coming home from camp

 

"Joke" of the month- June

Instead of a joke, I have a riddle that I have heard a thousand times and every time I hear it I can't get the answer. It is maddening.

There are two doors, and each is guarded. Through one door is safety, and through the other a certain death. Both the guards are identical in all but one aspect: one always tells the truth, and the other always tells a lie. You have no idea which door is which, or which guard is which, and you can ask only one question. One question between the two guards.

What question should you ask?

I both love and hate this riddle, love it because it is so genius and hate it because I can never get it.

Catching Up

Her Majesty Princess Carmen thoughtfully sent me several photographs of her hair as it had been done by skillful hands. I attempted to copy one of these in my friend Rose's hair:

It was actually pretty easy, but it was also time consuming. The six braids criss-crossed in the back took a long time...

I also did a similar hairstyle, but played around differently with the afore mentioned six braids:

I though this one was really pretty, too. I just braided the little braids together in sets of two. 

And a week ago or so, I did this to Mary Margaret:

Three braids, pulled across the back of the head and added into a vertical roll bun. I was pleased with it. 

And today, while helping with dinner, I put a bit of my childish artistic talent into good use:

My life in the past few days. What I do when I'm not writing. I can tell you, that's a lot more time than it should be... 

loss

Due to a 24 hour stomach virus, I failed to write for two (TWO!) days in a row. Which brings my stats to an even lower advantage... help....

I also lost my 750 words streak. 172 days of writing, gone. I'm also on the Wall of Shame. It's very, how else can I put it, shameful. 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

This is a screen shot of my stats on Camp Nanowrimo. I've been focusing on the little number ten underneath 'Days Remaining'.

And on the slightly bigger thirty-three thousand, three hundred thirty-three underneath 'Total Words Written'.

And on the disheartening July 1st, 2012 underneath 'At This Rate You Will Finish On'.

July first, as most two year olds and older know, takes place after June. But I'm not fearful. Or disheartened. Or rather, I'm not very fearful, and I'm not too disheartened. I'm just 1667 words behind. No big deal, right? I've got five whole hours until midnight!

And yet I'm wasting my precious few hours blogging. Typical.

shawarma

If the Avengers eat shawarma, I should eat it too, right?

Well, that's how it was with Doctor Who and fish fingers and custard (which is delicious, by the way).

On Saturday evening, I made shawarma. Actually, I made shawarma Friday evening through to Saturday evening, because the chicken had to marinate all through the night.

That part wasn't fun... handling raw chicken almost made me a vegetarian right then and there. A very sick vegetarian. 

Luckily I didn't have to do a lot with it after I put it in the fridge Friday night. In fact, I don't think I even looked at it until the next afternoon. 

I guess I should explain what shawarma is, for all you people i haven't already told. Basically, it's what the Avengers eat at the end of The Avengers. It's also chicken/cucumbers/tahini/tomatoes/yogurt/parsley/pickles laid on top of a pita bread and rolled into a burrito. 

I burned the tahini (I know, how did I manage to do that?) so I made a yogurt sauce instead, which I actually like more than tahini anyway. 

It was delicious. I can now say that I have had shawarma, which basically makes me part of the Avengers. Right? 

a roman VII

Mary Margaret says she feels Roman with today's hairstyle. I think she looks awesome. 

Starved for ideas, I started to just make tiny braids and wrap them around her head... and criss crossing them... and hence this hairstyle was born. 

And, on the topic of Rome:

Well, I get it, and anybody who's seen Series Five of Doctor Who gets it... 

days 5 & 6

My excuse for not posting yesterday (or really today, seeing as it's past midnight now) is perfectly suitable. It's June, I was a couple of thousand words behind on my novel, and I was too busy to connect my iPhone to the computer and take ten minutes to write a short blog post about hair.

Well, it's a good excuse to me.

day five- a French fishtail side ponytail. It's hard to see just how beautiful this hairstyle is in the picture. It was another request from Mary Margaret.

And today's (or rather, yesterday's), yet another side braid, a four-stranded french braid with a ribbon. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and save my word count. 

day 4- curling iron failure

I've never, ever used a curling iron. My sisters have curled my hair on occasion, but my hair being so straight it never stays for more than an hour.

