Joely Sue Burkhart

I’m cursed, I say, cursed.  I’ve had so many computer problems over the years, almost all involving power cords in some fashion.  This laptop is not quite a year old yet, but it’s been through hell. 

There was the coffee spill…  I was sitting outside in the garage while the monsters rode their bikes last summer, and Middle Monster ran into my chair on her bike, spilling coffee all over me and the laptop.  Brand new keyboard, but at least the motherboard was fine.  However, while it was in the shop, they had to replace the power cord for some reason with a junky replacement one.  The original Toshiba cord just quit working.

Then two nights ago, I was sitting here in my green chair writing while That Man watched TV and I heard a strange snapping sound.  Coming from my computer.  No, coming from the power cord…  YIKES.  The flexible bendy part had a short in it!

So I went back to the computer place yesterday for yet another cord.  At least he had one in stock that does fit, and it’s a better quality one than the other.  (Cost me double, too.)

Writers beware:  keep my away from your power cords!!

In which I embarrass myself with a revolting coffee story…

As you know, I was in St. Paul all last week for the Evil Day Job.  Since I left Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m., I didn’t have time to wash my pot out before leaving.  That Man doesn’t drink coffee unless I make it, so my pot sat empty until Saturday when I eagerly rushed to the kitchen to make my home-brewed Caribou.

I washed the pot parts out well and started the brew.  I had two kinds of half and half in the fridge:  regular and fat-free.  I’ve been drinking the fat free and sniffed it carefully before using it, since the container was nearly empty and dated 4/22.  It smelled fine.  The regular half and half hadn’t been opened yet, so I cracked it open to extend my fat-free stuff (what I’ve coined “half-half-half”).  I sat down with my favorite cup, and…

It was nasty.  Ugh.  It tasted rotten.  We had errands to run (like picking out the monsters’ Build-A-Bear toys) so I didn’t make any more until that night.  Even after washing the pot again, it still tasted revolting.  I was really starting to panic.  I hadn’t even been able to drink a full cup yet!  (Considering how much I typically drink, I was nearly ready to declare a national emergency.)

Sunday morning, I took the pot apart again, filled the sink with scalding hot water, and let it sit in soapy water while I examined the pot carefully.  Jokingly, I told That Man to look for a dead mouse or something in my pot.  It tasted that bad.  Princess Monster offered to bring me a cup when it was done, which I gratefully accepted.  She came rushing in with half and half dripping down her chin, her face faintly green.  “Mom, this stuff tastes horrible.”

(Ah, the truth comes out.  She only offered to get me a cup so she could sneak a drink of my cream directly out of the carton!)

I took a whiff and UGH.  It was so totally rotten.  I never thought to check the real half and half because I hadn’t even OPENED it yet.  It was dated May.  Somewhere, somehow, that carton got too warm.

Gag.

It’s almost enough to turn me off half and half completely.

Almost.

What, you don’t believe me when I say I’m losing my mind?  (Triple Book Giveaway this week, comment to be entered)

Last night, Middle Monster threw up in her bed.  No, she doesn’t have the flu.  No, I don’t believe she was sick.  She’d been rewarded with the chance to stay up 15 minutes later than her sisters, but when she went to bed, they were already asleep.  It was storming, thunder and lightning.  And big mean Mom and Dad wouldn’t let her sleep in their room.  So she threw up on her bed.  Solved that problem, didn’t she?  Of course by the time I stripped the bed and got her clean clothes, all three girls ended up in Mom and Dad’s room.  Yippee.

On the bright side, the Shadowed Blood came to pay me a visit in dreams last night.  Oh, dear.  It was quite a gruesome, terrible, bloody nightmare.  I was so excited I got nearly 1400 words this morning D&E before work.  That’s the most I’ve written in one sitting for quite a while…

I’m feeling a bit scatter-brained this month, this week.  The revisions to Letters still aren’t finished.  I’ve written about 5K on Gregar’s book, which is good, but not as much as I wanted.  Now I’m switching gears entirely to prep Beautiful Death for editor revisions. 

Why?  Well, you see, I had this small hatred of “had” for a long time, which Deena has patiently pointed out to me through the past 3 books.  BD was written back in 2005/2006, so to say that I’ve learned a thing or two in the past years is an understatement.  No sense in the editor wasting a ton of time fixing something I already know needs to be fixed.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Beautiful Death after being gone from it so long.  It’s my rebellion child.  It dragged me kicking and screaming to Olympus, just as Isabella and Hades both were betrayed and taken to face Zeus in the end.  I had to get MAD to finish it.  Mad at myself, mad at the world.  In the end, I loved this book, because it helped me finish.  If I hadn’t finished…  If I’d quit a book again…

I really don’t know that I’d be here now.

So in many ways, BD saved me as a writer.  It was my answer in the darkest moment of my journey to-date.  So far, revising it has been like seeing an old acquaintance to whom a great debt is owed, and I’m feeling a little awkward and unsure how I can help it when it helped me so much.  I’m starting with those “hads.”  We’ll see what else needs gentle smoothing.

We had a horrid personal squick day yesterday with Littlest Monster.  Let me just say that I’m still washing everything in the house and I seriously contemplated dragging out all the beds and furniture and just torching it.

