babies_stole_my_dingo

Da Boy biffed it pretty hard on his bike last night. This was his first bad wreck, and he was pretty upset. Apparently one of the pedals just came right off and caused him to lose control.

But he wasn't upset about being hurt. Not much, anyway.

He was upset because he thought he was going to need a new bike, because this one was "broken."

He was very relieved when the Hubby fixed it for him this morning.

He's scraped up a little, but no broken bones and no concussion. Yay for helmets.

The weather sucks today, so rather than taking the day off from school the way we thought about, we're going to go ahead and have school and take a day off when it's actually, you know...nice outside. The high today is supposed to be in the 50's. WTF, Mother Nature? IT'S JUNE.

This has been a shit day.

Sometimes I seriously, seriously wonder if I'm cut out for this. Seriously.

I may need me some Jamocha therapy after this. Which would be a shame, since I lost a pound yesterday. In fact, stepping on the scale this morning was the only bright spot of the day. Which made a nice change from the usual, but damn. Did it all have to go downhill from there?

But yay for 133.4 this morning. I shall have strawberries instead of a fast food shake. Yes.

And at least the branch of the library that really has an excellent SF collection has The Grantville Gazette I. So I'm not going to have to either go all over creation to find it, or reserve it online and then have to wait.

This is, of course, assuming we get out of the house today. Because Da Boy is being a big ol' Delay Fish here. We should have been done with school nearly an hour ago...

So, I was to pick up Da Boy in Texas yesterday. His aunt (my sister) needed to go to work today, so I was going to fly out to DFW, meet them at the airport, and fly back. ( Good times. Or...not. )

So, the timeline looks something like this:
6:00am -- get up, shower, dress, break garage door.
7:00am -- arrive at SLC International Airport.
8:30am -- plane takes off; we're supposed to land in DFW at noon, Texas time.
12:30pm -- plane lands in Wichita Falls.
3:00pm -- we take off from Wichita Falls.
4:00pm -- we land at DFW. I get in that long-ass ticket counter line.
6:15pm -- I make it up to the counter.
9:00pm -- The flight to SLC takes off.
11:00pm -- We land in SLC.

The times are all local, I think. I really should have been writing this stuff down...but I also didn't have a frelling pen.

Just...wow.

And I'm back in Utah.



I wibbled a teensy bit. He's very excited. Of course, tonight, when he has to go to bed without benefit of the DingDog or his brown dog pillow or kissing Mommy night-night, this may change.

I hope he has fun. I hope he's good. I hope he wants to come back home.

Many many many thanks to my wonderful sister, who is taking care of him this week so I can go to a Con all three days and the Hubby can go to his race (if he wants to go and just watch, since the car isn't ready).

When checking flight availability for a trip from SLC to DFW, it helps to input the departure and destination airports, rather than just the date. The software is not psychic.

Da Boy is going to visit his Aunt next week. This will entail me being in airplanes or airports most of Wednesday, as I'm going with him to DFW and then flying home by myself the same day. I'll bring the computer and plenty of reading material, and might even get some writing done. I'd really like to finish the Faerie Show Fic sometime this century.

The purpose of this is so that I can go to CONduit without worrying about anything. The Hubby was going to have a weekend race, but he thinks the car is broken and hasn't had time to tear into it yet, and then he has to work on Sunday. Sending Da Boy to see his Aunt gives me the freedom to enjoy the Con all weekend, and also broadens his horizons a little.

This will be the first time he's been without us halfway across the country. I should be wibbling. Why am I not wibbling?

It's time for my Inner Sadistic Bitch to crawl back into her hole. I think the Giant Bugs story is as done as I'm going to make it. I'll run through it one more time and then send it off to the wilds of Writers of the Future. Fly, be free, little story!

And now I must coax forth my Inner Slapstick Comedienne. Because the Faerie Show Fic is screwball comedy all the way, and I need to work on it now. Finishing it before the month is out would be peachy

In other news, we've decided to keep Da Boy (*snerk*), so we gave him a real bed today. This entailed yanking the bed the Hubby built, lo, many years ago, out of the spare bedroom and into Da Boy's room. Of course, that meant taking it apart, because the thing is frelling HUGE. And then we had to completely rearrange Da Boy's room, because that bed only goes against the wall one way, and of course every stick of furniture he had was against that wall.

Yeah, my back is going to be unhappy tomorrow. In fact, it's not real happy right now. *mainlines naproxen*

We're also making Moab Jeep Safari plans. The weather looks...cooperative. And then next month, if the Hubby gets the first layer of shifts he's picked out, he'll have a week off and we can go to San Diego and visit the toucan place.

