Monday, December 17, 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

AWOL for ABNA


So for the next six weeks or so (until the deadline of January 14th for the above), I probably won't be updating too much. I'll be trying to get my NaNoWriMo novel from last year into fighting shape for the contest.

That's all. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Deep Winter Style the Finale

Extremities

Hands can get chapped and cracked, 80% of one's heat leaves and the potential for sickness rises dramatically. That is, if you forget to take advantage of the style potential that lay in hats, gloves, and scarves. Weee!

Hats

Remember in the nineties when hats were just not okay? I do. I was in high school and some girl in my grade caught pneumonia when she walked to school in the dead of winter with wet hair and no hat. Or at least that's how the neighbourhood (sub)urban legend went. I am so glad the tide has turned.

There are so many hats style available for wearing today that the challenge can be finding one that fits one's style, is elegant, is chic, etc. AND will actually protect one's head from the cold. Right now the big thing in hats is beanies.


I could have sworn a beanie was one of those multicolor hats from cartoons with the propeller on top:

And that the corresponding winter headgear is a sloughy tuque. No? Oh, I'll give. But whatever you call a beanie, I call silly. I guess if you're 21 and going for that grungy look then sure. But they are just not for me. Not cute.

If I'm going for something sloughy, it's going to be a beret.


How I love a beret. And what's better than an animal print beret? Not that I have one. Mine is white. But the only problem with berets (that tuques/beanies don't share) is that they are not exactly good for getting out after the big overnight storm to shovel the walk. Or walking to the bus when it's -45 celsius February no sun for days. They are more "winter Lite."

For Deep Winter, there is just nothing better than the Trapper Hat.


Oh, trapper hat. How I love/loathe you. Sure they look ok on P.Y.T.s when worn with fashionably sloppiness. But they don't exactly scream elegant grown up New Year's Eve party or anything, do they? Maybe if we go back to that whole Russian Princess thang?


Gloves

Gloves have a similar problem that all winter clothes do: the better they are at protecting hands from an eternity of eczema, the uglier they are. I love my leather gloves. They are black, they have studs. They are amazing and make me look cool. But they are for the fall. For winter? How's about this for sex appeal:

Throw on a multicolored beanie (with propeller) and you're ready to head down a Paris runway! But at least you'll be warm and water proof while scraping the car's windshield of ice, right? Ugggggh. Can't we do any better?

If you've got $250 laying around, Ugg might have your answer:

Or you could surround your hands in fur. So practical:



Or there's always the faux fur mitten route:


All right, so maybe finding stylish winter waterproof hand coverings is even harder than finding chic winter boots. But one keeps hopeful that we don't all be condemned to a life a ski gloves.

Scarves

Thankfully, when it comes to scarves there are so many more options. My favorites include anything that has "infinity" in the name. And the good news is, they are so easy to make. Whether it's upcycled tshirts or sweaters or full on knitting or crochet, infinity is easy to imagine. At least when it comes to scarves.


I really love the fur/faux fur options lately. Wishlist!

Snoods

Between a scarf and a hood, a snood can work for those 'can't find a pretty winter hat and can't ruin this hairstyle' dilemmas. I love the super chunky variety personally, but there are as many types as there are personalities.


Angry because it is winter.
 
And yes, snoods and infinity scarves are similar, but for the former look for full head coverage potential for days when weather goes from around freezing to -15 in an hour. It happens.

Oh my goodness. Are we done? I think we're done. Did you ever think it would end? There are so many layers to put on, so many style choices to make, so many things to consider. Crank open that frozen window each morning (I had a friend who used to do that in order to figure out what to wear) or check your weather website. Then brace yourself.

At least walking around with an extra pound of clothes on will mean more cardio in your life? Maybe we should just crank the heat and wear our summer clothes. Haha.

I'll try and put together some wintery looks/pinterest board for you since I can't find much of what I speak of on the interwebs currently. Look for it.







