Happy 5th-Year Handfasting Anniversary to Us!

Snuggling last night and this morning was way good.

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The fabulous Eilidh/Cat sent, along with last week’s Angel ep, our belated holiday presents. Mine is the page-a-day Forgotten English calendar, which I confess I’ve lingered over in stores before. Yay! So now, I fear, ya’ll are going to get many entries here about interesting words…

Like today’s: “tip the velvet”. It means, according to a 1699 dictionary definition, “to tongue a woman”, which, from the later description Ken and I decided really means to kiss with tongues [insert appropriate Eddie Izzard noise here]. The best part is the quote from Shakespeare at the end, which I dedicate to the lovely Eilidh:

Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

(The Passionate Pilgrim, Shakespeare)

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Alas, not the most productive of days. I did do the author index for the journal I’m currently editing; tomorrow I’ll do the subject index and a few searches and be done with it. Then, on to the next one, which will be my last before I take a break for Sarah’s visit. Hurrah.

Then I hung out and talked to Ken, and we did stuff (is that appropriately vague for the minors potentially reading this?), and we sat in the hot tub and talked about the library renovation, and came inside and made more plans for the renovation. By that time it was 6:30 p.m. and we were hungry, so the planned food shopping didn’t happen. Instead we scrounged from what we had (kielbasa, risotto, and salad), and caught up with two eps of “Angel” (ze plot sickens). We also watched the beginning of “The House on Haunted Hill” (the 1999 remake) on TV to see James Marsters in a small but amusing role. Then we made a list of things to buy tomorrow morning for the library, and now Ken’s in the garage doing a final sanding and staining of boards that go up tomorrow. And I’m in here, checking journals and being otherwise unproductive.

Oh! Cool thing about “Angel”: They clearly showed the exterior of the hotel, and also the front courtyard, which we’ve been to. (The cool lobby in the show, however, is not the one in the hotel. Alas.)

And, of course, F rocked. (Was that appropriately vague for Amanda, who dislikes spoilers?)

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I miss writing. That fact struck me today. I haven’t written anything new in a while; my concentration have been on going through BH. And I’m missing the actual writing. I need to work on the crow story (which has a max 1500 word count, so it won’t take me long) and maybe on ALNM, even though I said I’d wait on that until BH was done. I think…you know, I really do think maybe what I need to do is set BH aside and concentrate on ALNM. Sarah will be here in two weeks (two weeks! Glee!) and we wanted to get a few chapters done before she arrived. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

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Gah, it looks like a bomb went off in the study. Normally I’m pretty neat and organised in here, save for a few “misc” piles, but right now, it’s an explosion of paper. Must work on that tomorrow. Just put all of BH (printed pages, various notes) in a pile on a shelf. About 1/3 of the desk cleaned. Go me!

Part of the problem right now, I freely acknowledge, is that I’ve got too many balls in the air. Too many projects. I don’t usually allow that to happen. Some are short-term (finishing BH, Pentathlon, my birthday celebrations); some are longer-term (Avant Courier, writing ALNM, GWW stuff). Again, I’ll be glad when this month is over, even though I’m enjoying the daily bits. Getting the library and Pent done will free up a nice amount of time.

Ken and I also talked today about what other renovation projects we want to do this year. Once the library’s done, we can clean out the solar (the triangular-shaped, stone-floored room in the outbuilding) and set it up _as_ the solar. We already have the bookcases and sofas, and we can hang cool things on the walls until we can afford to have someone paint it to look like the inside of a castle. The only other expense will be to get a rug, and I’m sure we can find one at a garage sale or whatnot.

The other project will be “one wall of the garage”. Eventually I want a clean, white-walled, no-cobwebs garage. Because the SCA wardrobe will be going on the same wall as the washing machine and dryer, we’ll just do the whole wall as one project. That’s probably all we’ll be able to afford this year. The wardrobe will be a wonderful thing, allowing us access to all our garb and sundries, and getting the garb clothing rack out of the middle of the bedroom, etc. The best part about it will be the door into the house. See, there’s a (almost certainly illegal) door from the garage into the closet of the library/spare bedroom. It’s currently nailed shut. We’re going to build the wardrobe and make the door functional, and have someone paint a lamppost in the snow on the back of the closet door…

If you haven’t read _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, you won’t understand that. And if you haven’t read TLTWATW, what in gods’ name are you doing reading this journal?!

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In other good news, we’re going to be refinancing the house at a lower interest rate and a 15-year mortgage rather than a 30-year. The house has gone up in value by $65K, and we’ll be able to roll in our one credit card debt and Ken’s final student loan into the whole thing. Very cool.

Oh gods. I sound like a middle-aged homeowner. Quick, hand me the smelling salts. But first let me toddle over to the fainting couch.

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Right. I’m building a semi-secret passageway in my house. I’ll be celebrating the full moon on Sunday with friends (and wine and cheese). I’m writing a story about crows and Wales and grief.

Maybe I’m not old and staid and normal after all.

I feel better about it all now. To bed soon. Sleep well, pets.