Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
- Sir Arthur Eddington


Well, it's been a while since I posted. I haven't been super-active on LJ lately from being out of town a lot and busy other times (for instance, since I would be / had been out of town, I would stay late at work in order to make up time, and then rush off to whatever activity was happening that I had to leave work for, and then be tired and go to bed), and also since training myself to think in not over-often updates of 140 characters or less (i.e. Twitter) has left little room for thought-out posts here.

Anyway. Christmas break was lovely. It was nice to spend the days sleeping til 9, playing Rock Band (luckily there are almost always people home/interested at my house to play together), watching the niece for hours (actually watching her, not babysitting - she's so amusing! And she dances!), etc. I saw "Avatar" after all, along with "Sherlock Holmes," "Surrogates" at the dollar theater, and "Confessions of a Shopaholic," "Easy Virtue," and "Night at the Museum 2" from Redbox. I enjoyed all of them, though Easy Virtue was something of a disappointment. Sadness.

I also finished S1 of "Castle" (need to catch up on S2 now), and spent a long time watching "Lie to Me," which my brother wanted to share with me. I admit, it's really quite fun. I like all the characters, and I think I'll keep up with it now. Also, I'm really impressed by the way Dr. Foster dresses, and I'm thinking I may try some of the styles she wears and see how they suit me. Adjusting for sleeves.

Today, for instance, I wore a new top (ivory scoopneck with crisscross draped front and cap sleeves - that I got from a catalog.. incidentally, it's the only item in my $150 order that I'm keeping, and it was only 8 bucks), tucked into a black knee-length skirt with black knee boots, and it was very cute and sophisticated. Oh, and I got my hair cut last week-ish.. Took 6 inches off and had side bangs and long layers re-cut.. but not many people have noticed it. That's okay. It just makes me feel more stylish. I even wore lip gloss today.

...That's all I feel like writing just now. I've got to switch my laundry and put clean sheets on my bed. Maybe I should change out of the skirt for that.. it's hard enough making up the monstrosity that is Tromso without having to be ladylike. I was going to talk about goals I made today, but I'll do that later.

Books to the ceiling,/ Books to the sky,/ My pile of books is a mile high./ How I love them! How I need them!/ I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel


It's funny how I feel the need to post something - anything - so that I can put up a fun quote. ^^; I guess it's been a while since I've given you an update, though, so I might as well.

My trip was lovely. The weather was beautiful, I played with my niece (who's still afraid of me at first, every time), and it was fun to just chill and hang out with my mom/dad/brothers. I loved being home more than usual, even, because the emphasis was on "B's home!" instead of "Everyone's home!" It was nice to feel loved and appreciated. I'm back to work for a week, and heading home again probably Saturday for Christmas break.

I even got some creative work done, about 2000 words over the weekend - inspired by The War of Art, which I'll talk about more when my hard copy arrives and I can make references - but not on Muse. I worked on the story that this is from, starting at the beginning. I've been needing a high-fantasy outlet, and it's feeling good.

Also, since this post starts out about books, I might as well mention that I've listened to 3 (and a half) Miles Vorkosigan books, and loved them. (The half is Cetaganda, which I'm only partway through, but which so far I don't particularly care for. I just don't like the planet, like, at all. My brother assures me that it picks up, though.) And I've also listened to the first book (and a half) of the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, and I'm enjoying them, too. I'm on the second book.

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
- Frank Zappa

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
- Redd Foxx


I'm in sunny Arizona now - my surprise worked out quite well. I left for the airport after work, and it took me an hour and a half to make the 45-minute trip, for no real reason. No snow or ice on the road, no construction.. but just for fun, three times in the trip traffic had slowed down to stop-and-go for stretches of a few miles. *mutters* I got to the airport half an hour before my flight was supposed to leave, and when I got my boarding pass, it said that my flight had been delayed about 15 minutes. I whirled through security and discovered at the gate that my fwe'd been delayed another ten. The plane had just arrived and the previous flight's passengers were just getting off.

Thank heaven for small favors. <3

Anyway, my little brother picked me up in Phoenix, and I got to hang out with my bros for half an hour or so before my parents came home from Dad's office Christmas party. (Two of the four were surprised. The other two had been informed.) My mom, instead of depositing her purse in the kitchen right away, headed toward her bedroom - so my dad snagged her elbow and guided her back toward the kitchen, where I was. When she saw me, her mouth fell open for a good several seconds. She said, "How did you get here?!" (I told her, "I flew" while flapping my hands a bit.) And she came over and hugged me for about three minutes, and I think she was crying a little. I couldn't exactly tell what was going on outside the death grip.

This morning I went to the temple with my dad - the Mesa Temple is really beautiful inside.. Outside, it doesn't look like much (the reflection pool is rather nice, though), but the inside has gorgeous stone and detail work, and lots of mural paintings on the wall. The decor is all golds and creams and rich dusty purples and pinks. I was surprised that I hadn't seen it before.

When we got home, I played with my niece, Amira, who my mom babysits a couple days a week while my sister works. (OH! She's just woken up from her nap!) She was afraid of me for a couple hours, but she warmed up to me. (Looks like her nap erased all of that - she's scared of me again. ;_;) She's adorable and a lot of fun, though. She got into cupboards and played with tupperware while my brother and I played Guitar Hero for a while. Tomorrow's her First birthday party!

HOOOOLY COW, "Mentalist" was intense tonight! "Vampire Diaries" was, too (how many revelations/milestones can you have in one episode?), but the Mentalist definitely took the cake for intensity. (And I missed the first couple minutes that evidently showed Rigsby and Van Pelt showing skin. I was spoiled by the stupid TV Guide magazine.) The magazine also mentioned that somebody in the CBI would die, but I didn't expect them to go through with what they did. It leaves me wondering where they'll go from here.

