A Pile of Puppies

I don't remember why, but I was thinking the other day that nothing would be better than being covered in a pile of puppies.  It's been years since I was anywhere near a litter of 6wk old bundles of doggie-love.  All at once, though, I really missed the sensation.

I need to find a pile of puppies.  If I remember right, nothing else matters when you're covered in puppy kisses and wriggling bodies and tiny nose-nips.  Someone in town here has a litter of mongrels to give away.  I can't take one home, but I wonder if they'll let me snuggle the bunch for an hour or so.

Consider it Puptail Therapy.  (Tuesday's retail therapy wasn't nearly as therapeutic as I'd hoped.)

What's one thing you can think of that just brings you joy like that?

*Original post was filled with pics of puppies.  All images deleted due to possible copyright infringement*

Picture Pause

Back from another day trip to Fort Collins - 7am to 4 pm.  It wouldn't be so bad if 6 hrs of that wasn't driving both ways.  Some one tell me how sitting in a car can make anyone so damn tired.  Bleh.

Anyway, here's a picture to keep y'all amused until I recuperate.

Talk about bed-head.  Maybe Max needs a day to rest up, too.  What d'ya think?

Why I Don't Read Snippets, Teasers, Etc.

Okay, by now we should all be perfectly aware that I'm weird.  Today I'd like to talk about my weird thing about not reading posted snippets and teasers.  I mean, if you've posted some advanced chapters on your blog, I'll scroll right past them.  (Unless you're asking for crit help, then I'll help if I can, but that's another post.)  I don't want to know.  Seriously.

You see, chances are if I'm already reading your blog or visiting your website, I plan on buying your book.  And I hate...  HATE... hate finding out anything about your story before I have your book in my hot little hands and can read the whole damn thing.  I want the mystery of discovering your book page by page.

Of course, I realize I'm strange.  Most people don't want to read books that way, and that's fine.  Hell, when I get published (someday, maybe) I'll post teasers and snippets just like everyone else.  Read away.  Just don't feel bad if I don't comment on snippets you post.  It doesn't mean I don't like your work.  It means I like it so much I want to savor the experience.

How do you feel about snippets and teasers? 

Red Ink Edits

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but sometimes I can't spend another day looking at my manuscript on a monitor.  No matter what I do, one of two things happens - I can't find any errors OR the whole thing is an error and I want desperately to wipe it from the face of the earth.  So, to avoid the unpleasant consequences of either happenstance, I print the damn thing out - chapter by chapter - and attack it with a red pen.

I step away from my desk.  I sit on the couch with my stack of paperclipped chapters, a 5-subject notebook, and a red pen.  And I read it like I'm critting for someone else.  (And, judging from the notes I leave, someone else I really don't care about pissing off.)  I make it bleed.  Slash, scribble, astute observation (aka nasty remark), underline, question mark...  you get the gist.

Right now, I'm attacking my 2010 NaNo novel.  I tried to get back to it in February, but happenstance #2 occurred.  Rather than delete the damn thing from my harddrive and every backup source, I put it away until I could be more objective.  Fast forward to June.  After we got back from Fort Collins, I sat down and started printing.  And you know what?

Once I fixed the beginning - which well and truly sucked - I really like this book.  Sure, it's got a few problems - it is a first draft, after all - but it's not nearly as crappy as I thought back in February.  The flow is good.  I'm feeling myself caring about the characters again.  The plot twists I put in are surprising even me.  Yep.  This one is a winner.*

How are things going in your writing?  Ever pick up a manuscript to edit it and feel like it's #2?  How do you get past the #2 feeling?

*Yeah, I think they're all winners until the rejections start pouring in and then I feel like a loser.  It's a vicious cycle, but it's my chosen endeavor, so I'm going with it.

What Makes You Follow

I was thinking this morning and I wanted to ask you all a question.

What makes you follow a blog? And where do you find new blogs to follow in the first place?

