What was I thinking?

Finishing Things and Thing Twenty-Five: another elephant

2011-03-01T00:53:00.001-05:00

Where did the month go? I can't believe it's over already. As far as the main goal of doing something creative every day, I did pretty well. There was only one day that I didn't bother. My personal goal was to finish something each and every day, and at the end of the month, I did 25 Things in 28 days. Not bad! If only I could keep up this pace. Alas, March is about to arrive and I must clean my house, file my taxes, eat a square meal, and do all the other things I didn't bother with during February.

Today I'm posting pictures of two quilt tops I was working on over the weekend, to demonstrate that I did, in fact, complete them. The first is for Charlotte, the one with the bikes is for the new baby.

Thing Twenty-Five is another elephant from the same pattern I used for Thing Nineteen, only this time it turned out much better. I managed not to repeat the mistakes I made with my first attempt. And I didn't like my french knot eyes, so I drew them on with a sharpie instead. Last project of the month, complete success. (We won't count the one I gave up on today because I didn't have the energy to re-do all the stitching I had to rip out, okay?)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Thing I've-lost-track-of-my-numbers: experimental cookies

2011-02-26T21:02:00.001-05:00

Today I made cinnamon golden raisin cookies. I didn't have a recipe. They taste weird.

Thing Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three: baby quilts in progress

2011-02-26T00:34:00.001-05:00

This is exactly everything I accomplished today. I had the cutting almost completely done last night, so today was all about the actual sewing. Now I have to stitch the rows together (six horizontal seams on each quilt) and add the borders, and the quilt tops will be done. There are more rows than you can see -- I had to crop the picture.

The top quilt is for Charlotte, who picked out the feature fabric herself. She did a surprisingly good job -- the fabric lends itself to this pattern quite nicely. The bottom quilt is for baby number two.

Thing Twenty-One: Hot Fudge!

2011-02-23T21:48:00.001-05:00

Brownies from a mix. Ice cream from the market. Hot fudge from SCRATCH!

Thing 20: sock in progress

2011-02-22T22:27:00.001-05:00

I wasn't feeling great today, so for my Thing I sat on the couch and knitted. This is a sock I started over my Thanksgiving vacation and haven't touched since. I could have finished it, but I have lots of yarn and decided to make a longer sock. Going to bed early in hopes of a more productive day tomorrow.

Thing Nineteen: Pink Elephant

2011-02-21T23:46:00.001-05:00

I visited a new quilt shop a few weeks ago, and Charlotte fell in love with some sample elephants on display. So we bought the pattern, and this is my first attempt. I fully expect the eyes to unravel any second now, because I am a total loser at french knots. This was a fun way to use one of the miscellaneous fat quarters I bought when I found out I was having a girl -- back when I thought I'd get a baby quilt done before she arrived. Silly me!

Also, when I cut the pieces for this elephant, I cut out another one at the same time. There were four on display at the store, and they just looked so cute as a herd! I may not get that far, but at least this little baby will have a friend.

Thing Eighteen: Handwarmers FINISHED!

2011-02-20T23:03:00.001-05:00

The right handwarmer was Thing Thirteen. Today was the left. These were kind of a pain and I don't plan on making another pair like this. Sock yarn with a size C crochet hook. Tedious. But they are cozy, and the utterly bizarre color combination means I can wear them with just about anything in my wardrobe. And I probably will.

Thing Sixteen: Cradle bumper pads

2011-02-19T11:51:00.001-05:00

Finished! This cradle has been passed down through my husband's family, and is rocking a third generation of babies. It's now ready for our summer arrival. Big sister can't wait!

Thing Fifteen: Bumper Pads, Part I

2011-02-18T01:40:00.001-05:00

Today I worked on bumper pads for the upcoming baby. These are custom sized for a cradle that's been passed down in my husband's family. I finished the two longer sides -- they're identical, the picture just shows opposite sides. The shorter pads require more math and will have to wait until morning.

Thing Thirteen: Crocheted Fingerless Glove

2011-02-16T00:47:00.001-05:00

I adore handwarmers. This is my first crocheted one. I finished the right hand today, except for weaving in the ends, which will have to wait until I can find a yarn needle. I still declare today's Thing a success.

Thing Twelve: Puzzle Ball

2011-02-14T23:58:00.001-05:00

Hooray for another finished project! I saw one of these in a quilt shop and thought it looked fun. Charlotte picked the colors out of a bin of fat quarters. I took my time with the cutting (and had to cut very carefully, since I didn't technically buy enough fabric) but got the sewing done yesterday and today. Took me longer than I expected -- I always forget that the easy parts can be the most time consuming. I'm definitely happy with the finished project, and now that I've done it once, I know I could whip one up in a day or two as a baby shower gift.

Here's hoping my kiddo likes the finished project as much as she liked stealing the pieces while I was working on it! It's nice to think that she gets to have fun with a new toy because I got to have fun making it. I've actually got a few more toys on my list this month, and I can't wait to get started!

Thing Eight: Fabric Book

2011-02-09T19:55:00.001-05:00

Today, I stitched up this fabric book for Charlotte, shown here reading it to Alan. It has the alphabet illustrated with Beatrix Potter characters. She mostly just likes to hug it.

Thing Six: Sushi

2011-02-07T10:55:00.001-05:00

This was my first attempt. The proportions were off, but it was still
yummy! Charlotte helped me eat it, so we ended up making lots more.
See, there I go again, feeding my kid people food!

Update: Sour Cream Success!

2011-02-05T00:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I should have stirred it up. It was super thick on top, and runny on the bottom. But it was yummy on my baked potato!

Thing Three: Crocheted Market Bag

2011-02-03T21:34:00.001-05:00

I haven't done much crocheting in a long time, either. But crochet is like English to me. I learned it young enough that it just comes naturally. With knitting, I still have to learn something new with every project, or re-remind myself how to ssk or M1R or kitchener. The language isn't imprinted in my brain. Today, it was nice to pick up a project and know how to do it. Overall, anyway. I haven't actually made one of these before.

I made this bag out of enough sock yarn to make a pair of socks. About halfway through, I realized mine wasn't turning out like the one in the picture, so I stopped following the directions. I tried to get a close up to show the detail. It has strong vertical ribbing on the outside, and horizontal ribbing on the inside. It's lot thicker and cuddlier than the string bag I was expecting (based on the picture and poor instructions). As you can see, it's easily sturdy enough to carry my produce home from the farmers' market, or whatever else I need to carry. Maybe not a bowling ball, but anything else.

Thing Two: Fail Gloriously.

2011-02-02T22:32:00.001-05:00

My calligraphy supplies have been gathering dust for a few years, so it was time to shake them out and wonder why my favorites were missing and what I was ever doing with a hot pink calligraphy marker. It was fun, and challenging to remind my brain and my fingers how to make pretty letters after so many years of typing more than writing.

Today's Thing was inspired by a quote from Jon Acuff: “If you’re going to risk and maybe fail, fail at something that matters. Fail gloriously so that even in failure, lives change.”

Thing One: Sour Cream

2011-02-01T22:42:00.001-05:00

I made sour cream today. That is, I did my part of the sour-cream-making. Now the microbes take over, and in 24-36 hours, I have sour cream.

I hope. I have never done this before.

Thing-a-Day 2011: what in the world I'm doing

2011-01-31T13:49:00.001-05:00

I've been getting pumped up for Thing-a-Day for a few weeks now, and I'm ready for it to start already!

What is Thing-a-Day? It's a creative sprint. The idea is to create something, every day, for the month of February. Just the thing we all need to shake us out of the February slump, when lack of sunshine and fresh air is really starting to take its toll. Winter activities have become boring, snow is no longer pretty, bad weather feels more like a jail sentence than a good excuse to play hooky. Blah. I'm tired and I'm bored. So I'm doing something different.

I have two particular goals for Thing-a-Day this year. The first is finishing things. I'm terrible about this. I have two pairs of pants that I've sewn from scratch, and just need to be hemmed. I have quilts in every possible stage of completion that haven't been touched in over a year. I meant to knit some socks for Grandpa for Christmas, and only got as far as the cuffs. Yeah, I also have socks in every possible stage of completion. So for a month, I'm finishing things. Daily. I might allow myself to finish my old projects, but the main idea is to start from scratch, which I'm pretty good at. For February, I'm doing something I'm bad at, in the hopes that I'll improve with practice.

My second goal is to think small. I'm forever thinking about big projects that I don't have the time, money, or energy for. Remodel the bathroom. Landscape the backyard. Knit my husband a sweater. Re-organize the junk room -- all 400 square feet of it. Sew all my own clothes for a year. When was the last time I set out to make a potholder? Or a suncatcher? How long has it been since I painted a picture for the refrigerator? I love making bed-size quilts and knitting complicated cables and learning difficult new skills, but it's good to remind myself that there is still value in simple, easy things. Like a cup to hold my pencils, or a frame for a special photograph. Kid stuff, sure. But where else am I supposed to put my pencils?

For the month of February, I resolve to tackle small Things. And to finish Things. There are lots of other goals I'd like to talk about, but let's not tackle all my bad habits at once.

What do you do to get your creative juices flowing?

Photo test

2011-01-30T11:05:00.001-05:00

Caution: This box contains Wine, Batteries, and Fire.

Have you ever found it impossible to decipher the icons on something you've purchased?

Testing . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .

2011-01-30T10:28:00.001-05:00

I suspect this won't post. So I'm trying it. If you actually see this message, please disregard.

That is all.

Dear Hannah

2008-04-21T22:20:00.002-05:00

I'm too broke to buy you a present -- even something cheap, like denture glue -- which, by the way, you should never put on your tongue -- and I couldn't find a card that befitted our wonderful friendship in the five minutes I had to spare between . . . whatever it was I was doing. I can't remember. See previous post. Anyway, in honor of your birthday, I'm blogging at you. Congratulations on accomplishing new feats of oldness! You might need a cane pretty soon, but don't worry. Just decorate it for your favorite holidays, and people will start thinking of it as a fashion accessory.

In honor of your birthday, I'm eating frozen cookie dough, like we made last time you visited, only this time I remembered the chocolate chips. I thought about sending you some, but by the time it gets there, it would be sticky and rancid, so I'll just have to eat your share. I'm also digging through old photos, remembering how much fun we used to have. I wanted to post one of the two of us, but the only one I can find has us wearing purple glitter paint all over our faces. You look adorable, but I ended up with a mustache and a sole patch. And in so many of my photos of you, you're making a weird face, or wearing clown makeup, or sporting a very fashionable set of hot-pink play-doh sunglasses, that I just decided to forget the photo. Especially since I can't get glossy prints into a digital format with any sort of quality.

Not much of a birthday celebration, is it? Try to remember that fabulous birthday where I made cupcakes and invited all your friends and spent your birthday money from that creepy stalker guy on gas, so it could burn up on the way to Wal-Mart and not be a part of your life any more. Remember how much fun that was? Next birthday, come visit, and we'll do it again. Without the creepy stalker part, unless you've acquired a new one. (The old one IS gone, right?)

I wish I could be with you on your birthday, but I know you are surrounded by loved ones, and knowing your mother, there's no shortage of cake and ice cream. Unless you asked for peanut brittle and gummi bears instead, which wouldn't surprise me too much. May you be wonderfully blessed this birthday with joyful new memories and not a platypus in sight. May your next year be filled with love, peace, happiness, and good friends who will speak wisdom into your life the way you have into mine. I hope you have a happy birthday, but more than that, I hope today is the beginning of something wonderful for you.

Love,
Julie

My brains are oozing out my ear.

2008-04-21T21:55:00.002-05:00

The details are making me crazy. I've been buried in details at work lately, and they've consumed so much of my mental energy that I almost forgot it was payroll day today. Yikes! This is one of my major responsibilities at my job, where I look at everyone's time sheets and figure out how much they all get paid and send the numbers away to a magical land where strange little gremlins make the actual paychecks. Sometimes the gremlins are slow, and people start wandering into my office on payday and asking, "Aren't we getting paid today?" And I say, "I don't know, should you be?" because really, I can't keep track. And they start to get upset, but it's not my fault! It's the gremlins!

Only, not today. I would have forgotten all about payroll this week, except that one of you mistakenly turned in your time sheet in the wrong place, so I found it when I was looking for something else. Thank you, whoever you were. I've forgotten, because the rest of you confused me so much today. The one person I can count on to turn in a time sheet ON TIME, EVERY TIME, forgot to turn one in, and the people I usually have to chase down with threats of not getting paid, actually turned them in. You're knocking me off balance, people. But you can rest assured, I got the numbers to the gremlins on time, so as far as I know, you'll all get paid this week. On time. I hope.

In the meantime, the roof is leaking and our (male) guinea pig has mastitis. I've been spending lots of time working on my garden, and so far all the useless plants are thriving, and about half the vegetable plants have died. Maybe the details killed them, too.

Thing-a-Day: I totally fail.

2008-02-26T13:02:00.002-05:00

The germs ate February. I'm starting to feel like I've been sick so long that I can't remember what it's like to be healthy. When people try to make plans with me, I'm very hesitant, because I never know if I'll be too sick to do whatever. It's pitiful.

And the really sad thing about being sick for so long is that whenever I'm reading the paper and I come across an article about a disease, I can't help but notice how many of the symptoms I have. After a while, it becomes very obvious that I have Lyme disease, and fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, and hypoglycemia, and maybe scurvy.

So I didn't do my daily Things, and I didn't finish writing my fabulous short story, and my house looks like a tornado swept through. Here's hoping the germs will stay confined to February and I can have a much happier, healthier March.

Thing-a-Day 1 (and 2 and 3)

2008-02-02T16:56:00.000-05:00

First, a big THANK YOU to Jennifer, who showed me how to get my blog on Facebook. If you're reading this at my actual blog, or my RSS feed, (Does anybody actually subscribe to my blog? I don't know how to tell) don't bother reading on Facebook, because there won't be any new content there. I'm way too lazy for that. For all my Facebook friends who didn't know I had a blog . . . hope you enjoy my pearls of crazy brilliance.

Friday's Thing was a lot of fun, but not very exciting for the rest of you, because I can't share it here. I wrote a first chapter of a new story, which is something I haven't done in a long time. It's for a contest, and if I post it online, there will be copyright issues, so you don't get to read it. But I just wanted to say, for the record, that I met the challenge on the first day of February, on a miserable rainy day where I had to spend several hours in a car and several more hours being monitored by a large, cranky woman with a badge.

Saturday, the most creative thing I did was inventory the food in the house and make it last until payday. The foster puppies moved out that day, and various other things had to get done, and I didn't have any time or energy left. Such is February.

Yesterday, I had to watch the Super Bowl. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so. Boring. I'll admit that I'm not a football fan, and I don't have TV, so I never know who's doing well or badly in any particular year. I don't have a favorite team or favorite players. I'd never even heard of Michael Vick before the whole dogfighting scandal. But I understand football well enough to watch a game in person. It makes sense, when you can clearly see who's who and which direction they're running. But TV football drives me crazy. They insist on showing at least two instant replays of every play, even when the replay doesn't show anything interesting. By the time they get back to the actual game, the ball is in play again and I can't figure out who has it. Then it's on the ground and they're showing another instant replay. Then they show the next play from the opposite camera angle so the offense is facing right instead of left. Then they show you the people in the stands, because those people paid exorbitant amounts of money to be there and get their face on TV. Then they show you some pretty plastic people with microphones talking about the game. Then there's the coaches and random people yelling on the sidelines -- we wouldn't want to forget about them. And to top it off, this year's Super Bowl teams were wearing the same colors, so I kept getting the Blue Shirt guys confused with the Blue Helmet guys. I seriously don't understand why four hours of this ridiculousness is the most-watched thing on television.

