A Bit of a Brain Dump

Warning: this is a rather pointless post.

I wanted to write a "real" post tonight. I thought I might pick up my trip story posts from our summer vacation. I'd like to finish those before Halloween!

Or I thought I might write something about the Gen X women's midlife crisis piece that everyone was talking about on my Twitter feed today. But appropriately enough, a combination of trying to catch up on work (and home!) tasks and a return of my terrible headaches has rendered a real post unlikely.

My headaches came back because I finished off a bottle of the "women over 50" multivitamins I've been taking (even though I am "only" 45!) because someone told me that maybe the magnesium in them would help with the headaches. I haven't had many bad headaches recently so I thought "no rush getting more!" Ha. I've had a terrible headache for the last four days. I stopped at the drugstore on my way home today and bought more multivitamins.

I also went to the dry cleaners because our dry cleaning has been sitting there ready to pick up for more than a week, and also we had more to drop off.

On Wednesday, I hope to take the kids to get their flu shots, and get mine, too. I also need to call and get an appointment to take my car in for its regular service, call for an eye doctor appointment, and make an appointment to get the mammogram I'm pretty sure I'm almost a year late getting. Oops.

But! I haven't let my asthma meds run out in ages, so that's something. And the itchy rash on my arms that I usually treat with a cream I've lost and have been trying to get the prescription renewed for seems to be going away on its own, so I guess I can stop trying to get my doctor and the pharmacy to sort out their communication problem on that one. Except now I have a new itchy spot on my arm, which I think came from the tape they put on after I gave blood last week. Since when has my skin been so sensitive?

On the work side, I just wrapped up a big project with my major client, which is nice because I brought it in pretty much exactly on time but is a bit sad because my income will take a hit while I work to get a new project ramped up. But at least there is a new project to ramp up, so I can't complain.

I'm in a release heavy period for Annorlunda Books, so I'm contacting lots of bloggers and other folks for reviews, which is good but time consuming. I have this cool new idea I want to work on... but I won't let myself work on it until I finish off some of the things I already have underway. I just cleared one card out of my in progress column tonight: I set up the email for the new Tungsten Hippo free ebook. Twice a year, I give a free short ebook to the subscribers to my Tungsten Hippo mailing list, and it was time for a new one. So soon, I'll have space to work on that shiny new idea....

Back on the home side... the first meeting of Petunia's Jr. Lego League team (which I am coaching!) was on Sunday, and it went well. At some point this week, I need to prepare for this Sunday's meeting, but I'm feeling a little less stressed by this undertaking now that I have one meeting done and the kids were all great.

Also, we don't have to worry about another birthday party until April, and I think we have Halloween outfits mostly under control, thanks to a gift of a doctor's outfit that Petunia got for her birthday and my mom's offer to make Pumpkin's Anne of Green Gables dress. I just need to figure out how best to dye Pumpkin's hair red for a day (and not more than a day....) and take her to find some lace up boots to complete her outfit.

So what I'm saying is that maybe things will settle back down to the usual level of busy instead of the "turn the knob to 11" level we've been at for the past month or so. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

For now, I'm off to read a bit before bed. My book club decided to read A Wrinkle in Time this month, and I am greatly enjoying re-reading it.

How are all of you doing?

Good Things

I don't know about you, but I could use a reminder of some of the things that make me happy. So that's what this post is.

My birthday was last weekend. We had a nice, low key celebration for it. Both kids got me very thoughtful gifts, but I want to show you the art project that was part of Petunia's gift. It is a tree:

My current favorite tree.

She wrote reasons she loves me on the leaves. And because this was once a parenting blog and I still use it as a way to remember details about our lives, I feel justified in sharing the list of reasons my 7 year old loves me. There is one piece of paper in the middle that says "I love you because you are my mom," and then the leaves elaborate. Each leaf starts with "I love you because...." Here are the things that finished that sentence:

1. You help me with my projects
2. You make the best pizza
3. You help me with my reading and writing
4. You make me feel better when I am sad
5. You play badminton with me
6. You taught me how to be polite in public
7. You made me alive
8. You give me the best cuddles

Needless to say, I love this gift. 

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When I first moved to San Diego, I was struck by how many flowers there were. I'd grown up in Arizona. I think the desert of my home state is beautiful. But there weren't as many flower gardens. 

Over the years, I've gotten so used to the flowers that I don't really notice them. This year, though, I'm noticing them. I don't know if that is because the heavier than usual rains mean there are more flowers than usual, or if I'm just more inclined to notice for some reason. I will try to notice again next year, though, because it is making me smile a lot. 

In particular, the jacaranda trees are spectacular this year. Here is a not very good picture of one large and glorious example.

I took this on our walk home from school today.
It was a typical May Gray day, but I still can't complain.

One street I drive on when I drive Petunia to her art class is lined with jacarandas. A couple of weeks ago, they were all in their peak bloom and it was gorgeous. The trees are mostly past peak bloom now, but they are still quite nice.

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I discovered I had a bunch of credits at Stitch Fix, so I ordered a box. It wasn't a resounding success, which is perhaps not surprising given how long it has been since I last had a box. It was like they were starting from scratch in terms of sizing and style.

But, there was a pair of blue shorts in that box that are simply wonderful. They also sent some gold earrings, which I need. So I'm calling it a success. 

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Hmmm, I thought I'd have more good things to share. I have a lot of good things in progress, work-wise. I saw early drafts of pictures for my next children's book, and I liked them. I finished formatting Hemmed In. The three books I bought at the beginning of the year are all progressing towards publication. So I should have more things to share soon. For now, though, I guess I'll just be happy with my "I love you" tree, the jacarandas, and a really great pair of shorts.

Sunday Night Existential Whimper

I swear I'll write up our spring break trip, because it was a fun trip and I like to write trip story posts, dammit.

But it isn't going to happen tonight. Nor am I going to write a glowing ode to my oldest child, who somehow is now 10 years old, although she deserves one.

Instead, I'm going to whine about how this week just kicked my butt. Re-entry from a vacation is always hard. Re-entry from a vacation when you've caught a cold at the tail end of that vacation is especially hard. Add in a kid's birthday, a spelling bee, and a birthday party you've foolishly agreed to host at your house instead of one of the many locations that will run the damn party for you, and you have a recipe for exhaustion.

Plus, I had a fun little tax-related panic that ate up a significant amount of work time on Friday.

So, what I'm saying is: I am behind on EVERYTHING. I am considering, for the first time in my life, sending out a blanket "yes, I owe you a response on something but it won't come for another week" sort of email.

We'll see how long it takes me to finish unwinding the tax panic tomorrow. (The panic, for anyone who is curious, stemmed from me putting my SEP-IRA contributions in the wrong place on the questionnaire I filled out for my accountant, who thought I'd paid them as a person and not as a business, which was therefore going to require classifying some of my income as "self employment income," thereby necessitating payment of the self-employment tax on said income, rather than having all my income be either salary I paid myself (and therefore paid social security taxes on) or profit. This may seem like a small thing to you, but this was going to add a lot of money to our tax bill and for the period of time in which I thought the problem was the SEP-IRA that I'd opened and not my putting it on the wrong questionnaire I felt like an absolute idiot and thought that maybe I shouldn't be trying to run a company at all if I couldn't even get a retirement account opened without screwing things up.)

Anyhow, that's all sorted now, but we still owe an alarming sum in taxes. We sat down tonight to figure out why, and it is because my husband got a raise and my business made more money in 2016 vs. 2015 and we withheld/paid estimated taxes assuming the 2015 amount. OOPS. But not really something to complain about. We're going to adjust our withholding this year, and hopefully not face another big bill next year.

