What the Junk?!

Camp Nano Is a Go!

I am doing Camp Nano starting today. It's all through July.  I am going in depth profiles of my characters.  I had thought about doing a prequel to my books and give more detail on how it all started.  I may even switch to that if I feel I have enough time to do it.  Right now, I'm doing the character profiles.  I need flesh them out some more and figured this would be the best way.  I have my two main characters done.  I need to go through my books tomorrow and take notes so I can remember things about each character that aren't already in my extensive notes!

I started a puzzle today and it was driving me NUTS.  The pieces have a bad habit of fitting in the wrong spot It took me waaaaaay longer than it should to get that sky part in!  It was insane.  I had to keep taking it apart and reworking it. I finally got that section done.  Here is my progress:

Camp NaNoWriMo is complete!

I just need to validate my word count on the site.  I'll do that tomorrow as it's getting late and I have other things to do before bedtime.  I didn't walk at my usual time today because I thought my friend would want to walk.  He didn't because he said it looked like rain. ~_~; It didn't rain!  I decided to take a late walk.  I went to the trail because I didn't want to go my usual route.  It was nice down there. I walked quite a bit further than I do when my friend goes.  It was nice.  I enjoyed the walk and was glad to get back to my car and inhaled the bottle of water I carried with me. LOL

Before I got in the car, I walked to one of the Free Little Libraries that are in that parking lot. I found a wonderful brand new looking copy of The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft. SCORE!   I love Lovecraft and I am happy to add this to my collection.

I did more work on the puzzle today. I had actually hoped to finish it today, but I started on it late and didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I did get quite a bit done though.  It's starting to feel like I will get it finished!  Here is my progress:

I seem to be currently missing that one piece on the left. I'm hoping it's there and  I'm just missing it. We'll see when the whole puzzle is done.  As an added bonus, here are two pictures I took along the trail!

It's a bit hard to tell in that first picture but it's a Goose and her Goslings! ^_^  I didn't want to get too close and upset her so I took the picture from across the way.  The second picture is the Dan River as it goes under the MLK bridge. ^_^

19,169

Yes, I'm less than 100o words from finishing Camp NaNoWriMo! Yay!  I just wrote 1508 words tonight.  I am not sure what that last bit is going to be.  I've hit on all the characters that I wanted to do. I might add to one of the ones I've already done to make it to 20,000.

I worked on the puzzle today. I didn't get a lot done, but I did get some!  I will post that picture at the end of this post.  I walked and it was in the 80's and it was pretty darn hot! Considering it was April and in the 80's. Yikes! lol  I got home and had to sit down and cool off a while.  I worked on the puzzle while I did.  I was working on that for a while and then my friend texted me that if I could wait a little bit to eat, he'd bring half a pizza to me!  I can wait for pizza. :P

He brought it by and I had delicious pizza for lunch.  I wasn't as good as our usual places, but it was not bad at all!  He was even nice enough to bring me a 2 liter of Coke since I'm out of soda at the house.  Watch out world! LOL Good thing I still have plenty of coffee.  I don't run without caffeine. :P

Hello again

Sorry about yesterday.  It was late and I knew I didn't have time to write out a post, so I just shared a picture from one of my walks.  I got a LOT accomplished on the puzzle the last few days.  I am so happy. There is still a lot to go, but as the pieces get fewer, it's going to go faster.  Here is what I have so far:

I finally filled in the right side.  Now to finish the left!  I'll probably work on it a little more after I post this.  Instead of walking at my regular time today, I waited and walked this evening with my friend along the Riverwalk trail.  It was lovely out there as it always is.  I took a few pictures to share:

I hope they get the other section open soon.  The foot bridge is still gone as far as far as I know!  If they get that back, we can go down and go on the parts of the trail that we used to go to.  It was a nice change.  I love the trail.  I won't get in 15,000 steps today as I like to, but at least I'll get 10,000 and that is not bad.  Now I need to do a little for NaNo and then work on the puzzle.  I may skip NaNo tonight as I'm so far ahead.  I'm 17,172 words as of now and I only plan on 20,000!

