Okay, folks, I'm outta here. See you all on the 7th. Happy New Year!!!
Rad. The memory stick is rad. Now all I need is a long-term battery for the Vaio and I'll conquer the world.
I have to post this today, because tomorrow I'll be in Seattle and I donno if I'll have access. :)
Goals for 2004!
1. to write 400K words of fiction
2. to sell 4 books
3. to bike 1500 miles
4. to walk 575 miles
5. to draw 30 drawings
6. to read 104 books
7. to lose 30 pounds
Also to learn how to do a nifty little php graph to plot my progress :)
So at the beginning of this year, I made a bunch of revolutions. They were:
1. to write 400K words of fiction
2. to bike 2000 miles
3. to swim 120 miles
4. to draw 100 drawings
5. to read 104 books
6. to lose 30 pounds
This is what I actually accomplished, out of those:
1. wrote 250K words of fiction
2. biked 605 miles
3. swam 22 miles
4. drew 30 drawings
5. read 79 books
6. lost 15 pounds
The only one of those that I consider to be a real travesty is the failure to read 104 books; I think that's the bare minimum of what I ought to be reading in a year. And I'm a little disappointed with the number of miles biked, but I'll cut myself a little slack there because there were some other things that I didn't set as goals for the year that I've ended up doing.
Unexpectedly achieved goals:
1. SOLD THREE BOOKS!!!!
2. ACQUIRED AN AGENT!!!!
3. walked 360 miles
All and all? A pretty damned good year. :)
Ted and I went to see the Diane Keaton/Jack Nicholson film Something's Gotta Give last night. It was very funny. :) And astoundingly, Keanu Reeves as the young doctor who falls for Diane Keaton's character not only didn't embarrass himself, but was really quite believable. There was only one line where he stumbled in his delivery and got a bit of that 'whoa' in it, and it wasn't a good line anyway.
Other than that... did some work yesterday. Not much else.
And, oh! Happy belated birthday to my cousin KERRY!!!! :)
Oh yah. I did manage to go to the gym yesterday, and walked a punky 2 miles and did some floor work. I managed, over Christmas, to put 2 pounds back on, and I feel like a blorty cow. :P Plus, now Heather's *thirty* miles ahead of me on the road to Rivendell, and Shoka's halfway to Lothlorien! Well, okay, maybe not *halfway*, but like 50 miles into it! I'll *never* catch up! Snif!
miles to Rivendell: 360
Oh good, my homepage is back up.
Let's see, what to say since last I wrote? I got up v. late this morning and am still sort of trying to recover from that. I need to shower and drink water, not necessarily in that order.
My vegetable beef soup turned out really yummy. So did the pumpkin pie I made. Today I shall make shepherd's pie, and that oughta take up the rest of the rib roast that we had for Christmas. It may very well feed us for the remander of the week; there's quite a lot of soup and shepherd's pies are usually good for two servings each. Mmmm, yummy.
I got ahold of the woman who runs Rogue to Ruin! I'm glad, 'cause her email'd stopped working a long time ago and I was worried. :) All is well!
Ted cleaned his desk yesterday. Now mine, which is a disaster, is mocking me. Wah!
Oh, wow. I read the Alex Ross Mythology book last night. It's amazing. It's gorgeous. And he's only 33 years old! I thought he must be, like, in his 50s. But no, he's just very dedicated to his art. Wow wow wow. It makes me feel inspired to try to spend more time doing artwork. Which would be good, because I've got this project for Ellen I'm supposed to be doing... O.O Oh, and I found (rather, Ted found) my missing sketchbook, yay! I'd just like it to be known that I absolutely positively suck at drawing backgrounds. I want to finish this mermaid drawing, but I have *no* *clue* what to put in the background. I started by trying to do a shipwrecked ship, but it sucked, and blarhg. :(
Um. Ok, anything else I was going to say is going to have to wait. Oh, except the Bon Jovi This Left Feels Right album, which is an acoustic album, is very cool, and the new Britney Spears album isn't. And my new MP3 player is. :)
Sleepy me, although I didn't get up until 9:30. Lazy me!
We went to Paycheck this morning. It wasn't very good. :) Much more a Ben Affleck movie than a John Woo movie, sadly. Still, it was about what I was up for, mentally, so I guess it's okay, overall.
Then we went to Waldenbooks and blew a couple of gift certificates. :) Ted bought THE JOY OF COOKING. I went hog-wild and bought ten YA novels, including two Garth Nix books and a Diana Wynne Jones novel, and also GONE-AWAY LAKE, which I loved as a child. I did temper my impulse to buy nothing but sf/f YA, and got, um. 3! 3 whole books that aren't sf/f. And I also bought the latest in the Elvenbane series. Then we stopped by Bosco's and I bought the Ultimate Beast bust, which is pretty cool, and the rest of the day has been lazing around at the computer. I think I'll go heat up some dinner now, though. Woot! :)
Catie's Blueberry Pie
5 c blueberries, thawed & semi-crushed
1.5 c sugar
2 tbsp flour
3 heaping tsp corn starch
1 egg, beaten
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
2 c sour cream
Cook the first 7 ingredients together in a saucepan, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened up nicely. (The gel between the berries should be thick and transluscent. If you think it might not be thick yet, it isn't.)
Allow to cool. (Expedient manner: spread wax paper on a cookie sheet and spread the filling over the wax paper. It only takes 5-6 minutes to cool this way. You can make the pie crust while it's cooling. Pie crust recipe to follow.)
When the filling is cool, mix the sour cream in with it very thoroughly. Pour (or blop, more accurately) into unbaked pie crust.
Bake for 12-15 minutes at 425 degrees, until the edges of the pie crust are slightly golden-brown. Reduce heat to 325 degrees. Bake for an additional 35 minutes or until done.
