last post of the year

Well, unless I get really enthusiastic later this evening ;-)
It's been one hell of a year, it really has. Hard in so many ways, but good in many others. I completed my degree and thats my big success of the year. Next year I hope to have many more successes, some of which are givens but still I feel I can think of as accomplishments.
So, I don't generally do resolutions, I never stick to them, it's always a matter of days before they are forgotten or abandoned. Instead I think I will list the things which I will aim for, and hopefully be able to tick most of them off.

Get married.
Get pregnant.
Get published in some way/shape/form.
Graduate.
Clean up our living space, un-junk it, minimize the things we don't need.
Bring some of the images in my head to life via photography/paint/pencil/other media.
Edit two novels.
Organize my short stories and poetry so that I know exactly what I have and where it is/what state it is in.
Learn Te Reo.
Play my Saxophone more (relearn... lol it's been awhile).
Finish painting the kitchen so that I can begin painting the bedrooms....

I think thats enough for now. I would love to add 'move into a new house' to the list but realistically it's not likely to happen any time soon. I'll just have to focus on beautifying where we live now. Dad is putting down new carpet in their downstairs rooms which means we are inheriting the carpet that is already there, it's a lot newer than ours and will hopefully fit both Ivy's room and ours as well. I decided to buy some new curtains for our room as well, being that ours are so flimsy I often wake up very early because it's so light in there. Simon can sleep with the covers over his head but I just can't! I figure once there is a fresh coat of paint, some newer carpet and new curtains the room is actually going to look pretty impressive.
It kind of sucks because I have become increasingly home oriented, I keep having these ideas for things we could do to make it all nicer but it's all pretty pointless when I know at some point we're going to move to somewhere different. I guess I will just have to bottle the ideas until we have a space to call our own.

And in other news... I began writing in earnest again last night and managed to pump out 1.5k in an hour and a half or so which made me pretty happy. Feel like I am getting back on track with the WIP though know that it's likely to be put on hold once again for the New Year Novella. Either that or I am going to attempt to write both at the same time, which could be tricky. I don't want bits of one trickling into the other, but I also don't really want to stop working on the WIP again just yet - my ultimate goal is to have both the 20K's complete, and the WIP first draft complete by the end of January, which would mean writing around 50K in the month but we all know that it CAN be done.
There is the wedding to think about as well though, and still lots of planning and organizing to go there, so I won't be disappointed if the WIP isn't finished, though I know the other challenge will be complete.
I just want to be clear of everything in progress by the end of Feb so that I can launch into some serious editing/rewriting on the novel which is going to be submitted this year for the publish a book challenge...
hehe 2008 already sounds very busy!!!
I feel so excited about it, I can just feel that it's going to be a big year for me and that is so fantastic. Bring it on!!

One more sleep.

So I am now officially ready, technically. All the baking is done, all the presents are wrapped, all the food has been obtained and is ready to go for tomorrow. The plans are made and our day goes a little something like this.
7am: wake up and get organized.
730am: call Dad and make sure they are awake.
745am: arrive at Dads, do the present opening thing with Dad, Sandra, Sam, Paula-Lee, Jaspar, Rebecca and Simon.
9am: arrive at Simon's folks motel room, more present opening.
11am: either get to the beach if its fine, or go to indoor location if not for lunch with Simon's folks, Mum, John, Sam, Paula-Lee and Jaspar.
1pm: start getting organized to head out to Waitara for Ivy drop off.
3pm: make it back home, shove the turkey in to roast along with all the veges etc - sit down, have a beer and cook.
6pm: back to hotel room for dinner with Simon's folks.
8pm: head back out to Waitara to pick up very tired Ivy who hasn't had a nap and is hyper on sugar who will no doubt crash out in the car on the way home.
845pm: back home, child in bed, sit for five minutes, kiss Simon goodbye and make my way back to Dad's house for obligatory Christmas drink.
930pm: hopefully get home again and sleep.

Man, I am tired just thinking about that... Oh well, gotta be done. Spoke with brother who suggested that we offer to host xmas breakfast next year - combined thing, potluck, EVERYONE comes from our immediate and immediate step family to my brothers or our house, taking the responsibility off our folks and allowing us to have just one xmas event with minimal stress. Lets hope that they agree to that! it would be nice! we're going to work on the 'xmas is for the kids' angle, and suggest that having everyone in one location for a couple of hours is better than shifting the kids to multiple locations throughout the day.

