Sena's DW :: Watermelon Life

Okay. So. Today I discovered that the BRAND NEW (used) axolotl tank was leaking, and in exactly the same way as the last tank did; from the base, from the acrylic on the bottom. I decided this CAN'T just be the most infuriating coincidence in history, so I had a look around the tank and at the dresser that it's standing on and... the top of the dresser is COLLAPSED inward in the middle, and that means that the 40 gallon tank that weighs approximately 332 POUNDS, isn't supported in the middle AT ALL.

It's no wonder the last tank broke, and no wonder this new one did, too.

But still like. Fuck me.

It's currently a slow-drip leak so I'm stemming it with a towel so it hopefully doesn't overflow and end up all over the carpet AGAIN, but right now I'm basically frantically trying to source a new dresser and tank because the situation with the current ones isn't sustainable.

On top of that, after all the problems with the water when I originally switched the tanks OVER a couple weeks ago, it's now developed a bacterial infection that I currently have to treat, and a fungal infection that I'm going to be treating next. It's not a shock because of all the water problems before but still.

And my poor axolotls are just... suffering in there in horrible water conditions and being dosed with MelaFix every freaking day. (Only for five days and today was day three so two more to go.) Then I have to give them a break before I do a 50% water change and start treating for the FUNGAL infection. Like, JFC.

I also had to buy a new outside-hanging-on-the-edge filter for the tank and some AccuClear to try to fix the water clarity, so just in general I am spending a shit ton of money on this tank (TANKS PLURAL) and I really don't even have it to spare. The money for the new dresser and the new tank is going to have to come out of my admittedly meager savings and I can't fucking afford to do that, but I have no choice.

I guess it's like taking the cats to the vet, it's just something I have to do. Pet ownership, man. Pet ownership.

I am considering changing Tatsuya's name to just Ryuu which is super obvious, yes, but I like it much better than "Tatsuya" for some reason, so I'm going to ponder that for a while and decide by the end of the day. Also Haku is the one with the PLETHORA of light spots on the top/tip of his tail, and Tatsuya/Ryuu is the one with a darker tail literally they are basically identical I'M DOING MY BEST HERE.

Anyway, yesterday Mom and I headed to Elmvale, which is about an hour away (give or take) to pick up Kaida's brothers. I was buying one, but the lady asked, since I have such a huge tank, if I might be willing to take a third one as well, if she didn't charge me for it? Apparently she was having a hell of a time finding PROPER homes for them and felt really good sending them home with me, so I said sure, which is why I ended up with two yesterday and not just the one I'd originally intended.

NO REGRETS!! ...except I have to figure out how much to feed them, now that there's three of them? Though Kaida is still sulky so he didn't eat this morning. I'm not worried, though, give him a couple days and he'll get used to the New Normal and everything will be fine again. I definitely need to buy some more axolotl pellets at the end of the month, though. Also nightcrawlers. Blegh. :|

When I fed Kaida that worm a few days back AND SWORE OFF WORMS UNTIL THEY COULD EAT THEM WHOLE but then changed my mind about that, Kaida ate 3/4 of the worm, so they're very close to being able to just eat whole worms. Maybe another two or three months just to be sure? If Kaida is anything to go by, they grow like bad weeds, so they'll be big enough for full worms in no time AND THEN I WON'T HAVE TO CUT APART LIVING ANIMALS ANYMORE AHAHA!! /SOB

Um.

Writing-wise, I am BLOWING through TKA, but it's going to end up WAY longer than I originally speculated. I'm currently sitting at 77 pages and 37,532 words on the 13th of the month (and I'm hoping to get another 2,500 written later today), so I'm going to get to 50,000 words way before the NaNo is over, but like... almost NOTHING that I originally planned to put in TKA is actually IN TKA yet, I still have SO MUCH to write. I've written 77 pages and 90% of that is extra stuff that just CAME TO ME as I was typing. It's DEFINITELY going to be AT LEAST 80,000 words, if not more.

This is both exciting and terrifying because finishing TKA leads to EDITING TKA, which leads to FINDING AN AGENT for TKA and (hopefully) getting TKA published. And that is like... my ENTIRE UNIVERSE for AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER had revolved around wanting to finish a book and get it published and I just COULD NOT DO IT BEFORE. So NOW I'm kind of... anxious about it, which is stupid, but I'm excited, too, which I guess is LESS STUPID, assuming I can even get an agent and get published to begin with. I don't even know where to START with that stuff. :| Poe was supposed to be introducing me to THEIR agent, but... yeah. Not so much, anymore. idk.

But technically I've already completed two books with Horror High and Storm Season, so it's totally doable, I just have to do it with original characters and concepts that I won't get yelled at over copyright on lol. TKA is doing nicely, and then after that I'm going to work on Freefall and/or My Zombie, and of course a bunch of fanfiction stuff at the same time. I think I might work on What Angels Dream for a little bit today, actually.

First I need to have a nap, though, which I am off to do riiiiiiiight about now. =.=

WHEN I first got Kaida, he had a wild-type coloration to his head and a lavender-type coloration to his body and he was really quirky and unique, which was why I chose him. But as he's GROWN, his COLOR has changed, darker and darker until now he's like... black with darker black spots and purple gills, which the Interwebs tells me is a variation of a melanistic axolotl! THIS IS VERY COOL! I WANTED a melanistic axolotl, but I couldn't FIND one so I went with the next best (cutest) thing, and then I ended up with a melanistic one after all! :D

The two that I'm picking up today are (I'm pretty sure) both just wild-types, which is the most common coloration, I believe, but that's fine with me! I'm not picky when it comes to 'lotls! (Except I would love a leucistic one lmao but that seems to not be in the cards, at least not right now.)

Last night I did a Deep Clean of the axolotl tank in anticipation of the new arrivals today and Kaida was SO. MAD AT ME. But he was last time, too. And I moved some stuff around a bit which doesn't help matters, and took one of the smaller hides out that isn't really big enough anymore. He was huffy all night. Soon I'm going to have to get another big hide, though, and take out the little terracotta pots because he's outgrowing them and his siblings will be about the same size.

ALSO. I have tentatively decided to try the worm thing again. Feeding pellets to THREE axolotls is going to get expensive. And also, they need to stay used to eating worms at least occasionally so when they're full grown they recognize them as, you know, FOOD. So. Worms again. Which absolutely makes my skin crawl just thinking about cutting them up, but it is what it is I guess. Eventually they'll be big enough so just eat them whole. JUST KEEP THE FUTURE IN SIGHT, SENA. YOU CAN DO THIS.

In NON-axolotl related news, I finished just over 2,000 words on TKA today so I'm on track even though the rest of the day is going to be busy. I'm hoping I can bust out another 2,500 or so tonight after I feed the cats and put them to bed. I'm up to 35,276 words total right now, which is FANTASTIC for the 12th of the month. I might actually beat the NaNo this year (for the first time!!) TOUCH WOOD!!