I made a crumble for the top, rather than a pie crust. However, I didn't have enough flour, and my crumble was more of a mush. It was, though, very good. This is how to make my mush:
Catie's Mush
1/2 c butter
3 tbsp flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup or so finely chopped walnuts
Mush butter and flour together. Once it's all mushed, mush sugar and walnuts in, too.
Apply to the top of the pie 15 minutes before the pie is done. You have to sort of dollop it on. 7 minutes before the pie is done, take it out again and spread the heated mush over the top of the pie so that it covers it all. Finish baking. Allow to cool.
Meta Givens' pie crust recipe
This is a recipe for a 9" double-crust pie.
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 to 2/3 c shortening
6 tbsp ice water
Sift the flour, then measure. Add salt & stir in mixing bowl. Add shortening (use the smaller amount if using lard, use the larger amount if using vegetable shortening like Crisco). Cut with fork or fingers (fingers work better) into flour mixture until shortening has all reached the size of grains of rice to peas. Add water, tossing with fork. The dough should barely stick together without crumbling.
Make a ball of the dough and cut it into two slightly uneven pieces. Set aside the larger for the top pie crust, and make a disc of the smaller. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness on a well-floured board. Do not overhandle once the water has been added -- that's what makes pie crusts tough. Lift crust into the pie pan (I use the rolling pin to roll it up) and allow to settle for a few minutes, then add filling. Trim and crimp the edges if you're making a single-crust pie; if you're making a double, roll out the second crust and settle it over the top, allowing a few minutes for it to settle, too. Then trim and crimp the edges.
A few general notes: if it's very warm out, you can chill the dough for a while to make it hold together better. If your hands are warm, run them under cold water; it lets you handle the crust a little longer without it toughening. And, when you're done and you have scraps of pie crust left, roll them out, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, put 'em on a cookie sheet, slice 'em up and bake them for 4-5 minutes. Voila! Pie crust cookies! :)
My oh my oh my, what a nice day it's been.
Mom and Dad came over around 10:30 for breakfast. Ted made waffles which were very good, and we used some of my peach and strawberry syrups (jams which'd failed) as well as regular syrup, and mmm yummy. After that, an orgy of gifts. There was a great deal of cleaning up done, including a long bread-loaf pan which I'd been coveting, X2, The Lion King, a jillion or so books, *four* CDs, new small cereal-sized bowls, a sports-sized MP3 player, and to my huge amusement, a limited edition copy of Alex Ross' Mythology, which is his DC Comics artwork from literally since his childhood. This was funny because I'd gotten Ted the non-limited-edition version of the same book. *laugh*
Ted got piles of gaming stuff, two baking-oriented cookbooks (which both look *magnificent*), The Two Towers Extended Edition, a much more complicated MP3 player than what I got, a really gorgeous dark red sweater that Mom knitted for him, and wow, gosh, other stuff too. I'd have to look to know what for sure. :)
Shaun got new shirts (which he ALWAYS asks for), a dremmel tool, a new mouse, Ted's copy of the Mythology book (o.o), some gaming stuff, and a bunch of very silly stuff from his brother and sister. :)
Mom got a Picasso print which, if we do say so ourselves, was *beautifully* framed, and a t-shirt and a couple of calendars, my traditional gift to her. :)
Dad got a yoga mat and a t-shirt and a puzzle and a very silly pendulum man who should provide many hours of entertainment. :)
Lucy, as far as she's concerned, got a papasan. She keeps getting very annoyed when a *human* sits in *her* papasan. *laugh*
Then I made the pie.
Now, okay, look. I'm a good baker. I've been baking for a long time, and the way I choose recipes is by reading through them, if I'm looking for something I haven't made, until I find one that looks good to me. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but it does. It's how I found the very good german chocolate cake recipe I make for Ted (Laura, you should send me yours, because I want to try it), and it's how I've found several other recipes.
There was no pie recipe that looked right to me. I wanted to make a sour-cream based blueberry pie, and I spent a long darned time looking for recipes. They were all Wrong. Even the ones that had glowing accolades on Epicurious were Wrong. So eventually I took one and used it as a base, and more or less made up my recipe from scratch.
It turned out really. *Really* well. *Very* smug!
Then when I got out of the kitchen, Ted took over and made a standing rib roast, which was mind-blowingly delicious. Wow, it was *so* *good*. And there are LOTS of leftovers. I see vegetable beef soup and beef pot pie in our near future. Oh my *goodness*, it was good. And the gravy turned out very well indeed; Mom noticed she'd eaten all the gravy off the top of her mashed potatoes and hadn't really eaten much of the potatoes. *laugh* I ate *way* too much, but man, it was *so* good.
There was more socializing, and then after a while Mom and Dad headed home again, and now I'm ripping some of my CDs so that I can put the music I want from them on my itty bitty MP3 player and bring it to the gym. Yay! Yaaaay! Yay!
Oh, and I forgot to mention: Ted made pizza last night, and *that* turned out really well *too*. I have the very best husband. *beam*
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all! *beam*
My stocking stuffer was a 64 meg memory flash card. No more disk drives! Ahahahah!
Ted's was a papasan. Okay, it didn't actually go in his stocking, but it sure surprised him! :)
Oh yes! Fourth corollary, which Mom reminds me to ask:
Do you like poetry? If so, what kind of poetry? Do you read it for pleasure? If you're an imaging reader, does poetry work for you? Tell me, tell me! (I'm really enjoying this discussion. Heehee.)
So last week, Emily and Ted and I were sitting around talking, and Emily said something about the radio drama in her head while she was reading. Ted said, "You only get a radio drama?" and she said, "Oh, no, I get pictures, too."
Now, Ted has said this before, but I always thought he was exaggerating, so it sort of threw me, and I said, "You really see *pictures* while you're reading?" And they both insisted that yes, they did. Rather like being the camera in a movie, in fact.