On another note, my brothers mother in law has just finished reading last years nano - I had no idea she had borrowed it off them! apparently she read it in two days and couldn't put it down, so thats certainly a nice thing to hear, and a really good point at which to hear it. Fires me up to finish my WIP so that I can get into rewriting/editing that piece and get it ready for submission.
I decided to use that one for the Publish a Book 2008 challenge over on the kiwiwriters site for several reasons. The first being that it was written over a year ago now, and it's been almost a year since I even looked at it - I love that I have so much distance from it now, and 1.5 other novels under my belt which means a little more experience. Hopefully this means I will be able to get a fresh view on it, and incorporate all the suggestions that have been given to me about it during the last year - I am pretty sure I remember all the important ones. And aside from that come up with suggestions of my own.
Also I have had lots of good feedback about it, so I know it's a good story, which is what people want to read so maybe there is a glimmer of hope.

Anyways, better get going, have to go back to the motel shortly and start thinking about dinner.

Hope everyone has an awesome Christmas tomorrow!

Christmas spirit

I think I finally found some!!!
All my little issues with Christmas seems to have been resolved, well, maybe not all, but most, and I am all ready to go and have an enjoyable day, as enjoyable as I can have.
It's nice, not to feel so stressed out about it. It's wonderful, and I am so relieved!
Am yet to have the conversation with my Dad that I need to have, but at least I now know it needs to happen, and I know what I want to say so that makes me feel a lot less stressed.
Sometimes it's not about getting someone else to change, it's about changing the way in which you deal with a situation and so I am working on that.
We have had a busy few days, getting all the little things organized, and I do hope that the gifts we give are appreciated even though they are fairly small and homemade. Here are some photos of our Christmas efforts.

Dead tired.

I feel like I have been taking sedatives or something, I am just so tired all the time, and have been for a couple days now. Technically I should be getting enough sleep, but I can't seem to sleep right through the night anymore. I wake up from dreams, I wake up because I'm in pain, I wake up because I am too hot or too cold. Or I wake up because it's just after 5 and all the birds are singing which makes my cats want to go outside - and trust me, every night I search the house for them and see no cats inside before I lock the door, and every morning between 5 and 530 1-2 cats come meowing at my pillow, and never at the same time. I really have got to find their new hiding places.
So after getting up to let two cats out on two separate occasions, the fact that it is actually really quite light at 530, and those damn noisy birds mean that quite often I cannot go back to sleep, no matter how hard I try. And if I do manage to get back to sleep, I wake up again at 630 when Simon's alarm goes off, which just so happens to coincide with the time at which Ivy starts calling my name.
I am really looking forward to the end of daylight savings. 5am is not a good time to be woken up, nor is 530, and while 630 is bearable is it much less so after having been awake so many times through the night.

Jingle bells, jingle bells...

no what fast da mystery (empty space, empty space, empty space) HEY!
This is my child's version of the song.
I cannot count how many times I sang the correct words for her tonight trying to get her to change them over, the best i could do was getting her to sing oh what fast da mystery..... oh what fun hunny, oh what fun it is to ride.... she's not even worrying about the one horse open sleigh bit, just waiting the right amount of time and then shouting HEY! which is obviously the most important part of the song anyways, who cares about the actual lyrics! I keep telling myself its all good, at the very least it's hugely amusing seeing what she comes up with. It made me remember just how long it took her to move from up-a up-a world to up above the world in twinkle twinkle little star (months and months of her declaring she had it right and we were wrong), at least in this case we only sing carols for the month and by the time they roll around next year she will be set.
She is a gem, lol and it is so nice not to have many other things distracting me from her. The world is a beautiful place when viewed through the eyes of an almost three year old.
I don't want to share her this xmas. It's hit me pretty hard really, I have been fine with it for the last two, though less fine last year, it's just this one is so much worse, I don't want to do it. I wish I was her age and I could just throw a tantrum about it but I have to be an adult and suck it up. I have to accept that she has other family that want to see her, and that we are in some ways obliged to make that happen. I have to accept that once again I only get to have her for half the day - at least we get her for the morning and lunch, finally this year we can have a real christmas morning where we sit around and open presents and her face lights up and there are kodak moments every where you look. I missed that last year - it feels pointless without her, empty. I think I will have a hard time not crying when we go to drop her off after lunch. Hopefully I can wait until we're back in the car and out on the road where her other family won't see me, won't judge me for feeling the way that I do.

