One Cobble at a Time

There is something about beautiful clothes that makes me happy. Note that I don't say expensive clothes. I don't care what the clothes cost, but I love when the lines and the colors work together to complement the wearer. When I was a teen I spent significant amounts of energy selecting clothes so that they were both useful for their intended purpose and were aesthetically pleasing. Then I got married and started having kids. I had less disposable time and energy. I selected clothing for comfort and washability, since trying to maintain any other clothing criteria seemed an exercise in frustration. But I retained the longing for beautiful clothing. I had this buried dream of Howard and I dressing up in formal clothes and going somewhere together. Going to a fancy restaurant did not fit the bill because I could not justify the expenditure of time, energy, and money for and event I created alone, particularly when I knew that I'd only get Howard to dress up because he was humoring me. So the dream languished and I more or less gave it up.

But then Howard became a cartoonist. And then he decided to discard his hawaiian shirts and t-shirts for sharp dress shirts. And I love the change. And then he got nominated for a Hugo award. And suddenly here was a ready made occasion for which Howard wants to dress up and which we can attend together.

Strictly speaking, formal wear is not required for the Hugo awards. I attended last year and there were far more people in t-shirts and jeans than in fancy clothing. But I looked at those who were wearing ball gowns and tuxedos and I wished that I were more dressed up. I wanted to be one of the beautifully dressed people with an escort to match. Howard and I do not have to dress up, but we want to. I want to, just for the sheer pleasure of wearing beautiful clothing to an occasion where other people are also wearing beautiful clothing. We also want to dress up because it is a way to honor all those efforts which made the Hugo awards possible. It is a way to honor those who were nominated. We make the effort to dress up because the occasion is special and may be singular in our lives. The category for which Howard is nominated is not a permanent category. Even if it is made permanent, there is no guarantee that Howard would be nominated again. So we intend to dress beautifully.

Howard and I went Tuxedo shopping today. I loved being part of that process. He picked out a sharp tuxedo that looks really good on him. It is nicer than the suit he wore to our wedding. I am really looking forward to dressing up and going out together. Just thinking ahead to it makes me happy.

It has been at least a year since I first became aware of Lolcats. When I first encountered the pictures of cats with misspelled captions I didn't think they were at all funny. But over repeat exposures I learned the dialect of the humor and now I appreciate them. By "dialect of the humor" I don't just mean that I gained the ability to decipher the misspellings, but I also learned how the misspellings and the pictures and general knowledge of cats work together to make an individual Lolcat funny (or not funny. Many of them are still meh.) One particular lolcat meme has been very useful to me as a means of expressing my own experiences. It is the "I haz a" meme. The final word may be sad, or happy, or warm. The usual way to express that idea would be to say "I am sad, happy, warm." Except the phrase "I am sad" implies that at this point in time sadness is my defining characteristic, which may not be true. If I am not completely sad, I have to say "I am a little bit sad" or "part of me is sad." These statements are longer to say than "I haz a sad." Taking out the grammar and spelling errors, "I have a sad" implies that I own this small sadness which is separate from myself, but which affects me. This is a very useful way for me to picture emotions which are a piece of my current experience, but which do not dominate it.

All of that is just an introduction so that I can say "I have a scared." Yesterday we received 5000 books. So far only about 500 of them are sold. I'm getting ready to ship 1000 of them to a major convention. The sales at that convention will be the difference between an extremely tight budget with a stressed scramble to create the next book, or a more relaxed budget and steady work on the next book. I have been scrambling for months just to keep up with my life. I really want option two, the one with relaxing in it. I want like I want air. But it is all out of my hands. I can spend the time/effort/money to get the books to the convention, what happens after that I can not control. All the logic and calculations say that we will be fine, but I have to acknowledge the fear, stare it in the face, own it, then set it in the back of my brain where it will not interfere with the things I must do.

Our shipment of XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery books arrives today. I had to go rent a second storage unit to house them because the first unit is already full of inventory. I need to do some research on the cost of warehouse space. I'm pretty sure that the storage units are still cheaper per month, but I need to know where the tipping point is.

