Category: About Me

  • My first Emerald City Comicon!

    My first Emerald City Comicon!

    This past weekend, my household converged on Emerald City Comicon, along with a houseguest–a friend of mine who’d come all the way from Norway to visit us, and to attend the convention as well! (My poor friend came down with strep throat during his visit, but happily we got him treated beforehand, and liberal doses…

  • And now, how to make cake vodka milkshakes!

    And now, how to make cake vodka milkshakes!

    I got asked about this on Facebook, but thought I would post it here for the edification and satisfaction of all! If you’ve heard me speak of the wonders of cake vodka milkshakes and you’d like to try them for yourself, this is what you need to do! You will need: A bottle of Three…

  • Demandez, et vous irez recevrez!

    Demandez, et vous irez recevrez!

    As y’all know, O Internets, I am a big raving fangirl for Quebecois trad music. I am also NOT a native French speaker. And one of the points of vexation of being a fangirl for a genre of music sung in a language I do not properly speak (YET!) is that I desperately, desperately want…

  • Because it is my birthday and EVERYTHING is awesome

    Because it is my birthday and EVERYTHING is awesome

    When you do not have the words to properly express your relief at awesome medical news, screw words, go straight to KITCHEN PARTY IN YOUR HEAD! This is exactly how the inside of my head sounds like right now, people–my dream concert of ALL the awesome Quebecois and Newfoundland boys! De Temps Antan! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44BlsiQKwnw?list=PL9B03D939A9D3AE1B&w=560&h=315]…

  • This just in: the biopsy results are GOOD

    This just in: the biopsy results are GOOD

    I got the call this morning from the RN at Evergreen’s breast center, who told me that the results are clean, and that they are likely just the results of passing benign cysts that just sometimes happen in breast tissue. I told her she’d just handed me one HELL of a birthday present and thanked…

  • How the biopsy went this morning

    How the biopsy went this morning

    I posted a bit about this on the social networks, but here’s a somewhat longer report. What I went in for this morning at Evergreen was a stereotactic biopsy. Which basically means, a minimally invasive procedure in which they use targeted imaging and a thin needle. I had to lay face down on a table…

  • Well, today just got really, REALLY annoying

    Well, today just got really, REALLY annoying

    Just the other day I was posting to the social networks that I’d just realized that I’d passed the five-year mark since my original breast cancer diagnosis in 2007, and was closing in on five years since I’d been pronounced cancer-free and had commenced reconstruction surgery. (All that got started in 2008, until everything was…

  • A few words about expectations management

    A few words about expectations management

    Every so often well-meaning family and/or friends ask me questions like “So when do you get to quit your day job?” or “When do you get to be the next Tolkien/J.K. Rowling/Stephanie Meyer/Amanda Hocking/etc.?” Which are lovely questions and I do appreciate the support, but the long and short of it is, the likely answer…

  • Christmas at the Murkworks

    Christmas at the Murkworks

    The holidays are always a pretty low-key and kind of drawn-out affair at the Murkworks. As happens every year, Housemate Paul went to Virginia to see his family; thus, we held off the house gift exchange until he returned. Mostly, the holidays for Dara and me meant a relaxing vacation that nonetheless also involved working…

  • Day of unmitigated disaster

    Day of unmitigated disaster

    Well, this was SUPPOSED to be the day I went with and down to Oregon to see Le Vent du Nord perform, and then to meet up with tomorrow afternoon for lunch and then an excursion to Powell’s. But the travel gods had other plans. We made it safely down to Olympia–where we stopped for…