Happy Friday!

OK, I'm happy today - no really good reason.  My alarm went off too early and I was on the treadmill before my eyes were actually fully open.  That's the best thing about exercising before I wake up - I engage in torture and listening to a favorite audio book before I am awake enough to hate it.  Then I moved to my computer and the morning news.  Much of today's news is actually upbeat!  I am rather amazed.

I love listening to audio books while I'm on the

treadmill.  Just the lure of that next chapter

can be enough to force me to exercise.  

My maps arrived at the shop on Wednesday and I found the very large box when I walked in on Thursday morning.  They are magnificent and absolutely perfect.  The first thing I did was fold the very large and carefully rolled state map into a very thick packet of the specific area I'm writing about.  I will label the locations that I will be concentrating on with Post-its next Wednesday.  I also had five detail maps of the areas I'm concentrating on and need to take a much closer look at these.  The five maps are my topographical detailed maps which will help me with routes and passes, rivers and actual locations.

I want a topo map of the Misty Mountains!

Looking at the maps made me wish that we had such resources available for Middle-earth.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to look at a topo map of the Misty Mountains, seeing the deep valley of Rivendell, the pass from the western lands across the mountains to the kingdom of Thranduil, and the actual heights of the mountains that surround Mordor?  What fun that would be.  But...I am no mapmaker, just a map user, so if there is ever anything more than the Atlas and the six map series, it won't be coming from me.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

I finished my story for the Valinor Awards and sent it off this morning, so I have one story in the works, beta work to do for Lai, and some additional research on my o-fic to do before November comes.  Reading through the introductions that NaNo participants are posting, I am thoroughly amazed at how many people have amorphous ideas floating around in their heads, or no ideas at all, yet they are making this commitment. I guess I just can't approach larger projects in that manner.  But, I'm an organized person, it's how I live my life, so while their approach wouldn't work for me, mine probably wouldn't work for them either.

Final Project Runway judges - Heidi Klum, 

Michael Kors, Jennifer Hudson (guest judge) 

and Nina Garcia.  Good season folks!  

And I'm not going to do any spoilers about Project Runway's final last night, but I'm very pleased.  Congratulations to all of the four finalists and the winner.  Well done!