Official Birthday

Here is my favourite assistant for candle blowing.  We celebrated with dinner that his mom, Robin, made.  Delicious chicken parmisan and pasta and sauce and then this wonderful cake.

On the actual day, Hunter joined us to do a "Whine and Dine" for Today's Parent Toronto.

We reviewed the Novatel.   As the sole customers, we enjoyed the attention of the wait staff.  My fish was delish.  The complimentary birthday cheesecake Hunter pronounced as yummy.  

Testing out the camera

My second favourite writing tool, after my laptop, is my digital camera.  Last week it failed.  Changing batteries and restarting it didn't help. But it was a week away from my birthday.  All I had to do is wait it out.

What I wanted was something exactly the same as my old camera, except smaller and lighter.  

Two days before the official bday we replaced my old Sony with a pink model.  Last post showed some photos of fall flowers. This one shows my favourite dog, swimming.

New Camera

Finishing the First Draft

The Fly Catcher is a novel I began many years ago, wrote the first few chapters and an outline and sent it to a publisher.
Then I forgot about it. So did the publisher apparently. Cleaning out my office, I found the file on the project complete with the newspaper clippings on the contest photocopied. The file disappeared once. I re-researched the story pouring through the Burlington Library archives and then lost it again. I was getting superstitious about the project.

However, I did apply for Canada Council and received the grant. If they believed in me and the concept, than I certainly needed to grow my faith back. I had planned the story to be for grade 3, a shorter 30,000 word story. But a couple of weeks ago as I passed the wordcount, I began to think the story would never end. Normally I write 1,000 words on a good day, a couple of scenes at most. But I was writing feverishly, two to three thousand words a day. And still no ending in sight. Finally at 11:30 Wednesday, last week I typed the end. However, we all know it's just the begininning of a different kind of voyage. Rewriting.