Wednesday, November 26, 2008

packing and writing

As you no doubt figured out from the post right below this one, I finished Nanowrimo today. Yay me! I wrote some totally random scenes that don't really fit into the story very good, but it all counts, baby. Now I can head out of here tomorrow without the dark cloud of an unfinished Nano looming over my head.

Yep, tomorrow we all fly out of here and head to Honolulu for the long Thanksgiving weekend. We do this yearly for our church convention and we're all looking forward to getting there and meeting up with all the other folks from the other islands. I'll be back on Sunday night, though I'm not guranteeing a post here until Monday, I'm going to be tired.

Book Review Tuesday: Stuck In the Seventies by DL Garfinkle This is a young adult book about a girl from today who, somehow, manages to travel back through time via a bathtub. It was kind of fun to read, not only because time travel books are fun, but it's set in 1978, which brings back a few memories from my childhood. I especially liked seeing the 70's through the eyes of a teenager from today. It was a really fun read.

Random Daydreamer Unknown Fact: When I was a kid, I used to hide out in the basement with the lights off and sit under the window and read. By keeping the lights off, my parents assumed nobody was down there and I could read to my hearts content w/out being found out and forced to do my chores.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Whew


I am done, my life is complete and I don't think I'll be opening a Word document any time in the near future. That is all.

Nano - whine - O

I've pretty much spent my day whining about Nano. I whined to my Novelfriend's group, I whined at Romance Divas and I even e-mailed my friend Grey and whined to her. I've got writer's burnout. But, on the positive side, I've only got 2000 words left to write and this torture is over for another year. Yay me! To top it off, the kids have watched 7 Brides for 7 Brothers a couple times now this week and the song Sobbin' Women has been stuck in my head, which is kind of annonying, especially since I can't get my voice to go as low as Howard Keel's.

I did a ton of laundry today, there was a lot. I've still got 3 or 4 loads left to wash if I want all our clothes clean before we go to Oahu on Wednesday. Packing for a trip is so stressful, but it'll all be worth it when we get settled in on the Convention grounds and we can spend four peaceful days at church with out friends.

To finish things off, I'm going to introduce an exciting new feature to this blog, which I will implement when I think of it. It's called: Unknown Daydreamer Facts The title is pretty self-explanitory. I'll give you a little known fact about me and before you know it, you'll be a fountain of Daydreamer trivia. Lucky you.

Unknown Daydreamer Fact #1: I empty out vacuum cleaner bags and use them a second time (a two-fold fact, you know I buy half as many bags as the average person, AND you know that I'm cheap - though a lot of you already knew that one)

Monday, November 24, 2008

It was kind of rainy all day today and all yesterday afternoon. That's really odd weather for here, where it very seldom rains, and if it does, it happens at night most of the time. We can always use rain though, so I'm not complaining. We're going to have to get used to it, it rains much more the farther up the mountains you go and we're going to be at about 1200 ft at our new house. It'll be cooler up there too. Everything changes as you go up the mountain, it's like a completely different world. Actually, our whole island is like that, if you do a circuit of the entire island, you'll see beaches, lava fields, ranch/grazing land, mountains w/snow, rain forests - you name it, we've got it.

We was in our local paper today. They interviewed those of us on this side of the island who were doing nanowrimo, took pictures and wrote a really nice article. http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2008/11/23/features/features01.txt
Maybe it'll even sell a few of my books. Talk about Nano, I didn't do any writing today at all. That means that I've got to average 3,000 words tomorrow and another 3K on Tuesday in order to meet my goal of finishing on before we leave on Wednesday. Wish me luck.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Nanoing

Today I went to Borders and had a write-in with three other Nano-ers. Way very much fun, except they were selling grilled chicken in the Walmart parking lot and we were smelling that the whole time, which made us all hungry. I DID get some writing done and am back on track, I'd fallen behind yesterday, but I'm good again. I've got a little less than 6 K to write by Wednesday so I can validate my Nano word count before we leave for our church convention on Wednesday. I can do this!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Where does she sleep?

