Song of the day: “Shine” by Aswad. A
classic that has been in my head for several days now. Nice song, but not so
good to have stuck in your head this long. Hah. Before this, I was a little luckier, having
the “Never Enough” song from the Greatest Showman in my head, but okay.
Earworms are not something you can really steer, can ya?
So, here we are again…later than
planned, but here anyway. I would like to say that there were exciting things
to get in the way of doing a proper update this time around, but basically it
is all about life getting in the way, the way it tends to do on many occasions.
If it helps, I often think, well, crap, I should write about this in the blog…and
then forget when the time comes. * wink *
The good news first: I finally found
a new (2nd hand) bike and it rides like a dream. Have it now for little
over a week, and already went on three rides…admittedly one was to get eggs,
but beggars can’t be choosers, right? After selling my first bike (got that
when I just arrived in the Netherlands) several months ago, I looked and
looked, but didn’t get lucky, darn it. Then one day I had this thought, “hey,
let’s just go to the store where we bought the first one” and behold, he had
the right one, right there. We haggled the price a bit. He took off a whopping
75 bucks from the price, put on a new saddle, oiled the chains and before you
knew it, I had a new bike that only cost me 75 bucks on top of what I got back
from the old one. Not a bad bargain at all, thank you very much.
Have worked quite a bit this last month,
but now I have blocked my Tuesdays, because I simply couldn’t muster much
energy to work on the books, which is something that I find vital, especially
for my future. Can’t be tired all the time if I want to get another book out,
can I?
Not to mention that “the voices in
my head” are clamouring to get out. Like, just the other day, I was responding
to something on Twitter, talking about an actress, and WHAM, I got a new idea
of a book in my head. Not smart, considering I am working on two at the moment
already. HahTechnically the ones I am working on are done already, but that
doesn’t matter. They still require the time and effort they deserve. Especially
because one of them, the prequel to Girl in the Mist, is still under
negotiation with the publisher. Once they say yes I’ll really need to dive into
that, so before that time comes, I really have to finish the other one, which we
plan to send to Harlequin in the near future. Could probably offer it to our
present publisher, too, but it is always smart to not have all your eggs in one
basket, isn’t it?
Cooking has been dialled down to a
minimum at the moment. Gotta save the minutes where you can, you know. Meals
are nothing too complicated, even though I miss complicated. I might get sick
of that in a little bit, and end up doing something elaborate soon. We’ll see
Since the last blog we’ve had two
weekends “interrupted” by friends spending a night or two. On the one hand
great. Always nice to spend time with friends, but on the other, you can’t get
much work done of the computer when you’re entertaining, can you? Ah well, can’t
only work in your life. You need to stop and enjoy the roses every now and
then. Hah. Also visited with friends, played with babies and pets alike, so
socially things can be a tad busy too.
So, the big thing today. Y’all will
be the first ones to know right here! Yay!
It’s finally gonna happen. Yes it is!
It IS!!! We (finally, finally, finally) managed to coordinate our vacation time
to the same date and…We. Are. Going. To. America! Yes!!!
We saved and saved, scrounged and
scrounged, and finally popped that wishing balloon…so to speak. Hah.
We’ve got incredibly cheap tickets
(seriously, they’re only a little more expensive than our short trip to Finland
a few years ago), we got permission from Homeland Security and come October, we
is gonna road trip through a whopping 19 States in less that three weeks!
That’s about 5000 miles, I KNOW! But
we’ll be with the three of us (to save money), and we’re renting a car, so it
should absolutely be doable.
We’re gonna meet up with family there,
and finally meeting some friends that I have been chatting online with, like,
forever! Seriously, I’ll be going face to face with folks that I have been
communicating with since at least 2009! OMG! It’ll be grand, I assure you.
The fun bit is, they’re spread all
over the place, which makes the road trip such a splendid idea.
I mean, we could have planned for
some famous trip, like route 66 (this held a massive appeal, I kid you not) but
then we thought, like: No! We’re going to do it our way and just pick our roads
and see where they take us! Well, they will take us the direction of the folks I’m
going to meet, of course, (duh) but the how of it will be an adventure.
That is the plan anyway. Who knows,
maybe we arrive at some amazing spot and suddenly decide to not do all those States
and just spend some time right there before rushing back to the airport at the
last possible moment. You just don’t know.
Whatever it is going to be, I intend
to do a daily blog (or at least as often as possible, considering I can’t give
a 100% guarantee that I will have wifi everywhere along the way) of the trip.
