tiffany's spot

I bought a bread maker. It is currently baking a 3lb loaf of white bread. It occurred to me twenty minutes into its baking cycle that it won't be finished until I am not home, and won't be for a while. I'm feeling a little scatter brained lately. Don't even ask me about driving halfway to Winnipeg in the car a couple of weeks ago only to have to turn around and go back after Steven called me to inform me that I had ALL the sets of van keys in my purse and he and the kids had plans. Or that I did the exact same thing just days before (happily, not on the way to Winnipeg), and again last night. I'm going to blame everything/everyone/life/work and not just my own ridiculousness. Kind of too bad about this bread though. It's actually pretty good; or, it would have been. Either way. I won’t be home because I’m taking the kids to see the Holiday Train at 4:00 and the bread will be done at 4:20. It actually irritates me that by the time Christmas is over the kids will ...

It's Blogtober 1st! The day we anxiously await for all year long! Actually, that day would be the first day of May Long Weekend, or maybe even Riel Day, but next to that, and the first day of NaNoWriMi, Blogtober 1st is the best day ever! I'm going to be honest. I was the world's worst student. Whatever your complaints about your kids and their homework and their meeting deadlines, I can pretty much guarantee that I was worse. And handily enough, I came from a home where passing your grade was good enough. My parents never checked my homework, or asked about why I didn't have any, or suggested studying for tests, or went to parent teacher day unless the teacher specifically requested them (that wasn't ever good, someone always had to go to my brother's). The truth is that I just didn't feel like it. Ever . I wasn't even really worried about fall-out. I don't really remember getting homework in the lower grades, and in Junior High (I'm going...

    He softened his voice. “I know you don’t like hearing it over and over, but the reason people keep offering you a place to stay is because this house is hopeless. You’ll never have the money to fix it up. It’s falling apart. It’s old, and it turns out it’s haunted, or possessed or something. Izzy, you are insane to stay here when you have other options.”     “Where is that haunted dog anyway?” asked Emma.     “I don’t know,” said Izzy. “He wanders.”     Nate turned slightly greyer. “Izzy, I never saw that dog before you moved here. I honestly thought he came here with you. If he came out of the bush to greet you then he must have come from somewhere. I don’t like any of this. Where is he now? Where is he coming and going from?”     “I don’t know!” Izzy yelled. She tried to focus less on the ever-increasing creepiness of the situation and more on the irritation she was feeling at being lectured like a child. “...

I say first as though there will be tons more. Two things. I have 25,099 words written in my novel. It's pretty exciting for me. Two: Why on earth do I need to receive an invitation to join pinterest? I've heard so many people go on about liking it, so I figured I'd check it out. Apparently it's invite only. I'm assuming that my invitation will show up in my email soon. Do I need to send references? Write a two-page autobiography? Bribe somebody? Is pinterest really worth the trouble? But I digress. Good grief I need a mouse for this computer. I'll be typing away, and then I bump the little pad on the computer (ridiculously situated right under my hands) and the cursor moves and the next sentence is injected randomly into a paragraph I've already written. Maybe I'll put a little mouse into my own stocking. I know what you're thinking: If you hold your hands up properly you wouldn't touch that uber-sensitive little pad. You could be ri...

Our plan was simple. We would park the truck down the street and then Ryan and I would walk to the edge of Wilson’s property and then disappear into the bushes along the outside, where we’d make our way to the back of the house before using the code to open the back door. Once inside we’d locate the clock. If we figured we could move it on our own we’d get it to the front door and then call Amanda on her cell to bring the truck around. We’d load up the clock and be gone, locking the door behind us like the courteous burglars we were. No problem. No property damage, no looting anything else, no snooping through personal belongings. We were simply taking back something that should have been ours to begin with.

By the end of today I should have had 15,003 words. I am now up to 15,593. I'm a little excited about it all. Is it good? Probably not. Is it actually getting written with a hope of being finished? Yes!

My house is actually pretty nice and tidy today. This is due only to the fact that I had company yesterday, and not because I'm the best house keeper these days. People keep telling me I have four kids, and this is what houses are supposed to look like when there are six people living here, four of them ages six and under. I just feel bad that my four kids have to live in squalor. Anyway, moderately sparkly house (if you don't look in the corners), and one kid in school, two kids sleeping, and the fourth playing Nintendo means I can write! I'm currently at 11,583 words. By the end of today I should be at 15,003. I'm a little behind, probably because I actually cleaned and organized yesterday instead of sitting for half the afternoon at the computer. On day two I wrote enough to take me past of day three, and I took day three off, so being a day or two behind is no biggie. I sort of know where the story is going, it's even fun to write it, and I type somewhere around...

