700 more words today on my WIP.  Woo-hoo!
I guess I'm gearing up for Nanowrimo.  Or hoping to, if I'm not too engrossed on my WIP still.  My new idea is ready and waiting in the wings.  Where it may have to take a back seat indefinitely.  I might have to do my own version of Nanowrimo and use my 50,000 words to finish the WIP while it's still flowing so well.

That's all!

P.S. How many of you are doing Nanowrimo this year?

Update:  I just broke 1100 words for the day and wrote my favorite scene of the whole novel . . . the scene is out of order but it came lilke one of those gifts that happens every once in a blue moon where you see it all so clearly -- I couldn't let it slip away.  Had to share.  Hope the rest of you are having a successful evening.

. . . that it's not until I've shut down my computer for the night and I'm laying in bed trying to sleep that my Muse kicks into high gear?

. . .that it takes my daughter 3 minutes to clean her messy room and 6 hours to decorate her locker at school, lol.

. . . that ice cream melts ten times  faster when you're eating in the shop with five- ten year olds (that shop just happens not to have a restroom or access to running water) and much slower at home where water runs abundantly and clean up is easy and it's only one child?

. . . that summer school work turned in today requires no final exam but if turned in Monday, an exam is required to finish the course?

. . . that the tomatoes, onions, and peppers ripen different weeks during (this) summer when I really want them all at once for salsa?

. . . that after five days of DH being out of town and me working to get everyone organized for school and the house whipped into shape, it all looks the same -- like nothing's been done?

 . . .that the only two nights this month we've had family swimming parties, it's expected/or has rained?

. . . that no matter which novel I'm working on...I always get a brainstorm of ideas for a different story which is constantly distracting me?

Well we're almost to a weekend...Enjoy!

1.  On the 4th we went to our small community parade.  At the end, it's a water parade and everyone gets into this major water fight.  It's a blast!  Then we celebrated that evening with DH's family, which was really cool because his nephew and wife that lived with us for one summer in Denver was visiting from Arizona and his nephew who is battling cancer got to be there.  It was a great day, and I'm so grateful for all my blessings and my freedom.
And yes, I took one float picture -- I couldn't resist and knew I had to post it for brian_ohio  even though his blog is on an official hiatus :(


2.  This week I've been working a lot on revisions of previous novels and writing my WIP -- except it seems I keep coming back to this one scene in my WIP and rewriting it.  I've got about 5 versions of the same scene now and can't decide which is better.  This character could easily react different ways if pushed, hence the different versions.  I think I'm feeling insecure about myself as a writer.  I've read some really awesome stuff by many of my lj friends and others the past two weeks (kudos to olmue  for one -- her ms was super amazing) and I'm doing that icky comparison thing that comes as human nature.  I know all I can do is my best and hope it's enough, but still . . .
I am truly inspired by you guys and your talents.  You all make me want to be better!    I've had fun working on the revisions even if I feel in a bit of a Groundhog Day rut with my WIP.  :)

3.  I ran into one of my Colorado friends here on Tuesday.  It was so fun to see her!  And such a surprise! Then on Wednesday morning, my son's best friend growing up (since they were like 4) came with his family to stay with us.  I only got to visit with his mom for about an hour or so because they still had a long drive back to Colorado ahead of them that day...but it was lovely.  I miss her.  She is also one of my best friends.  And I keep looking at my son's friend and sighing.  I told him I feel like I should hug him everytime I see him (luckily, he's a very good natured teenager and knows me well -- he just grins and says it's a mom thing).  Then today, my dear friend robinellen is off to ALA.  I'd really hoped to join her but it didn't work out for me (long before my son's friend decided to come).  I'm so very excited for her and hope she has a great time.  But as much as I want to go meet all of you that are there and some of my favorite lj authors and get new ARCs (which I really, really wanted to do), honestly, more than anything, I wanted to go just to see Robin.
So to sum it up...I've been quite homesick this week.  I really miss all my great Colorado friends...which seems kind of odd to be homesick when I am in theory home.  :)  But just know I'm thinking of you and so grateful to have such awesome friends.  Hope all you ALAers have a blast.

