Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

I have been inspired to start seedlings soon. Not too many because who knows how much time I will have this spring and summer, but a couple of different veggies and maybe some perennial herbs. Perhaps this weekend! I might have to hit Home Depot for supplies after I drop The Fop at the airport Sunday morning. I’m still out of potting soil and I have a long list of plants that need to be transplanted. (This will handily free up a bunch of small pots for starting seedlings too!) I want to grow hot peppers this year!

Winter? Don’t take this is as a sign I’ve given up on you! A good March or April snowstorm would be just fine!

(warning! terribly introspective, self-indulgent silliness ahead!)

Do I write more and post more when I’m super-busy? I’ve been wondering that looking at the monthly post totals so far this year. (24 posts in January, 25 in February, this will be my 6th in March.) This year has been a non-stop busy season at work it seems. Monster Cat is contributing to the post count too, and sometimes those posts are just the comic without any additional text from me. I’m really happy I’ve been able to keep up the M-W-F Monster Cat schedule so far. Cross your fingers for more - March is going to be quite a ride. But anyway, I’m finding my quantity of postings quite impressive this year.

Of course, as I get busier at work I have less time for everything else in my world. I’ve been poking at this post all day, on and off. It’s easy to collect links, ramble on with mindless blather and just generally be chatty and content-free between conference calls or when I need a break from staring at SPREADSHEETS OF DOOM [tm]. (Trust me, the all-caps is warranted. The two spreadsheets I am scouring for information are awkward at best on my work laptop and only passably usable on the 30″ display. When I’m only looking at one project, it doesn’t matter. When I’m trying to figure out something involving 20 projects? Eek.)

Hmm… herbs, hot peppers and something completely random, I think.

tags: blogging, gardening, work, writing

The snow was indeed gone when we got home on Saturday.

Before I get into a weekend recap, this is one photo in a series I took playing with depth of field and focus. I love columbine flowers and seed pods. The leaves below are a baby maple tree’s statement that, “Hey! I’m a real tree too! Look at me change colors!”

The trip to Virginia was short but fun. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel great most of the weekend, but that was probably due to the hotel beds being un-sleepable. (I hereby declare “sleepable” to be a word.) Thursday night we had a bit of a kerfuffle with the car service who was supposed to pick us up at the train station in DC and take us out to Vienna, VA. Standing in the chill while figuring out transportation may have contributed to my lack of greatness over the weekend. We had fabulous steak for dinner to console ourselves. Yum steak!

I didn’t sleep well on the un-sleepable bed Thursday night and couldn’t even convince myself to sleep in. When you think to yourself, “Maybe I’ll feel better when I get up.” it’s not a good sign. I did get up and got my one thing for the day accomplished - I hit the Mall for a haircut. My hair is shorter and thinner now (hurray for cool thinning shears!) and in general neater. I wandered the mall for a while and lost my book somewhere. *grumble* I also found one of the tiniest Lush stores I’ve ever been in - it was basically a short, glassed in hallway, perhaps six feet wide. Tiny but well organized and just wide enough for 2 people to get around each other. I resisted spending money in Levenger but I couldn’t resist Lush. In general, my mall outing was lethargic despite the caffeine… I felt better once I got back to the hotel and had some fruit salad and more water but spent the rest of the afternoon vegging out in front of the tv with my laptop.

The Fop’s company’s holiday party was pretty awesome. I got to meet most of the people I’d been hearing about (or hearing on speaker phone) for the past couple of years. Everyone was delightful, smart and amusing. We figured out that of the 16 people there we had 4 people from Maine! That’s pretty exciting, at least to us! The food was delicious and the whole event was lovely thanks to the fabulous planning Kristi did (one of the Mainers!). I think we all ate too much but it really was gloriously yummy. (Yum! More steak!) It’s always fun to dress up too - imagine, the Fop wore a suit!

