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Welcome to My Journal!
Friends links:
Introdution to Fantasy
Not-A-Webring
Current Progress:
Stories in Training:
Stories in Re-hab: Erin Glen I (N): 0 pages (on hold)
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Got all this new web site set up. It's not all complete yet, some links are not working yet, but it's getting there. I got a lot done today. Created two pages today, one from scratch and another actually combining three others together. Hopefully I'll be done with these by the end of the week. It's going quicker than I expected and there should be no reason why I shouldn't finish like I've planned.
Busy day today. Some North Carolinans are here and we're helping them out. They are heading out tomorrow. There's also some friends of friends that are moving and we went to help them today. We have two Bible studies set up for two evenings this week, so it's going to be a busy week.
September 22, 1999:
Rejection from OnSpec today. A written note: "We have more than enough 'detective' stories. Thanks." ::sigh:: Uh-well, should have known it would have been too cliche. At least they sent me a neato bookmark. :)
How do you teach a dog to play fetch? I guess I've always thought it was an instinctive trait or something, that all dogs just knew how to play fetch. Growing up we had two dogs that could play fetch until they were just too old to play. One got blind and nearly deaf in his old age and finally had to be put down, but he still played up until he physically wasn't able to. I was pretty young when we got them as puppies, so I don't remember them really being 'taught' how to fetch. Maybe I've missed something. Our dog isn't dumb. In fact, he's learned how to get his chain tangled up, and barks for us to come out and help. Then, when we get near, he gives the chain a good yank, untangles it and tries to tackle us. :) It's pretty funny. TTFN!
September 20, 1999:
First of all: Thank you to all the NAWer's that sent e-mail to me in sympathy after my dad died. Ya'll are great!
Yes, everyone I am still alive, I think. :) Life's just been so hectic. I can't believe it's been over 4 weeks since I've written anything! I'm itching to get into Erin Glen II and it should begin very soon. I'm hoping before October even. My current goals are to finish EGII and begin editing EGI before Dec. 31. I think I can make it, assuming I start soon.
Last week I took Z for a walk. He really messed up my back trying to drag me everywhere. James and I decided that we're going to start getting up early every morning for a walk (jogging some too, just not everyday). We went out tonight and I had Z. What we do is, walk down to a large parking lot (used to be a clothing mill), walk around one time and then walk back. It's 1/2 mile there, 1/2 mile around the lot and 1/2 mile back to the house. The parking lot is a rectangle and lately I've been jogging the two long sides. Tonight Z was ready to go, so we jogged a bit on the way there. When we got to the lot and started jogging, Z went too fast and I ended up running half the first long side. When I got to the next short side, I gave Z to James and let him deal with him. On the second long side I pushed it and made it 3/4s the way down the side. If I had made my self finish, I think I'd have needed an ambulance. I figure if I keep jogging like that 3 times a week, I should be able to move up to jooging around the 1/2 mile lot in a few weeks.
A funny thing happened this passed weekend. We went to a rehersal and a wedding for James' cousin. He was to give the bride away because her father has never been around, her step-father is an alcholic (he's no longer living with her mom, and had a fight with the bride recently), and James' dad was next in line, but he preached the ceremony. So, James got to give her away. We got to the rehersal late, met the groom and everyone. James' cousin didn't want to stand in during the rehersal, some superstition I'd never heard of, so they asked me to. Picture this, James walked me down the aisle, gave me away to a young man we'd both just met. Just playing around, I said, "I don't." The groom played along and started boohooing and leaving the building. Then the groom and I stood at the alter while James' dad said, "this is where this happens and this and then I'll tell you to kiss the bride." I looked over at the groom and he was puckering up at me. I didn't know how to react to that. It was a really wierd experience.
