November 3, 2007
AE had her eyes checked the other day — they’ve gotten much worse again, sigh — and Fuul broke his glasses two weeks ago, so today was the official ‘find new glasses’ day.
AE wound up with some really cute frames, and we got them at a one hour place… paid too much, but it was nice to have it done. Would have gotten Fuul’s there, but he has an astygmatism, so they would have had to send his lenses out to be ground anyway, so we went to Costco, instead!
I (finally — nearly three years after the old card expired!) got a new Costco membership, and we ordered Fuul’s glasses. We had to pay out of pocket, and will have to submit to insurance, but in the end, it will cover everything. I also got to do some fun shopping.
Picked up chinese for dinner, and rented a couple of movies, and now I’m back on the couch, wanting to knit, needing to write, and looking forward to the clocks changing tonight and getting an extra hour of sleep… well, at least hoping to get an extra hour of sleep!
November 2, 2007
EK and CC are asleep, napping in their room…
All the other kids are at school…
Dinner is in the crockpot…
…and I must resist the urge to sleep and start writing, instead!!!
November 1, 2007
NaNoWriMo starts today!
What are you waiting for!?
May 27, 2007
I promise I’ve not dropped off the face of the earth… its just been a busy week…
I joined the world of the medicated housewife, and while it seems to help with the panic and anxiety, I still am having the increased ‘rebound’ panic in the evenings. That is supposed to regulate in the first couple of weeks. I suppose we shall see.
The kids all had busy weeks with lots of big projects due; I think all but one were done and turned in on time. DA still owes a book report on Tuesday.
EK had her video eye exam (for the life of me, I can’t recall what the actual test is called, but needless to say, both of us were motion-sick by the end after sitting in the spinning chair while they videoed the motion of her eyes watching different screens, and then spinning the chair. Woohoo). The good news? They got lots of good information for evaluation. The bad news? Well, they got lots of good information for evaluation. All they could tell me prior to evaluation all the data is that her balance issues and vision issues are all neurologically related — brain-based — and it may be there is nothing we can do to make either one better. But I’m trying not to panic (see the above mention of new medications) until I see the results of the reports in about 10 days.
We took the kids (AE, DS, and GC) to see Pirates Saturday morning — loved it!!! Can’t wait to see it again and again! DA and JS stayed home to babysit the little ones while we went, and then I dropped them off with a friend from church to go see it — alone! — at an afternoon show! It was a little strange dropping off my little kids (who aren’t so little anymore!) like that, but I think it worked out well for all of us!
Had to come home from church early today because EK and CC both have colds and couldn’t go to nursery; I decided home and naps was a better choice than chasing them up and down the halls for two hours.
JS gave his first ‘real’ talk in Sacrament today — it always amazes me when he speaks or performs in public; he is such a natural! In the few minutes I was there before bringing the babies home, I was told by no fewer than 6 people what a great job he did! He also had to perform on Friday at school for his music class — sing a song while he accompanied himself on the guitar — and he said he got the highest score possible! I think he has a great future as a performer!
I’ve been busy working on my rib-knit sweater that I restarted; I’ve finished the main body, and have about half of the first sleeve done. I only cast back on a week ago, so I’m not making bad progress.
EK was finally approved for all of her thearapies to be done through her school, so it looks as though we won’t have to add in a lot of time-consuming stuff with the new insurance. Some of her therapies will even be done at home! (They will come to us, rather than the other way around).
We’re still in the process of switching the new cell phones. Fuul’s has still not arrived. On speaking with the rep, it seems they were over-ordered, and his shipped out Thursday. Unfortunately, with the holiday weekend, we are looking at at least Tuesday before it will arrive and we can get all the numbers ported over. In the meantime, my new cell phone freezes up, so I’ll have to get a new-new replacement. And hope that I can get all my video and pictures off of it before I have to change it out. (I’ve tried to connect it with the USB, and it just hasn’t worked yet. *sigh*)
Anyway… I’m still here. I’m trying to figure out what to do for DS’s birthday (he’ll be 9 tomorrow!), trying to figure out if the rain will let up so we can barbecue tomorrow, and starting to watch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. (No I’ve never seen it before. Yes, I know thats a sad statement, there!)
Only a month left of the kids being in school (well, except for EK; her program runs til the end of July). We will unfortunately be missing the family get-togethers in Utah this summer — M&M in June, and the BGT reunion in August. I just can’t figure out how to fit both in, plus Disneyland in September (and that is an absolute).