I will say, though, that for the first time ever, I sort of resent paying my taxes. I don't want to pay for a stupid border wall or security for Melania Trump so she can live in NYC and avoid her husband or, for that matter, for that husband to keep jetting off to the private club he owns in Florida. I will happily pay my taxes to fund Meals on Wheels and the EPA and the NIH and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Happily. But the graft and waste going on in this administration is making the tax bill hurt more.

Speak of stupid border walls... Mr. Snarky took Pumpkin to pick out a piñata for her birthday party. He went to a local store that specializes in piñatas instead of just going to Party City or the like. She picked out a nice big music note, but she came home and told me about another piñata she saw: it was made to look like a big, brick wall and it had Trump's face on it. Clever.

And speaking of Pumpkin: it is a delight to watch her grow up. She stepped in to help smooth things over during Saturday's party when there was a kerfuffle between the big kids (her friends) and the little kids (Petunia and her friends) about time in the jumpy. In the end, I think all of the kids had a great time at the party, and this is the first year where Pumpkin really helped make that happen. She came in third at the 4th grade spelling bee. She went out because she didn't understand the word as the pronouncer said it (and I won't go into details, but he did mispronounce it), but she took this without drama. She loves to read, so much so that most of her friends gave her either books or Barnes and Noble gift cards for her birthday and she was thrilled by that. I could go on and on, but I said I wasn't going to write a glowing ode to her. I will just say that getting to watch you children turn into people you don't just love but are proud of is one of the great joys of parenthood.

Petunia is pretty great, too. She and her little friends decided to do a science experiment during the party. She got out her beakers and set up to do an experiment to find out which things float and which things sink in water. She wrote up the design and was ready to record the data, but they got distracted by the discovery that some types of beads float and others sink, and ended up just filling lots of bowls with water to play with beads. I couldn't even be mad about the mess, really, because it was ridiculously cute to watch them.

So, in summary: vacations are great, but re-entry is hard. Taxes are a pain, but all things considered, I'd rather make the money and owe the taxes than not make the money. And kids are delightful, but birthday parties are exhausting.

I'll write more once I'm caught up on things!

Spring Break

I'm just back from a short spring break vacation to Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. I'll do a trip story post about it soon, because I like to write up my vacations so that I can remember them better.

I wrote up a long post about some of the things I thought about during the driving part of the trip, when I wasn't quizzing Pumpkin on her spelling bee words. But when I reread it, it struck me as sort of boring, so I'll set it aside and come back to it later.

For now, I'll just say: vacations are a good thing. Seeing friends you haven't seen in awhile is a good thing. Sitting on the beach watching your kids play in the sand is a good thing.

Back when I first started thinking about changing my work arrangements to get more flexibility, one of the things I wanted was the freedom to travel more now, when I'm healthy enough to be able to do most things and when my kids are young enough to still want to go places with me. I wrote a post about it, but I can't find it right now. Regardless, I haven't really made that happen yet. As I drove the last leg of our trip home yesterday, I thought about that wish again. I'd still like to figure out how to make it happen. My kids are great travelers (mostly: there was a little bit of whining about being stuck in LA traffic, but a lot of people whine about being stuck in LA traffic) and getting out and seeing new things with them is a lot of fun. 

Anyone else have fun spring break plans? Do share.

Sunday Morning Musings

Last night, I said in an off-hand way that I wished I was 10 years younger.

Mr. Snarky replied in an equally off-hand way that if I was 10 years younger, I'd be pregnant.

And he is right. 10 years ago, I was in the final months of my first pregnancy. It is a bit weird to think about that, both because I can't believe that the little baby who arrived in April of 2007 is now almost 10, and because I've changed so much in those 10 years, too.

I am happy with the changes. I am a stronger person now than I was then, more sure of myself, and more able to distinguish the signal of what I want from the noise of what society tells me I should want. I still work to consistently act on what I want, but at least I'm better at knowing what it is.

So, while I would love to have my body of 10 years ago back, I don't actually wish I was 10 years younger. I'm better off now.

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Another thing I thought about after this exchange: the way some decisions radically alter the path of your life, to the point that there is no crossing back over to the other path. This is not a novel thought. But I still think sometimes about the path I stepped off of when Pumpkin was born. That other path had a lot more travel in it, I'm sure. I'd probably have seen more of the world, and I love traveling and seeing new things, so that would have been a nice path.

But this path is pretty amazing, too.  I've said before that parenthood is like a different type of journey. Like any journey, it has some really tough parts. It also has unbelievably amazing parts. I love traveling with my kids, for instance. I love watching them see new places. It is a different dimension of travel, and for me, it makes up for the extra hassle of traveling with kids.

Don't get me wrong, I like to travel alone and with just Mr. Snarky, too. But I love our family vacations.

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Whenever I write about the journey of parenthood, I wish I was a better writer. I cannot adequately describe what it is to be a mother. I wish I could, but I can't.

Right now, I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing, and am amused by how this is making me think I should write more and try to get better. I even jotted down some notes for a fiction idea. 

Maybe someday I'll try my hand at fiction. It seems unlikely, but you never know. Right now, though, I have other priorities, and I need to stay focused. One of the things I've learned in the last 10 years is that I have a tendency to start lots of projects. I find so many things interesting, and it is so tempting to pursue them all! Learning to embrace that and also manage it has been one of the great gifts I've received from this blog. A reader pointed me to a book about "scanners" and I recognized myself and also picked up some great ideas for how to harness that energy to build a life I love. 

Now, I don't necessarily start in immediately on every idea I have, but I write it down in one of my notebooks (I keep one for writing ideas, and one for other ideas), and I let myself enjoy each idea. Then I turn back to the kanban board I keep on my office door and focus on finishing one of the projects I already have in flight.

Speaking of which, I have a proof to review. The paperback version of Unspotted will be available soon!

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Here's an old post about kanban, but if you want to know more about how I use it to organize my work, you'll have to head over to my real name blog. I was about to say that you could email me if you need a link, but I guess it has been awhile since I cross-linked, so here is the post I have in mind. 

A Completely Apolitical Hodge-Podge

We spent today at Legoland, and had a wonderful time. My legs are a bit sore, but it was worth it. The lines are shorter on Super Bowl Sunday, so we could go on some of the rides that on other days we decide aren't worth the wait. I don't think we waited more than 15 minutes for any ride. Both of my kids are now old enough for the cooler of the two little car attractions, and they went driving a couple of times. We pulled ourselves to the top of a tower using a rope, shot targets in the Lost Kingdom, and ran around on the castle playground, among other things.

Miniland is still my favorite part, though. They have updated their mini-NYC, and looking at it gave me a powerful longing to go to the real NYC for a visit. Petunia was fascinated by the cars and boats that move themselves around in Miniland, and asked a lot of questions about how they built those. At the shop at the end of the day, though, what she wanted was Cinderella's castle. She had saved up her money so she could pay half, and we said we'd pay the other half. Sadly, they didn't have that set. It has recently been discontinued. Luckily, we were able to find it online, and it has been ordered. She was sad she couldn't bring it home with her, but it was still a really good day.

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In other news, there is a new giveaway post up at Tungsten Hippo.

And speaking of Tungsten Hippo, I'm spending a little money right now on ads to grow its mailing list. The best return I've gotten to date is from the classifieds in Ann Friedman's newsletter. Also, it makes me happy to spend my ad money with people making things, rather than just on Facebook. So, if you know of any other newsletters, indie podcasts, or the like that I should look at for advertising opportunities, let me know.

