misfitmonkey

The doggers had a busy, busy day today! First I took them to the vet, and then picked up my MIL (mother-in-law) and we took them to Moochies at the local mall, and then to PetSmart for some Greenies (holy CRAP do dogs love Greenies…) and other assorted things. The dogs basked in general passerby worship behavior, with dozens of people petting them and asking “what kind of dog is that?” and generally just loving them to death.

It was really nice to spend the afternoon/evening with my MIL as well. We plan to take the dogs out for happy times again soon. I can’t WAIT until it warms up and the dogs can go to the park and other dog-friendly venues! They’re REALLY well behaved in public… I’m thinking of going through therapy dog training with them so I can take them to work from time to time. :)

Wow, last night was strange. I went over to do a last vacuuming of our apartment before we hand over the keys, and it was like a flood of emotion to go through that empty apartment one last time.

So many big things happened in that apartment over the few years Jim and I lived there… It was our first place together, and as I walked through the apartment, all I could think about were the memories that were created there.

The big things accomplished or experienced while living in that little two-bedroom apartment:

- Jim and I lived together for the first time, and went through the process of learning to share a living space with a significant other (the battles over furniture placement, who does which chores, who gets the remote). [Pictured to the right is the painting our guests did at our apartment housewarming when we first moved in. :)]

- I got my “timshel” tattoo, became an Apple/Mac convert, wrote four Nanowrimo novels, playing a LOT of WoW, became a tea junkie with a tea podcast, rediscovered comics, and bought (and fell in love with) my first dSLR.

- I decided to go back to school, and completed my Masters in Social Work, doing two internships, working and going to class full time for two years, and I survived.

- Jim and I decided to mine the stone for my engagement ring, and then got engaged, then got married.

- I went from doing inventory on brass ball bearings in Orrville, to working with kids age 3 to 5 with developmental disabilities, to being the Community Leader for Viddler.com, to working as a psychiatric social worker once I’d finished my degree.

- I published a book, which I had never had the balls to do, and I’m still really happy that I did it, that it was on my terms, and that I had a ton of support and encouragement.

- I grew up more in that apartment than during any other period in my life, spiritually, professionally, and emotionally. I’ve grown into some great friendships and I’ve grown out of some unhealthy ones, becoming more assertive and more sure of myself along the way.

What a ride! :) I’m not sure any other place I’ve lived on my own has had that many memories. As I stood in the apartment, I think the enormity of our decision to buy a house finally hit me, and I could feel a page turning, launching Jim and I into whatever is going to happen next.

I can’t wait to see what that is. :)

Last night finally felt like “New Years” for me… the officially closing of one chapter and really feeling fully launched into this one.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. I finally finished it.

It took me a while to get through this one, but I’m glad that I finished it. There’s just something about Margaret Atwood’s writing style that fascinates me, both as a writer and a reader.

This is a really interesting take on where we could be headed if we continue to use the planet as an endless renewable resource… when it isn’t. Really interesting take on genetic engineering, ozone layer depletion, and even future drug addiction. It also warns of fanatical behavior on the other end of the spectrum, with environmental extremism.

Many of Atwood’s books have taken me a long time to get through, which isn’t typical for me, but it’s always worth the thought provoked through the reading. This one has an interesting tie to Oryx and Crake that makes me wish I’d read them in closer proximity to each other, because I felt there were probably several connections and shared characters that I missed. I may dust off Oryx and Crake to find some of them. :)

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Here’s a slideshow of my 2009 pic highlights:

Click here if you don’t see the slideshow.

