thirteen things you might not know, or might not care about

1. Any time of the day or night, there is an episode of CSI or Law and Order on TV

2. Mr Peterman is now hosting Family Feud

3. Even though I know how it turns out, I still can't watch the episode where Elaine eats the $27,000 piece of cake without wanting her to STOP IT

4. It is possible to get tired of a dog who wants your attention.

5. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup is delicious.

6. My daughter can cook whole meals without input from me. Tuesday night I went downstairs to see if she'd forgotten she was cooking because she hadn't asked me any questions and I was halfway down the stairs when she sang out "Supper's ready, everyone!" And she did the same thing Wednesday night. The coolest thing about that is her obvious sense of deep satisfaction.

7. I'm starting to like my novel again.

8. I am smarter than a guy with a PhD on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader"

9. It snowed here today.

10. Our laundry is once again caught up.

11. I have been too sick to READ. (People who know me are making plans to attend the funeral.)

12. On the other hand, a friend of mine called me a voracious reader the other day and I thought that was bit overstated. Haven't read a book all week. Unless you count the two I read on Monday. I also worked 8 hours on Monday. And don't ask me if I read every word because I don't know, and it's an annoying question. Everyone is good at something.

13. Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader is actually a rather annoying show.

reports of my death would be greatly apprecited

skin hurts.  Head hurts.  Burning hot, can’t stop shivering.  At 3 am i thought “maybe I’m dying” and for a few seconds, that thought cheered me up.

 

A is being nurturing, B is ignoring me, the dog is pretty sure I’m lying around all day so that I can pet her.

 

Bye.

 

On working on a novel when there is an 8 year old in the house who has been asked to respect your "office time"

Flaw in Mom’s Office Time Plan

 

Flaw #1 – nothing makes you want something like being told you can’t have it

 

Flaw #2 – my “office” looks exactly like that table in my bedroom where I sit and read other people’s blogs and play games

 

Flaw #3  - I forgot to lock the door to my “office”.

 

Those are just the ones that occur to me at the moment.

 

Flaw in the Hey!  Why Don’t I Write A Novel!  Plan

 

Flaw #1 –  My head just exploded.

 

Must be time for lunch.

Dear Novel

Really?  There are supposed to teaching songs and legends written in metrical verse?  Really?  Maybe you could give me a snippet of a frickin’ hint where to start then, hmm?

 

Who do you think I am, Anne McCaffrey*???

 

 

*do you think “The Ballad of Moreta’s Ride” would fit well into a book in which there is no time travel and no dragons?  Do you think the McCaffrey’s would notice?  Because The Ballad has two things going for it  - one, it is indeed metrical, if memory serves, and b, it is ALREADY WRITTEN.

Because it is in my brain, and now I must impart it to yours

From Michael Card CD “The Hidden Face Of God”,

 

I Will Not Walk Away

 

I made the Man of Sorrows sorry

By all my foolish lies

I drove the nails, I raised the cross

I was the reason that He died

 

Utterly unfaithful then,

I added anger to my sin

In a world already dark to me

I closed my eyes and would not see

 

So I may kick and I may scream

Say many things I do not mean

Hold blindly to what is not true

But I will not walk away from You.

 

Just why I choose to disobey

I simply cannot tell

Why I blame You when I rebel

And weep for wounds I give myself

 

Then screaming at an empty sky

I search for You and wonder why

Though I cause You so much agony

You refuse to walk away from me

 

Don’t read me pointless poems, friend

Don’t diagnose, don’t condescend

Though you may be right be disagree

I need someone to weep with me

 

I made the Man of Sorrows sorry

By all my foolish lies

I drove the nails, I raised the cross

I was the reason that He died

 

So I may kick and I may scream

Say many things I do not mean

Hold blindly to what is not true

But I will not walk away from You

 

 

 

 

"Lose your favourite lines"

“Serth shook his head, tears scattering like jewels in the dappled forest light.”

 

There.  RIP, line.

Oh why not? Here's one from so long ago, a different woman wrote it.

"The night calls me to come wander through its shrouded silence."

RIP, shrouded night.

Okay so this post is only pretending to be about cookies

So here's what I like about cookies: there's no second guessing about cookies. They're either cookies or they're not. You don't spend a whole afternoon making ginger snaps and then come back the next day and find you've made chocolate cake. You don't have to throw out half the cookies you thought you'd made and start over. If you took a whole week off work to make cookies, and had two ounces of self-control to rub together, you would have more cookies than you knew what to do with.

I think I hear the oven timer.

Mmmmmmmmmm cookies.

Auntie Brekke's Writing Tips

(insert something about blind leading blind ...)

