Writing, Food, and Life

The Great Switch!

2010-11-02T10:32:00.002-05:00

(I just finished watching 'The Great Escape," feeling dramatic at the moment!)

Welcome! If you see a pink up there ^, then you're at my new site! I decided to make the switch after tons of positive WordPress feedback form various sources, and the fact that a way to move my followers was found. :)

If you still see orange up there ^, click HERE. Please follow me again, or bookmark me, or however you want to kept updated.

Midterms started last Monday, so I completely spaced the whole blog thing for the week. Oops!

NaNo started yesterday! I hit my goal of 2k! Ended with 2028. Shooting for another 2k today. After homwork. I really want that 3.5 GPA this semester.

Happy Writing to you all!

Ready for NaNo?

2010-10-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

I am! I have a very loose outline. I am not comfortable with that. I want a tight outline, but I still can't figure out the middle.

I will have one mid-term after NaNoWriMo starts - sucky. At least it's not till the 5th.

Sadly, I have class the morning of the 1st, so staying up late and starting at midnight is not in the cards for me. I am so writing while in class. I swear, my professor repeats everything he says on Monday, on Wednesday. If it weren't for attendance rules...

Are YOU ready? (If you're participating...:D)

It's Friday?

2010-10-22T09:01:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning and swore it was only Wednesday. This week went by crazy fast.

As for my possible switch to WordPress - I got excited. We found a way to move my followers. Then the server started having issues.

Went down for maybe an hour the other day, having issues right now. I'm not switching until they get it figured out. I don't want to send you to a slow and crashing website!

Means I'm shelving the website moving until after midterms. They start Monday, end Friday.

Probably why I'm so frazzled!

And we have a minor emergency here, Zeus ran out of chewies! The world is ending! So I am off on an emergency store run, and I'm praying he doesn't chew anything up while I'm gone. He hasn't been left home alone without a chewie in a long time. Last time he chewed up something. My husband's xbox headset I think. And some paper.

He loves paper. So odd.

Middle drama!

2010-10-20T07:48:00.000-05:00

I know how it ends, and how it begins. How she gets from being a hard ass reporter to being a 100% selfless person is an issue.

I'm lost, and I'm only at the outline stage!

How do you get through the dreaded middle?

Quick Post - Poll

2010-10-19T21:20:00.000-05:00

Blogger or WordPress?

I love the WordPress design, but I'll lose all my lovely followers. Blogger is just super simple.

Hmm.

Lemme know what you think!

Why?

2010-10-18T07:26:00.000-05:00

One little question that can cause so much angst and joy.

I've found asking myself why after every little bit of action has added depth and a realism to my stories. It's a recent discovery and as I am still a fledgling writer, I'm sure many of you already do that.

Author - A
Critic (muse in disguise.) - C

A: FMC moves to Smallville USA
C: Why?
A: Because that's where she meets the love of her life!
C: But why does she move there?
A: Uhh...

A: Teenage MC runs away.
C: Why?
A: Because she thinks the cops are after her.
C: Why does she think that?
A: I don't know, but I know she needs to be running from the cops so she won't call them when the bad guy harasses her then finally kidnaps her and keeps her locked in a basement.
C: Uh huh. Did she do drugs?
A: No! She would never touch drugs!
C: Did she steal something?
A: No! She would never steal!
C: Did she do anything illegal?
A: No! She's a very good person.
C: Then why would she be afraid of the police?
A: Uhh...

C: Wait, why was MC in the bus crash?
A: Because MC has to take the bus to get around.
C: Why didn't he take his car that he bought last chapter?
A: Uhh...

And so on. (Not the best examples in the world, just what's popping in my brain at the moment.)

One little word can cause major transformations if asked at the right moment.

Yay writing!

Random Short Post

2010-10-15T23:49:00.001-05:00

Friday's Baking didn't happen. I had plans for lemon filled cupcakes. Got too busy. Next week!

I'm also now the copy editor for my friend's fledgling tech blog Tech Squawkers. I've only had admin access for like one working hour, so it still has some minor issues..:D (And it's a freebie favor. Gives me experience and gives him better grammar!)

Random writing note:
I not a pantser, I never will be. I'm in full fledged outline mode. It's awesome.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Training My Brain

2010-10-13T05:58:00.001-05:00

As many of you know, I’ve had a heck of a time sticking to any sort of writing routine. Now that I no longer have carpal tunnel, I saw no major roadblock to establishing one.

Yeah. I had to change my goal from writing everyday M-F on my WIP, to writing anything every day.

I’m at the point where I can sit down and write, but it’s rambling. Even sitting down to write this blog post is taking way longer than my rambling writing. I understand why. It’s a lot easier to write without thinking about it. I need to get my brain back to being able to do that with novel writing.

Right now, if I sit down to work on my WIP, my brain goes ‘hhhuuuuuhhhhh?’ and wants me to babble about what’s for dinner and the dog doing something cute. It takes me a while to get my brain focused. I’ve started trying a couple tricks to get my brain in gear before I even open the blank word doc, or the day’s 750words page.

Review what you wrote last writing session. (Only for WIP sessions, not my babbling about how cute Zeus is being.)
Actually sit and think for a moment about where I want it to go next. What needs to happen, how it could happen and how to make it interesting.
Open whatever I’m planning to write in, jot down the notes I’ve come up with in my head.
Look for holes.
Fill holes.
Begin writing.

Prepping this way is an odd concept for me. I don’t have an outline for my current WIP. I'm kinda creating the outline as I go. If I don’t think about what needs to happen before I start writing, I end up sitting there staring blankly at the screen or I’m off folding laundry.

It’s odd. The novel doesn’t want to be outlined, I have come to accept that.

I’m an outliner pretending to be a pantser. :D

In November, with the start of NaNoWriMo, my goal will change from writing just any words, to writing words on a novel. I know the pace is insane. But I'm hoping by then I'll be so used to doing the steps above, I'll be set.

750words.com

2010-10-11T06:31:00.003-05:00

I'm back! My wrist is healing well. I am super happy with the results so far. Yay! I discovered 750words while on the mend and I instantly fell in love.

For those of you with established writing routines, I doubt you'd find this site useful. But those of you (like me!) who don't have one, this could be a wonderful tool.

Basic concept, write 750 words (any words) everyday (on the site or you can copy/paste. If you copy/paste, some of the stats will go wonky), the words are kept private.

My goal with using the site is to establish a writing daily writing routine. I've had a very hard time in the past. I would blame stress, but really I'd get interrupted because I simply couldn't type anymore without pain.No longer a problem!

So far I've only missed one day. Killed my ten day streak. :( But that's okay, I had a ten day streak! :D

I hope everyone is having a non-Garfield Monday!

Surgery Went Well!

2010-09-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

My carpal tunnel release surgery went well. I'm home, typing one handed and on pain pills. Getting the stitches out in a couple days, if all looks good I should be pretty much healed up by this time next week.

That would be wonderful.

Hope is to be back posting next week. Writing updates, life tidbits and food of course!

I'm so happy at this thought: In a single day, I should be able to make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, write at least 1000 words, and fold the laundry. Without pain. All in one day. I don't think I've even managed two of those together without major pain in a long time.

YAY

Okay, enough pain killer induced rambling from me.

Later!

Going on Hiatus

2010-09-13T09:06:00.000-05:00

This may be blog sucide, but I'm putting my blog on hiatus until I'm healed up after my carpal tunnel surgery.

The magical shot that made my wrist pain free has worn off completely. It only took six days for the pain to start to return. Now it's back full force.

My surgery is in two weeks, then supposedly only a week max of recovery. Three weeks means October.

I probably will be lurking around the blogosphere, commenting when I just can't resist, but I doubt I'll pop in with a post.

See you in October!

Never Forget

2010-09-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

Sending you over to David Ursillo's blog post today: Forever Remember 9/11

It's a tearjerker. It's a good reminder.

Oh My! A Post!

2010-09-09T06:42:00.000-05:00

Between my wrist, school and life in general, I got a wee bit distracted from the blogosphere.

I'm not getting anywhere with my Average Joe outline, despite the fact that I can now type at a pace I haven't in probably a year. (I did a quick online wpm test, came back as 89 wpm. Woot! - I got the steroid shot for my wrist, major improvement, but not 100%) I've been trying, but nothing good is coming to me.

Average Joe is stale. I like the bones of the story, I like the changes Joe will have to go through. But that's it. Anything I try to add to the outline is just filler, and it sounds like filler.

I've decided I am going to start writing it. That has my brain screaming in panic. It doesn't believe me that venturing into the unplanned isn't a death sentence. I believe it's what needs to be done. This story idea wasn't planned in the least bit. All the good parts I have came to me while writing little snips of a scene for the 2YN class.

I don't know how long it will be, I don't know if it will stay comedic. I just know that outlining is not working for this story. Time to try something scary and new.

Time to try being a pantser!

Short and Sweet

2010-09-01T07:05:00.000-05:00

Still in crazy pain. Getting the shot tomorrow afternoon. Steroids - woohoo! ... yeah.

Classes started for me Monday. Only taking 3 this semester, I registered late, there were only so many open spots.. I'm not paying for a class I don't need, so I get to take 3.

I managed to work on my 2YN outline last night. No where near finished, and I need it to be. I'm pinning my hopes that this shot will really help.

And in the sweet world. Next time I make cupcakes, I'm trying this frosting: That's the Best Frosting I Ever Ate.

Have a great week everyone.

Friday's Baking - Favorite Baking Blogs

2010-08-27T08:18:00.000-05:00

No baking this week.

Bring on the blogs! These are some of my favorite baking blogs, linked to one of my favorite posts.

Bakerella - Thank You War with Cakespy

Tartelette - Birthday Cupcakes

^ These two, their photos rule.

Go Dairy Free - Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies
I will someday actually attempt going dairy free. (I'm lactose intolerant.) But it's very hard with my husband home, wanting all sorts of cheeses and creams.

CakeSpy - Nanaimo Bars
I have yet to try these. Homemade or not. They look divine though.

Mini Baker - Bite-Size of HEAVEN (Mini Cookie Dough Cheesecakes)
A recipe after my heart - cheese cake and cookie dough all snuggled up together. Yum.

What the Whisk - Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake
She seems to be on a new baby break.

There are a plethora of awesome baking blogs, this is just a sample.

TGIF!

Should I Attempt NaNoWriMo?

2010-08-25T07:29:00.025-05:00

I know it's a bit early for the NaNoWriMo craze to begin. (Linked in case you haven't heard of it.) My wrist will be (hopefully!) fixed by then. I may actually be physically able to keep up the writing pace along with my school work.

These last couple years my wrist just would not cooperate. Ultimate procrastination on getting it fixed, I know. Takes severe motivation (ok ok, severe pain) for me to be okay with someone cutting me open. While I'm awake.

Aliens and Flying Spatulas of Doom! (Now titled Average Joe.)
I want to work on my 2YN (a.k.a. 2 Year Novel, now titled Average Joe, shortened in my notes to 'AJ') outline so bad. I've hit a good spot.

But alas, my wrist is burning. Ice and insanely strong doses of anti-inflammatory medications are my friend right now.

Writing & Life^

Food:

No clue what will get posted Friday. Something to do with food. I may have to skip out on baking. Might share a few of my favorite baking blogs instead. (My wrist needs time off. If my husband knew I was typing this, he'd kill me.)

Poll: Are you planning on attempting NaNoWriMo this year? Have you even heard of it?

I'd love to hear different thoughts on the insanity that is NaNo.

Happy Humpday! (Or, as Stephanie over at The Writer's Cocoon calls it, Happy Hunksday!)

2010-08-23T06:20:00.001-05:00

Ow. That's basically all I have to say. My wrist pain is not good. Waiting for a call back from the doctors. There has to be something they can give me to help until my surgery.

No writing getting done except for the occasional note on a post-it.

I hope you all are having a better Monday than me!

Friday's Baking - Little Fruit Pie Pocket Thingies

2010-08-20T06:16:00.067-05:00

I'm sure there is a recipe for these somewhere online. It sounds fairly simple.

I only had one roll of pie dough left after making my husband's lemon meringue pie, I would advise doing this with two. You'll use the whole can of pie filling with two. I have half a can of apple pie filling sitting in my fridge, waiting to be used.

Ingredients:

Roll of pie dough (Need 2 to use the whole can of filling.)

Can of your favorite pie filling

Egg wash

A recipe with a max of 3 ingredients can't be hard, right?

Looks innocent enough...

