Starting to get Christmas Fatigue

Spent a lot of time yesterday making biscuits. Christmas Trees with red and green icing plus silver balls (dragees I think they're called, or maybe cachous - oh I dunno). The kids helped and the little silver balls are still lurking all over the kitchen floor. Of course the dog doesn't like them. Only I would end up with a picky dog.

Also made stained-glass biscuits. Cute bikkies that you cut a hole in the middle of, add bashed up boiled lollies (I had to get the lump hammer from the shed to smash the ones I bought, I dented the rolling-pin on the first attempt), the lollies melt and form a stained-glass middle to the biscuit. Looks rather good.

For once it all went smoothly. Nothing burned, nobody choked, no tantrums. I know. The house was filled with Christmas cheer and the smell of baking. Lovely. Not the usual story at all! It did take me over four hours to get them all made though, AND the little petals at the Playgroup party today prised out the stained-glass bit, ate that and left the biscuit, but other than that a huge success.

But am starting to get Christmas fatigue. Worrying if I've got the right presents, or enough, and the food. Its too early to buy food yet, but I'm still worrying. Will the vege shop have brussels sprouts this year? If so will there be enough? What if they smell like pond slime as they did the year before last? (Yes, I invest a lot of emotion into my sprouts).

And then there's the Chrissy cards. Have GOT to do them by Friday. All forty odd. Plus the overseas presents. We are not giving up and ordering hampers this year. Too expensive. Must send presents by Friday.

Groan.

Spring Cleaning (Yes I know its Summer)

Miss Beanie has been not-veby-well, poor little mite, and it has kept me more than occupied this week. In the last twenty-four hours she's started to come good, but since last Sunday night she's had a sky-rocketing temperature, peaking at 40 on Thursday night. Turned out she had tonsillitus and the first batch of antibiotics didn't have any effect.

Have to say its been a looong week. Rain, one very poorly child, and another very bored child and being stuck in the house only allowed out for trips to the doctor has had me climbing the walls.

I've managed to keep myself busy though. First I harvested our mega-huge onion.

That smaller one is a normal sized onion, a bit smaller than my fist. Am still deciding what to do with it, probably onion soup.

Then I decided it was time to spring clean the house. The carpet in the play-room cops a lot of abuse, and lately its started to really smell. So I heaved it outside and used a broom to scrub it down with wool-mix. Great. Excellent. The pale bits on it went from grey back to cream.

Only problem is we've been on about 85% humidity, that's when its not pouring. I doubt we'll ever get it dry.

Its been there for three days and its still dripping.

But at least it doesn't smell of pee anymore.

I attacked the rest of the house with the same enthusiam, but a bit more sucess. We've had a run of illness since early November, so the house-keeping has fallen behind. Still, its been liveable. Or so I thought until this morning. I decided that today would be the day for giving the kitchen a good once over. Wipe down the pots and pans cupboard, throw out the rusting train-shaped cake tin, that sort of thing.

So you can imagine my horror when I lifted the knives and forks sorting tray out of its draw and saw that this was below it...
It smelled as well. Really, really bad.

SIGH.

Root Canal Therapy

Am doing a slash and burn on The Millionaire's Fake Fiancee. And it hurts. Oh how it hurts. All those wonderful words, the pages and pages of witticisms going into my bits-i-can't-bear-to-delete file. Am already down 3,000 words from my hard won 37,000. Okay so those 3,000 words are mostly about a sick Red Panda (who had no actual relevance to the plot apart from making it very clear the heroine was overly emotional about small furry creatures), and the hero (Sam) and the heroine (Cathy) making each other cups and tea and unexpectedly blurting out their insecurities, but still... ouch.

Its also become clear that the plot (hero wants wife/baby to satisfy dying wishes of beloved Grandmother) is very much a Harlequin Presents (Mills and Boon Sexy) storyline. Haven't written a Sexy before, so have done a raid on K-Mart and stocked up on all the latest Mills & Boon titles to do a bit of research and see how others are writing Sexies. Hmm. Plan of attack was to focus mostly on the Sweet imprint, as they're what I tend to read, but the story just doesn't fit Sweet. Its a dilemma and having put so much effort in so far I don't want to abandon the book.

Its exciting as well. I feel like I've been sent off in a new and unexpected direction. Who'd've thunk!

And Well Done to all the Nano Winners

And I wanted to say Congratulations to everyone who finished Nano. You gals (and guys) are amazing, and I am pea green with envy. Am hoping that one day we see the novels in print.

BHG is driving me nuts again...

