Ravensnek


December 31, 2017 :: 10:33 AM

3 pottermore accounts :: ravenclaw, slytherin, slytherin :: wtf

New year, new me, blah, blah, blah…

I joined the Hogwarts Running Club recently after walking my first 5K in November. I never thought I’d be interested in doing 5Ks, but I want to do more. Even if I have to walk. I mean, there’s runs at Disney (some of them even Stars Wars themed!) and then there’s the Universal 10K… plus the Viktor E Dash. Yeah, I’m kind of hooked.

I’m excited to be part of an organisation that does #somuchgood - logging the miles as I fight zombies (Zombies, Run! Couch to 5K) and applying them in an app that turns miles into donations.I even love the fact that the Ravenclaw House is made up of people who embrace book canon over movie canon - blue and bronze forever, baby!

Also of note, I’m enjoying my new commute. I can leave the house at 8:15 and be to work at 9, even with a stop at day care. I used to have to leave the house at 7 and HOPE I’d be to work by 8:45/9. This means that I’m going to pick up Ukrainian and Spanish (again), since I have that extra house in the morning.

Then, there’s the small issue of my Harry Potter obsession coming back with a vengeance. We’re going to the Celebration of Harry Potter next month / next year / end of January and I can’t wait to cosplay, even if it is as a just a boring Ravenclaw student. I might be playing in the Teen Wolf fan fic sandbox, but my heart belongs to HP and Drarry.

So… my three words, as weird as they are, are 5K, language, and fandom. Each has a SMART goal attached which is new for me, so we’ll see how it goes.

5K is tied to health. I want to finish Zombies, Run 5K app, complete all the HRC virtual runs, and do actual IRL 5K runs. I also want to make 2018 miles in 2018, even though it’s 5.5 miles/day. I know I can get there by December.

Language is multi-faceted, and might be better off if it were change to connect, but fuck it. I want to continue with my Ukrainian and connect with my culture. I want to learn Spanish and connect with my coworkers (and the majority of South Floridians!). I want to focus on The Hunger Games series and read all of them this year in Ukrainian. One a quarter. That gives me 4 months to get through a book. I don’t know how possible that is, but I’ll give it a try. Maybe the first book takes 6 months and the other two will go faster… who knows. I’m going to count the chapters of the first book and see if I can work it out.

Fandom may be the weirdest one yet, but it’s definitely the glue that keeps this year together. Hear me out. Through fandom, I can make new friends, grow personally / professionally (YES! TOTALLY!), create, and it will help me with the other two words.

So there you go…

Bring it on, 2018. I’m going to kick your ass… if I survive the next round of Darth Cheeto’s insanity.

A house isn’t a home…


December 17, 2017 :: 7:25 PM

these two, i swear to fuck

A great majority of our shit is at the house. There’s still a few things left at the flat, but we’re starting to unpack and settle in.

We have cable, we know what is going in what room, I even know what colours I’m painting most of the rooms.

Starting with that fucking Tinkerbell room.

The previous owners of this house replaced really nice hardwood floors with ceramic tile and then painted all the fucking walls with colours a shade or two too dark. As if that wasn’t enough, they painted one of the bedrooms purple and green and plastered a Tinkerbell border on the wall. I don’t know why, but Tinkerbell fills me with RAGE. I’ve taken little chunks of time here and there to begin the COMPLETE DESTRUCTION of that room and I feel so much better. We’re going to paint it a blue colour that is a little too vibrant, but I’m going to tone it down with some white furniture and I’m going to build out some window trim. (I don’t know what it is about Florida, but none of the windows have interior trim and they all have marble windowsills. *sigh* We’ll be changing the interior quite a bit.) 

I already hired someone to come in and remove the largest two mirrors. I’ve also removed some of the ridiculous mirrored medicine cabinets that took up all the wall space in the master bath. No more fun house!

There’s been a white board on our fridge for years and without a doubt, someone with either draw a dick or scrawl the word “PENIS!” on it. I took a 5 minute break from unpacking to defile the clean white board, because reasons. 

 

And now, it’s a home.

Playing in a new sandbox


December 03, 2017 :: 6:19 PM

mmmm, theo

Knowing we were going to close on the 30th of November, led me to believe I would need to be distracted by NaNoWriMo. It was a decent thought - I attempt NaNo every year with varied results. This year I lost (27K out of 50K) because I dug into pintrest looking for ideas for the house. Different distraction. Not sure it was a better distraction because I became kind of obsessed with paint colours and board and batten trim.

Our last house was OURS. Designed by us. Built by us (or the crappy guy we hired, same thing). This house is THEIRS. From the terrible paint colours to the mirrors everywhere you fucking turn. (Like seriously. Did they work for the circus? It’s like a fucking fun house in there.) Our house was mostly builder white for 12 years and I liked it like that. Bringing colours in via couches and pillows and accessories is much better than painting loud colours on the wall. Been there. Done that. I prefer quieter colours now. This house is BOLD. Even when it’s meant to be neutral, it’s NEUTRAL.

So. Anywho. We closed. We went to Universal. I had a nice three days away from my life. Time to decompress from the stress of buying a house. (Because seriously?! I didn’t SIGN OFF on an email the bank told me to write and send? WHO SIGNS AN EMAIL? WITH INK? WTF?) And now it’s time to deal with the stress of moving.

Yeah. We were going to give them two months notice. Then that became a month and a half. Then that became December 31st. Then that became ‘before Christmas’. Then that became ‘before hubby goes to Ohio’, which then became the 16th, which then became “FUCK IT! LET’S MOVE NEXT WEEKEND!” because my mentally ill self is SO FUCKING HEALTHY RIGHT NOW that I can do this. (Not even close. Not. Even. Fucking. Close.)

I need a nap, a cookie, and a hug.

I digress… for NaNo, I decided to write Teen Wolf fan fic. Not a universe I’m well versed in, but what the fuck? Why not? Those 27K words were painful (OOH! CRAFTSMAN WINDOW TRIM) and not just because (GREY KITCHENS) I kept getting distracted by (THEY HAVE DYLAN O’ BRIEN GIFS!), fucking pintrest. They were just hard to get out. If I hadn’t needed the word count, I would have deleted half of it twice and started over.

As it was, I forgot my sleeping pills when we went to Universal. This is always a bad idea. In two nights, I got maybe six hours sleep. TOTAL. Which, of course, really helped with the bipolar thing. Also not helping the bipolar thing was the Christmas celebration at Universal. I’m a New England girl. I love me some winter. I’m happiest when I can watch the snow fall. So trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I’m in shorts and a t-shirt, watching a live action version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and then viewing a Christmas parade, in Florida, in December, and realising that I’m not going to see a snowflake this year… Yeah. Totally not helping with the bipolar thing.

Which is why I spent most of last night writing and re-writing and re-writing all 27K words in my head instead of sleeping.

I’m really hoping I get to sleep tonight because there’s no way I’m going to be able to adult at work tomorrow if I don’t…