New Blog Series

Since A to Z wound down and the cool days of spring are shifting into the warmer days of summer I've been pondering what to write about for my blog. I do like blogging about writing but I don't want to only blog about writing. I want to get some more of my other interests in here, which I'm sure others share some of them.

With those thoughts, and thanks to Julie's Travel's with Clancy I decided it might be fun to have the occasional blog post of my visits to various places around my area. I live in central New York state and I enjoy getting out into more natural settings. Luckily we have parks galore around here; nestled in the rivers, lakes, and mountains. I'm probably going to put up a wish list of places I'm planning on visiting soon along with farther away places that I would like to visit someday.

For this summer I'm hoping to get to both Letchworth state park and Chimney Bluffs. Both destinations are under a two hour drive from where I live.

Letchworth is referred to as the "Grand Canyon of the East". The Genesee river flows through a gorge in the park and down waterfalls. At one of the falls there is a set of stone steps that lead down into the gorge for a closer view. I've been there several times and I'm looking forward to visiting again.

Chimney Bluffs is a park along the shore of Lake Ontario consisting of a series of pointed bluffs perched on the edge of the beach. It looks like some rock formations from the US southwest were dropped into New York. The Wiki page has more detail on this park than the state website does. I've been here once before and unfortunately didn't have time to explore the various hiking trails. When my husband and I heard a thunderstorm approaching we went to the local winery instead.

If I get out towards Buffalo, there is Chestnut Ridge park. I used to go there fairly often when I was younger and wander the creek with my brother. In a book my mom had picked up a few years back I read about the Eternal Flame. In a waterfall just outside the park proper there is a natural gas fissure that causes a flame to burn in a grotto behind the falling water.

So basically this is the start of figuring out where exactly I want to go and what I want to see. I'd really like to go to Letchworth for a weekend trip. While it is fairly close I'd like to stay at the Glen Iris inn. I read in the AAA magazine that the inn has a porch with plenty of chairs within earshot of the falls. It sounds like a relaxing way to enjoy the day after going hiking and taking pictures.

Of course there is Niagara Falls not to far. But for this blog series I think it would be more fun to focus on lesser known places. Though if I wind up at the Niagara Falls park I'd like to photograph Tesla's statue and the three sisters islands are always interesting.

Introducing Mr Whiskers

Awhile back I had posted about my three cats. It was for my T post in fact for the A to Z challenge. Well my DH and I recently adopted another cat. Our next door neighbor passed away in early May, leaving behind her four year old male cat. No one else in the neighborhood could take him in, and the plan A house didn't work. So my husband and I decided to provide a home for him.

Here is is. I took this picture a few weeks back. He was sitting in the window watching the birds outside then he had turned to look at me. Luckily I had my cell phone handy.

Here he is outside. His previous owner used to put him out in her backyard on a tie out. He would sit out there enjoying the fresh air and watching the yard from underneath the bushes. I'm getting him used to a harness and leash. I took this picture yesterday while following him around in the front yard. The only time I had directed him was when he tried to crawl into the basement window well.

I'm not so much training him to walk like a dog would. Rather I'm aiming to have him comfortable wandering at his pace. We do have a tie out which I'll have to see where in our yard he would like to spend time. It would be someplace where I could keep an eye on him while gardening. With all the neighborhood cats wandering through our yard I don't want to leave our cats outside on their own. Plus to if the cat moves just right they can back out of a harness, and they can manage to get their leads/tie out tangled in ways a dog rarely could.

Games Blogfest

I signed up way back when for Alex's Games Blogfest. Here is my post with my favorite games.

Drod - I love this game. I first started playing it years ago when I bought a disk with many various games and Drod was one of them. This is part puzzle, part monster slaying and it now has more games. The first game starts in King Dugan's Dungeon (KDD) where Beethro is tasked with cleaning out said dungeon. The player controls Beethro through various rooms on various levels of the dungeon slaying all the monsters. Each type of monster has specific rules it follows, moving only when Beethro moves/"waits".

