Plans & Goals 2021: Week 45

Totally random question: have you ever begun your day with the sound of someone, somewhere nearby, retching violently in a way that sounds very much as though they’re about to lose a vital organ or two by way of their throat? If you haven’t, I can not-so-proudly say that I’ve got one up on you.

HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE.

Okay, but seriously, we are at the precise half-point of November, I have been at my present work site for 26 days now, and I am happy to announce that I have not gone stark-raving mad yet. Go me! I ended up doing 22 consecutive days of work (all 12-hour shifts, except for the two that were 13 hours and the one that was 15 hours) before they cottoned on and made me take a few days off. Yes, I did that shit on purpose, because the overtime is fantastic, but if you were go back in time nine years and tell my former self that I’d be doing such a stint, she would have laughed right in your face. My, how the times have changed.

Anyway, living in camp and working positively stupid hours doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else cool or interesting to be happening in life, so I don’t really have any other excess information to share this week. Thus, let’s go ahead and jump to the goals!

Health

First off, I’m not going to repeat all the same excuses and explanations that I’ve done the past few weeks. You guys know by now that I’m living in a work camp and am therefore restricted to the food that is made available to me. Let’s leave it at that.

That said, I will honestly admit that my willpower has been, hmm….let’s say lacking. There is so much junk food here, you guys. Cookies and pastries and muffins and pop and chips and- Well, you get the point. My psychological ability to avoid such things varies day to day, based on such things as how much caffeine I’ve had, who much water I’ve managed to force down my gullet, what the work day was like, and what shitty thing they’re serving for dinner on any given day. Also, after an extended stint at camp, the cooked food begins to do weird things to my stomach (I suspect it’s the MSG that’s in EVERYTHING), and it becomes physically and emotionally easier to eat the baked goods and packaged junk than the actual prepared meals. That’s not an excuse; that’s genuine facts. My poor stomach, you guys…dear lord.

Anyway, point being that it’s not been the easiest few weeks when it comes to consumption. That said, I’ve been getting better with cramming water into me, which helps with the desire to cram loads of sugar and salt into me, so there is that.

On a more positive note of the physical activity variety, it’s been a long time since I got so many steps so easily. Just walking from my camp room to the dining hall and back is a thousand steps…and I’m not exaggerating there. And that’s to say nothing of the steps I get while actually at work. Plus, earlier last week the area where I was working had a busted elevator…so for three days my coworkers and I had to trek up ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO STAIRS four times a day. To say that I had an overjoyed reaction of divine ecstasy when the elevator was repaired would be an understatement. If there was ever a way to prove to me, without a shadow of doubt, that I am overweight and out of shape, that was definitely it. Wait, this bit was supposed to be positive, wasn’t it? Oh well, you get my meaning. There’s been physical activity. Without me having to go out of my way to perform it.

Creativity

Hoo, wee, creativity ahoy, my good people! Beyond just the stubborn insistence on cramming as much writing in as I possibly can while I’m writing, I had three days off from work this week and spent a good bit of it on things I’ve been dying to do for a while now but could never find the time.

Let’s actually get writing out of the way first this time, because it’s the normal bit that we’re all used to. I’ve continued to write during every possible waking moment when I’m not eating or working, so things are still going pretty well on that front. Mostly I’ve been scribbling scenes for various works in a notebook that I keep with me at all times, but I also caught up on ‘The Prince’s Consort’ and started working on this year’s ‘Ineffable Holiday’ prompt fics (which I compiled myself with suggestions from friends and followers). Last week Pacemaker.press set me the tough but reasonable goal of 13,498 words, and I managed to squeak past it with 13,890 words. Phew!

Moving on to art, by the time I hit my days off at the end of the week I’d been dying to draw for a while. One of the first things that I did was to have one of our little drawing ‘competitions’ with my daughter, and the models of choice were the Cookie characters from ‘Cookie Run Kingdom’. No, I’m not kidding. lol We’re both a little obsessed with the game, and it has fun characters, so we played at picking characters for one another to draw. I’m not going to share all of the ones I drew because it was a three-day process of constant doodling, but here’s one of my favorites of the ones I did:

Then, of course, I’d been positively aching to draw some NSFW stuff for ages, so I indulged in a bit of that. I finished one piece and did most of another, and obviously I’m not going to share the full images here, but I’ll give you a couple of heavily-cropped bits to give you an idea of what’s going on here… *cough cough*

