Category: This & That

More Les Fleurs

My peony bush has finally lost all its blooms. Man, was it laden with them this year! To think that monster peony bush once hid behind a shrub banking the house. Every spring I’d wonder why the heck a white, bushy flower or two was poking up over the shrub. Then, when we put on our addition, we took out the shrub. Low and behold, El Peony Bush appeared and has been going nuts every since.

Here are two pics of the peony and one of a baby marigold. It’s in a separate garden that didn’t want to get left out.

f_white_peony

I’m Ready For My Close-Up

f_white_peony_2

Not THAT Close!

f_baby_marigolds

Baby Marigolds

Monday Musings

As the countdown to the RWA National Conference in Washington, D.C. begins, I find myself surprisingly glad that I’m not going. Okay, maybe I’ve just talked myself into it, but after two years in a row of attending National, I’m ready for a break. Typing this, I realize I’ve never attended National three years in a row. I suppose I will some day. This year, given the cost of flying across the continent, the fact that neither I nor Penny sold a project in ’08, and because I’ve attended National in D.C. once before, I don’t think I’ll miss it. I’ll miss seeing my Looney Bin and Scrabble buddies, Tina Ferraro and Diana Duncan, attending the RITA ceremonies as nominees, however. Wouldn’t it be cool if they both won their categories?

As for myself, I’m looking forward to continuing to write instead of going crazy prepping for conference. The money I would have spent on new conference clothes can go toward the new stove instead. Last week, I began a new story for Penny, her first “short.” Wrote 3800 words on Thursday, I think it was. Aside from the year I participated in NaNaWriMo, that’s a record for me. Am revising them now before proceeding with writing new stuff. Target market requires 5000-15,000 words, so I have a lot of leeway.

Meanwhile, my cindpk ST is sitting and gathering inspiration. Depending on how Penny’s short story goes this week, I might dig into revisions on the cindypk in another week. Two at the outside. I don’t want to leave it sitting too long.

I signed up for Carbonite last week, an on-line document backup system. I really like it, it’s easy to use, but my desktop is 4.5 years old, and, alas, I fear Delbert is too slow for Carbonite. I’ll have to allow my trial to expire and return to using flashdrives.

With the weather so nice lately, for the first time in my writing life I’m really feeling the absence of a laptop. Especially now that the household budget has recovered from buying each of the kids a laptop for high school graduation. And, also, the cost of those new netbooks is rather tempting. If I sell something this year, I might indulge in a netbook or a small laptop. I prefer my ergonomic desktop keyboard, but the portability of a netbook/laptop is carroting in front of my eyes.

A heads-up, I’m blogging at Nobody Writes It Better on Wednesday, July 1st, which is Canada Day for those not in the know. I’m giving away a paperback copy of my Canadian-set novel, HEAD OVER HEELS (by the way, if you visit that link, the upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 seems to have affected some spacing issues on my Books pages. I’ll have to fix that one of these days).

I’ll post a reminder about the book give-away Wednesday. How is your week shaping up?

 

Les Fleurs

I’m finding it really hard to get used to My Liege taking nearly every Monday off work. It shortens my week!

I’m brainstorming a new story for Penny. Pretty much have a title, maybe a setting, and maybe some character names. Oh, and a theme. Or plot. Whatever you choose to call it. Let’s just say it has something to do with the number 3.

Seeing as my mind is otherwise occupied, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some of my flower pics. These are from my mother’s garden, taken 3 (there’s that number again) or so weeks ago. Enjoy!

Dying Tulips

“Dying Tulips”

Don’t you love the feathery edges? (They were feathery before the tulips began their descent into oblivion).

Tiger, Tiger

“Tiger, Tiger”

That bud thing looks like it’s pushing the tiger.  If I were the tiger, I’d snap its head off. This is why I’m not a flower. Too violent.

Bee-Have

“Bee-Have!”

I believe this is called an Onion Flower. All I care is that it’s purple and spiky, and that my monster zoom lens allowed me to capture the bee.