I'm washing bedding today. I went to take the sheets off angel #4's bed and this is what I found:
  • 1 pencil
  • 1 pen
  • 2 composition notebooks
  • 1 3-ring binder
  • 5 stuffed animals (including a 3 foot tall lion)
  • 1 Little Red Riding Hood type basket with a bed pillow in it
  • 5 cat toys
  • 1 dresser drawer
  • 3 pair of pajamas
  • 2 bathrobes
  • 2 throw pillows
  • 1 alarm clock

The top sheet was pulled off the bed and lying on the floor - apparently there wasn't room for it in the bed. Did I mention this is a single bed - the top bed in her bunk bed. She's a normal sized kid, definitely more Amazon than Thumbalina...and she also sleeps with her cat. Yeah, I don't know how it all fits either. The bottom bunk is completely empty because that's where Jake the Wonder Dog sleeps.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Oops, I forgot that yesterday was Book Review Tuesday. Here you go:

Tuesday Book Review:Snobbery With Violence by Marion Chesney - Anything written by Marion Chesney is great, but her Edwardian romances are da bomb. Snobbery With Violence is the first of a series - there's four written, I haven't read #4 yet, but I hope it wraps up the romance between Harry and Rose. They're mystery stories with a touch of romance. Good stuff

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

RIP Bonsai

Well, Bonsai made it easier for us today. He was so sick this morning when we woke up that WE asked that we take him in asap to be put down because he couldn't stand seeing him in pain. About fifteen minutes after the kids left for school, he died. I was glad we didn't have to be responsible for putting him down. Now, for Amber, the reason we didn't do this a long time ago. I certainly crossed my mind, but since I'm known as the animal disliker of the family, they wouldn't listen to my suggestion anyway, so I just shut my mouth and let the family make their own decision. Besides, just when we thought the cat wasn't going to make it through the night, the darn thing would start recovering and we'd think he just might make it afterall. But, turns out he didn't make it. There were tears, but it's how life works and the kids understand that.

And also for Amber, I don't like bunnies because they've got nasty little pointed teeth, just like all other rodents. So, it's not only rabbits that I don't like, I also don't like rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, mongi and any other kind of rodents. Chickens are also creepy looking.

the suckiness of having pets

Bonsai the cat has been slowly going downhill the last month. Every week he's got some new medical problem. Yesterday he started yowling and drooling. It's pretty gross. We put him in the garage so we didn't have to hear him and WE ended up sleeping in the garge with him all night last night, tough I don't think he got much sleep. We had a family discussion tonight about possibly putting him down and, as expected, there were tears. Suprisingly, Angel #2 was the one who brought it up. Of course, I've been thinking of it for a couple weeks, but didn't say anything because...well, everyone knows my feelings on animals, so my opinion is obviously biased. Since it's WE's cat, we kind of let him make the decision and he just told me, through tears, that if he's not better by tomorrow afternoon, we'll take him in. This is not a cheery household tonight.

I don't know about getting another Cindy for the new place, Amber. I guess I don't mind cows, as long as I don't have to milk them. I draw the line at milking. Hubby's been talking about getting goats and chickens. E-I-E-I-O

Sunday, November 16, 2008

exploring

We took the kids up to see our new house today. They hadn't seen it yet, though that didn't stop them from fighting over who was going to sleep in which bedroom. We still don't have that one all figured out yet, the discussion's been shelved for the time being. We also ran around the land a bit. There's a LOT of room out there, which is cool. We'd been hemmed in in town for too long. Long ago, the place used to be a working farm and we found all kinds of rock walls, all overgrown with vines and tall grass. We also found some unused bee hives. Here's something most people don't know about me. Though I've never done it, I've always been interested in bee keeping. Maybe we'll get some bees and have those hives up and running, how cool would that be? The kids seemed to have fun exploring. We found a couple guava trees and some lilikoi vines. Hopefully, we'll find more fruit trees as we dig around the property more. Things grow fast here, so maybe we'll buy a couple orange and lemon trees and plant them, too. The pineapple I planted in pots a year ago really need to be transplanted too. We'll have a fun little farm in no time at all.

