Photo of the Day: Back to Matching Socks

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

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So I no longer need to wear the boot all the time. The doctor gave me the okay to remove it when I’m just sitting around. I DO need to wear it when I’m up and walking, though.

So I’m thinking I now need to make sure I’m matching my socks again. For the last four weeks, only my right foot was ever visible, so I just grabbed whatever out of the sock drawer. This morning I came home from the doctor and took my boot off. My left foot had a thin, white, summer-weight sock that I wore because it fit fairly easily over the bandage wrap I’ve been wearing all this time. My right foot had a normal, heavier gray sock.

It doesn’t matter all that much when I’m out and about, since I will have the boot on then. But I feel silly sitting on the couch looking at mismatched socks on my feet.

It is nice that I no longer need to wear the bandage-wrap thing anymore. I can actually get my foot wet again! And maybe soon the weird purple lines along the incisions will wash away.

The bones that they cut in my foot are now about a third of the way back to solid. So they are not yet fully knitted back together. According the the doctor, they should be at about two thirds in four weeks when I have my next followup. Then about another month to heal up the rest of the way, which means that hopefully my foot will be getting back to normal sometime in April!

Here’s the funny thing. I’m now allowed to put weight on the foot, although I need to walk in a sort of straight-legged Frankenstein style so that I don’t bend my toes the way you normally do when you walk. The boot sort of forces that anyway. I’m still using crutches for support as I don’t fully trust the foot. But at the moment, I am SLOWER walking like that than I am just using crutches and keeping the foot up off the ground, the way I walked for the last four weeks.

I suppose I’ll get used to it and speed up. But right now I feel just as I did in the first few days after the surgery, all slow and clumsy and unable to really get around well.

It did feel weird to feel something solid below my foot when I first shuffled out of the doctor’s office this morning.

Life on Crutches

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by SaraS in Medical

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

crutches, Foot Surgery

So, I’ve been pretty bad about keeping up with the blog lately. Trying to catch up, I promise.

In an attempt to get back to blogging, here’s some updates on the last month or so. An appropriate description for January and early February of 2012 is The Month of Life on Crutches.

Foot Surgery

Back in January, I had foot surgery to correct a bunion on my left foot. My foot has been “off” for a long time, but the last few years it really started to hurt when out walking and hiking.

My foot before the surgery

The surgery was somewhat involved. They adjusted the tendons in my toe to train it back to a more straight position. That part isn’t a big deal. The big deal was cutting the bone, realigning it, and fixing it in place with some sort of plate and screws (called an osteotomy). In a way it is sort of like volunteering to have a broken foot for a while. And now I have metal hardware embedded in my foot, which will make future airplane travel interesting I’m sure.

I was somewhat amused the morning of the surgery by the fact that at least three or four different people (nurses, the surgeon, etc.) all asked me to verbally confirm which foot they were going to operate on. I guess they want to be sure that everyone is on the same page.

Things went pretty well that day; we got there around 6:30 AM and were home I think around 11 AM or noon or so. The only weird things was that, shortly after the put in the IV, I passed out, which sort of freaked everyone out a bit.

I don’t even remember them wheeling me to the operating room; they gave me something to “relax” and the next thing I knew I was waking up all groggy with a big black boot on my foot.

I was very happy that the nurses referred to Renee as my family. Shortly after waking up, they said “you’re family wants to see you.” A moment later she got to come in and sit with me till it was time to go home.

Cricket and Darwin keeping me company

The rest of the day was pretty low-key. I stayed in bed with my foot up and periodically iced it. Everything was still numb from the ankle block.

Icing my foot on the first day

Excitement on Day Two

The next day had a bit of excitement in it. I got up and attempted to use the “knee walker” we rented so that I could make coffee. I started feeling a little big dizzy. Next thing I knew, I was on the kitchen floor and Renee was hovering over me and telling me that I passed out.

She started helping me to get back up, but then I apparently passed out again on the way to the sofa. Fortunately Renee has combat training and was able to do the “dead man drag” to get me to the sofa. After I came to, we called the doctor and they advised going to the ER.

So, Renee called in some friends to help (Carolyn and Ally) just in case I passed out again in the yard. Fortunately that didn’t happen and we made it to the hospital without incident.

I was there all morning and the general consensus was that I passed out because of dehydration. Luckily it has not happened since.

