A Professional Dilettante

And turned the TV off. That'll larn me.

Well, they had a helluva run. Better than anyone could have expected with a rookie quarterback and one of the youngest teams in the league.

Next year...

1227 of 'em.



And the end of Chapter 14. I am, I suspect, much more pleased with where James is at this point than he is [g].

I sure hope RGIII's going to be okay and all healed up next season.

That said, wow!!! An away game! They won an away playoff game! The Seahawks' first away playoff win since 1983. Which is before I became a fan [wry g].

I have to say I could have done without that sinking feeling at the end of the first quarter, when the Redskins were up 14-0. But the 24 points the 'Hawks scored after that, without letting the Redskins score any more points were absolutely lovely.

Er, harimad? My sympathies. Really.

This should be really easy, but it's not. I have an image. The item in it is distinct enough from its background that selecting the part I want to keep is easy. I've done that part, although I had to cut the selected part and paste it into a new document (inverting the selection and hitting delete did nothing to get rid of the background no matter what the directions say). But now I've apparently got a zombie background. It won't GO AWAY. I can't make it go away no matter what I do. I get it to where it looks like it's gone in Photoshop, and prints in Photoshop like it's gone, but when I take the supposedly cropped version and place it in an InDesign document, the background looks like it's gone on the screen, but keeps magically reappearing and screwing everything up when I print it.

Help? Please? The mood icon does not begin to describe my sentiments at the moment.

Well, that's the last end-of-the-year project finished.

I have this horrible habit of throwing paperwork in a great big pile on top of my filing cabinet instead of actually, you know, either throwing it away or filing it. It's gotten much worse since I started paying my bills electronically, too, and this year was particularly odious since I refinanced my condo ($100 less a month, yay!, but ye godlings the paperwork!).

Writing historical fiction generates a lot of research material, too, but most of the non-book variety gets filed into one of those portable plastic file box things, one box per book. And I did pretty much stay on top of that, except for all the Sputs (the quarterly periodical of GOSA, the Geyser Observation and Study Association) scattered all over the coffee table for the last couple of months, which are now back in their box, too.

So I just spent the last two hours finding the top of my filing cabinet, and filling a garbage bag with outdated bills (which get paid on time but not thrown away for some godforsaken reason) and other unnecessary printed material and filing everything that needed to be kept in its proper place.

Whew! And I found a printout of my 2012 Goals [g]. Looks like I didn't do too badly. Could do better museum-wise, and I was overly optimistic about how long True Gold would take, which delayed the start of Finding Home, but other than that, not bad.

So I guess that wasn't my last end-of-the-year project. So, what do I want to accomplish in 2013?

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Since San Francisco beat Arizona today (SF losing to the Cardinals was always a long shot, alas -- the Cardinals have had a pitiful season and SF is, after all, on top of the division), even though the Seahawks won, and so did Minnesota, it was basically a moot point. Well, not for Minnesota -- if they'd lost they'd have been out of the playoffs -- but for the Hawks.

It didn't keep me from chewing my nails as they beat St. Louis 20-13, though. Three blowouts, and I've completely lost my ability to sanely watch a close game anymore [wry g].

But they won. They're 11-5. That's pretty darned spectacular, and the best season they've had since the year they went to the Super Bowl (2005-6). Not to mention winning every single home game this year. Go, 12th man [g].

And all with one of the youngest teams in the league. Not to mention a rookie quarterback who everyone kept saying was too short for the job [g]. Go, Wilson!

And now it's on to the playoffs [deep breath].

Well, I guess I can blame it on the holidays that I haven't written more than a hundred words since last Friday. Anyway, apparently I was letting it all marinate (or the writerly equivalent), because a) I came up with 1209 words today, and b) there's a new plot element that just showed up that I had no clue existed before today. Not sure where it's going, but I think it may be useful down the line. We'll see.

Anyway.



Oh, and the cats have been in and out several times today. Knowing which back door in the row of twelve is the right one seems to not be a problem, and getting them to come in doesn't seem to be an issue, either, esp. when there's food involved [g]. I was gardening/whacking dead stuff back in the back garden just now (the weather is about as decent as it gets this time of year -- 40s and sunshine!), and it's so nice to have feline company while I'm doing that! I will get back out there again in a bit and see how much more I can get done. There are crocuses sprouting out there. Already.

Also, I slept nine straight hours last night. Gods, that felt good.

With lots of pictures. http://mmjustus.wordpress.com

Happy Holidays, everyone!

The days are getting longer again!

Nor are we in Southern Canada. Just because a bunch of ignorant east coast football announcers think everyone east of the Mississippi thinks we are doesn't mean we are. Criminy.

Oh, and in front of a national audience (Sunday Night Football) the Seahawks creamed the San Francisco 49ers. Who are leading in the division right now (although if they lose their last game next week, they won't be anymore... [eg]).

42-13.

Which means that the total number of points they've put on the board in their last three games is 150. 58 week before last. 50 last week. 42 tonight. It's just amazing. Ridiculous, but amazing.

I know most of my FL couldn't give a rat's patoot, but, well, if I can't bounce off the ceiling here, where can I bounce?

1) I took Ivan and Teddy out on Tuesday into the 2 inches of crusty snow that had fallen overnight. It was their very first experience with snow. Apparently Teddy likes water in either form, liquid or frozen, but Ivan wasn't quite so enthusiastic, even if he didn't let the fact that the ground/crust kept sinking under his paws stop him from exploring. There was a lot of paw-shaking going on by both of them, though. Oh, and Teddy batted at a mint stem and was most offended at the faceful of snow he got as a result.

2) Teddy is enthralled with wolves, and bears, and trumpeter swans, and foxes, and otters...

PBS's show Nature was rerunning its Christmas in Yellowstone program last night, and as it's one of my favorites, I tuned it in. Ivan watched intently from my lap, but Teddy jumped down and spent a large portion of the hour on his hind legs with his front paws on the TV armoire (which tells you how big he's gotten -- the tv's about two feet off the floor), watching the critters with, I'm pretty sure, every intent of taking down one of those bison, or maybe an elk [g]. I think it was the sounds that originally caught their attention, but that was all it took.