Anyway, I'm going to do better today. Even though I lost my list of things I was going to make this month. I think the Bear Sloth ate it.

2008-02-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

I'm camping out at library today. Which means I'm very thirsty. I tried to bring in a bottle of water with me, but the security guard sent me out. There weren't any signs or anything saying NO DRINKS! NOT EVEN WATER! but I wasn't too surprised, because libraries are always weird. The security guard is weird, too. When I walked in the door, she pointed at me and made a bunch of weird, incoherent noises. I just stared at her until she got around to telling me, "You can't bring that in here." For a second I thought she was talking about my laptop. That would have been preferable, because I have lots of stuff to do without a computer. I could be sitting here, well hydrated, researching my next novel, and instead I'm thirsty and wasting time.

I wish I'd been smart enough to bring a smaller water bottle, so I could stuff in it my bag, along with the apple, can of cashews, and two cans of soda I brought for lunch. Oh, no! Do you suppose the security lady will grunt and throw me out the window? Seriously, I can do way more damage around here with the stuff in my bag than with my water bottle.

The lady across from me is eating a snack. I bet she wouldn't tattle on me if I drank a soda. Then again, she might, because she knows the security guard.

I'm afraid to get up and leave my stuff sitting here. I haven't frequented a library since I was in college, and I can't tell if things are different now. Is it still okay to get up from your table and leave your books and papers and jacket and laptop lying around? Will other library patrons respect that this is my table, and they should camp elsewhere? Will they steal my stuff? It used to be okay to do that, but today I'm just not sure. This library is a little rougher than I'm used to.

Now the guy across from me is reading Seventeen magazine. Is that weird? Do guys read Seventeen? I can understand if there was a cute girl sitting there, saying, hey, read this, it's great. But he's all by himself. He looks like the kind of guy who'd tattle on me for eating an apple.

Anyway, the reason I'm camping at the library today is that the foster puppies are getting fixed. The SPCA does it for free, but it's an hour from my house. Rather than waste the time and money of two round trips, I'm staying here. I was going to do my taxes today, but my husband's employer couldn't be bothered to give him his W-2 yet, so I can't. I'm ready, though. Once that W-2 is in my hot little hand, I'll have my return mailed out the very next business day. I want my refund, darn it. I can't convince the powers-that-be to take less money out of our paychecks in the first place, so I have the pleasure of giving the government an interest free loan every year. While I'm waiting for my W-2s, my money is being used to provide the services we all rely on every day. Like roads. And national parks. And beefy security women to make sure nobody sneaks contraband into the library.

It's very dry in here. Think they'd kick me out if I went outside, stood in the rain long enough to get soaked, and came back in, dripping all over the place?

Try something new.

2008-01-31T12:53:00.001-05:00

It's January. It's cold and gray and the days are not nearly long enough. You'd think we'd be used to it by now, right? It comes once every year. Well, not to worry. It's almost over. Just look at your calendar.

Oh, wait. See what's coming up? February. It just doesn't get any worse than that. In the interests of surviving February and breaking out of my creative rut (anybody notice the lack of blog posts this month?), I've joined thing-a-day.

The idea is to create something new every day for the month of February. You can sketch, cook, crochet, build, whatever works for you. But the goal is for one thing each and every day, not a big project that takes all month. Try some new recipes. Make homemade Valentines. Experiment with photography, or painting, or composing music, or whatever strikes your fancy. Draw up plans for your new deck. Write a short story. Build those shelves you've been meaning to install in that room where all the books are stacked up in piles.

Basically, get your brain moving. Don't let the slothful pace of February catch you, or you may not recover until May.

Thursday Thirteen: Highlights of 2007

2008-01-31T11:54:00.000-05:00

Now that it's a whole month into 2008, I found this list that I started in December and forgot to finish. Maybe 2007 wasn't so bad, after all.

Thirteen Things Really Cool Things That Happened to Me in 2007

1. Two people told me my cherry jam was the best they'd ever tasted.
2. I got to see my brother and sister-in-law for the first (and second!) time in over three years.
3. I cut off my hair for Locks of Love. I went to the same stylist that did my last haircut, and she didn't remember me! But she pretended, and she cut off two-and-a-half year's worth of hair growth and left me with a style that wasn't at all what she gave me last time, but still looked great. That woman is the best hair stylist I've ever had. I will be her customer for life. Which would be better for her if I got my hair cut more often.
4. My younger cousins got confused and thought my sister-in-law was my sister. Which wouldn't be so great if she wasn't one of the coolest people I know.
5. I learned to make gluten-free biscuits. Baked goods are the hardest thing to make decent gluten-free substitutes for, so this is a big victory. Now if only I could accomplish a yummy chocolate-chip cookie. I once got the texture right, but they tasted like garbanzo beans.
6. I learned how to knit. I mean really learned. People have shown me how to knit and purl before, but I'd always forget, and I never had much concept of how the stitches went together to make something worth wearing. Now I've made hats and scarves galore, plus a blanket, and I'm eyeing sweater patterns. With really cool fisherman cables. Yeah.
7. I got a free piano. People have told me for years that I didn't want a free piano, but they were wrong. Sure, it's out of tune and in need of repairs, but it beats not having a piano! I love it so much I have trouble seeing how I survived so many years without one.
8. My friend Emily got engaged and asked me to be a bridesmaid. I knew girls in college who were bridesmaids twice every summer, and I can understand how that would get old. But the first wedding I ever appeared in was my own, so I never burned out on the whole wedding thing. I love weddings!
9. I got a job at a place that is so cool I would work there for free. Actually, I used to work for music lessons, but now they pay me real money.
10. I introduced my husband to my mother's side of the family, and they loved him. He never feels like he fits in with my family, so it was really great to see him having fun at our family reunion.
11. I learned to play the guitar. A little bit, anyway. Okay, I started learning. And I got a guitar for my birthday, so I'd better get to practicing!
12. I visited Grandma for a week of quilting. This was my second solo trip to visit my grandparents. The first was the summer before I got married. That time, Grandma taught me how to make a quilt. This time, we worked on applique. My quilt pattern was way harder than the last one and we didn't get very far, but it was a wonderful trip!
13. I got rid of my nasty old kitchen. The cabinet doors hung crooked, the drawers fell off the tracks all the time, and it turns out there was a giant colony of something black growing under the tile countertop. Good riddance!

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My head hurts.

2008-01-29T11:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days when everybody I talked to asked if I was all right. I suppose that's better than those days when everybody says, "You should go home. You look awful." Still, it was no picnic. I had a migraine the day before (I'm afraid migraine headaches are becoming my annual January tradition) and it just left me totally wiped out.

I went to work anyway, just to do the things that were supposed to get done. After an hour, I started noticing funny halos around objects in my peripheral vision. Is that bad? After two hours, I called my boss at home (he comes in later than me) and asked if there was anything else I needed to do. He said no, and not to bother with the stuff I'd already done. Guess I could have stayed home.

No, I couldn't have. I had a guitar lesson. I think it went well, and I'm supposed to practice something new, but I've forgotten what it was in this funny headachey fog. I'll probably remember when I go shuffling through my papers later.

Migraines are definitely miserable, but I have to admit I'm amused by the random numbness that comes with them. One minute my entire arm is all tingly, then, poof, it's fine. During last year's migraine, my lips kept going numb. That was just plain bizarre.

Anyway, my husband, a.k.a. The Bear Sloth, was the real hero of the day. He left the lights dim and kept the dogs quiet and reheated chili for lunch.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Him (quietly, so I won't have to cover my ears in pain): There's no beans in this chili.

Me: What?

Him: There are no beans in this chili.

Knowing that I have never once made chili without beans, I grab a spoon and taste it. Did I mention migraines can interfere with your sense of smell? I knew it smelled good, but I couldn't identify it.

Me: That's because it's spaghetti sauce.

Him: Woman!

Me: We have spaghetti.

Him: I know. And we have pagodas.

Me: Whatever. (I'm hungry. And cranky. And staring at you through a pain-induced fog. Just feed me.)

Leftover spaghetti sauce on pagoda pasta in the dark. Life doesn't get any better. Bear cooked me dinner, too, from scratch with an actual recipe. And we sat on the couch and read books and I did some knitting. At the end of the day, he said, "This was really nice," and I didn't know whether to hug him or smack him with a book. Since my head was pounding, I just squeezed my eyes shut and ignored him.

I needed the hammer to give the puppy a bath.

2008-01-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

So I'm running water for a bath, and the dogs have been outside a while so I figure I should let them in. Only I forget to close the bathroom door, and when I come back to the bathroom, there's a puppy in there with his head in the litterbox.

It's morning. I'm only half-awake. And in dire need of a bath. So instead of handling the situation like the calm, rational person that I pretend to be after ten AM, I just scream.

The puppy is startled, and instead of backing out of the litter box like he's supposed to, like he usually does, like ANY PUPPY WITH A BRAIN WOULD KNOW HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO, he just jumps in.

That's right. He's now IN the litterbox.

So I have to calm down just a little bit, just long enough to talk nicely and coax him to come out. Then I scoop him up and drop him directly in the bathtub. In MY bath. Well, the first two inches of it, anyway. There's nasty catbox mud swirling around his ankles.

I flip the shower valve so I can use the handheld spray, track down the dog shampoo, and scrub the puppy – who is a little freaked out by now – until I'm satisfied he's clean. Then I realize that I don't have a towel handy, because it's not like I was prepared for a doggy bath today, and no way am I using MY bath towel on this little guy. Uh-uh. So I go to look for a towel in the hall closet, and the puppy takes a flying leap out of the bathtub. I didn't know he could do that!

I'm actually a little proud. This is a rescue puppy with malnourishment issues, and when he got here, he couldn't even pull himself up the stairs. Now he can jump out of a bathtub! Good puppy! My job is done. (Right?)

The puppy's running all over the house, leaving wet puppy footprints everywhere. I decide not to care, because the house is warm and he will dry quickly, and also the house is dry, so those wet puppy footprints will be gone in the time it takes to locate a mop. Besides, I still haven't gotten my bath.

I track down cleaning supplies and scrub the tub. I don't really mind doing this, because it was about time to clean the tub anyway, I just wasn't planning on doing it before work today. Speaking of work, I'm running late.

Thinking of the nasty catbox mud, I scrub the bathtub twice, and rinse it extra well with the handheld sprayer. Now it's MY turn.

But the shower valve is stuck, and I don't want to use the handheld on myself. I need a hammer to fix it.

That is why the hammer is in the bathroom. If you have a problem with that, TAKE IT UP WITH THE PUPPY.

2007 In Review

2008-01-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

I wrote the annual Christmas letter last month, but for some reason we never got it printed and mailed. It's been busy around here. So, if you thought you were on our Christmas card list and wondered why you didn't hear from us, here's your copy:

2007: The Year We were Too Busy to have Any Milestones.

In a year in which everyone we know has bought/sold a house, had a family member get engaged/married/divorced/pregnant/born/religion, adopted a puppy/human/gerbil, graduated, started school, learned to walk/talk/drive, or at least had some sort of adventure outside the country, we have done none of the above. We haven't had the time.

In February, Alan learned that his company's government contract was coming to an end and he had to start job hunting again. They were great about keeping him on salary while trying to find him another position with the company, but none of the openings matched his skills and he had to move on. He ended up in a job that is too complicated for me to understand, but he kept saying it was mostly data entry and extremely boring. After applying for various transfers within the company, he is starting at a new position in December and really looking forward to it. He'll be doing computer help desk work again, which he enjoys.

I opted not to return to her job at the Governor's School after the school year was over. I am now working at Grace Center for the Arts, lining up music lessons and dance classes and other fun stuff. It's mostly accounting and recordkeeping, but it's a pleasant work environment and comes with fun perks. I took up guitar in January, and while I'm not very good, nobody throws rotten vegetables at me. So far. I just finished the winter recitals, where I was in charge of encouraging shy young singers, corralling wayward teenage guitar players, and keeping the drama students quiet whenever they weren't on stage.

Sometime in the spring, we inherited an old piano that was being given away by a local private school. We'd just rearranged our living room and left a space for a love seat so we could have people visit and not sit on the couch where the dogs sleep, but the free piano went there instead. (Who are we kidding? Nobody visits us!) I've been having a blast learning to play again, even though it's painfully out of tune. I took piano lessons for a few months, then decided to save money for a while and get the darn thing repaired.

For my birthday in July, we visited my parents, while my brother and sister-in-law happened to be there. It was the first time we'd all been together since our wedding, so it was a big treat for everybody.

In August, I indulged in a week of quilting with Grandma. (No, Dad, the quilt isn't done yet.) We had a wonderful time, and I made more little half-square triangles than I ever want to see again. I also helped Grandpa set up their new copy machine. Seeing as this year's Christmas letter from Grandma and Grandpa has yet to arrive, it seems possible that something went horribly wrong after I left. Oops.

Our new wood stove was installed in September. The old one did a fine job of heating the house, but it was made of steel, so that last February when Alan built a nice hot fire in it (some of you may remember that we had a giant ice storm in February, which resulted in the electricity being out for most of a day, and the phones being out for over three days), one of the sides warped and a weld cracked. The new one is cast iron, and smaller and prettier than the old one, and heats up a kettle on the top so I can make tea. Not that I've managed that yet, because the firebox is so much smaller and you have to pay a lot more attention to it. I can't seem to get a decent fire going, so defer to my husband, the self-proclaimed and acclaimed pyromaniac.

In October, we decided to quit talking about it and remodel our kitchen already. So we did. And when I say we, I mean the two of us, Alan and Julie. We've learned lots of great lessons, like how water and electricity don't mix, and how they say to use dark primer under red paint, but it doesn't matter, you're still going to need three coats anyway. It was a miserable process, which of course took twice as long as we expected. Many thanks to the friends who took us to dinner during the two weeks we were without a kitchen sink! Now that the dust has settled, we have a working dishwasher for the first time. There are no words to express our excitement. We still haven't installed the toekicks or wiped the plaster dust off the rafters, but our new kitchen is much nicer than our old one. I can't seem to stop myself from cooking in it, and Alan can't seem to stop himself from eating in it, so everybody's happy.

One day while we were eating lunch off paper plates and there was a big plastic curtain dividing our dusty kitchen from the rest of the house, my mom called and invited us to an impromptu family reunion in Nebraska. It seemed my mom's entire family was going to be there, and we were the only ones not going. Since it was the weekend of our fifth anniversary and Alan still hadn't met most of these relatives, and since it's only about once a decade that they're all in the same place, we went to Nebraska, where a good time was had by all. I fixed my aunt and uncle's computer, my sister-in-law fixed my guitar, my mom and aunts made a fabulous pre-Thanksgiving dinner, and my uncle taught Alan how to field dress a buck, shot by my cousin. What more can you ask for?

