Moments in Time Meme

(ganked from karaokegal who ganked it from zeddish)

20 years ago in 1988
I was four years old. I don't remember much from being four. I looked like the little girl from the Water Babies ad.

10 years ago in 1998
I finished eighth grade and started ninth, keeping most of my friends and making a few more.

5 years ago in 2003
I got sent home from the Navy in February, started at Wal-Mart in March, and lost my virginity twice.

3 years ago in 2005
The year of my months of happiness with Dayne. Then in May he left, leading to the worst period in my life which I was brought out of by the light and love of my life, my now-husband Chris.

2 years ago in 2006
Chris, my best friend for so long, says "I love you" over the phone. Totally out of the clear blue nowhere, like he didn't realize he'd sait it out loud. I was stunned. We hung up, and I texted, "I love you too" to him. We've been together ever since. He moved in with me in November.

A year ago in 2007
After being together for about a year and being best friends for years before that, we get married when Chris decides to go back into the service--this time, the Army. We had talked about getting married, about ceremonies and themes, but when he decided to go back into the service, we had a small civil ceremony at the Clerk of Court with all our clothes bought at our common workplace at Dillard's, and many, many of our co-workers helped us out. Tom from Men's made sure Chris's stuff fit, Cecilia helped me choose a dress and gave me a pearl necklace and earrings, which she let me keep, which I treasure (they'll be heirlooms if I ever have kids), and Teddy made a flower boquet and french-braided my hair and stuck little things of baby's breath in them. Shortly after the wedding, he was off to three months of boot camp and AIT. It was tough but I stayed with my mom and stepdad and re-acquainted myself with my hometown of Titusville. I worked at the Dillard's in Merritt Island. I drove over state lines for the first time, and by myself, in October to pick Chris up from AIT. We moved to our first duty station of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, on October 18, and stayed at the base inn. We got base housing the day after Thanksgiving.

Yesterday
Chris and I spent the day together at home.

Today
Chris and I and a bag of breakfasty snack foods picked up his sergeant and went to the company where after three hours, all the food had been given away (which wasn't as easy as you'd think) and Chris and the rest of his unit were on their way to the airport to fly to California for AIT. He might be on the plane now. He's not going to be back until sometime the first week of August. I'm alone. It's boring to be alone on an army base, but there's no place I feel safer than a place with armed guards at the gate who check photo ID's.

Tomorrow
More laundry. Put Chris's Army stuff in bins for storage and to get it the hell out of my kitchen and living room. Dishes. Surfing of the web. Get started on wardrobe sorting for Mission 31.

Next year
This time next year, Chris will have been deployed for several months. I'll be working full time, either as a paralegal, if I can find a place that will accept my degree without any experience, or as a cashier, if Barnes & Noble feels I'm worthy of their 20% employee discount. Hopefully I'll have off-post friends.

Oh how much I'd love to see these written. Oh how much.

*will totally play the sexually-deprived-for-your-freedom card if it'll work*

The Fic Wish List Meme

Multiples are not only okay but encouraged!

1. Stargate: Atlantis

Pairing: Carson/Ronon

Ronon's feelings during the episode where clone!Carson is put into stasis until he can be cured. With flashbacks from scenes from his relationship with real!Carson and how he dealt with real!Carson's death.

2. Pundit RPF

Pairing: Keith/Anderson

Rachel catches Keith masturbating to Anderson Cooper YouTube clips and later drunk-dials Anderson with this information during a game of Truth or Dare (prefarably with Keith, Dan, maybe Chris,--you pick the players). Hilarity ensues, and hopefully some sweet sweet man love. Bonus points for Erica's and Rachel's best-friend snarkage.

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Pairing: Data/Geordi

Set during TNG, plot is at the author's discretion, but keep in mind that even though Data considers Geordi his best friend, he's had zero luck trying to have, or even understand fully a romantic relationship. And, Data doesn't have emotions, well, not in the sense of the emotion chip he gets in Generations. Data goes out of his way to please Geordi, and worries about his social and emotional shortcomings, and Geordi tries to convince Data he loves him just the way he is, but he struggles with the fact that Data doesn't experience love as Geordi knows it. Both go to various crew mates, canon and/or original, for advice.

4. Star Trek: Voyager

Pairing: Tom/Harry

Anything, anything, anything! As long as it's in-character and looooong. I haven't read anything new from this pairing in years and I miss it!

5. Pundit RPF

Pairing: Rachel/Mika

Mika, pissed off at Joe (again), storms off the Morning Joe set and runs (literally) into Rachel. Bonus points for a legitimate reason Rachel is at MSNBC at that hour.

6. Stargate SG-1

Pairing: Daniel/Teal'c

Begin with agonizing longing (duration is the author's choice), middle with danger (Goa'uld, pre-Ori, maybe involve the NID), and end with Teal'c-instigated sweet sweet man love.

7. Gundam Wing

Pairing: Duo/Quatre

Something sweet and haunting dealing with Duo's painful upbringing and his trouble accepting Quatre's love and generosity.

8. Harry Potter

Pairing: Neville/Luna

Something long and sweet, with a lot of bluntly-stated truths from Luna.

9. Harry Potter

Pairing: Remus/Sirius

Setting: Marauders Era. Both lust after each other and confide in James. Tired of their whining, James tells each the other's secret. After some three-way bruised feelings (why'd he tell my secred, why'd he not tell me how he felt?, why didn't he tell him himself?), Sirius and Remus get together in a sweet and sexy way, and thereafter James makes fun of them with 70's British slang that refers to gays. Peter laughs along with the good-natured teasing, but is crying inside because he's in love with James, and James is in love with Lily. This unrequited love makes him lonely and bitter and becomes the reason he turns to the Voldemort Dark Side.

