#225: Spring Clean
Admit it. You did not see this one coming. I’ve read about spring cleaning in books, and I understood the general concept, but today for the first time I did it for myself. Our house had a teensy black mould problem, not helped by the unusually wet few months we’ve just had. Today I opened all the windows and doors, sprayed exit mould until my head spun around and even repotted two of my plants. I know – craaaaazzzy. Ana freaked out and ran up and down the stairs in a wild-eyed panic (which was helpful for air circulation, I’m sure). I also washed all our clothes and towels.
Hopefully CJ and I will be able to fly our borrowed kite this evening. It’s looking good.
Speaking of wild adventure, your pirate pic of the day (from gamerevolution.com):
Ana could totally take him.
#231: Cut your own hair in a fit of rage
When I cut out chocolate I:
1. Lose the will to live
2. Cry a lot
3. Get headaches
4. Struggle to stay awake during the day (which leads to insomnia, then a vicious cycle)
5. Write less
6. Get gross skin (you’d think the opposite would happen, but it doesn’t – the effect of the no-chocolate stress outweighs the effect of the eating-less-oil)
7. Have strong violent urges eg I recently punched CJ’s iphone* (not a sane thing for a financially-stressed person to do).
The Gilmore Girls has been helping to pass the long, hopeless hours until I can eat chocolate again (which helps with #1 and #4), but it doesn’t help me express frustration at all – hence # 7. Last night was especially bad, so I grabbed a pair of scissors and hacked off about 6 inches of my flowing locks. After that my urge to kill was much diminished.** I continued to shed chunks of hair for several rather itchy hours.
At some point soon I’ll get CJ to fix it up a bit.
Here’s your pirate pic for the day. It’s for sale if you go to joshsimagination.blogspot.com (rating unknown).
In related chocolate/violent-urges news, I let myself weigh in a day early today on the basis that it’s that special (and nauseous) time of the month, so I decided that if I made my weight goal for this week I could skip exercise today. After lengthy contortions, I beat the scales into submission. Which means no exercise today, and I feel like all (or at least most) of this last week’s awfulness has made a difference. Hence, feeling a lot better. The worst dieting time is always femininity-related, so it should get better from here.
*Well it WAS giving me attitude
**. . . yay
#35: Cook with butter
I’m so depressed by the lack of chocolate in my life that I currently struggle to stay awake. Fortunately, I have a trusty envelope of Easy Awesomeness, which I cracked open today and found this gem. I’ve also been mainlining “Gilmore Girls”, and the food onscreen has been making me hungry. So today, for the first time in living memory, I made French Toast.
I mixed 1/4th cup of milk with one egg in a bowl, soaked two slices of white bread in it, fried them in butter, then spread them with more butter*, and sprinkled the results with sugar.
I forgot to take a photo, but French Toast is one of the most buttery-summery-toastedy-looking dishes on earth. Play along at home rating: extremely easy and rewarding.
Here’s another fiesty figure of history – but be warned, I was too morose to sit at the computer long enough to read it, so I don’t know the rating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_de_Erauso
A more detailed version of her exploits:
http://www.corrieweb.nl/amazon/historicax13.htm
*and extra butter
Coming soon: Fly a kite. A better mood. Etc.
#224: Visit a display home
Today CJ and I drove to Murrumbateman to visit a display home and see how drool-resistant modern floors really are.*
The kitchen was sooo dreamy.
You’ll notice it has the same floating-bench-with-sink-and-dishwasher that I put in my fantasy house plan the other day.
CJ had a manly swoon at the rising power point (also on the floating bench) – and of course the fact it was designed to be North-facing. It also had bathrooms with separate toilets, which I adore. I also adore the fake stone stuff out the front and under the bench.
The clock in the above picture may look familiar. That’s because CJ and I were given one** when we married.
We did actually learn some interesting stuff between the druglord fantasies. This particular company – Regal homes – can adjust almost anything in the home design to your preferences (including moving walls, chopping bits off, etc). Their cheapest homes cost about $250,000 to build (which at least gives us an idea – that’s for 3 bedrooms and a study, which is more than we’d need anyway). It costs $15,000 to knock down an old home – which is so much less than I thought that it opens up some interesting possibilities.
We’ll just see.
