Whingeing

Such a brilliantly British word.  Better than a whine, though one could whine and whinge...and believe me, I have.  I think I make a much better whinger, however, than a whiner.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, whingeing is to grumble peevishly.  I can do peevish, too; bitchy cranky has been known to drop by, settle in and take up residence in my attitude on occasion.

So, what's whinge-worthy about today..??

• The Birch trees have dropped about a million leaves overnight.  Whole front yard is covered, plus the front deck, pathways and driveway.  Five days, people.  Things were clean and tidy for just five days.
• The deer completely devoured one of my favorite shrubs (Rose of Sharon) sometime during the early morning hours.  It was fine yesterday, is gone today.  They haven't bothered with it all year so I didn't spray with the Deer Fence stuff.
• Because of heavy frost, went to the park late.  All dogs out today were large ones,  and every bloody one was off leash.  Spent most of the walk fending off dog fights, and snarking at owners that there is a leash law in Roseburg.  No one cares. 
• Got a very bizarre Xmas card from someone who should totally have known that Alan is gone.  The signature said, "Hope to see you both soon!"  WTF..!!!!!  Tore it to shreds and threw it in the bin.
• I want someone to talk to, besides the boys.  Their conversational input is pretty much limited to: take us to the park, feed us, and give us tummy rubs.  Oh, and don't forget the treats.  It would be nice to have a two-way, for a change.

Okay then.  Now that I've written out my peeves for today, I don't really think I have that much to whinge about after all.  Or maybe it's just been helpful to get it out of my system so I can move on.  And hey, thanks for listening...

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Speaking of moving on, I'm going beyond the cranky now to appreciate the cool:

Got my NaNo prizes today.  I've already received my Winner's certificate, and the widget (on the right), have ordered my tee shirt (been there, done that, have the tee shirt is especially meaningful in this instance), and just found out one of the winning things was having 5 copies of my book printed--the first time I won (2009) you only got one copy.  I now have until June 2012 to finish the book.  Which seems like light years away whilst sitting here safely ensconced in December.  In real life..??  It isn't. 

The second winner deal was a Scriveners writing program at 50% off regular price.  I've wanted to try this for a few years, but it was only Mac compatible.  Now they've formatted it for Windows and I downloaded it this morning.  I'll play around with it later today and hope it's as cool as I've imagined.

The NaNo site also published the stats for this year's competition.  It's amazing how this November novel writing experience has taken off over the past ten years or so; really, even from just three years ago when I first signed on to do it.

This year 256,618 people participated, a 28% increase over last year.  That's huge.

36,774 people actually reached 50,000 words, a 14% win rate.  Gloriously, I am in that wonderful little winning percentage. 

Which is something way better to be happy about than whingeing.