Random Musings

It’s Christmas in some parts of the world, Christmas Eve in my neck of the woods. I hope everyone has a joyful holiday season.

Me, I still need to do a little work-work (gotta check those bank accounts for fraud–ugh), wrap presents, bake (oh darn, I hate that…not) and clean up. Then there’s my workout to do, my CreateSpace book to work on, my new Facebook to futz around with, tons of goofing off on Absolute Write and a novella to beta read.

About baking
Yesterday I made a “fresh orange” cake from the massive quantities of oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, and pomelos (and a few other mystery fruits) that my husband’s aunt in CA sent from their farm (thank-you Mary Lou!!). I’d have posted a picture except hubby took 2/3 of it to work today and the last bits on the serving plate looked quite broken down and battle-weary. He also took all the peanut butter Hershey’s kiss cookies I made too. Just as well. I don’t need all those sweets around and I need an excuse to make new stuff. My spritz gun butter cookies are long gone; my kids devoured those within 24 hours. But we can’t send Santa away without a treat from the Gillian household now, can we?

NaNoWriMo novel update
I spent a little time over at the NaNo site yesterday looking at pictures of the CreateSpace proofs people have already ordered and received back. Ruh-roh, Shaggy. I just realized that I have a lot more work to do. Dummy me didn’t realize that I needed to provide the copyright page, the “about the author” page, the pretty chapter headings and all the other “stuff” in a book that you usually ignore. This is in addition to setting the font and line spacing, page numbering, etc. how I wish the finished product to appear. The manuscript has been in courier 12 font, double-spaced since the beginning but that’s NOT how I’d want it to appear in an actual book. Oy! I guess I thought a brownie would take care of all this somewhere along the line never realizing that the brownie would be me or nobody. Continue reading →

You know how some people stuff those inserts into their Christmas cards that go on and on about all the amazing things the family has done each year? I write those too only mine are much more truthful. Here’s our 2009 brag rag, hot off the press that I’ll, hopefully, mail out December 21st. Nothing like waiting until the last minute.

I’ve edited the names to protect my witness protection program family members.

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Greetings from the Gillians

Geesh has it been a year already? Have we done anything different this year than in prior years or should I just recycle a prior year rag and do a search and replace on the date with Word? How depressing. But let’s see what I can scrape up first before I stoop that low.

Son #1 made the Select soccer team (Go Fire 95!) this year and played in several tournaments. His skills are much improved from the exposure to such talented players. These 13 and 14-year-old boys can really kick the ball hard too. I know because I almost got beaned several times in a single game recently. Son #1 has quite the left foot and made some truly awesome shots with it. He’s also learning French so he and I enjoy exchanging a few words and phrases that no one else understands. Continue reading →