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Break? There's a break involved?
I thought Spring Break was supposed to be a vacation?
Got home Friday and spent most of the day relaxing, unpacking, decompressing, and folding laundry, then went to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speakerender's to watch SciFi Friday with him. Mom had to chauffeur because I'd left my wallet at school. Oops. Such memories, though, back to the heady days before I had my license.
Saturday we got up early to go to the rehearsal/crew session at the high school and help out, only to discover once we'd got there that it was cancelled, so instead we drove back to the university to get my wallet and a few other things I'd remembered I might need. Then when we got home, Mom had us doing yard work most of the afternoon. Came in tired, and I worked on KB's new outfit while she quilted and we watched a couple movies and I talked on the phone withstellar_dust for about two hours. (Heh. I keep mistyping that as stellar_bust.)
Sunday I went to church, which I posted about, and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon *finally* messing with trying to get lp's to rip to mp3, since I have a laptop I can bring to the record player. I think what I eventually figured out is that I need to buy either a whole new system, or I need to buy an amp. There was a mixer/equalizer thingy at Goodwill today for $15 which I think would do the trick, if it works, if my confused understanding of this stuff is right. Or I could just record them to tape first and then rip the tapes, which *does* work, although that would make no sense. Or I could rip one of our stereos apart and try to *make* it work with the aid of electrical tape and wire strippers. bwahahah. While I was digging around the stereo cabinet I also attempted to get the old reel-to-reel to play, but I couldn't get it working either-- I think *maybe* it wasn't actually plugged into the speakers, although it looked as if it was.
Then Mom made me do my taxes. I have a federal adjusted gross income of -$1813.29 for last year, thanks to our Republican friends in Washington and their tax breaks forthe rich spoilt brats who get all their income from investments. (I put my occupation down on the state return as "layabout".) So no, I didn't have to pay any taxes. I'm not even sure I had to file; none of the tax tables had options for people with adjusted income of <$1, which was very confusing, thank you.
This morning Mom got me up at 8:00 again. She is under doctor's orders to lose weight (although I really don't think she needs to-- she's got rounded corners, like all storybook mothers, but she's not *fat*) and has pulled out all her old aerobics videos from back when she was still hoping to lose the last of the weight from her pregnancies. Yes, very eighties. Anyone remember Kathy Smith? *I* do. I let Mom talk me into doing them with her every morning while I'm home. And she wouldn't let me pick Mousercize, which me andstellar_dust and our cousin the babysitter used to do while she was off at her classes. q-: I'm actually less out of shape than I thought I was; I was only about ten higher than I should have been at the first pulse checkpoint, and I made it through the tape! However I have even worse rhythm than I thought I did. Mom was laughing at me. I only got so lost I tripped over my feet once.
And then we went to quilting, where we finished up this quarter's lot of quilts. Quilting at church is interesting, because it's-- well, it's not about crafts, and it's not about art. We do it assembly-line style and emphasize quantity over quality and speed over beauty. Something about it strikes me as quintessentially American. Mary gathers the donated fabrics and cuts and pieces them together into quilt-sized sheets, with minimal worry about aesthetics. She takes that to the work sessions, where two people pin tops to bottoms and trim, then Mom uses her Serger to sew the two layers together around the edges, then everybody else works on the most time-consuming step, which is tying knots of cord every square foot or so on the quilt to hold it together. Then they get counted, packed in trash bags, and shoved in the closet until someone has time to take a job-lot down to the distribution warehouse, where a forklift loads them into a baler, which compresses them and wraps them in plastic, and they're put in cargo containers and shipped off to wherever Lutheran World Relief has decided somebody needs quilts.
There's supposed to be a step in there where they're displayed for a formal blessing by the pastor in the church sanctuary, but half the time they skip that step because it's too much trouble and they'd have to go find the sheet with the blessing written on it and it's not important anyway. Heck, half the quilting ladies don't even bother coming to service most weeks. I like that about my church.
Anyway, we can produce astounding amounts of quiltage that way. We loaded 108 quilts into the trunk of the car to take down to New Windsor this week, because if we'd left it any longer they wouldn't all have *fit* in the trunk. That was the production of an average of five ladies, working three hours a week, since November, with several weeks off for Christmas, and several more to make a somewhat nicer quilt to give to Mr. Clarence's son who's going to Iraq. That's more than six quilts a week. Five of us tied sixteen in three hours today, with breaks for gossip and gardening and trying to talk Pastor into picking up a needle. Sigh. I really miss going when I'm at school. And they seem to like having a young person helping. Mary, who pretty much quilts full-time these days I think, surprised me a really gorgeous wall-hanging quilt she made that they all signed with a thank-you, which is going to be in the icon to this post as soon as I get it, Mom's digital camera, and some energy in the same place together, and made me very happy. I can have a quilt hanging over every wall of my dorm room now! Tapestried garret, oh yeah.
