compound to compound, lazy and safe - wanting to leave it, wanting to wait

Ah, the new year. I wrote 371 blog posts in 2010, and my brother told me today that he doesn't read them for variety, since they are almost always "I had lunch with someone, I procrastinated, I had dinner with someone, and I meant to work on my book but I didn't." I'm paraphrasing, of course; the problem with being home is that they seem to catch out every little detail that I misreport on my blog, and so I don't want to imply that what I wrote above is a verbatim recollection. Of course, I've gotten other complaints of lack of accuracy before (mostly for not labeling posts correctly if I've hung out with Vidya or Adit, since they demand truth in labeling), but it will be nice to get back to a place where I can claim that something has apricots in it and no one will get all uppity about it.

Anyway, today was a lovely start to the new year; I kicked it off right by eating leftover syrniki, and the cheesy pancakes were almost as good reheated as they were last night. We also had some of the chocolate meringue pie that my mother made yesterday, and it was damned tasty -- her pie crusts are about the flakiest pie crusts you will ever experience, and I'm looking forward to savoring my other piece tomorrow. Later in the afternoon, the four of us played two games of hearts, neither of which are worth reporting upon since I lost both times. Then, my father and I braved the frigid (thirteen degree) night air to pick up pizza from Casey's, which is quite possibly the only pizza available for purchase in Iowa that can compete with the pizzas of the west coast, even if it is made in the back of a small-town convenience store.

After supper, I did some quality procrastinating and watched an episode of "48 Hours: Mystery" in the kitchen while my father made ambrosia, and we discussed the vagaries of small town murders and the chances that the right people don't get caught. Then, I came downstairs and actually wrote 600+ words -- they ain't pretty and are going to need some editing, but as least I did it. My real goal for 2011 is to write 2000 words every day (with a day or two off per week for weekends, etc.), but 600 while still on vacation is decent. Part of what helped me was downloading a timer with a non-obnoxious ringer for my mac so that I can set writing and break intervals; it's obviously way too soon to predict results, but it could be beneficial to getting me off the internet and into my writing (and conversely, to give me smaller chunks of time that feel more manageable and encourage me to stick it out for a few more minutes each time rather than giving up and checking twitter).

I dreamed some v. vivid dreams last night, mostly revolving around being evacuated from Hawaii during what felt like World War II, and so I'm going to try to go to sleep now and hope that my dreams are quieter. I'm looking forward to bringing you another 365+ riveting blog posts such as these in the new year, and I hope that you are looking forward to having your eyes glaze over as you read them -- consider it my gift to you. Goodnight!