It took me rather some time to believe them. I don't *get* pictures in my head when I'm reading. If I think back on a scene, I can see it play out, but it doesn't play out in my head while I'm reading it. Nor does it play out in my head while I'm writing it. I have, at best, stills. I can call images and scenes up, but they don't naturally play out in my head.
So we went to my parents' house and asked them, because this was so fascinating and weird to all three of us (for me, that they see pictures; for them, that I don't!). My parents don't see pictures when they read.
Ted's parents and brother do.
Shaun does.
Ellen does.
The random waitress we asked at Tony Roma's does.
Do *you*?
And, corollary to that: if I tell you to think of, oh, Tom Cruise, do you see a 3-D sort of image of him in your mind? Or a photograph? Or... what? I *can* call up an image in my mind, but I can't hold it. I *know* what Tom Cruise looks like, but I don't *see* it. So... what happens when you, my gentle readers, read?
Further corollary, for writers: what happens to you when you're writing? Do you see what's happening, or do you ... *know* what's happening (I more or less do), or do you (struggle to?) hold images in your head to describe them (I do), or something else entirely?
Third corollary (I've just learned how to spell corollary and I'm very excited about it, can you tell?): how fast do you read? We've determined thus far that the seeing pictures aspect isn't, as we thought it might be, related to reading speed, as Dad, who reads slowly, doesn't see pictures, and Ellen and Ted, who read very fast, do, and Shaun and Emily, who read slowly, do, and Mom and I, who read very fast indeed, don't. But I'm curious anyway!
Please! Discuss! :)
At Trip's behest, I've made my comments un-anonymous, which means you'll have to put your email address and name in order to be able to post to them. If you don't want to use your real address, you can use nony AT mizkit DOT com. Only written out as an email address, not like I just wrote it. :)
Okay, some updating. First off, I have the coolest friends in the WORLD. *beam* I have gotten phat l00t from them. :) I also got phat l00t from Ted's family. Phat l00t from the family includes a gorgeous set of candleholders and big tall candles to go with, a deep-dish pie plate (actually from family friends, not family itself), season 3 Highlander, Pirates of the Carribean, and some t-shirts; Ted cleaned up with steak knives and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and a really *nice* little weighing scale for food (it goes up to 5 pounds!) and a new little cutting board and I'm forgetting some stuff. :)
Sadly, one of the jars of pickled garlic we brought for Ted's dad got smashed in transit, and so Ted's parents had to open their presents as soon as we got to Fairbanks so that they could be washed and the horrible, horrible smell of pickled garlic removed from them. So the only thing they had left to open on Sunday when we did Christmas was the quilting tote we got for Ted's mom. She'd utterly forgotten she'd asked for it, so it was a complete surprise to her. :)
It snowed 18 inches while we were in Fairbanks, and it's snowing again now. Snowed a couple inches last night, too. Soon I will have to go take some pictures of the ridiculous amount of snow on our back porch. Poor Chanti can barely see over the snow now, and doesn't think much of galumphing through it anymore. *laugh* In fact, if it weren't packed down at the steps of the deck, she *wouldn't* be able to see over it. There's a *lot* of snow. It's great. *beam*
The snow, however, was such that planes were neither landing nor taking off from Anchorage, so we got home from Fairbanks later than anticipated, but it was all okay. And today, Sarah and Angie said I could open my presents from them. Hee hee hee. I got a *ridiculously* cute fairy, and a soft plushy frog and a frog photo print from Sarah, and the plushy frog (whose name is probably Frog, because I'm very clever like that) is sitting atop my computer monitor where he will no doubt disturb Lucy a lot. *giggle* And a *very* cool children's classics calendar, a Shakespeare Action Figure, a Gemini print, and an utterly ridiculous hat from Angie. Oh! And I got some delicious-smelling soaps from Patch and a new mousepad and small prints from Ellen and jeez, it's not even Christmas yet!
Mmm. Ted's making truffles. Mmm. Mmm. :)
You know when I said 'later'? I meant, like, tomorrow. Or maybe Friday. :)
Not dead!
Went to Fairbanks for the weekend. It was splendid. Beverly (Ted's mom) asked me to make the pie crusts, which made me unreasonably happy. :) Everybody's well, we saw Ellen, she gave me a nifty new mousepad and we had a good talk, and we opened Christmas presents at Ted's house, except the pickled garlic we'd brought for his dad got smashed on the airplane :( so they had to open their presents as soon as we got there so they could be washed. We got a lot of good loot. :) I'll write more about it later, but right now I'm mostly posting to say NOT DEAD! :)
Romantic SF&F website has A Look at Luna.
RotK rocked. *beam*
GPA meeting this morning, that was fun. Tired me, but it was fun. :)
This is just a wonderful story. (use cpunks36/cpunks to log in. I think.)
Let's see!
Still weighing in at 190. I must put a piece of paper over the fudge that says 188 in big letters so that I'm forced to think about whether I *really* want that fudge right then, or if I *really* want to weigh 188 on Tuesday. :)
Gymmed last night. 125 crunches, some floor work and some weights, 3 miles, and a blister on my achilles. Ow, ow ow. My left shoe exploded and, well, rubbed a stupid blister onto my heel. Stupid shoe. Guess I'm going shoe shopping this afternoon.
Also going to RotK this afternoon. Ahahahaha. :)
Finished wrapping most of Ted's family's presents last night, and we finished putting the tree up. It looks nice. :) I still have Huge Numbers of presents to wrap, and I haven't even shopped for Ted at ALL yet. It's not exactly that I hate wrapping presents, but I do wish it took about 234209870 hours less time. It makes me grumpy. o.o
Oh, and we sent 39740987 boxes of goodies and presents out yesterday. Or 8 boxes, anyway. People in the US should get them by early next week, and *hopefully* Janne and Geni will get 'em before Christmas, but I donno, and I bet Geni's going to England for Christmas anyway so I guess it'll just have to wait on her. C'est la vie.
