March 10, 2010
We met the cousins this week and together ransacked the Portland Zoo. It was wonderful. This is the very first zoo visit where all three of my boys walked the whole time…when I wasn’t carrying them. No room for the stroller in the car you know. My youngest is only two and I forgot his harness but I improvised with a hankie tied to the back of his coat and the older boys each had a zoo buddy. They held hands with a cousin and together they rampaged in joyous abandon.
The animals were quite active and interesting and there wasn’t a crowd. The hairless moles, star-burst tarantula, and African hunting dogs were favorites. Then after two hours, we drug our exhausted brood over to the Children’s Museum where they would have happily been embalmed and left for eternity if my lovely sister and I had allowed it. Just the rubber gravel room alone would have done it, but there was also a shopping center, drama dress-up with real stage, and a water room that was to die for. And then we drove to the cousins house and got to stay over which in my boys mind was just as exciting an occasion. Fun fun fun! But not quiet. Ah well, everything worth experiencing is worth experiencing at 10x the recommended level of noise pollution allowed to band instructors, machinists, and those guys that drive dump trucks whose tires are taller than our house.
March 9, 2010
Bosomella slid her legs beneath one of Miss Borka’s bobby pins and braced her back against a gleaming ivory comb. Fairies were frowned upon at high society gatherings, something about the unfettered rage of the wrongfully enslaved, the normal drivel, but as a hair decoration she was completely invisible. And after giving her solemn oath not to bite anyone or sprinkle any but the blandest of concoctions into the roasted pheasant, even the scowling footman agreed that Miss Borka could use a bit of looking after.
The legs were working marvelously, and as long as her mistress took it slowly and no one stepped on one of the artificial toes they should continue to move her with lilting grace across the cold castle floors and into the prince’s arms. Miss Borka took a sip of honeyed ale and raised her eyes to find the prince himself eyeing the undeniable perfection of her loveliness. Bosomella knotted her fists into her mistresses hair and focused on looking fake and decorative, for prince Andrej and his prized hunting hound Snorf were most assuredly coming their way.
March 8, 2010
Well…The Hunky Hubby had a Christian Camping Conference at Canon Beach and so the whole herd of us tagged along. Got to visit the cousins and had a blast, but Dietrich (my lovely laptop) crashes every time I open Microsoft Word, so I didn’t get much writing done. Back to the grinding stone this week.
March 6, 2010
Sweet Boy #2–”Girls are skinny and tall, boys are fat and short.”
Sweet Boy #1–”If I were a cactus I would be the light light green one with pink thorns.”
The boys were running around talking about a secret weapon for killing monsters when I overheard this little bit of dialogue.
Sweet Boy #2–”Don’t tell it to Momma.”
Sweet Boy #1–”I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”
Sweet Boy #1–Puts arm around his little brother’s shoulder. “I won’t trick you like other times.”
March 5, 2010
So much for heartwarming, we had too much mayhem to ignore. I’m afraid that this week I’ll be mostly documenting the mayhem. Although they are all irreparably sweet of course.
Sweet Boy #2 was going poop, Sweet Boy #1 snuck into the bathroom with him and dumped 1/2 an enormous sized bottle of Gold Bond Medicated Powder all over the bathroom and then Sweet Boy #3 broke into his brother’s new tool set and actually bopped Sweet Boy #2 with a hammer. I could barely breathe when I was giving them their baths because of all the Gold Bond in the air, but I got them and the house pretty much cleaned up before bed…mostly.
Sweet Boy #3 pilfered the syrup bottle and poured it onto the carpet.
Sweet Boy #2 and Sweet Boy #3 dumped a bran new, only used once, tub of Nestles Quick onto our beanbags and living room carpet. Sweet Boy #2 snatched it off the counter and gave it to Sweet Boy #3 who immediately rushed to do the whole dumping thing…Aaaargh!
Sweet Boy #3 broke both arms off of the hunky hubbies glasses and popped out a lense.
But the winner this week.
As often occurs, Sweet Boy #2 had to go poop and needed a little help wiping. A job which takes all of 1.4 minutes. During that time, Sweet Boy #1 constructed a bridge between his top bunk bed and his little brother’s crib, out of a camp bunk bed mattress. And quickly convinced Sweet Boy #3 to crawl across the newly constructed bridge. Which he did…but only part way. Gravity is a cruel mistress.
