Oh, Hello There

Hey peeps.

Yeah I know, don't yell at me. (But Britt, you promised you'd blog more!) So I suck the big one at blogging, you could look at it that way. OR you could look at and say "But THREE posts in 2012 is better than ZERO posts in 2011. Over 300% better." (hey I was told there'd be no math!)

But the reason I am blogging is I have some NEWS. Newy news. (I'm channeling my inner Suess) So yesterday morning I sneaked into the bathroom at work and used my lightning fast clicking fingers (actually tapping fingers as I was on my iPhone) and refreshed the page roughly eleventy-million times, but I got all registered for the Writing Excuses podcast's workshop/retreat "Out of Excuses." The reason I had to use my fast fingers as opposed to my usual regular speed ones is because I knew there was a lot of interest in this and there were only THIRTY SPOTS AVAILABLE! And it's a good thing I did because they sold out in 9 minutes. 9. That's 540 seconds. Pretty quick. It sounds like a lot of fun and a great opportunity to learn from and network with uber-successful writers.

Probably you're thinking, "WOW that's amazing. I know EXACTLY what you're talking about and I'm super jealous and excited for you." But just on the tiniest chance that you haven't the foggiest what Writing Excuses is or what a writer's retreat is or where in the hell I got the phrase eleventy-million I'll explain. AHEM.

If you've spent time around me recently, especially if you're in my writing group (Heather and Reese I'm looking at you) you know that I'm obsessed mildly addicted to loving the Writing Excuses Podcast. If you want to be a writer, or if you like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, or if you like hilarious and awesome, nerdy people you should listen to this podcast. It is done by the wonderful and nice Brandon Sanderson, the clever and slightly creepy Dan Wells, the comical (literally, he has an amazingly successful web comic) and possibly pants-less Howard Tayler, and, ever since season 6, the amazing and super multi-talented Mary Robinette Kowal. In 15 minute snippets (because we're in a hurry and they're not that smart) they talk about all things relating to writing, be it craft, pointers, business, ideas, general or specific etc.

So then, this workshop that I'm attending is put on by all these cool people. All of them are full-time authors, ranging from a NYT bestseller to a hugely successful, self-publisher. This will be for six days next June. The first three will be an intensive workshop (I'm anticipating something like a creative writing class mashed with a panel at [insert any name] convention/conference). The last three will be a retreat. That means for three days I get to write full time with 30 other (well 34 counting the pros) writers. Did I mention the location? No, no I didn't. As half of the podcasters are based in Utah, I anticipated it being somewhere here. But it's in Chattanooga, TN. Mary has a gorgeous ancestral mansion that we are lucky to be visiting.

CHECK OUT THE HOUSE AND YARD AND OH MY GOSH CAN I LIVE HERE PLEASE!!

Now look. LOOK! I have a shiny new badge.

That's write. (ha get it!) It's just about that time of year again. NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, slightly over two weeks away. This year I'm going in with *gasp* an outline. I usually just "pants" my way through. (as by the seat of your pants style writing) but the past two years I haven't won. (winning means you write 50,000 words of original fiction between 12:01 am Nov. 1st and 11:59 pm Nov. 30th) I intend to win this year. And I also feel like I have more of an incentive. *cough*ACTUAL AUTHORS ARE GOING TO SEE MY WORK IN JUST 8 MONTHS*cough*

Also in the news category, I get to go to Alaska next May. My family usually does cruises when someone graduates from High School and my brother Riley is a senior this year. So we're doing Alaska. I am way excited because it looks so beautiful. The downside is I get home from the cruise on June 1st, 2013 and leave for my "Out of Excuses" workshop/retreat on June 9th, 2013. Bye-bye money. But all-in-all 2013 looks like it's going to be an amazing year. And to make it even better, one of my BFFs is coming home from the Philippines at the end of 2013. So let's just get this 2012 business out of the way.

And, finally, I'll leave you with a laugh. (+20 nerd points if you know where this quote came from!)

See, I am that bad a Blogging

The title says it all. I am that bad at blogging. I hope you'll forgive me.

I do have excuses. I'm moving, (which sucks the big one) and working 2 jobs and trying to have something that passes as a social life. Also I'm hungry and my legs hurt. And, uh, I have, um...

Anywho I just though I'd update this a little. And now to leave you with a much needed laugh.



You couldn't help but laugh, could you?

Holy Guacamole!

