Cynical Woman

We have moved!

2009-11-10T10:51:00.001-05:00

Cynical Woman has moved! This will be the last post to this blog. Our new blog and website are now at www.cynicalwoman.com. You'll be able to find everything there including The Adventures Of Cynical Woman webcomic, Move It Mama Monday, announcements about my latest books and writing projects, and all the other usual insanity. So be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com from now on! Thanks!

Episode 41 - Halloween!

2009-10-27T05:40:00.000-05:00

Oy, I hurt. I had this brilliant idea that I could do the text for the cartoon in Adobe, which would look much better than my own hand lettering. But then I got the cartoon scanned in and I thought, "Hey, if I can do the lettering in Photoshop, why not do the screen tones too? I know I've got a tutorial on that somewhere!" Several hours later…

I'm kicking myself because I should have just done the lettering and let it go at that, but nooooooo! I had to do the screen tones. And then I made the mistake of resizing the image down and then I saved it over the larger version of the file!! That hurts because now if I ever want to edit this particular episode again, I'll have to start all over from the beginning, scanning in the line work and then adding the text and then adding the screen tones…

Ugh.

So anyway, I have a question. Right now, I'm resizing the cartoon to 1200×410 pixels. This is the size you see after you click on the thumbnail. I've got a giant flat screen monitor, so I have no idea really if this is too small or too large for anyone else viewing the cartoon. Let me know if you'd like to see the cartoon a little larger, or smaller, because the size I shrink things down to affects how the screen tones work (and yes, I'm just stupid enough to try that technique again, because in spite of the time I wasted this evening, I really like how this turned out).

Enjoy your Halloween!

Sunday Contentments - Creative Endeavors

2009-10-25T14:04:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday afternoon. I'm on the couch with a cup of joe and my netbook. I've got four kids screeching and howling like a pack of wild monkeys in my living room. Oy vey!

In spite of the noise and the squabbling, I'm having a good day. Here's my list of what gives me that warm fuzzy feeling at the moment. It's mostly a list of creative endeavors that have paid off recently.

New website - okay, so only the blog is up, and it's nowhere near it's final configuration, but still, it looks nice, and I think if I keep working on it, in another week or so I will have finally set myself up to have all my disparate blogs rolled into one. That will be quite an accomplishment.

Pumpkin carving - we went to a pumpkin party last night. In theory, the kids were supposed to help scrape out the pumpkin guts. You know that didn't happen. While the kids ran amok, a dozen adults got down on the kitchen floor (Oy, my knees!) and scraped out pumpkins. Then we consulted with the kids on what to carve on the pumpkins, and because no sane adult there was keen on handing anyone under the age of 30 a knife, we sent the kids away and carved the designs. I drew the designs on the girls' pumpkins free form, after looking at a couple of stencils, and I have to say they came out pretty good. They're sitting on the porch right now (and Princess' is currently infested with ants. Oy!).

Cooking - I'm going to indulge in some cooking today, making a pumpkin souffle. I only make souffle in October, after I'm done scraping pumpkin guts out. It's going to be a messy job, since I still haven't sorted and washed everything (I just sort of threw the bag of guts in the fridge when we got home last night). But the souffle will taste wonderful, and it will be well worth the effort.

T-shirts - Target had some cool Halloween t-shirts on sale this week, so I picked up a couple to add to my collection (yes, I collect t-shirts). Very spooky, retro themed graphics on bold colors. Very freaky-chic looking. My kinda clothing, you know? I love my t-shirts.

Ugh. The girls in the living room are all arguing, necessitating the need for me to get off the couch and referee. But that's okay. In fifteen minutes, they're all going to someone else's house, and I am content with that.

Freaky Friday - Homemade Halloween!

2009-10-23T21:51:00.001-05:00

Well, this is being posted late, but it can't be helped. I've been tinkering with the new blog over at www.cynicalwoman.com and hopefully this post makes it over there tonight. Also, I was a little busy this afternoon finishing up a special project, namely some homemade Halloween decorations. You see, it is my goal to have a Halloween display just as cool and impressive as the one my neighbors set up in their yard. In case you missed the previous Freaky Friday post, their Halloween decorations look like this...

And at night, it looks like this...

And like this...

Not to be outdone, the girls and I sat down and worked up a few decorations of our own. They look like this...

And this...

Ummmmm... Okay, so maybe we have a few years to go before we catch up with the neighbors. But you have to admit, the mummy looks pretty neat! Anyway, I hope you have a Freaky Friday (what's left of it anyway)!

Episode 40 - Occupational Hazzards

2009-10-20T05:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, this really is a problem around this household. Finding time for... well, let's just say finding time for what's important.

It's hard for me to find time alone with the Hubster. In addition to the kids, we both put in a lot of hours at work, and since I'm usually up two hours before Hubster is, I'm usually out cold two hours before he is. We really do have to schedule sex if it's going to happen. Oh, and buy a nice bottle of wine so I can relax, because between work and chasing after the kids, I'm wound tighter than a cuckoo clock by the end of the day.

Anyway, speaking of work, I have four new stories for sale with Logical Lust. These stories originally ran on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, they are scorching hot, and I think you will enjoy them. Check them out here!

Move It Mama Monday! What Wii game should I get next?

2009-10-19T05:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I've had a week with Wii Fit Plus, and I do enjoy it, but I have to admit to some disappointment. For starters, I was expecting to be able to access all the different exercises and games in the "Make My Own Routine" section. No such luck. For some reason, Wii Fit Plus only lets you build personal routines using the yoga and strength exercises it seems, in spite of the fact that the mini routines already built into the game include the original cardio games and the new Wii Fit Plus games. I was also hoping for more cardio activities in the new Wii Fit Plus, but there seems to be a real lack of those. The closest I've found to new cardio games is the bicycle game (which lets you race all over the island searching for flags to tag before racing to the finish line) and the rhythm kung fu, which really isn't all that cardio intensive. There is a variation on the running in the My Wii Fit games, which offers new routes to run and then quizzes you on what you saw while you were running. That's nice, but would it have killed Nintendo to include new boxing and step routines? Aside from the Island Lap in the run, the boxing is the most cardio intensive game they've got, and I do it so frequently I can pretty much do it with my eyes close now. And the step routines never, NEVER change. These two things both need a serious update.

Having said that, I'm thinking of picking up yet another Wii fitness related game, and I'm trying to decide which one to get. There are four I have my eye on, including:

ES Sports Active: More Workouts - True, the original game did kill my knees, but EASA definitely has more upper body strength building exercises in it, and I like the sports drills. It's a bit expensive ($36.99 on Amazon.com), but I hear the new version includes stretching exercises, which would be a serious bonus. The game is only available for pre-order right now. It comes out 17 November.

My Fitness Coach - I've seen this online before, and wondered about it. Apparently, if you've got a step, a balance ball, a heart rate monitor, and hand weights, you can get a real workout with this game. I have all these items, so this would seem like a good choice. The game doesn't make much use of the Wii balance board according to reviews I've read, and it's an awful lot like a gym workout, but those people who like it swear by it. It also includes stretching exercises, again something I would like to see show up in exercise programs. The cost on this one is much lower, $19.49 on Amazon.com.

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout - the companion game to My Fitness Coach. This one does use the balance board, and looks to have lots of boxing games in it, along with some other exercises. The emphasis does seem mainly on boxing, from the reviews I've read, but as I mentioned above, the boxing in Wii Fit is one of the most intense cardio workouts available in that game, and I get a decent workout from that, so I'm not adverse to trying more boxing games. This one also gets pretty high ratings, and the price is $19.49 on Amazon.com.

Yoga - a fitness game that looks to include as much game as fitness. From what I've read online, you can choose to play the game whereby you explore the yoga temple and unlock new yoga challenges as you seek to gain the level of yoga master. There are a variety of settings to work out in, and the game definitely uses the balance board to check your balance and steadiness in each pose. The pluses on this one? I like yoga. I think it's a great strength and stretching workout, and this game looks to offer many more poses than the ones that show up in Wii Fit. I really like the idea of having an exotic environment to explore as well as a game goal to achieve while I work out. The cons? I hate the look of the stick-thin supermodel who's the spokesperson for this game. Honestly, I'm a generous size 12. I work out and I eat healthy and I have been a size 12 since my early teens, and all I can think when I see a model that thin is, "Someone's been starving themselves!" Thus I despise having emaciated runway models tell me how to be fit and healthy. It smacks of hypocrisy to me. If she shows up a lot in the game, it's going to be a real turn-off to me. Like EASA More Workouts, this game isn't out until 17 November, and it's the same price($36.99 on Amazon.com).

After looking through all this, I think what I'll end up doing is order My Fitness Coach and Gold's Gym Cardio Workout at the beginning of next month. The fact that I can get both these games for only a few dollars more than one of the other two games, and the fact that My Fitness Coach and Gold's Gym Cardio are already available make them the obvious choice. I'll try them out, see if I get the kind of workout I want with this combo, and then reconsider how badly I might want the other two games.

Sunday Contentments - Chilly weather

2009-10-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

The weather outside isn't quite frightful, yet, but man is there a nip in the air! I'm snuggled up on the couch in one of my favorite sweaters, contemplating throwing one of my mom's crocheted blankets over top of me for additional warmth. The tip of my nose is cold and my fingers are a little clumsy. Methinks it may be time to tell Hubster to turn up the heat. I wonder if he will interpret that message to mean, "Sit the kids down in front of a movie and carry me up to the bedroom, you steamy hunk of stud-love!" One can only hope. In the meantime, here's this Sunday's contentments:

Healthy children - Pixie came down with strep throat earlier this week, and boy was that ever fun. Not. Her temperature got as high as 104 degrees at one point, and she had more than a few crying jags and melt downs because she didn't feel good. She stayed home from preschool two days, spending her time in a bean bag chair in front of the TV. Both evenings, she crashed on the couch, a sure sign she didn't feel well. That kid doesn't nap for anything! But now she's up and running around, keeping pace with Princess, and in general driving me nuts.

"Mama! I'm sick!"

Mommy moments - one night, while Pixie was sick, I woke up at 3AM to hear her crying in her bed. I got up, took her temperature (this was when it hit 104), gave her a little Children's Motrin and brought her into bed with her father and I. She could never quite settle down, but didn't want to go back to her own bed. At one point, she turned to me in the dark and asked, "So how was your day, Mama?" "My day was just fine, sweet heart," I replied. "That's good," she said, and then she finally decided she wanted to sleep back in her own bed.

Reading to my kids - I found my copy of "Where the Wild Things Are" this week and read it to Princess. She was fascinated with the artwork, and had all sorts of questions about the monsters and Max., then wanted to know if she could write a book of her own. She's already written a couple of books, collections of drawings with some words scribbled in them. We staple them together, but I think the next time she does one, I'm going to scan it into the computer and make it a PDF to send out to family and friends. The Princess can claim she's "self-published!"

Speaking of being published... Yes, work accomplishments are qualify as contentments in my opinion, and I'm very contented to note that this week I had four stories published with Logical Lust. What makes this especially sweet is that these are some of my best work ever, but two of the stories were usually rejected by anthology editors because the tone of the stories is rather tragic. Apparently not many publishers like to take a chance on tragedy, even when it's well written. However, Logical Lust was more than happy to work with me, so these stories and two others (those two are comedies) are now available for sale. I hope they do well!

Local festivals - we missed the Greek Festival this weekend, due to the fact I wasn't feeling so well yesterday morning, but we did get out to the local Egyptian Fest. It was much smaller than the Greek Fest (which is huge), and we got there pretty late, but we managed to pick up some food to take home to eat. Actually, what we did was go through their cafe line and wipe the whole thing out! The food was good, and exactly what I needed that evening. We had a friend over, and spent the evening eating falafels and kashta and stuffed grape leaves while watching the Virginia Tech game (VT lost, but oh well). A wonderful evening, if I do say so myself.

There's lots of other things to be content about, like the art projects the kids and I have been working on, and the costumes we'll be sewing later this afternoon, but I think I'll stop here for today. I want to curl up with a hot cup of tea now and just enjoy a few moments of quiet.

Saturday Art - Summoned and Bound

2009-10-17T06:26:00.001-05:00

There's something very naughty and very pretty over at my erotica blog today. It's a bit of artwork I did yesterday, a male nude. You can find it here. Enjoy!

Freaky Friday - I'm not the only freak in the neighborhood!

2009-10-16T05:23:00.000-05:00

I love my neighbors. Love, love, love them. From the nice lady who lives across the street and gives my girls books and dolls to the couple next door who's kids have babysat for us since Princess was a tiny tot to the woman down the street who runs Pixie's preschool, I love them all. I live in a great neighborhood, and I'm very grateful for the good neighbors I have who never once complain about my freakish ways.

During the month of October, however, I am especially grateful for the family who lives next door to us, because they put up one killer Halloween display.

They start decorating their yard at the beginning of the month, but honestly, preparations start long before then. All through August and September, whenever I'd walk by their house and see the garage door open, I'd catch glimpses of stuff being built - tombstones, graveyard fences, an animatronic witch. My neighbors do buy some of their Halloween stuff, but a lot of it is home made, and the stuff they buy they tend to modify to make it even better.

All through October, their yard just gets creepier and creepier. Every afternoon when the girls get home from school, they ask if they can go next door and see the neighbors' yard (there is always something new). I've told my neighbors they need to sell tickets to people for tours of their display, and my girls would be first in line to get season passes. We really can't stay away from their yard!

They also decorate inside the house, which has given me a heart attack on more than one occasion. Every year, without fail, I look next door and see someone dark and disturbing lurking in their sunroom. I get all panicked, thinking either a burglar or a serial killer has broken into their house. Then just as I'm about to dial 911, I realize it's October and the strange man in the dark trench coat and black hat is just one of their animatronic figures they've put up inside the house.

The decorations in the yard are usually done to a certain point by the last week of Halloween. Then the day of Halloween, my neighbors pull out all the stops and set up all their animatronic, life-size figures in the driveway, or else they convert their garage into a haunted house that visitors can walk through. One year, they set up their entire house as a tourist attraction. It was nuts!

This year, my neighbors have outdone themselves. The graveyard in the front has a large "stone" entry way, decorated with skeleton bones and body parts, topped by a vulture. They've got an evil zombie scarecrow in one corner of the graveyard, and lots of new tombstones and skeletons and ghosts set up. I'm still waiting to see the animatronic witch. From what my neighbors tell me, she's going to be spectacular!

Here are a few pics of my neighbors' freaky yard ;)

You see how huge this is? I want a front yard just like this someday!

Latest releases - Mundania e-books are now on sale!

2009-10-15T17:08:00.001-05:00

Last month, I podcasted four unusual stories for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. These were the Mundania stories, the only stories ever to appear on Heat Flash that were not science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Yes, I actually wrote four, count them, FOUR contemporary erotica stories, and they were just released for sale today in e-book format from Logical Lust Publications.

You can buy the stories here at Logical Lust, either individually for $1.99 or the entire set of four for $4.99. Not sure if you want to buy these lovely, lusty, scorching tales? Then listen to them here first on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast! The stories are:

A Man in a Kilt - Jimmy's a rough and tumble Scotsman who thinks he can handle any woman. Then he meets Nan, a friendly domme who teaches him otherwise... (Fem domme; BDSM)

Rapacious Mrs. Horner - Diane Horner is a forty-something divorcee with a serious addiction to gay porn and painful broken heart. When her son's best friend comes onto her, what will she turn him away or eat him alive? (F/m; older woman/younger man)

Diablo - Spoiled rich kid Randall wants one thing and one thing only - Pony Boy, the hired hand at Polk's Stables, down on his knees and ready to please. When Pony Boy refuses to be tamed, will Randall break him instead? (M/m; warning - scorching hot m/m erotica but also controversial)

A Room with a View - With the economy in the toilet, Darcy Daniels has lost her job, her car, her apartment, and now her pride as she's forced to move back in with her parents. Then she discovers her old bedroom window looks right into the window of the boy next door. Is he watching her at night? Is she going to watch him? And if their fathers hate each other, do they even have a chance at getting together? (Older woman/younger man; voyeurism; sex toys; even a touch of romance in this one!)

A note about these stories: if you're looking for humor, definitely check out A Man in a Kilt and A Room with a View. If you like your erotica edgy and dangers, then go for broke with Rapacious Mrs. Horner and Diablo. And remember, you can also get all four books together in one collection, and listen to them on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast before you buy!

Writing Wednesday - Pimping one's self

2009-10-14T05:22:00.000-05:00

Over the summer, I spent some time trying to do a bit of promo for my work. If there's one area where I really fall down as a writer, it's promotion. Yeah, I blog and I twitter and I podcast and I do the web comic, but there are facets of promo that I don't do often enough, like participate in Yahoo groups or hold contests or send out for reviews.

So I've been thinking lately of ways I can improve my promotion plan. Yes, I have a plan, or rather, I should have a plan. I sort of have a plan, but I need to sit down and redo it and make it better - easier to execute, defined goals, etc. The problem is finding time to do all this planning of promotion and executing of promotion and still get my writing done. So I'm looking into simple tasks that I can do that won't tax my time or my brain. My initial ideas so far are...

Send out one of my books for review every Friday. I have a list of review websites, and if I just took 30 minutes each Friday, I could send these books out and maybe get a slew of reviews. It takes time to get a review done; most places take 8-12 weeks to get a review done. But if I start sending out now, I could have a ton of reviews coming my way in a couple months. That can't be bad.

Continue to blog. Right now, I'm doing at least 3 regular posts a week here and my weekly post on Oh Get A Grip. I'd like to add one more regular post to this, and then I think my blogging efforts would be complete. A good blog would (hopefully) keep people coming back for more, but a good blog has to be maintained with regular content. I want to be certain I provide that content.

Continue to cartoon. Since the start of school, I've set aside one day a week to work on the web comic, and so far I've been able to keep a regular schedule. Hopefully, with regular drawing, I'll get faster and better at producing the comic, so I won't have to spend an entire work day on it, but for now, I'm willing to spend a day to get this thing done!

Revamp the website. I've talked about this before, but now have finally started to take action on it. On Friday, I set in motion a transfer of all my domain names to GoDaddy.com, because I know GoDaddy plays nice with WordPress (it better play nice!), and because I can host multiple domain names on one hosting package. Once the domain name transfer is complete, the actual website revamp begins. I've got the domain name www.cynicalwoman.com, which I've used for years for a flash website I did way back when. I love the work I did on that, but updating a flash website is a bitch and a half for me, especially since I no longer understand the latest version of Action Script (a situation I'll need to correct very soon, it seems). I want an html website with a WordPress blog, and I want the website to combine most of my current websites - www.helenehmadden.com, www.cynicalwoman.blogspot.com, www.theadventuresofcynicalwoman.blogspot.com - into one place. I've pretty much stopped posting anything over at www.helenehmadden.com because it's too much effort to maintain a separate writing website from my personal blog. And besides, I've pretty much effectively branded myself as Cynical Woman, stay-at-home mom and erotica writer, so why not go with that?

Once the website revamp is done, I'll add to my list of promo goals. But for now, I think this is enough. Hopefully, I can get a working website up and running by Halloween. Let's see what I can do.

Now, I want all of YOU guys to tell me something. If you're a writer, what kind of promo do you do that works well for you? What promo have you done that turned out to be a huge waste of time? And readers, what kind of promo would you like to see me do? Give me some ideas of things you would enjoy, because one thing I don't want to do is annoy the crap out of readers with bad promo. (Please, please, please leave comments on this one, because I really do want to know!)

Episode 39 - Who's Yo Mama?!

2009-10-13T05:38:00.001-05:00

One day, this is going to happen to me. It just has to. In addition to reading my stories aloud to catch mistakes, I also record most of them for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast (which is a free weekly audio show I do that you can download to your MP3 player or listen to on your computer, and if you're not listening you should be!). Most days I only write or record when the kids are in school or in bed. When they're home and awake, I'm so busy taking care of them, I don't have time to do anything else. But mark my words, one of these days they're gonna walk in on me while I'm working...

You may have noticed that this cartoon is done "old style," which is to say I did it on the computer using Manga Studio 4. I still love MS4, and much prefer the way the cartoons look when I do them on the computer, but the fact is, it takes too long to do the cartoons this way. This particular cartoon was penciled back in April, and then inked yesterday morning. Had I done this by hand, it would have taken me an hour at most to do the inking and then the cartoon would be finished. In Manga Studio 4, the inking takes longer, plus there are extra steps I do to add the tones and text balloons, which is part of what makes the digital cartoons so pretty. What to do? Continue drawing by hand, but draw better! It'll come with practice. Meanwhile, I'll just use Manga Studio for other projects, since I'd really like to do some Manga style artwork, and this is the best program I've got for inking.

Anyway, here is this week's cartoon, and I hope you enjoyed it ;)

Move it Mama Monday! Wii Fit Plus

2009-10-12T05:28:00.000-05:00

So I was sick two weeks, and not getting much moving around done, certainly not getting any serious exercise done. This is to be expected when one is sick. The general idea is to rest rather than run one's self into the ground. But resting for two weeks left me feeling like a big squishy slug. Not a feeling I enjoy.

Still, I couldn't seem to throw off the lethargy from being sick. Then Wii Fit Plus showed up in my mailbox, and suddenly I had the urge to get up and move.

I've been waiting for Wii Fit Plus ever since I found out about it earlier this summer. I pre-ordered my copy at the beginning of the month, eager to try it out, and then waited and waited and stayed in bed sick. I just happened to be in a slow recovery phase when the game arrived, so I decided to try just a few minutes, because you know I've been sick and I don't want to overdo it. 45 minutes later, I was sweating and woozy and addicted to Wii Fit Plus.

Obviously, I enjoy the new game. After having worked with the original Wii Fit since last February, I was getting bored, which is never good for a fitness routine. The preview shots and videos of Wii Fit Plus intrigued me and made me curious to see if Nintendo had done a massive overhaul of the game. There were certain deficiencies in Wii Fit that I desperately wanted to see corrected. Did Nintendo fix these things?

Eh, yes and no. The two biggest changes in Wii Fit Plus are the new Training Plus games and the My Wii Fit Plus category in the training options menu (that's the menu you go to after you select Training at the main calendar, you know, the one with the piggy bank waiting for you to choose what to work on that session). The Training Plus games are a combination of balance, coordination and brain games with a bit of aerobic workout thrown into some of them. These games are in a separate category from the original Balance games that came with the original Wii Fit (lest you worry, all the original games and exercises are still included in Wii Fit Plus). Among other things, the Training Plus games include Rhythm Kung Fu, juggling, the chicken flying game, a marching parade game, a bicycle game that allows you to determine where you go on the Wii Fit island (I like this one just for the fact that I can finally explore the island on my own!), a snow ball fight, and several others. A few of these games have caused me to sweat a bit, namely the Kung Fu and the bicycle game. Most test the brain, balance and coordination.

As for the yoga and strength categories, those are still the same but with 3 new exercises each. Personally, I would have rather seen at least 5 new exercises in each, but 3 isn't bad. Nothing has changed in the aerobics category that I can tell.

Then we come to the My Wii Fit Plus category. Selecting this option takes you to a "locker room" where you're given a variety of menu buttons to choose from, including Wii Fit Plus Routines, My Routines, and Favorites. The Wii Fit Plus Routines are preprogrammed routines that focus on particular areas for you to work on - balance, arms and shoulders, etc. You have to poke around a bit to see what each one really does, since some of the titles don't really tell you much (there's an over-indulgence routine that I discovered is supposed to focus on calorie burning, and a Shape routine that looks like it's supposed to focus on the waist line). None of these routines is more than three exercises/games long, and none lasts longer than 8 minutes. The advantage of these preprogrammed routines is that they do let you get through the exercises faster. Without the routines, you do spend a little extra time selecting individual exercises and going through menu options before actually getting to an exercise. With the routines, you zip from one exercise to the next. That's a bonus in my opinion because it means a 45 minute workout could actually only take 50 minutes to do as opposed to an hour (those of you who have used the original Wii Fit will know what I'm talking about). Also, the routines allow you to mix things up, going from yoga to games to aerobics and back without having to do a lot of switching around in the menu. Again, this speeds a workout along greatly!

One thing about these routines is that they all seem to select exercises or games at the beginner's level, as opposed to the advanced level. I haven't set up any of my own routines yet (something I'm going to try this week) to see if I have the option of using the advanced levels of things like the running, cardio boxing, etc. I'm hoping so.

Other things that have changed in the Wii Fit Plus. Wii Fit Plus now tells you how many calories you burn while working out. I have to admit, they show me burning far fewer calories than I would like. Also, Wii Fit Plus gives you the option of setting a calorie burning goal for each day. Unfortunately, any activities you do outside Wii Fit Plus aren't counted toward that calorie goal, although when you list them in the Fit Credits menu, they are tallied up there and added to whatever you've done in Wii Fit. But during the actual workout, they don't show up.

One more interesting option, you can now change players while working out. In the yoga, strength, cardio and balance games menus, at the very bottom right corner is an option to switch players. Doesn't look like you can do this in the My Wii Fit Plus, but if you want to work out with someone, you now have the option of switching back and forth on every exercise. I don't know yet if this means you can finally have another person's Mii race with you on the 2-person race. That would be nice, especially since my girls like to race me when I'm working out. But it does mean if I want to spend an evening doing a workout and the kids want to play along, I can let them (though that option has its own hazards).

The whole game has a slightly revamped look. The colors are bolder, the appearances of the personal trainers are a bit different, though both are still rather mannequin like. My biggest question is whether or not the Wii Fit Plus is still as snarky as the original Wii Fit. That's something I'm sure I won't find out for a few weeks. When I first started using the Wii Fit, I recall it being very supportive with all its little comments, but then one day when I suddenly put on a few pounds (it was water weight, can't do a damned thing about it at my age), Wii Fit got all persnickety and demanded I explain why I had suddenly turned into the Fat Lady at the circus. It did not help that the stupid thing didn't even give me the option of listing "water weight" or "hormones" as one of the reasons why I had packed on 4 lbs over night. I haven't used Wii Fit Plus long enough to see this come up yet, but if it does, I'm going to be sadly disappointed. No one, and I mean no one, likes to be sniped at for things they can't control. (BTW, I have noted the Wii Fit Plus does seem to feel the need to get a little snippy if you miss a day for your fit test. That bit of snark has apparently not changed a bit.)

Over all, I like it. I would have liked to have seen more exercises added in the yoga and strength section, especially exercises that targeted the upper body. I also would have liked to have seen new cardio activities added. But the routines are a great idea and I'm looking forward to setting up my own. And I have to admit it, I really like the new games. If I'm not feeling well, I can at least get up and do the games, and while they may not give me a heart pounding workout, they will at least get me moving and that goes a long way toward making me feel better when I've been sick a while.

Sunday Contentment - Halloween fun with my kids

2009-10-11T11:40:00.001-05:00

I love the month of October. Being sick the two weeks, I haven't really been able to appreciate it as much as I would have liked, but then I realize I would rather have been ill in October when the weather is cool and pleasant and conducive to relaxing than be ill in July when the weather is so damn humid around here you can practically swim through air. The later would have made me really miserable.

But right now, I'm feeling better, maybe on the mend finally after battling a weird illness that has left me fatigued, nauseous. I'm sitting at the dining room table. Princess and Pixie are giggling over sandwiches and singing nonsense songs to each other. One song in particular sounds like a very warped version of Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady," and I can't stop chuckling as they howl that song at the top of their lungs. Obviously, I'm in the contentment zone, so let's get started with what's making me feel all warm and fuzzy this week.

Halloween decorations - my next-door neighbors are BIG into Halloween, to the point that they build this giant display every year. It's a mix of hand made and store bought items, sometimes the store bought stuff having been customized in my neighbor's workshop. Right now, they've got a huge graveyard in their front yard, complete with a fake stone entryway and wrought iron fence running around the entire thing. There's ghosts and skeletons galore inside this thing, and I know there's still more stuff in the garage waiting to be added. I plan to post pictures of what they've done on Friday as a Freaky Friday post.

Halloween decorations, part 2 - I found at Michael's for mummies made from plaster wrap and Styrofoam, so this afternoon the entire family is going to set up on the back deck and put together some mummies for our yard. Our decorations can in no way compete with the neighbors' but I don't care. They've had years to build their display, and we'll take years to build our own. Princess, who is obsessed with Egypt, is particularly looking forward to this afternoon.

Jogging - After my third knee injury, I never thought I'd jog again. It was just too painful. But Wii Fit included a jog-in-place activity that I could do, and somehow, I've eventually worked my way back to jogging around the neighborhood. I'm not very fast, and my endurance could use some building up, but I'm amazed that I can actually do this. October, with it's lovely crisp fall weather, is the perfect time for jogging too.

Princess and Pixie - there's nothing like listening to your kids laugh while they're goofing around. I'm constantly amazed at the things these two girls do. Last night, Pixie (who is three) lectured us on how Columbus discovered the West Indies, and then launched into a spiel about the solar system that had me in stitches. She looked so serious with her hands on her hips, going on and on about planets and suns and moons and Mother Earth. I have to remember to thank her pre-school teacher for that. Meanwhile, Princess has developed an interest in drawing anime style characters, although she doesn't realize they're anime yet. I've got plenty of how to draw books, including manga and anime, and will be cracking those open later this week to do some drawing with her. She's gotten pretty good!

Grilled cheese sandwiches - Hubster just handed me one fresh out of the pan. It's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

Fall clothing - I hate wearing shorts, and all summer long I pine for my jeans. While I love my t-shirts, I miss my long-sleeve tees. Today, I've got on a proper fall outfit and I love it.

Good books - I've read a couple of amazing books recently. I can't recall the authors off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to look them up at the moment on Amazon, but I highly recommend the following titles - Soulless (by Gail Carriger, who's name I can actually remember), Of Bees and Mist, and Drood (a sort of fictionalized horror story about the last five years of Charles Dickens' life and how he came to write The Mystery of Edwin Drood).

And that's about it for this week. Have a nice day this Sunday, and enjoy your contentment.

Writing Wednesday - Where do you get your ideas from?

