Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms on my flist – I hope you’re having a wonderful day! I’m looking forward to calling my mom later and chatting. I feel very fortunate to have a mom who I get along so well with, who I can talk about almost anything with and who’s so supportive of everything I do. Soon she’ll be moving to Toronto and I’m looking forward to living in the same city as her again, there’s often so many things I wish she and I could do together so it’ll be nice to have more opportunities to do that. Today is also a day I recall my grandma fondly and think about what an important person she was (and still is) in my life, and in my mom’s life. She’s very much missed by both of us, but she’s in our hearts.

So, that may give you a hint that I’ve been down recently which is why I’ve been mostly absent from LJ. It’s also been super busy at my work what with launching a bunch of new things (which I was responsible for) as well as giving performing reviews – being a manager of department is a lot of work (yeah, I know – duh!). Although I am pleased that an incentive programme I launched has been embraced by my customer service representatives (because – I believe – they all work together for a goal, instead of competing against each other) AND that the first month was a success and they exceeded their goal. Still it’s been a stressful time which has culminated in me having much trouble writing fic recently – and I have been despairing because my posting day for spring_with_xan is this Thursday and I only have two chapters of Outside Pride written (I’d wanted to already be finished all of the remaining five). But I’m reassuring myself that if I continue to be blocked, at least I have two chapters to post.

Anyway, enough of emo!cordelianne! I like my LJ to be a fun, positive space for me, so instead I thought I’d give you an update of my life, in list form. So here's What’s Making Me Happy Right Now:

1. I got my hair cut and I’m so happy with the new look! It’s much shorter but still curly (and possibly emphasizes the curls more), and I feel it’s fun and stylish and cute. I love my hairdresser, he and I chat the entire time, and even though I ineptly described what I wanted my hair to look like (I grabbed the long bits and said “I want these gone”), he somehow knew and did exactly what I wanted.

2. Inspired by the haircut, I bought some cute new spring/summer clothes – shopping always makes me happy. I’m especially pleased by the purchase of this dress.

3. I will be seeing my girlfriend is just 10 days!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And now you know the real reason for the new haircut and new clothes – hee!) I am so excited about getting to spend time together again (in person) and to also have a vacation.

4. Vacation!!!!!! Oh man, I totally need to get away from work and from the city.

5. Dancing with the Stars is such a glee-inducing experience for me. Each week it delights me (with the possible exception of Billy Ray’s annoying complaining). AND I got a free ticket to see Burn the Floor presents Floorplay, a “collage of dance styles including salsa, rumba, cha cha and tango all with a sexy, modern edge.” After watching the stars learning to do these dances on DWS, it was fun to see professional dancers doing a two hour performance. A really fun show!

6. Friday Night Lights!! I have finally caught up and seen all the episodes of FNL and am absolutely and totally in love with this show. It has such great writing, nuanced acting and is beautifully filmed – and I love the scoring and music too! Thank you to my flisters, whose love for the show inspired me to find the time to watch this wonderful show. I am going out on a limb and saying it’s the best drama on TV.

7. Show renewals!!! I am ecstatic that both Friday Night Lights AND 30 Rock were renewed by NBC, despite their low ratings. It’s so exciting that two of the best shows on TV (30 Rock is fast becoming my favourite comedy show) will be around next year. And I’ve heard that How I Met Your Mother may be renewed which delights me to no end!

8. The karaoke scene in Gilmore Girls. That had me on a shipper high for days and days. I’m not really a canon shipper, I tend to enjoy how relationships play out – except in the case of Luke/Lorelai who I madly ship. I’m hopeful that the series finale – which although I’m sad about, I do think it’s time for the show to conclude – will end in a satisfying way.

9. Harry Potter! I’ve been re-reading the books, and just completed Goblet of Fire. It’s so much fun to immerse myself in that world again, and it has me even more excited for the final book (and the new movie!).

10. My busy schedule (in which I’ve been accumulating lots of overtime to use for my vacation) has meant I’ve had very little time for fic reading, but one fic (technically fics) I read and LOVE is: apreludetoanend and savoytruffle’s This is Not a Trilogy which you can find here in tags or here in memories. There are three stories: This is Not a Story, These are Not Enchiladas and This is Not My Beautiful Wife. The stories (all Spike/Xander) start from the same place and veer off in different directions. They can be read on their own, but I’d recommend reading them all. Even though each story is different, it still has this neat feeling of each story building on the previous one and sort of forming this dialogue with the other ones. Also, the stories crackle with wit and have lots and lots of fun pop culture references, as well as poignancy, sexiness and awesome character voices.

So that’s my update! I hope you all are doing well, and I shall be endeavouring to be better about commenting. *hugs*