The Rauch Motel

Jan 10, 2008

Come on, you know you wanna

Even though I’m notoriously bad at blogging, I’m still seeing a bunch of repeat visitors. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and playing along with Delurker Day, which I discovered thanks to Kalisah over at I Am Not My Hair.

So delurk, leave me a comment and tell me who you are. If ya do… I have some news. I’m introducing a new feature of this blog tomorrow…  but you’ll have to come back and see what it is.

I know I’m a huge lurker, especially since I read all my blogs on my Google Reader. I love that everything comes right to me and I don’t have to try to remember all the URLs and I’ve discovered a pile more by clicking on links, but I’ve realized that I’m missing out on seeing everyone’s cool designs and their blogrolls, which I used to haunt. I guess this means instead of just working on blogging more, I also need to work on commenting more. Hee.

So, go on. Comment. You know you wanna….

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Jan 01, 2008

So, it's a new year…

I know last year I had this big plan for SMART goals and all that stuff for my resolutions. I kept, uh, none of them. Actually, since I never specifically set any, I didn’t actually fail. Or, at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The fact of the matter is if you had told me last January where I’d be today, I never would have believed you. For me, 2007 was the year of much change in my life. After being laid off my FT job in March, I went looking for a class at the local college just for fun. I was thinking something along the lines of making your own jewellery. Instead, on a whim, I ended up doing a certificate program as a webmaster.

Turns out, it was a really smart decision. I found a new passion. I graduated with high honours (yay, me! ) And, right after graduation, I joined the teaching staff of that very same program as a TA. And, if that wasn’t enough, I opened a web design company.

Editing-wise, I also accomplished a lot. I edited and released 20 books. I read 120 submissions and bought 10 books. And I created over 1000 news packages for the RY! site. I also judged three contests and was asked to be the final judge for a fourth.

But I think the biggest thing I realized this past year is that I’ve been working myself way too hard.

So, 2008 is the year I take care of me.

It means instead of getting on the laptop as soon as I get up and staying on it until bedtime, I work in some exercise… I’m thinking yoga and tai chi, which will help me relax as well as get in better shape.

It means eating better. I love to cook, but rarely do it when it’s just me, which has seen entirely too many of my meals come out of a drive-thru window. I’m worth spending the time to cook for.

It means making time for friends, family, and the bf… I “found” so many former classmates on Facebook this year, instead of keeping them virtual, I’d like to do a real-life get together or two. And that goes the same for the friends I seem to only email even though we live less than a half-hour apart.

It means going farther away than a cross-border trip to Buffalo. Not that I don’t love a good shopping trip, but I want to get out and see more of the world. I already have plans for San Fran in late July for RWA Nationals, but I’d like to do some kind of non-working trip too.

It means finally making a go of the writing thing that I’ve only been talking about doing for too long. This year, not only am I going to actually finish something, I’m going to have it ready to send out. (And, you know, actually send it out. )

And, sure there’s the whole lose weight, get my house organized, blah, blah, blah, and those’d be nice, but I don’t need a date on the calendar to get started. I just need a few days off.

So, what does 2008 mean for you?

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Dec 22, 2007

Listening to the Universe

The universe? When it has a message for you, it’s not subtle. Not even the tiniest bit.

I know I’ve been working a little harder than I should in the past little while, but I have a good four weeks off over the holidays. But, to make sure I actually took time off, the universe gave me the flu. Then, it killed my modem, so I couldn’t get online to sign on to any of my jobs…and took longer to get me a replacement modem than it should have. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, it pooped snow all over Southern Ontario, so even if I wanted to leave the house, I couldn’t.

Ok, message received. Time to take a break.

I spent the past week sleeping and watching cheesy Christmas movies. And more sleeping. I guess I needed it.

But the new modem has arrived and seems to be working (most of the time, anyway. *sigh*), the snow is melting, and I’m still sick. (Seriously? How long is this flu supposed to last? It’s been eight days already.)

And I’m probably going to take a bit of a break from the blogs for the holidays. (What’s that? Someone who rarely remembers to blog taking time off? There’s a shock. ) But I’ll be back in the new year with new releases, new goals (including one to blog more often.), and new news. (Tho, if you’ve been paying attention to my sidebar, that bit of new has been sitting there for a coupla days).

Wait, what do you mean Christmas is in three days?

Oh crap.

Well… I wish you all have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Festive Festivus, a Rockin’ Ramadan and a Kick-ass Kwanzaa!

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Dec 05, 2007

What kind of geek are you?

I came across this on Pop Candy:

It’s a poster featuring most of the geeks… tho, I notice the grammar geek didn’t make it. :pout:

I think I’d fall pretty happily under the book geek and the TV geek, tho.

So, which geek are you?

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Nov 28, 2007

You're a strange animal, that's what I know

Oh, dear. I’m really dating myself with that song quote. (And bonus points if you a) remember the song and b) can name the artist. *grin*).

Things around my house (er, the Rauch Motel, as I like to call it *wink*) have gotten very animal-focused lately. I’ve never been much of an animal person. I’m highly allergic to cats, and we just didn’t have a dog when I was growing up. So, my exposure was pretty limited.

When I first moved in to my house, I thought about getting a dog, but I was commuting, and out for long hours every day, and I didn’t think it was fair.

And then, I was lying in bed one night and a bat flew into my room. Freaked me right the heck out.
I thought I’d locked it in a room with an open window and it had flown out, but in fact it actually hid in my house for three days before it surfaced again…in the middle of the night. Frantic phone calls didn’t turn up anyone willing to drive all the way to my house at 2 a.m. to help me get rid of it. I ended up calling an exterminator who, upon hearing my frantic plea, offered to come and remove mr. bat without charing me their exorbitant middle of the night fee. I think he thought he might have gotten lucky. Instead he got me. heh.

But my house has been animal free ever since… until a few weeks ago, I had to leave at a disgustingly early hour (I’m a night owl. 6 a.m. just doesn’t exist in my world) and I stumbled down to the front door, half asleep, kicked a few pairs of shoes out of the way until I found the ones I was looking for and as I’m stepping into one of them, a mouse appears from behind me, runs across my foot and ambles across the hallway… I started screaming. A lot. I scared the absolute crap out of T, who *was* sleeping. He comes running downstairs, thinking someone was trying to kill me or something, and when he found out what happened, laughed like a fool. And hasn’t stopped.

What he has started is a campaign for a dog. He’s already picked one out at the pet store across the street.

I’m not sure. In theory, it’s probably not a bad thing. I mean, companionship, something to love, something to keep away mice who like high-heeled platform shoes, and squirrels with a Nanaimo bar addiction. (oh, yes, that’s another story… this past weekend I had family over for dinner and my mom brought desserts. We had extra Nanaimo bars that wouldn’t fit in the fridge, so we thought we’d cover them up and put them on the balcony. Hey, it’s -1 out, it’s not like they wouldn’t be kept cold. But, Spanky (*sigh* yes, T has named the squirrels who hang out on my balcony) decided he wanted to get inside. He got inside the freezer wrap and managed to eat a good chunk of one before we caught him. We re-wrapped the tray up in a couple of bags and put it back outside. (you’d think we’d learn…) Well, Spanky was almost all the way through all those bags before we dug up a plastic container that would fit the tray. When *that* finally came inside, Spanky had tried to nibble through both handles. )

But despite all that, I’m still resistant to getting a dog. First, I like being able to be on my way home and randomly detour for a couple of hours on a whim. Or getting up one morning and deciding to drive across the border. And if we’ve got a dog waiting at home, that’s gonna mean an unhappy dog. Or, er, a relieved dog, but an unhappy carpet.

And second, I’m not used to having an animal in the house. I’m a control freak. And dogs, not really an animal you can use logic on… or reason with.

But on the other hand… there’s the unconditional love and the licks and the snuggles and the company when I’m home alone. Not to mention a built-in get me away from the computer and take a darn break already.