2009-10-07T05:05:00.000-05:00

It's supposedly the question every author dreads - "Where do you get your ideas from?" And I suppose some authors dread it because it can be hard to explain the process behind brainstorming and writing and rewriting and so on. But guess what? It's not a question this writer dreads. In fact, I'd be more than happy to explain where my ideas come from.

Where do ideas come from? Everywhere and anywhere, obviously. I get my ideas from magazine articles, TV shows, other writer's books, day dreams, nightmares, and random words. I've got a million ideas flitting through my head at any given time. The problem for me is not where do the ideas come from, but how quickly can I catch them and pin them down? And then what amount of work will I have to do to bring an idea into fruition as a story.

I go through story ideas like nobody's business. At the start of each month, I have to come up with between 4-6 ideas for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, and I have to come up with them fast. I hate working in a void when I write, so each month I pick a theme for the upcoming month's stories. For October, I always go with some sort of horror theme, which means I just spent the entire month of September writing five horror stories, and each had to be different from the last. To make things easier, I refined my theme idea to "Lustcraft" and worked on homage stories based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I made a list of all the Lovecraft I enjoyed, and when a few Edgar Allen Poe story ideas snuck into the mix, I went ahead and included them too. It seemed fitting to me, since Poe was a source of inspiration for Lovecraft. Once I had a viable list of stories I could play with, I took the originals apart and had fun putting my own spin on everything from the Dunwich Horror to The Tell-Tale Heart.

But that was last month, and this is this month, which means I'm now working on November's stories. Since Thanksgiving falls within November, I decided to write about gatherings, because Thanksgiving is always when people come together (to eat turkey, if nothing else). Then I pulled out my handy-dandy notebook and came up with a list of all the kinds of gatherings I could think of - weddings, funerals, parties, spring break, migrations, spawning grounds, etc. No idea was too stupid, too vague or too boring to include. At some point, a couple of these ideas spawned more specific images, and I wrote notes about those. Over the course of the last few days, I've continued to make my list, play with ideas, and make notes until I've come up with a total of 5 story ideas for the month. Now, at this point, I'm ready to move deeper, spending a day developing each individual idea in my notebook and then when I have a slew of notes and lines of dialog and description, I'll move to the computer and start banging out a story.

I have a week, sometimes less, to write each story. I've found that if I do the prep work in my notebook, developing my idea and writing up all those notes, then when it comes time to sit down and actually write, the process is almost painless. I've managed to write entire stories in just an hour, if I do that prep work. If I don't, and the idea is still rather vague, then I may spend all week agonizing at the keyboard until I finally get the story fleshed out and onto the screen. The stories that I'm prepared to write are usually shorter and more concise, ideal for the podcast. The stories that aren't prepped tend to be longer and harder to write, though I've turned out some amazing pieces by starting with only the vaguest of ideas.

I admit, I am much better at coming up with ideas for stories than I am at coming up with ideas for art. I can write a story at the drop of a hat, but I've had a lot of times where I've sat down with my drawing pad and pencils, looked at that blank page and gone, "Duuuuuuh... what do I draw?" I've finally started keeping a little notebook to jot ideas in, using the same process I use for the podcast stories. I'll be interested in seeing how this works out over the next few months. Who knows, I may turn out more art!

If you're having trouble coming up with that initial idea, consider starting with something general first (like the monthly theme I use for Heat Flash), and then narrow it down from there. Don't reject ideas out of hand because they seem stupid or unworkable. Sometimes your brain will combine the stupid with the unworkable and come up with the masterpiece. And maybe get yourself a notebook you can scribble in, something that doesn't have to be pristine and hold only the best ideas, but can take every single crappy line your brain tosses out. All that crap is fertilizer for story ideas, and you never know what will grow out of it.

And that's where my ideas come from.

Move It Mama Monday! Still feeling ill

2009-10-05T05:43:00.000-05:00

I don't know what I caught, but I've been out of it most of the past week. I managed to get to the pool on Monday and had a great swim, then I was flat on my back Tuesday and Wednesday. I did a light workout on Thursday and felt exhausted afterward, so that's been pretty much it for exercise since then. I've slept so late some mornings it isn't even funny, and I've been doing most of my work from bed. Every time I think I'm getting better, I end up feeling crummy again. So who knows. I'm going to continue to take it easy on the exercise front for a while.

In other news, I ordered the new Wii Fit Plus, which became available today. I'm looking forward to seeing what the new game is like, and will give a report here as soon as I've had a chance to hop on the balance board and play with it. Then I'm going to have to figure out how to work it into my regular workout schedule.

That's probably the big thing on my mind, fitness-wise, these days, aside from being sick. I've settled into a new work schedule since the kids started back to school, but I'm still figuring out the exercise schedule. I want to hit the pool at least twice a week, the dojo three times a week, and that leaves two days a week for Wii Fit or running. I'd throw in a few extra workouts, but I also need time to clean the house. Ugh. I despise house cleaning, but it's got to get done, so I'm trading the time I had hoped to set aside for fun little mini-workouts to do the cleaning instead. We'll see how that works. I figure if I do three house cleaning sessions a week, I might be able to steal back one morning for a Wii Fit mini-workout, but we'll have to see.

And that's all that's going on right now. Going to rest a bit more today, and see about doing a light workout tomorrow. Have fun!

Sunday Contentments - The Hubster

2009-10-04T09:34:00.001-05:00

Once again, it's Sunday morning, but today I'm far afield, about one hour from home and enjoying a light repast at a Panera's. I'm on my own this morning. Hubster, good Catholic that he is, took the girls to church, and me, good Zen Buddhist that I am, said, "Good luck with that!"

I've not had the funnest of weeks this past week. Some sort of weird bug hit me, and I spent a lot of mornings in bed thinking maybe I was dying. No fever, congestion, or vomiting, but I was completely wiped out and had a headache that wouldn't quit. It's wasn't a really bad headache, just one persistent SOB that would not leave me alone. So I spend quite a lot of time in bed this week, while the Hubster picked up after my sorry ass. I have to say, I love that man of mine. So this morning's contentments are dedicated to him, the man who puts up with moi! And we're starting with...

Hubster's cooking - he made seared tuna steaks last night with Sechuan green beans. The girls both turned their noses up at it while I devoured everything on my plate and then some. The man can cook. In fact, up until the past couple of years, he did all the cooking as well as all the grocery shopping. What a guy!

Hubster's way with kids - I have to admit, I'm a nervous Nellie when it comes to letting the girls run amok in the neighborhood. I can just imagine all sorts of things going wrong. Hubster lets them venture farther afield than I do. They enjoy the freedom, they learn a little responsibility, and I learn not to be so much of a tight-ass when it comes to letting kids do what kids do. Yesterday, Princess happily spent the day outside on her own, riding up and down the street on her bike. Up until some snot-nose little boys decided to start picking on her, she was happy as a lark and doing pretty good on her bike. I'm going to have to let her and Pixie run loose more often (oh, and I explained to Princess that little boys are scum-eating, stinky, smelly, fetid, rotten, puss-drooling little creeps which made her laugh; welcome to the Battle of the Sexes, kiddo!).

Hubster's way with kids, part 2 - when Princess came home crying telling us one of the aforementioned little cretins threw rocks at her, I sent Hubster out to handle the situation, because I just knew I was gonna kill me some little boys. Cool, logical engineer guy that he is, he confronted the boy in question, and when he got a "he-said she-said" story, he let the little boy know that if he ever saw any rocks being thrown at anyone, he was going to handle it by talking to the parents of everyone involved. Me, I would have just rained down blood and hell fire and obliterated the entire neighborhood. But I'm hormonal and not feeling well this week, which is why I sent out the Hubster instead :)

Hubster's manly home improvement skills - the man is a genius in more ways than one. He pinches every penny until it screams, always getting more than his dollar's worth, and one of the ways he does this is by doing the home repairs himself. He researches every project and then confidently goes down to the hardware store, gets what he needs, and sets about fixing whatever needs fixing. I don't think I can recall a single home improvement project he's done that has not gone well. Some have gone on longer than expected, like the rennovation of our downstairs bathroom and the retiling of our kitchen floor, but that's only because the man works mad hours at his J-O-B.

Hubster's mad computer skillz - the man builds computers as a hobby. He builds really good computers, too. Occasionally, we have the odd error or the need to fix a problem caused by the operating system, but he understands computers inside and out. When he doesn't outright build a computer, he researches thoroughly before he buys. As the lucky recipient of his computer skills, I now own 3, count them, 3 computers, including the little netbook I'm using right now to blog. I'm a computer addict, and I could not survive without my genius husband.

Hubster's giant brain - did I mention he's incredibly, stupendously smart? Like he really is a rocket scientist smart? My dad always said it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor man. I told Dad it was better to fall in love with a smart man than a rich man, because the rich man might get stupid with his money, but the smart man never would. I have not yet been proven wrong on this.

Hubster's never-ending patience - the man very rarely blows up, and he's put up with a lot of shit from me over the last... good lord, has it been 19 years? (That would be 3 years of dating and engagement plus 16 years of marriage.) Why he's still around, I don't know, but he's been here through thick and thin, and has supported me in every half-assed endevour I've gotten involved in. A lesser man would have either killed me or himself long since, I'm telling you.

And I could go on and on. The fact is, you don't stay married to a man for 16 years if he's not special, and Hubster is. He's got the kids this morning, and has pretty much given me the entire week off to recuperate from my mysterious illness. He's making London broil tonight, and I'm pretty certain we'll be enjoying a quiet afternoon watching the game today, cuddled up on the sofa while the kids run amok around us. Is there anything more I could want? Seriously, I don't think so.

Have a good Sunday everyone, and I hope you enjoy the day with the ones you love.

Writing Wednesday - Writing while sick?

2009-09-30T04:42:00.000-05:00

I was going to write about something else for this week's Writing Wednesday, but after spending a day sick in bed I thought I'd write about writing while sick. Do you write while sick, or not? I tried to get up at 5AM and write, but felt so lousy that I was back in bed after only 500 words, and didn't get up again until after 10AM. Yeah, I felt really lousy. However, I was still able to pull my laptop in bed with me after I got up the second time and I did get some work done. It was mostly things like answering e-mail and writing blog posts, but not the heavy duty stuff like fiction writing.

I suppose I could have worked on a story. After all, I felt better after I'd had some sleep. But I also had other work that I knew wouldn't tax my brain quite as much, so I focussed on that instead.

I can write while sick, and will write while sick if I've got a deadline coming up. Among other things, I have a weekly deadline with the podcast, and I can't afford to miss that. Plus, while it may tax my brain to write, it doesn't tax my body that much. If I can sit upright with a laptop and not have to worry about heaving my lunch all over my keyboard, then I can certainly write. It's just a question of whether or not I want to.

Today (which is Tuesday for me, since I tend to write blog posts in advance), my weekly deadline wasn't so pressing, and I had other, lighter work I could do. So I gave myself an easy day, and why not? Most days I'm on the go from 5AM until 10PM. Some days I could use a day in bed.

What do you think? Do you write, create, or work, while you're sick? Or do you take a break?

Episode 37 - Something smells funny around here.

2009-09-29T05:30:00.000-05:00

True story. Honest to god, Pixie came up to me one day and said exactly this. And it does not surprise me to hear this news, given the amount of stinky accidents we've had in the last couple months.

First, there was the poopie incident at the pizzeria in Chicago. Then we had an accident last week while she was home sick from preschool. Then yesterday, I hear a bunch of yelling coming from the upstairs bathroom. It wasn't clear what was going on until I got halfway up the stairs and smelled that smell. Sure enough, there was a turd the size of a dinosaur egg sitting in the bathroom floor. Less than a foot away from the toilet. And there was a tiny little shoe print in it. With matching little brown shoe prints all over the bathroom.

According to Pixie, she did not reach the potty in time because it was dark in there. Yes, dark, as in the light was off. Of course, this happened in the middle of the day, which means the upstairs bathroom was dim, at most. Sigh. I just keep reminding myself that she will not be pooping her pants when she walks down the aisle on her wedding day.

I hope.

So how's things with you all?

Move It Mama Monday - Hai Karate!!

2009-09-28T05:10:00.000-05:00

Damn, I own a lot of weapons. That picture you see above is all my gear for kobudo class. Kobudo is a form of martial arts weapons training, closely related to Okinawan karate. Last Saturday, Hubster and I tested for our 2nd degree black belts in kobudo, and I'm happy to say we passed.

The Hubster and I have been taking martial arts classes for about eight years now. In addition to our shiny new 2nd degree black belts in kobudo, we also have 2nd degree black belts in karate. We study both karate and kobudo under the same instructor, and Princess trains at the dojo as well. Pixie is chomping at the bit to get started. I think she may begin classes this January. So we're obviously a karate family.

When we started karate classes eight years back, Hubster and I were still pre-children, so we had the luxury of being able to go to six classes a week together. Hey, we were young, we were excited, and we were all fired up about having the chance to beat the snot out of each other in a fun, friendly environment. I trained all through my pregnancy with Princess and had a blast in the process. Then after my first child was born, Hubster and I kind of slowed down on classes. We switched to each of us going to four classes a week, with one of us in class each evening and one of us at home with the baby (there were two classes on Saturday, so we both took a class that day and just handed off Princess at the door).

After Pixie came, things slowed down even further. Let's face it, taking care of kids takes a lot of time, and can make it difficult to keep to a regular schedule of exercise. These days, I try to make it to 3-4 classes a week, but many times it's only two. Between doctor's appointments, sick kids, and work deadlines, it can be hard to make it to class. Thankfully, our current dojo offers day time classes, which is good for me because I pretty much shut down physically and mentally after 5PM each day.

I also have trouble these days finding the motivation I need to practice. But this past week, I discovered once again the truth of one of my rules for doing exercise when I feel like crud. Just go out there and do it. I don't have to do it for long. If I go out with the plan of doing just five minutes, then that's great. Usually, if I get out and do five minutes of any activity, that five minutes will likely turn into twenty, thirty, or even forty minutes, and before I know it, I'll have done a whole workout. And on those days where I do five minutes and I still feel like crud, then I'm obviously not feeling well and I can call it a day. But I have to do five minutes first. This works for classes too. If I can just get to the class and do five minutes, I'm usually good for the rest of the hour. In fact, I don't think I've ever left class once I've gotten there. I just turn off the brain and do what my instructor tells me to do until class is over and then hey, look at that! I worked out for a whole hour.

Anyway, I followed the five minute/go to class rule all last week, and got in enough practice to do well on my kobudo test this Saturday. And now that I've got my shiny new 2nd degree black belt, I've suddenly got a little more motivation to practice and go to class on a regular basis. So if you happen to see me walking around, carrying any of the instruments of destruction shown in the above picture, you know what I'm up to.

Hai, karate!!

Sunday Contentments - Recovering

2009-09-27T09:06:00.000-05:00

Once again, it's Sunday. Hubster and the kids are off at church, while I, heathen and Zen Buddhist that I am, laze about at home. I had a killer week last week, and I feel the need to just become one with the couch. That makes it the perfect time to contemplate the zen that is contentment. Today's list includes:

Missions accomplished - among other tasks last week, I finished recording and producing the longest episode of the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. The story in question, A Room With A View, was 12000 words long. That meant a lot of recording and editing time. However, in addition to getting that out the door, I also finished up the cover art for the same story, along with three other stories I produced for the show last month, and all four will be coming out as e-books later this month. So I have that contented feeling of satisfaction at a big job well done and out of my hair.

More missions accomplished - yesterday was a busy day. Princess had her karate test at 9AM. Hubster and I tested for our 2nd degree black belts in kobudo (karate weapons). Then at 3, Pixie and I had to hotfoot it to another town an hour away for a birthday party. Needless to say, I was drop dead tired by the end of the day. I'd been dreading yesterday all week, and I am soooooo glad that I finally got through it and can now breathe a sigh of relief.

Surprises for the girls - Princess and Pixie don't know it yet, but we're going to Disney on Ice this afternoon. Hubster found out he could get tickets last night, so we made the quick decision to go see the show. We're not even going to tell them where we're going; we're just going to climb into the car and head out. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they see their very first ice skating princess!

Coffee and soft boiled eggs on toast - it's the breakfast of champions, seriously. Combined with the Sunday paper, it's a great way to just kick back and enjoy the morning. Add some hot sauce to really make things good (but add that sauce to the eggs, not the paper, otherwise you've got a mess).

A rainy morning - I love rainy days. I use them as an excuse to curl up with a cup of tea in my papasan chair or on my couch and do some reading. Think I will try to squeeze in another chapter of Drood today ;)

Mood music - it's Fall, my favorite season of the year, and every Fall I pull out the same albums to enjoy: Enya, Loreena McKennit, Great Big Sea, Young Dubliners, Warren Zevon. An odd mix, I know, but those are the CDs that really bring out the nip in the air and make me want to curl up by the fire, again with a hot cup of tea.

I think that's it for today. Hubster and kids are still out, and I've got some laundry to do. Going to clear the clean clothes that need folding out of my papasan chair so I can curl up with Drood for a bit. See ya later, and enjoy your Sunday ;)

Freaky Friday! Why I write about sex

2009-09-25T05:29:00.000-05:00

Don't you just love this pic? I do. I wonder what was going through the male mantis' head right before the female bit it off. "Hey baby, see? You ain't such an uptight bitch after a---!"

Welcome to Freaky Friday, the day where I explain a little bit about the weirdness that is me. I know, I know. I was doing Fiction Friday, right? But ya know, much as I love to read and write, writing about other people's books just hurts my brain for some reason. I spend so much time and effort into my own fiction writing that dissecting other people's fiction isn't really that much fun for me. There are some things that I just want to sit back and enjoy without any fuss.

So I won't be doing any fiction reviews for a while. Stop crying. I know those are crocodile tears. What I will do instead is talk about what it's like to be a freak mama in the great land of Suburbia.

I think in some sense, we're all freak mamas. We all have our little idiosyncrasies that make us different from the so-called "norm." But some of us stray further afield than others, especially yours truly. I know I am not the only stay-at-home mom and erotica writer, but I am probably the only stay-at-home mom and erotica writer within a 100 mile radius of where I'm standing, so I do feel... shall we say, a little unique? At times, anyway.

Why do I write about sex? When I started writing, I wanted to write science fiction and fantasy, my two favorite genres, and I spent a lot of time struggling to write stories about goddesses, robots, aliens, dragons, etc. But nothing ever really clicked, except one 20K word novella that I was never able to sell to anyone because even though editors liked it, digital publishing just hadn't taken off yet and so there was very little market for 20K word novellas. Maybe I could get it published now. In fact, I might try sending it out in the next month.

But anyway, back on topic. I wasn't able to write very well in my chosen genres of fantasy and sci-fi. Then one day, a girl friend and I went on a rampage through town. This was years before I had kids, and I still had the J-O-B working for the Man. I was really crazy back then (and yes, I know I'm really crazy now, but this was a different kind of crazy, okay? This was 'young twenty-something with too much money who hates her J-O-B but doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life' kind of crazy. See? Totally different!). So my girl friend and I left our husbands at home and took an entire day to plunder and pillage the local shopping malls. We ate lunch out, hit the fabric store, the craft store, the cafe, the book store... It was while we were at the bookstore that I picked up a copy of PlayGirl. Hey, I was crazy, twenty-something, and sans the Hubster, so why not? Turns out the magazine was pretty much crap. The models were all plasticky looking and scuzzy, the photo shoots all had this horn dog vibe. Disgusted with the pictures, I decided to read the articles (yes, I actually read the articles). They were just as bad. Then I got to the readers' fantasy forum, which was just down right awful. I read through every story, and when I got to the end, I thought, "Jeeze Louise! I could write better than that!" Then I noticed a little note at the bottom of the page that said, "Can you write better than this? We pay $100 for the story of the month!" And I said, "Hell yeah, I can write better than that!" And so I sat down to write my first pornographic story.

I was very proud of my first effort, and I sent it in, hoping I'd get story of the month. I didn't. I didn't even get into that lousy crap ass magazine! But after I finished fuming over my form rejection letter, I sat down, re-read my story, and said, "What the hell was I thinking? This is crap! I can write better that this too!" And so I sat down and wrote my second pornographic story. And I slaved over that damn thing, and I did research on it, and I spell checked it and grammar checked it to within an inch of my life, and then I slaved and sweated and swore over the damn cover letter too! And then I sent the thing and I waited. And waited. And waited.

Two weeks later, I got a letter from PlayGirl that said, "Congratulations! Your story has been selected for Story Of The Month!" And suddenly I was walking on air! I signed the contract, got my $100 check (they do not pay nearly that amount anymore, from what I understand), and waited for my story to come out. A couple months later, I marched into the bookstore and bought a copy of PlayGirl with MY story in it. And I opened it up right there in the store and....

Started swearing up a blue streak, because instead of putting my name on the story, they gave the byline to my main character, Cindy. Man I was pissed. My first publication, and I didn't have a byline to show for it. How the hell was anyone supposed to know that I was the person who wrote it?! It was then that I swore that ALL my stories would be published under my REAL name, so that nobody would ever have any doubts about who wrote that amazing piece of porn! (I kid you not, I currently have around 150 stories out there, between print publishing, e-publishing, and podcasting, that bear my name, Helen E. H. Madden.)

After seeing the results of my first success, I immediately ran home to write another story for PlayGirl (yes, I knew I wouldn't get a byline for that either, but hey, $100?!). I wrote up a hum-dinger, based on my then J-O-B, which I hated so much, and decided really needed to be the setting for a pornographic story. It worked very well. I wrote this wonderful tale about a conference room and a public speaking engagement... Anyway, I wrote the story and sent it out to PlayGirl. And waited. And waited. And waited. Two months later, they still hadn't gotten back to me, so I started looking for other markets. There was one place, an online multi-media magazine called Cherrybomb.com, that was doing audio recordings of stories that people could listen to online, and they gave bylines to their authors. I sent the story in, and they bought it! About three months after it was published there, PlayGirl contacted me saying they'd like to publish the story too, but they were too late, so nyah! (PlayGirl didn't take previously published stories for their readers' forum, so I couldn't have sold it to them as a reprint. Whatever.)

I sold another story after that to a website that I cannot now remember. The money was only $25, but it was a sale. And after that... nothing. I stopped writing porn for a while. I was bored, to be honest. Those first three stories were fine, but they were pretty much typical erotica stories - girl meets boy, girl wants boy, girl and boy get naked and have sex in the bedroom, the public library, the conference room, whatever. I did sell a story to Marcy Sheiner for an anthology called Ripe Fruit. That was my first older woman/younger man story. I'm very proud of that tale. Marcy wrote to me to say 'thank you for not sending in a story about some poor bereaved widow who needs to get laid, because I'm overwhelmed with those kind of stories right now, and by the way, you're in the anthology because you were original.' That was my first clue that I really needed to do something different.

Well, somewhere in the midst of all that, I got pregnant. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I wasn't doing much of anything except be pregnant, so I thought maybe I should start writing again. I had this perverse idea to write a fantasy story about a tribe of Amazons were the women had multiple husbands to serve and entertain them. It involved m/m sex, the first time I'd ever ventured into that arena, and another of my favorite themes, older dominant woman/younger submissive male. I knew nobody, I mean NOBODY, was buying this sort of thing. I didn't care. I sat down to write the first few chapters, which I let a friend read. She told me my male characters needed a good spanking for being so wicked. I think that was a complement. I was about three or four chapters in, and then it was time for my C-section so I went to the hospital one day and had a baby.

I don't know what happened, exactly, but not only did I come home with a new baby; I also suddenly had the burning need to WRITE. Maybe it was post-partum hormones. Maybe it was the thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life changing diapers and breast feeding, and if I died, my tombstone would read, "She breast fed her baby a lot!" But nobody would remember me for anything else. So I decided I had to do something, make something of myself. I remembered the trashy porno story I'd been working on before I had the baby. I set up a table beside my nursing chair, set a notebook and a pen on it, and every time I sat down to nurse, I picked up the pen and started writing. I wrote every day, five and six times a day, for over a year. At the end of the year, I had several hundred pages of chicken scratch. The story was complete trash. But I also had a) a well-fed baby, and b) the discipline I'd been lacking before to write every single day.

Some time after that, I joined the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. I wrote four short stories that first year. The second year, I wrote a couple more. The third year, the year I was pregnant with my second child, I wrote my first real erotica novel, Demon By Day. I recall the day I mailed it out for submission, I walked out of the post office with Princess and said to her, "Well, now that THAT is in the mail, I can have the baby anytime now." My water broke a few hours later, and I had child number two at 2:34AM the next day. Woof!

And I've been writing pretty steadily ever since. Yes, it's all been erotica. It's what I write. I figured out how to write stories that didn't bore me, and I figured out how to sit my ass in the chair every day to make that writing happen. I have a weekly podcast now, for which I must write a story every week. I write other stories beyond that, and I'm hoping to get back to work on another novel within the next few weeks.

So, I'm the stay-at-home mom and erotica writer. And that's your freaky fact about me for this first Freaky Friday. Huzzah.

*****

BTW, if this blog post wasn't long enough, or freaky enough, for you, I'm over at Oh Get A Grip today, writing about "self-love."

Recipe: Bacon Muffins and Black Bean Soup

2009-09-23T15:53:00.001-05:00

I made these recipes on Sunday and got a lot of requests to post them here. They come from my two favorite cookbooks, BH&G 5-Ingredient Slow Cooker Recipes and Muffins by Francesca DiPaolo. This makes a great meal, and both recipes make enough servings to last a while, though the muffins last longer than the soup.

*****

Bacon Muffins

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Prepare muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, blend well:

4 large eggs

2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled

Add:

1 pound lean bacon (cooked, drained, and crumbled)

1/2 cup chopped fresh chives (I used small green onions from my garden)

In a large bowl, sift together:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground black pepper (optional)

Combine the two mixtures just enough to blend. Spoon the batter into a prepared pan (makes either 10 really large muffins or 24 regular-sized muffins). Bake for 17-20 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan, and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

Black Bean and Kielbasa Soup

Ingredients:

2 19 oz cans ready-to-serve black bean soup

1 14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes with garlic and onion, undrained

1 pound cooked, smoked Polish sausage, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 cup frozen whole kernel corn

In a 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 quart slow cooker, stir together the soup, undrained tomatoes, sausage and corn.

Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or on high-heat for 3 to 4 hours.

*****

My recommendation, start the soup early in the morning, then bake the muffins later in the afternoon. Serve for an early dinner. If you like to watch football on the weekends, this makes a nice easy meal to enjoy during the game. I can't stand football, but I do like lazy afternoons, so I have Hubster and the kids watch the game while I collapse on the couch with my muffin and soup and a good book or craft project. Enjoy!

Writing Wednesday - Time management for writers

2009-09-23T04:56:00.000-05:00

A week or so ago, I mentioned on Twitter that I was working out my daily and weekly schedule, using a spreadsheet. The responses I got back on this ranged from, "Holy cow, are you ~~anal retentive~~ organized!" to "Hey, I do the exact same ~~crazy~~ thing!" to "Please ~~don't~~ post an example of that spread sheet. I really ~~don't~~ want to see how you ~~obsess over~~ handle your work schedule!" In light of such glowing responses, I felt I had no choice but to share. So here's a quick screen grab of my daily/weekly schedule, with an explanation of what the hell is going on.

Okay, here's a small screen shot of the spread sheet. I keep my schedule in Google Docs, so I can access it from anywhere I can get wireless. This is handy in my house because I typically float between three computers all day long. That's right. I'm so crazy I have to have three computers to get my work done. One computer is a large, super powerful desktop where I do most of my writing and computer graphics as well as all my podcasting and audio recording. That's in the room above our garage and it has it's own separate flight of steps from the rest of the house. Then there's the laptop I often work on in our bedroom, in a sort of mini-office I set up years ago so I could work while breastfeeding my youngest daughter (yes, again, I am crazy). That's up the other flight of steps. Between the two computers, I've got the netbook, set up in the kitchen. This is where I do a lot of my tweeting and web browsing during the day, so if you see me on Twitter, it's a good bet I'm goofing off in the kitchen. In any event, it doesn't matter where I am in the house or what computer I'm on, I've got access to my schedule.

Now take a look at the schedule. Across the top are the days of the week. Down the side I've listed blocks of time in half hour chunks. I rarely do anything that takes less than half an hour of time, and I've learned the hard way not to schedule my time in blocks any smaller than that. Whatever I'm doing, I don't care what it is, it's going to take at least half an hour of my time.

Also note what time my day starts - 4:45 AM. This is the only time on the calendar that is not listed by the half hour, because it usually only takes 15 minutes for me to actually wake up and roll out of bed, then stumble to the shower. Unless I fall back asleep and then this whole schedule thing is just crap for the rest of the day.

At the very top of the schedule, I've made some notes about each day, a sort of quick guideline to let me know what my priorities are for that day. What kind of exercise am I doing that day? Is there any special tasks to accomplish that day? What blog entry is due that day? I'm anal, and very busy, so I like to keep this check list handy at the very top of the schedule.

You may have noticed, the page is color coded. My special notes and goals at the top are in blue. Regularly scheduled items are in green. Those items in black are the ones subject to change on a regular basis. For example, under "Podcast - writing" is a block labeled "Lustcraft theme stories." That's the name of the story theme for next month's podcast. I'm writing the stories this month, so I just put in what them I'm working on, or occasionally what specific story title I'm writing that day.

Here's another shot, further down on the schedule:

Pretty much the same thing going on here, except later in the day. I include everything I know I will be doing on a regular basis in my schedule, so in addition to what time I want to wake up and go to sleep, I also include my workout schedule, my karate class schedule, when to take the girls to the bus stop and when to pick them up, when to do my physical therapy, when to get the laundry in the washing machine and when to fold it, etc. Anything I need to do on a regular basis, weekly or daily, goes into my schedule, thus the need for the spread sheet. You'll also notice at the bottom that this page with the actual schedule on it is not the only page in the spread sheet. I've also got pages for weekly goals, routines (because sometimes it's just easier to list a routine in the schedule and then go to that routine on a separate page), my blog schedule, shopping lists, etc. I have a lot going on, and I like to keep track of things, so I use the additional pages to help me do that.

