Sunday, January 6, 2013

Happy New Year

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Things have been very busy for me.  I spend a good amount of time with my family and some quality time with my husband.  In terms of actual work, I've mostly just been writing notes for my changeling urban fantasy novel, but I haven't been working very hard on writing at all.  I'm taking a little break until I feel up for more writing again.  Even though the holidays are over, I've got a lot on my mind.

Usually around this time I write about New Year resolutions.  Still, oddly this time I don't really have any.  I've noticed that I usually end up breaking my resolutions, so I didn't really see the point.  Still, there are a few things I'm in the process of doing and things that I plan to do this year.  I'm calling them "goals" rather than resolutions, and most of them HAVE to be done.  Therefore, they will get done and that's that.  

Currently, we're cleaning out the office to make it into the baby's room.  The baby is due on April 25th, so I will have to have the room ready by then.  I will be having the baby this year (no resolution about that...).  I'll try to lose the baby weight after I have the baby, but I don't know how much strenuous exercise I'll be able to do.  I think that depends on how complicated the birth is and how long it takes me to recover from it.  Still, thus far I haven't gained too much, so that's at least something, and as far as I know, the baby is healthy.  We've pretty much decided on the name "Evangeline" ("Eva" for short), and "Melissa" is definitely going to be the middle name.  We might change our mind on the first name closer to time, but we're pretty sure Evangeline is the name we'll finally choose.  

The theme of the room will be "jungle animals" mostly, but if I have the time I might still make a Chronicles of Narnia mural on the wall.  I'm thinking that's an ambitious goal, though, especially since the room isn't even cleaned out yet.  I'd like to have the walls repainted in a light yellow color.  That's something I think we'll definitely do.  We know that the baby is a girl now, but pastel pink is a bit much.  We just want a cheerful color that will make the room seem a little brighter, so yellow sounded good to both of us.

I'm basically taking everything at a day by day basis this year.  I would like to finish my profile for odesk.com to see if I can make a little extra money sometime before the baby is born.  I would also like to get started on that changeling story and possibly get the notes nearly finished for the third book of the "Blood Rain" trilogy.  Still, I also need to register for a baby shower, find a way to catch some dangerous wild dogs in the neighborhood (they've been killing off other pets and aren't afraid of people...kind of a long story), get the house ready for the baby, and possibly read some baby books.  If the writing has to wait, it can wait.  Family always comes first and I'm getting ready to add a new member to this family.  I need to be as ready as I can be and be sure that my neighborhood is as safe as possible.

Speaking of writing, I got "Cold Days" the latest novel of the Dresden Files for Christmas and am currently reading it.  If you like the Dresden Files, you'll like this book.  I'm only a hundred pages into it, but I already know it will be good.  

I also went to see "Les Miserables."  It was very good.  Some people are disappointed because they don't like movie adaptations of musicals.  I thought the acting was good, the singing was great, and it managed to move me emotionally.  I would suggest that if you like Les Miserables or musicals in general you go and see the movie while it's in theaters.  I intend to buy it when it comes out.    

Other than that, that's about everything that's new.  I'm hoping to play in a Pathfinder game, a D&D game, and a Dresden Files game soon.  (I might have less time coming up, so I'm trying to game as much as I can right now, but I'm hoping to stay in a few of them.  They're on weekends, so Joel will be here to help me with the baby.)  I've been putting a lot of thought into my characters, and that's a good exercise in coming up with story ideas and keeping a keen edge on my imagination.    

2 comments:

  1. Evangeline, what a pretty name! Yellow sounds perfect for the nursery. I read your story about the wild dogs. What a predicament. I hope things get resolved in a positive manner very soon. I had a dog once that was attacked by a pack of dogs. Thankfully, I had a BB gun nearby and shot a few on the rump as they took off. They never attacked our dog again. And, turns out, it made them worthless for hunting, LOL. The owner had too many dogs for city ordinances, so he claimed he didn't own them. Until they were "ruined".

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  2. Thank you. Out of all the girl names we initially picked out, we liked that one the best. Yellow will probably work out well. I've picked out some very cute crib sets and decorations called "jungle babies." There's a lot of green and light yellowish tones, so I think it'll go nicely.

    Thankfully, the situation with the dogs did get resolved as well as it could. Hopefully, that won't happen again. They do belong to someone and they said that they'll work harder to keep them in the fence. I feel better knowing that they've never attacked a person, but I hope they don't hurt any other animal again either.

    It figures that no one would claim the dogs until they were "ruined." It's one of my pet peeves when people get animals but won't take responsibility for them or abuse/neglect them.

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