Yes, I am aware!

Yes, I know I didn't post yesterday. Sorry about that.  I didn't do much of anything yesterday!  I skipped my walk because I thought my friend and I might walk.  He was off from yesterday until Monday.  He didn't want to walk, so I missed out on my walk.  Oops!  It was made worse by the fact that I couldn't walk today because of rain and the threat of bad weather.  Oh well! I'll walk tomorrow and it will be okay.

To show you how lazy I was yesterday, I didn't even do anything for Camp NaNo!  I made up for it tonight.  I wrote over 1000 words.  I'm almost to 15,000 now and I only set the goal for myself of 20,000 so I'm doing quite well.

I went out this evening to hit a Pokestop as I was on a streak and I didn't want to break it.  I went out yesterday long enough to do that too.  While I was out today, it had started clearing off, so I headed to Starbucks. :P . I went through the drive-thru and got my favorite, a cascara latte.  It was delicious as usual and I had a nice convo with the barista at the drive-thru about he new award program. (No one was behind me and we were waiting on my drink!)

My puzzle is not going very well.  I got ONE piece in yesterday and today? Two. ^^; Seriously.  It's so frustrating!  When I get one, it takes so long to get it that I get tired of looking and give up. lolI told my friend tonight that I was tempted to toss it back in the box again! :P

I've been looking up old puzzles on eBay. I've found a bunch I really like but with shipping, the price is too high!  Just about every puzzle I see that like has a price tag of at least $8 and the shipping is usually $10 or more.  Plus, I am always looking for sealed boxes.  I don't want to do one and find a piece missing!  That is so frustrating.   I love that people have some really cool older puzzles on there that are still sealed.  I see many I want, but with shipping, I just can't afford it.  It's funny, I saw one puzzle that I bought at Dollar General for $5.  They only wanted $3 for theirs but the shipping was at least $10.  Oh well, I'll keep looking.  I prefer puzzles with actual pictures instead of illustrations.  There are some gorgeous ones in the Big Ben brand on eBay.  Big Ben is the brand of the puzzle I did earlier this month with the white bark trees.  I know they make good quality puzzles.

I'm sort of down in the dumps this weekend.  Why?  Well, for the past two years, my friend and I have gone to North Myrtle Beach on Easter weekend.  We didn't go this year.  I would so love to be there!  Well, the trip at the end of May, beginning of June isn't too far off.  It just seems like forever!  I am working on a packing list for the trip in my bujo and I already have the majority of my beach fun bingo set up. I just need to pick three more things to add to the board for it to be complete.

 

Whee to early packages!

So, I had two packages that were estimated to be delivered tomorrow.  I noticed that in Informed delivery it said today!  I checked my package tracker app. (Package Buddy) and sure enough, both were scheduled to be here today! Yay!  So, what did I get?  Well, I got another Fossil purse. lol It's the exact bag I bought in February but it's Green.  I love the size and shape of the black one and I've been watching eBay for another in another color. I found an off-white one, a blue one (I missed that one!), a yellow one, and this green one.  The green one was a great price so I bid on it and won with my opening bid. Yay!

The other item is a cute 'kit' from the NaNoWriMo store.  It's a pencil case that has a pencil, a big eraser, a pencil sharpener and s several NaNo stickers! ^___^ . The pencil cases zipper is orange like the trim on my bujo backpack!  I put my daily use/often used pens in it.  It will reside in my bujo bag.  I love the pencil case and the bag.  The Fossil bag even came with a Fossil dust bag.  This is the first Fossil bag I've gotten that the seller included the dust bag.  I'm happy with my purchases.  I'll share them below and I want to show the puzzle.  I got out the chess board and took all the pieces out of and off the puzzle.  I separated them by type so when I'm looking for a particular piece, it will be a little easier.  I have some of the pieces on the white board down the side and the rest are on the chess board.  Hopefully this will help speed up the progress a little!  Here is the handbag, the NaNo kit, and the puzzle:

I've done my French lesson and my NaNo writing for today, so after I post this, I'll work on the puzzle a bit.  I am extremely tired as I was up way too late reading on my Kindle on that zombie book. :P

 

1551!

