Dia De Los Muertos, Samhain and NaNoWriMo

I hope everyone had a good Samhain and that today will be an excellent Dia De Los Muertos for each of you. These two days open the doorway to Autumn in my mind, and we're now on the slippery slope towards Winter Solstice in December. My Samhain was quite low-key, just the way I prefer it to be. My Dia De Los Muertos is a chance for a bit of retrospection and remembrance. Today I'll be remembering those who have passed the veil before me - my parents and in-laws, my Unci, and this past month, my brother Floyd. 

Sugar skulls and colorful altars are often a characteristic for
the celebration of Dia De Los Muertos. Remembering those
who have gone before is always a good thing. 

Memory can be a filter of your choosing. You can remember the good times or the bad. You can focus on one irritating thing about a person who has gone beyond, or remember the good things. To be honest, it's probably better to take off the rose-colored and the violet-colored glasses and just view memories as what they are - compounded, often only accurate in part, and not a good place in which to spend a lot of time. Memories can be faulty, incorrect, and slanted. If you build your future based only upon your memories of the past, it won't have a very solid foundation. 

I love this quotation by J.K. Rowling. So many times we
hit rock bottom and are looking up, trying to climb up
sheer sides. If you just look at that bottom as the lowest
point you'll ever go, it's only up from there. 

But as we step out into the latter portion of the year, it isn't a bad thing to remember and to celebrate. Those who have passed ahead of us still shared and influenced our lives in many ways. There is no person who will affect everyone in a positive fashion at all times. That's sainthood far beyond sainthood, and Godhood that really doesn't exist. Give me a more balanced view, please. Give me the mother who loved me and supported me, but who often didn't really understand me. Give me the brother who was demanding and sometimes toxic, yet who opened up more doors to me than I would ever have believed. Give me life - because that's what life is. Life is both good and bad, sometimes within the same moment or stream of life. Pain is balanced by joy, laughter is balanced by tears. 

Writing for NaNoWriMo? I'm here on the sidelines,
cheering you on. "Go! Go! Go! I know you'll do it!" 

So I wish all of you a wonderful Dia De Los Muertos, and for those of you doing NaNoWriMo, I wish you a successful day at your keyboard - only 28 days to go after today's writing session. I'm standing at the sidelines cheering once again. But I'm totally in your corner - my voice is calling out encouragement for you along with a large crowd of other voices. Have an excellent Saturday, remember to turn your clocks back tonight, if appropriate for your area of the nation, and I'll be back on Monday. Blessed Be! 

Birthdays, NaNoWriMo Congrats and Mailing

I'm running a bit late today - too much to read and too many friends with birthdays today. Still - wishing friends a Happy Birthday is a worthwhile thing to do - I know it always brightens my day, so I'm spreading the joy. 

I have several friends with birthdays today, so sharing some
virtual cake with everyone seemed like the right thing to do. 

It's getting toward the end of November and I have at least one friend who has succeeded at NaNoWriMo and another who is pushing to cross the 50,000 word finish line. I did NaNo three times and managed to succeed each time. It was a lot of fun, but since it takes place for the month of November, it was also a LOT of stress. I knew I wasn't up to adding additional stress in my life at this point, and also that the stories bouncing around in my head probably hadn't jelled enough to gain any semi-permanence, so I skipped NaNo this year. Considering what my November turned out to be, I'm really glad I made that decision. 

Congrats to my friends who have succeeded in this year's NaNoWriMo, as
well as to those who were focused enough to try. I wish things had jelled
enough to be able to participate this year, but maybe next year will
be better for my time and my stress.
CONGRATULATIONS to all participants and to the winners. 

Tomorrow I'll be starting to address and finalize my holiday cards. The final pieces have been cut to size and are ready to apply, so now it's time to begin printing my envelopes. Usually that goes quite smoothly, but anything can happen - I've learned to roll with the punches and figure things out. What I DON'T want is to have to hand address the envelopes - my handwriting is total chicken-scratch. Too many times I can't read my own notes. I suspect that it would be wiser to allow the computer printer to actually address the envelopes for me. I'll post when I mail the cards so that you can keep an eye out. 

I'm hoping to get my cards in the mail early next
week. We'll see if I can manage that. 

On that note, I'm calling it short and sweet and finished for today. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Enjoy your day! 

