I got a call from a missionary/ restaurant owner in Morocco this afternoon. Turns out he used to own an eatery on Whidby Island. He called to welcome me to OC. I think it's pretty cool we have a chef that found a way to make that his mission!
Yesterday after poking around the internet (from the Dallas Theological Seminary "find a church" website) we located Pulpit Rock Church. We listened to several sermons online and read over the website and decided we liked what we saw/ heard so the next step was to see what the worship was like and how the ages were mixed.
The worship was a good mix of songs we knew, songs we didn't know, acoustic guitar, piano, sings, and electric guitar. (No sax, violin, flute, pipe organ or sheep's bladders in this band.) Age wise we say a pretty decent mix of ages. I guess there are two groups that are for people "our age" so I think we'll take a look at those.
So far Pulpit Rock is our number one choice. We've got an email in for more information about small groups and what-not. We'll see how that turns out.
Lisa is leaving on Saturday for a couple of weeks to go to China, so I will be flying "solo" during that time. There are a slew of options of things for me to be doing in the evening (Xbox, Watching TV, Reading, wandering aimlessly around Colorado Springs, World of Warcraft, etc) but I think I am going to try my hand (again) at the National Novel Writers Month. (affectionately called "NaNoWriMo") Some of you might remember that I tried this 2 years ago and while I didn't "win" I got a good amount of text down on paper. (about 17,000 words) A lot has happened since then and the story has still been turning over in my head. I'm going to give it another shot. We'll see what I'll be able to pull off in 2 weeks and if I can keep the momentum going after Lisa gets back. Maybe 2 weeks is all I need. Anyway, there will be a little score box under my signature for a bit so you can follow what I am up to.
If you'd like to join or are already planning on doing it we can be "buddies" and write many words together.
I think I mentioned it, but in case I didn't: the movers came on Saturday and unloaded everything and then left. Unloading took about half the time as loading did. Unpacking seems to have taken about 75% less time to do than packing did. For this I am thankful, but it has been pretty tiring. (It seems to me that I still have a lot of growth in the stamina department.)
Thank you for your continued prayers for Lisa's trip, my staying at home, our health, and the condo selling.
~B.
I'm happy there are no sheep bladders in the worship service. I was a little worried for a little while.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm totally going to do the nanowrimo too. :) It looks really cool.
ReplyDeleteKatie has done NanoWrimo for the past four or five years. Sadly she isn't doing it this year.
ReplyDeleteShe found that the easiest way to be successful is to have a detailed outline of what you want to write about ahead of time. If you know what you want to have happen in the story it's easier to crank out the words in a short time frame.
Also, she shoots for writing 2000 to 2500 words a day which gives her 20 to 25 days to reach the 50,000 word mark. That way if you have an off day, or something comes up, you've still got some margin.
You didn't ask for any advice, but hey, here goes:
ReplyDeleteIan kind of covered most of what I was going to say, but I'll also add that on weekends I tended to write about 10,000 words. This takes a long time, but it's worth it because it gives you a buffer during the week.
It's also key to every single day; I set aside an hour at least each evening. Once you say "I'm too busy," that's it (at least it was for me). I need the momentum of doing it daily.
Last year I won NaNoWriMo by like a week, which shows the value of planning out your story and doing it every day. I wish I could do it this year -- I wanted to do a Really Bad Murder Mystery to go with the Really Bad Romance Novel (2006) and Really Bad Action Novel (2007). Alas, this November our goal of getting back to Seattle soon intervenes.
And really, isn't getting back to Seattle a better idea than writing 50k words anyway? Or even better yet, have you considered Colorado Springs? Eh? Nice place to live...
ReplyDeleteYeah, the content I am working on is the material I wrote 2 years ago. I have a rough start and it's been in my head for almost 7 years now, plus Lisa will be out of town.
I don't know what your words per hour average is but I can do 1000 words an hour without too much effort. I'm excited, and we'll see how this goes. Last time I hit 17k and puttered out.
~B.