Out and About on Crutches

Since those first couple days, my recovery has mostly been uneventful but fairly boring. I’ve been back to the doctor twice so that they could change the bandages and take out the stitches.

Stitches one week after surgery

New bandage one week after surgery

The incision two weeks later, right before they removed the stitches

It was a bit of adventure getting to the doctor on those two days; the first appointment was the first day of a huge snowstorm, so I had to get through the snow on crutches. The second appointment was on a day when we had freezing rain.

Snowstorm! Renee had to shovel a lot of snow by herself

I’m glad I work from home during all this so I don’t have to commute through the snow on crutches. I’ve set up shop in the living room so that I can keep my foot elevated.

Working from the living room couch

We’ve come up with some short outings so that I’m not cooped up in the house too much during this recovery.

Lolo Pass Drive

The weekend after the surgery, we took a little drive up to Lolo Pass just to get me out of the house for a bit. By the end of the drive my foot was a little bit sore since it was a little hard to keep it elevated comfortably. But it was nice to get out and see some scenery. Also, at this point we had no snow here in Missoula, so it was nice to see all the snow up in the mountains.

The dogs all got to come along. I think they were disappointed that we weren’t taking them on a hike, but they still enjoyed the ride.

Coming home from Lolo Pass

Dogs in the back seat enjoying the drive

McCormick Park

On a couple different nice days, Renee drove me down to McCormick Park so that I could get some fresh air. She played fetch with Darwin and let Cricket run around a bit. I used the knee walker to “stroll” around and get some exercise and fresh air. I miss being able to go on normal walks!

At McCormick Park

Here’s a video I made from the first outing:

Click here if the embedded video doesn’t work.

Renee and Darwin

Darwin fetching

Here’s a GPS map of my knee walker strolling from the most recent outing. I went up and down a nice section of path that didn’t have any snow or ice on it while Darwin and Cricket got to run around. I went a total of about .4 miles and averaged 2.3 mph.

Other Adventures with Just One Good Foot

We’ve also had to do some shopping in the last few weeks. I’ve now been to Walmart multiple times and used the electric carts to buzz around the store. Those carts actually work surprisingly well, although today I was a little afraid the rechargeable battery would die. The battery indicator started blinking and it felt like the cart got slower and slower. Fortunately I made it back to the front of the store in time.

This past week we made a couple visits to Home Depot and Lowes. I used the knee walker again, which worked really well on the nice smooth floors in the stores. Managed to zip all over with no issues at all. It actually reminded me of Interface Software a very long time ago, when we had those Razor kick-scooters in the office and employees could scoot from one end of the building to the other.

Finally, we recently had some work done in the basement. First the furnace died and had to be replaced; then we had a sewer line problem. They had to snake out the line to clear it of tree roots and get things flowing again. Renee had to coordinate all of this since I couldn’t go down there on crutches.

But I did want to see the results of all this work, so I managed to go down the steep stairs on crutches. When it was time to go back up, I decided to do it the safe way. I sat down on the steps and used my arms and one good leg to work my way back up the stairs.

What’s Next?

This week, I go back to the doctor again for another x-ray. The doctor will evaluate my healing and let me know if I can start putting weight on the foot again. I assume I’ll still be wearing the big black boot and using crutches to avoid putting on too much weight in the beginning.

I am really looking forward to having use of both feet again! I’ve gotten used to the crutches and the knee walker, and Renee has been wonderful about helping me with all the things I can’t do easily. But I really miss being able to walk around normally!

Post NaNoWriMo Thoughts

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by SaraS in NaNoWriMo, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

So it has been a week since I “finished” NaNoWriMo. I put finished in quotes because although I hit the 50,000 word count, my actual story is far from finished.

I admit I haven’t touched my novel all week. According to my computer, the last time I opened the file was 9:21 PM on November 30. It has been pretty nice taking a good, long break, but I know that soon I need to dive back in there and continue writing. I left my characters in a very unresolved state.

Most of the advice I read about doing NaNoWriMo talked about completing your story, even though 50,000 words is shorter than a typical novel. They suggested skipping over or summarizing scenes towards the end if you have to so that you could bring events to a close and type “The End” on November 30. The theory is that it is easier to go back and fill in scenes and details than to keep going with brand new chapters at the end of the story.