Friday night was another night for not sleeping. Stupid un-sleepable bed. Saturday we needed to get to the train station a little early because the automatic ticket printer in Philly had failed to print both of our return tickets. Someone figured that out for us and we hit the lovely bookstore in Union Station to find me something to read. Not that I needed the book. Once we got on the train I crashed and slept fitfully most of the way back to Philly. The nap helped a little, but essentially the rest of our day was shot because we were both so tired.

I do like Amtrak despite the ridiculous prices. At no time did Amtrak security make me show them my personal hygiene products or make me remove my shoes. I didn’t even have to unload my computer from my backpack. I appreciate that so much.

Sunday was spent sleeping in. Happy sleepable bed, at least comparatively speaking! Grocery shopping and other stuff was achieved.

The weekend now seems very far away (as does the beginning of this post)! I started writing this at some point this morning and work got… busy. Very busy. But in a mostly happy way. My boss is out of the office unexpectedly today and tomorrow so I got roped in to a couple of unexpected projects beyond my usual Monday fun! I really enjoy feeling productive and today was definitely all about the productive. I was on enough of a roll that I even made something new for dinner (lollipop lamb chops with 3 different experimental seasonings) and then made a batch of fudge. Go me!

tags: amtrak, cooking, photographs, photography, sleep, travel, virginia, weekend, work

I finished my 50,000 words yesterday at 7:33 p.m. I actually ended up a little over since I was in the middle of a rather pivotal conversation at the time. I hit 50k at a good point but the story isn’t over. I still need to add a couple more scenes to resolve the plot. I think I’m going to wait to do that in the Spring when I pick this up again. Right now I’m still feeling rather like I had two finals and a final paper due yesterday - which is too say, recovering.

So, 10 days ago I wrote that I didn’t like my story much anymore and I started mentioning to friends that I didn’t really expect to finish. What changed? The plot hit its stride and got interesting. It’s still not high art, but it’s definitely less trite than I’d feared. So not only was it an awesome experience that I hope to repeat next year, I have a large body of text to work with and try to work into a finished product after a requisite waiting period. The waiting period is definitely necessary. I need to step away from it completely so that I can see whether it is actually a cohesive story and world when I reread it. Ideally I’ll go back to it with fresh-ish eyes in April or so…

So what did I write? It’s a little, still untitled fantasy novel about a world just to the other side of our own. No, you can’t read it yet. Wait for summer after my editing exercise. I won’t even let the Fop read any of it.

I learned so much doing this writing project.

• Guess what? I can write a solid 2000 words a day even when I have no idea what to write!
• I need to get to know my characters and world before I can really get into the plot. The first 14-20k words were still part of the book but I think another time I’ll do more pre-writing rather than just jumping in.
• Writing is good for my brain.
• I can kick out high volumes of text when my plot is interesting and the deadline looms. I wrote about 14,000 words in the last 24 hours of my writing. (Just look at that graph!)
• I can send my inner editor on vacation for a month but sometimes there are ramifications of that in other parts of my life.

It was awesome. It’s like I remembered how to write over the course of 50,000 words. The difference between the flow at the beginning and the end is huge I think. Now we need a National Novel Editing Month scheduled for May…

tags: finished, nanowrimo, novel, victorious, writing

I finally hit the halfway point in my writing for Nanowrimo. This is farther than I’ve ever gotten before! YAY!

However, I’m behind. I’m also starting to not like the plot and how it’s developing, or not developing as the case may be. I didn’t get a lot of writing done today but I did do some outlining in the hopes that it will help me fly through the rest of the week. My original plan had me not writing on Thanksgiving but I think I’m going to try to write that day anyway in the interest of actually finishing. It’s definitely an interesting and productive experience - I’ve learned a lot having gotten this far finally, despite no longer liking my own book. Hopefully that will change by the end of the week so I can finish this with a bang!

tags: nanowrimo, writing

It’s been a very gray Monday here so I am combating the drear with a very orange pumpkin! It’s a proper November day though - dim, threatening to be damp and generally conducive to naps, hot soup and building fires. Of course, I haven’t been able to do any of these things since I’m working today.

