THIS! Christine

I can't party any more.

Seriously. I've had guests for the past week and much as I love them, I'm exhausted. I haven't got to bed before 3am since they arrived. I've been scrambling to pefect my pitches around the mayhem, and even tonight, while doing this blog, there are 3 kids playing monopoly at my feet (complete with mp3 player being piped into a rigged up speaker system), a very vocal and insulting card tournament is happening in the dining room and a kitchen party just beyond that.

Argh!

They leave tomorrow. And I leave on Monday for Reno. Maybe I can catch up on my sleep whilst flying. (yeah, like that's going to happen)

Anyway, unless I'm horribly ambitious this will be my last blog until the 4th August, when I return home.

Have fun everyone.

X

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is high. You can't resist desire and lust.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

Sorry blogger fans. I'm freaked.
It's a week before I leave for RWA nationals. (sounds like a rodeo don't it?)... anyhoo I just got word that an editor appointment opened up and I'm in. Major meltdown happening right now as i try to get my shit together to pitch my manuscripts. I say manuscripts in case i get that bored eyes-glazed-over look and the editor says, "Do you have anything else?"

Perhaps I should chronicle my neurosis? A new reality blog?
watch writer strive.
watch writer sweat.
watch writer curl into foetal position.

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And I can't be bothered coming up with a topic to write about. It's been a busy weekend so here's something to play with.

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

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It's all about passion.

A good friend of mine and fellow blogger, Ann Wesley Hardin, did a blog a few days ago about food that tastes so good it's virtually orgasmic. This really struck a chord with me because I've been bothered for a long time with the propaganda surrounding what we eat.

I recently had guests that I said ate 'healthy' foods, but that isn't quite accurate because it implies that I don't eat healthy. It also implies I agree that their food choices were healthier than mine. And boy, I don't. (1% milk??? wtf... take a freakin calcium tab and a big glass of water, but don't call that shit milk). I go out of my way to avoid anything that has a label claiming it's fat free, low fat, lite, calorie reduced... in fact anything that's been obviously tampered with for my own good. I hate that my grocery store's shelves have been hijacked by a movement that began because certain weight conscious people didn't have the restraint to stop gorging themselves on food that tastes sooooo good. And it's such a mixed message...

On the one hand we have the pundits decrying the sylph-like image continually portrayed as the ideal form for a woman. On the other, there is a huge push for all of us to lose those excess pounds so we are sylph-like (oops, I'm sorry, healthy. They want us to be healthy).

Folks, I'm never going to be sylph-like again. I'm on the fluffier side of thin, but not what I'd consider fat, and I'll eat what I damn well please. Yes, even a bag of chips while watching my Friday night movies. And I'll do it all without a smidge of guilt or worry that said chips will knock 1.25 minutes off the end of my life. (I prolly would have just used it up gasping and wheezing anyway.)

My dear mother always used to say 'everything in moderation', and it's especially true when it comes to food. I think I do eat a majority of healthy foods. I rarely eat fried foods. I'd rather eat vegies than anything else, although I'm not a vegetarian, and if I could get good fruit, I'd eat a lot of that too. But I refuse to deny myself the pleasure of food.

The trick is not to do it everyday. That's pretty easy for me because I don't have a particularly strong sweet tooth, but I have other gastronomical vices. Dairy. Love my cheeses. Love almost any food that requires cream in the making. And yoghurt would be a passion of mine if I could even buy real yoghurt anymore. But here's my point (apart from a fine rant). Food, the foods you love, shouldn't make you feel bad about yourself, and yet the politics of food these days is exactly that.

What's the point of eating that amazing cheesecake drizzled with raspberry sauce and a dollop of (real, loaded with milk fat) cream, if you're going to moan and bitch about its calorie content? But the systemic brainwashing regarding eating is such that if we enjoy food we must be doing something bad to ourselves, hence the self condemnation that follows every mouthful.

But healthniks do it too. I mean really, when have you ever heard someone say, "oh yum! Wheat germ." What you generally get is some long involved justification as why it's necessary in the diet/or for their health. Serously, what kinda shit are they putting in their body that they need wheat germ to counteract the affects.

Not this chicky. Food. Real food. Good food, makes love with your mouth. Enjoy it. Savour it. I do.

X

Ego anyone?

Okay, I'm pathetic. I freely admit it. I've been stuck on a plot hole for weeks. Weeks! And then a friend asked for something to read and I sent her what I had of this story. She loved it. And that's all it took. With those few words of praise, I went from loathing opening the document, to stare fruitlessly for a few hours, typing and then deleting one sentence after another, to, writing like a frenzied demon.

It was exhilirating, it was liberating, it was... unbelievably shallow.

That I needed, wanted, that affirmation so badly just proves to me how insecure I am about my writing. Which on one hand pisses me off because I'm not generally an insecure person. And yet... Okay, she was a friend and unlikely to say anything truly horrible about my writing, but I couldn't have been happier if she'd been a NY editor. Sigh.

I'm a sad, needy, dreadful excuse of a writer who ought to know better.

But I'll take the praise just the same... might even hug it for a bit.

X

and have enlivening conversation.

