Is email a thing of the past?

Caution: This may get a little ranty.

So about a month ago I deactivated my facebook because I felt it was encouraging superficial and shallow relationships amongst other things. I decided that from now on, when I want to get in touch with someone I'd call them or write them a real email, one with substance and quality. And I have several friends with whom I correspond using real mail also, so that's great. But I'm not much of a phone-caller. Unless it's a to the point phone call to establish some meeting or verify information I find phone calls a little awkward and they tend to make my ears get irritated. There's a few people I make the effort for and I really ought to try more on this, but really a letter or a real life hang out are better for me.

Sometimes, though, hanging out in real life is not possible and most people I know wouldn't have the time or self discipline to really have a snail-mail correspondence, so I don't expect it of them. Instead, I'll use email. Right? It's quick to type up something and sooooo easy. Everyone checks their email every day! Some people check it multiple times, supposedly.  I mean...I probably check mine at least 3 times a week and maybe even a little more since I don't have a facebook account anymore. So this should be a great way to keep in touch, right? In the past few weeks I've thought of several people I wanted to re-establish relationships with or just thought I'd send them a nice email to stay in touch....

 And not a single one has responded...

I understand that whole "I am so happy to get an email from this person and I want to respond but I don't have time right now, so I will later..." And then forgetting until a couple days later... But this has been a few weeks now. It makes me wonder. Does anyone even check their email anymore? Maybe I've sent these emails and no one has even seen them because they only look at their facebooks... Could it be? Is email a thing of the past?

Maybe in order to actually keep in touch with people I'll need to reactivate my facebook. I shudder to think of it. Facebook is a tool that can be used properly or improperly. Unfortunately, since everyone is connected you are subjugated to everyone's views on how it should be used. If one person feels that their facebook is the place where you badmouth your friends even though you'd never say anything of the sort to their face or if they think it's where they hold their family feud, yes their family and friends see it, but so do I. And I kinda don't want to. If someone feels that facebook is where you express your dislike of all your self-portraits (you know, the kind where you obviously just snapped some random nasty photo of yourself to immediately upload  for everyone in the world to see), then I have to see that person's self-loathing too, even though I disagree.

In my personal opinion *insert pompous attitude here*, facebook should not be the place where you air your life's problems and how much you hate the world, or tell people how great your boobs look or even update everyone on the humdrum moments of every minute of your life. You wouldn't include stuff like that in a phone call or email, would you? My facebook friends pool was small. I limited it to 42 people and a large margin of that number were family. Immediate family, even. And yet, since I had to see what their friends were saying, I felt like I was being informed of everything ever, and some of it I didn't want to know. Plus, seeing strange boys outrageously flirt with my sisters and then claiming no they weren't flirting, they just wanted my sister to know she had super hot legs, was really irritating. And I also didn't want to see all those hot prima-donna photos my little sisters were posting for all kinds of weirdos to see. It's still happening, but at least I'm not seeing it. And don't even get me started about...right, nevermind. Should not be aired on the internet, right? Just, the amount of people I deleted because friends of their friends of friends and so on and so forth were just nasty and creepy.

So I feel like I'm suddenly out of the loop. I do have this blog so those of my real fans (lol) can still see what I'm up to (when I actually post.) But since no one ever comments to tell me what they think or how they've been doing...(excuse me while I stop to cry *sob, sob.*)  I don't really know what anyone else is up to. Except the people I really keep in touch with, i.e my family, whom I call occasionally, and the people I see on a regular basis. And the four people I write real-mail letters to, of course (You guys are awesome, I love you!)

So how about it everyone? Let's just go back to simple ol' email! And while you're at it, write me back!

dislcaimer: I am not targeting anyone specifically with this rant (with the exception of Priscilla. You shouldn't be posting such hot photos of your self for all kinds of weirdos to see!). If, however you get guilt-tripped into writing me an email all the better! Heck, even a comment on my blog would cheer me up.

Novelling update or, how much I love Nanowrimo. (Also, autumn!)

Allow me to ramble about my novel for a bit, will ya?

One of the things about Nanowrimo is that it gets your story out whether or not it's really ready. Sometimes that's good and sometimes its bad. For me, I think this is good. I tend to get caught up in time lines and how much of past should I put in and how can I incorporate flashbacks, and blah blah. And then I never seem to actually write the derned story. Nanowrimo encourages simply hacking out what you have, what you know and allowing room for improvisation as you go. And so far, I feel it's been working out really well for me.

