Tag-Archive for ◊ holidailies ◊

Holidays and Charity
Author: Measi
• Thursday, December 06th, 2007

I’ve now been involved in the Holidailies writing project in December for three years. To my surprise today, there’s an announcement that Holidailies is planning on doing some sort of a charity drive via the site, and that today’s prompt was to write about ideas.

I have to admit that I’m a little bothered by this. And to prevent myself from sounding like a grinch, here’s why:

Charity, when done correctly, is something that’s personal, in my opinion. I don’t need to broadcast who I’ve given money to, nor who I’ve donated time to. Quite frankly, I don’t feel comfortable announcing what I’ve done because it sounds far too much like grandstanding to me and a case of who’s outdonating who. I have my personal interests of where to donate my money and my time, and I leave it at that.

And it bothers me a bit that a few days into Holidailies, there’s now a press for charity, and the “if every participant gives xyz”… NO. I understand it’s optional to give, but it’s the principle of the thing. If you’re planning that sort of a side-project, state that up-front. It sounds disingenuous to me a few days into the project. I don’t appreciate peer pressure to give – particularly at a time where I’m scraping every penny and every minute of time to figure out what way is up because yes, it’s the holidays AND particularly not through a journal portal that has a completely different focus.

And… if for no other reason, I simply don’t have the time and energy during the month of December to go research the charitable organization that may be chosen. And yes, I am extremely picky as to where I donate my money and/or time. Because many charitable organizations are tied to larger organizations or corporations that I do not want to associate with if possible.

Donating my money so Holidailies can continue? Fine. No problem.
Donating my money to a charity organization as of yet unidentified? No. Absolutely not.

If you want donations for charity, please get the site up prior to five days before Holidailies starts so folks can research your planned charities.

And I’m sorry to sound grouchy about it, but considering that no one’s commenting on my entries for Holidailies anyway, what does my opinion matter, eh?

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Protected: Holidailies Day 3: Stopping Time
Author: Measi
• Tuesday, December 04th, 2007

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Protected: Tuesday Randoms
Author: Measi
• Tuesday, December 04th, 2007

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Stopping Time
Author: Measi
• Monday, December 03rd, 2007

via today’s prompt at Holidailies, which asked for a story about snow.

ETA: This entry was noted as a “Best of Holidailies 2007″ posting. Hooray! :) Thank you to whomever nominated me!

Saturday, January 23, 2005…

Funny that it’s now nearly three years ago, but I can remember the entire evening like it was yesterday. Big events in your life tend to be that way, don’t they?

I spent that weekend in January holed up in the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. As in years past, my other half, Erich, and I were attending the Arisia fandom convention, held every January.

It had already shaped up to be a unique convention experience. Our requested king-sized bed had been upgraded – for free- to a mini-suite, allowing us both a bedroom and a sitting room for the remainder of the con. In addition, our room was on Dealer’s Row, where a good portion of the convention wares dealers set up shop within hotel rooms. Every year, it’s one of the bustling areas of the con – and my personal favorite to hang out on – and here I was, with my hotel room on Dealer’s Row.

Life couldn’t be better.

As Friday night and Saturday morning rolled on, reports about a winter storm brewed, but all was well. The con staff kept weather updates in the main hallways. A few presenters and panel guests cancelled out to fly home before it got too bad, but everything went on as a normal con.

Erich and I decided to go out into the city to grab dinner somewhere in Back Bay before it got too bad. We wandered two blocks down the street to Fire + Ice, one of our favorite restaurants (and the one where we’d gone on our first date… so it was sentimental). The snow was just starting to fall as we went inside.

The restaurant was dead. The snow was beginning to swirl, and in true New England snow-phobic fashion, few people had dared head out into the streets. We took our time, had a lovely dinner, and then headed outside…

where we found nearly six inches of snow already on the ground. The snow was really swirling now. The windtunnel that is Back Bay Boston was in full force. And then Erich looked at me and asked if we could go one more block over, just for a second, so he could see how the snow was swirling in the Hancock intersection.

I thought it was a bit odd – because the corner of Clarendon and St. James Streets is the LAST place you want to be during a windstorm in Boston. The buildings in that intersection create a horrible little microcosm of weather, and in light breeze conditions, it can feel like a hurricane in there. But since Erich had worked in the John Hancock building for a while, and it was close, I agreed, and we plodded over. The snow was piling up on the sidewalks, well over my ankles. It was swirling everywhere in the air, getting difficult to see.

But what I could see was lovely – the snow was piling into little ripples on the stone buildings, creating miniature drifts above window casings. Very lovely.

