Random Ramblings...

I'm not doing well on my goal for this summer. You know, the one where I wanted to have my novel finished and ready to submit to agents and publishers by the end of the summer? Yeah, it might not happen. I just always seem to find something else that needs to be done more urgently. Laundry, dishes, feeding my children, watching re-runs of "The Office". You know, REALLY important stuff.

One of my many character flaws is my tendency to procrastinate any and all projects that intimidate me. Going through my whole story, cutting out key scenes, and rewriting them in the perspective of a different character just strikes me as being very intimidating. I know I need to get over it. It's just not going to be as easy as I thought it would be when I started this project.

Also, I just want to thank all of you who commented on my last post and offered encouragement. It means a lot to me, and I really appreciate your support.

Last but not least, here is a random picture for all of you to enjoy:



Have a nice day! :)

Hellfire and Brimstone...

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you feel like you're outside your own body, watching yourself? You know the feeling: You're looking at the situation through your own eyes, but you feel mentally disconnected from what's going on?
Well, that happened to me yesterday.
I'm not going to go into detail here, but let's just say that my 6-year-old son pissed me off. No wait, let me rephrase that: My son really, really, REALLY pissed me off. He did something that he KNEW DARN WELL would get him into trouble, and didn't even seem to care.

I've lost my temper with him before, it comes with the territory of motherhood. Luckily for me, my son is FAR more forgiving than I will ever deserve.
Anyway, as I just said, I've gotten angry at my son before, but for some reason I COMPLETELY flipped my lid yesterday. I actually got down on my son's eye level, looked him directly in the eyes and SCREAMED IN HIS FACE:
"YOU ARE SIX YEARS OLD!!! YOU KNOW BETTER, DON'T YOU?!?!?"

Then I stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind me and left my son, alone and emotionally shattered.

As I walked away, still fuming, it was as though my soul suddenly returned to me and I became fully aware of what had just happened:

I actually screamed in my son's face. What was wrong with me? I never do stuff like that. I mean, I do get pretty angry at him, but NOTHING like that. It was as though some demon had come through and taken possession of me for that one moment in time, making me do something so completely against my character that my actual soul literally could not exist inside my body.

It might sound like a crazy theory, but it's the only explanation I can come up with.

I mean, think about it: I adore my son. This is a little boy with the tenderest heart on the planet. He is sweet, loving, extremely intelligent, and (in most cases) wants nothing more than to make someone else happy.

And I--his mother, the one person in the world he should feel the safest with--destroyed him in less than twelve words.

As I came to my senses, I just kept saying to myself over and over again: "I'm going to Hell. I'm going to Hell." What else will happen to a mother that screeches at her own son like that? I felt terrible.
Finally, after I'd sufficiently calmed down and mentally flogged myself, I called CT in to talk to me. I pulled him into my lap and hugged him, apologized profusely for screaming at him like that, and made a promise: "I promise that I will do everything I possibly can to never scream at you like that again." **[Notice how I didn't promise to never yell at him again? I mean, I'm only human!]**

Then I proceeded to explain to him in a MUCH more rational manner the reason that he was in trouble, and what the consequences would be if he repeated the offense. He gave me a big hug, offered me his forgiveness, and I let him have a big chocolate chip cookie.

Either way, it looks as though I'll have to start over again with those "Getting into Heaven Credits." I blew them all yesterday.

To CT: Thanks for being so forgiving to your all-too-flawed mother and for loving me no matter how many stupid things I do! I love you, Buddy! :)

Happy Birthday...To Me!

Yesterday was my birthday. Yes, yes, I know you're all racked with guilt right now for not sending me cards and piles of cash. However, I am a very forgiving person and will gladly accept your late offerings to me and my awesomeness. You're welcome.
Now for a report on how I spent my birthday. I know, I know. You can thank me later.
I woke up in the morning to the sound of my daughter's trademark pterodactyl shriek. Without words, this particular screeching noise says: "I'M HERE AND YOU'RE NOT, FIX IT NOW!!!" I promptly (and by that I mean sluggishly) got out of bed and took her downstairs to feed her breakfast.
Once the kids were fed, I went upstairs to get ready for the day. My best friend, Leesh, was taking us all out for lunch, and we were going to be meeting in a couple of hours. When I got out of the shower, I saw Ty sitting on the bed, reading the news and drinking a glass of chocolate milk. It was unusual for him to drink chocolate milk in bed, but I shrugged it off.
As I got out of the shower, Ty was laughing hysterically.
I turned on him: "What's so funny?"
He shook his head and stopped laughing long enough to say: "It's just this prank someone at work was telling me about the other day."

I tried to get him to tell me about it, but he said: "You'll see soon enough."

