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I have been slogging away at the holiday gift project, in fits and starts. I have a bunch of presents bought, and have identified boxes with which to mail the ones that need mailing, but haven't yet wrapped anything. I have also emailed Vicky to hash out details about what we're giving our parents for Christmas and what to give our mom for her birthday, which is January 6th.
(And that reminds me that I need a birthday present for Cat, too. More work!)
I also have decided that my cloth shower curtain is as clean as it's going to get. See, the bottom edge had grown horribly mildewed, so I soaked it in bleach water for a week, scrubbed it with detergent in the bathtub, soaked it in bleach water for another week, and ran it through a very hot wash cycle at the laundromat today. Now I am going to leave it dry until my replacement plastic shower curtain gets funny, by which point I hope the mildew will be long dessicated. *is hopeful*
Finally, I've been scribbling at both my Yuletide story and at "Secrets" chapter 15. I haven't made a lot of forward progress on the latter, but instead went back to fill in a scene I had previously left as a paragraph-length note to be fleshed out later. In other words, I am finally explaining in-text why Sir Vladislav von Pitula has a mostly Polish name even though he was a member of the Teutonic Knights. It totally has thematic resonance now, which is nice since my original reason was extremely shallow and not in the least thought-out -- basically, I figured the Teutonic knights were sadly neglected in English-language history and literature, but I wanted to use the name Pitula because it's a surname from my own family history... and since I have both German and Polish ancestry, to hell with the fact that the Germans were busy conquering, dispossessing, and forcibly converting the Poles (and Balts, and Livonians, and sometimes Lithuanians) at the time Sir Vladislav's original would have lived, i.e. 1175-1215ish. *headdesk* At least I noticed and am attempting to mitigate my own historical goof?
(Incidentally, the pre-WWII history of eastern and northern Europe is fascinating, and I wish to god there were more good English-language books about it. I know the little I know mostly because of researching the history of my own religion -- the Socianian movement was big in Poland, for example, and it was Unitarian influence that led Transylvania's king to proclaim the first legal decree of religious toleration in Europe -- for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Unitarians -- which is a pretty big deal even though it left out the Romanian Orthodox peasantry. But UUism is not relevant to "Secrets," except insofar as my religion informs my ethical stances.)
So that is my life recently.
(And that reminds me that I need a birthday present for Cat, too. More work!)
I also have decided that my cloth shower curtain is as clean as it's going to get. See, the bottom edge had grown horribly mildewed, so I soaked it in bleach water for a week, scrubbed it with detergent in the bathtub, soaked it in bleach water for another week, and ran it through a very hot wash cycle at the laundromat today. Now I am going to leave it dry until my replacement plastic shower curtain gets funny, by which point I hope the mildew will be long dessicated. *is hopeful*
Finally, I've been scribbling at both my Yuletide story and at "Secrets" chapter 15. I haven't made a lot of forward progress on the latter, but instead went back to fill in a scene I had previously left as a paragraph-length note to be fleshed out later. In other words, I am finally explaining in-text why Sir Vladislav von Pitula has a mostly Polish name even though he was a member of the Teutonic Knights. It totally has thematic resonance now, which is nice since my original reason was extremely shallow and not in the least thought-out -- basically, I figured the Teutonic knights were sadly neglected in English-language history and literature, but I wanted to use the name Pitula because it's a surname from my own family history... and since I have both German and Polish ancestry, to hell with the fact that the Germans were busy conquering, dispossessing, and forcibly converting the Poles (and Balts, and Livonians, and sometimes Lithuanians) at the time Sir Vladislav's original would have lived, i.e. 1175-1215ish. *headdesk* At least I noticed and am attempting to mitigate my own historical goof?
(Incidentally, the pre-WWII history of eastern and northern Europe is fascinating, and I wish to god there were more good English-language books about it. I know the little I know mostly because of researching the history of my own religion -- the Socianian movement was big in Poland, for example, and it was Unitarian influence that led Transylvania's king to proclaim the first legal decree of religious toleration in Europe -- for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Unitarians -- which is a pretty big deal even though it left out the Romanian Orthodox peasantry. But UUism is not relevant to "Secrets," except insofar as my religion informs my ethical stances.)
So that is my life recently.
