Fun Facts About the Happy Couple

     Hello duckies! Been a while.
     Today is mine and Joseph's first (and only) dating anniversary, and I figured we could celebrate by publishing a "fun facts" post for kicks and giggles, since I believe there are some tickling things people don't actually know about us or our story. Therefore, read on, be amused, and celebrate with us! We're so grateful for the love and support of our families and friends. Only 172 days to go until I'm officially a Winnard!
     With love,
     V

• It is a common misconception that Victoria chooses weight lifting for exercise because Joseph did it first. Actually, Victoria had been lifting weights regularly, on her own, for 5 months before she met Joseph. He has been a positive influence in propelling her to continue lifting, but her initial decision to start was completely independent - weight lifting was one of the topics of excited discussion that drew them together when they met
• They met in NYC at a psychology conference while Victoria was standing by a poster of research, though Joseph went to school in Maryland and Victoria in Virginia
• A candid photo exists, courtesy of Dr. Buchholz, of the couple mere minutes after initially meeting
• The second day of their quickly blossoming friendship, they ran into each other again and spent three hours talking nonstop about sundry topics of intense interest
• Victoria was the one to initiate swapping contact information
• A week after meeting, Victoria drove from Virginia to Maryland to spend the day with Joseph
• Ten days after they first met, they decided to date
• A month into dating, they took time individually to write out relationship goals, before coming together to share and swap them
• Victoria's parents' wedding anniversary falls on Memorial day weekend - Victoria and Joseph's will fall on Labor day weekend
• Victoria is approximately 2 and a half months older than Joseph
• Their first vacation consisted of Joseph surprising Victoria with a trip to Ocean City for a few days
• Three months after meeting, they attended another psychology conference together in Nova Scotia, Canada, and plan to go back for visit in the future
• The place they had their first kiss (the terrace-like 12th floor of the UB law building) is also where Joseph proposed
• On one of the coldest days of this winter season, they successfully replaced the power steering pump on Joseph's car by themselves (and a little help from Joseph's dad). Earlier in the season, they replaced the power steering hoses with the help of Victoria's dad. Neither have any qualms about getting their hands dirty and learning new skills!
• Between starting to date and their engagement, they attended three weddings
• In proposing, Joseph went the traditional route and spoke to Victoria's parents about it beforehand, asking for their blessing (and knowing he was going to get it!)
• Both Joseph and Victoria felt led to tell each other "I love you" for the first time on the same day
• During the first month of dating, 3-5 hour phone calls at night became a common and frequent occurrence

For more details and fun stuff about our relationship, you can visit these posts: 

http://thewritersinkworld.blogspot.com/2016/10/alma-led-me-here.html

http://thewritersinkworld.blogspot.com/2016/03/addressing-skepticism.html

The Fire Abates

Buon pomeriggio!

All right, folks, it's that time again. Time for a summer update (the penultimate one, in fact - hence Tarzan in disbelief and shock). I have certainly gotten a few things done (mainly books) since the last update in July, which is satisfying. I am one book shy of having the list finished (The Return of the King), and at the last update, it should be marked off the list. I am steadily getting through it, whereas The Fellowship and The Two Towers I was able to get through pretty quickly. This week has been fairly busy and finishing writing this sequel-prequel thing has been the priority. I plan to have that done before the first day of classes as well, but cross your fingers for me. I only have ten days until I zip out of here and to the Noke. Crazy, right? Summer is rapidly coming to a close.

Books:

Inheritance (of the Inheritance Cycle by Paolini) (5/11)

The Girl who Played with Fire (5/20)

Man's Search for Meaning (5/25)

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (5/31)

City of Bones (6/7)

City of Ashes (6/14)

City of Glass (6/23)

Clockwork Angel (7/15)

Clockwork Prince (7/20)

Clockwork Princess (7/25)

The Fellowship of the Ring (8/6)

The Two Towers (8/9)

The Return of the King (28.8% done!)