Step One:

Don't forget to take the pie crust out. Especially if it's in the freezer. According to the box, it can take an hour and a half to thaw from frozen. Thankfully I'm in Texas, in August, and I don't keep my kitchen AC vents open. It took 60 minutes to thaw from frozen.

Step Two:

Once you have thawed dough, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. My oven runs REALLY hot, so I cooked them at 300 degrees. (It's an ancient oven, we rent, so no long term benefit for us to replace it.)

Step Three:

Choose filling. I voted blueberry, my husband voted apple. I know I don't have enough pie crust to make use of both cans of pie filling. I do like apple, I just have to eat it cold. My husband isn't a huge fan of blueberry, and probably wouldn't eat any. Since I don't want to eat them all by myself, apple it is.

Step Four:

Unroll the pie dough on a lightly floured surface.

I used a dough chopper to cut the circle into 6 sections. It'll make 3 pies. I'm not convinced I need the 'lightly floured surface' with pre-made dough, but with my history with any kind of dough, I took the extra precaution.

Step Five:

Build the pies!

Fill the center of half the cut outs with the pie filling. Dab egg wash around the edge to help it seal.

Cover with the tops. You can pinch the edges with your fingers like I attempted at first, or you can use a fork. Just make sure they are seal securely! Don't want all the pie filling to spill out.

I forgot to use the egg wash on the rectangle pie...we'll see if it explodes everywhere or not.

I also brushed some egg wash on top of the pies. Might come back and bite me in the butt with my super hot oven. We'll see...

Step Six:

Bake! I checked them at 15 minutes. They were still doughy. I risked it and added 5 minutes, and was rewarded. Not a prefect golden brown, but good enough for me. Not black is always good. :D

At 350 degrees, in a normal non-super hot oven, I would bake them for about 25-30 minutes. You know your oven better than I do, so just watch them.

(Believe me, I know how nasty that pan looks. I could really use some awesome cookie sheets that don't end up being used for pizza bites.)

Remove from oven when nice and golden brown. Let cool, at least slightly!

Enjoy!

I have to wait till it's cold to eat, so my piece went straight to the fridge. My husband fell asleep by the time I was done (very long day at work) and will have to deal with trying it reheated or cold tomorrow. Who gets the third piece? Whoever likes it more. Certainly not the dog. Going to have to watch my husband like a hawk. He loves giving Zeus people food.

Random Sidetrack!

Reminds me of something that happened the other day. We were serving dinner, Zeus was behaving (not begging, but laying down nearby. We're still working on keeping him out of the dining room. He loves the tile), and as soon as I walked out of the room, he perked right up. He started wagging his tail and stared up at my husband panting.

Who's in charge here?

Mhmm. He knows Mommy doesn't stand for that. Daddy laughs and sometimes gives treats. Then yells at him next time he begs. He is just confusing poor Zeus. Either always give in, or never give in. Going back and forth isn't nice.

This does not bode well for when we have actual children.

End sidetrack.

Disclaimer to all those writers/editors/readers/bakers out there:
1. I know 'burnage' is not a word.
2. I tried to remove all present tense from this post, but I originally wrote it as I was making them. Sorry if I missed any!
3. I mean absolutely no offense by calling my oven ancient. It seems ancient to me, I'm only 23.

I'm just a whipper-snapper!

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday, and an even better weekend!

Progress!

2010-08-17T06:02:00.021-05:00

After not writing for three whole days, I dove back in yesterday and came away with 2,743 new words!

The words were on my new romance novel. I was attempting to write a straight up romance, but by the end of the second chapter, the FMC was kidnapped. I guess I can cross traditional romance off the list of possible genres for me. :D

My outline for my alien-filled-hopefully-comedic novel keeps getting hijacked. I think I've scrapped it three times now. I keep getting bored reading back. I think this last restart has potential. I changed the whole way the story begins, nixed a couple useless placeholder characters and decided to change the way it ends.

I don't know how it ends, I probably won't until it's done. But I made the decision to make sure it's unexpected. It still needs to make sense and to flow, but I want it to be different.

We'll see how it works!

Writing^

Food:

No idea what I'm going to bake this week. It's hot. I have some cake mix, pie crust, butter and random frozen fruit. A fruit tart without a tart pan? Ooo maybe some cobbler or a crisp. Hmm. Or some cupcakes with a fruit filling? I don't have much in the way of frosting though.

Life:

Zeus is finally getting a good grasp on fetch. He's so funny though, he won't start to run until he sees the ball in the air. I doubt we'll ever get him to catch anything midair.

Had my wrist appointment last week, doctor said yes to surgery! I didn't even have to try to convince him, he agrees there is no point trying physical therapy or the shots for a definite case of carpal tunnel. YAY!

Have a good week everyone!

Interview today!

2010-08-16T07:01:00.000-05:00

Keli Gwyn interviewed me over at Romance Writers on the Journey today.

Go check it out!

Progress post will be up tomorrow, Friday's Baking? Well it's only Monday, we'll see what I come up with. :D

Have a great Monday!

Friday's Bak---er Cooking! Ronnie's Pot Roast

2010-08-13T06:23:00.002-05:00

Ronnie's Pot Roast - Main warning, following the recipe as shown makes a salty roast. Almost too salty for me, but my husband loves it. (He adds salt to everything, I blame eating all those MREs.)

Ingredients:

Chunk Roast (Used a 5 pound one here)
1 Can of Beef Consomme
1 Can of Beef Broth
4 cups chopped/diced onions
Soy Sauce
Cornstarch
Water
Oil
Salt
Pepper

Season pot roast with salt and pepper, heavy hand here. Needs to make a good crust. Add onions to pan and move them to the side so the roast is in the middle of the pan. Sear all sides of the roast in a small amount of oil until deep brown and crusty, about 8 minutes per side.

Add soy sauce to the roast and the onions, not too much, a couple of good shakes, Pour beef broth and beef consomme over the roast.

Cover the pan with a lid and reduce the heat. Simmer the roast for about 4 hours; turning every 30 - 45 minutes

Remove the roast from the pan, bring the broth to a boil. Mix cornstarch with cold water until smooth, should look like milk and be thin. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture to the broth, stirring constantly.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow to thicken. I usually skim off some of the grease that has separated from the gravy. Shred the roast, serve with mashed potatoes and veggie.

It is super yummy, and fairly simple. Just takes time. To reduce the salt, I usually nix the consomme and use reduced sodium broth. My husband can tell the difference though. I say try it as is first, then tweak to your liking.

Outlining

2010-08-10T07:00:00.003-05:00

Writing

How do you outline? Mine method is all over the place! I've tried all kinds of outline methods. One line per scene, per chapter. I've tried summaries, I've even try something called a phase outline, created by Zette. Nothing seems to stick with me.

Yesterday, I took over a white board, broke it into three acts and started writing. I got halfway done before my wrist yelled at me. I went in order with the scenes. Normally I'm all over the place, outlining the middle before I even have an idea of a beginning.

Ever wonder if outlining is a waste of time? I have been. I always make changes as I write. My final product rarely resembles the original outline. Should I try being a pantser? Maybe that's the right fit.

Food

Friday's Baking - Cooking! Only baking I am doing this week is a Lemon Merinque Pie, which I've posted before. According to spell check, I've been spelling' merinque wrong my whole life. Claims it's spelt with a 'g', not a 'q'.

I'll be posting Ronnie's Pot Roast. I never met Ronnie, neither has my mom-in-law, who gave me this recipe. Interesting...

Life

Doctor's appointment tomorrow to find out if I can get surgery to fix my carpal tunnel or not. I'm hoping for a yes. It's beyond ridiculous how much my wrist problems interfere with my daily life.

Zeus will be 6 months old in a week. He weighs 45 pounds now. Of course the only recent photos I have are on my phone. He's still a cutie! Just not as cute as he was at 7 weeks!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Friday’s Baking – Basic Sandwich Bread – Take Two

2010-08-06T08:40:00.004-05:00

This recipe is fairly simple. I use my bread machine to form the dough, as carpal tunnel and kneading don’t really get along.

Ingredients
2 1/4 tsp. yeast (1 packet)
2 Tbsp honey
1 cup warm water (110 degrees ish)
¼ cup olive oil
¾ cup whole wheat flour
2 ¼ cup bread flour
1 ½ tsp. salt

Step One:
Combine yeast, honey and water in the bread machine pan. Let sit for 10 minutes. (Should get all bubbly and yeasty smelling.)

Step Two:
Add the rest of the ingredients (oil, both flours and the salt). Close the machine and set on the dough cycle.

Step Three:
After the dough cycle is done kneading, I unplug it. I do not let it knock the first rise down. The transfer to the pan does that for me. Once it's risen, I transfer the dough into a greased (I use shortening) bread pan.

I rub oil on the top of the dough and cover it with a kitchen towel.

Let rise for roughly another hour, but watch it. This dough gets very airy.

(This is almost done, I usually let it go for a bit longer, but I was in a rush. Depends how dense you like the bread.)

Step Four:
Once the dough is at the desired rise, bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Be careful putting it into the oven! A good enough bump can cause this dough to fall.

Step Five:
Remove the golden loaf from the over, should sound hallow when you rap your knuckles on it. Remove from pan and let it cool completely before slicing.

I never make it to completely cool. I always dig in after it’s no longer hot. I wait until it’s cool to slice up the whole thing. I store the slices in zip bags.

My favorite way to eat this is with a little honey on top.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, sorry bout that!

Enjoy!

Writing Update and Goals

2010-08-03T04:23:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! How is your summer going? Mine's hot, and more hot. Skyrocketing electric bill because I simply do not have the willpower to resist the AC. I at least can live between 80-85 degrees, my husband would love it to be set at 70. He gets away with 75 occasionally.

Life:
I'm been busy trying not to whine about feeling like I'm dying. I'm having allergy testing done Wednesday morning, I haven't been able to take any antihistamines since Friday. Almost there!

Food:
I found the bread recipe! Look for the post Friday, pictures and all. (Stephen - I'm trying the writing it in Word first and saving it method. So far so good!)

Writing:
The outline for my 100% romance novel is 95% done. There's this little soggy section in the middle that needs some attending to.

Ivory? Yeah. Um.

'Bout that.

Haven't done a thing. I think I'm just going to shelve it from my goals list and work on it when the mood hits me. There goes one of my New Years goals, but that's okay. I'm just happy my goal of at least a 2.5 got shot out of the water with my 3.25 GPA. :D

This last little writing tidbit is still a ways away, but I figured I should start plugging it now, and then just remind. :D Keli Gywn, over at Romance Writers on the Journey asked me to do an interview!

Look! Look! Third down!

Me! August 16th!

Yes, I write romance. No, I don't really talk about that much, maybe I will when I've been writing for a few more years and feel like I have an actual grasp on my voice. Right now I'm content with announcing words on the page.

I'm very excited! I will be sure to post a reminder, be sure to stop by, I'm giving away a little prize!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Friday's Baking - Sandwich Bread

2010-07-30T06:20:00.001-05:00

Okay, I have no clue where my post went. It was all pretty with pictures and the recipe. Now it's gone. And I can't find my hard copy of the recipe, silly me never saved a typed up version.

All that's left are my three sentences. I believe auto save is to be thanked for that.

