Never a boring minute

In a bazillion years, when life gets slower, I'll be more consistent with posting to my blog. I think that means never. Life doesn't slow down, and that's a good thing. Inactivity is boredom. The good thing is, my life is never boring.

I'm working two jobs, Bryan is cutting back on his current job to start a company, I've got a short story getting published and I'm still shopping my first novel to publishers. The two jobs-thing is taking all my time right now - all that's not devoted to the kids, that is. Fortunately, one job is temporary and ends in 2 1/2 weeks, so things will get markedly more sane then, although we'll be slightly poorer as well, since that's when Bryan's hours cut back. But we'll do fine. Bryan's company has a great start and I'm predicting even better things to come. And I'm already planning that my brilliant sister will help them get organized on the business end. All those engineers will need her incisive mind to control their practical idealism. It does no good to build the product if you don't actually find the buyers for the product. They're not Kevin Costner.

The kids are adorable as usual. Alex and Jamie love kindergarten - art, gym and recess in particular. Because they compete with each other to tell me things, I actually get to hear what happens in their days. Amelia never told me anything much about school unless I was really lucky and patient. Amelia loves her second grade teacher, who apparently is an A+ teacher. The gym teacher, whom everyone loves, is an Ax (times) teacher - one step ahead of A+, according to Amelia.

Halloween is around the corner, so Bryan and I are working on costumes, with Auntie Di's able help on a Supergirl costume. Jamie wants to be a deep sea explorer and Alex a ghost. We tried convincing all of them to be ghosts, but no luck.

Time (time, time) is on my side (yes it is)

I keep telling myself that anyway. Somehow, with four hours every morning to do things, I still feel rushed. Am I adding more to my to-do list or am I just inefficient?

I am getting things done though. In the middle of laundry right now, paid some bills, and will get to finishing my short story today. Along with that, I need to send out some info on three workshops I'm doing for a woman starting up a company in the area. I guess there's more on my plate than I had before.

The kids are loving school so far, although the boys say circle time is "stupid." We agreed to amend that to, "We don't like circle time as much." Their primary objection to it appears to be that they can't talk incessantly - the curse of multiples is to work to be heard above their siblings. Only the fit survive. Apparently, Darwin is not a consideration at circle time.

I got two agent rejections in the past week. Stinks, especially because it draws my attention from writing. I don't want an agent, I want a personal assistant. One who can find the agents for me, prepare the submissions, track everything, and file the rejections. Hopefully one who will eventually deal with an acceptance someday too. If he or she can help with the laundry, that would heaven.

Buzzer just went off on the sheets in the dryer. Gotta go be productive with my time.

Back to work and school

Summer vacation's over. My three kids caught the bus this morning, the boys for the first time. Everyone was excited, including Mom. And I was the only one who cried too, which was good. Amelia was a great big sister, showing her brothers the ropes on the bus. (Alex said, "Mommy, why does the bus have ropes?") Now I'm home, writing five actual pages of non-crap today. Wow.

The summer ended nicely, with us trying to spend a lot of time together doing fun things. As opposed to Mom yelling, "No, we don't hit or bite when someone sits on us." Sometimes, frankly, I don't blame them for hitting and biting. Not that they should do it, mind you, but the impulse is perfectly understandable. I'd be pretty pissed if someone threw a Lego creation at me too.

We had a cookie-and-milk stand on Monday, earmarking the money earned - a whole $4 (thank you, neighbors) for the Haven, a homeless shelter in the area. Tuesday, we went on a long hike, stopping a couple times for mini-snacks along the way. It was a gorgeous day and complaining was at a minimum. Couldn't ask for more than that. The highlight for me was finding our second snack stop at a place where the echo was amazing. The kids practiced their silliest sounds, just to hear the echo, then I persuaded them that echoes should be beautiful, so we sang. Loudly and sometimes out of tune, but joyfully and, to my heart if not my ears, beautifully.

So summer is over and it's back to getting things accomplished. The last two weeks, I got two rejections, one from the publishing house where my manuscript had gotten past the readers' review and to the editor-in-chief's desk. Disappointing, but I'm plugging along, having submitted it to three agents and a few more to go on the "A" list. We'll see and in the meantime, I'm back to writing more.

Summer begins...

Whew. The last few weeks have been a blur. The boys finished pre-school - our final helping days, field trips, last party, teacher gifts. It was busy and I could scarcely keep track of things. And they turned 5 with a birthday bash. 12 4 and 5 year-olds running around midday, and lots of relatives at night. My in-laws were here. I think we overwhelmed them with how insane things were. Probably scared them off, but it's normal for us here to go, go, go all day long and just collapse at night. We're not very exciting.

Then my oldest friend (not age-wise, but how-long-we've-been-friends-wise) visited with her husband and two little ones. Man, I'm glad my kids are getting older. I'm too tired to deal with three-year old tantrums any more. Five-year old tantrums seem much more manageable. Gives me some time to have a tantrum or two of my own. Just kidding.

