My commute sucks: I stepped on two Legos and a hot wheel crossing the living room.

For job one I have a “board” I have to answer to, but as I can still ground them and determine when/what they eat, they keep their complaints to a minimum. For job two, my boss is a royal pain in the... do I know myself well or what.

The hours are forever: last time I checked, “mom” doesn’t have a day off…ever; and a writer isn’t done ‘til the voices stop (and scary as it sounds, I hope that never happens)

What can I say about co-workers: nothing out loud or they might come at me with a straight jacket—again those voices make for interesting water cooler talk.

Don’t even get me started on the pay scale!

On the upside, the dress code is extremely relaxed (shoes and bra totally optional). The workload is dispersed around the DVR. Coffee breaks whenever I want one. And for the time being I have minions.

Being a mom has rewards everyday and some that will come years later. Being a writer pretty much the same—and I get to blow stuff up (in writing, nothing has even been proven otherwise).

Over the weekend was my *gasp* 20-year high school reunion (yeah, now you have my age pinned down...LOL). The Dh, his brother and I all graduated together so really, it's a mini-reunion at every McDonald family function, but anyhoo... It ended up being a 3-day event; two of which I skipped :-)

Not digging the crowded bar scene--unless of course they're serving Saké-Sangrias and my girlfriends are there, the Friday night "a dude who graduated with us owns/works at—I never got that straight—a bar" was out (plus the kids had had a weird week already and I really needed to stay home--& that's the excuse I'm gonna stick to). The dh went to represent us both, so all was good. Saturday was the more formal/invitation sent portion that had our senior pics on the name tags—I still have the one from the ten-year, so I'll pass thankyouverymuch. (Plus we spent a much more productive evening procuring us a new ride!)

Cut to Sunday morning, the dh's bff from junior high (who went to high school with us too) planned a small brunch for the a handful of folks—I think it ended up being 14 peeps w/ spouses and a few kiddos. That, I went to. We drove out to Richardson (about an hour+ away) and met at Café Brazil. It was a pretty cool place. Don't know if there's one over by us or not, but we'll be looking for one as well as trying to get together with those guys over there again.

It was fun and great to see some people I haven't seen in years--one guy I've known since I was 9 so that's pretty weird. Another guy (JB) who was there is the man (teen at the time) responsible for the dh and I getting together--matter of fact he got the BIL and his wife together too, anyhoo... JB knows I write and was asking the dh about my books. He was going to ask me Friday or Saturday but as I played hooky he didn't get a chance so I brought him a copy of THE COWBOY PLAN , we talked very little about it. After that, didn't think much of it.

Next thing I know, I'm talking to the SIL and the book passes in front of my face. The dh is passing it around the table for all to see. Sure, I need to promo my books and sell them. Sure, I want people to read them, but it was the oddest thing for them to flip through the book and pick out passages—then look at me. I got all antsy and squirmy--don't get me wrong, I think it's great if they want to read/buy it. But it's still uber-strange when people you know are aware and acknowledge that you write--one of the... not really a drawback, just an affect... of not using a pen name.

If I'd really thought about it, I should have attended the reunion(s) and brought a box of books with me and sold them there ... from the sounds some were so drunk I might have been able to talk them into the entire case :-)

Ah, but now I *do* have another book or two in mind (I put to memory *all* the juicy details I learned and one thing's for sure—20 years ago a douche bag , still a douche bag [from what I heard] so there's still plenty fodder to go around!)

Some recent, some not so much--but all on my mind!

• 1. Go to the mall with teenagers. On a Saturday night (or go w/o teenagers on a Saturday night—the horror is just the same, though at least if yours aren’t there you can roll your eyes and tsk).
  
  2. Let go of the suitcase handle walking down the stairs—okay I was 14 and didn’t realize it would squoosh my brother up against the wall at the bottom (sorry bro).
  
  3. Say, “sure, I guess I can …” eight years later you’ll still be doing it.
  
  4. Play your “get out of jail” card too soon!
  
  5. Flip people off in the car in front of you (at least not where they can see it), you never know if they have a gun, or are your kid’s teacher—shudder.
  
  6. Give away the places where you hid all your Christmas gifts—it worked up ‘til now, why blow it! (and by "give away"--we're talking a physical removal of the hiding place).
  
  7. Be *so* specific with your kids about when they can get something—they can’t remember to turn in their homework the next day, but they sure as heck can remember 4 months ago you saying they can get a jersey if they leave you alone for five minutes.
  
  8. Be surprised when an off-hand remark about being a writer will get a 20 minute Q & A with the customer service agent—they like to read too, y’know.
  
  9. Speak what’s on your mind until you’re certain you’re *not* on speakerphone (funny how the dh stopped putting me on speaker).
  