Sorry!

~~~~~

This recipe has be tested, tweaked and transformed from the original. I'm not sure where the basic bread recipe came from. It's current form is an awesome basic sandwich bread for me.

My Regularly Irregulary Posting Schedule

2010-07-27T06:02:00.001-05:00

I would love to set a blog schedule for all of you, my lovely followers, with set days I will always post, with reoccurring topics to let you know what's coming.

But I can't. My life is too random. Generally I can blame the Army. 9 to 5 isn't their motto.

My schedule generally revolves around my husbands. His is anything but set in stone. Like today, he's on a 24 hour duty that started yesterday at 9. He'll get the rest of today off (and sleep till 5pm) then for a briefing Wednesday afternoon for a school he starts on Thursday.

I'm not trying to whine, just explain at little so maybe you will get why I'm so random. I don't do well with change anyways, so the constant randomness is annoying.

I'm going to keep up with the Friday's Baking/Cooking and the weekly writing report and goals. That's a promise to myself and to you!

My only other promise is to keep up with my regularly irregular posting schedule!

I do appreciate everyone one of you, my 52 followers! I know I don't get around to all of your blogs often enough, I do try!

Have an awesome Tuesday!

Office - Ten Days Later...

2010-07-24T19:56:00.004-05:00

Looking pretty good! Not done, but way better.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And yes, the crooked books on the shelf do bother me. Only so much I can do with different sizes and a $10 Wal-Mart bookcase.

What you don't see is the closet. A total of 15 boxes and bins are in there. Book box boxes and slightly smaller bins. Not the giant ones that work great for Christmas decorations.

Yay!

There needs to be a AA for neat freaks.

Time to write in my now accessible office!

My Week

2010-07-19T07:56:00.002-05:00

Puppy Sitting!

Dog sitting my friend's 2 dogs, Ezra and Zoe (I want to spell it Zoey), Zeus will be in heaven. I'll have to post pictures of them playing. We have them today until sometime Friday. I may be insane by then, Zoe is a bit of a handful. Ezra is a sweetheart though.

Zoe is just about 5 months, Zeus is five months (he's a whole 2 weeks older than Zoe) and Ezra is the grownup at 4 years.

Cleaning

Only focus besides daily maintenance, my office. I will reclaim it!

Writing (The fun stuff!)

I need to finish the rough outline for the new romance novel I started. I already started pages, I stopped outlining in the middle. The tough part. I need to iron that out a bit more before I get there.
I will catch up on 2YN. I'm rather behind, slowly catching up. Makes me sad because I love that story so much.
Ivory. Oh, Ivory. How I love to loathe you. I'm halfway done doing all the fixes. I hit the part where I stopped last time through, the part where I haven't fixed the tense yet. I wrote it in present, it sounds so much better in past. I may try going through just making the fixes, then going through again to catch all the tense parts I missed when fixing stuff.

Puppy Moment of the Day

Zeus is currently attempting to catch grasshoppers by pouncing on them. Doesn't look like he's having much success. He's so cute!

MPH

2010-07-14T07:02:00.002-05:00

My Personal Hell.

What I am about to share with you, is shameful. No, not shameful. I'm not ashamed, annoyed is better.

I swore I would never be like my parents. This has been going on for nearly a month now. I have another 22 years before I'm my parents. I have a month. I will not start the semester with this mess.

This is the current state of my office, my oasis.

My Personal Hell.

What you don't see is a closet with 6 boxes in it and more random piles of crap. We've lived here 3 1/2 months, I swore I'd be all unpacked within 1.

The only comfort I find, is that it has not looked like this for all of the 3 1/2 months, just recently. Starting today, I'm taking the Flylady core principle and spending 15 minutes a day working in there. I guarantee that I will end up spending an hour straight in there. I will get it done. Day by day. I miss my oasis. My little bit of the world that no one can claim but me.

Okay, so my husband makes use of it occasionally, but his favorite office space is in front of the TV with the laptop on his lap.

I know the mess really isn't even all that bad. I grew up having to make paths through the rooms. Door to bed, door to couch, etc.

I think I am just upset I let it get this bad for no reason. I know I have OCD, I know that's part of it.

Ending now, before I go into mini-rant mode. :D

I'm very proud of myself for posting the picture. Took a lot of effort to do so.

Have a happy hump day!

What I've been up too...

2010-07-09T07:13:00.003-05:00

Been busy, not majorly so. But my husband's back to work, which means more free time for me!

Life:
We moved our living room into our guest room. Our electric bill was higher than I would have liked last month, smaller room=less AC usage. It's actually kind of nice. It's all cozy. We even managed to fit our couch in there. The problem was getting it around the corner in the already narrow hallway.

-_-

We dented the wall slightly with the foot of the couch. Spackle and paint before we move out!

The day after we moved the living room, my mom-in-law called to say she was thinking about coming down to visit. This is after we asked everyone if they wanted to visit at all...they all say yes, but we can't for reason xyz.

Annoyance! She isn't sure when yet though.

Writing:
I've been outlining. One random thought right before I fell asleep has turned into an (so far) 11 chapter outline of a romance novel.

No randomness yet today. I'm sure it will come. My day is never complete with a little bit of randomness!

Friday's Baking - Potato Salad

2010-07-02T06:44:00.002-05:00

Just in time for all those 4th of July cookouts!

Ingredients:

Potatoes, semi peeled, chopped and boiled. (I use russets normally, I also like using the larger red potatoes. I never use the golds.)
Eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, chopped or sliced (I like doing the coins.)
Onions, peeled and chopped. (I usually use white, I'm experimenting with red this time.)
Miracle Whip (I thought it was normal mayo my whole life, not switching now. :D)
Yellow Mustard
Pepper
(Salt - I don't add any, but most people like it.)

Combine!
Sprinkle top with paprika. (I always forget until my husband asks, "You didn't add paprika?")
Chill! (Don't have to, but I prefer it chilled for at least an hour.)
Eat!
Eat more!

Besides deviled eggs, potato salad is my all time favorite bbq dish. What's your favorite bbq/cookout dish?

What I Should Have Done

2010-06-30T06:59:00.000-05:00

Editing and revisions. Oh how I wish I knew then what I know now. Things would have gone smoother. Less caffeine induced comas, I'd have more of my hair and fewer sleepless nights.

This is what I will not do the next time I reach the wonderful 'The End' of a first draft.

Print it out to 'really see how long it is'.
Scribble all over it in red pen doing a line edit. (Yes, I did that. On my first novel, ever. Bad idea.)
Proclaim to the world that I've finished the first draft, caring family will ask to read it. You'll freak and realize it's not worthy.
Tell yourself you'll write those missing scenes later. (That's why I still had a missing scene in my third draft.)

This is the method I think will work for me:

Do take a break. At least stand up and stretch. 5 minutes or 5 days, I don't care. Take a break.
Read through. (Not sure on this one, might skip. We'll see.)
Break out the boards! (Also known as grids and post-its) You know you've been looking forward to this!
Fill and fix any plot holes/problems the boards show you. (You're allowed to fix grammar etc. errors as you go.)
Read through. (No skipping!) Take notes on any problems, etc.
Line-edit. Also time to send to a macro reader. Micro reader gets it after you finished your micro edit. (Might want to actually have crit partners by this point. Might be helpful ya know.)
Make any necessary changes. Repeat as needed.
Read through again while writing queries.
Queries away! (No stalling, get it out there!

We'll see how it goes. I have to finish the first draft, first of course. :D

Manic Mondays

2010-06-28T06:16:00.001-05:00

WooHoo Moment!

We're leaving on a mini vacation today! This will be our first vacation that does not involve visiting family. Love my family, but everyone needs a break. :) We're headed to this nice little B&B in Fredericksburg. Should be awesome!

Mad at Myself Moment

I didn't finish Ivory like I wanted to. Positive spin, even though my husband is home, he sits and plays video games for hours. Hours I have been using to write. Yay! I just have to sit where he can talk to me and I can see the TV. He likes to show me when he gets certain achievements or does really well. My husband's a chatterbox.

Logical Moments (Talking to Myself!)

Get the spare room set up as a mini living room for the rest of the summer. It stays much cooler in there than in our living room. You don't want a $200 electric bill!

Finish Ivory so you can start your new novel silly! (I told myself I had to finish Ivory first.)

That's my manic Monday, how's yours going?

Final Push!

2010-06-21T07:06:00.000-05:00

Five days. Five days until my husband is on vacation.

I will get Ivory done. I used to thrive under pressure, time to find out if I still do. :D

Just have to keep telling myself "You I can do it, so stop worrying and get to work!"

Progress as of Sunday Night

Done through old Chapter 13

Which is now new Chapter 6

Total words done: 13,732 (Really, I've gone over about 35,000, the 13,732 is all that's left.)

Total words remaining to go over: approximately 60,000

That's like 12,000 words a day. Slightly daunting. But I took the summer off from school, didn't pick up a summer job, so I have no excuses. :D

No good ones anyways. Just have to sit my butt down and get it done.

Friday's Baking - Cupcakes

2010-06-18T07:33:00.000-05:00

Cupcakes!

From my husband's birthday party. The man who hates cake, loves cupcakes. I don't get it either.

Safe to say I took an easy route...

But my piping skills are improving!

Sort of...

But the little sea creatures and the flowers are just so adorable!

Next time, I'll actually try the full coverage swirls, I did okay with the little center ones.

Have a great weekend!

End in Sight!

2010-06-17T07:47:00.001-05:00

Main Goal: To be done with this draft of Ivory. I want it to be reader ready by the 25th. (That's when hubby starts vacation, and I know I won't get much done with him home.)

How much do I have left? *calculates*

A lot.

What started as a 99,244 word novel right after NaNoWriMo 2008, ended up as a 94,876 second draft. Not a big difference. As it stands right now with the in-progress third draft, it's at approximately 80,000 words. Short for a fantasy novel.

I'm at 2nd draft chapter 11, third draft chapter 5. What was about 25,000 words, is now a little over 10,000. I had a ton of info dumping. I know what's left is good, and the rest of the novel is info dump free minus one chapter.

I'm also the point where I stopped fixing the tense my first time through. Gonna be a pain in my butt. At least my POV has stayed steady.

I'm never changing tense on a completed novel again. NEVER.

Oh well. It's my first complete novel. It has been a total learning experience, and I don't regret it. And I'm going to finish it all the way. No giving up just because I don't think it will sell. I didn't write it to sell it. I wrote it because it was a story in my head that wanted to be told.

MIA

2010-06-14T16:25:00.003-05:00

I've been AWOL. Sorry, my allergies are killer.

Allergies as an excuse? I really do mean killer. And I'm still trying to get my house back in order after our guests. My office is still not all unpacked. That is also driving me crazy. I wanted to be unpacked 100% within a month. (We have too much stuff to manage it in a week anymore.)

Writing is going, slow but going. I still have high hopes of having Ivory ready for other eyes by the 25th. We'll see. I'm super behind on 2YN. I'll catch up, then fall behind again. That's the way life goes.

My mind is whirling with ideas. I've got post-its everywhere, very awesome.

I hope you all are doing well, no clue when I be back to my regular, irregular posting schedule. :D

OCD Sharing

2010-06-04T07:19:00.000-05:00

Life post!

Below, you will see a picture of a scan of one of my daily routine pages. I don't always follow them to the letter, but if I don't look at it, things get forgotten. Even brushing my teeth.

I don't have timers set to go off to tell me it's time to eat breakfast or anything like that. It's more of a guide. I'll get focused on something and completely forget everything around me. I get obsessed. Having these pages helps, I can look at the clock and know I'm supposed to be doing something instead of dusting all the windowsills. Or organizing the bathroom counter. Again.

I even have one labeled "Crazy Chaos Day Routines" All that one has is my early morning stuff and my evening stuff.

I'm still learning how to deal with this, how to live best. I am very thankfully I do not have OCD fully, I only have facets. The facets I have are hard enough to live with, I can't imagine what it's like with full-blown extreme OCD.

What facets do I have?

I eat a certain way. Bascially boils down to two bites of everything in order. My drink glass almost always has to be on the left when eating out. The exception is when they seat us at a tiny table and putting it on the left greatly increases the risk of someone bumping it and knocking it over.
I can't stand messes. When things get crazy in my life, my house gets trashed and then I can't sleep because I know it's a mess.
Germs. I'm so thankful I can open public building doors and use bathrooms and water fountains. My issue with germs is mainly contained to raw meat. And bugs. Bugs are just bad.
An odd food one is that when spreading anything on bread I have to cover the slice fully. Crust to crust. Jam, mayo, butter, anything.
Not wanting to make a left turn while driving without a traffic light is annoying. We've been working on that one. I would go 10 minutes out of my way to avoid making a turn like that.
When I am stressed out, I will put my clothes away according to type, length, and color. (That usually only happens during deployments.)