But even if I beat the NANO, TKA probably isn't going to be FINISHED by the 30th, since I'm aiming for 80,000-ish words for the completed project. So I'll still have work to do, but I'll have a HELL of a good start on it! :D

Today I've got a busy day ahead of me. We have to pack up Mom's car with the last of my stuff for storage at Dad's tomorrow. Thank God Lee is driving in a separate car, or I think I would go insane from the UTTER SILENCE on the way down like would it kill you to have a CONVERSATION? jfc. I didn't want him to come at all, but sadly we have two carloads of stuff and I don't drive so we don't really have a choice.

The thing with my Stepdad is that I LOVE him tons, but I don't LIKE him very much, you know? LOVE and LIKE are two very different things, and if I had to be trapped in a car with him for five hours (round trip) I think I would go insane. He's a good guy, but he's LAZY and he's ABSOLUTELY USELESS and I have no use for him, really. If he died tomorrow, I would be SAD but I wouldn't be HEARTBROKEN. But don't tell anyone I told you that. =/

Anyway, today I also have to wrap Dad and Lois' Christmas gifts for tomorrow and bake a batch of shortbread cookies for them. Luckily, their gifts/cookie tin are all small, so they won't take up TOO much room in the car. I just figure since I already have everything and it's (mostly) ready to go, I might as well drop it off while we're down there and save the fufurah come December. Then Dad just has to worry about mailing my stuff and he doesn't have to drive all the way up here this yeah like he has the last few years. I know that's hard on him, at his age.

Then AT SOME POINT TODAY I have to do a deep clean on Kaida's tank in preparation for the other two axolotls on Tuesday. If I don't do it today it'll have to wait until MONDAY and I've already put it off a couple days, so the tank is getting a little gunky. Then again maybe I SHOULD just wait until Monday, so the tank is as clean as possible for the new arrivals, and just give it a cursory clean today to get it looking a little better? idk idk idk.

Oh, turns out Kaida DID eat some of his worm from the other day, just when I wasn't looking. I still think I might stick with pellets until they're big enough to eat whole worms, though, cutting up live animals just... isn't cool with me. =/

Today I really should write my 1,667 words for the NaNo, too, but I'm like four or five days ahead at this point so if I miss a couple of days, it should be okay. Tomorrow I won't be able to write anything all day because we'll be in Georgetown, but idk maybe tonight I can write at least SOMETHING to go toward my word count? I can TRY at least...

.....

Poe deleted their Insta, so I have no way of keeping track of them at all anymore, especially not if they aren't going to bother replying to my emails anymore. I understand that they're going through something with their Dad, but the way to deal with it isn't to shut everyone else out. But that's how they always deal with the hard things in life, they just... shut down. Delete all their social media. Stop answering messages. They probably still have their Etsy up and running, but I dunno, I could be wrong about that.

I feel like... we had such a great start to our friendship, right, but I think I caught them in an upswing, and I had no idea what it was going to be like dealing with them long-term. And I really AM no good for them, or that's how it seems, anyway, which is why I sent that email kind of... cutting down our friendship. But they seem to have taken it to mean we shouldn't be friends AT ALL, which wasn't my intent, and now they won't listen when I try to explain that.

Or message me back when I ask about their address, so I end up sending an expensive parcel with things in it that can't be replaced to the wrong fucking address. I asked SO MANY TIMES and they just ignored me, and I KNOW, their DAD, but they could at least check their freaking EMAIL I just don't understand it!

I'm fairly sure that Poe is bipolar on top of everything else, with the drastic ups and downs that they make all the time, and I've had a lot of experience with that so I can recognize it when I see it. But I can't TALK to them about it because they're ignoring my FSCKING emails like a child and honestly... it hurts so, so, so much, but I'm pretty sure I AM better off without them, despite what I said in that email. All they do is cause me heartache and make me cry, and I love them more than anything but that's not okay. I don't think they mean to be, because they can be SO giving sometimes, but Poe is also INCREDIBLY selfish at times, and I can't have that in my life, can I?

It's just hard because I love them with all of my wretched heart. I don't know what to do, anymore.

FIRST OFF, I just fed Kaida a live worm for the first and possibly last time. It WIGGLED and BLED and then the PIECES WIGGLED WHILE THEY BLED and I felt SO, INCREDIBLY BAD oh my God. Like even digging it out of the soil was terrible I have never dug for earthworms before and then it was kind of cute?? And I CUT APART AN ANIMAL WHILE IT WAS STILL ALIVE. I FEEL LIKE SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON.

But like... maybe I'll just get used to it, maybe it'll get EASIER?? If not, my 'lotls can survive perfectly fine on just axolotl pellets and frozen bloodworm treats, so I mean. That might be a thing that happens with my bunch. Just. The worm thing was not a great experience for me, right off the bat. :|

UPDATE: Kaida didn't even eat his worm bits. Goddammit. Right. So maybe I'll just #freetheworms and stick with pellets from now on. Or, at least until Kaida and friends are big enough to eat the worms whole, you know?

...anyway. Other than that. Um.

Even though I didn't write anything yesterday because reasons, I did do my writing this morning and so I'm still a day ahead in NaNo maths. I'm hoping to get some more written tonight, too, after I make dinner and feed the cats, before I go to bed. Hopefully another couple thousand words or so. Right now I'm at 35 pages and 16,119 words, which isn't nothing, considering I spent like three years dicking around with TKA and not actually writing anything until I got onto the ADHD meds.

Plus it's nice to be accomplishing something for the NaNo for the first time, since I always seem to have a block when it comes to November and writing my fffffffreaking NaNo project. I don't think I'll FINISH TKA this month, because I'm aiming for 80,000 words for it, but I can at least get to the 50,000 word NaNo goal, right? Right.

I have Teeth open to work on as well, but I'm actually more focused on TKA (for once) the last couple days, since I finished Nightingale. But then again, maybe I'm just not feeling Teeth at the moment and I should try writing one of the other 50,000,000 POST-SS ONE-SHOTS I have going on atm. Maybe Kindling or The Desert Tide, or even What Angels Dream? I dunno. I'll think on it I guess.

Tonight is my turn to cook dinner and I'm making shepherd's pie with tofu instead of ground beef (technically cottage pie, whatever) because I should be eating less red meat and that's a PROBLEM around here, especially hamburger. So I bought some tofu the other day and I'm going to do this tonight and see how it goes. Right now I'm pressing the tofu to get as much water out of it as possible before I start cooking at 5:30pm.

