Thursday, November 26, 2009

This Thanksgiving Day I am thankful for:

A wonderful husband who works hard, loves me, makes me laugh, gets along with my parents as well as his own, gets excited about geeky things, likes cats and dogs, plays cribbage, and is not afraid to tell me that he loves me every day.

A warm and comfortable home in the middle of a rolling field, far from the hustle and bustle of the city, with a gorgeous view of the sky,the trees and the occasional wild life.

My dog, who always seems to know more words than I think she does, loves to play, takes me for walks, showers me with kisses when I need them, and loves to hold paws.

My cats, each of whom has his (or her) own distinct personality, all of whom love to be petted and loved, and sometimes have their bellies rubbed while lying in the sun.

My family, both by blood and by marriage, who loves to sit and chat and loves me despite my occasional weirdness, who gets my dry sense of humor, loves to play games, and loves to eat almost as much as I do.

And for my country, which despite the corruption, lies and power-mongering of many of our leaders is still my country, which was still founded on the principles of freedom by decent, honorable, and brave men, and which still is the home of so many of this generation's decent, honorable, and brave men and women who want nothing more than the liberty to live their dreams in the greatest country on earth.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

My blog snuck up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder today. Yeah, scared the crud out of me. She wasn't trying to be scary though. She was just feeling lonely. I guess I can't complain. It is nice to know I'm needed.

So, I thought I'd sit down and have a nice chat with my blog. I started out trying to flatter her to get back on her good side. She really is kind of pretty with her pale peachy pink and brown accents. And I'd love to have those actual pencils she displays in the center photo at the top of her page. I like fat, chunky pencils and pens; they fit better in my hand. The skinny ones always feel like they're going to sneak away when I'm not looking directly at them.

We both missed the way I used to just sit down and write, and rarely had difficulty finding inspiration. But then that was years ago, and time can often distort the way we see things. So I ran a few ideas past her and she suggested I save them in her drafts and come back to them. They might make great posts at a later date, but right now I can't really afford a large chunk of time working out an idea.

It was nice to spend some time with her. I explained how I'm focused on NaNoWriMo and I think she understands why I've neglected her all November. I hope she does, anyway. I promised to try to be around a little more as soon as NaNoWriMo was over. Or maybe after Christmas. Either way, we had a nice chat. She's a good blog, and I have missed her.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Warning: Fake, not particularly realistic gore ahead.

I'm not a huge Halloween person. I don't dislike it, I just don't generally get into it. When we lived in the city we would pass out candy to the neighborhood trick-or-treat-ers, but now that we're out in the boonies, we don't get them anymore unless we invite the neighbors to bring their kids over. And by that I mean the two little kids in the one family that lives within a quarter mile from us.

I rarely dress up, except for a couple times when I've worn a costume that I already had for some other purpose. (The dress I made for the Renaissance Festival once and a pineapple costume I had made for a church youth group project another time.)

I have to say though, that I do appreciate truly creative costumes, and I think this Marie Antoinette costume is just awesome. Generally this would be a little gory for me, but it is just so very creative.

You can see how it was made on the Etsy Storque.

And as long as we're on the subject of decapitation, one of my cats recently had a little too much fun with a mouse. I heard a weird crunching noise in the night and woke to a mouse in two parts lying on my laundry room rug. (The rug, including mouse parts, went out to the garage to be dealt with by my hubby when he got home.)

In honor of Mo's hunting expedition, I thought I should get these cat toys made by spellwell.
The mouse head looks remarkably like the one I found in my laundry room, except for the fact that Mo's mouse head was about 1/4" long. Let me tell you though, small size does NOT negate the creepy factor!

So there's your Geekwif gorefest for the day. Happy Halloween everyone! Stay safe and dress creatively!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

After spending the past several days in tortuous deliberation, I have made my decision in the matter of my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel. I shall now announce it after the fashion of the beauty pageant by starting with the not-so-much-a-winner, followed by the penultimate winner, and finally crowning the starry-eyed actual winner.

Our 2nd runner-up is Option #1. (polite clapping) She made a fine go of it, but when it came down to it, she had no substance (aka plot).

Our 1st runner-up is Option #2. (impatient clapping) Pirates would be fun, but would a modern-day pirate ever say "Ahoy, matey" or "Arrrrrr"? And really, what's the point of writing pirates if they don't say "Arrrrrr"?

And our winner is ...
(drumroll)
... Option #3! (Crowd goes wild!!! Tears flow freely.) Yes, this year's winner is a romance about sandwiches, oh yeah. It's cheesy, it's fun, and it's perfect for packing 50,000 words into a ridiculously short span of time.

