Mind all over the place.....

One of the joys of being me is that I am always thinking. Thinking of ways to fix a problem, thinking of tasks that need to be done, thinking of stories to write and plot twists in the current stories I have on my plate. That also happens to be one of the curses to being me. My brain has a hard time shutting down. I am always wanting to figure it out, solve it, change it, read it, write it. It is probably a part of the insomnia problem. I run dual screens on my desktop pc. On one I have my writing and the other has the web with a game or facebook or something and music running in the background. For some reason the distractions help me write faster. I can easily write a few thousand words in the space of a couple hours and still look at facebook or play solitare every so often. If Monkey were big enough that I could have the gates down and trust her around the house and she only needed food help and the like, or our house were smaller I could easily write several books a year. The stories float in my brain constantly. That is part of why I like having multiple genres. The problem is going to be finding an agent who likes all of my genres and works with them. I am not sure how to do that. I am also concerned about my submitting. I am on chapter 5 edits and am easily going to be done with the edits of this book by my birthday next month. I want to then submitt it out to a few agents/publishers. I did that before though and it was rough to know who to submitt to and that was before i expanded to other genres.

LOL see how my mind runs. This started as a reflection on my brain being all over the place and ended up being a worrying session. I drive myself batty. A few think I should self-pub but I honestly doubt I would make any real sales. I also think my series concept has some major potential (Thanks North for being a sounding board!) as it crosses genres and is fairly rare in the way I am thinking of it. I know that it has been sort of done but not exactly what I want to do. I want it to be about the crimes and the survival and the supernatural all in one tight package. I think I can do that. I think I can do that well. BUT if the first books I have ready are contemporary romantic suspense then do i look for an agent who does that or who does more and hope my voice comes through well enough in the 2 books that they are confident I can do the other as well.


Hmmm.......... I think I will take my over-active brain back to the editing and stop obsessing about problems I haven't hit yet.

What true strength and love looks like.

I have several military wives as friends. Some prepping for new deployments, some just got their men home, others just moved to new bases. They have always been a vision of strength for me. One friend is a Marine Wife. Those of you who were or were married to that branch know they each have their own unique worries. My friend like most keeps up with other wives and blogs of same. One wife's blog has spread like wildfire recently. Her husband was KIA just a few weeks ago and she blogged about learning of that and his funeral and just posted again because his homecoming would have been today. Her strength is what true strength is. That she is sharing how raw and tender she is feeling right now is awing and humbling. I cried. A lot. Her husband was a hero and in my eyes so is she.

Hershey the nesting bir...... I mean dog.

So after the Inconsiderate Neighbor decided our black lab was her mortal enemy and that whole debacle (Monkey still cries when she sees a big black dog) we got a tiny 8 lb. inside lap dog. This way Mrs. words I can't even type because I try to not say mean things has no reason to have us visited by the animal police regularly. For those who are new we named our new addition Hershey. She is a Chihuahua Dachshund mix and pretty sweet. She seems to be paper trained which I hate so we are trying to get her to go outside rather than a spot she chose in the entryway. She is good on the leash and very tolerant with kids. On the family camp out she was manhandled a ton and only barked at the kids once when her ear was bit by an over excited toddler. She chews. I give her dog toys and bones but if Monkey leaves something out it becomes fair game. She wants people food and figures Monkey is a good target since she is so small. The habits of being a stray I think. We are working on all these bad habits. We discovered an interesting doozy today. At night she likes to cuddle and so she sleeps in Bug's room. Bug puts a potty mat down hence knowing she was paper trained. She uses the mat well. Anyway so we leave our door open for the girls. Tonight Hershey was under our bed and I heard her chewing something while I am on my laptop editing my book. Hubby asks me to shoo her out to Bug so I try to call her out but she won't come. Bug calls her and she won't come. So we get a flash light. Seems she has stolen toilet paper rolls from my bathroom and shredded them, stolen laundry from the basket and has built a nest under my bed. Seriously. A huge freakish nest. What dog does that? She is part bird I think. I swear every pet we get needs therapy for some weird issue.

Jasper is back with Gracie's rescue group and we discovered it wasn't men he feared but people in hats. Seriously? AND my thinking he needed a playmate to calm the other issues turned out to be true. So we probably could have kept him if Hubby would have stopped wearing hats, the neighbor wasn't an evil Bleeping bleeper bleep, we had another dog, and I had the health of a normal 28 year old. Uggg......

AMY WINEHOUSE IS DEAD....... Oh and Norway had an attack that killed dozens...

News in general makes me mad. Norway is facing a devastating loss. Last CNN count had the toll from both the bomb and shooting at 92 with more to come. Maggy spent time there as an exchange student so this hits especially hard for her and she spent time worrying about people she loves very much yesterday. The world should be focusing on this and on sending love and support to the people impacted by this.

Now word comes from England that Amy Winehouse has died. It is running across CNN's front page. Yes they still have a lot of coverage up of the attacks in Norway but my news feeds on facebook are already being bombarded with info from England. This drives me nuts. Yes this is a very sad loss to the music community. She had a beautiful voice. BUT far to often real world events get drowned out by celebrity news. People are becoming so wrapped up in Brangilina and the newest celebrity baby and are ignoring the real news that it is no wonder the bureaucrats in DC get away with such crap. Love the craft and the art of music and film but stop obsessing over their personal lives and start taking an interest in the actual happenings in the real world. You might just improve your country.

