My Nephew, the War Veteran...

...will be landing on US soil tomorrow around noon. And I'm going to go see him!

Mom, Mike's two younger brothers, hopefully his older brother and his wife, one of his other aunts and I will all be going to the airport (not together...the logistics of that are insane) to spend a couple hours with him while he's on layover before the final leg of his journey home! I'm so thrilled that he's finally almost home.

I know Mom is over the moon that she finally gets to see him again, to know that he's safe. He called her probably once every two weeks or so while he was over there, so he's kept in constant touch and to let her know that he was all right. He never saw any combat (that I'm aware of). His assignment mostly kept him on base, though he did hear plenty of shots fired and mortar rounds going off. But now he's almost home!

Tomorrow, I have to get fresh batteries for my camera. Can't have it dying tomorrow and having to pay those outrageous airport prices. I'll be taking plenty of pictures of my war veteran nephew. Hopefully he won't mind posing too much.

Century Post!!!

100th POST! YAY !!! (cue the confetti)

I can't believe I've made 100 posts here. When I first started blogging, I wasn't even sure I would keep it up for very long, but here I am at #100. Woo-hoo!!

And now for the other reason for making this post...my nephew's coming home!

My nephew Mike has been in Iraq since August (I think) and he just called to say he has left Iraq. He didn't say where exactly he was for security reasons and that's fine. I'm just thrilled to know he's out of Iraq and on his way home. It would be so wonderful if he could stop in here to see his family before going back to his base, but I'll be happy knowing he's back on US soil and that he'll be home in time for his daughter's birth. I wish I could be there when he lands and sees how big Stephanie has gotten. She's only three weeks from her due date so you know she must be huge! (Just joking, Steph!)

Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayers and keeping Michael safe. Thank you, Linda and Dad, for watching over him and keeping him safe so he could return home to Stephanie and their baby. Thank you, thank you, thank you, amen.

Did you take the test?

Just took the Jeopardy online test...I'll never know just how well I did because they'll never let me know (booo!), but I don't think I did all that bad. Maybe missed 12 or 15 out of 50 questions. Of course, if I did well enough and they choose me to move to the next level, that's a pretty good clue that I did well. We'll see.

As for my writing, well, we're closing in on the end of the month and I still don't think I'm going to hit 30,000 words, but I'm going to come a lot closer than I thought I was. I'm at 21,368 with four days to go. There's a shade of a chance my office might be closed tomorrow. It snowed today, and more snow and ice are expected overnight. If the roads are bad, my boss will close the office for the day and if that happens, I can spend the day writing. Which would be a good thing because that would boost my word count. So we'll see what happens.

Pixie's nudging my shoulder...she wants me to finish this one scene before I go to bed, so I'd better get to it.

Gee, how did they know?

Your International Spy Name is Sass Goodnight

Your Code Name: Punchline You Reside in: Stockholm Why You're a Good Spy: You have total recall

What's Your International Spy Name?

I know these things are silly, but it's Monday morning...I need something to start my week of with a laugh!

My Muse...

...is such a comedian.

Or maybe that should be comedienne since she is, after all, female. Not sure what her name is yet. She's never told me. Maybe she's waiting for me to name her. I'll have to think about that.

Anyway, back to the subject...you see, she was apparently on vacation because I went for quite a while there with no new ideas for my story, no fresh insights, no scene ideas, nothing. I did a lot of backstory, but backstory doesn't propel your story forward, which is what should be happening. Which is why I wrote that post on the 18th, saying I was giving up for a while.

This afternoon, she showed up at my office and dropped six new scenes in my lap. No joke. Six scenes. I was, like, Where on earth have you been??? And she said, all innocent-like--you know how they are--"I was on the beach in Bora Bora. You know that's where I go to get new ideas for you." Yeah, and that all-over tan didn't come from a salon, you know what I mean? I think she got her hair cut, too.

So here I am, 8000 words behind, and the little wench finally shows up with enough material to take me well into next month. Thanks, Pixie. Hey, I think I like that name...Pixie.

News Article

Found this on MSNBC.com. Seems some of the MSM is starting to realize there truly IS another side--

Click here

Barack Obama was not my choice for president, but he won the job. Therefore, I do accept him as my president and I will support him, kinda like those people who support our troops but not the war they're fighting.

But the last paragraph of that article pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole "Obamessiahmania" thing...

...Lise Lindeberg, a 72-year-old retiree in Stockholm, Sweden, thinks people have put too much faith in Obama.

