NaNoWriMo Update: Week One

It is day eight of NaNoWriMo and I am super behind in my word count. Also, the novel I am currently writing is worse than the movie Battlefield Earth.

I’m so embarrassed.

Prematurely aging

I just spent the majority of my Saturday night at the grocery store, shopping for the week, because "the store is just too crowded on Sundays."

Next thing you know, I'll be wearing moo moos and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

Cookies only children could love

A friend of mine sent me this link today about making cookies really fast in a waffle iron. I'm not sharing this with you because it's a new and novel idea*. Rather, I am sharing this with you because it reminds me of Julie. When I was little, Julie was a friend of my mother's**. Julie made a really good chocolate cookie which she would bake in the waffle iron in the shape of little turtles****.

Skip ahead to the part where Julie is babysitting me and my brother while my mom is out doing mom-type-things. Julie bakes a batch of her chocolate turtle waffle cookies and we are eating them. My mom returns from her mom errands and Julie hands her a cookie.

"Do these taste weird to you?"

"No," my mom replies, "they're great."

"Good. I ran out of regular milk and had to use breast milk."

True story. *****

* In fact, who are these people that can't wait 10 minutes to bake a batch of cookies? Obsess much?
** Plus she named her daughter after me who was then nicknamed "Little Brook." I wonder if she is still called that every now and then***.
*** She's like 6+ feet tall.
**** I was maybe five years old, so this is a very subjective sentence.
***** As retold by my mother and then by me thirty years later.

Camping, part IV: we liked it

In my younger years, which is now how I refer to the period of time before I turned 25, I liked to camp. I mean it’s never been an activity I wanted to spend all of my free time doing, but I enjoyed the times I slept outside in the great outdoors and cooked meals over fires. So maybe it’s the span of time between my last camping excursion and this camping excursion or maybe I’ve become spoiled or maybe, just maybe, it’s because I feel the need to clean the dirt and spiders are yucky. Is it bad that I went through an entire box of wet wipes in 3 days? Just sayin’.

There I was, three days before we were scheduled to leave for this event, whining to Tom: “it’s going to rain” and “why do you get me roped into this crap” and “we don’t have time for this.” My personal favorite complaint was, “This is Dominic’s first time camping. If it rains all weekend and he has a crappy time he’ll never want to go again.” Using the kid works every time, right? WRONG.

Turns out that all the bitching and whining I did was for not. Did it rain? Yes. Were we travelling with crafty friends who had done this before and had it all under control? Yes. And maybe the tent became a little damp the second night but the tarp we strung up over the fire ring kept us mostly dry and allowed us to enjoy s’mores and scary stories in the rainy outdoors.

We had a great time. More importantly, Dominic had a great time with his first camping experience. Which is bad because it means we have to go again even if I bitch and whine good because it means we can do this again without any complaints Dominic.

Camping, part III: Way too young for this face

Dominic is eight and we are already receiving the bershon. Not good. Not good at all.

Camping, part II: a fine example

The weather on the first day of camping vs. the day we left.

Camping, part I

Three years ago, I bought Tom a tent for his birthday. “Isn’t this great?!” I said. “We’ll have so many great adventures!” I said. “We can go camping all of the time!” I said. Shortly after my terrific, fantastic purchase, we bought a house. The tent, along with the rest of the camping gear, was put into storage. The end.

Tom and I have a friend named Marianella. Mari is the kind of person that never sits down. She belongs to clubs and organizations, travels all over the world and generally makes me feel lazy. Over dinner one night, she mentions that she’s been camping a few times. “That sounds lovely!” I said. Tom thinks this is a great idea. He thinks about the tent that has been in storage for three years and sees an opportunity. I’m thinking of this opportunity as as, “Oh, what fun we’ll have next spring.” Clearly, I’m an idiot.

By the time Tom and I returned for dinner, Mari had a call-to-action email out to the usual suspects. Camping at the end of October?! Wouldn’t it be fun? I was pretty sure I needed some time to ease in to this decision. Tom reminded me I had already had 3 years. The trip was booked and a trip to storage was made.

Then came the weather report. Camping in the rain was imminent. DOOM! I tried all my best obnoxious whines on Tom. I wouldn’t be the one to actually cancel because of the rain. No, that would be silly and lack chutzpah. Maybe Tom would see that we couldn’t go camping for fear that we would get rained on. I could make fun of him for cancelling because of a little rain, but assure him he was making a wise, manly decision. NO DICE. He would not fold. I was going camping in the rain.

To be continued.