Mullock Monday

mullock ~ waste earth or rock from a mine

You may have noticed I missed posting last Monday. Sorry, but I was busy writing. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

If you don’t read My Writing Journal and/or my writer’s page on Facebook, then you won’t have heard the news. Much to my utter astonishment, I completed the NaNo challenge, with words to spare.

If you want to learn more about it, you can check out my post on My Writing Journal.

I’d like to add another advantage to working on the Alphasmart Neo - it doesn’t connect to social media. This meant no Facebooking or obsessive checking of the email and definitely no games.

And now, of course, it’s December and Eek! Christmas is only a few weeks away. Time to start decorating and baking and regretting not starting the crafts sooner.

I need to get out to collect some milkweed pods for one of my Christmas crafts. And somewhere online I saw a really cute idea for painting peanuts for tree decorations - although I think I’d make a garland out of them rather than hang them individually because they’re so small.

I’ve got a few Christmas gifts already, mostly for the grandbaby. And yesterday I went up to Fabricland to get the material for her Christmas dress. I actually have the material for two different dresses - one is satin with netting, the other is a more traditional velveteen. At some point this week I’ll spread the material and the three patterns I’m waffling between on the dining room table and stare at them until I decide which one I like best.

I’d like to think life around here is going to be getting back to normal, but that’s kind of impossible with Christmas on the way. I’d like to try and stick to the writing schedule I developed during NaNo when possible - an hour before babysitting, and hour during, and an hour after. I should be good for 1,000 words a day, but I’ll be happy with even 500.

This will free up my evenings for Christmas crafts and miscellaneous stuff, like baking and finishing the clean up of my office. And I kind of need to put the hubby’s electronic stuff back together too. I was quick to move it all but I’ve been kind of slow sorting it out again.

It all sounds really good in theory; we’ll have to see how well I stick to it during the week ahead.

Microphytology Monday

microphytology ~ study of very small plant life

Happy Simcoe Day. Or Civic Holiday. Or, as some of the locals have been lobbying for it to be, Happy James Cockburn Day. It's not a statutory holiday, but people generally have the day off ... unless you're unfortunate enough to work in retail because while the Post Office and other government agencies are closed, stores are open.

To celebrate the long weekend, our town closes off the main street for a huge, three day sidewalk sale. It's pretty much like a two-block, over priced yard sale. The stores put out all the stuff they couldn't sell over the last few years, but don't lower their prices enough to encourage people to buy.

There's also music and a sand sculpture competition down on the beach. The competition is pretty cool and attracts people from all over. I'm sure there's other stuff going on as well, but I wouldn't know. I tend to keep to my cave during these public displays of madness. ;-)

The competition ended on Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night we had some torrential rain storms sweep through, so I don't imagine there's much of the sand sculptures left. If the rain didn't get them, I'm sure the extremely high winds did.

Last week was a bit of a scorcher. Okay, it was a lot of a scorcher. I have to chuckle at the weather network. They can never make up their mind as to whether or not it's going to rain, and they seriously underestimate the temperature. They did declare an excessive heat warning for our area, but their temperatures were in the high 20s C (high 70s, low 80s F). Someone local on Facebook put a thermometer outside in the sun on one of those days, and the temperature registered 45 C (115 F). I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

I don't handle excessive heat any better than I do too much overcast/grey weather, so last week was not particularly productive. Again. But I decided on the weekend that I'm just going to have to suck it up. August is just starting and I'm sure the heat is going to extend into September, and I can't afford to keep wasting time like I've been doing. Life is too short.

The week ahead is going to be ... challenging. After much searching, the daughter finally found a job. That's the good news. The bad news is, her hours and her husband's hours over lap so they need someone to baby sit during the day. Namely, me.

On the one hand, I get to spend time with the granddaughter every day. On the other hand, I've already fallen behind in the transcribing and a three hour chunk out of my day isn't going to help matters. So again, no more wasting time, and I'll have to re-arrange my schedule to fit all the other stuff I do around the baby sitting. Easy peasy.

Bye, bye, mindless games. ;-)