We're getting another shipment of books next week. This will be historic since it is our first 2nd printing. We've almost sold out of Under New Management which is the first book we ever printed. The first printing was 5000 copies

No word on distribution deals. More waiting there.

My short story "Stories that Bind" is now available in print. A Time To... Volume 3: The Best of The Lorelei Signal 2008 is now on sale.

I now have three stories available at Anthology Builder, which makes me very happy. In the near future I'll be putting together a custom anthology full of cool stories.

I've found fancy clothes to wear on Hugo Night at Worldcon. Now I just need jewelry to match and I need to drag Howard out to rent a tuxedo for the event. We're both in a strange mental place where neither of us really believes he'll win, but a tiny voice whispers "what if." It doesn't really matter, just getting nominated is amazing and we intend to dress up to celebrate.

I have been spending far more time as a publisher than as a writer lately. Hopefully life will slow down after the big August conventions.

Gleek is enjoying her trip away from home, but we'll all be glad to have her back.

Summer is half gone and still chaotic. I'm already looking forward to the return of the school schedule, although I'll miss staying up late and sleeping in.

The phone call came at 10:30 PM. It was a crying Gleek who is off for her first week-long solo visit with cousins. "Mom, I miss you."
"I miss you too Gleek."
"Everything is different here."
"Families are all different aren't they?"
"Yeah. No one goes outside. I look out the window and it is all bright and shiny and I want to go out, but no one will go with me!"
"Yes that family is more of an inside family. Do you play fun games inside?"
"Big girl plays great games, but the little girl games are boring. And they only let me have one yogurt a day! I miss you! I want to be at home, but I also want to finish my adventure."
"Isn't it funny how we can feel two opposite things at the same time? I feel that way a lot when I'm off at a convention."
"Yeah. I want both things. Does Bestfriend miss me?"
"Yes she does. She came up to me at church and told me that she'd painted a picture of the two of you together."
"She is like the perfect friend. She plays outside with me."
"You'll have fun when you're back together. When do you travel to the next house?"
"Tuesday."
"And then you'll come home on Thursday."
"On the 10th."
"Thursday is the 9th."
"The 10th will be one week, you said I would go for a week."
"You'd rather come home on the 10th so you have a whole week?"
"Yeah. I want all of my adventure. Bye."
"Bye honey. I miss you. You can call me again if you need to."
" Okay. I miss you too. Bye."

Sometimes they don't really need me to fix anything, they just need me to listen.

My brain has not been a quiet place of late. I suppose that makes sense because my life has been anything but routine for months. I keep running from one major event to the next with little time to pause and reflect. None of this is news. I've been complaining about it for months. But over the last week I've finally figured out how much work July will contain and it is less than I'd feared. I'm very glad to have a less stressed month, but I am also very aware that less schedule stress means less money coming in. This leads to a potential financial stress in a couple of months, but I am not going to fret about that now. Pre-orders are still open and we've yet to see how books will sell at GenCon.

My house feels empty. My parents were here for almost a week. Before they came I was worried about having guests in the house while we had the stressful week of opening pre-orders. I was worried that my inability to pay attention to my guests would be a source of stress. The opposite turned out to be true. My parents just slid into the household without a ripple. They left me alone when I needed to work and picked up all the household slack that Howard and I were leaving around. But now my parents are gone and they took Gleek with them. She gets to accompany them on a trip through Idaho to visit cousins. This long-promised solo trip is something that Gleek has really been anticipating. I'm glad she gets to go, but the house feels empty. It always feels empty when one of us is missing.

Two days ago I had my first experience with someone knocking on the door looking for work. It was a little scary. I was very aware of the possibility that this was a scam attempt or a fishing expedition to scope out our house for theft. On the other hand I was very aware that this man, his wife, and baby might really be so hard pressed for money that knocking doors was the best option. They did not want charity. They wanted work. I did not let them into the house, but I did give them some work in the garden. He worked hard and when he was done the rest of the yard lived up to the flowers my mother planted. I think it has been years since the exterior of my house was so nicely groomed. I paid him for the work and he left me his name and number so I can call him if I have more work. It is possible that the tale of woe was fabricated, but I received fair work for the money I gave, so I don't much care. It was a chance for everyone to come out ahead and I think we all did.

