This Week: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I am so, so, SO far behind on this blog.  I even went months without checking my stat counter, because I found myself no longer caring.  Today I finally logged in and was surprised to see over 220 hits from Palmdale.  I'm thinking that has to be some sort of glitch...does Palmdale even have 220 people?

Okay, so I'm going to break this down.  Here's this week's "good":

Last weekend we visited my stepsister's farm in Northern California.  That was awesome.  Her and her husband farm walnuts, cherries, and tomatoes; they have so much acreage that I can't even tell where it ends.  They live in a small house that is over 100 years old and is simply adorable.  She's pregnant with twin girls, so we were actually there for her baby shower.  Her baby shower ended up being huge (over 100 women) with the atmosphere of a classy wedding reception...a far cry from your typical pin-the-diaper-on-the-baby type shower. 

Maybe it's because I'm a twin myself, but I think I got a little excited with the prospect of my stepsister having twins.  I don't make gifts EVER (unless it's scrapbooks or paintings); I'm really not a crafty person.  But I wanted to do something cute for the twins, so with the help of my sister-in-law, I made these outfits:

These are completely impractical, but I don't care!  I officially want twin baby girls myself now so I can dress them up in these.

Another good from this week is I have a student, Johnston, who is painfully shy in my classroom, to the point where he will absolutely shut down if I try to get him to read outloud or respond to a question.  The counseling department, after assessing him, finally told me to let him off the hook for sharing outloud and any other verbal presentations.  It's just way too traumatic for him.  But I've been working really hard with him this year, trying to guide him into being more comfortable talking in front of people.  Every step of the way I let him know that I wasn't going to push him, but I wanted him to know that I believed he was capable of expressing his thoughts outloud, and that others would appreciate what he had to contribute.  Well today Johnston did a full two minute presentation in front of the class!  I was so blown away and had to try not to cry.  He actually volunteered to talk for his group, and I could see him shaking with fear, but after awhile he started smiling and laughing.  He was amazing.  I've never once heard his voice that loud and clear before, and it was the most words I have heard him utter this entire school year.  Before he left class, I told him, "Johnston, you made my heart sing today," and he was grinning from ear-to-ear.

The bad:

My coworkers--the ones I have the closest relationships with, are dropping like flies.  Every day I eat lunch with my collegues Niecy, Brad, Bev, and Mr. Moore.  Or I used to.  Niecy has been out for about half of the school year now due to her health issues.  Brad (previously dubbed "Mr. A")--the teacher whose shoulder I cried on my first year of teaching, who talked me into getting a master's degree, who taught me how to play three-card-poker at an Indian Casino, who taught me how to ski, who carried me home when I was drunk--left our school last week to pursue a new career as a speech pathologist.  That one hit me hard.  I could write an entire post just on this, but our initial e-mails to each other sum it up well enough:

Me:  Oh my god, I just read the bulletin and got a cold chill. You're leaving us? No Brad, no!!! 

(Okay, I'll work on being more supportive). 

 

Brad:  Lol... I love you too.  You have been one of my favorite peeps since I got here... love you and your husband.  You are both good people!   The kids love your joy and enthusiasm as well... it shows every day. 

After that, crying and temper tantrums ensued (he cried, I threw tantrums). 

In addition to that, Mr. Moore, my onery lunch buddy who I just adore, is retiring at the end of this year.  So I have only three short months left of his teasing me and always thinking I'm crazy.  Bev, our quirky music teacher, will still be here next year, but her prep period follows lunch, so she doesn't join us until the last ten minutes or so. 

I'm not a person who likes change, and I hate it that the people I care about are disappearing little by little from my life.

The ugly:

I just got the news today that a friend from high school died.  I went to his facebook wall after work, and it made me sick to my stomach.  I know it's just a personal thing, but I hate how people are writing "R.I.P. Ed" all over his wall as if it were no different than plastering birthday wishes; as if he can actually read them.  They're also writing stuff like "You were a good person" and "I'll miss you."  Again, as if he can read them.  That's a new low...death itself being cheapened by social networking.  Way to go facebook.   

This day sucks in other ways, but I've written enough for now. 

I'm stuck on sappy love songs right now.  This one isn't exactly "pretty," but it still moves the hell out of me.
 

