Bitchpants McCrabby

So. What have I been up to?

Still at same job, with same idiot boss, but on a different work team and for now that's enough. Mantra still works: breathe in...I work from home, breathe out, they pay me well. I have been reading a shitload lately - some m/m (omg Simon), some ya romance, some rh, depends on what appeals. Kindle Unlimited is great for that, but all to often you get what you pay for (free.) Still want to reread Lunar Chronicles because Cinder. I've also started cooking more, doing a lot of crochet, and working out (because donuts.)

Still married. 26 years next month.

Thing 1: continues to prefer learning things the hard way, going back to school this summer with an eye towards something STEM and a BS degree, plays D&D and warhammer with friends.

Thing 2: rounding out his junior year in college (bio major, chem minor, working on grad school apps), playing D&D and warhammer with the same group as his brother.

I miss RPing like crazy sometimes, mainly the people, the plotting, the teasing, of the quick response stuff from test drives, etc. but at the same time, I know the same issues would be there, so I read and crochet instead.

Peace out, lovelies.

I tried. Be excellent. Don't be excellent. Do what makes you happy.

After two weekends of staining our new front door, I'm almost positive that I won't be turning away any offers to run my own home rehab TV shows...unless I'm going to be the "don't do this" example. It's not perfect, but I will admit to getting a hell of a rush of the i-made-dis variety when I see it.

I've also started cooking again now that it's turned a little colder and crock pots are back in season. It's so lovely to be able to run to the store for the meat/veg, toss that mess into the pot, seal the lid, and five hours later we have dinner. I've found some amazing damn recipes, too. Side note, when it comes to recipe maintenance, the Paprika app is the best I've found. Especially since it has the "send ingredients to grocery list" function, then you just take off what you already have and done. It's one of the few apps I've ever paid for, but worth every penny.

What else?

My family is about to get our second centurion. My great Aunt turns 100 later this month. She's the last of the siblings alive, and the second to hit triple digits after my grandma. I am sticking to my current plan in that regard - I'm going to start BASE jumping when I hit 85.

Not much else going on with me. Work continues to dance on my last nerve, but I'm ever hopeful that things will get better in that mythical some day.

Peace.

It's been about two weeks since I bid adieu to Twitter amid one sad face and very little other reaction. Two weeks since I resumed posting to my journal. And I've realized why this switch makes me a more contented person.
( navel-gazing )
So. Now I'm here and I can just toss my words into the ether and move on with my life.

And in other news, I went to a Celtic festival yesterday. Had much fun and too much food. Very worth the 1.5 hour drive to Richmond and I got to wear my Renfaire dress again. Today was a walk around a nearby lake with Hubs and the little dog. Now there will be napping and soon making dinner.

Basically enjoying the hell out of this weekend before I have to return to Hell tomorrow.

I know. I've been horrid about updating this, but since I've once again left Twitter behind me in a vain effort to restore my faith in humanity/will to live, I thought I might ease back in to updating here. I'm still on Facebook and Insta, but will try to be better here for those who aren't on either of those platforms but are still passing curious about whether or not the mothership has called me home.

Alas, it hasn't.

So, a few random facts about what I've been up to.

* I've been working from home for about two years now, which means my work wardrobe is a pair of ratty old shorts (with most of the ass made up of iron-on patches) in summer, and LuLaRoe leggings in winter. It has its benefits (no commute, no annoying coworkers on their phones while I'm working or peeing) but I do miss the interaction of other humans. My dogs, however, love it.

* The dogs are well. Dexter is getting on and showing his age. We're probably going to have to face that call soon, but I'm hoping we have a few more months. Chelsea is still 20 pounds of evil, but we've discovered that going to day care three days a week gets most of the evil out and keeps her a lovely, docile little Shiba. Once Dexter crosses the bridge, we're looking into getting another Shiba for Chelsea.

* We didn't escape Matthew as unscathed as we originally thought. A little rainwater seeped into Zach's Golf and soaked the carpets....which means now there's a lovely aroma of mold about the car. Tomorrow it goes in to get the carpets and pads replaced and disinfected because a black GTI is awesome, a black mold GTI not so much.