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I've started reading the manuscripts that came in from my call for submissions to Annorlunda Books. I really enjoy this, up until the point where I have to tell some people "no thanks." There is still time to send me something, if you or anyone you know has a short manuscript looking for a home. Anything that comes in by February 10 will be considered in this batch.

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I feel like there was some other little snippet I meant to write about tonight, but whatever it was, it is gone now, and I need to sign out because my husband is doing his ironing. This means (1) he is watching something on TV, and whatever he is watching tonight has a lot of loud cars and shouting, and (2) the light in the office keeps flickering, because for some reason it flickers everytime he puts the iron back on its charging base. So, between those two things and my really quite tired legs, I think it is time for me to go to bed and read.

Checking In

How is everyone doing?

I had plans to write a post about the FDA and drug discovery this week, in answer to a question. But I forgot that this week was lying brain and headaches week, so between that and the overabundance of news this week, it just didn't happen. I think I'll be able to do it next week, though.

There's a post by Mirah Curzer, called How To #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind, that has been circulating this week. It is worth a read if you're struggling with not being overwhelmed right now. I'm doing pretty well, but thinking I need to change my habits about Twitter use during the work day. I used to view it as a good short break, but that was when my timeline wasn't full of a mix of legitimately horrible things, people freaking out about said things, people freaking out about terrible things that haven't happened but might happen, people freaking out about things that are fairly normal transition things but that we don't normally notice, people yelling about what Democrats (or Republicans) MUST do now (as if anyone knows), and calls to action about all of the above. There is the occasional cute animal picture (thank God for @rabbit_isle_bot), happy personal news, or lighthearted thing, but mostly it feels like all panic, all the time.

And I don't really fault people for that, but it makes Twitter a bad way to take a break right now. So I'll need to change my habits.

So anyway, despite all of this, life is continuing. I was congratulating myself on making it through two colds in close succession around Christmas time without ending up at urgent care getting a breathing treatment, but my asthma has been really bad the last couple of weeks, so I guess I shouldn't congratulate myself yet.

Despite the asthma, I was able to go out for a run yesterday, on our first really nice sunny day in... I don't know... a week and a half? I know, we're spoiled. But it felt like a really long time. Tomorrow, I should get my regular rollerblade in, and I'm looking forward to it.

I wrote a piece about balancing household chores, inspired by the great missing rice meltdown I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I rather like it, but the editor I work with at Chronicle Vitae doesn't think it is a fit for them (I can see her point), so I'm trying to decide whether to go searching for another place to publish it for money and/or more exposure, or whether just to post it here. Opinions welcome in the comments.

I hosted my book club last night. We read Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon, which I didn't love, but ended up liking a lot better than I did early in the book. The characters kept making bad decisions (or at least what seemed like bad decisions to me), but as someone in my book club pointed out, that's a fairly accurate portrayal of life sometimes. Even when I was annoyed with the characters, Chabon's writing pulled me in, propelling me through each chapter. I definitely enjoyed the book, but it is not the first Chabon book I'd think to recommend if someone asked. That would probably be Gentlemen of the Road, although I suspect most people would go with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Next month, we're reading Stephen King's On Writing, which I'm excited about because Xykademiqz raves about it in an essay in Academaze, and I've been wanting to read it ever since I read that essay. And then in March, we're reading March, John Lewis' graphic novel, which I'm also quite excited about.

We all bring a dish to share to book club. I usually wimp out and do something lame like cheese and crackers. That is mostly because cooking isn't that fun for me right now. But this week, I decided that I may not really like to cook, but I like to bake, so I made a simple butter bundt cake. We had some of the leftovers tonight, and now I'm wondering why I don't make it more often. And if I did start making it (or cookies or pies) more often, would we all gain weight, or would we eat less other sweet stuff?

Speaking of baking, a couple of weekends ago, I finally relented to my kids' pleas to be allowed to have a lemonade stand. Except, it wasn't really lemonade weather, so we did a cookies and juice stand instead. The kids and I made chocolate chip cookies and I bought them some juice to sell. The cookies were a surprisingly big hit with our neighbors. We rarely see our neighbors out, but the stand did well, and Mr. Snarky, who was supervising while doing some gardening, met a bunch of new people, whose names he promptly forgot. Luckily, Pumpkin was there, too, and her memory is quite good. The kids want to do a stand again. I am not sure if (1) I want to make that many cookies, and (2) the stand will remain popular if it appears too often. So I've convinced the kids to wait awhile before we do it again.

And that's the news from here. It is time to start our bedtime routine, and then we'll see what tomorrow brings and how successfully I can ignore it so I can get some work done!

Thankful

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite of our holidays. I know that the actual history of it is not the whitewashed one we learn in school. My love for it has nothing to do with its role in our national origin myths. I love it because it is a holiday that is about friends, family, and being grateful for the good things in our lives. It is a celebration of love without any involvement of money (in the form of gifts). Don't get me wrong: I enjoy Christmas, too, and particularly enjoy the part of Christmas that involves spreading love and joy. But Thanksgiving is my favorite.

This year, I've been struggling to find the Thanksgiving spirit. Obviously, this is related to the election, but regardless of why it has gone missing, I want to find my Thanksgiving spirit. My daughters, who share my love of Thanksgiving, have drawn Thanksgiving pictures on my whiteboard and put up decorations in our living room. Pumpkin created a system for us to write what we're thankful for on cards and have it displayed for all to see.

At the same time, thinking about what would prompt us to move to New Zealand has made me more aware of what I love about our life here. We're not seriously considering moving yet, but one of the promises I made to myself was that if Trump won, I'd force myself to think about when we should leave, and that I'd insist that my husband and I discuss this. So we've started doing that, and the things on my "would make me leave" list seem so surreal, but then so do a lot of things right now. And the things that pop into my head as counterpoint, the things I'd lose if we left, seem so real. But of course, this is why I insisted we do this exercise.

So anyway, in the interests of both honoring the counterpoints screaming in my head and searching for my Thanksgiving spirit, I am going to write an incomplete list of things I'm thankful for.

My kids. Obviously. They are the best. They bring me so much joy. Petunia's hugs are a tonic for my soul. Pumpkin's complicated play schemes delight me. I have such good kids.

Let's skip the other obvious ones, not because I'm not thankful for my husband, my family, my friends, and my health, but because I don't want to bore you or nauseate you. But I don't take any of those things for granted.

And where things get interesting is in the smaller details.

I'm grateful for the hammock my family got me for my birthday this year. Just climbing into it relaxes me. And hammock naps are the best naps.

I discovered I love my backyard avocado tree. I was not a big avocado fan when we moved in, and I'm still not. But I have come to love guacamole, particularly when homemade with avocados picked from our tree. And I just love the tree. It is a big, old tree. A neighbor told us that the original owner of the house planted it from a pit in the year they moved in, which would make it more than 50 years old.

I'm grateful for our house. Now that we've done the addition, it feels like it is just the right size. There are still things I'd like to fix, but it is a good house, and I'm glad we bought it.

I'm grateful for the view from the corner of my street. I see this view whenever I walk to my kids' school. It is a view out to Mission Bay and then the ocean. It is particularly lovely in the fall, at sunset.

My Friday afternoon rollerblade by the bay is one of the best parts of my week. I am so thankful that my current work arrangement allows me the flexibility to do this. (For what it is worth, my husband does something similar with bike rides, and he has a full time job, so while being my own boss makes this easier, it is not the only way to get this flexibility. We should remember that, and work to make this flexibility available to everyone. We could do that.)

I am thankful I've been able to travel and see so much of the world. Every place I've gone has added something to my life.

