I was flipping through the channels this morning, enjoying my free time, when I came accross Superstar Hair Challenge on Slice.  My mom recognized one of the contestants!  Mom used to work with his parents at the post office, which is super cool.  I didn't; he's seven years older than me, and I doubt we ever met, but it's never the less pretty damn neat!

I keep forgetting to mention; last month my mom bought me a car!  Slightly used, totally fabulous! 

 I tend to have a lot of little rituals for bedtime, things like the order I brush my teeth, my hair, washing my face in, etc.  I also crave a last smoke before I start all my prep, like brushing my teeth (cuz after would be truly gross).

Lately, I've also been having a cup of coffee an hour before bed, but I'm trying to switch to either water or green tea; something less likely to keep me up.  Hah, maybe I should make LJ, or some journal, a bedtime routine; then I'd actually post more.

so there I was, alone in the house, my mom had taken the girls out for a couple of hours for the local Apple Blossom Fair, and I was going to write.  I turned on the pc, went out for a quick smoke, and then went to the bathroom.  Which is when I noticed that the lights wouldn't turn on.  

Weird, I thought, that they'd  both burned out at the same time. 

Then I went into the kitchen, and came to the realization that the power was out.  No pc.  No writing (handwriting is slow and I hate transcribing to the pc later).

windtear tagged me. 

The rules:

a. Link to the person who tagged you.

b. Post the rules on your blog.

c. Write six random things about yourself.

d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.

e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.

f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.



1.  I love catalogs.  They don't have to be about anything I use or like; I've flipped my way through door knob and mechanical catalogs quite happily.  I have almost as much trouble throwing them out as I do books I hate.

2.  I like Nora Roberts almost as much as I like Lois McMaster Bujold.  It's kind of embarrassing, but ever since I read Out of This World ( a collection of short stories), I've been hooked.

3.  My laugh is a cackle.  Not hideous, but definately a cackle.  I used to find it embarrassing, but it's kind of nice when friends would search through crowds after hearing me.

4.  I've recently discovered that my lack of social skills has a medical term; dysemmia.  There's not a lot on the net about it, but my mom bought a book on how to deal with it, so hopefully....

5.  Even when my kids aren't around, I tend to leave the tv on kids shows.  It's not a way to feel in touch with them; I just find I'm so used to the sounds that it feels weird to not hear it.

6.  My mother bought us a PS3; I've finished Guitar Hero 3 at Easy level, and I'm finding Medium a *lot* harder!  Now I'm thinking hard about what game to get next, which reminded me of how much I loved playing Populous: The Beginning, and now I'm wondering where the heck the pc disc of it went to.  Possibly my ex has it, which is annoying; now I want to play it again!

Who to tag...
ataniell93, elorie, ktprincesswitch, kk1raven, </font>mmegaera</div>

 I have a tendency to be socially disfunctional.  As in, I tend to assume that my idea of friendship is everyone else's idea of friendship, and I fail to grasp the subtle grades of frienships between 'acquaintance' and 'buddy'.  

Anyway, after being burned a little because I failed to recognize those distinctions on Facebook, I just found a really old... I guess it would be aquaintance.  We were roommates a decade ago, he buggered off to a different town (for lots of awesome reasons), and I rarely ever heard from him again.  So, now he's a facebook friend with several people I know, though I haven't seen many of them in a really long time either.

The end result of this ramble is,  I sent him a facebook email instead of instantly friending him like I might have before being burned by my lack of facebook social skills.  Still, I'm torn; maybe I shouldn't have emailed  him either.  Hell.  If he replies, that's nice, if he doesn't, then too bad.

Now I just need to keep telling myself that.

so it's snowing here, which is absolutely disgusting. Yesterday it was nice, almost balmy, and today?  





