Winter holidays have really snuck up on me. I just today realized that next week is Thanksgiving and so we work a short week. (And Saturday we're going to South Carolina to see Megadeth for Greg's birthday, and then Sunday, on his actual birthday, he's very kindly accompanying me to see Emilie Autumn at the Cradle.) And then winter break (and about two weeks off of work, too) is so close after that. (Which means Hogswatch, too!)

Fringe is a little on the heart-breaking side tonight. It's really good, but kind of sad. Poop.

My friend Jen has decided to start taking bellydance classes, and the same ones I'm in. :) I'm so psyched. AND! I found out (thanks to the Melodia mailing list) that Melos are still on sale and in stock - apparently they're clearing out stock, and sort of relaunching their line in organic fabrics. Anyway, I wasn't expecting them to have anything left in my size - but they did! Quite a bit, in fact. So much that I had trouble deciding what to get. I finally got a pair - and then Greg very sweetly bought me the other pair I'd been considering, for my birthday present. Woo woo!

And here are (belated) Goth Monday pics:

I ordered some new earrings from bodyartforms.com, and they arrived today and are GORGEOUS. (When I was naming the pictures, I called them "peacock foxtails," which is actually incorrect. While the peacock pyrex foxtails BAF does have are also gorgeous, what I actually got this time was a pair of black/aqua raked pyrex foxtails. My mistake.) I bought a pair, but they're actually slightly different (not a bad thing), so I took a picture of each side of each earring. The first two pictures are the front and back of the first one; the second two, the front and back of the other one. I also got a nifty nosering - pretty simple, really, but I think it'll be less stabby than the others I've tried, and that's all to the good.

I adore them, and can't wait to buy more fabulous stuff from BAF. (I've got so many pairs of earrings saved to my universal wishlist, it's ridiculous.)

If you notice my wedding ring is on my middle finger, it's because it's way too loose on my ring finger these days. :( It just slides right off, and I'm afraid of losing it. I've ordered some ring guards, though, so hopefully they'll arrive soon, and then one of them will do the trick. (I'm pretty sure it can't be resized since it's titanium. And by "pretty sure" I mean, "the company we bought them from said just titanium rings can't be resized.")

Greg and I both spent most of the day at home - he's sick, and I had to go to the doctor today to talk about my monstrous PMS the past several months (to possibly a year?). She thinks I've got PMDD, actually, which is awesome. (That's a sarcastic "awesome," since you can't hear my tone.) I mean, the great news is, I've got a new script for Celexa that should help it out, and that means no more PMS-week utter meltdowns. (Have I mentioned how utterly, utterly wonderful my darling husband is? If you'd witnessed any of my meltdowns or angerballs, and him just patiently and lovingly helping me get past them and get calmed down, you'd be like, "Get that man a shitload of medals. Jesus. Maybe a knighthood while you're at it." Yeah. I've been a total harpy. Which I would be okay with, if I was doing it on purpose. It takes all the fun out of being a harridan when it comes out of nowhere and is out of control. I'm also really glad we finally noticed the pattern, and my awesome doctor took it all seriously.) The kind of less than good news is, I'm back on Celexa - but that's mitigated by the fact that I only need to take it the week I get PMS, so there shouldn't be enough in my system to make starting and stopping every month a big nasty deal. (Like last time I was on it, and tapering on, and then tapering off, were both months-long processes, with TONS of nausea and headaches and general malaise.)

And now I'm going to watch some Carnivale - just got hooked *good*, it is soooo amazing - and get my crochet on. And then go to bed and get a decent night's sleep, because I've got work and D&D tomorrow. (Well, work, THEN D&D after. You know.)

Congrats to Kimmie and Jeremy on the birth of their daughter, Zoe! (Who is pretty damn cute, and has a birth-date that appeals to me numerically: 11/10/09.)

Finally, the picture showed up. New haircut and new black lipstick. (And Styletto is FANTASTIC black lipstick. Texture, moisture, and opacity - all wonderful.)

Got a lot of shit done today: got a haircut early in the morning (super cute); made up time at work (even got parking on a game day - homecoming, no less); ran errands; doing laundry right now. And my super fabulous Lime Crime lipstick (in Styletto - black!) arrived today - WAY earlier than I was expecting it. I even have a picture of my new haircut and lipstick, but I took it with my phone, and it hasn't shown up in my email inbox yet. Boo to slow technology.

