13 Things On My Mind
I’m going totally random this week.
1. Mom’s back from Africa! She’s been emailing pictures. Rhinos inches away. Giraffes with two necks. Yeah, I’m jealous.
2. The Girl wants a bead loom. She’s using one at school and loves it. Michaels doesn’t even know what we were talking about. Treasure Chest says they have it, but they close early and I have no idea where they are, even with a phone book and a map. The adventure continues.
3. The Boy’s birthday is coming up. He wants an iPod and a PSP. Uh…. yeah. I offered to take him out to dinner. Hope it doesn’t end up costing me as much as an iPod.
4. I learned how to check the oil in my new truck. More on that later. (Next Thursday, maybe?) You won’t believe what I had to do.
5. I got a request for a partial! The request was really fast. The rejection after I sent the partial was just as fast. Sigh.
6. Moving In is getting closer to publication. My editor tells me I’ll have a pub date any time now. Yipee!!!
7. 
I got an award. See? I’m supposed to post it as soon as I get it. I never post anything as soon as I get it. Not awards, anyway. I post those on Mondays. This Monday I’m planning on giving away a vampire book. Maybe I’ll do both.
8. I tried to watch the movie Alice’s Restaurant, for obvious reasons. It’s about Woodie Guthrie. It’s about the 60’s, which I love. It doesn’t have much of a plot, and I lost interest about a quarter of the way in. Oh well.
9. The Boy is planning on doing a lot of traveling this weekend because he has extra time off from school and his friends live out of town. He doesn’t seem to understand what it means to me to be driving him 70 miles at a whack, particularly since I have to do the return trip too. Do boys ever learn compassion?
10. There’s a bottle of Rit dye on my desk. I really should use it soon. It’s to color The Boys pants in the hopes he will actually start to use them. Apparently peacock blue isn’t good for boys.
11. I’m craving curry. No reason. Just in the mood.
12. I’d love to be doing more submissions, but the file I kept my agent research in is corrupted. I’m going to have to re-create it from scratch.
13. Pardon me while I step out for a moment. I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to backup everything on my computer.
In order to get the permalink from this post you must both put your URL in the Mr. Linky thing and leave a comment
More Thursday Thirteen participants can be found here
And here.
As always, I welcome the link to your Thursday Thirteen in my comments as well as in Mr. Linky.
From Tracie
CY
Nessa
Angeleque Ford
Cambria Dillon
Calico Contemplations
Happily Retired Gal
Paige Tyler
Emily/Randomability
Celticlibrarian
By George! Wellington It Is.
When last we saw His Majesty, he had exiled himself to his bed chamber. The physical reasons were the usual, gout and rheumatism. Various other ailments. This lasted all through January and well into February of 1828. And, as usual, the physical ailments were a wonderful excuse to avoid political problems, of which he had a basket full.
Harriette Wilson made a re-appearance at this point. She had published her memoirs in Holland in four small volumes in 1825. These caused a sensation at the time. The publisher went through thirty printings to keep up with demand. His Majesty apparently paid to make sure his role in them was reduced from guest star to walk-on. But now, she was back for more. Suddenly “remembering” things that had not made it into the first edition of her memoirs, she wondered if His Majesty might have some suggestions as to how she could forget what she had suddenly remembered.
(more…)
86/365 Where’s the Beef?
We used to buy our beef locally, a side at a time. I have no idea if we got the left side or the right side, but I used to look out my window at work to see the cow in question looking back. It’s a rancher’s thing to be proud of the ability to look lunch in the eye without flinching, and a relief to me to know what I ate was well cared for.
There are all kinds of reasons for buying food in bulk. For me the best was knowing I never had to worry about getting to the grocery store to get more. I simply went out to our chest freezer and brought in however much we were going to need.
For Mr. Al it was the joy of being able to afford to eat expensive cuts. You don’t actually save much money buying a cow at a time. Especially if you count the cost of electricity. We paid about $4 a pound, once you take into consideration waste at the butchers. That’s high for all the hamburger, but very low for the file mignon.
It’s more than just beef. You’ve seen my cereal supply. I get canned goods and baking supplies at the same rate – just this side of spoiling. In the long run it saves me a pile of money, and in the short run keeps me from having to dash off to the store at the worst moments. Except Thanksgiving. I always come up short on Thanksgiving.
How about you? Do you buy in bulk? Do you dash to the store a lot? Live out of restaurants? Simply eat what’s placed before you? How do you handle your food?
85/365 What can be seen – post Photoshop
Like I said, it isn’t much. but it’s more than you could see yesterday.
English Toffee Bars
1 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. flour
1 pkg chocolate chips
Beat butter for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and beat until fluffy. Add egg yolk and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour to beaten mixture. Beat constantly. Press evenly in an ungreased 15x10x1 baking pan. Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes, until done. As soon as it comes out sprinkle chocolate chips over the top so they will melt. Once it has cooled, cut into squares.
