Newsletter!

Since I'm no longer on Twitter, and since I suck at keeping up with my blog, I realized I needed a way to get updates out to Chasing Echoes readers. Whatever method I chose had to be something that wasn't too much of a time commitment, as history has proven repeatedly that I'm flaky with writing with any kind of regularity. So after discussing the issue with other writers, I decided to start a newsletter. The biggest selling feature for me is it's something I only have to send out once a month. I can do that! I feel good about this. (Zip it.) Anyway, here's the link if you (reader of this blog) would like to check it out: Jodi's Newsletter. The first issue will most likely go out tomorrow. 

After I finish transferring some posts over to my author's website, I'll be letting go of this blog. It's not worth paying for my Ocean in a Cup URL anymore when I don't blog enough. This triggers all sorts of sad-feels in me but I'll skip all that for now. I still plan on blogging a little bit at my author's site, but you know how that goes. The newsletter will now be my main source for updates. Anyway, I'll do one more post here announcing that my blog has moved as soon as it's official.

Distance learning has had me swamped lately and I've been horrible with keeping up with anything, but to those of you whose blogs I usually follow, I hope/plan to catch up soon. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Deleting Twitter & Teaching on Zoom

I deleted Twitter. That place has become a cesspool. It got to the point where I asked myself if selling a few books was worth wading through the daily shrieking and finger-pointing on that site, and ultimately I decided I'd rather never sell a book again than see one more boycott hashtag or self-victimizing-drone who thinks their mindless bleating is original thought.

Sorry.

(^Also sorry that I'm not really sorry.)

Only problem is Twitter was kind of my only venue for selling books. I'm still on Facebook, but really that's for family and friends--people who already know I have a book out without being told via a post. Twitter was how I reached the outside world. Not sure how to circumvent that, but I have faith that it'll somehow work out. I'm just so relieved at this point to have the stink of Twitter out of my life, and book sales or not, I'll never stop writing.

Which, by the way, I'm now at 76% for Spring of Crows! My goal is to get to the 80% mark before we're back to work in person.

Speaking of, work is...weird. We started back to school on August 6th, but my county is on the COVID watch list, so students aren't allowed to be on campus right now. Us teachers are teaching our classes via Zoom. It sounds easier than teaching in person, but it's not. During the school day it's the same workload as regular teaching since we're doing live classes, but the behind-the-scenes planning is more intense because I have to make sure my lessons are easily understood and accessible to students working from home. Things I'd normally cover in class in five minutes can take a dozen emails back and forth. Not to mention all the technology meltdowns my district keeps experiencing. Despite all this, I'm kind of enjoying my job. It's mentally taxing trying to keep up with all the emails, engagement logs that the state is requiring, and so on, but physically I feel like I have more energy by the end of my workday. Plus my students are very sweet and very committed to coming to classes. We have a great rapport so far, even if we're all two-dimensional. It's also fun getting to meet their baby sisters and dogs, or having students respond to questions in-between bites of Top Ramen. Zoom classes expose you to layer of your students' lives that you'd never experience in a regular class setting.

That's it for now. Remind me to tell you about our weird Laughlin trip during my next post. :)

P.S. Still keeping comments off for awhile. Maybe permanently? It sucks because I do love hearing feedback on things I'm prattling on about, but at the same time I think I'd like to turn this blog back into the original 'journal' that it used to be ten years ago.

Blog Parasites

I'll do a real post soon. (Translation: anytime from tomorrow to next year). I just wanted to hop on here real quick to say I'm removing the ability to comment on my posts for a month or two. My blog has become a target for overseas spammers and bots, and I'm being bombarded through the comments. I.e. My last post is currently at 50 comments, and only four of them are from real people. It feels icky. I'm annoyed by how ridiculously impotent Blogger's spam filter is. Last week I adjusted my settings to where a Google sign-in is required, but it didn't help. Apparently spammers have Google accounts. The only thing left is to password-protect my blog (only people with the password can read it), but frankly my blog isn't juicy enough to require anything that drastic. So now I'm hoping that shutting down my comment window for a period of time will take me off the radar of all these blog parasites.

I Blew It

My New Year's resolution was to write one blog post a week. Not only did I miss that mark, but I didn't manage a single post for the entire month of February.

