Fangirling Since 1983

I had such grand plans for my week off. We were going to get so much done in the house and (despite being restricted to our city limits because of COVID tiers) we were going to go on walks and get out and enjoy the fresh air and decent weather before winter really kicks in.

So much for that.

TMI maybe so under a cut ( Read more... )

We did manage to get the old, wood-rotted, garden shed that the previous owners left for us torn down which is good because I had hired a skip for that very purpose and didn’t want it clogging up the drive any longer than necessary.

Now that our old house has sold we can think about starting works at the new house (or at least getting quotes because I doubt any work will get done before Christmas. I don’t know if it’s the same where you are but contractors and trades are snowed under here and even harder to pin down than usual). Great, I thought. Stuck in the house so let’s get the ball rolling on the external render works we need done and get a quote, see if he needs us to level the garden first so we can arrange that...the guy we want to do it (he’s been recommended by three different people) is on holiday this week so we can’t even get that started.

On the plus side I’ve managed to get some writing done. Secret Santa fic is finished and beta’d (thank you logicgunn! I even posted a ficlet that has been languishing in my WIP folder for over a year!

It’s been nice not being at work. Let’s focus on that!

I just woke up from a nap, looked at my phone and got the alert that they called the election in Biden’s favour. Maybe I should nap more often? Although I still have some trepidation about what Trump’s gonna do next (obviously he’ll try and find a loophole to stay) I’m beyond thrilled, not just for my American friends but also for the world! If this could be a sign that the shit show that is 2020 is turning a corner that would be great.

That’s the up.

Now for the down.

A friend and colleague of mine lost their battle with cancer this week. She was 51, full of life and always the first person to offer help and support to anyone. She’s going to be missed by so many people and the fact that she won’t get the send off she deserves physically causes me pain.

Fuck cancer. And Fuck Donald Trump

My work has switched to a rota system to limit the number of people in the office at any one time and as of this week I’ll be switching between home and office working on a weekly basis.

Despite spending three months during lockdown working exclusively from home, it felt super weird today.

Maybe because this is the first time working from home in the new house?

I don’t know.

Hopefully I get used to it again.

Welcome to the new normal I guess.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted here....Sorry about that!

I moved house. Which was...challenging. We decided in January to start looking for a bigger place, found one we liked, made an offer and got the keys in March, the day before lockdown so... yeah, we couldn’t move in until July.

This turned out to be somewhat of a blessing as the new house was in MUCH Worse shape than we thought and there has been a lot of work needed on it. Yeah, I bought a money pit. We’ve still got a lot to do but are at the stage now where we need to wait on the money coming in from our old house before we can do anything else. We had decided originally to buy before we sold because we thought it would be less stress. Oh, poor innocent us.

We finally got our old house on the market in August and we have now accepted an offer On that with the new people hopefully moving in November. So, 2021 will be filled with more home improvements. Joy.

I’m trying to focus on the positives of the new house; it’s much bigger, it’s in a better area, we have a garden. But it’s hard when there’s so much money we still need to put into it and the house is very obviously not that well built. I live in fear of what we’ll uncover when we start the more invasive works.

But, hey, given what’s going on in the world, I really, really can’t complain.

I have a roof over my head, my job is safe. I spent a few months working from the dining table but we reopened the office to a lower occupancy level back in June (I work for a social housing provider and that’s an essential service) and I was one of the first ones back so normality has been in place for a while now. George is a supermarket worker so he’s been an essential worker this whole time.

But, I digress. Basically, between home diy, the stress of moving, the stress of work, the anxiety and panic that has become crippling during this whole pandemic...I’ve not been very up for anything. I’ve not been writing and, holy shit, I miss it. I miss my SGA friends. I’ve still been reading but even commenting has seemed like a chore and I hope I can build some of my fandom friends back up again.

As of today I am making a concentrated effort to get my fandom happy place back. I hope all of my fandom friends are doing ok and I‘M sorry for going AWOL!

I didn’t get the job. And now my existing role is about to change completely. I’m trying to put a positive spin on it but honestly I’m really upset. I don’t want to do the job that it’s about to become.

Time to drown myself in chocolate and fic.

I’m ok with it. It’s the same age David Hewlett was when SGA first aired. Prime self insert fic age, lol.

I have a week off work. Hallelujah. The manager job I’m planning to go for has still not been advertised but it’s supposed to be up by the 12th July before boss’s boss goes off to Australia for 3 weeks so watch this space.

One of my colleagues has been offered a job elsewhere and while she hadn’t officially accepted it when I left on Friday I know she’s planning to so looks like we’re going to be down a person soon. I’m putting the hell of that completely out of my mind and plan on enjoying my week off with George.

Our time off started yesterday and we drove through to Glasgow to attend Glasgow Comic Con which was, as usual, horrendously organised but we got some nice art and found out that Glasgow has a Taco Bell 🌮 now so I’m still counting it as a good day! As usual, I posted all the art we got to my instagram. Well, all the art except the Dan McDade commission we got that looked like a child had drawn it. We took it, didn’t cause a fuss because art is subjective and all that jazz but, man, it was bad. The perspective was screwed up, the colour was all over the place and it was just messy. We ended up leaving it on a table at the con, hopefully someone found it and it’ll end up with someone who loves it. Weirdly, he tweeted it before he gave it to us and it was one of his most liked sketches of the day so...yeah, art is subjective.

