Finally Friday

And can I just say this was one long, long week?
Too bad. I'm saying it anyway!

Thank goodness the week is over. Of course, the weekend looks just as long, and busy, and chaotic, with no hopes of sleeping in or relaxing. That bites.

I find I really have nothing interesting to say today. I am making progress on the *shiny new*, but it's been kind of slow. I'm still sticking to my goal though. We'll see how stressed out I am at the end of the month.

That's all I have!
Behave!

Ahead of Schedule

Well, there it is. All bright and shiny and new.
I didn't expect to start actual writing until tonight, so I'm already 15 pages ahead of the game.
Which is good, because according to the way the calendar is filling up, I'm going to need all the extra time I can get.
So far so good.

It's Wednesday. One of our only evenings without some sort of commitment or obligation. A writing evening for me.

That's all I have!
Behave!

Thoughts for Tuesday

So what I'm thinking about:
1. K1 lost his wallet.
I helped him look for a little while, including in his car. Can you say absolute pig sty? (Same as the bedroom - no wonder he's missing stuff) Oy! Anyway, to make a boring story short. He left for work. About an hour later, I get a text from him. Asking if I'd found his wallet, or his IPod, or his jump drive yet? Ummm....HELLO? Not my job buddy. Your stuff, your responsibility.

2. Gnomes.
I've decided this year I'm actually going to do some flowers, ect. on our patio. I kind of dropped the ball last year and never got around to putting any in. Of course, our patio was under construction (still is), so there didn't seem to be any point. But that job is first on the list now, so hopefully within a few weeks it's finished. Anyway. I want to do a gnome garden. I have three potential areas and can't decide which one (translation: where the dog will be less inclined to dig) is better suited for what I have in mind. I'll post pictures once I'm done.

3. My *shiny* new story.
I didn't think I had a plot, but I do. This one is more of a paranormal mystery. I already know my heroine and my hero and a few of the supporting cast, including the ghost. Things are clicking into place in my brain. Let's just hope they translate onto the page the way I see them in my head. I'm excited to start at page one in a little while (once I patch 2 pairs of jeans, take care of dinner, the laundry, getting the boys out the door for cub scouts and making sure the dishwasher is working *don't ask). Still no title, but I can feel it rolling around just waiting for me to stumble onto it.

That's all I have for now.
Behave.

On Track

House cleaned: Check
Dog better: Check
(I worried about the dog food recall, but it's not for the dry, so we're okay)
Injuries: K2's eye wasn't as bad as I imagined.
No injuries since. Just dealing with allergies now, which is the norm.
Ready to start new story (which has no title yet): Check
Excited about new story: Check

Busy week around here. I might be a bit scarce here and there. Plus I want to make some real progress on this story.
Behave!

Housework

Ugh!
That's what's on my agenda for the day.
And yes, I'm procrastinating. But I'm also eager to get it finished. Go figure.
There's just a lot to do. And the dog is shedding incredibly right now. And there's mud outside. A lot of mud. Which translates to big muddy paw prints. My desk is piled high with everything I've ignored for the past week while I endeavored to finish my work in progress. But, hopefully by this evening, I'll be sitting in a clean and shiny house. That's an incredible help to my brain.

Thought I was going to get to sleep in this morning - technically, I did - for about a half an hour. B left to pick up K2 and her pals from a youth group overnighter and then run some errands. Before he left, he woke me to tell me the dog had major diarrhea and I needed to go downstairs so I could stay close and prevent another accident in the house. Ugh. I have to admit, I did snooze on the couch for another hour, but that's not the same as staying in my nice warm bed. But, better than having a sick dog poop on the floor. My concern is more what's wrong with her than my lack of sleep.

Oh. More injuries - this one makes three for the week: B threw his back out, K1 and his lovely stitches and now K2. She called me last night to tell me she got hit in the eye with a hockey puck and now has a black eye. I haven't seen it yet. I'm not sure I want to.
I think I'll wrap everyone in bubble wrap.

Behave!

Supernatural! Oh My! (and other stuff)

And can I just say...Oh My!
What a fantastic episode.
Sexy, sad and a little bit scary.
Holy freaking Sam! I was not disappointed. And I wasn't disappointed the second time I watched it either. In fact, this has to be one of my favorite episodes so far, which is hard to really say because I love them all.
Waiting until April 19th for another new episode is going to be brutal!

Anyway.
I finished "Under the Bridge". I'm so relieved. Now it'll sit for a while until I can think about it without needing to vomit. This book kicked my butt. Hopefully it's better than I think.
So I'm right on track with my previously posted goal. Actually a little ahead because I really didn't believe I'd finish until tomorrow evening. Might not seem like much of a time difference, but trust me, it is.

The kid is healing nicely. Yesterday was probably his worse day as far as pain goes, but he's back on his feet today and hopefully not thinking about other ways to hurt himself. Hopefully.

