MLK Day - A Meme - And Yes, It's a Monday!

Happy Martin Luther King Day to my friends in the USA. Although many people will have the day off since it is a Federal holiday, many others (including me) will not, so I'm up, writing my blog, and ready to start my normal routine - swim, shower, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, catch up on computer stuff, go to sleep. OMG - my life sounds so BORING on screen. BLEAH!

Aearwen's 365-day meme turns out to be a few days short,
but since I'm starting it on the 16th of January, I'm just
fine with that. 

My LJ friend and sister from a different mother, Aearwen, is doing something called the 365-day Meme. Obviously today is the 16th of January, but when I went through the list yesterday and numbered the prompts by the date, separated by months, it turned out to be a 348-day meme with the final entry scheduled for December 14th. Unless Aearwen finds additional days, I won't worry about catching up by doing two posts a day for January, I'll just call those first fifteen days a lost two weeks and start January 1st's entry on January 16th. That brings today's meme to the following:

1          What is your number one goal this year?

My personal goal is continuing to clean and de-clutter my house, while doing the same thing at my business. I have my sights set on retirement and the only way to do that is to divest things from our lives so that we can combine two separate and complete lives - work and home - into a single building. That's hard - very, very hard. But we're working on it steadily and I'm slowly feeling more and more confident. Silly, I know, but I have to try my best to make this a reality. 

Taboo is the first challenge for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild.
If you are interested in participating in the challenge, it features
a Bingo-style card with some very interesting story prompts. 

That said, I don't want to stop playing with my creativity either, and the Silmarillion Writers Guild has announced a new direction for their writing challenges this year. Instead of quarterly challenges, they are switching to monthly ones, and they are offering incentive stamps. I love getting stamps (silly, I know, but I enjoy it like a kid enjoys getting a sticker at the grocery store). Additionally, this month's challenge was set up like a Bingo board, reminiscent of the BeMeM Bingo challenge of a few years ago. It's a double love! I'll be taking a close look at it today and thinking about what I can write. 

We ended up with 2-1/2 shelves of DragonLance books, and
3-1/2 shelves of Forgotten Realms books. That equalled out to about
3-1/2 full banker's boxes, so a nice amount of books to organize. Finally
we're through the paperbacks. Time to move on. 

Bouncing back to de-cluttering, since mentioning The Silmarillion reminded me of paperback books, DH and I worked together in the library yesterday and got the last of the "save" books organized by author and shelved. The last few boxes were a bit of a pain because they were DragonLance and Forgotten Realms books - numerous authors contributing to single story lines. But DH got those organized as best he could, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. We still have room in the shelving unit, so I'm super happy about that. We got rid of a bunch of books, but saved the important ones. Now to start the hardcovers - a much harder task. 

I think the Minnesota Wild has one of the nicest logos. I even have
it on the back of my car. I'm very proud of how well our hockey
team is doing this year. Go Wild! 

Here's hoping you have a wonderful day, Yesterday's football games were phenomenal - down to the last seconds, our hockey game was down to the wire but the Minnesota Wild won, and Sherlock's season finale was interesting, thought-provoking, and somewhat troubling. I'm hoping that today is as much fun as yesterday was. Enjoy your Monday! 

Ramblings - A Variety of Small Thoughts, Pics and Paragraphs

I'm uninspired today. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I really wish I could groundhog it today and just curl up in blankets with a good book and a warm cup of tea. But reality intervenes and raises its highly annoying head and work calls. I can wish for an opportunity like this, but even tomorrow, my scheduled day off, won't be able to be spent lazing about with a book and a cuppa. Since I'm uninspired, I'm going to allow my mind to roam free for today's post  - so anything goes.

Do you remember the musical?

Anything Goes - the musical was originally written in 1934 by Cole Porter. It isn't performed as often, although in 2011 it was on Broadway (and may still be - I'm not up on my Broadway shows). It was supposed to originally star Ethel Merman and it's got a stellar list of songs that have stayed with us for so many years.

I loved this evil Sochi mascot welcoming people with
the traditional bread and salt. It's one of a series of
black art done by a Russian artist for the games.
To see more of the art, follow the link. It's worth a look.

