DIY day

it's my birthday and i've gotten hardly any writing done. first thing this morning, i walked to the shop to cash the lotto tickets mammy and daddy had gotten me (i got €40). then i sat down for a bit of writing. then i looked up diy book binding. i found a very cool article:
http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/2006/03/fun-and-easy-how-to-guide-to-binding-your-own-paperback-books-at-homefast/
and then i spent the rest of the day making the 'jig.' That involved a trip to barrett's to buy gorilla glue. i was very surprised they had it. and now i'm thinking of going back to get wingnuts and carriage bolts. and possibly a bit of wood for the clamping bar. i couldn't be bothered sawing out two lengths. sawing with a pen-knife-tool thing is really hard.
yea... it's possibly a bit premature, considering i've not finished draft 3.1 yet, but i hope to have copies to the people of taleweavers on the weekend. it's no big deal if i don't get it done by this weekend, though. i'll be around the next weekend as well.

and because this is a day of procrastination: here are some photos i've taken of stuff over the last few weeks.




i made banana bread in the slow cooker (aka crockpot). it turned out yummy.

the book binding devise. half finished. i couldn't wait to paint it - perhaps i should have waited. anyway.

my tomato is taller than me.

the pepper a few weeks ago.

this is not zoomed in - this is them grown.

tomato flower.

River Cottage

I watched the first two episodes of river cottage on 4 on demand last night. It made me want to run off to the country and buy a small farm. if i had a garden, i'd dig it up and plant beds with fruit and vegetables. i even have a little book on self-sufficiency, which tells you how to do all this stuff.
but for now, i have to be happy with my windowsill vegetable patch.

i think i just have to get rich and live 6 months in the commuter belt and 6 months on my mad farm. hmm. that wouldn't work. i'd have to hire someone to take care of the farm for the other 6 months.

:) anyway.

i'm super excited for some reason

i just used the sewing machine to sew the button back on to my watch strap. before you get confused about a button on a watch strap - i made it myself out of shoelace and a snap button. i'm very proud of it :) the only problem is that the constant pulling open and closed wears out the thread quickly and i have to sew it back on again. but that will no longer be a problem, because it takes about two minutes for the machine to sew it back on :)
woo! i'm really happy now.

in planty news, the two peppers are about half the size of a full-grown, store-bought pepper. the tomato has reached the top of the window. it has loads of flowers which i'm hoping will turn into tomatoes. the goji is massive. it's almost as tall as the tomato. i had to tie its branches up because they were falling over.

my novel is going well. i'm on chapter 28 of draft 3.1 (which is the proofread of draft 3). chapters 25 to 28 are a little slow and i don't know how to spruce them up. but then penelope_stone tells me i need some down bits in the book. i guess it's tense, which i want i wanted. i want edge-of-your-seat for the whole book. woo! fantasy thriller! no. not really. it's not a fantasy thriller. i like to call it a fantasy adventure. lots of stuff happens.

i think that's all my news. :)

D&D

Barry's game was on yesterday. It was a lot of fun (I can't type a lot any more without thinking of the alot: cute monster who has many variations). We played with a group of lads in America over Skype - the group Barry used play with. It worked out surprisingly well. It was a little hard to hear them at times, but the game went smoothly (enough). The issues we had were character issues, not gameplay issues. Don't put a magic hating barbarian in a group with seven caster-types. We had to violently subdue the barbarian. Even going so far as to kill him and raise him again. Hmmm, that could make an interesting form of torture.
We were playing 2nd ed. I absolutely do not know that system at all. I automatically went to roll initiative with a d20 and got laughed at. Oh well.

I don't have much other news. There was a giraffe in my dream last night. I don't think I've ever dreamed of a giraffe before. So odd.

posting drought

i really have to start updating my livejournal more. i suppose i don't because most of my days are the same: get up, write, play games, read, sleep. i don't update when i'm writing because i'm writing, and too caught up in it to do much else. i turn my computer off in the evenings, so that's why i don't update then.

excuses, excuses.

i think my main problem is that posts about what i'm doing seem so self-centered, and boring.
like: i went for a cycle on saturday, which was brilliant, even if i am a little unfit (i got over that after about 10 minutes, though - went about 12km).
does anyone really want to read about this stuff?

it's kind of funny, because i update my site every week without fail - i have an alarm set to remind me. maybe it's because those posts are so informative and inspired. i just find writing here so... mundane.

i suppose i just have to wait for something interesting to happen.

weekend in cork

a post of points, because i don't feel like writing much.

i went down to cork for a school reunion, which i went to. people are 10 years older and have families. weird.

i bought a goji berry tree. woo - healthy berries. my tomato is huge and i think it has just sprouted the first shoots that will be fruit. i also think the pepper is about to produce fruit.

hmmm. it seems i didn't actually have that much to say.