Check out the son’s new room! I should’ve put up a before picture but just imagine two shades of baby blue. This was a fun project but I’m glad it’s done. If you hover the mouse over each picture there is an explanation.
Attention, Fellow Notebook Hoarders!
Thanks to a post by I found out that Etsy sells more than just jewelry and accesories. They sell notebooks! Since her post I have ordered a notebook for myself and for my sister ‘s birthday (no peeking, sis!)
As I have a special affinity for Moleskin notebooks, this notebook is speeding its way through the mail to me. A little spendy for a notebook, but as I am a true hoarder, I will keep it forever! Thank you, Jessica!
Time Wasting
I should be revising my novel, but instead I’m doing time-wasting things, like ordering clearance Christmas wrapping paper from this place.
My daughter’s karaoke songs keep popping up on the iPod so I’m also wasting time singing along to those. Today I have 4 kids in the house so this is a huge distraction.
Here is the latest batch of cookies I baked. They are Linzer cookies which I made gluten-free with rice flour (I was pretty excited about this!) I am posting all cookie pictures in honor of my WIP, which is waiting for me to get on with it and stop wasting time. 
Have a happy week!
Wednesday
1. My kids have this holiday tradition of catching every bug that blows through town from November to December! My son has the nerve to get sick three days before Christmas! So I ask you, am I a bad mother to let him watch TV all day? He is running through our collection of Christmas DVDs. An hour ago it was Rudolph, now I hear the Heat Miser singing his little fiery jingle. Those of you with kids, do you let them watch TV all day when they’re sick? Just curious.
2. In honor of my current WIP, I’ve decided to post pictures of every cookie I bake. These 
were baked the other day, and I baked a different batch of cookies after that, but those are gone. Darn, they were pretty too.
Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays!
Monday
1. My baby brother is an officer in the Navy, serving in Afghanistan for a year. He let us know about the coffee bar on base and how you can order cups of coffee for the troops. Cup of Joe for a Joe You can donate any amount, starting at $2.00, plus you can personalize a note to the soldiers. I just donated 5 cups and it was really easy. Pass on the link!
2. Christmas movies have lured me away from my nightly writing and online stuff. Just watched It’s A Wonderful Life 
3. Speaking of Christmas, I’m almost sick of it. Sick of the commercialism and the stores and I’m almost ready to take my tree down and we still have 5 days to go! I swore I wasn’t going to do it this year–put up my decorations too early. I’m done with all shopping and wrapping, but still need to head to the store because we’ll be out of soap and TP and stuff by Tuesday. I want my Target back to normal, I’m burnt out and craving springtime.
4. New Year’s resolutions are around the corner and I’m afraid to peek at mine from last year. They say posting them publicly will make them happen, but I think the only thing it will accomplish is making me cringe. Feels like that forgotten container in your fridge, the one lurking behind the yogurt, next to that half-bag of frozen salad. Yikes, who wants to see that?
Have a happy week!
Friday Stuff
1. Thank you to all the Veterans, even though I am a day late. Yesterday my daughter and I met the sweetest old man at the post office. He was a vet, as indicated by his cap, and I thanked him while I teared up at the thought of mine and s brother, off to Afghanistan for a year :(.
Anyway, the man told me he served in WW1 and WW2 and I later realized for that to be possible he had to have been around 106 years old. Funny, when my daughter asked how old the man was, I had guessed around 70.
2. My kids already have their Christmas wish lists finished, thanks to Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys R Us catalogs. I remember when I was little, waiting and waiting for the Sears catalog to come out. Pages and pages of a toy-lovers dream. One of my favorite toys was the Barbie Dream Townhouse, and now it’s back! Looks like the only thing that changed are the colors. The elevator in mine was yellow and the interior was decorated by all those brown hues from the seventies. Ahh, memories. My daughter is asking for the Barbie house this year, but holy cow, so expensive! 
3. I’m so happy to see the holiday cups at Starbucks! Two months of Christmas is really bad, but I love it!
4. The first draft of my WIP is almost done! I am aiming to finish by Thanksgiving when the holidays really take over. I only stopped writing today because my wrists and hands hurt.
