Happy Thanksgiving!



Happy Thanksgiving, blog buddies!

I woke up this morning to Mystery Man saying, "You need it open your eyes! You need it stop sleeping! I need it play your ipod!" Well, of course, first things first. I went downstairs to fetch the prince my ipod and found Boop bounding down the stairs in her blue velvet dress.

"What? I got ready early!" She said racing through the house, and Red was already up, though not clad in velvet, and playing the new Zelda game her dad bought her for lo these many snow days we've had.

So I'm off to my aunt's house, through the snow, with a gluten free pumpkin pie in tow, and three enthusiastic little eaters. I'm hoping to round out the day with a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team marathon and midnight shopping at Old Navy. (My first Black Friday outing ever.)

Sometimes holidays are the times I'm the least thankful, because I'm trying to live up to a vision that I just can't achieve, and I'm exhausted and mildly depressed by the time I give up. But today, I'm trying to embrace my quirky holiday and be thankful for what I have, not what I'm hoping to have. I hope you all enjoy whatever today brings you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Steampunk flavors and other steamy news

Did you know Seattle is the Steampunk epicenter? No, neither did I! We've always done goth and grunge particularly well, and we do have an unusual amount of menacing looking crows, but I suppose it's one of those things I've taken for granted along with good coffee and Amazon being my local bookstore.

But, these guys say it's so, and who am I to argue?

In other steampunk news (yes, I'm abusing the word - is it a noun? and adjective? a verb? I'm really not sure) we now have a Steampunk Wiki to answer all of your genre related questions. I just stumbled upon this today and thought I'd pass it on.

I haven't read every page on the site and don't know what the rating level is, so be warned. I'm finding there are many flavors of steampunk. It can lean toward fantasy or goth, it can be set in both Victorian and Edwardian times, or the Old West - and then there's Dieselpunk and Cyberpunk. I'm personally writing a straight Victorian low-tech high-tech sort of steampunk. No Diesel, no goth, and no paranormal overtones, much more in keeping with Jules Verne. It's a re-imagining of Victorian London with a very mechanical nature - I do dabble a bit in alchemy - but everything should be well within the confines of our own laws of physics and such. And I really mean that, not in a JJ Abrams sort of way, either. (Did he think we forgot he said that back in season 2? Really?)

Do any of you have a favorite flavor of steampunk? Or is the whole genre still kind of new to you?

Three P's for Tuesday

Problem: Boop only wears sleeveless dresses or tank tops and shorts. It is November in Seattle. I basically live in Gotham. One can hardly get away with sleeveless in Seattle in the summertime, let alone November. Every morning she changes her clothes five times till she finally puts on something with sleeves and by then every piece of clothing she owns is all over her floor.

Proclamation: Boop, you need to change your clothes before we leave and it needs to have long sleeves. If you don't come downstairs in long sleeves I am putting every sleeveless dress you own in a box until summer! (cue evil mom music)

Product (yeah, I'm stretching for the final p): Boop is wearing sleeves. Sure, it's a velvet princess costume and they just come past her elbows, but we're calling it good. And yes, I will be going to dance class and running errands with her in tow dressed like a princess from the 1700's.

Hypothetically...

Hypothetically speaking, you might have a 2 year old son who doesn't eat well...
So you might prepare peanut butter toast at all hours of the day because it's one of the things he will eat...
And you might leave the toast sitting on the counter because when he wanders into the kitchen he'll take another bite...
And you might forget about it, and leave it out until bedtime...
And, hypothetically speaking, you might have a two year old son who doesn't go to bed on time when he takes a nap...
and stays up till *your* bedtime...
and obsesses about turning off all the lights...
So you might be standing in the kitchen, gathering your things, when the lights go off, and you're moving blind and then you might, in you tired state, rub your eye, only to realize, too late, that your finger is covered in peanut butter, and now it's on the wrong side of your eyelid.
And of course you bought crunchy.
Hypothetically speaking.

This evening...

I told Boop to do some crazy thing like, you know, get down off the kitchen table. And then I told her again, and then I might of gone into intense crazy mom voice till she got down.

Red: Sometimes you just can't fathom moms.
Me: What can't you fathom?
Red: I mean you just can't get around moms' decrees.
Me: Then I think the word you want is circumvent. It means get around. Fathom means understand or comprehend.
Red: Well then you can't fathom moms either.