January, why did it have to be January?

Did you survive the holidays? or did you thrive?

I love a little stress, I do. Hence my Nano participation with glee. But when I end up pulling an all nighter at my father in law’s house the day before my Mother in laws’s celebration of life so I can finish my niece’s afghan for our Christmas that next afternoon…that’s cutting it a little close for my own comfort. But the afghan was beautiful. And I got a latte before I catered the reception.

Half the reason I was so behind was that I went to visit my good friend Missy for New Year’s Eve. I love going to her house. She has kids a bit older than mine and the second we arrive my son disappears upstairs to play with her kids. They all appear for meals but other than that we don’t see them. It is so awesome. Plus she and her husband have similar sense of humor to mine and my husbands. We play games, laugh too much, and drink more than is probably healthy. But it was New Years right?

I know what you are thinking. What does all this have to do with Nanowrimo? Not much. LOL. But after a cold yet dry week in Cali, we arrived home to non stop rain. And I liked it. So as I was driving along today I was reminded of the story I heard this year about why a rubber duck is the Nano symbol here in the Seattle area. I heard the story from someone who heard the story from someone who heard the story from someone, you get the picture.

Some Seattle folk had gone down to the University of Oregon to watch a football game against U-dub. At half time they noticed the Oregon duck wasn’t on the field and so they asked the animal handler why the duck wasn’t running around frolicking. The handler replied that it was raining.

And the hydrophobic duck was born that year as a nose thumb to U of Oregon. So now every November we all drag out our rubber ducks to each and every write in. Just in case you were wondering why….

In Cali we had plot ninjas. I prefer my ducks. There’s more scope for entertainment with ducks.

I have not written a word since the first week in December. My new mostly self imposed deadline is the end of January for completion. I want to take advantage of one of the winner prizes to get some hard copies of my novel published for free to give beta readers and that prize expires at the end of January. Stay tuned for updates in January twice a week.