Highlights:

- 1st wedding anniversary
- Family time (birthdays, Damien’s first full year of existence, getaway weekend, Cedar Point/Put-In Bay, etc.)
- Getting a dSLR and getting into photography
- Publishing a book of poetry
- Podcamp Ohio 2
- Playing a lot of Settlers of Catan
- Ridding myself of a few relationships that weren’t really relationships anymore
- Finished my 8th (I think) Nanowrimo
- Switching positions with the psychiatric department at work
- Buying a house
- Adopting 2 dogs that I love love love

Plans for 2010:

- Get DPOA paperwork and a Living Will in place
- Continue to strive to be a healthy person
- Unpack
- Embrace whatever comes next

Here’s to whatever is coming next! I hope there are a lot of amazing things in store for all of us. :) xo

Happy New Year! If you don’t have a resolution, please consider filling out a living will and durable power of attorney paperwork this year. You really need to do it BEFORE you need it, whether you’re twenty or eighty years old. I’ve really had a frustrating week of working with patients who are in advanced stages of dementia and don’t have a decision-maker in place.

Trust me. Just DO IT. You have no idea what a huge fiasco it can be for you and your family if things are not properly in place when something happens and a decision-maker is needed. (So as not to be a hypocrite, I filled out the paperwork yesterday on New Year’s Eve and am going to have it notarized as soon as possible.)

If you’re in Ohio, here’s a DIY form generator, and you can find the legal forms for your state by starting at LawHelp.org and choosing your state.

Resolution advice aside, I spent the afternoon frolicking in the snow today with my little brother Ben and my two beautiful pups, Mae and Makai. I’ve really been wanting a warm, sturdy winter coat for snow play with the dogs and my mother got me one as a surprise.

Here are a few pics taken with my phone (in good lighting, I’m really amazing at how well the iPhone 3gs takes photographs):

Man, do these two dogs LOVE snow. It was a lot of fun, and now I’m equipped for regular snow frolicking! It’s been a great start to 2010 so far. :)

- Moving is a time during which it would seem a gal is likely to simultaneously want to thank her husband for all the heavy lifting and also strangle him for constantly just being in the way and putting things in the most ridiculous places.

- For Christmas this year, Jim and I made boxes for everyone, with a tile done in alcohol ink by me, and the actual wooden box made by Jim. They came out beautifully and I forgot to take a single picture of ANY of them. Poo.

- My nephew is a year old and was ADORABLE at his birthday party:

Click here for photo album if you don’t see the slideshow.

- My kitty Penelope has finally emerged from hiding after a several day stint behind the stairs protesting the two enormous beasts that have been allowed to enter HER home. *whew*

- Having a fireplace is absolutely AWESOME. Not only is it awesome on a regular basis, but all these torn packing bags and boxes make great additions to the fireplace and help us cut down on bulky trash.

- Days off work are AMAZING. I feel like a different person on Day 5 of this Christmas break, even with all the unpacking and mayhem.

- I am hopefully going to be painting pottery with my little brothers today. Pics will ensue!

Holy smokes, life has been busy. We closed on the house on Friday the 18th and on Sunday, around 11:30, we brought our two adopted Tibetan mastiffs home.

My stepdad Jeff and my uncle Scott drove all the way to Virginia Beach during that awful snowstorm the weekend before Christmas (they drove THROUGH D.C., which was a disaster zone) to retrieve these two rescues from a Tibetan mastiff breeder who was fostering them with her other dogs.

Here’s some info on them from the rescue website:

These very sweet dogs are in need of a home due to the misfortune of their owner who has lost her own home. Mae and Makai were bred by Donald Davis, a US breeder who passed away last year, so Himalaya Tibetan Mastiffs and Sa Nashoba Tibetatan Mastiffs are working together to find them a new home.

Mae’s registered name is Mei Xiang Saje and her date of birth is Jan. 22, 2001. Her dam is Kyra Rose and her sire is Ely Tanuk. Mae is spayed and in excellent health. Her vaccinations are up to date.

Makai was never registered by his owner, but he is a brother to Mae from a later breeding. His date of birth is February 12, 2003. He is also in apparently excellent health and he is intact. Any prospective home will have to agree to have him neutered.

Makai is scheduled to be neutered on the 11th, per my agreement with the breeder, and he has the same birthday as Jim, which I thought was a neat coincidence. Mae is a little older (they’re both older, really) and is an older sibling to Makai.

