perched on a fence. Apparently, the news of Gerbil du jour had gotten out. Lucky was, indeed, very lucky today. Godspeed, little friend. Godspeed.

I'm exhausted.

Yesterday was our food tasting for the wedding. ( Read more... )

So, I've been mostly off LJ for the past few days. I just went back and tried to catch up on my flist, excluding communities, but if I missed something awesome or horrible in your life, I'm sorry. I'll catch up with you soon. I gotta go get cleaned up and do some more errands and clean up the disaster formally known as my kitchen *whimper*. 35 more days until hitchin' day! I'm having fun, but it's a bit tiring. I'm just hoping everyone has a good time.

My friend and partner is in need of a new beta.

Full time beta needed. I write 1-2 updates a week and have a few novellas in the works. Average word count for one story is 3K and for the other is 7-9K. I need someone who is good with punctuation and verb tenses and is able to beta my work in a timely fashion. I would like someone who is very strict and who doesn't mind giving me both positive and negative feedback as needed. The material is original fiction and JoyBoy Island stories. Offering a subscription to JoyBoy Island in return for betaing.

To get a flavor of the writing style, check out short stories here and here. If you are interested, please send all inquires to either myself, lddurham at gmail, or to the author.

Thank you!

School starts September 2nd.

We may not make it.

During a fight that was to determine who would get to use the bathroom first, a fingertip was possibly broken. Boy child reached the bathroom first, after both of them had to come tell me that the other was "copying" and that they both had to go way worse than the other. Girl child would not give up the fight and attempted to hold the door open. Boy child is twice as big and successfully got the door closed, on her finger. She screamed, but unfortunately she has been doing that nearly non-stop for a couple of days now. Luckily for he,r the mother-senses tingled and I recognized the Scream of Pain, as opposed to the Scream of Oppression or the Scream of Rage. By the time I made it, Boy child also must have cottoned on (or was going to argue with her some more about why he needed the bathroom first) and was opening the door. But the damage was done.

There is not enough Calgon in the world, I can tell you that much. I'm about ready to open the door and let them return to the wild. I just might if I find myself at the doctor's instead of my dress fitting appointment. Hell hath no fury like an end-of-summer-vacation mother denied her pretty-princess time.

Bitchy Bride rant. ( Just so I can get it off my chest and over with )

If you be interested in my completely DIYed invites and such. :)
( Here they be )

I am a vampire-aholic. I love them. I'm pretentious enough that I wave my Hungarian-roots flag and pretend that my family is from the Transylvania area. (They could be! Of course, I also pretend that I am also descended from well-traveled, all-powerful gypsies who can see into the future when they feel like it, but I digress.) Lestat is my all-time favorite, I know how to pronounce Ţepeş, and I own several, several books on the mythology of the creature (and some videos, too).

But I couldn't get through Twilight. I couldn't even get a quarter of the way. And I hate it! Everyone's getting all excited and fannish over this series. There's even going to be a movie! I want in and I'm blocked at the door. I am afraid I am too old. Or perhaps too... lived. I dunno. I do know that it was the girl's constant martyrish whining that finally had me set the book down and forget it (and cost me an overdue fine, dang it!) I just kept rolling my eyes, sighing, and muttering, "Oh, jeeze. Suck it up, already!"

I've read reviews and it seems to be the consensus that, though this book starts off like your typical angsty-teen YA novel, it seems to kick into something more. Tell me this is true. Tell me that I just need to give it another try. I really want to get into these. Ever since Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton hopped on the crazy train, I've been yearning for another series to immerse myself in. Or tell me that it is definitely an age thing and I just have to let this boat go on without me. But tell me something!!


On a sidecar of this issue: Are vampires still hot? I get the feeling that there is a bit of burn out in readers over vamps and werewolves. I wonder if it might not be a backlash to the Twilight series, actually. (Teeny-boppers gettin' in the pot and putting too much squealy sugar in? )Or maybe it's just that the romance genre is flooded. I have two vampire stories I want to write, but I wonder. I know publishers are still looking for the supernatural stuff, but I have the feeling they are just a step or two behind. Or maybe I am. I know that most of the complaints I've heard have been about how the vampires and werewolves are too soft, too fluffy, barely shadows of the creatures they are supposed to be. Beasts on tight leashes. What do you guys think? This goes for fanfic and original work. Have vampires beent sucked dry, you think?

Scene: Mother and two children stopped at stoplight.

Mother: You guys, knock it off!

Mother: Stop it!

Son: What?

Mother: Stop rocking the car! Knock it off!

Son and Daughter: We're not!

Mother looks at swinging stoplights.

Mother: Oh. It's an earthquake. Heh. Sorry, guys.

I stumbled onto these pictures from a blog about a year ago. The link they give is defunct so I have no idea who did these. But whoever it was, rocks.

( Rest here! )

I have a new story this week. It's found in Ship-to-Shore.

A Queen's Honor

Taylor is trying to make his vacation, and his relationship, run smoothly. But when his boyfriend continues to act like a troll, this queen doesn't just sit around for a rescue.

I am ignorant. Will someone tell me if sixpence are still in circulation? I've been looking around and it looks like they are not. At least in the U.K., right?

I have my something borrowed, and my something new. I'll soon have my something old, and my something blue. But I do not have the sixpence for my shoe. I would love to have one that is from this year as a keepsake, but I think that's not happening. But just in case, I thought I'd ask to make sure.

Nase Yamato is going to be at Yaoi Con!!!!

WOOT!!

How can you not love an artist/writer who did an entire series on possessed and talking penises which turned out to be the cutest thing ever??? Seriously.