Over 3 months gone

Summer's over. Thank God. We were on the go the whole summer, with an extra push right at the end.

Then school started, which is its own version of chaos.

Then DD pulled the World's Dumbest Stunt and got suspended. We're just over halfway through her 10 days. I've been stunned, sad, angry and despairing, but we've kept up with her school work and we're just making it through.

The story I contracted back in April is through edits and should be available in November.

The house is in decent shape, mostly because my ILs were here for the weekend, so the kids and I did a mega-clean. The trick is to keep it this way.

Now I'm finally finding my mind again and looking around to see how I'm doing with those New Years Resolutions. Eat, Drink and Be Merry.

Eat - Well, I've lost 3 lbs so far this year. Yeah. Woohoo.

Drink - Good wine, good coffee, could use more water.

Be Merry - You know, it's been kind of a tough year so far. It really has. The Be Merry thing has worked out about as well as the Eat thing. But I'm going to keep working on it. '

Glad to be back.

A big weekend

DD turned 13 on Friday.
Yesterday, she "became a woman."
I'm all verklempt. *sniffle*

But boy is she gonna be peeved when she finds out she can't go to the pool this week!

That's all right. Today, we start the library summer reading program and our summer school work. Yes, I'm a mean mom who makes my kids do a whole 10-15 minutes of school work/day during the summer. DD especially needs to learn Spanish because she goofed off so much during the school year that it was a total waste.

The rest of it, though -- math and writing -- is just to make sure that they don't totally lose what they've learned. And DD needs to learn how to outline and structure an essay because, I swear, the school REFUSES to teach these kids how to write!

DD finally had to write a 3 paragraph essay about something, did a terrible job, and still made a B! I'm peeved, to say the least. This was the Challenge Language Arts class and their standards are impossibly low. Well, my kid is going to learn how to write well if it kills us both!

And honestly, she's a good writer. It's just that no one has ever taught her how to structure and plan out her writing. It's frustrating.

But for now, I'm off to work out!

Ok. Here's the plan.

I like making plans. They look so pretty on paper. Real life tends to make them messy, but at least I have a direction to head, right?

Yesterday was my last day of work! Yay!!!

I have a rather dreadful feeling that DH intends to rip out a chunk of my kitchen this weekend, so that means I need to clear off the counters so he has space to work.

Honestly, the plan is to finally clean the damn house. Since I started working, housework fell completely off the radar and I’m starting to ick myself out here. So that’s the first priority. Tidy first, toss the junk, sort the rest, then scrub. That’ll take the weekend, working in small chunks.

Tuesday will be at the library, at the grocery store, running all the errands that need to be run. I’m on my last roll of paper towels here, and I gotta stock up. We were supposed to go to the case lot sale at the Scott AFB Commissary last weekend, but we blew it off, so now it’s just me and Sam’s Club.

Still have family administrative stuff to do — things to register and de-register for, bills to pay, forms to fill out. Just all the little stuff that falls through the cracks while mommy’s brain is in neutral.

And then? Once all that stuff is either done or sorted by Wednesday or Thursday?

Then, I write.

Catching Up

It's been a few weeks since I've checked in at Home Sanctuary, which is kind of base point for my blog.

You know the story -- life got busy, projects came up, and the dh and I had a huuuuuge fight over the once-a-month housekeepers. Still working around that one.

I spent a chunk of last weekend at an academic conference for the Popular Culture Association of America. OMG SO COOL!!! Surrounded by geeks! Smart geeks! Brilliant geeks! Geeks who make me feel small and humble and not-real-bright, but they wanted to talk to me anyway!! I went as part of a panel discussion on romance publishing, and because they spend their time analyzing the literature (yes! They actually do serious literary critical analysis of popular romance!) they were fascinated by the writing and publishing process, market influences, cover art decisions, etc. All the stuff that romance writers take as part of their regular business day. It was way cool. :)

Anyway, I'm back. I have been keeping up with my reading log on the side, and I'm up to 39 books. I don't normally have reading goals, since I read all the time, but I'm pretty sure I can make 100 this year without too much effort.

Getting a new freezer today! In fact, the delivery men are here now. We joined a local Community Supported Agriculture group -- kind of a food co-op where all the food is local, from small farms, and as naturally raised as possible. We're splitting our share with another family, so we'll get a box every other week, but we needed a freezer anyway. I'm not able to take advantage of big sales on meat and other things because I have nowhere to store it. Now, I'm ready!

The house looks pretty good. And not just because the housekeepers were here. I've been keeping up with it on my own! I still hate to do floors and dust, but the rest isn't so bad.

I got a contract on the story I submitted in December. After I got the e-mail from my editor, I looked over the story for the first time since I turned it in. It's rough, but fixable.

And that's about it.
Yay freezer.
Yay contract.
Yay conference.
Sad about fighting with hubby, but we're working on it.

*headdesk* repeatedly

I can't whine about this stuff on my author blog because it's not kosher to rant about the stupid stuff I read where fellow authors can read it. But here? I'm just me, so y'all get to listen to me get all red in the face. Which doesn't make sense, but then, neither does the hero of the book I just started reading.