Thursday, November 29, 2012

Off Day

This is how I am feeling today:


In other words, tired eyes. Little bit of nausea. Should have stayed in bed or something. Off.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Compliments

So I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up some mint and disinfecting spray. I was wearing my new thrifted booties:


And this random silver fox was all like, "nice boots!" as he walked past me. It was awesome.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Whining

I saw the (American) Thanksgiving episode of the Mindy Project last night. At the end, there was this whole sequence of the work pals sending Thanksgiving pics to each other. It made me sad.




Because I wish I had a smartphone.



Okay, so how long have smartphones been around? Like, three years? Nah, more like five, right? I guess if you include PDAs its more like 15 or 20. But the iPhone, smartphone of choice came out 2007. So, five years.

I have been poor for so long. Will it end soon please?

Actually I do have a Samsung Galaxy Q or some such nonsense that I got for $0 and can be a smartphone if you like, but I can't afford the data plan. I swear by the time we actually made any sort of real money up in this coupledom we'll have both just passed over smartphones completely and just head straight into reality augmented glasses:


Hey she kinda looks like me. Except also not at all. At any rate, whine. Whine whine. All my technologies is crap. Oh well at least I have a computer.

Monday, November 19, 2012

50% off and another Jam

Ok, so I have a tiny bit of time today but I won't get deep into it. So finally, today, Value Village had their post-Halloween 50% sale. Tell you what I got in a more different post. For now, look what I found on the radio on the weekend. Oh man, it is soooooo good. This is what it's all about:




Yay! Ok well I guess that's it. Worky work. It's snowed here in the meantime, and its stayed. It's going to be a damn long winter. I'm back on the 17 day diet today, might mix it with a little 30 day shred. Only two things that deliver results fast, for me.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

NANOWRIMO!

Are you ready???? For:


It starts tomorrow! I am so excited. I have to admit that this year, due to the fact that last year I felt a little rushed and a little lost and he was here for only two more weeks before leaving again! I wrote a whole bunch of crap that I eventually had to cut out of that novel. It was very unfocused. And perhaps one can argue that this always happens with first drafts, that I shouldn't sweat it, etc.

It's not so much a question of sweating it. It's more the fact that I discovered, in writing cold last year (my first NaNoWriMo), that I am an OP.



According to James Scott Bell, there are two types of writers: NOPs (no outline people) and OPs (outline people). I thought I was a NOP. I was convinced that I was the free-wheeling type, just letting my imagination take me where it will. There something bad about that, though. Because left to its own devices, my imagination loves nothing better than describing settings and people in exuciating details. Pages and pages. That, and edifying the reader as to the back story of every single character from the minor to the main, from the time they were both until they show up on the page. No good.

So I have an outline. Overall structure, chapter line summaries, chapter full summaries. I also wanted to get into outlining setting details and character detail in full (but in point form) so that while writing that first draft, and I can go and pull certain details (but not all) and cut down on the heavy handed description. Is that cheating?

Well it matters not since I didn't get around to it in time anyways. Oh well! The novel's first draft has the difficult job of being absolute crap.

But I feel good about the upcoming month. The novel is the first in a series, and yes, that fantasy series that I have been needing to write, been writing my entire life (well, ok...22 years). Here's some fun! Visualization is fun!

There is a regional group in this town that is meeting up several times for NaNoWriMo. But I am scared. Not only of social interaction with new people in general, but about showing this, my most important work, to total strangers.

So today is Halloween and I have the candy waiting by th door already. It's not even 3 p.m., the kiddies won't even be home from school yet. Still I am nervous/excited. I wish he was here. It is lonely doing this.......alone. Um, yeah.

Anyways let me know if you are doing NaNoWriMo and maybe you could find me on that website and be my "writing buddy"! Cause I have none so far. Boo Hoo. :P

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

More Adventures in the Prairie Wilds

What a long day it was yesterday. It was about 13.5 hours from the time I got up to the time I got home and was able to actually sit down.

