I don’t think you realize how addicted you are to something until you find that you can’t have it. I’m not talking about a food or a drug or anything like that. No, my addiction seems to be LiveJournal. I do spend a lot of time on that website because I’m a member of so many communities, but I usually don’t think much of it, but the site is down today for maintenance. I’m finding that it’s much harder to deal with than I thought. I keep wanting to go to the site and check up on the latest Twilight or Harry Potter news, but then I get the message that the site is down and just sigh. I’ll be glad when it’s back. Although, I guess I should consider this my wake up call. Maybe I’m spending too much time there. Oh, well, I can’t find the urge. LJ is basically my one shop stop to everything that’s going on most of the time, and I like it that way. So I shall be eagerly awaiting it’s return.

My family typically goes on vacation together once every summer. It’s usually not a big, long trip. We tend to take about two days to go do something altogether. Last summer, we went to Six Flags. The summer before that we went to Holiday World. The vacation is always great, but it’s usually the car drive that gets to us.

Depending one where we’re going, we usually end up in the car upwards of at least two hours. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re in a car full of people with very different musical taste, just listening to the radio can become a battle.

That’s why I think getting a car DVD player before our next vacation would be a great solution to car boredom. We all love movies. I don’t know many people who don’t like them.

Talking my mom into this idea would probably be where this plan would fall flat. She’s a penny pincher. Most of the time she won’t buy anything unless it’s on sale. Luckily, since some time has passed since the idea of DVD Player systems was introduced, which naturally means that the prices have started to come down.

Not only have the prices fallen, but there are also more options available. My mom drives an Intrepid, which is a decent sized car, but once you pack everyone in for vacation, things tend to get a little crowded, so a great solution to that issue is using the headrest style monitors.

Of course, my mom and her boyfriend have suggested getting a bigger vehicle just because of the space issues we tend to face when it comes time to go on vacations, so there are tons of other options we could look at when it comes to buying car DVD players.

A new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out last night. Or at least that’s the first time I heard anything about it. It looks absolutely terrific. Each trailer I see just makes me more excited to see the movie. Unfortunately, I still have a long, long wait ahead of me. It’s sad to think that I should be seeing it this coming Friday. At least I have Twilight to look forward to instead. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to wait it out with the rest of the fans to see Half-Blood Prince in it’s totality.

Wow, I think this is the longest I’ve gone without updating for quite a while now. Things have been a bit crazy since November began. I’ve been working on my story for NaNoWriMo. As I mentioned in my last post, it’s called Absolution, and things are going really well. I’m currently at 29,587 words. I’ve finished eleven chapters, and I have fourteen left to go. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and it’s so much fun to be writing original fiction again. I’ve been into fan fiction for far too long. So this project is really refreshing.

I think it’s been so easy going because I spent so much time preparing for it. My outline was fourteen pages, and I spent a little time looking at commercial real estate jsut for reference material. I didn’t end up using too much of it, but I tend to over research at time. I suppose that’s better than being unprepared for things. Either way, it’s just been awesome to finally let loose and start writing. I’ve done more writing in the last nine days than I probably have in the last year.

I went to vote last week, and I had to stand in line for over an hour. I hate to think of what it might have been like if so many people hadn’t voted early. I went when my grandparents did, and that was around a quarter after nine, and it just got busier after that, so I guess we picked about as good a time as any to go.

I also bought tickets for the midnight showing of Twilight. My sister agreed to go with me, and I bought our tickets straight away. I’m quite excited about it, and for the next couple of weeks, I’ll probably be bouncing around like an idiot waiting to see it. There have been so many clips popping up online lately, and everything just looks really great. I have a good feeling about the movie, and I’m really hoping it’s as good as it seems.

I didn’t work much last week. I just went in one day, and then I did a project from home the next day. The week before that I had some freelance stuff I had to go over, so I have a check coming for that, and it’s going straight into savings with the rest of my holiday shopping money. I still can’t get over the fact that it’s November, and there’s just over a month until Christmas. It’s insane. I’d very much like to know where this year went.

I’ve been working on a new layout. I just haven’t got around to coding it yet. It’s on my very long to-do list. I have tons of stuff I’m hoping to finish before Saturday, but I have a feeling most of it’s going to have to wait - like redoing my fanlistings. I guess it’s not that big of a deal. They’ve been waiting all summer and another month isn’t going to hurt. If I can get them all done before Christmas, it would be like a present to myself.

I have made a lot of progress with preparing for NaNoWriMo. I finished the outline for Absolution on Sunday. I had most of it figured out, but I kept getting stuck at the end. I talked it through with Nikki, and that really helped a lot just to have someone to bounce the ideas off of. In the end, we kind of went with the thought I was initially having, but I added a bit more to it. I guess just saying what’s going on out loud sort of helps get those creative juices flowing. I’m really happy with things now. I’m really anxious to get started. I have a couple of things I want to do before Saturday, but I should be able to get them out of the way tomorrow if I don’t have to go into work.

I went to my mom’s for dinner tonight. My grandma was cooking ham and beans, which I despise to the highest degree. On top of that my uncle and cousins were coming out for dinner, and I’ve honestly had my fill of them this last week. I love them because they’re my family, but, man, they get on my nerves. As often as they’ve been around lately, I feel like I could join the wine of the month club and lock myself away in my bedroom and drink myself silly. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.