Well that was interesing

The novel I'm currently working on (see the progress bar) has a dog in it named Charlie. He's the main character's dog, and he's pretty smart for a dog. He's almost like an attack dog, because he helps her fight monsters. He's a German Shepherd, and he came to the main character when he was five months old. Now, I had this dog in mind for a couple months. He wasn't in the last draft, but is in the current draft.

Here's the interesting part: A couple of weeks ago my 17 year old brother got a dog, pretty much for his birthday. (That is a funny story in itself) The thing is, it's a part German Shepherd five month old named Charlie, and he's as smart as they come.

I must have some prophetic ability, because there is no other way I could have called that one. So now, there are two smart German Shepherds named Charlie in my life. Huh. I wonder how that will work out.

It's amazing to see how far I have grown

I started this blog back in 2007 while I was still in high school. My best friend had one, and I thought it was kind of a good idea. It was better than writing in a journal, which I've never been able to consistently do. Now, three years later I can look back at what kind of person I was, and remember fond memories that I might have forgotten.

So whenever I go back and read earlier posts, it always astonishes me how... different I was. And not just different from who I am today, but different from any social norms that would come to mind. It's amazing to me that my family could live with me back then, and I'm reminded of how grateful I should be that I've changed since then.

For one, my writing and editing has improved by leaps and bounds. When I read the older posts I can see where I misspelled things or accidentally wrote the wrong word, etc.

There are something that haven't changed that much, but my attitude towards them have. For example, seeing movies multiple times in the theater or spending money willy nilly. The period where I didn't have an income changed my perspective on money and buying things. And while I still love watching things more than once, I boast about it to a world that doesn't care that I've seen Speed Racer fifteen times, or that I got to see Prince Caspian in the theater twice every Saturday for two weeks.

Reading about my past has shone me that yes, I go through phases and no, I don't watch things when I'm not in that phase. I still have many, many DVDs that I haven't watched in a long time but that I don't want to give up because I might want to watch them in the future.

While I still have problems and phases I go through, I know that I keep getting better, and that's all the motivation I need to actually continue getting better.

New Layout

As you probably have noticed, I have a new layout. I like changing my layout every so often, because I generally get bored with the same thing. It happens with everything in my life, from furniture arrangement to homes. I blame it on my parents, because I've never lived in the same house for longer than five years. Ever. And the longest I've ever held a job was twenty days shy of a year. I would still have that job, except the economy was shot and I was one of the casualties.

Anyway, new layout, hope you like it, now I have to get back to writing. The next post will be all about what I've been working on the last little while.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Have you ever had an experience where you just start laughing for no reason and no matter how hard you try you can't stop? But you try to hide the fact that you are laughing because you are in public and end up with a sore abdomen? Then when you can't hide it anymore you start laughing out loud and people look at you funny? You even laugh so much that you get teary-eyed? Then it suddenly stops as quickly as it came?

Well, if you haven't it's an experience worth having. It's bizarre, but gives you a healthy dose of laughter, and as a firm believer that laughter is the best medicine I would highly recommend it. However, it's spontaneous, so you can't really choose to have one. And if it does happen your mom might get mad at you because you can't stop laughing and can't tell her what you're laughing at.

I'll tell you this, I think I was laughing because of a hazy, half-memory of a dream that I could sense was there but couldn't touch. It was weird.

Well this is weird

Last week I complained that it was too hot. Well so far this week I've been cold. It has been a bizarre shift in temperature. It rained most of the day yesterday, which was amazing. It was beautiful and I got very little done.

Blah

It stormed again last night, thankfully making the world a cooler place. We still have an excessive heat warning going on, though it hasn't been as hot today as it was yesterday. The cicadas are very noisy.

We unpacked some of the kitchen boxes today. Not all of them, mind you, because we ran out of room. So we still have about ten boxes, including the boxes with food, stacked up in the kitchen with no place to put the stuff. It's great.

And my boxes are still in the trailer. They somehow made it on first, so they're coming off last and the boys aren't going to finish unpacking the trailer until this evening, when some men from the branch can come by and help. So I have my furniture except for two very crucial parts of my bed, the clothes from my suitcase, the books I'd brought on the road-trip, and that's about it.

Not that I really need anything else. I've been reading what I have, and I've sort of forgone watching stuff so that I can help mom and write, and I haven't missed hardly anything. For the most part, anyway.