Oh. And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ve gone ahead and registered for ScriptFrenzy for June… a spinoff of NaNoWriMo, only for script-writing, and it can be done in collaboration with another writer — so I’ve conned Fuul into helping me out with it. Or something. It only requires 20,000 words in 30 days, so I’m hoping its doable. And with the kids still in school, I might have a few extra hours to figure it out!
OK. Enough. A week in one post is a bit excessive. Or something. I’ll try not to be so lost in the future!
December 1, 2006
December already!? How can that possibly be?
But, I suppose that here we are. And, just so I can remember in another year when I think that writing through the month of November is a good plan, I thought I’d do a minor recap here.
 I utterly failed at NaNoWriMo this year. Ended somewhere just shy of 3100 words. Learned a lot, though. Just didn’t write a lot.
- I need to have some sort of plan going in — at least some kind of motivation for my characters. A setting.
- I need to have not much more than that. Too much information, and the story feels dead no matter what I hope to do with it.
- I need to arrange for childcare in the mornings, since that is when I get the most writing done. And I need to figure out how to fit in grocery shopping and laundry when I’m not supposed to be writing, instead of taking up writing time procrastinating
- Write organically! Don’t try do be something you are not! Trying to do it the ‘right’ way will only stall out the writing beyond repair!
- write write write write write. (IE: stop editing!!!)
Next year will be the successful repeat.
And, in other November writing news:
 I successfully completed the NaBloPoMo challenge, posting something to my blog every day in the month of November. It was good practice. It was good writing practice. I even managed to create a couple of pieces worth reading (beyond, wow, look at the craziness that is my un-exciting days!). So its all good.
The ‘closing remarks’ on the entire event appear here.
Not that I’m looking to win (it was a good exercise, after all!), but wouldn’t it be cool to have a new custom banner for Tulips?? *wink*
November 16, 2006
It wasn’t much, but I broke the 3000 word mark. So little, and yet, so much more than I’ve written at all in the recent past.
So.
I promised a snippet the other day. Not one to disappoint… a snippet of EndGame:
The cell phone rang out, an insistent, loud version of some recently popular rock song. Somewhere in the back of his mind JJ was certain that he knew the song, but couldn’t place it as he pulled off the headphones attached to his computer and flipped open the little silver phone.
“Yeah?”
“James? That you?” The voice on the other end of the cell crackled, distorted over the decrepit towers.
“Yeah, Tripp. Its me.” JJ rubbed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair, then glanced at the old brass spinner clock on the shelf alongside the computer racks. He’d been working at the console for more than five hours. No wonder his back ached. “What can I do for you?”
“Hells, man! Can’t hardly hear you over this stupid thing! I mean, compared to the lightwire phone I got—”
“Forget it,” JJ cut off his childhood friend with less than suppressed exasperation. “I’m not getting a lightwire anything. Landlines and cell towers are progress enough for me, thanks!” Tripp of all people should understand. But money did strange things, he supposed.
“Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying!” Tripp laughed over the static-laden connection. “You buy into it, makes me more money, we’re all happy!”
JJ smiled, shaking his head. “Money doesn’t buy ‘happy’, Tripp; haven’t you heard?”
Tripp’s laughter rolled for a moment longer, then died away. “Man, I ain’t called to sell you no lightwires. Just hadn’t heard from you in a while.”
“Yeah, it has been a while.”
“Yeah. Hey, You heard from John? Or from Bert?”
JJ laughed again. “Oh, Tripp! You know how he hates being called that!”
Tripp’s voice on the other end of the call didn’t echo JJ’s amusement. “JJ, have you heard from them? Either of them?”
JJ sobered. Tripp’s tone, even over the ragged connection, was tense, nervous. “No, I haven’t. Haven’t heard from either of them since the last time you and I talked – what? Two weeks ago?” Static-laden silence hung on the receiver. “Tripp? Tripp, what’s going on?”
“Nothin’. Nah, just hadn’t heard from you guys. Thought maybe I pissed somebody off. Nah, its nothing!” Tripp laughed again, but the laughter sounded forced, nervous.
“Hey, Tripp, what’s going on? Really?”
“No, we’re good! What?” It sounded as though his friend had turned away from the phone at the other end of the line. “No, Marly’s out right now. Can I help—” Static broke up the sound of another voice in Tripp’s office, then a crack! thundered in JJ’s ear, and he pulled his phone reflexively away from his head, covering his ear with his opposite hand.