Mom is going in with an open mind, I think, but Lee is predictably skeptical because MEAT. Like at least one day a week when he cooks I'm going to get red meat, but that's better than before, when we ate it basically all the time. Mom is willing to switch to chicken/turkey and I'll cook with tofu and fish, too. REAL FISH NOT BATTERED AND FRIED FISH. Which. I might do next week, I have some salmon in the garage freezer. Mom doesn't like fish but she can deal once in a while.

I don't know, it's just like... I have all these new restrictions of my diet and I'm also trying to work around Mom and Lee. It's going to be difficult.

On a somewhat related note, yesterday I got my tea at Tim Horton's with almond milk and WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ALMOND MILK IS SO GOOD? I would have gotten it FOR SURE instead of the Next Milk I have right now if I had known. Boo. (Next month, Sena, next month.)

Alright, so yesterday Mom and I went to Baysville and got as much of the rest of my stuff moved to the garage as possible. My Uncle has built a shed to house it all, and he's going to be transferring everything over to the shed over the next little while, so like thank you Uncle Alec for not making us come back up and move it all AGAIN. :|

There is some stuff that didn't fit, which will be going down to Georgetown to be stored at my DAD'S place because literally we have nowhere to put anything here. All the boxes out of the basement here will be going to Dad's place, too, theoretically, assuming we can fit it all into the two vehicles because Mom doesn't want to make two trips to Georgetown and I don't blame her it's a LONG drive.

That aside, I'm looking forward to seeing Dad and Lois, at least, I only see Dad once a year at Christmas time and I basically NEVER see Lois, so hopefully we can take an hour in there somewhere to visit for a bit, maybe between unpacking carloads? We're going to need a break at some point anyway, right?

Also I'm thinking about just bringing their Christmas gifts with me when we go since I have everything here already (except Lois' gift card), and that would save Dad a trip in December. But that means I need to make a batch of shortbread like THIS WEEK. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need in the house, though, like it just takes flour, sugar and margarine. XD;;

Other than that, Mom has agreed to go to Elmvale for another 'lotl for me so I'm STOKED. It'll be the week of the 11th-15th, assuming the woman even has any left by then. I messaged her last night but she hasn't replied yet, so I'm just waiting. Also, hoping that the ones she has left are males. She doesn't know how to sex them (hence Kaida being a "she" until he wasn't) and if I get there are all of the ones she has left are female I'm going to have to leave empty-handed. I don't want 10,000,000 babies thanks. :D;;

Kaida has been out and about a lot more lately, I think he's finally feeling comfortable in his tank now that there are more plants and stuff (and he's getting bigger), and the other day I got him an adult-sized hide and at first he was like o__o over but now he seems to have adopted, so that's good. I need to clean his tank today and he's not going to like that (he never does), but it's sadly EXTREMELY necessary.

I'm going to buy something to try to clear up Kaida's water, since it's kind of consistently a little bit cloudy and has been right off the hop. I did a bunch of research and apparently API ACCU-CLEAR is safe for axolotls, so I'm going to try that. But it has to wait until I have more money because that seems to be the way things always go for me.

I need a real pot for Alpine, the cutting I took off of Bucky a couple months back, as he's outgrown his little plastic starter container and now needs a real home. So next time I'm in the dollar store I'll see what I can find. Haha, I started all these clippings, like a TON of them, all at the same time, assuming that half of them could die off, and then like... ONE died. And now I have all these plants and nowhere to put them (but I love them anyway!)

I got a rooted monstera clipping on etsy that should arrive next week (it's just shipping from inside Ontario) that I want to get going and then add to the aquarium. He's going to be the new Castiel. Right now Dean has a leaf that is trying to die and I'm like DON'T YOU DO IT, DEAN. DON'T YOU DARE DO IT.

When I did my shopping a couple of days ago I got a bunch more binders, including a bigger one for Storm Season et al, but now that I'm looking at it and at the number of one-shots there are, I will probably need to use the old SS binder as well. The SS one-shot situation has really gotten out of control lmao. But I'm having fun, and that's what counts!

Right now I'm randomly working on Nightingale, which takes place after Teeth, so like. I SHOULD be finishing Teeth up first, but I was inspired for Nightingale so here we are. It's an accidental succubus Hunt so basically the whole thing is smut but like that's what MOST of the Horror High one-shots were like, so I guess we're just going back to our roots with this one. They pretty much all have at least one sex scene in them, though. XD;;

Considering I'm ace myself I do write a lot of porn. :|

Right, so. The, uh, follow-up one-shots to Storm Season is up to TWELVE now because I can't seem to stop adding more. idk this AU just brings it out in me, I guess, I can't seem to help myself! I've finished the first three, and I'm halfway finished the fourth one, but my time is pretty much up, I have to go shopping today and the NaNo starts tomorrow so MONTHS LONG BREAK FROM HORROR HIGH ET AL!! ...but then I have ten weeks after that to finish up the other one-shots while I post Storm Season, so I should be fine :D;;

ANYWAY, basically it goes:

-HORROR HIGH (10 chapters)
-Cheap Motel
-Counting Scars
-Cerulean Blue
-Everything I Do
-Falling Stars
-STORM SEASON (10 chapters)
-When Lightning Strikes
-Ghost In The Machine
-Pinfeathers
-Teeth
-Nightingale
-Temper Tantrums
-Hunting Souls
-Shrike
-Day Drinking
-Mockingbird
-Halcyon Days
-Stalagmites

Aaaaaaaaand probably more because FUCK IT THIS IS THE AU THAT NEVER ENDS, YES IT GOES ON AND ON MY FRIEND! Halcyon Days and Stalagmites keep getting pushed and pushed and pushed because they're the last two in the series lol. Although I guess I COULD have stuff in-between Halcyon Days and Stalagmites, there's lots of room in there timeline-wise in the TV show. :| I just really like the ending of Halcyon Days as an ending to the "earthly" part of the series because of the very last line, but Dean and Cas could be "husbands" fighting monsters, too, I suppose. *shrug*

Three of the post-SS one-shots are named after birds (Nightingale, Mockingbird and Shrike) but are completely unrelated to each other that is just a coincidence. Also Nightingale is going to be insanely smutty, harkening back to Dean and Cas's teenage boy days in Cheap Motel, etc. Mockingbird and Shrike are more monster-y, and Shrike has a kind of sympathetic creature that they have to kill anyway, which turns out to be kind of sad.

Did I mention I am having an INSANELY good time making covers for these fics for my projects page on the NaNo website? I've always loved making covers, I just got out of it for a (long) while and the NaNo site got me back into it again. See me putting my VERY LIMITED Photoshop skills to work and adding text to images! :D;;

But anyway.