Well, I didn’t manage to do it that way. I did skip way ahead at one point when I got very frustrated with my progress, so at some point I do need to go back and fill in some events that take place over several months so that there is some sort of transition. But I wasn’t able to jump all the way to the conclusion of the story because I didn’t know how the story was going to end.

I guess this is what happens sometimes when you jump in with just vague ideas and characters and no real specific plot. I was discovering much of my story as I went.

Towards the last few days, I did finally feel like things were happening and heading in an interesting direction. I remember one evening, just few days before November 30. Renee was getting a haircut and I sat in a little chair waiting for her, jotting down some thoughts and notes in a notebook. I found myself remembering a very long time ago when I flew from Chicago (where I lived at the time) to Sarasota, FL on a business trip. Usually I flew on Delta through Atlanta, but for some reason this particular flight went through Orlando.

Now Orlando is not all that far from Sarasota. So I remember thinking that this seemed almost a little bit silly. The plane took off from Orlando, climbed to cruising altitude, and then immediately started to descend into Sarasota. In my memory, that flight was only about 20 minutes from takeoff to landing. It was a long time ago, but that is the way I remember it.

I had the same sort of feeling during NaNoWriMo. I got started (takeoff) and floundered about, trying to figure out where to go with my story. I started setting things up and introducing characters and subplots. Then, before I really felt like things were in good shape, all of a sudden I’m running out of time and rapidly approaching the 50,000 mark. Once I hit cruising altitude, it was already time to head back down and wrap things up.

I guess the point of all this rambling is that I didn’t really wrap things up. I need to get back to writing and try to finish the story…and then decide if there is enough good stuff in there to be worth revising and rewriting.

When am I going to get back to working on this? I’m really not sure…at the moment I’m still enjoying my break. It is nice to not have to worry about when I’m going to fit in 1700 words every day. Plus I have other projects, like finishing my videos from our Utah trip last spring. This is the movie trailer I made many months ago:

We spent the week hiking and exploring many canyons in Utah, and I shot a lot of video. I’ve started setting this footage to music to represent each major hike, but I’ve only managed to finish a few of them. Seems like working on videos from the sunny desert in springtime is a great project now that it is cold and gray winter here in Missoula!

I also want to get back to more frequent blogging. There are a couple recent house projects Renee worked on that definitely need to be written about! And more pictures of muddy poodles.

But I haven’t forgotten my novel or given up on it. In fact, the other day while out walking Darwin I thought of some significant new plot elements that should happen in the story. I may have taken a word-count break, but my novel is still on my mind.

50,006

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in NaNoWriMo, Writing

≈ 5 Comments

Hey, look at that:
Final Word Count

50,006 words. And it is still November! So I get to say that I “won” at NaNoWriMo. So I can put this on my site:
Winner's Badge

No comment as to the quality of those 50,006 words though. Plus, I’m not really done. I’m still sort of in the middle of my story. More writing to do before I even get to the revising / rewriting stage. At the moment, I’m pretty tired of my characters, so it will be nice to take a few days break before coming back to this and continuing. And I plan to continue at a more reasonable pace.

I do have more thoughts about the overall NaNoWriMo experience, but…that will have to wait too. Definitely not happening tonight!

Black Friday Insanity

23 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in Rants

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Tags

holidays, shopping

OK, so I’m not really a huge shopping fan. My mom still tells this story from when I was in high school and my sister had just started college. She was home for Thanksgiving. The day after, we all went to a mall to do some shopping. It turned into a nine-hour endurance test. I ran out of things to look at and was getting bored, but they were still going strong. So I bought a book (probably from B. Dalton – remember them?) and found a relatively comfortable bench and read until they were finally ready to go home.

This was all way back when the day after Thanksgiving was a big shopping day, but before stores started opening at ridiculously early hours. This article at Wikipedia claims that the term “Black Friday” has been in use for the day after Thanksgiving since 1975, but I really don’t remember hearing that term much back in my high school days.

Anyway, where am I going with this? Nine hours in a suburban mall was enough to scare me off shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Getting up at four in the morning and waiting in line to race around to get the best deals? No thanks. Not going to happen.

Now I do like shopping for fun things, and I can’t claim to be put off the materialism of buying stuff. I like shopping for backpacking gear, outdoor/camping gear, dog stuff, and electronics. Shopping for clothes at REI or Bob Wards is fun. Getting packages from UPS is fun. Shopping in a billion little mall stores full of “trendy” clothes, not so much. At least not for me.

