Happy Birthday Gabriella Moonlight!!!

First off, you gotta change your age on your blog to 41, like I did!!! MUHAHAHAHA

G (she's behind the All Who Wander Are Not Lost blog) and I have been friends for a few years. She worked in an adjoining office, which is where I met her a couple of years ago. Then she changed jobs and moved upstairs. But now she's back downstairs in the best department on campus!!!

She's been a super quick study and has picked up the knowledge needed in a few short months to do a very demanding and mentally exhausting job. She's also working on finishing her master's degree in Humanities. She inspires me everyday to be a better person. I hear her talking on the phone with students and I realize how 'cold' I've become in answering questions from students. I rarely get a call now I haven't heard before so the job has become a little mundane. It's been refreshing to see the job through a new person's eyes that makes me appreciate the job I have.

She sits in the cube beside mine, in what you would call a "corner" office - we're all in a cubical farm and she has one of the corners. I used to have this space, but I wanted a smaller one so I have her mine after she was hired. She brings humor to the office and is a willing participant when I get in one of my moods to pull a practical joke.

Luckily for me, she is taking Monday off to celebrate her birthday. An entire day, home alone. How wonderful is that??? It's great. For me. MUHAHAHAHA

Yes, practical joker that I am, something will happen to her cubicle while she is out of the office. Fair warning G! Be prepared for a surprise when you return on Tuesday. I'll post an update when she returns.

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I again met my goal of writing at least 200 words each day during the month of February. 

My highest word count day was Wednesday, February 4th. I had 1,203 words that day. That was the snow day I took and I wanted to write at least 1,200 words that day.

My lowest word count day was another Wednesday, this time February 18th. I managed to pull out 201 words. And the words for that day are in no relation to anything else I wrote this month. I just wrote miscellaneous descriptions of some knitting I wanted to do. 

my list for the weekend

I'm working on a list of things to do for the weekend. I have a lot to accomplish and a short amount of time.

1. Write my last 200 words for the day. I'll post my February total on Sunday.

2. Make some homemade chocolate chip cookies. I follow the recipe on the Nestle bag of chocolate chips but I also add more chips. I then keep the dough in the fridge and bake cookies whenever I want them. Hot cookies, straight out of the oven, anytime I want. LOL

3. Decide on the story idea for my March daily writings. February has been about teenage time travelers visiting the RMS Titanic before she sinks. One of them runs away and tries to save someone who died during the sinking, which is a no-no.

4. I may have to kill a couple of people in the March writings. I've only killed one person since November and NaNoWriMo. I hate to say this, but I miss that part. I like writing about crimes and how they are solved. The kids on the Titanic have a dead body there now. Guess I need to wind that up and move on to a few more bodies. MUHAHAHA

5. Sew some more napkins. I'm going through a crafty phase right now. My sewing machine is now fixed so I'm going crazy buying fat quarters (usually an 18"x22" piece of material) and turning them into napkins. Trying to be more environmentally friendly. The picture is of my newest purchases. Two of each will be added to my collection.

I just had to share.....

...this photo of my very first napkin!!! Yes, I'm a geek. I'm so excited to finally be able to sew. I tried years earlier, much like my writing, and never got very far. I have the determination now to start a project and finish it. This napkin will be the first of many, following in the steps of the writing exercises I'm working on now. Practice makes perfect, or at least makes the writing a habit, which I believe is what I've needed all along.

How does this pertain to writing really? I've inspired myself to dig out a story idea I was working on about 15 years ago. I'd seen an article in a newspaper about a woman who made wedding gowns by hand. My character was going to be exactly like this woman. She would be one of those old fashioned seamstresses we hear about. She can make anything, from wedding gowns to suits to napkins and table runners and Halloween costumes. But there's something in her past that haunts her. A murder? A jilted lover? Who knows. But now that I'm inspired to work on the story again, I'll soon know the answers.

Happy Birthday Lisa!!!!!

Special birthday wishes are going out to one of my BFFs - Lisa (aka miseenplace) today. You're getting closer to me everyday year. LOL

Lisa runs the All About Alton blog, about Alton Brown. She claims to be his #1 fan, and I totally believe her.

Lisa and I met during the Fall 2002 in a Humanities class called "Historical Studies" where we both work. At the time Lisa wasn't working at my school (yet) but we became friends in the class we will forever call "the class from hell."

Fast forward a couple of years. I see Lisa when she comes in for class sometimes. We chat, exchange pleasantries. Then she is hired to work in the library of the school I work for. How great was that???

I talked her into applying to the University of Tennessee's Information Science (Library Science) program and we both were accepted, taking classes via the Internet since neither of us could leave our jobs beginning in the Fall 2006, when our friendship took off. She finally completed the program last August, earning her 2nd master's degree. (I dropped out due to death and illness in my family.)