What the what? I haven't blogged in like 2 years! I suppose this means I am not a good blogger. I'm not really surprised seeing as how I was never a good journaler either. (maybe it should be journalist, but that sort of sounds like a profession that I have never done so it would follow that I wouldn't be very good. Plus I like making up words. Sort of. Also I ramble.) But this year I am going to *try* to blog regularly. (note: I'm am not promising an everyday type of thing. Maybe more once a week, or a few times a month. Baby steps.)

So, as is the trend at this time of year, I made some goals that I would like to work on. The first being, write. Write, write, write. More writing. I want this.

Second: submit. Grow a pair and finish something and send it away.

The third, attend conventions, conferences, and the like. Not only to meet people, but to enjoy myself and get some inspiration for goal the first. NOTE: I am already on my way to making this happen. LTUE 2012 here I come! That's Life, the Universe and Everything, or Brittney's Nerd Conference as my family refers to it. Yeah it's nerdy. But so am I. I am extremely excited. (it may appear that all my goals are writing related. They mostly are. This is important to me this year.)

My fourth goal is lose some poundage. I have let myself get out of hand. Also my little sister is getting married in June. I am going to be the thing I never wanted to be: the Spinster Sister. I do not want to be the Fat Spinster Sister. Also I want to get healthier. Also I would like to take up running a little bit. Also I think that exercise helps me develop some ideas for writing, at least the few times that I've sat down to write after exercising I have had some success with word flowage. Also...just kidding, I have no more alsos.

The fifth goal is to get out of debt, at least as much as possible. I am on track to pay off my car by July and then it will be Stupid Credit Card of Evil. A goal I've already made for 2013 is to move out of the parentals house. I will not be the Fat Spinster Sister Who Lives With Her Parents. I just won't.
Ok now the all important resolutions are out in the open, now I am accountable.

On a slightly less serious note, I have started watching the TV show Firefly. Um, dear internets, why did you never tell me this show was epicly amazing, fully of great wit, amazing characters, and slightly steampunky awesomeness! I am incredibly sad there are only 14 episodes. Please Mr. Whedon, for the love of all that is shiny, make some more!

And now a picture for your viewing pleasure



See, I am nerd. Also I love Alan Rickman. And Harry Potter.

3 months after

So it has now been 3 months since I have returned home after my fabulous Disney College Program. I decided to write some conclusions that I have about it.

First. I loved my CP. I probably should have extended just to meet more people and stuff. I learned a lot about myself. Like I can live with roommates. I can get along with people who are extremely different from myself. I can be self sufficent. I can sleep in a twin sized bed. I can smile at a thousand different people everyday even when I am wearing the worlds ugliest costume. I can help people who don't really even speak english. I dislike living far away from my family. Sometimes when I miss people so bad all I want to do is cry, I do cry. I liked working at Disney, but I love working at Barnes & Noble.

Second. I am glad I didn't extend my CP. I think I would have broken down from missing people too much. I couldn't stand it after I went back to florida from visiting in December and I only had to make it 3 weeks. Not 5 months.

Third. I would do the CP again if I were to relive last year. I learned so much and I had a blast.

I might think of more conclusions that I have about the CP, but this is where I stand now. I am going to keep updating this blog...if you can call how often I blog updating. :P Loves.

OMG New Moon! AAAHHH!

Yep thats what Jessica, Lauren, and I kept yelling all day today! And guess what? The movie totally surpassed all my expectaions! It was really good! It was like a bzillion times better than Twilight! Pretty much it rocked my socks off! Plus I only had to pay $6 to see it! Movies are cheaper here.

So its like after 4 in the morning here and I am too tired to write anymore. But I had to let y'all know that New Moon is so fantastic. I loved it!

Plus it has fantasic eye candy! yum!

Loves!
Britt-do

Brittney and Lauren's Disney Shenanigans

Hi all! Today I am not even going to address the fact that I have not blogged in a million years. Lets just forgive and forget.

