1.  Writing short stories is fun.

2.  I found a new site, http://www.querytracker.net/index.php that is REALLY cool and helpful.

3.  Getting traffic to my blog is a lot of work for little results (so far)…does anyone have any suggestions?

4.  I wonder why mattresses go on such deep discount for the Fourth of July…freedom=sleep?

5.  One week down from when I sent my full manuscript out to an agent…just seven more to go!

6.  Sometimes doctors are just as clueless as the rest of us and sometimes schools make the right decisions.  This is shockingly different from what I’ve believed for many years.

7.  One of our cats, Cally, likes to leave “presents” on our front porch things like bunny ears, a mouse tail or birds legs…he always eats the best part and I guess he thinks he’s being generous by giving us the leftovers.  Not that long ago I burst out laughing when I saw that he left us part of a hot dog.  I really hope he didn’t have the nerve to hunt it during the actual cook out, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

8.  It’s very nice to have the Bird home from camp, but it isn’t so great doing the laundry he brought with him.

9.  I was going to put a pic of my dog on here, to prove that my dog is uglier.  That’s why we got her.  We went to the pound about 5 years ago in search of the most unadoptable dog in the place and chose our dear Lola.  When I looked at the pic though, I realized that she’s very photogenic.

10.  “Make it or Break it” is better than “Secret Life of the American Teenager” but not nearly as trashy…yet.

11.  I can’t help it, I thoroughly enjoyed “Princess Protection Program”.

12.  I have one minute to come up with 3 more things!!!

13.  Stuffed Salmon Bel Mar from Target it AMAZING…try some!

14. I wonder when I will watch a show or movie for adults…I just love the kid stuff so much…shout out to iCarly!

15.  This is number 15.

Here’s a random pic of Joey with a horse.  Enjoy…while I rant.

Please tell me I’m not the only person with this problem.  There is so much to do and I can’t seem to start on any of it.  My three day migraine bender was finally over when I woke up this morning…oh happy day!  So the haze has cleared to reveal….dun dum da da dum…chaos.  Grumpy, cooped up kids, piles of dishes and a generally trashed house has tempered the relief I felt at waking up without pain in every movement.

Why am I writing about it instead of taking care of business?  I’m slightly overwhelmed.  If I start on the laundry it will use the hot water that I need for the dishes.  Can’t start the dishes until I have some clean counter space….and it goes on and on like that.  When I get to the end of the list which takes quite a bit of effort in itself, I will start with that.  But for now I am doing a list item that doesn’t require figuring what came first, the chicken or the egg.  And when I’m done I can check off one thing I’ve accomplished.  That is, I would if I ever actually made a to do list.

All this has to be done and I’m so far from what I really want to be doing, working on book two.  Oh how I long for the days of hours of uninterrupted writing (also known as school days).

Oh, by the way, if there is ever a blog post you hate, or even mildly dislike, you can bet it was typed on a migraine day.  I’m like Jekyl and Hyde I tell ya…

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest (as if you had a choice).

Yes folks, it is a new day and what a good one it is!  The picture above is of my fist and it is awaiting your bump.  I suppose if we are going to be fist-bump buddies I should explain.

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like nothing goes right?  Of course (see honey, I CAN use the correct course) you have, everyone has.  I had one of those yesterday.  No math was studied by Max (middle child, and no, that is not his real name), no chores were done by Joey (youngest, a girl despite her pseudonym), and hubby and I couldn’t say anything without offending the other.  Nothing really bad happened, especially since we completed our June trifecta (hard drive death, fire, a/c kaput) on Monday when the air conditioning went out.  It was just a grumpy day.

I will try to use less parenthesis as I tell the rest of the story.

The oldest, Bird, is out of town for Scout Camp and I feel like I’ve lost my right arm.  I had no idea how helpful the big guy was until he was gone.  He’s getting an extra huge hug when he gets back on Saturday even if he will hate it.  But I’m getting off of the subject…again.  This tends to happen when I get really excited about something…suddenly I want to talk about anything and everything.

After we all went out to buy water toys for the kiddos and had a healthy dinner at Jason’s deli we came home, I straightened up a bit, then I checked my email.  Simply put, I got a positive response to one of the queries I sent out about a month ago.  They want to see my manuscript.  I flew over the moon.  The kids did a happy dance and asked if it meant we were rich.  We laughed.

Even though I know this is only a teeny tiny step, it is a step in the right direction and it feels awesome!  Send a pic of your fist when you comment if you can!

::I usually do not condone the use of so many exclaimation points, but in this case…eh…I don’t care!!!!::

6-14-09 Fire

The great Parker fire of ’09…

It shocked, it amazed, it smelled…bad.

My sweet, long-suffering, adorable husband kindly offered to make dinner Sunday evening.  Actually, he didn’t offer, he just did it while I took a late afternoon nap.  So there he was, elbow deep in batter, dipping chicken breast in said batter when the small pot filled with super hot oil (the dial had been set to HI for about ten minutes or more) went up in flames.  I was told that it was licking the bottom of the microwave that’s mounted above the stove.  In a panic, hubby did the first thing that came to mind…he doused the pot with water.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was the wrong thing to do, but in the state of mind he was in, the back was way too far away to access.

The smoke alarm wailed, I awoke, thinking that hubby simply burned some food.  I got the shock of my life when teenage son burst into my room and announced, with a wild look, “uh..o..uh…fire!” and ran out.

In the kitchen the drama continued.  Hubby ordered teenage son to open the back door.  He then grabbed the handle of the flaming pot.  In the five long steps it took him to get to the back door, the fire was menacing his arm.  He tossed the thing out the door where the oil landed just shy of the porch.  Oil and flame are nothing like oil and water.  They like each other…very much.  Soon after it landed, we were choking on the smell of melting vinyl flooring.  I shoved the kids out the front door and yelled instructions from across the house while fanning the front door trying to get rid of the suffocating stench.

The pic above is of the mess after it was cleaned up…scrubbed actually.  I cut out the melty pieces of flooring and tossed them along with the bottom of the door that keeps this wretched June Texas heat out.  That’s why the lovely blue towel is there, it is a sad substitute.  I could not get the black off the door and wall for anything.  I even used my emergency only cleaner, goof-0ff and it did almost nothing.  This means I get to paint the kitchen as well as redo the floor.  And I’m okay with that.  A little kitchen redecorating is a small price to pay for an unburnt family.  The lesson learned: no napping while cooking with oil is being done.

So it’s been a little over three months since I’ve posted, but that’s okay since no one is following my blog…yet. Truth is, it’s been a little crazy around here. I started working on a novel in January and that’s what I’ve been spending every spare second on. My poor family is living in squalor because of my preoccupation, but there’s hope! Now that I’m shopping it around there may be a little extra time for chit-chat and I guess a little housework too.

Have you looked out the window lately? It’s full spring! If it weren’t for endless allergies this would be my favorite time of year.

There’s a drainage ditch that runs behind my house that we (my family and I) lovingly refer to as “the creek”. This is the only time of year you can find something other than discarded bikes and trash floating at the bottom. Right now it’s filled with tall leafy grasses (okay–they’re probably weeds, but this is an uplifting post) and those little pink buttercup looking flowers. At the bottom, once you look past the rusting bike wheel, you see schools of tadpoles darting. My favorite are the turtles that love to bask in the warm morning sun. They climb up onto large limestone rocks that poke out of the water or a long discarded wooden beam and stretch their necks and limbs as far as they can to soak up the best light of the day.

I’m thinking about taking a hint from the turtles…basking sounds nice, with sunscreen of course. Who needs clean dishes anyway?