First I had a day of substituting for the Hutterites again. It had been raining all night -- and although I didn't get lost for the first time (these folks really do not want to be found, I swear), when I turned down that long dirt road that had turned to mud, my car started slowing down. And then I got stuck completely. I made the mistake of getting out of the car, although it did prove to me that the wheel wells were completely encrusted. I did get the car out of the muda moment later, but it took turning off the automatic stabilization. Then the driving looked a little like:



With a lot of wrenching the wheel back and forth on the inside of the car. When I got there, I was muddy and shaken. It was probably the most stressful driving I've ever done. Fortunately, there is another way back into town that is all gravel roads! I'd never thought I'd be happy to see a gravel road! Woot.

Other things:

-good thing I went to Catholic school as a kid, since they don't have an intercom system in their two-classroom school. I had to lead them in not only singing the national anthem (I can't believe I remembered the words!) but also in the our father. The same version I learnt as a kid. Despite atheist shutterings,  having ex-nuns for teachers back in the day was good for something.
-At lunch time the other teachers informed me that half way through, two of the girls would bring some soup to the staff room for us. What with having an extended family who, on my mother's side, are of German descent and all, I was expecting some sort of hearty beefy stewy egg noodley rustic dish. What we actually got -- apparently called Canadle (that's what the name sounded like), was like cup of soup. Miniscule dough balls that were the noodles, complete with bright yellow broth (when has real chicken broth ever looked that way?) and tons and tons and tons of salt. And a lemon meringue pie that was grey.

Okay I'm spend.

Monday, October 22, 2012

My Favourite Holiday

So Halloween is coming up and I love it. I can't wait. I won't tell you what my costume is yet, because it's a surprise. Always a surprise.

So the good news is that I might be able to help out with the planificationisms of the party being thrown by my significant other's (such an awkward title) ....professional organization. Yay! Haunted House set up my favourites!

Look at all this halloweeny stuff!!!!

On the weekend I slacked off of exercise and diet. Oops. Oh well back on the horse this morning. I have some substituting work this week, some tutoring. I'm going grocery shopping today.

Man what a boring entry. Probably go do some writing now. Not much else to say at the mo, I suppose. Later.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Day 6

I got so sick last night. Randomly sick. I was having a sweets craving and so I made myself a little microwave cake with quinoa flour. I don't know if it was a bad batch of flour or the microwave or what...but I got really sick to my stomach. The pain of which seemed to accentuate the fact that every single one of my muscles hurt.

I'm on Day 6 of the The 30 Day Shred.


My shoudlers hurt. I think I did two days of bad form reverse curls, and so my lower back hurt. I just hurt all over. But I did it again this morning. Argh the punishment. I have been losing a few inches here and there, however. So I suppose I should keep going.

And throw out that quinoa flour. In the throes of nausea I seemed to remember this happening the last time I used it...

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Mani

I was just reading a couple of my previous posts on here and realized that I tend to muck up my verb tenses and pluralizationisms. Call it fatigue.

Anyways today I thought I'd write about nail polish. Woot. It's a rainy day and cold, and other than some transcription I have no work. Poop. So I painted my nails.

Recently I stumbled across some China Glaze nail polish in Winners (T.J. Maxx if you're American -- more or less best store ever) that was 3 for $10. I've actually never seen China Glaze sold in Canadian stores. Or maybe I've never noticed. There were a bunch of three packs with weirdo colours, but here's the one I got:


So it's three metallics: gold, silver, and this bronze-y one. And they are crackle polish. Now, I realize that the trend itself is like, so over or whatever. But I've never tried them and always have wanted to. But I could never justify paying $14 in walmart or sephora for a single bottle.

You have to have a second colour on the bottom for the things to work. So the first combination I tried was this midnight blue called Pier 17 from NYC with silver. It was awesome. The thing about NYC nail polish is that they are a dollar cheaper or so than Wet N' Wild, but they are sooooo watery. Whatever. I can't really go for $2.50 bottles of Wet N' Wild at the moment. And the NYC colours are nice -- at least.

Today I tried Black and Gold. So awesome!

