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Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/131751.html

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I can has job!

I am a little bit overwhelmed by the news I'm about to tell y'all.

It's been less than a month since we arrived in Fort St. John. We got here at about 8pm on Tuesday, December 4th. As of Friday morning at 9am, I have an offer of full time employment! And the best part is... I don't start until February or March, so I get my little break that I was hoping for after all! I have unemployment until then, plus we still have some savings, so... best of both worlds, seriously.

After all of the stress and anxiety attacks etc. the last time I was out of work, the fact that I got this job so quickly and easily, and with the parameters it has, is almost enough to totally overwhelm me. Fortunately the training I've learned over the past 2 years has helped a lot for me to stop anxiety attacks before they even happen. :)

I went to my first band practice on December 13th, and got to chatting with one of the clarinet players afterwards. Turned out she's a legal assistant as well, and she mentioned that she'd heard that one of the firms in town needed a new assistant. The next day, I went in there with a resume. I interviewed with one of the associate lawyers on the 20th. I'm sure that if it had been his decision, I would have been offered the job on the spot. As it was, the decision had to be made by the owner of the firm, so the associate passed on his notes and recommendations to the owner, who emailed me last Thursday evening to see if I could talk to him on the phone or Skype the next morning. Thankfully I had decided to check my email one last time on my phone before trying to fall asleep, so I saw the email, and we did a Skype interview at 8:30 a.m. on the 28th. He offered me the job at the end of the interview, and I accepted right away.

Anyways, here's the details... I will be working for one of the biggest family law firms in Vancouver... in their satellite Fort St. John office. They have a gorgeous office building here that they've built themselves, and up until now they've just flown lawyers up here when neeeded for local clients, but as of January, there will be a freshly called-to-the-bar lawyer in-house all the time. The legal assistant in there now is going on maternity leave as of June, and they needed someone to cover her position, plus have a few months of overlap before she leaves, which is the position they've hired me for. They're hoping that the new lawyer will have enough of a clientele built up by the time the other assistant comes back that they can just keep me on, though. If not, no worries, as I still want to get out of law eventually, and this could just be a interim thing while I get all my safety training done and try to get a safety administrator job.

The best part is... I'm getting a 20% salary increase over my last position, AND it comes with extended health benefits. YAY! I'm so looking forward to starting to fix my teeth.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/131329.html

Entry tags:

health: carpal tunnel syndrome

health woes

Apparently I am the unlucky possessor of carpal tunnel syndrome, I just didn't know it until we moved here. It is evidently aggravated by cold weather. Argh!

So I now am the lucky owner of a pair of wrist braces, which made an immediate and HUGE difference in the pain in my hands and wrists. They just make functioning really awkward. I'm sure I'll get used to them eventually, and actually at the moment, I'm not wearing them and I'm actually functioning fairly well. I just have to be really really careful with my hand and arm positioning. I'm going to pick up an ergonomic keyboard soon, and will likely need to make a trip to Grande Prairie, AB sooner rather than later for a real desk, since I'm currently using our old kitchen table, which is a bit too high.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/131119.html

we are moved!

A couple of hours plus one week ago, we were arriving at our new home!

I'm so behind on things that entries are going to be all out of order in regard to the actual events that have been happening, because I haven't even really posted a wedding recap yet. Sheesh!

Anyways, the new house is awesome, the new city is small but I like it, and we're getting used to the weather. Last week was all temperatures between -26 and -18 Celsius, and this week we've had temperatures closer to 0 and a fair bit of new snow. Ian's had one job interview, I've had one job interview, and Ian's got another tomorrow. The house is about 90% set up, and I'm really hoping to finish that last 10% tomorrow so that I can then start decorating for Yule and baking.

One of the things I'm most excited about is this... our second bedroom turned out to be a little too small for use as a den, so we decided to repurpose the "dining area" into a computer area instead. So I get to have the second bedroom as a studio/altar room! I'm really looking forward to getting it set up.

Pictures soon!

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/130881.html

one down, one to go!

Well that was fast! We have a place to live in Fort St. John!

We're going to be renting (though we're planning to discuss the possibility of purchasing with the landlords once we're up there) a 2 bedroom, approximately 1000 square foot mobile home in the Peace Country Mobile Home Park. It has an uncovered deck in the front, covered deck in the back, shed and dog kennel (which we probably won't use) in the back, and room for a small garden. The rent is $50 more than we're paying here, though we had just gotten a rent increase notice on our current place to be effective in March, so... meh. Totally do-able.

