Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Hello Dreamwidth friends. I was very excited to write that post about Bridgerton last week because it was the first thing I'd written in a very long time, so I thought I would write a miscellaneous recent things entry as a way to practice writing something, anything.

I am now the only unvaccinated member of my family! I am very much looking forward to it being my turn for the vaccine. I would like to hug my family again. (Or anyone really; the closest I've come to touching another human being in the last year was getting a flu shot.) My family has been having Zoom lunches every other week for most of the last year, and we're all ready to transition to close, in-person meals. We did have one distanced outside lunch, but outside is hard here - most of the year it's too hot, too cold, or so full of allergens I can't breathe. On the upside to this whole pandemic thing, I had the easiest allergy year I can remember last spring and it was really nice to stay inside in the air conditioning all day all summer.

I have baked a lot over the last year. I have always said I would bake even more than I did if I had someone else to wash the dishes for me, and it turns out that not feeling like I have to give up some of a limited amount of free time to wash dishes is a second best. I've decided that at this point, I am very much an experienced baker, and I can trust my instincts about recipes. I've had the experience more than once now where I've read a recipe, followed it exactly despite my doubts about the proportions, and then found that the final result would have been better if I'd followed my instinct about how to adjust it. I did, however, realize that I needed to start taking notes about recipe variations because I won't actually remember what I did from time to time. They also need to be useful notes; there's a bread recipe that has water amounts in two different places that might be different things I tried or amounts that need to be combined, and my cobbler recipe has the word "less!" with an arrow pointing at the sugar but no notes about how much less.

Also in pandemic-related news, I got very sick of dealing with my hair so I bought clippers and cut it all off. I'm not sure exactly how much I like it as a look, but I'm so relieved to have it off my neck and out of my way. I keep joking that it's basically lesbian haircut #17, and I was highly amused that while there were some straight people who left positive comments on my Facebook post about it, most of the early comments were from other queer people. I also had a very interesting sense when I first did it of feeling very intensely queer (in a "not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you" sense), probably because this is the most visibly queer my look has ever been.

Speaking of queer people, I have now read all of Cat Sebastian's Regency romances. The Regency Impostors series was fine. I loved The Turners and the Seducing the Sedgwicks series! I actually want to go back and reread A Gentleman Never Keeps Score even though I read it within the last month. I got all of them through libraries (if your library system has access to books on Hoopla, they have a lot of hers), so if you like Regency romances about queer people, I recommend her stuff. I will also take any and all recommendations for other good similarly historical romance novels about queer people.

In terms of fic reading, I am very much between fandoms, and so I've spent a significant portion of the pandemic reading MCU fic, because it's one of those fandoms where I know just enough for it to make sense but don't care about that much. Somehow the pairing I have decided is the one I want to read a lot of fic about is Clint/Bucky. Bonus points to anything with (a) falling in love/competing/flirting while shooting, (b) therapy for one or both of them, and/or (c) d/s-y dynamics. If you have favorite Clint/Bucky or other MCU fic, I would take recs.

For reference, my 2014 goals post is here.

Writing
I talked before about giving up on writing original fic, at least for the time being, which I suppose fulfills my goal for 2014 of deciding whether or not original fic is worth it, even if it wasn't how I was going to make that decision. I did keep writing and writing all the time, and AO3 tells me I posted over 188,000 words of fic in 2014.

Being a Grownup
I put this on my calendar, and then just didn't do it most times. I'm not sure how to get back in the habit of doing being a grownup kind of things, but this isn't working, so I'm deleting reminders from my calendar. I did clean out my closet, but that was the result of having to take everything out of it for some required maintenance and then deciding that I was only going to put the stuff I was actually keeping back.

Spiritual Refreshment
I don't know if this worked for me. I guess I did a bunch of self-reflection while working through the workbook section of The Desire Map.

Make peanut butter more often or buy peanut butter more often.
Giving myself permission to buy peanut butter greatly reduced my anxiety about having enough peanut butter in the house.

Get a massage sometime in the last two weeks of August.
This turned out to be a massage in September, which was lovely.

On Monday I was thankful for the freshly picked and shelled walnuts a friend from yoga gave me. I'm generally not a huge fan of walnuts, but the fresh ones are quite tasty.