Oh, in other news, my new website is coming along. I finished the index page. Now all I need to do is move all my other pages and make the links work. I'm dreading that task. I'll let you all know when it's up and running. TTFN! :)
September 7, 1999:
Just a short note to let everyone know that I'm home from vacation. We're still sorting through loads and loads of laundry and trying to get the furniture that I got from my parents house settled in. The china cabinent looks great in the dining room. I've got a bunch of great stories to tell from our trip, but it will be a while. I've got a bit of bad news first. Last week, Monday through Thursday we spent with my parents in Nebraska. My dad helped load the trailer with the furnature. We had a great visit, the best in a long time. My dad and I used to argue a lot. We didn't argue one time during this visit. We left Friday morning and stopped in Tennessee at our friends house. Saturday we did some stuff with our friends, had a late breakfast, lunch and then 'us womenfolk' decided to run to target (they have a ton of Winnie the Pooh stuff!). We got back to their house around 8 and were about to head home (5 hour drive). I called Mom to make sure that she remembered to give my sister a souvineir that I bought for her and got shocking news. My dad had passed away in his sleep Friday night or Sat. morning. I couldn't and still can't believe it. He was fine when we left, been in better shape I thought than he'd been in a while. He was great, cooked for us, brushed and braided my nieces hair each night, and like I said before, didn't argue with me once. You know how people say about times like this, it's a surreal feeling, like you expect to wake up? That's the way I feel right now. It feels so wierd. Anyway, there's not going to be a funeral, so I'm home for a while. Dad didn't want any fuss, no funeral, no memorial service. I'm actually kind of glad since we just got home and I don't have to turn around and go back, but I feel a bit guilty that I don't go to see Mom. She's haning in there surprisingly well and my oldest sister is with her so that helps.
In writing news, I'm starting a class today. Ordered the book for it yesterday and hope it will be here by the end of the week. It's perfect timing because I wanted to take it before starting Erin Glen II. The class is Character Development and will last four weeks. I'm wanting to start writing soon, so I'm not sure if I'll wait till the class is over or what. Oh, and my story did get off to OnSpec, although the readers crits I got (all a the last minute) really tore it to pieces again. Mostly they were getting at the futuristic standpoint, i.e. if there are hovercars, why not a hoverchair instead of a wheelchair. Stupid stuff I thought, but could be damaging nonetheless. I probably won't hear for a while.
When I find time, I'm going to reformat my entire website and move it to a permanent address. Hopefully I'll get to that soon, next week I'm thinking. TTFN.
August 22, 1999:
This will be a short entry. I've checked my mail for the last time and only two people got back to me in time. They really didn't have much good to say. Good characters and good dialogue were the two things I remember mentioned good about it. One reminded me how this story really should be a novel so that more details could be brought out about the world. I would like to stretch the length on day, but the limit here was 6K. The other one tore apart my whole world. Since I wasn't able to go too much in depth (one of my first readers told me I had too much needless history so I cut a lot out) on the past of the world, somethings didn't make sense to the reader. This is a world that, after mass pollution of Earth, was forced to evacuate the planet and use unreliable technology to colonize the Moon and Mars. This stalled them in their technological advacnces. The readers kept saying, this is two centuries ahead so why are the using this item. ::sigh:: the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this story will sell. I had my hopes up thinking it was a good story, but these readers tore this short version to shreds! We'll see if the editor likes it.
I still have the cover letter to type and dishes to wash before we're out of here. I'd better log out too, before James catches me doing this and not getting ready to go. ;) TTFN!
August 20, 1999:
Waiting. I'm waiting for readers to get back to me. Right now five people are reading it. I was hoping that some of the ones that I sent it to this morning could get back to me this afternoon. I'm too anxious and not patient enough. Maybe there'll be a response tonight. I'll be out of town tomorrow morning so that will help.
I'm also waiting for time to pass by. We're going to a party tonight. Once a month the church tries to get to gether to play cards and just goof off. Some watch movies or sports games, mostly we play spades. It's nearly seven and we were going to be over there at 7:30 so I guess I could go get my shower now.
August 19, 1999:
Copied this from an e-mail to a friend to save time:
James and I finally got our new glasses today. We thought he wasn't going to be able to, at first. She said the lenses were in, but the frames were on back order and wouldn't come in until monday. We explained to her that we will be going on vacation Sunday night and asked if she could put his new lenses in his old frames. She took one look at those pitiful frames and instead gave in when we asked if we could use a set of display frames that were similar. She said that when we get back we could swap out the ones we have for the ones he's supposed to have. The display frames that he has are bent, so we'll want to get his others for sure.
