Sunday Sundries--St. Patrick's Day Edition

Don't know why, but I found out pretty early on that my characters had been brought up Catholic. I was not--born and raised Methodist. I did, however, marry a man from a Catholic family and it seems most of my local friends are Catholic.

But, on St. Patrick's Day, not everyone is Catholic, though everyone IS Irish.

Found a picture the other day of the Indianapolis Canal downtown. A lot of it runs between to Marriott hotels I spent a lot of time in when I was traveling for work:

It really is that green, dyed for St. Pat's. It goes away fairly quickly, but it's fun to drink beer out on the patio and watch it on a nice day. The other thing that's green year round is the duck poop, though. Part of my first and second sets of novels take place in that area, but in April and November.

 I've been playing on Pinterest again and created an Easter/St. Pat's/Spring board. I love these vintage cards:

Back when we used to send cards, right?
Have to have the obligatory silly cats:

Had to take the twins to the vet yesterday for their yearly checkups and shots. They were their usual cranky selves, like this pair.

Then, there's this guy:

Ooops. Here's one from a Black Cat Appreciation Page on Facebook:

Went through a bunch of counted cross-stitch patterns on-line and found this one. I would love to do it someday, because I love a lot of things Celtic:

Hey, another big Catholic thing happened this week, didn't it?

We stayed home for a few extra minutes to see the announcement. It's a part of history and an fascinating ritual, isn't it?

 So, it's been an interesting week. I've done a little writing and editing, but not enough. Hope you've had a productive one.

Here's my wishes to you:

Have a great week!
 

Sunday Sundries--What Would You Do with 3 Hours?

God willing and if the creek don't rise, my husband will be off his medically-imposed, three month driving restriction on March 21st. There will be much rejoicing.

While he's gotten a ride home with a couple of co-workers at night (a blessing), I have had to do all the driving for us. That included driving to and from Virginia for a visit to my brother and a trip to and from Bowling Green, KY, last month. While I've done long hauls before and drove quite a bit for a previous job, it's been a trial. And for every day he's worked, I had to drive him in, then drive back home. Takes about twenty minutes to a half hour for the round trip, but some days there were accidents or other issues making it much longer.

So, hopefully, I'll be able to gain about three hours of my life back every week. I started thinking about it, especially "losing" the hour with Daylight Savings Time and the whole "spring forward" thing.

Three hours or so is a chunk of time. It's a gift. While usually I've enjoyed the time talking with my honey and I truly do try to live to serve, if he could drive himself to and from work and run errands on his own, I'm thinking it might really help. After all:

Let me explain--usually when I get home from taking Chris to work at 2:15pm, I have around forty-five minutes before I have to leave for work. I can't get started on a new project and often don't have time to get back into what I was doing before we left if it involves any concentration at all. I usually take the time to brush my teeth, fix my lunch and piddle around. If I didn't have the interruption, I could continue editing, finish writing that scene I'd started or get another ten pages of notes into order.

On the other hand:

There have been many times when social media has taken control of my life. I have:
Facebook accounts: 2 ("real" name and author name, not counting the "author page")

Pinterest accounts: 2 ("real" name and author name)

email accounts: 3 I check regularly (2 "real" name and 1 author name)

AND I was stupid and installed Jewel Quest III on my laptop. Duh.

When I was doing a lot of counted cross-stitch, I found some friends on the AOL XS board that did something called "the rotation system." It was where you work on each UFO (UnFinished Object) for a limited period of time. It might be you have a project for every day of the week or work on each pattern for one week at a time or a certain number of hours. This helps finish items that you're sick of, that's a gift or that you're in the middle of a boring section, because when you finish something, you get the option of starting that new project that is exciting. I did a massive amount of cross-stitch in the early 2000s with this method. I have about twenty projects yet unfinished, though. Here are just two:

This is called Skyler Wayne--the designer named her patterns after her grandsons--and it's exactly half finished. I haven't touched it in years. Here's another one that hasn't seen the light of day in way too long:

This is titled Harmony. There is part of another leaf I am half-way through in the bottom middle that's been added since this picture was taken. It was going to be a gift for my mother for surviving breast cancer in the late 1990s. She died in 2004.

So, not only should I use my "found" time for something creative and productive (like stitching, beading or trying out the knitting looms and yarn I bought), but I should apply the rotation principle to my writing too. Little snippets of time--an hour here and a half hour there--would help me finish that scene, organize that folder of notes, transcribe that notebook.

What would you do with an extra three hours in your week?

Sunday Sundries--Scruffy Eye Candy Edition

That got your attention, didn't it?

We watched "Argo" last night and since it was set in 1981, I was waxing nostalgic about hair over the collar and porn 'staches. Here's a picture of Ben Afflick from the movie:

Mighty tasty, huh? I also watched "Fashion Police--Oscar Edition" and Joan Rivers berating Afflick and George Clooney for not being clean-shaven made me laugh. Here's George and he's still a beautiful man:

I have to admit, I'm kind of fond of facial hair. My husband was clean-shaven for only a couple of months in the early 1990s and he quickly grew it back. He complained of being too baby-faced. I've put that in my characters too. My hero William gets some cheap reading glasses at the drugstore, because he wants to look a little older to be taken seriously once he shaves. Here are a couple of inspirations for him:

Yes, that's Gregory Peck with a beard and mustache. Here's a favorite of mine of Hugh Jackman:

*sigh* Dear Will is a medically retired Marine. If you'd like some scruff and some meaty eye candy, this is Joe Mangienello from the TV show "True Blood."