That's it from me for now. Peace out and be excellent to each other.

Saw this on abigail89's journal and have some time to kill, so why not?

( Q&A for old people )

* World Cup has started. I have the app to let me know when every game kicks off, so I can at least try to stealth watch. May take a long lunch for the Germany game (oh the loyalties because I do love Özil)

* Speaking of stealth watching, someone needs to revoke my youtube access because I keep watching Terminator stuff. For reasons I probably shouldn't be.

* Coworker reminds me a lot of Gretchen from Mean Girls - she keeps saying "sweet jazzy" whenever something good happens or something completed. She said it to me yesterday and I nearly swiped back with "Stop trying to make Fetch happen."

* My baby boy is now a rising senior in high school. How the hell did that even happen?

* Just got through a huge site push at work and now in the lovely lull before the next flaming bag of dog poo arrives on my desk.

* I have a serious kilt disorder - even when picking my ATUF choices. I see a kilt on the cover and I make with the grabby hands.

* Have decided that I was forced to endure SharePoint 2007 for so long because only then would I truly appreciate 2010. List Extensions - let me show you my love. I am really having fun playing with it and making our department intranet site look...if not awesome, then at least cool.

* I think that's it. Peace.

* Work is getting stupid busy and I'm starting to realize I need to delegate a whole lot more if I'm going to keep doing the upper level stuff (yeah, still don't have the title but have all the responsibility.) I'm going to have to work some this weekend just to get back on top of the pile.

* Also, if anyone knows a good online Sharepoint learning resource, I'd be forever grateful.

* I've discovered that I'm a whole lot happier when I only check Twitter once or twice a day. Much better for my self-esteem when I'm just a casual observer/having direct conversations than throwing things into the ether and getting about the same response as a duck's quack in a canyon. Twitter is, at least to me, everything I hated about high school in one handy app.

* I am SO happy I decided to send Wanderer back to the island. Only the first thread in with the reason behind it and I couldn't be happier with the results. My God, the little alien is happy. That's a miracle right there.

* In other RP news, I'm cautiously eager for the AI app period in June with two hopefuls. I want them both, like a LOT. For reasons.

* Saw DoFP as a team-builder with the eBiz folks. It was a fun ride, but the very end was my favorite.

* Last night was the end of the field soccer season for us in the worst way - heartbreaking loss in penalty shoot-out for Zach's high school varsity team in the conference semi-finals. One more soccer weekend to go - Sand Soccer the second week of June. That will be a good time - a weekend spent at a beach hotel because it's easier than trying to drive out Saturday and Sunday and find parking.

* In the end, I'm picking up the pieces and moving on. I'm finding good things in my life and reasons to smile. I have nothing but my own idiocy to blame for the bad patch of late winter/early spring, but I'm doing a lot better now. Living in the present rather than looking back on what was with longing or unproductive nostalgia.

* Okay, that was a downer. So something fun and laughy. Both of my boys over the last week (aged 20 and 17) stealthily stole my Frozen DVD...and have started quoting at me. If one of them breaks out in "Let it Go" I'm noping out.

...who've known me from the time my kids weren't known by their names, but as the Things (Thing 1 and Thing 2.)

So, just to share the "holy crap I feel old as hell" feeling with as many as possible, I present Thing 2 on his way to the Homecoming dance:



He is now taller than David.

...a new one just begun.

All things considered, this wasn't the best birthday I've ever had, but it wasn't the worst, either. (I'm going for that power of positive thinking thing.)

Got a beautiful start to the day with a gift card for a metric ass-ton of crack Kindle books from my BFF, though. And that means everything.

It was made fabulous late in the day with the US Men's National Team clinching a berth for the World Cup...and made even moreso when the players came back out of the locker room after the Panama/Honduras match concluded and celebrating with the hundred-odd fans that hung around Columbus stadium.

I still don't know what I'm going to get myself for a present - maybe some new tops for work. Party party party, I know.

