Lost: A Sense of Proportion

(Testing out cross-posting from DW for the first time, since a few people I know have switched over exclusively. LJ's still my primary "home" though, just getting a feel for things. ^^)

As a few of you know. this last weekend started out rough with our parakeet Volly dying Friday morning. We'd helped hand-raise and tame her since she was a baby and while she wasn't free in the house as much as our previous birds (partly because she had a more naturally nervous temperament and loved interacting with people but got overwhelmed in the Big Wide World, partly because before we didn't have cats roaming loose like we do now) she was cute and cheerful and by far the sweetest-natured of all her siblings. So that was hard and unexpected.

The week since then has been just such a blessing, though. It's been almost comical how perfectly everything worked out.  

As I mentioned earlier, I passed the final exam for second-degree black belt on Saturday! :D :D :D

It was a long, crazy, exhausting day. There were about 100 candidates for promotion in all (mostly brown belts testing for their first-degree black belt), which is a medium-ish size, though only three people from my school who made it through to the final exam. This time around, in addition to some fairly recent curriculum changes that were fully incorporated into the exam for the first time, they also were trying some new ways of running various sections of the final exam. So even though the exam itself didn't start until 1:00, we needed to get down to the Cities by 11:00 to run through drills, practice timing, and get other instruction on when and how we were supposed to do what. So we were busy with that until about 12:30, quick break for water and snacks, then lining up to start at 1:00. Exam itself ended at... a little before 3:00, I think? Could've been longer, maybe. The final graduation ceremony, giving out the new belts, lasted a while longer, so we weren't done until a little after 4:00. 

Between the exhaustion and stress and the heat (holy cow, it got so hot - just sitting in the audience my mom had to go outside for a while because she got overheated) it seemed to simultaneously fly by in a blur and take forever. It is always fun to do things like that when you have so many not-karate-people relatives in the audience watching, because not only are they really excited by the cool/hard stuff we do, but you get the audible gasps of alarm when black belts do self-defense takedowns and someone hits the mat fast. (Or, in the case of the higher-level black belts, partners are wearing protective gear so that candidates don't have to pull their strikes and most people who don't do karate don't realize that 1. The chest guards are made to absorb exactly those kinds of strikes, and 2. If you hit just right, it can amplify the sound of a kick considerably.) 

Also, as usual, in order to pair up for sparring they had everyone line up by height, which put me waaaaay down at the end with the kids who were mostly 10-12. Which meant that, like last time, I had to inform the instructors that I was actually an adult and wasn't supposed to fight the children... XD Fortunately, UNlike last time, this time there was another small woman in the same boat, so that was a lot more fun than ending up paired up with someone twice my size for the exam again, especially since my fight was directly in front of the Grand Masters' table.  

So. By the time I finished the exam, I was both thoroughly wiped out and wired beyond belief with adrenaline and relief. I am so, so happy to have made it through. There were quite a few times the last few months when I really thought I might not make it, mentally or physically. But now... I'm a second-degree black belt, and wherever things go from here having come this far and kept going through all of that is something that can't be taken away. 

Anyway, after that, vacation started. ^^ I hadn't been able to take much of a break, mentally or physically, for the last four months, and Mom and Nef wanted to take a short girls' trip. I'd also really wanted to do some fossil hunting for my birthday, and the best area to do that tends to be in the southern part of the state, and we were already most of the way there having driven that far for the exam, so our whole family drove a bit further to stay in a hotel near a nature center where I'd discovered fossil hunting is allowed. 

We had quite a thunderstorm Saturday night (perfect for washing away dirt and exposing new fossils), but Easter morning was beautiful and clear. After a morning church service, we went to the nature center, talked with one of the staff to get some advice on the better areas, and hiked up to the abandoned quarry. This being the first time I'd tried any organized fossil hunting (though I'd stumbled across a couple on previous trips out west), a lot of the time was just getting a feel for the lay of the land and what the types we were expecting to find looked like in their natural environment, but we did end up finding some quite nice ones. Mostly brachiopods and crinoids, a few others I'm going to need closer looks to identify. Really, really fun and I'm not the only one excited to try it again. (One day I'd love to go on some kind of guided hunt someplace like Montana or Utah...) 