They are small for Tibetan mastiffs, but still definitely fit into the large dog category, and they are SO FREAKING MELLOW. I mean, these dogs sleep, they walk around a bit, and then they sleep some more. They are genetically predisposed to love the cold (mountain dogs), so the most excited I’ve seen them has been outdoors (today with all the snow they were going completely bonkers).

Still working on the eating routine since TMs are wary at first and the most prominent evidence of this is that they aren’t eating a lot (TMs aren’t big eaters, despite their size, but still), and they also won’t set foot in the basement.

Bringing the cat over from the apartment went well (dogs didn’t care, cat is a little pissed), and my family has fallen in love with both Mae and Makai in very short order. My little brothers can tell them apart already, which is difficult for most people, and we took them to both Christmas celebrations this year (in-laws and my family) with no hiccups.

The most noteworthy part of getting these two dogs is that I am totally and completely in instant love with them. I mean, for the first few days I would lie on the floor next to them and just stroke their bellies or watch them sleep.

I knew when I met my first mastiff outside of a PetSmart several years ago that the breed was my instant favorite and that I really wanted to get one when I had a place that would allow a dog, but I was totally unprepared for falling in actual and immediate love with THESE two dogs.

Between the new house, two new members of our family, and a lot of family time over the past several days, this has been a truly amazing holiday season. :) I hope all of you had an equally wonderful holiday!

Holy Smokes by Katie MacAlister


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yeah, yeah. Okay. The last two books in the series lessened my irritation with the second book in this (so far) four book series. This is still just fluff reading, but the fourth book was fun, and actually had me wishing there were more books in the series after reading the ending.

It seems weird throughout this series to vaguely elude to how much more powerful Aising is than she should be at this phase in her Guardian-ness, but there’s never an explanation, never a back story about her family and how she might have ended up a Guardian, really no back story on her at all except for a very poorly constructed back story in the first book about an ex-husband.

Despite all the holes in the plot and the writing, I keep reading. For fluff, it clearly has that addictive quality, which for me isn’t even the smutty bits… it’s more because of the supernatural aspect and the occasional moments of actual humor that have actual made me laugh out loud. Jim is a fun character and Drake has become decidedly less stiff and chauvinistic over the course of the series, although I’m just as irritated with how the author handled the revising of Drake’s character (the whole “I’m going to be empowered and change my man’s behavior by condescendingly treating him like a five year old” dynamic with Aisling is just as sexist).

Good series. Not GREAT series, but good. I wish I could’ve skipped the second book entirely and cut giant hunks out of the others, but despite all my criticism… I still keep coming back for more. ;)
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Light My Fire by Katie MacAlister


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(No write-up for the third book prior to Holy Smokes, because my thoughts are basically the same, and since I read them so closely together, the storyline blends together.)

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Fire Me Up by Katie MacAlister
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Meh. Okay, now I think I’ve figured out this author’s formula, and it’s not great… or at least it’s not great when used for every book. I find myself now irritated at the domineering Drake and the eventually submissive (or really sad and wanting to be submissive) Aisling. Could this main character be more self deprecating and insecure in every aspect of her life? I thought that was cute and humorous when she didn’t know what she was doing, but now it’s just irritating and predictable.

The plots themselves are becoming formulaic… I find myself disappointed to note that the resolution in this book is not even vaguely like the first book… it is EXACTLY LIKE the resolution in the previous book, with a predictable ending.

I’m currently reading the third book, but I have a feeling it will be my last.

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You Slay Me by Katie MacAlister


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a quick brain candy read (read it in a few hours’ time) that was mostly successful at being funny and mostly successful at being steamy as well. I like the heroine, and have already picked up the second book in the Aisling series, which says a lot of a fluffy romance read. If you’re looking for fluffy, supernatural smut to read, this is a fun pick that I would recommend, and I’m pretty picky with my smut. :)

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Holy crap on toast, I have never waited this long to let an enormous quantity of words to build up in order for me to complete Nanowrimo. I’m not even sure that last sentence made sense… I have been doing nothing but trying to catch up today.

