Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 48

The Notebook Problem

I might have mentioned I have a problem with notebooks. I love them and buy them even when I have no need for them.

Someone posted a link to some really cute hardcover notebooks and I toodled over just to look at them. Look, not buy. But they were so cute! I couldn't resist. I ordered two of them.

I thought they were coming from South Korea. Yes, I know, but they were cute! It turns out they were shipping from China. I wasn't sure what I was getting, but the quality was excellent and the shipping time from China to the US wasn't bad. However, it did take my package 2.5 weeks to go from a post office facility 30 miles from my house, to my mailbox. :-/

The books came in boxes that were gorgeous. I'm going to have to keep them even after I start using them.

The paper is very thick, I believe 160 gsm, which is the thickest I've ever bought before this. I really don't need that kind of thickness since I don't do watercolors or any other kind of art. Sadly, I have zero artistic talent and will only use them for writing, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the paper.

These are for bullet journaling, so there are dots and not lines. I miss the pre-made index that a lot of bullet journals have these days, but that's a minor quibble. There is the elastic strap that keeps the book closed and two ribbons to mark where you're at.

There's a pocket in the back of the books which is a feature I really appreciate. I have another book that I actually am using right now and it doesn't have that folder in back, something I really needed. And both notebooks came with paperclips in shapes. If you can see in the top picture, that one is copper and in the shape of a planet.

The other amazing thing is the page edges. OMG!

I'm trying to get over my "these are too nice to use" mindset, but wow, they are almost too nice to use. I still have them stored in their boxes, waiting for something important enough to use them for.

Word of the Year

I don't think I talked about my word of the year for 2021 yet. At first, I didn't think I was going to do a word of the year. Then I thought I would go with 2020's phrase since it was such a weird year and it probably wouldn't hurt to refocus on that.

But I had a phrase going through my head over and over and I realized it was important for 2021. Hmm, I thought, maybe I'll go with another phrase this year.

As I was debating it, someone in one of my planning groups posted a link to a website that helps people come up with their word of the year. (Please don't ask me what it is. I didn't save it and it's a group with a lot of activity so looking for it would be hard.) I went to this website and answered the questions. One of them had an answer that was my exact phrase. At the end of the quiz, it offered a number of options.

I chose Believe.

This is about believing in myself. Trusting that I'm enough.

Every year since 2019, I've printed the word out in vinyl and put it up on my office wall, right in the middle of my kanban board. The picture above is my word. The sun was coming in the windows when I took the picture, making the gold vinyl shine.

So this is my word of 2021. I hope that I can embrace this energy and believe in me.

Review: Holidate

Over Christmas, I caught up on a lot of movies. Let me rephrase that--A lot of movies for me. I generally have a hard time watching movies because of plot holes, but I had a pretty good run in December. I'm going to talk about them off and on.

First up. Holidate.

This is on Netflix. I heard about it when I saw another author online complaining about how crude and crass and unwatchable the movie was because of this. But everything she complained about made Holidate sound intriguing. I had to watch it.

I loved it! Enough that I want to watch it again and I rarely do that.

Is it a perfect movie? No, it isn't. Is it fun? I thought so. Is there swearing? Hell, yes! :-)

Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) agree to be each other's holiday dates throughout the year. Sloane picked this up from her aunt who has a different boyfriend at every holiday. She doesn't even remember their names, that's how fungible they are for her. Sloane is on a path to becoming a lot like her aunt. Until she meets her Holidate. The more holidays Sloane and Jackson spend together, the more feelings develop between them.

It's a romantic comedy so I don't think I'm spoiling anything with the feelings part.

First, this isn't only a Christmas movie. They spend all the other holidays together, too, including St Patrick's Day, Independence Day, etc. So just because it's March, don't think you can't watch it now.

Second, it does have some crudeness, so if you're someone who doesn't like this kind of thing, I'd recommend avoiding it.

That said, I thought Sloane and Jackson were cute together and I thought the script kept them true to character throughout the movie. The actors playing these parts had real chemistry between them and I was rooting for them throughout the film.

I'm giving Holidate 4.5 stars and two thumbs up. Highly recommended, with caveats.