When I tried to curl Mary Margaret's ponytail after a separate failed attempt to make a beautiful hairstyle:

I put some braids in at the top of the ponytail if you can see them. It's a kind of blurry picture. Dutch braids, three of them, kind of messed up on that part... and then even more so with the curling iron. But hey, practice makes perfect. I hate that saying. 

day no 3, yarn, and cats

I failed to take a picture of Mary Margaret's hairstyle yesterday, but per her request I did only the same thing I did on day 0, so you need only look back at that.

But today, I did a simple but pretty braid:

Just braided backwards up her head and pinned at the top. I've done this braid before, but this is the best version of it I've done. 

Also, last Friday, I visited the Shabby Sheep yarn boutique in Dallas, because they had a 30% off sale for their 7th birthday. Both me and my mother spent a fair amount of money. 

My new lace weight yarn. It's made by Giselle, 64% kid mohair, 25% wool, and 11% nylon. The yarn is actually a darker pink than the poor picture shows, and is being turned into my second lace scarf. 

That's my cat. Her name is Trapper. This picture was actually taken a couple of months ago, but I recently came across it on my phone. The little kitty, who is about seven and at 7 and a half is now classified as 'senior', was curled up on my bed, where she is not allowed under any circumstances. But she looked so sweet... 

Day 1- Six Strand Braid

Well, a pretend one, anyway. Two braids with the sides pulled out and pinned together in the back to make it look like a more complicated endeavor. Not the best hairstyle I've ever done, but pretty enough nonetheless. 

Seven Days Seven Braids

In return for unloading the dishwasher for me, I am to braid my sister Mary Margaret's hair every day for a week. It starts tomorrow. But to get a head start, I gave her a beautiful hairdo this morning. I actually didn't know of the deal we were going to make this morning. So what, I still gave her a beautiful hairdo.

Every day this week, I will be posting a picture of Mary Margaret's new hairstyle. I hope I don't run out of ideas... 

the doctor's superhero dress-up

The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River Song go to a party.

Or should I say, Doctor Thor, SuperAmy, SuperRory, and Black River go to a party. Yeah, I've been at it with the crayons again. Well, markers actually.

I can't tell it's the Doctor either. Rose did this one. Due to the lettering at the top, you hopefully don't need to be told who he's dressed as. 

SuperAmy. Rose did her too. It just makes me laugh. 

And Amy's husband, SuperRory. I know he's no better off than Doctor Thor recognize-wise, but at least you can tell what superhero he's supposed to be. Right? Right?

And my personal favorite, Black River, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Now I know her hair is too yellow, but Rose had a limited selection of markers. And just ignore the fact that her gloves are the exact same color as her guns. 

This is Black Widow, drawn by Rose's older sister Joanie. I'm putting it up at her request. I think everybody asks why she has sunglasses... 

The Eleventh Doctor and his companions (and Black Widow) are going to be the sensations of this party. 

                                                           

Finally, It's Picking Up

Tonight is a historic night. My novel has started to get easy and fun to write.

Technically, that should happen around day 1, but hey, I'm only 30 pages in. They say that week two is the hardest, in which case I only have two more days to have fun before the fun of the first week (which started four days late this time) fades and I have to start to work out a plot from all these Big Bend notes...

To keep my few readers interested (well, interested enough to not stop their email subscription, anyway), I've decided to post a picture of the first page. You know, the title page. I'm not showing anyone any actual prose until the book is published. Or at least finished. (Okay, so if you go to the Camp Nanowrimo website and search for riversong0045, you'll find me and therefore find an excerpt from my book, but hey.)

Okay, so I kind of fixed up the picture. The title page doesn't really look like that. But still, it's cool looking. 

8656 words and counting. Wish me luck. 

My Kind of Summer Camp

Camp Nanowrimo. A completely indoor, non-sports event. Perfect for people like me.

It's also the reason I probably won't be blogging nearly as much this month. I will be busy writing thousands upon thousands (okay, so it's only like 1600) of words every single day and won't have time to indulge my readers with almost daily posts.

50k, 30 days, not easy. At the end of June, I will have one more first draft, bringing my total up to 3... will I ever get done editing? I'm not so good with editing... I printed last November-January's efforts and still haven't started combing through it for plot holes, of which I'm sure there are thousands.

Aaa! How can it already be 11? I have to go get more writing done! Aa!

It's a very stressful month.