Personally, if one of the blogs I already follow posts a link to a different blog, and it sounds interesting, I click through.  If when I get there, the blog really is fun or interesting - or sometimes if the person just seems nice - I follow the blog.  Every rare once in a while, I find a new blog to follow from the sidebar of another blog.  And when I'm feeling really bored, I surf for new blogs.  (That last one hasn't happened in a long time because I'm following tons of blogs already.)

And finally, are there any really great blogs I should be following that I somehow might've missed?  Feel free to leave a link or something in the comments.

*Pay no attention to the woodchuck.  He really has nothing at all to do with this post.  I just thought he was cute.

** All images deleted due to possible copyright infringement**

Getting in the Groove

With Daughter's college thing approaching, I've been out of any kind of normal groove for months now.  My writing has fallen by the wayside, as has my querying.  Any shallow attempt at dieting has failed.  Exercise?  Puleeze.  The blanket I was crocheting for my other sister sits in a bag, a quarter done. 

Are you seeing a pattern here? 

Now that orientation is over, I'm trying to get back in the groove.  The kid and I have exercised two days in a row.  I haven't done too too bad at watching what I eat.  (Stupid blueberry muffin attack.)  The writing and the querying are still shelved, but I did pull out my 2010 NaNo novel and start editing it.  And that blanket is getting done - slowly but surely. 

Two days of healthy living doesn't seem like a whole lot, but I'm calling it a win.  Being five chapters into a 35 chapter edit might not seem like much, but when you're red-inking up printed chapters and rewriting as you go, it's a good start.  And even if I'm only getting a strip of crochet done a day, it's more than I was producing before.

For me, it's just a matter of making these things a priority and stop using excuses to get away with being lazy.  (Yes, the college thing - while very important and gray-matter consuming - was an excuse.)  It's all part of getting in the groove.  Toss the excuses and focus on accomplishing something. 

Rah rah rah and all that jazz.

I'm not sure how long this will last.  I've had the best of intentions before and they never lasted more than a few months.  (Usually a few days, but hey, the longest was a few months.)  Cross a few fingers for me.

How are you at getting back in the groove after you slipped out?  Or are you one of those people who never seems to lose their groove?  How do you do that?

Picture Pause - Max

Don't we all feel like that some days?

What can I say? Max's favorite place to sleep is on top of the trashcan.

For those of you who remember what Max looked like when we rescued him last year, doesn't he look amazing?

And for those who weren't here or don't remember...

Yep, thin and sickly then, fat and sassy now. 

Where I Find New to Me Reads

In this morning's post, the Killer Chicks asked their readers which 'new to you' authors they'd read recently and what made us decide to read them.  That got me to thinking.  (Dangerous, I know.)  What makes me pick up the new authors I read?

If you look at the books I've read this year, you'll notice amongst the plethora of repeat reads a spattering of new to me.  Thinking about it now, my new author reads from the past few years have mostly been from surfing the blogosphere.  Breaking it down:

Sonya Bateman - new to me this year and I found her through the League of Reluctant Adults blog when she came on as a new addition to the blog and they talked about the urban fantasies she writes starring djinn.  (Checking out the competition, doncha know.)

Elana Johnson - I've been reading her blog for about a year now, but her debut novel, Possession, just came out.  And I found her from the group blog she participates in: The League of Extraordinary Writers.

I found Jennifer Lyon through the Murder She Writes blog.  Ditto for Roxanne St. Clair.

JB Lynn was found through the Killer Chicks.

Skipping down a little, I found Marcella Burnard through the Word-Whores blog.

Out of the last ten books I read, 6 of them were from blogs.  Of the others, I became addicted to Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) when Amazon suggested Seanan's first book - Rosemary and Rue.  I snatched Gini Koch's first book off the shelves of the now defunct Borders because the title and the cover amused me.  Pamela Palmer also came to me from an impulse buy at the Borders. 