Sleep, NaNoWriMo and Get Ready To Vote Tomorrow

Did all of my US friends enjoy their extra hour of sleep on Saturday/Sunday? I managed to indulge in about 30 minutes of the additional 60, which for me is pretty good. Then I settled into resetting all of the clocks that don't auto-set and started a long day of football, LOTRO, working on my holiday cards and more football. All in all, it was a really nice day - even when I temporarily broke the downstairs television by pushing some unknown button or combination of buttons. It took DH about 20 minutes to get it working properly again. I guess I can work with computers, but TVs mystify me. 

I wish I was doing NaNoWriMo this year. I've had a story perched in
my brain for a few months now and NaNo would help me flesh it
out and see if it could go anywhere. But November is way too
hectic to indulge in writing. At least it is this year. 

I know several of you are doing NaNoWriMo this year and I wish I was joining you, but no. I'm not that much of a fool. My time in November is always so constricted and I have too many things on my plate to indulge in writing 50,000+ words during the month. I enjoyed it during the years I was a participant, though, and I still enjoy the daily NaNoWriMo comic which arrives in my in-box every morning. I hope all of you participating succeed in your personal goals. 

Sales of e-books have been increasing annually while those of
print books have been decreasing. In 2017, the sales of e-books
surpassed that of print and audio formats for the first time. 

Writing usually requires some imagination and the ability to put characters, scenes and occurrences into a coherent form for an end reader you've never met. Not so easy, really. I think most authors write because they have to - there's a bug under their skin that becomes unbearable if they don't write. But the audiences they target with their words are different. Not everyone is interested in every genre and not every author's words will resonate with everyone. That's OK. With e-book formatting and self-publishing working alongside the more traditional publishers and hard-copy with the additional format of audio available for all, there's a book out there for everyone and an audience for every author. 

The ads are obnoxious and non-stop. At this point, I think over 90% of
the ads on TV are political. SO ANNOYING! 

So, I hope you all have a wonderful Monday. Don't forget to build voting into your schedule tomorrow if you live in the US. My morning will be totally messed up because of voting, but DH and I want to be at the polls when they open tomorrow morning and just get it out of the way ASAP. I'm hoping we get some time away from political advertising on the television. It's been non-stop and I hate them all! I'm going to swim out some of my election ad frustration and then try to have a good day at work. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Wind and Writing - Or Should That Be Switched?

Happy International Women's Day. The wind awakened me this morning in two different ways - one by howling like a small child who's been allowed to run in circles and screech for hours. Ick! Two, because my phone is set to allow priority notifications only while I'm sleeping, and at 2:30 am I got a Wind Advisory Notice from my weather watching station. Why should I care since it's only March? March around here is the beginning of tornado season and a strong wind on trash day could mean toppled trash cans. I'll have to put my two cans together today, instead of my usual separate on each side of the driveway, and I'll have to keep an eye on things as best I can during a very busy run-around day.

What a marvelous image. I love the whole composition. It's
just about the way I'll be feeling today as we enter our
second day of high winds. They should die down around noon, though. 

It was a struggle, but I finally managed to post my Finrod tale onto B2MeM yesterday. I did the research to get the timeline and characters nailed, and started to write yesterday morning. And I wrote, and I wrote, and it was AWFUL. It was boring and there was no life. It was turning into a historical recitation, not anything I would want to read or put out there. So I worked on the sales floor for a while and thought about my direction.

DH is miffed because I wouldn't allow him to help me with
my poem. Years ago I allowed him to co-write a story
with me. NEVER AGAIN. 

In the mid-afternoon I sat down at the laptop and started again - this time with a loosely structured rhythmic poem. I pulled one together and printed it out, then started revising. OH-the amount of red ink! (Well, actually black ink, but you know what I mean.) The structure remained, the instances remained, but the words - oh, those changed a lot.

Writing a poem - so many ways to drive myself crazy. I've
written some good ones in my past. I don't put this one
into that category, but it will work for the challenge. 

By the time I got home, I was ready to revise on-screen again, so pulled it up and plugged in all of my changes, then began once more. I posted it last night as "An Oath Fulfilled, A Life Well Lived". Am I happy with the piece? I'm OK with it. I could easily put a month into a poem like this and still want more time. But it was at a point where I was willing to let it go and move on to the next prompt.