I have parts of my story that are completely backwards. I changed my mind about a semi-huge aspect about 4 chapters ago and decided to simply go along with the story as though this is the way it's been all along. I simply added a note up near the beginning where the guy asks the girl to marry him that, no he actually doesn't do this at this time and we'll fix that later. (Funny enough, it was one of the huge exciting moments in my story way back then when I needed lots of motivation to keep it going. I liked it so much I used it as the excerpt to show off my novel.) So now, as I write and I decide "You know what, this guy actually has done this, or that and not this. And this portion isn't so great...." but one of the main rules of Nanowrimo is to NEVER delete anything. I am very impulsive at times about my writing. I revise as I go, editing and frequently deleting and simply rewriting. So the parts I have are oh so perfect and the rest is never done because I realize I needed to actually not have that proposal scene there but oh-my-gosh it's so well written how could i ever delete that amazingness???!!!!

Thank goodness for Nanowrimo and the deadline and the enormous goal that prevents me from having the time to go back and do these horrible things to myself. That proposal scene is pretty good, but it's not perfect. And since it's not deleted, or revised in anyway yet, I'll have the time later when I'm not hurriedly tapping out 50,000 words to really mull over it and figure it out and what I should do with it. Can it be recycled? Easily changed to fit the new and improved story version? We'll see!

In the meantime, I've decided to not be afraid to really change it up if I have to. I can always go back later and put together all these puzzle pieces I've written for myself, right? Right! I simply put notes beside the places I know will eventually need to be changed and guess what's also awesome? Those notes are adding to my word count! Is that like cheating or what?

LOVE IT.
But here's what you really wanted to know...
Word count update as of 11/11/11: 19,337.

I hope to get to 20,000 later on today. You know, to really celebrate that whole 111111 thing. 
Anyone doing anything fun for this special date?

Okay, now that I'm done with that love letter to Nanowrimo for helping me get out what I think might be one of my best stories ever, I'll update you on other things that I love.

Autumn! Heart, heart, heart. This is shaping up to be a glorious autumn. The colours have been madly different. I never knew so many shades of brown could look so glorious together! And these crazy lime-greeny yellows! I apologize that my writing has kept me from really taking many pictures but I have a few here for you to gaze at in gazemazement. (a little Strongbad reference fer ya, there.)

Aren't my woods beautiful?

W is for Wednesday, wonderful words and writing!

A few wonderful words for your Wednesday!
1.It's National Novel Writing Month! Expect me to be a little errant this month (as opposed to how prolific I am normally, right? ha.) as I hack out my amazing great American novel. Actually, it has nothing to do with America. It's a fantasy setting... If you'd like more details (not about my novel, but about the event in general) or want to participate in novel writing month, go to Nanowrimo.com! Anyone else out there doing this with me? Any of you even heard of it? It's great fun, and wonderful motivation if you're interested in writing!

2. I meant to post this on October 31st but my kid* brother-in-law (who is living with us for the time being) contracted a virus to my computer and I was unable to do much until my sweet genius husband had time to fix it for me. But seriously, I know you all want to know about my costume!

Well here I am. A purple sorceress. Or if you will, Purple Personified. Because we all know purple is a sorceress in her own right. My hair didn't get quite as purple as I was hoping it would because I ran out of hair spray-paint about half way through. It was what I had leftover from my Night Elf costume, so oh well.

My facepaint looks really cool, though, eh? And I think my hair style was pretty popular too. If you look close you can see the toilet-paper rolls I used to achieve the sticking out look. Ah, I loved this costume! I felt so cool!

 And check out those purple and black striped socks, yes indeed! For more details about how I made the skirt out of shirt sleeves see my post at Refashion co-op!

3 Well, this is back to NaNoWriMo because it's all that plagues my thoughts since October 31st. But while looking at the New Hampshire forums I noticed a name that was familiar, and then saw a FACE that was familiar. I'm pleased to announce that an amazing lady from my very own church is ALSO participating in NaNoWriMo! I'm so excited to talk to her about it this Sunday. She is, in fact, one of our Municipal Liaisons!

4 We had a great snow storm last Saturday night. Power went out and everything. Snowy Octobers** are awesome. I didn't get to take photos, though, because instead of walking to church on Sunday morning we found ourselves driving to John's parents house down in Newbury Port, because our church got cancelled due to no electricity. Unfortunately, theirs was too. Oops.

5 I thought I had something else but now I can't think of it. And it turns out that now I'm going to be late to my herbalist friends house, so I better go. See ya!

*Kevin is not actually a kid, he's 21. lol
** It occurs to me now that Snowy October would be a really cool name for a band, no?

A little snow for your October?

Thursday was a cold rainy day. Our coldest day of the season with no doubt. I felt sad for my husband who had to be out in it working. (He has a driving around and being outside sort of job) When he got home I made him some spicy hot cocoa to warm him up. Our fall has been on the milder side of weather so far. There have been very few days where I actually felt a need to wear a scarf. It made me happy to feel it cooling off. But  as the sun set and it started getting even more cold, something weird happened.