And rounding out the last ten books I read, we have Karin Tabke, who was one of the first bloggers I ever followed - so I'm thinking she takes some of the credit for every other blog-related new-to-me author I've read.  If she hadn't been so awesome to me at the start of this blogosphere exploration, I probably wouldn't have ventured far.  I know she's the reason I found Murder She Writes, and therefore, all the other gals who blog there. Thank you, Karin.

Where have you found your recent 'new to me' authors?  Who's your favorite 'new to me' read so far this year and how did you find it?  Mine has to be Nancy A. Collin's book Right Hand Magic.  It totally rocks.  And it was an impulse buy from the big closing sale for the Borders.

Mini Rant and More Pics

As I was surfing through the blogroll this morning, I came across a buddy who'd posted some of their WIP.  I thought it was pretty good with one minor wrinkle and said so.  Another commenter took one word and spent his only paragraph expounding on how it was used wrong.  The word?  Cement.

The line went something like 'he dropped his knife on the cement'.  Yeah, yeah, the stuff is actually concrete.  Not everyone knows that.  Not everyone cares.  A teenage girl (the MC and POV character) wouldn't have known the difference and she wouldn't have cared to make the distinction in her head.  The writer, while being less than true to the concrete industry, was being absolutely true to her character.  Which is what we're supposed to do.  And the commenter?  I think he needs to chillax.

Of course, cement could've been his pet peeve word.  We all have them.  I can't think of mine right now, but I know it when I see it and it irritates the crap out of me.  (Oh, wait, I just remembered...  I hate Hate hate MYBAD.)  What's yours?

And what do you think is more important - using the word right for its definition or using the right word for the character's POV?

Now, for more pics...

This is the CSU Lagoon.  I have no idea who these kids are - they were with some tour group of about thirty 8-12 year olds - but the way she was laying there with one flip-flop semi-dangling off her foot amused me.  She's in perfect reading posture, isn't she?

Here's a better pic of the most-awesome CSU Rec Center.  They just finished renovating it, and it's beautiful.  Inside the pyramidal part is a climbing wall, and it has huge pool with a swimming river thingie.  I'd want to go to CSU just for the equipment.

Here's the kid's residence hall with its separate dining hall out front.  Supposedly, it's the best dining hall on campus.  Anyway, it's a twelve story building and Daughter will be up on the 7th. All I can say is she'll have a great view (and thank god for elevators).

And here's the CSU Administration Building.  It's a very pretty building on a very pretty campus.  Not important to her educational needs, but it certainly helps.  =o)

Trip Pics

Kid playing with her laptop at the Best Western Kiva in Fort Collins.  All in all, not a horrible place to stay, but our room must've been next to the water main because we heard rushing water all night.

And here's the kid filling out paperwork for her student ID.  Thanks to the advice of a gal named Courtney, we did this before going to the resource fair and Daughter was one of the first kids in line.  No waiting?  I'm so totally grateful to that fine young woman.

Once the day got started and Daughter was off sitting through group activities, Hubs and I ditched the parent seminar we were supposed to be in and explored.  Here he is reading the plaque for the Veteran's Memorial Bridge.  (That's the bridge behind him.)

And there I am standing on the other side of the lagoon from where the bridge is.  That big building is CSU's new Rec Center.  And behind the building in the distance is the Rocky Mountains.  Some of them still had snow.

Shortly after that last pic was taken, we had lunch to eat and seminars to attend we couldn't afford to ditch.  And then, I lost my camera - which would've totally sucked if some nice woman hadn't turned it in to the front desk.  She didn't leave a name, so I couldn't thank her.  I don't even know what she looked like, even though she left me with awesome footage of her feet.  (She accidentally turned the camera on and hit the button for video record - something I've done multiple times.)  So, thank you Foot Lady.  Your white sandals and red nail polish will forever be remembered.

