tea berry-blue

It’s raining, after a day where we “pastured” the chickens (read: let them roam around the yard), and I fooled around making contest entries for hogwarts_elite most of the day.

I had fun working this blog post for work (about an exciting thing coming to our subscription service) along with Clare, who wrote the text for it, and who is awesome. (I took the photos and did the photoshopping).

I’ve had bad allergies this week, which means I’ve been drinking a lot of Coke, which I would prefer not to do, but helps immensely. I’ve also found that gin seems to help a lot, moreso than other liquors.

Right now, I’m drinking a cocktail from my great-grandfather’s book, circa 1935, called a “Boulevard.” It’s gin, red and white vermouth, a dash of grapefruit juice, and I added some bitters (Cocktail Kingdom Wormwood and Urban Moonshine Citrus). If you look a “Boulevard” up online, you’ll find many, many cocktails by this name, which is always interesting. For example, Difford’s and almost every other cocktail repository on the internet has a Manhattan-like whiskey drink, while Cocktail DB has a slightly similar gin and orange juice recipe. This is one of the things I love so much about using recipes from the 1930s.

I also made tarragon-lavender marshmallows last week that were absolutely stunning. I love making marshmallows and it’s so incredibly easy– it takes less than an hour. I really wonder how many people would make marshmallows if they knew how simple it was. Oddly, I keep hearing things about there being a “marshmallow craze” right now, but to be honest, I haven’t actually seen homemade marshmallows anywhere I go, so I’m a little perplexed. I’d love to try other people’s marshmallows, but I suspect this craze is more in theory than in practice.

I’ve been very busy, socially. I keep getting to a week and not having a single evening free. And sometimes I have to miss something or choose between things. I’m not used to this!!! I like it but sometimes I want to sit at home and just make myself a cocktail and watch TV. I’ve actually had to consciously cut back on my TV watching and choose shows not to watch for the first time in my life. I decided to put off watching Person of Interest. I enjoy it, but it’s not as engaging as several of the other new shows this year– Alcatraz, which I hear is getting cancelled (too bad), Touch, and Awake. It just seems like in spite of the science fiction aspect, it’s much more of a typical police procedural, and while I love Michael Emerson and want to watch everything he does, I’m just not as engaged as I am with the other shows. Plus, it sounds like PoI is getting picked up for another season, so I will wait and see if it fits in better next year after the new-show-culling…and some shows I already have on my docket will be gone next year, like House.

I’ve been writing a lot. A lot of my writing is in direct response to some discussions that I’ve read lately, where I’ve seen people talking about why X-story isn’t being told, or why stories with certain types of characters aren’t out there. And I was reading these things and thinking, wait, that’s one of my stories. And knowing that these are things people are looking for and not finding kind of inspired me to work harder on them. I need to just pick one and stick with it, though, since right now I have four novels in progress. Who does that. Well, I have one finished but it needs a lot of editing, and I had a major breakthrough in terms of storytelling and a character change that will fix the storytelling problem in a way that embarrasses me that I hadn’t thought of it before, because it seems so obvious.

I have one book that has a scene that so perfectly mirrors the fan response to Amandla Stenberg’s performance as Rue that it was very surreal for me. (It’s a fantasy novel about fandom, so.) But that book is the one that needs the most work in terms of revising the outline (it’s at that stage, yes). I’ve been working a lot on my fairytale adaptation story, which is coalescing nicely, but I have this other newer story that is kind of demanding it be told and I don’t know what to do with it.

I really really can’t wait for the chip in the brain that will transfer what I am thinking to paper.

Also! As of tomorrow, my cleaning system will have (mostly) worked for two months. I’m really proud of the fact that I have a clean apartment and it’s been that way for two months. I have a living space where I would not be embarrassed to ask a friend over on the spur of the moment! I know where things are, and nothing looks sloppy (except my kitchen, a little). I’m thrilled with myself.

Since last month, I bought myself new furniture, I’m trying to decide what to do to congratulate myself this month. I’m thinking about other things I can do that will both be gifts to myself but that will also improve my overall lifestyle. Wall art is one thing I’m thinking about. A carbonator thingy is another, as is a nice tea kettle. Any thoughts?

I think that is all for now. This is a sort of discombobulated post of thoughts, but sometimes that is okay.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.