4.  Summer!  I love the freedom of summer.  Yesterday, we just blew everything off, went swimming with cousins and friends, BBQd with my family (my sister and neice are in town from Florida), played night games with all the kids outside in the neighborhood...and just enjoyed summer!  I feel a field trip coming on...I need to go see what fun things we can do next week.

Hmm, I guess I only really have four this week.  I should change my title to Friday Four. 

5.  DH is off traveling again . . . gone for several weeks.  Maybe I'll actually finish my WIP and my valances (blushes, I've had the fabric for a year).  But ah, here's my number 5...I did finish getting the wild jungle known as my yard all ripped out, mulched, planted and whipped into shape this week (it was the project on the burner as soon as I finished camp).  So success!  Ha!  I guess now it's kind of a Friday Six!  Wish I'd taken some before pictures so that an after picture would mean something.  Oh well.

I'll stop while I'm ahead and don't completely bore you.

Enjoy your weekend!

Kind of a pathetic month overall...
Read 1 book (ONE?) I can't remember a month when I've only read one book:
The Luxe by Anna Godbersen...after reading the prologue, I didn't think I was going to read this, but then I flipped to the middle of the book, read a page, and decided to do it. It was different. And when I reread the prologue at the end, I liked it. I'm planning to read Rumors (the sequel). If I enjoy that one, I'll move onto Envy (the last of the books in the series to have been released).

Critiques: 1 full manuscript -- yay! and 7 other critiques.

Word Count: I did write, but it was all done by hand in my trusty notebook that I carry with me to soccer games and such. As of yet, I've not had the chance to type it in and see how many words...but it's not going to be anything to celebrate! I've set a goal though and my manuscript will be finished by the middle of July when my critique group will be ready for it.

Weight: I didn't lose any weight this month...but nor did I gain any. If I can have one more month like this than I'll be ready to try and lose some more starting July. Whew!

Exercise & Journaling: About the same as normal. Hit and miss, nothing to write home about...but doing some consistently.

That's about it for me, folks. I'm hoping to hold steady until July. Girls camp will be over and we'll have established some kind of a summer routine. July, I've decided is to be MY month. I'm hoping for the best here. :)

Happy Monday -- Happy June!

So we had an awesome spring break! My two daughters planned our Spring break trip with DH. (My son's only requirement for the trip was to be able to play tennis and sleep). The youngest chose to spend the first half of the week up at a condo in the mountains and travel around the county there because she's doing a report on the county for school. It was fun! The first day it snowed! But two days later it was beautiful and sunny. We played tennis and relaxed (instantly meeting DS's requirements, ha!) We took lots of fun pictures of my daughter in all the main attractions of the county. When the whole trip was finished -- she'd visited half of the counties in the state on our trip (including her sister's trip portion). The older daughter chose to head South and explore that part of the state that my girls had never seen. It was a blast! We hiked a lot. The first day we hiked in the Needles in the Canyonlands Park. We did an awesome 6 mile hike in about 2 hours. The spectacular scenery made the hike. We spent the next day in Arches National Park and hiked to Delicate Arch (where the wind nearly blew my kids right off the arch) and other arches. It was a windy day. My daughter counted 26 arches I think. This arch had a huge chunk fall off the day before my son was born...but it looks like the rest of it will go at anytime.
The next day we hiked up into a slot canyon where we had to literally hike through water up to our thighs. When we arrived at the channels of water, the kids all said, "We're going!" So we did. (We'd heard a report from a lady hiking back down that her husband and son had waded through and so we knew about how high the water was). DH actually carried my youngest daughter on his back because it would have been too high on her. The water was so COLD. The slot canyon was amazing.

Then we went to Goblin Valley and hiked. We climbed to the very top of the far valley and could see valleys of goblins stretching for miles in all directions. Very cool!