Here are the pictures from the landlords...

( Click to see the rest of our new home... )

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/130737.html

time for a little magic

Ok, this worked the last time, so I'm going to try this again.

We're in need of two things right now... a job for Ian in Fort St. John, and a place to live in Fort St. John. "They" say "ask, and ye shall receive", so here we go... I'm asking.

A job for Ian: what we need is a trade apprenticeship, preferably as an electrician. We're looking for $18 an hour, benefits after three months, within biking distance of our future home during the summer. An offer while he's still here in New West would be ideal, but an offer before December 1st is really what we need.

As for a place to live, here's what we need:
2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Ideally at least 1000 square feet. Pets allowed, including big dogs. Absolute maximum $1,500 per month but $1,200 would be ideal. In-suite laundry would be ideal. We can handle a move in date anywhere from November 15 to December 15th

Ok, Universe, do your stuff!

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/130380.html

alrighty then

I posted last night on Facebook announcing that the move is going ahead. I essentially gave notice at my job yesterday, but not in the usual "here's my 2 weeks, I'm outta here" format. Rather, I had a chat with my boss where I explained what we were up to, and reminded him of his statements in the past where he's mentioned a desire to move to having a paralegal instead of a legal assistant, etc. and how he'd just laya me off if he did that. So where it was left at is that he's going to put up an ad for a replacement for me, and once he finds someone, will be giving me two weeks notice that he's laying me off (and the layoff will guarantee me unemployment). This will make things MUCH easier for us, as I will be able to get my unemployment claim in before I even move, rather than having to wait until after. Chances are good I'll be finished work somewhere between 1-3 weeks before the actual move, which will
give me more time to finish up the packing and cleaning etc.

Ian will be going up in 2-3 weeks regardless of whether he has a job or not, as he is pretty much guaranteed to get a job within a week or so once he's up there. Some awesome friends of ours have a spare room that he can rent for a month or so until we get into a place of our own. Now our biggest worry is figuring out where we're going to live. If it comes right down to it, we may have to arrange to foster out our pets for six months to a year, until we can purchase a place. We REALLY don't like this idea, but it might be our last resort. Argh. But we really don't have the option of purchasing a place right away, and there are not a lot of places that allow large dogs, despite the fact that apparently everyone in Fort St. John seems to HAVE a large dog.

Seriously, I'm more worried about where the hell we're going to live than the actual job search!

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/130070.html

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new ink!

I got new ink!

I had it done on Saturday, at Memento Mori Studios in Abbotsford, BC, by Justin.

This is the tattoo I started planning in my head before I was even finished getting my first one. :) It's on the back of my right hip, and is about 4-5 inches tall.

It has two purposes... the first is as a representation of my spirituality in general, since it's a goddess and has a representation of the triple moon in it (her belly represents the full moon).

The second purpose is to remind me that I AM a goddess, and to never forget it.

(And I'm still giggling that my mom pestered me for a picture until I sent her one, and then her response was "it's a naked girl and two moons... what does this represent?")

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/128728.html

Entry tags:

fsj,
wedding

finally an excuse to use this icon!

Ok, so. Now that we've told all of our parents, and none of them have freaked, I can make an open post here about this.

Ian lost his job back in late May or early June, something like that. Things have been fine financially since then, we haven't had to postpone the wedding or anything like that, thankfully. But it has really made it obvious that it's time for us to think about the fact that Ian needs a career, not just a string of crappy jobs. We've talked about him going into a trade in the past, and he talked to my dad and brother about it (they're both electricians), so he started looking into that as a serious option.

But here in the Lower Mainland, going into a trade requires taking a foundations course at a college (likely BCIT) first, and then hoping that you can get an apprenticeship afterwards. But elsewhere... you can do like my friend Marilyn's husband did. He walked right into an apprenticeship in instrumentation at a reasonable, livable wage, simply by having references that vouched for him being a hard worker and other good traits, and being willing to pick up and relocate within 2 weeks. So I contacted Mar, and asked her all about it. Ian had a conversation with her husband, and we did some research, and then talked to our parents, and we've made a decision.

