Books 2008: Autographs and Ritas

autograph

Somehow during 2008 I managed to collect all these autographed books without really trying. And of course, Andrew and I got to meet John Green last year. I was going to post this earlier, but I was missing a book for the photo I wanted to take. So we ended up looking for … wait for it … Looking For Alaska.

It’s difficult to tell in the photo, but we probably should’ve bought two copiess of Looking for Alaska, one to keep in pristine condition and the other for Andrew to tote around in his backpack.

So. Books. Made of Awesome. Also awesome is when you get free books in the mail. This year, I get to judge the Ritas (and I totally forgot to sign up to judge the Golden Heart, but considering my schedule, it’s probably just as well).

But that’s about all I can say. I don’t think I can even mention the categories I’m judging at this point–it’s all very super secret double probation. But I will say I have an interesting variety.

Some updates:

This year, a new entry will be added to encyclopedias everywhere. When you look up “installation guide factory,” there will be a picture of me huddled over my laptop at work.

I am still managing to write despite this. I’m nobody’s speed demon (but then, I never write that way), but I’m up to 15,000 words in Dating on the Dork Side. Hey, I’ll take it.

You never know where you might end up

So I was procrastinating doing a little web surfing this morning when I discovered that an essay I wrote a few years back ended up in the syllabus for a creative writing course. To be more specific, it was the Kidd Tutorial at the University of Oregon creative writing program.

I have since been revised out of the course. But I was there, or rather, my essay, Learning to Lie Still, was there, under the lesson topic: THE WRITER IN THE WORLD: as witness, mirror, canary.

Of course, the “half-empty” side of me immediately thought: Hm, maybe I’m the negative example for that particular topic. You know, Personal Essay: You’re Doing It Wrong. Still, to put a positive spin on that scenario, I would still be providing many, many writers a valuable service, no?

Still, I “shared” a lesson with Susan Sontag, Eudora Welty, and Alice Walker, so no matter what anyone said or thought about my meager little essay, I’m completely psyched to have ended up there, if only once.

In which the baking club meets

The first two meetings of the Baking Club went very well. You might have noticed the link in the Twitter feed to The Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Molasses Cookies. The kids were skeptical at first, seeing as neither chocolate chips nor frosting was involved.

They changed their minds when they got their hands on the dough. We had a lot of fun rolling the cookies into balls then chasing them around in the sugar. Then, after they baked, we all couldn’t stop eating them. I wouldn’t say they were gone in sixty seconds, but they did vanish in less than twenty four hours.

Last night, we had girls-only Baking Club. Andrew went off to earn his Boy Scout Soil and Water Conservation badge and Miss B and I stayed home to make cupcakes.

Now, earlier, she bought a cupcake kit with her Borders gift card. However, when I went grocery shopping, I managed to purchase a cake mix (just in case), but no baking powder for the from-scratch variety. (Hey, I’m a quick bread/drop cookie kind of gal; I almost never use baking powder, so don’t have any on hand. That thump you hear is all the foodies hitting the floor in a dead faint.)

So, next week perhaps we’ll tackle from scratch. Hey, it’s an object lesson. First, we see what a cake mix provides; next, we’ll break down all the component parts and mix it ourselves. Dude, I didn’t even plan it like that.

The cupcakes were a hit with one and all. We ended up with twenty. Then, one mysteriously disappeared. It wasn’t Miss B. She was too busy creating our likenesses with frosting, pink sugar, and those little candy red hots. The boys weren’t home yet. The cat was asleep. The culprit?

The dog, in stealth mode (and believe me, she doesn’t do stealth all that well), nabbed it, and just it, leaving its brethren intact, if a bit shaken.

Andrew had one when he came home, then doubled back for seconds.

“Are they good?” I asked.

“Cha yeah!” he said, accompanied with an eye roll.

This can be loosely translated as: “Why yes, mother, they are excellent.”

Weekend update

You may have noticed the Geek Girl Twitter in the sidebar. Really. Geeky. I know.