Thirteen Monster Tales  We have three girl monsters aged 9 (Princess Monster), 6 (Middle Monster) and 4 (Littlest Monster, soon to be 5).  Here are a few reasons I call them MONSTERS. 1.”Mom, the tub is clogged.”  Princess Monster gave the dog a bath — and a haircut at the same time. 2.”Mom, the toilet is flooding!”  Middle Monster flushed hair bands and a wash cloth down the toilet and blew up the sump pump.  Not once, but twice. 3.*screaming, wailing*  “Mom, Middle Monster shut Littlest Monster’s hand in the door!” 4.”But Mom, why can’t I sit on top of the swing set?” 5.Princess Monster came home with a bucket of snapping turtle eggs she found at Papa’s farm.  Thank GOD they never hatched. 6. After we looked high and low for TWO DAYS trying to find Princess Monster’s brand new stuffed poodle, Littlest Monster admitted *with a very cute grin* that she’d hid it so SHE could sleep with it. 7.At basketball practice, I suddenly realized that Middle Monster wasn’t wearing any pants.  “I forgot.” 8.”Mom, Dad’s pool chemicals taste yuck!”  *Hello, Poison Control???* 9.”Mom, can I wear flip flops to school today?”  *three inches of ice on the ground* 10.Middle Monster ripped open her diaper and ate poop when she was a toddler, but refuses to eat * because it’s yucky.  (Insert random normal food) 11.Nasty dark footprints tracked all over the carpet:  “But Mom, you told me stay on the sidewalk.  You never told me to stay off the grass.”  *where the dog poops* 12.It’s not a family dinner if we don’t discuss poop and pee at least once with lots of giggles. 13. I never knew something so cute would out-belch and out-fart their father.

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I’m setting this up the night before in case we don’t have power.  Remember that terrible ice storm about a year ago where we lost power for a week?  Well….  we’re having ice again.  The monsters were out of school today (Monday) and they’ve closed schools tomorrow, too.  We’ve got about 3-4 inches of sleet, frozen rain, slush frozen over and over on the ground.  It’s lumpier this time — last time we had straight freezing rain.

The odd thing:  the rain today came in a THUNDERSTORM.  It was so odd to hear the crashing boom of thunder and know it was slicker than snot outside.  Some of the breakers in the house blew and the lights flickered several times, but so far we still have power.  Whether we will in the morning or not, I don’t know.  It was raining again last time we took the dog outside after dinner and it’s in the twenties.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Edited:  We lost power temporarily around 4:30 a.m. but were only down an hour.  Praying the lines hold…

Conversation word for word between me and LM (age 4):

LM:  “Mom, can we have another pet?”

Mom:  *we already have a dog that I have to take care of*  ”What kind of pet, sweetie?”

LM:  “Like a hamster, or a horse.”

Mom:  *that’s not so bad, if the hamster was really cute, and we can see Papa’s horses…*

LM:  “Or a giraffe.  I really want a giraffe, Mom.  Please?”

Mom:  *dies*

[Comment this week to win Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn series, including her latest release, Evermore!  Details here.] 

Here in tornado alley, we’re used to tornadoes. In MAY.  Not January! 

We were up several times last night because of tornado warnings in the area.  Within 30 minutes of us (north and west up I-44), two people were killed.  What that CNN report doesn’t cover is the damage to Republic’s schools (about 20 minutes from us to the east), homes destroyed in Highlandville (10 minutes south of us in our county), nickel-to-baseball sized hail, flooding, and straight-line winds that blasted through here between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. That’s when we actually got everybody huddled in an interior hallway.  The windows rattled, the roof groaned, but everything held.

We’re all miserable this morning.  Even though we only had two “dangerous” times last night–one between 10:00 - 11:00 p.m. and the other 3:00 - 4:00 a.m. — the tornado sirens went off it seemed like continuously.  They are not even a block from our house.  Yeah.  The damned thing might as well have been in our living room, it was so loud!  MM was a basketcase, shivering, teeth chattering, about to throw up she was so scared.  She’s never done well with loud noises.

So we’re groggy this morning but no damage, thankfully.  (Needless to say, I didn’t getup D&E to write this morning!)  What’s the worst weather you’ve had recently?

Birthday Girl (age 9)

Day of Upward basketball - first game of the season

(MM’s first game)

She looks a little scared…

But Papa brought her birthday presents early (her birthday is 1/10)!

I’m Littlest Monster.  I’m cute and I know it.

Today is Princess Monster’s birthday.  The big 9 year old played basketball this morning, as well as Middle Monster (her first game).  It was great watching them both, although they played at the same time on side-by-side courts.  It was kind of like watching a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth. 

Papa from Mexico made it down for the games, lunch, and movies.  We started with The Bourne Identity.  Then watched The Bourne Supremacy while eating pizza for supper and birthday cake.  Then… Of course we couldn’t send him home without watching The Bourne Ultimatum.  What a fantastic movie trilogy!  The only thing better would be to have watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

Not much writing done, other than dumping my ordered (but not sequenced) notecards in the floor and having to put them back together.

With the monsters, this is about as wild and crazy as we get on New Year’s Eve.

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