Back to normal?

Well, life is settling down it seems. The thank you notes are out. We've gotten our pictures back and I almost have the entire table cleared of wedding presents/stuff. And now I come home and try to remember what it was that use to keep me busy before I was crazy making lists, planning details, tying bows, taking counts, contacting vendors. And I remember things like writing stories and selling books. I'm trying to get back in the habit of that.

Our writing group met for the first time since March. We kept postponing, mostly due to me having a million things to do every Sunday. But we finally met. For a while I thought we might be at our end. And if was good to talk about something other than the wedding for a change.

So life gets back to normal, kind of. There is still that huge absence around and that will never get back to normal. Everytime I walk up the stairs I move to one side and wait to hear Kreeg speeding past me, but he doesn't. Every morning I get up and think that I will see him sitting in the sun light that is streaming through the window but he isn't there. I rub Gretchen's ears, waiting for her to moo like a cow like Kreeg use to, but she doesn't. I look outside thinking he will be there laying in a hole he just dug, enjoying the cool dirt on his stomach, tongue hanging out, occasionally glancing up at the sky, trying to figure out where the breeze is coming from. I walk upstairs every night, thinking that I will have to spend ten minutes trying to get him off the bed but the bed is empty.
Ed and I go for walks and it just feels weird because only one of us has a leash to hold. I have no idea what to do with my hands. We walk by the lawn with the high grass and we pause but Kreeg is not there to stop, drop and roll around in the grass.
I sit down at my desk to write and I look next to me. He is not by my side. My heart hurts.

Love, loss and life.

Three months! Yikes! Well, a lot has happened in 3 months. Actually, a lot has happened in 2 weeks.
First, I got married! The wedding was absolutely amazing! I had such a great time getting to see all the people that I love and share such a joyous occasion. It was wonderful. My only regret was that it flew by. People kept telling me it would go by so fast and they were not lying. Months of work and it was over in a flash. But the end result is what matters. I am married to amazing guy and we are really happy!

Right after the wedding we went on a honeymoon to northern Michigan. We stayed in St. Ignace and spent time at Tahquemanon Falls and Mackinac Island. It was a great trip and definitely a great way to unwind after all the stress of planning the wedding.

When we got home the happiness was put on hold. Kreeg, our beloved dog and best friend, had been diagnosed with cancer about three months before and had finally taken a turn for the worst. He couldn't stand. He wasn't eating. His body was shutting down. So on our 1 week wedding anniversary we put our little guy to sleep.
We live in the city so we drove him out to my husband's parent's house, which is where we were married the week before. And we buried him not far from where we had said our vows.
When we first found out about the cancer they didn't think he had more than a couple of weeks, but he lasted a lot longer, and we were really grateful for that. Did he wait for the wedding and for us to come back from the honeymoon? Some may think it was only coincidence, but I think differently. It was just the awesome dog that he was.

And now we are back to the everyday events of life. We are still trying to catch up on all the cleaning and laundry that has been put off for the last few weeks. And there are thank yous to be done. Things have started settling down and I hope they stay that way. At least for a little while.

Change of plans

2 months since I posted. Wow, I've really fallen off the wagon. I was at my doctor's office a few days ago and she was talking to me about how around every 29 years or so are life changes. It doesn't just happen over night, it takes years but we develop into a new person. And it seems true because right now I am developing my life into something new.
I have been making a lot of plans for my future and writing is still in them. I keep putting writing on the back burner but I know in my heart that is not where it needs to be. Things do not happen according to plan and I can't keep thinking that I can put things off. There is no day but today.
I had been so focused on my making the perfect plans for my wedding, my finances, for buying a house and for starting a family, that I completely lost sight of everything I have right now.
And yesterday my perfect plans were thrown out the door. Kreeg,my beloved dog/best friend/son, may not be around to be our ring bearer, he will most likely not be around to enjoy the back yard when we buy a house and he will not be around to play with our children.
Now I feel like I need to write something really amazing, because it will be the last thing I write with Kreeg lying at my feet while I write it.

Not again...

