Oscar day

It was Oscar nomination day. I'm not an awards junkie, so my biggest kicks come from seeing what Hollywood schmuck they roll out of bed for the 5:30am pst announcements, and counting how many of this years movies I've actually seen.

Although, who am I kidding, it's probably a schmuck they kept out of bed until 5:30am. This year it was Mira Sorvino
,
and 2. Yes, I saw 2 movies from the nomination lists. The nominations were for.... drumroll... Achievement in makeup (Star Wars : Episode III Revenge of the Sith) and Achievement in sound editing/Achievement in sound mixing / Achievment in visual effects (War of the Worlds). This means the only movies I saw this year were the geek movies, and all the awards I could have an opinion on will be issued offscreen for geeks only. And speaking of geeks, why wasn't Serenity on there for screenplay, or makeup, or visual effects? Grrr.

I need to get out more often.

Mom. Mom. Mom.

Samantha took a 3 hour nap today. Which was a wonderful thing, while it was happening, and I got much done. But now, of course, it's two hours past bedtime and she's still wide awake.

Mom. Mom. Mom. I hear her chanting my name over the monitor. She doesn't *need* anything. We've read, brushed, pottied, tucked, kissed, and every other delay tactic in the book. She just doesn't want to go to bed.

Mom. Mom. Mom. She isn't crying yet, although she's starting to get that note in her voice. I went back one time, and said what do you want?

Mom. I love you. Mom. Mom. Mom.

It's tough to be three and have to go to bed when you aren't even tired.

Blogger rant

Word verification boxes.
ebsvsmao
ypmggpbf
amxzcwf
dfvxbmi

I know why we need them. But can't blogger find a way to make them work right? I am tired of typing in three different codes before they believe that I'm a real person not a machine.

Rant over. I feel much better.

All volunteer army becomes Volunteer once, in till they're done with you

No, it's not the draft. It's just not letting soldiers out of the army when their tour of duty has finished.

"The U.S. Army has forced about
50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary
stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss," but while some
dispute its fairness, court challenges have fallen flat."
...
"When a service has to repeatedly resort to compelling the
retention of people who want to leave, you're edging away from
the whole notion of volunteerism."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060129/ts_nm/iraq_usa_stoploss_dc

Bloglines randomness

Cool trick of Bloglines and Flickr is that you can subscribe to someone's Flickr photo feed, and know when they have new pics to see.

Except sometimes something goes goofy with it. Today, I'm seeing pictures of total strangers in my sister's rss feed.



A few of them are pretty neat pictures, the kind of slice-of-life that I love about Flickr. Looking at a picture, and trying to decide what made it so special to someone that they shared it with the world - or saved it for themselves.
Cute dogs are always fun too ;)

Random Acts of Kindness

Kristen at the Divas asked yesterday, "Have you ever committed a RAK(Random Act of Kindness)? Ever let someone go ahead of you in the grocery line just because? Ever paid the toll for the car behind you?"

I want to be able to say I'm such an inherently good person that yes, I find daily ways to be randomly kind. But ... really, not so much. I tend to be pulled into the same sucking vacuum of "me-me-me first" that I see way too often around me. Racing to be the next person to get in line at the grocery store. Not letting the big truck get over in front of me when his lane is ending - he's had a mile of signs warning him that his lane is ending, why'd he wait until he passed 50 cars to try to cut me off?

So here's a "tag" that's from me to you. Be randomly kind. And tell me about it. Hold open a door for someone behind you, and give them a smile as you leave. Pay for the meal of the person behind you at the drive thru. Pop an extra quarter in the parking meter of someone almost out of time. Share your umbrella with a stranger while walking in the rain. Send flowers to a person you don't know well (or at all) and put a note like "I hope you have a nice day. This has been a random act of kindness". Take a bag of chocolate with you to the post office, and leave it and a note with the worker behind the counter. There's as many ways to be randomly kind as there are moments in the day - I challenge you to find one. Then come tell me about it. Just because you were randomly kind doesn't mean you shouldn't be patted on the back for doing so.

And if you keep a web site, challenge others to be randomly kind as well.

The world could use a bit more kindness, and a bit less of "me".

Leahpeah meets customer service.

Random browsing at the end of the day has given me :

Leahpeah.

This was the funniest thing I read since .... something earlier today.