Why husband's shouldn't yard sale

Hubby and his buddy took the scooters out today and just cruised around all day. They hit a few yard sales. Fortunately, because of limited storage space, they couldn't buy a whole lot, but, do you know what WILL fit in the storage space of a motorized scooter? A bullwhip and num-chuks. Yeah. WE's already snapped himself in the back with the whip. How? I dunno. It's only a matter of time before he knocks himself out with the num-chuks.

Angel #1 spent most of this afternoon washing, vacuuming and otherwise cleaning out his new car. I can't get him to clean his room, but apparently a car is different. Now, if he can only get it to run without the whole neighborhood knowing about it, he'll be in business.

Angel #4 and I went to the library booksale today and scored big. We managed to get a copy of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, only the greatest movie of all time, for a dime. She was also being nice and picked up a copy of the 2nd Harry Potter book for her brothers, not realizing that it was a Spanish version. I guess it'll come in handy if some fantasy loving Mexican immigrant stops by for a visit and is looking for something to read. Though, of course, that's not as funny as the time the random person dropped a hockey book written in Finnish inside our front door. That was beyond strange - and we never really did find out who gave it to us, though through a series of strange events, we have a pretty good idea.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Life's milestones

Big day for Angel #1 today. He just bought his first car. It's not any great shakes, he paid $200 for it, it's a VW Rabbit convertible. He's pretty excited about it and has been sitting in it checking it out since it got here. It obviously needs some work, I've got the feeling it's going to be a fixture in my driveway for a while.

I had the funniest phone call the other night. My friend Keala called me and said "I talked to my dad." I sat there, quiet, waiting for why she's telling me this. Are you there? she asks. Uh yeah, you were saying you talked to your dad. Dead silence again. Finally, we figured out what we were trying to say to each other. Apparently, she's text messaged me wondering if I knew where her dad was because he wasn't where he was supposed to be and they hadn't heard from him in a day or so. They were worried and were contacting people who might know where he was. I don't have text messaging enabled on my phone, so I never got the message that he was lost, so I didn't get it when she called to tell me he was found. It was funny when it happened, I guess you had to be there.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Nano Powers - Activate!

I'm kind of slogging around on my Nano project today. I'm still ahead of schedule, but I want to be MORE ahead of schedule. Know what I mean?

Angel #4's teacher called me today. Turns out she took WE's cast out of the garbage where I'd thrown it and took it to school today. She put it on her arm and told everyone she had a broken arm. She wore the smelly old thing ALL day, and they'd even gone on a field trip. Well, I think her original idea was just to trick some people, but you know how these things can rocket out of control. I guess she had a pretty eleborate story going on, and since her teacher didn't get a good look at the cast, she didn't realize that #4's arm wasn't really broken until the end of the school day. By this time, the story had grown out of control. The teacher had a long talk with #4 about lying, then called me afterwards. When she got home from school, I had the lying talk with her also. The teacher told me some of her story, with her imagination, maybe she should be the writer in the family!

Yesterday hubby and I looked at a new rental house. I'd pretty much had it with dealing with the landlord here. I wanted to paint the interior of the house, you know, make it feel a little more personalized and like 'our home' instead of just a house we live in. After all, we've been here almost 1 1/2 years, we're not exactly fly-by-night renters or anything. Well, the landlord said no, even if we paid for the paint, did the painting ourselved and repainted it to whatever color he wanted when we moved out. Well, it's his house and it was obvious there was no dealing with someone with such a stubborn mindset, we decided to find a place we could personalize. Well, we found one, and it's out in the country! I'm pretty much over living in town and am ready for a little country privacy again. We'll be moving in January, so that'll give me plenty of time to do a leisurely pack instead of one of those 'throw everything in a box and hope for the best' kind of move. I think the angels are all good with the move, though #4 isn't totally thrilled with the fact that she'll be going to a different school next year. We'll just drive her back and forth for the rest of this year. Fortunately, the other kids won't have to move schools...and with any luck, their buses will come later in the morning than they do now.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

yes, it's pink

I brought Angel #2 and her friends shopping today. While I was there, I picked up a package of toilet paper. They were out of white, so I had to buy colored stuff. I didn't know they even still made colored toilet paper. Anyway, I bought pink and it's caused no small amount of amazment at the daydreamer household. The girls commented on its pinkness when I put it in the car and wanted to know what other colors there were. I don't think any of them had ever even seen colored TP before. (blue and green, in case you were wondering). WE just came out of the bathroom a minute ago and said, "do my eyes deceive me, or do we have pink toilet paper?" "Whoa, we have pink stuff," hubby commented. It doesn't take much to put my family in a tailspin.

