The · Journey

My first year doing NaNoWriMo and I just won! 50,134 words in 29 days. Completed despite missing three days of writing due to Thanksgiving and two days of 20th High School reunion immediately following. Of course, reduced hours at word definitely contributed to my success. Next year I hope to succeed while also pulling a 30-hour work week! Any which way, I didn't expect to make it for sure, although I certainly hoped I would. I'm still amazed I could do it. My story took turns I didn't expect, and since it's still not complete I have the continuing challenge of figuring out how it all works together. I'm planning to continue the philosophy of keeping the internal editor out of it until it's completely finished. And I'm planning to continue writing each day to finish it. This is my first novel, it's an experiment. And I'm having fun with it. And now I know I can do it.

For the last 4 days (also known as the first 4 days of NaNoWriMo 2009) I've been going full board, dumping words onto my virtual page like crazy. It's worn me out, but it's felt good, and I liked what I was writing. Today I hit a wall. I had no idea where the story was going and didn't feel I could add to any other part until I figured out how the wall would dissolve.

Contributing to my frustration were some outside forces. I had planned to write for 30 min at lunch, in the car. I am out for work in the morning and then go in for the afternoon, and what I like to do is sit in the car in the parking lot, eating my lunch and typing away, then I go in after 30 min. Today I had to pee like mad, so I couldn't wait the 30 min. Good plan for my car seats, bad plan for getting any writing done. Once I got inside there was no coming back out until it was time to drive home. One strike.

When I get home from work my time is not my own. I meet the Munchkin at the bus, then she has a snack while telling me about her day, and then I supervise her homework. Her homework consists of a 5-10 min written assignment such as "Write 5 words with the short O sound", and then 15 min of reading aloud to someone. This means I cannot do something else while she does her homework, I need to participate. No writing time for me then.

So we do her homework and she then wants to play with the neighbor girls, and she wants to go to their house. Perfect! Ninety minutes of quiet house for me! But no, their dad is sick so they can't play there. They come to our house. Bummer. They decide to play in the basement. Bonus! They find 2 dead mice in the playroom. Bummer. I clean up the mice but the place still smells so they're back upstairs, in the same room with me. Bummer. And now it's time for me to make dinner anyway. Two strikes.

We eat dinner. I go to a local NaNoWriMo meet up. We chat rather than writing, but it's only about 90 min or so and it's time I wouldn't have been writing anyway because I'd be putting the Munchkin to bed, cleaning the kitchen, etc. I come home and settle in to write. Generally I listen to instrumental music on Last FM when I write- I like the background music but lyrics distract me. I've found I do well while listening, but tonight Last FM won't work. I spend time trying to figure it out, but to no avail. Routine off course. Story isn't going well- still hitting that wall. Three strikes.

I'm heading to bed and hoping my pea brain will figure something out as I sleep. And maybe tomorrow will be free of dead mice and malfunctioning music. Here's hoping.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) began on Nov. 1, and for the first time ever I'm participating. (If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, go here to check it out: http://www.nanowrimo.org ) I don't want to spend too much time here because I should be writing on my story, but I wanted a place to keep track of my word count for each day and figured this is as good a place as any. I plan to update this post at the end of each day with the day's total as well as the grand total so far. If you're interested in reading a short excerpt please go here and click on "Novel Info": http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/508659

Nov. 1 - 2127
Nov. 2 - 1210
Nov. 3 - 2664
Nov. 4 - 2553
Nov. 5 - 815
Nov. 6 - 2928
Nov. 7 - 0
Nov. 8 - 1822
Nov. 9 - 938
Nov. 10-1688
Nov. 11- 195
Nov. 12- 2095
Nov. 13- 857
Nov. 14- 2131
Nov. 15- 2010
Nov. 16- 1015
Nov. 17- 4744
Nov. 18- 3006
Nov. 19- 2601
Nov. 20- 2557
Nov. 21- 215
Nov. 22- 3006
Nov. 23- 0
Nov. 24- 3042
Nov. 25- 3007
Nov. 26- 0
Nov. 27- 0
Nov. 28- 0
Nov. 29- 1941


Total to date - 50,134

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. I love it!

