Moving!

Hi!

I'm glad you decided to visit me.
I've decided to move my blog to my webpage, so I invite you to join me there. It's much easier to naviagate, and for me, easier to log in and post with consistancy.

So please come for a vist at http://www.gailsattler.com/category/new/

See you there!

Blessings,
Gail

Is it really 2012?

I don't know where 2011 went, but here it is into January of 2012.

Did 2011 pass you by as well?

Instead of thinking of some new years resolutions that I know I won't keep, I've instead chosen to reflect back on 2011.
I made 2 trips in 2011, one to my hometown of Winnipeg Manitoba, and the other to St. Louis, MO for another writer's conference. Both were fun trips, and very different.

I wrote 2 books in 2011, which was probably why the year sped by so quickly. Seattle Cinderella actually is 4 novellas, so it felt like 4 books, which are combined in a series and released under one cover. I've always wanted to rewrite Cinderella, and it was even more fun than I thought it would be. I also finished writing Take The Trophy and Run, which is the launch book in the Bloomfield series. That is a full length novel, and was both work and fun at the same time.

That's what I did do. What I didn't do was lose that pesky 30 pounds that's been nagging at me.

But that's another post.

Happy New Year!

Spring has sprung!

Well, maybe spring hasn't sprung quite yet, but what has sprung is the time change.
I hate this time change. I am not a morning person, and when morning comes one hour earlier than usual, that makes me a grumpy bear.
I have to admit that it was nice that it didn't get dark so fast tonight.
But that was only because I had a nice afternoon nap. I wonder how many other people had a nap this afternoon?
I really enjoyed the Sunday comics today. The Other Coast, which happens to be set in Vancouver where I live, showed the principle female character setting all the clocks and being very happy about it, but then the punch line was that some clocks can't be changed - and there behind her was her 2 dogs, waiting to be fed according to nature's clock, which doesn't do Daylight Savings Time.
Gotta love it.
Here it is, the comic, The Other Coast's perspective on the time change.
http://www.gocomics.com/theothercoast/2011/03/13

Enjoy!

bad battery moments

Dead Battery Moments.
I know we have all had those.
In the society we now live in, many things have batteries. I don't think any of us can truly list the things in our lives that we count on that have batteries we don't think about.
Until the battery dies.
For all you ladies writing this - do you have a spare battery, or charger in your purse?
Uh. Not me.

I think the most common thing we think about that is a regular battery charging moment is our trusty cell phones. But really, when they loose the charge, we grumble, but it's a fact of life, and go on.

But what of those other things that have batteries we don't think about, until it's too late.
Like today. I was at church, playing in the band/worship team, and what happens? I made it fine through our practice time, and about a third of the way through the first song, my battery died.
What battery, you ask?
The 9-volt battery to my bass guitar. My bass guitar that I use for church has an active pickup, which is powered by an 9-volt battery. I'm aware of it, but it's something that I tend to not think about.
I have had a spare battery in my guitar case for about 2 1/2 years. Just in case.
A few days ago we had a power failure in our neighborhood, and one of our house smoke detectors beeped faithfully every 3-5 minutes, to let us know that since it wasn't hotwired to a live power source in the house, the backup battery was dead. So, in the pitch black, I went downstairs and got my spare 9-volt battery out of my guitar case, and put it in the offending smoke detector, and life went on.
God has a sense of humor. Yes, for 2 1/2 years, I have had that battery in my guitar case. When did my battery in my bass guitar die? For the first time in 2 1/2 years that I didn't have that spare battery in the pocket.
We had a mad scramble at the front, the drummer had brought his bass and we plugged that in, his battery was gone, he'd loaned it out a few weeks before when the guitarist's battery died.
Oh, how we LOVE those active pickups.
Or some days, not so much.
He used needlenosed pliers to take the 9-volt battery out of some pedal gizmo, and snapped it into his bass, because his active pickup has a snap-in cover, where mine needs a screwdriver to get into.
So life, and worship, went on, with full instrumentation.

For all of you reading this, please share, what was your worst battery moment?

Angels in the Architecture

I don't want to say that Christmas is coming because I have only bought 1 present so far, and I haven't even picked it up yet, it's just ordered. But I guess avoiding the issue won't stop it from happening.