Movies/shows:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (4/28-5/08)

Wreck-it-Ralph (5/07)

Cats Don't Dance (re-watch) (5/14)

Dinosaurs: We're Back! (5/14)

Road to El Dorado (re-watch) (5/20)

The Fountain (5/22)

Saving Private Ryan (5/24)

Swan Princess (5/31)

Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain (5/31)

Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure

 (for old time's sake; I was obsessed with these movies as a child!) (6/1)

The Road (6/8)

500 Days of Summer (6/9)

The Possession (6/13)

Matrix Trilogy (re-watch) (6/15)

Avengers (rewatch) (7/2)

Phantom of the Opera (rewatch) (7/3)

Thor (7/3)

Bachelorette (7/4)

Mean Girls (rewatch) (7/4)

Tarzan (rewatch) (7/5)

Despicable Me (7/5)

Déjà vu (7/7)

The Island (7/10)

Hell's Kitchen [season 10] (7/7 – 7/16)

American Psycho (7/17)

Tron Legacy (7/26)

Elektra (7/27)

Pretty Woman (7/27)

Legion (8/6)

Fried Green Tomatoes (8/10)

Games:

Bioshock (6/3 – 3:55 PM to 11:58 PM = 8 hour completion)

Halo: Reach (6/4 – 9 hrs: 16 mins: 48 seconds on one day)
Bioshock Infinite (7/17 – around 8 hours for completion)
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3

Serious:

Revise the living daylights out of first book in trilogy (5/21)

Outline second book (6/28)

Write second book (7/1 -    ) [I’m fifty thousand words in, with a bit more story to tell!]

Well that's it for me, it seems. Off to drink this strawberry-banana-blueberry smoothie I just made - and it's one of the frozen kind, so it's fresh and refreshing (:

I shall return to update again in ten days or so, unless I have something else that I simply must share between now and then.

Ta!

V

Thoughts of My Waking Dreams

Why is it so oddly satisfying to harmonize with humming household electronics? (Vacuums, pop corn makers, etc.)

If I was bald, I'd probably wear hats almost constantly.

When I was younger, I used to think ingesting blood would put it back into my bloodstream.

No matter up much I practice, I have realized I will never be proficient at speaking to unknown persons on the telephone (i.e. any sort of office, take-out food orders).

I think sneezing while driving is one of the most frightening experiences ever. Especially while on the highway.

Sometimes, if I laugh hard enough and I am simultaneously trying to keep quiet, I will start to squeak.

If you ever ask me the question "if you could pick a superpower, what would it be?" these are the top three answers I will give you: invisibility at will; selective telepathy; and the ability to see everything about myself through a stranger's eyes (looks, personality, behaviors, mannerisms, things I write, stuff I draw, speech patterns, etc.)

I get all my best writing ideas just as I'm falling asleep. If I don't write them down somewhere, they are 90% of the time lost forever. It's difficult to remember things thought of between sleep and wake unless I've left myself a reminder to find later. 

Much Ado About Something

Salve, tutti!
Hello, everyone!

It is yet again time for another summer update on my lists and progress! It's not quite as impressive this past month as the previous one was, but hey, progress is progress no matter how you slice it, and that is all that matters to me (especially about how my second book is coming along).

So, here's the line up. I also have a spot of explaining to do (I'll get to the asterisks toward the bottom):

My reading list:

Inheritance (of the Inheritance Cycle by Paolini) (5/11)

The Girl who Played with Fire (5/20)

Man's Search for Meaning (5/25)

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (5/31)

City of Bones (6/7)

City of Ashes (6/14)

City of Glass (6/23)

City of Fallen Angels*

City of Lost Souls*

Clockwork Angel (7/15)

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Princess

My movie/show-watching list:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (4/28-5/08)

Wreck-it-Ralph (5/07)

Cats Don't Dance (re-watch) (5/14)

Dinosaurs: We're Back! (5/14)

Road to El Dorado (re-watch) (5/20)

The Fountain (5/22)

Saving Private Ryan (5/24)

Swan Princess (5/31)

Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain (5/31)

Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure

 (for old time's sake; I was obsessed with these movies as a child!) (6/1)

The Road (6/8)

500 Days of Summer (6/9)

The Possession (6/13)

Matrix Trilogy (re-watch) (6/15)

Avengers (rewatch) (7/2)

Phantom of the Opera (rewatch) (7/3)

Thor (7/3)

Bachelorette (7/4)

Mean Girls (rewatch) (7/4)

Tarzan (rewatch) (7/5)

Despicable Me (7/5)

Déjà vu (7/7)

The Island (7/10)

Hell's Kitchen [season 10] (7/7 - 7/16)
Legion

American Psycho

(new) Tron

Games:

Bioshock (6/3 – 3:55 PM to 11:58 PM = 8 hour completion)

Halo: Reach (6/4 – 9 hrs: 16 mins: 48 seconds on one day)

Bioshock 2*
Bioshock Infinite
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo 3 ODST

Serious:

Revise the living daylights out of first book in trilogy (5/21)

Outline second book (6/28)

Write second book (7/1 -    ) [I’m fifteen thousand words in, with lots of story left to tell!]


