Noisy neighbors 

This morning, I heard quite the fuss outside and had to go out to tell them to quiet down. But then what can you expect from the local murder?

crows in tree and on the wing
more crows in trees


I got a slow start on NaNoWriMo, but I caught up today — today’s count was 3,744, putting me at 5,262 for the month. Yay for being back on track!

Part of what helped (though not all of it) was checking out 4thewords.com — a gamified site where you defeat monsters and gain loot by writing a certain number of words in a given time frame. If I’m still enjoying the site at the end of the month, I might subscribe — $4/month isn’t an unreasonable price. One more tool in the productivity quiver!

Watermelon nights

Today’s subject line brought to you by this earworm that a friend gifted me with to cheer me up:

Good day. Finished a freelance job, visited the library, bought a watermelon from a farm stand (as I said, earworm), and managed to track down the particular notebook our son needs for one class. And I wrote 152 words and finished off the current scene.

This week, as I try to catch up loose ends and make sure the kids get off on the right foot for school, my goal is at least 100 words a day. Next week, it can go up again.

Unexpected joys

Friday, I was supposed to go to the library, but with everything else I did, I felt much too frazzled. So some books were overdue.

My daughter and I went today (Saturday) and discovered that they were having a birthday party for their pet lizard, complete with live music and birthday cake.

Excuse the blurriness at the beginning of this one. So amazed at the girl’s voice.

And this one, I’m including because bagpipe.

Oh, and I wrote 502 words after staying up late doing freelance work that I have to get out the door. I cannot believe I am this far behind!

Friday slump

Well, only a writing slump, but I did still get words.

I got about half the remaining chapters for Treachery of Doubt edited today, plus made some good strides on planning out the next urban fantasy.

Words written today: 354
Words written 2017: 39,194
Average words/day 2017: 1,452
Books completed 2017: 1
Pages read: 2 chapters
Books read 2017: 1
Exercise reps: 0

Feeling really tired — looking forward to sleeping in both days of the weekend. Saturday’s going to be some freelance work and visiting the library. Sunday, my daughter and I are on for an hour of Girl Scout cookie sales, but I think the rest of the day is free.

Friday bit of cuteness:

If that’s not enough cute for you, check out the #cuteanimaltweetoff on Twitter.

What’s up with you? Do you have any fun or exciting weekend plans? Have you seen cute pictures lately? Drop a note in the comments!

A little summer music

Summer? Well, the song puts me in mind of summer. My daughter’s been practicing a song they’re doing for the spring concert next month, which means it’s been running through my head fairly nonstop. To appease the earworm, I pulled up a YouTube video, which I now share with you.

No, no, it really is April!

You just can’t see the flowers today because of the snow.

  
No, really, the ridiculous part is that you can see the flowers because although it’s been snowing for hours, not a speck has stuck. Anywhere.

What’s new in your neck of the world?

An evening of song and beauty

Every year, Moravian College (and the associated seminary) have Vespers services for two weekends in December. The nondenominational* service begins with music (chorus, brass ensemble, woodwind trio, guitar ensemble, and flute troupe this year), moves to liturgy (including songs, readings, and prayer), and concludes with more music, partially in candlelight (choir, congregation, brass ensemble, and organ). We haven’t gone often (children squirm), but this year we did. Continue reading

Coolest music video I’ve seen this week

I never really thought about how a guitar could sound like a harpsichord.

How I found it: Laughing Squid had a post about the animated score for Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. My daughter and I watched it, loving the different colors for the different instruments, the length of the bars for the length of the notes, how the vertical position corresponded to pitch — so then I clicked through to Stephen Malinowski’s website to watch more.

If you click through to listen and watch more, let me know what your favorite is!