Now THAT was a weekend...
I just had one of those truly great weekends were everything just seemed absolutley perfect. Of course, it did help that my weekend started on Thursday as I had Friday off. So it started off with Mike and I taking Jet to daycare, then we returned home and went back to bed. Heaven :)
There was so much packed into the weekend, I'll do some cutting else this entry'd be extremely long.
Friday night was the final installment of Braz's Feng Shui game. And it rocked. It was as bittersweet as I thought it was going to be. Lots of angst, fighting, and of course, characters dying. I did get my happy ending, but only because I asked for one and Braz really owes me one since he usually tortures my characters merclessly. And yes, he did make me work REALLY hard for my happy ending, but I got it. So I'm happy :). But both Troy and Kel's characters died, and the loss of Troy's Zeng really hit my character hardest. He was her bestest friend. But it was a good, noble death and he killed the leader of the Lodge, so for Zeng, it was worth it. I'll miss this game a lot, Braz was doing a fabulous job of balancing the Hong Kong ideals of angst and a hell of a lot of fighting. But, I realized I'd been playing Julia for nearly ten years now, so I think I'm finally at peace with letting her story be finished. For now :) Jet also had a really good time hanging out with my bro, so it was definitely an excellent evening all around.
Saturday is usually my day to sleep in, but instead, I got up early as I was heading out to a writing workshop. This workshop was on writing dialogue and was given by the same fellow I took the romance writing course from. It was held in the wilds of Mississauga, but Mike was a real good sport about giving me a ride way the hell out there. The one problem with growing up in the West end of Toronto is I tend to forget that Mississauga is actually far from the rest of the city... But anyway, it was a good sized class, about twenty people, and it was nice to just focus on dialogue, which wasn't really something we focused on during the course. Just the little tricks in which to ensure your characters do have separate voices, pitfalls to avoid such as too many elaborate tags (i.e. 'he said snidely, she said quickly, he said quietly, etc.) It was a lot of fun and well, I was volunteered by my group to read my practice piece in front of the whole class and it was well received (I did an about-to be divorced couple stranded in a boat with a shark circling around) and at this point, I've recieved enough positive criticism about my writing to actually feel pretty confident I could make a go of selling my romance novel. Positive re-enforcement is a good thing :)
So after getting home from the writing workshop, Jet and I puttered around the house a bit and Mike went over to cut his mother's lawn. At this point, Braz had called, looking for something to do, so he came over, brought some beautiful steaks with him, and was instrumental in helping Jet and I get our badly mauled garden back together. Our front steps had been recently rebuilt, and they ripped out everything and put nothing back, and I was getting sick of looking at the ruins they'd left of my garden and lawn. So eventually we'd had enough gardening in the blazing heat, Mike returned, and I ventured out to bbq those perfect steaks. They came out really, really well, it was an excellent dinner overall. And once Jet was in bed, Mike, Braz and I hung out, shot the shit about games, literature and life in general. Good times.
Sunday, Mike let me sleep in a bit, but I got up around 10:30 and let Mike go back to bed. Jet and I went over to the local plaza and got a few more plants in an effort to revive my sad garden. I also went to the Dollar Store (gods I love that place) and bought some little white fencing to use as an edge around my gardens since the contractors who rebuilt my front porch also took away all the lovely bricks I'd used in edging the garden last summer. Bastards. Anyway, so we worked for a bit, but at noon, the sun came out and the heat went from bake to broil, so in we went. We also needed to have some lunch, and wake Mike up, for at 1:30 we were heading out to Braz's to go swimming with him, Hunter and Alden. I love pools in 30+ degree weather. It was so good. And Jet really got into it, which was great. He didn't want to put the water wings on at first, so I took him in the pool and we bounced around for a moment, then I explained the wings would allow him to float, and suddenly, he was all over the idea. So we put the wings on and off he went. He loved it! So we all splashed around, and I had brought these little, spongy balls for the boys to throw around, which they did with great abandon :) Eventually, cooled off and waterlogged, we headed back upstairs where Braz made us a tasty dinner of pasta and chicken and the boys played
a bit more, but finally, we had to call it an evening as Jet was getting pretty tired. So we said our good byes as Braz and his boys headed out for ice-cream. Mike and I got home, Jet went to bed pretty much right away, so we got caught up on our Justice League Unlimited (BEST CLIFFHANGER EVER!) and Coupling and then off to bed ourselves.