 
So there's the NYC colour. It's called Bowery Black but it has this weird iridescence to it that makes it look more like gunmetal. One of these days I'll buy a true black and wear only that with bright cherry red lips and my fake leather (apparently now called 'vegan') moto jacket and be angry. Flashback to 2009.
 
Okay so this is what it looks like:
 
 
Argh! I have claws! No just kidding. Anyways I really like this. It makes me wants to dress all edgy. I wish my sister was here so we could both do this. Shout out sistafriend! I know you're reading this! ;P
 
Ok I'm going to do some writing now. Later.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Kitty Cat

Just a little note to say that I made a short video of The Cat, Zora. She's so cute:


Yay! Enjoy.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Adventuring

This morning I had my second experience with the Hutterites. Substitute teaching, that is. It wasn't so bad. I always have crazy nerves before hand, nervous stomach and all that -- but in the end it always turns out alright. Apparently they were very well behaved (although I didn't think so). For being pacifists, these kids sure do hit each other a lot.

Oh well, whatever. On the way back home I did my usual re-integration into society thang and blasted Korea pop on the radio. I wouldn't give up my life for all the world, really. Then I'd have to give up guilty pleasures such as:

 
Maybe because it is the farthest thing from Hutterites I can think of existing in the world today, I just need it as a tincture in recovering from all these naughty children who have their own built-in cell phone ring tone that no adult can hear (i.e. that old dialect of German that is so removed from modern German as to be even less intelligible than Quebecois is to a speaker of Parisian French. Thus one cannot learn it from a book).
 
Anyways, Digression. I was driving back to the city (The City out here) on this long dirt road that threathened to turn into mud and it occurred to me: these strange adventures and misadventures on this great vast plain are exactly what I've always wanted my life to be. No, I never thought I'd be teaching children of an Anabaptist sect in the Canadian midwest -- that's not what I mean. But how many people from when and where I grew up can say that they've done this?
 
And the best part of all this is that this is only the first adventure. We'll be here for two years at the most -- and then on to the next adventure. I suppose what I am saying is that I am feeling grateful for finding a life with a man who is as much an adventurer -- and wanderer -- as I am. And I'm not talking vacations here. I've had my feminist moanings about how I have to follow his career around...but honestly...I'm deep down more glad than sad that I do. After all, even before I met him it was difficult for me to stay in one place more than a year.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Mixed Bag

Weight loss has stalled, feel super bloaty. TMI, I know. Tried to write and clean the house at the same time. Never a good idea.

We were going to go to Minneapolis this long weekend, but we'll be staying home instead. No Mall of America/Target and H&M for me. :(
First we couldn't find his passport, then it seems like if we go at Easter we might have more money for it. Then we decided that I would break my diet and have a couple's version of turkey dinner (since I found a box of stuffing and a packet of gravy in the cupboards...plus I'm going to make a pumpkin pie! Now I need a couple turkey breast, a few potatoes and some veggies to make bacon vegetables! (We had those at my brother's wedding a few weeks ago. Best veggies ever!)

And now, on top of everything, it's snowing. First week of October. Oh yah, this is going to be an AWESOME winter. :(

So I had an interview yesterday. It went well, but I won't hear back about it for awhile. If I get it, that will mean that including writing I will have 6 jobs. SIX. This one summer in university I had three jobs: weekday job, weeknight job, and weekend job. That was hell. But SIX? tutoring, transcription, two substituting contracts...oh crap I counted wrong. Ohhhh right. I'll have six if I get the 'casual' fabricland job. Six jobs that don't add up to a work week.

I guess this is what they mean by under-employed.

Anyways, in more happy news I took myself out shopping after the interview. Because what else is an underemployed lady to do with her but put her mere pennies into the pockets of corporate kagillionaires? I went to Forever 21. I tried on like, a million things. I narrowed it done to three tops, a necklace, and a pair of leggings. I wanted about six pairs of their shoes. But stayed away. The total came to $100 or so when I added in my head. So I put down two tops. $50. So put down the other top $25. I ended up spending about that after tax. After tax = evil words.

