One Looong Night (Adventures with Tash) And A Huge Thank You!

Yesterday I had a fever of 102.something F after our church picnic. I was really disappointed, because I needed to study badly for the TOG. Man. That sounds like 'badly' modifies 'study', but it really modifies 'needed'. Grammar freak, I know.

Dad gave me some Motrin, which lowered my temperature a lot, but in the middle of the night I had an awful dream. It was pretty long and complicated, but it involved a fire that was growing hotter (probably my rising temperature) and the Telmarine god Tash from the Chronicles of Narnia. It ended well, but Tash was super scary. I've always been afraid of him.

That dream was one of the only nightmares I have had in about three years. All of my dreams are scary, but in it I do really cool things, like fighting a battle as Pippin. And it was really vivid and realistic too. Probably brought on by my fever.

Anyway, because I was feeling super hot, I went into the bathroom to check my temperature and got a reading of 104.3 F. That is the highest temperature I can ever remember having. Maybe I had one like it when I was 3 and had the flu, but I wouldn't remember it, of course.

I decided to get some Motrin from downstairs. But wait. That meant walking down the stairwell with darkness on one side, and a dark opening on the other. Usually I'm not afraid of the dark, but with a temp of 104 F I really didn't feel like fighting Tash. Er, that is, I thought Tash would jump out at me.

I successfully navigated all the way downstairs on my fever-wobbly legs and carefully flicked the kitchen light on. Then I went to the medicine cabinet.

The 'medicine cabinet' is a term in our house that means 'jumbled mess mostly related to helping various illnesses'. I had hoped that the Motrin would be right up front, but I could immediately see that it wasn't. I started digging through the boxes of pills and children's medicine.

While taking a break, I happened to glance over into the dark living room. There, close to the floor, we're two glowing white eyes and a beak. AAAAAHHHHH! TASH!

And then I remembered that it was Galdor's playpen. Whew. However, a blanket on a chair looked a lot like a jellyfish, and that reminded me I desperately needed to find some Motrin.

This was about the time when I realized I was narrating all of this to myself like it was a blog-post, which made me feel a bit desperate. And I still couldn't find the Motrin!

Then I happened to glance down a little and saw a big bottle of ibuprofen tablets. It wasn't until the next day that I learned that ibuprofen and Motrin are two names for the same thing, but when I saw fever reducer on the side of the bottle, I was about ready to dance. =)

So I took the tablet and went up to bed. End of story, right?

Well, I was still kind of obsessing over Tash. It might have been about 3 AM when I heard a noise from downstairs. It may have been something falling, or it could have been our AC, or a bunch of things. But, of course, being the sleepy, ill, crazy person I am, I locked my door, turned on my lamp, and grabbed a metal curtain rod for protection. I must have sat in my rocking chair staring at the doorknob for fifteen minutes before I got tired and crawled into bed and finally fell asleep.

Until 5:40 AM, when Mom knocked on my door (still locked) and asked me why I still had my lamp on. Of course, I probably made no sense at all when I told her I was afraid of Tash. :)

I'm a lot better today, but I'm probably still contagious. Not delirious though, thank goodness!

Next, a BIG THANK YOU to AWEL PRINCE!! She's the person behind this lovely new design! It's gorgeous, and so Elven! Head over to her two blogs: her DESIGNER BLOG and her PERSONAL BLOG.

Rolling the credits

Of course, I have to thank all of the people that helped me write my NaNoWriMo book, intentional help or otherwise.

Mom and Dad: For giving me plot suggestions, granting me extra computer time, editing offers, and (Dad on this one) for saving my story to his computer just in case this one crashed.

Erestor and Luthien: Sorry I had to kick both of you off the computer multiple times! You guys were both so patient (ahem, most of the time) when I had to turn down offers to little soccer games in the basement because I was writing.

Galdor: Thank you, kiddo, for not banging on the mouse too terribly hard while I was trying to hold you and type at the same time. If the mouse had broken, I wouldn't know what to do!

Andrea, igirl, Enna-Rin, and various friends: For discussing my book with me, and for helping me along with things. (What!?!? You killed your main character!? Great, Izori! ;) Also thanks to three friends in particular, who patiently waited while I had to postpone writing our movie script for the month. Sorry, ladies!

The girl that inspired both Angela and Skye: Thank you! You don't know that you helped me come up with two thirds of my main characters, but you did!

And, of course, thanks to the Lord for getting me through all of this!

(don't forget my trusty alarm clock, blaring in my ear at 5:30 AM every morning so that I could get up and write! It actually inspired the beginning of my story.)

Also, results for the poll ('What would you like to see more of):

Book Reviews and Opinions on books...........5 people voted for this

Writing Tips............7 people voted for this (38%)

The last Elandai book..........4 people voted for this (30%)

Small samples of Sarea (working title)..........7 people voted for this (53%)

Tags..........3 people voted for this (23%)

Caption Contests..........5 people voted for this (38%)

I don't care!..........1 people voted for this (7%)

So, it's a tie between the small samples of Sarea and writing tips! Alright, I'll work on those.

Izori