Librarians · Do · It · By · the · Book

January:
Dinos at Denver Museum of Nature and Science; Hiking @ Flatirons Vista; Started full-time at Aurora; Pueblo trip/interview; Florissant Fossil Beds; Aunt Margaret died; ALA-Midwinter.

February:
Brainamania

March:
Hiking @ Four-Mile Creek/Old Kiln Trail; 10-mile hike @ Hall's Ranch; trip to Arkansas without John.

April:
My birthday at Mataam Fez; Starfest with Brent Spiner and Robert Picardo; I started playing D&D; Golden interview; Hiking @ Wunderland Lake; Japanese-tea-garden-themed birthday lunch.

May:
John got IPM job; Denver Botanic Gardens free day/plant sale/dinosaurs; Spamalot; we found an apartment; Boulder Creek Festival in the rain.

June:
Moved into apartment; breakfasted at Chataqua; Renaissance Festival

July:
4th of July with friends and games; Hiking @ Gossock Ridge; Ren Fest part II; I chopped off my hair; Scott and Jenn's wedding; PLACE test.

August:
John's birthday at Jewel of India and the Denver Zoo; John's Mexican-themed birthday lunch; I got horribly, horribly sick.

September:
Got a cat, named her Hermione; my parents visited, we went to the US Mint and the Georgetown Loop; went to see the aspens a few weeks too early; Denver Botanic Gardens Japanese Tea Ceremony.

October:
Started Welsh class; MTG tournament.

November:
4A failed in Aurora, assuring the demise of my job; fall party with friends, food, games; Ft. Lupton interview; Thanksgiving in Colorado.

December:
A Christmas Carol at the Denver Center; Westminster lighting ceremony; Welsh Christmas Tea; Danielle's wedding; Boulder interview; Christmas in Arkansas; my last day at work.

Dear David Zinczenko,

I'm tired of how, in every one of your articles, you find a way to bash vegetarian sandwiches. For some of us, it's the only fast food option. Let me point out the things that upset me about your including Blimpie's veggie sandwiches on your list:

1. You always list the foot-longs. Of course eating a foot of a sandwich is going to be more fattening than a 6-inch, which is what most people order!

2. I don't think that most people assume that a veggie sandwich is going to be good for you. Nothing that's loaded with cheese and dressing is. You never mention that people can choose what to put on their sandwiches at Blimpies...there is always the option to have veggies only, no condiments.

3. Having said that, a veggie sandwich is RELATIVELY more healthful than a meat sandwich. A meat sandwich may have all the same cheese and condiments anyway. Haven't you heard that meat is generally bad for humans? About all the cancer and disease it causes? I won't even get into the environmental impact of meat and factory farming, because that's another issue entirely. But it's equally un-healthful.

4. Only a complete moron thinks that eating at fast food places could possibly be healthful, anyway.

5. And what makes you an expert on nutrition?! So you can add. You can say that one sandwich has more calories than another. Big deal! I could've written that book myself, and I'm obviously more eloquent than you.

6. An unrelated side note: foods are "healthful," not "healthy." People are healthy. Get your grammar straight, you idiot.

I hate your articles, and your book is stupid too. Just because a Whopper has fewer calories than a Big Mac, it does not make either one good for you! You're just giving the wrong ideas to stupid people.

Oh, and your "vegetarian hippo" comment was WAY out of line, jerk.

NOT a fan,
Whitney

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/32165/the-most-shocking-quothealthyquot-foods-and-what-you-should-eat-instead/

The past month or so, I've had a recurrence of strange migraines. They're not the normal kind. They don't make my head throb or pound. They're focused right behind my eyes. Do you know that feeling of staring straight into the sun, and having to shut your eyes because of the glare? And there's a kind of burning sensation in your eyes? That's what I have, only without the sun. It usually happens at night when I go to bed. Sometimes they come right as I lay down; sometimes in that case I can make them go away by pressing my fingers against my eyes. Not a good idea, I know, but it does help. But oftentimes the pain comes back and wakes me up in the middle of the night. That's when it's the worst. It hurts so much it makes me cry. Usually the only thing I can do is take some Tylenol and wait for it to go away.

These started in the middle of college; they usually only happened every once in awhile, but for a couple of weeks it was almost every night. I went to the eye doctor about it, and she said it was probably migraines caused by stress and eye strain, although she didn't know for sure. Eventually, they went away and only came back very rarely.