Did I mention the going to RotK this afternoon? :)
miles to Rivendell: 361
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 374! YAY HEATHER! She made her goal! YAAAAAY! That means she gets to go see RotK today! :)
Man. I just got a little tiny, but meaningful, pop out of my neck. Whew.
Very chipper this morning. Was invited to join a Luna authors email list and have done so. Have looked around at web pages and determined it's really a pity I'm such a complete wanker at working for myself as a web designer, because boy there's a lot of bad design out there, and people are apparently *paying* for the bad design.
'course that makes me go look at good web design and get all depressed. No wonder I don't do it myself as a job. I mean, for myself, as opposed to for the company I work for.
Um. No brain! Posting now. :)
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 372 (of 374! go Heather!)
Also, thanks to gymming, I have an Artful Lock of Hair that's come loose from my, um, hair-holder claw thingies, and which is dangling down my cheek. I don't think I could make it look this cute if I'd /tried/.
Went to the gym. Walked 3 miles, did some leg weights, did a bunch of floor work, and did some barre work. Am feeling all chipper now. Instead of feeling all winding-down, which I /should/ be, since it's late. :)
Let's see. I got all my candies and cookies and whatnots made, and soon I'll have them packaged up to send. Most of them, actually, are packaged now. I need to make an address label for Sarah's Christmas present, and I need to wrap Ted's family's presents so we can just send them instead of trying to deal with airport security. And I need to wrap Breic's birthday present and maybe I'll just send Deirdre and Gavin's Christmas presents along with so that, once more with not dealing, we don't have to drag it through airport security when we go to Seattle. And then we have to *get* Breic something for Christmas (like, uh, what, Deirdre?) and um, let's see. And at some point I should, y'know. Sleep. :)
miles to Rivendell: 358 (100 more to go!)
Good heavens! My nephew Breic is ONE YEAR OLD today! Good HEAVENS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BREIC!!!!!
Didn't gym yesterday. Did eat enough sweets to make myself sick. Today I'm making up one last batch of candy and putting it all in the mail tonight, or throwing it away, swear to God. I'm only just now starting to get hungry, after feeling queasy all night and this morning. Yucko.
Sunrise outside is all pink and purple and pretty. I don't think a picture'd come out nicely enough to bother taking one, though. :)
Planning on gymming tonight. Haven't, dammit, done *any* rewriting yet, and I'm feeling useless on that front. Grr.
Oh, but a seriously cool writing thing: Friday evening Stella, Sarah and I had a little critique group meeting. (We're calling our critique group Genre Pirates, ARRR!, henceforth referred to as GPA.) We're critiquing Stella's Not A Novel, Sarah's Iya book, and my Queen's Bastard book, and they're all totally different pieces and the Friday meeting was a lot of fun and I can't wait for Thursday morning's meeting. We probably won't be able to meet again until after the new year (which is just as well for me, because I don't have ch. 2 written on TQB yet!), so we get two meetings in less than a week this time around. It's very cool! Yay!
Very confused this evening, because we went to dinner around 4:15 due to having eaten breakfast but no lunch, and it was getting dark by then anyway and by the time we got out of dinner at 5 it was entirely dark, and so my brain is quite certain it's hours later than it actually is. I finished reading Year of the Griffin (which I liked *much* more than Dark Lord of Dirkholm) and it was *still* only just 7, and I'm all confuzzled.
Gymmed today. Walked, but the other quarter-mile stretch of the U wasn't open and I couldn't stand the idea of doing the smaller loop 6 times, so I only did 2 miles instead of 3. Still, is good to have walked. And I weight lifted and did crunches, and I'm going to have to figure out something to do for the next three weeks, basically, because the U is more or less closed. I wonder if any of the gyms around here let you join up on a monthly basis and don't have an exorbitant initiation fee. Maybe I'll try to find out tomorrow.
I'm thinking of trying to find a beginning/intermediate (or, well, advanced if there's any available, but there don't usually seem to be for adults) tap class next semester, and maybe a ballet class. Ballet sure is good for your legs. :)
Goal for the coming week: finish the rewrites on TB so that I can get going on finishing the book on the 18th when I go on vacation.
miles to Rivendell: 355
Jenn posted today asking if her LJ readers considered writing an escape or a pursuit. Because her postings keep inspiring me to mini-essays, I shall share with you what I said to her. :)
Ok, I'll give this a try.
I write because I want to know what happens next. I have general ideas, sure, but the devil is in the details and that's what I'm after. That's my pursuit. I want to know what happens next, and I want to be able to tell other people what happens next. That's the base level of it for me.
On other levels: I write because I want to see what can be done, or more specifically, what *I* can do. I want to see what happens when I write Beauty and the Beast; I want to see if I can achieve the elegance of language that makes it hard for me to breathe when I read Guy Gavriel Kay. I want to explore what makes my characters, and, at least in theory, thereby people, tick. I want to make someone laugh; I want to make someone cry. I want to make someone say, "*Yeah*!" because she's been in that moment that she's just read--maybe not that *actual* moment, but I want to evoke a memory of passion, or create one. I want to suddenly catch my reader realizing that he's reading a jazz piece, like happened to me when I read (I believe it was) "Sonny's Blues", by James Baldwin. I want to make my reader notice he's leaning forward in his seat and holding his breath to get through to the end of the scene, because the action has got him in its grip. I pursue feeling, when I write.
I write because I want to be better at writing. There are standards to which I aspire. To make people think; to make them react, to make them angry or happy; to make them want to ban what I have to say, or to laud it. I want to tell stories that have some kind of basic truth to them. I don't, perhaps, need to change the world with a single book, but I would like, when I'm dead, to have a body of work that someone can look back on and say, "These are the things she wrote about; these are the things that made her feel so strongly that she had to make stories of them to share with the world. These are the ideas that were her passion," and maybe have something learned from them. Maybe have a faith in love, or redemption, or truth, or anguish, restored. These are my pursuits, in writing.
