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Dec. 3rd, 2017 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckLast night's sleep was kind of mixed. I woke about 6 a.m. after going to bed around 11:30 p.m., but I stayed in bed for a couple of hours of tossing and turning (and being too warm) and eventually slept another two to three hours. It is, sadly, not a pattern I can replicate during the week because I'm pretty sure it requires the staying in bed part.
We finally managed to get Cordelia's friend to commit to coming over to decorate the tree this afternoon. The other pre-Christmas Sundays weren't likely to work well because Scott will be working next Sunday and because I'm pretty sure that finals for the friend's school are during the week immediately after the 17th. I don't think the friend would care about taking time off from studying, but her parents definitely would. We might have been able to manage something in the evening, after Scott got off work next weekend, but it would have been rushed. Not that the tree decorating part takes more than about half an hour once everything is upstairs. I just think it would be nice if the girls had some time to hang out together beyond that.
I made fudge last night and got Scott and Cordelia to help with the adding stuff after the tedious stirring and stirring and stirring part was over. You're supposed to keep stirring while adding the marshmallow fluff (gelatin free!) and the chocolate chips, and even when both of my arms are happy with me, that's not something I can do easily. Having Scott scrape the marshmallow fluff out of the jar helped immensely because that's really a two handed job.
I used the ceramic lined wok instead of the usual pot because I thought that the ceramic might spread the heat more evenly. I didn't even think about the fact that the handle on the wok would make pouring the fudge much much easier. The other pot is a deep one with the two little side handles that are meant to be held at the same time if you're going to pick the thing up at all. There's no way to pour and scrape at the same time.
Scott and Cordelia put together chocolate chip cookie dough that will get baked soon. I think they want to do actual cookies instead of the (less exhausting) bars that I'd normally make. As long as I don't have to deal with the baking parts, cookies are fine with me. There's just not enough time to rest while putting dough on the sheets and things in and out of the oven and then on the rack to cool. I can make the dough, get it in a cake pan, and into the oven without falling over, but I need the recovery time while it bakes to be able to get the dratted thing back out of the oven.
Since we're buying books for the two nieces from Seattle, Scott has said I'm in charge of getting them. I'm trying to decide what I've got the spoons for. Barnes & Noble probably has one, possibly even both books, but it's a long way away from here for a maybe. Then again, Scott and Cordelia like heading over there even if we leave without buying anything. The local independent store will let me order by email because they know me, but I can't walk that far right now, and Cordelia will likely refuse to in this cold weather. It wouldn't be hard to have Scott stop there, but I'm not sure that's consistent with me being responsible for getting the presents.
Scott has purchased a new (used or refurbished) laptop for Cordelia. He kind of waved a hand at me when I asked questions about things like her being able to play the games she wants, so I'm not sure he checked. The idea is to put my drive into her old machine and see how much longer we can keep that going. I think that Scott's hoping that, by the time Cordelia's old machine dies on me, he'll be ready to move to a different machine and can do that while passing me his old laptop.
Whatever the power issue with my laptop is, it doesn't happen when the battery drains while it's unplugged as asleep. As long as I put it to sleep before unplugging it and plug it in before opening it, the battery can drain as far as 87% without needing to be restarted. If I'm actively running anything, the machine dies at about 97% battery power. It will still say it has 97% power when I start it back up.
I'm debating signing up for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandom_stocking, but signing up is a lot of work that I don't much want to do. Part of that is that the sign up template makes assumptions about how people do fandom that don't quite fit me. I have no OTPs. I don't object to romance or smut, but I also don't care if there isn't any. Apart from a couple of DNW characters, I don't care about characters. I just kind of want something that tugs on a loose thread from canon-- a missing scene, a continuity or characterization inconsistency, background world building, a plausible divergence from canon.
I will likely write something forfandom_stocking, but I'm likely to wait for the needy stocking list because, when i see the full list of stockings, my eyes cross and my brain melts. I generally only have one fic per fandom in me during that time window and several people who I don't know that it could go to. The needy list lets me decide on recipients more easily.
This is a reason why I tend not to write treats for exchanges. Unless a prompt grabs me by the throat, I look at the requests and think that I could maybe come up with something for this one or that one or that one. I just don't have anything to help me prioritize because, well... Because.
I'll still look at stockings for people whose names I recognize (or who I know better than that), just as I read exchange letters that come across my DW reading page. I usually either don't know or can't write the fandoms requested. Occasionally, it's something I could write, but it's a fandom that I know from experience will sometimes twist on me and go dark, and that makes me dither long enough that it becomes impossible. Or it's something I could write but is an 'I'd love anything!' sort of request, and then I can't think of anything.
