Catching Up

Sorry for the quiet blog last week. I know it's hard to believe, but I really couldn't think of anything to say!

I wanted to write a blog titled, DON'T BE STUPID, but I thought it had too much negativity going on with the connotation of the word stupid, plus the negative of don't. This blog popped into my head when I received a generic thank-you note for judging a contest by the contest coordinator. The note was in Arial 10, while my name was in TNR 12. The whole point of that blog would have been to keep the font the same. I would have felt a little better about my judging efforts if the coordinator had taken the time to use the same font. As it is, I didn't feel appreciated or special because it was too obvious that it was generic. 

This goes for sending queries to editors/agents. Keep the font the same. 

Look, editors/agents are well aware that you are sending out mass queries. You'd be crazy not to, but have a little bit of professional in the manner you query them. 

• remember to change the addressee's name
• find out if you are querying a male or a female (Mr vs. Ms)--and yes, I have screwed this one up
• make sure you are using their LAST name instead of their first name in your query--ditto on screwage.

In other words, double check everything before hitting the send button.

On Saturday, my daughter had her first Long Course swim meet since last year. It was a mixed meet with under 12's swimming along with the seniors, which meant my daughter swam a couple of events that don't even count for her age group (50 breast and 50 back), but it's a good practice. Long course is a relatively short season, but it's intense. If you've watched the Olympics, you've seen the distance that the kids swim in Long Course. Just stand at one end of the pool and look. It's a long way to swim 50 meters, without the turn. 

She did well, qualifying for Age Groups with 100 Free and 200 Medley. Both of which were BB times. She had a good swim with the 100 Fly (a B time), but was still a few seconds from qualifying with OAG's.

The one thing I noticed with the long course swim, is that the stroke technique is pinnacle. If you swim a 50, there are no turns, just a dive and a sprint. With a 100, there is one flip turn. So if you lose time, it's due to small issues with your stroke. 

I told her to swim hard, but I don't think she swam 100% all out in all the events, maybe 80%. The indicator is how hard she's breathing when she gets out of the pool. Breathing hard = gave it her all. Not breathing hard = 80% effort. 

Just saying. 

And, I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised that the pool guys still haven't plastered our pool. I've lost track of all the times I've heard, "You're next on the list." for the last THREE weeks. With the Oklahoma wind blowing dust, pollen, and tree crap around, this is what our pool looks like now. They had to chip the plaster away from around the fixtures and the tile, along with putting holes everywhere. Believe it or not, they had acid washed this three days ago in preparation of plaster. 

Once they plaster the pool, we can't swim in it for a month. I'm starting to wonder if we will be able to swim in it at all this season! 

I'm almost finished with this next afghan. It was made from a bunch of my leftover colors, with the exception of the border, which is dark green. I'll see how it looks when I finish piecing it together and crocheting the border, but I'll probably donate this one to Brenda Novak's Auction. Since it had so many different colors, I have to put it on the floor to see if I've managed to mix it up enough. 

I try to post more this week, but I'm finally writing on the Mystic Elements stories and want to crank out as many words as possible. Another goal I have for this week is to update this blog, fixing my links, and updating the blurbs on the stories now that I know what the stories are all about! 

That's it for today. Later, Peeps!

Lagniappe!

I had good intentions of posting the final installment of my WDW Magic Kingdom rides, but that didn't happen.

Why?

Because I was having to do two major computer scans to remove some Trojan virus that managed to be riding the coat tails of one of the Disney maps I had found on Google Images.

I think it's gone, but it didn't seem to be one that was harmful to others. As it seemed to simply hijack my Google browser. *fingers crossed*

When I do finally get the ride blog written, the maps that I will be using as reference will be the one's I scanned off my own computer--hopefully sometime this week.

I guess today I'll post a little Lagniappe!  I forgot which version I'm currently working on!

I don't know about y'all, but early this year as I set my goals, I promised myself that I would read 50 books. I've managed to read 50--well, I'm reading number 50 right now--but I can't say that all of them were books as some were short stories or novellas . . . and one of them I never finished. I did note on my non-finished book that it was "boring". And life is too short to read boring books. 

And the last book to round out my list is:  House of Hades by Rick Riordan.

Wow! That man can write! And it's so much fun to see how he manages to make mythology come alive!

It doesn't help that my kitchen is torn up.

Hubs and I have debated about looking for a house around the kidlet's school to alleviate some of the driving issues. We've come to the conclusion that 1) we can't afford one, 2) the ones that we can afford would need some serious renovation.

