CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Friday, October 30, 2009

More NaNoWriMo Goodness.

So. At the moment I have a headache and should be sleeping, but I have to write this out or I shall a-splode. :) I've decided that the more I talk about NaNoWriMo the more I will be guilted into completing my daily word count [which is 1200, by the way!] because I know ALL of you will be disappointed if I don't. [And I know all of you means about 5 people who probably don't really care if I can write 50,000 in a month, but I'm convincing myself that I'll be seriously letting down about 100 of you!] Plus, the shame and humiliation of letting the project die off after a week or two, AFTER having said all of this about my excitement, should keep me on the right track. :)

Anyway. I've decided to bare my writer's soul to the world and share what my novel will be about. I'm extremely sensitive about letting people I actually KNOW [as opposed to the anonymous people on, say, fictionpress.com] see my fiction works... But if I'm going to attempt to get my finished product out in the world I might as well start with a tentative working title and synopsis, yes?

Working Title: California Widow.
Intrigued, are you? Good. haha. This working title chose itself. I did not. If you don't get it, you probably never will. I wasn't even sure I actually liked the phrase.. if you can call it that.. especially for a title. But those two darned words just would NOT go away. They wouldn't let me think of any other title, so ta-da! Zee title eez here!

Synopsis:
Lacey Jefferson was a widow. But she wasn't just any widow. They called her a California Widow, because her husband was off on the other side of the country, caught up in the gold rush. It was Jonah Jefferson's plan to make himself a modest fortune so that he could better care for his wife and daughter. What Lacey didn't know was that her California widowhood turned into true widowhood a year ago. When she decides to hitch a wagon ride west with her daughter Becky to go find Jonah, what will she find instead?


If you're thinking it sounds like a historical romance novel... then you would be correct. haha. I'm going to attempt to make it as non-cheesy as I possibly can. Because I love a good romance novel that manages to be as non-cliche'd as possible. And cheesy & cliche' usually go hand in hand with these things. :P

So.. even though I haven't gotten ANY feedback on my blog AT ALL for the past... 3-5 posts... tell me what you think! ..or not.
Tina

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Perfect Morning

I had to kick myself out of bed this morning, and it took until AFTER I already got to the barn at 7:45 for my contacts to settle and me to see completely clear. However, I still managed to get tacked up on time and almost completely warmed up before Kim came down from the house. I had opened up the indoor arena and turned the lights on, but Kim asked me if I was ready to jump. I jumped at the chance [pun intended... which makes it not as cool, but oh well] and we went outside. It was pretty much just misting at this point. I finished my warm-up by cantering in the big arena.

Side note: I LOVELOVELOVE Koda's canter after the Lurena Bell clinic. I'll have to post once or twice about that. It was this past weekend.

So, we did a tiny bit of gridwork in the dressage arena to get both Koda and me thinking about jumping. Then we went down to the stadium. It started raining a little bit harder, almost a legitimate rain at that point. Koda momentarily freaked out about a new log, which was out of character, but we jumped it without an issue. We also jumped the barrels, the bullseye, white picket fence, tires, coop, rolltop, brick wall, polkadot panel, and the other white panel as well as the double. Yesh.
My boy's still got it. :)
Kim was pleasantly surprised and impressed. An exact quote: "this is the type of thoroughbred you want." She was referring to the fact that Koda picked up almost everything immediately after about 10 months off. The footing was kind of iffy. Once when I asked for a lead change I felt him try, but he didn't and Kim and I both suspected it was because of the footing. It was kind of slick since it was, you know, raining. It was definitely a legitimate rainfall by the time we were done. Kim was huddled up in her jacket, hood over her head. haha. I was in a long-sleeved t-shirt thats about two sizes too big and a pair of summer breeches. It was great.

Pretty much the SECOND we walked under the roof of the barn, the downpour started. I mean... the heavens opened up and it rained BUCKETS. So I put bigeloil on Koda's legs, took a picture of the funny looking dry spot on his back where the saddle had been, cleaned his crib collar, and put him up. I had to close the indoor, then went to starbucks.

