Nothing Ever Goes As Planned

When you feel dog tired at night, it may be because you've growled all day long. ~Author Unknown

Yesterday was a testy day for all of us. Having DH home so much has been an experience, to say the least. Understand that it's not that we don't love him, it's just that DD and I have a routine, and a way we do things and behave and it's been affected dramatically by adding "Daddy" to the mix on a 24 hour basis.

So, DD is cranky, I'm cranky, and DH is cranky. At least the dog is happy!

In any case, writing isn't going great. It's okay, but not great. I made up my word count from yesterday, but am behind again this morning. I even got up at 3:30 a.m. to try to get ahead, but fate once again conspired against me.

That's okay, I'm only 1000 words behind today. As long as I never get farther behind than that, I think I'll make it through! More NaNo stuff about me will be on the JaNoWriMo blog.

Happy weekend to all of you.

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You Are a Geek

You love to learn, especially when it's about technology. No subject is too obscure for you. You enjoy tinkering with things to see how they work. You aren't a traditional learner either... you need to hack around to figure things out. You may have the brains to be a super rich Silicon Valley geek, but you're truly content to have your own favorite projects, subjects, and toys. For you, being a geek is not about the glory. It's about a love of digging deep and truly understanding the world.

What's Your Stereotype?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

Well.. yeah.

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Running Late

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. ~Newt Gingrich

I completely forgot I hadn't set up a post for this morning. I'm telling you what, having DH home has really messed up my week. I don't know what day it is, half the time I don't know what time it is. I barely know my own name.

He goes back to work on Monday, but then is off again for a week starting Wednesday. I can NOT wait until January. Life will once again return to normal. I love normal.

Writing is crazy. You can find an update on my NaNo-ing at the JaNoWriMo blog.

in the meantime, I figure I'll be hauling wood again today and tomorrow, and on Sunday we have another agility competition. DD is determined that Dakota will at LEAST place, if not win. To be honest, the dog is really, really getting good at agility. She's settled down, pays closer attention and mostly hits all her contacts. Wish us luck. I should have video and pictures for Monday.

Anyone have anything exciting they're doing this weekend?

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You Are Apples

You have simple tastes in food, and you appreciate a basic, clean flavor. You don't think eating or cooking should be complicated. In fact, you're really not one for cooking much at all. Your best meals come together quickly and don't require many ingredients. If anything, you're the type of person who's more likely to pull out the oven mitts and bake every so often. Chocolate chip cookies are one of your favorite things to smell baking, and it goes without saying that you love apple pie.

What Fall Fruit or Vegetable Are You Most Like?

Blogthings: Waste Time at Work!

Yep.

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Thursday Things

If you made a list of the reasons why any couple got married, and another list of the reasons for their divorce, you'd have a hell of a lot of overlapping. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Again, I'm writing this on Wednesday night for Thursday morning. :-)

DH is home until Sunday, and it's driving me wonky. DD is having trouble sticking to her school schedule, and we won't even talk about MY schedule! OY.

But... there is some good news! We didn't haul wood today!! Yay! Unfortunately, the reason for this was because DH badly sprained his ankle on Tuesday evening while we were -- you guessed it -- hauling wood. I know it's hurting him because he's actually complained that it hurts and has shown some discomfort. I've seen him drop a transmission on his hand and not flinch. He took an ax to his foot (well, it was supposed to hit the log next to the foot...) and barely complain -- though he did have to be carried, piggy-back, by our BIL into the emergency room, lol. So, the fact he said, "This hurts" means it must be excruciating.

Makes me feel like a wimp complaining about my toe.

Having him here is making life very difficult interesting. He was up with me this a.m. and about the time he left to go out hunting, my DD got up... So, I only got about 700 words done for NaNo today -- and I really needed 1700. Hopefully I'll be able to make up the difference tomorrow if everyone will just STAY IN BED. I'm already getting up at 4 a.m. -- how much earlier can I set the alarm so that I'm not disturbed? Sheesh...

Part of my NaNo issues stem from logistics. Originally, my heroine lived in Absarokee, MT but that wasn't far enough away from Sloughhouse, CA so I moved her to Olathe, KS. THEN, she let me know she was a licensed wildlife rehabilitator this morning, but only AFTER she and the hero rescued a poor baby gray squirrel. So, I spent forever researching how to properly rehabilitate baby squirrels. I sure wish she'd told me earlier. Now, on top of Marsha (the goat) and Garwood (the Cockapoo) and Awkward (the turtle) we have Rocky (the squirrel). There's quite a menagerie in the truck heading to California from Kansas.