My plans to join the Air Force have been postponed a little bit. Something happened here and mom wants me to stay to find out if it's going to pan out. So I'm going to hold off until about January, and probably make my decision in November. The good side of this is I'll be able to do NaNoWriMo. The bad side is I have to live with my family for longer, and I probably have to start looking for a job.

Hopefully the thing (not going to tell until after the fact) will pan out. In fact, I'm kind of praying for it. Let's just say it's everything I could want and more.

Anyway, back to unpacking with mom.

Now that is what you call HOT

Today, I went to church. It was kind of cold inside, but it was better than being outside. My sunglasses stayed in my bag the entire time, getting nice and chilly. Then, when I put them on just as I stepped outside after church, they INSTANTLY fogged up because of the temperature difference. It was the weirdest thing.

It's boiling hot outside today. We've had two weather advisories about the heat already, and boy can we feel it. There's no air conditioning in the house, so we have to make do with portable fans and the newly installed ceiling fans, and it's not working out too well. I'm probably going to have a second bowl of ice cream some time soon, though the ice cream keeps melting before I can finish it.

When it's not so melt-the-skin-from-your-bones hot then I'll post something more interesting.

Well, I'm here in Small Town, USA

And it's already a love/hate relationship. It's so GREEN out here. Everything is green, and there are miles and miles of corn and soybean fields. But the towns are so small, there's nothing to DO. And it definitely has a different atmosphere than Utah, where practically everyone is LDS. Here, almost no one is. We have on other family in the whole town who is LDS like us. It's crazy.

Sunday was alright. We drove for twenty minutes to get to church, and there were less than thirty people there. It's a branch that covers a wide area, and most of the members are inactive. I met a lot of new people, saw one cute single guy, and missed the Utah ward. I missed there being lots of people and lots of kids. It was depressingly sad how few people came to church on Sunday.

After church there really wasn't anything to do so I worked on my story. Thankfully almost everything is working out on that front. My main romantic interest is being stubborn, but nothing I can't fix with a daily dose of The Dresden Files.

Monday was a new experience. As the first normal day in the small town, I got a taste of what life will be like until I leave for Texas. Let me tell you, it was boring. We have no dishwasher and very few dishes so we have to wash the dishes by hand after every meal. That's not bad, since there isn't too much. But the worst of the day came when my parents left after lunch to go shopping and forgot to tell me that they were going to be an hour away and that they'd be shopping until evening. So I had no one to talk to and nothing to do but write. You'd think that was a good thing, but I need distractions some times when the words aren't coming.

Not too much distraction, mind you. Because as soon as my little brothers came home from spending time with friends I couldn't write anymore. I had been typing on my mom's desk top computer because I hate laptop keyboards and because I don't have a desk yet, and as soon as the boys got home they began a constant barrage of bugging me into letting them use the computer. So I couldn't concentrate and didn't get much writing done.

I stayed up late Monday night so that I could finish the scene I was working on, and around midnight I realized that it was starting to storm outside. I got ready for bed and planned to go to sleep, but the storm wouldn't let me.

You don't know the power of nature until you've been in the center of an Iowa thunderstorm. You know how when you turn a bucket of water upside down all the water comes out? Well it rained like that FOR A FULL HOUR! It rained like it the storm was trying to drown the world. And the LIGHTNING! Holy Poodles (as my friend says) the lightning was cool. If you've lived in a place like Utah, which I did, then you expect lightning to be, you know, every once in a while. I can probably count on two hands how many thunderstorms there were during the EIGHT years I'd lived in Utah.

Here? Lightning strikes EVERY SECOND! I stayed up until after one in the morning just watching the lighting and rain. The world was lit outside by the lightning flashing every second, sometimes multiple times. And I couldn't actually see the lightning because it was RIGHT OVERHEAD. I've never been so happy. I love rain and storms so much, and this was the MOTHER of all storms. It was flooding in the streets and sidewalks and yards, there was so much water coming down. It was a truly amazing sight. I had my eyes open as wide as they go the entire time I watched, and I walked around the house the entire hour, trying to find the best view.

The bad thing about it was our basement leaks. We had water coming in through the walls. The WALLS. Thankfully there's nothing down there.

So those were my first experiences out here in the Heartland.