Then Mom and I ran some errands, the bank and the post office and the other bank and Goodwill, where they've stopped having cheap used books on Mondays (wah) so I restrained myself and only bought three (a Star Wars one we didn't have, Cyteen II, and Always Coming Home, if you were curious), and ogled the electronics but didn't buy the equalizer-thing because I wasn't convinced I actually knew what I was doing.
And *then* it was pretty much time to go to the high school for more drama work, where Mom and I pinned and cut the fabric for fifteen pairs of shorts, and other things happened, which I will maybe post about in more detail on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
oldmill when I'm more awake. We left after two hours to go *back* to church, for the womens' group meeting, which was *hilarious* as usual in the way in which it was exactly like a girl scout meeting, except that a) they're supposed to be responsible grown-ups and b) I'm not a member, so I can laugh at them without actually having to try to get them to get stuff done. They're planning a Mother's Day Tea which will feature a fashion show where they dress up in clothes made of plastic garbage bags, pompons, and toast, and wear bras over their clothes with small furry animals nestled in them.
I had stolen all the strips of trimmed fabric from the shorts we cut out at rehearsal, and during the meeting, in between stealing refreshments and making silly comments, I braided it all into about twelve feet of rag rope. I was planning to roll it and sew it into a trivet, but it makes such a great all-purpose ... thing ... that I'm tempted to just keep it to play with. It's a jump rope! And a koosh ball! And a cat toy! And a thing-to-tie-around-other-things! And hatband! And a girdle! And a lasso! And a swing! And it's way past my bedtime!
So we loaded all the quilts in the car and came home.
We'll be back at church Tuesday night for game night. (I really do end up going to church a lot. This makes me sound much more religious than I really am. But the people there are *fun*. And they're a family. It's not like we mention religion at all, except during the actual services, or if you go to Bible study or something; when *I* go, we party and gossip and gamble and pig out on junk food and make things and have fun. And if you think 80-year-old church ladies don't know how to have fun, well, you're missing out on a lot of fun.)
Wednesday four of us're taking the quilts down to the distribution center in New Windsor, which we'll make a day of and enjoy the scenery and good food and tour the warehouse and shop at the SERRV store and buy lots of fair-trade chocolate and other stuff. And ... I think we're doing something Wednesday night, but I can't remember what.
Thursday there's drama from, eh, something ridiculous like 9-6. I'll probably go at least part of the day; Mom promised to let the costume girls play with her Serger, but if I'm not kept busy I think I'll end up leaving early. Although they may need the help; they've been having sessions cancelled out from under them all semester.
Friday I currently have free. Because Mom seems to have decided that Friday night I'm going to be doing that thing where I pretend I actually have a social life of some sort. Heh. Saturday we're spending the day at my Grandfather's house, probably hanging out with his girlfriend and doing Eastery stuff, and Sunday we'll have church all morning and dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house.
Oh, and I'd still like to go geocaching withdreamsquirrel at some point. *looks up at list* Ummm... I have Friday open. At the moment.
I brought stuff home to study, too. Hah.
And I guess Friday evening, unless somebody has a better suggestion for tricking my mother into believing I actually have friends my own age, everybody's invited to my house, for TV watching, and attempting to get rid of all the junk food Mom buys on sale and then claims she isn't supposed to eat. And I suppose if enough people are interested we could end up pulling out Pi Chess or Twister or something. (Well, everybody who reads this journal is invited. Large numbers of complete strangers show up, Mom might get a bit ansty. But people-I-haven't-talked-to-for-years and people-I've-only-met-once are included. Need directions, drop me a comment.) Maybe I'll make some actual phone calls. Later.
Have not had much time for internet.
