I've been watching old Cupcake Wars episodes on Netflix, and the episode I just started has the "bad girls" of Cupcake Wars (competitors who have been on the show before, but never won) competing to provide cupcakes at a WWE Summer Slam opening party. This is adorable. No guest judges have arrived yet, but I know from reading the summary that it will be Alicia Fox and Layla. SO EXCITED.

This show makes me want cupcakes, of course, but it also makes me wish I was a more intuitive cook, that I didn't need to follow recipes so exactly (and even then, I tend to fail -- I am a survival cook, mostly; I can keep us fed, but I don't like cooking, and I'm not great at it). I enjoy baking more than cooking, but even then, I (mostly) follow recipes to the letter. I think I'm not confident in my skills enough to experiment.

Actually, this leads me to another thought, which is that I had a really bad pottery class today, and a similarly bad class last week, and I need to just accept that there will be projects that don't go all the way to completion. I was doing better at accepting this (I usually work four balls of clay each class, and kill at least two of them), but I ended up having to take a month off due to traveling, and now I've lost all ability to deal with failures. Which are not really failures, I know that, but are getting to me anyway. I ended up just working one ball of clay this week (which I destroyed), and then sitting and watching my instructor throw mugs for awhile, and talk about different techniques.

I'll go back to four balls of clay next week, and keep reminding myself nothing is actually a failure. I don't believe any writing is wasted writing, and I won't believe that there is any such thing as wasted clay, whether it ends up in a project or not.

LJ People: The delightful carlyinrome is doing an LJ-based friending meme inspired by the DW one I linked the other day. Carly knows good people, so I have high hopes for this one, too. (I cross-post everything between DW and LJ, respond to comments in both places, and have reading lists in both places, so this is exciting.)

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Ahahahaha.

Assignment: Nearly 2k on the first draft, I've gotten to the point where I need to review source again.
Treat #1: Source review done, approximately 500 words so far.
Treat #2: Source review in process, outlining.
Treat #3: Prepping source review, outlined, nearly 4k on the first draft. Well, that escalated quickly.

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My Sons of Anarchy rewatch is going slowly, mostly because I am also trying to keep up on current shows, but also because, even though I love season one, I know the darkness that is coming in later seasons. Still, I promised Niece I would finish through season six before January, so here goes. (J is furious with Kurt Sutter based on season seven, and keeps threatening to make a trip out to express his anger. He cracks me up.)

Super excited about Survivor Series, this Sunday's WWE pay-per-view. I love Team Authority vs Team Cena, and have really enjoyed watching each team recruit its members. Since I've been bored with most of the storylines for months now, this pleases me.

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I'm working on culling the things I own. So far, getting rid of clothes has been the easiest, but I'm also working on physical books and DVDs. That is going slower, for sure. I'm still debating on whether I want to get rid of some of my Stitch collection. I don't really have a good way to display it all, but they're so precious. Torn.