lady_karelia

956 words today. I'm ecstatic.

I totally get a kick out of harvesting herbs minutes before I use them, and I use them a lot. And when I was hunting for herbs, I found a few tomato plants as well, and our balcony isn't quite as exposed as the patio last year was, so I'm hoping for a crop of tomatoes, too. Oh, and I couldn't resist the habanero pepper of course.

( Clickest for teh picspam )

Now, to name the garden...

( O noes, she's talking about cheese! Again! )

And I forgot the disposable plates and cutlery. ::headdesk::

luvsev tagged me *glares*

Sometimes it's okay to pimp yourself. Post a list of your top five fic-favorites you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.

Mine, in no particular order:

A Potion With an Unintended Notion: Ron Weasley is very careless during a Potions lesson. Chaos and love ensue, and Rita Skeeter changes her profession.
I'm fond of it because I surprised myself there writing humour.

Etude de Magie: Sometimes, a coincidental find can change one’s life entirely.
My 2007 exchange fic, in which a diary plays a significant role. I like it still.

No Music More Enchanting: Hermione is offered a job before sitting her NEWTs.
I'm fond of it because I had a whale writing it, and it was actually the last fic I wrote with a kind of generic muse. Writing Lucius for the first time evidently made him decide to become my Muse.

Soul Food: Lucius learns over the course of a few years that mushrooms can be a lot more than just fungi.
A love for LuLu remained with me even after I finished NMME, and I indulged. ;)

Travel, Conspiracy, and Men: Hermione accepts a career offer she can't resist only to find out she's been set up. Two unlikely men offer help.
The first fic in which Lucius completely took over, and I'm fond of it because I think it's my best to date. Some people evidently agree because it won third place in the multichaptered category in the Potter Place challenge.

If you feel like doing it, consider yourself tagged.

grrangerous's excellent Phoenix Song is now complete. If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?

I'm enjoying a lazy-ish Sunday. The weather today has been blissfully cool, so cool that Dorkboy coaxed me out of the house with a promise of good coffee and the book store. I enjoyed the outing as well as the coffee, although I still feel as if part of me is not quite back yet.

My HGLM exchange is now 5,500 words; I figure it's about two thirds done, although I might be wrong there. In any case, my hope to be done by the end of today wasn't quite realistic. There's always tomorrow, and I know for sure that it'll be done sometime this week. I'm very keen to return to the HBB fic.

It's been an outstanding few days, but everything wonderful comes to an end in order to make space for the next wonderful. On the agenda today:

- Coffee
- Have lunch with ariadne1 and melenka.
- Drive home, with a short stop at Trader Joe's
- Reflect on the most awesome week I've been having, filled with adventures in cheesemaking, cooking, and weather-watching, eating wonderful breakfasts, laughing, playing in mud, staying in pyjamas the entire day, laughing, having gallons of excellent coffee, enjoying brilliant company, laughing.
- Empty car
- Collapse into bed

I had an absolutely lovely day that involved lots of driving, lots of good music, followed by a most wonderful evening of chilling, eating, talking cheese, talking mushrooms, talking knitting, talking some writing, a tour of the garden, and more chilling. I'll probably post some pics tomorrow, but chilling is top priority.

And when I quickly checked my email, I discovered that inell has written a most awesome snapshot of Lucius's life here. Read it, it is perfection. Thank you so much, Inell!

It's been an active seven days, both with regard to writing and RL. Writing, well, I've just passed the 4k-mark on the LMHG exchange fic, and I'm feeling loads better about it after a few days of deleting more than I'd written, tearing my hair out over The Voice, panicking about The Plot, and various other bits and pieces. I feel I'm on track now, and hopefully, I can finish this without any more panic attacks.

In RL, Good Friend is having marriage trouble, which I don't find surprising, but it's nevertheless sad to see two people who supposedly loved each other at some stage to prefer to go separate ways instead of deciding to work hard in order to make the relationship work. Anyways, there's been consoling, comforting and all that, which I'm so totally not good at, but I chipped in with feeding him and supplying him with coffee and all that, and I think he felt better for it. Sometimes, just being spoiled a little with soul food and that kind of thing will work wonders, and I sincerely hope it did in his case. For the moping, hubby and daughter took care of that side of comforting.

Three of us had some bug that lasted a day or two, but Sara hasn't been so lucky. She's one sick puppy, has a temperature on and off, and spends too much time hugging the loo. She hasn't puked in a few hours, so I sincerely hope she's getting over it, poor kid.

In the AeroGarden department, the jalapeno plant is finally doing well. I took one tomato plant out (it never produced any flowers at all), cut the other one back after it had given a fair amount of tomatoes, and the jalapeno was seriously late-coming. So late that I'd run out of feeding tablets by the time it showed the first pepper. Thanks to ordinary_magic's expert advice, I'm hopeful to keep it going until it stops producing. Still waiting for the hp-testing strips, but Home Depot promised they'd have them in before the w/end, so I will check tomorrow and hopefully buy some. Right now I'm in two minds over what to plant next: herbs or salad greens. Won't do tomatoes this round, as our balcony only gets the morning sun, so there is hope that tomatoes won't fry the way they did last year in late June with the morning and mid-day sun. But I have about a month to decide what to plant next, which is plenty.

Monday I'm off to visit friends, and honestly, I can't wait. 450 miles each way, all by my lonesome, which means I can listen to Sibelius to my heart's content, it's going to be pure bliss, followed by more bliss of admiring gardens, making cheese, good food, writing, and lots of chilling. I realised just recently that it's been some eight years that I went somewhere completely on my own. So it's really high time!