This is me, totally losing my train of thought because my editor called to ask me why I chose the name I chose to write under. Erm. Where was I?
Oh yes.
My *escape*, in writing, is that--God. I love it. I just love it. I love telling stories. I love going into these worlds inside my mind and finding out what happens next. It *is* another world; I see why people say "real life" and "writing life" as if they're different, because... writers are a little weird, you know? I keep telling my mom that it's not *exactly* that I have voices in my head, but there's no better way to describe it. (And she assures me that she has no voices in her head, whether they're described that way or not, at all, and gives me funny looks.) It's not that I go in to writing *because* it's an escape, but it unquestionably *is* one. The world that goes on outside of my head ceases to be the one with which I am involved for the period of time that I'm writing, and...
Okay, Mom's right, that's weird. Maybe it's better not to think about this stuff too deeply. :) But, hm. I think that overall my answer is that I consider writing a pursuit, and that it's an escape is for me an inevitable (and awesome) side effect.
I really like this RotK countdown calendar, and not just because the delightful creator of it posted another Boromir photo just for me. *beam*
While I'm posting cool stuff (I thought I'd posted this last night, but apparently I failed to save it): a medieval Irish gown, complete with construction history. I think it's a /great/ gown. I sort of want one. Perhaps in another 50 pounds. :)
I'm *cheerful* today. Maybe 'cause the sun's shining. Oh, and I emailed Jennifer to say, 'so what does 'move quickly' mean in publisher time', since it was like 93 days from query to purchase on Urban Shaman, and that, to me, is moving quickly, but according to Jenn, it's moving 'extra super double fast' and that three months is not a long time, especially with Tor, which is apparently *notoriously* slow, as opposed to *just* slow.
Oop, must do work.
Gymmed again tonight. Another 3 miles walked, and did some crunches and floor exercises. Ran out of time and so didn't do any weights, but that's okay. The reflection in the mirror has visibly changed shape even just this week; it has less tummy than it did five days ago. :) We'll theoretically have an Emily tomorrow, as she's coming in for a doctor's appointment for her broken knee, so no gym, most likely. My goal at the moment is to get there 4 or 5 times a week. Lousy time of year to suddenly decide to actually start doing this, with going to Fairbanks next weekend and the gym being closed several days due to holidays, but hey, what can you do?
So I've taken up mall walking. Did I say that? I've been walking laps inside the university, which has about a .75 mile circuit if all the doors are unlocked (possibly further, but I haven't tried exploring the library) and overall I feel a little silly doing, well, mall walking, but the university indoors track is 1. concrete, 2. around an ice rink where hockey players slam pucks into the plexiglass ALL THE TIME, and 3. screws up my back (apparently I lean into the direction of the track and I end up pinching my back, whee). So mall walking it is, despite the sort of funny looks.
The thing I like about Bon Jovi (besides the tight leather pants, I mean) is that I always feel like JBJ is singing all the love songs specifically to his wife, who was his high school sweetheart and everything (they're sort of disgusting), and I think that's kind of charming. :) There's a lot of love songs on this CD I've been listening to, too (Crush). Big on charm, not actually so perfect for working out, although there are three or four songs I really adore that are good workout music. I need to make a mix CD.
Um, what else. I made a brilliant batch of fudge tonight. Ted made equally brilliant truffles. We brought some of the truffles over to the comic shop, and Christopher, our current favorite there, called us up to say thank you. :)
Hah, smug me. Sarah and Silkie, at least, have recieved their Boxes O' Goodies. Silkie's telling me now that the kids lose and she and Image are going to eat all the non-jam goodies, so I guess I shoulda sent the peanutbutter stuff anyway. :) *giggles* I'll know next time! :)
I've been noticing my bad sitting posture more and more lately. I keep catching myself curving in over the keyboard so my shoulders are all rounded and my head is stuck forward. I spend a surprising amount of time correcting that. I think I must be more aware of my back than I ever used to be. Heh. o.O
miles to Rivendell: 353
Cold this morning. Didn't get up to write, either, so I'll have to do some writing this afternoon. Ted's done with his finals and has one presentation left, and ... um. Not a whole lot to talk about today, apparently. :)
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 364
Not too bad a day. Snowman-making will have to be done tomorrow, since I didn't today. At lunchtime, I think. :)
I got 3 chapters of TB edited/typed in, for 50% Edit Credit at about 3300 words. Ted made a very yummy meatloaf, and I went to the gym after dinner. Saw Dad there and spent a while talking to him, thus cutting my workout down by 20 minutes *laugh* but I still got a pretty decent workout in. Walked 3 miles and did some floor exercises and lifted some weights, probably enough to be sore tomorrow.
Got the email address for a friend/former coworker and wrote to her today and got email back, which was v. nice. And I've decided that tomorrow I'm likely to be weak and go buy a copy of the 2004 LotR calendar. Pretty pictures. :)
Hm, I think that's about it. :)
miles to Rivendell: 350
ytd wordcount: 237,000
The Jeep seems to be okay. Ted thinks something had gotten frozen and got wet when it thawed (it's warm out), and after he turned it off and turned it back on all the gauges were okay again, so he didn't bring it to a mechanic.
*gasp* He updated his blog! With ... no truffle recipe. Snif. I'll have to nag him about that. :)
Upgrade completed. Not as alarming as I made it out to be. Upgrading cemurphy now. And then to delete all the spam. *sigh*
Gnork. Ted just called from the U and said all the gauges were out on the Jeep. This morning it inexplicably began honking, and now this. Wah! He's going to poke at it and take it over to a mechanic. Gnork.
I weigh what my driver's license says I do, this morning.
