Thessalonians 5:18 - "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God."

Thanksgiving is that one special day of the year that families get together for dinner and decide to give thanks. Even though-- just like Valentine's Day-- I think that the Hallmark idea of giving thanks once a year is ridiculous-- in the same manner that telling people you love them because it's a holiday is ridiculous-- I have to buckle down and make a post. I mean, why not?

There are so many things to be thankful for in life. You know that. I know that.

We have a place to live, people who love us (even though sometimes we might question this), food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and we all have computers and the internet. What's not to be thankful for?

But since we all know this already, I'll skip to this:

Thank You. All of you.

Thank you for reading, for listening, for advice given, for opinions that differ, for agreeing, for disagreeing, for sharing, for being there, for caring. If it hadn't been for you guys, I don't know if I'd have made it this far in my life.

Thank you for your kind words and help when I was struggling with depression.

Thank you all for calling me a friend.

I love you guys. Please don't forget that! ♥

ALSO

BRB, DYING.

I'm feeling exceptionally lazy, but I think that's just a part of working the night shift. Sleep, work, sleep, work. But at least sleep is a part of the equation. That must mean something.

Hopefully this weekend, I can get some writing done. I finally wrote something for Gilmore Girls, after years of dancing around the idea. I re-watched the pilot episode the other night, and I couldn't sleep until I wrote what needed to be written. At least it was only a drabble.

I'm finding that short stories and I get along quite well, but chaptered monstrosities and I can't agree on anything. I have some 'fics I'd like (very much) to update, but it's really just a matter of sitting down to play FE7 again to get a better feel for setting. I also want to write that bloody novelization, but for some reason, I can't stay settled on the idea for too long. I blame it on the tactician, because I'd rather write a novelization completely ignoring his/her presence. Blech. Also, an FE7 novelization is SRS BZNS to me, and requires a lot of hard work and dedication. I know that I've put a lot forth in the fandom, as far as written materials go, but I am not sure that I want to spend a lot of time writing a novelization, especially because I worry that I will let people down.

I kind of feel the same about writing original fiction. Everyone thinks-- or at least, says-- it's sure to be good, but I don't have that kind of faith in my abilities as a writer.

At any rate, I've been reading writerawakened's latest 'fic-- about Kent-- but it's taking me forever to read that first chapter. It's...so long. I fully intend to leave him a review when I am finished. Right now, I have it printed out, and I'm writing notes in the margins. Hopefully later this week I can leave a review on the first chapter. A lot of writers have updated that I haven't left reviews for, and I guess you could say that I feel guilty.

I should be keeping the fandom alive! But sometimes, I guess, I feel Real Life is pushing me away from my little corner of fandom.

I also need to type up some new entries for mannadon. :D

Thank God I get a four day weekend! 8D

Happy Birthday to planetes.

GUYS.

They grow up so fast. ;O;

I'm a bit miffed that Facebook doesn't have an option to add cousins as relatives. Uhhh...hello? Chances are much higher of finding cousins on Facebook than either of your parents. :|

FOR MORE FUN:



Also, AU Vaida/Wallace support C:

Wallace: GWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Vaida: ...
Wallace: GWA HA HA HA!!!
Vaida: ...What the hell are you doing, you overgrown moppet?
Wallace: GWAHAHA!! MOONWALKING, VIPER. MOONWALKING.

AMIRITE OR WHAT.

Feelin' better for now.

It hasn't gone away completely, but still.

Maybe it was just the change in the weather. :|

I'm having problems breathing.

You know how it feels when you run too long, and your lungs burn for oxygen, and you feel like you can't pull in enough to quell that burning feeling?

Yeah. My lungs are burning for air. Constantly. This is the THIRD DAY. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the colder weather. I've never had this happen before.

I watched The Ballad of Little Jo, and...it's...wow. Very interesting... It's about a woman who goes out west disguised as a man. Very dramatic.

Also, my cat killed a mouse yesterday, and she just chased another one across the floor. WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM?

And last, but certainly not least...

The Mircrofic/Drabble Meme
Christmas Requests
♥♥♥

HAH.

Remember me telling you guys that they were filming a commercial at the factory I work at? Well, here it is. They titled it "Going to Work". Uhhh...

Also, I swear to you, nobody looks that happy going in, really.

While I'm at it, they made me park out in the boondocks since they were filming that on the side I PARK ON, just because I drive a Chevy. Well, SORRY, but my Equinox was way cheaper than a CR-V. But yeah, that's what the place looks like on the outside.

