During part of the game several characters hooked up with each other, or hooked up with NPCs, and then two of the main NPCs helping out the player characters were already engaged and got married during part of the in game down time. So, you have a werewolf marrying someone of were-raven blood, a werewolf marrying an actual were-raven and then possibly a werewolf marrying a cyborg if they could ever get their act together; and also the possibility of the reincarnated equivalent of King Arthur hooking up with one of the werewolf’s cousins who can’t shift.

All sorts of intriguing things. I’m trying to stay away from so much of that in the actual story. There are relationships during the course of the novel most notably the previously mentioned werewolf/were-raven one, but at the same time most of the other characters are more focused on other things, there are hints and crushes and desires but not so much acted upon because there are so many other things going on.

I try to steer away from romance in stories but at the same time through talking with several friends I’ve realized and accepted that given romance and even just “hooking up” is integral to our day to day existence I shouldn’t avoid it like the plague, instead I should embrace it as a sidebar as something which would strengthen many of the characters’ drive and need to actually complete the plot because they do so for caring about their family, their significant others and their future family.

On the one hand I know what you definitely do NOT give a werewolf groomsman: anything silver!

In keeping with the trying to get away from living in the stories things something else came up as a sort of colon cleanse for my brain, which was to try my hand at a romantic comedy sort of story. I’m still not sure if I’m up to that but it has sparked a few interesting thoughts about the ‘Too Deep’ universe, not necessarily that story but about other stories I have which hook into it, and whether or not I can work on one of those instead and hopefully remain more detached or whether I should shelve the whole universe for the time being and instead write something else, such as the weird and whacky version of “Rapunzel” that had been in my head for a while.

So this is my quandry for now, do I write up the McCahill end of the ‘Too Deep’ universe which involves several comparisons of romance from arranged marriage, stalkers, first loves and a ‘business arrangement’ which is more based on love than many of the other supposed romances in the story, or the story of Eryssa’s quest to rescue her older sister from the clutches of an ‘evil’ wizard so she can be back with her true love the captain of the city guard while Eryssa hopefully finds a way to get her own magic to work properly in the mean time…

I routinely look on Craig’s List for items, such as moving boxes when we’ve needed them, and have sold our items through there to other people. When Mum was moving last year I gave her our old computer desks to use; and she’s in turn passing them on to other people given we don’t have room for them any more. When we had our mega clean out last month I put several things up on FreeCycle including the munchkin’s old car seat (given it was accident free and fairly new it was still good). So, here I thin I’ve not been recycling and I have, just not as much as I could have been!

I hope that you’re having a great time with your families and loved ones. To all those who celebrate different things at this time of year, such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa I hope you are also have a good time, and if you don’t celebrate anything at all, even so, may the new year bring you good times and bright blessings.

I know that some of you may be lucky enough to get new technology, as we have in the past, Wiis, PS3s, Sony Vaio notebooks (ah, how I secretly wish that could be me), but the main point of this time of year is to be able to spend fun times with those you love and those who love you, and so for everyone everywhere may that be true.

I was reading a good article the other day that reminded us that the ideal of having everything in balance is more of a myth and detrimental to us. If we try all our lives to get to this balance we’re doing ourselves a disservice. Our role in life is to juggle things, and in order to be able to do this juggling it’s important that we take care of ourselves first and foremost, and try to be in tip-top condition.

That being said it’s not an easy thing to do. I know a good many people are trained or become of the mindset that everything and everyone else is important and we’re secondary. I find myself doing that a lot. I do all these things for my son all through the day, and when he’s napping I spend my time trying to clean or make food or catch up on work (all in a very short space of time). Even when I was on bed rest while pregnant it was hard for me to just do nothing. Unfortunately for my thighs and waist line a lot of my busy work involves the computer…which isn’t so good.

Then again, the way I’ve been feeling lately…it’s good for my overall health even if it isn’t good for my weight. We’ll get there. In order to take care of myself so that I can be a good juggler I need to start doing some exercise, even if it is just boxing and playing tennis on Wii Sports. Build up gradually.

Maybe I’ll find myself re-energized yet.

I had to think that I contribute to this. There have been so many times recently that I’ve thrown out things, the other day from our fridge, pantry and freezer I threw out a whole helping of Pizza Hut cheesy bread that had dried out, half a tub of cantaloupe pieces, half a bag of grapes, 5lbs of potatoes which had gone rotten, and about a cup of stale milk and some sour orange juice.

Why?

Because they get forgotten in our fridge, and in the case of the potatoes they’d gone rancid. That was the third bag of potatoes I’d thrown out in as many weeks, because I was being lazy and using mix-mash or french fries instead of potatoes, so they would sit in the bag in the pantry until they went soft and exploded.

We’ve come up with better ways to handle that. I’ve stopped getting french fries altogether, which also saves space in our freezer, and when I get the potatoes I take them out of the bag and sit them on the wire shelves in our pantry so that they don’t squash each other, or sweat in the bag. My husband commends my home made french fries, which are actually baked to be more healthy over the frozen ones any day, and I’m happy that my son is going to know what potatoes look like instead of thinking they come in a box.

Real food! And it’s BETTER for you too, who knew? LOL.

But seriously. I am ashamed about how much we’ve been throwing out. I get this stuff with the goal of eating healthy and then it gets ignored in favor of snack food that we bring in or that our friend’s bring over when they come over to game. It’s not good for many reasons. I’m debating starting a compost heap for those times that we have to throw something out, but in the mean time I’m trying to inventory what we do have so that we can engage in better purchasing and disposing habits, and hopefully use more than we have been.

It doesn’t seem like much for just us, at times, but it sure does add up.

I do try to walk around our neighborhood but as the Florida weather creeps towards unpleasantly hot it’s hard to be able to do that. So, I’ll do mini stair climber things on our stair case, and step aerobics on the bottom step. I’ll chase the munchkin around the yard.

Just cutting out soda is a big help with losing weight because of all the sugar and junk that’s in there. When I really started studying labels on things I was so surprised as to everything that I’ve been putting in my body. The caffeine reduction has been taking it’s toll on my mood, but I’ve found that lying in the yard for a few minutes really helps me to center and get back in the proper frame of mind to continue the day.