Good News!

No, it's not about my book--yet.

But global warming is a big fraud. Apparently. My friend Amber posted this on Facebook. So we can all rest easy now. We could say that is a convienent truth.

So on to my other good news. I got out of jury duty! At ten o'clock they said the case for the day "went away" (whatever that means) and we all got to leave! Whoo hoo! All that stressing and craziness came to an early end. And I could be home for when my kids got home from school. The Lord did answer my prayers, just not the way I thought he should. Haven't I learned that yet???

That means today I am back to my normal routine of fighting with my kids to get them out the door to school so I can come home and play with my imaginary friends. Gotta go! I have books to write!

An Inconvienent Truth

No, I am not talking about Al gore's book, although global warming is inconvienent. But I am one Birkenstock pair away from being a tree hugger . . . no, actually I recycle enough for my whole neighborhood. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Jury Duty! Err! I am jury duty today and it is a huge inconvience! For the 14 years I've lived in Vegas, I have always managed to get out of it. Usually because I had young, nursing children. but not this time. When i got my summons, I called to try and get excused because I had three kids with dentist appointments on that day. But instead of being excused, I got rescheduled--to today!

It would be inconvienent anyway, but today of all days! My husband is supposed to be in Canada for a business trip, but is actually stuck in Newark, NJ because his flight got canceled due to weather. So, he's no help. I have four kids that have to go to school. I have made intricate plans to get them to school and make sure they're not locked out when they get home, but really, my head is spinning because this stresses me out.

On top of that, this jury duty reporting (at 8:30 am, downtown--yuck) is messing with my writing time. Don't they know that time is SACRED???? I know it's my civil duty and blah, blah, blah, but it is just coming at a really bad time. My plan is to be an extreme feminist--"all men are guilty" or "people are GUILTY until proven innocent." Okay, I'm joking about that, cause I don't really believe that, but I'm trying to avoid having to go back to the court house again tomorrow! I'm wondering if I show up with bad hair, or just weird hair (not hard for me to accomplish, read my last post) and they'll just assume that I'm a little "out there!"

Anyhow, I have to go. I have to run to the grocery store to buy lunchables so the kids will have something to eat at noontime. Cause I need one more thing to do this morning!

I'll let you know how the whole jury duty thing went!

Bad Hair Day

Early this morning, I had just gotten out of the shower and my hair was dripping wet when my phone started ringing. I took the call, meanwhile, my hair decided to dry on it's own.

Now to some of you, having hair that dries in, like, five minutes, might seem awesome. But to me, no, not so great. The resultant look I achieved was bedhead. I had just had bedhead, and that's why I showered in the first place. If I could somehow, creatively and unobviously, get rid of bedhead, I could probably get away with not showering everyday. But having tried everything short of just shaving my hair off and opting for a wig, I have not found a solution to my bedhead look other than just washing it and starting again.

I attempted to re-wet it and redry it with a blowdryer. But to no avail. (Huge, heavy sigh). So I tried to use some yummy-smelling, pretty-colored Kenra hair stuff. It's sticky stuff, so I figured it would do the trick and relieve me of my problematic flat spot at the back of my head. But, as mentioned before, I've been down this road, know better, and yet, still bother trying. With that said, it did not fix the problem. I had several options: wear a hat (but that would mean I would have to find my hat in the first place), create a t-shirt with a black sharpie that would read: my parents deprived me of tummy time when i was a baby, or I could just ignore it and hope the wind would blow it into a new style once I stepped foot outside. I opted for the third.

Truthfully, I wanted to just start over.

Realistically, It was 8:30 a.m. and I had my two youngest to get to school in 15 minutes. Both girls are notorious for creatively finding ways to not go to school: my tongue is licking the back of my throat (my 8 yr. olds allergy explanation), my foot is broken (my 5 yr. olds excuse for getting out of pre-k. I don't get it. What's not to love about pre-k?) . . . Obviously we don't have backward tongues and broken feet, so I forcefully tell my children to hurry up and get ready for school.

We still have to comb hair, fly away hairs to wet down, find shoes, and oh, yeah, socks, backpacks . . . the list goes on and on and meanwhile, no one is any closer to getting to school on time. The faster I get my kids to school, the faster I get to come home and play with my imaginary friends (a.k.a. writing. I'm not delusional).

Finally, they got to school, 5 minutes before the bell rang.

I wondered if maybe I tried rewashing my hair, started over completely, if my day would get better??

