Cori Lannam

So I've been a mess lately. An absolutely freaking mess. It's been so bad the last couple months that I'm seriously considering trying to find a therapist in the new year, as much as that ratchets my anxiety to eleven just thinking about it. My apologies from being so absent from everyone's lives - I've been reading almost nothing lately other than the odd tweet or two, and am just now pulling myself back into the world.

I was so proud that I managed to buy holiday cards this year! I got a set of cute Christmas cards, a set of cute less Christmassy holiday cards, and a set of completely non-Christmas season's greeting cards. Then I lost my address book. *headdesk*

But! I just found it! So if I have your address, you'll be getting a card from me. If you don't get a card from me, it means a) I don't have your address; b) I have an old address for you because you moved; c) I know you don't celebrate Christmas and am not sure whether you would appreciate a non-religious winter greeting card; or d) you live outside the United States and I've misjudged the amount of postage needed.

In the meantime, my mom is here, as many of you have already heard, in the final week of her 3-week visit. She brought her puppy, which she is trying to train as a service dog for herself (!!!). That is going about as well as you would expect if you know anything about my mother. The doggy is terribly cute, despite the awful behavioral issues. I will post pictures if she ever lets me get a non-blurry shot.

We do not traditionally celebrate Christmas in my family, so tomorrow we'll indulge the tradition we do celebrate -- going to the movies and then out for Chinese food. Les Miserables for some cheery good times!

Speaking of cheery good holiday viewing, I am tense with anxiety over the finale of Merlin tonight. Confession: I haven't watched an episode since the start of the Gwen Enchanted arc. At first it was because I was late on my merlin_holidays story and I just didn't have time to do my usual watch-and-review evening, and then it was because after reading everyone else's reviews, I just couldn't cope with my escalating disappointment about this show on top of the rest of my depression.

But for tonight, my expectations are very, very, very low. There's one thing left that I want from this show. There's no possible way it can be what I want at this point, but I have lowered the bar accordingly so really, they just have to put in really minimal effort to meet my heavily revised standards tonight.

I hope everyone is closing out this long year in a peaceful and happy way! *hugs*

I finally managed to type up the wee little Merlin story I was writing during my Royal Wedding all-nighter last week, an epilogue to a story I haven't actually written (yet).

I went and posted it at the Royal Wedding Fest, even though it's pretty clear I missed the bandwagon there. But just in case there's anyone who isn't royal weddinged out yet, it's over here --

Sketches from A Royal Wedding

There, now I can work on those DVD commentaries I owe. And also maybe read something! You never know!

***

Speaking of reading, I've been stuck playing the role of de facto meeting planner all week, which has been kind of fun, but involved a lot of sitting around during some very dry sessions. This allowed me to finally finish reading Game of Thrones, and now my emotions are all in a riot but I can't go seek out discussion because I haven't read the other three books yet.

*flail*

***

Speaking of other things I'm behind on (i.e., life), I went to a mortgage seminar given by my credit union the other week. It's looking more and more likely that within the next year or two, my mother is going to have to come and live with me, due to her housing assistance getting cut more and more. This can obviously not happen in my tiny one-bedroom apartment, so I've been looking into what it would take to buy something that would allow us to live together without going completely insane (she refuses to consider anything where she doesn't have her own bathroom, a yard, and is within scooter-distance of thrift store shopping).

The answer turns out to be, approximately twice what I can actually afford. Not that I can afford to buy anything right now -- holy crap, y'all, it takes a lot of cold, hard cash to buy a house! I think I need a second job.

Catching up with my life in random bullet points -

* Writing -- What's the very best, most productive thing to do when you have a Merlin big bang to write and several other stories in progress? Start writing an Eagle story, of course! (I CAN'T HELP IT)

* Mom -- In the continuing saga of my mother's life, she's heading back to the Cleveland Clinic on the 22nd to see a team of doctors, one of which, we hope, will be able to figure out what the hell is wrong with her and how to make it go away. In the meantime, she may be about to lose her housing subsidy because her apartment management made a mistake on a form. No, it wasn't her fault. No, the government doesn't care.

* Shampoo -- So in my slow ongoing effort to rid my life of toxic chemicals, I started researching some non-toxic shampoo options. Extremely hard to find, even among the so-called green brands. I ended up finding Chagrin Valley Soap, which is relatively local and looks pretty awesome. I ended up ordering a sample of all the shampoo bars they had in stock, and the package arrived today! I can't wait to wash my hair (if I can decided which one to try first).

* The Eagle -- I finally finished the book. Then I spent a very long time making helpless squeaky noises. I don't even care what they do with the movie. You know there's a comm (ninth_eagle), right? ninth_eagle, yes. Marcus and Esca are getting me through the day right now.

* Superbowl -- This isn't actually about the Superbowl because I didn't watch, though I did feel a little bad when the pizza guy asked what the score was and I had no idea. So I got chelseafrew to come over for Movie Bowl, instead. And in honor of the big day, I tried to make nachos. Unfortunately, the Velveeta refused to stay melted long enough to dip a chip in it, but it was a valiant effort.

I remember Velveeta cheese from my early childhood, when we used to get blocks of it in the boxes from the food bank, along with powdered eggs (nothing like eggs, but strangely addictive) and powdered milk (which I would not drink under any circumstances). My mom used to melt a slice of it over a fried egg with some bacon bits (of the salty fake kind) to get me to eat egg yolks (nutritional wisdom was a bit different when I was a child!)

Haven't had it since and have no idea what to do with the half-block I still have left. I suppose I should throw it away (see above about eliminating toxic chemicals).