Lazy Days… Whazzat?

30 November 2011 at 8:13 pm (Entertainment, Family, Plinky Prompts, Wellbeing, Work)
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Lazy is as lazy does… and perhaps my 'lazy does' is the equivalent of frenetic activity for some people. No matter. My frenetic activity is sloth by someone else's standards, I'm sure.

Garden

I guess that my definition of a lazy day is different than that of most people. No wonder. The way we define lack of activity depends entirely on what we have come to consider normal activity.

I've never been the kind that floops and vegetates in one place all day. I don't have attention issues, but I do tend to get fidgety if I'm forced to keep at something for a long time. (That's why I thrived with the shorter periods and brief breaks of Greek schools; an unbroken 2-hour session of anything would drive me crazy.) So just settling in a sunlounger from morning till evening is out of the question. I'm still amazed at the number of people who consider a day spent slow-roasting on the beach or doing nothing in the balcony a day well spent.

A lazy day, in my book, is a day when I can have uninterrupted time to myself instead of working for others. A toddler has me on duty all the time – take that away, and suddenly the height of idleness is attainable. Getting all the others out of the house and having the place all to myself… ditching housework, keeping the TV off, reading and writing as I see fit, popping out to the supermarket cafe around the corner to avoid as much as cooking anything, a long, unhurried yoga session followed by an equally long and unhurried hot shower and an early night – that's a lazy day for me, one that would have my poor depleted batteries overflowing with fresh charge.

Since such a setting ranges from improbable to impossible, though, I could make do with dedicating the young one's school hours to my own unwinding. It's only about two hours, three times a week, but it's much better than nothing (my SAD, which would normally be running rampant by now, has still to arrive, and it's all the doing of the school run, which gets me out in the daylight), and it's only going to increase as he moves from preschool to full time primary.

It doesn't have to be a day of doing nothing. It can very well be a day of doing different things. Things we're not expected to do every day. It's not work if you don't have to do it.

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Not So Silly Box

29 November 2011 at 10:24 pm (Britain, Entertainment, Family, Humour, Internet, Music, People, Plinky Prompts)
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I don't watch much TV; in fact, my viewing dwindled to nearly nothing when the computer first came home, and it's never been the same since. But still there are a few things that it's worth making time for.

Jools introducing the Streets

I've been a big fan of The X-Files since 1993 and own the complete set of DVDs. (It was a collectible offer and it took me two years, but boy, was it worth it.) Despite the fact that it went downhill from season 6 onwards, it's still one of the shows I stop to watch, whether on DVD or catching reruns, especially seasons 2-3, my favourites. That and Babylon 5 are the only shows of my younger days in Greece that I still have contact with, mostly because my husband is the big B5 geek. We only completed our latest marathon a couple of weeks ago.

After moving to the UK I discovered Doctor Who. I'd seen some of the Tom Baker era as a child, and was unimpressed. I remain unimpressed by the Doctors themselves (neither David Tennant nor Matt Smith have clicked in the slightest for me), and some of the companions *coughBilliePipercough* can be beyond annoying, but the wackiness of the entire premise wins, and I watch and enjoy. My three-year-old is a massive fan as well, though he keeps watching for the aliens; Daleks make him happy, Cybermen intrigue him, and Slitheen ('smelly aliens with clicky hands and zips on their heads!') were the ones who drew him in to start with. I actually enjoy Torchwood more, though, after the last two short serials, I'm looking forward to something longer and more episodic, like the first two seasons.

With MTV irrelevant and Top of the Pops defunct, Later… with Jools Holland is hands down the best music show out there. I don't find the much-touted Hootenanny much of a party (unless one is a fan of watching celebrities get drunk off their asses, which I'm not), but the weekly shows are fascinating combinations of established stars showcasing their latest works and relative, or even complete, unknowns given almost equal stage time. I have discovered more artists than I care to count by going on frantic YouTube and Last.fm searches just after, or even still during, watching them on Jools. Priceless.

Finally, I could cite a lot of charming children's series, which I get to follow together with my young one, but I'll opt for just one instead, one that's rather too advanced for a preschooler, but fascinating for anyone whose age has hit the double digits: Horrible Histories. You don't find many educational shows today that manage to be as screamingly funny as that. The history is accurate, and the sketches are chock-full of cultural references that may be lost on the young but make their parents roll with laughter, a lot like the pop culture bits in Terry Pratchett's novels. I have the first two seasons on DVD and can hardly wait for the third to come out. Simon Farnaby (of The Mighty Boosh fame), Matthew Baynton (main frontman of Savage Songs), Ben Willbond, Sarah Hadland and Alice Lowe have definitely become household names. At least in this household.

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That Fickle Muse

28 November 2011 at 10:51 pm (Plinky Prompts, Roleplaying, Special Days, Writing)
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NaNoWriMo is officially over. I hit 50K words earlier today, but I'm taking the last couple of days to push on to the end of my story, which is in sight.

NaNoWriMo Day 3

My muse has been incredibly accommodating this year. It's the first time, after one failure and three wins, that I've been consistently ahead of schedule and never had to pull a desperate 5K day towards the end.

But then my muse is happy when he has work. When I write, he rides me harder than any mundane influence, lover or employer, ever has. When I'm not, he puts on his best urbane-looking Victorian Hellfire club face and never tires in his attempts to seduce me into following him. (He has some pretty creative punishments up his sleeve if I resist too long, as well… but that's another story for another day.)

