So here we are, finishing up the third week of NaNoWriMo, and I'm only about 11,000 words out. Not the best prognosis here, but it's not exactly like I didn't expect to be about 30,000 words behind by now. I'm still sitting down with my pen to write whenever I get the chance, and that's an accomplishment in and of itself. I suppose NaNoWriMo is more about fostering your creative habit than actually pushing out 50,000 words in one month. Once you've done your first 1,666 word evening, I don't know anyone who thinks, "Well, that was easy! I can totally see myself doing that every single day without any interruptions from my job/family/real life for the next 29 days! Piece o' cake!"

While we're on the topic of real life, Mike and I are house hunting. This has been the most time consuming thing I've ever been a part of, and I'm only happy I don't have to do it alone. Mike has his system down to an art - we basically sift through the listings our realtor sends us and narrow the list down to houses we really want to see, at which point Mike turns into a veritable county sherrif and weeds out which houses are in high crime versus low crime areas by going through district crime records through the month of August and noting where there is a high concentration of burglaries, rapes, assualts and (*shudders*) murders. We had a couple of instances where I saw something I liked and Mike came back with, "Well, there were fifteen burglaries down the block within the last three months. Now we know why it's so affordable."

There was this one house we were sort of in love with. We almost put an offer down on it until we discovered someone had beat us to it. Talk about sour grapes; there had ne'er been such sinful, covetous thoughts in my head until that moment. Apparently that sort of thing happens a lot, so I'm chalking it up to experience, and we're just gonna have to be a little bit more efficient at our decision making process from now on. (It was probably a crappy flipped house anyway.)

Lastly, it is a crappy, humid day here in DC. My hair has expanded significantly as a result of this, and considering I'm in for a long work day that will end at roughly 9PM tonight, there is little hope of taming it at any point with some concoction of mousse, gel, or flat iron. I tried putting a clip in it to flatten it out, but there is a resulting balloon animal effect that I don't quite appreciate - like the clip is cutting off the circulation to my enormous fluff.

So. What's up with you guys/gals?

So I just started a new job this week. Again. And I think this one's a keeper. :) It's a marketing position for a good cause (making sure guardsmen, guardswomen, and their families all get financial, medical, emotional support throughout the entire deployment cycle), and it puts me back in the building with all my Air Guard friends. So far, it's been really nice being back at the Guard Bureau.

Not to mention, it's quite the relief to work with people who are not criminals... *ahem*

While I wait for my government clearance to be reactivated I will have no computer or phone at work, so I've brought my laptop to surf the net on my downtime of which, regrettably, there is quite a bit. To stave off idleness, I've been researching some potential marketing avenues while also mulling over my ideas for - you guessed it - NaNoWriMo.

I didn't finish last year. This is primarily due to losing the entire document when my thumbdrive died, and I was so destroyed by it that I decided to put it off indefinitely. As a matter of fact, while my original intent was to pick it back up this year, I've abandoned the entire storyline from last year's NaNoWriMo because I can't seem to get past the seething anger of losing my first attempt (which, I might add, weighed in at about 20,000 words) due to a mystery malfunction of a gadget roughly the size of something that could clip my nails. Nothing quite stifles inspiration like a good facepalm for not backing up your damn document. That said, I'm starting from scratch this year, and with a new-fangled strategy to help ease the flow of words: I'm actually planning ahead!

Taking some tips from "Writer's Digest", I've been jotting down anything and everything that creeps into my brain at any given moment - character traits, plot points, funny scenes and the like, and sticking them all onto a chart that represents the storyline. Naturally, I keep changing it, but the basic story is close to my heart. Yep, I'm finally writing The Temp.

The Temp is basically going to be a rehashed version of my life as a temporary employee in DC, only with a quirkier main character who, I guess, bears an amplified version of my own vices. She runs on a much shorter fuse than me, and she's pretty vengeful towards her nutty coworkers, which isn't like me at all... or, rather, I never actually ACT on my vengeful thoughts! Of course, she'll be a much more interesting individual when I place her in a number of comical corporate situations, all of which come from my real-life experiences temping in a variety of DC area agencies and businesses. There is so much CRAZY in this town, it can't NOT be exploited for literary gain! Note the capslock enthusiasm!

We'll see how it goes. Taking on National Novel Writing Month might be really dumb when I'm starting a new job and planning a wedding, but whatever. If I don't make it, I don't make it. At least I'll be writing. :)

Are any of you doing NaNoWriMo this year? What are your tips for getting through 30 days of marathon writing?

You guys watched "The Office" last night, right?

