Jen loves Clark!

Greetings and a Happy Halloween to all!

FYI, I haven't been posting much lately because a) not much to say and b) busy working on a kitchen reno. I'll post more on the latter once I'm closer to completion. To use my old project management lingo, there's been a lot of scope creep, so what was originally expected to take about 10 days has stretched out over 4 weeks with at least a week more to go. Most of my time seems to be spent moving stuff back on forth though, since we still need to cook - not to mention our Halloween baking!

Enough complaining. I really just wanted to share some Halloween pictures with y'all. Enjoy!



( more under the cut )

Caesar was none too happy about playing dress-up, but I couldn't resist.

I went out last night at about 2 AM to walk the dog and it was just the most perfect night ever.  The heat wave had broken and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Even the flies and mosquitoes weren't biting! As for the stars, Sagittarius was due south at its best spot for viewing and the Milky Way was streaming upwards from the spout of the teapot - it was unmistakable that you were looking towards the centre of our galaxy. And then there was the Great Rift caused by dust clouds and more of the Milky Way spreading across through Cygnus and then down to Cassiopeia. Absolutely stunning. There are times I really love living in the countryside and this was definitely one of them.

So I headed home and started to assemble my photography gear to get some more constellation pictures. Camera - check. Telephoto lens - check. Remote shutter release - check. Tripod? Not here, not here, not here, not here, check the garage, not there, go back into the house, not here. Hmmm. Oh yes, must have left it in the car from a few weeks back. Where are the car keys? Not here, not here, not here, not in my sister's purse, not in her backpack or summer travel bag. What about... Not there either. Oh my god, I hope she didn't leave them in the car! No, surely not. Well, maybe she left the car unlocked and I can worry about the keys tomorrow.

So I go out to the driveway and... The car wasn't there. A friend had dropped Barbara off last night, leaving the car in town. In my defense, Barb hadn't told me this because she fell asleep as soon as she got home. But honestly, I walked past the empty driveway at least 4 times - you think it might have registered. Just shows you how unobservant I am.

To give you a hint at what I was seeing, here's a pretty awesome image by amateur astrophotogher, Sean Parker from Tuscon. The reds of the nebulae in this picture don't show to the naked eye, but cameras don't show the full range of brightness that you can perceive with your night vision. (In particular, you can't really see most of the bright stars that mark the constellations in these pictures because they kind of blend in with the rest when you process the image to emphasise the Milky Way. But still, awesome either way.)

Weather permitting, I'll have an even better opportunity to get great photos when we go camping in Algonquin Park in mid-July. I'm a bit worried about the black flies and all, but the viewing there is as good as you can get in Ontario. If anyone just happens to be in the neighbourhood and wants to join us on a Messier marathon, LMK!

I'm currently trapped in my nephew's apartment because the deadbolt thingamajiggy broke. What next, I ask? To add insult to injury, I don't have access to a phone (my nephew uses a cell and my sister took ours back to Smiths Falls when she had to return on Sunday). Thank goodness for the internet!!

FYI, I did remove the screws on the inside of the deadbolt so I can get out if needed, but then there'd be no lock on the door. The super is going to replace it.

Well, at least that gives me time to work on the sv_fca results. Wait 'til you see the stunning work that ctbn60 has come up with for the occasion!

Snow in late April after we had practically none all winter. It makes no sense!

My birthday is officially over but I wanted to say a quick thanks to all my flisties for another wonderful year. Special thanks to:

• patrese1, priscel, svgurl and voldything for the lovely sparklies on my profile
• ctbn60, who made me a sexy, clexy manip - yum
• bradygirl_12, tallihensia, talitha78, lapetite_kiki and ... Oh dear, I know there were others who sent me messages. Thank you all and forgive my failing memory.
• josephina_x for the wonderful story Aliens 601, for Humans
• and tasabianfor the brilliant picspam, Tom: Golf Course Freedom Fighter. I would totally watch that movie.

They were all much appreciated.

I had a pretty quiet day and then we went out to see the Ottawa Senators, who unfortunately lost. Well, we at least had fun heaping abuse on the refs, who were pretty off form alas. And I get another celebration on the weekend since my sister couldn't make it to this one. My main gifts were gift certificates to Richmond Nursery, so I can indulge in my annual May gardening shop. I always wind up buying a lot of plants each year because we get a lot of winter kill hereabouts. But its getting harder and harder to find spaces for all the plants, so I may wind up starting another bed.

I've started to fill out my ballot for the Smallville Fandom Creativity Awards - so many choices! Unfortunately I stopped bookmarking my favourites half way through last year so I don't have a "short list" of more recent fics for reference. This means I'm going to have to do a whole lot of rereading, but there are worse fates I suppose.

