It's a Green Holiday....

Once again, the temperature here in my province is well above freezing, and it is looking like we are going to have another green December 25th.

I have no problem with that. It makes driving so much safer when the temperature is in the double digits Celsius.

Things have been busy here... We've been shopping like mad the last couple of months, and busy getting everything ready for Santa's arrival later tonight. We're finally ready for him too... The tree is up and lit, the presents are wrapped, and Son is bouncing off of the walls, he's so excited.

For the first year in ages, I am actually feeling festive, and feeling like we did a wonderful job all around with everything, from the tree to the preparations, the food and most of all, gifts to our son. The last couple of years haven't been the best, and now things are finally looking up, enough for me to spend a little extra on him and Husband.

It could be the fact I finally got to the theater to see "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" last night too.... Which was AWESOME by the way!! I'm not posting any spoilers - one of my close pals won't see it until it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray and PPV in the spring or summertime - so please... NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS, for her sake. She does read the blog...

However, I will say that seeing the original cast members and the Millennium Falcon again was like seeing old friends... I cried! It's making me want to watch the original trilogy - Episodes IV through VI - sometime soon... I do have the lot of them on DVD, and Son is now showing interest in Star Wars... Which I think is cool. He's a huge Trek fan, and although I love Star Trek too, it's more Hubby's thing... Star Wars is my thing. I'm going to enjoy introducing my son to a whole new realm of the sci-fi world... tee hee!

Work on the stories is slowly progressing. I've been working on TWO ideas, Thirteen and Fourteen, in between running around and getting ready for the holidays. It's all prelim work, researching, choosing character names, writing down scene ideas, and other general early work.

For the record, "Fourteen" is a spin off idea, a "What if THIS happened...?" kind of thing. I'm not saying where the idea came from either. That's between me, Bestie and maybe two other people, and will stay there for now..... *whistles innocently* I'm hoping to get into one of them, or another idea, sometime in the new year. I'm feeling a lot better now, and my health continues to improve... So, it's time to get off the fanny and get cracking!

In closing, I wish all of you joy, happiness, lucky, health, wealth, and love this holiday season.

Here is what my ideal celebration looks like: A warm blanket, the lights twinkling on the tree, a "crackling fire" (actually the holiday fire channel on our satellite dish), and a purring kitty on my lap. Pure heaven!

My ideal celebration of Christmas...

Merry Christmas from Amber and myself. Have a safe and fun weekend everyone!

A New Season, A New Reason to Keep Believing....

The last couple of weeks have been interesting, to say the least..........

Schools have been open only three weeks and the germs are spreading faster than the speed of light. Son has already had 2 sick days, Monday and Tuesday of this week, and I guess there were a lot of students out sick the last couple of weeks from illness.

No surprise. This happens every year. What surprised me was that it was this long before Son got something. Normally it's within two weeks, not three...

Yesterday, I got some great news regarding my health.

Remember how I said I have been ill the last while? Well, one of the conditions I was diagnosed with is now GONE and I've been given a clean bill of health on that front.

HUGE RELIEF. It's now just a case of checking things every couple of years unless something seems off. Business as before things went nutso.

Even better, the lifelong condition I was diagnosed with this past spring is now under control.

It's not like I can just forget about it and go back to the unhealthy stuff I was doing though. This is a lifelong condition. Once you have it, it's there ALWAYS and you are constantly monitoring it, and doing what you can to stay healthy and keep it under control.

I guess I am doing something right. Four months, that's all it took, from diagnosis to this point.

WHEW. You see, the family member who was diagnosed with this same condition, the one I inherited it from, passed away within 6 months of finding out they had it. I think I had it in the back of my mind that it's an automatic death sentence, despite proof otherwise -other family members and friends with the exact same condition who are perfectly fine and have had it for years.

I'm now seeing it isn't. In fact, living a longer, healthier life is the perfect motivation to keep positive and stick around for a few more decades. :)

Kitty Zaniness alert.............

Monitor Kitteh has made her fall debut... No surprise, the weather is getting cooler, and since the monitor is warm, she likes to toast her bum on top of it......

Yes, those are two different monitors. My old one croaked last month. It didn't owe us anything. It was one I purchased second hand from a friend of ours about 8 years ago, and it was old then.

As you can see in the photo, the color was way off and there was a line of black going across part of the screen. The picture tube in it was giving out.

My old Philips monitor, on its last legs.

The new monitor is still the same huge, clunky picture tube style, but it's newer... And black. It matches the computer, mouse and keyboard perfectly. It was given to me by a friend of ours, she now has a laptop and doesn't need a monitor for a desktop.

Much better, eh?

The new Dell monitor. It's a flat screen. 

Hey, Amber approves of it! She's always sitting on top of it and watching the neighborhood.

Amber watching for her "boyfriend", the neighbor's cat Ringo.

Idiot cat.

*sigh*

Writing update......

My beta team members are still taking their time to go over Hearts Remembering. So that one isn't allowed to be touched until I hear back from all of them.

HOWEVER.......

I am finally feeling up to doing something new, writing wise. Or old, depending on how you look at it.

Last week, I had my usual Friday to work, and I actually did something. It's not a lot, no actual "writing" per se (although Heather calls it writing, I call it PRELIM WORK... PEAPOD *NYAH*) I started detailed character bios, did a preliminary/short summary and started jotting down both general and adult scene ideas for it.

I'm not sure if anything will come out of it, but hey, it's a start, right? :) We shall see how this one goes.

It felt SO GOOD to be back into it again...

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling more and more like myself again.

Talk about a great feeling.

*goofy grin*

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! :)

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AUTHOR'S EXTRA: 

To anyone who was hoping things would stay out of whack - with my health, writing and everything else about my life....

F**K you. 

I'm more than surviving this. I'm going to beat it all to hell and back, and keep going. I'm not going to let this keep me down.

Y'all know damn well that *I* am too damn sunny natured to let it.

Go ahead, keep wasting your energy on wishing and hoping and whatever else you're trying to do... Keep lurking at my areas, in hopes you catch something you can speculate on and hope it's something bad happening to me, out of spite for me seeing your true colors... And before you can say I am "one to talk", maybe if you actually *looked* at the REAL pattern of your sorry, hate filled, drama stirring, victim playing life, you'd grow up and shut up instead of blaming everyone else but the real cause of your "problems"...

YOU.

It's your life and your choice, after all. Not mine, or anyone else's.


YOUR CHOICE.

But narcissists don't see it that way unfortunately.

*tsk* My bad.

Me, I'm just going to keep going ahead, not look back at all, focus on REALITY instead of a fantasy life, keep writing, accept what I can't change, change what I can, and love life completely.

That is my life and my choice.

*smug grin*