Today is shopping day, as I mentioned, because my ODSP bursary came in since it's the last day of the month. I already paid my bills (excluding rent which I pull in cash), and paid for the stuff in my Amazon account, and bought a rooted monstera cutting off of etsy which hopefully I can put in Kaida's aquarium once he's big enough. A new Castiel, yay!! Oh, and I bought some larimar chip beads off ebay, which were SHOCKINGLY expensive, compared to what the rest of my gemstone chip beads have cost me. :|

Later, Mom and I are going to the bank, then Costco, then Walmart, then the Dollarama, then Petsmart and finally Shoppers, and in there somewhere I need to convince her to drive me to Elmvale again to pick up another axolotl. :x But not today, and not tomorrow because tomorrow we're going to Baysville to haul boxes again. But at least this time they're not all super heavy like the last couple of times, haha. Be happy for the little things, right?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYBODY!! :D

I finally have my axolotl! Mom and I went to pick her up today and she is ADORABLE. This was when she was still in her transport container, obviously, but she's SO TINY in the big tank. That's okay, she'll grow into it, though! I was so tempted to just get two of them but that would have been irresponsible of me, considering the size of the aquarium and the fact that I didn't know the genders. I'm just calling her "she" because I gave her a girl's name. XD

KAIDA!! A Japanese name meaning "little dragon!" <333

She's kind of a weird morph, she's got a wild-type head and a lavender body, so she's unique. I think she's super cute and pretty. Right now I JUST put her into the big tank so she's acclimating. I'm going to leave her alone until tomorrow afternoon and then try feeding her. Hopefully she'll eat. The lady I got her from sent me off with a bunch of bloodworms and some axolotl pellets, and I had already bought a bag of axolotl pellets as well, so I should be good for food. The nightcrawlers are going to have to wait until my super long tweezers come in around the 22nd? Then I can start feeding her those as well.

I need to figure out how to use the aquarium vacuum thing that I have downstairs, I feel like it'll be helpful in keeping the tank clean. Maybe I'll dig it out tonight when I'm feeding the cats and bring it upstairs then. I originally bought it for the fish but then I couldn't logic my way into using it so it just went downstairs. Gotta get on that.

The one person I was really, really amped to tell about FINALLY getting my axolotl was Poe, so there's kind of a bittersweet note to today. I messaged them on Insta to tell them and to tell them I was happy that they had gotten another axolotl as well, but I'm not expecting a reply. I think when I sent that email, Poe just washed their hands of me entirely. I'm not really surprised. That seems to be how they handle the difficult things, just ghost them completely. I really am happy that they have a 'lotl again, though. I was devastated for them when they lost their last ones.

Anyway, Kaida is still tiny so we'll see how big she gets. Expect periodic updates! <3

EDIT: FUCKING FINALLY GOT THE LIGHT SETTINGS ON KAIDA'S TANK RIGHT. It only took four hours. *FACEPALM*

I've decided to pack up some of my dolls for storage for the time being, until I have an apartment of my own again. I love them all, but they take up SO much room... so I've packed up Suika, Raiden, Willow, Holly, Boo, Billie and Persephone, and I'm going to pack up Paige, Ishana, Flora and Fauna as well. Possibly Yumeko? I haven't decided on her or not yet. But she's TINY so she doesn't take up much space anyway.

I also rearranged my shelves a bit last night to make room for some of my larger dolls on them, so Aidan and Katie are no longer sitting on the printer, but Tyler IS because he is somehow even bigger than AIDAN and doesn't fit even on the rearranged shelves. =/ Sparrow is with him for now, and I moved Morgana over to the printer to give me easier access to Itsy's terrarium, which has... also been covered in dolls. :D;;

Once Flora and Fauna are packed up, I'm going to move Sofi up to the wall shelf that they're currently sitting on, and now that I'm thinking about it actually Tyler could probably go up there as well. He would fit. I really wanted him to be on the shelf with Aidan but for now I guess they'll have to be across the room from each other either way. *sigh*

And I know it's very counter intuitive, but I do still want to get new!Wren when I have the money. I mean, there are lots of dolls that I still want but new!Wren is the most important one. Mom will FLIP if I pack up all my dolls just to bring in a new one, though, so I'll have to be super stealthy about it. >>; I can't afford her until at least after Christmas anyway, though. She keeps getting put off.

Umm, other than doll stuff...

I'm 113 pages and 50,696 words into Storm Season, so headed for a strong finish by the end of the month! Which means I can hopefully edit it in-and-around writing TKA for the NaNo next month and be ready to start posting it on the first Thursday of December! Then that'll give me (hopefully) 10 weeks to finish up the post-Storm Season one-shots and edit them to start posting them once I'm done with Storm Season proper.

I'm still wavering on Stalagmites. It takes place like TEN PLUS YEARS after the previous one-shot (Halcyon Days) and I really like how Halcyon Days ends, and how it ends the series. Stalagmites seems superfluous, I guess? But I also rather like it at the same time, and I honestly can't decide if I'm going to post it or not when the time comes. Maybe I'll just write it for me and keep it secret, keep it safe. lol.

I've done quite a bit of working on Where Monsters Come From the last few days (when I should have been working on Storm Season) but it's random scenes from here-and-there throughout the fic, so I guess that's how Where Monsters Come From is going to be written, same as Horror High and Storm Season and about half my other projects! That's fine, the Random Scenes way of writing seems to work out for me, as long as I don't mind writing the whole thing before I start posting chapters, in the case of fanfiction. In the case of original works it really doesn't matter, does it?

Also, Where Monsters Come From was originally going to have a couple of smut scenes in it (because DESTIEL) but I was working on a sequence yesterday that WOULD have ended in smut and I just... couldn't do it. I CAN'T WRITE SMUT IN VALDEMAR!VERSE I JUST CAN'T! ...so the would-be-smut parts are going to just cut off or fade to black, basically, so it'll be SFW for the entire fic. XD;;

I'm starting to work on Of The Deepest Dye again after like ten years or more. But it's going to be another one where I write it in scenes here-and-there and have the whole thing written before I start posting it, with the exception of the Prologue, which I've already got posted at FF.Net and AO3. I actually have a proper PLOT going for it, now, so that's a plus. And an entire cast of characters! Bonus! It'll be my first time writing a romance between Companions, but I mean... there's a first time for everything! (Plus I love the whole Nero/Jenial thing, they are adorable together. <3)

...my laptop is getting very hot in one particular area right under where my left hand rests when I type and idk what is going on but I don't like it. =/

What else? Oh. I have two tablets, the older one that my sister and sister-in-law gave me for Christmas a few years back, and the new one (Haven) that Mom just gave me recently. I don't use the old one much because I was stupid and downloaded a bunch of Netflix stuff onto it and now I can't get it off and the HD is all bogged down, but this morning I was like "WHAT IF I JUST RESET IT??" and so I tried to. But it won't reset. You press the "reset ipad" button and it just stares at you. I got frustrated and just turned it off again, I'll return to it at a later date.