 

Between the Raindrops

The video is okay, but this song...I love it.   

To be fair though, I say those exact words for a new song just about every other week.  As customary, I'll overplay this song until my brain gets tired of it, and eventually move on to a new fave.  Until then, I can't think of anything sweeter than walking between raindrops and riding aftershocks with that special someone. 

On a side note, I swear I'm not obsessed with horses, even though my recent video choices beg to differ.

On another note even more to the side, I just noticed that the couple is never once shown together in the same frame.  I wonder if the producers opted to shoot both of their scenes at different times in different locations, and simply merged the two together to create the video.  Have Jason Wade (Lifehouse lead singer) and Natasha B. ever even met?  It would have been cool to feature at least one scene of the two coming together.

Real post to follow later this week (but don't hold your breath on that one).

Quest for Cuffs

With Clint's birthday approaching, I had decided to buy him a pair of handcuffs as a silly add-on gift.  I thought they might be handy for...his earthquake emergency kit.  Yeah.  Because if there's ever a natural disaster and someone tries to steal your food, you might need to restrain said-person with handcuffs.

So I went on Amazon and searched out furry cuffs (because even emergency kit food-thieves would appreciate soft fuzzy comfort in bright pink, right?).  But all of the furry cuffs got bad reviews.  A lot of people said they broke after only one time of use.  I was disappointed by this.  Even though this was just a novelty gift, I still wanted something with a little more quality than a toy you could buy from the 99 Cent Store.  I finally gave up on furry cuffs (sorry future food thief) and ordered a pair of simple, stainless steal cuffs that had over two hundred 4- and 5- star reviews.  I decided to have them shipped to my mother-in-law's house to avoid Clint being privy to his gift.  They were to arrive in a plain box, so I wasn't worried about her being in on my purchase. 

The day after I placed my order, Clint's mom called and asked if she could order something through our Amazon account.  We're Amazon Prime members, and she wanted the free shipping.  Clint told her "sure."  I didn't think anything of it.

Later, I dropped the kids off at her house, and she asked.  "So when are your handcuffs supposed to arrive?"

I think my mouth probably hit the floor.

Apparently when she went to place her order through our Amazon account, it showed her my most recent purchase.  I was quick to tell her that Clint needed them for our earthquake kit.  I'm sure the nodding head on her part was complete, utter belief. 

Later on that night, Clint went to check his e-mail when he burst into uncontrollable laughter.  When he finally was able to stop, he said, "Uh, honey...?"  He turned his laptop to face me, and there it was.  A giant picture of handcuffs with the bold print words: "You're item has been shipped!"

So yeah, I obviously didn't realize he received shipping notifications from Amazon.  And I officially need to work on my ninja skills when it comes to keeping gifts on the down-low.

On the plus side, the handcuffs arrived last week, and they are just perfect for our...earthquake kit. 

DoT

Time for a long-overdue writing update!  This is going to make for some boring reading, but it helps to keep me motivated when I stop to talk about the process once in awhile. 

So here is the current word count for my Daughter of Time manuscript.  You know, I don't think I've ever revealed that title on my blog before.  I should mention that Daughter of Time isn't the name of the actual book; it's the name of the four-book series...in my fantasy world where Book 1 actually gets published.  I do have a name for Book 1; I'm just not ready to announce it.  It's not anything special, it just feels like I'm jinxing things by saying it outloud (so to speak).  Stupid, I know.

I just realized that "D.O.T." is the acronym for Daughter of Time!  Or I could do it WoW-style and write it like this:  DoT.  Ooooh, I like that.  I'm totally going to use that.

