Your dream makes me want to have a Nightmare on Elmstreet marathon... where you could actually die in your dream...

Mmmmm. . Johnny Depp.  Too bad he died so early in the first film.

Stations.
I think I've mentioned here before. I like her fic, but Bella has a inner monologue like this: we miss Edward. What will we do today? We love Edward.


But those are her thoughts. So I said I enjoyed her fic but that the inner monologue was weird for me.

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I think I'll burn in hell.

This was actually being discussed earlier over on ADF. I don't think leaving a negative review is horrible as long as it's constructive and not just mindless insults. It sounds like you told her what you didn't like so don't feel bad! You're just being honest.

Stations.
I think I've mentioned here before. I like her fic, but Bella has a inner monologue like this: we miss Edward. What will we do today? We love Edward.


But those are her thoughts. So I said I enjoyed her fic but that the inner monologue was weird for me.

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I think I'll burn in hell.

We?? Ooooo, my precious, we will love Edward and our ring....

Sorry, made me think of gollum LOL!! 

Yeah I would have flounced.  Sometimes you do have to give a not so nice review or they don't learn.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, check out: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login for a panoramic view of London. It's awesome.

This makes me want to apply to use some of my huge bucket of long service leave and travel again!

What is this building?


Is this the same building?


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Or do you just have a lot of curvy buildings in England?

I'm so jealous! I was telling DD earlier I've only been to France, Spain and Turkey as far as European travelling goes. Ireland, too. Seeing as the boy isn't interested in going anywhere, my options are basically travel alone or don't go. I feel like travelling alone would be really intimidating though!

I'm too wussy to travel alone, but I think I'm going to have to start because all of my friends are now married with kids. My last few trips have been with my parents, which sounds really daggy/crazy cat lady, but we always have a great time. Unfortunately, Dad is getting too old to travel comfortably now - I worried about him on our last trip to Vietnam and Hong Kong - and Mum won't travel without him so I've lost those travel buddies too.

I looked into some "single lady" travel packages but they didn't appeal - the average traveler seemed to be people who had never traveled, widows in their late 50s/early 60s or crazy cat ladies with no friends - maybe that hits a little too close to home! And the tours offered were the 10 countries in 10 days type of thing. I prefer to see less places but spend a few days in each city.

My 10 week trip to Europe was with my sister, and given her bi-polar BS, it probably would have been easier to travel alone! 

LOL, I live in Europe and love the history here - old churches, castles and ruins everywhere you look. You would need more than a lifetime to see "everything". We always laugh when we see tourists from Japan or U.S. with a travel guide called "Europe in 14 days" or something like that. A friend of mine had a colleague visiting from Mexico and who asked "Is 10 days enough for Europe, it looks small on the map?".    On the other hand, I dream of visiting Australia some day, but it is sooo far away and I cant take a longer break from work, 3 weeks is my max. at one time. 

I agree! Have been to France, italy, UK (honeymoon gift 18 yrs ago), italy, spain and amsterdam (2011) and i just loved seeing the sights. Worth the 14-16 hour flight! I envy you Astro for staying 10 weeks! The most we could do was 2 weeks. You must have visited a lot of countries. Must win the lottery so we can bring the kids next time  Would love to see Germany, Switzerland, Greece... sigh... Too many places to go to but not enough money to do it 

You are in Europe already so the flights won't be as long and not as costly... Go for it while you're young! 

You are soo right. Living in a city with tons of history, we are swamped with tourists throughout the year. That's fun, but lots of them look exhausted. Especially those with the guide books titled "Germany", which are big as a brick, heavy cameras and huge bags (I always wonder what they are carrying in there). Doesn't sound like a fun vavation to me...

I'd love to see Australia one day... but we'll have to wait till the kids are older, such long flights are not possible at the moment... one of us would be arrested, I'm sure!

It sounds like we all tend to let our busy everyday life limit travel, and only leave it for "some day".

I'm very well-traveled by Aussie standards, but have probably seen more of other countries than my own! I haven't even been to Uluru (Ayers Rock) or Alice Springs. I went to Tasmania (possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth!) only 2 years ago! Traveling in Australia is different to traveling o/s because of the distances - you can fly for a day, and you're still in the same country!

I earn 2 weeks of long service leave every year. After 20 years of teaching, I have a huge bank of long service leave and get 5 1/2 weeks of summer vacation every year on top of that. My 10 weeks only ate up 5 weeks of leave - and it is the most awesome thing to be paid  full wages while traveling! The only negative is that my summer is winter in Europe and the US.

I am also very lucky that my parents traveled a lot for business and, whenever possible. they took us with them. (My poor mother - traveling with 5 kids and a husband who is as much work as another 5 kids - she should have gotten a medal!)

I have traveled to Europe 3 times - when I was 10 with the family for 5 weeks in a campervan, when I was 16 in my school choir performance tour, and when I went with my sister. Holy shit! That was in 2005! I swear it was only yesterday!

It was amazing to see the sights as an adult with an understanding of the history. As a kid, I couldn't understand why my parents where so excited about things like the Colosseum in Rome - it was just a dirty old falling down building, but as an adult, I was awestruck too.

The 10 week trip was well-paced and allowed for rest days too. That's really important when you go on long trips - you get too burnt out and travel is exhausting. We flew in and out of Heathrow - one night in London, then Dublin, Limerick, one night in Belgium, Strasbourg, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Prague, Berlin (I had the flu and out of 5 days, only spent one sight-seeing so I must go back!), Amsterdam and back to London. We had Eurail passes but flew for the long distances - thank goodness air travel is so cheap in Europe - it's not here! Apart from the one-night transit stays, we spent a minimum of 3 nights in each city.

