More on books

First of all, thank you for the recommendation in the comment trail! I just added Angle of Repose to my Frugal Reader wish list on "auto request". Once I get my new library card (more on that later) I'll see if the library has it, too. :)

I also just Frugal Readered (yes, it can be a verb, too!) Mistress of Spices by Chitra Divakaruni - I heard her interviewed about her book "Sister of My Heart" but this is the one that was available and sounds like a really interesting, unusual read and I really like books set in India or having to do with the Indian-American experience, so high hopes. I also ordered a Robert Littell spy thriller that I'm hoping is captivating.

I was reflecting, this morning on some of my favorite books in past years: The English Patient (don't judge it by the movie. The fact that Minghella was able to make such a sweeping, epic from the book is brilliant, because the book itself reads like a poem with hints of plot. Just beautiful) Another one was Possession by A. S. Byatt - I love the interplay of past and present when it's done really intricately in novels.

Anyway - I'm hoping that some of these recent orders stack up! If you all have any more recommendations, keep 'em comin'!!

Bug Hound

Dum, de dum, dum... I'm killing time while waiting for a table at my thai restaurant of choice.... so what do I do, but go visit the pet store next door... and, do my eyes deceive me? Could that be a black masked brindle boxer puppy?!

NO! It's a Bug Hound. What is a bug hound? Does it hunt bugs? These were my questions. No, it's a cross between a Bug and an Italian Greyhound. Um.... that's a Pug, a Boston Terrier, and a Greyhound. You mix them all together and you end up with a mini boxer. I don't know what kind of hoo doo was involved, but there you have it. She looks just like a boxer, but only gets to be 15 pounds.

And here is the little love bug (hound):

Prepping for the finale

Yes, the Top Chef finale is tomorrow. Prepare yourselves, everyone. It's down to Ilan and Marcel. Now, I realize that my heart is really out of the competition now that my beloved Sam had been eliminated.

But still, I'll watch... of course.

The question now becomes, who am I cheering for? Excellent question.

Up until just a few weeks ago, I felt really good about Ilan. He was solid in his dishes, quietly holding things together and producing food that the judges loved. He wasn't very flashy and didn't call a lot of attention to himself, but he delivered time and time again.

Marcel drove me crazy with all of his scramblings to get on top and seeming disregard for the other chefs.

But in the last few weeks things changed. Ilan not only made known that Marcel drove him crazy, he really went to great lengths to make life difficult for Marcel. He repeatedly needled him for his lack of a love life, he slammed his dish TO THE DINERS in the seven deadly sins episode. He did a foam on one dish as an "homage" to Marcel that was really a way to ridicule him and he and Elia just tried one last time to get him sent home in the last episode. Enough already. This is not the strong, silent chef we saw in previous weeks.

Marcel on the other hand has taken it all with a smile, never cussed anybody out, and continued to focus on the food. Still, it's hard to picture him as the "Top Chef" given his crazy personality.

I believe, all that said, I'll be hoping that Marcel takes it, but I'm fairly ambivalent. (Not apathetic, just strongly ambivalent!)

Wanted: A good book

I was just reflecting on how long it's been since I've read a really, REALLY good book. I think the last one was The Historian, and I was pregnant when I read that. (Gigi is now 1 1/2). I've read some fun, light books, but no really good, sink your teeth in, lose yourself in another world type of book.

In my quest for good books, I became really disenchanted with current "literary fiction". So much of it is depressing for no really good reason (books that are depressing for good reasons include: Sophie's Choice, Native Son, The Invisible Man, Absalom Absalom, The Great Gatsby - actually I wouldn't even call these depressing, just very emotionally difficult.). Also, there is an epidemic of books that don't end - it's the literary equivilent of the "fade out" ending where the chorus just repeats ad naseum and gets softer and softer. No slam, bam spectacular ending. So, I went the route of genre fiction - at least those books know how to end! So I've read a succession of light, fun books, but again, no really good literature. I'm thinking I'm going to just reread all of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

Also, I've noticed a lot of self-conscious, overwriting in "literary fiction". For example, I've been anxiously waiting to read The Thirteenth Tale, and it is a very compelling plot, but so overwritten it's taking me out of the story - like when the girl is staring out the window on a dark night and the book goes into a description of her "ghost" that is mimicking her every action, and then the ghost's face starts to disintegrate as though someone threw acid on her.... ok, so the girl's looking out a window and sees her reflection in the glass, then it starts to rain. C'mon people, how about just describing the rain in a nice, atmospheric way.

