WordVixen.com

Hunting for a house, that is.

Hubs and I are sick of renting. Sick of having to call in the maintenance guy to fix the crappy equipment that comes with the place, sick of the horribly drafty doors and windows, the literally hollow baseboards and trim (I kid you not, what wethought was solid wood was in fact rotted out leaving the form of the original wood in the paint so that it looked totally normal until we accidentally pushed too hard on it and it caved in), the mysterious leak from somewhere around the tub that leaks through the ceiling in the kitchen and INTO the ceiling light’s cover. The kitchen faucet that can only be turned off by pushing down on the center of the thing rather than the actual handle, and now we just had to have a part replaced in one of the toilets to stop the jackhammer noise that woke me from a dead sleep 2 hours after I went to bed after a long day. I’ve already talked (at length) about the neighbors, and now the CO2 alarm goes off every time I make chicken or turkey broth.  I’d mention more, but I don’t like to complain. (insert tongue into cheek here)

So hubs and I found a cute little end of unit townhome in an awesome location. New community, immaculate exterior and yard, ditto for all the neighbors. Only problem is that it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath, and for all of its shortcomings, our current home is 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath plus an additional toilet (weird set up). So, we sat on it for a few days, unsure whether we should apply for a mortgage, set up a viewing, etc. A few days later, we looked at the listing again and it was under agreement.

No big deal. We really liked the house from the outside, but really? were we ready?

We’re still not sure. But after this weekend’s incident with the jackhammering toilet, we’re a little more ready than we were. My friend wrote a post on waterproofing basement walls which is a good reminder that not all is rosy in the home owning world. I would hope that a home we buy would be in better condition than this place, but at least the fix is free when you rent!

In the meantime, my internet marketing income as well as the posts like the one just before this is starting to creep up. It’s not enough to make the difference between home ownership and renting yet, but it’s getting closer. I just need to keep hammering away at my sites, and eventually we should be able to start looking at homes that are in the slums and actually have all the amenities we require. I hope.

Recently, I’ve had a few friends put up posts that I think should be among the first results seen when people search for similar information.

In one case, my favorite MMO blogger posted his first video ever- and it so happens to be his 7 year old daughter (cute) hand feeding a red fox. Apparently they made the mistake of feeding a wolf once, and ended up with one as a pet for 15 years, and still haven’t learned their lesson. And since my married name ends in “Fox”, I’ve been a little obsessive about them for the past few years. And this one is beautiful- fluffy, gorgeous fur, and barely even skittish! The video is a bit long, but if you like foxes as much as I do, it’s worth watching. And if you don’t like foxes as much as I do, it’s still pretty cool to see a fox eat right out of a little girl’s hand! So, if you’ve ever wondered what do foxes eat, follow the link to watch the video. It looks like a hamburger patty to me.

Secondly, a good friend of mine who lives in Toronto (I just realized that 2 of the 3 people I’m posting about here are Canadians… Hm… maybe I should consider moving up north?) just had a horrific time with a local business (Crystal Bath at 2839 Kingston Road, Toronto) over her order for a bathroom vanity (Toronto). This is downright horrible customer service, and apparently the company did a lousy job on the remodel as well. Follow either link for more information on this story.

And lastly, Allyn Hanes’ beer review blog is live! He talks about beer in an entertaining way, doesn’t get all snooty about it (in fact, the regular joke is about people who sniff beer before drinking it- he’ll often sniff his and then say “smells like beer!”), and really describes the beer in a way that someone who isn’t already a connoisseur can understand. I don’t even drink beer, but I love watching his review videos, because not only is he fun to watch, but his background in landscaping gives him tons of info to pull from when describing a flavor. For example, in his review of Moylander’s India Pale Ale (he reviews several IPA beers), he mentions how people refer to a “piney” flavor. Since he’s a landscaper by trade, he was able to explain that what people were tasting was actually kind of a cedar mulch and arborvitae in the beer.

Since I’m no fan of hops, IPA’s are definitely not down my alley, but I was fascinated to find out that flavors in beer can be as complex as they are in a good wine. And Allyn presents it all as the next door neighbor chatting over the fence and offering you a cold one. (BTW, a good friend of mine modified Allyn’s theme- so if you love it and want to hire him, he comments there as “Forest” or you can ask me for his info).

Or really, fiction writers of all sorts, but mostly for novelists.

I’m not sure what’s been going on for the past few days, but lately I’ve been meeting more and more publishing industry pros and aspiring novelists on Twitter. And along with that comes the influx of linkage.

Ok, so the single most important website for an aspiring novelist is Miss Snark. That’s a given. If you’ve never read this viciously wonderful agent, you need to. Go back to the very first post and read all the way up to her last (she’s hung up her stilettos for good) post. Take notes. Bookmark the Crapometer for when you’re getting ready to query. Read through it again. Take more notes. Follow all instructions and consider all advice. Just do it. Besides, it’s fun!

Now, Miss Snark I’ve known about for years, and have read almost every post on her site. However, #QueryFail is brand new. And it’s not a site; it’s a hashtag. In other words, it’s a stream of tweets from Twitter that are all on one subject, specially marked out using a hashtag. You don’t need to be a member of Twitter to read #QueryFail, but you do need an account if you want to respond to any of them.

What QueryFail is, is a day set aside by agent Colleen Lindsay for all Twitter savvy agents and editors to vent their query frustrations in the form of a 140 character tweet. Many of the tweets are actual lines from queries that the agent/editor rejected such as “Like my protagonist, I definitely could be described as overachiever, and I naturally have hair like Lady Godiva.”, “My book is about a friendship based upon mutual vomiting practices in high school.”, and my favorite- “This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings.”

You’ll need to scroll through several days of tweets about #queryfail if you choose to follow the above link to access it, but there’s a downloadable file of the actual QueryFail tweets from the actual day at that link.  The agents are planning to make this a regular thing, but no schedule has been set. And by the way? #QueryFail even got attention from The Guardian. No joke! There’s also a #novelfail, but I haven’t had much time to check into that.

And the third page that you may want to consider, is a 25 point list of why your fiction is being passed over, courtesy of Andromeda Spaceways. It’s funny, but not hilarious. Dirty, but not filthy. But all in all, a pretty good list.