Short stories vs a novel is similar to an iceberg with just a small
portion visible above water. But, in the case of B2MeM, the iceberg
is a mountain in front of us because it already exists. We're just
planting new trees and digging new mines into the existing peak. 

Isn't that what B2MeM teaches us? We look at a prompt, tailor something to meet the criteria, release it into the vast world, and begin the process once again. It's the total opposite of NaNoWriMo where you build something with a 50,000 minimum word count. In B2MeM, you aren't dealing with word count unless you've made it a part of your personal goal. It's all about precision under pressure. Maybe that's why I love it so much when the prompts and format click for me. The moderators nailed it this time. I'm having a blast!

Happy Wednesday to all. I didn't blow away yesterday, so I'm probably fine today too, but my hair will be knots from top to bottom if I don't keep it braided or wear a hat. Be back at you tomorrow.

I'm Not A Patient Person

I'm in the stage where I have to wait for everything and it's driving me crazy.

I'm waiting for the mail. Things needed for my holiday cards, wall
paper samples, and other items ordered just have to arrive. Until
they are here, I'm stuck in stasis. 

I can't go farther on my holiday cards until I've received the items I ordered earlier in the week. I could cut metal, but I still have to make sure that my concept will work and the exact sizing - metal isn't free, after all, and mistakes cost me out of pocket. I have an array of tasks lined up for me at work, but the major ones - the computer glitches caused earlier in the week, can only be handled before hours, not during the sales day, so I'm limited there.

My muses seem to be liking the closet. Sometimes
I wonder if they will ever come out and play again. 

My muses are still hiding. They disappeared in mid-May when I was fighting bronchitis. I suspect they were frightened of catching my illness, ran for the nearest closet, and closed the door. I see them peeking out every now and again, but they hurriedly pull back and close the door to their safe, dark asylum. I hope that eventually they will come out again, but until then I'll have to concentrate on physical creativity instead of stories and tales.

I have made one decision. This year I won't participate in NaNoWriMo. I've enjoyed it over the past few years and have completed the challenge each year I've signed up, but I don't think I could successfully balance NaNo with the gym and the on-going remodeling with any skill this year. I don't want my stress levels to go completely ballistic, so I'll pass for 2015.

Still - some things are going well. Renaissance Faire opens Saturday and we'll be there on Sunday. It goes through the first weekend of October, so this may be one of those years where I have at least one stifling hot day but end the fest with snowflakes coming down. It will be wonderful to be back outside for these days.

Today is a guppy day - always a fun thing. Have a wonderful Friday and I'll be back tomorrow.

Success! (At Least On One Front)

NaNoWriMo 2014 is complete for me, and I notice that several of my writing buddies are also either winners or easily within reach of completion. It's always such a buzz to realize that I've managed to pull out 50,000+ words again, but am I pleased with everything I've written? Hell no. Still, it gets my thoughts down onto cyber paper, helps me to organize my plot and flesh out my characters, and if 90% of it ends up on the cutting room floor when I finally edit this monster, that's OK. Even though what I've written may not make it into the final manuscript, it all helped me to see my characters with greater clarity and put myself into their shoes for the period of time I've chosen. I have at least one more, maybe even two more NaNo's left before I've finished this book. Rather pathetic, really. But when I'm done, and I have a massive 200,000-250,000 words written, I'll be able to edit, arrange, cull, and polish and, hopefully, have something that will be readable, enjoyable, and publish-worthy by the end of it all. However, one step is a firm reality - another year, another NaNo. Now to return to life.

Three years, three wins and still the same novel (and it isn't
finished yet!) Good grief! But NaNo is a lot of fun. Now to
catch up with my life once again...

I still haven't written the Black Friday email that needs to go out to my customers tonight. I'll be working on that when I get to the shop today, but I hate the fact that I've let things slide this long. I did work on it a bit last night but it's hard for me to concentrate on those things at night when I'm exhausted and trying to relax a bit before sleep. Today will be punishing. I have a ton of stuff to get done and not a lot of time in which to do it. Ick!!!!!

I love making my holiday cards. I started this year's cards in July and I'll
still manage to run tightly to the deadline of Solstice. But I have such
a good time with them, I don't mind pushing things a bit. 

