Or maybe I should call it the Tea House, since it smells like one!
Went out with my mom Friday night for some shopping and dinner. I picked up all sorts of goodies which I can't keep (they're for my swap buddies) and dinner was...well ended up kind of being an achievement for me more than anything. Anxiety made it very difficult for me to go out that I just got into a habit of avoiding doing something like go out to dinner. We don't often get the chance to do this as it is, and mom and I had a lot of fun. It was worth the jitters. Right now my desk is a mess of goodies all strewn about - padded envelopes, pens, glitter, lots of teas. And a snack called Dragon's Lair for my swap buddy. I seriously can't stop smelling the loose teas - they're so fruity and sweet! I almost want to replace the rose potpourii on my desk with loose leaf tea, but I love the rose too much. I hope my swap partners enjoy them; I know I'm definitely going back for some for my own personal stash. I can't wait to see what they send me!
Goodness this desk is such a mess...
NaNo is almost here. I still have so much planning to do, and still much catching up to do on my pre-NaNo story. How time flies. No word yet on where we're having our Kick-Off this year, or our "official" write-ins but I know I'm going to hit up the Starbuck's a lot this November. And the Second Cup down the road - I miss that place so much. I used to go to the one in the west end all the time in high school, it has such a great vibe. Nice and warm, good music and wonderful hot chocolate. And with Tim Horton's now having wi-fi I'm certainly not going to be at a loss for writing locations throughout the month. I need to get out of this house more. My brain is itching to work on this story. It seems the closer we get to the start of November the more the more scenes flash in my brain, dialogue I can't write out yet. It's ten more days, right? Think all this great dialogue will stick around that long? I stand hopeful - or sit, rather.
I'm off to be crafty for a little bit before bed, later today the Mum Show! Pics of that to come soon hopefully.
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Movie night was so much fun! Except for the stomach ache afterwards haha. Too many rich foods all at once but damn if it wasn't a good night. We watched Paranormal Activity 2 and Halloween H20, neither of which were scary per se. Paranormal Activity 2 had some great jump scares once the movie really got going, but it was kind of drawn out in the beginning. H20 was...shorter than I remembered. It was like here's Jamie Lee, here's her new life, here's Michael, here's some dead kids, here's Jamie killing Michael. The end. Well it never did compare to the first few originals (Halloween got crappy from four onward). This weekend we're going to hopefully watch the first Halloween movie and Nightmare on Elm street. On the menu we're sticking to a simpler layout - pizza, veggies and dip and some sweets from Bulk Barn. I'm not planning on a repeat of last week thank you, worst night I've had in a long time. But homemade bruschetta is the most amazing thing ever I got to admit.
Thanksgiving as always was good. Mom actually cooked instead, but we both did the cheesecake. OMG the cheesecake...there are no words. It was beyond amazing. I can't really stand the taste of pumpkin but in cheesecake it's sweet enough to really enjoy. It really must be tried even if you hate pumpkin pie.
Of course, all that food means a serious detox is in order. I need to flush all that out of my system before it decides to hang around, so it's been mostly soups and salads and apples all week. And twice the water intake. I might start double-walking Dalila too, although that's hardly inviting right now. It's so cold out holy geez! There's been a giant wind for the past couple days which usually means something is on its way (a storm in most cases) but aside from some rain yesterday morning there's been nothing. Wasn't the best day to do yard work but it had to be done and the front lawn looks so much better now. Not sure what we're going to do tomorrow, we're still wanting to take Dalila to the falls (not Niagara Falls, these are more local) but tomorrow's too busy a day. My fingers are crossed for Sunday though!
Time to get my butt moving on writing. Still about 8k behind. I'm having flashbacks of my first NaNo experience!
Thanksgiving as always was good. Mom actually cooked instead, but we both did the cheesecake. OMG the cheesecake...there are no words. It was beyond amazing. I can't really stand the taste of pumpkin but in cheesecake it's sweet enough to really enjoy. It really must be tried even if you hate pumpkin pie.