Dooce

As though I needed more mandatory reads on my blog roll. Today I find Dooce.
She had me at

Chuck has never been a loyal dog as he is easily persuaded by any
stranger or potential criminal with a treat in his pocket. But this
morning as Leta practiced her now ritual 10 laps around the island in
the kitchen he followed her around as if she were pulling him on a
leash. I ran into the living room for a second to open the blinds and
when I came back into the kitchen she was standing dangerously close to
the lip of the stairs that lead down into the basement. And Chuck, dog
who only shares space with humans because we can stand upright and
reach the chicken jerky, he had moved his body so that it was blocking
her from moving another inch. I muttered a silent yet thankful ohmigod
and Chuck looked up at me like, “This kid is exhausting. YOUR TURN.”

Writertopia Meter

Filed under "amused" :



You can play with your own at http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters
Thanks for the link Memento Vivere!

Dubbed by Daisy

Daisy Dexter Dobbs did a fun exercise on creating interesting character names. Basicaly, you're combining a former pet name, a street you lived on, and a teacher. And out of that was born :
Karen Steele:
3-Word Character Name: Major Nelly Rogers
Method:
Main character names and titles usually come to her before the story
itself. She can get 3000 words with nothing but a name. Next thing she
knows she's going into the second chapter of the story wondering "Oh
yeah, what was my conflict?"
Dubbed by Daisy: Juniper Kae Sastrell

This was fun ;) Now I've got two names to play with if I ever get stuck!
I do wish she'd do a 5 minute "Creating interesting conflict" blog soon...

Huh.

Things that make me go huh!

I made my post this morning (see below "Coffee Time") and then realized my blog template had been played with one too many times. So I borrowed this new one from Caz and didn't even notice I'd installed a template with the same name as my last post.

Huh.

Caz is supposed to have a few new templates up in a few days... he makes some of the most absolutely wonderful Blogger templates. Can't wait to see his new ones.

Coffee time

I had this nice long post about several things going on in the world,
but it depressed me just reading it. So I deleted it, poured a fresh
cup of coffee, and went to read Calvin and Hobbes instead.



I feel better already.

Saturday mornings

Saturdays usually involve me spending a lot of time shoveling putting the accumulated mess of the week into various boxes, (garbage) bags, drawers, and closets. This process is called cleaning.

Sometimes a closet has been "cleaned" so full that there is no room to put anything else into it. So I'll find a few things that need to go in the garbage, or to Goodwill, and make a bit more space to clean with.

One of today's Goodwill finds was Samantha's Halloween costume from 2004. As soon as she saw it, she wanted to put it on.

"No Samantha, that won't fit you anymore."
"Why?"
"Because you were a little baby when you wore that."
"I'm still a little baby."
"No, you're my baby, but you're not a little baby. You were 2 then, now you're almost 4."
"But I want to wear it."
"No Samantha, that won't fit you anymore."
(Start conversation at line 2 again.)

This went on for the full time it took me to sort thru the jackets, shoes, and vacume cleaners - and Halloween costumes - that were crowding the front closet. About the 6th time thru the conversation, I'd had enough.
"NO! You are not going to fit in that costume. Enough!"
The flash of determination in her eyes was a scary thing.
"Ok mommy." One sly hand scoops up the costume, and back the hall to her bedroom she goes.

I was just grateful not to be reliving the "I want to wear" it conversation, so I let it - and her - go.

Five minutes later, she comes out of her room. "Look Mom! It DOES fit!".



I have no idea how she squeezed herself into this thing all by herself. But she's very proud of herself for having done so.

Paperback Writer: Winners

LynnViehl is not only one of the most prolific multi-genre authors writing today, she's also one of the most generous. Of her time, and of her writing.

This week on her blog she ran a comment contest, and was planning to pick 15 winners from all submissions. Instead, she decided to let EVERYONE who entered, win. All 61 of us.

The prize is a copy of her upcoming release, Rebel Ice.

I can't wait to read it!
Thanks Lynn ;)

Paperback Writer: Winners

3 Days to change your life

Received via email :

Hello,
I'm doing my part to help fight breast cancer. Want to join me? Find out how by clicking below.
Please, learn how you can help by clicking here.
Thank you for your help!

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, except for nonmelanoma skin cancers. The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is about 1 in 8 (13% of women). It is estimated that in 2005 about 211,240 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States. At this time there are slightly over 2 million breast cancer survivors in the United States. Women living in North America have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, exceeded only by lung cancer. The chance that breast cancer will be responsible for a woman’s death is about 1 in 33 (3%). In 2005, about 40,110 women and 470 men will die from breast cancer in the United States. Death rates from breast cancer have been declining. These decreases are believed to be the result of early detection and improved treatment.

Flickr Groups

When I started using Flickr to share my photos, I picked the site for two reasons. It free, and no one had to sign in / create a user profile just to see my pictures. Pet peeve.