A week or so before the wedding on October 13th, Ian is going to start contacting companies up in Fort St. John looking for an apprenticeship. He's just about guaranteed to be a shoe-in for one as soon as there's one available - people aren't exactly clamoring for positions up there, and the fact that he is a relatively stable, married 37 year old guy who is looking for a career is definitely in his favour. Apparently they get a lot of young guys looking to make a quick buck, who get bored quickly with nothing to do outside of work, very few single women, and not much in the way of exciting nightlife etc., who go up there for six months or so and then bail. We definitely wouldn't be looking to do that - we'd be looking to settle down, get Ian firmly established in a career (an apprenticeship takes 5 years, going to school for a short period each year, during which he gets unemployment benefits), and definitely not moving anywhere else until he's earned his journeyman ticket. I will qualify for spousal relocation unemployment benefits for the first while after the move, but the job market for other stuff - especially administrative/clerical - up there is pretty good too, and I don't expect to be unemployed for too long.

In the meantime, we're going to be paring down our belongings seriously to make the move as easy as possible. We have tax return money coming in the next month or so which will allow us to finish up all of the wedding preparation as well as pay for the move, so that's going to help a ton. But we're both feeling really anxious to just get the wedding over with so we can get going on things. To top it off, work has been extremely dead and boring lately, so I have far too much time to think about things and get anxious. So that's driving me nuts.

But that's where we are at this point. Hopefully he will get something fairly quickly after the wedding, and we'll be able to be up there by the end of 2012.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/127173.html

like a yo-yo

I'm having a very strange week, at least for me. I've been spending VERY little time on the computer, because this weather is making it difficult to stay inside without roasting to death, so I'm finding myself sitting out on the deck knitting most evenings, when I want down time.

But I've also been doing a LOT of puttering around the house, cooking, organizing, and that sort of thing. Our condo is actually looking pretty habitable these days. We're cooking proper meals at home, and only going out to eat when we must - like for Ian's birthday on Saturday, and for brunch on Sunday to meet up with

dbmyrrha and her hubby as they were passing through on their way back to Portland from Victoria. That was awesome!

Pics or it didn't happen? :)

I'm also struggling with some pain in my hand - I suspect it's possible it could be the start of De Quervain's Tenosynovitis. That would really freaking suck. So I'm trying to catch it before it gets really bad. I really shouldn't spend quite so much time on the computer anyways.

Wedding planning proceeds apace, and we're down to mostly the little details now. Just under 3 months to go!

updates

I really need to figure out how to get my self-hosted wordpress blog to cross-post to my LJ again. I did it before, but it's been a while and it's not working anymore. But I've been posting all the fun stuff I've been doing lately over at ravnsdaughter.net, along with lots of pictures, and I want to get it to cross post over here. I'm going to keep using LJ for the deep, thinky stuff, but I don't want to make all you guys go over there for the fun stuff and pictures. Except for this time. I don't want to manually repost everything, so y'all should head on over to my website and have a read of what I've been up to lately.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/124948.html

is it even possible to catch up at this point?

Erm, hi! Remember me?

I am so freaking behind on posting that I don't know if I can even catch up at this point, so I'm just going to do a bunch of point form stuff in an attempt to pack as much into this post as I can.

i. My birthday is in 9 days! Whee! I ordered myself a birthday present from Sihaya Designs 2 weeks ago and I can hardly wait until it gets here. I'm doing a birthday dinner at the New West Spaghetti Factory on the day of my birthday, and if there's any locals on here who aren't on FB who would like to attend, you're more than welcome (though I don't think there's anyone other than someone I've already talked to in person who isn't on my FB).

ii. Back on March 31st, I entered Lions Gate's Bardic Defender competition... and won! I'm still kinda stunned about that. I played my harp, and did Frog Galliard and Beer is for Girls - the former was arranged by, and the latter was composed by Lady Isolde de Lengadoc of Ealdormere, who blogs at Well Tempered Harpy. Now I am looking for pieces to learn to enter Tir Righ Bardic 2013 (2012 is too close to the wedding to enter).

iii. The wedding was 6 months away as of last Friday. It's time for us to get our butts in gear in working on things. I need to get on the invites ASAP, plus get Ian's input on the website, arrange our engagement shoot with Tish, and get going on my dress.