In order to have continuous sources of veggies, more than one planting is necessary. It seems the best way is to plant every 7 days or so, but I missed the boat on that this year. But, that's ok; this is all new to me and it's an experimental year. In that vein, I decided to throw some more seeds into the squares and see how they develop as the summer moves on. Today I planted two more spinach squares, three carrot squares, and three (I think!) lettuce squares. Then I weeded all the squares. It looks great!

I also found something unexpected. A couple weeks ago Keith left a pile of radishes in an empty square after he'd photographed them. I'd been meaning to toss them but hadn't yet gotten around to it. Today I noticed leaves growing from the rotting radishes- they're growing new radishes out of themselves, and aren't even attached to the soil yet. Crazy! I'm going to leave them and see what happens. Also on the subject of radishes, some of the radishes which are past being good to eat are flowering. I'll let those go to seed and replant next year, observing the process as it goes. I love learning new things about plants!

Last week my best friend, Kym, came to town to spend a few days. We had a wonderful time at the Strong National Museum of Play, Eastview Mall, and just hanging out at our place. Kym usually visits in winter or very early spring, so she'd never seen our yard in summer. As soon as she got here I took her on a tour of my gardens. She oohed and aahed appropriately, which was great fun for me :)

Later in the week we decided it would be nice to have lettuce for our sandwiches at lunch, but I wasn't sure when and how to harvest my lettuce. I did a little research and learned that with leaf lettuce, like the romaine I'm growing, you can take the outer leaves off and leave the rest to continue growing. Another way is to cut the whole plant off about one inch above the soil, leaving the plant to re-grow leaves. Since we only needed a few leaves for our sandwiches, I chose the first method. The leaves were somewhat bitter, but it was very fulfilling to eat lettuce I'd grown myself. I learned the bitterness might have been due to a plant left growing for too long, or it might be that's just the flavor of this certain type of lettuce.

A few evenings later I wanted salad for 2 for dinner. I cut an entire lettuce plant for that purpose, which gave enough lettuce for two side salads. I also pulled a few carrots to put in. Since my cucumbers were still just flowers, the radishes were gone, and the spinach and tomatoes still way too small, I added some store-bought red onions and croutons. I wasn't sure what to expect, thought it might be too bitter for my taste, but it was really a nice tasting salad! There were a few bitter leaves, but overall the salads were perfect. Success!

Three months ago we planted some seedlings and seeds in the square foot garden. Yesterday I was finally able to pull some radishes and carrots. That seems like a long growing time to me, but I'm blaming the very cool, wet weather we've had so far this year. Seems spring showed up by the calendar, but now it's stuck. To be fair, we did plant the carrots on April 4, and the seedlings (not the seeds) are ready, but the radishes we planted at the end of May. But still, the packet of radish seeds said they'd be ready in 3 weeks, and it's now about 6 weeks.

The lettuce is still forming, I guess; never having grown lettuce before I'm not sure when to pick it. Just going by what it looks like in the store, and so far we're not there yet. The tomatoes are about 3 inches high, the cucumbers have 3-4 sets of leaves and are about 5 inches high, and the peppers are about 2 inches high. Oh, and one raspberry was ripe, but man was it tart! There have been green raspberries on the bush for what seems like FOREVER!

At this point the strawberries have stopped producing flowers. We've picked about 4 quarts total, and there are some green ones waiting to ripen. We did lose some to rot from all the rain a couple of weeks ago. One corner of the patch gets particularly wet, and the plants don't grow well over there. I'm planning to put more soil in on that side, then encourage the runners from the existing plants to go that way. Since these are "everbearing" strawberries they are supposed to produce all summer long. I'm curious to see if they start flowering again soon.

The flowers in the sun garden I put in last year all seem to be doing well for the most part. The daisies, asiatic lilies, purple bell plants (I don't know what they're called!), yarrow, yellow and pink evening primrose, dianthus, and some daisy-like yellow flowers that bloom in the spring have all done their thing. The Siberian iris did very well, but only one of the others bloomed (white with purple); the others all had growth, however. I put Arabelle's flower box with red geraniums on the south side of the garden, and they've got some nice growth but haven't yet flowered. The cone flowers and gaillardia should be blooming any day now, as should the plant with the white triangles of flowers (can't remember that one's name either). The phlox have buds.