And then Erich stopped, just short of the stairs in front of the old John Hancock building.

And then suddenly, he went down on one knee.

Now – you know those cliched “and time stood still” phrases in literature? The ones you think are totally bogus?

Yeah. Well, they happen. Especially when someone proposes marriage to you, in the dark, in a blizzard, when you’re the only two people for blocks in Back Bay Boston because you’re the only two people stupid enough to be out in this weather.

Time stood absolutely still. I said yes, of course.

He placed the ring on my finger, and we had the quickest of kisses before time, wind, and snow came roaring back at us, forcing us to return to the warmth of the hotel, to our lucky upgraded room, as twenty more inches of snow piled through the night.

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Protected: Holidailies Day Two – Wedding Preparation Redux
Author: Measi
• Sunday, December 02nd, 2007

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Wedding Preparation Redux
Author: Measi
• Sunday, December 02nd, 2007

2007 was, by and large, the year that I managed to go completely insane. The vast majority of it was spent dealing with all things wedding planning. And much to my annoyance, it wound up taking up every ounce of my life that wasn’t devoted to the work I had to do to pay the bills.

First thing I thought of waking up? Wedding stuff.
Last thing I thought of before falling asleep? Wedding stuff.

Two months and change post-wedding, I’m so relieved that it’s not happening anymore. And other than my thank-you notes that are underway and getting whittled down… I have no other wedding stuff left-over that needs to be done.

I don’t miss it. I don’t wish wedding planning on anyone in the world. Because it was pure hell. My wedding day was beautiful – I had a fantastic time. But the months leading up to it were pure hell.

So when one of my friends asked for help with her wedding preparations, I felt guilty saying that no, I couldn’t come to her house yesterday. This weekend was my only one in December currently not booked with something or other, and I knew I had lots to get done personally. I definitely wanted to help, particularly because she’s been having a rough go at work lately. Wedding stress is just one of those things that, well, takes over.

But as it worked out, as long as I didn’t have to do the traveling, I was fine. She was happy to come down to my house, and so today she did. We sat in the living room, watching the first three episodes of Doctor Who since its rebirth in 2005 (in an attempt to hook her fiance). Then we watched the first two episodes of Blackpool because Tricia, like me, is a David Tennant fan and needs to enjoy the man in all of his native Scottish accented glory, complete with scruffy five o’clock shadow and singing. David Tennant singing Kenny Roger’s The Gambler into an ice cream cone microphone? Oh yes. It is awesome. I promise.

It’s a shame the U.S. producers didn’t just go to get permission to air Blackpool, rather than try to remake it into the tripe that became Viva Laughlin.

Anyway… the assistance Tricia needed for her wedding was folding paper cranes. She’s doing the 1,000 paper cranes for good luck thing for her wedding. She’s smart to be getting started now for a June wedding. :) So as we watched TV, she, her fiance, my husband, our friend Matt, and I folded cranes.

In about three hours – including breaks for food – we managed to fold 58 cranes. She now has over 200 done.

And I can fold paper cranes from memory now.

Kinda cool.

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Protected: Holidailies Day One: Always off Season
Author: Measi
• Saturday, December 01st, 2007

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Always off-season
Author: Measi
• Saturday, December 01st, 2007

I’m convinced that the stores are completely out of whack with reality about the holiday season.

I know – thank you Captain obvious. Where have I been, eh?

But here’s what really bothers me. The season doesn’t match with the Season. It’s December 1st, and at Lowes this afternoon, all Christmas ornaments were on clearance. Everything 25% off. Never mind the fact that it’s still 24 days until Christmas. No. The end-of-season clearance sales now begin just as the true holiday season is just getting started.

I’m sorry. I’m not one of the crazy people who gets into the holiday spirit in… what was it… September? I think that’s when the Christmas tree displays were put up at Lowes this year. Kid you not – there was the glowing beacon of Christmas spirit while the summer flowers were just beginning to fade.

Mind you – by the end of September, Halloween stuff is on clearance sale. By the week of Halloween, you can barely find bags of candy to give out. The stuff you do find is the stuff that used to rot at the bottom of the treat bags for being “sub-par.” And personally, I don’t want to be those neighbors who give out the crappy candy. But if I have Halloween candy in the house for more than a few days, I know I’m going to start raiding the bag. I don’t want to buy it in September, guys.