iv. Ian's work has been doing a whole bunch of position shifting, because people have been quitting. I'm going to make a more detailed, locked post about this later, but I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that he can get onto dayshift sometime in the not too distant future. That would be SOOOO nice.

v. My work has been fine, if a little slow, lately. This is perfectly fine with me.

vi. I am SO thankful that the financing company that my car loan is done through is reasonable. I just called and shifted my next two payments very slightly to align better with my paycheques, and it has made a world of difference in my budget for the next 3 months. Whew!

vii. It's going to be a quiet summer for me, SCA-wise. I'm going to a few local-ish events, but we are really focusing our finances on wedding stuff, so I won't be able to do much traveling past Chilliwack, and even then just once.

viii. The two things most frequently in my thoughts lately? my spirituality and creativity. I need to do something about both of those things, and haven't been lately. Must rectify.

ix. well, that and archery. I actually got my membership this year, and have been out to the range twice so far. We will probably go out again this weekend. hopefully I can find my glove easily.

and, that's all I can think of right now

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/124856.html

Friday!

It's Friday, and you know what that means.... well, other than it being almost the weekend. It's time for a list post!

i. work was boring this morning, but all of a sudden it got busy just before lunch time, and for a while there the office felt like grand central station. it has FINALLY slowed down a bit so I can have a few minutes to catch my breath.

ii. My new vacuum cleaner hose arrived yesterday. This makes me ridiculously excited. It's been a long time since our place has gotten a good vacuuming, because the old hose made the vacuum unusable. I will be vacuuming my house to within an inch of its life this weekend.

iii. I got to babysit one of the most adorable little blond boys out there this week, my honorary nephew Jack. We watched Dumbo together and I worked on my plaid underdress. It was good to get a dose of cute kid in, and remind me of why I should embrace the honorary nieces and nephews but not have any kids of my own. Hehe.

iv. I have Lions Gate Baronial Banquet tickets for sale! Only $10 each! The event is March 31st, and if you go during the day, you can hear me perform and compete for the Lions Gate Bardic Defender title. I will be playing my harp, and possibly singing. :)

v. Tonight, I am going to out to the Newcomers Session and spin on my drop spindle for the first time in aaaaages.

vi. I am being a total copycat and stealing Cat Valente's idea, which was originally borrowed from Unfuck Your Habitat and I've started a Tumblr to document my efforts at unfucking my own life. No, you can't have the link yet. :)

vii. I really need to get off my butt and start working on the mockup for my wedding dress. I am again having thoughts of "screw it, let's just elope".

viii. I've been making lots of beads lately! I need to check whether or not I posted the picture of the last finished bead project I made.

That's all for now, I can't think of anything else to say.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/124612.html

(no subject)

It's been way too freaking long since I've posted here, so I'm going to do a State of the Karla post to catch you all up.

Work's been fine the past few weeks. I had some major stress there for a little bit, but I suspect my own anxiety and PTSD probably inflated that to be a lot worse than it should have been. I'm just doing the best job I can here to keep this job as long as I can (hopefully until I have something else), and keeping on with my job search.

Things are great with Ian. Pretty much no complaints at all there. We're working on getting him back to school sometime in the near future - he's going to go into a trade. I'm looking forward to that, so that we can then get onto a similar work schedule. Plus once he's done with his school and into his new career, I'm going to work on getting myself back again and changing careers. I have no idea what I want to do yet though.

My health is holding steady. Ian and I are working on altering our food intake to include a lot more whole grains and veggies than before, and we started the South Beach diet a while back. He's been pretty strict with it, and has taken off almost 20 pounds so far. I've been a lot less strict, but still eating way better than I was before. No idea what the scale says though, I'm still pushing HAES.

I'm looking forward to the weather warming up some more so that we can start going for long walks on the weekends with the dog again. I'm also looking forward to outdoor archery season starting up again. I think that's usually about sometime in April, and I have already budgeted in the money for my membership. I need to pick up a new bow stringer, and also get some finger savers for my string, but both of those are quite inexpensive. I'm also going to make myself a proper bracer now that I've got some leatherworking stuff, since the little one I have doesn't do me much good. But I'm really looking forward to archery season, and this year I am bound and determined to not hurt myself so badly that I can't go out and shoot.

