Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Things I'm Loving

I'm totally stealing this from my friend Stephanie Perkins (If you haven't checked out her blog or the upcoming fabulous Anna and the French Kiss, please do. She's one amazing writer). She does a "Five Things I Love" post every month or so, and they always make me happy. I'm trying very hard to be happy right now. Sometimes it's hard to be happy, but like most things, I always believe in at least trying.

1. Yogurt and Granola
Hello, I want to eat you. Rawr.

I don't know what it is, but I can't get enough yogurt and granola these days. It's the perfect breakfast, filling and nutritious and even a little rich. I recently discovered a grocery store that sells Tillamook yogurt, and holy cow it's soooo much better than any other usual brand I've had. The Marionberry? Oh my.

Food just makes me happy. Good, real food. Which brings me to...

2. WinCo!
Yes, a good grocery store makes me happy. I'm one of those freaks who actually likes shopping for food. And good food? A must. AND cheap food? Even better! I'd been hearing a lot about WinCo since one opened just about ten minutes away from me. I heard it was cheap—cheaper than Wal-Mart. This didn't exactly impress me, because I buy a lot of produce and Wal-Mart produce basically goes bad in 1-2 days. I figured WinCo would be the same quality-cutter type store.

Oh, I was wrong. They certainly cut corners (you bag your items, there are no shelves like at Costco, and it's basically a big warehouse), but they don't cut corners where it counts. The produce section was incredible! They had DAIKON! Do you know how hard it is to find daikon in Utah? At an Asian Market, maybe, but not at a mainstream store. And it was affordable to boot.

This basically went for every section of the store—quality food (all natural meats not pumped up with salt and broth so they look okay, dairy products sans artificial hormones, aisles of bulk organic grains, baking goods, cereals, and granolas) at affordable prices.

Yes, I'm saying I'd marry WinCo if I could.

3. Paramore
I want Haley's hair.

Basically, this rewrite of Transparent wouldn't have happened without Paramore. Okay, it might have happened, but it would have been a lot harder. When I struggle finding the words, the soul, of my book, all I have to do is turn on some Paramore and the juices start flowing again.

It's funny how music can do that. With every book I've written, there's always been some kind of music that helps get the words flowing. Sometimes it's not what I expect (My fantasy/steampunk? Yeah...Green Day.), but I end up listening because the story just comes, the characters speak. I'm so glad I'm a writer and can say crazy things like that.

4. The Library
Libraries are amazing places. I gotta admit I can't concentrate like I used to—my kids demand most of my attention in their waking hours. And once they're in bed I'm exhausted and not motivated to work.

So I've been going to the library. My husband is amazing and watches the kids for a couple hours at night, and off I go. Being surrounded by books, in a quiet place, really helps me work. That, and it's like a race. How much can I write before they turn the lights out? I work better under pressure like that. Give me all the time in the world and I'll never get anything done.

It makes me sad that people keep saying libraries will die. It would be such a shame! Maybe they won't look the same in the coming years, but communities deserve a free place to go for information and access, for quiet and work. Not everyone can afford that on their own. We can't forget that.

5. Avatar: The Last Airbender
My sister-in-law let us borrow the first season of Avatar and DUDE. I love it. Must see more as soon as possible. It also doesn't hurt that Dino Boy loves it too. I might even be able to get away with shaving his head and painting a blue arrow on it for Halloween. You know I would so do that.

What I love most about Avatar is that it's the better version of a world I tried to create in my teenage days. I really wanted to do an anime/book with elements. Avatar employs "bending" in such imaginative and real ways. The world is soooo amazing. And the characters are too! Ack, I'm so in love.

So, what are you loving these days?

16 comments:

  1. WinCo's bulk section is awesome. AWE. SOME. I love being able to stock up on staples or try new things for cheap.

    I love my library (I think we have the same library). Every time I go there, I'm reminded what a wonderful place it is. Until they digitize all the books, I think libraries will be around. I've been looking for a kind of "writing timer" to help with my productivity. That just might work!