I can't handle change. At least not very well. My brain needs time to absorb the information and realize that it really is okay. Usually only takes like 20 minutes, but I'm flipping out for those 20 minutes. (That's for same day sudden changes, if I've got more than a day, I deal much better.)
I can't let anyone cook or clean in my kitchen. They put things in the wrong place, use the wrong knife and it's just not good. So I just don't let people. I am very upfront and tell them it's me. It's not that I don't like them, it's that having them cooking in my kitchen will drive me crazy. Even just making a sandwich.

Most of things people have pointed out to me. I never realized I felt the compulsion to do things until my husband would try to stop me. At first he thought it was funny. Like rearranging the sugar packets at a restaurant so the colors were all messed up. He'd see how long I could stand it before I had to fix it.

Now he realizes how much it does stress me out and it's actively trying to help me deal. Most of my compulsions are harmless. Who cares if I butter the entire piece of toast or eat two bites of everything on my plate in order? Doesn't hurt anyone, doesn't hurt me, so why try to change it?

I just have to remind myself on a daily basis that nothing is perfect, nothing will ever be perfect, so don't worry about it.

TGIAF

2010-06-03T09:04:00.004-05:00

...Thank God It's Almost Friday. :D

Our extended house guests are gone. Though our garage is still full of their stuff.

I'm loving where Ivory is going. It's taken a different direction, just with tiny changes. I think I managed to change the whole feel of the story, and I like it. :D I cut out useless filler characters, tightened up the subplot, and made my MC seem real rather than a cardboard cutout.

We'll see how it comes out in the end. I've been trying to get 5 chapters done a week. I've lost quite a few scenes and chapters to the knife, right now I have 22 I believe. (Reminder: this was my first NaNoWriMo novel, first novel ever, the first draft I had to work with was...Crap. Scenes out of order, characters with the wrong names and five million 'it is' rather than 'it's' for word count purposes.)

I know most of it was due to inexperience, I had a couple chapters with one scene, a few with way too many. I've been trying to combine the scenes into 4 chapter chunks. So far it's working, the chapter ending is usually a good break spot. Makes me happy! It's finally coming together and making sense.

I'm trying to have this done by the 24th because my husband starts leave on the 25th. We're actually taking a mini vacation this year! Rented a cabin down south a bit. It's going to be so much fun.

It's odd. We've traveled so much, but this will be the first vacation for us. We always go see family and that usually comes with stress and drama.

I get sidetracked so easily...

Off to get some writing done! I'm not letting the mess in my kitchen derail me. It can stay messy for now, it won't hurt it.

Have a great day everyone!

Ideas - Random Times and Places

2010-05-28T10:49:00.002-05:00

Times and Place

The shower
The bathroom in general
In the car
While cooking
The few minutes before you fall asleep at night.
While peeling a hard boiled egg. That one was fun. :D

When I'm stuck, the shower seems to be the best place for me to get ideas, or to figure the problem out.

I know there are many more, what ones do you have to add to the list?

Life is crazy, but I'm still writing!

2010-05-24T21:11:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I do not want to rant about life crap here.

Main problem, we now have 3 house guests. Two humans and one 8 wk old un-house-trained, un-puppy pad trained female puppy. Not a planned visit, they had to move out of their place super fast due to violence in the area causing his command to order him to move out.

And the two humans are fairly irresponsible and if I had any choice they would never be allowed to adopt any animal again.

Bottom line, I end up watching the pup a lot, and with the heat down here, I can only leave her outside with Zeus for so long. She pees constantly.

But in other news, I revamped my schedule for Ivory, I'll be done by June 24th at the latest. I'm hoping it will go faster than that, but I also know my ending needs extra care.

I'm also starting work on my outline/characters for my next project. Ivory is very close to being as done as it's going to get. Even if it's crap, it'll be finished. First novels aren't supposed to be great works of art anyways. :D

My posts will either be constant or super sporadic the next week or so. We have our guests until June 1st for sure.

I hope you all are writing, reading, and generally having a good summer so far!

This Week

2010-05-17T07:15:00.001-05:00

Everyday Life

Early workouts MWF and Sat, afternoon workout class Tues and Thurs - we're trying Zumba! I'm scared. Also my eating habits aren't helping me any. The workouts seem to just be keeping things on an even keel rather than me losing weight. I may have to do a week or two of a crash diet to spur my metabolism into high gear again.

Zeus has a vet appointment Wednesday - More shots. He won't be happy.

Writing Life (A month in a glance.)

Ivory - Finish fixing everything by June 4th. Ambitious, but I can do it!

EIM - Outline done by June 11th. I had an awesome idea for a murder mystery. I may end up writing that instead. I haven't found my niche yet, so I'm dabbling in anything that sparks my interest.

2YN - I'm behind again. I just need to set one day of writing time aside to catch up. I'm having too much fun with this course to let it slip away. I will be caught up by May 27th.

Random!

I have no goal to meet by May 21st. I like having goals due on Fridays. Hmm.

Oooo! By May 21st, I will have all my writing stuff organized in the office! It became a major dump spot over this weekend due to hubby's birthday party. It needs cleaning out.

Puppy Picture of the Day

We did a luau theme for my husband's birthday. It was really fun.

Boards Are Done!

2010-05-14T11:36:00.003-05:00

(More pictures if you click on the photo, it'll take you to my flickr page.)

6 boards, 24 chapters, 72 scenes, 288 used post-its and I ran out of the light blue for the 'place' post-it with 6 scenes remaining.

It was so worth it. I know EXACTLY what I need to do. It's all laid out right there for me.

And I met my writing goal for the boards! YAY!

In pure OCD fashion, the orange post-it on the middle board, one row up from the bottom is crooked and it bugs me, making me want to fix it then retake the picture. But I won't. It's crooked. So what?

I'm so happy!

Distractions

2010-05-13T12:15:00.002-05:00

I get distracted so easily it boggles my mind.

I was walking into the living to get something, stubbed my toe and didn't remember what I was going to get for a good 20 minutes.

When I'm writing (or editing!) this happens ALL the time. My house gets cleaned, laundry gets folded and the floors even get mopped.

My friend said something the other day that hit home with me. Fear of succeeding. If you're always used to not doing what you want, the prospect of actually doing it is scary. At least for me. Like when I realized I had a shot at a 3.5 GPA. All I had to do was not flunk my finals. So I freaked out, even though I knew the material inside and out.

Like right now. I have to finish the boards today to meet my goal because I will not have time to work on them tomorrow. I could be done in an hour, but I keep doing other things. I rarely meet my writing goals. when I make them, I know it's more of a guideline. I'm making the decision today to stop letting myself get distracted. Why sabotage yourself? There's no point.

To stop some of the distractions I'm flipping the switch on my Toshiba that controls the wireless. No more distractions!

Hm. The bathroom needs to be cleaned...

^_^ Just kidding! My butt is staying right here until those boards are done!

GPA!

2010-05-12T07:03:00.001-05:00

3.5!!!!!

YAY!!!!

I looked back at my New Years goals, I had no faith in myself! I was settling for a 2.5.

3.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!

It may go up or down a wee bit, one professor hasn't posted final grades, but has posted all our graded stuff so I figured out my grade, twas a good one. :D

Now to keep it up next semester. I'll be starting my accounting classes as well as catching up in my math, I still haven't taken pre-calc.... I'll also be taking a speech class and microeconomics.

The speech class should be the 'easy' class. I'm brushing up on my math skills now so pre-calc should be a breeze as it's the non-math major version. :D

No clue what to expect for economics.

YAY!!!

Ooh and I only have 1 and 1/2ish boards left on Ivory! Of course when I'm done, I'm not done. Lots to go back and fix. I found a ton of scenes that need rearranging, shortening, lengthening. Thankfully so far I'm only missing one scene. And it's really only half a scene.

I do know my ending needs some serious help, so that will be fun to figure out!

Puppy Picture of the Day:

I know, no cute puppy! Believe me, he didn't look so cute after I found this. First casualty to the puppy. It's what I get for letting him sleep on my flipflops. He learned his lesson. No chewing on shoes!

First Week of Summer!

2010-05-09T14:22:00.003-05:00

And I'm keeping myself busy! This week is pretty simple, yet full.

I have to finish the plot boards for Ivory by Friday. Really by Thursday night. Friday I'll be running around buying all the lovely last minute things for my husband's birthday party on Saturday.

We're doing a luau theme. No idea how it's going to work out, this is my first themed party. It'll be fun for sure though. We've got a close knit group of friends down here. If it looks good I'll post pictures. :D

I'm not working on the outline for EIM yet. I'm going to wait until I finish the boards for Ivory and see how it works plotting a new story with the boards. I think it many work well.

I've also started brushing up on my mathematics skills. I have to take Pre-Calc next semester and it has been about 7 years since I took a math class. Setting myself up to succeed!

Math was one of my worst subjects after 9th grade. Followed closely by chemistry. I hope I never have to take a chemistry class again. I did poorly in English as well. I still don't get the point of diagramming sentences.

Ah, the memories of high school...Wasn't super long ago for me, but long enough my class is planning a reunion.

What was your least favorite subject in school?

Still Studying...

2010-05-05T07:01:00.000-05:00

From xkcd, I love this comic.

First exam this afternoon. I feel prepared, but not 100% good to go. Breakfast time!

Plan for this week

2010-05-02T07:12:00.000-05:00

Make it to Friday without going insane.

Finals this week, I'm looking at a solid B in my business class, a hopeful C in my religion class. That one depends on how much he decides to curve the grades.

I'd love to say I'm going to get writing done this week, but I know better. I might on Friday.

Studying!

2010-05-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

So I am leaving you with this:

And the Winner is....

2010-04-29T07:14:00.000-05:00

Entry Into Madness! Paranormal Thriller for the win. Winner? What? I was stuck choosing between two ideas for my new WIP. This makes 3. Way too many most likely, but Ivory is in the revision stage, and the alien on with the Flying Spatulas of Doom is my 2YN one. I need one in the middle. :D

I had started working on it before. I'm starting over with just the raw idea. It will probably morph into something different, but this is the gist right now:

Man had the picture perfect life. Then his daughter is stillborn, his wife dies in a traffic accident 3 months later. He goes into a deep depression, an old friend comes to cheer him up. Problem is, this friend really tricks him into signing a contract allowing some extreme human experimentation.

I have more worked out, but no clue how it will end yet.

Moving on to Ivory boards and outlining EIM! As well as studying for my finals next week...

Studying for finals is more important. I will do that first, then play!

Enjoy your weekend!

Writing Goals - Short, Medium, and Long

2010-04-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

IVORY

I'm way behind, that makes it the perfect time to catch up! These are revised from a while ago, not sure I posted the original time line anywhere.

Finish boards. (1/5 done. All will be done by: May 14th)
Complete all changes/write all new material. (Will be done by: June 4th. Giving myself extra time due to husband's birthday party and possible family visiting.)
Have someone, who rules at crits, give Ivory a read through. (Reread it myself.)
Write and review query. (Will be done by: June 18th.)
Submit! And wait. (New Years Resolution is to have 200 rejections!)
Get Ivory published!

I know the space between 5 and 6 is a lot larger. I'm just not there yet, so I'm not sure what all the steps are. I do know it takes much more work, even with a contract.

2YN - Aliens and Flying Spatulas of Doom!

Keep up with classes. Pure and simple.I'm doing this with Zette's 2 Year Novel Course.

EIM/AF (Entry Into Madness / Atlantis Found, Paranormal Thriller / Science Fiction-ish)

Decide which one to focus on. (Will be done by: April 29th. Yes, tomorrow.)
Write up a full outline. At least chapters, preferably scene by scene, with subplot tracking. (Will be done by: May 21st.)
Complete the first draft. (NaNo if necessary, but I'd rather be done by August 6th, earlier if possible.)
Take a break, fall semester starts soon. (Break over on: August 13th.)
Do boards for this one. (Will be done by: August 20th, if I'm still on track. Which is unlikely.)
Make changes per boards. (Will be done by: September 17th. This is a guess, I have no idea how next semester is going to play out.)
Have someone read it, reread it myself.
Make any necessary changes. (Done by: End of Christmas break. Around January 10th.)
Write and review query. (Do over Spring break.)
Submit! And wait.
Get it published!

Puppy Picture of the Day:

Touring Tuesdays - Patio/Backyard!

2010-04-27T07:15:00.002-05:00

Giant yard. Sucks for my husband! When he deploys again, I'm paying someone to mow it. Especially at the height of summer.

I'm in love with this yard! And our patio set. It's nothing fancy, but it has swirly chairs!

My baby marigolds. They'll be getting put into the ground soon. The pot got tipped over when they were barely sprouts...so they got all jumbled together on one side.

This is my 'sunspot'. This was all that would fit on our apartment patio. :D