  10. Name all your “bad” characters after old classmates—reunions come around every few years.

Please add anything you think should be added to the list

I know I watch too much TV. Am I going to change that, hells no! However, I will say there comes a time when watching too much is way more than a bad thing. Like, say, when someone rings your door at one in the morning and the entire household is asleep.

And for the record: no, Dude, I don't have your damn cell phone no matter what the frigging GPS tracking thingie says (I don't even know how that works—if it can get that specific that "my" house is where it supposedly is). And next time I catch you peeking into my car/van/truck 'cause you don't believe me, know that I have several baseball bats and even more boys who know how to swing them... HARD!

Note: so after I wrote this I turned the GPS thingie on my cell on and did a “locate”. It took several minutes to do its thing and when it finished it was unable to locate my phone—it went into stand-by before the search was done and made it void. Did it again—kept the phone “active” and low and behold it put it on my lot/property. I don’t know about y’all, but seeing how my cell went into stand-by uber-quick, someone was using it right when he located it—so he either came hours later or someone walking by tossed it. Dunno (and I *still* don’t have it).

How the TV watching plays in? Well if this happens (again when the ENTIRE house is sound asleep) and you can hear a car driving up and down the block, maybe not the same guy but a lot of traffic for one in the morning... And you'd watched the marathon-episodes of Criminal Minds earlier that day... And the doorbell wakes you from a deep sleep where you were prolly dreaming of said episodes... It makes it less than conducive to get back to that sound sleep. You can remember the details of each episode and how it can play out in this particular situation. (Or maybe you remember a book you read *years* ago where a person looks through the peephole only to get a bullet-hole for their trouble--the overactive imagination doesn't take a break 'cause you're sleeping, at least not for me) Then, yeah, sleep is definitely hard to come by.

Lest you fret, I didn't *actually* think said Dude would come back. I mean, who parks in someone's driveway then rings the bell if they're going to do "something". Still... read paragraph two. And I have a medium-size dog who goes apeshit over the slightest sound and another dog who will hang back and if need be chime in too (and she's even bigger).

And as I like to tie just about EVERYthing into writing, don't think for a second I won't use this somehow in the book I'm working on—but maybe not for a few days. Once I've gotten over the hands-still-shaking part of it all... it's so in!

Generally, I am a pantster when it comes to writing. I have whatever it was that sparked the story idea and, well hallloooo I write romance so I know they H/H end up together so I do have the ending, but past that, I don't do a whole lot of plotting. We've talked about this all before, I know. Yet, it seems to always surprise me when I look over my list of partially completed manuscripts. They always fall apart about the time when I need to know "more" and it's not jiving for me.

And yes, that whole, "if I know too much" syndrome is still very strong and prevalent. So at times it feels like a damned if I do, damned if I don't thing.
Every few months I pull up my sheet—just a single word doc, no spreadsheet—that lists each manuscript and where it's at with either word or page count. And every few months I try working on one or two and see if I can jump start it. I still like the premise for all the stories but sadly they do lack that spark that makes them go to "the end" .

I guess my 2011 goals should be to work on that list and nothing else. But that's where I'm at now, still working on a new WIP and still trolling my list of not-there-yets.

So it's 8 full months through the year and how have the goals been going?

Um, well... not so good as far as what I wrote down, but it hasn't been an all-together drag on the writing front. This year, I sold (and it's already been released) book 2 of the Paintbrush series. I have been diligently working on finding a home for a cozy I wrote (it's proving to be WAY harder than I anticipated!)

Lest we forget what I wrote:

at the January YR meeting we set our 2010 goals. Mine are as follows:

-- Write every week ... honest and true I write every day--haven't missed one since September--knockwood--but there's less pressure for weekly than daily, if I miss I don't have to beat myself up.

-- Get an agent ... self-explanatory

-- Sell to NY ... again, need I explain?!?!

-- Avoid umbrellas ... this is an inside joke. One gal, when I "don't get" her story, has waved an umbrella--among other things--at me :lol:

-- Get an office space ... I don't *need* one. I just really, really want one. I mean, do I really need to pay for space when I am home alone during the day... but I WANT it! A fellow writer gal has one and I am pea-green w/ envy

The writing every week fell by the wayside beginning of May. Can't say for sure why, but then out-of-school hit coinciding with the dh's summer gone-ness—sports is a year-round, but *really* busy in the summer business—and it crashed to a one sentence a week halt. I am glad to say I have been back at it with a vengeance and am working hard!

Like I said above, been trying for that agent thing and it's going... slowly!

Editors subs are in the same boat. I gotta get more active in pursuing that.

Did not get hit by any umbrella, though the threats have change to knee-whacking sticks so I must tread lightly! LOL

Office space... who am I kidding, I have a perfectly good desk in the converted dining room now office portion of our home. My butt in the chair is a bigger issue than the lack of four walls!

There are still a few months that I can/will work on this. And trust me, I *am* working on it!