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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Celebration

I have about 14 minutes before class starts ... my first one of the day and it's math and I'm not ready for the quiz we have. I am quite certain I forgot EVERY math related thing I learned over the fall semester.

However, there is reason to celebrate. Last night, I bought my tickets to the March 12th, 2013 Pittsburgh Penguins game against the Boston Bruins! I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. I have every minute detail of every mile of the journey planned. I have a list of things to do in the city that is at least as long as my arm. There are 27 octillion photographs planned.

I am the happiest girl in the world right now. I wish today was March 11th. I'm finally going to get to see my city ... and I'm fully prepared to call back home and have my things shipped to Pittsburgh because I'm sure once I get there, I'll never want to come home again.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Progress

Progress has been made. Effie is moving along very nicely. I'm only a few hundred words ahead of schedule and still plan to do a little more writing tonight (actually it's the wee hours of the morning) before I head to bed.

Currently, my story has about 82,000 words and 260 pages but just for the month of January, I have 20,400 words. You see that little ticker on the left side of the page just below the button that says "50k in 31 Days"? That's right ... it says 40%.

I shouldn't be surprised that I can actually hammer out words when I need to, but I'm super duper, totally, supremely, extraordinarily happy that those words are happening in January instead of counting down the days to the next edition of NaNoWriMo.

And since I'm here anyway, I'll share with you the photo I took for 1.11.13 --- water.


Despite multiple attempts urging my husband to please clean up the back half of the deck where all the garden stuff was, he has obviously failed to comply and this is photographic proof. We watched 10 inches of snow melt in just 3 days and this planter witnessed it all.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Project 365 (2013)

Okay, I admit I'm far behind the times. I've heard of Project 365. I have a few Facebook friends who consistently post pictures labeled "Project 365". I knew the gist of what it was and thought it would be super cool to participate. Participating in this year's photo campaign was a mini goal for me, especially since I'd gotten a new camera for Christmas. I figured it would be a great way to learn all the features on my camera.

By no means am I a photographer or photography enthusiast. I think I'm far too literal most of the time to really be a good photographer, but I digress ...

The point I'm getting at is that I missed the first 8 days of January. I might have cheated and tried to catch up but the very first picture theme was "Today", and seeing as how I took no New Year's photos, I figured it was best to begin the project with my integrity intact.

So ........ here are the two photographs so far this year.

1.9.13 --- Paper


(This is part of the cork board calendar I made to keep track of when school assignments are due. The 14th is the first day of of the spring semester.)












1.10.13 --- One o'clock


(I wasn't very prepared today so I had to improvise. My television has been tuned to NHLN all day, every day since news of the lockout ending was made public.)

Insomnia, Hockey, and Antibiotics

So far, I'm on the fence about whether this year is off to a great start or not.

Pros: The NHL came back from the lockout.
I get to start planning my Pittsburgh trip.
My writing has come a bit easier than in non-NaNo months.
Just a few weeks away from getting my new laptop.

Cons: I haven't been to bed before 4 a.m. since January began.
My son had strep throat, tonsilitis, and an ear infection all at once. At one
point, I was waking every four hours to give him antibiotics, although I wasn't
sure I was actually sleeping when my eyes were closed.
My car was towed away while visiting a friend at their apartment because
apparently there's a sign at the gate to the apartments that only residence with
permits are allowed to park in the front row. It was buried under under the
forty-seven feet of snow dumped on our Midwest town.

I haven't written in a few days, but I'm not discouraged. I've been busy being a mom. Even still, I'm only about 500 words away from being right on schedule for my 50K in 31 Days challenge. So, while the house is quiet and I'm not dead tired, I'm going to go write. My goal is to finish the chapter I'm currently working on.

Wish me luck!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Meteor Shower!!

That exclamatory title was the embodiment of my attitude yesterday when I found out there was going to be a meteor shower at 3 a.m. Stay up until then? No problem! I felt all spontaneous and inspired. It'd give me the perfect excuse to go out and use my new camera. I had all these wonderful little cotton candy dreams about becoming the next Sally Gall of night time photography.

Did I mention I live in the Midwest where it is currently freezing and where about twelve inches of snow is still waiting to melt?

We live in the city, not the inner city, but close enough that it'd be difficult to catch the meteor shower because of city lights. No problem though. I called my mother and made sure it was okay that I show up in her driveway at 3 a.m. and wait to be amazed by the splendor of alien nature. She lives in a small rural/suburban town where the closest they come to street lights are the headlights from cars on the interstate.

So I packed up the truck with blankets, over-sized couch cushions, a big fluffy robe with a hood, my laptop and car charger, my camera, and I headed for my parents place at two in the morning. I get to their driveway, throw the pillows in the bed of the truck and lay down, wearing my winter coat, my fluffy bath robe with the hood, my winter Penguins hat, two pairs of socks and prepare to be amazed by the splendor of outer space.

It was seven degrees.

And I lasted about 45 minutes. I might have held out a little longer if I wasn't sure my brand new camera would have fossilized in the cold. Ready to see my super spectacular moment captured in time via digital photography?

Prepare to be amazed ...




No, don't adjust your monitor settings. Those first two pics are not the same. They're two different photos. If you look carefully enough, you'll see the faintest smidge of a gray star in the second picture. The third picture, well, I think that's a star but at that point my fingers were about to give in to frost bite so it looks a little more like a streaking meteor than it actually is.

It didn't help that a blanket of fog was rolling through the area, or that our local Fox affiliate posted contradictory "optimal viewing times" than did NASA.

And to top the story off, I had to call my sleeping-has-to-get-up-in-a-few-hours-told-me-it-was-a-bad-idea husband to talk me through switching the truck to four wheel drive because while all the streets leading to my parents were clear of snow and ice, the cul-de-sac they live on (with a slightly uphill angle when exiting) was most assuredly not de-iced. I seriously contemplated camping out in the middle of the road until dawn, when my step-dad would be leaving to work, and asking him to help me figure out how to drive uphill all so I could avoid calling my husband and admitting he was right ... but the idea of loitering in my parents' neighborhood during the predawn hours in the middle of an Arctic freeze was even less appealing than admitting there's a slim chance my husband was right and it was a waste of time, and that I'm not, in fact, the next Sally Gall.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

50k in 31 Days

Okay, so I'm a little obsessed with NaNoWriMo. As I've mentioned in other posts, it's the one time of the year where I seem to get things done. Having a goal and a deadline do wonders for my word count so a friend of mine came up with the idea to do NaNoWriMo throughout the year.

That's right ... a year of NaNoWriMo.

Through a quick Google search of NaNoWriMo spreadsheets, she found this awesome website that has done all the super hard spreadsheet stuff for you! A great big thanks to Svenja for the phenomenal effort. These new spreadsheets include a calendar for the entire year so you can pretty much so tailor your writing goals yourself and still feel like you have goal/deadline to meet.

So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm learning the ins and outs of the new spreadsheets and inputting my word count for today ... 3649

That's right, there are 25 minutes left in this east coast first day of the year and I have 3649 words already. The power of a deadline!