Because I'm a sucker for punishment

Guess what I'm doing this year?

Have you ever tried NaNoWriMo? Are you doing it this year? Buddy me if you are!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

An odd assortment of thoughts

I'm not very coherent these days (those who know me for more than several years will chime in and say, "what do you mean 'these days'?" but I will ignore them); I get the feeling the most of my future posts will be a random collection of loosely connected, or thoroughly dis-connected, thoughts. (how I feel...gee, how did the kids know this when they created this thing?)

An update on the credit card fraud issue. I suspect it's more than that. After Bank of America canceled our card, I had 3 things pop up that were purportedly ordered by me. One was a fitness video: the company called to say that they had trouble charging it to my card. Well, yeah. Another was a book club subscription; a box of books from The Good Cook book club arrived in the mail yesterday. Another is the Book of the Month Club. Oy. So now I have to get a hold of them to let them know that I didn't sign up for either of them. I wonder if there are more to come... As if life weren't harried enough without stupid, extra things to stress over.

Have any of you ever had your identity stolen?

Dh and the boys got some planting done in the greenhouse last weekend: they put in spinach, various lettuce, and different Asian greens. Looove Asian greens! They also dug up and transplanted horseradish. Dh made the best horseradish sauce with some of the roots and shared some starts with the people who responded that they wanted some. Lisa said that it is next to impossible to buy in town. Dh says that it's due to its only being harvested at very specific times.

And for a totally unrelated thought: the last time I did any *real* writing was years ago. Sure I did NaNoWriMo the last two years, but I mean the kind of writing that I actually can picture a sale with. Well, thanks to the most excellent Gotham Writers' Workshop's Science Fiction class, I may have one or two stories ready for submission before long.

The experience of this class has been so good, in fact, that I am tempted to take SFII in April. But, without credit card to use and feeling inundated by life, I may just wait until next year.

I know that some of you enjoy sewing, so wanted to share this video for sewing kids' tutus that I found over at the About.com Sewing forum.

I have to say that having life so busy (and not all in a good way), plus reading The Happiness Project book, has helped me not to dwell on the credit card/ID theft issue as much, although it does eat at me that there are such people out there who don't deserve the free oxygen they breathe.

But, on a happier note, if you have a special someone whom you've been forgetting to tell how special he/she is, go check out Suzanne's post on Forever Friends. :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Resolutions & other pretty things

Wow, have I ever gotten out of my blogging groove! I just haven't felt much like writing or reading blogs recently. I blame it on my lingering cold, and dh's bout of gastroenteritis. Nothing drains me more than having to think up meals for me and the kids. ;)

I started my previous post talking about resolutions, but then got side-tracked by trees and stollens, and, in the end, after dusting the flour off my hands, decided to cut the word 'resolutions' out of the title.

But here I am, back facing resolutions again. Michelle (Blog of the Soap Pixie) wrote a fun post about breaking resolutions, and Anne-Marie (Soap and the Finer Things in Life) had her usual thought-provoking post about making resolutions.

I have mixed feelings about resolutions. I hate being told what to do, even if it's me telling myself. This is why I will never join a book club. I'll read what I want to read when I want to read it thankyouverymuch. Goodness, I'm obnoxious sometimes.

That said, there are a couple of things I really, really want to accomplish this year, as I mentioned at Anne-Marie's blog. One is to whip myself into shape (that is, exercise more regularly), and the other is to whip into shape the manuscript I wrote for the 2009 NaNoWriMo. I think it has potential, and since it's been years since I had anything published, I'm looking at this ms with a gleam in my eyes. Incidentally, a gleam in dh's eyes was how ds#1 came about, so how much harder than that could birthing a novel be? HAH!

As anyone who's ever gotten something published will tell you: it's damned hard. This is why I've decided to enlist professional help (no, not the psychiatric kind, although that wouldn't hurt either) by the way of Gotham Writers' Workshop. I consulted with dh on this, and his response was, "so what will you give up in order to take this class?" He wasn't talking about money. He was referring to my 400 hobbies and other endeavors.