This Christmas, we're looking forward to some quality time with family in Illinois, Tennesse, and maybe somewhere else. We'll know when we get there. Then maybe in January, we'll catch our breath.

The Type of Writer I Should Be

2007-12-20T22:40:00.001-05:00

So I took a silly quiz, and here are the results:

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation.
Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life...
You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material.
You have the makings of a great comedian - or comedic writer.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Don't I wish! I was going to try to make fun of the terrible week I've had, but it just isn't funny. This was the week I was supposed to post pictures of all my Christmas knitting, but I didn't get it done. Because I was sitting in my office waiting for my computer to reboot (for hours and hours), wishing the whole time that I'd brought my knitting so I could at least get something done while I was on the clock. So the server upgrade, which probably wasn't necessary in the first place, spilled over and disrupted my entire life, and now people I love are not going to get their Christmas presents on time. I'm sure they won't love me any less, but I might love me a little less. Merry Christmas anyway.

I wrote this a long time ago and forgot to post it. Sorry, mom!

2007-12-04T14:58:00.000-05:00

An old friend of mine invited me to join Facebook a while back, so I did. Just to humor him. But then I got caught up in scrolling through the alumni lists of my high school and college, and I found people I thought I'd lost! Including one I mentioned in a post back in August. This is so cool!

I had no idea there were grownups on Facebook. Maybe it's just because I worked at a high school until recently, but I thought Facebook was a mostly teenage thing. Much like Myspace is a mostly teenage thing. But there are all sorts of people on Facebook. And once you've put a few people on your friends list and explained how you know them, the site creates a Social Timeline including all sorts of important events, like the fact that I took 7th grade math with Jeanette in 1992. And I “went underground for a while” between 1993 and 1997. Which is ridiculous. I had a perfectly good social life all those years, with friends and a first boyfriend and everything. It's just that Facebook doesn't know about it.

I keep laughing at the profile pictures. You'd think most people would post a head shot, but a lot of people have posted full-body pictures, which means that by the time it's shrunk to thumbnail size, that could be ANYBODY at the top of your profile. A lot of people have also posted group or couple pictures, which means that if I don't already know you, I don't know which person belongs to that profile. And a lot of people posted pictures of their babies, or other random things. Which is fine, if you wanted to be obscure. Just remember: at that size, that could be ANYBODY'S baby. Maybe even Rosemary's. I went without a photo until people complained, but then I didn't have any of me, so I posted one of my hedgehog. So far, nobody's making inappropriate online advances, so I'm keeping it.

But the biggest thing I've learned from Facebook is that you can now, truly, do anything online. You can play with a hamster, start a food fight, or join in a kickboxing match. You can emote, because, you know, we humans have so much trouble doing that in real life. You can join a club devoted to any crazy thing you can think of, from singing loudly in public to destroying Hilary Clinton's campaign to eating at a favorite restaurant. I find it all a little scary. Do any of us have real lives anymore?

On the other hand, on Facebook, I can do all the things I can't do in real life. Like slay vampires. And throw pies with amazing accuracy. So there.

Was that a Hot Pocket stuck to that stop sign?

2007-12-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

You know how when you're driving a familiar route, you don't bother reading the signs anymore? You know where to stop, you know the curves, intersections, and speed limits, so you just don't look. My husband was in that mode last night when we were driving home and I asked him, "Was that a Hot Pocket stuck to that stop sign?"

He looked at me like I was insane, then threw the car into reverse. "You can't ignore a question like that." He backed up through the intersection, stopped at the stop sign again, and stared.

"It looks like a Hot Pocket, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, sure does." Then he turned on the high beams.

"Oh. Nevermind. Not a Hot Pocket."

"What is it?"

"A maxi pad."

Our kitchen is functional. Mostly.

2007-11-20T22:47:00.000-05:00

All the major appliances are operational including our sink -- try living without your kitchen sink for two weeks and you'll realize how much you rely on that sucker! -- and our brand-spanking-new dishwasher. We haven't had a working dishwasher in our five years of marriage, so this is a bright shiny luxury to us. Oh, yeah, we had our five-year anniversary while I was taking an unannounced blog vacation, and also went to Nebraska by way of Denver, which doesn't exactly make sense, but that's never stopped us before, has it?

Today, I roasted a butternut squash in our new kitchen. I've never roasted a butternut squash before (or any squash, really), but whoever said it smells and tastes exactly like pumpkin was dead right. While I was scooping it out, my resident floor-cleaning mini-mutt danced around the kitchen, looking up at me expectantly. I didn't think too much of it, because this is the dog that eats potato peels. And steals carrot sticks from the guinea pigs. Spill salsa on the couch, this dog will lick it so clean, you'll never know where it was. He's an all-purpose food vacuum.

Still, I was skeptical. "You don't really want this, puppy."

Mini-Mutt: Yes I do! Yes I do!

I dropped a bit on the floor. What can I say? I'm a clumsy cook, and this dog is my enabler. And the bit that dropped was gone before I could think about cleaning it up.

MM: (wags tail and dances some more.)

"You really like it?"

MM: Yes! Yummy! More squash!

Foster Dog: You are in the kitchen, addressing a dog. This can only mean yummy treats! I want some!

I taste the squash. It's pumpkinny, not bad, but totally bland, because I haven't done anything with it yet. "You guys are so weird."

MM: More squash!

FD: How come I don't get any?

Big Dog, who is much more suspicious when offered new foodstuffs: Something appears to be happening in the kitchen. I'd better check it out.

I finish scraping the squash rinds, and offer my spoon to the dogs to lick off.

MM: Mmm! Yummy! I love people food!

FD: Must eat faster! Can't allow little dog to eat more than me!

BD: What is that? Is it edible?

I raise the spoon up higher, so only Big Dog can reach it.

BD: (sniffs suspiciously.) Is there cheese in it? (licks his lips, but doesn't not actually touch spoon.) I don't think that's food. I'm going back to the couch now.

FD: Let me at it! People food!

MM: This dumb dog is getting in my way. Doesn't she know I'm the food spill cleaner-upper around here? She can't even clean out the bowl of the spoon right! Mmm! Yummy! No! Don't throw the rind in the garbage!

FD: Now I have to dig it out of the plastic bag! What were you thinking, human?

Silly me. Forgot to chuck in on the compost pile, which is surrounded by a doggie-proof fence.

Does anybody else have a dog that eats everything? Or a dog that turns down the majority of actual dog treats? Seriously, I think somewhere in between eating everything that could ever be considered food (fish flakes! stale bread! pelleted guinea pig food! birdseed!) and a discerning palate that only accepts meat, cheese, and brand-name dog food, there must be a happy medium.

Right?

We're remodeling our kitchen.

2007-10-26T19:27:00.001-05:00

And when I say we, I mean the two of us. Me and my wonderful husband. I'm tired. I was going to blog about it while the whole project was in progress, but there's just no time. So I'm just dropping in to say that I miss my kitchen, and I miss real food. My ability to work hard is decreasing with each day that I don't have a kitchen. I want to cook. I want to eat. I don't care if the cabinets are level. But my husband does, and he gave me plenty of time for the paint job, so I will let him fiddle with the cabinets a while longer. But I have a feeling that even once we have our kitchen back, it will be a long time before I have my sanity back.

Look What Happens When You Get Up Early!

2007-10-15T23:36:00.000-05:00

I'm a night owl. Left to my own devices, I tend to stay up until 4am, then sleep until noon. Who needs mornings, anyway? When my husband was traveling for the military, he'd often be gone for weeks or months at a time, and I'd find myself in some kind of crazy sleep schedule. But I usually do better when he's home, because you can only make so much noise when someone's trying to sleep in a small house, and eventually you might as well give up and join them.

But for the past few months, my husband has been getting up a 3 in the morning to leave for work. This does NOT work for me. He goes to bed way early, and then I'm killing time by myself in the evenings. And usually losing all track of time, and staying up way too late. I've been trying to ease myself into a better schedule, setting my alarm a little earlier each day, but it wasn't working. I just slept right through it and woke up a little later each day.

So last night, I took the direct approach and set my alarm for 5am. Because it's a well-established fact that I need two hours more sleep each night than my husband does. This way we can go to bed at the same time, which means that neither of us is waking up the other by crawling into bed later, and we can both get some decent sleep, which would be a miracle.

Actually, the real miracle is that I actually got up this morning. Before 6 which is . . . an undisclosed number of hours earlier than I usually get up. And look at all this stuff that I got done, just because I got up early!

Three loads of laundry before 9am! Not that I stopped there, but I can't even remember the last time I started laundry before noon.
Rotated my mattress
Dusted off the ceiling fan and flipped the switch for winter
Started a yummy dinner in the crockpot
Read the last few chapters of a novel
Sorted through all 50 unread emails in my inbox, instead of just reading the highlights, deleting the advertisements and leaving a bunch for later
Learned that chocolate cravings can be caused by bacteria in your intestines! Isn't that weird?
Bathed my 80-pound dog, who desperately needed it because he has allergies and something he touches in the backyard makes him itch! Poor puppy!
Various household chores that should have been done last week. Oops.

Isn't that amazing? I feel like Wonder Woman today. Although, I think I forgot to eat, right up until that yummy crockpot dinner. And now I've stayed up too late, so my chances of repeating my productive day are slim. But stay tuned anyway, because tomorrow I'll be posting my adventures in sleep-deprived gardening, assuming I get that far.

Pathetic excuse for not blogging #1 and #2

2007-09-26T13:50:00.000-05:00

I'm going out of town tomorrow. I was going to write a Thursday Thirteen about all the things I'm doing on my trip, but it ended up sounding really boring. So I'm going to drive to a small town that has the same name as my dog, pitch my novel to an actual literary agent, visit mom and dad, and spend some time with a friend I haven't seen in a while. Now you know why I won't be blogging for the next week or so.

Which doesn't explain why I haven't managed to update since last Thursday. We're fostering a dog through a local rescue agency, plus one of our current pets has gotten sick, so we've been busy medicating and house training. Oh, the joy. Plus I got sick, my husband was preparing for a job interview, and I've been trying to make sure the house and the groceries and the laundry were all squared away before my trip and, oops, a whole week went by. Don't you hate those weeks when everything gangs up on you? The good news is that while I was feeling too crummy to do anything else, I managed to finish one of my Christmas knitting projects. Unfortunately, I did not manage to finish my book. Grr.

In a pitiful attempt to make up for how boring my blog has been lately, here's a picture of all of us taking a nap on Sunday after we finished reading the paper. The dog at our feet is the new resident.

Thirteen Careers I'm Really Glad I Didn't Choose

2007-09-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Careers I'm Really Glad I Didn't Choose

Let me just make it clear that I have the utmost respect for the people who perform these jobs. Every career on this list has been suggested to me by someone who knows me, or by one of those ridiculous computerized career assessment things. I'm sure all of these jobs are very important and necessary, except for number 6. They're just not for me.

1. Preschool Teacher – Little kids are adorable and all, but they do an awful lot of un-adorable things. My tolerance for that stuff is only so high.
2. Massage Technician – How can I put this delicately? The idea of touching strangers with their clothes off makes me want to break out in a rash.
3. Computer Programmer – I need my eyeballs for other things.
4. Network Administrator – I may be capable of cobbling things together so they'll work for a day or two, but running smoothly? Not a chance.
5. Plumber – I took apart my sink drain once. It wasn't fun.
6. Magician – I'm pretty amused that this one came up on a career test. I'm not graceful enough for sleight of hand. Nor do I really care for magic tricks.
7. Website Designer – Obviously the person who suggested this had never seen this pitiful excuse for a website. Again, I need my eyeballs for other things. I know they have all these fancy programs that let you design graphically now, so you don't have to know any code, but I still don't want to sit in front of a computer all day rearranging pixels.
8. High School Teacher – Since I'm a miserable public speaker, can't hold a crowd's attention, hate dealing with discipline and suck at explaining things clearly . . . need I say more?
9. Bicycle Mechanic – I learned to ride a bike when I was a kid, but have since lost the ability. Which makes me want to strangle anyone who says, “You can do it! It's just like riding a bike!” Because what they're really telling me is that it's a difficult feat and a surefire way to injure myself.
10. Medical Illustrator – Are these the people who draw the diagrams for textbooks? Really, I have no idea. But since I don't know anything about medicine and have no drawing talent, I have to say this career is not for me.
11. Industrial Designer – I just have no aptitude for this sort of thing. None. I couldn't design my way out of a paper bag. Good thing paper bags rip in half easily.
12. Mortuary Technician – I just don't think I have the stomach for it.
13. Systems Analyst – My systems classes in college made me want to scream. A lot. I would have screamed a few not-very-nice words about them, but my brain was so worn out I couldn't think of any.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Some of the reasons I hate book reviews

2007-09-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

Brenda Coulter over at No Rules, Just Write recently asked her readers what they'd like to see on her blog, with the caveat that she won't write book reviews because she's bad at them. Which reminds me why I don't write book reviews, either.

For one thing, I'm REALLY bad at it. I guess because the reasons I love a book are often those mysterious, intangible things that I have trouble explaining. I'm not that good at dissecting my own books, let alone anyone else's.

For another thing, the last time I was involved in a book reviewing project, the only time I said I didn't like a book was the time the author showed up and commented on my post.

Speaking of which, isn't that bad etiquette? Aren't authors supposed to ignore book reviewers, even crappy amateur reviewers? Maybe those rules only apply to the elite New York Times reviewers, I don't know.

Anyway, I'd read a romantic comedy that was smart and hilarious, but had way too much sex for my taste. And it wasn't even believable sex. More like a window into somebody's fantasy life, which isn't something I care to read about. And while I made sure to mention in my review that I liked certain things about the book, I also said it made me want to wash my brain out with soap. The author apologized (which wasn't necessary—I'm the one that bought the book and chose to read it) and recommended another of her books that was supposedly not as dirty. She didn't use that word. And I didn't read the other book.

I've posted a bunch of books in the sidebar, and those are books that I recommend. If I'm rating books on a five-star system, those books all get at least four stars. I've probably read three times that many books over the past two or three months, but I only posted the ones that I strongly recommend, and that I think a lot of people will enjoy. I've read a whole stack of good romances lately, but most of those aren't on there because they'd only appeal to romance readers. I've also read books that I don't recommend, and I'm not mentioning them because I don't want their authors to show up and embarrass themselves. Or me.

What good books have you read lately?

Have you ever?

2007-09-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

Tanya Michaels just posted some have-you-evers on her blog that made me laugh out loud. Sometimes, we humans are such silly creatures.

Have you ever caught yourself ducking when you drive under a low beam/ceiling in a parking garage?

Have you ever been unable to sleep without first getting up to check under the bed and inside the closet?

Have you ever sucked in your stomach before getting on the scale? Only if the scale is one where the numbers are between your feet, instead of in front of your toes. I hate those, because they make everybody seem fat, trying to suck in their whole front half just to read their weight.

Have you ever done that thing where you fan your fingers in front of your eyes to try to keep from crying?

Have you ever secretly thrown away a storage container retreived from the back of the fridge rather than face the long-ago leftovers lurking inside? All the time! This is why I buy the cheap containers!

Have you ever passed off a pre-prepared dish as something you cooked?

