So, I've been quiet
So, I got told over a month back hat my cholesterol and insulin resistance were high, so I've been eating better and walking a LOT. So far I've lost seven and a half kilos. I need to lose about another ten. If I lose three more by the end of the year, I'll be satisfied.
So, though my fitflop shoes were okay for the first month, the last couple of weeks they started destroying my feet, culminating in a huge blister on my heel. So I've ordered a new pair of Merrells from the internet, because the internet was $60 cheaper than in store.
And because I've been eating better and all, this morning I made cherry jam. Probably going to attempt apricot and white peach in the next couple of weeks, because they're cheap presents and people seem to like getting it. Don't know if the cherry plums will be ripe in time, but if they are, then we'll make that too.
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Bought a few things lately. Got five autism books from Better World. (Waiting on one, still, but four arrived okay.) Three personal accounts by nonspeaking autists (Peyton Goddard, Elizabeth Bonker and Tito Mukhopadhyay), one by a speaking autist whose mother's parental account I already own (Blaze Ginsberg) and the one I'm waiting on is a parental account that's meant to be good. (Following Ezra by Thomas Fields-Meyer). Also waiting on a couple of tv series (Lewis, White Collar, Agent Carter), the Funko Pop Agent Carter, and, when it's released, Ant-Man. We bought the photo book for Agent Carter season one because Amazon made it super cheap. It's not the sort of thing we'd usually buy, but I'm glad we did because it's beautifully put together.
That sounds like such a lot of stuff, but that's from the last few months, and pretty much everything was way below retail price except Agent Carter Season One. I paid about five bucks each for the autism books, and I discovered one of them was author signed. Bonus!
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I have finally finished knitting the last of the last figure ever for the nativity set I've been making Brother2's family for the last five years. On the one hand, FINALLY, on the other, I have no idea what to make them next year.
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Finally watched through White Collar to the end, and I was satisfied with it. I'm kind of sad we didn't get a full length season six, but compressing the major story arc into six episodes with no distractions worked. It felt tight and it told the story the creators obviously wanted to tell. Naturally, I would have preferred more, but at least they fought and won the right to tell that story, rather than having the series end abruptly with the cliffhanger of season five.
Also watched through Poirot and Marple again, and am getting close to the end of Granada Sherlock Holmes. Am feeling desperately left out because everyone else is diving into Jessica Jones and have no way of getting it besides waiting, waiting, waiting for the torrents to finish. Also waiting on Lewis season nine and a Tommy and Tuppence series done earlier in the year. Don't even mention things like Agents of SHIELD, Elementary, Castle, etc to me. We haven't seen anything of the new stuff.
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Books I have read recently:
* The last of the Phryne Fisher books I hadn't read. Now am up to date on the series.
* Two marvellous books on Bletchley - The Bletchley Girls by Tessa Dunlop and The Debs of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith. Highly recommend both, as the focus is different - Girls is more about personal accounts, Debs is more of a general history, so they compliment each other really well.
* The Man Who Couldn't Stop by David Adam. Excellent book about OCD. Pretty much confirmed for me what I already thought - that the OCD dx the psychologist tacked on with my (correct) autism dx is bullshit. I have anxiety which can seem to produce obsessive compulsive behaviour, but the headspace/thoughts common to people with OCD are completely not my experience.
* A Double Shot of Happiness by Judy Sharp. Decent enough parental account of an autistic artist.
* Melting Stones & Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce. Read these in published order, and I shouldn't have - chronologically, Battle comes first and Stones second.
* Dirty Magic by Carol Hughes. This felt like it could have been better. I think the writer was aiming to be Garth Nix, and falling far short. It needed a story editor to truncate the dull bits and tease out the important stuff that was just skipped over completely in favour of ending the story.
* i am intelligent by Peyton Goddard and Dianne Goddard. This was really interesting in that the broader story was structured like a parental account but it was peppered with Peyton's own words and observations and experiences. So you had the mother's quest to cure her daughter and integrate her into the community counterpointed with what it was actually like for Peyton. This is a great alternative to the typical structure of relegating the autist's account to an essay or Q&A at the back of the book, as in News From the Border or Reasonable People.
Reading Now:
* Agent Carter Season One Declassified
* I Am in Here by Elizabeth M. Bonker and Virginia G. Breen
* Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
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I've been cataloguing my books again. Added a whole bunch yesterday, no idea how many, but I'll probably do some more tomorrow. The goal is to have everything recorded, so that I can search my collection at a glance. BookDB2 is basic but detailed enough to be satisfying and useful.
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Garden is doing well. Kale is great, if somewhat latticey because of getting eaten by bugs. Most of the strawberries have survived and one even seems to be thinking about fruiting. Kohl rabi is getting tall, as are the potatoes and tomatoes. Radishes were a bust, they just made lots of leaves and flowers but there doesn't seem to be any root bulb development. Broad beans are taking over the world. Only one plant each of the snow peas and sugar snap peas sprouted, and they're fighting for a bit of space from the broad beans. All my roses are out now, and they're lovely, as is the honeysuckle. Sage and rosemary going great guns, with beautiful new growth. My scented geraniums which I thought were dead have made a comeback. The rose one sprouted up in August, and the peppermint which I though completely dead and gone as of about April (!!!) suddenly popped up a whole bunch of tiny new leaves a week ago. My lawn is mowed, thanks to the guy who delivers my firewood in the winter, but my disaster of a hedge still needs hacking back to upright. He was meant to come and do that last week, but he hasn't, so I may have to embark on it myself. Not looking forward to that. /o\
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Oh, I almost forgot! We did marvel bang again this year, and we ended up with TWO stories. One was the actual fic that we submitted and the other was a fic I'd been writing since January that I finished up just in case I didn't get the main fic done in time. If you like Peggy, Bucky and Steve, if you like canon-close AUs, if you like sequel fix-its of semi-obscure comics mini-runs, then you might like one or both of these fics! If nothing else, go check out Emma's art.
we'll just pick a star and aim for it
The door isn't closed forever, the president had told him. The past will always exist. But Steve himself is a liability. He knows too much about the future, and even if he could stop Bucky from jumping on that plane, he could change the world irrevocably.
Rather than looking back, Steve needs to look forward. He's trying, he really is.
Fortunately, some of his new comrades have a plan to travel through time, cheat death, and neatly avoid breaking reality. It's what comes next that has no plan, and no instructions.
(Or, my Captain America: Man Out Of Time sequel/fix-it fic.)
(so, come on) Put On Your War Paint
All her life she has wanted to run and run and run, but only now does she have the body to do it.
(Or, my Peggy gets the Serum and bangs Steve like a barn door in a hurricane fic.)
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