After that, the guys had to head back to pick up the dog from the kennel and be home in time for work Monday, but Mom, Nef, and I spent the next few days in the Cities. We went to Como Zoo Monday, which we haven't done in probably 15 years, and had mind-bogglingly perfect weather for it. I got tons of photos with my new camera (will probably put up a few this weekend), both of the animals and of flowers in their conservatory, where they had a gorgeous Easter display.

Tuesday was rainy, so we spent the morning shopping and decided to go to the History Museum in the afternoon - at which point we found out that not only was admission free at the specific time we planned to go, and they had a big new WW1 exhibit (which Nef was especially excited about, since it's much less common than WW2 and she needs more background research for her book) but that evening we were in time to sign up for a special WW1-themed event they had on, where they played a Charlie Chaplain movie with a live band providing music, highlighted some of the history of the era, and let people screen print their own copies of WW1-era posters. 

Wednesday morning we went to the Science Museum, where they had a special exhibit on the history of fraudulent/misconceived medical inventions (with a lot from the early 1900s/20s, again fun and useful research for Nef), we got to visit parts of the museum we loved as children, and also alllll the lovely fossils. <3 I wasn't surprised to find that the gift shop had fossils for sale, but I was surprised that the prices were very reasonable. So... I may have gotten a little overexcited and ended up buying half a dozen (plus a beautifully detailed, realistic replica of a velociraptor claw and toe bones, since the chances of my affording a genuine one are zilch XD) for the price I'd normally be able to get maybe two or three, buying them online and paying shipping - with the added bonus of being able to see them in person and select exactly what I wanted. 

While we were at the Science Museum, we also ran into my godparents' youngest daughter. My parents knew their family long before I was born, but we haven't seen them in a while - the daughter lives in Kansas City now and was just up here for Easter, so getting to talk to her was a really fun surprise.  

Also, the lavender-peppermint lotion/shower gel/shampoo/conditioner at the hotel we were staying at was amazing, and I think I may have to buy all my stuff in that scent from now on. 

So yes - very nice to have a much-needed and refreshing break! ^^

Heh, I realized that, though I've been keeping up with others' new posts, it's been quite some time since I've actually posted something here myself. Oops.

Been buuuusy. Among other things, lots of editing work, working on writing two original novels (yeeeah, it was just one last time I posted here... then stuff happened and I'm about 12,000 words into another coauthored one as well) at least one of which should be finished by the end of the summer, need to finish formatting my finished nonfiction ebook, trying to keep up with some artwork, getting all the details worked out for being a bridesmaid in scarvenartist's wedding (pretty sure I have mentioned that?)... Lots of fun stuff, but lots of busyness.

Also, scarvenartist was just up here to visit us! Which was an absolute blast, particularly since it's been a couple of years since she was able to make it up here. We mostly sat around and talked... a lot... *g* But we also did some really fun baking! Of which there are pics under the cut...
( Cake and Karate pictures. Though not both at the same time. )

Yep, that's pretty much been my mental and physical reaction to this month so far. Between helping my mom through the continuing recovery from her surgery the first half of the month (she's pretty well back to normal now), being right in the middle of the most stressful and demanding part of the black belt testing process, and a ton of other events and obligations, this year was probably not a good one to also decide to do a half NaNo.

But... I'm really liking the way my novel's coming along so far, and without that goal to push myself toward I knew I would've probably would've given in to exhaustion and just not worked on it at all this month. So. I've been writing. And so far it's still coming along. My current word count's at -


Still on track to finish at this point, much to my own surprise!

Karate is also going well. Between particularly intense workouts and getting punched in the head multiple times (not hard enough for a concussion... definitely hard enough to snap my head back and leave me with a stiff neck for days) soreness is pretty much a way of life at the moment.

