topaz119: (treelights)
hi, hi, ducking in before the complete holiday madness hits to wish you all a lovely winter holiday of your choice (belated but no less heartfelt for Hannukah and Solstice.)

I finished up work yesterday (though it's really less 'finished' and more 'made myself a list and closed the laptop') and will not go back until January 4. I'm debating deleting Slack off my phone, though we're pretty much closed up for the next fortnight so it should be quiet. (I hate having to reconfigure things when I reinstall.)

Today, I need to excavate the giant pile of shipping boxes and padded envelopes and make sure everything I ordered did indeed come in so that I can make any emergency adjustments tomorrow, if necessary. If I don't have to do anything, I might bake tomorrow, at least some candy cane brownies or sugar cookies that I can smother in sugar sprinkles.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out what food I have and what I need--I've already gone by Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for fun stuff (why yes, I did hunt down the last of the Talenti Peppermint Bark gelato across 5 different WF, why do you ask?) I think I have too much food, but all the kids are home and I'm happy to feed them their favorites without resorting to UberEasts or DoorDash so here I am with a jam-packed fridge and two freezers.

Fannishly speaking, I started watching S2 of The Witcher (I think we got to 2 eps) and we watched Tick, Tick, Boom last night (which, if no one has told you, the scene in the diner has every single Broadway legend you can think of in it. I made the kids stop so I could figure everyone out. They were less impressed.) And now I kinda want to go re-watch Rent. I'm still only on Ep 3 of Hawkeye, still haven't seen Shang Chi, and am contemplating going to see Spidey on Monday morning, when hopefully everyone will be other places. (We all finally got our boosters & I got a whole new batch of KN95 masks, I might risk it in the theater. I might also buy extra seats so we have a buffer around us. We’ll see.)

Bookwise, I'm in the middle of my annual re-listen to The Twelve Clues of Christmas, which is one of Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness cozy mysteries, so lots of dead bodies with bonus pre-WWII English country Christmas setting. Next is possibly Rosamunde Pilcher's Winter Solstice--no bodies, just minor melodramas in the Scottish countryside, also at Christmas. I've lost count of how many times I've read/listened to them, but listening keeps me company while I run around and try to get things pulled together for the holidays.

Ok, I have shoved lunch at everyone & the kids have headed out to shop, so I am going to start digging through the aforementioned pile of presents & see what’s what.

Oh! I posted another chapter this morning, so my Darcy/Bucky post-WV/TFATWS fic is up over 50K words (and as I had suspected previously, the slow burn blew up so it’s rated Explicit now, waiting in the eye of the storm.

Ok, now I really am going to go deal with holiday stuff. Have a good day/night/morning!
topaz119: (merry christmas happy holidays)
A List, fannish and not:

  • I finally finished watching Mando S2 which had me texting the group chat (kids+their D&D crew, aka, my Millenial enablers) spoilers )

  • I'm also caught up (to E3) on Hawkeye and spoilers + spoilery speculation from comics )

    Non-spoilery: I am seriously contemplating circling back on my HawkeyeSquared fic and mentioning that it's really NOT MCU Hawkeyes, but very firmly the Fraction/Aja Hawkguy and Kate that I'm writing. I mean, these two are great and I really like their interactions but yeah, not shipping them at all.

  • I've started in on the holiday movies -- new this year has been A Castle for Christmas, complete with a Scottish castle (ish, more like a grand house, but, eh, close enough), a grumpy duke (Cary Elwes and he wears a kilt *very* well), snow, horses, and a tiny, plaid taxi. Also, knitting and main characters not in their 20s. From a previous year was The Knight Before Christmas, which I watched as I put the tree together (more on that later), which was good b/c even with hand-fluffing an 9-foot tree I had to practice deep breathing as our titular knight, time-traveling from 14th Century England to Ohio, as one does, and pretend he was waxing rhapsodic about Christmas trees because he got to burn the ceremonial tree down in the village square? He had a very pretty horse,though. And at least he was wearing chain mail, not plate armour. And was very heroic.


  • As mentioned obliquely above, I finally caved and bought an artificial tree b/c real trees in the size I like are too heavy to deal with alone and really, much of the reason I resisted for all these years circles back to my dad, who, as some of you might recall, was a real piece of work (or an abusive asshole, take your pick. I try to go with unmedicated bipolar and sit with a little gratitude for how well he took care of Mom after all the cancers, but yeah, ISSUES, I has them.) Anyway. At some point during this ridiculous pandemic cycle, I decided that I could spend the money to get a tree that didn't look fake, put it together at my own pace, and burn a Diptyque Sapin de Nuit candle. So, I managed to get a 9-foot Fraser fir on sale from Balsalm Hill (unlit, b/c O.M.G. the pre-lit ones were more than I spend on trees for 10 years (and I am not known for buying cheap Christmas trees from Home Depot.) And they come all scrunched up so you have to fluff them. Branch by branch, section by section. It took forever, but it's done, it doesn't look fake, and I am hopefully going to get lights on it tomorrow when I am off work to deal with some health stuff for D.

    And finally, to the last of the popslashers on my circle/flist: sorry for earworming you with the icon, but do like the song says and enjoy!
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