Thursday 13 # 49 ~ Fantasmic!

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Pictures From Disneyland!

Sorry this is so picture-heavy, but here (finally) are my pictures from the Disneyland trip this month. (Well, not all of them. Not nearly all of them. But some.)

1.

S & me in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

2.

I do not know why that picture is showing up sideways. It is right-side-up on the main photo page. Strange. (This is in California Adventure, by the way.)

3.

The new Toy Story Midway Mania game… it’s lots of fun! It’s like combining a ride and a bunch of (free) midway games and a video game. Very cool!

4.

My niece got to meet a lot of characters, including Elastigirl. So fun!

5.

It was Disneyland’s birthday while we were there! Hooray!

6.

Me and S on the (stationary, for pictures) car from Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. This is an amusing ride, always worth going on. I wasn’t too thrilled with it as a kid, though. I think I was (embarrassed to admit that I was) afraid of it.

7.

The Hollywood Pictures Backlot in California Adventure. This is where lots of the characters hang out in DCA, plus it’s where the Tower of Terror, the Muppet 3D show, and the theatre (playing a stage version of ‘Aladdin’) are.

8.

From the ending of Fantasmic!…

9.

Also from Fantasmic! I would love to be one of the princesses who dances in this show.

10.

The castle. I love this castle.

11.

The Cinderella set in the Storybook Boat ride. (You go on a boat, and see miniatures of all the various movies.)

12.

The Aladdin set from the Storybook Boats. There’s a “cave of wonders” too, but those pictures never turn out as good.

13.

Me hamming it up in front of the sign for DCA. (My name starts with ‘N’, so it’s a semi-tradition for me to take a picture with the ‘N’ part of the sign. I get the feeling (from the picture) that S doesn’t quite know what to make of me being this silly… Maybe it’s because it was late at night.

~*~

Happy Thursday!

Smoke Free?

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
- Mark Twain

~*~

I think our skies might be smoke free, finally. At least for a while. The many fires in California had made our skies horrendously gray for many weeks now. But the sky was blue yesterday, and seems to still be blue today. Here’s hoping it stays that way.

Random pictures for you today, because I don’t have much else to talk about. Well, I do, really. I have Disneyland fun. And the San Diego Wild Animal Park. But I would really rather talk about those with their pictures, and I haven’t had a chance to pull them off the camera yet.

I also have an annoying thing to talk about (if I wanted to, which I don’t) because I made my most recent Trekking sock too small. So… frog pond! I have restarted it, but don’t want to take any more pictures of it until it’s longer than it was. At least it’s a fun pattern and the yarn can hold up to the frogging.

So that’s really all I have for you today, due to all those things. Tomorrow for the Thursday Thirteen I hope to (FINALLY) have current Disneyland pictures. But we’ll really have to see.

Meet & Greet

First of all, Happy Birthday to NASA! No matter what you think of the organization (which I, personally, love and hope flourishes) I think we can all agree that they’ve done some amazing things.

~*~

Now… on to the main event for today.

I don’t have a specific book to talk about. Instead, I have an author! Yay!

So, this past weekend was Comic Con in San Diego. And while I didn’t go to the convention itself (a little thing called procrastination meant the tickets were all sold out for the day I wanted by the time I actually got around to making the purchase) I went down for the event anyway. See, I’m a member on Kelley Armstrong’s forums, and she had said she was going to be at the convention (on panels and such). Plus, while she was there, she was willing to / interested in meeting up with a group of us from the board. Hooray!

Anyway, long story short, a group of us all met up and chatted for a while over dinner. (During which Kelley signed books for us. Yay!) It was good fun, and it was really nice to get to meet her. I do have a couple of pictures, first the one of the whole group (minus a couple who were actually doing the picture taking) and then one of me, Kelley, and S (right to left).

One of the things I like best about Kelley – besides her wonderful stories – is the way she supports fledgling authors. On her forums, she hosts an online writing group. (Hi Jess! Here’s me pimping out the OWG again!) We can all get advice and opinions and critiques from our fellow writers that way, and know that there’s a huge chance that the group will like the genre we’re writing, since most of us are working on novels with some kind of fantasy premise. (Comes with being fans of an urban fantasy writer.)

So, S and I were the only ones from the Meet who were part of the OWG, and we stayed after dinner to chat a little more about the writing itself. We talked about how happy we were about the success stories coming out of the OWG (including AJ Menden, whose book will be published later this year) and discussed the difficulties that come with getting published.

Anyway, it was great meeting Kelley, and I highly recommend her books if you haven’t read them already. (Her Women of the Otherworld series has a bit of the sex stuff in it, for the most part. If you’re not interested in that, consider trying Exit Strategy, first in a new series more along the lines of a thriller (no paranormal aspect) or The Summoning, first in a YA trilogy set in the same urban fantasy world as the Otherworld books.)

Trekking Along

Over the weekend, I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It was fun. Pictures will be coming later.

I also met Kelley Armstrong, one of my favorite authors. Pictures will be on the blog tomorrow.

And I started a new sock. Pictures are… actually, pictures are here now! Yay!

These are a special sock that was free for Summer of Socks participants but is up on Ravelry for purchase, the Grandiflora socks. (So of course I am knitting them in a non-flower color. Trekking XXL in browns and greens. Ah well, it was the yarn I had in a ball rather than in a skein, so it got to be my new traveling sock because I obviously didn’t prepare enough to wind a skein into a ball early enough to take with me.)

I also have a new KnitPicks toy, DPN WIP tubes! They keep your DPN needles together and protected while the sock is traveling with you. Very fun! And a new chart holder. Yay! Knitting toys are so much fun.

Hope you all had a good weekend! I’ll have more trip pictures (including this year’s Disneyland shots, I promise) soon.

