Day: July 19, 2006

Some days don’t seem like anything special. Today was one of those. It was just a midsummer day. The temperatures were lower because a nice thunderstorm blew through. I’m glad to be back below 100 degrees. The kids played pretty well all day long. There were squabbles, but nothing major. A few things do stick out.

This morning Gleek told me all about her wonderful dream where she had lots of magic wands. She used them to make rainbow shoes for me. Then she used another wand to make me a rainbow dress that was so shiny it made more rainbows. Then she made Yoshis for everyone in the family and she “dinged” them to life and we all rode around on Yoshis. It sounded like a truly wonderful dream and she was snuggly/happy while telling me about it.

I didn’t get much done today. I’m still trying to fight off the tendency to enter a holding pattern when Howard is out of town. I find myself spending too much time online as if somehow that will make me feel closer to him. Or at least to someone grown up. I need to get more sleep tonight rather than staying up past midnight because I don’t want to go to bed without him. Having Howard away probably does nothing to increase our risk of being victimized by crime, but I sure feel safer when he is here. Weird.

My sister in law came over today. She wanted to see the livejournal book I created using Lulu.com, because she has a project for which the same solution might work. She was really impressed with the book and really impressed with my intended project of creating a storybook of stories that my kids have written. After listening to my description of getting Patches to tell a story, she mentioned that she should probably do something similar for her three year old. I know why she hasn’t. The same reason it took me this long to do a project like this. She has a baby in her house. When I had a baby I never had time to sit down with a toddler and write what he said as he drew a picture. I’m so glad I can do it now. I’m really enjoying collecting the stories and I’m going to love surprising my kids with the books. I may even make the finished book part of Christmas, but I’m not sure.

One of my neighbors is moving away in a little more than a week. Her son has been Link’s best friend since before they can remember. It’s going to be hard on Link. It is going to be even harder on the boy who is moving away. It’s also going to be hard on me. These last few weeks I’ve spent lots of time visiting with this neighbor and I’ve learned lots of things about her that I’d simply never known. She has really been through alot in her life and has come out smiling. She’s a good friend and I want to keep in touch for my own sake as well as for the boys. I hope the new neighbors will be as nice.

A Door in the Woods by James Dashner is the first in a series of four young adult books. I’ll be honest, if I didn’t know James personally I probably would not have finished this book. It is written in the first person and contains many of the problems that irritate me about works written in first person. However as the series progresses, James’ work improves dramatically. By the end I’d stopped mentally editing and just enjoyed the story. It is definitely juvenile wish-fulfillment fiction, so I am not the target audience. Kiki is the target audience and she loved the whole series without reservation. She loved them so much that she checked them out of her school library even though we already had copies from the public library. She didn’t want to have to share copies with me. Getting to meet the author was icing on the cake for her. If you have a child aged 9-14 who enjoys fantasy, this is a series I definitely recommend.

On the Devil’s Payroll by David Fuller is a courtroom mystery/drama. Again it is a first work and it suffers from some editing issues and quirks. The characters seem to spend a lot of time drinking coffee which as a non coffee drinker has me wondering whether people really drink that much coffee or if the main character is caffeine addicted. The minor editing issues did not prevent me from enjoying the story or the characters. David Fuller was the first self published author I ever knew and his courage to follow his dream gave me an entirely new look at self publishing. Watching David’s journey through self publishing is part of what helped me to consider self publishing Schlock Mercenary. Go check out his book and if you’re interested, buy it from him directly. You save money and he gets more for his efforts.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is a fantasy that blew me away. I cannot believe that this book is Brandon’s first novel. It fully deserves the publishing contract and accolades that it has recieved. I picked it up because Howard sat next to Brandon at a book signing. He seemed like a nice person and the book intrigued me, so I got a copy from my local library. It was worth the two month wait to get my hands on it. I’m afraid this book was so enthralling that my children were mildly neglected until I finished reading it. I’m seriously considering re-reading it before returning it to the library and I’ve added it to my books-I-want-to-own list. You should go buy this book so that Brandon can continue to write full time and make more wonderful books for me to read.