I can, however, finally get back to work on my holiday cards. I'll be putting a general call-out to all of my friends for addresses. Yes, I have addresses from prior years, but I always call out anyway because I want to make sure that my notes are still accurate. Keep your eyes on this space - I'll be posting the call-out within the next few days.

I love books and read constantly. Ebooks have been my total
salvation. I read on my phone with my NookBook application
and I can carry my books with me in my pocket everywhere I go. 

Now it's time to take an opportunity to relax a bit. I think I'll read a novel - LOL. Happy Tuesday to all!

It's Crunch Time

It's crunch time. After a fabulous, warm weekend of temps in the 40's, we're diving down again into the cold and snow of a typical winter. DH and I had a lovely Sunday, a relaxing one since it is the last Sunday I'll have off until after Christmas Day. For the next four Sundays, I'll have the store open from noon until 4:00 pm. It's not a great amount of time, but it takes away from other things I could be doing.

There's not much to my holiday hours, but I do need to get my
signs on the door. This year I'm just running behind. 

I'm less than 200 words away from finishing NaNoWriMo for this year. You might legitimately ask, "Why not just finish it today since you have so little left to write for your 50,000 words?" It's a good question. But I'm at a good spot to leave the plot for a day, and I want to do a bit more than 50,000 because my word count may not be 100% the same as their validation software's. It's always wiser to be a bit ahead before sending in the word count. So I'll bring my characters home, allow them to unpack, and let the school year start before I call a quit on this year's NaNo. It's been really fun to write the modern portion of my story, though. Just seeing the romance bloom between the main character and her boyfriend was so much fun. I love writing what I see.

When two people really click, it's a joy to write about them. My
contemporary characters have become a great couple. 

I need to send an email out to my customers on Tuesday regarding our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales. It would be a lot easier to do if I had made up my mind about what items I wanted to offer for each day. I'm quite torn on that and will need to bounce ideas off DH to see if we can fine-tune this at all. It's frustrating and I feel as if I'm a bit in the dark right now, and I'm running out of time.

What to offer that will bring the customers in to the store? It's a quandary. 

I hope your Monday is excellent so that you have a wonderful week ahead of you. I'm looking forward to returning to my 'normal' schedule starting on Wednesday.

Cruising Along

What a week! I'm still way behind on getting my store ready for our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales, but I'm at least almost finished with my NaNoWriMo numbers for the month. I have less than 3000 words remaining to make my 50,000 goal for the month. After I get this finished, I'll have to put my book away again for a while. I always dream of being able to continue working on it, but I also know that time is hard to carve out in my daily schedule and I have other things on my agenda that have been put on the back burner while I've been writing my novel for the month. At least I still have plenty of plot left in this novel, so I won't have any problem with next year's NaNo, and I also have my second novel underway and have a strong idea for a third. Now if I could just find the time to write every day my life would be perfect.

I'm almost done. Another day or two and I'll have my 50,000 to compile and send
in for verification. Oh happy me! Then again - this novel is a monster that
is creeping along through the years. Why can't I write succinctly? 

I have to get an email flyer out to my customers and that's the next writing challenge I've got pending. That has to be sent out on Tuesday so that my customers will know what I have on sale for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. We need to bring the holiday tree up from the basement and get the ornaments we have for sale arranged on it, and I need to get my shiny garland attached to my store displays. Chickie is polishing jewelry and I'm still stringing up the samples of the newest beads every evening so that they can be out and on display before next Friday. Too much to do!

I wish our tree would look this cute. We decorate our
store holiday tree with hand-made Native American
products for sale. These small pottery, birch-bark and
dreamcatcher ornaments are prized and quite lovely. 

I think I'm going to try and have a relaxing Sunday. I need one. I hope all of you have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday morning. Oh, and per yesterday's post, it seems that AOL has self-fixed their mail problem. I suspect their software wasn't playing nicely with the latest Microsoft update.

Moving On and Frustrations

First of all, I survived my surgery and thank all of you for your very kind thoughts and good wishes. I'm really hoping I don't have to go through anything like that again in my future, but it went quite smoothly and I actually got most of what I needed to, accomplished during the day. After this morning's writing I only have a bit more than 6000 words left before winning NaNoWriMo again for the third year. I got a lot written yesterday because I was supposed to be a bit quiet after the surgery, so I sat down and wrote another 2000+ words. DH spoiled me with bar-b-qued ribs for dinner along with a gourmet cupcake for dessert. Yummy!

