Thoughts on the Journey

For Yuletide, I wrote an Old Kingdom fic called Learning the Shelves about Lirael spending time with her new family. My giftee really liked it and I was reminded how much I like writing in that world.

I'm home after a not too bad drive home made better for being today since I had asked for Friday off and hadn't realized it. So it felt like a free day off. Now I have tomorrow to do more things to get ready for work. I have lots of thoughts about this coming year that I'm going to write up when I'm not still recovering from a long drive.

Fun news, I bought a new work/travel mug and have started putting stickers on it, vinyl ones this time. So far I have a Six of Crows' Crow Club one, one that says 'ban the fascists not books' with an elegant illustration and a lovely one of Rainbow Brite. Next will be one of my many Star Wars' ones and possibly a lovely Mighty Nein one that I have.

Life has been full and it finally feels like its heading towards happier things. This past week, my parents came up to visit and I got a new car. Same model as my old one but the almost newest one and oh its taken a huge load of worry off my shoulders. Now I'm not wondering what's going to break next and my car is so pretty, its a lovely dark blue so I've decided to name it Jester as I'm a Critter now. Also I think it fits, my car is fast and can do so much more than I've fully realized and its fun to drive.

Since they came up here, I'm not heading down for Thanksgiving, but my fridge is full of leftovers as we did a good bit of cooking when they visited. I made pumpkin cheesecake for the first time and oh, so delicious but next time will make farther ahead of time. We also had a great visit with my older relative and her husband which was nice and felt great after the tough one from before. Her husband has dementia and last time we had gone on a long drive and it was a lot. This time, we brought sandwiches and just stayed at their place which went better.

My Yuletide is going slowly but going, I feel like my writing has started to be happening more. I'm writing for a fandom and a ship that I've written before and I have some ideas.

Work is going okay, I found out that we'll be closed the Sunday and Mondays of the holiday weekends, which is when I normally work so don't have to waste leave days on them. There are more jobs that I need to get out to but I'll do that.

I've also finally started on a project of having a new smaller purse from an army bag that I bought at I think Arisia or Boskone years ago. After I found it, I went online and bought some neat Rogue One patches then didn't have an iron so they've just been sitting there. Well, this past week I finally iron on the patches, I'm going to add some stitches for extra security and they look so good. Next big step is clearing out and sorting my bag to use my new bag and do the same for a smaller wallet as well. The end of this year and next year is going to be about life changes that improve my life.

In might be good, might be bad, the building I live in has been put up for sale, it hasn't been sold yet so trying to not overthink it. I've learned for myself and anxiety that I tend to have moments of thinking of the worst possible outcome then reminding myself how to deal if that happens. This doesn't always work when its kind of ongoing like job things but for the apartment it works. I like this apartment but its not perfect and if I had to find another place, I could do it.

I've made my way to my family holiday bubble after a full day of driving and everyone testing negative. Now I'm in the last stretch of writing my Yuletide so I can post it tonight. Then I'll get into helping to carry the Christmas tree down, decorations and cooking. I really needed to be down here, to take a break and be with family. Also the drive turned out beautiful with a wonderfully colored sky and ribbons of birds doing their twisting and turning ribbons. The traffic was lighter than usual too and I had my music.

I'll be slightly about as I'm enjoying taking the time to read The Return of the Thief, which is really good and relax. Another nice that happened before I came down was getting paid for working election day. I feel like there's hope as the year ends, along with stress. Today we went shopping as I couldn't see the one way aisle places and people weren't paying attention to where they were. Everyone was masked but it ended up highly stressful.

Title Turn of Time
Characters Demeter Greek Mythology
Rating PG
Disclaimer No one belongs to me.
Summary Demeter walks the world as she misses her daughter.

This is a terribly late gift fic for in_the_blue and kit_the_brave who gave me a choice of what I wished to write. This idea came to be at one point and wouldn't be quiet until I wrote it.

( She could never keep track of all the borders and new names but judged by the people and how they did. )

This year I wrote On the way back, a Hexwood post-canon story about Mordion and Vierran starting out on their relationship.

This was one of the easiest Yuletides I've ever had as it didn't have to compete with papers and presentations and I could give it the time it merited.

It also helped that I've been hoping for a chance to try and write some Diana Wynne Jones' fic so it all came together wonderfully. dictator_duck betaed for me and was a great sounding board as I figured out my ideas.

I hope that I can keep up this tradition of finishing my Yuletide a little early and having it get ever longer each year.

My Christmas was rather nice as Christmas Eve was my present night with my parents and then on the day we drove up to New Jersey and had another present session with my brother and his family. We spent the night and it was nice but we left pretty early the next day. The day after Christmas was spent quietly, I do love being able to just be with my parents.

Yesterday though was awful and I've been feeling very worn out. I've figured out how to crosspost between the two journals but I know I'll be poking at things as I miss all my icons and my layout. Yet I'd rather not lose track with anyone because they're moving over here, I just hate feeling pushed and so haven't done my various RP journals yet. And I know that many of you love DW and I'll adjust, I'm simply low on energy. So that means that I'm going to crosspost and then go and edit for the right icon on LJ as I haven't figured out which of my many icons to bring over here.

