...long time no see?

WOW, it's been awhile.  Didn't realize how long it's been.

In my defense, life's been really busy.  I finished the paralegal program, and about six months later (eight months ago) switched jobs.   My last place was a litigation firm, and this one is transactional - real estate.  I'm finding I like the transactional work much better than litigation.  It's a much larger firm, even though it's still in the 'small' category - I've gone from working in an office that had at most four people in it (and, most of the time, just three) to an office with fourteen people, and I'm in a an admin/paralegal team (instead of being, by myself, the administrator, paralegal, receptionist, and just about everything else.  I definitely prefer the team environment.)

The job's downtown, and I ended up moving from Pasadena to Culver City and am now the caretaker of my grandmother's house.  I'm not really a fan of the area - too crowded - but it'll work for now.

In my last blog I mentioned NaNoWriMo, and I've got an exciting update on my writing front - I'm publishing!

It's not the novel I mentioned writing at the time; it's a collection of short and flash fiction.  Eight stories (one being the completed version of the very first story I started thirteen years ago that got me into the idea of writing), 13,000+ words.  I'm going to be self-publishing on Amazon.  I've only got a bit more work to do to finish the formatting, so I'll be posting an update soon (promise!) about the status of that.

More Life. And a Bit of Catch-up

For the record, a root canal is both awful and not bad.

The actual root canal isn't bad, or at least, in my case, it wasn't too awful.  My mouth wasn't too badly infected by it - I came across some root canal horror stories (and of course I went looking for them before my procedure.  Cause apparently I'm mental.) in which the teeth probably ought to have been extracted, and having a bad endodontist rates at the top of 'teeth horror' stories.

I had a great endodontist (if expensive, and the whole 'no dental insurance', I think, hurt more than the getting the root canal).  It takes forever.  I was in the chair for closing on two hours.  I wasn't more than mildly sore aftewards, i.e., I couldn't open my mouth very far afterwards, and had a sore jaw.  Then, the next day, I went to my regular dentist (also, great dentist), had the mold for the crown made (it's going to be ceramic) and got a temporary crown, because that one's not coming until the beginning of February.  As this meant more drilling, I was a bit more sore and exhausted.  And, naturally, the temp came off while I was eating cereal one and a half days later.  Well after the dentist office was closed.  Apparently that's not extremely uncommon, but I've got to get back to the other side of LA now to get it placed back on, and take even more time off work, and that's a bit of a pain.

In other, better, news, I forgot to mention in my last catch-up post what took my life over in November.  Ever heard of NaNoWriMo?  No?

The full name is National Novel Writing Month, and it's basically a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month.  That's 1,667 words per day, or approximate 10,000 bursts on the weekend write-ins to make up for writing only a few hundred words per day on weekdays.  Write-ins are just when a bunch of wrimo's get together and write, and the person in charge of organizing it offers challenges and prizes.  Some people do a whole bunch of planning in the months beforehand, and know every scene for their book.  Others... I know some people who didn't know what they were going to write at all until a few days beforehand.

I'd been working on the idea for my story for about a year or so, but my outline was very vague.  Still, I wrote 50,047 words as of November 29. :)  Printed off a winner's certificate and everything.

It's a Christian allegory (think of a combination of Narnia and Pilgrim's Progress).  It's about a young man, whose name is currently Lysander Kweston, who discovers that everything he knows about his world is a lie, and he goes in search of an amazing, legendary treasure, that he doesn't have solid proof - or proof at all - that it exists.

Although I finished Nanowrimo, there's a huge amount of work to be done on the book before it's actually finished.  There's a bunch of prizes that different companies offer to winners with upcoming expiration dates, so my plan right now is to finish up a ghost story that I've technically been working on for 10 years (it was the first story I started writing) and get it in e-book formatting, and possibly get a papercover of it.  The e-book formatting is a bit more important, because it's easier to self-publish electronically rather than paper.  I do want to try to publish it in the old-fashioned manner, but having the e-formatting will make it more accessible to me to work with, as far as marketing goes.  There's also a contest I can enter it in, which I haven't decided if I'm going to do it or not yet.

Catch-up Part Two

In my defense, I've been busy.  And at least I'm sticking with publishing once a year, right?

I was looking over my last catch-up post, and I think I'll just go over that first.  I've gone on hiatus with my writing/editing/summarizing/transcribing business and the acting (the auditions, while they went well (I got a callback!), didn't pan out into actual jobs), was in a play, ended my hiatus with my craft business, kept up with the ice skating and archery, got a job, and moved out of my parent's place.

Archery has gone really well - I went ahead and bought a glove, bow, arrows, and a bag, and made (with assistance from my dad) a hip quiver out of PVC pipe (and a shoelace).  For Christmas last year, I got a leather arm guard with a dragon on it.  I'm looking for a proper back quiver, but I'm currently lacking the funds for that.  It's a 25-pound bow, so I can't shoot more than about a dozen times in a row, but I'm getting better.  It helps that I don't have to go to a range to do it - whenever I go back up to the mountains (parent's place), I can shoot.