 

The real title of this post is “things I repeat over and over in my head as I fling word after desperate word at the page, hoping some of them stick”.  But that was a bit wordy.

 

1.        Show don’t tell.  (bjH)

2.       Dramatize.  (Cecelia)

3.       “Leave the camera on this scene a little longer – show us the reaction.”  (KM)

4.       Tension on every page. (AH, AG, NR)

5.       You can’t edit a blank page.  (MP)

 

And then, when you’re sick and tired of remembering all those mechanical things –

 

“Spread the page with shining.”  (Murray Pura)

Rude awakening

Wednesday stomped into my room, grabbed me by the hair, threw me up against the wall and backhanded me across the face.

 

And I don’t even know what I did to make it so mad.

 

 

FYI

It is possible to add too many ground peanuts to your take-away Thai lunch.

 

However, while you are eating the peanuts, you may remember that in many countries, they are called ground nuts, and then you will repeat the phrase “ground groundnuts” in your head approximately two dozen times, and wish you could use that phrase in conversation.

 

 

Did you see that signature file?

So I keep e-mailing posts to my blog from my work e-mail and then having to delete my signature file when I notice it or have it pointed out to me, so if you’re thinking of sending me a huge bouquet of red roses in appreciation of my poetry, I’m sorry, you’ll just have to be faster next time.

 

 

something no-one in the whole world knows about me

Sometimes when I am trying to do something that doesn’t work, I say a little poem under my breath.  I made it up myself.

 

Ding, dang, durn

What’s a Grecian earn?

 

And then I spend a few seconds smiling over how that could be urn or earn.

I remember those days

One of the women who comes to my house for Ladies Bible Study on Tuesday mornings has a 2 year old who is simultaneously fascinated by, and terrified of, my 15 lbs of dog.  She'll run away from the dog, and then call her.  Her word for dog is "goag", and it is so cute, I can hardly stand it.

 

A few weeks ago, they were leaving and R said "Bye bye goag!" and I said "Can't forget to say good-bye to the goag!" and her mother gave me a gently reprimanding sort of look and said, "Yes, R, say good bye to the DOG."

 

I snickered.  I remember that, on the list of Appropriate Adult Behaviours:  "Model appropriate patterns of speech."

 

From my vantage point, however, it's more like "When did she stop saying "ohpotus" for "octopus"?"  "When did he stop calling it Dix Dwags?  and A three W?"  (Six Flags, and A&W, for those of you squinting at the screen)

 

This morning, however, I was pleased to hear that we're not past the speech cuteness quite yet.

 

"Go play your song, both hands, 4 times through" I asked a child.

 

"Yesterday I only had to do it three times, and the day before that, it was two times!  Why are you higher-ing it every time??"

 

The question is:  did I Model Appropriate Patterns of Speech?

 

Old habits die hard.

something in the air?

Everyone under the age of 13 in this house put themselves to bed last night.

On time.

Even the dog.

Definitely not blogging about work

Dear You Know Who You Are:

 

Yes, I am aware that that is your completely arbitrary policy.

 

Your completely arbitrary policy is difficult to implement.  If your policy had any reason for existing, I would have less trouble with this.  As it is, being forced to implement something tricky simply because you made it up in your own head and therefore you love it, is annoying me to no end.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

S

Conversation

Someone who is getting dressed for school:  Mom?  I have no clean underwear.

 

Mother of person getting dressed for school, aka Me:  Are your dirty ones in the hamper?

 

X:  Yep.

 

Me:  Well you’ll have to wing it for today but if the hamper is full, Dad will wash clothes today (side note:  he works from home) and you’ll be set.

 

I get home, there is a mile high pile of clean laundry on the couch.  (Thanks TechnoBoy!!)  I fold all the clothes.  There is not one article of clothing belonging to the child in need of specific items of clothing.

 

Me: ??  I don’t see any of your underwear in this huge pile.  In fact, I didn’t fold anything of yours.

 

X:  But I put them in the hamper!  Dad must not be done.

 

Me:  The hamper in my room?

 

X:  Yes!  The brown one.  I always do.

 

There is searching of hampers and my walkin closet floor, which used to Hamper OverFlow but is now clear, thanks to The System.  X finally disappears into his/her bedroom.

 

X:  Heh.  Oops.

 

Me:  So I guess you’ll be doing a load of laundry?

 

This is the same child who has spent the last two weeks sporadically searching for something that was not cheap, and was definitely lost.  Finally yesterday, I revoked computer privileges until it was found, and suggested that perhaps they give me their plan for giving me several hundred dollars to replace it.

 

“But I have looked EVERYWHERE it could be!!”

 

So I asked them, as a favour to me, to please look everywhere they were quite sure it wasn’t.

 

Found in ten minutes.