Category Archives: family

Gigi tries to keep up

Posted on June 27, 2007 | Leave a comment

It’s interesting, the things a three-year-old boy finds hilarious. Or an almost-six year old. The simple mention of the word “fart” or even “toot.” “Tee-tee,” will send them into gales of laughter–falling-down-on-the-floor laughter. Which itself is also cause for more hilarity. In two and a half days (they aren’t awake yet today, which is the only reason I’m here writing this…), I have learned alot about preschooler potty-mouth. Yeah. I’ve got the grandboys. They’ll be here for another week.

I did get the entire ms. of New Blood gone through, but haven’t got it all into the computer yet. Need to get busy with that, maybe at night after they’ve gone to bed. They don’t go to sleep once they go to bed, understand. I have to stay up to send them back when they pop back up again. It’s a little like whack-a-mole, except without the whacking. And to carry the little one to “Wunka Bob’s bed ” when he falls asleep in mine. (He tends to annoy his big brother, who really would rather sleep, and likes Granddaddy better anyway.)

We’ve been going to the library. Summer Reading program is this week, so we go listen to someone read stories, and make things, and sing songs and eat cookies, then we check out ONE video each. (The first day we went, they had a pile of about 15 videos they wanted to check out.) And ONE book each. (Police Cat is a pretty cool book. Not so wild about The King Who Sneezed.)

I have four packed-up boxes of books in the middle of my office floor…the box of totebags is in the garage already. I’ve cleaned out the TBR books I don’t think I’ll ever read–most of them, anyway, and have packed a box of hardback contemporaries to thin out the bookshelves in the living room. Took three boxes of cookbooks, a box of paperback fiction, plus three totebags stuffed full on Monday–and there are more yet to go. And of course, more books coming in. I’ve got to have something to read, you know. Even if I’m moving… 😉

Better go get the boys up, if we’re going to make it to the library on time…

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Posted in books I'm reading, family, New Blood, volunteering, writing

Once More, Into the Breach!

Posted on June 21, 2007 | 1 Comment

The title I stuck on this blog refers to war. It’s from a poem, or story, or something. Anyway, I feel a little like I’m at war. At war with all the stuff in my office.

See, we’re moving. Which means we need to sell the house. Which means I need to clean up my office which is packed to the rafters with totebags and magazines and books, both read and to-be-read. I am currently in the middle of revising New Blood, trying to cut 643 pages down to the vicinity of 500 or so…not doing too badly, but probably not doing quite well enough at that. And I need to proof a few things on the ARC of The Eternal Rose. And the grandboys are coming to visit on Sunday, so next week will be impossible to work. Well, until their daddy comes for a few days.

Anyway, I need to go tape a box together and stick some stuff in it. (Totebags probably.) And I don’t want to. (whine, whine) My neck is sore (from bending over those revisions, probably) and I’m tired and I’m lazy and whiney and–well, you’ve probably given up on me.

Still, the story is verra cool… I was trying to pitch it to a romance editor a while back, and my pitch was totally amorphous and awful–and I realized it really fits the epic fantasy structure better than it fits the romance novel structure. It IS a romance–the romance plot is the last one resolved–but resolving the romance also resolves the fantasy conflict… And it has a fantasy structure. Heroine learns she has magic talent and meets the hero who acts as a mentor. They defeat early bad guys and go on a quest for learning, and encounter a new, more evil bad guy. They escape him, keep going on quest, while new bad guy chases them. They think they reach safety, discover there’s an even greater evil which they team up with allies to defeat–but the evil bad guy brings the first bad guy to cause new trouble and… Well, in the end, love conquers all. Literally. Sort of. Still, it’s more a fantasy structure than a romance structure. We will see how it does.

I’d better go tape up that box…

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Posted in family, New Blood, The Eternal Rose, writing

Shaking head sadly

Posted on June 14, 2007 | 2 Comments

So tonight I got a phone call from the boy. The one in college (who still doesn’t have a summer job–GRRRR). And he wants to know about insurance on his vehicle. With one of those queasy feelings growing in my gut, I ask–not-so-nonchalantly–Why do you want to know???

Seems a tree fell on his car. A whole freakin’ tree.

Well, actually, it was more like half a tree. The tree broke in half and fell on his car. And the car of one of his roommates. But mostly on his car.