#2's friend, the vampire girl, eventually showed up last night. #2 was laughing so hard that she threw up. I heard her do it, but kind of forgot about it, until they brought it up this afternoon when we were sitting at the food court at the shopping center. Why they decided that was good lunch conversation is beyond me. While the girls did their shopping, I brought my Alphasmart with me and did some writing. I staked my claim at a food court table and started typing. Problem is, a food court in Hawaii, isn't like normal food courts. We had geriatric hula dancers strutting their stuff in ours. I've seen them around before, I'm not sure if they go their every day or just Tuesdays - I'm usually only at the food court on Tuesdays, since that's our usual go out to coffee day. Anyway, the funny thing I found about the geriatric hula-ers, is there wasn't a single Hawaiian in the bunch. They were all white people with a couple Japanese thrown in for variety. They didn't just hula, either, there were ukelele's and one old guy that kind of looked like Burl Ives (you know, the snowman guy in the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas special), and he sang - really bad. It certainly made writing a bit more difficult.


Oh yes, it's book review Tuesday. I only read on book this week. It was called The Ticket Out by Helen Knode. Two word review: Don't Bother Hopefully I'll have something more edifying for you next week.

Monday, November 10, 2008

My boys really needed haircuts. Yesterday, I figured I'd hold them down and do it, so they wouldn't look freshly cut when we go to Oahu over Thanksgiving. WE whined the entire time, but today when I asked him if everyone like his haircut, he got his funny little grin and said someone told him he looked handsome. Angel #1's hair is so obnoxious and curly that by the time I finished with him, the bathroom looked like an episode of Poodles Gone Wild. They both look much better now.

No school tomorrow. Angel #'s 2 & 4 are both having friends over. Well, #4's friend is already here, #2's friend is famous for her ability to sleep during the day and stay awake all night - she gets through her school day by drinking energy drinks. She hasn't shown up here yet, so I'm not sure if she's still sleeping or wandering around town looking for a caffiene fix. #2 has been wanting a friend over for quite a while and it just hasn't worked out. I hope the vampire girl shows up soon so they can do whatever it is teenage girls do during sleepovers.

Angel #4 and her friend both play saxophone in the school band. For some reason, they were playing their saxes this afternoon on the side of the street in front of our house. Yeah, the neighbors all think we're weird.

Talk about weird neighbors, I got a laugh out of ours today. She's single and lives alone. She's been putting stuff for sale on Craig's List and had a man coming over to look at some patio furniture. She was leery about having a strange man over, so she came over here and borrowed Jake, the Wonder Dog for protection. I don't know what she thought Jake was going to do if something actually happened, maybe shed all over the guy or something. I think she just figured a 60 pound dog might disuade someone from trying any funny business. I told her that next time this happens to just mention her husband, the cop, in the conversation a couple times and it should have the same effect at Jake intimidation. I watched her house when the guy came over, there she was, showing him her patio furniture while dragging Jake around with her on his leash. The guy didn't buy her furniture, but he didn't try anything either. Jake must have served his purpose.

not a whole lot going on

I spent most of my time today either writing for Nano or thinking about what I was going to write for Nano. I got my 2000 + words written for today finally, so I'm keeping right on track. I just hope I'll stay consistant.

We found out that WE shaved his arm the other day. I guess the arm with the cast on had grown some gross black hairs - hair that probably just gets worn off under normal circumstances. Well, WE didn't want to wait for normal circumstances to wear it off, so he tackled it with his dad's Gillette. Now he's got razor stubble on his arm and got picked on unmercifully by his big brother. When I was a kid, I wanted a big brother so bad. But now that I see Angel #1 tormenting his siblings, I realize that I didn't miss all that much by being the oldest child in my family.

