Friday, March 29, 2019

TGIF




The team has a 99.8% chance of making the playoffs.

HOLY SMOKES!

Three points is the magic number for them to secure their berth. They have four games. The loss by a certain other team means they only have to win ONE game.

Now here's the thing. Once bitten, twice shy. They will probably win at least one of the last four.

But last year they went on random losing skids, and our #1A goalie was injured the other day, so there's that lingering fear that they're going to implode. Our #1B goalie is fantastic. We wouldn't where we are without the both of them equally...so we're not really worried about goaltending--very much not the case last year--but the team is one of the lowest scoring teams in the league. So...

So anyway, there is going to be equal parts hockey excitement and hockey fatigue...

Stay tuned  :0) and hope you have a lovely weekend!




Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The writing is going....well?


It is, actually.

I phrased it as a question because I'm churning out a lot of words. I'm ahead of where I planned to be in terms of number of writing days and words written per day. I'm closing in on the 10K mark. My limit is 15K. I have told maybe half the story!!!

There will eventually be lots of red pen and removing of words. I will have to jump time. I will have to make each word count. That's not a bad thing. It's a very good exercise for me, but gah!!

Now that I've gotten better acquainted with my two heroes, I'm working backwards from the end. I'm writing all the scenes no matter how choppy or crappy they come out, so that they're there. I can fix and tidy up or delete them as needed once I have the full picture.

So, yeah, fun times. I'm only being slightly sarcastic there because I'm actually having fun with the story and enjoying the flow of words and of creation.

* * * * *

As of the writing of this post (Wednesday morning), the Stars have a 96% chance of making the playoffs. All the games are now important and must-win. Depending on the opponent, some are more must-win than others. Tonight they'll play a team who has already earned their spot in the playoffs. They can afford the loss, we cannot. So please send all your good vibes to Calgary, Alberta, Canada tonight.

Be loud. Wear green. GO STARS!!

Have a great rest of your week.





Monday, March 25, 2019

Add one more item to my list of hockey adventures...


As mentioned last Wednesday, I took my sign first ever sign to a hockey game and stood on the glass during warmup hoping that Sidney Crosby would see me and my sign and toss me a puck. Did that happen? Well, no.

Here I am standing on the glass with my sign, waiting for warmup to begin. I entered the arena as soon as the let me and went straight to the glass. Good thing I did, because there ended up being A LOT of other Crosby / Penguins fans. Which I kinda figured there would be , so I planned ahead. :0)

Photo taken by DD.


Even though I didn't get a puck, I did get enshrined forever on the Penguins Twitter and possibly their Instagram accounts.

This is Twitter...


DD saw this and sent it to me...I couldn't find the original post on either account myself--such is the frustration of social media algorithms.


And what was I doing there? Filming this little tidbit of puck play!!



All in all, a fun evening even though I didn't get a puck from Sidney and the Stars lost.


Friday, March 22, 2019

Don't tell DD...


It's been a wonderful first year as a (partial) season ticket holder. Our plan included tickets to half the home games--21 games. I attended all but 3. So eighteen games spread out over the course of six months doesn't seem like much. But because the team also travels, when the home games happen, they tend to happen in bunches.

I'm feeling a little wore out.

Again, the ratio of games to months isn't bad if they were evenly spread out, but when they're bunched up and they coincide with other events and goings on... For someone who has been a homebody most of her life, it's a little tiring.

Now I get that this is a first world problem... There are people who juggle a lot more on a daily basis and whose lives are a lot more of a drudge. God bless them one and all. I hope the universe gives them a break. And yes, I'll take some cheese with my whine. But it's my blog and this is what's going on in my life, yeah?

Anyway...

I hope there's at least another month of hockey to come for the Stars. In general, there will be another couple of months of hockey because someone is going all the way to the Stanley Cup Final and I'll be following along.

On another note, it's Friday, and though there seem to be a lot of things on the calendar, I'm looking forward to it. There's got to be some time for rest for the wicked, eh?

Have a great weekend.






Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Careening around third and diving for home plate..


Yup...baseball terminology to describe the next two and half weeks for the Stars.



My Dallas Stars currently sit in the first wild card slot for the Western Conference. They are 2 points behind the team in front of them and 4 points ahead of the team right behind them. Not a bad place to be considering this time last year, our goalie got injured and we went on a ten-game losing streak.

Every game they play is important. Every game those other teams play is also important. It's going be nail-bite-city (if I did such a thing, which I don't) for the next couple of weeks.

Three teams have clinched their spots in the playoffs. That means if they lose every single game they have left, they will still be included in the playoffs. I think it's going to come down to the wire for the Stars because they just aren't consistent enough and are partially dependent on other teams losing.

But they are still in the hunt, so bear with me for the next couple of weeks...

Because of the tight race the Stars are in, DD has an interest in other teams' games now. She was never been very interested before, and is only interested in them now as to how their win or loss affects the Stars, but I'll take it as a step in the right direction. I've also encouraged her to find a secondary team to root for. I have two of them.

Speaking of which...my second favorite team is coming to town and, for the first time ever, I'm taking a poster to the arena. I will be standing at the glass during warmup, hoping against hope that Sidney Crosby sees my sign, gets a warm fuzzy, and tosses me a puck.