You've done something on this list. People do these things all the time. Now that I think about it, I have no idea what's up with the finger-fanning thing, but I've never watched somebody doing it and wondered what that was about, because I've seen it a million times. And now I'm thinking, why do people do that? Why? It's a bizarre gesture that doesn't make any sense. If I hadn't seen it a million times, I would think it only served to make you look like an idiot. Does anybody know what finger fluttering is about?

This one, on the other hand, I totally get:

Have you ever googled a long lost love?

Yes. Yes, I have. Then I paid three dollars and fifty cents for his address. And I'm darn proud of it. He's watching a movie in the next room. Our five-year wedding anniversary is coming up in November. While you could try to label me some kind of crazy stalker chick for tracking down a guy after we lost touch, I like to think that for once in my life, I just knew what I wanted. I'm very lucky, and very blessed, that he wanted me, too. And that he doesn't care if throw out the containers of mystery food, and he tells me how cute I am when I duck under a low beam in a parking garage.

2007-09-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Stupid Injuries I've Had

1.The summer before college, I did something horrible to my wrist when I was loading something heavy into a van. The doctors never could figure out what the heck was wrong, but I had trouble writing, typing, and opening doors my whole first semester in college.
2.I once broke a toe just trying to walk around a corner in my house. It's shocking how fragile those little bones are. I still can't believe it broke so easily.
3.I cracked my nose giving someone a hug. It was dark, and we were tired, and my nose collided with her forehead. It wasn't crooked or anything, but I could feel that little crack for weeks afterwards.
4.I hit my head on the runner of a rocking chair and had to get stitches over my eye. I barely remember it because I was so young, but I still have the scar.
5.My dog beat me up. I think it was last year. I was sitting on the floor, playing with my big, eighty-pound dog, who got really excited and went for a big full-body doggy shake. His head smashed into my cheekbone and left an embarrassing purple bruise, like someone had backhanded me.
6.I broke a toe (not the same toe as the first time) by falling down the only stair in my house. You read that right: a singular stair. It never healed right. It's still crooked.
7.Some time so long ago that I don't even remember it (and neither does my mother, I broke my tailbone. I only know about it because my chiropractor took x-rays, and instead of healing straight, it healed at a ninety degree angle. You'd think this would have caused problems by now, but all I've noticed is that it makes it really easy to balance in certain pilates positions.
8.I fractured my foot falling down the stairs at my grandparents' house. I forget why I was running down them in the first place, but to this day I'm extra careful on those steps.
9.On a beach in Costa Rica, I got a sunburn so bad that my skin was rough for over a year afterwards. It was my own dumb fault, because I didn't bother bringing jeans and hiking shoes to go for a hike in the woods in the middle of the day. And because all my friends went on the hike, there wasn't anybody around to re-apply sunscreen to my back, so I got fried. I think it was four weeks before I could stand a warm shower again.
10.I once threw my back out giving the dogs a bath. Still haven't figured out how that happened, because my dogs don't have to be wrestled into the tub and held down. Just bribed with cheese.
11.One Halloween in junior high, I tore my achilles tendon. Falling down the stairs again. I was on my way to answer the door for trick-or-treaters. I don't think I was even hurrying.
12.I sprained my wrist trying to wrestle my futon from bed position into couch position. Ever since getting married, this has been one of those things that I don't even try to do by myself. Do you know how hard it is to type with an ace bandage on your wrist?
13.My canoe capsized in the Clarion river in Pennsylvania, and I almost drowned. Actually, I was perfectly fine, but I can't think of another injury. Happy Thursday anyway.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
1. No Nonsense Girl
3. wahm
4. Robin
5. Retta
6. Joyful Days
7. Buck Naked Politics

You Know You're a Blogger When

2007-09-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

I was checking on my blog traffic again (it's addicting) and noticed that another blog had linked to this site. So I tried to go visit, just to see what it's about and thank them for linking me. But I can't. I got a PERMISSION DENIED message reading, "This blog is open to invited readers only."

They're talking about me, but I'm not invited. This disturbs me. A lot. Besides the oh-no-what-could-they-be-saying-about-me-how-could-it-possibly-be-anything-good, I'm wondering about the purpose of a selective blog. I mean, if you wanted to put out information about your life for your family and friends, you'd just put it in a mass email, right? I just don't get it.

And really, what could they possibly be saying about me? Why does it have to be a secret? I don't have any secrets on my blog! I've been very careful to make sure of that, because I have job applications out, and everybody says that the first thing a prospective employer does with your application is google your name, and, yes, here I am. Blogging about cherries and dogs and silly things that happen to me. Not anonymous in the least. What of it?

Speaking of silly things that happen to me, I was knitting today and my husband glanced over and said, "Wow. I can actually see the physics of how that all holds together. It's really a very complicated one-braid." Does anybody know what he's talking about? He made my first scarf project sound really complicated, but it's just a basic stockinette stitch that likes to roll right up like a scroll. It's about a million stitches per row, so I got bored and bought some big fat yarn to make a much more complicated scarf, with twisty cables and everything, and they're about the same length so far. I'd take pictures, but they're going to be Christmas presents, unless I decide to keep one, and I don't want to give away the surprise.

So, in lieu of weird-looking half-done scarf pictures, I give you a list that I wrote in response to Danica's open challenge a whole week ago:

You Know You're a Writer When:

1. You've been known to get out of bed, up from the dinner table, or out of the shower to write down a great idea.
2. You have real conversations with imaginary people, and imaginary conversations with real people.
3. When you see people that you know, but aren't close to, you try to think about ways to use them in your current novel.
4. You seriously freak out if you can't find a pen.
5. People ask if you're talking to yourself, and you don't have an answer.
6. Someone finds your research notes and very cautiously asks you what you're doing with that information.
7. You catch yourself editing your own conversations.
8. You spent more on your computer keyboard than you did on the computer itself.
9. You analyze the plot structure of movies.
10. You feel like you accomplish more on the days you stay in your pajamas.

Thirteen Things I Wish I Could Do

2007-09-06T12:26:00.000-05:00

Thirteen Things I Wish I Could Do

1. Dance without hurting myself.
2. Finish something on schedule.
3. Make bread from scratch.
4. Replace my kitchen.
5. Convince my dog not to bark at people walking past our yard.
6. Sing like Martina McBride.
7. Get DSL at my house. (It's not available out here in the sticks.)
8. Find a lipstick color that I really like.
9. Eat real, honest-to-goodness chocolate chip cookies again.
10. A backflip.
11. Start up conversations with strangers, without coming across as a freaky stalker person.
12. Paint. Or draw, even.
13. Keep my house clean.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Indoor Archaeology

2007-09-05T20:34:00.000-05:00

I cleaned off my desk today! You'll never believe what I found:

A dozen pens
An undated anniversary card from my parents, with four bare feet on the front and the phrase "Solemates from the start!" on the inside
A temporary tattoo of some obscure Disney character
Last year's Christmas letter from Grandpa
A hat that was once part of my husband's military uniform
Five notebooks containing ideas, outlines, and scenes for the novel I'm working on, as well as three notebooks that didn't
Two complete novel-length manuscripts

They're single-spaced, so they only take up 100-150 pages each, but still . . . How did I manage to LOSE them? And why did I waste all that paper in the first place? No wonder I put off de-cluttering. It's a really scary process.

The Alphabet Meme

2007-09-04T23:29:00.001-05:00

Welcome to a gratuitous About Me post. I don't think I've done one of these since . . . well, ever, so just roll your eyes and put up with it.

Accent: I don't think so. And I'm really bad at faking them, which saddens me greatly. I really wish I could pull off a sophisticated Brit accent, or even a sweet Georgia peach. Nope. I'm too Midwestern.

Booze: Not much! My alcohol tolerance is very low. One teensy little drink, and I'm a different person.

Chore I Hate: Anything involving garbage.

Dog or Cat: Two dogs, three cats. You could probably build an extra critter with a week's worth of hair swept off my floors.

Essential Electronics: My computer, definitely. And my refrigerator. And maybe that handy-dandy little back massager I got last Christmas.

Favorite Cologne: I'm not big on smells, either on me or my man. But that could be because I never figured out what that yummy-smelling guy who sat next to me in college was wearing. More guys should be using that, whatever it was.

Gold or Silver: Gold, in general. But some things look better in silver. Or platinum, or something else entirely.

Hometown: Normal, Illinois.

Insomnia: Yes. I am my mother's daughter.

Job Title: I need a new one. I'll be taking a poll next week.

Kids: Maybe someday.

Living arrangements: My hubby and I bought our first house three years ago, then the strays started following us home.

Most admirable traits: I hate questions like this. Maybe I'm too hard on myself, but I can never think of a truthful answer.

Number of states you've lived in: Seven.

Overnight hospital stays: Technically, no, but I did spend most of the night in the emergency room once. And I stayed the night with my sister-in-law when she was having surgery.

Phobias: Public speaking.

Quote: "Never insult a writer. You may wind up being immortalized in ways you may not appreciate." --Garrison Keillor.

Religion: Christian.

Siblings: One younger brother.

Time I wake up: This is embarrassing. Sometime between 10:00 and noon. I believe the inability to wake up on time is related to the insomnia.

Unusual talent or skill: I can wiggle my nose up and down. Not by wrinkling it in the middle, but by pulling it down closer to my mouth. I can also twirl a pencil. I learned both these things at gifted school.

Vegetable I love: Tomatoes and bell peppers. Technically, those may both be fruits, but I don't care.

Worst habit: I have so many!

X-rays: Wrists, ankles, toes, spine, teeth, head . . . yeah.

Yummy foods I make: I make nearly everything from scratch these days, so I can't think of a specialty. Yesterday I made vanilla ice cream. Today I made worcestershire sauce. Tomorrow, I'm thinking about gravy.

Zodiac sign: I hate zodiac signs, too. If anybody can think of a new question for Z, let me know.

I'm tagging Meghan and Erin, but I think I'm supposed to tag five people. So, if you're reading this and you have a blog, consider yourself tagged and let me know in the comments.

Blog Magic

2007-08-31T14:45:00.000-05:00

I've always wondered about those people who could figure out how visitors got to their blog. You know the ones: they post long lists of bizarre search terms that people used to get there, and when a new site links them, they notice it without being told. I had no concept of how they could do such a thing. Was it some kind of weird internet voodoo? Did they have a team of software geeks stowed in their basement, monitoring online traffic on a bank of dusty computers?

Turns out it's none of the above. It's actually very simple. This week, I've managed to confirm my long-held suspicion that PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY VISITING MY BLOG! You know who you are.

Nobody ever leaves a comment. I guess it's become a tradition. People stop by, they hang around for an average of 23 minutes and 53 seconds, and they never, ever comment. Occasionally, they email me to say they enjoyed their visit. Maybe it's too scary to leave a comment in public. Maybe this is the kind of website people don't admit they like. I'm right up there with grandma porn and mental illness self-treatment sites. You wouldn't want the whole world to know you've been reading my blog.

On the bright side, I discovered that about half the people who come here via google are actually looking for me, or at least somebody named Julie Dike. I did that on purpose, because I hate it when I realize I've lost touch with one of my old friends and she's moved and I can't find her address or phone number or any information about her anywhere. It's like she's dropped off the face of the earth. Jeannette, Jennifer, and Lana, you are all fabulously cool people, and if you're looking for me, here I am. Drop me an email.

I also discovered that people got here searching phrases like "allergic to skittles," which I did actually mention in a post about a year and a half ago. Because when you're gluten intolerant, Skittles are one of the many things you can't eat. But I have no explanation for the person who got here with the search phrase, "cold turkey sit out before spoiling?" Sorry, I can't help you. Try these people.

Big Strong Man to the Rescue

2007-08-28T17:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I hurt myself while exercising. It turns out that I'm in much worse shape than I thought, and I should probably give up exercising on my own and go to some kind of rehab or physical therapy or something. Anyway, all afternoon and evening, it hurt to stand up. My muscles were shouting at me. Which resulted in me shouting at nobody in particular.

Last night, the dogs wanted to go out while my husband was washing the dishes. Not wanting him to stop for even a second, I pried myself up out of my computer chair and groaned. Or maybe I screamed a little.

"What?" my hubby yelled from the kitchen.

"It hurts to walk," I called back, leaving my office through the back.

He raced into the front of my office, spatula in hand. "What? Where?"

I staggered to the back door and let the dogs out before he found me.

"Where?"

"Huh?"

"I thought you said a bear sloth."

"I said it hurts to walk."

"Oh. I was all set to rescue you from it." He waved the spatula menacingly. "I didn't know what a bear sloth was, but I knew it couldn't be moving very fast."

Happy Friday the Thirteenth!

2007-07-13T22:55:00.000-05:00

Today, I checked on an email account that I'd forgotten I had, and there was actually one new message. Well, one message that was three months old. From a visitor to this blog.

Apparently, at some point, I linked my blogger profile to that email account (did I mention I forgot I had it?) and someone named Anne came here and loved my blog enough to email me about it.

She got here by googling “maraschino cherry toilet paper.” I could tell you why she did that, but why? I think it's enough to know that I have now joined the ranks of bloggers who can be found by insane search terms. And I haven't even been planting them in my posts! I'm just insane naturally.

Anyway, Anne said she was reading my maraschino cherry story and just HAD to share it with her husband, so she read it out loud, only she couldn't stop laughing and kept having to repeat herself.

Thanks, Anne. You made my day. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner!

In other news, I have at least eight pounds of cherries in my kitchen, waiting for my attention. But I've already made a batch of maraschinos this year, and one is really enough.

Really.

I've also made something called Cherry Obsession, which my husband calls Cherry Kaboom. I guess the Kaboom comes from the habanero peppers.

But the really fun thing about making Cherry Kaboom is pitting the cherries. Since the fancy new cherry pitter I bought doesn't work AT ALL, I pitted the maraschinos with a sharp knife, so they'd look all nice and neat when I was done. Cherry Kaboom only uses the juice, so it doesn't matter if the cherries are mangled beyond recognition. So I pitted them all with my bare hands. Squish, squish. I had to wipe cherry juice off the floor AND the underside of the range hood when I was done.

My mommy always told me you can't make good cookies without getting your hands in the dough. I figure that applies to pretty much everything.

What bad habit?

2007-06-24T22:47:00.000-05:00

Things I did this week:
Started my dog in an obedience class
Did payroll at my job for the first time
Made three batches of salsa (roughly 2.5 gallons)
Failed miserably at using my pressure canner
Started voice lessons with a new teacher who's really tough
Spent four hours going over a manuscript I wrote last year
Cleaned my living room
Got painfully sick and made my husband go to the store and buy me pills when I didn't know what they were called
Got better
Cooked pizza on the grill
Attempted to help my husband put a car door back together, but gave up after accidentally throwing his tools in the trash
Due to a series of kitchen accidents, made a pint of mixed berry jam and a pint and a half of pineapple jam
Bought an armored jacket for motorcycle safety
Found the big farmer's market in the next county over
Started a batch of maraschino cherries (read about last year's adventure here)
Went for an hour-long motorcycle ride
Sewed the elastic on my ballet shoes. My fingers still hurt!
Babysat a friend's dog for the weekend

Things I did not do:
Write fiction
Sit still

Bad habits

2007-06-17T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today, I was reading Maggie Stiefvater's blog, which I subscribe to for the pretty pictures, but I also read it, until she gets to talking about horse shows and drawing, because I don't know anything about either. Other than that, though, she and I have a few things in common. We both live in Virginia. We both write. And we both google ourselves. It used to be that if you googled my name, the top ten hits were all for Mary Poppins. Then for a while last winter, most of the top ten hits were actually for me. Yup, I was that famous. Somehow. Now I think Mary Poppins and I are tied.

