Random Stuff Friday

Welcome back to another installment of "Otherwise Amusing Events Occurring Within the Aphayrath World" also known as "Random Stuff Friday"

#1 - We give our old cell phones to play with. The bubs LOVE pretending they have phone calls or are text messaging their friends. The other day I was driving to Home Depot with Hubs, all 3 bubs, and brother-in-law-who-now-lives-with-us (who will heretofore be known as "Bil"). 3yo was playing with my old Samsung Glyde - not an advert for the phone, as I totally hated it - when Bil asked her what she was doing. 3yo: "I'm texting to Twitter. Duh." Hubs turned to me. Me: "Ohmigod, she is totally my kid."

#2 - One of the best reasons I found for following some of my favorite places on Facebook is finding out about events that might take a while to learn of otherwise. Case in point: The King's English (SLC's awesometastical indie bookstore) does summer reading groups for kids, run by teachers, where kids are broken out into appropriate age groups, given reading lists, etc. It's like book club! And lucky for me, the timing of both kids' sessions are the same, which means I'm gonna get an hour once a week to hang out at my fave indie bookshop! Woohoo!

#3 - It's a pirate life this weekend at the Aphayrath house. Jake and the Neverland Pirates, that is. All my pre-planning efforts were for naught when 3yo decided she HAD to change the theme of the party 2 weeks ago (I've been gone for 1 week), so now I'm scrambling to get everything ready. *sigh*

 #4 - I've not seen The Hunger Games movie yet. Nor have I read the book. *ducks flying tomatoes* I've not seen the Avengers yet. I don't know when I will. Here's my reasoning why: there's been so much hype, so much positive gushing, just so much ... much that I'm not sure if I want to experience any of these for fear that I will be so devastatingly disappointed because of all the gushing there's just no way any of these could live up to my expectations. Irrational fear? Yeah, probably. Is there someone out there who can convince me otherwise? I'm not sure ...

#5 - I really want to have something else amusing for you here, but yanno, I just don't. So hope everyone has as awesome weather as we do here in the Salt Lake valley (mid 70s all weekend!) and an enjoyable weekend. Catch ya later!

Quote of the Week

"Hi. How ya' doing?"

Flynn Rider (Disney's Tangled)

Post-It Love

UPDATE: I've had lots of you ask me what my process is and what all the post-its are etc ... so I came up with a plan. Stay tuned for more deets next week!

I watched Eclipse the other day.

And when I was done watching it ... I couldn't even come up with anything witty to tweet. So I just went off to work on my revisions.

Working on revisions reminded me about something I love: office supplies. Specifically, I really like post-it notes. Like, really. For the last round of revisions on one of my projects, I was doing some work around 5 specific points. Lucky me, I had 5 post-it note colors. Woohoo!

After some bonding with my printed out manuscript, during which I learned that when they say post-it notes are "super sticky" they're not jok

ing, this is what my office wall ended up looking like at the end of those revisions.

This was a new process for me, but I really liked it. And it worked well to keep my thoughts organized by key points or characters. Color-coding works, people!

So what's your revision process? Any easy-peasy tips to make things go smooth and easy? Yeah, I was just joking about that last part.

Off the Hoozle!

Last night, that is what 4yo Kidlet said to me.

I can't even remember what we were doing but suddenly she said "Mommy, you're off the hoozle!" I think I just stood there and stared at her for a minute. Then I asked her where she heard that phrase.

It was from G Force. A Disney move (of all places). Yeah, I know, that is some *insert eye roll* filmmaking genius there. Let's just say some kiddie movies are easier to sit through as a parent than others. Anyway, Kidlet only watched the movie once and yet that phrase totally stuck with her months after seeing it.

So that got me thinking about those catch phrases in general. I know they come from songs and movies and TV, but do you know of one from a book? Do you have one in your book?

Maybe it's one the MC thinks all the time. Or what a supporting character says. Maybe you have one and you've never noticed?

My personal fave that I read in a book (can't recall which), is SUCKTACULAR. I mean, come on! There's so much spunk and personality and creativity in there!