Both of these are firsts for me, regarding the acts that are happening in them, and knowing that, I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. I’m thinking that I’ll sneak them in to one of my fics somewhere, because I’m quite certain they do a good job of representing some of the scenes I’ve written. ❤

Then we have a brand new project, because apparently I didn’t think that I had enough going on already. *cough*

I’ve decided to start playing my hand at recording narrations of my stories. I started with my 2019 holiday fics because they’re short, and after the first attempt I got some advice from a friend on noise reduction and avoiding those spitty saliva noises you can get from speaking for a long time. I then re-recorded that first fic, and what I wound up with is now uploaded to a new YouTube channel I’ve set up specifically for this one purpose. If you’re interested in checking it out, here’s my very first ever fic narration:

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I’m being totally honest with myself! There are going to be growing pains, for sure, but I think that I spoke pretty clearly, and I think I’m half-decent at expressing emotion when I narrate. The only thing that I definitely feel like I need work on is the voices/accents for the dialogue bit, but I’m expecting that that will become better and easier as I record more and more. I’ve already got one more recording already set to go, but I still have to edit it. I’m hoping to get it uploaded sooner rather than later, and then hopefully I’ll get a chance to record some more on my next day off (which should be sooner this time than it was last time).

Down-Time

Please see the ‘Creativity’ section above…lol That’s pretty much where all my down-time went last week. I suppose you can’t really call it down-time, except for perhaps the drawing with my daughter, because it was all work of a kind. But it was work that I wanted to do, so there is that…:P

In all seriousness though, I didn’t do a whole lot of reading, watching, or gaming last week. I read a few short fics, but nothing major because I was more focused on writing. The only thing even remotely close to gaming that I did was a few minutes a day of ‘Pokemon Go’ and ‘Cookie Run Kingdom’. And as for watching stuff? I mean…I had Netflix or Prime running most of the weekend because I like background noise, but mostly it was just silly baking shows playing back-to-back while I wrote or drew or what-have-you. Aside from that I watched a few hockey games and a handful of YouTube videos, and that was pretty much it!

That said, and on a related note, Tik Tok is a goddamn dangerous app that I’m going to have to set major restrictions on myself for. I started scrolling a few minutes before bed last night and ended up looking at the clock with utter dismay two hours later. o.o

And that’s pretty much it for another week. I can’t honestly say that I’m not pleased with how the past week went, and I’m hoping for a similar one this week. Though I don’t have any days off this week, so it might not be quite as productive. lol Wish me luck!

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

Plans & Goals 2021: Week 44

I want you to imagine, if you would, a woman who has just rolled out of bed. Her long hair is fuzzy and puffed out from poor sleep and dry weather, creating a lion-like mane around her head. Her eyes are hazy, and there are large, dark circles beneath them. Her hands are puffy from weather she isn’t used to, and probably a little bit of dehydration. She is waking up to face her nineteenth twelve-hour shift in a row…mind, two of those shifts were thirteen hours and one was fifteen. She is, by all reasonable accounts, very tired. Very tired. But she is also surprisingly cheerful, because for the first time in ages she’s making some money, and three days ago she passed the threshold for hours she needs to make an unemployment claim when this particular job ends. So she’s exhausted, but she’s pleased.

Three guesses as to who I’m describing, and the first two don’t count.

Yes, my darlings, there is really no mincing words here; I am absolutely knackered. But, as explained above, I’m also quite pleased. Though it’s not exactly going to change my financial world, I’ve been making some money again, and I can rest easy knowing that when this job ends, I’ve got enough hours for an EI claim until the next one comes along. I can’t possibly tell you how much of a weight that is off my shoulders. Mind you now, EI hardly pays the bills, so it’s not as though I’ve got clear sailing ahead, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative, let me tell you.