So now the question is: Do I get back on track with my resolution and try to write that one post a week? Or do I succumb to the fact that I'm just not going to do it?

Black Lilies is currently at 118%. It's turned into one bad dream where I'm running and running but not getting any closer to my destination. I stopped updating my word meter because, what's the point? I'm doing an author's booth for Jamboree Days in July, and months ago I assumed I'd have Black Lilies at the event too, instead of Chasing Echoes alone--my one hit wonder. But now I'm having to face the fact that Black Lilies might not be ready in time. Even if I finished the book tomorrow (which I won't), the process of editing, revisions, beta reading, publishing...that's all going to take months. 

I'm being house-blocked at every turn. The time I should be spending on writing has been devoted to home improvements. Right now I'm painting all the ugly brown wainscoting in my house white, and it's turned out to be the most grueling project ever. Why can't I be one of those writers who's perfectly content in a whatever-house? Why do I have to want everything pretty? Like, I'm sure Hemingway was surrounded by total disarray and filth, yet continued to happily tap away at his typewriter.

Two Blog Syndrome

I'm down to one blog! Okay, this means nothing to you.

Quick background: When I have one blog, I do pretty well with keeping up with it. But for reasons unbeknownst to me, I always try to add in a second one. Examples include "It Makes a Sound" (my blog geared specifically for poems and short stories), Middle School Dribbles (my teaching blog), "Glazey" (my art blog)...you get the point. The problem is when I add in that second blog, I fail miserably at both.

In 2014 I made this mistake for the...fourth time? Fifth? If insanity truly is repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting different results, then yeah, I'm insane. So toward the end of 2014, I published Chasing Echoes, and I thought it would be professional for my website (jodiperkins.com) to feature a blog...a forum to post writing and/or marketing updates. I decided Ocean in a Cup would be my personal blog, and jodiperkins.com would focus on my writing. At the time I wanted to keep my personal life separate from my writing life.

Well that was stupid. It turns out my personal self and my writerly self are the same person. Separating those two is like trying to separate conjoined twins. Sometimes it works, but it ain't pretty. It resulted in me giving up on both blogs. 

So tonight, I finally buckled down and transferred my posts from jodiperkins.com to here (which technically isn't possible through my website host, so I did some ninja tricks to make this happen). After accounting for similar or duplicate posts, there were only nine entries left, which are now located at this label. They are also in chronological order with Ocean's original posts, as if they've always been here. Now when readers go to my author's website and click on "Blog", it diverts them here. It's a little weird since this blog features posts from nine years ago, way before I was even a writer...like, do I really want Chasing Echoes fans to know that my hubby and I had a shaving cream war in the bath tub or that one time I dreamed about a giant copper toilet? But I've decided it's worth the weirdness, because I feel a million times lighter already! 

The next time I try to take on another blog, someone please knock some sense into me.

Early Resolution

Here are two entries I posted when I first started blogging over nine years ago:

I've talked about this before, but I'm going to say it again. I think I had it right back then. My posts were short and to the point, with very little context. I never felt pressure to give a bunch of updates or to post 'quality' material; I just wrote whatever nonsense popped in my head, which made me love blogging and stick with it. Unlike now, where blogging is a burden. Every time I sign on, I think "How can I possible make up for four months of no blogging?"

The answer is, I can't. And who cares. 

My New Year's resolution is to start blogging again, even if that means short obscure entries that leave readers (assuming I have any visages of those left) scratching their heads. But like any goal, I need something measurable. So how about a minimum of one post a week? 

So, here we go: 

New Year's Resolution #1: 

I will write a short and lame post once a week.

Another kick-ass resolution, right up there with 2017 in which I resolved to be boring. Or 2016 in which I vowed to be a hermit crab stuffed in a glass bottle. (It might be time to read a book on all of this resolution-making business).

Shorter Posts?

And mine is one of them. I need to write in this thing. This used to be my little online journal. I loved writing here. I'm trying to remember when that feeling went away, when the impulse to record things fled. 

Maybe I'll try shorter entries, just to get back into the habit again. I need to figure this out, because my URL is up for renewal and I can't justify repurchasing it when I'm leaving this poor blog out in the cold and rain. 

So in the spirit of this idea, I'm going to end this blog post now.

