November 2nd: I am thankful for my rockstar coworkers at Infuz (past and present). The business stuff is just the cusp of what I’ve learned from them, and many have become my closest friends.

November 3rd: I am thankful for being a two-parent household. The fun stuff is better when you have someone to share it with. The bad stuff is easier when there’s someone to shoulder the burden. Also, when you have too much whiskey, someone can manage the kids while you suffer your consequences.

People do that thing in November where they blog/tweet/post one thing every day that they are thankful for. I’m doing it, too.

1. Say “I won’t check tumblr until after I’ve seen the latest episode of that show that I really don’t want to be spoiled on.
2. Check tumblr anyway, convinced I can scroll passed commentary or hastily put together gifs, etc. to avoid spoilers.
3. Get spoiled. Keep scrolling anyway. Get spoiled again. And again. And then about a plot point I care about more than the others.
4. Say “I knew I shouldn’t have done that. I won’t look again until I’ve watched the show.”
5. Check anyway. Chances are there aren’t anymore.
6. Get spoiled Big Time.
7. Say “You deserved that. Now STAY OFF.”
8. Manage to stay away longer to lick wounds. Eventually decide there aren’t any more spoilers. Nothing as bad as that last one.
9. Get spoiled Even Worse because enough time has passed for folks to start sharing the higher quality gifs.

Do as I say, not as I do.

So there’s this show. You may have heard about it. It’s called True Blood. It’s loosely based on characters created for a series of mystery novels, but as the differences grow stronger every season, it’s hardly fair to say they are related. What they do have in common is a slow slide from “oh, this is pretty entertaining” to “wow, this isn’t worth my time.”

At least, the books were slow to decline.

True Blood has always had a bit of a problem dealing with multiple story arcs in a single 12-episode season. Sometimes arcs finish up a bit early or stall out waiting for enough “room” in the season to take over a fair portion of and episode. Some seem disconnected until they tied back into the main line. Some stay unrelated, but wrap up well enough that when they’re over, the characters jump into the main one just in time for the finale. Occasionally, something sticks out oddly and it’s only until halfway through the next season that it ties back in.

This disconnect has gotten worse every season, and this season was awful. Two episodes in, I thought maybe I’d missed the episode where we learned enough backstory about the Sanguinistas and the Authority to follow what was happening enough to care. An entire set of characters behaved as if they’d been there all along and I felt like I was expected to care about them and their crazy politics, but I so did not. Any storyline that was interesting was short-changed to make room for these boring, disconnected monstrosities. A few new characters managed to be clever enough to make an impact, but usually half an episode before they were turned into bags of goo or decapitated. There was so much death on the show that i hardly flinched, evens hen I knew I was supposed to be shocked. …Well, save that last one. I honestly didn’t expect that. Good thing the show lived up to my disappointed expectations by more or less undoing it moments later.

Bottom line, I wasn’t invested in anyone or anything.

So why keep watching? There were a handful of bright spots. Although, save for “The Birth”, I don’t think any had anything to do with the light-obsessed fairies. At least once an episode one of the better actors would get a great line or a great moment. It was enough to keep me going, in hopes that the season would turn around. Sadly, it never did.

Will I keep watching next year? Oh, probably. My enthusiasm has seriously waned, though. Unless the creators take a queue from the mass of frustrated, disappointed fans, it will likely be the last season.

1. Choose an outfit.
2. Search for shoes.
3. Find a pair of shoes that don’t match, but that I want to wear.
4. Try to justify wearing them anyway.
5. Fester and plot while doing hair and makeup.
6. Get dressed.
7. Pick a completely new outfit.
8. Get dressed again.

One of the major things I “knew” was that I wasn’t the sort of girl who sang solos in choir. No matter how brave I was in the group, how boldly I sang when nobody could hear. I was the girl who choked at auditions and never got the part. And if some kind director wanted to reward my earnestness, I was guaranteed to fail in performance.

I was.

I’ve done my best to defeat that definition. I started auditioning, and choking. Soon, however, I found a niche. I could belt out a line from the safety of the chorus that was over before it began. I could force out my gutsy “chest voice” through my fears.

I started tearing away at that definition, but that wasn’t enough. The “pretty” solo still alluded me. I still choked when it came time for Latin or anything else I knew would result in standing alone at the front of the chorus with an untested mic and a voice that warbled when it was nervous.

Tonight, I’m no longer that girl, either. In about an hour I’m going to stand in front of my chorus and kick off our summer concert with a “pretty” solo. If I ever suspected I would have been quality enough at the audition to get it, I never would have dared. I was still working on not botching the audition a few weeks ago.

But that was then.

I mean, it worked. It’s Easter Morning, and aside from any minor gaming I’ve done while writing about gamification for work or testing game-y things we’ve built and a brief demo or two in the name of parenting, I haven’t played a video game since Februrary 21st. (That’s 47 days, btw). So, yay me.

But it didn’t really work.

