Category Archives: General

Get Ready For The Pictures!

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Yesterday, I participated in the Automattic Worldwide WordPress 5k, and I have a bunch of pictures from it!

It took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes- mostly because I’m not in shape at all, so I walked really slow, but also because I stopped to talk a few pictures along the way.  I had forgotten to take a look at the time I started, so the only reason I know how long it took me was because I was listening to a podcast that’s about an hour and a half.  I did stop and take a break, because my feet and my lower back were killing me, and I have the feeling my legs will be somewhat sore today.

A 5k is about 3.1 miles, and I did mine around a golf course.  It has a decent trail around it, and there were markers indicating how far you’ve walked.  I’ve walked around it a few times, and I knew it was equivalent to a 5k, so I didn’t really have to  map out a course or anything.

Unfortunately, there really weren’t much I could take pictures of, but here’s what I did take:

The One Mile Mark

This was the 1st thing that was picture worthy.  At this point, I walked just under half a mile from where I had started.

The "Official" Start of the Trail

This is the “alleged” start of the trail around the golf course.  You don’t have to start there, of course, but I thought it was interesting.  Plus, it’s on the other side of the golf course that I started at, and I didn’t want to drive to this end just to start here.  Besides, it’s at a park, and there were quite a few birthday parties, so it was good I didn’t start there.

One of Two Duck Ponds

This is one of two duck ponds I saw.  And there’s nothing better than seeing ducks on a nice day.

The 2 Mile Marker

At this point, I wasn’t even paying any attention to the markers and how far I had walked, but since there wasn’t any nice scenery, I had to take a picture of something.

Even More Ducks!

This was the 2nd of two duck ponds I saw.  The pond was actually right next to these ducks, but I couldn’t get any decent ones of ducks and the pond, so I settled for just ducks.  My grandpa used to take me to feed these ducks when I was little.  Probably not these ducks, but the ducks by this particular pond.

My Finish Line!

And this was what I saw when I finished.  Again, the scenery was terrible, since there were a couple parking lots, so I settled for the sign.  I really had no clue what to take a picture of, since taking a picture of the golf course with golfers in the background was a little weird.  Taking a picture of the parking lot was out of the question, as was a picture of the golf course restaraunt.  So random sign on a fence was my best choice.

It was really good, though, just to walk, and listen to a podcast.  And I promise that I’ll go to the gym a couple times this week!  Just not today though.  Moving’s going to be hard.

Not Quite Finished, But It’s A Start

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So I started the character profiles.  I only did something really basic, limiting it stuff like age, where they live, what they do, and other basic info.  It’s a start, though, and a lot more than I probably would have done otherwise.  I think I definitely need to set smaller goals for myself, since that seems to be working a lot better than really vague goals.  Smaller, specific goals + a deadline = me actually being productive.  It works during NaNo, so I have no idea why the thought to apply the same principles outside of NaNo never occurred to me. 

Here are the characters I worked on:

  • Kaylee Adams: I see her as early to mid-30’s.  She’s from Rhode Island, twirls her hair, is in fairly good health, and has no vision problems.  She’s the middle child, generous, and is (generally) polite, but is sometimes rude. 
  • Penelope Adams: She’s in her 60’s.  I have no idea where she’s from.  She studied psychology, and I’m toying with the idea of her having some kind of medical background.  She’s judgemental of others, but tries not to show it, is sometimes polite, and is the 1st female president.
  • Tucker Robinson: He’s between the ages of 35 and 45, is an only child, and wears glasses.  He is introverted, polite, and not very generous.  He has a PhD in anthropology, and likes conspiracy theories.

My goals for next week are: to continue working on the 3 characters above, taking a look at how they deal with things, and what motivates them, as well as what scares them and makes them happy.  I will also write 150 words each for the Giant Prehistoric Chicken, Turning Point, and Fred and Hermione.

Writing Is Good

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So, I actually wrote this week!  I’m very impressed with myself right now.

Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken: Hermione, Harry and Ron continue their quest to find the giant prehistoric, and are currently wandering the underworld.  Snape is annoyed that he’s surrounded by Gryffindors, and is completely ignoring that Tonks was a Hufflepuff and Luna’s in Ravenclaw.  Harry points out that the sorting hat almost put him in Slytherin, which doesn’t make Snape feel any better.

