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.

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.

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.

A fresh Monday

I've been pretty lax in the household area for a few weeks now. One of my inevitable downturns, I suppose, but it's not too late to try to pick it back up.

It's the little things that are piling up. I haven't been doing my Minimum Maintenance, so I've got bits and pieces everywhere, on the verge of becoming overwhelming. But if I can pull it together now, then I'll still be on top.

So.

7:30 - Starting with laundry, then a shower.

The blast was contained

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and read and commented on my Friday post!

The weekend actually turned out pretty well.

Oliver did have surgery on Friday. He's always had a sensitive stomach and when he feels icky, he eats grass to try to make himself throw up. It turns out that he ate so much grass, though, that some of it wove itself together into a mass in his stomach that blocked everything from moving on. Over half a pound of grass. My dog thinks he's a cow. The vet said it's only the second time she's seen that in 26 years.

He's recovering very well. Has staples rather than stitches, but he can't get to them to lick or pull them out because they're so high on his belly. Yay!

The Pinewood Derby turned out great, too! DS won 2nd place in Best Concept Car! He didn't win any of the races, but he's been carrying that trophy with him since he won it. Seriously. He takes it downstairs to watch TV, he brings it to the dinner table, he takes it to his room with him to sleep.

Yesterday, we were huge layabouts. I read 5 books. It was awesome. I made my Moroccan Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Poached Eggs for dinner. Tonight is a crockpot Italian Sausage Stew.

And for more great news, I lost 2 lbs! I don't like that I have to do Slimfast to do it, but it's working. Yay!

Monday People

I'm a Monday person. I love them. Probably because I don't have a regular day job to go to. Whatever the reason, I always feel like I get a fresh start on Mondays.

Yesterday, recognizing what a wretched week I'd had before, I sat down with pen and paper and decided that I would NOT let myself sit in the doldrums this week.

Part of this new revitalization is the realization that I don't seem to be able to control my calorie count at all. Portion size, not a problem. Snacking last week was a big issue, but it usually isn't. Not to mention, my 'working out' has been nonexistent. In any case, I'm not losing weight.

So I'm doing something that's rather drastic for me. I'm trying the Slimfast thing. 25 lb in 12 weeks, says the plan. Which is only 2 lb/week, so it's not like a quick fix.

I'm horrible at diets. They always make me want to eat. But I can still have my regular dinners on this plan, so that's good. And I ought to be eating fruits and veggies for snacks anyway. Yes, they're packed with chemical weirdness, but as I said, I can't depend on my own 'eye' to judge how much I'm eating.

So today's plan is:
Curves
Grocery shopping
Writing
Min Maint
Kitchen
Laundry
Dinner out (ok, I'll probably splurge, but I'll do my best)

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Finally!

The 3 1/2 day weekend is over! The kids had only a half-day on Friday. So let's get this schedule straight:
Christmas holiday.
The first week back to school, they only went 3 days, then had 2 snow days.
The second week (last week), they went 4 1/2 days.
The third week (this week) is only 4 days.

Hmph. Maybe I'm just cranky because I can't settle on anything to read. I started "The Dracula Dossier" but even though the story seems interesting, I'm just not in the mood.

I also started reading the anthology I'm in -- yes, I'm a huge chicken and I'm too scared to read my own books. Not least because the last anthology I was in, I didn't like the other two stories. That sounds awful, but it's true.

Anyway, I've read one of the other three stories in this anthology and I liked it. Yay! But I'm just not in the mood for romantic comedy right now.

There's a book on my shelf that I've been meaning to read for months. In fact, a writer's forum that I'm on is doing a workshop on Steampunk this week, so I really, really SHOULD read this book. ("Clockwork Heart" by Dru Pagliasotti) But now I feel forced to read it, which makes me cranky.

Hmph. This is starting to feel an awful lot like a "Bag it and go back to bed" kind of morning. I woke up two hours early with a crick in my neck and a horrible fear that I'd slept on my glasses and either broken them or bent them beyond recognition. I hadn't, but it was a touchy few moments while I looked for them.

I still have the crick in my neck.

I also feel like I SHOULD go to the gym this morning. I haven't been since October.

Ok. So. Must be more positive. Must Be Merry!

I'm doing a slimming challenge with some other writer friends and the challenge this week is to get 5 fruits/veggies every day. I know I made it yesterday, so I just have to figure out the rest of the week.

Still need to make my menu for the week, too, so maybe I'll lean veggie on that.

And I'm moving forward on "The Misplaced Marriage" (Victorian historical). I don't know why I write historicals. Everything I've published has been paranormal romantic comedy. People like my paranormal romantic comedies! So why would I screw that up by writing a not-comic historical?

