Thursday ramblings

*breathes deeply*
Okay. I don't know much about coding, and all that I have learned about HTML coding is what I have learned (hugs to Ang and her tutorials!) from my posting fanfiction stories at Henneth Annun. I have a free LJ account, and if anyone would be so kind as to tell me how to change the font size on my page, I will send you a virtual Guinness from the tap, complete with a clover in the head of the beer. Even the cute English guy at the pub I had dinner in when I was in Reykjavik by myself did that. The weather here today is a lot like Iceland was in September of '97 when I went to Iceland and England, during what ended up being the swan song of my solo travels; it's grey, overcast, and in the mid-40's. My favorite kind of weather, which is funny since it makes so many other people depressed. Must be the Celtic blood in me.

I'm going to start on my website today. Yes, I have paid for a domain name and am going to try and create a little haven for my Tolkien fanfiction. I'm afraid that I will be hopeless in this endeavor (the website, not the fanfic, which seems not to suck, much to my delight), but I went to the library yesterday and checked out Ian S. Graham's "HTML Sourcebook, 3rd Ed.", probably for the incongruous Renaissance painting on the front cover. We'll hope for the best. I do have an unexpected boon in that I came into work early only to see that my boss will be out all day. WOOT!!!!

I hate to be so odd in my first real posting here, but here goes:
I am on the verge of implosion. Below are the things that I want to have done before Dec. 20th when I fly out with my husband to my dad and stepmom's for Christmas-
1. Make my website and put all of my fanfic on it
2. Finish my first Harry Potter fanfic story by the end of this weekend for edeainfj and palarran (though it's gapfilling from Sirius' POV while in Padfoot form and even I don't know how the hell he got into Hogwarts during the Halloween feast whether in dog form or otherwise; I am so out of my element as far as Hogwart's geography goes compared to Middle-earth, but I'm trying!!)
3. Finish knitting a cabled sweater as a Christmas gift for my best friend that I only started 4 weeks ago (fronts and sleeves are done; back is started)
4. Knit cute little things for my fanfiction friends and mail them out
5. Figure out whether or not we'll have a family Christmas letter or if I'll revolt and make my own little something to send to all of my Tolkien friends and let Mr. Thev do the mundane aspect
6. Audition for a small a cappella choir at 3:00 today since the elite singing group I used to be in was disbanded this fall
7. Finish my WIP, "A House Divided," which I really love, and is dark, and perhaps a realistic look at marriage over time. Must say that JRRT's take on marriage seems to be pretty dark as well, if you look at it. Not that I can presume, I've only been married for 3 years, but I must admit that there are aspects of myself in the portrayals both of Thengel and Morwen in it. If I have it done by the 20th then I can take it out to Wenatchee and edit it while hanging out with my dad, my first Christmas with him in 23 years, when I was ten. Parents got divorced that spring. My stepmom wants me to bring out my Éowyn dress and I will, and see RotK in my childhood home, in costume, and love it. Heh.
8. Go to a choir friend's birthday party Saturday. Hope the CD from our Alma Mater's choir, that we both sang in while in school, Sewanee, arrives in time. I called the bookstore yesterday. Nothing like living on the edge. ;)
9. Attend Lessons and Carols at the two churches where I used to sing before I started sitting in on my best friend's classes, stimulating intellectual brain cells I had forgotten I had since college; and who knew that I could take a class on Tolkien and "Fan Participation in Media and Culture" and that I would write the papers, even though the university doesn't even know I'm there??
10. Make copies of the soundtrack I have made to go along with "AHD." It's pretty good.
11. Get my teeth cleaned.
12. Attend stepson's band concert. Tonight. Knitting time.
13. *explative* Figure out Christmas gifts for stepchildren, whom I love dearly. No, I already know what I'm getting Emma. I just need to order it from Amazon. *explative* Christmas gifts for anybody else in my immediate family. Argh!!
14. Go see the Extended version of TTT with my fellow Lomelindi, in costume of course, and then see the midnight showing of RotK with fellow fans. (I'll be thinking of you both, Jen and DeeDee!! Have fun even further south than me!)


Enough of that. I'll really want to "leave this joyful mirth" if I think about how much I have to do. I went to bed at 10:30 last night, and then lay there for an hour and a half, thinking about what I would post in my new LJ (I am such a geek!) and how to configure my website, wondering how on earth Sirius gets into Hogwart's, wanting to write the next scene in AHD, knowing that I need to work on my HASA survey paper, and finally got up at midnight, not waking Mr. Thev, and was up until 2 a.m. reading my survey responses, then doing some knitting and having some Scotch in the hopes that I could go to sleep. "Busy brain" is something I've had all my life, and somehow I knew that if I planned to go to bed on time, I would not be able to sleep. Ack.

Music
Here is the soundtrack music of my life right now (I'll post the AHD soundtrack on my website, LOL!!), a tape I made a few months ago while finishing up Daughters of Oromë:
Side A- Dance of the Glédfléon ('firefly' in pseudo Anglo-Saxon)
Three Ring Government- Schoolhouse Rock
Honey- Moby
Love My Way- Psychadelic Furs
Brand New Delhi- Tantra Lounge
Amnesia- Chumbawumba
Sufferin' til Suffrage- Schoolhouse Rock
In a Big Country- Big Country
Taxi Ride- Tori Amos
Senses Working Overtime- XTC
On the Loose- Saga
Riders of Rohan- (from a CD burned for me by my best friend and I can't remember the name of the performer)
Riders of Rohan- TTT soundtrack
King of the Golden Hall- TTT soundtrack
The Hornburg- TTT soundtrack

Side B- A Medicine for Melancholy
Forth Eorlingas- TTT soundtrack
(?) David Arkenstone piece from a Middle-earth CD
Sukiyaka- Japanese song from a Walt Disney LP I used to listen to all the time in my childhood, "It's a Small World After All" with songs from around the world (yes, I had a record player and Mr. Thev and I both have heaps of LPs)
Coming Up Close- Til Tuesday
Wishing- Flock of Seagulls
Siren- Tori Amos
Be With Me- (can't remember; it's from a mixed tape another friend made but she has a glorious voice)
By My Side- INXS
Not Enough Time- INXS
Desert Wind- Tantra Lounge
Virginia- Tori Amos
You Can't Go Home Again- DJ Shadow
(?) David Arkenstone piece from a M-E CD
Oranges and Lemons- the Walt Disney LP (a song from England)

Well, enough for my first real post. Westu hál!!

YAY!

My audition didn't suck.