What I’ve been up to reading-wise:

**A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – I don’t usually head back into middle grade fiction all that often (my only real exception is Harry Potter–which I think should be YA–but that’s a different argument). And I was reluctant to do so this last weekend. Alas, I had not been to the library or bookstore recently so I went into my son’s room and trolled around for some good reading. Of all the uncracked books in his library, Wrinkle stood out. I remembered when Mrs. Baker (of fourth grade fight fame) read this to us in the classroom and I’d really enjoyed it then so I thought I’d give it a whirl 14 years later and see if it held up. It did. It was short and sweet and relevant. Read it to your kids…or to the kid in you.

**Dancing in Red Shoes will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone - Body image book. Short, fun and feminist. Definitely PG-14.

**Devil’s Kiss bySarwat Chadda- Reading this now….more to come!

**Extras by Scott Westerfeld – Who woulda thought that a trilogy could include four books? I think the official term for this fourth installment is “a companion book to the series”. Especially since Tally Youngblood is not a main character and the events taking place are four years in the future from the Uglies, Pretties, Specials era. Anyhoo, I’m still in the first third of this book. But I did stop reading to start Devil’s Kiss…so it doesn’t bode well. Although, many books have been saved in the last half. I hope this is the case for Extras.

I’m a learn by doing kind of gal. My husband offered to buy me a Joomla manual to teach me to build websites for his business. As memories of vainly following steps in a math textbook shuddered through me I explained that it would be so much better if he just showed me how and let me mess around with the application. In other words, he should save his money. Which for me seems just a little off-kilter considering I adore reading. But for some reason textbook writers don’t usually include characters or a climax, which is a shame.

Don’t ask me why, but this reminded me of fourth grade (textbooks aside). I had a beef with a girl in my class and she had a beef with me. We decided to duke it out 3:00 style. It didn’t matter to me one bit that I weighed less than 50 lbs. at the time and she had to have been twice that weight. Or that she was almost twice my height. My righteous cause would be enough to see me through. I packed the ends of my generic Keds with wadded paper towels because she’d leaked her strategy. She was planning on stepping on the ends of my toes and punching my face like a speed bag. Cartoon physics aside, I thought I was pretty dang smart to give my self foot cramps and throw my center of gravity off balance.

One big difference between teachers today and my teacher (in 1980 something or other): A teacher today would have called authorities. My teacher, dear Mrs. Baker, tried in her own way to dissuade us but never called anyone. Was she trying to teach a lesson? I really think she thought I would chicken out. I didn’t. I lost a tooth. I never picked a fight again. Lesson learned…the hard way.

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?