I liked it so much, I ended up paying for the Pro version, which gives me pretty close to unlimited usage.

So I constantly find neat little things out, things that make me say "Wow, I didn't know Flickr did that."

Today I stumbled on Flickr Groups. You can search groups to find people who share intrests, and share your love of pictures with them.

So over my morning coffee I started typing words into the group search, just to find out if there was a group and how popular it is.
Cats - 3017 groups that mention cats. I think Action Cats was my favorite, mostly because of this picture

Now that's an action shot!

There's a group for my home city, with some nice scenic pictures. Only 28 members in this one; I guess Jacksonville isn't the hotbed of Flickr activity.

106 seperate groups for writers, including the mucho exlussive Circle of Wine Writers. It's a private group with only one member, so I'm not sure how the Circle part of that - or the group part of that - is working for them.
Random searches :
Coffee lovers can choose from 605 groups, tea lovers only 327.
Democrats get 40 groups, Republicans 55
Love turned up 4014, sex only 810.
Pretty 880, ugly 284

And then my coffee cup was empty, a good sign it was time to stop searching. Much like my cup being empty now means it is time to stop writing, refill the cup, and get to work .

Happy Friday to you. Take a minute to find something new out there - it's only a search away.

What age do you act?

Annalee asked

So in otherwords... it wouldn't be cheap to use this to write with and transfer to computer. Might as well just type if we're fast typists?

When I write by hand I fill about 15 pages in a setting - although these are pretty big pages, so probably only 10 pages of digital paper. So, about $1.25 each time I used it. "Cheap" would be relative I guess... if you're used to spending $5 for a latte at the coffee shop when you write, what's another buck or two for the paper you write on?

dakotablueeyes said

OhhhhhhhI sooooooo want one.

I do already love mine! I'm a gadget geek, and this thing make my geek senses tingle. I was pricing them on eBay when sis beat me to it; you can get one there for $25-40 with shipping.

Link chased from Ann Wesley Hardin.
I think loving video games and considering myself more liberal than conservative may scew these results JUST a little.

You Are 25 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

The Logitech io Personal Digital Pen, in detail

In my comments on the last post, Lynn said... "Your sister's sending you digital men? WOW! What a great sister. *g*"

Mwahaha. Yes, she is a great sister. And she'd be taking it to a whole new level with the sending of men. But no. That was what the pen interpreted my writing as. Good stuff.

Ok, here's how the pen works. When you open the box the first time you have to do the typical driver installation and set up. The lights are supposed to immediately come on at the bottom of the pen, showing you the battery status and letting you know it's working.

This was the only problem I had. I had no lighting going on, and the pen did not show up in my device manager. I ended up installing it on 3 different pc's, then spending half an hour on hold with customer service, before they told me that the batteries were probably so dead (from sitting on the shelf a while) that there was not enough juice to light up the pen. And that I should leave it plugged in for a full day, and call back if the pen never "woke up".

Mmm. Ok. Why couldn't you put that in the manual, I was thinking. I thanked the very nice customer service rep and pushed the pen to the back of the desk where I wouldn't obsess over it for the rest of the day.

(A quick moment of praise for Ted from customer service. He was SO helpful, he ended the call by telling me what times to call in the future to get the quickest response / shortest hold times. If you ever need to call Logitech io customer support, the best time to do so is around 10:15 am or 12:15 pm est - that's when they've got fresh people manning full phone banks.)

Since I started messing with the pen at 9am and it was now 10:30, I decided to forget about the pen for a while and get some work done. About 11:30 my pc beeped and a new icon popped up in my systray. The pen was awake! Lights were glowing and things were happening.

The icon lets you know the charge status, so I kept an eye on it until it hit 100 percent. Then it was time to play. First you have to do a sample page of your handwriting, to teach the software how to interpret your squiggles. Transfer what you just did back to the pc by putting the pen back in the cradle. Now the pc knows you're writing style, and you are ready to start writing.

One downside to the pen is the paper. While the pen will work as a regular ink pen on any paper, you have to use their notebook paper to utilize the digital part. A tiny camera (according to this FAQ) "registers the pen's movement across the grid surface on the paper and stores it as a series of map coordinates".

So, how well does it work?

Pretty well actually. I was impressed that the software recognized about 75 percent of my cursive writing. Sometimes I don't even recognize 75 percent of my cursive writing.

Recognition is higher if you print instead of writing in cursive. Printing in all caps, the software has been 98 percent accurate. I haven't used it a lot - I filled two pages of the notebook - but you can retrain the system if you notice particular letters getting missed a lot.

For people that draw, this would be a great pen to digitaly transfer pen sketches to your pc.