In the meantime, here’s a lady who might have got on with Anne Bonny (my favourite part is when she fakes her lover’s death by digging up a corpse and then burning down the nunnery where they were both, clearly, naughty nuns).
http://www.eldacur.com/~brons/Maupin/LaMaupin.html
*quite
**after some not-so-subtle hintage from yours truly
S#1: Pyjama party
Today’s awesomeness mission: “In bed. Just you, something (or someone) to snuggle, a laptop, notebook or sketchpad, some rad music, a good movie, and a hot cup of chocolate. It’s the perfect antidote for dreary weather or cancelled plans.”
I
I
In two and a half hours it will have been three and a half weeks without chocolate or lollies in the world of Louise. I’m now letting myself drink weight watcher’s chocolate milk – one a day. It really doesn’t cut it, but it’s a lot better than nothing.
Today I had breakfast and watched some “Gilmore Girls”. Then that was too much work and I went and had a lie down (both cats were way ahead of me). Then that was too much work and I fell asleep. Then I woke up and had my pretend-chocolate ration while watching “Gilmore Girls”. I expect the cycle will go around a few more times before the day is done. There’s a reason this awesomeness was #1 on the steffmetal.com list.
The rest of you can cheer yourself up, too – just click on the link below. It has very mild language and themes (the rest of the site is sometimes NOT for children). It retells my absolute favourite part of history: Real-life pirate girls Anne Bonny and Mary Read dressed as boys, fell in love, fought duels, and defied the King.
S#49: Get mentioned on TV
Yep, today is a day of double awesomeness.
An infamous twittertales blog entry was just described by the unforgettable Chrissie Swan on “The Circle” TV show – with my full writing name, and the fact that I blogged about it.
Here’s the original hilarious tale:
http://shootingthrough.net/2010/01/11/january-11-toilet-travails/
PS: Technically, this entry is “Achieve a lifelong dream”. I think, on the basis of the luck required for my cunning plan to work, this counts.
S#25: Watchword
My mission, from steffmetal.com:
“Change your passwords on your email, your bank, your paypal account, everything, to words that make you smile. Banana, elocution, duped, muggle, flippant, pumpkmen, snooty, sneed, salacious. . . the possibilities are endless!”
For obvious reasons, all I can say is that I did. Feel free to play along at home – or make suggestions, if you like. What are your favourite words?
So here’s photos of the sky creeping up on me:
.
And HERE is the post you’ve all been waiting for – huzzah for the extremely entertaining antics of real historical pirates (PG for mild language – the site itself is unrated, and not at all child-oriented):
http://steffmetal.com/history-robberies-murders-notorious-pirates-review/
This is a post I’ve been planning for months, so do click on it.
S#88: Facebook Friends
Steffmetal.com suggested making a facebook friend into an actual friend. This works great for me, because I release my twittertales on facebook as well, which means I have a ridiculous number of facebook friends, and I haven’t the faintest who most of them are.
A couple of days ago, someone initiated a conversation with me, and I responded. Turned out Complete Random # 678 was also a writer, living in Sydney, and after a genuinely enjoyable chat I ended up joining an entire online writing community on his recommendation.
So go ahead and play along at home – turn a facebook friend into a real friend.
In other news, since I now carry a camera with me (ready for awesomeness to occur so I can trap it and sell it to the London Botanical Society), I took this picture during a red light:
This awesomeness was probably a lot more interesting for me than for you, so here’s something to tide y’all over until tomorrow:
You’re welcome.
S#43: Archery
Frequent viewers will be aware that my lack of coordination is famed on three continents. My friends and CJ and I had a Discussion About Louise And Sharp Objects and mutually decided that I wouldn’t be shooting arrows anyplace, ever.
So, with any aura of practicality out of the way, I got my Lord of the Rings on.
I call that picture, “Are you taking a photo?”
The umbrella and brick wall weren’t doing it for me, so I ran and pulled down a curtain.
Good ay?
Now let’s zoom out a little (like they do on CSI):
If you look closely, you’ll notice:
1. The pirate ship in the top left.
2. My brown skirt peeking out underneath the dress due to an over-hasty change. (Superman I’m not.)
3. Three other ships.
4. One sneakered foot belonging to my curtain.*
I wasn’t strong enough to draw the bow very far at all – those things are meant to be tough. As you can tell by the fingers of my left hand in the first shot, I wasn’t especially good at just holding the arrow, let alone anything else. But it was awesome all the same.
