A to Z Challenge aftermath

Well that was fun!

A formal welcome is due to any new followers.

Welcome!

..... I'm wearing a ballgown, you can't see it.  It's formal, I promise.

I own the fact that while I rocked out a post every day through April, I sucked at visiting other blogs.  I also sucked at reading any and all of the other blogs I follow.  I feel bad about it.

I alluded to two goals for myself during the recent challenge.  The first being some sort of blog schedule.  I have a habit sort of built in where I'm drawn to my Blogger dashboard and the need to schedule something for some point.  Score!

Decision: Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Let's make it fun.  THIRSTY Thursdays.  Oh!  Brilliant idea!!  Not only will I whine about writing, I'll also highlight a beverage of the day.... and by beverage, I mean beer.

This excites me.

On another note, I did myself in on April 26th by making a promise to myself that I would have a manuscript complete of my WIP, tentatively titled Life and Body Organs.  I sit here at our dining table on my ultrabook, much like I was in November, putting it off once again.

Hey, at least I'm writing.  :)

How about you people?  Will it be business as usual now that the A to Z Challenge is over?  Or have you made some big plans for yourself as well?

Z: Zelda

Let me first address a pet peeve.  THIS is Zelda:

This is NOT Zelda:

Google Images gave me a nosebleed just now.  Moving on...


My gold cartridge Legend of Zelda NES game was one of the first I ever received.  It was glorious and a pain in my 8-year-old ass when I first played it.

Turns out the Zelda series is one of Adam's favorite games of all time.  But here's the hilarious part.

He has never played the 1986 ORIGINAL Legend of Zelda.  Ever.  If you want to talk the timeline, sure, it's the "most recent events" in the world of Hyrule.

But seriously.  Never.  WTF, Adam.  Not even on an emulator on his PC.  He's played Zelda II and everything since, but not the original.

I do still have my 8-bit system, but it doesn't work and I'm too protective of it to send it off to this place that repairs NES systems so they run like new.

But I might have to.

Y: Yard

I have lived in apartments and condos my entire life.  So the whole Yard and Garden section was never necessary when doing grocery runs and home improvement and blah blah blah.

Then Adam came along and bought us a house.  We have this thing called a yard now.

 
 


P.S. I suck at trying to format multiple pictures.

Decent front yard and side yard.  We live on a corner so we have another massive side yard (final photo).  The backyard is a work in process; the house had been empty for so long, massive weeds/shrubs/stumps took over the backyard so we/Adam has been gradually removing stumps and getting grass to grow.  He's rocking it so far.

He rocks at a lot of things, actually.

What we have both learned is that much like cats and dogs, I am an indoor Dara.  I will clean a bathroom and kitchen and do laundry like it's my job.  But ask me to help pull out the weeds so we can get mulch down.... good luck with that.

X: Xmas movies

I went with Xmas because it fit the letter X, so calm the hell down.

Christmas/Xmas is definitely one of my favorite times of the year.  I'm not just talking the day itself where my friends and family get to open my always awesome gifts, but the whole time frame starting late November through the end of December.

Note I said late November.  Give Halloween its space.  Adam and I rocked out Han Solo and Leia Organa costumes and plan for Link and Zelda soon.  /end tangent

I have traditions (more like rituals at this point) that start Thanksgiving weekend with the pulling-decorations-out-of-storage, setting them all up with movies on the TV.

I am a Christmas movie whore.  A high-class whore as there are only certain ones I will watch.  I seriously go through each movie at least 5 times during the season.  With the exception of this one:

All day long ON Christmas day?  You bet!!!

A Christmas Story is tied as my all-time most loved and viewed movie.  The other?

Because Bill Murray.

Of course there's Charlie Brown and Home Alone and It's A Wonderful Life and cartoon Grinch, Rudolph, Frosty, and Snow Miser.

But it all really starts, and this is Mom's fault, with an oldie but a goodie:

Presented in VISTAVISION!

The second the boxes are brought up, I hit "play" on the PS3 and Irving Berlin starts my holiday off perfectly.  This is the classic movie White Christmas if you have no idea what Bing and Danny there are doing in pretend drag.  Want to have fun?  Take a drink everytime Vera-Ellen comes on screen wearing a high-collared top.

"I don't know what he's up to, but he's got that Rodgers and Hammerstein look again."

"Is that bad?"

"Not bad, but always expensive."

W: World of.... Writing

Two part post, and I shall make it brief.

Part one, World of Warcraft.  I mentioned before that Adam, the fiance, and I met playing this addiction of a game.  My account has been inactive for so long that I can't pull up an image of my character to share with you, so here's the next closest thing.

I'm telling you the balls in this raid were EXTREMELY important.

My little drunken rogue is there between the two trees.  Oh Ulduar25, how I kinda-sorta-but-not-really miss you.  I haven't played in forEVER.  There's that new expansion coming out later this year, we're contemplating getting it.  BlizzCon is this year as well, and we're seriously contemplating going there for our honeymoon.  Stupid awesome idea, I know!

Part two, writing.  Those of you who tuned out for the nerd-gasm can come back now.

The only writing I have been up to as of late are these lovely little bits of blog posts here this past month.  I saw a topic somewhere asking what life will be like post A to Z challenge.

Definitely more posts.  I got in the habit of cranking out posts Sunday, scheduling them for the week.  I don't see that they'll be daily posts (I'm sure many of you are tired of the completely random topics I've covered this far), but they will be back into the theme of my endeavor of writing.

With the post(s) set for the week, more writing time.  Between work and working out daily (I gotta get the bod ready for a wedding dress, remember), writing is back up to the top of my priority list.  The WIP being first of all.

Know what would be awesome?  Having my WIP be a complete manuscript before September 6.

Let's make that happen, Dara.

V: Vertigo

Ever have vertigo?  It sucks.

Movie?  Fantastic.  Actual vertigo?  Nope.

Never had it?  Here's a description of what it's like, and it doesn't have much to do with a fear of heights.

You know how when you've been drinking and everything seems like it's spinning around?  Tilting around?

That's how your vision is.

Only you're not drunk.

So it's awful.

Another analogy is like spinning around in a circle with your forehead on a baseball bat and then trying to run.

Bending over, laying down, lifting my head up to look up above.  Any of that would trigger the dizziness.  How?  No reason.  For me, it just happened.  Often if you been sick and coughing or sneezing a lot, that can jolt up the "calcium crystals" inside your inner ear which controls your balance and just have you go haywire.

I was never sick.  I woke up one more and nearly fell off the bed as I sat up.

Adam found this hilarious.  I went to pull a frozen pizza out of the oven and nearly fell head first into it.

Actually, that is kind of hilarious.  A Tombstone nearly did me in.

After 2 months it just went away.  Weird.

Don't get vertigo.

U: Ugly light

Do you have one of those ceiling lights in your house that just makes the room ugly?

I'm not meaning the style of the light.  I'm talking about when the light is on, the way it lights the room is bad.  You turn it on and you instantly go, "Ugh... this room is awful."

The floor lamp in the corner or table lamp are SO MUCH BETTER and makes the room nice a warm and friendly and comfy.

But that damn ceiling light.  It's only purpose is when your contact lens pops out and you need all the light possible in order to find it.

Lamps FTW.

This post may have been created out of spite for the ugly lamp debates Adam and I have on a daily basis.