Awwweeee..... Do I gotta?

Today I embark on that most dreaded of quests. School clothes shopping with a 9 year old girl, a group of teenagers, a two year old, and my brother in law. I am not sure which terrifies me more. If I don't come back alive I'll miss you all.

Blah.....

Today is a day for the blah's. It is already 91 outside and will hit 105 by noon. Hubby and BIL are both welding right now with Hubby in the tunnel so they are averaging 112+. Very bad. My poor guy comes home and pretty much eats, showers and goes to bed until the next day. I seem to have a stomach bug that has resulted in some major pain. YUCK.

Today starts an important process in the custody fight concerning my niece and nephew. It makes me reflect again on how hard divorce is. I really wish that all couples who end up divorcing could step back from their own hurt and anger and put it aside for the sake of their kids. Seeing how the bitterness and fighting has hurt these kids makes my chest ache. I want to take them away and make it better but I know that they are with the parent who can best take care of them. They both had to grow up far to quickly and it is such a shame. I can only hope that the court system works for them.

Dinner tonight is all about cleaning out the fridge. It is full of some scrumptious left overs and we are running out of space for other things.

Monkey slept horribly last night and ended up in our bed. I think her tummy hurts as much as mine. Bug had her first friend sleep over last night and i think it went well. They had treats and played on the trampoline before sleeping out there under the stars. I am so glad she is coming out of her shell and really being more social.

As you can see the blah's mean life here is pretty un-exciting today. I finished editing the second chapter of my book and am slowly chugging through. Hopefully I have it ready by my birthday, which was my original goal. The other book needs a little less in the edit department I think so shouldn't take as long. I am excited to put them out and see how it goes. Then I want to dig in to the first in the youth fantasy adventure book. i am also thinking the paranormal cop series I started might be more fun and have more depth if it was post-apocalyptic. Still law and order but with a different world circumstance. That idea bears more thought.

Silent long enough.....

So I have resisted comment on the current debt debacle going on in D.C. because honestly I am so disgusted with politics in general lately that I have had no idea what to say. I think that once again those elected are not actually listening to the people. "Cut, Cap, and Balance" has some pretty good points. Mega cuts are needed and a cap is a great idea. Balancing the budget and requiring a super-majority vote for certain changes is a good thing. We fall into a tax bracket where hubby paid in a hefty % last year much to our shock. Despite looking froward to that return I honestly think that if it improved the economy and the entitlements were reformed as well as some immigration crack downs we both would feel comfortable paying more. I have been looking at the "Gang of Six" and their new plan today. If it does what they claim I think this plan looks very promising. Part of the problem has been the total complication of things. You get this tax break but that tax so you actually pay this....... blah, blah, WTF? I swear tax law is it's own language. I do the taxes for a few people besides us and I swear it boggles my mind. Hubby paid in XX amount but only got back a small chunk despite owning a home and 2 kids. A SIL made not even a 1/3, has one child and rents, paid in far less, and received quite a bit more back. It boggled my mind. Heck my MIL didn't even pay in because she made so little but she received a return? Really? Makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Simplification would be nice. I think reforming entitlements (SSI to me is not entitlement as you pay in you should get back.) so that citizenship requirements are more thoroughly checked and credit checks are ran to see if those applying have crazy amounts of credit and such would be good. I was in Wal-mart yesterday and we are trying to save so I can see the first niece born to my side of the family be blessed in a couple weeks and so we can visit other family in Utah for a family tradition of Derby weekend. I kept telling the girls "No" when they asked for the usual weird kid requests and finally said we were trying to not spend money. I got such nasty looks from a few people and one of them ended up behind us in line to check out. Should have seen the shock when I handed over my debit card and not a food stamps card. I think because I seemed frustrated and I said we didn't have the money he assumed we were on food stamps yet my cart was very full. Um no, just teaching my kids about budget. Back to the plan. Major cuts is a very good thing. Yes times are tough and things need to be done but we don't have the money and we need to stop spending more than we have. We borrow from John to pay Jim and ignore our own needs and it has to stop. Hopefully they figure something out soon. I don't like where things are headed but I think some people are trying to do the right thing. They just might be in the minority still.

Fiercely independent and completely driving me nuts.

I love my children. I fought very hard to have them, often thinking my health and sanity were going out the window to bring them life. There are almost exactly 7 years between my girls. Fate and infertility made that happen. I wanted only 3 or 4 years between them.