Over the last few weeks I have been using my down time to watch The Office on Netflix. The show is sometimes painful to watch because some of the characters are extremely hurtful to other characters. Most of the hurt is unintentional, but that does not make it less painful. For me the most fascinating thing to watch has been the evolution of the series itself. It starts out as a faux documentary about an office full of caricatures who interact with each other in amusing ways. But then there will be these small brilliant moments when a new facet of the caricature is revealed and suddenly instead of a caricature, there is a person I actually care about. The annoying people remain annoying, but somehow it becomes affectionate annoyance. I understand how these people still work together despite all the pain. All that said, I'm not sure whether or not I'll be watching season five when it comes out. I've loved watching these characters grow and the next logical step is for some of them to move on and leave the office. Unfortunately due to the nature of serial entertainment, those characters can't be allowed to leave. They must stay, trapped. In order to retain character tension, the relationships must be broken up and reformed. If no one is allowed to move on, then the illusion of life which I've loved is destroyed. Instead of The Office it becomes more like Sartre's No Exit. I'm not sure if I want to watch that.

Yesterday I had no work to do. The internet had gone into hibernation for the holiday weekend and I'd already answered all the email. Not only that, but my house and garden were both in beautiful shape due to the intervention of others. I ended up sitting down and playing Fable 2. I think that is the first time I've really played a video game in years. It was fun. But I also got up from the game with an awareness of how expensive video games can be for me. They don't want to just stay in the leisure time. Instead I want to start stealing time which should be spent on other things instead. Also there are already five people in this house negotiating for turns with the game. Adding a sixth doesn't seem very helpful. It is possible that my character will languish in neglect. But perhaps I'll find the odd hour here and there when I can putter in a video game universe.

Our Fourth of July celebrations were extremely low-key. Howard and Kiki spent most of the day either groggy or sleeping after their all-night game session. Link, Patch, and I just hung out at home. At dusk we joined some neighbors for fireworks. Our contribution was a box of party poppers left over from New Years. I did not have to plan or organize anything which made it a nearly perfect holiday for me. It was good to have a real break.

The calendar for July is largely empty. I have been diligently keeping it that way because I knew that there would be XDM shipping in it. Now that the first day of orders are in, I can see that it will be a small scale shipping rather than a large one. This frees up the rest of the month. Howard is going to have the space he needs to build up buffer in advance of the August conventions. This is good. I will have time to get back to some of the household tasks that have been ignored. I may even have time to tend the flowerbeds that my mother planted for me. I may finally have time to clean up and have a space before diving into the next big thing.

I had written off the yard for this year. Every time I walked up the front steps I could see the towering weeds drowning out the flowers. Whenever I thought about it, I wanted to cry because I love flowers. It is not that I couldn't find time to weed. It is that once I start weeding, I've opened the door to gardening thoughts. Once I begin weeding, I want to plant and tend and construct in the yard. Small scraps of time spent weeding would only cause me to grieve for all the things I do not have time to do. So I schooled myself to ignore the weeds. Mostly. Except sometimes when I would see them and feel bad that my house looks so unkempt, and I would worry what the neighbors must think about looking at the mess. The fact that I have wonderful neighbors who really don't mind does not stop me from minding on their behalf.

Yesterday I emerged from hours of accounting to discover that my mother, who is visiting, had wandered outside and began weeding. She had cleared a large swath of the front flower bed. There were my perennials, visible again. She cut a huge swath through all the weeds, clearing two long beds and three tree circles. She single-handedly filled up our huge garbage bin.

This by itself was a gift beyond measure.
But then she bought flowers.
She bought flowers to plant in the clear spaces she created. For the first time in months my yard has beauty.
Just thinking of it makes me want to cry.
I have flowers.

I signed Patch up for level three swim lessons. Unfortunately his skill level is only at level two. The disparity is because I had to register for lessons six weeks ago and I made a best guess that turned out to be wrong. Today Patch did not get in the water for swim lessons. This is because yesterday his teacher dunked him and now Patch is scared that the teacher will do it again. I've spoken with the staff and they're going to see if they can shuffle him into a level two class, but the level two is already very full. We'll see what tomorrow's lesson will bring.