Maggie has a post called Kicking the Habit, in which she explains her reasons for going cold turkey this week and invites fellow bloggers to do so as well. Kick their own bad habits cold turkey, that is. Maggie's habit is Diet Pepsi, which isn't a problem for me. And we won't be discussing my drink of choice, because the headaches just aren't worth it. Besides, I'm already down to two a day or less.

Anyway, I was reading Maggie's blog, and thinking about kicking bad habits, and now that she put it out there, I feel like I HAVE to join in. I must have at least ONE bad habit that I could stand to be rid of. My problem is that they're not really cold-turkey kinds of things. Like failing to clean my house. Forcing myself to do something I don't normally do is a different issue entirely from stopping myself doing something I usually do. I'm stopping this line of reasoning right here because it's making me dizzy.

The point is, my bad habit to kick this week is an ugly, murky, nebulous one. Idleness. Or maybe I should say, inertia. For the past several weeks, I was in a whirlwind of activity, where all my summer commitments were starting up before my springtime commitments were over. And now that that's over, and I don't have so many commitments to other people, I'm finding it easy to forget all the commitments I made to myself. The ones I had to put on hold due to all that hideous overlap. Someday, I want to live in a nice clean house. I want to finish the book I'm writing. I want to have a garden worth looking at. And it's so tempting to forget all those things in favor of three naps a day, just because I can.

So, thanks, Maggie. I'm going to get some things done this week. I'll let you know how it goes.

I Never Do Anything Halfway.

2007-06-05T21:46:00.001-05:00

This is for Cole, because I gave him my blog address today, and what's the point of ever giving out your blog address to anybody if you don't update it? Except there's nothing to talk about today except how lame I am, so I'll do that.

Yup. I'm lame. Totally lame. I drove to Richmond today, because I needed ballet shoes. And a leotard, which is really the same thing as a swimsuit but less shiny. I'm taking a beginner ballet class, because I'm a clumsy sloth and I need to get into shape. And also because I was pretty sure my chiropractor would veto it, but instead he said, “That would be great!” and got all excited and wrote on my chart that I was taking ballet, so I had to sign up.

Anyway. Richmond. I hate driving in Richmond. Driving near Richmond is fine. I have no trouble driving around Richmond. Or even to the Richmond airport. Or many places in the suburbs of Richmond. Richmond itself, however, is a nightmare. I took a nice, friendly interstate and a harmless-looking exit ramp right into downtown, and found myself in a maze of one-way streets and parallel parking.

Last week, I parallel parked for the first time since driver's ed OVER TEN YEARS AGO. My passenger that day, a mother of teenagers, had to remind me how. Even then, it wasn't pretty, and I was saved by the fact that I drive a Volkswagen, which only takes up two thirds of a parking space.

So I found the store on my second trip around the block, not that there was a single parking space in sight. I ended up parking behind the store next to a dumpster and coming in the back door, which looked like every other back door on that street. I was a little worried I'd wander into a drunken bar brawl or something. And everybody knows that drunken bar brawls before two in the afternoon are the worst kind.

I made a big enough fool of myself in the dance store, what with not knowing where anything was or what anything was and not wanting to buy any of the things I could actually afford, because they were butt ugly. But the full-on hilarity didn't start until I got back in my car and rattled down the alley to another unnamed one-way street.

After getting myself back on the original one-way street I'd been on in the first place, I set about trying to backtrack my way to the interstate. Yeah, right. Turns out, you can only get on it going one direction – the wrong one. And it turns into a toll road after one exit, and that exit doesn't allow you back on the right direction. Yeah. Another maze of one way streets. I did a few loops around the neighborhood, looking for a way back onto my lovely interstate.

It was about that time that I forgot how to operate a manual transmission.

I stalled the car trying to start at a rather busy intersection, with the car pointing downhill (it should have been easier!), and it was so bad that my brakes lost their power assist, so I couldn't stop, either. I turned on the windshield wipers when I fumbled for the ignition. Is it possible that four years of near-total automatic immersion have permanently ruined me? What the heck?

What with the car having seizures and all, I gave up on trying to find the interstate and just started looking for a road I might have heard of. When I eventually did, I used the sun as a compass and aimed my punchbuggy towards home. I came across an interchange with one of Richmond's various interstates, but not the right one, so I kept going.

I thought my plan was working pretty well until the road turned, and it was no longer taking me home, but Somewhere Else. I hate that. I turned around in the parking lot of a high school. There were a bunch of kids there, just sitting on the curb. Because apparently they have nothing better to do on a beautiful day in June than hang around the school parking lot after hours. And I thought I had no life at that age. I, at least, had better places to go while I was being a loser.

All the turning around and backtracking had me on the verge of a full-blown panic, but then I found a radio station playing Dido, so I cranked it up and reminded myself that it's not so bad, it's not so bad. It's amazing how hard it is to worry about silly things like where you are when you're singing at the top of your lungs in a car that's shaped vaguely like a snowglobe.

I went back to the Wrong Interstate. Because if there's one thing I know about interstates, it's that they know where they're going. They always go where they say they're going. If you get on an interstate that says it's going east, it will most definitely take you somewhere east of where you are. It won't just change its mind and go north instead. And you see, the interstates are all connected. I once got on Interstate 10 in Arizona and took interstates all the way to Interstate 95 in Virginia. That is how good interstates are. Even the Wrong Interstate manages to be better than any other road in Richmond.

Sure enough, it got me home, even with the roads still being snarled from the three simultaneous car wrecks that happened during morning rush, eleven hours earlier. (Again, what the heck?) And now that I've survived the whole ordeal, it has taught me one very, very important lesson:

Never underestimate the convenience of online shopping.

Hearing impaired

2007-02-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

Let me just say this up front: I love my husband. There.

My husband drives me crazy. Everything he hears seems to get muddled. When we were first dating, one of my friends said something completely normal, and my darling husband heard, "Flushed green with a yellow pigeon?"

I'm not kidding. I couldn't make that up. I don't even think he could make that up. Everyone in the room was so stunned and confused that we've never been able to reconstruct the phrase that was originally spoken.

The other day, I told him I'd gotten something from my friends Elizabeth and Sabra. He thought it was from the Wizard of San Pedro.

Right now, I'm just sitting in my office, silently reading over what I just wrote, and my husband yelled, "What?" I said, "I didn't say anything." I'm not sure he believes me.

Okay, so I'm a writer and I have a tendency to talk to myself. But at that moment, I wasn't. I SWEAR.

Last night, I thought his disability was rubbing off on me. He was saying something on his way out the door, and I asked him to repeat it. "I don't know what you said, but what I heard just wasn't right."

"Clown trolls with a club foot. Why? What did you hear?"

"Clown trolls with a club foot."

See, there's nothing wrong with my hearing. My husband is another matter.

I've been tagged!

2007-02-17T22:54:00.000-05:00

My friend Erin tagged me, so now I'm supposed to post six weird things about me. Right here, for the whole wide world to see them. You mean eating Snickers bars for breakfast and never paying full price for toilet paper and making maraschino cherries from scratch isn't weird enough? Geez, you people are demanding.

1. I live with eight four-footed animals: two dogs, three cats, two guinea pigs, and a hedgehog. All of them shed.

2. When nobody's looking, sometimes I still paint with my fingers.

3. I was excavating my office recently and unearthed an old To-Be-Read pile. I had to add those books to my current TBR pile, which is divided into stacks: those I can consider market research, and those I can't. It's a matter of feeling productive, or allowing myself to waste time.

4. I learned how to decorate cakes just a few months before learning that I'm not allowed to eat anything with flour in it. I used to think I had a knack for it, but I've recently been corrected. More on that in a few days.

5. I've lived in seven states. I once moved seven times in two years. I wouldn't recommend that.

6. I never had a treehouse when I was a kid, and I still fantasize about having one. I'd build it myself, but as clumsy as I am, I'd probably fall and damage something vital.

Now I'm supposed to tag someone else, but I think every single blog that I read has already been tagged in the past month, so I'm just going to have to let the chain die. Unless you're reading this and you haven't been tagged yet. In that case, consider yourself tagged! (And post a comment, so I can drop by your blog!)

Harry Potter 7!

2007-02-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now available for pre-order at amazon.com. They don't even have the cover design yet, but gosh darn, they're gonna sell it anyway! This cracks me up. It's also 46% off, thanks to the miracle of mass production, whereby the author can still get her royalties, the publisher and the booksellers can still make piles of money, and us poor peons don't have to pay an entire $35 for a good book. Instead, we can order TWO books and qualify for free shipping.

There goes my day

2007-01-22T13:58:00.000-05:00

Why is it so hard to find time to write? I mean, this is getting ridiculous. Between a sinus infection and being busy at both jobs, I haven't gotten much done these past two weeks. When I actually had free time, the infection was interfering with brain function. I used some of those moments to catch up on housework, so that was good, but still, no new fiction.

So imagine my joy when I woke up at 5:44 this morning to the news that school is canceled! I don't have to work today! Hooray! I can write and write and write and not do one single other thing all day long.

Uh, no. You know those little packets of silica gel that come in shoes and purses and all kinds of other random things? I found an empty one on my living room floor this morning. And a whole bunch of little round silica beads on the floor in the hallway. So I made a frantic call to the vet, where the hold message included a warning about toxic household substances, and that you should CALL THIS OFFICE IMMEDIATELY if you suspect your pet has ingested a toxin.

I have two dogs and three cats. Five potential toxin-eatin culprits, although I can probably rule out Officer Nose, because as a rule he doesn't pay attention to anything smaller than his paws. And the Deputy generally only eats things that resemble food. Which leaves Skulky, Squishy, and Sneaky. Probably Sneaky.

So on the phone with the lady at the animal hospital, I explained that it's possible that nobody actually ingested any of the silica stuff, but I wanted to know what to watch out for. I try to be a good pet owner, and I'll gladly take my animals to the vet if they're sick, but there just doesn't seem to be any sense in hauling in five pets just because Sneaky got bored in the middle of the night and played with something that looked like a sugar packet.

One of the things I'm supposed to watch out for is foaming at the mouth. Okay, even if I hadn't found a household toxin scattered on the floor this morning, I would rush a pet to the vet if it was foaming at the mouth. But then she said even white saliva is a concern.

White saliva? I've never heard that one. But I dutifully went around the house, tracking down hiding cats and waking up sleeping dogs, just so I could pry their mouths open and check the color of their saliva. They all looked normal. Two of the cats had whitish gums, but I think that's normal. Their gums are just whiter than a dog's are, and my dogs show me the insides of their mouths a lot more often.

Just to be safe, I decided to check for another of the symptoms the lady mentioned: not eating. I got out some of that nasty canned cat food that always makes me want to barf but makes the cats say yummyummyummy. Sure enough, they all dove in, albeit with various levels of uncertainty, since I usually only give them this stuff when there's medicine in it.

Geez. The poor critters are probably fine (but don't yell at me! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on them) and I should just be more careful about where I throw shoeboxes in the future. But there went almost an hour of my writing time. Plus, the momentum has been interrupted, so now I have to find my groove again.

Hey, it could be worse. I'm not at work!

Maraschino Madness

2006-07-31T23:25:00.000-05:00

Did you know you can make maraschino cherries at home? I sure didn't, or I never would have promised my husband homemade maraschino cherries. It's a four-day process. The recipe says three days, but obviously the person who titled the recipe can't count, or is missing several fingers. Because if you follow the directions, it takes four days. Here's what you do:

Day One: Take your significant other shopping and buy five pounds of fresh cherries, five pounds of sugar, a lemon, and some ascorbic acid. Oh, and a non-reactive stockpot, which perfectly matches the water-bath canner you have in your kitchen. You know you will use it someday for making pickles, because last time you made pickles, you had to use the crock from the crockpot and cram it into the microwave, and it took forever to boil. Now you have a non-reactive stockpot and can boil brine on the stove like normal people.

When you get home, wash the five pounds of cherries and cut them in half and remove the pits. If you can remove the pits without cutting them in half, more power to you. Drop them into water with ascorbic acid so they won't turn ugly brown. Watch in fascination as your fingertips and those of your significant other turn purple, because one of you thought it would be fun to mix some dark cherries in with the light ones, instead of using light cherries like the recipe calls for.

Soak those cherries in a brine of water, salt, and alum in your new non-reactive stockpot. Now shove them in the corner and leave them there overnight.

Day Two: Rinse the cherries until they stop tasting all briney and gross. This involves a huge amount of time and lots and lots of water, and makes you wonder why you put them in salt in the first place if you didn't want them to taste salty. Who came up with this recipe, anyway?

While the cherries are in the sink with cold water flowing over them, attempt to dissolve nine cups of sugar (that's nearly all of the five pounds you bought yesterday) in three cups of water. You'll need to do this over the stove. Add an ounce of red food coloring. Unless, of course, your red food coloring has mysteriously disappeared – then just leave the cherries their natural color and rehearse the reasons you meant to do that.

Hopefully the sugar will dissolve and the cherries will be unsalted at about the same time. Add the cherries to the syrup and heat to a boil.

Shove the cherries in their corner again and let them sit 24 hours.

Day Three: Put the cherries back on the stove and heat to a boil. Come back ten minutes after turning on the burner to wipe up all the cherry syrup that boiled over. Shove the entire sticky mess in the corner and let it sit 24 hours.

Day Four: Figure out how you're going to turn a lemon into lemon juice. You don't have time to wonder why.

Pour half a bottle of almond extract into your pot of cherries. But before you do that, smell the almond extract. Strangely, it smells more like maraschino cherries than your cherries do.

Boil the cherry-lemon-almond mixture, but keep it all in the pot this time. While that's heating up, wash a dozen half pint jars, put the lids in a small saucepot to simmer, and heat some water in your canner to a gentle boil. Lecture your significant other on why that water has to be hot, but not boiling. Replace the pot lids every time your significant other removes them, and grumble about your kitchen turning into a sauna.

Transfer the hot cherries from the stockpot to the jars, being careful to cover them with enough syrup and generally making a big sticky mess. Use a magnetic wand to retrieve the lids one at a time from the simmering saucepot. Or three at a time, as the case may be. Re-inform your significant other as to the proper tightening pressure when screwing the bands down.

Load the tiny jars precariously into the canning rack, which has several gaps wider than the jars. Using hot mitts, lower the rack into the canner.

No, wait, don't do that! You'll just soak your hot mitts in near-boiling water. Use two coat hangers instead. But be careful not to jostle the jars in the rack. One might fall through, and then you'd have to remove the rack and start all over.

Put the lid back on the canner, and boil for five minutes. Remove the lid, turn off the heat, and let the jars cool in the canner for ten minutes. Explain to your significant other why the lid is off, after you replaced the lid so many times earlier. You're not losing your mind. Just keeping your priorities straight. After four days of work, nothing is going to screw up those blasted maraschino cherries.