Not to say that my muse doesn't have his blind spots as well. He's not good with plot, at least original plot seeds, while he's brilliant with characters and settings. All my plots are, at least in the beginning, hopelessly, or rather shamelessly, derivative: I pick a story I've read and redo it. Thing is, though, most of my fiction is collaborative, and the other person's input is invaluable in making our story veer far from the canon. So far, in fact, that sometimes we lose track of the original altogether.

Most of what I know about the craft of writing comes from Marion Zimmer Bradley and the liberal pearls of wisdom she included in the anthologies she edited. It's all in the characters for me. I don't do fanfiction, though I may slip a canon character as an NPC here and there, if the setting warrants it. Starting with real people, things are bound to happen, and sometimes working in an established but unfamiliar universe can be dizzyingly inspirational. A writing partner introduced me to the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, months before I got to start reading the series; one of the challenges I relished most was crafting a Darkover story with another partner who had never read Darkover. Right now I'm negotiating a story that will explore what Beatrice Rappaccini might have grown into, and I'm fairly giddy with stampeding ideas.

It might be my speculative bent, but I don't tend to find sparks of inspiration in real life around me; not in events or people I experience, though some nature can get me into just the right mood to be receptive. It's inspired art that inspires me in turn – particularly words and music. I've lost count of how many times a song title has sprung up and demanded to be a story title as well.

Unlike other years, when I end NaNoWriMo with a desperate need to decompress by writing nothing for weeks, now I'm ready to dive back into my stories and reward my co-writers' patience. If that's not creative inspiration, I wouldn't know what is.

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Sugar and Spice, Sharp but Nice

27 November 2011 at 10:51 pm (Family, Food, Greece, Personality, Plinky Prompts, Self)
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I've been repeatedly asked to imagine what flavour I would be, and I can never come up with a satisfactory answer. Probably because flavour means food, but there's so much more to food than flavour.

Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies

I'm not a foodie snob, just someone who loves enjoying her food. There's flavour, but there's also smell, there's texture, there's temperature. All those can make a world of difference. So I decided to cheat a bit and figure out what kind of foodstuff I could be… and the choice just sprang up without me having to think about it at all.

If I identify with a food item, in a 'come back as X' way, that would have to be my mother's spice and orange cookies. They don't look like those up there in the photo; she prefers to twist the dough into little braids and shape them into sticks, crescents or rings. They are vegetarian, as there is no butter, milk or egg in the recipe; baking them would always ramp up big time during fasting periods, and the smell of cinnamon, clove and orange greeted people from the landing, without even having to open the door into the flat.

They're fluffy and comforting when eaten hot, just out of the oven, or even warm, although I've always preferred them cold, at least a couple of days old, when they feel more solid and the flavours have blended. And unlike so many other cookies that seem to be designed to be dunked in milk, these are extra yummy when dipped in orange juice, leaving some of their spiciness in the drink.

I'm not sure if I identify with them because they tick all the 'favourite foods' boxes or if I like them so much because I'm so like them, but there you have it. I'm solid, dependable, low maintenance, a generally wholesome influence; sweet but with a little core of pungency, an acquired taste. I want to believe I bring a bit of comfort, even with some crumbly rough edges, to the lives of the people I touch, and leave something of myself in them.

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Tips for Saving Money

26 November 2011 at 11:54 pm (Entertainment, Family, Food, Insight, Plinky Prompts, Style, Wellbeing)
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I'm not particularly good at managing money, mostly because it's been so tight for as long as I can remember, that there hasn't been much that I could actually choose how to spend. But when hard times came knocking (hello, unemployment!), I found there were still ways to stretch those pennies further.

Security Enhanced Piggy Bank

Switch to the 'basics' foodstuffs range of your chosen supermarket (in my case, Sainsbury's), rather than the 'premium'. Some are rather mediocre quality – the coffee is too acid for our taste, the toilet paper is so thin it's not cost effective – but most are just slightly smaller than the regulars (Scotch eggs, tinned tomatoes, biscuits, chips). Cuts of meat can go either way; some end up in basics only because they're poorly cut, others have so much fat and/or gristle that the actual meat on them comes off as more expensive than more 'deluxe' ranges.

Use those loyalty cards and vouchers. I hardly ever go into a shop where I have no card to swipe these days. Nectar points are flexibly redeemable; they can stretch the grocery budget or buy gifts and little luxuries that one wouldn't afford otherwise.

When you find an offer, buy in bulk. This is ideal for non-perishables, and only storage space is the limit.

Upgrade your home insulation. We've just jumped at the opportunity to have British Gas do both the loft and the wall cavities for free. It can make a great difference to the heating system's efficiency, not to mention the utility bills!

Shop around for a good phone/internet/TV package. We are with Sky, and get HD satellite TV, unlimited broadband and essentially free landline calls (including abroad) for much less than each one would cost separately.

Consider switching to a pay-as-you-go mobile phone and a prepaid credit card, so charges will depend entirely on usage.

Plan outings around establishments' happy hours, which can reduce the bill greatly. If I bother to take the family to the Harvester before 5.30pm, we'll pay 1/3 less than after.

Entertainment doesn't have to cost a fortune. Not with libraries, book swap clubs, DVDs coming out hot on the heels of theatre releases, digital downloads available at bargain prices, and the option of entertaining at home.

Use cash as much as possible. You can't rake up an overdraught when there's nothing more in your wallet to spend. Seeing exactly how much you have allows more efficient rationing.

Don't mope. Whether it is a temporary thing, to weather some hard times, or there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, bemoaning your fate and feeling deprived all the time gets depressing and can very easily lead to some overindulgence, just to drive the blues away. I've been there. It's more effective to consider it lifestyle-building. Just like building new lifelong habits is a more effective weight loss tactic than a crash diet.

After all, the way we spend each day ends up being the way we spend our lives.

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