Anyone who knows me knows that summer time (for me) means our house converts into a hotel for anyone wanting to visit or revisit the north. This week we've had a man who went to school up here with my husband staying with us. He wanted to show his son where he grew up.

The two of them have been delightful guests, even if they have given me a few moments for pause. In that I mean, they are 'good' people. They go to church, they eat healthy, they monitor what they watch on TV, and moderate their speech. I'm sure they felt at times that they were passing through the seven gates of hell coming here. yet they have been nothing but pleasant.

Tonight I had the rare pleasure of discussing religion (with an evangelical) in a respectful, and intellectual way. Conversations like this are my stimulii. I'm endlessly fascinated by, and cursed with being able to see, anothers point of view. This doesn't mean I don't hold strong opinions of my own (nor am I likely to be converted), but it does give me an insight into understanding the 'other' side. For me, even though they've been here a week, tonight was the highlight of their stay.

They're gone tomorrow, and I have four whole days until the next influx of guests arrive. The next lot, though, are booze hounds. Margaritas on the deck is all they'll require. Vivé le difference! (oh bite me if I spelt it wrong)

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Just took this fun quiz (thanks PBW for the link.) Very happy with the results as this is one of my favourites.


You can find the Book Quiz
over at Blue Pyramid.

You're The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

by Douglas Adams

Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You've also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it's shown you so much of the world that you don't care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.

And how cool is it that I've pasted my first graphic... feeling very grown up now.

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But apparently I do...

We were supposed to go camping this weekend, but the weather isn't co-operating. So hopefully I can drag out my notebook and figure out what is wrong with my plot that I can't move beyond the middle of Act2. I have a feeling my H has no real IC or maybe EC, or maybe both. Bah, writing! I'm filled with disgust.

X

Okay it's a float plane, but I'm off again for the weekend.

Hubby and I are flying out to our camp for the weekend... oh yeah, we're taking the Spawn along as well-- someone has to be enthusiastic about catching the fish.

Have a great weekend everyone. See you on Monday.

X

I'm going to hell!

Or I would be if I was sure such a place existed. I've noticed a trend in the past weeks as I flit from blog to blog, the repeated theme of 'protecting the children' (and whenever I see this, I'm sorry, but, I hear the voice of Reverend Lovejoy's wife).

I don't censor anything we watch/read/speak of, in our house. I don't lie to my child (oh, all right, Santa and the tooth fairy. Shoot me!). but generally, I don't pretty things up, and the only way I protect him is to instill our rules, and to arm him with knowledge. But then this is the woman who insisted her 9yr old watch the beach landing sequence in Saving Private Ryan, because I felt it was essential that he see the most honest representation of the damage guns do (and not the usual hollywood pap with bullets flying everywhere that never seem to hit anyone.). Yes he was disturbed by it. I meant him to be. He tried to bail about five minutes into it, but I held firm. A horrible mother? perhaps. Yet I was so proud of him when later he came to me and asked all the questions he did. We had a wonderful, open discussion about war and it's affects, and that's exactly the result I'd hoped for.

My way is neither right nor wrong, it is simply the way that works best for us. Bottom line is, I don't go around crusading to make the world a safer place for children. (Good grief! that playground is dangerous... OMG! this is a potential health hazard. Ban it. Ban it all) Mainly because I seriously question whether that is even possible. No, I try my damnedest to make my child safe to go out into the world. And, in my humble but correct opinion, censoring his world is not helpful.

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Hi again,

When I'm not writing, homeschooling the Spawn, bonding with the dent in my couch, or doing my best to do nothing at all, I travel. Last weekend I flew to Yellowknife for a friends 50th birthday party. It was a grand time and I met up with old friends, and made a few new ones as well. Also going on that weekend was the biannual float plane fly in.

My husband is an old pilot and still toys with a small float plane. There's an old joke regarding plane companiesand the operation thereof...

How do you make a small fortune in the airline industry?

Start with a large one... budum-dum.

Anyhoo, back to the fly in.
There were pilots from all over the territories, as well as other parts of Canada, and the states. Planes were the conversation of the day, and although this would usually make my eyes glaze over, there was something magical about the weekend. The ambiance of comraderie, relaxation, and eagerness to be there was apparent. I sat and listened to the oldtimers talk of their exploits, or rib each other good naturedly about some of their less than heroic moments. I watched the respect with which the 'now' generation of charter operators spoke to them and admired their acheivements at flying in a time and place--often without radio, fancy GPS or instrumentation at all. There was very little, 'when I was a lad' attitude. I think that's what struck me the most. The respect went both ways. For all their fondness and attachment to the favourite plane, they'd have traded it in a heart beat to have flown with the newest conveniences available today.

When not down at the docks (oh, hush!), we were cathcing up with several friends. We celebrated Canada day and watched a most interesting parade. It didn't have floats so much as old time cars with plaquards proclaiming whom was inside, gaily decorated bicycles, and group marches by several community organisations, but it lasted a good long while and put our local parade to shame. (the fire brigade, the kids on bikes, scouts, cadets and the requisite 3 legged dog)

and a fun time was had by all.

I love my life.

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