When I got to starbucks in Target, the barista waved at me. haha. After he was done with the guy's drink in front of me, he just started making my drink without saying a word. :) I didn't even have to clarify what size I wanted. :P Which the last few times he asked just to confirm.
Then the two guys that are always sitting in the round table next to the counter started talking to me. The first time it was a comment on my breeches: "So, you ride horses? Do you do that jumping thing?" The second time it was on a rainy day: "Isn't it a bit too wet to ride today?" My response was, "Oh, we have an indoor arena." "Oh, that's nice."

Today I walked in, my front was soaked from riding, and I'm sure I looked a fright with my hair all plastered to my head and no make up on, but I didn't really care. I'm still happy at how great Koda did! My long-sleeved t-shirt was plain grey, so it was really easy to see the wet spot that pretty much took over my whole shirt. And the front of my breeches were dark with water too. As Lee [the barista that knows my order by memory now] started making my drink, one of the guys goes,
"So, what happened to that indoor arena?" I laughed.
"I didn't feel like riding in it today."
The other guy speaks up, "I was gonna say... that must have been one big leak in the roof."
I laughed. "I felt like jumping today, and all my jumps were outside."
"Does your horse ever get a break?"
"I try to ride six days a week. So he gets one day off. Plus we're getting ready for a show next weekend so I'm trying to ride as much as possible."
"Wow, working people at least usually get two days off," said the first guy.
"Where is the show gonna be, the fairgrounds?" asked the second.
I laughed at the working people comment. "Its going to be out in, um, Okeemah." I always forget what its called where Doug lives.
"I thought there were only rodeos up in those parts."
"My trainer married a cowboy that lives up there, and bought some land next to his. So we're probably the only english spot for quite a few miles."
"I bet."

For some reason, that conversation made me smile a lot. haha. It was just amusing to have that convo while I was waiting for my drink - that I didn't have to order - while I was standing there soaked. And the funny thing is that these guys look like they're in their thirties. Shouldn't they be at work? But I guess some people would say I should be in school, so... whatever. :P haha.

Tina

NaNoWriMo!

What, you ask, is NaNoWriMo?
It is the abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. During NaNoWriMo [and if you want to make it EVEN shorter... NaNo] the main goal is simple: to write one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time. Of course... this means no editing, no back-spacing, no re-reading or correcting. The only thing that matters is quantity, not quality.

My inner perfectionist is going to get whacked over the head with my laptop. But this is a good thing! Haha.

I already have my novel idea [haha, pun not intended... until I realized what a great pun I'd just made!] set up, and my pre-writing is pretty much done. On http://nanowrimo.org my username is dappleddakota [obviously]. Right now I'm trying to come up with a plausible way to actually show up in person at one of the write-ins that's going to happen in Tulsa. I know of one that will happen exactly 11 minutes from my house [I mapquested the location!] on a day of the week that I could potentially attend.. But would my parents go for it? I'm not sure.

One thing is for sure... I must also keep up with my schoolwork! That will be the challange. Anyone interested in doing this with me??

I'm going to expect to have one craptastic nanonovel by the last day of November... I wonder how long it will take me to edit?

Tina

Friday, October 16, 2009

Mandibular Hypoplasia, Pt I

So. This is a little story about a condition called mandibular hypoplasia. We'll call it MH. When I was a tiny girl, I had a normal face. At one point, both of my jaws were growing together in harmony. Then something happened. My lower jaw [the mandible] got tired and stopped growing. However, my upper jaw was still going strong. When my upper jaw stopped growing, my bite was still off and there was a huge gap between my front upper teeth and my front lower teeth. Unfortunately, my orthodontist could do nothing about it. My teeth were as fixed as they were going to get with braces.

I had to have surgery.