We're getting a kiddie pool for the pup, I'm hoping he'll like it.

All the water is from the 10 minute downpour we just had. I'm glad we're just renting, I'm pretty sure the house has been sinking into the ground. It's all clay/mud around here.

That's my backyard! A big step up from a tiny apartment patio. :D :D

Touring Tuesdays - Office Pictures!

2010-04-20T07:16:00.001-05:00

EDIT: Now with pictures!

At first the office was all setup, then it become the dumping ground for the 'deal with it later' boxes. I will not live here for a month and not be fully unpacked. Which means I have a whole week.

A week where I only have one class! WOOT!

Relaxed!

2010-04-18T15:20:00.002-05:00

Today is one of those odd days where my kitchen is a mess, yet I'm able to relax. It may have something to do with the fact that I can't see my kitchen from the living room anymore...

Zeus had a fun puppy play date at my friend's house while we went free stuff shopping. What's free stuff shopping? My friend using all her coupons for free stuff at once. Her total was $225 something dollars, she only had to pay about 14 dollars. Now that's a good reason to clip coupons!

I did my menu plan, I'm working on my grocery list. My plan is to write when Zeus crashes and takes a nap again. Right now he's attaching a plastic jug. He loves the simple toys, like kids and cardboard boxes.

I just feel very calm today. I have an easy week for school, I only have to go in on Tuesday. Woot! I'll just get a headstart on studying for finals. Which are May 5th and 6th. Plently of time to study!

My husband was able to get on a detail to go down to the NASCAR race today, sadly it got rained out. He loves NASCAR, all the males in his family does. I'm hoping he still had some fun.

This post is all over the place, sorry about that. I'm relaxed, yet scatterbrained. Awesome combination.

Signing off! Have a great week everyone!

Breakdown of Grids

2010-04-15T07:12:00.000-05:00

Puppy Status: Sleeping, using my flip flop as a pillow. (He's so cute, he gets his own status.)

In my new puppy joy, I didn't explain what I did with the grids and post-its. I'm using them as a tool to aid my revision/edit of Ivory.

My poster boards are 20x30, as you can see I divided them into 12 rectangles, four across, three down. I made a 1 1/2 inch header for each box. I have six boards, which is 72 scenes. That's pretty short for a fantasy novel. It was a lot longer until I cut the fat. It will grow, I already know places that need more fleshing out. I'll make other boards as I need them.

I went through and wrote the chapter number and scene on post-its and labeled each box. I tried to use one color for each of the three main parts of my novel, but I didn't have enough of each color.

I followed Keli's method of using one post-it per square to identify the main character and the other characters in the scene. Each main character has their own color and I use it when it's their POV. (Even if more than one main character is in a scene at the same time.)

Another for the when and where, I'm switching between two colors because I know I don't have enough of one. I may end up organizing it even more. Brown for in the city, green for the woods,blue for the coast/underwater, etc. I'll probably do that shortly. Once an idea for better organizing gets in my head, it's next to impossible to get out.

Then I used the big one for the three questions. 1. Why is this happening? 2. Why is this scene included? 3. What devices are used?

I may nix the devices one and ask "complete mini story arc?" instead. I've noticed I have a hard time making scenes complete. I jump around too much with the intention of 'finishing it later'.

The poster board can get expensive, that's why I'm heavily using the post-its. Once I've written enough books to figure out my normal chapter to scene ratio, I may sharpie that in. For now, Post-its! They make the boards very reusable.

I am absolutely in love with this method, and I will most definitely be using it to outline my next project. (Which involves aliens and the Flying Spatula of Doom! Stay tuned. :D)

What is your opinion on post-its? Are they an essential office supply? Useless waste? I use the flags a lot for studying. I will admit, I bought the off-brand copycat version. The flags are just so pricey for what they are.

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Flyin' Time

2010-04-13T07:34:00.000-05:00

I have two weeks until my final exams. Wait, WHAT? How the heck is it the end of the semester already?

I have a full week this week, but Wednesday looks good. I soo want to work on Ivory with the grids.

Zeus has his vet appointment on the 19th. Poor thing is going to get shot a few times. And we'll be able to start giving him the flea medication next week. (Gotta be 8 wks old, not quite!)

Reading? *sigh* I haven't read anything beyond school work in a while. I keep forgetting to throw a new book in my school bag, so I end up rereading The Black Swan on my lunch. Maybe I'll remember today, but I doubt it.

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Grids, Post-its, and Puppy!

2010-04-10T19:03:00.003-05:00

Only thing left to unpack; the random 'office stuff' boxes. Furniture wise, my husband only had to finish putting the dining table chairs together.

Now the important stuff!

Grids!

With post-its!

And more post-its!

And puppy!

His name is Zeus, he's just about 8 weeks old. We know his mom is a blue heeler, they weren't sure of the dad, but they think it was the collie next door. So far he mainly sleeps a lot. I'm not looking forward to the house-training...we've been home over 2 hours and he hasn't peed yet. We have puppy pads and all that fun stuff. I foresee a long night of whining and playful puppy. I've been trying to keep him awake...but he just wants to snooze.

Things are Settling Down...

2010-04-05T13:53:00.002-05:00

...slowly. My office is one of the 2 rooms fully put together. Fully unpacked? Nope. The closet is about 1/2 full of boxes.

I'll post pictures as soon as the camera cable or the card reader makes itself known. My old laptop had an SD card reader, not so lucky with my new one. That's what I get for going from a top of the line to the cheapest. :D

That makes me shake my head. What was a top of the line laptop 5 years ago, is now a worse laptop than the cheapest.

I'm hoping after this week my schedule will get back in order. I'm not a fan of chaos.

This week I have an exam, that I have do to well on as I bombed the last one.
I have to wear my business suit into one of my classes for "Come to Class Dressed Up Day." They want to make sure we have the proper attire for interviews a such. (I got mine on sale at JCPenny's for about 80bucks. Woot!)
We need to finish unpacking, we're tackling the kitchen today while waiting for the water guy.
I get to go through our now giant yard with a trash bag and pick up all the little pieces of crap left by the last tenants. We're getting a puppy soonish (Not as soon as my husband wants, but I'm not bringing a puppy into a chaos filled home.) and I am not wasting money on extra vet visits because it cuts its paw on something in the yard.

Have a good week everyone!

All Moved!

2010-04-02T22:39:00.002-05:00

The internet is finally turned on!

It was weird being disconnected for only a few days. But kind of nice too.

Anywho, I'll be posting pictures of my very own office as soon as my camera comes up...

That's the real trouble with moving, you manage to lose everything.

Friday's Baking will be up next week as my darling husband has requested cupcakes, and I need to work on my decorating skills. He wants choclate frosting, so not great for Easter bunnies. Ooo maybe I can attempt some kind of dog, like a black lab. That may work, or end in yummy disaster.

Off to unpack some more before bed. My plan is to be completely unpacked by next Friday, but I have a test Thursday. So maybe. I can hope!

I hope you all have been having wonderful weeks!

Going Green!

2010-03-27T20:36:00.003-05:00

Not a political/environmental statement, I just like green and normally forgo it.

It's looking like we won't be able to get into the new place until Monday. Hopefully early Monday. There are perks to renting directly from the owner, like being able to have pets with no problem. Downside is they generally do all the work on the house themselves and this guy is turning out to not be all that punctuational.

But hey, we'll still be able to move in BEFORE the 1st, which was our big concern.

I have to study like mad tonight and tomorrow for an exam Tuesday. I just hope none of my school stuff accidentally gets packed. It hasn't so far, if it can survive tomorrow I'll be all set.

I haven't worked on Ivory with the grids and post-its in like a week. I want to, I just don't have the room with the piles and piles of boxes. The fact that I want to work on it cements it as a good method for me. :D

Have a good weekend everyone!

Friday's Non-Baking - Moving!

2010-03-26T08:13:00.004-05:00

Physically moving, not moving my blog.

How is it Friday morning already?! Time is flying and I'm moving this weekend. I'll finally have an office! YAY!

I've lost the cable for my camera to upload pictures. Lost or it's packed... I'll upload them when I find it. I want to show off my grids and post-its. I can definitely say this process works very well for me. I don't know yet if it will be helpful when planning a new novel, but I think it will.

No baking/cooking to post today, I'll be happy if I manage to actually cook dinner rather than give in and order pizza. Not so healthy, nor wallet friendly.

I'll be in and out of the blogosphere for the rest of the weekend and into next week. Depends on when the internet gets turned on at the new place. I still have to call them.

To-Do List:

Call everyone I have to, to get everything turned on at the new place! Electricity will be nice. Hehe.

Finish Packing.

Move!

Still ya'll later!

New Rule in Our House

2010-03-22T07:35:00.000-05:00

Status: Coupons! The Austin Sunday paper always has the best ones, makes it worth the two bucks.

I'm not allowed to use any words over two syllables.

Any idea how hard that is?

My husband calls them 'big' words. I said 'disheartened' and he said 'no big words'.

But he can use the word syllables.

Which, if I can count correctly, has three syllables. He doesn't even like the word fickle. My favorite word!

I'm lobbying to get the rule changed to three syllables on the grounds that he uses three syllable words, so why can't I.

He should just be happy I don't use words like 'quagmire', Even I'm not sure what that means.

It's all in good fun, just astounds me sometimes the words he says I can't use when talking to him.

Gotta love it!

:D

To Start Over or Not Start Over

2010-03-20T07:46:00.000-05:00

Status: Excited because we're moving soon! (About a week away!)

I've finally figured out that I need to do a complete plot overhaul on Ivory. I'm going to start the awesome poster board type method this weekend to hopefully accomplish just that.

Do I want to keep going with the line edits I've done? I'm thinking I should do this plot overhaul, then redo the line edits, as the last half of the novel is worse than the first half in terms of plot.

I don't like the idea of starting over, but I really think that may the best thing to do. Get the novel in good shape, then worry about checking for silly mistakes. Looks like I started this process backwards.

Hopefully with my decision to edit for grammar as I write will help me a ton when it comes time to edit my next novel. I want to avoid this crap altogether.

Any of you scrap edits and start over because you realized you've been doing it wrong? (Not necessarily a bad method, just one that wasn't working for you.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday's Baking - Fruit Salad

2010-03-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Here in Texas, it's already Spring. We've hit 80 once so far, and have been hitting 75 pretty regularly. But still only the tiny melons and the dried out strawberries make it to the grocery store.
I have been craving fruit salad for so long I finally gave in to the pre-cut stuff.

You know the fruit that's like $5 for two cups worth? Yeah that.

We bought a big one with apple slices, grapes, gorgeous strawberries and pineapple. Then we bought two smaller ones, the first was grapes and apples, the second was strawberries and kiwis. Mmm. Kiwi.
We mixed it all together and brought it to our friends BBQ. It was a major hit. I think we had maybe 2 cups left at the end of the night.

It was so worth it. I can't wait for the better fruit to start hitting the store. I practically live off fruit salad in the spring and summer.

The picture is not my fruit salad. I will someday do that with a watermelon, but I haven't yet. It was the only picture of fruit salad I could find with kiwi that looked yummy. Mine didn't have blackberries or blueberries. Both are insanely expense down here right now.

Relaxing with OCD

2010-03-18T07:05:00.000-05:00

Status: Tired and hungry.

We're moving in a week and a half. We have a ton of boxes packed finally. It feels like we have so much more to do, but not really. The biggest thing is we have to clean the apartment. Can't really do a full cleaning with all this stuff in it.

The half-packed apartment isn't helping my stress level. OCD and messes don't generally get along. I'm not bad, I just like things to be tidy. I don't flip out if my husband drops his clothes on the floor, or doesn't scrap his plate. Doesn't bug me. But if the entire house is 'messy' for an extended period of time, it starts to get under my skin and drive me bonkers.

I know this, so I try to prevent it. Right now, my kitchen counters are clean and the dishes are done. When I start to feel overwhelmed, I simply look at my kitchen and soak in the tidiness. It relaxes me.

The act of cleaning doesn't relax me, the end result does.

The key to a more relaxing life for me seems to be to clean more. Weird. Do chores to relax. hehe.

Side Note: Got five pages of Ivory done today! And about 1,000 new words, found another mini hole. I'm also going to start bubbling that new idea I got the other day. Yes, bubbling. I'm a big fan of bubble webs. I know there's another name. You start with one bubble with a word or phrase and then spider outwards with other bubbles.

My favorite word is fickle. What's yours?

Religion in Writing

2010-03-17T07:08:00.002-05:00

Status: No longer sick. Woot.

