One Abnormal Girl

So I’m trying to get away from eating so much processed, chemicallyt-enhanced food, not because of any strict dietary concerns but because too much of that stuff is just too much. However, I don’t have great knowledge of cooking, so I am limited in what is left to me.

Anybody have recipe recommendations? I’m not that keen on anything that requires too many steps or the existence of a whole chicken in my refrigerator, such as for making my own broth. I like recipes that involve frozen veggies, maybe rice or noodles, no tricks of heating or timing, but things I can throw together in a pot or two. I like soups, or baking things in bags, which I haven’t tried yet but it sounds pretty awesome.

So, any recs? ;_;

Expect more mundane things from this blog, because I feel like using it more now, for example to express how much I want the new phone that I can order in 10 days. Blackberry, it’s been fun, but Android is named after one of my favorite things and it wants to be my friend.

I’m also moving my fic back to Livejournal, because though it took me a long time to face it, fanfiction is a Livejournal thing. So all that will be on arcapelago.  That will free up this journal for blathering.  Blather.

Now that I feel I covered the important things, I can move on to how much my music collection upsets me.  I like the music in it, but I hate how difficult it is to put together a playlist.  I want songs that are similar to each other to be easy to find, but tagging things by genre really isn’t enough.  (I can’t put things in genre categories anyway, so trying to organize my collection is like a dog trying to sort laundry.)  If I liked a narrower range of music, it wouldn’t be so hard.  Or maybe if I studied music theory, it would be more clear.  But more and more I feel like I need to sort music by mood because I don’t care if a Josh Groban song starts mingling with Linkin Park as long as the mood is the same.  But that can’t take the place of genre entirely–uugh.

Anybody with a similar neurosis find a solution to this problem?  I just need some categories that I can stick to–that all of my current collection can be sorted into without my having to wonder if something is Rock or Alternative.  UGH.  Back to theorizing.

So crazyloststar and I made a pact to participate in Jannowrimo, which is like NaNoWriMo, except it’s during January, which has less going on.  She went with a goal of 25,000, and I decided to be realistic with myself and go with 15,000.  I started out with a story about an android, but it was too hard, so then I went with something else on day 4.  I am on target!  I hope I can make it, though I don’t imagine there will be an ending.  Original fiction just isn’t as rewarding.

Went home for Christmas, but before I did, Julien and I had a little Christmas time so he could have his new toys and wear his Christmas hat.

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Posting from my Blackberry’s Wordpress app just to show it that I do appreciate all it’s done for me even though I’m probably moving to the Motorola CLIQ in late November. :( maybe I can find it a new owner. But everyone wants Android these days. I know I do.

Anyway, on to much more important matters–YAOI-CON. We leave this afternoon and will be back on Monday morning. Short trip, but I’m glad we get to go at all. I kind of used up all my vacation time anyway. Har.

We have new playful costumes for Saturday since it will me Halloween. My coat is made of the stiffest fabric ever (I thought Simplicity knew what it was doing when it told me to get it, but maybe not, or I just interpreted wrong) and the vinegar in the wash didn’t seem to help it any, so we’ll just see what kind of mood I’ll be in on Saturday. But Lyns’ outfit is adorable! Not sure if anyone will get it–that these are steampunk–but we’ll have fun anyway.

I still feel so unprepared though! I suppose that’s what we get for still sewing things together the night before the trip. Will still need to sew buttons on, et cetera, at the hotel room. We fail.

So I was going to go to AWA, and then I wasn’t, and then I was, wasn’t, etc BUT NOW I AM because last night I bought my plane ticket, consequences be damned.

I’m so excited to see everyone! Especially since it seems like everyone will be there!  Except for crazyloststar.  She will be in Germany, enjoying the woodlands.

So: awesome!  I’ll be there from Wednesday afternoon to Monday evening.

Despite the fact that I’ll have to pay for the checked bag, I will need it to bring the following:

• Greed!ling
• Ishbal Roy
• Havoc

This also totally wipes me out as far as vacation goes, but that’s what it’s for, right?  Huzzah.

AX nearly didn’t happen this year, due to other obligations, but we ended up getting to go for Thursday night, Friday morning/afternoon, and then Friday night through Monday early morning.  So while it wasn’t our optimal stay at a convention of this size, we still got to go and make the most of it.  And somehow I managed to fit 5 costumes into the time we were there, so it must not have been that short a time.

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I continue my quest to find FMA boots (that aren’t over $60). I keep coming so close to them, but there’s always something, and usually, it’s decoration I can’t remove, or too much stitch styling, or whatever else they use to make a boot different enough to catch your eye. If engineer’s boots just DIDN’T HAVE THAT BUCKLE STRAP they’d be just about perfect. Such a time sink.