I planted miniature red roses in the sun garden last week, a gift from Keith for our anniversary. The dogs have jumped around near them, but so far it seems no real damage has been done. I put the gargoyles statues to guard them and am hoping for the best :)

The latest experiment is potted plants hanging on the garage over the driveway. We got a bunch of annuals for 50% off from Herman's yesterday: marigolds, some crazy yellow-flowered plant, wave petunias, and geraniums. They are currently potted but not hung- that should happen tomorrow. I'm hoping they can withstand the heat off the driveway, although if the cool summer continues there will probably be no issue.

Short of going through every garden, that's the update for now. Happy 4th of July, everyone!

I got a phone call today from a friend. She told me a mutual friend of ours, Kevin, had a massive stroke last week, has undergone 2 brain surgeries, and his currently paralyzed on one side. She believes he is still in ICU and does not seem optimistic about the outcome.

When I was 9 years old a neighbor asked my parents if she could give me two horseback riding lessons for my birthday. My parents said yes, and that's when I met Kevin, the guy who would be my instructor for the next 7 years. Kevin was about 24 years old at the time, which seemed pretty old to me. He was a bit crazy, somewhat reckless, but I trusted him and he taught me a lot about riding a horse. I saw him once a week for those 7 years, and extra when we were preparing for the lesson shows. Good times.

When I was 16, Kevin got in some trouble and stopped teaching. Over the years I had a number of other trainers, but I always wondered what happened to Kevin. Like my mom always said, "He's just such a nice guy." After living downstate for 6 years we moved back to the Rochester area in 2004. I hadn't ridden for a while, since I became pregnant with my daughter, but the bug never really leaves once you've got it. I decided to look Kevin up, see if he was in the area. Lo and behold, he'd bought his own place and started his own business 10 years prior. I went out to visit and was taking lessons again soon after.

I rode there for a couple of years, working off the cost of my lessons by taking a shift once a week feeding the horses and bringing them in from the pastures for the night. Life got too hectic and I felt I needed to cut something out, so I quit with the feeding and lessons. I've been back a couple of times, but haven't seen much of Kevin in the last two years.

And now he may not make it, or certainly not as he was. My friend, Kevin, has a huge heart, enjoys good times, and loves his family, friends, and horses. Kevin, I'm praying for you. Get better!

So... according to LJ when I logged in, it's been 20 weeks since I last posted an entry. That's pretty bad, even for me! So what prompted me to come back and write? My newest gardening adventure!

I've decided to plant a vegetable garden this year. I know, EVERYONE is planting a vegetable garden this year. I will admit the economy is one of my reasons for wanting to do so, but in my case it was more of a solidifying reason. Every year I do something new gardening-wise: last year was blueberries and strawberries, the year before was . . . um . . . something else (I can't remember- guess that's why I should keep a blog more consistently, huh?). Anyway, last year I figured this year I'd try vegetables.

I wanted to do it as inexpensively as possible. A Twitter friend of mine told me about making starter pots out of newspaper (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8qPAV-LDnM). I thought that was a great plan, especially considering there's no need to take the plants out of the pots before planting. The technique is so simple! My 5-year-old daughter and I made 24 paper pots today. We planted seeds for tomatoes, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, carrots, and bell peppers. We had so much fun!
Now we just need the rain to stop so we can construct the garden where the seedlings will go.

I know I post here so irregularly that there's likely no one reading it, but even so, I'll post the newest news. After nearly 2 years of waiting and several evenings of further research and editing, the editor at "Spider" magazine and I have agreed on a final draft of "Ring of Horses". The article will be published in their May/June 2009 issue. I haven't received the contract yet as we just finished up this morning, but that should arrive soon. I'm so excited! I can't wait to see this article in print, and with art work!

I chose another picture and tried again. I'm liking these results better :)

Thought this would be fun. Barry Williams???

My best friend asked for this crock pot recipe. I figured I'd put it up here (1) so it'll be around forever, and (2) because I haven't posted here in so long it might be nice to see something new! This is my favorite crock pot recipe. Enjoy! And if you try it, please come back here and leave a comment about what you thought of it. Thanks!