I am grateful for art, and music, and books, which all bring joy and richness to my life.

I am glad I took up crocheting this year. All those people who go on and on about how nice it is to make something physical with your own hands... yeah, I see their point.

My kids have so many great friends. They have friends from day care and friends from school and friends from their extracurricular activities. They are all wonderful. It makes me happy to see my kids enjoying their friends so much.

My kids love their school. They love what they're learning, and they feel welcome and happy at school.

My kids have also found activities they really love. Petunia likes art class, Pumpkin likes playing the piano. They both love gymnastics.

I am grateful for this blog and for Twitter. Through them, I have found friends, learned from people from different backgrounds and with different areas of expertise, and found opportunities I never imagined. People like to talk about social media as a meaningless time sink, but that hasn't been my experience at all.

I could probably go on if I tried. But it is time for me to go make dinner for those awesome kids of mine. So I'll stop here. Tell me what little things you're thankful for in my comments, if you want.

Getting Out of My Head

I've taken some action, which makes me feel a little better. I finished sending money to all the news organizations I'd identified to send money to. Some of them got more than I initially planned, which maybe makes up a bit for my delay in finishing that task.

I haven't started making donations yet, because I want to think and do some research to figure out where to send my money.  For instance, I only learned about the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee today, and I think I'll end up giving to them. I need to do some research. I've also seen the people posting that they've donated to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence's name. I'm thinking my eventual donation to the ACLU will be in the name of Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell, hoping to remind them that their duty is to the country and the Constitution, not their party. I don't expect them to change their political beliefs and not try to repeal Obamacare or anything like that. But I do expect them to speak up to denounce racist intimidation of people.

I also want to find ways to use my time, too. One thing I plan to do is write letters to Congressional leaders asking them to repudiate the increase in hate speech and racist attacks. My own elected leaders have already done this, but I expect our national leaders to do so as well. This should not be controversial. They should have no fear in saying something like "Swastikas are symbols of hatred, and have no place in our country." I'd like to remind them of that. I'll let you know if I get any responses.

Beyond that, I haven't decided what to do. I'd like to volunteer with a group, but haven't figured out which one.

But mostly, I've been thinking about how I'm going to get out of my head a bit, so that I can sleep better and eat better again. Tonight's dinner was the first meal that really tasted good since Tuesday night. I keep waking up earlier than normal, remembering what we've done to our country, and starting to cry. Obviously, I need to get a grip.

So today, I started to make a plan to get out of my head. I spent some time reading. I finished the sleeping bag I have been making for Petunia's teddy bear. I took my daughter to one of our favorite parks by Mission Bay and spent some time staring at the water and the birds.

I also realized I have been remiss in telling you guys about a couple of publishing related things:

• I'm running a giveaway for Unspotted over at Tungsten Hippo.
• I'm running a promo for The Lilies of Dawn- it is either $0.99 now or will be soon at all retailers. The promo runs through Wednesday.

I can vouch for how nice it is to escape into a good book, so check those out!

Also, I keep recommending the novella An Etiquette Guide for the End Times, by Maia Sepp. It is not one of the books I've published, but it is lot of fun, and might give you some comfort about getting through the end times.

What are you "get a grip" recommendations? Good escapist books to read? Tell me in the comments, or talk about whatever you want, really.

Some Bits and Pieces

We're in the home stretch of this election, and all the adults I know are counting the days until November 9. All the kids are of course counting the days until Halloween.

John Scalzi wrote a post today about how this election hurt his productivity, and yeah... I'd say it isn't just authors suffering from this problem. I am using all my tricks and still getting some stuff done, but it feels so much harder that it should be and I'm going so much slower than I should be. I'm behind on the formatting of my next book. I struggled to get my last Chronicle Vitae article done and turned it in late. And I don't even want to think about how far behind I am on the next big writing project I was going to do.

I think that maybe I'll just escape into a good book, but I'm having trouble there, too. I keep buying short ebooks that look promising and then deciding that they actually sound to dark for my mood right now. Judging by the slump in my company's book sales, I'd say that other people are just not buying things. What are we all doing instead, I wonder?

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Speaking of Halloween, my kids have decided to be a New Zealand rugby player and a scientist for Halloween. So the 9 year old now has a new All Blacks jersey (we settled on the training jersey because even with the exchange rate discount, the actual jersey is stupidly expensive) and the 7 year old has a lab coat and a surprisingly cool science kit. I bought that kit for the big plastic Erlenmeyer flask (which is currently filled with a mix of water and washable purple paint), but the kit is really well done and may feature in our Christmas gift giving this year.

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Speaking of Chronicle Vitae articles, I'm running out of ideas for things to write about there. Suggestions welcome. 

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Gah. I can't even maintain focus long enough to write a hodge podge blog post. So I'll give up on that, too, and just leave you with Mr. Snarky's latest random music find, which is making me want to take a trip to Tucson:

A Collection of Unrelated Things

Mr. Snarky has a cold, and I'm sure I'll get it soon. I can already feel my lungs working harder than usual, so probably I already have it and just haven't started sneezing yet. I don't know. There's a slim chance I'll avoid it, and since colds usually lead to at least a month of bad breathing for me, I'm clinging to that slim chance. I'll be heading to bed early tonight. I've been washing my hands like crazy, drinking lots of fluids, and sucking on zinc lozenges (yeah, I know, the data is so-so, but I think they help fend off and/or shorten colds, and I don't care if that's a placebo effect or something else, I'll take it).

I'd be in bed now, but it is my turn to do the dishes, and I decided to try to get the dishwasher to do most of them. So I loaded it up, started it, and am waiting for it to finish so I can load it up again. How did we get to a place where we often make two dishwasher loads of dishes in a day? (I can answer that, for today at least: Petunia has recently switched her lunch preference to left over Annie's peace pasta, and I made a batch tonight for this week's lunches. That, plus the bowl from the waffles we had for dinner will fill up half the bottom rack. The bowl didn't fit in the first run because of the blender I used to make smoothies to go with the waffles. And then there's all the lunch tupperware that can go on the top.)

So anyhow, I'm waiting for my dishwasher to finish and thought I'd write a post. Not about politics, because although I can't stop reading and retweeting about this election, it would probably be healthier for me to ignore it more than I am. Or at least turn my attention to the gazillion ballot initiatives, local races, and the like. I will apparently have a really long ballot to vote and would be smart to vote by mail. But the kids like coming to the polls with me, and I like letting them feel involved in the electoral process... so I don't know. I need to decide soon if I'm going to request a mail ballot. Maybe I will, and then the kids and I can drop it off at the polls on election day, as a sort of compromise.

Instead of politics, I give you a collection of unrelated things.

1. I got the dress that Leota sent me and it is awesome. One of these days, I'll get someone to take some pictures of me in this dress and in the two dresses I bought at Nordstroms and then I'll share them in one of my weird headless fashion show posts. I took a risk on the perfect wrap, even though wrap styles usually end up requiring a tank top to remain decent on me... and this risk paid off. From their size chart, I reckoned I would be a 1L, so that is what I ordered and it fits perfectly, and the wrap stays in place and doesn't flash obscene amounts of cleavage. Like I said, it is awesome. 

2. I've been making a push on book marketing over the last couple of weeks. I'm frustrated with Facebook, but they remain the ad option that works best for actually moving books. I'm frustrated with Amazon, but they remain the overwhelming lion's share of my sales. So I thought I'd ask you guys for new ideas. If you buy books and sometimes by books from indie publishers/small presses (i.e., presses that can't afford a NYT Book Review ad or the like): where should I be advertising? I'm particularly curious to know how Kobo readers and iBooks fans find their new reads, because while I'm starting to figure out some things about the Amazon algorithm, Kobo and iBooks sales are essentially nice surprises at this point. I have no idea what I do, if anything, that drives more sales on those platforms.