I guess the other night, they had four break-ins on the Womens Side of the parking lot. (To clarify, there are locker rooms inside; the side with the girl's locker room is referred to as the "womens" side, and the side with the mens locker room is referred to as the "mens" side.) Women left their purses on the front seat of their cars and someone broke their window to steal 'em. Well, duh. But people felt safe doing that. Quite a few people even leave their keys in the ignition while they work so they don't have to carry them around. Hah.

And for those who were curious... Here's a good video, that shows what the new Accord Crosstour looks like. By good, I don't mean that they speak highly of it, because it seems they don't. But you can see what it looks like. And yes, I've been building those.

Bah, 5:00am and I still can't fall asleep. :/

sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae sacae

NEW LAYOUT, KIDS.

It's all thanks to qieru, though. She's the genius artist. *_* I'M JUST THE LOWLY COLORIST...THING YEAH.

Also, this font. Hard to read, yes/no?

Anyway, Shannon and I are going to meet at his house on Saturday to discuss things. :] Hee. ♥

Siiiiiiiiiigh. It was a long night.

At any rate, I've decided to give up on NaNoWriMo. My left arm was tingly for about 5 hours at work, and I can't afford to hurt myself further by typing like a madman. So yeah. No novel from the Mannadon.

I think I'll take it easy for a while, so if I disappear for a day or two without really saying anything/much, that's why.

I'm debating quitting NaNoWriMo. I don't know if my hands can take it.

No, I will not skip entire scenes, and no, I will not introduce random shit or kill off a character just to make word count. Sorry, but if I'm writing a story, I'm going to do it right. That's just how I roll.

I think Shannon's discouraged that he and I don't have very much in common. I guess he didn't expect it? I did, though. Seriously. A 21-year age gap means you can't have a heckuva lot in common. But it did make me want to send him Collin Raye's Not That Different, since the song and the general concept match so well.

Still itchy. I'm taking more Benedryl and then going to bed. Sigh.

Happy 50th birthday to my mother. ♥

I'm lazy, allergies still hanging around, Benadryl makes a person sleepy, and uh... Up is a great movie so far. Too bad I have to stop watching it to go to work.

Take care, everyone.

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!

LET'S BACK THIS WAGON TRAIN UP AND HEAD BACK EAST.

This is my new catch-phrase. Get used to it.

Also, I think I'm having a pretty bad allergic reaction to...something unidentifiable at this time. Acne isn't supposed to itch. But. I itch. Badly. My head itches. Annoyingly. This reminds me of a pretty bad period of time in my live, that involved a lot of hives and a visit to the ER. So. Tomorrow, I should probably find Benedryl that didn't expire 12 months ago (aka: buy it), and then like, stop using soap on my face.

I recently did the following:

1.) Changed hair conditioner and shampoo
2.) Washed face with soap

And my head/face has been itching for a while. I didn't use the soap on my SCALP though. BUT IT ITCHES.

I also have this huge lump on the back right side of my head. Actually, now that I think about it, this lump came out of nowhere. My whole scalp is really tender to the touch and kind of hurts...

God, I hope I don't have hives on my scalp. :| Again.

I also have a quarter-shaped red spot like, right in the center of my chest, right below my collarbone. It's so weird.

And NaNoWriMo? I'm so lazy. I'm at a Caring Level of like, 10%. :| I bought birthday goodies for my mumsy today. And other stuff. And yeah. It's after 3:00am and I'm really tired and etc. Please to be shooting me in the foot, please. I'm getting up early to wish my mom a happy birthday. |D Now, to write something mushy on her card...

♥

Some new photographs, guys. Taken with my shiny new camera.

( Flowers and cats, and dogs, oh my! )

And that's all for now. :D

For: shimizu_hitomi. I said I'd stand outside her LJ with picket signs, so here's one. :B



Updateeeeee. D:

My new banner is epic, and it's all thanks to qieru, even if she didn't know I was planning to borrow it. :B

Will change when journal updateness is complete. Which...could be a while.

I have two things: a history lesson, and a serious question.

1.) The Donner Party Tragedy was a terrible event that took place in 1846-1847. Trapped in the Sierra-Nevada mountains, half-starved, the Donner Party was the most well-known tragedy of the western migration. The website linked above has a detailed account of the journey, and it's actually quite fascinating.

Suspected foul play, dates that don't match to events, varying accounts of things (like a stabbing), et cetera.

At any rate, The Donner Party got so desperate for food that some of them, after eating everything possible, including shoes, clothes, et cetera, eventually ate those in the party who died. Which brings me to my question:

2.) Could you eat human flesh?