I dunno… so I’m open to suggestions. Do you have pets? Should we get a dog? Why or why not?

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Nov 26, 2007

Don't you hate when…

you start a pile of blog posts and never actually finish or post them? Yeah, sorry about that.

I’ve been trying to catch up… edits, websites, birthday parties (both T and I turned a rather traumatic number this month), computer issues, it goes on. I keep setting dates, thinking *this* is the last day I’ve got too much on the go and I’ll finally take a bit of a break, and then something else comes up. argh.

But I think I’m finally there. The websites hanging over my head are live (including mine, which you’ll notice the new colours in here match my design. ), the books I need to finalize in December are either sitting in my inbox waiting for final proofs or with the final line editor, and the housework is mostly caught up. (Tho, there is the small matter of a couple of loads of laundry waiting to be done. )

So, now I have time to beta-read a friend’s latest novel, which I’m vastly looking forward to, and I officially don’t have any more excuses not to get back to writing, which is something I’ve been trying to do since at least August… And read… oh, I miss reading for fun. You might remember that I got completely caught up in a certain trilogy last week *grin* and I realized how much I miss it. I’ve never not had a book on the go since I learned to read, and this not making time for reading is not good.

Hm. I guess I also don’t have any more excuses to avoid the treadmill, either…

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Oct 31, 2007

Halloween, bah-humbug

Normally, I love a little dress up. Decorate the house, play a little scary music, hand out candy, the whole shebang.

But this year, I just couldn’t get into the spirit. My plan was to play Halloween Scrooge. I was working this afternoon, so I had every intention of turning out all the lights and hiding in the back of the house while I did my thang. Until about 4 p.m. when T decided that he wanted to do the candy thing (tho, I was *not* allowed to decorate. Spoil sport. ) Admittedly, I’ve tried to hand out candy before in this house. I decorated. Bought a tonne of candy. And I had a grand total of zero kids come to the door. So, you can see why I wasn’t overly excited to do it again.

But, since it’s rare that I can get T into any kind of holiday spirit, I indulged him. And there has been an influx of small-kid families lately, so I thought we should get a nice turnout. So, off we went to pick up candy. Fortunately, I talked him into buying stuff we both really liked so we could eat the leftovers. Except, he also bought Coffee Crisp. Blech.

So, we turned on all the lights, opened the door, put the bowl of chocolate, nibs and potato chips on the front stairs and waited.

And waited.

So far? Eight kids showed up.  Eight. Wow.

So now, tons of candy and me with a wedding I need to look smashing for  next month. And I’m weak, so weak when it comes to chocolate.

Bah humbug.

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Oct 04, 2007

This is why I shouldn't take a vacation

I’ve been working crazy hours for months and months now, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, I had three whole days in a row where I wasn’t scheduled at one job or another. So, we packed up the car and headed down to Buffalo for a little cross-border shopping (hey, it’s an at-par dollar, can you blame us? )

I left my laptop at home, determined to not think about work, and just relax while we were away. We rented a  hotel room with a jacuzzi in the suite, and other than driving around trying to find stores that didn’t exist (like a certain sprawl-mart that had a big empty lot where it was supposed to be), it was a pretty relaxing few days of shopping, eating, and just sitting in the hot tub doing absolutely nothing.

I gotta tell ya, it was pretty awesome, and very, very needed.

The problem is? My body, which has been on high-stress, go-go-go mode for so long, finally wound down and said, hey, woohoo! I can relax now. And it relaxed right out of keeping my immune system on “fight everything, I don’t have time to be sick” mode.

So, this morning, I woke up feeling like absolute crap. I have a fever and a serious cold. And I’m actually working around people today, so I’m sneezing all over them. They’re gonna hate me when I pass this cold on to them.

What’s even more fun is trying to explain stuff when my brain is totally swimmy.

At the very least, it’s a pretty good excuse to take a couple more days off and do nothing but eat chicken soup and read all the books I bought…

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