Friday Fun

Friday, Friday, FRIDAY!!

The beginning of the weekend is here and so am I, Yvie, to usher in some fun to get us through one more day.

Now, if only we can get through this weather

backyard

 

 

one of our drain spouts

But let's get to it!

 

 

 

replace liquor pictures with cats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Honey Island Swamp Monster

In 1963 Louisiana native Harlan Ford saw a creature in the swamp he had never seen before.

Ford was a retired air traffic controller who had taken up wildlife photography when he claimed to see a creature now dubbed the Honey Island Swamp Monster.

The creature was purported to be bi-pedal, with gray hair or fur, yellow or red eyes and about seven feet tall. It also supposedly stank, much like skunk-ape (which, I realize, is a post I'll need to do in the future)

Sightings have been rare, but footprints have ben found.  These differ from the usual bigfoot/sasquatch footprints in that they only have three toes and are webbed.

 

 

 

 

In 1974 Ford and a friend claimed to find footprints in the area of his first sighting and supposedly found the body of a boar with a torn out throat.

After Ford's death in 1980, a super 8 film was found among his belongings that showed the creature in the wild.

 

So, the Honey Island Swamp Monster. thoughts? Theories?

In Which I Had A Birthday

Yes my birthday was a few weeks ago, but as a family it's been stretched out for the whole month. Technically it's still going on, since we have one more dinner and a few more presents.

Sometimes twin and I get each other presents and sometimes we don't. It all just depends on how we're feeling each year. And the money sitch, of course.

This year money is tight. But we still decided to get each other presents. But we're way behind on them. But I've gotten presents from everyone else in the fam which is awesome.

Two of my favorite presents this year is this awesome Le Creuset French oven from my parents

And this awesome immersion blender from my Bro. I gots a lot of cooking to do to break these babies in.

But aren't they peeerty?

I love getting cooking stuff for presents. Because I like food and I like to cook so it's like more than one present, because you get the thing, and it comes with an opportunity to do some fun cooking and an opportunity to hopefully eat something nummo.

What about you? Do you like to cook?

Friday Fun

Woo! Hi, Ape-friends!

Yvie here, so you know what that  means. It's time for another edition of Friday Fun to launch you into the weekend!

 

 

get outta here, weekdays!

 

 

Before we get into that, though, I will say that my teeth cleaning went well and so did my lump removal, which turned out to be nothing, so yay! I've got a clean bill of health.

Let's get this fun started!

 

 

 

world's smallest aquarium

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Wednesday Weird: Mississppi Howl

Is this my first Wednesday Weird of 2014? I think it is!

Well then, time to start the year off with something fun! And something local (for me).

On February 13th, at about 4 in the morning, residents of St. Paul neighborhoods were awoken to a weird sound.

A kind of eerie howling. Some people said it sounded a lot like whale song, or possibly a bad horn player, but louder than any horn can blow.

At first people thought it was from a construction site, but officers checked it out and realized that it may have been coming from the Mississippi.

Both the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service have jurisdiction over the river and both said they weren't initially sure what the sound was and that they're still investigating.

It's most likely ice shifting on the river. Some people in Duluth, which is situated on Lake Superior, have said they've heard the same sound from the lake which makes it seem likely. But also, there are cases of this type of sound being heard elsewhere around the world in the last few years, and some of these places don't sink to freezing temperatures.

 

Compilation video, so some of the clips are better than others. Check out the one around the 8 min mark at the FL Baseball game, though. That's one of my favs

 

 

 

So, what are your thoughts?



In Which I Hodge-Podge

Bit of a mix post today. Mostly because I'm just so frickin' busy.

I spent the last two weeks doing revisions on ATR for the agent (tee hee). I tried to pump them out as fast as possible, for multiple reasons, but I also didn't want to do them so fast that the quality suffered, you know? But I think I did a good job. I definitely felt accomplished when I sent them back to Mollie.

And now I have two weeks to finish up my MFA assignments for my first packet, which is due on the 4th. I've already written my 40 pages, which is great, but I haven't revised them at all yet. Which is not great. I was also hoping I'd have another 40 or more pages done, so I'd be prepared for the next packet, but no such luck. I'm hoping that the next few weeks will be a little less hectic so I can start putting out some daily pages for it. I haven't yet reached the "I love this story" phase yet, which makes writing pages not as fun as I know it could be. But hopefully that will happen soon.