It took seven months to get the surgery scheduled. In this story, the insurance company is the bad guy [booo!]. Anyway, after getting denied several times we just said oh well and did the surgery anyway. So, we went to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning. I changed into that weird paper gown and nearly froze to death while waiting to be pushed to the operating room.
At this point, MH began to get very scared. He wasn't going to last much longer!
The first anesthesiologist [haha! SCORE! Spelled that right on the first try..] was kind of odd. She asked me the same questions I'd already been asked at least two times that morning [is my name spelled correctly on my arm band? is my birth date correct on my arm band? had I eaten anything past midnight? had anything to drink past midnight? had I ever had a known reaction to anesthetic? was I allergic to any medicines? was I currently taking a daily medicine? do I know what surgery I'm going in for? etc, etc, etc.]

A different nurse came in to start my IV. My mom had to leave the room while she was sticking me. It actually wasn't bad at all. She found a vein, gave me a shot to numb the area, and I hardly felt a pinch at all. Though the saline solution they ran through my veins made me even colder for a bit.
This nurse repeated the questions the first lady had asked. Then she left.
Finally, my surgeon showed up, as well as a very pretty anesthesiologist. I bet she wasn't any older than 26-27. They repeated the questions AGAIN [what is this, now? 5 times?] and had to make an addition to the paperwork to state that they were going to, indeed, take out my upper wisdom teeth as well. [Double whammy! My lower wisdom teeth were taken out over a year ago.]

My surgeon is a very nice man. He's a great Christian and very nice. However, at that moment, while I was laying on the little gurney bed trying not to freeze or have a nervous breakdown [I wasn't scared of the surgery. I was nervous about waking up after the surgery. Pssh. Who cares what they do to me while I'm passed out under anesthetic?!] I wasn't too fond of my very nice, smiling surgeon.

And the pretty anesthesiologist made me spray nasal saline solution up my nose, which choked me when it went down my throat. [And believe me, if I'm bothered by a nasal spray, its bad. I used to take a nasal spray daily for my allergies.] But she apologised. So I forgave her.
Then they stole my glasses so I couldn't see, gave them to my parents, and wheeled me down to the operating room.
Next installment coming soon. :) haha. I know y'all are just waiting on the edges of your seats!
Tina

Thursday, October 15, 2009

RIP Christina Lester

I realized that in my lack of posting-ness... I didn't make a post about Christina. She was a 13 year old girl that I used to ride with. I rode her horse Ed many times when he was still on school horse board. I was the first person at the barn to talk to her mom, besides Kim. Christina passed away along with both of her parents and her 16 year old sister in a private plane crash. It was very sad, and happened a little over a month ago. It was the first time a lot of the littler girls at the barn had to deal with a death of a person so close to them.

However, they were strong believers in Christ, so I know they are all in heaven. :) Which makes it not so sad. When I went to the funeral with the rest of the Southern Hills gang, they had two whole pew rows reserved for us in the main sanctuary. Apparently, people filled the main sanctuary, balcony, gym, and many classrooms of the school attached to the church. It was a funeral times four, which was hard. I think the hardest part was seeing those four caskets, and seeing Christina's helmet on top of hers.

During the funeral I realized that I knew Christina's brother from my freshman year at Metro. He sat beside me in spanish class. I met Christina two years after that, though, so I never made the connection.
Anyway... I made a video for Christina several days after I heard about the plane crash. The day I learned about it there was a meeting out at the barn and we had a big hug/cry/groom Ed/planting flowers for Christina/signing a posterboard for Christina session. The older girls were hugging and comforting the younger girls. It was pretty tough. But Kim's youngest daughter, Nicole, was the one that asked me if I could make a video. So I give her the credit for the idea. Every time I hear this song on the radio now, I think of Christina and my eyes get kind of misty. But I know she is in heaven now. :) So it isn't too sad.
Anyway. An update from the big void in space and time when I wasn't updating my blog at all.

Tina

Way Too Long!

Gah! It's been way too long since I've had a blog post! I need to start doing these more often again.. My life has been SO busy lately. I had jaw surgery. I suppose I could do a series of blog posts on my surgery. They would be interesting to look back on. Maybe I'll do that over the next few weeks. Anyway. This is a sad, short little post. I'll probably make a few more today or in the next few days to make up for not posting. Tina