Bug was born when we were pretty young and only 10 1/2 months after our marriage, much sooner than we had planned. Still kids ourselves in a lot of ways but we were thrilled to have her despite how hard my pregnancy was. She was a quiet and mellow baby. She loved to play on the floor with her stuffed toys that my Hubby won in claw machines. She thought everything was an adventure. I drove the 12 hour drive between the PNW and Utah several times with her as a toddler and by myself and she did great. On days I felt horrible, and long before we had a name for why, she would happily sit on my back and watch a movie or play with her toys so I could rest and know she was safe. She hated to get into trouble. She would explore and if she went somewhere she shouldn't all it took was a stern voice and she rarely did it again. She loved to sit in the cart facing me when we shopped so we could chatter. She had to grow with us in some ways, especially her daddy. We were both still figuring out what we wanted from life. He found his career and I found my goals as well. We both mended relationships and went through therapy. We had some rough patches as early marriage can. Bug was my little buddy and my constant companion.

Monkey came along when we had found our feet. Hubby and I both had really beaten back the demons of our youth and were happy in our goals and ideas as a team. She came into stability and with a big sister who adored her. If you see pictures of them at the same ages they look almost identical. It is uncanny. Looks is about the only similarity though. Two girls could not be more different. Bug is a bit of a tom boy and darker. She loves scary movies and stories and never really liked princesses and baby dolls. Monkey is super girly. She wants dresses and ribbons, baby dolls and princess curtains. Where Bug stuck to me like glue Monkey is amazingly independent. All day I hear "Me do it Mama!" She wants to dress herself and wash herself and feed herself. She hates to be still. The only time she is in one place is in the car. Even asleep she wiggles across her bed. We put her into a toddler bed at 18 months and a twin bed at 2 because she moved so much she just didn't have enough room. I have child proofed an area of our house so that I can relax some because otherwise she is everywhere. as it is I still have to watch because she will eat the dog food or try to climb the kitchen table. We had to shave her head a few months ago because she jimmied the baby lock on the cupboard and then covered herself in puzzle glue in 30 seconds flat. That stuff refused to come out of her hair. When we shop she has to walk or help me push the cart. She has to kiss everyone before bed and with the extra family here that can take a while.She is brilliant when she wants to be. She recognizes a few words already on her flash cards and knows how to count to 10. She sings certain songs and loves to play pretend. She also is super caring. She chose to wean on her own. I nursed her until 15 months. She noticed me wince one night as I was nursing her to sleep because her teeth rubbed. After that she refused to nurse even when I offered. She didn't like hurting me. Still if she accidentally hurts anyone she immediately says sorry and kisses it better. Of course if it is something naughty she has to do it any chance she can. I find her trying to climb the gate or onto the table often. She loves to get into the fridge. she thinks spoons and forks are great weapons. She needs the corner and every one in a while a swat on her bottom before she gets that she is doing something dangerous or harmful and she can't keep doing it. I think sometimes her goal is to make me the crazy Walmart lady we all run from. You know the mom. The one with wild hair, screaming as she drags her dirty child through the store like an insane person. I have a lot more sympathy for her now after I pull Monkey from the 5th clothes rack and resort to bribing her into sitting in the cart with candy.

Sometimes you need to be selfish.

We live the concept of "If you have it, share it." I think we have made the mistake of sharing too much and putting some of our needs/wants last. I know I have posted about it before because it is a theme we repeat but I think this time we are serious about changing that. We very much want to help the people that we love, we hate to see them hurting but I think we have helped to the point that we don't have some of the things done that I wish we did.

We live in a horrible housing market. Houses in our neighborhood have dropped even lower in the 2 years since we bought so even though we are not as upside down as most we will need to stretch to break even when we sell after this project is done. We need to finish the back yard and paint the entire house as well as do some small things to help that happen.

My eyesight is not perfect anymore. My astigmatism came back. To fix it I need to go back to the Lasic center that did my original surgery in the PNW. This means at least 3 nights away, alone, and an eye surgery while there.

My husband has several things he wants to take care of that require money. They aren't "have to do", none of this is really, BUT they are pretty important to us and with the hard work that he does he deserves for those things to be taken care of.

We have pushed those things aside as well as some of the prepping list to help others. I don't feel like any of the choices we made were mistakes necessarily but I do think that it is okay to put some of our own list ahead of others needs more than we do. Does that make me evil? I feel evil. The evil meter North found said we weren't too bad but when I feel like this I think that has to be wrong. Uggg..... Sometimes finding a good balance is a hard thing to do huh?

Relaxing Sunday target shoot.

We did a family shoot today. Hubby and Bug are the 2 in the pic. I shot my 9mm with the idea of "Lila stop concentrating so hard." and seemed to do pretty good. I think the problem was that I was over thinking it. It also felt smoother in my hands. Yay. Hubby didn't bring our 10-22 so I shot the pink one. Awkward! It was built with longevity and her in mind so there was no way to shoot left handed. I do okay right handed and shot 50 rounds through but it wasn't perfect. I had assumed our 10-22 was the one Hubby intended for my long-distance use if SHTF. I was wrong. Apparently he pushed for a custom built 6MM that used to belong to his parents because of how it shoots, weight, accuracy and such. The reason I didn't know was because Hubby has been getting it back into perfect working order and being a guy didn't think to tell me. LOL.

Overall we all had a lot of fun. Even Monkey digging in the dirt for treasure. Nephew and Bug waged war on a Kangaroo Rat though I think it came out victorious as it was not dead when we left. Yay for Sunday morning relaxation.