Thankfulness #25: Thanksgiving
Today I was grateful for Thanksgiving with family. As I mentioned last night, ti was at my aunt and uncle’s house down the street, so not far to go (only half a block), so traveling was pretty easy. We had a nice time visiting with everyone, though I was too busy doing that to take very many photos (crazy, right??) So you only get three:
Incidentally, the orange in the first pic is the same orange we’re going to paint our living room.
We stayed there until into the evening, when we came home and hubby and I spent some quality time with the dog/wizard, who was channeling his human side today:
sitting up in the middle like a hoo-man
I say he is a wizard because we have a running gag that he is really an animagus (ala Harry Potter) who is in hiding, and that the reason he chews his paw/leg is because he is trying to chew off his dark mark, lest he get discovered. We say that when no one is home he turns into a pot bellied, gray haired, wizard and sits around the house naked (I never bought into the whole clothes transforming with the thing) and that is how food disappears, items go missing, and things gets moved around. Who knows, it might even be true.
And now, after catching up to 30,000 words on NaNoWriMo (I am only 11,600 behind now!) I must head for bed. Tomorrow we have Thanksgiving II with friends, hopefully the menfolk will go chop down the Christmas tree, and I hope to get some more words in.
Have a turkey and stuffing kind of day!
Jo 🙂
PS I leave you with Shelob, who is not an animagus, but rather an immortal being, as old as time itself, who sucks our life energy to stay alive. Yeah, we have interesting pets.
Thankfulness #24: Holiday Crafty-ness
Happy Thanksgiving! Today we’re celebrating thankfulness, but I have been doing it all month on my blog. To continue the streak, yesterday I was thankful for some Christmas Crafty-ness.
I think I mentioned before about our Christmas theme this year – we’re doing an “old fashioned” tree – and today I got a lot of the ornaments put made (or at least started.) Like the “gingerbread” cookies:
I say that because they are really made with 2 cups of cinnamon, a cup and a half of apple sauce, and elmer’s glue. After they baked for forever, we used puffy t-shirt paint to “frost them” a little. We didn’t have a lot of it, but it got the job done.
I also started drying the orange slices in the dehumidifier because they take four hours in the oven, and I needed it for the cookies. A few of them are done, but the rest will get finished tomorrow:
And I “frosted” some pinecones. I couldn’t figure out to get the ribbon to stay on them, so I hit google and someone had posted a brilliant idea of using eye bolts. So, eye bolts it is.
And while I was at it, I finally got around to painting the spice jars I have had sitting here for over a year. I know. Laziness. Only I just now found a fifth that hubby snagged to put screws in, so I may need to buy some more white paint to do it.
The goal is to imitate milk glass. Then I have a little wooden holder I am going to fix and paint, and some cherry decals to put on the jars and they will look quite cute. I got the idea from an antique set that was selling for 80$. (this is not the exact one, but it is close enough.)
While I did that, the brother and hubby started stripping wallpaper off in the front room (that will later be the dining room, and made it probably halfway.
So that was pretty awesome.
Tomorrow we have Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house, and then I get to come home and spray paint red beads red… I’ve been looking for a cheap string of berries for the tree (well, fake berries) but alas they do not exist in my price range, so tonight we gave up and picked up some of those gaudy metallic beads and some silk finish spray paint for plastic. I’m going to spray paint them red, then sponge on a little yellow here and there for variation, and then give it a coat of spray poly. I also have a few toilet paper rolls saved to start working on the santas.
And that’s my day. Hope yours was just as good!
Have a cinnamon cookie kinda day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #21: Entries!
Yesterday I was grateful for contest entries. After the expo in Des Moines, I had left over stuff; a poster that I won’t be able to reuse (by the Book Born Expo I’ll have book 9 out), some leftover books no one bought, and like 50 bags of swag. I sent some of the swag off to I SMell Sheep review blog and the Book Born group, but what to do with the rest of it?