Nasty Little Widget

My blog virus is gone! It only took...well...a year to get rid of it. The virus was hidden in the html code of my Twitter fanbox widget. Sneaky, sneaky. So that thing is gone now and my blog is all fat and healthy.

I'm not writing a real post right now. I just wanted to get on here and say that my blog is alive again. Hopefully I'm not bringing it to life only to force it to suffer a longer death due to post-starvation. But you know me. That's probably exactly what I'm doing.

Alive!

I Want to Write about Twitchy Boobs and Stuff

I've been thinking about quitting my blog for awhile now. And then, because my friend Mel is occasionally and freakishly psychic, she just happened to send me this article: I Gotcher Blog-Writin' Advice Right Here. She thought I might be entertained by it (which I was) but probably didn't realize how close it would hit home for me (except for she probably did). It's a long(ish) read, so let me copy/paste the two paragraphs that spoke to me the loudest:

The blogs of writers are often sad, sad things. They go largely unused, acting as empty, gutted monuments to the writer's own lack of blogging productivity. You visit a writer's blog and the last post is from June, 2012. Wind blows sand over a corpse. The comment sections are, two, maybe three people deep (and the author is one of those commenters). One of the most recent posts is a promise to post more posts, to blog more blogs, to blargh more blarghs, and that post was three years ago. Two rats chew on a third rat. The ground is salted and dead. 

Here you're saying, But an agent or a publisher says I have to blog. To which I respond, that agent or publisher is operating on bad information from five years ago. And it was bad information then. Blogging because you have to? What an execrable task. Who wants to read a blog that you feel is an obligation? I want to read something the author wants to write, not filler content meant to prop up a dead thing. This isn't Weekend At Bernie's. "HEY LOOK AT MY BLOG IT'S TOTALLY ALIVE." *waggles dead blog's sunglasses* *forces dead blog to messily eat carrots and dip*

The author of this post, Chuck Wendig, basically put words to everything I've been feeling about my own half-assed blogging endeavors (actually half-assed seems too generous. Let's go with quarter-assed). After reading Wendig's article, here's what I said to Mel:

I've been debating letting my blog go. It sucks too, because there was a time I LOVED my blog. I loved writing little posts about nothing.... Back then my blog was more personal to me. I didn't have any real readers, so I just wrote for myself, and it was cathartic and fun. Then I started writing a book, and my blog became booooooring. Like, I'm bored with it, and that's a bad sign. And now, reading this article, I feel like I really need to just say goodbye to blogging. But then a small part of me doesn't want to let my blog go because it's sort of my baby. It's been with me for six years now and has chronicled a big chunk of my life...

I don't know. I just really miss the days where I wrote pointless posts like "A Herd of Cantaloupes" and "That which is Pretty, Like Unicorns and Roaches and Stuff." Back then, I wrote because I wanted to write; because something quirky was playing in my brain and I had to get it down on paper--or screen. Case in point: Last night, it took me forever to fall asleep because my left boob had a tiny muscle spasm that wouldn't stop. I was so intrigued by the muscle twitch that I couldn't keep my hands off it, and at one point I realized that if anyone walked into the room, it would totally look like I was feeling myself up. Here it occurred to me that this is one of the stupid things that I would have blogged about in the past. But now I only blog about writer's block and word counts. This makes me sad. And makes me want to yawn.

Long story short, writing a book has turned me into a boring blogger. I started my blog way before I started writing a book--before I even knew that I was going to write a book--so back then, I wrote blog posts just to write them. It was my way of chronicling the little nuances of life--those little moments that aren't deep or important, thus forgettable and nonexistent if it wasn't for writing them down (my sister discussed this phenomenon beautifully in her "Remembering the Jelly" post).

NO MORE. I'm sick of my Bernie-blog. I'm done with obligatory blogging performed in a sad attempt to give the impression of life to an otherwise lifeless blog. 

Which means I'm no longer participating in the WIPMarathon Reports (sorry guys. *sniffle*). I will still follow the WIPMarathon Reports from others though. These are, after all, my writing comrades, and I care about the progress they're making on their WIPs. I also still plan to talk about how my novel is coming along once in awhile...but only when I feel like it, not because "it's that time." The schedule serves as great accountability/motivation, but it also serves as one big guilt-trip when I miss the deadline.

