Saturday 24 November 2018

Home Alone

The movie. This was the best pick for us tonight. We have seen it several times and yes, it is a kids movie.

I remember when it first came out and I thought, how can you leave a kid at home?

But after watching it, it is believable the leaving him home bit, not so sure about the rest.

I also feel guilty about laughing at the poor sods who become the victims but then they shouldnt have been there in the first place.

I had most of the day home alone myself today and beat my target, 3348 for the day so two days in front.

Friday 23 November 2018

Concidences

Today is the 23 November and for national novel writing month, the total of words to be written is 37, 000 and plus a few.

Every three days needs another five thousand in order to finish on time, on or before 30 November.

I/we got to 40,000 tonight before calling it quits for the day. Planning on having a big day of writing tomorrow.

I like to put in my word count every so often and always update at the end of the day.

Total is 40054 words.

Checking emails in bed, there is a congratulation email from nanowrimo regarding hitting 40k. As part of that and to keep writing there was a suggestion from a young writer only eight years of age to include "an awkward dinner"  I,m thinking thats crazy, then I realised that I had written that this afternoon.

Main character was preparing a roast chicken dinner and asked the menfolk to carve oops blood run out, it was cooked properly then dessert was a Pavlova and there was a discussion between the kiwis and the aussie about its origins. So awkward dinner done and dusted.

Wednesday 21 November 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody

We saw this movie this afternoon. Amazing! Music was incredible of course.
The movie opened at the start of the month and we had said that we would go and thought that we had better get there before it closed.

Being Queen fans, we knew most of his story but it was good to go and see it unfold, def worth a visit if you like great music

Monday 19 November 2018

A painted train

Yesterday while walking along the bike/walking path that runs between Redcliffe and Brisbane, I took a pic of the train waiting. It is one of the new ones and I particularly liked the art work.

This morning while on our train line, this one or similar passed our train and I heard a passenger remark that the art work is to deter graffiti.

I wonder if it will work, only time will tell I guess.

Sunday 18 November 2018

A lunch break

A busy week led to wanting to go out for lunch today.

Problem was, where to go that was no that far and avoid the highway as that can be a nightmare on a Sunday afternoon.

Warren thought he would like to go somewhere nice and be able to look out over the beach. I wanted something without bread.

Good old Mr Google, found a place that we hadnt been to before but we did roughly know the area.
This was what we ordered, hot stuff on the bottom, crumbled fish, prawn cutlets, fish bites and calamari. Cold prawns, oysters, scallops and smoked salmon with sauces and lemon on top.  Plates, knves and forks plus a water bowl.

It was very pleasant sitting under the trees looking out to the beach with a three piece band playing.

After lunch we drove a little way home parked and did about a two kms walk along a bike path, got two caches.

Came home and continued to write another thousand words, so 1847 words for today. Very productive day.

Tuesday 13 November 2018

Christmas gifts

I have always wanted to make advent calendars and this year as I did have a couple of gifts to send, I decided to give it a go.

My first attempt was hopeful, I was going to put the shape of a Christmas tree on red fabric, oh boy that soon went down the toilet (out in the bin).

I like the KISS  principle and used to teach that to the kids in China but instead of keep it simple stupid, I told them keep it short and simple.

This one is for kids and will have activities in it with a coin, chocolate or lolly pop in each day. There is no 25 as this is about the lead up to Christmas.
The second one that I finished today on a break from writing is for an adults, there is a seperate box of goodies to go with it. The only thing I had to do was put the tabs and sew the Christmas buttons on.

I will get them to the post office next week.

A good day of writing and finished up with 3040 for the day, so a day and a half in front at the moment

Friday 9 November 2018

Techo update

Our phone went out a couple of weeks ago,  only realised it when we needed to ring to make an appointment. Interest was still working so we had computer and our mobiles.

Got on to telstra and they decided it was our modem and they would send us a new one free. We actually had a second one up in the cupboard that had never been used as we had received two within weeks of each other and no one wanted the second one returned so we kept it for those in case moments.

Spare one didnt work either! New modem came in the post and Warren went to replace it. Our old one was quite stream lined and he had mounted it on the wall with the wires enclosed.
The two screws are from where it was held in place.
New modem with lots of wires and no wall mounts. Very untidy looking and we can be tidy enough without extra stuff.

One trip to Bunnings to buy brackets and a little bit of measuring, cutting and yay we have a tidy looking shelf with wires mostly hidden.
My fish picture was reloacated and the London bridge doesnt have a home yet, the backing fell off it when jt was taken down so it may end up in the bin.

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Writing from the Gut.

This was the name of a free seminar that Warren and I went to on Saturday morning. It was for about an hour although we did go a bit overtime as there were many questions asked.

The guy taking the seminar is a local published author, he has one book out and the second one is due to be released in Feb.

He is a high school teacher and he told us that when he knew that he wanted to write, he set himself a task to write 1000 words every day. Later though he did say that he didnt write in the school holidays, that was family time.

He wrote three novels and one novella which was nominated for a literary prize but no body wants novellas at the moment so that one hasnt gone any further.