3. One of the nice things about Mr. Snarky is that he is open to essentially any genre of music and is always exploring and looking for interesting new things. Then he shows them to me during Friday Night Beers, and so I get to pretend I know about interesting musical genres, too.

Here is one of his recent favorite things, a genre called electro-tango:

There's electro-swing, too, and I find it mesmerizing to watch the videos that use old movie dance sequences:

But probably my favorite electro-swing video is an ad from Germany:

That seems a happy note to end on. And I suspect my dishwasher is done, anyway. 

Trivial Loose Ends

I feel like taking a break from the worry and bad things on my Twitter timeline right now and so I will update you on some trivial things.


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I figured out why I wasn't super-satisfied with my Nordstrom personal stylist experience. It was because I felt like the stylist was trying to dress me like a magazine page instead of like myself. I like having quirky things that are distinctly "me" even if they aren't completely in fashion, and she was steering me more towards a vanilla "in style" look.

I wonder if an independent stylist would do differently?

No matter, it is done now, and I like the things I bought. I eschewed the fashionable ballet flats and weird but fashionable sandle/boot mashup things the stylist showed me, and came home and ordered some Taos black mary janes to be my shoes. So I guess that will be the bit of "me" in those outfits! I love mary janes. When I was browsing for shoes I might like, I just kept pinning mary janes.

Well, and these cool retro-ish wingtips.

I wonder why I like mary janes so much?

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In other clothing news, someone from Leota apparently noticed my recent post saying I liked the look of their dresses, and emailed me to offer me a free one to try. So that's cool. I'll let you know how it goes.

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In non-clothing news, I think I was a bit too cavalier about some perishables during our fridge saga last week. (It failed, we pulled everything into coolers or the beer fridge in the garage, we got the fan replaced, we put everything back in the fridge, only to discover that the new fan wasn't working correctly. It is all fixed now.) Something I ate either Sunday or Monday didn't agree with me AT ALL by Monday afternoon. I never got really sick, but I was clearly not really well, either. That screwed up my plans for Monday and Tuesday, and now I'm behind on work. SIGH.

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In news that I can't remember if I told you the first part of: Pumpkin really liked The Lilies of Dawn. She wanted to try it, and while it isn't specifically pitched for middle grade or YA, there is nothing in it that I'd be worried about her reading, so I let her try. She loved it and wanted more things like it this weekend. But then, of course, didn't want to read anything I suggested.

She is finally letting me read her Anne of Green Gables, though, and that is ever so much fun.

Did I forget anything that needs updating?

A Trying to Get Back to Normal Hodge-Podge

Last week, I had a full migraine for the first time in years. I think the last time I had a migraine with all of the symptoms was in graduate school, which was more than 15 years ago. I think it was early in graduate school, so honestly, it has probably been close to 20 years since I had a full migraine. A couple of years ago, I had a cluster of visual migraines, but those didn't come with the headache and didn't last long.

So, I had no idea what to expect, and when I found that a combination of ibuprofen and caffeine made it possible for me to function after the first day, I took ibuprofen and increased my usual caffeine intake. I got through Thursday and Friday, not feeling great, but functioning. I got through Saturday and Sunday, still not feeling great, but thinking I was basically better because the headache was mostly gone. I went off to my main client site on Monday thinking I was back to normal.

Boy, was I wrong. I felt like I was in a fog. I couldn't really think straight and I was exhausted. A little Google searching told me I was likely experiencing a postdromal phase to my migraine. So I cut my day short and came home. And I took a 2.5 hour nap. I got up and made dinner (Monday is swimming night, so Mr. Snarky was with the kids at the pool) and then I collapsed on the sofa until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed, and went to bed early.

I felt better Tuesday, but not quite 100%. I got through my work day and dinner... and hit a wall around the kids' bedtime.

Today I'm better still, but not back to normal. And I'm left wondering if I would have gotten better faster if I'd allowed myself more rest time in the early phases. I hope I don't get a chance to find out, because that would mean another migraine. But still, this is yet another reminder that I need to learn to allow myself to rest when I'm feeling a little under the weather but am not completely incapacitated. I really do.

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Pumpkin was excited to watch the women's gymnastics at the Olympics, but the NBC coverage has made that next to impossible. Luckily for her, she's going to visit my parents next week, and they have recorded some gymnastics for her to watch. But I'm really frustrated with NBC. The have made it so that the only way to have even a decent Olympic-watching experience is to have cable, so that you can access the event replays on streaming. We don't have cable, but we added NBC to our Sling channels thinking we could catch enough on broadcast. But no, they've tape delayed all the "big" events such that the majority of them are well past my kids' bedtime. Heck, a lot of it is past MY bedtime.

This is frustrating because I know that it is possible to provide a better experience. We bought access to the Rugby World Cup that allowed us to watch all of the games on demand, whenever we wanted. NBC could easily have done something similar with the Olympics, perhaps providing different streaming packages with different groups of events. Instead, it feels like they're trying to bully us all back to cable. That isn't going to work. Nothing NBC can do will make us go back to cable. Cable is just not a good fit for us anymore. They would be better served to recognize that the way people access entertainment is changing, and work to figure out how to adapt their business model to the new reality.

Oh well.

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Speaking of annoying things... why do stores insist on acting like the seasons are the same here in Southern California as they are on the East Coast? We want a patio umbrella to tide us over until we can figure out what to do with our patio (the old pergola went down with the remodel, and now we have a larger patio). We were finally going to buy one last weekend, but apparently it is now time for autumn things at Home Depot and they've taken all their umbrellas away.

This is silly. September and October are two of the nicest, sunniest months here. (May and June are called May Grey and June Gloom....) We can sit outside on our patio almost year round, really. We should be able to buy a patio umbrella in August.

Of course, we CAN buy a patio umbrella in August. We ordered one from Amazon. It should be here tomorrow.

There's a lesson there for Home Depot, too, I think, along similar lines to the lesson I wish NBC would learn. The world has changed. Best change with it.

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I think I hit the "I should really go rest" wall about an hour ago. So I'm going to go rest. I'm still working on the "listen to my body when it says I should rest" thing, I guess.

A Happy Things Hodge-Podge

I sat down to write a post, and discovered at least 20 emails indicating I had new comments. All were spam. That is cleaned up now, but finding some of them required skimming through some old comment threads that had some nasty "full anonymous" (i.e., not pseudonymous) commenters. I guess the spammer was looking for old threads with a lot of comments? Or it was just bad luck. Whatever the reason, the combination of dealing with spam comments and the forced revisiting of old nastiness but a bit of a downer on my mood.

So, instead of the post I was thinking to write, I'm going to write a post with a hodge-podge of happy things.

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Pumpkin is a complete bookwork now, and has happily incorporated that into her identity. As far as I can tell, no one at her school teases her for it, or if they do it is entirely good natured and doesn't bother her. Her friends certainly recognize that aspect of her personality, though: she's still spending her way through the Barnes and Noble gift cards she got for her birthday back in April.

Here are a couple of her current favorite series (the links go to the first book in the series):

• The Edgar and Allen Poe series 
• The Family Tree series
• The Land of Stories series

I'm sure there are more, but I can't keep up with everything she finds. Partly that is because Mr. Snarky usually takes the kids to the library (a bit of a trade for me usually taking them to gymnastics), and partly that is because I want her to have the space to explore on her own. She also recently read (and loved) The Secret Garden.