As we do. And we're reading a book called "Secrets and Surprises." I have Da Boy read through these stories first, and then I read them back to him.

He finished his part of this story, wherein a set of twins get a box of candy from their Grandma, and the girl determines that she's going to make hers last two weeks. Initially, the boy wants to do the same, but he succumbs to greed and eats all of his share. The line there is:

He did not stop until he had eaten all the candy!

And after I read that line, Da Boy said, and I quote:

"Dun dun duuunnnn!"

Hee!

Boy: Does God see me having school?
Me: Yes, honey, God sees everything.
Boy: How?
Me: I don't know, He's God, He sees everything.
Boy: But how?
Me: He's God. He just does.
Boy: Well, maybe you should visit His website. This is why we have the internet.

I have two stories formatted, printed, and in addressed envelopes, preparatory to being sent out tomorrow. The Abducted!Werewolf is going on its maiden voyage to F&SF, and the BeagleFic is heading out to Analog.

I have written absolutely nothing today, although I did format the BeagleFic properly with real headers rather than the ones I did by hand back when I didn't know how to do them. This...may be remedied after I finish this entry. After all, it's a Dare to Be Bad challenge, right?

Television tonight was awesome, and the previews for next week's Journeyman set off my MomDar like whoa. AUGH. Why you gotta do this to me, show? And I'm just loving Chuck. Ohyespleasegivememoreofthis. And if we could have Adam Baldwin handcuffed shirtless to the bed next time, that'd be peachy. *nods firmly*

There was a hell of an ugly wreck outside our backyard early this morning. From the looks of it, a Contour or something like it was turning left into the apartment complex, and a GMC SUV just plowed into him from the rear and shoved him up the street a good fifty feet or so. Da Boy woke me up for that (after four hours of sleep, yay)...and even though I went back to bed after the excitement was over, this may explain why I've been so very tired all day.

Da Boy was getting ready to put his bike back in the shed in the backyard this evening, when he glanced outside and said "There's a cougar in the yard!"

Now...we don't live in an area where we actually have cougars. They come down from the foothills and invade Sandy sometimes, but they don't get this far west. So, I looked, and it turned out that the neighbor's yellow Labrador Retriever had decided to jump over the five-foot-tall brick wall and play with our dog.

I don't actually have a problem with that. As long as they're happy and don't hurt each other, have at it, pups. Party on. Da Boy was kind of freaked though. He really thought a cougar was going to eat the PupperNutter.

Tomorrow I have to get ready to go to the last race of the season up in Boise, the Halloween Classic. Looking at the weather, this may be a disaster in the making, with showers forecast all week. Sunday is looking good, but...I guess we'll see. The entry fee is paid, and it's as much a social thing as anything else.

Getting ready entails packing, and buying my own Halloween costume for this shindig. I've decided to go with this one. Why, yes, that's a fake arm holding the basket, and the snake is a puppet. OF COURSE it is. This is, after all, me we're talking about here, right? Da Boy is going as a motocross driver, and the Hubby...isn't dressing. We didn't put a theme together this year, so he decided he didn't want to. Maybe next year...

Boy, that was random. Anyway, if you don't see me post for the rest of the week, it's because I'm in Boise at the race. Wish us luck. :)

And the font that is used in Da Boy's books is Times New Roman.

He has apparently decided that his handwriting should look the same. *facepalm* So, he does the little curlicue at the bottom of the small "t" and the "i" looks just like the font.

And I'm having a hard time convincing him that our handwriting isn't supposed to look like typewriting.

It's going to be a long year.

I got Da Boy up to watch the lunar eclipse the other night. He was suitably enthralled. The next morning, he asked me:

Is the moon going to do any more tricks tonight?

And he's been hitting the VeggieTales pretty hard lately; they've replaced Thomas the Tank Engine as his Favorite Thing Ever OMG, which gives me a happy, because VeggieTales are AWESOME, dudes. Now, as you may or may not know, the tagline for VeggieTales is "Remember, God made you special. And He loves you very much."

So, the other day, Da Boy asked me:

Are you special?

Yes, honey. Everyone is, in their own way.

But you're OLD!

I LOL'd.

Do you know how hard it is to write a serious story about a book sucking knowledge out of people and sending them into comas when you have THIS running through your head:

"Broccoli, celery, gotta be...VeggieTales.
Lima beans, collard greens, peachy keen...VeggieTales.
Cauliflower, sweet n sour, half an hour...VeggieTales."

I love VeggieTales, don't get me wrong.

But make it STOOOOOOOOOOOP...

I just played Pick-Up-Sticks with my six-year-old and got my ass handed to me.

This is my life.

