Jen FitzGerald's Blog, page 107

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It's my birthday today, though that's not my cake... If I made a cake, it'd be pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.

As mentioned, Wednesday, I received my birthday present and my cool new purse. I ordered some stuff for my Sherlock sampler and at least one of those packages will arrive today, so it'll be like more presents!

And then I get to leave work early today and go enjoy annual JAG get together weekend with the JAG contingent of my friends.

Sunday will be lunch with some other lovely ladies and then dinner with the family.

So it's been a wonderful birthday week!!

I'd also like to send congratulations to my friend Lara, who occasionally stops by the blog--she and her hubster have welcomed their new baby into the world. CONGRATS!!!

Happy Early Birthday to Me!!!

 So Friday's my birthday, but through a quirk of circumstance, I ended up with my birthday gift a couple of days early!
 I have a brand spanking new Lenovo tablet. I love my iPad, but the sweet thing is so old it won't upgrade to the latest operating system and therefore I can't download any new apps or update some of the others I have.

On this new tablet, I have access to all my various email accounts, all kinds of TV show watching apps, as well as my social media sites. Plus there's a camera and an FM radio! Too cool.


In addition to my new tablet, my new I-survived-running-my-chapter's-writing-contest reward also arrived. Last year, I bought myself this...which I still have and still use. But it's a little large. Though great for traveling as I discovered last fall while visiting Sonshine at boot camp.


My reward this year, in honor of a new fandom love, I got this...



Yep--a purse made out of a book. :) I'm so terribly excited. Sometimes a gal just needs to let her fan girl tendencies run amok.

That pattern there, on the second picture, it's the pattern of the wallpaper in the BBC's Sherlock 221B set!! How cool is that?? Can't wait to show it off.

Are you a fan person? There are all levels you know, from lurker to fan writer or fan artist to cos player or podcast producer.
Do you participate in any fandoms at any level of fannishness?? Do tell!

Movie Monday...er...Film Friday??

Yeah, I watched the movie Pride the other day. It was really good. It takes place in the mid-80s during the coal miner's strike in Great Britain. So basically a group of gays and lesbians decide to support the coal miners by collecting money.


So basically I came across this as one of the actors of Sherlock has a role in it, so...I watched it, and you know, it was really good and it was funny. There are some poignant moments as well.

From Wikipedia: Based on a true story, the film depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners' strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign.The National Union of Mineworkers was reluctant to accept the group's support due to the union's public relations' worries about being openly associated with a gay group, so the activists instead decided to take their donations directly to Onllwyn, a small mining village in Wales, resulting in an alliance between the two communities. The alliance was unlike any seen before but was successful.

I'd only seen Imelda Staunton as Umbridge in the Harry Potter films and she was an evil character. In this movie she's a good guy, so that was nice to see a different side to her acting.

I give it a movie rating of 8.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Getting crafty...

First of all -- before we get to the crafts -- I need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my MOM.




Hope you have a super day!!

My love of crafts came from my mom, so what better way to pay tribute than by talking about my crafts. I still haven't quite finished the last Christmas ornament I need to make. I'm so close to being done it really is ridiculous. I need to just get it finished and sent it on its way....
I've been working on a secret fan craft project for the last couple of weeks as well. I can't share it yet since I'm making one for a friend as well as one for myself, and I don't want her surprise to be spoiled. I'm putting it in the mail here in the next few days, so once she receives it, we'll have the big reveal.
And the next big this, which I'm super excited about is a cross stitch sampler...fan girl style! Remember last year I made this for my friend Michelle...
Well, I'm making myself a SHERLOCK sampler for myself to in my office with my autographed pictures of Sherlock and Mycroft...



I've seen a couple in Pinterest and I'm using those as a guide to design my own. It's be awhile to get everything designed and laid out the way I want it and still more time to stitch it, but I'm looking forward to it.
Anyone else crafting??

Music Monday

We're gonna do one more week of country music, then move on...

Now last week, I talked about some country music greats, but I missed a few big names--all women--so this week I'm gonna mention some of the hottest country women artists of the 80s...

My favorite was K.T. Oslin... She probably isn't that well known, but her song "80's Ladies" won a Grammy as well as being named the Country Music Association's Song of the Year in 1988.




My favorite K.T. Oslin song, however, was "Hey Bobby." Don't ask me why--I was 20.


A few other big names (and my other faves) of the decade were...

Reba McIntyre...


Wynonna...

Trisha Yearwood...


Lori Morgan...


Enjoy and have a great week!