"I feel sorry for the poor thing," she said. "People want him to be a savior — some kind of messiah. You just can't become president and change everything when there's no money."

Tack själv, Lise

Ugh...

I think my well is running dry.

I had hoped to make 30,000 words by the end of this month and right now, I’m exactly 4,900 words off (by the end of today, I should have 18,000 words and I’m at 13,100). I have a couple more scenes in my outline that I can work on, but I just don’t want to. I don’t think those scenes are going to work.

I think it’s because I’m lost. I don’t know where I am anymore. Probably because I spent so much time these last ten days or so creating some fantastic history/backstory (if I do say so myself) that I can’t focus on what’s needed to move this story forward. And I think the only way I can do that is to start reading/editing what’s already been written so I can see what I need. And if I do that, I won’t be creating new scenes, which is the whole point behind a NaNo. Creating new stuff.

It’s kind of like getting in your car and driving. Don’t look at the map, don’t pick a destination. Just point your car somewhere and drive. If you hit an ocean or the border patrol, turn left or right and keep going in that new direction. When you run out of gas, refuel and keep going.

I guess that’s me. Broken down and out of gas on the side of the road with no refueling station in sight. Could someone call AAA for me? Give me a lift to the gas station?

This isn’t writer’s block. Writer’s block is when you know what you want to say but don’t know how to say it. Or you have this terrific scene in mind but don’t know where to start. What I have is a complete absence of ideas, thoughts and imagination. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Maybe it’s time to pull out my passport, chat with the nice Border Patrol agents and visit another country. Write some other stuff for a while. I had this idea to write a few children’s stories based on Jesus’ parables. Oh, and there was this solo one-act play that’s been dancing in my mind for some time. I just bought 26 back issues of Writer’s Digest off eBay that need to be read. Not to mention a Bible Study starting next week, a stack of unworked crossword puzzles and my half-formed plan to cross-stitch presents for Christmas (if you think I’m insane for planning for Christmas 2009 when it’s barely January, you’ve never cross-stitched before).

Anything I write will still count toward my January NaNo goal of 30,000 words. I wanted all 30,000 words to be in my story, but as long as I create 30,000 new words, I will have achieved my goal and kept that New Year’s Resolution.

Okay, I can live with that. Um...and add 544 new words to my word count. So now I just need 4356 words to catch up.

Hey, everything counts!

A waste...

Some people are just a waste of DNA, you know? Sometimes you just want to revoke their license to breathe.

I had one of these glorious in-duh-viduals on the phone...seems he's been hearin' this talk on the television-thingie about how his an-tenna ain't gonna work no more? And I gotta get one of those converter boxes? D’ya know who I kin talk to about that?

I was about ready to scream. How long have those commercials been on television? How long have we been hearing about the impending conversion from analog to digital transmissions and if you have an older set or use an antenna you'll need a converter box? Seriously. A year? More? The transition happens next month, dude, and you’re just NOW asking about it?

All I could think was, good luck, man, you’re gonna need it if you’re hoping to catch the next NASCAR race. (DISCLAIMER: I have nothing against NASCAR or any of its drivers or fans. I just don’t follow car races of any kind. And if you want to accuse me of profiling, all you had to do was hear his accent and you’d know for sure he’s got at least one NASCAR souvenir in his house. Double or nothing it's got Dale Earnhardt's face on it.)

So I told the poor misguided gentleman that our company was unable to help him as we had nothing to do with television transmission or antennas, despite the fact that we are mistakenly entered in the Yellow Pages under Satellite Systems. (Seriously, we shouldn’t even be in the phone book, but that’s another story). Well, who can I talk to about this? Dude…

I told him to call Comcast.

Yeah, yeah, I know, they’re just going to try and sell him cable service. Not my problem. You know what else isn’t my problem? The FCC has run out of money to reimburse people who want to buy converter boxes. You know those $40.00 vouchers they’ve been telling you about for the past year? Out of money. If you want one now, you’ll have to go on a waiting list and hope you can afford to buy one before the magic day. Dude probably won’t be happy to hear that but, yep, not my problem.

I get these calls every now and then, people wanting to reach the cable company and calling my company instead. How they make that mistake is beyond me. We’re not even in the same business. I had a woman call last week wanting to get her service disconnected because she’s moving out of the area. I told her “you need to call Comcast.” She said, “I just want to get my service disconnected. Can’t you schedule that for me?”