The rain started getting slushy. And then it started getting floaty and on the drier side...

Wait a second! This is SNOW. It's only October! What about autumn! The leaves haven't fallen yet! Some of our leaves are still green!   We want brisk days not frozen days. Heh.
It was magical, though. The first snow always is....

 Actually every time it snows it's magical. Do you ever just stand in it and listen to it hit the ground? And watch it turn the world white and clean?
You should.

The next morning we had a thin layer. Not a lot. I hear some areas got a few inches. We had enough to make scraping the windshield necessary and to turn the grass white. Bits of icy snow clumps clung to leaves causing them to sparkle in the morning sunshine. And then they started melting and falling and caused a bit of ruckus. You didn't want to be standing underneath a tree! And when the sun really got high it sounded like the first thaw, that musical drip-drip-dripping of snow really melting. Lovely.

I hear we're supposed to get a few more inches tonight.

Anyone dreaming of a white Halloween?

I've figured it out.

We're having a Halloween party this Friday. And up until about 4 seconds ago I didn't know what I would be. I was getting a little concerned. I'm a little famous for my awesome halloween costumes. (Okay, maybe only my head, but still.) One year I was a jungle girl, and once a Night Elf. My cleverest  yet was The Fruit of the Spirit for a Christian themed costume party (which was nowhere near October 31st, I need to say.)* I have a (self-imposed) reputation to live up to! And now I can rest easy and simply put together the awesomeness because I just figured it out. Ready?

I'm going to be Purple.

Yes.

Purple. The colour.

Well. It IS my favourite.

I'll personify it it. Facepaint, purple hair, purple dress. Sorceress style clothes. Yes in-deed. This is going to be good.

Thanks for listening guys

*unfortunately, no photos were taken at these events. And I didn't have a camera of my own, then. I'll definitely have photos this time 'round.
p.s I just deleted my facebook a couple days ago and the need to share short-ish thoughts-of-the-moment hasn't left me yet. Maybe this blog will actually be updated here and again though with it being my main outlet for sharing awesome stuff.
p.p.s Sorry if this is all a bit disheveledly written. It occurred to me mid-sorting laundry and I need to get back to that. So um, no editing. Bear with me. this costume idea might be my best to date.

Beautiful Autumn

The other day, I heard some women chatting about how they hadn't yet seen "gasp in wonder and awe" colour in the foliage. They spoke of years with trees and landscapes so vivid and fiery that they stopped their cars just to gaze. I was boggled. And a little indignant.

I had seen such things. Have they not been looking? The trees have been positively GLOWING. I've been seeing colours that set my heart bursting with song! Then it occurred to me: Of course they've seen more impressive years than this. They've lived here and seen leaves change for dozens of years, maybe their whole lives. Heck, even I'll admit that last year was better than this year has been so far. But this year has been absolutely gorgeous too!

And then I was glad that it's still new to me and that even when its a "poor" year for the foliage it's still breathtakingly beautiful to my newbie eyes.

But that makes me wonder: will I too, one day, compare "drab" falls to past "impressive" ones and be disappointed? Can't one always look at things new? Can't one appreciate the beauty you see every single day even when it's always the same? And the wonderful thing about seasons is that even the same 'ol-same 'ol scenes continue to change day in and day out. Spring flowers, summer greens, autumn fire and winter whites. They're all amazing in their own way and you know what the best part of it all is?

Even those are different every year.

The flowers don't conform to the same pattern as the previous years. Every snowfall has it's own characteristics and every summer brings a unique variety of breezes and warmth. Autumn too, bursts into it's new version of glorious colour.

  So, maybe it hasn't been our most colourful fall, nor the coolest and crispest; the air isn't quite as brisk and filled with wonderful smells as it has been in past years and it has been a little on the wet side but shouldn't we appreciate these differences just as much?

Pear Walnut Brownies

Hello, neglected blog.

Autumn is here and that means apples, pears, pumpkins and all the wonderful spices along with.
Today was a blustery, crisp sort of day and our apartment was on the cool side. I decided I ought bake in order to heat things up a bit and these wonderful brownies were the result! They're a bit of a cry from my usual brownies-on-budget self what with them using 3 eggs, but they are oh-so-delicious! I hope you enjoy.

Pear Walnut Brownies
2/3 c. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 dashes allspice
1/3 + 1 tbs cocoa powder
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 pear, chopped small
1/3 c. walnuts, broken into pieces

Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add oil, sugar and eggs and stir well. Mix in pear and walnuts. Pour into a 9x9 baking dish and place into a 350 preheated oven for 20-30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean and the top of brownies still looks slightly shiny.

I also did a post at Refashion Co-op. Go see!