Someone kicked my head off and stuffed it down a barbecue pit

Sick. Ugh.

No writing for me today.

Back to bed.

Livejournal comments

20 months without cable TV

Jeff has introduced me to the TV series, "Rome." Some GREAT writing here. Good thing, too, else I'd be way too turned off by all the gore to keep watching. Jeff and I both love relying on DVDs rather than TV; we've been without cable TV for 20 months now, and neither of us miss it. I estimate we watch about 1-3 hours of movies and/or recorded TV shows a week at most...FAR less than back when we had cable.

I admit there are times when I feel a wistful twinge, especially when some of my favourite shows start their new seasons, knowing I have to wait. I get used to hearing the occasional spoiler of shows that haven't come out on DVD yet.

But y'know, so far I've found the payoff well worth it.

I'm doing a lot more reading, as I've mentioned before. And learning new skills. Right now, I'm learning Quickbooks and XHTML. Quickbooks because I've finally come around to the fact that I need to be more organized about my finances; my freelance income has also been climbing, which helps with the motivation. I bought Quickbooks For Dummies at Chapters/Indigo earlier this week because it seems geared toward my level. :-)

As for XHTML...as I mentioned in Technonerdgirl recently, I find that the more I learn about CSS, the more I realize I need to learn about other stuff as well. Like XHTML. I'm determined to clean up my messy hackwork HTML code! Right now I'm working through an XHTML tutorial on Lynda.com as well as continuing a tutorial on CSS Design. I watch bits at a time, whenever I take an arm break.



I'm also using non-TV time (time I used to spend watching TV in the old days) to do more music. Did some more work on my Chocolate song last night. I'm starting to transcribe the five vocal parts in Finale. A bit tricky, since I'm also learning how to use Finale at the same time...the old version of Finale (which won't run on my new machine) had a VERY different user interface.

Another bonus of avoiding TV is that it gets me off my butt! I sit all day in front of the computer, after all. Now I do more running after work, working in the garden, taking walks. Some days it's tougher to get exercise than others, particularly when I haven't been exercising in a couple days in a row (funny how exhausting not moving around can be).

Still no word from the publisher about my novel, but I'm plowing ahead with other writing projects meanwhile. My "2006 overview of the book and magazine industry" article for Writer's Digest magazine is due next week. I finally decided to splurge and subscribe to Publisher's Weekly. I've been resisting for a long time because of the hefty subscription fee, but so far it's been SO worth it. For more details on why I finally decided to subscribe, see my Will Write For Chocolate blog post (below the comic strip).

Life's good right now, and I'm grateful. Yay, and I get to see my friend Luisa today!



Livejournal comments

Dragonfly summer

Above: The world's smallest pancake, made by Jeff for one of our nieces.

I can't believe it's already halfway through August. Holy cow. Seems like the summer just whizzed by. Remember when we were kids and the summer seemed to last forever? At least until late August, when the looming shadow of school accelerated those last couple of weeks, of course.

I've enjoyed our trips and cottage visits, but I'm very happy to be getting back to a regular schedule for a while. These days I'm working on the Writer's Digest article, a middle reader novel, an online professional site for my writing and illustration (finally), a new illustration project. Spent most of today on the portfolio site.

Here are some of the navigation icons I came up with:







The personal icon is temporary (I'm not sure what it is, either...perhaps a pig-bear?) until I think of something more interesting, possibly chocolate-related. I'm also open to suggestions. What object do YOU think I should use as my personal icon?

Seanan McGuire's "Dorothy" track arrived on CD by snailmail yesterday; I'm hoping to add flute to it and send it back to her for possible use on her recording project. What a wonderful song; I've been listening to it over and over today. As an experiment, I moved to the file to a new track in Garageband and TA-DAAAH! It worked...all I need to do now is record my flute in a separate track.

As I mentioned in an earlier Blathering, however, I can't use my microphone until Audio-M updates its USB drivers to be compatible with Intel machines. :-( Supposedly this will happen within the next six months. Because I need a microphone to start recording GAfilk prep stuff for Urban Tapestry (we're guests of honour in January!) and the built-in microphone in my MacBook sucks, I've decided to start researching USB microphones...at least that way I'll have some way of recording music until Audio-M updates its drivers. Plus it'll be handy to be able to just stick the mike and my laptop in my bag for Urban Tapestry practices without extra cords, pre-amps, etc.

I have no idea if the USB microphone will be good enough to record flute for a CD, but I figure it's at least worth a shot. Meanwhile, I'll cross my fingers and toes and hair that Audio-M will come through.



And finally, some more cottage pics...

Jeff takes our nieces sailing:



A dragonfly emerges from its larval form:



I'm a huge fan of dragonflies. Not only because they eat mosquitoes, but also because they always seem so other-worldly to me. During our cottage visit, a dragonfly landed on me as I floated in the lake and I tried very hard to stay still so it wouldn't fly away. It's good luck to have a dragonfly land on you, y'know.

Ok, I just made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?

Now if only the world had more dragonflies and less squirrels...

Livejournal comments

NYC visit

Above: Lego Batman at FAO Schwartz in NYC. Also check out Lego Chewbacca and Lego Hagrid.

Jeff and I went to NYC this past weekend for his father's 70th birthday celebration. We hadn't been to the city since before 9/11, and I noticed a much stronger police presence than in the past. Otherwise, New York seemed just as bustling as ever, a blur of people rushing about and yellow cabs honking.

Thanks to those who answered my booze question in LJ. Jeff and his dad both safely transported a few bottles of Innis & Gunn across the border with no problems:



This beer, introduced to Jeff by our brother-in-law Kaarel, is currently his favourite.

We visited the new 24-hour Apple store:



I did some work on a writing project in the New York Public Library:



I -so- love this library. I wish someone would hurry up and invent transporters here so I could work here whenever I wanted to. Inspirational atmosphere, quiet, spacious, plus (unlike Toronto libraries) the tables in the main reading room all have numerous power outlets and ethernet connections.

More photos and New York visit remarks in a future Blatherings. We did see and do other things in New York, but my life has recently gotten way busy with work and impending houseguests, plus I need to finish unpacking. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Looking forward to going to the David Francey concert tonight with Jeff, Walter, Allison, Jodi, Sue Posteraro and Tom Jeffers!

Livejournal comments

Technonerdboys, recitals and The Goose Girl

We had been planning to go to the cottage this weekend, but decided to stay in the city instead.

Major e-mail woes (yes, again). I had been reorganizing my Applemail and hadn't realized that putting an asterisk at the beginning of a folder name (which Eudora was fine with) could cause the contents of entire mail folders to vanish into the ether. :-( Fortunately Jeff figured out what had gone wrong and was able to restore older mail from a backup. I'm going through the two versions of my mail now, trying to figure out which mail needs to be moved where.

The photo above is of MY NEW OFFICE SHELF! Jeff made and installed it for me yesterday in his basement workshop, what a sweetie. I feel incredibly lucky, having a technonerdboy husband who is also handy with the hammer. He's also going to build me another bookshelf, one for paperbacks that will fit on the wall beside my office door.

I'm not going to have any trouble filling my new shelf above my desk, believe me. Some of the more astute of you will observe that I have covered up my office window in that corner. I forced myself to admit that I never look outside while I'm working and that the space would be much more useful as another place in which to put things. I know, I'm such a hermit. If I lived alone, my place would consist entirely of bookshelves, with an occasional peephole to look outside when I wanted to know if it was raining.

Anyway, instead of looking at the underside of our deck, I'd much rather look at Beckett Gladney's oil painting for our Myths and Urban Legends CD. :-)

Also in that little alcove at the moment: red scarf from Andrea (hanging above), that little gorgeous pot that Luisa made, card from my sister and her family (each member drew themselves on the front), photos of my sister and brother and their spouses, photo of Jeff & me on our honeymoon, a little funny cloth monster-guy that Jeff gave me, and a small teddy bear from Ruth. Just to the right of the alcove, you can see my Patrick Stewart Literacy poster. Someone who saw my mention of this poster in Blatherings years ago offered to buy it, but I said it wasn't for sale.



Above: My Dad has recently been cleaning out the basement and found this flyer from a recital I gave with two others in 1989 as part of the annual music festival in the town of Elora, Ontario. I remember being so excited because people had to actually pay money to go the recital! A whopping $3!! We actually did have a full house and I was dead nervous, but I recall it going pretty well. I performed Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 23 #10 and Gershwin's Rialto Ripples on the piano.

Just finished reading:

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. I LOVED this book, and hoovered the entire thing in one day. I especially enjoyed the author's lyrical writing style, so appropriate for the re-telling of this fairy tale. A highly satisfying read. Thanks so much to Sara and Ruth for recommending it to me! I have to get my own copy for my Comfort Book shelf; I know I'm going to be re-reading this book many times.

Livejournal comments