JE's Ramblings

There are too many people with too many plans when it comes to physical activity. I play Badminton with a couple of colleagues. It stopped during the pandemic and people left and by now it's only me and one other from the original group, but we're back to 4-7 people. Which means we need 1-2 fields. We typically play on Tuesdays. I think we only managed one Tuesday this year. There was a Wednesday and two Thursdays... because there are no fields available. Granted, we did book for next Tuesday and maybe people are either doing it less or spreading out throughout the week a bit more. While I don't have a problem switching the days around, I very much prefer the routine of playing on the same day every week. I really miss it.

I needed to get that mini-whine out of the way, just so I can get over it. It feels good.

In other news, I don't think I'm not going to fall into the Heated Rivalry fandom... I've been reading for the past week. I've bought the books (haven't started reading yet though) and I've downloaded screencaps. I'm definitely going to do some claims for it over on dailyicons. I've also been mulling over two related ideas. One spawned by the other. I can also honestly say that I solely came for the eye candy. I'm probably staying for the emotional constipation.

Before I come up with a third completely unrelated topic, I'll close this post and eat my dinner :)

When the weekend flies by while you do some new year's cleaning... is it really already past 9pm on Sunday? I pushed of my "lunch" so late, it's currently in the oven. Oh well. I chose to stay in bed for another two hours or so after waking up yesterday and it didn't help my long to do list. Some of which I did today and for the rest? Well, the rest of January should still be fine, right?

And as I'm writing this, I remember that I forgot to drop off (and write really) a birthday card in the mail. I mean, there's still a chance it could be on time, but I've experience the past year or so has shown that an additional day is better now that the postal system is allowed to take two days instead of one to delivery letters within Germany. I got so distracted with my to do list and I hadn't written it down for some reason.

I've kept myself entertained with listening to podcasts that are several years old that I still open tabs for. They are about writing, fandom and random non-fandom stuff from medical issues to just people. It doesn't even try to be censor itself (unless it involves fandoms like Hannibal) and can involve a lot of ramblings and laughter. They also range from an hour to 4+ hours. I'm highly amused.

And that's it for today as my dinner is ready and I should eat before it gets even later...

My vacation is pretty much over. Tomorrow, I'll drive (or let myself be driven) back home and on Monday it's back to work. I haven't checked yet what I've managed to get done from my plans - I haven't checked yet - I certainly didn't even attempt anything fandom related, but outside of that, I think I got a good deal done. Today I met up with a friend from university and we had a great couple of hours. We met for lunch (Sushi), had an ice cream and walked through the city with some very nice weather - certainly cooler than the last couple of days, but still temperatures I'd easily consider summer temperatures.

On the way back home, I decided that I (still) want to post more about fandom and especially regarding being creative in fandom. To help with that, I noted down a couple of random questions I could dedicate posts to.

Let's see if I manage to be more active on here again.

Since I'm struggling with getting my groove on with the 9-1-1 Lone Star fandom and kind of procrastinating with actually watching 9-1-1, Teen Wolf and Chicago Fire and a couple of other shows I at one point in time noted down to check out, I'm considering to dip back into some of my older fandoms like Harry Potter or Criminal Minds or even Doctor Who. Somehow, I'm just not taking the plunge.

It doesn't help that I've been hitting my limit with being social once I'm done with work for the day. I've also had a week or a bit more than that were I've been sleeping really bad. In part because I just couldn't sleep and in part because "Just one more chapter" or getting hooked on a live ticker for some College Softball games. I really should have known a whole lot better after that first time a game started at 11pm or 11:30pm and I decided to check it out for before I turn of the computer "in 15 minutes" - I ended up keeping track until the end of the games. Outside of that, I did have the problem of being dead tired between 7pm and 9pm, but having to get some stuff done (like showering and eating dinner) and 9pm has gone by, I'm past that point of tired and can't settle down again.

I have started writing the beginnings of some stories on paper though. Some Harry Potter fix its and some attempts at 9-1-1 Lone Star fics. All of them just end up running into me having to refresh my memories of canon though and that motivation has been lacking.

However, I did manage to get a couple of things on my to do list done that I've been dragging for weeks, if not months like ironing and cleaning up/organising my basement storage area which is a bit of a relief.

And a bit of a rec at the end of this post: Quantum Bang is currently in it's posting season with plenty of fix it stories across a variety of fandoms, including a lot of 9-1-1 and Harry Potter. There's also Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, Naruto, Teen Wolf, NCIS and a couple of fandoms I haven't heard of before and some I'm probably forgetting right now. A new story goes up every 12 or 8 hours depending on if there are 2 or 3 stories scheduled a day. I'm certainly doing a lot of reading there currently.