That is the number of words I just put down for today's Camp NaNoWriMo.  I totally made up for that day I didn't write!  I could have written a little more, but I wanted to get my blog post done too.  I didn't get a lot of puzzle done today, but I got a few more pieces in.  I swear it's going to take me forever to finish this thing!

I got in a good walk. I was sunny and nice out there.  I came home and relaxed for a bit and worked on the puzzle.  My friend texted and asked if I'd like to go back to the new restaurant we ate at last week.  I said, hell yeah! lol . We stopped by a local thrift store first.  It was one neither of us had been too. It's pretty new.  It's also pretty damn expensive!  Everything I saw that Liked was too expensive.  There was a lamp that I wish I had gotten, it was only $3, but with their prices on other things, I was afraid this was price low because it didn't work! LOL!

After the thrift store we went to the restaurant.  The food was good as it was last time.  I enjoyed it.  I was totally stuffed when we left, too!  I came home and did more work on my puzzle.  It's so slow going! Every time I get a piece in I want to cheer! lol . Seriously! :P

Cooler, but nice!

Today's walk was a bit cooler than it has been being, but it was still nice to walk.  The wind got a little crazy.  I made it home and relaxed a bit.  I was supposed to go to the recycle center when I got home and forgot.  I got to it after I ate lunch.  I can't turn my car off for fear it won't start, so I was hoping to get a clear shot at the recycle center.  No luck.  There was a car at it that parked exactly where i usually park.  I had to wait FOREVER for this girl to finish.  I don't know what in the hell she was doing and what was taking so long.  Another lady pulled up, recylced her stuff in less than two minutes and left.  Then, another slow one came.  I swear she was standing there taking each piece of her recycled stuff and putting in the bin ONE at a time. UGH! She finally left and I went over there.  It took me maybe four minutes.  I had three bags of plastics, two bags of cans, and a huge tote full of mixed papers. 

I considered getting a snack from a drive thru while out, but I was good and headed back home.  I worked on the puzzle some more.  I have to say that it is SO frustrating!  I might have gotten 15 pieces in the puzzle today.  20 tops.  I finally was able to get all the pieces out of the box and put them on the whiteboard.  Some of them I put on completed parts of the puzzle, but there are all there now.  I found the majority of the pieces today by being able to glance around at all the pieces.  It helps.  I just know that I'll be very glad when this puzzle is done! :p

All I have left to do today is do my words for NaNo.  I'm not sure what to write tonight. I've been doing short stories based on my books.  I'm doing them from other characters POV.  I am trying to decide who I want to do next.  I had a big event in my last book that my main character wasn't there for. She came in in the aftermath.  I might tell that tale from one of the people that were there.  I'm not sure yet.

I'm not going to share a puzzle picture tonight because I don't have much more done.  Plus it looks weird with all the pieces all over the place. lol!  Okay, I changed my mind:

Look at the bottom part of the puzzle.  All those pieces that are shaped almost identical? THAT is one of the reasons this puzzle is so hard.  They are all about the same size, mostly the same colors.  It's insane!  I might work on it a bit more tonight, and I might not.

I downloaded a bunch of free zombie Kindle books to my Kindle last night.  I started one before bed last night.  I have read anything this year. Well, that isn't entirely true. I've been listening to audiobooks on my walks everyday, but I haven't read anything.  I am in the mood for zombie fiction since I'm working on stories from my books.  They are all zombie fiction. :p

Walking at a different place and time....

So today I was getting ready to get up and get ready to go for my daily walk.  I got a text from a friend and he said that he was getting off of work at noon and if I could wait until 1 or 1:30, we'd walk on the Riverwalk trail.  I said that would be fine as I haven't been down there to see it since the hurricane and flooding damage.