Feeling overwhelmed yet by all this scheduling? It's okay. Let me say up front that there is no one way to do a personal schedule, and don't worry if you don't want to do your schedule how I do it. YOU DON'T HAVE TO! This is really just a peek into how my crazy brain works.

So where did I get this crazy method of making schedules? From my days in the Army Reserves. I used to be a training officer for a very large unit, and was responsible for schedule all the training events for everyone in the unit. I had to decide who was doing what, when, where, why, and how. The schedules I created for each drill weekend look rather similar to my personal schedule today, only I don't have to list anybody as the trainer for a specific event, nor do I have to quote which regulation and training manual to reference.

How do I come up with this schedule? This, I think, is the important part, and the part I really want to share with people:

I start by making a list of all the things I'd like to do in a day/week.

I prioritize the list, PUTTING THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS FIRST!!

I start plugging items from my list into my schedule. The important things get the biggest blocks of time, and are usually scheduled early in the day. Did you notice what was the first thing on my schedule after waking up, showering, and starting the laundry? Yeah, the podcast, either writing for it or recording and editing the audio for it. The podcast is a weekly deadline. It has to get done every week, and so it gets done first!

I only schedule things in half-hour blocks. I refuse to break down my day into 15 minute segments, or 10 minute segments, or what have you. I know I could list 10-15 minutes of house cleaning a day, to ensure that my house cleaning gets done. But you know what? It never works for me. I've learned the hard way that when I start nickel and diming my day away like that, I lose sight of the important work, the work that actually requires me to focus for half an hour. So I don't bother putting things on there like house cleaning that would only take 15 minutes, because house cleaning isn't a priority (getting a shower and folding laundry are, however! At least to me).

I try the schedule out for a few days. I usually end up realizing I forgot to add something in, or I need to take something out. Sometimes I realize that a particular task would be more likely to get done if I scheduled it for a different time during the day. For example. I prefer to workout first thing in the morning after I get the kids to school, but recently I realized that I was getting the workout done, but not the other stuff I had planned in the morning. So I flipped things around. Now I work in the morning on my major projects - the web comic, writing a book, redesigning the website - and then take off around lunch time to swim, attend karate class or go for a run. I was surprised at how well that worked out. I actually got a lot more done, and I still got my workouts in.

I realize that past a certain point in the day, things are not going to get done. That point in the day is 3:30PM, when the girls come home from school. At that point, my time becomes their time. So I make sure to fit in things like my physical therapy before they come home, and I don't plan to do anything serious after they get here.

If the schedule does not seem to be working, I start a new schedule, or I copy the old one and make any changes as I see fit. My schedules are not written in stone. Things happen, plans change. Schedules need to change too.

So that's my schedule in a not-so-small nutshell. It's detailed. It's anal. It works for me.

It usually takes me a day or two to write the basic schedule out, and then another week or so to tweak it until I've got everything I want on it. Then I'll be able to work with that schedule for a few months, up to six if I'm lucky, before needing to change it for some reason. If you're having trouble getting stuff done during the day, my suggestion is to pull out a spreadsheet, or even just a pen and a piece of paper, and start making a list of things you want to get done, and figure out when to get them done. You don't have to be as ~~anal~~ detailed as I am, but a simple schedule could help you go a long way toward accomplishing your goals.

Episode 36 - What I didn't do on my summer vacation

2009-09-22T05:02:00.000-05:00

So, how was your summer?

Honest to god, I thought I would get so much more done this summer, but I feel like I barely managed to limp to the finish line. I was sooooooooo happy when school started and I finally had all day to myself. That was two weeks ago, and I am only now catching up on everything I didn't get done while I was busy chasing after two kids.

I'm finally settling into a regular schedule, and I hope to be a little more productive with this cartoon. I also hope to start work on building a new website, combining all my various sites and blogs into one easy to find spot where you can get all the cartoons and blog posts and other goodies at once. There will be the usual Cynical Woman madness, plus maybe some new stuff (i.e. some ADULT stuff). So stay tuned. I'll get that done. One of these days ;)

Move It Mama Monday! When the kids are sick.

2009-09-21T13:55:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm getting this post out late today. My apologies. I had planned to get it written yesterday and then schedule it to run first thing this morning, but I got hit with a ton of deadlines. I have four e-chapbooks (smaller than an e-book, bigger than a breadbox), coming out in the next week or so, and I had to get a lot of stuff done to make sure that happens.

So today's post is late, but that's okay because the whole day was sort of thrown out of whack when Pixie woke up this morning sounding like she'd swallowed the granddaddy of all bullfrogs. My poor little pooter has a mild fever, a runny nose, and a nagging cough. None of this is slowing her down, mind you, but it is enough to keep her out of preschool for today and tomorrow. Can't be too careful with the H1N1 virus running around, I suppose.

So I unexpectedly have a child home today, a sick child whom I cannot take to the Y nursery anymore than I could send to preschool, and that puts all my carefully laid out plans for the day into the trashcan. Or does it?

I actually look forward to the days the kids are home sick. It somehow lifts the burden off of me to meet any other responsibilities beyond bringing my baby warm ginger ale to sip and watching Disney movies on the couch with her. I call these days "Blow Off Days," because I have the perfect excuse to blow off work, exercise, what have you. Depending on the severity of illness and my desire to take a break from the usual routine, I may blow off everything or just a few select items on my daily to-do list.

Since Pixie's really not all that ill and since I'm gung-ho to catch up on a lot of stuff I've been putting off all summer, I opted to only skip a few things today. Rather than hit the Y this afternoon for a lengthy karate practice, I pulled out EA Sports Active (yes, my one month moratorium on that game is up) and did a short 20 minute workout. Then I popped a Disney movie in the DVD player for Pixie and hit the office. While she played downstairs and watched her movie, I worked on finances, e-mail, and other odds and ends. I took a break every now and then to check on my little poot, but she was doing fine, so I let her be.

At lunch, I decided to pop Pixie in the jog stroller and I took her for a nice walk around the neighborhood. Nothing too fast, just a chance to get outside for some fresh air. We stopped at the local playground for a bit and played there, then returned home. Pixie is in bed now with some of her Barbies while I finish up more work in the office.

I did not get the hard-charging workout I had planned for today, but that's okay. I had other options, and I think that's what's important. It's hard to keep up with kids, work, AND exercise if you don't give yourself options. And while I might miss the sweat inducing activity I had planned, let's face it. If my kid is sick, I may be sick too soon. Taking a bit of a break right now instead of running myself into the ground might not be a bad idea.

Pixie will be home again tomorrow; she has to be fever-free for 24 hours before she can go back to school (again, can't be too careful). But that's okay. She'll be well enough that I can take her to the dojo with me tomorrow for kobudo class. I have a kobudo test coming up this Saturday, so I need the class. But I won't be staying for the class of open-hand karate following afterward.

After all, I got a sick kid, and we could use the break.

*****

I believe on October 4th, Nintendo releases the new Wii Fit Plus. I'm chomping at the bit for this one. I love Wii Fit, but I've done it almost to death at this point. I need something new. EA Sports is also releasing an update to EA Sports Active, which includes new exercises and workouts. I had thought about pre-ordering this, but decided I'd rather look into some other Wii fitness games instead, like My Fitness Coach. This game actually looks like it might include some stretching exercises, something that both Wii Fit and EASA have so far ignored. Although, maybe the new Wii Fit will surprise me in that aspect. One can hope.

Sunday Contentments - Running!

2009-09-20T12:58:00.001-05:00

I have had a very long busy week, made even busier by the sudden realization at the last minute that I had a story that needed major proof-reading and correction yesterday, in time for a deadline today. Between that rewrite and producing next week's episode of the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, I ended up spending most of the day in the office, working. I didn't get to bed until around midnight, then woke up half-dead this morning. I was so foggy headed, I actually put the coffee grounds in the coffee maker before I put the filter in. Yeah, it was that kind of morning.

However, I did manage to get things turned around after that, and I'm now enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon. I've still got work to do, but it's at a level I can handle and still get some time on the couch knitting and reading later today. With that in mind, here's this Sunday's contentments:

Running - I was a cadet in ROTC during college, and had to run at least 3 times a week in formation for four years straight. I hated it. I never ran before college, and I spent a lot of time in college yakking up my guts after going miles with my fellow cadets. It wasn't until after college, when I was out on my own, that I discovered the joys of running. When I could run at my own pace, choose my own route, and not have to listen to someone scream at me to "Pick it up, cadet!!" I used to do a lot of running, prior to having the girls. Then after the third knee injury, I stopped. Running just hurt too much. Recently though, I've been getting back to it. Maybe it's because I've been keeping up with my glucosamine supplements and physical therapy, but my knees no longer ache after going a couple of miles around the neighborhood. This morning, after my disaster with the coffee maker, I threw on my sweats and sneakers and headed out the door. The sky was a perfect Autumn blue, the weather was cool with a light breeze, and a few of the neighbors were out gardening. Perfect running conditions. I love it.

Reading - I've had the opportunity to sit down with my netbook most nights the past few weeks and do some serious reading. I know I'm staying up waaaaay to late, devouring horror stories and such, but I'm enjoying the hell out of myself. Drood by Dan Simmons is excellent, as was The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. Once I get past this month, I'll put up a list of recommended reads for October.

Time to myself - both girls are in school, and I've got most days to myself now. Yeah, I miss having the munchkins run around the house, screaming and giggling and generally tearing the place apart. But I've got plenty of ways to fill those hours. I've been catching up on e-mail and work, and can actually now look forward to starting work on some new projects, maybe even this week. It's so amazing what I get done in the few hours I have to myself each day!

Swimming - this one goes right up there with running. I never did a lot of swimming until I realized it hurt too much to run. Then I really got into it. I didn't go swimming this summer, not laps at the Y anyway, because I had my hands full with the girls. I went back to the pool for the first time on Friday. Since I didn't have to drag anyone with me, I wasn't restricted to the hours that the Y nursery is open. That meant at noon, when they've got the most swim lanes open for lap swim, I had a lane all to myself. Heck, I almost had the whole pool to myself! It was nice.

Getting published - sometime in the next week or so, I'll have four short stories out from Logical Lust. These are the stories that I've been running this past month on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast, and they include some of the best pieces I've ever written. I'm hoping more published work will mean more sales. Help a mother out and buy my books!

I think I'm going to leave it at that today. Princess is playing with the Wii right now, and Pixie is out shopping with the Hubster. I've got some artwork to finish - the cover art for my upcoming releases. I'm going to go play with my graphics programs now, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. You have fun today, too!

Writing Wednesday - Are E-books Any Good?

2009-09-16T05:08:00.000-05:00

I had a couple of folks express an interest in my idea of doing a semi-regular writing post, and since both writing and Wednesday start with W...

Anyway, I wanted to start with a general topic today, e-books. I've had the opportunity to read a lot of e-books lately. I love my netbook, and I love reading e-books on it. I've enjoyed a lot more books since getting the netbook than I have in a while. E-books don't take up a ton of space in my house, and they're very transportable, and hot diggity-dog! Barnes and Noble has made it every easy for me to get e-books from them online!

Of course, Barnes and Noble, and that mega-giant of e-books Amazon.com, are not the only places to get e-books. There's also Fictionwise.com, which offers some pretty nice deals, and carries a lot of small e-press published books. And just about every e-publisher sells their own books on their website. My publishers do, I know that. So there are lots of places to go buy e-books.

Still, in spite of the availability and the ease of buying, there seems to be this perception that e-books aren't as good as "real" books. I can say from experience that reading a book on my netbook is just as easy as reading one in print. So I don't think the problem is the digital format per se, but the perception that e-books are not as well written. I'm not talking about the books that are e-published as well as print published by the big New York publishers, but the e-books that are put out by all those small e-publishers, the books that usually don't come out in print.

Is the reputation of poor quality one that's been earned by these small e-publishers? Maybe yes, maybe no. We've all seen the major New York publishers put out books that suck rocks, and I've personally seen small e-publishers put out books that kept me up reading all night long. But I've also seen the reverse, more times than I care to admit.

The fact is, there are some publishers out there who don't edit books as well as they should. Granted, most e-publishers don't have the near the staff that the New York publishers have, so frequently you'll find one editor doing the work of three. In that case, editing mistakes are bound to happen - the occasional misplaced comma or dropped word - and I understand that. But what about the books I read that I can't believe got published? You know the ones I'm talking about. They're riddled with bad grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. The plot isn't so much a plot as it is an excuse to string together sex scenes, or horror scenes, or action scenes, depending on the genre. The characters might as well be cut out of cardboard, they're so two-dimension. In fact, the entire story reads like really bad fan fiction (nothing against good fan fiction; I LIKE good fan fiction, and frequently the good fan fic writers go on to become good original authors). When I run across bad books like this, I wince, because I know these books are the reason many people perceive the e-publishing industry to sub-standard and filled with crap. And there are far more of these kinds of e-books out there than there should be. Certain publishers are intent on churning out as many e-books as they can, and I get the feeling they will sign anyone who can string more than a few words together. Quantity over quality is never a good deal. Thus I'm always wary of buying books from a small e-publisher I've never bought from before. Will I get a treasure, or a dud? Even reading reviews doesn't help, if I don't know the reviewer. Many is the time I've seen an e-book with great reviews, only to discover that there are some reviewers out there who like everything and anything they read, while I, a rather picky reader, can not get past the first chapter of this book with the glowing reviews. For some reason, I always figure this out after I get the book and start reading. I hate that, because then I've wasted money and time, two things I really hate to waste.

So here's my thought. I like to read e-books, good e-books, and I think there are plenty of good e-books out there put out by small e-publishers. But there's also a lot of dreck out there too. If you're a reader, I do recommend you search out some e-books and give them a try. Get books from the big publishers and the small, and be willing to do a little research to find books you'll like. There really are some gems out there, if you take the time to look. If you're a writer, do your readers a favor and write the best book you can. Don't just knock out a quick draft and boot it out the door, thinking your editor will catch all your mistakes and fix them for you. You need to do that before you submit, not after. And please, for love of Pete, don't treat plot and characterization like afterthoughts, something to be added in after you write all the hot sex scenes (erotic romance writers, I'm looking at YOU!). Finally, if you're an e-publisher, do EVERYONE a favor. Demand quality books; publish quality books. Publisher fewer books if you need to, to make that happen. But make sure the books are good.

I'm not the best writer in the world, but I am a reader, a reader with a wallet, and I know how I want to spend my money - on quality stories. The publishers and writers who produce those stories are the ones who are going to get my hard-earned bucks.

Last Night I Dreamt...

2009-09-16T05:00:00.001-05:00

I've been tweeting my nightly excursions in slumber land lately, and people seem fascinated that I remember my dreams. I can recall dreams back to when I was around 5 years old, and usually I remember 2-3 dreams a week, sometimes more. Since people seem interested, I thought I'd post them here.

Last night I dreamt I was at college, sort of. I was away somewhere. It was Autumn, and time to head back home for a break. I lived in an apartment, or in part of a house with some other people. Everyone else in the building had already gone off, a few at a time, and it was just me in this big lonely place with one or two other people. We wandered around, trying to get our stuff packed so we could get out the door. For some reason, the place looked like a slew of office cubicles, and I realized I didn't just live there, I also worked there too, which I hated because that meant I could never get away from this lousy office job I had. I was pregnant, and I really wanted to get in my car and head out so I could meet up with Hubster, but in the course of wandering through the cubicles, I came out into the lobby of a hotel where they were serving a continental breakfast. The place looked an awful lot like the Embassy in Chicago where we stayed this summer. Hubster was there, talking to some people that I was supposed to impress. Maybe they were friends of his from work. But all I could think about was how I had to use the restroom, so I excused myself and went to find one. There was a men's room on the lobby floor, but not a ladies (apparently it was still under construction or being renovated), and I had to follow these detour signs that led to the ladies room up on the fourth floor. But when I got there, that ladies' room was cordoned off too, for repairs, and more detour signs led to an elevator that I knew went 27 floors up. The elevator was one of those glass jobs that ran along the outside of the building, so you could see yourself shooting up into the stratosphere, and there was no way in hell I was getting on that thing and going up that high. I had this terrible fear that it wouldn't be safe, and that maybe I'd somehow fall out of the elevator and plunge to my death. So I abandoned my quest for the ladies' room, and headed back down to the lobby, where I had to explain the whole ladies' room problem to everyone there.

And then I woke up.

For some reason, being at college while living in an apartment figures into a lot of my dreams. This is odd, because I lived in the dorms all four years I was at Tech. I didn't get an apartment until I went for my MS at Radford.

Toilets, and the inability to find one or get into one, also show up a lot in my dreams. I have no idea why.

Opinions wanted - Updating the site

2009-09-15T17:39:00.001-05:00

Okay, people, I'm looking for opinions. I need to update the website, but I have small problem. I actually have multiple websites - the Cynical Woman blog at www.cynicalwoman.blogspot.com, my erotica website at www.helenehmadden.com, and the blog for The Adventures of Cynical Woman web comic at www.theadventuresofcynicalwoman.blogspot.com (and yes, I know I need to post a new cartoon! I'm working on it). That's too many websites in my opinion. I can easily fold the web comic into the Cynical Woman blog, but I'm wondering if I should also combine the erotica blog as well, so that I'd only have to worry about one website and not two or three. The erotica blog and the Cynical Woman blog are sort of two different creatures. I don't know if they'd work well together or not, so I need help deciding. Here are the reasons for and against combining ALL the websites/blogs.

Pros:

Only one blog to deal with. I can easily write 3-4 blog posts a week... for one blog. Maintaining two blogs takes a lot more time and effort.

The combined blog would more accurately reflect who I am. I've always billed myself as the "stay-at-home mom AND erotica writer," and people remember that. It's an accurate, and successful, branding of me as a writer.

It'll be easier to find me on the web. Rather than go to a couple of different sites to see what's going on with me, you've got one stop shopping. I can post all my info on free reads, the cartoons, and the usual day-to-day lunacies in one place.

More content. I've been holding back posting certain things here because I need something to post on the erotica blog. However, I don't usually have a ton of stuff to post on the erotica blog. I do a lot more posting here than there, so the erotica blog looks pretty sparse. I wouldn't have to worry about a sparse blog if I combined the erotica blog with this one.

I already own www.cynicalwoman.com (and I would really like to replace the website that's there with the CW blog, plus other stuff). I can easily redirect www.helenehmadden.com to that URL so that typing in either URL takes you to one spot.

Now the cons:

Sexually explicit material. I'd like to post some free erotica reads and excerpts. Is this blog really suitable for that? Or do I need to keep it on a separate blog?

Male nudes. One of the things I'd like to start doing is pin-up art. Male pin-up art (I'm a rabid feminist, remember). That would mean images of full frontal male nudity. Does it belong here, or again does it need it's own forum in a separate blog?

Hmmm. Looking at my pros vs. my cons, I'm thinking maybe I should just combine the two blogs. When it comes to the explicit stuff, rather than put it right there in the blog, I can post a link to the stories or images in question. Then people can choose to follow the link or not.

Yeah, I think this will work. BUT I'm still interested in other people's opinions. So give me some feedback! I'm hoping to get started on this in a couple weeks ;) Thanks!

Move It Mama Monday! I'm Free!

2009-09-14T05:31:00.000-05:00

Ah, school is finally started! Both Princess and Pixie are out of the house all day, and I have the place to myself. Once I get the kids off to their respective schools, I can take off and do whatever I want. And what I want to do is...

Huhn. Good question. What do I want to do, now that I can go exercise without being saddled with two kids?

Well, for starters, I want to get in a lot of karate practice. I've got a test in a couple weeks, and I need to brush up, rebuild my endurance after so many weeks of vacation and visiting relatives and other general discombobulation.

What else would I like to do? Get back on track with my physical therapy. My knees are better than they were when I stopped doing EA Sports Active, but they still crack and pop too much for my comfort. So back to daily therapy we go!

Get back on EASA. Yes, I actually do miss that knee destroying game. I'm hoping if I eliminated the lunges, I can get back to using the game on a regular basis, maybe a couple times a week. It's got a lot of fun games, plus upper body exercises, and I do work up a sweat on that game.

Actually, I'd like to get back in the habit of doing two workouts most days; a main, hour-long workout in the morning and a mini cardio workout in the afternoon. This is for two reasons. First, I really do need the activity. Without the kids to chase around, I will probably spend a lot more time on my ass working at the computer. Not good for me in general. Second, I get the sleepies in the afternoon. That extra 20 minutes of aerobic activity, whether it be walking, DDR, or the elliptical machine, will help combat that, and hopefully keep me perky and alert all afternoon.

I considered adding "lose weight" to my list of goals for the fall, but I'm thinking no. Rather than be concerned about how many pounds I'm packing, I'd rather focus on how much (healthy, non-knee destroying) activity I get and on how much healthy food I can eat. I am trying to move more to a vegetable focused diet, with two out of three meals having fruit and vegetables as the main course, and fruits and vegetables as snacks during the day. Besides, I can lose weight, but invariably, sometime around mid-cycle, my body packs it back on in water weight. So I'm wondering if I should take a slightly different approach to my workouts.

Maybe, during the middle of my cycle, when I'm most likely to pack on the water weight, I should do mostly cardio activity - karate, running (yes, I have found I can run again), elliptical, DDR, swimming, etc. Then during the rest of my cycle I can split my workouts between cardio and strength. I'm hoping the extra sweat I get from the extra cardio will help me fight off that water weight, but again, I don't want to focus on losing weight, just on being healthy.

So that's the goals for the next couple of months. Next Monday, I should have something to say about finally having a week to get back to the Y!

Sunday Contentments - Football!

2009-09-13T15:04:00.001-05:00

I know, I've been a bad blogger. I haven't posted here all week. All I can say is, I've been busier than usual. But now it's Sunday, and I'm taking the afternoon to relax and chill. Here are this week's contentments.

Football - I swear to God, I can't stand the game. I spent way too much time in high school and college being forced to sit in the bleachers and watch a lot of football, and I loathed every minute of it. So it's pretty ironic that I'd call it a contentment now. But! There's always a but(t)... I married a man who really enjoys the game. Early in our marriage, he used to spend all day Sunday watching the games. He's a Redskins fan and a Virginia Tech fan (we both graduated from Tech). I used to loathe those days, because I'd completely lose him. Then slowly, I discovered that if he was watching the game, I could do other things, like commandeer the dining room table to sew or make jewelry. Game days got to be lazy afternoons for both of us, and for certain games, we'd invite friends over and whip up a lot of comfort food. The men (usually) watched the game while the women (usually) made jewelry, worked on costumes, drew, etc. We got out of the habit of doing game day after Princess was born. Hubster said he just couldn't justify spending hours in front of the TV when there was so much to do, and a baby to explore the world with. But I've been run ragged this summer, what with all the travel and work and getting the kids back to school, and I want a break. So I've re-instated Game Day. This afternoon, the Redskins play... someone. The Giants, maybe? I don't care. It's not the game itself I'm interested in. It's the excuse to sit on the couch with my sketch pad and pens, or at the dining room table with my beads, and do something creative that isn't work-related. Speaking of which, the next contentment is...

Beads - I've had to make a lot of trips to Virginia Beach the past few weeks, and there's a Michael's craft store down in the area I've been visiting. Since traffic coming back on that trip is always the suck, I decided one afternoon to stop in at Michael's and pick up one or two items. Just one or two, mind you. Then I walked in the door and ran smack into the bed section and that was that. I found some really chunky orange nugget style beads that I just had to have. Then I found a pendant with a Tibetan Buddha on it. It was all in oranges and dark greens, and it just so perfectly matched the orange chunky things I had picked up, and oh! Look over there! Dark green glass beads, slightly marbled with orangy red, and several strings of various shades of green beads next to that, and... And I walked out of the store with enough beads to make a new necklace. A nice, chunky, ethnic style piece, very Tibetan in design. Tres cool! I haven't been in a Michael's in years, mainly because I couldn't leisurely stroll through the place with two small children kicking each other all through the store. That day, I was on my own. I don't think I'll go back again for several months, though, because I'm so starved for new craft supplies, I think I'd go waaaaaaaaaay overboard.

School - School has finally started, and this year, Pixie is in preschool and Princess is in first grade. That means yours truly is on her own most of the day. I had one day last week when I wasn't traveling to appointments, a day when I could stay home, and I was so frikkin' amazed at how much stuff I got done! Tomorrow is Monday, I can stay home again, and I expect the day to be peaceful and productive.

Foooooooood - Yummy, yummy fooooooooood. For the game today, I made a big pot of chili, with rice and corn muffins. I'm salivating just thinking about it. I think I'll grab myself something to eat as soon as I'm done here.

Fall weather - It's no secret, and in fact I may have mentioned this last week or the week before, but I can't stand summer weather. It's too damn hot and sticky. The last couple of weeks have been just beautiful. Cool enough for jeans, and I love that.

New patio furniture - We've been in this house 14 years, and have only owned a couple of second hand plastic chairs and a tiny plastic table. Then last spring, one of the chairs collapsed under Hubster (and he is not a large man). It was obviously time for new patio furniture. Hubster waited until this weekend though, to get a nice set on sale. We've got six chairs and a nice long table. We can have guests and eat outside! WIN!

T-shirts - Threadless.com had a sale this week! I love Threadless t-shirts! I bought three. I can't wait until they arrive. SQUEEEEEE!

Yeah, the entire list is pretty materialistic, but you know, sometimes simple things like t-shirts and craft supplies really do make the day brighter. The game is starting soon, so I'm going to get some chili. Have a very content Sunday, folks!

Sunday Contentments - When Life's a Disaster

2009-09-06T13:43:00.001-05:00

Well, my week has been a complete, COMPLETE train wreck. The whole family is massively off schedule, trying to cram in that last bit of summer fun before school starts on Tuesday. In addition to this, which would be enough madness in and of itself, I've got several doctor appointments right now. Nothing's wrong, I just have something I need to see a specialist about, and it requires several trips, almost on an every-other-day basis. It does not help that the doctor I'm seeing is an hour's drive from my home. Nor does it help that a few minor mis-communications have resulted in me having to return to the doctor's office, or to a special pharmacy near the doctor's office, twice in the same day. And it helps even less that the road I have to travel is notorious for traffic jams and cluster fucks galore. I've had two days this past week where I've done nothing but spend all day in the car, shutting back and forth from my house, to the doctor's office or pharmacy.

Top this off with the story I've been trying to write this week, which I really wanted to have done before midnight last night so I could turn it into my critique group for the weekend. I blew my deadline by two hours, and at 2AM this morning, still didn't have a good working draft. In times like these, there's only one thing I can say, folks. FIDO: Fuck It, Drive On.

But enough of all that crap. Today's blog post is about contentments, and yes, in spite of the upset and general disasterousness of my week, I do have a few things I can point to and say, "Yep, that gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling but good." Here's this week's contentments:

Music - I don't often listen to music these days, mainly because I'm not the kind of gal who can write while music is playing in the background. I prefer peace and quiet. I would listen to music in the car, but I'm not in my car that much these days, and rarely if ever make long trips. But we know I made a few this past week, don't we! So what did I listen to? The soundtrack to River Dance, which always gets my spirit pumping, The soundtrack to Fellowship of the Ring (I LOVE that movie), ABBA Gold, and a mix CD the Hubster made for me aeons ago when we were just engaged. It was all good stuff, and it kept me humming along when I got stuck in traffic over and over and over again this week.

Kids - I got two of the little twerps, and they never cease to amaze me. I get the giggles just watching Pixie run around the house. She's so in charge of whatever she's doing. Meanwhile, Princess continues to delve into Egyptology with a vengeance. We spent this afternoon, after I returned from yet another trip to the doctor, drawing pictures of the artifacts she found in her excavation kit. She says she can't draw. I explained she couldn't draw perfectly. But she could draw well enough, and she'd get better with practice. She did quite good when she finally settled down.

Cuddling and tickling - nothing boosts my mood like a cuddle with the girls, or a long hug with the Hubster. I've been bitching all week because Hubster bought scented laundry detergent and now we all smell Spring Time Fresh! I can't stand it. But today, either we all dug out pre-new detergent clothes or my nose has finally gone numb, because I could hold everyone without getting a massive headache. I've also had the opportunity this week to curl up with one child or the other for a nap or late morning snooze, and to chase after the kids and tickle the stuffings out of them. Their laughter is the best medicine ever. And Hubster? Nothing makes me happier than to spoon up behind him in bed, and know that I'm not going to get up until the kids roust us from delightful, golden sleep.

Books - there just so happens to be a Border's near my doctor's office. I got a coupon last night for 40% off, and had an appointment this morning. I decided to stop in and get myself something I wanted. My purchases included two birding books, The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (and it was on massive discount to boot!), and the latest installment of one of my favorite mangas, Bizenghast. I can haz reading material, LOL!

Birds - I've gone nuts lately, trying to figure out which species are visiting the bird feeders in our backyard. Ever since I put the squirrel baffle up, we had tons of birds show up. I checked out a birding book from the library, and of course, bought two new books today. I can finally tell a purple finch from a cardinal, and a gold finch from a black capped chickadee. We've even got a tufted titmouse showing up, plus several others I can't quite pin down yet. And we've got two regular visitors to the humming bird feeder, a male and a female ruby throat. I never in my life would have guessed I'd be so entertained standing at my dining room window and watching the birds zip in and out of our yard. I have truly gone round the bend.

Manga - as I've mentioned, I picked up the latest installment of Bizenghast. If you haven't heard of it before, it's an OEL (original English language) manga, drawn by M. Alice LeGrow. The art is very spooky, delicate and gothic, and the story is bizarre. Right up my alley, of course. I've been waiting for this book for a while, and I'm delighted I found it today.

My lousy first draft of my story - hands down, a lousy first draft beats no draft at all when it comes to writing. I was pissed as hell last night when I blew my deadline, but there was nothing for it. Then I dreamt all last night about the subjects I was writing about - Lovecraft, nuclear bomb tests, and mermaids (are you intrigued yet?). This morning, bits and pieces of narrative have been filtering through my brain. I haven't caught all of them on paper yet, but I did get some key ones down in my notebook while I was waiting in the doctor's office. I think I'll be able to finish this story soon, AND I've got ideas for four more to write for next month's podcast. I hope you guys like horror };)

Finally, the weather - I loathe summer. Really, I despise hot sticky weather, and the clothing that goes with it. I much prefer cool autumn days where I can wear jeans and a light sweater or jacket. All my favorite clothing is fall clothing. It's still summer, but the weather this past week has been so cool and nice, I've been able to break out my beloved jeans and enjoy. It's a very simple thing, but I love this weather. Love, love, love it!