 

 

 

I've become obsessed with weight loss; it helps to keep me from meeting my goal of writing a novel, or so I've come to believe.  At least this time around, my distraction is healthy.  And yes, it is healthy; I'm going to the gym (only once a day, a few times a week) and starting to watch my calorie intake, since that's just basic good sense.  No surgery, or flaky pills, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway,  I found sparkpeople, a free online weigh loss support group.  they provide a lot of info, including nutrition trackers, calorie trackers, exercise trackers, etc.  I'm not sure how they manage to remain a free site; I think it's the sparkpoints (go to the site, you'll see what I mean).

 still procrastinating and not sleeping!  well, since I hadn't posted much recently, I thought I'd do it twice tonight and get it over with.

So tired tonight; yesterday I did weight lifting at the gym and boy do I feel it today!  Plus I didn't get enough sleep, inspite of the fact that I KNEW I had to get up this morning at 6:30 am.  Silly me stayed up till almost midnight, I'm still not sure why... found the girls' medical cards tonight, though, so woohoo, now they can sign up for all the stuff that requires it.  I'm just glad I finally found them; I didn't know if me or the ex had them, and was worried they'd gotten lost in the move. 

time to get back into my online life, lol.  spent most of january reading, exercising and playing with the kiddies.  I'm still reading, exercising and playing with the kiddies, but I'm slipping back  into my fav online stuff, like DragonFable.  My eldest loves to play it too, in fact in Jan she spent more time online than I did!  creepy.

Last week was Ex's week with the kids, but I ended up with them for most of it because he was helping friends of his girlfriend move to alberta, and got stuck halfway there due to snow.  I was supposed to have the girls wednesday night and they'd pick them up on thursday evening; instead I had them till saturday morning!  Lol, and when you add in the fact that Ex (who's 33) had just gotten his tonsils out the week before that... I'm starting to feel pity for the guy!  Again, creepy.

I don't love him anymore, but he is the girls' father.  If anything happened to him, they'd be devastated and I'd hurt for them. 

 an hour till midnight to go here, but I doubt I'll remember to post then, so here it is.

Happy New Year!

I'm dreadfully aware of how alone I am tonight (I'm home with my mother, and as much as I love her, it ain't the same), and equally aware that that is my own dam fault.  

On the plus side, I do have a lot of resolutions for 2008! So cheers to all, and now I shall go back to sipping on my bacardi breezer (island pinapple flavor).  Mmmm.

okay, so my youngest has a talent.  All summer long, whenever they (my two kids) go in the back yard at our new place, she ended up with cat poop on one shoe.  And only on one shoe.  The other kid is fine, never has a spot on her.

And now, we've got a foot or more of snow, and yet somehow she still manages to get cat poop all over one boot!  And the landlady turned off the outside taps, so I'll have to wait till spring to wash the gunk off.  sigh.  Glad we found a second pair of boots!

My eldest had an upset tummy, so school sent her home.  She proceeded to rest for an hour, then eat chicken, veggies and a bowl of cheerios.  Well, maybe she just needs the rest....

Outline is finally done, in that I now know all the major plot points, and how they follow each other linearly.  I think.  I should dive back into writing it, now that I have a better handle on it.  I am glad I've been reading lots of Jim Butcher lately; it was a bit like an epiphany to suddenly realize that sex didn't have to be the lowest common denominator; 'hey, this isn't a LKH-esque novel I'm writing!'.  At least, not a more recent LKH novel.  

and no, I'm not saying I'm stealing plot, lol.  I'm stealing that old action-action-action flow for the novel.  I admit I had to keep reminding myself to find solutions for the situations I'd put my MC into that didn't use sex as the solution; I'm way too obsessed with getting Lick of Frost for xmas, what can I say...

the girls are watching the Best Christmas Movie Ever (here's a clue:  "Light the lamp, not the rat!") 

My top 10 things to do instead of writing/outlining:
   (from most minor to most frequent)

10. edit my LJ entry tags.
 9.  scan fifteen year old artwork.
 8.  play with my daughter's WebKinz (she asked me to during daddy's week).
 7.  surf LJ for new userpics.
 6.  surf amazon and my library's online site for new books to read.
 5.  watch cartoons.
 4.  cleaning.
 3.  post to LJ.
 2.  Facebook.
 1.  Reading, reading and more reading.