ALSO AXOLOTL TOMORROW!!! \o/

EDIT: Completely unrelated, but Cerulean Blue isn't getting NEARLY the number of hits/kudos/etc. that Cheap Motel and Counting Scars got and I have no idea why. .__. Go figure.

Today I woke up at 5:30am and couldn't get back to sleep so now I'm just... puttering around. I posted Cerulean Blue to AO3, Tumblr and Vanimadin, so we'll see what kind of reception that gets, and I posted my photo for the day for my photoblogging already, and I also did some image editing for covers for some of my writing because I'm super into doing that right now.

I have three things arriving from Amazon today; my Jamieson probiotic gummies, my aquarium thermometers, and my turkey baster. Unfortunately my super long tweezers won't be here until the end of the month so I'm going to have to jury-rig something else for feeding worms to my axolotl when I get it next week. Maybe chopsticks?? idk I'll figure something out.

I keep looking at my huge aquarium and wishing I could get some little fish to go in the tank with my future axolotl, just for visual interest, but sadly... they could potentially pick at the axolotl's gills, which is no good, or, when the axolotl got big enough, it would just EAT THEM, which is also not good, so like. No fishies. Or anything else. Just the 'lotl. But I'm fine with that! I'll just fill it up with plants (inside and out) and make it pretty that way.

(I'm so excited for next week like ahhhh!! X3)

I decided that today I'm going to just... bite the bullet and get down to unpotting Sam to put him in the aquarium. It's such a Job with a capital "J" to unpot plants, I hate it. I learned that doing Cas and Dean. But like... I need to do it eventually and I want to get it done BEFORE the axolotl is actually IN THE TANK so. TODAY IT IS. (My spider-plant, Jack, is going to have to go in after the 'lotl is already in the tank but there's just no getting around that. He's still too little to go in yet.)

I need to get another air pump for the aquarium, this last one that I bought is UNACCEPTABLY LOUD. The PREVIOUS one I got is basically WHISPER QUIET but when I needed a second one I cheaped out and bought a less expensive one and now I regret my life choices. So I have to go back and buy another one of the good ones because the noise is driving me BONKERS. Did I mention I HATE air pumps??

.....

Yesterday I made the rice pudding I've been meaning to make for like a month now and it turned out great as always, and now I have a little bit of 2% milk for two or three teas as a treat since it only takes 3/4 of a carton to make the pudding. I LOVE 2% milk in my tea and cooking/baking but Mom and Lee keep stupid 1% in the house instead and I'm like... blegh. At least it's not skim. For a while they kept THAT in the house and it was just COLORED WATER GDI.

Some time in the next couple of days I need to go at and make the sweet potato pie that I've been procrastinating over, too. I think one of the sweet potatoes is starting to grow mould. They probably should have been kept in the fridge?? But Lee has been really bitchy lately about me having too much stuff in the fridge, so I just left them out to avoid the inevitable conflict. Like, I understand that the fridge is getting full, but I fucking live here too, you know?

Anyway, I'm making a practice sweet potato pie to see if it turns out before Thanksgiving weekend, when my sister is having everyone over for Thanksgiving dinner. If it DOES turn out then I'm going to be making another one for that, though I may just be sending it along with Mom and Lee because idk if I'm going to feel up to going to a huge family get together like last year. Especially if Sarah and Heather are going to be there. I can't handle their stupidity. I mean. It's... nice. Seeing everyone. But my anxiety and depression really don't like it AT ALL, and with how I'm feeling lately I just... I don't want to be there for 30 minutes and then have to beg Mom to drive me home because I'm about to have a breakdown. I dunno. I guess we'll see how I feel on the day. =/

I've been working on a set of Wiggly Foxes the last few days, they're all base orange but I'm painting their socks/paws/ears/parts of their tails different colors. One is Cayman Blue, one is Thistle Blossom Pink, one is Spring Green and the fourth is half Violet Pansy Purple and half Bright Gold. They're coming along really nicely.

I really enjoy doing my foxes, but they cost like $14.99USD each because of the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into each one. It takes me DAYS to paint a fox, so they're pretty expensive. I have a few up in my Etsy store right now but no one's biting. Then again no one bites at anything in my store, so what else is new? I think the foxies would go over better at cons or markets (especially cons) but I don't currently have access to anything like that, so I mean. Etsy it is, I guess.

I really have to get my current buttons up on my Etsy, too. The Pontypool and Evil Dead Rise ones. Buttons are a big commodity and they seem to go over well, and I have all the photos taken I just have to upload them and list them I just fffffffffffucking hate doing Etsy listings. *HEADDESK* But again, I've got to just... buckle down and do it. I also have some new ones that I want to make with Abigail quotes, and I want to do some Captain America and Deadpool ones we well. I wish I could figure out how to insert images as background for buttons, though, I've been trying for months and still can't get it. Frustrating.

A little while back, Poe offered to let me sell their button designs in my shop and I went through and picked the ones I liked and they sent me the files so I could have them made, but then I ended up ending our friendship, essentially, so part of my goodbye letter was to say thank you so much for the offer, but that I wouldn't be using their buttons after all. It's too bad, there were some good ones. But I guess I'll just keep doing my own thing, making buttons my own (shitty) way, and hopefully things on Etsy will pick up, especially since I can't work anymore...

I've managed to get back into working on Storm Season again, I think, not that you could tell it from this morning so far. I'm hoping after I feed the cats I can sit down and bang out a few pages. I'm up to 101 pages and 45,111 words, so I'm getting there. According to the NaNo word tracking bar graph it looks like I'm about 2/3 there. Seriously, though, using the word trackers at the NaNo website have been SO helpful in visualizing my progress and where I am in any given project. I have a really hard time doing that on my own, so. Yeah.

It's only the 3rd of October so I have pretty high hopes that I'll get Storm Season finished by the time the NaNo rolls around in November and I throw my hat in the ring with TKA. Not 100% sure about all the one-shots, but hoping to have at least the first three of those finished as well to give me some padding to finish the other four after I finish posting Storm Season.

I'm PRETTY sure I'm going to start posting Storm Season after the NaNo is over, in the beginning of December, but I might start posting it sooner than that, depending on when I get it finished and how much editing I can get done/how quickly I can get it done. I would love to start posting Storm Season chapters the week after I post Falling Stars, but that's only a couple weeks away now and I doubt I'll have it finished and edited in time for that. Maybe for the beginning of November, if I really push myself, though, then I could post updates throughout November while I was working on the NaNo.

But yeah, I dunno, I guess we'll see.

Yesterday was Shopping Day for the month, so there was lots of running around. The two days before that (Saturday and Sunday) I had a migraine that would NOT go away, so I was really happy to wake up yesterday and have it gone. I was actually feeling pretty decent when we headed out, though by the time we got back home I was SO overheated and exhausted it was terrible.

