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Scrapyard is gone. I can now rejoice …Until Tuesday or Wednesday when the printer will give me a list of problems which I will then have to fix. I can hope that this time we got everything right, but that has never happened before, so I don’t expect it this time around either. The good news is that the printer is double checking our work and making sure everything looks marvelous. I’ve grown to depend on that. At least now I know not to panic when the list of fixes arrives. They’re all minor instead of “Your project is irrevocably broken.”

But I can’t quite kick back and take the rest of the week off. I still have formatting and uploading to do for Baen. Oh, and the posters arrived, so I have orders to fill. That has to fit in somewhere.

Tomorrow I burn files to DVD and ship them off to the printer. Scrapyard is all but done. The rest of the week will be spent preparing files for electronic distribution through Baen. That should be done by Friday. Then I shall clean my house. It will be nice to have a clean house again. It will be even nicer to have a clean house once Nancy and her family arrive to stay for the week. It shall be a week of vacation for me including a party and a trip to Idaho. Then I will get back to work. Resident Mad Scientist awaits.

So far today I have been a mother, a chauffeur, an office administrator, a customer service representative, a distribution processor, an inventory clerk, a contract negotiator, a chief financial officer, an accountant, a cook, a janitor, a layout editor, a merchandising coordinator, a laundress, and something akin to a zombie. That last is on the list because of everything that went before. I think I used every part of my brain that it was possible to use until the whole thing shorted out and I had to take a break.

So instead of writing an insightful post I will instead direct you to my friend Stacy Whitman who is running a seminar on writing science fiction and fantasy for children. She is an experienced and intelligent editor, so she’ll have loads of useful information.
Provo Library
Provo, Utah
Rm. 308 (Young-Card room)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
1-4 pm
Many more details can be found on Stacy’s site.

Sometime in the last six months I stopped putting things off until I’m not so busy. This is because as I peer ahead into the next few months and years, I can’t see a time when I won’t be busy. In the far off future there may be a patch of “Not Busy”, but I suspect it is a mirage. For the next while I just need to consider “Busy” and “Insanely Busy” as normal states for my life and plan accordingly. Fortunately all those years of caring for babies and toddlers taught me how to get things done in small slivers of time. It is an invaluable skill that I still use every day.

Truth be told, I’m not in a hurry to reach “Not Busy Anymore”. We are in a golden time both professionally and as a family. These are the times we will look back at and say “Remember when we were still shipping books out of the basement?” “Remember when Kiki watched the kids all day because we were at LTUE?” “Remember when all the kids had to get ready for school and out the door by 8 AM?” “Remember when we had shipping parties to get books mailed out?” “Remember when we had that cat for two weeks?” “Remember all those times that the dirty laundry pile was so huge that kids could hide in it?” I am not in a hurry to get to the “Not Busy” place, because I love all of the things that keep me busy. And honestly, I suspect I will always be busy because as these things wane, other things will take their place.

“I think that’s Callie.” Said Link’s friend as he petted the cat in Gleek’s lap. This small recognition led to the doorbell ringing an hour later. An 11 year old girl was at the door. I knew her and her family. She was in my creative writing class over a year ago. Her mother is Kiki’s youth group leader. They live around a couple of corners and down the block. The girl was here to see if our Keeka, that we found just over two weeks ago, was her cat Callie, who went missing last November. I led her to the back where Link was playing with Keeka. As we walked, a small piece of me hoped that she would be disappointed, so that my children would not have to be. I thought of the hours that Gleek and Kiki had spent just sitting outside and petting Keeka. We would never have deliberately gone out to acquire a cat, but a beautiful and friendly one had come to us unasked.

“Callie!” the girl gasped with delight. For a moment Gleek was delighted to swap cat stories. Gleek chattered about how we had found Keeka under our deck and rescued her. But then realization began to set in. Suddenly this cat was no longer our Keeka. She was someone else’s Callie. Gleek crumpled into sobs. I quickly realized that I could not just let the girl carry away our cat. Instead we walked with her, so that Gleek could see the home where Keeka lived. Patch came too, but Kiki and Link elected to stay home. Callie was greeted with delight by the rest of the family. They had all missed her and mourned her. It was a sight that Gleek needed to see. We came inside to talk about how the cat was lost and then found. Gleek got to see Callie curl up in her favorite chair and start purring. She also got to play with two tiny poodle dogs. Then I gathered my kids and we bid farewell.

