Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

I know I posted this last year, but it's still fantastic and I have so many new people on my f-list this year who may not have seen it, I'm posting it again. And it's supposed to be dark those first few seconds. The lights come up at 0:09.

Some of my Christmas prezzies:

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I wish Tosh looked a little more like Tosh. My Gwen action figure totally looks like Gwen and Rose like Rose, but Tosh, not so much. Still I am very pleased to have her. Now she can go on adventures with Nine and Rose. *grins* I finally found an Eleven that I like. With Stetson. I can't tolerate Eleven in Ten's clothes or in the fez and the regular Eleven either came with the one in Ten's clothes or the police woman Amy or the TARDIS and I didn't want to get those since I already have a TARDIS and totally don't need her strippergram *ahem* I mean kissogram outfit. I wanted Amy in regular clothes. It's definitely cute, but it doesn't hold a candle to Karen Gillan's beauty. I am still annoyed that they have no Rory doll. They do have a Roman Auton, why could't it have been Rory? I still need Ianto. They never made Owen. *grumble grumble*

The Doctor has no suspenders on under his jacket. I call cheating.

Merry Christmas Eve and Christmas to those of you who celebrate and lovely days to those of you who don't.

We're heading out to spend Christmas Eve with Chris's parents, sister, and two neices. Possibly sister's boyfriend, too (I forgot to check). I'll pretty much be flat on my back in the recliner with an icepack the whole time (massive back pain during the last PT session and my legs collapsed right under me. I've been told either flat in bed or as reclined as possible for the next 72 hours) and not to do anything. I spent all day yesterday in bed with my laptop. I think I just pinched a nerve (I hope, I hope), but ouch, it hurts. I'm on a muscle relaxant and painkiller which is offering minimal relief and lots of nausea. Called the specialist at one yesterday and waited all day to hear back and of course did not so likely won't until Monday now. On the bright side my knee feels just fine. *sighs* My life.

I didn't get to make my Christmas lasagna this year. Feels like breaking a tradition. But I don't have to stand at the stove cooking, either, which is always nice.

But then maybe I am easily amused.

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I am hoping to get one more chapter of Leap of Faith finished before we go on vacation Sunday, but I don't know.  It's only sitting at 1325 words and chapters are usually between 4400 and 5000 words.  But I would like to end the current cliffhanger before my surgery, because I may not feel like writing at all in the weeks that follow it.

For our vacation we are starting off at Great Wolf Lodge for a night and then going for a swing around the Olympic Peninsula ending in Seattle at Virginia Mason for my surgery next Friday.  I don't know how much I can do at the lodge.  There's only so many stairs I can climb, waterslides or no waterslides.  So I may go back to the room and write when I get tired out.

I may write in the car for some of it, also.  The part between Bellingham and Seattle, anyway.  I've seen that so many times I've got it memorized and except during tulip season it's pretty much the same year round (only dryer at the moment).  I am really looking forward to seeing the rain forest.  It is the only temperate rain forest in the world.  I am hoping we can see one of the places that is super mossy.  I love those big hanging, deep green blankets of moss you only find deep in the woods.  We will also be touring a naval submarine that has been made into a museum.  I really hope that is a good knee day, otherwise climbing down the ladder is going to be nasty.  I will do it though for a submarine tour.  The knee has actually been very good lately so I am hoping it continues to do so.

We will also be touring the capitol building in Olympia.  I have very vague memories of it from my childhood.  Basically I remember a ginormous chandelier and marble floors.  I love official buildings from the time period this was built in.  They all look so splendid and solid and real, with fantastic greek or roman detailing.  I'm a bit of a building buff.  And we will be driving up to Hurricane Ridge because it is supposed to have a magnificent view.  I don't know why it's called that though, as we don't get hurricane's in this part of the country.  We had a tornado touch down once in the last 20 years that I recall and all it did was take the roof off one barn.  We get moderate earthquakes, and Mt. Saint Helens blows from time to time, but not hurricanes.

I will try to answer comments before I go.  At least we will have WiFi in all the hotels we are staying at.  I always feel a bit guilty if I don't get to answering the comments on fic.

I just finished writing chapter ten of Three Hour Tour.  Half plot, half smut.  Very smutty smut.  Very.  I made myself blush anyway.  So it's been sent to beta and will be posted tomorrow.

Happy Independence Day to my American countrypeople.  I'm off to do the firework thing, but leave you with this.

Well, I think I shall have Christmas fic for you tomorrow.  The sequel to I Believe in Santa Claus is coming along nicely and I think I won't have any problem finishing it tonight.  And there should be another chapter of Three Hour Tour coming soon as well.  If I'm lucky on top of all that I'll finish up the next chapter of Leap of Faith and the next chapter of You're What? before the weekend is over since Chris and the kids will be attached to new Wii like it was an umbilical cord to an unborn babe, so that means lots of writing time for me, yay.  It's been hard to come by this week.

