Friday the 13th (Not the movie)

It would appear that I've managed to survive Friday the 13th, 2012 edition, without any muss or fuss, even though I spent an hour out in the back yard this morning wielding a sharp lopper in order to trim a couple of trees.  One of them is a maple that appeared the first summer I lived here and has grown steadily since.  Want to talk about bad luck, though?  That tree has been hit by lightning at least three times.  Once, according to the cable repairman, the tree transferred the lighting to the ground where it hit the buried cable and traveled to the little box on the outside of the house, frying it.  The good luck part of the story is that the junction box is less than a foot from the air conditioner, which was unharmed.

Thankfully, I'm not paraskevidekatriaphobic (that's a morbid fear of Friday the 13th).  My claustrophobia is enough to handle on any given day.  Nor am I afraid of a black cat crossing my path.  My beloved Max lived for nineteen and a half years (and one day) and I'm sure if there were anything to that old saw, it would have come up. 

Some people are afraid of the world coming to an end in 2012.  I'll probably be too busy to notice, or will have my nose in a book, an afghan-in-progress or puttering in the garden.

Besides, if you saw the movie 2012, you know that the world didn't technically come to an end.  The survivors took an ark to a mountaintop where they probably survived by running internal combustion engines until their gas supplies ran out, and then throwing their trash overboard without recycling it.

At last Saturday's CFRW meeting we talked about our writing goals for the new year.  One of mine was to blog more.  Another was to write each day, Monday through Friday.  As my to-be-read pile reaches the three foot mark, I think I'll be setting aside weekends for some good reads.

Happy writing (and reading).

Mixed Bag

It’s been a mixed bag of activities the past few weeks resulting in busy days but not getting very much done. Do you have days/weeks like that? Here’s what’s been going on.

Christmas: Celebrated with family on Christmas Eve, then had a very quiet Christmas Day. Celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends, then didn’t see or talk to anyone except a neighbor (I said “Happy New Year”, she said, “Same to you.”

Movies: Super 8 and Harry Potter (no relation) and the Deathly Hollows, part II. Both had monsters and smart kids.

Books: Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, Diana Palmer’s Montana Tough, Janet Evanovich’s Explosive Eighteen (loved it!), Pretty Little Pincushions (could be my next crafting obsession).

Crocheting: The afghan in country rose is about 3 feet long. Started a new project using a wonderful soft yarn (kind of reminds me of angora. Remember angora?) and now I can barely put it down.

Weather: Three freezing cold nights (had-to-cover-the-plants cold) and now we’re back to the 60s. Went to the library yesterday in flip-flops.

Writing: Taking Stephen King’s advice to leave Take Me Home alone for 6 weeks (got my calendar marked for re-start day) and rewriting the first book of the series, Married in :08 (that’s eight seconds for those who don’t follow professional bull riding—though you really should…)

Hope you’re keeping busy with myriad projects and things you love to do, and as always,

Happy Writing.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you fun and love and happiness in 2012.  Southern tradition holds that eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day brings prosperity, so as a public service, I'm posting a recipe for Black-Eyed Pea Salad, which I found many years ago in a cookbook titled Miami Spice.

Black-Eyed Pea Salad


2 cups cooked black-eyed peas (canned are acceptable)
2 ribs celery, cut into fine dice
¼ cup finely diced red onion
¼ cup finely diced red bell pepper
¼ cup finely diced green bell pepper
¼ cup chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, plus 4 sprigs for garnish toss together in a bowl

Mix:
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, or to taste
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Toss into bean mixture, chill, eat, drink and be merry!

Nativity

I found this poem printed in a magazine when I was in my twenties and have always loved it.  With all that Christmas means to the religious, for me, in the final analysis it comes down to a mother, a father and a child.

Nativity

I doubt He came to chants of angel choirs,
or that His birth was heralded afar.
We charge the tale as afterthought requires,
convert a feeble candle to a star,
bring Eastern kings to worship at the byre. 

More like, some older woman from the inn
sent Joseph to heat water at the fire,
and helped the frightened girl to usher in
the wrinkled, squalling Babe, and tore a clean
old linen sheet to make the swaddling bands;
then, having finished, left the girl serene
and trudged back to her room to wash her hands. 

I find the daily miracles of earth
sufficient portents for a Savior's birth.

     Roland A. Browne

A Christmas Detour

The muse is at the mall, probably still shopping (or maybe people watching) and I'm at home, getting ready for the holiday and finding myself doing a lot of crocheting.

Crocheting???

Who would have thought that with all the other things to do I'd have picked up the crochet hook and started an afghan?  I'm obsessed!  I love to crochet in cool weather.  The weight of the piece on my lap is warming and I love to see the work progress.  So, crocheting it is, for the time being. 

My friend Sonja says one kind of creativity always sparks another, and so hopefully the sometimes mindless yarn-overs and single crochets will give my brain some free time to work through the story problems and character oopses in Take Me Home.  Then, at the end, I should have an afghan and a book!

Happy writing!

Counting Down To Christmas

I'm beginning to get excited about Christmas.  Cards are in the mail.  Wreath is on the door.   I'm through with shopping and getting ready to pull out the decorations. I spent the afternoon making holiday bags out of food boxes from the pantry and packaging up some spiced almonds and pecans I made over the weekend. 

I'm not spending a lot of time writing, although I have morphed Lindsay, the heroine from Take Me Home, from a secretary/assistant to the in-house counsel for hero Shadow's sports agency.  Now, if she leaves the city, she has even more to lose.  Yay!  (Does that sound mean?  No worries.  She gets everything back, and more, when she falls in love.)

How are you preparing for the holidays?  Is your schedule shot to pieces like mine?

Happy writing (and celebrating).

At Loose Ends

What to do?  What to do? 

I'm eager to begin rewrites of my NaNoWriMo novel, Take Me Home, but I'm getting mixed suggestions about how long I should let the book "simmer."  The NaNo folks say wait until March for NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month).  Stephen King says give it six weeks. 

I think about the book a lot, even though I'm getting back into reading, crafting and trying to improve my cooking skills.  Maybe since I'm so unsettled about what to do, I should think about it some more. 

So, I will. 

PS to those of you who are thinking of trying the Cuppa, Cuppa, Cuppa Cake.  I made one today, with pineapple, and before I put in the pan I decided to throw in a cup of blackberries I had lurking in the fridge.  OMG, as the young girls say.  Best thing I ever ate!  Try it!

In the meantime, happy writing.