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  2. AVATAR!! *squee* I have Netflix and they have all three seasons of Avatar on the instant quene. I became obsessive about it and watched the ENTIRE series in a week. I got the whole second and third season done in less than four days (thanks to the extended 4th of July weekend :)) Now I am going through it a second time with the hubby.

    Also...there's going to be another series called "The Legend of Korra." So thrilled about it! I could gush about Avatar forever.

    Since you're only in the first season you haven't met my favorite character yet. I'll have to wait until you get there before I can gush about her.

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  3. I love Avatar!! And I'll have to check out WinCo sometime. Thanks for the recommendation.

    I've been loving the cooler weather. I love that I can keep my windows open and the house doesn't turn into an oven. Hooray for fall!

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  4. I too am in a yogurt & granola phase (as I think I mentioned on Twitter to you). Before that was apple slices + cinnamon raisin peanut butter. But yogurt is so much less work, lol.

    2. Florence + The Machine (I think you'd like her too)
    3. Friends reruns when I get home from work
    4. THE WEATHER!!! It's like 60-80 degrees!
    5. My new manuscript!! Kick@$$ female protagonists in YA? Oh yeah... :)

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  5. I LOVE Avatar. It's my favorite Nick show. They made a movie for it but I haven't gotten to watch it yet--and people were talking about it being dissapointing.

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  6. Oh my gosh, kindred spirit! Love yogurt&granola, love groceries, love Paramore, LOVE Avatar! The idea for my novel actually stemmed from my favorite anime (Yu Yu Hakusho! Yes!)so I totally understand where you're coming from.

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  7. My daughter had me watch the whole series last month and I loved it, The second and third seasons are even better.

    I love libraries and hope they remain open.

    We have Winco here in Idaho and its a great store and the produce is so much better than Walmart.

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  8. I like anime music videos to get my writing juices flowing. It's best if you haven't seen the animes in the video before, and the scenes have no associations for you. Music + powerful anime visuals.

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  9. Totally love Avatar, always and forever. Watch the other two seasons. They won't let you down even a little.

    And I'm totally going to steal this idea for my blog too. I like it.

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  10. It cracks me up that you're excited about Daikon. I eat it pretty much every day in school lunch, so I've never bought a daikon even though there are about 80 billion on my island. Really, when it comes to Japanese produce, nothing can beat the rice (YUM) and the dekopon oranges. If you haven't had a dekopon, you haven't lived.

    And Avatar is fantastic. I don't think I'm ever gonna watch the Last Airbender movie, because it might make me cry.

    Right now, having just returned from China, I'm enjoying eating Japanese rice again (soooooo good), clean streets, no spitting, sleeping on the floor on my comfortable futons, my air conditioner, and fresh sashimi.

    I think I could go on forever! It'd be hard to keep it down to just five.

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  11. I love Misery Business. And Avatar is my fave non-Japanese anime. It's a pity the movie couldn't hold a candle to it.

    I'm loving writer people. You guys are the best! Also loving the fact that I spent half my work day discussing the new Naruto movie with a 10 year old named Haruto, and got paid to do it :D

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  12. Wow this creeped me out a little because I love all these things with a passion! Especially WinCo. I moved away from Cali and have no WinCo anymore! It is the most amazing grocery store. They actually have everything you want, not like costco or walmart. Swoon. I miss my WinCo soooo much!
    At least I still I have yogurt and granola

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  13. I miss Winco! We are loving Avatar too! My husband went out and bought book one for our son to watch on our cross-country trip and at night we all sit down together and watch it. It's a great show!

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  14. I LOVE Avatar! You're going to so love the rest of the series! Did you see the little featurette about how the based each form of bending on a different style of martial arts? *DROOL* SO awesome. I am so glad you're enjoying it.

    I hope you feel happy soon! *hugs*

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  15. Obviously, I'm WAY behind on comments, but I did want to mention how excited I am that you did this!!!

    I love yogurt & granola, too. YUM. The most outstanding yogurt I've ever had was in France (naturally), but here I eat a lot of organic full-fat yogurts (the CREAM on top!), both plain and vanilla.

    Also . . . I just realized that I'm OUT OF GRANOLA. I need to make some more! Do you ever make your own? Cheap + fast + delicious.

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