RANCHER'S PORK

Note: Amounts are estimated. A little more or a little less of anything won't change the end flavor, in my experience.

2 lb. pork of choice, browned (chops with or without bone, country ribs)
1 small to med onion, sliced
1 sweet pepper (any color), julienned
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup

Place onion slices in bottom of crock pot. Put pork on onions. Top with peppers, then brown sugar, then ketchup. If necessary, place a second layer in the same order, starting with onions directly on top of the ketchup. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Enjoy!

(Note: Cooking on high for 4-5 hours will get it cooked, but I've found it's not nearly as tasty.)

Not too much happening with the gardens this week. I was watering the strawberries and blueberry bush by hand every day, but discovered the blueberry bush in particular was drying out very quickly. I've been watering with the sprinkler the past couple of days and it seems to be doing better. The good news is I spotted some new growth on all of the above, so things are looking good so far. The bad news is only 12-13 out of 18 strawberry plants seem to be alive. I haven't given up on them completely yet, but it's not looking good for more. S'ok, that leaves room for possibly planting some other produce.

In flower news, the tulips, daffodils, and grape hyacinths are all but out of bloom. I planted iris bulbs in among these last fall and I've seen other irises blooming around the neighborhood but no sign (from what I can tell with all the tulip and lily leaves in the way) of irises coming up in my garden. Perhaps they are a later variety? Again, I need to wait and see what will happen.

The impatiens are all in the ground and doing well, gaining in size and loaded with buds. Today I planted a gladiolus Arabelle planted for me in school as a Mother's Day gift, and an Easter lily. I have no idea how well either will do, particularly the Easter lily since I don't know if it's meant for warmer climates. Again, I guess I'll find out in time.

Verbena planted in the flower boxes this year- that's another experiment. Arabelle independently planted her own 8 verbena in the flower box we painted together last summer. She's becoming a good little gardener; they look great! We put the box on the east side of the house for some color over there- it's all just myrtle and evergreen shrubs otherwise. Enlivening that area any further will likely wait for another year.

There's nothing left unplanted at this point, although I may be purchasing some marigolds to spruce up around the strawberry patch. Still plenty of work to do, though, especially since I never finished cleaning out portions of the gardens around the deck and on the east side of the house. Time to weed all around. And I need to cut the dead lilacs off so the bushes will put out even more flowers next year. I'm going to attempt transplanting some runners off one of the bushes and neaten both up a bit.

Plenty still to do!

Just to follow-up yesterday's post, we did indeed get the strawberries planted, and it actually looks like a real strawberry patch, complete with bird netting and everything (thanks to hubby's engineering skills). I'm a little proud and very excited :)

As for the blueberry bush, it has found a home on the road side of the white picket fence, nestled between a euonymus bush and a purple creeping phlox plant. I'm assured by my research that blueberries actually make great garden plants since they have pretty little white flowers, then blueberries, then the leaves turn a nice reddish color in the fall. Also per my research, I have cut off all the white flowers and early blueberries in order for the plant to become well established. The not-so-fun part is I will need to do this for 2 seasons. So... we should have blueberries sometime around July of 2010!

No further gardening occurred today since it was rainy. Hopefully I'll get to tackle the last of the impatiens and the flower boxes tomorrow.

The gardening season is well underway at our home. The "spring garden" (100 bulbs from Brecks I planted last fall) turned out well and was worth the long winter wait. I decided to add some color to the shade gardens this year by planting impatiens- 18 out of 24 are in the ground and doing well. Perhaps I'll write more about these things at a later time, as I do love to talk about my gardens!

But perhaps the largest gardening endeavor we've decided to undertake this year is setting up a strawberry patch. Two years ago I decided it would be wise to set up a vegetable garden so Arabelle (who was 3 at the time) would learn where foods come from and maybe get some nutrition out of the deal, too. We did eventually set up an 8 x 8 square of dirt in our front yard, dressed it up with a white picket fence length to "hide" the veggies from the road view, and planted peas, corn, carrots, pumpkin, and watermelon seeds. Nothing did very well but the carrots, but it was ok since at 3 kids are impressed with even small crop sizes. The carrots were another story- we had a ton! Unfortunately when we tried to pull them from the ground they would not budge! The clay soil that came with the yard had a death grip and trying to dig the carrots out only caused them to break off. We did salvage some and Arabelle seemed happy with the whole experience, but I wasn't rushing for a repeat performance.