This week I’ve written not just one but two brilliant and true pirate history posts for steffmetal.com. I’ll let you know when they’re up – possibly as soon as tomorrow.
To tide you over until then, a picture from jackiemorris.co.uk:
So, what happened with ebay on the fateful day**?
Nothing. Not a sausage. It was quite thrilling to sit and watch as each of eighteen items utterly failed to sell. They’re back online now, with better discounts, better pictures, and a better display system. I can see by the numbers of watchers (plural this time) that things are already picking up.
Also, I lost just over a kilo this week – which means I’ve lost 4.1 kilos on this current no-junk journey, and I’ve just reached the halfway point (in terms of time, not weight). I face three more weeks with no chocolate, no sugary drinks, and no lollies or cake or biscuits – and then we’ll see. To get into the healthy weight range, I need to lose 10 kilos altogether, which MIGHT be possible by the end of the year (which’d be worth a lot, since that was my main goal for 2010).
And today is Tuesday, which means Publisher B might reply. They’ve had one of my books for 18 months***, and another for a year.
*Thanks Ben.
**yesterday
***but who’s counting?
“Salt”, “The Other Guys”, and “Despicable Me”
I watched three movies in two days over the weekend, so here’s my thoughts (for what they’re worth*):
“Salt”
Spy thriller starring Angelina Jolie
The plot was a little sillier than I expected, even in a spy thriller. But I was still able to enjoy the movie, which had more to do with action and character than anything else (the character wasn’t super deep, but she didn’t need to be any deeper than she was). I was genuinely stressed, and I enjoyed the movie. The action scenes and various devices/disguises were completely unrealistic – but that is what I look for in the genre (see Exhibit A: every James Bond ever – action scenes are meant to be unusual, not lifelike). Bonus points for having a woman who actually removes her impractical shoes before running/jumping/climbing. Tom Cruise was originally meant to play the title character, and then it was rewritten for Jolie. Every so often I imagined Tom Cruise in it, and I was much happier with Jolie. She’s just so much cooler.
By far the least plausible part was the background plot of hundreds of kids brainwashed into becoming Russian sleeper agents who lived as average Americans for years or decades. As my friend pointed out, a Russian sleeper cell has just been found in America. Hmm. I forgive the brainwashing, too, because of what happened in the movie. Sorry, I can’t say any more than that or you’ll have to kill me. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Best line: Would you mind looking after my dog for a while (the hero is on the run and just escaped from the government by climbing out her window and along to the neighbour’s little girl – with her dog in her backpack)?
“The Other Guys”
Buddy cop comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell.
The plot was completely rambling and stupid (although the stuff about financial scams in the credits was GREAT); the characters were ugly, charmless, and unfunny (which, to be fair, they were meant to be); and the effects were silly. The worst part was that it was sooooooo self-indulgent. Wahlburg and Ferrell clearly find each other hilarious, and so each scene just drags on and on as they wander past jokes and keep filming for the other two-thirds of the scene. A lot was improvised, and boy does it show. Rating: 0.5 out of 5. I didn’t pay for it, but I resent the time spent trapped in the hole that is this movie. The best part was that the Rock was in it – for two scenes.
Best line: “Aim for the bushes” (not, of course, said by either main character but by the two heroic cops who then jump off a twenty-storey building without any equipment whatsoever)
“Despicable Me”
Children’s comedy voiced by Steve Carell etc
This is about an evil genius who is getting outdone by younger (and infinitely more annoying) competition – so he decides to steal the moon, using a shrink ray. He adopts three extremely cute orphan girls in order to get into the (other) baddy’s fortress, and slowly finds he likes them. This was genuinely funny throughout, with exactly 2.5 sappy scenes (I was wary going in, and was pleasantly surprised). If someone told me it was produced by Pixar, I’d believe it. The humour was better suited to adults than the humour in “The Other Guys” – mostly because it wasn’t based on “Hey, look how unfunny we are! Funny, right?!?!” I was a little disturbed by how fat and ugly basically all the adult characters were drawn, but oh well. I left the movie happier than I went in. The characterisation is well done, and almsot all the character development is done with subtlety (with looks rather than long dull emotional conversations). The hundreds of mini-minions never stop being awesome. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
One of the best lines (many of the best are visual): I meant to close that. (As they test an anti-gravity gun and a minion drifts, meeping in disress, out of the open skylight.)
*This blog is, of course, free
Felicity Banks 