So, between a temporary camera loss and as busy as the rest of the day was, I didn't get many pics on Tuesday.  Wednesday's pics are mostly of the campus, and I'll share them with you tomorrow.

Have you ever been to college orientation?  How that go?

Review: Deadline by Mira Grant

First off, let me start by saying I have a big fat writer crush on Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire).  I would read her grocery lists - she's that good.  Every one of her books makes me both love her and hate her.  Love her because she writes books I can fall into and never want to climb out of.  Hate her because when I read her novels I feel like I can never ever write as well as she does.  I get depressed for about a minute at every awesome phrase.  Lucky for me, by the time I'm through, I'm fired up to at least TRY to make my writing as good as hers.  I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I'm trying.

And now that we have that out of the way, let the gushing over Deadline begin.

This book picks up about a year after Feed ends.  (If you haven't read Feed yet, what the hell?  Didn't I gush enough about that last year to make you go forth and inhale it?)  Here we find the brother of Feed's duo of news bloggers trying to cope with the trauma he went through in Feed.  Shaun's more than a little crazy, hearing the voice of his dead sibling, while he tries to keep his news site going as he reports on the continuing zombie apocalypse and uncovers underlying government conspiracies. 

Now, I'm not going to give you specifics.  Suffice it to say, stuff happens that will keep you on the edge of your seat and reading way past the time when you should've taken dinner out of the oven or let the dog outside for a bit of exercise and weedles.  As you sit amidst the smell of burnt lasagna and canine piddle, you find yourself gasping over the unexpected plot twists and gut-wrenching events.  And the end???  No way did I see any of that coming.  Holy shit.

I loved Feed.  Loved loved loved it.  It pales in comparison to Deadline.  Sure, I wanted to pinch the holy crud out of Ms. Grant when she left me at the end wanting so much more.  I got over it.  Now I just want her to write faster so I can read Blackout before my head explodes from all the waiting.

One last thing I should let you all know.  These books aren't about zombies.

Yeah, yeah, I said it was set during a zombie apocalypse.  The Newsflesh series is about zombies in the same way Gone with the Wind was about the Civil War.  Those things are just the backdrop for all the real stuff going on in the books.  With Newsflesh, the zombie apocalypse is just the brilliant way Mira has of showing the political intrigue, backhanded plotting, dirty double-dealing and heartbreaking loss amidst true heroism, friendship, and courage.

And the story behind how the zombie apocalypse came about blows me away every time I read about it.  (In fact, leading up to the release of Deadline, Ms. McGuire (Grant) wrote a series of shorts leading up to the day the world went to hell and posted them on her blog: Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls.  Scroll down and start at the beginning.  Even if you haven't read Feed yet, it will blow you away.  And seriously, why are you still not reading Feed?)  This lady has done her research and has created an almost believable scenario for a zombie apocalypse - and I only add the 'almost' because I have a difficult time believing in things like that.  Any disbelief is totally on my part.  She rocks the science part hard without making it dull as dust.

So, if you're looking for a book that will make you gasp and laugh and weep and want to stockpile weapons - you know, just in case - pick up Deadline as soon as your little fingers can toss it into your Amazon cart.  Seriously.  Do it.

College Orientation

Monday morning was a flurry of activity.  Hubs went off to work to make sure he wouldn't come back to a crisis.  Daughter and I ran around dotting all the Ts and crossing all the Is. Bags were packed.  Forms were photocopied.  Gas was pumped and varying flavors of Mtn Dew purchased. Cats were fed and loved enough to last them two days.  Instructions to the neighbor, mail stopped, dishes washed...

And then we were off.

Where to?  College Orientation at Colorado State University.

After three hours of driving and the worst lunch stop I've experienced in years, we were there.  Well, we were at the hotel nearby anyway.  With a 7:45am check in, there was no way we were driving up that morning. The Best Western was lovely.  The restaurant next door was even better.  (If you're ever in Fort Collins, give Charco Broiler a whirl.  The Chick-Ka-Bob was awesome and Hubs really loved his Trout Almondine - with real Colorado trout.)