( Cut for Spoilers! )

Oh, man. Oh, NBC. I died from the lols. I wept from the lurve. You guys better keep the show interesting after that display of romantic comedic fireworks.

I gotta say, when you're planning your own wedding, you can't help but be particularly tickled at prime time comedy's take on nuptials. I was watching with Mike and throwing in the occasional, "Yes, I probably would cry if my veil ripped," or, "thank GOD, we're not inviting idiots to the wedding," or, "cash is always a good idea." And then we had a long discussion about how neither of us actually knows what the difference is between a shower present and a wedding present and when to get what and how.

Luckily, we've gotten through some major planning milestones this week. Rev. Sharon Burrell is going to be our officiant (yay), and our friend's friend Edward has agreed to be our DJ.

Which leads to my next question. He has asked us for some music recommendations, and I'm interested to know what you guys think. I already have a couple of songs in mind, but I'm open to suggestions!

Poll #1468618 What Song Would You Pick?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

Bride/Father of the Bride Dance:

Groom/Mother of the Groom Dance:

Ceremony Songs:

Best "Everybody Get Up and Dance" Song:

Best Wedding Slow-Dance Song:

Best Wedding Party Entrance Song (DON'T say "Forever" by Chris Brown):

Favorite Dance Music Genre:

I love me some creative YouTube. (Also, you agree that the muppet getting thwapped on the drumkit is the best part of this video, right? ROFL)

( In which I muse on what 'living together' with one's fiance really means )

*Touches wand to her temple, draws out a silvery strand, and watches it fall into the glowing basin*

( Mah sexy name. )

How funny is that! lol

Anyway, I'm making a concerted effort to be around a little more. Yes, I know I've said that before and will likely get slapped with another life-changing event/work assigment, but right now, TODAY, I'm tryin'!

Really, I just wanted to take an extra second to thank the people to whom I could not return a comment for simons_flower's picture. It was an emotional time for a lot of people, and for whatever reason, the picture I drew became a focal point for a lot of people's remembrances of Trisha. I'm truly happy so many of those who commented on the picture knew her and loved her. Though I couldn't reply to everyone, I read everyone's reactions with no shortage of tears. Just... thanks for reminding me why fandom is such a powerful thing.

In other news, I've got a bit more DIY wedding stuff to share! Mike and I have decided that we wanted to go with a game theme since we enjoy playing board games together whenever we have an opportunity. Now, the back story begins when we had decided that we wanted to donate to charity in our guests' honor instead of supply our guests with useless knick knacks that would do little other than collect dust on their shelves. Unrelated at the time, I was also interested in finding a creative way to present the escort cards. However, it wasn't until recently that I had an epiphany. Wny not engage my uber-creative Dad (who created my sister's wedding favors) in putting together a lovely game-themed escort card holder that guests could also bring home? I asked him about it, and he seemed ecstatic to do it, asking me to put together a concept for him to work from:

( Concept art - and it holds memos too! )

Whaddaya think? The die would be translucent red, with a clear acrylic bottom, wire for the memo-holder, and my mom's and my calligraphy on the platform. I can already feel the family bonding!

So that's pretty much all the updates I've got. I'll be sure to update with photos once the pieces are in production!

I just realized that, no matter how I write this, it's gonna sound like an ad. But the truth is I think proliferating this information could be a really good thing considering how big the diamond industry is (and how corrupt).

Anyway, I try pretty hard to be globally minded person. I recycle. I buy local/organic when I can spare the nickels and dimes for smaller apples and "Seven Whole Grains on a Mission". I make the occasional donation to decrease my carbon footprint and am moderately obssessed with checking world news on the interwebs.

So, when the discussion came up about what my engagement ring should look like, I had a major moral dilemma. I'd read about the diamond trade and how difficult it is for the Kimberly Process to ensure that diamonds actually come from conflict free zones when blood diamonds can be trafficked into those areas so easily. I didn't want my ring to in any way have so much as a possibility of funding a bloody war in Africa!

I'm also pretty darn traditional. And before I'd read anything about wars and diamond trades, I dreamed of a beautiful solitaire on my left hand to mark my betrothal. Insert the sad face.

But then, my sister and brother-in-law told Mike and I about Moissanite. It's a gem that had been originally discovered in a meteor that fell to earth decades ago, and science has since discovered how to recreate it in a lab. And here's the kicker:

It's as hard as a diamond.
It has more fire than a diamond. ("Fire" is just an industry word for "OOHH SPARKLY!")
No one can tell it's NOT a diamond. (Even the diamond experts have trouble telling them apart!)

And the best part: It's less expensive!