The point of this post is to plea for book recommendations. If you have read any seriously GOOD books -send me the titles! I need a good book! Thank goodness I already have my copy of Harry Potter reserved. ;)

A new dream dog

Introducing, the Glen of Imaal Terrier. Ireland has historically bred the Kerry Blue Terrier, the Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, and this much less known terrier. Like its two cousins, it was bred as a ratter and killer of small vermin, but, interestingly, it was also bred to be a spit turning dog. It worked indoors all day turning the spit with its wee little legs so that the meat would be nicely roasted at the end of the day.

This is really a big dog, on very short legs. What follows is a list of why this is possibly the perfect dog for me:

1) It is quiet, very, very quiet all day (since it was bred to work inside)
2) When there is trouble, the dog does bark, and it is a very deep gruff bark of a big dog - making it an excellent guard dog
3) No shedding
4) No known health issues - it's very sturdy!
5) It is so calm, it borders on couch potatodom, so it won't tear through my house and garden. It will take a walk, but, that's about it.
6) It's excellent with children and cats- although, it will likely kill any small pets like gerbils, taking them for vermin. We don't have any. They've also been known to kill small, yappy dogs, just to make the noise stop. That cracks me up!

And now, the pictures!!!!!

We've closed!!!

On the house, we've closed on the house! YAY! We are officially homeowners. :)

We take possession on Thursday and The Great Move begins.

This has been a goal since we got married, seven years ago, and suddenly I'll be living in my very own home, and staying home with the little munchkins all at once. I am too happy for words!

I think I'm in love...

ok this is a post about dogs, again. I'd like to paste in the paragraph on "temperment" of the Black Russian Terrier.

BRTs are confident, calm, highly intelligent, brave and loyal. It should never be timid, and will not hesitate to defend the people that it loves if it thinks they are threatened. The BRT may seem aloof, but needs human companionship and bonds deeply to its family. They are wary of strangers and take a long time to warm up to unfamiliar people, thus they make excellent guard dogs. BRTs are dominant by nature and need confident owners who have experience handling similar dogs.

That's basically my ideal man, so I think it might be the perfect dog also. My only hesitation is whether to name him Heathcliff, because of his personality, or some wonderful Russian name like Ivan or Dmitri. Oh the dilema.

Here's a picture of my new love:

Even their lips, nose, and tongue are black! As you can see, they're a little a touch on the large side... all the better to protect their family. But, I am afraid he might be bigger than my sofa.

Reasons I'm Happy Even Though I'm Miserable

My head feels like a cement block today, and yet I am happy, because:

1) I'm a mere 5 days away from becoming a homeowner
2) Kira is better and back at school in time to perform in her school assembly (she never misses a stage date and I quote... "If tomorrow is Open House, then how I feel doesn't come into it, I'm going!")
3) Gigi's fever broke last night
4) I can finally watch Gilmore Girls without fast forwarding through all the Luke, Lorelai, and/or Christopher scenes because I see a light at the end of the tunnel. YAY!

So with all those wonderful things going on, how important, really, is the ability to breathe through one's nose?

Paint Job

A new template for today. It looks like Seattle has finally thawed, so I'm taking the frost off of the blog. Also, I'm sick and I want something cozy and really, what's happier than coffee and wi-fi?

House of sickies

Everyone is sick at my house today. Including me. My little one was velcroed to me this morning, not wanting to leave, because she has a fever and a head cold. Poor little thing. I thought Kira would be going to school, but she was up most of the night with a horrible cough.

We're trying so hard to eat well and be healthy that I take it as a personal affront when my kids get sick!

On a positive note, when I called Kira's school to say that she wouldn't be coming, the principal answered the phone himself and took the note for me. When I told him I was calling about Kira, he knew exactly who she was and said he'd get a note to her teacher. I wanted to reach through the phone and hug him! To a mama who had a lot of concerns about taking her baby into the big wide world for school, that means a lot. I then got an e-mail from her teacher this morning letting me know that they would all be praying for Kira to feel better. Awww....

More dinner ideas

Just wanted to update with a few new things we've tried for dinner for anyone else out there Ultrametabolizing...