Anyways. I got leopard print leggings for $6.80 in lieu of getting the leopard print jeans I really wanted -- those were $30. So cheap! No, not so. Not when you have six jobs, my friend. I got this necklace:

There was only one. I had to. It was on my pinterest, and only $11.80. (yes, that IS a lot of tax, certainly. But at least I won't ever had to pay for a hospital bed. Unless, you know, I get cosmetic surgery or something. Which I won't. Botchalism is not cute).

Okay, so I came home and look at the pin again, and realized that the website was not Forever 21. I thought not. So then I went on their webpage and looked for it, but couldn't find it. Do I have to look in the sale section? Am I hallucinating, or did this necklace just appear randomly and mistakenly in my life? I'd like to believe that. I think I will just for fun.

Anyways, I am still ironing the kinks out of this diet business. protein concentrated in the morning, fruits mid-morning/lunch, veg in the late afternoon/evening. And I am not having much luck with nuts, other than almond milk and almond butter. Peanut butter is dangerous. Cashews just come out too chunky. Working out, pushing myself. Results are gradual. Not crazy enough to be all that encouraging. But I should give it a little more time.


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Update: Day #1

Woo hoo! One pound down! Now this is encouraging....

UpDATE!

Okay, so progress. Progress is good. But it's not like it's easy. Here was what yesterday looked like:

Wake-up

40 Minutes Yoga
2 cups of hot water with a lemon wedge

Breakfast

A basic smoothie of my own devising:

1 cup frozen raspberries
6 ounces plain 0% fat yogurt with probiotics
1 stock kale, chopped
1 tbsp agave nectar
1 tbsp ground flaxseed


And a cup of green tea. This is the smoothie I make when I am stuck for ideas. Probiotics, protein, fruit, veg. It's all good. You'll see in the weeks ahead that because I have the cheapest blender known to human kind, I have to do a lot of extra work to help it along. This includes pre-chopping almost everything!!!!

Snack #1:

Another smoothie of my own devising, since I had to get some more calories before braving the grocery store. Otherwise I'd find myself standing in an aisle behind my grocery cart staring into the middle distance, half-braindead. This is what I meant by out of control insulin levels. Ridiculous.

1 of those little snack cup thingys of unsweetened applesauce (since I'm pretty sure my blender cannot handle apples). I used one of those Mott's flavoured ones that was called Anti-Oxidant but basically means apples and pomegrante.
1 cup frozen raspberries
Like 1/4 cup almond milk just to make it work
1 tbsp ground flaxseed

A little less successful since the applesauce and almond milk don't exactly mesh well.

Lunch:

#18 from here. A lot of my smoothie idea are going to come from this list since it seems to have a great mixture of fruit, veg, protein.

So Mango, Carrot and Herb sounds like a crazy weird mixture, right? Wrong! It was the best smoothie I have ever had. EVER! I put mint and basil in mine and it was so so so so so so goooooooooooooood. It made me have high hopes for the rest of the list.

Oh and I had green tea. Like at every meal.

Snack #2:

Alright, here's where it got a little wonky. I blame the cat for crying half the night and keeping me up. See, I didn't exactly wake up at my usual time and so the entire day was off-kilter. I actually had this snack right before dinner, and it was an 'escape hatch' snack.

I was right in the middle of making dinner when I felt faint. Low-blood-sugar faint. And so I cheated. Sort of. I had a Larabar. Yes, I bought them at the grocery store knowing that something like this might happen. I'm hoping I can get better at front-loading my days with protein so it doesn't happen again.

Anyways then I made dinner.

Dinner:

Carrot Soup from Dr. Joshi's Holistic Detox. Wish I could type the recipe here, but I'm pretty sure that would be bad. Other soup ideas come from Whole Living and Eating Well.

Bedtime:

So first I did Zumba for 50 minutes. I had a bunch of water while I was at it. I had had, throughout the day, 8 glasses of water, 8 ounces each. Hooray!

Then I made myself some herbal tea. Mojito from Tedley, yummy. I like mint. Then I couldn't get over my post-workout I need 300 more calorie to repair body hang-up, so I had another smoothie. It was....a kefir smoothie from The 17 Day Diet. Super simple: kefir (I use raspberry flavoured), mixed frozen berries, flaxseed again.

