Game of Thrones is Ruining My Life!!!

I'm soooooo happy that I'm on book 5 of the Game of Thrones series.  Why?  Because book 6 hasn't been published yet.  Which means I can get my freakin' life back.  Because ever since Kellie convinced me that I needed to read the Game of Thrones series, all of my free time has been held hostage by my NEED, my THIRST, my OBSESSION to read these books.  Let's see how my life has suffered, shall we?


1.  BOOK CLUB.  Ok, each month I'm supposed to read a book for book club.  I've been pretty good about finishing books...until a few months ago.  Each GoT book is between 800 and 1200 pages, which means that I have trouble reading GoT AND a book club book.  Guess which one wins???

2.  BRAINY GIRLS.  Poor Brainy Girls.  I haven't had time to put the archive for the last issue together, nor write almost anything for this issue. Which SUCKS, because the theme for this issue is insects, which is awesome, and I'm running out of time to adequately cover the subject.  Can I just finish this last GoT book already so that I can get back to doing quality Brainy Girls work, please???

3.  ROLLER DERBY.  Ok, not really.  I've been able to stay pretty much on top of practices and events.  Chris and I even went to the Rose City Rollers Hometown Championships a couple of weeks ago at the Rose Garden.  It was awesome!!!  HOWEVER, I did volunteer to set up and maintain the Storm City Roller Girls website (what was I thinking???) and that has fallen a little behind, too.

Guns N Rollers battle it out with the High Rollers for 1st place!

4.  DIGITAL MEMOIRS (aka scrapbooking).  My 2012 book is almost finished except for the covers and title page.  I put in sooooo many hours working on that book and I just have to cross the finish line...however, finding out where Arya Stark is in Braavos is apparently more important than finalizing the record I have for everything I did in 2012.

 

5.  OUR YARD.  I will not post pictures.  We have a guy who mows our lawn, but I've been meaning to get out there with the weed whacker for WEEKS.  There are weeds in our back yard that are 6 feet tall.  We have not planted our garden (except for the weeds).  Shameful.

6.  MY SLEEP.  I've been sleeping HORRIBLY lately, and I suspect it is because I stay up late reading GoT.  I wake up and think about GoT in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep.  It's starting to catch up with me.

7.  HUMAN INTERACTION.  I've become a recluse.  My only social outlet is now online, and I'm behind at that (see above).

So, THANK YOU, George R.R. Martin, for hijacking my life.  I've watched seasons 1 and 2 on Amazon and am waiting for season 3 to come out.

Oh, crap - are you kidding me???  I can't wait to be done with your epic stories and find out how this all ends.  I can't wait to resume life as a regular human...that is, until book 6 is released...

Three days later and I'm still sore!

I don't know if I'm crazy or just stupid.  Either way, I've made the time and financial commitment to learn how to roller skate...with the Storm City Roller Girls!  Last week I found out that Vancouver has a roller derby league so I immediately went to check it out and enlisted.  Roller derby was something I thought about doing four years ago when I moved up here, but at the time, it was a little too far away, expensive, and time-consuming.  But the opportunity is here now - I might as well grab it while I'm still young enough to do so!

These pictures were taken at my first practice with Storm City.  In the first one, it almost looks like I know how to skate!  I'm envisioning sucking for a while, but since practice is 4 days a week, I'm hoping that I'll improve quickly.  We'll see!

And for those of you who read or watch Game of Thrones:

Our House Sigil:

 

Shit.  It's my turn to do the litter tonight.  :o(

What's the Deal with Reno?

Why do we keep going back to Reno for long weekends?  Well, for one, it's not Las Vegas.  We pretty much just stay at the Peppermill Resort and hang out there.  This last time around, we got a regular room because the spa suite that we first had was plagued by the ice machine just outside our door and a guy who tried to drunkenly break into our room at 3 in the morning the first night I was there.  So, we changed rooms - yes, there was no hot tub in the suite, but at least it was quiet.  And it was pretty!  It reminded me of my Uncle Danny's condo, which used to be all decked out with fancy-pants French antiques. 

Anyway, our stay was fun, and we actually came out ahead this time.  I had pretty good luck on the slot machines, but not as good as Chris, who hit a $300 jackpot on "Giant's Gold".  My new favorite game is "Great Owl", but I still managed to win a little on "Siberian Storm" as well.  Dang, I kind of like slots.  I guess I'm one of those people now (and by those people, I mean suckers).

Anniversary, Table for Two!

Today is Chris and my second anniversary.  Yay!  Two of my happiest years ever, back to back.  I'm so fortunate to have found him, and that he willingly puts up with all my quirks and foibles.  Last weekend we got away for a couple of nights, staying at Abbey Road Farm B&B, the same place where we stayed three years ago when we were dating.  We did some wine tasting, gambling, goat frolicking...wait, what?  Yes, goat frolicking!  These little guys were only a week old when we saw them...soooo precious!  The little lambkins were super cute too, but they were a bit older, 5-6 weeks.  Here are a few picture for you to enjoy!

