I know it's been a long time since I posted, and part of that was the Christmas wind-down, but not long after that, Eleanor the laptop actually crashed on me and had to spend some time in repair. The brightside is that $200 later, it's in fine working order, I didn't have to reinstall a single thing, and I actually have a bigger hard drive than what I started with! I also immediately went and uploaded my writing to two independent file storage sites so I can access my writing even without Eleanor.

Christmas was pretty awesome - I got cash from the grandparents, as usual, but I also got an iPod case from Shannon and Season 2 of Castle on DVD from Lauren. My parents, however, went on eBay and got me a vintage 2nd edition copy of a Little Golden Book my mom used to read to us when we were kids. Since I collect antique books, this was actually an awesome gift. Now all I need to find is the 1980s reprint, since that was the one we actually owned, and I'll have the Katie the Kitten exacta. (How weird does that sound?) Considering that Katie the Kitten isn't in print anymore, this would be awesome.

Speaking of Christmas, even though I said I was almost Christmas-ed out, I managed to paint six ornaments for a pastor friend, who just adopted a little girl. I made one personalized ornament for each member of the family, and on the bottom, where I signed and dated them, I included a heart (since I always sign stuff with a heart) and numbered each in their birth order. They turned out so adorable - I'm so proud of them, and so far I know Joel is jazzed. Then I painted an ornament for a member of the MST3K discussion board I'm on, and he offered to trade me three episode DVDs for it. Last year was my first artistic commission, and this was the first time I've ever been compensated for one of my ornaments. I'm kind of excited about that.

New Year's was cool - I got invited to go to the church's singles event, which was my first singles anything. I'd heard rumors that the group was mostly re-single people, and as a 26-year-old I kind of would rather hang out with people my age than 40-something divorcees. But the improv troupe they brought in was kind of cool, and the stand-ups (Christian stand-ups with real LA credentials!) were hilarious. Then we rang in 2011 with noisemakers and the Cha-Cha Slide. That was interesting... Everybody was nice, and there seemed to be some people my age there - I think I'll keep going and see what happens. I mean, if I can't get a job, maybe I can get a boyfriend, right? :P

In royalty news, the Crown Princess of Denmark had her twins on Saturday - one boy and one girl. In Denmark, nobody knows a child's name until the mother speaks it at the christening, which isn't for about three months. So being an onomastic (one who likes names and what they mean) I get to play the guessing game until about March/April. Until then, some people are calling them Elvis and Shirley, after a joke Crown Prince Frederik made about naming the boy Elvis (since the twins share a birthday with Elvis Presley), and Shirley Bassey, another singer with a January 8th birthday, but I'm calling them Lilleprinsen ("Little Prince") and Lillepigen ("Little Girl"), after the nicknames the Danish press gave their older siblings Prince Christian and Princess Isabella. Regardless, it's a far sight happier news than what really covered the airwaves over the weekend. Also, I found a Swarovski crystal ring that resembles a certain famous British royal engagement ring at the mall and splurged on it for myself. It was only $25, so that's not too bad, and it has two more "diamonds" around the edge than Catherine's, so there. I love wearing it. It's so sparkly.

Finally, I am including a meme I snagged from apple_pathways , which means you finally get to hear my voice!

( Here's the meme: )

Ugh.

I don't think I've talked much about it here, but I've got myself a new project: an advent calendar podcast. Similar to Grant's Advent Calendar, but different in that I've got all sorts of activities planned for the 25 days until Christmas. Today was supposed to be putting up decorations. Except once I found my decorations and got them up (and my room cleaned, seeing as the entire internet was going to see my room), the night slipped away and it was almost midnight - my sort-of unofficial posting deadline. And while I'm filming my post, my camera battery dies. I quickly ran over to grab my iPod touch, hoping to use that camera instead. Except I forgot that it, too, died today. I ended up using my cell phone to take still shots instead.

And then I remembered that I still had laundry in the washer.