At dinner Gleek sobbed because I had sent back two movies to netflix before she'd watched them. I sent them back because the movies had sat around for over a week and every time I suggested watching them the kids begged for a third movie instead. So I sent them back and got the third movie. But Gleek had watched the third movie and sobbed with offended tears that I had sent those other ones back without telling her. The upset continued until I required her to either eat dinner or go lay down in bed. Amazing thing, once the food was gone, the movies did not matter anymore.

Kiki called me from Space Camp. She was tired and over stimulated. All she wanted was to curl up in her own bed away from everybody. I know how she feels. I get the same way at conventions. I reach a point where it all feels horrible and I wonder why I bothered to go, but then I get through it and things are okay again. So I talked her through how to survive the next thing. I told her she could call me again if she needs to. Then I'll talk her through that too. If I go retrieve her, then Space Camp will forever remain a failure for her. She can do it.
(Edited to add: Kiki called back 90 minutes later. She was calm and rational. She had a solid plan where she came home to sleep and will go back to finish camp first thing tomorrow morning. I am so impressed with her ability to calm down and solve her problems. More importantly she feels mature and able rather than feeling like a failure.)

To my knowledge, Link has not melted down today. If he has, it was at camp and I'll only hear about it later. Howard and I are likely to have melty days tomorrow. The first day of pre-orders is always full of stress and high emotion.

I guess we all have our turn.

I have returned from camping. The laundry piles of epic proportions (and also epic stench) have been run through the machines. I worked my way through all the emails. I mailed all the packages. I organized the store so it is almost ready for Wednesday. I took kids to swim lessons. I discovered while at swim lessons that Gleek has a stomach flu. I tended Gleek, who lay limply on the couch for a significant portion of the afternoon before she began to bounce again. I bought new shorts for the kids whose shorts had all mysteriously vanished. I dropped two kids at space camp. I bought dinner. There are things yet to do, but I am no longer feeling so stressed I want to cry. Looks like I might be able to manage this week after all.

Tomorrow there will be accounting and more store organization. There will undoubtedly be more email. I might even catch up on blogs, LJ, and Facebook. Wednesday we begin to find out whether XDM and the Under New Management sketched editions will sell enough to keep us going through the next Schlock book release. I still have thoughts to unpack about huge extended family reunions and camping trips, but I think I've done enough for one day.

I'm going to be unplugged until Sunday afternoon. I'll probably have things to muse upon when I get back, but for today I am too busy packing.

The book shipping for Scrapyard was just over two weeks ago and I am just now starting to feel settled again. The spate of order corrections has subsided and I've reorganized my shipping area so that I'm set up for daily order handling instead of massive shipping. I'm not sure whether it is good news or bad news, but most of the order corrections can be directly traced to my errors. I was so frazzled during the month of April that many things got misplaced. I'm going to call it good news because I can arrange to do things differently this next time. For one thing, I won't be scrambling to put out a book while I am simultaneously managing customer support for a pre-order. My breathing room will last for about a week. Next Wednesday we open pre-orders on both XDM X-treme Dungeon Mastery and on sketched editions of the Under New Management reprint.

In related news, my attempt to upgrade from Adobe CS2 to Adobe CS4 are still incomplete. I successfully uninstalled CS2, but CS4 informed me that my computer is too old and stupid to run it. In order to appease the program we need to give it more RAM and install the latest service pack for XP. The service pack has been installed without incident, but the RAM is going to take a week to arrive. This leaves me unable to do an graphic design work for a week. This is okay since I'm going to spend some of the time away from my computer camping. But even though it is unlikely I would have used those programs anyway, the fact that I can't use them makes a piece of my brain nervous. Why is it that any change to the way a computer runs always necessitates buying more new things to support the new thing you actually wanted?

