I Just Pulled a Dodi

: )

I treated myself to a piece of original art sold on etsy.com

It's a 6x6 acrylic of a girl holding hands with a purple monster. Titled 'Friends Forever'
I love it, and can't wait to hang it on the wall of my office : )

It's by the creator of will write for chocolate and inkygirl

Karen's picks

To me, being asked for a book recommendation is an honour. Someone trusts ME to suggest a book worthy of her precious free time. I don't trust many people to recommend books - they have to REALLY sell a book to me before I'll take a chance on frittering away my precious free time on depressing "I am woman, hear me complain" stories or feeling like a moron because I can't keep the intricate plot developments of historical fiction straight.

So, when a friend e-mailed me with this request, I gave it some thought:
"I keep forgetting to ask you if you have any good books to lend me. I am looking for something light and fun to read. ... I think the last book I read was The
Kite Runner. Good but not as good as I had heard it would be...maybe too
much build up."

I'd hardly call the Kite Runner light and fun. I liked it, but light? not so much.

Here is what I'm lending her:


The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

Kinsella is best known for her Shopaholic books, but I prefer her stand-alone stories.



Lady Luck's Map of Vegas by Barbara Samuel

A little heavier, but quirky. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.




Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

This was over-hyped to me by the time I read it, but if I don't play it up too much, I think my friend will enjoy it.



A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel
Another quirky pick. A series of vignettes about the author's life growing up in small-town Indiana. Easy, funny.


What would you recommend as light and fun?

I was amazed at the number of books on my shelf that I've read but don't consider good enough to recommend. Might be time for a serious purge.

No US Thanksgiving or Black Friday for me

I already did the turkey with family thing in October for Canadian Thanksgiving. I will be working Thursday - it's not a day off up here!

We have snow. Not enough to xc ski on yet... unfortunately I never did get around to raking the leaves...

People keep asking me if I am going to "black Friday" With the strong CDN dollar, its becoming a competitive event - going to New Hampshire with its low sales tax is hardcore. Managing to be over the border for 48 hours requires planning. People are stunned when I tell them you couldn't pay me to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. To me it would be one of the circles of hell.

On a side note, would it be immoral to put expired Boost (one of those liquid energy drinks) in a food bag for the needy? We eat expired food all the time, but E is sick of Boost because he is forced to drink tons of it when on expeditions, and I don't really need any calorie 'boosting' thank you very much. So it will eventually end up in the garbage. Better to go to the needy? I tried some about a month ago and it's still good...

This made me cry

I am probably the last person to hear about this guy (I take that back, when I showed E, he didn't know so I was at least 2nd to last)



I thought it was fake, but when I checked around, apparently not!
more info/updates: http://www.paulpottsopera.org/index.html

my source: pub rants

Progress

Yes, I've been working on FiMyNoMo. I went with E to the cottage and I fired up the laptop each time he went into the woods. It's tougher to gauge progress editing than with straight word count, but here are the parameters I'm tracking:
hours: 11
new pages written: 25
pages edited: 74

Still a long way to go, but I did learn that even in one hour I can make a lot of progress.

New FiNyNoMo logo

E rocks!

I gave him the basic instructions for the participant and 'tracker' images, although I don't think I put "dull" as my starting point...

So far, so good. I am still not at what I would call a solid D1 -- all characters consistent (no unnamed, no multiple personalities), all transitions in place, all blanks filled in. Last weekend I managed to add 18 pages. Not a bad start.

Finish or perish!

NaNoWriMo-less

I'm sad not to be part of National Novel Writing Month this year. Instead I'm trying to motivate myself to FinishMyNovel this Month.

E is supposed to make me a FiMyNoMo logo and progress bars, but he's got a 5-mile long to-do list, and spent last Saturday repainting the hood of my car, so I will have to be patient. So far, I've logged 1 hour/20 pages of revision. I have no idea why I'm so hesitant/reluctant/scared to work on this book. I suppose it's a fear of failure thing, but I still need to do a lot more before I'd consider the effort a failure. At this point it would be pure giving up, and I'm not a quitter.

So, the butt glue has been applied. I'm logging my hours, and I've set goals. Apparently I fall into the group of people who are motivated by achievement (as opposed to power or people).

Wish me luck, and if you see me out doing something other than working on my book, send me home.

Side note: total Halloween candies consumed: 4. not bad. : )

Update:
Created Temporary logo - hideous. Cannot figure out how to manipulate text in Jasc Pro, let alone add images.