Random Stuff Fri... er Wednesday - Christmas Edition

Things have been crazy for the last week and a half. I apologize for my incommunicado-ness. We recently suffered a death in the family, followed by a death in the family of some close friends and needless to say, I've been pretty tied up.

That being said, I have decided that despite how much I love hearing from you guys via blog comments and getting those emails in my inbox letting me know you find my randomness even a little bit amusing, I just have too much to catch up on for the holidays and also too much to just keep up with for the next couple weeks after having spent the last week and half on other things, so I am bowing out of blogging for the remainder of the year today with these last bits of randomness. (And omg, that is a holy mother long sentence, but I can't even think enough to fix it, so please forgive me that too, okay? It is the holidays, the season of giving and forgiving right? Okay, cool. Thanks!)

So anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. The randomness. Here goes!

1) My holiday from work started as soon as I was done with my work on Thursday afternoon. It was about 4:00 PM. And I was totally on vacation, I swear. You know, even though I was working on Friday morning. And Monday afternoon. I was still, totally on vacation. However, my boss rocks and so he said that I could carry my time I ended up not using this year to next year, so woohoo! I get extra vacation next year.

2) The whole month of December, 5yo's kindergarten class had Holiday Readers come in to read to their class. Different parent and grandparent volunteers read all sorts of winter and holiday stories to the kids and one of the kids in the class (w/teacher's & other parent's help) was even able to get her Dad, in the military and currently stationed in the Middle East, to read them a story via Skype one day! I think it's an awesome program and as soon as I'd worked out when my "vacation" was supposed to be, I totally signed up. So on Monday (before going into work) I read a cute little book called A WISH TO BE A CHRISTMAS TREE to 5yo's kindergarten class. It was super fun and I wish I had the opportunity to volunteer more at the school, but it doesn't work so well when you're a full-time working mom whose hours overlap school hours. *Steam roller of guilt drives by and smushes me*

3) That being said, I also volunteered for the 5yo's Christmas party at school. Yes, they had a Christmas party, not a pc "holiday" party. The over-PCness of everything sort of irritates me. I mean, most holidays nowadays are so commercial that unless you go overboard stressing the religious parts of things, kids aren't going to notice anything if they aren't a part of a particular religion. At least not until they are older. And making a big deal out of things just confuses kids more in most cases, I think. Okay, that's my 2-cents on that subject. I actually meant to use this point to talk about the Christmas party. It was fun. I love getting to be a part of the class activities and it's amusing just to watch 5yo's awesome teacher have this perfectly organized chaos. She's amazing and I am so glad she is 5yo's teacher!

4) So speaking of yesterday, 5yo had her first experience of the alarm clock not going off on time. Well, that would be because someone (*raises hand* yes, me) forgot to turn my alarm clock on - hey, I'm technically on vacation! - and we ended up runningrunningrunning and got her to school just in time. Barely. But for once, she was up and dressed and eaten and everything without any whining or dawdling. I'm thinking I might fake the alarm being turned off thing just to get her going this smoothly every morning. Is that mean? Probably. That doesn't mean I won't do it. #iamameanmomsometimes

5) This is sort of a poll question. Currently, all the presents under the tree are for other people. Same thing as what happened last year. Last year it was because we got the kids one big present: a play house to share. Some assembly required on Christmas Eve. This year, they each got separate presents, but they are also "some assembly required" gifts. Which means we will be up on Friday night putting things together. That being said, when do you think we need to start making sure gifts are under the tree from us separate from Santa so they don't start to put 2 & 2 together that we just might be Santa because all the gifts show up at the same time? That's not to say we are Santa, of course. Because, dude, he's totally real and if you stop believing, I'm telling you now, you're not getting any presents. Oh, yeah, kidlets are 5 & 2 right now. Let me know what you think.

All right kiddies. I want to wish you and yours happy and safe holidays filled with good food, good friends/family and lots of good times. Happy Christmas and New Year and I will see you back here in January.

xoxo!

Quote of the Week

"One always has time enough, if one will apply it well."

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Random Stuff Friday

It's Friday. Who's ready for the weekend? Yeah, me too.

1) Don't you hate when you wake up one morning, think that it's say, Thursday, but then it's really Wednesday and your week automatically got a day longer? It was one of those weeks.

2) Took the kidlets to the dentist yesterday. We have an AWESOME pediatric dentist (anyone in the South Valley of Salt Lake County need a referral? Let me know!) and 5yo loves going there. The walls are all jungle themed and there's TVs in the ceiling and there's prizes at the end. What's not to love? Well, it was 2yo's first visit. She started out well enough, excited for a prize and to watch ceiling TV. She even let the hygienist clean her teeth. Then it was time for the dentist to check her teeth and oh my holy . . . she was NOT having any part of that. Little did she realize, that her screaming and crying was actually quite helpful in keeping her mouth wide open for the doc to check things out. A new Pooh Bear toothbrush and a Princess flosser later, she's totally fine. Kids, they recover quick. Oh, and we emerged VICTORIOUS--no cavities for either kidlet! Woohoo!

