Castle in the Clouds

I'm still reading Between the Flowers and The Handmaid's Tale. I'd really like to finish one of them by the weekend because there's so much more I need to read between now and the end of the semester. I need to power through and move on to the next book as soon as possible. Wish me luck.

We don't get go out very often. Even more rare are those instances when I feel like dressing up. This weekend we did both. At first Ken and I talked of going out by ourselves. A Facebook conversation later and we were making plans for a night on the town with our best friends. By the time we made it to the restaurant we were a party of six. Here are a few pictures from our night out. I'd write more but I'm being paged to the living room to tend to the PS3. Enjoy!!

I = Lazy Last night I turned into a pumpkin as soon as I walked through my kitchen door. I planted myself on the couch, grabbed the remote, and slowly tuned out everything that might possibly require effort and an extended attention span. Television, of course, doesn't count because, hello!, mind-numbing. There are probably way too many commas in that last sentence. Oh, well. I'm hoping tonight will be better. I'm hoping to get through the dishes, the laundry, and maybe even a bit of homework. No sense in saving all that work for the weekend!

I managed to get 16 pages scrapbooked over the weekend. And while that is a wonderful and noteworthy accomplishment, what truly made my day was the fact that those 16 pages completed my Maine album! Now I just need to get a few more page protectors to hold them all. I'm reading two books right now. Between the Flowers by Harriette Simpson Arnow and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood . I'm about a quarter of the way through the first and halfway done with the second. If I remember to, I'll post my opinions when I finish. I have a free weekend coming! I plan on finishing one or both of those two books I just mentioned and cleaning the bathrooms because yuck, just yuck. There...that brings you up-to-date!

Don't those two things go together like peas & carrots? No? Are you sure? Okay, maybe you're right. Still, those are the two main things on my radar right now. I've finished the wrestling DVD - just waiting on the last few copies to finish burning. First on the agenda is homework. Tomorrow night I have to turn in a five page literature review. Hopefully it goes together quickly and smoothly because I really have no time to spare. After the homework deadline passes, I can finally focus on getting ready for my weekend away from home. Yep, it's that time of year again! Scrapbooking with the ladies for hours and hours on end. This particular trip (I have two planned) is about a hop, jump, and skip away from my house. Seriously. Less than five miles from the end of my driveway. I know it may seem silly to "go away for the weekend" when I could just as easily stay home for free, especially when you consider the proximity of our getaway spot, but if I s

The night before last my puppy went missing. We had let him out to go potty and, swayed by the beautiful spring-like weather, we let him wander a bit. Then we got distracted. I was working on the wrestling club DVD, the hubby fell asleep in his chair, and the kids were, well, being kids. When we realized the puppy had been left outside for longer than usual, and certainly longer than we had intended, he was gone. We yelled. We searched. I visited the neighbors to the south of us and then their neighbors, and so on. Not once did I consider crossing the street to ask if any of those neighbors had seen our puppy. I was so certain he had probably headed off into the woods that I never really considered he might have crossed the two-lane rural highway at the end of our driveway. Still. No puppy. The kids went to bed crying. The hubby and I reassured them that the dog would show up sooner or later, that he was just out enjoying the first little bit of spring we've seen. Eleven

Although I did well getting everything done for class last night, I've still got a lot to do this week. I'm going to try to get two articles a night read between now and Saturday. Sunday will be spent power-browsing (aka skimming) the books I picked up on my topic. That gives me Monday night to write my Literature review. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

As you may have gathered from my earlier post, I haven't been feeling all that well over the last few days. I don't know if I'm finally fighting off the flu bug that has been running rampant through my house or if it was just a side-effect of pure exhaustion. In any event, I am feeling a little more like myself and a lot less like death. Wahoo! This is definitely a step in the right direction. Since I believe I am now capable of forming a coherent thought or two (yesterday was BAD), I thought I'd tell you how amazing, awesome, exciting, and all-out-wonderful the concert was on Saturday night. Yes, it was that good. And, no, that's not the alcohol speaking because I was the DD that night. (I don't think Rock Star energy drinks impair judgement, but I could be wrong...) The first band was forgetable. Saving Abel did not live up to their debut album. I don't know if their sound guy needed a new set of ears, but I couldn't make out more than a dozen words th

Is that even possible? It feels like it's possible. I've got that weird, floaty, medicine-head feeling, but I've not taken so much as an aspirin. Oh, joy.

Okay, so I talked a lot about self-publishing the novel, but now that I'm sitting here with a revised manuscript, I've decided to give it a fighting chance in the big, bad world of Publishing. You know, the Industry. And, yes, all those capital letters are needed for proper emphasis. So far, I've had one contract for representation offered. I turned it down. There were too many red flags for me to blissfully ignore. First, all correspondance was automated. Even after they said they'd like to represent my work, the e-mails still arrived in the form of a form letter. If that wasn't weird enough, they didn't charge any fees (oh, no! never. not until we sell you...), but they couldn't refer me fast enough to a "professional critiquing service". Uh huh. Partners in crime, there. So, I declined their offer and sent out the next query. Keep your fingers crossed!