Blog Post(Hows that for an inovative tittle?)

I usually don't do blog quizzes like this, but this one tickled my fancy so I said, "What the hey!" and did it!

What is your current obsession?

Right now? Hmm, the church Christmas play! Tonight is the dress rehearsal and then three nights in a row of performances! Crazy, but oh so fun.=)

What are you wearing now?

Jean skirt, my purple 70's throw back shirt(my Mom calls it that, I happen to love it!) silver bell necklace, brown footless tights and white socks with pink and green stars on them. My brown boots came off as soon as I got inside, I love being barefoot!

Do you nap a lot?

No, I get cranky after I nap........

Who was the last person you hugged?

Ro0-Roo, the Great Dane that the people I nanny for have!

If you were a tree, what tree that would be?

A Christmas tree and not one of those perfect ones either. I'm a fresh from the woods scraggly, multi colored lights, ornaments of all kinds type of Christmas tree! That is the perfect kind of tree.=)

What’s for dinner?

Last I checked it was pizza or McDonald's, healthy I know. But, we have dress rehearsal at 5pm. So, it's a fast dinner tonight!

What was the last thing you bought?

Gas! But, the last thing before that was a red scarf for my Moms stocking and the Taylor Swift Christmas CD. I love Taylor Swift and I love Christmas music so when the two got together? I had to but it.=)

What are you listening to right now?

Miss Spiders Sunny Patch Kids and a little boy munching on a blueberry Eggo

A hidden but rather useless talent:

I can peel a banana with my toes, not that I make a habit of doing it. It's just one of those random things I had to try and found that I could do it, but nobody would eat the bananas that I peeled for some strange reason!

What is your favorite weather and why?

It usually depends on my mood. The over all favorite is misty days followed closely by breezy ones. Cold or warm there is something magical about the wind!

What is one thing you have always wanted to do or learn?

To sing, but somethings just can't be taught! So, as far as something that I could actually learn.......to play a musical instrument. Unfortunately I don't have the patients to overcome my inability to do different things with my hands at the same time!

What is your most challenging goal right now?

Finishing my book! It's in the editing stage right now, though that is going much better then I thought it would. After I'm done I've got a code for a free proof from CreateASpace! I will be a printed author!!=)

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where you want it to be?

A dark brown with white trim beach cottage, on the beach of course! But, when it comes right down to it I would much rather live in any kind of house near my family!

Favorite vacation spot:

Vacation? Oh, yeah I remember those. It's been so long since I've had one! I've never been on a vacation that I haven't liked. So, anywhere with friends or family!

What movies can you watch over and over?

The Anne of Green gables movies

Anything Jane Austen

Disney movies

Pixar movies

Musicals

You know what? Pretty much anything, as long as I liked it the first time, I'm a repeat watcher and reader!

What is your favourite tea flavour?

Coconut oolong, yum!

What are you reading right now?

Oh, Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen. I love her books!

What is the landscape of your mind?

A misty mysterious place that few have ever found and even fewer have returned from! It's filled with magical creatures and snatches of song and story. The air is filled with the smells of coffee, flowers, and chocolate. Flowers and trees abound and fill the edges of the landscape. Sidewalk cafes and brown stones sit next to the three bears cottage. A hopeless mish mash of everything I've ever thought, seen, read, smelled, tasted or imagined. But, it totally works for me!

The latest quotation that you acquired for your personal collection of quotes that inspire you:

White ... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black.... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white."
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton

White is my favorite color and I always get flack for it. This quote echos my thoughts exactly!

What’s in your pockets right now?

My coat pocket has the extra button that always comes with store bought clothes with buttons and some change. Unfortunately my skirt has no pockets, I'm just to impatient to put pockets in my clothes. I get eager to finish so always skip them!

What's your ring tone?

The Christmas Song by Alvin and the Chipmunks

Here are the rules:
1. Respond & rework the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.

Man of the House

I have always been very happy to be a girl. I never wanted to be the man of the house, it seemed like to much work! Being the soul supporter of a family, fixing all of the stuff that breaks. The man takes care of the things that you can't do without, like water pipes and cars. As a girl the worst thing that would happen if I burned dinner would be Mac and Cheese! But with my Dad getting a job in NY I've been pushed into the man of the house spot light and have been left blinking in the bright lights of unfamiliar territory!
I'd fixed the computer before, but if I couldn't Dad would be home in a few hours to take care of it. Not so now. When I took the trash can out from under the sink and a puddle of water appeared at my feet I couldn't just turn the faucet off and wait for him. I had to find the drip; luckily it was something easily fixable, clean up all the water and dry out from under the sink.
Cleaning out the bathtub drains, plunging the toilets, changing light bulbs, shoveling the driveway, dealing with a Mom who now has no husband to lean on and is very busy and stressed. While none of that is hard;well the emotional stuff is, (when is my freak out time?! If you find out, please let me know!) but the buck had never stopped with me before. I've never filled out tax rebate papers before, how am I supposed to know how? But, I'm learning!
Everyday I am filled with more and more admiration for you guys. How exactly do you learn how to fix cars and fill out tax forms? Why do computers tremble in fear before you and just curse at me in foreign languages? I'd never thought I'd live in house with out a man, if it wasn't my father is was going to be my husband(lets not even bring up that subject!!) but I guess it's a God thing I'm still at home. My dad felt he could take this job because I was at home still, my Mom had someone older to lean on and help her.
By the time he gets home, I'll be an old pro at man stuff. Though me and power tools with blades will never get along! So, if anyone wants to volunteer to help us with our Christmas tree feel free!!