Anyway, if you've never experienced college orientation, it's about as chaotic as any organized event can get.  Kids scurrying this way and that, dragging their parents behind at first and then ditching their folks for a first solo flight on campus.  They have seminars and discussion groups and classes - both for the kids and their elders.

And as if that all weren't tiring enough, we had a three hour drive back home.  Needless to say, when I reached the couch yesterday, I was down for the count.

I wish I could say I spent today in total relaxation, but the lawn needed mowing.  But I am back. With pictures - once I get them transferred to this computer.  To those of you who worried about the falling apart from yesterday, no worries.  Think of it more like after weeks of kvetching over this trip and then days of the actual trip, I crumbled.  I'm all better now.

Do you fall apart after trips, or am I the only one who needs to rehab afterwards?

I'm Back

Ready to fall apart, but back.  More details later. 

Offline

I'll be offline until sometime on Wednesday.  Any comments will be posted when I get back.  Meantime, talk amongst yourselves and try not to miss me too much.  ;o)

Celebrating Happiness by Getting Blitzed?

"I'm so happy I want to pickle my braincells."

Today is the neighbors' wedding.  (Shock to me.  I thought they were already married.)  Late last night, that little factoid permeated my brain.  Okay, it was more like 3am this morning, when Husband and I dragged ourselves out of bed to search for what sounded like a combination gang rape, Manhattan rave, and dog fight.  I snuck around the house peaking out windows to pinpoint the noise.  Hubs is better - he went right to the back window and sure enough, a couple dozen people were partying hard, drinking beer, and just being general asses.  A few guys were play-wrestling, a couple others were taunting the dog to make it bark, every once in a while a girl would shriek or squeal or scream - just for kicks, mind you - and most of them were talking at a decibel level that tells you their volume control knobs are all three feet below the surface of the vat their brain has become.

Aside from calling the police and reporting them for noise violations (yeah, like anyone ever gets a ticket around here for that anymore) or for suspected 'minor in possession', there wasn't a damn thing I could do.  So I lay there, wondering to myself: When exactly did drinking yourself into oblivion become the way to celebrate anything? 

Aced an exam?  Get stinko and kill the grey matter that got you there.

Graduated high school?  Break out the wine coolers and forget your achievements.

Got that promotion at work?  Drown your happiness in some scotch.

Win the National Championship?  Get several hundred of your friends drunk and celebrate by overturning cars.  (but that's another rant.)

These are supposed to be happy occasions, people.  You know, ones you want to remember the next day with clarity and fondness, not haze and nausea? 

Okay, I get the wanting to drown your sorrows after something horrible has happened.  Been there, done that.  There's nothing quite like a haze of booze to help you forget that your boyfriend just dumped you, or that your cat died, or that you just bombed your exams.  Booze never helps, but I get the urge.  What I don't get is the urge that drives people to want to get drunk over something happy.

Last night's party crowd were supposed to be celebrating the joyful union of two people they care about.  Instead they used the upcoming nuptials as an excuse to pickle themselves.  :shrug:  It doesn't surprise me.  I spent three years working weddings as a DJ's assistant and videographer.  Something about weddings make people want to get shitfaced.  I once saw a groom get so ripped, he did a striptease in the middle of the dance floor at his own reception.  Sometimes, I wonder if that guy remembers anything after the cutting of the cake.

So, no, it doesn't surprise me.  It just confuses me.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not a teetotaler.  In fact, I used to drink with regular abandon.  And I was shitfaced myself on more than one occasion.  (Not that it was right, mind you.  I'm just acknowledging my own stupidity.)  But I don't remember ever getting drunk off my ass as a celebratory gesture.  My wedding day included one glass of wine later that night at dinner.  One.  I have a tough enough time remembering anything with clarity to want to screw that night up. 