The excitement this week was A GAS LEAK.

Oh, yes.

We've been smelling a bad smell intermittently for about three months now. Short story: it was actually *two* smells: a gas leak, and someone else's sewage backing up. It took two days, several phone calls, some bitching, an awesome and very understanding guy from the gas company (I need to write him a thank-you note for being so awesome while I was absolutely in panic mode), a nice but somewhat absent-minded licensed HVAC technician (who replaced the part that was faulty and causing the original leak; but then didn't screw on a crucial join, which resulted in a *larger* and *faster* leak than the one we'd started with, and after we'd paid beaucoup bucks, of course), and a bit of a refund - and that all cleared up the gas leak.

That just left the sewage smell. That also took two nights, and two repeat visits from the water/sewage technicians. They couldn't find our clearance pipe (I think that's what it's called), so they flushed the main at the street just in case it was someone else's sewage backing up and affecting us. Which seems to have been the case, since all we had was a bad smell (no trouble flushing the toilet, no "brown water" anywhere - that would be sewage, of course), and it's gone now. Well, I just did some laundry - let me go check and make sure I'm not lying. Awesome: it just smells like detergent! And not shit! Ye gods, that was a foul, wretched smell. Anyway, we also discovered that the clearance pipe close to our house? Is too far away from the property line for the city to service. We *should* have another one about ten feet from the street, but if we do, some asshole BURIED IT. The technicians said we definitely have another clearance pipe, and just need to find it. I don't know about that. I tried to ask them, whenever the new regulation (about the serviceable pipe being ten feet from the property line and no further) came into effect, if it was mandatory to put in one at the proper place, and whose responsibility that would have been. Because if it was up to the homeowners to do it? I'm not so sure they would have. (The change was definitely before we bought the house, not that it makes much difference now.) I kind of think we'll figure out about where it should be, dig down, and find a sewage pipe that needs a new clearance pipe attached to it. The techs were also like, "What I would do? Is rent a metal detector to find it." Yeah, great idea. Except, I don't know *any* place you can rent a metal detector - except at the beach. I don't know how much call there is for detecting buried treasure in Durham. But we'll see. The smell is gone, so that's the important thing. At some point we get to play silly buggers and go digging up our front yard, but there's no rush to get that done right now.

Well, the picture still hasn't shown up, so I'm off to make a simple choker real quick (got a bee in my bonnet), and then get to sleep so I'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for bellydance tomorrow morning.

AND! We're going to see Ensiferum at Volume 11 tomorrow night. Hell yes! (And Megadeth in SC the day before Greg's birthday - his birthday present from me. And then we're seeing Emilie Autumn - *with* VIP package extra goodness - *on* his birthday, at the Cat's Cradle - which is sort of my birthday present to myself, and Greg is very sweetly accompanying me on his own actual birthday day. And Dara's going, too. I'm not sure if Tiffianna's going - I'd assumed so, but I don't really know. Anyway, I'm VERY EXCITED about Megadeth and Emilie Autumn. AND - Hogswatch is coming up! And then I get two weeks off from work. And then there are several upcoming shows at Volume 11 - like Korpiklaani and Tyr in January. Holy shit.)

So, last weekend was chock full of awesomeness. Sunday, we went to Colonial Williamsburg, and I even have pictures, but I'm not posting them right now. All that walking was pretty brutal - it would seem that I've got shin splints. It's pretty painful, and so I get to stay off my feet/legs as much as possible and ice them and shit. I'm really looking forward to the new round of bellydance class that starts up this coming Sunday, so I want these shits gone by then. In the meantime, elevation, icing, ibuprofen, and Traumeel. Pobre mio. Oy.

This would appear to be my 1300th post. Hee.

Anyway, we went to a baby shower for Kimmie and Jeremy last weekend, and baby-in-waiting Zoe. It was tons of fun, and now I can reveal some of the secret crafting I've been doing, since they were presents for Kimmie: a pair of dzonba (Himalayan slippers) and a Starling Handbag.


Also, on a recent trip to Target, I picked up a pair of Nick and Nora fleece footie jimjams. Holy crap, do I love footie pajamas. These have feet that look like sock monkeys. Adorable. And very snuggly.