So you think you can write…

16,355 words! I am well above my daily word count, but I am terrified of running out of steam. I should not be blogging right now, I should be torturing my main character or something, but I can’t help it. I need a break.

I have found that having a little audience is kind of cool. My husband and a friend of mine are acting as drill Sargents in this writer’s boot camp, err… adventure in literary abandon.

I’m actually fairly proud of my work so far, although not editing along the way is hard; for Nano you’re supposed to basically vomit words out of your fingers onto a keyboard and see what you come up with. Then go back in December and vomit for real at what you wrote….kidding. I think. Anyway, I share:

“I actually have a question for you,” I looked at Michael. He looked back expectantly.
“Who is this Mansel that everyone seems to think is responsible for my situation. Is he nearby?”
Michael’s normally cheerful eyes seemed to darken and harden at the name. “We do not often speak of him around Bellathese.” He replied. His voice seemed to be shaking. “He is the sworn enemy of Rowan’s family, and the feud goes back many, many generations.”
“I was taken aback by Michael’s suddenly cold demeanor. He must have noticed the look on my face, for he tried to relax his posture.
“Would you like to hear a story?” He asked suddenly. “It’s an old story about this very village, beginning nearly two hundred years ago.”
“Absolutely,” I replied. “Tell me.”
“A long, long time ago,” Michael started, “Back when Rowan’s great-great-great….ah, to be honest, very many greats grandfather ruled over Bellathese, he had help in protecting our people by dragons.”
“Dragons?” I asked, “Real, fire breathing dragons?”
“Surely you know of few,” Michael said calmly. “But dragons are very sparse nowadays. There was something special about these dragons, however. Most dragons are very feral, they cannot be tamed and do not want to be in any sort of contact with humans. Not that we can blame them, man has hunted the dragons until there may not be even enough left to be breeding. But the Bellathese dragons, four in all, were dedicated to Rowan’s family and served them loyally. In return the Tuvalui family returned the respect and kindness to the dragons, offering them massive dwellings and offerings of livestock from the villagers. Bellathese was the safest place in all the land, after all, who would want to anger a dragon?”

I know my punctuation and my grammar is off, please be kind I also cannot spell, sorry about that as well.

My goal for the evening is another 2k. Off I go!

 

NanoWriMo

So I am off to an excellent start to Nano this year. I am currently sitting at 12,343 of 50,000 words. Basically I need to write a total of about 1,400 words a day until the 30th to reach the 50,00 mark. Can I do it? Who knows.

I feel like my book is finally starting to write itself, if that makes any sense. I find my characters making decisions and saying things that I didn’t necessarily have to plan out. I wrote an outline a couple months ago but that’s all blown to hell and for some reason I don’t care; I like what’s going on right now rather than what I meticulously planned out. It’s kind of amazing.

This is one of the scariest things I have ever done. The only thing that might possibly be more terrifying is when I go back to fix all my grammar mistakes and then….send out the manuscript. REJECTION! Good lord I am so freaking terrified about getting rejected by everyone i send it to. I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve always been told I am a good writer. What if the only people who tell me I’m a good writer simply don’t want to crush my delicate little childhood dreams?

Eep. If I can hit the 50,000 word mark by the end of November then I’m going to assume that I was meant to, and will be dedicating a lot more time (and probably a lot more booze…Hemmingway style!) towards getting myself published. Wouldn’t it be amazing?-

 

Visions of Houses Dance in My Head…

At this moment I am 2 hours into an 11 hour shift at work. On a Saturday.

I’m kind of a workaholic. It’s not that I love my job (ha) or get any real satisfaction out of the job itself, but when I have a goal to work towards I have the tendency to kind of overdo it.

Justin and I recently got pre-approved to buy a house, which is really exciting! The pre-approval has also made the experience much more real. It’s one thing to say, yeah, we’re looking for a house, blah blah, but it’s a completely different ballgame when you actually know you have the approval to back it up!

The future is semi-uncertain now as far as where we’ll be living months from now. I’d love to say we’ll be in our very first house soon, but the problem is is that we just have not found one we both love yet. It’s coming to the point where we may need to regroup and go higher than our high point now.. and our high point is $100,000! Buying a house is a scary thing when you think about the financial responsibility that comes along with it. I feel very lucky that Justin and I both have a great amount of job security, our company continues to do well and we have both been here for a long time. When I graduate I will continue to work here until I find a job that pays more, but that could still be quite awhile.