My first great find is polenta. YUM! I have yet to make it from scratch, although I do possess the corn grits in my cupboard. But... QFC sells premade italian herbed polenta (with nothing scary in it) in the produce section, just slice and cook. The other night we did soup (Amy's organic) and polenta - I sliced it and pan fried it in a little olive oil drizzled with marina and topped with shredded mozzarella, but if you're avoiding dairy, it's good with just the marinara also. I did a cheaters "thin" marinara for this - just a can of organic tomoto paste with basil, oregano, ground pepper, salt, garlic powder and onion powder. I'm also really excited that perhaps I could do a very large polenta round and make "pizza" for myself...

Since I tried a "gluten free pizza crust" mix the other night. Um, not so good. Much better than the one I made from scratch a few weeks ago. This one was by Namaste, and admittedly, I bought it because it reminded me of Lost... not the best reason to pick up food. It was just really dense and crunchy. I think polenta will be a better bet.

Another win was tofu "cutlets" with garlic aioli and veggies. The girls LOVED this since dips are a big favorite. The aioli was a snap and really, mayo, not that bad for you. It's just eggs and vinegar (if you get one without high fructose corn syrup - so no Best Foods). Anyway, mix up 1 1/2 cups mayo with 2 tbsp lemon juice, one large minced garlic clove and a pinch of salt and wow those veggies go down fast! The "cutlets" were just sticks of extra-firm pressed tofu that I rolled in gluten free flour mixed with Mrs. Dash. I was going to do an herb blend when I saw that in my cupboard and thought "Great!" I baked at 400 for 30 minutes or so and they were warm and firm with a cruchy outside. I might try freezing and thawing the tofu once to make it meatier next time.

That's all for now! I've slipped a little on my plan and need to get back at it. (Read: Jelly beans have invaded my pantry!)

My man Sam and some musings on Top Chef

With the Top Chefs off to Hawaii, it's time to put in a plug here for my man, Sam.

GO SAM!

He's easily been the strongest chef all season, and the strongest leader and all around best guy. So I'll be cheering him on!! (He's the one on the right up above)

Now that we've established my love for Sam, though, I'd like to talk about another chef. I think it's interesting that in all the tv I've watched (and let's face it, I don't exactly skimp), the strongest character arc I've seen lately is on a reality show.

One of the four remaing chefs, heading off to Hawaii, is Marcel. He's a little goofy. (Up above, on the left). He's kind of anal and has that funny poofy hair do and doesn't mind throwing another chef under the bus when they're on the "chopping block." Once, he even threw my Sam to the wolves. So, I rolled my eyes at him a lot and shook my head.

Apparently he didn't make many friends among the other chefs either. What started as Sam blowing steam (justifiably, if you ask me) one day, seemed to open the door for the others to vent their feelings, all the time. So the funny thing was that the more the other chefs excluded Marcel, the more endearing Marcel became. He's still just as odd, but he's also surprisingly resilient. He's kept smiling through all of it, even when he slept on the bathroom floor so no one would attack him, and even when he was on the roof composing rap lyrics about how his food was the best (a classic episode!)

Things got nasty this week one of the chefs woke Marcel up out of a dead sleep and held him down so the rest of them could shave his head. (Sam had the clippers and didn't go through with it). That guy got kicked off the show since it was practically assault, and Marcel still gave him a hug goodbye.

So the writer in me is thinking about how I can show similar things in my books. The cool thing is (since it's real, and not scripted) Marcel is still Marcel, still doing his annoying things. But as I've seen him in different situations and under different pressures, I get to see more of who he is and my opinion of him has changed pretty dramatically. I think that's the challenge for a writer, to stay true to their characters, and still bring them through a complete arc by the end of the book.

And in the meantime, I'm still routing for Sam, but I wouldn't be sad to see Marcel take it all, either. ;)

Quote of the Day

shamelessly stealing the quote idea from Dilettante ;)

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Question of the Day

Every night at dinner we do "The question of the day." Kira loves this. We each pick a question to ask everyone at the table during dinner. The following is a transcript of a recent exchange surrounding the QOTD...

Kira: Shall we do the question of the day?

Me: Sure!

Kira: Who has a question?

Randy: I'll go first... name a word that comes to mind when you think of a great husband or daddy.

Me: Randy

Randy: Ha, no, name a trait.

Me: Ok, strength

Randy: Kira?

Kira: Tom*

Randy sadly had just taken a bite of food and is now choking. Tom* is a kid in Kira's class.

Me: OK, well, why does Tom* represent a good husband?

Randy is still choking

Kira: Well, he's the calmest boy in class, and he's really good at studying so I think he'd be good to study with, and he seems like he would take good care of his family.

Me: Well, those all seem like good traits to look for.