And now the Christmas decorating season is on clearance on the very first day of December. How crazy has this shopping frenzy become? All I hear is the stores complaining about how hard a holiday season it’s going to be. Well, rather than overpower a quarter of the year for holiday shopping, condense it, return it to the proper time of year, and possibly those of us who are tired of Halloween and Thanksgiving being speed bumps toward the shopping frenzy would return to the stores.

Worst of it is that trying to keep your business to the stores that actually do observe the proper holiday season is becoming harder to do. Most stores are taking down their holiday decorations the week before Christmas. This makes no sense to me. I mean, it’s not a religious holiday to me, but it reinforces just how superficial and economy-based the celebration of the holiday has become.

Oh – and Lowes? Could you actually have the paper leaf bags in stock the week that the leaves have just fallen from the trees, rather than taking them off of the shelves as “out of season” before the leaves even turn color?

Would appreciate it.

Thanks.

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Protected: Life in general…
Author: Measi
• Friday, November 30th, 2007

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Adventures in blogging
Author: Measi
• Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

A Holidailies prompt from a couple weeks ago asked how each person got his/her start in blogging online. I’m pretty sure I told this story a couple years ago, but it’s lost somewhere in the Diaryland backup of my defunct Diary-X journal…

I opened my first online blog account in 1999 on Diaryland. It was just before the turn of the new year, and like everyone else hyped up about the year 2000, I figured I’d start being good about keeping a record of my life for absolutely no reason other than to write. Three days later, I forgot about it. It sat there until I discovered it about three years later.

In the meantime, I began using a paper journal in late 2000 to vent some frustrations I was having with a friend. I found, however, that my brain was trying to rush through a lot more than my hands could keep up with… so I decided to try my computer. If I recall, I was looking for some downloadable software to make it feel more like a book as I typed on-screen. Somehow, I was led to Diary-X. I opened an account immediately and began my online journal on March 29, 2001.

In 2002, I decided to start a backup mirror of my journal on Diaryland (when I discovered my original account over there) based upon a bad experience with the owner of Diary-X on another website he was running called Nervousness.org. From that point forward, I kept an updated mirror of my journal running on both sites– and thankfully because I did that, I didn’t lose anything but unpublished drafts during the fatal Diary-X crash in early 2006.

Despite griping about it and its elitism invite-only format at the time, I gave in and joined Livejournal after attending Arisia in 2003, mostly to keep up wtih many of my friends who used the service. I never really cared for the layout of the site. The most valuable part of it to me was the friends’ lists. But it was handy.

And suddenly, I was posting to three accounts at a time, which was stupid. After a few months, it was time to pare down.

Starting in 2005, I started posting at my own webspace, using Blogger as the formatting engine. Issues with both owners of Diary-X had led me to move on from the forms two months prior, and I couldn’t continue to use the service in good faith due to the ethics and behavior I experienced as a customer(which turned out to be a very good choice, based on what ultimately happened to DX). With few exceptions, I’ve also stopped posting on LiveJournal, only popping in to catch up on friends’ pages from time to time.

I kept my archive at Diaryland, although I haven’t posted to the site since I stopped posting at Diary-X. It remains my journal archive for my older entries. I plan to slowly bring everything over to my personal webspace… but it takes time to go through entries, delete dead links, and add tags to the posts for archiving. It’s definitely an “as I have time for it” project, which lately has been mostly non-existent.

Over the years, my blogging has recorded my entire relationship with my fiance, the adoption of four cats, two apartment moves, purchasing my first home, buying my first car, my experiences on 9/11, a big job move, and all of the little stuff in-between. It transitions between triteness and deep thought, almost always written freeform with little editing (I prefer “raw” writing). I can see how I’ve changed and how I’ve stayed the same as I look back through my archives. It’s a good thing– I’m glad I found the outlet online. :)

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Addictions not needed
Author: Measi
• Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

So for the past three hours, I’ve had the Doctor Who theme stuck in my head. Add to that a rather late night (*shitfaced grin inserted here*), and I’m a tad cranky this morning. More tired than cranky, actually. And I’m definitely NOT interested in having the Doctor Who theme whistling through my brain all day.

But I have a feeling it’s here to stay today. I’m the only admin at work today. No one to chat with to take my mind away. More than likely, not a lot of work to divert my concentration, either.

Dammit.

The problem is, I know exactly why it’s here, too. The 2nd season finale of the show was on Friday night, and despite being a very casual viewer of the show… I was roped in, and then VERY PISSED OFF at the ending (in both a good and bad way). Then my brain, being pissed off, kept mulling it, kept thinking about it… and then we watched it again on Christmas Day with Erich’s dad and Matt… and then it firmly stuck.