He said the damage was mostly paint, and dents–it didn’t break any windows…yet. So I told him to take pictures, and then get the freakin’ tree off the freakin’ car. Actually, I didn’t say freakin’. I didn’t use any other bad words either. I was a good mom and didn’t shock the boy. What is the deal with trees in Waco? Not that many years ago, a tree at Cameron Park dropped a giant branch on a little girl and killed her. And the wind wasn’t even blowing, either time. You expect trees to break in high wind. And Waco gets a lot of high winds. I guess it weakened the trees, and then when you’re not looking…wham!

Anyway. Tree. Car. Smush.

Oh, The Eternal Rose got a nice mention at this website. Thanks, krisstarr! I do appreciate it.

I will be posting the first chapter of the book very soon. Like, as soon as I can manage to get the website altered and get the excerpt on the site and make links to attach it to everything. Of course, people who subscribe to my newsletter get a special “newsletter only” excerpt too. :)

But first I need to write 10.5 more pages of the WWII book so I can earn my charm for this month. North Texas RWA chapter is having a “Book In A Year” challenge for its members–of whom I am one (see, I can do grammar). If we write 25 pages a month, we get a charm bracelet over the space of a year. I’ve done 2 months. But I need my 10.5 more pages to get this month’s bracelet. And it’s a good break to let New Blood ferment before I plunge into revisions.

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Posted in family, fantasy, life, The Eternal Rose, writing

Paint Class – Done for Spring

Posted on May 16, 2007 | 2 Comments


The spring semester has ended, and with it, my art class. For now. I probably won’t sign up for the summer class until I know more about how my summer will go. Which means I may not get to go paint, if it fills up. More people sign up for the summer classes.

In a weird aside to the art class thing, I got a certificate for completing an “Intermediate Fencing” class. I didn’t think I signed up for fencing. I never went to a fencing class. I might have signed up for piano–my art teacher also teaches piano, and sometimes I sign up so she has enough people in her class to “make.” I always kinda wanted to go to fencing class–just to watch and see how it’s done, not because I thought I could do it.

Anyway, at my last painting class, I finished up a couple of pictures. I think they turned out pretty well, but we’ll see what you think. I’m only going to post one of them though. I’ll put the other one up later. Those of you who know the boy–does it look like him? If you can tell who it’s supposed to be, I’m going to assume it does. :) (A lot of the shading in the painting doesn’t show up in this photo, alas.)

The roses and the sage are blooming like crazy. They should continue to bloom all summer long, which is nice.
I may finally have enough flowers to hide the weeds in most of the front–but the burr clover in the back…I need to get busy before all those burrs stick to my socks…

Let’s see–I didn’t mention my Mother’s Day. All the kids called to say hello, and the grandboys did too. It’s a little alarming when you ask “How are you doing, sugar?” and the little voice says “I’m much better now.” Turns out the oldest had strep throat all last week. But he’s much better now. So, I talked on the phone, and I took a nap for Mother’s Day. I was very tired, because we drove down to Lubbock the evening before to watch the college baseball team in the regional playoffs, and we didn’t get home again until after 1 a.m.

That late, it’s safer to drive up through the canyon–you have to go around the Paloduro Canyon to get from here to there and back again–and around sundown, there’s a lot of wildlife on the road. It’s pretty country driving through the bottom end of the canyon–I have never seen it so green. Wildflowers and green, green grass everywhere. We’ve had a very wet winter and spring this year–for which we are grateful, after last year’s drought and fires. The average rainfall in the Texas Panhandle through this time of year is just over 5 inches. We’ve had 15 inches of rain so far this year (not counting the nice rain we got yesterday morning), so no wonder everything is so green. We’re 10 inches ahead. Anyway, we did see a deer driving back home again, but only one. I’ve been down that way in the mornings and seen turkeys, deer, coyotes, road runners and maybe wild pigs (Those pigs are sneaky) out on the road.

Oh. And the Bulldogs lost, but they were playing against one of the top-ranked pitchers in the NJCAA–a guy who usually “run rules” the other team. (“Run rule” is when they call the game after the 7th inning if one team is ahead by 10 points or more.) And the score was only 6-1. They were actually proud of holding them that close. I think they won their second game. But lost the 3rd. So the guys got to go home. And given that some of those students live in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, Australia… You know, it was just a bit odd to hear “chatter” in those Aussie accents…

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Posted in family, flowers and gardening, painting, trips

8 Things about me

Posted on May 9, 2007 | 2 Comments
Natasha Moore tagged me to do this 8 things thing. Problem is, I don’t know that there are 8 things y’all don’t know about me… Anyway…

Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I hope my 8 people haven’t been tagged with something like this recently.
Okay, here are my 8 things…