Spelling Bee

 

[image error] One of my addictions is the New York Times crossword puzzles. I have the app and work on puzzles when I've got downtime. A while back, I don't remember when, I noticed something new. A word game called Spelling Bee.

I tried it. I got hooked. And now I'm behind on the crosswords because I'm spending my puzzle time on this new game.

Spelling Bee is deceptively simple. There are 7 letters in a honeycomb and the goal is to make as many words as you can out of them. With a few caveats. All the words must contain the center letter. No names. No jargon/obscure words. No adult words. There might be a few other rules, but I can't think of them at the moment.

There are points. One point for four letter words. For words of more than 4 letters, you get one point per letter. The pangram--the word that uses every letter in the puzzle at least once--nets extra points. There are different levels. I used to think Genius was the best, but I discovered if I get every word in the puzzle, there's a new level. Queen Bee.

I love words and readers have large vocabularies. And I've always been a voracious reader. Before I started writing, I used to read a book a day. Reaching Genius on most days was pretty normal. Not always, of course. And sometimes I didn't have the time to try, but usually.

Queen Bee, however, is another matter. Now that I discovered it, I want to reach it every day. The problem is that there seem to always be words in the puzzle that I've never heard of before. Some of them I get through just punching in letter combinations. Some of them I do some online searches for.

And then I discovered #spellingbee Twitter.

I haven't been on Twitter for years. It stresses me out and I already have issues with anxiety. But Spelling Bee Twitter is fun. And everyone is willing to offer hints when someone else is struggling with a word. I love how helpful everyone is.

So if you have the NYT Crossword app, check out Spelling Bee. It's addictive fun!

Let Me Complain About Griff

I'm trying to decide if I talk too much about writing and my stories or not enough about them.

On the one hand, I can go on and on about minute details (usually about the characters) that I worry interest no one but me. On the other hand, if you're here to read about my stories and the process of writing them, then I might not be writing enough about these types of topics.

Griff (big surprise) is being a PITA about sharing information. If you've read the two earlier Paladin League books then you won't be surprised by this. To be honest, I'm not surprised because I have a lot of difficult characters who don't like to expose their secrets, not even to me, but I was hoping that he would be different.

Griff's full name is Jonah Theodore Griffin, but he goes by JT or Griff. And yes, his parents called him JT. They didn't like Jonah Theodore any more than he does, but they're family names and they didn't feel as if they couldn't name him this.

For a while, I thought maybe he'd been sweet on Langley (Wicked Obsession) because she calls him Jonah, but I'm pretty confident now that it isn't true. I think she calls him Jonah because he couldn't tell her not to call him that. Griff is a soft touch when it comes to women, especially women who need help.

The thing that is interesting to me is that he thinks of himself as Griff as much as JT. Apparently, he picked up the nickname when he was about fourteen.

I know Griff's father died when he was young, but his mother didn't remarry until he was in high school. This is where his need to protect women came from. He tried to protect and take care of his mom after his dad was killed.

Has he told me much else about his past? No. I hope there aren't any surprises waiting for me, but he wouldn't be the first character to spring something on me late in the writing.

Genetics Predictions

 

I had an email from 23 and Me recently. Or at least I clicked the link recently. The email might have been sitting in my inbox for a while before I had time to take a look at it. There was a new genetic report available that would predict my wake up time. Cool.

I scrolled down the page and stared in amazement...at how WRONG they were.

After looking at several hundred places on my genes, they determined that I was a morning person and that I woke up naturally around 7:30 am. Gah!

I'm not sure they could have been more wrong if they'd tried. When I'm off from work long enough to fall into my natural sleep pattern, I usually stay up until about 2am and wake up around 10 or 11 the next morning.

I have all the hallmarks of a night person. I get a second wind around 8pm. I wake up groggy and unable to function until I've had enough caffeine. I have a hard time going to bed after I get my second wind because I'm ready to go. Even on days where I've gotten up early, I can easily stay up until after 11pm without issues. Because nighttime is my time of day.

Mornings? Bah.

When I was a kid, my mom knew not to talk to me when I first got up. She knew to have the fewest amount of lights on that she could. I shied away from brightness like a vampire from garlic. In fact, you still can't talk to me when I first get up in the morning. Seriously. My dad, who lives with me since my mom died, waves at me because he knows not to talk to me unless I talk first.

