It Started with a Journal

This weekend, adelagia and I made kimchi! :D We are totes ready for when we're dating and/or married to Onew and Seo In-guk, respectively. LOL. (Links go to pics of said celebs, in case you're curious.)

Here's adelagia mixing up our batch. I had a HUGE tub, so there's more kimchi there than it might seem. More than six pounds worth!



I also made buchu (Asian chive) kimchi and dwaejigogi-bokkeum (spicy stir-fried pork), both of which were AMAZING. Soooooooo delicious. I only have a pic of the pork pre-cooking because I was too hungry to remember to take a picture of it after it was cooked. >< Also, I didn't have a pound's worth of pork belly, so subbed some shrimp instead. ALSO DELICIOUS. I think you could easily substitute with firm tofu for a more healthy version... which I may try in the near future. The buchu kimchi is a little too salty, which may or may not be because I didn't have enough chives... I halved the recipe, but I was using older chives, so I had to weed out a lot not-so-good ones. Anyway, I will probably use less fish sauce next time.



=========

One of my Christmas gifts to myself arrived today, and I'm soooooooooo happy. I love American Giant's stuff, especially their Essential Full-Zip Hoodie. I have several of the Classic, as well, but I like the lighter weight and softer feel of the Essential.

ANYWAY... Recently, they came out with a new product, a stadium blanket. I saw the email about it, but wasn't able to actually take a look until two hours later... and they were all sold out already! GRRRRR. A few days later, they said they'd made a limited quantity available again, and I was able to nab two in the only color that remained at that point, a heather navy. I would link it, but it looks like they're totally sold out now, and have even deleted those webpages. Sheesh. Like all their stuff, the blanket is really well made, heavy with quality material, and very warm. <333333

(I was going to link a promo code for 15% off, but it looks like it can only be sent through email. So let me know if you want it! And of course, I get something out of it as well, natch.)

I'm a big blanket person, kind of like Linus. Even when I'm not cold, I like having a blanket on me. It just feels so much cozier! Anyway, I have a lot of blankets.

=========

Watched another episode of Descendants of the Sun. I'm actually still OK with the show, despite the fact that, as expected, the two leads are already "broken up." It helps that I like the male lead, and the female lead isn't super annoying.

=========

I wasn't going to take any time off during the holidays -- other than the days off that everyone gets -- because it's a super quiet time anyway, and I was thinking I'd save my vacation days. Only... it turns out that I have so much vacation saved up (I can only carry over a year's worth, which for me at this point is 200 hours/5 weeks) that I would be forfeiting over 43 hours if I didn't take it! Which would be intolerable. So now I'm going to take Wed/Thu off, as well as all of next week. I still might be sacrificing a few hours, but that's better than 43. I don't work for free, yo.

=========

Speaking of work, we did a white elephant gift exchange... only I had my annual physical during that time so I couldn't actually participate. I contributed a set of R2D2/R2Q5 salt and pepper shakers and an R2D2 measuring cup set. (I may have little use for Star Wars, but I know other people love it, so that stuff makes for good anonymous gifts.) My manager played for me, and he had told me ahead of time what he'd gotten for the exchange (a cast-iron fondue set). Since they were going to allow "me" to go last, thus being able to nab whatever I wanted, I told him that that's what I wanted. I figured it was a safe bet -- I didn't know what random crap other people were going to bring, and I don't really trust my manager to know what I'd really want, so it seemed the most prudent course of action. I still need to get it from him, though.

=========

My December beauty boxes have arrived! I know, it's once a month but seems so much more frequent, doesn't it?

( What this month brought! )

I've stayed home the last couple of days because I hate it when people go into work sick and spread their germs around. This morning I had to go to a meeting (my boss set it up weeks ago, and was adamant that we all had to be there IN PERSON), but drank a ton of water to keep the coughing at a minimum. My symptoms aren't too bad, all things considered, but I sound pretty terrible. Or as my coworker J. told me: "I hope you feel better. You sound like Kathleen Turner. Old, decrepit Kathleen Turner, not the young, hot one." -.-

While convalescing at home, I rewatched Arrow season 1. Oh, life is so hard! But I discovered something while watching it. I still love Stephen Amell/Oliver Queen, but all the stuff about Laurel, which was just barely tolerable the first time around, is now almost totally intolerable because the first nine episodes of season 2 have spoiled me so much. OLICITY 4EVAH!!! I don't even mind Laurel so much; I just can't stand Laurel/Oliver. The show opened with him having CHEATED ON HER WITH HER SISTER. THE SHIP IS DEAD.

/self-soothes





OK. I'm calm again.

In original writing news, I am working on two different stories right now. Story #1 is the young adult romance I've been working on for weeks, and have over 40k written. It stalled a week or so ago because I was writing this one scene and it just wasn't working, but I didn't know where I wanted to go with it or how to get it there, so it just. kept. happening, and I was really unhappy and discouraged. That's when I started working on story #2, which is based on some personal experiences (and which adelagia inspired me to start on), and has turned into a potential series with jade_okelani. You know. In theory. Anyway, I finally had a eureka moment this morning wrt story #1 and what to do with the scene I've been working on. It's going to mean scrapping almost all of it, which I really find hard to do in general, but in this case, if it'll get it moving again, I gladly pay the price.

Meanwhile, I can't wait for my new PC to arrive, which won't be for ages yet. :/ I miss doing everything that I normally would do on my desktop, plus writing on a tablet is for the birds, I tell ya.