Green Room - Week 3 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good morning Idolers!

If you missed last night, here's a quick recap: The results from the poll: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/958187.html and saying goodbye to those who were eliminated.

The new topic: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/958277.html in which not only did you find out what it is, you also discovered that you have a WEEK to complete it! (Hopefully that will reduce the byes and potential bye-outs over the next couple weeks. If it doesn't, honestly, nothing was going to reduce it)

and a Work Room http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/958506.html with a special guest Mentor, where there are a lot of discussions already happening.

So go check those out!

***

Recap your week! What's been going well? What's been going "not so well"?
Or what are you watching? Reading?
Or... I don't know, whatever it is that you want to talk about today! ;)

Comments

F... F... F...

[ellakite.livejournal.com]

... first?

Work has not been going well, but will hopefully get better. Hopefully.

On the other hand, I've had a very weird experience when I bought a piece of technology for a friend via mail order -- The seller made several mistakes on the order, but at least one of the mistakes was in my friend's favor, and even then the seller is so embarrassed over the mistakes that they're bending over backwards to make up for them. So as frustrating as the experience has been, in the end my friend will be getting a far better deal than they originally thought they were getting. Hard to argue with that...

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Power is out at work and at home. Nap feel immanent.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

On the plus side... hey, the day has barely started and the pressure to get things done has dropped off enormously. ;)

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

.... tentative first?

This week has been busybusybusy for me. Lots of time spent on the phone, calling various (and nefarious) Congress Critters about things, time spent planning a party at the house this weekend, time spent working on a story about weird alien seeds, and also planning a trip in January. Stuff. Things.

I don't watch a lot of things, but this week my sweetie was feeling under the weather, so we binged and caught up on Game of Thrones (finished season 6! Yay!), and watched one episode of Black Mirror. One was enough, for now. My tolerance for near-future dystopias is a little lower than usual right now, for some reason.

Is anyone making gifts for people for the holidays? I always get ambitious and think I'll do that, and then remember that I am the world's slowest crafter. I'm crocheting a hat and it's taking for-freaking-ever.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your mentor-ness this week! You are a superb writer/analyzer and the WR is lucky to have your mad skillz!

Black Mirror is far far far more dystopian than I can stomach. One episode a month, maybe.

I'm knitting wee snowmen for those who love handicrafts on my list! Debating the time it takes to write up a pattern...but if I do, I'll share it. Not super easy but super adorable!

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! Confession: I was ridiculously nervous about the work room going up. More so than I have been about most stories I've written. Now that it's workroom-ing along just fine, those butterflies have abated.

Those snowmen sound adorable! I'm not a knitter (well, ok, I managed a scarf once, but it took me more than a year), but I'm sure other folks would appreciate the pattern if you have the time. :)

[wolfden.livejournal.com]

I often make gifts (see also the blanket debacle from early November). That is part of why I have less craft projects planned.

I have a hat on my needles right now. I just need to sit still and work on it. I know I can finish in a few hours. Dec 25 is R's Birthday so I need to get a move on.

I have in the past made little felt mice. I've made felt sea creature ornaments. Those were fun but took more time and hand dexterity than I have at the moment.

bleodswean I'd be interested in the snowman pattern if you get it written up. I love snowmen.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I will try to get it written up. It's so cute!

I'm on tap to make a flurry of wee felt mice for a sister who wants to put them into all the knotholes in her family room ceiling beams! woot!

[j0ydivided.livejournal.com]

I'm knitting some things. My mom wants a pair of slippers, and I'm making a hat for a friend of mine. I like making stuff but I haven't knit anything in a while, so we'll see how this goes.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I've never crafted any gifts before because that would be the lump of coal in the stocking. But when I was still clowning, I would go around town fully made up and shoot pics for christmas cards, which I would then create on my own. I guess I'm dating the process by saying that yes, this was physical film on actual paper!

I should look into finding the negatives/copies and figuring a way of transferring them to digital. Some of the shots were quite amusing! But, truth be told, it was always much more expensive to create those jobbies than it was to buy even the nicest box of Hallmark cards.

Conversely, perhaps the people that received those still have them, as opposed to those trifles that get tossed out after New Year's... I never asked!

[oxymoron67.livejournal.com]

This is the last week of classes for me, so I've been dealing with all those issues.

My students turned in their states projects, and I really want to have those graded by the end of the day, but I'm avoiding them right now.