Today was a pretty quiet one. We went out for brunch, hung about in the sunshine for a bit and then caught up on laundry. Rock and roll.

I’m really hoping to get some writing done this week without work distracting me. In fact, I started the first fill for my hurt/comfort bingo fic today. I might get some more of it written later depending on what we do tonight but will finish it for sure tomorrow. George is off out with his friends tomorrow and I’m taking the car in for its Mot and service and then enjoying a day to myself. Sounds like bliss.

I’ve missed writing. Oh, and if you want to pick a square of my hurt/comfort bingo card and get a gift fic for the fill, you can find it here. Having you guys pick the order I filled the card in last year really helped motivate me so I’m trying that again. It’s pretty much all gonna be SGA fills and probably mostly me hurting/comforting Rodney but if you have a specific want for any of the squares that involves someone other than my fave just let me know!

EDIT: oh, and the Fandom5k fics have been revealed so if you want to read my first ever attempt at John/Rodney/Ronon/Teyla you can find it On AO3

Work, rinse, repeat. The end of year end is in sight though so I won’t bore myself with more moaning.

My broadband was down for a couple of days this week so, being fairly distraction free, I managed to write the fic for my the pinch hit I picked up for Fandom5k. It’ll be revealed in a couple of weeks which means that May 2019 is the first month since April 2015 that I haven’t posted a fic on AO3.

That’s craaaaazy!

In other news, the lack of access to Netflix and Amazon meant that I went raiding my DVD shelves and we’re doing a Due South rewatch. God, I’d forgotten how much I loved this show!

squidgiepdx has come up with a June Something posting challenge thing and I’m gonna try and play along so here’s a quick catch up.

Day 1: We all have that ONE fandom, or OTP. But what would you consider your backup fandom? Bonus: Who is your backup OTP? Same fandom or different?

Backup fandoms? What are those, lol. I pretty much live in SGA these days but I do sometimes go and visit other fandoms, even if I don’t stay long. My most consistent backup fandom is probably Star Trek: AOS. McKirk mainly but I have found myself warming to Spirk, as long as the fic isn’t too explicit (I have a bit of a hard time reading about Spock having sex, I genuinely don’t know why!)

Backup OTP remains in the SGA fandom. McShep is the ultimate OTP but I ship Rodney with everyone and anyone so there’s always lots of other pairings for me to read.

Day 2: If you were able to insert yourself into one fandom as your reality, what would it be? Bonus: How different would you be in that reality?

I used to self insert myself into so many fandoms (in my head at least, it’s not something I have ever or would ever write down) but I can’t actually remember the last time I did that. Weirdly, I usually go the opposite and insert fandom characters into my real life when I let my mind wander that way. That being said, the last time I did fantasise about inserting myself into fandom it was for the David Hewlett show, Traders.

Maybe it’s because the financial setting jibes with my real life job? But yeah, I did and have fantasised about working at Gardner Ross and making sure that Grant Jansky was protected like he deserves!

Whoops. For the first time in almost 18 months I forgot to post a weekly journal update. Last week was crazy at work. At least, I think it was. I don’t actually remember that much about it. I know we went and got sushi one night but otherwise it’s a bit of a blur.

This week is at least a bit fresher in the memory. Work was definitely tough. Audit season has started and we have auditors in this week and we’ll have them in the next two as well as they work on the various companies. After that though things should be a bit better. I’m not counting on it though. Still undecided on whether to apply for the new manager post but the post hasn’t actually been advertised yet so still time to make up my mind.

I didn’t write anything at all last week and the looming deadline for the fandom 5k pinch hit I signed up for is freaking me out. I got about 1,200 words down this week so if I only manage the bare minimum word count (which is probably all I will have time to manage), I’m over 20% of the way there. I’ve implemeneted a 500 words min per day policy for next week, here’s hoping I stick to it!

Oh, wait, I remember something we did last week! We went to see Detective Pikachu. It was super fun!

Anyway, back to this week. Tuesday was George’s 38th birthday so we went out for a meal to celebrate. It was a really nice night and he seemed pleased with the gifts I got him (an art of Ian Kennedy book and a Jusge Dredd style badge with his own surname on it).

We also went out for a brunch date yesterday and I had the MOST delicious French toast I have ever eaten. Definitely going back there.

In fandom news, I have fallen down the Brienne/Jaime rabbit hole after someone I follow on Twitter posted a Rec list for people to escape into after the direction GoT has taken them. I don’t watch GoT, I stopped in season 3 but you can’t help but absorb the show by osmosis anyway and I remember liking the two of them so I clicked on the first rec and I now have like 20 tabs open on my iPad to read.

:)

Our Director confirmed today that they will be creating a second Finance Manager post and I’m in two minds about whether I would want to apply or not.

It’s the next logical step for me and would be a boost to my CV. It’s more money, obviously. But I’m worried that it will be a case of the Director and the current Finance Manager dumping all the responsibilities they don’t want onto a new role and I’m not really fancying that.

Hopefully the advert, when it goes up, will have more detail but I’m willing to bet it won’t.

Hmmmm, what to do?