Angel #2 has a penpal. Angel #2, being the kind of kid she is, doesn't have a normal penpal. Her penpal is her friend Rose. She goes to school with Rose and works with her 3 days a week after school at the library. The plan is that they're going to write letters to each other, but they can't talk about the letters to each other in real life and the letters have to be about stuff that they don't talk about when they're together. Yeah, they're a little odd, but there's so many worse things teenaged girls could be doing that I'm willing to spring for the cost of a stamp once or twice a week.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

way fun

We had a Nanowrimo write-in at Borders Books this morning. Me and three other people who are doing Nano in the area got together and talked about our Nano projects and did a couple writing wars. Writing wars are where you set a specific time and see who can write the most during that time. I ended being that for 3 1/2 hours. We're going to meet again in do weeks and do the same. It's so fun hanging out with other writers - they don't look at you funny when you talk about the voices in your head, because they're hearing voices of their own.

Ready....March!

Grey, you'll always be cool, no matter which way you comment. :D

We just got back from the Coffee Festival Parade. Angel #4's elementary school band marched in it. #4 plays the saxophone and her best friend, Maddog, plays the flute. They're all 5th grade and younger, many have only been playing their instrument since the beginning of September and the only song they all knew was Row Row Row Your Boat, so they played it over and over for the entire parade. They were incredibly cute and got a round of applause during the entire parade. The cutest was the little boy playing baritone. He'd stop playing in the middle of the song, stoop down and pick up a stray piece of candy thrown out by previous entries, shove it in his pocket, then start playing again. The whole group had a little bit of trouble marching when they started out. As long as they were moving, things were fine, but when they had to stop, the trouble started. Remember that scene in Animal House at the very end during the parade and the marching band all ran into the brick wall? Well, that's pretty much what happened, except, they didn't run into a wall, just each other. But, by the end of the route, they were getting the hang of it and doing pretty darn good. They can't wait for the Christmas Parade next month.

Friday, November 7, 2008

a non-mongoose day


Heather, this would be a mongoose. It's like a squirrel with an attitude. I don't like them in my house.

Yay, Afton is here in all her glorious anonymous glory! Glad you're here (I can't wait to hear how your date went)

We took WE's cast off tonight. When he got it put on, the Dr. said take it off in 5 weeks. But, it turns out the doctor is on a 2 week vacation, so the soonest he could get it off was Nov 18, 6 1/2 weeks after getting it put on. We couldn't see the point in him having to keep it on for an extra week and a half, just because the doctor wanted to spend a couple weeks in Vegas, so we took it off ourselves using a metal snippers. Besides, it was starting to reek real bad and Tag covers only a certain amount of stench....the smell was starting to cramp his style with the ladies. We'll get it x-rayed and take the pictures to the Doc on his Nov 18 appt, just so she can make sure everything healed like it was supposed to. First thing we had him do though was take a good soapy shower.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Like I don't already have enough critters in the house

I came down the stairs this afternoon and heard a scurrying sound under WE's computer table. I managed to look down just in time to see two mongooses? - mongeese? - mongi? hotfoot it out the open screen door and outside. We keep the screen door open a few inches so the cats can get in and out during the day. It is NOT for mongoose use. Apparently, I'm going to have to put up a sign to that effect so they know they're not welcome here.



Bonsai the cat seems to be a serial illness kind of pet. The urinary tract infection seems to be going away - we're medicine droppering cranberry juice down his throat, but now he's got these hairless bumps on his head and neck. I put some peroxide on them and some antibiotic ointment, since there are some open sores, but frankly, I'm getting tired of constantly finding new medications to put on this cat that seems determined to stay sick no matter what we do.

Yay for Blogger autosave! I accidentally hit the wrong button and deleted some of my post. I just popped over to the list of posts, clicked on this one and ta-da! There it was in all its pre-deletion glory. The only thing I'm missing from Bravenet is smilies. If Blogger has smilies somewhere that I'm not seeing, someone please let me know. I'm feeling smilie deprived.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

It's finally over!