Yesterday I was thankful for the entertaining sight of a man on a very tall unicycle riding through the roundabout outside my window at work.

Today I'm thankful for my yoga class, which left me feeling very calm and relaxed.

I had a hard time coming up with goals this year, which I think is a good thing; it means things are pretty good and there aren't major changes I need to make to my life.

Writing
As usual, making writing goals is an iffy proposition since I end up writing things I never would have imagined at the beginning of the year. My main goal is to just keep writing all the time. I didn't write much while I was editing Danny goes to college, and then when I gave myself permission to write whatever I wanted without guilt for the last two weeks of the year, I found that I'd really missed it. In terms of specific goals, I've decided this is going to be my test year for whether or not original fic is worth it, which means I am selling book two and working only very slowly on book three. (What I really need to do is reframe working on book three in a way that it doesn't leave me with low-level anxiety all the time.)

Being a Grownup
There are a lot of being a grownup sorts of things I've let slide (like cooking more often, cleaning out my closet, tracking my spending) because I don't want to take the time to do them when I could be reading fic or refreshing Tumblr or whatever. I'm putting two hours every other Saturday afternoon on my calendar for this. I may or may not use the whole two hours, but Google will email me a calendar reminder, and then I won't let myself delete the reminder until I do whatever I need to do. Also, putting it on Saturday means if I don't do it, I still have Sunday before I get back to work week, do not want to do this kind of thing days.

Spiritual Refreshment
There was a time a few years ago when I was so filled with love and compassion, when my heart was so open. I worked in a place that was specifically strength-based, and where the training program I worked for moved to including emotional intelligence training in all of our curriculum during the time I worked there. Later, I worked in a place that was not supportive or strength-based, and I found that it was a lot harder to hold on to that open, loving heart I wanted to cultivate. I want to get back to that place where I was full of love. I liked it way more than the times when I feel more bitterness, pettiness, and meanness. This is less a goal and more an intention, because I don't know what getting back to that might look like, but I know that if I name it as an intention, I'll notice or find something that's right for me.

Make peanut butter more often or buy peanut butter more often.
This might seem like a strange goal, but I eat a lot of peanut butter, and one of the minor annoyances of my life is getting down to the last rice cake's worth of peanut butter at a time of the week when I just don't want to spend the time making more. Since I started making my own peanut butter, I always feel a little guilty when I buy it (and also store-bought is not as good or as salty as homemade), but I think it's worth it to not be annoyed by getting close to running out.

Get a massage sometime in the last two weeks of August.
I have a really hard time with August, and I think something that will (a) be relaxing and (b) involve touch during a time when my yoga class is on break and I don't get hugs might help.

Writing
Making yearly writing goals is always an iffy proposition because I always end up writing a lot, but not being able to predict what it will be. (Case in point: hockey RPF.) This year I want to sell at least one book and finish writing book three. I'm back in the habit of working on book three every day (well, six days a week), and if I can also get back in the habit of editing every day, surely I can do both of these things by the end of the year. Plus, of course, my usual fic writing.

Midwest Trip
I really wanted to go visit lakeeffectgirl in particular in October, and it just didn't happen. So assuming I have a job, I want to visit her and Team Chicago sometime in that late-April to mid-October time period when I can be there without freezing to death. (I am a wimp about the cold.) lakeeffectgirl also mentioned possibly coming to visit me here, which would also be awesome. Either way, visiting with friends.

Reading
I read a lot of books in the last two months. I think I forgot how much I love that. I'd like to finish the seven or so books still in my unfinished pile, and figure out how to read more once I have a job again. I have a problem with stopping in the middle of a book, which means if I start reading in the evening, I'll keep reading just one more chapter until I'm done with the book and it's two hours past my bedtime, so maybe Saturday afternoon could be book reading time.

Physical Environment
My house is already very much designed to be comfortable for me, but reading Happier at Home made me think about what needs to be rearranged and tweaked:

• Clean out the closet.


• Figure out if I want to keep any of my belly dance stuff and what to do with the stuff I don't want anymore.


• Give away/sell the manga I'm never going to read again and subsequently rearrange the bookshelf.