Any come to mind for you, whether you made up the word yourself or read it somewhere? Share! Share! I'm all about expanding my vocabulary :)

My Thoughts During New Moon

I saw New Moon *cue fantastical vampiric-werewolfian theme music* over the Thanksgiving weekend. I don't see many movies in the theaters. Why? I have a preschooler and a toddler. Enough said.

Now, I've tried to keep out of the ongoing Twilight war. Team Edward-Team Jacob.. eh... I'm one of those middle of the road fans. I enjoyed the books, not as anything deep-thinking and life-altering or anything, but .. yeah. So, I did not fight the crowds for a midnight or before-the-crack of dawn showing. After seeing previews with the cool CGI wolves and how much better the cinematography was (like I didn't think I was going to vomit from the shaky camera) I figured, eh, when I get around to it, I'll go watch it.

I figure this doesn't really warrant a *spoiler alert* as the I'm sure most of you (if not all) have already read the book.

So there I am. Chowing on extra-buttered popcorn mixed with Raisinets (don't knock it 'til you try it). Jacob Black appears on-screen, crossing the parking lot to Bella ... And the first thought to pop into my mind? (Which I promptly whispered to my sister who giggled and got us shhhh'd) .... "Oh my gosh! Shark Boy! You grew up!" .... yeah, that's right. Shark Boy and Lava Girl is one of my preschool kidlet's fave movies.

Promptly, that joke wears out and we continue on our merry way... la-da-da ... So here are a few of my non-Shark Boy random thoughts whilst watching New Moon:

~If I was Charlie and that was my daughter that shirtless dude was carrying out of the woods, I'd have some serious questions for shirtless dude.

~Wow, the normal non-vampire loving humans in this movie are hilarious!

~Jacob Black looks WAY better with the short hair ...

~Dude, the guys who play the werewolves are some new form of hotness ... WOW.

~Oh, jeez, will they stop doing this spinny circulating thing with the camera? I feel like I'm gonna throw up. Clearly, they wanted to remain consistent with the first movie.

~Victoria has really good hair.


~Where are the werewolves?


~Okay, a vampire (whole marble-esque body thing) having chest hair? Especially when werewolves don't? Isn't there something wrong with that?


~Where are the werewolves? - Oh, they're not in this part of the book.


~Aro sort of looks like the guy who played Lucian (the werewolf leader) on Underworld.


~Where are the werewolves?  .... Oh, yeah, they're not in this part of the book either....


~Oh! There's a werewolf! Oh, wait! Come back! ... Oh no!


The End.

I believe lots of you have seen the movie already also, but I haven't seen many thoughts on it. Would love to hear what you guys who have seen the movie have to say. And those who haven't are you just waiting... haven't gotten around to it... or are you one of those who just won't see it?

Darkness with a Dash of New Moon

My apologies to all, I didn't expect to go so long before posting again. Real life, gets you every time.

However, I do hope everyone had a fantabulous Thanksgiving holiday and I am looking forward to a few weeks of semi-normalcy before we kick in to the big December holidays.

But I have to confess something upfront: Nanowrimo and I did not fair well. About halfway into the month, as I was getting ready to leave for a week-long conference for the day job and knew I was already a couple thousand words behind on my pacing, I was reminded that there are 11 other months of the year when I write fairly regularly. November's just not a good Nano month for me. Now March maybe would work. Oh, or August. Yeah, so, there you have it. Nano was a no-go.

So I've been writing and revising this weekend, with no committed daily word goals and no committed page counts. And it feels really good to not be so worried about the goal thing. It's too much stress, and life, especially during the holidays, is stressful enough without taking the fun out of writing.

... And I went to see New Moon. More on that later this week.

I know this was sort of a random post, mostly just me rambling. But hey, what's new, right? ;D

How was your holiday weekends? Oh, and did anyone hit up Black Friday and get some kickin' deals? ... I've decided I'm crowd-o-phobic, so not so much for me.