Randy has stopped choking, but not yet recovered the power of speech.

I am biting my tongue to stop from suggesting other boys in her class, that *I* would have liked.

Must not interfere. Must let her choose... though I'd rather be letting her choose at 16, not 6...

*Names changed to protect the innocent.

The Kerry Blue Terrier

This guy's about the size of a Wheaten - so, bigger than a scottie, but smaller than a boxer. And how adorable is he! Because he's a terrier, he doesn't shed, but does need clipping and tends toward dry skin, so he'd need his daily dose of flax seed oil (like the rest of the family).

Let's call him Desmond for now. ;)

Small dog of the day... The Puggle!

Yes, that's right, the Puggle... part Pug, part Beagle. The combo helps aleviate some of the breathing issue in the Pug. (Pugs have a face that looks like Wile E Coyote after running into the anvil).

And how cute is this little guy?!

Editing update...

I'm up to page 73 - much less progress than I wanted to make, but I've ironed out a lot of plot issues so that's good - that's the whole point of the process, and I'm trying not to rush through to make a goal, but really spend the time and do it well.

That and we started "Get Greta to sleep in her crib, take 2" this weekend. ARGH!!!! I broke down sobbing 3 nights in a row and got 9 hours of sleep over those three days, so it's clearly not all that fun and is sapping my mental energy. BUT... she's really sleeping poorly and needs to learn how to put herself down. It's just not any fun. So I've got that project, The Move, and the novel edits all going simultaneously... not to mention my actual job, so things are nice and busy at the Lemkes!!!

Anyway, hopefully that little ticker picks up speed here shortly. :)

Walking in a winter wonderland....

We have more snow in Seattle!!! We had another little blizzard last Wednesday, ironically just as I got in my car to go home the flakes started falling, and by the time I got to the bridge, I was praying that I'd just make it home without hitting anyone. Which I did manage to do - whew! It took three hours, but I was just happy to get home safely.

Since we live on a nice steep hill (for now), I was pretty much grounded till Sunday, and looking forward to getting out and to work today when... yes, more snow!

I remember hoping with everything in me that the snow would please, please stick as a kid! Seattle is notorious for snow falling, but not sticking, so snow days were few and far between. This is the snowiest I can ever remember it being. So, I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible and not worry about being housebound or what's going on at work. It would be a lot easier if I were already in my new house - it's flat where that house is. :) And I can walk to coffee from that house (a requirement whenever we look for a place to live - I can live with 1 bathroom, but I better have a coffee shop within walking distance!)

Anyway, I'm assuming this is the last snow of the season, so Im singing every "snow" song to myself in my head, revelling in the fact that it's finally happening to me. I'm using up all of my hot cocoa and espresso pods and staring at the icicles hanging off of my eaves.


Where it's snowing
All winter through
That's where I want to be
Snowball throwing
That's what I'll do
How I'm longing to ski
Through the snow-oh-oh-oh-oh
Those glist'ning houses that seem to be built of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a mountain covered with a quilt of snow

Dog Update

Apparently the trial for Duane "Dog" Chapman is underway in Mexico. I'd read that charges were dismissed, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If you saw "The Year of the Dog", you know that 2006 was a hard year for my favorite hero. He lost his Father in law, his daughter, and was arrested and put in Federal prison on the ridiculous charge of kidnapping Andrew Luster. More info here.

But he's still out there catching criminals and changing lives. If you have a minute, please take some time to pray for the trial to resolve speedily and for all charges to be dismissed.

And if you haven't seen Year of the Dog, set your Tivo, and grab your Kleenex, it's a tear jerker, but a great show! Some favorite quotes from the show:

Beth Chapman: When you're going through Hell... don't stop.
Dog Chapman: With this ring, baby I thee wed! (Awwww!!!!)

And some more Dog quotes just for fun:

"Twelve men can judge you, or six men can carry you - you decide"
"I like to hear that God goes before us, because he is the biggest bullet proof vest of all."
"I don't care if he went to hell, I'll find him."

Beverage Alert

As Miss Snark would say, I'm issuing a beverage alert for this post:
http://evileditor.blogspot.com/2007/01/face-lift-254.html

Don't read while drinking coffee or you'll need a new keyboard. Don't read if laughing out loud in your cubicle could get you fired. Do read if you need a good laugh this morning. ;)

The Scottie

I don't know a lot about Scotties, except that it would be super cute to have a Westie *and* a Scottie as an excercise in contrasts. :) We'll call him Mingus.