At least arranging shipment of books to Gencon was simpler than I expected. I've now arranged for two pallets to be picked up from my house and shipped to the Indianapolis warehouse. I've also arranged for transport of those pallets to the show floor. I've even filled out bills of lading for sending whatever remains back to us. All of this is not cheap, but we still hope the show will break a profit for us. Getting books to Worldcon in Canada is proving to be more difficult. Howard and I will not be running a booth in the dealer's room. We've attempted to contact dealers and set up a consignment deal, but so far no one has even responded. So I guess we're just going to have to tell fans to buy books in advance if they want Howard to sign them. The focus for Worldcon will be on panels and visiting rather than on selling, which will actually be a nice vacation for us. Last year I spent the entire convention in the dealer's room. I had fun, but this year I want to do some of the other stuff.

I am spending too much time apologizing for delays and searching for things I never should have lost in the first place. This is driving me a little crazy because my preferred mode of operation is to accomplish tasks fast so that I am waiting for someone else. Lately too many people end up waiting on me. Too many things require simultaneous organization and in the scramble important things get lost. It does not help that I have physical limits. Today would be less stressed if I'd accomplished more yesterday. But yesterday my brain shut down at 4 pm. I could not find the drive to get moving again.

This morning I put on my business face, determined to knock down all the tasks on my list so they can stop looming at me. I want to end today with no one waiting on me. Then Link, who is being very perceptive lately, said "Mom, what's wrong? You're not usually like this." He's right. I try not to wear my business face around the kids because it too closely resembles the angry mommy face. And that sums up the dilemma of this summer. I have to switch rapidly between high efficiency business and go-with-the-flow parenting. It does not surprise me that things are getting misplaced, but it does frustrate me.

Scrapbooks are big business in Utah. The pursuit of creating scrapbooks is so common that the noun has become a verb. "I need to scrapbook that." Or "I need to get caught up on my scrapbooking." Around here the term scrapbooking implies large sheets of colored paper, photographs, paper cut into shapes, stickers, stamps, and other small decorative bits. This is not just sticking pictures to pages, it is an art form unto itself. There are whole companies devoted to scrapbooking supplies. The way it is done here, scrapbooking becomes a creative pursuit. But it often has guilt attached because these scrapbooking women (there may be men scrapbookers, but I don't know any) tell themselves that the reason they are scrapbooking is to record family history. But the effort put into each beautiful page is far more than necessary to record the events of a family's trip, or birthday, or day. Somehow hobby and requirement are all mixed up to the extent that I know women who confess the fact that they don't scrapbook with guilt. In the local culture scrapbooking is somehow expected. Implied is that to be a scrapbooker, and particularly to be caught up on your scrapbooking, is a mark of excellence as a mother. I can't say for certain where the implication comes from. It is just in the air, around the neighborhood, at church. Only the implication is wrong. Being a caught-up scrapbooker is the mark of someone who has found a hobby that fulfills her creativity. This is a wonderful thing, but not something others should feel guilty for failing to do.

My first experience with scrapbooking Utah style came when Kiki was a baby. I was invited to a scrapbooking party ala tupperware parties. And I bought into the company. I bought the books and some paper and some pens. I planned albums and pages. I took a photo of Kiki each month so I could create a page about how she grew. I enjoyed it for years, although the album plans became simpler as I added children. What I discovered was that I was not interested in pages as art. I was interested in the pages as a format for storytelling. Most of my pages became filled with handwritten text. Pictures were sometimes an after thought. The colored papers and stickers began to interfere with the stories about our family, so I stopped using them. Then we got a digital camera, and I learned how to use InDesign, and suddenly I realized that the papers and stencils and stickers were no longer useful to me at all. They sit in a box waiting for me to decide to get rid of them. Now my "scrapbooks" resemble layout projects. I combine the pictures with segments from my blog and other informational text. I use the resulting pdf file to print the book at lulu.com. Then I hand it to my kids, know if they destroy the book, I can print another one. The scrapbooks from earlier years are kept carefully on a shelf, defended from the children because their abuse could undo hours of my work. My electronically created family books are not beautiful, but I like that the kids can enjoy them.

I am thinking on scrapbooking today because I opened up my file of pictures from last year. I began sorting through and organizing them to put together a new family book. It has been more than a year since I last worked on family book creation. But it is time to put this back into my schedule. Looking at the pictures and telling the stories of our family life grounds me. It reminds me why I bustle around to get the work done. I do the work, to bring in the money, so that I can afford to buy experiences for myself and my children. These experiences are the point. The act of remembering and writing inspires me to do things that will be worth remembering and writing next year. I need the family books not for the book, but for the inspiration.