A few random things before I dive into the goals:

This particular job (which has actually been two jobs, technically, since the first one is done now and I got shuffled to another part of the plant for the second) has been almost exclusively spark watch, which, put simply, means I watch to ensure nothing catches fire while other workers are doing hot work like welding. It is, by and large, quite easy work, and my coworkers have all been awesome, so that’s quite excellent. 🙂
There were a few days there during which the service elevator in the ‘coker’ where we’re working was broken. This did not go over well, as our work site is on the top ‘floor’, which is one-hundred and ninety-two steps up. On a twelve hour shift that means that my entire crew was going up and down those 192 steps four times. Nearly eight hundred vertical steps per day. To say that my legs were screaming would be a massive understatement. Thank fuck the elevator was fixed yesterday, because I honestly think my knees and ankles were about to give up the ghost, and that would have been quite a scene…me tumbling backward down several flights of stairs in full construction gear.
I am lately realizing, with mounting horror, that Christmas is rapidly approaching and I have virtually no presents bought, aside from a few things picked up for the kid here and there. This is not how things normally go for me at Christmas, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. @_@

Okay, that’s enough randomness, I think. Let’s get to the goals!

Health

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… I mean, based on my complaining about the stairs above, you can probably see where this one is going, can’t you?

To be quite honest, I really don’t know how to report anything right now given that I: a) don’t have a whole lot of control over what I’m eating, and b) wouldn’t have the time to do any proper exercise even if I currently wanted to. Plus there’s the fact that my hands are so puffy that I can’t get my wedding ring off, but at the same time I’m yanking up my pants a hundred times a day… Yeah, no, I really just don’t know what’s going on with my body at the moment.

What I can tell you is that I’ve been trying very hard to get my daily water in, but it’s been difficult because I’m also guzzling coffee in order to keep myself functioning. I’ve also been doing my best to get lots of fruit and veggies in my diet, but if I try to keep myself away from the cookies I just end up miserable and biting people’s heads off.

All in all, I think I’m a bit of a mess at the moment, but that is unfortunately something that comes with working these weird shutdown shifts. On the positive side of things, if I make it to this coming Saturday I’ll have ‘timed out’ on the max number of days this site allows anyone to work in a row, which means I’ll be forced to take four days off. I may very well sleep an entire one of them. 😛

Creativity

My friends, I have been aching to draw for ages, but I have mostly not been able to find the time or energy to do so when I finally get back to my room at the end of the day. I have IDEAS, but I suppose they’ll just have to wait a little while longer. Maybe I’ll get to some of them during those days off I mentioned above.

I did manage to finish a little bit of line-work I’d started before I left for this job, but that one will have to wait a bit longer to show up here because I haven’t even posted it to my Patreon yet. What I can show you is this itty-bitty snake I doodled the other day when I was feeling especially fluffy:

It comes with a story concept… It was the first snow of the year in London, and it had come with an unexpected cold snap that left residents shivering. Aziraphale is opening the bookshop when he feels something wriggling in his pocket and reaches in to pull out…itty-bitty Crowley, all coiled up and seeking heat, flicking his tongue up at the angel. ❤

Yeah, I’m a big old sap, leave off.

Anyway, as far as writing goes, things have been going quite well, mainly due to my insistence on carrying a notebook wherever I go and finding every possible moment between work and sleep to scribble out a few words. Mostly last week I worked on catching back up on ‘The Prince’s Consort’ so that I would have chapters to post at the appropriate times, but I’ve also been scribbling ideas for another fic that I’ll get to at some point, as well as scenes that I’ll be sneaking in to ‘The Other World: Book Three’ when the time comes. All in all, believe it or not, this was one of my best weeks in ages. Pacemaker is being rather harsh on me now that we’re getting to the end of the year, and it demanded 16,277 words of me last week. I just barely managed to squeak through with a final word count for the week of 16,369.

Just imagine what I could do if I was also allowed to drink while out here.

Down-Time

I said it last week, and it hasn’t changed: down-time is not really something I have at the moment. In fact, I’m writing this post on the bus on the way to work, and I’ll finish it in the lunch room while waiting for the morning safety meeting to start. That said…

I haven’t really been reading (not even fanfic…gasp, I know!) but I did finish the Audible recording of ‘Good Omens’, which was pretty fantastic. I know I’m a bit biased in these regards, but honestly, I didn’t enjoy the book nearly as much as the show, so I wasn’t entirely certain about the audio book. Having it narrated made all the difference in the world though, and it was absolutely wonderful. I especially loved hearing Michael Sheen and David Tennant’s voices in it, of course, but the other voice actors were quite good as well, and the narrator was excellent. My only complaint would be the actor(s?) who portrayed Warlock. His voice was absolutely grating in the worst kind of way and didn’t sound at all like a child. I’m not sure what they were thinking there, especially since The Them’s voices were quite good and normal. Anyway, it’s another thumbs up for audio books for me! Now I just have to survive until the 24th when my next credit comes in so that I can get Act 2 of The Sandman. 😀

Games? No. No games. Just five minutes a day of ‘Pokemon Go’ to keep my streaks running and grab some coins, and some random plucking away at ‘Cookie Run Kingdom’ in the background while I’m doing other things. On a related note, though, I recently had an almost agonizing desire to play ‘Borderlands 3’, so guess what I’m going to be doing in my down-time when I get back home from this job?

