Saturday, October 04, 2008

Back on the Blog Chain: Quirks

Yep, once again I'm participating in a blog chain. We've had some changes in our membership since my last blog chain post; a couple of people left, but we had some more people join us. You can check out the links in my sidebar to find the blogs in the chain.

Mary chose the topic this time: What kind of quirky habits or rituals do you have regarding your writing? (or regarding anything else, if that is more fun.) We've had people discussing everything from Panera sandwiches to alphabetizing spices (the latter is courtesy of Michelle, my precedessor in this chain).

This is supposed to be a fun, "getting-to-know-you" topic, but in some ways it's more difficult for me than the previous topics. Yes, I'm a non-conformist in many ways, but they don't all translate into quirks. Perhaps I should translate them into quarks, but for some odd reason many people don't like to discuss quantum physics. Is that a quirk?

All kidding aside, one of the quirks I have is one I share with my husband. While on our honeymoon, we got the idea from a couple we met to take pictures of a stuffed animal. Since we were on an Alaskan cruise, we bought (on sale) a stuffed orca named Oscar. Since then, he's been joined by Big Oscar and Baby Oscar:




Oscar has his own page on my website to chronicle our travels. He's been to Canada, London, and Las Vegas, which is where we got Big Oscar. Baby Oscar came from The Soap Opera in Madison. (Baby Oscar is actually a bath toy and can squirt water, albeit not through a blowhole.)





During Alex's first year, Big Oscar and the original Oscar posed with him every month, even in the professional pictures.














As for writing quirks, it doesn't matter to me where I write or what my desk looks like. Most of my writing these days is done on my lunch hour at work, actually. The only quirk I could think of applies to the end of my projects, not to my daily writing. Every time I finish a draft, I type the following:

The End
The Very Very Very End!
Amen
A Book Report on Peter Rabbit


A kudo to the first person who can identify these lyrics and their source. And yes, they do come out during the editing stage.

My son just woke up, so it's time to end this post and pass the quirkiness to Abigail. Tune in again on October 19th (sooner if you wish) for another exciting post in our Blog Chain!

P.S. In response to Terri's request for me to show my true wierdness, I'll post a bit more on Thursday about another of my writing quirks--my muse, John Lennon.

14 comments:

Kate Karyus Quinn said...

Oh man, I have no clue at all where that is from... but I will stay tuned for the answer. :)

Also that picture of your son and the stuffed whales is adorable! My son is around the same age too - he was born on May 14th, 2007!

Michelle McLean said...

Ahhh your son is so cute!! I like Oscar the Orca :D He and Mary's Beeyaaa would probably get along swimmingly ;-)

I love your end of the draft quirk! And it will now drive me nuts trying to find out where it came from. Off to google! :D Great post :)

H. L. Dyer said...

A Book Report on Peter Rabbit, from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

I love it.

I know virtually that entire play by heart. ;)


Peter Rabbit is a stupid book about a stupid rabbit who steals vegetables from other people's gardens.

If I start writing now when I'm
not really rested it could
upset my thinking which is
not good at all...

Anonymous said...

Sandra, I love Charlie Brown. Even as a teacher, I hate "Homework." Ha, ha!

What a great post. I have nieces who have a doll that they take everywhere with them, much like your Oscar. I can tell that I'm going to have to invest in some stuffed animals, they seem to be very popular this chain.

:) Elana

Abi said...

HA! It's the homework song from Charlie Brown!!!

My childhood teddy bear went with us on our honeymoon. Of course, he didn't see nearly as much of Cancun and San Fransisco as we did.

Fun post,

Abi
http://bloggingexperiments.wordpress.com

Michelle McLean said...

Okay, I did the lighting for that play in high school, I should have gotten that.......duh :D

Anonymous said...

Glad I'm not the only woman on the chain with a stuffed toy for a companion. Your son is adorable. You had stumped me with the Charlie Brown Quote. Glad Kiddoc knew it. Somehow, I'm not surprised. Bet she has a smiley to go with it to! :)

TerriRainer said...

I think you may be hiding something from us!

A dirty desk?

Aversion to tomato droppings?

Do you at least talk to yourself?

Throw us a bone here, you're making the rest of us look really weird with how normal you seem (you can't count the cute Orca picture taking as weird cause it's just too cute)!

:) Terri

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Terri, I debated talking about my office but ran out of time. We moved into this house in January, and my office still isn't quite ready yet. It's close, but there are still papers and other things to file before I can even clean off my desk. But yet another weekend has come and gone, and my filing cabinet still isn't secured to the wall.

Also, I didn't have a chance to talk about how I regard John Lennon as my patron muse. His birthday is Thursday; maybe I'll say something then.

Carrie Harris said...

What adorable photos!

And I'd completely forgotten about that Charlie Brown bit until you posted about it. Methinks I'll be revisiting him this year. Maybe a little Great Pumpkin. :)

TerriRainer said...

Thank God that you do have a few quirks Sandra! I started to worry about ya!

:) Terri

Carolyn Kaufman | @CMKaufman said...

I like the end-of-story quote. That was a cute quirk.

I'm kind of jealous of people who have traveling stuffed animals. I want to travel enough that I have to take a stuffed patron saint of my travels with me!

Anonymous said...

Someday when I'm famous and travel more than I do now, I'm going to steal lawn ornaments and send letters from all of the places the escaped critters have come with me :) It's a stolen idea, but a brilliant one to me!

Jessica Verday said...

I agree, More Quirks! More Quirks! Love the baby pic though. That ALMOST makes up for the lack of quirkiness.

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