For my birthday last weekend, the kids and Mr. Snarky got me a hammock. We've set it up under our big, 60 year old avocado tree (it is a wonderful tree for many reasons!) I love the hammock. So does Pumpkin, and on the weekends, I'll often look out and see her in the hammock, reading. That makes me almost as happy as being in the hammock myself, reading.

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Petunia got one of the Frozen light up tracing easels for Christmas. She has taken to setting it up on the floor near our phone table and stretching out on her stomach, writing and drawing on it. On Friday evening, I asked her what she was working on. She said: "A book. A very long one."

I'm not clear whether or not this is the chapter book version of her Captain Draw series, which she started recently. Captain Draw was inspired by Captain Underpants. He has three crayons on his head. I had a picture of it, but I can't find it right now. When I find it, I'll try to remember to post it, because it is wonderful.

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We went to a rugby game today. There is a new US Pro Rugby league, and San Diego has a team. This is the second game we've gone to (the first was on my birthday). We lost today to Denver, by one point. But it was still a good game, and it is fun to get to see live pro rugby here. The kids want to go back in two weeks to the last home game. We'll see.

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I have been doing a new thing on Thursdays at lunch. I read a short story or essay instead of reading Twitter. Here is a post I wrote about it for Tungsten Hippo. If you're inclined to join me in my weekly #lunchstory habit (it doesn't have to be on Thursdays), I think it would be fun to see what people are reading!

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My Time Management course continues to sell now and then, even though I still haven't figured out how to market it, and haven't even had time to go in and add the new testimonial quotes that have come in. This is a really small amount of money in the grand scheme of my budget, but the response to this course (which I almost didn't do) gives me hope that if I get myself motivated and organized to figure out how to market my courses in a way that doesn't make me feel sleazy, I might have a chance to build that into a sustainable business. Which would be awesome. I've decided to make that something I focus on after I come back from vacation.

Speaking of vacation, it is coming soon! I won't post the exact dates before I go, but you might notice a lull in posting. Also, if you are in Wellington, Auckland, or Rarotonga and want to try to meet up in person, send me an email. I can't make any promises, because we already have a lot of family and old friends to  catch up with, but I'm always happy to try to organize a meet up. 

And that's all for tonight. I feel less grumpy about the spam, so this post has served its purpose. I'm off to bed. 

Postcards from the Land of Porous Boundaries

Mr. Snarky got up early this morning to go for a run, and I woke up, too. I thought I'd get up and write a blog post, or work on the recommendations I'm writing up for my current coaching client. I like the quiet time early in the morning, if I am actually awake for it without setting an alarm. If I have to set an alarm, I will just turn it off and sleep as long as I can. Except on Mondays. On Mondays I generally have enough willpower to get up with the early alarm and go for a run.

But this morning  I came out to the living room to find both of my kids already awake and ready for breakfast. So I had a normal morning routine instead, just shifted early. I thought maybe I'd get to come into my office a little early and write this post, but that didn't really happen, either. Somehow, the kids filled the time.

That's just how it goes these days. I try to set boundaries around the time I need or want, and they leak. I suspect this is the sort of thing I'll miss when my kids are grown, but right now, I find the porous boundaries hard to handle. I try to carve out time for things I want or need to do, but it only works if the kids are asleep or out of the house. I keep forgetting that this is the case. My kids seem old enough to entertain themselves! And sometimes, they are. I can't depend on it, though. Pumpkin is old enough to know she shouldn't interrupt me when I've tried to go do my own things, but she is not old enough to always act on that knowledge. Petunia isn't old enough to even recognize the boundary yet.

For instance, yesterday was open house at the kids' school, which meant I had to stop working about an hour early. The open house was fun. We have great food vendors: delicious tacos from a local taco shop and wonderful ice cream from a local ice cream shop. Petunia was beyond excited to show us her classroom and her work. Pumpkin was excited to check out the fourth grade classroom and see what projects she'll be doing next year.

(As an aside: our kids do a lot of projects, and make a lot of dioramas. Michaels does well from us buying clay and other supplies... but the kids have fun doing it, and I guess it helps consolidate the things they learn. This year's big project with a diorama was about a Native American tribe. Pumpkin picked the Maya, and ended up building a replica temple as part of her diorama. Her classmates did wonderful jobs with various types of dwellings. The girl who did her project on the Hopi made very realistic houses out of sandpaper. I recognized her tribe from the diorama before I even saw her poster with the name.  Next year, it looks like Pumpkin will be building a "site in California." The fourth grade class we visited had a Legoland (made out of Lego!), the Hollywood sign, and Randy's Donuts, among other things.)

We got home an hour before our usual "get ready for bed" time. I thought that maybe I could make up some of that hour I lost while the kids played, and told the kids I was going into the office to work. No such luck. They kept interrupting me. I managed to get a little bit done, but not enough to replace the lost hour, and I still had to work after the kids were in bed. I think the lesson there is that I should have just gone and played soccer with the kids and not even tried to work until after bedtime. But that cuts into my time to do things like yoga, or read a book, so I'm always tempted to try to avoid the after bedtime work if I can.

We're working on helping the kids recognize the boundaries, but I think I need to be realistic about what I expect. The boundaries are at least there now, but they are still porous and I think they will be for another couple of years at least.

It doesn't help matters that our school district decided to make the friday before Memorial Day a day off this year. It is the first year they've done it, and the YMCA, which usually organizes a day camp for school district holidays that aren't actually holidays, has no camp. So the kids will be home with me. I am debating how much to try to work and how much to just take off and go do something fun with the kids. The problem is, I have some work that I really need to get done. I suspect I could get the kids to leave me mostly alone in the morning if I promise some fun in the afternoon,  so I could take half of Friday off and trade it for half of one of the other weekend days, when Mr. Snarky will be home and able to take the kids to the park or out for a bike ride. But... Saturday is my birthday, so I don't really want to work then. And I was looking forward to a proper three day weekend.

However, I think that the half day Friday and some dedicated work time on one of the other days is going to be the least annoying option, so that's probably what I'll do.

I guess the general lesson of this time of porous boundaries is that it doesn't really matter what I wish could happen. I need to look at what is actually going to happen, and assess what the realistic alternatives actually are, and choose from those. Wishing for an unattainable ideal just leads to unhappiness.

Sunday Hodge-Podge

Next week is teacher appreciation week, and after grumbling to myself about how the best way to appreciate teachers is to pay them fairly, I signed up to buy a gift card to a movie theater for the gift the class parents are assembling for one of my kid's teachers. 

No problem, I thought. I'll get a gift card at the grocery store. Then the grocery store only had $25 and $50 gift cards, and I thought that was too much. Then I came home and said that to Mr. Snarky, who pointed out that $25 was two movie tickets.

So I went online and bought a $25 e-gift card. 

Really, I'd rather we just raised my taxes a bit and paid teachers well enough that we didn't need to do appreciation weeks. I clearly can't handle teacher appreciation week.

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When I decided to plant some edible plants in big pots on my patio, I specifically chose herbs and salad greens, because those are easy. I specifically avoided tomatoes, because growing tomatoes intimidates me.

The tomato gods had other ideas. I have five volunteer tomato plants growing in one of my pots. I assume that they grew from seeds in the compost dirt I used for planting. 

Five is too many for one pot, so I bought a new pot with the plan of moving a couple over to it.

The new pot sat on my patio for several weeks. 

Finally, this evening, I went out to move the tomato plants, rip up the arugala that had bolted and plant more, and plant some more lettuce and watercress.

