Random Thoughts for a Rainy Day

We went almost the entire summer without rain, but it's rained three times this week already. No one is complaining--it seems that we just recovered from the terrible drought of the last decade, only for the lake to be down several feet again. (At the height of our drought, our local water (and water that went to Florida) supply, Lake Lanier, was down almost 30 feet.)

Like any good writer, I love a dreary day! Sadly I can't spend it writing--I'm supposed to be studying muscles, bones, joints, and skin for my next anatomy exam tomorrow. So far I've slept in, worked out, and am finally eating breakfast and thinking about Christmas.

I've noticed that people are posting Nordstrom's sign a lot on Facebook:

I get it. I really do. But personally, I love Christmas. I'd like to live in a Christmas-decorated world for about 9 months out of the year, with the other 3 months decorated for fall.

This will be my first Christmas as a homeowner. I've already decided where to put my tree. As for whether or not it will be an artificial tree, I still haven't decided. The kittens destroyed last year's tree so hard that I'm loathe to go through that again, especially since it'll be on carpet instead of tile. They may be a year older, but they're not any more mature, let me assure you.

And along the Christmas thoughts, I've decided that I'm going to try and do most of my Christmas shopping in support of small business, whether local brick and mortars, or through shops like Etsy. I'm also going to try and finish most of it by the first week in December so that A) I can spend December writing, and B) those whose items I'm buying can have plenty of time to use my money to do their own Christmas shopping.

Holidays should be interesting this year. I haven't talked about it before, but my grandmother (mom's mom) has been in a terrible battle with her third round of breast cancer for the last two years. This time it metastacized in her bones. She's doing better now than she was for a while, but she's still not in great shape. For the past 3 years, my parents have gone to stay with her for Thanksgiving (she lives in Florida), but this year they've gotten her to agree to come up before Thanksgiving and stay through Christmas. So I fully expect Evan and I will be doing the double Thanksgiving this year, which we've not done before. Even worse, we'll probably be doing damage control with his parents, as it's still very iffy whether or not Evan's brother and his wife will be able to come for the holidays.

Thanksgiving, of course, will be a blur for me, since it's the final week of class before the semester ends and we have finals. I'm just going to eat my turkey and take a nap, and this year I won't be doing the Black Friday thing, unless my MIL really wants my company.

And now that I've had an internal conversation on my blog, I'm going to eat my grapefruit now...

QUICK AGE POLL

Very straightforward and completely unnecessary. Recent events have led me to wonder: how old do I really look? And for those of you who know how old I am, just pretend.

Well????

You're So Hypnotizing

Hi Bloggy People!

Here I sit (did I mention I got a new desk chair? It's awesome), all sweaty from a fresh 30 Day Shred workout, drinking my big glass of water and contemplating the day ahead. It's the summer solstice, and it seems like I should do something special to celebrate, no? I mean, it's my namesake and all.

I bought 3 packs of bratwurst on sale yesterday. Mayhap grilling some brats will be proper celebration?

I also bought an additional bookshelf. Since two of my bookshelves got broken in the move, I decided the smart thing to do was to upgrade the smaller one so that not only do I have plenty of room for my current books, but I'll save some room for future growth.

I barely managed to squeeze all my books onto the 2 shelves I currently have, but it's sad and frightening, guys. I stacked the books on their sides, shelved them regularly then stacked books on top of those. Poor books.

Random thought: I'm almost ashamed to admit how many times I've listened to Katy Perry's song "E.T." over the past week. It's an earworm (alien?) of epic proportions.

Worrisome thought: Before we moved, I thought I'd have "all summer" to work on novel revisions. The truth is, I haven't touched it, and June is almost over. Nursing school starts August 11. Yowch.

The Truth: I let my cats knock my brand-new Christmas present digital camera on to the floor...er, a few times... It hasn't worked since February. I couldn't stand to tell my mother-in-law that I broke it in 2 months, so I ordered the exact same model, even though there were others that were cheaper and possibly better, though it's a good one. I should be getting it today or tomorrow, so I'll finally have some new pictures of the house, cats, and random things. Be afraid!


Ex
Tra
Terres
Trial....

Thangs 'n Suches

Thanks for all the wise words and well-wishes regarding my irrational fear of returning to my neglected novel!

I got back on the horse, and we galloped around the countryside--no bucking and just a hair of braying.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to make my end-of-March deadline, but I'm okay with it, considering I lost two weeks. March has turned out to be hella stressful since adding the house-hunting business to the mix, though I'm hoping that will be resolved soon (please god).

In random news...

• My sister-from-another-mister Hannah Kincade has joined the dark Twitter ranks! Follower her @WriterHKincade (and prepare yourself for any drawn-out, inappropriate [to some] conversations between us [and sometimes with friends]) 
• The author who visited my university last week said that he thinks all characters need a secret. I'm not sure I agree with him, but he's the one with four books published, not me. 
• She'll probably kill me for mentioning this, but my uber-friend and writing partner L-O-L-A Lola SHARP's birthday is Friday. That's right, April Fool's Day! So show her some big bloggy love, because she deserves it!! 

Class dismissed!

All These Things

This post is going to be a bit fragmented; a perfect counterpart to my mind as of late. I've been having great difficulty concentrating on any one thing the past month. I've tried to focus on what revisions need to be done for my sci-fi novel before NaNo, I wrote 15k of a new idea and dropped it, I've been cleaning and organizing our house like a madwoman, and I've recently picked up an old hobby again: crocheting.

It's interesting, crochet. There's no real documentation of anyone doing it until the 1800's. Can you believe that? As I'm sitting here, winding loop after loop of yarn around my hook, it really makes me wonder who came up with it? Evidently, no one really knows.

I'm not a great crocheter by any means, but I enjoy having something to do with my hands while we watch a movie or an entire disc of whatever TV show we're currently binging...

My one-day-will-be-sister-in-law's birthday is this Friday. She's Japanese, lives in Maryland with my brother-in-law, and I've only met her a few times. Kind of at a loss what to give her, so I decided, "hey, maybe I'll make something."

So I made these fingerless gloves. It was my first non-scarf project, and I'm pretty happy with the result. They took me about 8 hours total, I guess, plus a little extra time sewing them together & adding the buttons. Here's hoping she likes them.

This is the scarf I'm currently making for myself. 

Between all the cleaning and the crocheting and the cooking I've been doing, I'm kinda joking with myself that I'm "nesting" for NaNoWriMo. I can't concentrate on writing unless the house is clean and all the little chores are done, so I guess I'm getting a headstart on that.


I've been meaning to upload these pictures for a while. For those of you who've been following me from the beginning, you'll remember my on-going gardening saga. For those of you who are recently joined, just know that when we moved into this apartment, the garden space looked like this:

But after 6 months of hard labor and a lot of money, this is the garden's look as it's entering the decline:

It's been a lot of hard work, but worth every sweat drop (and trust me, there were enough to fill a lake).


So, am I the only one with Restless Brain Syndrome? And is everyone as excited as I am about finally pulling out my sweaters and boots??