The Hills are Alive...

First of all, thank you so much to DL Hammons and everyone who participated in Wednesdays Blitz Bombardment. Even though I joined the Blitz team months ago, and try to participate now and then, I never realized just how much being Blitzed could completely change the course of someone’s day; how something so simple as leaving a blog comment could have such an impact, until it happened to me. I’m so glad DL came up with this, and thankful for the hundreds of you who take the time to comment and brighten up your fellow bloggers’ day. It’s just amazing. For those of you who want to know more about what it means to be ‘blitzed’ and would like participate, click here.

In other news, I finally broke 20k on my wip! And it only took me two and a half months! *sigh* It hasn’t helped matters that my one-year-old is cutting her back molars and thought she and I should celebrate by pulling a couple all-nighters last week, from which I’d only barely recovered before France ‘sprang forward’ with the rest of the world and I was forced to get up an hour earlier.

Chronic fatigue aside, I absolutely love this time of year. You know that bone-deep sensation before a big storm when the air feels alive and you can smell change on the horizon? That’s kind of like what Spring is for me, but on a larger, yet less dramatic scale. That smell of change in the air, the warmth, and all the deepening and brightening of landscape colors makes me want to twirl around like Julie Andrews and sing the ‘hills are alive, with the sound of music!’. Hopefully nature’s vibrance will give my muse the boost she needs to finish this damn manuscript before summer vacation.

Do you guys find you’re more or less productive during different seasons? 

When the Snow Won't Come to You...

You go to the snow! Or at least, that’s what I told myself when the family and I began our trek out to the Vosges Mountains, in eastern France last week. While the United States has gotten their fair share of snowfall this season, we poor folk over here in middle Europe haven’t had diddlysquat. Not a single flake!

So we decided to take a ski *ahem* vacation.

To be honest, very little skiing was actually done. Besides my husband, none of us have ever skied. The girls, however, had their first lesson with a professional instructor and we had a great time sledding and snowshoe hiking for the most part.

And yet, after all the non-skiing, my six-year-old Lucy still managed to come home with a cast when she twisted/broke her ankle walking (running) on the cobblestone streets (after the pigeons).

Our visit to Strasbourg was otherwise the highlight of our vacation- what a beautiful, peaceful, pleasant city! I officially want to live there.

And I suppose, in her own way, Lucy enjoyed it, too. She had been pretty high on life all day- running, skipping, and walking into things just for the hell of it (as featured in the photo below). 

And after she snapped her ankle, not only did she continue to walk around as though nothing was wrong, but she also tried to convince her father to climb the 330 steps up to the top of Strasbourg’s Notre Dame Cathedral! (he refused, thank goodness) 

It wasn’t until we were all seated in the car that I saw her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size. #parentfail

So here I am, back after a not-so-bad vacation, but also thankful that school is in session again and I’ll have a routine that involves a little more time to relax and work on my writing. It’s been slow going, with all of the interruptions but I’m hoping to hit the gas pedal and still finish this thing before summer vacation!

Have any of you ever broken a bone? Or had the trying task of keeping a crazy kid from hurting themselves?

Yer Crampin’ My Style, Kid

I can’t help but feel a little jipped this morning. It’s a Monday. And I’d usually have plenty of time to sit down and blog and work on my current manuscript on a day like today.

But I can kiss that ‘me’ time goodbye because my little angels are on another two-week vacation thanks to France’s six-weeks-on, two-weeks-off school schedule.

I said 'au revoir' to my peaceful morning the moment I awoke to blood-curdling screams because ‘Lucy’s bugging me!’ – this was the only real explanation I was given.

My middle child, Julie, then came in and informed me the baby had peed through her diaper and her crib was wet. Great. With eyes still closed, I grabbed a diaper and new onesie and pj’s and headed into their room. After stripping the baby down and changing her diaper and onesie, I realized everything was perfectly dry and I just changed her clothes for no goddam reason. Thank you, Julie.

I grabbed a much-needed cup of coffee and sat down to relax when Lucy, my six-year-old, came bounding up to me, hands, mouth and pants covered in white-out (which I told her about 2.5 seconds ago not to play with, all while needlessly changing the baby’s clothes).

