Riley still has light colored eyes and her nose has turned pink. What a cutie! 

Riley is now 71 pounds. She has learned sit, down, come, walk, out, bedtime, and Maggie and Shelby. She does not seem to have a clue what "treat" means...weird. 

Dreamland

I'm reading a YA book called Dreamland. The premise is interesting: the main characters sister who has always overshadowed her runs away from home. At first I didn't agree with where the author began to tell the story. It's a little slow when Cass first leaves, but then I thought it was fine later on. The scenes in the beginning with Boo are great. I love the one when Boo discovers Caitlin has become a cheerleader and Caitlin tries to hide the uniform.

It really had me until Caitlin suddenly started smoking cigarettes out of the blue and said she needed them to calm down. If she hadn't smoked at all yet, if she's not an avid smoker, how could a cigarette calm her down? It made me angry 1. that she was smoking at all when she's 16 and 2. that the author assumes cigarettes calm you down. So even though I'm mostly enjoying the book, I'm mad at it now. Plus Caitlin met a guy at the carwash and then an hour later let him take off her bra. Hussy.

Writing...blah

I'm not really sure what to write about, but it's Creative Writing Club time and I am not interested in working on the novel I'm writing. I don't have the chapter with me and I'm at a part where I'm not really motivated to continue. I have to find the place where it's interesting to me again, otherwise I'll never finish it.

I'm on the third draft, but never finished the second because I changed what I was doing. I like how the third draft is going, but I've become far too much of a perfectionist to accomplish what I need to. I keep writing things and thinking they're not good enough. I don't want to have to rework it again when I'm done with this draft, so I want it to be totally polished right now. But it's nowhere near polished. Who knows if it will ever be.

I think about switching to one of the other novel ideas I have, but those have the same daunting task as the other: I am at the point where I've lost interest, which means the reader will lose interest, which means it won't be a successful book.

I need to find a place to restart one of them. November with NaNoWriMo was so rewarding. I like the idea of having a novel finished. I even like the idea of revising...it's just that the novels I have right now to revise need so much work.

My first look at the Giant's Causeway. 

New Year

It's only fitting to write about the new year on January first, so here I am writing about the new year, only I think what I'd like to write about is 2005.

I asked my wife last night what was the best things we did in 2005. It boiled down quickly to two things: getting our new puppy Riley and visiting the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Both pretty fabulous events, really.

I think the Giant's Causeway is the most awe-inspiring place I've ever been. Also the most spiritual in many ways. It's so unique and it's so vast. I don't think I've ever walked so far in my life, a good 13 miles. I also don't think I've ever climbed so high. We were above the seagulls' nests. It was amazing. Also, I love the ocean. There's nothing like the ocean. The water there is so vivid, so many different shades of green and blue. I hope to go back in a few more years.

The puppy, though, wins, I think. She's so sweet and so cute and she really puts things into perspective, sort in the same way I guess a child will/would. I think a baby would be a much bigger change, of course, but Riley does add a lot of the same elements a baby does. She needs constant attention and help. She is constantly learning. She is the cutest little thing...

So I think all in all, in spite of all the crap and the thousands of dollars we ended up spending on the house and car(s), 2005 was a pretty good year. I hope 2006 will be just as good.