Pinkalicious Costume!!

Halloween hop... continued:

We had a Halloween party at church today, so, yay! I have pictures of my costume :) I'm not sure I'll have the energy to pull this off again...actually I'm about 99.9% sure this was it, but I might wear the tutu for the real day...and the pink shirt, because why not?

Pinkalicious, Pascal, Rapunzel.  

Pascal couldn't be bothered to look at the camera 

when there was a pink tutu to be eaten... 

One of my sisters looking pretty saucy.

Lets get these kids on home!  It's way past bedtime--8:30. Holy cow, I know! 

That's my other Sis as Flo, from Progressive :)

sooo pink

 Happy Trunk or Treat :)

Halloween Hop

Yay!  I LOVE Halloween.  Not all the creepster stuff, but dressing up, carving pumpkins, baking seeds, eating corn-dogs--because you HAVE to eat corn-dogs on Halloween, caramel apples, and candy--or really CHOCOLATE, because who has time for that fruity crap.

My favorite monster movie (okay confession, I HATE all things scary.  I don't do haunted houses or scary movies) so therefore, I'm going with:

La belle et la bete 

And here is some Halloween through the years...see if you can guess all of them. 

This year I'm going as... here's a hint:

I so want a cupcake right now.

PINKALICIOUS! 

You'll have to come back and see my costume of awesomeness... I'm sooo excited.  

Oh, the Early Work...

So lately, I've been going through some of my boxes.  Yep the ones left in my parent's attic for eight years.  And you'll never believe what I found.  Who remembered I seriously have been writing my entire life...?  Uh, not me.  I found a huge box full of journals and journals of stuff.  Diaries and stories and strange artwork.  Some from school...but a lot from I'm-a-nerdsville. 

And here is the sampling *cringe*:

1st grade:  

(This isn't so bad because it's still in the ugly-cute realm)

Apparently my teacher really liked us to make books, she typed them up for us and laminated them.  I wowed the first grade with books entitled: 

The Many Ghosts

 I Definitely Say Monsters Should Not Wear Clothes

I Like My Friends

I Like Christmas Trees

 The Ponies 

On the Night of the Blizzard

I especially liked this one, because no where in the story is there a blizzard--here is the full text:

Henry wanted to explore the mountains. He got out of his bed and made his bed. Henry got red paint and a bunch of stuff.  He got yellow paper.  He got a lot.  He told his mom that he was exploring. He walked outside.  He walked far away.  He made so many discoveries.  He explored lots of things.  He ate his lunch.  He found a lot of things.  He found a bear cave.  His mom got worried about him.  He sent out searchers.  They found his trail.  Henry found his trail.  It lead them right to the door.  

I know brilliant, right?

Another gem I found was a story I wrote in eighth grade from a boy's perspective...of course it was from the perspective of my current obsession...I mean crush.  And it was all about how amazing he thought I was...yeah that was special.  Of course I changed the names to protect the innocent.

Here's some awesome dialogue:

"Okay.  I feel stupid.  Anyway, I asked her if she would go with me to the dance before school was out because we were both in the office and the secretaries were all running around in different rooms.  She said...'No I don't think that would be possible.' It just so happened that someone forgot to turn off the intercom and the whole school heard." I said.

"I must have been in the bathroom getting paper towels for Bobbie's coke," Jennifer said.

And then in high school I moved on to the angsty poetry: 

Will I ever see you again?

I know it sounds lame,

but can we still be friends?   

A kiss on the cheek

with a tear in my eye

You're here less than a week

now I have to say goodbye.

Poetry has never been my strong suit. My high school self just got really offended that I posted that...

but I'm not backing down.  EAT THAT HIGH SCHOOL SELF AND ALL YOUR UNREQUITED LOVE!

THE END

How do you feel when you write those words?  The end.

Okay, so maybe I didn't actually write them at the end of Parasite's, but I "finished".
I'm hoping I'll feel like celebrating later, but right now I've come to the conclusion that I have to clean up a whole lotta word vomit.

50,297 to be exact.  A whole lot higher than the 35,000 goal--but what's funny is I feel like I need to flesh out a  lot--cardboard characters, scenes, pacing, the last few chapters are pretty rushed.  And then I need to take the machete and hack it to bits and get rid of all the extra words.  I guess I don't feel like partying because I HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO.

What I am going to do this time--I'm going to let it sit for 3 weeks like a good little writer.  Because, confession, I actually started going back and editing while I was still working on the thing, and I realize that was dumb because I need to do all my big picture first and how can you do big picture unless you have the whole thing written... but I get so dang anxious for feedback and then I don't feel like I can send it out unless I tweak it and it just goes down hill from there.

My plan for those three weeks is to pump up my word count for my other project--ya know the whole co-authored thing.  So goodbye Parasites until November 2.

Phew.  That made me smile a little.  Maybe I can celebrate--and what am I thinking? I need a new broach for the broach purse.