The garden sat fallow for a year, which is to say I never got motivated to improve the soil condition and plant anything. All summer we mowed around a square of field weeds which grew taller and taller and attracted some really cool butterflies and such. I'm convinced our neighbors think we are weird. They're probably right.

So this year we were determined to re-create the garden, but with something we all enjoy eating more than vegetables- berries!! After digging out the weeds/ grass once again, I went to the local garden store to find out what to use to make our soil better for growing. I came home with 2 bags of soil conditioner, 3 bags of mushroom compost (apparently used for GROWING mushrooms, not MADE from mushrooms like I originally thought), and 5 bags of topsoil. And much to my delight my wallet was only $40 lighter.

I hauled this organic material around in my car for a week before we had a chance to till it into the garden plot. Of course, we didn't own a roto-tiller. So off Keith went to Lowe's and purchased a tiller attachment made for our ultra-cool weed whacker (we sorta planned for this last year when we bought the weed whacker). An hour later we had a very nice looking, and hopefully nutrient-filled, garden plot in our front yard.

Today we headed out to the garden center once more and bought 20 strawberry plants and one blueberry bush. Since we didn't want to wait a year for strawberries, we bought the ever-bearing variety of strawberry, which will allow us to harvest strawberries this fall (with any luck!). The plan is to plant the strawberries today; however, the weather has been off-and-on stormy all day, so we'll have to take advantage of tiny windows of good weather if we are to get it done.

I'm still not sure where the blueberry bush will go.

An IM sent to me last night from a friend, long-time gamer, and creator of gaming materials read: "i'll assume you have heard the terrible news? gary gygax passed away today" And just like that my heart sank.

Although I am fairly new to role-playing games having started playing D&D in 2001, I have enjoyed many hours of friendship, laughter, some tears, but overall great times with the game. The depth of D&D as a game speaks to the brilliance of the mind that created it. The depth of the affection of the creator’s fans speaks to the respect and hospitality Gary Gygax showed each and every person who contacted him. Follow this link to get an idea of how many lives Gary Gygax touched with his creativity and friendly nature:

http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4373&mforum=trolllordgames

I had the great privilege to meet Gary Gygax in person and I am so glad I did. And I have the greatest privilege to continue enjoying the game and influences he brought to this world.

Rest in peace, Gary.



Comic courtesy of gaintitp.com

As I sit on the couch reading a book (one that's making me all sentimental and weepy, btw) and drinking chai, I listen to Keith and Arabelle playing. The activity of the day is pushing Polly Pocket cars on the kitchen linoleum. Sometimes there are rescue missions from bubbly mud. Sometimes there are races with enthusiastic cheering and chants when Arabelle's car wins. Sometimes there is singing and "outside voices". But always there is fun. And a sense of love. It's a wonderful Sunday.

I know I haven't posted in ages, and maybe no one even checks here anymore, but I'm going to give this a try anyway. In April 2007 I was looking for audiobooks to listen to on my iPod and I stumbled upon a free audiobook podcast called "7th Son: Book One- Descent", written and podcasted by a guy named J.C. Hutchins. I listened to the first episode and was immediately hooked! It was an incredible beginning, fantastic premise, and it kept me wanting more all the way through the entire trilogy.

Not only is the story powerful, but through the "extra content" on the podcast I learned about J. C. Hutchins and his journey, from author to podcaster, and finally on his way to becoming a published novelist ("Descent" will be in bookstores in 2009). I have had the pleasure of interacting with Hutch on Twitter as well as through e-mail and instant messaging. He loves his craft and he loves his audience, and what strikes me most is the care he takes with both.

Please click play on the widget below to hear a promo for "7th Son". Then do yourself a favor and go to www.jchutchins.net or www.podiobooks.com and listen to the first chapter. I'm betting you'll be just as hooked as I am. When you are, tell your friends about "7th Son" and J. C. Hutchins.

Oh, and if you're so inspired, drop me a comment here to let me know what you think.