“I don’t know what happened!”

Yes.

Her words.

She was really upset. So, naturally, I took a picture with my phone before rubbing her down with olive oil to help remove the white out. I finally sat back down to my (now cold) cup of coffee, looked out the window only to realize my oldest daughter, Lily, left her brand new coat outside in the back yard yesterday. And it had rained. Son of a…!

Out I went, bare foot, with barely a half cup of coffee in my system, to recuperate her soaking mess of a jacket and hang it up to dry, thinking there must be military camps out there with less physically and mentally stressful wake-up calls. And maybe I’ll go there. In any case, this is starting out to be another lovely, long vacation.

What irks me most isn’t even all the calamities that can happen within the first 15 minutes of any given morning. It’s that my writing was actually going really well pre-vacation. I’m nearing the 15k mark and becoming more and more addicted to the story and characters. So taking time out at this crucial point is hard.

But, hey. Guess this is one of those times where I have to remind myself ‘they’re only kids once!’ so best to try and enjoy our time together while I can:)

What’s been keeping you from your writing lately?

The Birthday Party

It has been decided by the fates that Wednesday blogposts just ain’t go’ happen. So, I guess Monday is my day! And what do you know? Here I am! On Monday. Writing a blogha. postah!

*ahem*

Okay, I’m more than a little off my game this morning. You see, my oldest daughter turned ten this weekend. Which marks a decade of parenting for the hubs and me. So, like any normal mother, I spent most of Saturday looking at photos of her (and our) evolution and sporadically bursting into tears.

There was no time to dwell on Sunday, however, because my big 10-year-old decided this year she wanted a party with all of her friends. And not one hosted at school, or our local indoor park, or a restaurant, or anything involving a couple of giant golden arches.

Nope.

She wanted a themed makeover party done the old fashion way.

At our house.

*insert the sigh that never ends*

There is a reason why I’ve never thrown a class birthday party at our personal dwelling before and some of you who have thrown such a party and lived to tell the tale may know exactly what I’m talking about.

It takes about 80x the preparation, brain power, physical energy, and clean-up that a public-place party does. There are decorations to buy and hang and blow up and hang and roll out and hang. There’s food, cupcake baking, activity planning, and gift bags to prepare. There are awkward phone calls and emails clarifying the theme, and appropriate gifts, and directions to the house. And let’s not forget the eventuality of jubilant, dancing, candy-crazed children doing the cancan while stomping chips into your living room carpet. Yes it was worth it. No, I won’t be repeating the experience for a long long while.

The way I feel this morning, it might as well have been an all-night keger. Emotional milestones + class party = one drained mama.

*yawn* I think it’s time for me to curl up on the couch with some coffee and zone out on guilty-pleasure CW shows...

How was your weekend everybody?

2013 in Review

While looking back on 2013, one word jumps immediately to mind : tired. I can’t say my resolutions went unmet since, to my knowledge, I didn’t even bother making any this year.

Ever since signing on with the S.A.H.M. Corps (stay at home mom corporation) in April of 2012 and the addition of our fourth project (i.e. baby Phoebe) in February 2013, ‘the job’ has been keeping me more than occupied. It isn’t the hardest job in the world as good ol’ Oprah used to say. But it’s about as hard as most other full-time jobs, I imagine.

The co-owner of this enterprise has a paid occupation on the side (thank goodness), so most of the heavy lifting falls to yours truly. The salary isn’t great, but the benefits are worth the long hours and sleepless nights. My employees are often lazy, cranky, and always looking for a hand-out. But they’re also fun to be around and do their best to make this operation productive.

Our youngest recruit, 10-month-old Phoebe, is especially impressive in her determination to maintain a sedentary lifestyle. No crawling, shuffling or walking as of yet. In fact, she mostly just sits there and grunts like a small, pink, jabba the hutt while her sisters bring her toys and drinks and cater to her every whim. 

I think she might be the smartest one of us all.

So, after almost a full year of crawling through the post-partum fog and keeping my long-running family operation afloat, I finally feel ready to take a tentative step toward my goal of writing the-game-changer book and getting published.