Better Homes and Gardens is scaring me again. We get a subscription - from the electricity company we're with, and hubby chose the mag, need I say more...

So it turns up here, once a month, filled with delicious recipes that will make me fat, photographs of immaculate homes that make me feel inadequate, and advice on children that makes me laugh and laugh. Its an evil magazine and the Christmas issue is the worst of the lot. All those nifty craft projects that look easy, take hours and come out crap, all those immaculately wrapped presents, themed Christmas table decorations, and colour coordinated Christmas trees. Groan.

I still read it from cover to cover though, and the following tid-bit on wrapping amused me...

Disguise a bottle of wine as a large cracker, or a gift of a guitar or ukulele as an unrecognisable package. Bubble wrap and corrugated card will to the trick...

Ukeuleles? Okaaaay...

Then there was this pearl of wisdom about growing veges...

Growing your own produce is more popular than ever...

So, more popular than say one hundred years ago when you grew your own or starved?

Aaaagh.

Decorating the Tree

Early December and we're well and truely on the homeward stretch for Christmas. In previous years the kids have been pretty oblivious, just too young. Not the case this year, oh no. Miss Beanie is enchanted by all the decorations in the shops and this morning we spotted Santa at Westfield. Suddenly it all came together and she realised that HE was going to give her PRESENTS. Am trying to explain that she won't be getting pressys for another three weeks or so, but in vain.

Yesterday we decorated our tree.
It was not without its disasters
And I did some baking...
Hubby bravely tried to eat one!

But we got there in the end.

Things that have not gone as planned today...

Its been a cranky, rainy, frustrating day.

• Wanted to do some shopping, but it was tipping down and its a long walk to the shopping centre,
• Wanted to go for a swim, yes I know you can swim in the rain, but the trip to-from the pool is also a long walk, there was also the random lightning factor to be considered,
• Traffic a nightmare - its odd, Friday traffic. Nothing in the morning, roads are empty, but then gridlock in the afternoon. Where do all the cars come from??
• Decided to get a Chinese for tea, restaurant tardy in opening and we had to hang about outside for ten minutes watching the peak hour traffic. Actually its just up the road from the local brothel (and the Police station), so I amused myself wondering why two of the pink curtained rooms above the shops had lights on, and two lights off. Where they in use? What was going on in there...
• Finally order dinner and spend a happy five minutes inspecting the doomed lopsters in their tanks. Lopsters is what Miss Beanie calls Lobsters,
• Heavens opened. It poured. Just as dinner was ready. Me and children soaked in the 50m dash to the car. Tossed up between laughing and crying. Decided to laugh,
• Get everyone belted into car. Cunningly use open boot door as shelter (yes I drive a big 4WD with a huge boot door that opens upwards) and didn't get too wet. Then, just as rain eased decided to dash for drivers seat. Closed boot in the process emptying the ten or so litres of water that'd gathered there down my front. Laughed again, though it had a cackling manic quality that made the children fall silent and stare at me.
• Credit card bill lurking in post box.
• No chocolate in house.

Sigh.

Might Survive After All...

Ah the wonder of modern medicine - up to eyeballs on antibiotics and thinking I'll probably survive after all. The poor nano novel has not fared so well. With three chapters to go, or 15,000 words, I'm not going to get there in five days. But its fine. The bulk of it is written and I'm planning on spending the next couple of months giving it a very leisurely re-write.

37,000 words in 20 days! Given my day jobs of the small screamies, plus work, not bad at all!

We've had a blissful day. Up to Umina beach this morn.


Then home to much gardening. We are heaving with vegies and snails. Have put out beer traps but the dog keeps drinking them, my tomatoes had better be okay. Grrr.

Spent kiddies nap time re-arranging iPod, have uploaded all Christmas carols in anticipation of 1st December. Oh yes. You can be looking forward to endless photos of our christmas tree and various chrissy crafts, just like last year. Hurray, I hear you cheer.

Had an inspiration as well over iPod - lots of people write in their blog the latest fave song on their iPod. I try to avoid that sort of thing, preferring to concentrate on blathering my every thought. BUT how about this... What's fermenting in my kitchen... Good huh? And i'd have something to put almost every single day.

And now we're spending the evening watching Stargate. The episode where they nuke the replicators and Daniel Jackson dies (again) this time after mind-melding with the head replicator girly - if you don't watch the show get yourself the DVDs. Brilliantly written and McGyver in every episode. Doesn't get much better than that!

Very Sick and Blogging about Man Boobs

Oh, am poorly sick. Have a dratted cold and feel like death warmed up. Nano has come to a grinding halt along with life as I know it. AND to add insult to injury, I've taken a couple of days precious annual leave only to spend it languishing in my pit. Buggeritall.