Amazingly, that looks exactly like what I drew. I'm going to try to find someone with more some artistic talent and get their opinion on the pen.

Ok, so two thumbs up on this from a toy perspective. It does just what it says it does - takes what you write, and moves it to your pc. And it recognizes really bad handwriting very well.

One thumb down for cost. The books have 60 sheets, so 120 pages to fill, for $10.

Sis gets two thumbs up and a case of virtual Pinot. Thanks Deborah! You're the best :)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." ~ Jane Austen.

I had a package on my porch this morning. My io Personal Digital Pen had arrived!

Deborah bought this for me - she loves me! What a great sister!

Review to come. So far, I love it; although it does have a few foibles.

Example of what the IRC translated my handwritten version of the above to :

I had a package or my porch
Morning. My To Personal Digital
Men had arrived! Deborah bought
Thus for me-she to was my! Chef q
great sister!
Review to Come. So for, Inoue )-,
although it does have e his foibles,

Opinionistas comes out of "Anon posting"

I've mentioned Opinionista here before - she's a law firm associate at an unnamed NYC firm,who has annonymously posted for almost a year about the dark side of the legal profession.

Tomorrow, she comes out of the closet and shows us her name - and face. And she's resigned from her law firm as well. I'm wondering what she's going to grouse about now... I don't really want daily updates on Boyfriend and his underwear drawer.

Good luck O.

On Writing

The last two weeks since the kids went back to school from the holidays have led to an odd fall out of scheduling. Or, more accurately described, made me realize that no one besides I in this family really likes keeping schedules.

I like them. No, I love them. I relish the planning of a set dinner time (never happens), a smooth and speedy departure time (just as rare), and an organized day.

I know I haven't always been this way. I guess it was after our family of two became three, then four, that I realized if you don't plan for certain things to happen, they just never do.

And for years, I was fine with pushing my own time into the background. If dinner became a late meal because other parts of the day ran over, then it was ok - I can read that book tomorrow.

It was only a few months ago that I really started scheduling something that meant a lot to me, and that couldn't be put off every day. That was my writing time. My "me" time. In November after the golf season ended for the year, Sean started taking the kids to school in the morning. That meant every day, 6:40 til 7:50 I was all alone, just me, my coffee, and my words. And it was a beautiful thing.

Then came Christmas break. And kids, 24/7. And husband, 24/7. And no alone time.

Then January came, but with it Sean's return to almost daily meetings - and still no morning "me" time. My scheduled day, which I treasured all throughout November, is a thing of the past.

I do not write well with others. I marvel when I hear writers talk about how they go off to the coffee shop and write. Even more, they get together. They *write* together.

When I'm alone, the words come. I won't say I don't notice they passage of time, or that the words flow out of me as water from a buibbling stream, or any other sparkling literary phrase, but they come. About 4 pages an hour, give or take. Between that morning hour and another 30 minutes squeezed in at the end of the day, I can get 2000 words out of myself in a day and not be stressing over it.

But put anyone else in the room with me and I freeze. Trying to write yesterday at Books A Million was an excercise in torture.

So today, I did one of my favorite things. I rearranged furniture. But today, I was setting up a desk in the guest room. A writing space, just for me.

This room has a door. With a lock. It now has a folding table, with my laptop and a full sized keyboard. And did I mention a door, that locks?

I pulled Sean aside when I was done and told him that when I go in there, and shut the door, no one gets to bother me unless there is death - or at least serious bloodshed - involved. And that bothering me without said bloodshed will result in .... well, bloodshed.

And then I shut myself in there and wrote. And it was good.

Sean is out, Samantha is over at Nanny's, and Montgomery is heading out into the world to play with friends. And I'm going to shut myself in my room, lock the door, and enjoy the freedom of no one looking over my shoulder, while I write words I'm not ready for anyone to read.

Stephen King, you were right on this one. There's times when a shut door opens the window of the imagination. If that's all it takes, my family will have to learn to live with this much of a schedule at least. Mom gets an hour a day behind shut doors. Dinner can wait.

Friday Night Hockey Fights

Sean's radio show was moved to Friday nights for all of January - bumped by the madness that is college basketball. The whole month our schedule has seemed a bit "off" because of the change.

This week he was doing the show live from the Baracuda's game. That's our minor leage (Southern Professional Hockey League) hockey team here in J'ville. It's very much minor league - the fights are better than the hockey, and the players look so small they could be high school kids out there. But it is a good time, and the beer is overpriced but cold.

Sean had a great time doing the show live, and got to go on the ice after the first period and do a bit of crowd interaction.


