lea_hazel / Entries tagged with holidays

I made it up to the very last holiday dinner of the month (a comprehensive affair, with various young cousins) before I was overtaken by some kind of upper respiratory tract infection. First it was chills (no one else was cold), then I briefly had a sore throat and difficulty swallowing, and eventually, my nose just became so congested I could barely sleep. Like, last night, I was up for about 3-4 hours (in the middle of the night) because I kept having to get up to blow my nose.

I took advantage of the opportunity to catch up on some old chapters of Gunnerkrigg Court, which I had read devotedly (about a decade ago) before it fell off my radar for reasons I can't explain. For some reason, I was lately thinking of it again. So I went back to some chapters that I dimly remember reading.

Of course, because of my cold, I still haven't started my Yuletide assignment. I'd only just scratched the surface of my canon review.

My mother has been planning a big family trip to NYC since about last fall. It was supposed to be in March, and it was supposed to be for her birthday (which is in January). But in February, she and my father both got very sick (and I was sick, as well). We had to put off the trip, much to the disappointment of everyone involved. We rescheduled to September, during the holidays, to allow the working members of the family to get as much time off as possible.

We're flying tonight.

( Read more... )

stressed

I'll be super busy through the weekend since our Pesach tradition includes not just the Seder itself but a holiday meal the following afternoon, too. I'm making the meat for the Seder this year, too, so it'll be a busy time.

So I decided to take Thursday and Sunday as chill days, to get some rest. More mental rest than physical, really. Today I did almost nothing all day. Ate takeout for lunch. Took a very long shower and did some personal grooming rituals. Packed my nice clothes so I can spend the night at my parents' house. I even packed my makeup bag, although we'll see tomorrow whether I really feel like taking the trouble to do my makeup.

Though I'd better double-check that I remembered to pack a mirror.

I have not yet made a post for the new year on DW, so Happy New Year and may 2022 treat us all kindly.

I am ostensibly supposed to be working on a new year's post for my WP blog, right now.

Right now, big important things are happening with my IRL family. We're entering into a necessary period of uncertainty, and all of us are dealing with our anxieties in different ways. One of the ways I'm dealing with mine is by how I adjust my two-week schedule. I've lately gotten into the habit of setting a loose work schedule for my writing in chunks of two weeks, and I anticipate lacking focus for the work, while events are happening around me. I also may have less material time, if my family needs me to e.g. cook or help with chores.

Events will unfold as they will, and I have no control over them. I've really prepared as much as I reasonably can. And in the end, this is a good change, it's just this transition period that is obscurely stressful and uncertain. Most likely, everything will turn out more or less okay.

And while I attempt to parse my feelings on the subject (with the help of my therapist), I am also signing up for

purimgifts (as I do almost every year), and

worldbuildingex (for the last round, unless it's inherited by different mods). Being able to focus my energies outside of myself is another way to manage my bad overthinking habit. And I even know exactly what I want to nominate for PG, this year.

I missed Wednesday altogether due to an MRI that left me tired, anxious and bruised.

Thursday had only one event that I really wanted to listen to, it was okay.

Today, Sunday, has a ton of events that I want, to the point where I am writing the day off for any other work (other than picking up groceries in the morning and putting in one load of laundry).

Late in the evening, there are several remote events with Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner, all of which I am looking forward to. Like Naomi Novik's writing workshop, this is one of the great advantages of online or hybrid cons.

I am also looking forward to an afternoon event titled "On Betrayal", a subject relevant to me, the author of a game titled Turncoat Chronicle.

Sukkot is here! Sometime during the week, I really need to make myself go out for an evening walk when it's nice and cool and look at the sukkot in the neighborhood. I haven't ever done it and I've been living here for about a decade, all in all. Not cool.

I'm also visiting my sister this week, on the way to a medical test. And there's the yearly geek con, which is in hybrid format this year, but I won't be able to make it to any in-person events. I'll have to think carefully about online events. I haven't had a single decent writing day this week.

