Category: Misc

Happy square root day!

I fear that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
A three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath a vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three
Has quietly come waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
And with a wave of magic wands
Our square root signs become unglued
And love for me has been renewed.
~ The Square Root of Three by David Feinberg

Outlook: sunny with a chance

Recovery mode: on!
Snark mode: off (mostly)
Health: improving
Word count: better, if only by 600 words
Goal: 500 words/day or 2,500/week

The above is my post for JaNo this month. My only post for JaNo this month. I am beyond the  prodigal daughter at this point as far as that’s concerned. But! No one’s cut off my access, so I decided to post over there as well.

This post also marks my 300th post on WordPress. Ah, WordPress, how I love you. You’re a blogging platform! You’re a website! You’re lunch!

And we (as in Darcy and I) hope that very soon, we’ll be giving you more WordPress goodness–but it’s all super secret double probation at this point. But stay tuned …

Now that everyone here can go to school/work, pay attention to/be aware of their surroundings, we’ll be in catch-up mode too. I even went to the grocery story yesterday. I walked around kind of dazed, sort of like I was a Muscovite GUM shopper circa 1984 who was suddenly transported to the glories of the decadent west.

It was great.

Now, off to visit my heroine where I left her, which was in a very large hoop skirt with lots of ruffles.

Recovery train: not at the station

Well, I thought yesterday evening the recovery train had pulled all the way into the station. Bob made crock pot rouladen. It was really good. And I was really hungry. At last.

Then, my fever returned last night. Not bad, but I’m officially sick of drinking Gatorade and tea, and I’m officially sick of being sick. While I did read most of the weekend (man, I haven’t done that forever), I’d like to do something else now. So, white blood cells: get back to work.

And memo to the coworker who took the entire box of tissues from the women’s restroom: Dude. Couldn’t you haven’t taken a few back to your desk like the rest of us were doing? And speaking of the rest of us. We’re forming a posse. If we find you and the hoarded tissue box, you’re in trouble.

Just sayin’.

The tale of the three faux fur blankets

Since they’ve been putting in yeoman’s work lately (well, inasmuch as blankets actually perform labor), I thought I’d highlight the unsung heroes of our house: the three faux fur blankets.

blanket1

This was the first faux fur blanket we bought. Actually, Bob bought it a few years back at a Target after-Christmas sale, when they were trying to dump all the winter stuff. It’s faux fur on one side and faux suede on the other and it’s nothing but fauxy goodness.  The only downside is it’s more of a throw than a full blanket. It currently resides on Andrew’s bed.

Bob searched all over for another blanket like this one (and he often mentions how he wishes he’d bought all the ones on clearance). We thought: wouldn’t it be great to get a faux fur blanket, only in bedspread size for the winter. We tried and ended up with our second faux fur blanket:

blanket2

In theory, good. However, the great synthetic beast from which this fur came obviously saw her stylist one too many times. She’s a tad over-processed with far too many highlights. The underside wasn’t so much faux suede as generic material. And on the bed? Well, let’s just say this blanket now resides in Kyra’s room.

However, as you can see, it is cat-approved.

About two years ago, I bought this blanket as a Christmas gift:

blanket3

This is the diva star of our faux fur blankets (and she knows it). One side is that really soft almost-feels-real faux fur and the other side is … down. Is it warm? It. Is. Warm. It currently resides on my side of the bed. All. Winter. Long. because I am Always. Cold. Downside? It’s also throw-size, but we deal.

Books 2008: Autographs and Ritas

autograph

Somehow during 2008 I managed to collect all these autographed books without really trying. And of course, Andrew and I got to meet John Green last year. I was going to post this earlier, but I was missing a book for the photo I wanted to take. So we ended up looking for … wait for it … Looking For Alaska.

It’s difficult to tell in the photo, but we probably should’ve bought two copiess of Looking for Alaska, one to keep in pristine condition and the other for Andrew to tote around in his backpack.

So. Books. Made of Awesome. Also awesome is when you get free books in the mail. This year, I get to judge the Ritas (and I totally forgot to sign up to judge the Golden Heart, but considering my schedule, it’s probably just as well).

But that’s about all I can say. I don’t think I can even mention the categories I’m judging at this point–it’s all very super secret double probation. But I will say I have an interesting variety.

Some updates:

This year, a new entry will be added to encyclopedias everywhere. When you look up “installation guide factory,” there will be a picture of me huddled over my laptop at work.

I am still managing to write despite this. I’m nobody’s speed demon (but then, I never write that way), but I’m up to 15,000 words in Dating on the Dork Side. Hey, I’ll take it.

Weekend update

You may have noticed the Geek Girl Twitter in the sidebar. Really. Geeky. I know.

I’m up to 8,278 words for Dating on the Dork Side.

I’m now in a baking club, membership: 2–me and Miss B. Anticipate an increase in cooking disasters.

I have a riveting post on the tale of our synthetic fur blankets, an in depth compare and contrast, if you will. I know you can’t wait, but you have to. It will be worth it. Trust me.

Oh. Dark. Thirty.

So the alarm went off a little earlier than it has for the past two weeks. The dog didn’t budge. She barely raised her head. But I felt the psychic waves rolling off of her:

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

I was up in time to see Oreo do her stretch-walk out of Miss B’s room. And we did our morning routine, albeit much earlier than the past few weeks:

  • Dog, out
  • Pets, fed
  • Coffee, brewed
  • Exercise, commenced
  • Computer chair, stolen by cat

Oh Dark Thirty isn’t all bad. I listened to Michael Hauge’s talk on character arcs during the commute today, then grabbed his Six Stage Plot Structure.

I may not have quite as many words as some of the others on JaNo (5,131 at last count), but I’m feeling strangely fine.

The last day of the year

A miscellaneous catch-all post for the last day of the year.

Because–apparently–we don’t own any tables:

kitchendraw

The artist at work

Andrew before the big JV invitational swim meet:

Maybe I can just tell them I ate some bad fish.

He was a little nervous.

Our discussion about me slipping on the ice:

Me: I thought I broke my arm for a moment.
Andrew: Did you cry?
Me: No.
Andrew: Then you didn’t break anything.

Conclusion? Tears: Better than an x-ray. Still, the score stands, ice = 1, my elbow = 0.

And Darcy has a post up a JaNo. Go read all about what a girl wants.