No Chores For Starshine

1. I missed posting yesterday because I spent the entire day in bed with the flu.

2. I feel somewhat better today but won't be doing anything more strenuous that walking up the stairs.

3. I met two very famous people last week at work and had no idea who they were.

4. One is Billy Adams, a contemporary of Elvis (who worked w/Elvis, actually) and a Hall of Famer.

5. The other is George Jones. George and his wife come in several times a week, but since I don't listen to country music, I didn't know who he was.

6. I noticed women interrupting his lunch to talk to him and ask for autographs and when they left, I approached him and apologized to him for those women (who were hysterically crying over meeting him, btw) bothering him. He was gracious and said he's used to it and doesn't mind giving out his autograph.

7. So I said, "Oh, that's good. What do you do?"

8. My hubby thought it was quite amusing that I asked George Jones what he does for a living.

9. I need recommendations for an inexpensive but effective water treatment system b/c the water coming out of my fridge dispenser tastes terrible.

10. The kids get to open one gift tomorrow in anticipation of Christmas. Already, the negotiating for the chance to open one of their "big" gifts has begun.

11. Tomorrow, we make candy cane cookies for Santa and follow his progress on NASA's Santa Tracker.

12. I still need to go get my supplies for Christmas dinner from the grocery store.

13. I planned to do that days ago but have either been here taking care of sick kids or was sick myself.

14. I got an email from a girl enthusiastically offering me the opportunity to link her website to mine so I could offer her FREE publicity! (Yes, that's exactly how she phrased it, including the all caps.)

15. Never mind the gall of asking someone else to promote your website while offering nothing in return...what got me was this: Her website is all about gambling.

16. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how anyone running a gambling website would think it a good fit for a site that links up to authors, agents, and sites within the publishing industry.

17. Her mass-market, poorly researched email went straight to my Trash file, no reply sent.

18. I introduced Starshine to the age-old concept of making a coupon book for his Dad this Christmas. He loved the idea.

19. Until I began listing suggestions like: wash the car, clean up the family room, sweep the garage...

20. I was then politely informed that Starshine would think of his OWN coupon ideas, thank you very much, and NONE of them would qualify as chores.

21. Reader Question: What is your favorite holiday dessert?

Let 'Er Rip

Once again, we have some new (and some fairly temporary, I'm sure) blog readers to welcome. How did they find us? Let us count the ways.

1. Estrogen Attacks: It certainly does. I hope you found my essay on the subject enlightening. If anything can be learned from my personal experience in the matter, it is this--a wise person steers clear of C.J. when estrogen is on the move. The unwise are rarely heard from again.

2. How to Make Someone Laugh Hard: Well, I'm flattered that such a google led you to this blog. I only hope you browsed the more entertaining entries (such as this, that, or the other) and skimmed the rest as being hilariously funny 24-7 is too much for any woman to bear. When all else fails, however, a little of this usually does the trick.

3. Are Wheel of Fortune Contestants Required to Buy Vowels?: It's like you've never watched the show. Never. Not. Once. Which causes me to be curious as to why you're researching a show you clearly never watch. However, I'll be nice and put you out of your misery. No. Contestants are never required to buy vowels. Sometimes they need to because the jumble of consonants on the board just won't resolve themselves into anything approximating recognizable words, but contestants have the right to muddle through the entire game sans A,E,I,O, or U. Be forewarned, however, that this knowledge will do you no good when faced with the ridiculous paper test required to get oneself onto the WoF show...

And today's favorite:

4. 200 Square Foot Whoopee Cushion: While I do agree that anyone interested in a whoopee cushion of that magnitude will enjoy this blog, I have only this to say--May you never, ever, in any way, become a person of influence in the lives of my boys.

And The Poop Saga Continues

By now, all blog readers are excruciatingly familiar with our family's odd tradition of making gingerbread poop cookies after putting up our decorations. One blog reader (who doubles as CP extraordinaire) Keli Gwyn was out and about when she spied what she felt would be the perfect gift for my boys.

The box arrived yesterday and the boys were instantly hovering around me as I announced that it was addressed to them from my friend Keli in California. What could it be? Race cars? Bags of "gold nugget" candy? Journals so my aspiring inventor, comic strip writer, and author could work on their own projects?

No.

Not even close.

Instead, I pulled out the Poo-lar Bear (The Sub Zero Poopin' Hero!), the Super-Dooper Reindeer Pooper, and the Grumpy Party Pooper, each with the tag line "With piles of yummy jelly beans" and a handful of brown jelly beans.

The kids were thrilled.

We pulled off the heads of the poo-lar bear, reindeer, and sheep and dumped the jelly beans in. My children, being well acquainted with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans were naturally suspicious as to the flavor of the jelly beans in question. However, as these are the same children who gobbled up vomit, booger, and earthworm jelly beans this summer, they were not about to be deterred from their prize by the daunting prospect of candy that tasted like fecal matter.

Happily, the beans were chocolate or cola flavored instead.