My goal was to backfill all that time spent playing video games with more productive tasks. I shot myself in the foot by not having a more specific plan than “write some things, read some things, update somethings.” That would have tremendously helped, especially in the evenings. But those idle moments in the day where i’m spending a few moments playing on my phone? those to get to be made productive. They’re wasted time, no matter what I do. In those moments I spent time on Twitter and Tumblr, browsing content created by others. I diligently kept all my apps up to date. Basically, I found proto-games to fill my time without reaping any of the actual benefits of these games. DrawSome took off while I was away. There’s apparently some Avengers-movie tie-in Facebook Game that i’m now woefully behind on. Once you step out of IM conversations, every social interaction online has some sort of game element and I avoided those as best I could.

I really tried when it came to the larger chunk of free time in the evening, but fate conspired against me.Through a series of unanticipatable events (vague, i know. we’ll work on that later), life has left exhausted, and I didn’t have the mental energy left to write. I hardly had the strength to read. I got a bit further in Reamde, but Stephenson was too dense for me to maintain. In fact, the only “to do” item that I was able to keep up on was comics. There were a few series that I wanted to get “caught up” with before heading to C2E2 this week. I did that. I also watched the first season of Supernatural and some of the second. I’m waiting for it to get good and I’ve been promised it will. I stuck it out and didn’t spend any time playing games, but it was frustrating. Insomnia made of worry is a bitch and not having games to distract me to sleep was so very not fun.

There is a bright side to all of this. I learned something about who I am: I’m a gamer. It’s one thing to recognize that a particular game is taking over my world and walk away. It’s important to keep and eye on how much I play to make sure that aspect of me isn’t squashing other aspects like “mother, wife, reader, writer, … employed”. But it’s part of me. Can I go 47 days without gaming? Sure. I could probably go forever if I wanted. I know I don’t “need” to play Skryim again. I know I’ll be able to resist Diablo 3 when it comes out next month. But I like playing these games. It’s one of my favorite past times. I know I could avoid all the gaming apps on my phone and use it This might become harder to do as gamification takes over everything we do and the definition of “game” and “gamified tool” gets blurrier and blurrier.

But then I wouldn’t be me. And that’s no fun.

You know what is fun? DrawSome with my friends. Rocking out with Elmo and Cookie Monster and my kids via the Kinect. The tiny feeling of satisfaction I get when I accomplish some minor goal in one of those build/maintain Facebook games. Spending an evening immersed in a fantasy world where i’m a Dragon-slaying BAMF. Those things are fun and I miss them.

Happy Easter!

We knew before we looked at this house that it was probably a long shot. It had recently dropped into our range, but the description suggested it was going to need a significant of work. The room dimensions were irresistible, the location (although at a relatively high-traffic corner) was perfect. We had to take a look because if we’ve learned anything in this search it’s that you never know.

I fell in love the moment we crossed the threshold.

Completely unlike the haunted house from a few weeks back, this house felt beyond welcoming. Like it had thrown us a surprise “Welcome Home!” party in preparation for our arrival. The more we wandered through the giant rooms, the stronger the feeling grew. I was giggling. This wasn’t a house. This was a home. Whether it was our home remained to be seen, but it definitely wasn’t the sort of place you lived in for a few years and then walked away from. This house becomes the center-point for your entire clan. Christmases, Easters, Summer Barbecues, Wakes. It all happens in this house. You could feel it. This house had seen so many celebrations and was ready for more.

As we walked through the giant kitchen (complete with a butler’s pantry and the original ironing board carved into the wall), wandered through the gorgeous dining room (large enough the 10-person dining room table in it looked almost small), and made our way upstairs, I could see my family living there. And not just “oh, this would be fine” acceptance. For the first time really ever, I could effortless imagine my tiny children as teenagers running through this house. I felt myself age into the grandmother that hosts thanksgiving dinner for the clan. Usually thoughts of growing old make me shudder, but not here. It was amazing. I wanted to live there for the next 50 or 60 years and die there.

And that was the problem.

It was an amazing house, but everything was going to need to be updated. Plumbing, electric, the floors, the kitchen. It was livable, but it wasn’t livable. You’d end up spending 50% of the asking price again before moving in. That pushed it far out of our price range. We aren’t shopping for our forever home right now. We’re shopping for a home that can hold us for the next 5-10 years while the market recovers and we can buy our forever home. Oh sure, we could try to make it happen, but even if we could, it would be at too much of a financial risk.

We had some tough conversations but in the end we decided to pass on this opportunity. It just wasn’t the right house at the right time.

I spend all week struggling with all the “idle moments” urges to play an app on my phone for 5 minutes. I start twitching at work because of the standard work-related chaos that I usually relieve at the end of the day with a bit of Skyrim (or those idle moments with apps). It builds to a head until the whistle blows on Friday. It starts to fade, only to be completely eclipsed by a desire to spend a few lazy hours on Sunday playing Skyrim. Which I can’t do.