I was raised an atheist, not a chanting in the woods atheist, an actual atheist. Believe in nothing but yourself. (That has caused me plenty of problems, trust anyone?)

Not the greatest way to go I've since learned. My only experiences with religion as a child was a collection of bible stories for children, (I'm guessing from my Grandmother) and a summer of my father taking us to Sunday school with the neighbor down the street and her kids. I found out when I was 16, he was having an affair with that neighbor at the time. Soured church for me.

There is a point to this little history of me, I promise.

I went to church with one of my friends in high school, she absolutely hated it, and only went because her parents forced her. I learned some basics that basically everyone would know. Like what a covenant is. I didn't have a clue. The people were great, but I saw the extreme side of Christianity, and didn't like it.

Now that I've grown up a bit, I've started doing my own research. I may be finally coming around, though I doubt I will ever be the person whose at church every Sunday and at every function. It's just not me and I've seem so many fake people at those things that I just can't stand it.

How does writing fit in?

I was driving home from school and had a novel idea. Happens fairly often, what was different was that this one would fit squarely into Inspirational Fiction. I shocked myself. I asked myself if I seriously thought I could, or ever would, write christian/inspirational fiction.

But then I realized that's how it works sometimes. You don't always know where you're headed until you get there. I have yet to find a genre or a niche of writing that really feels right. So maybe this is it. I doubt I'd ever write solely in one genre, I'm too wishy-washy for that.

I can't say I've read a lot of christian fiction. I think my parents managed to make me want to avoid anything remotely related to religion. I'll have to pick some up and find out if I like it.

Side Note: I've started using some of the index card methods to flush out Ivory and find out what's missing as I finish typing up the first draft fixes. NEVER again shall I write a first draft with the true spirit of NaNoWriMo. I have never spent so much time fixing stupid typos in my life, and I will never do it again.

Do you edit as you write, or write then go back? Both? Some combo or something else entirely?

Still Sick

2010-03-13T21:31:00.002-06:00

I'm still sick. I was sure I'd be over it by now. Whatever I have is wrecking havoc on my body.

Started as a cold, turned into the mini-flu and now just won't go away. I feel tons better but am still ill. Random coughing fits, upset stomach 24/7 and headaches.

I now have 3 whole boxes packed...

Thankfully my husband's on leave this coming week. we have time!

I hope everyone is getting some level of spring weather. It's been beautiful down here.

Reminding Myself

2010-03-11T02:39:00.003-06:00

Writing is relaxing. Writing is relaxing. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact.

I find myself trying to shove writing into my schedule like it's a chore. Then it's no fun and I don't do it.

I don't handle normal stress all that well. Give me emergency stress, life or death stress, fine. I can handle that. The fact that I'm moving in 2 1/2 weeks and I've got a whole 4 boxes packed gave me a sleepless night.

Of course there's more normal stress than just that, but moving is the biggie.

I always forgot how calming writing can be, especially when I've been doing edits and revisions only.

New idea for me. When I sit down to write, I'm going to set a timer and revise/edit for say 20 minutes, then write new stuff.

I'll let you know how it works! I'll be writing in between packing. At least until I run out of boxes. Which will be soon. Crap I need more boxes...

^_^

Wacky Wednesday!

2010-03-10T07:32:00.000-06:00

You know you've been around the military too long when...

you always stop right after leaving a building, giving your husband time to put his beret on.

you don't call his beret, PC, kevlar or boonie cap a hat, EVER.

you know what NCO, ACS, ACER, FRG, MLC, BCT, SBCT, and about 5 million other things mean.

you automatically know why traffic grinds to a halt on post, it's 5 o'clock, time for retreat.

you are so used to random work hours that when your husband gets a 24hr shift, you don't even blink and ask what he wants you to bring him for dinner.

you enjoy the fact that the military still holds formal balls, so you get to buy a pretty dress and relive prom all over again, good or bad.

you finally meet the one person you truly cannot stand in life, and you have to deal with them on a regular basis.

you see the price of cereal at a normal grocery store and wonder why you ever shopped anywhere but the commissary.

you know what a commissary is and what a PX/BX is. As well as AAFES.

you have learned to treasure every moment you have together, deployments come all the time.

you realize you've been married nearly 4 1/2 years, but have actually only lived with your spouse for barely 2.

you give up trying to explain to people that yes, we get a housing allowance, but no, we're not rich.

and most of all, you get so used to people only asking about your deployed husband, you forget to take care of yourself. Then you remember and splurge on a pedicure and a new hair cut.

Most of all, and this should go for everyone, you learn that laughter is the best part of any day.

Cough Cough

2010-03-06T09:30:00.000-06:00

My husband is knocked out. Not because he got in a fight, but because he caught a cold.

I get sick, he's fine. I get sick again, he's still fine. Repeat many, many times. He finally gets sick, guess what? I get sick too.

He's passed out on the sofa with a nasty sore throat/cough/sinus cold. Me? I just realized my throat is tender and after checking I discovered my glands are slightly swollen.

This is not good. Come Monday, he'll be fine. Which is great. Me? I'm on spring break. I'm supposed to be writing and packing all week. If history repeats itself, this minor cold he has will hit me much harder.

Not looking forward to this. If I liked orange juice, I'd be drinking it by the gallon.

I can generally plow my way through a cold. I'm just worried that since basically everything I have to do is at home this week, I may just curl up on the couch and sleep.

Friday's Baking - Chocolate Heavenly Hash

2010-03-05T07:18:00.000-06:00

Sounds great right?

Not really. It basically turned out to be chocolate mousse with some angel food cake mixed in for fun.

I can't find my pictures.

To make it, you whip up 3 cups of whipping cream, mix in some melted chocolate and layer that mixture with cut up angel food cake. (More details than that, but those are the basics.)

It looks good. Really good. Not so great. I'd rather just eat the angel food cake.

I'd rather make strawberry shortcake.

Yay! (Joy and Randomness)

2010-03-04T07:26:00.000-06:00

My husband passed the board!

The board is the NCO promotion board. You have to pass it if you want to become an NCO. (A SGT, SSG...only ones I know.)

My husband passed and now he's promotable to SGT. YAY.

SGT - Sergeant
SSG - Staff Sergeant
NCO - Non-Commissioned Officer

So what does this mean? At the moment not much. He gets more responsibility at work until the paperwork and his points go through, then he officially gets promoted to the rank of SGT. Then it's more more responsibility and a pay raise.

Don't ask me to explain the paperwork and points, I don't get it. What I got out of it was, if everything gets done quickly, he'd get promoted on April 1st. If not, May 1st. Apparently they only do promotions on the first day of the month. Or the closest workday.

Makes perfect sense, right?

I still want to go buy poster board and organize my plots like crazy. But my husband convinced me to wait until we move, so I'll have more space to spread out. We'll be going from a small 1-bedroom apt to a cute decent sized 3-bedroom house. With a gigantic backyard.

Perfect for a puppy! Which my husband is getting for his birthday in May. I would prefer a potty trained puppy. He wants a cute little baby baby puppy. I've never house trained a pet, nor do I really want to.

To sit, stay, do it's business in a certain part of the yard, sure. I can do that. Deal with random pee spots and other stuff on my floor? No. Sorry. Can't handle that.

I'm concerned for my ability to handle diapers when we finally decide to have kids.

What causes your gag reflex to go into overdrive? Me, it's mainly vomit. Even just in movies. I have to cover my eyes and look away. Just covering my eyes doesn't cut it.

OCD Revision/Outlining HEAVEN

2010-03-01T17:09:00.002-06:00

I know I'm mildly OCD, but I never thought it would drive me to almost brave the nasty wind out side for some poster board.

Yes, poster board.

Joy on the Journey did a post about how she's tackling revision.

It is a must see for plotters. Even pantsers should take a look.

Might just be the straight lines and post-it notes, but I am definitely giving this a try.

...

Once the wind dies down. Tuesday we got 5 inches of snow, by Wednesday night it was all gone. I think it almost hit 60 on Thursday, and this weekend was decently nice. Today it rained heavily off and on, now the wind is whistling through my windows. Weather says it's 45 degrees out, but feels like 37.

I really think her process will greatly help me with Ivory. I've tried index cards for the scenes, but it always gets messy and unorganized. I've tried listing out on the scenes in word, again, gets messy and unorganized.

Post-it notes have always been near and dear to my heart, and grids are just peaceful.

Now that you all know how crazy I am, I'm signing off to go make dinner. Maybe I'll stop at the office store after school tomorrow.

Do you outline or just wing it?

Have you tried both ways?

Monday Calm

2010-03-01T07:15:00.000-06:00

That's right, a calm Monday. How the heck did I manage this?

All I have on my plate today is homework and housework. Not even a lot of homework, just some reading. Housework is minimal, just maintenance really. I probably should run the vacuum and at least sweep. Which will take all of 10 minutes in our tiny apartment.

I may fit in some writing.

*GASP*

Writing?

On a Monday?

Never!

I have to drop the rent check off. That should take a whole 10 minutes. Maybe a little longer as I do have to tell our apartment manager we'll be moving out at the end of the month rather than renewing the lease. She loves us, we've lived here 4 years without any problems.

I'm hoping, no, praying my husband doesn't call me or come home with any insanity. He does have to get all his Army gear set for a layout, but that's straightforward. As long as he's not missing anything.

Hm. Should have made him do it yesterday. If he is missing anything he could have picked it up on his way home, rather than going back out. Oh well.

I'm going to go finish my homework and then reward myself with writing time. I'm going to work on Ivory some and 2YN. I should set a goal for Ivory. 10 pages of edited typed up and made all pretty. I can do that.

I hope you all have great and productive Mondays!

Sunday Weekly Goals

2010-02-28T07:30:00.000-06:00

Last week summary:

I finally have a hair appointment. My lady was booked up until next week. :( That's what I get for waiting so long.
I fit in writing in-between classes on Thursday. Yay! Nothing on Friday, I was helping my husband study.
Started reading a James Patterson book.
Had fun at game night Friday night. Girls vs. Boys at Pictionary Man. We kicked ass. They thought they were winning then we snuck up and took the pictionary man crown!

(Grammar Gurus: In-between or in between? I always type inbetween and get the red line of badness.)

This week is pretty simple:

Go to school Tues/Thurs without snow interruption. (Apparently it's supposed to snow again this Tuesday)
Finishing reading James Patterson's 1st to Die Pick next book (either continue with the series or buy a new book)
Start a packing plan. (I do have mild OCD, we're not moving for a month, but I'm starting now.)
And now since a prank war has broken out between my husband and my friend's husband, I have to figure out how to help without helping. They put honey on his windshield. HONEY. And it's like 40 degrees out. We don't have a cozy garage like they do. Ever tried carrying a bowl of hot soapy water outside down steps without spilling it? Not fun.

Any ideas? Non-damaging pranks for the outside of a car.

This week is really about my husband. The first half of it anyways. He's going to the E5 promotion board on Wednesday. Big deal, passing would be the desired outcome, failing would be bad. Not career-ending bad, just a set-back.

Have a good week!

100th Post!

2010-02-26T23:22:00.002-06:00

*dances*

Made it all the way to 100 posts! Woohoo!

Crazy week for me. Trying to find a house to rent with non-psycho landlords, trying to get my husband as prepped as possible for the promotion board on Wednesday, at least I'm done with exams until the end of March.

That was the longest sentence ever.

READING

I started reading James Patterson's 1st to Die. My husband loves that series, I picked it up and put it right back down. First person. I dislike first person, but surprisingly I picked it up again (only book in the car stuck waiting) and I'm actually liking it.

He jumps between the main character and the psycho bad guy in first person which is kinda cool. I'd probably have stopped reading if it was just the main character.

GOAL

My goal for the month is to find the time and the extra cash to go get my hair done. It's getting to the point where all I do is put it up in a ponytail. That's when I know it's getting too long and the layers are all funky.

What makes you put a book down?

Have a great weekend!

Snow Day!

2010-02-23T08:46:00.003-06:00

Not official, as my university isn't canceling classes. I'm choosing to stay home as I am very concerned about driving home this afternoon when the snow is supposed to have melted into ice. Yes. It's supposed to melt, and then freeze. Our high was at 5am.

I know I can drive on ice and slush in my little car, it's the rest of the people on the interstate I worry about. I've seen too many accidents down here from dumb mistakes on ice. Like driving at 85, on ice, then slamming on your brakes. Smart move.

I will be spending my snow day catching up on my coupon/free sample hunting. I will get fully caught up on 2YN, and I will work on Ivory a bit.

It's freeing to have an unexpected day off. I normally spend about 9 hours at school on Tuesday/Thursday. I can get so much done in 9 hours...