I also found out, belatedly (my brother knew, but didn't realize I hadn't heard) that one part of the screening tests was a trick question, test-of-your-character sort of scenario. You're given a couple of options as if they really don't care either way which you do, but in fact your choice is actually a rather major factor in their assessment of you. Not being aware beforehand, I chose correctly by pure accident (or Divine intervention, more like), rather than some kind of determination to challenge myself and push my limits. I didn't think I could manage the easier option without flailing and/or falling over at that point, while I was pretty sure I could do the harder one technically correctly, even if my execution wasn't awesomely impressive. XD

So - Eric and I just got word that we both passed our final screening, and will be allowed to go down to the Cities for the final exam on December 7th! Which means a lot of intense preparation yet, and I've got to fit in the required number of sparring sessions before then (which will be... tight), but I think we both have a really good chance of passing the final exam. \o/ But in the meantime... ow. Also, tired.

I've also been re-reading Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia during car rides and at night to unwind, and they are not only making me very happy but doing an excellent job of reminding me exactly why I wanted to write in the first place. What a wonderful reward it would be if someday someone laid in bed reading one of my books, desperately trying to smother gleeful giggles for fear of disturbing family members...

And that's basically a summary of my life lately.

Now I need to go and write a little more, because I'm behind on my word count for the day.

Yeah, I've gotten pretty behind on replying to emails. And posts. And comments. And stories...

Kinda been one of those weeks. Several coinciding deadlines combined rather poorly with a whole bunch of issues that kept turning wha should ave been ten-minute projects into an hours-long exercise in frustration. All kinds of different things, but perhaps the most consistent has been, naturally, computers. :P

Apparently I can't even post a simple update on Twitter or Facebook without idiculous time-consuming issues. Which wouldn't be a problem, because for my own part? I could happily go on indefinitely pretending neither one exists. But apparently promoting a business, particularly an online-based one, without using social media = essentially impossible these days. It's not just my computer, because I still have problems when I borrow someone else's. It's not that I'm stupid (eh, not mostly that, at least), or incapable of working with tech. Sadly, my love affair with computers is just... entirely unrequited. I can be banging my head against the desk, struggling and struggling to get a site to cooperate - then someone else'll come up, do exactly the same thing I've been doing, and poof, it suddenly decides to work and they can't figure out why I was making such a big deal out of it. I get bizarre error messages and problems that my brother hasn't even heard of before. I get problems with programs that result in tech support needing to go back to the developers. And then there are the more regular... issues.

Yeah, the little explosion of computer hate last week? That's nothing compared t this week's gift of a about a dozen freeze-ups in a single morning. Every time I'd get it restarted and just begin getting back into things, it'd freeze right up again. I kinda figured that, once I had all my projects sent out, I could finally relax and just breeze through replying to everything else. But nope. My computer's been a bit slow and such for a while, but Eric thinks the most recent spaz-attack may be the result of a virus picked up through one of the manuscripts a client sent me (which was giving me problems earlier). Between one thing and another, he decided I'm gonna need to do a complete reinstall of the OS.

So... a whole day of attempting to get everything backed up and in order to do that. I had emergency backups of everything, of course, but not in a format that'd work well for this, because they were all either not exhaustive enough, or in a format that'd just bring back a lot of the junk a fresh install's looking to get rid of. Of course, the fact that I needed to keep restarting turned that into quite a project.  

Probably gonna be at least another day or two before I'm really up and running again. (Borrowing Eric's netbook for now.) Trying to work on my iPod temporarily has proven challenging, because... that as suddenly started malfunctioning as well, and Safari keeps freezing or crashing. *sigh* And here I thought Macs were supposed to be immune to that sort of thing. Not in my hands, apparently. XD  But... at least the computer should be fixable. I hope.

/whiiiiiine

I hate computers. Hate them, hate them, HATE THEM. I am severely tempted to just throw mine against the wall and have done with it.

On a less "done with life now, kthx" note... Midnight showing of The Hobbit tonight! We got tickets a while back, and were able to get them for a regular showing (I'd like to see the 3D at some point in theaters... but not the first time), so all set there.