I'm reading a whole bunch of things, mostly history and memoirs, including a book on Sherman's March and another on an Irish priest who who protected people during WWII in Italy.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

It WAS snowing! *squee* And now it's raining. In buckets. *mope* Snow makes me happy, rain makes me broody. Right now I'm searching for more "happy".

I'm still very much dealing with RealLife.

But I'm also baking and knitting. And putting up lit trees in every. single. room. Even the Green Room.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous icon!

Are the lit trees real trees, or things like my Mom used to have, the druid tree? (She still has it, but doesn't always put it up). The druid tree was a large, branching limb nailed to a flat board and flocked with fake snow, which she decorated with blue silk hanging balls.

You probably get used to the snow where you live, but I don't miss it (three years in Peoria was enough), and I still don't like the combination of snow and hills. Mainly when the snow packs down (or gets rained on) and turns to ice! My parents put snow tires on the cars every year we were in Portland, near the very top of a road that was a 3-mile downhill slope into the middle of the city.

Haven't started my baking yet-- I need to get closer to the delivery date (usually two batches, the one for the Oregon folks being a day or two before we travel north).

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

The Viking says NO to real trees in the house (which feels like a pagan sacrilege to me...) because we heat with wood and the trees dry out instantly. The house is built out of wood milled from the trees dropped where it stands...so he says that's enough sacredness for the Earth... :) So, yes, artificial. But they are so CHEERY!! I would love to see a pic of your mother's tree.

I do love the snow but I understand that discomfort. We don't need studded tires here, but even our 4x4's and AWD's aren't always enough and then...ya just gotta declare a snow day. One benefit to working at home.

We should do a recipe swap!!! Right now my faves are: pumpkin bread, soft molasses cookies, flourless chocolate cake, and gingerbread bundt with a maple glaze!

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

:tries not to drool over soft molasses cookies:

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I've been off and on useless the past several days. Not sleeping. Vivid dreams. Nightmares, blah.

Things I need to do. Haven't.

Also it's cold. 27 last night (shutup northerners. This is Louisiana. That is cold.)

Got a crock pot from Amazon's black friday sale. Made gumbo. Have a metric ton of leftover gumbo.

Thinking about making cheddar biscuits today.

blahblah, etc.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

That is definitely cold, especially for where you are!

Cheddar biscuits sound delicious. <3

[wolfden.livejournal.com]

27 is cold. Too cold for me.

[kajel.livejournal.com]

Today is my baby girl's 6th birthday! We had plans after school. My Mother-in-law went to the ER in an ambulance this morning. My plans they will be juggling.

Her first chemo was last Thursday. She started a fever the past day and she woke up confused this morning. They've admitted her for observation as her platelets are way too low. Working to get them up before she can go home.

Sigh

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, scary news about your M-I-L. I hope she rebounds soon.

Congratulations to your daughter! Mmmmm... cake.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Happy Birth Day to both of you! Sorry to hear about your MiL. I am dealing with chemo issues in my family right now. It SUCKS. Hang in there.

[wolfden.livejournal.com]

This week has been hectic and I have been coughing.

Spoke with funeral home, life insurance, social services - that's all the adulting I can manage at the moment. Nothing is fully resolved but everything is in process so that is good.

I had dinner at a delicious place on Tuesday.

It was more expensive than I usually do but wow was the food good.

Today is the first day since Tuesday that I don't have to rush around everywhere. I pick my girl up at 3:30 and then we are going to visit the wildlife center (there's a young otter that is passing through).

Tomorrow we are traveling for polo to MD. So it will be a cold, busy weekend.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

We're supposedly getting The S Word sometime this weekend. Judging from how chilly it is, I wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't mind a dusting. Maybe an inch or two at the most. More than that and I'm going to figuratively pull out my eyelashes :shudder:

I need to start shopping. Blah :p

And a bunch of not-very-nice stuff came down at work yesterday. Happy New Year? Um...

[j0ydivided.livejournal.com]

I've been reading Patricia McKillip. I'm most of the way through her last short story collection, and then I've got Kingfisher, which I've heard is not very good, but I guess we'll see.

Reflecting on this made me realize I need to read more, because I haven't read much apart from the news lately, so thank you for that, Gary.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I didn't like her short stories much, though I've read almost everything else she's written.