Okay, so I spent hours yesterday adding a new chapter and smoothing out some of the stuff from previous chapters.  As of today, I have completed all of chapters 1 and 2, a small section of 3, and all of chapters 4, 5, and 6 (although 6 still needs some serious grooming over, and it's a little too long).  A typical young adult book is a minimum of 50,000 words, and I'm about half-way to that minimum.  At this point, it's looking less like scraps and pieces of a novel and starting to take on a real shape.  Yesterday I was so excited by my progress that I actually felt giddy.  And then I started thinking about that day in the future when my manuscript is finished, and realized I'm really freaked out about that.  At least while I'm writing it, my ultimate goal is simply this: Write a book.  I don't have to think any further than that.  And I can have all the hope I want about it, and there's nothing that can contradict that hope.  But once it's finished, I have to create a new goal:  Get it published.  That's the scary one that requires me to delve into completely foreign territory.  I did get a magazine article published before, but that was so much smaller of a feat, and that was a combination of good timing and sheer luck.  But I have NO idea how to get a novel published.  As an unknown writer, how do you possibly convince someone to read your work?  How do you get your manuscript to stand out when it's buried in a slush pile with hundreds--possibly thousands--of submissions from other hopeful writers? 

The worst is I have to face the possibility of failure.    

I guess if I was willing to self-publish, none of this would be an issue.  But I won't do self-publishing.  I want the thrill of holding that letter in my hand that offers me yay-amount of money for all rights to my story.  That's the fantasy.  And I want to see my book on a shelf--a real shelf--in a Barnes and Nobles somewhere.  Is that too much to ask?  I honestly don't care how much or how little money I make.  That's not the dream.  Seeing something I wrote sitting on a shelf is the dream.  I'd be willing to live in a hole if I could just see that dream come to fruition.   

Oh well, it's going to be a long time before I have to worry about any of this.  Right now my focus is simply to finish writing the book.  And with everything else on my plate, it could take another couple of years to get this baby banged out.

Nice, huh?  My DoT manuscript has it's own special flash drive--the drive slides out from the crystal heart.  Yeah, it's a little on the pretty side for a flash drive, but as far as I'm concerned, any object that happens to be carrying your hopes and dreams ought to be pretty.  The name of the drive is "Pixie Dust," because that's what it's going to take to get this damn thing published.  If my house was on fire, this would be one of the items I would grab before running out the door.

Oh come ON, the kids and pets were implied.

Mines, Breweries, & Burning Pianos

I had intended to get on here several days ago to talk about our New Year’s Eve, but Matt and Alana gave me their cold (thanks guys) and it has been kicking my a#$ for four days straight. Two nights ago I actually broke down and took some NyQuil. It gave me the worst hangover I have ever experienced. I’m changing the slogan to "NyQuil. The night-time sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so- you-can-rest but feel like a zombie whose head is going to explode the next morning medicine.” I’m still all sniffly today (it’s so sexy), but the fuzziness in my brain has cleared enough for me to write at least a short, mediocre post.

So last weekend we visited Matt and Alana up in northern California. We left late Friday afternoon and drove for about six hours before stopping for the night. The whole stopping for a motel thing was a funny ordeal, because Shan had recently freaked us out with a creepy story about a wealthy man in the 1800’s who created a “Murder Hotel” (similar to the Winchester Mystery House, but with victims). Given the late hour and unfamiliar geography, every motel we stopped at from Clint’s viewpoint looked like a modern Murder Hotel, and he was like, “Nope, not this one. No on that one too. Oh, hell no.” After a dozen of these, I'm like, "Holy geez I don’t care where we stop, as long as I can take a shower,” and Clint starts reenacting horror movie scenes in which the hapless blond bimbo is butchered in the shower, to which I say, “Fine with me! As long as the water’s good and hot!” We eventually stopped at the Motel 6, which was gated, well-lit, and multi-storied, thus gleaning Clint’s approval (apparently having only one story immediately puts a motel into the ominously evil category, something you won’t find under typical Yelp reviews). In the end I got to take my heavenly, steamy, chainsaw-free shower, and we both lived happily ever after.

Great, I just spent a long paragraph discussing our journey to Motel 6, which sucks because I haven’t even dived into our official trip yet. Okay, the rest of this needs to move faster. Summary version, here we go:

Saturday morning we arrived to Matt and Alana’s house. They live on—oh damn—I want to give their street name, because it’s so funny. But that would be a huge violation of privacy, so we’ll just say it’s equivalent to living on Hillbilly Lane. Their yard is beyond awesome. They’re home is surrounded by trees and shrubs and nature, as in real nature (we saw three deers!), not stink bugs and tumbleweeds. Spellcheck is bickering at me because the plural for ‘deer’ isn’t supposed to have an ‘s’ on it, but I can’t stand it the other way, so I’m leaving it ‘deers’ (there it goes again).