I'm having difficulty adjusting to mine. I got what they call Profile lenses. Since mine are so thick, they now have something that makes them thinner and lighter. They are fine when I look directly through them, but the image isn't very clear periferally. They are much lighter though, worth the exchange I think. I was bummed to learn that, I believe, I'm legally blind. I asked the woman what legally blind technically was and she said 20/200. She said by looking at my prescription she couldn't tell what my 20/# was, so, since there was an eye chart in the store, James told me where to stand and I attempted to read it. The top line, you know the big E? It was a great big blurred spot to me. If I didn't know it was a letter, I wouldn't have known what in the world it was. ::sigh:: I'm not even a quarter of a century old (not til October anyway) and already I'm blind!
James is off at a bible study so I have an hour or two to work on my story. It's 7:30, hopefully it'll be finished by nine. I'll update here, so check back! TTFN!
11:00PM update: I finished my story at about 9. James came home right about that time and read it for me and suggested about three awkward sentences. We discussed the ending and he proposed a change which only required adding two paragraphs and scrapping the last one with a tad of foreshadowing placed near the beginning as well. I'm excited! It's my best story yet and James is convinced it will be my first saleable piece, whether OnSpec buys it or not, somebody defintely will snatch this puppy up! I'm trying not to get too excited, I hate getting my hopes up and then getting them dashed down with a rejection slip. I read on OnSpec's guidelines page that responses could take up to 12 weeks after the deadline. That's a long time to wait! Patience is not my best attribute. :)
August 18, 1999:
I wanted to update this last night, but our local server must have been down because it would connect, but acted like it couldn't find any pages.
Yesterday, Baby Will and I were kicked out of his house because they were spraying for ants. So, he and I got to spend the day over here. It felt like a foreshadowing of when we'll have a little one of our own. Someday... (Comeing soon, I can finally say that! Ever since we were married we'd say, maybe next year. Five years of maybe's. This year we're finally saying, Next year, definately, if all goes well that is.)
Sometime in the afternoon I had just gotten Will to sleep for a nap when the doorbell rang. And rang. And rang. I thought it was a friend of ours that likes to do that. It turned out that a woman from a local apartment complex had tried to walk to town in the heat. She asked me if I could drive her to the post office. I didn't really want to because Will was asleep and James was also napping. I told her that I was keeping a baby and that I'd have to see if my husband could take her. Understandably, she said she'd prefer if I would do it and asked if my hubby could watch the baby. I told her I'd check. She didn't step inside, so I shut the door. I'm glad I did, or she might have followed me through the house. I recognised her from when I worked at the grocery store. How can I put this politely and not condecendingly? She's just not really bright. The apartment complex she lives in is for old people or people that mentally or phisically can't care for themselves completely. Not a nursing home, but a step between complete independence and a nursing home. Anyway, on my way to asking James she rang and rang and rang the doorbell again. I woke him up and explained the situation. He agreed to stay here (which meant sleeping on the couch in the living room with Will) while I took her. I'm glad we went because while I waited for her, I started thinking about the Canadian postage for the story I'll be sending to OnSpec. The woman didn't have a clue about international mailing, except that they didn't sell Canadian postage (for the reply envelope) and that to send it would be the same as American postage. You know, they weigh it and price it. She did say that they sold the International Reply Coupons that OnSpec mentions in their guidelines. Anybody know anything about those? I didn't want to seem more ignorant of International postage and figured that I'd learn more about it when I was ready to send. Plus the woman that was riding with me was ready to go, so we went. On the way back, she asked me if I knew where her apartment building was. I told her I did, that a friend used to live there. Actually two friends, James married the two and they now live in a house together. They are a very sweet older couple. Anyway, after I'd said all that and she had even mentioned that she knew of them, she asked me again if I knew where it was. I just sighed and said yes.
Last night I worked much more on M,M & M. I think I'm nearly through. It has stretched to 5700 words, but I still have 2000 to go through and I'm not sure how much will be added or cut. I'm working on a 6000 word limit, though, so I'll have to be careful. I'm surprised usually my short stories are short, 4000 or less.
I keep my stories on disk, but recently James had a disk that suddenly got wiped out. He used it one day and the very next day the computer says, No disk loaded. Wierd huh? He's upset. That disk had our church directory and phone list on it. He'd been working on the directory to make a new one this year and now he has to re-do everything! So, because of this, last night I saved it BOTH on my disk and on the hard drive. I really need to make back ups of all my writing disks. I used to trust it more if it were on disks as opposed to the hard drive. I don't trust anything now.