Initially I had planned to do a raffle and try to recoup some of my expo losses, but a quick google search of “Raffle Legal” proved that impossible. (Hint: Raffles are gambling, and gambling is not legal. Non Profits can get away with it in some states, but since I’m hardly a non-profit…*sigh*) Yes, I’ve seen other authors do it, but my luck would be I’d be the one who got smacked for it, so instead I just have to do a giveaway. I’ve tried to offset this by giving people six entries for proving they purchased Brothers of Darkness, but so far no one has done that. I have gotten 15 “freebie” entries, and 4 “website celebration” entries, and that’s waaaaay more than I figured I’d have on day 2. Usually I do things like this and get maybe 10 by the end of the week.
Want to enter? You can check out the giveaway and find links to enter on my author blog.
Aside from that, we went pokemoning in Red Oak for a couple of hours and, despite the cold, I did walk enough to get the final candy I needed to complete the 400 Magicarp candies and create:
TA DA!! It’s taken me months to get this thing! I finally had to put magicarp as my buddy and walk with him to get the last candies. Now I need to work on evolving a Pikachu.
We also watched WWE Survivor Series. Some of the outcomes were quite surprising, and some weren’t. I knew poor Kalisto wouldn’t get the win, though I was rooting for him, and I thought if they were doing it the smart way they’d let Goldberg have it, though everyone else in the house thought it would be Lesner, so I got to bask in my rightness and a lot of “Pfffft. Told you so!” I was surprised about Cesaro and Sheamus being the final winners in the Tag Team match, though that meant with the wins/loses so far that I knew which team would win the the big match, but that was okay. Ellsworth taking Stroman out was a lot of fun, and Jericho is always good and… well, I was surprised that they let Bray make the final pin. They’ve kind of under utilized him for a long time. They build him up in promos as the eater of worlds and such, and then he always loses. So while I love Roman, I did enjoy seeing him victorious. Truth be told, I had a hard time picking who I wanted to win, so as long as it was either Bray or Roman that made the final pin, I would have been happy.
And that was my exciting day. i need to get some writing done today if I can figure out how to get some quiet.
Have a 400 magicarp candy kind of day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #19: Website Done-ness
Today I am grateful for two website items. First, I’m grateful for all the hard work hubby has done on my website at http://JoleeneNaylor.com, which is now 100% mobile and tablet friendly:
Browser version
Mobile version
Seriously, go check it out! (I’m going to do an author giveaway via my author blog and facebook to celebrate in the next few days, so look for that, too!)
My other website thankfulness is to Book Born for letting me play with their blog:
I rather enjoyed making all the graphics and all the organizational stuff – maybe I am weird, but that stuff is more fun than the actual blogging is. If You want to go check it out – and you should – you can do that here, https://bookbornblog.wordpress.com/ .
That’s pretty much what I spent my day doing, though I did get to wear my hedgehog kigurami and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa while it sort of snowed (it didn’t stick, but I saw it coming down), and I also made the plans for our Christmas tree – we’re doing an old fashioned (or “green”) christmas this year. I’m going to dry orange slices, and make some “gingerbread” cookies (they’re not really cookies, but made with glue, but they look like cookies), as well as glittering some pinecones, and making some paper snowflakes. We bought fake popcorn and berry garland, as well (sorry, old fashioned or not I don’t have to time to really string that stuff!), and if I can find some red paper I have some cute santas out of toilet paper rolls that look fun. Anyway, I think it’s going to be pretty cool. next year we’re going to go for a British Christmas, plum pudding and all. Hopefully.
And now it’s bed time, so I leave you with a pic of me buried under two cats and a dog. Shows how well they can get along when they want to suck my heat:
Have a cocoa kinda day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #18:TV Time
Despite all the things I need to to do, today I am thankful for taking some time and finishing the last three episodes of LAST season’s Supernatural. We also broke in our Pennsylvania potato chips:
They were pretty good. I still have three bottle of Vernor’s left from michigan that I have been saving, but we may break into soon. I love getting weird food from other states!