With pics, of course!!! I will be putting up a link to my official website (www.samayatyoung.com)
in case you haven’t got that already, and then you can basically come right
along with us…if you’re so inclined
Am so excited about the whole thing.
I have been wanting to see the States for decades, and now it is finally
happening. Will be traveling incredibly light, so basically, I will be washing
things at every stop, hah. But the idea of hauling luggage along the entire way
doesn’t appeal much to me either, so I’m picking motels with laundry facilities.
So, there will be just some basics
(yes, I am already gathering stuff, haha) jeans, yoga pants, a skirt for
special occasions, bathing suit, some underwear and some spares, and that is
going to be it.
I do plan on doing some shopping
there, so I might end up with taking more home than I left with, hah, but who
gives a fig? Am curious as heck about US fashion.
As for a few of the highlights we’ll
be seeing, in particular since we are going to try to not take highways: Niagara
Falls, which is just a must, naturally. Chicago, even if only in passing, we’ll
see how that goes. There will be nature reserves we’re stopping at along the
way. YES! There will be the Ozarks, which has been on our list to see for years
(long story, but it had to do with research for Girl in the Mist, duh). New
Orleans is on the list, in particular the French Quarter and parts of the bayou.
Yes, that is partly due to books we read, and movies we saw. We gotta see them
in real life!
From there on, we are going to make
our way back up to Boston. We had wanted to do Miami too, partly because book
two to Girl in the Mist happens there, and on the Keys, but we’re afraid we
just won’t be able to make that.
Next time! Heck yeah!
We’ll be passing through DC, of
course! Can’t go to the State and not at least drive past the White House! I mean,
seriously! It’s been in a gazillion movies, you have to have seen it if you go
to the States, right?
We’ve debated New York, and finally
decided to just pass it, rather than actually go in, but who knows. I do want
to take a pic of the Statue of Liberty, and definitely a New York city skyline,
so maybe we’ll venture beyond that and brave the city streets after all. In the
end it will depend on time, of course.
So that makes for this blog’s big
news. The trip will be extremely low-budget, and folks have been telling me horror
stories of low-budget motels/lodges/B&Bs and whatever, so we’re going to
just see how bad it’ll be, right?
Above all, it is going to be a huge
adventure, and that’s what is all about in the end.
What else? Well, I can’t really beat
what I just wrote, right? But here’s some more:
Did have to phone with the company
through which we have the house, because recently (thank gawd that was in the
days that I was dog sitting) while I was walking the dog at night, there was a
prowler near the house, and, if I am to believe the dog, who kept going from
window to window to bark afterward, around the house. Also, the barn on the
property has a door in the back that someone pried open. The dog did not
appreciate the nightly visitor and tried to go in pursuit, until the fence
stopped him.
But anyway, it shows exactly why
folks like us are asked to take residence in these buildings. After discussing
it with the company, we’ve all agreed to put padlocks on the barns. In regards
to this little incident, I am very happy to often have dogs staying over. Any entrepreneur-ish
prowler will have to think twice about thinking that there are none there on
the night they want to get adventurous and break in. No alarm system is quite
as discouraging as a possible massive dog behind the locked door.
Would like to have a permanent dog,
of course, but then events like the trip would, of course, pose a problem. Asking
the friends who are going to be taking care of our plants, and feed the cat to
also take the burden of a dog, just goes a little too far. Besides, there would
still be the problem of this cushy place falling through in the near future,
and then I’d have to get rid of the pooch, which would be so impossible just
when you get attached. Grrr.
So, for now frequent dog-sitting
will just have to do the trick.
The summer so far has been disappointing.
We had a couple of steamy weeks, but the month of June on itself has been
autumn-ish in regards to temperatures and sky cover. Grrr. It has been friggin’
cold at times, for crying out loud. The only advantage is that everything is
gorgeously green because of it, and the biggest disadvantage? Mosquitoes! A
gazillion of them! I look like a friggin’ pin-cushion. Dratted little
creatures. Apparently there is a plague going on, I heard on the news. But I
finally gave in and filled the house with a variety of mosquito repellents. I
still feel pricks every now and then, but on the most part that is just my skin
being upset in general. Poor skin.
Is there anything else to share? I’m
sure there is, but for the moment it eludes me. I’m going to have to get into
the habit of jotting down stuff when they happen, because my brain just refuses
to retain memories of daily stuff that could be very interesting to write
about.
Which means that I am going to wrap
it up here. I’ll be back!