That's all I have for now.
Behave!

Making Plans

Our annual writing retreat is on the horizon.
I'm so excited.
We've extended it one more day - sadly, I'm not able to make the extra day this time - but I still can't wait.
2 1/2 whole days to do nothing but write.
No dishes, no laundry, no errands and no cooking!
Yeah, I know it's still almost 2 months away, but I've got a plan. And that plan is to finish my current work in progress by this weekend. Take a few days off to really clean the house and find my organization and then mid-next-week start my new work in progress (still haven't decided what it'll be). If life stays calm (ha) I should be able to finish the new one by the end of April - leaving me ready to start the next one at the retreat.
I'll have a lot of editing to do then, but we'll be into summer and the kids being home changes a lot of things. Writing new pages is harder when you can't write more than two sentences without someone needing you. Editing is hard too, but different. I can print off what I'm working on and take it with me wherever we happen to go.
I can't believe I'm already thinking about summer vacation! It's coming up fast though. I just signed up for the last parent-teacher conferences of the year. They're out of school in less than 3 months. And I just realized how big of a goal I made for myself. 2 books in less than 3 months?
Well, we'll see if I can do it.
Stay tuned.

Teenager Tuesday Update

Eight abrasions - four bad ones, including the one on his scalp.
Six stitches.
One xray.
One mild concussion.
Two and a half hours at the ER.
One frazzled mother.
One proud teenager.

Yes. I got him to the ER.
Once I saw what was under all the blood he had no choice.
Boys.

Tuesday

I have no idea what to blog about today.
The weather? Well, it's sunny here and most of the snow is already melted. Temps aren't too bad. But that's really boring.
My day? Another boring thing. Unless you want to here about all the stupid things I did. Nah. You don't.
My kid? Well, now that's something we can talk about. K1 called me a little bit ago. Phone calls freak me out from him because he prefers to text message me. It's no wonder his calls freak me out though - the call was to inform me that he'd fallen off the back of his friends car and not to worry, it looks worse than it really is. Okay? What looks worse? I told him he needed to come home so I could assess the damage.
Oh boy.
He walked in the back door, blood running down the back of his neck, around his eye and on his cheek. His first words, "It looks worse than it is." He is brush burned on his side, elbows, knees and back. That hurts bad enough, but it's his head that has me a little worried. I can't tell if his scalp needs stitches. I sent him up to shower because the blood matting his hair has made it impossible to tell what's going on there. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure it out when he comes back down. If he does need stitches, getting him to the doctor is going to be an issue. He's already told me he's not getting them.
Sigh.
I'll be back with an update.

Flip-Flopping

I wish this post was about summer footwear.
Sadly, it's not.
It's about the bedraggled state of my brain right now.
I'm in the final stages of my work in progress. Time to wrap things up, give each character their happy ending and put the threats to rest. Yes. I'll need every page, and then some, to end it. (Which is good, because pretty much everything I wrote yesterday is garbage.) I'm anxious to type "The End" and even more anxious to start fresh with something new and let this one sit (to rot) for a few weeks before going back and deciding what stays and what gets tossed in the garbage (or burned with a match).
Keeping what I what to work on next on the back burner of my brain is a challenge. There are at least 3 different books vying for my attention. (Those are just the ones with a sense of immediacy - if I think to hard I'll end up in trouble with too many to choose from, and that would not be pretty.)
And I already feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends. (how many cliches can I fit into one post?) Getting anything done, much less done on time, is almost impossible.
But, hey! This is life, right? And tomorrow is the first day of spring. Though I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
That is all.

Books To Be Read

I think I mentioned before how B found this huge dead space above the closet in our room. The closet in our room attaches to a closet in K4's room, so the space runs the length of one whole wall. And it's deep. We finally agreed I could use it as my bookcase. So Thursday evening (before Supernatural) I hauled all my books over and arranged them in the space. Not librarian standard by any means but they are organized. I realized there's quite a few I haven't read. Many I got at the RWA conference, some were given to me, and some I bought.
And never read.
Which is kind of weird for me. I love to read and am a voracious reader. Depending on the size of the book, I can finish one in a day. So why haven't I read any of those?
There's no answer to that. I just didn't. Will I? I don't know. We'll see.
And I do have a more current "to be read' pile. The top one on the stack: Misty Simon's "Reignited", then Nicholas Spark's "Dear John" - which I think might be a tear-jerker from what my sister didn't say - so maybe I should change the order because I know Misty will make me "laugh until I snort".
*From K2's snow measuring project: 9.25" - looks like it's melting fast, but still much shoveling to be done.