We did get a little "churched out", "castled out" and "art gallery/museumed out", so we just mixed it up a bit - there is certainly enough to see and do without seeing an art gallery every day!

You wouldn't see all of Australia's sights in 10 weeks either, but my advice if you come here is to come for the atmosphere - we really are very different to the rest of the world. I'd suggest avoiding places like the Gold Coast - it is just a tourist location. See the main sights - Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge, etc, but get off the beaten track and go into  the smaller towns and meet the locals. That would lead to places like Uluru, the Olgas, Broome, Great Barrier Reef, Great Ocean Road - sooo many landmarks!

And contact your friendly PTS Aussie tourism ambassador - she'd be happy to act as tour guide and buy you a beer!

I go away for 14 hours and so much is discussed! How do those of you that only check in every so often do it?

And it's getting to that time when the rest of the world is asleep so prepare for an off-topic monologue...

this was supposed to be a happy place.
working out does not make me happy.

 

I hate starting, but once I've started and get into a routine, I get hooked. And I love the feeling I get when I've just done a good workout!

I can only imagine what it's like after a really good workout ...
  It's been that long!

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but it looks like Savage7289 is going to pull Surviving Bella and Transcendence to publish.  She's indicated that she's also possibly writing a sequel to Surviving Bella.

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I just heard on another site that SexyLexiCullen might pull Quiet Storm to p2p as well.  Might as well flag it if you're a fic hoarder like me

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I can see Surviving Bella becoming a story but not Transcendence.  Is it even long enough?  I just can't see a drabble fic making a good story...

I loved Surviving Bella when I read it as a WIP - so excited to hear there might be a sequel!

Savage has already published an original fic novella called Otherwise Alone that is only 4 chapters. *whispers* PM for an epub.

Lieutenant Evan Arden sits in a shack in the middle of nowhere, waiting for orders that will send him back home - if he ever gets them. Other than his loyal Great Pyrenees, there's no one around to break up the monotony. The tedium is excruciating, but it is suddenly interrupted when a young woman stumbles up his path.

He has two choices - pick her off from a distance with his trusty sniper-rifle, or dare let her approach his cabin and enter his life.

Why not? It's been ages, and he is otherwise alone...

I read Transcendence just this week. With a little reworking, it probably is long enough

Wrapping up my monologue with a completely random, completely off-topic question.

It's Saturday arvo here, and I've had a busy day - a little weekend sleep-in (till 6:15am ), a few chapters of Win Some, Lose Some, 30DS (Day 4 of Level 2, yay me!), hairdresser for root retouch and a trim, groceries, housework (new purchase - hand held steam cleaner! Great for my OCD, not good for my addictive personality - have even steam cleaned inside my dishwasher and washing machine!!! ) and now checking in on PTS while my washing machine is doing the hard work.

This leads to my question... how do you dry your clothes?

I live in one of the sunniest places on earth, and almost every Australian house has one of our greatest inventions - the Hills Hoist.


And every Aussie kid spins around on the clothesline like that!

Smaller yards and more residential living in the cities means clotheslines more like this nowadays:


I also have a dryer, that I use maybe half a dozen times each year if I have to wash sheets and towels on rainy days. I'd say most people here don't even have a dryer; I only have one because my mum treated herself to a new one that uses less power, so I got the hand-me-down, and it's going strong even after 15+ years. I think the dryer ruins the clothes and our electricity prices are simply outrageous.

I also have an airer that I use for my work clothes and good clothes - the sun bakes the clothes on the line on days like today when there is no breeze and while the clothes are dry in an hour on the clothesline, I think the sun fades them, and they get hard and stiff.

Hard and stiff can be good......but I don't like it for my clothes! I have the airer in my laundry/carport or on my back deck in the shade.

So, cold country dwellers and those that live in flats/apartments/units or don't have a backyard, how do you get your clothes dry? And do you have Hills hoists in other parts of the world?

I warned you this was random!

So I spent half the evening trying to download stuff using Calibre or Fanfictiondownloader & neither was working. I though maybe it was my wifi connection, but flagfic worked.  Though I was having some issues with ffnet.

I guess I'll try it tomorrow again. I'm just hoping I didn't mess up my computer again. I should know better than to download weird programs. Even if they do great things like download youtube videos. 

It's not that there is anything wrong with the programs, it's just somethings are not compatible together. And I usually manage to find them. 

Gas dryer? Please translate into Australian English!

It sounds like husbands don't like travel but wives want to. This could be a new business venture - fishing packages for the husband, Europe for the wives.

Do you have electric powered dryers? Mine uses natural gas to dry the clothes. Though I'm sure there's electric being used for the tumbling action.

I also have a hanging rack I use for stuff that shrinks in the dryer - similar to your air rack.  I would love to air dry stuff outside, but I learned my lesson the hard way when my sheets blew into the dirt - that then became mud

I'm up and awake whilst the rest of my household are snoring away.  I haven't felt this weak since I started 30DS - which at the moment is on the backburner.  It's the stupid weathers fault - it is so changeable at the moment - one day mild and fairly sunny, the next well below freezing - it is snowing again now.

Astro - thanks for the recipe - it certainly looks tasty.

I started reading the samekramer story last night and is good so far.

I use an electric dryer for pretty much everything, although I do have a washing line in the garden for the week or so of summer weather we get here!

I am not all that well travelled although I have been to several Greek Islands, Greece, Spain, France and Cuba.  I am ashamed to say I haven't even done the tourist sites in London!!
We decided whilst the kiddies were little to take holidays in the UK, so each holiday we pick another destination.  One day we may see our capital city.