Catching up is going to take awhile. I don’t think I’ve read a single book on the 2013 YA bestseller list. I've missed a lot of writer's world news in the who-got-agented/book deals/pubished/self published this year. And it would seem the tides of self-publishing have turned once again and debut S.P. authors aren’t seeing the success they once did due to market saturation. Pair this with the increasingly slow pace of the publishing industry, and agent/editor return and I have to wonder- 

Ya. What the hell are we supposed to do now?:)

I'm BACK, Baby!

So, today is the first time in a long time I’ve sat down in front of the computer to try and put together something coherent. My baby girl, Phoebe, was born February 27^th, 2013 and just turned nine weeks old which means I finally have the ‘go ahead’ to start exercising and getting myself back into shape. Therefore I figured it would also be a good time to stretch back out the ole’ writing muscles and get blogging again.

The last 8 weeks have been FILLED with ups and downs so I thought I’d do a brief recap:

Week 1- Baby’s born! First thoughts- ‘Look what I DID!’ *looks around the room

frantically* Do you guys see this? I made this brand new little human practically all by myself AND it feels like my body just broke about a million rules of nature to squeeze the little sucker out! It’s a miracle! I am magical! I should have food and presents brought to me on golden platters and tribes of people should bow down and sing my praises! Or I should at least be given a medal by the mayor, or something. So what if hundreds of thousands of women do this every day!? I still deserve a damn medal!’

Week 2 – ‘Yeah,- still waiting on that medal’.  *Hmph*

Week 3- ‘Boy, this baby sleeps a lot!’. I mean, I practically have time to do whatever I want! Why did I think this was going to be so hard again?’

Week 4- ‘Boy, this baby cries a lot!  What’s wrong? You’re fed, burped, changed and in the loving embrace of your spectacular mother! Why do you hate me?’ *tears*

Week 5- ‘Boy, this baby sleeps great! I mean, she only wakes up once or twice a night. I’ve got this new baby thing totally licked!’

Week 6- ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to get a full night’s sleep again ever for the next seven years. What the hell was I thinking? Why do you HATE me? *tears*’

Week 7- ‘She SMILED! Oh my god, she totally loves me. I’ve got this new baby thing completely licked.’

Week 8- ‘Holy crap, this baby got heavy fast. What are we feeding you? My back is killing me. And now the doctor says I can work out on top of all this? Yay- *fake mini fist pump*.’ *Looks in mirror* ‘I don’t look that bad. But what the hell is going on with my thighs? I mean, I understood when I had that big baby belly to support that my upper legs had to kind of spread out to support the weight but it’s been TWO MONTHS now since the baby jumped ship. Shouldn’t they start, I don’t know, deflating on their own?’

Which brings me to the present- nine weeks later and slowly learning to balance baby care, body care and all the fun things in life in-between. You guys aren’t here to see it, but I just took a nice deep breath and got a little teary. I hadn’t realized just how much I’ve missed this part of my life.  The simple act of writing and sharing.

Well, that and the hormones have me tearing up pretty regularly over things like nutella commercials and realizing we're out of trash bags…But that doesn’t devalue just how much I’ve missed all of you, too!

It’s good to be back! Now, your turn! What have I missed? When you think back on the last 8 weeks what’s the first word/event that comes to mind for you?

No Place Like Home

Those of you who are following me on Facebook might already know about the chaos the Creepy family went through this last week. For those of you who don’t, I’ll try and make it short. 

I was rushed to the hospital early Friday, January 11th with unexpected haemorrhaging. Turns out, I probably had a minor placental abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterus and causes bleeding) but the doctors also suspected a tear in the amniotic sac. Thankfully, by last Friday the bleeding had disappeared completely and the results for the tear came back negative. So they finally released this Creepy chick back into the wild, after an 8-day stay.

‘Scary’ and ‘Lonely’ don’t even begin to describe the week of hospitalization, even though I was reassured that this baby would make it to term one way or another. After the morning spent in the Maternity Emergency ward (where they prepped me for a possible emergency c-section, stuck me with steroids for the baby, and kept me for observation after I had an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics they’d stuck into my iv), I was finally moved to a hall for at-risk pregnancies / laboring patients. And that’s where I basically lived from Friday-Friday. 