Oh sure, there are lots of folks, some even with legitimate catechismal reasons, who consider Sunday a “skip” day when it comes to giving up things for Lent. I have never subscribed to that and I’m not going to suddenly decide that’s totally cool just because I can’t handle it this year. I’m hoping that in a week or two, this anxiety fades and I’ve either resigned myself to my fate or gone completely bonkers without my go-to stress reliever.

Video games, for all their negative qualities, fill some need inside of me that can’t easily be filled elsewhere. I’ve tried reading and writing. I’ve tried cooking, which comes pretty dang close, but it leaves piles of messy dishes, which pretty much negate all the filling. This was a bad idea. Worse than giving up the Internet.

Next time–and I know there will be a next time–next time I give up video games for Lent there will be caveats. Give up Apps but not Xbox. Or vice versa. Limit total play time to 2 hours per week. Something. This is going to get very ugly before Easter Sunday.

Our visit to this turn of the century victorian house started out better than most. This house was larger and older than others in the same general area and price range. It was 3 stories, and for the first two stories everything was fine. It needed a healthy amount of updates, but we really liked some of the features. While we were chatting, we made our way to the third floor: an attic that had been converted into two bedrooms. The first bedroom had an exposed seam along the wall, and Ryan, his dad and the agent set about figuring out why that might be. I have little to contribute to those conversations, so I wandered out and went into the next bedroom.

The second bedroom started off with a small hallway that opened up into the bedroom proper. I took two steps down the innocuous-looking hallway and froze. I was terrified, as if someone had just appeared out of nowhere and screamed in my face to get out. I didn’t see or hear anything, though. It was as if I’d crossed some invisible barrier and a switch had flipped in my head. One moment I was happy and imagining living in the house. The next moment, all I wanted to do was run away as fast as I could. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. I even took another step into the room, trying my best to prove something to someone. Or not appear rude. Or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to stay rational when something so wild happens to you.

“So, it’s haunted,” I said, casually as I could when I rejoined the party.

Because my family and our real-estate agent are awesome, everyone took me seriously while still remaining skeptical. I was skeptical. I try really hard not to believe in these sorts of things and search for rational explanations whenever I can. But this…this was hard to deny. We’ve looked at lots of older houses, and my imagination has led me down some silly, hypothetical paths, but what I experienced in that room is a different sort of thing.

We investigated the room as a group and found the creepiest little door boarded up in the back of the closet (which was just access to the crawlspace that wasn’t converted, but would have creeped us all out regardless). We all had a good laugh and some of the tension lifted. Trying to do my part as a critical observer of the house, and block out all the heeby-jeeby vibes, I mentioned that this room was a bit cooler than the rest of the house. Not uncommon in attic conversions, but noteworthy. Later, I would learn that my husband and his father didn’t notice any coolness. I always forget that’s a sign others attribute to ghosts. It’s probably for the best that I do.

Before we left, I spent some more time in the bedroom and I decided that something bad happened there. Probably repeatedly, which is why enough bad mojo had built up to be detected. I’m fairly certain that what I ran across wasn’t an evil presence as much as it was feral and protective of the house. I spooked it when I entered the room, which is why it lashed out at me. It might have been fine with us eventually, but I couldn’t shake the idea that someone who grows up sleeping in that room grows up a little …off.

Rational or not, that’s a deal-breaker for me. Even without that rider, the house had several challenges that meant it wasn’t a good match for us. We moved on.

This year I’m taking the bold step of giving up video games.

This may sound like a sacrifice more fitting of a 14 year old boy, but trust me, this is Up There for me. No Skyrim, No game apps on the phone, not even the ones that are mostly just project management simulations. The only exceptions I’m allowing myself are the music simulators that are part of our children’s bedtime routines, and the kinect games we play as a family. other than that, it’s off limits. It’s not as crazy as giving up the Internet, but a) I can’t really do that because I’d the nature of my job and b) I’m not that crazy.

Like previous Lents, I’m not just giving up something, I’m adding something in the way of self-improvement as well. While I don’t quite consider Skyrim as “cheap vodka” as it’s counterpart World of Warcraft, it has definitely gotten in the way of other avenues of storygathering and storycreating. It’s time to fix that. As “luck” would have it, I’m also experiencing a complete dryspell with regards to all the TV shows I catch (or try to catch) close to their air dates (that’d be: Doctor Who, Vampire Diaries, Downton Abbey, True Blood and Game of Thrones).

In short, I have approximately 1-3 hours every night of “free time” that needs filling.

So how am I going to do it? Well, I haven’t quite worked out the kinks on that. I need to take a more critical look at the calendar and my goals, but I know that it will involve some combination of blog posting, comic reviewing, comic reading, book reading and that elusive beast: fiction writing. My website is woefully outdated and my professional online presence needs a kick in the tush. There are a lot of projects I’ve let languish that I need to push through before I can let myself indulge in world building, but the goal is to get there.

And hopefully, when Easter Sunday rolls around in …however many days that actually is… and I fire up Skyrim or move my iPhone apps back into view, I’ve established enough good habits to help me keep everything in moderation.