Now, granted, my driver's license says I weigh 190, so in some ways this is not a great accomplishment. On the other hand, it's five pounds less than I've weighed in at least a couple of years and fifteen pounds less than I weighed a few months ago. And it feels like a GREAT PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIER, so I'm very happy.
Perhaps now I'll go get a driver's license that says I weigh 175, or something. :)
So I've lost 15 pounds! What should I do to celebrate?
(I should not eat the rest of the fudge. Actually, I ate enough last night that I think I'm all candied out. Yick.)
My goddamned site got hit by a spammer last night. I need to go install the MT-blacklist upgrade. I'll probably do that as soon as I'm done with this entry. And then I have to clean out all the fricking comments left by the bastard.
It's snowed two inches of wet sloppy snow. I may have to go build a snowman later today. :)
*SHRIEK*!!!!
So early last month I logged on to classmates.com and paid for an account and stuff, and emailed, through their setup, my friend Gwen Lewis from high school with whom I had lost contact. I was hoping, anyway, that it was 'my' Gwen (although it seemed pretty likely, given that there was only one Gwen in my class). I just got email back from her! YAAAAAAAY! *happy dance, happy dance!* She lives in North Dakota now, and *wow* I'm glad to hear from her! YAAAAAY! *beam* *dancie dancie dance*!
Although, really. I've had several people tell me they haven't been able to find me, and how hard is it? I mean, if you put catie murphy into Google, I'm the first one who comes up. :)
If you are the sort of person inclined to give moveon.org money to help finance commercials against Bush's corporately subsidized campaign donors but haven't previously donated any money to them, this is a good week to do it. Moveon.org has a $20 matching grant against any $20 donation from a new donor.
The content of the ads is along these lines:
The ads are a seasonal and humorous dig at the out-of-control corporate subsidies to Bush's campaign donors that can be found in this week's Omnibus spending bill. Featuring President Bush as a sort of big-donor Santa Claus, the ads point out that while Halliburton and big pharmaceutical companies and the media conglomerates clearly made Bush's Christmas list, the American people didn't."It's called the Omnibus," the print ad starts. "No, it's not Santa's sleigh, but it is laden with presents. It's coming to Washington, DC this week. And you better believe the Bush Administration's best friends have front row seats." Then it details the giveaways in the bill. Our TV ad concludes: "Yes, big contributors, there is a Santa Claus. But he's not at the North Pole. He's in the White House."
You can click here to make a donation, if you're so inclined.
So I'm listening to my meeting and how they're once more trying to accomplish far more than is possible with our limited resources. 'Why don't we take Tim off project X and put him on this one, given the time constraints?' "Oh, no, we're hoping not to do that." Well, Jesus H. Christ, people, something has to give. This happens *every*. *Damned*. *Time*!
(Stella, am I keeping you entertained? Blogging enough today?)
A writerly what's your story meme, taken from this discussion on witchqueen's lj. Sarah and I got a particular kick out of it because it's a topic we've discussed in some depth before.
My fairy tale? Beauty and the Beast. My story? Redemption.
A few days ago I read an article that said 'The Last Samauri, like all Tom Cruise movies, is a story of redemption', and I went, "Oh, well, no wonder I like Tom Cruise movies so much." I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, whether it's individual, familial, societal, whatever. I love the heartbreak that comes with a good redemption story, and looking at the half dozen novels I've written, yep. Big ol' theme there. Flashing, and stuff. (I'd use the blink tag, but as a web designer by trade, I'd have to go kill myself afterwards.) I've known that for a while, and knowing it doesn't seem to change my inclination to write stories that are on some level redemption stories, nor my ability to do so.
Neither does my awareness of BatB as 'my' fairy tale. I often see threads of it in my writing (sometimes much more deliberately than others!), and I'm pretty content with that. There are other stories that I know about that I like, thematically (I think I won't go into them too deeply right now, no point in showing all my cards!), and other stories I like to tell, but on a flat level? Redemption. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :)
Oh, oh, I forgot to mention! Ted got his brown belt in Shoshen Ryu (a form of jujitsu) last night! Yay Ted! Yaaaaaay!
I've got the music from Guys & Dolls stuck in my head this morning. I wonder if I've got the soundtrack up here, or if I've just got a jewel case mocking me with its monkey pants.
Making bread. Mustn't forget.
I didn't get up early to write for a second morning in a row. I think the whole exercise thing is making me a little more tired. I need to go to bed /early/ tonight, and I need to do some writing this afternoon. 2K or 2 chapters of rewrites. Yep.
Good news! Weighed in at 191 this morning! Perhaps with vigorous exercising or at least vigorous attention to what I eat and *some* exercising, I'll bring that down to 189 by the 15th. Go Kit go!
Hah! I am not mocked with its monkey pants. I will listen to G&D. Yay!
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 362*
*Heather is aiming for 366 miles by the 17th. Who else thinks she should push it up to 375, so she doesn't stop walking after Thursday when she makes her goal? :)
Did I really not update today? Wow. How'd that happen? Oh, no, wait, I did, it's still the 8th. Heh. Ahem. :)
Went to the gym again tonight. *waves a little flag* Walked 3 miles, and did some floor exercises and hoo boy are my thighs stiff and sore tonight. And did some weights, although I don't really feel like going through the bother of recording what-all I did, so I'm, er, not going to. Upper-body stuff, anyway. Saw Dad at the gym; he's been going pretty regularly. Yay Dad!
Let's see. Went to the post office to mail some stuff off today -- GENI! I need you to email me your address! -- and, um. I need to box up other stuff so I can send it. We need to buy Ted's uncle Brian a Christmas gift so we can get that stuff sent off, and, um. Yeah. Um. Need to send stuff for Breic's birthday! He'll be one year old next Monday!