Crap. I really don’t want to start mulling a show over again and getting addicted to it. I thought I’d learned my lesson after nine years of the X-Files, seven years of Star Trek:TNG. Getting invested in characters, begrudgingly (and then not so begrudgingly) getting interested in fanfic.

What is it about Sci-Fi, anyway? Despite watching a lot of the series, I don’t get addicted to Law & Order like this. What the hell?

*sigh*

In any case, share my pain– get the Doctor Who theme stuck in your head for a while.

Grrrr….

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The Evolution of Christmas
Author: Measi
• Sunday, December 24th, 2006

Luminaries
Originally uploaded by measi.

The weather outside belies the fact that it’s Christmas Eve– it’s sunny. The grass on our lawn is still half green. It’s surprisingly mild out. Two nights ago, we slept all night with the windows wide open. In December. In freaking New England.

So I admit that I just don’t feel like I’m in the holiday spirit this year. It feels like Easter, to be honest. Yet here we are, the day before Christmas. Granted, Christmas hasn’t been a religious holiday for me for over a decade now. But I still view it as a separate holiday from Yule and still important to me. Yule is for personal reflection. It’s a quiet spiritual retreat. Often I celebrate it in little moments throughout the day– even in the middle of holiday parties where I’m surrounded by coworkers or friends. Christmas, on the other hand, I see as a celebration of community. For me, it’s not just the 25th– the 24th was always more important to my family. So now Christmas has evolved into a two day celebration of love and connection with others. I honestly need people around me at Christmas.

As a child, Christmas Eve began with two yearly traditions. The first was the luminaries that every house in our neighborhood used to display on Christmas eve. The day before Christmas Eve- my father would grab his wheelbarrow (on snowless years) or empty white buckets left over from the pool chlorine and head up to the northern street of our neighborhood to get a hefty amount of sand, candles, and paper lunch bags. He’d then come home, bring my brother and I into his workshop, and we’d help him pour a measured portion of sand into each bag. Then we’d help him carry them and place them along our property– one would help with the bags. The other would place a candle into the center of each bag. And my father would finally follow, adjusting the spacing and lighting the bags just before nightfall. On Christmas Eve, no one in our neighborhood would turn on their Christmas lights (other than the tree inside). Only the luminaries lit up the night. Every house had them, lining the gutters along every property line, creating a candlelit runway (which was my parents original explanation… we were creating a runway for Santa to come).

The other happened at six o’clock exactly every Christmas Eve. Dinners were planned to make sure the kids were all outside about five minutes before to witness Santa flying around Billings on his sleigh. It was a fantastic sight– he’d make two huge circles around Billings so all of the children could see that he’d be coming that night… and then would disappear (we children presumed he was heading elsewhere to show other kids he was coming, too). In reality, Santa was a big wire framed light display, hooked onto the side of a helicopter. It was one family’s treat for the city every year.

Still this year, I’m finding it very hard to get in the spirit. Something’s not right… and I think my blaming the weather is just a cop-out.

Maybe it’s because I have an itch to fill luminaries…

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Points with the fiance
Author: Measi
• Friday, December 22nd, 2006

I just became the best fiancee in the world– Erich has a gleaming new XBox360. :)

This was a Christmas present that he knew he was getting. He doesn’t know what games he’s getting yet– those will be under the tree on Monday morning. But in the meantime, he can play Halo and any of his other XBox games (of which I don’t think there are many… he just plays a LOT of Halo online with the guys…).

The reason he got it early was because I traded in his old XBox and his Gamecube toward the purchase of the new system– with his blessing. He bundled everything up for me this morning. But he realized over the course of the day that his XBox Live account would still be on the old box. To make sure everything was transferred safely, I gave it to him tonight.

(talk about acting like a kid in a candy store… he even did that excited little bodance)

It was a good day overall. I dropped Erich off at the commuter train this morning, and then went about enjoying the first day of my four day weekend. I have all but one gift bought. I just need to wrap presents, but I won’t do that until Sunday morning– with five cats who are in love with playing under the tree, wrapping paper would be shredded by Monday. So for now, things are tucked away.

Tomorrow morning I’ll finish writing out my cards and get them dropped off at the post office. They’re all going to points in the USA, so hopefully they’ll arrive by New Year’s at this point. *sigh* Still, it’s better than some years, where I’m debating whether I’m just entirely too late and then just don’t wind up sending them at all.