Today was supposed to be a writing day, but then I stayed up late, and then I slept late, and then I hyper fixated on a bunch of things, and... Well, you know. I could use the rest, anyway. Not that I didn't take a whole bunch of time off only last month, for my birthday, but I also had a stressful day on Sunday, when I had to replace my phone.

Anyway, nomadic huts. Can you see the stars through the roof of yours?

I would make a post about Yom Kippur, but I had another one of my recurring thematic dreams. One of the school-related ones. Not the one where I signed up for a class and forgot to attend. The one where I'm back in high school and I'm trying to figure out whether I have enough credits to graduate.

I think it's the emotions in these dreams that feel so genuine that they make me question whether, out there, there is a version of me that did these things.

Yesterday I was with family all day for Rosh Hashana (part of our elaborate family tradition), except in the evening, when I manag4ed to do some light outlining work, and compose a reply-to-a-reply for one of my meta posts on Tumblr.

Today, I was planning to do a full workday, even though it's technically chag. I had two writing intervals scheduled on my calendar, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. That should have left room for household chores, decent break time, and even a long morning routine.

Except that my brain kind of refused to gel? It does that sometimes.

Then when I was making my after-lunch coffee, I contemplated what else changed in my routine recently. And Even though I've never managed to do that single-minded focus that other ADHD-having people get with their medication... I think I finally have some insight into how it *does* affect me.

I'm going to try to test that theory tomorrow, and possibly on Friday, too. I'll report back if I'm successful.

I brought my laptop with me to my parents' house when preparing for the holiday, but that was a nonstarter for multiple reasons. Not least of which is that, through my own carelessness, I managed to get a small burn in a very inconvenient location on my body. It's not severe, or anything, but it's been persistently irritating.

Olamot is still online, much like Icon was in Sukkot. For me it's fairly convenient, although I assume that the reason they organized it this way was because they couldn't be certain when lockdown orders would lift. Further, a lot of the regular participants are kids and teens, who are mostly not vaccinated (except some of the oldest teens). The Covid-19 atmosphere is still very much on us, although this holiday is immeasurably easier and less frightening than last Pesach. I am still not certain how I'll manage to balance the con events with my writing, and any other activities I might want to do during the holiday.

Wednesday: summer. Friday? winter. Next Sunday, summer again. Ah, spring.

Today I spent part of the morning going through my box of meds and comparing it to what's on my 3-month scripts, to see what I'm short of and what I have extra. Then I took my annotated list to the pharmacy, where the pharmacist was remarkably patient with these shenanigans. I told myself that I was going to be good, but I decided to reward myself with iced coffee all the same. Especially given how nice and sunny it was, and the fact that it was steadily inching closer to lunchtime.

I have some more tests and things lined up, but I'm also doing a little self-imposed "writing retreat" next week, so there's something to look forward to.

( Covid stuff )

We live in uncertain times.

We're back in quarantine, more or less, and on Friday we celebrated Rosh Hashana over Zoom. This morning (once the holiday was over) I had to pop out to the shopping center, to pick up lightbulbs. My living room bulb burned out on Friday night, of all times. On my way, I picked up coffee from the bakery, because I was out of instant and my grocery delivery won't arrive until tonight.

There were people out, but many shops are closed and the area wasn't exactly crowded.

Then I came home, did a little reading, made lunch. Did some house chores. In between, managed to write some code for Fairmont and do a bit of outlining. I realized from my struggles with ending TC that my main problem is that I didn't give enough through to the structure of the gameplay early in the design process. I'm trying to do better with Fairmont. This is giving rise to an interesting phenomenon of variable theme and tone, which will affect player experience even more interestingly.

But I'm not ready to expose Fairmont to more eyes, just yet.

The heat has been less intense. That's something. Still, my allergies are acting up, and last night I had a surprise migraine.

Erev Shavuot was Thursday and we had our family dinner on Friday night as usual. I cooked a very rich pasta sauce that was a hit, but also I made twice what we needed so now I have a plastic container full of very rich pasta sauce in my fridge. I also made cheese biscuits (subbing emmental for the cheddar the recipe called for) and bought mini cheese suflees. The rest of the family contributed other dishes and on the whole we had a real feast on our hands.