And now the countdown begins. 12 days from today it's NaNoWriMo 2009!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Okay. I have four options I'm considering. No, make that three, I just decided to scrap one of them. Just now. As I write. She's a fabulous character who I would love to write but I have no plot for her story yet. So there. She's gone ... for now.

Okay, three options. Here they are.

Option #1
Re-write my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel, which was lost when my hard drive crashed just days after completing NaNo that year.

This story is a mix of real world and fairy tale. It's about a woman who is recruited to help save the fairy tale world of the novel her deceased mother wrote years ago. Of course, she doesn't believe such a thing is possible as it's just a story and, obviously, you can't really enter the world of a story. Turns out, of course, that she really can, and she helps to "save the day" while learning things she never knew about her mother (and herself) before finally returning to the "real world".

Pros: It was a fun story to write the first time. The imaginative possibilities in the fantasy world are endless. I've changed it significantly from the original idea (from 2006), and I have none of the original text, so I wouldn't just be editing a previous novel, thus it would not violate the NaNoWriMo starting from scratch rule.

Cons: I have not managed to come up with a conflict that I like yet. There has to be some big problem in the fairy tale world that she can fix. I just don't know what it is, and without that, there is obviously no story. I've had a few ideas, but none that really excited me.


Option #2
Someone at work suggested I write about pirates. I dismissed the idea as silly at first, but then thought it could be interesting to write about someone who is thrown into piracy in the modern day.

I'm thinking some kind of disaster happens that drives the MC (I'm leaning toward a girl, but it could be a guy) to the sea where she joins up with a fishing boat or something. They end up being forced to turn to piracy because of this major (as yet undefined) disaster.

Of course, there would be mixed feelings among the crew about the whole piracy thing. Some would be against it, except for the fact that they really have no other means of survival. Others would think it was fun and start acting like the crew of the Black Pearl. And then, of course, there would be the mixed feelings about the intruder (the MC) who had joined them. Is she really legitimate? Maybe she's a spy sent to ... um ... spy on them. Is there something more to this fishing boat than meets the eye? Hmmmm.

Pros: It's pirates! That has to be fun to write, right? Possibilities for conspiracy and mystery abound.

Cons: I know nothing about boats or sailing, and my knowledge of pirates is pretty much limited to what I saw in "Pirates of the Caribbean". It would take quite a bit of research to be able to write about the inner workings of a boat, and NaNo isn't really research-friendly due to the time limitations.


Option #3
You have to promise not to laugh at this one. Okay, you can laugh, but only a little. It's a chick-lit type romance (but squeaky clean) about BLTs. That's right, the sandwich.

The MC is talking with friends over lunch one day when she mentions how much she loves BLTs. One of them dares her to eat a BLT every day for the next year and offers her 50 bucks if she does it. A guy she knows (co-worker? neighbor?) hears about this and also (unbeknownst to her) overheard a conversation about her needing money for a car. He offers her a ridiculous amount of money (enough to help her get a car) if she will eat 101 BLTs in the next year. But there are three rules.

1) She has to eat two BLTs a week for the next year with the option of backing out of 3 of them, which leaves her with 101 for the year.
2) Every sandwich has to be a different variation on the BLT. No two can be the same.
3) She has to share them with him.

She agrees to the challenge despite the fact that it's a little creepy because she really needs the money and can't see any other way to get it.

Does he turn out to be a creep or a good guy? Will she give up and give him the money back? Can she really stand to eat lunch with this guy twice a week for an entire year?

Pros: It's pure light-hearted fun. It's got bacon in it. (Yum!) I may have to try at least some of the sandwiches that she makes – you know, just to make sure they're good. (Oh, darn.) And it's a great match for NaNoWriMo since there's no time-consuming research involved.

Cons: It's a novel about sandwiches. I mean really – that can't be good – can it? It might be a little too influenced by the fact that I saw "Julie and Julia" recently. I've never written romance before. Do I want to write romance? I don't know. And has this story been written before – except without the BLTs? It's seems a little cliche, but then aren't most romances a little cliche?


So what do you think? Any thoughts? Votes? Hilarious laughter at the ridiculousness of them all? I've got two weeks to make my final decision. And less if I want time to outline. And I still have to sew clothes for our cruise before October's out since November is kind of taken. Help!

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

It's autumn, and the world is turning brown. For the moment, the trees are golden, chartreuse, crimson, lemon, and any number of other gorgeous colors, but I know they'll be turning brown soon. A brown landscape can look a little dreary, but I love it in my wardrobe and in my home. Really, brown is a pretty wonderful color. I mean, look what it can do.

