Hi folks! This journal is semi-friends only, with a good bit of public entry. If you'd like to be added, please comment. If you would like to friend me, please be aware of the following:

1. This journal does discuss my real life, including my family, friends, and my job. If I feel that you are someone monitoring my journal just to have documentation of what I write about my workplace, I will not friend you.

2. I am an anime, manga and gaming fan, as well as a literature nut, archer, SCA member and I'm exploring the world of calligraphy and illumination. My main fandoms are Slayers, Doctor Who>, Harry Potter, Rurouni Kenshin, Inuyasha, and J.D. Robb's In Death series. I am a huge fan of the Lina/Gourry pairing, along with Doctor/Rose (Nine and Ten), Harry/Ginny, Kenshin/Kaoru, and several others. I'm fine if you don't agree with the series I choose to like or the pairings that I choose to ship, but please do not friend me with the purpose of character and/or fandom bashing.

3. I am a fanfic writer, and the bulk of my work can be found at bunnyofferings. I do discuss my fanfic in my personal journal as well.

*watched episode 4 of Torchwood: "Children of Earth"*

*promptly starts bawling*

One week to Harry Potter release! *claps hands* If you are in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona, there is a group of us going to see the midnight release at Arizona Mills. Drop me a line if you're planning to be there and/or join us! I promise, we're very silly. Now, I wonder where my "Save Ginny Weasley" shirt is ...

Yesterday was craft day. After spending my morning turning out a couple articles for TUAW, I headed over to Fiber Factory and spent an hour chatting and knitting, then picked up some sock yarn and the smallest needles I've ever used. I then headed over to Michael's, where I picked up felt for a second craft project. Whenever I finish the shawl, socks, and sewing project, I shall have three Christmas gifts out of the way! I stayed up last night watching Torchwood: Children of Earth and starting my first pair of socks. It was a slow start, but I've got the first couple of inches of ribbing done before switching stitches (as I've seen someone do with this pattern) and doing straight stockinette stitch. The real test will be creating and turning a heel. *crosses fingers*

As for Torchwood ... yum. Need to go back and finish watching series 2. Rhys has really grown on me as a character and is turning out to be beyond awesome.

Got up earlier than I would like and headed to the doctor where I got a rude wake-up call regarding my weight. Ever since that trouble started at the Daily Star (roughly beginning of 2008), I'd been gaining weight due to the stress and eventual job loss. Total weight gained since October 2007? 41 pounds. *falls over* Thankfully, I'd slowly been changing some eating habits, but I've got to get back on the ball with exercising. The other thing that shocked me was how far off the WiiFit was. So, when I got back home, I weighed myself again and saw it had me 5 pounds off than the scale at the doctor. It's a good gauge now to have since I know the margin of error. Other than that, I was declared normal and was told by the doctor that Stef really needed frequent flyer miles (I was snickering over that the entire time.)

Dear monsoon season, please arrive in Phoenix soon. No love, me.

So, I got back home and after getting more sleep, I'm pulling out a credit card and getting back on Weight Watchers. I would like to lose part of this by October since I've been informed that my Christmas gift, or part of it, from Mike's family is a shopping trip to Marks and Spencer when I'm visiting. I don't want to waste that! I also need to watch out because there is a history of having diabetes in my family. I was so proud of getting down to 179, I can do it again

Plans for tonight: More Torchwood with sock-knitting then work. After work, do document editing for Isa and write up more TUAW-goodness. No overtime this weekend. I've done enough for this month, thank you very much!

*watches Torchwood: Children of Earth*

Damn, Rose Tyler. When you do something, you make sure you do a throughout job, don't you?

No, Rose isn't in Torchwood. Just an observation based off of her actions regarding Captain Jack at the end of series 1 of Doctor Who and how they play into episode 2 of Torchwood series 3.

Me: *busily knitting* Wow, been sitting for several hours. Need to get up and be active.

*gets up and is active ... comes back an hour later to find half of the dwindling ball of yarn has been unwound*

Yeah ... we all know who's master of my home.



And it's not me!

