We survived 2011!!

 Posted by Alysha DeShaé on Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 09:30 pm  Me, Music
Jan 012012
 
Chasing Cars Calligraphy Lyrics

Today was not just the first day of 2012, but also mine and Jaime’s first anniversary!

It was an interesting day.  We slept late, we watched a couple movies, and I lost his card.  Yep.  I lost the card I bought for our first anniversary.

Chasing Cars Calligraphy Lyrics

Chasing Cars Calligraphy Lyrics

In my defense, though, I bought the card before we ever got married because it was just too perfect to pass up!  I can’t believe I lost it…  I had it a month or so ago.  :-(  Well, I’ll find it sooner or later.

So, I’m off for the next two days, and I’m hoping to get in plenty of reading time and work on some posts for my site.  I know I’ve been extremely neglectful of both my sites and the challenges, but I’m going to do what I can.

Anyways, time to harass my hubby!  ^_^

Super Short Status

 Posted by Alysha DeShaé on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 09:09 pm  Me
Dec 132011
 
To Do List

Sooo…  I’m sorry.  Again.

I’ve been busy with all kinds of real life stuff (and a little reading) that I’ve barely had time to sleep.

At some point over the next couple days I’m going to try to get a few book reviews written, posted, and scheduled.  I’m off tomorrow and Thursday, but I have tons of things on my to-do list.

Also, I’m going to try to compile a list of books I’ve read but not yet reviewed because I doubt they’ll all be reviewed before the end of the year. Obviously I wasn’t able to finish all my reading challenges.  Unfortunately, some of them just really didn’t appeal to me and I was trying to motivate myself to read certain books with them.  I’m a little disappointed in myself, but I knew it was crazy taking on so many challenges when life is hectic and crazy on a regular basis.

To Do List

To Do List

On my to-do list is “whittle down challenges” which I will try to do by Thursday so that I can get those removed from my “need to write wrap-up post” list.

Anyways, I’m going to get started on my to-do list.

  • Set up new desktop?  Check!
  • Install programs?  Checking…
  • Transfer data?  Checking…
  • Love the new computer?  CHECK!!!

Oh yeah, I got a new computer.  ^_^  Happy Lishy is Happy Lishy!

It Is Not a Happy Thanksgiving.

 Posted by Alysha DeShaé on Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 11:36 am  Me, Thoughts
Nov 242011
 
Anne McCaffrey

I’m going to spend a good portion of my Thanksgiving crying.  I just discovered that my favorite author – the woman who introduced me to fantasy back in 1995; the woman who wrote a letter back to me on dragon stationary and signed it in purple ink – passed away.

Dear Anne McCaffrey,

Your books have been with me almost from the beginning.  When I first started choosing bigger, better, more adult books back in sixth grade, your books were there.  You introduced me to dragons, to fantasy, to new worlds.  You introduced me to aliens who inspired our unicorn myths.  You brought magic and science into my life like no one else.  You inspired me to write.  One day, when I’m brave enough to share any writings, it will because you inspired me to share my work.  You have been a constant in my life.

Every year I reread some of your books.  Every year I laugh, I cry, and I live with your characters again.  I’m so glad that you were the first fantasy/science fiction writer I read.

I will miss you, Anne.  My children and friends will know your works and they will love you as I love you.  You will live on in our hearts and the hearts of all your fans.

Thank you for sharing your imagination with us over the years.  Thank you for taking the time to write back to young girl years ago.  Thank you for being there.

Love,

Your #1 Fan

Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey

For anyone who doesn’t know who Anne McCaffrey is, you should be ashamed of yourself.  Read her Pern books, for starters.  “Dragonsong,” “Dragonsinger,” and “Dragondrums” were the first books of hers that I read.  They are amazing and wonderful books.

Thank you, and I hope you’re enjoying your time in Pern.  ^_^

I feel sick…

 Posted by Alysha DeShaé on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 09:55 am  Me
Nov 152011
 
I feel sick...

I hate feeling sick.  It’s just allergies, but it affects everything.  Well, I think it’s just allergies.  I’m allergic to dogs, apparently, and I was at my grandmother’s Saturday and again yesterday and she has an indoor dog.  I started feeling funky Saturday evening – headache, runny nose, that sort of thing.  Today is just awful, though.  I can’t breathe through my nose, my ears ache, my head is throbbing, and my eyes hurt.

On top of all that, my “i” key on the keyboard keeps sticking!  It’s amazing how many words need the letter “i” and I would like to extend my thanks to Mozilla Firefox for alerting me to their absence each time.

