Wheee, exchanged presents with friends tonight -- well, Amanda didn't have mine there, and Jenny didn't have either mine or Coleen's because her sister stole the car which they were sitting in, and I didn't have Jenny's there because I can't buy it until Tuesday. . . Luckily, however, Coleen came very well prepared -- if not a tad late, but a "tad" late is actually quite punctual for dear Carl, so good on her -- and she had all of our presents ready and waiting. She gave me two Christmas ornaments -- one for our nice, old fashioned pretty tree upstairs, and one for our. . .*cough*. . .somewhat more tacky and what we like to think of "special" tree downstairs that includes ornaments such as the clay reindeer I made in elementary that looks like a large, ugly pile of cow shit with some green pipe-cleaner antlers. I'll have to search for a small photo of the two of us to put in the frame, so Coleen can hang on our tree all the merry Christmas season. She also got me the "tATu" Russian lesbian fun-filled CD which is sweet ass and now she can finally steal back her own CD that I've been hoarding away for months, and to top it all off, a three foot long box of Purdy's chocolate which is great because it's chocolate, and did I mention it's a three foot long box of chocolate? It blows my mind.

Ha ha ha, oh my mom, she saw the homemade magnets I made for Amanda and Lance's presents and she lectured me on how they weren't appropriate. Really, come on now, how are magnets that say things like "fuck up some shit", "lotsa' lesbians", "MANLOVE", and several different pairings of "Lance x Brock, Chris, Vance", et cetera not appropriate? I suppose I should be grateful she didn't ask about the one that said "Jesus is yaoi." There would have had way too many questions for me to find answers to.

Lately, my brain feels like. . .*strains*. . .something. . .not fun. . . *Twitch* I have a million and one different on-going projects in the works right now and it's as if my brain is driving on the 60 km/h road of my imagination and mental capacity, but I'm going 180 over the delegated speed limit -- the gas is running low, the tires are squealing, the paint is chipping, and my windshield is sandblasted and covered with the green guts of assorted tiny flying objects. I've been feeling mentally and creatively exhausted, which is not good because I still have so much to do and none of it is even half done.

First off, Coleen's blog layout is making me annoyed and irate. It's not doing the things I want it to do and the things that it is doing can't be done because Blogger won't let me code it the way that it needs to be coded. I think I've restarted the template layout from scratch five or six times. No bad cookie.
Estimated Progress: 28.999994% complete

Secondly, my "Big Scary Out-of-Control Escaflowne Project" is, obviously, not yet completed, despite my wishful thinking that I would have it done more than six months ago. In fact, it's so far from being done that when I look at it and compare the amount that I've actually completed to that which I haven't, which stretched so far into oblivion and the next ice age, it makes me want to break down and sob and kick many cardboard boxes around the basement. However, this is still my main project for the next while, and I'm determined to finish it and I will finish it. All I have to do is stop eating, stop sleeping, quit my job, kill off the rest of the human race, and lock myself in a little dark room with only my computer and information resources and live as a hermit until I'm thirty. *Twitch twitch SPASM twitch*
Estimated Progress: 20. . .ish. . .% complete

Then there's the one big series of Escaflowne fanart pieces that I'd still really love to complete, one for each main character. I'm done Dilandau and Folken -- drawn only, keep in mind, since I can't color worth beans -- and half of Van. That's two and a half out of. . .ten.
Estimated Progress: 25% complete

And of course my writing. . . Oh, my writing. . . How I miss it so. I went through several months of continually updating my place on FanFiction.net, and now I have nothing to update or anything new to post, which makes me sad because I'm not spending a lot of time writing right now, which is something I really love. I literally have six folders full of brainstorms, dialogue, scene snippits, and assorted one-shot ideas for fanfiction pieces, all Dilandau-centric. There's only about three or four of them that I'm really serious about writing currently at this time, but the problem is that I can't work on any of them until I finish one specific one first. They're not in a series or an on-going story, but in each of them I have to reference things from this one or else it won't make sense. It's like a prerequisite I need to set the stage and give the necessary background information I need in all the other pieces which follow it, which sucks, because it's not writing well at all and my brain is drying up like a shriveled prune, and all I want to do is start on the fun ones. Blah. And don't even get me started on the two or three non-Escaflowne ficlets I have ideas for. Oh Touya and Yuki from "Cardcaptor Sakura," I have such the short little scene for you two. . . *Teardrop*
Estimated Progress: 35% complete

This doesn't even include the three different anime music videos I'd love to work on so I can get back to using my wonderful Adobe Premiere. . . Or the dozens of miscellaneous website details I have to get back on -- revamping BEANS, and continuing to update SLAP SLAP SLAP.

*Drowns her frustration and eats another foot off chocolate from her box*