the view from my desk

Not a fan of the slate gray day and other grumps…

I swear I did nothing to en-grayify this photo. I cut out the grass out of this pic of my backyard because of it’s pitiful condition.

Next…

my coat closet

Is this how your mother taught you to hang up your coat? Apparently it’s how I taught my 13 year old to hang his. At first I found the coat on the floor of the closet. Called him on it, and he complained that there weren’t any coat hangers (even though I keep an AMPLE supply in the linen closet in a convenient coat hanger basket). So I handed the child a coat hanger…and above is a picture of the state of my closet a couple of hours later. I wonder what he did with the hanger I gave him?

I’ve been in a book slump for a bit now. After I finished The Splendor Falls (a great book–READ Rosemary Clement-Moore. Now. Thanks.) I’ve been reading The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld which I was really super dooper excited to start. I read the whole trilogy and I know this will sound nuts to a lot of people, but it really left me wanting. Something was missing here…only I can’t seem to articulate what that might be. I suppose I couldn’t relate to Tally Youngblood (the protag) who was pretty much a completely different person in each book due to the different surgeries that alter the mind as well as the body. And I really disliked the manifesto at the ending…it seemed to come from an unauthentic place. *SPOILER* I know Tally was always concerned about the environment, but she never really tried to educate herself beyond remembering what she was taught growing up at school…but she was also taught in school that all “random” people (those who are pre-surgery) are ugly. Brainwashing. So she’s okay with some brainwashing or mind altering, but not all?

This in no way means I am anti-environment. Just saying.

Please chime in if you have differing views on this (or backup would be nice too). I’m always happy to talk books.

1. It’s pretty outside, but it sure is cold! My car read 36 degrees. It hurts my teeth just thinking about it.

2. 19 days till Christmas…shopping for kiddos is done! Now the hard part, extended family.

3.  Let my 13-year-old walk to 7-11 with two friends this last week. I was so worried until I remembered that I was much younger than that when I would cross a four lane busy road by myself to get a slurpee (and Franco American spaghetti–sans cell phone). Well, I was still worried even after that. This article helped inform my decision.

4. Multi-braided my daughter’s hair after a bath on Thursday night so it would be all wavy for Friday. It was not pretty.

5. Feeling like a grinch when the kids want to listen to the Christmas station in the car. I let them listen and grumble only in my head.

6. Wish my cats would pile up for warmth. I googled ‘cat piles’ instead of ‘cat pile’ first…don’t make that mistake.

the inspiration for one setting in Sea Rose (Bishop's Palace, Galveston Island, TX)

Picking up the figurative pen again is proving an enlightening experience. I forgot during the 1.5 months I took off from writing new material (so editing is not included)–the freeing and fabulous feeling associated with creation. Luckily I didn’t come into it with nothing to start with. I’d saved the beginning of a short story sometime in September and promptly forgot all about it. I opened the file a few days ago and fell in love with the story again.

Starting again was weird at first. The things I was writing were stilted and awkward…but with just a small amount of perseverance I’m moving smoothly again…like riding a bike! Even if I’m never published, the joy of writing from my imagination is such a wonderful thing–it almost makes editing worth it.

night to day

Here’s just a sampling of the beautiful fall colors in my area. I snapped these on the way to pick up the kids from school today.

All of us at Kirsten's house before the event

Picture it- the AMC in downtown Ft. Worth – two rows of maturish women (all who know each other) and Jacob Black’s abs. Why would you want to visualize this scene? I don’t know…let’s break it down.

1. We all rode in a parking garage elevator together and the cables didn’t break.

2. Amber wore popcorn within the first 10 minutes of being seated.

3. It felt like a premiere with all the camera flashes.

4. Kirsten let me pose.

5. We collectively held our breath the first time Jacob lost his shirt.

6. We weren’t allowed to discuss the movie until we arrived at our dessert destination.

7. When we were finally allowed to open the floodgates we analyzed every portion of the movie.

8. The consensus on my side of the table: New Moon was better than Twilight, they all took acting lessons, Bella’s mannerisms still tweak us a bit but not as much as last time, the chemistry between Bella and Jacob was excellent (and we’re all team Edward at heart), it was rude of the director to strip Edward’s shirt off AFTER we saw Jake’s bare tum.