I am not the only one who benefits from these books. The kids love to read them. They read these stories about our family and remember the fun times they had. They love to see how they've changed and grown. I send copies of the books to my parents and to other relatives. The books give these folks a chance to see my kids and feel connected to our lives. There is value in that. Someday I think that grandchildren will enjoy looking at them too.

I am not opposed to the idea of scrapbooking Utah style. I see why it is perfect for some women. But it is not the only way to record the life of a family. I know people who remember their vacations by the souvenirs they bring home. I know a quilter who can tell you where each swatch of fabric came from, with stories. Words and photographs are only one way of remembering what has gone before. It will be interesting to see what new forms emerge out of this video-driven era. And truth be told, not everything needs to be recorded for posterity. I write about our family because I am a writer. This is what I do. The family books I create are emotionally filling to me, and I am aware that they are more for me than for anyone else. Scrapbookers should create because they love it, not because they feel obligated.

Yesterday I did not touch my computer until 3:30 PM and it was lovely. In fact I only spend an hour on the computer all day and most of that was printing postage. It was so good. Even better is that I spent most of that away-from-computer time with other writers. My writer self so often gets shuffled aside with the press of other needs. She waits patiently for me to remember her and whenever I do, I feel whole again. Many of the other tasks of my life empty me out. Working on writing fills me up. I need to remember that. I need to spend more time with people who help me remember that. Fortunately my opportunities for that appear to be increasing.

The life pattern for this summer has involved me rolling out of bed and running downstairs to get work done. I spend several (constantly interrupted) hours in front of my computer first thing in the morning. I've been doing this in the theory that it is better to get the business stuff done so that I can focus on other things the rest of the day. The reality is that I emerge from my office tired and not ready to tackle much else. I've been using all my high-energy, high-creativity hours on business tasks. This is necessary when I am negotiating contracts or trying to solve a new problem. It is less necessary of late when most of the work is routine shipping and customer service.

The day before yesterday Gleek had a melt down at swim lessons. It was one of those events when I feel great sympathy for her sadness, but instead of being able to express my sympathy, I had to work hard to help her tone her grief down to a level that would not disturb everyone in the pool area or locker room. She has been increasingly prone to frustration and upset this summer. The scattered schedule we are maintaining is not best for her. I spent much of the rest of that day making sure that the kids had some quiet time and two solid meals. I even went so far as to be the you-will-eat-everything-on-your-plate police. Yesterday I made sure to feed my kids a solid breakfast and I stood over them to insure that they ate it up. The difference in Gleek was amazing. We emerged from swim lessons and she said "I feel all calm and new." The calmness lasted through an exciting afternoon which included several hours at a park, playing at a new friend's house, and then being babysat by Link. She remained calm throughout. Food makes a huge difference.

The park trip was an opportunity for me to sit and talk with two other local writers. I've had the good fortune that my kids' swim lessons are at the same time as one of their kids' lessons. Thirty minutes is not long enough for all the talking we had to do, so we arranged a park trip. We'll have to do that again, because we discovered that three hours was not enough time for all the talking we had to do either. It was fun and it was really good to get my kids out of the house and away from the video screens for awhile.

In the evening was a Writer's Night out hosted in Salt Lake. I was not sure how this would go since I was meeting new people. Janci and I both went. We had a wonderful time. As Janci said, it was one of those times where a group of semi-strangers sit down and become instant friends. We were able to talk writing and life and families, all things that mattered to all of us. I came away newly inspired to work on my writing projects with some solid ideas of where I can send them once they are ready. The next one is scheduled for July and I am looking forward to it. Even better, I can keep in touch with these women online.

There has not been enough writer space in my life. I love how events have conspired to introduce me to people who help me see how much I need it.

