Somewhere East of Life

...but only because I've got a monster blackberry bush to trim back.

 

Well, its actually my neighbors but its creeped all the way onto my deck now.

 

Loving the colder weather. Finally getting to pull out the heaters and warmer clothes.

 

What's your favorite part of Autumn?

Nothing serious to update, so it's just a bit of what I've been up to this week.

I've got eczema, and it's been flaring up a bit on my face. Basically, it makes my skin super dry and flaky in random spots. Incidentally, it also makes me very sensitive to just about everything. It's hard for me to find a product that won't flare up my dry skin rashes. I ordered some CeraVe PM to see how it'll work for me. Heard good things about it, so we'll see.

Finally finished off the fudge cake I made for Christmas. Unfortunately, I finished it off in one go. Normally not a problem seeing as I ate a piece and a half. However, I've found I strongly allergic to it (flares up my milk and chocolate allergies). So, spent the whole night sick. Was it worth it? Hell yes. :)

Trying to get caught up on random chapters of stuff people have written. Reading it from various fandoms. I've been sick since before Thanksgiving, off and on, so I've not been doing much. I had more squirreled away than I thought though, so it's slow going.

Speaking of being sick, I've been holding off editing more chapters of my Nano HP Lucius/Harry story because of said illness. Oddly, I've got a strong reaction from readers over this story, even with just one chapter. People keep pinging me with requests to do more, and I've just not felt up to it at all. I'm finally getting over whatever it was that was bothering me though, so hopefully I can pump out another chapter soon.

That's it for now! I'm off to get some work done. Try to stay warm. Hope everyone's week has been going well so far. :)

Houston, we lost the internetz!!!
Has been a bit of an odd day for me. Last night around 8pm a massive wind storm swept through our area. Winds at 40mph (64 kph) with gusts of up to 65 mph (104). At least that's what they say. Downed power lines, power surges, fires, falling trees.

It was a fun night. We lost power about 9pm, and it didn't come back on again until 4:30am the next morning. The problem though is that though we had power, half the city had been without last night (the peak was something like 60,000 customers out of power). By the time we got our power back on, they still had over 20,000 still out.

Our internet company didn't get their power back on until very late in the day (maybe some time after 9pm). Internets... OOOH how I MISS you!!!!! *tacklesgloms*

Birthday Fun
First, a big thank you to the folks that sent me birthday wishes. Thank goodness for my Blackberry so I could at least see them! :) As for my Birthday fun, my Mom and I spent a quiet day chatting and reading books. Not much else to do. We'd had plans to see a movie and eat out, but we weren't sure who all would have power. Next weekend we'll see a movie together. Tonight we just splurged on dinner at Wendy's (Mmm, gotta have my bacon cheeseburger).

Oh! We watched a movie my Mom bought quite awhile back. "Old Dogs" with Seth Green (who should get top billing as a rule, because he's adorable), John Travolta, and Robin Williams. Very odd combination. Pretty sure the rest of the Travolta family were in it as well, oddly enough. Started out slow, but turned out pretty funny by the end. And also very sweet. Kept having the urge to chuck Travolta's character off a bridge throughout the film, but by the end I managed to resist and give him a reprieve. Worth a watch for a funny and relaxing movie night with the family.

All in all it was a relaxing night, and we had fun just reading, watching films, and chatting about anything and everything.

Hope everyone else had a good day too! Now, I'm off to bed before the sleeping pills make me ramble anymore than they already have. *waves*

Been taking a few days off because of problems with my migraines. They've been particularly bad lately. Dizzy spells, blackouts, and hallucinations (though thankfully that's only happened three times). I'm hoping the headaches go away before the auditory ones hit me. Those are the worst.

I've also been banned from wearing my contacts until an issue with one of my eyes heals, so it's hard for me to be on the computer. I've got a magnifier, which helps, but it's odd. So reducing my time online for a bit.

Nothing much else is going on. I've plans to tour the old Idaho State Penitentiary in August. It's abandoned, and reported to be haunted. So of course I want to see it. In all the time I've lived here, I can't believe I've never seen it. Not sure how well that tour will work out with my sensitivities, but we shall see. Depends on how much of what goes on there is hype.

Lots has been going on in the Tokio Hotel world lately, so hopefully I'll be able to get back onto my 30 days meme soon. Don't have but a couple few days left of it.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

MIA for now. I thought I'd picked up a virus yesterday and ran scan after scan, but as it turns out someone jumped onto my internet connection (and I've got cable internet, with no wireless router). I figured out how to dump the riders off my network, but I'm currently working to protect my network from them. Wish me luck!

BTW, I saw the first episode of that Sherlock Holmes series last night. LOVED IT! Couldn't stop smiling the whole time. Those two do nothing but flirt the whole time. Was so much fun to watch!

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath."