 

Baby, if You’re Good to Go We’ll Go Down to Mexico

I know, I’ve been meaning to post some pictures and talk about our honeymoon for awhile now. I am a slacker, I am sorry. But better late than never, right?
I think this is a very appropriate picture to start off with, don’t you? Haha. In case I didn’t mention, we went to Riviera Maya, Mexico. It was basically one of the best experiences of my life! The resort was immaculate, and it was all-inclusive, so we basically got to eat and drink as much as we wanted, and drink we did
This specific picture was taken at a restaurant outside our resort on one of the excursions we went on. We asked our server to take a picture of us, she did and left…then came back with these huge sombreros! It was pretty hilarious, as she didn’t speak much English at all and our Spanish is very rudimentary, but we were all laughing =) This was taken on our excursion to Tulum, an ancient Mayan City. I love culture and history! The city was amazing, and sometimes it’s hard to wrap your mind around how people lived in actual ancient history. Seeing a huge city that was built out of stone and the culture that surrounds it also puts into perspective how young our country is. America is a baby compared to all these other civilizations. Mexico was so full of culture and history, as well as beautiful sights and beaches, it was the perfect destination for us. Another thing about this specific excursion, and Mexico in general, is that it was hot. Hot Hot Hot! I’ve never been on a tour where they actually require you to have water. you’re not allowed to go into the tour group without water, which I thought was pretty interesting, as well as smart. The bottoms of my feet where actually getting hot, and every once in awhile we would have to stop and let them cool off a little bit. Coming from Pennsylvania this was a little unheard of. I don’t think our temperatures ever get hotter than maybe 105, and that’s only on very rare occasions every couple years. It was at least 105 down there most of the time!

One of the best aspects of our honeymoon, hands down, was the pool bar. The glorious, glorious pool bar! Here we are in a place we visited at least once a day, generally just to cool off and get in a little liqueur fix. haha. The bartenders were awesome, very attentive and funny. It sucks that my waterproof camera didn’t have a flash, but you get the general idea! Mexico isn’t as conservative, per say, as America is. We could smoke and drink in the pool anywhere, and they had ashtrays set up for us in the bar area.

Just look at that cutie! Haha. One thing I noticed, however, is that it is almost too hot to get drunk down there. We spent hours at the bar (and our would-be tab if it wasn’t all inclusive seriously would have paid for the trip and then some!) We just drank because everything they made was awesome! The bar was literally a bar. There were stools under the water that you would sit on, and the bar part was raised high enough to be comfortable but wouldn’t splash a ton of water on the inside. The best way I can explain the bar set up would be that it kind of reminded me of a dug out. It was built into the ground of the pool and stretched on for probably 30 feet so that different sides of the pool could get bar access. It was amazing! I really wonder if anyplace in the US has something like this, because I want to visit! They took two of my favorite things, swimming and booze, and joined them in a match made in heaven.

Believe it or not, we did not spend every waking hour at the pool bar, we went to the beach a few different times too…and there’s a bar on the beach, haha. There is nothing, nothing in my young life that has equaled to drinking margaritas on a Mexican beach with my husband. I’m pretty sure that was a little piece of paradise right there. And seriously, look at that water! Words cannot describe the color of the Caribbean Ocean. It’s the bluest blue and the greenest green you’ll ever see. People name shades of blue and green after the Caribbean but they simply cannot do it justice. There’s something about this ocean that nothing man-made could ever compare to. It’s amazing. And swimming in it! That water is clear! We went out to the very edge, as far as we could go before they roped it off, and I could still see my feet about 6 feet down. The water was so clear that we saw a fairly large fish a little ways away from where we were standing in the water. It scared the crap out of me, I won’t lie. It was probably about a foot long and was having a hard time getting back out into the sea due to the waves. I loved just relaxing in the waves and letting them carry us, it was truly relaxing. I really wish we lived closer to a beach, Lake Erie just won’t be able to cut it now! We got seriously spoiled with this beach, I’m pretty sure the Atlantic won’t be able to hold a candle to it, but I hope to make a comparison this summer A trip back to Mexico is absolutely in our future, but we’ll probably have to wait a couple years and settle for a closer beach.
This vacation was one of the high lights of my life. They say that things don’t really change once you’re married (especially after living together for two years) but I did feel a subtle change. This man I was with is not my husband, and there’s a certain kind of bond that comes along with that title. He’s my best friend and so much more, and to experience this amazing vacation with him was absolutely awesome. We got to do a lot of relaxing and just enjoying ourselves, not to mention all the eating and drinking we could manage, and it still oddly took a lot out of us! Haha. I was ready to sleep for a week when we got back, but unfortunately is was back to the real world, leaving our wedding and honeymoon almost like a dream. It certainly was a dream come true, and I cannot wait to go back to Mexico, or any other traveling in general with my brand new husband!