Rejoining the Human Race!

For the last month I have been spending a lot of my free time, wait, did I just say free time? Excuse me while I go and laugh myself into a corner about the concept of free time!....................................
Okay, I'm back now! As I was saying, I've been spending a lot of time here on Blogger, in fact during the week at least 1 hour a day, most week days it was 2-3 hours. Nap time was typing time over at the Poet house! What exactly was I doing here since I seem to have a considerable lack of posts per time spent here typing away? Well, since I don't have my own computer and didn't want my baby(yes my baby if you have a problem with me calling my book that go and, , do something to yourself! And not a lets grab a cookie type thing! ) on the Poets somewhat unreliable lap top.
Besides I wanted it here with me on the weekends so I could work on it here. So, I typed about 85 percent of it here, on Blogger. Then I copy and pasted it into Word when I got home. The spell check is a little loopy, it didn't like the name Nicolas and didn't have the word leapt! I guess my characters moved around rather quickly a lot of the time because I seemed to run into this frustration quite a few times!
If you couldn't tell from the title of the post I will now be joining the realm of the non-NaNoWriMo'ers again. It was a whole different kind of month for me. Just the massive amount of brain juice it took to keep the story going and all down in one month left me running pretty dry! I'm sure the director of the Christmas play I'm in will be happy to have me running on all my cylinders once more!
I had been wanting to write a book since I was a little kid, but I had never gotten around to it. It was one of those one day things. One day I'll write a book, one day I'll learn to play an instrument, one day I'll be 5 foot 6 and only weigh 115 pounds........okay even I don't have a big enough imagination to talk myself into that last one!
Back to the narrative, all of my down time at the Poets house was spent writing and some not so down time, can you say bored kids and nail polish? Oh, yeah! What did we learn today kids? Maybe that nail polish and blush are not interchangeable?
I didn't get much writing done at home because I didn't want to tie up our computer and I don't really have much free time.(There's that funny phrase again!) I work 40 hours a week and still do all that I used to at home. Plus my dad just got a job in NY so I'm coming home to moments like, "Katy! Your home after 10 hours of work! I know that you have to leave again in 40 minutes but can you fix the Internet, right now!?!?!"
Needles to say my life had exploded and I decided to add writing a 50,00 word novel in there because? Maybe I'm masochist, maybe I'm crazy, or maybe the aliens have finally gotten control of my brain. Whatever the reason I stepped up to the challenge and have conquered it! My book had been written, now comes the fun and easy part! Editing is always the fun easy part, right?
Wait........ why are you laughing? Hey! Why are you rolling on the floor in front of your computer, still laughing? I'm getting the impression that I said something amusing, hmm maybe this editing bit won't be as easy as I thought! Oh, well time will tell, but for now the book is going to rest and I will rejoining the normal human race, well as much as I was ever part of the normal human race that is!=)
(Just as a note, my parents are still happily married, my dad had just been out of work for 9 months and a contract job, even one in NY was very welcome. He comes home when he can and it's not a forever! Just wanted to make sure that I didn't start any rumors or anything!)

Crazy!

I was crazy to take on this quest of mine to write a 50,00 word novel in a month! What a busy month for them to choose to hold this event! I've only been caught up on word count three times. Never the less, my word count is up to 38,178! One more week to go and I couldn't be happier with how it's all turning out. We shall see what the end of of this crazy month long journey of mine holds for me and my story!

Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum!

Romans 14:13-17 says:

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

I came across this passage today as I was reading my bible. Even though it's against the "rules" of the plan I'm using to read my bible I read it again and then again. Then I looked it up in different versions. I always knew that I had gotten my philosophy of as long as I'm not disobeying God or His word I can do my own thing from the bible. I just couldn't find where!

I didn't used to be like this, I used to be a little legalist! My way or the highway bucko and my way was the right one of course! But as I've gotten older I've loosened up quite a bit. I at one point threw away all my music that wasn't Christan and didn't watch TV or movies at all. I wouldn't wear pants even when my parents told me to. This way of living caused lots of strife between me and my parents.