The back of our garden shares a wall with commercial property. It is the parking lot of a lawn and landscaping service. Occasionally this is annoying, as when large diesel trucks are revving or idling in the early pre-dawn hours. Several years ago some employee stacked some long metal pipes against the wall so that they extended a good five feet above the wall. That was ugly. But then they neglected to remove the pipes and our wisteria plant has been happily winding around them. It creates a beautiful screen so that we see even less of the lot than we could before. This was the point of planting wisteria, to obscure the wall and the lot behind it. For the most part we just ignore the commercial property.

It has come to my attention again recently when I began hearing music in the evenings. It has been happening pretty much every night for weeks. At first I'll hear only a couple of instruments doing scales and playing fragments of songs. Usually the horns sound off first, followed by tympani. Within an hour or two a full complement of instruments is playing. Sometimes there are voices singing in Spanish. The music continues for hours. It sounds like a Mexican fiesta. I listen to the music and I picture beautiful dark women dancing with brightly colored skirts. Men with white shirts and mustaches play traditional instruments and sing. Children run through the crowd happily. It sounds like a whole Mexican village over there. They are having a celebration. I know that there can't really be a village in the midst of a paved parking lot, but it makes me happy to picture it while I listen to the cheerful music. When I am slightly less imaginative, I picture the Mexican landscaping employees gathering after a hard day's work to enjoy good company and live music. The music certainly sounds live. It is ever changing and vibrant in the ways that recordings cannot be.

I know in my head that my imaginings are unlikely. It is probably some night security guard with an exceptionally loud radio. Or perhaps the landscaping company rents out the lot to some performing group. To tell the truth, part of me doesn't want to know. The mystery of the music is as alluring as the music itself. I certainly prefer this lively music over the Wednesday night automobile auctions we used to hear wafting from the auto place three lots down. The sound of distant music and laughter is pleasing. I can close my eyes and see the picturesque fiesta which I've never had the opportunity to attend in person.

This is the book that ate April. We finally have our advanced copies and they are gorgeous. I just created a flickr set to let people take a look. There are also some pictures of the reprint of Under New Management. I even put notes on the pictures, so be sure to scroll over with your mouse. So if you're interested click on through.

This morning there was yelling, and flailing, and running around in a panic, and objects hit in anger. All of that was just from me, though throughout the day my kids have exhibited similar proclivities. It is that kind of day. Yesterday was lovely. I want to flee back into yesterday. Instead I just have to muscle through today, trying to hack through some of the tasks which are causing me stress. I really need to lock myself in my office and work uninterrupted for hours. Unfortunately summers are made of interruption, or maybe kids are, same difference when they're home all day. By 5 pm I had succeeded in clearing my desk of all accounting. Gleek called me upstairs for a "surprise." Such surprises can be anything from a slug, to all-over marker body art, to a new hair cut for a stuffed animal, to a new trick on the trampoline, to a yarn creation, to a picture. Today it was this:



It is not a Peace Rose, but it is giant. I could cup it in both hands and bury my stresses in fragrance. The stem of the rose was wobbly and the petals were threatening to fall off, all signs that this rose had been part of little girl games for a significant portion of time before being gifted to me. We took it outside and I took pictures of Gleek with the rose. It is almost as big as her head. She showed me all her "fairy poses" and I took more pictures. Then she took the picture above of me holding the rose. Even in a crazy-stressy day we can find beauty by the handful.

Anyone who has seen the movie UP knows where the title of this post came from and probably has an inkling of what I'm going to talk about. The rest of the post will be behind a cut. I don't intend to spoil plot points, but I do want to talk about the themes of the movie and those who haven't seen the film may want to see it first. I recommend it by the way. It is well worth seeing.

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My church primary class is full of particularly active five-year-olds. When people at church ask me which class I teach, I list off the names. By the time I am done listing, their eyes have gone wide and they say "Oh. You have your hands full." Yes I do. But as my backyard neighbor wisely noted, I like the interesting kids. I would much rather spend two hours figuring out how to wrangle difficult kids than to spend two hours bored sitting next to quiet ones. The kids arrive to me after they have already been sitting for an hour of church. We spend the next hour in a large group meeting. The third hour is spent in a classroom with just our class. That is a lot of sitting for any five-year-old to take. Fortunately the women who are in charge understand children. Some of them are the mothers of kids in my class. They work very hard to keep things interesting for the short attention spans. We also figure out novel ways of encouraging the kids to stay in their seats. I have been known to hand kids an imaginary glue stick and ask them to glue their backs to their seats. We have a good time, and the kids are glad to come even though they sometimes get tired of sitting.