Of course, all that food means a serious detox is in order. I need to flush all that out of my system before it decides to hang around, so it's been mostly soups and salads and apples all week. And twice the water intake. I might start double-walking Dalila too, although that's hardly inviting right now. It's so cold out holy geez! There's been a giant wind for the past couple days which usually means something is on its way (a storm in most cases) but aside from some rain yesterday morning there's been nothing. Wasn't the best day to do yard work but it had to be done and the front lawn looks so much better now. Not sure what we're going to do tomorrow, we're still wanting to take Dalila to the falls (not Niagara Falls, these are more local) but tomorrow's too busy a day. My fingers are crossed for Sunday though!
Time to get my butt moving on writing. Still about 8k behind. I'm having flashbacks of my first NaNo experience!
Yes, that time of the year is definitely coming once again. A month sometimes isn't long enough to prepare, or it's an agonizing wait. Sometimes it's both.
It's almost kind of strange how much it's a part of my life now. I can't imagine not doing it even though I no longer am an ML for my region. That's still kind of strange to me as well. I've been doing this for twelve years now and I was ML for a good majority of those years. I'm used to it now but there's a little part of me that still misses commiserating with fellow MLs about things, sharing ideas, going through that frantic-but-fun planning stage of trying to organize events AND my own NaNo. I have happy memories though, and that's enough for me.
This year's novel is fantasy, as usual. I just can't deviate from the genre - and really, why should I? I love the genre, I read the genre, my imagination spends about 95% of its time in the genre. I don't really have the mind for something like sci-fi or mystery or anything like that, and that doesn't bother me at all. Although I've contemplatedy YA a few times. I may try that one day, we'll have to see. This year's story had a bit of influence from the movie Thor, the newer one with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston that everyone's fawning over. At least a couple of the characters. And the idea of different realms/worlds, which also kind of reminded me a bit of the realm idea Dennis L. McKiernan used in his series. Traveling between them won't be as complicated or even similar to either story though. I'm still ironing out the details, this story is proving to be tricky - took me three days just to pin down the general arc and where to start the story alone. I like where this one's going through. The main character starts out in the realm her mother comes from with some of her memories surrounding an event back home purposefully hidden away. The only problem is the only other person there who knew what she had hidden away and helped her do it is now gone, and with the same dream haunting her every night for the past ten years she decides to head home. What will follow is a whole number of truths from all sides of the debate, no one's completely innocent in this story but the severity of those choices will vary from one character to the next. No one knows the whole scenario but it will be discovered. The main character will also get her full memory back in the midst of all this. I've never done the whole grand discovery angle before. Perhaps it's all the Murder, She Wrote re-runs I've been watching, haha! That show is amazing.
You can find me here, if you're on the site as well. Shoot me a NaNomail sometime.
It's almost kind of strange how much it's a part of my life now. I can't imagine not doing it even though I no longer am an ML for my region. That's still kind of strange to me as well. I've been doing this for twelve years now and I was ML for a good majority of those years. I'm used to it now but there's a little part of me that still misses commiserating with fellow MLs about things, sharing ideas, going through that frantic-but-fun planning stage of trying to organize events AND my own NaNo. I have happy memories though, and that's enough for me.
This year's novel is fantasy, as usual. I just can't deviate from the genre - and really, why should I? I love the genre, I read the genre, my imagination spends about 95% of its time in the genre. I don't really have the mind for something like sci-fi or mystery or anything like that, and that doesn't bother me at all. Although I've contemplatedy YA a few times. I may try that one day, we'll have to see. This year's story had a bit of influence from the movie Thor, the newer one with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston that everyone's fawning over. At least a couple of the characters. And the idea of different realms/worlds, which also kind of reminded me a bit of the realm idea Dennis L. McKiernan used in his series. Traveling between them won't be as complicated or even similar to either story though. I'm still ironing out the details, this story is proving to be tricky - took me three days just to pin down the general arc and where to start the story alone. I like where this one's going through. The main character starts out in the realm her mother comes from with some of her memories surrounding an event back home purposefully hidden away. The only problem is the only other person there who knew what she had hidden away and helped her do it is now gone, and with the same dream haunting her every night for the past ten years she decides to head home. What will follow is a whole number of truths from all sides of the debate, no one's completely innocent in this story but the severity of those choices will vary from one character to the next. No one knows the whole scenario but it will be discovered. The main character will also get her full memory back in the midst of all this. I've never done the whole grand discovery angle before. Perhaps it's all the Murder, She Wrote re-runs I've been watching, haha! That show is amazing.