And that's the contentments for this Sunday. I've got a story to work on, and hopefully finish, today, plus more blog posts to plan for the rest of this week. Hope you all are doing well, and have a contented Sunday.

Fiction Friday - Gojiro by Mark Jacobson

2009-09-04T04:21:00.000-05:00

I'm amazed at how much reading I've done this summer. In addition to books I've already mentioned here, I've also read quite a few others, more than I've read in a long time. Enough in fact, that I can do a weekly Fiction Friday post for a month, at least, if I can just keep up with blogging.

The last book I read before heading off to Chicago was Gojiro by Mark Jacobson. I will say up front this was both one of the strangest and one of the best reads I've had in a while. The story is told from the point of view of the radio-active behemoth himself, only instead of unintelligible roars, this Gojiro is a hip-talking, Jack Kerouac-like philosophizer addicted to fine grades of plutonium. His companion is Komodo, the Coma Boy, a young man who's life was obliterated by the Heater, that nuclear weapon of Armageddon that ripped Gojiro from his natural place in the universe and transformed the Monitor Lizard into the King of Monsters.

The plot circles around Gojiro's attempts at suicide and Komodo's desire to save his one true friend. The two victims of nuclear disaster live together on Radioactive Island, along with the Atoms, children malformed and mutated by radioactive energy. Gojiro is tired of his life as a freak, and can't abide the suffering that abounds in his quad-cameral brain. Somehow, he's hooked into the universe, receiving messages and please for help from fans around the world, and he has no idea how to answer them. He's also tired of being ripped from his position in the natural order of things. He was never meant to be a monster, let alone King of Monsters, and now, bereft of the comfort of his species, it takes everything he has just to hold it together.

Only he's not holding it together. If not for a sacred promise he made to Komodo and his pesky invulnerability, the big green 'zard would snuff himself in an instant. Komodo knows this, and is doing everything he can to keep his friend going. They strike upon a deal - in a year's time, if they haven't found a way to relieve Gojiro's depression and pain, the great lizard will be allowed to kill himself, and Komodo will help ease his way.

That's when the note shows up, a letter from the mysterious Sheila Brooks, daughter of Joseph Prometheus Brooks, the scientist who invented the Heater. A critically acclaimed film maker and all around nut-case, Ms. Brooks desperately needs Gojiro's help. She wants to make a movie, entitled "Gojiro Vs. Joseph Prometheus Brooks in the Valley of Decision," and suddenly Gojiro finds he must once and for all confront the man responsible for his tortured existence.

It's a long strange acid trip of a book, and the first few chapters may seem rather slow until you get into the rhythm of the language. Gojiro has a slang all his own, and it takes a while to decipher what he means. On top of that, there's a great deal of philosophy in the book on the nature of species and their interconnectedness and the place of the individual within the whole.

I bought this book waaaaaaaay back in the 1990s, probably 1993, when I was still in grad school. I've had it on my shelf ever since then, just gathering dust. I finally reached a point this summer where I determined that I either needed to read the book or get rid of it. I made a deal with myself to read the first two chapters, and then decide. Fortunately, the I found it slow at the start, I was hooked enough to keep going and eventually I reached a point where I couldn't put the book down. In fact, on more than one night, I stayed up waaaaaaaaaaay to late because I just didn't want to stop reading.

So Gojiro has earned a permanent spot on my shelf, I'm happy to say. I'll get rid of some other namby pamby book if I need to clear things out. This one's got too much style, too much plot, too much mind-boggling entertainment for me to give up.

Artsy Fartsy Thursday - Knitting!

2009-09-03T04:53:00.001-05:00

This is a semi-regular post that I do intend to do, as I have a huge love for all things crafty, and finally may have some time to do some crafty things. My most recent venture into the world of the Artsy Fartsy has been in the field of knitting. A friend of mine, Mich, got me started in late June. I had been bemoaning the fact that Princess' teacher told me she didn't concentrate as well as she should in school, and Mich offered to teach Princess to knit. She thought it might help Princess learn to focus on a complex task, and give her something fun to do with her hands.

Well, you know if Princess is going to learn how to knit, I was going to have to learn too. Otherwise, how else was I going to help her out when she got stuck? My mom sent Princess a knitting kit, complete with a set of needles, yarn, and basic instruction book. I went out to the local craft store and picked up some needles and yarn of my own. The end result of this is that I have since created a pot holder, a belt,, a dish cloth (with a skull knitted into it!), and now a pair of wrist warmers. I'm most proud of this last accomplishment. The wrist warmers are the first knitted thing I've made for myself, and they won't be the last.

I love that I can make clothing items for myself. I'm very particular about how I dress, though you might not guess it from looking at me. But I flatter myself to think I cultivate a certain sort of goth/punk mommy aura with my tattered jeans and fitted t-shirts, and I like my accessories to reflect that. The wrist warmers will look perfect this winter, giving me a certain radical chic while all the other mama-jamas stand around the bus stop wearing boring old gloves.

Seriously, though, I liked how these turned out, and they got made very quickly, which is also a plus. I'm hoping to make a matching scarf and maybe even a hat for myself as well. I've never really had a winter hat that I liked, so this would be a first.

The pattern for the wrist warmers, if you're interested, comes from Teach Yourself Visually: Knitting, available on Amazon.com. You can also get it here from Barnes and Noble.

Writing Wednesday - Would You Be Interested?

2009-09-02T04:47:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about what I'd like to do with this blog, and among other things, I'd like to do some more semi-regular topics. So I was wondering. I have Move It Mama Monday and Fiction Friday, both of which are about things near and dear to my heart (exercise and reading, respectively). But would anybody here be interested in hearing my thoughts, however strange they may be, on writing? I figure I must have something to say on the subject, since I've written over 100 stories in the past two years.

I'm toying with the idea. On the one hand, there are thousands, maybe millions, of websites out there that discuss this very same subject, and I'm wondering what I can bring to the topic that would be original. Would you like to hear about what it's like to write erotica, or what it's like to be a write-at-home mom? Or would you like to hear how those worlds collide?

Let me know what you think. I'll keep playing with the idea. If I get any feedback, I may get started on this sooner rather than later.

Move It Mama Monday! Sidewalks?!

2009-08-31T04:35:00.000-05:00

For a long while now, I have bemoaned the lack of sidewalks in our area. We have a bit of sidewalk in our own little patch of suburbia, as well as a bit of running trail, but those only run intermittently through the neighborhood, and fail to connect us to any other patch of suburbia, which is kind of a problem.

Our neighborhood sits right off a very busy four-lane highway. Very busy. This road has no sidewalks along it, and the shoulders are rather narrow. The traffic along the highway is constant, and deadly fast, and I don't often seen anyone dumb enough to walk along the side of the road to get anywhere. It's just too dangerous.

If it were not for the lack of sidewalks along this stretch of highway, though, I'd be able to walk to the nearest grocery store (about 2 miles away). I'd also be able to walk to our local library and our YMCA (about 3 miles away). This would be great, in my opinion. If I walked to the grocery store once a week to get dinner for Friday, and walked to the Y 2-3 times a week to work out, I'd never have to worry about those 5-10 extra pounds I can't seem to lose. They'd melt away! Plus I'd almost never need to drive, since those are the three places I go most often during the week. I could just walk there, and save money on gas! Imagine that.

I mention all of this because Hubster just recently read that our local government is looking at putting in a stretch of sidewalk along that very busy highway. What they're looking at doing won't stretch as far as the library and Y, unfortunately, but it would stretch past the local grocery store. Also unfortunate, that prophesied sidewalk will only be on one side of the road, the side opposite where my little patch of suburbia is, so I'll have to figure out how to cross a four-lane highway to reach it, because I'm betting no one is smart enough to figure out we'll also need cross walks and signals too.

But still, it's progress, and it looks like there will be more sidewalks going up through our county, and I can't see that as a bad thing. Maybe some day, before I day, I'll have all the sidewalk I'll need to get around this area.

In other news, I do finally seem to be losing weight. It's a combination of water weight and fat, but still, my assets do appear to be shrinking. As I mentioned last Monday, I am taking a month off of EA Sports Active, since my weight gain and knee problems started about the time I started using that game. Instead, I'm going with a combination of Wii Fit, karate, walking, a bit of running, the elliptical machine, and Dance Dance Revolution. In the last three weeks, I've lost four pounds. When school starts up next week and both kids head off for the day, I'll be back to swiming and lifting on a regular basis again, and that should really help kill those extra pounds, I hope.

So how are you all doing with your waist lines? And what would you do if you had sidewalks in your neighborhood? Would you take advantage of them and walk everywhere? Or do you already have them and use them?

Sunday Afternoon Contentments

2009-08-30T12:29:00.000-05:00

I had a lousy day yesterday, filled with temper tantrums and howling and pouting. All on my part, that is, not the kids. I think three weeks of travel and visiting family and having no time for myself finally got to me, and like an over-tired tot, I finally had a melt-down.

But that was yesterday, and this is today. It's Sunday, the Hubster has headed out with the girls, and I have the house to myself. It's my first time alone, truly alone, in over three weeks. Let's think about what's got me feeling all warm and fuzzy today.

Early morning writing - I've been busting ass on a story the last two weeks, churning out 1-2K words at a sitting. This morning, I finally wrote the last words and finished the tale. It's a good story, a funny story, and a good feeling to be done. Now I can get on with that horror story I need to finish by next Saturday.

Squirrel baffles and bird feeders - we finally got a squirrel baffle while my parents were here (they came to visit for two weeks, showed up right as we pulled into our driveway after getting back from Chicago!). This was a necessity, because one of the local squirrels, whom I have dubbed Lardo the Big-Butted Squirrel, has been wiping out the bird feeder every time we fill it. Since I also noticed a couple of humming birds buzzing around the rosemary bush in our backyard, I bought a humming bird feeder too. Since setting up these items in our backyard, we've seen gold finches, purple finches, cardinals, and what may be a Smith's Longspur, although this isn't the right range for it, so I'm probably wrong. We've also seen both a male and female ruby-throated humming bird. The girls get very excited seeing these birds, and I have a feeling we may end up buying a bird watching book before too long.

Spiders, cicadas and other creepy crawlies - yes, I am all about the Nature thing today! Earlier this week, while I was weeding the backyard, the girls found 16 cicada skins, plus bits of broken butterfly wings. I've saved them all, in hopes of photographing them, and maybe preserving them somehow. As for the spider, we've got a gorgeous yellow and black one that's woven a giant web along our covered porch. We call her Shelob, and everyday I go out to see what she's caught in her web. Again, the girls are fascinated (though Pixie is a bit creeped out by the sheer size of Shelob). The more interested the girls get in nature, the happier I am.

Shelob, with dinner

Tomatoes from my garden - I haven't got a lot of tomatoes growing, but I do have a few. Today, I made a sandwich with sliced tomato from my garden. It was GOOD.

Homemade bread - let's hear it for bread machines!! I've got a loaf of honey mustard wheat bread going in the machine downstairs right this minute. It's going to be good!

Home made soup - also cooking downstairs, in the crockpot. It's vegetable, with a few things thrown in from the garden. I love it.

Irish Breakfast tea - my mom picked me up a cannister in Busch Gardens, of all places, in the Irish section of the park. I can't recall the brand, but it's very good, and has been the kick in the pants I've needed the last few days or so.

Knitting - Mich got me started on knitting, saying that if I could teach Princess, she might learn to concentrate better at school. Princess has done some knitting, and enjoys it, but I've since become addicted. How addicted, you ask? On Thursday evening, I started work on a pair of wrist warmers for myself. By Saturday evening they were done. Damn that was fast! What can I make next?

My fancy new wrist warmers!

Tamarind soda - I don't know where Hubster got it from, but it's "Hecho en Mexico!" so you know it's good.

Books - thanks to my mom, I am stocked up on books for the next couple of months. I've got "Age of Wonder," a look at the time of scientific discovery and exploration prior to the Industrial Revolution. I've also got "Of Bees and Mist" and a few other choice goodies. The girls got a number of non-fiction books, including some of the Eye Witness books, which I love. We have plenty to read this fall.

E-books - to add to my joy, Barnes and Noble is selling e-books at prices competitive to Amazon.com, and their e-books don't require you to buy a proprietary device! I have a netbook. I love my netbook. I can type on it, blog with it, write with it, handle e-mail with it, surf the net with it, and now I can read the latest best sellers with it at a price I can afford (Fictionwise.com is also a good place to buy e-books, if you're interested). Between Barnes and Noble and my mom, I've done more reading in the past month than I've done all year! WIN!!

Egyptology - Princess was fascinated with the Egyptian mummies we saw at the Field Museum in Chicago, so we bought her an excavation kit in the museum's gift shop. She started work on it last Monday, and have so far gotten a small plastic sarcophagus, various trinkets, and a Bast figurine. Some of the books my mom bought for her included an Eye Witness book of Egypt, and Princess spent an entire afternoon sitting with her grandfather, listening to him tell stories of when he lived in Egypt as a boy. We've also been recording shows about Egypt on the Discovery Channel, which Princess watched with rapt attention. And now I discover that one of our local museums will be hosting a traveling exhibit on Egyptian mummies and other treasures later this fall. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see my girl take such an interest in something like this, something that has nothing to do with Hannah Montana, makeup, Disney Princess, or other contemporary girl things that drive me nuts.

The archaeologist hard at work with her loyal assistant.

Naps - I've had a long couple of weeks, and a few times, I've just had to lay down and doze. I love that pleasant, sleepy feeling I get when I pull my favorite afghan over me in the middle of the day and drift off. In fact, I think I ought to take a nap right now...

Move It Mama Monday! Dear EA Sports Active

2009-08-24T05:31:00.000-05:00

Dear EA Sports Active,

I want you to know, we've had a lovely couple of months together. Really, I've had such a great time with your 30 day challenge and daily journal. But I think it's time we take a break. Now before you panic, this is a break, not a break-up. It's just that I need some time away from you to figure things out, like why my knees have been feeling like crap ever since we've been together, or why I've done nothing but gain weight since you came into my life. I know, these are difficult questions, and you're not necessarily at fault. In fact, I don't want to blame you, but I need to start looking for solutions to these two very troubling problems, and that means cutting back on possible contributors. Again, notice I say possible, not definite. I'm not blaming you. Really, it's not you at all, it's me, me and my bum knees.

I expect you won't see me for about a month. While we're apart, I want you to know I will be revisiting old friends, and yes, that includes Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution. I know you may not be comfortable with this, but I want to be upfront and about what I'm doing. And you are certainly free to hang out with whomever you choose. I don't want you to be jealous, but I've always felt close to Wii Fit, and my knees are certainly more comfortable with the balance board than they are with your lunges and jumping, so I think maybe this is the right thing to do.

Again, we've had a wonderful couple of months together. All those training exercises, the upper body workouts, the volley ball and the tennis and other games... All that will remain very precious to me, and I'm certain that at the end of a month you and I will be seeing each other again, although maybe not as much as we had been seeing each other before. After all, Fall is coming up, and with the kids going back to school I'll be hitting the Y more often to swim and lift real weights...

Oh, I'm sorry! Your weight training program is great, really! You should be proud of it!

Anyway, I have to go. I've got a weigh in at the balance board coming up, and I don't want to miss that. Wii Fit gets so prissy if I miss a weigh in. I'll see you in a month, I promise.

Yours truly,

Helen

Chicago, day 06 - Artsy Fartsy and a Fear of Heights

2009-08-19T16:08:00.001-05:00

Day 06 of our trip, Hubster decided to take off from his very important convention. Apparently they weren't doing any talks in his area of rocket scientist expertise that day, and he really wanted to hang with us girls. He did manage to see a bit of the Adler Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium (hey, that kinda rhymes!) on his own, in the afternoons after his conference was over, but apparently he missed his WO-man and kids.

After all the other stuff we'd done, I was dying to see an art museum. I mean, it's Chicago, right? There are TONS of art museums and galleries in that city. But a mom on her own with two kids has no chance in hell of getting through an art museum with any enjoyment, so I ~~traded sex~~ convinced Hubster to take me to the Museum of Contemporary Art. It's a nice museum. Very interesting art. I understand NONE of it.

Well, almost none of it. I did like the installations by Olafur Elliasson. These were rooms that had weird light effects and walk-in sculptures and such. One hallway had these overpowering yellow lights that leached all the color out of everything, so that when you went through it, you turned black and white. Freaky! Another room had a series of glass or plexi-glass hoops spinning on a string with a spot light shining through them. The light cast on the far wall broke into prismatic colors and did all sorts of swoops and swirls. Neat! Then there was the room with a free swinging fan hanging from the ceiling, you know, the sort of fan that you prop in the window when it gets really hot and your AC goes kaput? I sort of got that one (it reminded me of summer at my grandmother's house), but Hubster didn't care for it. He did like the room where one wall was covered entirely in reindeer moss. Yeah, I have no idea why that would be art.

The kids had no idea what they were looking at though, and things only got stranger as we moved through the painting gallery. Why some of those paintings are hanging in a museum is beyond me. I've seen more evocative images appear in Pixie's diapers after a meal of blueberries and pureed squash. Yet someone things they're art and must be preserved. I did get to see a real live Rene Magritte up close and personal. Loved it. Plus there was an Andy Warhol and a few names in there I recognized. Sadly, no photography was alllowed in the MCA, otherwise I'd show you some nifty pics with snarky commentary on the state of contemporary art.

Then we hit the gift shop, and I have to say, that's the first time I've seen a gift shop that was a better museum than the museum it was attached to. The MCA gift shop had some amazing stuff in there, including all sorts of books on pop art and comics, manga, etc. They had a slew of Japanese toys, especially the little collectible trinkets that have become so popular these days. I desperately wanted to get a blank Munny doll so I could doodle it up all my own, but then I found a book on plushy art and that was that. I can't wait to start making freaky little toys with my new-found knowledge };)

After the MCA, Hubster took us to the Hancock Observatory, where we took an elevator to the very tippy top floor so we could all look out a bunch of big plate glass windows and contemplate our deaths. Seriously, I am not a fan of heights, and I really don't like standing at the top of a very tall building with nothing but a plate of glass between me and a leap to my death. Hubster swears he did not know about my phobia, and then proceeded to ignore it as he took the kids right up to the glass to peer out the windows! I sort of clung to the walls in the center of the floor, praying we would leave soon.

When we did finally descend (in what is probably the world's fastest elevator - and no, the speed of our plunge did not make me feel better about heights), we headed over to lunch at the same food court/cafeteria/grocery store place Julie had taken us to a few days earlier (was it called Fresh Foods? I can't recall). We got a huge picnic lunch and headed over to the Lincoln Park Zoo. After devouring everything (I have no idea why I felt starved, but I was), we toured the zoo. It's a nice zoo, with a carousel and kiddie train, and an ape house and lots of other displays. Unfortunately, some of the animals were out for vet visits and the like. Other animals were hiding from the summer sun. I'd like to go back again sometime, maybe hit it in the morning before the heat sets in and the animals decide to take to the shade.

After a loooooooooong trek around the zoo, we finally headed back to the hotel, where we met up with Hubster's brother Pat, who ~~foolishly~~ kindly volunteered to take the kids for the night. We sent him off with a smile and a wave, and then set about trying to find some adult entertainment for the evening. I think Hubster was hoping for Blue Man Group, but I nixxed that, opting instead for Harry Potter at the local IMAX theater. Yeah, I know, sounds lame. But you have no idea how infrequently we can get a sitter, and how badly I wanted to see Harry Potter.

The movie was grand. Dinner before hand was an adventure. We tried a Mexican place at the Navy pier, only to find ourselves seated in a wait staff dead zone. After 15 minutes of hoping someone would come take our order, we watched a trio of women get seated right next to us and promptly have their order taken. Their waiter didn't even look at us as he hurried off to get their drinks, and me feeling snarky, I said, "Let's leave this dump and go get some food!"

So we hit the Hagen Daaz cafe nearby and got some nice sandwiches. End of dinner adventure. (I know, some adventure, huh?)

After the movie, Hubster and I walked back to the hotel. It was near midnight by now and I'd been on my feet several hours, but since the kids were with their aunt and uncle, and we had a hotel room to ourselves, we did what any husband and wife would do - quickie sex and then off to lala land! Seriously, I wasn't up to much. I did manage to wake up for sex the next morning, but I made Hubster go get me coffee first.

So that was day 06. Here are a few pics.

Hubster and kids, at the top of the Hancock Observatory, creeping me out by standing so close to the window.

One of the views from the Hancock Observatory. I think our hotel is in there somewhere.

They think they're being so funny. We actually did see a window washer working outside the Observatory, and I nearly died of a heart attack.

Pixie discovering how big the great apes truly are.

Princess on the Lincoln Park Zoo carousel.

The hottie who is the Hubster. Yeah, I know I'm a lucky girl.

And the train ride at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

I know, I should have had more pictures from the day, but with the no photo policy at the MCA and so many animals out at the zoo, I only got a few good snaps. Tomorrow will be even more sparse, since the big exhibit at the museum we saw then was a no photos deal too! But then, I'm pretty sure everyone's tired of seeing my vacation photos, right?

Chicago, day 05 - Adler Planetarium, and Pixie's Surprise

2009-08-18T19:43:00.001-05:00

Day 05 of our trip to Chicago, I was back on my own with the kids again. Not a problem though. One bus stop took us to three different museums, each of which would have taken more than a day to get through. So once again, we hopped the 146 bus and headed out to Soldier Field. This time, we bypassed the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium for the Adler Planetarium. This was probably the nicest planetarium I've ever seen, with a display on historical astronomical instruments, among other things. Unfortunately, Princess and Pixie weren't exactly enraptured with the planetarium. The shows scared the bejeezus out of Pixie, and most of the displays went right over a six-year-old's head. We spent a couple of hours there, and then retired to the Field Museum, where we promptly got lost in an exhibit on Ancient Americas.

Several thousands of years of American history that you never saw in any school book blended right into an exhibit on Pacific Northwest and Arctic peoples, with side exhibits on costumes of Native American tribes. We spent HOURS going through all this, and it amazed me how much Princess took an interest in the displays. But then, she likes "Indians," as she tells me.

After several hours lost in ancient history, we finally found our way out of the museum and headed back to the hotel, where we collapsed. I can't even recall what restaurant we went to that evening, I was so tired. Oh wait, yes I can.

We went to Gino's East to get deep dish pizza. Gino's East is very dark inside. Patrons are encouraged to color all over the walls and such, so the place kind of looks like a pit, covered in graffiti and all. But the food was supposed to be good, so we sat down to wait for our deep dish pizza. Deep dish pizza takes a long time to make, so we were prepared for quite a wait.

While we were sitting there, Hubster looked over at Pixie, who was sitting next to me, and said, "Sweetie, what's in your hand?"

Now it was very dark in Gino's East, remember, so I had no idea what I was getting when I turned around and said, "Pixie, hand it over."

Nope, no way to tell my child was about to hand me a turd. Which she had just pulled from her own shorts.

I dropped it immediately, not quite shrieking, and Hubster wanted to know what was wrong. I made him crawl under the table to retrieve what I had dropped. Then I carted Pixie and the turd, wrapped in a napkin, to the ladies' room. I had no diaper bag with me. Pixie is supposed to be potty trained, right? Anyway, no change of clothing, no baby wipes. All I had was paper towels and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. So I sanitized my baby's butt. Used up half my bottle of sanitizer in the process.

The underpants Pixie was wearing went into the trash. After repeatedly washing her hands and mine, we finally went back to the table. When we got there, the pizza was ready.

Hubster said, "See, you had something interesting to do while we waited for our pizza."

Gee, wonderful.

Anyway, here are the pictures from day 05 (but no pictures of the turd, I promise):

Adler Planetarium

Lots of nifty astronomical intruments, including sun dials and astrolabes.

The only thing in the Adler Planetarium that held my kids' attention, the fun house mirrors.

One of the many statues in the Ancient Americas display at the Field Museum.

I felt like this after so many days running around and seeing the sights.

And that's day 05!

Chicago, day 04 - OMG! American Girl!!

2009-08-17T14:25:00.001-05:00

Day 04 of our trip was divided between laundry and sightseeing with my sister-in-law Julie. I love Julie. I hate doing laundry in a hotel. The Embassy's idea of laundry is to put one tiny washer and dryer on the 10th and 14th floor. The set up on the 10th was busy, so we had to make several trips back and forth between our hotel room on the 6th floor and the washing machine on the 14th. The kids were naturally bored. Meanwhile, I slaved over the last three days' worth of dirty undies.

Fortunately, Julie came to save us at noon. She whisked us away to the Disney store and then to the freakiest place on Earth, the American Girl Store. You know yours truly is not American Girl material, not by a long shot. I don't do the girlie girl thing, and I sure as hell don't get into dolls and kids wearing matching outfits. American Girl is just too mundane and too commercialized for me. I saw a lot of families walking through that store, Moms chasing after daughters who brought their dolls with them so they could get just the right accessories, Dads dragging behind, arms loaded with doll stuff. Someone should have put those guys out of their misery. Someone should have put me out of my misery. I was just freaked by the whole Stepford atmosphere. But Princess and Pixie were in seventh heaven, running from one display to the next, oohing and ahhing over the dolls and their overpriced stuff. All along, Julie just kept laughing at me. Remember how I said I loved my sister-in-law? Maybe not so much in the American Girl Store.

We ended up getting two small (6 inch) dolls. I insisted on the historical dolls, so we got Josephina for Princess and Kaya for Pixie. We also got books on each doll. Then Julie got us out of there before my stomach turned itself completely inside out. We hopped on a bus and headed back to the hotel where we deposited our loot, then headed back out for the Millenium Park.

Millenium Park was cool. We started off with the big Bean, which is a giant bean shaped chrome sculpture that reflects everything at weird angles. It's HUGE! And outside the Bean there were a group of kids doing a re-enactment of the big fight scene from Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Then there was a display of modern sculptures by Chinese artists, as well as the fountain area. In the fountain area there are two tall pillars that display video images of faces. After these giant faces smile for a while, they purse their lips and spit, and a stream of water comes shooting out, soaking everyone. The girls loved it. After a while in there, we caught a rehearsal session of a local symphony (they were damned good!), and then Julie guided us back to our hotel.

Hubster came back a little later and took us out to dinner at a place called Big Bowl. They serve Thai, Chinese, etc., there, and all of it is good. But Pixie was a little too tired to enjoy. She fell asleep at the table, almost nodding off into her plate. Fortnately for Hubster, Big Bowl wasn't too far from our hotel, because I nominated him to carry our sleeping offspring back.

And that was day 04! Here are the pics:

Julie discusses the joys of American Girl with Princess (I didn't dare take a picture inside the store, for fear their security would break my arm).

Our loot after a day of shopping. Hubster is so broke now.

Fans re-enact the ending to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Bean.

More Harry Potter. Their MacGonigal was very good.

Julie (foreground) and the Bean (who's proper name escapes me, but I think it's called Cloud Reflection Sculpture or something like that).

Inside the Bean, looking up. Look for the bright flash. That's me with my camera, reflected in the celing (and Julie's ponytail is in the foreground).

Escher Princess...

...and Escher Pixie.

Giant Toy Dinosaur in the Millenium Park! Made in China.

Rinse and spit! Faces pillar in the Millenium Park.

At the symphony rehearsal, I asked Julie if Chicago was always like this. She said, "Like what? Awesome? Yeah, pretty much."

Dinner at Big Bowl. Pixie was worn out!

And that's pretty much day 04!

Chicago, day 03 - Shedd Aquarium

2009-08-17T08:22:00.001-05:00

Day 03 of Chicago, I was on my own with the kids. Hubster headed off very early that morning for his conference. I got up as he left, somehow pulled myself together (the day before had been very long) and then had to pry two cranky children out of bed. Once I got everybody up, dressed, and fed, I hustled the three of us out of the hotel and down the few blocks to the bus stop where we hopped onto the 146 again and headed back out to the vicinity of the wonderous Field Museum.

In the same area as the Field, there is also the Adler Observatory and the Shedd Aquarium. Princess and Pixie were determined to see fish this day, so the aquarium was our goal. Prior to that, we took a detour into the Children's Garden nearby the Field Museum. It's a small garden with some interesting sculptures and a giant spider web jungle gym thing that kept the kids entertained for an hour or so. I actually had to drag them from the jungle gym to the Shedd Aquarium, but the whining stopped once we got inside and caught our first glimpse of fish.

Princess desperately wants an aquarium of her own, so she was enraptured with the Coral Reef display in the center of the Shedd. We got there in time to see one of the feedings. A diver hand fed all the rays, sharks and fish while a woman stood outside the tank and explained what was going on. The diver had a mic set-up, so he was able to help narrate and answer questions. I told Princess and Pixie that when they were old enough, we'd take them scuba diving. Hubster and I have been diving once, off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I'm dying to go again someday.

After the feeding was over, we saw the display on the Rising Amazon, which looks at the annual flooding of the Amazon River and how it affects the people, plants and animals that live on the banks. Then we hit the Wild Reef display, which looks at the reefs in the Philipines, and the conservations efforts going on in that area to protect the wild life while still letting the local population survive off of fishing the reefs.

Then it was lunch time. I have to say, as much as I like the Shedd Aquarium, it's dining facilities leave something to be desired. The upper cafe is apparently dine-in. They had a side bar where I tried to order a small meal for myself and the kids, but apparently yours truly is too blind to see the sign (in white letters on a beige sign board) that says the side bar doesn't serve food until 2PM. So we headed downstairs to eat in the self-serve cafe, which turned out to be a zoo, and not the good kind. We finally got food, two bowls of macaroni and one bowl of chili, with drinks for the bargain price of $35, and escaped outside to eat on the terrace. The food was good, but for $35, I would have expected something gourmet.