Oh my goodness this summary version is NOT happening. You know what? Let’s just skip to some pictures. That seems safer than me writing.

Entrance to an old gold mine at the back of the Cosmic Cafe

 

 

Dining area within the mine (there were NO customers! Granted it was late, but how is this place not a local hangout?)

 



Clint and me in the mine

  

Remnants of an old brewery

 

The sign said "No Trespassing," which is like telling a two year-old "Don't touch that."

  

We stayed here in the Cary Hotel, a 157 year-old 'haunted' hotel that boasts "the second-oldest working elevator on this side of the Mississippi."  The kids and I rode the elevator every single time...you have to slide your own caged-door shut, and it has no concept of a smooth ride.  Technically only two riders are allowed at a time, but we figured the weight between us three was about the same as two adults.  The room we stayed in was a suite, so it was like a quaint, old-fashioned little apartment complete with a kitchenette.  I never saw any haunts, but there were a lot of things that went bump in the night.  It didn't help that our room was right next to the archaic elevator.  Okay, this is a really long caption for one photo.  One more thing, we had to walk through this really creepy dark alley every night to get into our hotel.  And there was a place right across the street called "Hang Town," the historic site where people were actually hanged.  Oh, oh, one more thing! (last one, I swear), the hotel clerk behind the counter actually said "Checking in?" in a creepy Twilight Zone-type voice when we first arrived.  Okay: end caption.    

 

Elijah, Trin and me

Replica of the Sutter Sawmill at Coloma (gold-discovery site in California)

 

 

The kids checking out a well

  

Elijah trapped in the well. But not long enough. 

 

Relaxing around a bon fire at Matt and Alana's place, waiting for the countdown.  Matt and Clint chopped up an old piano to use as fodder for our fire--you can see the keys burning on the right-hand side. It was like a Shakespearean tragedy.  On the bright-side, Matt saved all of the piano's strings, which everyone dubbed the Hell Harp because the music it produced makes a perfect sound-track for the Murder Hotel. 

  

Clint and I

 

Thought I'd end with a picture that took the reader away from Hell Harps and Murder Hotels.

 

During the countdown, several shotguns in the area were fired (including Matt's), something I'm not used to in SoCal.  And a weird siren went off for a long time.  It sounded exactly like an air raid siren.  After awhile, we were jokingly wondering, "Should we be bunkering down or something?"  Clint thinks it must have been an antique fire truck siren. 

 

Overall, I enjoyed the enthusiasm of this particular New Year's Eve, and we had a great transition into 2013.  



Cliche Christmas Post

It's funny that Jodi mentioned she didn't want a Christmas post to be on the top, because now there is going to be one on the top again (Jo, just write something real quick to knock it back down!). Sorry this post is so late..

Christmas Eve, which I normally LOVE, was actually a little rough. I haven't been sick in forever, and I actually got a little sick (of all days, go figure!). Jer had to work a half day, and all I had planned that day was to make cookies with the kids and to clean the little girls' room (I wanted to get it cleaned out for their new presents). That was a big fail. I never did get to the cookies (Jer baked them after work), and I threw up twice while cleaning the room. Afterwards, we went to my mother in law's house for dinner and presents. Things got a little weird there. I don't want to get into it, but I am thinking that my in laws are pretty jacked. 

We got home around 11pm, but Jer and I had to stay up late to do all the "Santa" stuff. Filling up their stockings was pretty fun. Jeremy always buys the stocking stuffers, and he always goes overboard. We usually end up cramming so much stuff in the stockings that it defies a few laws of physics, and the kids can barely get the stuff out again. After we finished with the stockings, we had to get an arcade sized air hockey table from our lower driveway (we had it hidden in a shed) up a hazardous, WET flight of stairs IN THE DARK, through our sunroom and into the family room. The table was SO HEAVY. At one point, Jer and I were straining to get the monstrous table around a corner, and I slipped on a wet leaf, causing us to almost drop the thing off the mountain. By the time we got it in and put it together, it was almost 2am. 