Okay, I have a really good excuse for not having posted. My computer is down and out. It’s not recognizing its software. I don’t know when I’ll ever have money to get it fixed so it could be a while.
Isn’t it funny how I always seem to have major computer problems in the summer? Of course, maybe it’s better this way. I always notice that less people visit my blog in the summer and people seem to post less often during the summer. Probably because they’re out in the nice weather, where as in the winter there’s nothing but cold outside so what better to waste away time than being on the Internet.
My computer being down is just as well. I don’t usually get much typed in the summer months when I’m not in air condition. And my house is not air conditioned.
Besides I actually seem to get more written when I don’t have the Internet to get caught up on. Sure, I have to write by hand and type it in later but I actually prefer that. I feel more connected to my work when writing by hand. Plus, typing it in later is a chance to edit.
And aside from getting more written, I’ve actually spent time walking Kreeg, cleaning, organizing, riding my bike, working out and other kinds of productive stuff. I will make it. I think.
On the bright side, there is always the library and I can use the computer at work when I get a few spare minutes. So I will try to keep posting and checking everyone’s blogs. How often I’ll get to it, I’m not sure. Just know I miss you.

I have moved on for now so no Harry Potter but there's Kreeg, Batman, Snoopy, Family Guy and Behind the Naugahyde

Well I've got to move on with my life and my own work so for the first time in a few months I will be blogging with no mention of Harry Potter, other than to say that I won't be mentioning it.

Now that I've got that out of the way. I've been slacking off due to other things I said I wouldn't be mentioning so I've really got nothing to say about what I've been writing but I feel I should post because I hate going too long without posting. Since it's Friday I decided I would do a pointless yet possibly mildly amusing Friday Five.

Friday Five: The five weirdest searches that have brought someone to my blog.

I don't really get very cool searches like other people I know. I think this is my caused by my not mentioning enough body parts. It could also be that my blog is rather boring and only interesting to me. But the following are the craziest I've found since starting my site meter.
Before I get to the craziest but not really that crazy search topics, I will say that the searches I get most often in some form or another are people looking for 'ways to get ink off of paper', Snoopy writing/rejection comic strips and the Stewie to Bryan "how's that novel comin'" episode of Family Guy.
I don't have any of those Snoopy comics on here but I'll look into it. Also, I don't have the actual episode of Family Guy available for viewing but I do have the dialogue about the novel progress. And if anyone ever figures out how to get ink off paper, and it doesn't involve those crappy ink erasers that wear a hole in the paper, please let me know so that people's search can end here.
In short, if you're looking for the comic strips, to watch the episode or need to get ink off of paper, you're in the wrong place because I can't help you. But I'll work on it.

And now...

Friday Five (in no particular order):

crazy shoe stores in Michigan-I'm pretty sure this person was looking for stores that sold crazy shoes but I like to think that this person is trying to figure out what crazy shoe store inspired Behind the Naugahyde.

allergic reactions to ink on paper- I'm not entirely sure that this is all that weird. True, my blog doesn't actually talk about ink being on paper. It's just a name I gave my blog because I am a writer who occasionally puts ink on paper. Well, it's more often words on a monitor or something. Anyway, what I do find to be weird is that someone is having an allergic reaction to ink on paper. Not paper or ink but the combination of ink being on paper. Or maybe it's a metaphorical allergic reaction to words that were put on paper by ink.

"Lansing Community College" vampire graduate- To be honest I have no idea what this could possibly mean. Yes, I have attended LCC but I have never heard any rumors of a vampire graduating. To my knowledge vampires do not exist. Of course, there are people who claim to be vampires but are not in fact the immortal vampires that everyone thinks of. So maybe they were looking for someone like that. No clue but it is unusual.

sci-fi short story about evil squirrels- During a post about scary hotels I mentioned my dog, Kreeg, saving me from evil squirrels and then in the comments it started to develop into a story idea by D.B. Echo. If they were looking for a story about evil squirrels perhaps they can talk him into writing it. However, if they were checking to make sure that no one else had written such a story, I'm not sure about others, but I have not. And there are no plans in the works on my part but you may want to check with D.B.Echo .

someone who would get invited to Batman's wedding- I imagine that a lot of superheroes would be there. Obviously, all the Batfamily, Alfred, possibly a bunch of socialites if he got married as Bruce Wayne and not Batman. The list of potential guest is just too vast, especially knowing that Bruce Wayne would have enough money to invite a ton of people.
I am going to hope that this person's search was directed here because Google thinks that I am a person likely to be on the guest list. I'm not sure if that really says anything about me or my blog other than that I just mentioned the right random combination of words, but I'm going to pretend that my writing and insight are so awesome that Batman would want to be my friend and invite me to his wedding.


