I'm a wife and a mom.
I've been married for 15 yrs to a great, steady guy.
I have two funny, bright kids -- a 12yo girl and a 9yo boy.
I'm not a great housekeeper, but I try.
I'm a very good cook.
We try to eat naturally, seasonally and locally,
but life isn't worth living without Oreos.
I could stand to lose 25 lb. (It's those Oreos.)
Mostly, I muddle along and mostly, people let me.
Showing posts with label Company Girl Coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Company Girl Coffee. Show all posts

Friday, February 19, 2010

Serenity Now



Today, y’all get the confluence of a few things that have been flowing in my life that aren’t necessarily about writing, certainly aren’t paranormal, but they do influence my writing.

First, what genius thought up perimenopause? Because this betwixt and between stage is like the hell-end of purgatory and I can see the fire and brimstone from here.

*Deep breaths. Serenity now.*

I sometimes wish I was more crunchy granola with the whole maiden/mother/crone, moving through life stages, welcoming a change in fertility, yadda yadda yadda. This is a freaking nightmare. I can’t think and the mood swings should come with a warning claxon that screams, “Step away from your mother! Maintain peace at all costs! Go to your room if you value your life!”

*More deep breaths. Serenity now, please.*

Second, ADD can be kind of fun. Things that were lost become new again when found. This is not actually so when the lost thing is a bill.

*Whoo. Getting light headed. And was I not asking for serenity loudly enough?*

The mood swings are killing my writing, too. I am currently on my fifth version of this @#$*& Steampunk story. It’s not enough, apparently, that even though I started it four years ago it now looks like I’m just jumping on the bandwagon. No. Now I realize that because I have no magical or paranormal elements to it, I’m actually writing science fiction – and I swore I’d never write science fiction because the worldbuilding and the details are an absolute killer. Welcome to my fictional nightmare.

*Screw the deep breathing. Where the hell is my serenity?*

So. Wildly fluctuating hormone levels, wonky brain chemistry, and worldbuilding that is sapping my will to live. I haven’t decided whether to go Virginia Woolf or Mad Max with this little crossroads of life. But you know what I do want?

SERENITY NOW!!!!!

Friday, February 12, 2010

A fairy tale for your Valentine's Day

A couple of years ago, I decided to try a new style of writing and came up with a tweaked version of one of my favorite Norse fairy tales.

I posted it on my author website and people seem to enjoy it, so I thought I'd give it to you here.

(The story has been deleted while I revise it for publication.)

Friday, January 29, 2010

See this grenade? Pull the pin. I dare you.

DH — What do you mean you didn’t glue the stars on Monkey Boy’s Pinewood Derby car?!? By the way, I’ll be home late and probably won’t be able to help set up the Derby at the school gym. (Not his fault — he’s been working 14 hour days for the last two weeks.)

DS — Yay Pinewood Derby! No clue what I’m doing! Also, please tell me a fourth time to do my homework because I love it when you totally lose your cool and shriek like that.

DD — I also love being repeatedly screamed at to do my homework. Because I didn’t hear you the first three times when you asked me reasonably and politely and treated me like a real, functioning human being. Nope. The screaming works for me. Also, I’m failing Geography.

Dog — Hi Mom! Love you, Mom! Sorry I puked on your floor, Mom! *hlrup* Sorry I puked on your floor AGAIN, Mom! Please take me to the vet so I can have surgery to remove the thing that I ate that I wasn’t supposed to eat that’s now blocking up my insides and making me *hlrup* Sorry I puked on your floor, Mom!

Then they all looked at me like they had no idea what was wrong when I finally did lose my mind and pitched a stomping, screaming fit.

So go ahead. Pull the pin on my grenade. At least I won’t have to clean up the mess.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Not my best week

It really hasn't been. I've been in a funk all week.

The house is running pretty smoothly. Dinner worked out most nights -- except last night when it took 7 hours to crockpot chicken that should have cooked in 3-5. I had to improvise, so we had Eggs Florentine instead, which is just a fancy way of saying sauteed spinach with poached eggs...and I overcooked the eggs.

I went to the gym one day this week.

I've been hanging out at the Steampunk Workshop I mentioned, but I'm not enjoying it. When the heck did Steampunk turn into nothing more than a new venue for vamps, weres, demons and zombies?!?

Maybe I'm taking it too seriously, but most of the stories that people seem to be writing are just regular paranormals with a thin veil of brass and cogs.

And when I asked if there was a market for Steampunk that didn't have magic or paranormal elements, I was informed that it would probably end up getting sold as Sci-Fi Romance, which is a really bloody difficult sell.

I'm grumpy. I'm going to Bunco tonight, though. Maybe that'll lighten my mood.

This is the anti-Merry.

Friday, January 15, 2010

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.)

Friday, January 8, 2010

A week of Small Things

I did all right this week!

The house is in decent shape although my bedroom could really do with half an hour of serious effort.

The kids are on their 2nd snow day, and we went sledding yesterday! I hate the cold, but that was a lot of fun.

Dinner has been homemade and on time all week.

I interviewed a housekeeper who will come in once a month starting next Tuesday -- and I can afford her! I interviewed 3 people and the other two both charged nearly twice as much!!

Janet Napolitano is either 1) a complete and utter moron, or 2) has her foot shoved so far down her throat it will never, ever, ever come out and she should stop talking immediately. You're doing a heckuva job, BrowJanet!

The writing is going well! I've made significant progress on 3 stories this week.
*I started with a new paranormal romantic comedy short for a Free Read that will come out this summer.
*Then I switched gears to my Victorian romance. Very formal voice. Completely different from the rom-coms.
*And last night, I decided to work on another wip (work in progress). A paranormal romantic comedy about a Gorgon and a foul-mouthed mercenary.

This has been a very, very good week!

Thursday, December 31, 2009

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!!