Christmas was wonderful! Shelby woke us up at 7am screaming, "Santa came! Santa came!" The kids got their stocking stuff, and then we took turns opening presents. I got a really NICE robe, PJs, a big tin of popcorn, tons of Bath & Body works,  some new slippers, and a bunch of stuff in my stocking. I got Jeremy a stainless steel, 9-drawer tool chest (that was a feat on its own! The kids had to help me get it in the house and hidden...it's pretty big!).  The kids love the air hockey table (they are playing it right now). 

We went to my parent's house, and opened more presents. I got  a homemade jewelry box (from my Grandpa), an outfit, a rooster thingy, a beautiful ring (from my Dad) made out of white and rose colored gold, new shoes, a new purse and GORGEOUS and fashionable overcoat (from Jo and Clint), new underwear that was made into a kite (from my Grandpa, and yes, I realize that seems bizarre), fudge, a $75 gift certificate to the Bass Pro Shop, and a couple other things. :-)

My family unanimously selects me to be on trash duty EVERY SINGLE YEAR. 

My Dad made prime rib for dinner, and it was delicious! The whole day was just really great. I think being around my in-laws has just generated even more appreciation within me for my own family. They are so fun to be with, and there isn't the tension and phoniness I feel elsewhere. I am so grateful to have them. 
One downside of the day was that I still felt sick. My stomach was fine, but my head hurt all day, and Excedrin wouldn't do anything. I also felt really fatigued, heavy, and a little dizzy. I forced myself to ignore it. 

And this cold, or whatever it is, just won't go away. Luckily I only had to work two days this week because of the holidays. But I still feel bad, even today. I thought it was getting better yesterday, but I relapsed today.

I had this plan to keep writing regularly, but the Sandy Hook thing happened, and that paralyzed me for weeks. I am not one of those people who turn to the internet or social networking when something devastating occurs. That one really punched me in the gut. Hopefully I can get more consistent with this. :-)

Well....Happy New Year! 

Personalized Dishes

I have nothing to say right now but it's almost 2:00 a.m and I'm having a nice little bout of insomnia, so I thought I'd get on here and try to type some sleepiness into my body (I don't think I'm making sense).  Plus I want to bump my last post down.  I don't know why, but I don't like it when holiday posts sit on the top of my blog too long.  Maybe it's because everyone writes about their happy Christmases and it just gets old and cliché, like "Okay, we get it, you had a nice holiday and your life rocks, yada yada...." Hey, I do it too. 

My dishwasher broke a couple of weeks ago.  It actually broke the day after my friend Kristyn's dishwasher miraculously started working, so I think her dishwasher somehow sucked the life out of mine.  Granted hers lives in Texas and mine lives in California, but since we're talking about magical life-sucking appliances anyway, I don't think the geographical distance matters.  So Clint's solution to a broken dishwasher?  Pack up all of our dishes.  But leave one of everything for each person.  One cup, one fork, etc.  AND use a permanent marker to write our names on our assigned dish.  Basically if you want to actually eat your apple sauce with a spoon, you better be damned sure that your spoon is clean or else your shit out of luck.  And don't make the mistake of using someone else's stuff...I used Trin's fork the other day and never heard the end of it.  I'd love to say all of this is a temporary thing, but I don't view a universe in which I will be willing to buy a new dishwasher anytime soon.  I hate buying appliances.  The thought of spending all that money for something that just blends into your house makes me cringe.  Maybe if our current dishwasher was like pea green or something, I'd be excited to replace it.  But our current dishwasher is a very nice stainless steel model.  Now it's a very nice stainless steel dish rack.  Well, if we had more than four forks to put in it, anyway. 

My laptop still won't let me respond to comments, which is really getting on my nerves.  My home computer does, but every time I'm home, the home computer is always being horded by the hubby and kids--pretty much because WoW is downloaded on that computer and they're all complete addicts. 

Tomorrow afternoon we're leaving to go up north.  I can't wait.  I absolutely love road trips.  I can be in a car all day long watching the scenery fly by...I'm like a content labrador.  But I'm also really excited to spend time with Matt and Alana.  The only downfall is I know it's going to feel a little strange ringing in the new year without my sis and all her kids. 

I'm going to eat some peanut butter now and head to bed. 

Oh, it's only when I'm sleep-deprived that I compare myself with a dog.