I do love gourmet cupcakes. So yummy! 

I'm frustrated right now because I'm having all kinds of problems with my AOL email accounts. My main account which I use constantly suddenly isn't allowing any new mail to show. I can't access anything newer than August, 2011. Three out of my five accounts are compromised in this fashion and I can't get in touch with an agent to figure out what's going on. Getting this resolved is my NUMBER ONE PRIORITY today.

I'm about to pull my hair out over this email issue. It's more than
frustrating. It also means I can't get order confirmations, questions
from customers and general comments from daily subscriptions.
SO NOT HAPPY! 

So I'm really happy on the one hand, and really cranky on the other. Life could be so easy...but it's just not. *sigh* Happy Thursday everyone. I hope yours runs a bit smoother than mine has lately. I'll be back with more tomorrow, and thanks once more for all of the kind thoughts and wishes for my eye surgery.

Where Has November Gone?

In a little more than a week we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving! Then we'll hold our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales. I haven't updated our email list for our sales yet, and I haven't composed he text or even decided what items I'm going to put on sale yet. I'm already out of time and it's only the 18th! I have a bunch of new products that have to be strung, labelled and hung out for display within the next week. I have new products that still need to be processed and there's still one more shipment I'm expecting before Turkey Day. I don't think I've entered the Holiday Season this unprepared in many years. We've brought too much in too close to the holiday to easily catch up.

We always run specials for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. We
don't get a dramatic increase in business, but we usually do get enough
to make it worth our while to offer some deals. I used to shop at other stores
on Black Friday just to get into the spirit of the holiday, but probably won't
bother shopping much this year. 

Having my eye surgery tomorrow also isn't going to help this schedule. I'll want to rest and recuperate, but I won't have any time to indulge in that. My timing couldn't be much worse. I'm keeping up with my words for NaNoWriMo, but Wednesdays are usually a good catch-up day for me and I've got the surgery instead. I'm going to have to figure out really quickly how to work on my laptop with a backup copy, then pull the backup back into current text. I know it can be done, I've done it before. But I wish I had a bit more time for experimentation.

I use Scrivener writing software for NaNoWriMo. I confess that
I totally love it, although there is a definite learning curve. I started
out several years ago using a different, less expensive program, but
switched to this two years ago. I recommend it to any serious
author. And if you're doing NaNo, you can get it at a reduced cost. 

But, whether I want it or not, tempus fugit. I hope all of you have a wonderful Tuesday and I'll be back with another short post tomorrow.

I'm Tired and Running Late - One Wonderful Photo

I'm exhausted, it took an extra 30 minutes to pound out my 2000 words this morning, and my emails have been unanswered for a week or more. I'll be culling all of the chaff tomorrow and hope to get to reading and answering tomorrow. The thermometer says it's 7 degrees F outside, so I'll be bundling up for my day. Cold weather always makes me want to crawl back into bed. I want to find one fabulous photo for all of you for my weekend gift. Let's see what I can find...

My NaNoWriMo story takes place in Colorado with a lot of the plot
revolving around the Aspen Music School. I lived in Aspen every summer
for many years and learned to ski at Buttermilk. Although I never loved downhill
skiing, I learned on some of the best slopes in the nation, all over 10,000 feet
high. Then I moved to Minnesota. Our highest peak  is 2301 feet high, located
 in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area between Minnesota and Canada.
Why don't I ski out here? Ummmm .... because it's FLAT! 

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday morning.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

My new laptop arrived a day early. It came yesterday. That gave me some time to unpack it and try to get used to it during the late afternoon hours. I like it in a lot of respects, and hate it in others. I'll get used to it, but the one negative is killer. It's big.

The laptop is this lovely soft gold color with black. Really sharp looking.
Although I haven't decided on a name yet, the golden color is lending
itself to "Smaug".

I'm not sure when my inability to read dimensions and translate them back to my active brain failed, but it's a lot bigger than I had ever planned. On the other hand, it's pretty damned great for the money and I really like a lot of aspects about it. I don't own a carry case large enough for a 15" length, so I have to get to the office supply store and purchase something. I can't carry it along with me until I have a way to transport it.

Obviously the fact that it was a 15.6" diagonal measurement didn't
compute with me. I certainly thought it would be much smaller than
it actually turned out to be. 