In addition to many many puzzles in all the various rooms across the three games there is also a level editor. Anyone who wants to can create their own levels to play through and can share them on the community forum. I'm still working on the official game levels so I haven't downloaded any other levels yet. I have played with the level editor though and have had fun doing so.

Sims - I've played this game for years starting with the original Sims on the PC. I even had downloaded a tool to make custom objects for the game. Right now I have Sims 2 and various expansion packs for my computer. Because I'm going to be upgrading my computer soon I'm waiting on installing everything and I miss the game. Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but my favorite way to play Sims is simply making up families/friends and seeing how they interact. I don't get into the game aspect of it as much, I don't pay much attention to getting my sims to the tops of their careers or having them make tons of money.

I do have Sims 3 for the Wii, which I've played a few times. While I like it I'm still getting used to the console controls for everything. My poor sim family has a couch facing the wrong way because I can't get it to rotate. (Then again I had cat on lap while playing and the instruction  booklet was out of reach).

Labyrinth - The game not the movie (though the movie is great to). This is something I played with my mom and brother when I was a kid. I couldn't not include a board game for this post. For the game play each player has several cards each of which have the picture of an object on them. The player's token starts at a corner of the board then has to move around the maze of the board to land on the spots with the matching object pictures. The first player to reach all their pictures wins.

The challenging part comes in with changing the maze. The board is comprised of flat pieces with pictures of the maze walls/path on them. Some pieces are permanently fixed on the board while others move. At the start of each turn a player picks up the extra maze piece and has to shift the maze once before moving their token.

Blogfest approaching

Alex J. Cavanaugh: A to Z Challenge - Y - Blogfest!!!

I signed up for this awhile back and am looking forward to it. The event is on the 6th, almost here. I've gotten a draft post started with the three games I want to blog about.

If anyone else wants to join in the signup is on the post I linked to.

Spring has finally sprung

We've had a few warmer days over the past few weeks mixed in with chilly rainy days. This week the weather has been getting nicer, especially today. It was sunny and warm with a soft breeze. The sort of day that simply begged to be spent outdoors. This week is also the start of summer hours at work. Monday through Thursday has slightly longer days to allow for half day Fridays. Needless to say I made the most out of the afternoon off.

After lunch I took the camera outside to capture the various blossoms with the wonderful light. We have crabapple trees which have been budding this week. There were a few blossoms Wednesday and yesterday. Today they really filled out, there are almost no buds left. The buds are pink but they turn white as they open. The pink crabapple is nice to it has pretty colored blossoms. Unfortunately it has a few dead branches that need pruning.




This is one of the pictures I took today, there are more in the set I created on Flickr. Most of the pictures in the set are from today, with three pictures from two weeks ago. I love this time of the year. The warmer days and everything growing is such a mood boost.

Happy Mother's Day

I wanted to post quick to say happy Mother's Day to all the moms and moms to be out there. Moms of 2 and or 4 legged children :)

A to Z Wrap up

Well, maybe call this more of a lessons learned for next time post instead.

First off I have to say that participating in A to Z was a blast. It was great to meet new bloggers, write on a theme, have a posting goal, and be a part of something exciting like this. There were times I got overwhelmed with trying to get my posts written while visiting other bloggers and leaving intelligent comments.

That said I have four things I want to do for next year. The first one is the planning ahead item and the other three I can balance time between during the challenge.

1) Write and schedule posts ahead of time. While it was fun posting just about every day it did take time away from visiting other blogs. For me I would have enjoyed the challenge more without balancing posting (as much) with commenting / visiting.

2) Set aside a block of time for Google Reader to visit blogs I'm following. I enjoyed all the first time blog visits, but I found myself missing out on some of the other A to Z blogs that I wanted to read more of. It was tricky to balance those first visits with return visits. I plan on prioritizing the A to Z blogs though I could still comment on other blogs I'm following.

And yes, with Google Reader I created a folder for A to Z for ease of seeing the posts. Reader does allow adding a blog to more than one folder. There were several blogs that were in my A to Z folder along with my writers folder. And I can also use Google Reader on my phone. With visiting blogs I'm already following I don't need to check them off on my spreadsheet which is tricky to view on my phone.

