Not giving up

Ok, I'm really, REALLY behind on NaNoWriMo this weekend. I haven't written nearly anything I should have in the past several days.

But I'm not giving up. I'm considering resetting my goals, but still working to finish the story. Whatever it may turn out to be.

Here we go again!

All or Nothing?

If you love someone, let them go. If they come back they're yours. If they don't, they never really were in the first place.


I'm not sure if this is true; it seems counterintuitive. But I definitely am trying to let go, to take a step or two back and just breathe.

It's hard, though. It feels like I have a hole in my heart.

[W]hy do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean what we really want.

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

NaNoWriMo week 1

Ok, this week has been a bit rough and I'm paying for it now in my wordcount. Here's the plan, I'm getting up early to write, and going to write. Going to bed later, after writing. Thinking about the novel and the plot and my characters, and not other things I cannot control.

Sounds good, sounds like a plan.

Hope I can stick to it.

One minute you’re waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all

Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

- Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Barenaked Ladies

Hope and perspective

For all the world, the stars aligned and everything fit perfectly.

Perfection isn't possible, not for me, though I continually strive for it. I know that in my mind, but my heart often feels different and that if just I could reach that perfection I would be happy.

It's not about being happy, it's not about having everything fit, but it is about my heart. I want to say it is fresh and unblemished, but like everyone, I've been hurt, I've opened myself and been turned aside. I've not said things I should say, things I feel and things I mean, deeply in my heart.

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break
- Billy Joel "And So It Goes"

My regrets are few, but all have to do with what I have not done, not what I chose to do.

My deepest hope is to share my love with someone who loves me back. He does love me. Where this ends is anyone's guess, but I have hope.

When in joy, energy swirls
chaotic and divine
to capture fleeting moments
of ecstasy, contentment
more agonizing
than spilling blood as ink
when in despair

Change in the weather

So it's rained last night, and my furnace came on for the first time in the new house. I'm wrapped up on one of my blankets and am thinking strongly of crawling back into bed under my warm down comforter.

I got the crocheting bug last night and started a new project with a new stitch. So far it's turning out very nice.

Listening to my newest mix and it's making me smile. Buddy Holly, Alanis, Dixie Chicks, and many others making a special space in my environment.

Kittens are tussling, too early for that...

Another quiz or two

Couldn't resist... got the quiz bug I guess...

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 45% Conservative, 55% Liberal Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

What Your Driving Says About You

You are generally an easy going, laid back person. However, you can't help but feel a little jealous and competitive sometimes! You are a fairly aware person, but you can't help but make judgment errors from time to time. You'd like to think you're a fair person, but you occasionally think you deserve a special kind of justice. You can be a rather tense, grouchy person - but you try to maintain your dignity. You have the utmost respect for authority figures. You feel that rules - and their enforcement - are important. You are somewhat focused, but you are also a bit scatterbrained. Distractions can get you in trouble. You are a very responsible and conscientious person. You often consider the feelings and needs of others. Your ego is a healthy size. You don't think you're more important than anyone else.

What Does Your Driving Say About You?

Taking Quizzes

Long day cleaning and unpacking. Taking some time to poke around on the intarweb and take some quizzes. Interesting results...

I love the autumn...

Your Autumn Test Results

You are a dynamic, vibrant person. You aren't afraid to pursue your passions. When you are happiest, you are calm. You appreciate tradition and family. You enjoy feeling cozy. You tend to be afraid of change. You are never ready for things to be different. You find solitude to be the most comforting thing in the world. Being alone with your thoughts feels very peaceful. Your ideal day is active and full. You like to keep busy with your favorite things, and you appreciate a routine. You are very impatient. You spend more time waiting for something than actually enjoying it.

The Autumn Test

With the upcoming national election, I thought I'd take a few political quizzes. The next two are parody items, just for fun but I couldn't resist taking both... Obviously I'm 20% something else... hrm...

You Are 8% Republican

If you have anything in common with the Republican party, it's by sheer chance. You're a staunch liberal, and nothing is going to change that!

How Republican Are You?

You Are 72% Democrat

You have a good deal of donkey running through your blood, and you're proud to be liberal. You don't fit every Democrat stereotype, but you definitely belong in the Democrat party.

How Democrat Are You?

And a relationship quiz to round out the day:

Your True Love Is a Cancer

Why you'll love a Cancer: Cancer's loyal and sincere heart makes your own sensitive heart melt. Caring and devoted, a Cancer will take the lead in pursuing you - and not give up! Why a Cancer will love you: You're laid back enough to deal with Cancer's little mood swings and freak-outs. A fellow homebody, you know how make Cancer comfortable and at home with you.

What Sign Is Your True Love?

Move Update

Well, it was a very successful day moving. Glender and DJ came over while Clark and I were filling up his truck. (GirlZoot did not make it due to her busy schedule but I'm looking forward to perhaps seeing her tomorrow).

We ran one run over then I headed out to pick up my car with the dolly in it (didn't drive after my cocktails last night). We had lunch and DJ took off to his regularly scheduled weekend. Glender, Mom, Clark, and I went down into the basement (crawl space really) to check out the insulation situation (on walls but not on ceiling. I got the cash for Glender I owed her, and she helped us load up Clark's truck and Mom's car again before leaving.

