What the Junk?!

My friend and I went to Goodwill today. It's a bit far so we went to eat first at a place we like along the way.  I didn't get a lot, but I did get a few things. I got another small ceramic jack o' lantern, a cute retro mug, and a strap for an Apple pencil.  It is elastic with a 'pocket' to fit the pencil. I'm not sure I'll use it, but it was just $2 so I bought it just in case. Not a huge haul, but not bad.  He works tomorrow but will be off until after the New Year so we may go on a thrift trip or two between now and then, or not. Who knows? I didn't get to write today so I want to do that, but it's a bit late. I think I'll just get comfy and relax before bed.  hope to not have to leave the house again for a while. I do need to write and mail out pen pal letters. I hope to get those written soon so I can send my pen pals holiday cards.  There is one pen pal I haven't heard from in quite a while, so I'll send a card to them in hopes they are okay.   I also realized I hadn't put my winner banner in the sidebar for this year's NaNoWriMo so that is now up!

Yup, I haven't posted since Saturday. Sorry about that, I meant to! Guess what happened on Sunday? I hit 50,000 words on NaNoWriMo. Yes, two days early! I still wrote yesterday and today and was able to bring it to a close. I'm pretty sure I'm done with my zombie 'epic' now.  I do need to write book three of my figure skating couple's journey. Maybe for Camp in or next year's NaNo. Tomorrow, I get to go back to the story I've been writing for over a year now. :) I had an idea pop in my head recently that I may have mentioned.  I wrote out some of it just to get it out. Not sure where it's going yet or if it's going at all! lol, It's pretty good though so I do want to use it. We'll see how that goes!  I'm happy to have NaNoWriMo completed for yet another year. ^_____^ OH! Also, I ordered myself a very nice present this weekend. I"ll update you on that when it comes.

Well, not too much, but yeah. I washed dishes today. It's one of my most hated chores, but I did it!  I also got my laundry washed and dried. I will put the laundry and dishes away tomorrow!  I wrote for today's NaNo and I also played around with fonts on my iPad. I want to pick the perfect font for my use in my digital planner in GoodNotes.  I found several very cute handwriting fonts and I'm trying to decide which I like best.  Loading fonts on the iPad is not as easy as on the MacBook Pro! On there, I just drag the file into FontBook. On the iPad, I have to install each font individually. Frustrating, but it gets them on there! 

I introduced a new character in my current book today. I didn't plan on adding any more characters anytime soon or at all, but there she was! That is three new characters in this book.  I think she is the last, but at this rate, who knows? :p I had some of the yummy leftovers for today's lunch.  I made myself a feast yesterday! I had ham, potatoes, green peas, mac and cheese, corn pudding, and King's Hawaiian rolls. Delicious and I didn't have to share with anyone! I still have leftovers today! I will finish them up tomorrow or Sunday at the latest.  The ham was delicious and the corn pudding was amazing.  It's been a lot of time since I made any. SO good and so easy! It was my favorite thing that I made.

Whee!  I did that today.  I had an event in my story. It is going to lead to a secondary event that I'll start tomorrow!  It went well, but I think I need to go back and add more details when I edit later.  It's going to be interesting with the next part, I think.  My people are in a compound after the Z Event. This is what the zombie apocalypse is called in my series.  Their compound was attacked by hostile survivors who wanted to invade. The invaders were attacked by zoms (what they are called in the books) and now the compound is surrounded by zoms. This means until they wander off, there is no leaving for supplies.  I have to get them through this and see what is next for them!  I'm not even sure.

One of the characters I introduced this time was going to be an older misogynist dude and it turned out it was a kid trying to act like an adult because he was alone and scared. I didn't see that coming and I"m writing this! lol, I need to work up a full character profile of him and the other new character I added.  I have their names and ages and a bit of background for the second one, but I need to flesh them out.  I have a character template that I got via Evernote that I use in Scrivener for my characters. It's easy to have a backup of them in my Scrivener binder and my Evernote. As I learned last November, ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR WORK. Thanks again Evernote! If it were for them, I'd have lost my first few days of writing last year and not been able to carry on until I could get my computer back to life!