He eventually got here about 2 and we headed down.  Well, we park and go across the bridge and everything looks okay.  Then I noticed that it looks like the trail is blocked off a little further down.  We walk to see what it is, and yes, it's blocked.  They had a barrier up and it said 'this part of the trail is closed'.  So, we turned and went the other way.  The trail, which used to be one continuous trail is now divided into three!  They have portions that are messed up, bridges washed out, etc.  I hope they get it back to normal soon.  The part we walked on isn't my favorite part, but at least I got to the trail!

It was nice out there, too!  I came home and my steps were lacking.  My friend didn't want to walk a lot since it was his first time in a while.  I usually walk right at 6 miles.  We only walked close to four.  I pulled out my lawn mower to get part of the back yard done as the weeds are bad. (Still no significant grass! LOL!)  The mower WOULD NOT start.  I was getting frustrated.  I figure it might just need some gas, but I didn't feel like driving to get some and risking car problems, so I pulled out the electric mower my friend got me as a backup some time back.  That was a pain in the butt! lol . It started fine, that part was great.  It was just that the mower is quite small so it only does a little patch at a time and I had to keep watching out for the cord.  It isn't rechargeable. :p . So, I get a small part done and I think, that is all of that I'm going to do! I put that mower back in and was about to put the other one in when I decided to try it one more time.

Guess what started on the first try!  Seriously! I decided since it started, I would go ahead and do the front.  It isn't too bad yet, but it was starting to need mowing so I got that done.  That helped quite a bit to add to my step count for today.

I came in and relaxed.  I had to turn the air on for a bit to cool off!  I worked on my puzzle and finished it! Yay!  I went to turn it over to tape it and part of it fell apart. D'oh!  I got it turned back over and re-did the parts that came out and it's now taped and hanging on my wall.  The picture was so pretty I wanted to display it.  Here is the completed puzzle:

Isn't that pretty!  I will probably start the other one tomorrow or the next day.  It all depends on how my day goes tomorrow if I start it or not.  I need to pick up a few things at the grocery store, so I might just pick them up on my walk tomorrow . It isn't anything heavy or cold so picking it up on the way home won't be a problem.  Now if my friend gets off early tomorrow and wants to walk, I'll have to get him to run me by there!

Oh, if you are wondering, I'm still writing every night for Camp NaNo!  I have 8120 words! I'm almost half way there.  I set a goal of 20,000 words for myself.  I'm off to get today's part done.  Good old Scrivener is helping me again!

Layout change

I decided to go back to one of the premade layouts that Typepad offers.  I think this will be a nice layout for Spring and summer.  It's bright and pretty and the Macarons or are they macaroons? are cool! I could have changed my regular layout, but I didn't feel like going through all the steps of creating a new banner and all that good stuff.  I'll use this one for a while.  The old one is still saved, so I can use it if I want to go back.  I probably will at some point and change the banner and background. For now, I'm really loving this one.

I finished the puzzle last night. LOL Seriously.  It was fun.  I wasn't going to start the new one today, but I ended up doing the outline.  That is all I'm going to do for today.  I walked and it was nice out there.  I made a few stops on the way back to pick up things I needed.  I still have a few things I need to get, but I'll go get those sometime soon.  

It is supposed to rain tomorrow, but I don't think it is forecast during my walking time.  Hopefully it won't and I'll be able to walk without any issues.  I'm yawning my self to death at the moment and I still have NaNo to do.  So far I have written everyday and I'm ahead on count so far. It's been so much fun to get back to my characters and their world.  I am going to do my NaNo writing after I post this and then I'm going to do some work in my bullet journal.  Below, I'll post the completed puzzle from yesterday and the outline of the new one.  This new one is going to be a doozy!  I can tell that just from putting the outline together.

I really enjoyed the plate one.  I think I'll love this current one when it's done. The picture is so pretty!  It's just got a lot of dark spots and different parts that look a like. I'll get it done though!