I read some recaps for the 9-1-1 finale and all it made me feel is like they successfully sank the ship. Mind you, a lot of the things I've read in recaps kind of made me wonder if they've jumped the shark this season.

The story lines themselves sound like they had potential, but it feels as if they tried to cram too many into too short a time frame.

Eventually, I'll sit down and catch up by actually watching the episodes and not just reading recaps and spoilers. Let's see what I think then. Maybe having low expectations will see me pleasantly surprised. Right now, I'm not certain if I can lower my expectations enough though... if nothing else - the episodes might make for good screencaps for icons.

Speaking of icons, I need to finish that one icon I started two hours ago before getting distracted by youtube instead. Ten days left to have a full rainbow to submit to lgbtrainbow. Strictly speaking, I've got at least one per colour, but I'm not happy with all of them and I've got nearly 40 preselected screencaps left to make more. Any "leftover" icons, I might hold back to use for the regular challenge there.

Sometimes you make a decision for what feels like the wrong reasons and then life decides to give you a reason for the decision to be a good one. I'm not always appreciative of that.

Last year, I really struggled with the snowflake_challenge. Not sure if I was actually sick or just really tired on top of work and simply feeling off. I ended up procrastinating and then having to catch up because for some reason I couldn't stand the thought of simply skipping a day. Not sure if I've always been like that and I'm just noticing it more or if it's something new. I either do something completely or not at all. I might throw in the towel and not finish, but I can't simply skip something and consider it completed. No matter how much the mods are saying that that is perfectly fine. It kind of felt as if me feeling a bit off and not finishing it just left me feeling completely wrong-footed for a couple of months.

( click here to read about my January so far )

I hope every had or will have a good start to 2025! I hope it brings a lot of good things from health, creativity, love, financial security and everything else you hope for :)

( click here for a 'Happy 2025' image )

I haven't posted anything for my advent calendar since last week and I'm trying to figure out how to catch up and - I'm just not feeling it. Last week it was just too stressful with getting last minute things done, packing, working half an hour to an hour late most days and even a social event at work. It sucked any kind of creative motivation out. While I'm officially on vacation for the rest of the year, it's taking a bit of time to relax and trying to figure out what I'm going to post to catch up on top of what I should post for the day is kind of stressing me out.

I think that it would be best to just let it rest, but a part of me has a hard time letting it go. Maybe this post will make it "official" enough to help with it.

There's still plenty to do: family stuff, trying to declutter my computer some more, making icons for dailyicons and more.

Figuring out presents is on the list as well. Also kind of failing at it. My dad's birthday is tomorrow and none of the presents will arrive on time. Part of that is that most of us usually are like "I don't need anything" and aren't good at coming up with other presents either. Every year there's also talk about cutting back on the presents (outside of those for the kids).

Two weeks left of 2024 and, as much as I don't want my vacation to end, I'm already looking forward to it. Things are kind of weird currently as things switch between planning Christmas, birthdays and a funeral. I certainly don't feel very social currently.

Day two of the advent calendar and today is something I called a Mood Mix. I'm not sure if I've come across something like this before, but I'm taking the concept of a fan mix and instead of making it about a specific character, pairing or fandom, I'm kind of making a playlist for writing. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to think of this though.

The topic for this one is "Heartbreak" and is just a collection of songs (whether or not they are actually about heartbreak) that put me in the mood to write heartbreaking fics. To be fair, I'm not likely to put this in one dedicated playlist to play while writing. I'm far more likely to have one (or maybe two) of them playing on repeat. "Should've Said It" by Camila Cabello did lead to a unfinished story that's currently at 14,600 words

( click here for playlist info )
( click here for the embedded videos )

This post is a whole lot longer than I anticipated. To be fair, I noted down that I wanted 5-10 songs on the list and I ended up with 10. Maybe I should have done a part two and added something for a second day. Oh well. I do want to do at least another Mood Mix. I just have to decide on a theme :)

I intended to make a post about how well I did or didn't do with my October goals nearly three weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I didn't think "Tomorrow is another day" that often... oh well. November's rushing by as well.

About halfway through October (or maybe even earlier), I scratched my October plans and decided to give posting something fandom related throughout December, at least leading up to Christmas, every day. I made a list of stories (plenty of nearly finished, short ones as well as longer ones I want to have finished by then), icon themes, wallpapers and texture sets and figured I'd take the rest of October and November to get it done...

( click here for more ramblings about October, November and December plans )

And I'm starting to lose my focus for this post... it's probably time for me to take a moment to go to the kitchen and clean some dishes and make myself dinner before I'm too hungry to just pick something quick and unhealthy.