Anyways, because of how I feel, I didn’t get out of bed until a few minutes ago.  I will get a review up a little later.  Hopefully after my medicine kicks in it won’t hurt so much to look at the screen.

I feel sick...

I feel sick...

I’m going to lay back down, actually, until it kicks in.

Oh, and sorry for completely bailing on reviews yesterday.  I went to my mom’s nice and early to watch kids while she ran to get some blood work done.  I was planning to do a review while the kids were playing and her internet wouldn’t connect.  Her router sucks and she keeps it locked in a cabinet that blocks the signal almost completely!  I know, I know…

So I wasn’t able to do any reviews at mom’s house and then I spent the entire day with my grandmother.  I got a few books from the goodwill store and an awesome wax-warmer with two scents from Wal-Mart!  Thank you, Momo!  I also got her new cable box hooked up and working through an HDMI cable even though, by the time I had to leave, her HD channels still weren’t coming in.

So, back to me laying down until the medicine kicks in?  I’m going now.

My Rambling Autobiography

 Posted by Alysha DeShaé on Wednesday, November 09, 2011 at 07:00 pm  Me, Scribbles, Thoughts
Nov 092011
 
Rambling Thoughts

Inspired by the few I’ve discovered through various means, I’ve chosen to do my own rambling autobiography.  Be scared…  Also, if it’s in block quotes, it isn’t part of this writing exercise.

I was born April 12, 1984.  I’ve never stayed too long away from my family.  I moved to Texas when I was in middle school and again for a year after college, but I always came back.  I married my high school love New Year’s Day of 2011.  I love taking pictures.  My cats are my children.  My niece is second favorite person.  The first favorite is my husband, naturally.  I can’t cook without a recipe.  I remember characters in books better than people I’ve known my entire life.  Jaime let me have one of the rooms in the house as a library in exchange for me letting him have the other as a playroom/office.  I sleep best on the floor in my library surrounded by my books.

I love visiting the library, but since I’ve gotten my nook I haven’t gone nearly as often as I would like.  I enjoy music, but I don’t care one bit about the people who sing/play it.  I’m an Atheist, but religions intrigue me.  I enjoy reading some Christian fiction because I find it funny.  I recently discovered that there is a genre of Christian romance books – I haven’t read any yet, but I will.  Romance books turn me off.  Historical romance books make me giggle.  I love reading about history.  I keep a list of soon-to-be-released books on my expo board with their release dates so I don’t forget them.  Goodreads is quickly becoming my most visited site.  I’m a hardcore GoogleGirl, but I can’t tell you the name of their CEO; I just use and love their products.

I follow Randall Milholland on Twitter because I love his comic and he constantly makes me laugh.  I sometimes abuse Twitter, but I enjoy updating when I have the ability.  I work at Cabela’s and actually enjoy my job and the people with whom I work.  I hate needing to work.  I’m fluffy because I prefer reading to moving.  Without the internet, I would be even more boring than I am.  I’m okay with being boring.  Pop music is pleasing to me even if I’m “too old” for it.  I still listen to boybands and all the music I listened to when I was younger.  My music library is completely formatted at 128kbps in the AAC format and I’m a little disappointed in myself for doing that.  My iPod Classic and iTunes are the only Apple products I like.

If I could find an open source alternative to iTunes that would manage my music files as well as iTune does then I would switch in a heartbeat.  I use iGain to normalize my music files.  I use Calibre to organize, manage, and convert (if necessary) my ebooks and I also use it to push the ebooks to my nook.  My nook is the one item that I always have with me.  I read more than ever now that I have an ereader.  I still insist on DTEs of books I enjoyed, but ebooks are perfectly acceptable for all books, especially the books I didn’t like so much that I’ll reread them regularly.  My family has always picked on me for reading so much, but not in a mean way.  They just know that all presents given or received will be book related.

