Happy Birthday, dearest dreamflower02 !  Hope your special day is filled with good things, hobbits in particular!

My ficlet "Small Heroes, Mighty Deeds" has been nominated for a MEFA by Cathleen! Thank you so much, Cathleen, you just made my whole week :D

My challenge story has been posted to the LoTR community site.  It's called "Small Heroes, Mighty Deeds", and can be found here:

http://community.livejournal.com/lotr_community/51857.html

It was a shirebunny that I adopted from Shirebound's site, and this is the bunny:

What happened after Pippin risked his life to light the beacons? Did he feel any physical or emotional shock once he had succeeded and made it back down to the ground? Was the climb down as harrowing as the climb up? Did he feel proud? Frightened? Did Gandalf acknowledge the deed in any way? What was Aragorn's reaction when he learned that the beacon he saw at Edoras had been initiated by... Pippin?

Please pardon my technological ignorance, but what exactly is a Kindle, and how is having one better than just having a computer? What are the advantages?

I tell ya, I'm an ignoramus when it comes to this kind of stuff.

The second chapter of my story "Elanor's Story" is now up at SoA:

http://storiesofarda.com/chapterview.asp?sid=6215&cid=26606

Some of you have read the story that I wrote for elandulin 's birthday here on my journal.  Now the first chapter is posted at Stories of Arda; you may find it here:  http://storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=6215

Elanor's magnificent story "A Secret Gate" has been updated with a new chapter.  You can find the new chapter here:

http://entropyhouse.com/elanor/secretgatechaptertwentytwo.html


The whole story can be found here:

http://entropyhouse.com/elanor/secretgate.html

For those of  you who don't know, this story is the creation of my favourite fanfic author.  It's about the preparations that Merry and Pippin go through in order to leave the Shire for the last time, in their latter years.

Beautifully wrought; please, at least read the prologue.  If that doesn't hook you, I'll eat my hat :D

SQUEE!!!


I ordered the triple set of the animated the Hobbit, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, and animated Return of the King on the 8th, and I finally got it today!!!

I plan on watching it during my birthday weekend next weekend :D

Actually, I don't really have a birthday this year; my birthday falls on the 29th of February, and there is no such animal this year :)

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 90% Robin 65% Superman 60% Catwoman 55% Hulk 50% The Flash 50% Supergirl 47% Green Lantern 40% Wonder Woman 22% Batman 0% Iron Man 0%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I'm on chapter 14 right now of an 80-chapter story, and I'm hooked!  IT's a MEFA winner, and is called "Untold Tales of the Mark: the Banishment of Eomer", by Katzilla.  IT can be found here:  http://storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=4275

IT's a very long story, but it'll suck you in, so if you're in the market for a good long read, this one is it.  It's an AU tale that takes place during the banishment of Eomer, and focuses on the Rohirrim generally and on Eomer specifically.  There's a lot of action sequences that will leave you breathless, and a lot of character development of certain minor Tolkien characters and OC's.  No hobbits, at least so far, but it's still a very well written story.  Give it a try !

I'm anxiously awaiting the month of May, which is when I'll begin helping Prof. Jacquot with his research.  I wanted to get together with him before that, to discuss his research and what I'll be helping him with, but his wife is recovering from emergency surgery and will need another procedure in 4-6 weeks; plus he has a newborn to take care of as well.  So I won't be able to get together with him until the end of Feb, beginning of March.

Meanwhile, I 'm reading up on the critter we'll be studying; if you're interested, here it is:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Zapus_hudsonius.html

Happy Birthday, surgicalsteel !  May this year bring you as much goodness as this previous year has.  You've come a long way, baby!

surgicalsteel , your lovely card came yesterday; thank you so much for the best wishes!

knittedmerry , a most grateful thank you for your thoughtful and funny card!  Thank your compatriots for me also; llinos , marigoldg , and knittedpippin !! 

Happy holidays to you all!!

Thank you, claudia603  for the holiday card!  Yes, hopefully this will be a big year for change :)

We're supposed to get MORE SNOW sometime tomorrow.   *hopes she's not snowed in for Christmas*

A lot of snow 'rained' down on us this morning... thank goodness I haven't had to go anywhere.   Well, I NEED to finish my Christmas shopping, but I'm not going out there today!  Kevin had to go to work, though, poor guy.  He should be home in a couple of hours.

Bracing myself for a very relaxed and low-key week; I only have to work on Monday and Tuesday, then have the whole rest of the week off.  The same thing for next week... just MOnday and Tuesday again, with the rest of the week off.  Oh Heaven!!   Hopefully I can get a bit of writing done, and a lot of reading done.   And maybe, just maybe, some cleaning!  *gasp* 

I still have to get my dad his Christmas gift; he's so easy to get for.  He just wants peanuts, he says!  Or a puzzle.  I'll probably end up getting  him either a puzzle or a variety pack of nuts.  My boyfriend, I think I'm going to get him a gift certificate at WalMart, so that he can pick out a George Foreman grill which he's been making noises about.  And for my one brother, I'm still not sure what I' m getting him yet.  He's mentally handicapped, and loves to write things down on paper, things like the sports scores of the day.  Mom says he can always use pencils, and socks :)  Maybe I'll come up with something more original between now and Christmas Day.

I still have to get wrapping paper, and maybe some stocking stuffer type gifts.  And perhaps some toys for the kitties :)

Wow!!  Did it ever snow last night!  6-10 inches is what we got, and I had to unbury the car, seeings how I don't have a garage or a carport. At least the snow was the light fluffy stuff, and was easy to manage. 

Picked up some Christmas cards to finish up the obligatory office hand outs.  Came in to work with a stack of them to hand out... and barely anyone showed up to work due to bad weather!  Ah well, they'll keep until Monday.

Got two Christmas cards in the mail today... one from my parents, and one from my little bro. Thank you, Carl!!

I am so psyched about the coming week.  It's only a two-day work week for me, both next week and the following week.  What do I plan on doing, you ask?

Well, let's see.  There's my WIP that I really should work on... there's also Elanor's story that I need to add to at some point.  Lots of reading to do... I'm in the process of reading the 2008 MEFA winners, and let me tell you, that's a plethora of stories right there.

What else... should do some major cleaning, but we'll see how much I actually get around to.  Then there's the finishing up of the Christmas shopping, the wrapping of presents, and the spending of Christmas day with my family.  Hopefully the weather will break so that I'm not stranded at home for Christmas. 

No plans for New Year's, as of yet.