Just in case you’re keeping count…

17148…
that is all I have to say..
I’ve used up my word quota for today..
brain hurts…

 

Horse racing and animal cruelty

Okay, okay, so I know that I’m going to get called unpatriotic for this one, especially since I do still call Melbourne home, and I know that you will all be sitting there rolling your eyes at the left wing hippie but I’m willing to accept all of that because you know what? This is my blog and I can cry if I want to!

Feel free to avert your eyes until we get back to regularly scheduled programming, this won’t take but a minute!

Here goes:

I don’t support the Melbourne cup.. there I said it! Let the backlash begin!

I’m all for a bit of fun, I’m for dressing up and having a day off in November (if you live in Melbourne that is), I totally support getting to drink beer at 2 oclock in the afternoon, I even don’t mind a bit of gambing, but I have really never understood the logic behind horse racing. To me, it has always just been animal cruelty. All that whipping for 30 seconds of race? I mean, lets face it, it’s animal exploitation.

In most cases, animal exploitation is frowned upon, look at circus animals for example, circuses with animals were all the rage a while back, but fell out of fashion – thank goodness for that – my question is this though, why is one form of animal exploitation acceptable and another form not? And in both cases here we are talking specifically animal exploitation for entertainment purposes.

And what about the thousands of horses who are bred each year specifically for racing but that aren’t fast enough? I’m pretty sure they are headed not for greener pastures but for the slaughter house.. and just because they didn’t run round a track fast enough! It doesn’t really seem fair.

And that’s only part of it, what about horses who get injured during races? I remember a couple of years back hearing about a horse that fell during one of the races on Melbourne Cup day (but not the actual Melbourne Cup), the horse had broken its leg, so they brought out some big blue screens so that no one could see what was happening and shot it right there on the track! According to some of the information I’ve read there are over 800 horses killed that way every year in the US alone – and that is just horses injured on the track! What about horses injured during training?

I also read about Lasix, which is a legal horse drug (as in legal within the horse race community – your horse can take it and still run) used to stop the bleeding in an injured horse’s lungs so that it can still race, albeit for a short amount of time.

Look, I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind, or to wake up next year and find you all boycotting the Melbourne cup, I don’t mind if you put on a nice hat and drink some champagne and head down to the TAB for a bit of a flutter, but if just one of you has read this and realised that you had just never thought about it that way before, then I’ll be happy. By all means enjoy the races, just make sure you’re a little bit aware of the cost first.

End transmission.

(and now I am heading off into NaNoWriMo world, because this time I really was procrastinating!)

 

Tuesday

I’m a little concerned that, according to my blog stats, my Guilty Pleasures post has been viewed 398 times in the last 3 days.. I know I’m not that interesting so I’m worried that I’ve accidentally been linked up to a random porn site or something!

This won’t be a long update, I’m saving all my words up for my NaNoWriMo novel: 11053 and counting! Woop!

But I wanted to come in and say hi.. so, HI!

Here are some photos of my garden today – I wasn’t procrastinating, really I wasn’t!

 

NaNoWriMo – The Honeymoon Period

Well it’s been 41 hours since the start of NaNoWrimo this year and so far so good. I’ve managed to stay super motivated and have churned out a lovely 6590 words so far. I credit my super successful start to Freedom, which has severely curtailed my procrastination impulses.. thank goodness for that! And, while writing 6590 words I’ve also managed to make a vegan soup, bake a walnut loaf, update my “other” blog with said recipes, watch 2 movies and get more than 16 hours sleep! All in all, things are coming along very nicely! Perhaps it’s the view that’s contributing to my super creative vibe at the moment..

(I know, I know, I keep putting up photos of the same thing, but I just love looking at this view so much that I figure you will too!)

Lets hope I can keep the momentum going with the word count and that my story continues to inspire me, instead of making me want to bang my head repeatedly on my desk, which is what happened when I got to about 8000 words in last years story.

In other news, I had my first ever trick-or-treater on halloween which was very exciting. I was so shocked when someone knocked on my door that I almost fell off my chair! It’s only the second time someone has knocked on our door in 3 months so you can understand my confusion! I answered the door to find this little guy:

I was so happy to have a trick-or-treater that I asked him if I could take a photo. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything to give him which I felt pretty bad about, I would have offered him an orange but I figure that is probably worse than getting nothing at all! He took it pretty well though, and I promised him that I would have lollies for him next year.

