I got the idea for this post from my friend Sammy, and the idea is to list thirteen positive things and connected to me (at least, that’s what I gathered from her brief intro). This list is in no particular order, except for the order in which they occurred to me. So, without further ado, here are thirteen positive things from 2013:
Category: A bit of fun
Apology
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Please excuse my lack of presence over the last couple of days. I’ve become lost in Panem and hope to return shortly. Meanwhile, have a great rest of the weekend!
(c) 2013. All rights reserved.
My hidey hole
When I was little, my sister and I did not get along. At all. We still don’t and I really regret that, but it’s out of my hands now. Anyway, she liked to go through my stuff, so I needed a way to secure it. My bedroom door wouldn’t latch correctly, never mind lock, so I needed a better place to stash things.
Being a big fan of diary-keeping, my diaries were the items I was most concerned with – like government secrets, they could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands (namely, the hands of my little sister).
A bit of fun
One of my friends did a fun little quiz about one’s internal nationality. I thought it sounded like fun, so I tried my hand at it, and this is what I got:
Apparently, I identify with Turkey. Who knew?
Next, there was a link to a quiz about what part of Russia you would live in. A woman in my childhood church used to travel to Russia quite a lot back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and when she came back, she would give talks on her travels. She sparked my interest in this country (and a variety of other things, too), so I thought, why not? And this was my result:
I’d live in Kaluga Oblast!
Wanna take these quizzes yourself? You can do so here and here. Have fun! 🙂
(c) 2013. All rights reserved.
Related articles
- My First Blog: Russia (akphotogallery.wordpress.com)
Lotsa news!
First up, The Lokana Chronicles is up on Miss Snark’s First Victim as part of this month’s Secret Agent Contest. Click here to check it out! And if you follow me on Twitter, I apologize for the pitch spam, but the After the Madness Twitter Pitch Party is today and I’ve – belatedly – been pitching my book in hopes of snagging an agent’s interest. I missed out on Pitch Madness this time around, and I haven’t been too addicted to the #pitmad thread today, either, but both things are always a lot of fun and I wish all the contestants good luck (and all the winners congratulations). 🙂
Next, I was super excited to see this in my email yesterday:
I adore the Banned Underground books and have been anxiously awaiting the release of The SatNav of Doom ever since I finished the last book in the series. My screencap cut off some of the links, so here they are again: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, even a blog!
A letter to my blog
Hello, pretty blog. How are you? Have you missed me? Been lonely without me to update you?
I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s just that I’ve been revising. And writing. And chasing one kid after another – it’s like herding cats, I tell you.
Don’t believe me? Why not? Oh, you want pics or it didn’t happen? All right, fine. Here you go.
There, are you happy? Proof I’ve been writing and drinking all the coffee. What more could you want?
Oh, you want something of substance? Well, I think I can help you out there. Here’s an excerpt from my new short story…
¡Hace calor!
Well, it’s late and I’m exhausted after a long day. I hope you’ve all been enjoying the poetry! Most of them were written on our last camping trip. We spent two hours waiting for our boat to get fixed and, after my phone battery died, I whipped out my handy little purse notebook and started writing. (If I’d have had The Lokana Chronicles with me, I’d have started revising, but that didn’t work out.)
Anyway, I’ve got loads to tell when I’m less tired and more coherent, so for tonight, I’ll just leave you with this. It hit 105° today at work, and in Des Moines, apparently it hit 108°. I heard that was a record, but I don’t know for sure.
What I do know for sure is that when it’s this flippin’ hot out, there’s only one thought that runs through my mind, and it goes like this:
Weekend exploits, or Double Trouble (times two!)
Good friends and good food – what more could a girl ask for on a rockin’ Friday night?
Well, here I am, sitting at my desk on a lovely Tuesday morning, trying to recover from yet another action-packed weekend. When I look back on the summer of 2013, I think that’s what I’ll remember – it was a summer of action. This time, though, instead of a family camping trip, the weekend revolved around time spent with great friends (and loads of good food, naturally).
One of my oldest and dearest friends is back in town. Well, not my town anymore, but I’ll get to that. See, she moved cross-country to sunny California after high school, putting a serious crimp in our hangout schedule. Last time she was back in Iowa and I actually got to see her was four years ago when her sister got married (sadly, she couldn’t make it back for my wedding a few months later – stupid circumstances). Clearly, we needed to get together again, and that’s exactly what happened this time, as she spent her trip to our hometown crashed on my couch. After the “excitement” I had at the beginning of July, this was just the sort of excitement I needed.
I feel fine
So today I’m taking a cue from a friend and using a song title for my post title. And why do I feel fine? Because I was up all night hanging out with my bestest bud, in case you haven’t seen the sidebar to the right. (And then after that, I may or may not have been lost in Camlain and Penrithen, two lands from the fabulous Vortex, Return of the Effra by Lindsey J. Parsons.)
Today, we’re having a blast and tonight is going to be better yet. So if I’m not around for a day or two, rest assured it’s because I’m having a heck of a good time with some really great friends. Have a great weekend, everybody!
(c) 2013. All rights reserved.
The race is on!
As soon as I hit Publish on my last post, I realized that I’d intended to post some pictures along with it. Guess that’s what happens when you get distracted. 🙂
Qualifying laps. If you look under the flag, you’ll see a truck.
Anyway, since I seem to have skipped over my trip to the Iowa Speedway last month, allow me to share a bit. That’s where Seymour’s at again tonight, this time with one of his old friends. They’re at the US Cellular 250, one of the Nationwide Series races. The race we went to was part of the Camping World Truck Series, but I can’t remember which one it was. Anyway, Seymour had never been and I’d never been to a professional sporting event of any kind, so it was really neat to go to our first race together.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 