Of unbounded domesticity

We’ve been curiously domestic this past week, which I think is less of an anomaly and more of a case of us flipping over to get into our normal groove (which will, of course, change again mid-month when Ken leaves for the IBR).

We did a big meal-planning and food shopping early in the week, which resulted in some nummy home-cooked meals and/or big dinner salads. I also got hit with a craving for chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies, which I never crave. (Chocolate-chip cookies, sure. Oatmeal? Not so much. I freely and cheerfully blame Karen Abrahamson, who brought homemade oatmeal cookies to the OWN workshops, and they were there for me in a time of weakness.). So we went back out one night to pick up the ingredients for those, and I made them last night.

Damn, but I make a fine batch of cookies when I get hit with the urge about every 2.5 years!

(Now I’m craving lemon bars. Hopefully, this too shall pass. After all, I have three tubs of chocolate chip/coconut/oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge now. Because what’s the point of actually baking four dozen cookies for two people? Then again, there’s this lemon tree outside, and lemon bars don’t last very long, and there is a Shire meeting next week…)

We also pootled down to the local Farmer’s Market (a jaunt of all of two block east) to pick up various fresh things, including some corn picked right that morning. We ate it one day later and oh my gods it was good. Om nom nom. Seriously.

Friday we took my car in to Bert, my fabulous Swedish car guy, to eyeball the new engine he put in recently. He then drove us to a movie theatre where we wiled away our time watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Minor car parts are now on order, and then we hit Trader Joe’s for some essentials before heading up to the BMW dealer, whereupon Ken collected his newly tuned-up bike and we headed home.

We have Alias season 3 discs sitting here from Netflix, and now that we’re almost caught up with DVR stuff (less than one thing per night recording, I believe) we’ve been settling in to enjoy those.

And we’ve re-tidied the sewing room (Ken put up a new shelf while I was in Oregon, as well) so we can continue various projects there. Sweet. I did some mending while we acted like slugs and lounged in media room watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (movie version) and Being Human and Eureka.

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Currently Reading: Black Hills, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: Hallucination, Shaw/Blades
Recently Watched: see above

Nifty new writing contest

Hint Fiction:

"Tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2010, W.W. Norton will publish an anthology of Hint Fiction. What is Hint Fiction? It’s a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story. The thesis of the anthology is to prove that a story 25 words or less can have as much impact as a story 2,500 words or longer. The anthology will include between 100 and 150 stories. We want your best work."

Full guidelines can be found here.

Rock it, baby

Saturday I went to my 90th Styx show! Only 10 more until my new tattoo! Whoo!

I didn’t know until about 5:48 p.m. Friday night if I was even going, as I was waiting to hear from a friend about tickets (I hadn’t been able to get good ones when they went on sale). She came through, so the next day Ken and I were in the car headed north to Paso Robles. A fun show, but way too short (it was at the Mid-State Fair). My boys knew I was there. :-)

We set the iPod on random during the trip, which was highly amusing. Apparently there are many complaints about the random feature not being really random. (Ken actually said “They’re trying to make it more random,” which is a delightfully nonsensical statement.) So it kind of went Styx, Styx, Gowan, Styx, Gowan (from the same album), Marillion, Styx, Fish, Damn Yankees, Marillion, Robert Plant, Gowan, Marillion, Ultravox, Robert Plant (from the same album), Glen Burtnik, Guns n Roses, Glen Burtnik, Marillion, Fish, Styx. In other words, my iPod thinks it’s full of Styx and Styx-Related Product, and Marillion and Marillion-Related Product, with occasional other things. Which, given the amount of Brit pop and RWA sessions and folk/pagan/medieval music on it, is just wrong.

Sunday was mostly spent on house stuff. We moved a lot of books and magazines in our joint office, and Ken went through all his t-shirts and dresser drawers and purged greatly.

Today we did a massive grocery shopping so we have food for the next week or so (along with hitting the Farmer’s Market two blocks away come Thursday). And, um…yeah, I’ve been kind of lacking in the whole motivation thing, so not much else to report.

Except that we watched two eps of the Torchwood miniseries last night and three eps tonight, and thank goodness we had an ep of Big Bang Theory after that because Torchwood made me depressed and wanting to throw things at the TV. ::pout:: Stupid Torchwood. It didn’t help that I managed to read about a major spoiler not once, but twice beforehand. ::scowl::

In writerly news, today I received my comp copies of Lesbian Cowboys: Erotic Adventures, containing my story “Queens Up” (as Andrea Dale). It’s got a sexy saloon girl and a ranch lost in a poker game, and I had a blast writing it!

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Currently Reading: Black Hills, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: random, as interpreted by iPod software
Recently Watched: Torchwood: Children of Earth. Dammit.