December

Yeah that's right, I did it!  I wrote 50,000 words in the month of November for the first time since 2008.  The novel is not completed, and it's crap, but I wrote it.

Now that NaNoWriMo is over I can get back to reading.  I had four books out from the library when November came in, so I had to renew them twice so I could keep them to start reading again on December 1.

The dog knocked over the trash can and I know for sure that he ate a turkey leg (bones, etc), some stale cereal, a week-old Thanksgiving party cookie and some moldy beef jerky.  There might have been other delights in there as well.  It would serve him right to be sick but that would just mean more work for me.  Ugh.

I have two tiny baby tomatoes!

Mornings With Dog, Chapter One

And now for a new segment I shall call, "Mornings With Dog."  "Segment" suggests that this is something I will be writing on a regular basis, but we all know that it's more likely I will write one or possibly two and then drop it.  Kind of like my NaNoWriMo attempt this year, in which I passed 11,000 words the first weekend, and haven't written one word since.

But anyway, now that the time has changed and it's not completely dark at 7 am anymore, I'm trying to renew my habit of taking Chester D. Dog for a morning walk.  He appreciates it, and it is good for me to wake up and get my blood moving.  Mornings are also a nice opportunity to wear long sleeves or even a jacket, and feel like there's a coolness to the air, without having to deal with my nose going numb or my ears hurting from the cold.  Florida's nice like that!

I thought on some morning walks I would take a picture or pictures around my neighborhood to show everyone how nice it is here, or if at some point it becomes nasty, how nasty it is.

So without further ado,

This morning the sun was out and I wore a fleece jacket for our walk.  The temperature was right around 60 degrees but going up.  This morning Chester and I found real, live (dying) fall-colored leaves.

Real yellows and reds among the browns, right here in central Florida.  Makes a Marylander feel a little more at home.

Random

• Having a usable kitchen -- meaning one with enough room to turn around and with a working oven -- makes a lot of difference in enjoyment of cooking.
• Waking up with the coffeemaker having just finished brewing a pot is also pretty cool.
• I'm not Linkin Park's biggest fan, but I really like "Burn It Down."
• When Chester and I walk around the neighborhood, we set off frantic barking at about every other house.  Chester never says a word though.  He's so well behaved!
• Except for when he took a dump on the patio.
• Faith is playing intramural badminton.  She loves it!
• We still go swimming almost every day.  But the water is getting darn chilly in that pool, despite the fact that the days are still very warm.
• I met my goal of reading 20 books this year.  (the list)  Now I'm working on number 21!

Thursday thinking

I still miss Augie a lot.  I thought I heard him meow the other day, and I keep expecting to see him laying on the dog's bed or to come climb in my lap while I'm sitting on the floor.  Our other elderly cat, Spot, is turning 18 in April.  For now he is in decent health.  He notices Augie's absence, though.  The first night Augie was gone, Spot wandered through the house all night meowing.  They used to sleep together on the dog's bed.

Aside from Spotty we have two other cats, Emily and Benny, who are about 2.5 and 3 years old, respectively. Then there's good old Chester, the dog, who we guess to be about 9.  I do love a house full of pets, despite the cost, the mess, the work, and the inevitable heartache that comes along with it.

Augie and Spotty enjoying a sunny spot at the back door.  Nov 2011

Thea and Faith are going skiing for the first time this weekend.  I've never really had an interest in skiing, but I'm happy they're going to have the opportunity to try it.  They are excited.  Holly and I are staying home by ourselves.  I told her it was going to be a special Holly-and-Mommy night.  Her eyes got wide and she said, "Let's have a movie night!  With EATING!"  So, movies and eating it will be.

I'm getting a haircut tomorrow.  This is only news because I don't get my hair cut often, and when I do, it's usually just a trim.  This time I really am looking for a new style (if you can call the shapeless mess I have now a "style").  It remains to be seen whether I can communicate my wishes to the stylist, whether she can cut it that way, whether my hair will actually do what the girl's hair in the picture is doing, and then whether I can actually pull it off myself at home.

Why So Serious?

Rain and traffic that make for over a two hour commute on a Monday morning... not a good way to start the week off.

Waking up to find your three-year-old looking like the Joker is not a good way to start Sunday morning off either. She got into her sister's purse.

It may have been mixed messages for me to take her picture and then scold her and send her to her room...

And here is a random picture of the dog wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Enjoy!

Ugh

1. It is hot.
2. My truck died.
   
3. I don't have anyone to watch my dog next week while I'm away.
4. It is hot.
   

A Silly Tale

So Thea and Faith (although mostly Thea) are obsessing over the new hottest thing: Silly Bandz. Basically these are like those jelly bracelets we used to wear in the 80s, except when taken off your wrist they take shapes -- animals, stars, letters, symbols, etc. I really don't understand what is so exciting about them, but they are being traded at school and I do remember what it was like to want desperately to be involved in the recess trading post (*cough* sticker albums *cough*). Anyway, the girls have been dying for their very own Silly Bandz for three weeks now but they're not easy to find since apparently every other middle schooler in the region is also dying for them.



Finally last night their dad took them to the mall and they found some at Claire's. These are in space shapes -- rocket ships, moons, planets -- and while they are definitely not the shapes my girls coveted, they glow in the dark! Ooooooooh! It was all Thea could talk about when I got home. Faith was similarly excited, but she was busy working on homework in her room.

I went up to see her and she had her 11 (she had given one of her 12 to Thea) Silly Bandz laid out on the floor while she was sitting on her bed doing her handwriting homework. I sat with her for a few minutes and talked to her. I dimly registered that the dog had followed me upstairs... you see where this is going, don't you.

The dog gobbled up all 11 of her Silly Bandz.

Yes... For Faith this was indeed a Woohoo Dammit moment (although since she's only 9 let's call it Yay Nuts) She finally got some Silly Bandz YAY! Not two hours later the dog ate them all NUTS!

Snow Day 2

(saturday)

It's a winter wonderland. The dog whines and hops in a circle before peeing right at the bottom of the back porch steps. The snow in my yard is thigh-high on me -- some drifts are up past my behind.


Views of the front ^ and back


Heading out into the snow!



My maple tree



Snowdrifts against my back fence. See the fence? Me neither.



Chester looking off the back porch.



Holly makes her way through shallower snow to a clear spot under the holly tree.



Faith and Thea, snow bunnies.