Now that the jars have cooled a bit, use the two coat hangers again to lift the rack out of the canner. But don't tilt it too far! And don't jostle it. Or drop it. Or burn yourself. Better yet, yell for your significant other to come get the rack out of the canner, since he was the one who wanted maraschino cherries in the first place.

Use a jar lifter to carefully move the jars onto a folded towel to cool. Make sure you don't tilt them. And scoot them away from the edge of the table so your dog doesn't knock one off in his excitement. Since when does your dog like cherries, anyway? Silly animal.

Day Five (That's right, Five): Check the seals on the jars. Put the ones that have sealed properly in the pantry. Get a spoon and the one or two jars that didn't seal properly (Oops, that one collided with my can opener, completely by accident!) and eat the cherries before they spoil. Add ice cream if desired.

Three rules for life

2006-06-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've tried to live my life by three simple rules – you know, in addition to all the commandments and good things like that. They're pretty easy:

1) Don't tell too many people what you're doing.
2) Avoid public speaking whenever possible.
3) Never pay full price for toilet paper.

It's quite simple, actually. I won't even discuss rule number two, because anyone who has ever heard me attempt to address an audience larger than three people (or even two, if they're strangers) already understands how important this rule is to my sanity, as well as that of the audience.

Rule number three, on the other hand, has been a topic of much “discussion” in my household lately.

The theory is this: Buy toilet paper when it's on sale. Buy lots. Use a coupon, too, if you have one. Buy enough toilet paper to last until toilet paper goes on sale again.

When will that be? Who knows. But who cares? You shouldn't, because of the following facts:

1. Toilet paper has a long shelf life. It's not going to curdle if you don't use it in a week. It won't shrivel up if exposed to light, or get stale if left in the back of the cabinet too long. Keep it dry, and it will be there for you when you need it. If this is a challenge for you, then you might consider having your roof repaired before the next rainy season.

2. You need more toilet paper. Really and truly, what is the likelihood that you're going to stop wiping in the next six weeks? (If you have plans to quit, leave this blog immediately.) Sure, you could die. But whoever goes through your house and gets rid of your stuff will know exactly how to use it. Think of them.

Rule number three has always served me well. I've probably cut the family toilet paper budget in half, just by stocking up when it's on sale. Why buy a crummy little 4-pack when you can get a 36-pack for the price of four 4-packs? It's a better economic move to pack the hall closet with clean white rolls than to buy a new package every week. Especially if you live twenty minutes from the nearest toilet paper retailer. With the price of gas, it might even be cheaper to order the stuff by mail.

Note to self: Research mail-order paper products distributors. Perhaps wholesale?

A month or so back, my darling husband took exception to rule number three. We were at the store together, and I was doing my regular shopping. He was pushing the cart and heckling. I picked up a package of 24 double rolls, but he interrupted me.

“Don't get that.”
“But it's on sale.”
“We already have toilet paper.”
“But it's on sale!”
“We have enough!”
“No, we don't. We'll run out.”
“When?”
“Someday!”
“Put it back. We don't need it.”

Grr. I put it back. That time.

And the next time.

And the time after that.

Three toilet paper sales, and I missed them. Then, yesterday, we ran out of toilet paper. Used up the very last square.

No, I'm not bitter.

Silly me, I went looking for more in all the usual places. I dislodged Skulky the cat from her favorite spot, where she usually guards our stash. I checked under the sink and in the hall closet, and even in the cabinet over the toilet, where I only stash things I'll never need.

No toilet paper.

Which brings me back to rule number one: Don't tell too many people what you're doing. This is because if you tell people what you are doing, ninety percent of them will have an opinion about what you are doing and whether you should continue to do it.

Those opinions are wrong.

Once, a bunch of people were of the wrong opinion that I should keep a mind-numbing, soul-sucking, voice-straining job. I ignored them and quit so I could get a better job. The very next month, I reached a huge milestone: I paid my own rent for the very first time. Imagine my parents' relief when I didn't call.

This is why I don't share my personal business with a lot of people, even though it occasionally leads to awkward questions, like “What state do you live in these days?”

Because I didn't need your opinion when I moved to that state. And now that I'm here, it's too late for you to give me bad advice. Neener, neener, neener.

Next time toilet paper goes on sale, I'm buying a carload. Don't come crying to me when you run out. Because I told you so.

Technology rules with an iron fist

2006-06-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

We have vending machines at the school where I work. A soda machine, and a snack machine of the type found at every interstate rest stop in America, except those weird ones out west that are really just outhouses.

Normally, these vending machines are a source of headaches. “Do you have change for a five?” “Can you put a note on the machine that it ate my dollar?” Not to mention the huge, growing pile of discarded soda cans that must, eventually, be crushed and hauled to someplace that accepts recyclables.

Last week, though, I began to see the vending machines as a source of yummy goodness. Grocery supplies ran low, and I had neither the time nor the energy to drive twenty minutes to the store and pack my car with healthy food. Not when a Snickers bar is enough to quiet my rumbling stomach. Remember those old commercials, “for the hunger inside you?”

So instead of grabbing a bagel or peanut butter toast on my way out the door Monday morning, I grabbed a handful of coins from the change jar. A big handful. Enough to last all week.

I was just settling into a Snickers-bar-a-day routine, not even missing my cream cheese fix, when the vending machine decided it'd had enough of me. I was late to get my snack on Wednesday, so there were a bunch of students hanging around when I dropped my change in the machine, selected D5, and waited for my candy bar to drop to the bottom.

Nope. “Make another selection.”

What for? I want a Snickers bar! They're right there, in slot D5. I can see them. Just give me one.

I select D5 again.

“Make another selection.”

“Give me my Snickers bar!”

The students are tremendously amused by my need for a chocolate-caramel-peanut fix. “Kick it!” they yell.

I do.

They laugh, and someone whispers, “She actually did it!”

The machine still doesn't give me my Snickers bar. I'm suddenly surrounded by teenage boys, ready to either shake down the vending machine or make another selection on my behalf.

“What did it say?”
“It's not stuck? Oh, I thought it was stuck.”
“How much did you put in?”
“Did you try hitting it right here?” Punch.
“Get Skittles! Skittles are good.”

“I can't. I'm allergic to Skittles.”

“How can you be allergic to Skittles?”

Shut up. I can't help it that I have a delicate constitution.

I'm forced to settle for peanut M&M's.

I may have given the machine one last kick before I walked away.

Anyway, I figured it wouldn't hurt to leave a note for the guy who stocks the vending machine. But it wouldn't do if I just said, “Hey, bastard, your stupid machine wouldn't give me my candy bar. It sucks.”

See, I'm not a rash person. I thought long and hard before writing my note. When I was done, it said:

Dear Mr. Vending Machine Man,

Slot D5 doesn't work. Could you please put the Snickers bars in a different slot? Our secretary eats them for breakfast, and you don't want to see her when she's hungry.

Thanx.

I left it anonymous. He can use his imagination and wonder who suffers the most when the secretary is hungry.

Me, obviously. Because taking out my aggression on the students would get me fired.

Anyway, I checked the vending machine first thing Thursday morning. My note has been removed, and the Snickers have kindly been relocated to slot D7. Hooray!

Silly me, I drop in my coins and select D7.

“Make another selection.”

It actually feels really good to kick the machine this time. But I give up, and go back to my desk and eat the apple I brought from home.

When the morning's over and my stomach is growling again, a co-worker who is familiar with my vending-machine-related misery brings me a Snickers bar. Apparently, the machine likes him better.

“For me? Really?” It must have been a lot of work to shake down the vending machine.

“Yeah. Go ahead.” Maybe life really does suck when the secretary's hungry.

“Thank you!” My hero.

Best darn Snickers bar I ever tasted.

A little while later, I caught sight of myself in a mirror, and understood. He'd decided to take pity on me and feed me. Snickers withdrawal isn't a pretty sight.

May and Cold and Things that Overflow

2006-05-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

Can this possibly be the month of May? It is entirely too cold outside for that. Have I been relocated to the southern hemisphere without my consent? As I was driving to work this morning, I could see the steam rising off my bagel. (No, not a fresh-baked bagel. A stale-from-the-fridge-and-toasted bagel.) It's chilly in my house, even though it's sunnier because the lot next door is being cleared and they just cut down all our shade.

Speaking of which, my darling husband had a chat with the shade-removal workers yesterday, and they agreed to leave some of the extra wood in our driveway, since that was actually easier than loading it on a truck and hauling it to the chipper. I came home from work to a driveway half buried in tree trunks. They used to be shade; now they're firewood.

Anyway, it's cold. It would be a good day to curl up by the fireplace with a good book. The way I spend most of January.

Books, books, books. I have lots of books. So many books that I need more shelves.

I spotted a "What book is on your nightstand" discussion today, and it got me thinking. I don't exactly have a nightstand, more like a series of drawers and shelves that runs parallel to the bed. And it doesn't just have one book on it, but piles.

The first pile is the Recently Read pile. It's big. These are books that I have read in the last two or three months, ever since I ran out of shelf space. Someday, I'll have to find a place to relocate this pile, and it may need to be done with a forklift. It keeps growing, and occasionally the cats knock it over. There's at least thirty books there, I'd guess. Probably more, but I'm not about to count them when I could be writing.

Then there's the To Be Read pile. It lives in a crate that's about a foot by eighteen inches. Except that lately, the TBR pile has outgrown the crate, so there are a dozen more books next to the crate.

I like books. They sharpen my mind. They make me laugh and cry. Sometimes, they give me a break from whatever ugliness is going on in my life. Other times, they remind me that it could be worse. Sometimes, I wonder why I keep so many that I probably won't read again. But every time I have to pick up a stack of books that Skulky, Squishy, or Sneaky creatively rearranged on the floor, I look at one or two and remember how great they were. Then I read them again to see how the author did it.

On the other hand, when I read a truly bad book, I take notes. Last week, I tossed a book into my Give Away pile (also overflowing) after realizing how easily a novel can be ruined by a bad copyeditor. Some days, I don't think I can possibly write well enough that anyone would want to read what I've created. Other days, I read a published novel and think, “That's all it takes? See you on the bestseller list!”

Now if I could just get my writing brain to overflow, and my editing brain to freeze up . . .

When writers leave the cave, and simple things get complicated

2006-05-08T20:54:00.000-05:00

Random Silly link of the Day: The eBay Song. Just click Play.

A few weeks back, I had the bright idea to buy some rubber bands. Not regular little ones, but the big, stretchy ones for wrapping around a manuscript before mailing it. You really have no idea what a 200-page document looks like until you've printed one, but believe me, it can't be stapled together.

So I was in a friendly neighborhood office superstore in someone else's neighborhood (because I live in the middle of nowhere, and our closest office store is two counties over) in the shipping-packaging-tape-and-rubber-bands aisle, and I realized that I never knew how many kinds of rubber bands there were. And that they have a whole sizing system. What, exactly, is a Size 19 rubber band? Size 32? Who knew?

Of course, none of them looked nearly large enough to stretch around a stack of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven pages. My darling SuperHusband wouldn't take no for an answer, so we went to another friendly neighborhood office superstore in that same neighborhood (How come they get two?), where they had lots of Size 16 rubber bands but, still, nothing like what I needed. At the third friendly neighborhood office superstore, this time in a different city altogether, we found a place on the shelf marked "file bands," but it was empty.

What the heck's a file band?

Anyway, last week, while I was waiting for my husband to show up to a Very Important Occasion and he was running late, it was because he was back at the store buying me file bands. In bright neon colors. They're exactly what I need, and they fit perfectly around my 200-page manuscript. They'll probably even fit around a 400-page manuscript when the time comes. These things are so amazing, they even have a website.

Now that that's settled, I'm going back into my cave for a month. It will take a while to produce a manuscript worthy of the hot pink rubber bands.

Pay Toilets?

2006-04-26T16:09:00.000-05:00

Random Silly Link of the Day: Hoops and YoYo

I was using a store bathroom the other day, and there was a woman with a little girl in the stall next to me. It was one of those huge handicapped ones that's the size of a developing country.

Anyway, the mom was telling the little girl to hurry up and go potty, because grandma and grandpa were waiting. Nothing like putting on lots of pressure to help someone perform, right? But the girl was refusing to pee. She was crying and protesting in that kind of semi-baby-talk that only a mother can understand. Over the protests, her mother said, "Hold on, let me see if I have something in my wallet for you."

While the mother offered her some change and the girl kept whining, I was sitting in the next stall thinking, No fair! How come I never get paid to pee? Is there a living in that? Which strategy would produce more income: drinking gallons of water so you'd have to pee huge amounts, or consuming vast quantities of caffeine so you'd pee more frequently, but only a little at a time?

Then the grandmother rushed in, demanding to know what was taking so long. She hadn't given the girl nearly enough time to use the bathroom. I know this because I was still peeing, and little girls take at least twice as long as grown-up girls.

"She won't go," the mother complained.

"Well, why not?" grandma asked.

Did it occur to either of these people that maybe she didn't need to go? Come on, she was sitting on a toilet and hearing the sound of running water. At what point can you expect a kid to just hold it until the next stop? How critical is it for her to pee RIGHT now? In THIS bathroom?

"She says it's too big."

"What's wrong with this one?"

As I exited my stall, grandma was gesturing impatiently towards one of the regular, non-handicapped stalls, while mom was explaining that there wasn't enough room for her to stand in there with her daughter. At least not without touching the sides and everything. Which would be gross.

Grandma sighed and said, "I'll take her."

Mom shrugged and let the little girl out of the big, scary bathroom stall and pocketed the coin she'd been using as a bribe. The little girl protested again.

"No, you don't get it now. That was part of the deal. You only got it if you went in that one."

Drat. There goes my whole money-making scheme. It wouldn't be worth it to drive all the way there just to use the bathroom.

"Not fair!" It was the first intelligible thing I heard the little girl say. Wow, she learns quick.

The grandmother hustled the very upset, unpaid little girl into the tiny stall, again admonishing her to hurry up. When I left, it sounded like she wasn't having any better luck than mom, who was fixing her hair.

I half-expected a grandfatherly-looking guy standing outside the bathroom and tapping his foot, but there was no one. I think grandpa may have been the guy reading the newspaper in a comfy chair near the exit.

I lost count. Can somebody tell me how many things are wrong with this picture?

Emptying my Mind

2006-04-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.
~Lord Byron

I haven't written in a while. I've been in a slump. My brain has been busy, and so it's too tired when I actually find time to write. As a result, my sanity level has fallen into the single digits.

Last night, my husband told me I needed to go empty my mind. I got lost in the sheets and was mid-panic when he said, “Not now! Go to sleep!” Now you tell me. You could have spared me all that thrashing.

Jenny Crusie occasionally does Random Sunday on her blog, but I doubt I'll be that charming today. Equally random, though.

I saw a picture of a chocolate chip cookie in an ad today, and it brought back memories. When I was a teenager, I was the chief cookie-baker in the household. I had a favorite recipe memorized for fabulous chocolate chip cookies. The strange thing was, they never came out quite the same. One time they'd be big and chewy, another they'd be thin and crispy. Sometimes, they'd be thin and chewy – I still have no idea how I pulled that off. Occasionally, they'd have a thin, wrinkly skin. One of my friends dubbed them “Personality cookies.” Yum. I want some.