We had great seats up by media row
(Samantha was goofing for the camera)


And Montgomery was invited to go down on the ice after the second period to help with a crowd game


Was a good night, and we had the greatest bit of timing when we left. The second I closed my car door there was a tremendous thunderclap and the rain came pouring down. It was a downpour the whole way home, of the turn-on-your-emergancy-lights-and-hope-no-one-hits-you variety. This was great timing, as opposed to having to walk the 3 blocks from the arena to the car in a drenching downpour with two kids.

And today, it's clear but windy and 20 degrees cooler. Just a reminder that it is winter, even in Florida.

Sean's iPod Nano showed up, so I'm converting a bunch of wma files to whatever the iPod format is so he can load it up. Then this afternoon, I'm escaping to Books-A-Million with Montgomery. Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments for him, and an hour of quiet time for me. Hoping to get this new book far enough along to enter it in a contest, but the deadline is two weeks away and the minimum wordcount is 25,000. Going to be a bit harder to reach that then the Heat Wave contest was!

If you haven't seen Random Facts about Chuck Norris yet... go. Oddly funny stuff. Sean had great fun dropping the more PG of them into the radio show at odd moments last night.
"Only Chuck Norris can prevent forest fires, but he likes toasty marshmellows."
(If you don't know who Chuck Norris is, this won't be that funny.)
(Chuck Norris is ok with that.)

Clueless

I love my husband, I really do, but there are times he can be a little ... dense.

And while we have a great relationship, I have a bad habit of not telling him the little things. I'm not a great verbal communicator. I'm much more comfortable with the written word than the spoken word.

So, the little things. Like me finishing my first book. I write mostly when I'm alone in the house, so he really hadn't seen how much I'd been writing the last few months. And he doesn't read my journal here either (unless it's espn.com or his email, he doesn't much use the pc). Oh, and I probably haven't mentioned to him that I keep an online journal either. But anyway, here's how this conversation went :

I say to him in my we're-having-chicken-for-dinner-again voice "Did I tell you i wrote a book?"

And he gives me a blank look and says no, you wrote a book?

"Yes, and I entered it in a contest." I'm still trying to be casual.

"How long is it?" he wants to know.

"It's a short book.... 11,000 words."

"Oh. why didn't you write a longer book.?"

(He's wondering about how long it is? Trying to figure out how long it will take to read it maybe?) "Because the contest had a limit of 12,000 words."

"So why didn't you write 12,000 words?" (???)

"Because i wrote it, and it ended up 11,021 words" I tell him.

"Oh. Guess i'll go cook something to eat." And that was the end of that.

Maybe I should have written him an email...

My first submission

And it is official - at 5:38 I submitted my first manuscript anywhere, ever.
Art of Desire is off to Amber Quill's Heat Wave contest.

I had the panic attack as soon as I hit send. What did I forget? Would another few days of polishing have made it any better? Should I have gotten a third opinion?

Then I stopped, poured myself a glass of red, and told myself it's just a story. And if it stinks, well, I can only get better.

Real world time, and off to cook dinner.

MyHeritage.com

Someone sent me a link earlier this week to www.myheritage.com You upload a photo of yourself, and from that you get a match to celebrities or geneology records, your pick.

Neat program, although the results are a bit flakey. I've got a 52% match to Mariah Carey. After seeing her on tv in NYC doing the Times Square thing, I'm not so flattered.

Alyson Hannigan...she's neat. Madhuri Dixit... not sure who she is, but she's gorgous so ok!

The thing that made me go "huh" is that, of the 10 celebrity faces I was matched with, they were all hot. Ok, 9 were hot, and then Stanislaw Lem was in there

... wth? But anyway. Is it just because there are no ugly celebrities out there, or do they not put them into the comparison because no one wants to look like Carrot Top or Howard Stern?

Kids and Poptarts. Oh, and I finished a book

Kids love Poptarts. Mine do at least, and I'm pretty sure their tastes are normal for kids around the US. That mix of sugar and fat does things to their taste buds - and blood sugar levels - that make a mother cry.
I don't think Samantha had ever had a poptart before. I started shopping healthy healthier about the time she was born. There was a time Montgomery would go thru a box of poptarts in a day, if I let him (breakfast/ lunch/afterschool snack / after dinner snack). Not healthy! So, I quit buying them. Then this week Winn Dixie had a sale and it was buy one get one free and before I knew it there were two boxes of poptarts in my cart. Then in my pantry.
Which I then forgot about for a few days. Samantha found them this morning, and from her first bite was in love. "Can I have more Mommy? After I eat these two, can I have more? After I eat those, can I have more?" I've created a Poptart monster. Her wheat toast is sitting untouched on the counter.
I'm going to have to fight her for the rest of the box.