Anyway, so we went to the Dollar Tree first so I could buy earplugs since they're the only place that sells the earplugs I can use at a decent price, and while I was there I got a bunch of snacks and stuff as well. Oh! And tiny little black and orange Halloween ornaments that I can't really do much with now BUT I plan to use the SHIT out of when I have my own apartment again. :D

Then the bank, where I pulled rent and the money I owed Mom, plus $35 for myself for (hopefully) getting the rest of Dad's Christmas gifts this coming Saturday from the Farmer's Market at ODAS Park (little Star Wars crochet dolls!)

After the bank was Costco where I spent like $100 on muffins and medication, but it was less than I normally would have spent, so that was good. It was around 1pm then so I also got a piece of pizza from the "food court" there for lunch. Then it was off to Walmart!

Walmart was... God, idk. Some groceries, some meds, some cat stuff, some stationary stuff, and I went to the essential oils section and found like five bottles of oil for candle making that SOMEHOW ended up in my cart; Watermelon Rosemary, Cinnamon Sticky Roll, Buttered Pancakes, Strawberries And Cream and Honeysuckle Pineapple. ALL FOR THE LOW LOW COST OF $10/EACH. *FACEPALM* (There are other scents I want for seasonal candle making that I'm getting off Amazon later, too.)

Oh, and I also found two Christmas mugs because FREAKING CHRISTMAS STUFF IS OUT ALREADY WHAT THE FUCK.

Yeah. So next we went to Petsmart where I got crickees for Itsy, a new betta fish (he's purple and yellow and his name is Jaune) and three potted aquatic plants for the axolotl aquarium, though one of them refuses to sink so I have to shove some stones in it's pot to weigh it down. :P I want more plants than these three, but that was all Petsmart had. Mom and I are supposed to be going to Barrie later this month so hopefully I can get some more at the awesome aquarium store there. (Also I can ask about duckweed. :|)

Then the last stop was Shoppers where I got my Coke and ginger ale for the month, and mailed my postcards. I was supposed to buy more books of stamps, but the Post Office was closed for National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Oh well. I'll buy them next month.

Then when I came home (after I had a rest and put everything away), I bought some citrine chip beads off ebay, a copy of Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Powers off thriftbooks (I also want In A Garden Burning Gold and In An Orchard Grown From Ash by the same author but they have to wait), and a few things off Amazon: probiotic gummies, aquarium thermometers, a turkey baster and loooooong tweezers. The tweezers won't get here until the end of the month because FUCK paying $40 for expedited shipping for fucking TWEEZERS but the rest of it should get here around the 9th? For some reason something in the order is holding it up. Boo. (I have a bunch more stuff off Amazon to buy that has to wait until my GST/CCP comes in.)

Umm... that axolotl guy that never emailed me back finally emailed me back and so I messaged him again to ask if he had any 'lotl's left and... nothing. Seems like he's an "emails every couple days" kind of guy, which is annoying. But I'm tentatively hopeful? If I get a 'lotl, I'm going to name it Kaida, which means "little dragon" in Japanese. <3

MOM AND I HAVE BOOKED TICKETS TO THE AQUARIUM IN TORONTO!! FINALLY!! We're going on the 21st and I need to make sure I have money for food and souvenirs for then because I NEED to buy at least one souvenir from the gift shop. 83 Mom was looking at the website to book the tickets (and also just to look at the website) and they had axolotl pics and she was like "LOOK AXOLOTLS" and I was like "YES I SEE!" :D

I've actually been tinkering with Where Monsters Come From yesterday (and today since I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep) and I've written a couple pages, which is... I mean. Progress, I guess.

Also, I know I said I wasn't going to do posts for all my short stories and stuff in the NaNo Project Tracker BUT. I might have. Done. Exactly that. :| So now I have 13 projects listed, but most of them are 15,000 word short stories so do they even COUNT? AHAHA. I also added Chemistry and Marked to my NaNo projects because maybe if they're up there I'll actually... fuckin'. Work on them. YEAH.

I have almost everyone figured out for Christmas this year and by "everyone" I mean "no one." I know what I'm getting for Mom, my brother, Lee, Dad and Lois, but basically everyone else is a GIANT QUESTION MARK HANGING OVER MY HEAD. I'm considering socks again this year. Just random weird socks the same as last year. But if I'm going to do that I need to order them like ASAP so they arrive in time. So. But yeah socks is pretty much all I can afford anyway, since I'm not working anymore. :P

EDIT: I changed my mind, my new betta fish is now named "Delta." :D

EDIT #2: I need another 3" binder for TKA and I really should have bought it while I was at Walmart yesterday. =/

Hauling boxes today was made more difficult by the fact that when I PACKED the boxes I packed for PROFESSIONAL MOVERS, not just me and Mom, so half of them were super heavy. He had to use the dolly to move most of them, but I still had to haul them up the stairs from the basement TO the dolly because Mom basically tagged out and then never tagged back in.

It was unpleasant, but we got a lot done, and we got the remaining stuff mostly organized. Mom got annoyed with me because I pointed out that it wasn't all going to FIT in the space my Aunt and Uncle allocated, she was like "we know that!" and I'm like okaaaaay then why the fuck were you both telling me it would all fit, and I mean REPEATEDLY?

Dad is still willing to take some stuff, but idk how much space he'll be able to make in the loft. I'd been hoping that all the boxes from the basement HERE could go there, but at this point I don't know. It's going to take at least two trips down to Georgetown anyway, so I'll be able to judge better after the first trip. Hopefully soon.

The guy with the axolotls on kijiji that I messaged this morning still hasn't messaged me back, and I'm getting really tired of people on that site just ignoring me. If you've already sold the axolotls then at least reply with a quick note letting me know. The ad was still live when I messaged you, I deserve the courtesy of a reply at the very least, don't I?

Either way, on the way home from Baysville I got Mom to swing by the sporting goods store across town from us so I could ask about what worms they carry and if they carry them all year around or not, and they carry the ones I need all year, so I have somewhere to go for wormies for my future 'lotl, which is good. And I think the pet store sells frozen brine shrimp for treats and stuff.

Assuming I can ever actually find an axolotl to buy that I can afford.

Anyway. After we got back home I got changed immediately because I was GROSS and started up some laundry which I need to go take out of the dryer when I'm done writing this entry. Then I took some muscle relaxants and turned on a movie (Abigail) with the intention of writing while I watched it but I just... didn't. I DID get started on a new Wiggly Fox, though, repainting the grey on one of the orange foxes to pink. So far it looks good.

My motivation to write has been declining lately and I think it's because my ADHD meds aren't working as well as they had been, like I was saying before. I need to talk to Dr. K about that but I'm not in again until November. Also, the depression isn't helping at all. Depression is always murder to my creative pursuits.