Did no writing today. Got up too late to write, and didn't manage to this afternoon, mostly because we went out to dinner upon discovering the halibut we intended to eat was still frozen solid, so tomorrow must be better. And now... I'm going to bed.
miles to Rivendell: 347
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 360
*SHOKA'S* miles to Rivendell: 458!!!! YAAAAAAY SHOKA!!!! *congratulatory dances*!!!!
My website was down much of yesterday, so no updaties. But I finally went to the gym! And, er, the weight room was closed. But I walked 3 miles and did 75 crunches and did some barre exercises and some floor exercises and my back is muscle-sore this morning, instead of bone-sore, and that's a nice change.
I did not, however, get up and write. Too much sleeping in this weekend and too much going to bed late last night. Today I need to get ch. 10 edited, although I looked at it yesterday afternoon and it won't take entire gutting like ch. 8 did. That's good. And then I have to figure out what the hell's happening in chapter 2 of TQB.
miles to Rivendell: 344
My day:
I also made a lot of candy and did a lot of Christmas shopping. :)
This is entirely Sarah's fault.
(Taken from the very silly picassohead site.)
Ok, Laura's going to kill me, because there's been no walking, but I did finish the QB chapter, and it's 7300 words long. My brain is going to explode. I wrote 3800 words today. *collapses*
ytd wordcount: 233,700
Okay, ch. 9 is rewritten. 'Rewritten' in this case includes copious use of cut and paste, but the final wordcount is 400 words more than the original chapter, and I did rather more than that in actual new words. I'm giving this chapter Edit Credit, which is 50% of the final number of words (since many of them *weren't* rewritten), for 1500 words this morning. Tomorrow I will have to look at ch. 10 and see what kind of shape it's in.
The other goal for today: finish the first damned chapter of TQB. -.-
Laura is rightfully scolding me for not walking, so goal #3 for today had better be to take the dog for at least a small walk, even if it's cold outside. Heather, however, is better than me, and is doing *her* walking! *hopeful look* :)
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 356
Ok, well, Trip logged in this evening and mumbled about writing and I said I'd write some more if he did and he went off to write so I wrote some more and erm, managed another 900 words, which puts me at 3K for the day, and which puts this damned chapter at five. thousand. words. And I'm NOT DONE YET. Although the end is in sight. Although, again, I was thinking 900 words ago that it was in sight within 12-1500 words, and now I'm thinking another 1000, so... damn, this is gonna be a long chapter. o.o
ytd wordcount: 229,900
(See how strong I am in not writing just another 100 words to make it a nice even 230K this year? o.o)
Well, not glorious, but quite a lot better than a kick in the teeth. I got 300 words or so written on TQB, putting my daily total at 2100. I want to finish this chapter, dammit. It's 4100 words long and while the end is in sight, it's still a goodly distance off. And a great deal of drek needs to be replaced with good bits, yet. I'm going to stagger around for a while if I end up with a 7K chapter. Never done /that/ before.
The peach jam is beeeooooooooooteeful. And now I'm done making jam! Well, until next week, when I start making non-sugar jam. Tomorrow, for a change of pace, I'll make fudge. Lots. Of. Fudge. And maybe some toffee or some cookies. Ideally I'll put all these goodies in the mail for people on Sunday. :)
ytd wordcount: 229,000
At about 5:15 this morning I woke up (my alarm's set for 5:30) and thought, "nnngh. Maybe I don't wanna get up, even if I'm awake. Nngh. 'course, I gotta pee. Maybe I can ignore it. (three minutes pass) Nope. Can't ignore it. Might as well get up." So up I got. The decent thing about getting up that early is that I don't feel in the slightest bit bad for sitting there in the shower until I decide I feel functional enough to get out and face the day. So I sat in the shower for quite a while and eventually staggered out and got to writing at about 6:20. I was aiming for 1000 words on TB.
At 7:30, I had 1800. SO HAPPY! Sarah said some magic words last week when I wailed about how broken it was, and now with the rewrites I'm getting onto much more solid footing thanks to her insights. And! And, best of all, I think I can salvage most of chapter 9! It'll need some rewriting, but I think I can use probably 80% of it! Yay!
Y'know, over on his blog, Neil Gaiman has been talking about posting less because he's working on a novel (actually, you should go read his post for today, which is very funny *laugh*), and while I'm not noticing myself writing less, I'm certainly noticing that I'm not writing about anything /but/, well, writing.
Well. And jam-making. :)
My hands are *freezing*. Brrr. And it's warmed up today, so I donno what's up with that!
Good writing day today. I didn't get up early enough to make 1K on TB, but I made 1200 on TQB, so it was a good writing day. I'm going to hit 5K on this QB chapter before I even /fix/ it. I'm at like 3800 words already. Sheesh!
Also, I broke 225K written this year, today! Yay!
ytd wordcount: 226,900
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 352
Got up at about 6 this morning, somewhat later than I might've, but still early enough to get 800 words of re-writing on chapter 8 done. Just in case "re-writing" gives an implication of "fixing words that are already there", let me assure you that these are all-new words. Chapter 8 had to be thrown out entirely. Complete. Whoosh. A visit to the circular file. And ... well. Some parts of chapter 9 might be salvageable, after 8 is re-written, and after that... I haven't even looked at the chapters, so I'm not in a position yet to think about it. Much rewriting going on, though. It'll be a much better story for it, though.
I seem to have a tendency--and thanks to Trip, I'm aware of it--to put enabelers into the Walker Paper books. Things that make Jo's life easier. Things that shouldn't be there for just that reason. That's the sort of flaw that's making me throw out the entirety of ch. 8 and rewrite significant chunks of other chapters. I've also set some stuff up badly and those things need to be re-setup, but the rewriting I'm doing in ch. 8 oughta help with that. Perhaps I won't make this same mistake in the 3rd book, when I get to it....