I finished Art of Desire this morning. It's just over 11,000 words. Technically, my second book finished, with the unnamed Nano project being the first. But the Nano book was so bad, I can't even give it a name. I think of it as "that mess that I wrote in one month". Yay me. There was a certain sense of accomplishment in writing a book in one month, but it disappeared when I opened the file a few weeks ago and realized just how bad it is. I don't think it will ever be salvagable. Next November, remind me that I did Nano once already - no need to do it again.

So, book finished. Short book, obviously. I took an hour to feel good about it, then that voice in my head (the one people tell you means you're crazy, but really it just means you're crazy if you ignore it) started asking "what's next". Geez inner voice, can't you just relax? It's Sunday. Day of rest and all that. Can't you give me a break?

But no, there's evidently a woman named Andara stranded in a port in the middle of nowhere. And that inner voice wants to know how the hell she's going to get out of the mess she's in.

I'll let you know in about 65,000 words.

Generate a post

Ever just not know what to post, but your friends are after you to update your blog?
Try the flooble instant blog updater! Comes complete with an advertisement for their web site at the end!

http://www.flooble.com/fun/bloggen.php

Yesterday I was listening to a radio program about art in the Dark Ages. I was quite interested by the topic, so I began explaining my friend Junior about it, and he screamed:

"Whoa!.. That's amazing! I was just learning about the Dark Ages in class!"

But then when I got to the part about the art, Junior subsided and began sobbing. And then later, Junior's mother told me that the reason Junior was so freaked out was because he had to study art in class. On weekends Junior can be very unpredicatble like that, but he wants what is best for me...

Link of the day: WMD Counter | Randomly generated by Flooble Instant Blog Post Generator

Paris Blogging

A friend of a friend is blogging from Paris while he's there enhancing his language skills. I can't remembe how long his stay there will be - 3 months? 6 months? But he's got a good conversational voice, and I love reading about Paris. Someday, maybe I'll go back. A girl can dream.

If you want to read about adventures in Paris, follow along here. I don't know if I could live in a world with no weekend internet, personally.

Bad things come to those who lurk

I remember back this past summer reading about a reporter who, after she found out her full time babysitter blogged - about her - fired the sitter. She couldn't handle what she was reading about herself and her family. (You can read about it here, if you sit thru the ad's.)

How wierd, I thought. I'm glad I'm so boring that my babysitter would never blog about me.

Ahem.

My babysitter uses my pc while she's here. At my invitation - she's a college student, and often has homework to do after the kids are in bed. A few months ago I hit the back button after she left, intending to revisit a site I had been to earlier in the evening, and was taken to her blog.

That Pandora's box, once opened, can not be shut. What parent would be able to resist this look into a publicly posted version of someones life - a someone who you are entrusting your children to? Maybe some can - but not I. So every now and then I pop into her blog to see what she is sharing with the world.

Usually it's college girl stuff. And, after having been a college girl, I can say that it's pretty harmless college girl stuff at that. But last night's entry had :

Right now I'm babysitting in the haunted house and I'm counting the number of scary noises and the number of whispering voices on the baby monitor. And the number of minutes until I get to leave. True story. Weeeeeeee!

I don't even know how to process this.
A) She's a flake
B) omg she's a flake and she thinks my house is haunted and she's going to quit and I'm not going to have a (flaky) babysitter anymore.
C) My house is haunted?? And she's going to quit and I'm not going to have a babysitter anymore.

Arghhhh!

Jon Stewart hosting the Oscars this year

I'm not a fan of awards shows - I'm usually content to read about who won in the headlines the next day. This year will probably be the first year I've actually sat down to watch one in ... ever.
I won't be watching because I really care much who wins which award. On March 5th, I'll be watching the Oscars to see Jon Stewart.

If you've never seen his "fake" news show on Comedy Central, you're missing something. He covers more real news in 30 minutes on "The Daily Show" than the Network or Cable channels do in hours (or during the full day). If a politician tells a lie, he'll call him on it. If the politician is brave enough to come on his show, he'll do it to his face.

Classic Stewartism :

"If you're keeping score at home, so far our war in Iraq has created a police state in that country and socialism in Spain. So, no democracies yet, but we're really getting close." --Jon Stewart

I'm excited about an awards show. The sky must be falling.

Funky symbols

I am getting funky symbols on blogger on some of my posts.

Possible related to posts I typed in Word and then cut / pasted into the blog.
/headscratch

7 things

Seven things to do before I die :
(OK, this one has had me stuck for 2 days so I am goign to skip it. That whole "before I die" part worries me. Once a list like this has been completed, haven't you pretty much admitted you're done with life? Skipping it.)