Even though the staff was very kind and reassuring, and I knew that I was in the best possible place if there were any further problems for me and the baby- the truth is, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. There was no wifi or direct internet access, and thank God I at least had my phone with 3G so I could keep in touch with family and surf the net. 

The food was, well, let’s just say I didn’t know food like that existed. There’s always the stereotype about how poor hospital food is, but that had never been my experience when I gave birth in the U.S. or at the private clinic here. 

No. 

Not until I’d been admitted into a public city hospital, did I discover the true source of the ‘hospital food stereotype’. I’m pretty sure a lot of what they served had to have been in powder form at one point or another. No salt, butter, herbs, or sauce. And when they did happen to add sauce, you kind of wish they hadn’t. After the first couple days, a slow deception and anxiety would build in my gut as they delivered our trays. Gone was the usual fervor and excitement I once felt around mealtimes. That said, I ate everything I could out of sheer hunger, but still ended up losing weight for the first time during my pregnancy.

And it was a struggle getting used to the hospital bed, which- no matter how much I played with the up and down switches, was either sunken or stiff in all the wrong places. -The kind of bed that makes you wish you could remove your arm for a couple hours just so you can get some sleep.

In any case, when they gave me the green light to discharge- I practically grew wings and flew out of there. Because not only did that mean the baby and I had a good chance of making it all the way to March without further incident (if we follow doctors orders and take it easy, of course), but it also meant I could see my kids first thing in the morning and kiss their sleepy heads, (something I missed most while in the hospital. That, and tucking them into bed at night. Always got a little teary around bedtime.) eat food that tastes like food, and enjoy a bed that doesn’t make me want to remove random limbs.

In the end, there’s no place like home!

Have you ever had to endure the joys (or lack thereof) of hospital life? What sticks out most in your mind about  your stay?It’s good to be back! I’ll be picking up my regular Mon/Wed posting schedule this week and I’m looking forward to catching up with you all!

*CQG*

Baby Update and a Merry Christmas to All!

First of all, I just want to say ‘thank you’ to all the well wishes, thoughts and prayers for my sister and niece. Baby Kendall made it through the initial operation beautifully and they were able to remove the whole mass. This is my little sister’s facebook announcement from Wednesday:

‘I can't even begin to tell everyone how thankful I am for all of the prayers this week. They worked! Kendall is 100% healthy. God is good. We are also so thankful for my parents who have been with the big girls for a week now. I don't know what we would do without them! Thankful for my inlaws that they were able to come here and give us some family support that we very much needed at the beginning of all of this. Thankful for the Ronald McDonald house and all of the wonderful things they provided for us this week. And last but certainly not least, I am so thankful for the amazing staff at NC Children's Hospital. The nurses and doctors of the NCCC and ENT teams were absolutely amazing. I am so relieved to close this chapter in our lives and begin our lives as a family of five!! God bless you all. This will certainly be a Merry Christmas for this family.’

The whole family is at home resting now and getting ready for the holidays, which is a huge relief and the best present I could have this holiday.

As for me- after nearly four months, fifteen rewritten chapters, 20k of new material, a changed ending and several rounds of beta notes incorporated, I’m happy to announce that I have finally FINALLY sent off the revision of FOSSEGRIM to the agent. And before the end of the world, at that!:) Whether she offers representation or not, this has been one hell of an experience!

That said, I’m happy to finally have #projectrevise&resubmit behind me for a little while so I can focus on the holidays and my family. I know my blogging presence has been sparse these last few months, to say the least, and I’m looking forward to finally being able to take up a normal schedule after the new year!

Until then, here’s wishing all of you a fantastic holiday! 

Merry Chrismas, Happy New Year and God Bless!

*CQG*

A Common Writing Syndrome

Right now my house is suffering from a case of revision-provoked dirtyhousewrititis. So, today I will be folding, washing, and dusting my poor dwelling back to its pre-project state.

What's the worst thing you ever let slide when you were in the throws of a writing project?

