And the Winner is.....

Drum Roll..............


Well, I don't know. *G* You'll have to go over to the Long and Short Reviews site to find out. And there's a new contest going on now, so hurry on over and check it out. :)

Thanks, y'all, for participating.

A Contest for You

A contests! What fun! Ok, so I've used up my quota of exclamation marks for the decade. Don't sue me, but do go check out the pre-Grand Opening contest for the new Long and Short Reviews site at The Long and Short Reviews Contest Page. This really is an offer you can't refuse. If you like free books, that is. I won't hold you up here, so just go to The Long and Short Reviews contest page and check it out. Oh, this is a sticky note, btw, so if you are reading this on any day other than Monday, August 13, 2007, you'll have to scroll down for any more recent posts I might have up here. :)

Surviving

Well, we survived the first two days of school. I wasn't so sure Monday morning. I put my two "babies" on their respective busses and walked home from the bus stop feeling very empty. Then I walked into the house. And IT was very empty. I had a glimpse into what empty nesters go through, I guess, with the exception that I knew the kids would be home in the afternoon. But I made it, and so did the girls. Day two was just a little easier to let them go when the bus came. I got alot done around the house, and didn't have any lights left on in the bedrooms to be turning off every five minutes. *g* Hey, I might just get to the point where I enjoy this new phase of my life. And once the girls find their place and make friends, I know they'll be glad they aren't having to put up with Mom teaching them any more. :) I don't regret a single day of homeschooling, but I suppose it was time to let them go.

Thanks to all of you who have left comments. You guys are great!

So have a great day, and a great second half of the week.

Thank you!

**Note: This should have been posted on Friday, August 17, 2007. I'm a day and a half late, but here goes...

Hey folks. Thanks for stopping by, and thanks to all you wonderful people who took time to comment. Made my day. Several times in a row. :)

So it looks like we've survived this week. Well, the week's not done yet, but it's almost. Still have some last minute school stuff to take care of. Daughter number 2 has everything but a gym t-shirt and a back pack. Daughter number 1 needs those, plus a bus schedule! School starts on Monday, and we still don't have her bus schedule. How utterly trying. Plus, DH goes out of town today for two weeks. **sigh** I'll miss him. That means, of course, that anything that goes wrong the first week of school I'll have to deal with alone. (But that's not the reason I'm sighing and complaining that I'll miss him. I'll just miss HIM.) So the five am wake-ups will probably begin all over again.

On a positive note, we made it to both parent orientation nights. Left one early and made it a little late to the other, but all in all, pretty painless. AND...we got both girls to their orientations on time. Or almost. Dropped DD 1 off early and rushed across town in the rain to drop DD2 off for hers. She was a little late, but being our drama queen and lover of the lime light, I don't think she minded walking in a little late. So that part is over, and we can pretend to relax until Monday morning. Then the rat race begins in earnest. **G**

So have a great weekend, everyone. And if you haven't already, be sure to check out the LASReviews contest. (See sticky note post above.)

I'm a Swan!

So does that mean I was an ugly duckling?? ::giggle:: I know I felt like one often enough growing up.

I don't do these things often, but I really like birds so I thought I'd try it. I first saw this on Marianne's blog. (By the way, head on over to her site and check out the cool contest she's running to win one of her books.)

So here's what the bird quiz said about me:

Your Power Bird is a Swan

You are a truly graceful and gorgeous creature. You easily see beauty in yourself and others. Intuitive and in touch, you can often guess what the future will bring. And you're flexible enough to accept the changes that life has in store for you.

What's Your Power Bird?

I think I can live with that. Don't know that it's particularly true, but I still like it. :)

Have a great day.

Chauffeur Mom

We survived the second registration yesterday. Woo-hoo! But I'm not sure how the rest of the year is going to go. School hasn't even started yet, and already they've got me running ragged! Two kids, two different schools, two different school districts. Well, not quite. But that's a different story altogether. So that means two different parent orientations. On the same night. At the same time. On opposite sides of town. Two separate kid orientations. On the same day. At the same time. On opposite sides of town. Two parents, granted, but only one car.

The girls want to try sports, and choir, and drama, and...Hold it! I'm only one, and I may soon be getting a job. How will I do it all? And I thought homeschooling them was hard. Different challenges, of course, (and all of them worth the effort) but at least I didn't have to be in two different places at the same time. I may turn in to supermom yet. :)

Registration--Take Two

So I posted yesterday. Twice! ::g:: Which means you know I survived Friday's registration. We get to go through it again today with my second child. Friday's went so well--we all survived, and we still have all our limbs--that I think I'm at peace. I guess if we get through this one, we'll be set. At least for a year. And next year it should be a piece of cake. Live and learn, huh? I guess I can sleep past 5 AM the rest of the week. Until Monday, Agust 20. First day of school. (gulp) Then the early morning jitters will start all over again.