On a brighter note I'm blogging about Man Boobs over on the Samhain Publishing blog. Go. Read. Leave a comment. Make me feel loved.

SIGH.

Slothing About

Overdid the writing yesterday. 4,100 words, plus steaming Christmas puddings (for eight hours on a thirty degree day), plus a trip to Fruit World (we won a voucher, so I spent it all on fabulous fruit and now have tummy ache from eating too many cherries), plus dealing with Miss Bugalugs coming off worst in an encounter with a bee (I was the one who had to get the sting out of her finger and so she blamed the entire episode on me and wouldn't speak to me for the rest of the day). And today I'm absolutely shattered.

So instead of plugging away at the novel I've been slothing around on the internet, doing research and looking at pictures of cute Red Pandas. I've got around three chapters to go, several nasty inconsistencies in the plot and a hero who vacillates between Zapp Brannigan (right) and Troy Maclure. (left)

But its saveable. There's definitely the kernel of a good story in there, but its going to some time to unearth it from all the blather. At least the heroine has turned out to be feasible - I was quite surprised, didn't think a zookeeper heroine was going to turn out plausible, but she has. Who'd've thunk.

Caitlyn Nicholas v. the Multi-National Corporations...

OUR bank, which shall remain nameless, has offered to raise the credit limit on our credit card. To $14,000. Seriously. $14,000. Am still getting over it. We retaliated by ringing up and asking to lower our credit limit. What a kafuffle. They did not take kindly to the limit we requested, as bank policy is $5,000 and no less. We wanted less. We were informed that we had to have a limit of $5,000 and if we didn't like it we should either cut up our credit card or take our business elsewhere.

Mmmmm... I love OUR bank. Am now investigating moving all our accounts.

Sniff!

We are also trying to move phone and internet to a new service provider. Our current provider has retaliated to this news by slowing our connection down to a snails pace. And telstra is making it nice and easy by insisting that they simply cannot talk to Hubby on the phone, no it must be ME. Awww. Sweet. Pity I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Am presently having a fantasy about living in the place below. Just up the train line from us. No power, no running water, and a short swim to the train station, sounds perfect to me...

Sigh.

Divorce Imminent and er Turkeys...

Just under 30,000 words in a fortnight. Am not sure how good those 30,000 words are, but at least they are not Hamster, Hamster, Hamster copied and pasted 10,000 times. (See, I wrote it three times and three... er... times 10,000 is 30,000 so 30,000 Hamsters - I am very tired and my wrists hurt from typing, don't mess with me OKAY).

Hubby keeps suggesting that I copy and paste Hamster, Hamster, Hamster 16666.6667 times (so as to get to 50,000 and yes I did use the calculator to figure that out - wrists, eyes, they all hurt - do not judge me). Anyway I digress.

Hubby keeps suggesting that I copy and paste THAT WORD. Pretty much once a day he mentions it. It wasn't funny the first time. No. I didn't crack a smile then. So you can imagine how I feel about his little joke NOW.

Also, on another matter, is it just me are turkeys the ugliest birds ever. So much so that I don't think I can bear eating one for Christmas. Am feeling quite put off.

Yes, going to bed now. Promise I'll think of something to write here tomorrow and we can put this post behind us.

Nearly half way there - aaack!

49.5% of the way there, and have finished chapter six. Yes, two hundred and fifty words until I hit the 50% mark but I'm shattered, I've written 2,460 words today and don't have another sentence in me.

Oh, and its got a new name... The Millionaire's Fake Fiancée. Yes its turned into a 'married for the wrong reasons' story. Didn't set out to write it that way, but that's how its turned out.

Hmmm.

Gardening, not Writing

Managed to squeeze out a surprising 1,700 words today. Surprising because I used up all my plot twists for the rest of the book. Mmmm. Tomorrow is going to be fun.

So spent the rest of the day in the garden.

In a moment of insanity I decided it would be an excellent idea to spread a large amount of cow poo about the place. No doubt it will make my lovely flowers even more lovely, but it had two unforseen side-effects. First that it stank. Second that it attracted every fly for miles and miles. To make matters worse I cooked pan fried whole trout with bacon and garlic for dinner, and unbenownst to me Miss Beanie has learned how to open the back door, and did so, leaving it open.

Yes.

Every single fly that had been crawling all over the decomposing cow manure took up residence in the kitchen. Lovely.

Pink hydreanga, who said pink and green dont go?

and Geraniums

Sometimes being a parent is all worth it...

Breaking through the 20,000 word mark...