Many people think about angels at Christmas time, and I want to say that my concert band, well, not "my" band, but the concert band of which I am a member, we are performing at a concert this week. It's not about Christmas, but it is about angels.
Here's a link
http://www.theactmapleridge.org/Angels-in-the-Architecture

Something that is interesting about this is that the conductor and his wife recently went on a trip to Europe and they took photos that will be a slideshow as we're playing our feature selection, and it's of angels in old European archeticture. The band got an sneak preview last practice because when it's the concert we're supposed to be concentrating on our music, not sneaking peaks to the pictures that will be behind us.

I thought the perception of angels over the ages when man was capable of creating them as works of art was very intreiguing. Many of the angels were playing instruments, but sadly, none of them played upright double bass. I wonder why?

That Good Ol' Time Change

This was it, the weekend of the Fall time change. Spring forward, fall back.

Everyone is always so excited that we get to have an extra hour of sleep.

I don't know about anyone else, but this never happens to me. I know some of you who are reading this are nodding. What always happens is I go to bed an hour later, knowing that I'll get to crawl out of bed technically an hour later. But then when morning comes, my natural body clock wakes me up when the sun is at that point in the sky that I used to wake up before the policital powers-that-be decided once again to change the clocks on us.

Then if my natural body clock doesn't wake me up an hour "early" then the dogs do. Their little internal clocks say it's time to run outside, and then come back inside and get their daily morning dog biscuit.

All this means that for someone who allegedly got an extra hour of sleep, what happened was I got an hour less.

Go figure.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Wow, did I have a massive toothache last night. I had a root canal, which I've never had before, and the dentist warned me that it would be tender. So, as comes natural for me, I forgot to take the pain killers, and one thing led to another, and I found myself up late on Saturday because I took the pain-killer he gave me too late, flipping channels with my husband.

Earlier in the evening we'd watched Glee, which is one of my favorite shows, and they highlighted music from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and this piqued my curiosity.

Guess what was on late Saturday night, the day/night before Halloween? Yeah. The real thing. So my husband and I, both being the curious types, stayed up to watch it. I knew Meat Loaf was in it for one song (I found out that even in his very early days, he was fat then, too)

Why did I watch it? At first, curiosity. It's a cult classic, and the music had to be good because they did a bunch of it on Glee. So I got as comfortable as I could, and watched it.

The acting in the beginning was humorously bad, as well as the setting of the old castle and creepy face. Then there was a very appealing and fun song and dance number early in, and of course I was curious about the main character and the entrance.

It went downhill from there very, very fast. I can now honestly say that this is probably the worst movie I have ever seen on so many different levels. It wasn't just bad, like a normal bad movie. The plot was sick and depraved from early on and it only got worse, even when I thought it couldn't get more sick or morose or depraved. It was sicker than sick. The only reason I watched it was so I would know how truly horrible it was. It looked like it was almost set up to be a comedy, but it wasn't funny. There was even a very gruesome part with a dead body that turned my stomach late in the movie.

I watch Bones and CSI, and even though the dead/decomosing bodies they show are bad and are enough to often turn my stomach, this was different, made so much worse by the mood and presentation of the dead body, and the plot section circulating around it.

Since there are fan clubs of people who dress up and sing and dance in celebration of this movie, I kept watching thinking it had to get better, or that some character had to come up with some small redeeming trait. Nope. There was none. The characters were depraved, lewd, and ending was tragic and it was awful. There was nothing good about this movie. I didn't even have a feeling that justice was served when the depraved main character died in the end, because the movie, plot, and characters were just so horrible. When it was over my husband and I stared at the lighted globe with the closing credits scrolling in total disbelief. It wasn't scary (ie the title has the word Horror). It was sick. Very sick. There is nothing fun or funny about this movie, entirely the opposite, worse becasue the depravity is treated lightly, the presentation belittles the serious depravity of the plot and characters, deceiving the viewer. No one would make a "fun" movie like this about Clifford Robert Olsen or Robert Picton or Jack the Ripper or Charles Manson, even if they made the character ficticious. There is nothing funny or redeeming or entertaining about the actions of such people.

If you haven't seen it and have any questions, email me. I'll tell you why you shouldn't watch it. I'll also tell you why your kids should definitely not watch it.