We filled the animals, popped the heads back into place, and the fun began. To access the candy, each child simply pressed down on the back of their animal and retrieved their jelly bean. The reindeer and the sheep both hoisted their tails in the air and shot a bean out their backside. The poo-lar bear, heaven help us, squatted and squeezed out his offering onto the table.

Thank you, Keli, for a gift perfectly suited to the demented brains of my three boys. =)

The Magic Cockroach!

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary (Happy Anniversary, hubby!). I am blessed to be happy and content with my marriage and to have a man who totally supports my dreams (I suspect he's simply happy at the prospect that the voices in my head might someday finance a new set of golf clubs for him...).

I was going to do a nice little post on how we met (the Magic Cockroach!) but I was up most of the night with the Scientist who has a raging case of the stomach flu so my brain cells took one look at the size of the story I was going to post and promptly staged a coup.

Suffice it to say, we met our freshman year at Pepperdine, had three classes together, and began spending time together when my roommate and I were sitting in the cafeteria on a Sunday, enjoying brunch, and a cockroach leaped from beneath her plate, scuttled across her tray, and scrambled across the table toward me.

(I will now take a moment to assure any potential Pepperdine alum that this is the one and only time I ever saw a cockroach on campus and I think he was simply acting as an agent of Fate, rather than as a disgusting, breeds-like-a-maniac symptom of infestation.)

There are many things I can tolerate without a flicker of an eyelash. Cockroaches aren't one of them. We leaped from the table, glanced around the cafeteria for a new place to sit, and I saw hubby and said, "Hey. I know that guy." So we joined him and his roommates at their table, ended up watching a movie with them afterward, and from that day on, he and I were inseparable.

We didn't figure out we were in love for many months. In fact, when we finally discussed our true feelings and agreed marriage was it for us, I looked at him and said, "So, do you think we should go on a date?" =D

And that's the abbreviated story of how the Magic Cockroach brought us together and we became engaged before going on a single date.

Hard cover or Paperback?

Most authors see having their debut novel published in hard cover as the ultimate prize and worry that paperback originals may be overlooked, causing their budding career to fizzle right out of the gate.

Moonrat has a different take on it. I found the essay helpful in clarifying my own publishing goals.

R. Chronicles Begins

Today I worked on research, character profiles, series timeline, and world-building for book one in the RC series. Here are some of the fascinating items I spent my time googling:

1. Chain whips

2. Custom built choppers (After thoroughly perusing Harley Davidson's site and realizing that none of the basic offerings were right for my character.)

3. Mythological creatures

4. Chicago's neighborhoods, transit system, and high profile landmarks.

5. Druid staffs

6. The magical properties of various types of wood as accepted by Celtic Druids

7. Pancakes (Okay, these I already knew but still, it's always best to be totally familiar with your character's preferences. Plus, they were good.)

All in all, an interesting and fairly productive day. I'll be working more tonight to finish my goal for the day.

It's A Bean, I Tell You!

1. Chicago was really cool. I'd live there if I was hip and single.

2. I'm going back (probably just a day trip) to do more research later.

3. We hit Broadway to see Jersey Boys (an excellent production), went to the top of Sear's Tower (where the kill-joy in charge refused to allow me to go outside of the enclosed sky deck so I could do more accurate research), saw a giant silver pinto bean the tourist guide referred to as a "cloud" (Um, noooo, it's a bean), walked around Wrigley's Field, clocked umpteen miles on the subway/train system, and did some shopping on Randolph.

4. There's an energy to the city that encompasses you like a palpable force. I'm very pleased my newest character told me her hometown is Chicago. This will be an exciting series to write.

5. What is it with people who don't know how to travel in close quarters with others without putting their worst personal habits on display?

6. On the flight from Nashville to Chicago, the man seated next to me trimmed his fingernails with his teeth for the entire trip. The entire trip.

7. He seemed unconcerned with the obvious fact that chewing one's own nails for an hour and twenty minutes straight is just gross.

8. On one subway ride, a woman sat next to me, opened a bag of Cheetos, and proceeded to crunch and smack her way through them with occasional pauses to clean the cheese dust from beneath her fingernails with her tongue.

9. Eww.

10. I found the Chicago train system fascinating because after each stop, a grave announcer's voice would float out of the intercom with a firm reminder of what was not permissible aboard the train.

11. Each stop produced a new rule until the announcer ran through the loop and started over again.

12. No leaning against the doors.

13. No leaving personal belongings on the seat beside you.

14. No eating. (Hear that, Cheetos Woman? NO EATING!)

15. No soliciting.

16. No gambling. (And there I was, all set to start up a game of Texas Hold 'Em.)

17. Conspicuously absent were warnings against drugs and alcohol. Apparently, as long as you aren't leaning against the doors, selling Girl Scout cookies, or taking bets as to how many bites Cheetos Woman has left, you're free to do anything else you like.

18. I got up at 5 am this morning to write. Since I work most days (Monday is the exception) and have family stuff etc. filling up the rest of my hours, I had to carve out some new time to do what's important to me.

19. So...5 am it is.

20. Reader Question: If you could take a weekend trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go?