Something interesting that I encountered while re-writing this story: I re-wrote the entire first scene where the murder happens, in order to have one viewpoint character. I re-wrote it where the detective is viewing the murder on surveillence cameras. It was difficult to go from present tense to the past tense. I discovered that I had a lot of useless info on the characters that were about to be killed. When I cut out their thoughts or info on their past history, the word count on that section dropped considerably. I think from 900 to 200. From about one page, to around a half or less I think. Amazing!
I'm really worried that I've taken so long to finish it. I don't know if I can find any readers that can get back to me in one day. I must finish it tonight, get readers tomorrow and edit tomorrow. See the thing is, we're leaving Sunday night. Since I have to take it to the post office, it has to be there Friday. ::sigh:: Why didn't I just finish it last weekend like I planned so I'd have a whole week to edit it???? WHY? Grrr. I suppose it could wait till Monday or any time next week, but we'll be traveling and trying to find a post office while traveling will be difficult. That's probably what I'll end up doing though, so readers will have through Saturday to read for me. I have packing to do too, plus Friday we have to go out of town to pick up our desparately needed new glasses AND be back in time for a party that night. Then Saturday morning we have to leave at 6 AM to go to Montgomery for a doctors visit I have.
I need to stop stressing and just get busy. Think positive! (Maybe that should become my mantra) :)
August 15, 1999:
Note to self: Don't be so negative!
Sorry, all, I think I'm just PMSing. I think ya'll understand. I took a look at my counter stats for the week and I feel better. I hadn't done that in a really long time. If I keep being negative like this, no one will really want to read this. :) Thanks to my friend Sarah and to Nikki Burris for cheering me up on this matter. :)
I have decided to keep doing this page, but when I get the time, it will be moved. I've gotten my own free domain name, so my pages will finally have a permanent home. AND I love the File manager at this place. I think it's better than Geo (Shhh! I didn't say that).
I'm still working on re-writing my SF story for ONSpec. I'm so nervous and excited about this actually being a possible first sale for me that I don't want to work on it, afraid I'll fail. My hubby keeps telling me that it's a great story, I just can't see that because it's my story. Sometimes I think how great it would be to have my story in there with Marcie Lynn Tentchoff's "Go Lovely Rose" (Which by the way is a great story and deserves to be published in that same issue. Marcie said on her journal that she's sending it.) But then I think, I'm no good, I'll never be published with all those other great writers. I just have to keep on going. Persistence, right Ron? :) BTW-You really are cookin' this year, Ron! Way to go with those sales! I've been keeping up with a few people's journals when I get time and it seems everyone is having a good summer. I just wish it wasn't so hot! (I'm being negative again aren't I? :) )
Vacation news! We are gearing up for our trip to Yellowstone next week. I'm so excited. This will be my first time visiting there. In fact, I believe on this trip that I will be going to three states that I've never been to before. Until I was about fifteen, I'd never been any farther east than Illinoiss (spelled wrong, I know), No farther south than Missouri, no further north than mid way up Minnesota, and no farther west than Kearney, Neb. That's sad folks! Every year since then I've gotten away, first to AL (where I live now) and now I try to get west as often as I can. The Rockies just rock! :) Sometime when I get back I will try to get pictures up and have a photo album up at my new site. I don't have them all scanned in though, and I think our scanner got fried by lightning. It just suddenly quit working and the computer doesn't even acknowledge that it's connected. I guess we'll be getting a new one. We learned a lot from this one though, on what we actually want. We thought this one did more than it does, like text scanning. Oh, it'll scan text alright, just as a picture. It says it has OCR, but we never could get it to work.
Anyway, I'm off to do a bit of journal reading and then get to work on my story! TTFN!
August 11, 1999:
Well, it's nice to know I'm missed! The longest gap in this journal for a really long time and NO one e-mailed me to see what's up. I guess people don't want to read my rambling dribble. I'm re-evaluating whether I want to keep doing this journal or not.
I know that there won't be a new design for August. Not only will I be leaving for vacation the latter end, but right now I'm fast and furiously polishing a story for OnSpec's 'Future Crime' issue. The deadline is Aug. 31, but since I'm leaving the 23rd, it has to be in the mail by then. I'm really hoping this will be my first sale, but trying not to hope too much.