That was yesterday. TODAY, though, I left my phone at Starbucks. I didn’t know where it was when I realized I didn’t have it, though, so we called the Starbucks to ask if it was out by the couches where we were sitting, and the employee answered that he had just come in and had walked by there and he didn’t see it. He didn’t go out to actually, you know, look. So we drove back and there it was, on the ground next to the couch. Thanks, atypical Starbucks employee.

The funny part was, though, that when I got it back we realized that Lyns had purse-dialed me and left a voicemail, and we could tell by the conversation that she must have dialed as we crossed the street to walk home.

HER PHONE KNEW MINE WAS BEING LEFT THERE. They are meant to be. :<

In other news, this is definitely the last year we do AnimeExpo, if we even go this year with the cosmic forces that are trying to prevent it. Fanime and/or AWA will probably replace it, but that all depends on next year’s circumstances.

I think I was only able to post regularly back in the day when I had no one else to talk to. Now there’s peeps to chat with and I have less to say.

But today, maybe I have things to say! Not all of them are so great though.

Family

In the beginning of April, my grampa had a heart attack and fell and broke his ankle, then had another heart attack while in the hospital. The fam agreed not to resuscitate if it happened again, but then it didn’t. My parents were going to cancel their trip to come out and see me since his condition was so unstable, but he didn’t stick around. A few days later he passed away. He was the last of my grandparents. It was rough not being on the east coast, and it’s still unreal because I’m so far away, but I don’t know that it would have helped to be there. There’s not much I can do with the concept of death.

After the funeral and its related transactions, my parents did come out for their trip as planned. We spent about three days in Disneyland and California adventure. It was a good time; good to have them in SoCal, and I think it was a good break for my mom. This was also my first experience with paid time off.

Cosplay

I think, if I can kick myself into action, I’ll be attempting Ishbal!Roy. I should have just enough material left to make the coat, but I will have to make my own bias tape trim, which I am none too excited about. I do however have the ring and some extra collar plates. I would need to make a new jacket, belt (maybe), over-jacket belt, and overcoat, and I’d have to buy gators to go over the boots.

This is unfortunately the best reference of the uniform I can find at my disposal:

But let’s focus on this one instead:

Nom.

Starbucks

Today they didn’t charge me for the soy in the London Fog I ordered because I’m there so often. I love our Starbucks. I love the people who work in it.

That’s it.

Writing

I haven’t been able to write consistently since college, but recently I’ve been doing pretty well in terms of dedication. I’m steadily plowing through Unconditional, which is the longest fic I’ve attempted, though that’s not saying very much. Anyway, it’s got me actively writing and interested and I’m glad people seem to like it so far because I think I’m so emotionally invested in it that I’d cry if they didn’t. 8D

Gadgetry

Before my parents’ visit, I bought a new camera. I hope it works forever. It’s delightful. It’s a Canon Powershot SX200. Here are the things that make me geek out over it.

• Need to mute the sounds, but can’t beep beep beep your way through the menu to do it? Fear not, with the right button combination you can mute all the sounds on the fly at startup.
• It has a cute little stand-alone clock on it.
• You can temporarily increase the screen brightness without digging through the menu.
• There are two time settings: one for home and one for travel, and you can flip between them.
• There’s a timer setting that will wait for you to enter the frame, then it will take the picture.
• It can automatically detect the scene mode based on its composition.
• It can automically correct red eye, or in playback mode afterwards.
• When photographing people, it will alert you if someone’s eyes were closed.
• It’s blue. I got the blue one.

Most of these things might be standard nowadays, but it’s been a few years since I went camera shopping, and the camera has definitely endeared itself to me. It also seems to take decent pictures, the LCD on the back is ginormous (to me), and despite its relatively small size, it has 12x zoom. (It also has that neat little feature that lets you choose a color, and it will desaturate all other colors.)

More Importantly

In other news, our lease is up. ;lajd;flkajdf

So a few weeks ago, while crazyloststar was away, I went a little crazy and made a futon for my Medicom dolls. :/

Notice the futon has a cover!  And the pillowcases have actual pillows inside!  And don’t Roy and Al look so comfterbuls.

28 Reasons That ‘Twilight’ the Movie Is Better Than ‘Twilight’ the Book

via 28 Reasons That ‘Twilight’ the Movie Is Better Than ‘Twilight’ the Book — Vulture — Entertainment & Culture Blog — New York Magazine.

Just reading the two excerpts highlighted makes me want to burn my computer screen.  But I’m being meaner than the article–it’s pretty amusing.