After that, the kids claimed they were too tired to do any more and wanted to go back to the hotel and swim in the pool. I relented, and we magically made it back to the bus and then back to the hotel. I say magically because I know jack squat about public transportation, and because in spite of our best efforts, we have yet to be able to find a map of the bus routes in this part of Chicago. Our hotel doesn't carry such a map, which I think is an absolute disgrace, right up there with the $15 a day price for internet connection.

Anyway, we made it back to the hotel, got into our swim suits, and spent an hour in the pool. Then we waited for Hubster to return to the hotel. He decided to hit the Adler Observatory after his day at the conference, thinking we might be there, but he got there half an hour after we left to go back to the hotel. Still, he had a nice afternoon, and when he joined us back at the hotel, he took us to Portelli's, a place that serves some very good hot dogs. I had my first hot dog Chicago style, loaded with peppers, onions, mustard and a pickle spear. Once again, I was thankful for the walk to and back from the restaurant. Our meal wasn't huge (though the cost for four of us at Portelli's was cheaper than the cost for three of us at the Shedd cafeteria). But it was enough that I wanted the time and activity to help me digest. Along the way back, we stopped at Argo Tea for a quick cup. They have the world's best Darjeeling there!

And that was pretty much day 03. Here are the pics from that day:

Princess and Pixie at the entrance to the Children's Garden at Soldier Field.

They're over the moon about Chicago.

The spider-web jungle gym!

It's a loooooooong way down!

Each sculpture in the garden is a variation of the Earth...

Like this one, the Water Earth!

Feeding time at the Shedd Aquarium!

Crown of Thorns Sea Stars.

Is it a rock, or a fish?

I think we found Nemo...

You think this turtle can get us all the way back to our hotel?

And that's pretty much day 03!

Chicago, day 02 - Pirates and Evolution!

2009-08-16T08:03:00.001-05:00

Our second day in Chicago turned out to be fantastic. For starters, the Embassy hotel gives out a nice free hot breakfast (though they're frikkin' misers with their internet connection; $15 a day!). After filling up on eggs and bacon, we headed out to the Field Museum. First we had to walk to the nearest stop, which was rather nice. I like walking around in Chicago, seeing the sights. For some reason, Chicago doesn't weird me out the way DC does. Maybe it's because of the part of Chicago I'm walking in; it's very nice here. But we had a few blocks walk to the bus stop, then we hopped on the 146 and rode to the Field Museum. We met my brother-in-law Pat and his wife Julie there. The girls love Uncle Pat and Aunt Julie (or Uncle Julie and Aunt Pat, as Pixie sometimes calls them), and I always appreciate having extra adults around to ride herd on the kids.

The Field Museum is HUGE! We spent all day there, at least 8 hours, and still only went through a couple of the exhibits. We saw their special exhibit on the slave ship Whydah (sp?) and the pirate Sam Bellamy. Then we hit the Underground exhibit, where the kids got a look at giant earth worms and other cool creepy crawlies that live underground. After that we saw the Egyptian exhibit, where we saw plenty mummies, wrapped and unwrapped. I saw a few things there that sparked some story ideas and Julie laughed every time I pulled out my notebook to write something down. It can't be helped. That's the nature of being a writer. I hate to let a go idea go.

After the Egyptians, we saw the exhibit on "This Evolving Earth." I don't think I've ever seen a better exhibit on biology and the development of life on this planet. I was pleasantly surprised to realize how much I actually knew about evolution, and at a few points I was lecturing to Julie on things like the advantages of sexual reproduction vs. asexual reproduction (and no, the word orgasm never once entered that discussion). Then as soon as I'd wrap up my little lecture, we'd turn around and discover a display on whatever it was I'd just talked about. Weird! It was like I was channeling my dad.

We stayed in the Field Museum until closing. On our way out, we hit the gift shop, where I was able to pick up a book based on the evolution exhibit. It has everything from the exhibit in it, so it's like taking that whole part of the museum home with me, right down to the fun little animated movies on "How to Become a Fossil" (step one: die!) and the pictures of hominid skulls and dinosaur bones. Can you tell how thrilled I am to have picked up that book?

After the museum, we took a quick break at the hotel room and then hooked up with Pat and Julie again at the Rain Forrest Cafe. Thankfully, we walked there and back, and thankfully I didn't eat anything too fattening. I usually put on a few pounds during vacations, but I'm hoping that with all the walking around, that won't happen this time. I need to be able to fit in my jeans when I get on the plane to come home (since I hear they don't usually let pantless people fly).

Here are a few pics from day 02:

The Field Museum!

Pat and Julie with our insect babies.

"Daddy, can I have a sarcophagus?" (BTW, Pixie says the sarcophaguses were her favorite part of the museum, and yes, she actually pronounced the word sarcophagus, much to the amazement of the woman sitting next to us on the bus back to our hotel.)

Pirates like to hang around the Field Museum. Apparently so do pterodactyls.

That's Dinosaur Sue in the foreground, one of the most complete T. Rex skeletons ever found, on display in the main hall of the Field Museum.

Princess and Aunt Julie meet Lucy, one of the earliest hominids.

What makes us human? Our ability to create tools and works of art...

Dinosaur Sue, from head on.

Of course we're evolved! Pat, Princess, Julie and Pixie sit with a close relative at the Rain Forrest Cafe.

And that was pretty much day 02!

Chicago, Day 01 - Arrival and Navy Pier

2009-08-15T19:56:00.001-05:00

Hubster signed up to present a paper at the AIAA conference in Chicago this month, and he signed us all up to go along. We do this sort of thing on a regular basis. He takes us to some far away place, drops us in a strange city, and runs off to play scientist while I have to figure out what to do with the kids. I was a little intimidated by the thought of hitting Chicago with a 3 year-old and a 6 year-old in tow, but so far this trip we've survived. Oh, and thanks to the fact that our hotel charges an arm and a leg for wireless access, I have no idea when these posts will get up. I'm writing this one in Chicago, but will probably not be able to post until I get back to good ol' Virginnie.

Having said that, here's a brief run down of day 01 of our trip, with photos.

Made it to the airport barely in time, and found our flight was delayed. Took a puddle jumper to Chicago airport. Lots of turbulence. Joy!

Rode a shuttle van to our hotel, and got a good look at traffic along the way. So damned glad we opted not to get a rental car. We barely survive the trip from the airport to the hotel, and our driver knew how to drive in Chicago.

After unloading our bags, we headed out to the Navy Pier, where there are tons of rides, games, and other attractions to enjoy. We played miniature golf. Well, three of us played mini golf. Pixie was too intent on clubbing the rest of us to death to pay attention to her ball. Not that Princess didn't try to kill us as well. She doesn't understand yet that mini golf is a putting game, not a full swing game of golf. Oy!

We also rode the carosel, and Princess and Hubster rode the big swings.

Look for the two-seater swing on the right side, the one with the guy in the big white sneakers. That's Hubster, with Princess beside him.

We managed to snag a table at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. due to the fact that half their kitchen broke, so they were only serving a limited menu that evening. Half the menu was good enough for us. I was pleasantly surprised to see they served normal sized portions, as opposed to the giganto-sized proportions I'm used to seeing in most restaurants these days. I like being able to eat an entire meal without feeling like I'm going to recreate the final scene from Monty Python's "The Meaning Of Life."

After that, we returned to the hotel for the evening and slept hard.

Fabulous quote from day 01 of the trip - "If you hit your sister in the head, the game is over!" (Said to Princess during mini golf.)

Second fabulous quote from day 01 - "Quit horsing around!" (Said to both girls while riding the carousel.)

The Bag Dilemma

2009-08-11T06:42:00.000-05:00

Prior to leaving for Chicago this week, I spent two days packing for three people - me, Princess, and Pixie. (Hubster is on his own with this chore.) We've taken enough family trips that I've gotten pretty good at getting the three of us stuffed into one suitcase. I know exactly how many sets of underpants, socks, shorts, jeans, etc., to bring. What I don't know, what I can never figure out, is what purse to bring.

Well, purse isn't exactly the right word for it. I don't like to carry makeup with me, and I usually prefer to keep my wallet safely zipped in a pants pocket, so I don't do the girly girl thing and carry a purse. What I do like to carry is: a drawing pad; a mechanical pencil; an art eraser; a set of drawing pens; maybe some drafting tools; also a composition notebook and ballpoint pen for writing down any story ideas I get. If I'm thinking clearly, I'll also toss in a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, my cell phone, and coupons for whatever bookstore I'm headed out to that day. So it's more of an art/writing bag, and I've got bags of various sizes set up with exactly this sort of kit. I've got a tiny one with the world's smallest drawing pad and notebook for quick trips out, a larger bag with Jack Skellington on it for when I want to look truly goth, and a sturdy red bag with water bottle pockets that's handy for a long day's adventure.

Unfortunately, these bags all work best for when I'm running around my home town. When I'm about to get on an airplane for a long trip, not so much. The problem is, these bags will only hold what I've already listed, but they will not hold my beloved netbook. My little Asus EEE is too big for even the largest of those three bags. I do have a messenger bag big enough to hold the Asus and all the other stuff, but that bag is too big to lug around on a sight seeing trip and it's covered in pins and metallic goo-gaws so it's no good for airport security.

What I'd like to get is one more bag, something in between the size of the red art bag and the big messenger bag, something I wouldn't cover in pins and something that would still hold a water bottle in case the kids and I get thirsty when we spend a day sightseeing. I haven't found that bag yet. This bag is the closest I've come so far, but as you can see, no pockets for water bottles.

I suppose I could go with a backpack; I do have a couple of those. But the backpacks I have are too big and heavy for toting around all day and I always worry about somebody sneaking up behind me and stealing something out of the bag when I'm not paying attention (paranoid, I know). So, I'll keep looking. For Chicago, I am taking a backpack, but I'm stuffing my sturdy red bag into it along with the netbook. That way I can leave the backpack and netbook in the hotel and travel carefree with the smaller bag during the day.

If you know of a bag that would solve my problem, send me a link so I can check it out! I really do need to solve this whole bag dilemma.

Fiction Friday - Good Bye, Shojo Beat

2009-08-07T05:42:00.000-05:00

If you're an avid reader of manga, you probably already knew Shojo Beat magazine was pulling up stakes and ceasing publication. Being a somewhat avid reader of manga (because at $10 a pop, I can't afford to buy all the manga I want), I got a big surprise in the mail last month.

At first, I couldn't figure it out. It was the beginning of the month, and I was expecting to get my issue of Shojo Beat. But when the mail man handed it to me, there was this big picture of Naruto on the cover. Naruto, if you don't know, is a Shonen Jump character. Shonen Jump is an action adventure manga, with lots of stories about mega-super battles and sword fighting and kids who spend their entire lives searching for the perfect card to win Yu-Gi-Oh. Shojo Beat is a romance manga magazine, with complicated stories about relationships, and young women trying to find themselves in the big world, and it has nifty articles on Japanese culture and cooking and there are craft projects you can do, and some of the best manga in the world runs in Shojo Beat, a new chapter of the story appearing every month!

At least that's what happened before Shojo Beat decided to roll over and play dead.

So there I was, looking at Naruto, wondering if maybe it was a cross-over thingie to get Shojo Beat readers interested in Shonen Jump, or maybe it was an ad and I was looking at the back of the magazine. Then I flipped it over and saw the letter.

Dear subscriber, we regret to inform you that Shojo Beat will no longer be published. Please accept this issue of Shonen Jump in its place...

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!

You could hear my howls of displeasure for miles. I swear, I was so upset. Shojo Beat was the only girlie thing I truly enjoyed in my life. I loved the stories. Normally, I can't stand romance, but Japanese manga romance, shojo, is very different from what you'll find in the romance section of your local bookstore. Shojo stories take time to develop relationships and plots. The hero and heroine don't fall head over heels in love with each other right off the bat. They don't sleep with each other within the first few chapters. Hell, in the course of the story, they probably won't sleep with each other at all (though I have seen a few exceptions, and keep in mind I haven't read the entire genre). There are side stories and sub-plots that have nothing to do with the main story, but are still engaging to read. There's drama that's believable. Heroines who aren't model perfect, heroes who are gawky and sweet. Alpha males and beauty queens don't normally cut it in shojo. The stories are too good for that.

But Shojo Beat is gone now. My monthly fix for girlie girl romance that doesn't turn my stomach now goes unfulfilled. Oh sure, the stories will still be published in digest format, on a quarterly basis. In December, January, and February, I'll be able to pick up the latest volumes of Sand Chronicles, Vampire Knight, and Honey and Clover. And I'll enjoy reading them too. But there won't be any more recipes for grapefruit rice pilaf, no articles on Japanese paper crafts. No more fashion finds or J-Pop music reviews. As for that gift of Shonen Jump? No thanks. It's just not the same, really.

I'm devastated, I tell ya. I want my Shojo Beat back. Please?

The Good Parts

2009-08-06T20:07:00.000-05:00

Did I ever mention the OTHER podcast I work on, the Good Parts?

You can find it at the Write Threesome blog, at www.thewritethreesome.blogspot.com. We talk about what it's really like to be an erotica writer.

Review - Wii Sports Resort

2009-08-05T06:01:00.000-05:00

Well, I've written previously about Wii Fit, and EA Sports Active. I've also written about Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Sports. Usually all these subjects come under the heading of exercise, fitness, Move It Mama Monday... That's because all my Wii activity is related to exercise.

Until now. I bought Wii Sports Resort thinking it would be nice to have more sports type games to play while working out. I've been playing the Wii Sports tennis and boxing a bit in the afternoons as part of a mini-workout, both to keep me moving during the day and to help me fight off the afternoon sleepies. I thought Wii Sports Resort would be just the thing to add to my repetoire of fitness games. The ads promised sword fighting, canoeing, bicycling, etc. I was sure to get a bit of exercise in there, right?

Eh, not so much. Most of the Sports Resort games aren't set up with physical fitness in mind, which I think is a shame. Nintendo really missed out here. I love to play games while working out. It keeps things interesting, always a big plus when exercising, and that little bit of competition spurs me to work harder. I was able to get that out of Wii Sports tennis and boxing, no problem.

But most of the Sports Resort games don't require any physical effort to play. They're more hand-eye coordination games. The sky diving, frisbee throwing, basket ball, and other games only need minimal movement from the player to work. I thought the bicycling would be promising, pumping both arms up and down to pedal the bike in a race had to be work, right? But Nintendo pulled the fangs out of that one by forcing players to stop if their Miis get overheated or work too hard. Huh? I thought this was a RACE!

The one on one sword fighting only lasts three rounds, max, and if you're any good at it, those rounds are short. The speed cutting is another hand-eye game. The third sword game has potential though. You have to fight a horde of people to get across a bridge. All that swinging and knocking people out did make me breath a little hard. A few rounds of that might make me break a sweat.

Canoeing is another potential mini-workout. This time, the game doesn't force you to stop if it thinks your Mii is working too hard. Instead, the trick is to keep the canoe going straight while you paddle from side to side. The races get longer as you get better, so this looks promising.

But over all, Wii Sports Resort is not a workout sort of game. Again, sad that this is so, because a series of workout games would be exactly what I'd like. Having said that though, I have enjoyed playing Wii Sports Resort. Hubster actually went out and bought two extra remotes with the new Motion Plus attachments Sports Resort requires, so that all four of us can play together. And we have been playing, at least a couple games a day. The kids really enjoy it. These are games they can do with little trouble. As for me, I may not work up a sweat, but I have found playing a couple rounds of table tennis will ward off the sleepies.

Final word, I'd recommend Wii Sports Resort, but not for working out. Play this one for fun, and make sure you've got plenty of remotes on hand so everyone can join in.

Wii Sports Resort on Amazon.com

This month's free erotica reads!

2009-08-03T23:32:00.000-05:00

I've got four, count 'em, FOUR free reads up this month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association! All of these stories are from the Random Words theme I did for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. If you've never listened to Heat Flash, and you're wondering what the heck it's all about, you can read the stories, or listen to the MP3s. Here's the run down on the stories:

Wildorf the Merciless - a man half the time, a wombat the other, Wildorf the Merciless is cursed to switch between these forms unless a beautiful courtesan can break the spell. Read it here or listen to the podcast here!

Best In Show - a dog girl and her dominatrix are out to become The Galaxy's Top Dom! But when the competition plays dirty, do our ladies still have a chance? Read it here or listen to the podcast here!

The Ransom - imagine waking up and finding a very important piece of yourself has somehow managed to walk off! That's what happens to Martin Schuller, and the price he has to pay to get it back is very interesting indeed. Read the story here or listen to the podcast here.

Into the Woods - a flash fiction about what can happen when you go wandering late at night to answer nature's call. Read the story here or listen to it here.

By the way, I'm running a contest for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast this month. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on the Heat Flash blog, or e-mail me feedback about the show. Prizes include t-shirts, boxers and thongs, and print copies of "Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica." Details are here!

Move It Mama Monday! Wii, My Weight, Everything

2009-08-03T05:14:00.000-05:00

Oy! I've been busting ass lately, trying to lose those LAST 10 POUNDS, and have had no success. In fact, the scale is actually tipping in the opposite direction. I weigh more now than I have in a while. However...

My clothes still fit fine. And I can see more muscle definition in my legs, arms, and pretty much everywhere else. AND, most importantly, Hubster says I look goooooooooood.

I know, that last part is pretty shallow. I shouldn't depend on someone else's opinion of how I look to validate that I do look good. But the fact is, I can't see my own ass without a 3-way mirror and I know he stares at it all day when he's home, so I consult with the expert on that matter. If he likes it, it's fine.

But the not-losing-weight thing. What's going on there? I've increased the amount of water I drink, hoping to stave off excess water weight gain at those certain times of the month. I've upped my intake of fruits and vegetables, in an effort to fill up on healthy stuff and prevent me overeating meat and other not-so-good for me things. I'm certainly doing more activity around the house. I spent a few hours this week scraping the old vinyl linoleum off the kitchen floor, and let me tell you, that ain't no picnic. That activity alone should have caused me to sweat off a few pounds, but no, it didn't. I've put in over four hours at the dojo this week, 2-3 hours on the Wii (EASA and Wii Fit). I've spent two hours on yard work, three hours on dedicated house cleaning. I've been pretty much go, go, go all week.

And yet my weight has gone up, up, up. Huh.

One thing I've also notice is that I've been getting some seriously rough, dry patches of skin on my forehead. One minute, my face is fine, the next it looks like it belongs to a monitor lizard in molting season. This leads me to think that something is going on with my hormones, and since my weight fluctuation seems tied to my menstrual cycle, I'm wondering if that's what's going on here. It could be. Or I could be sneaking in a few too many bits of chocolate, that extra soda here and there, dinner out last week...

I dunno. All I know is, I don't want to starve myself, I do want to keep exercising, and I still fit into my favorite pair of jeans. Oh, and Hubster says I look gooooooooooood.

On to other things. I've found the more I play with EA Sports Active, the better I like it. Now that I'm no longer chained to that bloody 30 Day Challenge, I feel free to create my own routines. Remember how I said you couldn't get a decent cardio workout from EASA? Well, it turns out you can. What you do is create a new workout and fill it with the cardio activities and all the sports activities. I've made up three of these workouts already, mixing and matching the dancing, running, boxing, and other sports together. The workouts I make range from 18-30 minutes, burning from 90-140 calories. I find I tend to burn more calories than EASA predicts, which is good, though the workouts also run a bit longer than EASA predicts (not a huge problem there unless I'm tight for time that day). I'm usually sweating like crazy after one of these cardio workouts, so that's a good sign.

As for the strength training exercises in EASA, I've found I have to limit how much of the lower body exercises I do per workout. I can fill up a workout on upper body with no problem, cranking out reps of biceps curls, shoulder presses, etc. But do one too many sets of lunges and I pay for it the rest of the day, and probably the next. So, to make sure I get a lower body workout, I'm going to make some workout routines that mix just a few of the lunges and squats and jumps with the sports and cardio. It'll work like this: cardio/sport, cardio/sport, lunges, cardio/sport, cardio/sport, squats, etc. That's two aerobic exercises for every lower body exercise. And keep in mind the roller blading exercises in EASA count as lower body exercises, not aerobic.

Final thought for the day -- I wish someone would make an adventure exercise game. I recently got Wii Sports Resort, and I love it, but only a few of the mini-games offer any sort of exercise, and those, not as much as I'd like. I'd love to see someone come up with a Wii game that combines exercise with an adventure or game of some sort. Like say, an ancient Olympics game, where you represent one of the original Greek city states in a competition. You have to out run, out lift, out throw yourr opponents to win medals. Or something along the lines of the Lego Star Wars or Indiana Jones games, where instead of operating your character via a remote while sitting on your assets on the couch, your character only runs when you run, fights when you fight, etc. Isn't that what the Wii was supposed to do in the first place anyway?

Okay, that's it for me today. I'll be in Chicago next week, so I don't know if there'll be a Move It Mama Monday blog post or not. Will depend on my schedule while I'm there.

Recipe - Western Egg Strata

2009-08-02T14:09:00.001-05:00

I tweeted about this meal this morning and promptly got five requests for the recipe, so here it is. This one is made the evening before and cooked in the slow cooker. It comes from Campbell's Slow Cooker Recipes, a little digest of recipe cards my mom picked up in Wal-Mart. Don't know if it's still available, but she just got it, so you could check the magazine stands at your local stores to find out. There are several recipes in there I'm going to try. Anyway, here we go.

Western Egg Strata

vegetable cooking spray

8 slices sandwich bread, cubed

3 cups frozen diced potatoes (hash browns)

1 pound maple-flavored ham steak, cubed

1 large onion, chopped (about 1 cup)

1 large green pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese about 16 oz)

1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup (regular or fat free is fine)

8 eggs

2 cups milk

First, spray the inside of a 4 1/2 - 5 quart slow cooker with cooking spray (this is a large meal, so you do need a large cooker). Layer **half** the bread cubes, potatoes, ham, onion, bell pepper and shredded cheese in the cooker. Repeat the layers.

Beat the soup, eggs, and milk with a fork in a medium bowl (I used an electric beater and it still came out fine). Pour over bread mixture in slow cooker. Press down the bread mixture into the soup mixture to coat (I didn't get everything completely coated, especially the top layers, and it still came out just fine).

Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or until set.

I set this up last night around 11:30 PM, and had breakfast waiting for me at 8AM. Nice! I also programmed my coffee maker to brew a pot of joe around 8AM, so the only thing I had to do when I got up this morning was set the table, pour some juice, and cut up some fruit. This was a very easy breakfast, and I'm likely to do this more often. In addition to the egg strata, the Campbell's book also has a Cinnamon Breakfast Bread Pudding, a Chocolate Almond Bread with Dried Cherries, a Harvest Fruit Compote, a Raisin Cinnamon Bread Pudding, and a Tropical Pudding Cake, all of which sound like good ideas for a Sunday morning breakfast.

Let me know if you try this recipe, and if you liked it. Personally, I thought it was great, and best yet, we've got enough to last the entire week! WIN!!

Sunday Contentments - A Body That Works

2009-08-02T09:18:00.001-05:00

It's about 9:45AM this Sunday. Hubster has taken off with the kids for Busch Gardens. I can't stand Busch Gardens -- I worked there for two summers and have more bad memories than I can count about that place -- but I feel sort of wrong about not being there with them right now. It's a family thing, and I've elected to stay behind. Not without reason though. We leave for Chicago in a week, and I've got a ton of work to get done between now and then. So rather than indulge my sense of bad-mama-guilt all morning, let's look at the good things in life instead. Here's this Sunday's list of Contentments:

Making the conscious decision to sleep late. I try to get up at 5AM most mornings, and I hate it when I over sleep. But ya know, sometimes I could use a few extra hours of shut eye. I decided last night that I would sleep in this morning, until around 8AM. I even made it part of my schedule for the day, working the rest of my to-do list around it. It felt really good.

Waking up to a two-kid pile on. Both girls got up a few minutes before I did and climbed into bed on top of me to lay down again. We were snug, cozy, and content. This must be what it feels like to be at the center of the puppy pile -- sheer bliss.

Waking up to breakfast already made. Before I hit the hay last night, I set up my slow cooker with a breakfast casserole -- eggs, ham, bread, cheese, potatoes, etc. I also programmed the coffeemaker, something I haven't done in ages. Breakfast was nice and hot and waiting when I came downstairs. That's a huge WIN!

As always, a good cup of joe. I'm on my second cup right now, sipping it while I sit on the back deck and type. Eight O'clock coffee, in my favorite yellow flower mug, given to me by one of my best friends. I love it.

Dinner out. Earlier this week, Hubster suggested we go out to dinner. I seriously turned around and asked him, "OK, who the hell are you and what did you do with my real husband?!" That's how infrequently we go out to dinner. We ate at the Castle, a wonderful little place that serves the best Greek food I've ever had. I had moussaka and spanikopita and some gyro meat. I could have died happy that evening.

Leftovers!! The meal at the Castle was big enough I had to take some of it home. Had enough for lunch and dinner the next day. Then yesterday, a good friend brought over homemade Pad Thai. We've still got some sitting in the fridge. AND there's a ton of the breakfast casserole sitting in the fridge to eat the rest of this week!

My favorite pair of jeans. I pulled on my favorite pair of jeans yesterday. They're snug, hugging me tighter than my own mother, but they're still comfortable and I look damn good in them. I paired them with one of my favorite shirts, a grey and white striped snug fitting polo. I love my favorite outfits, and I love that they fit good. I have a hard time finding clothes that fit right, given that I'm sway-backed.

Body weight, shmody weight. The scale and Wii Fit both agree I'm putting on the pounds, but the mirror and the Hubster (and my favorite pair of jeans) tell me I look good. I think I'm at that age where weight loss is an elusive holy grail. I should be more concerned about making sure I exercise and eat right so that I feel good, and maybe worry not so much about the weight anymore. So long as those jeans fit...

Karate class with my favorite instructor. I go to class twice a week, each class lasting two hours or longer. It's pretty grueling, and I walk out of there completely sweat soaked. But I don't mind the hard work so much when my favorite instructor is there. He connects with karate at a much deeper level than anyone else I've ever seen, and he's not stingy about sharing what he knows. I always come out of his class knowing I've learned something.

Knees that work. Hell, a body that works! I've started doing my physical therapy again, and my knees feel better for it. They're not completely pain-free yet, but I know if I keep up with the therapy, I'll be doing much better. Just like if I keep up with the exercise, I'll feel good in spite of not losing those few extra pounds. What matters is that I can move and play and do the things I want to do.

There's a ton of other contentments I could list for today, like the comfy beach chair I'm sitting in or the knitting I'm doing now, but I think I'll sign off with one last item. Kissing the Hubster. It doesn't even have to be a big lip lock, tongue tangle sort of thing. Just being able to come up behind him, wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his neck is enough to make my day a good one.

And with that,. I think I'll go enjoy my morning to myself. Have a content kind of day.

What Price Peace (and Quiet)?

2009-07-31T19:42:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to work, but both kids just came running into the room.

"Mama! Mama! Pixie wants a piece of chocoloate!" Princess screams.

Pixie dances around, something small and most likely chocolate clutched in her tiny hands.

I look at the pile of work on my desk and sigh. "Do you two know what *I* want?"

Pixie gets a funny look on her face as she cogitates this. "Um, world peace?"

"Exactly," I say. "When I get what I want, you can have what you want."

Princess bobs her head. Pixie keeps squealing and spinning in circles, smooshing chocolate in her hand.

"So does that mean we can have the chocolate?" Princess asks.

**If that's what it takes to get some peace and quiet...**

Cooking Crisis - Yellow Squash!

2009-07-27T16:30:00.001-05:00

It's Monday evening, almost 5:30PM. I have entrees already prepared - spaghetti, steak. But I have no side dish. Hubster bought an armload of yellow squash this weekend. I'm supposed to do something with it. However, I have no canned tomatoes and no bread crumbs, so that effectively kills my two best ideas. I do have a HUGE can of spaghetti sauce, but I don't want to crack that open just to cook the squash (it'd be too much sauce, and I'd have to store it and remember to use it later, only to end up forgetting about it until I find a tupperware container of fuzzy green spaghetti sauce several weeks from now). I thought I had an onion, but I sliced it and it smelled funny. Not like an onion, but more like an onion that died, rotted and came back as a zombie onion and now I have to blow off its stinky onion head with a shot gun.

What to do? I've already sliced the squash! Hmmm...

I know. I have a big unopened tub of salsa sitting in the fridge. Unlike the spaghetti sauce, there is no way I'll forget I have salsa in the fridge. And get this! It's labeled "Italian Rose" salsa. I think the cooking fates are trying to throw me a clue.

I've got the sliced squash simmering in a pan with a cup of the salsa. The only other ingredient I added was a little olive oil. We'll see how this works.

*****

Update: It's 7:30PM. The salsafied squash was a success, at least in my opinion, and that's the only opinion that counts. Nyah! It was spicy, but tasty. WIN!

Move It Mama Monday! Off Kilter and Out of Sorts

2009-07-27T05:26:00.000-05:00

I had thought last week was going to be a better week. After last Monday's post about getting more sleep, I had promised myself I would do exactly just that - get to bed early, get up early, get my work outs in, be productive, etc. In fact, the week started off pretty good.

Then the rest of the week went to hell in a handbasket. Unexpected stress from an unexpected source showed up and knocked me completely out of that good groove I had going. I ended up staying up way too late on Monday night, and then suffered through insomnia most of that night, which completely screwed my getting up early Tuesday morning. I was so frazzled from this stress that I was out of sorts the rest of the week. Determined to somehow get back on track, I dragged myself and the kids to the dojo on Tuesday morning. I wanted to get there early rather than late, so I spent all morning packing lunches, gear, weapons, etc. and we headed out as soon as I had the car loaded up. Well, we were early all right... 45 minutes early! We stayed and worked out and Cassie got her class done, but I was so tired and out of it by the time my class started that I headed home. The rest of the day wasn't much better. To decompress, Hubster and I stayed up to watch Stranger Than Fiction. We loved the movie, but once again were up way to late. I slept late the next morning too. By then my whole routine was in shambles, so I spent the next few days scrambling to get stuff done. I wore myself out Thursday scraping vinyl linoleum off the kitchen floor, then chiseling away the glue and backing left behind. I was so sore after that, I slept way late Friday morning.

