Author: Zannah

The updates below are in order of importance

2 Comments

The new toaster has arrived.  It’s cool-looking AND it makes toast.  I can’t really ask for more.

In other news, we made an offer on a house, it was accepted, the inspection was yesterday, and there is nothing major wrong with the house, so we’re expecting to close near the end of July.  Yay!  Like, so much yay.  All the yay.

YAY

Behind that big yay, I am doing a happy dance.  Can we move in tomorrow?

Well, I was doing a happy dance, but now I am thoroughly exhausted.  I just spent an hour on the phone with USAA talking about homeowner’s insurance, and it took my entire brain.  I have nothing left.  If you have a spare one, I would like to borrow it.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/13/18
Finished: 6/15/18

This is silkpunk, which I believe is Asian steampunk, with some tech, some magic, a twin fated to die with the other determined to save them both.  It’s an intro to the author’s novel-length series, but I’m not in a hurry to read those.  Good, but not for me.

This whole Hugo Voter thing is SO COOL

4 Comments

The Hugo Voter Packet was released recently, and do you know what that is?  I mean, I didn’t know it existed until after I got into this process, and then I kind of knew I’d get a voter packet, and I kind of knew what that meant, but I just downloaded it yesterday and GUYS.  It’s like my birthday and Christmas and Hanukkah and people just giving me presents for NO REASON.  That’s how cool it is.  The Hugo Voter Packet contains electronic copies of many, if not most, of the Hugo nominees for best novel, novella, short story, novelette, series, art, magazine and so on through all the categories AND NOW I HAVE THEM ALL.

I am so happy to have these AND it makes my “what should I read next” dilemma WAY easier to solve.  Voting is over in a month and a half.  What will I read next?  Everything in my Hugo Voter Packet!

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/12/18
Finished: 6/13/18

Good novella, great premise.  Sarah is invited to a convention where the only members are Sarahs from other universes.  One of them turns up dead.  Which one, when they’re all so much alike?  And which one of the Sarahs is capable of murder?

The day the toaster died

2 Comments

We are now on the market for a new toaster.  I’ll probably just buy a cheap pop-up toaster tonight for immediate use (hello, Amazon Prime), but I’m going to get a new toaster oven eventually.  I like them.  And that’s what died.

I  mentioned the issues we were having with the toaster back in November (link here), and we’ve been coasting along in that state since then (plug in the toaster, watch it like a hawk, unplug when done).  I had toast this morning, no problem.  I picked up a panini from Starbucks on my walk at lunch, and when I got home, I plugged the toaster oven in so I could heat up the panini.  Seconds later, I heard a small whoosh, I saw some orange flickering, some smoke drifted out with the smell of burning plastic, and then I yanked the plug out of the wall.

Bye-bye, toaster.

Crosstalk by Connie Willis

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/7/18
Finished: 6/10/18

I love Connie Willis, but I did not love this book.  I LIKED it, but in spite of the main character.  She didn’t have to be stupid.  She took entirely too long to figure out what was happening to her and to figure out that her terrible fiance was terrible.  And that her job was terrible.

The nosebleed that messed up my morning

2 Comments

Most mornings, we get up early, go to the gym, work all morning, and then I go for a walk mid-day.  Once it gets and stays hot, I’ll probably switch the order so I can walk when it’s comparatively cooler and hit the air-conditioned gym in the mid-day heat, but for the last couple of months, this schedule has been working.

Today should have been no different, but my nose had other thoughts.  I wasn’t moving all that quickly, and John was planning to stop working early to fly, so he headed off to the gym without me.  I figured I’d catch up and meet him there, but then I blew my nose and now I have to clean up a crime scene.  Okay, fine, that’s not true.  No crime scene.  But plenty of bloody kleenex.  And it took FOREVER to stop.  Like, more than half an hour.  I had to google what to do because I couldn’t remember if I should tilt my head back or forward.  I eventually just sat in front of my laptop, doing work with one hand (I figured I’d start early so I can take off late morning to make up the missed workout) with my head tilted forward (thank you, Google) while using the other hand to pinch my nose shut, periodically switching out kleenex.  Uncomfortable, annoying, and kind of gross.