Fred and Hermione: It’s the 1st time I’ve worked on it in years!  I forgot how much fun I had writing it- I definitely want to keep writing it now, because I have no clue what happens.  And I want to know what happens now.  Hermione and Ginny talk about trying to set Ron up with someone, much to his horror, and Mrs. Weasley likes their plan so much, she may try to get in on the action.

Turning Point: Lot’s of banter about Kiora being accident-prone.  I have the feeling that issues between Owen and Kiora will pop up soon.  He likes her less and less, I think, but I haven’t really shown it. 

I haven’t done any of the character profiles yet, but I will sometime today, I think.  Or maybe tomorrow, but I’d prefer today.  

I think setting a weekly goal is something that is working out better for me, than writing whatever I want, whenever I want.  Even more amazing is that I went beyond the 300 word goal I set for the week, writing a combined 725 words.  I’ll definitely be setting word goals every week now.

Plus, I decided to do the worldwide wordpress 5k!  I have today, tomorrow and sunday to do it, and it shouldn’t be that bad, it’s just an hour of my time, so I’ll definitely be blogging about that when I complete it!

I Am So Proud of Myself

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I actually planned a couple of my plot bunnies.  Not really planning, but more coming up with notes.  And I even worked on Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken!

Not much, mind you, but a little.  Like 20 or 30 words.  But it’s the most I’ve worked on it since November, which is a big improvement over the fact that I’ve done absolutely nothing with it.

I don’t have many many notes on my plot bunnies, but I have a few.  And I have characters!  With names!  That’s all I have, but it’s a start, and I can stop referring to them as those nameless people that I need to name and think about. 

We have Kaylee Jane Daniels, who stumbles across a mysterious group of people.  She 1st heard about this group of people through someone she met, and soon sees them everywhere.  I’m still trying to decide how she meets this person, but I have a couple of ideas.  She definitely doesn’t think anything of it, and even laughs it off, until she starts seeing them herself. 

I have a very vague idea of her job, but she tells her boss, thinking she’s crazy.  Her boss, however, becomes worried that Kaylee’s seeing mysterious people everywhere.  I’m not sure why it’s important, and in the end, it might not be important.  But right now, it is.  It seems very ominous. 

One of my goals is to have a character profile done for Kaylee and her boss done by Saturday.  I’d also like to get one done for the person that tells Kaylee about the mysterious group of people.

I will also write at least 1oo words each for the Giant Prehistoric Chicken, Turning Point and one of my other Harry Potter fanfics. And I’ll post if I actually get any of this done.

Bread and Other Scary Things

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Baking bread scares me.  It always seemed so hard and time-consuming.  However, I’ve decided that I need to overcome this fear, and try baking bread. 

I’ve already started looking at some recipes, and some look a lot easier than others, so I think I’ll start off with the easy-looking ones first, and work my way up.  By easy-looking recipes, I mean the ones where’s there no kneading required (or in some cases, minimal kneading).  Or the ones with minimal rising.  The two actually seem to go hand-in-hand.  Even the ones with a lot of rising and kneading don’t seem to bad, but I think it’ll be easier for me to work my way up.  I’ll be sure to post pictures of all my successes and failures.

Running.  It scares me and I definitely don’t want to look stupid while doing it.  Granted, it’ll be quite some time before I’m even ready to run, because I’m way out of shape.  And I really shouldn’t worry about looking stupid, but the other people at the gym!  They don’t look like they worry about looking stupid, even though I’m sure the thought is going through their minds.  Some of them anyway. 

I suppose I should pick a writing-related goal that scares me.  There isn’t anything in particular that scares me, although actually continuing to work on something is a little weird.  Okay, maybe actually finishing something is a little scary.  But I suppose actually finishing something is somewhat dependant on how much I like what I’m working on.  Of course, this is the 1st time I’ve wanted to finish anything.  It was going to happen eventually.  But whether I can actually get my butt in the chair (in my case, on my bed) and write is a completely different story.    

Besides, now is as good a time as any to do things that scare me.  How else are I going to get over my fears if I don’t face them?

Random Update!

