it’s official

Winter is here in O-Town!

For some time now I have not been able to go to work without turning on the heat in my car, and the cute little blazer I’d been using as a jacket just won’t cut it anymore. Of course it’s getting colder, that much I knew from the day the locks on my car doors would not open, no matter how hard I tried. And of course almost every day for the past two weeks you would hear weather people warning of heavy snow in the GTA (“Oh, look out Toronto! 20cm is on it’s way – better get out those snowblowers!”), but morning after morning, you could hardly see the tiny film of snow on your car or on the ground. And now that I think about it, it was probably just frost anyway.

But this morning there was snow on the ground, and a LOT of it.

I was planning on going to the gym, but I have since decided to just stay inside and write, perhaps with some hot chocolate, until someone else wakes up and offers to help me remove snow from the driveway so that at least I will be able to go Monday morning before work. If it doesn’t snow again, that is… Yaaay winter!

didn’t quite make it…

I came around a little less than 10,000 words short of my month’s goal for nanowrimo. I’m not disappointed though (well not too much), I think this is the most I have written since I started working on this novel!

It was hard at first, but whenever I was having trouble, I would just tell myself “I’ll just write 500 words and I’ll take a break”. And I’d end up with almost 2000. It was difficult of course, but somehow I managed to write 43,598 words that way. Yay me

Note to self: Self, take a well-deserved break for December, then you can go back to setting those monthly goals for that novel of yours.

Oh, and work on those school applications that you’ve been putting off to write fiction, damnit… Actually I think that should be your December goal. Get all the essays and such out of the way so the paperwork can be sent off before the new year, you lazy git!

behind schedule

Blah.

I so do not want to be at work today. I am about 5000 words behind in my nano…ing… Not that I ever thought I could complete the 50 000 word requirement in the alloted thirty days, but I’m still proud of myself that I’ve come this far. It was a good motivator for me to have a set number of words to write each day. I think I’ll have to try to keep this pace up after the contest is over. At that rate, my book might be done by 2009. Now that’s an exciting thought.

early birds

Already my family has started pulling out the Christmas boxes from the storage room in our basement.

It has been a long-standing joke… er, I mean family traditionto be the first people on our block to have their festive decorations up… No, I kid. But we have always begun the decorating well before December. This year we’re actually running behind schedule because the Sister was away (and now that she is here, naturally she is still jet-lagged), and of course the decorating is a family event and therefore everyone must be involved. Even our cats play a part – they get to chase trailing garlands and chew on fuzzy decorations and climb the tree when it finally goes up.

and back again

The Sis has returned from the U.K! She is very sleepy, but I ordered Thai food so we’re going to stay up and chat while we watch the Leafs lose – er, I mean play (what the heck is up with them anyway? That one game against Ottawa must have been a figment of my imagination). Everyone’s happy to have her back, except now I will have to be a little more discreet about borrowing her clothes…

the first “snow”

It was predicted that there would be about 20cm of snow falling between last night and early this morning, and as I went to bed I was excited. That might mean a day off work tomorrow – yay!

We ended up with less than half a centimeter… So bah to you weather people. You ruined my lazy day plans.

whee!

As of now, basically all of my Christmas shopping is done! Now I can spend those first few weekends in December relaxing in the comfort of my own home, instead of at the mall with the masses.

All I have left to do is order a gift for my Mom online. And no, I’m not going to say what it is… just in case she reads this. (Shoo Mom, shoo!)

it begins at midnight

A rather uneventful Halloween this year. Not many kids came to our door, although I did see some pretty interesting and cute costumes. One man dressed up as a football player was carrying around his toddler that was dressed up as a football. Too cute. There was however, this one kid dressed up as a terrorist (no joke, I even asked him to be sure!). He had a fake mustache, plastic machine gun, hand grenade, machete and all. And his mom smiled and looked on as I gave him his candy. Wow.

Only a few more hours until nanowrimo starts! Apparently some people that partake in this contest will stay up past midnight to get a bit of a head start on those 50000 words. But not I. I shall be snuggled under my blankets sound asleep by then. These days I have to get up between 5:30 and 6am just so I can fit in the time for a workout, my evenings are busy enough after work as it is. Somehow I’ll have to find a way to make time for this writing thing too…

so… AWAKE

My Dad could not get over the fact that I “went back in time” as I travelled back home. When he picked me up from the airport last night (or a few hours ago), he kept asking me how I liked ‘time-travel’. Silly old man. He made the same joke when we came back from our trip to Australia last year.

I had a pleasant flight though, no screaming babies or obnoxious children to annoy me… One would think I would have taken the opportunity to take a nap, but instead I was making notes for my novel. I was so productive on that plane, I should have been proud.

But now I can’t sleep – it’s what, ten in the morning in London right now? – even though I haven’t closed my eyes in almost two days. I don’t even want to sleep, but I’m fidgety and want to do something… I just don’t know what. All I do know is that I don’t want to read a book (although, there is a nice one sitting on my bedside table right now…), I don’t want to draw, and to go downstairs to turn on the TV/playstation/XBox/Wii would take too much effort. I have yet to finish that Zelda game though…

Yeah, I may be wide awake and all jet-laggy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not lazy. So I think I’m just going to sit right here, kitties keeping me company (they missed me), and playing with iTunes until maybe, just maybe I start to get sleepy.

leaving at the last minute

So… Turns out I’m off to the U.K tomorrow.

I’d been browsing through a number of cheap travel sites since the Sis left for work in September, hoping that I might find something I could afford, but not really expecting to. I decided it was more of a dream than anything, but today I actually found a flight for a reasonable price.

It couldn’t have been better timing; My new job (yay!) starts not on the 15th like I’d been told earlier, but on the 22nd. So I have almost two weeks to play around in London! All I have left to do is call The Sis back with my flight details and finish, er start packing. See you in two weeks!

EDIT: Hmm.. I wonder if we’ll finally have a microwave when I get back…