Lately, though, I've had it almost every night for a month or so. They're more severe now. They last longer, even when I take Tylenol. Sometimes they even show up before I go to bed. As you can imagine, I've upped my Tylenol use. I never take more than the recommended amount, but I'm still worried that taking it every day will mess up my liver. So I started researching (something I'm surprised I didn't do long ago). Hypochondriac that I am, I latched onto one of the possibilities: Glaucoma. The pressure could definitely cause the symptoms and headaches I'm having. It could also just be eye strain or stress, two things I definitely have at work. Eye strain from looking at the computer all day, and stress from every possible source. I read that inhaling steam could help reduce the migraines if that's the case. Also possibly taking vitamin C and zinc. Still, just to make sure, I requested an eye appointment (for some reason with Kaiser you can't just make an eye appointment online, you have to request one and wait). It's time for my annual exam anyway. For the record, I always really REALLY hate the glaucoma test. I can't stand things touching my eye, even if it's numb. And a big scary machine with a little light and thingy coming straight towards my eye is terrifying to me. I always cried about it when I was a kid, and sometimes they skipped it because I made such a big fuss. Now, I don't cry (much) but my headaches do come on fiercely during the test.

So for now, I'm going to try to reduce my computer usage and relax more and not worry so much about work and other things. Maybe a yoga class on Sunday would help?

1. What’s the last card game you played, and with whom did you play?
Magic, with John.

2. What’s the last board game you played, and with whom did you play?
Scrabble, with John and my mom.

3. What’s the last computer game you played, and with whom did you play?
Does GeoChallenge on Facebook count? With myself. If not, then Guild Wars with John.

4. Of the games you listed in the first three answers, did you win any of the matches?
Yes.

5. If you could only play one single game for the rest of your life, which game would you play and why would you choose it?
Magic, because each game is different and anything can happen. Plus, it's so customizable, so it's not really like just one game.

http://www.patrickkphillips.com/category/saturday-six/page/2/

1. What’s the last movie you watched in the theater?
Either Wall-E or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (it's been a long time).

2. How much is absolutely too much to pay for seeing a movie in a theater at night?
Probably what we pay now.

3. Other than popcorn and a drink, what concession item are you most likely to buy in a movie theater?
Hot chocolate, which has only been available in one movie theater (in Rogers). Or an Icee, which I guess would count as a drink.

4. What was the last movie you watched at home?
Christmas Vacation.

5. Would you have paid to watch this film in a movie theater when it originally came out?
You mean what was the cost of a ticket when the movie came out, or what it would be worth to see it? I don't know. $4?

http://www.patrickkphillips.com/category/saturday-six/

There's an interesting little site at http://thedailymeme.com/ where I got this.

How do you sleep?

1. How long do you sleep each night?
Anywhere from 2 to 12 hours, depending.

2. Do you fall asleep easily?
No, not at all.

3. Do you fall asleep at times not in your bed?
Hardly ever, except on the couch.
4. Do you listen to music or use “white noise” to sleep?
No.

5. Do you sleep through the night or get up a couple of times?
Depends. Usually I'll wake up a few times, and sometimes I can get back to sleep.

6. Do you have trouble sleeping away from your own bed?
Yes.

7. Do you need an alarm clock to get you up?
Yes, although sometimes it still doesn't help and I end up sleeping until 4 pm.

8. Do you ever take medication to help you sleep?
No, not on purpose, although I'm always grateful when I take Tylenol at night because it makes me sleepy.

9. Do you/have you slept with pets?
Yes, cats and dogs and stuffed animals.

Now that the blur of NaNoWriMo is finally over, I can pause, catch my breath, and reflect on the holiday season. John and I have both commented on how this November hasn't seemed like November at all. We were too engrossed in writing most of the time, and that and the lack of snow or even cold weather made it seem like we were trapped in a nebulous non-month, a 13th month if you will. Even Thanksgiving at my parents' house, although fun, now seems like it came and went in a blink of the eye.

On Tuesday we hopped a plane to Tulsa, OK (because it's cheaper and easier to fly there than to XNA in Northwest Arkansas). My parents came and picked us up, and although they came to Colorado in October, it still seemed like a very long time since we'd seen them. I missed them a lot. Afterwards we went to my cousin Andy's house. My aunt Mary was there, and it was great to see her. She's moving from Waco, TX to Tulsa this winter, and we got to go see her new house. At Andy's house, we saw him, his wife Jackie, their two kids and niece, and their extremely wide pug Priscilla. She was very sweet and very fat, and seeing her made me miss Lily. We got home late that night and didn't do much else.