Jim Butcher's Cursor's Fury (which is brilliant, BTW; those of you who read Harry Dresden but haven't ventured into the Codex Alera totally should), and Da Boy noticed the cover for the first time today.



"Are those lions made of water?"

"Yes."

"So, there's no blood in them?"

"No..."

"What about that guy? Does he have blood?"

"Yes, honey." *facepalm*

"What about 'Where's My Cow?' Is there blood and milk in the cow?"

"Yeah..."

What's up with the blood thing? Children are so strange.

...and open the door to Da Boy's room.

He's sitting on his bed, reading "Where's My Cow?" Out loud. *hearts*

Understand, of course, that he isn't actually reading it, per se. He has it memorized. Now, if he'd just put together the words on the page and the words in his head...

In other news, I've just about beaten the A&tS story into as much shape as possible. I may or may not run it by the Hubby before I run it to the PO tomorrow, and I'm definitely going to wait for more feedback (if any) before I finalize the thing. MANY THANKS TO THE GOOD FOLKS ON MY CONCRIT LIST, AS WELL AS MY (PUBLISHED) MOM, FOR HELPING IT NOT SUCK. You guys rock, seriously.

Mood is "cold" because I had to turn the frelling heater on. In June. *shakes fist at sky* It's less than 60 degrees outside right now.

I got the CatFeet fic back from my Writing Buddy tonight.

*cries*

I don't know if it's salvageable, to be honest. I'm going to do my best to beat it into submission, but whether I actually can or not is an open question. I guess I'll beat it into as much submission as possible and then start sending it out anyway--because just because I think it's bad doesn't mean an editor will. *shrug*

However, I'm in the position I want to be in, writing-wise. I have one in-progress, one in editing, and one with my Writing Buddy. And four out looking for a home. I should be hearing from Asimov's any time now.

I broke 1400 words on the A&tS fic. I HAVE ALIENS. Which I may or may not change the appearance of. I have dropped my students from five to two. We have entered the Museum. Go, me. 3600 words to go...

Da Boy lost his third tooth today. And we are off to see Spiderman 3 at the drive-in in about...five minutes.

Yeah, so I banged out a thousand words the other day and then the thing came to a complete and utter STOP. I was hoping to have it for snarking_boojum tonight, but I may have no such luck.

I've decided that I don't need a third body before I kill off the last person, so I just need to get to the place where the I can do the climax. I'm debating introducing the last victim again before I off her. And I really need to have it done and polished before the 30th.

Okay. Deadline. Concentrate.

Yesterday was Da Boy's sixth birthday. Cake was consumed, presents were opened, and a good time was had by all. :)

He gets to watch three things a day. Most days, this translates to "Bob the Builder/Thomas the Tank Engine" (whichever the local station decides to show that week), and Curious George, plus one other thing, either a DVD or something on TV.

He loves American Idol. With the Hubby gone, I tape it. And therefore, when I ask him if he wants to watch a DVD or AI, he asks first "Are you taping it for Daddy?" I answer in the affirmative, and he picks a DVD. It's so funny to see him making these choices and actually thinking about it.

What's he chosen to watch over the last three days?

• March of the Penguins
  
• Polar Prowl (the DVD that came bundled with MotP)
  
• Disney's Alice in Wonderland

Not Cars, or Robots, or his NASCAR DVD. Edutainment and a classic. And I haven't pushed him into picking anything, either. He has a pool of videos he can choose from, and he picked those all by himself.

How cool is that?

---

Writing? What is this "writing" of which you speak? *sigh* I've got a ficathon entry due in two days--which I have an idea for, but the execution of it is going to be difficult. I'm stalled on the origific thing, probably because I'm trying to show rather than tell and this is stuff I don't want to show. Argh.

At least I have Wednesday Write tomorrow night. I don't have anything to give my Writing Buddy crit for, but yay for talking writing with someone who gets the process--although the Hubby has been essential in helping me figure out the origific thing. And you know what? If snarking_boojum is still sick, I may just go anyway, take my laptop, and scribble for awhile. If I can.

*wanders off, hollering for Muses*

And I place the blame for this:



squarely on him. *nods*

In other news, we saw "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "Eragon" this afternoon. PoH should be required watching for every person ever. And now I want to find out more about what happened afterwards. So. Very. Good.

Eragon...

Well. It was pretty. But if the characters had been any thinner, we could have seen through them. I hope the book is better.

snarking_boojum and I had our weekly get-together and talked writing for a couple of hours. I have new plot points! Yay!

I was going to rant about this week's episode of "House" again, but I"m not sure I have the energy. But the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. *sigh* For the nurses on my flist, is a blood test accurate enough to tell how far along a pregnancy is?

Yeah. WAY too much time on my hands.

Baby dragons? What baby dragons?