I missed ten days of Blogtober . That’s really awful considering that I aced it last year. That’s okay. Apparently there are a few little tricks that I didn ’t know about - including dating posts to pop up on different days. Had I known that I may have done slightly better! I’m sure there were days when I posted more than one post, I could have post-dated them. Whatever. Next year is going to rock. I’m cruising along with my novel. Granted, it’s only day two, but I’m sitting just under 3000 words right now, and I only need 3334 by the end of today. If I can hit that in the next half hour or so and then write for another hour tonight I’ll be ahead of the game. I worry that my character doesn ’t have enough character traits yet. Kind of too bad considering I’m 3000 words in. I’ll have to quickly try and make her a little more interesting.

I'm sitting at 1800 words and cruising along! This is so fun. Who knows, I may even share parts of it at some time. Maybe. Except that then you'll read it and I'll be all shy. I have to average 1667 words a day to hit 50,000 by the end of the month. Kickin ass!

Alright. I've actually started. This year I remembered on the first day - I figure that should count for something. And obviously I'm not procrastinating by hanging out on my blog. I figure that NaNoWriMo and Blogtober should coincide more. I'd blog daily for sure if it meant avoiding something a little more assignment-like.

I'm supposed to be starting a novel right now. Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to start my novel, nor did I ever think about it again and I still have to figure out some details before I can get into it. Sheesh. On the bright side, I've managed to catch up on my google reader and facebook and email. On the dark side I am currently a catchy sentence and 1667 words behind schedule. Luckily it's the first day.

November - National Novel Writing Month. I've tried the past few years to write a novel. Each time I've failed and died a little inside. It's hard! I've been planning my novel. I have scenes in my head. SCENES! This is the year baby. If I actually do it and . . . wait, WHEN I actually do it and get it done I'm going to treat myself to some overpriced NaNoWriMo goods. Did you know that they make a coffee mug? That's how I roll. Write a novel in a month so that I can justify the purchase of a coffee mug, because it's not like I can just save myself the grief and go to Dollarama for one. Besides, Dollarama's mugs don't have the nifty NaNoWriMo logos on them. *** You'll be saddened to hear that I just checked the site. They no longer have the NaNoWriMo mugs. Instead, they have either a Script Frenzy mug (it's an entirely different writing project) or the NaNoWriMo ceramic coffee mug . I may have to settle for that. Now I'm thrown. My ...

Blogtober is nearly upon us. Anybody with me? Are we going to blog every day in October? You have three sleeps to prepare. That link is just to my blog last October. This blog has some serious vanity issues. From there - NaNoWriMo !! The past three years I've attempted to write a story. I have not gotten very far. This is the year. Anybody out there have a novel idea (ooh punny)? Seriously - just a sentence or two will do. Just say "Write a story about . . . " I need to steal your hooks, unless you're going to use them to write a story. Steven? You in? NaNoWriMo?

I've decided to throw in the towel for NaNoWriMo . I am so far behind already, and I don't think I want to donate the hours each day to trying to finish it on time. I'd have to write 2869 words a day to make it by the end of the month. Sometimes I think that I forget how much other stuff I have to do. And then there's that baby. Oh yeah, and those other kids. Did you know that many days I'm in that kitchen for over an hour due to lunch? That's right. Lunch. The cheater meal, where I can serve them pb &j sandwiches and bananas. Yet, some how it takes all day. I can't just leave them in there either, because the minute I leave the room they're out of their chairs and running around and it takes even longer. Then there's laundry. As much as I loved having the novel to blame on the four baskets of clean, wrinkly laundry that I didn't put away for days, it's silly. I need to do laundry! Loads and loads of laundry. And loads. Whatever. Maybe ne...

You'd think after a month of relentless pressure to blog daily, that I'd take the next few days off. Instead, this is my second post today. This month is National Novel Writing Month. I've decided to give it a go again this year. Last year I started, but didn't finish. I may have started late even. This year I've decided to give it a go again. Today on the way to Winnipeg and back I thought about what the heck I was going to write about. I've got it. It's going to be a Gothic-style novel. I've got some of my plot figured out, a few characters decided on, my narrator, etc. I was actually driving home when I started working it out, and much to Steven's dismay I pulled over and made him drive so I could write some stuff down before I forgot it. Do I want to share it? I don't know. It's probably going to be pretty dumb. I think I'll have more luck actually writing with it without worrying what people are thinking. I may share it in chunks aft...