October was a busy month! Not to mention an emotional rolleroaster.

My boy spent a week in Florida with his girl, visiting the grannies. They lavished both kids with souvenirs and outings and tasty meals. There was a visit to the zoo, and two trips to the comic book store my boy couldn’t stop raving about. He had a really good time, and the grannies couldn’t stop telling me how awesome he is. ::grins::





The emotional stuff came after. My boy was thinking he and his girl might have to breakup. They’re having some issues that don’t have a quick fix, unfortunately, and so most of the month he was moping around, not eating, and being a misery. Seems like they’re trying to work through things, so we’ll see what happens.

But also, there was driving! My boy got his permit finally this summer (he’s 22) but hadn’t used it even once. My stepmom fixed that by taking him driving in a nearby park, and when he came home we kept it going. I now have a sticker on my car that says ‘student driver – please be patient’. I’m terrified every time he gets behind the wheel. LOL!





Work for me was up and down. We have two high school ringleaders that make everyone miserable, and when they don’t come to school we can all breathe a sigh of relief. One of them will be ending his time with use by the end of next week, thankfully. But there was good stuff, too – a baby shower for a co-worker, and a spirit week that culminated in Halloween festivities. I’m pleased to say that my group (the main office staff) won the costume contest. We looked good!





Scrapbooking started out sporadic but picked up about mid-month. I mostly worked on layouts with older topics and had to tap my mom for some background information. (My family sources for info get fewer and fewer every year, sadly.) Pro tip: don't take pictures while you're driving, it's really not a good idea. She said, for no particular reason at all. ::smirks:: (I also used to jot down lyrics while driving during my songfic period. Really, no-one should let me on the road.)

Here’s one of the 7 layouts I created last month:





Writing was pretty good. I had a few days where I managed to bust out over 1k words, which isn’t typical for me. I met all the challenges I wanted to and still have a couple active fics on the go. Notably, I chose not to sign up for SGA Secret Santa again this year. I was conflicted about it – a lot of guilt in not participating – but I’ll save myself from being unduly stressed out by the end of November.

Here are the 2 new fics I posted in October:


Title: On Little Cat Feet
Fandom(s): Trixie Belden Mysteries/The Three Investigators
Series: The Inconsistent Witch
Pairing(s): Trixie Belden/Jupiter Jones
Challenge(s): ficlet_zone The Equalizer – Shades of Darkness
Wordcount: 2,924
Warning(s): ambiguous darkness, self-doubt
Summary: The incident with the dark spellbook has sapped Trixie of her confidence as a witch. When something dark shows up in her yard, she needs Jupiter's help to recover her belief in herself and find a way to dispel the darkness.

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Title: Walk in Darkness
Fandom(s): Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Challenge(s): sga_saturday haunt/scare; spook_me graveyard; whatif_au Supernatural Plus One (high school)
Wordcount: 4,385
Warning(s): major character death, murder, bullying, emotional h/c
Summary: When Rodney gets chased into an old graveyard by bullies from his new school, he encounters John, who is waiting for the Lavender Lady to make her yearly appearance. At first it's exciting...until Rodney finds out John's connection to the ghost.