I managed to move one of the tomato plants. The others were too interwoven with the other plants in that pot, and I couldn't see how to move them. So I staked them and left them where they are. There are about five tomatoes growing on them. We'll see what happens.

Really, I just wanted salad greens. 

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Thank you to all the people who have emailed to volunteer to be a beta reader. I'll email with details on Wednesday, if not before.

Anytime I ask for help on this blog, I get what I need. You guys are amazing. Thank you.

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Last week, I saw a good deal on an advertising opportunity for one of the books I've published, so I placed an ad. The response was... underwhelming. Oh well.

Also last week, I had two sales of the recording of Take Control of Your Time. I had not advertised it, or even mentioned it on Twitter recently.

So now I'm wondering if I should try advertising that seminar. I am sort of reticent to do so, because of all the classes and seminars I offer, it is the one I feel least confident about. What gives me the right to say I can teach you how to make better use of your time? For the other classes and seminars, I have relevant professional experience. For this one, I have... well, I'm generally considered to be able to get a lot done while also enjoying a good amount of down time.

And yet, it is the seminar I've given live to two groups, and it is the recording that is selling. I get good feedback on it, too.

I know that there is good content in that seminar, and that my approach is a bit different from the usual "gurus" who are out there marketing online time managment courses. For instance, I use a lot of things I learned from project management in my personal time management, and I include that in the course.

I suspect I need to get over myself and just market it. Really, I do. In general, if I don't want to end up looking for a full time job when my current large contract ends, I need to get over myself and learn how to market my services. I know this. I keep trying to give myself a kick in the pants/pep talk and just do it.

Maybe I need to have a beer or two and just go place some Facebook ads and see what happens.

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I am trying to stick to a more regular schedule with Tungsten Hippo blog posts. I missed last week, but I posted this week about short ebooks as samples for larger series. Check it out.

Also, did I mention that you now get a free classic short story formatted as an ebook when you sign up for the Tungsten Hippo mailing list? You do, and my plan is to change the short story twice a year, always sending the new one to the people already on the mailing list, too.

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Do you remember the snail that got caught in the filter intake in our aquarium? It looked like it was going to make it. It spent about a week expelling grey stuff, and then it started scooting around the aquarium again. But it didn't seem to be eating, and then it stopped moving again. Then one night, I saw the other snail poking at it. It looked like the other snail was eating it.

So we declared it dead. I agonized over this. I scooped the snail out and put it in a little plastic bag, and took it over to the light to try to see signs of life.

Mr. Snarky watched this for awhile, then took the bag away from me, said "if you say the snail is dead, it is dead" and disposed of the snail.

We're going to get another snail. We were supposed to go to get it today, but we spent a lot of time at the park instead. Petunia has learned how to ride her bike without training wheels and she wanted to show me (and practice some more).

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So, that's what's up here. What's up with you?

A Tuesday Hodge-Podge

I am sitting in a Starbucks, drinking a so-so tea. I have a networking event to attend this evening, and it doesn't make traffic sense for me to go home before the event. I brought some work to do, but find that my brain is not willing to focus on it. My work at my main gig today was pretty intense, and involved a lot of user interface design, which is not something I enjoy or think I am all that good at. And yet, it falls to me to do it on this project, so I do my best.

Anyway, I can't focus on the work I wanted to do, so I'm going to write a blog post instead. It will be a hodge-podge, because I doubt my brain could handle anything more intense.
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The networking event is one that sort of scares me and I almost convinced myself not to go. Then I asked myself what "grown up me" would do, and it turns out she'd totally go to this networking thing and work the room like a boss.

It turns out, imagining "grown up me" and asking what she would do is a pretty good way to figure out what I should do to achieve my goals.

Grown up me is way more confident and willing to put herself out there than right now me is.

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On a related note, it turns out you can be 43 and not think of yourself as really being "grown up me." 

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I really appreciated all of the tips and ideas people posted in the comments on my post abut style, or the lack thereof. I had just about convinced myself to hire a stylist to come in and give me some tips and help me sort out what I need to buy... and then we took our car in for some service and discovered we needed about $1700 of repairs. 

We are very fortunate to be able to absorb that sort of surprise without too much trouble, but it did make me think that perhaps spending several hundred dollars to figure out what clothes to spend another several hundred dollars on wasn't the smartest thing to do right now.

So I decided I would have to invest time, not money. I spent a little over an hour trying on everything in my closet. I filled a garbage bag full of clothes to give away. I made another big stack of clothes that I should probably give away, but that I would first try on with other things- I did the first pass through without doing a lot of mixing and matching.

I have identified a few things I could go and find that would alleviate my immediate issues. I need some professional blouses that work for spring/summer here. I need a new black blazer. Unfortunately for me, both of these are really hard things to find. I will almost certainly need to get things tailored, if not just made to order outright. The problem with getting things made to order outright is that if I do it through the online services (definitely the easiest optiion for me- I can shop at night), I can't return anything I have made custom. I've already got one skirt that fits beautifully but didn't turn out to be as flattering as I thought it would be.

I might start with the easier things: a pair or two of casual pants (maybe crop pants) for weekends, and some new black shoes. 

On the other hand, I had a really hard time figuring out what to wear to the networking thing today, so maybe I should suck it up and go find some blouses.

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I am a complete hair product skeptic. I tend to think that hair products don't really deliver on what they promise in their labeling, so it doesn't matter which product I buy.

But.... I needed some new gel/mouse/styling product, and I picked this L'oreal Boost It mousse and damn, if that didn't really do what it said it would do.

I wonder if I need to reconsider all of my hair product choices now.

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Over the weekend, I wrote a Tungsten Hippo post about finding short ebooks. There are more publishers to watch for than there were when I started Tungsten Hippo. I still wish for a better browsing experience on Amazon, though. I don't want to limit my searches to the publishers I know about.

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I've been thinking a lot about having control over my own reactions. I want to be better at responding to BS in a way that doesn't derail me from my goals. I think the first step to doing this is being able to recognize the BS as BS, and accept the anger or sadness it creates in me without letting those emotions control how I respond, because even when those emotions are completely justified, expressing them in the moment is not always the best choice for me.

I am not all that good at this right now. I am pondering how to get better. Anyone have any tips?

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I think I'll close there. It is almost time to go network like a boss.

Some Good Things

A story from Petunia, written on my whiteboard. Spelling corrections are in brackets.

Un buen dilla [dia]

Yo estan en mi casa. Yo no es triste. Yo es flis [feliz] es mi buen dilla [dia]. Yo veo pez. Mi pez no es triste mi pez. Es fulis [feliz]. Mis amigos no es triste. Mis amigos es fulis [feliz].

She's writing more stories now. Whereas Pumpkin generally won't try to guess how to spell a word if she doesn't know (she'll ask someone), Petunia is happy to take her best guess, which makes her stories even more fun.

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When I first set up our aquarium, I let the pet store employee talk me into accepting some "rescue snails"- i.e., some other customer's snail had babies and these were the result. Sadly, it seems that these young snails go through long periods of dormancy. I keep thinking they are dead, but they pass the sniff test, and then eventually wake up and start moving around for a few days, then go back into whatever they are doing where they look like they're dead.

Whatever is going on with them, they weren't eating enough algae and it was taking over our aquarium.

So I went and bought another snail. I got a "regular" one this time, and it is going to town eating algae. It is actually really cool to watch when it is attached to the side of the aquarium. You can see its little mouth chomping away on the algae.

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I fianlly wrote a post of my own over at Tungsten Hippo (rather than just posting a Book Introduction guest post). I wrote about what I've learned from reading a bunch of old stories.

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And now I'd better get started on my day, since the time change has already stolen an hour.