And now that I have some of the crazy out of my system I am going to go write, edit and submit some work so that hopefully my next post will be a report about all the work I got done.

Kreeg rules and jobs suck!

Another day of blogging and I still have several suggestions to tackle.

Quickly I'll cover a few things that Jenni just brought up. The name "grapenuts" is clearly just plain nuts and there is nothing else that can be said.
There are several reasons pants split. Maybe the pants shrunk while they were being worn. Maybe you sat on a nail. Maybe you were wearing Dansko's on ice and your feet slid in two different directions.
And to make split pea soup you have to split the peas. Duh!

Now on to previous suggestions.

Today I'll start with Kreeg. He is my best friend and biggest fan. He always sits with me while I'm writing and he never has any bad comments about anything I read to him. There are so many good things to say about him that it would take forever. One important thing about Kreeg is that he too is a writer. Although he is a dog of few words he does blog those few words on dogster.com .

Now I guess I'll cover the jobs I've had to work while I struggle as a writer.
My first job was as a waitress in a pancake/burger style diner. I worked there for three years. I met some great people as far as customers were concerned and I got to work with all my friends. The only thing that sucked was my boss. He was a real strict, cheap ass. He would charge little old couples that could barely eat one fry a piece for an extra plate if they wanted to split a meal. He would tell the wait staff to ask people to leave if they stayed too long and were just drinking coffee, even if the whole place was empty. Once a woman found a hair in her food that was clearly from his balding, uncovered head and he wouldn't give her a refund. I saw him slap someone that worked there. He made his employees cry all the time and never apologized. He let his wife take all the tables and leave all her dishes to be bussed by the other waitresses, leaving them with no tips and a ton of work. He once fired a girl because he wouldn't let her take drinks to a table since it was his granddaughter(who worked there)'s turn for a table, and the girl told the customers why she couldn't bring them out when they were yelling at her for their drinks. He had a guy who was his manager for sixteen years and one day he told him "I'm cutting your pay and hours so my grandson can be manager". Once he told me that if I didn't like the way he treated me I could walk out the door. I quit in the middle of my Sunday morning shift and by the end of the week had convinced seven other people to leave with me. Damn the man!

I once worked for another diner with a creepy boss who wrote me a bunch of bad checks. It took the credit union three months to notice his account was closed and by that time I was over $2,500 negative.

I also worked on a dock of a department store. They kept promising to promote me to the sales floor but that never happened. They would ask me to skip class or call into my other job when they had extra large shipments. They gave me a five cent raise. I also got expired coupons to their store for my Christmas bonus.

I worked at a restaurant where I had to dress like a milkman and dance every half hour on the half hour. People get pissed when they have to wait for their ketchup because you're dancing.

I also worked at a bar where the owners were evil. No joke. They called me stupid because I once put the wrong drinks on the wrong bill and the manager had to take ten seconds to fix it. They charged me for a mistake order when a cook put sauce on something, that the menu didn't mention came with sauce, because I didn't specifically ask for "no sauce". They made people pay for an appetizer when it came out after they were done eating their dinner(you can imagine what that does for a server's tips). When I started I told them I was in a wedding and needed a weekend off three months in advance. The week of the wedding the schedule went up and I was scheduled; I went out to "lock my car doors" and never came back.

Those are just the highlights of the jobs. There were more awful moments and more awful jobs. I could write a novel and I'm sure I will. Now I sell shoes which isn't too bad.

My favorite job was working at KB toystores. I had no complaints except that they went out of business.

Oh what a wonderful dream of being able to write full time and not have to have crappy jobs. Although they have given me wonderful ideas for writing. I can think of at least one situation or person from each job that has given me a great idea for a story.

More from the suggestion box tomorrow.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Wow! I got so many super ideas for blog post that I don't even know which one to start with. Of course, I'm not sure that I could fill a whole blog on some of the topics, not because they are not good ideas but rather I'm just not that awesome.
So I'll talk about a few of them this time and then maybe a few more next time.

For starters when I am writing I like to snack on take 5 candy bars. This has just become a new addiction since I gave them out on Halloween and then got stuck with so many. I also like cool ranch doritos but only when I'm a using pen and paper rather than typing. This is because I can eat with my left hand and have no problems. The doritos often leave seasoning on my fingers that can be a nuisance if you're typing with both hands. I also like toast because you get like 20 servings for a dollar, peanut butter right from the jar and gummy bears.

