Having a rough day, I decided that instead of working on my ever-present, ever-loved WIP, I’d refresh with some cheerful artwork–a predatory sea-blob who is eyeing his dinner as it swims closer.

I don’t mind sharing once I’ve finished it, but what I realized is, I haven’t posted any of the family artwork that graces our walls.  A few weeks ago, our church congregation hosted a talent night and our family took up an entire table with our drawings.  I was completely thrilled–what a talented bunch of kids I have!  I think that every little while, I’ll post the newest arrival.

Artwork by Sunshine

Caterpillar

Pumpkin Patch

Artwork by Princess

Landscape

Sian (Princess’ Dragon)

Artwork by Zard

Angry Tiki

which if you turn upside down becomes

Hyper Tiki

The giant sculpture on Zard’s wall which he and I made for Bug Day in school (it hangs over and is as big as his bed), and his awesome dragon clock.

I’ll post some of my own drawings as the days go, but for today, these turned my funk upside down and made me enormously happy.  There’s nothing like creative juiciness to make the sun shine again!  What do you surround yourself with to cheer you up?

As we walked the sprinkler layout for the yard last week, we found a new family member.  Because his front left foot is missing, we named him Stump.

Stump is an Eastern Box Turtle, which is indigenous to where we live in Northern Virginia, but so he wouldn’t get run over by a lawnmower and lose another foot, we decided Sunshine could take care of him.  After some intense loving…

… we made him a habitat on the edge of our woods where we could enjoy him, but not too much.

We know the habitat isn’t permanent though we’re kind of taking advantage of Stump’s missing foot, but in the last several days, he has seemed very content there, doing what happy turtles do–wedging between tree roots in the leaves and poking his head out into the sun.  Can you find him?

This morning we found a second turtle in nearly the same spot we found Stump, a girl that Princess named Maple.

Maple drank some water from the dish, wandered around the habitat, and decided she wasn’t hanging around.  With all of her claws intact, she climbed right out and hid somewhere else.  While Princess is disappointed, I imagine that with two turtles in a week, we’ll find others this summer, maybe even Maple.  Turtles usually stick around the same location they were born in, though what’s cool is if they’re transported out, they’ll home in and travel great distances to get back there.

Maybe some of our turtles will stick around, or maybe not, but we sure are enjoying them!

My son, Zard (short for Lizard), got a time portal for his tenth birthday.  For some reason, he just didn’t think it was very cool.

I don’t know whether it was because 1) it horrified him that he might have to go back to wearing diapers, 2) that his parents were so mushy in their affections they would actually wish diapers on him, or 3) the picture of the wizened lady on the tag seemed meant to depict him (nothing I can do about branding).

I think it’s kind of nice for one’s parents to say they bought it so you could stick around longer.  My husband was kind of envious.  He wanted me to step through it, because old geezers (like him) tend to like younger women.  That didn’t go over too well, either.

But just because your parents say a time warp is for one thing, doesn’t mean you can’t use it for something different, like sleeping in late on your birthday and not missing your math test.  Or watching the Easter Bunny place all the eggs in the woods and still scoring huge on Super Smash Brothers (hey wait, that’s how he got so many eggs!), or, as Zard says, using it to step forward in time to know the week’s lottery numbers (free money, baby).

Man, I wish I had a time warp.  Unfortunately, this one seems to have a defect–I bump my nose when I walk into it.  Maybe, since it was Zard’s gift, it only works for him.  Maybe he was just pretending it wasn’t cool, so I wouldn’t guess too much about his other, secret life.  Maybe it was a tad bit too cool of a present.

Maybe he deserves it.  Love you, buddy!

P.S.  The sandpiper eggs hatched!  (Even the third one.)  These are the chicks as of a week ago.  They’ve since disappeared into the reeds with their smart Mum and Dad.

I just couldn’t force the girls to do math on a day like today, so we went out.   Squish chewed moldy acorns, Sunshine searched for beautiful rocks, and Princess laid out her “territory that no one can cross into”, including the marshy pond next door.