Sorry I haven't posted in forever! I got over the crud. I think it was just allergies and the changes in the temperatures outside. I have been writing every day for NaNo and I'm now less than 700 words from 40,000! Whoo-hoo! I hope to get to an exciting event tomorrow.  I led up to it tonight in a virtual Write-in.  I hope to get to the drama tomorrow!  

Other than that, nothing much is going on with me. The same ole, same ole!  My friend and I haven't been thrifting as much so there is not much to report on there! Well, one little thing. I think I shared a bag I got here sometime back that had a removable strap. I got it for the colorful strap. WELL, I found a small later Sak bag that had a thin removable strap. The strap is not something I cared for, so I put the colorful one on and I like the look. I can't use it at the moment because it still has that thrift store stink to it. I don't know what they use to spray on stuff, but I sure wish they wouldn't. It takes FOREVER to get the stench out!

PS here is the post with the strap: Lookie!

I didn't sleep well and then woke up many hours too early today and I'm exhausted. I'm hoping to crash hard and sleep well tonight.  I will post tomorrow. Yes, I did write today, so that is good and I did just over 1800 words.

I got my first few Starbucks holiday cards for my collection tonight. I had to run to Target, so I stopped by the Starbucks and picked up the only four cards they had.  I will go to the regular Starbucks at some point, but for now, it was nice to have a few.

I love the die-cut one and the Snowman. It's been a while since I picked up some in-store, so that was nice. By the way, yes, I'm writing for NaNoWriMo everyday!  I have been getting 1700 words, at least, each day. So far, I think it's boring, but I'm going to keep at it. It has to be get better, right? :p

I went to Starbucks today as it was double star day and I have been wanting to try their new sugar cookie almond milk latte.  It's supposed to come with almond milk, but they were out of that today. I got it with regular 2%. It's very sweet but not overly so as I was afraid of.   It's rather good. I'd like to try it with the almond milk to see which I like better. I always preferred my beloved Cascara lattes with almond milk.  I"m just hoping against hope that the smoked butterscotch latte comes back this year. They didn't have it last year and I really, really, really, wanted it!

As for NaNoWriMo. I got my writing done while sipping my latte!  I am not a bit over 16,000 words!  It's been going okay. I still need a major thing to happen, but I need to figure out what that is! lol  I will, I'm sure, for now, it's slow and steady.  I am glad to get the writing done every day. I haven't written on my other story in a few days and I need to get back into that, but I don't want to mess up my groove for NaNo! We'll see how that goes.

I attended my first virtual Write-In tonight for NaNoWriMo! They are always fun. It was weird waiting until the evening to write since I've been getting it done earlier in the day. I did make up for that time though. I went to the grocery store! I needed some things, so I went and stocked up on a bunch of goodies.  I hope to not have to go back again until after Thanksgiving. Well, I do need to pick up two things before then, but that will be a quick in and out and early enough where there aren't crazy holiday crowds!  I should have gotten those two things today but I forgot.  No problem, the next day I'm out, I'll run by and get those. I want to make myself a nice little Thanksgiving feast. I did that last year but the little turkey I got was horrible.  This year, I was able to get a small portion of a spiral ham. I love spiral hams and it's small enough to fit in my toaster oven to heat it up. (At least I think so!)  Having no actual working oven makes things a bit difficult!  