Now watching, well…well I haven’t really been doing much of that either. lol The main thing I’ve been watching recently is the Leaf’s games, but even those have been in little spurts and fits because they always seem to start while I’m still at work. Other than that, I did recently set two Bo Burnham Netflix specials playing in the background while I did some other stuff back at camp. I adore the dude. He’s a bit off-the-wall and definitely an acquired taste, but if you enjoy comedy ripping on society and/or have ever experienced burnout, you might enjoy checking him out. Each of his shows makes me giggle like a fool, while also making me feel seen and desperately want to give Bo a hug. Check him out, guys.

That about covers that for another week, I believe! Now, as predicted, I am currently finishing this post in the lunch room while waiting the day to start, so I’m going to go have my coffee now and pray to Cthulhu that the elevator is still working today. Wish me luck!

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

Plans & Goals 2021: Week…uh- 43?

Woooo-eee! Hello there everyone! Check it out, I’m still alive!

Yeah, so, I missed a few of these posts because life got rather busy there for a little bit, namely because I finally – finally, FINALLY – managed to pick up a job. As usual that meant several days of trying to get as much done as fast as possible (while also doing the drug tests and online orientations and what-not), followed by travelling across the country, and for the past nearly-two weeks now I’ve been working 12-hour days, each day. Plus I was still attempting to participate in Kinktober, plus we did our yearly ‘Halloween Store Hunt’ video before I left. So, yeah, suffice it to say that I didn’t even realize that I’d missed a few weeks of these posts until, like…two days ago.

*cough cough*

On that same note, I am actually writing this post before I pass out for the night, so let’s get through it so that I can curl up and snooze, okay? Okay.

Health

Okay, so, it’s difficult bordering on impossible to really judge how things are going in this vein while I’m working out West. For one thing, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m limited to the food that is made available to me, and while there are plenty of healthy options, there aren’t plenty enough of them to really avoid the not-so-healthy ones for long. For another thing, even if I try to focus on only the healthier stuff, I can’t track calories or anything because everything is cooked on site, so I have no way of knowing what all is included.

On top of those, I don’t have access to a scale, so I’ve only really got looking-in-the-mirror as a way to let me know if I’m indulging too much or making some progress. And then there’s always the fact that I’m obviously not exercising when I’m working 12 hour days. Just figured I’d drive that particular point home.

So basically, I’m just hoping for the best at the moment, but I’m also not confident that things are going well. That could be mostly due to the fact that it’s hard not to eat like a ravenous beast when you’re working these kinds of hours. But also, it’s really difficult to make sure I drink enough water right now, partly because of the nature of my work (you don’t generally carry a water bottle in the oil sands…that’s a good way to end up swallowing a pile of bitumen-laced dirt), and partly because it’s so bloody cold out here right now that the only things I can actually convince myself to drink are coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. All diuretics.

Suffice it to say, I’m probably going to end up going home a little worse for wear than when I left, but, um…at least I’m getting fresh air for a change?

Creativity

[In the spirit of full disclosure, I shall inform you now that I, in fact, passed out with my Chromebook on my lap and am now completing this post the following morning. Exhaustion is a hell of a thing! lol]

Getting art out of the way first, since I have not actually managed to find the time to draw anything in a few weeks now. I’m hoping to locate some time soon, now that Kinktober is over, but NaNoWriMo has begun, and I’ll no doubt be writing fics for Christmas prompts soon, so we’ll just have to see what happens, I suppose.

Writing, however, has continued to go well. As we grow closer to the end of the year, I’m not certain that I’ll be able to hit my goal of 550k words, but I will definitely hit 500k, which is more than acceptable to me.