Terror washed over me, "What. Do. You. Mean?"

He just snickered, "Let's just say the trap has already been set. It's just a matter of when you set it off. It's your birthday prank."

I was annoyed, but Ty is famous for saying things like that just to mess with me. I figured he didn't mean it, and finished getting ready. When all was said and done, I have to say I looked and felt awesome. I mean, it's not every day you turn 29, is it?

Ty called up to me: "Candice, are you almost ready?" I called back: "Yeah, I'm just about there."
As I ran down the stairs, I grabbed Ty's empty chocolate milk glass and took it down to the kitchen with me. On auto pilot, I walked over and placed it in the sink. Ty looked over at what I was doing, and said: "You should probably rinse that out, Babe."
I lifted the handle to turn on the water, and screamed.

The hand sprayer for the kitchen sink was soaking my shirt and making me very wet and cold. Ty laughed as I stood there in shock for a minute, just watching as the water shot from the sink all the way across the room. Ty, still laughing, said: "Are you going to turn off the water?" I was fuming as I turned off the water and stormed up the stairs to change my shirt.
I'm not going to lie, I was pissed off. I changed my clothes, which in my opinion were NOT as cute as my original outfit choice, and went down the stairs. Ty had cleaned up the watery mess and was watching me tentatively. "How much trouble am I in?" 

I didn't look at him and I spoke in my iciest voice: "Plenty."
He wisely stayed out of my way while I cooled off a bit and got both kids strapped into their car seats. By the time we were halfway to the restaurant, however, I was pretty much over it. We were back to our usual, joking, bantering selves by the time we pulled into the Red Robin parking lot.
We were soon seated and waited for about 10 minutes before Leesh got there. While we waited for our food, I got three phone calls from various family members wishing me happy birthday. I felt loved.
However, when I told Ty's Aunt J about his prank, she laughed and said: "I'm sorry honey, I love you, but that's pretty funny." (Which, oddly enough, was almost exactly what Leesh said when I told her about it. I'd thought for sure she'd be on my side...)
Anyway, lunch was good, I'm pretty much addicted to Red Robin's fry sauce. It's fabulous. Then, at the end of the meal, we all walked out to the parking lot where I helped to get the kids into their car seats. Then I kissed my family goodbye and left with Leesh.
We took a quick trip to Target where we purchased contraband snacks and then promptly smuggled them into the movie theater. Leesh bought the tickets and we went and enjoyed the awesomeness of "Thor". That movie is amazing. I loved it. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. You officially have my recommendation. You can take that to the bank.
After the movie, we met up with Ty and the kids at the mall. They had been shopping. Ty had found me the cutest little snowglobe to add to my collection. If I'd been clinging to any scraps of irritation about that morning's prank, they were completely gone now. He had given me two and a half glorious hours of girl time with my friend, AND he'd found the perfect gift to make me smile. He was officially forgiven. 
Anyway, we said goodbye to Leesh and started driving up the mountain to go sledding at one of the ski resorts with some of Ty's cousins. We didn't stay long, but our son had some fun on the mountain.
To finish off the day, Ty let me pick a restaurant and we went and got some amazing pizza at the Pizza Factory. Then we went home, got the kids to bed, and watched "Dirty Dancing" while we ate some chocolate cake. Then, just because we could, we also watched "National Treasure".
All in all, it was a great birthday. Thanks for reading along with my story.

Let's just hope I'll be more on my toes the next time Ty asks me to rinse out ANYTHING!!!
AND...Just because you've all been SO patient, I'll tell you one more thing: Ty hid a camera and caught his little prank on video. Click here to see it.

An Epic Battle of the Ages!!!