 

On Reading and Writing.

I recently joined the website Goodreads.com. Good Reads is an awesome community of book lovers, and they seem to have every single book ever written there. They also have nifty little lists people can add books to, I.E. best books of all time, worst books of all time, best fantasy, best romance, worst book of 200x, whatever. I have come to the conclusion that you have officially “made it” as a writer if the same amount of people hate your writing as those who love it.

I’ve mentioned before that I could not get enough of the Twilight Saga. I love it. I love it so much that I downloaded all the books onto my itouch so I can read them whenever the hell I feel like it.

I consider myself a well educated person. I’ve always loved to read and write and probably always will. The Twilight books are not intellectual in any way, shape, or form and that’s not the point. I had fun reading the different opinions on the books on good reads but found myself scratching my head at a lot of the criticisms. One person called the writing amateurish. I’m not really sure how I feel about that. When you’re reading a series like this, or a novel, am I the only one who doesn’t pay attention to the writing so much as the actual story being told?

One of the main reasons I love this series is because it is an amazing love story, one of the best I have ever read. Another reason I love it is because it is written the exact way I would write a love story like this. Stop reading now if you’re sensitive to spoilers.

The way Stephanie Meyer writes about how Bella feels when Edward leaves her in New Moon is the exact way I know I would feel if I were left like that. Zombie. Haunted. Screaming in the middle of the night. I had such a love/hate relationship with that part of the book that I probably cried the whole way through. It was perfect.

One of my favorite phrases comes from Twilight, “Yes. you are exactly my brand of heroin.”

Come ON. Who comes up with that? We all can think of our significant others as a sort of drug, especially those times where you can’t get enough of them But Honestly, I think that really put into words exactly how I feel in my own love life. I can safely say that besides nicotine and booze I’m a drug free kinda girl, and never went near anything like heroin, but to associate someone you love passionately to an addiction like that is truly raw emotion.

That’s just a couple examples about why I love that series. Not to mention the fact that they get to live happily ever after FOREVER. How’s that for a happy ending?

I love the story. Personally I don’t think the series deserves to be on any bad lists, and I really think the people who condemn them without reading all four are ridiculous. Twilight is the love story we all want, and if we have a love story we appreciate it, if we don’t, we want it that much more.

 

Bridal Shower and 39 Days to Go!

The days are flying, and I had my bridal shower this past Saturday!

From left to right: Brittany, Lori, Kendra, me, Tara, Bree.

It’s all becoming very surreal. I had a party to celebrate that I’m going to be a wife! It also really allowed me to kind of reflect on my friends and family.

Brittany I’ve only known a couple years. We became friends when her (now) husband became friends with Justin. We all work together and get to bitch and complain to one another about our wonderful job. Her’s was one of the weddings I was just in recently.

Lori I’ve known a couple years longer than Brittany. In case you’re just tuning in, she’s Justin’s sister-in-law, married to his older brother. Lori and I hit it off right away long before Justin and I got together, and she helped get us together and get him away from someone that didn’t treat him as well as he deserves.  It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 5 years since I’ve met her!

Kendra and I formally met while we were in 5th grade and we were taking out Iowa Basics tests (standardized testing for grade school-ers here in PA) She and I basically put each other through some hardcore high school hell, but we always found each other again. We expierienced a lot of our “firsts” together. First boyfriend, first kiss, first dance, etc. We’ve really gone down the road together. And then I watched her son be born, that was kind of a life changer, seriously.

Tara is my longest running friendship. We met in third grade and found a common ground in Goosebump books. We practically lived at each others houses as kids. We started to grow apart a little in junior high, then came back together when we found common ground again in show choir and high school musicals (you know, before high school musical. Did I really just go there? Anyway…) She’s one of those friends where you don’t talk for months, then pick up a phone or meet for lunch and pick up right where you left off. It’s pretty awesome.

Finally, Bree!. We first met while I was in third grade, but we didn’t really become friends until high school. Like Kendra and Tara we all went to school together, but Bree is a year older than us. We have a funny history together that involves a boy that we love to laugh about now, but obviously back then it was serious business, haha. We basically hit it off during my freshman year when our school put on the production of Grease. Ever since then we have been friends, and both share a love of cooking and being boring old ladies. She has also been my go-to complainee with wedding related stress. Poor her! haha. She just got married a couple months ago too.