For my ice skating report, I've gone ahead and bought myself a pair of white skates, and got some orthotics for them as well.  Orthotics are a wonderful invention.  I still feel extremely awkward looking, but I don't fall down much.  Since my new job (started in March) I haven't had more than one or two chances to skate, but I'm working on my schedule.  It would help so much if there were more skating rinks in LA.  My knees won't be a problem, at least :).  In September, God healed them - completely.  I've been living for seven years with a lot of pain.

My knees weren't aligned correctly with my hips - I came out of the factory, like that, and in college, somewhere between carrying a bunch of books and running all over campus, they gave out on me.  I've done exercises, adjusted my way of walking and taken Aleve to handle the pain, but without surgery to place the knees where they needed to go, I was going to be like that for the rest of my life.  Even surgery wasn't a guarantee (and the thought of it creeped me out, plus the dis-alignment wasn't so major that I was forced to choose between having surgery and not walking at all.)  I've been wearing orthotics, which makes for buying fairly expensive shoes, but I don't need them now.  I can't run a marathon or anything yet, because I have about seven years of not using my muscles to make up for, but not being in constant pain (anything from very mild to very severe) is a novel, and wonderful, experience.

Acting-wise, I was in a Christmas play last year, It's a Wonderful Life, at the Santa Clarita community theatre.  It was loads of fun, and I was Miss Andrews.  I've tried out for a few more since, but I'm a bit limited in that I can't sing, and community theatres love doing musicals.

Job - I've got a real job!  Like, 9-5 type job.  I'm an office administrator at a small law firm (boutique, I think, is the word for it), which is so funny considering my background.  I applied in a whim, because he said he wasn't looking for someone with experience.  I had a grand total of six months work experience of being in an office, and figured I could do everything on his 'must-list' (even though I had absolutely nothing on his 'wish-list'), so I applied.  And he hired me.  I've applied to UCLA for their paralegal program, and that starts in February, so I'll let you know how that goes.  (Work's paying.  Which is good, because I totally couldn't afford it otherwise.)  It's 11 months long, twice a week, and at the end of it I get to take a test and be certified as a paralegal.  I'm very excited for that, AND happy that I get to go back to school.  Cause I'm weird like that and like it.  I am expecting my sanity to take a bit of a dive sometime next year. :)

And no, before you ask, I am not planning on going to law school and becoming a lawyer.

I've moved out of the mountains down to the city :'( into a one-bedroom studio.  I love my place - it's very out of the way from everything, and only three miles from downtown Pasadena.  The apartments are renovated from music studios which were renovated from being a factory.  It's a brick one-story (once but no longer an extremely important factor) building that's covered with vines.  I think I've always wanted to live in a building covered with vines.  I'm not sure why.

Crafts - I've renewed some of my items on Etsy - you can see them on the sidebar.  I went to a craft fair, and saw that someone was taking plain bobby pins, alligator clips, and other types of hair pins, and gluing buttons, beads, and ribbons to them.  And then charging $3 for them.  My natural inclination is that sewing is better than gluing, when whatever you're working with allows for that, so I did some research, discovered that yes, $3 is the general charge for that sort of thing (more if whatever's attached to the hair clip takes more work to put together), so I'm going to go ahead and give this a go.  My ribbon-tying techniques need some serious work, so I'm pretty much sticking with buttons, which are a lot of fun to work with.

I also took a soap making class last week.  It wasn't so much the 'make the soap from scratch', but a 'add herbs and other things to the soap, using a melt and pour base'.  It was a lot of fun, and it's extremely easy.  And clean.  When I'm making the soap, I wash my hands a ton.  It also makes for easy clean-up.  The pot, spoon, and molds have the soap to clean them already on them.

So far, I've tried using clear glycerin soap (can't get much more generic than that) with vanilla, lemon, chocolate mint, and cherry extract.  Chocolate mint (it's handmade) smells wonderful in a bottle, and great in foods, but it's awful in soap.  I love lemon, but either lemon extract, lemon juice, and lemon peel don't mix well or it's another thing that's awful in soap.  Is there commercial lemon soap?  Cherry soap is my top favorite.  Then, I added ground coffee into the vanilla soap, and though I don't like coffee or coffee smell, it makes for a nice soap.  I mostly used some plastic molds, but after a handful of uses, they stop working so well - the heat from the soap, I think, causes them to melt.  I'm buying some silicon molds, so we'll see how those go.  These ones are going to be used as quick Christmas gifts, but after I've got some consistency in making them and some scents and colors, I'll start selling them.  Also, apparently, you can take the soap, let it cool a bit in the pan, and then roll it into a ball.  Five-minute soap ball.  I'm a bit limited in supplies, so I've mostly just rolled them in crushed oatmeal and lemon peel, but it gives them a nice look.

Quickie - Valentine's Coupon!

Just a quick post - I've got a store at woolranch.etsy.com (it's in my sidebar, if you want to take a quick look) and up through February 14th, I'm offering a 10% off discount.  Just use the code VALENTINE10.