I was about to discuss Kingfisher on my journal, though I haven't gotten around to it yet. Let me just say that the mix of modern and mystery worked pretty well for me, but the book has her usual failings: Caucasian-only universe, hetero-normative throughout, and she buries the climax as she usually does.

Still don't regret reading it, though. I just think she could do better with those elements overall, and I've being irked that she doesn't even try.

[j0ydivided.livejournal.com]

I've been largely disappointed with her newer works. I really loved Winter Rose (I think that was the first one I read, of hers), and I enjoyed Alphabet of Thorn a lot, but the last wave of books has felt underwhelming. I was actually disappointed with the short story collection (I received it as a birthday gift), because I realized, after reading about half of it, that it includes Something Rich and Strange as part of the anthology, and I already own it as a standalone book. :/

I don't have high hopes for Kingfisher. I'm hoping it's mildly entertaining, but I swear to God, the last handful of her stuff I've read has left me going, "That's it? That was the entire fucking plot?" because, wow. I'm all for detailed writing that is dense and difficult to pick through, but when the entire plot gets buried underneath people "breathing" lines at one another, well.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I'm probably out of my depth because I'm still working on my novel, plotting out the pilot for a tv series and doing LJ Idol.Either everything is going to come together perfectly or... well, let's just hope for no ors.

Going well...? This is so subjective. I don't feel anything is going "well," just because there's not as much progress as I would hope. But it's also not going "not so well." I guess if it's going, it's good.

My viewing habits include "Mars," the National Geographic Channel series (Monday nights at 9pm ET) which is a hybrid of a documentary about where we are in a future manned Mars mission, and a fictionalized account of the Daedalus, the ship that takes the first humans to the Red Planet in 2033... a friend of mine is one of the producers of that series and he has written some of the episodes too. May I say there are a lot of powerful strong woman characters in this cast, which I'm pleased to say is a trend - "Supergirl" is another S/F series that I like that falls into that group... as is "Orphan Black," which is going to have its final season in 2017.

My only issue with "Mars" is that we don't get to see the characters interact with each other that much, so the emotional stake remains low. I think that as a series begins, that's okay, but eventually you want personalities to shine through and to see the relationships of how the people you're viewing are dealing with their circumstances and with each other. "Westworld" on HBO is a great example of that.

Hope everyone is doing well, getting their shopping done, completing their work and having at least a little fun along the way!

[sorchawench.livejournal.com]

Found out some interesting things about the human body yesterday...

Apparently when you have, what you assume are nasal allergies, you can sometimes develop an acute sinus infection.

The treatment is usually a week to ten days of antibiotics.

~*~

Now, if you do develop an acute sinus infection, and it goes untreated for 4 months, it can (and usually will) develop into a chronic sinus infection, which...when left untreated, will cause all sorts of weird shit to occur in your body....none of which actually makes you think, "Hey, maybe I have a sinus infection!".

And.....at this point, you're going to be looking at 21 days of antibiotics.

~*~

It's also suggested that you go get a high level probiotic considering that 21 days of anitbiotics twice a day is going to kill EVERYTHING in your body....including the good bacteria.

~*~

Now...if you were going to guess *HOW* I learned this knowledge....

All I can say is.....Go ahead. Take a guess.

::swallows probiotic::

~*~

That being said, I'm having some serious anxiety about my possible post for this week's topic.

Yeah, I *know* it's not due for a while....and I'll probably read, re-read, read again, and chop it into something that looks like a good meal.

But right now, I feel like I'm dealing with raw ingredients.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Good wishes for good health, and good bacteria!

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

There's pretty good discussion in the Work Room, and I think people are still following in there, so you might get some brainstorming help.

[mirrorfortress.livejournal.com]

Someone found my wallet! All my stuff is there save the cash, of course. :D

[bunnika.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm in the hospital in preterm labor, so that's a thing. (I'm 34 1/2 weeks.) Getting lots of drugs to try and stop it, the last round of shots seems to be working. Still gotta stay overnight tonight again, hopefully get the all-clear to go home on another new med regimen tomorrow. Trying to convince the babe he wants to last another 2 1/2 weeks in the oven. He's a stubborn one already, though.

[tonithegreat.livejournal.com]

So much sympathy! I was where you are about eight years ago. I had three bad preterm labor scares, the last of which was around 34 weeks. My twins stayed in until almost 39 weeks and were born healthy then. Good thoughts to you and wishes for a similar outcome!