On the ninth day of NaNo...

Hello there :) It's been a while, hasn't it? In fact, it's been... 10 days. Actually, that's not that huge of a gap. I've done worse.

So I am nine days into National Novel Writing Month (affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo, for the uninitiated), and have faced - and still am facing - what I think has been the worst kind of unexpected roadblock: a cold. It's a little thing, the common cold, but it can seriously mess with your routine sometimes. Luckily, I wrote a lot in the pre-sickness days, so if I'd missed my quota while sick, I would've probably been able to get to 50k in time.

Fortunately, I managed to write my quota or more each day, even when I had a really awful sore throat. Go me! /shameless self-promotion

Warning: TMI ahead. I will talk about sinuses and stuff.

To start with, I got a sore throat from my dad, which went away and then came back as a full-on sore throat and post-nasal drip thing. I would start talking to my mom, and then after a few seconds I would have to gulp back this painful grossness in my throat. It felt a bit like acid reflux, which I don't get very often, but when I do it's a pain in the ass. After lots of disgusting but relatively effective cough syrup - which didn't do much for me during the day, but at night it helped me sleep well - the sore throat went away, to be replaced with a stuffy nose that runs out of one nostril (a very weird sensation, I must say), and some coughing and sneezing. Right now, my ears feel like they're plugged up, but that might be an air pressure thing because it's getting warmer where I am, and later in the week it will drop back down to single-digit temperatures (in Celsius, that is, because single-digit temps in Fahrenheit would be freaking COLD). I'm still stuffy, still coughing and sneezing, and my left nostril is still dripping like a faucet. I guess I won't be going to the library tomorrow.

Okay, TMI over.

While I've been battling my cold and doing NaNo, I've also been reading a book from the library - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. (Because I'm writing dystopian, I feel I need to take a break from The Hunger Games for a little bit.) I'm not sure if I can finish it by the 23rd, which is when it's due back, but I finished the third chapter yesterday so maybe I can do it after all. Of course, I could also keep it out late to finish it if I want to, and then pay the fine. I'd like to avoid fines if I can, though. I still have Dogsbody and A Wizard of Earthsea out of the library, too, but I can probably renew Dogsbody again, and I think I can renew Earthsea. If not, I'll add them to a wishlist - or, if I get another Chapters Indigo gift card from my grandparents, I could buy them.

That's all for now - I should go eat something, seeing as all I've had to eat and drink today is coffee, hot chocolate, and a popover.

A Touch of Narcolepsy

Okay, so technically I don't have narcolepsy, but I'm quite tired today. There are two possible reasons for this: 1) I took an Aleve last night to relieve a sore shoulder, or 2) the weather went from average October weather to crazy winds. I'm thinking it might be due to the wind, because I sometimes feel tired or get headaches from the weather changing.

I still managed to get things done despite my tiredness, though. I did a couple of exercises in my GED book, read a little bit of my library book, went over some stuff in my Japanese book to refresh my memory, and did some laundry.

That's all for now. I probably shouldn't blog when I'm this tired :p

There's snow on the highway...

...But no snow in my yard. Aw, crud.

It is a little chilly, though, and a little breezy. I went downstairs to chat with Ma, and wound up dumping the cat's litter, the bathroom garbage, the kitchen garbage and the laundry room garbage in one big black garbage bag. Pretty odd, how that can happen - you go downstairs to do one thing and wind up doing several.

So, NaNoWriMo is done, and I reached 50k no problem. I think this year's novel is considerably better than last year's. It's not finished yet, though - I want to add more to it. I also have an idea for a short story.

Drinkin' pimple juice

Actually, it's pineapple juice, but my mom and I like to call it pimple juice. lol.

So today has been somewhat eventful. We went to the lab because Mom had to have a blood test done, but there were, like, 25 other people there, so we had breakfast at the restaurant in the same plaza. I had a waffle with a side of breakfast sausages. It was yummy. And filling, since it's ten after eleven and I don't feel hungry. I may not eat lunch for another couple of hours.

I tried to do some polynomials, but I may have to redo some of them, because they have mixed symbols - a plus and a minus. I hate those kinds of polynomials, because you have to figure out if it has to be positive or negative. And usually, when you times a positive by a negative, you get a negative (see? I remember at least one of the algebraic principles!), so if you're times-ing the factors at the beginning of the polynomial, you'd wind up with all negatives - but, at the end you have to have a positive in there. So yeah... re-writing must be done before I can say that the polynomials are finished. eep.

