The (Real) New Beginning

My new year's resolutions have turned out to be impossible to follow. Work, moving out, refereeing, and just daily life. I have spent the last six months not writing at all. January hasn't been my rebirth, surprisingly July has. In the middle of the FIFA World Cup, I started writing again.

I set myself a weekly routine that I will try to follow as much as I can, and that very blog post is part of it. Every Thursday, I will publish a new blog post on here, about anything that I will think is interesting enough to be shared. Other tasks are writing at least six hundred words on Mondays and Tuesdays, and maybe on Sundays. Fridays will be dedicated to the rewriting process for stories that need to be edited and rebuilt.

My Wednesdays will be about another one of my goal, still related to writing, but on another level. I'm creating a website that allow people to share their own Science-Fiction and Fantasy short stories online. The site will allow feedback in the means of commentaries and grades. I will first develop it in French, and depending on its success and my motivation, I probably will transpose it to English a few months after the French version's first launching.

That website has been on my mind for a while, and I think my new motivation to write and to develop that website has been brought by the purchase of my new laptop. I only had a desktop before, which always fulfilled me as a gamer, but the freedom a laptop gives you to work wherever you want was something I needed, I realize now.

I haven't mentioned what my Saturdays will be about: nothing. To be more precise, I won't impose myself anything to do of that kind on Saturdays. I will enjoy the company of my beautiful wife and my silly cat. If inspiration strikes me, I'm not stopping myself from writing or working on the website, but I think Saturdays will very much be about relaxing as much as possible.

I still have a job after all, I'm still a soccer referee, and a soccer player. I'm still a gamer, even though my implication on video games have decreased a lot during the past few years. But I'll always enjoy a good Starcraft, Football Manager or even an oldie like Baldur's Gate.

I mentioned my wife earlier, and I need to say that I am very proud that her photography business makes her people, even if it's not always easy, doing all she does in a foreign language, in a foreign country. You can see her work on her website and on Facebook. Amazing is one of the words that describe it. (Example on the left).

Enough ramble for tonight. See you next Thursday, or you can insult me if I don't write another post next week.

Disorganized thoughts for the end of the year

This is going to be kind of a messy blog post. The end of the year is coming, and that week has been pretty busy and different due to the fact that I was off of work and that it was the week of my wife and I's wedding anniversary (the two being related since I took the week off because of the anniversary).

 So, for our big day, on Tuesday, we decided we would go to England. It was Dixie's first time there (due to struggles with the French administration to get her "Titre de séjour" delaying her first crossing of the Channel). We had a wonderful English breakfast in Dover after crossing in a car-ferry. Driving on the "wrong" side of the road was a real experience (not saying more about it...).



We then took the road to Leeds Castle in Maidstone. We arrived in a deep fog that cleared out toward the end of our visit. The gardens and the atmosphere there were really enjoyable. Being a big kid, I ended the visit with a life-size maze.

We finished with a long walk and shopping in Canterbury. We stopped in a tearoom wondering how to end our stay in the city where we met an older couple. The lady was from New Zealand and and the man from Boston. They suggested us a few places to go and see and when the man had to leave, the woman stayed and entertained Dixie with English conversation.







Overall, we had a perfect stay in great landscape and cities and I think our  two-year anniversary was a success.

The rest of the week was filled with paperwork (health insurance), reading a lot (I finished the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, while still reading A Clash of Kings and La Révolution des Fourmis) and Dixie had a Christmas photoshoot. You can check some of the amazing photos out at this address. You can also visit her website. It's worth having a look at it.

To finish on a sports note, Liverpool annihilated Tottenham and Lens won its first game away in more than three months, so that was a good weekend. Also, I had a physical test on Saturday (3200 meters, switching between 150 meters at fairly high speed in 30 seconds followed by very slow pace of 50 meters in 45 seconds). I did that test on a 400 meters track, but it was very slippery and I slid at the end of my third lap. I'll have another try in January. I also reffed a women's soccer game today, and Dixie said these women would beat up most of my teammates if we were playing against them. I can't say I disagree much.

Anyway, that was my rambling for the day. The three photos at the beginning are of course taken by my beautiful, and I incite you once more to go check out her website and facebook page.

I love you, Dixie! Happy two-year anniversary!