10. Stargate SG-1

Pairing: Jack/Daniel

Alternate Universe. PhoenixE was going to have THIS STORY finished and available as an ebook eventually... well, she wrote the teaser in AUGUST OF 2004!, and I want to know what happens!

Well, Chris is gone. He had to be at the company at two a.m.. We were out the door by 1:20 so we could pick up Sgt. H and we were there by two. Between the two of them there was so much stuff that both Sgt. H and I had to hold something on our lap while Chris drove.

We got there right on time and things went really, really, reeeeeeaaaallllyyyy... slooooowllly. And it was cold! In the forties! I'm so glad I brought my jacket, though I actually wished I still had my winter coat in the car because we were out there that long.

I had a bag with Pop Tarts and granola bars, and gave them all away to whomever wanted one. I'd just stand, guarding Chris's and a few other people's stuff and if someone came by I'd say "Good morning" and if I had their attention and they replied offered them food, because I didn't want to go around just asking people, because I don't have that kind of... balls/chutzpah/guts to do that, so it was pretty much anyone I could talk to without raising my voice, 'cause I didn't want to just holler "ZOMG I HAVE FOOD" (a. because I didn't have enough for everybody there and b. because the chaplains I was talking to earlier this same morning would not have appreciated that first part). Two people, including a not-Lieutenant Captain (the highest rank of anyone I saw there, and the highest rank of anyone who took some of the offered snackage) thought I was selling them! That Captain asked me like three times, "Are you sure?" Um, yeah. I'm just handing out snacks. Big deal. But several (including that guy) took me up on the offer and thanked me and I got to do my good deal for the day.

I waited with Chris and Richardson and Kingan and Sgt. H and a few others and at about quarter-of-fucking-five, they started putting people on buses.

So I went home, made myself a Stouffer's panini (I'd had a pack of Pop-Tarts myself, so that was breakfast, I'd been up since 10 p.m. so five a.m. was lunch time), watched part of Clean House Comes Clean and went upstairs to read pundit!fic and check my email and download more LJ icons (as if I need anymore...)... And I'm listening to MSNBC which is turned up in the other room. Bush was on live a few minutes ago talking about the new war bill that includes the option of passing your GI Bill benefits to one's spouse or kids. He failed to mention that to pass your benefits to your spouse, you have to sign up for another four years of service. I wonder what the provisions are if you get badly injured and still want to give your spouse/kid your benefits?

I've got a load of clothes in the washer, they should be done soon, there's clean dishes in the dishwasher, and I'll get to them eventually... I've got a month-plus to get the house done, but my goal is to clean and organize the house from top to bottom, and for the first time in my life cleaning "top to bottom" involves going up and down staircases.

I'm trying to find a way to make patterns for gridded things like latch-hook rugs and cross-stitch items. I know how to make the grid--in MS Paint, I can magnify to 800% and hit Ctrl+G for a grid, but what I need, especially if I'm going to make a latch-hook rug, is a program to tell me how many colors are in my image, what they are, and how often they occur. During my hours-long Google search, I've discovered that software exists that will do such a thing; however, I was unable to find any of that software. Could anyone recommend a site or program download that will help me with my arts-and-crafts geekery?

Thanks in advance,

Heather.

From driftingfocus, from whom I found this meme:

You know how sometimes people on your friendslist post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-Word-Answers seldom help anyone out.

You want elaboration? You got it!

1. First Name:

Heather.

( the rest )

karaokegal : "Ganked from everybody and his mother-in-law, but will attribute to hllangel ."


The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
( 100 in all )

TV Wish Meme found at karaokegal's LJ.



1. You can go back in time and erase from the fabric of TV history THREE individual episodes of any TV show you want! What do you choose?

Star Trek Enterprise: The last episode. It sucked worse than
Star Trek Voyager: Endgame, which is hard to beat when it comes to infernal suckitude.
Star Trek Voyager: The time travel episode where they go back to 1996 and The Doctor gets his mobile emitter. Granted, they needed to get The Doctor out of Sickbay, but did they have to fuck over continuity to do it? The Eugenics Wars were from 1992 to 1996!

*geeks out*

( more sci-fi geekiness )

I found this article on class through an email news letter from Diana Pemberton-Sikes about class, which I'll copy here:

( 'You can tell a high-ranking man by the size of his library,' a mentor once told me, 'and a low-ranking man by the size of his television.' )

Anyhow, this is how the NY Times thingy rated me.

I used my usual (though not now) occupation as a retail worker for this, because they didn't have a military option or a homemaker option.

( more musings on class and where I stand )

Thoughts?

This was found at Things Younger Than John McCain. In the words of Niecy Nash, "I love it!"

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
“A Day in the Life of a Middle-Class Republican”

I found this floating around during the last election and thought it was time for it to see the light of day again.

Hope you enjoy (and please forward!):

Tom gets up at 6:00 AM to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot with good, clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

( more )

The main entry for this is here at my Mission 31 Blogger Blog, and here are the pictures:

books that need notes (sorry about the sideways)
main shelves 1-3 of 4
main shelves 2-4 of 4
the Star Trek shelves

I'm so happy! This is the first time my books have been out of boxes and all on shelves since... tenth grade, I think... and actually there's still one more box in the basement, and 15-20 books in the bedroom, and the ones I'm actively reading (five or six), but other than that--that's all of 'em! And they're organized!