(Um, and side note... I'm kinda scared to tell my husband because then the WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO SEND IT IN? Questions are going to start back up...little does he realize this thing needs at least 5 more drafts before it goes anywhere.  Anyone else have relatives who can't understand why you haven't been published yet?)

And since I neglected the 31 days of Halloween for so long (because I was so busy word spewing...) here are some more awesome Halloween costumes for your viewing pleasure.

I would be the center witch.  

Bucket head. Woot.

My husband was like, 'What? You were a nun for Halloween?' Uh, no I wasn't--that was for Sound of Music, and technically it's just a dress up picture.

This is obviously a Christmas pic, but is that Santa massively creepy or what?

*Shivers*  

Getting rid of writer's bum

Phew, so I'm know the size of my rump isn't completely attributed to writing, but every time I sit down at the computer (okay maybe not every time) I think about how sedentary this hobby of mine is...which is why it is good to have other hobbies.

I got on the scale this morning (which doesn't always make me happy,but today it did) I have eight pounds to go before I'm at my pre-baby weight.  Huzzah!  That calls for an ice cream sundae! jk.

Anywho, my success is attributed to the two things above--and the pulling out of the double stroller.

Man, the 30-day shred (maybe if you were in shape already you'd scoff at this) holy crap for one who was looking to get back in shape, this kicks my writers bum.  The best part about it, the workout is only 20 minutes, which means I don't really have an excuse not to do it.

The Good Mood Food diet (which I tweak because I am nursing my kiddo) is awesome.  It's all about what to eat.  Which is good because when I have a list of things I shouldn't eat, all I do is eat them.  I don't follow it perfectly, but I've been eating way more vegetables consistently than I have my whole life, and I like vegetables--so that's saying something.  

My double jogger--I found this puppy at a consignment shop before my second kiddo was even a twinkle in my eye, because it was $60 and they can run hundreds of dollars.  The Bob double jogger is $500 bucks. Ouch.  Anyway we've been going on walks after dinner, and it is so nice--hopefully the weather will stay good for a while.

  Okay, guilty, this wasn't Halloween either, it was however a dress up day at school, and I was so exceedingly nerdy I took every opportunity to not be myself.  :) I got over that.  Although I still love dressing up.  

Ghost of Halloweens past

Wow.  Yes, I am the kid with the dreads.  I'm  not really sure what I was going for here.

  

Day 2

So the following isn't a Halloween pic, but it's kind of scary that Mom let me run around the backyard like this... and what's weirder is I have no idea who the kid next to me is...probably one of the neighborhood crowd that hung out with my older brother, that or some lost jungle boy who popped out of the bushes.   

This was my room last night. One box down... three more to go.  

(I knocked three out pretty easily at my parents house, now I have the hard ones left.) 

I found this gem while sorting:

My best friend wrote that in the 9th grade, in response to something I must have slid across her desk.  I laughed out loud at that one, seeing as I became a Spanish teacher.  

Would you change anything?

I'm a future person.  I don't really enjoy the past, or at least I thought I didn't.  Let me clarify--I love history and all things old, but my own history and memories--I don't relive/revisit them.  When I move on, I move on.  Period.  I never visited old teachers, and when I left for college, I didn't keep in touch with my friends back home.  I made new ones who I didn't keep in touch with when I left again.  I don't visit old jobs, I don't like seeing people in Walmart I haven't seen in forever.  I like keeping people in these little boxes in my mind, where they stay in the time they should.  When I've completed a chapter in my life--I shelf it and don't look back.

Do I think this is a good thing? Not really.  
Did I have some horrific childhood/teen/young adulthood?  Nope.
So what's my problem?  I have no idea, other than I love reaching forward and trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.
Do I want to be stuck in the past?  Not at all, but remembering, cherishing, learning from it--that would be a good thing.  

I just pulled out the boxes I'd left in my parents attic eight years ago--when I moved out and went to college.  Basically my childhood in seven boxes.  I'm still sorting through everything deciding what's worth hanging on to.

And I realized I'd forgotten.  So much.  So many friends, so many memories.
As I showed some of my high school pictures to my mom, she asked me: Would you change anything if you could do it all again?

And honestly no I wouldn't, except one thing.

I'd appreciate it more.        

When I got home with the boxes, and I had to rush around putting the baby to bed and getting big girl a snack and doing all the 'mom' things.  It hit me.  I need to appreciate it now, because this will be gone just as fast.

That is one gift writing has given me.  I'm starting to remember.  High school and middle school and growing up and how hard it all is, and yet how carefree.  All these pictures and memories are a boatload of inspiration I'm so grateful to have.

I have to say that there is hope for me yet.  I had one of the best friends I've ever had move away in June.  I know it's only September, but we call each other about once a week.  This is the longest I've ever really kept in touch with someone (I don't count facebook...) so wish me luck. :)

P.S. In honor of reliving memories...I'm going to post a picture each day this month.  31 days of Halloween.