My hopes for a snowy Christmas are completely gone. We’re going to have an Easter-like Christmas this year in New England, complete with April showers tonight through tomorrow. It’s supposed to be about 50 degrees on Christmas Day. Global warming? Never heard of it. Maybe we’ll grill ribs for Christmas dinner this year. :)

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Thursday Thirteen #15: Holiday Movies
Author: Measi
• Thursday, December 21st, 2006

Blessed Yule, all! :)

My original plan for this week’s T13 was to share thirteen of my favorite ornaments on our tree, but I tend to misplace things– and my digital camera has gone on walkabout for the week. I figure it disappeared on vacation before the craziness of the holidays.

So instead, I’m using yesterday’s Holidailies prompt about required seasonal movies… Here are thirteen that I think are requied viewing sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

Thirteen Required Holiday Movies

1. A Christmas Story- Not to difficult to find the past few years, is it? But seriously, it was an instant classic, even if it did take the world several years to discover this sleeper hit. Fah-rah-rah-rah-rah…

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas- How many things about Christmas, both good and bad, are summed up here? And the music? It’s not Christmas until I hear that soft jazz of the Charlie Brown special float from my TV speakers.

3. Home Alone- This was overplayed for a few years and I got sick of it. But I found myself watching it a couple weeks ago and enjoying it once again. But the mystery still remains- what boy would ever clean up that mess? And how would he really get it all cleaned up so quickly? (but forget to fix the shelves in his brother’s room…)

4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer- Remember how tragic it was if you missed the airing of Rudolph in any year? It was only shown ONCE per season, and as a child, it often wound up being on the night I had dance class. Thank goodness for the Betamax and later the VCR.

5. Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas- I haven’t seen this in years and I don’t think it’s well-known anymore, but it was one of my favorites as a child. It was a sweet story about a little otter who wanted to make Christmas special for his mother. He and friends want to compete in a talent contest as a jug band. But in order to enter, he’d have to ruin the washtub that his mother uses to make all of the money their family has. At the same time, Ma Otter has a similar idea to make Christmas special for her son by entering the same contest.

6. The Nutcracker- There are a dozen versions of the Nutcracker out there, but the one I always watched as a child- and still prefer today-is the 1977 version with Mikhail Baryshnikov, broadcast every year on PBS among their year-end fundraising drives… By the end, I was usually twirling along with the Flowers. :)

7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas- The original Dr. Seuss version. Still blows Jim Carrey out of the water, in much less than half the time. :)

8. It’s a Wonderful Life- It’s funny, but I always prefer to watch this after Christmas, but before New Year’s. It’s so heartwarming at the end– the perfect way to ring in a new year.

9. Moonstruck- Not usually thought of as a holiday movie… but the references are quietly in the background everywhere. The decorations, the first snowflakes of winter, the connection and celebration of family… it’s a story of falling in love over the holidays, and love her or hate her, Cher is absolutely stunning when she meets with Nicolas Cage in front of the Met. Each time I watch it, I’m just a bit older… and I “get” more of the jokes.

10. Mickey’s Christmas Carol- My favorite version of the classic… :)

11. A Mom for Christmas- It’s actually a very corny movie. But it came out the year after my parents were divorced, and it was just the sappiness that my teenager heart needed. And I was (and still am) a big ONJ fan.

12. Miracle on 34th Street- Again-original version. It’s never, ever Christmas without watching this. :)

13. Rudolph’s Shiny New Year- This one’s always been a bit more obscure, but it always signified the LAST holiday special of the season. I always got a kick out of Happy and his big ears… and loved how they visualized the progression of Time…

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!


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Aaaaaaand… the pace picks up
Author: Measi
• Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

It’s been a very, VERY busy couple of days at work. I’m thankful I started during a slow couple of weeks, otherwise I would have gone insane yesterday and today. The admin department has had more individual projects brought our way in the past two days than in the past week and a half combined.

If I hadn’t had the time to learn how to format the different styles of documents at a more relaxed pace, I would have really been freaking out today. Gah.

But all is well, and I continue to do very well here. I’ve been getting a lot of compliments about my work and my attitude, which is great to hear. I already feel like I’ve been here forever, and it’s only actually been less than a month.

Tomorrow’s the office party at a nearby pub. Then I have Friday off as part of my holiday weekend, in which I’ll celebrate Yule and get the rest of my Christmas shopping done (whee… Multi-Holiday-Tasking!) It should be a fun, relaxing holiday weekend. Our friend Matt confirmed that he’ll be coming down on Sunday to spend the two days. Erich’s dad will also be coming down, but I don’t know his schedule.

Perhaps tonight I’ll be able to write the two entries I’ve actually been working on (as opposed to free-versing). It would be nice to use them to catch up on my Holidailies count. :)

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