Let the editing begin!

I printed out the entire manuscript this week and started editing. WOO HOO! Note the new "pages edited" meter to the left. My goal is twenty pages a day, so that I'll finish in about 2 weeks. Then, I'll have to go through the hard copy and type in the changes, so there will be another round to do that.

Then... off to the first readers!!

And now, the Westie

This is a West Highland Terrier, aka Westie. I'm calling him Fergus.

I actually nearly got one of these when we were first married, but we fell in love with an apartment that said no pets. :( Back then I was going to call him Dexter, but now Dexter is in my top two list for a little boy... so I can't use it on a dog.

These guys are actually little, but they *think* they're big. And, no shedding here either!

Next up, the Wheaten

OK, I should probably pace myself on these but it's a S-L-O-W day, and I'm making up for the dirth of posts in December.

Presenting, the Irish Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier. I don't know if it's generally considered a small dog, but it's much smaller than a Boxer, only getting up to 35-40 pounds rather than 65-80.

Name is pending, which means I'm probably not as emotionally attached, but Randy loves these dogs, they're really sweet, and they don't shed. All good things!

New Years Goals 2007

I like to call them "goals" rather than resolutions, because that way you can't break them. You just keep "reaching" for them. ;)

First, let's review last year's goals, which were: 1) lose 10-30 pounds, 2) Finish novel 3) pay off debt. We're looking pretty good. I lost all of the baby weight. YAY! I finished the first draft of the novel. YAY! Debt - well, it's much reduced aside from the mortgage we are taking on. But since the goal of paying off the debt was to buy a house, it's looking pretty good too. We're still working to pay off the rest (car loans, etc) in the beginning of this year. But that's boring and I'm letting my husband put that on *his* New Year's list.

So, for this year the goals are:

1) Complete novel edits and SELL NOVEL! I love having this as a goal. (stay tuned for new widget in the sidebar)

2) Take on administrating the household - no more feeling like I'm at the end of a whip. It's gonna be a well oiled machine, baby! This involves some big steps that I don't want to put up here... yet

3) Consistency in the things I want to do every day: prayer, study, writing, exercise.

I think 2007 is going to be a great year!!

For lo, the virgin will be with child...

I'd intended to post this during Christmas, but, alas, my internet was down. So, bear with me. It's still Epiphany, so I feel like we're good. :)

The subject today is the virgin birth of Jesus. Nice and light. ;) Here's the thing... I'd been taught in (Christian) school that the virgin birth was a 'non-essential' teaching, a nice to have, but less than crucial part of our faith. It didn't have anything to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus or the forgiveness of sins, so it's a negotiable point. Today, people like me who were taught that are writing books on the subject now and it's become a hotly debated theological point.

This post is dedicated to all of those kids, like me, who thought "Hm, the virgin birth seems important, but maybe it's not?"

Rob Bell has a book out called, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, that makes the claim that it isn't important to accept all of the tenents of the faith and that some, like the virgin birth can be removed without losing anything.

The problem with that is if you lose the virgin birth, you lose Jesus. It really is key, I can finally articulate why, so I'm going to here on my blog!

1) Isaiah (7:14) told us to look for a child born of a virgin and that would be one of the signs that this child would in fact be the Messiah. So, if Jesus isn't born of a virgin, we've got the wrong guy.

Yes, I'm aware that there is some debate over the word translated virgin - it can also be translated as a young unmarried woman - but in a pious Jewish culture, that was one and the same.

So, it was a sign to look for. If Jesus wasn't virgin born, we need to keep looking.

2) Mary claimed to be a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, with a Savior for all of mankind. (Mt 1:18-25) That's a big claim. Furthermore, because he loved her and because an angel came to him and confirmed her story, Joseph married her and raised her child as his son, and as the Son of God.

So this is the biggie here... if Jesus wasn't virgin born, Mary was a promiscuous girl and a liar who invented a crazy story and hoodwinked her fiancee into belivieving her and marrying her anyway. It also makes her testimony about Jesus throughout his life pretty much invalid. Hers is one of the most powerful testimonies in the Bible. She bore Jesus, raised him, and still worshipped him as God. So, either he really was God and his mother who would know better than anyone could attest to the fact that he lived a sinless life... or she's crazy. If she made up the virgin part, we've got good reason to think she's just crazy.

We lose the virgin birth, and we lose Jesus. I only wish I could have articulated all of this in the 9th grade when I was told the opposite.

You can hear this talked about with much more clarity and humor, here.

