Snow Day

Winter came down to our home one night
Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow... ~Bill Morgan, Jr.

It snowed, and snowed, and snowed, and snowed yesterday! My DH was in heaven (said, "It needs to do this for a solid week!" -- in which case, the house would have been buried...) and DD wanted nothing more than to go outside and sled. The dog wasn't AS excited, though she enjoyed tearing around in the snow until it balled up between her toes and on her underfur.

By the end of the day we probably had around 18" -- more or less. It was hard to gauge because it was windy as well so most of the snow was drifted. But to give you an idea, day before yesterday, I had NO snow on my lawn. It was exposed grass. Last night, this was my front walkway and yard (taken through my window -- I couldn't open the door, it was buried in snow at this point):




My sliding glass door is frozen shut this morning, so I couldn't get pictures out there, and I forgot to take the camera through the garage to the other door when I took the dog out. But I'll get more today.

It was pretty crazy. But, it was the good snow: light and fluffy and easy to shovel, so I can't complain.

Much.

:-)

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You Are a Cinnamon Roll

You are vibrant and outgoing. People are definitely drawn to your warm personality. You are very sociable and friendly. You're always ready to talk or laugh with anyone. You love to be with others, and you share freely and naturally. It bums you out to be alone. You are just a plain old nice person. It's not an act! You have something good to say about almost everyone.

What Breakfast Pastry Are You?

HAHAHAHAHA... no.

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Thanks!

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. ~Larry Lorenzoni

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes. I didn't get a chance to respond to everyone yesterday in comments -- the reason was threefold.

1. It was my birthday. I actually didn't spend THAT much time online.

2. I was fighting a ridiculously bad headache all day AND I couldn't take any pain meds for it. For two weeks before my surgery, I can't take any nutritional supplements or pain meds.

3. We're having a HUGE snowstorm (finally!) here today, so I had to run a million errands yesterday that I normally would have split between the two days.

So, I'm responding here. :-)

Mary said: How funny it's your birthday because I dreamed I came to your house last night! I met DD and Dakota and your dh, a very vivid dream.

I actually responded to hers, but I'll repeat: I'd LOVE to have you over for a visit. :-)

My mom said: Those pictures bring back lots of happy memories.

Mom, you know -- I only just noticed that I think I'm wearing the same dress in both pictures! Made me laugh. I'm pretty sure I had more than one outfit, so what are the odds?

Dru Ann said: You and my niece share a birthday and she is tickled pink that it is 1-11-11

I KNOW! I didn't even realize it until everyone made a big deal about the New Year being 1-1-11. It's kinda cool.

Angelina Rain said: Didn’t you hear? The forties are the new twenties.

I only wish I felt like I did in my twenties. I was the Energizer Bunny back then!

Liz Fichera said: Love the quote from Chili Davis. And here's my five minutes of fame: I went out on a date with him xx years ago. :-) He was a riot. Lovely guy.

VERY cool. My closest claim to fame is that my sister dated Jimmy Osmond once. I think. Unless she made it up. LOL...

Charity said: Happy Birthday! I'm pretty sure that being 44 on 1/11/11 is all kinds of lucky.

I KNOW, right? I meant to buy a Mega Millions ticket but plum forgot. As a side note, Charity and I share half-birthdays. Hers is on 7/11 -- easy for me to remember that way. *G*

Brandy said: Wishing you a wonderful and special day for a fabulous lady!

Awww, :::blushes::::, thanks!!

Tori said: I know what you mean. I'm a few years older than you but in my head I'm 25 or 30. :)

It's good to know I'm not alone in my weirdness. *G*

Joanna St. James said: Age really is just a number and i got gray... excuse me silver hair at 15.

HA! I got my first gray hairs in high school. I can remember sitting in English Lit with Mike Valdez sitting behind me. Every so often he would reach out and YANK! a gray hair out. LOL...

Edited to add the comment I forgot:

Maria Zannini said: And you look fantastic! I love that first picture of you in those long legs. I'll bet you had quite a few admirers carrying your books. :-)

The funniest thing is -- I had this one kid, Mike Vorhees, always trying to kiss me (this was in fourth grade). I was NOT into boys then, and I hated it. Once, on the bus he grabbed me when I was walking past to get off at my stop, so I decked him with my books. The bus driver just laughed... and he never bothered me again. Ah, those were the days...

Again, thanks everyone for your birthday wishes. They were wonderfully warm and fuzzy :-)

Today it's actually snowing here. Imagine that -- snow in the northeast. SHOCKING.

DH is staying home because we're expecting a foot or more, so today could be interesting. But at least I don't have a headache. Yet.

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You Are Shy in Real Life

You are modern and up on the latest trends. You resist getting stuck in a rut. You are confident and sure of yourself. You may not be prefect, but you're happy with what you've got. You are happily productive and balanced. You like to work hard, but you always make a little time for your friends. You consider yourself to be a responsible person. You will do whatever needs to be done.