I have a little (very, very little) over 40k words at the time of this blog entry. I need 50k to complete my fifth Nanowrimo novel. I am NOT going to fail two years in a row… except unless I do fail.

*oy*

Tomorrow is the last day to write, and I have to work through a majority of that day, so today is THE day to get this stuff done. This is the big day of “get your shit together and write,” and here I am writing a blog post because I’m not sure what to write in my novel.

EGAD. Between switching jobs and buying a house, this just has NOT been a stellar year to write a novel.

*slaps self*

*goes back to writing a hastily composed work of fiction in an inordinately short period of time*

Getting things done… or at rather NOT done. Fun was had though! :)

I’m sitting at Starbucks, and I should be writing my Nanowrimo novel, but instead I’ve spent the past hour getting caught up on all of you, your blog posts and Facebook updates and comments you’ve made to me that I haven’t replied to yet.

Life is really good right now. Today, Jim and I signed papers to finalize our purchase agreement for our first house. It’s a GREAT house, at a great price due to the current buyer’s market, and most importantly, it means that I will get the dog I’ve wanted for a long time (it already has a fenced in yard!).

Here’s a peek at the house:

Such a big step, buying a house. I thought getting married would make me feel like an official grown up, but that feeling is nothing compared to the process of actually finding and then owning a home. Other than having kids, I’m not sure there’s anything more grown up.

It’s pretty freaking exciting to know that in a month or so, I will have a house that I can do whatever I want with… I will NOT have white or beige walls, I will NOT have generic lighting, I will NOT have to drive to the UPS plant every time I get a package because of a locked apartment building, and I will NOT have to worry about a landlord discovering my cat. Sounds like minor stuff, but when you add up everything you get to do with your living space once it’s really YOURS, it’s really pretty huge.

I’m already planning a huge housewarming, even though we had a housewarming when Jim and I moved in to the apartment we’re in now. We won’t be asking for any house gifts, maybe just bottles of wine or liquor to stock the bar we have in the finished basement. We were really lucky with our first housewarming and with a multitude of amazing wedding gifts we’ll finally have room for, so it will really just be a huge celebration for the sake of having a huge celebration. We’ll finally have ROOM to have a huge celebration! :)

If anyone has any great tips on successfully transitioning into a first home, feel free to leave comments. Tips on taking care of a dog (a larrrrrge dog) are welcome also. :)

NOW I’m going to go write something for Nano. This novel won’t write itself!

A testament to how stubborn my husband and I are:

B: Want to watch Fringe?
J: Sure.
B: Okay, it’s on the dvr in the other room.
J: Okay, let’s go.

*I become distracted by a commercial*

J: Hey! Get a move on!
B: What?
J: I’m not getting up until you get up.
B: Well, I’m not getting up until you get up. I don’t like being bossed.
J: Well, I guess we’re not watching tv then.
B: I guess not.

*time passes and eventually Jim, who was lying on the floor during this discussion, begins to pull himself along the floor like a slug, grunting*

B: What the hell are you doing?
J: I have to pee, and I’m not getting up.
B: What are you going to do when you get to the bathroom?
J: I’m going to push and hope for the best.

*hysterical laughter from B’s spot on the couch*

So, I stayed in here typing all of this up, and Jim eventually dragged himself all the way to the bathroom and something must have gone okay because he flushed and then I heard a thump and he is now dragging himself down the hallway to the bedroom.

J: Come on! I don’t have all day!
B: Are you seriously still on the floor?

*silence from the hallway*

So, I’m going to get up and go down to watch Fringe in the bedroom, but not until he actually drags himself all the way to the bed, so he gives in on getting up first.

We are stubbornheads.