I had a most excellent and very busy weekend! Here’s the summary of my whirlwind tour for those of you interested:

• Thursday night I flew up to New Hampshire. Jon picked me up and we hauled K out to dinner at a fabulous Mexican restaurant in Concord.
• Friday morning, my mom picked me up for our adventures in Portland. I spent a lot of money on an embroidery sewing machine. I’ll be picking it up when I drive up for the holidays in December. Lunch Friday consisted of Maine Italians which made me really, really happy. Friday afternoon, I had a conference call that I couldn’t really miss, unfortunately. Friday night was spent hanging with the parental units and eating yummy hamburgers.



• Saturday morning we went back into Portland to go to an Italian grocery we hadn’t had time to go to the day before. Lunch Saturday was fresh mozzarella, Italian bread and bits of prosciutto. We made some really tasty cookies and fiddled about with my mom’s embroidery machine for a bit in the afternoon. The marvelous slyppi whisked me off to her brother’s house for a birthday party for her nephew (who is now 4!). We had a lovely time - much wine was had by all and I enjoyed meeting more of her brother’s in-laws. They are a fun family. We spent the night at slyppi’s dad’s condo in the Old Port.
• Sunday morning we wandered about a few shops in the Old Port then had brunch with our hosts. The Porthole makes awesome breakfast. We hung out with slyppi’s dad and M a little longer then headed towards Manchester to drop me off at the airport… of course, we had to stop along the way for a little, very successful shopping!

So all in all it was an excellent weekend. The weather up north was mild yet chilly - just biting enough to remind us that it was November. I took some photos in Windham and the Old Port that I’ll post eventually too.

Somewhere in there I found time to write about 1000 words for Nanowrimo. I’m about 2000 words behind now, but my plan is to make that up this week, hopefully by the weekend. If not, the weekend will be a big word-count push. I’m getting really excited about the world I’m creating as well as the story that’s wrapping around it. I still have no idea about a couple of key plot points, but they’ll come eventually… I hope!

tags: maine, nanowrimo, new hampshire, old port, photographs, photography, sewing, travel, weather, weekend, writing

When we were up in New England, we got to Maine after dusk and as such I only took a few photos and I like … 2 of them. I’m not a big fan of flash but I kind of like how this photo came out though the center leaves have a little too much light.

Remember to turn your clocks back tonight and be careful in the evenings this week! Daylight savings time always screws people up - auto and pedestrian fatalities go up significantly around the changing of the clocks. There’s nothing like artificially shifting our day by an hour to muck everything up.

I’ve been writing a lot today… I’m up to 6092 words so I’m currently on pace. I’m hoping to get 10k done by the end of this weekend so I have a little bit of a margin of error in case of writer’s block. So far I’m amused by the little world I’m building. The nanowrimo web site is slow as molasses going up hill in Maine in January, but my profile is here - drop me a comment or e-mail with your profile info if you’re also doing the race.

tags: autumn, daylight savings time, fall back, leaves, maine, nanowrimo

After a week of Starbucks coffee, I love to come home to my own tasty coffee… Freshly ground Armeno beans, french pressed brew, a cup with whole milk instead of my usual low-fat milk because I used up my milk on my cereal. It is bliss. This is not to say that Starbucks coffee sucks… I do enjoy it. But mine is much, much better. And cheaper. And easily acquired without needing to get dressed or leaving the house. Which is good since it has finally turned into a comfortably cool fall out here and running to Starbucks in my pjs would be chilly.

Another bit of Fall for you all… The farm stand Jon took us to had something called The Observatory. It was a raised deck about 15 feet off the ground that you could climb up and take in the scene. It may not sound like much, but it got us off the ground just far enough to take in the full, breath-taking views of the valley and mountains and fall colors. We went up there first, before the sun came out, so the foliage colors are even more intense in the photos. Gray days really are the best for fall colors.