The 10-week course will require a commitment of at least 5 hours a week. What can I give up, indeed? Well, I can't give up making ceramics and soaps and paper and knitting because I've got orders for those that I have to fulfill (even though our sales at Artfire is pretty pathetic, and our sales at Etsy is pretty much nil, we've got orders from really great friends and relatives! I have to add, too, that if it weren't for the incomparably wonderful Ms. Carrie (Under the Willow Gift Shoppe), our Artfire site would have had nil sales too). I can't give up on sleep because I am not fit to live with if I get less than 9 hours of sleep per night. I can't give up on homeschooling because the darned kids refused to attend public school.

Sooo, I guess that leaves playing stupid games on Facebook (which I really should give up regardless) and blogging (writing and reading), both of which will have to take a back seat because I am determined to have an edited manuscript that is at least presentable to an agent (even if I don't present it) by the end of the year, if not sooner.

For those who are curious as to what this story is about, I'll just say it's "Two mathematicians, a physicist, and an criminologist walk into a spaceship...". Barump-bump.

Another thing I want to accomplish this year is to read this wonderful book:and follow Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project Happiness Challenge! By golly, I will be happy or I will die trying. ;D

Before I run off to accomplish *real* things, let me leave you with some eye-candy.

Firstly, take a look at these gorgeous bookmarks that I bought from Annie (Imagine and Create). I bought 3 and she gave me a couple of extras, lovely gal that she is!Next are the goodies I got from Julie (Craft Knife) for the Pay-It-Forward giveaway she had. Ok, I screamed like a girl, and I'll tell you why in a second.See the funky CD cover above? Inside is this:
Neat, eh? I need to listen to it and then really tell you how great it is, but the day was spent on bathrooms and things I can't even recall (except for the fruit crisp...gosh was that good). Tomorrow, though...tomorrow, I'm doing some listenin'.

Here's the reason for my scream:
Did anyone else yell "Valeris!" like I did? Did anyone else even think, "Star Trek VI: The Final Frontier"? Am I the only sci-fi nerd who hangs out at this blog? Well, anyway, I showed one side of the bookmark in that first photo and the other side above. Julie makes geeky-cool bookmarks from comic books. You can find them, and other super nifty stuff, in her Etsy store!

The third thing in the pile o' goodies I got were the really cute buttons (see first photo). I've already decided that the tree button belongs with my purse. The boys can fight over the other two.
I think I've wasted enough time on my butt tonight. I don't know why I don't just do some shorter posts instead of bottling it all up and throwing one huge post at you...but that seems to be my style, doesn't it?

Hope the new year has been a good one for all of you so far! Do any of you have an interesting resolution you care to share with me? :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Happy December!

Did you all hear the sonic boom of my November going by? But I did it! Cranked out 50,166 words in a month, and here's what I have to show for it:Doesn't pay the bills or clean the kitchen (really!), but I had so much fun with my NaNoWriMo buddies that I plan to do this again next year.

I'm cracking up here because I had planned on posting this yesterday, but the day got away from me (and it was *hands gesturing* THIS big!). I had uploaded all the photos and was going to finish doing the write-up today while at the library so I could post it, but the library wireless connection was having fits and so I couldn't do it for a while. Then, when I was finally able to get online, I accidentally deleted one of these photos, so had to wait to get home before I could upload the photo again before posting. I have a feeling the Blogging gods didn't want me to post anything. And, dear Allison (Under a Shady Tree) came over and gave me a big ol' nudge before I could finally crank this out. ;D

What else went on in November? Well, our mache grew very nicely, for one. In hand:and in salad:Ds#2 turned 12 - good grief, how did that happen? And dh attempted to make kimchi for the first time with our own napa cabbage:Here they are in the jars that JGTH gave us:And last, but not least, we had a lovely Thanksgiving with a couple of friends - lots of good food and laughter over playing Wii and ping pong together. In remembrance of a nice holiday, I dedicate our canned Tree of Life Organic Cranberry sauce to Brad (Bone in the Fan) and his Meatist column, Blonde Duck (A Duck in Her Pond) because she is also fan, and Grace, because she doesn't like this stuff. ;)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

A NaNoWriMo "Vacation"

If you consider cranking out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days a vacation, then, woohoo, break out the sunscreen and bring on the cabana boys! For those of us who like to bang our heads against the wall and suffer the pain of a taunting blank screen (or a piece of paper), National Novel Writing Month is, indeed, a "vacation" to remember. Care to join me? I'm "writer64" at NaNo, and would love for you to buddy me there. =)

Before I neglect my crops on Lil Farm Life (cursed FB and its time-sucking games), and my blog, and my bloggy friends' blogs for an entire month, I thought I'd share some chapters from my life...which is not quite an open book. I apologize for my writing-related jokes.