9. I’m sure there’s much more (we hung out for a couple of hours after the fact)…but that’s the gist.

More musings on twilight–read about my odd obsession.

Yesterday I come back from my month long vacay from computering and today I find out that I FINALLY won a contest! How is that for luck? Maybe I should start sending out queries right away. I guess I should mention–before everyone points it out–that I won the contest by having my name drawn from a hat, not for my awesome writing skills. Hey, we take what we can get, right?

The prize: a 50 page critique! Not so bad.

where did you go?

short answer – I took an undeserved break from the computer.

longer answer – the store, Wylie, the library, church (finally!), building a blanket for my forthcoming niece or nephew,  immaculatizing my daughter’s landmine field of a room;

Books! where I visited rural Alabama (The Splendor Falls), Utah and California (The Actor and the Housewife), Australia (Jellicoe Road), turn of the century England (The Sweet Far Thing), turn of the century New York (Splendor) and a fictitious city called Emond’s Field (Eye of the World). I know I’m forgetting something, but I think that’s okay.

PJ was feeling jealous

Maybe photos do steal your soul…if you’re a cat. Wait, do cats have souls?

It was a couple of weeks ago when my husband told me about this new “wave thing” from Google. “It’s supposed to take the place of email.” What in the what? Nothing can ever take the place of email. That’s like saying faxes, 401(k)s and cars fueled solely by gasoline could be obsolete some day. Pishaw!

Then I read my newest Time magazine, starting at the back with Joel Stein’s column (there’s really no other way to read it) and working my way to the front. On page 48 I spied the article entitled, Wave New World written by Lev Grossman. Suddenly I had to have Wave. Had to. So what did I do? Jumped on twitter, duh!

Within 5 minutes I was invited to the wave party! I was a cool kid, just like that! Well, kinda. See, it’s hard to jump on the wave when you have four people on your contacts that also have the app. Lucky for me the guy from twitter who invited me was kind enough to talk to me and show me some features. The coolest thing to jump out? Watching while a person types in their message, backspaces over misspellings and retypes. In real freakin’ time. It reminded me of Pretty in Pink when Blane talks to Andie on the school computers and everyone was like, whut? that can’t happen. But now it can! You can even put those cute Blane and Andie photos in your wave if you want to…or YouTube vids.

The downside? I wanna share but I can’t. Google’s got a heinous backlog and isn’t sending invites at the moment. They say when they catch up they’ll start sending them out again.

What I’ve read recently:

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

I wanted to love this book for many reasons. First, it is the latest (and the last one to be read by me) of the Sarah Dessen books (at least for now). I was under the assumption that her successive novels would just get better and better. After Just Listen and Lock and Key, I was sure I would adore Along for the Ride. I enjoyed it enough, but it took me several days to read. That definitely means that I did not love it. I didn’t want to spike it into the book depository or anything. It was just okay.

Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore

This was a FUN read. Smart and sarcastic Maggie Quinn is having a helluva senior year. Strange things are happening and her “spidey senses” are tingling. Suspend all disbelief when reading this book and it will be a fun-house read. The story moves along quickly, lots happening. I got through it much faster than Along… and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next Maggie Quinn book.

And what I’m reading now:

On Writing by Stephen King

I am a huge non-fan of non-fiction. I try to put it off as long as possible. I was, however, very pleasantly surprised when I started reading On Writing and didn’t want to put it down. The first third of the book reads like a short biography, and King knows how to write about experiences. It’s vivid and quick, no wasted words. The second third is the heavier stuff, but even that King makes light. He writes like he loves it (even grammar!) and urges you to love your writing too. I’m not through it yet, but at this rate I will be soon–and for me to read non-fiction this quickly is stunning.