Maybe I spend too much time thinking about stuff like this.  I'm always trying to ferret out the reason for human behavior.  Call it a leftover from my time as a psych major.  Like I could fix it if I found the root cause.  Consider it an after effect of being a writer.  As if learning the reasons would make my writing better.  Anyway, it's stuff like this that sticks in my head. 

What do you think?  What sticks in your head?  Anything about human nature confuse you to the point of sleeplessness, or is it just me?

Still Behind

Sorry if I've missed commenting on your blogs.  I'm trying to fit those in - reading as many as I can and commenting when I can - but it's not always in the big scheme of my universe.  I'm still running behind so far I'm about to lap myself.  I mean, I'm managing to keep up with my to-do list - because life will grind to a halt if I don't - but there's so much to do between now and next week, I'm feeling like I'm in a hole.  (Mixed metaphor much?) 

And I just got the first set of two book orders in.  When will I ever have time to read those?  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for after next week.  Cross your fingers, too.  I need all the help I can get.

Ack.  I just realized tomorrow is Friday!  Where did the week go?  I need at least two of those days back. 

Just call me CWIHCO*.  If you can pronounce it, you can call me it.

And just so you don't think I'm totally self-absorbed, blog buddy Travis Erwin just released an e-book of stories called Whispers.  It's available for 99cents and if it's half as interesting as Travis's blog, I know it'll be an awesome read.  (That link is for Kindle, but it's also available for Nook.) 


I hope you all have a great weekend - especially if you don't hear from me before then.  :HUGS:

*Chicken With Its Head Cut Off...

Release Day!

It's Tuesday.  That means it's release day and like last Tuesday, some awesome books are out as of today.

Possession by Elana Johnson.
Finger Lickin' Dead by Elizabeth Spann Craig
Vampire in Atlantis by Alyssa Day
Hexed by Kevin Hearne

And since I didn't give a shout out to last week's releases...

Deadline by Mira Grant
Sinful Magic by Jennifer Lyon

I know I have to be missing dozens of others, but these are the ones on my radar.  Got any new releases to add?  The more the merrier.  And if you don't have any to offer, what books are you waiting anxiously for?

Positive Energy

You may or may not have heard about the latest internet hullabaloo.  It seems some less than tactful woman wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, apparently slamming YA novels.  This, of course, brought about a shitstorm of epic proportions.  I even wrote a big long post joining in.

I deleted it this morning - pre-post time.

Life's too short and after reading Matthew MacNish's take on it over at The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment, I realized he said it better than I did anyway.  Go there, make your own decisions, and jump into the fray yourself (or don't as the mood strikes you).

Also, I'm taking a page from Elana Johnson and spending my energy on more positive things - which this morning means reminding you all that Elana's debut novel - Possession - releases tomorrow.  Yay!!  And also means encouraging you to read yesterday's review of JB Lynn's novel - The First Victim.  JB's book doesn't go on sale until next week, but I got an early copy.

Neener neener boo boo.  =op

Okay, so maybe the taunting wasn't so positive.  But it was funny, so that's positive, right?

Anyway, whether you leap into the storm with the YA thing or not, try and stay positive today, folks.  It's a beautiful day, we're all alive, and I wrote some new words last night.  (Sometimes you have to stretch for the positive, but it's always there somewhere.)

What positive energy to you have to offer this morning?  Come on, you know you have something - even if it's as tiny as 'my cat didn't barf on the rug today'.

Review: The First Victim by JB Lynn

The First Victim by JB Lynn.   Romantic Suspense, published by Carina Press - Release date: June 13, 2011. 

If you've read reviews here before, you know I don't go over the details of the novel.  If you're interested, follow the link to JB's page or to Carina Press or to Amazon.  Those people all do a better job of summarizing novels than I do.  All I can give you is my impressions of the book.  