I'm still recovering from bronchitis but my brain seems to be back in my head instead of constantly trying to be sneezed out my nose.  We're off to go look at Christmas lights tonight.  It's unseasonably warm (not complaining!) so I shouldn't catch a chill or anything.  There's this amazing set of houses on Starry Road that just takes our breath away every year and then we're off to Lynden to see all the lighted parade floats (they get parked at the various businesses that sponser them after the parade early in December).  I wish I felt good enough to go out to the Santa Train this year but that's not going to happen.

On the bright side my knee seems to be back to almost pre-reinjury standards.  I haven't swam in weeks though and now I'm wondering if it wasn't all the swimming that caused the injury in the first place.  When I get back in the water after the bronchitis is gone and I'm off antibiotics, I will take it very easy.  I've lost all my conditioning anyway.  I'll be lucky if I can swim 1/4 mile, let alone half of one.  Actually, I'll probably be lucky if I can swim 15 laps, but we'll see how it goes.

I am thinking about writing a third poem for the narrative poetry challenge at then_theres_us.  This is a bad idea for my writing schedule.  I adore poetry and it's been so much fun. It would be a happy one this time, but I don't know.  If you haven't been over there reading what's coming out of this challenge you should go, even if poetry isn't your cup of tea.  True you will probably be a sobbing wreck from all the delicious ANGST coming boiling out of the comm at the moment, but it's worth it. *laughs*  So much good stuff.  And some of it from folks who haven't posted anything ficcy in ages.

I keep telling myself that two is probably enough and I really want to finish this chapter of Three Hour Tour, I'm 1000 words into the next chapter of Leap of Faith and I'm halfway through the next chapter of You're What? so I ought to do that if I'm going to keep procrastinating THT.  I've also been eyeing Vortex and Tumbles with that sort of I ought to finish those, shouldn't I? sort of thing going on.  But mostly I'd like to work on THT.  If anyone has seen my smut!muse can you kick her in the butt and send her back to me, please?  And still no Zeppelins'verse muse.  I may need to reread that entire fic again.  Or just the plot parts which should cut out, oh, 50,000 words or so of smut and character development. *snerks*

I guess I should be happy that I'm just writing so much again.  It feels good and right.  I did, btw, hit 50,000 words during NaNo month, just not on anything goalish.  *rolls eyes*  Yes, me, I love deadlines and the sound they make as they go whistling past.  I should have figured the attempt was stupid.  No, wait, I did.  I write what I want to write when I want to write it.  Trying to force things just doesn't work for me and I knew this about me, but wanted to try it anyway.  Oh, well.  Lesson learned.

Am thinking of writing a sequel to I Believe in Santa Claus (here if anyone wants to get in the Christmas spirit a bit early:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/177974.html) called All I Want for Christmas where Nine actually takes Rose to the planet North Pole mentioned in the first fic.  I may or may not make it part of the Romance-a-thon.  There are a couple of prompts that would fit.  Just not sure whether or not it would be blatantly shippy or just sweet fluff like the first one.  We shall see, I suppose.

I am so tired of being sick.  Staying in bed all the time except to get up and get the kids to and from school is not fun (though it does aid my writing).  This latest bit with the food not staying down is painful and annoying.  I hate stomach bugs.  At least the Chinese food seems to be staying down (Sesame chicken and egg flower soup) because I sure as heck can't cook at the moment.  Oh, speaking of food not staying down, found a good new fic (so far) from an unknown (to me, looks relatively new) author that has a married Ten/Rose getting amnesia while Rose is pregnant (hence the food not staying down part) and they wake up in the TARDIS having lost the last three years and they wake up with Gallifreyan wedding rings on and are trying to figure out what the hell is going on and the Doctor just scanned Rose's stomach and it ended.  I'm hooked.  I love this subgenre of the amnesia storyline (wrote one myself once). *laughs*  2 chapters so far:  http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=39672  It's a sequel, but there's enough info in the first chapter to catch you up if you don't have the time to read them without feeling any loss.  I'm going to go read the other two just because I liked this one so much.  A few (very few) tense shifts I noticed, but no blatant typos, so yay.

Okay, I am going to beta fic tomorrow, to the three people I owe fics back to.  Promise.  And answer my outstanding comments on fic.

It's been a bitterly cold week in the low 20's but with windchill bringing it down lower on two days and we were promised rain today to melt this blasted snow.  That did not happen.  Instead it warmed up just enough to snow more. *laughs*  Well, I don't have to go anywhere for four days so maybe this just means more time spent writing?  Bright side to everything I suppose.

Anyway, my kids have been mainlining Doctor Who this week and so I bring you these:

Sonic Snowman (It's supposed to be the Tenth Doctor.  You can't see it well, but they actually sculpted the hair to try to make it stand up.)

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You can just see the chicken coop and the edge of the chicken yard off to the right.

Hope all my American friends are having a festive, happy day.  I can just now smell the turkey and it smells fabulous.  Free range, organic, and no additives or preservatives or anything enjected to "enhance" flavor.  The proof is in the taste.  I can't wait.