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Here’s what’s been going on lately:

  • I still haven’t volunteered.  I’ve lost interest in volunteering for the moment.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to get interested again.
  • The gym: I haven’t gone, but I’ve done random intervals of exercise videos.  That’s a start, but as I’m paying for a gym membership, it might be a good idea if I go a couple times a week. 
  • My 100 book challenge is coming along rather well.  I’m reading a lot of things that I’ve been meaning to read but never got around to it.  And I also have several that I never read in school, which is rather odd.
  • Cooking and baking: I’ve cooked and baked up a storm this month!  I caught up on several food blogs I follow, and I’ve been feeling inspired to cook a lot more than normal.  I’ve definitely been relying on too many t.v. dinners, and I must change this.  Baking is also going really well, I think I’ll even try baking a loaf of bread one of these days.  Plus, I’m trying to use my new mixer every chance I get.
  • Writing: Other than my blog and a few random journal entries, I haven’t done much writing.  I’ve added a few hundred words here and there to Turning Point.  I’ve decided Kiora must be accident-prone: I’d imagine it would have to be annoying for the Secret Service to protect someone who ends up in the hospital every few weeks.  I did get a great suggestion from a friend that one of her Secret Service agents should be accident-prone, since you wouldn’t expect it.  I think I’ll end up incorporating both.  I think doing Script Frenzy, even though I don’t plan on writing a script, will get me back into my novel-writing at least a couple days a week.  Plus, I want to plan some of the plot bunnies I have floating around, so I’m hoping to use Script Frenzy to my advantage.       
  • And my finger is doing much better, although using it is still slightly difficult.  I still can’t believe I’d be so stupid as to stick my finger in a vegetable slicer.

Secrets

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After my PostSecret book review, I’ve been thinking about secrets.  We all have secrets, and it got me thinking about my own secrets.  I’m not going to share any, for now, because I’m not comfortable sharing them just yet. 

I think it would be interesting to do a “postsecret” for each character, but the only one I did one for is Chloe.  I didn’t do any of the artwork, but her secret is pretty integral to her life, and influences how she relates to people and how she sees the world.   

It does remind me of a scene in an NCIS episode where Tony and Abby are talking about secrets and how everyone has a “mother of all secrets.”  I think we all have that one big secret that we don’t share with anyone.  I definitely have a couple of those.   

Alright, back to Chloe.  Chloe’s mother of all secrets is that life is passing her by, and by the time she gets her life together, she’ll be too old to care about living her life.  She’s spent her whole life worrying and taking care of people that by the time she’s not taking care of anyone, she won’t even care that her life is her own.   

I secretly wanted to be a singer when I was little.  Too bad I can’t sing if my life depended on it.  There is auto-tune, but I will not resort to that!  Even though you don’t really need to be talented anymore in order to be famous- in some cases anyway.

And maybe that isn’t my mother of all secrets, but it is a secret!  That might be why I’ve had several characters who have a talent for singing, so I can act out my inner popstar through them!

I think I’ll add coming up with a postsecret for each of characters.  You know, in addition to all the other stuff that I said I would work on, and still haven’t. 

Speaking of working on stuff, I may do Script Frenzy.  It’s done by the same people who do NaNo, but instead of novels, it’s a script.  I’m definitely not a script person, as I learned the first couple years I tried it.  So I’ll probably end up using it to work on other projects, like the nice list of stuff right above my desk.  So maybe I’ll actually do a lot more novel-writing next month than I’ve done the last few months.

Cookbooks

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I only have a handful of cookbooks.  For the most part, they’ve been collecting dust out in the kitchen, especially since I tend to get most of my recipes off the internet now.

But I decided since I’m going to be cooking a lot (as long as I don’t injure myself anyway), I might as well get some use out of them. 

The very first cookbook I got was one put out by Vegetarian Times, which is a magazine for vegetarians.  I used it a few times, but it’s been collecting dust since 2005 or 2006, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing when I got it.  I didn’t really cook before I got it, other then throwing a few veggie burgers in the microwave.  And I didn’t really do much cooking after I got it either, but it did spark an interest in cooking. 

So fast foward a few years, and I stumbled across Rachael Ray.  I found a copy of her veggie meals cookbook, and decided it was time to make another attempt at cooking.  It started my obsession with Rachael Ray.  I love her!  Okay, so most of her recipes aren’t vegetarian, she has enough vegetarian recipes that I feel okay buying her cookbooks.  Plus, she has a bunch of recipes that I can make vegetarian by swapping out ingredients.  

