Alright, so for my update on how NaNo is going: Badly. I've only got 1,747 words for yesterdays count, and yesterday was a complete fuster cluck. I woke up far too early because Lissy woke up far too early. The VCR tried to eat a movie, Lissy had a play day with a whole bottle of body wash all over the living room and kitchen floor, both child and dog peed on the floor, when Chris got home, he wasn't able to get Lissy down for a nap. After trying four or five times to get her to sleep, I just gave up. Changed out of my pajama's, got her dressed and we went to town about 1:30. At this point, I hadn't been able to write a single word. We went to the courthouse to try and pick up my ballot, since they're stupid and didn't send one to me, Chris, or even my mom. I went to the auditors office, and was told I had to go across the street. So that's what we did. I filled out my ballot and voted, after being harassed by the woman there. "Well we sent you one. Why didn't you get it?" In that awesome condescending tone that rude people have. I don't know why I didn't get one, all I know is that I didn't. The Post Office doesn't have the best track record at keeping the mail straight.
After that, I stopped over to Second Act to see if Carly was working, which she was. I do miss her! Anyway, I had about six dollars on my account, which was amazing, so I got Lissy her Thanksgiving/Christmas dress. After that, we went to the door of Vic's and I asked her if she wanted French Fries, or to go see Nana. She turned away from Vic's and started going back to the car saying "Nana. Nana. Nana." Pretty cute. So now it's like 2:30. We head back to the car where poor Simon is, and go to Market Place, where I almost get hit by a stupid guy in a giant white truck. I was on Spring Street, about to turn left (That corner by the Presby), and I waited for one car to go straight, then I started turning. Out of no where, this guy runs the stop sign from behind me and nearly nails the back end of my car, flying by me on the wrong side of the road, then swerving back in front of me. I wish I had a pen and paper so I could get the license plate number. So, shakily, I made my way to Market Place's parking lot, parked, got Lissy out of the car and we went to find Nana. We found her upstairs, so we went back down and got lunch. Lissy decided she wanted an apple, so she ran over to the display, grabbed one, and bit into it. Cute huh? She carried that apple around with us while we paid for our lunch and ate about half of the apple by the time we got home. We went back upstairs and ate lunch, then once mom had to go back to work, we left. It was probably about 3:15. We got home and I put Lissy down for a nap at 3:30. At 4, I finally sat down and started writing. By the time I had to leave at 5:10, I had written 1,747 words. Chris got home at 5:05, I hurried my shoes on, and rushed out the door with Simon, our tug toy and the bag of treats. We made it to agility just in time. I took him for a short walk so he could go potty, then we headed into the building for our lesson. He hasn't spent any time in a crate since he was about four months old. He is now eight months. So having to go into a crate for 10 minutes at a time, he wasn't real fond of. But by the end of the night, he was going in on his own will! It was incredible. Both Ally and I were surprised! Ally is the owner of Kylie, an adorable terrier mix, who Simon has labelled as his girlfriend. It's pretty darn cute to watch them play together, since Kylie is about the size of Simon's head.
Agility was over at about 6:53, and I had to be at the theater for Auditions by 7:00. I barely made it on time. It was nice to see Ellen again. For the playwrights festival, there are 8 little plays that run about 10 minutes a piece. I wanted the part of Emily, a pregnant woman in labor on board a ferry during a storm. But while I did audition for that and another part, the one that got me the most nervous was when I was picked out to sing. Before the auditions even started, we did a vocal warm up with the chorus from the mini musical The Rock called Island Time. I still have the tune stuck in my head! So the director picked four of us and led us to the main auditorium where we sang the chorus together a few times, then did it individually. For those of you who know me, I love to sing, as long as there is nobody around to hear me. I don't think I have a good voice at all, and while I was in My Fair Lady singing, that was with 15 other people, nobody was listening to me. So doing that was hard, and the director, I honestly can't recall his name, was very nice, he just told me to not be so timid. Well that's hard to do when you are about to vibrate off the stage from shaking with stage fright. He had me sing the portions of the song three times, and I really did try to sing to the back wall, but it's difficult to control your voice when you are having trouble controlling your shaking!
