What's Up Wednesday (23) & Giveaway Winner

First thing's first: the winner of the ROOMIES giveaway is...

JESSICA B.!

Yay! I'll email you to confirm your info and then will forward that to the publisher, and they will send out the book! Thanks everyone else for entering!

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, so we can check in with each other. To join, just check out Jaime Morrow or Erin Funk's blogs for the link widget and sign up!

First What's Up Wednesday of 2014! Woohoo!


WHAT I'M READING
Uh, everything I said I was last reading. My reading slump is on-going, so I've been making very slow progress. There are a few books I'm excited to get to though! Hopefully, that'll push me back on track.


WHAT I'M WRITING
Also, nothing. But my word for the year is FOCUS, so I need to get back to this soon. I just need 2014 to settle down already!


WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW
My friends! I kind of freaked out last week and the support I received from friends (new and old) was inspiring and humbling. Hugs all around!


WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

Quite a few things, actually! We took a break at the end of the year, so we didn't do a year-end review. But to summarize it, 2013 was pretty awesome for me (not sure what the level of awesomeness for Alz was - probably pretty good?). It was overwhelming at times, but a lot of that had to do with the cool things that happened: weddings and concerts and geekery! But I'll save that for Friday's 2013 in Review. For now, have this flipagram.



Since the new year, things have been busy and kind of stressful (not always in a bad way), and I kind of wish it would slow down a little. As I mentioned above, I had a bit of a freakout last week because I let myself get overwhelmed by drama llamas in various aspects of my life. So there's that, which I didn't expect thanks to my optimistic spirits from January 1st.

Though one of the drama llamas was trip-planning, which will ultimately be a fun thing. The Sister and I are going to the UK in February, and it is SO SOON and we are SO EXCITED! It's even more exciting because we'll be meeting up with my old Cal roomie, M (yes, the one from my Roomie Story post) over the weekend and going to the Harry Potter Studio tour! After that, we're going with her back to Paris and staying there for a couple days. I CAN. NOT. WAIT. even though I know I will likely also be freezing. Literally.

Also, after 2 years of waiting (I watched S2 when it originally aired), we finally got Series 3 of BBC's SHERLOCK. I'm sorry; I was going to wait for the PBS air date (this weekend), but to quote Sirius Black...

I was actually at the point where I wasn't even excited until I was about to watch the darn episode because the long wait had basically numbed me to the anticipation (if that makes sense). Anyway, Series 3 just ended and my friends and I are once again lamenting the fact that there are only 3 EPISODES A SEASON. But it was fun while it lasted.

Continuing some of the geek chic outfits.

Took my sister to my company's annual New Year's Party. I won a raffle prize, and there was a photo booth, which needless to say is like crack to the Sister and me. We took more than we should have, but these 2 were our best.

And we were reminded of the movie DRIVE when we walked out on to this blue-neon-lit terrace.


Also, this past weekend and adding to the drama of the week was Loki became scar-faced Loki! Friday night, he heard a noise in the backyard, went charging into the darkness, and basically ran into a wheel barrow. We heard a yelp and a clang, and then Loki ran back to us sneezing blood!

We rushed him to the pet hospital, where the nurses told us he was actually okay- just a bad scrape. He had a huge red gash on his forehead and a smaller one on the side of his face, but he was no longer sneezing blood. We realized later it was because he had a bloody nose (like a person), and it had stopped by the time we got him to the vet.


In happier news though, puppy!Loki now has his own Tumblr: Dog Days of Loki. It's life from Loki's particular point of view. He'd love for you to give him a follow!


And if you are so inclined, vote for Loki in our local Animal Hospital's photo contest playoffs! All the winners of the months of 2013 are now in the running, so Loki's in since he won for November 2013 (thanks if you voted then)! Here is the page with all the contestants: TC Pet Photo Contest "Playoff".

This is Loki's entry!

To vote, send an email with subject "Pet Photo Contest Vote" to templecityanimalhospital[at]gmail[dot]com and say you're voting for Loki!

OR if you are on facebook, go to the post linked below and comment with Loki's name to vote for him there!

Post by Temple City Animal Hospital.

Thanks, everyone! Come back Friday for 2013 in Review!

What's up with you?