In the past three weeks I’ve destroyed my Pacemaker.press goal twice, and flubbed it once, for a net profit of basically exceeding it a little bit. Three weeks ago my goal was 10,387 words, but I only managed to make it to 6698 words. The following week I had a goal of 15,935 words, and managed to pass by it with 16,587 words. And last week, my goal was 13,542 words, which I managed to destroy with 16,052 words. I don’t have the numbers for the first week of October on me, but I’m fairly certain that I ended up with on or around 50k for the month, which is funny since that’s what I now have to try to write for this month.

Yes, my dumb ass is still participating in NaNoWriMo. I don’t generally end up doing any of the social aspects of it these days, but it feels like a tradition that I can’t skip at this point. I’ve been doing it for a decade! And, I mean, I’m going to be writing anyway, so there’s that.

October was devoured by Kinktober, which I thought was a pretty decent success (if the comments on AO3 are anything to go by, anyway). As a result I got behind on ‘The Prince’s Consort’ so that I’ve no longer got anything written ahead, so I’ll likely be working on that this week, but once I’ve finished with that (there aren’t too many chapters left!) I’ll be dedicating myself to working on Christmas fic prompts (so that they’ll be done ahead of time) and ‘The Other World: Book Three’, which I’ve put off for far, far too long. I know at least four people who might read this and raise an eyebrow in gentle disbelief, but I swear it’s going to happen! I’ve got ideas, even! I promise!

Down-Time

This, my dear friends, is something that I don’t really possess, at the time. I suppose you could make an argument that I’ve been writing during my down-time, but if you try to make that argument I may smack you, because enjoy it as I may, it’s still work.

The very little bit of reading that I’ve done recently has gone toward snips of fics during my lunch breaks at work, but I can also report that I have officially delved into the world of audio books. I noticed the other day that Audible had a two-month free trial going on, with an instant 2 credits toward whatever books you want, so I took advantage. With one credit I preordered the ‘Good Omens’ audio book (because of course I did), and with the other I got Act 1 of ‘The Sandman’. And let me tell you….I’ve always been a physical book kind of person, but I fucking adored Sandman. It was nearly 12 hours of excellent storytelling, awesome acting, and wild and wonderful adventures in the DC universe. In particular, the chapter featuring Doctor Destiny in a diner, fucking with everyone’s minds for 24 hours straight? That was fantastic (and also, a little bit, makes me concerned for Neil Gaiman’s mind). I finished it yesterday, and am now bouncing on my heels for my next credit to roll around so that I can grab Act 2.

In the meantime, though, the ‘Good Omens’ preorder was completed this morning, and I’ve already started listening. I’ve read the book before, so it’s not as though I’m not expecting everything that comes through my earbud, but guys, it is fantastic hearing the original version of the story with David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s voices involved. I like to think that when Gaiman was approached about making the audio book, he basically told the publisher with no uncertain terms that people would revolt if Tennant and Sheen weren’t the voices of Crowley and Aziraphale. Because it’d be true. Just saying.

In the watching vein of things, you guys know damn well that we always spend the month of October watching horror movies. Honestly, I didn’t really keep track after that first week, because that’s when things began to get far too busy, but we watched several oldies-but-goodies, several old favorites, and a few new ones as well. One new one that I can mention is ‘Blood Red Sky’, which we were curious about because of the bonkers premise. Basically, a woman who has been taking medications to stave off vampirism is travelling to the US with her young son when the plane is hijacked by terrorists. In order to save her son, she ultimately has to let the vampire instincts take over. It sounds a bit silly when I say it like that, but honestly it was very bloody, very violent, and miserable in quite a few places. It was a bit plodding in spots – I definitely think that the story could have been tightened up a bit – but I enjoyed it. Worth a watch, you guys.

Coming on the end of the month, after having travelled out to work, I only really watched a few random things in the background while dealing with other stuff, and all ones that I’d seen before. On that note, though, I would like to violently scold my past self for thinking that it would be a good idea to watch ‘The Mist’ again. I love the story, but FUCK ME that movie has the most god-awful depressing ending of anything I’ve ever watched. It seriously makes me feel like just laying down to die. Christ. And of course Stephen King loved it. -_-

What’s left? Oh, playing. Yeah, there’s been no playing. lol Unless you count ‘Cookie Run Kingdom’, which is a mobile game that my daughter weaseled me into playing and that I am now obsessed with. Luckily it’s the kind of game that you can have open on the table next to you, and you just have to tape a few things every few minutes, so I generally just play it while I’m writing. 😛

And that is pretty much it! In the spirit of further full disclosure, I shall inform you that I ran out of time to finish the post before having to run to the bus, so I am now officially finishing it at my spot in the lunch room at work. 😛

Twelve-hour days, man. Twelve-hour days.

