The Rambling Times

On my old blog, I had a tendency to talk about a bazillion different things within one post.  It was very ADHD-esque.  For this newer blog, I sort of vowed to not do that.  I wanted to keep this new, uncluttered blog ramble-free, with each post focused on one topic.

Yeah, that ends now.  Sorry.  The good news is I put headings on everything, so you can skip all the boring stuff.

Guess I'll see you in three seconds at my siggy at the bottom of the page.

So, the happenings:     

Youth Safari:  We went to this very cool thing on Saturday called "Youth Safari," which is sort of like an outdoor expo-type-thing designed to introduce kids to outdoor activities that their grandparents' generation enjoyed.  There was rock-climbing, fishing, shooting (including black powder), archery, sling-shots, falconry, kayaking, and other things I can no longer remember.  It cost $30 per family, up to six members, and all of the above activities were included in that price.  It was very cool.  I have pictures on facebook, but I'm too lazy to retrieve them right now.  I might add them in later.

Raging Waters:  We went to Raging Waters on Monday.  We had an awesome day, with only two small mishaps.  The first was Clint got physically assaulted by our last slide--purple bruises all over his legs.  That's what happens when big boys go down slides.  The second was the fact that we took about a dozen photos, and only three came out.  Something is wrong with the photo app on Clint's camera, and it corrupted his pictures.  Here's the three that made it (so sad):

Hubby's Promotion:  Clint got accepted into engineer training at his work.  Here are the pluses to his new job:  

• It's a huge raise.  As in a we're-looking-into-installing-an-in-ground-pool-this-February-type-raise.

Here are some downfalls: 

• His hours are going to royally suck.  
• He has to train in Kansas for three weeks in August, and two weeks in December.
• Training is a total of five months, and his raise doesn't kick in until after he's finished (hence the pool in February).  
• He had to sign a contract yesterday saying if he fails his training in Kansas, they can fire him.   
• We're trapped here in the High Desert for three years. 
• He can't go on the cruise with me in November.  
• I don't like change.  

So the pluses and minuses aren't quite balanced.  I wonder if all of this is worth one stupid pool?  (The obvious answer is yes, yes it is. Hello, it's a POOL).

Dinner with Kristyn:  Kristyn is visiting from Texas, and we just had a fantastic dinner at Johnny Carinos last night.  She comes up about once a year, and it's practically a tradition now for us girls (her, Shan and I) to meet for dinner and gab for a few hours.  Dinner was fun, even though my first seat tried to swallow my ass and our waiter kept calling us his babies ("How are my babies doing?").  Overall, it was our usual awesome visit and I'm excited to see her again in October.

DoT:  I'm up to almost 53,000 words, but that doesn't seem like a big enough increase to change my word meter.  My grandpa has been amazing.  He helped me to reorganize my ten chapters into fifteen, and edited my entire manuscript (what I have so far).  Damn I hope I can get the thing published in his lifetime.

New cover concept:

I really like this one, although I would modify this image to include some of the symbolic items from my story.  Such as a grandfather clock tower in the distant mist ahead, with the time "7:17" peeking through.  I would also have leaves falling around her, a rat sitting on one of those posts, and a sundial pendant dangling from her right hand.  Okay, that's a lot.  But it looks amazing in my head.  And of course, I would change the fonts--Word fonts are so dang limiting and practically shout out that the cover was pieced together by a novice.  If I do decide to self-publish, my twitter friend and fellow writer Scott Moon referred me to this site that designs book covers for a mere $99: Pro Book Covers.  They've designed three covers for Scott now, and all of them look incredible, but none of them have that "YA" look I'm going for. I might go through them, but I still plan to shop around first.

Ifeoma:  I have to mention Ifeoma at least once on this blog.  She and I met through twitter, where we discovered that we were both working on manuscripts that we had both dubbed "DOT" (hers stands for Daughter of the Twelfth--isn't that a fantastic title?).  As it turns out, Ifeoma is not only my newfound DOT buddy, but she is simply a sweetheart of a person and a talented writer.  Check her out here.

Clocks:  I didn't realize it until the kids pointed it out yesterday, but I guess I'm sort of getting obsessed with clocks and time.

Blue:  My favorite color is now blue.

Okay, I think that covers this edition of the Rambling Times.