Um, 23 and Me? You need to rethink which genes you're looking at. Me? Wake up at 7:30 in the morning? Voluntarily? It'll never happen.

Countries of the World

I was watching television recently and the show mentioned Nepal and Sardinia. It also mentioned some historic locations in both places. Interesting historic locations that I'd never heard of before.

It dawned on me then how little I know about other countries in the world. Even countries I'd visited. I mean, I knew about the places I'd seen, but what about the rest of the country? For example, Australia is huge. I saw a lot of their east coast, I made it into the outback to visit Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, but I never made it to the west coast.

This seemed like something I could fix. Even if there's no way to visit every location on the planet, I could certainly read up on them.

I started by learning more about Sardinia since it was one of the places that started me thinking. I'm not sure I can remember what I read even a week or so later, which kind of defeats the purpose.

But so many of the websites I pulled up were travel related. What to do while you're visiting. Hotels. Restaurants. Events. That wasn't what I was looking for.

Other websites offered dry facts. Population. Demographics. Income distribution. Currency used. Language(s) spoken. Again, not exactly what I was looking for. But maybe the type of experience I'm looking for doesn't exist? I want something that will give me the information and a feeling for the country and the people who live there.

I guess I'll keep doing some online searches.

Hardcover Notebooks

 

I'm in love with hardcover notebooks, but I only own a few because they seem too good to write just anything in. It's difficult to figure out what qualifies as special enough. But I started a pandemic journal when COVID first broke out, and after much dithering, I did use one of my hardcover notebooks.

As the months went on (and on and on) and I wrote in this book more and more, I realized that I didn't need a special reason to use a hardcover notebook. I could use one just because I like them.

It was revelatory!

I might have blogged before about saving the good things for special events, but notebooks seemed different from new slippers.

And the notebooks I bought that have the high quality paper? Why not use those, too? What's the occasion going to be? Why even own them if I'm not going to use them?

So that's my plan for 2020. I'm going to write in the good notebooks...as soon as I figure out what I want to write down.

Gift Quandry

My dad has a birthday coming up and he is so hard to buy for because he has no hobbies that require objects to pursue.

The gifts I've bought him in the past that he really liked are still in use. Like the giant word search puzzle book. He works on those puzzles a couple of times a week, but the book is thick and he's not finished with it yet. So no more puzzle books

I bought him a Cubs World Series polo shirt in 2016, but he only wore that a couple of times and he really doesn't need more clothes, so that's out.

And asking him what he wants? Fruitless endeavor. At Christmas, I finally told him I'd surprise him because he couldn't come up with anything. I did a search for "gifts for seniors" and ordered one item from there and I also got him a lightweight sweatshirt. He actually does need this because he wore his other one so thin you can see his T-shirts through it, but that's a gift idea that won't need to be repeated for a while.

Despite how hard he is to buy for, I want to get him something. He gets so excited about every gift he receives. Maybe because I'm pretty much the only one who buys him anything. So I will mull this over for a while longer and maybe something will come to me.

I just wish he had some kind of hobby that involved tools or materials. It would make it so much easier.

HOA Bland

 

As I looked out my window recently, I realized how bland and boring most of the houses are around me. (This picture is my house in summer.) It's winter, the grass is brown, the trees have no leaves, and all the houses are beige. Mostly the same shade of beige.

Some of it is people wanting a neutral house color. The house I had built when I lived in Minnesota was also a beige color, so it's not as if I don't understand. The difference is that my neighborhood up north had houses of many other colors. Here? Everything is beige around me.

I blame the Homeowners Association to a large degree. We have drive through inspections and woe be to the family that has a few weeds in their yard or has their garbage can visible from the street. They even have to approve what color you paint/stain your fence.

Um, I didn't know this when I had my fence painted, but I chose a nice, neutral, unoffensive stain, so I didn't get squawked on the inspection tour.

The blandness isn't quite as noticeable when everything is green. Maybe you can see this in the picture? The green seems to offset the beige and make it seem nice. In winter, though, it just adds to the dreariness.