FO: Mangotini Socks

Hooray! I finally have a finished object to show off! And I have finally finished the Mangotini socks that I started last August!

These are Wendy’s Cabletini (link is a PDF) socks, that – due to the lovely color – I dubbed Mangotinis. The yarn is by Spunky Eclectic, and I have forgotten all the details because I was gifted the yarn as a contest win last year. All the details are up on Ravelry if you want to go have a look, though.

Sadly,e the above shot does not come close to doing the color of the yarn justice. For a better idea of the color (and yet not as good a picture, IMO) see this one:

So… what’s next? Finishing the Lotus Blossom tank. (It’s an annoyance right now… knit it too big. I will fix it, though, even if it takes a sewing machine to do so.) Then finish the Swan Lake stole (aka Mystery Stole #3). And while doing all of that, start a new sock to travel to San Diego with me tonight….

(Yes, I’ll be gone again this weekend. So no post from me tomorrow. But next week, you get to look forward to Disneyland pictures from this year – finally – and stories about me getting to meet Kelley Armstrong, one of my role models. Yay!)

Magic Worse Than Poison

It’s a monorail. And we just got back from Disneyland, which also has a monorail. I couldn’t resist.

~*~

And now for the contest winner. First, here is the ball I chose:

A pirate one! I’m counting all the pirate-y answers, and the winner is….

Linda in Chicagoland!

I know, she changed her answer, but her original guess was pirate, therefore she’s a pirate. Yay Linda! I’ve send you an e-mail asking for your address… once you let me know, I’ll send you off a small Disney package!

~*~

And lastly, though not least, the book review for the week.

I picked the post title because it was somewhat related to the book being reviewed, and was catchy. I liked it. So I used it. But I think it needs some explanation. This week’s book is MAGIC STUDY by Maria V. Snyder. It’s a fun read, but quick and nothing too spectacular. Quite unlike the book it’s a sequel to, POISON STUDY. I LOVED Poison Study. So I was enthusiastic about its sequel. However, Magic Study just didn’t have the same charm. Maybe because Valek wasn’t in the story much? Or maybe because the premise of the first book was so very neat and yet didn’t carry over to the second? I’m not sure. I will be reading the third book, FIRE STUDY, but I will not be in as big a rush to find it.

Home Safe!

Hi all! I don’t have much for you today, but I am home, and I wanted to thank you all for the well-wishes and happy thoughts while I was on vacation.

Reminder: if you have not guessed yet, place a guess of what antenna ball I brought home with me for a chance to win one of your own! (Note: the ball is already on my car, but I’m not telling! Also, I brought home two different types – I hadn’t decided until I looked at my car with the toppers which one I actually wanted to use. The other one is the prize one. But I do like them both.)

I would have pictures to share with you, but I got sick near the end of the trip and spent the weekend moping around instead of being too productive. I’ll have pictures later this week, I promise.

I also would have an FO to share, but I ran out of energy before finishing my socks, so don’t have that yet. Also hope to have that this week.

Home Bound

(Don’t forget to leave a comment in yesterday’s post for a chance to win a Disney goodie!)

Today is the day we’re driving home. Happy thoughts for good weather and safe driving would be much appreciated!

I’m guessing that if I could blog right now, I would say that the trip has been wonderful, I’ve loved being at Disneyland, and yet I’ll be glad to be home. It’s one of those things about vacations. It’s always fun to be on them, but you miss the little things about home… your own bed, your pets, your dresser/closet instead of living out of a suitcase. Now if only we could just bring the maid service home from the hotel with us…

One last photo from my previous trip down to see the Mouse. This was the castle all decorated for the 50th anniversary. I should have new, updated pictures for you sometime next week.

Happy weekend!

Thursday 13 # 48 ~ Mouse in the House

I’m not here. I’m at Disneyland! (I know, a lot of vacations this month. I’ll pay for it next month, when I’m stuck at my desk, working.)

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things I Want to do at Disneyland!

1. Ride the Indy Jones ride. (Multiple times. I love that ride.)

2. Go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

3. Buy some chocolate mint fudge on main street. Yum.

4. Watch Fantasmic! It’s been too long since I’ve seen that.

5. Play with the niece in Toontown.

6. See the Electrical Light Parade in DCA. Many fond memories of that thing.

7. Ride the submarines! They’re back! Yay!

8. Show S Disney’s California Adventure. Without going on the Tower of Terror.

9. Get an antennae ball.

10. Watch the parade.

11. See the fireworks display. I’m not sure I can do this, the ELP and Fantasmic! in only 2 nights at the park, but I can try.

12. Go to Pirate Island and see the changes.

13. Ride Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, the carousel, etc., etc., etc., and just generally squeeze in as much fun as I possibly can!

~*~

Actually, let’s make this a contest, eh? Guess what type of antennae ball I’ll get, and if someone guesses correctly I’ll send you a little something from Disneyland. (Maybe a keychain, or an antennae ball of your own, or a pin.) If multiple people guess right, I’ll pick randomly from the winners. If no one guesses right, I’ll pick randomly from everyone who entered.

I won’t be back on the blog until over the weekend… let’s say you’ll have until midnight Pacific Time on MONDAY, July 21 to guess in comments to this post, and I’ll announce the winner Tuesday or Wednesday.

(Don’t make requests for items, please, as I won’t see this until after I’ve bought it. :p And the link above has pictures of lots of examples… not all of them are still for sale, but it should give those of you who may be unfamiliar with the balls an idea of what’s out there.)

Happy Thursday and good luck!

Still Gone

I’m still not here.

In the meantime, I have probably been working on my 2nd Cabletini Sock (dubbed the Mangotinis due to the colorway) and might even have finished it. Hopefully when I get back next week I’ll have a FO picture to share with you. We’ll see.

Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for something special!