Chapter 1: My experimental life
...in which we extract DNA...bwahahahaha! Who says biology is boring? Incidentally, would you believe "bored" and "boring" are two words my kids have never uttered in their lives? Seriously. Dh and I must be doing something right.

So, the kids in the biology lab class got to extract DNA from split peas. If you'd like to follow along, and I know you do, see these directions.

Well, they're not quite the strands the directions make them sound like they'd be. Here's ds#1 trying to "pull" them out:Kind of a murky mess. But after letting the test tubes sit for about an hour, the DNA stuff separated themselves out. Here they are, the infamous DNA clouds! Heh. So, what do you think? Cumulo-nimbus? Alto-stratus?Chapter 2: We'll have fun, fun, fun 'til our daddy takes the clay away
I'd like to see him try to stop us from having fun. More ceramics joy from our previous workout...here's a beautiful sycamore leaf by ds#2. I love the glaze on this one:Ds#1 made a sassafras imprint trivet, which can also be used as a wall hanging:
And I made a set of 5 little condiment dishes:I'm trying to decide whether to list them on our Artfire site, or start an Etsy store..

Chapter 3: Nerds R Us.
...or "why I think my kids are space aliens in disguise". Then, again, maybe it's just indicative of our wacky homeschooling lifestyle.

This is what's under my 13 year old son's bed. I think he has half the library's collection there.
I'd think that pre-teen and teen boys would have posters of rock stars, athletes, or, gack!, pretty models on their walls, but here're the walls over ds#1's bed. There's a poster of Vancouver, Newberry (children's fiction) winners, an Escher print, a Magritte print, a Toko print, a little poster of The Story of the Stars and Stripes, a small poster of some eagle (not the rock band) festival, the cover of a Harry Potter LEGO set, and a small print of some ancient sea creature (elasmosaurus or something).
And over ds#2's bed, we have...well, you can probably see this one pretty well yourself. The Parts of a Cell poster really rocks!
A model of the solar system hangs from the ceiling in this photo, and a how-to art poster and Geologic Time Scale poster adorn the wall.
I've asked the kids if they want some different (read: non-educational) posters up, and they said, "mmm, no". Okay then.

Chapter 4: Food, glorious food
I made another couple of pie crust a la Mark Bittman, and this time, I used the acorn squash that friends gave us to make "pumpkin" pie. Pre-mixing:After pouring into the crust:I used the pumpkin pie recipe by Jackie Clay who writes a column for Backwoods Home magazine.

Because we have a carpet of cilantro in our greenhouse (no exaggeration), dh bought some haddock and trout yesterday and cooked them with a creamy cilantro sauce, accompanied by green beans with sun-dried tomato paste (yup, both homegrown). It was totally divine; I'm drooling again just thinking about it:I've been baking today, in between loads of laundry. My friend Jennifer is having a food drive for the winter homeless shelter here in town, and needed donations of food. (Neither the Shalom Center (which normally serves breakfast and lunch) nor the Community Kitchen (which normally serves dinner) is open on Sunday.) I made a dessert - chocolate chunk blondies (a King Arthur Flour recipe, and, yes, I will post the recipe some time this month):and a couple of loaves of the 5 minute artisan bread:If other townies are reading this and would like to help, Jennifer will still need food for December 6, January 3, February 7, and March 7. Contact me and I'll get you in touch with her.

Chapter 5: Odds 'n ends...a happy doggie end
I saw this book advertised somewhere and am intrigued by it. It hasn't come out yet, but if anyone reads it before I do, please let me know if it's worth buying!
I have one of the One Skein Wonders book and really like it. :)

And here is the doggie end, just as I promised. A bit stinky, but happy, nonetheless.I hope to be able to visit your blogs a few times during the month, but if I don't get around to that, I promise I will be back with a vengeance in December. ;) Wish me luck with NaNo, please!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Happy December!