Which brings me to my next point: I'm no longer going to feel guilty if I haven't posted in a long time. Like, why should I feel bad? If I wrote in a diary only once a month, no one would care. Why should a blog be different? I mean, I understand the importance of blogging regularly if you want to gain/keep readers. But I don't care about that anymore. I'm done with strategic blogging. My few attempts at it were feeble and lacked heart anyway.

And from this point forward, if I've been MIA from my blog for 90 days straight and I come back to write a post that says "Our hen Princess Buttercup is actually a dude," and that's all my readers get, well, then, that's all they get. No more crushing sense of obligation to give more. Really, I probably won't have many readers left by this point anyway, so GOODBYE PRESSURE. 

I guess none of this makes sense, because the goals I just laid out seem to be creating a really crappy blog in which "Wind blows sand over a corpse" (Wendig). But these are the things I need to change in order to keep blogging. Period. I'd rather have a crappy blog that I enjoy writing than no blog at all.

I love my readers and I want the ones who care to stick around. But someday when I'm 80 years old, I want to remember the jelly. Not word counts. If that means losing what little readers I have left, I'm okay with that. So...*raises glass* Here's a toast to jelly (sorry, I had to say it).

Back to Ocean

Just a quick post to say that I'm thrilled to be back on Ocean in a Cup! And so much sooner than I was expecting. Once my informal poll yielded this URL as the winner, I just got that itch to make the switch (no rhyme intended).

As you can see, I transferred all posts and comments from Writeapy to this blog. It was super easy. I'm still working on some of the technical stuff, like updating links, etc., but none of it is pressing.

Being back here on my original blog feels like returning to my childhood home. I just want to wrap my arms around it and hold on tight.

Outstanding Blogging [Doesn't Look Like This]. And Snails.

Two days ago I clicked on a link to an article (from twitter) that discussed ten ways to be an outstanding blogger. I carefully read over the suggestions, and concluded two things:

1. I am not an outstanding blogger
2. I will never be an outstanding blogger

To write outstanding blogs, you have to do things like include a hook for each post...you know, a compelling question, or an interesting fact, etc. This entry, for example, should start off with "Did you know I suck at blogging?" or "Statistics show that 100% of bloggers over at writeapy.com are lousy bloggers." That would have been much more captivating than "Two days ago blah blah."

Another component of outstanding blogging is keeping your posts centralized around one topic. Members of our technology-driven society tend to have short attention spans; they don't want to read long rambling narratives that veer from topic to topic. Curious how often I fail at the whole focusing-on-one-topic thing, I scanned over some of my past blog post titles. Here were some titles I came across:

Resolutions, Black Fish, & British Relatives
Mines, Breweries, & Burning Pianos
Mother's Day & Chopping Tables
Rodent Escapees and Staple-ectomies
Student Teacher & Deadly Doors
Universal Studios Monsoon & Other Unrelated Stuff
The Rambling Times

Okay, this goes on and ON. And if words don't speak for themselves, just scroll down a bit and you will see a picture of a snail. What on earth does a snail have to do with this post? Who knows. I swear, it seems to be my trademark to start a post with the idea that "I'm going to squish every possible unrelated thing into this blog entry, and then make sure to squeeze all of it into my title too!"

Seriously, even my so-called trademark is rambly.

At this point, an outstanding blogger would tidy up this post by declaring some call to action, or conclude with some other statement that would leave the reader with an idea of the overall message of the post. But I, sticking true to my nature, am going to veer on over to my next topic.

Which is...I'm switching my URL back to Ocean in a Cup! The votes were nearly unanimous for that name. I have some construction I need to do with that site, and then I'll make the switch. I decided I will not be going through Wordpress as I had originally hoped. My reason for this is pretty shallow: Unless I go through Wordpress's self-hosting (which requires a monthly fee), it looks like a huge pain in the ass to customize the blog the way I want.

Next topic: I finally got through my April rut and am officially working on DoT again. It's slow going, but still. YES.