Worse, my hero told me this evening when I tried to sit and write (that lasted about ten minutes before I was interrupted) that he isn't feeling well, and that he's coming down with something. I don't know WHAT he's coming down with, but I guess I'll find out in the morning. My poor heroine.

Worse, the wedding of Cori and Micah (from "Kitchen Matches") is fast approaching and my H/H are the best man and maid of honor, and at the rated they're driving, they're going to be late for the wedding!

In any case, I sure hope I have the time to write 2700 words tomorrow morning (THIS morning, as you read this). Wish me luck.

Found this cute video thingie on Facebook today ... if you like smiling dogs and cats, give it a look. It's from the Best Friends Animal Society.

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You Would Be a Tempestuous Celebrity

A part of you would love to be famous, but only for the true fans who understood your art. It wouldn't take long for the whole Hollywood scene to become a drag for you, and you'd probably often be in a bit of a foul mood. If you were a celebrity, you'd be well known for your crazy, unstable antics. The press would always be decoding your bizarre behavior. You'd be a celebrity in the mold of Angelina Jolie, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Manson, and Christian Bale.

What Kind of Celebrity Would You Be?

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

Oh yeah.. that's TOTALLY me. :::rolls eyes:::

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What, When, Where, Why and How with Yvonne Eve Walus

Give a hearty welcome to Yvonne Even Walus!

What would you prefer: a tornado or an earthquake?

Hmmm. I've already been through a small earthquake: I woke up one night in a hotel room and saw the big wooden wardrobe move. It was fascinating and I wanted my husband to see it too, but I fell asleep before I could call out his name or nudge him. I've never had a tornado. So I think I'll stick to small earthquakes.

When would you kill your own food?

Only if I had no other choice.

Where would you spend your vacation?

Oh, so many places, so little money! But if cost and time were no object I'd go for:
a Greek island, like Naxos Japan when it's in cherry blossom mode or a luxurious ocean liner cruise.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Let me quote greater writers here:

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
Douglas Adams: Forty-two.
Chaucer: So priketh hem nature in hir corages.
Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.

How many tattoos is "too many"?

One. Particularly if it's on my child.

Yvonne Eve Walus (also writing as Eve Summers) composed her first poem when she was 4 and her first short story when she was 9. She made up fictional situations in her head and played them out as far back as she can remember. Her first publishing success (a short story in a local magazine) came when she was 22. Yvonne has lived on three continents and her work reflects the wealth of her cultural background. Her crime fiction is published in USA and in Britain, and it includes “Murder @ Work” which is set in the tumultuous and exotic South Africa. Please visit Yvonne on http://yewalus.kiwiwebhost.net.nz/ or South Africa in her “Murder @ Work” and discover what life is like when you are prohibited by the law to own a house or have medical insurance. Yvonne’s books are available on Amazon and Fictionwise.

Bloghopping and Dog Torture

Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. ~Graycie Harmon

Once again, I'm writing this the night before so that I can use the morning to write in the NaNoWriMo challenge (my word counts can be found at the JaNoWriMo blog).

So, it occurs to me that I'm going to get some weird keyword searches with "Dog Torture" in my blog. Let's get that out of the way first...HERE is our version of dog torture:



Yes, DD made Dakota her own witch's hat. As you can clearly see from the dog's expression, she was underwhelmed by the gesture.

Okay -- I took the time to do a little more blog hopping, per your suggestions. It's so fun to find new blogs to read! Here's what I found:

Dru suggested Cozy Chicks ... so I hopped over and saw a rant about the panic regarding H1N1. I so totally agreed with what she said, I HAD to comment and then kept reading. I think what I like most is that there are several people writing posts, so it's always different, and they are writing about diverse topics, so I'm not bored. I'll definitely be back to this one. Thanks, Dru!

Brandy sent me to the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee -- and for sheer cuteness, this one wins. The blog author fosters kittens for a local shelter and takes pix of all her babies. Is ANYTHING cuter than a kitten (well, except maybe a puppy *G*)?? If you want to get all warm and fuzzy, you should check them out. Awwwwwwwwww....

Tori reminded me how much I love, Love, LOVE Chickens in the Road. I started reading this blog a couple years ago when I read a book of Suzanne McMinn's and I loved it. At first, she still talked about her writing, to a certain extent, but she was just starting to build her house and the blog didn't have the focus it does now. NOW she talks about cooking from scratch (she has the BEST EVER recipes for just about anything -- including one for making yogurt in a crock pot that I'm going to be trying soon), raising goats and chickens and ducks and dogs and cats, gardening, and .... just about everything you can imagine when you read a blog written by a woman living on a farm. I can't recommend this blog enough if you're into that kind of thing. Plus, she has lots and lots of fun pictures. I visit almost daily, and always find something interesting and something to smile about (well...except when two of her goats died, and one of her chickens was gotten by a raccoon -- but, sadly, that's life on a farm).