In other much brighter news my brother called me tonight and he asked Simon and I to be Jaspar's anti-god parents. How cool is that?? I am so thrilled, I said yes on the spot and then decided I better check that Simon was happy with that as well, which of course he is. It is such an honor, I was secretly hoping that they would pick us, and they did which is just so great. So so so happy about it. He's already gotten really long, and he is still just so beautiful, I love having cuddles with him and it has definitely made me want one of my own even more. Not long to go now before we can start that process. Not long now until the wedding....

Have done more work on that side of things as well, things are being ticked off the list and that is keeping me feeling organized for the most part. I have a list of things to do this week which includes having a crack at writing vows - on top of writing a short Christmas piece for the kiwiwriters challenge, and putting more words into my WIP, it's moving forwards fairly steadily which is keeping me happy. I wish I had more time to put into it, but I am so stretched lately, I barely seem to get time to sit down and think let alone get the space I need to write. Ah well, I am not going to run out of days any time soon I think, it will get written.
I gave the piece I wrote for SoCNoC to my brother yesterday and he is going to read through and make his set of notes on the copy which will leave me with three sets of feedback in the same place, one or two more and I'll be ready to go through it again, though that has to wait until after I edit/rewrite my 2006 nano... the list of things to do/write is not getting any shorter! all the while new ideas are being stockpiled and dwelled on.

wow...

It is so close to the end of the year now... I am having a hard time believing it.
Yesterday someone told me about a concert they were going to on the 28th, and I was thinking, wow thats like a whole month away, but its just a few weeks now. Tomorrow I turn 27, you'd think that I'd remember it was December seeing as I know it's almost my birthday.
I got ID'd the other night when I was buying a bottle of wine. Almost 27 and still getting ID'd, it's nice to know that some people don't think I look my age.
I've not been doing a whole lot lately. Even less than before. Every time I think I am ready to get back into things it turns out that I am just not. I have been reading a lot more again which is really nice, and have been asking people for book vouchers for my birthday so I can go and buy some new ones. Someone said that was boring... I pointed out that it's been two years since I have read for pleasure. Someone else suggested the library and I informed him that sometimes there are books you just want to read, and sometimes there are books you want to own. I want some of those... the books I have in mind are the second and third in the Shaman's Crossing series by Robin Hobb. I managed to read the first one at some point this year (after owning it for more than 6 months), and as an avid fan of Hobb I intend to own as many of her books as possible. So, fingers crossed for book vouchers! lol maybe I really am boring.
On another note, finally starting to get some more wedding things organized. It will be two months to go on Saturday, every day brings us closer and there seems to be an infinite list of 'things to do'. My Dad found what he considers to be the perfect wedding night accommodation though so that is all booked, not just for Saturday but Sunday night as well! How cool!! I thought that was very exciting, we get to go in at 12 to get ready out there, it'll be nice to be away from the mess of home, and all the animals, and just not have to worry about things. Plus because it's a downstairs upstairs there will be plenty of room for all the people who will no doubt be out there over the weekend helping with one thing or another.
When I think about experiencing the day I get excited. I can't wait to get dressed with my mum and all my best girls out there with me. I can't wait to see Simon when he's all ready, I'm even looking forward to all the photos before hand. I am so looking forward to exchanging vows, and digging into our spit roast dinner, to having some kind of dance with Simon, and just being married to him, I am looking forward to laughing a lot, and being so happy because I know Ivy will be having the most amazing day, looking like a little princess, having everyone adore her and dancing until she passes out (or near enough, I know she is not going to want to leave until everything is over, so we will have to see how it goes).
When I think about all the things that need to be done before the wedding.... it's a totally different feeling lol, exciting does not enter into that list of describers. It all has to be done though! I just hope it all pans out as well as I would like it to, that everyone has the kind of day intended.

another week gone

It really is not a good time of the year for getting things done is it?
I mean, in some areas progress is being made. The house is cleaner, things are being thrown away and cleared out and thats wonderful. The Christmas presents are well on their way to being completed, fantastic. And my child is so happy and delighted by the fact that I can spend seemingly endless amounts of time playing the games which she wants me to play, taking her to the park, or the zoo, or to visit friends, singing a million rounds of old MacDonald had a farm or her recent fav jingle bells, which is so great, I love that she is happy and thriving and loving all the attention that she is getting. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of time to do the things I want to be doing. Like reading, and writing.
I have this funny feeling that not only am I going to fail Nanowrimo this year, but I am also going to fail Nanofimo, lol the year will end and part two will not be complete.

