November is NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo

So aside from meaning that Halloween has passed,  Thanksgiving is on a fast track, and Christmas & winter holiday items are flooding retail stores, November is NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo.

What are these strange words that start with “Na,” end with “Mo,” and have extra capital letters in the middle?

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. Read more about it here. Write a novel in a month. It doesn’t have to be great or finished publication quality — just written versus not written. 

NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month. Read more about it here. Post to a blog every single day of November. 

I participated in NaBloPoMo before  and posted almost every day. 

I very loosely tried NaNoWriMo too, but I don’t think it’s fair to say I actually participated in NaNoWriMo. 

It was more like I had a fantasy, and I called it NaNoWriMo. Some days I nursed the fantasy and wrote stuff, but lots of days I didn’t. Kind of like I might name a plant “BuTterCup” and then not water Buttercup for most of the month. Then by the end of the month it’s cold out and buttercup would have probably died soon anyway (but maybe not), but it died faster because I forgot to water it.  By “forgot,” I mean sometimes I actually remembered, but I ran out of time because I had to get to work, drive my daughter to dance, buy food, cook food, eat food, sleep, pick up daughter from after school activities, take cat(s) to and from the vet, do laundry, and much more.

But I am going to try to write more this month. I’ll attempt NaNoBloMo even if it means some of my posts will be wee little things with lots typos.

I might try more work on the novel, but I can practically guarantee that I won’t write enough total words for it to count as a novel. I can still try. Maybe I can beat last year’s “attempt.” I shall name it ButterCup II. 

So without further ado, this completes, NaBloPoMo Day 1. Thank you for reading my post. 🙂

Please enjoy this photo of local fall colors and visit again soon.

Friends in Paper Form

I spent a portion of today going through items that we set aside to donate. Things we need to get out of this little place we call home.

We’d set these aside awhile ago, each of us contributing to a group of containers near the door.

My daughter set aside an entire box of books. I knew they were there.

Clifford’s inside. Dinosaurs that say good night. Magic Tree Houses. Lonely Fireflies. Kittens. Betty Lou Blue and her flappety shoes. School Buses. The Matzo Ball Boy (akin to the gingerbread kind). And Dilly the Duckling who lost his feather so many times. More

The Cats and the Cucumber

If you’ve seen this video you might be tempted to scare your cat with a cucumber. I was. I was tempted.

There are several articles out now about how scaring your cat with a cucumber can be traumatic (such as this one). Some cats are fragile. The scare may cause him or her have a permanent fear of cucumbers.

Seems to me like those cats were already afraid of cucumbers. The only way to overcome the fear is to expose a cat to more cucumbers, right? I mean, it not like he’s going to get over the fear through therapy and cucumber photos. Right?

Well, before I read the advice from vets, I tried it. More

The Secret to All Things Yum (Stuffing Edition)

I’m starting to think that the secret to all things yum is caramelized onions.

Well, caramelized onions for savory, cooked food. It would probably be the wrong kind of secret ingredient for cherry pie. Or Jell-o. And probably a little weird for peanut butter & jelly. But spicy peanut sauce may be another story …

For cooked and savory — if you have time to properly caramelize onions it will make practically everything taste better.

It’s like adding pure yum extract. More

Tea for Tuesday: Chinese Restaurant Tea from Dynasty

What kind of tea today? Pumpkin Chai? A nice oolong? Maharaja Chai Ooling?

I decided on a simple cup of Chinese Restaurant Tea. That is the actual name of this particular tea from Dynasty brand tea. The box of fairly ordinary tea bags says Chinese Restaurant Tea is a “blend of oolong, jasmine and green tea served in fine Chinese restaurants.” More

Notes from the Middle

Here I am having just crossed over the center line of November which is also mid-NaBloPoMo or NaNoWriMo if you’re cranking out words for either of those.

What I’ve learned so far is that I can wedge more writing into my schedule than I might think I can … but not always. And sometimes maybe it’s better not to squeeze so much in. It’s good to push to do more, but I need to be careful not to drop too many balls in the process. More

Freezer Food Friday

I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, right? Well, darn straight. Because it’s not. And as such, it won’t be a regular thing.

Some frozen food is good. The music department at my daughter’s school sold pies as a fundraiser. Frozen pies. Really quite yummy frozen pies (for frozen pies). So we bought several and so did my mom. No complaints there.

Now that my mom doesn’t live just down the road, I have to wait for a weekend to bring her the three pies that she ordered. So all the pies are in our freezer — her three plus our three. More

NaBloPoMo Goes to 11: Cat, Soup, and Towel – Full Circle!

It’s an odd trio, and it’s come full circle. 

On this 11th day of November and of NaBloPoMo I checked out the Daily Post’s Daily Prompt and discovered that the prompt and my blog have come full circle. 
The prompt for today is: An Odd Trio

It says, Today, you can write about whatever you what — but your post must include, in whatever role you see fit, a cat, a bowl of soup, and a beach towel.”

It tasked us with this more than a year ago (has it really been that long?). On July 5, 2914 I posted:

Cat Soup and Towels, an odd trio but only for some More

Tea for Tuesday – Joy 2015 Flavored Tea Blend: a mini review

It is Tuesday so that means it’s tea time. Today, I tried Teavana’s new Limited Edition Joy 2015 Flavored Tea Blend.

This is a much more traditional tea than some of the other’s I’ve had recently. It’s a blend of black tea, jasmine green tea, and oolong along with flavoring. In this case it’s flavored with apricot.

I noticed the apricot flavor in the aroma before I even took a sip of the tea. I could inhale it from the cup and taste it on my lips. It was fruity and playful. More

NaBloPoMo Day 9: No Apologies

Conveniently the Daily Prompt for November 9 was:

No Apologies.

Convenient because I didn’t get a blog post out for November 9 (aka NaBloPoMo Day 9). It’s like the universe was saying to me, “It’s okay. No apologies are needed.” 

It knew I had work. It knew that it was Monday. And it knew that we had our monthly homeowners association meeting that evening. 

I like to go to the meetings when I can because our community has issues. We had six months of pink insulation and no windows just last year … I like to know what’s going on. 

More

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