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

Plans & Goals 2021: Week 40

How are we all doing on this fine Canadian Thanksgiving day, my dears? Let’s start off this post by wishing a happy giving-of-thanks to my fellow Canucks. I hope you had a great Turkey Day with family and/or friends and that you’ve been able to be thankful for something. ❤

The hubby and kid and I had a rather busy long weekend, ourselves. We got up early Saturday morning to travel into the city for our annual Halloween-store hunt and spent a good chunk of the day in the ‘Spirit Halloween’ and ‘Glow Halloween’ superstores. We recorded footage and took lots of pictures, and all three of us ended up picking out costumes, so we’re all prepared for the holiday now.

The drive home from the city, I have to admit, was not a great one for me. The beginning of the day had been quite lovely, honestly, but the afternoon turned into one of those days where a series of small annoyances and inconveniences makes you feel like absolute shit. Hubby and the kid managed to cheer me up in the end, but it was a rough few hours of wanting to curl up in a ball in bed and just be alone. It’s been a while since I had an episode that bad, but it was bound to happen sooner or later, considering how stressful things have been lately.

Sunday turned around significantly. We travelled to hang out with family for Thanksgiving, which meant lots of excellent food, some phenomenal desserts, and a fair bit of boozing. It wasn’t as big a gathering that night as usual, but those of us who did dip into the liquor ended up quite full by the end of things. It was a pretty good night, and I definitely indulged more than necessary, and I’m actually genuinely surprised that I didn’t wind up sick as a dog this morning.

Which brings us back to now, back at home and snuggled up on the couch with the kitty, watching ‘Urban Legend’ on Netflix while I write this post! So now that we’re all caught up, let’s see about those goals, shall we?

Health

A few things of import to mention in this regard. Firstly is the point that the weekend was definitely not a good time for my body. Sooooo much food and booze… Man, holidays are so awful for the waistline.

Secondly, I did restart the ’10 Rounds’ program last week, but I haven’t stuck to it entirely so far, partly because of several days of interruptions, and partly because I’ve let myself get so far gone at this point that each individual day of exercise makes me feel like I need at least a day of rest. I fully intend to continue on, but it just might not be quite as steady as it’s meant to be. I’ll do my best, basically. Wish me luck?

The other important thing, though, is diet, which hubby and I have let get really out of hand for the past while. We both agreed today that some major changes need to be made, because we’ve both gotten badly out of shape at this point. We’ve got guts, for fucksakes. Genuine guts. It’s unacceptable. Not to mention the fact that we both kinda feel like crap more than half of the time. So, yeah, things definitely need to change.

That brings us to a little wager the cousin-in-law and I made late last week. There are no stakes, in the strictest sense, but it’s a kind of matter-of-pride thing. We’re both trying to lose a significant amount of weight, and have figured that the best bet is probably small goals at a time. So we’re going to try competing with one another to try and reach our first goals: 10 lbs for me and 15 for him (because men lose weight more quickly, and it’s a fact, so don’t @ me). We’re going to torment one another to keep ourselves on track, so here’s hoping the sense of accountability to someone helps us both.

Creativity

Okay, I have to say, I’m honestly not sure how I went the entire week without drawing anything, especially considering that there are at least a dozen things I want to draw. So there’s that. Annoyance number one.

Annoyance number two is that I once again managed to not hit my Pacemaker.press goal, despite the fact that I was really doing my best all week to write as much and as often as possible. The goal wasn’t an overly difficult one either: it was a pretty standard 10,428 words. I missed it by a long shot, though, only hitting 8447 words by the end of things. I’m actually a little tempted to say that I must have missed recording some words somewhere, because I’d swear that I wrote at least 8k worth of just the Kinktober fics. But, regardless, if I did miss some words somewhere, I don’t really have a good way of figuring out where they went, so there’s no use in bothering myself over it. All I can do is accept a loss for the week and try to work harder this week.

Down-Time

As we are currently in the month of October, and thus the ’31 Days of Halloween’, our down-time has been mostly spent watching horror movies, as with every year at this time. In the past week we’ve watched a mixture of old, new, standards, and new-to-us movies, some good, some…not so much.