In other news, I've decided to edit EGI and write EGII. I'm so excited about EGII and I wish I could jump into it, but not until after vacation. It may even be later than that since 'The Great Migration' was planned to be tuned up and sent to a contest by October 1.
July 22, 1999:
There's been an issue floating around lately and I've heard that quite a few people left Yahoo! Geocites over it. Some were saying that their new terms of service (TOS) included a clause that gave Y!Geo the right to claim ownership to anything a homesteader posts on their homepage. I checked around, many of the other free homepage services said the same thing in their TOS's. Evidently Y!Geo got on the ball and when I logged in today they posted a new TOS to read and accept before entering. Two sections of this clause hit on this subject. I copy/pasted one here for those who are interested:
"7. CONTENT SUBMITTED TO YAHOO GEOCITIES Yahoo does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your Yahoo GeoCities Site. By submitting Content to Yahoo for inclusion on your Yahoo GeoCities Site, you grant Yahoo the world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your Yahoo GeoCities Site on Yahoo's Internet properties. This license exists only for as long as you continue to be a Yahoo GeoCities homesteader and shall be terminated at the time your Yahoo GeoCities Site is terminated."
So there are some rights being granted, but ownership remains in the homesteader posting the material. I think this is a good change. I wonder if there were really that many people leaving to make a difference to them, appearently so.
In other news, my bow carving idea flopped. It was probably a hair-brained idea anyway. I hadn't carved on it in a few days and decided tonight to work on it. I realized it was too late already. Part of it dried and cracked. I actually thought that I could finish it before it dried that bad, two weeks at the most. Uh-well, on to plan B. If the bow carving idea didn't work, I planned on turning it into a walking stick. I'm planning to cut off about a foot, drill a hole in the top and put a leather strap through it. I may try my hand at carving a design into it, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll also sand it down a bit, there's some slivers on it. On our vacation I saw some really nice walking sticks with 'wood spirits' carved into them. I think I'll try a simple lizard design, but I don't think it will get accomplished. I tried a bit of carving tonight, just my initials. They looked more like greek letters than what they were supposed to be. I think I need something different than the point of my knife.
Writing news, nothing much going on. Finished last weeks assignment for the SS workshop, just an outline. One more assignment, two weeks agos in the editing and revision class, is done but needs to be posted. I hope to have this weeks SS WKSP assignment done as well as one more E & R assignment done by Saturday night. Not sure if it will get done though, there's a lot going on this weekend. I've got the day off tomorrow, but Z's going to the vet, I need to go to the library (they are only open W TH F), I guess working on the bow is out, so that frees some time, also the usual cooking and cleaning. Friday and Saturday we are going to Meridian to a church that is having a singing class/workshop thingy that should be good. Also Sat. we have singing at the nursing home, lunch at the building and workday on the building after that. I'm realizing that July is 3/4ths over and I haven't written one word except for these journal entries. Which reminds me I haven't posted the vacation ones. I'm thinking about not posting them, any complaints about that? E-mail me if there are, although I doubt if anyone cares.
Oh, a wonderer came by to read here and e-mailed me about Z's tick. They said to put oil on the ticks body and it would back out because it can't breath with the oil on it's behind. It makes sense that with it's head buried in flesh it has to breath through the other end. :)
Oh, other writerly news I forgot: I have an idea for another Inspirational Romance novel. I'm excited since my Fantasy novels aren't turning out well, so I'm going back to what works. EGI needs revision and EGII needs written as well. I'm not giving up on writing Fantasy shorts though. I've got too many great ideas to stop. :) This new novel idea is called Kisses from Heaven. I'm not going to reveal much, but basically its about a young girl (about 7-10 years old) who witnesses her plantation-owner father kill her mother so she runs away. She meets a life-hardened man who is heading west. Since she's at the point of near-starvation at this point, he cares for her and she reminds him of his daughter that died of fever, and she tells him her parents are dead, so he sorta adopts her and they head west together. Of course their life is not perfectly happy, her father, evil money greedy man that he is, searches for her, wanting her inheiritance. I think I'll leave it at that, I don't like to reveal too much info on my stories here, for obvious reasons. :)
July 19, 1999:
It's amazing what giving up will do. I tried and tried last week to come up with an idea for an outline for the Short Story Workshop. I gave up and decided to take a break from writing for a bit. Yesterday, not only did the outline hit me, but also an idea for a poem (poem ideas are extremely rare for me).