Isn't that nice and cryptic? :)
FINALLY. I've gotten some writing done. I did, well, ok, 200 words, on TB this morning, before needing to do research, so I'll probably throw most of them out, but hey, at least I did them, and I got another 1200 words written on TQB. They are very, very *bad* words and are going to need serious editing (like, I'm thinkin' that there's at least one page of telling that needs to be turned into about 3 pages of showing, and ... I think that's true in at least two or three places, gah), but I can't fix it if I don't at least have the bones down, so I'm gonna work with this 'telling' thing for this chapter, at least, and go back and do rewrites.
However, that's the "work on it catch-as-catch-can" project. TB is the big guns, and I'm feeling pretty confident of being able to make some real headway into ch. 8 tomorrow.
Ha cha cha!
In other news, Mom and Dad and Shaun's parents, Gary and Sandra, came over tonight for dinner. Ted made his Amazing Salmon Chowder, and I made rolls that were a bit crunchy but generally good, and we had a very funny time exchanging airplane horror stories. :) It was a very nice evening, and *laugh* if Shaun's folks get weathered in tomorrow, Ted and I are going to go out to dinner with them. No Shaun, probably, because he's got class tomorrow night and a project to finish, but, as Gary said, "We'll go without him! We've done it before!" *laugh* Shaun's parents are great. :) ALL of our parents are great. Every time we see any of them we all end up remarking on that to one another. We have good families! *beam*
And I'm not saying that just 'cause Sandra gave me a congratulatory card for selling books, either. :)
*V.* sleepy now. Off to bed with me!
ytd wordcount: 224,900
I now have 6 jars of blueberry jam and a burn on my arm. Ow ow ow.
Heather's access to her LJ has become wonky, so I'm keeping track of her Rivendell miles here again for a while. Perhaps this will spur me to get some of my own damned Rivendell miles in--although today's bad (guests tonight), and tomorrow's not looking good either (Dean Meetup). But darnit, she's caught up and passed me!
Heather's miles to Rivendell: 350
Good news: I got up at about 5:15 to write. Bad news: I got my new ch. 8 started and realized I just plain didn't have enough idea of where Jo was working out of to write what I now need to write. So I turned off the laptop and came upstairs and started poking around the SPD website.
Now I know that Jo works in the North Precinct, which is also where she lives (I knew where she lived before, I just didn't know it was in the North Precinct), and what area it covers and where its main building is. I know for a certainty now that she can patrol University Way.
I also know that the North Precinct building is 14,000 square feet and horribly overcrowded, that detectives work out of a separate building rented from the city of Seattle, that they're trying to figure out a way to expand and that the possibility of splitting the North Precinct into the Northwest and Northeast Precincts has come up (the North Precinct is huge, 32 square miles), and that if I don't go get some breakfast now I shall perish of the starvation. :)
Strawberry jam accomplished! Rather a lot of it, in fact. We'll see in the morning if it's set up. :) Tomorrow I must also do laundry, because the poor dishtowels are drowning in jam at this point. *laugh* Blueberry jam tomorrow! Raspberry jam the day after that! And then *drumroll* peach jam! Yaaaaaay!
Oooh, I wrote a couple of pages with the glass pen. It's *really* *cool*! It even handles my signature surprisingly well, which pleased me!
Water. I need water.
Luna author Deborah Hale has a list of the upcoming (through August 2004) Luna titles here! I think the covers thus far are gorgeous.
Weird. I've just made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and I did not eat any of the cookie dough. Possibly for the first time in my entire life.
Now that the cookies are done (and it's a *perfect* batch)... I don't actually want any. Apparently this spontaneous diet thing is not to be messed with. It's sort of interesting. My mental dialogs have been going something like, "Wow, that smells good." "So? I'm not hungry." "...oh."
*LAUGH* I have the very best friends in the WHOLE WORLD.
Saturday I checked the mail and there was a package! It was from Las Vegas! I brought it inside and tore it open! There was another package inside it! I tore that open too! There was a card! I opened it! It said:
To one C.E. Murphy
To be used for autographing
with much love
I thought: it must be a pen!
There was a box! I opened that!
Inside was a *stunningly* beautiful glass fountain pen.
Then I thought, "Oh, shit! What if this is the present Emily said she was sending me that I wasn't supposed to open?"
Then I thought, "But it's from Las VEGAS. Maybe it's from Angie! She was just there!"
Then I gazed at the pen in stunned admiration some more.
Then I thought, "EMILY'S GOING TO KILL ME!"
Then I thought, "Unless it's from Angie. Ack! I can't ask Angie until Monday! I will feel SO GUILTY if this is the present from Emily! Ack! Ack!"
Then I admired the pen some more.
This behavior went on all weekend.
This morning I looked horribly guilty at Emily, and said, "Um. Was that gift you were sending me coming from Las Vegas?" Which caused her to look perplexed and to say, "Amazon, not Las Vegas."
WHEW! It must be from Angie! I haven't been a bad human!
So when Angie showed up I eyed her suspiciously and said, "Is this thing from you?" And she said, "Thing? Don't think so, no."
And then Sarah went O.O
And it was from SARAH. But the shipping peoples didn't write her NAME on it! So I've been wondering all WEEKEND about it, and she's been chewing through her lip wondering if it GOT here, and I didnt want to say anything to anybody about it until I found out whether it was from EMILY and I'd opened it too early, but it's NOT! It's from SARAH! And it's *so* *beautiful*!
I have the *best* friends!
Despite Thanksgiving, I'm down another pound and a half, for a grand total of 4.5 pounds lost since Nov. 14th. Yay!
Let's see. I dyed my stripe back to something more like my real hair color (again). Let's see how long it lasts this time. (And let's see if my husband notices.)
And that's all the news that's fit to report at 8:13 in the morning on this, the first day of DECEMBER?!? How'd *that* happen? (Smart remarks from the peanut gallery will be ignored.)