• Replace the poster I no longer want hanging in my bedroom.


• Make the wall across from my desk an inspiration wall. (I already have most of the things I want on there. I just need to frame them and also make a nice version of the "temporary" thing that's been there for a couple of years.)

Food
If I eat eat sugar, eat only small/controlled amounts. I haven't figured out what the limit is yet, but I stopped buying sugary things in July or so and discovered in September that my body doesn't handle very much sugar well anymore. If I could figure out the limit, that would be helpful, but it seems easier and less painful to just stick to no sugar most of the time and only very small amounts when I do have it.

Financial Security
This feels strange to put on here; it doesn't seem like the same kind of goal as the other things. It feels greedy instead of lofty, and I'm not sure if anyone with retirement accounts really gets to worry that much about finances. But at the end of November, Gretchen Rubin made a post asking, "If, by the end of 2013, you could magically change one aspect of your life, what would you change?" My immediate, no thought needed answer was financial security. My financial situation was actually pretty stable for most of 2012, but I spent at least a third of the year feeling like it was more precarious than it really was (and in some ways it turned out to be not that stable). Specific goals:

• Find a job with a stable entity that pays more than my last job and has reasonable benefits. A job I love would be awesome, but I'll settle for one I like, or at the very least one I don't hate.


• Consolidate my retirement accounts.


• Spend money only on consumables and important things. (Visiting/socializing with friends, a new skirt for summer, and replacing the purse that's literally falling apart all count as important).


• Once I have a steady income again, set up automatic, regular deposits into my savings account.

I'm sick, meaning my brain is not quite engaged, so today's treat is a recipe I have already typed out for people via email and edited for this post since I've made this a lot more since then.

I love enchiladas, but for a long time I only made them rarely because (a) rolling them is messy and time-consuming and (b) most enchilada sauces are made with chicken stock or wheat (or both). I managed to find a good sauce that's vegan and gluten free, and I started making them layered instead of rolled, and now this is in my usual food rotation. You could probably easily adapt this for carnivores.

( Vegan, Gluten Free Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas )

Today I'm thankful for all the things that haven't made it into a post yet:

I'm thankful for friends: siryn99, who has become one of my closest friends over the last couple of years. inlovewithnight, with whom I've had a lot of internet and plot bunny based fun. icanbreakthesky, who I feel like I know so well from her Twitter. Twitter's whtesde, whose replies always make me laugh. Sarah, who I finally managed to spend time with a year after she moved back to the area. J, who is one of the coolest people I know and who I got to hang out with for the first time in years this summer. All the people I'm forgetting: I'm thankful for you too.

I'm thankful that I saw my brother more this year than any year since he went to college. (Context: we've lived in the same town for most of that time.)

I'm thankful that I have a job, and that said job comes with health and dental insurance.

I'm thankful that my health is generally good. I'm thankful for the Babycakes cookbooks and the general availability of foods that make eating vegan and gluten free easier and easier.

I'm thankful to live in an apartment I love. I'm thankful to be in walking distance of the library, and short distances from everywhere else I go on a daily basis. I'm thankful to live in Chico, which is a lovely town full of trees and whose traffic is really not that bad, even though we keep growing.

I'm thankful to have had so many fun travel and concertgoing adventures this year, and that so many of them were with wonderful fangirls.

I'm thankful that my mood this holiday season is so much more relaxed than last.

Today I'm thankful to live in a place with readily available, local, tasty produce. I had a locally grown apple as part of my dinner, and it was delicious.

This was a horrible week for pretty much everyone I know. For my part, the fact that I melted down all the way into crying my eyes out only once is an accomplishment. But that was the low point, and things got better from there. Three lists of three:

Three Good Things About This Week

• norwich36, archivecats, and inlovewithnight all emailed me links to posts they thought I might be interested in. I haven't emailed any of you back, but I will, and I appreciate that you were thinking about me. ♥


• lakeeffectgirl and I are having exactly the kind of fannish conversation I wanted out of Suits. ♥


• Because we were more or less unsupervised on Friday, I made pizza to take to work. My coworkers both enjoyed it and left enough of it that I didn't have to make myself dinner on Friday night.