Because I am obviously dumber than I think I am, whale-sized ass notwithstanding.

And because I like that story. There. Dammit. I'm going to write it and Be Merry!

So, off to write for a bit, then the gym, then the grocery shopping. It'll be a full day.

My week in writing

2000 words on The Misplaced Marriage.
2500 words on the Gorgon/Mercenary (no title yet).
Finished A Dark and Stormy Knight, part 1.

Not a bad week's work. Not bad at all.

Also, the house is clean. The laundry's caught up. I've been making dinner -- ok, one night we had pizza -- but other than that, it's been all homemade.

Yes, indeed. This has been a good week, even with my three schedule freakouts. (Three separate links.)

Libraries

I like Thursdays. On Thursdays, I volunteer at my son's school library. I spend two hours reshelving, sorting and tidying, chatting with the librarian, and helping little kids find the magic that exists within the binding of a book.

I love that I get to keep up with the latest trends in kid lit, which is very different than what I learn every other Tuesday, which I spend at the middle school library. There, it's more about YA and the sad discovery that most middle school kids don't read. I was there for 2 hours and checked out 3 books.

But I love it when the readers come in. I'm sure that the 13 year olds are not expecting to be able to talk about PC Cast or some of the other hot YA authors and series with a squishy, middle-aged mom, but once we start talking books, it all goes away. It's just two fanatics, mutually loving the written word.

In another life, I might have been a librarian. DD is actually considering it as one of many career options, along with dog catcher, rock star and author/illustrator of children's books.

Remember having all those possibilities stretched out in front of you when you were 12?

In other news, we've now been playing Risk for 5 nights and we're all still on the board. Gah!

So I freaked out a little

Ok, kind of a lot. See? That's what the word "schedule" does to me.

Cleansing breaths, Susan. Breathe in, breathe out.

The house is clean. Even DH noticed! In fact, it was so clean that as soon as the last dishwasher cycle finished, I realized that the inside of the washer was gritty-grimy, so I unloaded it, took the racks out and scrubbed it, too.

Now it's running empty but for a cup of vinegar. I've never cleaned a dishwasher before -- yes, that's right. I never realized you were supposed to clean your dishwasher -- so I had to look online for instructions.

But yay for a clean house! This makes me Merry!

A fresh week

Mondays are always filled with promise, I think.

The kids are at school, DH is at work. It's just me and the dog and the eleventy billion things that I Have to do, Should do, and Want to do. And the stuff on the Want list usually isn't on the other two.

Last night, I started reading a book called "HOME COMFORTS: The Art and Science of Keeping House." The author is a bit didactic, but I'm trying to look past that. I'm just trying to find a way to make this work.

Reading the intro, it's less about this chore or that chore, but about the evolution of making a home a sanctuary, and how housekeeping has become a list of things we check off our list to clean the house, but we never seem to be able to find that spirit of comfort and love within our homes.

I think she's got a point, there. I can clean and clean, but I *do* feel like something is missing. The cleaning is only part of it, so this journey is part of Being Merry. I want to Be Merry in my home. Feel as though this is somewhere I want to be with my family, where we can invite people over to share what we have.

Anyway, her first chapter is about setting up a manageable schedule. And what do you know? That's today's Small Thing! I think the universe is maybe trying to tell me something, you know?

So I made my list of Must Dos for home maintenance and I discovered that my absolute most hated tasks were the things I now get to schedule at least once a month for the housekeeper. Honestly, these were the things that I hated to do so badly, I never seemed to get around to them, and they caused me massive stress because I always felt guilty. Now at least they're getting done once a month, where before they would pile up for months and months on end.

I admit. I do feel bad that I have to hire someone to do these tasks. I feel selfish and lazy, but on the other hand, if having someone do these few things means that I can worry less about my floors, and be more gracious about having friends drop in, then I'm going to learn to get over it.

Also, having someone clean my house gives me a day to do nothing but write without distractions. Woohoo!

Minimum Maintenance:
Dining Room - check
Living Room - check
Bedroom - check
Master bath - check
Laundry room - check
Hall bath - check
Dishes - check
Counters - check
Tables - nope
Desk - nope

Happy New Year!

We made it to 2010! Yay!

I can guarantee that I've upheld at least two of my NYRs today: Eat and Drink. I'm stuffed. We had a neighborhood brunch and I feel like I ate my weight in pancakes, sausage, strata and cinnamon bread. That last little dollop of Bailey's in my coffee put the kicker on the morning and now I'm just ... bleurgh.

I ate too much. Still, I meant for today to be a splurge, so I won't regret it. Dinner will be pretty healthy -- Glazed ham, Hoppin John over rice, with cabbage on the side. Ok, so there will be bacon involved, but not in massive quantities. And I can tell you right now that absolutely none of that sounds appealing at this moment.

