This certainly is a surprised chook but no this is not the surprise –
This is the surprise! But in a way no surprise at all. 
The Matriarch walked into a wild scene at the hairdressers yesterday, they were all excited because a stray kitten had wandered into the salon, walked down the back and was sleeping on their couch. Everyone wanted to keep him but no-one really could.
My mother in law looked him over, pronounced him worthy then tucked him under her arm and brought him out to the farm. Problem solved. 
His real name has not yet been discovered but he seems to answer to Little Puss. I am not a real cat person, I just hate mice but Our John and The Tall Teen are smitten.
Good morning I hope all is well with you. I have my second-to-last tomato sauce in the crock pot and then I will make as much sweet thai chilli cauce as I can. That should about clear the frozen gardens of anything worth preserving. The wine is doing what it is meant to be doing and there are green tomatoes lining the benches in the cellar.
Now for my other surprise. This year I am going to participate in Nanowrimo. This will last a month. During that month I will write a short book as at the end of the month I have to present a book containing 50,000 decent words. This is under 2000 words a day.
I have been practicing each day, to see if I can fit it into my day, and writing flash-in-the-pan fiction with 2000 legible lightly edited words takes me just over an hour and a half.
This fits very well into my schedule as it is set up now. I will be replace my short story writing period from 1 – 3 with this writing challenge. (My short story for Writers Digest is in it’s final draft). Have no fear Nanowrimo will not affect my daily blog. I can do both, and the farming and the house and the family. This is the quiet time of year.
So how about that for another surprise. This is part of my training to be a proper writer. It will force me to pound the keys for two hours or at least two thousand words a day. Until November 1st I shall work on the planning. Life is full of exciting challenges. Are any of you doing the challenge? Quite a few of you gave me a good nudge on this one so I suspect I will not be alone.
Now you all have a lovely day.
celi
On this day a year ago. parmesan crackers
The Kitchen's Garden 
72 responses to “A little Surprise, then Another one…”
Hooray for Little Puss and Nano (I did it a couple of years ago, when I was in the middle of studying for my degree: not a good idea! You don’t have to present your 50K words – simply write the darned things!
Your produce and its products reminded me of this site, which you should love. There’s a delightful picture of carved pumpkins today: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Organic-Gardening/380651248633270
Good morning, c. All my best wishes to you for Nano. I always do the poem version; 3 years of taking on that challenge now. Great fun. Happy for the kitty, too. Good homes are hard to come by, and yours will give it a wonderous life of adventure.
Ooh, what a challenge! And welcome Little Puss. 🙂
welcome little puss! you have found a fine new home! good luck with the writing.
Love surprises as long as they’re good ones! I love the Matriarch’s bold action of swooping Little Puss under her arm: question solved: it has a home! Nothing like a little assertiveness!
Good luck with NaNo, I signed up last year but didn’t get very far. Maybe this year will be different. Hello to Little Puss 🙂
Congrats on taking up the challenge! I’ll be lucky just to get my traditional Halloween short story done this year…but, someday!
Welcome home, Little Puss. You’ve landed in a good place 😀
Oh I am as smitten with the new kitten addition to the family. 😀
Best of luck with the Nano writing. We will all be cheering you on.
🙂 Mandy xo
Glad you gave Little Puss a home. My daughter has moved in with me temporarily and along with her came 3 cats and one kitten. I write poetry and am doing an October challenge to submit my poems. Since I don’t usually submit, I am being easy on myself and only challenging me to submit a poem a week during October. If all goes well, I may keep that pace up in the future. Best of luck to you with your writing and the new kitty. Off to the office…
Such a cute Little Puss. Do we get to read your book when it’s finished? If you can write 2000 a day I can maybe read 2000 a day! 🙂 I think I’ll make some salsa with some of my ripening tomatoes, jalapenos and some onions. I’ve been putting jalapenos in everything. 🙂 We’re under freeze warning tonight and I’m so thankful for our wood stove.
You want something done … give it to a busy woman! Good luck with the Nano and welcome to the Little Puss. Laura
Hi and welcome to Little Puss …a lucky cat indeed ! I meant to tell you
Boss was a jersey cow ! Good on you for undertaking the writing challenge.
you continue to provide inspiration !
Ah … I still call daisy Bossy sometimes! c
I did Nano a few years ago–it was tough but fun. You’ll love it (except when you hate it-ha!)
I to this day I haven’t gone back to read the book (and I use the term book very loosely) that I wrote that month, but it really got me back into a writing groove–brought the “writing smile” back to my face, so it was totally worth it.
Little Puss sounds like a good name, unless you are considering Thing plus a new numeral 😉
Good luck with Nanowrimo!
I am amazed at your time-management skills, Celia, and would like to hear still more about this (I read your previous post some time ago).