I'll have to get used to working with Windows 8.1 and that's an education in itself. There are a lot of things I really like about it, but many things that are driving me crazy right now. I'm glad I got the touchscreen option because I think that's the most reasonable way to deal with this operating system, but it will take some time to get the hang of it. I estimate it will be about a week before I'm ready to take it out into public. It's pretty, though, and sleek, and light-weight for the size. I like a lot of things about it and I'll get used to the rest.

Windows 8.1 is also an experience to get used to. I'm sure it won't
take too long, but there's always a learning curve when getting used
to a new operating system. 

Between getting the laptop unpacked and playing with it, doing several loads of laundry, checking out new washers and dryers, and doing other errands, I also managed to get a lot of words written. I've passed the half-way mark for NaNo and still have a lot of story to tell. Sheesh! I have a feeling this book will be somewhere between 250,000-300,000 words before I begin editing it. I still have a long, long way to go. But it's a hell of a lot of fun. Happy Thursday to all!

Life Always Throws a Curve Ball

So I'm planning to spend most of today in front of my computer writing and doing my weekly laundry. Since I knew I'd be swamped with time crunches today, I decided to start my laundry early. When I went down to start the second rinse, the floor around the washer was wet with 1/8" of standing water. Watching carefully with a flashlight as I started the second rinse, I found that the pipe from the laundry tub to the floor drain is now leaking. Since that pipe handles more than just the laundry tub, I'm wondering if the shower also drains through this pipe. Time to check it out and phone a plumber to come by this afternoon and change the pipe. Oh joy! Just what I needed!

Right now the leak is small, but I have to get a plumber out before
it becomes a larger problem like this. 

On a positive note, I'm still progressing with the novel and over the speed bump of yesterday. Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words. Sometimes that's all it takes to get me back on track. My goal today is 5000-6000 words and I've already done 2000 so it's looking good. Now to play detective and discover if my shower also flows down that drain. *sigh*

I'm no Disraeli. If I had to read only my own work, I'd be waiting for years.
I'm a very slow writer, or else this is just a monumental epic of a book. 

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Plodding On in NaNoWriMo

Most days I wake up and I'm raring to go. I sit at my computer and write my next 2000 words. But today was a plod; I forced myself to write almost 2000 this morning. It was a section that had to be presented in order to advance the plot further and establish the foundations of a love affair, but I just wasn't getting into it. Maybe it's because I'm tired after yesterday's snowstorm, but I'm just growling right now. I know almost all of this will hit the cutting room floor when I finally edit and so it feels as if I've wasted my time and my words. But, I've almost reached 20,000 (which is 2000 behind where I wanted to be by this point), so I'm progressing.

Have a great Tuesday. Tomorrow will be better, I know!

Small Detours

As I write, I find myself having to take small research detours which dig into my time. Today's was double-checking a city map for the town where the characters were interacting. I needed to remind my own memories of reality, true distance, and some landmark names. I knew all of this because I'm very familiar with the location, having grown up there, but childhood memories can be fuzzy. So I had to take time away from my story to make sure my story was accurate. Thus - I'm behind time again and slightly behind on word count. I'm 789 words short of my planned schedule, so that's not too bad. I'm keeping up with things on the writing front.

Maps can be amazing tools. Right now I need a map for
my town to be able to make sure I remember things accurately. 

I looked at my beadwork project last night and quite plainly - it sucks. I'm seriously contemplating ripping it apart or making some major changes. Of course, if I do that, I'll miss the deadline. But I'm thinking that turning in a really crappy design would be worse than missing the deadline, so I may attack my project with a razor blade tomorrow morning. There's something so cathartic about destruction, but I have to take a very careful look at whether I'd be making the correct choice or not since I would be undoing at least a week's worth of work on the project, requiring a serious alteration of design and more than likely resulting in another year's missed deadline. *sigh* What to do...what to do.

I'm very disappointed with my beading project. I may well have it
in pieces by the end of the weekend. 

Happy weekend, everyone. I'm going to join Chickie at 7:00 am for a nice birthday breakfast at Twisted Fork before I head in to the shop for another day of work. Enjoy your Saturday and Sunday.