Ah, so here it all is. I've watched more movies in the last month than done much reading (due to being busy, of course) but hopefully in the coming few weeks I have left I'll get done all the books I want to.

As for the asterisks - they mean this:
I am removing them from the list. The two books I'm cutting are because I have talked with some people I trust who say the now-series would have been much better if the author had stopped at the end of the third one, which I have finished. So, my interest was lost upon reading the blurbs about the next two books and thus I am chopping them from my list. Nothing personal.

I'm also cutting Bioshock 2 from the list because I have started it, with a couple other people, and it's just not holding my attention. I thought it would be cool to be a big daddy (as I loved that little nugget in the first one) but for some reason it just seems to be an illogical continuation of the first Bioshock. They brought in a new villain and a new protagonist, if I'm not mistaken, and left the environment as Rapture. Overall, nice idea, but it isn't doing it for me. Bioshock Infinite, however...that one I'll definitely need to finish. (:

So! This is my progress. Not quite so impressive. I just have two more updates on this list left (one more on August 15th and the last one probably around August 24th - I leave for college on the 25th which means summer will be officially over!). 

Fun fun fun!

Talk to you later!
Arrivederci!

Summer Updates

Hey all!

It's time for an update. It's been a month already, so let's see the progress I've made on my lists, hmm? (I also added a "Games" list in the middle of everything.)

My reading list:

Inheritance (of the Inheritance Cycle by Paolini) (5/11)

The Girl who Played with Fire (5/20)

Man's Search for Meaning (5/25)

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (5/31)

City of Bones (6/7)

City of Ashes (6/14)

City of Glass (started!)

City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls

City of Heavenly Fire

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Princess

My movie/show-watching list:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (4/28-5/08)

Cats Don't Dance (re-watch) (5/14)

Dinosaurs: We're Back! (5/14)

Road to El Dorado (re-watch) (5/20)

The Fountain (5/22)

Saving Private Ryan (5/24)

Swan Princess (5/31)

Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain (5/31)

Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure

 (for old time's sake; I was obsessed with these movies as a child!) (6/1)

The Road (6/8)

500 Days of Summer (6/9)

The Possession (6/13)

Matrix Trilogy (re-watch) (6/15)

The Island

Legion

Deja Vu

American Psycho

(new) Tron

Games:

Bioshock (6/3 – 3:55 PM to 11:58 PM = 8 hour completion)

Halo: Reach (6/4 – 9 hrs: 16 mins: 48 seconds on one day)
Bioshock 2
Bioshock Infinite (Maybe)
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo 3 ODST

Serious:

Revise the living daylights out of first book in trilogy (5/21)

Outline second book (Very much in progress/nearing completion…)

Write second book

Not bad, not bad at all! Just the other day I discovered that in order for me to stay on track at least with the books is to read a book a week until the very last week of summer (in August), which I think I can manage. A book per week isn't that difficult, it's just when the library has some of them available is the problem. Movies aren't that hard to fit in either because they are a set length of time; I can squeeze them in any time I want to, essentially, and I only have five more to go. As for the games, they each take a good long day to finish, which still is manageable, but it's harder for me to find a chunk of time that long where I can just sit and bang out a game. I know, I know, I could still play them in smaller chunks over a longer period of time, but I don't want to forget anything about the storyline. It would end up being that I would start playing a game and then go a few weeks before playing it again and then I wouldn't remember what the heck I was supposed to be doing in the first place. So, in my opinion, the best way to play a game is to play it in as compressed a timeframe as possible. Perhaps this coming week I'll make sure to take at least one day and sit down to play through another one. 

So, I feel I've made lots of progress, but none of the lists are done yet! (Which is okay, really, because I've got two months or so left.) And I really need to get on starting my next book, although I've been stewing about it deliberately - I haven't been "putting it off" as some of you say. Every day I come up with more ideas, more twists, more purpose for the characters, so I'm glad I'm not just jumping right into it. The more I can outline, the happier I'll be with the finished product. (:

As I just demonstrated, for the next two months on the 15th I am going to update my lists here on my blog just to see where I am (and in case anyone out there is curious, they can see too if I've been slacking). Hopefully by the next time I report back, the book outline will be finished and the book-writing will be in progress, as Camp NaNoWriMo starts on July 1st and that's when I'm aiming at beginning the writing process. We shall see if that comes to pass, hmm?

Anyway, toodle-loo! Until next time (in about a month)!

V