This year, it seems that some retailers are going even further and opening at midnight or late Thanksgiving night, like around ten. I think this is appalling. I feel bad for all the employees who have to catch up on sleep all day on Thanksgiving so that they can work all night. Whose idea was this, really? Wasn’t opening at four AM early enough?

I pretty much agree with this Target employee who started a petition to push back the opening to 5 AM.

I think it is pretty sad that things are at a point where opening at 5 AM is now the REASONABLE alternative. I mean really. Yikes.

Again, I’m not some anti-consumer-culture person here. I like shopping for certain things. I like getting expensive new toys when I can afford them (I just got a new Kindle Touch last week after all). But really. Why ruin a really nice, fun holiday that is all about food, friends, and family (and football for some, but I don’t really care too much about that personally) by opening stores at 10 PM or midnight?

Various Overdue Updates

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in NaNoWriMo, Remodeling, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Various Updates

I have really been neglecting my blog lately; I have a feeling Ally is going to come after me soon if I don’t post something!

What can I say? Things have been busy. So some random updates here…

NaNoWriMo

I am still mostly on track. So far I’ve written 27,481 words, so only 22,519 to go! I’m mostly on track, although I haven’t done my daily writing allotment yet today (Friday). Its been a long day, so I may just take a break tonight.

For the most part, I’ve managed to write just about every day of the month, although on some days I didn’t do very much. I think on my worst day I only did around 400 words. Most other days I came close to or surpassed by goal by a small amount.

As for the quality of what I’m writing. Well, there are some parts so far that I like, and I still think there is a worthwhile story in here somewhere, but there are also large patches that I know are going to need to be changed or cut completely when I go back and edit.

Now that I’m so far in, I’m finding it a little more difficult to shut off my inner editor and just write. Yesterday was particularly annoying…I’m really not happy with what I wrote at all. I think I am going to try going in a slightly different direction from this point.

Fortunately, I’m taking vacation days next week, plus the long weekend for Thanksgiving. So I should have the time to crank out the words and finish by the end of the month!

Gadgets

Somewhat related to books, although more about reading them than writing them…a few days ago I got a new Kindle Touch 3G. I went with the pricier version with 3G so that I would still have the option to download books when I’m not connected to a wifi network.

This was an upgrade over my old 2nd generation Kindle. The nice thing is, it only cost me $9.99! Okay, that’s not exactly accurate. I had a $100 visa gift card that has been sitting around unused for nearly a year. I also had $30 worth of Best Buy “reward” gift certificates. So I used all that to pay for it and only had to shell out $9.99 of my actual money.

So far I like the new Kindle. It is much lighter and sleeker than my old one, and I like the fact that I don’t have to listen to loud button-clicks when turning pages since it is all done via the touch screen. It will definitely be lighter next summer when I take it backpacking. Also, even though I got the 3G model, you can also connect it to a wifi network when available, which seems to transfer books more quickly. My old one did not have that option.

Just for kicks, I generated a Kindle version of my novel-in-progress to see what it would look like in that form. Here’s a picture:

My draft NaNoWriMo Novel on a kindle

I find it kind of cool to see this. I’ve also tested out reformatting it as a paperback novel and it comes out to about 107 pages. Somehow the words look different when presented as an actual book.

Of course, being busy with NaNoWriMo means I haven’t really had time to read much with the new Kindle. I read a few pages of a book I started before November and one short story. That’s about it so far.

House Projects

I am really behind on posts about recent house projects. A few weeks ago, Renee took out these big ugly sliding door in the shed (it was really just a piece of plywood pretending to be a door), reframed the opening, and installed a nice, real door and window. It looks great! I have a bunch of pictures to the process that I need to organize and write about.

Then she’s been working to help Carolyn and Ally redo their living room / dining room with new lighting, a new half-wall room divider with columns, new insulation in the attic, and paint. It turned into a pretty big project (all starting from just one new light fixture). It isn’t quite finished, but I think they are pretty happy with it so far. The plan is to work on painting tomorrow. I think this whole thing will be done in time for Thanksgiving dinner!

Again, I’ve got plenty of pictures – I just need to find the time to get them organized and write a post!

It was Totally the Cat’s Fault!