I decided to force myself back on schedule Saturday, and have done well since then. I've been more productive this weekend than I was all last week. But I still feel the effects of being off kilter. It showed up in my karate class Saturday morning where I suddenly developed three left feet and several extra (and quite useless) thumbs. I felt like my body was fighting itself the entire class. Then my knees ached so badly the rest of that day that I pretty much retired to bed for the afternoon, slathering on the Ben Gay and popping the Alieve like no one's business. Yesterday morning, I got up early again, felt better, but still wasn't back to my old self. After 40 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution, I tried to do some Wii Fit Yoga. I've never had worse scores. I was just completely off kilter.

So this week wiill be dedicated to getting myself back on schedule and getting back in tune with my center of balance and coordination. I've reworked my daily schedule and my exercise plan to help with that, making sure I get enough, but not too much, exercise. Meanwhile I'm going to start back up with my physical therapy to see if I can fix my knees. I really don't want to suffer through another afternoon like I did on Saturday.

So that's where we're at right now, just trying to get our act back together. We'll see how I'm doing next week.

Sunday Contentments - Early Mornings

2009-07-26T12:29:00.001-05:00

Thinking more today about things that make me content. It's 1:30 PM right now, and I've had an extremely productive, yet relaxing, Sunday so far. Here's what's made my day full of contentment.

Getting up at the crack of dawn and having the house to myself

Working in peace and quiet

Finishing a project early

Working out without interuptions

Wii Fit yoga

Sleeping babies (especially when they're so chubby and cute!)

A cup of coffee, eggs on toast, and a fresh peach for breakfast

Clean laundry

Clean house

Time to read the Sunday newspaper

An afternoon free to do a little light work

An evening of dinner and conversations with good friends

Time to knit (I'm working on a belt now!)

Books to read

A cup of hot Darjeeling tea

It really doesn't take much to make me happy. Just a quiet life at a pace I can handle. I've been up since 5AM this morning, gotten in my workout and housecleaning, and I'll probably sleep like a rock tonight. And it's all good.

What do you want out of life? Where do you find your contentment?

Fiction Friday - The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant: A Billibub Baddings Mystery

2009-07-24T16:49:00.001-05:00

Like the icon? It's supposed to be a book wyrm, i.e. a dragon that devours books by the scores. I would love to be a book wyrm like this guy. In fact, when I started the Fiction Friday posts, it was with the intention to do a weekly review on what I was reading. Unfortunately, I don't get to read as often as I would like. I still intend to keep doing Fiction Friday, but I can't guarantee it will be every week (unless I somehow magically get my act together).

Having said all that, I did recently read that I wanted to talk about - The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant: A Billibub Baddings Mystery. I actually happen to know the author, Tee Morris. Not know know, like in that sense of "Oh yeah, Tee! I've known him for years! We're best friends!" But I do know him in the sense that Tee's the one who got me started podcasting.

I first met Tee at RavenCon three years back, where he did a weekend-long workshop on podcasting. Tee also wrote the fantasy books Morevi and Legacy of Morevi, as well as some technical books including Podcasting for Dummies (which I refer to often for my podcast), Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies, and his latest book All a Twitter. The man definitely knows what he's talking about when it comes to podcasting and social media. But what caught my attention about Tee's work was that he was podcasting his fiction, making his novels available a chapter at a time for free in audio format. I was desperate for some good books, but with a toddler and a preschooler on my hands, I couldn't find time to sit down and read. So after RavenCon, I went home, bought myself an iPod Shuffle, and downloaded Tee's novel, The Case of the Singing Sword: A Billibub Baddings Mystery.

This was the first Billibub Baddings mystery, a story about a dwarf from a fantasy realm who falls into the heart of Prohibition Era Chicago and becomes a private eye. This story quickly became a favorite of mine, and I looked forward to downloading a new chapter every week to listen to. At that rate, it took me a while to get through the book, but I didn't mind. I had something fun to listen to while I exercised and did chores around the house. This was a win for me.

Then last August, the second Billibub Baddings book came out, The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant. Both this book and the first centered on the mysterious appearance of magical artifacts from Billi's world appearing in Chicago. Such articles in the wrong hands, like say, Al Capone's, could prove more than disastrous, so it's up to Billi to find the items in question and put them safely away. Along the way, he ends up dealing with gangsters, the FBI, the Chicago Police, various femme fatales, and more shady characters than you can shake a stick at. The books aren't Raymond Chandler, but only because there's a good deal more humor in them. Billi is a hard working detective with some unusual skills at his disposal, and he goes all out to solve the cases presented to him. The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant opens up in Chicago, following the disaster of Black Thursday. Everyone is struggling to survive, including Billi, but the love for baseball, the national past time, still runs strong. There's a new baseball team, though, the Baltimore Mariners, who play far better than they should. When Chicago Cubs manager Joe McCarthy shows up in Billi's office, asking him to look into things, the dwarf takes on the case. It's a dream job for Billi, who's a big fan of the game, but then things take a nasty turn when two murders, apparently unrelated, occur. And when Al Capone shows up, things just get that much more interesting.

I read The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant in just a few days, which says a lot. For me to read that quickly, I had to shove some other things off my busy schedule, like sleep. But I was too busy enjoying myself to really complain. I love detective novels. I love seeing gumshoes put together a case, piece by piece, and Tee let's the reader put the pieces together on their own as well, providing a few clues to what's going on without bludgeoning you over the head with a lot of wasted exposition. The setting for the story is spot on, exactly what I would imagine Chicago in 1930 to be. And while I'm not a fan of baseball (honestly, I'm not a fan of any team sport), my lack of knowledge on the subject wasn't a problem. Tee wove in enough background on the sport and its history so that I could understand what was going on without feeling like I was drowning in an info dump. In fact, Tee made everything about the story engaging, with the right mix of fantasy, history, humor and mystery to keep me up late three nights in a row.

So yeah, I would definitely recommend The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant, and The Case of the Singing Sword. The latter you can listen to for free if you like, over at http://www.teemorris.com/billipodcast/. And if you're interested in The Case of the Pitcher's Pendant, you can pick it up on Amazon.com.

But don't try to borrow my copy or the Book Wyrm will get ya!

Drama vs. Contentment

2009-07-22T13:22:00.001-05:00

I recently had a brush with someone else's drama. It was not the natural disaster sort of drama, nor was it the death-in-the-family sort of deal where the tragedy that happens in unavoidable and there's no way out but through it. Rather, this was a sort of self-inflicted sort of thing, many years in the making, that was brought about by bad decisions, refusal to communicate, and an unreasonable expectation that everything, especially the people you love, should be perfect or at least better than they are.

I hate this kind of drama. First, it's sad to see people's lives combust right before your eyes. But second, it really is self-inflicted, and it's mainly because of that mindset that everything in life should be without flaw. People, jobs, relationships are not perfect. They never will be perfect. And when you get involved with any of these things, when you make a long term commitment to someone or to something, you ought to understand at the start that there will be mistakes and rough patches and even a little outright misery.

And you know what? That's okay.

Seriously, this is where the Buddhist in me comes out. When Buddha said "Life is suffering," I think what he meant was, "There are tough times in life, and there's no way to avoid them." And that's true enough. But I also think he meant that people want things to be perfect no matter what, and they get upset when things turn out to be otherwise. Things, people, and situations are all impermanent. They CHANGE. What was perfect one day will be flawed and blemished then next. And that's okay. It's the natural state of things. Nothing lasts forever. But people refuse to see that, refuse to accept that the job they took on now has additional or different responsibilities, the person they made friends with has picked up (or probably always had) annoying bad habits, that the house they bought has bad plumbing, etc., etc., etc. And that refusal to accept always leads to anger and strife and worry and misery.

And people wonder why they're suddenly so unhappy with their once perfect lives.

I figured out a long time ago that nothing was ever going to be perfect in my life. I have a husband I love. He's handsome, smart, responsible, kind, generous, and good with kids. He also drives me nuts with his coupon clipping, his budgeting, his technobabble, the way he riles up the girls right before bedtime, the way he leaves his shoes lying around, his mile-wide streak of perfectionism. We've had more shouting matches and head butting over these things than I can recall. And somehow, we're still married after 16 years.

Then I have these two beautiful daughters. They're smart, funny, loving, healthy. They fight non-stop some days and drive me batty with endless questions and attitude and tantrums, not to mention their refusal to eat a meal I made because they specifically asked for it, and oh, did I mention the youngest scribbled on my freshly painted walls, and the oldest can't focus on her homework to save her life some days? The whining and the fussing and the fighting never end. Yet somehow, I look at them and think, "I want a third. One more baby would make this family complete."

I love my parents. They're far from perfect. I love my friends. They don't hit that goal of perfection either. And you know what? Neither do I. I nag, I bitch, I get angry, I yell. I'm rude, obnoxious, a loud-mouth. I'm carrying around an extra 10 lbs I can't seem to lose no matter what and my oldest child tells me my butt jiggles funny when I run.

No, nothing is ever perfect. But there's plenty in life that's good enough, and I want to appreciate those things as much as I can. Case in point. Hubster and I were rather shell shocked after being hit by the shrapnel of someone else's drama (and that's my biggest bitch about drama; it doesn't just affect those directly involved, it takes out the bystanders too). Feeling nervous, upset, out of sorts, we deliberately decided to take stock of what we had. We had dinner as a family, laughing and joking with the girls. We ate fortune cookies and giggled over the ludicrous fortunes we got. We read comic books together and tucked the girls into bed with kisses and songs. Then we curled up together on the couch to watch a movie. Before we went to sleep, we made love.

None of it was perfect. Pixie wouldn't eat her dinner and threw a tantrum when she only got one fortune cookie because of that. Princess pouted and whined over not getting extra stories or being allowed to stay up late. Hubster and I argued over how good the movie was when it was over, me rolling my eyes yet again at his elitist standards for cinema. And the sex? It was comfortable, not earth-shattering.

And I'm good with all of that. Really, I am. It's a quiet life with minor issues, and I don't set out to make mountains out of molehills by digging up every little thing that goes wrong. And I think that's good, because when the mountains do come along, the real ones like a natural disaster or a death in the family, I know I'll still have the solid ground of a contented life to keep me steady on my feet.

*****

Helen's list of contentment's for today:

Two little girls who love singing along to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

Waking up with a half-decent story idea in my head for today's writing

Cheese and onion pie with fruit salad and iced coffee at the Briar Patch Tea room

Running into an old friend at lunch and reminiscing about the days I used worked at the newspaper

Reading Bone by Jeff Smith to my girls

Having time to do random doodling on in my sketch book

Picking up an old paperback I've had for years and finally starting to read it (Gojiro by Mark Jacobson)

Summer dresses and nice weather

Long phone calls with my friends

Learning how to knit a potholder

Watching Stranger Than Fiction with the Hubster and discovering Will Ferrel can really act

Sleeping late, curled up with the man I love. He smelled too good and felt too comfy for me to get out of bed.

Really, what more could I want than all this?

Move It Mama Monday! Early To Bed, Early To Rise?

2009-07-20T05:30:00.000-05:00

Today's post takes a look at some aspects of health beyond just exercise. In particular, sleep.

Last week, I had a couple of good days where I got everything on my to-do list done. However, the very next day I was dead on my feet and couldn't drag my ass out of bed at my usual butt-crack of dawn wake-up time.

Coincidence? I think not!

My to-do list tends to be pretty full, and I'm getting to the point (hell, I'm past the point) where I'm tired of trying to get it all done. For the past year, I've been shedding certain activities and being very choosy about what new stuff I will do. But it seems I still need to trim a few things from my daily grind (if only to make it less of an actual grind).

What to cut though? One of the things I added to my to-do list was 15 minutes of house cleaning a few days a week. The house definitely looks better. I mean amazingly better, like better to the power of 10! And I only invested maybe 2-3 extra hours of cleaning time. But I didn't take anything else out and that's probably why I was wiped out the day after I did any house cleaning.

What can I ditch? I have to (read want to) keep up with the podcast and the cartoon. I must keep up with e-mail. I really want to keep up with my exercise. And the kids need my attention through out the day. Is there anything I could drop?

One thing I'm going to try is re-instating the bed time rule. This is the rule which states I must be in bed no later than 10PM, no matter what. I've learned from hard experience that if I don't go to be at least by 10, I can't get up at 5AM the next day. And getting up at 5AM is what allows me to get a jump on my day and actually be productive.

I'm also thinking of assigning certain major tasks to certain days. Like take one day just for cartooning, and one day just for recording and producing the podcast. In fact, I've already started on this plan by taking Sunday to write as many blog posts as I can for the week. Yep, this post was written yesterday, and I'm hoping to knock out one more before I go to bed.

Unless 10PM comes first. Then I'm going to bed no matter how much work I have left to do today.

I Can't Do It All...

2009-07-19T18:55:00.001-05:00

Sunday is normally the day I cook dinner for the week. I do it early in the day so I have it ready to reheat by 6PM. This strategy assumes, of course, that I will be up around 5AM so I can get a jump on my daily to-do list.

Well, today I slept in. And that felt wonderful. And because I slept in, I got to have sex with the Hubster, because you know, I was actually in the bed when he woke up! And that felt wonderful too. And of course, there was more sleeping after that, and then a wonderful breakfast of eggs, potatoes, fruit, toast and hot tea. I managed to grab a quick workout before having to change so we could go out to an early movie. We saw Night At The Museum 2, which I really enjoyed, and then we came back home for a late lunch, and then I squeezed in a couple of hours of work that just had to get done, and as a result of all of this...

We had cereal, pizza, and hot pockets for dinner. Oh, and fresh fruit.

I was supposed to cook teriyaki chicken and sauted green beans, but I couldn't do the cooking and sleep late and have sex and see a movie with my family and get my work done. Something had to go. And that something today was dinner, because dammit, I deserve to get all that other stuff done every once in a while. Although to be honest, I always make time for work, and maybe I should concentrate harder on making more time for the other stuff.

Tomorrow is Monday. I will get up at 5AM, write, clean the house, cook, exercise, and chase after the kids. There will be no lazy morning sex, and no afternoon movie. Because I can't do it all. Thankfully, today I didn't even want to try.

Move It Mama Monday! So How Many Plants Have I Killed?

2009-07-13T18:24:00.001-05:00

I know, I know. I'm running late again. I apologize. The Hubster had a paper to write this weekend for a big important conference, so my little blogging adventures kind of got pushed to the side by a double helping of weekend child-rearing activities. It's okay though. I'm here now.

Anyway, I thought I'd talk a little about Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants, since I haven't mentioned it in a while. So far, most of the plants are doing... okay. Not terrific, but not dead. For some reason, a few of the plants had a delayed growth spurt and are only just now graduating from sproutling to actual plant. The vegetables we planted aren't exactly producing a bumper crop, probably because I started the seeds so late. I have been told that next year I need to start my seeds in February, which leads me to wonder where the hell I'm going to keep all those tiny plants for the two plus months I'll have to wait until we're past the final frost (which I have been told is on Tax Day in April). I also may have not helped things by trying to make a homemade pesticide out of apple cider vinegar, dish soap and hot sauce. That recipe came out of a gardening book I have, and I thought it would help kill the leaf eating pests we've been having problems with. Well it did, but it also caused the plants to shrivel up and nearly die too.

In spite of my attempts at planticide, we do have a few ears of corn coming up, but the bugs got one and now the others seem to afraid to come out of their husks. We have the odd tiny green tomato and banana pepper hanging on the plant. The herbs have done the best, though for some reason my basil took forever to hit puberty (do plants do puberty? I dunno).

The best grower by far has been the beans we planted. I have no frikkin' clue anymore what kind of beans we've planted, but they grew like weeds, trailing all around the tomato cages I set up around them. We harvested about 25 pods and got enough beans out of those to feed myself and both girls one serving of beans each. They turned purple when I boiled them (the beans, not the girls), and the girls thought that was a little too weird so yours truly is the only one who would eat them. For the record, if I die suddenly in the next few days, it was probably the beans.

The rest of the yard isn't looking too bad, except for the one side where the Hubster planted a slew of creeping juniper a few years back. I hate creeping juniper. Weeds get in there and the only way to kill them is to reach into the prickly, scratchy branches of the juniper to pull them out. I tore up my arms good this past weekend and only managed to weed about a square foot. I've still got another twelve square feet or so to go. Joy!

But the flower garden in the side yard looks good, as does the small herb garden in the back, plus a few other odds and ends I've managed not to kill over the years. Here are a few photos I took a week or so ago.

Princess, standing by the towering Russian blue sage in the side flower garden. I've also got some calla lilies in there, plus some daisies, yarrow and button flowers and a few other things I can't recall the names of.

The containers of herbs on the back deck. Note the delightful chalk art the kids drew for me!

Our vegetable container garden. The big bushy thing is the beans I ate that are probably going to kill me. And next to that is our stunted corn.

A mixed pot of sunflowers, colieosus, and marigolds. Probably the weirdest combination of plants ever thrown together, but they're doing pretty good. Nothing's blooming yet, of course...

This is not my garden. This is Norfolk Botanical Garden, about an hour from where I live. Norfolk Botanical Garden is gorgeous. I wish I could get my yard to look even a little bit like it. Yes, they teach gardening classes there. Would they help improve my black thumb? Probably not. Drives me crazy.

Anyway, that's what's going on with Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants. It's not a roaring success, but we are getting outside and digging around in the dirt, and I consider that a sign of success, even if all we manage to grow is a bunch of purple beans that kill me.

Move It Mama Monday! Clean House Or Exercise?

2009-07-06T21:56:00.001-05:00

Oy, this almost didn't get out today. I got hit with something yesterday that involved a very painfully swollen lymph node in my neck, plus a ton of other aches and pains all over my body. I'm thinking this was a result of too much work, too much working out, and not enough sleep. My knees have been bothering me all week. Those last couple of workouts on the EA Sports Active 30-day challenge were not easy on the jumping and squatting and lunging. Plus, I switched to the heavier weight band the week before and that probably contributed to the sore arms and shoulders. Top all that with a day at the beach, a day at a friend's pool party, and some massive deadlines that had to be met, and I was one beat mama Sunday. No wonder then that I slept through my alarm and dragged through this morning.

However, I did perk up enough to get some exercise in. Given my knee problems, I opted to forgo EA Sports Active today and stuck with a combination of Wii Fit and DDR. I love the workout mode in DDR. I set the target number of calories I want to burn and then fail badly to hit the right arrow combinations as I stomp mercilessly all over the mat. My DDR skillz suck, but I do work up a sweat, and the kids get a laugh out of watching me flail around like a demoniacally possessed monkey on speed. In fact, on at least one occasion while I shook my booty to the cadence of DDR, Michael did consider calling in a priest to perform an exorcism on me.

But that's not what I really wanted to talk about today. Today, I have yet another wrinkle in my routine to iron out, and that would be house cleaning, or the lack thereof. I try my best to keep this place neat, but I suck at house cleaning the way I suck at DDR. Yeah, I can do it, but once again, I flail around like the aforementioned demoniacally possessed monkey on speed.

My problem with house cleaning is not that I don't know how to do it, but that I don't know when to do it. We all know there aren't enough hours in the day, right? Well my hours in the day start at 5AMish (like some others I know), and usually end around 11PMish (though I'm trying to get back to that 9PM bedtime, really I am). In between those times, I write, cook, exercise, fold laundry, play with the kids, cartoon, blog, do more writing, record, podcast, do even more writing, work on art commissions, promote my work, etc. I have a hard enough time some days finding time to clean ME, let alone the house, so the house work sort of falls by the wayside most days. I do try to keep up with the kitchen and the vacuuming and the laundry, but that's about as good as I can do. I just can't seem to find half an hour more in my day to do a simple chore like dust one room, and frankly, even if I did dust one room, then I have to remember which room I dusted so that if I remember to clean again the next day, I don't end up dusting the same room twice.

I had signed on at one time with Fly Lady. Fly Lady is cool. Here is a woman who's worked out a system to get housework done in bits and pieces. She is encouraging, she is helpful, she has her act pretty much together. For a few months, I was doing good following the Fly Lady system. The problem was, those few months occurred prior to the birth of Pixie, and once Pixie was born, it was all down hill from there! I think the reason Fly Lady worked for me at the time was because I was nesting (even though I swore at the time I wasn't), getting my house ready for my upcoming addition. During those few months, I had no problem waking up at 4AM without needing an alarm and throwing on my clothes so I could go clean the house. Yes folks, I was cleaning house at 4AM. I was soooooo nesting.

But I can't do that now. Now, I do my best to get up at 5AM so I can grab a quick shower and write for an hour or two. Then the kids are up and it's breakfast, laundry, outside to play, back inside to work out, time for lunch, time to read stories, time to sit and work, and oh my god, is it really 6PM already? Crap, I haven't even started on dinner yet!

Yeah, that's my day. Just about every day, too.

So what am I going to do? I've thought that maybe I ought to give up some of my workout time to clean, but my weight isn't were I'd like it to be, and quite frankly, I hate giving up workout time. I sure as hell ain't giving up writing time. As for cleaning when the kids are outside... well, we don't have a fence around our backyard. I don't mind sending the kids out to play while I'm in the kitchen or the living room where I can keep an eye on them, but I sure as hell am not going to let a six-year-old and a three-year-old play outside by themselves when I can't keep an eye on them. Just doesn't seem like a smart idea.

I'm not sure what to do. House cleaning is one of those activities that would burn calories, although not as many as a good 20 minutes playing DDR will. I need to see what I can fit in. Maybe if I can get the kids to help me...

Or would I end up cleaning up after them in addition to any other house cleaning I'd be doing?

I got no solution here. Will keep thinking about it. I'm hitting the hay now, so I hope everyone has a good night.

Move It Mama Monday! Final thoughts on Wii Fit vs. EA Sports Active

2009-06-29T13:26:00.002-05:00

The 30th day of my 30-day fitness challenge on EA Sports Active has come and gone, and I now feel ready to render final judgment on which is better: Wii Fit or EA Sports Active.

Drum roll, please...

Wii Fit, hands down, is the better program.

Why, you may ask? There are a number of reasons. The first, and most important in my book, is that I actually gained weight this past month, an extra three pounds that I'm now going to have to work on losing. Sports Active did not give me the workouts I needed to burn calories. Each workout in the 30-day challenge ran 25 minutes, on average, the longest workout running 28 minutes. Most of those workouts concentrated on strength building exercises, which are important, but don't burn the calories like cardio exercises do. And except for the medium and long run exercises in EA Sports Active, there's not really any cardio to speak of. The aerobic dance segments barely get my heart rate going (and honestly, I think they're a joke, when compared to Wii Fit's step routine). The boxing is nice, but doesn't last nearly long enough to keep my heart rate up. The baseball, basketball, tennis and volley ball drills don't last long either, and they don't pop up nearly often enough in the workouts for the 30-day challenge to make a difference, in my opinion.

(And keep in mind, this is all in my opinion. You'll see as we go today that I expect certain things from my workouts which may not appeal to everyone.)

Another big problem I had with EA Sports Active was its emphasis on lunges, squats, and jumping. I have bad knees. Wii Fit actually improved my knees dramatically. Prior to using Wii Fit, I had problems getting into and holding many positions in my karate classes because my knees couldn't handle the stances. A few weeks on Wii Fit fixed that. I expect it's the focus on balance and posture that did the trick, correcting problems with how I stand in general to the point that the muscles I needed to compensate for my knee problems finally got the workout they needed. EA Sports Active doesn't have that focus. It's all strength training, and while the repeated lunges, squats, and jumping did strengthen my outer thighs, they did damned little for those muscles that actually support my knees. As I type this review, I can feel my knees swelling from today's workout. And the crunching noise they make when I go up and down the stairs is just as bad as it was six months ago, before I started on Wii Fit. It's terrible, I tell ya.

My third issue with EA Sports Active is the exercise band. The one thing I looked forward to in EA Sports Active was the upper body workout. This is one area where Wii Fit falls flat. Aside from a few moves in the strength training section, Wii Fit focuses all its attention on core muscle building. My arms were starting to get flabby. EA Sports should have taken care of that, but the exercise band they packaged with the game is pretty much useless. It's one of the lightest-weight bands you can find, and offered very little resistance for me during workouts. EA Sports Active advises that if you need more resistance, you can double up the band and stand on it. This shortened band will provide the resistance you need. Well, it sort of does that. The problem with that fix is that I sometimes had to stand almost on the handles to make the band short enough for some exercises. Also, it was too easy to get the band uneven in the folding, thus leading to uneven resistance between arms. Finally, I managed to tear a hole in my band by the fourth week of working out, and I think it happened because of how far I had to double up the band to get the resistance I needed.

Fortunately, I did have another band on hand, one that offers four times the resistance of the band that arrived with the game. I'm definitely getting that arm workout now. But I would have liked to have had this band from the start. Better yet, I would have liked to have had a variety of bands from the start, with handles to go with them. I'm thinking of ordering some extra bands and handles to solve that problem. I've looked online, but have yet to see a package of such bands offered by EA Sports Active. They seriously ought to consider putting one together and selling it as an accessory.

Now that I've bashed poor EA Sports Active, let me say what I liked about it. It does offer strength training beyond the core muscles. I especially like that I have the option to do more upper body exercises than just the push ups and plank poses offered by Wii Fit. And I like EA Sports Active's journal feature. By filling it out each day, I have a regular reminder to eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, and stay away from sugary drinks and fast food. Those are probably my biggest downfalls when it comes to losing weight, and that gentle reminder is nice to have.

Wii Fit, on the other hand, doesn't really look at nutrition, unless you suddenly gain 2 lbs, and then the snarky little bitch wants to know why you're so fat all of a sudden. Unfortunately, Wii Fit will only accept a certain select list of excuses, many of which have nothing to do with why I gain weight suddenly (Wii Fit does not believe in water weight gain). And once you select your excuse, you have to listen to a lecture on the evils of what you did wrong. Annoying. As is Wii Fit's comments when you miss a day or two or more. Guess what? I can't help missing a week when I'm out of town! It's not like I'm going to pack the whole Wii with Balance Board and Wii Fit disk and take it on the road with me! EA Sports Active, on the other hand, simply labels any days you take off as rest days. Maybe this is a cop out. Maybe I do need the nagging reminders and the lectures that Wii Fit hands out when I miss a few days or when my weight suddenly balloons, but you know what? I don't like it!

My final analysis is this. I prefer Wii Fit, but EA Sports Active has something to offer, if I use it right. I think what I'll probably end up doing is abandoning the 30-day challenge from here on out and make up my own workouts in EA Sports Active, to supplement what I do in Wii Fit. I'd like to try putting together a series of 15-minute routines that use those strength training exercises, but scaling back on the lunging and jumping so I don't continue to kill my knees. I can use the long run to warm up, or even do a few minutes on our elliptical machine, then do strength training with EA Sports Active. After that, I can switch to Wii Fit, do my heavy duty cardio there (about 20-25 minutes straight), and then throw in 10-15 minutes of yoga, strength training, and balance games to workout those core muscles and strengthen my poor knees. I may even consider doing extra balance games later in the day as a pick-me-up in the afternoons. I have a tendency to get tired right before sitting down to work, and this might help me perk up. Or I could pull out the DDR mat and do some of that for a few minutes to get my blood pumping before I sit down at the computer.

One final thought before I sign off. The 30-day challenge might have worked for me and helped me lose, or at least maintain, weight if I had done two things. The first is attempting to complete all 20 workouts in 30 days. I actually missed the deadline by a week; I had five workouts left to go when day 30 rolled around. But I realize now there was no way I was going to complete 20 workouts in 30 days and still do karate and swimming during that time. What can I say? I like variety in my workouts, so I continued to space out EA Sports Active with those other activities, and thus blew my deadline. Second, I might have lost more weight if I had opted for the high intensity program rather than medium. That level of intensity might have made the difference. I might have seen more aerobic exercises mixed into the workouts, or I might have done longer, more intense workouts. However, I also fear that doing that level of workout for 30 days would have completely destroyed my knees, so perhaps it's best I didn't go that route..

I should finish up the last two workouts of my 30-day challenge by Wednesday, then I plan to finish up the week with Wii Fit only. On Monday, I'll start doing custom workouts mixed with Wii Fit and we'll see how that goes for a month.

Dinner Didn't Suck - Honey-Lime Pork Chops

2009-06-24T12:59:00.000-05:00

The family as a whole has gotten a little tired of Crock Pot cooking, so once again I find myself struggling to come up with an easy way to make dinner. My brain automatically shuts down at 5PM, not surprising since I usually get up at 5AM. So I'm always on the look out for cook books with easy recipes that are healthy and don't suck in the taste department.

Rather than throw beau-coup bucks at a new cookbook, I decided to check my local library to see what they had. I found Taste of Home: Everyday Light Meals and decided to give it a try. Most of the recipes involve a short list of ingredients, and all recipes have the estimated cook and prep time listed at the top. They also have icons to indicate which meals are low fat, low sodium, low carb and meatless. All of these features are a plus in my book.

The big bonus for me though was that first six chapters are meal-oriented, meaning they list recipes for a whole meal as opposed to just listing recipes for a single dish. These chapters are labeled "Chicken Meals," and "Pork Meals," etc. Each meal consists of an entree and a side dish recipe, with suggestions for simple, additional sides (many of which have recipes listed in the book). There's also a photo for each meal , showing what it looks like. The meal-oriented chapters are a huge benefit for someone like me who, as I've said, tends to shut down mentally by the time dinner rolls around.

For this week, I went with one of the pork meals, Honey-Lime Pork Chops with Garlic Mashed Red Potatoes. We had plenty of left-over sauteed Italian squash and mixed berries from the weekend, so I opted not to make the steamed baby carrots and Emerald Fruit Salad recommended as additional sides. The pork chops and potatoes turned out great! Hubster and I devoured our meals, and Princess mostly cleaned her plate. Pixie picked at her meal, but even she had a few bites of pork chop. I doubled the recipes to make sure I had enough to last the week, with the occasional switch out of sides (remember, I shut down at 5PM, so I'm not inclined to cook from scratch every night of the week; leftovers are my friend!). This is definitely something I don't mind seeing on the dinner table a few nights in a row, and again, Hubster and Princess are eating happily too, and Pixie snubs everything as a general rule, so we're good with this menu.