In writing news, the words for the anthology have been flowing pretty well. I'm ahead of the writing curve in terms of how many days and how many words per day I'm supposed to write, but the universe threw a monkey wrench in writers spoke when a whole chapter's worth of text disappeared.

I use Scrivener and it's been acting rather persnickety as it syncs the file between two PCs. I encounter error messages every day but up until this morning I haven't had any real trouble with words appearing or not appearing so far, but today was my unlucky day.

So I copy/pasted all chapter and other information out of Scrivener and into Word or Notepad files. I really love working in Scrivener and am waiting anxiously for the new Windows version. Hopefully, I can rewrite that chapter and have be just as good.

Anyway, have a great rest of your week.


Monday, March 18, 2019

Akinator


What is "Akinator" you might ask...

Well, it's an online game or mobile app game that asks you a series of questions in order to guess the character -- real person or fictional character -- you're thinking of. It's a twenty questions kind of game although sometimes it asks you more than twenty questions.

But it's freaky how often it can correctly guess. DD and I played Sunday evening several times and it correctly guessed Harry Truman and Benedict Cumberbatch. It also failed to identify Kent Parson and Greg Wyshynski, one a fictional character and one a real person. It might have guessed Greg had I answered two questions differently. I might attempt that one again just to see what happens.

It's fun and a little addicting to see if you can stump the game.

Have you heard of it, tried it?

So it's Monday again. I had a wonderful productive weekend. Saturday was writer's group and it was so good to be with writer peeps again. Sunday was just plain productive. I got all my chores done and watched a hockey game too.

On a really exciting note, the words are flowing and I'm on track to complete the short story/anthology submission I committed to. I love these two boys and I'm writing about a topic that is near and dear to my heart: hockey! (of course :0) I mentioned that one of my characters has to suffer from a disability, so I gave my hockey playing hero a concussion...

Why, you ask...?

Because, as the sports world has discovered, repeated concussions can cause severe, long term head trauma. Both the NFL and NHL have been involved in lawsuits in regards to CTE. The NHL settled their suit last fall, agreeing to pay players involved in the suit roughly $22K each without accepting responsibility. At least publicly and on the record. Probably because they have to continue to legally protect themselves.

As I have discovered during my journey through hockey fan girling, I have read article after article  about players suffering all kinds of conditions from repeated concussions. But back in the day, the hits to the head or huge hits to the body that potentially rattled the brain weren't treated seriously. A player was immediately sent back into the game. And now the consequences of repeated hits to and by what hockey calls enforcers or goons has come back to haunt these players. Luckily those types of players have been phased out of the game, but hockey is still a high speed, hard contact sport.

These days there are concussion protocols in place; as soon as player is hit in a fashion that could cause concussion, he is removed from the ice. Depending on the context and situation, the play is reviewed and consequences are doled out as necessary.

So my soapbox topic is that if you or you have children who play a contact sport, or any sport for that matter, or participate in any activities where there is the possibility of being hit in the head--treat a blow to the head seriously every time. Get treated by a doctor. Know the symptoms of concussions and be on the lookout for them.

I'm hoping that I can share the information via this anthology.

Anyway...here's to a great week.


Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Dallas Stars Watching Party!!!


Check off another great experience in this journey of being a hockey fan. Last night DD and I went to our first ever official watching party. While the team is on a road trip, fans are still gathering to watch and cheer.

Last night the watching party was at closer-to-home than usual venue, Texas Live. With a 100' screen and a wicked sound system, it was almost like being there.

It's hard to really get the scope of that screen, but it's BIG!


The Dallas Stars in arena announcer was there as well, providing many of the same announcements as if at a game--like announcing Dallas's goals when scored. There were also give-aways of tickets to an upcoming game as well as signed stuff. Sadly, neither DD or I won anything, but the experience was so fun.

So much so that we're attending the next one on Thursday. Which is mostly only possible because DD is enjoying spring break, so we're taking advantage.

Hope you're having a great week...as you can tell, I am!!




Monday, March 11, 2019

Monday, Monday...


Yep it's Monday, Monday yet again... It's cloudy and drippy out, and while I titled today's post the same as last Monday's post, it fits my mood...

It was an exciting and busy weekend, what with it being the Dallas Stars Season Ticket Holder Event--meaning come select your seats for the upcoming season. So we did. After some discussion with DH, we bumped up to a full season. And got some cool goodies because of it.

Just FYI, the half season's worth of games I attended this year was plenty, I am not ramping up my attendance at hockey games. We'll probably put the other half back into the secondary market, but at least we can go to all the games we want--like the giveaway nights without having to go buy tickets. We can also give some to employees and use others for clients.

It's been awhile since I talked about my 100 Things project, but I did finally weed out a few more items. It's getting to be a challenge now because mostly I've cleared out the stuff not given to me by friends and family. Now I have to overcome the guilt of giving away things that were purchased specifically for me or worse--hand made for me. The hand made stuff is harder.