What I really WANT to write are the post-Storm Season one-shots, but there's a lot of stuff I can't write yet because I haven't finished Storm Season ITSELF. So, I'm just tinkering with them in little bits and pieces that hopefully won't go against anything that ends up happening in the main fic. I'll have to edit them all a couple or ten times anyway, the same as I did with the post-Horror High one-shots, so I guess I can just edit out or adjust any errors. idk.

I'm also considering writing a Witcher SPN AU fic, just to give myself a break from the Destiel for a minute. Write some Lambden or Geraskier for a bit instead...

And now it's time for dinner and laundry, and then I'm going to watch Alien: Romulus and (hopefully) work on writing. Or something.

9:28am and I'm still awake. When I call them I call them. Though I DID get like an hour and a half nap earlier before I woke up again, so that's something.

At least something good is coming out of the insomnia; I'm actually working on TKA! I know, miracle of miracles! I don't know why, I just clicked on it and read through the beginning that I'd already written and I was like "huh" and just started typing. A couple of pages so far, but it's progress! I'm aiming for 250ish pages for TKA so I have a long way to go. I'll probably finish it at 150 pages and then be like FUCK and have to go back and pad it out more haha. Right now it's a whopping 9 pages long, but that'll change fast if I can get my ADHD to fixate on it like it has been on the Horror High AU stuff. I need to find my printed notes and go over everything that I have on my Murder Boards because I'm sure I forgot some stuff when I was doing the notes on the computer, like Aidan's jell-o fixation, and Phoenix as Aidan's unintentional Emotional Support Dog...

Wren's birthday is coming up in October, I should do something to celebrate. Maybe make a spooky candle lol.

I did work more on Tying Knots before I switched to TKA, though, and it's 9 pages so far. I don't think it's going to end up at 30+ pages like the last few one-shots that I wrote for the Horror High et al universe, but it'll be a respectable length anyway. I haven't written the smut yet. Because I'm procrastinating over it. Because it's top!Cas and bottom!Dean and I just... don't even know. :| I'm sure once I get started it'll come along fine, I'm just very hesitant because all I've ever written is top!Dean and bottom!Cas... except for that one scene in Everything I Do. Also it's been FOREVER since I wrote anything Omegaverse and I'm like. Welp.

So yesterday Charlie came in the mail and I went up to the Dollarama and bought more potting soil (just a small bag for like 75 cents) and a pot for her, and got her repotted so she has the good soil and room to grow. I also put her in a spot with as much sunlight as possible (for now; when my new macrame hanger comes in she's going in my bedroom window with Peter.) I have like... 7 baby plants propagating right now? And I basically took over the shelves by the back door with them, and yesterday Mom and I talked and I was like "other than Charlie and Miles, you can have any of the others" so she very carefully moved three of them from the shelves over to the windowsill as if they have to be separate or I'll steal them back or something. XD <3

Last night I got the second filter up and running in the future!axolotl tank. I still have to do the air stones, but those can wait until basically right before I actually get the axolotl. Dean and Castiel have been planted in the aquarium for a few days now and seem to be doing fine, but we'll see how they're still doing in a month or so and judge from there. I still have to prep Sam for the other end of the tank, and grow Miles to a big enough size that he can go in the aquarium, too. Right now he's too teeny (the TEENIEST.)

I really do think I'm going to get a second fan for the axolotl aquarium, too. I'm very concerned about keeping the water temp down for my future!axolotl, and I can't afford an actual aquarium chiller, so the fans will have to do. Also bottles of ice, which Poe recommended to me a while back, if it gets insanely hot and my air conditioner dies or something outrageous like that. I also still need to get the aquatic plants for the tank but that has to wait until midway through October when my government payments come in. That's when I have to mail Poe's parcel, too. Hopefully by then they're able to email me again.

Speaking of plants though, every year I plant tomatoes, and this year was no different, and because of the weather they grew like CRAZY and I had SO MANY tomatoes on the vines, and the beginning of the harvest was GREAT. BUT THEN. About halfway through, the tomatoes started showing up with like brown discoloration on the tops of them? And those ones were no good for eating. At first it was just a few, but then it was most of them. I had some sort of tomato blight this year, which sucks. But I did get a lot of good tomatoes before the blight took over, so I guess I should count myself lucky. It's not like the whole crop was a bust. At this point it's late enough in the year that I need to just take the plants out entirely, but probably not today. Today I'm hoping to sleep for the afternoon. Fingers crossed.

I read a couple chapters of Wilder Girls the day it came in and haven't picked it up since. I'm still having a hard time focusing on reading, even with the ADHD meds, plus my new glasses, which I definitely need for reading, hurt my eyes if I wear them for too long. I just need to get used to them, which basically means I need to read more, except the ADHD, etc. It's a vicious cycle. From what I've read so far, though Wilder Girls is GREAT and is going to be a FANTASTIC READ.

After Wilder Girls I'm going to read The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca, it's a short horror story anthology that Poe recommended to me. I have another book by the same author, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, in my Amazon cart right now to pick up if I like The Trees Grew Because I Bled There. It's probably hit-or-miss. Some books that Poe recommends are GREAT and others are just... not to my taste. But I'm always up for trying something new, and especially a horror anthology!

EDIT: Just messaged someone on kijiji about a 'lotl. o_o

EDIT #2: I just went to feed Jaskier and he had passed away. He WAS very old, but still, it's sad. I had him for a long time. I guess I'll get another betta fish to keep Lute company next month. Goodnight, Jask. <3

So Sparrow is currently sitting in Tyler's lap because I literally have nowhere else to put them until I finish getting the axolotl tank taken care of. That's fine, though, they're safe there even if my poor printer is under way too much weight now (Tyler, Aidan, Katie AND Sparrow are sitting on it now) so it won't print anything unless I take everybody off first. It's a pain but I won't die from it.

Poe has another Finch model doll only in pink resin color and they absolutely can't seem to bond with her, so they've said they're just going to send her to me, too. I think if they do I will keep that one's name as "Finch" instead of changing it like I did with Sparrow. "Finch" is the doll model name, not a name Poe gave them, but I like it anyway. I just renamed Sparrow so they wouldn't both have the same name.

Sparrow is definitely going to be a brown tabby at some point in the future (not sure when), and if Poe sends me their Finch I think I'm going to paint her in calico markings but in like greens and purples because her skin tone is pink. She'll be very pretty. But I'm not counting on anything yet. *shrug*

Last night and this morning I worked some more on the fic formerly known as Counting Scars, now called Falling Stars. Like I said, it just randomly went in a radically different direction than I had originally intended. It was supposed to just be smut for the sake of smut, same as Cheap Motel, but Falling Stars just DEVELOPED a plotline and now I'm like OKAY I GUESS. THIS IS FINE. Not sure how long it'll end up being but I'm hoping around the same length as Cheap Motel, which clocked in at 34 pages. So far Falling Stars is at 18 pages, but it's nowhere NEAR done (I haven't even written any of the smut  yet.) It might end up longer than Cheap Motel after all.