All About Supernatural

Finally!
A new episode of Supernatural!
*Total fangirl post - so if you're not interested in my thoughts on Sam and Dean stop reading now*
Where to start?
After what seemed like forever without new Sam and Dean, I can honestly say I was not disappointed. The ending was a surprise. I never figured it out and I love that. And the way they repeated the clues when Molly saw her husband. Definitely didn't see that coming.
I loved Dean's attitude through the entire thing. And Sam's angsty behavior, even though he let Molly stand in front of the window when they knew the bad guy was coming.
There's so much more, and I should probably stop gushing.
And the promos for next week? Wonderful. Werewolves.
Oh yeah, I said I was going to stop gushing, didn't I?
*Snowing it's tail off here. I've heard so many conflicting predictions: 4", 8", 10". Who knows for sure? Even though I absolutely love the snow, I have to say I'm disappointed after our recent high temperatures. I'm ready for spring!
*We're all moved into our new room. Just have K4 to move in and some other tweaking and this project is finally finished.
Behave! (Unless you are exempt!)

Random Things

I started my morning by draining our waterbed.
Through some weird cosmic interference and the use of a really stupid adaptor, I nearly flooded the whole house. Water was dripping into my living room - from the third floor. K2 had rivers of water flowing down her newly painted walls. Not pretty. But (i think) all is well now. The bed is finally empty. Dismantling and refilling will commence as soon as B gets home from work.
Then, I need to clean my house. No, really clean. Ugh. After over a month of hole patching and sanding, floor stripping and sanding...well, you can imagine. There is dust...everywhere. Not looking forward to that. At all.
As you can see, I'm nearly done with my work in progress. This book has been like pulling teeth - maybe because my work time has been fragmented and my house upside down - maybe it's just a hard book to write. I don't know. It's going to sit for a while before I tackle the revisions though. Probably long enough for me to write a whole new book. We'll see.
And I think that's all I have right now.
Behave! (Except those of you who are exempt)

Almost There!

Well, there it is. Not a good picture and I really wish I had a "before" to show you. It looks like we painted outside the lines, but I think that's some weird anomaly with this picture because though there are tons of flaws, we were neater than this looks.
But imagine this...light pink walls with dark pink sponge painting on the lower half, a pink floral trellis border halfway and red shag carpet. Very girly, and it was beautiful for the female K's. (except for the red shag carpet - but you didn't really notice that with all their stuff strewn everywhere)
The floors turned out okay and we ended up with 3 coats. Not perfect by any means - especially if you find the cat paw prints and the fabric marks from our jeans from putting another coat on a little too soon.
We're at move in stage! Yay! Except tonight is a busy night around here with kid obligations. So, I don't know what we'll manage, if anything, to get done.
But we're so close. Soon I will have my bed back.
Ahhhh....

My Space

Well, it's finally done.
My Space, that is.
Fellow writer, critique partner and all around good friend Vicky B and I decided to share a My Space page since neither of us have much time to maintain one of our own.
Check us out.
Friend us. We'd like that. (I did fix the link to the left too)

The bedroom rearrange is coming to an end. Yay! Finally! The first coat of polyurethane is down - two hours to go until we can get the second coat on. I'm hoping two is enough, especially since the can says "two coats". B thinks differently. We won't know until the second coat dries though. We spent all evening on our knees, sanding, sanding and more sanding. Moving in should happen this week - as soon as the stuff cures enough. The kids are all off spending the night elsewhere so they're not in the fumes. It's nasty in here and although I miss them, I'm glad they're not breathing this stuff in.

That's all I have for now.
Behave!

Random Friday

Probably just a collection of weird stuff. I think you're used to that by now.

For the past week or so, we've been getting this telephone call - a number from another state - constantly. Like twelve times a day constantly. I love Caller I.D. Last night, finally sick of looking at this number, I answered, expecting to be at the receiving end of a sales call. It was a wrong number. All of those calls - not for us.

We're at the sanding the floor stage with the bedroom. Floor looks really nice, but the grim reality of waiting for polyurethane to dry is going to take us into mid-next week for move in. I'm resigned to the fact - the last thing I want to do is mess up the new floor by rushing the drying process. It'll be worth it in the end.

The kids are off school today, so we're off to shop for mini-blinds and curtains, maybe even a rug or two - we'll see. They're ready and pestering me to finish so we can leave.

Behave!

Cake!

Snow Day!

Kids are off school.
The excitement level in here is...deafening.

So, yesterday I had a really good writing day.
I'd been really worried about this story and my lack of progress. Getting started seemed to be the main problem - and the time it took to get back into the characters heads. I hate to make excuses - like the total wreck that my house is, and has been for the past month, and the constant work that's been happening with that. But the truth is, that has affected me. My whole world has been off-kilter, my schedule totally different. The situation is very temporary so that means I just have to get through it.
If you'll notice the progress meter, I think I did a pretty good job of ignoring outside forces and just doing what I needed to do yesterday. 35 pages. And I'm at a really good place with the story. It's kind of shifted a bit - taken on some qualities I hadn't expected - and I really like what happened.
Hopefully today I'll add to the count.

