NanoWrimo Update

It's the 13th and I'm supposed to be at 21,671 words by the end of today. I'm at 6771 words at this moment... stress much?! But I'm not too worried - I had a little bit of a late start because my husband had a week off from school and was a huge distraction, but now he's back in the grind I can get down to business. I've been doing about 1,000 words a day every day this week, so it could be worse.

My story so far has taken some wild twists and turns. Not so much strange as far as the story goes, just not what I had in mind at all. I'm going with the flow right now but I am continually surprised by new characters that pop up and entirely new plot lines. I find myself thinking about my characters and what they'll do next while I'm getting ready in the morning, while I'm driving, and during lunch. I guess that's a good sign that my mind is working on it so hopefully something great will come of all the hard work. Hopefully 50,000 words worth of greatness.

Whatever happens, I am so glad to be writing again. I gives me something to work at, something that uses my brain and imagination, and it will hopefully be an awesome accomplishment, too.

John's Week Off & Other News

John had last week off from school because it was the end of his first tri-mester. He did a lot of lazy and some sleeping on the side... It made it hard for me to go to work, but he came up to have lunch with me a couple of times so that was better. Now he's back to school and the grind and not looking forward to it.

We went down to Gilbert yesterday to go to the baby blessings for Olivia and Kylie Thompson (my cousin Kristi's twins). It was so fun to see their family - Grandma and Dale and Terri came out from California so we got to see them. Those little girls are so cute and they received beautiful blessings.

John and I got new phones - yay!! I've been wanting a new one for a long time and John finally got fed up with not having service in the business building at school. So we got out of our contract with Sprint (after much arguing on the phone) and signed up with Verizon. I love my new phone - very sleek and fun. We spent the evening on Friday programing in all our contacts and the settings.

I'm so excited for the holidays coming up. I head Dean Martin's version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the radio this morning when I was driving to work and it just made me smile. I love Christmas and I'm really looking forward to celebrating with family this year. We'll be in Utah for Christmas but we're still trying to figure out exactly how that's going to work. And we're still not sure about Thanksgiving... But I sure am excited!

I'll get some pictures up here soon, promise!

Congrats to B-rAndrea

The Smith's have a new member in their family - Jocelyn. John and I are going to go meet her this evening and see how Mom is doing. Congrats ya'll! (John nicknamed Brandon B-rand and then we just added Andrea's name to the end... silly, I know...)

That's the best news going on right now. We had Mom and Dad Woodbury come visit last weekend (I'll put up some pics later) and Daniel came with them. We had a great time playing Wii and hanging out with friends. It was a good weekend.

John finished his first tri-mester at ASU last week and feels pretty good about all his finals. Now he's got a week off and I'm jealous he gets to stay at home while I'm working. But he's deserved a good break.

I started NanoWrimo on Saturday - I've committed to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I've done it for the last two years and always had a great time so I didn't want to miss out this year. I'll post frequent updates at Book 'n' a Mug.

So hope ya'll are doing well!