1. He's a geek. A seriously techy guy who listens to indy Steampunk bands in his free time.
2. He's a Quaker. This is where things start to go off the rails.
3. He drinks and swears and listens to techno-punk, the last of which isn't specifically prohibited by the Friends, but doesn't really go along with their thing of not being angry people. But the first two? No-nos for the Quakers.
4. He joined the military. Our ALL-VOLUNTEER forces. But he didn't want to shoot things, he just wanted to play with the gadgets like "Q" or something from the Bond movies.
5. Since this is a romance novel -- even though I haven't gotten very far into it -- I'm going to assume that at some point he'll be having sex with the heroine. Quaker + premarital sex = #religionfail. That's not to say that Christians don't have premarital sex, or that I don't personally write premarital sex in my romances. But since she's making a big deal out of his religious viewpoint, it just feels ooky.

All of this leads to me to a couple of questions: Why is he a Quaker? Why join such a fringe group?

You know, I have no problem with true conscientious objectors. I really don't. Everyone's got their reasons for believing what they do and far be it from me to tell folks they have to shoot at other people to be "real men" or "real Americans" or whatever.

This guy? Is a moron. What kind of idiot signs up for the military, but refuses to carry a weapon? It's not like there weren't a hundred thousand other things he could have done, but no. He's got to join up while we're at war. Frakking idiot. I mean, you HAVE to learn how to fire a weapon to get through the training program -- officer or enlisted. How does he get around that?

Even if he didn't join the Quakers until after he left the military, why? Why not just say, "I won't ever pick up a weapon again" which would be infinitely simpler?

But the thing that bothers me the most is the slippery veneer of spirituality that she had to paint on to somehow justify his unwillingness to shoot people. She couldn't have just made him a geek who doesn't know how to shoot. Most people in this country don't know how to shoot. But why, why, why twist him into this quasi-religious pacifist with completely illogical military experience?

You know why? BAD WRITING!!! I can't finish this book. The hero is stupid and I'm not required to spend my time reading about stupid people.

It makes me even madder that I've been waiting to read this book for ages because I've been dying for good Steampunk romance. hmph.

In case you're wondering, the book is Steamed by Katie MacAlister.

Comfort Reads

I’ve recently been in a state where I would wander to my TBR pile, realize that the very idea of it scared me, and I’d scamper back to my most well-worn, dog-eared copies of books that I’ve read over and over through the years.

I needed my Comfort Reads. Most of us have them. They clutter along the backs and edges of our bookshelves. Not quite stylish or cutting-edge enough to be displayed with the new shiny covers, but you can’t quite get rid of them, either. You might even own more than one copy because when you needed it, you couldn’t find it, so you rushed out to buy another one.

I just did that. I know I own Jodi Thomas’s The Texan’s Wager, but I also know it’s downstairs somewhere in a box. And I needed to read it NOW. When I went to the UBS, there it was. It sang to me, y’all. I could hear it.

It’s not just old books that comfort me, either. It’s authors who are familiar and easy. I got a new Jayne Castle novel. I like her other incarnations just fine, but the futuristics she writes as Jayne Castle are just to my taste. Especially those little fluffy things with teeth. I love those guys. This one doesn’t seem to be set in quite the same society, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. There’s just something about her style that makes me happy.

You know what else I’ve picked up? Christine Feehan. One Carpathian novel from the library and one Ghostwalker book from the UBS. Feehan is my crack. When I’m sane, I can pick them apart like nobody’s business (God love her), but I always feel like such a hypocrite because I Love These Books. Not in a “Wow! This book is awesome!” kind of way, but in a sticky, gooey, SyFy, made-for-TV movie kind of way.

Honestly, I’m not even sure these books make me feel better so that I can suck it up and face the day, or if they just make my wallowing place more comfortable. Either way, I’m not giving up my comfort reads.

What do you read when you’re feeling down?

Yesterday was pretty cool

The weekend was heinous, but Monday, aside from a shaky start, was pretty awesome overall.

I’ve applied for a job as a library assistant at a nearby middle school. As I was filling out the application, I realized that I’ve been volunteering in school libraries for the last 7 years. And for the last 2 years, I’ve juggled 2 libraries. Both of the librarians I work with wrote me lovely letters of recommendation.

This is an affirmation. I don’t suck. I am not a horrible person.

They also personally e-mailed the librarian who advertised for the assistant.

I don’t suck. I am not a horrible person.

I got more fan mail about “A Dark and Stormy Knight”! Yay!! I’m writing the next installment, but I got stuck until it was time to go to bed last night, when I got UNstuck, so now I can keep writing today. More conflict!

I am not a horrible person. I am a half-decent writer.

Also, dinner turned out well. It was just homemade sloppy joes, but I also found fresh green beans at the grocery store, so I steamed them until they were juuuust done, then tossed them real quickly in a bit of browned butter with a pinch of salt. Perfect! I could have eaten the whole pot!

And you know what else? I have friends who rock. I really do. They’ve absolutely got my back and that’s an amazing feeling.

I am NOT a horrible person. I’m not all sweetness and light, but I’m also not crap on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

I CAN write.

And I can cook, too.