Bright Pink Gerber Daisy Miracle

Becca Wilhite wrote a book called Bright Blue Miracle. In it, the main character Leigh, has a cool grandma who assigns everything a color. Not just things that already have claim to color, but things that are intangible like feelings and emotions. The miracle in the story is obviously Bright Blue.
I'm going to take it a step further and assign my miracle my favorite color and flower. If I could wear it as one of those pretty trendy hair clippy things, I would. But really, I won't. I don't have enough hair to pull off that much accessory and it would not be pretty. More like distracting. But you can read about distracting hair problems on Becca's blog. But back to my miracle. I'm describing it as such because my miracle went above and beyond anything that I thought I would be blessed with. Let me explain.
I went to the LDStorymakers conference this weekend. I was very excited (I had never been, weekend away alone, discuss writing . . .), but also nervous. I had only been to one other LDS writing conference. I met a few people at the UVU Book Academy, but still didn't know many people. Going to classes, no big deal. It's like going to college classes on the first day--everyone is in the same boat, they are there for a purpose, and it's not really a situation where you have to socialize.
LUNCH, on the other hand, and DINNER . . . ugh! Aaagh!
If anything has the ability to make me feel like I'm back in high school, in the cafeteria, and having no one to sit with, it's meal time at a conference. I knew I could always sit with Becca . . . but what if I couldn't find her? Or what if, what if, what if . . .? I had a million what if's that I could worry about.
So I prayed. I prayed that I could make one friend. Just one friend that I could meet up with at meal times so I wouldn't have to be that lonely person inviting myself to eat at the only empty sit at a table full of people who already knew each other.
What happened I consider more than a blessing. I consider it my bright pink Gerber Daisy miracle (since I love those flowers and they make me smile and happy).
I was sitting at a table in the huge room, meeting the others sitting around me, realizing that I was not the only person at the conference that was in it alone, when I looked up and saw Tamara.
Tamara and I went to church together as Young Women. Our ward in Massachusetts was so spread out that we lived twenty minutes away and only saw each other at church or church activities. We always got along and were friends, but never really hung out because of the geographics. But still, I always counted her as a friend.
I went to BYU. Next year she went to BYU. We'd see each other in passing at times, but I lived off campus, she lived on campus, I was overwhelmed, had dysfunctional roommates, classes, blah, blah, blah. Life happened. Still friends, but still not hanging out much.
Tamara got married and I sort of lost track of where she went from there.
I have not seen Tamara in almost twenty years, and there she was, standing three feet away from me at a conference with hundreds of people attending.
I didn't know she would be there. She didn't know I would be there. But there she was. My friend from growing up. I didn't have to worry about making a friend, I already had a friend.
Again, that was an answer, a blessing, a miracle WAY above and beyond what I was expecting.
And the beauty of it? More so than now I had someone to eat with :) . . . I could reconnect with my friend after so many years. And it seemed like it hadn't been anytime at all that had passed. Things were as comfortable and fun as the last time I saw her, so long ago.
And, by the way, I met A LOT of really nice people there. Everyone was friendly and were happy to have you sit next to them, and were happy to talk about their writing and the classes they had been to. I really had nothing to worry about.
I guess lunch time in high school was just one of those traumatizing experiences that I never got over . . .

What Is He Doing???

Today Emmett and I were at a stoplight, and I looked over at the gas station on the corner, and saw this man getting paper towels at the gas pump. But what was weird, was he kept taking more and more. Like the whole 2-3 minutes I was stopped, he was pulling out paper towels continuously and bunching them up in his other arm. So my over-active imagination kicked in and made me wonder, "what is he doing?" Obviously I get that he is getting paper towels, but why would he need to clean out the whole container of them? He was getting gas, and had a back door open, so I came up with a few scenarios to explain his weird and obsessive behavior. 1. His kid threw up in the back seat of the car. 2. His pet had an accident. 3. He was mad at the gas station/and or gas prices in general, so he was going to get THEM back by taking all of their complimentary paper towels. 4. He just murdered someone and couldn't get enough towels to get the "blood off his hands." :) 5. He just maybe really likes paper towels. I wished I had turned in and asked him what was the source for the passionate taking of the paper towels. Any ideas? Suggestions? Scenarios?

Good News . . .

After 15 weeks, (yes, it is quite literally like counting down the weeks in pregnancy), I heard from the publisher. . . (this is for added suspense). I saw the email from "submissions", my heart stopped and I thought: This is IT!!!!! The email told me my manuscript was going to start the evaluations process. So in my mind, that means it did not get an initial 'No' and they think it's worth reading. And I figure if it gets read by the outside professional evaluators, then it's worth paying them to read it. I may be totally wrong having never done this before, but that's what I took my email to mean. I hope they LOVE IT!!!! Now I just have to wait another 4-6 months. . . They did say if I wanted to know the status of my manuscript I could email them . . . I wonder how soon is too soon????? But, at the risk of being pesky, I think I'll just wait out my 4-6 months and continue praying that they will LOVE IT!!

Sick of Being Sick

The month of February was a blur of fever, coughing, and emptying several bottles of Advil. Everyone was sick with the Flu. All four of my children missed five days of school. The only upside to that was we each took a turn getting sick on a different week. The only upside to my kids having a 102 fever was it sort of sucked the life out of them and there was not enough energy left for much drama.
We had several trips to the pediatrician. One was done pre-emptively, when Eve started with the fever and coughing and I thought "if I get her in today, maybe we can ward off a week of fever and coughing". But we could not get in with our beloved Dr. Tuggle, and our only option was an associate, Dr. Barber. Eve did not like not seeing her regular Dr. and couldn't pronounce the other Dr.'s name right. He is now known as "Dr. Barfer." (Affectionately, of course.) Dr. Barfer, not knowing our history, and that we had already been in with one kid and this sickness, sent me home with no drugs, and the diagnosis that "it is viral and needs to run it's course." I get that, but Emmett had already been the test case for this flu, and I knew what course it'd be running and knew we'd need drugs. There's an advantage to seeing your regular doctor. Sure enough, the next week we were back to the doctor's office, seeing our regular and much-appreciated doctor, getting drugs from her and offering her a Diet Coke in solemn appreciation for her.
But the fun didn't end there. Audrey hadn't had the flu, yet. I knew it was coming. And then Eve, who is already allergic to two different types of antibiotics, broke out in a big, itchy, red rash, also known as an allergic reaction. What's next? I'm worried we're running out of choices of medicine to give her.
Audrey did get the flu the next week, but was the only kid who managed to ward it off without drugs. And she desperately wanted to get healthy so she could be back in school for the standardized testing. None of my other kids are that dedicated to school!
But even now, mid-March, there is still risidual coughing. All I can say is it better not come back to visit for a second round. I am quite sick of being sick.
And now that March is here, the wind is kicking up a storm. Don't even get me started on the kids and their allergies . . .