My kitchen is littered with junk food, much of which I hope the Fop will be taking on his road trip to Crown this weekend.

I started writing for Nanowrimo this morning. I broke one of the usual recommendations. Usually it’s recommended that one not build on a previous short story or world because the writer will end up being too careful and too invested in the content to push out the 50,000 words as slap-dash as necessary. I’m hoping to avoid this problem through the sheer desire to get this world built and some actual plot into the world. I started to sketch an outline for some scene progressions yesterday as well as started to evolve the world around the events of the short story. I got down 732 words this morning before work and I have some time planned later today for writing. I can’t count the short story as part of my word count, which is fine, but I’ve incorporated part of what I wanted to add to the end of the short story from last set of editing notes.

Yes, I got up this morning and was awake enough to write. I got productive things done before 9 a.m. I know that this comes as a shock to those of you who have known me for a long time. Hey, I figure if this stupid allergy medicine is going to make me not get enough sleep, I should take advantage of the extra time!

tags: allergies, autumn, coffee, fall, foliage, nanowrimo, new hampshire, sleep, travel, weather

“Kerfuffle” is my word of the day. I think it’s a fabulous word - fun to say and write - plus it accurately describes many of the firedrills I deal with at work without increasing the alarm, stress or chaos of the situation. Sometimes, using “kerfuffle” is even understatement. Expressive without overt sarcasm!

kerfuffle: (Scottish descent) a disorderly outburst, tumult or fuss. In other words, a small dose of chaos. synonyms: stir, to-do, distruption, disturbance, flutter.

It’s not a very formal word, but it’s a British import and underused as well which somehow makes “kerfuffle” slightly more acceptable to the people I keep using it with. It seems to put the chaos in appropriate perspective. What fascinates me about the questions and issues I’m fielding this week is that so many are just a matter of pointing out the trees to folks who are only seeing the forest. Even I am looking to provide more complicated answers to some of the questions and only to have someone say, “That’s what I needed to know!” while I was still talking through the background information I had. I feel useful at least!

Oh, since it’s actually June now…

May Stats:

• Flickr: 33 new photos, 355 unique visitors.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 14 new posts, 4929 hits.

Am I the only one having a hard time grasping that it’s June and essentially summer and such? On one hand, it’s hard to believe it’s June but on the other it feels like it’s been summer for ages. It’s been cooler the last day or so, but it’s been in the 80s here since early May and April was pretty warm too. The National Weather Service has already issued a heat advisory for tomorrow. Ugh.

tags: heat, kerfuffle, language, statistics, weather, words, work

I slept a lot last night. By a lot I mean I went to bed at 9:30, was soundly asleep (thanks to Tylenol PM) by 10:30 or 11 and woke up around 8:30 this morning. I think I may do it again tonight depending on how my neck feels. I do feel much more alive today than yesterday except that my neck is a little more unhappy with me (probably due to crunching it too much while asleep Saturday night and then compounded spending too much time in bed last night). I don’t know if I’m fighting off a springtime cold or just dealing with allergies and such. The weather continues to be wild and crazy - comfortably chilly and it seems like it’s going to stay this way for the week.

I’ve been remarkably unproductive in general lately. I just feel like I can’t get fully recharged. Perhaps a couple more solid nights of sleep will help. Perhaps I need to go back to meditation via Tetris or something. It’s spring! The days are longer and brighter. I should be perkier! I have 3 different plots running around in my head yet none of them are coming out my fingers.

It should come as no surprise that I enjoy taking pictures of trees. I particularly like silhouettes. When I was wandering through the graveyard nearby earlier this month, I got a couple of very dark, contrasty shots of trees against the sky. The day was slightly brighter than these photos imply but I like the brooding tones of black on gray and the almost brittle contrasts.

I wish it were Friday already. I could do with another weekend right about now.

tags: sleep, trees, weather