March 4, 2010
This week I read The Titan’s Curse and The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. These are marvelous books you guys. Well, let’s see…what did I learn from my reading this week? That just because the book is fast paced and action filled and written primarily for Jr. High/High School boys does not mean that you cannot have depth and poignant moments. There was a touch of confusing romance, some deep father wounds, and deaths. I cried during both books and was vastly entertained as well as deeply moved emotionally. Gotta love those Greek heros.
March 3, 2010
I have officially passed Advanced Laundering 201 as of yesterday evening. Now we had just finished dinner and the boys needed to run around a bit before bed time. They had a brilliant idea. It was dark…why not turn off all of the lights, get flashlights and glow-in-the-dark stars and run around blindly pretending to be nocturnal animals while screaming and giggling and running SMACK into one another at top speed? Why not indeed. The only problem. I had 4 loads of laundry to fold…think, think, think. And so I let them turn off all the lights and I just grabbed my laundry and folded by touch. They rushed about happily (in between minor injuries) for a whole hour and by the moonlight coming through our windows I folded 4 loads of laundry, minus the socks. Hey, you try matching socks in the dark. I did accidentally put one of my shirts into Sweet Boy #1’s stack but other than that all was well. Sweet Boy #1 was a nocturnal turtle, Sweet Boy #2 was a nocturnal salamander, and Sweet Boy #3 was a nocturnal baby salamander/tiger. Or as Sweet Boy #2 stated: “A kind of roaring salamander.” Good times.
March 2, 2010
The Hunky Hubby is a perpetual child. This is actually one of the reasons I married him. He’s a lot of fun. And therefore he is a people magnet. So on the weekends after the work is done, the dishwashers and assistant cook and any random guys who are willing to drive the 45 minutes up to our small apartment (you’d be surprised how many do) will gather and play board games, or computer games, or card games until the wee hours of the morning. Then inevitably they will collapse from sleep deprivation upon our living room floor. It is always interesting when I arise in the morning to write to see who has crashed on the couch, or beanbag, or fold up mattress pad that the Hunky Hubby bought for just these occasions. Well this morning it was the couch, the big bean bag, the three little bean bags, the mattress pad, and a spare mattress from camp. Yes indeed, a record setting number of 5 “floor guys” this morning in our tiny living room, one of whom I have never seen before. Each day does indeed hold something strange and new.
March 1, 2010
This week I completed exercises #10, #11, and #12 in the Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook. Number 10 was Creating Secondary Characters in which I was supposed to make my secondary characters more memorable, and I did all of the exercises but the material I came up with just didn’t work for those characters and didn’t end up going into the manuscript. A good exercise though. Number eleven was a long chapter and double exercise concerning antagonists. I learned a couple of new things about my antagonist and his minions and made a few changes which was nice. Then on to #12 which was Enriching Your Cast and was the final exercise in the “Character” section of the book. For this chapter you were supposed to combine the rolls of some characters and try taking some characters completely out of the picture because you had given their jobs to others. This didn’t work out so well for me. When I did this chapter for my last manuscript it was an enormous eye-opening experience as I had several vicious thugs menacing my protagonist along the way and I ended up rolling them all up into one big mean bad guy and it made the whole thing much better. Well…I did so much character work ahead of time and all of my secondary characters had so much intricate backstory that I just couldn’t combine any roles at all without ruining the plot. So I pretty much had to leave it as is, but still, a good exercise.
February 28, 2010
Sweet Boy #1 (age 6)–”Jacob would be happy that all that snow came down. Well, Jacob would be happy that he wouldn’t break his other arm.” Jacob (beloved camp dishwasher and the boys favorite person in the world to play Mario with), fell on the ice last week and broke his collar bone. But it looks like his other collar bone will be safe this week.
Sweet Boy #2 (age 4)–”God makes different fishies. Men make floating fishies made out of metal and God makes floating rocks.”
Sweet Boy #2–”Your ribs go rrrrrrrrrrup around to your back and hook to your spy bone. Your ribs need electricity from your spine.”
Sweet Boy #3 (age 2)–”Run for yours lives!”