All of my kids have a standing invitation to go and visit Callie any time they want. When we acquired the cat, this is actually the outcome I hoped for most, that she could go back to a home where she could be allowed indoors, but where my kids could visit. It is good, and yet tomorrow morning will be sad when there is no cat meowing at the back door to remind us that her bowl is empty. Tomorrow afternoon will be sad when she is not sitting on the doorstep waiting for the kids to arrive and pet her. We will go visit, but it will not be quite the same as when she was ours. But then I think of the joy on my friends’ faces. If I am a little bit sad, they were much more sad and now they are not. And neither is Callie. She was glad to be home.

I needed a plan fast because it was almost time for family home evening and it was my turn to provide the activity. I remembered a recipe that had been posted in the Codex forum, so I grabbed ingredients and started mixing. The kids trickled into the room. Kiki watched in disbelief as I dumped spoonfuls of flour into a mug

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Making an experiment.” I calmly answered. This was true. Any untested recipe is technically an experiment.
Gleek, having spotted the cocoa on the counter announced “I know what it is. It’s hot chocolate!”

“No it isn’t” Link protested. “She just put in an egg.”

Kiki peered into the cup. “Yeah. It is much too thick for hot chocolate.”

“I think it is going to explode.” Patch announced. All four kids were gathered around the counter, completely fascinated as I stirred brown glop in the mug.

“No it won’t” Kiki announced with all the certainty that being thirteen automatically supplies. “Food doesn’t explode.”

“Baking soda and vinegar does.” Link countered.

For a moment all was silent as four heads turned to watch the handful of chocolate chips be added to the mix. Then I turned and put the mug into the microwave.

“I told you it was hot chocolate!” Gleek announced triumphantly.

“No way.” Kiki declared. Before the argument could blossom, Howard and I called everyone to the table to begin the family event. We started with a song. Gleek picked Once There Was a Snowman, but with the caveat that we sing it backwards. This means that the snowman starts small and grows tall by the end instead of the other way around. As the song wound to it’s close, I glanced over at the microwave and burst out laughing. The concoction in the mug had puffed up over the top of the mug until it was as tall above the mug as the mug was tall.

“See!” Shouted Patch. “It exploded!”

All the children abandoned the table in a general rush to see the “exploded” experiment in the microwave. Thirty more seconds, and the timer beeped. We called everyone back to the table for prayer and lesson. Then we were ready for the mug. The contents of the mug had shrunk back into it. I dumped it onto the plate.

“This is a mug muffin.” I announced. We divided it between us. As muffins go, I’ve had better flavor, but it was still very good. It was particularly good when dipped in milk. But the joyous novelty of cooking a muffin in a coffee mug was fun for us all. Once the first one was gone, we made another.

Mug Muffins
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)(I absolutely recommend keeping them)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high).
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

Here I am in my house. The house is not clean, but it is Sunday and so I have a good excuse not to tackle it right now. I’m not supposed to work on Sunday. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” That commandment is harder to follow than one might think, particularly when my leisure activities are so entwined with my work. And yet the break benefits both the work and me. The kids are downstairs watching a pokemon disc we got from Netflix. We were going to watch City of Ember, but Link has a scout event at 7 pm and we don’t want him to miss the finale. City of Ember will have to wait until tomorrow. Since tomorrow is a holiday, we’ll have all day long. Except that tomorrow is also a working day for me. So much to do. The volume on the TV is too loud. Pokemon shows are always annoying at high volume. I should go turn it down, except that would require me to get up and as soon as I get up I will remember that I really ought to go fix dinner. Spaghetti is the plan for tonight. I’ve got to use up that italian sausage before it goes bad.

And so my thoughts dribble out of my brain and out through my fingers. I would love to really focus on writing something meaningful, and yet if I tangle my brain into writing I worry that I will have trouble refocusing tomorrow. Also, I’m tired. Too tired to find the insightful thoughts that must be lurking here in my head somewhere. I fell asleep in church today. Not surprising when I was awake on the wrong side of 2, 3, and 4 am last night. The caffeine I drank at 7 pm last night killed the vicious migraine, but also killed normal sleep. At least I got to snuggle Gleek for awhile. It has been months since she came crawling into our bed from bad dreams. 8 year olds tend to stay in their own beds. But last night she was scared and I got to snuggle her. I need to do it lots because before long she’ll be as big as Kiki. That would be a good segue into something insightful, but after staring blankly for several minutes, I couldn’t figure out what the insightful thing might be. Oh well.