I passed Saturday in a legitimate food hangover. I regret (almost) nothing.

Today I'm going to see the lung doctor for the first time in two years of being off my asthma meds. I'm not sure how that's gonna go.

We might be getting a second wave of Covid-19. There have been clusters of infections in schools.

Otherwise things here are as well as can be expected, while the rest of the world looks to be on fire. I keep up with the news but not as closely as I might have done. Somehow or other I have to keep working.

Figure I'm gonna make this pasta sauce and these biscuits for Shavuot. It's one of my favorite holidays to cook for because I love cooking with dairy.

This is the end of week 4, as I count it.

( Read more... )

I'm getting by. I'm okay, really.

Third election. Voted. Don't expect it to do much good. They say if you didn't vote, you don't get to complain, and I love complaining, so I voted.

Still on an October Daye kick. I'm on the next-to-last (barring preorder) so this will be the last one, because the most recent title in a series still has the new book price, which is almost double. And I have so many books already, so I had best try to finish them.

After this, I'm holding myself accountable and I'm gonna finally finish This Is How You Lose the Time War -- which I had been loving, and I'm still not sure why I set it down. My reading streaks rely on momentum.

My

purimgifts fics for this year are almost complete, too. And my stubborn cold has mostly receded.

I went to bed at midnight, and woke up at 2AM with a sore throat. Two lozenges later it's no better, so I got up and made myself some tea.

Happy new year.

I spent most of this afternoon watching the entirety of Russian Doll instead of working on a story submission that's due at the end of the month.

And now I'm sitting here, staring at this story, and the little bastard tells me it's perfectly happy being 1,400 words and doesn't want to be expanded to 3K, the minimum for submissions to the antho I've got my eye on.

I gotta write something, but I'm so fucking tired. And there is nothing to eat in my apartment that doesn't require preparation, which is by far the worst part of Pesach for me. I keep saying "I'll make" and then not making anything.

Edited 12/1/19 11PM IST

General pros: gen, strong but complex family relationships, female mentors, nonbinary or gender variant characters, femslash, poly shipping, snark, banter, did I mention gen?

General cons: more than canon-typical violence or gore, large amounts of casual background sexual violence, romanticizing dysfunctional relationships, pairing off every single background character, aro-negativity.

( A note about cartoon fandoms and violence )

( 3Below )

( Cinders )

( 7KPP )

( She-Ra and the Princesses of Power )

( Steven Universe )

( The Dragon Prince )

( Crossovers and A/Us )

Most importantly: have fun with it.

I wanted to make December not be the worst month but I'm too tired to write. I think I'll curl up in bed and read a little fanfic before I go to sleep.

Happy new year.

On the face of it, September was not a good writing month. My word count spread sheet, which I am still diligently keeping for 2018, shows about 11K pure words written in September. The holidays were a huge drain on my mental resources, and despite my best intentions, most mid-week holiday days didn't get used as full writing days. Lots of days off were taken. Lots of naps were taken. But also, on a more optimistic note, I did a lot of background and outlining work. I did a lot of code work on Turncoat Chronicle, too.

In other fun news there was Icon 2018 which was mind-blowingly awesome, to be quite honest. And I got my first-ever fanart early in Sept. for TC, followed closely by the second. So that was a pretty amazing tick on my writer's checklist.

I start my new job on Sunday and I haven't (yet?) written a con wrap-up post.

I have a hell of a lot to do with what little is left of the week and I just got up an hour ago from a totally unnecessary nap. Seems like a perfect time to sink into an hour or two of Skyrim, for no particular reason.

busy

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Laughter Through Tears

Entries tagged with holidays

Syndicate

Ending the holidays on a positive note

Flying

Pre-Holiday Snooze

Hello, January

Icon 2021, Day 3

Nomadic hut appreciation week

More weird dreams

Shana Tova!

Pesach

I guess spring is here...

Small Things

Happy Cheese Day

Holiday Food.

Holidays, Writing, and the End of Week Four

Election Day (3/?)

Ow.

So much for spring, it was fucking hailing earlier today.

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