I didn’t get any writing done today, but I did get the weekly Terrible Turtles page done – and we got some pokemoning in:
That was tonight’s ax murder house shot. There were people staying in it, and either they were taking lots of pictures, or there was a lightning storm going on inside, as we could see the flashes through the windows.
We did find something odd in a tree on the boulevard, though:
Our first thought was voodoo hex bag (the brother thought there might be a chicken tongue in the middle!) but Facebook says it is a “nest material offering” for birds. Either is possible, so just in case we didn’t hang around. We have enough trouble.
And now I am going to bed, but I leave you with the poster stuck in the armory window:
Have a no-hex-bag kinda day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #16: Wikipedia
Today I am grateful for wikipedia that allowed me to hunt down the song from the Chase commercial that has been driving me crazy, and then from there to buy it from Amazon for $.99. What song is it? This one:
I also enjoyed Jonathan’s live videos in Book Born for Turtle Tuesday – and speaking of turtle Tuesday, did I mention we’re selling hoodies? I didn’t think so, but we are. We won;t be making any profit off of them – they’re 25$ each and all the money goes to buying the hoodie and then to S&H, but that’s okay because we just want to spread Terrible Turtle love.
As I mentioned, they are 25$ a piece, sizes S-3XL, and they are HIGHLY collectible as this will be the only run of them – ever. They will never exist again. That has to make you anxious for one. And of you have no idea what it’s “adveritising”, check out the webcomic at http://terribleturtles.com
So how do you get a hoodie? Send 25$ via paypal to Jissilly@yahoo.com along with a note telling us the size(s) and a mailing address to ship the hoodie(s) to. Or you can message me or Jonathan on facebook. Simple, huh?
I am also grateful today that Mom and Chris’ collector versions of Patrick came in.
Though I dislike the hand drawn covers, this one is not too bad. The dislike I mentioned is why *I* don’t have copies of the collector’s versions, even though they are my books. I suppose someday I may break down and get them…
And now, what I am NOT grateful for. Yesterday I was grateful for those crunchy leaf stacks? Well, today they turned those trails of leaves into huge piles on the corners:
And then they brought in front loaders and a dump truck and STOLE THEM!!
Yes! They stole all the leaves that I crunch through when I walk the dog, or when I go pokemoning or… you get the idea. Now when I walk through the street there is no pleasing happy crunch. There is nothing because they stole my leaves to “burn” – I overheard them talking. Boo, I say! Boo!
And so I end this on a positive note, I did get some writing done today. I am up to over 18,000 words now. Still behind, but that went a long way towards catching up. Oh, and remember those covers I shared yesterday? The two on the end with the blue glowy letters got approved. The jury is out on the first, and dude did not like the one with the purple letters – at all. *sigh* So back to the drawing board on it – and it was the one that took the longest because there is all that space to fill up! I’ll give it another go tomorrow.
And now I am outta here to go to bed. I already stayed up too late searching through free video stock sites for clips to make an Amaranthine series trailer from…
Have a “they didn’t steal MY leaves” kinda day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #15: Crunchy Leaves
Today I am grateful for crunchy fall leaves!
The city cleaned out the storm drains or something today (I forget – we got a notice about it) and so they went around town and scooped all the leaves out of the gutters and left them in fantastic crispy piles all along the edge of the street:
As a leaf crunching addict, I was quite delighted to stomp through their lovely piles and crunch my way all around the block while walking the dog. It was not only fun, but also therapeutic as well.
Crunch. Crunch.
Other than that I worked on book covers today. Here’s the lineup of rough drafts:
No doubt they will change greatly before you see them again. Or maybe not. Who can say?