*snerk*

More later. *waves*

I put off my shopping trip yesterday until today. Didn't snow yesterday at all, so I thought.

Apparently it did after I went to bed. All the lovely plowed roads are snowed on.

I haven't been in my car since the last time it snowed, so I just got back in from brushing snow off of it. There's piles of it drifting around my car knee deep.

I knew there was a reason I didn't want to get up today. Did I mention I hate snow? Well, okay that's not quite true. I don't hate snow. I just hate driving in it. I live at the top of a great big hill, and no matter which way I go I have to go down one to get to the nearest grocery store.

I'm giving it another ten minutes for the car to warm up since the snow plow guy just got here for our complex, but then I'm gonna head on out for my last minute grocery shopping trip.

Wish me luck!

Edit: Besides the road I live on, the roads were great. The prices at the store were not, but that's another story.

...I'll say it again:

If it's a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon, it's a Sugar Cookie covered in cinnamon and NOT a Snickerdoodle.

Two totally different cookies.

Right. *coughs* Just so we're clear.

*nods and shuffles off to eat more cinnamon covered Sugar Cookies*

I keep finding dead spiders. Like, they'll walk up to wherever I'm at, plop down right in my path, take one look at me, and then just up and die.

You meet the oddest most interesting people who are bus drivers. Like this one guy, who's probably about 60, and has that buzz cut clean look of someone perhaps former military. Couldn't be more wrong. He was apparently a long-haired hippy type surfer dude in the 60s and spent a great amount of his time hitching rides, panhandling, and surfing. Because he could. He also met Charles Manson once. One of his girls picked him and his friend up and took them to one of his beach houses. They stayed in a weird lean-to guest house for a night. o.0 Apparently didn't realize who the guy was until he saw him on the news a few years later.

People with allergies to milk should not go out at 8 at night to buy themselves oreo sundae milkshakes. It's just a really bad idea.

It's all just really weird. *shakes head*

I made it to about 12:30pm yesterday before I crashed, without having made pancakes or cleaned the kitchen with an old toothbrush.

I only took a nap for about an hour though.

When I got up I did half a sink of dishes before getting bored.

I then proceeded to reorganize my computer. Found a nifty site that turns graphics into ico files, along with several collections of system icons. I'm now the proud owner user of a snazzed up computer. (from stuff all found here)

I'm sure my mother will be thrilled when she sees the Dracula icon (pic) I replaced our C drive standard icon with. She should be thankful I didn't use the mummy one (pic). Or the werewolf (pic). (from the Haunted Hard Drives collection)

I went to bed about midnight and didn't wake up again until 10:30am. My cat tried to wake me up for food about 8, quite cutely I might add, to no avail.

Note to self: Your body doesn't run well on 5 hours of sleep when you get up at 3am.

P.S. Apparently the forgetting to eat (I ate a little) caught up with me and I also lost 2 and a half pounds from yesterday.

It started yesterday...
Bah. My neighbor has a gihugic water leak in his front yard. Sometime after noon I went about cleaning my dishes only to find, a quarter of a way into it, that I had no longer had water.

As it turns out, my neighbor and I share water lines. Joy.

I bitched, subtly mind you, but still demanded to know how long it would be off. Cue long-winded explanation involving lots of bullshit that boils down to: Eh, *shrug* I don't have a freakin' clue.

One of the men from the crew granted me 30 minutes of water time to fill up my tub with water, and any other containers I could get my hands on.

He came back around 5 that afternoon and told me that the water would be off all night.

...

ALL NIGHT!!!

He got an ear full for that one, and he backed up a few steps, looked down, fiddled with his hands, and said in a very small voice, "Well... I, um, could come by in the morning so you could have a shower?" He hesitantly looks up at me as he bites lip and scratches the back of his neck.

I raised an eyebrow and turned up the glare factor a bit, but relented.

I made my way to the store and came back with paper plates, napkins, plastic utensils, and bottles of drinking water.

...and continues today.
I got up early this morning. I was up by eight. I got in a campers bath and went about doing what I could around the house that didn't involve water.

Around ten this morning, the water comes back on (I'd turned on a faucet so I'd know when it came back on). I ran over and refilled one of my filtered water containers, flushed all the toilets in order to fully refill the tanks, and then ran down to my bathroom, stripping the whole way.

I jumped in the shower, got out some shower gel, and managed to wash everything below the waist before the water shut off.

*sigh*

So I was half clean. It was a start.

And so it goes...
I've been playing catch with the water all day. It will turn on ever so often. I'll take a chance to wash a couple dishes, or give the cats fresh water, or refill a container.

I'm almost done getting the dishes loaded into the dishwasher. Too bad I won't be able to turn it back on until the water is turned on for good, but it makes me feel better at least.

I'm currently waiting for the water to come back on again so I can finish filling up a wash basin. I'm hoping to wash my hair. I figure if it comes back on another four or five times I might have enough.