I'd like to introduce you to Mr and Mrs Duck, the lovely mallard couple who come every year at this time to...do duck things in the neighbourhood. Sometimes they bring duck friends. Every day, Mr Duck takes Mrs Duck on a little stroll around the town to gather food and is very sweet with her, like a husband in an old married couple escorting his wife around on a Sunday outing. I took a little video of them today:



In other news, my parents got AncestryDNA kits during their Family Day sale and my dad's results came in today. Nothing too surprising, pretty much entirely Ireland/Northern England/Scotland, which is what we already knew. But there was some Iberian Penisula in there, which is unexpected ('Black Irish'? Though Wiki tells me that's a myth), and 1% Finnish. Vikings, maybe? I dunno. The cooler part was looking at the DNA matches of other people on Ancestry, since my dad's family history is spotty, so it'll be good to have some other people to pool resources with. Still waiting on Mom's. For some reason, despite being mailed on the same day, hers was a week behind his in getting processed.

Couple of daemon memes. Because I can still meme and character development, even if the rest of me is broken.

( Mathurin LeBlanc + IsraCollapse )
( Margot Belleview + HallenCollapse )

Remember memes? Remember them? I am going to do one! A generic, non-writing related one, but one none the less. Stolen from tumblr.

5 things you can find in my room:
A bed
tap shoes
a Snowball microphone (for singing)
A stack of writing notebooks
My CPAP machine

5 things you’ll find in my bag:
Sanitary Pads
My wallet
a keychain of key chains without any keys on it
Clip on sunglasses for my old frames (note to self: buy new ones)
Candies for low blood sugar incidents

5 things that make me happy:
Singing
Listening to music
Getting a really good idea for a story
My dog
Having a bath

5 things that I’m currently into:
Knitting with Magic Loop (yay new knitting needles!)
Watching QI on AcornTV
Sleeping a lot
Watching people play video games on Youtube
Vulgarlang.com (it invents languages for you!)

Whew, it's been a long time without a post. Unfortunately, my battle with unexplained kidney stones goes onwards, so I've spent a lot of time in the tub and in bed instead of writing. Not that I need to be writing, I just like to be. But I'm still fiddling away with things, so hopefully, a story will come at some point, even if it's just original fic I'm playing around with.

In brighter news, I have lost a bunch of weight since I changed my diet back in July. All healthily and carefully and necessary. I have PCOS, which makes me prone to gaining weight and is benefitted by the loss of it. So, I'm working away and it's going well and hasn't been too hard or unenjoyable.

If anyone is interested, the Mediterranean diet was recommended by a few health officials to me and/or family members, and so far has been working great for us. It's not very strict and gives you lots of options. Even with my tomato allergy, I've found lots to eat that fit the bill.

And it cute news, we bought a new living room chair back in the Fall and Ascii has claimed it in the Name of Scotties, and it hilariously big for how small she is, but that does not stop her from being important on it: (click to embiggen)


Hope everyone else is functioning to their best abilities! Remember to be kind to yourselves! Everyone keeps reminding me of this, so I will pass along the message.

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/298555.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Welcome to 2018, followers of the Gregorian calendar! I spent my New Year's Eve fighting off kidney stones, but they passed just after midnight, so I'll take that as a good omen for the New Year. Because I'm optimistic like that.


2018 Fic-Round Up

The Vampire Outreach Service (Original, G) [8,333 words]
Cut Off At the Knees (Nero Wolfe, PG-13) [4,105 words]
Good Old Boys (Original, PG) [4,274 words]
The Importance of Names (Star Wars, PG) [1,325 words]
The Light of the Season (Once Upon a Time, G) [1,978 words]
Vampire's Best Friend (Original, PG) [1,991 words]
Magician, Heal Thyself (Merlin, PG) [1,949 words]

Total # of stories= 7
Total # of words= 23, 955

( MemeageCollapse )

Hope everyone has a lovely, happy, healthy and safe 2018! I know 2017 was a stressful year for many of us, here's to a better year for those who need one!

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/298339.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Dropping in to wish everyone who's celebrating/celebrated a very Merry Christmas and/or Chinese Food Day! I hope you had a lovely, stress-free day with family and/or friends, or just had some time to yourself to relax and recuperate.

We celebrated last night and it was really lovely, but today I am super tired from getting ready for it all. We're having a pajama day today, and making our tourtiere for dinner, and tomorrow we're going to my brother's for Boxing Day. Then I plan to sleep until New Year's.

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/298178.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Title: Magician, Heal Thyself
Characters: Lancelot, Merlin, (Arthur, Gwaine and Leon, briefly)
Rating: PG
Warnings/Triggers: Brief mentions of blood
Spoilers: Set between Series 3 and 4 (I think?), no major plot points spoiled
Pairings: None
Word Count 1,949
Summary: When Merlin is hurt on a journey with the knights, Lancelot has to play caregiver to an injured wizard, who has his own methods of getting well.
Author's notes: Written for consci_fan_mo, although it’s a reworking of a story I had almost finished before the Great Flashdrive Crash. That version had daemons, but I couldn’t fit them in with the word count limit, so this just plain canonish fic. Unusual for me, I know. :-P

A huge thanks to aelfgyfu_mead for her mad Old English skills. She’s awesome and everyone should know it.

( Best to have someone who understood watching over him.Collapse )

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/297737.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Title: Vampire’s Best Friend
Characters: Mathurin LeBlanc, Louis the Chow-Chow
Rating: G
Warnings: vague injuries
Word Count: 1,991 (whew, cutting it close!)
Summary: Even vampires need fluffy friends to keep life interesting.
Disclaimer: Work is all from my own imagination. Any resemblance to other characters or situations is coincidental.
Notes: Original work, set in the same universe as The Best Parts of Existing, which I wrote for last year’s consci_fan_mo. You don’t have to have read that to follow this one, but it might help. The salient details are: Mat is a French-Canadian vampire and works as a pathologist at the local hospital. That’s really all you need to know to follow this one.

If you’d like to read more about him, you can check out this tag.

Also, here’s a picture of Louis.

( Animals don’t particularly care if you don’t age or aren’t really alive or are very cold to the touch. Collapse )

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/297607.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Title: The Light of the Season
Characters: Emma Swan, Killian Jones
Pairing: Emma/Hook
Rating: G
Warnings/Triggers: none
Spoilers: The series as a whole, and Season 7 up to and including A Pirate’s Life
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, I just like to take them out to play.
Word Count: 1,978
Summary: Emma and Killian start some Christmas traditions.
Author's notes: Written for consci_fan_mo.

The timeline of OUAT is a thing of great and terrible beauty and I have no idea how much time is meant to have passed in Storybrooke this season, but I’m assuming there’s some sort of time discrepancy between worlds, and just went with what worked for my story. If necessary, apply magical hand-wavy AUness.

( Is this some sort of pirate thing?Collapse )

This entry was crossposted on Dreamwidth (https://awanderingbard.dreamwidth.org/297319.html). Replies are welcome in any location.

Hola, my Yankee friends! Just dropping in to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a pleasant, unstressful time in your celebrations, or, if you aren't celebrating, get a few days off to relax. Be careful at those Black Friday sales!