I have to go… he’s on the bed and hollering pathetically. LOL.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was overwhelming at times in its hopeless portrayal of two women in Afghanistan whose lives become linked through their shared circumstance.

There were moments where I felt such incredible sorrow for Afghanistan’s bloody, war torn history that seems to never end throughout the reading of the book, and then there are moments of helpless heartbreak at the idea of living an entire life as full of pain as these women’s lives.

I was often angry and mostly just hopelessly sad that women in some countries can live an entire life under the oppressive and violent thumb of both their government and the men in their lives. Even in the triumph that can be found in this book, there is still a lingering sadness. I hope for a better world someday, and gave a lot of thought to what my role is (and isn’t) in making that happen.

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If you’re going to be one of those people that complains about all the Nanowrimo talk during November… shoo. Go ‘way. Not interested. It’s what I do each year, and it’s AWESOME.

For those of you who don’t know, I am the Municipal Liaison for the Canton, Ohio region of National Novel Writing Month, and this is my seventh year with that title (my eighth year doing Nano). If you’re enjoying the madness, friend me up on the site! :)

This year has been really interesting so far, because I started at midnight last night with a specific novel in mind, a serious novel with a lot of heavy topics planned, and it completely TANKED before I hit 500 words. I discovered in short order that completely turning away from my Nanowrimo writing style was absurd and counterproductive, so I took a restroom break and returned to the table with zero plan and a lot of determination.

Now I have 1175 words of a novel that just materialized as I kept writing, and it would appear that I’m now writing about a cyborg man named Wendell who refuses to fight crime and save the planet because of a manufacturing mishap that has resulted in his constantly craving french fries. Since he was supposed to be the planet’s last ditch effort to same humanity, his creator, Peter Stimple, is in seriously trouble with his higher ups, and chaos will surely ensue.

The midnight kickoff at Denny’s last night was awesome overall. There were a few of us who’ve been doing this together for a while now, and new people popped in right at midnight and joined us. Pretty good turn out for the midnight event, so I’m sure today’s kickoff event will be a huge success. :) Happy noveling!

(If slideshow doesn’t appear, photo set is here.)

Man oh man, has life been busy. Those of you friended up on the LiveJournal will see that this is the 4th wordy post today. I have two days off mid-week from work, and it feels like I finally have time to sit and enjoy some reading, some writing, and some reflection on the past several weeks.

Work has been stressful recently, not so much in the always-present aspect of dealing with patients and other people’s emotional and psychosocial wellbeing all day, but the whole picture. I think I’m doing a really good job of just riding with wave with that, and I know it will pass.

Family life is good, although I wish I had more time and energy to give to family time (my little brothers and nephew especially). I think this is related to work and Nanowrimo starting up and the next exciting news item. ;) I was really disappointed to miss a lot of family time this past weekend due to a trial work experiment that involved me working the weekend. It was horrible timing. I spent a lot of quality time with my sister and 11-month old nephew today though, so that was a blessing. :)

Jim and I are looking for (and may have found) a house. Holy CRAP, is that ever exciting! We think we’ve found the right house, and we’re making an offer today at the realtor’s office… our first ever time making an offer on a house. We have a decent down payment, both of our local parental units have taken a look at the house in question and all approve of making an offer. If anyone wants to really get wacked in the face with “damn, I’m a grown up whether I like it or not,” go buy a house. It’ll throw you into grown up mode real quick-like. ;)

Spiritually, I’m in a good place, but I’m pretty sure my family thinks I’ve joined a cult or something (my sister confirms that this is likely the case). I’ve found a really comfortable home in the area of energy healing, meditation, and neopaganism that feels really authentic for me, but really foreign to most of the people around me, which has been interesting to explore. On a really positive note, I’ve found a great group of people locally at Merging Hearts who are very much on the same wavelength, so while I’m sort of out on a spiritual island among family and many friends, I’m much more supported now in other ways. I’m going to my first ever observance of Samhain this Saturday! :)

Dogs are on my brain lately, since we’re looking for a house. I originally wanted a mastiff, and then was worried about my little allergy-ridden brother Ben not being able to visit, so then I spent some time looking into hypoallergenic dogs and found out that Tibetan mastiffs ARE hypoallergenic! :) Pretty much completely in “I want a dog… dog dog dog!” mode now.

