Dear Diary

A 3772-post collection

SABLE

For anyone in the crafting arena, or anyone who lives with someone in the crafting arena, also knows about SABLE. For those who don't know, it's an acronym for: Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.

...I happen to have enough earring and beading shit to currently last me a lifetime. So I should very likely make myself sit down and spend an hour or a half hour making earrings for EGDB like I've been gassing about for forever and a week.

I need to take stock, of course. Figure out which pride earrings I haven't made doubles of yet, make those doubles, and come up with some designs for those 'gem' beads I found and bought a sampler of. Heheh.

Yeah, I have a problem.

And just one of my problems is: I need a bigger box for my jewellery shit. I want to learn about cold-wire crafting, because I think I could make pretty awesome things out of cheap-as-fuck wire... but that's probably going to mean two boxes and I really need to learn how to keep it simple, stoopid.

I need to get some stock made, so that I can put the shop up and maybe, just maybe... make a little money out of this deal. But spreading joy and happiness might also be as good. I can't do a lot to help people, but if my creativity can help someone be happier, I'm all about that.

I've learned not to expect much out of my endeavours.

I have scoured the current A2B's site for any hint of a timetable. I might just have to simultaneously submit to the last one on the list. The dreaded postal submission will take some extensive time to even get there. Plus two to three months, plus travel time back... you'd better believe I'm paying for tracking both ways. If this A2B hasn't got back to me by the time the postal agent gets back to me, I'll count it as a lost cause and go complain to AR&E.

But I'll be sending two book samples up by post, since Adapting is just as ready for the world as Kung Fu Zombies. Separately, of course. You don't send two potential books in one envelope. They're so very, very different that I might confuse my A2B.

Hopefully, two different envelopes and the Sample Shuffle should obfuscate one from the other that happens to be by the same name. Maybe. This is the agent who also represents one of my literary heroes, Lois McMaster Bujold... so she might just be sharp enough to spot my attempted duplicity and call me out on it.

But first, I have to get my shit together beyond the sample of Adapting.

Help is coming

The cleaners are coming, today! This just one day after I get the mess in the kitchen down to the stuff that has to be hand-cleaned only, and a few minor mop-ups from dinner spills.

I am much looking forward to having an orderly house. That way I can focus on working out what to do for Chaos' birthday [She wants a steampunk party and I'm kind'a stuck for ideas that don't involve me doing a shit ton of artsy fartsy stuff

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Cheevs!

I'm getting stuff done. Hooray. Just... not all the stuff I want to do. C'est la vie, I guess. So yeah, I haven't arted.

But I did manage to clean most of the kitchen countertop. The only space left is the space covered by stuff that's due and overdue for getting washed.

I cleared out the drainer so that I can wash more stuff as time goes by.

I cooked a nice Leftovers breakfast, featuring last night's vegetables and four eggs that

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There's something wrong with me

I did succeed in going to Suncorp and arranging for a card to arrive in 3-5 business days, and a PIN in a separate piece of mail. Huzzah. I also succeeded in doing two twenty-minute cleaning sessions in the kitchen disaster area.

Most of it was sorting out the stuff I can clean in the dishwasher versus the stuff that I have to hand-wash, but I do now have cleaner benchtops and a lot less rubbish just hanging around.

I also succeeded

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I might have a problem

We went out to see some movies, today. Fun was had. Expense was found. Expense in the form of some new vinyl LP's.

My 45's are really getting crowded out, now. And I might need to order some proper LP storage at some point so that I can stack these udder-buckers... because my vinyl collection is getting just the teensy-tiniest bit FIRKIN ENORMOUS.

And I show no signs of stopping because I adore vinyl.

That said... even the cheap vinyl comes out

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Willpower vs won'tpower

Inertia is a wonderful thing. For limited definitions of 'wonderful'. It's inertia that got my house into a state of... eurgh. It should be intertia that, once I get going, will get it un-eurghed. I need to hire some damn cleaners, because working with someone is what motivates me the best.

Otherwise I just sit and entertain myself until I either fall asleep or time runs out on me.

Problem is, I also have severe anxiety about contacting anyone. I've had two

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Big day ahead

I'm taking my little darlings off to Scenic Coominya for the first week of the holidays. Which is a big, long-arse drive for me.

With luck, I might get Beloved to drive, which will be a break.

But that's pretty much all I have planned for today. Y'know. Apart from the whole story thing that will be happening later.

If I'm really lucky, I'll get to clean and then listen to one of my rescue albums.

The kids are going to be

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Queensland! Beautiful one day...

...buggered up the butt by a cyclone, the next!

Doesn't quite fit the Australian Tourism Board's idea of advertising, but neither did The Scared Weird Little Guys' Come to Australia (You Might Accidentally Get Killed).

But this is definite proof that Earth is a Deathworld and Australia ups the overall rating.

As you might guess, we all weathered the storm. A bit of a blackout, but at least we all had hot food before the lights went out.

I did finally get

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A bit of wet

The drawback to not paying any attention to the mainstream media is missing out on news bulletins like Cyclone Debbie. The typical summer weather is a bit late, this year, with cyclone season commencing in autumn proper, instead of late summer. Blame climate change.

I'm located south enough that cyclone season just gets us wet, most of the time, and flooded pretty often enough to be annoying. I'd stock up on frozen veg, but it's a bit difficult to get the cheap

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I'm ba-ack

Just as mysteriously as it failed, the LAN server in our home woke from the dead its long slumber and returned to duty.

I celebrated by bingeing on Forensics Files and not arting.

I simply must make myself return to arting. Inertia does me no favours when I'm standing still. I can plausibly finish the second-level sketch of Hatchworth (he is so very hard to draw ;_;) whilst I'm waiting for a parcel to turn up.

Heck, I can even play that Chess

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The system is down

Our LAN server died of inexplicable causes. Some essential part of it just up and died without any warning. So now, I am doing all my work on my laptop, with my phone as a wifi hotspot.

You can easily guess that I'm not going to be around on the internet for much longer after I'm done with my work.

At least I have a good excuse to go back to the arting again. Once I've caught up on the stuff we've

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Welp...

I'm doing great at slacking off. For specific definitions of "slacking off". I've learned that there is such a thing as FLAC format, which is the high-definition digital whatsit that all true audiophiles should be saving their media in. I've learned that there are places that will sell you good storage solutions for your beloved vinyl. Including new dust covers in case your old ones got ruined by a certain audiophile store that doesn't give a shit about their cheaper vinyl.

There's

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Great start

I have plans. I have a time limit. And I'm spending some of that time watching David Bennett eat a sandwich(and make beautiful music) live on YouTube.

I just keep on winning.

On the plus side, Beloved and I did get to do some -ah- intense shopping. I got to see the place where my love got all the expensive sound gear and got a fuckton of equally expensive records.

I don't know if I like them as a vinyl shopping

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Slug time

There's another party to attend, tomorrow. And I did my usual thing of messing up my sleep cycle by conking out early. And then waking up early.

And then I spent an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube and playing Minecraft. Which I enjoy immensely. I haven't even taken any measurements beyond my weight, yet.

I won't be posting that nonse today. Not unless Beloved interrupts with a need to make me take them.

Which is not likely to be happening.

I'm

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Catching up

I've cleaned all my vinyl singles and it's looking like there was never a lot of dust in them to begin with. Doing the LP's is going to take longer, because I have to be more careful with them. I've given myself the goal of two per day, there.

I have read through the finished chapters of Rael so I don't have to plough through them en masse when the book is finally done.

I'm just not arting this week. Sorry.

I

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