What a weekend!





I am tired! In the next few days I have a little girl starting second grade (and why do I always end up going to 5 stores trying to find just the right school supplies from the list?!), a little girl turning 3, who, incidentally, does not want to turn 3 in order to get her presents. She would like to remain 2, but still have a cake and gifts. Me too. And who only wants Wall-E for her birthday. I have a Wall-E cake, a Wall-E claw, but no Wall-E. Everyone is sold out of Wall-E. GRRR!!!!

And I'm madly working on revisions to meet a deadline and find myself immersed (figuratively) in the Bering Sea.

The little man isn't starting anything or turning anything but he IS and therefore I am tired. ;)

So, while I procrastinate from one of the many, many things I need to do right now, I'll leave you with this exchange.

After getting home from 2 hours of birthday shopping with the little Mystery Man, I am greeted by my little Betty Boop 2 year old...


BB: Mama, it took you so long to come home!
Me: Yes it did! But I was out getting your birthday presents.
BB: Oh!!! Can I have them?
Me: No, you have to wait till Tuesday on your birthday. They're hiding out in the car.
BB: Is there a real guy out there?
Me: What?
BB: Is there a real guy in the car? I have to go see him!
Me: No... I didn't buy you a person for your birthday...
BB: But you are getting me Wall-e
Me: (ah, the mind of a 2 year old. Of course Wall-e is a real person) Yes, well, about that. I had a talk with Wall-e.
BB: You did?!
Me: Yes, and he really wants to be here for your birthday, but it's so far to come from outer space, that he's not sure he'll make it in time. (BB looking verrrrry skeptical). So, he sent a present for you (the Wall-e robotic arm claw) and said that he and Eve will be here for Christmas.
BB: Well, I think he can just roll on over here. Wall-e can roll...

This went on for some time. I'm still looking madly for Wall-e, but in the meantime, hopefully I've laid the ground work - and there's always the bongo drum set to distract her...

OK, back to my edits!

Playing for Keeps Launch

Hey Everyone - just a quick post tonight because I'm exhausted. Little crawling man is doing his job and running me ragged. Then there's the little sleep boycott of the last two nights. ACK!

But, I want to let you all know that Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty launches today. (mini rant - Why I cannot embed hyperlinks right now is beyond me and it is driving me crazy!!! rant over). Check her out at www.murverse.com - she's doing a launch party all day Monday. I owe much to her and her wonderful podcast, I Should Be Writing. She, Michael A. Stackpole of The Secrets, and Miss Snark kept my head in the game the whole year I was writing Murder on a Moonlit Sea.

Mur is trying to get a great Amazon ranking her first day out to get the book more visibility, so more power to her! So, check out the Murverse - she has content going all day tomorrow while we watch her rank go up and up Amazon's chart. :)

These posts are going to be so much more fun once I get my technical difficulties straightened out. You'd never know I was an IT Consultant...

The Daughter of Time and the Son of Mystery Robin

Wow, I've been busy. Have I mentioned that Mystery Man is crawling all over the place? And I, of course, have been chasing him. The good news is that he spends less time perched on my hip so my back is starting to resume it's normal shape. Which is good, because my husband was starting to worry that I was becoming a hunchback.

Speaking of hunchbacks, I have a book recommendation for you:

The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. It's a classic out of the Golden Age of mysteries. Being a fan, also, of the Golden Age of Hollywood, it's a natural for me. ;) Tey basically uses the foil of a Scotland Yard detective lying in a hospital bed bored out of his skull and in need of a mystery to discuss Richard the Third and whether or not he really is the monster that Shakespeare and history makes him out to be. What really happened to those princes in the tower?!

It's fascinating, and while it's short, it's somehow not a quick read.

I'm a little bummed that blogger isn't letting me add images today, but I'll update tomorrow if things are working better. Stay tuned for more book recommendations. I've been on a roll, lately!

More news

The mystery man is now crawling. Wow. I'm going to be one tired mama! And he has his first TWO teeth all in the same week. Go little man!

It's just 2 1/2 weeks till school starts and we're buying uniforms and supplies. Where did summer go? That's just crazy to me. My daughter is in denial.

That's all for now. I'm still tired. :) But trucking along on the new project - working title - Lamplight.

Yes, I am back. No more driving to different states for a long while. I'm not even sure I can manage a trip to Starbucks right now, and yes, those were pigs you saw flying into your window.