Back to School Resolutions Revisited

Before the beginning of the school year, I wrote this post about my school year resolutions. Basically my back-to-school goals were to:


*File for French citizenship
*Find a job
*Finish writing and revising my current wip in time to start something new for nanowrimo
*And find an agent

Just to show how much some things can change in a month’s time, I decided to revisit this sad little list.

Filing for Citizenship.  I’m getting closer to this goal every day.  I completed the prerequisite French proficiency exam in Paris at the end of September and scored two levels higher than what was needed to pass (yay me!), which meant I could finally move on with the process. I’ve since sent out for all the necessary documents from back home and I’m really hoping to get the whole thing in before Christmas. 

Finding a Job. This goal, however, has been left to the backburner for the moment. Not a lot of employers are looking to hire someone who’s visibly pregnant. And, after working part-time for the last four years, I can’t imagine diving into a full-time position only a few months before baby arrives. As long as I’m still covered financially by unemployment, I am accepting the title of domestic consultant and grounds keeper (otherwise known as a stay-at-home-mom:).  And, of course, a full-time writer. Once my citizenship is squared away, I plan on enrolling in a teaching certification program and passing the exams to become a full-time English teacher here in France. (you have to be a member of the European Union to acquire teaching certification here. Which is why I need to get my citizenship done first.)

Finish writing and revising my current wip in time to start something new for nanowrimo. Yet another goal left to the backburner. But with good reason. I’m currently working on revisions on an older manuscript for ‘zee agent’.  And while I have no idea if this will lead to representation, I’m actually enjoying the process (gasp!).  In the last two weeks, I’ve added nearly 10k of new material and will soon be ready to attack the overhaul of the last half of the book, bringing in a new plot string and changing the ending.

Finding an Agent. Well, I guess you could stay I’m one step closer to this, even though there are no guarantees. I continue to send out queries for FOSSERIM and KISSING FOR COFFEE whenever I happen upon an agent who looks like they might correspond.  

What are some of your goals for this school year? Have any of you come any closer to reaching them in the last month and a half?

Not Feeling Fridays...

I’ve decided that today, instead of a FMFB or another new-release spotlight post, I’m just going to wish you all a beautiful fall Friday!

To be honest, I’m thinking about tossing Friday’s scheduled posts up to the blogging Gods and letting them decide if I post or not. For one, I’ve noticed a definite lull in overall Friday blogging activity over the last year or so- Wait. Actually, I’ve noticed a lull in ALL blogging activity over the last year. I’m not sure if this is because the blogging community I’ve always been a part of has entered that veteran stage where people post and participate less, or if we’re all just keeping tabs through other avenues like facebook or twitter. (actually, I think it’s a little of both). But Matt McNash’s Wednesday post about bloggers missing an awesome opportunity due to lack of participation highlighted one of the consequences of the blogosphere’s slow decline.  As I said there, sometimes I feel like the blogosphere has become a dystopian world where small communities cling together for dear life, supporting each other as best they can.

Another reason for ‘up in the air’ Friday posts is that my TGIF’s are pretty jammed-packed, family wise. The hubs has Fridays off so we pick the kids up for lunch and have to bring them back to school after. (There’s an hour-and-a-half nation-wide lunch break over here in France every weekday. Banks, schools, pharmacies and businesses are all closed up tight from around 12-2pm).  Of course I’ll still sponsor the occasional FMFB, and try and slip Friday ‘Living in France’ posts or spotlight posts in there whenever I can, but I can’t say it will be a weekly occurance.

Have any of you noticed the lull in activity over the last year-and-a-half or so? Why do you think this is? Has anyone else cut down on their own blogging schedules or participation due to the apparent lack of activity?

I’m Baaaack! And GUTGAA Meet n’ Greet

Well, my hiatus is officially over! And what a hiatus it has been. In the last two weeks I:

Got the kids ready to go back to school (and all that that entails).


Deep-cleaned the monstrosity that was my house.

Started a new wip and wrote nearly 8k in a seven-day span.

Critiqued 3/4th  of a fellow author’s project.

Was invited to do a revise & resubmit with ‘the agent’ for a different manuscript I’d submitted a few months ago.

And continued to grow another human being. 