I also took the time to look at some fellow NAWer's web pages:
Erin-congrats on the quarter finals! You go girl! Hope you feel better too!
Tippi-nice new look, and aww, poor puppy
Ron-Wow, sure getting those sales this year! Go you! July 15ths entry was right on target as well.
Lazette-Congrats on your story in Jackhammer this week, I'll have to go read it!
Oh, just in case you're curious. Saturday I felled my little oak tree and began working on my bow. Steps 1 and 2 are complete, cutting down the tree and stripping the bark off. I started a bit last night on the actual carving and although the bark was easier to come off than I expected, the next step will be much more difficult because of harder wood. I'll let you know. :)
July 17, 1999:
Well, I think we are about caught up and straightened out again. Not only did we have laundry things to catch up, but our pets went crazy while we were gone. Z has turned into a regular Houdini and has been escaping his leash. Plus getting wrapped around bushes that he shouldn't be (his origonal leash wouldn't get that far, but his new one can). If we ever hear him barking and growling, it's usually because he's tangled. I noticed the other day that he's broken some teeth biting the chain. I think they are just his baby teeth and hopefully his adult teeth would be stronger than that. We're trying to get him to the vet for several reasons this week. He needs his puppy booster shot (way past due), his teeth, and we found a tick on him that has embeded itself. So much for flea and tick collars. We also give him brewers yeast with garlic tablets that are supposed to kill fleas and ticks when they bite. It worked great when he was younger. The pills are given based on body weight, one for every ten pounds. I give him three and James just told me that when he feeds him, he gives him four. I don't think he's more than fourty pounds yet, but I suppose he could be. He's getting big.
Drazil is getting big and fat as well. Ever since I started giving him Solar Drops (UV drops), he has been shedding more. Lately he's been shedding about once a week it seems. I cleaned his cage the night before we left on vacation and it needs it again. He's also been eating like a little piggy. I had to buy up some food for him to make sure he doesn't run out. He seems to do better eating the dry (I call it kibble) food. This way it's in there all the time and he can eat when he wants. When I fed him fresh stuff, it would sit there a long time before he was hungry to eat it, and by then it wasn't very good. I never could figure out when his eating time was to be able to feed him when he was ready. It's kind of funny, he's only active when we're not around or the house is quiet. When you walk by his cage it reminds me of my imagination when I was a kid. I thought (like, I imagine most children do) that when you walked into a room, all the dolls, toys and ceramics suddenly froze and wouldn't let you see them move. Drazil is like that, several times I had to gently shake his cage or stop and look really close to make sure he blinked or breathed. Now, if I tried to take him out of the cage, look out! That lizard is fast! He likes to run around, I wish I felt more comfortable about letting him out. I keep saying when he gets bigger, there's just so many little crooks and crannies he can get into around here, get injured or lost.
Well, today I'm embarking on a new hobby. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I gripe all the time about not having time to write, and now I'm going to spend time on something new? I don't know, I just feel like taking a break for about a week. I know, you're saying I just had a vacation. I know. I just feel so tapped out. I have an assignment for a short story outline and I can't even come up with that right now!
Anyway the new hobby. I'm going to try this for about a week or two and if it doesn't work, I'll drop it. On our vacation we went to some American Indian crafty type shops where they sold items made by indians in the 'old ways' sorta. There was a simple carved bow for $50. I really wanted it, but we couldn't afford it. I looked at it closely. It's a very simple design. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I want to try. I've always been facinated by the bow and arrow (and very fearful of guns). I watched a show called The Huntress a few weeks ago (I think it was on ESPN, not sure I don't know the cable channels where I babysit). She was hunting bear with a bow and arrow. I was facinated. I don't think I'd want to hunt bear, but not sure if I could kill Bambi and Thumper either.
Well, in writerly news: I've been thinking about TGM lately. If I want it ready for the contest with the Oct. 1 deadline, I'd better be working on it. I'm going to think on it while I do things. It was suggested by several people that I change the structure a bit so I'm mulling that over. I agree it needs to be changed, but the way it should be changed to is difficult and needs quite a bit of work.
Well, I haven't been able to keep up on the news, but I hope everyone is doing fine and getting those, chaching, sales! :) TTFN!