The other day, I heard a loud crash coming from the other end of the house, where I thought my husband was. I mean, seriously huge. I wondered why he wasn't screaming. So I yelled, “Are you okay?”

No answer.

So I put down whatever I was reading, located my cane (yup, toe still broken) and hobbled across the living room. I was halfway there when I heard the toilet flush, followed by my husband throwing open the bathroom door to yell, “Are you okay?”

Turned out that one of the cats – Skulky, Squishy, and Sneaky, or possibly all three – had toppled their kitty condo. No harm done. The cats didn't even panic and bolt into the living room like the time they did when a window slammed shut while they were napping. That time, they all darted to separate corners of the house, scattering an entire bowl of cat food and knocking two dozen books off a shelf. Sneaky found a half-full laundry basket to hide in, and Skulky made a full lap around the living room without being noticed by the resident canines. I think Squishy went under the bed.

Hmm, chocolate chip cookies. Just took my chocolate-chip-cookie substitute out of the oven, and it smells yummy. Hope it kills the craving, because I'm not crazy about torture.

In our previous residence, we lived in a small city with flat roads and lots of stoplights. Now we live out in the country, where the roads are bumpy and curvy and hilly, and there's only one stoplight between home and wherever we're going.

I say that because it's much easier to put on makeup in the car in the first situation than the second. It used to be that if we were running late to church in the morning, I could easily grab my makeup and let my husband drive. I'd be all made up by the time we got where we were going, and look just as good as if I'd done my makeup in my own bathroom. Better, possibly, because natural light is better than bathroom light.

Doesn't work so well on bumpy, curvy, hilly country roads. Darn. I'll just have to get up earlier. Why doesn't someone invent a home-use IV that can inject caffeine on a timer first thing in the morning? Honestly, if I could have that first jolt of caffeine before the alarm clock goes off, I wouldn't have to buy as many alarm clocks. They'd get beat up less often.

Did you ever have an alarm clock so terrible that it automatically put you in a bad mood in the morning? I used to have one that sounded like a fire alarm or something, and it really pissed me off. Even if I was wide awake before it sounded. I just hated it. Which made me want to break it and go back to sleep, so I could start the day with anything other than that sound. I gave it to my brother, who said it was an improvement over the air-raid alert sound of his old alarm clock, so we were both happy.

Normally, when you go to the Red Cross to give blood, you get these great nurses who do nothing but take blood all day, so they're really good at it. They get the needle in right the first time, and everything's really quick and easy. Last week, the lady who took my history was great. She nearly had all the embarrassing questions memorized, where she had to ask me if I've ever had sex with someone who has had sex with someone who was born in Africa and/or taking illegal drugs and/or a prostitute. But then she turned me over to, I can only suppose, the new guy. He was all unsure and hesitant, and I had to sit in that funny collapsible chair with my feet propped up for the longest time before he got around to the actual needle-sticking part. Then he left a bruise.

I hate that. I mean, I bruise easily, in general. But not usually from needle sticks. This is the first time I've ever had a bruise from donating blood, and I blame the new guy. Not to brag or anything, but I have really great veins. Seriously. One time when I had blood taken for tests, the lab lackey actually cheered when I rolled up my sleeve. Having blood taken is not a painful process for me. At least, not usually.

The post-donation information, which I usually don't read, informed me that if a bruise appears, it might turn “a rainbow of colors” over the next several days. Just what I always wanted. Well, that and a free Red Cross umbrella.

Just went and ate some chocolate-chip-cookie-substitute. Nope. Didn't work. I still want a chocolate chip cookie.

The woman who shares my office is now walking with a cane as well. I can't decide if she was jealous of me, or if our office is more hazardous than it appears. Maybe the copy machine emits bone-weakening rays. Or the freaky lighting affects our balance, making us more prone to injury.

On the other hand, maybe my officemate just recognized the wide scope of uses for my cane, and decided it was necessary in our profession. You never know when someone's going to need a good, sharp whack to the head.

Speaking of whacks to the head, I like to read the magazine covers when I'm in the checkout line at the grocery store. The celebrity gossip magazines always make me laugh: one will have Nick and Jessica getting back together, another will have him dating her best friend. A couple weeks back, I drew some looks when I laughed at the headline: “Britney's Shock: Kevin Gets a Job!” Wow, that's newsworthy! I came home and said to my husband, “Honey, if I'm ever famous enough that people put my life on the cover of magazines, I promise not to ask surprised when you do something right.”

He gave me a funny look, then laughed and went back to his sci-fi novel. Or was it fantasy? I have trouble telling the difference sometimes. If it has dragons, it's fantasy. If it has spaceships, it's sci-fi. Really, though, the lines are often blurred.

Don't you hate it when you have a pen that won't write anymore? I don't mean when you run out of ink – that just means you've used it up. But when the pen still has ink in it, and you can see it, but it won't write? What do you do with those pens? Does anyone have a tip for making them work again? I'm a writer, and I'm very attached to my pens. They're important to me. And when I reach for one and it fails me, it just ruins my whole day. How do I make my pens work again?

And now, I'm back to work, brain sucessfully emptied, at least a little. I'll just keep muttering the words of Gene Fowler under my breath: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

I guess the blood's for when my pen won't work.

Excuses for not blogging

2006-04-17T13:52:00.000-05:00

Has it really been more than two weeks? YIKES! Well, I've been busy. I even dropped out of one of my favorite activities because I realized there's a limit to how many meals I can safely skip in a given week. I cleaned my house -- some of it, anyway. I spent two hours on the phone with Gateway tech support (who eventually said they couldn't help me, so I hung up and called the SAME NUMBER and talked to someone who could), taught my sister-in-law how to cook steak, spent three afternoons and half a night outside painting, dropped half a crib on my leg, and tossed my suitcases and my husband and my cane in the car and left town.

Actually, I think he did the tossing. It's all a little foggy in my memory.

I didn't use the internet much while I was traveling, and now I'm recovering from traveling. Give me another week before I'm capable of intelligent thought.

Also, I was embarrassed that at the beginning of April, I had basically nothing good to say in my monthly update. Writing? Progress? Not so much. I didn't meet my goals for March, and April's been eating me alive. My latest milestone was printing out an entire second-draft manuscript and handing it to my critique partner (CP, from now on). The idea is that she reads it, gives me a writer's perspective on what needs to be changed, then I fix it. In the meantime, I have to see if I remember how to write fiction. I've abandoned several characters in precarious situations, and now I have to go rescue them before I forget who they are and how they got there.

If that doesn't make sense, it just means that you're neither a writer, nor schizophrenic.

Some days, I wonder which one I am.

No thanks, I don't have one of those.

2006-03-30T20:56:00.000-05:00

My email program is very good at catching spam. Which is important, since I get a lot of it. All those nasty unwanted messages get diverted to their very own spam folder instead of cluttering up my inbox. They sit there, ignored, until thirty days have passed and they get automatically deleted. This system works well for me, because it requires no input on my part. Every once in a while I take a peek at the top few messages in the spam folder to make sure none of my real mail has landed there, but that's rarely necessary.

Today, I took a peek at my spam folder for another reason: the message count had exceeded 200.

Um, hello? Why would anyone go to so much trouble to send me 200 messages that I won't see? Furthermore, why are so many of these messages trying to convince me to enlarge body parts I don't even have?

I used to keep a list of spammer names so I could misuse them in future novels. In the wise words of Garrison Keillor: "Never insult a writer. You may wind up being immortalized in ways you do not appreciate."

Hazel Frost, for example, sounds like someone's sweet old granny. But she's not. She's an evil spammer, peddling irreputable pharmaceuticals. She's a mean old spinster who poisons neighborhood cats, frightens small children, and cheats on her taxes. She murdered the only man who ever tried to court her and buried him in the basement. Rumor has it there's a headstone and everything, like a little indoor cemetery. Not that anyone's ever been in Hazel Frost's basement to find out for sure -- they might end up a permanent resident. Don't even walk past too slowly if you can help it. Try not to look at her when she's sweeping her front porch. If she threatens you with her broom, she means it.

Lately, I've had to give up on my list of names, though. Hazel Frost at least sounds like a real person. Nobody would believe a villain named Accentuate Q. Cokes or Partisan J. Viewfinder. Honestly, why would anyone ever open an email from someone called Stencil A. Traipsing or Blockheads G. Personalize?

Some of these names, I don't even want to know about. Entrepreneurial Fetish? Drollness D. Beasley? I know there's not a parent on the planet who would curse their child with a name like Quadrangle O. Protagoras or Fowl Bacon. Give it a rest!

On the other hand, there are still a few spammers who have a chance at being immortalized in ways they won't appreciate. Kristy Dagen, Martha Hill, and Neil Voss all sound like remarkably normal people. Of course, they're not. Martha's a software pirate, Neil sells fake rolexes out of his jacket, and Kristy has a meth lab in her attic.

Luella Wiggins -- now there's a name I can do something with. She wrote to inform me about how many women are unsatisfied with their partners, but I think she's just projecting her own problems on everyone else. Darryl Dickey could stand to die of stupidity. Byron Rollins (who addressed me as "hey bro") wears a pocket protector and gets beat up by a girl.

Yeah, on second thought, I'm keeping the spammer list. It must be a healthy outlet for my frustration, otherwise I wouldn't be having this much fun!

Tell me -- who's your most ridiculous spammer?

In Praise of Canes

2006-03-18T13:16:00.000-05:00

February/March project: Limping along, much like me
Revisions: Somewhere around 2/3 done, I think, and not nearly as bloody as I'd anticipated.
Sanity level: 32%

Okay, I've been slacking here this month. Bad Julie. But I have excuses like you wouldn't believe! Among them are technical difficulties, more headaches from the tech people at work, a court date, a sinus infection, a power outage, and a broken bone. I'll spare you the details.

Except when it comes to the broken bone, because that part's almost funny. I broke a toe on Sunday afternoon. I was dizzy and woozy from being sick, and I fell down the only stair in my house.

That's right, there's only one stair in our house. Not a flight of stairs. A singular stair. Even that appears to be more than I can handle.

I've always been clumsy. When I was a kid and I'd walk into walls, my dad would chuckle and say, "We shoulda named her Grace." Do you think if they had, I'd spend less of my life injured?

My toe has finally faded (along with the two toes next to it and a large portion of my foot) to a dull gray, after having been black and blue, then several shades of purple, then a nauseating green over the course of the week.

Just over a year ago, I broke my left pinky toe. This time, it's the toe next to my left pinky toe. Naturally, that prompted my sarcastic husband to suggest that I was working my way across, and that I'd get to my right pinky toe in about ten years. If I'd had my cane, I would have thwapped him with it.

But he was nice and got the day off work to take me to the doctor (because I can't possibly drive with my left foot injured, or something like that) and he carried me piggyback through the parking lot because it hurt to walk. On the way home, I said I wanted a cane. Because it hurt to walk. He said he had no problem with buying me one, because I was sure to break another toe in the near future.

For that, I did thwap him.

He took me to Wal-Mart, though, where I collapsed in the blood-pressure-taking station (because it hurt to walk!) while he found the canes and brought them to me. Almost like having a personal shopper!

I love my cane. I can already tell that this broken toe is healing faster than my last one, plus I've been getting around faster and taking fewer painkillers than last time. It's also very handy for pushing doors closed, knocking things off high shelves, and beating on the floor to get the dogs' attention. I can also use it to flip light switches, saving me those last two excruciating steps to get there.

And it's adjustable, so if my sarcastic husband is the next one to break a toe, he'll be able to borrow it. But not until I've thwapped him with it.

What are you doing May 19th?

2006-03-16T11:39:00.000-05:00

I snagged this idea off another blog, and I think it's brilliant. (Like I needed an excuse to go to the movies!)

May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor.

What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one.

Here are the usual suspects:

A) We can ignore the movie.

The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot box closes on the Sunday of opening weekend. If you stay home, you have lost your chance to make your vote heard. You have thrown your vote away, and from Hollywood's point of view, you don't count. By staying home, you do nothing to shape the decision-making process regarding what movies will make it to the big screen.

B) We can protest.

The problem with this option: It doesn't work. Any publicity is good publicity. Protests not only fuel the box office, they make all Christians look like idiots. And again, protests and boycotts do nothing to help shape the decisions being made right now about what movies Hollywood will make in the next few years. (Or they convince Hollywood to make *more* movies that will provoke Christians to protest, which will drive the box office up.)

But there's a third choice.

On May 19th, you should go to the movies.

Just go to another movie.

Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st -- that's the day the ballot box closes. You'll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.

Use your vote. Don't throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won't have a choice...

Let's rock the box office in a way no one expects -- without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let's show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.

May 19th. Mark your calendars now...

And spread the word. Forward this e-mail to all the Christians in your address book. Post it on your blogs. Talk about it to your churches. And let's all go to the movies.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

2006-03-03T13:20:00.000-05:00

If I wrote this in a novel, no one would believe it, although they might laugh out loud like I just did. Here's the scoop, from thisistrue.com:

I’m So Depressed

About five percent of people on the anti-depressant drug clomipramine have noticed an interesting side effect: when they yawn, they have an orgasm. While a more common side effect of the drug is a reduction in sexual desire, “one woman, better after being depressed for three months, wanted to keep taking the tablets” so she could continue enjoying the side effect, a report in the journal New Scientist noted. Some can produce the result by purposefully yawning, but others “would presumably actively seek out the most boring person they could find at parties,” the journal said. (Reuters) ...What a terrible TV show! Was it good for you, too?

Highly Recommended

2006-03-02T15:41:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, I read a lot of novels. Some would say too many, but that's debatable. But this is one worth sharing. I opened it a few days ago to read a couple chapters before bed, and couldn't put it down. It's a great romance (don't be fooled by the pregnant lady on the cover -- it's mostly not about pregnancy) without all the sex and ickiness that a lot of stories have. I'm terrible at reviewing books, so I won't go on. Except to say that you should read it. It's good.

And I know that picture's huge. My efforts to shrink it were useless.

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb?

2006-03-01T23:42:00.000-05:00

Whoever came up with that silly phrase, anyway? March is here! And it came in like . . . well, a lot like February. Maybe the Lion thing is because March is so darn pushy. It's in such an all-fired hurry that February can't even finish a normal monthly allotment of thirty days. March is a great big bully.

March is also a month for editing novels. I don't know who decided this one, either, but there's a whole organization built around editing novels in March, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I have to edit someday, right? Might as well have someone to commiserate with.

Which brings me to my monthly check-in.

January Project: 100% Hooray! The ending stinks, though. I still have work to do. But unless inspiration strikes me by the end of the week, I'm declaring the first draft done.

February/March Project: 8% Terrible, I know. But I've also been doing some of the foundation work, so some of the later writing should go more smoothly. Should.

Sanity level: 43% and falling.

March writing goal: See that 8%? Should be 50% by now. I'll make it 100% by the end of the month. Also, I'm revising an earlier project. I hear that process involves lots of pain and agony and blood, so if you come to my blog and hear screaming, just back away quietly.

