nekosensei

* I woke up to some nasty dreams this morning. My first dream was the all too familiar one about being in a play and not knowing any of the lines. In this version, I had the book open backstage and I was cramming like mad in between scenes. That, in and of itself wasn't so bad. What made it worse was that it was a Shakespeare play and all of my lines were in verse. Holy, I can't remember my lines and I'm shit up a creek, Batman! The next dream made the first one look like a walk in the park though. In that one, I dreamt that my sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had just weeks to live. I spent most of the dream being beside myself with grief. It was so bad that I woke up depressed, and didn't quite shake it off until we left for the day.

* I had a good Easter over at my folks' house. And my two nieces are adorable! E., who is not quite three years old, must have my brother-in-law's slightly off sense of humor. When I joked that she was too spastic to be a brain surgeon, she made this wide-eyed face at me. It was kind of creepy. Her new favorite word is "frustrated" and her favorite phrase is, "come on" when she thinks you're teasing her. She is very good at picking up new words-- and sometimes digs!-- and using them in the correct context. C., who is one and a half, is also talking quite a bit more. She's at that stage where she's repeating random words, so you have to be careful what you say!

* When doomsey and I got home from my parents' house, we invited my mother-in-law over to watch the new episode of Doctor Who. Oh my God...it is AMAZING. I *love* it! I'm going to enjoy this new season, aren't I? Also, is it me or does the new companion have the bug-eyed look down pat?

*Tonight is Passover. doomsey and I are going to his parents' house for the passover seder this evening. Because they invite so many people over--more than twenty, including kids-- the whole thing is usually very chaotic. Too bad there's not a snowball's chance in hell of them doing this version of the Haggadah. (Link swiped from tx_cronopio

* Two female bombers blow themselves up in a Moscow subway station -- Thankfully, a former classmate of mine-- who is living in Moscow for a semester-- left a message not long after I read this saying he was okay and that he didn't get caught up in any of the insanity. And if you haven't read it already, you should go read ginmar's post on living in Moscow. It's very well written. (Link swiped from ginmar)

* Awwwww (Blame sheilagh)

* BBC Wildlife Photo Masterclasses -- I'm definitely going to have to download and read some of these guys since I particularly like doing nature photography and wildlife photography. And speaking of photography, I'm thinking about making a zoo trip sometime this week. I haven't been there in a few months...and I need to renew my membership.

* A story told in pictures -- Adorable! (Swiped from haikujaguar)

* North Koreans Use Cellphones to Bare Secrets (Link swiped from rm)

* And...More clips from the new Doctor Who have been posted! I can't wait to watch the new episodes! (Link swiped from popfiend)

* I have much coolness to share with you. I'll have to do it tomorrow though because it's getting late, I'm tired, and my eye is pissed off for whatever reason so I can't see so well right now. I also haven't slept well for the past two night and OMG! I need to sleep.

So...here are the New Year's Resolutions I made last year. Let's see how well I did with them...


1) Exercise more (and maybe lose a few pounds) -- Bwahahahahaha! Yeah right.

2) Stay healthy in general -- I did okay with this one, thankfully. I got a lot of colds, but I had no major health dramas in 2009.

3) Learn to crochet (already started!) and continue knitting -- I did indeed learn to crochet. Last week, I finished crocheting a baby blanket for my best friend, who will be having a baby boy this March. While working on this project, I discovered that crochet projects go much faster than knit ones. I'm also crocheting an afghan for myself. This one is going to take me a long time because the yarn is so fine.

And of course, I've been doing a lot of knitting. For instance, I finished my Doctor Who scarf in March.

4) Write more -- Done. I did NaNoWriMo this year. I also wrote a couple of short stories.

5) Try to figure out some of my great-grandmother's recipes -- I made one of the dishes from my great-grandmother's recipe book, but I haven't tried any of the other ones. I meant to make one of her bread pudding recipes, but I decided to use a recipe that I found online because it had choooooocolate.


Judging from my progress last year, I'd say that I get much more accomplished when I post my goals for the year on LJ. So...that means that I'm going to post my New Years Resolutions for 2010 as well. Here they are in no particular order...

1) Finish writing the novel I started for NaNoWriMo. This includes editing and revising.

2) Try to get something published. Extra emphasis on the word try. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to accomplish this, but we'll see.

3) Update all of my knitting and crochet projects on Ravelry, including the projects that are still in progress. That means taking a picture of whatever I'm working on, writing down what kind of yarn I'm using, and including a link to the pattern. I've been very lax about posting to Ravelry in 2009. Since joining Ravelry, I only posted one project that turned out to be very well liked, apparently, because fourteen people favorited it. Last week, I took pictures of my Doctor Who scarf and I the baby blanket I just finished.

4) More exercise! Muy importante! I probably won't be able to do much walking in January and February because the weather sucks, but I definitely should get out there come March and April. I think I'm going to try to get back into my routine of walking three to three-and-a-half miles a day. This will be really helpful when it comes to writing because I come up with most of my ideas during walks. Listening to my iPod while I walk also helps. By the way, I dreamed up the story that eventually became my NaNoWriMo project during a walk in September. Earlier that week, I had read a writing prompt that said something to the effect of, "you can come with this time, but only if you behave." I was thinking about it while I was walking and all of a sudden BAM! I had a story.

5) Participate in NaNoWriMo in November of 2010. Years ago, I tried writing a book called Dreams of Fenecia, but ended up abandoning it. Since that time, I've lost whatever work I did on it. Most of it was crap anyway because I had no idea what I was doing back then. Character outlines? Plot outlines? What are those? I also do think my prose in what I had written left much to be desired. It was too...perky. Anyhow, I think that I will try revisiting that book in November of 2010.

6) Maybe try to post more to Live Journal this year. I've been very quiet these past few months.