We were at a wedding the day of the Gloucestershire NaNoWriMo Thank Goodness It Is All Over Party. But Sunday Alaric finished everything he could on the leaky workshop, we'd done a bit of house decorating with the kids and it was raining - we needed to go to Costco which is in Bristol so we thought - hey! We can make it to their NaNo finishing party and so we did 🙂
Jeany decided that she would have her own party at home with Ferfer (my dad) and watch films, Alaric who did not reach 50 K was desperate to get a chance at more noveling and so sat at the party writing 🙂
I think we both are struggling with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) being over as is my Dad and Jean. Sunday I got up early to get my pre-kid writing in so as to boost my word count and it was only once I'd opened the laptop and sat down with tea in hand that I realised 'Damn! NaNo's over isn't it? This is December!', Dad and Jean can both be found scribbling in notebooks when ever the chance arises and Alaric too has been glued to his laptop - this is not unusual but every time I ask him what he is doing he is working on his novel 🙂
Of course this is exactly what I was hoping for - I use NaNo and the other writing challenges to help me keep up momentum on project which I struggle with.
We also got to catch up with some friends and I may have ended up singing light opera in the pub :/
This morning I dug out the Christmas decorations, and popped a christmas CD on. The children were so excited it was amazing. Alaric put hooks in the ceiling and things to put decorations up. Mary just grinned and grinned at the stars and tinsel. We need to do some drilling to put the lights up in the window so that will have to wait as will Christmas Tree. I also can't find the advent trees so might have to improvise something.
The cutest thing was Jean deciding that they were both reindeers (due to the hat on Mary that had been Jean's) and making reigns with a string of christmas beads and saying they were run aways. 'Oh look at me I am a run away reindeer with another reindeer following me!' Mary ran along in her wake giggling - this lasted a long time 🙂
Rudolf has also decided to stable with us again this year even though we no longer have a paddock! Jean loves going for flights with her red nosed buddy 🙂
I have a lot of projects that are in various states of completion which I have spent this year trying to finish, new projects have inevitably sprung up during the year and so this month I am designating a Finish Projects Month!
The main five being:
- e-book for The Little Book of Festive Poetry
- Finish writing and edit christmas story
- audio book for The Little Book of Festive Poetry
- Launch The Little Book of Festive Poetry and make to all buyable including merch
- Finish novel off
This will no doubt take up most of the month though there are other things like wanting to scan some of my pictures etc...
The second challenge is a sort of craft advent for me 🙂 I shall be attempting to do something crafty/arty each day 🙂
Today marks the end of a month of madness where me and Alaric attempted to write a novel each in a month. I broke the 70, 000 barrier and am on the last part of the novel, Alaric who was using it to get back into writing has about 16, 000 words - well short of the 50K you need to win but considering how hectic this month has been for him plus the leaking roof in his workshop/writing space this is an amazing achievement. We have raised a bit of money for charity in doing so and Jeany has produced her very own illustrated story, for which she has won a hello kitty writing necklace.
She was inspired by the note book which our friend Ulrike sent her and the story is called The Castle of Animals (which turns out to be a series but this is just the first story!). It is no where near as many words as she wrote last year but there was lots of behind the scenes stuff like character development and plot this time - her hand writing is not at it's best but this is a fun project and not school and she is going to be typing it up later on anyway so I decided not to push that one!
Next year we are roping my dad in as well - he came to the Bristol write-in with me yesterday where he did a whole page of his satire that he's been writing and he is a slow writer and we were all chatting so this was an incredible feat for him! Of course he also managed to get friended by a very friendly drunk actor who was excited about the concept of writers which was really very funny 🙂
Yesterday my friend visited - she is in her seventies, she bought loads of books and pretty trousers for Jeans and a teddy and dolly for Mary and for me purple, pink and white flowers. She reminds me of how proud I am of how I've set things up in this house - here they are at the dinning table.
The pink jacket Jean is wearing is from her too. I love our dinning area 🙂
I have loads of pics of improvements we've made which I really should post at some point. This time last year we were desperately waiting for the mortgage to go through after having negotiated a cheaper price. Alaric and Mary were ill with pnumonia and I was still using the crutches.
Things have changed for us drastically and even though the workshop has leaked and maybe ruined some of Alaric's tools things are still on the up. Over the next week or so he and my dad will make it safe for at least the winter, Monday he sealed some of the gaps in the bathroom and did some general mantinance things.
We have purple carpet on what was bare concret, with a purple setee from my family and purple curtains from my friend (same one who popped round today). We still haven't unpacked everything which is dreadful as we are approaching the 1 yr mark rapidly but at the same time I have just unpacked my Harry Potter lego which was still in the boxes we moved from Essex! They never got unpacked at The Bakery!
Last week we had my friend Becca visiting with her sister and little niece. This was something that wasn't really possible before as there was no were really to put anyone - oh we still had house guests but that had to be willing to sleep on the floor/sofa so was out for anyone with any sort of back problem!
(they bought astronaut icecream with them!)
We had a Baby Bake Off whilst Jean was at school!
I love the fact that people can tell it's our house by the fact there is a purple butterfly on the house and the amazement that I did not put the butterflies and dolphins in the bathroom - they were already there!
Yes we have had to give up the idea of bees (urban bees would upset the neighbours), but plans for chickens are under way. Main limiting factor is money is going to be tight again in the new year 🙁 But we plan to make a list of what and when we are doing certain things to the house and garden at New Year 🙂
We love our house! Everything from the kitchen that lends itself to our epic cooking feats to the Hammond Organ we accidently bought! This was dinner yesterday - Jean wasn't impressed but it was yummy.
Alaric, NaNoWriMo, Sarah | sarah | 
Mon 3rd Dec 2012 10:06 am | 
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