As for my mental health... that's pretty much holding steady too. Now that most of my situational depression is gone, I'm still having some down periods which can pretty much be chalked up to existential depression. I'm learning how to ride them out, though. While I may still HAVE the bouts of feeling really meh and blah, I've learned to recognize that it's just this chemical imbalance talking, my life really isn't horrible, and that I need to find something to distract myself from those feelings. Either that, or go snuggle my furballs and wait for it to end.

The state of our apartment is improving too. Last Friday, I thought I'd lost my wallet - well, I wasn't sure if I'd lost it (the most likely explanation being it had fallen out of my backpack on the bus), or if it had fallen out of my backpack or purse in the house and had just gotten misplaced. That was the catalyst I needed to get fed completely up with the den and rip through it in one weekend. Now, other than the layer of dog fur on the floor, it looks awesome. The layer of dog fur is due to our vacuum hose being busted, and our new one not having arrived yet. That will hopefully get here sometime this week. I also managed to get through most of the rest of the house, and with a little bit each day from now on, it's going to look awesome.

Oh yeah, and I found my wallet when I got to work this morning. It had fallen out of my backpack and landed behind my wastebasket. I had had my debit card in my pocket at the time, and there was no cash in my wallet, so the inconvenience factor if I had totally lost it wouldn't have been too huge, but it's a big relief having found it and not having to replace my driver's license. Whew!

So I think that's all the mundane shit. Now that life is pretty calm again, hopefully I can get back to the more interesting stuff sometime soon. :)

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/124128.html

cross your fingers for me please!

Ok everyone, time to cross every appendage you have for me, please. I had a phone interview yesterday that went extremely well, and I'm going for an in-person interview with the guy today after work. The job is a 15 minute trip from my house, would pay at least a bit more than I'm making here and has awesome benefits. AND I just got 2 glowing references to use, so I'm way ahead of where I was a year ago when I was looking for work. I can't see how he WOULDN'T hire me, but I'll take all the help I can get!

More later when I have more time, but please send good thoughts for me!

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/120951.html

Entry tags:

tattoo

my first ink

I was pleasantly surprised with a Christmas bonus by my boss, plus most of the gifts from my family were in the form of cash, so after Christmas, I went and did something I've been wanting to do for a long time now.

I got my tattoo!

I had it done at Memento Mori out in Abbotsford, by Miranda. It was a bit of a drive, but I'd met Miranda and one of the guys from the studio at the wedding show we went to in the fall, and between that and the website, I had a good feeling from them so I decided it was worth the drive. The tattoo is on my left calf, just above my ankle.

The raven is both one of my totems, and represents transformation. The holly twig does NOT, actually, represent Holly House (my household in the SCA). Rather, it represents certain people who either are members of Holly House or were at one time, who helped me through a tough time in my life a while back.

This picture was taken by Miranda (on my iPhone) just after she finished, hence the redness around it. I had it done a week ago today, and last night it entered the peeling stage of healing, so right now it looks pretty crappy. Once it's healed, I'll get someone to take a better picture for me. But I gotta say, I'm SO thrilled with how it turned out.

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/120686.html

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101goals

restarting my 101 goals in 1001 days yet again

So, I am once again restarting my 101 goals in 1001 days list. The end date for my previous list is sometime in May of 2012, and there's just no way I could get anywhere near all of my goals finished by then even if I didn't have to work and had tons of money. So, I've decided to rework my list completely and start again as of January 1, 2012. That makes my new end date September 27, 2014.

Italics means the goal is in progress
Strikethrough means the goal is done

New goals added January 1, 2012
1. Get married! (ok this is a gimme, as the wedding is set for October 13th. So we'll add... without going insane or pissing anyone off :)
2. Open my Etsy shop by no later than my 36th birthday (April 29, 2012).
3. Get one Jedi and one Sith character in Star Wars: The Old Republic to level 50.
4. Read a book a week for a year.
5. Find some sort of crafting social group to join.

Leaving 6 through 13 of my new goals open for things I come up with later. I've got plenty to work on for now!