Juggling the phone in his hand, he moved to put it to his opposite ear. “Tripp? Tripp!” He couldn’t make out any sounds over the rising grate of the static on the line, and then the connection terminated. JJ stared at the grainy image of his friend holding a half-drained mug of beer on the picture screen of his cell phone and reflexively found himself praying to a God he no longer believed in to help his friend – whatever it was he needed help with.
November 15, 2006
I finished Valley of the Soul! I found Dog Warrior*! And I finished Dog Warrior as well!
Now, I’ve just got to get caught up on the writing thing. Maybe I’ll post a little snippet later tonight, so I’ve something more interesting for all three of my readers to look at!
*It was inside the couch… along with too much other stuff to even mention! Wouldn’t Millie have a field day with that topic! LOL
November 14, 2006
I will post more… and I will write more… and I will do the laundry…
Just as soon as I can finish this silly book*!
*(It’s Tamara Siler Jones’ Valley of the Soul. I tried! I really did! I wanted to wait until December! But the book came out on Halloween, and I picked it up the other day, just to fill a few minutes! And, here I am, two days later, almost done with the entire thing! And not getting anything else done. *sigh*)
November 11, 2006
Overall, this week has been pretty good — OK, busy beyond all belief, but what else is new!?
But, a few little things have stood out as lowlights on the week.
For instance:
- Fuul got overscheduled at work — his bosses seem to think nothing of assigning him to two projects at the same time, plus have him do cleanup on an old project, and all without any overtime!
- For some reason, this week every time someone needed to be picked up at a certain time, someone else needed to be dropped of at exactly the same time. And back to the one car thing.
- Slugs. Big, Pacific Northwest Slugs. shudder In my kitchen at night. bigger shudder I am growing very tired of nearly stepping on them when I walk into my dark kitchen after everyone’s gone to bed. Nothing like triggering the ick factor!
- If you are making homemade pizza for your family, and rotating pans about — hot one from the oven, cooled one to a new location on the stovetop — its a really good idea to pay attention to which is which before you grab the hot one with your bare hand! OUCH! (I can still see the purplish/silver burn lines across my palm, but it almost doesn’t hurt at all, unlike the other night when I burned it; I’m not sure if thats a good thing or not.)
- GC woke up yesterday complaining of a hurting stomach. Within an hour, she was puking. In the van. On the way to driving Fuul to work. She stayed sick all day, but woke up well again this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that she was an isolated case, and not the precursor to some stomach bug running through the other six kids as well!
- Fuul got assigned to attend a sales meeting Friday from 4-6pm. He was supposed to be taking JS on his scout camping trip at 4. And they got news that it was snowing over the pass, and chains were required. Needless to say, neither of them made it up to the campout.
- I lost my book that I was reading: Dog Warrior, by Wen Spencer. I only have about 2 chapters left, and I was really excited to see how it ended up. I’ve looked everywhere, and just can’t locate it!
- DA enjoyed his scout camping trip immensely, even though the younger boys — and a lot of the older boys who were scheduled to arrive later — were unable to attend because of the snow.
- Of course, now I’m saddled with the smoke-tainted, wet clothes that DA dragged back home with him.
Busy, busy week.
On the brighter side, I trashed the first chunk (again) of my NaNo work, and have started again on a new one. (New to the page, not to my brain). This one I’m feeling a lot more connection to, and actually got a chunk on the page today, and have a lot more direction to run with it. So maybe this week’s not a total loss!
 Oh! And (because I need more candy after the ‘pathetic’ haul of Halloween!) I found these: Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses! YUMMY, YUMMY!!
November 6, 2006
And the roads around here are likely flooding or overrun with water or hydroplaning vehicles off the sides. On the news this morning, it said that the big metro area next to us had gotten 3 1/2 inches of rain in the past 24 hours.
So: yeah, its wet.
I stayed home today, rather than fight traffic in the rain, and Fuul took the truck to work. Which automatically guaranteed my needing to get out and pick someone up from school (this time it was my fault entirely: I missed GC’s bus out front by seconds — I was there in time to see them pull away, but not in time to catch the driver’s attention — so they took her back to the school. On a good day, I can make the walk down there in 15 or 20 minutes. Today it would have taken me a lot longer, and I would have had to figure out how to get two little ones out there along with me in the pouring rain.). Luckily, I had a friend who was available to retrieve GC for me, so I didn’t wind up having to traipse about in the wet.