While perusing her kingdom, Princess discovered a second speckled egg (like the one we found last week) lying in the rocks.  Knowing it would have a better chance at hatching if it stayed in the nest instead of the lizard cage, she decided to put the egg back.  On the way, she nearly trampled a whole nest of them!

This discovery meant we had to do the research I didn’t get to on the day of the treasure hunt.  Eggs really look the same to my untrained eyes, aside from robin eggs, chicken eggs and bunny eggs.  But I’ve seen red-winged blackbirds on the cattails and marsh birds running through the grasses, so I took a guess, and after a bit of double-checking, I think that the eggs we found belong to the Spotted Sandpiper.

What I can’t figure (as a mother of my own brood) is why they’d leave their eggs in plain sight.  Okay, they have pretty good camouflage with those speckles, but still.  If I were a snake, I’d slither along and swallow them up, snap gulp!  I don’t know, maybe it’s too cool for snakes, but it’s a perfect day for sneakered feet.  I guess sandpipers haven’t evolved to distinguish shoe stench as predatory, yet.  Noses up, little buddies!

In honor of leprechauns and sunshine, we had a treasure hunt.

Obviously, they sang Jingle Bells to get their clue.

We crossed swampland and clover, and peered under rocks.

“Make a wish.  You may find an acorn and a clue inside.”  We trekked from the fairy wishing well…

… to the peppermint infested frog pond. “Ribbit, ribbit. Hint: mint.”

At the end of the hunt, we were all surprised by our (not-so-lucky) find:

And then my son had the luck to find another treasure in the rocks nearby:

Not sure if it will hatch–if it’s chilly and there’s an egg, does it need chill to hatch?  Or incubation?  If we stick it in the toasty lizard cage, will it help it or roast it?  Unfortunately, my son won’t allow us to make an omelet.  Oh, well.

Spring brings all sorts of amazing things.

Life at home may not be as thrillingly dangerous as Cameron Morgan experiences it in Ally Carter’s fantastic fourth Gallagher Girls book, Only the Good Spy Young, which I just put down (with an overwhelming satisfaction that (nearly) drowned my pang of writerly envy).  And it seriously isn’t as deadly as having an earthquake rip through one’s life like it did in Japan (all of my prayers are with you).  But…

…we have our own dangers we’ve maneuvered through.  Not just the usual diabetes care, death by temper tantrum, or heart attack from a flat tire discovered just after the husband left on travel (I LOVE having an air compressor!).  I’m educating you so you don’t encounter these two subtle babies in your own home.  Trap number one:

The Death Bed

Last night, my husband went to give the birds a midnight nuzzle, usually taboo, since who wouldn’t be cranky with you if you got pulled from your warm bed for a chilly whiskering?  Good thing he did, because Phoenix and Ember had chewed their bed so thoroughly that Phoenix was stuck in the threads.  Both wings were tangled enough we had to snip him out, while our fingers were attacked by a panicky beak.  Come morning, we might have had a strangled bird.  This danger is easy to avoid: DON’T CHEW YOUR BED TO BITS.

Trap number two:

The Fudge Foil

This danger isn’t for the exact health risks you might point out.  To be properly forthcoming, I fudged on the recipe, so I take the pride-kicking responsibility for this, especially as I was the one who took to heart too many recipe reviews.  The recipe itself instructed me to line the 8 x 8 dish with foil, and then pour the bubbling mixture into it and chill it in the refrigerator, which I did.

My first fudge was that I substituted baking cocoa for chocolate chips.  A few reviewers hinted the butter was a bit much as it was, so I hoped that the “extra” butter would compensate for the missing fat from the chocolate chips.  I didn’t add extra sugar, either.  Since when is (generously snitched from) marshmallow creme not sweet enough to kill you?  I like my chocolate rich and dark.  All this might still have worked out if I hadn’t boiled the mixture an extra minute to keep it from staying too soft (as the reviews said might happen).  And I forgot to add the vanilla at the end.

Combine these and get… not fudge, but an unfortunate, sticky glob of tootsie roll.  Deadly tootsie roll, or at least dangerous, because of all the tiny foil bits that got stuck and mashed throughout it during our attempts to separate the two.