Goals recycled from my previous list
1. Take my pills every day for 6 months straight and keep a record of it
2. Eat fish once a week for a month
3. Exercise for a minimum of 10 minutes three times per week for three months
4. Buy a home blood pressure cuff and get my blood pressure under control without the use of medication
5. Stop drinking pop for 3 months (no pop at all, not even diet)
6. Learn tai chi (via video is fine)
7. Brush my teeth twice a day and floss once a day for 3 months
8. Walk a total of 250km during the 1001 days (2.66/250 completed)
9. Get a professional massage
10. Complete a Couch-to-5k program

11. read every one of Shakespeare's plays
12. organize my music library so that iTunes will finally not have any duplicate entries
13. add one new album per month to my music library
14. add all of my books to my online book listing on goodreads
15. read 10 of the books in my collection that I've never read before
16. Watch 20 of the movies from the IMdb top 250 movies of all time list that I have never seen before
17. Read 10 books from the list at http://www.best100novels.com/ that I've never read before
18. Read 5 books on the reading list for the Personal MBA
19. remain debt free for the entire duration of the project (the exceptions being the responsible use of my credit card, and my car loan)
20. save $1000 in an emergency fund
21. open an RRSP account and deposit $500 in it
22. keep track of every penny spent for 6 months
23. celebrate every full moon for a year
24. celebrate every solstice and equinox for a year
25. meditate for a minimum of 10 minutes at least once a week for a year
26. get a "professional" divination of some sort done for me
27. get a past life regression done
28. get my first degree reiki attunement done
29. receive a reiki treatment from someone else
30. set up an altar
31. create a Book of Shadows type book
32. find some sort of storage device for herbs and start working with them more
33. Install Ubuntu/Windows as dual boot, and get all my files completely organized
34. Create a schedule that will keep the house clean all the time with minimal maintenance time
35. start working on the AS 50 challenge (http://www.artsandsciences50.org) - complete the first 25 projects within the 1001 days, as AS50 goes til 2015
36. enter all of my yarn and completed projects into my Ravelry profile
37. take photos of all of my completed craft projects that I can round up, and take photos of all finished projects from now on.
38. go to a Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performance
39. learn to proficiency and memorize at least 10 piano pieces so that I can play for people at the drop of a hat, and play them regularly so that they stay memorized
40. practice the piano for a minimum of 30 minutes a day for three months straight (days spent entirely away from home excepted)
41. learn to sing a song in a different language
42. learn 3 different calligraphy hands well enough that I can do battle-calligraphy at events without having to refer to an exemplar
43. design and create 2 sets of casual clothing myself (underwear excluded)
44. make 5 new pieces of jewelry for my collection
45. learn how to use my camera properly and take 5 *good* photos a week for 6 months
46. bake once a week for 3 months and share my baking
47. brush up on my leatherworking and start making a leather book cover for my BoS
48. Go through the Artist's Way program
49. increase my fluency in a language to the point where I can hold a simple conversation (spoken or written) with a native speaker
50. learn enough of a programming or coding language to write a simple application
51. learn to sign 20 words in ASL
52. register my SCA name and device
53. attend four consecutive principality or kingdom events
54. enter an SCA bardic competition (full entry, since I've already done a single entry into Tir Righ Bardic)
55. enter an SCA Arts & Sciences competition
56. create an entire norse outfit, head to toe, including underwear, socks and shoes, and beads, but not brooches, by hand
57. get back to archery practice, score a Royal Round and then improve by at least 20 points
over a season
58. design, calligraph and paint an entire scroll all on my own
59. redesign personal website/weblog and post twice a week for 6 months
60. get one character of each class in WoW to level 85 on the Alliance side, all on the same server (I'm sitting at 9/10 finished right now)
61. finish a Wii game (probably Super Mario Brothers.Wii)
62. call my grandparents once a week for 3 months
63. fly on a plane
64. Eat at five new restaurants
65. try a dish that is completely out of character for me when eating out 6 times
66. meet two friends in person that I know via the internet only at the making of this list (if I can get a trip to Portland in, this will be super easy)
67. try absinthe
68. decorate the apartment, including painting at least one wall
69. Wear jewelry and makeup daily for a month straight (weekends excepted)
70. draft and execute my Will (in progress, still deciding on things)
71. get another tattoo
72. re-pierce my nose
73. visit a foreign country (USA only counts if there's at least one state between BC and my destination)
74. have a proper IQ test done
75. visit my sister in Calgary
76. attempt to reconcile with a particular former friend
77. Pack my lunch to work every day for 2 months
78. eat breakfast at home and not purchase anything on the way to work for 2 months
79. learn a basic poi spinning routine
80. take a non-SCA road trip somewhere
81. go 3 weeks without having to throw out ANY spoiled food from the fridge
82. find a hairstyle that suits me and doesn't require much maintenance
83. take a weekend trip to Seattle
84. try 10 different foods that I've always thought would be gross
85. get a sourdough starter and bake sourdough at home
86. learn to brew mead
87. bake all bread products consumed in my household for 1 month
88. get 10 pictures of friends and family and frame them and put them up around the house (I'm at 3/10 right now)

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/120343.html

Entry tags:

goals

Happy New Year!