Monday was ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’, which is a fun slasher, but also a totally off-the-wall sequel that really does nothing to try to live up to the original. Tuesday was ‘Black Sabbath’, an older anthology that was okay, but only one of the three stories was actually memorable (‘The Drop of Water’ story, in case you’re wondering). Wednesday was a favorite of ours: ‘Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight’, which we showed the kid for the first time, and she thoroughly enjoyed Billy Zane being his Billy-Zaniest. Thursday was ‘Motel Hell’, which…I mean, it was fun, but what a strange way to tell a story…every time I felt like I had a handle on it, something new was thrown into the mix. Friday was a brand new flick, ‘Werewolves Within’, which is a dark comedy with some extremely amusing (and lunatic) characters. Saturday was ‘Waxwork 2’, a film that is more laughable than anything, but also features a few ridiculously fun scenes with Bruce Campbell. And finally, Sunday was ‘Urban Legend’, which we’re finishing as I write this post because we put it on after all that drinking and fell asleep before it was over…but it’s a standard teen slasher that is kinda bad, but in an amusing way.

The reading side of things has been as far away from spooky as possible. The main thing that I actually read was ‘Dark Corners’, a cute Halloween-based ‘Good Omens’ fic that is an adorable human AU meet-cute that practically gave me cavities. It demands to be thoroughly enjoyed!

The other story that I ‘read’ was consumed by way of the podfic recordings, because I adore the girl who read the story aloud. It’s called ‘Romancing the Tome’, and is another human AU that has action, romance, and a lot of super-cute fun and humor, not to mention sexiness. Definitely worth a read or listen, if you like that kind of thing.

And on the topic of games…uh. There haven’t been any. Period. lol Nothing more to say!

So there we go; all said and done for another week. Not the best week, certainly not the worst week, and there’s only twelve more to go in the year. How crazy is that?

So if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a cat a bath and find another horror movie to watch so that we can keep up the tradition. Cheers, my dears!

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤

Plans & Goals 2021: Week 39

BOO!

You guys, it’s October! You know what that means? It’s spooky month! Are any of you big fans of Halloween like myself, hubby, and the kid are?

I’ll admit that October is a bit of a double-edged sword for me. I adore Halloween, and I always get a bit of relief when the weather starts to cool down again because I tend to overheat in the worst of summer. Alternatively, though, when the sun begins to hide and the days grow shorter, my brain chemistry gets rather…iffy. Excess darkness causes all sorts of badness that makes me extra tired, extra cranky, and just not necessarily in a good way at all. So it’s a delicate balance, really, to manage to actually enjoy the season, while being careful not to overextend myself in ways that turn into surprise bouts of bawling my eyes out for absolutely no reason because I, like…spilled a bit of coffee or something.

And this has become your annual reminder that Seasonal Affective Disorder is, in fact, a real thing with real issues surrounding it, despite the fact that its acronym makes it sound like something an angsty preteen came up with.

Anyway.

Before I get into the goal stuff, I wanted to mention something cool that I took part in this weekend, that will continue on two weekends from now. There is a thing, for fans of ‘Good Omens’, known as ‘The Ineffable Con’. It first occurred in 2019 as a physical, in-person convention in the London area, but because of Covid it has since gone digital. Last year I didn’t really hear from it in time to even decide whether it sounded interesting, but this year I knew well in advance and knew that I wanted to take part if possible. I booked my digital ‘ticket’ months ago, and a couple of weeks ago I submitted a short fic I wrote to the con’s official Fanzine (and it was accepted…yay!). What happened this past weekend, however, was even more exciting. One of the lovely ladies in my fanfic-based-‘book’-group posited doing a panel at the con featured around the psychology of fanfiction…how our moods affect what we read and write, whether we feel represented, what makes the characters of ‘Good Omens’ in particular so enticing, etc. She asked if anyone would be interested in joining her for the panel, and myself and three others jumped on board. This past Sunday, after several weeks of planning on Nina’s (the host’s) part, we officially pre-recorded our panel! It was tons of fun and I think it turned out really well, and I’m incredibly excited to see it as part of the actual convention in a little less than two weeks! We’re also going to be hanging out in Discord server during/after the panel to chat and answer questions and whatnot, and I’m very, very excited at the prospect. How cool is that?? I think it’s incredibly cool. ^_^ And the ‘Good Omens’ fandom has just been so incredibly wonderful on so many fronts, I absolutely can’t wait to hang out with them some more!

