Dreaming through the noise.

From "The Call," part of the Pushing Boundaries series (The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim; a series of fics chronicling the growing relationship between Ulfric and Seirian, the Archmage of Winterhold and reluctant Dragonborn). 
 

She’d seen him before, during one of her overstays in Solitude, walking the road toward The Blue Palace. He was heading opposite, his face as grim then as it was now, stride heavy; children and guards alike leapt out of his way.

He was, she’d soon learned over tea with Sybil Stentor, Solitude’s court mage, a regular visitor to the palace and a regular thorn in Jarl Torygg’s side when it came to the rising tensions with the Empire.

“The Jarl had me read for him,” Sybil had said, peering into the clouds of cream swirling in her cup. “Ulfric is a focal point for this war, in more ways than one. Torygg needs to be careful.”

Got the first coat of Ocean Abyss on the walls and ceiling of the bathroom. Tried out the handmade stencil - it didn't do so hot. But I think it's a matter of not using the roller, since this stencil is flimsier than one you might buy and a roller is really going to smush paint underneath. So, a larger stencil brush is in my future. I also had the idea to stencil on pieces of wood (perhaps stained and then dry brushed to look worn) which could then be hung on the wall, which will save me both physical exertion and sanity and give the nautical theme I'm going for a bit more depth. 

The first set of giclee prints (of the Edmund Fitzgerald) I ordered are all framed and ready to be hung. And I'm eyeballing a few others (the Lusitania, the Endurance stuck in ice, maybe a couple of Romantic takes on shipwrecks; I was wanting to go for depictions of real ships that sank, but...there are a few pieces calling my name.)

And I made dinner (a creamy chicken, rice, broccoli and sun dried tomato skillet). Well, dinner for tomorrow. Tonight I ate leftover ricotta and spinach stuffed shells that I made yesterday.  

I don't know where this burst of energy came from, but I'll take it because I needed to make progress on the bathroom update. 

My IT band is giving me little reminders that I'm still dealing with inflammation (exacerbated by contorting myself into a pretzel to paint behind the toilet), but so long as it's not aching tomorrow, I'm in the clear. And the glute...is doing good. The knot I'd been feeling prior to PT remains gone so I think I've done some basic restructuring on the tendons. 

This is a reminder to myself that I need to at least do a few of the isometric exercises this evening. 

And the question that remains is: will I have the energy to do the second (and hopefully final) coat of paint on the bathroom tomorrow and do it well? 

Read and Reading

I manged to finish 10 books in 2025. These first two were my last reads for the year; the Moraine was my first read of 2026:

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro

The writing is fair. The story was enjoyable, overall, but I feel like it didn't really deliver at the end. The characters came off as one dimensional, some of the flashbacks felt clunky and I think there was really too much story trying to be delivered in a shorter format. I'm curious if it might have been better fleshed out as a longer novel. 

The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates

The popcorn read. I admit, I picked it up partly because Gillespie is a family name on my mom's side. It's a quick read. Not much depth to the main character, nothing readily unique about the prose, creep factor is extremely mild. Lifetime Movie Horror. I don't know if Coates' cozy horror style is going to appeal to me, but I may try one more book from her. 

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine

The premise was interesting enough for me to buy the book new. I like Moraine's writing style, in general. It's obvious this was inspired by/driven by the pandemic. Good atmosphere and suspense. It's a definite case of unreliable narrator. I think pacing was a bit of an issue in places and there wasn't a whole lot of character development, but overall, an interesting read. 

Currently Reading:

The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John Bacon

Not really a review. I'm over 100 pages in and both enjoying the history and shaking my head at the hubris that lead to so much tragedy on the Lakes. 

Alice by Christina Henry

Just started. 30 pages in and, so far, yes. I like the writing style and the atmosphere and I'm interested to see where it goes. This is my first Christina Henry. I have Good Girls Don't Die sitting on my shelf and I thought about starting that one first, but the madness won me over. 


Watched and Watching

I watched some movies while I was off: Scrooge (1979), A Muppet Christmas Carol, Krampus (all three of these at a friend's house during a holiday watch party), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (a longtime favorite I watch pretty much every winter, if not multiple times per year), Christmas Vacation (this might be my dad's favorite Christmas movie).

And there's been plenty more YouTube videos about maritime disasters as well as plenty of Minecraft videos. 

But I'm not really in "watch mode" right now. Even while watching YouTube, I'm likely to be working on the stencil for my bathroom revamp or building something in Minecraft. I just can't put my whole mind into absorbing things passively, at the moment. 

Playing

I've been revisiting the Dishonored series, specifically Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider. (Though I may have to return to the first game because I don't think I finished my run last year.)  This series is both bleak and hopeful, which feels apropos of the time. It's probably apropos of anytime, honestly. 

This is one game that when I return to it, I realize how much I missed the atmosphere. The whole thing is a work of art. I'd love to have some of the oil paintings you see throughout the world. Where I would put them is anyone's guess...

And Minecraft, of course. Still exploring, still building. I even started the tree for a forthcoming Christmas Village. Whether I'll work on it year round is a question. 

And speaking of meals, Thanksgiving is Friendsgiving, so I'm not thinking about what to cook. (Though I may make a dessert to take along. Yam Delight, perhaps.) 

And I've already penciled in Dec 1st for PTO, so I'll have a nice five day break and I've planned off two weeks around Christmas. So I can actually get my staycation in this year and maybe invest in a little slow time to get my brain to come down from the stratosphere. 

My score is 23. (I was surprised I had a "Q".) My total fic count (on AO3) is 200. I have some old ones on Fanfiction.net. I didn't include those here (if I did, I think I would have gotten the "U" for Umbrageous, which was a very old HP fic.)

I'm already feeling fatigue, though that could be from the not quite six and a half hours of sleep I got last night, combined with the bird rescue we had to do after the vaccine. 

Before we headed to the pharmacy, I heard a skittering in the leaves and seed pods in our front yard, looked over and saw a grey ball of feathers. At first I thought she was sunning herself, but when I took a step closer and she didn't fly off, I realized something was wrong. I started looking up wildlife rehab places on the way to the pharmacy, figuring we'd try to take her somewhere if she was still there and alert by the time we got back,

She was. 
 

What followed was a series of texts to the rehab, complete with pictures and video so they could assess the bird's condition and then an appointment for drop off a few hours later. 

We got her into a shoebox with a few towels and placed the box in a warm spot. Matt checked on her right before we left to make sure she was, in fact, still among the living. She turned one dark eye toward him and smacked the side of the box with her wing. 

At the rehab, they had us wait in our car. One of the volunteers came out in scrubs, gloves and a mask. They're taking bird flu seriously. They conduct their initial exam of the bird outside. They gave us an intake number and said to give them 72 hours before checking in (if we hadn't heard from them by that point). Head injuries (we're working on the assumption she hit a window) are a 72 hour, make or break. 

So here's hoping she'll pull through. 

But if not, at least she was able to go somewhere safe and warm for whatever time she has left.