libra_traveller | Recent Entries

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LT

Current Mood: chipper

(I'm just getting everything out at once, so sorry for the back to back posts.)

It's almost a year since I lost my friend Shavonne. I wasn't able to go to her funeral. She was a coworker at my previous job. I was only able to do one outing with her just the two of us, but we did something out there and mined for gems.

When I left my job she made sure to show up on my last day with balloons, a card, and gifts, and it was the most precious, unexpected moment. She had such a heart.

I hadn't been in touch enough, and found out she died through facebook. It was hard to process. It had only been two years at that point since I had lost another friend. Grief is really hard thing to deal with, and it doesn't matter how often you say goodbye to various people, friends, family or pets, each loss is a new journey to travel.

The day I found out Shavonne died, I'd just been going through old cards and came across the one she wrote to me. It meant a lot that I got to spend that one trip with her.

Thanks for being my friend.

Since I've posted so little this past year I realized I need to catch up on some things.

This October 10th, we had to put down our cat Ginger. She had colon cancer and we had tried what we could but it got to the point it was all done. We had a service come to the house to put her down. It wasn't the first cancer she'd had. Early in the year she'd had surgery to remove a tumor on her head and one on her back.

She was such a sweet kitty even if she really hated to be picked up or petted sometimes. We took her in, in 2006. She was the mother of the six kittens we rescued. There is only one kitty left of that family. She was so happy we brought them in to give shelter to her kittens. And then was somewhat annoyed we didn't let her leave after the kittens were weaned.

I loved her very much. She was a fighter. That was her second litter. When her family moved they just left her outside to fend for herself. I found out about the previous litter from a neighbor. Pretty sure that litter didn't survive.

Losing her, and her two girls and three of her boys over the years has been really rough. But I am still so happy I had them in my life.

This year I was really planning on skipping out on NaNoWriMo and just enjoying a stress free November. Thanksgiving was going to be more low key this year anyways.

But as November got closer and closer I toyed with the idea, 'Should I give it a go?'

I didn't make up my mind until two days before. But then I still didn't know what I would write. I didn't want to ruin the opportunity by trying to revive an old story from a previous novel writing attempt. I also didn't want to try and come up with new characters. So I looked back to 2015, which was a successful Nano. And I thought, well the story wasn't wrapped up. There was more story to tell for this character. So I decided to write its sequel!

I ended up writing every day of November. Only 2 days I didn't meet the 1667 word goal, I was shy by 40 words one day, 20 words the other. I had 8 days just a little over that goal, 11 days in the 2000s. Another 8 days I wrote excess of 3000 words, and 1 day I wrote over 4000.

Yes I not only met the 50K goal I exceeded it. I actually got to 50K on the 20th of November and then just kept writing. I pushed myself to write more by hitting my extended goal (75K) with 75,250 words. I also in the process finished the first draft! I am so excited. And to think I almost didn't write this month at all??

I am so happy with what I accomplished. I already have family bugging me to hurry up and revise the first book so they can read that. I'm glad I hadn't made any changes to that book yet because I definitely altered certain details this time around that I think better fits the world.

Oh and the story still isn't finished. It's at least going to be a trilogy. The genre is urban fantasy. Fantasy being my favorite genre to read and write.

I've never revised a story this big before. But I will give it my best try.

I think I just need to sleep in a lot first.

((Wanted to add that the widgets from last year's post updated for my writing this year. Has it really been a whole year since I've posted?)

I'll be honest, for years I only cooked basic meals. And mostly I left the cooking to other people in the family. But for the past month I've been doing the majority of the cooking. And now I'm also doing the grocery shopping. So I'm planning my meals and having a lot of fun looking through cookbooks and online recipes.

Doing all sorts of things I hadn't done before including making cauliflower "steaks" and ham croquettes, and using our slow-cooker to make a beef stew. Right now I'm also just looking at recipes that would be better for end of summer. Or desserts I want to make but have to wait a bit to budget for.

This sounds like something everyone else in their adult life would've gotten into earlier. Well, better late than never! More fun to come I'm sure with the cooking. I'm thinking of trying to not turn this into a part cooking blog, but no promises.

Other things I've been up to include making jewelry. I had designed a necklace back in 2014 that I never really cared for. I liked elements of it especially all the bead choices themselves. Yesterday I finally just took it apart and rearranged the beads. I even made a pendant out of the beads. I really love this design now, the way it looks just works!

For a year I was really trying to sell my jewelry. (I only make designs with beads.) But I moved a year ago and just focused on it as a hobby. I've created many new pieces that I adore. Maybe I'll try to sell again someday. I would really like to add new techniques to my skill set first.

In April I participated in campnanowrimo. I finished the rough draft of a fantasy genre novel I'd written for nanowrimo in 2015. This July I'm going to try campnanowrimo again and see if I can make a dent in revising that novel.

I also have so many books from the library I'm trying to work my way through. I went to a book festival where I listened to a few different authors. Got their books at the library to read, including a few of the authors' books that I didn't get to listen to.

I have really gotten into minerals lately. I went to a rock and mineral show in the area. They had displays on one floor and then on the top floor they had so many vendors. It was packed. Came home with one piece, an aragonite. So pretty.

And a couple weeks ago some friends drove an hour up to go on a hike with me at a park. That was such a fun and relaxing day. We then ate ice cream at a lake near where I live.

After my lung infection I started walking a lot to heal. And that was a very strong motivator, to get healthy and not wind up back in the hospital. And then we moved, and I had a gorgeous lake to walk around. I wasn't walking a lot, but I was still walking.

Then came the Pokemon go app launch. Of course I played it! And my half hour walks turned into hour walks most days of the week. So this summer I went out even if it was hot (not when it was crazy hot mind you) and I played the game. And then I got bored with the game after a couple months. I played a little, but instead got sucked into a game on my phone that didn't involve walking. Without walking the reality of being unemployed and living in a new place settled in too much.

So I gave in after a lot of suggestions and downloaded Zombie Run. I've now played it for four days, four days straight of walking for at least 50 minutes. Woot. It's fun and less distracting honestly. Plus now I'm enjoying listening to music as I walk. Walking in itself can be peaceful and enjoyable. But sometimes you need that distraction to keep you going. Let me know of any other phone game apps to play while walking just in case I get bored with the zombies in a couple months.

Yay, I reached 50,000 words!!

My next goal is to finish the rough draft.

I want to write every day until it's done.

I'm thinking of buying the winner t-shirt too.

It's exciting to be working on this story.