All in all I was under my calories by about 79 or so, no bigger. And I lost a pound! Now if only I could get over that need-to-hit-my-calorie-limit thing. It comes from being obsessed with tracking on My Fitness Pal, I think, and the little warning they give you if you don't eat enough.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Liquid Lunch

Thunder Only Happens

So I was all ready to tell you all about this new diet that I've concocted, but I had this crazy dream last night. It was about how Kanye West had decided to execute a bunch of people. Like, 500 or so. I guess he was the ruler of...something. I don't remember. But I do remember that I was the only person who had the power to dissuade him from randomly executing a bunch of people for no reason. Very Weird....

Liquidy Goodness

On to the diet. So I have this friend who has been on a "cleanse" and has been documenting it on facebook. I'm not sure exactly which cleanse it is -- but I know it's not the Master Cleanse. It involved liquids and then adding proteins back in and stuff ... but here's the thing: she's lost a pound a day. And after seeing some unfortune photos of me walking away from the weekend, I've decided that I too want to lose at that tempo. But no juice fast for me. No Sir.

The Constraints of Budget

Juice fast require either a) a juicer or b) access to a company that provides the juice. Both of which I have no money for. Do you know how much a juicer costs? Jack Lalanne wants like, $119 for his. Or I could do the 'cheaper' $80 Hamilton Beach. Perhaps in some parts of the world that seems reasonable, but I need to buy about 6 juicers a month for the National Student Loan Centre, with just enough dough left over to save up for next month.

What I do have is a personal sized blender that I bought for $12 about a year or so ago. And a kitchen. So Here's my plan:

Wake-up: Hot Water with Lemon, 40 Minutes of Yoga.
Breakfast: Green Tea, Smoothie with fruit, veg, protein, and probotics.
Snack #1: Detox Water of lemon, cucumber, mint, Smoothie with fruit, veg, protein, and probotics.
Lunch: Green Tea, Smoothie with fruit, veg, protein, and probotics.
Snack #2: Detox Water of lemon, cucumber, mint, Smoothie with fruit, veg, protein, and probotics.
Dinner: Green Tea, Soup of Pureed Vegetables (carrot, leek, etc.).
Bedtime: 50 Minutes of Zumba followed by Mint Tea.

My reasoning is that I'll be able to do a cleanse without all the potential muscle loss of a juice fast. And with any luck I'll be able to rectify my insulin levels. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Kick in the Bum

So on the weekend I went to a wedding that was meant to be a summer wedding, and so I wore a summer dress from BCBG. But unpredictable Canadian weather meant that there was the addition of cropped cardigans and fancy trenches all around.

Anyways, one of my old friends was there -- someone who I haven't seen in a long time, but someone who has always been in my corner. He looked at me and asked if I'd been writing lately. I hesitated. I fibbed. I conflated the issue by bragging about how I had a day job. But the look in his eyes was like a spotlight. And it kicked my ass. Big time.

This morning I got back to writing. I put aside the non-starter novel for now and began to outline a new one. One I'd been postponing for oh so very very long. Hooray!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Just three hours

Work soon. Telling myself it is a mere three hours. Willing myself to get through it so that I can hang out with bestie from high school and go to the Goodwill $1 sale.

1. It's strange in all its glory, the odd corners of life in which one suddenly finds oneself. We were close for about four years -- the most painful times of high school. That era during which the only way I made it through was due to the fact that she was there: co-authoring delectable serial fiction in the back of biology, folding notes written to each other in that certain odd way that only teenagers know how (do teenagers still do that? Or is the ancient art of high school paper folding gone by the wayside now that things are a bit more paperless?)

But now we find ourselves again in the same city, 15 years later, our lives are very different. Her life is exactly what she wanted: husband, kids, another on the way, steady womanly/caring profession, church. But Mine? Well, let's take a peek at the life list, shall we? Man, yes; home, a work in progress but yes; lack of children, yes (woot!); writing career, no. Adventure, very little. Travel? Barely. Art and beauty and style and financially comfortable? Not in this cruddy little suburban neck of the woods.