Three Random Writing Neuroses

• I have some things that I wrote over Twitter that I haven't posted here. I keep thinking that it's unfair because people have already seen them so it's not really new. The rational thing I can't quite keep in my head is that the overlap in the Venn diagram of people who follow me on Twitter and people who read my fic is probably pretty small, so it won't be duplicative for most of you.


• New fandom has a small number of stories worth reading and a large number of stories that are mediocre to bad. I spend half my time thinking, "If they can write terrible things, I can write id-gratifying not very good things too," and half my time thinking, "I can do better than this, and I should (since apparently no one else is going to)." (We will ignore the part where since I have no idea where to post except for here, no one will ever read it anyway.) (Also the part where I'm cranky and judgy.)


• There are a lot of things in my Snippets and Such file that are long enough to be split out into their own files, but as long as they're in the snippets file, I can pretend I'm not really taking time away from larger projects to work on them. Also, they're less likely to get lost. I still find Google Docs overwhelming, and I've run out of label colors, which makes it worse. (I'm thinking about collapsing all my bandom subfolders into one color.)

Three TV Show Fandom Stories I Want Someone To Write

• The one where Jane and Maura (Rizzoli & Isles) are oblivious to the fact that they're already dating/married.


• The one where Harvey and Donna (Suits) are/get married but no one is out of character.


• The one where Payson (Make It Or Break It) is a lesbian.

1. Sleep! I got enough sleep last week for the first time in months. This weekend, I felt like myself for the first time in a long time, and it meant I could do things other than just stare at my computer screen. I even, after being exhausted from cooking and the heat, went to bed early yesterday.


2. Writing! Because I was with it in the morning, I met my writing goals first thing in the morning, which let me then go on with my day without feeling anxious about them. I didn't do much other writing, although I did poke at my cupcakes and space station threesome before I got distracted by a recipe not being where I thought it was.


3. Environmental management! I'm being mindful of the fact that I melt down in the summer and trying to manage the part of that that might be linked to being too hot. I had the fans on all weekend, and I reset the programming on my thermostat to 79 degrees instead of 80.


4. norwich36! We had dinner on Saturday, which is always delightful. I'm glad she was willing to indulge my craving for a sandwich! (We have a local place that makes vegan, gluten free sandwiches. I'm currently obsessed with the pesto tofu one.)


5. Lunch with Brad and stevie_roch! When we go to the movies, we usually eat before or after - and if we eat before, we stand around the movie theater lobby talking for a while after the movie. Last weekend, they were out of town and drove very fast to meet me at the theater for the 6:30 X-Men showing. That meant we got out of the movie late and didn't stand around talking as usual. So when we had lunch this weekend, we had a chance to do further chatting about the movie. We remain baffled that we're the only people we know who didn't like it.


6. Sherlock on DVD! See the previous post for more detail, raving, and spoilers.


7. Errands! I did errands this weekend, some of which I'd been putting off for months. I also broke them into manageable bits, even though it meant I headed to the other end of town (a whole two freeway exits away) twice. At no point did I say, "This is not worth my time," out loud and leave a store in disgust. (You may laugh, but I have actually done this before.)


8. Pier One! Approximately five or six years ago, I bought these cool drinking glasses from Pier One. They're colorless glass with a spiral around them of color - some of them red and some blue. I've broken a few over the years, and I've recently become an orange juice drinker and wanted to own more than one juice glass. I actually went to Pier One just to see what they have, thinking that of course they wouldn't still carry these. Much to my surprise and delight, they still have them and my cabinet is restocked.


9. Cooking! Because I felt more like myself, I did a lot of cooking. My cupcakes came out vinegary, my bread was too wet, and my frosting separated, but I'm still glad I got to do some cooking. My roasted apples came out perfectly. We'll see how they do in the final product: the apple-cinnamon toastie from the first Babycakes cookbook.


10. Fiction! I did not actually read anything from bandombigbang, but I did read some Sherlock fic and about a third of the third book in Morgan Howell's The Shadowed Path trilogy. (I will probably have more to say about this once I finish it.)

Takeaways from this list:

1. I should get enough sleep all the time. I'm a lot happier and I get more done when I do.


2. Friends: yay!


3. Everyday things can be a source of pleasure, joy, and awesome.