Here's a by no means complete list of who I'm looking at:

• twinsarein - I did a speed re-read through twins' list and think I'm going with long-time favourite Shifting Paradigm for Clex/drama/long/overall, Zuzu's Petals for medium and It's Curtains for short/humour
• tallihensia at alatrific - I'll have to look again at the more recent stuff, but it's going to be hard to knock off the Not A Villain Series, Twilight's Secret, Growing Up Familiar and Office Space
• rednihilist - the Colin Luthor verse for series and Teenage Wasteland are going to be strong contenders
• me_ya_ri - The Long Road and The Kryptonian Historian are definitely in the hunt
• danceswithgary - the Kent Identity for best adaptation is an obvious one, but I know there will be others, especially in the short categories since I love her drabbles
• ladydreamer - No One Noticed the Cat and Must Be Dreaming are in contention
• josephina_x - the good news is that she's new to the fandom so I don't have to go back far. The bad news is I really like them all!
• nonotthatone - Carol for one.
• sue_dreams - I don't know how I'm going to choose between these all
• bradygirl_12 - ditto
• phoenixnz - ditto in spades
• babydee1 - ditto, though The Perfect Gift and Agenda have a headstart
• ellyfanfiction - yikes! 79 eligible fics!
• marikology - Stress Fracture comes to mind
• firebunny - she's going to be hard to beat in the humour category IMO
• legendarytobes - lots of lovely Chlark to catch up on
• svgurl - eligible works for a whole bunch of ships
• xenokattz - Lois and Clark's Wedding... comes instantly to mind
• plnunn - how to choose?
• twilighthdfan - ditto!
• roxymissrose - sadly no longer as active in Smallville, but still some lovely stories to consider
• babettew54 - lots and lots of Cloisy goodness

And that's just for the fic! I don't know how I'm going to choose between all my favorite artworks from ctbn60 alone! And vids...

Yikes!!

I haven't been posting or even commenting much lately because of computer problems - the 'r' key on my laptop was crooked (the horror, the horror) so my ever-so-slightly OCD sister started fiddling with it and broke it off. And when she took the laptop in for repairs, they had to replace the entire keyboard (!) so the laptop is currently still in the shop. Fortunately, at least one person on my flist had warned me to get the full warranty so at least I'm not out of pocket. Using my old PC though is practically torture now.

Did you hear that Zenyatta had her first foal on Friday? Here's a link to a lovely video by HRTV showing mama and son on their first outing. They're both doing splendidly! There are also near daily updates in the diaries section at Zenyatta.com - too cute!

I've been learning the basics of digitalr astrophotography and have been thinking of doing some posts on stargazing - I think I can answer 'what does Orion look like' somewhat better than Siri methinks! Anyone interested? Any burning questions?

I'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!


My word was "vibrant." I haven't done all that much lately (yet another setback from my concussion I think) but it just feels good to be alive. The weather here has been fabulous lately - so very atypical for February in Ontario!

Title: The Special Two
Pairing: Chlark (Clark/Chloe)
Medium: video
Type: angst, romance

After one shock too many, Chloe reevaluates her relationship with Clark and vows to fight for their future together. Chloe doesn't go back to Jimmy.

Song by Missy Higgins. Clips from Smallville seasons 1-6 with a couple of scenes from S8. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: created for the secret_chlark gift exchange for the wonderful babydee1. Thanks to simplytoopretty for all her work organizing the event.

Download link: .wmv file (47 MB)

Streaming video from viddler*:

* alas, YouTube blocked the audio :( I recommend using the download link for somewhat higher quality.)

PS - Wow, it took 4 hours for me to do a few vid revisions, reupload and type this in. I guess I'm still a bit muzzy from the concussion!

I haven't posted recently as I've been so busy with the holidays. No idea where all the time went, though I did get in lots of baking (though not as much as last year - I focused on my favourites instead this time round), shopping (not just my own but I also stepped in for my sister and got a few for my nephew as well), cleaning (ugh) and all round busy work. Not to mention Christmas dinner and the inevitable tons of dishes (no dishwasher here - boo). And last but not least, turkey soup - a nuisance to make but a delight to eat (all 2+ gallons of it!!) It all turned out quite well - especially the tree. I do love our collection of ornaments - which is your favorite?



(More Christmas pics at my facebook album)

On a fandom note, I've really been enjoying the goodies over at clexmas, and can't wait for the postings to start at secret_chlark. Yes, I love both ships (and Clois too) thanks to all the talented writers and artists out there. Thank you all! Here's to a fabulous 2012.