"X" Marks the Egg

I must admit Easter Egg Hunts are not my favorite thing. While I do enjoy devouring the occasional (READ often) Reeses Peanut Butter Egg I can't get eggs-cited about 100 kids trampling each other over plastic eggs filled with those sickly sweet multi-colored jelly beans.

I blame it on my childhood.

Okay, one bad experience with an egg marked with a golden X in my childhood.

At this particular egg hunt, if you found the egg with the golden X you won a ginormous hollow chocolate bunny. A dad was helping his toddler-sized daughter who was way too young to appreciate the significance of winning a ginormous hollow chocolate bunny JUST SAYING find Easter eggs. And they were RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME when said dad found the egg with the gold X.

The injustice of it all soured me on further egg hunts.

It should have been mine

Okay, so I'm (slightly) kidding. Egg Hunts aren't that bad. But when my 10 year old declared herself too old to attend the neighborhood hunt this year I secretly cheered.

R-S-T-U-V

RSTUV...what does it mean?

It means I'm taking a "restive" break from the alphabet blogfest.

I hope to catch back up with W for the big finish...X-Y-Z!

O/P

Yeah. Opie.

Here's a quiz on the little tyke...

http://www.peoplequiz.com/quizzes-2857-The_Andy_Griffith_Show_Opie_Taylor.html

L is for long overdue

Today I dropped a glass bowl shattering it on the kitchen floor.

Then at the other end of the kitchen I pulled an open box of angel hair pasta from the pantry upside down spilling the entire contents.

I think it's the universe's way of telling me the floor needs to be swept.

Now I almost feel obligated to mop, too.

"E" is for E-reader

Okay, not really. I don't have anything to say about E-readers.

How about eggs?

We are buying a new house that sits on an acre, but is surprisingly close to where we live right now. My husband has wanted an acre ever since we moved from ours in Utah, but knew I didn't want to make any random, major moves, so he found a place with a completely-redone-inside house and all the dirt surrounding it that he could ever want.

What does this have to do with eggs?

Of course, he wants to have animals, chickens among them.

Chickens lay eggs.

So possibly sometime in the future I will be known as the Egg Lady and you can come buy fresh eggs from me.

I prefer being the Egg Lady to the Crazy Chicken Lady.

I guess it could go either way.

You've been warned...

[Found this on my daughter's funny blog at missipson.blogspot.com]

Are you doing what I'm doing?

So I had brain surgery today, well, okay, it was on my head and it was minor.

So minor I could even drive myself home afterward.

So minor that the doctor had me sit in a normal doctor room chair for the procedure and not on the examination table. (That's a bit demeaning, isn't it, to the purpose of my being there?)

So minor the nurse stuck one of those small circle bandaids on it when it was done.

What? No "Go home and take it easy?"

No resting on the couch with propped up pillows and clear liquids?

No "Can you bring me some ice water and jello, please?" offered up in a pathetic voice?

He said I can wash my hair and, get this, I can swim.

Again. What? I am not submersing my cut-open-head in water, chlorinated or otherwise. I very specifically washed and straightened my hair this morning so that I could go a few days without shampooing.

Sheesh. Surgery these days.

Sorry, but I'm still going to take advantage. I've got a frozen lasagna going in the oven for dinner and at exactly 3 PM, I'm going on the couch with the ice water and propped up pillows. Oprah's interviewing author JK Rowling and I'm not going to miss it.



Yes, I overcame the whole must-watch-Oprah thing a while back when I determined that if I was going to finish a novel I had to give some things up, but I make an exception for authors and especially this one. How 'bout you? Even if a scalpel wasn't taken to your scalp today, I'm sure you can think of a good excuse for plopping yourself in front of the television for an hour. Call it research.

I'm back...momentarily...

So I went on vacation, but neglected to hire anyone to feed my blog.

While gone I worked on novel revisions while sitting lake-side, fire-side, and on the passenger-side of a van on our family vacation. Next week I'm off again, this time to a writer's retreat in the mountains with 40 or so of my best writing pals. I'm not planning to do much blogging, but we'll see. I do have some book reviews forthcoming in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for those.

By the miracle of modern blog technology, in my absence I was guest blogger over at the LDS Blogck blogspot. If you've been wanting to hear more about my whole baby dream saga (yes, I'm still having recurring dreams about babies)--go here.

And even if you don't want to, humor me...

At the zoo...

On the recent zoo field trip I asked my daughter's friend to take a picture of the two of us in front of the giraffes just because I *heart* giraffes...

I guess she got my best...half?

BLOG TOUR!

No, it's not a blog tour where you hop from blog to blog reading book reviews and possibly winning said books just for commenting...it's a hop-skip-and-jump-tour around my very own blog.

Woot! Woot!

First off, just wanted to point out in case there's any lingering question, in my current profile pic that is not the gold plates blazing before me. It's simply a birthday cake...my own, thank you very much. Someone wondered, so I thought I'd clarify.

Then there's that pesky goal for my novel. I need to seriously update my word count because words have been added. Words have been deleted as well. Can I count those? Can I get extra credit for everything I wrote but then had to delete? I worked hard on those.

But I digress.

"Will Write for Chocolate." Kind of goes without saying, though I would add to that, "Will Write for Chocolate and Book Contracts, Not Necessarily in that Order."

I'm a blogging fool. I blog every other Tuesday at the ANWA Founder blog. Sometimes it's repeated here, sometimes not, I like to keep you guessing, so you better check both "spots." I also have a vinyl lettering blog that I pretty much neglect whenever possible.

Moving on, notice the fine looking group assembled in the Merry Band of Sidebar Followers. I wish I knew you all. Really. :D Someday we'll have to get together and party at an upscale resort on the Canary Islands, or at the very least continue to enjoy lively banter in the comment section. That's always a good time. Welcome to all newcomers, especially the redhead with two r's in her name. I've spied your face on many a blog and was hoping one day you'd show your face here. (I have four redheaded children and three are girls, so that explains the stalker fascination.)

I love quotes and especially writer quotes and one of my favs is the first one in my Writerly Quote list. In fact, I wanted to put as my title for the blog THE WRETCH TAKES TO WRITING, but I could imagine my sweet husband kindly saying, "No, honey. Don't say you're a wretch. You're not a wretch at all."

Anyway, blah, blah, blahg... Stuff continues down the sidebar, but I don't know about you, I'm already bored with this tour. There's tons of blogs and websites I never have enough time for. There's my blog topics (seriously, like you care) and blog archives (that sounds very all-important-ish, but we know the truth about what lies there. Wait. What does lie there? I've never looked...), a link to Twitter where sometimes I tweet, then meaningful (?) awards and more blahgs.

My favorite part is the blog post itself. My dad says they're funny (so there!) and when I became famous for writing something more noteworthy than blogs I should publish them in a book.

That's what dads are for.

And husbands are for reminding you that you are most certainly not a wretch.

Just for fun...

Last night about 10:00 it was raining so dang hard and then it just stopped. I said to my sleeping husband, "Weird. Did you notice how the rain just stopped, just like that?" (We have our best conversations when he's asleep. He agrees with everything I say, tells me I'm the best wife ever, and not a word about the checkbook.) Anyway, then I opened up the book I'm currently reading to my place at chapter 6, and it begins..."That night the rain stopped suddenly..." Whoa. A whole Stranger Than Fiction moment.

My life. In narration.

I guess you have to know the movie.