Happy Gregorian New Year, everyone!

At some point in the near future, I need to post about my Christmas (which was actually quite lovely) and my tattoo (which I *love*) but since it's January 1st (at least for the next 48 minutes, it still is), there are more pressing things to post about at the moment.

I know a lot of people who don't do New Years Resolutions. Ian doesn't, and a lot of my friends don't do specific things. I'm actually working on a new 101 goals in 1001 days list, and that will be my specific goals list, but I do have a few things I want to state as New Years Resolutions.

1. Create something every day.
2. Learn something new every day.
3. Move my body in a way I enjoy every day.
4. Try and make every day just a little bit healthier than the day before.
5. Be a better friend.
6. Make sure the people I love, know that I love them.

I think these are all highly achievable. :)

I hope that everyone's year exceeds your hopes and expectations!

Crossposts: http://ravnsdaughter.livejournal.com/120067.html

(no subject)

Well after my crappy weekend, yesterday was MUCH better, and definitely a great start to my week. A client took my boss and I out for lunch to say thank you for all the work on her case, so I put the lunch I'd brought with me in the fridge, and now I have it for today. Considering I overslept this morning because I was a dumbass last night and stayed up WAY too late playing video games, that lunch in the fridge is going to come in handy in a couple of hours.

And then the lawyer who used to rent our spare office, who is now down the hall from us, came by with a Christmas card for me containing a $50 gift certificate for Starbucks. Considering how infrequently I go to Starbucks these days, that'll last me quite a long time!

Today I drove in to work again, so that I can stop by Country Beads again and pick up more swarovski crystals to finish up my Christmas gifts. We're headed to the Island to visit my family for Christmas on Saturday morning, and will be there until Boxing Day, most likely. And just in case anyone's getting any bright ideas about our place being empty: we live in an extremely high security building. Don't even think about it. :)

We'll be taking the pup with us, but leaving the kitties behind. Two clean litterboxes and large bowls of food and water plus two open toilets will keep them doing just fine for 2 1/2 days.

In less materialistic news, I decided to take the three days off between Christmas and New Years, since I could get 10 days straight off for the cost of 3 days of holiday time. I am SOOOO looking forward to it. I'm going to go out to Abbotsford one day to spend some time with

songstress1973 and

gates_apco (and Jack!), and I'm going to have much more time than usual to spend with Ian, and I'm going to start working on our wedding invitations. And I'm sure there will be much crafting and playing of Star Wars: The Old Republic in there too.

Current Location: Canada, British Columbia, New Westminster

Trying out ljapp

I've had so little opportunity to actually post lately that I'm finally giving LJapp a try - on the plus side, I can actually do something useful with my commute!

This is the first week I've had since September where I have no evening commitments at all, since counselling is on winter break. I'm making really good use of it too, and plugging away at the house in the evenings. I'm on track to having the place looking awesome by the weekend, which is good because we're cooking a turkey on Saturday and Ian's family is coming for dinner.

And then the weekend after, we're going to see my family for Xmas! This will be the first Xmas I've spent with my family since Ian and I met almost 3 years ago, and I'm actually quite excited about it.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

hiya!

Every time LJ has a DDoS attack or something else that makes it go down for a while, I remember about Dreamwidth and start posting to it and cross-posting to LJ again, but after a while, I forget to keep doing that. I really need to quit that.

Also, it seems like every time that happens, I also end up with at least a few new LJ/DW friends. So if I've added you recently, I most likely found you via a mutual LJ friend, and you sounded interesting. So, hello! I'm (mostly) harmless, hopefully interesting, and don't bite (unless asked nicely).

I'm working up to a random list post later, full of all the crap my head's been full of lately. But for now there's work to do!