Now what made yesterday so horrible was I woke up to an overdraft notice in my Ann Arbor bank account because my card was stolen and used. I called them and filed a claim to say that wasn't me, but there was another overdraft again. I'm sure it's a case of the two bank parts not talking to each other but I hate it. Also yesterday the weather was utterly horrible, raining and blustery but I went out in it. A local book chain here is closing, Atlantic books and it's near a nice little pub so I drove out as driving and good music do help and found some great reads. I've also been rereading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which is a book that I love for all that it's rather depressing at points. Then with my parents we went to a dinner party with some of their friends which was so terribly mixed. There were gorgeous menorahs, fantastic homemade latkes and borscht but there was a whole round of conversation about freaks and so much patronizing language. My mother said that couple was known for being flippant, but it really hit me the wrong way to hear them basically go it's annoying when patients go and research online. Yet earlier they were going but you should never censor books no matter how horrible, I wanted to hide in a hole.

There was some RP after that was nice and I have ideas for those of my gift fics that I have left. I promise that I haven't forgotten them, I've just been very low on creativity and energy the past few days.

The nice news is that my Yuletide keeps getting Kudos and at least one or two comments which is nice. It's a small fandom and I seem to write Yuletides that aren't easy for the general public but that's okay. The person it was for liked it.

At the moment, I'm not going to try and figure out posting to LJ and DW yet, I probably won't until after Christmas because I'd rather not be fiddling with it. I just finished wrapping my last family gifts and I'm considering having some pups drop off gifts in Milliways as I know some of them would.

I'm also working on ideas for the gift fics I have left, which will slowly be written hopefully all before the New Year. There's a Yuletide gift waiting for me which knowing myself, I will read not long after the stroke of midnight. Though now I've looked won't work, so I'll look in the morning. My new Yuletide icon is quickly becoming my holiday icon as Tumnus in the snow and Narnia is quite connected to Christmas for me.

Tonight I'm going to have a small celebration with my parents and tomorrow we'll open each others' presents before heading north to New Jersey to celebrate with my brother and sister and mainly my two little nieces.

This holiday I feel remarkably relaxed which is a nice change from the past two years when I was juggling the holidays alongside the work for my masters. The constant worry of finding a job is there as we went to a open house last night and I spent a part of every conversation explaining that I'm looking for a job. Though I can also say that I enjoy the part time job I have and for all that it's not my dream job, I am a librarian.

I hope that all of your holidays are full of joy and surrounded by the people you love.

At this point I don't have a DW mirror but will probably pick one up during this break as I don't see myself leaving LJ. I've been here since I think 2001 or 2002 when erinmuse gave me an invite code and through it I've found Milliways which is one of my true online homes. I just don't want to miss all of you who are going over to DW. LJ frustrates me, but I don't want to spend time and energy being angry at it during this holiday season. Instead I'm going to create a mirror, find ways to keep doing what I do normally and try not to lose track of anyone.

I was thinking of creating a mirror today but then I came back from shopping and mailing my holiday cards and my parents' connection decided to not work for me. So it took me about an hour to get online due to resets and other things, which has been my online annoyance for the day. My aim is to try and set one up during the holidays and I'll do another post and then go and find out who everyone is.

In book thoughts, I just finished a book that reminded me of how much I love the history of tall ships; The Fighting Temeraire: The Battle of Trafalgar and the Ship that inspired J.M.W. Turner's Most Beloved Painting. If you love the history of ships and the Napoleonic war, go read this book, the author weaves a fantastic story, the illustrations are gorgeous and it's a great book. I finished reading it while sitting in my favorite cafe in Lewes and eating my regular meal there.

My parents are currently off to New York city to watch an opera, so I get to have a quiet night here on my own, which will probably include RP, writing and laziness. Also I'm going to get some pictures onto my computer as a few of them will be used for presents but there will be a post of them later. Life is complicated but overall good.

Title Worth praying to
Characters Ben Wade 3:10 to Yuma, Demeter Greek Mythology, mentions of Dan and William Evans from 3:10 to Yuma
Rating PG
Disclaimer No one belongs to me, I'm just borrowing them for the story.
Summary There's been a drought and Ben ends up seeing a pray for rain fulfilled.
Written as a gift for sardonicynic who requested something Demeter and Bencentric with the phrase the lies of heroes. This idea appeared while I was driving and I hope you like it.

( It didn’t feel right to speak, the air around them felt empty but as they passed, Ben could almost swear he tasted rain. )

Title We ride and never worry about the fall
Characters William Evans 3:10 to Yuma, Bill Pardy Slither
Rating PG-13 for violence
Disclaimer Characters don't belong to me, I'm just borrowing them.
Summary William rides out as a deputy but things don't go as planned. Bill finds him when he ends up back in Milliways. Title from Tim McGraw's The Cowboy in Me
Written as a gift for thebattycakes who requested William, Bill tin star badges and gold shields. The prompt gave me a lot of ideas and if you like this, I might end up expanding it more.

( It didn’t seem like much to represent that they were both the law, yet it was enough to have folks shoot at them just for wearing it. )