Going Fishing

Not literally, but since my life is slipping into vacation mode, I'm going to take the month of August off from blogging.

My son's basketball is over (his team won silver in our provincial championship's for his zone), I'm taking holidays here and there, and we're going camping. So I won't be around much this month, but I will be lurking every once in a while.

Come back in September for some new and exciting stuff (okay probably not, I don't want to be accused of false advertising or anything), but come back anyway.

Please come back.... I won't be gone that long.

Hope you have a great end to your summer. Enjoy the weather while it lasts, read a good book, write a few chapters, and spend time with your family.

PS: And yes that's me with the first fish I've ever caught, but I wouldn't touch it. My son had to hold it for me while we took a picture.

Wild and Crazy

I was watching the beginning of Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner tells the audience about his life. Then at the end he says, "And I've never done anything completely crazy."

(or something close to that)

Then he builds a baseball field.

I'm a pretty level headed person and have a healthy fear of consequences, but my first thought after I heard Kevin Costner was I don't think I've done anything crazy either. It's not that I want to build a baseball diamond in the back yard, but maybe I need to do something.

I'm not sure what, any ideas.

What's the craziest thing you've done?

Whatcha Doing?

So summer's almost half over. The month of July has flown by like a mosquito buzzing past your head.

Unfortunately we haven't done too much - yet. The weeks have been filled with basketball practices and games. Soccer practices in the scorching heat and soccer games covered in mosquito spray. Weed pulling, laundry, dishes, and everything else. Plus there's been work, work, and more work.

There hasn't been any hikes, camping, or camp fires. No bike rides, rock climbing, or hanging by a lake.

We have one more basketball tournament next weekend then our summer really begins. In other words, time off work. So I'm looking for ideas.

Have you done anything fun this summer?

Negative or Positive

I've been thinking a lot about motivation lately. Mostly about how to motivate myself.

The first thing I have to figure out is WHAT motivates me?

We had this conversation at dinner tonight where I asked my family what motivated them more: the negative or the positive?

Examples:
If you wanted to lose weight, would it be better to put a picture of you on the fridge looking skinny or fat.

As an athlete do you respond better to positive or negative reinforcement?

If you want to do well in school, do you think about the good marks you've gotten or the bad?

As a writer, do you feel more motivated when you read some of your worst writing or some of your best?

It was a toss up, a few thought that putting the fat picture up would motivate them not to eat, whereas others thought remembering that they had been skinny once would help.

I'm still torn about what motivates me more, but I do think I'm leaning toward the positive.

What about you? What motivates you more?

Getting Started

For some reason, I find it hard to get started. Whether it's doing dishes, cleaning, exercising, or writing. But once I get going, it's easy to keep going.

It takes about ten minutes before I feel like I can jog for an hour. It takes about twenty minutes before I really get into writing. And cleaning... well it takes a while (usually when I'm almost done).

The other day I was trying to convince my son to read a book and he says, well actually he kind of whined that it took to long to get into a book. "It's not until the 5th or 6th chapter that I really get into it and I don't want to invest that kind of time to get there."

Yes, this is the market and a lot of us are trying to write for. That's why that first chapter is so important. You need to ground the reader, make sure they can visualize what's happening, leave a little mystery without being too confusing. Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, you have to make the reader want to continue. No small feat. That's probably why I've rewritten my first chapter so many times.

Because we want to make sure that our readers don't too long to get started.

Friday Favorites

Today I'm going shopping with my daughter. After working all week, I'm totally excited for some mommy - daughter time.

I'll be around the blogs later on to catch up.

In the meantime. If you have kids, what's your favorite thing to do with them?

Not Popular

My son said to me the other day that he was mad that a song he liked was so popular. He wanted to be the only one who knew about it.

I know exactly how he feels. I felt that way with Twilight. I liked the books, but as soon as people became so obsessed with it, I backed away. I've only seen one of the movies.

I enjoy being the only one to know about a great song or a cool book. It's like my own private heaven. Of course that's not realistic and if it's any good, eventually it will get popular.

But there's always another song or book to find that no one knows about.


How about you? Is there anything that you liked that you wish you could have kept to yourself?

Pulling Weeds

My flower beds have been over run with weeds.

Every time I went to my front door, I'd say to myself, "I really need to weed those", but then I'd forgot or find something better to do.

Tonight I'd had enough. I sat down and dug in, pulling up weed after weed. I got most of it. Sure there were a few patches here and there that were hard to pull up, but I figured the beautiful flowers around them would distract anybody from noticing or I'd wait until I have a shovel.

I find this to be very similar to editing. I know I need to edit. Every time I open my computer, I see my document on the desktop just waiting to be opened. But I usually find something else to do. Then one day it will hit and I'll press option O. I'll go through each paragraph, trying to make each sentence better, but there'll be a few stubborn ones that I can't seem to fix, so I leave them thinking that I'll catch them next time.  Or I'll hope no one will notice (invariably they do).

Back to the real weeds. I filled up two grocery bags and thought I'd done really good until I got around back and realized I still had a lot more to do.

Sound familiar.

Happy 4th

I'm pretty sure no one will be around the blogs today.

So to all of my American friends happy fourth of July. Hope you stuff your faces with great BBQ, potato salad and lots of desserts. Have fun watching great firework shows and being around family.

Canada Day and the 4th of July are great reminders of how lucky we are to live in the countries we do.

If you are bored, I was got my first Ninja interview over at Chris Kenworthy's blog.

I am Canadian

Yesterday was Canada Day. I saw lots of maple leafs, red and white shirts, face painting, BBQs, bouncy houses, and fireworks.

I love living in Canada. I know the winters are cold, but I can put on a coat. We have colourful money, which makes it easier to tell apart. I can see the mountains from my balcony. And contrary to popular opinion we do not say "eh" or "aboot", at least the majority of us don't.

In celebration of my heritage here is a copy of commercial that was popular in Canada a few years ago and pretty much sums us up.

Hey, I’m not a lumberjack, or a fur trader….
I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled…. 
and I don’t know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, 
although I’m certain they’re really really nice. 

I have a Prime Minister, not a president. 
I speak English and French, not American. 
And I pronounce it ‘about’, not ‘a boot’. 

I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my backpack. 
I believe in peace keeping, not policing, 
diversity, not assimilation,

and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal. 
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, 
and it is pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’, ‘zed’ !!!! 

Canada is the second largest landmass! 
The first nation of hockey! 
and the best part of North America 

My name is Patti!! 
And I am Canadian!!!

Here's the link on Youtube, it's probably fitting that this is from a beer commercial.