The Winter Olympics - Sochi begins on February 6th (or at least the broadcasting of the Olympics will begin then). Between the various television stations and the internet, they promise that every event and every minute will be available to watch. Those of us addicted to the Olympics might be in serious trouble if that's the case because we'll be glued to the TV.

Charles Agustus Magnussen is the villain for this episode, and he's
a good one. I'm looking forward to watching the episode again because there's
a lot to take in. But unlike others, I really enjoyed Season 3. 

His Last Vow was the third episode of Season Three's "Sherlock". There's lots of buzz about the episode and growls and applause, but here's my take (for whatever it's worth). I enjoyed it. There you go. It was confusing in some ways, but I liked it. The dynamics between the characters was deepened, the schisms of beliefs grew and the surprises were fun. My only disappointment - that there were only three episode in Season 3. I feel shorted.

The Kitten Bowl featured a variety of different balls and teams usually
separated by coat coloring. It's hard to resist kittens at any time, but
they were truly adorable as they chased the ball and pounced here and there. 

Finally, did you catch the Kitten Bowl on Superbowl Sunday? It was totally adorable. The portion we saw had a complicated channel and lighted balls that the kittens were coaxing along the track to the end zones. They were super into those balls :-) So cute!

So there you have it - random thoughts and silly things for your Tuesday pleasure. Enjoy the day!

Stuff and Such

To start, on-demand came through and DH and I watched Sherlock, S3,E1 last night - The Empty Hearse. It was good. I liked it. Actually both of us liked it. I really like Mary - she's a perfect foil, and I loved who Molly ended up with - very funny. No spoilers here, just a recommendation to see it if you haven't. It's not the strongest episode they've ever had (an "off switch"? Really?) But, it was entertaining and it was fun to see Freeman and Cumberbatch in their familiar roles once again. All in all, it was lots of fun. I look forward to the rest of the episodes and I'm sure I'll buy the DVD when it becomes available.

Sherlock, Mary and John. I really like Mary - she's absolutely perfect
for this dynamic and she's a strong character in her own right. 

I am almost finished with my LOTR Community story and I have a good start on my B2MeM story, but for some reason my drabble for TW isn't jumping out at me. Hopefully something will come to me at the shop today, but right now I'm spinning my wheels on what should have been an easy prompt.

Sugar is the prompt this week for the drabble, and all I can
think of is that insipid song "A Spoonful of Sugar Makes
the Medicine Go Down" from Mary Poppins. That's NOT working
in with the rest of the prompts for this series. I have to make
something work out! 

We're back into the deep freeze today, so I'm bundling up and I am already planning my day because scheduling today is necessary. I have a dental checkup this morning, so that means a late meal *sigh* and no coffee *SIGH*. I'm totally non-functional in the morning without my coffee so this is serious! They always put this gunk on my teeth at the dentist to help convince cavities to leave me alone and find an easier target, but I can't drink anything hot for four hours after it is applied. ACK! I'll have to buy fancy coffee from the coffee shop next door once I can have a hot beverage, and I really don't like their coffee very much. It is an extreme sacrifice - all for the sake of clean teeth and keeping my own for as long as I possibly can (which so far seems to be working, so I really shouldn't complain).

How much caffeine is in your coffee? Check the chart to find out. 

I've been reading through Dan Brown's "Inferno" on my NookColor. I know that lots of people don't like him as an author, but lots of people obviously do because he's madly successful. I have always enjoyed his style of writing. I usually listen to him on audio, but the e-book was offered on special for a very good price so I bought it. I'm liking it. It's the usual fun mix of plot interwoven with history and art that make his books really live for me. I keep wishing I had a second screen open to reference a visual on so many of the places and the pieces of art he is describing. His books are like getting a wonderful tour of different places in Italy. "Inferno" gives the reader great background and art for both Florence and Venice - it's hard to beat that!

The top of St Mark's Cathedral in Venice features a statue of
St Mark atop the winged lion with his paw on an open
book and a blue background with gold stars. The winged
lion is the symbol of Venice and you'll find it all over the islands.

So, as I go out into the cold, I'll be looking forward to a day during which I might be able to get some more writing done, some times when I'll certainly read some more, and a span of time during which I'll be going crazy until I can have some coffee. What's your day going to be like? Surely you can have your tea or coffee sooner that I'll be able to? Happy Tuesday!