A Year, One Day At A Time

Back in November, a bunch of us participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The challenge was to write 50,000 words in a single month. I only got about 26,000 words done, but I’ve been working on my novel off and on since then. I’ve got a couple of aids to keep my details and whatnot straight, like 1,000 years of back history and timeline of what king was in charge, when they were born, when they died, how they died, and when their heirs were born. And lots of other bits and pieces like that.

I also asked my husband if he could draw me a map of the continent the story takes place on. I gave him a very rough draft with just sort of blobs to indicate what countries when where and he was able to take that, along with some discussion, and turn it into this fantastic map for me.

World of Croceus Tower

Sorry for the slight curve to the picture. I had it sitting over the arm of the couch and didn’t realize how curved it wound up. *shrugs*

Okay, so this is kind of embarrassing to admit. But, um, well, my husband and I are HORRIBLE housekeepers. Our place was, to our mind at least, a disaster area. Clutter everywhere, boxes all over, mail strewn about, and dust bunnies that I think were eating pieces of furniture or something they were so darn huge.

We’ve officially cleared all of our credit cards and only have one car left to pay off. (Well, technically, we still have 2 payments on the other car, but that’s close enough for us.) So to reward ourselves, we got a cleaning service! We took care of the clutter, boxes and mail and had her take care of the rest. We still can’t get over how great the place looks! (Well, aside from the sneakers in the corner there. *coughs*)

My clean apartment

And to continue on with the whole gargoyle and statues and so on, here’s the winged cat I’ve got at my desk at work. This was another Secret Sister gift and I think it’s awesome my “sister” was able to find such a thing!

Another winged cat

Week 3 Challenge = Green

*glances back at some of her earlier pictures and sighs* Those would have been much better flip-flopped with these. Ah well, I’ll have to look for green the rest of the week.

I had to go digging for this one or it would have been with yesterday’s pictures. When I left Manhattan, my friends all pitched in and bought me this gorgeous statue. One of my most treasured gifts and one that just fits me to a T.

Winged Cat

There’s a tea candle tucked in between the wings, where the shoulders would be, so when you light the candle, the eyes glow and dance.

I’d mentioned them when I took the picture of my desk at home, so I thought I’d take a close-up of my unreal babies.

My Gargoyles

A close-up of the black one. I got this one at a friend’s wedding. These were part of the table decorations. They got married on Halloween, in a purportedly haunted castle.

Wedding Gargoyle

The white one… I actually don’t remember where I got it. I think it was one of the gifts I got when a bunch of us were doing this whole “Secret Sister” gift-exchange thing at the hospital.

Gifted Gargoyle

This one isn’t a gargoyle, but it’s one of my cuties, so there ya go. It’s actually a baby dragon cradling a kitten. I bought it at the Michigan RenFaire, my first year after I moved out here to be with the goof I wound up hitched to.

Dragon and Kitten

Today we had our D&D game and went to our friend’s comic book shop to play. They just opened their shop May 1st and they’re having their official grand opening June 13th. I wish I’d been taking pictures back when we saw the store on the 1st, because the difference between now and then is astounding! They’ve done consistently decent business, but haven’t done any advertising yet. They’re waiting for their official opening for that. So I’m pretty impressed at how well they’re doing and hopefully they’ll do awesomely as the year goes on.

First though… we got there earlier than we thought we were going to, so hubby and I grabbed lunch at a place we haven’t been to in 2 years. (We used to live in the same town they opened their store in.)

Mega Coney Island

Here’s the strip mall they’re in. Just down the way there’s a computer gaming store and next to that is a Hollywood Video, so they should have plenty of younger traffic coming by.

Strip Mall

Here’s the front door to their shop. They had shoe polish on the windows saying what their shop was the last time I was here!

BC Comix

And the inside of the shop. There was NOTHING on the walls last time and, well, they “opened” on a Friday. And comics ship on Wednesdays. So, yeah, they missed that week’s comics, so all they had were the free May 1 comics and their back issues. I gave them my half dozen boxes, another friend of theirs gave them a number of boxes, one of the owners had a bunch of boxes, and then they bought about 30,000 back issues. No, I didn’t have an extra zero in there. They bought that many back issues of various titles, to fill out their back issue drawers.

The comic book store

I liked how yesterday’s picture came out, so I thought I’d take one of the home-side of my trip. Quite a difference in the street, the “nature” (can’t even call it landscaping), even the homes. Ah well.

Pontiac Lake Road

And here’s a picture of my apartment building, just ’cause.

My Apartment Building

This is along my drive to/from work, about 7 or so minutes from the hospital I work at. I just thought it was really pretty. (And I wanted to try that “shooting a picture out the windshield while you’re driving” thingy that CeeCee did. *grins* Turned out pretty well I think!)

Crooks Road

I figured I posted a picture of my desk at home, I should post one of my desk at work. There’s a good chunk more space to the left and right, but I couldn’t get it all into one shot without it looking a mile away.

My space for the majority of my life... aka work

Hmm, I didn’t realize it was so blurry. Oh well! And here’s a close-up of my Metropolitan Museum of Art print of a cat that looks exactly like what my Shadowcat looked like, down to the pose and everything. (That’s why my dad bought it for me.)

Museum of Modern Art picture of Shadowcat! (Kinda)

This is under the second overhead cabinet of my desk.

So, it’s the start of a new week, and the start of a new “challenge.” Week 2′s challenge is:

Where You Are

For this one, I’m going to post up a picture of the walking path they have out on the back corner of the campus of the hospital I work at. I started working out again yesterday and today at lunch, I started walking. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that mostly every Mon-Fri. The path is actually still closed, but I snuck past the sign to take a picture, ’cause it was where I was supposed to be.

The walking path I plan to go on every weekday at lunch.

Just past the end of the walking path, there is a row of huge lilac bushes. Lilacs are my favorite flower of all times. My mom planted one in her garden for me… of course, every year my visits home have always missed it being in bloom. *snicker* She’d even looked into how much it would cost to have lilacs at my wedding, but since I got married in October, it was waaaaay too expensive. But it was very cool that she even considered it.

The row of lilac bushes near the walking path.

A closeup of the lilacs