Well tea house has left the building.  I'm making a note to go visit the store for more very soon.  But I'm uber excited to see what my swap partners are going to send my way!

Today NaNoWriMo has finally begun!  I had originally intended to start my writing at midnight but instead I'm 'clearing my schedule', as it were.  I've cleaned my office several times now this past week.  When I get into creative crafty stuff there is no such things as "organized" or "clean", haha.  I have a bunch of half-finished projects floating around this desk right now, and that just won't do.  So my plan right now is to finish them off like they're supposed to be, head to bed, wake up and do some writing.  I plan to break this late-night habit this month though; I don't sleep well when I'm crawling into bed at like 3am, and I don't dream very clearly either.  And I very much enjoy my dreams as well as not oversleeping like I'm wont to do when I hit the pillow late.

I'm being kept company right now by Jesse and Crendor's live stream.  Right now they're playing around in Guild Wars 2 on the craziest jumping puzzle I've ever seen.  That probably sounds incredibly boring if you're not a gamer, but I'm watching more for the convo between them than actual gameplay.  I have a couple more things to put together for my swap partner's package for the big ship-out on Friday, some things I decided to handmake.  I got her package today and I love it!  She sent me:

• a copy of the CD she did for the NaNo CD swap, can't wait to check that out
• 3 Orange Blossom Thyme lolipops from the Groovy Baker
• a sticky notepad
• a little Cactus Pups toy, who's currently keeping me company sitting on my keyboard
• a Mini Plush Labbit
• Hot Buttered Rum powder
• 4 World Market hot chocolates: Salted Caramel, Dark Chocolate, Mexicocoa and Dulce De Leche

I'll try to get pics when I can.  I hope my tea swaps come soon.

I have a few more notes to work out for my NaNo story as well, Street Team posts to write and queue and some Review Mondays and Fangirl Times to write and schedule ahead of time.  I purposefully chose not to do more Review Mondays in October so I could do some writer-focused ones in November.  There are a few new sites and such I came upon, so I want to do those in spirit of NaNo.  I also have my NaNo Advent box to prep up.  I saw it on the forums for years and never really looked at it until this year out of curiousity.  If you remember those chocolate advent calendars you buy at Christmas, this is more or less the same idea.  You make or buy thirty boxes or seven or even one, however you wish to do it, and you put a treat in it for every day of November.  You hit your word goal for the day, you get to open a box.  I got my Mom in on the fun, she went out and bought a bunch of snacks that she divided into small bags and labeled and stick in the box for the small word goals.  I'm also going to do a bit of my own for the bigger word goals and for bonus ones (anything I hit over 50k).  LoL time, PS2 time, whatever I can think of.  I'm curious to see how well this form of motivation works.

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.

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.