3) Set aside another block of time to visit the people who have been to my blog. When people comment it does make it easier to find their blog/blogger profile than following only. It depends how they have their account setup. I tried to visit everyone who had commented/followed my blog and I think I did a fairly good job. Though I may have missed some people with my time being hit and miss between everything.

4) Set aside another block of time to visit other participants blogs. Pretty much this is the getting out there and meeting new bloggers part. For me this is where I made the most use out of my spreadsheet. I would scroll through it then click a random link to a blog. After reading their most recent post and commenting I would put the date down on my spreadsheet. I figured that way I could do some after challenge stats and see how many blogs I visited and when. (I was also checking off blogs from point 3 if I hadn't been there already - a visit is a visit). I wasn't keeping track of return visits, only when I got a chance to stop by each blog for the first time.

It really doesn't matter in which order I'll do the last three points. And heck, 3 and 4 can overlap. Over the course of the challenge when I would visit back a commenter (point 3) I would find their blog in my spreadsheet. Then after reading and commenting I would return to my spreadsheet and visit some other blogs listed near that one. In a way it was my method of randomly visiting other blogs.

I do also want to figure out how best to reply to comments. I tried to reply individually to comments on my blog but quickly got overwhelmed with balancing things. And I was wondering how many people would stop back and see if their comment was replied to with the mass of other blogs to visit. I did have some people reply to my comments via e-mail which was handy. When I comment on another blog I try to revisit to check for replies but don't always manage to. A to Z or not.

Oh and I am going to put together a spreadsheet again as it was helpful to me to keep track of who I'd visited.  And I can share a copy out for anyone else that would want to use it.

So what were your experiences with the challenge? What worked well for you? What would you do differently next year? Granted what works for one person could be stressful for another person. Though seeing what others thought of the challenge sounds fun.

A to Z: Zip Zap

Yes, with it being the end of the challenge I've run out of good ideas to post about. Then again this whole last week has been random. I was playing with the auto complete on my phone typing in letter combinations starting with z and seeing what it suggested. It did Zip which made me think of Zap. Now I have comic book images in my head, with all those great sound words. And pow, which also has an action element to it.

Not just comics, but sound descriptive words are fun in various other types of writing. Maybe a character has favorite ones, or maybe it helps emphasize a certain component within a scene.

Do you have any favorite sounding words? What about your characters? Have fun with the A to Z challenge? Hard to believe today is the last day. It feels like only yesterday when I was blogging about altruism, books, and culture.

Story a Day in May

I still have yet to write my Z post, but I wanted to take the time to let anyone know who may be interested about the Story a Day challenge over at Forward Motion for Writers. I decided this morning to join the challenge and while I'm going to try to write a story a day I'll probably end up writing 10 stories.

10 stories? The challenge originally started out as a story each day, but for the past few years (I'm not sure how long ago) different levels were added for people to aim for. There is the 10 story level, the 15 level, the 20 level, and the 31 stories level. The 31 level is there for those who do want to try for a story a day. Stories for the challenge need to have a minimum of 500 words and have a beginning/middle/end. A group of 5 drabbles can also count as a story. A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

The challenge also involves using various story/idea generators for most of the stories. There are a variety of generators linked in the challenge thread, and participants can keep playing with a generator until it sparks the muse. I have fun with the generators, it adds a nice little challenge to writing a story and it is a good push to write something different then I might have otherwise.

The challenge is only open to members of FM Writers, but anyone can join the forum. I've mentioned the forum in my R for resources post, there is plenty there for writers. Here is the thread with all the details about the challenge. This link will only work for people logged into the forum.

There, now off to write my Z post, visit back people who have stopped by here, and check out some more A to Z bloggers.

A to Z: Yoga

Short post for today, and a bit of a revisit topic wise. Yoga. Exercise with focus on controlling the mind and body. I also like to think about the stretching and balancing aspects of it. For me my favorite part of yoga is striking a pose and feeling myself balance and my muscles stretching.

What do your characters do for fitness and to unwind? What about your favorite exercises?