ETA: Oh! Speaking of internet! I Must Not Tell Lies has been translated into Russian by somebody by the name of Algine, with my gobsmacked yet gleeful consent. (algine, perhaps? Unfortunately my Russian consists almost entirely of three weeks in sixth grade and reading too much MfU fic.) They seem to be building a Russian port of http://girlsdormitory.slashcity.net . Somebody who reads Russian and doesn't mind really kinky HP girlslash (I know there are several of you out there) should go read it and tell me if it's any good so I can squee back at her. The first time my writing has ever been published in translation. :D
Got home Friday and spent most of the day relaxing, unpacking, decompressing, and folding laundry, then went to
speakerender's to watch SciFi Friday with him. Mom had to chauffeur because I'd left my wallet at school. Oops. Such memories, though, back to the heady days before I had my license.Saturday we got up early to go to the rehearsal/crew session at the high school and help out, only to discover once we'd got there that it was cancelled, so instead we drove back to the university to get my wallet and a few other things I'd remembered I might need. Then when we got home, Mom had us doing yard work most of the afternoon. Came in tired, and I worked on KB's new outfit while she quilted and we watched a couple movies and I talked on the phone with
stellar_dust for about two hours. (Heh. I keep mistyping that as stellar_bust.)Sunday I went to church, which I posted about, and then spent most of the rest of the afternoon *finally* messing with trying to get lp's to rip to mp3, since I have a laptop I can bring to the record player. I think what I eventually figured out is that I need to buy either a whole new system, or I need to buy an amp. There was a mixer/equalizer thingy at Goodwill today for $15 which I think would do the trick, if it works, if my confused understanding of this stuff is right. Or I could just record them to tape first and then rip the tapes, which *does* work, although that would make no sense. Or I could rip one of our stereos apart and try to *make* it work with the aid of electrical tape and wire strippers. bwahahah. While I was digging around the stereo cabinet I also attempted to get the old reel-to-reel to play, but I couldn't get it working either-- I think *maybe* it wasn't actually plugged into the speakers, although it looked as if it was.
Then Mom made me do my taxes. I have a federal adjusted gross income of -$1813.29 for last year, thanks to our Republican friends in Washington and their tax breaks for
This morning Mom got me up at 8:00 again. She is under doctor's orders to lose weight (although I really don't think she needs to-- she's got rounded corners, like all storybook mothers, but she's not *fat*) and has pulled out all her old aerobics videos from back when she was still hoping to lose the last of the weight from her pregnancies. Yes, very eighties. Anyone remember Kathy Smith? *I* do. I let Mom talk me into doing them with her every morning while I'm home. And she wouldn't let me pick Mousercize, which me and
stellar_dust and our cousin the babysitter used to do while she was off at her classes. q-: I'm actually less out of shape than I thought I was; I was only about ten higher than I should have been at the first pulse checkpoint, and I made it through the tape! However I have even worse rhythm than I thought I did. Mom was laughing at me. I only got so lost I tripped over my feet once.And then we went to quilting, where we finished up this quarter's lot of quilts. Quilting at church is interesting, because it's-- well, it's not about crafts, and it's not about art. We do it assembly-line style and emphasize quantity over quality and speed over beauty. Something about it strikes me as quintessentially American. Mary gathers the donated fabrics and cuts and pieces them together into quilt-sized sheets, with minimal worry about aesthetics. She takes that to the work sessions, where two people pin tops to bottoms and trim, then Mom uses her Serger to sew the two layers together around the edges, then everybody else works on the most time-consuming step, which is tying knots of cord every square foot or so on the quilt to hold it together. Then they get counted, packed in trash bags, and shoved in the closet until someone has time to take a job-lot down to the distribution warehouse, where a forklift loads them into a baler, which compresses them and wraps them in plastic, and they're put in cargo containers and shipped off to wherever Lutheran World Relief has decided somebody needs quilts.
There's supposed to be a step in there where they're displayed for a formal blessing by the pastor in the church sanctuary, but half the time they skip that step because it's too much trouble and they'd have to go find the sheet with the blessing written on it and it's not important anyway. Heck, half the quilting ladies don't even bother coming to service most weeks. I like that about my church.
Anyway, we can produce astounding amounts of quiltage that way. We loaded 108 quilts into the trunk of the car to take down to New Windsor this week, because if we'd left it any longer they wouldn't all have *fit* in the trunk. That was the production of an average of five ladies, working three hours a week, since November, with several weeks off for Christmas, and several more to make a somewhat nicer quilt to give to Mr. Clarence's son who's going to Iraq. That's more than six quilts a week. Five of us tied sixteen in three hours today, with breaks for gossip and gardening and trying to talk Pastor into picking up a needle. Sigh. I really miss going when I'm at school. And they seem to like having a young person helping. Mary, who pretty much quilts full-time these days I think, surprised me a really gorgeous wall-hanging quilt she made that they all signed with a thank-you, which is going to be in the icon to this post as soon as I get it, Mom's digital camera, and some energy in the same place together, and made me very happy. I can have a quilt hanging over every wall of my dorm room now! Tapestried garret, oh yeah.
Then Mom and I ran some errands, the bank and the post office and the other bank and Goodwill, where they've stopped having cheap used books on Mondays (wah) so I restrained myself and only bought three (a Star Wars one we didn't have, Cyteen II, and Always Coming Home, if you were curious), and ogled the electronics but didn't buy the equalizer-thing because I wasn't convinced I actually knew what I was doing.