That night, we took a 4 wheel drive trail through Capital Reef National Park.

My youngest daughter was starting to get car sick on the twisty, bumpy roads so the last part was slow going. We get four hours into what's supposed to be a 2 hour drive (according to the map) and find we have to cross a river. No problem, except when we look across the river there's no where to cross over to...hmm, we look down river, nothing, we look up river and sure enough about 100 ft up river is the crossing. DH and I both looked at each other like "there's no way I'm turning back and driving 4 hours with a car sick kid". So we crossed.
We have some great stories about that one...something I'm sure my kids will be laughing about for years. I think this was one of my teenage son's highlights.
The next day we explored Capital Reef National Park

and hiked Lower Calf Falls which was really cool.

We drove over this highway where both sides of the 2 lane highway drop off for thousands of feet. When we get down and are hiking, we realize that we are hiking right underneath that highlway. Then we look up -- we see that all the rock under the lane we drove over has fallen away and its hollow -- right! So when we drove back over it we had to stop and take a picture...because some day, that highway won't be there. We figure we hiked at least 15 miles each day. By the time we finished the hike to the waterfall, I was feeling it. But my youngest who has not typically been much of a hiker, surprised us all -- she was the first one up and back on every single hike. Woo-hoo for her! The kids had a great time hiking and climbing on all the rocks. What fun to explore a new state (at least for the girls...my son has been to many of the places with us but not since he was little).
We arrived back in town just in time to have a wild, rainy Easter egg hunt with DH's family on Sat night and enjoy Easter yesterday with my family. Whew! Now I'm trying to dig myself out with laundry and get the kids back into school mode (man was it hard getting them up this morning)...and finishing all the homework projects due this week that didn't quite get finished on the trip. Figures! But we had a great week. I didn't write a single word all week, but I got some great ideas, worked out some plotting, and rewrote a few upcoming scenes in my head while driving. Now I just have to get them down on paper. Soon! Sorry for the complete travel log. Hope you're all enjoying spring! Back to reality!

I will be honest, I am not sorry for this week to end.  My kids don't have school on Monday and I'm happy to have a lazy, kick back, long weekend -- I swear we deserve it.

1.  The schools buried my kids in homework this week for the end of the term.  We've never had it this bad.  My high school son has lots of hard classes, lets see since last Thursday he's had (I'm sure I've left a few things out):  3 AP Chem finals, a 700 pnt Chem Lab Notebook Due, 2 Chem Asg.s, 3 AP American History Finals,  2 History Asg., 3 PreCalculus Math Finals, 3 Math Assignments, 2 AP Biology Finals, 2 Bio Asgns, Had to read a novel and write two papers on it for Honors English, a Civics final (which the teacher lost -- gave son a zero which nearly put him over the edge -- um, I did email the teacher at this point (nicely) but my thought was seriously if my son is in class the day of the test, has 102% in the class already -- what are the chances that he just messed around during that period and never took the test?  Yeah, I emailed him and asked if he'd look again, and he found the test two days later in with another class, but at least he found it!).  Okay, enough whining.  It appears that he's done well so far on the tests they corrected in class.  I think he's going to be ready for college.  :)

My daughter has also had two major projects due each day this week and she's only in 6th grade (although the gifted and talented program she's in is intense -- next year is going to be a breeze for her). 

2.  Youngest daughter hasn't had any homework this week, she's just been happily playing, until she fell on the monkey bars at school Wed. and might have broken her thumb.  They couldn't tell for sure on the x-ray, there was a shadow but it was too swollen to see if there's an actual break.  So she's in a splint for ten days and then they re x-ray.  She spent 3 hours crying last night.  She said it hurt but it had also turned purple and blue and she was quite upset that  it might look ugly.  Yes, I'm happy to be moving to a weekend.  Thankfully, DH (who's out of town still) talked to her over the phone and was able to suggest some fun activities she could do with the splint which diverted her.  Yay for dad!  Tonight she's calling him every hour, just kidding, maybe.

