Categotry Archives: Mention Monday
Parrot Sanctuary
I almost forgot about the bird sanctuary. It’s on Vancouver Island close to the butterfly sanctuary, but in every other was is it’s opposite.
The Tale of Francis Mawson Rattenbury
This is the story as told by our tour guide on the amphibious bus in Victoria. It is to the best of my memory with no effort to verify any of it. Francis Rattenbury was in his early twenties when he won the contest to determine who would be the architect to build the new capitol building in Victoria. He had submitted the plans drawn by his uncle. He did not have any personal experience in construction. He did pretty […]
Goats on the Roof
Before we went, I knew that there was a chance that we would see actual goats on the roof, and guessed there would be sod. That’s about the only thing about the place I got right. I’d visualized a single building by itself in the woods with maybe a little parking out front. I had assumed the road itself would be a sleepy country lane. I imagined the building itself as little more than a cabin, though I knew it […]
Getting Back on Track
It always takes me a while after I’ve stopped doing something to get going again. I managed to get writing again fairly quickly, and the housewife routine has a way of swallowing you like a killer whale from the depths below, but everything else is still a little off kilter. Returning to the old routine feels a little odd. My old blog routine seems to be talking about my most recent vacation. 🙂 I’ve got plenty more to show, so […]
A Good Thing
I seriously considered giving this post the title “An Overabundance of Good”, but decided there’s no such thing as an overabundance when it comes to good. However, sometimes good things will keep you busy. I got a new computer for Christmas, and have been scrambling to transfer off my very slow and annoying old one. Once I’ve got everything set up and working right, I expect to be much, much faster. In the meanwhile, I’ve been busy.
Letting Go
I said good bye to an old friend recently. It’s a psaltery I’ve had knocking around the house for the last twenty years. I took it in place of payment from a music shop I used to work for. I haven’t tried to play it in nearly that long and had never gotten around to tuning it. The likely hood I would ever get around to learning to play was low. Yet it’s still hard to give it up. I […]
I’m a NaNo Winner!
Every book is different, as I’ve said, but this year’s National Novel Writing Month book was more different than usual. It came out right on the mark for Nano – 50,000 words – which is very short for a Sword and Sorcery Fantasy. I fully expect it to double or more in revision, but have decided to leave it alone until I have the final book(s) of the series done because I expect the final book to cause some substantial […]
Happy Thanksgiving!
In case I’m too busy scarfing down turkey later this week, I thought I better say it now. In other news, 6,000 words to go.
Halfway
I have now officially hit the half way point in my book. I was writing much more efficiently at the beginning of the month when my part time job went full time and my obligations in all kinds of places went nuts. Now I’ve finally hit a lull in the pressure, and wouldn’t you know the writing slowed way down. I think it’s because I have time to actually think about what I’m putting down “on paper”. When it comes […]
Desperate Times
We were driving a new car, and couldn’t be sure just how far into the red we could get, on the last day of our trip when we noticed how close the gauge had come to Empty. The question was, could we make it the last few miles, or should we try to find a gas station in the middle of the night. Though it would further drain the tank, we decided it was best to turn in at a […]
Chained Mountains
For the first time in my life I saw chained mountains while on the trip through Canada. Some were in Canada and some in the USA. At first I thought it was some kind of net thing. It kind of reminded me of spider webs. I had to look fast as we went racing past, but I could see up close they are chain link fences. What a good idea! At least that way when the mountain does it’s inevitable […]
Invasion of Personal Space
I’ve been involved with construction work enough to know there is no way the people who do it can avoid getting in your personal space. Still, I was quite shocked when I returned from a day in Whistler to find an electrical cord had been plugged into the front of my timeshare. They were doing extensive renovations throughout the timeshare. I saw much of it while hiking around the area or from the parking lot. But I had assumed they […]
Laundry
Two weeks is just enough time to mean you either have to carry a big bag, get smelly, or do laundry. I chose to do laundry. This proved something of an adventure. First I had to find the laundry. The timeshare community had one, but to find it I had to call the front desk and beg for directions. It was in a second floor room in a building down the hill and around the corner from where we stayed. […]
I Made a Treasury!
It’s an Etsy thing. I joined what they call a “team”. It’s a way to promote your Etsy store. In the team they have what they call a treasury game. Everyone is supposed to make these collections of 16 items using stuff we find in each other’s stores. Being me, I naturally just had to make a story out of it. Four stories, actually. I picked items I thought could represent something more, then arranged them so the stories read […]