My solitaire ring has a 1ct Moissanite stone in it, and I've received nothing but compliments on it anywhere I go. I love it especially because I feel like I'm wearing something that says more about me than "I'm going to be married." I get to tell everyone who marvels at it that it's a manmade star - a little piece of heaven on earth, which is exactly how I feel about the man who gave me my beautiful ring.

You may recognize the close-up:

( Bet you can't tell the difference. )

If you're curious, you can find out more about moissanite here: http://www.moissanite.com/. I will now be getting off my soap box.

So how are YOU guys doing? :)

PS: I saw myrafur in VA Beach this weekend. She and her beautiful family make me ridiculously happy. She also inquired about my engagement ring and when I said it was Moissanite (pronounced MOY-sin-ite), she burst into a fit of gutter-induced giggles. This, just after she handed me a plush yellow toy in the shape of a sunny-side-up egg and said, "Now you have Herpes."

Just fedexed this pic to WA today in the hopes it will make it in time for the memorial service tomorrow.

"The Forest Again" was Trisha's favorite scene of HP. At madam_minnie and tqpannie's request, I have replaced Harry with Trisha, and dressed her in her Ravenclaw robes.

I wanted her to look like she finally arrived home - to a welcoming embrace.

Really wish it hadn't taken a tragedy to bring me back to the tablet...





Trisha Masen
1971-2009

I met simons_flower at Phoenix Rising, and knew her from then on as a snarky, funny, extraordinarily talented fandomer. She was frequently an encouraging voice on my LJ, and one of the beautiful, indomitable women of The Quidditch Pitch. Her writing was exceptionally expressive and courageous.

And she passed away today. A bright light in HP fandom has gone out.

My heart goes out to her family, and to all of her close friends at TQP. For more information, see tpqannie's post here.

Susan Solo is an amazing photographer in the Northern Virginia area who I've been fangirling in secret. And now we've been fortunate enough to get her as our wedding photographer! As part of the wedding package, she includes an engagement photo shoot.

I'm so truly astounded at what she produced. Just... see for yourself.

http://www.susansolo.com/blog/?p=725

This is the most incredible entrance I have ever seen. ETA: Thanks Adrienne & Bevan for the link!

MJ, you took the music video and turned it into an artform. May we all learn to dance and sing with as much passion as you did when you reigned the Pop world.

Rest in Peace, Michael.

I'm getting married in a little over a year (July 24th 2010), so there's a heap of time before we really have to get into the weeds on wedding planning.

Naturally, this means I have designed the invitations, bought the wedding dress, put a deposit on the venue, and had my first argument with my beloved over the guest list. W00T!

Anyway, when I have the opportunity to post stuff on here on how it's all going, I will do so - especially because I had a heap of questions going into this, and who knows if someone out there might be able to benefit from our experiences, right?

So, in the hopes that I will not absolutely bore every male on my flist, here's the first tidbit: ( Wedding Sneakers. )

So yeah. Hooray for the first wedding post (even if it's not terribly interesting)! There will be others that may be f-locked (like the one in which I post the picture of the dress because I'll be darned if Mike sees it before I walk down the aisle), so just let me know if you want to be added to the filter.

Catch you guys later!

PS: Can anyone direct me to a good wedding-themed LJ icon?

Thank God, no one I know was on the Red line yesterday when the trains collided. Bevan was regrettably stuck on her train for a little while, but she managed to get home just fine. Thanks and hugs to everyone who dropped me a note to check in.

Between the train crash and what's happening in Iran, I've got a lot of prayers to say tonight.

Of late, I have come to discover the following formula:

new job + wedding planning + moving out of apartment = no time, no money, no brain cells left to accomplish much of anything

So many people left wonderful congratulatory replies on my engagement post, that it's my hope to reply to everyone this week. I only wish I could have gotten my act together sooner, but given how many life changes have happened in a very short span of time, I'm glad I got on here at all! (All I need now is a kid and a dog, and I'll have hit just about every single momentous change I can possibly hit at 28 years of age.)

There's lots to say, and I'm going to try to be better. I miss you guys, and anyway, this is the perfect place to document the wedding planning process, which is already riddled with lots of crafty, artsy stuff since I've been suffering from the biggest creative drought since high school. (I've even forced my fiance to pose for me so I can prevent myself from losing the ability to draw altogether.)

That said, a preliminary thank you is due. I'll be back on here with open posts again soon once I've gotten to comments. In the meantime, hope you're all having a great summer!

Mike gave me the best birthday present ever.

And he got it on tape.

I am so totally overwhelmed and in love and grateful and I CAN'T STOP CRYING EVERY TIME I WATCH THIS.