You were right the first time, Alaine, I didn't cancel out enough. Oh well, the choice has been made, I just hope America doesn't regret it too badly. I was happy I didn't have to wait in line to vote like I heard they had to in some places. I just went right up and did my civic duty. Angel #2 came with me when I voted and went into the voting booth with me. She talked me into voting for the guy with the Blazing Saddles theme song, but I guess it didn't really matter since he lost anyway. Looks like I couldn't vote for a winner today if I tried. Well, I certainly won't miss all the election bruhaha though. Personally, I'm sick to death of all of them, I can't imagine what it was like for those of you with tv's getting bombarded with television ads - at least I assume you were bombarded.

I'm glad to see some of you have found your way over from my Bravenet account...hopefully you all did. I'd hate to lose the few readers I actually DO have.

A new thing I'm going to try out starting next week (if I remember) is Book Review Tuesday. Every Tuesday (once again, IF I remember) I'm going to do a review of a book I read the previous week. I just picked Elizabeth Lane's latest The Borrowed Bride up at Walmart today. I read an excerpt on Unusual Historicals this week and it sounded so good I couldn't get it out of my head. When I saw it at Walmart today, I snapped it right up even though I put my name in the UH drawing to win the book. I didn't want to run the risk of it not being at the store next week when I went to buy it after finding out I didn't win it. I very seldom win anything, so I'm not really expecting to win it anyway. I'm just not a winning kind of person. Maybe I'll ignore my Nano responsibilities enough this week and read it for next weeks review.

I've got to say, I really like the autosave feature Blogger has. No longer do I hold my breath while typing out my post in hopes that I don't hit the wrong button and have the whole thing disapppear, which has happened more times than I care to think about at Bravenet.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

just call him gimpy

WE was stung by something last night while walking Jake, the wonder dog. We think it was a centipede, since they're really nasty down here and their poison can really do a number on you. His foot is all swelled up and he's been hobbling around. Usually, if we know someone was bitten by a centipede, we put some Benedryl on it and it goes away relatively fast, but if you don't do that right away, it can cause swelling and pain, which is what WE has. He'll get over it, he's a tough little bugger. But with his foot swelled and his left arm still in a cast, he's starting to look pretty rough. Not only looking rough, but smelling pretty raunchy, too. The cast is waterproof, but it has cotton batting inside and that's getting pretty gross. He keeps spraying Tag on it, but it can only cover up so much stench. I can't wait for him to get that gross thing off.

Everyone's got off of school tomorrow. I think it's because the schools are used as voting venues, so they call off school to get the kids out of the way. Now I just have to remember to go and do my civic duty tomorrow and cancel out someone else's vote.

Monday, November 3, 2008

And we're off!

Okay, I took the step of leaving the security of my 1000+ entried Bravenet blog and heading out into Bloggerville. Yay me!

For newbies: I'm known to my internet friends as Daydreamer. I have for so long that I think people are talking about me when they mention someone is a daydreamer. Yeah, I'm self obsessed :D

I've got 4 kids, known as Angel #1, Angel #2, Angel #4 and WE - which stands for Worm Eater for sadly obvious reasons. Though, I'm happy to say that it's been a couple years since he's munched on worms...I think. I've also got a wonderful husband, who puts up with my lazy ways, a dog named Jake, who's lazier than I am, and 3 cats, Mouschi, Chloe and Bonzai. Bonzai is sick at the moment, we're suspecting bladder infection, so yeah, that's gross. Despite the plethora of animals, I'm NOT an animal person. I prefer them on my plate with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy to having them in my home, shedding and forcing me to pick up their poop with my hand wrapped in a plastic Walmart bag.

This month, I'm doing Nanowrimo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, a commitment for the month of November that I will write 50,000 words on a new novel, started November 1st and, if not over, at least 50K completed by November 30. I've suceeded twice before, one of them is now published and for sale at Amazon, called It Takes Moxie. Last years project is done and I have some publisher interest, but it's been set aside so I can tackle this years project, tentively titled The Road Back Home. They're all 1920's romances, because I'm just a romantical kind of person. I've also got a second book published, called Eye of the Beholder.

For the last 2 1/2 years, I've lived within wave hearing distance from the beach in Hawaii. Before that, I was born and raised in Wisconsin and still have a strong Wisconsin accent and crave bratwurst and cheese curds on a regular basis. This is where I used to be: http://www.dulciemae.bravejournal.com/index.php But I guess I'm here now.