Edit: Per request ... ( Other photos from the same shoot )

So the way that holidays work at my job, I got Friday night off rather than Saturday night. In addition to the aforementioned awesomeness that's my new license plate, I spent the evening at home. I discovered that someone had uploaded the original 1940 roadshow version of Fantasia to YouTube and watched it for the first time in years and years. At one point, I had all three cats sprawled on or around me, but when I dared move to get a photo, they did too.

I also wound up undoing the knitting project I was working on and starting anew. The pattern, the Adamas Shawl pattern I found through raventhourne's LJ just wasn't turning out as well as I'd like with this particular yarn. So, I poked through Ravelry and found a great pattern for a simple shawl. It required slightly thicker yarn than what I'm using, but I've got the right yarn/gauge ratio right now, so it works. *plays with Flickr for the first time to boot*

( Shots of ongoing project under the cut )

Even though I don't watch the dubs often, I'm really happy for Slayers fans that the original cast came back (except for Xelloss, but his replacement is pretty awesome). It goes to show just how much the series means to both Japanese and English casts that they were willing to come back after a decade to reprise these roles. Slayers rocks. <3

Oh, and it's general consensus ... the role of Wizer should be done by DAN GREEN ... or Little Kuriboh's Dan Green. ^_~

So ... haven't played WoW in roughly eight months. All of a sudden, I get the following message from my oldest brother:

Tony says: You still playing WoW?
Megs says: Not at the moment.
Tony says: oh ok
Megs says: What's up there?
Tony says: Your niece wanted to know which server you were on. She's trying it out and was going to come on your server if you were still playing.

...

.....

............

You know, there's pretty much one thing that would get me playing WoW again. My 12-year-old niece asking to play with me is it.

*sighs and goes to reinstall the game*

You know, ichiban_victory, it's almost 11 months to the day since we stopped. Amazing, huh?

To chartsofpassion ...

Yes, it was far, FAR better than the last one. ^_____________^

So, while I've been posting random bits and pieces of life, I've hardly mentioned anything about what I've been up to for the past month.

During the first week of June, I was moved from working a 5-8 schedule to a 4-10 schedule, having Sundays through Wednesday nights off (except for tonight, in which I am electing to do overtime). The added extra day off has been spent pushing out contract work -- another archiving job along with boosting my output for TUAW. The 10-hour shifts haven't been so bad, except I'm having issues sleeping more than 4-6 hours at a time again. I've weaned myself off caffeine for the most part, so I'm not so sure what it is. But, I do need to keep myself to a better schedule than I've been on because as soon as I hit an off day, my body flips back to a traditional schedule.

To aid with the freelance work (and upcoming project with secondlina), I finally got myself a new keyboard: The Logitech Wave. It's a fantastic keyboard and the hot keys can be programmed for Mac use. It's nice to launch Photoshop with a single button off the keyboard, though Mike is still shaking his head at me. I'm just glad to have a keyboard that doesn't stop working in mid-sentence and a mouse I don't have to shake to get to work.

I've also been learning lace knitting and have been working on my first lace shawl after nabbing a pattern I saw on raventhourne's LJ. I will post pictures. I discovered Fiber Factory in Mesa, which is a great local yarn store and fills a niche here I'd been looking for. They also offer lots of classes and I may take their sock knitting class. After talking with the store owner, I got a slightly heavier yarn than fingering so I could practice with the lace pattern. So, you can't see it so much, but I am a lot more comfortable with working lace now.

Writing-wise, I've been doing a lot for TUAW and posted three fics for "Tales of Symphonia," all centering around Kratos/Anna. I've also been doing prep work for the big project Isa and I are taking on, in addition to research for that.

ickaimp has stayed with me for most of the month (yay!) and I've also spent time with kitesareevil since her divorce from Bryan became final in the middle of the month.

After finishing this last round of contract work, my mind rebelled and ordered me to take a reading vacation. So, I spent the last week re-reading the entire Bridgerton series from Julia Quinn. Such awesome books. There's only one that I don't care for, the one featuring the youngest son, Gregory ("On the Way to the Wedding.") It'd been awhile since I'd read them, so I'd forgotten what one of the major plot revelations that spanned the first four books were. And, the fifth book, "To Sir Philip, With Love," is still my absolute favorite, and Hyacinth Bridgerton is still one of the most awesome characters ever created. I've also re-read a couple of Julie Garwood's older books and noticed that my copies are beginning to fall apart.