The red vintage buttons alone would be cute,
but add a little brown and they look like a box of candy.
(PaperPumpkin on Etsy)

Brown and blue used to be reserved for baby boys, but why?
This is one of my favorite color combinations. Just go to Etsy
and search for "brown blue" and see if you don't come up with a
plethora of beauties.
(augustnine on Etsy)

Who says brown can't be girly?

How cute is this pink and brown bag?
(daphnenen on Etsy)

See? Now tell me. Does brown not rock?

Saturday, October 03, 2009

It's the beginning of October. Do you know what that means?

NaNoWriMo is coming soon, baby! In less than one month the Geek and I will be putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and forcing out 50,000 words in one month's time.

And I have no idea whatsoever what I am going to write. In the past four years I've done the following:

2005 - I wrote a novel based loosely on my Grandmother's life. I've since started editing that and made some pretty major changes to the plot and structure of the story. I have a long way to go on it yet.

2006 - I wrote a fairytale-like story that was utterly destroyed when my computer's hard drive died in a fit of drama at the beginning of December. I've always wondered if it wasn't having a temper tantrum because of the abuse I submitted it to in November.

2007 - The year we moved from one state to another - in November of all times - I started to write a sort of futuristic story about a guy who found an illegal book (apparently future people aren't so excited about freedom of speech) and got arrested for it. This was the one time since I started doing NaNoWriMo that I didn't finish my 50,000 words.

2008 - I decided to take it easy and write something light-hearted and fun, so I wrote a novel about three women friends who got stuck in and solved a mystery together. Campy, cheesy, fun.

2009 - This year, as stated earlier, I have no idea what to write. I think my creative button has been inadvertently switched to "off". Anyone know where to find it so I can switch it back?

Thursday, September 24, 2009

I flew to another state to visit a good friend last week. I used to love flying. So why did they have to ruin it? – "they" being the terrorists, I suppose. They're like the kids back in school who misbehaved and resigned us all to the fate of recesses spent inside with our heads on our desks. I mean, really – it's humiliating, taking off your shoes and shuffling along stocking-footed in a public place; taking off your belt and holding your jeans up so they don't fall down. Thank goodness they didn't want to frisk me. That would probably have been the last straw; I might have turned around and gone home and never made it to her place.

I remember the time when your loved ones could walk right up to the gate with you, and watch through the window as your plane left. If you were lucky enough to have a window seat on the appropriate side, you might even see them waving. And perhaps it's just movie-induced romanticization, but catching up with someone at baggage claim just doesn't have the same effect as seeing them waiting for you at the gate as you step off the plane.

There is one part of flying, however, that they can't ruin for me. It's that moment – especially on a cloudy day – when the airplane breaks through the clouds into the blue sky and you find an entirely new world above. It can be cloudy, rainy, ugly weather on the ground, but above the clouds it's eternally sunny. On a thickly overcast day (like the one on which I flew home this week) the clouds below look like a vast expanse of snowy fields, forever unmarred by human footsteps, gleaming in the sunlight. That moment is my favorite part of flying, and it is the one reason that I still love to fly.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Are these not just the greatest? I'm not usually much of a novelty sock person – they never match my clothes – but these are just too stinkin' cute!

(I saw them on Daily Candy. If you like them, they're available at Ashi Dashi.)

Sunday, September 06, 2009

The Geek's company recently changed their mobile phone service to AT&T, and with that got an employee discount on mobile phone plans. So, since we have noticed that we get better reception now (usually about 2 bars, sometimes more) than we used to (0 bars on a good day), we decided it might be time to get me a mobile phone again. I wanted to get one soon since I'll be traveling in a couple weeks (that's right, Blond Girl, I'm coming to see you in less than 2 weeks!), so we headed into the city yesterday and found ourselves an AT&T store.

On the way there, we discussed what I wanted. I had owned a PDA before and wanted a phone with the organizational capabilities I had with that device, which meant we were probably going to be looking at a smart phone. Having had a "regular" phone before, I knew that I would most likely not get what I wanted from another one.

Of course when we got there, the very perky, cheerful sales girl took us directly to the iPhones because "once you've seen them you won't want anything else!" That's exactly what I was afraid of.

After listening to her rave for about 10 minutes about the wonders of this magnificent device (which really are a little mesmerizing), I forced myself to be practical and explained what I needed (as opposed to what I wanted, which was now definitely an iPhone) in a phone hoping that I might somehow be able to get out of this store without committing myself to a data plan.

Well, as I have already given away in my title, I ended up with the iPhone because the regular phones all look like rotary dial phones after one glimpse of an iPhone, because it was only $99 when you set up new service, and because she was right – once you've seen an iPhone you don't want anything else.