When JB Lynn asked her blog readers for people who'd be willing to read and review her upcoming novel The First Victim, I'll admit to being a little hesitant.  Not that I didn't think I'd love the book, but because right now, it's only available on Kindle (or so I thought).  For me, that brought up some niggles.  First off, I don't have a Kindle, don't have the Kindle software on my PC, and I'm not going to be buying a Kindle any time soon.  Second, I've never read an e-book.  Oh sure, I've read books electronically - my own, my former crit partner's, other people who wanted me to beta read - but never a book for pleasure and certainly not one I would be reading with the idea of later writing a review.

Would I be able to read a book and be objective about the story when I couldn't hold the book in my hands? 

It was a little weird at first, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn't that different.  My worst problem was when I got to the delicious parts, I wanted to curl up on the couch and really lose myself.  Sitting here isn't really conducive to curling up - not without some major acrobatics and the flexibility of a Russian gymnast.

Still, that was the worst thing I could say about the book - and it wasn't even about the story.  In fact, if the book hadn't been so damn good, I never would've felt the need to curl up with it.  The suspense is edge of the seat good.  The romance fits perfectly.  The characterization made me want to spend time with those people and root for them.

I do have to admit the glimpses inside the villain's head made me kinda squirmy, but hey, that's what a writer is supposed to do.  Good writers make you uncomfortable sometimes.  And when a villain is that creepy, it makes it all the more satisfying when he gets what he deserves.

So, if you enjoy Romantic Suspense with the flavor of Allison Brennan and Roxanne St. Claire, get thyself over to Amazon or Carina and download a copy.  At around $4, you really can't go wrong and if it ever makes it to hard copy, it'll be worth the standard $7.99. 

And for the standard disclaimer the government demands...  JB gave me this book as a thank you because I've been - her words - "such a wonderful supporter".  She didn't have to do that, and I really appreciate it.  She also told me that if I wanted to, I could write a review.  In no way was the gift of the book a bribe to write a good review.  I don't work that way and neither does she.  (Most writers and readers don't, you suspicious governmental goons.)  If I didn't like the book, she couldn't have paid me enough to say good things about it.  I wrote a good review because I genuinely liked the book and I genuinely like JB.  If liking the book and the writer make me subjective, so be it.  You, the review reader, are forewarned.

Picture Pause

 

Taken March of 2004 - from the west side of Utah Lake facing east toward Provo and the Wasatch Mountains.  It was actually a warm enough day to go without a coat in short sleeves.  That ice piled up all winter.

Crazy Life

Time, it shore do fly when yor busy.

Sorry, I was channeling Troy from Swamp People.  "Shoot 'im, Lizbet.  Shoot 'im."  (Talking in a Cajun accent is fun.  Try it sometime.)

Anyway, it's been busy here this week. 

- printed and sliced senior pics
- printed envelopes and announcements
- stuffed envelopes and mailed said pics and announcements
- yard work
- tweaked synopsis from 7pgs to 4pgs, formatted manuscript and sent submission to epublisher
- set up Daughter's graduation present (omg, her laptop is so pretty)
- made appointments, went to appointments, ran errands, took care of the Hubs & Kid & cats, cooked dinners, made chicken salad...

And those are just the highlights because the rest of the week was a blur.  I think I wrote a little.  I know I read a little.  Everything else?  Lost in the crevices of my crumpled brain.  Of course it didn't help that I came down with some sort of creeping hack Wednesday night and spent yesterday with a cough syrup hangover.  And I just remembered it was a short week anyway because of the holiday. 

Bleh.

Anyway, I keep hoping to get back to some kind of schedule soon.  I'm thinking any real progress will have to wait until after college orientation - which is coming up in a few weeks.  Until then, expect sporadicness. 

How crazy is your life right now?  If it's not crazy, tell me about how calm everything is where you are so I can live the calm through you.  If your life is really really not crazy, can I hide at your place until all this is over?