heidi | It shouldn't have been as long a week as it's been...

The boys are off on a golf trip this weekend with my parents, so Catie and I have been doing a lot of mommy-daughter stuff, like swimming and going to the Science Museum in Lauderdale and hanging around the bookstore, and things that can get complicated when trying to run three kids of very diverse ages and interests around the town.

Had an incident at Target yesterday where the checkout-person, who's supposed to enter the last four digits of the credit card, screwed it up and charged the whole thing to the card three or maybe four times, and each time the computer told her it didn't go through, but I managed to call Aaron and tell him before he got the "Your Account Has Issues Now" email from the credit card company and they sorted it within five minutes, but still, is there anything more annoying than spending over an hour stocking your kids' camp clothing (bags of socks and shirts and batteries for reading after dark) to find out that you can't walk out wiht any of it because of the clerk?

Teach me to stop shopping at Target (and yes, I know the issues but when it comes to camp shopping, my options are basically Target and Wal Mart and neither are very good options. And at least Target gives a portion of the proceeds to our elementary school).

Luckily, Catie had a book while we were waiting for all of this to be solved, and I had Hunger Games-verse fanfic.

Yes, I finally read all three of the Hunger Games books in a two day spiral into madness last Sunday and Monday. I've been waiting to read it because I wanted to read it with Harry, but he told me he wants to read it at camp with his friend Dawson, so I ended up downloading all three to my kindle-app and read them switching between my ipad and iphone.

I loved the first one, I loved it desperately and it was exactly what I was hoping for. I was impressed by the second one, and the introduction of so many new characters and the feel for the other Districts, which was fascinating.

But.

I had a huge problem with Katniss's lack of agency in parts of the third book, that she was being cared for and protected because she was a symbol, and the continual drugging they did and the way she was almost Harry Potter-ish (well, Harry of books 1 - 5) in not asking questions, but it was at least consistent, so there's that. And there were some moments of awkward writing - a flashback that turned into the present in the start of book 3 threw me so much I had to reread it a few times.

But the characters, overall, were wonderful. And it may not surprise many to guess that Finnick is the focus on my adoration at this moment, and I am devouring any fic about him, or Annie, that I can find (link me to ANY you know of, please!) (he is also Jared Padalecki in my head, at least S3/4 Jared). I want to read more fic about Cinna, and about District 3, too, even though I have weird issues with some aspects of the world-building, the economy, the technology being so askew, etc. Any essays on that, or is it just something to accept?

I had somehow misread a spoiler in the last year that Peeta died - I dunno, maybe it was because his heart stopped even though it wasn't permanent - so I spent the last two books waiting for it and it never happened, and it was a joy that he survived. Are there any fics where he and Annie interact at all while being held in the Capital?

I know many of you have read the books over the last two years or so, and I would like to read your posts, especially when Mockingjay came out, so please, links to those, too?

Are there any icons without the movie cast? I would love at least one "May the odds..." icon in a color I like, and yes I appreciate the irony.

This week is a week to finish a slew of Harry Potter and Supernatural fanvids, the former for my Leakycon project (although I may post them online beforehand) and the latter for the amazing, creative BigBang fic I am vidding for. If you haven't seen the vid/trailer-for-the-series Through the Pensieve, you should check it out. It's the kind of thing that makes me feel juvenile and incompetent re the vid I made for

lubricus2011 over the last few weeks. Sigh. Still, must finish the ones I've planned to do, if only to get them out of my head.

ETA: Me on tumblr, finally. Thanks to