Nod to Dads

fathers_day

My Liege is golfing with our sons today, and I’m visiting my dad in a few. To all the wonderful fathers out there, have a great day!

Shopping Impaired

A writing buddy and I were talking the other day, and I discovered a wonderful thing about her—she’s as shopping-impaired as I am. I’ve known her for years, and yet I didn’t know this. We feel like oddities in a world of shopaholics. While other woman can’t wait to go to the mall, she and I postpone shopping trips until we absolutely can’t stand wearing the same clothes for, um, sometimes 6 years.

Usually, the only time I do any major clothes shopping is right before a conference. Once I start the shopping, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it. It’s just finding the motivation to hit the stores that’s so damn hard.

What hit this home to me is that I’ve been meaning to go clothes-shopping since around, oh, January. I was running out of jeans. Well, eventually, the weather caught up to me, and now it doesn’t matter. I don’t need jeans. I need shorts and skorts. The zippers on two skorts I bought for a trip to NYC with My Liege before the last NYC RWA conference finally gave out! What? Those skorts were only 6 years old! They still fit. They were in great shape. WTF? Then, two days later, the sash tie on a favorite pair of shorts split apart as I was tying it. Now I’m down 3 pairs of shorts/skorts. I must go shopping.

My birthday is in January, and my parents winter down south, so I usually get money that the Little Pisser is very good about hiding from me until my birthday. When I opened the card this year, I knew exactly what I wanted to buy with my birthday money—a new purse. I’m addicted to Derek Alexander purses. They’re excellent quality, easily last for two years, and help keep me organized. So I finally bought my new purse, um, at the end of May, 4.5 months past my birthday. I’m still meaning to put leftover birthday money from my in-laws toward a new camera bag. Yeah, that might happen sometime in the next two centuries. Unless I break down and order one on-line. On-line shopping, I could get into.

As a kid, my older sister and a good friend and I used to go shopping sometimes on Saturdays. It was a great expedition. For them. They’d try on dozens of clothes while I sat in a chair reading comics or begging them To. Please. Stop.

So, I thought I’d do a survey. Are my friend and I the odd women out? Do you love to shop, or do you dread it? Do you dread it until you get there, and then you go crazy (this does happen to me from time to time)? Or do you just dread it period?

 

I’m Alive!

You wouldn’t know it from my lack of participation around here.

I’m still in Between Projects Mode. My massive To-Do list exploded when I suddenly discovered myself taking on far more of the Nobody Writes It Better blog launch than I’d expected. It couldn’t be helped. One of those life circumstances that happens along, and the majority of the work shouldn’t fall to one person (I’m not talking about me here), anyway. I was happy to lend a hand to get the blog up and running. I still have a task to accomplish there—getting the Gallery page packed with more than placeholder images. But I also need to continue tackling The Office so I can move from Between Projects Mode to Brainstorming New Projects Mode. So that’s what I’m paper_mountaindoing. Digging my office out from under several years’ worth of manuscripts. Which mainly means storing them somewhere else. I’m one of those packrats who likes to keep ALL the evidence of agents and editors to whom I’ve submitted a particular project as well as at least one copy of every draft I’ve printed out. Until I sell a project, those files remain in my office. However, I just found a ton of files for BORROWING ALEX, which was published two years ago. Time for the files to move! I also found a bunch of files for Penny’s next release, this coming December. I’ve done everything for that release aside from getting to see the cover and promotion, so, yep, I can pack her files away, too.

I’ve discovered great little binders I put together the last time I did one of these The Office checks. They’re full of notes from Kiss of Death classes I’ve taken. I’d forgotten where they were, because they were on top of a plastic pseudo-file cabinet (which held pieces of BORROWING ALEX, among other things), underneath two cat blankets. Yes, The Evil Entity has been sleeping on mystery/suspense notes. Explains her personality.

The notes don’t do me much good if I don’t know where they are, so I’m trying—note that, trying—to reorganize the office with a tad of a semblance of order.

What’s up in your writing world?