Securely ensconced in my adulthood and only halfway to fully human. How do I obtain these things? I suppose I keep writing. Always writing. When I'm not working at horrible horrible day job, that is.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

So the house is all packed up and the boxes are being moved out. Then we clean and leave.

The other night, the night before the morning when the packers were to arrive, we went to the new home of one of our old neighbours. It was located in this crazy little planned community that was once meant to be the homes of shoe factory workers. You know, about a millennium ago when things like shoes were actually made in North America.

So these neighbours were pretty great neighbours. They mowed our lawn for us and shoveled our shared driveway in the winter. We gave them a gift as thank you. The dinner they served us was awesome and the dog and the kids amusing. But overall I have to say I was bored. Half the night was consumed by military talk. That's the thing about being a military 'wife' living in government housing. That's all anyone talks about. At least it feels that way. Sure, the two of us talk about art, music, literature, technology, science, progress, philosophy. Things that matter, at least to me. But step out the front door and all of a sudden it's like no one has a personality.

Also I realized, in all these failed attempts at being social, that I fail because I am a leader. But everyone who's to talk to on the base already has a leader: that mythical beast the country. They do not need a social hierarchy since they already have one. Damn. The only way I can shine, socially, up in smoke.

At any rate at least we're moving to a larger city, where the major defining feature of it is not one's 'husband's' job. And I already have friends there. And his colleagues will be younger, and thus will not expect one to talk exclusive and unerring about 1) kids; 2) home; 3) career; or 4) some other damn boring adult bullshit.

Also that frog from the picture wound up dead on the back walk. Damn birds.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

On being an airforce "wife"

So, we're moving. The first in a long line of moves. Right now, however, I have nothing to do despite the fact that it's happening in less than a week. We're getting movers and so we can just keep the house as it is. Eventually we'll have to do things like unplug the TV and the computer. But it is surreal to me since I've lived in eight different places in the past seven years, and every time I've had to do the packing myself.

So anyways he went out to get all the paperwork done and I've worked on my novel and poked around on pinterest and did the dishes. So I'm done until he comes by in an hour and we have an appointment to get a block heater put on the car. Because when you're moving to Winterpeg, Manisnowba you need a block heater on your car so it'll actually start in the winter. Man, it's going to be a long year. Apparently I'm also supposed to get one of those hideous down coats that reach one's ankle. Fun.

The craziest thing about this move is that because we are and are going to be living in military housing, our house is going to be exactly the same. Can you imagine moving across the country only to settle into the exact same model house you had before? Weird!

We still haven't found out whether we'll be allowed to go through the states. If we have to go through Canada it's going to be five days of wilderness and tricky driving. If we go through the states it's going to be like, hey -- tour of the big cities of the Midwest! And lovely cheap prices and probably more pet-friendly hotels in which to stay with kitty. Travel with kitty = crazy adventure. I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Cold Snap

I despise when the weather swings this way in the summer. I could endure four months of 41 and humid if it weren't for the sudden 15 and windy.

But I took advantage of the sudden cool anyhow to do the mountain of dishes in the kitchen. No dishwasher + no central + scorching heat + on a writing roll = a kitchen full of dirty dishes. Oh well, now they're done.

Also completed are the Gloria Vandibilt jeans that I went ahead and hand dyed a perfect mint yesterday, as well as the white gladiator sandals that I picked up at the goodwill clearance center that are now a lovely shade of muted gold.

Art is off the wall, and almost every room has been sorted and cleaned for the upcoming move. Next are the office papers: a horribly big job that I am not looking forward to.

I am also not looking forward to leaving this summer paradise for Winterpeg, so called, and a Spring Redux. I've been checking the weather, and they barely break 20 degrees. At least the mint jeans now have an offically longer shelf life!!