I don't plan to have a lot of food for just me, so the little ham and a few sides will be great.  Also, bread. Got to have bread. I will either get dinner rolls, croissants, or King's Hawaiian rolls. Either way, I go, it's going to be delicious! While I was at the store, I also got the ingredients to make a hash brown casserole. Yum!  I'm hungry now! :p

PS I bought myself a little treat:

Today was busy and I still got my NaNo writing done.  I did my usual. Washing my hair and bed linen, putting away yesterday's laundry, etc.  Last night I was looking at Target's website to see if they had Christmas lights in yet. I have bought from them several times when my lights go out.  They didn't have any of the ones I usually get, so I looked around. Lowe's had them for $4 a box, but Home Depot had them for $3 a box. I decided I'd go with Home Depot.  I was going to do that tomorrow, but I checked today and saw that they were open until 8 pm and the curbside pickup was until 6. I bought six strands. I went to pick them up after a bit of a wait. The price was too good to pass up. I hope to get a few more strands in December if they still have them to store for future use.  Last year as I took the STILL WORKING lights off my tree, I plugged them in before wrapping them for storage and several of them no longer worked. WTF? UGH! So, if you remember, I tried to order some after the season last year but my order kept getting delayed and I finally had to just cancel the order.  These were available the same day and I got them myself! :p  Now when I put up my Yule tree I will have plenty of lights for it. 

While I was out, I went by the car wash and gave Goontz a nice clean-up.  I also picked up one of those delicious KFC sammiches! :D I ate at the park before heading back home.  I still have to put the bed linen back on the bed, but other than that, I'm done for today.  The extra hour of sleep last night just made everything weird. Good old time change. BLEAH!

I almost forgot to post today. I got my NaNoWriMo writing done quite early and I did hit 10,000 words! Pizza was ordered and picked up.  It was decent, not as great as I was hoping, but I have half of it left for tomorrow and I have a free pizza too. Why? They didn't get it out in less than two minutes.  I'm not complaining one bit. Free pizza FTW!

I actually finished earlier this afternoon. I meant to post then and got distracted.  I have my two main characters in a situation at the moment. They have to work out how to get out of it tomorrow! :p  I have a few complications to toss their way, but they'll get out eventually!  Tomorrow wil also be when I hit 10,000 words. It's tradition now to buy myself a pizza when I hit 10,000 words and I hope that this year will be no exception. I just have to figure out where to get it.  I usually get Pizza Hut, but I don't want to go in and I don't want delivery. I'll probably go with Dominos since they have curbside pickup.  It works the best for me as I don't have to deal with anyone! I just say thanks as they hand me the pizza. Introverts dream! I'll let you know tomorrow if I do hit 10,000 words and what pizza I got! lol

My friend and I did not thrift today, it's been several weeks since we did our usual Friday thrift run. He had a package that he had delivered here today, so when he got off work, he stopped at KFC and got us both one of their chicken sandwiches and some fries. I love the chicken sandwich at KFC. I've now tried theirs, Bojangles, McDonald's, Hardee's, and Sonics.  KFC still rules as the best tasting to me.  I appreciated the treat for sure!  He ate and then got his package and headed out.  I had already written before he came in case he wanted to go thrift or do something.  It was nice to just relax.  

It's gotten cooler here lately and it was pretty darn cold last night. Today, I swtichend out my quilts. I have a summer quilt that is very lightweight that i use from Spring to early fall and a heavy weight quilt that I used from fall to spring. I am definitely going to need it!  Brr!  I have my heater ready to go, but I want to hold out as long as I can before I have to use it. I'm stubborn like that! :p

I am finally getting up to the big idea I had for this book.  I am happy to be here. After I write all of this, I need another idea for a plot later in the story, but for now, I'm going to have a great time with this.  I have my characters in position and ready to go!  I'm trying to keep my writing around 1700 a day and I have that. I could go on, but I want to try to keep the daily momentum going.  I hit 7,000 words today!  Thanks, Zombies. :p

Yes, I have gotten my third day of NaNo done and I wrote on my other story, too! I did write last night after I posted here.  It was nice to have some of that written too. So far NaNo is going okay. I think it's boring so far, but at least I'm writing! :p That is the important thing, right?