Am parked upon the couch, and haven't moved for several hours, except to spoon Homer Hudson icecream into myself. I'm getting tendonitius in my wrists and starting to forget my heroines name. Hey I've written about Zani, Lily, Alex and now Cathy this year alone - so give me a break.

But I've just cracked the 20,000 word mark. Woo hoo! And hopefully in the next few days I'll get over the 25,000 half way mark. Not at all bad for ten days work. Though have to say I'm getting really tired, it drains you, all this creativity. Am also not sleeping, too busy thinking up plot twists. Note to self: DO NOT BLOW ANYONE UP. Its a romance.

hmm.

I don't wanna...

Oh, am so unmotivated today. I'm 25% of the way there and starting to suffer from mid-novel slump. Am tired and drained and can think of a hundred things I'd rather be doing. Like blogging, or changing nappies, or scrubbing out the fridge (something green and sticky has exploded in there), or digging in the garden or walking the dog, or hoovering. Yes, hoovering. That sounds a lot more fun than writing.

But oh the guilt. Oh the agony, the self-hate, the loathing... have even tried bribing self with violet crumble (ate it), and spent the afternoon shovelling in party food (Melbourne cup do - lost, lost badly, I shall miss those $4. Actually one of the girls got the trifecta in the Mother's Group sweep. The TRIFECTA. I mean c'mon. Is that fair?) and am now telling self that I can have a take-away if I write 1,000 words. Of course I'll have the take-away anyway as I simply cannot be arsed cooking anything and the thought of an omlette makes me want to die from boredom. DIE I tell you.

sigh.

Dilemmas, dilemmas.

I made a bouillabaisse for dinner. Its a creamy fish stew, most delicious. But I had such a dilemma. Had the fish already, but wanted to add some prawns and scallops, so, abandoning poor sick hubby with the crabby screamies, I pottered off to Coles.

Well.

I had a choice of prawns from Vietnam, prawns from China or (most expensive) prawns from Australia. I inwardly groaned, mentally totting up food miles and the horrible rumors about the conditions Asian seafood is raised in. Yes, had an ethical dilemma about my fish soup. I was glad they were busy, because I vacillated for quite a while. I had no choice with the scallops, from China or nothing. I had a vision of Chinese ladies, de-shelling scallops at lightening speed in some terrible factory. If I bought the scallops would I be unintentionally supporting their subjugation?

Its been bothering me for a while actually. I try really hard to buy local, consume ethically, grow my own, save water, help the environment, but it can be so massively challenging. Do I buy organic produce from the Macro supermarket in Hornsby? But its mostly sourced from overseas. What about the food miles and the carbon produced transporting it to me?

I just wanted to buy scallops and prawns dammit. But consuming has become a huge ethical deal and is giving me a headache. I've got too much to worry about already. But is that terribly pathetic of me. Am I making the world a worse place by thinking about acting unthinkingly?

I went for the Chinese prawns and scallops by the way. They looked the nicest and tasted great. But as I served it out to my children I did wonder if the food was safe. Actually they didn't touch it, they ate a great deal of lunch and weren't hungry, but that's not the point. I still worried.

sigh.

Okay, now I've finished moaning about that, nano is going well, am up to 8288 in total.

Nano-ing away...

Got off to a rocketing start with Nanowrimo yesterday. 2653 words, woo hoo. On Fire, me.

Alas I'm in the midst of my usual start of novel flush - ideas are coming easily, there's lots to write about, the skys the limit. Just give it another couple of days and I'll be tired, flat and crabby - okay MORE tired, flat and crabby.

I've also got a guest-blog to write for the Samhain Publishing blog on the 5th, plus author chats on e-loops on the 4th and 8th. Yes, taking it easy as usual. Hubby is tearing his hair out and its only day two.

sigh.

Oh My Lordy, what a morning...

Things have gone from bad to worse this morning. I believe its one of those days where it would have been more advisable to stay in bed.

The small screamies lived up to their name and woke in the foulest moods ever. You have never seen the tears and the tantrums. Miss Bugalugs outdid herself. Face down on the floor, little feet drumming, and howling her little heart out. With Hubby and I standing there promising her the world if she'd calm down. "You can have a biscuit / cuddle / ice cream / new car / iPod..."

Fortunatly she was so far gone that she didn't hear us, though by the time we managed to get her in the car she was asking for biscuits, hmm.

Am shattered after dealing with all that angst. Think I will sit here for a bit and stare vacantly at the weather radar - rain, YAY. http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR033.shtml After that I might go in search of junk food, and hopefully that will take me through until lunch.

sigh.