Wednesday (yes, changing subjects again) we break ground on our pool! Speaking of pools, for Mother's Day, we drove down to Camarillo to visit my grandma. Shannon and Jeremy came too, along with my parents. On Saturday we all visited, went swimming, and had a fun dinner at an Italian restaurant (which transitioned to a silly dinner after two bottles of wine). I also got to talk shop with my Grandpa again. No editing this time. We just daydreamed about book covers, and talked about the parts of our novels that had come from real life experiences. Wow was THAT an eye-opener. I found out that my Grandpa had a BB pellet stuck in his butt cheek for thirty-some years after he tried to steal a watermelon. And one time, he broke into a church to spend the night and got caught by two choir girls the next morning. Anyway, on Sunday morning my dad made everyone an awesome breakfast. Later we went swimming, followed by a picnic lunch. On our way home, we stopped at Charlie Brown's for chocolate banana shakes. I'm still full just thinking about how much eating I did that day.

My grandma has snails in her yard. I guess this isn't a spectacular thing, but we don't generally see snails in the desert. The kids love them--they like having snail races, or building snail-castles. Okay, admittedly that last one probably isn't so nice. Anyway, Cassidi kept bringing snails into my grandma's house, and my goodness they are the cutest things! Have you ever seen a snail up close? I get that it's this pile of sticky muck in a shell, but it's adorable...this little sluggish yet motivated worm serving as its own motorhome.

I could just hug this little guy (don't worry, I won't).

Congratulations, you now see how snails relate to this post. Which, they don't.

Today sucked. I was tired for no reason (I slept awesome last night) and had no sense of humor. You can't teach seventh graders without a sense of humor...it's like flipping eggs without a spatula.

Outstanding Blogging Tip #11: Use similes that make sense.

Okay, I have to go add snails to my title now.

Changes - Next Exit

Since Shannon will no longer share this blog with me, let me just get this out of my system:  NOOOOOOOOO! (said in big whiney howl).

Okay, I'm good now. But seriously, even though her posts were getting fewer and farther between, I'm going to miss having her here sooo much. I love playing off of her entries, and sharing a blog with her is like our way of having one long, never-ending conversation. But honestly, I understand her reasons, and I was the one who actually gave her the "out" today so that she wouldn't have to feel like she let me down in any way. Plus she has agreed to write a guest post from time to time, so it's not like she's going to completely disappear (you better not completely disappear Sho!).

I changed the template, temporarily. Emphasis on temporarily because I really, really love our old template. The only reason I'm switching over to a new one is because with Shannon throwing in her non-suicidal blogging towel, I needed to push that symbolic "restart" button. Switching the template is kind of a...psychological trigger for a fresh start, I guess? It allows me to start thinking of this blog as "mine" instead of "ours."

I decided to keep "Writeapy."* Even though the name was originally conceived as a combination of my and Shan's interests (me, writing; her, therapy), the name still works. For me, writing IS therapy.

Well...now that I've gotten all this out of the way, normal posts will now commence. :) 

*Update: After a lot of thought and some helpful voters, the title of this blog was reverted back to Ocean in a Cup on May 18, 2014.

Back Online

Back online!  Whew!  Of course I lost our URL again.  But this time, I was cool and calm about it.  I didn't behave like this AT ALL.

Long story short: I had purchased the tumblecones URL using my Visa/debit card last year.  Several months ago my debit card expired, and I was issued a new one.  When google apps auto-renewed our URL, they tried to pull the funds from the expired card.  Obviously that didn't work out, and they cancelled my URL.  I tried repurchasing it several times, but no--it says the URL is unavailable.

To be fair, this one's on me, not the evil URL thieves who whisked fizzyjo away in the middle of the night.    

The new URL is "writeapy.com" (pronounced write-a-py), incorporating my passion for writing and Shannon's for therapy.  Well, I don't actually know if she has a passion for therapy (do you Sho?), but she must like it a little since she has a doctorate and stuff.  The title of the blog was changed to reflect the new URL.  I'm happy with the new title--I was surprised to find such a short and snappy .com still available.  But I'm going to miss tumblecones.  It was cute and silly.

I'll write a real post later this week--maybe tomorrow--but for now, what a relief to be back online!

Spring Break Hodgepodge

This is post #499.  I thought it would be really cool to make post #500 the very last one before switching over to the new blog, but now I'm not sure if that's going to happen.  The problem is the new blog isn't ready--Shan and I haven't worked out a template, nor have we figured out the details of a duel ownership over the new blog.  I want to avoid the dynamic of one of us being labeled the primary owner, while the other one is labeled as a "guest blogger."