My Labyrinth fanfiction is coming along nicely. I've also started a crime story that I wrote down in a notebook a few days ago - basically, I wrote down a paragraph, the plot, and a few character names in the notebook, and today I started it in Word, and it's taking shape better than the paragraph I'd written in the notebook.

So, I don't think I'm going to youth group tonight, because I think Dad's working this evening. I'm not too bothered, though. As long as people don't bitch me out for missing three meetings, I'm happy.

The weather's nicer today. It was chilly this morning, though - about 32 degrees farenheit - so I wore my ski jacket. There's still patches of snow here and there, but not as much as yesterday.

I should be doing math

...but I feel like writing.

Today's been a good day. Not much schoolwork got done, but I did a bit of writing. I wrote a lot last night, it was brilliant. I might start some memoir writing - that, and I have to work on essay writing. I want to read more books on other cultures and religions, too. In fact, I reserved a book on paganism, but it's on order so I may not get it for a few months.

I might walk to the library tomorrow, because the two DVDs I'm borrowing from the library are due on.... the 8th, I think. And I've never walked anywhere on my own, really. I know that sounds pathetic and childish, but it's true. And I need some time alone.

The weather is damp, rainy and pretty awesome. I like damp weather - I think I'm most creative when it's damp, or windy, because when the weather's warm and sunny I get lazy, and when it's freezing cold I just want to curl up with a book and a cup of hot chocolate.

I think I'll do some math later, though - try and get that big page of polynomials done. Or maybe I'll put in my CD-ROM and read up on geometry.

I feel better

My cold seems to have gone for the most part, which is great. So thank you, Sarah, for wishing me well :)

I'm feeling so relaxed right now, because it's raining. Rain has such a calming effect on me.

So, my day has gone pretty well. I watched the rest of Gilmore Girls, I read quite a bit of the second Artemis Fowl book, and I listened to The Jeff Healey Band's See The Light, which is a pretty awesome album. Only one track skipped! I also watched Coronation Street earlier, and I read The Arctic Incident (the second Artemis Fowl book) during commercials, and sometimes during scenes that didn't require my undivided attention.

Back to the rain... I walked upstairs a little while ago, and I felt a lovely breeze, and I could smell that familiar rainy smell. You know, the smell of damp earth. Man, I love that smell! I can't really smell it as much in here, probably because the ceiling fan is running. But just the sound of the rain is fantastic.

Clouds

I took these photos last night. They're my best ones yet. I'm especially pround of the one with the post in it.

I'll probably put up more photos in another post.

Yay!!!!!!

I got to go to the streetfest after all. I went with my sister and her boyfriend. Mom didn't come, though, because it was too hot. It still is pretty hot and humid. I bought a used copy of U2's War, which is in fabulous condition. And it only cost me $4.00!!! I also bought two chocolate bars and a denim bucket hat. My sister bought me a snow cone, which ended up on the ground. Oh well. She also bought us three elephant ears (fried dough, not real elephant ears!), which we split between the three of us and Mom. We saw a fire-eater, who kept trying to get kids to volunteer in his act. He was scaring the girls a little, which was funny.

I have a slight headache - probably from the humidity.

To Grandmother's House We Go...

So, we had to go to visit my grandma and grandpa today, to get the rest of my dad's birthday present. It turns out that my grandparents also wanted to give me my birthday present early. My dad got two Kit-Kat bars with Dale Earnhart Sr on the wrapper and a Dale Earnhart Sr DVD set. I got two tops - I haven't tried them on yet, because they're drying, but I'm sure that they'll fit because my sister was with them when they bought them. For quite some time, my grandma would buy me the wrong sizes in clothes, but I think that she's finally realised that I have, to put it bluntly, a bosom. I don't fit into a girl's large shirt anymore! But the tops are both in a women's large, so I figure they'll fit. I'll take photos when the weather's nicer and there's more natural light. It's been damp all day, and it was quite foggy this morning - my mom and I both had headaches today because of the weather change. I had aching shoulders too, but I might have slept oddly last night. Or it could be because of the change in weather. Who knows?