I don’t happen to have a 15x10x1 pan, and ended up using one that was too deep and not big enough around. The dough is stiff enough. I recommend using a cookie sheet.
Click the picture to go to the hub:
84/365 What can be seen – pre Photoshop
It’s almost impossible for me to take night pictures of the things I can see. It isn’t much, really, but I thought I’d mess around and see what I could come up with. Tomorrow I’ll show what I could make come out of this.
A Good Sport
Jill: Jack! What are you doing?
Jack: It’s the first snowfall of the year. We HAVE to have a snowball fight.
Jill: No! Don’t!
Jill: Ack! Stop it, Jack.
Jack: Heh, heh, heh.
Jill: I’m warning you. If you do that one more time….
Today’s theme is sports
Previously in Jack and Jill Word Up, Dog
Saturday photo scavenger hunt
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
Edited 10/10 9:31am: Yes, it snowed. Again! I took this shot yesterday afternoon, and the snow is still there.
Suzie’s House 134: Sharing
For those who don’t read the newsletter, last week Suzie woke up to a wonderful morning with her beloved Drew only to have him tell her he is leaving. He is an FBI Agent who was only assigned to the Madison WI office pending an investigation into the internet-based flash-crime ring run by the Smash Master. Now that the Smash Master is behind bars, his job is done. He leaves for New Mexico at the end of the week.
“Mom?” Ben’s voice came soft and tentative from behind her.
Suzie sat at the kitchen table, her head braced up, face covered by her hands to hide the steady leak of tears. Not wanting to upset her son, she kept her head down.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” His voice gained a sharp edge.
The Meaning of Life
Small gestures of love
keep me alive.
A hug, a kiss, a smile
offered when the avalanche of rejection crescendos to
the point where I can hardly breathe,
let alone write another drop of soul.
When I’m looking at the switchblade and the wrist
and thinking they belong together
small gestures;
a hug, a smile, a kiss….
Click on image to go to hub.
[ A reminder: this is FICTION. My suicidal days are long behind me. After all, I get regular doses of hugs and kisses.]
81/365 Bike Ride, Building
I went on a bike ride with my camera and tried to take pictures while moving like I do in the car. Turns out it’s harder.
T13: Things People in My Family Have Said
Yeah, I’ve done this before, but they keep talking. I gotta share. Warning, some of these are tasteless.
1. The Boy – “I found something I’m allergic to in my dreams. The clouds around the gates of heaven. Some of them followed me back and I sneezed, and sneezed, and sneezed.”
2. The Girl – After saying something to me while I was typing. “Oh sure, now you answer me. It was a 30 second wait.” The scary thing was, it really did take that long.
3. The Boy – In reference to what you have to do to get something back in class when someone swipes it. “You” wiggle finger “Floor.” Knowing nod. “Yeah.” (He only thinks he looks tough.)
4. Mr. Al – When I cornered him in the bedroom, he held his socks in front of his bare chest. Me: “What? you’re going to fend me off with those?” Mr Al: “Aren’t they enough?” Looks down. “Oh. I guess not.” Yeah, they weren’t.
5. The Boy – While in the grocery store pointed at a Snuggles fabric softener bottle and said. “Look at the cute Teddy bear. He’s drowning. And look at that one.” Points to same brand, different formula. “His eyes are closed. He’s already dead.” Said in soto voice like he was being nice instead of being a teenage boy whose mother has no idea what the heck to do with him.
6. My Mother to a neighbor – “Someone stole an iris from your yard. And I got a red ribbon for it (in the Iris Society show).”
7. The Boy – “Go to the prom?” Blank look, then shakes his head. “Oh, that. No, I’m already kicked out of that.”
8. The Girl – “Wait. It wasn’t like that. If we walked into the house then. um. uh. I was thinking of a funny thing, um, and then it sort of turned into a confusion thing.” I’m still not sure what she was talking about.
9. The Girl – I was telling her about an old dress that had belonged to my grandmother’s mother that I tried to wear. The results were regrettable. Little flakes of fabric everywhere. “It didn’t pass the thumb test. No, it didn’t even pass the stay-on-the-body test.”
10. The Girl – Me: “Girl, quit pounding the counter with my drumstick. Are you trying to drive me nuts?” Girl: “NO! Well, mostly no. Kind of. Yes, MOSTLY no.”
11. The Boy – “I do too know how to wipe a table. I just don’t want to until I move out. If I have a table, that is.”
12. The Girl – In reference to misreading something. “My mind PhotoShopped it.”
13. The Boy – after dive-bombing his sister and I. “Ow, I broke my spleen.”
In order to get the permalink from this post you must both put your URL in the Mr. Linky thing and leave a comment
More Thursday Thirteen participants can be found here
And here.
As always, I welcome the link to your Thursday Thirteen in my comments as well as in Mr. Linky.
Tracie
Mary Quast
Nessa
Paige Tyler
Emily/Randomability
Calico Contemplations
Celticlibrarian
Happily Retired Gal
storyteller at Small Reflections