“Yeah, sure, me and Charlie’ll be out tomorrow, how’s 9:00?” And when we don’t show up, she’ll call again all upset and I’ll get in trouble with my boss…so you know I didn’t say that. I just repeated “Call Comcast” and gave her the number. Then filled out another “breathing license revocation form.”

Some people…

Progress?

So how's it going? Broken all your New Year's resolutions yet? Some of them? Well, so far, not me. I am a little behind in my Jan WriMo--should have 8000 words and only have 5453, but I'll make it up over the weekend.

I love it when the muse and I go for a ride. I just wrote about 700 words in half an hour and this scene is fabulous! Everything just flowed right off my fingertips and onto the screen. It doesn't even need to be edited, it's that good. The sad thing is, I don't know if this scene will make it into the final manuscript. It's part of my FMC's backstory and, though it's important, I just don't know if it'll make it. I hope so...like I said, it's good.

On the weight front, we'll see on Saturday. I only weigh myself once a week, so that's why you're not seeing daily updates.

I start a Bible Study later in the month on the book of Phillipians. I'm going to make sure I read through the book at least once, preferably twice, before that class starts.

I notice I'm having an easier time at work, and I believe it's because my attitude hat is finally on straight. Of course, I'm still looking at job postings, so we'll see what's what there. The Sunday paper's supposed to have a huge job section--it does every January--so we'll see what it holds.

And I'm posting! Sounds to me like I'm keeping all my resolutions. How about you?

Happy New Year!

Okay, okay, I know I'm a day late.

That bad a hangover, eh?

Oh, come on, you know I don't drink.

Yeah, and a bear doesn't--

Hey, this is a G-Rated blog. Watch your language.

Fine. I'll just go over here while you prattle on.

Thank you. As I was saying, I know I'm a day late. I did honestly mean to post this yesterday, but I remembered just as I shut my computer down, so, no posting. Hope everyone had fun and kept it safe.

I was up at midnight, but that's mainly because my sister calls every New Year's eve at midnight to wish our mom a Happy New Year. Plus, my city sets off fireworks and I'm close enough to the launching point that they would have woken me up if the phone call didn't. So I saw in the New Year and fell right to sleep.

Only did three things of great importance yesterday. Laundry, take in the outside decorations, and started my personal January WriMo. Yep, just like the official November NaNoWriMo, I'm doing my own WriMo in January. My plan is 30,000 words by January 31. So far yesterday, 1489 words. I spent most of December reading, revising and reorganizing my 2008 NaNo and came up with a handful of scenes. Probably not enough for 30,000 words, but hopefully more scenes will come to me as I write. This story has potential, and I need to keep at it. I'll be too disappointed in myself if I just let it go at this point. My local NaNoWriMo group should be starting write-ins this month, so that'll keep me motivated.

They're predicting snow showers today, the kind that gets little kids excited, but adults know that there'll be no accumulation. That works for me since I was inside all day yesterday and I need to get out today. Cuts into my writing time, but too bad. I need to get out! I'll probably head down to Front Royal, check out this great little used book store I know.

Hmm...New Year's resolutions. I usually don't like to make resolutions because they're so easy to break. I like to make decisions or promises. In my mind, they're harder to break. Plus, I have this real hang up about people who don't keep their promises, so I always try to keep mine. Also, as RT says:

...most new years resolutions end in failure. People hate themselves for failing at their resolutions, and then spend months in a depressive spiral of self-loathing and horror before giving up and resolving to try again later. That’s no way to spend your time! By the same token, making a difficult to achieve resolution is a sure recipe for failure.

Couldn't have said it better myself. So don't make resolutions that are doomed to fail. Make promises that you mean to keep. So here they are, in no particular order:

1) Study the New Testament. Not just read it, study it, learn it, and really understand it. It's one thing to read it, it's another to KNOW it.
2) Continue writing my story. Finishing it this year would be grand, but at the very least, I want to continue working on it, with the hopeful goal of finishing.
3) Lose 50 pounds. I need to lose more, but I think 50 is good for one year.
4) Improve my attitude at work. I get lazy sometimes, and I have a few issues, so I need to turn those around or...
5) Look for a new job.
6) Post to my blog more often. I can't have my loyal readers getting bored and find other blogs to read.

I may add to this list. We'll see. But I definitely won't be subtracting from it. I'll keep you posted as to my progress.


So ends my first posting of 2009. Have a great year, everyone and be safe!