Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Happy Birthday to my baby!



In the midst of a family crisis and a short mini vacation, I didn't have time to wish my little girl a happy birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYANNA!!! After a very rough start in life, Ryanna has grown into a very intelligent, strong, beautiful little girl. I love you baby, happy birthday!!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Dumbest Mistake of the Week Award

Yep, that's right, I won it...I am officially an idiot this week :) I was buzzing right along this week, making what I hope are the final round of major edits in my novel. Aside from formalizing the tone of the dialogue I also changed the background of my main character, a change that ended up being a lot more intensive than I realized since every time my character mentioned anything involving her past, I had to change it. Well, I was feeling pretty proud of myself having gotten through 130 pages of my 317 page manuscript in just 2 days.

I went to bed, tossed and turned as I usually do since my brain really takes off as soon as I try to sleep, and I finally figured out what was niggling at the back of my subconscious. While doing this new round of edits, I hadn't come across any of the new scenes from the last round of edits. How I missed this at the time, I have no idea, because the first three chapters of my book were pretty much entirely rewritten - but this is where the idiotic part comes in.

I got back up, (it was now 1am), turned the computer on, searched through my files....and figured out that I do, indeed, deserve the Dumbest Mistake of the Week Award. I had spent the last several days editing THE WRONG FILE!!!! Explaining how this happened would take longer than I have patience for at the moment :) Suffice it to say, many writers, myself included, keep a copy of every version of their manuscript that ever comes into existence. My mistake was naming two of them "Final Version." Although I thought I was safe as I have changed the name of my novel from The Courtland Necklace to Treasured Lies. Yeah...not so much :)

Nope, I opened The Courtland Necklace version (a file I haven't touched in months) and had been happily editing away, while the actual Final Version of Treasured Lies sat alone and unrevised. Now I get to go through and compare both copies (even with the help of the handy Merge tool in Word, this is going to take days) while I make sure that the correct edits are being left and the incorrect are being deleted so I end up with the version I want. :)

Thank you, thank you *she takes a bow*

Stay tuned next week....I'm sure I can top myself ;-)

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Lazy Days

I have spent the better part of the last 4 hours playing around with my blog layout...I'm so productive :D I figured I'd play around for a bit and then get the house clean real quick before my husband got home, but he just called and is on his way home. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do? I could run around and clean real quick....or I could just sit here and play some more :)

Oye, the kids are fighting over a PopTart like rabid dogs....I do feed them, really I do :)

Oh! Very excited! I got an email this morning from one of my writing professors. I had written to ask her if she would do a letter of recommendation for me - I wasn't sure she'd remember me, but she did, and she said she will, and now I've got 3 letters (all I need) and once those are sent in and my transcripts are received, all my paperwork will be in. I can't wait to register for my classes! I know, I'm a little weird. But I love school, I really do. Yes, it's stressful, especially trying to get through a masters program with 2 small children who demand all my attention, but I really love learning new things and the feeling of accomplishment I get when I complete an exceptionally great paper or difficult course. And going through all of that work and finally getting to hold that degree in my hand....what a great feeling!

Plus, by the time this degree is done, both of my children will be in school full time and I might actually be able to get a job and use one of my degrees :)

Okay, I guess I'll go do the dishes....if I must....I guess...........................

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Did ya miss me?

Okay, seriously, how sad is this? It's been so long since I posted that I couldn't remember how to get on this thing - I didn't even remember the email I used to sign up. It's taken me about an hour now to figure it out. I even had a comment back in March and never responded. Heck, I didn't even know about it until today. Yes, I'm a sad, sad little blogger.

So, since it's been so long, what is new in my life....

Well, to put it in a nutshell, I have the worst luck in the world. The dumbest things happen to me. It's genetic I think. We call it "the Marquis luck." My father has it, my grandfather has it...I was hoping I'd marry out of it, but nope! I brought it with me.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about - typical things that happen to those with "the Marquis luck":

My grandfather is on a big ship headed to Korea, sets sail with another ship, big hurricane hits, one ship gets blown to Hawaii where they repair the boat, spending a few weeks in beautiful Hawaii, and then they go home. My grandfather's boat gets blown to the Phillippines where they stay for a bit and then go on their way to Korea.

My poor father - every store he goes in, every package he picks up - is either broken or missing something - every time. He once got something (I can't even remember what) that was missing all the nuts and bolts. So he goes to the hardware store, picks up a package of what he needs out of a bin of hundreds, comes home....only to discover that the one bolt he actually needed is missing from the package he picked. It got so bad that we used to wait for him to chose something off the shelf and then we'd pick something else.

And then me...well, take my wedding for example. My husband was driving to TN from Utah - his truck breaks down in Kansas. We happen to know some people there, so they pick him up and take him to the airport. His plane is delayed. He finally gets on, sits on the runway for over an hour, then his flight is canceled. He does eventually make it to TN the day before the wedding. Most of our guests' planes were diverted as far away as Canada because of a hurricane - but yeah, it did turn out okay in the end.

Fast forward a few years, we are in our first home, destitute college students with a 6 month old baby, my car breaks down, needs a transmission - my sweet brother pays for it....3 weeks after the car is fixed there is a major windstorm. I come home from work, think it would be better to park in the driveway instead of on the street where I always park because there are 2 large trees there - pull into the driveway.... a few hours later, our neighbor's tree falls on my car, totalling it - and then someone stole the radio out of the car (hey, the windows were already broken for them, why not?!) - Then...no one's insurance would cover it because we only had liability and our homeowner's said it was the neighbor's tree and therefore their responsibility, and their insurance said it was an act of God and they didn't have to cover it.

Fast forward again - to a few weeks ago. We are doing really well, making good money, paid off all bills, buying a new house and looking to buy a new truck - 7 days from closing on our house, my husband gets fired because the guy he was working with shut the wrong valve on their tool and caused half a million dollars worth of damage. Our lender pulled our loan approval for the house because of the job change, we can't get a car loan because he hasn't been at his new job long enough, and our medical insurance from the old job decided not to cover a bunch of stuff and so now we once again owe people money.

But, as crappy as my luck is, most of the time...I think...things turn out for the best. Who knows...maybe we would have gotten into that house and it would have turned into a huge money pit - maybe our new truck would have been a lemon - my husband is home a lot more, where he was always on the road before...so I've gotta believe that life will turn out just fine. :)

In the meantime, we'll keep plugging along as we always do. I'm attempting to write again, will most likely be returning to school next month to get my masters in library sciences (if I can get all my paperwork in on time), and both of my kids will be in preschool starting in Sept so I will have a few hours EVERY DAY all by myself!!!! What more could I ask? :)