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1 Sing. My children ask me to stop. Strangers give me dirty looks. I don't do it.
2 Dance. Not only can't I carry a tune, I can't move to a rhythm either.
3 Write legibly. My penmanship is horrid.
4 Remember to send cards for birthdays and anniversaries. Oh I remember them. I even buy the cards. They pile up in big feel-good piles on my desk, on my kitchen counter, and eventually overflow from filing cabinet drawers. If you ever need a card, come see me. I will have one for any occasion.
5 Wash my car. It's just not even on my radar. Occasionally I'll look at it and think wow, that looks really dirty, I sure should wash it soon. Doesn't happen.
6 Let my kids win an argument. Because they are my kids. They don't get to win until they are at least 15.
7 Hold a grudge. My grudge holding limit is about 3 days. Shorter if you admit you were wrong.


Seven Things that Attract Me to My Spouse :
1 His mind. The man is smart, and he thinks quite a bit like I do.
2 His heart. It is big enough to love me, no matter how bad I mess something up.
3 His courage. He will try anything if he thinks it is worth doing, even when most people think it is doomed to fail.
4 His openness. If he thinks it, he’s going to tell you even if what he is thinking is you’re an idiot.
5 His sense of humor. He can laugh at almost anything. And often does.
6 He loves me. Nuff said
7 (comment removed by censors)

Seven Things I Say (or write!) Most Often
1 Not so much
2 Seriously.
3 Seriously?
4 As if
5 Its ok
6 Excuse me? (What I really mean is “Excuse YOU”
7 Whatever.


Seven Books (or series) I Love
1 In Death by Nora Roberts
2 Anita Blake by LKH
3 Merry Gentry byLKH
4 The Great Book of Amber complete chronicles Robert Zelazny
5 Lazuras Long books just about any book really by Heinlein
6 The Princess Bride William Goldman
7 Stephanie Plum series, by Janet Evanovich

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again
1 The Princess Bride
2 White Christmas
3 The Sound of Music
4 Fiddler on the Roof
5 Serenity
6 Star Wars 3-6
7 Office Space

So tag. You’re it.

Flickr Performancing

Ok I DO like the way Performancing handles photo's. Much better than the blogger way. Resize by click and drag on the side and corner bars, align thru the main format bar. PFF gets a 10 for photo blogging.

Performancing for Firefox - All the cool kids are doing it

My sis sent me a link this morning about Performancing for Firefox. I needed a break from work, so I upgraded Firefox, installed the extension (5 minutes took care of both) and now I'm PFF enabled. I'm sure you share my excitement.

Performancing For Firefox if you want more info. Yay.

My lack of excitement is brought on by having spent 3 hours working and another hour cleaning out my desk/shelves/filing cabinets this morning. I'm sure I'll be bubbling with appropriate enthusiasm as soon as I recover.

Sweeps wins in 2005

I enter sweeps sporatically - and really didn't do a lot the last 2 months of the year, as I got busy with the holidays. But I did have a few wins in 2005 :

Grand Prize trip to Cancun (still waiting to hear from the resort since the hurricanes)

Trip to Madrid (I passed on this one - it was a short notice win, and I had an odd feeling about the company too.)

D-Link’s Monthly Ultimate Prize Give Away - D-Link Wireless Media Player with DVD & Card Reader, and D-Link Xtreme G DI-624 Wireless Router. Sold the Media Player on Ebay and bought a new TV for the family room, which we've enjoyed greatly.

DVD - RING OF FIRE: THE EMILE GRIFFITH STORY - this still hasn't come after 3 months, and my last email the the marketing director wasn't replied to.

Coors Brewing Company - $25 grocery card, which ended up being a $25 Walmart card - even better!

Universal Orlando Resort - King Kong Hands whee ~

Teen Vogue / Random House - bracelet

A nice mixed bag of wins!

One more day... one more day...

Only one more day until the kids are back in school. Twenty four hours from now I'll be enjoying 4 hours without "Mom, can you get me some milk?" "Mom, can you cover me up?" "Mom, read me a story."

I spent a lot of the last 18 days reminding myself that they aren't young long. The 11 year old is so self sufficient, if it weren't for his laundry there are days I could forget he lives here. The three year old is... three. Needy. Sometimes clingly. Occasionally whiney, although that has gotten a lot better over the last two months. But mostly she just wants to know that her mom is there all the time.