July 13, 1999:
Well, I'm back. We got back early Monday morning (about 3) and I had to get up and go to work by 7:45 am, so I was not in any mood to do much of anything last night but make heads and tails of all of our luggage (dirty clothes etc.) plus go to the grocery store.
I'm trying to prioratize somethings and writing is getting pushed down the list. I'm not at all happy about it, but other things seem more important right now. I gained back the weight that I worked so hard to lose before the vacation. I can't believe that two months of work was ruined in one week! I got so far off my diet that I felt sick part of the week. We were eating ice cream sometimes three times a day! Which meant that my blood sugar was on a roller coaster. I've gotten it straightened out by eating more protien for a day. As long as I eat about four small meals a day and one small snack, I'm fine now. Part of my prioitizing means cooking healtier (which takes time to cook), excersizing and sleeping enough. James and I are talking about trying to have children next year and I need to get better in shape and feel better. I'm trying to find time to get back to my classes and writing, but this week I'm not sure where to find the time.
Speaking of time, I did write journal entries for days of our vacation, but I have no idea when I'll be able to type them up. I'd like to do it before the pictures are back, because then I'll have them to scan in as well...
Speaking of pictures, we met an internet friend in Atlanta and had pictures taken with him and his sister. It was really neat to meet someone we sorta already knew. James played chess with him and got beaten twice. :) They play online sometimes.
Something wierd that I wanted to tell ya'll: I had a sorta nightmare yesterday. I was napping while babysitting. Will was napping laying on my chest (his most comfy position) and I (being so tired from our vacation) slept as well. Usually any movement or sound from him and I'll wake up so I end up taking cat naps while he sleeps an hour or more. This time I had been asleep for about thirty minutes solid. The 'nightmare' I had was so real. I knew I was dreaming. I was at this ranch in the mountains and at first I just knew I had to get out of the ranch. I suddenly found myself out the front door and I was in a panic. I knew I was dreaming and I was afraid I had slept too long. I imagined (in my dream! isn't that wierd?) that he had woken up, rolled off of me and hit the floor, or any number of other tragic things. I tried to force myself to wake up, imagining my heavy eyelids and trying to open them. Pinching my legs and slapping my face did no good, I couldn't even feel it. Finally a nurse walks up to me holding out a glass. In her other hand she was holding a syringe. She squirts the clear liquid into the water in the glass and tells me to take my medication. She said the medication had worn off and that's why I was panicing. I pushed the glass from her hand and was shocked to see it bounce on the concrete. I stared at it and wondered why it didn't shatter. As I watched it, the rest of the world faded to black and I struggled even more to wake up. It felt like an eternity. I think there was another dream sequence, but I can't remember it. Finally Will wimpered slightly and stirred in his sleep, waking me. I comforted him as I calmed myself down. He went back to sleep, but I couldn't. I've never had a dream that I was so conscience of. Wierd huh? Might make an interesting story or part of one that I can write sometime, I'll have to write it down in my story journal.
Well, I've run out of time, time to log out and go to bed. I wish there were more hours in the day... TTFN!
July 3, 1999:
This will most likely be my last post before leaving on vacation Monday, so:
I stayed up very late last night. We had a party with our church last night and stayed at a friends' house until after 1, then when we got home, I piddled around on the 'puter. I don't even remember now what I did. :)
We still have much to get ready for our vacation. James' parents will arrive late Sunday night(probably early Monday morning hours), so we have to have the guest room cleaned up. There's dishes to be washed and packing to do. Plus, because of some oversight of ours, we've signed up to clean the church building this month, so we'll have to do that today as well. I'd best get off this 'puter and get busy, it is already after 1 PM! See ya'll after the vacation! TTFN!
July 1, 1999:
Well, I stayed up till just a bit after midnight last night. I wanted my word count to get over 10k and there was no way that I would not make it when I had 9050 before yesterday. So I added 1300 words on Conspiracy story. That's a working title by the way, not sure exactly what to call it. There is a conspiracy in it, so that's what I call it. Anyway, so my word count for the month was: 10350. Yeah! That's the most since January's total of over 14k.
I hope ya'll like this new look. I'm getting tired of the side border. I like it, but the coding is difficult for it.
Maybe after my vacation next week I can catch up with peoples web sites. Well, it's late again tonight and I'll need to finish this and upload it. I am so glad that tomorrow (Er, today) is Friday! :)