Really wish I had a happier reason to be on LJ. Tata passed away last week. Not much else to say about that except maybe that I'm so sad that I'm not motivated to do much else apart from be sad. She was my grandma, but she was the primary focal point of the nuclear family that I grew up with - she raised me alongside my mother. There isn't an LJ-cut that could contain all the wonderful things about her I could write. So like most abstract things that can't be contained in words, I'll just leave a blank space, since at the very least it is an accurate representation of the gaping hole that's left in my heart now that she's gone.

*blank space*

As a probably psychotic side effect of a death in my family, I've been cleaning house. I've stuffed bags upon bags filled with books and clothes and shoes. I don't know exactly why this is making me feel better, but I think it has something to do with how claustrophobic everything is in the days following the death of a loved one. You're surrounded by people who are also grieving, and they're hugging you and telling you they want to help and while you're really thankful that they're there... it's a little suffocating. Add to that the problem of ultimately going back to work for people who, while they send their condolences, don't actually care if you're grieving so long as you're still meeting your deadlines. More reason to quit my job, I think.

Anyway, make a long story short, I'm having a clearance sale. Everything must go. My closets are cluttered with art and I believe it will make me happier knowing someone out there might want it and put it somewhere where it can make others as happy as I was creating it. Someone out there is going to tell me I'll regret getting rid of everything. I'm certain that won't be the case. I like to think that I know enough about the folks that read this LJ to know that whoever wants some artwork will take care of it because they love the subject matter as much as I do. (Tata, at 93, was a Harry Potter fan.)

So yeah. I won't clutter up anyone's flist here. I'm going to use own_a_mb428 again and put everything up over there. I'll be giving them up one at a time (since I'm only one person and can only carry stuff to the post office one at a time). On the advice of friends, I'll be auctioning the original pieces, and I've got a limited amount of leftover prints for anyone who wants one for the cost of the shipping only. More details to follow on own_a_mb428.

Sorry if this post seems a little weird and disjointed. I'm not quite myself. I'll check back in soon. All my best to everyone.

Just dropping a note to say a long-overdue hello now that I've got a day to regroup after a work trip to Colorado. :) I know I've been completely MIA, but (as usual) it's not my fault!

With a new administration (YAYOBAMA!!), work has had me under the gun more than usual. Since December, all of us in every corner of the Dept. of Defense have been putting in a heap of overtime trying to account for and justify our programs; it's the easiest way for new folks in charge to get read in on what happened before they showed up. Actually, it's kind of neat to be working for the fed in Washington, DC during a time when so much change is happening. Some interesting tidbits that show that Obama's administration is already at work to revamp the way the U.S. Government does business:

- We've all been given direct orders to conserve energy by turning our computers/monitors off every day
- Unless it's a briefing for one of the bureaucratic bigwigs, all printing must be double-sided to conserve paper
- Documentation explaining and justifying our programs must include return on investment and "Way Ahead" (ie. the next steps that will improve our results)

More work is on the horizon, no doubt. It's only been a little under 2 months since Obama's been in office, and while we've sort of had to derail for a bit, I'm certain it'll all be for the best. If anything, someone's going to look at all the paperwork I've been producing for our department and realize that the Army Guard has all our money. ;)

And then, In the midst of all of this stuff, something totally unexpected happened: I fell in love.

It wasn't entirely serendipitous. I was sickened by memories of last year's New Years Eve debacle, so my sister encouraged me to get on eHarmony. Being an eternal skeptic when it comes to internet dating, I had little faith in the success of an online dating service in which I had to detail all of my "Must Haves" and "Can't Stands" and answer questions like "What's your idea of a perfect date?". And to be fair, it wasn't exactly easy to navigate the sea of people that turned up on my list of matches. A good many were evidently the awkward type, which, being the sort to dread a conversation in which I do all the talking, provoked my closet social anxiety - I even had one date in which the guy told me upon my arrival at the coffee shop that he had not given me his real name, but rather the alias he uses to protect his identity in foreign countries where he would bail out international criminals.

Yep. My finger hovered over the "Delete profile" button. My sister told me I hadn't given it a fair shot. I told her she had not been single for longer than a day in her adult life and therefore didn't have the authority to prevent me from giving up the hunt altogether.

But just before New Years' I got pinged by Mike. His eHarmony profile indicated he was an English teacher, and in a series of rapid-fire exchanges, he and I decided to meet by the end of the week. Our first date consisted of early dinner at his brother's restaurant on M Street in Georgetown and a trip to the movies to watch "Slumdog Millionaire", which had us both misty at the end. Then, not wanting the evening to end yet, we decided to go to Karaoke together. The man has a singing voice that belongs on Broadway. Kid you not.