Oh, if you haven't noticed yet, my sister's a lop (as referenced in certain areas of my right side-margin).  She refuses to write on here anymore because her eyes are fixated on the gleaming new blog.  "Why bother with the old one when you're just getting a new one?" is the basic premise here.  She's also resigned to letting her home slide down the mountain because they're eventually planning on getting a new one of those, too.  Okay, I might have made up that last part.

So Universal Studios was pretty brutal.  Two kids got lost from their group; one was turned into me by a security guard.  The other one I hunted down myself and found him sitting (with no cell phone) on a bench near the tram tour.  But even the wandering-off kid issues were something I could make my peace with; it was just the whole day was exhausting.  My Builders Club students are usually responsible, but for some reason, when we mixed them up with Incentive Club members, the whole dynamic of both clubs changed.  The kids were loud and wild.  The worst was the bus ride home.  I think my ear drums are permanently scarred.

The rest of spring break has been pretty awesome so far.  I've been able to take the new compound bow out three times now, and I'm starting to get pretty comfortable with it.

I was shooting at a cardboard turkey on the ground.  If it were a real turkey, he'd be walking around with arrows sticking out of every part of his body except for his head--he'd be the only one of his buddies with arrow-plumage.  Yeah, I need to work on my aim.  As long as the weather stays nice, I'll probably go again tomorrow and Wednesday.

Besides playing with my new bow, I've been writing in the evenings, but not as much as I'd like.  I'm still stuck in that editing trap where I keep smoothing out the already-written stuff instead of moving forward in the story.  I joined a writing club two weeks ago, which I'm feeling pretty excited about.  Just one meeting and I already made some great connections.  Although it's strange, because I'm significantly younger than the other members (by significantly, we're talking about twenty years).  At 34, I would never expect to be the baby of any group.  But I guess most people wait until they're empty-nesters and/or retired to pursue their passions.  Honestly, the age gap didn't really bother me.  Once you start talking shop with other writers and authors, you forget all about the age difference.  Unfortunately, the club only meets once a month.  I'll have to join a critique group within the club if I want to do any real writing.

I started a painfully easy painting of a peacock for my living room that hopefully I'll finish this week.  The problem is I'm bored with it.  It's more shapes and colors than an actual animal.  I chose this particular image for the colors, which I think will compliment my living room, but I'm not particularly impressed with the peacock itself.  Oh well, I'll finish it anyway. 

In other news I dreamt that some sort of sewer lines going into our school's bathrooms exploded, and my entire classroom filled up with crap.  I'm not good with dream analysis, but that one seems about as eloquent as they come.  I just wish my subconscious could conjure up more clever symbols to use in dreams.  I mean, sewer lines?  And crap?  Those are the best metaphors my brain could come up with?  Yay me and my beautiful aptitude for poetry.  

Blogger and Pre-Teen Issues

Blogger is driving me crazy.  Ever since I changed the URL, nothing on here works.  I tried commenting on Shan's last post, and once again, Blogger won't let me on the comment page (by the way Sho, that part about the patient has me in stitches! Clint says a "true" therapist would have helped him get there faster).  Sometime in the next month or two, Shan and I will be switching to a new webpage.  We already have our new URL picked out; it's just a matter of us getting together and creating our new space.  This time around I want to go through the process with her, so it's actually our blog; not just mine that she's renting a room from.  Unfortunately the new blog will be platformed on Blogger because that's all we know and neither one of us have time to learn a new one, but hopefully starting from scratch will eliminate these current glitches.  I did manage to use Blogger for three years before having any big problems.

