phyncke

Hey hey - I am here. I have finished my events for the year and am getting ready for a much needed vacation! I am going to New Hampshire for early June and will spend time with my family old and new. The cool thing about this vacation is that I will meet my long lost half sister who I have not met before and that is making me nervous as well as excited. We have been talking on social media and on the phone so I think it will go well. She seems very nice and like a cool person. So this will be interesting to say the least. I am hoping that my Dad will go along for the meet up and that he will finally meet the daughter he has never met before. So that would be cool. I spent most of my life thinking I did not have a sister so this is very fun. I have a sister! An older sister! Wowie!

Work went very well this Spring. I planned two national conferences and they were really good. I got great feedback on my event planning skills and everyone was pleased with how it went. It was stressful while it was going on but now that it is done - I feel really good about all of it. Feather in the cap so to speak. Now I can work on summer projects and documenting everything. So that is all good.

My other vacation this summer will be my annual trip to Vegas with the girls. Looking forward to that.

So that is all I have - just work and vacation and oh! I have lost 61 pounds on Weight Watchers! I am totally rocking that. I feel great and I really love the program - it totally works for me. It gives me a method to the weight loss madness. I have 23 pounds left to go so I am going to do this. I am totally jazzed about it. Here is a pic of what I look like now.



Hope all is well with you there and you are ready for summer! I totally am! :)


by girlboheme on LJ

Another Sunday. I love Sundays. I slept nice and late today so that was good.

I saw the latest Mission Impossible movie this week and thought it delivered on the promise of action and stunts. I don't think these are as deep as the James Bond movies with the new guy but I really enjoyed the movie. Although there was one part with some laughable dialogue by Alec Baldwin's character - L-O-L kind of over the top dialogue. Anyways. Good movie and fun to watch. Won't have a lasting impact.

I did just finish a book that I will love forever - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It follows various characters through their experiences in World War II and beyond. What I love about this book is that it shows characters on both sides of the war (French resistance and German) and you really feel like you are living with these people. The description and language of the book is so very beautiful too. Really gorgeous. This book won the Pulitzer Prize and deservedly so. Highly recommend this.

So work is heating up and I have a really busy week this week - three things going on. I won't bore you with the details. Just a lot to get done. It will all get done.

I am still working on my AiA fic but it is slow going right now. I have to get cranking on that and will move it along. It is just going to have to get done. Yeppers.

Hope all is well with you and yours there. Happy weekend to you and all that there!


by www.laurahonest.com

Here I am. It is the long weekend and I am relaxing watching my Sunday night programs - Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful. Interesting TV to be sure. I got my hair done today - just color and tomorrow I will be going down to Santa Cruz for the day. That will be fun. So that is about all I have going on this weekend. Not too much really.

I saw a good movie on Friday - Pitch Perfect 2 - nice and light hearted - well staged musical numbers and funny - laughed a lot throughout the film. Just what I needed after a busy week.

My raise came through - well the retro pay so that is cool.

That is all I have. Hope all is going well for you there in your part of the world.


by nienna_weeper at gothiic_charm

I am pretty good. Work is going...life is going. I am going to Santa Cruz tomorrow etc. I don't know what to post about but it has been a while since I have posted so I thought I should write a post. I am boring.

I am reading a few things - well listening to books on audible - I just finished the All Soul's Trilogy by Deborah Harkness - brilliant stuff - about witchcraft and vampires and just really well written. Very detailed with historical information as Harkness is a university professor (USC). It is lovely as an audible and the narrator is amazing - really realizes all the characters. So I finished that and am now reading Iced by Karen Marie Moning - continuing in the Fever series. I really love this series - it supposes that there was a wall between the human realm and the fae realm and that suddenly that wall came crashing down - and there is a sort of war between the fae and humans - very good stuff - this is all really a continuation of her Highlander series. I am a big big fan of Karen Marie Moning. Her men are MEN and her heroines are smart and snarky. She also writes with a lot of humor.

So also am reading a book on my kindle at the same time - I have started in on Game of Thrones. I watch the TV show so essentially I know what has happened in this first book but I wanted to see what the book is like. I have to say - it is a really well written and wonderful book. It is full of characters - as I had heard but I guess seeing the show gives me an advantage on following it all. His writing is not overdone at all - it is lean and well described. I totally love his writing style. I also really like the length of the chapters - just the right length and each chapter is a main character POV. Just totally well done. I am not sure I will read all the books - I am just dipping my toe into the water so to speak. I have so many books I want to read but I did want to get a sense of GRRM's writing.

So what else is happening - my dad was the victim of a computer scam - he got a pop up on his computer that was masking as a trojan virus - it had a phone number on it - which he called - and the people on the other end talked him into letting them remote access his computer to "clean it" and he paid 400.00 for this service. Obviously this pop up virus was a scam by this company and they scare vulnerable people into paying them for this. I talked to him on the day it happened and got him to call his bank and get the charges reversed. Luckily they would because it was a fraudulent company - I had looked them up on the internet and they were on the fraud list. Then my dad did a system restore to a point before this all happened to get their remote access file off of his computer. My brother went over to their house (they live in NH) and checked everything out so things are fine now. My dad is very embarrassed that this happened but none the worse for it. So no mention of this on FB please.

Anyhoo. That's all I have. Road trip tomorrow. Sleep tonight. Anyone watching Orphan Black? I am loving that show. Totally addicted.

See you soon!


by nienna_weeper on livejournal

I am around. Working hard. This month is a crazy busy month with work. I have all sorts of thing going on at work - foundation visits, donor events, faculty receptions. Stuff. It will all get done, I am sure. I look forward to November and nothing happening that month. Well I have things to do in November but not like this month.