Last night I put the plastic drawers I got at the garage sale yesterday into place in Jessie's room and immediately filled them up with all the mugs and glasses that I bought to make into candles. That garage sale was convenient because literally I had this huge bag of mugs and glasses that were just taking up space in my room because I had nowhere to put them. I wasn't thinking about that when I bought them. But now they're all stored away, so that's good.

I might make some candles soon, though, and try selling them on FB Marketplace. Poe pointed out that candles are HEAVY and shipping them would be EXORBITANTLY EXPENSIVE so they might not be the best thing to list on Etsy, much as I'd like to. They're better suited to local sales and markets. I see their point, so FB Marketplace it is! (I think if I list them around Christmas time they might sell well then.)

I still need to finish cleaning out the future-axolotl tank and get Mom to help me dump the last of the water out of it, because I'm gotten all I can with the scooping jug. I have a TON of plants that I'm trying to propagate for the top of the tank right now, and at the end of the month I'm hoping to be to the point that I can start cycling it and get some aquatic plants for IN the water. Also Poe suggested using terracotta pots for hides, which is a fabulous (and cheap!) idea. Otherwise I'm going to use PVC piping, I think, though I so want the tank to have as "natural" a look as possible when I'm done with it, and I'm pretty sure I can get terracotta pots from the dollar store this time of year.

I ordered the plant holders for the top of the tank last night. Eight of them cost me almost $50, but that should do me for the size of tank I have, unless they're really tiny? I probably should have read the dimensions before I clicked "buy" but it's too late now. They're being delivered today.

Yesterday I also ordered a macrame plant hanger for my room off aliexpress, so that should come in in like... two weeks, I want to say? AE has really increased their shipping speed lately. (I still can't login to my account via my computer, I can only use the app, which. Boo.)

And I ordered two more books from thriftbooks, even though I said I was done buying books for a while: "Wilder Girls" by Rory Power and "Camp Damascus" by Chuck Tingle, because Poe highly recommended Chuck Tingle to me and Camp Damascus sounded really interesting.

Last night I swapped some of my binders around, used acetone to erase the labels and wrote new ones, then sealed them with Mr. Super Clear. It's the best way I've found to label the binders with the plastic covers. Anyway, Horror High (et al) got moved to one of my biggest binders, and all my TKA notes got moved to a smaller one for now. They'll get moved back to a bigger one again once I start printing out TKA proper. I also found some dividers and used them to divide up the fics in the Witcher SPN AU binder to make for easier reading. Just. Organizing.

I have so many binders and literally nowhere to put them, a bunch are just stuck on the floor between my computer table and my work table for lack of anywhere else. I desperately need more shelves but there's no more ROOM for shelves. What I REALLY need is my own apartment, but try telling the subsidized housing people that.

Last night I made roast rabbit for dinner. I bought it from the Muskoka Meats store last week and it cost me FORTY DOLLARS. YOU CAN BUY rabbits from the PET STORE for less than that. Anyway, cost aside, it was easy to prepare and cook. I just had to pull all the organs out (I cooked them and chopped them up for the cats) and stuff it, then rub it all over with butter and stick it in a roasting pan with water in the bottom. Then into a 325 degree oven for two hours and presto! Roast rabbit! We also had carrots (haha) and mashed potatoes. I know it's cliche, but it really did taste like chicken. I probably won't spend that kind of money on another rabbit, but it was neat for a change. I WILL, however, be hitting that store up for PARTRIDGE at some point in the future.

I just downloaded Alien: Romulus, so now it's a giant question as to whether I want to watch it IMMEDIATELY or do some more writing and then have a nap and watch it later today or tonight. I'm leaning toward the later.

And yeah. I think that's enough rambling for now.

EDIT: Oh ALSO, the pain I've been feeling since having that tooth extracted three weeks ago? Turns out it wasn't all because I had another tooth that also needed to be yoinked. THREE WEEKS AGO when I had THAT tooth pulled, the Dentist actually BROKE MY FUCKING JAW in the process of twisting and wrenching the tooth out. It's cracked and I have like, bone shards protruding through my gums from it. They had to shave them off when I was in this week. But since it's just cracked there's nothing that can be done except just let it heal and since I signed a waiver before having the tooth pulled I can't SUE THEM. So here I am. Broken jaw. Fun times.

I got two government payments to my bank account today, one was the Carbon Tax Rebate, and I can't remember what the other one was but it was substantial. I was expecting the CTR one but not the other one, so I was surprised when I opened my banking app this morning.

Anyway, so I bought the books I had in the thriftbooks.com cart (My Life With The Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall, The Dog Who Rescues Cats by Philip Gonzalez & Leonore Fleischer, The Parrot Who Owns Me by Joanna Burger and Living Free by Joy Adamson, all for Grandma, and The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters for myself), as well as a bunch of stuff from my Amazon cart: all the chemicals I need to start cycling the axolotl tank, the underwater filter, the air pump, the cooling fans, ink for my printer and a copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

I also bought two t-shirts from teepublic, one that's a generalized fandom one (that somehow encompasses all my main fandoms) and one that's a Supernatural one, because my Tuesday Pig n' a Poke one can only be worn on Tuesdays, but only because of my OCD brain. :|

Other than that...

HH is up to 140 pages and counting. I posted Chapter One the other day and got a (predictably) minimal response. I have Chapter Two and Chapter Three ready to go for next Friday and the Friday after that, though they may get edited a little in the meantime. Chapters seem to be averaging 15-->17 pages, which is respectable. I'm good with that. Hopefully when I start posting more chapters more people will start getting interested in it? idk we'll see. Probably interest won't go up much until I get to the smutty stuff, if I'm being honest with myself.

I think I've decided for sure that SS is going to be top!Dean and bottom!Cas again after all, just because that's what I prefer. It's not what most of the fandom writes, but I would rather enjoy writing the story than cater to the fandom in general, if that makes sense.

But I've also decided that after I'm done HH, and probably Cheap Motel and Counting Scars, before I write SS, I'm going to pick one of my original novels and sit down and write it. I'm having fun with SPN fic right now, but being so productive has me thinking that I should be working on original stuff, not just fan stuff. So basically a pause before SS for me to write a book. Seems reasonable. Now I just have to decide which one. :|

I have it narrowed down to My Zombie, The Order of Delphi, MOA or TKA. Ideally I would love to finish up TKA, but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet, I have a lot of trauma to work through with TKA, still, unfortunately. Talking with Poe again is helping, but it's going to be a long road. So maybe My Zombie is my second choice? Still thinking about it...