So today we're going to do some fun things (walk to the park, paint with her Christmas art kit, make a bead project - another Christmas present) and I'm going to enjoy having a three year old at home. And tomorrow, I'll enjoy having a three year old that goes to school 4 hours a day. The best of both worlds.

Interview with Trace Edward Zaber

I had a chance to interview Trace Edward Zaber from Amber Quill Press this past weekend. What a great company, and an entertaining man! You can read the first half of the interview at the Romance Diva's Blog - the second half should go up tomorrow. And he'll be answering questions in a live chat on Friday, Jan 6th. Come by and say hi!

Live from the Gator Bowl

gatorbowl
Originally uploaded by ksteele2.

Go Cards!

Holidays are over

The tree is down, the ornaments are boxed up, the lights are... well, they're in piles on the kitchen table, because I haven't found the box they go in yet. But it's official, the holidays are over.

My decorations were up a long time this year. 5 weeks and a few days. I like to get every minute of family holiday togetherness I can out of it, so our tradition is to put up the tree on the day after Thanksgiving, while I've got family here to do it for me to help with the decorating. Usually it comes down on New Years Day, when I'm full of energy for the start of the new year - this year, waiting that extra day was just to much. I woke up, looked at it, and said "Tree, you've got to go." I took talking to the tree as a sure sign that it was, in fact, time for this tree to go.

So Tree is in it's box, and the living room is clear of all signs that there was a holiday.

Furniture is back in it's proper places, stockings removed from the fireplace, stuffed Santas and Christmas Teddy Bears returned to the attic. It's 81 degrees outside, and Samantha is in a sundress and I broke out the shorts. Is it spring yet?

I put Montgomery and Samantha's Santa pictures in a dual frame so they can whisper in Santa's ear all year long about how good they've been. I can't remember what year the picture of Montgomery was taken - I think it was the year he was 5. Getting both of them to sit still for a picture and smile at the same time is nearly impossible, what with the deadly contagious cooties and all. So this is about as good as I can get.

5 things I don't get.

(Later) 5 things I don't get
Spent a while catching up on the news from 2005. Things that made me go huh? :
1 - Howard Stern. I just don't get him. Now that's ok, there's lots of people I don't "get". I don't think there's anything wrong with me for not getting him, or with him for doing what he does, although I do feel somewhat stupider every time I listen to him. Kinda like reality tv, which is why I don't watch that either. But I don't get the big fuss that has been made over him for his whole career. He's made a life from being a Bad Boy to the FCC, and he got some pretty WOW ratings on radio out of it. Now he's carrying that to Sirius satellite radio. Huh. Well, if you like him, enjoy!

2 - the King Kong movie phenom. I never saw the first version (s?), have no desire to see the second. It's a big monkey and it ends up in NY on the Empire State building I think? Whee. /yawn. I don't think I'm the only one not intrested - ticket sales have been good, but not great.

3 - Dr. Phil. Another celebrity I don't "get". He's bossy, arogant, and why should I think he knows anything about how to solve my problems? And the people he has on his show - well, I guess Dr. Phil is just a kissin' cousin away from reality tv. Or maybe a family tree full of kissin' cousins. But I wish he'd find a nice cozy trailer park to go help relate, and keep it off my tv.

4 - How is the Army Corp of Engineers going to rebuild a levy system in New Orleans - one that took decades to build incorrectly the first time - in 6 months? Does anyone really think this is going to happen? I think they're rolling the dice on this one, playing the odds that 2006 there will be no Hurricane Katrina / Rita / Wilma coming into the Mississippi Delta. For the brave (!) people who have returned to their hearts home in the gulf, I hope they are right.

5 - Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie / Jennifer Aniston - They're just doing their thing, so them I kinda get. They're trying to have a real life on a world stage. But the attention showered on their personal lives by the media - and by the people who buy the magazines. Why do people care so much who's sleeping with who, and who they were with last? I mean, it's not as if the general public is actually going to need to see a blood test before they climb between the sheets with any of these three. So why does anyone care??? Someone sure does, since the highest selling magazine covers for the trash zines in '05 all had them on it.

Early - Hello 2006
It was a quiet start to a new year. And that's not a terrible thing.

I didn't call anybody at midnight, content to kiss my husband and hug my son before heading to bed. Woke up at 7:30, and had a quiet half hour to drink my coffee and read the news before Samantha woke up.

Since then, it's been a quiet morning of cleaning the kitchen (why is it that just about our only New Years Eve tradition involves cooking junk food and trashing the kitchen? ugh.), playing with Samantha, and wondering who called at 3:34 in the morning and didn't leave a message.

Happy New Year to everyone! May it be a year of dreams and wishes, love and laughter, peace and joy. And health!