3.  It is the most beautiful sunny day -- rumor is that we'll break 70 degrees today.  I've already taken one nice walk.  It's lovely.

4.  This was going to be a big writing week for me but I only wrote Mon. and a little Tues.  About 4,000 words.  I'm hoping to write this afternoon and over the weekend though to make up for the rest of the chaos that distracted me.  I do have one slight problem, I seem to have painted one character into a corner and I can't figure out how to get her out yet.  It's going to take a long rope, lol.  I keep brainstorming and hoping I'll have one of Rose's plot dreams or something to show me the way.  So far, nada.  I know this character will come through for me though, she's much more opiniated than I initially thought and has had several power struggles with her sister who is really my protag.  It'll be interesting if nothing else.  That's something I love about writiing.

5.  And then to end a stressful week -- I received books in the mail from Robinellen.  Totally made my week.  Thanks, Robin.

So I think chaos has left the building right behind her boyfriend stress (I'm praying I'm right) and now it's just the rest of us here left to totally crash and recouperate from their eventful tenure in our home.  Maybe we'll escape and go see Race to Witch Mountain this weekend. 

Happy Weekend!

While the weather is mild here today, it looks like March is roaring like a lion in other parts of the country.  I can't help wondering if it's coming our way.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the newly showing grass (almost all our snow melted last week) and sunshine.  My kids start outdoor soccer practice this week.  It's nice when they get to be out again.

February didn't turn out to be as productive in some areas as I'd hoped (writing) but there was a lot going on with my family and kids school projects (and yes, some stalling/procrastination on my part).  For February being a short month...it was really long.  :)

I haven't been doing a lot of reading -- only six books this month and all at the beginning of the month.  (I have so many I'm trying to get to).
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (YA) -- an interesting take on the afterlife but not a book I'd personally read again.
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock  (YA) -- great voice!
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (again, to get ready for my book club) by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barows - interesting format, relaxing read.
Kissing Frogs by Laura Marie Altom (adult) -- fun idea but plotting felt a little weak even for a romance novel.
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (YA) -- lovely retelling.  I personally like her Dragon books better.
Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix (YA) -- interesting ending that I didn't expect.

I did 22 critiques for friends.

Only wrote 7,666 words on my WIP -- didn't complete the novel as I'd planned (probably another 25,000 -30,000 words needed).

Didn't do as well at journaling this month.

Improved exercise and healthy eating -- Lost 7-8 lbs. Woo-hoo!

Well that's about it for me (more than you wanted to read, I'm sure).  Hope you all have a happy Monday!

So Saturday I came in to my trusty computer and the monitor seemed darker.  At first, I thought a light had gone out in my den, but no.  My kids had both been doing homework so I thought one of them had played around with the control panel.  After I played around with the control panel, without any improvement, I began to panic.  When DH came home, he played around with the control panel (I was hoping he'd adjusted it and knew just how to fix it before he had to leave town -- no luck!)  So I worked on the dim computer anyway despite the fact that it gave me a headache.  So over the past few days, my eyes have adjusted.  And I've been cruising on my story.  When DH left, he advised me I should call Gateway and figure out what the issue was...have I, nope, not yet.  If my eyes hadn't adjusted I would have, I swear.

So tonight, I'm trying to reply to Kathy's Shadow and I just ran upstairs for a second to tuck in my kids -- okay longer than a second, but I'm a mom.  When I came back, the screen was black.  Oh-oh!  When I turn it off and then on again I get funny stripes for about 15 seconds and then it goes black again.  I totally freaked out!  I'll be honest, it was a complete freak out because my story was open on the computer and I couldn't remember when I'd last saved (even though I'm paranoid and I do it about once every other minute)...and I couldn't see it to send it to my laptop.  Ugh!