Amelia's reaching the end of first grade as well. It's hard to rein in all the activities she's involved in or could potentially be involved in. We're doing too much I think. I'm contemplating our summer plans - the only thing we have scheduled is soccer camp for all three kids. Two different weeks, but the coaches are great and they have lots of fun, so it's worth the running around. They could also do a summer camp at the Montshire Museum but I'm wondering if even a week of that in August becomes too much. I was thinking of signing them up for swimming lessons, but am rethinking that now. Summer's for relaxing - I hate the idea that they'll be running from place to place and not get a chance to just play.

The hard part about summer is trying to find time for me to write. It's a challenge to feel like I can have an uninterrupted moment. The two projects I'm working on are going fairly well - I've hit a writing roadblock this week - no drive right now, but I think that's because of all the craziness of the past few weeks. I'm still plugging away.

I'm setting a goal for myself. Modest I think, but necessary to keep me moving - four pages written a day (1000 words). That's new pages, mind you, not editing. We'll see if it works.

Still waiting to hear back on the submission of my full MS to the publisher. Cross your fingers!

I've been tagged.

Thanks, Aasiyah. In a weird game of pyramid combined with tag and a little flavor of chain letters thrown in, one of my crit partners has tagged me, along with three other people, to list eight random things about myself. I then tag four more people, who have to check my blog for the rules, post their own list on their blog, and tag an additional four victims. Soon we'll take over the world.

So, in the spirit of cooperation, here are my eight random things:
1. I have an allergic reaction to some fresh fruits - apples, bananas, pears, and now strawberries are starting to give me problems too. My mouth starts to get numb and my throat gets scratchy. I can eat applesauce and canned pears - just not fresh. And organic, peeling them, whatever, doesn't seem to make a difference.

2. Guilty pleasure - I love teen movies - Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, of course, but also newer ones like Mean Girls, Clueless, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (hilarious).

3. Even though I try to do it three days a week, I hate running. But I love having gone running.

4. I frequently have dreams about having to find a home/moving into a new home/apartment. Usually in the dreams, I'm of college age, but with the same responsibilities I have now. One dream, I agonized over finding a roommate who wouldn't mind sharing space with my (then) one-year old daughter.

5. I usually have to read the end of the book first. I hate when I get attached to a character to whom really bad things happen which aren't resolved by the end.

6. I'm jealous that one of my dogs (Iris) likes my husband better than me. She likes me, just likes Bryan so much better.

7. I like chick music - Bonnie Raitt, Nanci Griffith, Dixie Chicks, Pretenders, Indigo Girls. I never could understand liking heavy metal.

8. I still believe that I can get back to my college weight even after three kids, one a twin pregnancy. (I have 8 pounds to go.)

There. Done. Now Diane, T.J., Tom, and Linda will get their turn, if they so choose.

Jamie's channeling Nigel...

Power is on, no pressing house issues - there are always house issues, but, for the moment, no pressing ones - so I'm finally back to blogging and Spinal Tap stories.

Bryan's frequently misplacing his tape measure, probably because the kids are fascinated with it and I suspect walk off with it on occasion. So Jamie, being the considerate boy that he is, wanted to help Daddy out and made him a new ruler. Upon presenting it to Daddy, Jamie pointed out that his ruler goes up to 13, since sometimes you want to measure things that are bigger than 12. Bryan and I agreed that it was very useful to be able to go past 12 when you need to. So yes, Diane, he did turn it up to 11.

Jamie and Alex have also been singing medleys of Jimmy Buffett tunes - Cheeseburger in Paradise and Fins, their two favorites. Right now, they admire their parents' cultural touchstones, but what will they prefer when they're 16?

Amelia hates missing all her brothers' adventures while she's in school and is looking forward to summer vacation. I anticipate and dread what they'll come up with during the summer.

Spinal Tap for 4-year olds - postponed till a later date

Bryan and I have moved beyond the aftereffects of the storm. The power was out for 5 days, with intermittent outages over the weekend. The bright side is we now have a generator and can weather future outages with much more grace than we have before. (Really, that's me - Bryan handles the unexpected much better.)

Now we're focusing on house issues. Our contractor has called, asking when we're ready for him to come back and fix a few things (the front half of the roof, the siding that's off). The work was waiting for us to get our butts in gear on a couple items - electrical power to the house being brought underground and settling some financial details. We definitely chose the right contractor. Dave's conscientious and detail-oriented and - most importantly - good at what he does. And he wants it done right, since his name's on it. So now we're moving to get all our ducks in a row so he can come back and finish.

Ironically, as I write this, my power just shut off.

I was going to write about Jamie's Spinal Tap moment, but that will have to wait until I call the power company and get the generator going.

Sigh.