A Happy Chickie is a Very Good Thing

Last night I gathered with Chickie, Ann, and Amy at El Nuevo Rodeo for dinner to celebrate Chickie's birthday. She wanted to go there and they have fabulous food, so I was all for it even though it entailed going across the river to the Minneapolis side of the Twin Cities. It was really fun to see Amy again, I hadn't seen her for a year or so, and Ann is always fun, although she's a nonstop chatterbox. After a while you learn to just tune her out and pay attention to the highlights.

The different salsas were really good. The green was the spiciest, therefore
my favorite. The darker red was also spicy, with a more robust taste. The
brighter red would probably suit most Minnesota taste buds the best - Minnesota
doesn't do hot food well. Give me spice! 

We started with chips (fresh made, not bought in a large bag) and dipping sauces of varying heat - all quite good. Then we moved on to the dinner portion which for me consisted of two small cheese enchiladas covered with mole, a grilled strip steak with a charred green pepper, some excellent refritos and arroz, and fresh flour tortillas. It was absolutely wonderful. The mole was bursting with dark chocolate flavor. I wrapped the steak into tortillas to eat with a portion of the grilled chili for each wrap. So good! I cleared my plate, which meant that I ate too much. But I'm not regretting it - it was a rare treat.

The Star Wars Imperial Troopers hoodie was really
fun because it zips all the way up, creating a helmet.
The eyes are mesh to allow the person wearing the
hoodie to see out comfortably. She loved it! 

Chickie wanted a Star Wars Stormtrooper hoodie sweatshirt from Target for her birthday gift. That turned into quite a hunt, but I finally found it and ordered it from their on-line store. The original sale confirmation listed the correct item and had the correct picture, but the shipping confirmation I received a day later, however, had the appropriate description, with a photo of an end table. I wondered if I would be receiving furniture until the proper package was delivered last week. It was too small and too bendable to be an end table, so I breathed a sigh of relief. She love the sweatshirt and was over the moon with it. I done good! - LOL.

Have a great Friday. I'm up to almost 14,000 words in NaNo and looking forward to tomorrow's session already. Happy, happy!

Life's Little Vicissitudes

Smooth sailing is for other people.

I saw the eye doctor yesterday and good news - the swelling is down and the pain is minimal. Bad news - I need to have the cyst, for so it's been determined I have, drained which is eye surgery. It's an inpatient procedure done at the office, but it will involve needles for local anesthetic. I've had these before for eye surgery. The damned local anesthetic shots HURT A LOT. Once I get through that, the actual cut and drain should be a cakewalk. I can drive myself home if I sit in the waiting room for up to an hour until I am no longer tearing blood. Oh joy! That's scheduled for the 19th in the afternoon, so I have two weeks until DOOM strikes.

Doom will strike. Probably not this dramatically, though. I love this picture
of  Volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupting in south Iceland, May 2010

I've been working with the city to try and get a handle on the street parking in my area. We have a university across the street from us and students parking have been causing us all sorts of problems. The city finally put up some signage instructing "No Parking from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm" for most of the block, but they stopped right after my driveway. My DH wants the sign moved to our property line. He's been driving me crazy bitching and moaning about this stupid sign since they put them up on Friday night. If I have to listen to much more complaining, I might run into the street screaming, so I guess I'll have to phone the city today and see what I can do. One more thing on my agenda *sigh*.

I had wanted signs like this, but the city over-complicated things.
Now I have to call Duane and see if anything can be done.
A face-to-face meeting between him and DH might be for the best. 

I'm looking at my to-do list for the day and I can't even read my own writing. This isn't good. I know I have several errands that have to get done today. It would be helpful to be able to actually read them on the list. I'll be spending as much time as possible writing or working on my beadwork project. I should have 10,500 words in to my NaNo by the end of today, and I only have 7678 right now. So I have a bit more writing to do. I keep looking at what I'm writing and I'm so unsure about whether this is actually going to work or not, but I have a lot invested in the story, and if I have to delete a word, a sentence, a paragraph or entire pages in the editing process, so be it. It can't be edited if it hasn't already been written.

Most authors are familiar with the phrase "Kill your darlings". But is it
always a good idea? Check out this link for some different thoughts. 

Happy Wednesday to all of you. I hope you're happy with the results of your various elections from yesterday. I haven't checked the news yet, so I don't know who won in my area, but I'm sure DH will have something to complain about - LOL.