I have too much to write about, but I really don't want to write, so I'll sum everything up.  First, I'm overwhelmed with work right now, but that's nothing new.  Second, I've been absolutely addicted to reading lately--more than usual.  I finally broke down and got a Kindle e-Reader, and I adore the thing.  The first book I read from it was Fifty Shades of Grey.  I started the second book--Fifty Shades Darker--but got bored with it, so I switched over to a new book called Divergent by Veronica Roth.  It was a great read, although it got a little heavy and sad toward the end.  I started the next book in the series (Insurgent), and after that I have four or five other books already downloaded, just waiting for me to read.  Third, I'm currently signed up for three 5Ks, one each month for the next three months.  Yeah, I think I might be getting a little carried away.  Fourth, Trin goes to school with me every day now, which is awesome, but she's driving me nuts at home.  She has been this emotional ball of hormones and constantly having these stupid meltdowns.  And since I'm the parent at home dealing with it, I'm the one that gets demonized.  I have ZERO tolerance for all of this girly crap.  Fifth, we decided to go to the L.A. County Fair again for my and Shan's birthday.  It's not until the third weekend of September, but I am already drooling at the prospect of a giant blue cheese burger and fried jalepenos (coincidentally, I've been craving blue cheese dressing too, but have felt no compulsion to stare at muddy rivers or provinces in Canada).

Okay, I'm going to go count to ten backwards because my daughter is making me see red right now.

Tumbleweed, CA

I try not to say the name of the little city I live in.  It's a pretty pointless endeavor, because at this point a person trying to figure it out would probably have no issues connecting those dots, but at least I give internet safety a feeble effort.  In three years of blogging, I've only slipped twice and said my city's name.   I figured this out just now--I actually typed my city's name into my blog's search box, and it came up with two posts.  I found the slip-up on both of them, and changed the name from the real-thing to "Tumbleweed".  So I guess for all intents and purposes, I now officially live in Tumbleweed, California, located somewhere in the High Desert.  I don't know if Shan is trying to keep her location a secret too, so until she tells me otherwise, she now officially lives in Pinecone, California.  

By the way, I love Wikipedia's definition of the High Desert:

The High Desert is an unofficial and vaguely-defined geographic area of southern California located to the northeast of the San Gabriel Mountains. 

Thanks for such startling precision, Wikipedia. 

In other news (literally), it has been so very hot here in good ole' Tumbleweed.  It's not just the triple digits...that's pretty standard for August.  It's the mugginess.  We've had this constant half-cloud cover nonsense that's making the air all yucky and humid.  I was working in my classroom today, and every time I stepped out, it felt like a sauna.  With twenty laundromats running inside the sauna.  And the AC broken in all the laundromats.  Okay, you get the point.  

Here's our weekly forecast.  I'm pretty sure Wednesday is a typo and is supposed to say "100% hot", unless the author of this chart believes that 1,090° constitutes a typically hot day.  I like how Thursday and Friday say "Super Hot" and "More Heat"...I think the forecaster typologist person (okay, I obviously don't know his job title) is suffering from creativity-fatigue due to all of this heat.  

Tomorrow and Friday are in-service days at my work, and then Monday I officially start the new school year with students.  As usual, I'm both excited and apprehensive.  My biggest regret is having to say goodbye to this fantasy summer.  This was honestly one of the nicest summers I've had in the past six years.  I think working at the college played a huge role, but I also did a lot of outdoor activities (camping, hiking, 5Ks, etc.) that kept me feeling rejuvenated. 

In honor of saying goodbye to summer...

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I used to love Dido many years ago (back when they were popularized by the show Roswell), but had actually forgotten all about them.  Yesterday this song played on the satellite radio at Jack in the Box, and I was trying hard not to shush the customers in my attempt to identify it because it seemed so familiar.  I think the video is cute, although I'm jealous cuz now I want to play dominos and drink moscato in the middle of a busy street.

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Wish me luck for this Monday.  Hopefully I won't enter my classroom on such a balmy 106° day with sand dribbling from my shoes. 

Internet Issues

I've been itching to do a blog post, but my internet at home hasn't been working.  It is SO frustrating.  We've gone months now with shoddy service, but as of two days ago, our shoddy service turned into no service.  Charter's coming out tomorrow to attempt to fix the problem, but meanwhile, Clint and I are at McDonald's taking advantage of their free wifi so we can get a few things done.  I have my iPhone, but I can't accomplish anything on its itty-bitty screen, plus it's been giving me issues lately too.  For some reason I can't get that phone to go online anymore.  I tried to watch a YouTube clip this morning, and it wouldn't even bring up the clip.  Overall, technology is just making me want to pull my hair out.

I just had a little class reunion with three of my students!  Damn, I wish I had dressed a little nicer today.  I was outside this morning doing yard work, so I look pretty white-trash.