(Pictures soon of all these lovelies, at the moment I seem to have misplaced my camera)

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Heat Wave

It's going to be -- or "feel like" -- 41 degrees today. Celsius. That's nearly 106 Fahrenheit. One of those days that requires shorts and tank top. Or a sundress with a distressed denim vest. The Levi's one I got from an outlet for $1.50 about a million years ago that I've worn for Halloween and I never thought would come into style.

So I'm hiding out in the office with the "portable" air conditioner.

Look! What I found in our backyard yesterday:


Hooray!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

I miss LiveJournal...

So I used to have this livejournal account that I started a decade. An actual real Decade ago. I am still such a kid at heart that I can't believe that I just typed that statement. How am I old enough to even remember what happened a decade ago?

The special aspect of said first blog account was that it was uncensured. I would just spew, nearly daily, all my minute emotional rumblings and petty thoughts about hating my job and hating my classes and interactions with passersby. I actually logged back into that account today, and though I set every last one of those entries to private a long, long time ago: I still have access, even after all this time. Maybe I should go back to that account. Perhaps it would allow me to recapture misspend youth.

Nah, I'll just continue here. You can't go back again, right? But there are a few key take away lessons from delving into the past for an afternoon:

1. Write as if no one will read it but you. It's the only way for me to be genuinely me.
2. Get out more often. It's the little things that matter in writing, and in life.
3. You're never quite as far as you think you are from the life you want to live.

Having a livejournal kept me sane. Perhaps now I feel a little insane because I starve myself of that forum. It would be a good idea to form an entry daily, without worrying about what the market is like. In 2002, blogs were personal journals. Nowadays, everyone has a damn blog and it has to have a market niche. Nuts to That! It's time to have again, to become once more addicted to the written word!Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Wind across the plains...

I find it difficult to work while traveling. Perhaps this is something that I should remedy. Or perhaps not. It is at these times that I let the images of new places and the experience of travel wash over me, the inspiration drilling deep into my consciousness to save for a later time. Carry a notebook, they say, to capture it before it is gone. But it is not gone. Later I write it down. Moments captured in my brain, stamped on my brain, until I write them all down.




Boyfriend and I scamper over the prairie, he taking photos of animals that dwell between partially submerged cottages and derelict scientific observation stations. Then we drive. It is so vast, so open. Kilometers stretch in every direction. Every though we can see so far, to the edge where the earth curves away, there is no one. The weather turns suddenly and there is not a single other human being, not even another vehicle. It is as though we've reached the end of time, and there is no one left but us.

Monday, March 12, 2012

A Week of the Process



And now I have half an outline. The revision process is so deep, I begin again with an outline. Since in the interim of writing the first draft and now, many new scenes have suggested themselves to me. Long, long work. Many a time I wish that I could write faster. The day job intercedes.

I am moving soon. When I move, I've to look for yet another day job. I think a book shop might suffice. And be appropriate. The question is, how to persuade some bloody corporate to hire a person with four degrees to sell books?

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Current Project

A new blog for a new project.



Well, ok, it's not technically new. Actually, I got the idea about a year ago. And now, after a speedy first draft, I am in the revision phase. It's been a long, grueling process but I know in the end, it'll be worth it.

My project is a novel. A Sci Fi novel. I have been writing since I was nine years old, but I have to admit that this is the first time in my life that I've actually put away all the old excuses and sat down to write a novel, beginning to end, end to beginning, and every point in between.

I don't want to give too much away at this point, since the thing is still formative, but I do want to say it is about robots with a capital rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. However, I set out to write a novel that was about robots, the eventual pervasion of A.I. into the lives of the masses, and the consequences thereof. Having bumped up against A.I. in my studies, this will not be a novel of Skynet, of Hal, of I, Robot. Neither will it be of Bicentennial Man or what's that other one? A.I. No I'm sentient and now I have to kill you story here. We could never, as a species, predicted how the internet would change our lives. And neither can we predict how A.I. will change our lives. However, I suppose I intend to try. To dial it forward in dramatized fashion.

Coming together quite nicely, that. Intend to release eBook. At this rate, I'm looking to the summer.