What Does Your Facebook Profile Say About You?

Oddly, this is pretty close to right on, except for the first part (I'm SO not up to date on stuff). LOL...

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It's My Party ....

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

Happy birthday to me. I realized yesterday (after I used a calculator to figure out how old I was... yes, really. After awhile I think age just doesn't matter any more and I really couldn't remember how old I was! LOL...) that I was going to be 44 on 1/11/11.

Four four on one one one one one.

I really thought that was cool.

It doesn't seem that I should be this age.

I'm not upset or demoralized at being 44 ... I'm not going to hide my age (though I do admit to coloring the gray out of my hair). Who cares how old I am?

Still, I always think I'm going to look in the mirror and see me at 19. It doesn't happen, and I'm often surprised when I look and see me at this age. "Really? How did that happen?"

This is my sister and me from a few years ago.

I graduated high school twenty-seven years ago. I'll be married fourteen years this year. My daughter will be twelve in April. All these things remind me that I'm not a young chick.

But I still feel like on one the inside!

So, happy birthday to me. I am who I am...



I'm also blogging at the Marianne's blog today (All Day, All Night) if you'd like to swing by.

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You Are a Guru

Spiritual and thoughtful, you tend to take a step back from the world. You're very sensitive to what's going on around you, yet you remain calm. Although you are brilliant, it may take you a while to find your niche. Your creativity is supreme, but it sometimes makes it hard for you to get things done. Your strength: Your inner peace Your weakness: You get stuck in the clouds Your power color: Emerald Your power symbol: Leaf Your power month: November

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Yanno, I have to disagree with about 75% of what this says ...

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Monday Meandering

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. ~Author Unknown

I've been reading online about how folks down south (like Tori and Brandy) got snow this weekend and just have to laugh. Here I sit, only a few hours from the Canadian border and ... nothing. Forget global warming, I think our poles are shifting...

It's been clear and quite cold. There is ice on the sides of the road and on my lawn, making it nearly impossible to give Dakota any exercise. She was bouncing off the walls this weekend, so yesterday morning, we decided to crash the Sunday agility class and get her some exercise.

It was fun -- I got to see some folks I hadn't seen in a really long time. Dakota had a hard time focusing (so did DD who was running her), but we still accomplished what we'd come for. She was at least a little tired when we left.

Today, I'm starting to really follow FlyLady. I need to focus and get done what needs getting done, and her system is really great. For Monday, she has what's called "home blessing".

From the FlyLady website:

On Mondays, The Weekly Home Blessing hour is the time FlyLady spends blessing her home. No detailed cleaning required; vacuum the middle of the floors only! The time on this can depend on the size of your home, could take less than an hour or more than an hour but on average about an hour. Set your timers and have fun - you are blessing your home and family!

FlyLady sets her timer for 10 minutes to work on each of 7 ways to bless your home:

Vacuum
Dust
Quick Mop
Polish Mirrors and Doors
Purge magazines/catalogs
Change Sheets
Empty all trash cans

Easy enough (except the quick mop ... when you have pets, you can't just mop the floor... too much hair). I'm going to do it in reverse order so I can get the garbage outside for the garbage guys to pick up, and I don't have magazines or catalogs to purge, so that's one less thing.

I'm kinda excited to clean my house. How weird is that?

Happy Monday all!

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You Are Compassion

You are not a petty person. You truly want the best for people, and you feel empathy for them in their struggles. You believe that we are all interconnected. When someone is happy, it makes you more joyful. You believe that you have gained a great deal of freedom from not judging others. You don't believe that anyone should have to suffer. It pains you to see others living a hard life.

Which of the Four Divine States Are You?

Hmmm... yeah, mostly, I guess...

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Thanks

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?" ~William A. Ward

I was talking to a writing friend yesterday, who'd just gotten a rejection. She was in the dumps, of course, but said she had an invite to resubmit. So we talked some more about fixing the problems ... and she mentioned that one of her Crit Partners had asked what the character's "core values" were.

This led to a discussion about how I interview my characters and the pre-plotting exercises that I do. They aren't extensive, and I don't outline the entire story, just make a loose map with a couple of stops (or scenes) along the way to keep me on track.

She doesn't do anything. She is a "pantser" in the truest form of the word. I admit I was a bit gobsmacked... I couldn't work without at least my character forms (which are a bit fluid since I learn things about them as the story progresses, but I add those things to the form). If I didn't have a form, I'd forget things: where they were born or their mother's job, or the name of the cat they had as a kid... even their eye color!

And after our discussion I realize how blessed I was to stumble across some truly amazing people who guided me through learning how to write. I got to feeling a little sappy and sentimental, so wanted to share some thanks.

To Writer's Village University, who introduced me to all the people I mention below. Without WVU, I never would have become an author. A writer, yes, an author, no.

To Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance -- who were students in the first EVER class I took on romance writing. They were the first folks who shared some "rules" about things like passive voice and showing instead of telling. I owe them the greatest of debts.

To Allie Boniface, who invited me to join a crit group at Writers Village University. My experiences there built upon the things I'd learned in class and without which I never would have gotten hungry to actually get published.

To the Persist & Publish group at WVU.org -- a group of VERY serious writers (none of whom were romance authors). They gave me completely different insight into writing since most were either literary writers, some were poets and all were very serious about honing their craft. I have to admit to being a little sad that my name is no longer in the list of members...

It's because of them that I began to hone my craft. While I'm not perfect, I am miles better than I was when I began and it gave me the impetus to keep on learning and growing and realized that there even WAS something to learn! Writing is far more than stringing words together.

Thanks, guys.

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You Are Soap Bubbles

You are free spirited and a heck of a lot of fun. You refuse to act your age. You can always find a chance to play a little. You bring whimsy to an otherwise boring day. It drives you crazy to be cooped up inside for too long. You need to be outdoors to be able to breathe. It's likely that you crave a nontraditional life. You have to do things your own way!

What Kind of Bubbles Are You?

About 50/50...

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Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. -- Carl Reiner

I laughed yesterday. Right after lunch, my DH lifted up his hand and showed me a big blister: "The stove burned me." ... I stuck out my finger and said, "Hey! Me, too!"

He did give me grief about having mine in a band-aid though ... called me a wimp. :-P

A week ago, the weather models were predicting more than a foot of snow Fri/Sat. Two days ago they downgraded it to 4". Last night we didn't even get one flake. I'm terribly disappointed. This means, no trip to the dog park today because the slush from last weekend has frozen into rough, hard "waves" and I was looking forward to some new snow for padding.

It also means that the long weekend snowmobiling trip my DH was planning for a couple weeks from now many not happen. More than half the snowmobiling trails are closed for lack of snow. This makes DH a very VERY grumpy man.

I never thought I'd say this, but: PLEASE LET IT SNOW!!

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Yesterday, Angelina Rain asked: What is LASR/WC?

Sometimes I forget you all haven't been around here on my blog since it started, lol. LASR/WC is the reviews site I co-own: The Long and the Short of It. It consumes much of my life... but it's a labor of love.

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You Are Realistic

You see the world as it is. You are don't get too caught up in idealism. You are more of a doer than a dreamer. And there's always something important at the top of your to-do list! You are a hard worker, and you enjoy being productive. You especially like working with your hands. You highly skilled in at least a few technical areas. You enjoy improving what you know how to do.

The Mitten Test

HAHAHAHA.... this NAILED me. Always freaks me out a little when that happens...

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Two Words: Spell Check

Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts. ~Abel Stevens

Okay ... I have a pet peeve. Actually, I have many (I'm a little neurotic, what can I say?), but I'll only address one today.

If you are an author (or maybe even if you aren't), the face you show the public is important. Lately, I've been doing quite a bit of social network promoting for LASR/WC. Our Facebook account has nearly 2000 "friends" on it, so I see a LOT of updates, primarily from authors.

I can't tell you how many of them are littered with grammar errors.

Not typos (we all make those now and then). Not "chat" speak (though I really hate seeing: "how r u?"). Flat out grammar errors that make the writer sound utterly ignorant. Wrong word use (I've seen: concur instead of conquer, for instance, as well as the usual suspects: there instead of they're, too instead of to, etc). I read one a few days ago I wish I'd kept to use as an example. Not only was it so poorly constructed as to make nearly no sense at all, but the spelling and grammar errors made my eyes bleed. Things like "deel" instead of "deal", etc.

Look, I know it's fairly informal, but I'm inclined to think that if you sound that ignorant publicly on a regular basis, then your writing isn't going to be stellar either. An editor, no matter how good, can't take a rotten apple and make a diamond. There's not enough pressure in the world.

If you know you have issues with spelling, then run your status through spell check (actually, if you use Firefox, it does that automatically). I realize it won't catch homonyms, but it will catch "deel" instead of "deal". It's a start.

I really think the internet has great power -- but it can be used for evil or for good. It's mind-boggling how many folks rant and rave on their statuses, spew hateful diatribes full of profanity as punctuation and don't think that's a problem.

Is it just me?

Sound in, folks... what do you think?

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In other news, I gave myself a lovely second degree burn on my left index finger last night. Note to self: make sure that you're both completely awake (even if it is 2 a.m.) AND that you turn on a light before trying to add wood to the wood stove. A stove that's running at 600 degrees really isn't something you want to tangle with.

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Your Personality is Somewhat Common (ISFJ)

Your personality type is stubborn, conservative, trustworthy, and caring. About 13% of all people have your personality, including 18% of all women and 7% of all men You are Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

That pretty much pegged me... LOL...

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