I've been home almost 24 hours. I'm just starting to unfurl from the position I was in for 14 hours yesterday. In case you're wondering, that's too many hours to be in a minivan with three kids and three adults - four adults on the trip down.

I am back now with renewed vigor for life, my book, and my healthy eating plan of last summer... home video of yourself in a pool has a way of doing that for you...

So, I believe I'm now over 7 percent done. Watch out world!!!!!

Stay tuned for fun recipes like Tuna Quinoa Cakes (word to the wise, call them by something clever like Totally Yummy Dinner Patties if trying to make kids eat them) and more word count pics.

'Zokutou'Zokutou
5,017 / 65,000
(7.7%)

I am home.

Oh my lovely bed. Oh my lovely city. Oh my lovely keyboard. I'm so glad to be off the road!!!

I'll have more to say by the light of day. :)

Two matters of business

1) Tomorrow we'll be having a cyber-launch party for Linnea Sinclair over at the Enduring Romance blog - come check it out! We're celebrating her third science fiction romance, Shades of Dark. Woo Hoo!!!




2) I am leaving on a road trip tomorrow. Yes I just got back. This time, no caves, but there will be 7 people in a minivan for something like 15 hours. Let's just hope all 7 people make it there and back and those in control of the wheel can resist stopping at The Olive Pit. I'm sure it is a fine establishment for those who love olives and find them refreshing after driving for an eternity- like two people who will be driving with me - however, I am not one of those people. And as teenagers my sister and I were traumatized when this was our rest stop after driving through the sweltering hot desert for what seemed like eternity. And no, in case you're wondering, they don't serve slurpees there OR espresso... ;)




I'm told I was just a delightful, totally easy going sort of child. The kind that made road trips a joy.




Auf wiedersehen!




Little by little


I'm back, briefly

I am back. I applaud my hubby for taking us all on a vacation. The kids had a blast. They rode roller coasters, saw dinosaurs, pet pygmy goats, watched mummies at the IMAX, swam in the pool, slept in a hotel room... and went spelunking.

Ohhhhh the cave.

I read The Ransom of Mercy Carter about the 100 mile march the Native Americans took the settlers on after kidnapping the kids from their homes back in the 1700's. The difficult kids, and the ones they didn't think would last through the march got tomahawked in the beginning.

The cave was 3/4 of a mile in and the same back. I'd have been tomahawked well before the 2 mile mark on that march for sure.

A mile and a half and I started to wonder if I'd ever make it out alive. It didn't help that the footing was this rough pumice stone and I had the little man strapped to my chest, so I was wiggling all over the place trying to stay upright. And if you fall, it's this nasty rough horrible stone, so I couldn't fall. Nor could I touch the sides of the cave to steady myself because apparently the slime is some sort of ecosystem that is protected.

Plus - IT'S SLIME!!!!

And then you're going down hill, into the dark that is so dark if you turn off you're light you might as well have your eyes closed. Plus it's windy from to "skylights" that don't actually shed light, so they should be called "sky wind holes". Plus it's like 40 degrees.

And I'm not so much an outdoors girl anyway.

The little man made a sound that clearly said "Are you sure you know what you're doing because that looks like a big dark scary hole to me" on the way in.

Amen brother.

By the time we reached the end, he'd had it. His subtle cues to get him out of there clearly weren't working so he resorted to a full on scream for the whole 3/4 mile back. Someone passing me told me he thought the cave was haunted. I told him that it was.

I'm trekking now. I keep calling out to my 7 year old to watch for rocks. My 2 year old who kept telling us she could handle it and didn't need to hold our hands is now telling my hubby "I can't handle it!" and needed to be carried out. I'm weaving all over the place because my center of gravity is officially gone and I'm saying "To heck with the ecosystem!" and using the sides of the cave to steady me.

Oh, and my 7 year old was shrieking whenever something would drip on her from the ceiling. It was slime after all and her hair was washed thoroughly when we got to the hotel.

Finally, we got out. I think this was the point when my little man decided he hated vacations and did not really smile till we got back home 4 days later.

We leave again on Thursday and this time are driving all night to get to California. I think I should start on the meds about now just to be sure... no, no, the trip will be FINE! No one will get car sick. No one will hit their sister. No one will scream his head off for hours. Noooooo...... it'll be fine...