So it's drying now, and I have to wait for it, because if I let it sit overnight, all my nice work clothes will get horribly wrinkled. Not that it really matters, because tomorrow's Casual Friday and my last day at Temp Job, but still. And after going to bed at midnight since September, I'm crashing hard at 1:30 am when I used to be able to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning.

So I'm going to go check on my laundry, and please go take a look at my advent-ivity calendar and make all my trouble tonight worthwhile. :)

The room does look nice, though, and I got to watch MST3K ("Santa Claus") while I decorated and cleaned.

And my laundry's done, so I am so going to bed.

During my first Christmas on LJ, I posted about 10 things that made my Christmases awesome, and one was Grant's Advent Calendar Podcast. Well, this year, I was inspired by that to make my own advent calendar podcast. Except I didn't want to stock the thing myself, and I couldn't trust my sisters to do it, because they are apathetic like that. So I had the idea to make an advent calendar podcast full of holiday stories, recipes, and craft projects that are all family friendly and awesome.

And thus, Robyn's Advent-ivity Calendar was born.

(Yeah, because advent + activity = advent-ivity... again, so much for not thinking about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. But crafters always have to think ahead to give themselves time to make their stuff, and it's the same with podcasts.)

Here's the teaser, which I just put online today:




I'm really hoping I don't fizzle out on this thing - I really want to make it awesome, not least because Grant follows me on Twitter now, and I'm invariably comparing my efforts to his professional ones. (Which really makes no sense, because seriously? The guy films in widescreen!)

So, here is my shameless plug - please visit adventivity.wordpress.com to watch my videos starting December 1.

In other news, I saw Toy Story 3 again for only the second time last night, and the first without the headache-inducing 3D glasses. Oh my holy crap do I love that movie. A perfect ending to the whole story. Mr. Pricklepants is definitely my favorite of Bonnie's toys, because he's a Shakespeare-spouting hedgehog in lederhosen who is voiced by Timothy Dalton. And yeah, I cried at the end.

Never got much higher than 40 degrees today. In fact it's 40 right now. Hopefully this hard freeze/cold snap of DOOM will be over tonight so tomorrow will be a little more bearable. *checks weather.com* Never mind. The nighttime lows for the next two nights are still predicted to be below freezing. Thank goodness the highs are predicted to get up into the 50s the rest of the week. Boo about the possibility of rain, though - my Newgen girls are coming over Friday night, and we were going to drive down to see a local house with Christmas lights cued to music - lightazmic.com if you want to see them too.

Finished the ornaments a few days ago, and delivered them yesterday. The high school ministry admin loved them so much. I'm really glad that she's happy with them.

Lost out on another job today. I was covering the phones for Mom at church this morning, and got called up by the office manager. She told me that they had decided to hire the person they had brought in to temp the position (admin to the missions pastor). I had kind of figured that they wouldn't go with me, and that they'd hire Katie instead, seeing as she's already been trained to an extent. Mary told me that I was fairly overqualified (a story I seem to be hearing a lot of lately), but she knew some people who she thought might be interested in me, and she asked for permission to give them my resume. Like I'm going to say no!

So the Christmas season continues undaunted, but I feel kind of left out. I don't want to think about what I want for Christmas, because I don't know how I'm going to do Christmas for anybody else. It sounds kind of lame, but the opposite sounds selfish. Maybe I can make scones for some people; butter is kind of expensive, but I know that Grandma likes them, and maybe I can wash the windows for Mom and Dad... provided it gets warm enough to do it soon. It'll have to be Christmas Great Depression style, because that's about all I can afford to do. Dear God, I want a job for Christmas. (Nope, I never really believed in Santa when I was little. It helps that people in costumes scared the living daylights out of me when I was a kid. If I couldn't see their face, nothing doing.)

If I die some time in the next three weeks, tell my mama I died like a man.

Or something like that.