I was originally thinking that I'd dress up, but then... Well, the elf costume that I wore for TTT and ROTK doesn't exactly fit me well anymore, and without the past-waist-length hair isn't nearly as effective anyway. And then we arranged for another family we know to come along with us - much more recent fans, who've never been to a midnight showing of a movie before - and seeing as they're not nearly such die-hard fans... certain family members persuaded me that it'd be better not to scare them off to badly. *g* So, planning on no dressing up.

But then, just the day before yesterday, the youngest member of ther family who'll be coming along (one of their boys, about - ten, I think?) informed me that he is definitely going to be in costume. Any excuse, apparently. Annnnd... he wanted Nef and me to dress up too, so he wouldn't be the only one. SO. Change of plans! Not sure if Nef'll be in costume (will depend on how she's feeling), but I'm gonna be going as a hobbit. 

If I get any good ones, I might put up pictures of my costume tomorrow. Not too bad, I think, for something improvised within a day and a half out of things I had lying around. ;D (Sadly, I think that going barefoot will be out of the question. In a Minnesota winter, with about a foot of snow on the ground... frostbite would not be a particularly fun conclusion to the evening. *sighs*)

Didn't do so great on the pet front today. 

This time of year, of course, more often than not it's just too hot to bring the dog along with us many places. Mr. Clingy Overgrown Puppy is not pleased with this news. He was further upset by the fact that we were gone longer than usual today. He didn't do too badly (relatively speaking) during the time he was in the garage... but the second he got into the house he decided he was too excited to hold it any longer, and peed all over before I could open the door to let him out.

*sigh* Okay, kicked him outside, cleaned it up... discovered that our Very Indoor Cat Ro had somehow escaped, and spent the entire day outside. Got the cat in, got the dog in, no harm done, we're okay. Dog decides to further express how utterly overwhelmed he is by the fact that we've returned (Surprise! Again! Actually, we have never yet failed to do this. And yet still...) by gulping down large quantities of water, despite having drank plenty earlier in the garage. He then proceeded to throw up. Twice. As he tends to do when he drinks too fast. This is why we have to stand over him and remind him to slow down when he's excited. 

So. Cleaned all that up too. Things settle down a bit. Ro decides this evening that, for the first time ever, the sound of distant fireworks makes him skittish. Come on, he wasn't that twitchy over the ginormous storm, complete with hail, that we had a couple days ago. Still, he's not acting too much more wild than he occasionally gets at night, so just pet him a bit and otherwise ignore the antics. Maybe he's just afraid he won't get his dinner today, seeing as he is a Wild Outdoor Cat now (as proof: he even caught a mouse!), and they don't get cat food. They have to fend for themselves and become fierce, wild, nocturnal hunters. Thus: twitchiness, and racing up and down stairs. 

I've seen some... interesting writing around town lately.

Take this, at the movie rental place:



Since the fine print isn't legible, you'll have to take my word for what it says underneath: See store for details. (It says the same thing twice, nothing else.) Nope, no "Free rentals to Kids." No "Free Kids' Movies." Nothing. Simply the statement that they are giving away kids here. I would think that one would get in trouble for such things.

Then there's this advertisement for a jazz concert:




Check out the part in the pink circle. Not only a random quote not attributed to anyone, but... erm, devastating? This is the word they choose to try to convince people to come? I've been wracking my mind to try to figure out what similar-sounding word they might have meant. I can come up with plenty that would've worked better... but none of them really look or sound anything like "devastating." Quite unique, that. Appropriate enough for a very sad, dramatic movie, maybe, but a jazz band? Herm.

*eg*


*blows smoke away from her pistol*

( Pics of mah four-footed babies :D )

Okay, so I had an insanely cool dream last night. And now I so wish I could draw people, because I have this truly epic picture in my head which is so far beyond my ability to actually get it on paper that it's not even funny, and just - *flails*

And now, even worse, it has given me story ideas, which is definitely bad. I've been working along on my SGA story for the SNWCG challenge, but the thing is this could actually work for the challenge too (as a matter of fact, there are two different versions if it that could work), and when I started half-jokingly telling Nef about it she thought it was really, really awesome, and the more I talked about it... Except this is quite probably one of the most stupid, crazy crossover/AUs evar.

