Potpourri

* Good news on the picture front--I've talked Mate into a small camera, for me, because I'm tired of doing this shit on the blog. *woot* I'd love real pictures of the kids growing up again. (Yes, I know, this means I'm carrying around a phone, an iPod and a camera. That's not the point. The point is, I KNOW HOW TO USE EACH DEVICE WITHOUT HELP! Uhm-hm. You're feeling me now, aren't you?)

* Went to Big T's LAST Back-to-School night tonight. (He's on a 4x4 block, so each semester is actually four year-long classes.)
Big T, in accordance with his goals for high school, wanted to achieve a 4.0 (check) and he wanted to take an honors class. He's now in Honors Chemistry, and I'm a little trepidatious. (Don't care if that's a real word or not. Me likey.) His teacher is a nice guy, but, if I may borrow a phrase from about a thousand years ago, sort of a poindexter in his delivery--he doesn't hammer his main points with the mighty weapon of Thor, if you know what I mean, and he was VERY surprised to hear that T had an open IEP (and grateful for the heads up, bless him. Like I said, nice guy, but T usually needs a little drama with the presentation to be able to discern what's important from what's not). But that doesn't mean T can't do it--I have some faith. Of course it helped that the teacher before that was Big T's weight training teacher. Big T had this guy last year and dropped sixty pounds in a semester, and is now the program's success story. (*big wide grin* That's my boy, oh yeah, that's my boy.) So, hearing the weight training teacher congratulating me on what an awesome kid I had? Well, you know. It sort of gives me reason to think he really CAN do anything he puts his mind to.

* Also tried to enroll Squishy in Kindergarten. *sigh* *fume* After double checking on the website and making a phone call, I got there to discover that they'd pushed the open enrollment date back to February. I've got a date on February the second, and I'll go in there with my remarkable packet to prove that she's human, and some paperwork that I'm having Mate fill out because no one can read my handwriting. *sigh* She's going to be in full day Kindergarten. I sort of hate that part, because I LIKE the idea of a half-day Kindergarten, but I LIKE Zoomboy's school, and I want her to be in the same place. Chicken and Big T were in two different schools for all but two years of their schooling--and there's good reasons for that, but it's been a COLOSSAL pain in the ass. Next year marks the first time we'll actually have three kids in two places instead of four kids in four. (Big T will have his license by then and be enrolled in Junior College and have a job. I think. The level of responsibility this entails, vs. what he has now secretly makes my head explode. I know he can do it, because *I* did it, and I'm pretty sure I was nowhere near as together as he is--but I also had four years of balancing drama, band, and whatever was going on in my pointy little head at the time, and I don't know if he's done all that. We'll figure it out. We always do.)

* Talker's Redemption is doing pretty well (cross fingers!) so far. People seem to like it--I'm getting a LOT of reports about how painful it is, so I think I've done my job. It's selling pretty well on two fronts, too--but for some reason it took forEVER to hit All Romance e-Books, and apparently that's the BFD of e-book sales right off the bat. *shrugs* Hey--people like it. I'm happy.

* Oh yeah-- true to form and my inability to actually stick to a timeline, I took a better look at the paperwork for "I Love You, Asshole!" (the Marcus & Phillip novella) and it's going to be out in MAY instead of March, like I originally thought. Oh well, nothing going on in March, but two books in April--I'll just have to deal, yeah?

* Yeah--I've been having some fun with internet Tarot... I'm kind of digging it, actually. It's all about symbols and interpretation and using basic facts to extrapolate a larger truth--sort of an English Major's wet dream, actually (although I'm sure there are male English Majors out there who are just big-eyed and horrified at the thought that anything so off the key could possibly be in their millieu. Screw 'em. I'm sticking to the idea that interpreting Tarot is the same thing as that big ol' volume of symbols that used be used in order to write and interpret Japanese Haiku in competition. It's a legit form of interp, and it's a hell of a lot of fun!)

* I'm working on a shawl now in Lion Brand Homespun. God, I used to love this yarn. now I can't finish it fast enough. It's making me CRAZY, but I think the recipient will love it. It's a mitered triangle in garter stitch, starting with a WHOLE LOT of stitches and then decreasing once on either end and twice in the middle for every other row. The sheer deliciousness of this pattern comes from the fact that there are fewer stitches every other row. Doesn't sound like much, but it's sort of like writing a book. You push, and it's ponderous, and it hurts your shoulders, then it picks up a little faster and a little faster and a little faster and then... you're rolling that boulder down hill in the final stretch! LURVE that feeling!

* Speaking of... I'm in the peak of the hill part for Living Promises... and that puppy is about to go downhill into the speed part really soon! WHHEEEEEE!!!!

Oh yeah-- and THIS is what happens when you're up at two in the morning, trying to hit your target of 4K in a day:



Well... at least Christopher Walken didn't mention a watch...
And that's all I got... not bad considering the fact that at first I thought I had nothing at all!