So I started painting ornaments yesterday, but the paint I was using (acrylic; it's worked on the ornaments I've painted in the past) wasn't turning out so good... so I went to Michael's for a paint pen. The paint pen works amazingly (it needs a few coats on the darker ornaments - blue, purple - or maybe a primer of some kind), but the fumes are killing me. And with me getting over a cold, I'm already having coughing issues.

So I've got 4 hanging in the garage on my makeshift yarn clotheslines waiting for the paint to fully dry so I can move on to the next coat/step.

Again, the holiday forces conspire against me and turn me into a Christmas-minded person before the official start of the Christmas season (when Santa shows up at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade). This morning I got a call from the high school pastor at church. He knows that in the past I've painted ornaments and given them as gifts, and this year, he'd like me to make 30 ornaments to tie onto the leaders' gifts. (I've never made that many in one year!) I'm way jazzed, because this is the first time anybody has "commissioned" me to make art for them of any kind - usually I offer.

So I've got a design ready - I don't have to kick into high gear on these yet, but I've had it on my mind all day - and now I just need to wait on whether or not Joel likes it. I figure if I make 12 a week starting next week (with time taken off for Thanksgiving of course), I'll have them done in time.

I'll keep track of how the project goes here, just so you all can share in the experience. :D

( Here's design idea #1: )

Also, designing ornaments, going to the Christmas section of Target to price ornaments, and giggling with Lauren over the Christmas CDs has gotten me into the Christmas spirit. I'm listening to Christmas music. Sort of. I'm listening to a snarky 20-something deconstruct some of the worthiest targets this side of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

I swear, some days I think I could turn my life into a TV show. Not one of those Wonder Years-type shows, but weirder, like Friends or The Class, or maybe The Middleman, but without the intra-/extra-/juxta-terrestrial incidents. And the quirky, bohemian roommates.

( Last time on 'Middlegirl'... )

So, since Christmas Eve (Grandma's), Day (Nana's), and Day After (family friends who might as well be aunt and uncle) have been scheduled, we opened presents today at my house. I thought all I was getting was my room finished, which is fine, but there was still a surprise under the tree for me: The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a single volume, leather-bound (think kinda like a Bible). I opened the package from the end and saw it was a really nice book, and I immediately thought Shakespeare (I am a girl of many shades and dimensions, but few interests), and so I had to laugh when I saw it was Hitchhiker's... especially since this litle green guy that's found on all the books is part of the cover design, right there in gold(ish) leaf:



Don't ask me who/what he is, or why he is the Hitchhiker mascot. I don't know.

Thank goodness my mom's present (the pictures) arrived in the mail today. Of course, I was at work, and the mail came while I was gone, but my sister hid them in her room. I didn't get a chance to wrap them, but Mom got all teary all the same. I knew she'd love them.

Dad also got a cool present from Mom - she got him this envelope (a ticket envelope? We don't really know) from the 1989 World Series, Game 3, October 17, 1989. This is special because a) it was the San Francisco Giants (Dad's favorite team) vs. the Oakland A's, b) the game was in San Francisco, and c) the game never actually happened on that day due to the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Of course, the Giants went on to lose that game once they finally played it, but it's still some pretty cool memorabilia.

Now I have to hurry and try to finish my friend's cross-stitch project, since I'm going to her house on Monday, and I'd like to see if I can have it ready to give to her in time for Christmas.

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! Last month I gave darth_firefly a kidney (1000 points). Last Tuesday I had a shoot-out with rival gang lords on the 5 near LA (-76 points). In June I helped gonzo1385 see the light (8 points). In March I pushed scarletumbrella in the mud (-17 points). Last Thursday on a flight to Bangladesh, I stole the emergency flight information card (-40 points). Overall, I've been nice (875 points). For Christmas I deserve a Sony Playstation 3! Sincerely, Middlegirl

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

Dear Santa,

A quick edit to the above note. Can I change the PS3 to a Wii? I'll actually be able to play the games, and "Wii" is more fun to say. Wiiiiiii...

Am currently cleaning my room and decorating for Christmas, not necessarily in that order...