I finally just sucked it up and put together the carrier for M. that I have had the fabric for for a month! French Seams! Double stitching! Totally reversible! (And, as I was pressing the last seam flat, I realized that I’d measured it 8 inches too long. Yeah. And I did all those french seams and double stitching, so its not as though I can just pull it apart real quick and repair it! Have to figure out something, or else maybe it will work for Z. and I can get some new fabrics for M either before we go down to visit, or after we are there??)
I made homemade dinner for everyone — woohoo! Color me domestic! — even though I will be away at my Sign Language class at dinnertime, rain permitting. Shredded beef sloppy joes, homemade applesauce (from the other day), and homemade hamburger buns. The buns turned out really tasty, but I’m afraid that my yeast is getting old, because, though they taste wonderful, they didn’t do a whole lot in the way of rising. Ah well. Taste over volume, yes??
No writing happened today… funny, I can find so many things that absolutely need to be done right now! when I ought to be writing instead. Procrastination is a great job-getter-doner, but does nothing for the writing!
So. Going to pack up for SEE II, get dinner on the table, and head out for a couple of hours. I might even risk a trip to the grocery store on the way home, to stock up on a couple of ‘necessary’ items.
Off to practice my sign language before I have to ‘perform’ for class!
November 4, 2006
I got to sleep in — well, if you don’t count my being awake at 6 to nurse a baby, and at 7 to tell the boys to quit fighting and watch “Beakman’s World“, and at 8 to tell someone to feed EK… OK. Let’s try this again. I got to stay in bed until 9am! That’s nearly like sleeping in!
I went to a write-in last night (where you get together with other people who are trying to write for NaNo, and feed off the general communal misery). Other than being too hot, it wasn’t bad, and I got nearly another thousand words done. Not nearly where I should be, but oh so much better than the zero I had before!
So, this afternoon, as we are watching the news and waiting to be hit by yet another large, wet, windy storm in these parts, we have had chinese food, the kids and Fuul are playing Lego Star Wars II, and I’m going to try and get some more writing done. Try being the operative word!
So. There you go. Another exciting day in the life!
November 1, 2006
…milk spilled across the kitchen table and under one chair on the floor (cleaned up before the kids walked through it!)
…the toilet in the kids’ bathroom got plugged (since fixed, thank goodness!)
…CC fell off the bed in my room (bad mom! Good news: no lasting damage to report)
…somehow EK got put into one of CC’s diapers this morning, the results of which were discovered when she refused to sit down in the cart at Target (soaked clean through to the bone; good news is that Target carries some cute sweat pants and sweatshirts for a decent price, so she’s sporting a new pink outfit; bad news is that I forgot to pack changes of clothes for the kids)
…EK face-planted on the driveway (tiny split lip, but otherwise intact)
…dinner — at least a roast and taco seasoning — is in the crockpot
…found out that EK and CC both like salad… much to the detriment of my lunch!
…EK and CC napping, so a moment of quiet; wish the headache would let up so I could enjoy it!
…the kids should be home shortly because of early day at school, then AE will leave for Activity Days and I will leave to take EK to speech
…its nearly one in the afternoon, November 1st, and I’ve yet to get word one committed to the page for NaNoWriMo… oh dear!
October 21, 2006
Last night I splurged, left Fuul at home with all the kids and chinese take-out, and spent a couple of hours at the local “Pre-NaNo-Meet-and-Greet” at a local cafe. It was… how do we say? Interesting? There were some really interesting people there… some who reminded me — in a scary way — of people I went to school with, and some who reminded me how thankful I am that I’m no longer young young young and dating or ‘looking to date’. Yeah. Moderately certain I was the only one there over 30; more certain I was the only one there with children! (I didn’t talk much, but that’s normal for me in new situations; taking in all the conversations was enough, I think!)
Today, though, wound up just a ‘catch-up’ day here at Casa de Tulips: the kids re-cleaned their rooms, the kitchen got the once-over twice, and the laundry baskets — ah! the laundry baskets!! — are all empty!!! (OK, the dryer is still full to the brim with clean fluffy towels, but that the only ‘undone’ piece!)
Tonight, we watched “The Benchwarmers” with the kids… a few risque moments, but oh so much better than I expected… and I was expecting a funny one!
Anyway, there you go: more fascinating insight into my oh, so exciting life!!
October 19, 2006
I’ve posted the official NaNoWriMo* Participant banner over in my sidebar, as my official excuse for when blog content falls off during the month of November! (Its a great excuse, don’t you think??)
*NaNoWriMo: NationalNovelWritingMonth.
What is NaNoWriMo?
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and — when the thing is done — the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2005, we had over 59,000 participants. Nearly 10,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.
Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2006. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!
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