Starving Bookworm

Brayden recently finished reading a 1,000+ page novel that he got for Christmas. When he was finished with it, I finally had to undertake the daunting task of re-organizing our bookshelf.

Let me rephrase that : re-organizing ONE of our FOUR bookshelves! We are filled to bursting with books! Which is fabulous, believe me.

Except tonight, when it's not.  Because as I was shifting and sliding and trying to fit all of our glorious tomes of goodness into their places, I realized just how many of them I haven't read.  I used to read all the time.  As a kid, I got grounded from reading when I was being punished, because it was the thing I loved most, and who cared if I didn't watch TV? No big deal. But when I couldn't read...

Now, I'm always busy. I have homework and rehearsal and cleaning and cooking and laundry ... and by the time I go to bed every night, a place where I'd usually read for a little while before going to sleep, I'm too exhausted to get through even one page.

So my point?  I miss reading.  I am a starving bookworm, desperately and selfishly hoping for a summer vacation that DOESN'T include me working, so that I have the time to read.

Ciera : A Haiku

In honor of National Blog About Ciera Month:

to rock the cello

and T.A art history

takes mad awesome skills

The Recovery Ward

A week ago tomorrow I had my tonsils out.  Fantastic way to spend the Christmas holiday, right? Oh yes, it's been oh so much fun.

Let's see.

For starters, I had to spend the night at the hospital because I kept throwing up blood after the surgery.  They kept me for observation and since I was hooked up to an IV machine AND drinking about a liter of water an hour, I had to pee about every ten minutes.  Which meant that Brayden (who spent the night with me) had to unhook the IV from the wall, help me out of bed, follow me to the bathroom with the IV tree, wait for me to do my thing, then help me BACK to bed and plug the machine back in.  Every. Ten. Minutes.

The next morning I got to go home, where I was immediately tucked into a large and comfortable recliner chair in my mother's "Christmas Recovery Ward."  See, I've had to sleep upright for the last week, so I spent all day every day in the den, where the chair and the TV are. But the Christmas tree is in the living room :( So Mom turned the den into a Christmasy pocket of goodness :) She injured herself hanging lights around the window for me, and she's gone through a box of Duraflames a day, making sure there is always a fire going in the fireplace :) THAT part of the experience has been wonderful. My mommy is the best mommy.

The constant pain and inability to eat anything other than broth and jello is NOT so wonderful. Christmas is for FOOD! Candy and ham and, in my family's case, a Brazilian meat buffet! (Yes, they're going to just such a place tonight, whilst I stay home and listen to the Lord of the Rings audiobook.) This not being able to eat is driving me absolutely NUTS!

Dreaming of turkey,
Kaitlin

+1 and -1

Failure first : I'm over 10,000 words behind on my novel.  This may seem insurmountable, but I have recently discovered the major writer's block-inducing hump that was blockading my brilliance and I have since taken care of it. However, I still qualify this as a failure, since I'm disgracefully behind on my goal.

And now, for my SUCCESS!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, for the VERY FIRST TIME in my oh-so-lengthy career as a housewife, I have successfully managed to get each and every single part of dinner onto the table at the SAME TIME. Hot, ready, and food pyramid approved. This may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it is.  Usually one thing or another is either late or early getting out of the oven, or whatever's boiling on the stove is done WAAAAY before the side dish.  But today, I had potato soup, made from scratch biscuits, and green beans.  Three separate cooking appliances operating all at once with no help from anyone else and I DID IT! I am the kitchen QUEEN!

At least for today.  Tomorrow, it is entirely possible that I will revert to my old cooking habits, wherein I can't even make toast.

NaNOWriMo -- The First Weekend

I'd like to start this post by saying "THANK YOU WHITNI!" Whitni Watkins sent me a fabulous care package that arrived in the mail yesterday, and it had some of my favorite candy in it. (Kit Kats : VERY good call :)

With care package in hand, I am heading into this weekend intending to catch up on the last two days, where my word count was not nearly as impressive as it should have been.  My goal by bedtime tomorrow is 12,000.

Although I fell a bit behind, I have very good reasons.  Besides currently being in a show, I spent all of Thursday in Washington DC at the annual SVU art show.  The choir always performs there, and while I'm not technically in the choir, the cast of Songs for a New World (the last show I did, not the current show I'm in) was invited to perform the opening number of "Songs." It was so much fun to be able to work with the cast again.

Anyway, back to the novelling grindstone tonight. And extra hour of sleep, OR an extra hour of writing.  Hmm...

Current Word Count: 7,250

NaNoWriMo -- Day One

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently participating in "NaNoWriMo," or "National Novel Writing Month."  It's a worldwide writing marathon where you write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  I've tried it every year for the past four years, but I've never even come close.

This year, I'm determined.  I've spent the last month plotting and outlining and figuring out exactly where I'm going.  For once, I actually have a beginning middle AND end!  So here I go, off on another grand and slightly psychotic adventure. I've also signed off facebook for the entire month, and my husband has vowed to work out every day in November as well, so it should be an interesting month for us!

Care packages and well-wishes are much appreciated :)

Current word count : 3,351
Currently listening to: the Chocolat soundtrack

Paper

Brayden and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary. As you may know, it's the "paper" anniversary.  So, we spent it ordering books online from Barnes and Noble :) I simply cannot think of a better way to spend an anniversary, can you?

That night after rehearsal we were able to ACTUALLY celebrate. Bread bowl stew, just like we had a year ago (hotel room service absolutely rocks, by the way), sparkling grape juice compliments of Amaree (Thank you for the gifts! We loved them!), and the alcohol-free wine that we bought on the way to the wedding hotel and have been holding on to ever since because we never got a corkscrew.

And, of course, the traditional year-old cake, which had been sitting in my parents' freezer for a year and had been transferred to the Cluff's (while we were house-sitting) and then ours (in the new apartment, when we finally remembered to take it over there.)

We were frankly surprised at how fresh the cake tasted. It had been frozen and un-frozen and RE-frozen through the moving process and, after all, it WAS a year old. But it was delicious! I called my mom in the morning to brag about it. Turns out, the magical cake wasn't exactly a year old. Apparently our actual cake top got ruined somehow and so, loving woman that she is, Mom had another one made. Identical to the first, and picked up the day before they brought it to us. So, no, we did not have the traditional "anniversary" cake. But we thought it was, so that's all that matters :)