I wish every weekend was so good, but I know they can't be, else the ones like this one wouldn't stand out so wonderfully. I hope everyone had an equally good weekend!
There was so much packed into the weekend, I'll do some cutting else this entry'd be extremely long.
Friday night was the final installment of Braz's Feng Shui game. And it rocked. It was as bittersweet as I thought it was going to be. Lots of angst, fighting, and of course, characters dying. I did get my happy ending, but only because I asked for one and Braz really owes me one since he usually tortures my characters merclessly. And yes, he did make me work REALLY hard for my happy ending, but I got it. So I'm happy :). But both Troy and Kel's characters died, and the loss of Troy's Zeng really hit my character hardest. He was her bestest friend. But it was a good, noble death and he killed the leader of the Lodge, so for Zeng, it was worth it. I'll miss this game a lot, Braz was doing a fabulous job of balancing the Hong Kong ideals of angst and a hell of a lot of fighting. But, I realized I'd been playing Julia for nearly ten years now, so I think I'm finally at peace with letting her story be finished. For now :) Jet also had a really good time hanging out with my bro, so it was definitely an excellent evening all around.
Saturday is usually my day to sleep in, but instead, I got up early as I was heading out to a writing workshop. This workshop was on writing dialogue and was given by the same fellow I took the romance writing course from. It was held in the wilds of Mississauga, but Mike was a real good sport about giving me a ride way the hell out there. The one problem with growing up in the West end of Toronto is I tend to forget that Mississauga is actually far from the rest of the city... But anyway, it was a good sized class, about twenty people, and it was nice to just focus on dialogue, which wasn't really something we focused on during the course. Just the little tricks in which to ensure your characters do have separate voices, pitfalls to avoid such as too many elaborate tags (i.e. 'he said snidely, she said quickly, he said quietly, etc.) It was a lot of fun and well, I was volunteered by my group to read my practice piece in front of the whole class and it was well received (I did an about-to be divorced couple stranded in a boat with a shark circling around) and at this point, I've recieved enough positive criticism about my writing to actually feel pretty confident I could make a go of selling my romance novel. Positive re-enforcement is a good thing :)
So after getting home from the writing workshop, Jet and I puttered around the house a bit and Mike went over to cut his mother's lawn. At this point, Braz had called, looking for something to do, so he came over, brought some beautiful steaks with him, and was instrumental in helping Jet and I get our badly mauled garden back together. Our front steps had been recently rebuilt, and they ripped out everything and put nothing back, and I was getting sick of looking at the ruins they'd left of my garden and lawn. So eventually we'd had enough gardening in the blazing heat, Mike returned, and I ventured out to bbq those perfect steaks. They came out really, really well, it was an excellent dinner overall. And once Jet was in bed, Mike, Braz and I hung out, shot the shit about games, literature and life in general. Good times.
Sunday, Mike let me sleep in a bit, but I got up around 10:30 and let Mike go back to bed. Jet and I went over to the local plaza and got a few more plants in an effort to revive my sad garden. I also went to the Dollar Store (gods I love that place) and bought some little white fencing to use as an edge around my gardens since the contractors who rebuilt my front porch also took away all the lovely bricks I'd used in edging the garden last summer. Bastards. Anyway, so we worked for a bit, but at noon, the sun came out and the heat went from bake to broil, so in we went. We also needed to have some lunch, and wake Mike up, for at 1:30 we were heading out to Braz's to go swimming with him, Hunter and Alden. I love pools in 30+ degree weather. It was so good. And Jet really got into it, which was great. He didn't want to put the water wings on at first, so I took him in the pool and we bounced around for a moment, then I explained the wings would allow him to float, and suddenly, he was all over the idea. So we put the wings on and off he went. He loved it! So we all splashed around, and I had brought these little, spongy balls for the boys to throw around, which they did with great abandon :) Eventually, cooled off and waterlogged, we headed back upstairs where Braz made us a tasty dinner of pasta and chicken and the boys played
a bit more, but finally, we had to call it an evening as Jet was getting pretty tired. So we said our good byes as Braz and his boys headed out for ice-cream. Mike and I got home, Jet went to bed pretty much right away, so we got caught up on our Justice League Unlimited (BEST CLIFFHANGER EVER!) and Coupling and then off to bed ourselves.
I wish every weekend was so good, but I know they can't be, else the ones like this one wouldn't stand out so wonderfully. I hope everyone had an equally good weekend!