Okay, I need to go downstairs and move some Christmas presents out of the closet where we keep the tree stuff. Cordelia will likely be down there to help move stuff upstairs, and they're all things for her, small things that I've purchased from her wishlist at times when they were cheap during the last six months. I think I've got a reasonable idea or two for where to hide them.
We finally managed to get Cordelia's friend to commit to coming over to decorate the tree this afternoon. The other pre-Christmas Sundays weren't likely to work well because Scott will be working next Sunday and because I'm pretty sure that finals for the friend's school are during the week immediately after the 17th. I don't think the friend would care about taking time off from studying, but her parents definitely would. We might have been able to manage something in the evening, after Scott got off work next weekend, but it would have been rushed. Not that the tree decorating part takes more than about half an hour once everything is upstairs. I just think it would be nice if the girls had some time to hang out together beyond that.
I made fudge last night and got Scott and Cordelia to help with the adding stuff after the tedious stirring and stirring and stirring part was over. You're supposed to keep stirring while adding the marshmallow fluff (gelatin free!) and the chocolate chips, and even when both of my arms are happy with me, that's not something I can do easily. Having Scott scrape the marshmallow fluff out of the jar helped immensely because that's really a two handed job.
I used the ceramic lined wok instead of the usual pot because I thought that the ceramic might spread the heat more evenly. I didn't even think about the fact that the handle on the wok would make pouring the fudge much much easier. The other pot is a deep one with the two little side handles that are meant to be held at the same time if you're going to pick the thing up at all. There's no way to pour and scrape at the same time.
Scott and Cordelia put together chocolate chip cookie dough that will get baked soon. I think they want to do actual cookies instead of the (less exhausting) bars that I'd normally make. As long as I don't have to deal with the baking parts, cookies are fine with me. There's just not enough time to rest while putting dough on the sheets and things in and out of the oven and then on the rack to cool. I can make the dough, get it in a cake pan, and into the oven without falling over, but I need the recovery time while it bakes to be able to get the dratted thing back out of the oven.
Since we're buying books for the two nieces from Seattle, Scott has said I'm in charge of getting them. I'm trying to decide what I've got the spoons for. Barnes & Noble probably has one, possibly even both books, but it's a long way away from here for a maybe. Then again, Scott and Cordelia like heading over there even if we leave without buying anything. The local independent store will let me order by email because they know me, but I can't walk that far right now, and Cordelia will likely refuse to in this cold weather. It wouldn't be hard to have Scott stop there, but I'm not sure that's consistent with me being responsible for getting the presents.
Scott has purchased a new (used or refurbished) laptop for Cordelia. He kind of waved a hand at me when I asked questions about things like her being able to play the games she wants, so I'm not sure he checked. The idea is to put my drive into her old machine and see how much longer we can keep that going. I think that Scott's hoping that, by the time Cordelia's old machine dies on me, he'll be ready to move to a different machine and can do that while passing me his old laptop.
Whatever the power issue with my laptop is, it doesn't happen when the battery drains while it's unplugged as asleep. As long as I put it to sleep before unplugging it and plug it in before opening it, the battery can drain as far as 87% without needing to be restarted. If I'm actively running anything, the machine dies at about 97% battery power. It will still say it has 97% power when I start it back up.
I'm debating signing up for
fandom_stocking, but signing up is a lot of work that I don't much want to do. Part of that is that the sign up template makes assumptions about how people do fandom that don't quite fit me. I have no OTPs. I don't object to romance or smut, but I also don't care if there isn't any. Apart from a couple of DNW characters, I don't care about characters. I just kind of want something that tugs on a loose thread from canon-- a missing scene, a continuity or characterization inconsistency, background world building, a plausible divergence from canon. I will likely write something for
fandom_stocking, but I'm likely to wait for the needy stocking list because, when i see the full list of stockings, my eyes cross and my brain melts. I generally only have one fic per fandom in me during that time window and several people who I don't know that it could go to. The needy list lets me decide on recipients more easily.This is a reason why I tend not to write treats for exchanges. Unless a prompt grabs me by the throat, I look at the requests and think that I could maybe come up with something for this one or that one or that one. I just don't have anything to help me prioritize because, well... Because.
I'll still look at stockings for people whose names I recognize (or who I know better than that), just as I read exchange letters that come across my DW reading page. I usually either don't know or can't write the fandoms requested. Occasionally, it's something I could write, but it's a fandom that I know from experience will sometimes twist on me and go dark, and that makes me dither long enough that it becomes impossible. Or it's something I could write but is an 'I'd love anything!' sort of request, and then I can't think of anything.
Okay, I need to go downstairs and move some Christmas presents out of the closet where we keep the tree stuff. Cordelia will likely be down there to help move stuff upstairs, and they're all things for her, small things that I've purchased from her wishlist at times when they were cheap during the last six months. I think I've got a reasonable idea or two for where to hide them.