On Wednesday, after pizza for lunch, John and I took my mom's car to do a little last minute Christmas shopping. We had to make a stop at Vintage Stock first, of course, where we drooled over the Magic cards and comic books and every kind of video game cartridge. We then went to Best Buy and Barnes and Noble to buy my parents a few more presents, then went home. It was a really nice day, and I wished that we'd been able to take a walk. I bet there wouldn't have been any ticks in November. (We had a ghastly adventure with ticks there in the summer.) That night we watched Garfield's Thanksgiving, and I fell asleep on Garfield's Christmas.

Thursday was, of course, the big day. I love the quote from Garfield's Thanksgiving: "Thanksgiving is the day you celebrate having food by eating as much of it as possible." We got up around 9 am to watch Macy's parade. I realized that when I was a kid, I was able to recognize all or most of the stars and performers on the floats. But the last few years, they'd announce some now-famous singer and I'd be like "Who the heck is that?" It made me feel really old. But the parade and the balloons were still good. My favorite float is always the Sesame Street float. It brings back great childhood memories. We ate lunch before the parade was even over. The meal consisted of: turkey and tofurkey, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, potato cranberry dumplings, gravy, two kinds of stuffing, crescent rolls, pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. We continued to eat massive amounts of this same food for the rest of the trip. Then we watched the rest of the parade and I squealed like a little kid upon seeing Santa Claus. After that John and I took a long nap, and I'm sure my parents conked out for awhile too.

Then we had our early "Christmas." We had all decided that it would be too much trouble and too expensive to mail all our presents to each other, so we opened them all early. So, on Thanksgiving afternoon, we had a second holiday. My parents got us way too much stuff, but we're incredibly grateful anyway. John got a hard drive for his XBox 360 and a couple of games. I got two seasons of Buffy, three seasons of Scrubs, a book, a couple of games for XBox and DS, and a few graphic novels. Plus, of course, the goodies in our stockings, including the traditional LifeSavers Sweet Storybooks. That night we drove to Fayetteville to see the Lights of the Ozarks in the square. They were pretty, but extremely bright. We took Daisy, my parents' chihuahua puppy, and she barked at the horses pulling the carriages. There were Christmas carols playing in the background. Later that night at home John, my mom and I played Disney trivia (John won) and Scrabble (I won).

Friday, we skipped the early morning Black Friday insanity, although we did go out later in the day. My mom wanted to get presents for her angel tree kid. We chose a one-year-old, and bought him clothes and toys. My mom also bought me pajamas, socks and a new coat (thank you, mom). The mall was CRAZY busy, and I'll never understand why people think it's FUN to get up at 3 am to be at a 5 am sale. Some poor worker at a Wal-Mart in New York actually got killed this year; he was trampled to death by greedy shoppers. Ugh. That is one thing about the holidays that's seriously messed up. At least we braved the crowds for a good cause.

Then we met my dad at Olive Garden and ended up eating too much food yet again. At least it wasn't leftovers. That night my friend Dianna came over to talk, and we caught up a bit. At midnight, John and I realized that we wouldn't get much sleep anyway, and it would be very hard to wake up, so we just decided to stay up. (Our flight was at 7:30 am, so we had to leave at 5 am to drive to Tulsa). This was good and bad. Good, because I got some more writing done, and getting ready to leave was easy. Bad, because by the time we drove to Tulsa, flew to Kansas city for a layover, for some reason ate at an airport Mexican restaurant, flew to Denver, and rode home with John's dad, we had been up for 26 hours and I was about to keel over. Seriously; I noticed that when walking up the steps at John's house, I swayed a little bit. But we fell into bed, which felt gloriously good, and I slept for 9 hours. This didn't prevent me from going to bed later last night and sleeping for another 8 hours.

And now, back in Colorado, there are even more leftovers. Which is very bad. There are at least 5 different kinds of pie still left, although the other foods are waning. I gained some weight after the holidays last year, and I'm going to try hard to prevent that this year, although I fear it may already be too late. I also finished and won NaNoWriMo this evening, as you've already read, and now I'm happy and exhausted and relieved. Also, it's been snowing here. Finally!

My first NaNoWriMo, and I won!



It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. If I had been able to write just the minimum word count every day (around 1666), it would have been smooth sailing. But we went home to Arkansas for about 5 days for Thanksgiving, and it was harder to write at home. John and I still managed (he's doing his second year of NaNo). And today, I wrote my last 2,000 words, all before 6:00 pm! John's still working, but I have no doubt that he'll join me in winnersland soon. I am so proud of myself! Even though my novel is complete drivel (and badly written drivel at that), it doesn't matter. That wasn't the point of this exercise. The point is, I proved to myself that it IS possible to write steadily every day. Maybe next time I'll work on quality!

I am a NaNo VIKING!