Monday Show and Tell

How about some good old fashioned show and tell? I've been threatening to post some pictures for a long time, so those can be the "show" part of the post.

Here is the new fishy pet and his snail buddies:

He was not cooperating for the camera, but I finally got a closeup of him next to the smaller snail:

The snails gave me a scare this weekend by ceasing all movement for roughly a day. The internet told me that the way to tell if they were actually dead was to scoop them out and smell them, which I did with much trepedation since the internet also informed me that dead snails smell really, really bad. They didn't smell like anything, which was good news.

Since I was taking pictures, I also took some of the office, but then I realized that there are a gazillion pictures of my kids up on all the shelves I took pictures of, and I can't be bothered going in and smudging out all the faces tonight. So those will have to wait.

I will show you my crocheting progress, though.

My first attempt is on the left, and it clearly shows my trouble with dropping stitches. It makes a passable Elsa doll cape, though. My current project is on the right. As you can see at the bottom, I was still struggling with dropping stitches, but I think I've got that sorted now. Also, I have figured out how to do a proper single crochet, as opposed to whatever weird made up stitch I was doing on the Elsa cape. I still struggle with turns, but my Mom (who is also learning to crochet right now) passed on some advice from a friend of hers, and maybe I've got that figured out, too. A few more rows and I should be able to tell.

Speaking of tell, let's move on to the "tell" part of the post.

I'm in the formatting phase of my next taster flight book. It is called Love and Other Happy Endings, and has stories by Katherine Mansfield, L.M. Montgomery (I really like a lot of her short stories!), Wilkie Collins, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Oliver Curwood. I'll be looking for advance readers soon. I don't have the final cover yet. Once I get it, I'll put up the official web page and post the form for advance readers to sign up.

I am also working on another original book. This one is about Indian film and is called Don't Call It Bollywood. I really enjoyed reading it and learned a lot about Indian film, admittedly from a very low starting point. I would really like to find an editor for this book who is familiar with Indian film, since I am not. It would be awesome if the editor spoke enough Hindi to check some translations, too, but I can also find someone else to do that. If that sounds like someone you know, please point them to me! They can email me at wandsci at gmail dot com. This is obviously a paid gig.

Finally, I've decided to take the time management workshop I gave a couple of weeks ago and shorten it into a one hour seminar that I can give online. If that sounds interesting/useful to you, you can sign up for the Management Monthly newsletter to make sure you get the announcement. Or you can watch this space for the next couple of weeks, because I'll probably post a link to the sign up page at least once.

From all of that, you might think that I am experiencing no doubts at all about my career choices. That would be wrong. My main contract has asked me to frontload the hours I have for this year, so I suspect I'll be finished with it sometime in summer rather than late fall, as I originally thought. This makes no difference in terms of my total income for the year, but I find it does make me think harder about how I should be spending the time that is not yet under contract. I have a plan... but I am questioning it a bit. If I weren't the one who has to work through the questions, I'd be fascinating by how the change in the scheduling of the same number of hours has changed my thinking.

I think some of the questions are also prompted by the fact that Mr. Snarky started a new job a few weeks ago, and is really loving it. He is in the phase where everything is great and cool, and he's super energized by what his team is doing and what the company is doing... and I look at that and I'm a little wistful for that feeling of being part of a team working towards a big, audacious goal.

And yet, when I think about the things that energize me right now, and that I enjoy working on the most, I keep coming back to the plan I have. I love giving the seminars and workshops. I love building books. I had a new idea for a book project this weekend that I'm really excited about. I think I'm doing the right thing, but things are uncertain enough that I can get distracted by doubts.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to spend some time thinking about my own big, audacious goals. I have them, but I've let them get fuzzy and obscured by the day to day concerns. I'm also going to work a little harder to build a work community. I can't have a team yet, but I can have a community. I have the beginnings of one, and I think I should connect with it more.

I also need to face down my fear of self-promotion. I love doing workshops and seminars, but that won't pay the bills unless I figure out how to promote them. Some of what is holding me back is that I need to find a method of promotion that feels authentic to me. But some of what is holding me back is fear. I'm still sorting through what, exactly, I'm afraid of. I think it is a mix of fear of failure and fear of annoying people. I have to ask myself whether I want to let that fear get in the way of what I want to achieve. OK, I already know the answer to that. So I just have to figure out how to ignore the fear and do it anyway.

So, that's what's up here. What's up with you? Share your own show and tell (or talk about mine) in the comments!

The End of the Holidays Hodge-Podge

My kids go back to school tomorrow, so even though I worked through the holiday period, today very much feels like the last day of vacation. Tomorrow, we're back to our less leisurely morning routine.

It is also supposed to start raining tomorrow, and then it is forecast to rain for the next seven days or so. That is extremely unusual here (hello, El Niño!) and will make my movie-hating eight year old very sad, because her school's solution to lunch recess on rainy days is a movie.

But there is nothing we can do about the weather, so we'll just smile and soldier through.

It is looking like a beautiful day here today, so perhaps we can come up with something fun to do to enjoy this last day of sun and last day of vacation. We wrote our 2016 family fun list on New Year's Eve—it is a bona fide family tradition now. So we have a list of 12 fun things we could choose to do. We'll see.

I'll do my annual family fun list and personal goals list posts soon. They didn't feel "right" for today. Today felt more like a hodge-podge post.

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As I've mentioned a couple of times, I'm running a sale at Annorlunda Books. It is going well, and I'm glad I tried it. I won't really know how successful it was until after the sale is over, though. That is when I find out if the boost in sales during the promotional period translates into higher baseline sales after the promo is over.

I wrote about the constraints that still hamper readers and publishers of short ebooks over at Tungsten Hippo. That post also talks a bit about what I hope to do with Tungsten Hippo this year, and ends with a quick look back at some of my favorite books of 2015.

One of the things I will be doing with Tungsten Hippo this year is making better use of my archives. I plan to start tweeting out archive links and quotes, and will probably post them to the Tungsten Hippo facebook page, too.

I've also started implementing my plans for my Annorlunda social media accounts. My new tag line is "learn things you'll feel good about knowing," and I'll be supporting that by posting at least one interesting fact (or word! I love cool words) ever day at both the Annorlunda Books facebook page and the @AnnorlundaInc twitter account.

In other news, 2016 will be the year in which I finally embrace scheduled social media posts.

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Yesterday, the kids and I went to the pet store to do some information gathering about fish and aquariums. Back in May (I think), I promised Petunia a "fishy pet." But I told her it had to wait until we had space for the aquarium. Now that our renovations are complete, we have the space. The fish will live in our new office, near the door to the living room. It is a big barn door, which is almost always open, so Petunia will have easy access to her pet. We don't yet have the shelves to put the aquarium on, though. I needed to see how big the aquarium would be so that I could figure out what shelves to get. We accomplished that yesterday, but don't yet have the shelves. Getting those will require yet another trip to Ikea. I had hoped to do that today, but I don't think Mr. Snarky is on board with that plan, so we'll see.

Petunia has been very patient waiting this long, though, and both kids are VERY excited about the aquarium, so I'll try to get this done soon.

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I've started learning to crochet. I decided I wanted to learn as something to keep my hands busy when I'm watching the kids' gymnastics classes. I also thought it might be relaxing. I think it will be, as long as I keep my expectations of my abilities realistic.

Here is my first piece, so far.

People keep asking me what it is going to be, and my answer of "a chance to practice my stitches" doesn't really satisfy them, so I've started saying it will be a Barbie blanket. Petunia is excited by that. I figure her Barbies won't care that the stitches are uneven.