I didn’t do much writing today because instead I concentrated on reworking the plot – I think it will be better to have them there sooner after the action happens rather than coming in cold the next day, but it means moving some things around and I had to refigure times, and do travel calculations and… anyway, tomorrow I should get to work on the rewriting. I’m not deleting words from my NaNo count, though. I’ll cut and paste them at the end of the document, and then write the new ones in their place. I wrote them during NaNo, FOR NaNo, and I’m not dismissing that work.
Dad and I also finished Season 2 of Dark Matter and – AHHHHH! What a horrible place ot end it. I have to say, in the first few episodes of season one I hated Three, but he has really grown on me and is now maybe my favorite character. I still don;t like Five – she waggles her forehead around too much when she talks and everything she says is ultra dramatic – amusing since I think I do the same thing, but hey, that’s the way it goes. I did really like Four, but after… the throne room (no spoilers) I don’t know anymore.
And now it is beddy bye time for me.
Have a crunchy autumn kind of day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #14: My Snifty Camera/ Super Moon
Today I am thankful for my snifty Nikon. Despite it’s advancing years, sticky lense, and aggravating buttons, in the end it does the best it can with what it has. Basically, I just took it out to get some snaps of the super moon:
I’m convinced for the billionth time I need a bigger zoom than 200.
Aside from that I spent the day with hubby. We finished last season of NCIS New Orleans and watched the first episode of this season. Was surprised to see Brody go, but I am rubbing my hands together at The Christopher/Sonja tension, so that’s good. While we watched TV we broke out the funnel cake kit we’ve been saving for a special occasion:
They turned out waaaay better than the mess we tried on our own last year. Namely hubby said it was the metal ring that made the difference.
After lunch (we’re adults, we can eat funnel cakes for lunch!) we started Final Fantasy XIII-2 – finally!
I wasn’t sure about it at first, but before we left the first chapter we had both a Moogle companion and got to ride a chocobo, so BOOM! I’m on board. Plus Noel is kinda hot, though with Sareh being engaged to Snow there won’t be a romance with them, which is kinda sad, but if she betrayed Snow at this point I’d have to be furious, so better they don’t do that.
I did get some Nano words in, and I’m planning to get back to it after this posts. Haven’t caught up yet, but I will.
Have a super moon kinda day!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #13: Writing Direction
Today I am grateful for finding a direction. I got a 1,000 or so words in on NaNoWriMo , which leaves me waaaay behind, but I finally figured out where the characters are headed short term, which should get me another 5,000 words or so before I’m stuck again.
I also, while coming back from Clarinda on a run for potatoes , had some ideas for the future trilogy. Though it will be a couple years before I write it, I need to set some of it up in this book.
Didn’t do much else. Hit the Stanton pokemon gym, took it:
Caught a Lickitongue :
Ran around a little on hubby’s Fallout Four game:
(I’m standing on the roof and the dog is floating in the air)
And did normal boring crap like cook. All in all not exciting .
Have a more interesting day than me!
Jo 🙂
Thankfulness #11: Friends
Today Facebook was literally waist deep in hate speech. I won’t get into it because passing it on only perpetuates it, but I will say I’ve had enough. I’ve deleted the FB app from my phone and turned the alerts off on the computer unless someone tags me or comments on one of my posts. I plan to keep an eye on Book Born, I Smell Sheep, my street team, and messenger, and that’s it for a few days because otherwise I am going to start getting nasty back. I already did on one post, and that’s when I decided it was time to bow out.
Anyway, today I am grateful for friends because after I posted that I had had enough, several went out of their way to send me something cute or funny, which made me feel better. I admit, I missed social media with the last elections – I barely used Facebook until a couple years ago, so maybe it was like this last time. or maybe people have gone insane.
And now it’s late so I’m heading to bed. I got about nothing done today, even further behind on NaNoWriMo . .. *sigh*
Have a friendly kinda day!
Jo 😦
P. S . Here’s some fun Snapchat pictures.
Most of the photos and art on this site, by Joleene Naylor are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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