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Friday, November 26, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

Goals in progress for today: #3 Have a meal/coffee/visit with a friend or family member twice a month, #10 Participate in NaNoWriMo and hopefully finish, #12 Visit one kitschy/specific/small museum or attraction every month, and #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week.

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I'm out of state meeting the BF's family for the first time.  It's been a while since I've posted anything so here's a quick catch-up: BUSY!  This month has been completely nuts.  While I have been working on #10 Participate in NaNoWriMo a bit, this will not be the year I make it to 50,000 words.  I'm not going to embarrass myself by putting my word count on here, but suffice it to say, it was abysmal. 

Last weekend I went to Mounds State Park with my friends Carol and Jessica, and Jessica's son.  We had a fantastic hike, which helped Jessica in her blog's goal of visiting a park and hiking every weekend in November, and helped me with my goal of #3 Have a visit with a friend member twice a month, so it was a win-win.  It was a beautiful day, we had a great hike, and Jessica had her kid strapped to her back the whole time!


From there we went to Carter's Antique Toy Museum, which had an adorable ice cream parlor in it.  Each booth had its own little juke box, and I spent 25¢ to play 3 songs. 


The museum was very cool and had all sorts of interesting things.  They had an entire floor of old coin-operated rides, which was probably more fun for us than it was for Jessica's kid.  Seriously, we were cracking up!  November's installment of #12 Visit one kitschy/specific/small museum or attraction every month was a success, and the price was actually $2 cheaper than what was listed on the website (bonus!!).  Here are a few pictures:









Since I was so far behind in posting, here's my #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week for last week and one for this week:



That's all for now, faithful readers.  Enjoy your weekend!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Busy busy busy, and First Goal Finished!

Goals in progress for today: #3 Have a meal/coffee/visit with a friend or family member twice a month, #9 Crochet a hat, #10 Participate in NaNoWriMo and hopefully finish, #11 Turn up the music and clean for an hour every Sunday, #15 Watch the classic movies everyone has seen but me, #23 Learn French, and #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week.

This may have been the most productive week of my year, and almost all of the action happened over the weekend.  I've been steadily plugging away at #10 Participate in NaNoWriMo, but my word count isn't even close to where it should be.  I'll be going out of town for Thanksgiving so hopefully I'll be able to get in some writing in the car.  I really want to finish this.  50,000 words is a daunting challenge, but I think it's doable.  Thankfully Starbucks is open late and has free wi-fi, so I've been taking advantage of that.  Coffee just helps me write (or at least that's the excuse I'm using).


Last week I decided to change #11 Turn up the music and clean for an hour every Sunday to every Saturday instead of Sunday, and I think it was a good plan.  The house is clean which makes coming home after such long days a lot more relaxing.  The house was scrubbed top to bottom in anticipation of my sister Jordan and my friend Jen coming over for movie night.  I cooked dinner and ordered Casablanca from Netflix and was able to do both #3 Have a meal/coffee/visit with a friend or family member twice a month and #15 Watch the classic movies everyone has seen but me in one night.  The company was great, and the movie was too.  Now I understand why it's a classic.  It was also nice to know where so many of those quoted lines come from. 

Sunday was a big day.  My friend Jessica speaks French and teaches it to home-schooled kids.  She was one of the people who suggested I add learning French to my list, and she said she was willing to give me lessons.  Well, Sunday was our first attempt and I think it went pretty well.  It helps that I took French in high school, but my high school teacher Mrs. Pea would be very disappointed to know that I remember very little of it.  Jessica was awesome!  She had worksheets for me and a little white board to write out the words.  I hope the rest of the lessons go as well as the first did.


And now for the big one!  This is the first goal I'll be able to cross of my list: #9 Crochet a hat.  I'm in a knitting group that meets weekly and is filled with absolutely AWESOME women.  Several of them crochet and when I said I wanted to crochet a hat they were more than willing to help me.  I chose a pattern, picked out some yarn, and bought a shiny new crochet hook.  Kim is like the Mr. Miagi of crochet and walked me through it step by step.  If Blogger were cooperating right now, this is where you'd see a picture of Kim.  However, that is not in the cards for today, so maybe next time.  Here's a picture of the hat, which also fulfills this week's installment of #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week.  Quite possibly the worst picture ever taken of me, but whatever.


Sorry for posting so infrequently lately.  I'd say it's mainly because of NaNoWriMo, but really it's just that a lot of life has been happening.  I suppose that's a good thing! 

More next time. 

Sunday, November 7, 2010

A Whole Month

Goals in progress for today: #2 Learn to play a song on the guitar, #10 Participate in NaNoWriMo and hopefully finish, and #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week.

It's November which means it's NaNoWriMo time.  I'm not nearly far enough as I should be, but I haven't given up.  I was sick all week which definitely cut into my writing time.  I'm on my way, and I realize the goal is not to write a GOOD novel, but just to get the words onto the page.  50,000 words.  Maybe I should get on that.

The guitar lessons are going well for #2 Learn to play a song on the guitar, but it will still be quite a while before I can mark that off my list.  I can play Ode to Joy, but that's not really what I had in mind when I wrote my list.

Sunday cleaning just hasn't been happening lately.  Maybe I should change it to Saturday cleaning, because I feel like I get a lot more done on Saturdays.  I'll see how next weekend goes. 

Here's my photo for the week for #5 Document my year by taking a picture (with me in it!) every week.




Told you the November posts would be short and sweet.  Now on to the novel.