My WIP

So I garnered a comment from a new person the other day. Yippee! I'm pretty new to blogging, and every new person who comments makes me do the Snoopy Dance. Hey, it even inspires me to try to do more posts. (hint, hint! Please comment if you've read my blog and liked it.) One commenter (the single comment on my post on the feelings of futility in writing) asked what I'm writing. So I thought I'd go ahead and give a little blurb here. Tentative title: The Face in the Mirror. It's historical women's fiction (which only means the main character is a woman, but men are certainly more than welcome to read the book...WHEN it's published). It is set in 1867, during the period of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. But to put a new twist on an old story, I decided to send my pioneering American characters...not to the western wilderness of the United States of America, but to the untamed wilderness of southern Brazil.

Fact: At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Dom Pedro, the emperor of Brazil, offered to sell land cheap to American Southerners wanting to escape the evils of Reconstruction. He wanted Brazil to become a world leader in cotton exportation, a commodity in much demand at the time because of the war. American technology for farming cotton was the most modern of that time, and he figured he could take advantage of that. The accounts vary, but there might have been up to 9,000 Southerners who took the emperor up on his offer. After all, here was a country free of Yankees, where slavery was still legal, and the land was cheap and fertile.

And that's the setting I've dropped my characters into. The main theme is conformity to Christ (hence the title), which for my MC (main character) only comes about because of the extreme trials she goes through in her new land.

So that's it in a nutshell. I hope to some day (maybe even soon!) post here that the story has been accepted and will soon be out in book form. :) When that day comes, you can be sure I'll be doing the Snoopy Dance EVERYWHERE. Next month I'm going to the ACFW conference in Dallas where I'm hoping to pitch the idea for this story to some lucky editor from some lucky publisher. hahaha. Yeah, right. Like THEY'll be the lucky ones. Guess I got that a little backward.

Registration Day

Does that not sound like the title of a horror novel or movie? No? Ah, well maybe you're a veteran at this thing. Today is registration day for my 9th grader, and I woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep because of it. What's the big deal, you're probably asking. See, we've been homeschooling up til now and this will be the first in many years that she's gone to regular school. Did it for a year in 2nd grade, but for some reason, it wasn't as scary for me when she was that age. Now I'm sending my first baby off to high school! **gasp!** So this next year will be full of new things for all of us. I'm trusting it'll be a good year, but that trust doesn't keep the knots from forming in my gut. Ah...the joys of having teens. :)

Hello Kitty as a Crime Stopper?

Ok, so not exactly a crime stopper, but a tardy policeman stopper, maybe. Here, take a look at this article from the New York Times: To Punish Thai Police...

So if you don't want to actually read the article (at least go and take a look at the picture) or then if you can't access it, in brief, the Thai police might soon be required to wear a pink Hello Kitty armband if they commit some minor infraction such as arriving late to work or parking in the wrong place. It's a cute armband, if I must say so myself, and my twelve year old would love it. But I guess it's not so cute for a macho policeman to have to wear around. Hey, it might actually be a good idea. A non-violent form of punishment? Or maybe not. The ridicule the officers would likely receive might lead to violence. We'll just have to wait and see how it works out.

Dulaman

I don't have anything important to say today. I've got a nasty allergy attack going on. You know, the runny nose, watery eyes...ugh! As you can see, the brain isn't in very good working order today. So I'll just leave you with a video of one of my current favorite Celtic Woman songs. Enjoy. :)

Futility

Gah! This blogging thing is hard. Or then I'm simply the world's worst blogger. I feel very strongly about things, and every day I get an idea for something to blog about. But when I open up the new post page, my mind draws a blank. Some writer I am, huh? lol.

So all that aside, I do have something to say today, and I even remember what it is. :) As you might know if you've been reading any of my posts, or if you know me personally, I am a writer. I've had one book published, but it seems the muse left me after that. Well, not really. Life got in the way and I got lazy. But now I'm back to taking writing seriously. I cannot cry the woes of most writers, of having lots of rejections plastering my walls. You've got to send out proposals to get rejections! I have three stories that are almost finished and that I would love to try to pitch to some publisher out there. I want to finish all of them, but I feel this block when it comes to trying to finish any one of them, and no inspiration at all. So while I was moping about today, this thought flitted across my mind.

What's the use of this anyway? It all seems so futile. What will my silly little stories matter? Especially, I thought, the fact that I write historicals. What importance does a fictional story that took place in the past hold for today? It's all futile, I thought. It serves no purpose whatsoever. Entertainment, sure. But there are plenty of folks out there providing entertainment. Why should I beat my head against the wall to be just one more? I thought of chucking it all to the wind. But then a miracle happened.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't exactly a miracle, but it was kinda cool. Another thought, not my own, but one whispered in my mind's ear by One even greater than any mythological muse, came to me.

"Is my Book, filled with stories of heroes and villains from the past, futile?"

Wow! Talk about your slap in the face, wake up call. Ya can't get more "past" than the book of Genesis. So now I am no closer to finishing my stories, or even to getting them in the hands of a publisher than I was before I started to pout. Then again, maybe I am. For now I have been given a word of hope from the One who first put in my heart the need to create stories. He doesn't promise me that I'll ever see another book published with my name on it. But He did let me know quite clearly that writing fiction that honors Him is in no way futile. Now that's a Father's care. :)