Someone asked him how he found time to write and he said that he is able to do the thousand words while in front of the tv, his wife watches, he writes. He said that it is only about an hour or bit more to do 1000. He pointed out that not all of those thousand are any good or end up in the book, but that he is practising his craft.

This morning I wrote 678 words in one hour before taking a break.

Ben Hobson is his name and his book is called To become a whale. Quite a lot about men relating to boys.

Sunday 4 November 2018

A Man shop

My computer worked fine yesterday morning but when I sat down to work, I had no a,s or d again. Did my usual tricks but nothing, then yep the a worked, woohoo! Yep then the w,s and x were out. How flipping annoying. Warren had told me to buy a new keyboard a few days ago but I thought I could fix it.

Tearing my hair as I was behind, jumped in the car at 3.30pm, I had asked Warren if I had time to go and get it, most businesses close at 4pm.

I was thinking of which entrance would get me in the door quicker. I must have looked like a woman on a mission as a young guy headed in my direction as soon as I burst throught the automatic doors. "Can I help you today " unusual for me I said Yep, I need a usb keyboard.
As I am following him through the store he asks do I want a cheap one or a good one
"I want one the the letters all work as my current one doesnt"
He took one off the shelf, I said good who do i pay?
Went back to fron door to the counter, handed over my card and I was on my way.
Back home, in tge door asking Warren to hook it up at 3.50pm, then I find out the the stire was open on Saturdays until 5pm.

Ahhh, new keyboard that was hooked up to a bigger screen and I got another 1800 words written, still a little behind at the end if the day but catching up.

Saturday 3 November 2018

Parcel delivery on a Saturday!

Yep, thats right, I got delivery this morning.
I couldnt sleep the other night, brain is almost dormant all day, get to bed, read for awhile, turn out the light, suddenly brain starts working overtime. I solve most of the problems of the world and then some while I am lying awake.

Its annoying especially when I am tired. Anyway the other night, on facebook there was a suggestion to buy some clothes online. That sounded good as of course, one can never have enough clothes, right.

I had a lovely time choosing tops and shirts, some only to find that they didnt have them in my size and or colour but finally thirty minutes had lapsed and there were a few things in my shopping cart.

My phone was on the charge just by my bed and in it was my credit card, hah, didnt even have to get out of bed. Filling everything out, I dont buy much online and hadnt used this place before. All going swimmimgly until I got to my email address, then I got an error!

What the ? Double checked, yep, its right,  another reject. Only thing I could think of was my email is all lower case and apparently, they consider it invalid. Well, I was all geared up to buy a couple of new outfits so where else can I go to satisfy my need to spend money. Rivers for shoes as I didnt like the sandals that I bought a couple of years ago and had put them in the opp shop box.

Rivers it is and yes, they have more online than in their stores, well our local one anyway.
They didnt mind that my email address starts with a lower case letter. All done and I slept the rest of the night.

Next morning, there were two emails, one thanking me for joining, the other to tell me my order was being processed. Each day since an email has be sent advising me of the status of my order. Yesterday the email said it would be delivered that day, later another came in saying that unfortunately my order would not be delivered due to the volume of mail. I wasnt in a hurry, after all I only ordered it Tuesday night around midnight.

Nine oclock this morning a mail van pulls into the drive way, a delivery! On a Saturday, I questioned the driver, yep, he said from now til Christmas there would be Saturday deliveries to cope with the parcels.

Two pairs of three quarter pants, tried one on opps should have gone one size bigger. They looked the same except different colours then I see one was made in Bangladesh (that was the too small ones)the other pair were made in China, which fit well even a little bit on the big side. They are supposed to be the same size. The two tops fit well and dont need ironing and the shoes are comfy. However I will need to get used to the colour, instead of black, they are blue.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Nanowrimo.

Yep, its that time of the year again. National novel writing month or nanowrimo. Thirty days to write a 50,000 word novel.

Warren wants to write something between us and he did have a good idea, which I didnt have any thoughts and was considering giving it a miss. Anyway a two hour planning meeting took place on Monday. I even took notes and a thought map on a big piece of paper!

Today was the first dayand Warren was tapping away on my laptop. Its the one that I use and has been on several trips with us and known as "mine". His lap top is hooked up to the tv for when we want to watch something on netflx.

Table tennis was on this morning too but Warren had 281 words done before we left. After we got home, he told me that jt was my turn to write the next scene while he took Lucy for a walk. I did some then made lunch and did a bit more. No pressure, as its easy pleasy to 1667 in a day right? Yeah, when everything is going okay.

We discovered that we had no phone service when Warren went to ring the vet, Lucy ended up walking on only three legs again and it appears to be a tendon snapping around the knee joint. Sort of got phone sorted, got an apt with the vet and I wanted to do more writing.

Now my laptop is very old and in the past has had letters not working at times so of course that happened this afternoon. Its rather difficult to read what has been written when the a,s and d are not there. I left it for a bit, I turned the a/c on thinking it may have over headed, not likely, still missing letters.

So todays total is 889 hopefully we can make up the rest tomorrow.