1. Just got back from a quick trip to Galveston Island–and I didn’t even go in the water! (shame on me–but I did take a walk down Seawall Blvd…)

2. I played flute in high school and college marching band–and I doubt I could get a sound out of the sucker now. I was not very good at it because I never actually practiced. Barely good enough to qualify. One of my roomies and I volunteered for last chair and next-to-last chair in concert band while in college, and when playing the really hard stuff, we would play alternate notes. Together we made a not-so-bad player…

3. I once worked as the “managing editor” of a small town weekly–what this really meant was that I wrote all the copy (except sports), took, developed and printed all the pictures, wrote the cutlines and picked out the stuff from the press releases to fill up the spaces in the rest of the paper. All in 3 days a week. For not very much $$.

4. While in college, the university renovated some old buildings, replacing towers that had been removed years before. The towers were built on the ground before being hoisted to the roof, and they were roughly the shape of a metronome–those weighted ticking things that keep time for practicing musicians. One of my roommates was inspired to take a gang of us and climb the construction fence and spraypaint the front of the tower (the plywood undercladding) like a metronome. And nobody knew we had done it until about 30 years later when I “fessed up” to the alumni magazine…

5. I’ve been reading Tarot cards for about 9 or 10 years–and still consider myself very much a beginner.

6. I have “tilted kneecaps” which gives them a predisposition to dislocate. Because I’m not very athletic, I’ve never dislocated them, but they’re still persnickety about a lot of stuff…

7. I have 14 nephews and 4 nieces.

8. While walking down the seawall, and other places in Galveston (plus hurrying through airports for plane changes), my sandals wore blisters on both my baby toes. (I haven’t worn them much since last summer and I haven’t toughened up my toes yet…) And one of them popped. Owie! I’d better get them tough before RWA in July!

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Posted in family, life, pastimes, Tarot, trips

Things that Amuse

Posted on May 2, 2007 | 1 Comment

I got a precious comment on my MySpace space, a relayed message from the littlest grandguy. He wanted his mom to tell his Grandaddy that he “pooped in da potty free times.” He had no news for me, unfortunately. (sigh) But then, I’m the one who makes him take naps when he comes to visit. Oh well. They’re cute, whatever they do.

I am also amused by a sentence out of this story which has apparently been around for 30 or 40 years, touted as “The Worst Story Ever Written.” I don’t know whether it actually lives up to its billing–I’ve read a lot of really bad stories–but it is pretty bad. It was apparently written by a 16-year-old fan boy who swore never to write another–and didn’t–because this one was so thoroughly vilified. Poor kid. Anyway, this is the sentence in question:

The barbarian seated himself upon a stool at the wenches side,
exposing his body, naked save for a loin cloth brandishing a
long steel broad sword, an iron spiraled battle helmet, and a
thick leather sandals, to her unobstructed view.

That loin cloth brandishing the “long steel broad sword” made me chortle, because so much early, purple-prosed romance fiction used identical imagery and euphemisms. I’m not sure how the loincloth also brandished a helmet and sandals at the same time, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. :)

What are your favorite (or least favorite) euphemisms?

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Posted in family, thoughts, writing

More Flowers

Posted on April 27, 2007 | 2 Comments


Had to mail some stuff today–the fella went to the post office to pick up the mail, but I had things to mail off, so I did my post office-park-ball fields-6th Street circuit, and when I got back to the house, looked to see whether the apricot-colored iris was open. It was, and gorgeous, of course. There was another new iris open too–the sun was really bright so the pictures are a little glare-y on the white petals, but I’m just tickled with how pretty they all are. I guess I won’t snitch a piece of the pink one from the yard over on Main Street just before the park, even if I like it a lot. Not much place to put it…

We’re heading to Memphis (yes, there is a Memphis in Texas, just like there’s just about everything else) tonight to check out an estate auction for the old Memphis Hotel B&B. Ought to be some cool stuff, though I don’t know what we’d do with anything more than what we have…

I’m just blithering on here to get some words to wrap around the flower pictures. Talked to the older son last night, and Little Bit–his boy who just turned 3 this week–loved the Tow Mater pillow/doll we sent. Every little boy needs a squishy Tow Mater. Now I have to get the package ready to send to the daughter (& family) for her birthday. Some of it is stuff I’ve been meaning to send since Christmas. (Yes, dear, this means the cactus blossom painting I’ve been promising…)

I’m still typing in story. I stalled out today–at about quitting time–when I ran into a big chunk of exposition I’m seriously thinking about leaving out. But I think I’ll go ahead and type it in, then when I print everything out, I’ll be better able to figure out where to make the cuts and how to transition from one part to another. I am tightening it up pretty good as I go. Synopsis is still 16 pages long, tho. But part of that is because a fantasy needs its universe explained, and New Blood is a new universe. I’ve typed in 200 pages, and have more than half yet to go. Groan. It’s going to be WAY too long. sigh.