I'm coming to accept that I've lost a few people I used to call friends. I don't know why, I wish I did, but for whatever reason, I've drifted out of their lives. It's not the suckiest feeling ever, but it's not a bowl of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, either.

I've got a few little projects kicking around my head - one of which entirely insane - and I've decided to try and start cross stitching in the evenings again now that the fall shows are starting up again. Beats the alternative anyway.

And that, as they say, is that.

Peas out and carrots, too.

Wow. Been over three weeks since I posted here. So, in case you were worried, don't be. I'm still doing a fair to middlin' job of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.

Soccer season is slowly winding down - tournament this weekend and next, then JV games through the 7th. And then I'm off soccer duty until August. Bliiiiis. Work is still good, still marveling at the idea that I love what I do and am fairly good at it, too. It still keeps me busy during the day - which I love - but on the slower days (and evenings), I find myself with too much time on my hands and that is rarely a good thing.

Especially when people (I'm looking at you, Brad) drop little bunnies in my head. Bunnies that grow into full-scale, rabid, mutant rabbits that nibble on my brain while I'm sleeping.

( Behold the mutant rabbit )

And now my happy day winds down and I'm hoping for at least a half an hour here with no one else in the office so I can gobble up another chapter of Abigail Roux's Cut & Run series because I seriously cannot get enough of Ty and Zane.

Haven't posted much here lately, but I wrote a filtered recap of the past month for my game post, so I'll toss it here for those still reading and not in the game.

( cut so those that are won't get Pete and Repeat )

Snow in SE Virginia is usually cause for the world to stop spinning. And, of course, it did. Snow came at the worst possible time (afternoon rush) resulting in a bazillion accidents and people taking 4 hours to travel 20 miles. Funtimes. It appears I missed that fiasco by, literally, minutes. If I'd left work even 15 minutes later, I'd have been caught in the gridlock.

Now, we settle in and wait for the neighborhood streets to melt. The only things they plow or treat are the interstates and primary roads. Everything else they leave to nature. Annoying, but I can understand it. I mean, it's going to be in the 50s here on Monday.

In other news...

*insert a bunch of random crap no one GAF about and isn't really what I wanted to write anyway*

From Stephen King via a Facebook update from lanai

Keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, and don't take any shit from anybody.

~ Different Seasons, Afterword.

Morning spent alternately depressing myself with reading ads that sound hella promising, only to find it's a community setup that hasn't been touched since October, or one that requires all posts/comments to be 2+ detailed paragraphs long. Ugh. I'm all for prose in tags, but that's a little over the top for me. Am further guessing that the Stand/Boulder game has been abandoned for whatever reason (though I suspect lack of character apps as well as a glitch in the logic played a part). Blarg. It was a nice dream.

Got a little shot of adrenaline when I realized Zach had gone back to sleep rather than get ready for paintball and had 15 minutes to shower and assemble his gear. There was a happy little whirlwind of OMGWHEREISMY...? But he's off, and happily getting welts all over his body for the day.

I am off to brave the mall today and hopefully get a shitload of Christmas shopping done: read: all of it. I'd love to get that off my plate. Probably help if I actually write out a list of what I need to get and for whom.

Relatedly, stocking stuffers for 16/19 year old boys are getting harder and harder to find. After razors and condoms, what else is there???

Am going to make something Christmassy tomorrow to take into work to try and get myself into the holiday spirit a little more as well as provide something fun because things be tense in the department (Director is reaping the rewards of a ton of BOGSATs resulting in what will probably be missed deadlines because our IT department seriously sucks if not sat upon - and the VP ain't happy.)

Need to force myself to put down the DS in the evenings and read instead. I've got a TBR list that's topping out at 45 books right now and I want to read them ALL. Downtime probably wouldn't bother me as much if I was lost in those worlds.

Also need to stop being lured by the "Customers who bought this also bought..." thing on Amazon. I've got all these great books on my TBR...then get lured by a new shiny. Bah.

Peace out, all.

I got this from ZZ on Facebook...but it's too fabulous to not share around.

A thoughtful quote for the day from Mr. Stephen Fry:

"It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more...it's simply a whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that,' well so fucking what?"