Even though it's taken me nearly an hour to write this - in between finding boots, gloves, hats for the kids to go outside, and a dozen other things. I think it's time to say good-bye for now and get busy.
Behave!

Painting

Yes. We're finally at the painting stage!
About time.
And Oh Goodness.
We're being incredibly cheap about this whole bedroom rearrange thing. So far, the only thing we've purchased is hole patch stuff. And we already had all these half gallons of paint, in a variety of colors. K2 picked out some weird ones for her room - one wall is a completely different color and we're all okay with that.
Since we couldn't agree on a color for our room, we decided to take this very dark chocolate brown color and half lighten it for the trim and then double lighten it for the walls. Sounds perfect, right?
HA!
The trim looks nice - though thanks to a whim addition of a dark green the color is more of an antique green. I'm happy with it.
The walls however are hideous. The double lightened chocolate brown that should be tan is more of a crappy gray color. It totally clashes with the trim and makes me want to poke my eyes out with a stick. Thankfully, B only painted on very small section just to make sure we were doing the right thing.
Obviously, we weren't.
B called me this morning to ask if the color had grown on me. Most definitely not. In fact, every time I look at it I want to scream because it is so awful. Obviously, we'll be painting over it and for now, our room will be white with antique green trim.
See? How does that work? I was violently opposed to white walls. And I'm the one who told B the walls should stay white now. What the heck happened there? I think I've been brainwashed.
Anyway. Hopefully we'll be ready to move in by the weekend. Can't. Wait. To. Get. My. Bed. Back.

Dreams

I have a very good friend who is seriously considering giving up her dream of writing. And that makes me really sad. She's a gifted writer, who has a knack for funny, heart-warming stories that leave you feeling good and loving the world she's created.
We've critiqued together for years - so when she gets good news, it's good news to me as well (and the other member of our little group). So, right now, when she's really considering walking away from her dream - a dream we share and that we've discussed often and done our best to keep alive when things are tough - I'm trying to think of ways to make her see that would be a mistake.
The thing is, I completely understand her motivations behind this decision. I just don't agree. Her emotions are raw with continuous rejections, often more than one, even two, a day and near-misses where she's believed she's finally crossed that line, and those things will take the spit and fire right out of you. The flip side, even though it's not much of a consolation, is that she is still trying.
I'll never agree that she needs to quit. Take a break, definitely. Write something else, eventually. Alter her plans, probably.
But not quit.
Not when I've seen the beauty inside her stories and the heart she puts into crafting characters and plots that leave you feeling good about things. I wish her some of that kind of magic to help her through the desolation she feels right now.
You might think that's weird. Because if she quits writing, then that's one less person to compete with, but that's not how it is at all. I can't name any writer who would cheer at hearing that another writer has quit trying. I think it does the same to all of us - makes us sad, makes a little hitch form in our chests wondering how long, how many rejections, how much frustration we can withstand before arriving at the same place.
Writing isn't something you do because you want to. Writing is something you do because you have to.

First Friday

(That's my only acknowledgement to the new month.)
March = Mud.
I have a really big dog and four kids...'nuff said.

Today is the release date for Misty Simon's new book "Reignited".
Check it out. "You'll Laugh Until You Snort".

The rest of this post is probably going to be mostly rambling. You should be used to that by now, so I don't want to hear it.

Tips for Friday:
1. Always make sure your kids take their backpacks with them before you pull away from the school. Otherwise you'll be hauling your butt back to school with said backpack and facing a tearful, grateful, sweet child who was worried way more than necessary.
2. Go and hang out with your friends once in a while. At least once a month -more frequently if you can manage. It's important to your mental health and the fun part of yourself. Maybe not so much for your diet, but I think any calories consumed when with friends, especially when laughing with friends, don't count. Or maybe you just laugh so much you zero the calories out.
3. If your house smells weird when returning from your fun lunch, realize that it probably always smells like that, but you can't smell it because you haven't left the house except to take the kids to school and that's not long enough for your nose to forget the smell. (At least it wasn't a bad smell)
4. When you've had evening plans for a while and your oldest tells you he can't make it at the last minute, it probably has something to do with a girl.
5. Read the warning labels on microwave popcorn. They're there for a reason.

That's about all I have for now.
Busy weekend.
Behave!

Weird Dreams

My dreams were full of downright strange images last night.
And it wasn't just one random odd dream - it was a series of strange events. James Taylor was in one - he rearranged the furniture. In another, I was driving a really old, huge pick up truck. I could barely reach the pedals and the truck was hard to shift.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it had something to do with the extreme amount of coffee I drank last night. Oh, and the spicy nachos and chocolate chip cookies I ate at a time I don't normally snack.
Well, don't you think that's why?