Our first date lasted 8 hours. He walked me back to my apartment, and not exactly knowing how these first date things are supposed to end when things are evidently going well, I thanked him for a wonderful time, lingered for a split second, then inched away towards my front door. What did I know? Thankfully, he had the wherewithal to close the three foot gap between us and kiss me. :) We've been virtually inseparable ever since. I adore him.

It's the short version of what's been going on in my life lately to keep me off of LiveJournal, and while it doesn't look like I'm going to get too many breaks in the immediate future, I can say for now that I'm thinking of you guys and hoping you're all doing okay. This weekend, I'm going to do what I should've done a while ago and clean out my Yahoo email account, so if you've written me there and I haven't responded, please accept my apologies for not writing back immediately and hang in there! (When you're getting 100+ emails a day for work, it doesn't leave too much time to check my fandom account, if you know what I mean. However, I resolve to be better.)

All that said, happy winter to all! In the words of John and Hank Green: don't forget to be awesome.

In these tough economic times, it really makes me sad when I read that my favorite companies are suffering. Today, I read that another Borders out west is shutting down. So in the effort to both vent and say a thing or two to an audience of people who love books as much as I do, or maybe just for posterity's sake, I'm putting down some very quick thoughts on why I love Borders Bookstore more than any other bookstore franchise.

I could talk about how you don't have to pay a red cent to be a Borders Rewards member, while you have to cough up $25 a year to be a Barnes & Noble member. I could probably also say that a cafe doesn't make a bookstore (although if we really want to address the issue, Seattle's Best coffee is better than Starbucks anyway). But what I really want to say is that I am a Borders Bookstore customer because these folks have, in my experience, extended themselves further than B&N to integrate their customers into a tight-knit community of readers. They cater to our schools, host storytime with local kids, and throw the usual blowout events for all of us fandomers that love HP, Twilight, Jodi Picoult, or whatever else gets us excited and decorates the bedside table... only they seem to do it with more style.

Obvious Case In Point: The Borders near me found out I drew Harry Potter stuff, and instead of just letting me continue to do my thing in their cafe unnoticed, they asked if I wanted to do an art show. They promised me the entire top floor. Invite my friends and family, they said. On my birthday. And then, in return for the art show (although I insisted that THEY were doing ME the big favor), they presented me with a free copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. A year later, they asked if I was interested in joining other local artists and photographers in decorating their upper level with prints of my artwork - not necessarily because my art is so great (there is a huge art community in Arlington/Alexandria that they could have easily tapped into), but because they have maintained a relationship with me and other creative people in the NOVA area. We recognize the unique environment that our Borders creates for its customers, and we want to be a part of it. Heck, I send the staff at Bailey's Crossroads a homemade holiday card every year, making sure to mention that I drew the picture on the cover in their very own cafe.

So yeah. I don't care about big name alliances. I also don't care that B&N is more popular and has extra knick-knacks for sale that have nothing to do with books or reading. It matters more to me that I can always find an obscure book at the last minute or a version of Pride and Prejudice with the original illustrations in it. I care that the staff is made up of poets and writers and people who don't just want to shake me off if I've got a question. I care that the folks at the front counter make conversation about the latest academic periodical someone is about to purchase. Maybe that's location specific, but if that's the case, our local B&N needs to reexamine their hiring processes.

In an age where technology threatens to make face-to-face customer service obsolete, I'm grateful for my local Borders and ardently hope that they continue to thrive. And that's pretty much all I wanted to say. Back to belated Christmas Card writing. :)

[/rant]

I am WAY behind on the holiday cards this year (my Christmas will be spent filling them out and mailing them), but I figured I'd preempt the post office by posting this little greeting. :)

It's not Harry Potter, I know. I had all these fantastic plans of making an HP-related one, and who knows if I'll just make it a Valentine's Day project or something, but my job sort of got really intense over the last few months what with our new incumbent president and all (YAY OBAMA!). So I had to stick with one that I could give to everyone, because most people on and off of this LJ know that I work for the Air National Guard.

That said: I wish you and your families all the joy and blessings of this holiday season!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Title: Santa's Brand New Ride
Medium: Pen and Ink
Characters: Santa, Rudolph
Rating: G
Notes: This card pokes fun at the fact that our F-16 fleet is being gradually phased out and replaced by the superior F-22 (featured in the card below). I mean, with a bird like that, who wouldn't trade their sleigh?



( Santa pimped his ride. )