Where are you at in life right now? Exciting transitions? Happily resting in a comfortable place in life? Struggling through a rough patch? I feel so out of the loop as I’m moving through my own transitions, so leave links to your exciting news and updates in the comments. :)

[This was a pick for Timshel Book Club, chosen by Brian Layman.]

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to give this book four stars, but I just couldn’t do it. This is the first book I’ve listened to as an audiobook and I really enjoyed it as an audiobook, but I’m not sure I would enjoy it through a more traditional reading process. The narrator really made the book for me overall.

The book seemed pretty thoroughly unresolved at the end for me, and I didn’t liked the narrator’s depiction of YT (there are certain adult scenes that were somewhat disturbing given how young and childish YT was made to sound by the narrator). The relationship with Hiro and Juanita was underdeveloped and strange as well.

Overall, this seemed like an amazing concept that *almost* succeeded for me. It was fun to listen to, but ultimately left me wanting a little more. There were parts that I absolutely loved, but there weren’t quite enough of those parts to give this four stars.

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I don’t write a lot about internet etiquette anymore (excluding the occasional snarky comment on Twitter) because I’ve learned to simply eliminate offenders from my viewpoint and move on to people are doing it better and sharing content in which I’m willing to invest time.

I choose to only see @replies on Twitter that are directed at people I also follow, thereby eliminating a lot of unnecessary noise in my Twitter feed, and as my life has become less about the internet itself and more about how I want to utilize the internet to share content and consume content in a meaningful way, I’ve honestly just stopped following people in any social network if they don’t interest me or respect my time.

When I worked for Viddler.com that was harder to do, due to a visible role and a need to outreach and troubleshoot on behalf of users at times. I needed to be connected and visible, and I needed to be accessible, even to those people I didn’t necessarily want to connect with so directly. It’s a relief (especially given that I spend so much of my working day focusing on other people in an intensive way) that this is no longer the case for me. I can come home to comfortable bubble of people I feel invested in, or at least very interested in, and the rest of the noise has died down.

One thing that is frustrating for me in that process is when I really *want* to follow the comings and goings of a project or a person, but their internet practices make it more difficult to do so. A Twitter account, which will remained unnamed (but shown in the example screenshot within this post), really drew some aggro for me a week ago when I realized that this particular monthly project is constantly flooding my Twitter stream with info that is not related to the specific project the Twitter account is supposed to represent. Some of the re-tweets are completely pointless and the Twitter volume is just completely unnecessary and inefficient.

It really bugs me when a project that I really want to support is clueless about the social media that it chooses to utilize and is therefore ineffective in using social media to engage its supporters without annoying them. I actually said something in a reply to this account and, while my feedback was minimally acknowledged, the account promptly reoffended within 24 hours, posting two updates for the exact same event within moments of each other… why? Apparently because all of the project’s followers are perceived to be somehow too stupid to read the first posting directly below the second.

I really don’t bother anymore with calling out people who don’t get social media when it’s easier for me to simply eliminate that person’s annoying buzz from my vantage point, but when you’re representing something I really want to keep tabs on and I really want to be an avid supporter… well, it’s just really annoying to be turned away by bad social networking, and it leaves a bad impression of who’s running the show.

Local by Brian Wood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great 12-issues comic series that is now available in one hardbound volume. It’s a very quick read and paints the story of a girl named Megan who struggles through finding herself in different ways and relocates at the end of (or between) each issue.

The final issue is a little cliche, but provides a solid ending to this girl’s messy journey, and the coolest aspect of the series is the accurate local scene visually and contextually portrayed for each city featured in each issue. This is a really solid, one-sitting read.

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