3) I love post-it notes. Right now I'm staring at a wall of post-it notes in 5 different colors as I work through a revision project. Sharing the wall with my post-it notes?

Yep, that's Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the rest of the good guys.

Autobots, roll out. Transformers, more than meets the eye.

4) While I hate that people in Utah cannot seem to remember how to drive in the snow through an entire winter, and they have to relearn every time it snows, I wish it would snow again. All the snow on our lawn has melted and now the dead grass covered in dried pine needles is not looking so hot. If it doesn't snow soon, by Christmas would be great. We're all "dreaming of a white Christmas." Not a brown one.

5) My TBR pile is so big, I think it's been deterring me from reading. Like, I think the books are multiplying on their own and soon the pile is going to overtake me.

Sorry for the post of boringness today. I'm writing this really late and my eyeballs are starting to hurt and stress has been wearing on me. Having a hard time stringing many words together to make up something sensical.

Have a good weekend!

Quote of the Week

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."

Theodore Roosevelt

Random Stuff Friday

Did you miss me last week? You don't have to lie, I know you were out there, huddled in the freezing cold with the masses a week ago, trying to buy that digital doohickey and what not. I'm not judging. Personally, I was sleeping.

Anyway, so there was a lot of random stuff that happened in the last couple weeks.

1) Britney Spears. 5yo and 2yo have recently discovered the wonders of old school Britney Spears. I'm talking, the ". . . Baby One More Time" days. After careful consideration, I've decided, you know, it's all right. Britney Spears to my girls is sort of like Madonna was to me. Though, I think I may have to limit how much of her later stuff they have access to. Lol!

2) Utah vs. BYU. I bleed red. 'nuff said. Las Vegas Bowl, here we come!

3) It's been so cold lately, I want to bring back the warmth of summer. But keep the snow. I like the snow. Is that weird? Yeah, probably. So instead, I'm going to make funnel cake. Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Well, not right this second, but this weekend.

4) Kidlets and I have a little manicure ritual that we do about once a week where I paint their nails and then they help me pick a color for mine. Because the girls are 2 and 5, I'm not really down with spending buckets of money on the "good" nail polish, so I buy the $1 or less kind. So the other day I had this awesome midnight blue color on - barely did my nails the night before. I did some dishes one morning, then went to take a shower and my polish was already chipped! Then I looked closer and the polish was coming off in sheets! I could PEEL off my nail polish. Yuck. Husband saw this and told me I was no longer allowed to buy the cheap polish. I had to spend at least $2 a bottle. I'm not sure what to make of it if he thinks the $2 kind is the "expensive" nail polish. I just thought that was funny.

5) Have you ever seen River Monsters on the Discovery Channel? It's basically a fishing show, but it's about all the different kinds of crazy fish that live in fresh water and have been known or rumored to attack / eat people. So we went to the aquarium last Sunday and saw some of these fish there! It was wicked cool. Besides the arahpaima and piranha, we saw a giant anaconda, an octopus, jelly fish, touched sting rays, had birthday cake and went home with two new (stuffed animal) pets ... a baby penguin now named " ", and a baby turtle named "Tuck" like the little turtle on Wonder Pets. What? You haven't seen that show either? Ah, well, that will have to be its own point on another random list.

Anyway, hope everyone had an awesome week and an even more awesome weekend to come!

I'm heading up to Salt Lake City with some writerly peeps for Ally Condie's MATCHED launch party tomorrow, so if you're going too, let me know so I can keep an eye out for you!

Too Much Fabric

I've been working on the first draft of a new wip for a while now. A long while. Like, at one point I wondered if the book had an ending and a friend on twitter deemed it:

Yeah, that is how long it is. In word count, you ask? I stopped counting after I hit 100k. It's a YA Contemporary. I KNOW that it is way too long. But I couldn't help it. There was some sort of bizarro word vomit situation going and, well, ta-da! I ended up here.

However, in my defense, I'm one of those people who think that it is way easier to cut than add. Plus, I sort of feel better about myself when I can slim down an ms, instead having to figure out the best places to let it out.

Example: Say you buy an amazing dress online. You never got to try it on and they don't have any clear sizing information, so you just wing it. Plus, they have in bright red bold flashing letters that there is a strict no returns policy. But this dress is so amazing you HAVE to have it. You go to order it, there's 2 sizes left. The first is one size too small. The second is one size too big. Which do you buy?

If you ask me, I'd take the one too big. Why? Because it is way easier to take something in, remove the parts that you don't need, than to get the smaller size and hope that it fits, thinking that you'll worry about adding more later. Plus, you know, when I have to get something taken in, well, it's quite a boost to the ego. ;)

That's just how my brain works. That and I am apparently VERY long winded and needed more than 100k words to tell you about carnival rides.

So do you go with too much, too too much, or whatever you think is just right?