After that was over, I went back into the Gubleman room where the rest of the auditions were, and played the part of Emily a few times. I guess I did alright because I was asked to come back again tonight. The director of the musical told me while the other auditioners were gone that he was seriously considering me for the part, which is totally cool to hear, but also makes me nervous to know that if I get the part, I'll have to sing in front of people. Lots of people. *deep breath* I suppose I will see what happens!
Ok, so let's time skip to the end of the auditions. I walk out the door to discover that it's pouring rain. Thank heaven's I didn't leave the window down for Simon. Poor pup, who was still in the car. So now it's like 8:30, and Tyler's 21st birthday party started at 6. Thankfully I had the cell phone, so I called up there to see if Chris and Lissy were still up there, which they were, but whenI talked to Chris, he seemed upset at something, but wouldn't tell me what was happening. So I made my way up there to the party. The only thing I had eaten all day was half a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Jan pulled out the food from the fridge and I wolfed down two pieces of pizza, two cups of milk, and a rather generous slice of birthday cake. I watched Lissy play with her Uncle Mike, and it was adorable. She was chasing him around the living room. He'd go and hide behind something, she'd find him and whack him, he'd squeak and run off again, she would laugh. A laugh right from her belly, so adorable. Chris wasn't with the rest of the brothers, so I went and found him in the music room. He was playing on the piano, so I sat down and asked what the matter was. He didn't look at me when he said he had bad news. My heart stopped cold, and ice filled my veins. He never starts things off that way. I asked what happened, and then he told me that he had lost my work. Instantly I deflated. I was thinking he was going to tell me someone was dead, and he just turned off my computer because it froze. I laughed. He looked at me like I had grown two heads. I told him it was alright, I had saved it before I left, no worries. He just shook his head and said, I looked when the computer turned back on. I couldn't find it anywhere. It's not there. At that point it started to sink in that my work really was gone. But I told him, Hey, it's just an hours worth of words. only 1700. It's really nothing, I can do it. He still wasn't convinced so I gave him a kiss and said, Don't worry, it'll probably turn out better the second time around anyway! He still didn't cheer up, just said he had wanted to read it. I sat with him for a little longer trying to convince him it was really ok, I wasn't mad or anything at him, and it wasn't hard to redo. I said I'd be more pissed if this was the last day of November instead of the first. That got a small smile. So we went back to the party and seeing Lissy play with Mike made him smile and be jovial again.
After the party, about 11 o'clock, we headed home, got Lissy down for bed, and I checked out the laptop. (BTW, our desktop is in the Shop for repairs, because there is a major virus on it.) I opened it up, put in my password, and stopped. My mouse was different. The computer loaded and my heart stopped. My background was different. The icons were different. Chris was in the bathroom and so I called, "Did you change my background?" He answered, "You mean that wasn't the one you had?" At that my whole body just froze like I had been put in a bucket of ice. My computer had somehow reset itself. There really was NOTHING on there. My documents were gone, my music was gone, and when I discovered that my pictures were gone, I collapsed. Pictures mean more to me than anything, and to lose those just crushed me. There are pictures on here that aren't on the desktop, so I was devastated. I cried a little, then I asked Chris was had happened. He said that he went to click on the word tab, and it had frozen up, so he had held the power button down until the computer turned off, then he waited a moment, then turned it back on and selected the "start windows normally" option. And this was how the computer was. So I took a deep breath and decided to try it just like he did. I don't know what I thought would happen, but hey, it was worth a shot. I pressed the power button until the computer went off, waited, then turned it back on, and selected the starting windows normally option. I let it load, and noticed, Hey, my mouse is back! I put in my password, and everything was the way I had left it. My background was right, my icons were right...so before I got my hopes up too much, I went to the pictures folder to check. Guess what? They were there! Everything was back in it's place. Even my 1747 words were saved there. Absolutely insane.
So how's that for the start of a month? So now, today, I have to call in lunch to Vic's for the guy working on my mom's roof, so Chris can pick it up and bring it over to mom's. So that means another late nap for Lissy, and less time for me to write. But this weekend, Chris has offered to take Lissy for an entire day so I can go somewhere and write, write, write. That's when I'm hoping to cap 15,000 words. I really want to give myself as much cushion as I can, so when day's like yesterday happen and I can't get all of the words in, I know I'm OK. Now I have to find my book and re-read the 1st Week chapter...
By the way, this post is 2,096 words.