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in Cats, Dogs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

danger cat, rat terriers, vet bills

It all started with a cat learning how to use the dog door and ended with an expensive vet bill. Well, that may be bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

Pippin has been slowly checking out the dog door for coming into the house. He likes being out in the backyard, and he likes his luxury kitty apartment, but sometimes he also likes to come in the house. He expresses this desire by using the barbecue grill as a stage; he gets up there and yells and yells and yells until we open the door for him.

Then he just stands there for a minute, as though he isn’t really sure he wants in or not. He just wants the option to come in. Once he is in, he hangs out for a while before sitting at the back door and yelling again to be let out.

He sort of reminds me of this.

So we started encouraging him to use the dog door instead of just yelling. I’m not sure whether or not this was really such a good idea, but file it under “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He might have figured it out anyway since his cat apartment also has a pet door installed, but it is a smaller, lighter one. The dog’s door is big to accommodate the standard poodles and it has two flaps to better keep out cold air. Still, once he got the hang of of the kitty door, it seemed likely that he would figure out the big dog door too. He’s certainly watched the dogs go in and out often enough.

Distracted by the Cat!

So Monday night we decided to run over to Noodle Express for a quick dinner. There are a few quick tasks we always do on the way out the door to make sure the dogs don’t get in trouble. The most important one is to lock the kitchen trash can in the bathroom to keep the dogs from getting into it. They are very good at knocking it down and having their own personal doggy feast. Usually they like to drag all the trash into my office to munch on. I’m not sure why my office is such a great place for trash eating. Darwin’s crate is in there, so he has to sit there and watch them chow down right in front of him, which always struck me as sort of mean on the part of the other dogs.

Anyway, we started getting ready to head out. I grabbed a coffee mug and a glass off my desk to put in the kitchen (just in case), intending to put away the trash next. On my way to the kitchen, I saw Pippin outside the dog door, standing up on his hind legs and poking at the door with his paw. Apparently all the time watching the dogs run in and out was starting to click. You could almost see the wheels turning in his little head.

We both stopped what we were doing and watched him examining the door. He didn’t try going through just yet, but he was definitely thinking about it.

An Express Exit from Noodle Express

We were getting pretty hungry for dinner, so we left Pippin to continue figuring things out and we headed on out to dinner. Ordered our usual rice bowls (I think they recognize us there) and two slices of their terrific chocolate mousse pie.

I’m not sure what made me think of it, but about halfway through dinner, I said “Did we put away the trash?”

Renee looked up from her rice bowl in horror and shook her head.

“Oh crap.”

We quickly realized that Pippin had distracted us during our normal pre-leaving tasks.

We got “go” boxes for the rest of our rice and had them package up the mousse pie to go. Renee drove like a maniac to get home. I hoped that the dogs hadn’t had time yet to notice the unguarded trash can.

When we pulled into the driveway, we knew we were in trouble. No dogs in the window watching for us. That was never good news.

I hurried in to the house. Sure enough, the can was knocked over and trash spewed all over the dining room carpet. Abby was in the bedroom; she doesn’t usually get involved in this. Strangely, the usual suspects (Sirus and Myka) were not in the room. Cricket, on the other hand, was standing right in the middle of the mess.

These dogs are not innocent in matters of trash

Despite her small size, Cricket is not innocent when it comes to trash. I used to have a lightweight plastic trashcan, and she could grab the bag in her teeth and pull the whole thing over. I switched to a heavier metal can like we have now and she couldn’t do that anymore, but she could still sometimes get on her hind legs and grab at any items up near the top. She’s probably the one who taught the poodles to even notice the trash can in the first place.

Sirus and Myka were out in the backyard for some reason. Maybe they had eaten enough and just weren’t interested. Or they were startled out of their feast by Pippin actually coming in through the dog door, for he had finally managed to do it. I looked in my office to see if they had hauled any trash in there, and saw Pippin sitting comfortablely on my desk. He had also left a light paw-print on the lid of my closed laptop.

Here’s Where the Story Gets a Little Scary

We cleaned up the mess (the vacuum was more than Pippin could take and he bolted back through the dog door) and tried to relax the rest of the evening, but we were concerned. The trash had contained two quart-sized bags of old gorp leftover from our summer backpack trips. Peanuts, raisins, dried cranberries, and M&Ms. All things that aren’t good for dogs.