I get my love of reading most obviously from my grandmother – we’re constantly sharing books.  My mom used to read to me when I was younger.  My parents always made sure I had books available to me.  My dad got rid of all my Goosebumps, Babysitters’ Club, Great Illustrated Classics, Box Car Children, and a few other sets one year at a garage sale.  I didn’t find out until all that was left were a few of my V. C. Andrews’ books.  I broke down in tears.  I have a large collection of Golden Books and a moderate collection of other children’s books and movies for when I have kids.  I use Book Collector and Movie Collector (from Collectorz) to manage and catalog my DVD and DTE book collections.  My library is finally organized the way I like it.  At this point in time, I have only come across one series of books that I feel should be burned, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

Rambling Thoughts

Rambling Thoughts

If I’m at my computer, I’m either listening to music or watching something on netflix.  If I’m writing a book review, I like to listen to classical music or movie scores.  When I play Pottermore, I listen to the Harry Potter soundtracks.  I do not own any of the Harry Potter movies.  I didn’t buy any of the Harry Potter books until they were available in the trunk box set.  Ditto for Percy Jackson.  The Twilight books were all out by the time my grandmother told me I needed to read them, so I bought a boxed set when I got them.  Jaime started buying me the collector’s edition Twilight books, and now that the last one is out, I’m going to get rid of the box set.  I have a small rock that I keep on my bookshelf near the Twilight books to help illustrate my defense against sparkly vampires.

Jaime thinks I like Twilight a lot more than I actually do, and that’s okay with me.  I only have one Willow Tree figurine, Promise, and it was bought on our honeymoon.  Jaime is the only guy who has ever bought me real jewelry, and he started in high school with a beautiful crucifix for my 16th birthday.  I still have and occasionally wear the crucifix in spite of my lack of belief.  I can’t remember ever believing in a god; my theory is that my parents did a horrible job of explaining the difference between God and Santa.  I still have the deep belief that the Easter Bunny is real even though I know the trick my parents used to get me to believe when I was younger.  My birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday twice so far in 1998 and 2009; it will happen again in 2020.  Right now, all I can think about are bookends – I need 30 of them.

I’ve recently discovered a love for graphic novels.  I have two sets of the “Chronicles of Narnia,” neither are movie-cover tie-ins, both are numbered differently from the publisher, and I’ve read each set several times.  I have more pictures of my cats and niece than almost anyone or anything else.  I still have stuffed animals from when I was a baby.  I have two stuffed dragons (one blue, one red) hanging from the ceiling in my library that Jaime bought me last year.  I can’t imagine how I would get off-track during a “rambling autobiography,” but I still feel as though I’ve done this wrong because it’s longer than any of the others I’ve seen.

I’m thinking that I should have gone to Jaime’s room to type this.  My life does, to some extent, revolve around books and reading, but typing my thoughts while surrounded by my books certainly emphasized that.  Well, I can’t see how it could remain the way it’s supposed to if I go back and edit it, so I’m leaving it as is.

Write your own rambling autobiography and leave me a link to read it!  For that matter, type it in the comments!  I’m really curious to see how others will do this little activity.  Just start typing about yourself and see where your thoughts take you.  :-)

By the way, I have a playlist of songs that have never been played after being added to my library that I leave playing so that the songs scrobble to Lastfm.  I also have a playlist of songs that have been played fewer than three times that I often play while working at my computer to insure that I listen to every song at least twice.  I use my mom’s and brother’s computers to back-up both my ebook library and my music library.  My mom recently gave me a simple recipe for baking chicken and I’m planning to use it for the second time tonight.  Jaime and I often eat the same meal a few days in a row when I cook so I can get more practice.  Hormel makes microwavable roasts that are fantastic!

I use Microsoft Paint on a regular basis even though I have PhotoShop and PaintShop.  I really like eating chicken.  The only thing better than chicken is turkey.  My favorite meal, though, is meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots and peas.  I really love sweet iced tea.  I have a cup full at my hand and another pitcher steeping right now.  The paragraph spacing in this post was done mostly to help make it easier to read, not to separate ideas.  Writing is something I would love to do, but my plot ideas tend to fizzle out because I either over-simplify or over-complicate them.  I considered participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but forgot about it until after the start of the month and decided against starting late.

I will definitely participate next year.  I participate in the Alzheimer’s Walk to Remember in Baton Rouge every year along with my family in memory of Honey, my grandfather.  Certain people in my family drive me bananas!  Other people in my family are counted among my best friends even though I don’t actually talk to them as often as I would like.  I’m horrible when it comes to keeping in touch with someone.  I had an internet penpal once, but forgot to check my email for a few weeks and was too embarrassed to email them back after ignoring them for so long.  I interact more with strangers online than with people I know in real life.  I prefer pixels to people.  I prefer penguins to dogs.  I’m a cat person.

I was going to continue typing until I realized the time.  I need to throw some chicken in the oven, clean the litter box, and sweep up a bit before Jaime gets home.  Enjoy this incredibly long rambling autobiography brought to you by yours truly.  ^_^

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