So we decided to update our house. Little stuff, not a total remodel. And if we change our minds, our house isn't 'dated'.

To that end, hubs has ripped out the tile backsplash and is putting in glass tiles. I'll blog about it when the work is completed. He's still cutting tons of tiles to finish the corner and side. Yesterday, he put up half sheets to finish the walls and then worked on the outlet cuts.

It's really coming together nicely!

This weekend was also the kidlet's first Short Course swim meet of the season. Well, she did do a duel meet a couple of weeks ago, but that was more to get her head into the game.

Though she isn't 13 yet, she needs to work to get the times set for 13-14 year olds since the time Oklahoma Age Groups comes around (March), she'll need those times to qualify. Actually, she did quite well by shaving time off of everything she was entered in, BUT it wasn't enough to qualify for any OAG event.

But, as I said, she has until March to make those newer, and harder, times.

We'll see, since she will be moving up to the Gold team, she may just want to survive the longer hours of practice!

I'll be making candy again. I did finish five boxes of Sea Salt Caramels for the winners of the Brenda Novak auction last May . . . until hubs decided to rip my kitchen apart. So candy making will be put on hold until he's finished with this endeavor.

Though he should be finished sometime this week. As I mentioned, he has a corner and one side to finish cutting. Then one of us will have to seal the quartz pieces before he grouts the wall and then caulks the edges before I can put everything back on the counter.

This week will be a short school week as it's Fall Break. I'll attend Parent-Teacher conferences while the kidlet is doing a service project with her classmates on Wednesday. And she'll be home for a four day weekend. I hope to finally finish GNOME WITHOUT A HOME today. I know this picture book has taken me FOREVER to finish! I've been thinking about it a lot, but finding the time to sit and put the words to paper are tough.

Goal for today: GNOME WITHOUT A HOME

I also need to keep working on DRAGON DAYS OF SUMMER, as the kidlet actually read FOR WHOM THE BELL TROLLS and wants to see what happens next!

If I focus the next two months, I should finish DRAGON by the end of the year. It'll need tweaking, but it will be finished!

I guess that's all I have for now. I need to put my walking clothes on and wait for the sun to rise. Once I finish my walk, I'll finish my story!

Later, Peeps!

Computer and other updates

Computer: As you know last week I had some computer issues. The issues didn't stop when hubs replaced the mother board. After the board arrived, he did his magic in about 5 minutes and had the thing hooked up and ready to go, but when he was checking it it had some fluctuations in the readings, which made him think there was a power supply issue. And he had a few extra ones, so he hooked up one that was compatible and Voila! My computer was mine again! Though my poor netbook was chugging along quite nicely, it didn't have all the bells and whistles my regular computer does.

Along with this excellent news is that I didn't lose anything!

Contest Entries: I still have one more contest entry to judge. Another entry that I read, commented, but didn't score wasn't lost, so all I have to do is score it. Then I can dust my hands off with this contest.

Feeling better: I still don't know if I had a virus, or it was my normal allergy issues, a sinus infection, or female stuff, or what, but I've been feeling like crap for weeks--low grade headache, blah feeling, tired, not sleeping well, etc. Not bad enough to go to the doctor, but not my normal self. I'm starting to feel better and it made me think of the time many years ago when I felt like this when it turned out that I had mono. At that time, I worked in a hospital lab so all I had to do was have my blood drawn and do testing on it. Well, most of my results were normal. And then I had a brain fart that I needed to be tested for CMV (cytomegalo virus) and Mono (mononucleosis). The ladies in immunology a) laughed at me, b) said I was too old for mono, c) grudgingly performed the test. The test is very simple test. A drop of my serum is mixed with two other heterophile blood products, and clumping is a positive result. My test turned positive before the positive control. Yeah, I had mono.

I also had a flu shot last week and developed a swollen lymph node in my arm pit. It's a little less tender than it was a few days ago, but I'll keep monitoring it though I suspect it's due to the shot.

Reading: Along with making Christmas gifts, I've been trying to catch up on my reading. Last week, I read two books. The first one was my very first Piers Anthony book. Yeah, yeah, I know, I write fantasy and yet I never read one of the pioneers. My only excuse is that I'm more of an Anne McCaffary fan. Well, I read A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON. When I was reading it, I had to remember that this story was written in the 1970's when explanatory world building and introspective narration was the style. It was a good story, but I could see how it might be changed to make it more current, style-wise, that is.