Size Matters

As I've hinted about in some other posts, we, the Lemkes, bought a house over Christmas. YAY!!!!! There will be a more in depth post on this with pictures to follow, but let's skip ahead to the really important part of this... the dog.

You might have gathered that I'm fond of Boxers, possibly. And I tend to hold very true to my loves. However, this house is moderately sized (1700 sq ft) with a smallish yard. Now, a boxer still might work. She (Dagmar the Boxer) would mostly live inside and it's a very walkable neighborhood and I know she would get plenty of exercise. My concern is that a large dog in a small yard can do a lot of damage and that's not fun for anyone. So, on the off chance that I won't realize my dream of a boxer right away, I'm going to be posting pictures of many smaller breeds of dogs. Please comment on your favorites.

Today, we have a Basset Hound for your consideration. Let's assume this is either Thelonius or Basil the Basset. If it's a girl, Randy wants to name it Beyonce and the juxtoposition of a Basset Hound named Beyonce does make me laugh, but, um, no. I can't think of a cool girl name, so just imagine it's a boy.

Boxer of the Day

A word to the wise - boxers need a coat if they go out in the cold. They don't do well in extreme temperatures! (Kinda like me)

Our Wild December

Part of the reason I was MIA in December was the crazy weather we had. First a snow storm, snowing us in for three days (that may actually have been the end of November, now that I think about it) and then a wind storm that broke branches off trees and knocked out power for 5 days.

Seattle is rife with very large evergreen trees, so a windstorm is a serious thing. Our house sits in a bowl shaped area surrounded by 40 and 50 foot trees. In fact, our landlord called us the night that the storm was supposed to start and cautioned us not to sleep upstairs (where the bedrooms are) because we could so easily have a branch come through the roof. Yikes!!! You can imagine how much fun it was for all four of us to sleep together, without power, on the futon downstairs. Fortunately my parents let us huddle at their house for a couple of nights so we could stay warm!!

Below are a few pictures of the fun times:

First the snow....

And then the wind... note the very tall trees! The one that fell just missed the deck.

Lots of clean up to do...

A picture is worth a thousand words

Kira has been suffering from excema lately and we're trying many, many things to get rid of it. She's really not thrilled about the ban on tomatoes (not that she'd eat an *actual* tomato, but it puts a crimp in her passion for cheese pizza and Doritos), or the flax seed oil. When I told her that she'd need to drink 30 ounces of water a day, she had her own ideas about that. Rather than tell me what they were, she said she could best express herself in a picture:



Apparently the idea is that if she exercises (by riding a bike, perhaps) she will get thirsty (note the sad face) and then choose to drink water. Not a bad idea. ;)

Wordie

In case you need something to do today... check out www.wordie.org. I warn you, it's addictive (see my new blog widget to the left!)

Where do they get it?

My nother often comments that I was such a sincere, serious little girl, she wonders how it is that I've given birth to two comedians.

I wonder.....

... yes, those are Gigi's socks.

Under Construction and an update on the novel

Please forgive a little instability as I try to get my January template underway. I'm having more than a few issues, as usual. ;)

Also, you'll notice that my "novel word count" meter is gone. That is because, dun dun dun dunnnnnnn..... the first draft is complete. I've written two different endings and I'm not really sure which one I'll go with, so the word count seemed irrelevant at this point.

What's next, you ask? I'm glad you did... next I'll start the revisions. I'm planning on using the Holly Lisle One Step Revision process. I've heard excellent things about this process and I love that she says it's "once and done." That's probably about all I can manage right now! After the revision, I'll be sending it out to my very kind first readers, then incorporating their feedback, and sending it to agents.

My timeline is as follows:

Jan 31 - Revisions done
Feb 1 - Send to First Readers
?????? - Receive back from Readers with comments
? + 2 weeks - Final revisions done, incorporating feedback
? + 3 weeks - Agent packets complete and begin querying agents. WOO HOO!!!

Nevermind I'm moving, smack in the middle of the timeline. I don't think it will have too much affect on my writing, but you never know. I find revising a TON easier than facing an empty page, so it should go along at a pretty good clip. I also plan to attend Left Coast Crime, if moving permits.

Kira takes on global warming

Kira: Mom, we really need to make sure when we leave the house that we turn ALL the lights off, you know.

Me: Yes, I know, it costs money to run the lights for no good reason.

Kira: It's not that, mama, I don't want anymore of the polar ice caps to melt!

Me: *stunned silence* as usual.