I know it sounds terrible, but reading through the diaries, seeing the mention of cannibalism (and the hesitation, in part, of other people in mentioning it in their memoirs) got me thinking. They were so hungry, having not eaten for days, having already killed all their animals... What else could they do to live?

But at the same time, they must have known how others would react to hearing of such a thing. It would be shameful to recount in the future, and it would probably bring shame to your own family. It would have been considered scandalous, and possibly even a sin.

Personally, I don't know if I could do it. I guess, though, to people living in 1847/1847, the killing and skinning of animals (doing it, seeing it) was perfectly normal. Today, it's not normal. So to them, it might not have been so difficult to skin and dry the meat of their fallen party. It's not as if they killed them, themselves; the people who were eaten died of starvation, going insane, etc.

But you know, you'd be scarred for life, with the knowledge that you ate someone, and you knew them, their family, their face, their name.

Imagine how terrible it must have been for those people-- for anyone, really, but especially for these people, who traveled months together, side-by-side-- to have to have resorted to eating those that died. I can't imagine what it would be like to be forced into that situation, to have no other choice. I think that I would rather die, but these men had families-- wives, children-- depending on them to bring help. And really, it's not as if you can feel pain once you're dead, you know? It's such a debatable thing.

Note that later wagon trains of emigrants remembered and feared something similar happening to them. This resulted in a lot of people left on the side of the trail. Cholera victims are most worth mentioning. Since they usually died fairly quickly anyway (within 24 hours), many were left to die. (Sometimes a "watcher" was selected to stay behind, dig a grave, and catch up to the train when the victim died, but oftentimes the watcher was in such a hurry they dug the grave before the victim died. Imagine watching your own grave be dug. Quite a few were buried alive.) If the wagon train halted too many times, too often, they could be caught in the snow like The Donner Party.

It was, no doubt, on the mind of every emigrant as they reached that particular general area. (Now called Donner Lake, it was formerly Truckee Lake, named after an Indian who guided a train through the mountains, there.)

Okay, plot officially changed.

( Here's a synopsis, if anyone's interested in reading it/is willing to tell me what they think of it. )

Not sure how I feel about this, but I think it'll give my novel a lot more drive. With her actually loving William, she only had a half-hearted reason to go to California-- which was, essentially, to be with him sooner/save time-- but now she's got a really good reason to leave Missouri. I think I'll write her and William's relationship as one of those "everyone expects it" romances. (You know, they grew up together as close friends, et cetera.)(Which I swear was in a movie or something, but for the life of me, I can't remember what.)

I'll stick with the title Equilateral for now, even though my love triangle (HAR HAR HAR, why yes, it does amuse me!) isn't a love triangle. (I could add another woman to the mix, though, considering Louisa's going to be viewed as a man by the others. Hmmm...)

Also, genre is practically Historical Fiction/Romance/Drama/Spiritual now.

I'll stop posting about my NaNo story for tonight, I swear.

Why hello there, plot change.

I don't know if I'll edit the beginning of the story this month, or wait until next month. Sorry, William, but I need you to be the anti-Love Interest. D: I feel bad for doing it, but it'll make things work out better, I think.

Now Sarah Jane can play the instigator. It'll be beautiful. And I'm about four seconds away from changing her middle name to Jaye, because I keep reading it that way!

Also, research is SO MUCH FUN. I keep finding out cool stuff for the characters to think about. The famous Donner Party Tragedy, the amount of people that drowned in [insert river here] in 1850, et cetera, et cetera.

Too bad the research is more fun than the actual story.

Edited at 9:54pm to add: I'm done writing tonight, I think. I can't think of what I want to happen next. So...

NaNoWriMo, Day Seven
Word Count: 11,229
Stress Level: 7/10

Notes on this...

•I'm behind by about 400 words.
•I like my new plot better. It makes Mary Sue even more "logical" a person as a character, and Louisa more of a rebel, which is pretty much what I wanted to begin with.
•Sarah Jane's going to be the one who convinces Louisa to head west [as a man].
•I might need to write some scenes from William's POV, maybe.
•Jack needs to show up soon.

Procrastinations Accomplished Thus Far

•1/2 hour documentary watched (The other hour of it, I will watch after I edit this post.)
•1.5 hour date with Shannon.
•Hung out with Codee at the mall in Springfield.
•Napped.

Tomorrow I need to vacuum and clean the living room. I've turned into a slob. I'd also like to get more pictures of CiCi, especially now that I have that shiny new camera.