what I did today... in pictures

Another gorgeous Saturday up here in the Pacific Northwest (see, it doesn't always rain).  It was in the 80s today in beautiful Vancouver, WA so we all got in the car to go for a drive... naturally.  We ended up in some Oregon ocean side town (don't remember which one).  It was a nice drive.  We went through the Tillamook State Forest which was absolutely gorgeous.  We finally had to stop to use the bathroom and ended up at the rest stop just outside the western border of the park.  There was no one else there and this place was pristine and so beautiful.  The kids wanted to explore but hubby wanted to get back on the road but the kids found a little path down to a creek flowing through the area.  It was very pretty and serene.  You didn't even notice the road going over a few feet away.  Like a little hidden piece of paradise.

( lots of pics of my kids enjoying the beautiful Oregon coast )

 

I LOVE this pic.  This is Mt. Hood taken from the I-205 bridge crossing from Washington into Portland, OR.  So pretty.  This is what we see every time we drive home from Vancouver.  We drive east on Highway 14 and this is the view you get.  In fact you can see the mountain from the playground down the street from our house and you could see it from our porch if the house and some trees across the street weren't in the way.

When we go into Vancouver we can also see Mt. Adams and Mt. Saint Helen.  I love it here.  It's so beautiful.

Six sentences on Sunday

~*~Each Sunday, post six sentences from a writing project -- published, submitted, in progress, for your cat -- whatever.~*~

Finished:
(from Of Mutant Squirrels and Humiliation)

They bolted from the undergrowth a few minutes later into blistering daylight. Momentarily blinded they both tripped and clattered to the ground with identical grunts. Cam used the moment to catch his breath and try to get his bearings. He wasn't even sure they were on the right side of the forest any more. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around. They were in a clearing, trees surrounding them in a rough circle.

(from Daydreaming)

Sam's vibrating now, an intense sensation that she can't ignore or deny. He's doing this to her—with his gritty face and disheveled hair. And that smile, one corner of his mouth quirked up in question. He's right in front of her now and Sam couldn't move if she wanted to. His hand raises slowly, still allowing her to refuse his action. She tracks it as it moves to her face.

 

(from Talk of the Town)

She pulled her head out and looked up at him, squinting at the sun that glinted over his shoulder. "What about us?" She had that look in her eye. The one that said she thought she knew what they were not discussing.

Jack pulled his gaze away from her and stared at the barren horizon. This planet was desolate.

(from Living the Nightmare)

"How? What? Where?" Cassie knows her voice sounds absurdly small and she's really not sure what she wants to know and what is automatic questioning by a brain too far lost coherent thought.

Sam wipes at her own face and takes a deep breath. "She was off-world."

(from Walk of Shame)

"There's no god here, sister," said a surly voice. Sam glanced at the women sitting on an identical metal bench on the other side of the room. She was dressed in shorts and tank top that barely qualified as clothing. Sam had undergarments that covered more.

Sam closed her eyes, her head shaking in shame. How the hell did she end up in jail?

(from Save the Last Dance)

A flash of red caught his eye and he followed the dress up to the smiling, laughing face of Vala. She was currently spinning around the floor with a leering Marine. Major Miller. He was new—on SG-16 or something. Daniel was starting to lose track of the constant rotation of personnel lately. What had once been a pretty tight-knit family had loosened up lately with IOA interference.

(from Playing the Game: Rules are Meant to be Broken)

"There's always a few that don't adapt well to a regime change."

She snorted. "I'd hardly call it a regime change, sir."

"Going from a civilian command to military is a lot to take. Especially with a science expedition like this."

"It hasn't been that bad."

(from a Eureka badfic for a scifiland challenge)

"Who are you?"

"I'm AVril Summer Raiyne and I'm the new boss."

"Hey, you can't just come in here and say you're the boss."

"Yes I can." Then this other lady comes in and acts like she's in charge even though she should know I am.

"Who died and made you god?" she asks. 

In Progress:
(from prequel to Walk of Shame)

"So you speak from experience?"

Daniel glared at her. "I could help you come up with some excuse."

Sam faced him at the elevators. "Daniel, I'm not going to flake out on her now. I already agreed to go out."

should be writing [with comm promo]

That's like my motto or something.  I swear there is always something I'm "supposed" to be writing and either avoiding or not able to concentrate on.  After theme week at stargateland I'm kind of out of creative juices.  Or real motivation.  Something.  I wrote seven stories last week (very proud of that).  But now I have 2 other projects I'm supposed to work on.  I signed up for het_bigbang  doing a Jack/Sam story.  I have a tentative story idea but haven't put much real thought into it seeing as it isn't due for a few months (yes, I'm a major procrastinator and if I can write 50k words in 30 days I'm sure I can pull this off). 

I also signed up to do the sg1friendathon .  My prompt is: 164. Classic Team (& others if you wish). The world ends, but they're still fighting for another day (apocafic).  I also have a basic idea of what I want to write for this one.  The hard part for me is keeping my shippy fingers off the plot.  I might have to write a non-shippy version for the comm and then the shippy version that I know will want to be written.  I know I can do it.  I've written a few stories that have no overt ship to them (at least I don't think they are shippy).

AND coming soon... are challenges for fictionland which starts... um, today, I think.  Yeah, so I'll be busy, busy, busy writing pretty soon.  But I really do need to put some thought into the two stories I have a real deadline for.  I've really been enjoying all this creativeness I've had over the last few months.  I've learned to write in different styles (*cough* 1st person, present tense) and stretched my comfort zone.  I've also forced myself to write from prompts which I've found I don't hate so much and to write drabbles.  I still have a hard time keeping word counts down but I can now write shorter pieces and finish them and have them turn out pretty good.

All of this kind of worries my, though, with NaNo coming up in, oh... 5 months!  I'm afraid I'm going to run out of steam by November or won't be able to come up with a long story idea especially now that I'm getting better at writing the shorter pieces.  That's making me a little nervous.  I've done NaNo every year since 2005 and I won the last 3 years.  Won as in I wrote 50k+ words.  I still haven't finished last year's story which is also nagging at my conscious.  Sigh.  It's a good story, too, I'm just having trouble finishing it.

Well, I better go start writing start making dinner before the family riots.  No rest for the wicked.

Oh yeah... pimping:


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proud of myself [long, boring]

So, yeah, the title says it all.  I'm a bit proud of myself tonight.

Here's the embarrassing truth: I'm fat.  Yep.  Big ole heifer... Fatty McFatso is me.  I can say that because, well, it's the truth.  There's no way to hem and haw around it.  No point in denying it.  It doesn't particularly bother me.  It's who I am.  It's who I've always been.  For the most part I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin.  Not comfortable enough to wear a bikini (because no one wants to see that except, apparently, my husband who constantly tries to convince me to buy one... and, yeah, they make them in my size *gag*) but enough that I really don't care what people think of me or if they make comments.

( you don't have to read the rest... it's just boring life stuff )