You can find me here, if you're on the site as well. Shoot me a NaNomail sometime.
Review Monday is back! Snow White and the Huntsman
Author: Andunien Posted under:
Movie,
Review Monday
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth
Storyline: Snow White, imprisoned daughter of the late king, escapes just as the Magic Mirror declares her the source of the Evil Queen's immortality. The Queen sends her men, led by a local huntsman, to bring her back. But upon her capture, the huntsman finds he's being played and turns against the Queen's men, saving Snow White in the process. Meanwhile, Snow's childhood friend, William, learns that she is alive and sets off to save her.Written by G.C. Bendixen at IMDB
Pros: This was a great and refreshing take on the Snow White story. It was nice to see that Snow White's beauty was more about her heart than her looks as opposed to other versions. It wasn't poor little princess, prince come save her. She was a fighter in a determined-to-stay-alive but she wasn't that sort of unrealistic fighter. Having the Huntsman as more prominent character was well-balanced; he assisted Snow White without carrying her. And Queen Ravenna was a spectacular evil queen. Scheming, devious, sly and yet not wholly evil. She is a woman who's been shaped by her circumstances but has also given in to the lust for power, who probably would never attempt to redeem herself and yet a small part of you could sympathize with her. The dwarves were not Disney's tribe, and yet they were still able to provide some comic relief without stupid cheesy elements (I'm looking at you Mirror Mirror). And the best part - seeing Snow White take the throne. Without having to marry a prince to do it.
Cons: Prince William was kind of useless. With a little bit of tweaking you could have told the same story without him. Characters like that kind of annoy me. I was kind of disappointed by Kristen's acting. I was really excited for this movie partly because I wanted to see what she was capable of doing outside that Twilight role and she fell kind of flat for me. Some parts of the story felt...lacking in some sense. I can't quite explain it, but it just felt like there should have been more of something.
My Thoughts: it's worth a checking out, especially if you're a Charlize fan because she really doesn't go wrong in this movie. And Chris Hemsworth was okay, and looked really good. Avoid if you were hoping this would be a break-out role for Kristen, because she doesn't quite pull it off. But it's worth seeing at least once.
Storyline: Snow White, imprisoned daughter of the late king, escapes just as the Magic Mirror declares her the source of the Evil Queen's immortality. The Queen sends her men, led by a local huntsman, to bring her back. But upon her capture, the huntsman finds he's being played and turns against the Queen's men, saving Snow White in the process. Meanwhile, Snow's childhood friend, William, learns that she is alive and sets off to save her.Written by G.C. Bendixen at IMDB
Pros: This was a great and refreshing take on the Snow White story. It was nice to see that Snow White's beauty was more about her heart than her looks as opposed to other versions. It wasn't poor little princess, prince come save her. She was a fighter in a determined-to-stay-alive but she wasn't that sort of unrealistic fighter. Having the Huntsman as more prominent character was well-balanced; he assisted Snow White without carrying her. And Queen Ravenna was a spectacular evil queen. Scheming, devious, sly and yet not wholly evil. She is a woman who's been shaped by her circumstances but has also given in to the lust for power, who probably would never attempt to redeem herself and yet a small part of you could sympathize with her. The dwarves were not Disney's tribe, and yet they were still able to provide some comic relief without stupid cheesy elements (I'm looking at you Mirror Mirror). And the best part - seeing Snow White take the throne. Without having to marry a prince to do it.
Cons: Prince William was kind of useless. With a little bit of tweaking you could have told the same story without him. Characters like that kind of annoy me. I was kind of disappointed by Kristen's acting. I was really excited for this movie partly because I wanted to see what she was capable of doing outside that Twilight role and she fell kind of flat for me. Some parts of the story felt...lacking in some sense. I can't quite explain it, but it just felt like there should have been more of something.
My Thoughts: it's worth a checking out, especially if you're a Charlize fan because she really doesn't go wrong in this movie. And Chris Hemsworth was okay, and looked really good. Avoid if you were hoping this would be a break-out role for Kristen, because she doesn't quite pull it off. But it's worth seeing at least once.
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