Category: Life Happens

First up, let me cover the business.  The free read prequel that I posted as Friday Snippets is now ready to be downloaded in a pdf:  Lie to You.  I have an epub version but WordPress isn’t liking it — and I can’t find where to change the security rules to allow it to be updated.  If you’d rather have epub, just drop me a note and I’ll e-mail it to you.

I’ve also posted Chapter One of HURT ME SO GOOD.  As we get closer to release date, I’ll probably post a few more teaser excerpts, so stay tuned!

Now for apple escapades:  we drove up to my mom’s (Granny’s) this weekend to pick apples and celebrate her birthday.  She has two apple trees in their yard, one a cooking apple of some sort (I can’t remember–all those apples were gone) and a Red Delicious tree.  We picked up at least 3 bags of apples and the kids had a ball.

The best part of the trip, though, was the canning lesson Mom gave me.  I learned how to can applesauce (and brought home the pints we canned).  When I was a kid, she had a pressure canner that always scared the crap out of me, but she showed me a different way to do it.  She calls it “cold press” which makes no sense to me since we still boil it, but no hissing pressure build-up to freak me out.  I bought a canner last year but was too scared to use it (and I couldn’t find any jars that late in the season).  This week my goal will be to try some applesauce, and then I want to hit our local orchard and buy some cooking apples for apple butter.

If we have any of these apples left, that is.  I made fresh juice this morning (which took about 12 apples), and then I made a “Puffy Apple Pancake” in my iron skillet that was pretty good.  Of course the kids keep snatching them and munching away, too.  They’re just too good and sweet to resist!

So my Beloved Sis has been rehearsing for weeks to be Aunt Eller in the musical Oklahoma! at her local community theatre, along with her friend I know as Pesh (Laurey).  It was a no-brainer that I’d go — but I wasn’t sure if the monsters would make it.  They *wanted* to go, but I had to be realistic. 

After all, Oklahoma is my least favorite musical of all time. 

It goes back to high school when Mr. Adams (music teacher) would let us watch a musical in class the week after regional contest.  It usually took several days for us to get all the way through a musical, and I remember that one whole day’s viewing ended up being that dream sequence where Laurey imagines the shoot out between Jud and Curly.  I hated finding out that whole day was a dream!  Argh!  I felt cheated.

However, that all changed watching Molly and the rest of the cast.  But I have to admit, the FUNNIEST aspect was watching the girls, especially Middle Monster.  I about died laughing at her when the lights came up for intermission.  Her eyes lit up and she said, “Is it over?!?”  Honestly, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be disappointed or glad when I told her no, it was only halfway.  She loved it — she was just getting tired of sitting.

All of them were terrified of Jud, despite Molly’s assurances after the show that he was really a big teddy bear.  My Dad was there too and we kept snickering at all the little lines that went right over the kids’ head.  Ado Annie and Ali Hakim had us rolling in the aisles.  Sooo funny — their personalities were perfect and they were able to ad-lib through the little mess ups that make live theatre so much fun.  (Like when Ali accidentally broke a bottle of bath salts as he was reviewing Will Parker’s bag of gifts he’d blown his $50 on.)

Plus we had a nice dinner and strawberry shortcake for dessert, followed by a nice visit at McDonald’s (the only place we could quickly find open at 11 PM) for ice cream, coffee, and dinner for Sis.  We didn’t make it home until after 1 AM but it was so worth it.

It was a night the kids will never forget.  Well done, Sis and Pesh!

Tomorrow’s the day — the monsters head back to a brand new year of school.  I’m not as prepared as I’d hoped, but with the delay in getting our A/C fixed, it’s the best I could do.  Plus we were out of town Sat. for my MIL’s birthday. 

So today was full with a massive grocery run to stock up on school lunch and snack items.  Laundry, of course (it never ends).  I also wanted to start them off with fresh bedding, which isn’t as easy as it sounds, because their beds are buried beneath stuffed animals.  Of course, cleaning off their beds meant we actually had to GET in the DOOR…

Yes, their room is a pig sty.  All three monsters share a bedroom (their choice) with overflow into That Man’s next door office.  We decided to clean his office first (which hasn’t been used all summer because our A/C was out).  That took as long as I’d planned to spend on their room, and we still had to unbury their beds, etc.   I threw away several bags of trash, packed up 3 large tubs of stuffed animals, and tried to organize at least a little.  I’ve still got a few good hours to spend on it yet to get it really well organized, but it’s definitely better than it was.  (You can see the carpet.)

All this work is worth it though because “back to school” means back to a dependable writing schedule for me.  Princess has to be up between 5:30 and 6 AM every morning, which means I’ll be up, too, with plenty of time to get a little writing done. 

In fact, Sept. 1st is always like a new year for me.  A time to rededicate and kick off new goals.  It’s my hope to finish a first draft of Vicki this month so I can move on to Maya#2 Sept, Oct.

Ah, fall!  I can’t wait for cooler, crisp mornings, pumpkins, colorful leaves…  Definitely gets my writing blood pumping!

The monsters called with tales of all the fun things they’re doing in the country.  They went fishing last night and today, supposedly catching a TON of bass and perch.  They’ve ridden Papa’s poor horses to death, learning how to trot and even riding outside of the corral.

Today, they went to an Amish farm and got to milk a cow, pet a goat, and ride in a buggy.  How cool is that?  I want to go!

Seriously, every time we go to Papa’s I get the country yearning.  I want a garden and animals of my own.  It’s all the fence fixing and snakes and ticks and no high-speed internet that worries me.  (I have to have high-speed for the Evil Day Job.)  I could get Hughes Net but I’ve heard bad things about them.  Plus the kids are in excellent schools right now and have a ton of friends here.  Moving to a much smaller country school is quite a change, and I want them to have the best possible chances for scholarships.  I can testify to how difficult it can be to win college scholarships when you come from a small school.  There’s just not as many opportunities.  Is it worth the trade off?

We haven’t decided yet but we’re talking about it every time we go to the country.

Meanwhile, the kids don’t want to come home.  Might have something to do with school starting next week….or just that they’re having that much fun.