I don’t think I was ever prone to nosebleeds.  I can only remember two.  The more recent was on my first deployment, sometime in the second half of 2002.  Not exactly recent.  We were in the Persian Gulf, so I assume it was the inevitable result of months of hot, dry air.  The issue wasn’t that it happened, but that it happened right as the general quarters alarm sounded, and I was trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding and still get to my post quickly (in aft steering, which is the very very very back of the ship, several decks down and right at or maybe below the waterline).  (It was a drill, not the real thing, but still.)

The other one I can remember was in Louisville, maybe around age 10?  11?  Before we moved off the base, for sure.  I was out with Mrs. Campbell – no idea what our plans were or why it was just the two of us – and my nose started bleeding in the car.  My shirt got destroyed, so we went to the mall and she bought me a new one.  Maybe we were going to the mall anyway, but why would Mrs. Campbell have been taking me shopping?  Whatever.  I had to walk through the mall in a blood-soaked t-shirt, so there’s no chance I would forget that incident.

We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/2/18
Finished: 6/3/18

SO strange.  The characters all belong to a support group for survivors of events that only happen in horror stories.  They don’t like or trust each other, they don’t share their stories easily (or equally), and why were they brought together in the first place?

I need to be better about doing yoga by myself

2 Comments

Ways that I am stressed, in no particular order:

  • We’re trying to find our forever home, extra stress (get it?) on the forever.  We’re tired of moving, and we’re ready to settle here and never move again, but only if we find the right house.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, but if it’s not already perfect (or very close), it needs to be cheap enough to be made perfect.  And I REALLY want to do it in the next month, ESPECIALLY now that our landlord is being difficult.  Next bullet.
  • It’s time to leave this townhouse.  Our lease is up August 31st.  The landlord will let us extend, but every time we talk, he adds another month to the notice we have to give, which adds another month to the length of time we’d have to carry mortgage AND rent.  We were about to agree to 90 days’ notice, but then he said it’s actually 90 days plus to the end of whatever month that is.  So if we gave notice on Monday, June 4th, we’d owe rent through 9/30.  THAT’S NOT 90 DAYS.  So we’re super irritated and about to pull the plug.  If we give notice now, like today or tomorrow, we can probably still get out August 31st, but talk about adding pressure.  I’m due in the second half of September.  If we do this, and we’re probably going to do this, we have to find our house in the next two to three weeks and then hope everything goes smoothly with the inspection and closing.
  • Work is crazy busy right now and I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle it post-maternity leave because I’m not quitting my job and we’re not putting our infant in daycare.  I probably won’t work full-time, but I haven’t had that conversation with work yet, so that’ll be interesting and isn’t at all stressful, nope.
  • I am PREGNANT.  I’m not sleeping well, I don’t look like myself (I’m still surprised every time I look in the mirror), and holy crap I’m about to have a baby I didn’t think I was going to have.  I’m juggling pre-natal appointments with extra thyroid appointments (because oh, yeah, I’ve had a messed up thyroid for over 10 years, and pregnancy is known to mess up thyroids, so I have to have additional blood tests and more visits with an endocrinologist) and trying to see houses whenever possible, but don’t forget I still have to work full-time for now.  And I also have to eat right and exercise regularly and make sure I gain some weight but not too much weight.  And I’m TIRED.
  • I’m in a book funk.  I quit my last book, read a pretty good novella, and then started a really long book that’s okay enough that I’ll keep reading it, but I don’t love it.  That’s hardly a big thing, but it’s a small nagging thing, and you know what I don’t need right now?  Exactly.  The baby will fit that description soon enough, so how about we just avoid all small nagging things until then?  (That sounds negative – I don’t mean to imply I won’t LOVE that particular small nagging thing.)

Now pardon me while I go sit on the floor and cry.  Some more.

  • Right.  I cry.  A LOT.  Over both stupid things and not-stupid things.  Example of a stupid thing?  I cried at the end of the pilot episode of Hart of Dixie last night.  Guys, that is not a good show.  It’s not terrible, but it’s not good.  I cried anyway.  AND THEN I WATCHED THE SECOND EPISODE.  My judgment cannot be trusted.

After On by Rob Reid

Leave a Comment

Started: 5/29/18
Gave up: 5/29/18

The writing drove me crazy and I gave up within a couple of hours.  At 7% in, the narrator had mentioned a dozen times how dude’s wife’s research is critical to his business and his health, but she barely rates her own name (always X’s wife). That and the exclamation points are too much. I quit.