Sure enough, at three in the morning Cricket got up and started vomiting. Cleaning up dog vomit is never pleasant, but this was especially awful smelling puke. We stewed for a few minutes. Could we wait till morning, or should we just accept the cost of going to the emergency vet clinic? She sat uncomfortably in the bed and shook, not wanting to lie down and relax.

We decided it was emergency and got up to take her in. I was still on the phone with the vet clinic when she threw up bloody bile in the kitchen. Definitely an emergency now.

It was $95 up front at the emergency clinic. After a quick exam, the doctor said they would do an x-ray to check for any foreign objects, then provide some sort of charcoal treatment to bind up the rest of the trash and keep her from absorbing it, and then set her up with IV fluids so she doesn’t get dehydrated. We had to leave her there. We went home and went back to bed, although I really didn’t sleep all that well.

Cricket stayed at the vet hospital all day Tuesday. They told us she vomited again in the early morning (around 7 and again at 7:30). They didn’t want her to come home until she had kept food down for several hours, so she had to stay there Tuesday night as well. They told us we could come visit with her, but we figured that would just get her stirred up and then upset her more when we had to leave her there again.

Darwin wasted no time taking advantage of his sister’s absence; he tried to squeeze into her spot on the bed. This was OK at first because he curled up small. As the night went on, he sort of uncurled and stretched out and hogged a large portion of the bed.

Did She Learn Her Lesson? We Sure Did!

Finally this morning she was ready to come home. Apparently she was actually pretty good in her kennel and did not bark and cry as much as I would have expected. The doctor did say she started yapping at her when she didn’t get as much food as she wanted.

She was happy to see us when we picked her up, but then turned her head away to shun us. She was very angry that we took her to that place and left her there. She seems to have forgiven me more quickly than Renee; I’m not sure why. Maybe she expects less from me?

It would be really nice if Cricket learned a lesson from all this and would stay out of the trash from now on. After all, getting into trash just leads to bad things like vet clinics in the middle of the night, IV fluids, and sitting in a kennel all day. Unfortunately, I’m sure she has made no connection between the trash and the hospital stay. If she had the opportunity, she would do it all over again.

Hopefully we’ll do a bit better at staying vigilant when it comes to dog-proofing the house on the way out the door.

On a final note, I do know that the other dogs enjoyed some of that gorp as well. I’ve found plenty of evidence when poop-scooping the backyard, mostly in the form of undigested peanuts. But they seem to be doing OK and suffering no ill-effects, at least so far (fingers crossed that it stays that way).

NaNoWriMo Update – Starting Day 3

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by SaraS in NaNoWriMo, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Just a real quick update this morning before work. I’m two days in to NaNoWriMo and so far things are going pretty well.

On day one, I wrote during my lunch break and then again in the evening. I hit 2474 words, which is more than the daily quota of about 1667. So this felt like a good start.

When I actually started writing, I ended up taking my first couple scenes in different directions from what I had originally planned (not that I had really planned much; I really wasn’t sure how to start the story until I sat down and started writing), and I introduced a few characters that I hadn’t really anticipated before. I’m not positive, but these characters may lead to a subplot (or play a role in the main plot). I was really afraid that when I started, I’d run out of ideas in the first ten minutes, so I’m thrilled that my brain seems to be generating new ideas on the fly, right as I type.

Yesterday was a little more difficult. I took dogs on a walk during lunch time, so that used up that time (Myka and Darwin liked being a higher priority though). I had to do most of my writing in the evening, after we came home from the Day of the Dead parade. So I didn’t really have time to start writing for real until about 8:30. Then I somehow got hung up writing a scene in an airport (again, not something I had planned before). I haven’t actually flown in a few years, so my airport memories are a bit hazy. No idea if this scene is any good or not. I didn’t go much over my quota this time, but I did at least meet it with 1658 words. And my character is still sitting on an airplane, so I’ll have to finish up that today.

On another note, I’m very happy that so far it has worked to write on my laptop in the living room. I spend all day in my home office for work, so the last thing I want to do during non-work time is sit in there for a few more hours. Besides, Renee and all the dogs are in the living room, and I like being near them. I’ve discovered that with a pair of noise-canceling headphones and some music I completely block out the TV and can focus on the writing.

The first day I went with some older heavy metal music (Iced Earth). Last night it was Flogging Molly. It seems like fast music works the best for me so far.

That’s about it. I’m not sure what time I’ll write today — probably after dinner. Hopefully I’ll keep discovering new characters and story lines as I go!

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