Here's one last one, this one of Billy Cruddup:

Will teases his younger brother Rob about looking like "Uncle Jerry. A very pretty Uncle Jerry." Rob has his own issues--he used to be in a boy band. In a world where second and third string wanna be celebrities find boosts to their careers in reality TV, he walked away and has been living almost as a recluse. His growing a beard and mustache is definitely part of his disguise. At Will's suggestion he wears a pair of his father's glasses to distract. So, here are a few inspirations for Rob, the first being a rare picture of Matt Bomer with facial hair:

Here's one of my favorite pieces of eye candy, Ian Somerhalder:

Oh, what the hell, here's another one of him:

Here's another almost pretty man that looks great with a little scruff, Adam Levine:

Like it a lot. Here's another rocker that looks nice with a little scruff, Jared Leto:

Yeah, that's a twofer. Another rocker that reminds me of one of my characters (Carter falls in love with Rob's daughter) is Chris Cornell of Soundgarden:

Here's another one of a model named Fabian Schweiser that reminds me of Carter:

And finally, the ever charming Kris Holden-Reid:

So, I hope you've enjoyed my salute to the joys of men with facial hair. I certainly liked going through my character files and sharing with you. Have a great week and see you next time!

Sunday Sundries--Busy Week Edition

What a great week! I took some time off, I had a birthday and we got to go out of town for a few days to visit some friends. Thanks to all for the birthday wishes!

By the way, I didn't give anything up for Lent. It's the minor fact that I'm not Catholic.

Not really. In fact, I did some good writing late at night. I cleaned up a couple of scenes I needed to and was a little more disciplined in getting done the editing that was necessary. Have you noticed:

By breaking the cycle, I was able to get inspired to get stuff done. There were a half dozen times the whole long weekend when I felt like:

So, instead of being discouraged that I wasn't out being crazy with my friends, I was excited because I was getting some writing done, handling scenes I wanted to get down and edit.

I also had a friend that brought a bunch of cross-stitch magazines she wanted to get rid of for me to look through. In the second one, I found the cutest pattern for a "family" of robots that I would love to do. It may get me cross-stitching again. I do want to do a little work on my Hawaiian quilt sampler:

I really consider my "year" from birthday to birthday, so I'm going to try to get back to stitching.

Part of my work over the weekend was to order framing for a piece of needlework I have. Several (more than five) years ago, for the Christmas gift exchange, the person who had my name had their significant other crochet out our (yes, my "real") name. I was thrilled--it was something I couldn't do.

 That's another goal, to get another piece framed later in the year and get a couple of others displayed. Yes, while keeping up with beading projects too. It will have to cut into my Jewel Quest III time.

I did some virtual organizing too. I helped a friend back up the stuff he had on his micro SD card in his phone, so he could delete it. He watches our cats when we're gone and has taken some great pictures. This is one of Boris:

Love his tabby face. I also sorted through a bunch more stuff that I'd saved off Pinterest and Facebook. Here are a couple of my "finds":

 And:

So, may this continued round of productivity last, with my plans to get and keep organized in multiple aspects of my life. Join me next week to see if we can keep this streak going!

 

Sunday Sundries--Sickey Edition Redux

So, instead of a nice, relaxing, productive weekend, I ended up spending most of it in the bathroom with the nasty stomach flu my husband had last week. Hellva way to lose ten pounds, huh? Yeah, it's the I'm going to wear Depends because I'm not quite sure I'll be able to make it to the bathroom and while I'm at it, I'm keeping the bathroom trashcan by where I sit for the same reason. Awesome.

But, even though it is literally a pain in the ass, I can honestly sit here and say it could be worse. I do have sick time I could take at work. I do have a job with insurance if I need to go to the doctor.

I know it would have been worse if I hadn't gotten a flu shot and if I hadn't been taking anti-viral medicine. Everyone was sneezing at work, so I should have figured it was going to happen.

After all:

So, while I'm doing my impression of Grumpy Cat,

Please forgive me. I have to make sure I drink enough water.

 I did get out for a get-together of friends to celebrate out friends' birthdays. I didn't eat very much, but we had a good time.

I've been sleeping a lot. I know it's the only way I'll get better.

One thing I really try to do is portray my characters during their trials and not finest moments. It makes your fiction more important, more real. My character Lizzy/Elizabeth jokes to herself that she does some of her best thinking in the bathroom. Don't worry--I'm not going to have anything graphic like what was happening to me for the past forty-eight hours, but it's part of life. Poor Mary Margaret runs out of tampons and just started her period. She met the man of her dreams and he buys them for her, much to her embarrassment. In the second series of books, Rob falls ill with a bad case of strep throat and in a moment of weakness, confesses to his new sister-in-law why he had a falling out with his brother.

So, yes, I need to use all my life's experiences to contribute to my fiction. But, tomorrow, I go back to work in "The Real World" and I promise I won't be like this fellow:

Promise. Take care and see you next week!