Okay, onto more important stuff now, such as e-mailing my summer employer (aka: Becky) and researching what the hell to do with a gallon-and-a-half of goat's milk a day.

Yes, More Pets

After all of the lamenting I've done about losing my URL, I had to get on here and say that I am officially over it.  Between Clint, my sister, and the emotional/technical support I received from long-distance friends, I was able to get to the root of the problem pretty quickly and take steps to move forward.  I still left some followers behind and have zero web presence, but Shan and Jewls helped me to make my peace with that.  Plus, to my complete delight, Leavenworth found me.  Sorry, I know that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense.  "Leavenworth" is simply what I have dubbed one of my followers (currently stationed in Germany), and he or she was the one who I was the most concerned about never seeing (so to speak) again.  It's hard to explain, but L has been with my blog for so long, and has gone through so many ups and downs with me, that even though we've never technically met, he or she feels like an old friend (albeit a very quiet friend).  So in a random streak of inspiration, I left a message on my Glazey blog, and L was able to follow those bread crumbs back to the new URL.  Clint's response when I exclaimed this afternoon "Oh my gosh, Leavenworth found me!" was a simple "Good job babe."  He totally gets me sometimes. 

Yesterday Shan and I got to visit with Kristyn.  It was awesome.  We talked each other's ears off for hours.  Kristyn got to my house at around 3ish, and we all hung out for about an hour or so, then went to La Casita for dinner.  Once back at my house, Shan left, but Kristyn and I hung out for a couple more hours.  Clint and the kids came home that evening (they were out shooting), so Kristyn got to meet my kids for the first time.  Trin and Elijah both love her to pieces, which cracks me up since Kristyn's not a kid person.  It reminds me of those people who don't care for cats, but always seem to have cats gravitating to them.  Elijah was asking me today, "When's Crystal coming back?" (okay, he's a little off on the name).  I had to explain to him that Texas wasn't right down Main St.

This morning we went to church, but that was an unpleasant experience because we somehow got blindsighted into a memorial service for a young man that we didn't even know.  That's a story in of itself, so I'll skip that for now.  After church, we met Steve and Becky for sushi.  Later, we purchased four chickens and two goats.

I was hoping to slip that last sentence in, but it's not blending very well.  Dang it.  I just know that all the people who think we own too many pets as it is are going to have a field day with that one. 

The four chickens are named: Polly, Zebra, Olive, and Princess Buttercup.  Can you guess which one I named?  ;)  The goats will not be at our house until either Tuesday or Friday, so their names have yet to be determined. 

My heart goes out to Dusty!  Here I've been whining about my pitiful blog issues, and meanwhile Shannon  has had to cope with the decision to amputate her dog's leg (and pay $1600 to boot).  But I think the fact that they're investing so much money to save this dog is going to turn lil' Dusty into their most beloved pet.  Wherever you store your treasures, the heart tends to follow.  By the way, I know this is still an emotional issue for my sis, but how long exactly does etiquette require me to wait before I'm allowed to make fun of the fact that she's paying a GRAND and a HALF for a three-legged dog??

Fizzyjo: New URL

Okay, I got a new URL.  I feel relatively content with it.  But I have officially lost a huge chunk of followers, and they have no way of finding me now.  And here I was so excited to have my sis on a well-established blog that already had a following, and now we're both starting from scratch (more or less).

Still feeling pretty down about the whole thing.

Goodbye Fizzyjo

I just lost my domain name.  I know it's silly, but I'm having a hard time with it.  My domain name has become something personal to me, and I'm feeling so dejected that it's no longer mine.  The whole thing is so jacked up.  I had my domain name set up to automatically renew on May 15th.  For some reason, it never renewed.  This morning, at 4-something a.m., someone purchased it.  Now when you go to fizzyjo.com, it's some loan company.  To make matters worse, I had a following on fizzyjo.  It took nearly three years of blogging to actually create a web presence, but now when I switch to a new domain, it's all going to be gone.  There is no way for others to find me, unless they are a personal friend of mine. 

I don't even have the will to blog right now.  I know I'll get it back eventually, but right now I just feel so discouraged.  Even this entry I'm about to post has nowhere to go.  I have no domain name.  I guess it's just going to float around somewhere in the empty spaces between all of the real domains.