Here's the recipe for the Honey-Lime Pork Chops.

Pork chops with marinade:

1/2 cup lime juice

1/2 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey

2 garlic cloves, minced (I substituted jarred minced garlic)

6 boneless pork loin chops (4 ounces each) (I had smaller chops, but I made 8 chops total, doubling all the rest of the ingredients from what I've listed here)

Sauce:

3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth

1 clove garlic, minced (again, used the jar stuff)

1 1/2 teaspoon honey

1/8 teaspoon browning sauce

Dash pepper

2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons water

In large resealable plastic bag, combine first four ingredients (from chops and marinade list). Add pork chops, seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for 8 hrs or overnight. Drain and discard marinade. Grill chops, covered, over medium heat or broil 4 inches from heat for 6-7 minutes per side or until juices run clear.

For sauce, combine broth, garlic, honey, lime juice, browning sauce and pepper in small sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into broth mixture. Return to a boil. Cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Serve with pork chops.

Makes 6 servings.

Again, we really liked this meal, and with 8 chops instead of six, we've got enough to last the week. All I have to do is make new side dishes as needed. I'm going to try another couple of recipes from this cookbook before making a decision to hunt this one down and buy it, but right now it's already looking like a good candidate for my bookshelf! If you want to get a copy yourself, it's Taste of Home: Everyday Light Meals, available on Amazon.com and probably just about anywhere else you can order books. Enjoy!

Move It Mama Monday - Down Time

2009-06-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it's Monday again, and I must report I didn't exercise yesterday or today. I did pull 2 1/2 hours in the dojo on Thursday, and another 1 1/2 hours in the dojo on Saturday. I also managed to get in a swim last week, and a few workouts with EA Sports Active. Yes, I was going good. I could feel myself getting stronger, moving better. My weight keeps fluctuating between 148-151, and I'm to the point where I think no amount of exercise and diet is ever going to shift those last 10 pounds I want to lose, but as long as I'm exercising and getting plenty of fruits and vegetables and drinking water, who gives a damn? I mean, seriously, I got lingerie for my wedding anniversary last week, and it looked very nice on me. And the dress I wore on my honeymoon 16 years ago fits just fine, even if I am 16 pounds heavier than I was back then, so what am I bitching about? The only one who has a problem with my weight is Wii Fit, and if he gets uppity with me again, I'm gonna smack his little plastic ass across the living room. So there.

But anyway, I had a great week exercise-wise last week, and then I hit yesterday and today and didn't get a workout in at all. Yesterday was Father's Day, so I spent most of the day with family, either cooking special meals or having fun at the beach. I did do some splashing in the waves, but not what I would call exercise. Even so, a day at the beach left me completely whipped, and I was out like a light when I got home. Then today, Princess' summer camp kicked off, as well as her swimming lessons, so the bulk of today was spent ferrying her around and then waiting while she did her thing. Pixie and I walked around the Virginia Living Museum for 3 hours this morning, and then parked our butts on the bleachers at the pool, waiting for Princess. Again, not a lot of activity, but exhausting all the same.

So I've had a couple days off from exercise. I plan to get back on the wagon tomorrow morning and squeeze in a workout before whisking Princess to a day of camp and swimming again. The best I can hope for is 25 minutes on EA Sports Active or Wii Fit, because once we're done with camp and swimming, I'm going to be too tired again to make myself work out.

I'm not going to beat myself up over the down time though. It happens, especially when you've got kids. I do the best I can to make it easy for myself to exercise, but I also know that past a certain hour of the day, I'm not up to doing a damn thing. This is the reason why I don't go to evening karate classes anymore. I just can't summon up the energy to go. I'll do anything you want before 4PM, but after that? Nada, zip, bupkis. This mama is too worn out to care.

If you'd care to comment, let me know how often you go through down periods, and how you feel about them. Guilty? Don't care? Think you need the break? And how long do you let a down period last? I'm putting an end to this one tomorrow morning.

I hope.

Move It Mama Monday! My Daughters, The Athletes

2009-06-15T20:23:00.001-05:00

I had a big surprise last week. Princess' gym teacher called me at home to invite me to an awards ceremony. Apparently my girl had been named one of two top kindergarten students in P.E. for the year. Needless to say, I'm chuffed. Aside from one sparring trophy, this is the first award Princess has ever received that wasn't an "everybody gets one" deal. Meaning she actually had to earn this award. And she earned it, according to her gym teacher, by being attentive, helpful, polite, always prepared for class (i.e. we always make her wear sneakers to school), and by basically running the pants off of everybody else in school. She's a regular Flashy Fast Foot, I'm told, my freakishly tall daughter who can race like the wind.

Pixie is just as active as Princess. She loves to run races, and climbs all over everything. Princess' karate instructor has already noticed that Pixie is very "physical" and can't wait to see what she's like when she starts taking karate classes. Yep, I've got two little athletes on my hands.

And I have no idea where they get it from.

**I** was never an athlete. Growing up, I hated recess because I couldn't run fast enough to play tag, and I sucked at jumping rope. I was the proverbial kid who was picked last for dodge ball teams, and I had such poor hand-eye coordination I couldn't even hit the ball in T-ball. My dislike of recess turned to full-blown loathing by the time I hit middle school and I had to wear a butt-ugly gym suit to do even worse tasks like volley ball and soccer. Then every spring semester, we had to take the same stupid physical fitness test, consisting of such torments as the flex arm hang and the shuttle run. I was always guaranteed to get the worst score in the class. I just sucked at athletics.

Naturally, my father decided I would excel in ROTC. Should I even get into how miserable that was? During the four years I struggled through college, I spent more time puking up my guts before 8 AM than most people will do all their lives. I ran miles across the campus during company runs, got crushed in team sports pile ups, and left my lungs and stomach somewhere in Lane Stadium while running sets of stadium steps. My push ups were a true testament to the law of gravity (i.e. gravity sucks and thus so did my push ups). To this day, I have no idea how I got my commission in the Army Reserves.

Some time after college though, things changed. I was no longer subjected to the tyranny of drill instructors and gym teachers. It was finally up to me and me alone to make sure I exercised. And to my amazement, I did. Two years after I finished ROTC, I was once again running across the campus of Virginia Tech, but this time eating up the miles instead of puking up my guts. I started weight lifting too. When I got married, Michael and I got memberships to a gym and worked out three or more evenings a week. Then I took at job at a nearby Air Force base, and made regular use of their gym and running trails. When I finally quit the day job, Michale and I signed up for karate classes, and spent five days a week at the dojo. I used to spend my mornings running a couple of miles through the neighborhood, stop at a local gym to lift, and then walk next door to the dojo to practice karate for half an hour before walking back home.

Having kids slowed me, obviously. My knees have never fully recovered from pregnancy, and a couple of sparring injuries put an end to my running days. But I found alternative activities - swimming, walking, yoga, Wii Fit. I still go to karate, and am hopeful I can get back to a regular schedule of 2-3 classes a week. I am a black belt, after all. I need to keep training.

I've been thinking about this summer, how I'm going to keep the kids and myself happily employed and active. Both girls are eager to hit every playground in the area this summer. We'll do it too. Playgrounds, gardening, swimming, karate... we'll have plenty to do this summer, me and my athlete daughters.

Play Dates and the Bad Mom

2009-06-12T13:23:00.001-05:00

Am I a bad mom? I ask myself this question much as I'm sure every mom must ask it when a conflict arises between Mom giving the kids what they want versus doing Mom doing something for herself. In my case, what my kids, Princess specifically, are asking for lots of play dates. What I'm asking for is a couple of hours to myself every afternoon to do some work.

It's a sticky issue. There aren't a lot of little girls Princess' age in the neighborhood. Only two, to be exact. Everyone else is either a boy, and only wants to hang with other boys, or quite a few years older than Princess. Of the two little girls who are Princess' age, one is getting ready to leave for a cross-country trip this summer. The other lives within walking distance, but I'd have to walk over with Princess (no biggie, I can always use the exercise) AND... Pixie is not invited to go with her.

I hate that. As with Princess, there are only two children in the neighborhood around Pixie's age. One of them is sister to the girl who's about to leave on that cross-country trip, so she won't be around either. The other is allergic to just about everything under the sun, so arranging play dates requires a lot of pre-planning and logistical discussion (choosing a restaurant can we all eat at, scrubbing my kids down before going over to make sure they're allergen-free, etc.).

So essentially, Pixie is out of luck in the local friends department. I've made arrangements to have Princess' one little friend come over here a couple of mornings a week, to ensure that Pixie isn't left out when the girls play together, but even then it's a crap shoot they'll all get along. Every time this particular kid comes over, she has a nasty habit of dragging Princess into her room and slamming the door on Pixie, who then comes sobbing to me. I'm going to try to prevent that scenario from happening this summer by making the kids play outside all morning while I garden (and I've already told the other mom that's going to be the rule - girls stay outside!). Even so, I can't guarantee Pixie will included in the older girls' games.

All this means I'm not inclined to have Princess' friend over every day of the week (especially since she also annoys the hell out of me). In fact, I'm thinking along the lines of one or two mornings a week at most. Then I've got a standing agreement to meet with a friend of mine and her kids one morning a week. Patty's got two boys, one Princess' age and one Pixie's age. It's a bit of a drive to get together with them, but doable once a week. That gives us three mornings a week of play dates. And of course I've planned to take one day a week for day trips, just me and the girls, to the beach, the museum, Busch Gardens... I'm thinking that's pretty good right? Plenty of activity all summer and lots of play dates with other kids!

Except Princess keeps whining that she wants to see her one girlfriend every day, in the afternoon, either at her house, where Pixie is not invited to come play, or here, where I will be hard at work writing the next great American smut novel.

My plan was that I would devote the entire first half of the day to the girls - play dates, gardening, going to the pool, throwing water balloons, karate classes, arts and crafts, etc. Princess' little friend could come over during that time and join us for some outdoor fun. Then we'd come in for lunch and after lunch, when it's hot enough outside you could fry an egg on the front porch, the girls would go upstairs to their rooms and play together. Quietly. While I worked in the office for a few hours.

I thought that arrangement sounded quite fair. They'd get to see friends and have all the fun they wanted in the mornings, I'd get the work time I so desperately need in the afternoon. But when I discuss this with Princess, I get a lot of arguing about how it isn't fair, she never gets to see her friends often enough, she's bored, she's lonely, why can't she play outside by herself, she won't run out into the street, she won't let her sister run out into the street, the three girls could play very quietly in her room and no one would fight or set the house on fire while I was working, etc., etc., etc.

Am I wrong? Should I try to have Princess' friend over in the afternoons? Or have I set a reasonable schedule for all of us? I can't say. I will say I'm not budging from that schedule. No kidding, I have a novel to write this summer, and a website to massively update. I can't afford not to work those hours. Princess will get to see her friend once or twice a week, see some other kids once a week, and go on some fun trips every week. That's enough, right?

Now to figure out how to quit feeling like a bad mom every time she asks for a play date...

Move It Mama Monday! EA Sports Active part 2

2009-06-08T16:04:00.000-05:00

Well, the utility guys have dug up all the utility posts in my neighborhood, so cable, internet, and phone have been sketchy all day. Thus you may be seeing this on Tuesday, rather than on the Monday it was written. Oh well!

Anyway, I've had a week to play with EA Sports Active, and thought I'd give an update. I have NOT lost any weight in last week, and in fact have actually put on a pound or two. This may be due to the fact that it's 'that time of the month.' Or it may be due to the fact that I've very off schedule so I haven't done my other fitness activities like swimming, karate, walking, or gardening the past week. Or maybe it's due to the fact that someone in the family had a birthday recently, and someone else we know graduated recently, and thus there's been a lot of cake and backyard grilling going on, neither of which is good for my waistline.

Regardless of the reason, the weight gain has made me aware of what I consider to be the big flaw so far in EA Sports Active - the lack of cardio activity in the workouts. Now don't get me wrong, I'm definitely getting a workout here, and I'm disgusting with sweat by the time I'm done. But each workout lasts on 35 minutes at most, and maybe only a third of that is dedicated to cardio - running on a track, boxing, dance, etc. The rest of the time I'm doing calisthenics - lunges, squats, bicep curls with the elastic band. There's plenty of muscle building going on, and I was so sore a few times last week that I had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. And that's good. I need the muscle building. But I also need cardio. Lots and lots of cardio.

Wii Fit provides cardio in spades. There are nine different cardio activities to do, and many of those have 2-3 intensity levels. I can mix and match my cardio so that I do five minutes of a bunch of different activities or I can do 30 minutes of just one activity. I like that. And on some of these longer cardio activities, I can even slip in my ear buds and listen to some podcasts while I work out. That's a big bonus for me! I can not do this with EA Sports Active.

The other problem I'm having with EA Sports Active is that all that lunging and squatting and jumping around is pretty rough on my knees. My knees sound like I've got a ton of gravel in them right now, lots of popping and cracking when I go up and down the stairs. Wii Fit had actually taken care of that problem for me. My knees improved significantly during the first two weeks of using Wii Fit. I think it was all the emphasis on balance and core strength that did it, and I miss that terribly.

So what to do? I like the strength building in EA Sports Active. I also like the 'attitude' behind it, constantly encouraging instead of occasionally snarky like Wii Fit tends to be. (That damned thing actually got rather snippy when it asked me why I'd gained weight and I responded "I don't know." Hey, is it my fault they don't list water weight or illness as a reason for possible weight gain?) BUT, I prefer the cardio in Wii Fit and I need the yoga, strength and balance games to improve my knees.

I've started doing workouts that combine the two games. I start with EA Sports Active, getting all my strength building out of the way, and then switch to Wii Fit for cardio and a bit of yoga or strength or balance games. On Sunday I spent a walloping 60 minutes between the two. I was ready to drop when I was done. Didn't seem to affect the needle on the scale any, but I'm hopeful that more workouts combining the two programs will give me the results I need. I have noticed that my legs look nicer and that it's gotten easier for me to do lunges, so that's a good sign. I'll give another update in a few weeks to let you all know how this works out.

Pixie Turns Three!

2009-06-04T19:57:00.001-05:00

Pixie turned 3 on Tuesday, and I'm very pleased to say we all survived the day. Here's a few pictures from the eventful day.

Pixie and her sister, Princess. They don't always get along this well, of course.

The Birthday Girl enjoys her favorite breakfast while watching Handy Manny.

The big present of the day was a doll house. To be specific, my old doll house from when I was a child. My mom provided all new furnishings. Both girls enjoyed it immensely.

Yep, someone's having a happy birthday!

The success of the doll house was a bit of a surprise. I had been planning for a while to give my old doll house to one of the girls. One of the moms on our street told me that during one play date, Pixie had been obsessed with the doll house they had there, so I decided she could have it for her birthday, and then share it with her sister (doll houses are more fun when you have someone to share them with). It is an old doll house. My grandmother gave it to me when I was about 6 or 7, as a Christmas present. She was the only grandparent I ever knew, my maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother and grandfather having died before I was a year old. I still remember the day I got it, and I held onto it for ever, keeping it tucked away in the closet. When I pulled it out to give to Pixie, it still had all the original furniture in it, wrapped in tissue paper. We pulled out each piece to look at before putting the new doll house furniture in. Once I had the girls upstairs happily playing with their new toy, I came downstairs and cried. That I really hadn't expected, but seeing that doll house got me thinking about my grandmother and how thrilled she would have been to see the kids playing with it. She died several years ago, long before Michael and I had kids.

Anyway, I wrapped up the old doll furniture and tucked it away in a box. I suppose I could have given Pixie the old furniture, but the old stuff is wood, and old, and I worry that it's not up to the strain of being played with by an enthusiastic three-year-old. Besides, Pixie's new furniture all matches. Still, my old stuff was pretty nice...

Move It Mama Monday! EA Sports Active is here

2009-06-01T10:35:00.001-05:00

So I completely blew off Move It Mama Monday last week. I had expected to do the blog post a day late, due to the fact that I was at Balticon through the entire four-day weekend. I was completely unprepared though for how wiped out I was after the convention. Seriously, Balticon kicked my ass. I'm forty, a stay-at-home mom, and not used to partying like that anymore. What was I thinking, staying up until 2AM every morning?! Especially when I normally get up at 5AM?

It took me all last week to recover, and then catch up on work as well. I worked straight through the weekend and got a lot done (audio recording, 2 stories written, 2 book covers finished for a client, and I got to see Wicked! the musical), but to do that I had to let a few other things slide, like say... exercise. And house work.

Of course, we're not here today to discuss the state of my house (it's bad, really bad). Instead, we're here to talk about exercise, and I do have something to discuss. Namely, EA Sports Active, the new game for the Wii! I ordered this game over a month ago as a wedding anniversary present for my husband and I. It showed up the day after I got back from Balticon and I let it sit until Friday, being too wiped out to even open the box. On Friday, when I finally did pull it out and get it set up, EA Sports Active proceeded to kick my ass just as badly as Balticon had, only using tortuous exercise in lieu of partying.

Since Friday, I've used the game three times. That's long enough for me to give it my initial opinion, I think. And that opinion is...

I like it. It's not as perky or game oriented as Wii Fit, but it does have a lot going for it. Active is based on a 30-day challenge by Bob Greene, he of the sacred circle of Oprah experts. Bob Greene is probably the only one in that circle I can tolerate, having read one of his books and decided for myself that his advice on fitness makes sense. You only get to see Mr. Greene in the little introductory video, which is probably good because he's so damned healthy it's scary.

After the intro video, Mr. Greene disappears and you have a choice of two smiling trainers to guide you through the workouts. These are real people as opposed to the digital trainers used in Wii Fit. The workouts in Active are the best part about the game. You can either go with the preset routines, of which there are several, or build a customized routine. There is also something called the "30-day challenge" that puts you through 30 days of workouts, pushing you a little harder each time. These workouts switch up between several exercises, mostly strength but with some cardio, and each day gets a different focus, so it looks like this won't get boring any time soon. And from what I can see, if you decide not to do the 30-day challenge, you can still pick from PLENTY of preset routines to do, though if you want to build your own routine, you're free to do so. It will probably be a while before I feel the need to customize a routine. I'm opting for the 30-day challenge right now, letting Active pick the routines for me. This means I can just workout on autopilot and not have to think about what I'm doing. This right here is one of the biggest differences between EA Sports Active and Wii Fit. With Wii Fit, there are no preset routines. You have to decide for yourself what you're going to do each day. I find that I tend to avoid certain exercises on the Wii Fit because of that, and those are probably exactly the exercises I need to do. I could avoid certain exercises on the Active game as well, but I would actually have to go to the trouble of picking through the routine to decide what I don't want to do. If I just shut off my brain and go with the routine, that doesn't happen and I get those extra exercises in.

Another big difference between Wii Fit and EA Sports Active is on what aspect of fitness the two games focus on. Wii Fit places a lot of emphasis on balance and core muscle strength, tracking your center of balance through every strength and yoga exercise. Not so with Active. Active favors more traditional gym exercises like lunges, arm curls, etc.. With Wii Fit, I usually only do one set of a particular exercise per workout. With Active, I may visit the same exercise 2-3 times, depending on the preset routine. That's not to say I don't sweat when I do Wii Fit. Doing each exercise once usually lets me work up quite a sweat, so I have no preference of one over the other here.

Accessories is another category to look at. Due to its focus on balance and posture, Wii Fit utilizes the balance board heavily (in fact, I don't think there was no balance board before there was Wii Fit, was there?). For Active, however, the Wii balance board is an optional accessory. You can use it for some exercises, but if you don't have one, don't sweat it. Those exercises that use it don't actually require it, so that's nice if you haven't shelled out for the balance board yet. Instead, Active uses an elastic resistance band included in the game package to do a lot of the strength exercises. The band is pretty light weight, and after another week, I'll probably pull out one of the bands I used to use for physical therapy to up the resistance. There's also a leg band that you strap around your upper thigh. This has a pocket in it to hold the nunchuk through out exercises that only require the one remote.

One final big difference is the body test and goal setting. Wii Fit does this, Active doesn't. In fact, Active doesn't even check your weight. This is both good and bad. I can't stand being scolded by Wii Fit, especially when I know my weight gains are due to water-weight or some other excuse not in it's "why are you fat today?" list. But tracking my weight as well as my activity does make me more likely to eat better and drink more water in addition to exercising, and that's what it takes for me to maintain a healthy weight. Active will track my workouts and ask about my eating habits if I choose to fill out my journal entries. But it doesn't track my weight or test my balance.

So those are the main differences between the two games. Do I like Active better than Wii Fit? I'm going to say no. It's different, but not better. I like having the preset workouts, but have to admit some of the exercises in those workouts, like lunges and side-to-side jumping, are a little rough on my knees. Still, I can get through that and I'm hopeful that my knees will improve as I continue to do these exercises. What I miss is the check on my balance. I swear, Wii Fit and the balance board did more to improve my knees than even several weeks of dedicated physical therapy. I need those balance-oriented exercises to maintain my knees' health. I also miss the game aspect of Wii Fit. I like scoring points for stuff that I do. Active sort of does that, awarding trophies for workouts completed and such, but it's not as much fun as Wii Fit. Graphics-wise, I definitely prefer the Wii Fit. I can't help it, I like being a kitschy little cartoon character. Seeing my Mii run and box and do other stuff is just too fun. My avatar in Active looks like a real person, sort of, and that also serves to remind me this isn't a game so much as a work out.

I'll have to find some balance between the two games. I want to continue doing both, but having limited time, I'll need to be careful how much time I spend on each. With the 30-day challenge, I've pretty much committed myself to using Active almost everyday for the next month. Juggling that with karate, swimming, Wii Fit, housework, and career might be... tricky.

We'll see what I do. I haven't had time yet to think about how I want to incorporate EA Sports Active into my workouts, but I'll get it sorted in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a good workout that provides plenty of variety, check it out. You'll be sore like I was for a few days, probably, but I think it's going to be worth it.

Fiction Friday - The Subtle Knife and other... stuff

2009-05-29T16:17:00.001-05:00

This post may be a bit disjointed. I've got four screaming little girls running amok in my house while I'm trying to write this. I'd wait for a more peaceful moment to write, but I've missed the last two weeks (or was it three) and I need to get this out.

So, last time I posted a Fiction Friday, I was reading Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife...

Sorry, I just had to sort out a fight between two of the girls. Pixie just spent 10 minutes in a corner shrieking because she can't play nice and prefers to hit instead. Joy. Anyway, she's taken care of and back to playing. Now where was I? Ah, Philip Pullman's The Subt--

What the hell was that noise? Did you just hear a loud bang coming from upstairs? No? Okay, I'm going to ignore it. This time. Anyway, The Subtle Knife. I really enjoyed this one, much like I enjoyed The Golden Compass. Again, Pullman doesn't condescend to his audience but shows the realities of what childhood, and the beginnings of adolescence, is like. The kids in this book are just as vicious as the adults; they only lack the subtlety that comes with age...

I'm sorry. Just had a lengthy discussion with the girls about what we had available to drink in the house, and the fact that NOBODY is going upstairs with a drink, especially if it's blueberry juice because I am not cleaning up those stains. And now the girls have discovered a whistle and a harmonic. Lovely. But to continue. The children in Subtle Knife are as vicious as the adults. The only thing that separates them is what drives them. While the main characters, Will and Lyra, are driven by the need to protect those they love, other children in the book are driven more by greed, revenge, hunger, and other basic needs. In that way I think they're more honest than the adults, who are driven by the need for power and whose goals are mandated by the sadistic rules and superstitions of the Authority, the religious entity that dominates the world Lyra comes from...

Do you know how many toys in this house make noise? Too many. And they're all going in the trash on Monday. ALL of them. And if certain little girls don't stop pushing and shoving and refusing to share, there's going to be a massacre in my living room very shortly. I'm just saying.

To continue, beyond the violence and savagery of the children and adults, there's also a great deal of heroism. Lee Scoresby, the aeronaut from the great country of Texas is particularly moving. His quest to find aid for Lyra, a girl he loves as much as he would his own child, leads him to a perilous fate. Serafina Pekkala, the witch, is also on a quest to aid Lyra, and her fate becomes just as much in doubt in the course of event...

I swear to god, I wish I had never bought that damned harmonica. Nor the whistle that is currently being blasted in my ear. Somebody's about to end up in the corner! And where is the heroic aeronaut to come take me away from all this? Huh?!

Whatever. Physics and religion are discussed side by side in The Subtle Knife. Many have accused Pullman of writing atheist propaganda. In truth, I don't think the books are atheist, so much as a criticism of how institutions and individuals pervert religious ideas to gain powe--

And I've just confiscated my third toy of the afternoon. Okay, you know what, let's get right down to brass tacks. Subtle Knife is a good book. I'm lucky to have read it. Quite frankly I'm lucky to have read anything. Do you know how hard it is for me to even get five minutes alone in the bathroom with a National Geographic? Do you?! And yet hear I am, surrounded by screaming little girls, trying to put together an intelligent review of a book I think people would actually enjoy, sans screaming little girls of course. The Subtle Knife. Do you know what I'd do if I had a Subtle Knife right now? There wouldn't be quite so many screaming little girls running around, I'll tell you that.

I'm done. I had also wanted to talk about The Daring Book For Girls, by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, but I can't think straight enough to do that right now. I swear, it's no wonder people drug their children with TV! It's the only way to get any peace and quiet around here! My kids are going to grow up to be illiterate savages because their mother couldn't handle the stress and the noise and she drugged them with crappy TV! That's what's going to happen to this family!

Great, now all the kids are screaming. I have to go. Next week I'll discuss The Daring Book For Girls... assuming any girls in this house survive that long.

Things I Suck At As A Mom

2009-05-28T16:09:00.001-05:00

I really should be working right now, but the current free-for-all/play date going on upstairs has inspired me to write the following list of Things I Suck At As A Mom.

Mommies groups. Never joined one that I really fit into. Mostly because I am a Freak Mama, and mundane mamas scare/irritate me.

Chit-chat with non-Freak Mamas. Related to item #1. I have very little in common with most non-fandom or non-freak moms, so doing the whole polite talk thing is painfully awkward for me (as I'm sure it must be for them to talk to me).

Play dates with children of non-Freak Mamas. I do not relate well to other people's kids at the best of times. Dealing with kids whom I am afraid will contaminate my kids with such anti-Freak ick like "Hannah Montana" or "Bratz" just drives me up the wall.

Cooking dinner. Hubster used to do ALL the cooking, because I honestly never learned how. And since I get up at 5AM, my brain usually shuts down around 5PM, which is of course the magic hour at which dinner is expected to be prepared.

Packing school lunches. I don't know why I suck at this one. I had to pack my own school lunch for years when I was in school. Somehow, I can't pull it off for the Princess. It may be that many times we don't have what I need on hand to make said lunch (because I also suck at grocery shopping, yet another task the Hubster does). It may be part of the whole "brain shuts down at 5PM" thing. I just can't say.

Children's parties. I think kids' birthday parties should be small simple affairs. I don't like renting inflatable bouncy death traps, nor do I like hiring evil clowns/magicians/balloon animal artists. I prefer simple parties at home. However, right now my home has no downstairs bathroom, no patio furniture, no grill, and no linoleum in the foyer. Also no fence, so no way to coral screaming children. Makes it hard to host a simple barbeque in the backyard.

House cleaning. I'm too damn busy being Freak Mama and doing my writing/graphic arts thing to get around to this one. And don't even ask about decorating the house. I decorate with dust bunnies, okay? That way all the rooms in the house match!

Sleep-overs. I have not yet even attempted to have one at this house. I just can't stand other people's children long enough to force myself to suffer through one. I live in fear of the day I do have to do it.

This list probably doesn't even begin to cover the things I suck at as a mom, but right now I've got small screaming children in the house tearing things apart, so I have to go.

What do you suck at as a parent?

Ballticon, I love you!

2009-05-26T11:41:00.001-05:00

I just got back from Balticon 43 and damn I'm tired. Four straight days of fun, frolic, work, mind-bending conversation, fan-girl moments and sundry madness. Here are several of my favorite moments from the convention, in no particular order.

Getting there. You people have no idea how much I love climbing into my old beater car and heading out of town. I used to do long drives like this all the time, pre-kids. Now these drives only happen a couple times a year. When I'm in my beater car, I can listen to my favorite music, drink a ton of coffee, and rant out loud with only other drivers to look at me like I'm crazy. I used to drive to the same area Balticon is in for Army Reserves drill, so I really miss this. Although admittedly, Balticon is a lot more fun than Army Reserves.

Hugs. I got hugs from everyone - Paulette Jaxton, Elf, Mike Pederson, Doug from College (who I only got to see for 30 seconds, but man what a hug!), Cmaaaarrr, Sci Fi Laura, Steve Eley, Gutshot, Matt F'n Wallace, Christiana Ellis, Mae Breakall, Kim the Comic Book Goddess, Dee, Nobilis, Heather Welliver, Grail Wolf, Mistress Jett, Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway, MAinPA, Dan the Fan, Tee Morris, Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit, SVAllie, Brand, Vivid Muse, Chooch, Alessia Brio and Will Belegon, Jared Axelrod and J. R. Blackwell, George Hrab, and many, many others. I love getting hugs from friends, and when you only get to see folks face to face a couple times a year, these hugs are very important. Best group hug - Ms. Information, Nobilis and Phil Rossi. Best hug over all - Mur Lafferty. Her husband is a lucky man };)

Info overload. I sat in on a ton of panels, everything from podcasting to geek family life to short fiction readings. My brain is so full of ideas and inspiration, it's leaking out my ears!

Readings! The Friday evening short fiction slam rocked - Nathan Lowell had the best short story on religion I've heard in a long time. Phil Rossi read from Crescent, soon to be released in print. Steve Eley rocked with a little gem on computer viruses and daily life and Chris Lester had me jonesing for Metamor City. On Saturday (or was it Sunday?), I listened to George Hrab read from his essays, many of which you can hear on the Geologic Podcast. All I can say is, wow, that man knows how to capture real life and bring it into sharp, fascinating focus.

