Change Can Definitely Be Good

So our New Beginnings for our church's Young Women Program is tonight and since I'm Young Women's President in our ward I've been preparing some things to say about Personal Progress (this is the goal setting/recognition program for the young women).  One of the things I'm going to talk a little about is the history of Young Women Recognition Programs in The Church.  The first program was a Beehive Handbook from 1915

Requirements of 1915 handbook included: 

-  Care successfully for a hive of bees for one season and know their habits. 

- Cover 25 miles on snowshoes on any six days. 

- During two weeks, keep the house free from flies, or destroy at least 25 flies daily.

- Without help or advice, care for and harness a team at least five times [and] drive 50 miles during one season. 

-  Clear sagebrush off of one-half acre of land.

As leaders of the Young Women we are encouraged to participate in this program with our girls.   Can I just say how grateful I am that the new program contains a lot more scripture reading and a lot less fly killing and agricultural knowledge?  Because I'm pretty sure I'd flunk that in a hurry. 

New Writing Goal

Here's the thing...I have time right now to be writing.  I have dozens of ideas and projects that need my creative writing energy and yet I've had a hard time getting myself to do it.  So new goal - 1,000 words a day, 6 days a week.  I just need to sit in my chair and turn on my computer and type, even if it's crap.    Wish me luck.

The Geek Girl Bucket List

So recently on Pinterest I saw someone's geek bucket list,  a list of amazing - very fictional - things one would like to do if it were possible.  And because I had a cranky morning, I decided I needed something silly and fun to do for a minute, so here's my own version.  

One thing that struck me about the list on Pinterest though was how many of the things sounded cool in theory, but when you really thought about it would be kind of horrible.  Seriously, super powers sound awesome, but I don't know that I want all that responsibility.   So I tried to make my list things that really did sound fun to me.  (And even with that, numbers 4, 6, and 7 I would only want to do on a day when I was feeling particularly resilient.) 


Jenel's Geek Girl Bucket List
1. Temporarily replace Jimmy Olsen as photographer of the The Daily Planet (Superman)
2. Join a book club with Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)
3. Work a case with Castle and Beckett (Castle)
4. Work a case with Sherlock and John (Sherlock)
5. Become the official historian of Starfleet (Star Trek)
6. Co-pilot the Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
7. Co-pilot Serenity (Firefly)
8. Convince The Doctor, preferably Ten, to take me back in time to meet Abraham Lincoln (Doctor Who)
9. Become Minerva McGonagall's teaching assistant (Harry Potter)
10. Take an archaeology class from Dr. Indiana Jones
11. Visit Rivendell (Lord of the Rings)
12. Visit Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
13. Have Belle take me on a tour of the Beast's castle, before the spell is broken  (Beauty and the Beast)
14. Rhyme with Inigo and Fezzik (The Princess Bride)
15. Be in a position to end a conversation with, "Mulder, I think you're crazy." (X-Files)

I know - silly - but my brain needed a break and I needed to blog, so actually I'm multi-tasking :-) 

Ringtones and other Random Bits

So one of the cool features of cellphones is supposed to be customizing them, right?  I changed my ringtone today (a peppy bit of music from BBC's Sherlock) and realized I hadn't changed it since we bought the phone about a year ago.  Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old.  I have at least changed my background wallpaper twice.  Yeah, it's a fall photo, so not exactly current either.  I suppose I could take this as a sign of the fact that I just have better things to do with my time.  Yeah...that's a nice theory :-)

I actually realized I have a second thing to say about ringtones (who knew it was such a fascinating subject).  I love having ringtones and other pop culture related paraphernalia that are just a little bit geeky, but that, unless you know what they are from don't seem obviously so.  There's something nice, in my late thirties, about celebrating my geekiness in a slightly lower key way.

Love Letters to Places

So this probably should be on my long neglected book blog, but I didn't want to deal with the difficulty of kick starting it yet again so I'm going to post this here.

Right now I've got this massive urge to work, not on the novels I'm supposed to be working on, but on an idea for a novel that takes place on a semi-mysterious island in the Puget Sound.  This isn't really a surprise, in fact it's a habit of mine.

I've realized that all of my novel settings are in essence love letters to places that mean something to me.  Even Rell which is set in a fantasy world is inspired by the high desert, river-centric landscape of southern Idaho.  One particular scene, even though it was a combination of places, was so specifically detailed that my cousin Jennie upon reading it said she felt like she recognized it as a place she had been. 

And it's not an accident that Capstone is set in the Washington D.C. area.  One of the most fun experiences I've had as a writer was planning an action sequence in the Metro station in Alexandria that I used everyday while researching at the National Archives a few years ago. 

One of the great, and yet I think sometimes lousy rules of writing is "Write what you know."  And I can't remember who exactly it was that wisely changed this rule to "Write what you love."  Not only does writing about these places make it easier to get the details right and also invest my stories with things that reflect my specific personality as a writer, but I also think it's a way for me to stay connected to these places even when I'm at my boring old desk reduced to looking at (literally at the moment) pictures of sunrise on Whidbey Island or a sketch of two people strolling hand in hand in front of the U.S. Capitol.

I also have this possibly crazy notion that anything I can do to up my emotional investment in the story I'm telling will eventually translate to those people who read my stories.

Doctor Who

So I was beginning to wonder if my geek credentials were going to be permanently tarnished by the fact that I hadn't watched Doctor Who. Every time I turned around, someone was extolling the virtues of the nameless Doctor and his time-traveling Police Call Box.   So it came up on Netflix and I started watching it.  Now, I was nervous because apparently people get REALLY into this show, and frankly I don't think grown-up me needs the return of Superfan Jenel of the X-Files years.   The good news,  I like the show, it's fun and funny and VERY geektacular (William Shakespeare and multiple Harry Potter references in the same episode, yeah, sign me up.)  The even better news -- as much as I like it, I have no urge to write bad fan-fiction, or name my firstborn TARDIS. 

However, between the good Doctor and reading a book set in the UK this week I actually said the phrase, "I'm rubbish at math" in conversation yesterday.  (At least I didn't say "maths" which is the pure Brit version, I believe).  Anyway, the current book I'm reading is set in the desert of eastern Oregon, so that should help me reset my vocabulary:-)

Muffins

So apparently I'm going to feel the need to post every time I bake something.  I made apple-cinnamon muffins tonight from scratch and they are at least as good as the ones from a mix.  Yippee!!