Here Comes the Sun

No, it's not Music Monday, but we've had a pretty soggy time of it here in Texas so the title seemed fitting.

We're nearing June and we've had so much rain. We've needed it, there's no doubt, though maybe not so much all at once. I have to imagine that just about all our 254 counties should be out of drought conditions by this point. According to one station, our local PBS station, this is the wettest month ever in recorded history. I can well believe it.


My yards are saturated, and puddles sit for hours. The lawn leaks down the driveway for hours as well.


I can't say I'm displeased with the fact that I've had the lowest electricity bills for the last two months since we haven't had to run the AC much, but I'm ready for some sunshine and, yes, some heat.


Have a great weekend--may the sun be with you!

Blast from the past...

So back in the day, I was a fan of General Hospital. Remember Luke and Laura, Robert and Anna, Patch and Kayla? Well, GH also launched the musical careers of at least two young artists--Rick Springfield and Jack Wagner.

Who remembers Frisco Jones??


Imagine my surprise as I'm watching the Hallmark Channel series, When Calls the Heart, last week and I see this character and I'm thinking, "man he looks familiar."

I finally see some credits and think--goodness gracious, that's Jack Wagner from General Hospital!

Jack Wagner these days...

What a difference a few decades make!

Music Monday

Weekend before this one just past, I went to my in-laws house. We had a lovely evening visiting and eating (food's always so yummy) and listening to music. We also played dominoes, which was great fun. We got talking about how Forty-two (a domino game) was much like Spades (a card game) and I remembered how much fun I'd had as a teen learning to play Spades with my dad and step-mother. And I determined that I needed to play Spades or Forty-two more often.

But as this post is supposed to be about music, let's talk about that. My father-in-law loves music and what get together is complete without it? Now, FIL loves all kinds of music, but we ended up with some really classic country, which also reminded of my dad, who also love all kinds of music.

You know, they just don't make country music like they used to, so today I'm going to share a couple of my favorites from when I was growing up (the 80s).

Overall, I'm not and never was a huge fan of Willie Nelson, but I love his cover of City of New Orleans.

 
Johnny Cash is another country music/folk music/gospel music great of the  50s, 60s, and 70s. It's hard to choose just one favorite, but I'm going with one of lighter tunes, A Boy Named Sue.


And last but not least, let's add a feminine voice to the mix. How about Helen Reddy? I really only know the songs featured on her Greatest Hits album, so let's go with the song that rocketed her to stardom.



Hope you had/are having a wonderful long weekend. Remember those who died that we remain free...

Pushing Past the Self-Doubts and the Fear

For the past two months I've been hard at work on a brand new book. My track record is abysmal when it comes to actually finishing, I will admit, but I really love these characters and really do want to share them with the world.

The last two weeks have been a struggle for me and this is probably the point at which I've given up and quit in the past, but I've continued on even if I only worked on it for half an hour, fifteen minutes, five minutes...

(This is how I feel--overtaken by doubt and fear...)
It probably wasn't the best timing to take a particular online class either as now I'm worrying about that aspect of my book. I will admit to not working on it at all for a few days here and there, and reading when I should have been writing/revising. It definitely helped get me back to work to have writer friends encouraging me to stick with it and asking to read the book. (Well, that also a little scary, frankly.)

So I've put on my big girl panties and gotten back to work with determination to get the story to a good enough state to send to one of my critique partners. (She's not too scary.) She keeps asking for it. I'll see what she has to say and then make yet another pass at it and see where it stands.

I thought this was appropriate--end of story, you know THE END...
Anyway...

Special Delivery from London via Germany

Look what I got!!!!!! Fan girl swoon moment, let me tell you--

 Sherlock Holmes played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Mycroft Holmes played by Mark Gatiss.
I have a dear friend named Janie Crouch--we're online writing buddies. But we're also Sherlock and Benedict Cumberbatch fan girls. We seem to be the only two in our shared circle of friends and I can't tell how fun it is to gush over the show, the characters, and fan fiction.

Recently, Janie moved to Germany as her husband got transferred there for his job... And since she was so close to London when the Sherlocked convention took place, she was lucky enough to be able to go.

She graciously sent me the autographed production stills of these two since she actually had her picture taken with them both. (I'm sooo jealous.)

They have been suitably framed and are hanging and spare nails in the dining corner of the kitchen for the time being...

(not the best image...at a bad angle {I'm short!}and with not so great lighting)

As a way of thanking Janie, I'm sharing the fact that Janie has a new book out--Untraceable from Harlequin. So if you read romantic suspense, take a chance and buy her book.