Relocating

I just realized that I had totally dyslexicized the url here. Soooooo, I'm relocating to http://brittna.blogspot.com/. The blog title is still the same, though: This Girl's Life. No more dyslexic mistakes....in the official stuff anyway!

My Bad

I just realized that my time was still set to Tokyo time! LOL! I just fixed it, though :)

Most of These Are Real

So, I was just peeking around the internet and found this post at the Books and Writers Community. It sends you here, to someone's compiled list of their most noticed 25 tropes in YA fiction. I checked out the list, and pretty much knew someone in Jr. High or High School that matched the cliche for each and every one. Well, except for #18. My friend's son is the cutest little boy in the world and describes his own skin as caramel. And nearly half of the things listed fit me personally in some way. I might not be a teen, but I do raise one eyebrow, chew on my lip (and twirl my hair when I'm thinking or stressed or nervous, too), have a best friend with red hair, make lists (obviously), and I used to bite my finger nails (until I wanted to stop, then I switched to pen tops and gum, which I still do). Ok, so that's not like half, but that's enough.

I'm not complaining really, and I don't read enough YA to have much of a say. But I do agree that sometimes certain elements in books just show up too often. I just read the Twilight series, and if I read one more line that talks about crooked smiles I think I'm gonna throw up. Not only cause it's overdone in this series (seriously, does the guy walk around with his face half way contorted ALL the freaking time?!), but I've seen it a lot in other books, too.

Just thought I'd share, for anyone that hasn't seen that yet.

I Have Returned

My recent interest in reading other people's blogs, has made me much more aware of how badly I fail at keeping mine up to par... or updated at all. Since most of the blogs I read regularly are on Blogger anyway, I don't think it should be all that difficult for me to simply click the dashboard link once in a while (I'm aiming for once a week; props if I can manage more!), and type a few lines.

The most exciting thing that's happened today, is a won a round against Tricare. The base clinic finally has somebody to do what I need done, so they were refusing a referral. But....tricky me... I called the place I wanted to go (back to, I've been there before), and I still have 3 referrals left that are still good until Jan '09. So stick that in your juice box and SUCK IT Tricare!!! Your evil will not win here...because I am simply too awesome.

The most unexciting thing that's happened today, is I realized that the speeding ticket I got on the way to Myrtle Beach on Father's Day is also a summons. That means that I DO have to drive all the way back there to "appear before the trial officer". Maybe it will be a lovely day and we can go to the beach that afternoon. lol!

In other news, on Friday I pulled out an old project (we're talkin circa Jan '99) and decided to finally make something of it. I've fiddled with it here and there, "researching" (which really means printing out pages and pages that I never looked at), and thinking of an actual plot for the story (along with some actual characters....that don't suck). I am excited to say, that so far I've made a lot of progress developing the main character. Oh, and the plot is much more there now, too. I think I've just got a few more things to figure out so that I don't get stuck, and then I can actually get to writing. I'm totally excited about it, and can't wait to see if I can stay focused long enough to follow all the way through!

I Finally Did It!

After a very long absence from blogging this month (i foresee next month as being perhaps worse) to, among other things, magically come up with a palatable plot for my noveling that begins tomorrow, I am very pleased to say that I have been successful. Just this afternoon, I finally got some time to myself (ok, my lil baby was sleeping on the bed next to me, but that counts as alone) where I could listen to my MP3 player, and lay out all my random little notebooks and scraps of paper and finally do some real brainstorming. An hour later I emerged victorious!

Now, all I need are characters and to do a small bit of research online. The later can wait until tomorrow, however, I do need at least one character to get the ball rolling. So, here we go. I'm pretty much ready. The only other thing I need to do to prepare for this month long event is to mix up my music on that MP3 player so that it'll work more with what I'm writing.

Green Beans and Squash

WooHoo! We are on solids...more liquidy than solid, but still, it's more than formula! Last Thursday we started Jackson on green beans, a day after his doctors visit where we got the go a head. He'd already been on cereal off and on for about a month, and we had added applesauce here and there. But now we're on to the jarred foods. He loves them! And he does so good with them. We did 6 days of green beans for dinner to make sure there were no allergies, and tonight we tried squash for the first time. He wasn't as excited about that as the other, but ate happily just the same.

In other news, Lydia (my sister) and I have been bustin our asses trying to find her a job. We're getting closer, if you can measure closeness in terms of applications filled out and returned. She's waiting on call backs for some food related jobs, and today we got some for waitressing. She's not really into it, but a job's a job, and when you have negative dollars, anything is awesome. We've both been trying to eat no processed sugars, and more whole foods. Just doing it for a little over week I've lost 3 pounds. Nice. She only weighed herself this morning for the first time since the beginning of time, so we'll find out this time next week how she does. Today we DDRed wicked hard, for like ever. Just for fun, but it was like exercise.

And I'm about to start getting my shit together to do NaNoWriMo next month. I'm super excited about it, but need to do some character profiles or something, and maybe try to come up with a plot. That would be nice. I really want to do this, but I so have a lack of creativity thanks to post-partum-leftover-pregnant-brain. We'll see what happens thought. It is a whole month worth of doing.

Do You Have Any Idea

how hard it is to clip a baby's finger nails? not so much the actual act of clipping, but being able to find a time when the baby is sleeping soundly and you actually can spare those few precious moments that he's sleeping to do something unselfish. i just clipped Jackson's. and i'm very lucky, he slept through it, and continued sleeping when i was finished. this isn't always the case. very often my deciding to clip his nails means that i forfeit a meal, or shower, or chore so that his nails will be trimmed and he will be safe from scratching himself. the doctor told us not to use nail clippers. whatever. what else are you supposed to use? i've heard of people biting their baby's nails. gross. i've also heard of people using grooming scissors. that sounds much more dangerous. i use grown-up nail clippers. they have more snap than the baby ones. i've been very lucky and have not injured my baby once while clipping his nails. i rock. the doctor also said not to try to round out the nails. yeah right! then the corners are wicked sharp and seem to me an even bigger hazard than long nails. long story short, i rock at cutting my baby's finger nails.

What Were You Doing?

on 9/11/2001? i bet a lot of people remember it pretty clearly. i know what i was doing. it was tuesday and i only had like 2 classes that day, and my science class started at like 10. so, me and my roommate at school were getting ready for our classes, and i was flipping through the channels looking for Saved by the Bell. funny huh? we tuned in not long before the second plane hit. i remember asking her if she thought it was real. i watched coverage all day (totally skipped my classes. i think the afternoon classes got canceled anyway), until i had to go to work that night. i remember thinking: there's no way anyone's going to be there. the country has come to a stand still and i have to go slice meat and cheese. nice. it was obviously a slow night, and up in the break room more coverage was on the tv. one of the older guys from the meat room was up there. i think he was getting ready to go home. but he couldn't believe it. i think this has been like the JFK assassination for our generation. everyone that was around then remembers what they were doing when they heard about that. and everyone remembers what they were doing when they found out about this.