Thus, my life in a nutshell for the past month. It's been busy, but good. I do want to get down to Tucson (despite mixed feelings) some time within the next month, and also out to California to see my adorable godson.

So, get off work, realize I still have money in the bank account to last until the paycheck is deposited tonight (*love you SO much flamingo44*) and hit Fresh and Easy and Target. Got home, put stuff away and saw that Farrah Fawcett had died. I clicked open an IM and absently commented to Mike:

Me: *cuddles and idly flips through the news* So, I wonder who #3 will be?
Mike: Hmm?
Me: Farrah Fawcett just died. She was in a series here called 'Charlie's Angels'
Mike: #3?
Me: Third famous actor (celebrity) here to die this week. Everything happens in threes.
Mike: Oh ok.

Now I wished I kept my mouth shut.

You know ... I have the sudden urge to marathon Buffy: The Vampire Slayer now ...

It's ... it's even worse than I feared.

My eldest niece is 100% into Twilight.

I fear for her sanity. I did at least urge my brother to page through "Breaking Dawn" before surrendering it to her, but it still may be too late. This one might call for direct intervention.

Now to go say a prayer for her.

(One of these days I will write a complete post filled with new knitting project and other news. But for now, I think I'll just hunt down new books to send Erin)

Who. The. HELL. Is. Already. Using. The. Word. "Kurage." On. Their. License Plate???????

*shall smite them with a Dragon Slave the moment she ever encounters them ... or hug them provided they are also Slayers fans*

Argh! I've been waiting for a year to register my car as "Kurage"! And someone else beat me to it! What are the odds? Seriously???

*falls over*

Well, now to figure out a backup.

Fox just picked up Futurama again!!!!

*is a very happy fan*

So my Claire-Bible domain comes up for renewal on 6/19. I haven't really done anything much with it in a couple of years. I'm thinking of giving it up and switching over to MobileMe. It's about the same cost. Actually, only $12 more a year. But some of the new features are making me go, "Hmm ..." And I could switch my TUAW stuff off of my GMail account, which would relieve a lot of the traffic on there.

Ugh. For some reason I'm in a bad mood. Very bad mood. As in a little dark cloud is hanging around my head and I'm doing my best to act normal when all I want to do is snap someone's head off sort of mood.

Yeah, it's the W.o.E.

And I'm positive that it's because of the W.o.E. that I'm in a bad mood. There's no reason for me to be in one otherwise. My muse is cooperating with me and I'm working both on the next part of "Here Comes the Sun" and the first couple of chapters of a Tales of Symphonia fic (*hears several people on my friends list cheering*). I just got more freelance work (yay, more money!). I got in my first order from Adagio (mmm... chocolate chai was nummy) and ... I bought my ticket to Liverpool! Official dates of travel: October 18-28. Reservations for a spot in my suitcase will be open until October 17. Please keep in mind that your combined weight can't be more than 50lbs. Anyone wanting to stalk just to breath the same air as David Tennant *coughNikkicough* automatically gets in a pet carrier.

I can tell my hormones are going all over the place. I'm feeling indifferent when I should be caring. I'm feeling jealous and petty when I should be really happy. Overall, I feel really grouchy. Not even ice cream and chocolate chai could eradicate the crabby, and it's been this way for a good 24 hours now. Meh. I hate hormones.

If I'm not around to see the results, it's because I'm dead.

Poll #1411123 Scary Icka
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Does Icka (aka ickaimp) scare you?

Edit: 30 minutes into this insanity ...

Icka: It doesn't help that I'm mockable! ... Damn it, that doesn't help my cause.

Words can't describe them. So, I'll just provide trailers!

( Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks )

( New Super Mario Bros. Wii )

( Super Mario Galaxy 2 )

( Golden Sun DS )

Now if only an announcement for any of the Tales DS games or Tales of Graces for the Wii in North America ...