After several more loads, Clark and I are much better acquainted (I rode with him as navigator each trip and helped load and unload) and the apartment looks mostly moved except the major furniture and some odds and ends (kitchen stuff, food in fridge, freezer and pantry, bike, cleaning supplies, etc).

The drywall in the garage has been repaired and the cabinets look amazing in the garage and the medicine cabinet is installed. Whoot!

It appears that most of my stuff (except the furniture, will fit in the garage as a launch zone. The furniture moves on Monday and the freezer arrives Tuesday morning.

Fun fun fun! I'm so excited!

The big move

Today starts a marathon of moving in my world. Well, actually, last night did, when after a few cocktails for me, Clark and I put together two sets of industrial shelves and moved two other shelves (the latter with Mom's help) to fill out my shelving needs. Whee, I've got a ton of storage space now, and will fill it before the day is through.

Today, Clark's coming back to help move the rest of the garage and small items out of my apartment. He will be joined by my faithful friends Glender and DJ, with a possible cameo appearance by GirlZoot. Mom already has snacks and sandwich fixings at the new place and we're raring to go. Except that I'm currently still in my PJs waiting for the dry wall dude to show up. Cabinet man never showed. He said call if it was a no go, so we didn't call.

Sunday, Toni and Ange, two of my bowling buddies, are going to come over and bat cleanup for any remaining stuff. Amazing!

Monday the movers come and bring the furniture and books, and any other large heavy things (like the TV, which I suppose is sort of furniture, but sort of not).

Neways, exciting days ahead. Once moved, we've got the old apartment to clean, then all the boxes to UNpack after we so carefully packed them. Fun times all around. Luckily I have the entire week off.

And Wednesday, I've decided we're going bowling in the evening. Just to get out of the house.

O Frabjous Day!

Today's the day!

I'm signing on my new home and I have two pens ready, one that's comfy and the other if they need blue ink. Ok, so I'm a pen dork. but hey, whatever gets you through the day.

Tonight, after I've signed my life away, I will be a homeowner. Next great adventure!

Lyrics in my head

Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off

She said I’m going out with my girlfriends
Margaritas at the Holiday Inn
Oh have mercy, my only thought
was tequila makes her clothes fall off

I told her put an extra layer on
I know what happens when she drinks Patron
Her closet’s missing half the things she’s bought
Yeah, tequila makes her clothes fall off.

She’ll start by kicking out of her shoes
lose an earring in her drink
leave her jacket in a bathroom stall
drop a contact down the sink

Them pantyhose ain’t gonna last too long
if the DJ puts Bon Jovi on
she’s might come home in a table cloth
yeah, tequila makes her clothes fall off.

She can handle any Champaign brunch
Bridal shower with Bacardi punch
Jell-o shooters full of Smirnoff
But tequila makes her clothes fall off

She’ll start by kicking out of her shoes
lose an earring in her drink
leave her jacket in a bathroom stall
drop a contact down the sink

She don’t mean nothing she’s just having fun
Tomorrow she’ll say oh what have I done?
Her friends will joke about the stuff she lost
yeah, tequila makes her clothes fall off
oh, tequila makes her clothes fall off
Oh, tequila makes her clothes fall off

Good luck in Brooklyn, boys!

NY Cake
Originally uploaded by Arcadiajoy

Tuesday, Shaych and Valium left Colorado for their next adventure in New York. Sunday, they had a little soirée at Rumba in Denver. The picture is from there.

Good luck, boys! Not that you need it, you've always made your own luck. I'll miss you both! Until I can get back there for a visit.

Quick hello

Been busy running around looking at houses. I'll update when I have more info, but having fun in a kind of scary, hair flying in my face kind of way.

I just finished Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Fun.

I've got this whole stream of consciousness going but nothing coming out on screen so I'm signing off. G'night.

Canyon Man

Girlzoot showed me Ritch Shydner probably 10 years ago and I loved this bit. Just found it on YouTube. Love me some YouTube...

From Ian:

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. How do you do?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Caught myself

Caught myself agreeing with a series of people on a series of unimportant things this week. And I didn't actually agree with them, I just said I did. I hate that, slinking back into that safe cave where everyone likes me because I don't ever speak my mind, but reflect back what they want to see.

Well, people are going to see what they want to see regardless of if I agree with them or not. I have an opinion, and it counts. Whether or not it's truly informed or just my general feeling, it's mine.

Feeling generally feisty, which can be a good thing. Trying not to take it too seriously, except as necessary.

Fuel Savings

Holy moly! Gas prices are not new news. I just paid nearly $60 to fill up my mid-size sedan. Youch!

I've heard a bunch of different fuel savings ideas. I received the email referred to in this Snopes article. Sometimes it's hard to determine the good from the chaff.

Today is just reporting on the price of gas and oil. Not new news, but still news.

One of my favorite ideas for saving gas is to SLOW DOWN. AAA offers this as one of their tips and I tried this out last night on my 25 mile trip home from Mom's house. I stayed between 40 and 50 mpg and was passed by half of the state. My favorite passing partner was a full size RV trailing a Jeep and a skijet thingy. I don't know how much I saved, but it was kind of entertaining. Hopefully it won't engender vast quantities of road rage (I did keep to the right... I try to be polite).

I've also started carpooling, hopefully twice a week, and I'm involving some of my coworkers in the joy. I've been promising for looking into taking the bus once a week. There are definitely benefits, including gas savings, but I have to balance those with the drawbacks. Keeping it in mind tho.