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Posted in family, fantasy, flowers and gardening, New Blood, pastimes, writing

Prebby Flowers

Posted on April 26, 2007 | Leave a comment


That’s how Doodle Bug says “Pretty Flowers”–or at least he did at first. He’s the 4-year-old autistic grandboy, and he works very hard to make his words come out properly. He talks a little slowly, but he’s very careful with his words. Anyway, this blog entry is called “Prebby Flowers” because I have some in my front flowerbed.

These are the iris right outside the front door. I’ve never had any of the maroon-with-white iris before, but I did have some of the Batik iris (the purple streaked with white) in our previous house. Last year, very few of the iris bloomed, but we’ve had a wet winter (and a very long one, but the snow didn’t seem to hurt anything), and everything is blooming like crazy.


Now these iris are under the bay window, as you can see. The apricot one isn’t quite open yet–I’ll try to get out and take a picture of it tomorrow… (Hmm. That reminds me. Better take the battery out of the camera and charge it up. It was telling me I needed to do that.) But I thought the blue picotee iris were pretty. And if you look on the right side, you can see the rose buds getting ready to bloom. A few are open already, but they’re not where I could get a picture with the iris. You can see a little bit of the blue sage behind them… I’ll have to find the picture where I got more of the sage… Can you tell I like blue flowers? (The roses are red.)

Um. So. This week, I worked on revisions for New Blood. (The Victorian blood magic book, remember?) I think I have the chapters all revised. Need to input the revisions on the synopsis yet. Then I want to let it sit a while longer and go over it one more time. Then I need to type in the rest of the story, and make notes about the changes and revisions I want to make there. Some I can do while I’m typing in, but I think there are some structural changes that need to be made. And that’s not so easy to do while typing. I was rather amused today when my horrorscope said that I needed to put away my artistic project for a little while and go back to it later. Exactly what I intend to do. :) Once it’s typed in.

I had to take time today to judge some contest entries that were due on Saturday. I enjoyed judging them, but I missed the e-mail that said when they were due back, and there wasn’t anything in the packet. I learn a lot myself when I judge contests. It makes me realize what’s missing in my own writing–and I need to go back and ramp up the emotion one more time when I go through the chapters again.

Mostly I wanted to share my prebby flowers with you in this e-mail, but I can whine too, right? I burned my hand Saturday. Burned it bad. Bad second degree burn. (Disgustingness alert! Don’t read more if you are easily grossed-out.)

It blistered up Saturday night, and popped. Then it blistered up again on Sunday. Bit fat quarter-inch swelling ugly blister. Monday a.m. it got a little hole in it, and all the water leaked out, and kept leaking until today, when it basically ripped open. So I put antibiotic on it and put a bandage on it (which wouldn’t stay on my palm), and have been babying it. But it’s still pretty icky. I’m just glad it was on the thumb side of my lower palm. I could still type. So there. That’s my whine. I’ll share more flower pictures with you soon. I didn’t even show you the all-maroon ones. Or the white ones. Or the two-toned maroon-and-yellow ones… Yeah. I got prebby flowers.

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Posted in family, fantasy, flowers and gardening, New Blood, singing, writing

Cuteness

Posted on April 10, 2007 | 1 Comment

We have some seriously cute grandboys. The oldest one is now in kindergarten and learning to write. And he addressed the envelope they just sent us (by means of their Wunka Bob who stopped off to visit before coming home for Easter). Not ALL the address, but our names.

It’s kinda hard to mess up “Gigi”–but I am now married to “Granbaddy”. We were amused. And we now have some seriously cute school pictures of the seriously cute boys. They called us to say Happy Easter last night. I’m amazed how well the little one talks. He won’t be three till the end of the month, but he just chattered away on the phone.

Easter was very nice, but there were snowflakes falling when church let out. It did warm up a little bit today, which was good, with the boy heading back to school. (He got a speeding ticket–for shame!)

And today, I got 8 pages, and my hero got himself kidnapped. He didn’t mean to get kidnapped, but you know how bad guys are. They do stuff. Bad stuff. These bad guys think they’re the good guys…but don’t bad guys often think that? Hopefully, the heroine will find him tomorrow.

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Posted in family, fantasy, New Blood, writing