Oh. Yes, I imagine that last one has sunk in right about now. 

Creepy is again expecting a baby-child – One who will hopefully be making their fully-grown and healthy appearance in March 2013:)

I’ve missed you guys so much but, secretly, I’ve been keeping up with a lot of your news and posts through facebook. For those of you who aren’t on my friends list yet, there’s a link on my side bar. 

Now on to this week’s GUTGAA Meet n’Greet:

-Where do you write? Anywhere I can sit comfortably with my laptop; the bed, the couch, the kitchen table, the jon…

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?  Toilet paper holder?… Ew. Just kidding. Kind of…Anyway- Usually when I sit down to write and look to my left, there’s one of my kid’s faces waiting right there, impatient for me to answer something for them.

-Favorite time to write? The morning/mid afternoon.

-Drink of choice while writing? Coffee coffee coffee coffee

-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence? Complete silence. But sometimes I don’t mind having the television on low.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it? After writing my last couple novels based on ‘premise’, I got fed up while in the midst of a current wip- always trying to force a plot to meet that premise the best way I know how.  With the project I’m working on now, I decided to take a different route. I’m writing what I feel like reading. I’m writing because I want to get to know these characters and this setting and really just kind of wade in it. And I’m enjoying every minute. 

-What's your most valuable writing tip? Do what you have to do to keep the romance alive. If you’re serious about writing, someday it could become a job. And when it does, you’re going to have to force yourself to keep at it, even when the love is gone. Finding ways to keep the love for writing alive (like keeping a project on the side, blogging or journaling) is key, I think.

It’s great to be back! Can’t wait to catch up with old friends and meet n’greet the new! So, what does your month of September look like? Anything you’re looking forward to (book releases? bloghops? conventions?  Time for wip?) ??

School Year's Resolutions

If you’re a parent like me, you may find yourself making resolutions based on the upcoming school year rather than the January 1st  holiday.  September through July is a pretty decent amount of time to set and meet goals over, after all.

This year my school year’s resolutions are:

To file for French citizenship. I thought getting my French driver’s license was hard. But that was nothing compared to the amount of money and paper work that goes into filing for citizenship.  For instance, I just found out that starting January 2012, I need to take a (80 euro fee) test to prove I speak French well enough to be considered before I can file.  Lovely. And all documents have to be translated (fees for that too) and issued less than three months ago. *sigh*

Find a job. My teaching contract was up in April and there’s no guarantee I’ll have a new one this October. Thankfully, I’m still covered financially by the Education Dept’s unemployment until I find something.

Finish writing and revising my current wip in time to start something new for Nanowrimo in November. That’s right. I’m going to attempt that beast again even though last year’s results were dismal. 

Find an agent.  Duh. :)

What are your school year’s resolutions?

Hello You Gorgeous Thing, You!

Well, five weeks, 7254 air miles, 1602 car miles, 7.5 hotdogs, 0 words written and several measly attempts at blogging later – I AM BACK!


Oh, how I’ve missed this shiny, colorful, pink-checkered place!


Vacation highlights:

Phew! Needless to say, I had an absolute blast this vacation. More details to come, of course.  

I’ve missed you all and can’t wait to catch up! Did I miss anything big these last few weeks?  How have your summer months been so far? 

Tell the World I'm Comin' Home

Mothers don’t get a lot of ‘true’ vacations. I mean, even if you and the fam take off to an island paradise, or to the top of the mountains, Moms still find themselves doing laundry, folding clothes, preparing or organizing mealtimes, cleaning up and taking care of the kids. (aka -work = opposite of vacation)

There’s no drinking Mojitos on the beach when you’re too busy worrying one of your kids is getting sunburned. Or putting sand up their noses. Or is playing too close to the water, or are at risk of drowning, or being targeted by sharks, kidnapped by pirates, etc

Anyways, I did have a point, here, somewhere…Oh yes.

This Saturday, we will be flying back to the United States for a FIVE WEEK vacation! Unfortunately, the hubs didn’t get enough time off to accompany us so it’s just me and the girls (ages 4,6, and 8)…traveling on a plane…for eight hours.

Needless to say, I’m a little nervous about being the sole parent during this adventure.