So there you have it, my formal introduction to my oldest and closest friends! One of the best parts about this whole wedding expierience is that they all are in one place at one time! All my friends are pretty laid back, so I think they all clicked very well!

The whole shower was a stunning success. Lori did a great job organizing the whole thing, although everyone kept telling me how nice it was. I didn’t do a thing besides show up! Lori definitely outdid herself. I’m very lucky to have her!
The shower was a lot like those birthday parties you have when you’re younger. You play some games, eat a lot, and then everyone watches you open presents. The one big difference is that I picked all the gifts ahead of time in the form of a registry, haha. I’m not one for surprises.

August 8th is my bachelorette party. I’m pretty excited to go out with all my friends, I just hope it doesn’t get carried away too much. I’m honestly the type of person who would be happy to go out to dinner with everyone and grab some drinks. I’m not much for the club scene or anything real crazy. We are going to a dueling piano bar, which I am seriously excited about. However, if any of my friends think I’m getting up on stage and getting myself humiliated, I guess they don’t know me that well! I’ll be a stick in the mud about some things, but I’m just not the center of attention type. I hope everyone understands that! no penis crowns for me, thanks. haha.

I do have the most awesome friends though, I’m a lucky girl

 

DIY Project – Pomanders!

Not sure if you noticed or not, but I’m a huge craft junkie. This wedding has given me the opportunity to try different projects that I never would have otherwise been interested in. One of my favorite projects have been adorable little pomanders!

I first came across pomanders while looking at bios on The Knot, and I was interested in finding out what the heck they were and what they were made out of. I found out that the original pomanders where made out of fruit where used to keep people from being too….well, smelly. Haha.

First step! This version of pomanders is obviously not the tissue paper kind. First I found little flowers (these are about an inch wide) at a local craft store. You know the kind that are basically used as “fillers” in an arrangement? They come in bunches with probably about 30-50 little flowers per stem. I got them on sale for 70 cents each. I figured I’d probably need about 30 to make 20 pomander balls. This math is still a work in progress. haha.

As you can see, I basically tore everything apart. I took the little flowers (mine basically had two layers of silk “flower”) and stuck a corsage pin through the center. I used pins with a pearl head, but there’s dozens of colors out there that can be used for matching. This is the tedious part, pulling the flowers apart and sticking the pins through them one at a time. One. At. A. Time. Patience is not one of my virtues, but these are so cute they are worth it.

Once you get through the tedious process of pulling apart the flowers you get to the fun part of stabbing the Styrofoam ball until it’s covered in cute little flowers. Obviously the colors for my wedding are red and white, but you can find the little flowers in any color imaginable if you have a good craft store nearby.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the finished project. I plan on stringing ribbon through the Styrofoam and hanging the little pomander balls on the back of the wooden chairs for the ceremony in the gazebo. Because everything is all outside, I figured the scenery is really the main decoration, these just add little personalized elements to the ceremony.

We’re officially sitting at 51 days until we tie the knot! Wedding festivities start this month beginning with my Bridal shower on the 18th. I’m so excited! I have an amazing Matron of Honor who has been working her butt off to pull it together, and I’m so grateful for her. August 8th is the bachelorette party, I’m so excited to tear up Pittsburgh with my favorite girls. The tentative plan is to have dinner at The Melting Pot, then we’re going to catch a show at the dueling piano bar in Pittsburgh, Sing Sing. After that everything’s kind of up in the air. We may just bar hop on the south side until it closes down.

So many things to look forward to, can’t wait!!

 

I Cry at Weddings, Part II

Another week, another wedding! And would you look at that? It’s freaking June already!

Brian and Brittany got married this past Saturday. If I didn’t get the full-blown wedding bug from Bree’s wedding, I sure do have it now! It was a very sentimental ceremony and went off without anyone passing out, which the pastor seemed to be concerned about for some reason. I nearly cried at this one, the tears were not quite free flowing as they were at Bree’s, but I think it’s because all the mimosas had me feeling pretty good throughout the morning. I need to remember that for our wedding. Alcohol = no sobbing mess of a bride. Got it. Anywho.

That’s Brittany and myself, right before the ceremony. I was kind of surprised how cool and collected she was. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, since Bree was pretty much the same way. I guess I’m used to seeing the Bridezilla show and watching perfectly nice girls go major freak out right before the big moment.

Everything was really laid back the whole day, even the picture taking. Here’s a classic shot of the bride looking on at her husband’s favorite past time, flanked by a couple groomsmen. Justin is in the back looking on, along with Greeny. The look on Brittany’s face is pretty priceless, if you ask me. She knows what she’s getting in to, in any case

 

I Cry at Weddings.