I got her hooked on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and we made several trips. She introduced me to Alton Brown and his show Good Eats on the Food Network. We've both joked that we could be sisters, with the amount of stuff we have in common. When we went to orientation for the UTK program, I talked until I was hoarse, finding all the things we both liked (cross stitching, photography, architecture, research, etc) and had great fun on the trip.

So, in order to show her my appreciation for our friendship, I found something out about her favorite TV chef. I found a magazine today, premiere issue. I've included a photo of it here at the bottom of the post. I've also purchased you a life time subscription to it. 

Here you go: Happy Birthday Lisa!!!!

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HERE YOU GO:

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So much for my little reward dinner

I left work early to give myself a reward tonight. I'd finally gotten caught up with everything in the office and decided to eat at a little diner in my hometown on the way home. Well, lets just say I should have stayed at work.

The meal wasn't that bad. I had a ham and bacon club sandwich on toasted bread. Plain. Yes, you heard me right. I am not a veggie person. I do not eat lettuce, tomato or mayo on my sandwiches. I like them plain. No problems there. Even the fries were half way decent this time. Usually they haven't been cooked long enough, but tonight's were better.

What I didn't like was how the ordering process went. I don't blame the waitress at all. I don't think she saw me come in, nor the guy about five minutes after me. I came in, sat down and opened up my book. I'd received Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein today from Amazon and I so wanted to get into this one. Fairstein is one of the few writers I buy in hardback. I immediately started reading. Everyone knows to come in and sit down, the waitress will get to you.

I'd been reading for a few minutes when this guy comes in and sits down at another table adjacent from me. A few more minutes and the waitress comes over to the area where we are. And you know what??? She goes to his table first!!! WTF??? That wouldn't have been so bad (not her fault she didn't know who came in first), but he goes ahead and orders!!! He didn't even look over to ask if I had been waited on. He just immediately orders!! 

So she takes his drink order then leaves to bring it back. Then she comes to my table to get my drink order. She leaved and brings it back. Then she takes his meal order, then mine. His food is also brought to the table first. GRRRR. I was kinda ticked off. But who to be mad at the most, the waitress for not knowing better, or the guy who should have had the decency to ask if I had been waited on already, since I didn't have a drink on my table or a menu or anything. 

Now some of you may be thinking, why didn't I speak up? And why did I get mad when I didn't speak up in the first place? I'm just not that type of person. One, I don't want to embarrass anyone in public, so I usually keep my mouth shut and just stew in silence. If someone cuts in line, I just think about ways to kill them painfully in the pages of my stories. That usually helps alot. I did write down what I wanted to say in a post while I was sitting there waiting on my drink. Couldn't help myself. LOL.

The tip I left was ok (20%) since the food was good this time, but I'm the type of person who gives great tips, if the service warrants it. Most waitresses there either work there full time or are going to school so I'm happy to give extra. The girl who usually waits on me usually gets a nice BIG tip. Where was she tonight?????

So how does this relate to writing? Well, right now I don't know. I'm sure the experience and scene will work its way into my writings some day.

February 4, 2009 snow day

It doesn't look like a lot of snow, but it is to someone who has to drive 40 miles to get to work.

It wasn't an official snow day, but I took a vacation day anyway. After driving home the night before, I wasn't going back out on the roads again until they were clear.

The snowman idea was a bust. The snow was not the right kind to make one. So my dog will have to suffer. LOL

I did, however, write 1,203 words that day. I think I took a nap, too. It was just a great day to be home and not have to worry about driving.

I also want to send out birthday wishes to my friend Cliff. Hope you had a great one. And now we're the same age again. MUHAHAHA

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Snow day plans

Is it wrong of me to wish for a lot of snow so I can stay home? I work in higher education and rarely do we get a day off for weather. 

Oh, I've gone home early or taken a vacation day for high water, power outages and previous snow squalls, but it has been well over 10 years since the entire university closed down because of the weather, until last week that is. I had already called in that I was taking a vacation day. I live 40 miles from where I work and I was not going to drive slick, dangerous roads just to have to drive home again eight hours later.

If tomorrow is a snow day, I plan to build my dog a snowman. Scooby needs the company. Doesn't he look like he wants one? For once I finally got him to sit still long enough to take a front view picture. I'll add one with the snowman if I stay home.

If tomorrow is a snow day, I plan to write 1000 words. I'm currently writing at least 200 words a day for this month, but since I can sleep later, nap and play with my dog, I will write more too.

I used the list of names from a post on my other blog, Beat the Block, to start this month's writing exercises, much like I did last month with my vintage resale shop story. My main character for this new story is a butler named Peabody. My other characters are Jane, North and Marcus. So far I have two scenes. I'm mostly free-writing, if I can call it that. I do not think about what I'm going to write. I open up the document and just start writing. Most of the time I am surprised at what comes out. I do not consciously think about what I'm going to write. And I usually put it off until right before I go to bed. Sometimes writing under "pressure" leads to better writing.