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Morning wakeup call
A pretty shirt. That was all I’d wanted. Some little extra bit of pizazz for Conduit, the local science fiction convention. I decided this on the way back home from dropping kids off to school before I picked up my husband for our youngest’s kindergarten graduation. The home to school commute is half an hour. The month…
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Epic Rain
In the mornings, I often write and work from my car while I wait for my kindergartener to get out. It’s quieter than in the super cool school which is half an hour away from my house. The thing about working in the car is that the decor is determined by the weather. (And, unfortunately,…
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Geeks parenting non-geeks and vice versa
Our family had a great get together with the family of friend of mine, Kirsten. During the discussion, my middling daughter said that compared to the rest of her family she wasn’t geek, but compared to everyone else, she was. This brings up something that I hope we have become attuned to. She feels different,…
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New thoughts on the business of writing
It’s kind of scary, actually. When I first started moving towards being a professional writer, I learned several things. Do short stories, get a name, then write a novel, submit to agents, get an agent, then hope the agent gets a publisher for the novel. A year ago I would never, ever have thought of self publishing.…
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Mature for her age
A teacher has recently told this to me about my 13 year old daughter, in what he intended as a compliment. And I’m happy to take it that way. I remember an adult telling me I was mature for my age when I was about 14. Great, I thought. Doesn’t help me get any friends.…
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A cantakerous review of a snack
What a morning! At least I got my now wimpy jog in at the beginning. But my mood is still cranky, so I’ll take it out on a huge corporation that helped my morning be less than perfect. So, Emerald snacks has this “breakfast on the go!” thing that I’ve been curious about. It’s always…
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Blue Moon Ranch and live alpacas
I had decided that my stargazing, herding culture would herd alpacas instead of sheep. Just to be different and because I’d read they were very intelligent and social. Sounds like a nice group for my very philosophical, regretful culture who are looking forward to the day they can redeem themselves from a genocide and get…
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Fiber arts in world building
I like to knit. It does a lot of things for me. I decided to take it up instead of doing Mahjong or Solitaire or other memory/puzzle games that I used to “defrag” my brain. That way, I’d be increasing a useful skill, and milestones would be things that I could actually use myself or…
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Spring break, not just for kids.
This morning, I didn’t have to drive anyone to school. Oh, I did wake up at 6, and wished my other girls a good day, but then I went back to bed. For a whole hour. It was such a relief, because getting kids to school is much more than driving them. It’s waking up a six…
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Goodbye to my Grandad
He was 94 years old. He’d been on hospice for over a year and a half. During that time, he broke his hip and got it fixed – with congestive heart failure – and lived several more months. He wasn’t bed ridden until the last ten or so days. The last thing I remember of…