In rodent related news, I finally worked up the courage to come out of the bedroom for a whole half a day until my Mum sent me a nasty email about how mice can chew through walls and are probably climbing up the legs of my bed and crawling on me while I sleep and then I had a mini nervous breakdown and went back in to the bedroom (though, even the bedroom didn’t feel very safe thanks to her!). I’ve managed to coax myself out today, and so far so good, although I’m really hoping that my super electromagnetic mouse scarer-awayer arrives tomorrow.. I just don’t know if I can take much more of this!

Anyway, it’s 5:30 which means, it’s time to re-activate Freedom for the next 2 hours and see if I can churn out another 2000 words before the end of the day. Wish me luck!

 

My favourite blog post of all time

I’m sitting here in my bedroom (still hiding from the mouse) in my PJs with tears of laughter rolling down my face at this blog post. Sharni over at The Chronicles of Sharnia and I ‘met’ online last week, only to discover that we had actually met each other once in real life in her one horse town over a decade ago and that my ex – who shall only be known only as T-Do to protect the innocent guilty – was an old school buddy of hers. Earlier today Sharni asked for suggestions from her blog readers about some wacky things she could get up to and then write about.. in an effort to get herself out of her – cyberspace – shell..

Obviously from the resulting blog post you can tell what my suggestion was.. when I was dating good ol’ T-Do he would quite often drag me off to this particular one horse town to spend weekends with his parents and the only saving grace of those looong car drives was that at the end of it I would be able to have one of these delicious crab sticks.. it got to the point where the woman in the shop knew my name and order without me having to say a word (sad!).

After T-Do and I went our separate ways in a blaze of angst and broken marriage proposals (and a custody battle about a certain cat) I didn’t make it back to that one horse town, but I have dreamed of those crab sticks! I searched high and low for a suitable replacement and even after becoming a vegetarian I used to talk about them to Luke when as we ate psuedo soy crab sticks at Vegan Yum Cha in Sydney.

So Sharni, thank you very much for this wonderful blog post which has completely and utterly made my day (and I’m even updating my facebook BTAT to prove it!).

Here are some photos (credit to The Chronicles of Sharnia of course!)

 

NaNoProMo.. National Novel Procrastination Month

Well the rain may have brought the mice, but it was also responsible for some more glorious new flowers blooming in our yard so perhaps it can be forgiven. I did manage to get outside this afternoon but I’m back to hiding out in my bedroom at the moment.. there hasn’t been another mouse sighting yet (although this probably has more to do with the fact that I am hiding out in the bedroom than the mouse being gone) but I’m not taking any chances.

In non rodent related news, there is only 28 hours left until the NaNoWriMo kick off. For those of you who aren’t in the ‘Wrimo loop, basically the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, starting November 1st. Here is the lowdown from the website:

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2008, we had over 119,000 participants. More than 21,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

So, through the month of November one of two things will happen, either I will be so focused on my ‘Wrimo novel that you won’t hear a peep from me, or I will be so hell bent on procrastinating that I’ll be blogging, tweeting, commenting and facebooking like never before. Either option is fine, last year during a fit of NaNoWriMo procrastination I started my vegetarian food blog and I’ve managed to keep that alive now for the whole year, so good things do come from endless procrastination, even if it doesn’t happen to be the thing you are actually supposed to be working on.

Last year I didn’t make it through to the 50,000 finish line but this year I’m hoping to be a ‘Wrimo winner.. especially since successful completion means I can cross something new off my 101/1001 list, which I haven’t done in a really long time and really need to start working on again.

Anyway, wish me some novel writing luck!

 

Your Dream House

It’s Blog This time again. This weeks challenge has been lots of fun.. now if only I could actually live in my dream house!

Your dream home:

To our own personal ideal. If time/location/money/the rest of the world didn’t matter, where would you live? What would your house look like? Find pictures ofyour dream home.  What would the rooms look like? How would you furnish them? is it a beach house? Mountainside?  Huge backyard, or small courtyard? Farm or suburbia? Apartment overlooking the Eiffel tower or rustic farmhouse in Tuscany.  Is there a tree with a swing on it?  Do you have a fireplace, mantle covered in photos?  Is it a morroccon themed home/asian? Minimalist/shabby chic?

Design your perfect home for us.

Find pictures online and dream away.

Well, first things first, my dream house would be somewhere totally isolated, and somewhere really really beautiful. It would have rainforest views on one side and incredible ocean views on the other and our nearest neighbour would be miles and miles away. We would live somewhere warm – but not hot. And somewhere that always had a light wind so that we could always have our curtains blowing softly in the breeze. I would want to be able to hear the waves crashing on a nearby beach as I fell asleep at night, and I would want it to be warm enough to sit outside in the sunshine during the day but cool enough to sleep with a cozy doona at night.