The average attention span in my class is shorter than much of the rest of the room. I am always sure to include in my church bag some objects that are unusual, safe, and quiet. These I pull out when behaviors begin to spin out of control. The most unexpectedly popular of these items is a roll of masking tape. It began when I put tape around the fingers of a wiggly boy. The sensation was so novel for him that he sat for a full ten minutes just listening and wiggling his fingers. Not to be left out, other kids wanted their fingers taped too. Finger taping gave way to simply playing with pieces of tape. One little boy will walk in and immediately demand a piece of tape. Once given it, he promptly sticks the tape to his face. Over his eyes, over his nose, over his mouth, the tape is stuck and unstuck repeatedly. It makes me nervous whenever he sticks it over his mouth. Particularly when several other kids follow suit. Professional teachers have been fired for sticking tape over a child's mouth and there I am sitting with a row of taped-mouthed children. I know that they stuck it there themselves, but I can't be confident that this information will be accurately portrayed by an interrogated five-year-old. I can just picture those sweet, smiling faces honestly saying that their teacher glued them to their seats and gave them tape to put over their mouths.

Fortunately I am in no danger of a lawsuit. The other adults in the room see me handing tape to the kids. Then know that rather than using the tape as any kind of punishment, I'm actually warning that I'll have to take the tape off if the kids can't be a little more quiet. Also, I know all of the mothers of these kids. Most of them are my good friends and they're glad to have me as their child's teacher. It is nice that my teaching philosophy matches that of most of the parents. At this age it is not important to drill kids with doctrine, but just to teach them that church is a good place to be. Deeper understanding of how to relate to God and doctrine can come later. So class time features a brief lesson, storybooks, and playing with duplo blocks. Mostly they build space ships and fly them around the room. It warms my science fiction loving heart to see that building and flying space ships is so generally accepted among this crowd. I do miss attending the adult meetings, but hanging out with kids, masking tape, and Duplo block space ships isn't so bad.

I have two basic approaches to cleaning. One is the "make it presentable" approach which involves basic pick up and stowing things out of sight. During this I try to put things where they belong, but my primary focus is on creating order in the living spaces. The second type of cleaning is "Corners first." This is when I start by digging out the corners and closets of the house. I'll empty out a closet completely and the only things that are allowed back in are the things which actually belong there. This type of cleaning invariably unearths bags full of garbage and even more bags of things that are for giving away. I always feel better after this type of purge and the house is much easier to keep orderly after I am done.

I haven't had time to do any "corners first" cleaning for months. Today I started in our storage/shipping room. It is amazing the quantities of not-particularly-useful stuff that got shoved into there to be "out of the way." The problem is that with the influx of new merchandise and books this summer all of that stuff had become very much in the way. So I sorted, and threw stuff out, and stashed things in the garage rafters. I have a huge pile to donate to a thrift store. I have another big pile that needs to be hauled over to our storage unit. I can now walk in the shipping area. I can quickly and easily access the things that I will need to fill orders. The space is functional again. It is amazing how much less stressed that makes me about the upcoming events of the summer.

In the process of organizing the shipping area, my office has improved as well. I still have more work to do there. I'd like to be able to vacuum soon. Also, I need to be able to put a guest bed in there. After my office, the next place in need of major attention is the garage. The garage shelves have turned into a huge jumble of things which don't really belong in there, but which did not really have anywhere else to be. I know that at least a third of the stuff out there is useless to us and should either be given away or thrown away. We need the space and some of the stuff would be useful to other people.

I worked steadily all day. I need to have another couple of steady work days like today. I'm hopeful that I can have them next week, unless there are more urgent business tasks waiting to ambush me. The one thing we did not do so well was have a family outing. The weather ruined our intention to attend the church picnic/swim party. Then Kiki fell sick which ended the plan for a family trip to the movies. Hopefully we can do the movie trip on Monday instead.