I also need to write a 5 page paper for my packet. I've read the book and I know my topic and some of the thoughts I want to tackle etc., but I still need to do it, and even though I wrote a paper to get accepted into the MFA, I'm still out of practice with paper writing, so I'm a biiiiiit worried. Not too much, but I'll feel a lot better once it's done.

And I have to write a process letter, which shouldn't be that difficult.

And, of course, at some point I need to get back to my reading list. I was burned out on reading a bit, so I took a break to read some NF, but once that's done, I need to get back into the saddle and start plowing through that MFA list.

Yesterday, I visited my good friend T.L. Conway's writing group. I'm a people person, so I always like meeting other local writers. It was honestly a big reason for why I wanted to do the MFA.

So I visited their writing group and we worked on queries and it was a lot of fun!

Tonight I have my own writing group. My goal was to start bringing my WIP for critiques, but since I haven't revised them yet, I decided to hold off until the next meeting. I just didn't want to rush it and feel even more stressed.

Lastly, I've got some news on the blogging front. I was invited to be a contributing blogger for YA Confidential! 

True story, I was always a bit jealous of peeps who were part of group blogs, so I was so flattered to be asked and I jumped at the opportunity. I haven't written a blog post for it yet, because of the aforementioned "business" of my current life, but I hope I do soon. But in the mean time, my operative profile has been posted and I've participated in a roundtable and the From the Vault questions and it's been a lot of fun, so maybe check it out!

So, what's up with you? Are you busy busy busy? Or are things a bit more sedate? Fill me in!
 

In Which I Pick Books

I read a crap ton of books in 2013. 103 or so, to be exact. I didn't know I had it in me. My goal was 62 and I thought that was going to be a stretch.

Guess I was wrong.

But in my usual spirit of things, it's time to pick the top 5 books I read in 2013. It's going to be harder than usual BECAUSE there are so many great books on my list, but nonetheless, it must be done.

Here they are, in no particular order:


WHITE CAT By Holly Black

This is one of those books that I wish I'd written. That's how much I loved this book and the whole trilogy. I've always been a fan of mob families and these books have that is spades, combined with magic.


STUPID FAST By Geoff Herbach

I read this book on my kindle, so I had no idea what it was about other than a kid who played football. Turned out it's sooo much more than that. Geoff Herbach said that he didn't even realize it was a sports book until he saw the cover

LOVE THIS BOOK. I seriously think everyone should read it. The voice is awesome, and there's sports and mental illness and discovering your past and all this awesome stuff that just makes a great YA book. I don't know anyone who doesn't like this book. Added bonus, Geoff Herbach is hilarious and amazing in real life.


OKAY FOR NOW By Gary Schmidt

This is one of those books that I would have never read on my own. It was on my MFA reading list and I dragged my feet a bit about it. I read the dust flap like 4 times, each time thinking "this is not going to be for me". But it turns out I was dead wrong. I was immediately hooked. So hooked that I started blabbing about it to twin almost immediately and made her read it, too, before I returned it to the library. She also loved it. Gary Schmidt does not treat his characters easy, and there is a lot of darkness, but also a lot of heart in this book. Don't let the cover or the dust jacket description fool you.


SPLIT By Swati Avasthi

I really wanted to like this book. I'd heard good things about it. Luckily my expectations were beyond met. Another book I made Twin read before I returned it to the library. I also plan to buy my own copy sometime in the future. It's nice to see a book on domestic abuse where things aren't wrapped up tidily and where there are permanent repercussions, sometimes, for kids who grow up surrounded by violence. Also, I love a good brother story.


DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE By Laini Taylor

I'd heard mixed things about this one. Mostly regarding the ending. I was told that pretty much the whole book was a prologue. I don't know if knowing that going in altered my opinion at all, but I loved this book. I loved the world, the characters the writing. Reading this book made me wish I could draw better so I could draw some badass fanart of the characters. I also love books where major magical things happen and the rest of society takes notice. It's refreshingly realistic for a book rooted firmly in the fantasy.



So, that's it! There were probably another 5 more that made the short list, and a few that I felt really bad that I couldn't include, but these were the books that I thought about all year after I finished them so I think they earned their place on my list.

How about you? Have you read any of these books? And what were some of your top reads you read this year?