I got back from an outing yesterday, and brought home ten books from the library.  I've read one, started three others, but keep losing my focus.  Rachel Caine's Glass Houses just couldn't keep me interested, same with Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle, so I had to settle for Night Lost by Lynn Viehl, which I managed to finish, and now I'm onto Fool Moon by Jim Butcher.  I tell myself it's research since I'm writing in this genre, but I know I'm really procrastinating.  

I think I'll go dye my hair, and outline after dinner...

I'm impressed.  In two of the romance/supernatural/erotica novels I've read in the past few days the writer mentioned Emma Holly.  I've read a little bit of her work, but obviously now I must read more!  I'm still debating how much sex to include in my story; on the one hand there's stuff like Jim Butcher's which is more plot/character driven (yay plot!) and  then there's stuff like well, dozens of authors where there's tons of sex scenes (which, lets face it, help sell books).

I guess it comes down to whether or not I want to, and whether or not it detracts from the story.  Or maybe I'll do without in the rough draft, and add sex scenes in later, if I think it needs more oomph.

I generally have a harder time writing romantic scenes than sexual ones.  Probably because since my seperation I haven't been in a relationship, so I'm still sensitive that way; sex can be just flesh, but love... that's painful.  I'm not sure there's a relationship equivalent to masturbation.

I don't blame my youngest for being slumped in a chair this morning; we're all tired, I think.  Instead of easily sliding into sleep last night, I was busy trying to work out a story scene in my head; can't sleep when that happens.

I am feeling a little pissed off, though, which helps to wake a person up.  In a local (provincial, really) pagan email list I help mod, an acquaintance of mine has come forward and is complaining about the shit end of the stick he was handed by a provinical group he'd belonged to.  Now, this group was annoying from the getgo, I know the local members and don't like them.  He, on the other hand, saw them as harmless.  Hah, now he's finding out they aren't.  Still, I'm torn.  I want to post on the issue, but as a mod, I shouldn't be stirring the pot.  

Mainly, what's pissing me off, is that the guy who's been... blacklisted and slandered by this group, is trying to bring his situation to the attention of the pagan public, and people are complaining because they don't want to be involved.  WTF?  Why do people join a list and then expect not to be involved? 
 

 I know, I should quit changing my bloody theme here, but I can't help it!  It's the season for something purdy and jolly, so I've gone with this one for the next few weeks, then in January I'll go back to the cute Mad Lab one.

I've decided to go back to doing an actual outline for this novel.  Scary.  I was trying to write it adlib, and finding stuff being left out or forgotten.  so back to outlining it is!

Lemme think... now that the tree and mantel are decorated, we've kinda given up on everything else, sigh.  which is just as well.  We moved here in September, and we still have tons of boxes everywhere.  So I guess I know what I'll be doing when procrastinating from writing!  (though today I cleaned instead of unpacking OR writing).

Oh, and I watched Next, it was entertaining though not a great movie.  I just find Nicolas Cage very creepy (and not in a good Tim Burton kind of way).

take two; I tried to preview my post, and it not only blocked a pop-up, it erased my post!  dam webbrowser.... 

to recap, I was stupid on Friday night (like, half an hour after I posted on LJ) and sprained my ankle.  It's much better now, but dam it hurt!  The worst part was that the ice pack wasn't in the freezer, so I ended up with frozen zuchini loaf on my ankle instead.  On the plus side, the loaf was very yummy!

It threw off my plans for the weekend; couldn't stand on a ladder to string up the outside lights, but my mom and I did manage to get the tree up today and my kids helped to decorate it.  The stockings are hung on the mantel over the gas fireplace, and it's finally starting to look xmasy here (and yeah, even in my head, I say xmas).

It also threw off my plans for writing; couldn't sit at the pc and write when my ankle needed to be up.

In a complete segue, I adore iLike on Facebook; I use the Music Challenge to listen to music, so I can find new bands to listen to.  My prezzie list is ever expanding!