And *then* it was pretty much time to go to the high school for more drama work, where Mom and I pinned and cut the fabric for fifteen pairs of shorts, and other things happened, which I will maybe post about in more detail on
oldmill when I'm more awake. We left after two hours to go *back* to church, for the womens' group meeting, which was *hilarious* as usual in the way in which it was exactly like a girl scout meeting, except that a) they're supposed to be responsible grown-ups and b) I'm not a member, so I can laugh at them without actually having to try to get them to get stuff done. They're planning a Mother's Day Tea which will feature a fashion show where they dress up in clothes made of plastic garbage bags, pompons, and toast, and wear bras over their clothes with small furry animals nestled in them.I had stolen all the strips of trimmed fabric from the shorts we cut out at rehearsal, and during the meeting, in between stealing refreshments and making silly comments, I braided it all into about twelve feet of rag rope. I was planning to roll it and sew it into a trivet, but it makes such a great all-purpose ... thing ... that I'm tempted to just keep it to play with. It's a jump rope! And a koosh ball! And a cat toy! And a thing-to-tie-around-other-things! And hatband! And a girdle! And a lasso! And a swing! And it's way past my bedtime!
So we loaded all the quilts in the car and came home.
We'll be back at church Tuesday night for game night. (I really do end up going to church a lot. This makes me sound much more religious than I really am. But the people there are *fun*. And they're a family. It's not like we mention religion at all, except during the actual services, or if you go to Bible study or something; when *I* go, we party and gossip and gamble and pig out on junk food and make things and have fun. And if you think 80-year-old church ladies don't know how to have fun, well, you're missing out on a lot of fun.)
Wednesday four of us're taking the quilts down to the distribution center in New Windsor, which we'll make a day of and enjoy the scenery and good food and tour the warehouse and shop at the SERRV store and buy lots of fair-trade chocolate and other stuff. And ... I think we're doing something Wednesday night, but I can't remember what.
Thursday there's drama from, eh, something ridiculous like 9-6. I'll probably go at least part of the day; Mom promised to let the costume girls play with her Serger, but if I'm not kept busy I think I'll end up leaving early. Although they may need the help; they've been having sessions cancelled out from under them all semester.
Friday I currently have free. Because Mom seems to have decided that Friday night I'm going to be doing that thing where I pretend I actually have a social life of some sort. Heh. Saturday we're spending the day at my Grandfather's house, probably hanging out with his girlfriend and doing Eastery stuff, and Sunday we'll have church all morning and dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house.
Oh, and I'd still like to go geocaching with
dreamsquirrel at some point. *looks up at list* Ummm... I have Friday open. At the moment. I brought stuff home to study, too. Hah.
And I guess Friday evening, unless somebody has a better suggestion for tricking my mother into believing I actually have friends my own age, everybody's invited to my house, for TV watching, and attempting to get rid of all the junk food Mom buys on sale and then claims she isn't supposed to eat. And I suppose if enough people are interested we could end up pulling out Pi Chess or Twister or something. (Well, everybody who reads this journal is invited. Large numbers of complete strangers show up, Mom might get a bit ansty. But people-I-haven't-talked-to-for-years and people-I've-only-met-once are included. Need directions, drop me a comment.) Maybe I'll make some actual phone calls. Later.
Have not had much time for internet.
ETA: Oh! Speaking of internet! I Must Not Tell Lies has been translated into Russian by somebody by the name of Algine, with my gobsmacked yet gleeful consent. (
algine, perhaps? Unfortunately my Russian consists almost entirely of three weeks in sixth grade and reading too much MfU fic.) They seem to be building a Russian port of http://girlsdormitory.slashcity.net . Somebody who reads Russian and doesn't mind really kinky HP girlslash (I know there are several of you out there) should go read it and tell me if it's any good so I can squee back at her. The first time my writing has ever been published in translation. :D
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Ha! So true. One of the only HP fics I've stumbled upon and glanced through in the past year was this interesting thing about the Malfoys and Draco's skull and a drill..? That's as far as I'm going, if you recognize it you'll know. And I figured, this is obviously a concentrated example of the spirit of the above-16 HP crowd, but what a specimen! :D
Poor Ginny. Is she really that universally abused (in every sense of the word) or is it just because I tend to move in faintly anti-Ginny, H/Hr fic-circles?
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But also, in *canon*, she spent a year being emotionally abused, tortured and brainwashed by the most evil wizard of the century, while nobody who was supposed to be watching over her even noticed, and afterward she ... got scolded for being careless and then was expected to pretend it had never happened, and be perky happy girl, just like everyone else was pretending? Good Ginny fic has to deal with that somehow, and yeah it tends to get pretty dark!
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