Alrighty, so with that said, let’s get on with it!

Health

Last week I explained about how I’d started out well on Monday morning, and then promptly went to complete and utter shit throughout the rest of the week. This past week wasn’t all that much better, truthfully, although it was a bit less extreme.

On the exercise side of things I…didn’t. At all. Unless you count a couple of short walks. This is one of the instances in which the whole S.A.D. thing comes in, because last week was incredibly dark and dreary, with rain from Sunday through Thursday, which put me in “curl up in a blanket and refuse to move” mode. I’ve perked up a little the past few days, although we also spent Friday night drinking and Saturday night recovering, so, you know…there was that.

When it comes to the food aspect, last week was neither the best nor the worst I’ve experienced. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I ate healthily throughout the week, but it also wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, especially considering a night of drinking, a night of recovering, and a day taken up with the aforementioned panel recording (and the tidying of my book room that proceeded it). That said, I’m slowly working my way up to drinking more water and herbal tea rather than seeking out snacks throughout the day, so here’s hoping that helps things at least a little bit.

Back to the exercise side, I did restart ’10 Rounds’ again, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m unfortunately going to miss a day right off the bat because I have to travel for a course tomorrow, but maybe I can sneak that video in tomorrow evening sometime, or else just push the rest of the week forward by a day. We’ll see, I suppose! @_@

Creativity

Well, first of all, I finished the art piece that I shared a bit of a hint about last week. I decided to leave it as blank line art rather than try (and probably fail) to color it, because honestly I just like the way it looks the way I’ve got it.

A little snake for modesty…lol If you’re interested in seeing the NSFW version, you’ll just have to check out my Patron or Ko-Fi pages! 😛

This is definitely going to end up being one of the illustrations for my eventual ebook-style fic files, but I’m not exactly sure which fic to pair it with yet…it could honestly fit with practically any of mine. lol

When it came to writing I had a bit of a flubb concerning my weekly goal again. I thought I was doing pretty well by the middle of the week, but I must have relaxed a bit too much. By the time the weekend had passed I was actually a fair bit behind on what Pacemaker.press want me to have done. My Pacemaker goal was 9737 for the week, and by the time I called it on Sunday evening I’d only hit 7326 words. Annoying, but not insurmountably so. I have faith that I’ll be able to make that up in spaces this week. Fingers crossed, darlings!

Down-Time

Okay, SO. Down-time. Let’s see here.

First off, it is now October, and that automatically means horror movies in this household, as well as Halloween tv specials. So what’s been on the docket so far? Well, for starters we’ve been watching the ‘Simpsons’ ‘Treehouse of Terror’ episodes, as we do every year. We also watched ‘The Fog’ for our first horror movie of the year, which is another annual tradition for us. Then we watched ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’, because it’s the kid’s favorite (and what other reason do you need?). Third up was ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’, which is rather ludicrous in comparison to the original, but enjoyable in a weird kind of way.

A nod, also, to an anthology that we watched before the month even began, called ‘Hellarious’. It featured a bunch of shorts with black comedy at the heart of them, but the show was really stolen by ‘Killer Kart’, in which a shopping cart, of all things, becomes a murderous beast bent on devouring the staff at its store. It is ridiculous in the best kind of way, not the least of all because the actors treat the whole thing so seriously. I was absolutely snorting with laughter. XD

When it comes to gaming, I haven’t really been doing any at all. I popped on ‘Just Dance 2021’ for a little while early in the week, and the kid managed to convince me to download a mobile game called ‘Cookie Run Kingdom’, but that’s pretty much it. There’s just too many other things I care to be doing at the moment.

Then there’s reading, and I imagine you can already guess what’s been going on with that particular topic. I’ve been a little bouncy with the fics lately, though, just because I’ve been focusing more on writing than reading. As thus I’ve been picking mostly at shorter fics, as well as a few super-cute comics. I’ll probably have more to talk about next week, after I’ve finished a few.

And that’s about all that I have to report for the time being! Now, if you don’t mind, it’s time for me to go write some more Kinktober fics to have prepped and ready to go for the rest of the month. XD Cheers!

Feel free to let me know how your year is going so far! Do you have any big goals? Specific plans? Anything awesome on the horizon? Share what’s going on with you! ❤