saturday, december 29, 2001
behind the quiet

i know i haven't been keeping up on whysper lately. truth of it is, i'm just not at all with it right now. the christmas blahs are still with me, i'm tired a lot, trying to get 4 domains up and running in a unified manner, and, to be honest, sleeping almost any time i'm not involved with writing, domains, or family. vacation is almost over and that deadline is really starting to pressure me. i pretty much know i have to get what i can done because once classes start again that's it for 6 to 6 1/2 months (add the 1/2 if i make it into one of the mfa programs). i think perhaps the worst thing about this whole vacation is that i can't really remember much of it. i have a list of things i've finished in my head, but i don't have much memory of doing the things on that list. while i admit to not having much of a memory at all now days, i can usually remember at least a little bit of working through the things i've accomplished over a 2 or 3 week period.

the blahs are so bad i had the tree taken down already. i usually wait for 12th night - jan 6, but i had saxy take it down tonight. considering the antics of shay-shay, this may have been the best decision, but my actual reason for it was because i'm still just not in the spirit of things. considering it's now after christmas, getting into the spirit is highly unlikely. there is, then, no point to having the tree up.

no, i'm not sure what the deal is. i just hope it's over before classes start again. and don't worry about me either. i'm in generally good spirits. the happy domy some of you speak to over aim or msn isn't faked out or anything. i am fighting my asthma like nothing else, but beyond that am fairly healthy, at least for me. i think i'm just tired and my busyness hasn't helped much. i'll be fine. i'm not depressed or anything, just not where i'm used to being at this time of year.

and being quite productive, actually. :)

i actually polished up and submitted 2 of my stories. i won't hear back until late january or early february at the earliest. the good news is that i'm keeping too busy to worry about them. ;)

i've edited and sent out or posted 3 chapters of assassin's choice, plus broke through that 6 month long block on chapter 10 (the fact that i got stuck again is neither here nor there..i did add 2000 words, which is about halfway there for a fast draft).

moved the forum. that was a real trip and a half since ikonboard v3-something-or-other REALLY doesn't like my server of choice. i went back to v2.1.9 and all's pretty much well. the collapsed threads don't look so hot in netscape, but (almost) everything works fine and what doesn't i don't really need. and it beats the crap out of the constant errors of the other version.

3 of the 4 domains are up and running and in working order. the 4th, alden.nu, will be at least completely set up by the end of the weekend. content will have to come a bit more slowly as i just won't have the time to post everything at once, especially since the final set up is going to a bit more complicated than anything else i've done. ssi is going to be heavily used, along with greymatter. my only consolation is that updates and future redesign should be a bit easier to manage...i hope.

i only have 1 or 2 more pages i need to work on in dreaming ink (which, btw, i update more often than whysper...you may want to bookmark that and check that out on a daily bases rather than moseying over here once a week). and started lessons in writing despite not being sure i have the 'right' to give any kind of lessons since i'm not published.

i've got the new whysper design mocked up, just have to tweak it here and there and it will be ready for my jan. 1 entry.

i've also been working on 'continuous' projects: reviews, world building, etc etc etc

perhaps the busyness is why i've been so quiet here and so not with it for the holidays. who knows. i'd like to think i know myself rather well, but there are times i have no idea so your guess would be as good as mine.

in other news, saxy has decided to give school another shot. we've set aside more money for yet more testing (hopefully the doctor will complete it this time - he's going to a different doctor too, so there's hope there!) in january. he'll sit out their winter session (which is all of 5 weeks and looks nasty unpleasant anyway), and i'll pay for spring if need be. hopefully this time saxy will have a definite diagnoses one way or the other and we can work on getting him help.

i did make the traditional dinner for christmas day, but only saxy's mother made it as his father was sick. the kids made out like bandits between dad and the grandparents, so we didn't feel too bad that our gifts weren't all that spectacular this year. shebop did get a radio for her birthday (and we gave one to taz too since we knew he'd go after her's if we didn't - his was an early christmas present) with a single cd player. we now have 4 stereos going at once in this house at any given time. it's interesting to say the least. ;) saxy and i didn't exchange gifts this year because we couldn't afford to, but i did receive some other small but nice gifts from other people and am well content with that. saxy and i will be purchasing combined christmas/anniversary presents in january - not really each of us buying for the other, but agreed purchases that go outside the usual. i'll be getting a winter coat, gloves, and a scarf or head wrap of some kind, he'll finally get his dvd player.

by far my best gift this year is that we're still together. i'm not sure why, but having saxy around this year just seemed so...nice. i can't really explain that comment, all i can say is that's just how it is.

so, all in all, i'm quiet, but things are doing ok over here. and that's all i can really ask for. :)