Left glob: edible?  Right glob: indigestible.  Even now, as I melt the remainder of the compulsively salvaged dessert across my tongue, I’m spitting out fragments of foil.  This dangerous trap is also easy to avoid: DON’T MAKE FUDGE MY WAY.  (Or if you do, throw it out.)

Well, now you know a few more ways not to die young.

(But I WILL make good fudge someday.  I will if it kills me.)

I woke up from a nap to find this ethereal beauty…

…arrived fresh on my nightstand from my brother!  I took it from the box, felt the soft, broken-in material with pockets EVERYWHERE, and knew without a doubt it was my partner for life.  Touching the surface, I seriously felt the way my daughter does about her Blanket, which once upon a time was sewn with loving cross-stitch by my brother’s amazing wife, and now looks like this:

and this:

You see the level of commitment.  So much for Coach, try REI and a brother and sister-in-law who rock.  I LOVE my new bag!!!!

My stylish, one-and-only, adored bag of seven years died.

Not because it had any flaw or weakness, but because my bird chewed it.  I was in a writing groove and didn’t notice until it was too late that the zipper would no longer zip.  I seriously feel like I lost a family member.  Or a pet, maybe.

So for the last two weeks I’ve been bag shopping.  Online, of course.  Bags just aren’t worth the sore feet a real shopping trip would offer.  Online, a simple replacement bag for my darling doesn’t exist anymore.  I looked for other sleek, durable mini backpacks with lots of pockets, but they only come in purple, pink and yellow.  I just can’t do it.  Or they have a flap over the zipper, or no zipper at all, or aren’t made of nylon.

I’m a mother of four children.  I need Easily Reachable, Durable, Stretchable, Non-Stainable, Organizable Convenience in a Luggable size.  Is that too much to ask for?

My husband pointed out as I was moaning about this that there are entire industries built solely around making bags for women to carry their stuff in.

So I researched other options.  I had no idea Hobos, Messenger Bags, Satchels, CrossBody Bags, Totes and Clutches existed.  I had an inkling of their prices when a buddy of mine bought his girlfriend one for four hundred dollars.  I choked.

My baby was ten bucks.

The closest I’ve come is this hobo from HoboBags for the cheery price of $200:

And this shoulder bag from Coach for $600.

I mean, if I have to “invest” in a purse, I may as well get one I like.

I think I’m off to the outlets to see if I can pay anything under a hundred (gag) to meet my requirements, because I’m down to a couple of small, unzippered pockets for my wallet, phone, diapers, cheerios, writing spiral and lip goo.  I’ll post a photo when I find it, but it may be six or eight months while I save up my allowance.

I’m reading through the SCBWI conference notes since I didn’t attend, perusing the panel notes, illustrations and funnies strips, and thinking what I’ve often thought, recently: that writers and illustrators and comickers and all them–we’re just one with our pen.

I wonder sometimes if my reliance on a physical object to think clearly is a weakness.  (While I’m driving, for example–stay at least three lanes away!  Oh, wait, I have a voice memo app on my iPhone!  Hang on to your seatbelts, everyone, while I figure out how to record.)  But as I allow this to be my sacrifice to the Ink God, I realize how joyful the bond is.  Bonds aren’t necessarily bondage but links to something thrillingly greater.  Maybe someday I’ll figure out what that something really is….

Panting to the end, and a couple hours behind my daughter’s heroic efforts, came my own WIN! 50437 words.  A well-rounded draft ready for a re-write.  Knowledge of how the first book will be reworked.  And an idea of where the third is leaning.

For the record, this book was easier to write than the first because I knew the process (and LOVED my story), but it was harder because with so many sleepless nights courtesy of my adorable baby, my brain just wouldn’t light.  Night after night I’d fizzle.

Even so, after so many days of nothing, I STILL WON!!!  Which means it is possible to write a draft of a book within a month despite EVERYTHING!!!  Which gives me hope for a future as a writer, even with a boisterous family.  It is possible to do both.  See?

Thanks to EVERYONE for all their support–family, friends, writing buddies, cheerers… you guys rock the world.