Weekend Warriors

Sunday didn't turn out as expected. I wasn't able to write anything (bummer). But DH and I had a nice breakfast, his football team won (mine lost - boo hoo), and we cleaned the kitchen eating area. It really needed it and we accomplished a lot. Next weekend we'll be raking leaves, so I hope the weather will be warm.

My story has a performance of Saint Saens fabulous organ
Symphone No 3 in it. I was listening to it this morning while typing. 

I did finish the neckstrap of my beading projects, though. And I did get more than 2000 words done this morning, so I'm feeling happier about where I'm at right now. I suspect that a great deal of what I wrote will end up deleted when I edit, but that's not unexpected. It's the way I write.

I ended up ordering a Toshiba Satellite laptop. They threw in a 1TB
hard drive and an 8GB memory and I was able to swing the programs
I needed. It won't have my Photoshop on it until I get more funds, but
it will be able to do my editing and writing projects as well as other
tasks. I'm pretty happy with it. 

Being utterly frustrated with my inability to get my laptop to do much of anything anymore, I checked my finances and ordered a new Toshiba which I should have by mid-month. It's not everything I wanted in a new laptop, but it's really not bad. Once I have that, I can get rid of a bunch of crap from my old laptop and just keep it for working on my website (if I can ever get access to that again).

I'm working on the contemporary portion of my novel this year. My main character
in this part is a musician attending the Aspen Music School. It's been upgraded
quite a bit since I first roamed these grounds, but it's a totally magic place. 

Have a great Monday.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

Well, I have 1669 words into it this morning and I'll continue later today at the coffee shop. However, it's leaving me less than five minutes to write this today. Thanks to everyone for the Halloween wishes and cards. I loved each and every one of them. Here's a photo to brighten your day.

I'm hoping my words for NaNoWriMo flow as easily as the water
over this wonderful waterfall. 

Have a truly wonderful weekend...

Good Samhain to All

It's Halloween! Late last night while watching Project Runway All Stars, I decided I would dress up for work today. So I'm sitting here wearing my old Minnesota North Stars jersey and I'll grab my hockey hat that has pins from all of the old pro teams as well as lots of minor league teams. I'll be a hockey fan for the day. It's an easy costume for me to wear and one that I wore for every home game for years and years. My heart was broken when the North Stars were moved to Texas in 1993. *sigh*

My jersey is exactly like this one. I also have a dark sweater that I wear
on occasion. I miss my team. They left in 1993 and the Wild, although
I enjoy watching them, just aren't the same. 

I'll have trick-or-treaters coming by tonight, I always do. Usually I just get college kids from the nearby Christian university, but we have had some younger families move into the area over the past year and many of them have young kids who may also be going door to door. I suspect I won't get a lot of beading done tonight, but I have to try, deadlines wait for no holiday. But at 9:00 pm my lights will be turned off and the door will be shut to the masses.

Here's a great bunch of trick-or-treaters. I love seeing the kids. Today's cold,
though, so coats will be worn and my number of treaters will be down. 

Of course, Samhain also reminds me that NaNo begins tomorrow and I'll be hip deep in writing once again. My laptop will get a workout and, hopefully, will survive the process. I'll be posting my blog, but it will be a more hurried affair. I'll try to keep up with friend's LJ posts via my smartphone app because I miss reading all of your posts. It's a bit harder for me to comment that way, but I'll try.

I read on my phone all the time. It's my main e-reader these days. But
responding to LJ posts with it does take a bit more time than sitting
at a keyboard. Still, carrying all of this in a single hand-held device
is the closest thing to heaven I can think of. My entire library of e-books,
more than 650 of them, at my fingertips, literally. HAPPY! 

I'll just have to remind myself that the sooner I get my 50,000 words down, the sooner my life can return to 'normal'. Of course 'normal' is a relative term. I'm not sure I've truly hit that definition from day one of my life, but I never stop trying to fit in. Square hole, round peg - that's me.

A square peg in a round hole - that's me. I never quite fit in, but
I'm always willing to try. Then I give up and walk my own road
once more. That's my life...LOL. 

So as you celebrate Samhain in your own way, share goodies with kids and varied adults, and watch carefully for ghosts and ghouls, I wish you a Blessed Day and Night and a safe passage through the next 24 hours and year of your lives.

Have a Blessed Samhain as the year continues its cycle. 

Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween to all!