You do have to create an etsy account, but it's pretty easy and it's free :)

Catch-up

SO.  BEEN AWHILE.

I saw that somewhere on the internet some time ago, and just knew I had to use it myself someday.  In all serious, though, it has been awhile.  Since, like, September?

Here's a brief summary for the catch-up: went on hiatus with the writing/editing/summarizing/transcribing, continued to keep trying with the acting, had a couple of auditions (professional, I mean) in December, got a call back in January, signed up with a calling service (Virgo Talent, cause they're reasonably priced (about the only one out there that I could find) and do commercials), and ended my hiatus.

I've also started learning ice skating and archery, as well as becoming very acquainted with various muscles in my legs and upper back.  Learning ice skating is going much faster than the archery, since I can just walk into any rink during their public sessions (of which there are a lot), rent skates, and go at it for as long as I want.  I did get one lesson before I went out on my own, just to get some of the basics.  So far (it's been about 3 weeks) I've only fallen once, and I didn't hurt myself - key component here.  With my knees, if I land on them, I'll be done walking for at least a week.

Oddly enough, even with my bad knees, skating doesn't hurt at all.  My leg muscles have gotten a lot stronger, which I'm hoping in the long run will strengthen my knees.  I'll just have to wait and see.  My theory on the my knees is that skating, as opposed to walking, doesn't cause impact on my knees.  Either way, I love the skating and recently bought a pair of skates (save on renting, and have cool white skates!).

As for archery, I can only go when they're doing lessons.  I've gone to two ranges, and the closer one is a bit better for returning archers (though not so great for beginners; I'm glad I went to the further one first for that).  Both of them use recurve bows, which are the best for beginners.  The price for good equipment is about $400, so I'm going to wait until I'm much better before seriously considering it (and anyway, as a starving artist/actress, I can't afford that).  At a minimum, though, I'm thinking about getting myself some decent leather gloves.  It really stretches the back muscle in-between the shoulders (one I'd never really thought about it) and though the bow isn't heavy, it feels heavy when you're aiming it and pulling back an arrow.  Lifting small hand weights really needs to go on my schedule.

Hopefully my next post won't be X months late.  :)

Mood: Frustrated

If you're curious about my continued acting career, I'm writing my stories at WoolRanch.Xomba.com - the articles are called, 'Chronicles of an Aspiring Actress, Part #'.

The frustration's due to job search efforts feeling a bit pointless - more on my transcribing/editing/writing/crafting job searches.  Right now, I've got a large-sized transcribing job going on, but I really, really need more (and it'll be over soon :( ).  My goal's to be completely independent (financially) by December, and this whole thing of searching for job-applying-never hearing back is starting to get old.  I know it's not worthless effort, but right now, I feel like it is.

On a more brighter note - I'm not back at school this semester (feels so weird!).  I've graduated, and now have three degrees - BS in physics, AS in computer science, and AA in theatre.  The physics job hunt won't begin until January, and that only if I completely fail to make it as an actress/entrepreneur.  But in the meantime, my goal's to spend one to two hours a day practicing physics and computer science (hasn't happened yet.  Goals are evil things, anyway).  I'm also part of creating a business with my dad, brother, and sister - we're going to be SteeleWool Software, and our tagline at the moment is 'Custom Software'.  I'm more playing the role of administrator, manager, and sales person right now, but eventually, I'm supposed to be helping write programs for clients (which should help with that whole practice thing).  I'm the only person in our group without a full-time job or in school, so we're starting a bit slowly.  We've got a FB page, though, even if it's a bit empty at the moment - it's Facebook.com/SteeleWoolSoftware.  Come like us!  (it'll help me feel more important, anyway :D )

Mood: Tired

It's not that the last two days haven't been a blast - they have. And I'm sure tomorrow will; but having 4 hours of sleep one night and then 6 the next drains energy.

Being on 'Awkward' was loads of fun - it marked the first time of having to do a clothes change. Also, one of the hair artists (I'm not sure what they're called) came over and put a little braid in my hair just above my ear. I really really liked it... now I just have to figure out how to do that myself. I also haven't been on a high school campus since kind of ever.

Then, at the end of the day, Central Casting - which had been trying to get ahold of me for half the day - called me up and offered me a job for today (the day right after that one) and tomorrow. Today was the fitting - it's a pilot being done on the Queen Mary, set in the 1890's - and I'm to be a maid. Those clothes are heavy (and thank goodness I'm too small to fit in their corsets. I like breathing). There's a petticoat, a black skirt that goes over that (and given how much skirtage there is to the petticoat, I have to put it over my head to put it on), a small butt-bustle, a half-corset, a black buttoned-up ribbed shirt - all the way up to midway on my throat - and a white apron. The end result is, even without the full corset, I've got good posture, I walk a bit differently than normal, and I can't lower my neck - the shirt gets in the way. But the whole thing is awesome. Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the whole kit and caboodle all day :).