And the last cookbook I have is a trader joe’s one.  I don’t know if it qualifies as a cookbook, because quite a bit of the book consists of “buy some product that takes 5 or 10 minutes to make, and serve it with some other product that takes 5 or 10 minutes to make.”  There were some good recipes in it, but the fact that a good 2 or 3 sections read as a meal plan, instead of an actual cookbook turned me off from it.     

The Rachael Ray ones are probably my favorites, and the ones that get the most use, although I am willing to give the Vegetarian Times one another shot, especially now that I have a tad more cooking experience.  I’m definitely going to have to do some menu planning now, but that’s okay, because it’ll help me figure out what I need and all.  I’m debating whether or not to post reviews of the cookbooks, but it’ll be a while before I get through enough of the recipes to actually do a review.  If I do decide to review them, they’ll be posted here.

My Poor Finger!

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You may have noticed that my posts have been…slightly more sporadic over the last week or so.  That is because I am a complete idiot.

It started out innocently enough.  It’s cold and rainy, I’ll make some soup.  So the soup needs some chopped carrots, and I decided to use the vegetable slicer.  However, the carrots are being uncooperative, so I decide it would be a good idea to get the carrots out by putting my finger into the vegetable slicer.  It was a good idea until I cut myself.  And about 30 minutes later, I found myself in the emergency room at 10:30 on a Saturday night in need of s0me stitches.  Thankfully, it was just a couple stitches but still, stitches!  While my right hand has been functional, it hasn’t been as functional as it normally is.  Partly because I didn’t want to do anything weird to my stitches, but also because when it comes to needles and stuff, I am the world’s biggest baby. 

My Poor Finger!

It’s really hard taking a picture one-handed, especially when the hand taking the picture is the one you don’t use on a regular basis.  I somehow managed to not use my finger, which is a small miracle, but it’s better now, especially since my stitches are out.  Using my now better finger is weird, since it’s been a bit since I’ve used it, but it will be back to normal soon. 

It made me glad I had some posts in my queue that I had been working on and had no idea what to do with.  I’ve been (mostly) unproductive, spending my time watching the travel channel.  Mostly because I was bored with the history channel and there really isn’t anything on in the middle of the day.  I did watch the USA network a few times though.  Plus, I caught up on a lot of the blogs I follow, since I could manage that one-handed. 

I’ll be posting a few book reviews over the next few days, since I did do some reading.  Plus, I’m itching to cook and bake, especially as I found a lot of stuff I want to try.

My Favorite Ways Of Procrastinating

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I am such a procrastinator.  And of course, we all have our favorite ways of procastinating.  I pretty much do everything but write. 

  • Reading Blogs: They’re entertaining, inspirational and they give me ideas.  I have a pretty decent list of blogs I love to read…I may have to share that list sometime. 
  • Podcasts: I have yet to listen to any of the ones I’ve downloaded, and for some reason, I feel the need to download more that I probably won’t listen to, but there are a few that have potential…if I can focus long enough to listen to any of them.  Why write when I can listen to podcasts about writing?
  • Reading: reading a good distraction…when I’m not thinking about my goal of actually reading.  I tell myself that I’m just trying to find something that I can put my own twist on, because I’ve gotten inspiration from books before (namely Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken).  But really, it’s just my excuse to not do anything.
  • Cooking/Baking: also a good way of putting of my writing.  And even though I tell myself it’s for a good cause, because I’m testing out potential food for NaNo, it’s really just an excuse to not write anything.
  • Research: I tend to not do much in the way of research for NaNo, as I gravitate more towards the pantser end of the contiuum.  And when I actually have an idea that requires research (read: Turning Point or historical fiction), I tend to pay more attention to the research, and trying to find every last detail instead of the writing. 

As much as I love writing, it does frustrate me that I don’t do more of it, especially since I have the time to do it.  The fact that I have oodles of time on my hands is probably working against me.  I have a lot of time that I can use to write, but since I have so much time, I decide not to write, because…I have a lot of time.  Procrastination is really hard to overcome, so maybe I need to write first before doing anything else.  Or maybe for every 30 minutes I write, I can do other stuff for 30 minutes.  Okay, maybe it doesn’t have to be 30 minutes, but whatever time I decide to give to writing and doing other stuff.