The Sex With Aliens panel. Not a live demo, but a fascinating discussion. Bud Sparhawk had some intriguing things to say on the topic, and I walked away with more than a few story ideas.

Social Media for writers panel. Tee Morris IS social media. He knows that topic inside and out, and gives the best advice on how to use social media without coming off like an ass. (He's also a wonderful writer. I love Billibub Baddings!)

Hearing Phil Rossi confess that reading about other people's successes on Twitter makes him feel depressed and unsuccessful. It's an odd choice for a favorite moment, I know, but it was an honest moment (and startling to hear from someone I'm a fan of) and I know exactly what he means. It's nice to know I'm not the only writer who sits there wondering if they're being left in the dust.

The look Mur Lafferty gave Nathan Lowell when he talked about how he wrote his first book in ten days, but then things slowed down during edits and rewrites, which took him a couple of weeks. Another truly honest moment from someone who's work I admire.

CmdLn trying to fix my watch. The man is a hacker-philospher extraordinaire. He's also a gentleman who did his very best to put a new battery in my fav watch. The attempt may have driven him mad, but I'm grateful he took pity on a gal who owns nine watches, none of which work. And his wife makes and wears the best dresses I've ever seen!

Music! Three concerts this weekend - Phil Rossi, George Hrab, and Kim the Comic Book Goddess. Three very different styles, all very good. Phil Rossi and Evo Terra did a little booty shakin' during George Hrab's Ms. Information song. I had the best seat in the house for that performance. Too bad I didn't have any $20s };D

Attaching names to faces. PG Holyfield, I'm glad I got to see your handsome mug too ;)

People playing with my horns. You know you've established your image when people like to tweak your horns.

Talking with Matt F'n Wallace at a party Sunday night. The man's a true gentleman and a great writer. He's also easy to talk to. Don't be intimidated by his size or greatness. He's someone you really ought to get to know.

Dining and partying with friends. Nomming with Gutshot; dinner with Nobilis; lunch with Chooch, Viv, Jett, MA and Dan; breakfast with Cmaaaarrr, Sci Fi Laura, Matt F'n Wallace, Mur Lafferty, and Vintage Jim; stealing sips from Ms. Information's delightful Dirty Martini. Dinner with Nobilis was particularly nice, as I don't get enough chances to conspire with my partner in crime.

Calls for Cthulhu, LIVE! Need I say more?

Singularity, again. Earl Newton of Stranger Things has promised we will keep having the Singularity until we get flying cars... or a toaster that doesn't burn the toast. This is good, because I love seeing Stranger Things on the big screen like this!

Personal Effects: Dark Arts. It just looks cool. And freaky. And... cool.

Escape Pod, LIVE! Acted out by a fantastic cast. The line 'Brains for baby Jesus' will ring in my ears for a very long time.

Aliens You Will Meet, LIVE! I'm glad George Hrab won the music contest. It should be a boost to his career ;)

Viv and Chooch's Podio Books and Web Comics party. Those two really know how to host an event. Though seeing Tee Morris spanking himself while dressed as William Shakespeare has probably scarred me for life...

Sharing a room with Nina Kimberly the Merciless, AKA Christiana Ellis. We really only chatted a couple of times, but she was very cool. And she did not even give me a funny look when she came in and caught me eating cereal and milk out of a bowl with no spoon.

Paulette Jaxton. Hands down, coolest thing about Balticon was sharing a room with this lady. I only wish I could have spent more time with her. Paulette, you RAWK!

Alessia Brio and Will Belegon. Two of the coolest people in erotica and e-publishing. Hot writers, caring people, amazing humanitarians. Do good while being bad. Read Coming Together!

Sitting on a panel with author Scott Sigler and David Moldawer (editor at Penguin Books). They are very big names. I am very small. Yet I got to moderate on the subject of e-publishing for the small screen, and managed to not sound like an idiot. Almost makes me think I can run with the big dogs.

Erotica readings. I got to do two this weekend, and the room was full both times. To all the people who came to listen, ask questions, and (absolutely astonishing) ask for my autograph, thank you, thank you, thank you. You made me feel very special.

Babies. Certain people have some of the cutest babies (and there are two cuties in particular I love). You guys know you are! I'm jonesing now for a third bambino after seeing such cuddly cootness!

Chatting about cartoons with Gutshot. A simple conversation about one of my favorite pastimes with someone who is obviously talented in that department. He also has the nicest collection of hats and a verra lovely kilt!

Mae Breakall's t-shirt. Also Mistress Jett's modified tee. If you saw these shirts, you know what I mean. If you missed them, I pity you. They were hot!

Coming home to a bit of blood and a minor crisis. Okay, another weird moment to put on the favorites list, but after four surreal days roaming a con on my own, coming home to see the Hubster soothing crying children and taking care of the mess made me feel oh-so-glad and extremely luck to be married to the most wonderful man in the world. Plus, the boo boo in question gave me extra reasons to cuddle with my youngest and listen to my oldest explain how she helped take care of her sister. The chatter and love of little girls, along with the calm confidence of the man of my dreams are a couple of things I really missed this weekend. Next year, I'm doing everything I can to get my whole family up to the con!

There are many, many more things on my list of favs, but honestly, the whole damn weekend was just about one of the best things I've experienced in a long time. Many, many thanks to Paul Fischer for including me on the new media track this year, to Nobilis for recommending me, to Martha for trusting me to moderate her panel, and to everyone who smiled and put up with the annoying tag-along known better known as Helen E. H. Madden. And especially, always, thank you Michael. The Hubster let me run away to the circus for the weekend and did an outstanding job taking care of our children while I was wrong. I love you, stud!

After Balticon, I Came Home To Blood...

2009-05-25T19:06:00.001-05:00

I had the absolute best time at Balticon this weekend. I will give you the details later. Probably tomorrowish later. But right now, I want to share what awaited me when I got home this evening. (Be warned, this is a little gross.)

First, there was this in the kitchen...

...apparently caused by this blunt object...

...which landed on this little tootsie...

Apparently Pixie went into the pantry while no one was looking and grabbed a can of ice tea which she immediately dropped on her foot, rim first. While she screamed bloody murder, Princess ran and found the Hubster, who then spent several minutes chasing after a shrieking Pixie, then calming and staunching the flow of blood. She ran pretty far, so there was blood all over the kitchen floor, the living room carpet, and the love seat, the stairs and the kids bathroom. Hubster was wet vaccuuming the carpet and love seat when I got home. Princess gave me all the gory details... several times in a row.

It doesn't look like any permanent damage was done. Pixie was running around on it only a short while later. But we'll probably spend tomorrow at the doctor's office and I have no idea when I'll be able to get a shoe on that foot.

But anyway, I'm glad to be home, bloody sweet home, and I owe the Hubster so frikkin' much for letting me take this weekend off that it's not eve funny. Hope everyone made it home safe from Balticon, and had slightly less bloody surprises waiting for them when they walked in the door.

Move It Mama Monday! Did I Make My Goal?

2009-05-18T09:02:00.000-05:00

No.

No, no, no, no. I did not make my Wii Fit goal. In fact, if you ask Wii Fit, I'm only a pound less than where I started from three months ago. I know that sounds terribly disappointing. However...

My bathroom scale says I'm about four pounds lighter. And my weight has been fluctuating between 146 and 148, rather than 149 and 152. And I've even gotten as low as 144.5 at one point. Plus my clothes fit better. For Mother's Day, I wore the slinky dress I made for my honeymoon almost 16 years ago, and it fit perfectly. And my knees are doing a lot better in karate class. I can now get through two hours of class without limping out of the dojo afterward.

So I'm going to say this was a success, even if I didn't lose the 11 pounds I set out to lose.

But I'm also going to say that there are areas I could stand to improve, and they're things Wii Fit doesn't monitor. Things like sleep, drinking water, and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

I know what it takes for me to really lose this weight. The biggest factor is the amount of sleep I get every night. I do best when I can climb into bed at 9PM. Then I have no problems getting up at 5AM the next morning to start my day and go on to accomplish everything on my to-do list. Also, if I can sleep straight from 9PM until 5AM, I don't end up craving sugary or salty foods all day long. However, if I don't rigorously enforce that early bed time, I'm pretty much screwed. I won't be able to get out of bed at 5 and I won't be able to take control of my day from the get go. I end up scrambling to get stuff accomplished, including exercise, and my eating habits go south fast.

When I'm tired, I have problems doing things I know I should do to lose weight, like drink lots of water and eat fresh fruits and veggies. Instead of water, I'll down cup after cup of hot tea or coffee with plenty of sugar in it. Instead of reaching for an apple or pear when I'm hungry, I'll dig out the chips. It's stupid, I know, especially since I know the fruit is better for me and I know I'm sabotaging myself when I go for the chips. But when I'm tired, I just don't have the will power to do what I should do. Or rather, I refuse to summon the will power to reach for the fruit instead. There's this little voice in my mind that tells me I'm tired and I've been working so hard, why not just relax a bit and reward myself with some comfort food. Again, really stupid, and I know it even as I do it, yet I do it anyway.

It hasn't helped that I tried going to bed early last week, but had insomnia just about every night. That really killed my fitness goals, and I couldn't do much but suffer through it. I've been plagued by insomnia off and on for as long as I can remember, and I really wish I could figure out a way to beat it. I don't drink any coffee or sodas after 2PM, so caffeine really shouldn't be the problem. I do tend to use the evening hours to catch up on work, so that's probably the culprit. I should stop working in the evenings and do some winding down instead, but if I cut out those work hours, I'm afraid I'll really get behind in work.

It may be that I need to look at my schedule again and try something new. I loved doing some exercise early in the morning before doing work, because I know that helps me lose weight, but I need the word hours desperately, especially if I'm going to eliminate those work hours from the evening. So my plan for this go around is to move the exercise to later in the day, probably mid morning after I've gotten some work done and gotten Pixie outside for some play time and gardening. We'll see if that helps.

Two final notes: first, I'm still waiting to see what Wii Fit says I weigh after I get through my current menstrual cycle. Remember, I'm carrying around a lot of excess tissue held over from the previous cycle, and I'm wondering if that's causing me to hold onto a little extra weight as well. Second, I'm waiting for the new EA Sports Active game for Wii Fit to come out. I pre-ordered a copy and am anxious to see how it works. I love the current Wii Fit, but would like to have something to add to my repertoire of fitness tools. Variety never hurts when it comes to losing weight!

Next week's Move It Mama Monday will probably be late. I'll be up in Maryland for Balticon all through Memorial Day weekend and won't get home until late Monday, so look for an update on Tuesday instead. I could write the post in advance, but I'd like to give myself a week to see if I can convince Wii Fit I weigh a little less. So until then, have fun and keep moving!

We Said What?

2009-05-12T21:16:00.001-05:00

A random list of things said and/or overheard in la Casa de Madden today....

"Bad pony! Da pony spank me so I spank da pony!" ~ Pixie, while playing with My Pretty Pony

"Did the pony spank you or did you make the pony spank you?" ~ Helen, who can't believe she just said that

"Did Buddha die in Jamestown?" ~ Princess, in a conversation exploring religion and history

"Dere are volcanoes on da lunar surface!" ~ Pixie (after listening to a little too much Jimmy Buffet)

"But if I give the bank all my money, I'll never get it back!" ~ Princess, commenting on the current state of the economy and her allowance

Yeah, just another day of fun here at la Casa de Madden.

Move It Mama Monday! Crunched For Time

2009-05-11T08:31:00.001-05:00

Greetings and salutions on this fine Monday morn--!

Eh, who am I kidding? I'm dead on my feet today. But hopefully you're doing better.

I'm going up on my first three months with the Wii Fit. This week is the last week for me to meet my goal, although I'm not going to make it. I had set a goal of losing 11 lbs in three months. I'm 6 lbs short of that goal. But I'm not upset about that, especially considering how high my weight shot up last week (water weight really sucks, but it can be gotten rid of, thankfully!).

While I won't manage to meet my goal, I did lose and manage to keep off 5 lbs, which I haven't been able to do before. My scale these days more often reads 146 than 151, and that's a huge difference for me. My jeans fit much better (hurray!). But better than that, I've noticed a huge improvement in my knees. I have lousy knees, ruined by sparring injuries and hormones from two pregnancies. They'd gotten really bad this past year, but after working on Wii Fit for a few weeks, I started noticing a significant difference in my ability to hold the more demanding stances. I can get lower and hold those stances longer, and that makes me really happy.

Still, I'd like to eventually lose those last 6 lbs., and I've been thinking about what it will take to make that happen. Do I need to exercise more? I'd love to, but my schedule is pretty full, and I'm already having a hard time fitting everything in each day. So I started playing around with my daily schedule to see if I could squeeze in an extra half hour of Wii Fit each day. I got up most mornings at 5 AM last week to do 45 minutes of Wii Fit, and then scheduled some sort of fitness activity later in the day like swimming or karate. I definitely got results. Unfortunately, I normally get up at 5AM to work on my writing and podcast, and I couldn't figure out how to fit in the work time I needed now that I'd given up an hour or so each morning to do the extra Wii Fit.

Bottom line, the schedule change helped me shed that water weight plus another pound or so, but it ruined my work schedule, and I can't have that. So I'm trying a different schedule this week. I realized one of the reasons the Wii Fit early in the morning worked so well is that I was getting my cardio exercise in first thing in the morning.

Cardio in the AM has always helped me maintain my weight, so this is something I want to continue. However, I don't have to do 45 minutes of Wii Fit to get those results (and keep in mind that 45 minutes on the Wii Fit translates to at least an hour of actual time). What I do need to do is about 20 minutes of cardio, either using the Wii Fit or the new monster elliptical machine the Hubster bought. Then I could do my body test, an extra 5 minutes or so, and move on to writing for the morning. Then later in the day, after the Pixie and I have had some time to play outside and garden, I can come back in and spend another 20-25 minutes doing the strength, yoga or balance games on the Wii Fit. Or I can head out to the Y for a swim or the dojo for an hour of karate class.

I'm hoping this compromise works and gives me the time to both workout and work. I'll let you know next week how it goes.

Meanwhile, I'm doing okay. I spent some time working on Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants this past week. I've filled a total of 23 pots with soil and seedlings. Yeah, I'm nuts. But remember, this is Operation Kill A LOT Of Plants, so we're good so far. I also have some plants that have survived previous gardening attempts, so right now my deck is pretty full. I still have some sunflowers and marigolds to plant. They'll go in one last big pot later this week.

For Mother's Day, the Hubster took me to Barnes & Noble, where I picked two blank journals, one for me and one for Princess. I told her we would keep journals this summer of our gardening and other activities. We also got a simple weather science kit for Princess and set that up yesterday. She spent the afternoon taking little notes about the weather and then drew our deck with all the plants on it. I'll have to scan in her drawings later this week, but for now, here are some picks of the garden so far.

We've got lots of herbs on the back deck...

Plus tomatoes and corn and peppers...

Did I mention we had lots of herbs on the back deck?

Okay, that's it for this week. Pixie's starting to climb all over me, so you know what that means.

Mama's got to move it!

Things I While Cleaniing Pixie's Room

2009-05-09T21:12:00.001-05:00

If you were following me on Twitter today, you might have noticed the list of things I posted as I shoveled out Pixie's room this afternoon. For a two-year-old, that kid owns a lot of crap. It's not my fault, I swear. I don't buy that much stuff for her or her sister. But my mother on the other hand... Grandmama is not happy that she lives so far away from the grandkids, and she compensates by sending them loads of packages full of toys and clothing, and she even sends the prizes she gets from kids' meals at the fast food joints she eats at (not kidding on this one; we currently have more Rally's toys than an actually Rally's restaurant has at any give time).

With the changing of the seasons, I had to clear out the old winter clothes from Pixie's closet and put in the stuff we saved from Princess' wardrobe. That's a huge headache for me. I know it saves a ton of money, but I have having to sort and store all that clothing. We simply don't have enough boxes for it all. And remember, my mom buys these kids clothing in BULK! We used to get a package a week, filled with little dresses and outfits, until I made her cut back.

Anyway, I decided to spend today cleaning out both kids' closets, only I got into Pixie's room and realized I also needed to sort through her toys and clean up a few messes, so I ended up only doing her room. And while I was cleaning and swapping out clothes, I found a few interesting things, like...

An old maternity top of mine. It's a lime green t-shirt from Old Navy. I owned several of them when I was pregnant with Pixie, and thought I had gotten rid of all but one, that one being the one I was wearing on the day I went into labor. I kept that one for sentimental reasons. Now that we're contemplating child #3, I wish I had kept them all.

The knitted yellow hat Pixie got at the hospital when she was born. It was the first article of clothing that kid ever wore, and it suited her. She had a touch of jaundice and was about as yellow as the hat. We had to lay her naked little butt on a blanket and scoot her from one sunny spot to another around the house for the first week she was home. She didn't like that, and she announced her displeasure with a lot of explosive, projectile poops.

Several small brushes and combs for baby hair. Neither of my girls had hair when they were born, so these have never really been used.

One pair of nursing pads. I used to own a ton of those things too, and will need to stock up for child #3. God I hated wearing those things, and I hated wearing nursing bras, but now I want all that stuff back!

My breast feeding log for Princess. I put Pixie's in the cedar chest in my bedroom. I didn't realize the notebook I'd used to record all of Princess' feedings was still in the dresser in the nursery. Now that really brings back some memories -- late nights, trying to stay awake, swollen boobs, falling asleep in the glider, twelve feedings or more a day, a lot of those feedings spent scribbling madly in a notebook or typing stories on a computer. And yes, I'll do it again gladly with child #3.

A dozen flannel baby blankets. Word of warning to new and expectant mom -- you cannot have enough flannel blankets. Between leaky diapers, spit up, and other mishaps, new babies go through about five a day. You will do laundry constantly! I never gave away any of the flannel blankies I got during Princess' first months, and I'm very glad I still have them. However, I did give away...

Cloth diapers used as burp clothes. That was stupid. The only thing we went through faster than the blankets was the burp clothes. I can still recall how they smelled, that slightly sour odor of spit up and the slightly sweet odor of fresh breast milk. I over-expressed with both kids, and stopped more than a few spray-a-thons by slapping a burp cloth over the offending boobie.

In the toy department, I found some interesting odds and ends. Namely, I discovered that Pixie and Princess own enough Barbies and Little People to repopulate the entire world should the Apocalypse ever occur and we are all wiped out. Please for love of God, if you have any intentions of giving my children a gift, do NOT give them Barbies, Barbie clothing, or any Little People. We're full up.

In the Barbie basket, I did find a couple of badly tattooed dolls. Pixie loves to color on her dolls with magic marker, and unfortunately, even the washable stuff is permanent on Barbie dolls. She also got into her sister's Style and Curl Barbie head, and did a real number on that...

However, I noticed some of those markings are a little too well made, and I suspect Princess may have helped out with this makeover. I don't care though. This damned thing has been a thorn in my side since the day we got it, and I've been looking for an excuse to toss it. I keep finding all the little rhinestones and barrettes all over the house, and honestly, a six-year-old does not need to apply makeup to anything. Nor can she really style the hair. Except for the marker makeover, this thing has mostly sat on the floor and collected dust. So today it was, "Hasta la vista, you painted tart!"

Speaking of tarts, I also found this in Pixie's room...

Poor Steve. That dress really doesn't fit him. But at least he has pants. None of Pixie's other male dolls are that lucky. Most have a shirt, but no drawers, and some only get a pair of high heels.

Once I got past the toys, I was able to start moving boxes of clothing off the spare bed we keep in Pixie's room. That's when I discovered Pixie's latest adventures in art...

Yeah, it's marker. I spent so much time doing everything else today that I did not have time to scrub it yet, so I don't know if it's permanent or not. But I'm thinking either way, it's time to take away the markers from Pixie again.

At last I got to the closet, where I pulled out a ton of old winter clothing, all of it 2T. In addition to her sister's hand-me-downs, Pixie also got new clothing from Grandmama, so I had to do a culling of the clothes. Anything with a stain went, as well as anything I recalled Pixie would never wear. She's big on comfort, so if she wouldn't wear it, I doubt the next child will either. Then I got rid of a few things that were just ugly. Yeah, I'm picky, but with so many clothes to store, I needed to be. I got everything down to just three boxes, one of which was nothing but frilly little dresses Pixie will never wear again. I remember those dresses. Her sister wore them too. They were a big part of Princess' wardrobe when I was pregnant with her sister. I'm sad to see them go.

There were new dresses to put in though, lots of pretty, colorful summer dresses, enough to keep Pixie happy no matter how many times a day she tries to change clothes. As I put those in the closet, I cleared out some tchotchkies that were lying around on the top shelf -- wall plaques with Sweet Memories sayings and stuff like that. I know they were gifts and keepsakes, but I don't hang on to stuff like that, and never did put any of that stuff up in either child's room. So those went in the give-away bag. May they find a good home! Then I found the stuff I would keep no matter what -- the christening dresses my mom made for each girl; the matching blankets she crocheted for their baptisms; a doll with a crocheted witch's costume, also made by my mom; my old doll house, given to me by my grandmother when I was about Princess' age; a Gimbel's box full of Louis Marx Wild Animal toys, again a gift to me from my grandmother when I was very small. Those things stayed. Then while I was finishing putting stuff away, I found one last treasure.

A set of hospital bracelets. Two were mine. One was labeled, "Madden, BG... 2003."

Pixie turns three in a few more weeks. I looked at that tiny little bracelet, remembered how small she used to be, and I cried.

Made it damned hard to finish cleaning up, I tell you.

Move It Mama Monday! - Fat and Dizzy

2009-05-04T05:27:00.000-05:00

Wii Fit says I'm fat. My gynecologist says I've got an inner ear infection.

And yes, those two statements are actually related! I know, the latter statements sounds a little weird. "Uh, did you say your gynecologist said you had an ear infection?" And I know what you're thinking. "That's a strange place to keep your ears, Helen..." And just so you know, my good friend Nobilis of the Nobilis Erotica Podcast already beat you to that joke. But it's true.

You see, the past two weeks I've had a slew of female troubles (and if that sort of things grosses you out, you can stop reading here, although it won't be that gross so why not read on and quit being a big baby, okay?). For starters, my last period was five days late. Considering my plumbing works like clockwork (yeah, I'm mixing my metaphors here), five days is an awful lot of being late. However, I took three home pregnancy tests and they all came out negative, and then I went to the doctor's office and they did a pregnancy test on me and that came out negative too.

Then my period finally started. But it was really light. And it only lasted four days. And I was having Braxton Hicks contractions. Lots of Braxton Hicks contractions. And then the dizziness started and I couldn't pry myself out of bed or off the couch for anything. And did I mention my weight suddenly shot up about five pounds?

So I took another pregnancy test, because I swear it felt like I was pregnant. But that came out negative too, and so did another one at the gynecologist's office. And then when I told my doc about all the symptoms and the dizziness, he decided to take a look at my ears, and he saw...

Both eardrums packed with fluid!

That explained the dizziness right there. Apparently the pollen count has been rather high in our area, and I had an allergic reaction of sorts that involved fluid in my ears rather than snot leaking out my nose.

As for the contractions, the doc did a quick ultrasound on me and confirmed that not only was I soooooo not pregnant (I really was worried about an ectopic pregnancy at that point), but that I also had no fibroid tumors in my uterus. What I did have was one hell of a thick lining of blood and tissue in there, some of which should have shed during my last, late period, but didn't. No, it had just stayed there, building up until it looked like my uterus was packed solid with tissue and blood, all of it now just waiting for my next menstrual cycle to start so I can bleed like Noah's Biblical flood while I lay on the couch clutching my heating pad, popping half a dozen Advil and just basically dying of cramps.

Did I say this post wasn't going to be gross? Sorry...

So anyway, all of this has led me to two conclusions. The first is that the new plants I've potted know all about Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants, and they're going on the offense, clogging my ears with pollen until I'm too dizzy to garden/kill a lot of plants. The second conclusion is that Wii Fit don't know Jack about female trouble, because if it did it wouldn't tell me I'm fat when instead I'm actually just carrying around a ton of extra unshedded uterus lining and stocking up on water weight because we all know you can't have female troubles without adding a ton of water weight to your girlish figure. And Wii Fit also wouldn't be giving me crap about missing days because I was too damned dizzy and bloated to get on the machine and work out!

To combat my problems, I sent the Hubster out to get me some Clariten D to unclog my ears. I'm also drinking lots of water to help flush out all the water weight and stave off any ultra-nasty PMS symptoms I fear may be headed my way. And I've tweaked my schedule to give me a little more exercise time as well because if I can get my weight down even a little, that will also help alleviate some of the PMS symptoms which I know are going to be bad.

So that's it for Move It Mama Monday. I'm fat and I'm dizzy and now I have to cope with those conditions and get my assets back on the balance board before I turn into Moby Dick. Wish me luck!

Fiction Friday - The Subtle Knife

2009-05-01T08:19:00.000-05:00

After my disappointment with Butlerian Jihad, I decided I really had to go with a sure thing this week. So I picked up Philip Pullman's "The Subtle Knife," and I have not been disappointed at all. I love reading books with depth and layers. I love complicated yet realistic characters, and Pullman's characters definitely fit the bill. When I read "The Golden Compass," I was startled by how well Pullman managed to capture the true nature of childhood. Kids are not simple, happy creatures, but vicious and cunning little savages. Really! Pullman talked about how the children of Oxford college would form tribes and go to war with each other. This is something I recall doing as a child, and it's both delightful and frightening to see that particular aspect of my young life captured on the page.

The Subtle Knife keeps up in the same vein, following the adventures of Lyra Silvertongue and a new friend, Will. While the entire "His Dark Materials" series is billed as children's books, I have to wonder what age ranged the publisher (Yearling) is thinking of. The main characters are children, but the contents of the book are far from childish. The first three chapters include a boy taking care of his schizophrenic mother, a violent death, a torture scene, and a nightmare about a decapitated head. Not suitable fare for my six-year old, I think. She'd probably have nightmares. In fact, it's all scary enough to keep me on the edge of my seat, but I love it and I'll be happy to hand over my copies to Princess when she reaches ten and see how she enjoys them. At six though, she's still a little too young.

If you haven't read The Golden Compass yet, or any of the other books in the series, I should mention that the books are set in an alternate Earth, mainly in England and parts of northern Europe. In this alternate world, airships are the main form of mass transportation, and the lights are anabaric, not electric (though apparently that's the same thing). It's a sort of steam punk world ruled by the Church, a frighteningly totalitarian institution bent on discovering the nature of the human soul and controlling the exercise of free will. This is an exageration of the churches in our real world (though Pullman doesn't have to exagerate much, in my opinion) and the things those churches have done in the name of God. There's a great deal of theology packed into this adventure story, which is probably why I'm enjoying it so much. As a Buddhist, I look at Catholic and Christian churches from an outsider's point of view, and I have no problems dissecting these institutions to see what they've done right and what they've done wrong. I am normally inclined to question what people do in the name of God, and I'm happy to read a book that does the same thing.

Many people have criticized Pullman's books as being anti-Christian. I would say the books are more anti-Church. Again, it's that look at what people do in the name of God, not was God is doing, that's the focus of the story. People may claim they act in God's name, but I think they often do what they want and just use God as an excuse. Many of the characters in Pullman's book are motivated by nefarious goals and quite frequently justify what they do by saying their actions are in compliance with God's will. These people make for some very intense and chilling villains.

Aside from the theology, there's quite a bit of adventure and fantasy to enjoy. There are witches and talking polar bears, and of course the daemons, which are the embodiment of people's souls in Lyra's world. The plot has plenty of twists and turns, the dialogue is believable, and the world building is excellent. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book at this point, and as much as I'm enjoying it, I'll probably have it finished by the end of next week. I'll give a final report then. For right now, I'm giving the book two thumbs up!

Who's Divorce Is It Anyway?

2009-04-28T14:02:00.001-05:00

I found this article on Web MD today, about how someone's divorce can affect their friends' marriages. I have to say, I've only read the first few pages, but so far this article is spot on. Michael and I have been through this more than a couple of times, where a couple we know and hang out with suddenly end up divorced. In fact, it's happened to us so often that I am no longer allowed to look through our wedding album, because I sit there and pick out all the people we know in the photos who are no longer together. These days, I can also pick out the people in our wedding album who are now dead, which is another reason why I'm not allowed to look through our wedding album anymore; Michael says it's just too ghoulish.

And he's right, it is ghoulish to sit there and look at the pictures and talk about what went wrong, like I'm performing some sort of verbal autopsy on a long-dead relationship, but that's how I handle these things. I look at what the people around me did wrong and I want to discuss it, to learn from it, to make sure I don't end up repeating their mistakes. As badly as I felt for my neighbor down the street who's husband died suddenly of a heart attack, I couldn't help but want to analyze about the aftermath she went through. She couldn't get into her late husband's computer to pay the bills; she wasn't sure how to handle the insurance claim; she didn't know how to deal with certain financial aspects of her home business because her husband had always handled it. I have to discuss these things with Michael to make sure I won't end up in the same bad situation.

I've done the same thing with divorces, picking apart what might have gone wrong and then comparing my findings to what's happening in my own marriage. It's armchair quarterbacking for sure, but when someone you know has been married for 10 years and you just went camping with them the weekend before and now suddenly the wife is moving out and they're getting a divorce, it does make you stop in your tracks and go, "WTF?! How'd that happen? Didn't we just go camping with them last week? Uh, honey? We're not headed for divorce, are we?"

To reassure all my friends, I do not study your lives under a microscope. Half the time, when you make a mistake, I have no idea; I'm too busy fighting off my own alligators to notice yours. And the closer I am to someone, the more likely I am not to need to analyze what's gone on in their lives. Those folks tell me everything anyway.

But some days I've got to be the ghoul. Some days I have to sit and try to learn from other's mistakes. It ain't pretty, but at least you know that because I'm a stay-at-home mom, I can't hang around the water cooler at work and gossip about it.