Through Gods growing me and maturing me I've realized that this was not the way to do things! I can listen to country music(Yes, all you country haters out there. I listen to it and like it, so there!) watch movies, read non christain books and even wear pants. Yes Mom, I'm sorry but pants are okay! Not the super tight, muffin top, show my butt crack type pants, but then skirts can be very immodest as well!

I know that this passage just mentions food but surely it applies to other places in our lives as well! As long as your choices don't make your "brother" stumble and are within Gods commands for your life go ahead and march to your inner beat! Constantly be in Gods word and praying for His guidance in your life. So, if you feel that God wants you to only listen to Christian music go ahead but don't look own on me because I don't feel the same call in my life. If you feel He's called you to not watch movies that are R rated, Pg-13 or even totally skip secular media go ahead and skip these things but for some people it might be fine. But, don't judge those who are called to be more conservative!

On the flip side, for those of us who feel called to live more conservatively, we shouldn't lecture or look down on people who aren't called to the same things as we are. Like how not everybody is called to be a missionary. There are certain commands that apply to us all and we need to never forget those!!

Besides isn't there something in that bible of ours about taking care of the plank in your own eye before yakking about the speck in your brothers?=)

NaNoWriMo

Can anybody sane with a full schedule of other things to do write a 50,000 plus word novel in one month? That is the question asked by the people running the National Novel Writing Month competition. The challenge? To begin and finish an 50,00 word or more novel in the month of November. The challengers? Anybody with a computer who has ever wanted to write a book. Oh, and is a little on the insane side!

I had heard about this NaNoWriMo for a few years and had never given it much thought besides those people are nuts!! I'd been trying to write a book ever since I was 10! If I hadn't accomplished it in the 13 years since then what on earth would make me think I could do it in one month?

Something must have made me think I could do it, because on October 29 I signed up! Then the next day a pep talk e~mail came and it didn't pep me up one little bit! It did the exact opposite! In I found out that Twilight was only 25,000 words long! Now even if you've never read the book I know you've at least seen it somewhere. That's not exactly a light weight book! So, when I didn't even get started writing until the 3rd I had no hope of catching up to the 1,600ish word count goal. That's daily! So I was about 3,000 words behind schedule.

I sat down to write on that day and wrote for about 2 hours, spell checking as I went because I can't type. Nope, I've tried to learn really I have! Hen pecking very fast is what I do, so spelling mistakes abound in my writing! I went to a word count tool and was astonished to find I'd written about 3,000 words! I was ecstatic, not that I didn't erase half of that the next day because my characters had gone in an entirely different direction then I wanted them to.

But, not only have I caught up, I am a couple hundred words ahead of schedule! Well, at least I was yesterday, with this new dawn another 1,600ish words must roll out of my brain down my hen pecking fingers and onto the computer screen! Here is a link to my author page if you are interested.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/547888

If you are even more interested get back to me at the end of November and if I've managed to come up with anything decent you can request a copy of the next great American novel! To give you an idea of word count this post is 442 words, including this sentance!

Toot-Toot!

I had a really good weekend. While my new job is easy and fun at points it's still work! So, I was pretty happy for the week end to get here. I had a Harvest Party to get to on Friday night so being able to drop the kids of extra early at their Dads work to Trick-or-Treat was a nice happening.

I get home to make soup for said party and realize with only 15 minutes left till I have to leave that I need to make a double batch of the soup because it makes way less then I remembered! And we also had misplaced the directions for said soup, so needless to say it was really hard to drive the speed limit all the way to Lindsay D house! I managed though and I was the first person there by about 15 minutes!

The party was fun, getting this particular group of people to participate in party events besides eating and talking is nigh on impossible though! Next time I'm getting out the cattle prod.........

It went well though, fun times and good food. Then on Saturday I had tea with the girls(I love being able to say that! It's been so nice having girl friends after not really having any before!!) and spent a few hours talking and drinking four pots of tea. The coconut oolong is killer by the way for any of you reading this who like tea.=)

Then on Sunday the church did a skit that I had written(I know I'm tooting my own horn here, hence the tittle of this post!hehe) I was in the nursery and for the first time in months we had kids in there at the start of service(how ironic, right?) so I couldn't skip out and see it, but all the reports I heard back where good! That made me feel pretty good, pretty darn good!=)

Then Jordan and Anthony came over for dinner and so my parents could interview Anthony(It's something our church is doing, everybody has to get interviewed to collect info and stuff. My parents weren't just being nosy!) That was really fun, then there was collage group not very may people came but it was still good. This was Guntis last week he's been fun to get to know.

The weather was perfect, a chill in the air and very breezy. Clouds scuttling across the bright blue sky and the sounds of finally being allowed to play Christmas music in the house, November first baby, booyah! So, all in all a very pleasant and satisfying weekend!!=)