But thankfully, I have this really awesome, good natured  17 yr old son, who saved the day.  Not only had he just spent an 1h outside shoveling with me (the second night in a row -- actually, last night he did it alone and both nights he volunteered because DH is out of town and it's been snowing straight for 2 days...back to the point) but he quickly unplugged the monitor and ran to retrieve the one from his room...a really OOOLLLDDD monitor that goes with a ancient computer that he does homework on.  He chuckled when he plugged it in because it takes up my whole desk and looks decrepit next to my dead flat screen.  He thinks it's so funny that all the new stuff blinks out and all the old stuff has to save the day (although he loves the flat screen too).  So I'm up and running again, and quickly saved my document about 200 times and emailed it to myself on my laptop just in case.  Not only is it going to take me some time to get used to the "new look" both on and off the screen, but my eyes are going to have to adjust again because this think flickers crazily 24/7.  I used to love this monitor but after using my other new and improved one for several years this seems wild to my eyes.  I'm seriously not sure they're going to adjust without a few days of massive headaches.I hope I can keep up my momentum because I really like writing on this computer...I suppose I'll adjust because I have to. 

But man, I'm calling Gateway right now and I'm hoping there's some easy fix -- like maybe the LED light is out or something...do flat screens use LED lights?  I know absolutely nothing about them...other than I'm lost without it.  Wish I wasn't such a computer illiterate...I'm just technology challenged...seriously, you should see me with the television -- much worse there because I use it much less.

Hope you all have a happy night and that tomorrow I greet you from my regular flat screen monitor.  Wish me luck!

So my kids have been off for spring break. DH took off Friday so that we could go out to the Great Salt Lake and hike. (See the picture above). It was a fun day and the weather turned out beautiful -- we could see forever.

And I've recently started reading again (almost seems like a binge after being unable to with our move) and thought I'd share some of the things I liked about the books I've read.
Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
Very fun book! Jessica's style reminds me of a fantasy great, Patricia Wrede.
1) I liked that the prince doesn't rescue her -- she has to rescue herself. (That's not giving anything away, since it tells you that on the back cover). And she does it more than once.
2) I liked the creativity that she used to make the story interesting...and to keep the plot moving along without you knowing exactly what was going to happen every minute.
3) Great characters that I really cared about.
Overall, a great read and I highly recommend it. My daughter is planning to read it now.

Then I had to see what all the fuss was about (late to the party -- I know, but I have been moving, LOL). So I read the three Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer...Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.
1) I like that she makes unconventional characters likeable (usually these characters are the bad guys). It's an interesting twist that drew me into the story. And I have to say that I rooted for these characters throughout the novels. (Some characters more than others, but I won't go into my opinions on each book individually).
2) I also liked the role reversal that she has going -- where the victim is not really the "victim" but wants to be (I know that's beating around the bush but I'm trying not to spoil anything for anyone that is behind my reading schedule. There might be someone).
I will read the Breaking Dawn when it comes out despite the fact that I had vampire nightmares the entire time I was reading Eclipse (Finally just stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish the book and avoid the dream I knew was coming :) ) Very mild vampire story, which is what makes that whole dream thing laughable. Unique idea.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This book is about a writer with a secret. How could I not read it when I read the back cover. A few things that I liked about this was:
1) The plot twisted and thickened and I wasn't sure what was going to happen or how it would unravel until the very end.
2) Very unique interaction between twins and the connection between them gave me something to ponder. Compelling story that kept the reader intwined in the character's lives.

Also read A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce right before moving (Had to hurry and get Robinellen's book back to her). Loved the beautiful prose and well plotted story. Beautifully done. I highly recommend this as well.

And last but not least, I'm slowly moving along on my novels. Spent time today developing the characters in my mind and then writing up a character sketch on each one to help me keep them straight and get to know them (I haven't done this on all my novels but for some reason, I felt compelled to do it with this one and just like the companion novel that I wrote previously), working on the 2nd chapter on WIP B and hoping to finish it tonight. Got some plot ideas figured out for WIP A. So overall, a good day. (Although I didn't do laundry, clean house, or paint the second coat of the guest room). I still have until Friday to have my house ready for some out of state visitors...there's still time, right?

Hope you have a great week!