The second book was Marilyn Pappano's PASSION TO DIE FOR. Wow, just wow. That about sums it up. This particular book is a Harlequin Romantic Suspense and I snagged it when HQ offered it for free a week or so ago. Normally, I don't read category romance, though I have read most of Marilyn's single title books (the Bethlehem books and her Rachel Butler books). This was a first for me. It's been a very long time since I've read category and this book was a wonderful re-introduction to the specialized genre. Though I was totally immersed in the Copper Lake story, I also paid attention to her turning points--with a Kindle, it's easier because there are no pages, just percentage to give the reader an idea of how much story is left to read--and her turning points were spot on the money of a 3-act storytelling. The interesting thing about this is that Marilyn doesn't 'follow' a guideline when writing her books, she's just a natural storyteller who knows the rhythm and pacing appropriate for the length of story. I need to write more on this topic, but I'll save it for another time.

I need to get my walk in now that the sun is rising earlier, and then after my shower, it's CANDY MAKING TIME!

Later, Peeps!

My Sunday--not so typical

Yesterday, I didn't get my walk in until early afternoon. And it was HOT, like fry an egg on the asphalt hot. Okay, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was one of the hottest day's this year, or maybe it just felt like it.

So I'm hoofing it around the trails with my ice cold water, which lasted like 30 minutes, and you do realize that I walk for 60 minutes, right? So the water becomes tepid at 30 minutes and then HOT at the 45 minute mark, but by then I've polished off the entire 1.5 pints of liquidy goodness.

Oh, and did I mention the wind?

Yeah, it was blowing so hard that I thought I was walking backward at times, it reminded me of the times when I was riding Buster around the area and we were flying down one side, but galloping into the wind took about 3X as long. Good times, good times.

And I bet you're wondering why it took me until afternoon to go on my walkies, well, it was simply because we actually went to church and then to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast. Mimi's has a veggie frittata made with egg whites that was WON-DER-FUL! And turkey sausage. And fruit. Who would have thought turkey sausage was good?

Not me. But then again, sausage is all about spices and texture. Who cares what it's made with, right? Considering sausage used to be made from all the nasty stuff that no one wanted to eat.

And back to my heat stroke story  . . .

After eating a nice brunch, I had to start laundry which was the reason I didn't go for walkies until noon.
You want to know what's really gross about walking in the friggin' heat?

Sweat shins.

Yes, my friends, my shins sweat. They don't dew, glisten or what-have-you, they sweat as in beads of sweat. Like the bead of sweat that rolls down your spine until it gets sucked up by your butt crack type of sweating.

Er, is that TMI?

Too bad, this is what you get for a Monday morning.

You're probably wondering why I'm so scattered and flying off on various tangents, well, it's what happened two hours AFTER my heat stroke-induced walkies that did it.

My hubby and I drove my kidlet to camp.

And left her.

Last year, it was worse because we left town and flew to Vegas . . . and it was cooler in Vegas than it was here in Oklahoma. Poor kidlet didn't have any AC, though the did have fans in their cabins.

So the question for this week . . . What to do with myself for 5 days?? !!  Well, day 5 I'll be spending with my hubby since it's his birthday and I did ask to see Snow White and the Hunks . . . .er, HUNTSMAN. Sorry, but Chris Hemsworth is some serious eye candy!

To quote George Takai:   "Oh, my!"

And when I wrote this (Sunday night) I was also Skyping with a high School friend who was coming to town, IM'ing another old high school friend AND IM'ing a my writing buddy, Cyndi.

Don't you DARE say that I can't multitask!

Let's see what else I've accomplished Sunday:

• I refilled and organized the wine rack
• looked for my Lifetime WW pin (couldn't find it) :-(
• organized my hall closet
• finished laundry and ironing

Today, I need to--

• organize the freezer.
• check the pool chemicals
• fertilize my roses and trim
• toss the garden mulch
• pick up doggie poo
• take out the trash
• finish reading Brenda Novak book

Wow, I don't know what else to do? How about:

• reread TROLL and continue edits
• Plot DRAGON

Oh, so much to do and so little time to do it. Oh, and I can't eat much today because I intend to hit my goal tomorrow AM. Luckily, hubby is in meetings all day and into the evening and I don't have to cook for him. Green Monster smoothie here I come! Check out the recipe on Foodie Fridays!

And if I continue to blather on and on, I'll just get confused.

If you wondered, I wrote this blog as pure regurgitation of my thoughts. Now you know why I'm so nutso most of the time--there's just too much stuff going on inside my head.

Make them stop! Make the voices stop!

Just Kidding! I need those voices to tell me what to do . . . *tests finger against butcher knife blade*

Watch out, Peeps!