Celeste and her two little boys.

Baby goat kisses!

Mabel and her three kids.  We actually milked Mabel three years ago.

Brainy Girls Update

I'm sad to report that my digital scrapbooking momentum has all but disappeared.  However, because of the law of conservation of energy, my Brainy Girls project has been thriving.  So, I just wanted to give you a brief update on how it's going.

Running the Brainy Girls website and keeping up with its associated social media promotion actually takes quite a bit of time.  However, I'm finding that it's finally paying off in terms of interactions with the public.  It's starting to get some attention in several STEM communities, which is really fun.  I've printed up bookmarks and sent them out to those who've requested them, and will probably need to have more printed up soon.  Every two months I completely change all the material on the website (except for March, which is a special one-month issue) and that's quite a bit of work to come up with new stuff related to a theme, archive the old material, and promote promote promote.  But that's ok - I really like writing and it's the most rewarding thing in the world when I get comments on my website. 

Want to see some numbers about public interaction?  Here they are:

Total page visits since Oct. 2012 (returning visitors included):  3033
Facebook followers:  181
Google+ followers:  255
Twitter followers:  52 (I just started Twitter this past month - it's fun!)

Anyway, I look forward to my site growing and gaining more exposure.  I also have a Pinterest account and YouTube channel for Brainy Girls, which are kind of secondary to the other forums above.  I'm starting to get into guest blogging and have a couple of requests out there for people to write on my site - we'll see what happens.  I have to get the kids involved somehow, which is what I'm hoping to do with guest bloggers!  And, if you have any ideas on growing Brainy Girls, let me know! 

And I didn't take a single picture!

Oh, Reno, how you love to take our money away.  It's ok though, because we enjoy your biggest-little-city can-do attitude, complete with sprawling casinos and "European" gymnasiums (whatever that means).  Also, your lack of homeless people hired to shove little pictures of naked ladies at passers-by is non-Las-Vegasly refreshing, so Thank You, Reno, for that.

This year, it just happened that my birthday, Valentine's Day and President's Day (yes, President's Day) fell reasonably close together to have a four-day weekend out of town.  Chris and I have stayed at the Peppermill Casino three times now, and it's rather lovely - it's all Italian-themed (except for their Chinese restaurant, Chi, which is Chinese-themed) and they have a fantastic spa, casino and restaurants (including Chi).  We arrived Thursday night and spent much of the weekend losing money, enjoying drinks (perhaps a little too much on Sunday night), and luxuriating in our ridiculously over-sized suite.  Well, the suite itself wasn't over-sized, just the furniture.  But it was awesome!  Also, someone might have eaten the Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies from the honor bar.  I'm not pointing any fingers, but that someone might have been me, or as Chris identified as the culprit, Snacky McSnackerton.

Anyway, here is a picture of the slot machine that ate all my money.  If you see it, I suggest walking in the opposite direction.  The tigers are tricksy and false...their fancy jewels flash and you hear them roar, but they just take without giving.  Damn you and your scatter bonuses, Siberian Storm!!!

Additional Reno places of interest that took our monies:  the spa (hello, facial and pedicure...I'm pleased to meet you!  Why yes, I'd also like to have one of those luxurious robes as well, thanks!), Romanza the Italian restaurant (so happy that we got in on Valentine's night, although the lobster and shrimp and sea bass that we enjoyed might not have been so pleased), Atlantis casino (just a quick jaunt down the street and...why, I'm so happy to meet you, Sumo Kitty slot machine!  Here, take some more of my money!), and the Peppermill Poker Room (Chris can fill you in there, although I will say that the craps table was most uncraptacular.  Chris scored pretty well with the dice!).

We were having such a good time that I insisted upon staying another night in our suite instead of heading home late in the evening.  And it all worked out...the cats were even happy to see us home.  Happy birthday / Valentine's Day / President's Day to us all!

Want to see cruise pictures? Of course you do!

Chris and I went on a Caribbean cruise so that he could play in the Heartland Poker Tournament, and so that I could take a week off of work and spend that week in the Caribbean.  Here are a bunch of pictures for you...the captions speak for themselves, so enjoy the slide show!

Cats cats cats cats cats!!!

Our cats are enjoying the sun that rarely shows itself during winter in the Pacific northwest.  How many cats can you find in the below picture?  Hint:  one of them ran away just before I snapped the photo. Dang it, Abbey!!!

And when it comes to sharing, Samantha needs to recognize that it's not her cat bed.  Well, it's not Oliver's either, and he needs to recognize that there is not room for two cats, especially if one of them is Oliver-sized.  Poor Samantha!

Just for that, Samantha gets my favorite Grumpy Cat meme: