subscribeWedding announcements & the bridal shower. Check.
Wednesday February 25, 2009
I admit it: the shower was fun. It was a really good time.
The apartment is filled with gifts from the bridal shower. A lot of gifts. Somehow I have rearranged all of these gifts such that they all actually fit in the studio. I am shocked about this! But it’s also exciting. All of the new things we have are all things we really, really wanted, all things we have a use for. Now that we have them, we’ve been so gourmet in the last three days! The food processor has seen some serious use, as has the cast iron pan, the waffle iron, the new whisks… and of course, all of these gifts require thank you notes. I wrote nine yesterday. About twenty-five of them to go. Sheesh. I got Bryan to write one, which was a miracle as he hates handwriting anything. His handwriting is… adorably illegible, sometimes. (If computers didn’t exist, I’m not sure how that boy would communicate effectively without speaking.) But as he knows this, I’m usually the one to write cards of any kind. As in the billion shower & wedding thank yous. So one? Yes, I will claim it a victory for my cramping hand.
I also started stamping and addressing the wedding announcements we hope to mail the day of the wedding. Gathering the addresses for that is, in itself, a bit maddening. Probably 50+ per side of the family, and then random ones to people we knew through various things across the years (high school, college, neighbors, etc.). It’s weird, this is one thing I’m excited to do. It’s sort of under the “you only get married once” umbrella, so it’s really important for me to get out all of these announcements. We’re having 31 people — officially, I think — at the ceremony/reception, so it’s going to be tiny and amazingly intimate and I love it. But when we decided that, I committed to making sure everyone we didn’t invite who we would have traditionally, all those family members, would get announcements.
And yes, I am getting really revved up, really actually excited about the wedding. Im so eagerly looking forward to Saturday’s supersecret bachelorette party events (which I can only imagine will involve beer and/or margaritas and a really good time all around with my dear lady friends) and then… wow.
This Saturday is my last Saturday night as a single lady. Bryan’s putting a ring on it the next Saturday. (Such a horrible Beyoncé joke/reference, that.)
GAH! But I still want to finish this darned draft before the wedding! I want to (crazily) say that I finished a novel in the first few weeks of 2009 leading up to my wedding! But until then I have the Things to Do list of doom. Doom.
NaNoWriMo Conflict
Friday October 31, 2008
National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow and I’m eager for it but I keep going back and forth between the projects I want to work on for it. Neither are technically begun, which is their precise appeal for NaNoWriMo, but I’m so conflicted I might end up writing half and half, which will just be plain old bizarre. That, and the project I’ve been working on for the last few months is still not finished and I keep writing scenes (in my head, ugh) for it, and those really do need to get written. (All of this brain-clogging with not-yet-written stuff will be detrimental for speedy neuron processes, I’m certain.)
The first project I wanted to work on was something entirely new. It’s set in the same world of my other projects, but because I’m a single-novel girl, it’s its own single novel. New characters, different country with different customs, all of that. I only have a bunch of disconnected images and a few sketched characters for it (all in my head) so that project’s appeal is in its complete new-ness.
The other project is a novel I started (the first draft) back in high school. That draft is unrecognizable as the second major draft of it, which I wrote in 2004-05. And that again is completely different from what it now is — in my head. I’ve been editing this story mentally for years now and I really want to write it down. But I am so busy with my other projects that I’ve put it off, procrastinator style. I would be following the tenets of NaNoWriMo — fresh document, blank page, just go – but the difference is that I know a lot more of what will happen in my head for this one than I do for the other. (The odds of me referencing its old drafts? Slim to none. It’s that different.)
I probably will end up trying to write 50,000 words for one and 20,000 words for another, just because I want to do both, I think, and I want to make sure I write 50,000 in one novel to truly win NaNoWriMo. We’ll see how it goes… that is a lot of words… but I know I’m fully capable of that level of (attempted) insanity.
NaNoWriMo is almost upon us…
Thursday September 18, 2008
I’m absolutely definitely going to full-steam-ahead participate in NaNoWriMo 2008. I have the workings of a new project poking and bouncing around my brain and I refuse to write them down, only dream about them further, until November. (I don’t want to cheat by outlining or going to town on things yet; it’ll ruin the crazy fun!) I’m looking forward to it a lot, actually, because the most fun I’ve ever had writing have been the all-consuming story-churning months (usually one month or three weeks here and there) I’ve had, when it’s all I can do to peel myself away from the screen to do anything else. Those are fun. And those have only ever really been with brand-spanking-new things, or brand-new rewrites (from scratch versions from old characters and plots). Those are so much fun. I’m sort of slogging with my two major projects (ignoring the two minor) at present, so I think jumping head-first into something fresh come November is going to be amazing fun. Especially if I can drag a few friends into doing it with me.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that I’ll be ignoring the major stuff. What I really need to do is start focusing. This morning I downed a lot of coffee before 8am and I felt uberproductive. Then that fell by the wayside by the time the gym came around, then groceries, and now I’m about to head out to do some wedding stuff. (Yay for almost-maybe booking a location?!) And laundry, oh, the pain of laundry. Tomorrow, though, we shall see who is productive. We shall see.
It’s the fall, and I’m always more productive in the fall… right? Unless I discover a new genre like I had last fall (damned urban fantasy and lack of casual college reading turning this last year into a voracious year of book devouring)…
Who knows what October will bring?
Maybe I should make that into my own personal NaNoWriMo, but for my existing first priority project. Just word-dump until it’s done, even if I haven’t a clue of what I’m doing. (I could do that now but I keep getting hung up on the gaps. There are lots of planned scenes that haven’t been written purely because I keep staring at the gaps between them wondering what will go there and inevitably getting distracted by something shiny and wandering away to look at it being all shiny.
But I shall prevail. Optimism!!
An obligatory life update
Thursday August 28, 2008
Summer is almost over and it’s strange. It’s been a long one, or so it’s seemed, but pleasant. We haven’t had tremendously hot days as I recall many of last summer’s days as being but rather a lot of cool 78 to 85 degree days with breezes and bright sun. I’ve been wearing lots of sunblock. It’s strange too that because it’s August it reminds me of college again, and school, and how this is the second August/September I’m not going to be starting school again. Is it odd that it still freaks me out a little? That I’m a grown-up? Probably not, but maybe.
Bryan started his second week of his new job on Monday and things are getting more interesting as he gets more acclimated to the new environment. I’m glad he’s happy. Also, because his work hours are really reasonable (9-5!) we got some new pieces of furniture at IKEA to change the apartment up, to make it better for me to write in when he’s home — ideally. Hasn’t quite worked out marvelously yet but I think it will once I get more used to it. Once I get more back in the swing of things.
Now there are just so many things to do. So many. If I have an idle moment I sort of have to snap myself out of it and get back to work. In addition to writing, I have to manage to start (or continue? No, start) weddding planning, to organize and clean a bit more around the apartment (once the extra furniture gets moved it’ll be easier), to read my stack of library books… and then always back to writing. My job. Oy, I really do need to work more — and harder — at it. I keep letting other things take precedence.
And it’s almost September.
Note to self: Steal back LOTR this Christmas
Thursday December 13, 2007
When I am at my parents’ house this Christmas — admittedly, it’s 40 minutes away, I could go there NOW — I must remember to reclaim my copy of LOTR. Actually I might go there next week to go shopping with the sister to acquire presents for the masses. (Can’t they all just buy things for themselves, give them to me to wrap and pay them back for them, then we’ll all pretend the charade involved Santa and we’re all happy? Sigh. It’d be easier if we had a budget that made purchasing presents that make people truly happy possible. But no. They’ll just get somewhat appropriate gifts that I think they need but they in all likelihood don’t.)
Back to things I need to do: Mainly, steal lots of books from my bookshelf at home and my sister’s, but mainly LOTR. I realized I haven’t read LOTR (non-nerds: The Lord of the Rings) since… since… oh wow… 2002. Yes. Winter 2002. I really need to reread it. (Annalisa, I won’t ever beat you or your brother with LOTR knowledge; I could kick your ass with Star Wars trivia, though, or in the matter of Great Important Theorists of Literary Things. But only because those obsessions came first, chronologically. If they asked me a question about LOTR on Jeopardy though I could probably “Who/What is…” the hell out of it.)
Also. I need to not be neurotic this holiday season when it comes to being home. I’m not home much. For those of you who don’t know, I probably have been in my parents’ house for a collective two or three weeks since August 18, 2003. Which, as my nerdy digital watch tells me, was 1,578 days ago. That’s a maximum of 21 days out of 1,578. That accounts for about 1% of the last 4.3 years. I’ve been home 1% of the time. That sounds accurate. I wonder if I’ve spent more time with Bryan’s family… I won’t calculate that. Anyway I will be relaxed and fun and not attempt to have an Alpha Female confrontation. (There was a minor one at Bryan’s family’s Thanksgiving that I didn’t write about: Bryan’s aunts are all Alphas, as am I, and his mom is a self-admitted non-Alpha and she was the hostess, though all but one of the aunts had turned off the Alpha switch — even his grandma turned it off — anyway!)
So no Alpha dominance battles, no neuroses… Yes. Calm. It will be good. Church will be good, too — Christmas Eve’s candlelight service at St. Matthew’s. The one time of year that I really don’t mind being in a church. So long as the pastor doesn’t get all Jesus-and-Mary on us again (my family and I completely agree on this odd point: we like “God” more than “Jesus” in terms of terminology. How weird is that? It also helps the somewhat Jewish Bryan feel a little better). Despite the irony that Christmas sort of is specifically about Jesus… but never mind. It’ll be good.
It’s almost December
Saturday November 24, 2007
It actually feels cold, too. We finally got our scarves/hats/gloves from Bryan’s folks’ attic this week when we were there — at last! — and our air conditioner (or rather its hole) has been leaking warm apartment air outside (or leaking cold wintry air inside) so having the hats to wear around the apartment have helped quite a bit. Somehow, plugging up the space around the AC will have to happen soon… otherwise on those 10 degrees days, it’ll be awful.
Backtracking, we got back from Thanksgiving today and I’m so glad Bryan was able to go down to PA at all — work’s been busy for him — because he’s so much happier because of the mini vacation. We had good food, good company, good wine, good desserts… all in all I’m still mostly stuffed from all of the delicious meals. I think I won’t be able to eat for the next week. I keep saying that but seriously… I’m too stuffed. I also spent a good amount of time talking to Bryan’s dad about next April’s trip to Utah. It’ll be three of us (Bryan’s dad and grandfather and me) for most of the week, with Bryan’s dad’s old college friend joining us for a few days. I’m just looking forward to getting comfortable on the black diamonds and in Mineral Basin. (I heart Snowbird.) I can’t wait! That makes the dreary post-Christmas season look bright for me.
Speaking of Christmas… it’s that time of year again. And our Christmas lights in the window are already broken — er, not lighting properly. Dang it. ‘Tis the season for electrical f-ups…
I haven’t heard from my family in a long time. Hopefully they’ll call me one of these days.
This week I’ve got to get back into the writing (and reading) habit again. Not only is NaNoWriMo ending, and me with not enough words to make myself feel happy (regardless of how seriously I was taking it!)… that, and two or three of my library books are due on Friday the 30th. Gotta read those… Perhaps this week will require a Starbucks jaunt or two.
Also: the Ben 10 movie was lame. Despite the fact that it was cool to see it in live action, there weren’t enough uses of the Omnitrix to make me or Bryan happy. But Lee Majors was Grandpa Max! Haha! How many kids these days know who Steve Austin was? I wonder… (Note: Ben 10 is a show for kids. But Bryan and I watch it on Saturdays. A lot. Yes. We’re kids.)
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