5. Happy weekend to all, I am off to snuggle on the couch with a book and probably my fifth cup of hot chocolate in two days:)
Birthday Lights
Today I’m 40, and I’m none too happy about it. But to make myself a little happier, I put up orange Halloween lights in my little writing corner. I’m pretty sure they’ll be up long after Halloween is over, and after I’ve gotten used to being 40.
Writing, Life, and Your Day Job
1. Raise your hand if you recently woke up, struggling to push the September calendar off your face? Summer just snuck off and left me with lunches to pack, and kids to haul around to ballet, tap, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, soccer practice, and healthy dinners to plan and make and try to eat between all those activities I signed my kids up for. I look at it and I’m tired already. Plus I’ll be 40 this month. Oh yeah, and I am back at work.
As a teacher, I had two glorious months off for summer. Did I write daily? Did I finish my WIP? Nope. I committed to spending more time with my babies, and wrote a little at night. I wasted a lot of my late evenings fighting my addiction to popcorn with parmesan on it, and movies On Demand. But all summer I longed for my normal, comfy writing time–the two hour window from when I get home from work and the kids get home from school. But I look at the week ahead and wonder when the heck I’ll get back to my characters. Sorry for griping, I mean I do love my job, and I am the only one to blame for my kids having evening activities. How do you manage writing, life, and your day job? I’m curious to see where it fits into your schedule.
2. Speaking of lunches, don’t you hate packing them for work or school? I rarely let my kids buy school lunch because it gets expensive and they serve too much processed food. On TV the other night, the news had a story about a business in Seattle that makes and delivers healthy lunches to school for your child. Fantazimo What a cool idea! I also found out I went to high school with the couple. They started this because of their son having Celiac disease.
3. The teacher store I shop at is also an Indie bookstore. While I was there the other day, a new book caught my eye. And really, how could it not? 
4. Speaking of Target, off I go. We’re out of school lunch snacks and toothpaste, and 3 things from my son’s school supply list I forgot to buy.
Currently reading
A List Blog and Our New Dog
1. I’ve decided my favorite blogs to read are list blogs where the blog writer numbers everything. I love to read blogs and I tend to skip really long blogs because I’m using time I should be spending writing. I know you all know how I feel. You look up at the clock and think, holy cow, now I’ve wasted all my writing time and it’s time to make dinner! With that said, I will write my blogs this way from now on. Or until next week when I’ve forgotten that I was going to write my blogs this way.
2. It’s been difficult to get anything done because of this. 
3. I’m 27,000 words into my WIP, which I’m so excited about, and which distracts me from the query blues on my other story.
4. So all summer I’ve hardly written, because I’ve been hanging out with my kids and watching too many movies, and eating too much ice cream. So in the past week I’ve really been on a roll with the WIP and the bummer is that now it’s time to go back to the classroom and get ready for the job I’m actually paid for. My kids on the other hand, can’t wait for school. They’re sick of summer, sick of the pool, sick of entertaining the dog, etc.
5. The thing that I look forward to at this time of year is when Target, the best store on earth, moves all of their back-to-school stuff out and moves all the Halloween stuff in! I’m guessing I have about a two-week wait to see that. I’ve already decided I’m putting up Halloween lights inside around my writing nook, and leaving them up until it’s time to put up Christmas lights. I think I’m inspired artistically by decorative lights. I’ll post a picture when I get them. How about you? What are you looking forward to now that summer is ending?
Currently reading
Everything but Writing
This is what I’m doing.
Baking, cleaning, sweating, playing in the kiddie pool, sifting bugs out of the kiddie pool, sweeping grass off my kitchen floor 10 times a day, yelling at kids, locking the door so kids can’t come in so I can read or get online, spraying sunscreen on kids, feeding kids, and eating too many Fudgesicles.
Everything but writing. Unless you count fixing my query letter. I’m ripping my hair out over it and it really hurts because my scalp is sunburned.
Okay enough whining.
Aren’t these cute cupcakes? My daughter and I made them for my son’s birthday party. The theme is ‘almost campout’ so we’ll have kids from 5-9pm. We found the idea online and used chocolate rocks, Tootsie Roll fire logs, orange jelly candy as fire, and the pretzel and mini marshmallow make a great roasting stick.
Happy weekend, everyone!
Currently reading
shannon grogan, young adult author 