But I’m also really excited. My kids haven’t seen the United States in three years and their English could definitely use the exposure. Not to mention, it will be great to see them with my parents again.

But the biggest reason I’m looking forward to THIS vacation?

*leans in for a conspiratory whisper*

Something strange and magical happens whenever I stay with my parents on vacation. I always try to help out and do my part, you see. But sometimes, when I go to do laundry, I realize it’s already done.

Sometimes food replenishes itself when I didn’t even go shopping!

People ask me what I want for dinner or tell me what we’re having! (I’m pretty sure every time this happens one wrinkle magically dissipates from my face and turns into a beaming fairy of light. This is how fairies are really born, you see. Try telling a mother that dinner is already taken care of and watch the magic unfold for yourself.)

It’s really a beautiful thing to see. Funny, the only time I get a ‘true’ vacation is when I go stay with my parents. But I will never be too old or proud to refuse reverting back to semi-kidhood in exchange for a little TLCJ

What are your vacation plans this summer? What was the best ‘true’ vacation you ever had?

If I Must Leave You

This morning, as I was sweeping the floor, one of those terrible thoughts crept up on me.

You know the ones – about how awful it would be to lose a loved one, or die yourself and leave your loved ones behind? We all have them, just like we all probably have the same daydreams about what we’d do if we won a few million dollars. But mostly, we try to quickly push those scary thoughts aside because it’s terrifying to imagine.

This morning, though, I thought about what I’d want my girls to know if I was suddenly taken away from them. And the answer came to me in a poem. (Yikes) Or at least, a bunch of phrases that rhyme. Kind of.

So, I stopped what I was doing and wrote it down.

I don’t normally write poems, (for good reason) but since it’s such a rare occurrence, I thought I’d share it here.

If I Must Leave You

If I must leave you before our time is through,

know that you will miss me, and I will miss you.

Life will seem long and you’ll wonder where I am.

But for me, it will pass quickly, and I’ll again hold your hand.

Until then, I am near you, every time you may need me.

I hope you will feel me, even if you can’t see me.

Where I am, there is no shame– no reason to hide.

There is nothing that would keep me from being by your side.

We are what we are – and what we are is love,

each a small piece of the great body above.

-         K.L. Mills

Am I the only one who’s had their thoughts start rhyming spontaneously? I hope you all had a great weekend!

*CQG*

All By Myself...

There’s always been some debate as to whether most writers are introverts looking for a way to connect and express themselves to the world. Or extroverts trying to escape the world around them and spend some time in solitude; surrounded only by the landscapes and characters of their own mind.

So, are we introverts looking to be extroverts?

OR are we extroverts looking to be introverts?

That is the question.

I grew up in a family of five children. Alone-time was hard to come by and when I finally did get my own room- I could spend hours a day by myself. I LOVED being by myself. I could read, or write, or watch whatever I wanted on my very own fat-box television.

It was heaven.

Fast forward ten (okay, fine, – fifteen) years.  Now I’m a part of a different family with three adorable children and a doting husband. Going into ‘my own’ room and closing the door is no longer an option. I’m the mom. I have responsibilities. (one of which seems to be keeping every person in this family entertained every freaking moment of the day.)

*ahem*:)

But unfortunately, the ‘writer’ in me is still a wailing sixteen-year-old girl, pulling out her hair and begging for her own bedroom, slamming doors and yelling ‘Just leave me alone! Nobody understaaaaands meeeeee!’

Of course, if I actually were to give into the ‘writer’, my husband and kids would think I’ve gone batshit crazy (which, by then, I probably have).

That said, whenever I do get some time alone, I revel in it. I prepare ahead of time- Get my wip to a place where I know it will be easy to jump right back in. Get myself a bottle of wine or chocolate or popcorn or sushi- or all four. Download a few of the shows I know hubby would never watch with me in a million years and settle in for a marathon...

*sigh*

I pretty much have a Katie party for one.

Which probably puts me in the second category above. I know I’m extroverted- always have been. But I definitely need me some one-on-one time with just me, myself, and I to feel like a well-balanced individual.

What about you guys? Which category do you think you fall into and why?