I saw a movie last weekend - Dracula Untold - with Luke Evans. It was not the best vampire movie but he sure is dreamy. I really love him as Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit and he made a passable Dracula. He definitely has screen presence. The backstory on Dracula in this is that Vlad becomes a vampire in order to save his family and people from this Turkish Sultan. Anyhoo.

I had a great birthday and I want to thank everyone on my flist for the birthday cheer. You all made my birthday fantastic. I feel the love! :)

I hope all is well with you there and I am reading LJ faithfully.

Cheers to you.

I am here. I got totally absorbed in Game of Thrones and watched three seasons of it over the last few weeks. Totally addictive television. I am thinking about reading the books. Has anyone read those on my flist? Not sure about committing to those. I put the first one on my kindle to see how that goes. Seems like a pretty big commitment and I have limited time to read so there is that.

Work is there and happening. I had a great event last week - awards ceremony. It was rewarding and well attended. All went well. I have a NY event that I am remote planning. Less than thrilling. I just want to get the name tags done and be finished with it. That is about how it goes for that.

Things I should do -
-start exercising
-do a little yoga each day
-meditate

Just putting those on here so I will remember to do some wellness stuff.

I thought I would post in with an entry and have a ramble. I am debating doing the Ardor in August - vascillating and wavering. Teetering on the brink of signing up. Considering. Pain and suffering?

O.o


by heartcollision on www.livejournal.com

I am alive - just not posting much right now. I am adjusting to daylights savings and feel like that hit me like a mack truck. I am staying up later and sleep is off. But I really like more light during the day and don't mind darker mornings. It is all good that way.

Work is going well - my big event went great last month. I had a smaller event in early March. My supervisor is leaving so there is that adjustment to make. She got a position in another department. She has clearly not been on the ball because she did not inform me about key changes for one of my programs. It is too long to tell here but it was a big mistake on her part and meant we committed too much money etc. Anyways - I have got to let it go because she is leaving and it is not good to grind an axe in this case. Letting it go and will correct things moving forward. Her mistake, not mine. Still, I am accountable for it. Burns me.

Anyhoo. That is about all for now. Work and work.

Hope all is well with you there. Cheers!

I thought I would post. I am recovering from a bout of food poisoning that I got at a Mexican restaurant yesterday. Middle of the night - sprint to the bathroom kind of thing. Augh. I love divey restaurants but this was a little too divey. Horrible. I wrote a scathing yelp review to make myself feel better. What do you do? Do you call them to tell them that you got sick or notify someone about it? I clearly got sick from the food at this specific restaurant.

I saw the movie After Earth and found it much better than its horrible reviews would have led me to believe. I liked it and bought the sci fi premise. I accepted it and found myself interested through the whole movie. Not a great movie but not as bad as the reviews said it was. I give it a pass. I like Will and Jaden Smith and enjoyed them acting together. So there. It did get panned in the LA Times and on Rotten Tomatoes so be aware of that. I am glad I saw it anyway.

I went to see Star Trek - Into Darkness again and wowie - it is almost better on the second viewing. Love this movie. I got more emotional in parts and found myself all teary at certain moments. I am really a fan of this franchise more so than other Star Trek series. I like the production value of these movies and they pack a punch on the action. If you have not seen this one, go see it. Love this. I am more into Benedict Cumberdudes performance in this though he still is not very Khan-esque.

In other news - I have no other news. I went to the pool on Saturday and we froze. It was cold.

That is it. Hope all is well with you on your end. Cheers.

I am really enjoying this loonng weekend. A combination of getting things done around the house (chores), hanging out, shopping for deals with friends and getting some much needed rest. I cannot believe but I still have the remnants of that virus I had (congestion, sneezing etc). That really threw me for a loop there.

So I saw the new Star Trek movie last night. Oh yeah. It was good. I will try not to spoil it here. I know there are some Cumberbatch fans here but he did not really fit his role. He was good but all the roles in these Star Trek films are reminiscent of earlier performances in the original series or earlier iterations of the characters and his performance was a big non-sequiter on that. It did not fit very well - his accent was all wrong. Anyone who has watched Star Trek since the 60's will know what I am talking about there. I still really enjoyed the film but just wanted to state that. Please don't flame me for that. I get how great an actor he is but he really did not fit in with the character he played. Both of us viewing the film together agreed on that. That character did not have a British accent nor look like him. The rest of the movie rocked it and was action packed in a nonstop way. It was also really fun to see the part of the film that I had seen filming in Los Angeles when I was down there. I had an "aha" moment.

Anyways. That is my opinion of the film. If you like Star Trek - go see it. This is a very good movie. Thrilling.

I have some projects to do today. I am listening to the audible World War Z and really enjoying that - zombies. It is an award winning audible which includes Alan Alda and other A-list actors reading. Very good.

Hope you have a good weekend and thinking on Memorial Day and remembering those who died in service to our country. Bless them.

Cheers to you!


www.laurahonest.com

I am sick here in Berkeley, CA. I have a sore throat, aches and fever. Feeling poorly. I am home from work for the second day. Hard to say if I am contagious but am pretty symptomatic and very tired. I don't feel well. Meh. I have the time accrued so will use it. I hate when people go in sick so don't do that myself.

I am glued to CNN right now and this story in Cleveland Ohio about the three girls who were found, having been held captive for 10 years in this guy's house. Unbelievable. This seems like an episode of Criminal Minds to me, on that level of horrible. Here is a link if you are not familiar.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/us/ohio-missing-women-found/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Amanda Berry broke out of the house with the help of a neighbor, Charles Ramsey and then police freed the other two girls - Michelle and Gina who were also held for more than 10 years. This is the stuff of nightmares. Three brothers have been arrested in this crime with charges pending.

Unbelievable.

Bless them. So glad they got out of there alive.


by yueshi at The Happy Factory