Thanks*Giving

Monday, November 7, 2011

I could proceed to run down what feels like an obligatory list of extended relatives, friends, and loved ones, but I am not going to do that. This is about the things I am truly grateful for as they occur to me, or whatever makes the biggest impact of a particular day. If you want a shout out, feel free to try to make my day. :) A few more days' catch up:

November 4th
 

I have to give thanks for the blessing that is the animals and pets in my life. Every day I wake up happy (ok, so sometimes at 3am maybe not so much, but in general!) and every night I go to sleep knowing that there is a living thing that looks to me as their world. I am their provider and they love me unconditionally. Pets are a blessing to me.

November 5th
 

I would like to express my extreme gratitude for my friends. I got to spend time on this day in Atlanta with my inner circle of friends and I love being around them and I love the energy we share whenever I get to spend time with them.

November 6th
 

I am thankful for Mac and Cheese, and Oven Roasted Vegetables. Seriously. I made the oven roasted veggies last night (recipe later, SOOOO GOOD) and tonight John is making good old Kraft Mac 'n Cheese to have with them. I'd rather have homemade M&C, but without the ingredients and an hour to kill, Kraft will definitely do. I am thankful for having the means to obtain and make these lovely items. If you think that this one is superfluous or don't believe that you should be thankful for food, ask the people in Africa. Sign this petition with me if you are grateful to be fed.

I am ALSO grateful for my work friends, specifically the Racker Writers group that got together to do writing sprints for NaNoWriMo over our lunch today. 1000 more words = all win! Every thousand words gets me another step closer to the 50k that are needed to "win" NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo Word Count du Jour

Friday, November 4, 2011

Word count, per MS Word, as of yesterday (11/03/11): 3,119

Only 46,881 words to go.

Did I mention I'm traveling to Atlanta this weekend (14 hours of driving)? And I have a lot to do tonight to get ready for my quick trip.

Thanks*Giving

Thursday, November 3, 2011

I am totally stealing this idea from someone else - listing something you are thankful for each day in the month of November. I need to catch up, so today will be THREE things I am thankful for.

For November 1, I would like to start out with saying I am thankful to have gotten so close to my Dad, and that his battle with Multiple Myeloma seems to be going well. I have come to truly appreciate how lucky I am to still get to have him in my life.

For November 2: My heart is full as I give thanks for my husband John. He is my lover, my rock, my cheerleader, and my closest friend. I've been so fortunate to have enjoyed ten adventurous years with him so far, and can't wait to spend many more. He is a grace on my existance.

For November 3: I am grateful for my sister. She and I are like two sides of a coin - I think I am hard and she is soft (neither of those being particularly "good" or "bad", just different with their own prices and benefits). Externally I think we may seem totally different, but we are so interwoven and alike. I have and will always learn from her.

I am so Thank*Full. What are you thankful for?

NaNoWriMo

Ok, so it is November, and the annual occasion of "NaNoWriMo," a.k.a. National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, writers around the world sign up for NaNoWriMo and try to write 50,000 words before the end of the month.

I recently joined a group on our internal Chatter site (like Facebook, but internal to my company) for Writers and some of the folks there were talking about doing it. I've always fancied myself a writer and love this idea, so I decided to go along for the ride.

We're on Day 3 of the challenge and I thought I'd jump over here to do a quick update. Isn't it funny -- now I'm worried about "wasting" my words over here, versus putting them to my "novel." C'est la vie.

My friend Debbie Talley gave a great tip (which I didn't follow, but still think is a great idea) that last year she wrote out 30+ index cards with writing prompts, prior to Nov. 1st. If I had a plot in mind going in, I definitely would have done that.

So, anyway, the big news of this post is to let you know about a tool I found that I'm loving - it is called Write Or Die. You put in your target word count, and amount of time, set a few other options and away you go! It has a tracking bar at the top to show how you're doing on your word count, and another for your time. If you stop typing for more than a second or two the screen starts to fade over to a bright red color, and after about :10 an annoying sound (of your choice!) begins. I chose the 'bad violins' (or something like that, is what the sound is called), and BOY does it work! I HAD to start typing just to make that noise stop!! I set a goal of 1000 words in 1/2 hour (there is a twitter hashtag you can follow for others attempting to do this - #30min1k), and according to WOD I met it! (OK, the disclaimer is that the 1012 that WOD said I got only showed as 940 on Word, but still - 940 words in 32 minutes - I think that's great!).

You can also follow @nanowordsprints on twitter for word sprint suggestions (which I haven't found too helpful, personally).

Anyhoo - just checking in. Now to leave you with, hopefully, a smile... I had a silly idea this morning for a gimmicky novel about the future, where the English language has evolved (devolved) to the point that common phrases were converted to their TXT equivalents. Here's a sample:

"Well, teeteewhyell, got a meeting."
"OK, teeteeeffenn - just elmeekay if you can catch lunch later."

That's about it. Teeteewhyell!!

Crafting stuff lately

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I realized I was looking for "one" place to post some crafting updates, and none of the first places that came to mind 'worked' for what I was looking for (Facebook, G+, Twitter...). Then I remembered my BLOG! Perfect!

Just a little crafting update, I've been doing a lot more lately and I've not posted anything up here.

We'll start with Halloween, an 'upcycled' cameo that I found on sale for $2.50 at Michaels...

Cameo before:


Cameo after:

Missing Garden Journal

Thursday, September 15, 2011

So I will post here until I can find it!

Planted today in the left side beds:

Bed 1 (closest to house): Hardneck Garlic "Music"

Beds 2 & 3: Hardneck Garlic "Belarus"

Bed 4: Softneck Garlic "Red Koch"

All from Green Mountain Garlic.

The myth of stability

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Interesting messages coming up in my life right now. I'm trying to learn (become?) the lesson of balance. A blog I read said "Balance isn’t steady-state. Balance is constant movement, constant change."; this rings so true to me.

It reminded me of a time when I was very young. I was riding in the back seat of the car, and I had one of those replica toy dashboards, steering wheel and all, set up in front of me (maybe I was imagining it, steering wheel and all; I don't recall). It was an "ah-ha" moment... I was pretending to drive and realized: I always pretend driving is just holding on to the wheel, keeping your hands in one position, but I looked up and there was my Dad, driving... Making thousands of tiny course corrections, constantly shifting slightly left, now right... Driving isn't just holding onto the wheel to go straight, it is a series of millions of micro movements to adjust to the environment around you.

Maintaining balance isn't about being in some smooth flow... It is about adapting, overcoming, passing over bumps with grace. It is the tree that bends in a strong wind. It is the recognition that chaos, too, is a key component of what we call balance. These are all spokes on a continuously turning wheel... I imagine it to be a bit like the log rolling competition in a lumberjack contest. Be flexible. Expect the unexpected.