Train wreck

2006-02-28T21:41:00.000-05:00

You know the saying, "It's like looking at a train wreck?" Even though you know it's going to be ugly and horrible and violent and depressing, some part of you is so curious that you can't help but stare. I'm sure we've all felt that way at some time. But have you ever felt like the train wreck?

I've been sick for the last couple weeks. A silly little cold/sinus thing grabbed hold of me and held on, and I've been beyond loopy. I missed most of the weekend, between napping and hallucinating. The hallucinating gets people's attention. The same people that don't want to know the details of your sinus agony are perversely interested in what weird things are going on in your brain. They stare in shock and disbelief and ask silly questions. Of everything that goes on in my life, this is what makes me the center of attention.

Actually, the doctor said they weren't hallucinations if I knew they weren't real. Which I knew. I've had dreams that were more real. I mean, when you see something huge and black and creepy coming towards you from the side, and you blink and turn your head and it's just your cat, Sneaky, who isn't even black, then it's obvious that you're hallucinating. Or having a visual anomaly. Or whatever.

Likewise, when you're singing in church and your microphone starts melting even though it's barely sixty degrees in there, it's obviously not real. Although, I stuck with that one long enough to wonder how I was ever going to explain that to the sound guy. He takes our audio equipment very seriously.

Turns out it's probably the decongestants that were making me crazy. Stay away from Sudafed, I'm telling you! The sad thing is, I can't decide whether I'd rather keep seeing things and hearing things (did I mention the sirens, the power saw, and the waterfall?) if it means I get to breathe all nice and easy. Which would you choose?

Hippie Car

2006-02-25T12:14:00.000-05:00

Look, we got a new "pre-owned" car! And it's a diesel, too! This baby is replacing Jeannie (may she rest in peace), only she gets even better mileage. (I know this picture looks like it's at a campground or something, but that's actually my driveway. Welcome to Virginia.)

Just give me a few months, and I'll have her all tricked out with a veggie oil conversion kit, daisy hubcaps, tie-dyed seat covers, and a bumper sticker that says My other car is a pair of Birkenstocks.

And according to Motor Trend magazine, you can cram twelve people into this baby. Just in case you were wondering.

Zombie Girl

2006-02-23T17:05:00.000-05:00

Today's stats:
January project: 98% (but not really)
February/March project: This number is too embarrassing to post
Sanity level: 50%

I started a new job. I hate that. There's always some confusion when you're a newbie and no one else is. What is my place here? Where are my boundaries, and am I overstepping them?

Mostly, though, I've been staring, wide-eyed, trying to take everything in. I've been out of the conventional work force for a few years, and my last few jobs were in small environments where I didn't deal with very many people. Now I'm in a high school, and I'm trying to remember how I survived high school, as well as learn everyone's names and figure out what exactly I'm responsible for. I'm sure I looked like a zombie the whole first day, just staring at everything and everyone. It's like culture shock.

I think I'll like my job once I settle in. I've never been good at dealing with change, so I just have to force myself through the transition period. Everyone loves the woman I'm going to replace, so that's really intimidating. I don't know if I can fill her shoes. And no one expects me to; they figure nobody can be as wonderful as she is.

Looking back, it's encouraging to remember a job where everyone loved me. Where they thought nobody could be as wonderful as me and they were sorry to see me go. Quit smirking, it's true! And even if it isn't, I desperately need to cling to that illusion right now, okay?

Today was less chaotic than any of my previous days at the office, so I'm hopeful that there will be more calm days to come. If not, you can expect to see my sanity quotient drop even further.

Come to think of it, it wasn't even a student who gave me my biggest headache today. It was the guy in the tech office. He insisted that someone sign my Acceptable Computer Use Agreement (or whatever that form is called) in the space marked Parent/Guardian. Excuse me, but since when does an adult need a parent's permission to access a filtered public school intranet? I managed to convince him that my supervisor's signature would be acceptable. So if you hear me calling her Mom, it's because I'm trying to make it look legitimate.

Calling all HTML wizards!

2006-02-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

I hate my font. Why does every blogger blog show up in a nice normal, compact font, while mine takes over your screen in gigantic kindergarten-sized letters? I hate that!

And I can't figure out how to fix it. Please help! My blog thanks you.

UPDATE: I'd wondered why nobody leaves me comments, then I realized that I'd turned on comment moderation, which required that I approve comments before they appear, and I didn't realize that they were sitting somewhere waiting for me. Oops. So thanks for stopping by, and thanks for commenting! Sorry I censored you. It was completely unintentional.

Snowed In

2006-02-12T13:27:00.000-05:00

I grew up in the Midwest, where people are used to snow. A little bit of snow doesn't stop anybody from doing whatever they want to do, unless it involves gardening. People go to school in snow, they do their grocery shopping, and if outdoor sports are cancelled, they spend that time building snowmen. Life does not stop for snow, unless it's deeper than the plow blades are tall.

Not in the Mid-Atlantic. We had five inches of snow last night, and this morning, church was cancelled. Church! The roads aren't even icy!

In any case, while I'm "snowed in," (Not really, because my wonderful husband managed to drive all the way to Wal-Mart to buy a snow shovel and a broom to replace the one he'd been using as a snow shovel) I thought I'd tell a story that I heard over the holidays.

A relative in Indiana had to go to work on a day when school was cancelled (no doubt for multiple feet of snow) and left her two daughters, ages between 10 and 16, home by themselves. They live at the top of a steep driveway at the end of a cul-de-sac, so naturally the girls decided to go sledding down the driveway.

After several trips down the driveway and into the cul-de-sac, the driveway wasn't slick enough anymore. So, being resourceful young women, they looked in mom's kitchen for something to speed up their fun, and came away with PAM cooking spray.

That's right. They sprayed down the driveway with vegetable oil in a can, and spent the rest of the afternoon whooshing right down the slope and most of the way across the road. All good, harmless fun.

About an hour after their mom got home that evening, the daughters informed her that her SUV was in the middle of the road. She told them they must be mistaken, because she'd parked it in the driveway like a sane human being. She thought she put the parking brake on. But they insisted that she take a look, and they were right.

That Jeep had slid straight down the lubricated driveway and parked itself in the middle of the cul-de-sac. With the parking brake on.

I hate Mondays.

2006-02-09T17:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, it's Thursday and I'm blogging about Mondays. But I couldn't blog this until I told my mother about it, because it would suck to be her and read about it on the internet.

My husband got into a car accident on Monday. First thing in the morning. In rush hour traffic. He's fine, thank God. It's a miracle that he walked away without a scratch. It's a miracle that there wasn't a dozen-car pileup on the interstate. I'm very grateful for these miracles.

But we didn't get the miracle of having our car come through unscathed. Or even in driveable condition. It's in the custody of the insurance company, in critical condition. We don't know whether they'll fix it and give it back to us for the price of our deductible, or whether they'll declare it totalled and write us a check for what they believe it's worth.

Not that they have any idea what it's worth. That car is very special to me. Her name is (was? ouch!) Jean, or Jeannie. She was my first car, at the age of nineteen. My mother bought her for me as a graduation present, which always seemed a little suspicious to me. It was the spring of 2000, and I was still in my second year of college. I actually graduated in May 2001, a full year early, but I can't remember if that schedule was firm by the time I got Jeannie. No matter.

Coincidentally, I'd recently broken up with my college boyfriend. Who my mother hated. Well, I don't know that she hated him, exactly, but she hated that I was dating him.

He had a car. So I think Mom's gift of a car was her way of encouraging my independence from him.

Thanks, Mom.

She was a good car. She carted me and my friends around Northern Indiana for a few semesters, then took me safely to Arizona after graduation, then back home after a few months when I decided that Arizona wasn't my thing. I kept her oil changed and never ground her gears, and she never gave me a bit of trouble. If I ever get another car, I want one just like Jeannie.

The worst part about Monday mornings is how they can set the tone for your whole week. No matter what else happens this week, it's still the Week That Began With A Car Wreck. Blech.

Stay tuned for next week, the Week I Start My New Job. With any luck, it'll be more fun than a car wreck!

Yes, I'm okay!

2006-02-03T09:05:00.000-05:00

No time to blog. Must write fiction.

But I thought I'd stop in and tell you that for the last two days, I've been writing two books at once, and I think it's going quite well. Yesterday, I had a major revelation about what direction the plot of book 2 needs to go, and a minor revelation about the backstory in book 1. So I'm feeling really good about all this craziness.

The one thing I don't get is this: Why do people keep looking at me funny and asking if I'm okay? What is wrong with me? Do I look rumpled? Flushed? Pale? Bags under my eyes? (The last two are entirely possible, because I've been sick lately.) Am I walking around with a vacant expression on my face because half my brain is off exploring fictionland?

Even if it is, I'm sticking to my original answer. Yes, I'm okay! Yes, I'm sure! And if you ask me again, I might be forced to kick you in the shins!

No time to rant. Must write fiction.

Monthly Check-up

2006-02-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

January over. January writing goal completion: 63%.

February goals:
1. Finish book I didn't finish in January.
2. Write that book that I've been putting off for a year because I'm afraid to write it. It's bigger than me. It's about people twice my age, who have lived things I haven't even seen, let alone experienced. I started thinking about it last year in January, and even wrote the first scene, but shoved it aside because it was just too hard.

Well, it's time to suck it up. You can't be a wimp forever. Sometimes, you just have to do things that scare you. Like write a book that matters.

Unlike my last couple projects, I'm terrified of messing this one up. Not only am I more likely to screw it up royally, just because of the plot and characters and details that are totally over my head, but the stakes are somehow higher. Some things, you can do a bad job and it doesn't really matter. This book isn't one of them. So it is with much fear, trepidation, and prayer that I even think about starting this one.

The part that makes me really crazy: Now I'm writing two books at once. I asked my online writing group for advice on whether that was a good idea, and they all told me no. Said they tried and couldn't do it. Wasn't worth the hassle. Had to give up halfway through. Sounds like it's impossible.

I'm doing it anyway. So here's my stats for the beginning of February:

January project: 63%
February project: 0%
Sanity level: 80%

I'll let you know in a month whether the first two values are inversely proportional to the second.

Bored?

2006-01-31T22:19:00.000-05:00

I've written this post twice now, and Blogger has deleted it twice. Here's the short version:

Wal-Mart Vision Center sucks. Don't leave without your prescription on paper. Ever.

Go see my friend Nick's blog.

Happy Anniversary, Nick and Meghan! I told a funny little story about the two of you, but now I'm sick of telling it, so you'll just have to believe that it was cute and funny and would have made you laugh. Here's the ending: You guys rock. Congratulations!

I am so screwed.

2006-01-30T12:58:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, I posted that there were five days left in January.

Oops.

I'm a writer, not a mathematician, okay?

So, as of now, there are two days left in January. Counting this one. And my novel, that I was planning to have finished by the end of the month? Just over half finished.

I am so screwed.

And February is going to suck. I hate playing catch-up. And I hate feeling like I'm too busy. My husband told me the other day that he couldn't maintain the pace I've been going. This is the man who spends fifteen hours a week commuting, on top of his 45 or so hours of work! He says I'm busy? Yikes.

Something's got to go. Some major section of my to-do list has to be crossed off. I vote for hiring a housekeeper. I'll still do the cooking and grocery shopping, but someone else can clean the kitchen and do the laundry. That way I'll have time for my writing, reading, music lessons, church groups, and the million other things that seem to steal my time. Sound good?

Bleh. Back to work.

I don't want to think about it.

2006-01-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

How long has it been since I've written an update? I don't even want to know.

I will, however, tell you about some of the crazy things I've done, attempted, and committed in the meantime.

Ever heard of National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo? The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. While thousands of other people do the same impossible thing, so you can all commiserate. The founder of all this insanity wrote a book about it, called No Plot? No Problem! which is about writing more fiction faster than you thought humanly possible. Well, I did it. I managed fiftysomething thousand words, and I have a complete story, with a beginning, middle, and end, and a reasonably connected plot. It's actually hilarious.

I haven't gone back to read it yet, though. So I'm not sure whether it's a brilliant comedy, or just the kind of ridiculousness that comes from living on more caffeine than sleep for a month.

In December, I wrapped up the first draft of that novel that was giving me so much trouble in September. It needs work. There's a subplot that came apart in the middle, and a big argument that needs to be much bigger. But the ending is right and the bad guy gets kicked in the nuts, so I'm not going to throw it out just yet. Draft number two may be a project for February.

Here's the kicker. Remember that NaNoWriMo thing I did in November? Well, a bunch of us over on the NaNoWriMo forums were having so much fun, that we thought we could keep it up. (Yes, we're nuts. I think we were all high on caffeine and deadline-induced adrenaline at the time.) So somebody came up with the idea of NaNoWriMoYe -- National Novel Writing Month Year. No, it's not really national. And you're right, that title doesn't make a ton of sense. But here's the idea: write a 50,000 word novel in a month, every month for the year 2006.

Sounded like a good New Year's resolution to me. Good practice. Learn to write when you don't feel like it. Learn to write on a deadline. Learn to write through writer's block until you're churning out words like it's nothing.

So here we are, five days left in the month of January, and I want to shoot myself.

But I can't quit yet! It's only January! I refuse to be defeated when I've barely even started!

Back to work. But if you don't hear from me for the rest of the month, I'm writing.

And if you don't hear from me for the first week in February, I'm catching up on sleep.

Speedy Shipping

2005-09-16T12:38:00.000-05:00

I got an unexpected blessing today! I ordered some books from Amazon.com on Sunday, and I didn't bother paying for upgraded shipping. I tracked the package online today, and the delivery date was estimated at the 21st. The 21st! Five days away! And that wouldn't be so bad, except that we're leaving on vacation on the 20th. And I was moping over the fact that I wouldn't have my new books for the long drive. One of the books is a lovely fat novel, and two are writing books that I'm hoping will help me break through the writer's block.

Surprise! I opened the mailbox this afternoon, and there they were. Thanks, God! I really needed this encouragement right now. I've caught myself wondering if I'm ever going to finish this novel, or if I'm even supposed to. Now help has arrived five days earlier than expected -- and exactly when I needed it. God is good.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to do. And some writing. Oh, and some painting. But that can wait.

Lip Balm Love

2005-09-06T16:54:00.000-05:00

I put lip balm on a total stranger today. Yes, with my finger. It was the icky, sticky, petroleum-jelly-based kind, and even after several minutes of scrubbing, the scent of it followed me around all day. I checked my top ten list of things I did not expect to do today, and this one wasn't even on there because it never occurred to me that I'd find myself doing such a bizarre thing.

She was an elderly lady in a wheelchair who seemed to have trouble holding her head up straight. Stroke victim, maybe? She could move her arms, but had trouble moving her fingers and holding small things. Her speech was clear, though, and she was very talkative. Talkative like a lonely person, know what I mean? Like nobody's taken the time to listen to her lately. It made me sad to see her stuck there in a church hallway, waiting for her daughter to finish a counseling session. She was alone, with no place else to go and nothing to do, and she was totally bored. On the one hand, I hate to see anybody treated like luggage. (Let's just leave her out in the hall; she'll be fine for an hour.) On the other hand, the situation was extremely awkward and I felt desperate for a good means of escape. Is that terrible of me? Am I a calloused, uncaring person? I'm still a little creeped out, thinking about that goopy lip balm.