This blog is still pretty new, so I'm not sure exactly how I'll be using it. Probably for the stuff that really doesn't belong on my writing blog. For instance, I hope to keep track of my weight here. Trust me. Readers don't want to know that stuff.

I gained probably 10 lb this year. I stepped on the scale this morning and it read 158.5. That's not acceptable and I'm fairly disgusted that it got to this point. I belong to Curves and I know how to eat, but I gained 5 lbs from Oct-Dec. I didn't work out and I completely abandoned any principles of good eating.

I also joined a website called Home Sanctuary. It's about doing Small Things around the house that add up. Makes sense. I mean, you can do anything for 5 minutes, right? Or 10 or 15. Little things are easier than "Clean the whole house."

So we'll see how that goes. I really am getting better with the housekeeping, but I need to stay committed to it. And you know, it might even fall under the category of "Be Merry" in my list of Resolutions. After all, it's much easier to be merry in a clean house, rather than being miserable because the house is a wreck and there's so much work to do to get it clean.

New Years Resolutions: Eat Drink and Be Merry!

Resolution 1: Write every day!
Resolution 2: Lose weight!
Resolution 3: Be on time!

As if putting exclamation marks behind them makes them more likely to happen. snort

I went through my blog a little while ago and searched out all my old resolutions or goals or things to aim for or whatever I like to call them that year. I think the only one I succeeded at was the one where for one year I was going to Drink More Coffee.

I liked that. That was a good resolution. I made that resolution work.
Since I’m pretty much at my limit, caffeine-wise, though, I think it’s time for a new resolution.

Eat Drink and Be Merry!

Like any good resolution, though, I should break it down into concrete goals.

Eat: What? Eat more Twinkies? More Oreos? More chocolate? Given the size of my ever-expanding ass, I should probably cut back on the Twinkies and Oreos. Try to take my chocolate though, and you’ll likely draw back a bloody stump.

How about if I resolve to eat more Good Food? More whole foods, more local, sustainable, naturally or organically grown foods. Home cooked meals that showcase new cooking skills, that emphasize flavor, as opposed to convenience foods that we shovel in because we’re too rushed to enjoy them. I think that my new copy of Joy of Cooking and I are going to develop a very close relationship.

Drink: Good coffee. Good wine. More water.

The good thing about being married to a guy who likes a good deal is that you end up getting nifty things like Keurig coffee machines for outrageously low prices. As he’s now gainfully employed and no longer at home with me during the day, we found that we no longer made a pot of coffee in the morning because most of it went to waste. Dude. I can only drink so much coffee before I start to twitch, you know? Enter the Keurig with those cute little pods. We can even use our own coffee, so now my caffeine consumption is back to previous levels. Aaaahhhhh.

We live near this awesome liquor store (they gots wine what comes in biiiig bottles – with screw tops!) I’m kidding. It’s a great shop that does weekly wine tastings with knowledgeable people who talk about wine and food pairings, history of the vineyards, different flavors to look for – all that stuff that I used to think was for people who had their corks screwed on too tightly, you know what I mean? It’s fascinating. I’m serious. I’m totally into this now and we’ve found some amazing wines. They’re not stuck up at all and they’ll as soon recommend a wine that costs $12 as one that costs $40 or more. Which reminds me, vintners are starting to use screw tops on even their expensive wines. Yay for easy access! The store is moving further up the road this spring, though, and it’ll be harder to get to them. I’m going to miss going there on Saturdays. I’ll need to find a new wine shop. Pity me. *gg*

As for water, my husband, crazy romantic that he is, got us all Klean Kanteens for Christmas. It’s good, though. Mine’s bright red and I like it. I drank a whole bottle of water yesterday and that’s something I rarely do.

Between the coffee, the wine and the water, it’s a good thing I splurge on the nice TP.

Finally, Be Merry.

I have a relatively short list of things that make me happy. Being with my family, eating, drinking, reading and writing, watching movies where Vin Diesel takes off his shirt. For the last third of the year, I struggled with writing, though, and it was painful.

This year, I resolve to be merry as I write. All year. Whether I write flash fiction, short stories, novellas, or even write that novel I’ve been meaning to get around to, I want to enjoy writing. I want to pull up to my keyboard every day and look forward to getting the words on the screen. No doubt, I’ll encounter times when the words won’t come or the scene won’t work. It won’t even surprise me to find that I’ll have to abandon a story partway through. But I hope to remember that I’m fortunate enough to write because I love to write.

Let 2010 be the year where we can all Eat Drink and Be Merry!!