Tonight, as I was finishing up feeding my daughter her dinner, my 6-year-old son came running up the stairs: "Mom! Mom! There's a spider down there!" I froze. A spider. Ty was taking a much-needed and well-deserved nap after a long day at work, and he's usually the family Spider-Slayer. I wasn't about to wake him up just to take care of a spider so I took a deep breath, put my daughter in her crib, and tried to psych myself up for battle.
I hate spiders. I hate them as much as I hate Math--and that is a VERY powerful hate. Spiders are creepy, evil, and every one of them is determined to destroy the human race.
Yeah, I know that they're useful and help keep the insect population down, but they had darn well better be doing that crap OUTSIDE of my house. Once they step even one of their eight tiny little legs INSIDE my house, they're on the short list of "soon-to-be-dead creepy critters." It's just the way it goes. They can live their creepy little lives however they want, FAR FAR AWAY FROM ME.
Anyway, my maternal duty to protect my children from the evil of spiders was calling, so I grabbed an empty plastic cup with a lid, and headed downstairs to meet my Enemy. I wasn't sure if I could do the whole job with the cup, so just in case, I grabbed a couple of wet wipes out of the diaper bag and brought them with me as well.
We went downstairs, and my son pointed out the evil critter. I was all steeled up to deal with the monster, and then I actually saw it. It had long, black legs, and a black body with a gray tushie. It was larger than I'd expected, and all of my former resolve completely disappeared.
It was intense. I sat there on the floor, staring down this little monstrosity for at least ten minutes. I swear this thing was mocking me in its own silent, creepy language: "BWAHAHAHA! I'm barely the size of your thumb, and you can't come any closer to me! I'm totally gonna call all of my spider friends and we'll carry you off as soon as you fall asleep tonight and sacrifice you on an altar to the Gods of Spideria!"
The spider was right. I was frozen. My son--who is almost as freaked out by spiders as I am--was sitting at my elbow. His constant stream of comments on how big the spider was and saying things like "You can do it mom. Come on, do it now!" was decidedly NOT helpful.
Finally, I swallowed my terror and reached out with the cup. I trapped the beast, but I couldn't bring myself to put the lid over the opening. I couldn't bear the thought of getting any closer than an arm's length away. So I just sat there with the cup trapping the spider, and thought up a plan.
I laid out one of the wet wipes underneath the place where I was holding the cup, and picked it up a little. The spider wasn't on the couch anymore, but it wasn't in the cup either. It had fallen onto the wet wipe on the floor and tried to crawl away. I acted on instinct. I reached out with the bottom of the cup and used it to violently smash my enemy. However, when I pulled the cup away, the spider was still walking!!! I struck a second time, but it was STILL alive! So finally I went nuts and repeatedly crushed that stupid little thing until it was just a crumpled mass of legs.

I folded my vanquished enemy into its wet-wipe shroud and handed another wipe to my son, who bravely used it to pick it all up. Then he carried the spider up to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. He was very proud of me, "Mom, you did it! I can't believe you did it! Good job!" It's awesome being praised for bravery by a six-year-old, especially one that just watched his own mother stare white faced at a spider while she scrounged up her last scrap of courage to get rid of it. I displayed the exact opposite of courage, but he only saw that I won the battle and praised me for it, no matter how freaked out I was during the whole process.
Ty, who had been lying on the couch next to this whole scene, woke up just as I was delivering the fatal blow. Our son explained the situation, and I told him the story.
Ty said: "Why didn't you wake me up? I could have done it."
I shrugged, "I didn't want to wake you up just for this. It seemed rude."
Ty yawned, "You didn't have to stare it down either." Then he rolled over and said: "Good job, you fearsome warrior, you."
I walked up to the kitchen to obsessively wash my hands of spidery contamination and bask just a little in the glory that comes from defeating an age-old enemy.
And thus ended the Great Spider Battle of 2011.

Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!!?

I mentioned in the past that I have written a novel that has not as yet seen the light of day beyond my own personal readings and edits. Ty has read most of it, but has not been able to re-read it since I made some MAJOR changes a couple of years ago. The story has been finished since somewhere around the beginning of 2009. I haven’t looked at it since.
While I was pretty happy with the changes I had made and the way the story shaped up, there still seemed to be something missing. I felt like the focus was a little off…which scared me. I’d finished my novel. It was over. I needed to move on.

But, being a total complete lunatic, I couldn’t ignore that nagging feeling forever. I wrote a whole new prologue to the novel, and—dang it all—it fits perfectly. But it also changes everything.
So now I’ve pulled out the file again and am currently working on making a LOT of changes to the story. Things will need to be cut out and replaced with other things that fit in with the new prologue. I’m nervous and excited at the same time. These changes will make the existing story more rounded and complete. I know that I will be a lot happier with it once I’ve finished.

So, these changes are a good thing, right? Why am I so annoyed with myself?
I’m completely irritated by the fact that I am such a crazed perfectionist. I may never finish this story if I keep going through and changing things like this! The way I write is insane. I write a first draft, and then I read through it, making changes as I go. Then I read through it again and make more changes. I do this over and over again until I can read through the whole thing without making ANY changes at all. Do you have any idea how long that can take?!?! *Grumble, Grumble, Growl*
So, I've set a goal for this summer: “Get my novel finished to the point where I can start sending out queries to publishers.” I’m such a chicken; I’ve never even tried to contact agents or publishers about this yet. But after all the work I’ve put into it (and considering all the work I’m GOING to put into it over the next few weeks/months) I think I want to at least try this thing. (Yeah, we’ll all believe THAT when we see it, right?)
Let’s all start a countdown, shall we? You guys all have my permission to nag me persistently so I can be sure to meet my goal before school starts up again at the end of August. Who’s with me?
Anyway, rant over. Back to your lives, citizens.