Our dream house would be filled with cozy bedrooms so that no matter how many friends turned up at the same time everyone would always have somewhere comfortable and welcoming to sleep (the kids too!). We’d have lots of bathrooms so no one would ever feel rushed or crowded, and in every single room there would be somewhere really perfect to curl up with a good book and a glass of wine (or a cup of tea!). There would be LOTS of space for all my books and every single room would feel relaxed and cozy and happy.

We’d have a huge wooden deck looking out over the ocean with a massive square wooden dining table right in the middle where everyone could eat meals and watch the sun set. We would have a pool too, somewhere for the kids to have fun while the adults lazed the day away. On the deck would be a huge daybed filled with colourful cushions and there would be hammocks to enjoy the sunshine in.

The kitchen would be HUGE with heaps of bench space and room to really cook up a storm, there would be places to sit in there as well so that we could keep each other company while we cooked. We would have a huge walk in pantry for all our food supplies and alllll the gadgets that Luke wants to get that I won’t let him buy because we have no room.

In the backyard we would have a giant veggie patch with all sorts of wonderful things growing year round, including all sorts of fresh herbs. We would also have lots of fruit trees for making jam and chutney and flavoured iced tea.

Hmmm.. oh it sounds like heaven!

Here are some of my motivation pics

And P.S… there would be no mice!!

 

Snowstorms and Phobias

I think I may have jinxed us with my Springtime post last week. Yesterday afternoon we were unexpectedly enveloped in a snowstorm. Out of nowhere the temperature dropped, and the rain – which has been falling non stop for days and days and days – suddenly turned into snowflakes.. it was pretty spectacular actually. Unfortunately I was only able to get a couple of photos before my camera ran out of batteries, so I didn’t get to take any shots of the storm in full force but here are a couple of pics anyway:

A not so nice side effect of the strange weather was finding a mouse in my kitchen today. It’s pretty usual really, considering we live in the country, and it’s been raining for a week, and I’m sure that a regular person wouldn’t find it all that troublesome but I am not a regular person when it comes to mice. When it comes to mice I am a fully fledged scream-like-a-girl-and-jump-on-a-chair lunatic. The way I feel about rats and mice is almost bordering on a phobia actually and I’m ashamed to admit that when I saw the mouse I didn’t just scream like a girl and jump on a chair, in fact, I screamed like a girl, jumped on a chair and then ran away and locked myself in the bathroom for half an hour. I’m not really sure what the logic behind the bathroom escape was, but what can I say? Fear is not rational!

I haven’t been back into the kitchen yet, when I finally managed to coax myself out of the bathroom I was only able to get as far as the bedroom and that is where I have been for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily my laptop was already in here otherwise I’m not sure what I would have done with myself, although I have to say I’m starting to get a bit hungry!!

On the up side, I have managed to spend a lot of time researching happy vegan ways to get rid of the mouse. I did consider trying out Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s method of burning sage and asking him to leave, but I can only spend so many afternoons locked in the bathroom before I start to lose my mind – and to be perfectly honest, I’m kind of afraid he will smell my fear and decide to get his friends to gang up on me if I take that approach – so, as an alternative to the sage burning hippie method I have ordered myself one of these.

It fulfills my requirement that the mice don’t die, and it’s non toxic, chemical free and environmentally friendly (aside from the small amount of electricity required to run it I suppose).. and Michele, the customer service lady has assured me that she will mail it tomorrow so that I can come out of the bedroom and start roaming around the house as soon as possible.

It’s just a pity that tomorrow is Friday.. looks like I’ll be spending my weekend in bed!

 

Springtime

With Jaz over at Glooart talking about the best things about Autumn, I thought I would join in the nature love fest and share some springtime love. When we first arrived in New Zealand it was the dead of winter, it was cold.. REALLY cold, and we pretty much set ourselves up for a couple of months of hibernation.. our town, which is very small and very quiet at the best of times, spends winter as a ghost town with all the holiday houses empty and locked up until summer (oh the hard life of having a summer home!). This weekend is the first long weekend of the warmer months and you can really see our little village starting to come alive, speedboats dragging squealing children in rubber tires, kayaks floating across the lake, children walking dogs and adults walking children.. it really gets me excited for the holiday season.

Anyway, as spring blooms around us, it brings warmer weather – oh the joys of sitting outside in the sun! – and with the sun comes glorious flowers.. life abounds!! And here are some photos to prove it!