So today both Lauren (one of my roommates) and I had the day off so we planned to go to Epcot and try some food from around the world for the Food and Wine festival that is going on there right now. We got to Epcot around 2 and tried some really great food. My favorites were from Argentina and South Africa. Oh yeah and the dessert from Australia was super good too! It was called "Lamington" which I though was funny. Then we went to character spot in future world to meet some characters. Now meeting characters isn't my favorite pass-time, but we had a lot of laughs and good times. We met Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. Goofy is Lauren favorite character so she totally flipped when we saw him and Goofy was super cute and hugged her and didn't want us to leave. Then we went outside and saw Chip and Dale and they were so funny. I was in the middle of a chipmunk sandwich and it was really funny! Hopefully the pictures turned out! Then we went into innoventions and rode segways! It was a lot harder than I expected it to be! You control it with your feet and put pressure on your toes to go forward and on your heels to slow and stop. After that we visited my store and decided to grab some birthday buttons and wear them around for the rest of the day.

We then decided to head over to Magic Kingdom and hang out there for a while. The first thing we did was head over into adventureland and get a Pineapple Dole Whip because they are super delicious! And guess what? Since we were wearing our birthday buttons we got them for FREE! I feel kinda bad since it wasn't actually our birthdays, but we didn't ask for it for free...they just gave it to us. Then we tried to visit Jessica in Fantasyland, but she wasn't around so we headed over to ride Buzz and Lauren and I almost tied scores. Then we watched Spectro...its a parade that might be kinda similar to the main street electrical parade back in the day. It is a cute parade, but not anywhere near as cool as the Halloween Boo to You parade which I love. Then we did visit Jess and bugged her. We also rode the Tea Cups and that was our first time since we have been down here because no one else would go with us! After that we just took crazy picture because we were trying to hang around until Jessica got off work so we could give her a ride home. The pics we took were so funny and after Lauren puts them on Facebook I will try to post some here! To end our night we walked out in the rain had to wait in a super long line for the monorail, but overall good times were had!

Well I've got to go to sleep, but I love and miss you people! Good night!

Unseasonably

So Florida is so freakin' hot right now! I mean seriously people were coming into my store literally drenched in sweat! Gross! Its been at least 95 degrees here for the past several days which is, in all senses of the word, not cool. Another not cool thing is that I am still sick. I can handle being sick, even though its not fun. I just don't like having to work long, hot shifts while I'm sick and having to smile and answer the same questions 300 times a day. Ok enough complaining.

So as I think I have mentioned before, I work out in the stroller section a lot. The only fun part about this is when there are people to talk to out there, like sometimes there are 2 people in strollers at the same time and if its a cool person then its fun. Or if there are cool people working at the entrance/exit gates. One of these people at the gates, her name is Gresa and she is really nice and fun to talk to. We end up working a lot of the same shifts because she is and ICP and I'm a CP and us CPs of all types close a lot. (someone once told me that CP stands for "close parks" ha ha). Anywho she is from Kosovo which just recently gained independence from a few other countries and is in southern Europe, kinda close to Greece. The point of this paragraph is that someday after our CP ends she invited me to visit her in Kosovo which, apart from being a place I didn't really know existed until I met her, is somewhere I would love to see. This is my most favorite part of doing the CP. (not getting invited to visit friends in exotic locales, but that is definitely cool) I get to meet a ton of super cool, friendly and different people every single day. Most of the people I meet are doing the same exact thing as me so we're all in the same boat and it's easy to relate to each other. I get invited to a lot more things here than I ever did back home and that is cool.

This week I have read two AMAZING books. Well they are amazing in my opinion. And technically I have 20 pages left in one of them, but I think I will still love it even when it ends. So the first one is called "Ruined: A Ghost Story" by Paula Morris. It is set in present day New Orleans where this girl is sent to live with her "Aunt" while her dad is on a prolonged business trip. I loved this book because there is so much intrigue, history, and just a touch of good old fashioned Gothic drama (Gothic the art and literature genre, not black make-up and clothes). Plus there may or may not be ghosts, voodoo, murder, magic, curses, and a big, giant twist that I didn't see coming in this book. Read it people! The second book is called "Dreaming Anastasia" by Joy Preble. This book is, well not a retelling, I guess an expounding story of Anastasia and is set in the present day Chicago and in the past with the Romanov's. I like that the author tells the story from 3 different perspectives which keeps the reader interested, even though the story is complex and fast paced and compelling anyways. I enjoyed the twists and turns, and the different forms of magic in this book. And it doesn't hurt that Ethan, one of the main characters, is quite attractive. :) Now, however, I am out of reading materials so I would love any recommends that people have.

Well I am going to hit the sack now. I love eveyone! I can't wait to see you Mom and family who are coming in 5 days! I am so excited! See ya real soon! Miss you all!

Britt