If the picture outside gets more snowy, I'll take another and update here at the bottom. I do miss seeing the world outside my window blanketed in snow.

Manic Monday

2010-02-22T12:24:00.002-06:00

What started out as a day dedicated to studying for my second exam turned into house hunting.

We may have found a house! (We're still just renting, but we need more space and want a dog.)

I, will finally have an OFFICE!

I'm about to run out the door to go take a look at it. So exciting.

I did manage to fit some writing in on Friday, not much. But enough to remind me how much I miss it and need to fit it in more. :D

Study break reward maybe?

I hope you all are having good Mondays!

Friday's Baking - Chocolate Chex Caramel Crunch

2010-02-19T06:54:00.000-06:00

(Yes - this is Chex's recipe.)

8 cups Chocolate Chex® cereal
¾ cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup white vanilla baking chips (I used white chocolate)

Into large microwavable bowl, measure cereal; set aside. Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper.

In 2-cup microwavable measuring cup, microwave brown sugar, butter and corn syrup uncovered on High 1 to 2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute, until melted and smooth. Stir in baking soda until dissolved. Pour over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Microwave on High 3 minutes, stirring every minute. Spread on cookie sheet. Cool 10 minutes. Break into bite-size pieces. (I don’t break it yet.)

In small microwavable bowl, microwave vanilla baking chips uncovered on High about 1 minute 30 seconds or until chips can be stirred smooth. (That’s what they suggest. I, however, have horrible microwaving skills. My husband jumped in and took over with the double boiler method and it worked.)

Drizzle over snack. ( I’ve found, in order to drizzle it well, you have to sit and stir it with a fork off the heat for a bit until it gets to the consistency that you can shake the fork back and forth over the chex and it does the thin lines. You can see in my photos I eventually managed that. The thick clumps are from when I didn’t stir it enough.)

Refrigerate until set (we let it sit overnight on the cookie sheet, I think an hour or two would be plenty. Then we break it up. Just easier for us). Store in tightly covered container. (Or a zip bag.)

Enjoy!

Wednesday's Woes

2010-02-17T20:57:00.003-06:00

Okay, woes is a bit melodramatic. But it feels true at the moment.

I've been studying hard for my exam tomorrow. I lost 3 hours of study time to the lovely randomness of the Army, and the fact that my husband's shoulders widened out quite a bit during this last deployment.

End result, $200 on a jacket and sewing/alterations, 1hr 30min total extra driving time, and a headache. If traffic around here wasn't so bad, could have done all that drive in like 30 minutes. 45 max.

I have 5 main things I need to know for my exam. I have two of the five down. One is fairly simple and common sense should aid me there. The other two aren't so simple.

Time for me to shut up and get back to studying. I have been studying this whole past week. My time just kept getting chipped away.

Must work on time management skills.

Any melodramatic woes in your week?

Teaser Tuesday

2010-02-16T06:16:00.000-06:00

Quick post today.

I'm very excited to be getting back to work on Ivory, I hope this break did the trick. Friday is looking like the first chance I'll get to dive back in. Even though it will be fit in between grocery shopping and having friends over for dinner. I go early enough so I should have all afternoon. Thankfully I manage to keep our apartment clean enough that a 15 minute dash makes it sparkle.

Okay. Not sparkle, but good enough. :)

I'm semi-behind on 2YN, nothing thirty minutes won't cure. Thirty minutes of uninterrupted silence that is. Headphones will have to do. Whoever suggested the gamer headphones that block out all noise, props to you! It's like magic.

Wish me good luck! (I still haven't bought a book. I've been rereading Mercedes Lackey's The Black Swan for the ten millionth time.)

To-Do Day (And Banana Bread Photos!)

2010-02-15T06:57:00.001-06:00

Pretty simple this week.

Pass my (now one!) exam, read a book, fit Ivory back into my schedule and keep up with 2YN over at Forward Motion.

Add in all the normal day-to-day life stuff, it gets complicated. But it works. If I stick to my routines, it all works and it all fits.

Pictures from my mini banana bread loaves I made Friday. Feel free to skip if uninterested in baking, I won't be offended. ;)

And yes, they were delicious! We gave a few away and frozen a few. They unfreeze very well. We pulled one out at bedtime, it was thawed by breakfast. If I were up in New Hampshire, I'd probably pull one out around dinner time to be thawed for breakfast, but it's not that cold here.

I didn't post the recipe with my original post, here it is now. This is my dad-in-law's banana bread recipe.

2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 Cup Vegetable Oil
2/3 Cup Water
2 1/4 Mashed Banana
1 Cup Chopped Nuts (I use walnuts, pecans work wonderfully as well.)
3 1/2 Cups Flour
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix in a large bowl sugar, eggs, oil and water with electric mixer.
Sift dry ingredients together then add to the wet mixture. Mix/beat/combine. I love using my new kitchen aid mixture, I’ve used at hand mixer, it works, but with carpal tunnel it sucks. :) Using a spoon…never tired, don’t want to.
Add nuts and mashed bananas and mix with spoon. (I cheat and use the mixer to mix in the bananas, just on the lowest setting and only for a moment.)

Pour into your greased pans. This batter will make 3 decent sized normal loaf pans, or 8 mini loaf pans. You can also do muffins, I believe it makes about 25 normal sized muffins. I may be wrong, it might be double that. I haven’t done the muffins in a while.

I’ll be sticking with the mini loaves because they are perfect. :)

With the normal sized loaves, it should take about an hour. With the mini loaves I checked it at 30 minutes, not quite done, baked for 15 more and they were done. Probably would have been done at 10 minutes more too. Muffins…I want to say 20-25 minutes, but again, I’m not sure.

Toothpicks are your best friend with this recipe!

Friday's Baking - Banana Bread

2010-02-12T07:18:00.001-06:00

Miniaturized!

(I know this is posting Saturday, need time to organize all the pictures to be oh so pretty...)

My husband and I decided to use the little tinfoil loaf pans this time around. I believe this recipe is his father's, it may originally be his Gigi's. It makes three normal size loaves. Normally. I usually turn them into muffins, otherwise I end up with too much banana bread.

We figured the mini loaves will make good little gifts and they should freeze rather well. When he gets a random craving for banana bread, we'll have some!

Whiny Monday

2010-02-08T21:00:00.002-06:00

What can I say? Whiny post. Carpal tunnel sucks.

I have to chose between typing, handwriting, video games or baking.

So not fair. But life never is fair.

I'm 23, have pretty bad asthma, dyslexia, nasty knee problems, and (officially) carpal tunnel.

I'm going to start working on Ivory again next week. I'm going to try slipping it in slowly, I don't want to push my schoolwork out of the way. The delicate balance continues.

Goals this week:

Actually buy a book this week.
Start studying for my exams on the 18th.
Take at least one bubble bath.

That's all folks!

Friday's Baking - Cupcakes!

2010-02-05T13:29:00.000-06:00

These are my first attempts at decorating cupcakes this year.

I totally 'cheated' and used a Betty Crocker cake mix for the cupcakes. I also used Betty Crocker frosting...

Please remember, I don't do this for a living, I barely do it as a hobby.

I'll get there!

First Attempt - Traditional (in my mind) Swirl

Second Attempt

Third Attempt - Smilie Face! (I was getting frustrated at this point.)

Fourth & Fifth Attempts - I call them, "Alien Cupcakes!"

Number 5 is my favorite. I did pretty well with the sideways swirls too I think.

Thinking Thursdays - Moving Fun

2010-02-04T07:35:00.001-06:00

We don't move for about 2 months. Yet the process has already begun for me.

We need more boxes. And tape.

I'm thinking about investing in a label maker.

Do we really need that? (In other words, 'Do I really have to pack that? Then unpack it, and find a home for it in the new house?)

What can we live without that I can start packing early? If I can pack it so early, do we really need it?

Yay! Friends with trucks. (Yay! Having one of our own, finally!) So far it's looking like we'll have three trucks going and two sedans. Woot. I figure I'll take our little car over with the TV and some kitchen stuff and direct traffic at the new house.

Me taking the TV in the car, not my idea. My husband's 'request'. He's petrified of putting that TV in a truck. He wants it safe and sound in the car with me.

We aren't moving all that far, just out of our small apartment into a comparably big house. Still renting, not ready to buy. But I'll have an office! We'll have a guest room!

Maybe even a separate dining room! This is of course all dependent upon us finding the right house, in the right neighborhood, near the right gate.

We've done some preliminary and know they are out there. Now we get to start seriously looking. I want to know where we are moving by March 1st. (We'd be moving end of March, as that's when our current lease ends.)

I'm know the March 1st know-where-we're-going deadline is pretty optimistic, but it's worth shooting for.

This will be only the second time we've moved as a couple, my 5th time moving overall. Such fun.

An office! I will catch myself daydreaming about it. Right now, my office is our apartment. I'm typing this up in bed. Sometimes I'll work on the sofa, other times I'll sit at the barely used dining table. Or outside on our little patio. I'm not a huge fan of not having a specific place for me to work. (Work = Writing + Homework)

Any moving horror stories to share? (Or funny ones, I love funny stories!)

Wacky Wednesdays

2010-02-03T07:25:00.001-06:00

I loved that book as a child. Dr. Seuss was big in my childhood and I fully intend to expose any kids I have to his works.

Wednesday is the weird day in my week. It's the only day sandwiched between two superbly busy days. Tuesday and Thursdays I have class. All day long. By Tuesday morning, Wednesday always seems to be packed full of things to do before I even remember I'll have homework to do to.

On my plate today:

Make shopping list/Coupon hunt
Laundry - Bedding and towels
Oil Change for the sedan, and remember to fill the gas tank.
Lunch with 'the girls' (and last minute Superbowl party planning)
Grocery Shopping (Might have my husband with me for this, depends if he gets out of work early or not.)
Homework (a.k.a. lots of reading and a quiz)
File tax return. May get pushed to this weekend.
Call to make a doctor's appointment, as my doctor hasn't returned my call. I need to know if he wants to push for surgery or wait and see if the carpal tunnel gets worse. I am a fan of surgery over nerve damage.

I'm forgetting something. I'll probably remember it at 9pm tonight. I need to stop at the bookstore and pick up a couple books too. That's not list worthy. That list is long enough!

Anything wacky about your Wednesday?

Tranquil Tuesday - New Truck!

2010-02-02T09:01:00.001-06:00

Well, new to us. It's a 2004 Ford F150.

My husband and I have been sharing our little sedan for the last four years. (Less than two really, with his deployments.) But finally! A second vehicle!

Yesterday evening we succeeded in finding and purchasing him a truck. I'm happy because we didn't pay more than I wanted to. He's happy because it's actually a pretty decent truck. He had wanted to spend more to get something 'better'. Well, in our price range, better was double the price. Sorry honey!

This morning I got to sleep until about 8am. I was still in my pjs when he got home from PT and that's just fine. I didn't have to rush out the door with him to drive him to work so I could drive to school.

I fed him breakfast and got him out the door on time. Then had over an hour before I had to be out the door. So relaxing. When I had to drive him in, my options were: get to school about 45 minutes early, or drive home, hang around for maybe 30 minutes then drive to school. 30-45 minute round trip to take him to work. After I drop him off, it takes me about 10-15 to get home. It's getting on post at 8:30 in the morning that takes forever.

So calm. I love starting my days calm. I'm doing my best to ignore the fact that I know today is going to be a very long day. I'm content in the knowledge that one of our friends is buying us dinner and I won't have to lift a finger.

Have I mentioned I drive about an hour each way for school? I'm insane. I'm planning to transfer somewhere closer for the fall semester. I am happy I stuck it out and started this semester rather than waiting. I actually like school. ^_^ How did that happen?

Lol.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great day.

Goals

2010-01-31T06:15:00.002-06:00

This week isn't super full, the weekend is packed however.

Specific To-Do:

Buying at least 2 books (so I have one for next week).
Do the bedding
Be totally caught up on 2YN and comment on my favorite threads
Bake something yummy Friday. Most likely banana bread.
Do my wrist stretches everyday even though they barely help.

M-F schedule is normal. Only thing special is Superbowl party on Sunday. Woot! We're rooting for the Saints, even though they aren't our team. Our team sadly did not make it this year. (Sorry Debbie! I can't root for the Colts against the Saints.)

I do get to stay late at school TR because of a lovely group project for the next 3 weeks. That makes me not getting home until 5pm at the earliest. Sigh.

I ordered some truffles from The Fancy Lady. Should have them by the end of the week. They look so yummy... *drool*

How's your week shaping up?

Too Fast

2010-01-30T18:01:00.002-06:00

Time is going by rather fast. It's already Saturday night.

I got to everything on my to-do list. My toes are now a nice fire truck red. I like it.

I'm greatly disliking carpal tunnel. I have to be so careful. I have been for a while. But it's like, type up some writing OR play some video games with my husband OR copy notes for class. I can't do all three in the same day. I won't play video games Monday or Wednesday nights because I know I have to take a ton of notes in my classes.