No seriously. I have discovered I am a wedding crier.
Bree got married on Saturday! The weather couldn’t have been more cooperative either, it was a gorgeous warm day and the sun shined the whole time. I know they say rain on your wedding day is good luck, but eff that, I like sunshine.
Anyway, Bree looked gorgeous, her dress (which was the last one in that style in the entire country because they discontinued it right before she bought it) was stunning. Oh, and all her bridesmaids were pretty good looking too
I have discovered that I do, in fact, cry at weddings. Or maybe just the weddings of my best friends when I’m thinking about myself being in their shoes in three months, whatever. I was a bit choked up while the preacher talked about love. I think it’s even more intense for Bree, because her husband (wow! husband!) was her high school sweetheart too. You don’t see too many love stories like that anymore. How freaking lucky is she to get it right on the first try? Seriously! That is the epitome of a classic love story, and I am so happy for her!
I wasn’t quite so lucky to get it right on the first try…or the second…or third…or 10th…but eventually I got it right after kissing a couple frogs and stepping on a couple toes. In 94 days I’m going to marry the man that still takes my breath away and keeps me smiling for no reason. The wedding and reception certainly renewed our romantic sides, we were pretty much inseparable the whole night and danced all night to cheesy romantic songs that make everyone else roll their eyes unless they’re feeling the same thing too.
Two years later and I still have to question if this is some amazing dream or what the hell a guy like Justin sees in me, but then he throws the same question back at me and all I can do is smile and thank my lucky stars that everything that happened happened to bring us together.
One of the funniest moments of the night was the bouquet and garter toss. They had all the single girls out to the floor. I stayed put because, well, I’m not single. Apparently Bree had other plans. She dragged me out to the floor and I stood with the other girls. She turned around like she was going to toss it over her shoulder and I prepared to step out of the way…then she turned back around and lobbed it to me softball-style. Obviously I caught it. After that Justin was pretty much forced into going out to the floor too and Vince did the same to him. Obviously this little wedding reception tradition wasn’t rigged at all. Yeah. Right. It was funny though, as you can see from the look on my face I really couldn’t help myself. I mean, the whole tradition is based around predicting who’s getting married next. No prediction needed in this case, unless someone else in the room was planning on eloping soon we will be the next couple down the isle. Yay

This Saturday is Brian and Brittany’s wedding, then we’re in the clear until ours. We ordered our favors yesterday, personalized shot glasses from DiscountMugs.com. We collect them wherever we go, so it seemed appropriate. I’m really excited about them, and I hope they turn out okay! I also ordered personalized cocktail napkins for the desert table and cake, as well as personalized matches from TheKnot.com. The napkins say “Eat, Drink, and be Married” on them with our names and date. The match books are what I’m really excited about. They have a picture of a flame on them with our names and date, along with the phrase “come on baby light my fire“. Justin is a huge, huge, huge Doors fan, so this was so perfect I almost squeaked out loud when I stumbled onto them! I bought some old fasihoned hard candy in watermellon flavor from ACandyStore.com. We’re going to fill the shot glasses with the candy and tie them up with cellophane. I thought the candy would be nice with the old fashioned type venue, and nothing says summer more than anything watermelon flavored
Tomorrow is our Friday, Justin will get the rest of the week off, but I work on Thursday before being off for Brian and Brittany’s wedding. I’m completely re-obsessed with wedding stuff and will be taking a crazy amount of pictures when the stuff we ordered arrives!

 

My Latest Craft!

My latest creation! Don’t mind the green foam peeking through, I basically just wanted a rough idea of what it would look like, and if it would be worth the trouble. I think it will be worth it! I’m thinking of using them to decorate the chairs for the ceremony, I’m going to need to make like…50. yikes! haha. I guess it will depend on the final guest count and exactly how many chairs will get one. I’m definetly not thinking every single chair, but maybe every other or every three…we will see!

I have a lot of little projects I’m excited to start working on, escort cards, finish the invitations, do these pomanders, programs, finish the flowers! So much more! I figure this will be the only time I can really go all out on my love of crafts, and I plan on taking full advantage of that!

We’re about to go meet with the venue lady where we’re having our ceremony and reception, I’ll be sharing those pictures tomorrow probably. I cannot wait to see everything all done up for a wedding!! I work again tomorrow, then I’m off for Bree’s rehearsal and wedding Friday and Saturday, I really can’t believe it’s here… but I’m sure she’s totally ready