Anyway, this is actually a happy post - pay no mind to the blood smiley in my icon.

I found out today that I've got 13 days of unused vacation/sick time that I'll lose at the end of the year. Six or seven days of that can be paid, if I want to cash out all my PTO hours (which do roll over at the new year).

So I took a good look at the calendar and determined that I'm going to take a whole couple weeks off for Christmas (and use the PTO there so I'm not hurting for funds in January), and a few other days here and there. That is, I'm taking a long weekend one week, and I'm only going to work one more Friday for the rest of the year! My boss gave me a bit of a hard time about my vacation plans, but hey, I earned it by not being gone the rest of the year. (A good bit of that was saved for Sirens Con, which didn't work out.) And I'm not going to feel too bad about it, cuz I'll still be there 4 days out of 5, except for Christmas break. So there.

This is where I finally make real progress on Muse! *crosses fingers and hopes for productivity tomorrow!* (But first, preparing my costume photo for the Simplicity contest!)

This dragon thing was getting old, but they keep coming out with new eggs, and I can't seem to stop. Kind of like World of Warcraft. -_- (pudges, maybe I'll bequeath to you one of these later, if you haven't gotten any yet.)




As far as news... I am sick. I caught my brother's sinus thing, and have been sick for two days now. I can't sleep at night for lack of breathing capability, and I'm tired and headachy and my nose is raw, my throat is sore, and my voice is raspy, and it's gotten so bad that today my mom had one of the doctors in the ward call me in a prescription for an antibiotic. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

Plans are to drive back to Utah on Monday or Tuesday next week - later than I expected. I hope it won't be a big deal.

In the meantime, I've been doing more Muse planning; still no drawing, sadly, but several of my characters have actual names now. Even surnames! And I'm learning more about the background in how things work, which is helpful for me following my own rules.

Also, I spent about eleven hours (over two days) playing Rock Band with my sibs, before I got sick. Our band, Snickelfritz (in honor of our darling mother - it's one of her favorite nicknames for us children), has more than 500,000 fans, and I can now successfully sing a great number of Rock Band songs. I used to have to only do songs I knew; I'm over that now. Unfortunately, now I can't get those songs out of my head. >_<

Also also, my "Dr. Horrible" DVD came, and my little brothers watched it with me.. I think I've created a monster/s - it's rare these last few days for some Dr. Horrible song or other NOT to be playing or sung around the house. ^^;;;

And on a last - cheery - note, I finished reading the first book of the Bartimaeus trilogy, and it was delightful. I can't wait to get my hands on the second one, when I get back to Provo.

I'm sorry it's been a while. Work has been better (but still not a bed of roses) because we got a couple of newbs this week. One worked Monday and then we sent him to the official training store. The other we're holding on to and just training her on the fly. She's freakin' awesome. And she's been tackling the counter most, which has left me to spend a lot of time actually *working* on my design stuff. My pile is slowly getting smaller. It's still a ton of stuff, but it's getting more manageable. Though Wednesday I stayed until 8:30 working on it, and last night I stayed til 8.. (What a great Friday night activity..) Oh, and for the last two weeks, our oversize printer has been broken (which has both added and taken away from my grievances), and just got back to functionality Thursday night, so I've had a *ton* of oversize stuff to do in addition to my desktop publishing (DTP) stuff.

And since I've still felt so overworked, I've been playing a lot more WoW than usual. (And therefore getting a lot less comic/freelancing done. ^^; Which I need to work on.) My little brothers (two of them) just started new characters on the same server as my night elf rogue, so I haven't been questing by myself. And since my brother has a lot better understanding of strategy and using all your skills appropriately, I've been learning how to be a better rogue, too. And it's pretty sweet to jump out of stealth-mode and take out people in just a couple of seconds. ^_^

In other news, my birthday is next Thursday. I'll be 24!
And also, Thursday and Friday I took work off because I'm going up to Utah for the weekend! My cousin is getting married next Friday in Bountiful, and the Foreign Language housing is having their 10-year anniversary reunion. And I wanted to go to that, even though I don't think anyone from my House (or year, maybe!) is going. And there are all the people I love who I need to visit (including my brother). My mom and I are flying up Thursday, getting in to Salt Lake about 6:30, I think. I brought her along to rent the car. ;) (Actually, I told her that I was going whether she did or not, but that then I'd have to take Trax down to Provo or find somebody to pick me up. And then walk everywhere.) Friday my tentative plans are to spend the morning at my cousin's wedding and then his luncheon. Friday night is the FLSR reunion, but I don't know how long I'll be there. Saturday I had hoped to play with isauraoktobre and eillwony til the cows came home, but I think Adi works Saturdays (right?). And we have to fly back out late afternoon. And I have a friend with a new baby that I wanted to see, and I'd wanted to do lunch or something with a couple of old classmates who are still in town. So Provo peeps! Let me know when you can fit me in!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh! And I hit my 3-month mark at work and got a 50 cent raise.. Not as much as I was hoping, but more than I'd heard I could expect. And I just looked through my benefits package, and it turns out that it doesn't kick in until the first of the month AFTER hitting your 3 months. Which is another three weeks away. Grrrr.. My teeth are starting to really hurt. But what can you do?

OH! Also, I was lucky to go to kitesareevil's wedding last weekend! Which was LOTS of fun!! I got to talk to ely_chan on the phone, and spend the evening with seeshellirun, dqbunny, and a few other SMRFF peeps! (And kitesareevil, of course.) It was seriously so much fun.

OHHH!! And one last thing.. I got an email from the Leading Edge art director, saying that the issue's gone to print now, so I should get to see it soon! AND that because of the "high quality" of my work, they want me to design their new mascot! Could I feel any cooler??!