*headdesk*

Seriously? Who does a crossover between NCIS and Temeraire? No one, that's who. Because it's, like, impossible.

Except, the more I think through the details, the more I think it would work, and the more reasonable possibilities and fewer difficulties I see. Which is totally the opposite of most AUs I think of.

Okay, I'm gonna go write this now before I chicken out.

Nope, haven't fallen off the edge of the earth - just a tad busy. Editing latest issue of teh magazine, Mom and Dad have been gone a few days celebrating their 25th anniversary, busy time for Eric's golf tournaments, and getting ready for Grandma coming in - eep, 'bout two weeks! Also, trying to write, but not succeeding very well. *pokes stories*

Not doing bad, though. We're thoroughly enjoying having a dock on the lake. Yay, lots of fishing! And we've got a whole bunch of torches to light the dock and path down by the lake. Going out there at night, through a yard just full of fireflies, to a lake lit up by flames and the moon, with so many bright stars in the sky... It's just so magical, I can still hardly believe we actually live here. :D

Hehe, and we now have a turtle living in the lake that'll come when called and eat out of our hands. Add one more to our Home for Confused Animals! XD It's so cuuute... Now we just need a name for it. I'm thinkin' maybe Fischel.... *g*

ETA: o.o While I am still enjoying the BBC Robin Hood TV series, there is one thing I will say. I would not recommend the series finale. Seriously. That is positively the most idiotic end to a Robin Hood story I have ever seen or heard of. I'm sorry, that is just not poetic or dramatic - that's stupid. Sometimes, I hate TV series writers. *goes off grumbling*

Yep, posting again. ;) I'm... *bites lip* I'm gonna try something kinda crazy, which I am very well aware has almost no chance of success. And... I'd really like some advice.

Okay, so here it is: I'm going to apply for an arts grant.

Honestly, the thought would not have occurred to me, except that at our last Creative Circle meeting (like a writers' group, only for all kinds of art/creative works) one of the members brought it up and encouraged me to try for it. She gave me a link for a local grant - apparently what you can do with the money if you're awarded it is really, really open. She told us one of the previous people who'd gotten it painted llamas, and was fascinated by Peru, had always wanted to go there, and so used the money for a trip to Peru for creative inspiration and the opportunity to study it firsthand.

So, I probably would apply for it for my book, because the money could be really useful were I closer to the publishing stages. But... I have been very distractible this year, and work has been progressing very, very slowly. I think it's going to be a few years before I'm finished, because if I'm going to do it, I want to do it well.

Thus - yes, a point is in sight at last! - I've decided I want to apply for a grant with my dragon and griffin art. Which sounds really stupid, now that I say it. I just... I've really started to love it so much more lately, and take it more seriously (heh, as opposed to, "Erm, yeah, I sketch during meetings 'n stuff. Well, yeah, I've taken art lessons, but... I'm certainly not a real artist."). And I have these vague longings and undefined dreams about what I'd like to do with it... someday... 

Anyway. Here I come to the advice part. Along with my application, I need to send in a maximum of about ten samples of my work. I've posted a bunch of my drawings here . I have my own personal likings and ideas of which ones are better, but I'd really appreciate some outside opinions on which would be best to send in. I've linked to the last page, so if you work from there back it'll be from newest to older ones.

(Oh, and, erm... don't look at the earliest pictures, please. Or at least try not to laugh too hard? *sheepish* I'm still a very long way from where I want to be with my art, but I have been changing and improving and figuring out how to do this drawing-from-imagination thing, and the older the picture... the more embarrassing. So yeah.)

I'd really appreciate any input you'd like to give! (Heh heh, and again, yeah, I do realize the chances of actually getting this are pretty much nil, and I'm a beginning "artist" with a looong way to go, but... I want to try?)