Right now I'm behind on my 2YN over at Forward Motion, because I want to sit and hand write some of that stuff out. Planning to work on that tomorrow.

We've started to get a great group of friends down here, it's pretty awesome. Makes me feel slightly old that we have game nights, but it's fun. We trade hosting yet my husband and I are out of the rotation until we move to a bigger place in March. We have a tiny little apartment at the moment. We'll be moving to a bigger rental house. It's funny. You can get a three bedroom house with a garage in this town (in a decent neighborhood) for the same price as an apartment in the 'nice' part of town.

Kinda crazy. We're not buying due to the whole military thing. And no offense to Texas, I don't want to settle here.

Have to stop typing now. I hope everyone is having or had a great weekend!

Good Day!

2010-01-28T18:33:00.002-06:00

No writing, but that's on the list for tomorrow.

Went to my classes, figured out I'm finally beginning to understand my business class. Yay! We're doing a group project and I actually have a decent group rather than being the only one that cares about my grade.

I just made a super yummy stir-fry for dinner.

I did buy a new book, and already finished it. Mercedes Lackey 'Burning Water' I've never read any of her modern stories before and I have to say, I liked it.

Haven't given myself a pedicure yet. I'm thinking tomorrow morning.

I did treat myself to Starbucks and discovered the tea I like in the big size is a whole $2.05 with my Barnes and Nobles card. Woot. Not something to get all the often (I don't need the sugar!) But nice to know it's fairly cheap. For Starbucks.

I'm going to work my latest idea (thanks to 2YN!) later this evening. I'm determined to get back to work on Ivory when I said I would. I'm a big believer in finishing what I start.

How was your day? Or how's it going so far if you're reading this in the morning.

How My Week Works

2010-01-25T20:17:00.005-06:00

Inspired by Jamie’s Weekly Goal lists over at The Variety Pages, I decided to work up a sort of schedule.

This is how my week seems to breakdown with school back in session and my husband officially back at work as of today. The Army will of course throw in random days off and random weekend duty, but this is the basic.

Monday – Finish homework day
Tuesday – Class/homework/reading day
Wednesday – Errands/homework day
Thursday – Class/reading day
Friday – Baking/cooking/writing day
Saturday – Family/friends time and homework squeezed in
Sunday – Family time/coupons/reading day

I greatly dislike Mondays, so what better than to finish off all the homework I put off over the weekend.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class pretty much all day. Homework and pleasure reading seems to fit in fairly well, but not much else.

Wednesday apparently is my errand day, as that is when I find myself doing my errands. And it’s homework day.

Friday is the start of my weekend, and the perfect day to experiment with new recipes whether with baking or cooking. I don’t feel guilty taking extra time messing around in the kitchen since I have ALL weekend to do my homework. Right? I also seem to spend time with my writing on Fridays. I wish for daily writing, but it doesn’t happen and trying to convince myself it will doesn’t help. There’s something relaxing about Fridays.

Saturday is a hang-out day. Movies, dinner out with my husband, dinner parties (a.k.a. game nights) with our friends. I try to do some homework in there, but it usually gets pushed off till Sunday.

Sunday. More family/friend time with coupons! Though the local Sunday papers have been slacking on the coupons as of late. This is usually when I finish whatever pleasure reading I’m doing for the week. Instead of homework of course.

I’m hoping my husband will continue his habit of sleeping until noon on the weekends so I have more time in the mornings to do school work or writing.

Of course all the lovely daily chores are mixed in there for fun. My husband’s uniforms get in the laundry sometime Saturday. I hate when it hits like 8pm and he’s like ‘hun, I need my PTs washed…’ SO NOT HAPPENING ever again.

Week of 1/25/10 Specific Goals:

o Pick up a new pleasure reading book. I’ve read everything we have (that interests me anyways, my husband is a mystery fan…I’m not).

o Give myself a pedicure.

o Go to Starbucks and enjoy a 4 dollar iced tea.

There is of course tons more that needs to be done, but these are the ‘fun’ ones. I learned last year that to-do lists a mile long just make me want to crawl back into bed and sleep the day away.

Organization brings calm to my life. Staying organized is the problem.

How's your week shaping up?

Updates!

2010-01-23T18:55:00.003-06:00

Definitely need to invest in some of those gamer headphones. My husband doesn’t realize how loud he gets. He is partly deaf so I can’t blame him.

I officially have carpal tunnel in my right wrist. The doc had to shock me with this evil taser-looking like thing to make it official. (See below.)

Evil-looking isn't it?

I have carpal tunnel, but not bad enough to warrant surgery this doc says. I get to keep wearing the brace and keep doing the stretches. Forever? I see my normal doc next week so maybe he'll make more sense. I didn't ask the doc tasing me too many questions, I was in some weird pain.

Still on break from Ivory. I feel guilt about it, but at the same time, I'm happy to be taking a breather.

Started college again this semester. It's just as hard as I remember it. Only difference is I actually care about my grades and am giving 100%. Maybe I will manage that 3.0. That'd be awesome.

Life Related Ramblings.

2010-01-14T18:19:00.003-06:00

I'm tired. My wrists hurt. Trying not to whine.

I'm officially taking a break from Ivory. I should set an end date for my break. How about Feb 19th? Basically a month and that's the day after my first exams.

I just finished my first week of college in the last..2 years? Been awhile. Hasn't changed all that much. One of my professors is tech crazed, the other refuses to touch a piece of it.

As to my wrists...going to get braces Monday, the old ACE bandage trick isn't working anymore. And I have an appt set with a specialist to do an EMG(Electromyography). Then we'll go from there whether we need to pursue more physical therapy or surgery.

I am all for surgery. This has been going on for years and I am just sick of it. Yes, physical therapy can ease the pain. But it comes back. Even with a proper computer set-up. My wrist will be fine, then I'll wake up in the middle of the night and everything below my elbow will be numb and tingly.

It's weird that I'm seeing college as a break from stress, but it really is. No deployment worries, writing is seeming more more fun, and my husband has been doing the housework while I'm at school. :D (He's still on leave, I'm sure the amount of help will decline when he's back at work.)

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to leave a ':P' face in the comments at me for whining. :)

Writing with Distractions

2010-01-08T22:15:00.001-06:00

With my husband home, I'm remembering how well I actually write with distractions. I have so little time to focus, I completely tune out everything around me and just pound out what I have to do.

When my husband shouts out obscenities while playing MW2 (Modern Warfare 2) can break through my wall of silence. I usually end up asking 'do you have to shout that loud?' and I get some reply along the lines of 'that dude just killed me' or something. I'm all for Super Mario Bros. :D He does stop shouting quite so loud for a while after that, so success!

Then there are the times I'm plagued with headaches because me and my forgetful self forgot to take my allergy medicine on time. The only one that seems to work is one I have to take every 4 hours. Bubble house anyone?

Original Ivory words gone over (since Jan. 5^th): 2,436

I am using 'it' way too much today. Not necessarily here, but in my revisions. Rather annoying.

And I just found another spot where there is a missing scene. During my first read through, instead of fixing the gap, I just made a note to fix it later. Not doing that next time around. Way more aggravation than it's worth right now. I just want this done. So. I'm going to bed and am going to look at it with fresh eyes in the morning and hopefully I'll not hate the idea of sitting down to work on it.

(The intense dislike of working on Ivory literally spawned in the last 15 minutes.)

What's your greatest distraction from writing? Any tips on how you avoid or overcome distractions?

Revisions/Editing Fun!

2010-01-05T22:01:00.001-06:00

What was 33,000 words is now 25,000.

I guess that's not too bad. No, that's not my whole novel, that's the first…now 12 chapters. Originally this far along in the story I was up to chapter 17. I discover some minor pacing issues with my chapters. I had one that was one very short scene, and another that was about six very long scenes. Great job right?

I've got just about 65,000 original words left. I'm barely 1/3 done. I thought I was way further along than this. Talk about a kick in the butt to get me moving!

I'm thinking I should play the word count game again. How much I can get through in a day. Not going to set goals, I'll just jinx myself. I'm going to keep track of how many original words I go through. I'll post said progress here. Again, not going to set a specific day, I'll just forget I'm supposed to post.

I want to get this done so I can start working on those rejections! Really I am hoping for an acceptance, but I figure having a positive spin on the whole process might be beneficial.

How is 2010 treating the rest of you so far?

New Year, New Goals

2009-12-29T21:58:00.003-06:00

I started this list as a comment on SJDuvall's post Twenty Ten over at her blog, Forever Writing.

2010 Goals

1. Query Ivory – I want at least 200 rejections by the end of the year.
2. Finish first and second draft of either EIM or AF. Whichever I start working on, I have to finish.
3. Faithfully participate in Zette’s 2YN course over at Forward Motion for Writers.
4. Manage at least a 2.5 GPA this semester. I’m shooting for a 3.0, but I’m realistic, I’m not a great student.
5. I did have running a marathon on my list (next years Turkey Trot), but it’s now off the list. I have to get cleared to run before I can start working on that one. I could walk a marathon, but that’ll just take forever and I can’t imagine it would be all that fun.
6. Finish first draft of EIM or AF (whichever isn’t #2) Maybe NaNoWriMo?

I don't think these are in order of importance, except for the Ivory one. I've been taking WAY TOO LONG to get that manuscript out into the cold world of the slush pile.

How's Ivory doing now? Don't ask and you won't hear the bad news. Wait. I asked...crap. It's going slow. I knew it would. I need my husband to sleep in more often.

Hope you're all having wonderful holidays!

Lemon Merinque Pie

2009-12-25T19:51:00.000-06:00

This is my husband's favorite pie. EVER. He can sit and eat a whole one. In one sitting.

Problem is, his mom won't share her recipe. (It's really a long, funny story. Not her being an evil mom-in-law or anything.)

So this is my second attempt at making a lemon meringue pie. The last one I made was 'too custardy'. Very helpful honey.

This time I'm using Alton Brown's recipe. You can find it here.

All I did differently was double the meringue, cause that's how he likes it.

BEWARE! If you follow the recipe exactly, you'll get lemon meringue soup. If you sit and read all 100 comments you'll learn that you have to put the stuff back on the heat after adding the lemon juice. I didn't know that.

So. Pie was a failure. My husband said it's okay and he didn't get why I was upset. Stupid soup. I'm going to try it again. He's been in Iraq for a year, the man deserves his pie!

I hope you all had a good Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T16:48:00.003-06:00

Yep, I say Merry Christmas. Next year I need a pin. "You can say Merry Christmas to me, I won't get offended."

That's too long for a pin or button. Maybe just one that says Merry Christmas.

It's snowing. In Texas, on Christmas Eve. How awesome is that? It was nearly 70(F) degrees yesterday. I don't mind, I'm not going anywhere. Anabelle, however, is stuck at Dallas waiting on her flight. She started out stuck here, then got shuttled to another airport. I home she makes it where she's going today!

No offense, but Texans don't see to do well in any kind of weather that isn't warm and sunny.

Anywho, gotta go check on dinner.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Readjustment Fun!

2009-12-20T10:04:00.003-06:00

Writing - Not going to lie, not getting much done. Today's the first day I've woken up before him. I'm guessing that's because it's the first day since he's been home he's been able to sleep in. (My husband's been home not quite a week yet. He's enjoying the fact that we have a mattress and he's not sleeping on a cot in a tent full of 300 other guys.)

He'll probably sleep till noon. I've got nearly a solid two hours to get some writing/editing in. Probably editing. I want to start my new project, but I want to finish Ivory's second draft more. Weird.

Food - Cupcakes didn't happen. Brownies did, sadly there is no evidence left to prove this. Cupcakes may happen this week. I will be attempting Annabelle's Chicken Cordon Bleu sometime soonish. It is delicious and I want to see if I can manage to recreate one of her recipes. I haven't managed it yet, even with the recipe in hand.

She's got a knack for cooking that I thought I had...

Life - Readjusting is always fun. My toilet seat is magically up more often than not now. I wonder how that happened. But then other weird things happen too. The trash changes itself, my hot chocolate makes itself, and my toes are always warm at night.

I think I can deal with the toilet seat being up. Takes a whole second to put it down.

My house gets messy REALLY fast, but I don't have to clean it all by myself now. I'm not allowed to go into the trunk of the car, apparently there are unwrapped presents in there. Ooo how badly do I want to go sneak a peak while he's still sleeping. I won't, but I can think about it. I found out when I was little, finding your presents early ruins Christmas. So no peaking for me.

And in case I don't manage another post, Merry Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas, happy/merry whatever holiday is next for you. :)