On Oprah I will wear a nicely tailored black pant suit and make it my own by wearing a cool baby-tee that has a super hero or some crazy thing on it and also wear dress boots that are a bright color that is also in the shirt I'm wearing, perhaps red.
Jenni will wear a nice suit possibly green because it just looks fabulous on her and she will wear a crazy color, vegan friendly pair of shoes, because crazy shoes will be a must on our promotional tour. People will come from afar to see what crazy shoes we will wear next.

Llamas spit.

For To Kill a Mockingbird discussion topics of chapters 8 & 9: Why did Boo Radley decide to leave the security of his home just to put a blanket on Scout? Did Francis deserve to get punched in the teeth? These aren't good questions they were just the best I could come up with after skimming through the chapters rather quickly.

I'm not sure who the mysterious hero is in 52. The last time I read it (thanks to my brokeness) I think Lex said it was his son, but maybe I'm not remembering correctly.

My life is no longer without a car but when I was without it I felt completely useless.

As for the cold. I love it. I hate heat. I love dressing in layers. I love sweaters, mittens, scarves, boots and coats. I like snow falling. I like warm blankets and hot tea and hot chocolate. I like sledding and ice skating. I like not breaking into a sweat when I walk Kreeg. I like sitting in front of the furnace vent. So throw rocks at me if you want but I'm going to say it, "YAY! cold weather".

The rest of the suggestions will have to wait for another post. I don't want to use up all the good ones and some of them may even get their very own post. Stay tuned!

Going crazy!

Despite the heat I have been using just about every second of spare time to work on our novel.
I think I'm driving everyone to hate me including my dog, after losing two hours of editing last night, due to my own stupidity of not saving it. (I'm sure Jenni's cracking up because when we met to work on the novel a week ago I saved about once every ten minutes, I'm just that paranoid.) Anyway when I went to send my file to Jenni and it was not there, I kicked and threw everything in my way sending my poor baby Kreeg into hiding behind a chair ( For the record, I wasn't throwing the stuff at him). Yes, my 110 pound beast that pulls me down the street with little effort was ducking in terror from the raving lunatic that writing has made of me.
I was just a little stressed because we had set a deadline of having it sent out by Tuesday. It's now tentatively Wednesday.

Currently reading: 52 #9, Supergirl #7, the Thing #8
Just saw: Cars

Kreeg:Writer's Best Fan

It's a dark and stormy night. The perfect weather to write my terrifying story for class. The perfect time to write it since it's due on Friday. Yet as I sit down and try to type I find myself too preoccupied with things today. Last night I felt the same way and managed to type a few pages after posting on this blog. Maybe tonight will be a repeat.

I realized that I have never posted a picture on my blog. There are pictures on my live journal about my everyday life but there really aren't pictures about my writing. Tonight I realized that there are pictures of my biggest fan. While he may not be fond of my work, he watches every word I type.

Sorry he kind of blends. I could have taken the picture in a better light but I took it from my seat at my desk where I write, or pretend to anyway. He watches me the whole time. I can't close my office door, even to block out the real world and get into writer's mode. He won't whine he just bangs at the door handle as if he is trying to get in. He's not happy being locked in the office with me. Although sometimes he sits next to the desk. One thing's for sure, I never worry that he's going to tell me my work sucks. So bloggers let me be the first to introduce you to Kreeg!

Coming up short?

As I was working on my novel today something occurred to me. What if I finish writing my novel and it's not 50,000 words. It's possible, especially since this will be my first full novel. Generally a novel would be more than 175 pages but it doesn't have to be. What would I do? Should I just force more for no apparent reason, start something else, write a crazy introduction or epilogue or do I just finish and not complete my NaNoWriMo task? I hope that doesn't happen but it could. I guess I'll figure it out if I get there, but hopefully my novel is longer than that.

It's still going well, though. I'm still on track and hopefully it will stay that way. I have pretty much set aside everything else in my life. I barely watch T.V., reading has been limited and poor Kreeg( my canine companion) has been lacking on walks. Darn you NaNoWriMo, you've turned me into a writing monster. That's okay, I like it and it's only a month.

I also added a new friend to my list. My fellow co-worker has decided to attempt to complete the challenge. Of course, I read a bit of hers and it makes mine seem kind of boring. I was thinking about posting a preview either here or at the web-site but I'm not sure I want anyone reading mine. I know, what's the point? I'll probably put something up when I get to a more exciting part.