My Brother Carl, A Hair Stylist?

My brothers, Tom and Carl, traveled from Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with my other two brothers, Bob and John, me and other family members. 

This is Carl.

And this is Carl.

And this is Carl and his granddaughter, Abby.  All of these photos were taken two years ago.  I should have taken photos at Thanksgiving this year.  Duh!  Carl is wearing his hair shorter with some spiking going on.  He really should consider becoming a hair stylist!! 

Although Carl isn't officially a hair stylist, he told me that my hair was too long in a couple of places near my temples.  I asked him if he wanted to fix it for me.  He said he would so I gave him a pair of scissors and held still for him.  He very carefully used the scissors to snip away the hair that was out of line.  Voila!  When I looked in the mirror I could see that he was right.  Although I had been frustrated with my hair, I had assumed my hair stylist had left it longer in those areas because my hair is so straight that it sometimes won't lie down if it's too short.  After Carl's snipping, my hair is behaving quite nicely and I'm so glad he was assertive, pointed out the problem and made it better.      

How many of you would trust your brother to "fix" your hair?

Where's Shaddy?

This is just a quick note to let you know that I haven't buried myself under the rather large number of words I've written to date for NaNoWriMo 2011.  I'm happy to report that I'm right on target if I'm to reach 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th. 

I'm writing approximately 1,667 words each day.  If I continue at that rate, I'll finish my novel this month and be a NaNo winner.  Today is day 17.  My total word count after today's writing is 28,427, just a smidgen ahead of schedule. 

If you like to write, it's really not hard to write 1,667 words in a day.  If you've never tried, I'd like you to encourage you to do it.  You might be pleasantly surprised, in fact, I bet you will.

Thanks for checking on me. 

NaNoWriMo #3

At the last minute, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo again.  National Novel Writing Month challenges individuals to write a 50,000 word novel in one month.  Traditionally, this challenge takes place in November.  I was drinking wine on the afternoon of October 29th.  Under the influence, I decided I would commit myself to a month of writing again this year.    

On November 1st, I wiped down my desktop with Windex, straightened up other areas in the room (all delaying tactics) and took a deep breath.

I bought this bottle along with a few others on Sunday, after I decided to do the novel writing thing.

I've never indulged in this particular wine.  It was inexpensive, $3.99 a bottle.  I was attracted to the label and the cute description. 

In preparation, I wrote this title for my written work.  That's the sum total of my preparation.  I don't like to follow rules; I'd rather fly by the seat of my pants.  Oh, I did buy the wine in preparation as well.  I promised myself never to write a word until I've at least had one sip of wine. 

Time waits for no man.  (I heard that somewhere).  I could have started writing at 12:00 midnight and here it was, 3:47 PM.  I'd put in 4 hours at my job, raked leaves and wiped the dust off my desk.  It was MY time.  I poured myself a glass of wine...

...stared at the blank screen and began to write.



That was Tuesday, the first.  Today is Saturday, the 5th day into the month.  I've written my daily quota of 1,667 words every day.  My present word count is 8,575.  

So far, so good.

One bottle down and, at this rate, another five to go. 

What's not to love about this? 

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