Castle in the Clouds

I'm not sure what the consensus is on the definitions of geek versus nerd, but I perceive a difference.  It's a slight difference, though, because the nerdy often leads to geeky, or perhaps it's the other way around.  My love of reading would be considered nerdy, right?  Yet, when that love of reading transitions into a fascination with RPGs on my PS3 system, I think that takes me over into the realms of geekdom.  My fascination with history and science is nerdy, yet when those interests heavily influence my writing and result in fantasy or science fiction novels, that's geeky, too, right? So, yes, I'm a bit of a nerd.  I put a lot of time and effort into my schoolwork.  I add documentaries in my Netflix queue (still hoping Waiting for  "Superman" shows up soon).  I seek out articles discussing scientific discoveries.  I add the occasional history or how-to to my bookshelves for research purposes. Yet, I believe the geek in me far outweig...

Although the calendar may disagree, summer officially began in our house on Monday. You see, for us, summer begins when the kids are out of school, when we no longer have to rush them through breakfast and the morning's standard grooming protocol, when we aren't stressed about missing that dratted bus that never seems to arrive at the end of our driveway at the exact same moment every day.  Yes, for us, it's the absence of school-related stress that is the true indicator that summer has arrived.  Our first weekend of the summer started out with a baseball tournament.  Gage and his cousin, Keagan, are playing for the 10U travel team this year.  They've already had several games, even a double-header or two during the middle of the school week. However, it just so happened our first tournament of the season wasn't until this last weekend. They did okay.  Lost the first two games on Saturday, but came to the fields with a little extra something on Sunday to pul...

Remember these?  I figured it's time to see just how much progress I've made... Complete the final edit on my alter-ego's first self-pubbed paranormal romance novel. Once this is accomplished, I will be releasing it on Amazon in both print and e-book formats.  This should be the easiest to accomplish.  I just need to sit down and go through the marked-up copies I have in my possession.  So why haven't I?  Good question.  Complete a few more chapters on the collaborative story I'm writing just for fun with my younger cousin.   A-ha!  This is one that I can actually say I've made progress on.  We've been slowly adding to the story.  In fact, I have it on my agenda to work on this tonight when I get home from work.  Work on the story bible for my fantasy novel - the very same fantasy novel that will not get out of my head, yet, at the same time, will not fall gracefully onto the page!  It's working title, for future ...

It doesn't happen very often, but for once we were free to do as we liked.  Mostly.  There was one little family obligation to attend to, but it was rather enjoyable, so all's good there. One of my many nephews turned five. Cute little bugger, isn't he?  I think so, too. With the exception of his birthday party, we had a weekend to ourselves.  On Friday night my oldest attended his first school dance and went home with a friend.  This, of course, meant my youngest just had to have a friend over to spend the night.  Saturday was mostly spent cleaning the house and, for the hubby, working in the yard. I stopped short at mopping the floors, though.  I figured there was no sense in wasting my time because my hubby had decided it was a bonfire kind of night.  Knowing that I was going to have people running in and out of the house with dirty feet or shoes on, I really didn't see the sense in scrubbing the hardwood. We ended up with six kids th...