That was it for my time to blog hop today -- but HEY... gotta a blog you love? Leave me the link in the comments. Very, very soon (like after the first of the year) I will probably replace my author interviews with a post about a blog I found and enjoy. We'll see how that goes!

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Today, I went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned. It was uneventful. :-)

Got home and found a note from my DH telling me he was taking down trees at my SIL's house. So, yes, I did do more brush dragging and log hauling and wood stacking again. And, about the toe -- it's not broken, thankfully, and I think the *snap crackle pop* was related to whatever has made it hurt for the last decade or so. It felt mostly better today, right up until I reinjured it moving wood -- in nearly the exact same way I did the first time. You'd think I'd learn. So, yeah, it hurts again. It's swollen again.

And tomorrow? MORE fun with logs. We're heading to the neighbors to start pulling out all the stuff DH cut a couple weeks back.

Bet you wished you were me. Right?

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Today, the Night Before

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. — Stephen King

I'm writing this the night before, so that I have plenty of time to write in the morning. If you want to know my word count for the day, check JaNoWriMo a little later for what I've accomplished.

Today was crazy -- I had lots of work to do on the LASR/WC site, but despite this, DH decided to cut down a huge oak tree in our back yard. DD and I went out to help after it was down: dragged brush, moved logs, stacked them in the place where the OLD stuff we just split and moved used to be so it can season for next year.

I also hurt myself. I have a bad toe -- no one seems to be able to figure out WHY it hurts all the time, but it does. It's the big toe on my right foot (and writing that makes me think of a song the Smothers Brothers sang:

I have a daisy on my toe,
It's not alive it does not grow,
It's just a tattoo of a flower
So I look neat taking a shower,
It's on the second toe of my left foot,
A stem and flower, but there's not root,
(spoken) Because that wouldn't look good.
I have a daisy on my toe,
My right foot loves my left foot so-o-o-o-o.

*ahem* ... moving on...) and it's -- my toe, remember?-- it's hurt for a good ten years or so. In any case, today while I was carrying a log to the trailer on our tractor, I stumbled and landed with that toe on the edge of a log. I heard :::crackle, crack, crackle::: and then was overcome with pain. It's currently swollen and bruised, and it's a little hard to walk.

Ow.

I also had to make dog food. I'd cooked the chicken yesterday, and had DD remove it from the bones this morning while I chopped and cooked veggies. When we came in from processing the tree, I put the dog food together.

And I still had time to do the LASR/WC pages AND this:



Because NaNoWriMo isn't NaNoWriMo without a collage.

How was your weekend?

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You Are Milk Chocolate

A total dreamer, you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds. You often think of the future, and you are always working toward your ideal life. Also nostalgic, you rarely forget a meaningful moment... even those from long ago.

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Blogthings: A Fine Line Between Insight and Stupidity

Hmmm... maybe.

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What Time Is It?

“Every novel should have a beginning, a muddle, and an end.” - Peter De Vries

Why do we even HAVE Daylight Savings Time anymore? I mean, it served its purpose years ago, but now? What a pain.

I woke up at 3:27 a.m. -- the cat thought it was 4:27 of course (no one told her it was DST) and wanted to eat, and I was pretty much wide awake anyway. I'll be in bed at 7 pm tonight though... sheesh.

In any case, I sat down and wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

A lot of it is probably crap that I'll edit out, and I ended up changing where the heroine lives (she DID live in Absarokee, MT but there's still snow on the ground in late spring there, and it's too close to California for my purposes so I moved her to Olathe, KS instead), and had to look up car rental agencies and driving directions, so it slowed my forward progress down a little. But, even so, by the time I was done I had 1726 words. I "only" need 1657 a day to meet the NaNo goal, but I want to be well ahead if possible. I realize that less than 100 words isn't "well ahead", but it's a start!

Today, I have to restack one of our wood piles (this is getting old, really old) and then fetch the wood from the neighbors and pile that out back so we can repeat this whole saga again next year, lol. I also told DD we'd go out and get some half-price Halloween candy (because we don't celebrate, but that doesn't mean we don't get some sweet stuff!). DH is off for the next ten days, so life should be interesting... to say the least.

Okay, I'm off to stack wood. Hope you have a great day :-)

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