I've just come to realize that the time at which I am most productive, is this one right here...this little space between when I shut everything else down and when I fall asleep. I take my laptop to bed with me on the nights when Simon doesn't go to bed before me. These nights I write furiously until the battery dies (which at the moment is only about 30 minutes if I am lucky/have just turned the darned thing on before I came to bed). It's not a very big window of opportunity, it doesn't leave a lot of time to get my writing done. Could I perhaps bring the power cord with me and take myself to bed sooner? Possibly, maybe I'll try that tomorrow when Simon is out at the LAN party. Are there other times during the day at which I can write in my room that will also be productive??
I think I'll have to run a series of experiments in order to see what exactly makes this work for me, so that I can then expand on that and give myself more optimal writing time.
I love my desk, it's fully set up for writing now, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I think possibly because I sat there for the entire year studying and so thats what my brain is trying to do when I sit there, it's in that frame of mind. Perhaps its the perfect place to do research, a wonderful place to edit and rewrite no doubt, but it doesn't seem to be the place where first drafts are born.....
Maybe if I turned it around, moved it somehow...
Any ideas?

Favorite Photos of the year.

So, as I mentioned yesterday I have been going through our photos to put together some albums for Christmas, and I thought I would share some of my favorite ones. Some of them have been on the blog before and others are more recent so have not been seen before.

Sideshows are cool!!! Never used one before, I shall try not to get carried away with them....

stunned

I passed. Everything. I'm done, finished my degree. And I almost can't believe it!!!!
I was so sure that I was going to fail at least one paper, totally convinced. I'm not even sure it's fully sunken in yet that I actually passed. Wow. I passed.
What a relief!!! I'm free from my degree!!!
Graduation is in the middle of May next year, seems like such a long time away, I think I'll actually go down for it even, get the full experience. I worked my ass off, I should make the most of the celebrations.

In other news. I have been thinking back over my life and kicking myself that I didn't switch from design/multi media to photography back when I was living in Palmy. Kicking myself that I let those skinny, arty, snarky photography girls scare me off it. I love photos (this has all come about because I was putting together some albums to give away at Christmas yesterday), I'll put up some pics from this year that are my all time favourite - definitely made me realize I should start taking photos of things other than Ivy tho! lol she dominates most of them, and not many people are going to love those as much as I do.

December!

Already, it's December, how crazy is that?? While at times the year has felt like it was dragging along incredibly slowly, I am surprised at just how quickly the last few months seem to have gone. It is now:
10 days til my birthday
21 days until Xmas
28 days til the new year
66 days til Ivy's 3rd birthday
76 days til the wedding.

It's going to be a busy few months.

Am getting back into the writing today, and hoping to have the first draft done by the end of the year, though if that doesn't happen I am not going to stress about it. I am really looking forward to getting into rewriting last years nano though and I will not/cannot start on that until after this first draft is out into the world, I don't want to run the risk of not completing it, and even though I am sure that I now have the willpower and drive not to leave it unfinished, you just never know! Best not to tempt fate.

Had a nice weekend, most of which was spent driving, but hey thats life. My cousins wedding was beautiful and gave me some ideas of what I like and what I don't like which will be useful for my own wedding. I missed Ivy bunches, and feel like I spent half the night showing around photos of her. The one Aunt who hasn't met her exclaimed that she really was gorgeous! lol she thinks that all parents say that about their children so didn't really expect it to be the case. Ah well. She is, there is no denying it.
It sounds like everyone is now looking forward to our wedding, which is nice to know, makes me feel more relaxed about the day hearing other people being excited about the things they know about how the wedding will be.

I hope that everyone who managed to make it to a TGIO party had a great time, well done to all those who completed the challenge of Nanowrimo successfully, and to all those who gave it a good shot. Maybe next year I'll be a winner again ;-)