My happy tracking is also going well. The little sticker rewards are, surprisingly, enough motivation to keep me going. The one thing I have not missed on doing every day, three times a day, is my dental hygiene, which is by far the most important thing. I still haven't come up with a reward, but I'm leaning heavily toward a pint of my favorite ice cream. But then again, that skews my exercise efforts, so I'm still pondering a option that's as satisfying as the ice cream, but not as calorie-laden.

Sunday was finally a "normal" day. DH was home, DD was home. I did chores and prepped for the week.

I also worked some on that anthology project I mentioned last week. If I'm going to participate I have to let the coordinator know today. I'm really nervous about it, but what's the worst that could happen? I don't finish and I'm not included. If I do get in, then I potentially reach new readers and the my sales to my other books gets a boost. So there's nothing really to lose....

Anyway, I hope y'all had a good weekend too. Catch you Wednesday.








Friday, March 8, 2019

The trouble with HOCKEY and EXCITEMENT for writing...


Let's start with the writing first. A friend of mine shared an opportunity to participate in an anthology. At first I dismissed it out of hand because the deadline for the 1st draft is just over a month out. There's no way I could write 10-15K in that time frame--is there? Well, yes there is. I can actually produce that many words in that time frame if I'm super focused.

But to get super focused and know where this story is going requires some pre-planning and that has been a struggle for me.

Another hurdle is the synopsis requirement. I have never written a synopsis in my life. I probably could if I knew the trajectory of the story because that's all a synopsis is--a quick and dirty road map of the story along with a few extra details.

That circles back to the pre-planning.

Like I said, at first I just told myself I couldn't do it. But as I worked on a proofreading job, ideas started niggling at me. I didn't allow those ideas free reign because I really needed to finish that proofreading job and send it back to the author.

But once I completed my responsibilities...I opened the floodgate. I thought about the characters, as well as about the main requirement of this submission--that one character be dealing with a disability. That was the easy part.

Could I spew out 10K in a month's time?

Can I come up with well-rounded characters and a plausible plot that I could pull off in those 10K to 15K words and the 1 month I've been given?


I really want to do it because it's sparked an excitement in me about writing that's been lacking.

I have until Monday to decide. No pressure.

One of the reasons that writing has taken a back seat and been hard to focus on lately is hockey. (This is the trouble part of the post's title.)

Now that I'm a partial season ticket holder, I pay way more attention to the team. I mean obviously, right? I have these tickets that I pre-paid for, I'm going to the games. Going to that many games means I'm even more invested in the team and their progress through the season, their place in the standings.

Last year by this time, the team had gone on a ten game losing streak and had lost any hope of making it to the playoffs. I was only attending a game here and there. Not much investment on my part. The rest of the season was for individual players to better their stats as much as they could.




This year, though! Partial season tickets! New coach, new system, new hope!! We've been in a playoff position all year, despite a revolving door of injuries to key players.

Now we're staring down the last fifteen games of the season and in a dog fight every day for our place in the standings. There are four teams vying for those two wild card slots I talked about a couple of weeks ago. There are five points separating those four teams. We beat one of those teams last night. A team we hadn't yet beaten this year. It was a huge win on more than one level.

So, yeah, my head is full of hockey hockey Stars hockey and not very full of writing writing writing.

I need to learn to balance, manage, and compartmentalize....

Today and this weekend...working on characters and plot for this anthology. If I can get a good enough head start, I might just throw my hat in. Also, though, this weekend >>> HOCKEY!!

Be loud. Wear green. GO STARS!!

Have a great weekend.



Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Someone paid good money for that??


I'm talking about commercials. For any of us who watch television, commercials are inevitable. Most of them are fine. I have no problem with the pitch. I use that time to do chores or run to the restroom or brush my teeth or whatever.

There are two commercials in my locale, one that I can't believe someone agreed to pay money for and one that makes me laugh every time because of the exaggerated truth of it.

The hated commercial is, I think, a tax-filing product of service. I can't remember and sure don't care. :0) It has various iterations; a game show and a courtroom, that I can recall off the top of my head, but all the people in commercial say is FREE in various inflections and tones.

SO STINKIN' STUPID.

But...

The one I love is a commercial for TXU Energy, a local electricity provider. This is a very abbreviated version, but you get the gist.

It cracks me up every time.

Do you have a favorite or a hated commercial?? Please share. :0)

Monday, March 4, 2019

Monday, Monday...


Yeah, Friday was a busy, busy day for me and I just couldn't make it over here. Writing up these blog posts can take longer than you might imagine. Not always, no, but sometimes.

Friday when I arrived home, I saw a box on my porch. I hadn't ordered anything, but it could have been for DD. Lo and behold though, it was a package from my Grandma in Denmark.She sent me lovely assortment of goodies, both nostalgic and edible.

Danish licorices--of which I'm very fond--and a little wooden Danish flag.

A picture of 3- or 4-year-old me and a little dress I wore at that age.

Also included was a small little roses-are-red poem I had written for my grandma, as well as some lovely little actual tea service spoons. I had apparently told her at some point that I love teaspoons and now I have some, lol. I did pass those on to DD as she is the spoon lover these days and not me.

I hope you had a lovely weekend. Catch you Wednesday.