I’m up to 8,278 words for Dating on the Dork Side.

I’m now in a baking club, membership: 2–me and Miss B. Anticipate an increase in cooking disasters.

I have a riveting post on the tale of our synthetic fur blankets, an in depth compare and contrast, if you will. I know you can’t wait, but you have to. It will be worth it. Trust me.

The geek girl’s guide to creating a collage

Since a couple of people have asked, I decided to do a quick rundown of how to create a collage using Microsoft PowerPoint. It’s not fancy; it’s not really artistic (but then neither am I–fancy or artistic).

I’m using PowerPoint 2007 at the moment. If you have an earlier version, the directions may differ slightly.

  1. Open PowerPoint. You can use the default slide that appears as your starting point.
  2. Delete the title and subtitle text boxes.
  3. Right click on the slide.
  4. Select Format Background.
  5. Select Picture or texture fill.

From here, you can select one of the texture fills that come with PowerPoint or select your own wallpaper or image file as the background. For one collage I made, I used an actual photo of swimming pool water.

To continue:

  1. If the background is too dark, adjust to transparency to lighten it.
  2. Select Insert –>Picture to add images* to your collage.
  3. Once it’s complete, save the collage as its own image. Select Save As … and in the Save as type: field, select an image file type, such as JPEG.

You’ll receive message asking if you want to save only the current slide or all the slides in the presentation. Select current slide.

Now you have a wondrous image file of your collage that you can post on your blog or use as your desktop wallpaper as inspiration.

*I use royalty-free stock photography for many of my images. One of my favorite places to search is istockphoto.com. Dollar downloads: doesn’t get much better than that.

Oh. Dark. Thirty.

So the alarm went off a little earlier than it has for the past two weeks. The dog didn’t budge. She barely raised her head. But I felt the psychic waves rolling off of her:

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

I was up in time to see Oreo do her stretch-walk out of Miss B’s room. And we did our morning routine, albeit much earlier than the past few weeks:

  • Dog, out
  • Pets, fed
  • Coffee, brewed
  • Exercise, commenced
  • Computer chair, stolen by cat

Oh Dark Thirty isn’t all bad. I listened to Michael Hauge’s talk on character arcs during the commute today, then grabbed his Six Stage Plot Structure.

I may not have quite as many words as some of the others on JaNo (5,131 at last count), but I’m feeling strangely fine.

2009 Reading Challenge

wwii

Because I’m not just about the writing.

I’ve decided to do the War Through the Generations Reading Challenge: World War II. My goal is five books, but I hope to read more. I’ll update as I go. So far, on the list:

  • Skeletons At The Feast
  • Tamar
  • Women of Valor
  • The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

That’s four, but there are some terrific books on the reading list here. You can join at any time during the year, but to be entered in the giveaways (oh, giveaways; I love giveaways), you need to sign up before January 31st.

Happy reading!

New Year, new book

So, you can see my progress, or everyone’s progress over at JaNo if you’re so inclined. I won’t repeat my angstacular post about my fear of writing something new, which I haven’t done in about two years. (Oops, I guess I just did repeat. Oh. Well.)

I will share my collage, cuz I’m pretty psyched about it:

dork-collage

Seriously, forget writing, I should do this for a living

I realized something though. All three boys have nicknames. We have:

  • Ben “Rhino” Reinhold
  • Gavin “Mad Dawg” Madison
  • Jason “The Ab” Abernathy

I may have to rethink that. But one cool thing, I asked Darcy if I could resurrect one of her characters. She, very rightly, combined two, but of course, one character can’t have two names (unless they happen to be boys in the book I’m writing, then apparently, it’s open season on names). So I asked if I could use “Sophie Vega,” which is a name/character I’ve always loved.

Of course, the Sophie in the collage above looks like she could cut you with both her words and her sharp, sharp tiara. Then leave to you bleed behind the school.

And I leave you with this:

True, my best friend Rhino had breached the school’s firewall. I was pretty sure that was beyond the capabilities of anyone nicknamed The Ab.