We actually have snow flurries (or flow snurries, as we like to call it) today...yikes, it really is December! We're happy to say good-bye to November, though; it was crazy busy. We finished processing our chickens...yay! And dh packaged up his sauerkraut for the season. Dh's family has made 'kraut for probably a century. It's a grand tradition. This year's batch was especially tasty as the cabbages turned out nice and sweet.

We got our tree and decorations up yesterday. It may seem early, but given how much work goes into it, I want to have it up for the entire month. And, of course, the beginning of December means National Novel Writing Month is over. I'm still working on the novel itself, but I broke 50K words (as I mentioned earlier), and here's proof: I'm currently at 53,531 words and counting.

This month, I plan to blog about holiday related themes, e.g. giving, both charitable and for family and friends, spending, and continuing to showcase craft ideas from other bloggers.

As well, I'll be posting about making bread - no, I haven't forgotten my promise to you, Sangeeth (Let Us All Cook)! :) Dh wanted me to hold off making naan until he cooks an Indian meal, so I'm going to, instead, blog about making a very easy bread starter from the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg.

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

Winning NaNoWriMo; great homemade gift ideas

Hope all my U.S. friends had a really nice Thanksgiving!

I have to brag just a little tiny bit. I crossed over the 50,000 words finish line for NaNoWriMo last night! Here's my trophy:And I don't even have to dust it! Not done with the story yet though. My characters are really talkative, which was helpful in achieving the word count, but that means I have more work ahead of me, which is not such a good thing as there are now holiday things to gear up for.

Speaking of holidays, a reminder about my green holiday giveaway, and also there are some tutorials from my other blogging friends for homemade holiday gifts:
Infused oils at Microholding - making soap and living well
Gift from the garden series from Garden Fresh Living
The Soap Queen blog will have several tutorials throughout the season; here's one on making your own lotion

Today is culling day (last one for a while, I hope). Must run. Happy weekend to all!

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheimt

NaNoWriMo

Day 3: 2329 words, only 47,671 more words to go for the win.

In answer to your questions in the previous post (since I will not forget again and comment in my own giveaway post) -

Meg, the photos are up at twotadpoles.com :)

Julie, you'd be asking the wrong person...LOL! I learn as I go, but it'd be fun to have you learn along with me.

Michelle, are you going to do NaNoWriMo too? How fun to collaborate! How far along are you?

Heidi, they might have an e-subscription...not sure, but I can check if you win. :) This year, I'm trying my hand at comedy. Last year's attempt was too depressing for me.

Stace, it's not that fun of a magazine - LOL! - but it is very informative - really helps one to be socially and environmentally conscious. It'd be totally cool to install some solar panels!

Sangeeth, as Chris Baty, the guy who started NaNoWriMo, would tell you, most of the novels written during NaNoWriMo are less than gems. Many languish in desk drawers for a long time or forever. My last year's attempt...at a palty 5000 words...languishes on my data stick, never to be read by eyes other than my own. This year, if all goes well (yes, the glass is half-full!), I may actually have an ms to edit and, perhaps, one day, send out. So, the long answer to your question is: you can't read my novels anywhere. LOL!

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

Busy month and Holiday Giveaway

Aside from spending a lot of time making soaps for a friend's holiday sale (see the dove soap above), this is also National Novel Writing Month, in which I'm supposed to spend every other waking minute pounding out my novel. After having spectacularly bombed last year (I wrote 5000 words out of the required 50,000 words to win), I am determined to at least break 50% this year. Do I aim high or what? Hah!

I recently received the Co-op America - soon to be renamed Green America - Quarterly with the topic of 25 Ways to Green the World. Some of the ways mentioned include:
1. Live simply and use less
4. Reduce, reuse, recycle
6. Buy fair trade
7. Green your food choices
8. Put efficiency first
12. Protect the world's poor from climate change
14. Stop sweatshops and child labor
17. Be wood-wise
25. Educate others

Taking #25 to heart, my Holiday Giveaway will be a one year subscription/membership to Co-op America. Please post a comment to win! (Stay off my blog, ds#1.) I'll use Random.org again (thanks, Oikology 101!) to draw a number/name on December 6th.

Because of soaping, NaNoWriMo, and making our holiday newsletter to mail by Thanksgiving, I'll probably not post but once a week this month.

Happy Monday to all!

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim